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THE ALTERNATIVE ARTS
Thursday January 24th 2008 Posted: 17:15 CST

Alternative Arts, as described by the charter, were any form of art or entertainment, fashion, film, or media which was dubbed 'outside mainstream' in 1989. This included punk, rivethead, goth, industrial, darkwave, synth, electronica, and techno audio and fashion; literature and art found in 1980s post-apocolyptic fiction; high fantasy (Midieval) literature and depiction; roleplaying and method-acting driven social games; high-fantasy space/future literature and film; and the theater and stagecraft behind the development of these properties.

This included almost all new media and technology in the 1990s associated with Internet games and interactive communications technologies. It could therefore be said that all things 'gaming' and 'gamers' (PC and console video game consumers) are included in the definition of 'alternative' by the SDA3. You could say, we have made progress in legitimizing that concept over nearly 20 years.

The company is named after a Native American tradition of spiritualist who dealth with the unknown, or shadow realm. Although the term varies from one tradition to another - from very benign conotations of the afterlife to more malicious prejudice familiar with Western European religion - the Shadowdancer is ultimately a 'mediator' with the unknown - a helper in relating to other worlds.

Shadowdancers, as medicine men or shaman of Native American tradition, represented the guide or teacher, mediating the views of the mainstream against the views of the new media formats and cultures. The image of shaman was chosen because of the concept that taking people across the boundary of their comfort zones and stereotypes represented a form of 'walking through walls' between various subcultures and mainstream American culture.

Some association and trademark infringement by redneck Texans and exploitive New York nightclubs do not predate the trademark use by the SDA3 and its commercial sponsor (1989). Over the years, someone in the adult industry attempted to infringe on the name. At no time has the SDA3 or its associates condoned this illegal use of their brand or the prior (Native American) term for this. Despite this, some nightclubs and Japanese feudal traditions use the term differently than the American tribes who have full right to the term. Understanding this cultural difference is what the SDA3 stands for - to prevent the pollution and exploitation of culture solely for profit and only toward the market demands of the lowest denominator in society.