The Arts Council have released their Dance Mapping report – A Window on Dance 2004-2008.
It’s a bit of a beast – 380 pages including appendices. The big news, and the part of the press release that’s being quoted all over is this:
Despite England becoming home to a dance sector that is the envy of the world, the research shows that though the dance workforce is highly educated (62 percent hold degrees) they are underpaid; 38 percent of people who make a living from dance only earned £5,000- £20,000 in 2008/09 and almost a quarter (23 percent) earned under £5,000. The Arts Council fears that the low levels of pay may affect the sustainability of careers, leadership within the sector and the ability of potential champions to emerge
Prompting the Guardian’s Judith Mackrell to ask “why do we care so little about people trying to make a living from dance?”
The West Midlands
It’s probably worth browsing the report when you get a sec but, in the meantime, I’ve pulled out the bits that mention the West Midlands.
So there are mentions for:
- DanceXchange
- Birmingham Royal Ballet
- sampad
- Birmingham Hippodrome
- Elmhurst School of Dance
- Chitraleka Dance Company, as an example of dance and academia working together
- Coventry University’s £500,000 research funding to develop a digital archive of Siobhan Davies’ work
- Toby Norman-Wright of Youth Dance England is profiled in the ‘Leadership section’ (p.165)
- Dance TV is listed as a ‘success’ (p.178 and profiled on p.179) which seems a tad premature
- People Dancing (p.194)
Audiences Central‘s 2006 report called ‘Destination Dance’ (or ‘Audiences For Dance: West Midlands Regional Research Report’, as its friends call it) was referenced but I can’ t find a copy online anywhere so I’ll quote the headlines:
- there has been an overall increase in dance performances of 24 percent
- there has been a 46.6 percent overall increase in the number of available seats largely accounted for by the increase in
- the number of performances at Birmingham Hippodrome
- the number of seats sold increased by 12.7 percent
- average capacity grew from 65.5 percent to 66.2 percent
- there was evidence of crossover between dance and other artforms but little evidence of crossover between venues
The report regrets that, of 39 unitary councils in the West Midlands, only three bothered to respond to the surveys aimed at them. However, there’s quite a big thing on Birmingham City Council (p.96) which I’ve reproduced below:
Birmingham City Council invests significantly in the arts and cultural infrastructure of the city with an overall arts budget of £10.5 million. Dance plays a significant part in this infrastructure with five out of the ten large-scale organisations presenting or receiving dance (mac, sampad, The Drum, BRB and DanceXchange). Sampad have an international reputation for bringing international Indian dance artists to Birmingham and encouraging through their Summer Intense programmes links with Canada, USA and India for the next generation of dancers and choreographers. The council set up a Dance Hub initiative in 2005, to bring together all the dance providers to look at issues of common interest, as there has been a long-held aspiration to create a continuum for dance in the city, which has to a large extent been realised. The large-scale Dance Consortium regularly presents international companies and the innovative Breakin’ Convention tour in the Birmingham Hippodrome is developing new audiences for dance. The Birmingham Hippodrome is the home to Birmingham Royal Ballet and DanceXchange, who form a powerhouse for dance and together they programme the biennial International Dance Festival. Elmhurst Ballet School with prime studios and smallscale theatre, together with BRB, Dancexchange and mac, all provide Birmingham with excellent state of the art dance studios and performance spaces, which are the best outside London.
The International Dance Festival of 2008 was funded by Birmingham City Council, Advantage West Midlands and Arts Council England and was produced and programmed by DanceXchange and Birmingham Hippodrome for the first time in May 2008. Over the course of 28 days 60 performances of all styles from ballet to break dancing, free running to flamenco were shown across all venues in the city, with 1,474 participatory experiences open to all. Innovative use of outdoor locations reached 23,000 audiences aged from four months to 80 years old. Twenty different styles from different countries were represented; 62% of bookers were new to dance and the venues, bringing an estimated £4.3 million to the city. The festival will be repeated in 2010 and 2012.
Birmingham City Council invests in the middle- and small-scale development of dance through agencies such as DanceXchange and sampad, who take on international, national and regional remits to programme and present dance and encourage wide-ranging participatory programmes for all ages in the city to enjoy. BCC also invests in unique touring companies, such as ACE dance and music, with their own studio base in Digbeth, who create touring productions informed by African and contemporary dance forms that tour nationally and internationally. ACE Youth Dance has developed an excellent reputation through exposure at Youth Dance England finals and are examples of best practice: professional artists working with young people. Birmingham City Council also invests in project companies through their annual grant programme, such as Sonia Sabri Dance Company; Anurekha Ghosh Dance Company; Rosie Kay Dance Company supporting the emergence of a vibrant dance scene in hip-hop; flamenco; salsa; kathak; bharata natyam; ballet and contemporary dance forms.
So there you have it. There are a few other interesting bits and pieces in there which I might tease out over the next week or so. In the meantime it’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on the report or any of the issues it raises.
