Memorandum submitted by CriticalDance
I write as the European Director of CriticalDance,
an international performance dance website comprising an active
forum and the monthly online publication "Ballet-Dance
Magazine": The URLs for our two websites are:
www.criticaldance.com
www.ballet-dance.com
We currently receive around 50,000 hits per
day and while the USA, France and the UK are the strongest countries
for CriticalDance, we also have correspondents in Italy, Canada,
Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, Singapore, and regularly have articles
and comments from other countries as well. We cover all forms
of performance dance, including ballet, contemporary, South-East
Asian dance, African dance, musicals and a host of other dance
styles. One of the interesting points of websites like ours is
that they provide an opportunity for artists and audience members
to come together online to discuss performances and issues. In
the UK, for the past three years we have worked closely with Dance
Umbrella to provide an online discussion forum for the festival
and dance writing competitions. We also have good links with other
UK dance organisations such as Rambert Dance Company and Dance
UK.
In addition I write for "Dance Europe"
magazine and am a member of the Critics' Circle. Thus, I comment
on the themes raised by the Inquiry into Dance from my experience
of writing about dance, attending over 100 performances and seminars
each year and with the international perspective provided by the
discussions on our website.
To start with a current example, at present
I am in Vilnius, Lithuania reporting on the British Council Next
Step II Dance Showcase featuring 12 UK contemporary dance companies.
The event is a great success, with many performances sold out
and local audiences applauding loudly. As a snapshot of the current
UK dance scene, many of the delegates I spoke to at the festival
were impressed by the quality of the dancing and the range of
styles and choreography on display. This included large, well-established
groups, such as Random Dance, to young solo artists, such as Eddie
Ladd and ranged from abstract virtuoso dance to humorous dance
theatre. Like music, dance is an art form that crosses international
boundaries with its non-verbal communication and Next Step II
is a fine advertisement for the UK and the dynamism of its current
arts scene.
With the melting pot of national groups that
live together in the UK, it is not surprising that we also enjoy
a wide spread of dance styles that originated in other countries.
For instance, in South-East Asian dance, we not only have fine
classical artists, often born and trained in this country, but
also innovators such as Akram Khan, who is developing a new dance
form combining elements of South-East Asian and Western contemporary
styles and is much in demand both in the UK and overseas. Such
companies and those performing in other international dance styles
increase diversity in the arts, enrich our culture and provide
positive role models for those in minority groups.
In 2004, the major UK ballet companies seem
more stable and successful than was the case a few years ago.
Since that time, new Artistic Directors are in place at the Royal
Ballet, English National Ballet, Northern Ballet Theatre and Scottish
Ballet and dancers, audiences and critics are pleased with the
resulting changes. In addition, Birmingham Royal Ballet continues
to thrive under David Bintley. Performance standards and audience
appreciation are high for ballet, but the UK shares the problem,
widely acknowledged in the rest of the world as well, that there
is a shortage of top class ballet choreographers to replace the
previous generation of Ashton, MacMillan and Cranko. The Regional
DanceAgency, DanceEast, addressed this issue and others facing
ballet at their Rural Retreat on the theme of "Ballet into
the 21st Century" with 25 of the leading Artistic Directors
from around the world. The discussions will be resumed at a follow-up
event in 2005, but there are no easy answers.
The generally positive situation for UK performance
dance has not come about by accident, but has been greatly assisted
by the support infrastructure established here, largely driven
by the activities of the various UK Arts Councils, such as ACE.
Looking at infrastructure in more detail, the UK has several top-class
dance schools, some providing dance education to graduate and
post-graduate levels and attracting overseas as well as local
students. A second vital factor is the grant system administered
by the UK Arts Councils, which is essential for the survival of
most of our dance companies and although the overall level of
funding remains lower than that seen in many continental European
countries, it is orders of magnitude higher than the USA. While
the private and commercial sponsorship model seen in the USA works
very well for the largest companies with social cache to market,
the smaller and experimental companies there suffer from the shortage
of public funds. For example, the leading American artist, Mark
Morris, was able to start making large scale dance works, now
seen as masterpieces, because of a three-year residency in Belgium
with a funding system similar to that in the UK. It is very unlikely
that these works would have been made if he had remained in the
USA, owing to the lack of significant public funding for dance
and the arts generally.
Another aspect of the dance infrastructure that
is well-developed in the UK is the network of National and Regional
Dance Agencies around the country which provide facilities for
professional dance companies, showcase new work and reach out
into the local communities with non-professional classes and educational
work in schools. The largest of these, London's The Place, also
houses a top-class contemporary dance school and several directors
of overseas dance houses have told me that they view The Place
as one of the most important dance institutions in Europe.
Regarding audience figures, the report of the
Policy Studies Institute from 2001 showed that, of the various
art forms, contemporary dance was alone in increasing its audience
in the period from 1993-94, to 1998-99. While I do not have access
to more recent figures, my impression is that various UK dance
companies are performing in larger venues and several times I
have seen the 1,500-seater Sadler's Wells theatre sold out for
contemporary dance, which would have been a rare event few years
ago.
Turning to ballet, my impression is that there
is a great hunger for this dance style around the country, but
the problem remains how to satisfy this demand given the problems
of scale associated with much classical ballet. English National
Ballet and, more recently, Birmingham Royal Ballet are to be congratulated
for taking high quality dance, performed by smaller scale ensembles
from within their companies, to towns which would otherwise see
little live ballet. George Piper Dances has also been very successful
in taking modern ballet of an international standard around the
country and through their TV Ballet Boyz persona they have brought
new audiences into theatres, while presenting challenging work
rather than the classical favourites.
Thus, overall there is much to applaud in UK
dance and its associated infrastructure. Turning to what can be
improved for the future:
— UK dance continues to be a lean art
form and many high quality companies, especially outside of ballet,
rehearse in poor and sometimes unsuitable premises. Further, top
dancers in these companies receive poor salaries. In 2001 at the
"Paying for the Privilege" seminar, Emma Gladstone (Producer
and programmer for The Place and freelance), told the participants
that she had surveyed a number of dance artists on the subject
of pay. Their maximum income from all sources was £14,000
pa, including those at the top of the independent dance profession.
This compares with the average starting salary for a graduate
at that time of £18,000 pa. While funding increases since
then have started to address this problem, levels of public arts
funding closer to those seen in countries such as France and Germany
would enable a fairer salary to be paid to these fine artists
who often represent the UK around the world.
— While UK ballet is popular and provides
a fine product to its audiences, few commentators would argue
that there is greater creative energy and internationally recognised
success from the choreographers working in contemporary and other
dance styles, such as Wayne McGregor, Russell Maliphant, Henri
Oguike, Akram Khan and others. Thus, while it is appropriate that
ballet continues to receive the bulk of UK dance funding to sustain
the major companies essential for the large-scale classics, the
majority of any future funding increases for the dance sector
should be concentrated on contemporary dance, the companies based
on techniques from other cultures and the new hybrid dance forms,
to capitalise on the creative drive of these sectors.
May 2004
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