Funding of the arts and heritage

Written evidence submitted by Dance UK (arts 32)

This submission is from Dance UK the national membership organisation representing the professional dance sector, (www.danceuk.org). Dance UK has over 1,000 individual members, including choreographers, dancers, students and dance managers, and 200 corporate members including dance companies, vocational dance schools, universities, theatres and dance agencies and support organisaitons.

This submission is written by Dance UK to represent the experiences of a range of our members working in different scales and geographical areas across the UK.

DANCE – MORE POPULAR THAN EVER IN 2010

· Streetdance 3D the movie, topped the UK box office in its opening weekend, beating Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe and Disney’s summer blockbuster, Prince of Persia. Streetdance 3D took £11 million in its first 5 weeks after opening and has become the most successful lottery funded film ever.

· Dance is the second most popular physical activity for young people after football. (Source PE and School Sport Club Links survey)

· 40% of girls have dropped out of all sports activity by the time they reach 18. However, a survey of over 50,000 year 9 pupils in over 700 schools in the North West of England showed that dance was the top activity for girls outside school.

· Dance as an art form is also growing in popularity. The recent Arts Council England (ACE) review of its regularly funded organizations showed that dance was the fastest growing art form with ACE’s dance portfolio increasing its attendances by 103% over 12 months. (Source: published Arts Council England "Regularly funded organisations: key data from the 2008/09 annual submission" April 2010, by Soheir Dani, Leila Davids, Jonathan Treadway, Yvonne Harris)

· Dance has higher audience satisfaction levels than theatre, musicals or opera, according to the latest Society of London Theatre research published in April 2010. 71% of dance attendees rated their experience as "very good", compared to an average of 63% across theatre, musicals, dance and opera. (Source: ‘The West End Theatre Audience Report 2010’ produced by the Society of London Theatre in partnership with Ipsos MORI)., link to more info on Dance UK ’s website: http://www.danceuk.org/metadot/index.pl?id=26782&isa=DBRow&op=show&dbview_id=22563

· Dance offers good value for money. Youth Dance England runs national programmes for just 58p of public investment for each school aged young person. This compares with £38.21 per child for music and £79.47 for school sport.

· Dance helps children learn in many ways and dance companies have created a range of innovative educational projects. For example, Northern Ballet Theatre has devised a unique way of helping primary school pupils engage with mathematics by marrying the subject with dance. Dancing by Numbers will see NBT work with youngsters aged nine to 11 in five primary schools in Leeds to teach the Curriculum through creative dance.

August 2010