10 minute read
A Sustainable Future for Dance
By Andrew Hurst MBE and Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie
Since One Dance UK came into existence on 1 April 2016, dance in the UK has seen a lot of change, and faces some very real challenges to its survival and sustainability going forward.
One Dance UK itself has faced an enormous amount of change too, and we continue to learn and evolve to ensure we remain responsive to your needs and provide the support the dance sector needs to survive and thrive.
The UK dance sector is an international success story and the envy of many of our international partners, but our vision at One Dance UK is for an even stronger, more vibrant and more diverse dance sector. Our overarching aim is to empower the dance sector workforce to be connected, unified, highly valued and sustainable. This informs our mission to provide the information, training, resources and opportunities needed to ensure the dance workforce is well-equipped to secure dance’s prominence in the cultural landscape of the future, and to champion excellence across the sector.
Representatives from across all of the performing arts should make it as easy as possible for Government to know what needs to be done, to understand the full implications of their actions, whilst also organising ourselves as a sector to recognise and take advantage of opportunities as they arise.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie, Co-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Dance Group
How do we work with politicians and civil servants? And what is the impact?
Through our work with the Government and policymakers, we make sure your needs are understood and represented at the highest level when policy is being developed and decisions are being made that will impact our artform. We have worked hard over the past 8 years to build strong positive relationships and are now able to work closely with government and officials as trusted partners. This is perhaps the greatest success of the merger which formed One Dance UK and is where the real strength and value lies in bringing together members working in dance across a range of different contexts and across all corners of the UK.
Life for the performing arts remains extremely challenging as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact all our lives in many different ways, economically, socially and in terms of health and wellbeing… the effects of [the pandemic], the impact of the restrictions, the substantial rise in anxiety levels and fear of being in crowded spaces, is still having a significant impact on behaviours today… [we] need to improve resilience and preparedness for a volatile and uncertain future. This is something the performing arts instinctively know and understand as the ability of the sector to adapt and problem solve is, I believe, one of its greatest strengths.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie, Co-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Dance Group
As a result of our briefings the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Alliance wrote to the Home Secretary and the Partnership Council highlighting the ongoing disproportionate impact of Brexit on young and less experienced artists, urging them to prioritise the mobility of touring artists, with a view to developing a comprehensive approach that would allow artists and their teams to tour freely in the EU and UK - potentially as part of the forthcoming Trade and Cooperation Agreement Review (recommendations 15 and 22 to the Partnership Council in December 2023)
We are now able to raise specific issues that impact the way you work day-to-day (like visa delays, the claiming of tax reliefs, or the issuing of A1 Social Security needed forms for international touring) with the relevant government departments to ensure delays are addressed and issues are resolved.
We represent the sector and your needs through our participation in various committees and working groups like the Cultural Recovery Task Force through the pandemic, and the Task and Finish group currently creating an action plan to address the recommendations for the Creative Industries from the Good Work Review. We are also part of the Department for Education’s Out of School (OOSS) Steering group.
We speak to parliamentarians directly and provide the secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Dance Group (APPDG), taking guest speakers and key dance sector representatives into the heart of parliament so MPs, Peers and officials can hear about the issues that matter to you most directly from you, in your own words. The Officers and Members of the APPDG are drawn from across all parties, and both Houses and with your help become passionate advocates for dance in the UK, and key allies in addressing the issues which impact your work the most.
We provide policy notes and briefings for members of both the Commons and the Lords so that they can raise parliamentary questions on our behalf, challenge existing or new policy passing into law, and contribute to important debates in both Houses with accurate sector specific and up to date knowledge like for the most recent EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Alliance meeting last December, and for the Shadow DCMS and Education teams ahead of the recent Labour Creatives Conference. One Dance UK provides the secretariat for the Programme Board: Children and Young People’s Dance, which brings together all organisations with a strategic remit for dance education and training in England, including DfE and Arts Council England. We work hard to always put your needs at the centre of everything we do and provide the support you need to champion best practice and promote positive change in the dance sector.
Increasingly we are working more closely with other Creative Sector bodies to align messaging and policy priorities. Together we are calling on the incoming government to: ensure every child and young person has access to high quality dance education and training as part of a truly broad and balanced curriculum; review and reform the Progress 8 and EBacc accountability measures for schools in England; protect the talent pipeline and touring post-Brexit; champion the value of the dance sector at home and abroad; and recognise the contribution dance makes on the health and wellbeing of the nation.
A policy paper from the Save Our Subjects partners (One Dance UK, the Incorporated Society of Musicians, and the National Society for Education in Art and Design who are all Subject Associations) provided key information that featured in Sir Keir Starmer’s speech at the Labour Creatives Conference with a commitment from Labour to review progress measures as soon as they enter government.
[When] Churchill was asked to cut funding to the arts in order to support the war effort in World War II, he [allegedly] responded ‘Then what would we be fighting for?’ Even if he didn’t say this, he is recorded as saying in 1938,‘The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them.’ In that case, we, the representatives and supporters of the performing arts, must ensure we remain as united and resilient as we can in order to hold the State to account for this.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie, Co-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Dance Group
What can you do to make a difference?
We rely on you, our members, and the sector more broadly to work with us to develop the strongest possible evidencebased arguments for continued and increased investment in dance. We will need to work even more closely together to do this going forward, to bolster resilience and safeguard our artform for future generations.
With a general election fast approaching, how government policy affects us all is at the front of people’s minds and being hotly debated, but what can you actually do that can make a difference?
There are three key things you can do:
We often get asked for data on the dance sector at short notice, and so the first thing you can do to help is to respond to requests from us for information (short polls, or surveys) and share any relevant stats and stories on your work and the impact of dance on the UK population in order to help us present the strongest possible evidence-based arguments for investment in dance.
We work hard to ensure dance is part of the conversation, and that your needs and the impact of policy on your work are clear and understood across government and officials but you can also do this yourself, helping to get dance on the political agenda by raising key policy issues with candidates campaigning for the local or general elections, and by writing to your local MP about dance in your constituency and any issues that affect your work. As a constituent they effectively work for you, and it’s their job to listen and respond to your needs.
You can also write to your MP to ask them to become a member of the APPDG which will ensure they are fully informed of the issues affecting you, as a constituent, and someone who is passionate about the importance and impact of dance. You might express to them how becoming a member would be a valuable declaration of commitment to the importance of dance in the UK. It might be helpful to highlight dance organisations or activity in the constituency, especially if you are able to include details like the number of schools or young people engaged in dance, or the proportion of voters engaged in dance activity. We share invitations from members for the APPDG to attend events and performances so they can see, get to know, and speak to dancers and dance professionals in person to learn about their work first hand, so you can also let us know if you have an event or performance you are able to host the APPDG at, so we can invite them to join us there. You can of course write to your MP to invite them personally to come along too.
One Dance UK was involved extensively in consultations around the Cultural Education Plan, both directly and by hosting listening exercises with key stakeholders. The Plan was due to be published by the end of 2023, but has not yet been released. Once published, we will be providing a summary of recent key policy developments and hosting facilitated roundtable sessions so you can get involved in shaping policy asks for dance in response, which we aim to use in an update to the Dance Manifesto ahead of the General Election. Look out for further details on this.
Work with us to make sure your voice is heard, because we exist to amplify your voice.
Learn more:
www.onedanceuk.org/programmes/advocating-for-dance
Quotes from Baroness Fraser are taken from a keynote speech at the recent launch of research entitled “Resilient Stages: Live Performing Arts and Crisis Policy after Covid-19” comparing pandemic responses across the G7 countries, with her permission. Our thanks to her and the rest of the APPDG for their ongoing support.
