Policy Related to Arts in England - Book Report/Review Example

Policy Related to Arts in England I. Introduction Dance is one of the oldest for of human entertainment and expression of feelings and emotions. There have been various developments in the dance forms in England in last few decades. This sector has seen several ups and downs. 1980’s were a period when the dance sector was experiencing low motivation, decreasing number of artists and audiences the efforts in the next decade totally changed the picture of this sector. This sector is still facing certain challenges but at the large canvas the picture has been improved a lot. It is still improving and developing substantially. This paper presents contemporary dance and the policies related to Contemporary Dance in England. The first section of the paper explains the policies related to arts in England. It briefly describes the Arts Council of England. The next section deals with the contemporary dance. This section describes three organisations into contemporary dance sector. The section dealing with the access of the contemporary dance follows this section. At last the main points of the paper has been summarised. II. Policy Related to Arts in England England has a diverse mix of arts, cultures and people. There are various forms of arts that are being protected and promoted. The Art Council of England works with the vision to promote the arts at the heart of national life, reflecting England’s rich and diverse cultural identity. Various arts face immense competition with all form of entertainment options. This leads to division of audience for the art and cultural program. The theatre, dance, musical programs, television, radio and other entertainment options like amusement parks etc pose competition for each other. There are various issue related to each form of entertainment which helps to encourage the audiences to attend that form of programs. Art Council of England found various area of development for the promotion of art. Aims and objectives of Art Council of England are as follows:1 Prioritise individual artists Work with funded arts organisations to help them thrive rather than just survive Place cultural diversity at the heart of our work Prioritise young people and Creative Partnerships Maximise growth in the arts With the above-mentioned objectives Art Council of England implemented various strategies. These strategies helped in the development of audience base, artist and promotion of arts. III. The Contemporary Dance Sector Contemporary dance is considerable modern dancing style developed in last 60 years of 20th century. This includes the modern dance techniques. The artists use versatile forms and flexibility in dancing. There is draws more emphasis on choreography and performing processes. i. Overview of the art form (750) As mentioned above the contemporary dance is considerable modern and utilises various techniques of dance performance. Dance is one of the ancient forms of expression of human emotions, aesthetics, culture and participation. There are various group of people related to arts in any society. This includes government, performers and artists, audiences and other groups. Government have been implementing various strategies time to time to promote the arts and attract audience for it. One if the initial efforts were the “Stepping forward” report on dance. The Arts Council of England published this report in 1989. This report is a milestone in development of the dance sector in England. It informed about the development of dance sector throughout the 1990s and continues to provide the foundation for current dance infrastructure.2 One of the famous comments of Stepping Forward’s author, Graham Devlin “a deeply demoralised and nervous profession. The concerns thus articulated resonate through every scale and almost every style of work – the belief that there is a creative crisis in British dance, for example, or that much contemporary work has lost contact with its audience.” 3 This presents the picture of the British dance industry in that period. This sector was suffering from all parts decreasing audience base, lack of creative artists, highly underpaid and unrecognised job, lack of funds and sponsors and lack of governmental and public interest. This report was shocking and eye opener. The Report recommended 7 areas of development for the promotion of Dance. These were establishing an network of national dance agencies, Dance Panel of Art Councils of England to adopt more strategic actions and goals, more emphasis to be placed on the audience for the resource allocation, additional funding resources to be secured, substantial funding to Black Dance Community (i.e. African Dance), clarification of educational policies with Education Department and promotion of non-western dance in their respectable regions. Implementations of these above-mentioned recommendations have resulted in various positive results. Currently in London, there are: 4 more than 30 venues regularly presenting dance four ballet companies, 39 contemporary dance companies (at all levels of operation), six South Asian dance companies, seven African dance companies, 16 physical theatre companies, and seven student dance companies 16 organisations offering studio/rehearsal space 13 dance management organisations 31 organisations offering support or advice to the dance sector. These results are encouraging. The strategies adopted by Arts Council of England to promote and support the dance sector are working well. But still there are more things to do about it. The industry is still depends on the funds from the government, it still lacks in attracting more audience, performers and lack of resources are another issue of development of the contemporary dance sector. There are various reasons for this and efforts that Arts Council of England is doing to overcome these issues. The reason of the failure to attract more audience has been lack of pregnant address of the dance performances and competition with other form of entertainments. The problem related to funds is being dealt by new strategies like Lottery system, attracting more sponsors and others. To deal with the problems related to lack of artist and creative people dance is being promoted at various level in schools and among other organisations. Dance has been included in the National Curriculum and is compulsory for some classes while for other it is being optional. A 2001 Arts Council of England report tells us5: Salaries, salary progression, working conditions and continuous professional development are major issues across dance. For an industry that is entirely dependent on people, the lack of regular, structural investment in its people is remarkable. In the same Report it has been mentioned that there is a critical shortage of male dancers. The under-investment in dance in schools and in vocational training provision has also impacted the growth of the sector. The artists in this sector bend towards the art due to their interest and creativity. This sector is defamed for being underpaid sector. This impacts the moral and enthusiasm of the people involve in this. In the trade off between the needs of life and one’s own creative needs, the needs of life take over the creative need of the individuals. This can be one of the reasons of less number of male performers in the dance sector. This sector have achieved in various avenues in the last few years. It has been able to attract more sponsors for the funding needs, the promotion of dance at school and college level and as a tool to benefit health of individual. According to the Art Council Inquiry Report of May 20046 Dance has achieved much over recent years It is diverse, innovative, collaborative and culturally relevant, and demonstrates the benefits of sustained public investment Its future is dependent on talent; we need to do more to identify, nurture, sustain and retain that talent Now is the time to address: Career development Choreographic development The potential benefits of dance in health As per the Art Council of England majority of the funds have been directed to the ballet dance while rest has been to the contemporary dance and other form of dances. About 78% (£21m) of regular investment in dance was in 40 dance companies. Of this, over 80% (£17.4m) was invested in six companies each receiving over £1m, the remaining 34 companies each received less than £500,000. Regular investment is also made in nine National Dance Agencies, umbrella organisations, promoters and theatres.7 The source of funds has been the Lottery funded grants, Government support and sponsors and others. The Lottery funded grant has been highly successful in its objectives. With the help of this Arts Council of England has been able to provide more space and resources to the artists and dance organisations. The National began from 1994 and have changed the picture of the arts sector. It had injected more than £2 billion into the arts, supported thousands of projects. The size of these projects varied to different range from large to small. Focus on the building not just helped the artist but also attracted Audiences around the country. These buildings offered new and refurbished environments and huge range of arts activity. Certainly dance has benefited very well from Lottery–funded buildings, which have given appropriate space for dance: dance spaces that have sufficient space to move around in; that have sprung floors; that have sufficient light, heating and ventilation both for the professionals and to allow the public to access dance in a creative and safe way.8 According to Art Council of England that Lottery funded Grants contributed £7m for the Arts programme. This figure represented around 14% of total expenditure on the programme. This new programme is flexible. This allowed the largest single touring grant of over £800,000, to support the touring of international dance companies.9 In the table it is clearly mentioned that 64% of the total funds flowed to the Ballet dance companies. The numbers of these companies were just four while twenty-five contemporary dance companies were supported with 25% of the total expenditure. 11 cultural diversity companies got supported with 11% of the grant. Maximum number of the companies that is 21 out of 40 got grant of less than £100,000. Table 1:Expenditure on dance companies, broken down by dance form and size of grant:10 All Companies 40 21,003,696 100% Ballet 4 13,417,450 64% Contemporary 25 5,261,173 25% Cultural Diversity 11 2,325,073 11%         Over £1 m 6 17,403,762 83% £500,000 - £999,000 0 0 0% £100,00 - £499,000 13 3,031,746 14% less than £100,000 21 568,188 3% Any cultural organisation working for artistic values respects the diverse nature of art. They try to inculcate all the good things from various arts to improve and learn. Each culture or ethnic group has its own cultural and social background. The arts developed in that particular culture will be based on these diverse backgrounds. The ethnic diversity in the contemporary dance sector act as learning sources and people try to learn from each other. ii. Organisations within the contemporary dance sector There are various organisations in the contemporary dance sector of different sizes and capacities. 1970 when there were only 7 dance companies in 2004 it was reported to be 40 in number in England. These companies are of various forms and utilise different technology and resources. The major companies are into artistic performances, education, research and professional developments. Some of the companies are mentioned below: Rambert Dance Company This is one of the oldest and large-scale contemporary dance companies in England. The choreographers in this company are of international stature. They are known for their challenging work and impressive styles. This organisation emphasises on the development of British-based choreographers. Artist in this organisation come from diverse cultural groups and backgrounds. They form versatile and exciting groups. The organisation works on the policy of innovation, excellence and access across all its performances. It is also involved in the educational work. It offers various courses and programs in the dance of different duration from short-term summer courses to the certificate courses. The company tours throughout Britain for its programs. The Place The Place is an organisation in contemporary dance and transition dance. As mentioned on the website of The Place it is the UK's premier centre for contemporary dance, uniting training, creation and performance in one unique building. The artist age group starts from 5 years. This organisation offers artistic guidance. It offers wide educational courses and programs. These are one of the sources of incomes. The annual turnover of this organisation is over £5million apart from the funds it receives from various funding agencies. The income of the organisation is through its artistic and educational activities. The organisational innovativeness to design various programs with different needs of different age group has been one of the attractions to attract more students from all age group. Contemporary Dance Trust is governing it. LABAN Leban offers various dance programs. It has another service wing for health care with message facility, physiotherapy and others. As appeared on LEBAN website “At Leban we believe that contemporary dance has a vital part to play in everyone's lives. Our unique mix of energy and creativity advances the dance art form and fuels the dance world, connecting people to the exhilarating possibilities that dance offers.” IV. The organisations & company policy All the above-mentioned organisations worked in two major areas. The first is the core area of contemporary dance. In this these companies are performing various shows at various locations and touring throughout the Europe and outside it in some cases. Apart from the funding support that these organisations are getting these have been actively earning incomes from the artistic activities and educational programs. These organisations have designed various educational programs suitable to different group of people. Summer programs and health programs are specially getting more popular among young and youngsters. These have been a good source of income for that. The policies of all the companies more or less relied largely on the innovation and creativity. These are highly innovative organisations in terms of their performance, programs, choreography and use of technology and resources. These organisations are into training, research and professional development of Art. They provide support and assistance to the talents and have been able to attract a large base of loyal audience in last few years with their excellent performances. V. Access There are various ways through which one can be associated to the dance. People from all age group have experience this in some form or other in their life. Sometimes they have been the performers while other times they become audience. Dance is a creative and energetic task. It has been defined as a social activity. There is no competition in dancing activity, it is an expression of emotions, feelings and a process to live the moment with a passion. Dance has been proven to be a good exercise and relaxing technique. i. Education (250) There are various benefits of dance. This is a social activity. It releases energy, relaxes mind and body. In a group performance it increases the feeling of being associated and part of the society. It helps in learning human emotions and energy. As rightly described dance is “.. a distinct area of experience fundamental to human culture and as such has the potential to offer unique learning opportunities within the school curriculum. As one of the major art forms, its intrinsic value lies in the possibilities it offers for the development of pupils’ creative, imaginative, physical, emotional and intellectual capacities. Because of its physical nature, dance provides a means of expression and communication distinct from other art forms and because of its expressive and creative nature it stands apart from other physical activities.”11 Dance has its own practical, theoretical and contextual study. All these studies help in the development of pupils artistic, physical, aesthetic, cultural, and social development. While dancing pupil represents a particular character and a part of the emotional personality of that character, this helps in the emotional development of pupil. If the character represent particular age like medieval or modern the pupil will be dressed up and have make-up, background etc contemporary to that this will help in the aesthetic and cultural development of pupil. Dance is a social activity. It is of various forms and types. It can be individual, dual or group. But every time for dance audience and performers are required which makes it social. Even the individual dance performance needs audience to appreciate and applaud. This basic need makes dance a social activity contributing social development of pupils. Understanding the need to support dance as an art and performance and its benefits it has been included in National curriculum in 1950’s. Adding it to National Curriculum under physical activity has definitely contributed in assuring short-term protection to this art. For the purposes of the English National Curriculum, dance is located within physical education (PE) providing an artistic and cultural dimension to the PE curriculum. It is acknowledged as one of the major art forms, and has strong links with drama, music and visual arts. The 1995 Statutory Orders included dance as a compulsory part of the PE curriculum at Key Stage 1 (KS1) and Key Stage 2 (KS2) and as an optional part of the PE programme at Key Stages 3 and 4 (KS3 and KS4). 12 Still it suffers with various problems in the education sector as well. One of the major problems is number of teachers. Apart from that inadequate initial trainings and lack of appropriate resources in the education sector for the dance have largely impacted this art. There is requirement to encourage examination courses at higher levels among teachers and students. The number of teachers can increase by training dance artist to work in education sector. There has been more emphasis on attracting children young. Dance contributes to the growth of children positively. Children have more energy, learning capacity and flexibility in the body to learn this art. ii. Audience Dance attracts mixed audiences from all walks of life. The number of audiences has bee growing from last few years. This is due to the promotional activities and efforts by the Art Council of England, Dance organisations and others. The growth in the number of audiences is being hindered by the fact that this sector still lack of permanent theatres or art spaces dedicated to dance. Due to this particular reason the dance organisations and groups often find it difficult to attract sponsors for their programs. This also affects the loyalty of the audiences. According to Deby (2004) 4.4% of people in England describe themselves as contemporary dance attenders. Majority of Londoner describe themselves as contemporary dance attenders than residents of any other region (7.2%). The numbers of females are more in the list of contemporary dance attenders than males. The percentage of female audience is 5.2% in England and 4.7% in London while male account for 3.6% of total audience in England and 2.9% of total audience in London. In the same report Deby (2004) have also analysed the entertainment pattern among the contemporary dance attenders. This group of people enjoys majority of the forms of entertainment from contemporary dance to cinema. Majority of their entertainment time is spending on the cinema. The 82.9% in of the comtemporary dance attenders in England while 79.2% of comtemporary dance attenders in London enjoy cinema. The percentage of the same respondent with plays is 77.9% in England and/ 76.7% in London. People are highly active for the galleries/exhibitions as 71.1% of respondents in England and 68.2% of respondent in London visit galleries/exhibitions. The classical music lovers form 52.1% in England and 50% in London. Ballet attracts 49.6% in England and 47.4% in London of the total respondents. The contemporary dance attenders in England are between the ages of 35 and 54. The majority of the attenders fall into the 35-44 age group. The age of attenders Outside London is higher than the attenders in London. On the education front a high proportion of contemporary dance attenders in England continued in education until at least 19 years. The proportion was 40.7% in England and 35.8% in London. Most of these attenders are not regular attenders. 59% of the total respondent attend contemporary dance less than once a year. Only 6% attend contemporary dances in every three months. The percentage of people watching contemporary dance on TV but do not attend live performances is 4.3%. Dance audiences have also been growing, in terms of size and diversity, as the art form has flourished. In 2003, 12% of the population attended a live dance event and overall attendance at ballet and contemporary dance was 5.1 million. Between 1990–91 to 1994–95 and 1995–96 to 1999–2000, the audience for dance grew by 29%.13 The dance audience is growing with a steady rate. The growth depends on number of factors. This depends on the time of the programs, frequency of the program, appropriate promotional and communication strategies, structure of the program should be interesting and entertaining, flexibility available to the audience, the venue of the performance, brand name of the troop and word of mouth of the people attended the show. To attract large base of audience there are various strategies that organisations can adopt. First of all they need to have proper planning for the same. To attract more audience more resources are required and for that more funds would be required. The organisations can approach the sponsors proactively and pursue them actively. There should be some relationship building activities with the audiences. Those organisations that already have their own premises are already attracting local audiences well. The problem arises for the touring presentations. For these the organisations can take support of the advertising and promotional strategies. It is easy for the larger and known groups like The Place, Leban and Rambert Dance Company to attract more audience since their frequency to present their programs in particular venues in the country is high. For these organisations building loyalty programs is also easier than that of the small organisations. iii. Projects Reflecting Diversity There are various projects getting supported by the Arts Council of England. International Artists Fellowships Programme 2001-2006, Dance United for Criminal Justice, Asian Arts & Cultural Programme, The Belgrave Mela, Leicester, Anjali Dance Company, Arts Award Pilot: contemporary dance – Wiltshire and many other to promote contemporary dance along with other arts in different ethnic communities and social groups. For instance the project Anjali Dance Company is running is for the disable people, Asian Arts and cultural program is a platform for contemporary dance, street dance and other arts of the Asian community, Dance United is for the criminal justice and many other projects are running for the African and Afro-Caribbean culture and others. All these reflect different ethnic diversity within it. With the help of arts people are learning the art and culture of different ethnic group on one common platform. VI. Summary The contemporary dance with its modern outlook, use of innovative chorographic strategies, latest technologies and resources has helped it to attract and increase the audience base. The number of audience can be increased with number of improvements. It can be done by better marketing and promotional strategies. The aim of Contemporary Dance organisation should be not only to improve their performance and attract large base of audience but also to attain a level of self sufficiency where minimum funds would be required and most of the cost can be covered by the programs run by the organisation. If the organisations are able to achieve and sustain such situation the salaries and living standard of the artist can be improved. The well-paid structure will attract more artists that will solve the problems of the number of artists. Arts of any form respect all the culture and diversity. This is probably the only region where the diversity acts as a tool of learning and brings people together in one platform with one aim of “excellent performance”. Dance can be utilised to achieve various social goals like improving harmony among people, improving health and social bonding. a. References Arts Council England, Corporate plan 2003–2006 retrieved on 21 May 2006 from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/documents/publications/583.rtf ARTS POLICY, Arts Council England: Ambitions for the Arts retrieved on 21 May 2006 from http://egart.unive.it/materiale_didattico/Arts_Management.pdf Deby, Carolyn, March 28, 2005,The UK Dance Industry: A Guide for Canadians, Published by The Canadian High Commission, London, England and The Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa, Canada http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmcumeds/587/587.pdf accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.ndta.org.uk/public/Policy_Paper_2004.PDF accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.laban.org/laban/history.phtml accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.theplace.org.uk/?lid=458 accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.rambert.org.uk/index.html accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/aboutus/project_detail.php?rid=0&sid=&browse=recent&id=465 accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/aboutus/project_detail.php?rid=0&sid=&browse=recent&id=88&page=2 accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/aboutus/project_detail.php?sid=8&id=68 accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/aboutus/project_detail.php?sid=7&id=197 accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/aboutus/project_detail.php?sid=7&id=50&page=3 accessed on 21 May 2006 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/aboutus/project_detail.php?sid=7&id=104&page=4 accessed on 21 May 2006 Read More