Yesterday I attended a conference held by Youth Dance England at the Northern Ballet School. The theme of the day was that everybody has a different dance journey, and the seminars throughout the day were related to the facilitation of young peoples dance journeys.
The day was fantastic. I saw some great lectures and heard about some very interesting research, and got a real insight into how Youth Dance as a whole is coping with the recent changes to education the government are making. I also got some great networking done, meeting the youth and community dance director for Youth Dance England who encouraged me to apply for a Project Managing job that she thought I would be great for! I also got to meet the Head of Youth Dance England; the person who would choose whether or not to employ me. I found the whole experience of being there and being involved empowering and inspiring, and also reassuring being around so many other practitioners who run into the same obstacles and struggle with the same hurdles that I do.
I wanted to share some of the issues and debates that came out of the conference, as I think a lot of BAPP students will find them extremely interesting. This blog will be the first of a few reviewing what I took from the conference.
The first talk was from Linda Jasper MBE, Director of Youth Dance England.
She first spoke of Arts Council figures showing that in the last few years the number of dance activities had doubled, and that the number of people making up dance audiences had tripled. This is all with only 11% of the Art Councils funding.
The popularity of dance among young people is second only to football.
She pointed out that "Dance is the only activity that combines physical literacy with imagination and creativity." Jasper 2012.
She believes the effects of the implementation of EBACCs, and more importantly the exclusion of Arts from the EBACC, is going to have devastating effects on our national bank of artists and creative people. With this proposed system in place, "we won't have the means to produce what we did in the olympic ceremonies this year" Jasper 2012.
A point she made that was particularly of interest to me was the effect this is going to have on male participation in dance. Most boys will not actively seek out dance outside compulsory classes, and therefore if dance is not included in the curriculum far less boys will be introduced to dance and this will be greatly damaging to the dance sector!
I would urge EVERYBODY that reads this to go straight to www.baccforthefuture.com and sign the online petition that calls for an enquiry into the inclusion of Arts in the Ebacc. There are only 17000 signatures so far. I know that there are more people out there who don't want to see Arts disapear from schools, so please sign the petition.
3 comments:
Hi liam, his was really interesting for me to read. I used to be a student at the Northern Ballet School and was around when they had youth days but not involved. It was nice to hear about what actually goes on at them! Congratulations on applying for the job! Keep us informed. I'm going to sign the petition now, I think the youth days are very important and the point you make about dance being included in the curriculum. Dance needs to be exposed to young people, and not just to the privileged who are able to go to out of school classes. Keeping dance in the curriculum ensures everyone has the opportunity to experience it .
Liam
An informative review. Dance UK have also had a big write up on this too. As member of Dance UK we were asked to contact them urgently to rally ideas, suggestions and sign the petition, in which I did.
There was a discussion on BBC Radio 4 20th Nov '12
You will probably be interested in what was said.
Here is a link, scroll down to 08.20 time. I've just tried to listen to it but it currently isn't working
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9771000/9771025.stm
If this link isn't working you could google BBC Radio 4 Today
You may already know about the European funding cuts too. We've read Alicia's blog about how the cuts have had an impact on her job.
Here is the latest review from the Guardian today
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/nov/22/will-gompertz-wrong-about-dance#start-of-comments
It is devastating news, we need to help the cause in what ever way we can.
On a lighter note, brilliant news, I wish you well with your new application, it sounds like the right type of job for you.
Best wishes
Liam good to see your engagement with this conference and the issues involved, they have certainly informed your inquiry and conversations with others. Would it be possible to post the findings of your inquiry - perhaps in the form of your presentation?
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