Overarching/key priority for ‘Achieving great dance for everyone’ in the North West:

Increase the quantity and quality of dance production, performance and programming across the whole region:

  1. better networking across those who present, programme and commission work
  2. support for ‘home grown’ dance artists that are talented and gifted, increased opportunities for them to create, present and tour high quality work
  3. bring more high quality work to the region

How to achieve the above top 3 priorities. These are the things we would like to see happen in order to achieve the following impact:

  1. better networking
  2. a more coherent and diverse offer for audiences, reaching more people in new places in order to develop a coherent understanding/approach to dance programming and audience development in the NW that might be extend in the future to other venues that programme dance in the region
  3. an increased quality offer
  4. longer term relationships with dance companies
  5. efficiencies
  6. shared knowledge and expertise
  7. collective access to funding, especially strategic touring
  1. NW dance producers presenting work
  2. identify new and emerging companies and artists making work in the region ‘home grown’ (rather than importing work from elsewhere)
  3. broker relationships with venue and promoters that can present/support the development of their work
  4. encourage the development of special relationships between venues/promoters and local producers
  5. access to physical resources and expertise to support the development of their creative work
  6. identify opportunities to present and tour work beyond a showcase experience/the region
  7. access to funding between producers and presenters
  1. getting more high quality work into the North West
  2. more special long-term relationships between venues/promoters and companies/artists
  3. a more coherent touring circuit in the region (liaison with each other and other venues regionally and nationally to secure best value for companies touring to the region)

Please note, the above is the strategic agenda for dance development in the NW from Arts Council’s perspective. We do not however have a separate regional dance strategy for the NW and have one national strategy. Our national ambition for dance means that all regions must be strong in dance. We cannot simply rely on the city conurbations to act as the only drivers of great dance.

Challenges for the sector:

  • How do we make networking effective and what should the networks be? (scale, geography, interest)
  • How do we get more work touring into the region?
  • How do we get more work being produced in the region?
  • How can venues/ promoters develop ‘special relationships’ with producers?
  • How can we access funding collaboratively and what should it pay for?
  • Where does leadership lie- and what roles flow from it?

Desiree Cherrington, Relationship Manager Dance

March 2013