Moving forward?
Dancing Differently? revealed a breadth, richness and maturity of debate and promoted many fruitful discussions. At the close of the conference, Rapporteurs
Susanne Burns and
Sue Akroyd attempted to distil some of the major themes into six key areas, to help establish priorities for future action
What follows are the achievements highlighted by the conference in each issue area, followed by a question about how we might move forward:
Enhanced Political Awareness
The conference revealed the historical path we have come down, acknowledging the achievements of the early pioneers and protagonists. The 'path' got us where we are now, and we acknowledge the role of the disability arts movement and the early companies in gaining greater political awareness of the importance of the arts in the lives of disabled people that has led to greater acceptance of disabled people as artists in their own right.
BUT: how do we maximise what has been referred to as a 'moment of opportunity', influence policy makers and grab the chance to shape the action plans of the funding system to further this political awareness and create the funding base upon which all of our other aspirations will depend?
Aesthetics
With the acceptance of disabled artists in their own right and the acceptance of different techniques and languages, our thinking has progressed in defining the aesthetic. The notion of beauty and the historical aesthetic of dance and the body are being challenged and much of what can be described as cutting edge is currently being created by disabled dancers.
BUT: In her speech, Clare Russ said that 'the better something is described the more likely it is to get a platform'. So how do we define, celebrate, talk about, communicate the aesthetic? How do we develop our language to enable us to articulate better and communicate what we mean with audiences, critics and between ourselves? How do we translate this into our practices in relation to marketing, touring, audience development and partnerships with promoters?
Inclusion
Language is uncertain and definitions are vague and shifting where we talked about integration we now use 'inclusion'. Adam Benjamin talked about 'unity', which appears to reflect a subtlety in the level of debate that we have reached and a series of contradictions about what we actually want. Annie Delin talked about tokenism and Ruth Gould challenged us to talk about dancing - not dancing differently. These issues and many others have threaded through the conference and lie at the heart of where we are now. Nick Owen asked: 'Does integration have to mean assimilation into or replication of dominant cultural norms?'
We do not appear to have a consensus.
BUT: how do we go about clarifying this? How do we define what we actually want? How do we grapple with the apparent contradictions between the concepts of independence and diversity on one hand and the concept of inclusion on the other? Is there a consensus?
Control and Empowerment
We have established the right for disabled people to contribute to society and the arts through mechanisms such as the Disability Discrimination Act and increased institutional support through the policies of the arts funding system and we are seeing more disabled decision makers, choreographers, and artist led companies. Yet we are still treading lines between being providers and gatekeepers.
BUT: how do we extend these rights so that it is the norm not the exception? How do we genuinely empower? How do we work together to recognise and respect needs and to build them into decision making structures?
Training
We have identified that training opportunities are informal, inconsistent and piecemeal in a geographical sense and that there are glass ceilings for disabled people in accessing higher and Further Education opportunities. The conference has identified the organic nature of developing training opportunities leading to accreditation. However, there are few disabled trainers within dance: Ruth Gould from North West Disability Arts Forum tells us that she has four dancers on her register of 100 artists.
BUT: How do we create a progressive and coherent ladder of training opportunity which addresses all training needs - performance skills as well as workshop leadership - that is broad, relevant and available? How do we develop training opportunities that are proactive not reactive - allowing Jenny Blackwell to achieve her 'mainstream aspirations'?
Professionalism, Standards, Quality and Excellence
Mark Barber from Anjali said about his relationship to dance, 'It's my job and my career' - but we have heard about how difficult this can be. We have heard of the differing standards being applied to attainment - the pressure to perform when process is the key is often brought to bear by funders. We recognise from what has been discussed that there is a massive spectrum of different standards and levels of quality achieved. However, the stated desire by many people at this conference is to be judged by 'quality' standards.
BUT: how do we ensure that dance can be a career rather than a leisure opportunity for those who want it? How do we create appropriate structures that will enable us to attain the highest standards in our work?
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Animated: Summer 2002