A development initiative for South Asian Dance in the North West

The rôle of dance companies and individual artists

Bisakha Sarker gave a talk at a one-day conference organised by Nilima Devi and CICD at Leicester on 18th October 2011. The conference discussed the funding problems facing arts organisations iat the present time.

ABSTRACT

For the purpose of this discussion I will consider Dance companies and individual artists under the single heading of “Project funded arts providers”.
Chaturangan’s case will be presented within the context of the issues facing this sector as a whole.
The rôle of these organisations remained the same. They offer varied artistic experiences for the society. What changed are the economic condition and the funding structure that helped the South Asian dance ecology.
The survival of the project funded organisations will call for closer cooperation, stronger collaboration and an interest in diversifying their services to the community.

For the purpose of this discussion I am taking Dance companies and individual artists as a single entity: “Project funded arts providers”.
Their rôle of offering a range of artistic experiences for society remains the same. What has changed is the economic condition and as a result the funding structure that had historically supported these organisations. These organisations collectively make substantial contribution to sustain the South Asian dance ecology.

The South Asian dance sector today includes companies with multinational investments to the community interest groups running weekly dance classes for aspiring students. Each organisation and artist is, in their own ways, making valuable contributions to keep South Asian dance thriving and visible. Between them these organisations have different aims and aspirations but on the whole the main focus is “Theatre performance”. However on analyse, it will probably be the Education and Community work that has so far generated most income for independent artists and small companies. With the new focus on connecting health with art , there s already an increased demand for health related community work. The other possible area of growth is the festivals/events that can draw large sections of general public and can give instant gratification of “reaching” a huge number of people.

“Project funded dance companies” are mostly individual artist led organisations. Just like the work of independent artists what these organisations do, reflect the vision of the artist behind the company. That is why they are as different as the artists themselves. Kadam is producing a dance magazine developing skills of critiquing, documenting and informing the international dance lovers aware of the developments in the S a dance sector, Chaturangan has organised four highly successful international conferences on issues of current concern, to add academic rigour to the practice of dance and has taken a pioneering rôle in developing Indian dance within the health sector with particular focus on dance and ageing. Shane Shambhu is determined to establish his own way of combining dance and theatre.
Kali Chandrasegaram has taken a daring step to choreograph an Indian style Burlesque dance. Vina Ladwa’s company Manushi is providing large and small scale dance components for community events in and around Nottingham Manuela Benini is engaged in making dances for carnivals. Swati Rout’s company is forming a new youth dance group in Manchester.

Over the years Arts sector has moved closer and closer to the business sector...The Arts industry. For the purpose of funding the independent artists and dance companies are taken as business enterprises The Independent artists felt it necessary to form companies. The whole industry became more regulated. The funders feel more confident to invest in organisations with the security of the insurances behind them.

Most of the Project funded organisations are not for profit organisations so they cannot build a reserve fund to ensure the continuity of year by year insurance cover.
Most funders like to support the artistic side of the initiatives but not the overhead. The project funded organisations are struggling to meet the cost of insurances and professional support with accounts. We need some collective and strategic thinking to address this concern. Can there be a scheme for a collective of companies to take out insurance? Can for a small sum a NPO include an associate company in their insurance? We all need employer’s liability and public liability + some are asking for indemnity cover. Can we ask cdf to look into this? They have a good scheme for individuals but not for small companies.

Many among the current list of “Project funded organisations” provided valuable opportunities for new and emerging artists to improve their skills and confidence.
One needs a great deal of practice to become a performer, choreographer or composer .Smaller organisations could take risk with upcoming artists and make productions with comparatively small budgets . These smaller scale initiatives were keeping the ecology thriving.

It is almost impossible for majority of individual independent Artists to create a programme of work for a full performance. We need to look into ways of supporting productions and performance opportunities in this middle part between the journeys from community performances to the full scale professional productions. Can the answer be more decibels like set up? Restructuring decibel? A platform for working progress seeking funding? Something similar happened in dance edition

There is no magic solution .To survive in this climate we will have to ,more than ever before ,think about cooperation ,collaboration and be vigilant to identify opportunities to diversify our services to the community .

Diversify is mainly health related community dance ...what else?