Dance Mapping - Arts Council England

market. The market demand appears to be for dance practitioners who can teach, facilitate
dance work in community contexts and manage and produce the work:
‘When most people think of careers in dance, two possibilities immediately spring to mind:
dancing professionally and teaching. These are undoubtedly the mainstays of the dance
world and yet, dance related work extends beyond them, encompassing a range of interests
and skills. The largest group employed in the dance world (estimated at around 75%) is
teachers of dance. 49 There are also a myriad of people supporting dance including those
managing, presenting and organising it, those offering dance therapy, journalists and
critics.’ 50
This raises some interesting issues. There is a persisting perceived primacy of the artist
within the field and this represents a hierarchy that resonates with Bourdieu’s theory (1994)
that authority within a given field is inherent in recognition. It is arguable that within the dance
field the choreographer and the performing dancer attain recognition whilst the teacher,
manager, choreologist and physiotherapist rarely attain the same level of recognition. And
yet, without them, the processes outlined earlier within this paper would not be possible.
There is a need within the dance field to adopt a wider notion of working in dance.
Furthermore, this data raises issues around training for dance, which is currently primarily
focused on the training of dancers and choreographers rather than managers, teachers and
educators (Burns 2007, Bates 2008, Cross 2009). In 2007/08 we can estimate that more
than 8,000 people were training on dance programmes within the further and higher
education system and within vocational dance schools. With less than 2,500 performers
engaged at any one time this is somewhat worrying and indicates an over-supply of labour
into the field whilst also suggesting there may be an under-supply of high-quality teachers in
the key area of workforce development. There is a widespread perception within the field that
the dance workforce is not fit for purpose and there are a number of initiatives currently
underway to address this, including major interventions by Youth Dance England, the Dance
Training and Accreditation Project and the National College of Community Dance being
developed by the Foundation for Community Dance.
This research formed a baseline for stage two of the Dance mapping research, which
included a major workforce survey.
49 It is worth noting that one of the major successes of the dance sector has been the massive expansion of the
community dance movement over the last 30 years. The sector has grown enormously and continues to expand and
diversify. In turn, this has stimulated a considerable amount of activity in creating employment structures and
opportunities. The Foundation for Community Dance has 1472 members: 1189 individuals and 283 organisations that
represent some 4,500 professionals working within community dance.
50 Burns (2007) p 12
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