Dance Mapping - Arts Council England

The rapid growth of some of these organisations has surpassed expectation. Collectively they
have generated an increase in public engagement, through performance and participation,
over the three year period 2004-2007 of 83%. The total number of performances growing by
56% and the total number of education sessions have grown by 29%.
There is a growing network of purpose-built dance spaces, ranging from Dance City in the
North East to Birmingham DanceXchange in the West Midlands, funded through the Arts
Council’s lottery programme, alongside other partners. New buildings are currently under
development in Ipswich and Leeds.
The list of organisations forming this analysis of Arts Council England’s annual returns for
‘agencies’ 2004/2007 is listed as part of Appendix Six(b). It includes Sadler’s Wells, as the
only RFO funded large scale dance house, Wycombe Swan, a presenter of dance in the
South East and two dance festivals, Dance Umbrella and Woking Dance Festival. It also
includes a number of small scale performing spaces managed by the agencies such as The
Place and the Patrick Centre at the Hippodrome Birmingham. Figures for these are not
identified separately in the following tables.
Outputs and public benefit: 24
There has been £32,622,414 of Arts Council investment into the 48 organisations who
submitted annual returns between 2004 and 2007: some 6,800 dance performances, 107,859
education sessions and engagement with 5,240,732 people participating, with an overall
subsidy per head of population of £6.
Agency, venue and festival investment is 24% of total Arts Council investment in dance,
however it accounts for 57% of total public engagement and 77% of the total participation in
dance.
Over three years, 2004–2007:
• overall engagement has grown by 83%
• total number of performances has grown by 56%
• total number of education and participation sessions has grown by 29%, although
overall education (known attendance) has reduced.
24 Much of this data relies on work carried out internally for Arts Council England in preparation for this Dance
mapping research by Arts Council officer Rebecca Dawson
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