Dance Mapping - Arts Council England

themselves. The companies have seen significant benefit from collaborating in this way and
have recently commissioned a piece of work looking at audience crossover.
Dance Touring Partnership
Dance Touring Partnership’s (DTP) vision is to bring the best of middle-scale dance to as
many people as possible. It is an entrepreneurial venue partnership of the most forwardlooking
and influential middle-scale venues. It is governed by a board of representatives of
each of the partnership’s core venues and managed by an experienced team of freelancers.
The formation of DTP, and the collaborative working ethos it has engendered, has enabled its
venues to become an engine-house for middle-scale dance promotion.
Founded in October 2002, it was an Arts Council funded initiative to strengthen the middlescale
touring circuit for dance. The consortium harnessed the enthusiasm of regional
programmers at key UK middle-scale venues with mixed programmes of arts and
entertainment. It aimed to establish a closer dialogue and through collaborative working
encourage them to become more proactive as presenters and commissioners to support the
development of dance touring. One of the factors in DTP’s formation was the need to address
specific challenges encountered by venues in programming dance. DTP enables these issues
to be addressed whilst supporting the development of audiences for dance and platforms for
dance artists to present their work in a supported environment. With this model, the risk for
promoter, artist and audience member is reduced and the optimum opportunity for success
secured.
DTP takes a strategic overview of the landscape for middle-scale dance touring, with a view
to complementing the work being undertaken by other dance companies and organisations
and to find new and different approaches through which to promote dance and build bigger
audiences.
The consortium has developed a collective and supportive partnership ethos founded on
shared risk-taking which has successfully encouraged venue programmers to take risks on
artists they might not have had the resources, knowledge or confidence to programme when
working in isolation. It prioritises a high standard of marketing support to venues in all its
tours, and has developed progressive integrated e-marketing campaigns as well as
conducting an extensive Dance Audience research project. It helps audiences gain new
insights into artists and their work through extensive, production-focused websites and
interactive online activity. It also gives people the opportunity to experience dance firsthand
through workshops and residency programmes as well as providing useful education
resources. It provides networking and training opportunities for venue programming,
marketing, technical and education staff.
Since its inception DTP has promoted ten critically successful tours and spearheaded a major
increase in audiences. Its activity has led to a 28% increase in the number of middle-scale
dance performances and a 52% increase in audiences, one-third of which is directly
attributable to DTP’s own promotions.
Over the past five years it has presented the following UK and International companies:
Ultima Vez’s Blush in 2004, Australian Dance Theatre’s Birdbrain & the Age of Unbeauty &
Jasmin Vardimon’s Park in 2005, Renegade Theatre’s Rumble and Stan Won’t Dance’s
Revelations in 2006, Ultima Vez’s Spiegel and Theatre Rites/Arthur Pita’s Mischief in 2007,
Fabulous Beast’s James son of James and Hofesh Shechter’s Uprising/In Your rooms in
2008 and Tanja Liedtke’s Twelfth Floor in 2009.
DTP has developed a strong network of 25 middle-scale venues around the UK, from Truro to
Inverness. The DTP network has 12 core members and a further 13 regional venues who join
projects intermittently as guest touring partners. For each touring project the network
collaborates with a London venue whilst regional priorities remain at the heart of DTP’s
programme. The focus is on how to ensure dance thrives in venues with a mixed programme
of arts and entertainment.
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