ACE 2009 and Beyond

Feature Article || Thursday, 7 February, 2008

by Michelle Lefevre

I'll bet you thought we'd missed this didn't you? Arts Council England releases its brand new funding figures for the next three years and Article19 has fallen asleep at the wheel, the shame of it! Well not quite, we were busy putting together our BDE coverage which was far more important than spinning ACE's numbers but here you are, the numbers in full and a touch of analysis.

First of all we have the general dance funding table. This includes all of the dance companies and so-called development organisations that provide support to the profession, outreach and audience development. There's almost as many of them as there are dance companies.

The funding cull claimed the following victims, their future is, to put it mildly, uncertain: Northants Dance, Salamander Tandem, Chisenhale Dance Space, Independance, Robert Hylton Urban Classicism, Union Dance, Sakoba, Anjali, Wycombe Swan, Dance Bristol, Border Dance and Mimika Theatre.

Bare Bones Dance Company was erroneously listed by ACE as having lost it's funding. The budget is now rolled into DanceXchange's funding total and the company are still very much alive.

New Regularly Funded Organisations (RFO's) are: Anjika, Dance Consortium, Diversity Dance, Hofesh Shechter, Michael Clark, Qdos Dance Theatre, Tilted, Upswing Aerial.

Michael Clark's company completes its' return from oblivion and Hofesh Shechter is a welcome addition to the world of relative fuding stability.

The list in full

It's good to see the deeply embarrassing deficiency in Jasmin Vardimon Company's funding corrected to a level more worthy of their skill and the quality of work they produce.

DV8 have managed to hold on to their funding despite not making anything for what seems like years. A new production 'To Be Straight with You' begins touring this year (mostly overseas) so we'll see if they've still got it. They might want to spend some cash on a new website mind you, that hasn't changed for more than 8 years.

You could say almost the same of Siobhan Davies Dance Co. They have been very quite for a long time now, they might want to get out and about a bit and do some touring.

The figure quoted in the totals reflects all of the dance relates organisations. If we extract the actual dance companies we get a total, for 2008/2009, of £6,503,792.

Classical Ballet Companies / Neo-Classical Companies

It's still maddening to see these sky high numbers. Here in TheLab™ we find it hard to understand how ACE can go on at great length about excellence and innovation in the arts whilst spending, over the next three years, more than £88Million on the most unimaginative, anti-progressive dance companies in the history of the art form.

The funding for the Royal Ballet alone outstrips the total amount of money spent on all the other dance companies across the entire country (even if we include Scotland, Wales and Ireland who are not covered by ACE).

*The Royal Ballet's numbers are based on 35% of the total given to the Royal Opera House over the next three years.

National Dance Agencies

Not much to report here other than The Place's funding rolls up support for the NDA, Richard Alston Dance Company and other things into one lump sum. DanceXchange's funding, as explained previously, includes funding for Bare Bones Dance Company and if things don't turn around for Yorkshire Dance soon they may not be around for very much longer.

The above figures reflect funding delivered through ACE's three year, RFO plan and do not include separate funding for touring or one off grants made to dance through Grants for the Arts.

Published Thu, 7 Feb, 2008 at 09:09 | Share on Facebook | Stumble It!

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