Two major reports on dance in Ireland were launched at a two-day Dance Colloquium in Cork, jointly hosted by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and An Chomhairle Ealaion. Dancers, choreographers, dance teachers and representatives of dance organisations and educational interests from all over Ireland held a lively discussion on Youth Dance in the Firkin Crane on Friday. Next day, they heard presentations by Anna Leatherdale and Victoria Todd of Shall We Dance? A report into Vocational Dance Training in Ireland and by Maureen Macken and John Edmund of their Dance Audit 1997, undertaken for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
The co-operation of the two Arts Councils - the first report being a joint initiative - was widely praised, and further co-operation was recommended in both reports. Inevitably they invite comparisons. In schools in Northern Ireland, for instance, dance is compulsory for both boys and girls up to Key Stage Three (though sometimes this amounts only to aerobics). In schools in the Republic dance currently exists solely as an often-neglected part of Physical Education, only 19 per cent of students questioned having any access to dance.
But then, as one Department of Education and Science official said: "Basketball doesn't feature as a stand-alone subject either." Despite this initially discouraging reaction, however, all Department representatives were subsequently at pains to assure the dance community that its wishes would be most sympathetically considered, if expressed in an appropriate manner, and Victoria Todd urged that it get its act together and speak with one voice before it was too late. Opportunities for dance training during transition year, while temporarily free from the tyranny of the Points system, was also stressed, though others pointed out that by then students would be too old to begin ballet.
On the other hand, indigenous Northern dance companies are far fewer, less developed and even worse funded than those in the Republic. The poor response to the survey undertaken, therefore, and the comment that: "the majority of people involved in dance (in Northern Ireland) appear to be broadly content," was depressing.
Opening the Colloquium, An Chomhairle Ealaion Director, Patricia Quinn, said the objective was "to review the first Arts Council plan and make a new one." 1998 grant allocations amounting to £805,000, an increase of 27 per cent on 1997, had already been announced on 2nd March, however, "giving increases to the four production companies currently being supported on an annual . . . basis," according to Dance Office Gaye Tanham, as well as "the dance resource work begun in 1996 at the Firkin Crane."
The latter includes Youth Dance, while grants of £18,000 to Irish Junior Ballet and £15,000 to LD Trust/Shawbrook based in Legan, Co. Longford are for Training, the twin subjects of the Colloquium - and ones which participants occasionally seemed to find difficulty in distinguishing from one another. The Colloquium's objective is, therefore, clearly long-term, while the Shall We Dance? report seems to have influenced funding decisions prior to publication.
Perhaps its most important conclusions were that Ireland is now ready for full-time vocational training (leading to nationally-recognised qualifications), that the co-operation of the Department of Education and Science should be sought in this matter and that the NCVA should be approached in relation to developing VEC foundation courses.
During a Question and Answer Session chaired by Philip Hammond (Arts Council of Northern Ireland), Professor Micheal O Suilleabh ain of Limerick University announced the foundation of a post-graduate course, leading to an MA in Contemporary Dance. Interesting contributions from the floor also included proposals to form a committee to lobby on behalf of the dance community, to undertake a dance audit in the Republic similar to the excellent Northern Ireland one and to hold a further Colloquium in a year's time to note progress.
The only subject never mentioned during the comprehensive two-days of sometimes heated debate was that of the Academy for the Performing Arts, proposed by pianist John O'Connor and apparently regarded favourably by the Minister for Arts. Since dance features strongly in the proposed Academy, it seems strange that such a major third level initiative should be ignored.
