The Arts Council's announcement of two-year funding for an international dance festival came as a little surprise last week. This has been mooted for some time, and a feasibility report completed three years ago seemed to pave the way for some kind of festival. What was surprising was the amount of money committed, which, at £433,000 (#550,000) for two years, makes it, pro rata, the council's fifth largest dance client - and pushes it above established companies such as Dance Theatre of Ireland and Irish Modern Dance Theatre.
The total funding to dance has increased, with three new companies securing multi-annual funding (Coisceim, Ballet Ireland and IMDT) and some smaller companies receiving revenue funding. This should portend well for the dance community. Companies are now in a position to move into their own studios, offer long-term contracts for dancers and tour productions. This relative economic prosperity, like that of the country as a whole, hides the infrastructural and occupational poverty that still affects dance. While the Arts Council is right to take its artist-centred approach, it must also recognise that the artist does not live in a vacuum. Dancers are particularly deprived of the support structures available to other performers.
This years-old argument might seem hollow at a time when companies are receiving seven-digit sums for three years' work - but there is a danger that the "money cures all" shibboleth could become re-inforced.
As reported last week in this paper, the Association of Professional Dancers in Ireland is now hiring space in a YMCA for a daily class, where sometimes dancers have only one square metre in which to dance. This daily class is offered to all members of the association, but is mostly availed of by dancers who are not in production with one of the funded companies.
Since dancers need to train daily, this subsidised class is essential. It also provides an important social function and an opportunity to share ideas. In the absence of a suitable space for these classes, a falloff in attendance is inevitable, and although the APDI will be moving to a dedicated dance space in a few years, the damage done will be considerable.
The Institute for Choreography and Dance in Firkin Crane also has an important role in development, yet it received just £200,828 (#255,000) for its year's programme, which embraces professional development, productions, publications and training in community dance.
IF a country's true wealth should be judged by that of its poorest citizen, then the indicators by which we evaluate our "dance culture" should be multi-layered - and any development must start with children. Daghdha Dance Company, which was set up as a dance-in-education company in 1988, no longer offers a national touring programme to schools, and except for Fluxusdance's touring programme in the Kildare area, child-centred dance performances are now absent from the classroom.
Provision of vocational dance training has not progressed much recently, while the contentious plans for the Irish Academy for the Performing Arts have not received the support of the wider dance community. Youth dance activity has decreased, although Coisceim's new programme, ezimotion, should belatedly breath some life into what was once a vigorous part of the dance scene.
The initial plans for the new Dublin-based dance festival (yet to be christened) reflect these realities. As well as an international "headline company" and largescale performances, dance for children and community dance projects are planned. An associate artist and forums for debate will interrogate current practices and provide a meeting ground for ideas. Irish companies will participate, but artistic director, Catherine Nunes, is anxious not to merely duplicate work done at other times of the year.
"The only benchmark is quality," she says, "and I'm already talking to some Irish companies. These companies already have an audience and what I'm interested in is them trying something different, and helping them develop an audience in other ways." The greatest problem facing Nunes at present is Dublin's lack of venues.
Although money is available to attract major companies, some of them cannot fit on the capital's stages. Outdoor site-specific works are planned and spaces adapted for performances are a short-term solution - but the basic necessity of suitably-sized stage space must be secured.
While the major international companies will make a splash and play an important part in increasing awareness, the quietly revolutionary approach to programming and creation of a demand for suitable stages may prove its greatest legacy.
In the meantime, projects like ezimotion and Daghdha's White Space Project fill the gaps in provision, and it is important that production companies take the initiative in filling these lacunae. But a collection of individual projects will not achieve the same results as national strategic planning. The dance festival has drawn on the experiences of previous dance festivals, commissioned a feasibility report and engaged in dialogue with the Arts Council for the past three years. In the words of Dance Officer Gaye Tanham, "some good hard questions were asked", but there is now "genuine excitement" about the future plans.
Whatever impact the festival has on dance practices in Ireland, both it and the performing companies need their work complemented by development policies that will invest in future dancers and choreographers. It is, however, difficult to see who is going to drive this agenda.
Debate quickly sinks into "who should get the money", and development work is seen as "taking money away from performers". However, enriching the dance culture should not be an "either/or" decision, and the issue is not how cash is spent - but how needs are addressed. The solution is not necessarily financial, but it must harness available resources - people, companies and development agencies - towards an overall betterment of dance.