Future Ecologies: Producing Dance Network

Future Ecologies: Producing Dance Network (PDN) brings together academics and arts professionals to reimagine an inclusive, extended and sustainable ecosystem for dance. Encompassing dance as a broad and diverse practice and an academic discipline, the network enables dialogue, exchange and strategic developments at a time of significant challenges. PDN will respond to the unprecedented convergence of Brexit and Covid-19, coupled with acute concerns regarding diversity, social justice and climate change that have been exacerbated by war in Europe and surging inflation. This requires a collective and inclusive approach.

We will develop new discourses and practices of ecosystems research and of dance ecologies, reflecting the growing need in this time of change to consider connectives between higher education and the cultural and creative sectors in terms of deeply interconnected systems. Producing dance is viewed as central to this ecological project. Producers are mediating catalytic agents, activating the creation and curation of meaningful engagements across a range of contexts that address broader social and cultural issues of equity and inclusion. Over recent decades formal and informal networks of dance producers have placed dance as a leading ambassador for a creative and vibrant global Britain. Yet, despite these contributions, little is known about the practices or specific roles of those involved in producing dance. As such, PDN opens both a new scholarly agenda by focusing on producing as an essential and meaningful area of enquiry for the field of dance studies and proposes ways in which an expanded concept of producing can significantly activate the symbiotic nature of creative and research practices, increasing the visibility and impact of dance research and practice-research in particular.

PDN addresses another important absence: there is no road map to renewal, or model for understanding the producing ecosystem. PDN will therefore consider and evaluate emerging developments to promote resilience, renewal and new opportunities for the sector. By encompassing a diverse range of dance cultures and research practices, PDN seeks to expand approaches to future dance research, to cultivate and renew the environment for the professional dance sector, to inform policy-making for dance and to demonstrate an ecosystem that is inclusive and dynamic.

To this end, PDN brings together experienced and early-career HE researchers, dance artists and leading dance organisations from across the UK, including members with diverse social, cultural and racial backgrounds to ensure richly informed exchanges. The network is organised through regional hubs in Scotland, North-East England, Yorkshire, the Midlands and London. Each region is represented by leaders in the field including Anita Clark (The Work Room, Glasgow); Anand Bhatt (Artistic Director (AD)/CEO Dance City, Sunderland); Tanya Steinhauser (Yorkshire Dance, Leeds); Paul Russ (AD/CEO Fabric - formerly Dance4/DanceXchange, Nottingham and Birmingham); and Eddie Nixon (The Place, London). In addition, the network will be supported by two leading national partners, OneDance UK and The Cultural Capital Exchange.