ADAD at the Big Mission - Report by Dr. Olu Taiwo
On May 8th 2008, I was invited to be part of a panel of dance professionals debating ‘Career Pathways in Dance: Fact or Fiction’. The event hosted and facilitated by Sue Davies of Swindon Dance Artist Development and Jeanette Bain, Director of ADAD (The Association of Dance of the African Diaspora) was part of the Big Mission Festival programme. The panel included Sheron Wray, Pearl Jordan, Colin Poole and yours truly Dr Olu Taiwo. The original intention of the debate, organised by a number of partners including State of Emergency Ltd., Wyvern Theatre, and Swindon Dance, was to address questions surrounding career development and transitions for dancers. However, the agenda was slightly highjacked by the Big Mission’s central theme, which was to celebrate the ‘here and now of Black Dance’. As was to be expected issues of ‘identity’ ‘representation’ and ‘participation’ reared their unresolved heads.
What was refreshing at this debate was a strong desire to collect contemporary stories and good practices as well as collate, organise and disseminate collected information to the wider British public as well as a targeted group of ‘Black’ artists. Sheron Wray raised the most pertinent political point, which was that when it comes to the funding of the arts and related policies, those of us who are part of the African Diaspora are not yet a cohesive political unit and thus have not really mobilised any significant protest to the recent Arts Council decisions to cut funding to some of the companies associated with the ‘Black’ community, an example being Union Dance Company. This is an important point, since political action taken as a group has more power. On the other hand, Colin Poole argued that he wants to identify himself as an independent artist, as a way to debunk perceptions that pigeon hole him as a ‘Black artist’. Instead he wants to highlight universal concerns such as love, hate, confusion, loss and more recently his trans-cultural independence. This indicates a dilemma for those of us interested in cultural actions, outside of the stereotypical frames provided for us. These issues are not new and contemporary dancer Pearl Jordan, who has retrained as a homeopath, was struck by the lack of progress concerning these issues particularly to do with how we individually and collectively take responsibility for support in areas such as: health, inter generational dialogue and role models.
The debate also addressed participation, identity and representation among the younger generation; the need to encourage the creation of more dedicated sanctuaries (citing Irie! Dance Theatre’s space at Moonshot as a place to build confidence for aspiring artists); mainstream presence, and acknowledgement of the influences of ‘Black’ cultures in mainstream British culture. There was also a call for ‘passion’ to be turned into ‘action’ with regard to advocacy, and the group suggested that this should be taken to the next level by a lead organisation, such as ADAD, perhaps initiating a process of creating a manifesto.
The event succeeded in generating a feeling of empowerment, as it was clear in the debate that even though the same problematic issues had resurfaced, there was not the familiar futile anger that can often come with these events which often feels like impotent complaining. Instead what was present, felt like a strong desire for action, to collate, construct and disseminate.
