I cite this process of debate and publication as bringing the Black dance/African Peoples dance sector into being. It was not the stated aim of the exercise but nevertheless an outcome. The process brought together Black dance artists from different theatrical dance traditions to discuss a topic about resources and infrastructure, and created a group of representatives. In this sense, the sector is constructionist, which is one of the two ways sectors in the cultural and creative industries are described. Justin O’Connor explains that:
Approaches to the cultural and/or creative industries tend to take two forms. One identifies a set of institutions and practices (a “sector” or an “industry) that demands our attention in some way, often against a background of their previously marginal position. A second takes a more “constructionist” perspective, highlighting an active process whereby an object is created or assembled by or through policy discourse(s). (Connor 2011, p.25)
The publication in 1993 of two reports, Advancing Black Dancing and What is Black Dance in Britain? can be said to mark the creation of this sector through discussion, consultation and debate around issues of Equal opportunities, social inclusion and the funding of dance and racial representation. The two reports stated the views of ‘the sector’ anonymously but listed the consulted artists and administrators in the Appendices. Unlike other reports on Black dance, such as the ones quoted by David Bryan, two of the 1993 reports were pitched at the national scale and therefore had a greater impact on the field. Furthermore soon after the meeting What is Black Dance in Britain? two of the most prominent advocates in the process, David Bryan and Peter Badejo, both set up projects with the aim of supporting the work of dancers and
choreographers in this field. David Bryan established Nubian Steps a
summer school Bami Jo that ran for thirteen years from 1993. Initiatives of this type were promised in the report of What is Black Dance in Britain? in
Nottingham.They could be seen as extending the conversation started by
Advancing Black Dancing and as activities of the sector that was established through it.
Besides making the advocates visible and thereby increasing the possibility of programmes, the debate also brought to the surface some of the aspirations in the sector. This increased the possibility of different types of partnerships being formed with the wider dance sector. The process also raised awareness that a broad spectrum of dance forms and practices were associated with the sector. However, though this new visibility of the sector had some benefits, the manner by which it was constructed and the framing the term black dance was
detrimental. These actions generated a discourse which had little potential for developing a discourse that was useful to dance professionals or a
choreographic discourse around the activity of dance making and the politics of performance and spectatorship.
The conditions surrounding the national What is Black Dance in Britain?
meeting in Nottingham meant that David Bryan and Peter Badejo had to define Black dance or any replacement terms in the broadest sense possible. In order to do this they provided hypothetical definitions – not based on how dance companies worked but how they would have to work so that the envisaged support organisation could fulfil its remit. Bryan defined Black dance in relation
to the evolution of dance as part of the cultures of migrant Black communities. His insistence that Black dance in Britain should uphold ‘cultural heritage’ and ‘acknowledge the additional influences’ on the dance of Black communities would have been disturbing for a choreographer like Peter Badejo as the
definition could be interpreted as meaning that supporting Black people through the use of dance was the same as supporting dance by Black people. Bryan’s definition did not relate to a history of practice. Not every dance form that
evolves within Black communities finds a way into theatrical practice, only those championed by choreographers or dance teachers. Even when theatrical dance by a Black choreographer engages or overlaps with traditional or social dance practices, it requires its own infrastructure for it to survive as theatrical practice. Badejo responded by proposing African Peoples’ Dance forms as an umbrella term for discrete African and Diaspora dance forms. This, however, was a proposition. It was not the way dance was taught in Britain. The definition provided in the report written by Anne Millman in 1987 described the way that African and Caribbean dance was actually transmitted in Britain, mainly through dance companies. However, Badejo could not speak of African and Caribbean dance companies and be considered inclusive. He therefore proposed that African Peoples Dance forms be seen as if they were a collection of dance techniques which those interested in staging traditional dances, and others interested in drawing on them for contemporary choreography, could benefit from. As both definitions did not relate to actual practice they have not helped generate a choreographic discourse.
The suggestions about infrastructure given at the regional What is Black Dance in Britain? meeting in Manchester reflected the way dance practitioners actually worked. A structure of that kind would have eventually facilitated a
choreographic discourse as practitioners would have interacted on the basis of the way they worked and would have developed a language accordingly. As it was the debate created a polarized sector. In BDDT the terms co-existed. BDDT posited Black dance as a description of dance as performative of Black presence and African Peoples’ Dance as a description of dance practice. The framing of the debate however insisted that Black dance be interpreted as a practice. Badejo's reaction to this was to reject the term as irrelevant to British based dancers because under the circumstances the term had been co-opted into an administrative discourse where it merged with politics of Equal
opportunities. Similarly David Bryan rejected the term African Peoples’ Dance. In an article that appeared in the spring edition of Animated in 1993, Bryan states ‘African Peoples’ Dance does not advance Black dance, it confuses cultural, spiritual and political affinity with the needs of the Black presence in Britain’ and that being of the Afro-centric school of thought African Peoples’ Dance had ‘a regrettable tendency to ignore the contributions made by the Caribbean’ (Bryan 1993 p. 1). The relationship that existed between Black dance and African Peoples dance that existed at the time of BDDT shifted during the debate. African Peoples’ Dance took on connotations of representing tradition and stasis and Black dance as contemporary and evolving, a
representation, which confuses the relationship between ‘the part’ and ‘the whole’.
BDDT did not raise funds for all types of Black dancers and then deceptively support only African and Caribbean dance companies. It had been established in response to the needs of a specific group of dance companies led mainly by dancers of Caribbean heritage. Furthermore African Peoples’ Dance, before it was co-opted by the debate, referred to the work of dance companies working with the specific theatrical genres of dance display and dance theatre which were Afro-centric in the main because its was that ideology which fuelled the practice. BDDT did not pretend to represent all Black British people. The
decontextualisaton and universalization of the debate erased the history of how dance by Black people had evolved within British institutional contexts, and encouraged generalised definitions of dance practice without mention of the socio-cultural context out of which dance companies had emerged, nor the theatrical genres they had adopted. Various discourses merged in the debate. ‘Black’ as aesthetic marker, ‘Black’ as political banner, ‘Black’ in the discourse of Equal opportunities were rolled into one. The advocates involved all made good points but were at times speaking about different things as if in different conversations.
The Black dance/African Peoples’ Dance sector at the time of its construction seemed to exist as a subject position which Black advocates could take if they wished to comment on discussion about dance going on at national level. Emilyn Claid describes the ‘all-consuming umbrella title of Black dance’ as creating a situation in which ‘white institutional power was able to instigate a policy of divide and rule among the different genres, whereby the practitioners
of different cultural forms competed for visibility and funding’ (Claid 2006, p. 107). The championing of African Peoples’ Dance was to counteract this act of ‘othering’.