After the closure of BDDT, the Arts Council of England commissioned the
foreword of the report suggests that the Arts Council wished to gather the field of Black dance around a common focus. The foreword, written by the Arts Council Dance officer at the time states that BDDT had contributed significantly to the development of Black dance in Britain, but, since dance in all its forms had ‘grown and diversified’ over the years, a new organization with a new focus was needed. It explained that Advancing Black Dancing was meant to serve as a discussion document, a ‘starting point for continuing debate’ for those
interested in the development of Black dance. The foreword also announced that a meeting for practitioners to air their views was being planned for later in the year (Bryan 1993a, p.3).
In the summary and recommendations section of Advancing Black Dancing, the writer David Bryan states that the wishes of most people consulted was for a strategic organisation to replace BDDT which could lead on the development of an infrastructure for Black dance. BDDT had been a ‘service agency’, which offered guidance and provision to individual dance companies (Bryan 1993a., p.4). The report envisaged that the goals of the new organisation would be to cater for ‘all Black people in dance regardless of form’ (Bryan 1993a p.5). It would also serve as a resource for other dance institutions, providing training and education for dancers, support to venues and the touring of dance
companies (Bryan 1993a p.6).
A section of the report provides an overview of existing definitions of Black dance taken from regional reports, published interviews and the opinions of
consulted practitioners (ibid., pp. 10-13). The survey of definitions ends with the consultant’s ‘working definition’ of Black dance:
Black dance must continue to cherish, represent, reflect and advance the cultural heritage and aspirations of various black communities. To have Black dance without Black music would be a travesty and therefore disengagement with the kernel of African culture. For Black dance in Britain to advance it must be allowed to establish its distinct identity. Part of this identity will involve the continued interpretation of Black
experiences and cultures as they evolve. Consequently the development of African traditional and African modernity has to be advanced by Black dancers, Black choreographers and Black companies
(ibid., p.12). The section on definition ends with a note that some of those consulted were of the opinion that the Arts Council was interfering in the artistic decisions of various dance companies by acting as ‘Artistic director supremo’ (ibid.). The report provided an outline for an organisation commenting on management structure and a draft three-year programme, which included the development of an African, and Caribbean dance course, summer school and awards event. The draft programme built on the activities offered by BDDT including a focus on academic training in African and Caribbean dance forms. It additionally proposed a range of forums for practitioners for training including dance teacher training and discussion forums to support the development of initiatives such as companies and dance schools and engaging ‘influential bodies related to
dance.’ It also proposed the production of educational material and resources (ibid., pp. 32-44).
In March 1993 the meeting that was promised in the foreword of Advancing Black Dancing took place at the Nottingham Playhouse. The event was a national forum and called What is Black Dance in Britain? Ahead of the
meeting, a list of questions was sent out by the Arts Council to those who were invited. These questions appear on page three of the meeting’s report:
What does it mean to be a Black dancer in Britain in the 1990s? Does Britain have to look to North America for a contemporary Black
Dance voice?
How does dance from the Africa of villages relate to the experience of people born in urban Britain?
Does a contemporary Black British dance threaten traditional culture? Can the diversity of Black dance forms inform and enrich each other? Who should define Black dance? (Parthasarathi 1993, p.3)
On the day of the meeting two position papers were presented - one by Peter Badejo, the choreographer and artistic director of the contemporary African dance company, Badejo Arts, and the other by Shreela Ghosh the director of the South Asian support organisation ADiTi. Both papers were entitled What is Black Dance in Britain? and appear in the appendices of the meeting’s report, What is Black Dance in Britain?: A Meeting for Practitioners, Nottingham
Playhouse, Monday 8March 1993. They address in part the questions that were circulated ahead of the meeting as well as issues in the report Advancing Black Dancing.
Both papers, by Ghosh and Badejo, express a concern that Advancing Black Dancing seemed to focus more on equal opportunities than cultural or artistic practice. Their anxiety is understandable since they both considered a key objective of a support organisation for ethnic minorities to be the provision of training in dance forms and techniques, as these were not available in
mainstream dance schools. A focus on equal opportunities could shift the focus to job creation or community development. Shreela Ghosh pointed out that
‘Black dance was different from Black people who danced.’ She felt the
concerns of the latter could be addressed by equal opportunities agendas and it was up to mainstream organisations to monitor equal opportunities. She said her organisation ADiTi, was ‘not working on behalf of people of Asian origin who dance Graham technique or ballet’. She lists the debates taking place in her constituency as classical vs. contemporary, tradition vs. innovation, new training methodologies vs. traditional teaching, or whether the colour of a dancer’s skin equated with authenticity as non-Asian dancers were also interested in Indian forms of dance. Similarly Badejo, in his paper, advocates the importance of African and Caribbean dance forms to Britain, commenting on issues to do with training, education, touring and audience development. Both papers reveal that the focus of their writers was on the development of infrastructure to sustain the practice of these South Asian and African and Caribbean forms in Britain.
It is evident that the two respondents held different subject positions within the discourse of art dance. Ghosh could stake a claim in the British discourse of art dance due to the fact that the South Asian dance sector was already built
around dance forms that had been conferred with classical status and had been adapted to theatrical viewing several decades before in the Asian Sub-
continent. The existence of codified techniques meant that the practices of the South Asian dance sector could not simply be described as representations of people groups, or ethnicities. They could be described as being able to exist separately from their community of origin and have a value beyond the
of colour. Badejo on the other hand, had a more difficult task as he was arguing for a sector whose theatrical dance work centred on the application of staging and compositional methods to traditional and social dance forms. This made it more difficult to separate the issues around artistic practice from those of Equal opportunities or social inclusion when it came to the funding of projects.
Badejo sought to overcome this by arguing against the use of the term black dance as an artistic category saying it had a meaning for black dancers in America but not in Britain where it could easily be manipulated by funders – the breadth of the term black dance meant that it could be made to mean
everything and nothing. He states:
This is one of the main things that caused the downfall of BDDT. Initially Black dance was taken to mean every possible shade of non-white dance. Not surprisingly this proved impossible to handle. So Black dance was defined… or redefined…as African and Caribbean dance. This alienated all those others who had thought themselves included – but it provided a convenient label for funders to use, so that they could say – ‘Yes, we support Black dance’.
(Parthasarathi 1993, unnumbered3)
Badejo’s argument was that the term allowed funding bodies to avoid a commitment to any particular artistic practice or range of dance forms. If they supported black people, they were supporting black dance. Badejo also
expressed caution over David Bryan’s recommendation in the report of ADiTi as a model of good practice for black dancers interested in African and Caribbean
3 Only the main body of the report, What is Black Dance in Britain?: A meeting for
Practitioners, Nottingham Playhouse, Monday 8March 1993, is numbered. The
appendices where the full text of the papers by Shreela Ghosh and Peter Badejo appear to have no page numbers.
dances. He felt that the South Asian dance sector, with its codified Classical techniques which had been reworked to suit theatrical production, had a different set of challenges when it came to gaining institutional support than those using Africa and Caribbean dance forms. As a replacement for the term Black dance, Badejo’s suggests African Peoples dance forms. He describes it as an umbrella term, which could encompass any number of discreet dance forms, or techniques that come from Africa and the African Diaspora. Dance forms such as Bata and Reggae were codified in relation to specific music genres and could be approached as dance techniques and considered as the basis of creative practice for the black dancers. The report of the event states that those who attended the meeting supported the use of the term African Peoples dance equivocally ((Parthasarathi 1993, unnumbered ).
Not much comment on infrastructure is relayed in the report on the national
What is Black Dance in Britain? meeting in Nottingham. More attention was paid to this topic at the regional What is Black Dance in Britain? meeting which took place on 21st of August 1993 at The Nia Centre in Manchester organised in
collaboration with the Blackie, a venue in Liverpool. The Northwest arts board and the Arts Council were the funders of the regional meeting. The speakers at this meeting were the choreographers Elroy Josephs and Peter Badejo, who had spoken at the National event in Nottingham along with Shreela Ghosh. The report of this meeting states that those present were sceptical that an umbrella organisation structured as suggested by the writer of Advancing Black Dancing
of dance companies and individuals who practiced African and Caribbean dance by using traditional forms’ with those who were interested in these forms as the basis for contemporary choreography. Those present felt these two groups of artists’ needed different kinds of infrastructural support. Participants also called for the new organisation to be a membership organisation with regional branches rather than a corporation without a membership (Schumann, Kuyateh and Harpe 1993, pp.7-8). This comment on infrastructure shows that dance companies associated with Black dance wanted an infrastructure which facilitated the way different dance artists worked with African and Caribbean dance forms. Advancing Black Dancing had proven that the forms were
important to most Black dancers. They, however, worked with them in different ways. The desire expressed at the regional meeting was for infrastructure which supported the way existing companies worked. These desires, due to the way the debate was framed, did not impact on the national conversation (it took place after it). The framing of the debate, even though it was supposed to be about infrastructure, disconnected it from issues concerning the organisation of practice.