Alan Davey appointed new Chief Executive of Arts Council

Alan Davey appointed new Chief Executive of Arts Council

- To read the full article from Dance UK, click here -

Sir Christopher Frayling, Chair of Arts Council England, announced on Wednesday 26 September the appointment of Alan Davey as the new Chief Executive of Arts Council England.

Alan Davey, 46, is currently Director of Culture at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, (DCMS) a post he has held since 2003 having worked in the Department as head of the arts division since 2001. In an earlier stint at the then Department of National Heritage he was responsible for designing the National Lottery. Mr Davey is well known as a dance fan and is often seen at dance performances. He recently attended the All Party Parliamentary Dance Group event at the Ballet For the People Gala at the Royal Festival Hall, which featured performances by the Ballet Boyz, English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Rambert, and new choreography from Christopher Wheeldon, Craig Revel Horwood and Rafael Bonachela.

His appointment to Chief Executive of the Arts Council is potentially good news for the dance sector and early responses from dance professionals are all positive. Mr Davey is seen as a supporter of dance as an art form, whilst also being informed about a crosssection of current issues facing the dance sector, such as tax and dancers’ health, all issues raised in the recent DCMS Dance Forums.

Born in Stockton-on-tees, the son of an electrician, Alan Davey studied English at Birmingham University and went onto Oxford where he received an MPhil. He was then offered a provisional place at Manchester University to study medicine, but when he failed to raise the money to attend the course, he opted for a career in the civil service.

Mr Davey will take up his new appointment at the Arts Council in early 2008 – succeeding Peter Hewitt, who will have been in post as Chief Executive for ten years.

Alan Davey says: “I couldn’t be more excited about my new role. The arts in England have never been healthier, more challenging, innovative or popular. I want the Arts Council to be at the forefront of building on that success – working with artists to reach even greater heights, leading the arts with passion and excellence, and forging new partnerships that secure the position of the arts in national life.

“Building on what has been achieved by Peter Hewitt, I am confident that a creative, focused and entrepreneurial Arts Council can do just that. I can’t wait to get started.”

New post

Haven't posted much since I took up my 'new post', leading me to move halfway across Canada (to Ottawa) and begin a year-long contract with the Canada Council for the Arts, in the dance section.

Now with feet on ground and head in stars, more will be posted here again soon.

- R

ERASING THE LINE BETWEEN WORK AND LEISURE

Robert A. Stebbins, FRSC
University of Calgary
Paper presented at the “Leisure and Liberty in North America” Conference held 12-13 November 2004, University of Paris IV, Paris, France. Read the entire paper - click here.

Change is afoot regarding human resources, young administrators, aging dance artists and devotee work in relation to working in the arts.

“devotee work,” is work that is so attractive that it is essentially leisure for those engaging in it. The only important difference between their work and what their counterparts in "serious leisure" do is that devotee workers get paid for their efforts...

... Vis-à-vis other kinds of work and leisure, both occupational devotion and serious leisure stand out, in that they, alone, meet all six of the following distinguishing criteria:
1) The valued core activity must be profound; to perform it acceptability requires substantial skill, knowledge, or experience or a combination of two or three of these;
2) the core must offer significant variety;
3) the core must also offer significant opportunity for creative or innovative work, as a valued expression of individual personality;
4) the individual devotee must have reasonable control over amount and disposition of time put into the occupation (the value of freedom of action), such that he can prevent it from becoming a burden;
5) the individual must have both an aptitude and a taste for the work in question;
6) the individual must work in a physical and social milieu that encourages them to pursue often and without significant constraint the core activity.
It should be understood that these six criteria do not necessarily constitute an exhaustive list; for through further exploratory research and theorizing, other criteria may well be discovered...

... What is happening today to this interface between work and leisure? In answering this question note, first, that the modern work ethic – most generally put that hard work is good – is manifested in at least two main ways: workaholism and occupational devotion.

Devotee? or Serious leisure? Hmmm. Read the entire paper - click here.