British Council disbands its specialist arts departments, including dance

This story comes from Dance UK and offers their research into this new development.

British Council disbands its specialist arts departments, including dance

Some Dance UK members have contacted Dance UK this morning (Thursday 20 December) to raise their concern about a story that ran in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph that the British Council’s executive board has decided to disband its departments in film, drama, dance, literature, design and the visual arts.

We attach a link to the story below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/12/19/bacouncil119.xml

As many of our corporate members work closely with the British Council to facilitate their work internationally Dance UK contacted the British Council to ask for their response to the story. They issued us with the following statement:

The British Council is committed to the arts and will continue to deliver arts projects internationally. Examples include the British Council Edinburgh Showcase, managing the British Pavilion and showcasing the best of Britain at the Biennales as we have done since 1938.

The British Council has a global arts programme of £30m and there will be no reduction in this budget. We have re-structured our arts group. We will retain sector expertise in all of the art forms but are mobilising our resources in different ways so that we can deliver bigger, global projects with the same amount of cash resources. This reorganisation involves the merging of sector expertise into more flexible project teams.

We are in a period of consultation with external stakeholders and a more formal announcement will be made in the January/February, 2008. A process document outlining this timeline is available on the website.

Martin Davidson CEO of The British Council said ‘The arts provide a unique space for creative dialogue and underpins our understanding of the world around us. In all its forms, the arts stimulate debate and allow us to better understand what we have in common and the differences between ourselves and other societies. The British Council is deeply committed to the arts in our cultural relations work, now and in the future - especially at a time when the arts and creative industries are flourishing in the UK’

It seems at present that we will have to wait, as do British Council staff, until the New Year to see how this situation develops and how it will affect dance. When we have more news we will let Dance UK members know, formulate a formal response, and if necessary write to the Foreign Office and the DCMS to express members’ concerns.

Sian McAulay, Deputy Director, Dance UK