Dance is suffering from a shortage of high-profile women because of the difficulties faced by female choreographers trying to juggle a career in the sector with motherhood, according to leading industry figures.
The concerns were raised at the Where are the Women? discussion, held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this month and led by Dance UK and Dance Umbrella, which featured a panel that included choreographer Charlotte Vincent and Julia Carruthers, executive director of Akram Khan Company.
Vincent, who runs her own company, Vincent Dance Theatre, said many women choreographers “dropped off the map” to have children just as they reached an age where they were ready to make more high-profile, large-scale work.
She added: “Women’s biological clocks have a parallel journey that starts to clash horribly with the their creative journey around age 35. The touring lifestyle is incredibly tiring and the body then is perhaps not fit for its other purpose, so you have that professional clash, which I really don’t think men have.”
Vincent said planning projects two to three years ahead was normal in dance, but claimed women planning families had to make difficult choices between “exciting offers” and children, which men did not have to make.
At the event, Greenwich Dance Agency director Brendan Keaney also said the low incomes in dance made it hard for women to remain in the business after having children, while dance critic Judith Mackrell questioned whether female dancers who might consider moving in to choreography were “so hard worked” when they were younger that they had less energy left for creativity later on.
The comments follow research carried out by Vincent Dance Theatre, in collaboration with Dance UK and Creative and Cultural Skills, which explored issues around pregnancy, parenthood and the return to work for professional dancers in the UK.
The report said dancers tend to delay motherhood, which means companies rarely or never worked with parents. As a result, dance artists who do have children, and the companies working with them, feel “isolated and uncertain about whether they are getting it right”.
Choreographers, directors and dance companies responding said they would like to offer better maternity packages, but that financial restraints made this hard.
In its conclusion, the report said companies should have written maternity and paternity policies in place and should set regular working hours with meal breaks and appropriate rest and recovery time for pregnant performers and new mothers.
The report also highlighted a new network for dancing parents and pregnant dancers that is being established, which will enable them to “seek advice and share ideas”.
Content is copyright © 2010 The Stage Newspaper Limited unless otherwise stated.
All RSS feeds are published for personal, non-commercial use. (What’s RSS?)