Mr. Robert Connor:

There is funding for independent projects, resource organisations and dance production companies to create on a project basis, but they are all under-funded. What is missing in this landscape is sufficient money for dance companies to offer dancers sustained work on an ongoing basis. Why does this matter? The biggest problem facing dance is sustainability. The lack of sustainability means dance artists are not able to work consistently. Funding on a project-to-project basis provides valuable seed money, but sufficient funding for a number of production companies to employ dancers on longer contracts is needed. That would constitute investment in the growth and development of artists and dance.

To be a choreographer and make work, one must also be a producer, recruiter, administrator, grant writer, fund raiser and gig-booker. One must find and hire dancers and navigate the tax system or find an administrator willing to work short-term for little money. One must find a composer, a lighting designer and a costume and graphic designer and organise everything else to get the work onstage. Choreographers do all that at night and are in the studio during the day. Dancers and choreographers, whether small or large, need more money to employ dancers and to invest in full-time administrative resources.