Ms Loretta Yurick:

Reference was made to dance in schools. In the 1980s, a curriculum was developed in this regard. I was part of the Dance Council of Ireland. It was considered a first step towards a syllabus for primary school teachers through which to deliver dance in schools. Then there was a focus on secondary level, where the syllabus was to have modern dance for secondary school students, but the teachers were not dancers. There may be wonderful PE teachers but some may not be into dance. If we are to go into schools, we should speak the language and talk the talk. A trained dancer has a big toolbox. We know contemporary dance and ballet. We have done a little hip-hop. One gets the students with the hip-hop in the schools and then develops their creativity and choreography. There is a bigger blend of styles.

We were asked whether there has been a shift away from companies. There was definitely a shift at the time of the recession. Many companies suffered cutbacks. The budget shrank and the strategy was then to spread out all the funding. I came out of a milieu in which funding was guaranteed for three years. One knew exactly what one had. We were able to deliver a beautiful centre for dance in the three years. Three parties, including the county council and the developer, were put together to do that. It is still open and thriving. We could not have done this had we not known that we had funding for three years. We had two or three productions per year.