In the last decades, dance is where artists actualise their inner monologues. A great many strong creative voices who are radical, rooted, and re/present the bewildering range of specialisms in British dance - have been dancers of the global majority. A distinct turn is felt in their choreographies, where they are no longer practices dipped in diasporic sensibilities, or companies sustaining multiple traditional arts. Productions are constructed through ethics of care, are refreshingly original in content and approach, and thrive on cross-disciplinary conversations. Performance is a manifesto carrying messages and breaking conventions.
In the cultural and creative industries, guiding principles begin to morph from knowledge in the field of dance, extensive dialogues, research, resources, and identifying challenges that practitioners across different disciplines encounter. Hilary Carty in the Clore Leadership Programme and Anu Giri at the Dance Umbrella Festival are few of the many who voice ways in which dance can be democratised with far-reaching appeal, without compromising on evolving artistic expressions. With dancers and choreographers like Aakash Odedra, Hetain Patel, Ching-Ying Chien, Zinzi Minott freely working within and outside the canon, there is a steady thrum of change in the meanings of what constitutes ‘British’ in dance. With major shifts in politics and commerce of Britain in 2016, intercultural collaborations begin to wind down. The journeys towards realising the fullness of history of dancers of colour is incomplete. And ongoing. Because our people have never stopped dancing.