Category: News

Lucy Dusgate has been appointed the new Partnership Director of Leeds Dance Partnership. Previous Partnership Director Shirley Lundstram has moved on to become Head of Programme – Heritage at Cause4 – we wish her all the best in her new ventures.

Lucy is an experienced cultural producer delivering diverse and strategic programmes of art, including in her most recent role as Art Programmer / Producer at The Lowry. She has extensive experience in developing cultural policy, consortium partnerships, fundraising, embedded learning, co-commissions and large audience engagement across culture and public realm locations.

Lucy creates programmes that range from the intimate to the monumental, across public, private and education sector multi-partnerships, delivering to audiences, professionals and participants.

Her past work has included two commissions with Phoenix Dance Theatre for NVA’s Speed of Light and Honour, two Motionhouse outdoor performances, as well as work with individual artists including Darren Pritchard, Dickson Mbi and Mac Daniel Palima.

Lucy said: ‘I’m delighted to be leading the Leeds Dance Partnership as we continue to build the city into one of the two national centres of excellence for dance. The support and talent of the partnership enables us to acknowledge our achievements to date and develop a future that is ambitious and encompassing for all.’

Mark Skipper DL, Chair of Leeds Dance Partnership, said: ‘I am delighted that Lucy has joined Leeds Dance Partnership to carry on the excellent work that Shirley Lundstram has delivered over the last three and a half years. Lucy brings to us a vast range of experience as a Creative Producer with lots of international connections and I look forward to seeing how the Partnership develops under her leadership in the coming years.’

As part of the Leeds Dance Partnership Online Series, we supported the online discussion Radical Strategies for Change led by Sarah Shead from Artistic Mutiny UK. Read more about our work with independent artists during the 2020 lockdown.

About the Event 

Director of Spin Arts and Captain of Artistic Mutiny UK, Sarah Shead invited The Lowry’s Senior Producer, Claire Symonds, multidisciplinary artist Priya Mistry, and leader of Be More Pirate, Alex Barker, to discuss Radical Strategies for Change. The discussion was facilitated by Leeds Dance Partnership Independent Board Member João Maio.  

Below, Sarah reflects on the provocations she worked with and what she feels the future may hold. 

Radical Strategies for Change 

Sarah Shead

Long before COVID-19 hit and affected the arts and cultural sector in a way none of us could have imagined, I was calling on industry professionals to consider and make urgent changes to ensure their relevance and sustainability.  

I started by unpacking the inequalities facing freelancers by working with The Lowry in Salford to host two separate conversations, one with venues and another with independents, to explore what a more equitable sector might look like.  

This led to a presentation at The Lowry’s Artist Development Toolkit Day, where I led a call to action to 50+ venues committed to Artist Development.

I formed an online group, Artistic Mutiny, committed to exploring and creating a more diverse, equitable and inclusive sector. Join the conversation! 

To share some of the thinking from the group, I worked in partnership with Leeds Dance Partnership, One Dance UK and the National Dance Network to host the Radical Strategies for Change event.  

A dynamic panel of female rogues (The Lowry’s Senior Producer Claire Symonds; multidisciplinary artist Priya Mistry; and leader of Be More Pirate, Alex Barker) shared their treasure trove of insights and unique perspectives about being radical, how they were navigating these uncertain times and seizing the opportunity to rebalance power. 

Through collaborations and challenges such as this, leadership and knowledge sharing are shifting from top-down to horizontal power structures. A reorganisation and redistribution of power, where role models are your peers and not your leaders up ahead. 

Freelancers are no longer willing to wait for years to inherit power. Instead they’re are heading out to take it and make it for themselves. They’re the CEOs of their own lives who can together be troublemakers, provocateurs, rebels, caring, compassionate, inclusive and ethical. 

Radical change is coming. It will be incremental. It will be through partnership and collaborations.  

Artistic Mutiny has since been awarded £10,000 from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to support their development as a self-organised group seeking greater sector equality and inclusivity.

Supported by the Independent Dance Sector

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to disrupt our lives, Leeds Dance Partnership recognised the devastating impact this was having on the independent dance sector. The Partnership wanted to ensure it was continuing to support the independent sector during this time and decided to run a series of free online events specifically for those artists.  

In tandem with this, the Partnership wanted to bring together an artistic advisory group of independent dance artists. The aim of this is to widen independent representation in decision making settings, as well as having an adequate steering group to develop training and networking events aimed at independent artists and creatives.  

The group was brought together and includes six local independent artists (pictured below): Alexah Tomey-Alleyne; Catrina Nisbett; Charlotte Arnold; Janetta Maxwell; Rachel Fullegar; and Sandrine Monin. That team, alongside João Maio (Independent Board Member) and Gail Ferrin (Programme Manager) then co-designed and programmed the Online Series. 

The artistic group identified different relevant themes to be tackled in the series and democratically agreed on three sessions: 

• Going Digital – What to consider? with Wayne Sables (5 June)  
• De-Mystifying Networking with Nicole Newman and Ella Mesma (19 June) 
• Fundraising for Individuals (beyond ACE) with Sue Robinson (24 July).  

Following a good reception and take up to the free online events, the series was further expanded to include:

• Social Media Marketing for Independents with Rubbi Bhogal-wood (28 August)  
• Radical Strategies for Change with Artistic Mutiny UK in collaboration with the National Dance Network and One Dance UK series The Time Is Now (30 September).  

All five sessions were sold out and received positive feedback.  

Conversations with the artistic advisory group have so far provided significant learning for Leeds Dance Partnership about the barriers independents face in the region as well as the opportunities needed to network, link, upskill and share. There was also sharing of ideas and suggestions around the way that independent engagement work could be developed in the future. 

The hope for Leeds Dance Partnership is now that the events can continue and develop, beyond online to live events (pandemic permitting) and that this will be enhanced by the continued support of the advisory group going forward.  

This year’s One Dance UK Awards were a great success for dance in Yorkshire, with several awards received by dance artists, practitioners and educators based in our region including two lifetime achievements awards. 

Kathy Williams OLY, Director of Leeds-based RJC Dance was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Dance of the African Diaspora. Kathy is a founder member of RJC Dance, a leading inclusive Black dance organisation in the North empowering children, young people and adults through dance, movement and exercise. 

Janet Smith MBE, Principal & Artistic Director of Northern School of Contemporary Dance from 2012 – 2020, received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Dance Education.  

Other award recipients from our region included: 

• Yorkshire Dance, receiving the Dance Advocacy Award
  
• Northern Ballet Premier Dancer Javier Torres, who received the People’s Choice Award for the second year running
  
• Sheffield-based freelance dance practitioner Charlotte Armitage, who received the Inspirational Community Dance Practitioner Award
• Claire Nicholson, Principal Strategic Director at CAPA College Wakefield, who received the Inspirational Lecturer at College, University or Conservatoire Award.

Congratulations to all of the nominees and winners from Yorkshire and beyond! 

We all have a part to play in making change.

As a Partnership, we stand in solidarity with all those affected by racism, violence and injustice.

We recognise there is so much more to do, and we are working on a series of actions that we can take as a Partnership. We will share these actions in a statement publicly.

A good place to start is to educate ourselves so we can challenge our thinking, encourage conversations and be inspired to make a difference. We and our colleagues from Leeds Beckett University Performing Arts team wish to share this reading list with you and also suggest Creative Access’ resource list.

If you have a suggested resource for us to consider, please contact shirley@leedsdancepartnership.com

Black Lives Matter.

Read the Message of Solidarity from Leeds’ Black & Brown female cultural leaders

Updated Monday 27 July 2020 12:30pm