One Dance UK brings children and young people’s dance to cultural sector roundtable in Liverpool

On Sunday 27 September, One Dance UK’s Interim Chief Executive and Head of Children and Young People’s Dance, Laura Nicholson, was invited to take part in a What Next? cultural sector roundtable in Liverpool, held as a fringe event alongside the Labour Party Conference.

Convened by Lizzie Crump MBE and attended by Minister for Arts and Museums Baroness Ruth Mackenzie CBE, the roundtable brought together leaders from across the arts and cultural sectors to share a series of short provocations and questions exploring some of the key opportunities and challenges facing the sector.

Laura’s contribution focused on children and young people and the significant opportunities presented by current shifts in government policy across education, culture, enrichment, physical activity and youth provision.

She highlighted the need to ensure that these developments do not operate in isolation, asking how government departments can work more effectively across traditional policy boundaries, and meaningfully with the cultural sector, to turn a range of individual initiatives into a genuinely joined-up ambition for children and young people.

At the heart of Laura’s provocation was the principle of entitlement: that every child and young person should have access to a rich creative life, regardless of where they live, their family’s income, their gender or which school they attend.

She also highlighted dance’s distinctive position at the intersection of art, creativity and physical activity, and the importance of ensuring that this strength does not result in dance falling between policy areas.

Laura said:

"Talent is everywhere. Opportunity isn't. That inequality shapes who develops their talent, who sees this sector as somewhere they belong, and ultimately who gets to work in it.

Success isn't simply having all these [new government educational] initiatives. It's whether, together, they actually change who gets access, who gets opportunity, and ultimately who gets to belong.”

Responding to Laura’s provocation, Baroness Mackenzie acknowledged that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education had not always worked in a joined-up way, while pointing to much stronger collaboration between the departments now. She also spoke positively about the commitment within the Department for Education to schools and the opportunities ahead.

For One Dance UK, this growing collaboration across government is welcome. We will continue to advocate for dance to be central to the opportunities available to every child and young person, and to work with government, partners and the wider cultural sector to help turn policy ambition into meaningful change.

Read Laura Nicholson’s provocation in full (attached here)