A quick post here just to point to the Baltimore Regional Dance Survey 2018 Edition.
Data collection is live now. Thanks to the dancers that helped de-bug this version of the survey.
In 2017, In the Dancer’s Studio (with students at Towson University) surveyed dancers in the Baltimore region to gain some perspective on what they were doing, what they could be doing, and what was keeping them from doing those things. An analysis of those responses is here. This year, we’re out of the classroom and into the real world. With a few tweaks and some streamlining of the questions, we’re trying to expand the reach of the survey to address a number of sampling biases from 2017. Please share this survey with every dancer, of every level. The experiences of the fresh, new dancer are just as important as the well-established studio owner. The more data collected, the more likely it is to be meaningful and useful in shaping policy and channeling resources for dance.
Based on previous work, we estimate there are some 60,000-100,000 active dancers in the region. Please help share this survey with your colleagues, partners, students, teachers, and any other people active in the Baltimore region’s dance community so we can gather enough data to fairly represent the whole community. This year, we have a new token system that allows you to stop and resume the survey at your convenience, and you can go backwards to answer questions you skipped or modify previous questions. The system uses email to verify your participation, so if you don’t see email as expected, please check your spam filters. Please answer as fully and honestly as possible. All questions are optional except the first one (it determines which other questions are relevant to you).
I am a dancer at Towson University, freshman year. I can say confidently that the training I have received has been not only some of the best, but some of the most enlightening experiences. Not only do the professors here at Towson University help with technique they give a better perspective on dance and how it connects with the world and your life around you.
I have been to multiple shows in the area, and yet the shows I went to seemed to be the only ones. There is not a large enough dance base/collective in the Greater Baltimore area. Even the shows that had a Q&A afterwards all had the same question. Why isn’t there a recognizable dance community here? One of the main reasons due to personal experience is that there are much less opportunities here than in other parts of the country regarding dance and its path to critical juxtaposition with the community itself.