In the Dancer's Studio

The Baltimore Regional Dance Survey (BRDS) 2020 Edition is now live. This year, it’s January 1st! Click this to register and participate at your convenience.

The purpose of the Baltimore Regional Dance Survey is to gather sufficient information on dance and the dance economy in the Baltimore region to identify gaps and opportunities, help direct resources to address those gaps and opportunities, make informed and credible policy recommendations when questions impacting dance in and around Baltimore arise, and to help dancers throughout the region understand and work with each other to create a more constructive and productive environment for dance.

The only major change from last year is a question about current (well, 2019) dance habits, in contrast to your life-long personal dance history. This will address situations for dancers that started in (for example) ballet, but moved on to something else later in their career.

The Baltimore Regional Dance Survey is anonymous and entirely voluntary. All questions, except the first couple (which determine the parts of the survey that are relevant to you), are optional. You can share as much, or as little information, as you want. You do need a valid email to register, but your answers are anonymized and not associated with the email.

2020 is the most important year for the Baltimore Regional Dance Survey. There are several real “brick and mortar” opportunities in and around Baltimore. Broad, representative participation in the BRDS is the most convincing data I can offer when someone asks why they should do something for, with, or about dance in Baltimore. I’ll be making that case for some people as early as late January, so please be counted! Everyone that learned or taught dance, choreographed, performed, worked with or supported dancers in the Baltimore region during 2019 is encouraged to participate. We really do mean everyone – the experience of the newest, just-had-my-first-class dancer is just as relevant as in-business-for-decades studio owner.

Please participate yourself and share this page ( http://inthedancersstudio.com/brds2020 ), the direct registration link
( https://www.inthedancersstudio.com/s/index.php/788622?lang=en ), and the tag #BRDS2020 with your dance colleagues, students, teachers, mentors, coworkers, and friends.

March 1 2020 Update: I’ve fixed a field-length problem with one of the performance-block questions. I don’t think this will impact results (I think we can figure out the abbreviations used so far), but you now have more than 5 characters to describe your preferred performance venue.

The Baltimore Regional Dance Survey 2019 Edition is now live. This year, much, much closer to the period of interest (calendar year 2018) – it’s still January! So, memory is a bit fresher, and hopefully that will make things go faster and easier.

Major changes in the 2019 survey include a few new questions about dance competitions, and a greatly expanded structure for dance spaces.

Several comments about the 2018 survey expressed frustration with the “one size fits all” nature of the site-specific questions. So, for 2019, you don’t have to generalize your answers across all the spaces you’ve been in during 2018 (but you are limited to 12 different spaces for each kind of use). Hopefully this will work out better for everyone.

It’s been a busy time, and I’m grabbing as many windows of opportunity as I can, but there’s a lot to do. I decided to prioritize the BRDS launch, so that put the analysis of the 2018 results on a back burner [again]. Still working, I promise!

To be meaningful, BRDS still needs to reach a wider audience. Any suggestions or help you can provide is most welcome. Please share this page ( http://inthedancersstudio.com/brds2019 ), the direct registration link
( https://www.inthedancersstudio.com/s/index.php/941437?lang=en ), or the tag #BRDS2019 with your dance colleagues, students, teachers, mentors, coworkers, and friends. Everyone that learned or taught dance, choreographed, performed, worked with or supported dancers in the Baltimore region during 2018 is encouraged to participate. We really do mean everyone – the experience of the newest, just-had-my-first-class dancer is just as relevant as in-business-for-decades studio owner.

Also coming in 2019, we’ll begin studying the impact of dance performance on the audience. If you’d like to participate, please get in touch.

Speaking of getting in touch, several people expressed specific challenges in BRDS2018, and I have [potential] solutions for some of you, but… I don’t know who you are. I’m happy to share what I know with anyone that can benefit, but please remember that the BRDS surveys are anonymized, so you have to reach out and let me know how to get back to you. Please don’t hesitate. You are the reason I’m doing this.

A little later than I had hope, and this will take longer than last year, but I’ve begun digging through the BRDS 2018 responses.

A bit less than half of respondents provided their zip code, but of those that did, BRDS is still having trouble reaching people in Baltimore City –

This is pretty different than the 2017 responses (obviously, some people did not come back for the survey this year):

It’s a been a lot of months since the end of 2017, but in the interest of filling in gaps, I’ll leave the survey open. If you have any suggestions about reaching into those parts of the city, please let me know.