In the Dancer's Studio

Different dance forms make dramatically different demands of their performance space. Understanding that it is essentially impossible for any space to be all things to all dancers, the Baltimore Regional Dance Survey separated satisfaction questions about performance space into 10 different categories of technical or physical attributes:

Sprung floors
Floor surface specific to your dance form
Audio equipment
High ceilings
Open spaces without obstructions (e.g., columns)
Dressing rooms
Theatrical lighting
Motion capture equipment
Rigging
Projection

Respondents were asked to indicate their satisfaction in each category on a 5-step scale from “Extremely Satisfied” to “Extremely Dissatisfied.” This question has a known structural problem, because all respondents were asked to indicate their satisfaction in all categories, even if that category didn’t apply to that particular respondent – so that’s room for improvement in the future. I won’t be able to distinguish between “very satisfied because this doesn’t apply” and “very satisfied because it is critical to my performance and did everything I could possibly hope.” In many cases, it looks like many respondents simply picked “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” for categories that did not apply. 54 respondents engaged this question. Results follow:

About floors:

In this category, the responses were amazingly similar in all categories – with a slight bias toward satisfaction.

Fairly neutral responses when it comes to the floors in performance spaces.

Continue reading “Satisfaction with Baltimore Dance Performance Spaces”

In the section for performers, respondents were presented with a 4-part degree-of-agreement matrix. For each of these statements, they were asked to rank their agreement from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” (in 7 increments). The six statements:

Performance spaces are readily available in Baltimore
Performance spaces are affordable in Baltimore
Performance spaces are suitable (features) in Baltimore
There is a need for performance spaces in Baltimore

54 respondents made it to this question. Here’s the breakdown for each question (average marked by the big red bar):

While the overall results are neutral (Average = 3.81 where 4.00 = “Neither Agree nor Disagree”. σ = 2.10), there is an immediate takeaway – out of 54 respondents (still a small sample), none of them Strongly Agree with the sentiment that performance space is readily available in Baltimore.

Continue reading “BRDS Opinions On Performance Space in Baltimore”

After a bit of a break to actually make some dance performance stuff happen, it’s time to get back to the BRDS data. Having spent some time exploring learning and teaching, I finally get to dive into the performance dimension of dance in Baltimore.

We start with some simple questions… How often did you perform in 2016 and where?

61 Respondents submitted a number of performances for 2016 (some of them 0), adding up to a total of 553, or just about 9 (9.07) per respondent. That makes once every 40 days or so. Of course, this is not evenly distributed among the dancers of the region –

Continue reading “Baltimore’s Dance Performance Spaces”

Having completed the student-oriented portion of the BRDS, the instructors are next. First, the perpetual reminder that the respondent pool for this survey is biased toward instructors with significant experience.

Respondents that indicated they did teach dance classes were presented with a satisfaction matrix. “Please indicate your satisfaction with your current instruction venue for each of the following” and given a range of 5 options (Ranked 0 to 4 – Extremely dissatisfied, Somewhat dissatisfied, Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, Somewhat satisfied, Extremely satisfied). Five categories were presented:

Cost (e.g., Rental fees, Extra charges)
Availability (e.g., Operating hours, Scheduling conflicts)
Quality (e.g., Cleanliness, Staff, Facility)
Amenities (e.g., Sound system, Dressing area)
Access to services (e.g., Wellness, Food)

55 Respondents completed this question. Let’s bang these out in order:

Continue reading “Baltimore Dance Instructors On Their Available Studios”

The last question asked of dance students in the BRDS, “How satisfied are you with your current dance space?”

The average of 48 responses to this question is 2.9 (scale 0 = “Extremely Dissatisfied”, 4 = “Extremely Satisfied”), putting the consensus firmly into the “Somewhat Satisfied” category.

Eventually, looking through the data from dance students in the Baltimore region, we get to what is probably the most uncomfortable set of questions – money. Several questions in the BRDS were about money spent on dance training in some form. First, an exploration of how much money gets spent on class. For this, a free-form numerical response was requested in each of the four survey-established class levels (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Masterclass). As a refresher, here’s what we learned about these categories already. Of BRDS respondents, this many took classes at each level during 2016:

Continue reading “Economics of Baltimore Dance Classes”

Having spent some time on the classes available in Baltimore, another question asked of dance students in the Baltimore Regional Dance Survey was about travel for classes. Respondents were asked, “How far did you travel in 2016 to take a class?” and given 7 choices:

Less than 10 miles (Baltimore metro)
11-50 miles (Washington D.C., Frederick)
51-100 miles (Philadelphia, Harrisburg)
101-250 miles (New York City, Pittsburgh, Richmond)
251-1000 miles (Upstate New York, Massachusetts, Carolinas, Ohio)
1001-2500 miles (United States)
Internationally

Respondents could select as many as appropriate. Some bias is introduced by providing sample destinations, but I figured that was less troublesome than asking each person to decide if New York City fit in the 101-250 mile range or in the 251-1000 mile range (because it depends on which part of Baltimore Metro and which part of New York City metro you connect…). 55 Respondents made it through this question.

No surprise, given the opinion that there are quality dance instructors in the Baltimore Region, the majority of respondents took classes in the less-than-10-mile range. Economically, the next (11-50 mile range) is also quite understandable, and the common trip to New York shows up in the 101-250 mile option.

As a check within the survey, recall a previously-discussed question –

34 Respondents spent some time in Masterclasses during 2016, and we have 21 respondents traveling 101 miles or more for classes. That seems reasonable.

In the section for students, respondents were presented with a 6-part degree-of-agreement matrix. For each of these statements, they were asked to rank their agreement from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” (in 7 increments). The six statements:

Dance classes are readily available in Baltimore
Dance classes are affordable in Baltimore
Dance classes are in suitable space in Baltimore
There is a need for more dance classes in Baltimore
There are quality instructors in the Baltimore area
The class sizes are suitable for my needs

49 respondents made it through this question. Rather than try to cram this all into one monster chart, here’s the breakdown for each question (average marked by the red bar):

Continue reading “Characteristics of Baltimore Dance Classes”

Next subject for the Baltimore Regional Dance Survey – what types of classes do Baltimore dancers take? Again, up-front, I have to acknowledge the age-and-teaching bias in the respondent pool – very few new or young dancers participated, and there are a lot more of those around. The survey didn’t even try to approach the elementary-school-age dancers (or their parents). Before even glancing at numbers, this question will lean heavily toward the more advanced classes. How much lean? Let’s find out. Two questions addressed class-levels. Here’s how the first question was phrased:

What type of classes did you primarily take in 2016?

Masterclass – taught for a limited time or on an irregular basis by a visiting or unique instructor.
Advanced – taught on a regular basis by local instructors, generally requiring specific dance competency prerequisites, instructor placement, or audition.
Intermediate – taught on a regular basis by local instructors, and open to students with general dance background.
Beginner – open to all students of any background or experience.

These definitions get a little awkward, because I could find no meaningful and universally-accepted definition of “class levels” that applied across dance forms, so these definitions are made up entirely for the purpose of the survey. The intent was to capture a meaningful difference at each level – if you have thoughts on how these definitions failed or succeeded, please get in touch.

The second question on this subject was a bit challenging to complete, so there is some failure in the data – “Approximately, how many hours did you spend taking any of the listed class levels in 2016?” Since this asked the respondents to think about a whole year of experience, and do some math (3 45-minute classes each week, except summer and a couple weeks in the spring and winter is….), I didn’t expect high precision in the answers. I also had to toss one number that could be a user-error or computer-glitch, but I know nobody managed 100 quadrillion hours of training during 2016.

Now, data. 55 of the validated respondents made it through the first question, but only 49 made it through the multiple-answer question. Of those 55, here’s how it broke down for the primary class level:

Continue reading “Baltimore Dance Classes”

In the last installment, I did a broad overview of what sorts of dance happens in Baltimore, in three dimensions (Learning, Performing, and Teaching). This time, I’ll focus a bit on the level of engagement for the three dimensions (Learning, Performing, and Teaching) within each dance form.

In general, I would expect that people learn a dance form first, then maybe start performing, then maybe start teaching. In some forms (Ballet), progression to the stage and to teaching may be highly dependent on the blessings of one or more teachers, while in others (Belly dance, Liturgical), it’s more likely that the decision to perform is entirely personal. In some forms (Folkloric, Indian), local advanced learning opportunities may be extremely limited – if a dancer is committed to a form, and there isn’t a “next-level” instructor around Baltimore, they will have to go elsewhere to take those next steps. In some forms, where there only a limited number of instructors teach in the region, training may simply stop after a short period of time.

For many reasons, it’s difficult to plot a common trajectory for a dancer from student to performer to teacher, but we do have some data that might illuminate this a bit. It’s important to note that these questions cover an entire career, and so provide no insight into the temporal relation between being a student, being a performer, and being a teacher – it’s impossible to determine if someone started teaching hip hop before they took a hip hop class, only that they’ve been teaching more or less total time than they’ve been studying. Total number of years looks like this:

Continue reading “Baltimore Dance Forms in Three Dimensions”