3. Why Liverpool Still Needs a Dance Development Organisation
As I’ve been spending time thinking through the key components of what a credible plan for Liverpool’s dance future might look like, one question has kept returning: why recommend a new dance development organisation when the previous one didn’t last?
It’s a reasonable question, and one that needs careful consideration [and to be honest, answering]. It’s important to acknowledge that Merseyside Dance Initiative, latterly known as Together, existed for over three decades. That longevity is remarkable, and likely places it among the longest-running dance development organisations in the country. While not every factor behind its closure is publicly documented, what is visible suggests a convergence of pressures rather than a single cause. The pandemic appears to have been a significant trigger, followed by the escalating cost-of-living crisis, which saw operating costs rise sharply while funding levels failed to keep pace. Like many organisations across the cultural sector, it faced a perfect storm of increased demand, reduced resilience and constrained resources.
If this work is going to be meaningful, there has to be clarity about why this model [a dance development organisation] continues to emerge from the evidence, what would need to be different this time, and how it compares to other possible approaches to supporting dance in the city. That means reflecting honestly on the past, while also looking critically at the options that are often suggested as alternatives, and understanding where they may fall short.
Acknowledging that history is important. But it is also important to distinguish between the challenges faced by a particular organisation, at a specific time, and the underlying need that organisation existed to address.
The evidence gathered through Liverpool Dances, alongside wider national context, points to something consistent. Dance requires infrastructure if it is to thrive. Talent, energy and audience appetite alone are not enough. Without dedicated capacity to coordinate, advocate and invest over the long term, dance becomes fragmented and vulnerable, no matter how strong individual activity might be.
Across the UK, independent dance development organisations remain a common feature of healthier dance ecologies. They exist to do work that individual artists, venues or time-limited initiatives cannot reasonably carry alone: supporting artist development, growing audiences, connecting communities, enabling collaboration and holding a strategic view of the sector as a whole. Liverpool is now unusual in not having that dedicated capacity.
It is also worth considering the alternative models that are often proposed.
Festivals play a vital role in visibility, celebration and audience engagement, but they are not designed to carry year-round responsibility for sector development. Their focus is necessarily time-bound, and their resources are often stretched simply delivering the event itself. Without wider infrastructure around them, festivals can struggle to translate momentum into sustained impact.
Embedding dance development within an existing organisation or venue can bring advantages, but it also comes with constraints. Institutions have their own priorities, pressures and governance structures. Dance development work, particularly in its early stages, is rarely self-financing and is often vulnerable when budgets tighten or strategic priorities shift. When dance is one priority among many, it risks becoming diluted or deprioritised.
An independent organisation, by contrast, exists solely to serve the dance ecology. Its purpose is clear. Its accountability is sector-wide. It can advocate without conflict, fundraise across a wider range of sources, and build partnerships without being constrained by another organisation’s core business. Independence is not about separation from the sector, but about clarity, neutrality and trust.
Importantly, recommending a new organisation does not mean recreating the past. Any future model would need to operate differently: with stronger governance, greater transparency, a clearer focus on inclusivity and a more resilient approach to funding and partnership. The context has changed, and expectations rightly have too.
What has not changed is the scale of the task. No single artist, venue or organisation can realistically coordinate something as complex and interconnected as a city-region dance ecology alongside their existing responsibilities. Dedicated capacity is required to hold the bigger picture, to join the dots and to support others to do their best work.
Liverpool has the talent. It has committed artists and practitioners. It has audiences who want more. What it currently lacks is the infrastructure to bring those elements together in a coherent, sustainable way.
Rebuilding that infrastructure will not be straightforward. It will require investment, patience and trust. But dismissing the model of a dance development organisation because of what happened before risks confusing past organisational challenges with the ongoing needs of the sector.
Dance in Liverpool deserves the opportunity to thrive again, supported by a structure designed to serve it, learn from the past and help it grow into the future.