ABSTRACT
Dance, then, is a political as well as a social and aesthetic issue. So, too, is choreographic creation. The parameters of this unspoken struggle around the nature and aesthetic impact of choreography in British dance culture were extended recently by two small polemics against the Gulbenkian Report, The Arts in Schools.1 Published in 1982 the report was reissued in 1989 because of widespread impact and response throughout the British education system. It is one of the basic texts in forming the Palmer Press series of which this volume is a part. Belatedly, and for reasons which are obscure, two respected members of the education profession, the philosopher David Best, and the educationalist, Malcolm Ross, decided to question the report’s significance seven years late. Ross did so only in 19892 and Best later still at the beginning of 1990.3 Ross’ criticism was that the report was ‘a piece of bureaucratic writing’, had no pedagogues among its advisory committee and generally encouraged more than it could deliver. In fact, the report’s advisory committee balanced members with teaching experience against those without, as the report’s list of its committee makes clear, and the Foundation’s planned follow-up to the report included meetings of teachers throughout the country, the launch of an arts magazine Arts Express and, ultimately, the Arts in Schools Project for the School Curriculum Development Committee of the National Curriculum Council. The SCDC reported early in 19904 and some of its conclusions are incorporated in this chapter.
