NDCWales Chair reflects on achieving greater diversity in dance
We believe that diversifying who works with us – as staff, board members, artists – is key to broadening the range of people who watch our work and participate in our engagement programmes. Having a diversity of thought, experience, background and knowledge inside the Company means that we reflect a wider range of people’s experience and aspirations when it comes to planning our work.
In my 4 years as Chair of the trustees at National Dance Company Wales, we’ve spent time thinking about how we can create that change and have set ourselves ambitious goals for our diversity. It’s important for us to be an organisation that reflects modern Wales, because if we don’t, we simply cannot achieve our priorities of social justice, innovation, and becoming more resilient. Achieving a greater diversity of people in the organisation is central to achieving those goals and thriving, so it’s non-negotiable. That’s why we’re determined to continue the change we’ve started, learning from our experiences as we go.
Our Strategic Equality Plan highlights the targets we’ve set in partnership with the Arts Council of Wales. We have set ambitious targets for improving diversity in our staff and board, particularly in relation to three of the protected characteristics: race, disability and sexual orientation. We’re ready to be judged on whether we meet those targets and will provide a report on progress towards the targets we’ve set for 23/24 in 12 months’ time.
We’re not going to achieve those targets simply by setting them and changing recruitment processes, or advertising in new places. We also need cultural change inside the organisation to ensure that we’re an inclusive workplace where people are safe and supported to express and share the richness of who they are.
26% of our workforce identifies as LGBTQ+, including three quarters of our leadership team, but we’d like to go further and have set a target of 40% by 23/24. And we’ve much further to go in terms of disabled staff and board – 13% are disabled, well short of the Welsh population average of almost 22% of adults. Our diversity plans in relation to ethnicity focus on African diaspora people, South, East and South East Asian diaspora people, Middle East and North African people, and other ethnically diverse people – in other words, people who experience racism. We aim to reflect the population of Cardiff, where around 20% of the population falls into one of these groups. Again, we’ve got a way to go, with 14% currently being ethnically diverse.
Whilst we’re making progress on workforce diversity, diversity of our audiences and participants is changing more gradually. As we’ve increased our audiences, diversity has improved, not least as a result of the work our team of Dance Ambassadors is doing around Wales, working with primarily young people to develop an interest in dance. We’re now developing new programmes, inspired by the principles of co-creation to be truly inclusive of communities who have been most devastated by the pandemic.
We’d like to talk to other organisations and individuals about how we can create the change required. We know that we don’t have all the knowledge we need – so we are up for discussions with others where we can share learning and experiences.
If you want to get in touch, please do – either with me direct or our Chief Executive Paul Kaynes.