Change Strategy

The Change Strategy is a project that DANZ is undertaking with support from Creative New Zealand and will be led by Lyne Pringle who will work alongside Tania Kopytko, Linda Lim, Marianne Schultz and the rest of the DANZ team.

The aim of the project is to work in some specific areas of the professional sector of the dance industry to better understand the issues that have been identified through various reviews as being concerns or barriers. The Change Strategy process will tease out the problems and identify some appropriate actions and responsibilities based on the aim of moving forward.

The timeline for the project is through to 2017 but it is anticipated that the project will stretch through until 2018/19. The purpose of the initiative is to move towards achieving real change in the dance industry. It focuses on specific issues identified by: feedback received from the industry through the CNZ Dance review completed in 2014 and specific feedback to DANZ through its core interface with stakeholders.

The areas of focus are:

• Best Practice including: legal contracts; health and safety, working environments
• Sustainability including: longevity; the independent sector; joint data bases (CRM); audience development; sharing resources (between organisations and dance professionals); reframing links between professional and community dance
• Spaces including: new models of practice; how space can be shared (tertiary institutions); external stakeholder partnerships such as City Councils

Many of the three key areas are interlinked.
We will be consulting widely with the industry with a preliminary meeting planned for June in Auckland to talk with companies and independents about contracts.
The process for interaction with the industry will involve:

DANZ will be consulting widely with the industry in a process that involves:

Key Research (KR)
DANZ scopes the sector and gathers research about the issues.

Industry Focus Group (IFG)

One to one or cluster meetings with topic focused experts or key people in the industry involved in the issue to ‘gather the environmental picture’ which includes evaluating and compiling feedback to the IG (see below).

Industry Group (IG)

Discussing the findings from the IFG with key organisations; dance companies, independents and key stakeholders. Developing a strategy for action that defines:

• The issue clearly
• What can be done
• What is DANZ’s service role
• What are other roles i.e. other stakeholders or the sector as a whole (CNZ) MOE, MCH, City Councils)

Once further information is gathered it is evaluated and compiled for feedback to the stakeholders and to DANZ.

Wider Industry (WI)
Key findings are shared with the wider industry and DANZ stakeholders through dissemination of information via DANZ Magazine, website, social media and forums. A good example is the Dance Industry Strategy published by DANZ that could be revisited and reviewed with regard to this Change Strategy.