Six Big-Picture Principles
- A Census establishes the boundaries and key parameters of the complete dance population. Any subsequent research,especially where sampling is involved, gains credibility when it draws on population boundaries documented by a Census.
- A Census quantifies aspects of the dance population often only guessed-at, estimated or asserted. Within the dance field, “everyone knows” certain things. The challenge is to communicate these things to parties outside the field. Quantified information is essential.
- Experience shows that a Census is likely to disclose important findings hitherto unknown. The dance field is so accustomed to operating without data that we often don’t know what it is that we don’t know. Censuses in Chicago and Washington, and a sampling in San Francisco, have all produced unexpected findings.
- A Census illuminates contexts, providing a basis for rigorous comparisons within the subject dance community and with other communities. Artists and Managers can identify their place in the dance ecology, thus informing strategic planning choices. The media and funders can get the big picture.
- A Census can serve in the future as an historic baseline. Without a baseline, trends can be tested only through sampling, which becomes questionable across time when the parameters of the population are not known. If you know benchmarks in 2005, you can compare in 2010.
- The process of taking a Census and publishing findings stimulates new communications both within and about the dance field.
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