July 23, 2001

Dance/USA Receives $75,000 from The Chicago Community Trust to Launch the
Chicago Dance Mapping Project

Dance/USA has received $75,000 from The Chicago Community Trust to administer its Chicago Dance Mapping Project, a survey and analysis of the dance community in the Chicago area. The Chicago Dance Mapping Project will survey the demographic landscape of the dance community in the six-county region inclusive of and surrounding Chicago. Mapping the greater Chicago dance community is essential as a first step to improve and strengthen the quality of dance in Chicago - the results will provide the Trust and other funders with a factual view of the people, places, and art they are dedicated to helping - and raise its visibility on a national level. The Chicago Dance Mapping Project will provide real data to combat misperceptions about the relationship of the art form to the general public, will be useful as an audience development tool, and will provide a baseline of information for the Chicago dance community to work with. Also, results from this mapping would assist Dance/USA in its effort to be of greater and better service on a regional level, whether it be by supporting advocacy efforts on behalf of the Chicago dance field or by providing professional development opportunities designed specifically to improve the capacities of dance artists, administrators, presenters, and other dance professionals in the area. In consultation with an advisory group of Chicago's leading dance professionals, some of the questions to be researched by Dance/USA include the variety of dance that exists in Chicago, where it is taught and presented, and the number of artists and companies working around the city. Dance/USA's Director of Information and Research, John Munger, will head the project. Munger issues Dance/USA's annual data surveys of its member companies, which collect detailed financial information, and he recently wrote "Dancing with Dollars in the Millennium: A Ten-Year Summary of Trends," which was published as a supplement to the April issue of Dance Magazine.