Dance supremo is heading for London

May 28 2007 By David Whetstone, The Journal

A prominent figure on the North-East arts scene, dance supremo Janet Archer is now taking her leave. David Whetstone talks to her about a job well done.

The film Billy Elliot - along with its long-running West End stage version - helped to kybosh any notion that dance doesn't happen in the North-East. But Janet Archer's contribution, arguably, has been more significant.

After 16 years at the helm of Dance City, during which she doesn't appear to have aged at all, she is preparing to step on to a bigger stage as director of dance strategy at Arts Council England. She will be based in London but will retain a desk in Newcastle.

Since they headhunted her, she was able to negotiate terms. A place to escape to, in a region she has come to love, must have seemed a small price to pay for her services.

When I first interviewed Janet it was in the old Dance City, a converted warehouse on Peel Lane. I remember an assortment of chairs and an atmosphere of excitement and optimism not quite matched by visible resources.

"The building is as we left it," says Janet. "We have tried to have a discussion with the city council about redeveloping it as a production space for performing artists so there is a dialogue.

"My view is that one of the most critical things you can give to an artist at an early stage in their career is space. All kinds of things, and sometimes quite unexpected things, can come out of that.

"We are seeing this building act as a magnet for artists working across disciplines. They are just spilling into every available space. It would be fantastic if we could create a base for developing new performing arts businesses."

Janet Archer is a dance fanatic with a shrewd business head. Her legacy to the North-East will be a host of dance initiatives involving many diverse communities, a host of opportunities to study dance as a practical and an academic subject and an increasing number of dance professionals attracting national and international attention from inside the region.

It will also be the magnet of a new building she refers to, which is spanking new, airy and with matching furniture. The £7.6m, purpose-built facility opened in autumn 2005 beside St James' Boulevard. It was meant to give dance a bit more elbow room and it has done so.

But Janet is not one to rest on her laurels. According to her, the place is already full up. "There is pressure on space," she says. "We have only been open just over 18 months but already 100,000 people have danced in the building.

"For our more popular classes we are already having to turn people away and it's heartbreaking to have to do that. We know we could run lots more of these classes."

One of these popular classes is called Dancing Babies which suggests legions of Billy Elliots might be emerging in years to come.

Remembering her arrival in September 1991 to run Dance City, one of 10 newly created national dance agencies established by the Arts Council, Janet says: "It felt a bit bleak. Dance Umbrella had an office in the building and ran a festival in 1990, and then again in 1992, and there were some classes going on.

"But there was a sense of uncertainty, of not knowing quite what a national dance agency was going to be. And in terms of the city and the region, culture wasn't on anybody's agenda at that time.

But Janet says she has never found people difficult to deal with or unreceptive in the North-East.

Coming to the region from South Wales via Hertfordshire, she quickly realised that "if you can articulate a real passion for something, people are generally quite willing to listen and to help". Back in 1991, she recalls, dance didn't have a very high profile in the region. "It was operating from a converted warehouse down a back lane that nobody knew about and, as a consequence of that, people working in dance didn't have a huge sense of self-esteem or confidence."

Anyone can see that has changed. There are more visiting dance companies performing here than ever before and there is a huge growth in homegrown dance talent making its presence felt. In the new Dance City people walk with a spring in their step.

"Where we are now," says Janet, "is that we've got one of the most fantastic dance centres in Europe in a very visible location, and I think the balance of community and professional work is just right. There is a spirit in this building of people having achieved things."

But in June, Janet will be off. "They rang and asked if I'd be interested in the post and I was getting to the stage where I was thinking: what should I be doing next? But at the same time not doing very much about it. Dance City is a fantastic place to work with a fantastic group of people and I hadn't any concrete plans."

She says, dance has never been more popular. More people are watching and taking part and, thanks largely to TV reality shows, it has become more mainstream. "There have probably never been more dancers, choreographers and dance workers in this country," she says.

In Janet Archer all these people will have a capable champion. If she can extend that buoyant sense of achievement across the whole country, she will have proved beyond doubt that she was the right person for the job. And while she's about that, it's inconceivable that the North-East won't benefit too.

Janet Archer answers our My Culture questionnaire in the Culture magazine, published free with The Journal tomorrow.