While balancing parenthood and a career is always difficult, professionals in the field of dance face some specific challenges due to inherent industry features. For this reason, President's Excellence in Teaching Professor of Dance and Honors, Associate Head of Dance, and Graduate Dance Director at Texas Tech University, Dr. Ali Duffy, co-founded the International Parenting and Dance Network.
In 2020, while researching for her book Dancing Motherhood, Dr. Duffy was contacted by Lucy McCrudden, the UK’s Dance Mama, who found they had much in common. They discussed how “the arts are typically inaccessible
in certain ways to parents and pregnant people and then pregnancy and parenthood becomes
somewhat inaccessible for certain artists just because of the structure of what we
do and the requirements of it,” said Dr. Duffy.
Duffy and McCrudden co-founded the organization, bringing in professionals from across the world. Notably, Aoife McGrath of Queens University Belfast is the network's Primary Investigator and grant writer. The group received a grant from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to develop three seminars over two years.
On September 13th, Texas Tech’s School of Theatre and Dance played host to the International Parenting and Dance Network’s third seminar in the Charles E. Maedgen Jr. Theatre: the first international conference hosted by the School. The presenters, along with the online audience, included people from all over the world. Duffy believes, “It’s helpful in terms of advocacy and activism to be able to point to what’s working well abroad to bring those opportunities here to working parents in the arts.” IPADN seeks to improve this discourse in the future by incorporating individuals from a wider variety of countries.
The title of the seminar was Researching Parenting and Dance: Exploring the Economic, Political, and Sociocultural Contexts. It focused on “what changes or transformations at the organizational, federal, state, even individual level can we make to make this possible for people or to make it more exciting so that people will stay in the field,” remarked Dr. Duffy.
A variety of events took place on the day including research presentations, film screenings, performances, and a workshop. The workshop, led by Associate Professor Madeline Jazz Harvey of Colorado State University, had guests exploring dance-based exercises that help pregnant people and new parents to build attachments with their infants.
Several presenters expressed how COVID-19 impacted dancing parents. Choreographer, Yvonne Montoya, was planning her live show, Stories From Home, when the pandemic postponed performances. However, she persisted and changed the show to an online format entitled Stories From Home: Covid-19 Addendum. Staying home inspired her to create several pieces with her 5th grade son that explored their experience both as mother/son and the pandemic itself.
Professor Angela Pickard of Canterbury Christ Church University and Anna Ehnold-Danailov, Co-CEO and Creative Director of PiPA, UK shared the needs of parents and carers in their places of work. Some of these include the need for flexible scheduling, support when returning from leave, and time for breast feeding. They also offered some ways businesses can support these dancers by giving advanced notice of work hours, posting available resources, and even job shares. They emphasized that parents and carers stepping away from their careers means that the industry loses their talents and skills, so businesses should do what they can to keep them in their jobs.
Guests were also treated to performances by TTU Dance Students, the Texas Tech Pom Squad, and Flatlands Dance Theatre. Reflecting on the seminar, TTU student, Savannah Baker, said, “This kind of settles my fears about the future and what that can look like with dance.”
“What has been so exciting for me is the amount of support that has come from the school, from our director, Mark Charney, particularly, and from the college,” remarked Dr. Duffy. This was made clear by the presence of students, faculty, and the greater Lubbock community. Charney, who attended the conference, remarked, “This is an incredibly successful undertaking by Dr. Duffy and the staff of our School. Participants learned more than I ever expected about subjects of parenthood, yes, but also sustainability and generous work practices. I could not be more grateful to Dr. Duffy and her international guests.”
IPADN co-founder Lucy McCrudden hopes that guests left the seminar with “heartening strength in continuing work in this important area of interest from connecting with a passionate and dedicated community of researchers and practitioners.”