The quality of the dance is reflected by the community that you build around it. It doesn't matter if they're black or white or Hispanic or whatever, wherever they're from, dance immediately connects you to somebody. And it just creates this intimacy almost with someone, even if they're across the room. Everybody has different gifts. We want it unique and inspired in their own way. The choreographic process of creating a dance that expresses an experience is empowering. The how that we did it that's so important in the story. When you dance, everybody sees everything about you.  In my end-of-the-art world, dance is really stretching to make changes about how dance is produced and what is dance. It's your voice and nobody can teach you that you are responsible for finding it, for exploring it, and for figuring out how to make that voice become embodied in a dance. I think that dance and art should be meaningful, and I feel like you need to think about something that's relevant, a story to tell. Thank you. I'm excited and honored to be supporting Dance USA and its membership at this year's conference. In 2007, I was first invited to speak at the Dance USA conference in Chicago. I became immediately enamored of the organization, the passion, the enthusiasm of its performers, the administrators, and supporters. Ever since then, I've been trying to find a way to get to each conference every year, so I finally figured it out. Although we work with numerous organizations and their members in the arts community, I find that Dance USA has a unique passion and vitality that's shown through the honorees, through the individuals, and the commitment they have to their art form. I can say that this is one of my favorite events on an annual basis. To give an analogy, we find that the first dance company that I actually worked with was Plobalus in 2005, and as I was going up to their office in the woods of Connecticut, my alternator fell off of my 1985 Mercedes going up the New Jersey Turnpike. So they stapled it on, but I went to a car dealership and they sold me three batteries. So I stuck them in the back, and as I would drop one in, it would slowly eventually wind down, and so we just drop another one in. So that got us into their offices, and it was a white-knuckle trip, but I got back to Baltimore. And I find that at budget time and over the years, a lot of our clients have also experienced the white-knuckledness of the budgeting process or everything else. But the companies preserve here, they survive and they continue, which is amazing. And I can say that every year I find the commitment even greater. So I want to thank Amy, her staff, the board, the trustees, and the membership of DanceUSA. Please continue your fierceness and your dedication as we'll be in the seats. Thank you. Amy Fitterer, Executive Director of DanceUSA. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome officially to Austin, Texas. It's so great to be here. So I am just very excited to be sitting here looking at all of you and also to know that we have a live stream going on. So I would like to take a moment and welcome everybody who is also with us on the live stream. As you have seen through last night and some of the videos, there is just great dance here in Austin, Texas. And we continue to try to unearth and unpack this really vibrant community and showcase it nationally so that all of you can come back and continue to engage with this dance community. As you know, the DanceUSA conference is put together through many different partnerships, sponsors, funders, the staff, the board, and of course the local community. So I would like to start us off by thanking those people who have helped make this conference possible. If you could please hold your applause until I've gotten through the initial listing, that would be great. I would like to acknowledge our major foundation sponsors, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, and the Schubert Foundation. I would also like to acknowledge our host partners, Ballet Austin, the City of Austin, Sterling Events, the Long Center, and the Palmer Events Center. Thank you. We also have more host partners this year than we've had in past conference cities in our campus style. So I would like to acknowledge the Austin Symphony, the University of Texas Department of Theater and Dance, Retail Me Not, IBC Bank, and the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau. Thank you. And as you heard from Bob just now, I would like to acknowledge our platinum sponsor, the Arts Insurance Program. This year DanceUSA has some very special gold sponsors, really long time supporters of dance in our country, DeWitt Stern, Harlequin, and Patrick and Jeanette Keating. Thank you so much for your support. And our silver sponsors are Capacity Interactive, Freed of London, KLRU who made those beautiful videos that we've been seeing of the dance community, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. This year's bronze sponsors are Arts Consulting Group, Body Rappers, Management Consultants for the Arts, and Ovation. Thank you for your support. If you've been enjoying the Wi-Fi, if you've been enjoying the plugging and charging stations, if you've been playing around on the mobile lab, a lot of our technology is sponsored by KMP, so thank you for that. And in true Austin style, those of you who know Whole Foods was started here, so we've got Whole Foods as a sponsor, the Alamo Draft House, Kind Bars, TIFS Treats, and HEB. So it really takes a lot of people to pull this conference off. So, let's take a moment to acknowledge who's here in Austin. You can take a look here up on this map. We have conference attendees from all over the country, which is just fabulous.  And if you have been coming to a dance with us, say, conferences for more than 10 years, raise your hand. Woo! Look at that. What about 20 years? This field is not nearly as big as we think it is, so these are your allies, your colleagues, your peers. Please reach out to each other, learn from each other. This is why we come together, to acknowledge that we can have a fellowship together in supporting dance. So many of you are aware, DanceUSA has core values of equity, inclusion, and diversity. And I think it's really important that we take these on as values, and not just a program here or an activity there. Having it be a value means that this is something that all the work that DanceUSA does must pass through this value. We're certainly not perfect all of the time, but we're steadfast in our commitment to keep trying to be a more equitable, a more inclusive, and a more diverse organization. We also want to be working with all of you to be helping you and learning from you about how can we make our field more equitable. We are living in a very, very complicated time. It's exciting, it's full of opportunity, but it's also fraught with a lot of social change. Just in the past year, when I think about the things that I have been having to deal with as an executive director of an arts nonprofit, we have tremendous racial issues going on in this country, and we all need to fight for racial justice. There also are many different populations in this country that are oppressed and overlooked. And so really taking the time to understand what your personal power is and your personal privileges to help you understand how can you help your fellow man, because together we need to be supporting each other to conquer what's going on in this world. I have also been having to deal with constant increase in single shooter issues, and the National Endowment for the Arts had convening in the past six months with a handful of arts leaders and individuals from FEMA and the Department of Interior to talk about emergency preparedness. This is something that is so low on a lot of our agendas as arts leaders, because we're overworked and under-resourced, and how on earth do we make this a priority. But we have some very serious problems with natural disasters and the single shooter and active shooter issues that are going on in this country. So we need to think about that as well, which is really complicated when we're trying to also think about all the other issues. And then of course, there's the religious freedom bills that we're passing through in the states. And these are discriminatory in their nature. So how do we deal with this if you run an arts organization in one of those states? So these are just some of the few issues that are coming at us from all corners. The funding sources continue to change. Our audiences continue to change. So how do we deal with this? That's why we need to be together, to figure this stuff out together. So a couple of programs that Dan Chua-Se is doing. One, we're really excited to be moving forward with our staff residency program. This is to help Dan Chua-Se get on the ground. You know, we're based in Washington, D.C. And it can be hard to really feel that you understand what's going on in local dance communities unless you are there in person. So we're very excited that we are going to be relocating staff for a period of time to New Orleans, Kansas City, Portland, and Las Vegas. This will be taking place over the next 12 months. You will be able to hear and learn about our findings and our experiences at next year's conference in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition, a very important activity that Dan Chua-Se has been doing is expanding our national company roster. This is a listing of all 501C3 dance companies in the United States with budgets above $100,000. Up until recently, we stopped at that $100,000 marker. And we did not collect information on companies with budgets smaller than that. The listing had about 400 companies on it. It's the most visited webpage that we have. Well, we are expanding it to not have a budget constraint. And we are hoping that by the first quarter of 2017, we will be able to have a listing of all 501C3 dance companies in our country, regardless of budget size. And it will be free and available on our website. In addition, as many of you know, not everybody wants to have their own 501C3. And for some artists, for decades, they have not had their own 501C3. Whether or not you have your own 501C3 status does not mean that you are a gray artist or not. It has no impact on your quality of your art. DanceUSA wants to recognize those arts groups out there that are working under a fiscal sponsor. And so to go along with our listing of 501C3 dance companies, we will also be growing a list of fiscally sponsored dance groups to validate and recognize them on our website as well. Another area that we have been working on is trying to reach the smaller budget dance groups and the independent artists. And so we are thrilled to be partnering with Fractured Atlas for a second year and to be hosting Dance Business Boot Camp. So this is all day tomorrow. If you are an independent artist, fiscally sponsored, or you work in a budget size $200,000 or lower, you are welcome to go to Dance Business Boot Camp. This is going to be broken up into two parts in the morning and then in the afternoon. And it is free to all Austin dance artists with the generous support of the City of Austin's Economic Development Department. So thank you to the city for that support. We are also trying to balance out some of our work. You know, we still do the dance forum every January in New York City as a pre-conference event to APAP. This year we are trying out a pilot. We are going to do Dance Forum West at WAH in August. It will be in Los Angeles on August 29th. And because one of the biggest issues in our country in the dance field is about touring and performance opportunities and how that is so drastically changing, it is getting very hard, and that we are finding artists are fighting to find ways to perform. So we are going to continue to take a look at the relationships that you are making to create performance opportunities. And also at WAH, we are going to be taking a look at how do you market the lesser known artist so that presenters can feel confident in putting you on stage. So you have probably been hearing about Dance USA's partnership with the Wallace Foundation. Again, trying to understand our changing environment, the Wallace Foundation has a major national program on building audiences for dance. Dance USA, along with our other National Arts Service organizations, is serving as the communication sponsor. The Wallace Foundation has generously put this research report into all of your tote bags, taking out the guesswork, a guide to using research to build arts audiences. The Wallace Foundation convened a group of NSO leaders earlier this year, and one of the things I was most struck by was the power of really, really, really good market research. And also realizing that because we are frequently under resourced, we don't do the market research that we need to do. So I am grateful that the Wallace Foundation has been putting together their learning to share it with all of us. You'll also know that later today we're going to have a breakout session featuring two grantees who are just in the beginning of their work with the Wallace Foundation, but they have completed extensive market research with the support of the Wallace Foundation. So you'll get to learn, hear from them, what did they learn about their communities? What did they find as a surprising fact about their dance audiences, and how are they thinking about changing their work to be more responsive? So we have a very special guest with us today. Many of you know that there is a new program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Maureen Knighton is here with us to say some welcoming remarks to all of you. She's been very generous with her time. She was here all day yesterday with our Engaging Dance Audience grantees, and she's speaking on a panel later today. So it is my great pleasure to introduce the wonderful and exciting Maureen Knighton. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks, Amy, for that wonderful and generous introduction, and also thanks to you and the DanceUSA board for the invitation to be with you. I'm here on behalf, of course, of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, very pleased to be with you, and I'm bringing greetings on behalf of our CEO Ed Henry, our board of directors and the staff at DDCF, and of course my colleagues in the arts program, Cheryl LeCamia and Lillian Ossie Botang. I've been a longtime supporter of dance, but never imagined myself in this position to provide even more support to the field, so I really feel a special privilege and responsibility in that regard, and I'm very excited about the work we have ahead of us collectively. I've been a presenter, I've been a funder, and a lifelong fan of the discipline, so I'm truly excited. I've been on the job now just about seven weeks, and although I've not been there long, I know. Okay, but listen to this part. You know, I've been meeting with a lot of grantees, and they all want to know, have you decided what the arts program is going to do next? Well, I haven't. I feel like I need to spend a little more time getting to know the grantees and doing some research before making any radical changes. I'm going to take my time with doing that, so although I can't tell you precisely what we're going to be doing two years from now or even a year from now, I can tell you this. The Daris Duke Charitable Foundation is absolutely going to continue to support dance at the levels it's currently supporting the field, and it's my hope that we'll find new and additional ways to support the field. This is what Daris wanted. It also happens to be what I'd like, so that works out neatly, doesn't it? On that note, I want to wrap up by announcing that the DDCF Board recently approved a $1.9 million grant to DanceUSA to support round four of engaging dance audiences. We are really pleased with what we've seen happen through that program already. We look forward to continuing to learn from and with the participants in that program as well as from the field at large, and I look forward to meeting many of you over the remainder of the conference. Enjoy. Thank you. Let's just have one more really big round of applause for the Daris Duke Charitable Foundation. I know we're in good hands with Maureen, and her years of experience at the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone and 651 Art, she is just going to be a wonderful ally as we tackle all of these issues in our country. So now I just have a couple of fun logistics, then we get to go on to the plenary and the conversation. I'm obsessed with our mobile app. So if you're not on it, can you please get on the mobile app? And if you want me to help you, I'm happy to help you figure out how to get on the mobile app. It is a conference that's taking place virtually at the same time that this conference is taking place. You can post any of your thoughts, your ideas, your questions. You can challenge each other. You can respond to each other. It's real-time dialogue. And one of the things that I also love is we can't be in all the places at the same time, and there's some very, very interesting breakout sessions going on later today and over the next two days. But when I'm sitting in a breakout session, if I glance down at the mobile app, I can see some of the comments that are going on, and later I can actually catch up on some of the discussion that took place. We also have some competitions because who doesn't love games? So the leaderboard, we actually, as you know, if you're on it, we're tracking who's winning, how many posts, you know, you're doing. So we give prizes. And if it'll be at the closing plenary, we're going to announce the winners, and the staff keeps this a surprise for me, what the prizes are, but we will announce them at the closing. So keep posting. Those of you who are really competitive. And then we've already launched our selfie scavenger hunt. So you're just going to have to follow what's going on on the mobile app and the directions and the hints come up, and then you have to go somewhere, take a selfie with something and post it on the mobile app. I think you need to make sure that you post with the correct hashtags or else it won't count. Registration. This is a good place to get your questions answered. So please go to the registration table at any point during our conference for any kind of question. And then the staff. We wear badges that have blue ribbons on the bottom. So if you see anybody that's a staff person, please, well, first thank them because we're actually a really small staff. So this is like our big event for the year. And then ask them your question. So now it is my pleasure to introduce you to Ron Berry, who's going to moderate what I think is going to be a very interesting discussion with our plenary speakers. I hope that they get to really go deeper. I was listening to their conversation in the green room just now, and I was like, wow, I should just be filming this. Ron Berry is the founder and artistic director of Fusebox Austin. This is a multi-disciplinary arts organization. In over a decade that it's been around, it has won over 200 awards. It runs a major arts festival here.  And I feel very confident that you are going to be in good hands listening to this dialogue. This is also the first time we've ever done this this year. We have opening and closing plenaries are the exact same group of people. And not all of them have come to a Dance USA conference before. So they are going to help us be a mirror for your experience. So they're going to go through the conference all tomorrow, later today, and on Saturday. And then at the end of Saturday, they're going to come back and they're going to reflect as well. So I hope that you enjoy listening with them and then dialoguing with them over the next two days. So I'll be back at the end of the plenary, but enjoy. Thank you. Awesome. Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for being here. It's a real pleasure and an honor. I'm Ron Berry from Fusebox. I'm here with some esteemed, fabulous, amazing colleagues. We're setting this up as a very sort of informal conversation about some really juicy, I think, juicy topics that are really vital and relevant. I don't know if any of you have seen this TED Talk about experts. There's this kind of wonderful, they're talking about how when you're in conversation with someone who has been framed as a sort of expert, like literally part of your brain shuts down. So I thought that was super interesting and actually has all kinds of implications and we can sort those out over the next few days. But I think that also to me had implications for this. We are not experts. We are peers. We are here hashing things out along with you and we look forward to hashing these things out over the next three, three, four days and then on into our lives. So that's kind of the spirit of this thing. There's kind of three or four general topics that we're looking at today. We're looking at funding. We're looking at technology and we're looking at the social responsibility of dance and equity issues, which are obviously huge and vital and things we all need to be looking at. So we're just going to say a few words about ourselves and then we're going to jump in and then we'll talk with you all afterwards about this stuff. So she gave a quick intro of myself. We're a non-profit arts organization here in Austin. We just finished our 12th edition. We started very small. We had a budget of $5,000 our first year and we've slowly built our organization and our annual festival over the past 12 years. It began with really an idea and a desire to create a more meaningful exchange of ideas across art forms and across geography. I was a theater artist working in Austin and I think sometimes there's this notion that if you keep working at something you'll slowly get better and better at it and for me I just felt like I was hitting my head against the same wall for like six years in a row and then like in a two-minute conversation with an artist from the UK I was like, oh my god, thank you.  So I'm a big believer in this notion of exchange and encountering ideas that are perhaps outside of your immediate sphere and that's sort of what we've built our festival around and we've tried to build on that and invite other perspectives and vantage points into the shaping of what we're doing and that's really at the heart of what we're doing. So that's a little bit about me. Do you want to say a few words about yourself? Sure. My name is Prakash Mohandas. I am the founder of Agni Dance Company here in Austin and Agni Entertainment. We started back in 2007 as a first Bollywood dance company in Austin and since then we've branched out into performance, education, fitness and we also have an entertainment company that does touring Bollywood musicals in the US and Canada and we work on film projects as well. These are cross-border film projects that we mostly fund through film funds and other avenues. So we do a gamut of things but we're really happy to call Austin our home. Thank you. Sandra? My name is Sandra Orgen-Sildis and I was formerly a dancer with Houston Valley as its first black ballerina and after my career dancing with them I started my own dance company called Sandra Orgen Dance Company and I proceeded to change to earthen vessels and that took its course 16 seasons and I dissolved the company a couple years ago and I've now relocated to the Texas Hill Country with my husband and I'm in a bit of a transition right now teaching a little bit here and there and trying to meet the needs a bit of a more retirement community which is underserved I would say in dance. And they need to be more served and we'll talk a little bit more about that later but I'm happy to be here and bring my perspective and I'm getting to know the Austin Dance community as well I'm rather new to it I'm also straddling a little bit of work in the San Antonio area so I'm just trying to put down new roots in the Texas Hill Country. Awesome, thank you. I'm Elliot Gray Fisher I'm co-director of Arcos Dance which is five years old and we relocated from Santa Fe to Austin about two and a half years ago we focus on multimedia performance so we're trying to figure out how to create the intersection of dance, film, theater new media and visual art and we're also excited to be part of the Austin community now we've found it very fruitful since we've moved here Awesome, thank you. So let's just dive we're just going to start talking about stuff we were actually having a really kind of spirited fun conversation in the green room about technology so I just wanted to start with that little nugget I think it's also particularly interesting in Austin that is in a city that is experiencing I mean just massive change right now and a lot of that is being driven by the technology sector there's tons of companies and businesses moving here it's a city that is very technologically savvy in many ways and so I actually think that makes a lot of sense there's a lot to unpack and talk about that but so I just kind of open this up to all three of you and how you think about technology I mean I always sort of think about both the sort of infinite possibilities of technology and what we're able to do now that perhaps we weren't able to do but the other thing is just really interesting to look at like what's happening to us culturally like what is our relationship with technology like this has become a new universal sort of gesture and like body position everyone knows what that is like that's weird like what's happening to us so let's just dig in start talking this is the kind of action we're getting back to we were not like this in the dressing room well our company is invested in working with technology deeply invested in working with technology and our perspective is we kind of try to take a historical look at it and we see we consider all of the things that we work with technologies so dance is a technology we include narrative storytelling very old technologies and then there have been waves of new technologies and every time that they roll around we have similar reactions what the hell is happening to us it's like electricity 100 years ago the automobile all of these things were major major issues and we like to think that maybe this time that we're living in is unique but maybe it's a little less so than we'd like to think so what are these digital technologies what you said is they give the promise at least of kind of endless possibilities which is in some ways terrifying because as artists we want some kind of limitations and limits in which to work and we don't know how to use them they are changing very quickly so that produces some anxiety and what we try to do with our work is both try to figure out how to use these technologies that are being created and make that a conversation that we're having with the audience so the way that we use technology is visible and we're interested in telling new stories and creating a mythology that reflects our contemporary society and the contemporary way that we use these new technologies so you don't tell them to turn off your cell phones sometimes in fact if they come to the show that we're going to be a part of tomorrow night and Saturday night before our piece we ask everyone to take out and turn on their cell phones and we'll see how that goes awesome and what's your relationship with technology how are you thinking about it well I think I would think about it in two ways I think technology and when I'm talking about technology I'm talking about digital technology I think that differs in the way you think about it if you are an individual dancer dancing by yourself you don't want anybody to watch and you're a dancer and that's your passion that's fine but digital technology takes a different shape for you if you are a performance artist if you want other people to see your work if you want the world to see your work if you want to reach out to other artists that's a completely different ballgame because think about this like if you were a dancer maybe 20 years ago 30 years ago and there was no internet how much dance you know how much you know about other dance forms and how many dancers you know across the world there's a big difference in that so adopting technology to me as a performance artist to me is almost inherent it's something that it's a very active part of a performance artist's life as a tool to connect and share dance ideas practices in my world it links to funding as well because a big part of that is being in funding or when you're talking to investors or other private donors is to show the networking capability your outreach so I can't imagine anybody not pitching the idea that I have a website that reaches I don't know a million people like these kind of numbers are so important to the way we think about dance and the way we think about how people fund it that it's almost impossible to not adopt that's super interesting and we'll get back to the funding thing in a moment but I'm glad that you brought that up that's exciting well with my dance company I found that having an idea of how many people come to the website or how many hits was a great demographic or information to throw into a grant you know report to say that we're reaching more people through those means as well as through blogs which is kind of probably old school to all y'all up here on the stage but I think about the sites that are hosted by our peers and I was very impressed with the memoirs of blacksinballet.org and there's some representatives of that here today because you know it's a chance to kind of take out your story and to present your story for yourself and also for others to see when the media's not coming your way to ask those questions and to take charge over your own content so that's the way I kind of see it I also see it now as a movement facilitator this thing you know we're going to be correcting that posture till we die so and everybody's going to have a part in that as long as we're doing this and you know bringing it up and all the stuff you know all these different things about our posture so being in a retirement community I can see it already and as we were talking about it being an extension of ourselves you know like people are like don't tell me I can't bring my phone because it's an extension of who I am and for our young people that might be very much the case but they're also going to have a hell of a time with their neck later on in life so I would just say that we as dance movement specialists are going to have something to offer them as those I love it not already I love this notion of in a way related to what you were saying but the technology as a way to create these peer-to-peer exchanges an exchange of information of stories I think it's really powerful that it sort of flattens and democratizes in a way that's like really obviously that's not just something that's playing out in the dance arena but all over the place but I think to me that's been a really exciting development the technology has allowed we were talking about a couple other things this spiral really interesting so when we were talking about a few months ago we were hosting this panel discussion with Andy B. Parson from Big Dance Theater David Newman and Oakley Ockpock and they were really talking about their practice, their dance practice and how I mean not surprisingly it was really rooted in their bodies and there was a bit of a spirited debate between the three panelists and some younger folks in the audience who were really talking about this not necessarily on stage technologies but specifically online platforms Instagram, Facebook a digital presence and they were really making the case that for them that was an extension of their body and that was part of their practice and their dance practice was this online presence and I think there was some real in some ways those are like two really different paradigm shifts and I think there was a part of it I think was also some artists saying look this is my instrument and this is all I have to band with to like really dive into and work with but I also felt like there was a bit of a political statement that like being present in my body is a stance that I want to take and I want to own and that I want to be behind this is what I'm saying with my work so I don't know how you all think about that if you think about that dynamic it feels like a shift in how we're thinking about our bodies yeah one of the things we were also talking about backstage is artificial intelligence which is this hot topic that is in you know more and more articles every day and we're actually working on a show that deals with this idea of artificial intelligence which you know everyone's talking about is going to become prevalent and may even exceed the capabilities of humans but one of the things that we've considered as we've talked about this is that the body is the gap I mean you know our technology is extremely advanced now we can sense all sorts of things collect all kinds of data but there's there's something ineffable that you know we think at this point from everything we've seen so far we don't think maybe our technology will be able to reach you know yeah maybe we're foolhardy in believing that but we'd like to think that that's the case just in the way that they've talked about you know 40% of the jobs you know that exist today will be replaced by robots within the next couple decades right at every level and in every sector we like to think we hope that artists and kind of the creative process and the very irrational kind of work that we all do a lot of the time will never actually be able to be replicable that we will actually remain relevant in some way as humans right with bodies as much technology as there is yeah actually this is a conversation I had with somebody recently about how much of the aesthetic sense would a computer be able to eventually be able to create some of those things I think so being in the arts field all of us I think have a vast advantage over AI from how we know it now there was a point that I think you brought up about collaborative portions of it and I think that's what's going to be I think cool when it comes to technology going forward with dance is we know now that music is very collaborative you can make music across continents no problem mostly because it's available in some kind of written form and you can exchange it in a written form and people can understand it unfortunately dance is still very visual physical medium we have things like love on notation but nobody really uses dance notation to communicate things I created this piece go read it but it might change you might be able to come up with some kind of a language that breaches that barrier eventually makes dance very collaborative talking about simulators and things like that I could create a dance piece with my friend back in India online and we're actually looking at each other while we're dancing and these are all state amazements that can come into the way dance is created you're still using your body but you're just putting things on it is this something that you're already doing yeah yeah yeah so I'm working on something called dancecribe 1.0 which is a language for dance primarily created through Braille for the visually impaired but it's meant to also solve the larger problem of creating what we call dance theorists if you think about music theorists there are people who can write music there are people who have been blind who have written music but we don't have anything like that in dance so it means that if I'm a visually impaired person I have to be physically taught I can't read the same dance and do the same dance as five other people if it's just given to me in writing and that is what we're working on so it's 1.0 because we're just trying to develop the model but it's going to be open source after that that's super interesting nice I think it's also interesting to think about getting those sort of alluding to this earlier maybe we'll sort of shift into some other things but again in Austin right now this tremendous change that the city is experiencing a lot of it not all of it is related to technology industry I hear two things a lot like a lot of the new money that's coming in is very hard to access this is a very tough nut to crack philanthropically so there's sort of that thing and then I also feel like it's what it's just kind of inherently doing to the cost of living here that so many long time lifelong residents and as well as artists are getting priced out of this city Austin is not unique and it's experiencing of this problem but I think Austin is experiencing this in a really profound way to me when I think about funding for the arts in Austin I think that in some ways it really has to begin or at least one of the first conversations we have to have is actually just space for artists to be making work there is increasingly fewer and fewer especially if we're talking about affordable spaces for artists dance makers to rehearse to make work and show their work I don't know if you all what your current experience with this is if you've seen other examples in other cities other strategies for tackling this issue but I'd love to hear from you with regards to this so I think this is my perspective on maybe a solution and this is kind of drawing from other sectors or other industries that use this model so if you think about the startup technology sector they have these wonderful co-working space models I don't think our community uses enough there are spaces that we have that we rent which is quite different and you want to say co-working space is a rental model but I think the way in one of the ways to solve this problem might be that community, local folks are not relying on an organization or a charitable foundation or somebody to build something for them the way to think about that might be to kind of get together and start working on these co-working spaces you know your capacity you know how many hours you rent what kind of performances you do start getting together and start looking at more collective spaces and like I said not wait for somebody to build something for you did you want to talk about just a little bit more I can just only talk about what's happened in Houston so there was a small group of arts organizations who got together and had a huge needs assessment in depth done by a consulting firm and that brought many performing arts groups together and that took almost five years but now they have this beautiful space called the match and it's somebody yelling out what is the mid thank you it's a little bit too much of a mouthful for me the match which I thought was great and it's right across the street from the historically black theater, the ensemble it's on a rail station line it's got a contract with a restaurant tour so you can come there and have snacks it's a lovely space and before that although Dance Source Houston had taken over the occupation of what we call Barnabelder or the barn and that was also really just meant for dance and the dance community came together with a local modern dance company who started it out and built three spaces, two rehearsal spaces and a small black box and that's where a lot of the dance in Houston in the mid-size two venues and so there have been and then I think there's just a lot of the universities they've got new spaces as well as they've got a ton of dance academies and fitness studios they don't always have hours of operation that everybody's there so I think people get creative with that and forge those kind of relationships or barter and say hey I'll teach a ballet bar class and I'll use your space as a company so those are just a couple of things that you can do and I'm just a big fan of the local YMCA I mean they have amazing studio space that sits quiet most of the time when they're not doing the booty bar so how about you? I think what Vakash said is really right on thinking about collaborating there's a mentality of kind of scarcity like there are not enough resources anything that we can scramble for we need to protect and there's a lot of territorialism unfortunately but it's based in kind of a culture and a mentality that can be shifted and if you just realize that you can cooperate and collaborate to solve some of these the most pressing issues like space you're stronger I think that's a really effective way to think about it it ties back to the technology communication medium it's just a way to connect people ultimately in fact that's what we're doing at the base of everything we're just creating ways for people to get together just one more point to that if you don't mind and I think in my opinion dance spaces have to probably start evolving into multi-purpose spaces because if you think about a studio if I think about as a real estate owner or a producer the amount of time that a studio does not get used is significant so if we don't eventually move to a model for example I'm building something here in a bit that's a multi-purpose space obviously there is a dance space in there but it's also a coffee shop it is also an event space it's also a social dance club and it's maximizing it the only time that the studio would not get used is between 10 and 10 every other time it's getting used that's awesome so I think there's a lot of value in bringing those kind of spaces unless you're very particular that your dance space has to be a certain way it enables the idea of you potentially being able to fund your own space more people are interested in being partners with you because there's other aspects to it and that solves some of these problems of just it being a dance studio they've been really inspired by these centers in Brazil that are run by CESC or CESC they have a giant foundation and focus on providing access to different things that people don't always have access to I went to this one in Sao Paulo it focused on three primary areas the arts, athletics and dentistry and it's like sort of the holy trinity but it was like actually super it was kind of ridiculous and kind of profound it's someone who works in the arts this idea that the arts are not this thing separate from life but actually the same thing is brushing your teeth the same thing is going for a walk or a swim and I think it also gets to what you were talking about these things, the proximity of these things being in the same place was actually really powerful in the way that that position of arts in relationship to civic life in relationship to a healthy life I think this is actually really profound and to me that also then begins to perhaps open up some other avenues for funding whether it's earned or whether like perhaps you can start learning like health funding like it's the way that we are situating our work within community within city I think actually has a lot of room for some really interesting powerful new relationships I would also say that there is are you all familiar with national sawdust in Williamsburg music venue but the structure that they used to get it built I thought was actually really interesting it was this is my sort of rough shorthand so forgive me if I'm but a small group of investors bought the land got the building built the facility is run by a non-profit music venue also community space the plan is that after X number of years the investors will donate the property to the non-profit but they're able to donate it at the appreciated value which in Williamsburg 5, 6, 7 years from now is greatly appreciated so that was the way of giving the investors a considerable return on their investment even though it's all just basically tax rate off it's actually a really interesting idea we're currently looking at a sort of hybrid model of government funding private donation philanthropic support as well as private investment on a 24-acre site that we're working on in East Austin to achieve a lot of these things that we're talking about permanent affordability for artists and I do think as part of that we have to look at ownership like I think artists have to have some sort of long-term control and ownership over their own situations or this is just going to keep happening again put a lot of blood, sweat and tears and energy into a space for like 5 years and then they get priced out and have to go so to me ownership is some variation or form of that is really important and this model to me is also a means of how do you constantly bring people towards dance I think the idea actually was inspired by a random event where we were in a fitness class and there was a 4-year-old girl with her 65-year-old grandmother who came to the class who came to get coffee and they watched the dance class and they both came and attended the class so there is a big pulling factor in making classes itself a performance aspect I think ballet Austin does this great thing where they have glass walls on their bottom floor everybody walking past it is looking at dance so making dance more visible even if it's just being taught even if it's just a fitness class is what this other model does is where it makes it more of a space where people are relaxing doing their own thing but they're constantly viewing dance so that's a great point and I also want to circle back to your comment about how you're using technology with regards to your fundraising can you talk a little bit more about that specifically? Sure, it's classified but everyone has clearance involved well I think it's an indirect relationship for me it's not, and obviously the first thing that you think about for most people is crowdfunding go fund me or Kickstarter and things like that and you know obviously that's very active but for me the technology aspect is more indirect I think what it does for me is being able to use different technologies out there including YouTube, web outreach social media is more of building a base or building the right kind of links and hookups to be it people be it the end user, be it common audience that I can show so for me it's more projection so technology for me is always something that I can leverage to show that this kind of dance is being projected to so many people or this is the different aspects of it that it covers and that's what the way in which we get funding is in two ways one is obviously the traditional routes of city and state for which you need this data anyway but we also actively have a model where we treat it like any other investment model if you're part of the stock stock market to think about how people invest in diversified things there is a way of taking a subjective medium like dance and making it more objective where people feel risk risky in investing in something and this is a way for me to do that is because I show them a diversified way of what they're investing in awesome how the investor comes in is that project based talk about that that's actually one of the points we inherently at least most of the companies including us in the past have been very project focused how many of you apply for city funding here in Austin or any other city how many of those are project based funding so I think the shift that will slowly need to happen or that kind of funding models might exist but even in the city of Austin for example a lot of the funding happens based on projects and what you're going to find is very few people from the private sector or from angel investors there will be people but there's not going to be a lot of people investing in just a project so I think the way to improve that is to show them diversity to give you an example that they work on and that's talking about five films now if I were an investor coming into it I can be like oh I'm going to make this grand film it's going to be like this best ever better than Titanic but nobody's going to care they're going to be like okay great but you're a first time filmmaker what do I know so the way to make that more objective for them is say I'm going to make five films the chances I suck at all five and even if I make one of them work you still make your money so what happens is you're diversifying the number of people you're approaching with this creates smaller units of investment but you're also diversifying and you put each of these films in different markets you're not saying I'll make five romantic comedies they might be great but you might be a sucky romantic comedy director so what you want to do is try and diversify as much as you can I found that even in our dance projects for example we do musicals so let's assume that we have three musicals over the next three years and this is our projection so going to people and telling them that this is what it is I found it an easier sell and more importantly they're investing in you not a project so that's very important to know that you have to come out as a completely rounded knowing your plan sort of person more than saying this project is the best in the world everybody says that amazing do you have any other thoughts on fundraising just to jump on to diversity I think one of the reasons that we found ourselves increasingly we started out mainly kind of working in contemporary dance concert dance for the first year or so but we experimented with I'm not a dancer or choreographer so I brought video and theatrical and music original music into the mix and thinking about a hybrid form it opens up the number of venues we can look at we can perform in a theater we can perform in a gallery space and we can and those are silos that are often sort of separate from each other in worlds that don't communicate as much that helps you find what you're looking for we try to look for unexpected collaborations our previous show was inspired by my grandparents relationship she grew up in Dresden during the war and he was American so it was thematically about war and seeing each other's enemies and trying to see each other's humans after war and so we thought about looking at war museums and the military veterans organizations all of these organizations that would never go out and look for a dance performance and see if they would be a part of a collaboration extremely diverse truly interdisciplinary and first-time collaborations a dance or a theater presenter that would have war museum maybe would never have met each other otherwise super interesting I just want to check how are we doing on time oh great okay we've got 15 minutes let's talk a little bit about dance and social responsibility and equity issues to me this is just we'll be living in our country right now to be working as an artist and not thinking about these issues I think obviously our country has a long complicated and by and large awful sort of relationship particularly around race and gender and I feel like these issues are very front and center with our culture and our life right now feels impossible to be running an arts organization or be an artist and not thinking about these issues I just kind of wanted to generally open it up to you all and see how you're thinking about social responsibility for someone as an artist what that look I feel like that can take any obviously any number of forms I think there's as many reasons for making dance as there are people in this room who have no reason to be doing this but just wondering how you all are thinking about this different strategies and tools that you're using and thinking about so in my artistic direction of my own dance company I made works that were I thought were relevant to people of color in my community because I didn't really see that there were a lot of ballads or increasing minority majority in our city in Houston and certainly in our state so we did a Black History Months concert so that was kind of empowering and raising untold stories the stories of heroes and history and all of that so that was kind of a centerpiece of our season but I also would reach out to the community for their voices including them in the conversation as well as in some of the choreography and the stories that we told we developed also a piece about Cesar Chavez and I was kind of amazed bringing high school kids to it who'd never heard of him who were juniors in high school and I raised the discussion with them about who's deciding what gets in your text books but that's Texas so they need to be aware that that's Texas and that's not every place out so in a way it was kind of awareness raising and I always felt it was kind of a cool thing that maybe they'd come to like we did one about comedians and we explored the your mama jokes and where that came from and we had video clips and stuff and it was interesting telling dozens it was our 12th season so I said we're going to play the dozens so it was just little things like that and we talked back and actually exploring the fact that maybe something like the dozens isn't necessarily a good thing that our community has been known for and so just raising discussions I've also participated in so anyway my company stands about immigrants fair trade, organ donation breast cancer, underground railroad St. Sinners and Slaves of yesteryear anyway but I think our audience has always learned and we got a lot of information from first time comers to dance that they would come back because there was something about them and they might maybe go over and see Houston Ballet Swan Lake now they've seen some people dance and point shoes about something that meant something to them so I feel like a lot of the smaller and mid-sized organizations were doing some of that groundwork in Houston at the time that I came up to kind of be that bridge between the big ballet company and other people stepped into the floor it was a good time to lead the scene but I think it generated a lot of interesting ideas amongst people what they could do with dance I was also taken part in the Urban Bush Women's Leadership Institute which I applaud I saw pictures of the one I was involved in in New Orleans last night during Tawali's tribute and I think they do a beautiful job in showing you how to engage with your community and incorporate some of those ideas and we came to that with homework it was why are people poor wow you know so we had discussions about that we had discussions about racism we had discussions about white privilege we had discussions and it was a mixed race group it was activist dancers college professors, artists in the community musicians we held the resources and we put on three site specific works it taught me a lot Liz Lerman was also part of that and all of her institutes and all of her community engagement stuff is really great as well and even just sitting here watching you guys talk I'm already picking up all your gesture wanting to make a dance out of them so you know and as I usually when I give a speech I once was asked to you know give a speech for somebody's high school and I thought oh god nobody remembers who spoke at their high school so I made them dance so I gave them five principles of their school it was the Sacred Heart School and every principle had a dance move and the whole audience learned it so I think any time you can open that door and let somebody come in and dance with you and show them how easy it is to compose given the basic principles of composing a dance they're also feeling like they're a little more educated when they walk out like oh well maybe you know we could put together a dance you know so why not so a lot of the reason I feel like I'm here and still in the dance community is that I'm and one of the things I explored at the Leadership Institute was that I'm a gatekeeper but in a different way so I got a chance to come and sit at the table. I've been part of Dance USA since it started so I've gotten to serve on this board I was a dancer representative I've been a company member representative so I got a chance to sit at the table so once I did it's like okay so I've opened the door let's open it for more people to come in and I see that today after pulling out of Dance USA for a few years I'm really excited to see some of the new values that are going on but all that to say that we're all gatekeepers we decide who gets to come to dance we decide who gets to dance and even now in this new community I'm in with older people they get to dance too you know I want to make sure there's an opportunity for them because as Miss Williams said you know it's such a profound experience we have dancing and how dare we deny other people the opportunity that partake in it so one of the things I felt like Cookie asked us to do is ask you a question and so one of the questions that you take into this this conference is who's not here and why aren't they here and invite them in so talk amongst yourselves no I think that's remarkable I think absolutely there's this question of how not only who is on stage but like who is invited and who is doing the inviting and how we make space for more people to be doing the inviting and pointing at what the field is what we think of as the field I think we need to that's just like a lot of ongoing work we need to keep creating space for other people to shape and define what we're looking at and thinking about what about you how well I think I look at it in a couple of ways one is I think the performing arts have a unique ability in being able to convey something to somebody without language and I think it is a way or a medium for you to get more people to listen and when I say listen I include visual listening but you get the point what I'm trying to get at is I think we have a unique capability or unique responsibility that we have better access to a lot more diversity or a lot more people in communicating the same topics that cannot be done by speaking it or cannot be potentially done by in one particular language or things like that so I think art has to be listen but what you convey within that I think obviously is potentially issues that you surround yourself with or you expose yourself to or you find yourself in so for example the language that we work with the visual impaired is something that happened mostly because I was finding that when I was working in that particular space there was a big gap in how they express themselves or the way they want to be taught so I just decided one day to blindfold myself and I tried dancing and that changed a lot of things so I think experiencing some of what you're speaking about is important when you talk about social issues or putting yourself in that space clarifies what you're trying to say I mean I'm not saying that blindfolding myself is anyway equivalent to what they're going through but it gives you an idea of what the gap is so that's the two things you have a responsibility to be able to communicate to a larger audience in what you're saying but also the fact that you should at least have some background in the content of what you're saying yeah well I think connected to that it's important to really listen and important to kind of be historians and try to understand the context of the kind of infrastructure in which we operate in a more traditional thinking about ballet for instance has its roots in Europe in a very sort of patriarchal structure and we've inherited that legacy and it's really important to be aware of that and to call it out as you mentioned to say something like okay here we are on stage and there's three men on stage and how does that connect to you know is that in any way representative of the number of dancers as far as gender goes there are two white men on stage to be able to recognize that speak about that together is the first step I mean thinking about everything that's going on politically in the country right now we need to be able to communicate honestly about it first and then those of us who you know can recognize our privilege and the position of power that we have need to be able to work actively to listen to those voices that have not been able to express themselves listen to the voices on the margins yeah and it's interesting because it's often I often find that those that groups in the margins are working at really interesting places aesthetically and artistically and creatively because of not necessarily being having access or you know having gatekeepers keep them out of whatever this established thing was a lot of marginalized and underserved populations are actually working on in the most kind of innovative and relevant contemporary kind of ways yeah absolutely my good friend Karen Martinez who has been working with us on this Think East project she just finished her PhD on the history of experimental sort of radical performance in East Austin she was looking at these cultural expressions that are typically not viewed through that lens like the Juneteenth Parade it's actually this amazing actually super contemporary radical performance that is typically not viewed through that lens but it's actually just as very radical and experimental as a lot of the stuff that we kind of view over here so I think it's really essential that we keep allowing different lenses to help us articulate and look at things and define things in different ways I know one of the more profound things we did at the leadership institute I was involved in New Orleans with urban bush women was that there was a local drummer who was very famous and on the streets and he had just recently died and so they they actually instead of having him lay in state they had him like standing up in front of a drum which was really bizarre but then they had a second line and so we took the morning off and we went and participated in that and wow what a profound thing that was and you know I just recognized how art and just that procession and that dancing and that music helps people with the grief and I had moved to Wimberley which is north of here west of here which had a huge flood Memorial Day a year ago and 12 people died it was a huge massive tidal tidal wave basically came down and took out a lot of the trees along the river and so I was coming to also went to a community that felt like they were grieving that they were tired and I thought you know what can dance bring to this well one of the local churches had also decided well let's bring in one of these second line bands from New Orleans who's used to going around and kind of ministering to people and it was something really neat and deep about that and so I think that social responsibility can be right where you are noticing what's happening around you and you know if it's black lives matter going and participating in some kind of a protest act like we did at Rice University in Houston and we just stood for an hour with signs laid on the ground chalk around them I mean but it doesn't have to be a lot of movement but it's standing in solidarity with your community and trying to offer them something with your art form that can really help them through the process of grief or loss or you know new life and let's move on I think that's an important way that weeds artists can contribute as well so the social responsibility isn't always about something deeply political it can be about just life happening Participate actively as a citizen at the same time as being an artist I love it I think we are now actually at a moment where we are wrapping up this portion we're going to continue this conversation hopefully over the next few days and we'll have another one of these conversations on Saturday we hope you join us throughout the next couple of days in between panels, shows, over drinks, over food love to hear your own thoughts and continue to hash some of these ideas out I think that's over it Amy was going to come back Hi It's extremely interesting extremely interesting lots of great stuff so thank you so much let's have one more round of applause for our plenary speakers so now we get to go on to lunch so I'm the bearer of good news there are food trucks outside under a tent so if you head out and head to the left towards the Palmer event center that's where there are some food trucks they are for your own purchase and then I know that some of you that came up from a manager's list serve around performances if you know what that means you can gather at the registration table in the lobby some people are gathering there I also would like to just take this moment while I still have you as a captive audience and ask you to give a really warm round of applause for the Dan to us a board of trustees these are volunteer members from all over the country who work in our dance field we have over 40 trustees right now you can read about them on our website they all came in a day or two early for our meetings so very grateful for your leadership and your voice I also would like to take this moment and thank the amazing Dan to us a staff who is hiding so please thank them when you see them I hope you have a great day and I'll see you outside


The final item of business today is the member's business debate on motion number 15580, in the name of Dennis Robertson, on eating disorder awareness week 2016. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I'd be grateful if those members who wish to speak in the debate could press the request to speak buttons as soon as possible. I call on Dennis Robertson to open the debate. Seven minutes, please, Mr Robertson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I begin by thanking all the members for supporting the motion and, indeed, the members who have stayed back this evening in this very late evening in the chamber. This is a historic day for this Parliament, Presiding Officer, given that we have had a, in principle, agreement with the UK Government in our fiscal settlement for the devolved powers. I'm sure that that will take the headlines tomorrow. What I hope is for this evening that at least what I'm about to say will be reported at some point and remain within the agenda, I sincerely hope, of the next Scottish Government. We have seen a great deal of movement within eating disorders over the past five years. That is partly due to the debates that we have had in this Parliament, but to the commitment of the Scottish Government in taking the whole aspect of eating disorders seriously. Accepting that it is mental illness and looking at it maybe from a different perspective than was the case beforehand has helped to bring us much further on. Indeed, I reflect where we were five years ago and where I was five years ago. Five years ago, on 25 February, the date that Caroline died because of an eating disorder, I felt the pain then and I feel the pain now. The pain I feel now is perhaps slightly different because the pain I feel now is not just in terms of the grieving because I miss Caroline very much, as does Ann and her carolines twin sister Fiona. Of course we miss her. We continue to look at trying to establish a pathway so that other people do not have to go through the anguish and the pain that we have gone through at that time. I think that we have made significant gains in that area. What confuses me, Presiding Officer, is when I look at the various websites in eating disorders, and when we are trying to look at providing the best possible care for those with an eating disorder, the confusion is that the statistics and the way we measure is all over the place. For instance, if you look at meat statistics in the London School of Economics and the various other eating disorder statistics, we now realise that there are percentages of, is it 1 in 100 women? Is it 1 in 250 women? What I would say, Presiding Officer, is that, regardless of the statistics, the fact remains that eating disorders is on the increase. It is something that we need to be careful about and recognise because it is on the increase within our younger population. We must address it. I am not saying for one moment that anorexia or bulimia is on the increase because those seem to be fairly stable. With eating disorders with non-specific diagnosis, it is certainly on the increase, including things such as binge eating. What we recognise is that there is peer pressure. Part of that, and what I was interested in was a phrase that came from one of the sites that I was reading, is that eating disorders seem to have become a socially transmitted disease. When I thought about that, I wondered what does it mean. When I looked into the facts, it is about the fashion industry again. It is about this body image and how we see ourselves and how other people perceive what we should be. That is something that we can probably address. As Governments in Scotland and in the UK, we can look at how that imagery is there and what influence it has on our young people. What I want to say perhaps to the minister is that, if we are going to do the best that we possibly can for our young people with eating disorders, we must be clear about what an eating disorder is, we must be able to detect it at the early stages and we must therefore be able to provide the best possible treatment and therapy. The relapse for people with eating disorders just now, Presiding Officer, regardless of therapy, is somewhere between 60 to 70 per cent. That is a relapse of 60 to 70 per cent. That is not good. We still have young people dying. Although, again, I think that that number has stabilised, it is not good. We are going to make the difference. If we are going to do the best that we possibly can, let us think about what we can do. Can we have a system whereby we record our eating disorders? Can we have a system whereby we look at the therapies available? Family-based therapies are certainly available and they are certainly the most effective, but, again, we do not have enough trained specialists. Perhaps some of the mental health monies that we are having that have come across from mental health could be going towards the education of people to give them that expertise within family-based therapies and to treat the eating disorders within the community. I still get emails and correspondence from people who are struggling with eating disorders and their children because they do not know where to turn. I think that we should be establishing, hopefully, whether it be a governmental website or something like that, but certainly the groups that are out there are coming forward. This week, on Friday, I have another eating disorder conference here in Parliament. What I want to say, I think, finally, is that Scotland can lead the way perhaps in looking at—there is no magic bullet. We cannot stop people having eating disorders. We will always have that, but what I want to say, I think, finally, is that this legacy for my daughter is important to me and is important to, I think, every other person with an eating disorder. We need to have a quality service—a quality service that is meaningful to those young people and is there to help the families. It is this family support that is essential and it is the family support that I hope that we can focus on. In the next Parliament, I sincerely hope that the Government will consider having a debate specifically on eating disorders and perhaps even the committee could look at how we best provide services for those with eating disorders. Many thanks. We now turn to the open debate speeches of four minutes, please. A call mark on chism to be followed by David Torrance. This is, I believe, the fourth year that I have had cause to thank Dennis Robertson for bringing discussion of eating disorders to the Parliament. It is a subject of profound importance and this week affords an opportunity to reach out to sufferers to challenge stigma and to make a clear statement that this is a mental health problem with very serious physical and emotional repercussions. Many people in this chamber will know someone who has been drawn into this debilitating and isolating world. Eating disorder often starts as a coping mechanism, a means of exerting control over one's body or of punishing your body until it fits society's predetermined mould. It chips away at a person's life day by day and sometimes it envelops them entirely. We must resolutely challenge any preconception that these are shameful or self-indulgent conditions, and eating disorder is not a phase. Those who suffer have a right to be understood, helped and heard. During that start with prevention, teaching about healthy body images to children from an early age and in schools and helping them to develop a critical response to media and advertising messages. It also means ensuring that educational psychologists in schools and GPs in communities have the resources available to identify children who might be at risk of developing negative coping behaviours. At the same time, information on finding support for recovery must be widely available, helping individuals to find the strength to self-refer to their GP, and when they do, they must receive appropriate and accessible treatment within the target time of 18 weeks. I mentioned just now the need to provide information and support more widely, and the motion rightly notes the excellent work of the Scottish Eating Disorders Interest Group. This is an invaluable resource that both connects communities of interests with professional advice and services and also encourages carers and sufferers to share their own experiences to inform research. Their site allows sufferers, carers and medical professionals alike to become members and to use resources like case studies, useful books and links to relevant websites. They also share details of services in specific areas and offer advice and steps to take when seeking help with referral and recovery. I very much look forward to meeting some of their members at EDaw 2016 Scotland's journey quality eating disorder services, which Dennis Robertson is hosting. This will take place on Friday and will, for the first time, include a specific discussion on males with eating disorders. We must remember that, while that is an illness that predominantly affects women, many young boys and men also find themselves trapped in this seemingly endless cycle and are equally afraid to reach out. I will briefly. Mr Chisholm, for giving way, it is the second year that the conference will look at men and boys. That is immensely important. Dennis has done much to bring that to light. I congratulate the charity Mbeads, which is based in Aberdeen, for the work that they have been doing to highlight eating disorders in men and boys. Thank you for reinforcing that point. Finding the right path to recovery starts with an informed and sensitive GP who recognises the real courage that it takes to present as a patient with an eating disorder. That cannot be emphasised enough. Recovery starts when a person builds up the courage to speak out. The GP is the vital first step. They then direct that vulnerable person to the correct door. In September 2015, the charity CME funded the group Seen But Not Heard, a Collective Advocacy Eating Disorder Project, to produce a GP resource pack about eating disorders. It was called Living with an Eating Disorder, what you need to know. It includes a poster for raising awareness in the surgery, a booklet available in the waiting room for people with eating disorders, as well as a general public to take away, and an information leaflet for GPs and other members of the primary care team. This GP resource pack was developed by people who have a lived experience of eating disorders to produce crucial information that can help GPs to gain a better understanding of how to offer effective, appropriate care and treatment. In conclusion, this is the fourth and final time that I will speak here in support of Dennis Robertson. I do so in solidarity with all of those people, young and old alike, who fight a daily battle with food and a daily battle with the unseen dark force that takes control, wears them down and sometimes does not let go. We must let them know that the battle is not theirs to fight alone. We recognise them this week and every week, and I thank Dennis Robertson again for ensuring that we never forget them. I apologise because, in two minutes' time, I have to be at the divo more parish committee to question David Mundell, so I apologise to Dennis Robertson, the Presiding Officer and the Minister. Many thanks. I now call David Torrance to be followed by Nannette Milne. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I want to join Dennis Robertson in welcoming eating disorders awareness week 2016. In his motion, he highlights much progress has been made over the last five years, both in the terms of raising awareness for eating disorders and ensuring that all patients have access to services they need. I understand that eating disorder week is an international initiative to tackle misconceptions surrounding eating disorders. This year's focus is on the workplace, how colleagues and employees can support someone's recovery. That already shows how complex eating disorders are. Eating disorders affect all aspects of a person's life. Relationships with family and friends, ability to perform well at school or at work and, most importantly, eating disorders can have a serious long-term impact on physical health. I believe that it is also important to know that eating disorders are long-term conditions. Around half of all affected people take six years or more to recover. The majority of patients first experience symptoms under the age of 16. Many sufferers wait more than a year before seeking treatment. According to Beat Eating Disorders UK, around 63 per cent of patients relapse, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists report that anorexia nervosa has a high mortality rate of all psychiatric disorders. What are the implications of those facts, as Dr Robert Dennison and expert in eating disorders have pointed out, is that more action needs to be taken to support early intervention and prevent deaths. Without the doubt, early intervention is crucial. Research has shown that earlier people with eating disorders seek treatment, unless they are to experience relapse and have a greater chance of a full recovery. However, we need to recognise that individuals find it extremely difficult to seek help. Eating disorders seriously affect mental and physical health, and many sufferers experience depression, personality disorder and substance abuse. That is why support is so crucial. Often, such support comes from small, non-for-profit organisations. As an example in my constituency in Fife, Linda Trebo Foundation organises regular support group meetings for people with eating disorders, as well as her families. Overall, there has been many positive developments, but more attention needs to be given to support individuals with eating disorders. Once diagnosed, more needs to be done to ensure that patients receive effective care in hospital, at home, at university or in any other environment. There is also still a lack of services, especially in more rural areas of Scotland. In Fife, the only anorexic and nervosa intensive treatment team, which is part of Strustine hospital, has limited capacity and can therefore not accept all referrals. However, today I also want to take the opportunity to commend the dedication of all NHS staff, GPs and organisations that support people with eating disorders. Treating eating disorders requires the close co-operation of all involved, and the new projects are proving to be very promising. In Dumfries and Galloway, a new approach has been undertaken by local GPs to ensure that patients receive right care, involves monitoring their physical health of people with eating disorders through manual training and specific guidance from a resource path, aimed at identifying and treating eating disorders. Of course, we cannot be oblivious to the fact that these projects require funding, and I am pleased that the Scottish Government is committed to strengthening mental health services. That is important for many reasons. Apart from the human impact, mental health is a substantial economic burden. Across the UK, 725,000 people suffer from eating disorders. Many of those effects note a financial loss due to the detrimental effect that eating disorder has had on their educational development, or if they are already in the workplace at times they need to take off work. As a result, sufferers sometimes become dependent on carers, family members and friends to survive. Beyond the personal cost, treatment costs the health sector between £3.9 billion and £4.6 billion across the UK. Although the economic burden is only a small part of many different effects, people with eating disorders suffer over a prolonged period of time, it is important to acknowledge the commute effect of all the factors involved. As I said in the beginning, diagnosing, treating and promoting long-term recovery of eating disorders is complex. However, there are many indicators to show that the service provides for those with eating disorders continue to develop and expand on a range of treatment options available. The increased access to effective treatment will hopefully provide benefit to all those who most need it. We must continue to support and help both those who suffer from eating disorders and those who seek help. In the five-year term of this Parliament, Dennis Robertson has brought the issue of eating disorders to the chamber on numerous occasions through debates and questions, and I am sure that he should be re-elected so that that will continue. From dealing with the effect on females of mannequins and size 10 models with the body beautiful to the rising problem of eating disorders in young men and boys, we can be proud of continually raising awareness of those conditions, thanks in no small measure to Dennis Robertson's persistent efforts. As an international awareness event that stretches across the globe, eating disorders week has clearly become a fixture in many countries' calendars. The pivotal point of the week is that it helps to bring people together, those affected as individuals, in the medical profession or as carers, and as we all know, many carers are family members. I note that on Friday there will be a day-long conference here in Edinburgh, organised by the Scottish Eating Disorders Interest Group, and hosted by Dennis Robertson. It is organisations like this that do so much to raise awareness of eating disorders, but it is not only conferences that help. There are many fun events such as live bands, pub nights, cake baking and so on, all to raise money for various eating disorder charities. In previous debates, I have referred to the number of celebrities and those in public life who have come forward to talk of their condition. Although I do not watch it myself, I did read about the Emmerdale actress Gemma Oten, who has spoken movingly about her own battle with anorexia. She said that she was doing this ahead of eating disorders awareness week to highlight the bullying that she had endured, but also to demonstrate that eating disorders can affect people from all backgrounds and all walks of life. Gemma also referred to anorexia as a recognised mental health condition, and we cannot reiterate that enough. Sadly, there remains a stigma not only in relation to mental health issues but also to eating disorders as mental health conditions. That stigma is largely brought about through misunderstanding and ignorance, and there remain a significant number of people who believe that conditions such as anorexia or bulimia are largely about individuals with fatty eating habits. That is clearly not the case, and those who suffer from those disorders should be referred promptly for the psychological support and the psychiatric help that they and their families need. One area that requires closer scrutiny is the recognition of eating disorders outwith teenagers and young adults. It is telling that the UK's leading eating disorders charity, BEAT, has chosen as its theme this year eating disorders in the workplace, which will concentrate on the impact that those disorders can have in the workplace and highlighting what individuals, colleagues and employers can do to support someone's recovery at work. The motion makes mention of the Scottish Government's additional mental health spending, and I recognise that there has been a significant investment that will cover the next four years. Additionally, the Prime Minister pledged in January of this year a revolution in mental health treatment, with a commitment from 2018 that all teenagers suffering with eating disorders will be seen within a month of being referred or within a week for urgent cases and additional resources and funding are being made available. The motion refers rightly to the commitment of the Scottish Government to seek improvements in the treatment of people living with eating disorders, but I hope that the minister and members will also appreciate the similar commitment given by the UK Government, because I think that this is one area where there has to be greater co-operation north and south of the border to tackle a condition that, for too long, has not been taken seriously enough by society and its elected representatives. If I got some right, I think that Dennis Robertson hinted about the need for a managed clinical network across Scotland to deal with the various issues associated with eating disorders, and I would be very supportive of such a scheme that would help to ensure equity in accessing treatment for those affected and their families. Finally, as this will undoubtedly be my last speech in this chamber regarding eating disorders, I thank all members who have worked together over the years to improve the lives of the individuals who are involved with what can often be tragic circumstances. I wish them well, and I look forward to hearing about the progress that they make in continuing to raise awareness of those conditions in the next session. I invite Jamie Hepburn to respond to the debate minister's seven minutes. I begin by joining others in congratulating Dennis Robertson for securing today's debate. As in the net, the mill has set out this. It continues Dennis Robertson's long-standing interest in bringing these matters to this parliamentary chamber, and I thank him for bringing this debate before us this evening. I also thank him for speaking very movingly about his own family's personal experience. I know that it cannot have been easy for him to do so, and I do not think that any of us could fail to be moved by him doing so. I think that it is very important to hear about such experience, and it reflects the point that the net mill has made about others who have spoken publicly about their own challenges and their own struggles with eating. I recognise that it is never easy for individuals to come forward and talk on that basis about their own challenges with not necessarily just eating about any form of mental health challenge, but those who do so do as a great service, because it helps to challenge the tremendous issues of stigmatisation that we know still pervade and still exist. Dennis Robertson and Malcolm Chisholm mentioned the conference that will take place on Friday. I am sorry that I am unable to personally attend, but I look forward to hearing some of its outcomes. I am very pleased to be able to respond to the debate on behalf of the Scottish Government. It gives me the opportunity to join others in marking 18 disorder awareness week this year and to recognise the efforts of all those people and organisations across the country working to raise awareness of 18 disorders, including the Scottish eating disorder interest group. I would very much associate myself with the remarks of Malcolm Chisholm earlier about the nature and impact of eating disorder as a serious mental health problem. It might be the last opportunity for him to me to remark on it, so I should take the opportunity to know that he is standing down at the election and wants to pay tribute to the work. The interest that he has shown in mental health over the years and similarly to Nanette Milne, if I do not get the opportunity between now and this solution to pay tribute to the work that she has undertaken in the time that she has been an elected representative. I have listened carefully to the range of comments and issues that were raised during the debate. I want to assure members of the Scottish Government's commitment to doing all that it can to tackle eating disorders and further improving care services and support. One of the issues that were raised by both Dennis Robertson and Nanette Milne raised the impact of the fashion industry. We know that BEAT, which is a UK-wide eating disorder charity, acknowledges that influences are wide-ranging and, although the media and fashion industry do not necessarily directly cause eating disorder, we all agree that their influence cannot be ignored. The Scottish Government helps to fund work to promote mental health and wellbeing, including a positive body image through the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and doubt. There is work under way by that organisation, but let me be clear that I would accept, Presiding Officer, more can always be done and I would call on all those responsible, including retailers in the fashion industry to play their part in tackling unhelpful or unrealistic ideals that can contribute to unhealthy lifestyles. Let me turn to some of the work that has been under way. Our improvement agenda has been driven forward with the last few years through delivery of the national mental health and suicide prevention strategy. We will be publishing a new three-year mental health strategy later this year. I met Dennis Robertson last year to discuss the important issue of eating disorders, a part of the engagement process around that strategy. No decisions have been made on the content of the strategy, but in maintaining continuity with the work that has already been progressed over recent years, some priorities have naturally emerged. I expect a new strategy to focus on encouraging development of new models of managing mental health problems in primary care. I anticipate a focus on child and adolescent mental health and on better responses to distress. There will also be a focus on developing and measuring outcomes for them to be improved. Mental health is broad priorities at present, but there are clear links in there to eating disorder, which will develop the detail of the coming months as the strategy is finalised. There are opportunities for Mr Robertson and any member of that department. Those that Dennis Robertson works with on eating disorders to contribute to the process for the new mental health strategy could include any conclusions from the conference on Friday. I will be very happy for such contributions. It is important to look forward, but also to look back at some of the successes that we have had. I was able to visit Mr Robertson's invitation to visit both the adult and young pupils eating disorder services in NHS Grampian in July last year. I spoke to staff working on the front line. I spoke to families and those who use the service to see it first-hand—impressive care and support, which is delivered the day in and the day out. I saw the Royal College's marzipan guidance being used to better manage sick patients with anorexia. I heard about the wide range of treatments available and the benefits of improved access to therapies, including increased availability of family therapies. It is clear that there is great work taking place in the north-east. I would like to thank Dennis Robertson for arranging for me to visit. Members have talked about some of the funding decisions that we have made. It is part of the significant £150 million additional investment that the Scottish Government recently announced for improving mental health and wellbeing will contribute directly to the aim of working closely with NHS Scotland and the partners to ensure that we offer the best quality of life and opportunity for all people with mental health problems, including those living with an eating disorder. The First Minister announced that, in January, part of that funding—£54.1 million—will go towards directly improving access to mental health services for adults and children. Part of that funding that the First Minister announced is directly related to the point that David Torrance made about the requirement of the point that has been raised as part of eating disorder awareness week, focusing on the need for the responsiveness of the workforce. We need to ensure that the workforce has the requisite skillset and part of the funding that the First Minister announced will be used to improve the workforce supply but also training existing staff to better deliver services for children and young people, as well as psychological therapies for all ages. Malcolm Chisholm spoke about the importance of primary care and general practitioners. Again, as part of the funding that we are at £10 million over the next three years is going directly to improve mental health support in primary care, I would absolutely agree that we need to have a better response to the challenges of poor mental health and primary care. The bulk of the additional investment that will be invested from next year will take time to deliver results, but I do believe that it will make a difference to the man on which we support those with poor mental health, including those who present with eating disorder. Dennis Robertson made a request that we utilise some of the remainder of the funding specifically for eating disorders. I will be very happy to consider any specific proposition. We have not decided how the entirety of the funding will be utilised, so I will be very happy to speak with him further about that matter. I hope that what I have set out demonstrates that there is a great deal of work taking place by partners across all sectors to tackle eating disorders and wider mental health problems. Dennis Robertson expressed hopes that the agenda on eating disorders remains and retains its prominence politically after the Scottish Parliament election. I am confident that that will be the case. That is not a political or a partisan political issue. That is a shared agenda, and I am sure that it will remain high on the political agenda. It is right that we recognise eating disorder awareness week and reaffirm our commitment to deliver on our ambitions for improved outcomes and quality of life for all those living with eating disorder. On that basis, I thank Dennis Robertson for providing us with the opportunity to do that this evening. That concludes Dennis Robertson's debate eating disorder awareness week 2016. I thank members for participating and particularly those who will not be speaking again on this subject. I now close this meeting of Parliament.