Founded in 2002, IDMN has evolved over the years as a community of independent arts managers, artists, administrators, producers, promoters, programmers, consultants and agents working across the subsidised and commercial arts sectors in the UK. As of 2017, IDMN is now embracing a shift in direction and focus, led by Chantal Guevara as Chair, and although it may take a while for all our new plans to fall into place, we are seeking new members to be part of this new IDMN.

As a network of professional dance producers and managers, IDMN offers significant collective experience and knowledge to campaign, advocate and speak on behalf of independent artists and the freelance sector. Working with and alongside One Dance UK, Equity, Arts Council England, PANDA and other industry bodies, we can use our position to shape and influence policy regarding artists' rights and needs and cultural programming, and to serve as an advisory body where needed.  

Having been Londoncentric for far too long, IDMN will now be seeking to spread its work across the UK, ensuring we are active in all areas, depending on our membership base, and we aim to create a second base in Manchester in the coming months. We will be rolling out a programme of networking, training and other events in each region over the coming months, and providing trial travel bursaries for members to travel to London and Manchester for events.  

We have considered what our members need most from a network such as IDMN, and we have compiled a membership package offering extensive networking, training, advocacy, mentoring, collaborating and sharing options, to be delivered by existing members, previous members, via our ITC, One Dance UK, National Rural Touring Forum and PANDA memberships, and by other experts recommended by our members. Crucially, we're aware that many of our members work in other artforms beyond dance, so our relationship with PANDA will help artists to network and share with peers working in similar areas, helping IDMN to remain relevant to their practice.

For the first time, we are inviting self-producing artists to join IDMN, to benefit from the resources and support we can offer, and we are able to draw on our expertise to offer consultancy, sessions and training to artists. In addition, we'll be opening up our networking sessions and events to non-producers, so that they can help inform our practice and to learn from each other.

Also, in response to the erstwhile question "where are the dance producers?", we have created an online directory on our website so that all dance producers can have a listing, independent of any membership and free of charge, so that we can have a centralised database for artists to refer to, and so that there's a really simple answer to this question in future.  

As part of our new recruitment drive, we are not only seeking members who want to actively contribute to the independent dance sector and to help develop our voice: we're also seeking new members who are interested in supporting and working with each other to help drive the development of dance producers and managers. And of course, we're also seeking exhausted new members who have no time for any of that, but who want to benefit from our network and resources and who have no time for anything else. As well as new producers who are starting out and who can benefit the most from the support and resources we have to offer.

We have a range of new membership schemes on offer, from short-term trial memberships to online-only, for self-producing artists and organisation-based members - aimed at those who currently work for an arts organisation and who want to contribute to and be part of our network all the same.

So how does that sound? If you're interested in signing up, then please do, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.