Dancing gets more popular

The number of dance students is on the rise, with 2,617 taking up some form of dance in 2003, an increase of 16.5 per cent over the previous year, according to figures released by the National Statistics Office.

Though not exclusively the domain of women, this activity is certainly dominated by females who made up 92 per cent of all dance students.

This is the fourth in the series of news releases on dance schools, launched by the NSO's culture statistics programme, to delve into the type of dance and gender participation for the years 2001 to 2003.

Classical ballet remains the most popular genre among local dance students with 42.5 per cent, followed by jazz, which had 12.9 per cent share of all dance students last year.

The majority of male dance students were studying Latin American and ballroom dancing, at 38.6 and 30.8 per cent respectively.

Argentine tango, which had never been taught in Malta, picked up last year.

No student practised line dancing in 2003.

The largest number of students practising some form of dance are aged between five and nine, followed by those aged 10 - 14 and 15 - 19.

These three age groups make up 27 per cent, 25 per cent and 16.3 per cent of dancers respectively. Children under the age of five are the least likely to practise some form of dance.

In the age groups of 25 and over there were 321 females and 134 males practising some form of dance with Spanish and Flamenco being the most popular among women of this age group.

Last year the amount of time spent in dance lessons averaged one hour a week in the case of males and 1.25 hours for females.

Classical ballet and Argentine tango were the most demanding types of dance, with classical ballet involving 1.25 hours for males and two hours for females and Argentine tango involving two hours a week for both males and females.

Other types of dance took up 1.75 hours per week for both sexes. These included hip-hop, character, wheelchair, disco and break dance.

Most dance students undertook dance examinations held under the auspices of foreign examining boards. In fact, of the 935 students sitting for an exam last year, none sat for a local examination.

Dance schools mostly employed part-time staff. In 2003, the dance schools surveyed employed 91 part-timers in contrast to 19 full-timers. The majority of those employed, 69 per cent, were women working as dance teachers.

Last year, the dance schools surveyed had a total income of Lm296,840, up by 1.7 per cent over the previous year. The bulk, 83.4 per cent, was derived from tuition fees.

On the other hand, the total expenditure of dance schools amounted to Lm236,868, up by 9.6 per cent over the previous year and 19.5 per cent over 2001.

Operational costs made up the largest share of expenditure, representing 31.8 per cent of the total. This was followed by expenditure on staff including wages and social security contributions, accounting for 30 per cent of the total expenditure for 2003.