The statistics published yesterday are the fourth in the series on dance schools, launched by the NSO’s culture statistics programme. It is the result of an enquiry among dance schools, and focuses on issues such as types of dance, gender participation and finance. It covers data on dance schools for the years 2001 to 2003.

Although not exclusively the domain of women, this activity is certainly dominated by them. Indeed, almost 92 per cent of all dance students in 2003 were female. However, in the years under review, the number of male dance students has been on the increase – rising from 150 in 2002 to 217 in 2003.

With a 42.5 per cent share of the total, classical ballet is still the most popular genre among local dance students.

This is followed by jazz, with a 12.9 per cent share of all dance students in 2003. In this year, the majority of male dance students were studying Latin American and ballroom dancing, with 38.6 and 30.8 per cent respectively of all male dance students. The least popular form of dance was line dancing, with no students studying this in 2003.

However, a new form of dance – Argentine tango – which was previously not taught in the Maltese Islands, has begun to be practised.

The largest number of students practising some form of dance are aged between five and nine, followed by the age groups 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 least likely to practice some form of dance – these make up just 8.8 per cent of the total.

In 2003, the amount of time spent in dance lessons averaged one hour per week for males and 1.25 hours per week for females. Classical ballet and Argentine tango are 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 – including hip-hop, character, wheelchair, disco and break-dancing – also took up 1.75 hours per week for both sexes. Most dance students undertake dance examinations held under the auspices of foreign examining boards. In fact, of the 935 students sitting for an exam in 2003, none sat for a local examination.

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

In 2003, the dance schools surveyed had a total income of Lm296,840, up by 1.7 per cent over the Lm291,850 in 2002. The bulk of this, 83.4 per cent, came from tuition fees. On the other hand, dance schools’ total expenditure amounted to Lm236,868 in 2003 – up by 9.6 per cent over 2002 and 19.5 per cent over 2001. Operational costs made up the largest share of expenditure, with 31.8 per cent of the total. This was followed by expenditure on staff (wages and social security contributions), with 30 per cent of the total expenditure for the year 2003.