About us
About Sarah
Sarah Dance has worked in the arts and creative industry sector for over 30 years.
Sarah started her career in theatre, working for Sam Wanamaker in the early days of the Globe, and then working with a variety of producing theatres across the country. She took on the role of Head of Marketing at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester and later become Marketing & Development Director for London Bubble.
Sarah was Executive Director of the Northcott Theatre, one of the south west’s leading producing theatres where she transformed the company’s organisational and financial structure, its relationship with funders and its audiences.
Since 2002, she has run her own consultancy company, supporting a wide range of cultural organisations through complex organisational change processes, and developing business plans and fundraising strategies. She has also led, and raised substantial funding for, numerous partnership projects including the South East Cultural Consortium and Accentuate, the Legacy Trust Olympic & Paralympic cultural project for the south east of England.
She has facilitated the Kent Cultural Transformation Board, and has worked with Turner Contemporary and Visit Kent on the development of Culture Kent, which she then directed. She has been a board member of several arts organisations including as Chair of the Board of Theatre Alibi as well a regional council member of the South West Regional Arts Board.
She is currently Deputy Chair of South East Local Enterprise Partnership, Co-Chair of the South East Creative Economy Network and Chair of Creative Estuary and has led the visioning of Thames Estuary Production Corridor. She is on the Civic University Network Advisory Group and UAL Advisory Group for their UKRI funded Modelling and Supporting Recovery of the UK’s Experience Economy. She is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Skills
- Interim leadership
- Researching, developing and delivering Business Plans
- Revenue, project and capital funding applications
- Raising funds from the corporate sector
- Digital media development
- Organisational and structural reviews
- Market research both quantitative and qualitative
- Conducting and writing marketing audits and marketing plans
- Running a midscale mixed-economy producing theatre
About Ruth
Dr Ruth Melville has over 20 years experience in research design and analysis, within the cultural, regeneration, environment and social inclusion sectors. Ruth has expertise designing major cultural programme evaluations with specialisms in embedded research design and creative research approaches that lead to internal and external change. She has a strong commitment to ensuring evaluation systems fit the user.
She designed and managed Impacts 08, the Liverpool Capital of Culture Research Programme, and from 2010-2018 was Evaluation Advisor to Aarhus 2017 European Capital of Culture, she was involved in writing the Norwich 2017 UKCC bid which was shortlisted, and has advised Hull 2017 evaluation and evaluations of several ECoCs and UNESCO Creative Cities.
She is Critical Friend to Back to Ours (Hull), Transported (Lincs)., Revoluton (Luton) and Market Place (Fenland) Creative People and Places programmes, and is currently supporting the development of the Cultural Strategy for Medway. She is also working with a range of arts organisations on embedding evaluation in practice particularly with hard to reach groups.
Her academic research explores the impact of evaluation on practice, particularly artists’ emic evaluation practices and how these could shape evaluation policy.
