This final presentation of On Tour aims to provide the Los Angeles Dance community with professional development seminars, panel discussions and workshops led by top-level professionals in the dance and performing arts field. The On Tour sessions planned for next month are intended to create a sense of self-determination by helping artists and administrators join together as a community to take their future into their own hands.

Development Specialist, David Bury, will be on hand Friday and Saturday to provide one-on-one consultations with artists and administrators. Bury will offer hands-on concepts, knowledge and skills needed to design and implement effective fundraising programs.

The LA community gets into the action on Saturday with the panel "Resource Development: New Ways to Develop Your Reach at Home and On the Road." Participants will hear from managers, presenters and arts advocates about how artists can promote relationships to expand presentations and audiences at home, as well as on tour. They will tackle the issue of touring and discuss how companies can know if they are ready to hit the road. The community will be invited to share their experiences with touring and resource development following the panel presentation. This session grew directly out of feedback provided at earlier On Tour seminars. The moderator, Danielle Brazell will be joined by five extraordinary LA presenters, administrators and advocates: Linda Chiavaroli, Director of Communications Los Angeles County Arts; Leo Garcia, Executive/Artistic Director of Highways Performance Space; Laurel Kishi, Manager of Performing Arts for the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu; Gayle Leonard-Hooks, President of Lucas LaFrance Associates; and Peter Lesnik, Executive Director at Carpenter Center, CSULB.

The three days of professional development will conclude on Sunday with a day-long community dance forum at the Japanese American Cultural Community Center. The dance forum is open to dancers, choreographers, managers, educators, funders, and all other dance enthusiasts. Plenary speaker, Joe Goode of Joe Goode Performance Group in San Francisco, will talk about creating community and the positive growth that occurred when the widely diverse Bay Area dance community joined forces towards common goals. The forum will allow time and space for members of the LA community to discuss common aspirations, create a unified vision and set priorities and strategies for the Los Angeles dance community. The day will end with a celebratory toast to the Los Angeles Dance Community.

Dance/USA is proud to have been part of the Los Angeles Dance Community through Dance/USA On Tour, which is kindly supported by the James Irvine Foundation. The Irvine foundation has enabled Dance/USA On Tour to return to Los Angeles four times over the last two years in order to ensure the best possible training and support for the Los Angeles dance community so that it may continue to grow and thrive.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts generously support Dance/USA On Tour. -- www.danceusa.org