I would like to offer some suggestions, none of which are great revelations. Woody Allen once said something along the lines of "creativity is eighty percent good copying." So this is what I suggest: that those working in the American dance field study the successful international cultural exchange strategies of other countries, such as France, England, and my country, the Netherlands.

In translating those strategies to the American situation, one specific suggestion occurs to me, which is relatively cost-effective and for which you could get a lot of bang for your buck: develop a presenter trip program. It is important to get international key figures to America; fly presenters over and have them see and meet American artists and dance companies. This would be an effective tool to increase visibility and the first step to building relationships. Offering presenter trip grants in my opinion would create a lot of good will.

Some Dutch presenters are reluctant to embark upon international exchange with the US. The thinking is: we need to pay to bring presenters to the Netherlands, we need to pay to help the presentations of Dutch artists in the United States, but when the shoe is on the other foot we also have to pay. The Dutch presenters have to pay to come to the US (all Dutch presenters at APAP are here on their own dime) and they also have to pay for all the expenses to present American companies. The balance is not healthy. So again, offering trips to international presenters would be a good first step to create a shift and create goodwill. These presenter trips—which ideally should mix group trips and individually tailored trips—could be centered around:

1. Conferences such as APAP or Dance USA

2. Festivals such as the American Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow, and multidisciplinary festivals such as the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and PICA's/TBA Festival. To make this effective, however, one would need to have conversations with these festivals to determine if, over time, they would be willing to present a few more dance productions in the scope of one week than they currently do

3. Cities such as New York, where at many times throughout the year focused dance programs could be organized. And one could add on an additional day trip to, for example, a dance-friendly city such as Philadelphia.

There are obviously other scenarios that one could think of. But I want to be clear: these presenter trips are essential. So many countries do it. American and other international presenters are constantly invited to go to festivals and conferences around the world, such as CINARS (Canada), APAM (Australia), Dance Umbrella (England), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), and various Dutch dance festivals. Again these trips are essential to give international presenters a broader understanding of "American dance."

I close with comments offered by Simon Dove, Artistic Director of the international contemporary dance festival Springdance, who in the last two years has made numerous visits to the US, to work on the DTW/Springdance Dialogues exchange project. He had this to say about American dance:

"I think there is not such a single entity as American dance. People's experiences of certain mainstream companies—Ailey, Brown, Cunningham, Morris—whose work/esthetic concerns/etc are so familiar—are very different than being confronted by new work from, say, John Jasperse, Tere O'Connor, Big Dance Theatre—and yet again so different from the work of Ann Liv Young or Miguel Gutierrez—the diversity is immense—but perhaps this is the big secret—the new independents are not so visible here in the US or abroad. This for me is the issue: there is no longer a collective sense of American dance. We have a clear image of the historic role of American pioneers in the history of contemporary dance, but the new independents are part of a more global practice. They work in Europe—residencies, creation, even funding—and collaborate with artists from all over the world. They are part of the international scene and not just a local North American one. The only similarity is their relative poverty, the almost total absence of substantive funding and resources on which to build an accumulating practice and body of work. Audiences are drawn to the ideas and issues in the work, not its inherent American-ness. But, where the work deals with the subject of the contemporary US, there is added intrigue given the current global political and economic roles the country is playing. The challenge for us presenters is to see this work. To be able to curate interesting programmes means we need to see the diversity, and there are almost no opportunities where this can happen. We need to see full-length performances in good spaces with good technical situations—in a condensed time frame, a festival or showcase"