This article was published in the August/September 2015 issue of Dance Australia. In the light of last week's Australia Council funding announcements, in which numerous companies found themselves defunded, we decided to post this article.
Cuts to the Australia Council’s funding made earlier this year will affect independent choreographers and small companies. Why does this matter so much? Nina Levy investigates.
The May 2015 announcement of cuts to the Australia Council’s funding provoked a huge outcry from the dance sector. While the 28 “major performing arts companies” – a group which includes the Australian Ballet, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Queensland Ballet, Sydney Dance Company and West Australian Ballet – are unaffected by the changes, smaller companies and independent artists look likely to suffer.
The Minister for the Arts, George Brandis, is vocal in his support of large-scale, popular arts. With the money stripped from the Australia Council he has set up the National Programme for Excellence in the Arts (NPEA). As Ben Eltham reported on the Artshub website, Brandis says that the NPEA, “will make funding available to a wider range of arts companies and arts practitioners, while at the same time respecting the preferences and tastes of Australia’s audiences”.
Brandis’s apparent indifference to the work of independent or experimental artists is not news to arts practitioners. As he told The Australian newspaper back in June 2014, “Frankly I’m more interested in funding arts companies that cater to the great audiences that want to see quality drama, music or dance, than I am in subsidising individual artists responsible only to themselves.”
It is timely, then, to examine the value of experimental art, and the role that independents and small companies play in the broader arts ecosystem. Nina Levy spoke to independent artists Serena Chalker and Bianca Martin; and Lucy Guerin, artistic director of Lucy Guerin Inc., to find out their thoughts on this hot topic.
What is the role of experimental art?
While Brandis may see independent artists as being “responsible only to themselves,” the choreographers interviewed take a different view. “Experimental artists are like the scientists of the arts,” explains Lucy Guerin. “They keep dance as an art form evolving and progressing, and prevent it from stagnating and repeating the same formulas… Many of [these experimental] ideas make their way into mainstream popular art-forms down the track.”
These sentiments are echoed by Serena Chalker. “When Diaghilev’s version of Sleeping Beauty premiered it was a total failure. When Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring premiered, there were riots,” she exclaims. “Experimental arts and people trying to push the boundaries are important because they’re often ahead of their time. It’s not about being self indulgent, it’s a care for the art-form, to experiment, to push it in new directions, to test new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things.”
How important are the preferences of the audience?
According to Brandis, the NPEA will “[respect] the preferences and tastes of Australia’s audiences”. The artists interviewed don’t deny the value of works that appeal broadly, but argue that it shouldn’t be the only type of art that is made. “Many of the greatest artists throughout history cared more for the realisation of their ideas than for popular acceptance from audiences,” says Guerin. “These artists have left us some of the most unique and revealing records of the creative mind that have since shaped our arts culture permanently. Think of Franz Kafka whose work was completely unacknowledged during his life time, but is now an artistic reference point and a huge draw card for audiences.”
Bianca Martin believes that making work specifically to appeal to audience taste is futile, remarking, “That would seem to me to be a recipe for the work to become homogenous and for audiences to become uninterested. Isn’t it the artist’s role to create the work that they need to, and that allows the audience to find what they like?”
And audience preferences vary. “Not all audiences want their tastes and ideas reinforced by the art that they see,” remarks Guerin. “…many audience members go to see dance and theatre to be challenged and to see something unexpected.”
What is the role of popular dance?
None of the artists interviewed are denying the value of popular dance either. “For people who have never ever been exposed to the arts, [dance] might be perceived as something scary… which is to do with exposure and education. So it’s good to have things that are real crowd pleasers. That’s all part of the ecology of the arts,” comments Chalker. “The problem is when you start to sacrifice [experimental art] for [popular art].”
Perth-based Martin agrees and adds, “In Perth I think we needed a mainstream contemporary company to help educate and grow audiences in order that the independents have something to work against... I think [mainstream] companies inevitably help to retain the ecology of the sector.”
The role of small companies and independents
That concept of the sector as an ecosystem is an important one when it comes to discussing why the sector needs independent artists and smaller companies, as well as larger and flagship companies. “I am not sure that Brandis understands… how an arts practice evolves,” comments Guerin. “Almost every artist in a ‘quality drama’ will have graduated from college and spent a number of years in the independent sector honing their craft without payment.”
It’s not just about providing a “training ground” for the bigger companies, though, says Guerin. That invaluable experimental art, the work that paves the way for the development of the art-form, is far more likely to take place in the hands of independent artists or smaller companies. “Large mainstream organisations don’t always have the freedom to experiment,” she continues. “They are often restricted by having to produce particular box office outcomes.” Independent artists are responsible not just to themselves but to the art-form; to testing and exploring its potential as a communicative and provocative vehicle.”
The word “responsibility” is significant. Chalker takes issue with Brandis’s claim that individual artists are “responsible only to themselves,” pointing out, “It’s not true. At a basic level, if you are in receipt of government funding, you are responsible for acquitting that money. It’s about financial responsibility… and you’re also responsible to the other artists you’re working with - you’re contributing to the economy too, if you’re employing other artists then you’re giving people jobs. If you’re producing a work that will be presented, you’re responsible for the audience… and you’re responsible for furthering the art-form.”
Both Chalker and Guerin emphasise the fact that independent artists and small companies are incredibly hard working, making every dollar invested in them through public funding stretch to its absolute limit. And they punch well above their weight when it comes to product. “Look at the recent, hugely successful 2015 Dance Massive festival in Melbourne,” says Guerin. “Focusing on small companies and independents, this festival brought international dance presenters to Melbourne to find out what ‘Australian dance’ is. The response was overwhelming.
“An example of a hugely successful new work by independent artists is Meeting, a new work by Antony Hamilton and Alisdair Macindoe,” continues Guerin. “Meeting is weird, obsessive, repetitive and was utterly compelling for everyone that saw it. It has been quickly picked up by international and national presenters and will tour to Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary and France among others… Our most exciting artists are coming from the independent/small company sector.”
The impact of the cuts to Australia Council’s funding
Chalker, Guerin and Martin are hugely concerned about the short and long-term impact that the funding cuts will have, not just on independent artists and small companies but on the dance sector as a whole. As Guerin puts it, “Independent and small organisations are the life-blood of Australia’s dance ecology.”
As this issue of Dance Australia was being finalised, news broke that Labor and the Greens, with the support of Independents, successfully lobbied for a Senate Inquiry into the NPEA. A report will be issued by 15 September 2015.
- NIna Levy, August 2015