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 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.”...
This is an extract from an article by Nina Levy in the current issue of Dance Australia. Read the full article and many more - buy Dance Australia from your favourite retail outlet, or use our free app to purchase and download your copy, or make sure you receive every issue by subscribing here!