THE Arts Council of Northern Ireland yesterday announced the allocation of funds for the next financial year, in the context of an increase of 2.8 per cent in its budget from the Department of Education in the North, writes Jane Coyle. This increase goes some way towards achieving parity of government funding for the arts in the North with their counterparts in Britain, though it's more a case of meeting them on the way down than a cause for celebration.
(The English Arts Council's budget was recently cut by 5 per cent, while there was no change in the Scottish and Welsh councils' grants.)
This is the first grant since the publication of ACNI's To The Millennium strategy document and is marked by what the council describes as " ... a real determination towards strategic change". There is a strong emphasis on the development of new projects, with £50,000 being earmarked from Lottery funding for the creation of new works in the fields of the creative and performing arts. Following a significant increase last year, community arts receive another big uplift of 14 per cent, the fine detail of which will not be announced until mid February.
In recognition of the innovative and critically acclaimed work undertaken over the past year, both DubbelJoint (with £77,000) and Mad Cow (with £40,000) theatre companies receive well deserved raises in their allowances. On the down side, the Grand Opera House is down by £10,000 and the Arts Theatre by an astonishing £25,000 to just £30,000. And the Lyric Theatre is less than happy with its basic grant of £445,000, only £5,000 up on last year, which puts a question mark over future projects. "We have toured extensively over the past year", says Lyric associate director David Grant. "If this figure is intended to cover all our activities, then it is a positive disincentive to spread our work beyond Ridgeway Street."
The Ulster Orchestra's grant rises to £1,148,000, which includes a special grant of £8,000 for its educational activities; likewise, Opera Northern Ireland receives an additional rise for education work, plus £15,000 for a touring co operative with the Dublin based Opera Theatre Company. The new Ormeau Baths Gallery receives the lion's share of the visual arts budget with £215,000, while responsibility for new film projects is hived off to the Northern Ireland Film Council, to whom a total of £120,000 will be made available. Some £21,615 has been shared between six Irish language agencies for a range of performances and workshops. A welcome new entry on the client list is the West Belfast Film Festival, set up last year on its own initiative, and this year granted £4,000.
The Belfast Festival at Queen's has suffered a £5,000 cut in its basic grant to £110,000. Arts Council Chairman Donnell Deeny yesterday attributed the drop to the "success and good management of the event", and gave the same reason for the cut to the Grand Opera House. This made some people present wonder if box office success was to be penalised. The announcement of the substantive funding of the thriving West Belfast Festival will be made in February, together with that of other community arts initiatives.
