Art Scape Deidre FalveyThis year, the arts world has been "burning the furniture to keep the shop open", according to Druid director Garry Hynes. After cobbling things together this year, the problem now, she added, is what happens next year if the cuts continue?
Hynes was talking after this week's presentations by Theatre Forum (TF) and Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. The TF delegation comprised Johnny Hanrahan of Meridian, Garry Hynes of Druid, Fergus Linehan of the Dublin Theatre Festival and Tania Banotti, TF's new chief executive and, coincidentally, formerly of SPI, whose delegates were Andrew Lowe from Element Films, James Flynn from Octagon and Joan Egan from Tyrone Productions.
Both delegations said there was an informed level of questioning by the committee. Some of those at the meeting commented that there seemed to be a genuine concern and thirst for knowledge about the situation, a sense that the arts were valued, and that the committee was supportive. The committee said it would ask Department of Finance representatives to appear before it, to explain the decision to drop Section 481 tax incentives, in the light of SPI's submission.
Actual facts can speak volumes about the reality - and TF has compiled a document which quantifies the effects of last year's funding cuts on the performing arts. It makes stark reading, citing the number of productions cancelled or curtailed, the jobs lost, the tours cut back or cancelled and the seasons that didn't happen. The dossier is part of its campaign against further funding cuts, which will be launched in the Spiegeltent, Wolfe Tone Park, next Tuesday morning (with, it is promised, actors protesting in "various states of undress" to draw attention to the dire situation).
TF says further cutbacks in 2004 threaten to devastate the performing arts; and that while the €4 million cut in the Arts Council's budget in 2003 represented an insignificant saving in the State finances, it precipitated a sudden reversal of development within the arts and a state of crisis that has placed many companies in a precarious position. The survey presents "a bleak picture of fewer performances; fewer productions; job losses; less risk-taking; less touring; loss of morale; and a crisis of confidence".
Hynes said it was important to get the funding issue further up the agenda, and away from any notion that the arts can't be funded properly because of the state of the health service or whatever - that these priorities are not in opposition to each other.
Screen Producers Ireland outlined the impact the demise of Section 481 would have on the film industry and many on the committee said they had had representations from constituents who would be affected by the tax incentive being abandoned. They discussed the findings of the Sheridan report earlier this year, highlighting the three-to-one net gain to the economy from investment in film; the number of people working in film (4,300, with 970 alone working on King Arthur, which is shooting in Co Wicklow); the amount of money a film on location can bring to a specific area (Song for a Raggy Boy, for example, was shot on the Beara peninsula, west Cork). SPI argued that a successful film industry needed a production tax break (more suited to the film industry than the corporate tax breaks which apply to traditional industry), and that the money forgone in tax breaks is far exceeded by local spending and tax take. In the case of King Arthur, for example, the Exchequer loses €3.5 million in taxes, €50 million is spent locally and the Revenue gets €10 million in tax receipts from PAYE.
Submissions to the Oireachtas committee will continue, and the many people whose livelihoods and professional lives will be affected by the Estimates are waiting with concern.
Publishers get clubby
Long a part of the London literary social scene, Ireland now has its own Society of Publishers, writes Rosita Boland. The Society of Publishers in Ireland - another SPI (see previous story) - was launched last Tuesday with a packed turnout in Dublin's SamSara club. There are some 500 people working in book publishing in Ireland, and SPI has been set up as a sort of umbrella networking association within the trade.
"An opportunity for the publishing world to meet socially as a community, rather than an industry," commented Dermot Bolger, who addressed the gathering, and who has worked in publishing both as an author and as the founder of Raven Arts Press. Among the gathering were Michael McLoughlin of Penguin Ireland; agent Jonathan Williams; editor Sarah Webb; Seamus Hosey of RTÉ; Fergal Tobin, president of Clé; publisher Michael O'Brien; Books Ireland editor Jeremy Addis; publicist Margaret Daly; and Joseph Hoban of New Island. Annual membership is €25, and admission to the regular programme of social events planned - a book club, talks, workshops - is free. Clé and various publishers have been generous with financial donations to get SPI off the ground, and membership fees will also help to establish the organisation. SPI is currently run by a committee of five: Emma Byrne, a designer at O'Brien Press; Maria Dickenson, books purchasing manager at Eason's; Susan Rossney, editor at Thomson Round Hall; Rachel Pierce, managing editor at O'Brien Press; and Aoife Lennon of BoldFace Productions. More details from www.the-spi.com
And furthermore . . .
Cultural Co-operation And Touring (CCAT) was launched last night at Theatre Shop in Liberty Hall. Temple Bar Properties and Theatre Shop have secured EU funding for a project with Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales, which will run until December 2006. It involves touring and cultural networking in Ireland and Wales, with a tri-lingual aspect (Irish, English and Welsh), and will also include three co-production projects. CCAT aims to provide advice, practical help and grants for collaboration and touring in the EU-defined INTERREG areas in Ireland and Wales. Applications are invited from companies, particularly for proposed co-productions. Information from Zita Griffin: tel: 01-6772255; e-mail: ccat@templebar.ie or see www.ccat.ie
MovieExtras.ie, representing more than 3,000 extras who are set to lose out with the abolition of Section 481 tax relief, has launched a web-based petition to campaign on the issue. www.s481.movieextras.ie
Michael Klien recently took over as artistic director of Daghdha Dance Company and the company now has a permanent home in Limerick's city centre, at St John of the Cross Church, where it plans a weekend of performance, Gravity and Grace - a Weekend of Stories in Movement, on December 13th and 14th. Daghdha plans to set up four full-time positions for dancers and one apprenticeship for dance next year and to implement an annual "choreographic lab".
Kevin Mallon has been appointed artistic director of Opera 2005, the opera company founded this year in partnership with Cork Opera House. Mallon is originally from Belfast and more recently was based in Canada as director of the Baroque Orchestra and conductor of the University of Toronto Chamber Orchestra. He formed and became the music director of the Aradia Ensemble in 1996 and has recorded extensively and performed widely as a conductor and violinist. Nicole Panizza, an Australian living in Ireland since 1999, formerly education officer at Covent Garden and now with the Cork School of Music, has been appointed education officer. Eithne Egan, who has worked at Waterfront Hall, NCH, CMC and UCD, is general administrator. Meanwhile, Maria Johnston, operations manager for the past three years with the now defunct DesignYard, has been appointed arts programme manager for production companies by the Arts Council, where she'll work in the arts programme department.
Jean Butler, formerly of Riverdance and Dancing on Dangerous Ground, is now an artist-in-residence at the Irish World Music Centre at University ofLimerick, where she is also one of the new students, doing an MA in contemporary dance performance. One hundred new students have started a range of one-year MA programmes, including classical string performance, contemporary dance performance and Irish traditional music performance.
Two young Irish singers have been selected for the 40-strong Rugby World Cup Choir: Alastair Davis (25), from Dublin, a scholarship student at the Conservatory of Music and Drama at DIT, and Colleen Shannon (18), from Co Kerry, an Irish Youth Choir member who has just done her Leaving Cert. They will join singers from all over the world for the opening and closing ceremonies in Australia, as well as singing Ireland's Call as soloists at our matches.
'Tis the season of online newsletters, it seems: the first of the Arts Council's monthly newsletters arrived by e-mail (you can register to receive it on the Council's homepage), along with a mid-festival online edition of Irish Theatre Magazine, and the Contemporary Music Society's missive.