Andrew Gilder looks at the background to the launch of a performing arts network last week
Some observers argue that human history has a cyclical nature that historical events recur over time.
Most commentators use timeframes of centuries, or even millennia, to track this repetition. It is with a sense of ironic dj vu, therefore, that Mike van Graan is noting a repeat in elements of his own history, less than a decade after their first occurrence.
Van Graan is highly regarded, within the arts community as an activist and a playwright. He was prominent in the political struggle of the late 1980s and the Arts and Culture Task Group (Actag) of the early 1990s.
The work of Actag resulted in the drafting of the white paper on the arts, which defines current government policy towards the sector. After the 1994 election Van Graan acted as adviser to Minister of Arts, Culture Science and Technology Dr Ben Ngubane. He later forsook this position, in his own words, “to act as a watchdog over the implementation of the new arts policies”. One of the platforms he uses for this role is The Cultural Weapon, a comment column published on the Artslink website.
Perhaps the most emotive issue in the realm of the performing arts, and one that is causing Van Graan’s present dj vu, is that of funding.
Under the apartheid state the provincial arts councils, and the performance companies connected to them, received seemingly limitless money. Of course, this was at the expense of indigenous forms of art.
The white paper sought to address this imbalance by separating the performing companies from the arts councils and turning their theatres into “playhouses” available to those ensembles that can raise the finance to hire them. At the same time the National Arts Council (NAC) was established. This body, among others nationally and regionally, was tasked with the dissemination of public funds to those artistic entities deemed most deserving.
Earlier this year the NAC published newspaper advertisements announcing that it had “secured additional funds from the Department of Arts Culture Science and Technology to coordinate the process for interim funding of performing arts companies”.
Companies were invited to submit proposals motivating why they should be accorded “premier status” and include a “funding and business plan for the next three years”.
The invitation was greeted with relief by the performing arts industry because, as Van Graan says: “It signalled the lifeline many struggling companies with sound artistic track records and employing numerous poorly paid professionals, were long waiting for.”
There was a flurry of activity as companies scrambled to make the March 30 deadline.
But the “lifeline” never materialised. Within weeks companies throughout the country were informed that “unfortunately the purpose of the funds was not explained clearly to the NAC, as a result the minister has decided that all funding from the savings made at the State Theatre will be withheld until the board of the State Theatre has been appointed.
“Furthermore, the minister has given instructions that the funds be used for the production of works to be presented at the State Theatre.”
In typical acerbic style Van Graan dismisses this reasoning as “ranking high on the claptrap scale”. He points out that, at the media briefing the day before the reopening of the State Theatre, Ngubane announced that R10-million was available from the department budget for distribution to “performance companies of national excellence”, and that this would be matched by a R1-million contribution from the Biliton company .
To Van Graan’s mind, then, “R11-million should have been allocated by the NAC to performing arts companies that met the criteria of ‘national excellence'”.
His ire was raised further by the fact that the appointment of the State Theatre board is the responsibility of the department and Ngubane. Thus it seemed that “premier” funding of companies countrywide was to be postponed on a decision of the minister, by virtue of the tardiness of the same minister to appoint the board.
Van Graan levels two other criticisms at the decision. Firstly, the NAC is a national body, yet the funds were to be channelled into productions at the State Theatre. Secondly, the State Theatre (which already receives R17,5-million from the government), is a playhouse and not eligible to apply for money earmarked for performance companies.
In this context, Van Graan and others last weekend launched in Cape Town and Gauteng the Performing Arts Network of South Africa (Pansa). There will be a KwaZulu-Natal launch on June 23.
The organisation’s intention is not to duplicate the functions of other bodies representing the interests of artists, but rather to coordinate the interactions of practitioners both between artists themselves and with the government.
Van Graan was elected chairperson of the Western Cape region. “It is time for performing artists to take more active responsibility for their industry,” he says.
In a sequel to the performing arts funding dilemma, the department this week announced that Ngubane has made R10-million, previously allocated to the State Theatre, available to the NAC for “special arts companies, excluding playhouses and those presently funded by either [the department] or the NAC”.
This is in addition to the R25-million already in the pipeline for distribution by the NAC.
The release quotes Ngubane as saying: “The monies granted will go directly to performers to mount productions as opposed to funding for the infrastructure”.
Allocations will be made on the basis of applications received in the wake of the advertisements published earlier in the year.
Significantly this reversal of the previous decision comes with a series of provisos not mentioned in those advertisements. The funding will be available to companies nominated by the NAC, which meet certain criteria within six months of the allocations which will take place within four weeks.
The new criteria are that “grants must be used for the creation of work or projects that lead to performances”; that “recipients are required to raise sponsorship or marketing grants equal to at least 50% of the special grant”; and that “if requested by the State Theatre, some of the performances must take place at one of the venues of the State Theatre, or the productions must use some of the facilities owned by the State Theatre within 12 months of the grant”.
Van Graan’s response is twofold. He welcomes the change of heart by Ngubane, but regards the new conditions as “completely unfair” as these were not the bases upon which companies originally applied. He points out that “premier” funding was “intended to make companies sustainable in their own right”. This process is not facilitated by requiring companies to find matching 50% funding there is also no mention of what will happen if a company is not able to raise this matching funding. He finds the third criterion “bizarre” because it is not clear whether the State Theatre will pay for companies to perform there.
His guess is that the changes have been brought about by the increasingly vocal dissatisfaction of the performing arts industry to the retraction of premier funding. “Unfortunately,” he says, “the State Theatre remains part of the new criteria, and this latest decision reflects the ongoing ad hoc policy formulation within the department that does not seem to display a longer-term strategic plan”.
Old activists, it seems, do not have the luxury of fading away.
To read Mike van Graan’s reaction to the cultural fray visit www.artslink.co.za/cw