Did minority arts lose out the most?
Arts Council funding cuts hit many theatre organisations hard but did black and minority ethnic companies lose out disproportionately?
Last month, as over 1,300 arts organisations nervously waited for Arts Council England emails to arrive in their inboxes, containing news about whether they would have funding from next year, the Daily Mail's theatre critic made a bold prediction: it would be "temples to middle-class taste and artistic excellence" that would suffer disproportionately. "Fringier outfits," he speculated, "particularly those of an inner-city, multicultural kidney, may do rather better." Companies such as the RSC and English National Ballet (in receipt of over 16m and 6m respectively in the current financial year), would lose out, thanks to "corduroyed luvvies" and "left-wing breast beating about 'broadening access'".
The reality, as we now know, was somewhat different: just 57 of 650 black or minority ethnic (BME) organisations were welcomed into the Arts Council's national portfolio (NPO) roster, down from the 74 that previously existed as regularly funded organisations (RFOs). Indeed, inner-city arts centres specifically targeting multi-ethnic audiences faced some of the biggest cuts: London's Rich Mix, Watermans and Yaa Asantewaa saw their funding slashed by more than half. Meanwhile, Greenroom, a performing arts venue in Manchester led by the country's only black British artistic director,! saw its entire 295,000 grant vanish; 25 years after it opened, the space is set to close at the end of next month.
Elsewhere, the casualties began to mount up. Nitro, Britain's oldest black theatre company, lost all its annual funding (273,000), as did south Asian storytelling company Vayu Naidu (63,000). Five carnival arts organisations were shed from the new portfolio; as well as street arts company Xtrax, the Osun Arts Foundation, dance companies Henri Oguike and Chitraleka, Collective Artistes the list goes on. Perhaps most surprising of all, though, was the 100% cut to Yellow Earth the country's only east Asian theatre company.
Kumiko Mendl, who arrived as artistic director just three months ago, says the decision "felt like a slap in the face". "They talk about the need for a balanced portfolio, but it doesn't feel it. It's difficult to take." The company still has a 150,000 grant from ACE, which will carry them through to next year but it's not much, she says. "That funds two full-time posts and a few freelancers to stage at least one touring production a year which can account for 70,000 on its own." Yellow Earth also runs plenty of initiatives to encourage east Asian artists, including free drama school training, a playwriting scheme, a playreading festival and a director's training project. Ambitious stuff, but it clearly wasn't enough to have secured them a financial lifeline.
Understandably wearied by the fallout of managing 700 or so rejected applicants, an Arts Council England spokesperson told me: "We had to make some very difficult dec! isions a nd were not able to fund many organisations that we would have liked [and] with limited funds available, there were other theatre applicants that could deliver more strongly against our goals and priorities." They are, she admitted, "very aware that there is no theatre company in our national portfolio that focuses solely on east Asian work", and promises that the funding body will be looking at "other options and models available".
For David Tse Ka-Shing, who founded and led Yellow Earth for 13 successful years before becoming creative director of Chinatown Arts Space, however, the decision is simply "a very big mistake". "It will diminish the British east Asian voice, which is already the most under-represented and least visible in the arts," he argues. "We are off the radar already. [The decision is] short-sighted and institutionally racist." It's a charge the Arts Council, perhaps unsurprisingly, rejects: "The same criteria were used to assess every single application."
Despite a tumultuous year for Yellow Earth under a brief joint artistic directorship in 2010, the last show the company saw reviewed in the national press won several solid reviews in the national press. And Tse Ka-Shing rejects the accusation that they like other companies who faced the axe were underperforming. "Artistically, you can't fault them," he insists. "I go to the theatre all the time and I've seen plenty of stuff that isn't consistently 'excellent'. Most quality venues will have artistic highs, and then sometimes good, average, mediocre or poor work. That doesn't mean the organisation folds, it's simply given chances to take risks. But small BME companies, which are funded to do one show per year, are somehow exp! ected to be excellent every single time. Is that equitable?"
It is an open question. Although ACE have welcomed some new blood into the funding mix the likes of Eclipse theatre company, ADAD (Association of Dance of the African Diaspora), Dash Arts and 20 Stories High all won NPO status their combined funding adds up to just 391,000 for 2012/2013, roughly half the 738,000 shaved off the grant for a single company, the RSC, that same year. As the Daily Mail foresaw, RSC and English National Ballet did take a hit (6.6%) in cash terms over three years, but Arts Council spend on organisations of "a multicultural kidney" accounts for just 3% of the total 400m NPO budget. Moreover, while 261 existing RFOs lost some funding in the transition to become NPOs, 321 were actually given more money, and a further 110 new organisations were also welcomed into the new system. So, while some progress has been made, it's clear that sizeable inequities remain.
Over the last decades, the Arts Council have made significant steps to foster cultural diversity within the arts. Following Naseem Khan's landmark 1976 report, The Art Britain Ignores, other consultation documents notably the Eclipse, Whose Theatre? and McMaster reports have all called for a broader range of work to be funded. Yet there is still some way to go: as work currently being done on the upcoming publication (and Decibel-hosted symposium) entitled Beyond Cultural Diversity: the case for creativity, reveals. Intended as a flagship debate on multicultural arts policy, the report's aim is to move beyond the idea that art should be defined and categorised by ethnicity; i! nstead, its proponents argue, the emphasis is on promoting an equality of opportunity greater investment in multiple artistic voices and perspectives, as well as recognising the role diversity in art has in driving innovation in the industry overall.
It has to be said that one upshot of changes in the arts is that more mainstream venues and companies are producing broader, more inclusive work; it's a little less unusual to see a majority black cast on a London stage, or seasons with at least one play staged from a non-white perspective. In recent months, we've seen Fela! at the National and Mogadishu at the Lyric Hammersmith. Given that 40% of the capital's population is of non-white British heritage, this should be expected as well as encouraged. Outside London, the National Rural Touring Forum reports, anecdotally at least, that it's often works by black, Asian, or minority ethnic artists that the biggest hits in smaller towns and villages. The consensus suggests that despite a minimum of funding, the BME arts sector has traditionally punched well above its weight.
And its influence is felt far beyond. Mike Leigh, for instance, told Kwame Kwei-Armah that he had been inspired to write Two Thousand Years his first play in 12 years after seeing Elmina's Kitchen at the National. Meanwhile, the first play David Hare ever saw at the Royal Court was the 1963 play Skyvers by British Jamaican playwright Barry Reckord, a devastating account of working-class kids in what would no! w be cal led a bog-standard London comp. "I simply hadn't seen teenage lives represented so warmly and recognisably on a British stage," he told me. "It was a ground-breaker, all on its own."
Reckord, who now barely registers as a footnote in British theatre history, is one of many artists from the west Indian, African, south and east Asian diaspora whose impact seems to outweigh his recognition. Mendl thinks this is part of the problem: "How are we supposed to inspire and build that next generation of artists when the ones before them aren't even known?" She is insistent, however, that Yellow Earth will continue to survive beyond next year. "No other company is doing this work, and it leaves a big hole, so it's imperative that we go on." Her determination is matched by Felix Cross, artistic director of Nitro. "We have lost our funding," he says. "Not our creativity, nor our business, nor our spirit."
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