 What a strange thing to say. Of course, it’s the answer. Isn’t it? There simply aren’t enough salaried jobs, are there? So, if we want to make performance art, we have to get funding, whether its lottery/quango funding or trust/charity funding. That’s how it’s done. Alternatively we provide teaching, training, workshops and outreach. We share our skills and sometimes we’ll get funding to do that too. These are the options, right?
No. These things are not enough. There’s a better way. Perfectly poised …. As performance artists we are already naturally blessed with the answer. The very expression of our art-form is communion with others. Performance is always a collaboration of many parts, including audience, artists, other professionals, supporters, benefactors and interested parties. Even solo artists cannot create and express their art alone. The act of performance is a blessed conjoined gift and therein lays its ultimate strength. We are in fact perfectly poised to make a real difference to the future of arts funding. It works like this. Every single performance of every single type happens at the epi-centre of a community, like concentric rings in a pond. The make up of that community may shift and reform but a performance is always at the centre of its ring. Unfortunately, we’ve lost sight of that as a whole and been encouraged, often through the funding application process itself, to compartmentalise our community. We’re asked to address audience development as a separate issue from fundraising; to fully describe projects before we’ve had a chance to liaise properly. Worst of all, we have come to see our relationship with our community as something separate from our Art. It is not and can never be. This compartmentalising and separation of relationships is what has left many large theatres stranded and struggling. They thought the building itself was their asset, their resource. They were wrong. It was always their community, in the widest sense. Lyn Gardner speaks of this separation between artist and audience 05/02/14, and how, if we address this, we might create an “army of advocates” for our work 07/05/2013. In this context, it’s an interesting sign of our times, how rarely you see positions for Animateurs in the arts today. In this country we’re more used to seeing the Animateur in the music industry. Music Jobs UK describe them as helping “audiences to appreciate musicians and music in new ways and helps them to enjoy music that they may not be familiar with. They also help the musicians as they develop techniques for reaching out to their communities and encourage as many people as possible to engage with music and music related activities.” However, in France and Italy in the 1960s and 1970s the role was seen to encompass a broader artistic remit. An Animateur or Animatore was “a practising artist, in any art form, who uses her / his skills, talents and personality to enable others to compose, design, devise, create perform or engage with works of art of any kind” (Smith 1999, 2009) – “animation” was to breath life into a thing and do all that was required to allow it to happen, including marshalling the necessary resources and funds. To me, this moves us closer to the kind of holistic community development that all performance needs. As a performance artist/organisation you have a community which is your greatest strength and continual communication within it should not be an extra task but should be part of your Art. You need to employ or to think like an Animateur. You need someone who can resist the imperatives to segregate and compartmentalise, someone to love and nuture your whole community, including audience, sponsors, benefactors and interested parties, in all the ways that are needful to create your art. Still not sure, well then let me prove it to you … The South West is seething with talent and creativity in this regard ….. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. The inspiration is right here in the South West performance landscape, just look around you. You can see it in the action at the Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter. The dynamic direction there of David Lockwood and latterly of Fin Irwin has meant that they haven’t relied on the theatre itself to generate income. What they have created is a beautiful community of performance artists, audience and sponsors; a hub of developing practice that supports local, and indeed national, talent. Through their Framework Programme and Residencies they’re continually growing and nurturing their community. It's right there in the promenade, open-access, landscape-involved work of Burn the Curtain. You can see it in North Devon too. Multi Story Theatre have taken years of experience of working with young people, into schools but not as an add-on, or an outreach extension – but as an integrated way of creating and developing their performances. And in the inspired work of Viva Voce whose mission is to “create artistic experiences from the words of real people” in excellent verbatim theatre. And in a myriad of smaller enterprises such as Theatre Rush’s Story Exchange, and indeed Interwoven Production’s own Squilometre community-commissioned performance concept. I’m not saying that none of these organisations has received traditional arts funding, or that they won’t in the future. I am saying that because of their community integrated approach, they are better positioned than others to survive without it in the future. And the beauty is, the real gem of glory is, in changing in this way, in wholly embracing and animating your community to fund and shape your art, you’ll be playing an active part in changing the arts landscape forever. So, if you’re hurting from another rejected funding application, finding your talents and enthusiasms blunted by having to provide endless “evidence” of your worth, take heart. The answer is already here. And the more we operate in this way, the less we will need arts funding. As performance artists, in the sharing, the grace and the communion of your art – we are uniquely and perfectly poised to change the world. Smith, Mark K. (1999, 2009) ‘Animateurs, animation and fostering learning and change’, the encylopaedia of informal education. [www.infed.org/mobi/animateurs-animation-learning-and-change]
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