Spill Appetite Stoke

A Taste of the Future

Beccy Smith reflects on Stoke’s Appetite programme and the challenge of valuing the arts

July 2014 has been a month about money. The first day of the month saw the announcement by Arts Council England of their national portfolio organisations for 2015 – 2018, unleashing a flurry of discussion on social media and national newspaper comment threads chewing over the new acquisitions; the politics behind salami-slicing for those that remained regularly funded; and the many previous beneficiaries and new applicants who missed out (some of whom have been courageous enough to stick their heads over the parapet and advance conversations about the possible underlying strategies in play. Thus, a cap must be tipped to Camden People’s Theatre, long time champion of experimental small-scale work, and for the first time to become part of the Portfolio; with commiserations to former Total Theatre Award-winners 1927, who have wowed the world with their extraordinary mix of animation and live performance, but who failed to gain portfolio status.

Of course any announcement of major public funding for the arts also triggers debate about the justification for subsidy in general.   Few critical voices have been raised about the decision to cut nearly £5 million a year from the English National Opera’s three-year grant. Why not? Because it is seen as being a company who make work in an artform regarded by many as elitist and exclusive.  We are all operating in a political context where the justification for investment of taxpayers money is under ongoing attack, meaning inclusivity and engagement even more critical than usual for making the case for the arts.  The inclusion (in spite of the additionally principle) of Lottery monies to prop up DCMS’s reduced settlement to arts organisations intensifies this priority as lottery money draws more substantively from lower income communities. At the same time, this year’s public investment strategy happens against a backdrop of campaigns from the industry to address fairer payment of artists for their work: the ‘I’ll Show you Mine’ discussion triggered by Bryony Kimmings’ blog.

The contrast between these two positions – where culture is seen as self-indulgently drawing investment away from more important priorities at the same time as market rates persistently undervaluing the work and time of those creating art  – illustrates a growing tension at the heart of arts policy and public discourse about culture. Critical to this debate is the question of how and why we value the arts as a society and if it is possible, in this so-called age of austerity, to foster a stronger sense of just what culture is worth.

No Fit State Circus - Bianco

No Fit State Circus – Bianco

And it’s to these thorny questions that the targeted projects supported by Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places (CPP) fund address themselves. Focused on communities with historically low attendance and engagement in the arts, these projects, which launched for the first time in 2013, are action research partnerships that aim to experiment with new approaches to develop inspiring and sustainable relationship between local communities and arts organisations; to foster a sense of the value of cultural experiences which, over the mid term (projects are encouraged to create 10-year visions for communities going forward) will transform the cultural habits of a community.

Bianco, NoFit State Circus, Stoke-on-Trent, 2013©Andrew BillingtonBianco, NoFit State Circus, Stoke-on-Trent, 2013©Andrew BillingtonWhat the Creative People and Places projects are addressing is no less a question than this: How can you create value for the arts amongst constituencies for whom much culture feels irrelevant?  Few artists themselves, of course, are interested in making work for the select minority but nevertheless the question of how to reach out to new audiences, so often practically brokered not by the artist, or even the work, but by the venue or producing partner by which the work is framed, has long been a frustrating one. In Stoke, the winning project proposal, spearheaded appropriately enough, by a venue (the New Vic), is Appetite.

Appetitelaunchevent_Image by Andrew BillingtonWorking from the metaphor in its title, the approach, unique amongst other CPP research structures, has been to spend the first year of their three-year programme ‘skilling up’ audiences through opportunities to sample a range of unexpected arts experiences.  I learned recently that it is only after tasting something eight times that your body becomes used to the flavour – one of the reasons children can be so fussy about new foods. The approach of Appetite, led by project director Karl Greenwood with local producer Gemma Thomas, is to cultivate audiences by developing a sense of their own taste within communities. Free programmes of world-class art brought to Stoke, offered in unusual locations and formats, offer audiences a chance to try something new not once, but several times, to decide what they like. At the same time, Appetite works with existing and new community groups to support the development of community programmers seeing an even greater range of work, including facilitated trips to Greenwich and Docklands International Festival and Lumiere in Newcastle.  The dialogue is focused between community representatives, who know their area and are themselves talking to residents about emerging themes of interest stimulated by Appetite’s free programme, and potential visiting artists and productions.

Periplum The Bell

Periplum The Bell – Stoke Appetite 2 & 3 Aug 2014

Much of the work presented in Stoke during the first year’s free programmes is happening on the street, in the neighbourhood, or in pop-up bespoke venues such as NoFitState’s big top tent for their show Bianco. This approach to programming favours artists making work in experimental forms, outside of regular theatre and art spaces – street theatre, circus, interactive work, outdoor arts, and audio walks.  Several key ‘total theatre’ companies – Periplum, Upswing, Inspector Sands – have been, or will be, showcased through the programme.  There’s an intuitive understanding, refreshing to see in a venue-led consortium, that the wonder and surprise arguably essential in altering what may be entrenched opinions about cultural events are at their most accessible in the immediate encounters offered by alternative forms presented outside of the theatre venues. We could here flag up the model of the Stockton International Riverside Festival, which for many decades has taken outdoor arts and site-responsive theatre to one of the less privileged areas of Britain, over the years (under the direction of Frank Wilson) developing an educated audience who happily welcome top-quality performance work from across the globe.

On the day I visited Stoke, a schools performance of Australian choreographer Shaun Parker’s Spill (featured image, above) was on offer at a playground in a housing estate in the north of the city. It was a simple site, a stretch of rubbery tarmac with a cuboid climbing frame, a slide and a rotating swing on a tall angled stand on the edge of an estate set into the side of a hill, that was adorned with red and white England flags hanging from windows and car aerials. Around the playground a couple of Appetite pennants fluttered in the low breeze, branding the event, and on a couple of mats in front, a gaggle of patient schoolchildren wriggled in the sun. Parker’s performance, produced by DanceXchange, was first commissioned for the Cultural Olympiad and sets out to transform the familiar community spaces of local playgrounds by animating them with bespoke choreography. Now, having spent just a couple of days before on site, the company saunter and skate into the frame to an urban grime soundtrack, and proceed to play the site, using choreography that combines muscular acrobalance, breakdancing, playful competition, and some clever use of the different shapes and momentums offered by this playground’s kit. The tone is childlike and warm, the watching children shift from uncertainty to very obviously being impressed. It’s a clever way to offer creative performance as an intervention in the familiar, and the show is followed by a workshop for children and adults who want to try out some of the moves (I love the idea of that particular playground never again being used in quite the way it was intended as a legacy of this programme!).

As the World Tipped by Wired Aerial Theatre Images provided courtesy of Andrew Billington Photography 8

Wired Aerial Theatre, As the World Tipped | Andrew Billington Photography

A by-product of programming work such as Spill that exists outside of venues is in its different engagement with place. The arrival of a posse of street artists at the bus interchange or of the enormous suspended stage of As the World Tipped (Wired Aerial’s large-scale outdoor arts piece) in a local park is itself a surpass and provocation, visibly transforming a familiar place. Going one step further along the site-responsive route, writer and artist Dan Thompson has been commissioned as artist-in-residence for a whole year for the whole street of London Road, a process focussed on unearthing stories from every (fascinating) building along the road. Here we can see the impact of this sort of programme as not only asserting the value of cultural activity, but also reclaiming the value of the places they are sited in. Stoke’s industrial and craft base, specialising in pottery and dominating all employment in the city, has been hit hard by recent recessions. Thompson’s work (supported by Stoke West and Oakhill Community Association) as artist-in-residence here, focuses on rediscovering the beauty and interest of derelict sites, forgotten architecture, and histories hidden by supermarkets, reawakening a sense of the value obscured by depression and decay.

Appetite’s ongoing and evolving programme of activity models some significant alternative ways of offering and encountering culture. In thinking specifically about place – including by programming work of particular interest to communities such as, in Stoke, hosting the British Ceramics Biennial – the project’s research acknowledges that the needs and wishes of different audiences are different, and that supporting the grassroots is just as vitally important as the national organisations supporting work of strategic significance. By trying to work with communities in developing understanding about the offers the arts might make to them, the debate about value is taken out of the hands of specialists and straight to audiences.

Appetitelaunchevent_Image-by-Andrew-Billington

Appetite launch event | Andrew Billington Photography

Of course the nature of value is slippery – it’s a peculiarly intangible thing to attempt to measure. Money itself is hopelessly abstracted from many of our everyday needs. A sense of value is palpable in those moments, familiar to actors, between audience and stage when the audience are rapt. It’s visible today in the instances on their mat when the schoolchildren watching Spill all look at one another in disbelieving glee about one of the company’s acrobatic feats.  In more complicated ways, it is present in the number of people who materialise to see a production, or in the energy with which they applaud at the end – but it’s extraordinarily hard to actually quantify. Appetite are now in the tricky transitioning stage of exploring what their communities would be wiling to pay to feed the appetite they’ve been fostering, and no one can second-guess how this will play out. These projects are framed as research for a reason.

Debates about how the arts and artists reach out to audiences, making their offer to lift people out of everyday life, or cast new light upon it, should be compelling not only politically but in an essential way, about the art. To take only the former view we render the arts as instrument, as only a tool to regenerate and effect socio-economic change. However effective such programming may be (and the evidence is mixed, at best), if this becomes the final arbiter then no sustainable future is possible.  Culture can never be the first tool to lift people out of poverty and pain, however powerful it is. But in Stoke it is possible to see the ways that art can alter perspectives. There’s an argument being built here about the significance to culture of alternative forms and grassroots movements sadly only partially reflected in the recent funding decisions made by ACE for its national portfolio 2015–2018.  The case emerging here is of the ways the arts, thoughtfully offered, can do what they’re best at – transforming place, enriching experience, entertaining, and provoking.  And hopefully, that’ll be enough to send people back for seconds.

 

The Appetite Taster programme runs throughout summer 2014 at various locations in Stoke.

 For further information and dates of all shows and events, see www.appetitestoke.co.uk/

 The Appetite programme is funded by Arts Council England and is led by the New Vic Theatre in partnership with B Arts, Brighter Futures, Partners in Creative Learning and Staffordshire University.

 

 

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About Beccy Smith

Beccy Smith is a freelance dramaturg who specialises in developing visual performance and theatre for young people, including through her own company TouchedTheatre. She is passionate about developing quality writing on and for new performance. Beccy has worked for Total Theatre Magazine as a writer, critic and editor for the past five years. She is always keen to hear from new writers interested in developing their writing on contemporary theatre forms.