Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: M¡longa

A beautiful start – reminiscent of Pina Bausch. Or perhaps even a Gotan Project gig. A screen fills the stage, and on it we see a milonga in progress, the camera wandering over the images of the couples dancing beautifully with each other, oblivious of the camera. Regular people, on a night out in Buenos Aires. And this intimacy and oblivion is the point. Tango is about the relationship between the dancers, not the response of the onlooker, and as such is not a performance form, it is a social dance form.

A dilemma that Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui acknowledges in his programme notes to M¡longa. How do you make a performance piece out of a dance form that isn’t, in its essence, intended for the stage? He is not alone in this problem. Many have gone before him, and he stands on their shoulders. Indeed, many of the tango performers in this show, and his chief tango consultant/rehearsal director Nelida Rodriguez, have been there with this dilemma for decades. She is a veteran of Tango Argentino, the 1980s show that brought Argentine tango to the world. (I saw this show in New York in 1981/2, and it opened my eyes to the wonders of the form, for which I’ll be eternally grateful.) In this, and many subsequent shows that sprung from it, such as the Tango Por Dos repertoire (also seen at Sadler’s Wells in recent years), the answer to the dilemma has often been to present an onstage history of the dance as it progresses through the 20th century, from its roots in La Boca (the old port area of Buenos Aires) to the salons of the city. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui eschews this idea, and offers instead an odd patchwork of scenes that purport to show a meeting of contemporary dance and tango in its reflection on what happens during a milonga (confusingly perhaps for tango outsiders, the word ‘milonga’ means both a social dance occasion, it’s most usual meaning, but also refers to a faster and perkier dance form that is part of the tango family).

The only problem is that although he perhaps thinks this is something new, Tango Nuevo has been the toast of BA (and elsewhere) for many decades now; and many tango dancers (including some of the Argentinians he here employs) are also trained in contemporary dance, and have been exploring the onstage dynamic between the two forms for years. Go to any tango show in Buenos Aires – be it at a commercial club or at an arts venue or festival – and you will see scenes almost identical to those presented here on the Sadler’s Wells stage. Indeed, presented by the same dancers! I know that is irrelevant for those seeing the show (the vast majority, I suppose) who are not serious tango aficionados, but for those of us who are, the response is ultimately that this is a very pleasant evening, with high production values, and wonderful dancing (by some of Argentina’s finest), but there is nothing innovative about it.

Believe me, this is not the first tango show to feature a row of chairs (eyes across the dancefloor), a wallflower abandoned by her man, a three-way all-male dance, or a nod towards the traditional Apache dance-fight. And on that latter scene: in the interest of feminist consciousness, you really cannot and should not, in the 21st century, have a scene in a contemporary dance piece in which a woman is grabbed by the back of the head, presented without humour or irony. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui says that he isn’t afraid of the cliches – I’d say be afraid, be very afraid, unless you have the means to interrogate those cliches. There is also the nagging spectre of cultural appropriation…

Having been reminded of Pina Bausch in the opening scene, I can’t help, throughout this show, think what she would have made of the material. Indeed, what she did make of investigations of social dance, both European and South American, in many of her shows, including Kontakthof, Waltzer, Masurca Fogo, et al. I long for the sort of loving deconstruction that is the hallmark of her work.

There are some scenes that spark my interest, showing an intent to take things beyond the regular tango show format. I love the use of film, especially the way live performers interact with the moving images – gorgeous city landscapes of Buenos Aires, or multiple images of the dancing bodies. Some of the use of film windows and cut-up boxes reminds me of Carlos Saura’s films. There is a good use too of cut-out 2-D figures and shadows to create a lovely sense of the faceless ‘others’ in a milonga that surround a dancing couple who only have eyes for each other. Set and video design is by Eugenio Szwarcer, who has done a sterling job.

And it has to be said again, the tango dancers are wonderful – with a special accolade to legendary traditional dancer Esther Garabali (who was featured in Carlos Saura’s Tango), and to Vivana D’Attoma and her longterm partner Gabriel Bordon, who have gravitas, versatility, and a brilliant and theatrical sense of humour, particularly in the milonga scene (second sense of this word employed here). The musicians too, under the leadership of composer/musical director Fernando Marzan – a full tango orchestra of piano, bandoneon, violin, guitar, and bass – who deliver all the classics, from Gallo Ciego to Libertango and beyond, with dash and panache .

M¡longa was created in 2012, and has toured the world with enormous success since its premiere in 2013. This is the last night of the current run, and naturally there is a standing ovation for the team of twelve dancers and five musicians. It is a palpable hit for Sadler’s Wells. a solid piece of entertainment, and if I were someone who’d bought a ticket looking for a good night out that was easy on the eye and brain, I wouldn’t be disappointed. But I’m here on a press ticket, with an expectation (created by the publicity for the show) that Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, a renowned contemporary choreographer, would be creating an unexpected and interesting response to the time he has spent in Buenos Aires. Something that genuinely pushed back the boundaries. That I didn’t see.

Richard DeDomenici: The Redux Project

In 2013, live art performer and professional trickster Richard DeDomenici launched The Redux Project, which he describes as ’my attempt to disrupt the cinema industry by making counterfeit sections of popular films.’

And so here he is at Norwich Arts Centre, presenting a show about the project for this enterprising venue’s [Live] Art Club, as part of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. Like much of his performance work, it’s quite hard to pin down. As is his wont, it’s a kind of performance lecture illustrated with video clips, and peppered with a fair amount of witty commentary.

We are first given a run-down of The Redux Project. For the past couple of years, Richard has been making no-budget appropriations of Hollywood (and other) blockbusters. He re-creates a scene from a well-known film, shot by shot, using mates and volunteers and ‘resting’ actors. And – here’s the killer – he uses the original locations. So despite the toy cars that replace the real cars in the chase, or the slightly dodgy costumes sourced from the local fancy dress shop, we are immediately transported into the world of the film. It’s all about location, location, location.

My memory is pricked: I remember a community engagement project that Richard did in Croydon many years ago, in which he recreated Godzilla in the foyer of the Croydon Clocktower and Library. Making his own version of famous films has been brewing for quite a while, it would seem…

The Redux Project has taken him all over the world – The Bourne Ultimatum: Redux (Berlin), Terminator: Redux (Los Angeles), Fallen Angels: Redux (Hong Kong), Royal Tennenbaums: Redux (Harlem, NYC), Priscilla Queen Of The Desert: Redux (Sydney), Entrapment: Redux (Kuala Lumpur), and Bangkok Traffic Love Story: Redux (yes – Bangkok). Plus Cloud Atlas, Matrix, Superman IV and a whole lot more I’ve never heard of. On Richard’s website there’s a handy map with pins in, so you can look up all the project locations. His only worry is that he’s done so many now that he is actually getting quite good at film-making. Some of his redux versions are getting better reviews, and more stars, than the original films.

The Norwich show circles around a local project: Avengers Age of Ultron: Redux – reconstructing a scene which, like the original, was shot at the University of East Anglia’s futuristic Sainsbury Centre. Not only that, but one of the extras in the original is a star of the redux – and here he is in the audience! Richard invites him and a number of other people who performed in the redux up on stage with him to talk about their experiences. We also learn that Allo Allo and Dad’s Army were filmed in Norfolk, so they are on the cards for future consideration. Everything is fair game here.

But this isn’t a straightforward lecture on the Redux film project. Redux reflections and clips are intercut with flashbacks to previous DeDomeneci work (he likes to keep everything connected) – so we have some musing on the theme of imitation in his work, and specifically the fake versus the real in his Olympic torch project, in which he ran with an Olympic torch of his own ahead of he ‘real’ torch bearer, causing consternation on the streets of London or wherever. He’s thinking of repeating the torch project for the Rio Olympics but is a little wary of the armed Brazilian police force.

We also have another odd and delightful thread in the show, sparked by a story about the theme from Star Trek – originally scored under the title Where No Man Has Gone Before – which was written by Alexander Courage. Star Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry apparently wrote a set of lyrics to the tune (never recorded) just so he could claim 50% of the royalties. Inspired by this, Richard has decided that he could make some dosh from writing (uninvited) lyrics to instrumental theme tunes and registering them with the PRS. He treats us to his version of the Cagney and Lacey and Casualty theme tunes, singing live. His lyrics rival Roddenberry’s in their mediocrity. It’s typical DeDomenici lunacy – and it’s brilliant.

I often find myself getting lost in DeDomenici shows as the popular culture references pile in one on top of the other in a relentless barrage of wit and repartee – but I never mind, as I find his performance presence so refreshing and delightful. I could listen to him for hours, even if I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time. I end up feeling a bit like a granny propelled across a busy road I didn’t intend to cross by a very lovely young boy scout – but I’m grateful nevertheless. God bless you Mr DeDomenici –may you continue to redux, re-evaluate and review the world for a very long time to come. I’ll happily come back for more – anywhere, anytime.

What Will Have Been (and beyond)

A reflection on What Will Have Been, the latest work by Circa to be developed in collaboration with Norfolk & Norwich Festival, and a meeting with the company’s director Yaron Lifschitz

The Adnams Spiegeltent, in the last week of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival: word is out, and the tent is full. Circa are perennial favourites here at Norwich, returning to the festival that has done the most over the years to promote and nurture the company’s work in the UK, building a savvy and appreciative audience for contemporary circus along the way. I’m up close to the podium that thrusts out into the space, surrounded by audience on three sides. Soulful music is playing. The stark stage is lit by a flood of blue light, and devoid of any props, staging or circus equipment other than a single, heavy rope hanging in the space. There’s a hum of expectation in the air.

Enter a female performer, dressed simply in black shorts and top, and up the rope she shins for a robust and pretty damn good corde lisse opening routine that leaves us (and the lighting rig) shaking nervously. Lauren Hurley is a relative newcomer to the company – having previously trained at the National Circus School of Montreal and performed with both Les Sept Doigts de la Main and Cirque Eloise – but could be described as a typical ‘Circa girl’ in her strength and agility – and later on, she shows off her ability to be the base, as is the wont of these wonderful Circa women. She’s joined by two male performers (Lewis West and Daniel O’Brien, both regular Circa ensemble members) who are dressed in martial-arts style wide black trousers and white shirts.

There are words from the Bhagavad Gita, and the four-armed Vishnu is summonsed onstage in a fluid sequence that blends acrobatics, dance and martial arts moves. The fourth person, who steps forward into the limelight and retreats throughout the piece, is a bare-footed violinist in a blue dress (perhaps she’s Vishnu?), whose mellow Bach fugues weave around the physical action – and indeed the acrobats at times weave around her, cat-like.

At other times, there’s recorded sound – a dash of Nyman-style piano or Glass-like electronics here, a raunchy guitar riff there, a flicker of a fading waltz in the distance. The finely-tuned relationship between music and physical performance is always at the heart of Circa’s work, and this show is no exception. There are some utterly stunning sequences, including a duet by Lewis West and Lauren Hurley on hand-balancing canes, done to the Velvet Underground’s Pale Blue Eyes, which totally subverts the way this equipment is usually used, the couple creating a series of soft and beautiful hand-to-hand and acrobalance moves that would be extraordinary enough if they were done on the ground, never mind perched on top of these sticks.

In this and other choreographic sequences, iconic images of transcendental ecstasy (religious or otherwise) are conjured. I’m not too surprised to read in Lauren Hurley’s biography that she enjoys ‘the beauty of pain’. Later, the chiaroscuro lighting of a doubles trapeze piece by the two men – now bare-chested – casts them as figures in a Caravaggio painting. As they twist and tug at each other, we seem to be watching a passionate play-off between two mythological gods. Love is in the air, but so is death – the eternal battle between Eros and Thanatos. Another lovely sequence, playfully exploring control, submission and vulnerability, sees the trinity of acrobats fainting, falling and recovering, conjuring up images of the cycle of birth, death and resurrection. Everything is performed terrifyingly close to its audience – so close that the thuds of the bodies on the ground cause our own to shake.

As with much of Circa’s work, the response is less ‘what was this about?’ than ‘how does this make me feel?’. In a meet-the-artists session in the Spiegeltent the previous day, company director Yaron Lifschitz had talked of aiming to ‘give expression to an emotion that you do not know’. My take is that What Will Have Been evokes what the Brazilians call ‘saudade’ – a kind of untranslatable word that might best be described as a bittersweet nostalgia. Even that choice of future subjunctive in the show’s title adds to the just-out-of-reach-but-still-there feel that pervades the piece. À la recherche du temps perdu… In the same session, Yaron also talks about the quintessential liveness of circus: as Warhol said of sex and parties, ‘you have to be there’, Yaron adding circus as a third example of something that you can’t experience by proxy, or via documentation. Circus is not acting, it’s really happening: ‘you pay us to do dumb and dangerous things’ he says.

Circa: S

Yaron Lifschitz set up Circa, and is the company’s artistic director and CEO, but interestingly he does not have a background in circus performance – he is a theatre director who graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) where he was the youngest director ever accepted into its prestigious graduate director’s course. He has subsequently directed over 60 productions including large-scale events, opera, theatre, physical theatre and circus. His passion is for ‘creating works of philosophical and poetic depth from the traditional languages of circus’.

When I meet Yaron the morning after seeing the show, he tells me that he feels that what is often missing in contemporary circus-theatre is the eye of an experienced theatre director. We talk a little about the creation process – he is not too keen on the word ‘devising’, and I get the impression that this is because it implies an approach other than the auteur-director led process that is at the heart of Circa’s work. Not that there isn’t workshopping and exploration in the rehearsal room – there is, but it isn’t devising in an empty space: whichever ensemble members are working on the new show bring their particular strengths and talents into the room; Yaron brings his starting-points – the beginnings of a vision of what could be this time round – and stuff happens. He is keen to point out that although the shows are often very different in style, he doesn’t start each new one with a conscious intention of making something different to the last, it is just that this is often what happens. And there really is a diversity of work in their repertoire. In the last two years, I’ve seen seen the cheeky cabinet of curiosities that is Wunderkammer (presented at Edinburgh Fringe 2013, where the company won a a Total Theatre Award for Significant Contribution to Physical and Visual Theatre), and the sinuous and seductive S (Norwich Theatre Royal, 2014); the site-responsive How Like an Angel, seen in Norwich Cathedral in 2013; this year’s new show What Will Have Been, which with its intimacy and its minimalist beauty is perfectly placed in a Spiegeltent; and three different incarnations of Beyond, the Spiegeltent version of the show (which had its first outing at Norfolk & Norwich Festival in 2013) and the end-on theatre / large stage version presented at the Edinburgh Fringe 2014, and Brighton Festival 2015. At Brighton, the show is played to a full house in the Dome Concert Hall, the largest performance space in the city. Brighton Festival have, like Norwich, been instrumental in upping the ante for contemporary circus by presenting some of the world’s best (including Circa).

Circa: Beyond

I ask Yaron about Circa’s relationship with Norfolk & Norwich Festival – obviously a strong and ongoing one, as so much of the company’s work has been created or developed at Norwich. He tells me that the collaboration was born when he met former Norfolk & Norwich director Jonathan Holloway at a festival in the Netherlands. The two men hit it off, and the idea of Circa coming to Norwich was mooted. The company had previously performed in the UK, but Yaron had felt that the regular regional touring model didn’t really suit them, whilst a residency at the Spiegeltent in Norwich had great appeal, providing an opportunity for both company and festival to develop the circus audience in the city. The show that came first was The Space Between. This led to the commissioning of How Like an Angel – a site-responsive work with music composed by Robert Hollingworth, which was performed at the magnificently ornate Norwich Cathedral by an ensemble of Circa acrobats and a live choir, the Renaissance Music vocal group I Fagiolini, and subsequently toured to churches and cathedrals around the world. By then, Jonathan Holloway had moved on from Norwich to become director of the Perth Festival, but incoming festival director William Galinsky picked up and continued the collaboration, bringing Circa back to create Beyond in the Spiegeltent, along with a return showing for How Like an Angel.

Other than the successful ongoing relationship with Norwich, Circa are now an established feature of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and even though What Will Have Been has only just been developed, Yaron has already started in on a new show, Close Up, which will be presented by Underbelly at Ed Fringe 2015 throughout August. All he’ll say (perhaps, at this stage, all he knows!) is that it will feature a team of four acrobats from the Circa ensemble, and that he’ll be collaborating with a film-maker on the inclusion of moving image in the piece.

Circa: Wunderkammer

As if that’s not enough, he’s also reworking Wunderkammer; making Il Ritorno, based on the opera same name by Monteverdi, which will feature four singers, two musicians, and six acrobats and creating a French Baroque circus programme for the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. Musing on this, Yaron says that although he loves working with composers, there is the problem of not being able to swap in songs if he feels that something else would be better, as he often does with the shows that use recorded music! The company have another work in repertoire called Carnival of the Animals, inspired by the Saint-Saëns’ work for young concert-goers, which is a collaboration with composer Quincy Grant.

All of these shows are in development or on the road between now and September 2015. It’s an extraordinary workload, and I wonder how much delegation there is. Not a lot, I suspect. He says that he has a strong team which includes a Head of Circus, responsible for the ongoing training and professional development of the acrobats – but as far as I can tell, there are no choreographers, co-directors, dramaturgs, or other creative collaborators. This – all of it – is his baby.

I suspect he holds it all close to his chest because he feels so passionately about the vision he has for circus-theatre, and how to move that vision on. We talk a little about the Australian circus work that preceded Circa, and agree that great though companies like Circus Oz were and are, they are in essence a modernising and reworking of a traditional circus model.

This leads me to ask Yoran about his thoughts on UK circus. Where does he feel we are at? He namechecks and praises both Barely Methodical’s Bromance, and the Gandini Juggling Project. But generally he feels that British circus could really do with a generation of inspirational directors and creators, to move the artform on in the way that (say) contemporary dance moved on a few decades back. Circus is at least 10 years behind dance, he thinks. He also suggests that he is open to offers, and wouldn’t mind a little sojourn in the UK, directing circus. I’ve no idea where on earth he’d find a gap in his schedule to do this, but perhaps there’s some sort of workshop in Brisbane creating 3-D print-out Yarons to race around the world doing all this work. It’s pretty hard to imagine how else he’s managing to be so many places all at once.

Before I leave him to catch my train out of Norwich, I ask for his email – which he writes neatly in fountain pen in my notebook. He is keen to say that he doesn’t use a fountain pen as some sort of poseurs thing – he genuinely loves the real difference it makes writing with real ink. Exactly what you’d expect of someone who cares passionately about attention to detail. It is this care for detail that manifests so brilliantly in the Circa works whizzing around the world – all so different, with contrasting aesthetics, but all meticulously crafted, and visually stunning.

I take my leave knowing that by the next time I see Circa, in Edinburgh in little more than two months time, he’ll have sent What Will Have Been off to Mexico, created Close Up, reworked Wunderkammer, sorted out Il Ritorno, made the French Baroque programme, and overseen the touring of other shows in the repertoire. I’ve always considered myself to be a super-busy multi-tasker, but this is something else altogether. For me, there’s a long train journey back to Brighton, and the chance to rest a little, and read a novel, after a busy weekend in Norwich. I suspect Yaron was back at work in the Spiegeltent even before I’d got to the station…

Circa: Opus

For more on Circa see www.circa.org.au

Circa’s Close Up will be presented at Underbelly George Square throughout August 2015.

See http://www.underbellyedinburgh.co.uk/whats-on/close-up

Or book at www.edfringe.com

Dorothy Max Prior saw Circa’s What Will Have Been at the Adnams Spiegeltent, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, 17 May 2015.

Beyond was seen at Brighton Festival, 2 May 2015.

Other shows seen as cited, at Edinburgh Fringe, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, and Brighton Festival.

DFM Company: Dance for Me

Sister Sledge’s classic disco track He’s the Greatest Dancer is playing. The Basement main space is packed – sold out for a lunchtime dance show from Iceland! Everyone is relaxed and chatty, including the two performers who are just hanging out in the performance space, casually greeting people as they come in. One is a slim, androgynous woman with dark hair, dressed in jeans and a red check shirt. The other is a big-framed middle-age man with a beer belly, wearing yellow trousers and a black T-shirt. The man is telling people that his daughter is coming along today, and that the seat in the front is reserved for her.

Here’s the show’s story, which we mostly glean from projected video clips: the man is Ármann Einarsson. He’s in his fifties, and lives in place called Akureyri in North Iceland. in 2013 he revealed to his daughter-in-law, choreographer Brogan Davison, that he has a dream – he wants to pursue his life-long desire to perform contemporary dance on stage, although he has never had any formal dance training. The show that they’ve developed together (and tour with Ármann’s son Petur as the technician, making it a truly family affair) asks the question: Is dance really for everybody?

Interesting question. Watching Ármann dance his choreographed contemporary dance routines, echoed by Brogan, you cannot but help admire his resolution and dedication. But context is everything: taken without the frame of the show, it would all be rather odd –but as it is, interspersed with constant reflection on the process, it becomes a fascinating investigation of the nature of dance, and the drive to dance. How was it that time? asks Brogan. I think it went great, says Ármann. Is that the best you’ve done it? she asks. Yes, I think so. And at another point he says: I’m in perfect shape – a lovely demolishing of the notion that you need to be a certain size or level of fitness to dance. He doesn’t want to be seen as a fat clown, he says.

It’s a piece with a familiar kind of format – two performers stepping in and out of the dance action, sometimes on-mic and sometimes not, talking directly to the audience – a knowing cross between dance and live art, postmodern to the nth degree in its constant reflection onstage of what is happening on the stage, and what has happened before. The inclusion of confessional video exploring Ármann’s motivation and the process of making the work is also a familiar contemporary dance/performance trope. Art will eat itself…

But it works because Ármann is such a genuinely endearing character. And (I say this as someone who has Icelandic friends and spent time in Iceland) he is so very very – Icelandic. It’s something about the way he tells his stories, which often have bizarre and puzzling punchlines. There’s a rambling story about berry barrels and fjords full of ice, a story about a butcher, a recounting of how when his dad was left to cook the dinner he went out to buy two hot dogs for himself and little Ármann, and a sharing of how special Coca Cola used to be in Iceland – something you only got twice a year if you were lucky, on your birthday and at Christmas, and that it came in tiny glass bottles. Oh and a pretty hair-raising tale of drunkeness, when he came home one night and almost accidentally pissed on his son’s computer instead of in the toilet, because he’d mistaken his son’s bedroom for the loo.

When it is Brogan’s turn to tell us her stories, we learn that she was born in England during the great hurricane of 1987, that she danced as a child, and that aged 10 she tried to give up ballet but no one would let her as she had talent, although later there were the usual queries about whether she had quite the right body required to dance. So here we have someone kind of destined to dance who tried to get out of it, as opposed to her father-in-law to be (she’s marrying Petur soon) who nobody ever thought to encourage, but who has held a long-term ambition to dance. An interesting juxtaposition.

The stories, live and on film, are interspersed with dance sequences – sometimes just one or other of them, sometimes both together. Ármann never looks truly comfortable, although he does say ‘when I want to feel good, I dance like this”. It’s a reminder that dance (unlike theatre) is all about the experience of the enactor, not of the witness.

There’s a very lovely moment, close to the end, when we see musician Ármann playing a mellow jazz tune on his clarinet. Suddenly he’s a different man – no longer the awkward person trying to get something right that is an effort, but the expert, the person in control, master of his instrument. It’s magical.

But there’s an interesting reflection to make here: Ármann’s music mastery has taken him only to a life as a high school music teacher. Now he’s a (non) dancer who dances, he dances all over the world. Brighton today, next stop Berlin – and maybe Brazil too.

I started a little sceptical – but Dance For Me won me over. A sweet and charming show that raises interesting questions about contemporary dance – and about following your heart’s desire.

The funding question: oops what a palaver

Social media is currently a-buzz with links to, and comments on, an article in the online edition of the Telegraph newspaper by Douglas McPherson entitled A critic’s plea: stop all arts funding now. The article’s standfirst is ‘In twenty years I can’t think of one publicly funded show that was any good – while every day commercial world creates amazing things without help’. I haven’t put the link here as you really don’t need it – grab a passing cab driver or pop down your local and you’ll hear the same cry: why do we need to fund artists from the public purse?

But before addressing that, a word of concern. We so easily fall into a clickbait trap with these sorts of articles. Like most free-to-view online publications, this newspaper relies on online advertising – and advertisers are wooed on the basis of the amount of traffic the site receives. Every time you click on or share the offending article you are boosting the newspaper’s coffers. Papers often run deliberately provocative articles like this to generate outrage (and thus endless commentary and shares on social media). It’s a kind of art-porn: you click, you read, the whole experience leaves you feeling sullied. Yes, I’m guilty. I clicked, I read, I got about a third of the way through, I hastily exited with a nasty taste in my mouth. What on earth was I thinking of? Resist, resist.

Rather bizarrely, the example given of a show that shouldn’t be funded with public money was the latest work by Australian circus company Circa, What Will Have Been, seen by McPherson (and me) at Norfolk & Norwich Festival this May. I loved it, he hated it. Fair enough, it’s only subjective opinion after all, and we are all entitled to express our opinions. They are Australian, so of course haven’t directly had any Arts Council or other British funding to make the show. But the company are indirectly funded here as it has a long and fruitful history of collaboration with Norfolk & Norwich, nurtured through former festival director Jonathan Holloway, current director William Galinsky, and producer Patrick Dickie (supported by others at Norfolk & Norwich Festival such as Matt Burman and Mikey Martins). All of these enterprising people have worked hard at creating a great circus-savvy audience in Norwich, who eagerly flock to shows by not only Circa, but other visiting luminaries such as Montreal’s Les Sept Doigts, and the terrific team who created Cantina (which transferred to Wonderground on the Southbank, as did Circa’s Beyond, after its premiere at Norwich Spiegeltent. Mc Pherson argues that Circa had full houses at £20 a head, so are commercially viable. The counter-argument is that Norwich, through its public money funding, has educated its audience and created that situation.

So why has he picked this particular example? Let’s stop here and reflect on who Douglas McPherson is, and what his motivation might be in picking on Circa (winners of a Total Theatre Award for Significant Contribution to Physical and Visual Performance – so firm favourites in this camp). Although this at first seems very odd, it doesn’t take much effort to unpick it. McPherson isn’t a Telegraph staff critic, he’s a freelancer who has written for many different publications. He has a strong interest in circus, and is author of a book called Circus Mania. Now, as former co-ordinator of the UK Circus Arts Forum (an organisation set up by Total Theatre in 2000, to support circus in all its manifestations) I know only too well of the horrendous and vicious in-fighting in the circus world, with many (although not all) people who work in or who support traditional circus harbouring an intense dislike of contemporary circus, particularly if it plays with form and crosses boundaries in the way that Circa’s work does so magnificently. I remember returning from the first-ever Circelation, a cross-artform professional development week for circus produced by the enterprising Chenine Bhathena, and getting an extremely angry phone call from Gerry Cottle, who berated me for supporting all this arty nonsense. McPherson is definitely in the camp that believes that circus is about glitz and glamour and tricks, not ‘arty nonsense’.

Arts funding quite obviously is instrumental in developing artforms and providing the fertile soil in which art in whatever form can grow and develop. Does that mean anyone and everyone who considers themselves to be an artist has a God-given right to public money? No, of course not. It is good and healthy to find ways to support yourself whilst establishing yourself as an artist. I’d argue that it is good to have ways to exist outside of total reliance on funding even when further down the line as an artist or theatre-maker. The company I co-direct, Ragroof Players, has a strand of work producing tea dances, parties and events that are self-sufficiently reliant on booking fees or box office income, and provide us with a much-need strand of income support.

But where we do get public funding, through ACE or Heritage Lottery, is in the creation of our street theatre and site-responsive or community-engaged shows – specific communities engaged with having included older people who love ballroom dancing (Shall We Dance?), boxers (Gloves On), teenagers (Youth Club) and migrants (our current project, Bridges).We create work that is free to audience – which seems to me should be a vital part of the arts funding sector. I feel passionately that art needs to be taken outdoors and into public spaces, not just sit in theatres and galleries – and if there is no box office, there is no income. The benefits are clear to see – a great example is the Stockton International Riverside Festival, set up by Frank Wilson in a downtrodden Northern town. Over many decades this has been the site for transformation each year when thousands of happy people hit the streets for four days of quality outdoor arts, featuring the likes of Wired Theatre and Periplum (and yes, Ragroof!). Of course, if you believe that there is no such thing as society, then the sight of a harmonious communal gathering of people from all strands of life having a collective joyful experience that enforces each person’s sense of a shared humanity might seem of little importance.

One of the other benefits of arts funding is that it nurtures work in its early stages that then goes on to be successful – and in some cases, that means the work can stand alone in the commercial world. Examples we could cite here include the National Theatre’s War Horse, which transferred to the West End and is still going strong. For a good reflection on treading the line between the funded and commercial worlds, see this excellent feature by Jo Crowley of 1927 on what her job as producer actually entails. There should be a culture of enterprise in the arts, where the relationship between different strands of income for an artist or company is up for consideration. In the coming years, we are all going to have to be looking to find means of support beyond arts funding, and to show the funders that we have other strands of income, That feels fine and good to me – I don’t want to exist exclusively on public money, and I’m willing to work hard on a portfolio of projects that receive funding from various sources, not just arts funding, combined with revenue from other sources. A word of caution here though about how we fund artists: there’s something of a trend for funding to come indirectly via venues or organisations, and although this works for some (Circa and Norwich seem to be a good example), for others it isn’t quite so cosy. Its the artists who know their own needs, and if experienced, can set their own budgets and production deadlines more easily if given free reign to do so, rather than be reliant on a collaboration with someone holding the purse-strings who doesn’t necessarily understand what’s needed and when.

This could go on for a lot longer, but I’ll finish here with a reminder to McPherson et al that when John Maynard Keynes set up the Arts Council, his aim was ‘to give courage, confidence and opportunity’ to artists and their audiences. That need is as strong now as it was then – and if a cash-strapped war-time Britain could find the funds for art then, it certainly can now. Winston Churchill may not have actually said ‘Then what are we fighting for?’ during a discussion on proposed wartime arts cuts – what he is documented as saying is this: ‘The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them. Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the reverence and delight which are their due’. And that’s from the mouth of a Tory…

Footnote:

Featured image is of Periplum’s 451, touring to outdoor arts festivals across the UK in 2015. Photo by Ray Gibson