[Dixielandjazz] The Arts Face Financing Cuts Worldwide

[Stephen G Barbone]

OKOM isn't the only art form that is losing public financing (and  
sponsor) support. We seem to be in an era where much of the artistic  
endeavor worldwide is not self supporting through existing ticket  
sales to attendees.  Time to re-think "Marketing"?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

In Europe, Where Art Is Life, Ax Falls on Public Financing

by Larry Richter - NY Times - March 24, 2012

European governments are cutting their support for culture, and  
American arts lovers are starting to feel the results.

In Italy, the world-famous opera house La Scala faces a $9 million  
shortfall because of reductions in subsidies. In the Netherlands,  
government financing for arts programs has been cut by 25 percent.  
Portugal has abolished its Ministry of Culture.

Europe’s economic problems, and the austerity programs meant to  
address them, are forcing arts institutions there to curtail programs,  
tours and grants. As a result, some ensembles are scaling down their  
productions and trying to raise money from private donors, some in the  
United States, potentially putting them in competition with American  
arts organizations.

For Americans used to seeing the best and most adventuresome European  
culture on tour in this country, the belt-tightening is beginning to  
affect both the quantity and quality of arts exchanges. At least three  
European troupes that were expected to perform in January at the Under  
the Radar theater festival in New York, for example, had to withdraw  
as they could not afford the travel costs, and the organizers could  
not either.

“It is putting a pretty serious crimp in international exchanges,  
especially with smaller companies,” said Mark Russell, artistic  
director of Under the Radar. “It’s a very frustrating environment  
we’re in right now, tight in part because of our own crash, but more  
generally because it seems to me now that every time we get around to  
the international question, we have a meltdown and go back to zero.”

For artists and administrators in Europe, such changes are deeply  
disquieting, even revolutionary. In contrast to the United States,  
Europe has embraced a model that views culture not as a commodity, in  
which market forces determine which products survive, but as a common  
legacy to be nurtured and protected, including art forms that may lack  
mass appeal.

“Culture is a basic need,” said Andreas Stadler, director of the  
Austrian Cultural Forum in New York and president of the New York  
branch of the European Union National Institutes for Culture. “People  
should have the right to go to the opera.”

Over all, he added, “Culture is much higher on our political agenda  
than it is here, because it is so linked to our identities.”

Germany and France, the largest and most stable economies in Europe,  
are suffering the least and can even point to increases in financing  
for some officially favored programs, genres and ensembles that are  
seen as promoting the countries’ images abroad, like film.

But other countries with governments that are led by conservatives or  
technocrats — like Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands and Britain — have  
had their culture budgets slashed. So have others that are being  
forced to cut public spending to remain in the euro zone, including  
Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

In the case of the Netherlands, the culture budget is being cut by  
about $265 million, or 25 percent, by the start of 2013, and taxes on  
tickets to cultural events are to rise to 19 percent from 6 percent,  
although movie theaters, sporting events, zoos and circuses are  
exempted. The state secretary of education, culture and science, Halbe  
Zijlstra, has described his focus as being “more than quality, a new  
vision of cultural policy,” in which institutions must justify what  
they do economically and compete for limited funds.

In practical terms, that has meant that smaller companies, especially  
those engaged in experimental and avant-garde efforts, bear the brunt  
of the projected cuts. Large, established institutions, like the  
Rijksmuseum, the van Gogh Museum, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra  
and the Dutch National Ballet, are in a better position to fend for  
themselves.

“The economy is not that good any more, so to get support, you have to  
be a large company with an international reputation,” said Michael  
Nieuwenhuizen, the senior project manager for international affairs of  
the Netherlands Music Center. “Plus, the government wants to see value  
for the money and links that to the markets, so that if you have an  
audience, you get rewarded.”

As a result, he added, “we’re going to lose some orchestras and choirs.”

And in the dance field, said Sophie Lambo, managing director of the  
Internationaal Danstheater, of Amsterdam, “it’s going to be a tsunami.”

In the boom years before the economic crisis hit late in 2008, it was  
not uncommon for touring European orchestras, ballet and opera  
companies and theater troupes to travel beyond New York, to cities  
like Minneapolis and San Diego. That has now become more difficult,  
and when it occurs, the European performers expect their American  
hosts to cover more of the costs.

“We have less money and have changed our concept of cooperation,” said  
Mr. Stadler of the group of European cultural institutes, which has 44  
members. “We expect more from our partners and we will negotiate  
tougher.”

The cutbacks are hitting so hard that some of the cultural institutes  
in New York that have been intermediaries for arts companies in their  
home countries have experienced reductions of staff or salary, or both.

The crisis is also affecting what kind of art is performed and how it  
is made. After returning from Europe last month, Nigel Redden,  
director of the Lincoln Center and Spoleto arts festivals, said that a  
trend toward new work with fewer characters or players, especially  
with commissioned pieces, seemed to be growing.

“Many playwrights are writing things for three performers instead of  
eight, and if you are a composer, you may be writing for a chamber  
group rather than a symphony,” he said. “That also is a factor of the  
current climate: artists want to have their work performed, and  
smaller productions are inevitably less expensive to put on.”

Some of those scaled-down works are now beginning to find their way to  
the United States. The lineup for this summer’s Lincoln Center  
Festival, announced last week, includes “Émilie,” a 2010 “monodrama”  
opera for a single singer, written by the Finnish composer Kaija  
Saariaho, which had its American premiere last year at Spoleto.

In New York, European arts institutions are also looking for smaller,  
less expensive places to present their offerings. “Why spend so much  
money on Carnegie Hall when there are cheaper places available?” one  
organizer of cultural exchanges said, insisting on anonymity so as not  
to jeopardize business ties.

Others are trying to forge closer ties to American institutions. The  
Romanian Film Festival, which has done much to promote awareness of  
the Romanian new wave of prizewinning directors and actors, was  
presented last year at Lincoln Center with the Film Society of Lincoln  
Center as a co-sponsor.

“Compared to five years ago, we no longer think of doing things alone,  
on our own” said Corina Suteu, of the Romanian Cultural Institute.  
“All of a sudden, you have to become creative, you need to look for  
partners, whether American, European or even from other continents.  
I’m doing this, and all of my colleagues are doing the same.”

As they scramble to stay afloat, affected institutions in Europe are  
also cultivating private donors anywhere they can be found. But with  
little experience with, or understanding of, that kind of fund- 
raising, they often turn for advice to the American institutions with  
which they have built longstanding affiliations.

“I can tell you that across the board, they are talking about their  
governments saying that they are going to have to move toward an  
American model,” said Joseph V. Melillo, executive producer of the  
Brooklyn Academy of Music. “But there’s no tradition of individual  
philanthropy in many of these cultures, and so they lack both the  
motivation and tax incentives to give.”

As a result, some European arts institutions have begun looking for  
financial support in the United States, courting American companies or  
wealthy Americans with emotional ties to an ancestral homeland. But  
that means, as Mr. Stadler acknowledged, that “we are also competing  
with American institutions, which are also hit hard.”

Artists worry that money will flow to established entities that tend  
to be more conservative, rather than to more experimental companies  
that have served as incubators of new talents. That, they say, has  
profound implications for the artistic process.

The established companies “need to refresh their work by working with  
younger artists, and it’s the small and middle-sized companies that  
bring diversity and innovation,” said Ivana Müller, a choreographer  
based in Amsterdam. “You’ve created a different dynamic of production  
now,” she added, “and A lot of good work will disappear because it  
can’t sustain itself.”

Even when the crisis subsides, many fear that the impact of the cuts  
could permanently affect every stage of the artistic process, from  
creation to consumption.

“Perhaps instead of doing Brian Friel, one does Noël Coward, because  
the box office is important,” said Mr. Redden, the festival director,  
trying to put himself in the place of his European counterparts. “Some  
of these trade-offs are inevitable, but I think that if it becomes all  
drawing room comedies and not gritty theater, it would be devastating.  
It has not gotten to that yet, but there is definitely a kind of  
calibration going on.”