After the presentation of the Rotterdam and The Hague arts recommendations, and a few days to weeks before the harsh judgements of the Council for Culture, and a few months before the devastating reports of the Performing Arts Fund, it is starting to become clear how drastically the Dutch cultural sector is being hit by the Rutte administration's cuts. Halbe Zijlstra ensured that his cut of 25% to the whole sector, and up to 50% to the performing arts, law has become.
A personal victory, and a painful reality for the industry, which is trying to respond creatively, but is now slowly but surely having to watch huge holes being punched in an industry. All the while which, according to A report released today by SICA, was one of the Netherlands' more successful exports.
Not only are a number of institutions already disappearing whose existence was doubted by few, such as the Rotterdam Independent Theatre, Danceworks and Theatre group Bonheur, also disappear clubs that seem saved thanks to mergers: Stella The Hague, a leader in youth theatre for decades, merges into the National Theatre. Wunderbaum and Ro Theatre hand over much of their autonomy to the Rotterdam Theatre, and independent youth theatres in Rotterdam are leaving their own place to merge into one big new company.
Vacant properties in power districts are going to become vacant. Groups of makers who sat there no longer brighten up the streets with their sometimes somewhat detonating presence. As a result, more is lost than appears at first sight: the city is becoming impoverished.
Mergers almost always mean a greater loss than what they bring in. Especially in its early years. Toneelgroep Amsterdam, composed in 1987 of Toneelgroepen Centrum. Baal and Publiekstheater, took over 14 years to overcome that blow. Het Zuidelijk Toneel and Hollandia, two paragons of striking theatre, both died from their mergers under the influence of subsidy cuts.
And now almost everything is merging: Springdance and Festival a/d Werf in Utrecht, the dance groups in The Hague and the theatre and youth theatre clubs in Rotterdam. And these may have penned an inspiring story that makes the advisory committees cheer, but things could be different. Eastern Netherlands currently seems to have a monopoly on ill-prepared mergers. We already reported extensively on the orchestra war in Enschede and Arnhem. Now another merger appears to be planned that gives equally little hope: the production houses for pop music in Deventer, for dance and theatre in Arnhem and for literature in Nijmegen, are merging. Central location will be the small theatre a/d Rijn in Arnhem. Yesterday, Eve Hopkins, the business leader of the Nieuwe Oost merger club, presented her plans at a symposium in Amsterdam.
A flatter example of a merger without any substantive rationale was rarely seen. Ok, they merge some tasks, and each promises to safeguard its own identity, but where the added value lies is completely unclear. People are trying to keep jobs and places, and so want to wait for the storm to blow over. And meanwhile, in their business plans, almost everyone overestimates their own income. Many clubs are going to fall over in the next few years.
It makes one angry, but it is pointless to get angry at the compilers of the mergers: they can't do otherwise, they have to under pressure from the over his political grave reigning Halbe Zijlstra, backed by a still triumphant over the balderdash (#order) tweeting VVD culture spokesperson Bart de Liefde.
I once said that the arts were strong enough to survive even the hardest hit, and that the sector could do with a refresher. Now it is becoming clear that the sector is being hit so hard that the survival of art in the Netherlands has also become uncertain.
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