It is most visible in the performing arts. Recently, a striking number of vacancies for 'business leader' have been appearing in the cultural sector. We had a listen during the theatre festival, and then you hear something. Nobody wants to respond openly, the interests are too big and the reputations too vulnerable. We will therefore sum it up here: business leaders who started working in the 'good times', i.e. before the populists put the axe to the roots of the arts, are burnt out. Relationships with their artistic colleagues have soured; in some cases it is bickering in the tent. Supervisory boards are panicking.
What is the reason for all this misery? The new extreme regulatory greed of the government and cultural funds. That sector ruled by distrust is forcing grant recipients to take tough internal action, inflexible financial policies and unrealistic budgeting.
Quirky artistic directors could work with relative freedom until 2011. If a plan became bigger than initially thought, or a project fell through because the weather did not cooperate: the business leader could make something of it financially. The government and the Culture Fund were both helpful in making things run smoothly.
That flexibility has disappeared. Every artistic plan - as before - has to be laid down in advance, sometimes five years in advance, down to the last detail. What changed is control. Money that is earmarked for one thing is now really not allowed to be spent on something else, and what is left over must be returned immediately to the subsidiser, who is also already running out of reserves because the ministry desperately needs the money. The same applies to results from sales: if a subsidy was applied for 40 performances in 'medium-sized venues', but it turned out to be artistically better to play 80 in small venues, the money from the medium-sized venues may not be used to finance the other tour. If performances are cancelled because theatres are not willing to take the risk, the money must also be returned.
The system has stiffened. The fun has gone, the leeway has disappeared. Artistically, however, the medium-term consequences are far greater: companies no longer take any risks. Business leaders have to put the brakes on their artistic colleagues, against their will. After all, their customers, the theatres in all corners of the country that often can also barely keep their heads above water, are no longer taking any risks either. The number of cancellations especially in 'the region' has increased almost exponentially in recent years.
City theatres with middle theatres like those in Gorinchem, Almere, Alphen aan de Rijn, Vlaardingen, Culemborg and Amersfoort have already closed or are in dire straits. The middle segment, where talents developed in the small hall find their audience, is dying. Outside the periphery, the small hall itself has also often been converted into a cloakroom.
Is that bad? You might say: all that risky theatre apparently does not attract an audience. And without an audience, the performing arts have no right to exist. This is only partly true. Risky theatre is necessary to find new forms, and new forms are necessary to prevent audience boredom. Theatre that stops taking risks dies, along with its last regular customer, of arteriosclerosis.
Yet you will read many reports again in the coming period that the sector is doing quite well, that it is earning more than it did 10 years ago (but dramatically less than five years ago) and that everyone is very happy with how well they weathered the storm (but pity all those people who now earn only 4500 euros gross per year with acting).
The performing arts sector still thinks the malaise with positive framing can be fought.
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