Performing Arts Fund cuts dance subsidies. Not enough, according to some.

The Performing Arts Fund announced the awards for the 2017-2020 period. What does this mean for the dance sector? Pluralism and 'bleeding through'.

While everyone is on holiday, the Performing Arts Fund announced the performing arts grant awards for 2017-2020. And it was reiterated: the fund is facing a previously initiated budget cut of 30 per cent. This could mean subsidising fewer companies, but the fund does not want that. It deliberately chooses to keep more companies by allocating them less. Not everyone is happy about that.

Ageing

Dance is ageing. At many performances, the audience is predominantly senior citizens. Just like in church. Yet there are new initiatives that attract large, young and culturally diverse audiences, in both church and dance. The question for the fund was: how do you stimulate these initiatives and how do you foresee the future of dance audiences?

The answer is simple: by focusing on pluralism and diversity.

For the Performing Arts Fund, pluralism is "crucial to the appeal and vitality of the performing arts. Director Henriëtte Post sees a new élan in the sector, a good 'blood circulation' needed to stay relevant in a society that is also constantly changing. That perspective translates into some notable newcomers to the grant market.

Who are the newcomers?

For example, the allocation to Another Kind of Blue by David Middendorp, who creates performances at the intersection of dance and technology. The performance 'Blue Technology' garnered huge success in the United States, among others, at America's Got Talent. And in the UK it scored hugely on the television show Britain's Got Talent. Another Kind of Blue intelligently and compellingly thrills mass audiences.

It also urban-dance festival Summer Dance Forever by founder John Agesilas, among others, brings in a young, diverse audience and is now a serious stage for the international hip-hop and breakdance world. Furthermore, the Surinamese-Dutch Alida Dors gets to go big with her hip-hop vocabulary in Backbone, thanks in part to a recent award from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Finally, there is De Dansers, which brings a combination of contemporary modern dance and live pop music within the genre of youth dance.

So four applications from a different angle that will get a fiat from the Fund for the next four years. With a kind of So You Think You Can Dance-insert (now completely collapsed on the Dutch tube): dynamic performances aimed at young and culturally diverse audiences. The same applies to the shining example in grant applications: the urban dance company ISH of Marco Gerris and Vevi van der Vliet. These invariably do well and undertake many exciting initiatives.

Notable rejections

By contrast, the rejection of Internationaal Danstheater's application is striking. That company has a loyal audience, also has a clear profile of that audience, and brings many performances, especially in the region, with performances based on dance from all continents. Yet this fifty-five-year-old company really has to die now, especially also because the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (see their awards here) gave zero response.

Managing director Sophie Lambo sees it with sorrow, especially as the company has struggled over the past four years to endure a drastic change and embark on a new development with limited resources. Had money been sloshing against the skirting boards at the fund, their application might have been granted, she thinks. Now the company may cancel some eighty performances at theatres from January 2017. How and if those spots will be filled remains to be seen, because with the loss of International Dance Theatre, a generous serving of the region is also a lot less. A misunderstanding of the funds, according to Lambo.

Artistic eloquence

However, eloquence is important and that was lacking, according to the committee. And eloquence is a reason to give money to WArd/waRD, the Dutch-Flemish company of choreographer Ann Van den Broek, although that application rattles. The Fund considers Ward/waRD's entrepreneurship "weak" and the organisation "relies relatively heavily on subsidies". Moreover, WArd/waRD is settling in Rotterdam in 2016, not exactly a place where they are shy of modern dance. But Ann Van den Broek is 'an exceptional artist...with strong and original performances'. So she gets a grant.

So are more established names with eloquence that are (relatively) safe. Like Conny Janssen Danst, NBprojects, ICKamsterdam, Club Guy & Roni. And Project Sally. This company that 'wants to serve everyone with a good portion of modern dance' plays the South region with help from the Maastricht municipality and the province of Limburg. They can continue to do so thanks to money from the Performing Arts Fund. One of Project Sally's directors is an adviser to the Fund and now director of Nederlandse Dansdagen. However, the Fund says it does not assess reputations, but plans.

Other big names thus unfortunately see their applications denied: Korzo, LeineRoebana, Dansmakers Amsterdam and Danstheater Aya. They will have to make do with other sources of funding.

current term nothing	got current period
next period nothing	will get nothing next period
Liquid	Veem House for Performance
Ballet van Leth Foundation	T.r.a.s.h.
International Dance Theatre	LeineRoebana
Holland Dance Festival	Korzo
TheDDDD	Dancemakers Amsterdam
	India Dance Festival
	CaDance Festival
	Dance theatre AYA
newcomers	got current period
	will get next period
Summer Dance Forever	WArd/waRD
The Dancers	Project Sally Foundation
Backbone	NBprojects
Another Kind of Blue	Maas theatre and dance
	ISH
	ICKamsterdam
	Conny Janssen Danst
	Club Guy & Roni

But there is more to it.

There is too little work in dance

Employment is an issue, though. It would have been better to disband more companies and offer that which remains more money, argues business leader Berend Dikkers of The Dutch Don't Dance Division. It fell to him article from 1 August on Culture Press on naming the income position of artists. It is also becoming increasingly difficult for dance companies to attract dancers. For many, there is no money for permanent collective bargaining contracts and hiring self-employed people is becoming difficult because of the new model contracts. Something the NAPK (Dutch Association for Performing Arts) earlier sounded the alarm.

[Tweet "There are too many courses: 'That's training dancers for welfare'"]

Now, 180 dance students graduate annually from college alone, of which only 4% have a chance of getting a dance job in the Netherlands. That is training dancers for welfare, says Dikkers. And prove him wrong.

For now, there is too much (quality) supply of dance. In an ideal world, you allocate more money to each company so that all those dance graduates get a job and a reasonable salary. However, the Performing Arts Fund has to get by with less and wants to guarantee the much-desired pluriformity for everyone with less money. (Good news is that dance does receive more than in the 2013-2016 period: now €5,289,775 versus €4,434,150.)

By the way, how diverse is the Fund itself?

The Performing Arts Fund wants to be careful and transparent in its assessments and decisions. That's why you'll find all applications and reviews neatly displayed on their website. They are also honest about their own diversity. It is not very high on all fronts but at least it is something. Of the large pool of consultants, 38 per cent were women, 8 per cent had a non-western (bi-)cultural background and 17 per cent had specific culturally diverse expertise.

Here some advisers with a connection to dance: Hildegard Draaijer (DOX), Dave Schwab (programmer dance and performance Rotterdamse Schouwburg), Irene Start (journalist Elsevier), Niels van der Steen ('grew up as the son of a dance teacher'), Jasper Weck (Theater de Veste in Delft), Liesbeth Wildschut (member of the VSCD dance jury), Ronald Wintjens.

View the awards here.

And finally, solidarity. A message from Amsterdam.