Right now, they are all still zooming or in an MS Teams meeting, the dozens of advisers and committee members appointed to assess the hundreds of grant applications for the new arts plan 2021-2024. But in all likelihood, it will no longer be about the applications, but about how to deliver the news that the procedure is being halted. On Wednesday morning, the province of Zeeland already made a decision, so the rest will follow later today and this week. After all, everything hangs together.
When I was in touch with my sources at the ministry last week, it was clear that there, too, were doubts about the usefulness and necessity of the current procedure. After all, all the optimistic plans were written on a world that has changed dramatically and, in all likelihood, permanently since the beginning of this year. So are you now going to decide as a committee of municipality, province or state that a club must make way for newcomers, based on a plan of which all parts are already in doubt?
One and a half metres
Nobody can say anything meaningful now about audience reach, or own revenues in a world where, according to the latest thinking, 'one-and-a-half metres' is going to be the norm. So you cannot judge veterans and newcomers on a past that will never come back and a future that is utterly uncertain. Just last week, the minister sputtered something along the lines of: 'but those newcomers should also be given a chance'. Of course that is true, but at the moment the whole sector is hopeless. Then you are even further from home as a newcomer.
Yet there is a good reason why, on the contrary, advice should be continued, reports Henk Scholten, former director of many theatres and funds in a discussion at Facebook: 'I also suggested last week that perhaps it would be good not to issue any advice now, but have come back from that after some discussions. The main reason is that advising now on the basis of the budgets available now can at least be a front against possible cuts. Besides, these are opinions, decision-making everywhere is only in the autumn and then we will hopefully know a bit more than now.'
People's Hostile
Scholten has a point. New elections are also coming up and the chances of the Dutch people allowing a broad majority of cultural subsidy lovers to come to power are not very high. Newcomer Baudet sees the existing arts sector as anti-grassroots. Then it is bad news to face the new era with a completely dismantled 'subsidy building'. So it would be wise to let the advisory go ahead anyway, and leave the decisions to politicians this autumn. In the hope that they will show understanding.
These are exciting times.
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