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Frustrations and emotions ran high at the In Battalions festival, in the wake of recent National Portfolio Organisation NPO funding announcements by the Arts Council England (ACE), which saw the status quo pretty much maintained and only a 2% shift towards the regions.
And this despite the Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital report, which highlighted the inequalities between London and the rest of the country. As one of its co-authors, David Powell, remarked at the festival, the pace of change is frustratingly slow: "There are glaciers melting quicker than this." Boris Johnson was so infuriated by the report, reveals Powell, that he demanded to know who had put the authors up to it and funded it. The answer is no one.
In Battalions came at a good time, reminding those working in theatre that despite their frustrations over the many imperfections of the funding landscape, they can use their creativity to generate solutions, too.
Stella Duffy talked about the hugely exciting Fun Palaces; Dialogue explored a different way of thinking and talking about theatre with audiences and artists that goes beyond mainstream criticism; lobbyist Rosie Luff suggested ways in which the arts can put its case better to politicians (apparently writing to your MP really does work, particularly in the period leading up to an election when he or she wants to be re-elected).
Jim Berine of Newcastle's Live theatre talked about genuinely embedding yourself in your community and using creative enterprise effectively. "Live," he observed, "is the only former Marxist co-op with a Michelin starred restaurant." There were also suggestions about socially engaged practice, something addressed in this excellent blog.
The initial In Battalions report from 2013 disproved Ed Vaizey's belief that government cuts to the arts budget were having no effect on our stages, and may well have contributed to the recently announced, much-needed tax relief for touring scheme.
But it is the follow-up Delphi Study that provided the impetus for this gathering, including the start of a crisis mapping-style Crowdmapping project to explore where innovation and risk is happening and how artists can help themselves, and more particularly, each other. In times of hardship, collaboration and generosity are key.
Of course, the frustrations felt by artists over falling funding, which leads to the sector's very high levels of self-exploitation, are real and growing. Are bigger and smaller companies dealt with differently by ACE (the big often have favoured status and cosy relationships)? And there is continued exasperation from those on the outside at what often feels like a "gated community" of NPOs to which it feels almost impossible to gain access.
This piece by ITC's Charlotte Jones is well worth a read. Also check out this Arts Professional article that suggests ACE is not so hot on its maths, and some of the figures presented at the NPO press conference understated the level of cuts.
The writer and performer Stella Duffy, who spoke at the festival. Photograph: Murdo Macleod
In the circumstances, it was good to see ACE's director of theatre, Neil Darlison, taking questions on the chin in the morning and remaining present throughout the day. As Fin Kennedy, co-author of the In Battalions report and the follow-up Delphi study, observed, nothing is served by executing the messenger. ACE itself has been pared to the bone, and better the Arts Council doing the handing out than government.
Nonetheless, one of the most fascinating parts of the day was Taryn Storey's keynote on the politics of risk, taken from her yet to be published PhD. It clearly shows that ACE's funding of risk since 1949 has depended very much on the way the political wind has been blowing.
In particular Storey charted the damaging effect on risk and innovation when, in the 1980s, a funding model that previously offered guarantees against loss was reshaped in the neoliberal spirit of Margaret Thatcher under then chair, William Rees-Mogg. Mogg's mantra: "Subsidy weakens the sinews of self-help." Hence Max Stafford Clark's famous comment that he no longer ran a theatre called the Royal Court but an incentive marketing scheme in Sloane Square.
It appears that we continue to live with an Arts Council in thrall to its own history – which is perhaps why so much money goes to institutions and administrators rather than to artists and audiences. But as In Battalions showed, although it sometimes feels hard to effect change in any sphere, particularly government thinking, theatre is not helpless. Far from it. And surely better to see what the arts can do for the problems of a wider society, rather than worrying about what it can do for itself?
Campaigns such as What Next? and My Theatre Matters are crucial. The latter has seen many a theatre cast member halt applause post-show to remind the audience that the show they've just seen couldn't have been made without their tax contribution that goes into public subsidy, though astonishingly, some venues are still reticent to engage with a campaign that turns audiences into advocates. But important, too, is work that is socially engaged and using contemporary evidence from fields such as well-being, mental health and social cohesion to make a case. Check out the King's College CultureCase site here to build yours.
The danger of the fallout from the NPO funding round is that it sets us against each other. That does nobody any good. In Battalions offers another way forward in which the big campaigns and small ideas all have currency; which suggests that it is not shouting against each other but all shouting and working together that is going to effect real change.
As Kennedy said: "Take up the baton. Be the battalion. Go forth and fight." There are nine months until the next election. This is the time to gather evidence, implement ideas and make sure the arts are on the political agenda for every single one of the UK's 650 MPs and for the millions who will cast a vote.
