cyntillating sounds: w

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It’s rather perplexing: publications on the positive economical effects of a creative city,

of culture and the arts, appear nearly daily at the moment, a torrent of studies,

causes and effects, statements and conclusions all in rapid succession of

Richard Florida’s 2002 book The Creative Class.

Arts education is gaining respect too as indeed it should; academic studies clearly

prove its effect in engaging and uplifting our kids. One need only look to Bolivia

to see what an orchestra full of street urchins can mean to a community.

As Simon Rattle’s and Royston Maldoom’s groundbreaking project Rhythm is It

convincingly conveyed: taking a dance class can indeed change your life.

So what’s so perplexing? The cut backs all over the arts world now being suggested,

nay, forced on us by our politicians. Canada was the first to make headlines,

swiftly followed by cutbacks in England (even around the 012 Olympic Games),

Australia and Italy. Closer to us here in Holland-home, the debate is raging as a

new system of arts funding threatens to have a nasty fallout for respected companies,

ensembles and the film world.

Granted, politicians are people too: they think up a new system, try it out without

too much of an academic fuss - no placebos, no controlled experiments - just launch,

pushing a few papers here and there, and are, and this is the perplexing part,

then never ready to admit that maybe a completely new system might just come with

some little bugs in it a first time ‘round.

Of course it has bugs in it;

of course there are pleats to straighten and collars to crease.

The local bugs crawling out of Holland’s new arts subsidies are distinctly disastrous.

All of the professionals in the arts have recently been divided up into two groups:

an ‘establishment’ we cannot live without (museums full of Van Goghs,

the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the National Ballet Company) and

‘the rest of the world’ (ensembles and companies that are founded, grow,

keep developing, or perhaps wither and die).

This first step makes perfect sense. But the bug here is the fact that,

without so much as a blush, all the symphony orchestras in this postage

stamp sized country were allotted to the ‘establishment ‘ whereas

renowned musical ensembles of other eras (baroque, contemporary, jazz)

were decidedly relegated to ‘the rest’.

Second bug becomes instantly apparent: funds are now too limited to really

cover ‘the rest of the world’. Certain players were told conflicting stories

as to what they were, establishment or not, and, plagued by civil servant bugs,

applied for the wrong kind of funding.

Two bugs become a slight swarm as, again, within the borders of a land you can

drive through in two hours time, politicians are concerned that too much

arts money is concentrated around the city of Amsterdam.

I agree that the rest of the world should indeed realize that there is more to Holland

than the canals and red light district of our beloved capital city

(and should also realize that, as often heard, Holland is not the capital of Denmark…)

but in these dark days of reduced funding, care should be taken that money is not

thrown over the fence just to get it to the other side.

Bug-case in point is the gorgeous, historical but rather tiny city of Utrecht.

For years, the powers that be have been considering it ‘the provinces’

(it’s a half hour from downtown canal…); now that the provinces

are getting the loot, Utrecht, working hard on its arts scene all these years,

is considered too urban and established to rate provincial cash.

Bugs, all over the place, an arts community up in arms and running for a fly swatter.

We’ll be battling bugs here for a while but it is certainly ironic.

Think back to Florida and his colleagues with their convincing proofs

of the economic power of culture in these post-industrial times.

Then consider this: in recent years, the percent of Holland’s budget spent on

arts funding has declined, from a meager 0.74% to 0.57% now:

always less than one percent of the total budget and now dangerously close to a half of one percent!

Haven’t the pol’s heard the news on creativity?

Sounds like an intelligent investment to me.

cyntillating sounds: w

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