Experimental music now calls the tune

Published on Wednesday 30 April 2008 22:20

SEVERAL Scottish theatre companies could be forced to close after the Scottish Arts Council rolled out a major shift in funding for arts organisations.

The SAC announced 7 million worth of funding grants for experimental music and art, disabled companies, and newer dance and visual arts groups.

However, among those who lost out were nine theatre organisations, including well-established names like Suspect Culture, which until now had received 150,000 a year. Other companies, including 7:84 and Borderline, had previous applications turned down.

Total funding for drama and dance has fallen by 18 percent.

Elizabeth Nicoll, The Federation of Scottish Theatres' director, welcomed "the opportunity given to newly funded companies". But she warned: " There are casualties. A number of established and valued members are threatened with closure.

"FST believes these cuts weaken the infrastructure of the performing arts in Scotland and we would prefer growth in the sector, rather than the replacement of a previously funded company with a new one."

The arts council yesterday named 63 organisations from 100 applications who share 6.9 million between them in its new "flexible funding" grants for two years from 2009.

Major winners included Arika Heavy Industries. With an international reputation built over seven years, Arika stages festivals of experimental music and art across Scotland through music, sound, film and image.

In Edinburgh, the Shadow Spaces event, ran performances in out of the way places, staging one improvised music show on an abandoned railway track.

The company won a 100,000 grant for two years, after surviving on smaller grants for individual projects. "This will put us on more of a secure footing and do a bit more long-term planning," said director Bryony McIntyre.

Other winners were groups working with and for disabled artists, like Birds of Paradise, which won 100,000, and Sense Scotland, working with hearing and vision-impaired children and adults, which got 50,000.

The SAC is in the process of being folded into the new Scottish arts body, Creative Scotland.

The losers, the council conceded yesterday, included several Scots language and culture organisations, as well as the voluntary sector.

The Scots Music Group, which has received about 50,000 a year for the last four years, will not be funded from next April. The charity provides fiddle and traditional instrument classes, singing and dance to about 500 people.

"Clearly at a time when there is an increased interest in Scottish culture we had expected the arts council to support our work," Chairman Alastair Cameron said. "We are at a bit of a loss."

The Scottish Language Dictionaries group, which runs research into the Scots language, also saw its funding end. The SAC said it will join the Scottish Government on an audit of Scots programmes.

Several Edinburgh organisations appear to have lost out, with the Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival, the North Edinburgh Arts Centre, the Out of the Blue arts and education trust, and the Queen's Hall, all with applications rejected.

The Queen's Hall chairman, David McLellan, said: "The Queen's Hall's financial position is always precarious. We get significantly less public funding than any other comparable hall in the UK."

WINNERS

&149 Groups supporting disabled artists and performers: Birds of Paradise, 100,000;

&149 Drake Music Project 98,000

&149 Dance companies: Company Chordelia 110,000; David Hughes Dance Productions 110,000

&149 Visual arts: The Common Guild, in Glasgow 100,000; Glasgow International art festival, 50,000

LOSERS

&#149 Theatre companies: 7:84, Benchtours, Borderline, Dogstar, Giants, North Edinburgh Arts Centre, Suspect Culture, Theatre Workshop

&#149 Map visual arts magazine was turned down after receiving 180,000 over four years

PROVINCIAL THEATRE STILL LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

ON PAPER the Pitlochry Festival Theatre (PFT), one of Scotland's best-known provincial theatres, was the biggest and most surprising casualty of the Scottish Arts Council's latest funding round.

Council figures show that in previous years the theatre, founded in 1951 and with a turnover now of more than 2 million, received grants of 300,000 or more. But for 2009 it was denied any "flexible funding".

The theatre insisted yesterday it was not bad news. The arts council planned to discuss "an entirely new funding arrangement", it said.

John Durnin, the chief executive and artistic director, said: "SAC has made it clear that while they recognise the national importance of PFT, this unique organisation doesn't sit comfortably within any funding streams."

The council's acting chief executive, Jim Tough, confirmed there would be a new fund for regional organisations.