An ongoing and unspoken sense of crisis has driven those working in the performing arts to accept an intolerable range of behaviours as the norm. Emma Jayne Park questions the underlying structures supporting a system that requires endless resilience simply to survive.
A DCMS report asserting that ‘the arts can,’ ‘music can,’ and ‘dance can’ improve arts and health includes highly flawed studies that should not be relied upon to guide policy, says Stephen Clift.
Venue operators should be rightly angry that the Government continues to insist that social distancing is the main route to making their auditoriums safe, says Liz Hill.
To future-proof the creative sector we must root out systemic funding bias against BAME organisations, says Kevin Osborne, starting with an equitable sharing of the £1.57 billion bailout package.
If ACE only distributes the Government's support package to the organisations they have a current relationship with, then 80% of the sector will remain vulnerable and large scale venues as well as small will be at risk says Michael Ockwell.
As governments start to draw up plans for supporting the post-virus cultural sector, the voices of those working in it are the most important. Liz Hill introduces a new series of articles.
Regeneration is all very well – but it is only through celebrating its authentic working class culture that the city can discover a beating heart and soul, says Lisa Meyer.
Setting targets helps, but wider strategies are needed to dispel the sense of novelty value that still surrounds female musicians. We need to normalise their presence on stage and behind the scenes, writes Kate Lowes.
A reluctance to self-reflect and a tendency to recruit in our own image are at the root of the sector’s failure to employ a workforce that reflects the wider working population, says Sara Whybrew.
Risk versus reward
England’s arts organisations will be asked to make decisions that affect more than people’s livelihoods.