This summer Arts Council England publishes a strategy for outdoor performance in England. David Micklem gives the background.
Lets cut to the chase. Street arts is a term Arts Council England (ACE) has struggled with since we prioritised outdoor arts practice back in 2001, when we began a period of investment in a range of theatre, music and visual arts practice created for outdoor sites across the country. Companies like Walk the Plank, Improbable, Mimbre, Nutkhut, Dodgy Clutch, Whalley Range Allstars, Nzi Dada, Welfare State International and many other artists and organisations have benefited from this commitment to street arts.
Festivals too have grown over this period. Stockton International Riverside Festival, Greenwich and Docklands Festival, the Streets of Brighton, Garden of Delights in Manchester, Winchester Hat Fair, the National Theatres Watch This Space and a range of other street art events have developed their programming. Many continue to make huge contributions to the commissioning of new work.
In 2002 we published a Report and Strategy for Street Arts which set out a framework for investment and began to bring together thinking across the ten Regional Arts Boards. Work was encouraged to tour at all scales and the Arts Council awarded funds to support major international initiatives, such as the epic Elemental in Chalon sur Saone in France in 2003 and Quality Street, a showcase of British work in Utrecht, Holland in 2005.
Artists were encouraged to take greater risks, and engage with others from parallel and complementary disciplines. Established companies developed new large-scale pieces IOU, Avanti Display, The World Famous and others whilst a wealth of new companies emerged to develop work for town centres, parks, seafronts, car parks and beaches. Work has been brought to alternative spaces across the country with little access to other cultural provision. Emergency Exit Arts Runga Rung was a big hit in rural Shropshire, Bill Mitchells Wildworks transformed Hayle Harbour for three weeks, and Improbables Sticky played to tens of thousands on one night on a site in Newark in Nottinghamshire.
In 2003 the launch of the Grants for the Arts programme had a profound impact on practitioners and festivals presenting work in site-specific locations. Artists and companies now had access to serious funds for the first time, regardless of where they were based. Festivals developed additional strands to their programmes. Ambition continued to grow.
In 2006 ACE commissioned a healthcheck of street arts. That document concluded that, whilst there was clearly a growing community of artists engaged in making outdoor work, the infrastructure that supports it continues to show signs of fragility. This is the challenge the Arts Councils new strategy, due to be published this summer, aims to address.
During the development of this strategy there has been healthy debate over a number of contested terms. Many artists, producers and promoters agree that there could be more inclusive terms to describe outdoor practice. The street arts sector embodies a broad spectrum from the artistically rich and developmental to work rooted in popular entertainment. Both ends of this spectrum play an important role in animating our public spaces and it shouldnt be read as pejorative when I say that ACE is committed to focusing on areas of practice rooted in the arts.
In developing the strategy we have been keen to refocus our language towards outdoor performance an imperfect but more inclusive term. The concept of a street arts sector has played a real part in developing a culture of outdoor performance in the UK. But that term doesnt have the same resonance in this country as it does in France or Spain. The words street arts mean little to many people and imply a world that excludes many artists, companies and their audiences. The Arts Council is interested in artistic practice and through our Theatre Policy we place a particular focus on outdoor performance. Whether that is work by artists from a street arts sector or theatremakers or choreographers, or musicians or producers of live art, we want to create a more sustainable environment for work made for specific sites. We are interested in work that responds to landscape: art that responds to changes in the weather or the sun rising or setting; practice that says something about the car park, the beach, the dockyard or the street in which it is sited; theatre that responds to the building in which it is housed or against which it is played. The strategy will set out a framework for our investment in this work. Its headlines are based on two fundamental principles: those of quality and partnership. Through our different mechanisms for funding we will support the development of artistic practice that has the potential to be, or is, of the highest quality as judged against international benchmarks, and will support the widest distribution of this work across England. And we will support the presentation of quality work where there is genuine partnership; with local authorities, with other arts funders, with regional development, regeneration and tourism agencies, European partners and with other artists.
The strategy also sets out a vision for the summer of 2013, six years hence, and establishes a framework for investment to deliver this vision. On a journey across a number of significant cultural moments Liverpool 08, the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative, London 2012 and an existing network of festivals and outdoor contexts, ACE wants to see a flourishing cadre of artists making work that speaks directly to its audience.
David Micklem is Senior Strategy Officer, Theatre, Arts Council England.
e: david.micklem@artscouncil.org.uk
w: http://www. artscouncil.org.uk