The presentation of screen-based dance work is increasing in art galleries. In crossing genre boundaries, artists, producers, venues and funders of this work have a multiplicity of economic models to consider. Portland Green examines some financial models to support this innovative work.
In the 1960s or ?70s ? depending on which side of the Atlantic you were on ? dance was making a clear case that it could be sited outside the proscenium stage, and that it could incorporate other artistic practices such as spoken word and film. Now, in the early part of a new century, through works that use moving image and installation practices, it has now reclaimed spaces commonly earmarked for the visual arts. Exhibitions of these works have been very successful, with over 18,000 visitors going to the New Art Gallery Walsall where the Capture Installations Tour was on view. But what are the economic models behind this practice across artforms and are they adaptable and sustainable as a way to broaden the audience for dance?
Sustainable funding
Dance as arts practice is funded by Arts Council England (ACE) through a portfolio of regularly funded organisations (RFOs) and the Grants for the Arts Scheme (GfA) ? which includes touring programmes. In addition there is funding for dance work in the moving image and new media. Gwen Van Spijk, a dance manager and producer who works with artists including Carol Brown, adds, ?Dance is still largely based on a theatrical performance model where funding plays a part but in which revenue for the artist/company is dependent on earned income comprising box office revenue or guaranteed fees paid by promoters. For the large number of artists/companies making and touring work in the UK who are not RFOs, the latter is of paramount importance in terms of securing even a degree of sustainability.?
Moving image
Artists? work with the moving image encompasses several disciplines and economic models and, in recent years, these have changed. At its inception, in the 1970s, UK artists? film and video was marginal to mainstream arts practice but since the ?90s it has enjoyed a prime position within contemporary arts practice. Similarly, US experimental film once existed as part of the film world; due to economic pressures it is increasingly now seen as part of the commercial art world. However, in the UK we should not ignore the body of work of film and video artists who are still working outside the model of the commercial gallery.
Artists? moving image work is supported through the Arts Council?s GfA and RFOs including client galleries and specialist agencies such as Film and Video Umbrella, LUX, Forma and Artangel. Gary Thomas, Senior Officer, Moving Image, Visual Arts at ACE notes, ?When the UK Film Council (UKFC) was set up in 2000, the Arts Council retained responsibility for moving image work by visual artists and screen-based dance. The allocation of Lottery funding for shorts and feature film production transferred to the Film Council. ACE Lottery funding had also supported artists? installation and longform work, and this became harder to do through Grants for the Arts. A collaboration with UKFC?s New Cinema Fund is one way we?re working to support this work once more. ACE also makes strategic investments, in partnership projects such as ?Capture and animate!? (with Channel 4) to galvanise a specific objective.? These strategic investments contain other economic models for artists.
Many dance artists working with collaborators in screen-based installation first explored the medium of the lens through videodance, where the interface between dance and the screen is explored through dance originally conceived and choreographed for the lens. This genre owes part of its development to the Arts Council?s partnerships with broadcasters, where there is a commission fee for the artists and a division of rights and revenues between ACE and the broadcaster.
Installation
Installation practices have largely sat within the visual arts and an exhibition/acquisition economic model, although there is a body of work within performance/live art in galleries that operate within dance, or live art economic models. Since its emergence in the ?60s as an experiential genre, installation art has become an institutionally approved artform. You would think therefore with recent super-sized installation works both sides of the Atlantic by Olafur Eliasson, Mathew Barney and Martin Creed, museums and galleries would be fighting each other to purchase them. However, Claire Bishop writing in ?Installation art: A critical history, 2005? observes: ??only a tiny fraction of installation art is ever acquired for the (Tate) collection. ? Instead it has become the preferred way to create high-impact gestures within even larger exhibition spaces? Installation art increasingly solicits sponsorship, contributing to a sense among artists and critics that it has reached its sell by date.? On the other side of the Atlantic, the recent triumph of Christo and Jeanne-Claude?s ?The Gates, Central Park, New York? has highlighted their economic model. Christo sells directly to his audience, avoiding the typical 50/50 split with an art dealer. He creates collages and drawings of proposed projects that serve as both studies and ?product? to finance his large-scale installations.
Carol Brown, an artist whose work Electric Fur featured in this winter?s Capture Installations Tour says, ?How to make the work prove its ?economic value? in terms of audience numbers, venue and resources, etc, is difficult within the historic dance theatre company model system and yet it is ?dance-based?. We need to create alternative models and networks for the making and touring of this work, something the Capture tour is very much about.?
Interdisciplinary practice
Interdisciplinary practices best illuminate for us how the lines between art and business continue to blur and that we need to continually reflect on the very engagement between artist and business before we can know what economic model would serve it best. And of course many artists, particularly those working in new media, have intentionally shunned existing economic models in favour of working within a gift economy.
Screen-based installation exhibition, due to its reliance on large amounts of audio-visual equipment, is challenging for all concerned. Arts Council funding schemes cover all art forms and are challenged by exhibition tours of such technically demanding works that often require external specialist technical expertise. And there are very few venues in England that have appropriate audio visual equipment ?in-house? to mount screen-based installations with very prescriptive audio visual specifications. Some venues are trying to mount screen-based installation exhibitions on tuppence using inappropriately trained technicians and curators and this is not good for the reputation of the artform, nor for developing new audiences. The works themselves are a new experience for audiences and resources for audience development and marketing need to be prioritised if this new experience is to be a valuable one for new audiences.
There are numerous economic models that practitioners, producers and venues working in dance screen-based installation could adopt to develop this genre ? some seemingly more appropriate than those based on theatrical practices within which some dance artists and producers currently operate. Technically the works themselves would need to be designed with these models in mind. To be sustainable, artists continually need to reflect on the relationship between their work and its market and all of the commissioning funding structures not just genre-specific ones. Venues? exhibition and marketing budget structures may need to be re-evaluated by their funders. And the widening of the remit of the ?visual arts? specialist moving image agencies would alleviate the need to create a specialist agency for dance and the moving image. Dance artists? screen-based installation work could then continue to capitalise on its current popularity and become another way for dance to reach new audiences.
Portland Green produced the Capture Installations Tour 2004/05 ? the first UK tour of screen-based dance installation and new media work, which, this winter, toured to nine UK art galleries, none of which had exhibited screen-based dance installations before.