While the sector is busy infighting about Hytner's proposal, we're missing the point: the 'one-tier' system is not fit for purpose, says Melanie Precious.
I’ve been following the reactions to the Nicholas Hytner article ‘The Arts in Britain are teetering on the brink. Here is my plan to save them’ with a combination of frustration and despair. Not because I agree or even disagree with this plan (or any of the alternatives circulating on social media), but rather because I fear that we are completely and utterly missing the point and in doing so we may also be missing a crucial moment to come together collectively to bring about essential change.
What Hytner has done, regardless of whether you agree with the plan he set out or not, is put the dire funding context within which we are all trying desperately to work, in bold print in a national newspaper. He openly called upon Labour, who with an election coming up have skin in the game, to listen. However, in its publication, the article has ripped the scab off a very old wound and (understandably) caused a great many backs to go up. As a result, rather than seizing the opportunity to create a chorus demanding more and better investment, we are busy twittering things like “this is why his plan is wrong” alongside decidedly less articulate and frankly vitriolic commentary. Our indignance is getting the better of us and we are seemingly forgetting that his proposal is not the executive summary of a government white paper but rather an opinion piece: by someone whose influence could be used, if we were clever, as a key to making crucial conversations happen at an immensely crucial time, rather than as a stick with which to beat him. Because while we are busy throwing insults at each other what do you think the government or even Arts Council England are doing?
I’ve been following the reactions to the Nicholas Hytner article ‘The Arts in Britain are teetering on the brink. Here is my plan to save them’ with a combination of frustration and despair. Not because I agree or even disagree with this plan (or any of the alternatives circulating on social media), but rather because I fear that we are completely and utterly missing the point and in doing so we may also be missing a crucial moment to come together collectively to bring about essential change.
What Hytner has done, regardless of whether you agree with the plan he set out or not, is put the dire funding context within which we are all trying desperately to work, in bold print in a national newspaper. He openly called upon Labour, who with an election coming up have skin in the game, to listen. However, in its publication, the article has ripped the scab off a very old wound and (understandably) caused a great many backs to go up. As a result, rather than seizing the opportunity to create a chorus demanding more and better investment, we are busy twittering things like “this is why his plan is wrong” alongside decidedly less articulate and frankly vitriolic commentary. Our indignance is getting the better of us and we are seemingly forgetting that his proposal is not the executive summary of a government white paper but rather an opinion piece: by someone whose influence could be used, if we were clever, as a key to making crucial conversations happen at an immensely crucial time, rather than as a stick with which to beat him. Because while we are busy throwing insults at each other what do you think the government or even Arts Council England are doing?
Absolutely nothing...Keep reading on Greenwich Dance.