The world’s most acerbic dance commentary
Arts Council England (the funding monolith) is all set for a big shakeup this coming January as their long(ish) term CEO Alan Davey packs up his John Lewis tie collection and moves on to pastures new at the BBC to run a radio station that nobody ever talks about. To say that Mr Davey’s time […]
Arts Council England has denied that a so called “gagging” clause will be included in the new contracts being prepared for the National Portfolio Organisations for the funding period running from 2015 until 2018. Arts Professional magazine published a story on September 19th that suggested the clause in the contract would restrict the ability of […]
September is the time for dance students to return to their training or, in the case of the first years, begin a three year journey on the road that leads deep inside the wacky world of professional dance. Once those students graduate into that world it can be frustrating, it can be debilitating, it can […]
In the arts some folk may be a little too interested in what others think of them. All you need to do is look at the incessant praise re-tweeting, pull quotes from reviews and caring too much about being reviewed in the first place. The Stage is reporting (stop laughing at the back) on a […]
In 2012 protesters interrupted numerous performances by Israeli dance company Batsheva in the UK for the simple reason that they are publicly funded by their own country’s arts ministry. The “pro-Palestinian” protestors have come up with the fantastically convoluted reasoning that anything from Israel is little more than Israeli government propaganda and should be shouted […]
In our ongoing tussle with Arts Council England to obtain information concerning the much maligned “Space” project the funding monolith made the following comment in response to questions about spending over £8Million on a website vs cutting the companies in the NPO portfolio. “With regards to the national portfolio; turnover in the portfolio is healthy.” […]
Yesterdays announcements by Arts Council England of their decisions concerning National Portfolio Organisations came as some relief to the wide world of dance. Most established companies and organisations survived along with a few new companies being added to the mix. Of the 3 NPOs that failed to get renewed we know that at least two […]
It’s one thing fighting off the right wing absolutists when they spew their ridiculous rhetoric regarding arts funding it’s another thing altogether when you are crossing swords with people who are supposed to understand the arts. Step forward Harriet Harman, Shadow Culture Secretary, and Simon Mellor from Arts Council England. In a speech to some […]
Here in TheLab™ we imagine that it all started with a conference somewhere, probably from the Arts Marketing Association. A well dressed hipster takes to that stage and proclaims, using forced confidence while holding an iGadget™, that if a Twitter follower sends you a message containing feint praise then immediately re-tweet it to your own […]
It was suitably ironic that following our feature piece last week concerning the problems with professional dancers trying to find properly paid, full-time jobs an audition landed in our inbox from The Royal Opera House in London. This particular audition, seeking 6 female dancers for the staging of an opera called ‘Anna Nicole’, was offering […]