The world’s most acerbic dance commentary
Long time followers of Article19 will know that one of the things that makes us unique are the video features we run as often as possible. Here in TheLab™ we don’t just use promo videos from dance companies and re-publish them. We go out and film the work ourselves, do the interviews, do the editing […]
Verve13 from Northern School of Contemporary Dance A few weeks ago we wrote about the comically misguided and completely unjustifiable situation Arts Council England had gotten itself into with the £400,000* annual funding for (Sadler’s Wells Theatre) the National Youth Dance Company. Ostensibly, the purpose of NYDC is to provide a pathway into professional training […]
Anybody who has received funding from Arts Council England, or any other type of funding for that matter, will know that numbers are everything. Especially when it comes to audience numbers for the performing arts. Numbers can make or break your company because if they aren’t high enough, or the right kind of numbers, then […]
Two weeks ago Arts Council England contacted us via Twitter to ask if we would like to write a “blog post” for them. To be honest it did take a while for that request to get past our “WTF” filter. The Big Bad was asking TheLab™ to write something that they would publish with our […]
Last week the much anticipated, by some at least, televised “debate” in the House of Commons (the UK’s legislative body) about the wide world of culture rapidly descended into the “not worth bothering with” territory that we, here in TheLab™, had predicted. It’s hard to determine what was more depressing about the whole affair. Was […]
On Friday last week the announcement was made by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) that Arts Council England (ACE) would, in all probability, receive a 5% cut to their funding for the year 2015/2016. The announcement was a prelude to the government’s “spending review” that will be announced in full on June […]
The rumours are swirling, or at least staggering about like an asthmatic mouse, that the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) is a goner if the up and coming Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) has anything to do with it. Lest you be unfamiliar with the DCMS they are the government department responsible for funding […]
We have written often, here in TheLab™, about the fact that when the self appointed upper echelons of the arts complain about funding they often come across as self-serving, pompous buffoons. The reason they sound like self-serving, pompous buffoons is because, more often than not, they are self-serving, pompous buffoons. Step forward Nicholas Serota, Chief […]
A couple of weeks ago a minor storm erupted when an audition notice for Ace Dance and Music, based in Birmingham, was released that stated the company would charge dancers £20 each for attending. Charging for auditions (or in this case an audition workshop) is generally not accepted practice in this country or any other. […]
On Sunday a comment appeared on our piece “Then We Could Stop” which is, in and of itself, a comment on a request for Article19 to change the way we do things around here. “If you were good writers then the acrid sarcasm and bitchiness might be excusable. There is plenty of space for a […]