For anybody working in a freelance capacity, no matter what the trade, the biggest challenge is not necessarily finding work to begin with but getting paid for doing that work. Simply put, freelancers have to wait far too long in many instances to get paid for the work they do. In our own experience, here […]
It’s a well known fact that the worst thing you can do in politics is tell the truth. Even though people more often than not demand honesty the voices opposed to that honesty always seem to be the loudest. A few days ago the Equity Dance website released a statement that basically condemned the Royal […]
The central tenet of journalism is to report the facts and leave the opinions at the door, unless you’re writing an opinion piece that is but no matter what, the facts are still a journalist’s best friend. Here in TheLab™ we harangue Arts Council England probably more than every other arts publication/journalist in the country […]
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 […]