The era of tokenistic 'outreach' programmes is over. The row over Beached shows that community projects are integral to the work of arts organisations ? and need handling with care
Whatever really happened with the near-cancellation of Lee Hall's community opera, Beached ? it will now go ahead this weekend ? there are doubtless lessons to be learned. One of the major ones might be that if collaborating with artists can be challening, then working with and in the community is often even harder. As I've written in the past, community projects have to be set up with real care and expertise, and on occasion the rush for funding means that the interests of both the artists involved and of the community are overlooked. You can't just parachute in, then disappear. It's no surprise that producers such as Anna Ledgard, who has worked extensively with Mark Storer, on projects such as For the Best suggests that making a piece of theatre with hospitalised children should be subject to exactly the same tough ethical codes as a medical trial.
It seems to me that one of the reasons that problems arise is when an organisation sees the work it does in the community as somehow separate from its core artistic activity, and therefore thinks that it can apply different criteria. It is doubtful that Opera North would have countenanced any censorship of a main stage show, so why would it ask artists to self-censor when they are working with the community? For too many theatres or companies, the work that they do with communities offers the chance to access more funding ? but it's only worth doing if they genuinely see it on a par with the rest of the work, and value it accordingly. In the case of brilliant specialist companies such as Wildworks and Quarantine, this is all the work they do.
The days when organisations had education or outreach departments in different buildings run by different people are, I hope, becoming a thing of the past. Enrichment should work both ways. It's quite clear that Punchdrunk would never have been able to think about making its first show for children, The Crash of the Elysium, without the extensive work done by Pete Higgin and others on projects such as Under the Eiderdown, or its more recent transformation of a Waterloo railway arch into a fictional design agency as part of the A New Direction initiative. I'm certain that the lessons learned from The Uncommercial Traveller, made with the Arcola's 50+ theatre group, will pop up in future Punchdrunk pieces.
Similarly, many of the artists passing through BAC or projects such as Arts Admin's free summer school for 16- to 25-year-olds (this year with Mark Storor) get as much benefit from working with young people as the youngsters get from the chance to work with the artists. The gain is everybody's, and it also helps to generate the artists of the future. The future should be making with, not making for.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jul/12/lee-hall-beached-community-theatre
No comments:
Post a Comment