Em Outubro de 2011 decorreu em Bratislava, capital da Eslováquia, o 4.º Congresso internacional da Federação Internacional de Coligações para a Diversidade Cultural. Este organismo, criado em Sevilha em 2007, aglomera artistas e profissionais da cultura de todo o mundo, na defesa dos princípios da Convenção de 2005.
Apresentamos aqui a comunicação de Helena Vasques, da Coligação Portuguesa para a Diversidade Cultural.
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The Performing Arts as nonprofit sector –
challenges in the creative economy
The Performing Arts is a cultural sector that attracts many artists to a
fulfilling creative life, enabling the public to enjoy and attain the most
powerful cultural experiences.
Opposed to other cultural sectors, the performing arts organize themselves
as nonprofit cultural organizations. This tendency was first appointed by
DiMaggio (2003) in his investigation on nonprofit organizations.
Due to the Baumol principle (1956) who stated the that performing arts will always have more deficit
than profit due to raising production costs, and to the willingness to pay for
the arts (Frey, 2005) as a social good, the non-commercial performing arts
heavily rely on Government support in Portugal, but less on other forms of
support such as philanthropy and private donations, as they do in the USA.
So, we have some independent theater opera and orchestra production,
contemporary dance or other independent projects seeking the support that will
enable them to meet ends and get things going through the year. Very few
productions are able to raise money, even on a level of a surviving income, by selling
productions directly to private or public entities, establish profitable
partnerships which would allow any present and future activity, away from total
precariousness. This confirms the nonprofit model tendency: as productions are
not to grow economically or build profit through public presentations, they fulfill
the nonprofit principles, claiming a public service through cultural delivery
to society as well thus adapting to the public good underlined under the
nonprofit sector.
A complete survey on the number and scope of nonprofit cultural
organizations in Portugal is difficult to attain, first because the life time
span of arts organizations is unstable depending on how much stable financial support
they are able to get for each project, secondly because many organizations may
remain undetectable to statistics due to their micro size, and finally because statistic
official data generally assembles them with other nonprofit activities such as
sports or education. According to the latest data, in Portugal about 90%
cultural organizations are of very small size (micro), holding less than 4
employers.
There is a lot of also informal activity that escapes statistics, e.g. professional
or amateur musicians who enjoy playing together, decide to get a Logo or a
designation as group, proceeding afterwards to public performances. When show
time comes up, the group may as well employ independent artists as
collaborators for concerts, or even get associated to a theatre or dance
production.
Performing arts organizations employ independent performers for certain periods
of time whenever there is financial support available for projects. When
culture organizations get financial support, their economic balance may still
continue precarious as the Government support for the arts is usually late in
the year, well after companies start to accommodate their crews. Sometimes
Government support is a refund for past expenses, but then the group has to
carry on with rehearsals and performances when the support is yet uncertain, for
eligibility for financial support depends on the completion of the project
presented.
Despise this scenario, public funding has supported a fair amount of
nonprofit cultural organizations in the performing arts for the past twenty years,
ensuring the stability of older companies and allowing many new groups a place
in the arts stage. Several independent theatre and contemporary dance groups or
small orchestras, and other punctual performing arts projects got a steady
financial support, allowing a cultural diversity option to be enjoyed by the
public and ensuring the growth of artistic activity on stage.
On 2014 the Portuguese Secretariat of Culture released a series of
reports about creative economy, the development of cultural industries and the
economic role of culture in society. According
to these reports a new cultural age calls for more dynamic cultural enterprises,
enhanced by the digital era, cultural enterprises that will burst the economy
and carry economic expansion abroad. After two years of deep social and
economic crisis (2011-13) and the abrupt decrease on public support, it seems now
that the need for economic justification on any public spending on the arts is
unavoidable. The arts, namely performance, have now to prove economically
sustainable and oriented. These reports are aligned with the liberal ideology in
the creative economy in Europe, point to an incredible amount of data showing
how culture and the arts have a bosting effect to the economy.
The impact of such reports on the performing arts got on the way. In the
afterward of the economic crisis, the arts development favored a more liberal
approach by politicians and the market. According to independent theatre groups
and musicians, the previous access to public and private halls (venues) for rehearsals
was now taxed too high to allow rehearsal time. Performers and groups started
to be invited to perform for free as well, or payed half of the total of ticket
sales. That meant that an increasing number of artists needed to rely on other
activities for everyday life support, a second activity or job that would enable
them to continue their performance activity.
Public funding got more difficult to access due to an obsolete and
incredible difficult display of rules and restrains. According to many artists
and groups, the increased economic expertise demanded by public funding is a
long way far from their artistic daily concerns. Small groups are simply not
prepared to meet all the criteria, economic forecasts and analysis. Musicians found
it harder now to collect a fare payment for their concerts; they had to
register as promoters near the finance authority or they would not be illegible
to cash for their work. Needless to say the registration is expensive and
pointless for an independent musician.
“Facing artistic activity ´s new place in the economy is the fact that
too little attention has been paid to it. The legal rules that apply are
identical to those governing other economic activities, in total ignorance of
the particular and sometimes insurmountable difficulties with which it is
faced. It is paradoxical, in fact, that with the coming of the era of the
communications superhighway in our post-industrial societies, artists encounter
living and working conditions more and more difficult.” These words by Suzanne
Capiau at the Seminar in Visby, Sweden, on 2001 describe a still actual reality
in the arts. It seems that after all these years very little was done to
protect artists activity, namely in the performing arts sector.
We hope that through the Cultural Diversity a new awareness of the
importance of public spending in the arts will penetrate cultural policies
around Europe.
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