THAT IS BEAR SHIT, MAN

30/3/2011

Well, what an awful day for the arts.

For those of you who've been buried to the mohawk in a sandpit all day (you know who you are), here's the thing. In the last Comprehensive Spending Review, the Government cut funding to Arts Council England (ACE) by 30% and necessitated cuts to “front line” organisations of 15%. We can ponder why the Government is so into the language of war later. For now let it be said that the Arts Council had all its Regularly Funded Organisations re-apply for the new status of National Portfolio Organisations - and this morning the announcements came in about which Organisations formed part of said National Portfolio.

If that doesn't explain why it was an awful day, maybe this will. Today 200 arts organisations lost their funding completely and plenty more took a massive hit. Standstill funding was greeted with desperate gladness, despite being at least a 4% cut in real terms, as inflation races unemployment for the skies. Even those lucky enough to see a substantial uplift could feel little more than relief and profound twinges of survivor's guilt. Why them and not us? How can I rejoice this 'victory' when surrounded by the corpses of my comrades?

So maybe the Government's language of warfare does become appropriate when we in the arts remember we are all on the same side. Yes Dave, we're all in this together. We've spent the last weeks walking arm-in-arm across no mans' land and today, with the grim inevitability of Greek tragedy, dozens of us were massacred by enemy machine guns.

And let's be clear: the Arts Council are not the enemy here. Told to cut funding to arts organisations by 15%, I don't really see that they could have handled things a great deal better. Sure, I'd quibble individual decisions and there are plenty of losses to mourn. Perhaps some organisations were cut rightly. But we're all in this together. If we start squabbling over who ought to have been funded and who oughtn't, we chuck sticks at the conscripted gunner when we could sniper the general.

That the Government have forced this on the Arts Council isn't simply philistinism, although it's that too. It isn't just bad economics, although it's that too. It isn't even merely the ideological attachment to a state small to the point of being molecular, its only functions being to nod through tax cuts to billionaires and hound benefit claimants. Although it's that too. Sam West put it better than I ever could in his fabulous speech at the Hyde Park rally on Saturday: “it's not just a failure of Government, it's a failure of imagination.” They simply can't imagine the effects of their cuts on people with less money than a solicitor in Kew.

Arts organisations have today made me very proud. There's been a little bit of tactless celebration, and a little sour grapes. But overwhelmingly, the sense has been one of relief, tinged with sadness for those we've lost. Now we know, now we can all move on. We will work together. We must work together. Regional theatres are pretty much mandated to work more closely with emerging companies and just about everyone's behind that. We're all in this together And one of the main things we will do, all of us, together, in this, is fight the hideous Government that put us here. Some of us, Mr Cameron, are more in this than others. Some of us, Mr Osborne, don't even know what “in this” looks like. You may have weakened many of us individually but you have strengthened us collectively. And I've been overwhelmed and delighted by how many organisations have taken very clear aim at you in their press releases today.

I explained some of what was happening to a group of students this morning. I told them that in five years, when they're working for theatre companies, their employers will remember today and shudder. At one point I nearly cried. And when I'd finished, one of them said “that is bare shit, man”.

30-year-old that I am, I wondered about the provenance of the term “bear shit” - whether it refers to the kind of shit that is hard to find in the woods, a particularly rare and awful kind of shit. It turns out that the last bit is right. Bare shit, a particularly rare and awful kind of shit.

That's what we're all in together, and that's what we'll take aim with. Cameron, Osborne: duck!

16 Comments

Daniel Bye link

30/3/2011 06:52:51 am

Incidentally, no, I'm not arguing that every piece of art from here on in should be an overt attack on the Government. I'm going to write another piece on something like that subject in something like the next couple of weeks.

Rod Dixon

30/3/2011 08:27:59 am

It's been an emotional roller coaster today but thus blog pushed me to tears. What a great writer you are Mr Bye. This is a "We few, we band of brothers...." blog and I thank you for it. Only a luvvie like me could respond like this. They say cut back we say fight back!!

Chris Thorpe

30/3/2011 08:45:09 am

Proud to know you.

We are indeed all in this together now.

So let's make it OUR 'this', on out own terms, and keep fighting.

xc

Boff Whalley

30/3/2011 11:11:22 am

Yes, great blog. And this day WILL come back to haunt those people making the cuts – there'll be a generation of artists reacting against this level of philistinism.

Ivor Benjamin

30/3/2011 07:16:14 pm

Good piece, Dan. I'd like to add, though, that the underlying issue is that we ARE virtually a bankrupt state - in the terms of the financial system that's built up around us, which is itself so rapacacious it no longer acts as a buffer against long-term national debt and is riddled with an evil combination of human sharks and automatic "make-profit" software. If you need any greater evidence of this witness the run on the yen in the wake of the tsunami that meant all the world's major nations having to stabilise the yen against speculation. Who doe that at the same time as the little TV feed in the corner of their trading screen is showing 20,000 people being crushed, drowned and buried alive?

Because these cuts have hit the arts in this country first, we have become a front line, as you say, but it's not a war against David Cameron, or his party, or his mates. For the most part they are honestly doing what they can to shore up the system they believe in. But it's the system that doesn't work - it's greedy, selfish, designed to benefit the few and supported by a twisted and increasingly discredited view of view of global economics. There is more than enough money to go around, it is just not in the right place. But this system will be very, very hard to redistribute or change. And if anyone doesn't believe me, remember that yours and my state pensions are also locked into this system - potentially, the only way we will have any money at all to live on in our old age is if we leave the system alone.

30/3/2011 07:40:40 pm

Ivor I totally agreed with you until your last sentence which was a contradiction of the rest of your comment. You describe the insane greed of growth capitalism but then say we are trapped in it. No we are not. Reality is not capitalist reality for 80% of the global population. They use fear to perpetuate this myth. We need a system change and yes it will be painful like the labour pains of a new birth.

JonBradfield

30/3/2011 07:52:12 pm

I think we have to allow, charitably, some organisations' celebration. Some people will have worked long and hard for years and if that is finally rewarded with something like stability, we shouldn't begrudge it. They are not the enemy.

But a wonderful piece.

Jo Taylor

30/3/2011 08:12:25 pm

After the depressing inevitability of yesterday I now feel strangely better for having a bit of a cry. Bloody well blogged. Now let's get busy!

Alan Dix

30/3/2011 08:20:03 pm

Daniel, a very thought provoking and articulate response to the emotional turmoil of yesterday. If you want to hear an interesting take on the economic 'crisis' you should read this and ponder: http://johannhari.com/2011/03/29/the-biggest-lie-in-british-politics

Xander Hough link

30/3/2011 09:03:41 pm

While I agree with all this government bashing, I do think that the reaction to stand-still funding and "cut" funding from the organisations themselves has been very telling.

As the saying goes, "nothing lasts forever" and we shouldn't "count our chickens before they have hatched". I have been astounded by the lack of preparation on behalf on some of these companies who have been all to quick to publicise their "devastation" and sorrow in rather melodramatic terms, and all too slow to have thought of a Plan B. That cuts to funding were going to happen? - not rocket science. That the pool of available funding would be smaller? - no shit, Sherlock. That more companies than ever would apply for that smaller pot of funding? - does a bear...well, you get the picture.

It is so obvious from the reactions, those empassioned e-mails to the Guardian and blogpostings about theatre companies individuals created from £50 and built up over 20 years that they treat like an old friend (stop before I vomit), that the founders just expected ACE to hand over the cash year after year feeding their inflated egos and indulging their own artistic interests as opposed to really adding value to the communities they reportedly serviced or building upon the UK arts scene. By all means do what you want to do, but don't expect ACE to (always) foot the bill.

It was a bitter-sweet day, no doubt, but I was reassured that the allocation of funding provided a sense of perspective and a sense of priority. I hope it gave some organisations a bit of a wakeup call that will cause them to reflect on who they are, what they have become and what their future should be.

www.xanderhough.wordpress.com

dave chadwick

30/3/2011 09:51:39 pm

i am afraid daniel that however much you may wish it was true we are not all in this together - some of us have been on the outside for a long time through choice and we are now being jointed by a large number who have not chosen that path but have had it forced upon them.
some people have 'fought' for 20 to 30 years within the arts field - developing artforms and practices that would never have been entertained for funding in the 1970/80s - so of these people that have now gone - please allow them the space and respect as they are not now in it together - they are on the outside. it may take more than a day before some people 'get busy' and it may take more than this sentence to thank some people for their contribution
'i would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the contribution that your organisation has made to the arts over recent years, and to acknowledge once again how disappointing our decision will be to you' bullshit

Amanda link

31/3/2011 10:40:15 am

Erm 'cough cough' This is just a technicality but my understanding of the term 'Bare' in this context is Nuff or rather a lot of something.

As in there is bare man up in here talking. I'm nearly 40 Black and a Woman which gives me access to a number of ways of understanding.

Still I enjoyed what you had to say Daniel and what it provoked. Thankyou. Lets see what the future holds for us all.

Amanda Huxtable

31/3/2011 10:43:23 am

Sorry posted without my full name intentionality. it's been a long couple of days.

Amanda Huxtable link

31/3/2011 10:45:02 am

Alex Byrne link

31/3/2011 06:59:02 pm

jesus dan. Are you really 30?? That makes me 40... Maybe lloyds and rbs and hbos can fund some new devised work that explains to them and the rest of us how their greed and short sighted idiocy got us into this... If I ran NIE the way they ran the banks then our board would "bare shit." They could call it the "we are all in this together fund". Maybe Cameron could get us a gig at eton?

Amber Massie-Blomfield

6/10/2011 01:55:37 am

I'm just re reading some of your blogs for this essay I'm working on- this reminded me of that line in Accidental Death of an Anarchist- something like 'we're up to our necks in shit it's true, and that's why we walk with our heads held high'!

PESSIMISM OF THE INTELLECT,
OPTIMISM OF THE WILL