February 23, 2005

DanceEast Big Spending on Retreats

Documents obtained by Article19 under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed the true cost of DanceEast's Rural Retreats seminars for dance makers from around the world.

At a cost of £260,000 over the next two years, £100,000 of which comes from Arts Council England (ACE) the money being spent far outstrips the amount of money in planned spending on DanceEast's professional, regional touring programme, Snape Dances.

Throughout the documents the National Dance Agency for the East of England fails to provide any tangible proof that the seminars are of any benefit to the dance community at large or in fact their own regional dance community.

When asked by Article19 to provide documented evidence of the benefits of the retreats, Assis Carriero, DanceEast's Artistic Director responded;

"A full report is produced at the end of the Retreat and all participating directors complete questionnaires which are used by DanceEast and the facilitators to develop future Retreats."

At the time of writing the report had still not arrived at Article19 towers.

You can read our full editorial on this story by following the link below.

[ link ] Editorial: Retreats Don't Add Up

February 16, 2005

LD.com and ACE Confusion!

In our recent interview with Arts Council England (ACE) North East Chief Executive, Andrew Dixon, it became clear that ACE funding policy is a little muddy about whether or not the organisation will fund websites!

During the interview, Mr Dixon referred to Londondance.com (LD.com) as an "organisation" that receives funding "primarily for the services that it delivers, the networking, the training, it's not just a website it's an agency that delivers certain services."

However we could find no mention of these "services" on the LD.com website and Claire Hyde, Corporate Affairs at Sadler's Wells, made no mention of this in our conversation with her.

It is emerging that one of the main reasons Article19's funding application was turned down by ACE was the issue that we are a website and we would need funding year on year and this is not what ACE does. A position apparently contradicted by the Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) status of LD.com.

Mr Dixon did promise to look at LD.com again after the error was pointed out.

You can watch the interview in full by following the link below.

[ link ] Video Interview with Andrew Dixon

ACE and FOIA, Still Stalling

In our second ACE related story of the day the funding quango in London is still staying mute as to why one request under the Freedom of Information Act is still missing, why another request has been declined for reasons not listed in the exclusion clauses by the Dept. for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) and why another request is still missing a great deal of information

As we have reported previously any request made for information under the new act must be responded to within 20 working days or a fully justifiable and legal reason for not fulfilling the request must be given.

Numerous phone calls to ACE in London have furnished us only with the voicemail messages of most of the organisations employees. In fact the only people who would answer their phones at ACE were the central switchboard who were more than happy to put us through to other people's voicemail.

Missing requests are for the Dance Consortium and the Royal Ballet and another request that is, as yet, incomplete relates to Londondance.com.

More news to follow we feel sure.

ACE Cannot be Captured

As we reported late last year Arts Council England (ACE) has refused point blank to release the Capture 3 series of films for review by Article19. In a fortnight that has not seen ACE cover itself in glory their refusal to allow these films to be reviewed is, we feel, another example of the funding monolith sinking under the weight of trying to control their own output and protect it from any potential negative press.

This fiasco has been continuing for several months now and we feel the only reason is to avoid a potential critical mauling. It began with Portland Green, producing partner for the Capture series, releasing the wrong series of films for review. What we were sent was Capture 2, we reviewed them anyway and Jordan Kinsella was forced to massacre alomost all of the series, mostly for their universal pretentiousness.

Numerous requests to ACE's dance dept. followed. Initially we were told that the films would only be released to certain publications for review, then we were told they would not be released because it was too long after the films bowed on their opening tour. The films then disappeared from ACE and ended up at the National Film and Television Archive (NFTVA). When we contacted them they had never heard of the Capture series. Several phone calls later it turned out that they had heard of them but could not release a copy, we would have to travel to London to see them!

We then went back to ACE and again requested the films at which point they stated their original reason for not releasing the series on any format!

At this point we are considering an appeal under the Freedom of Information Act to try and get access to the series or we may just move to a tropical island and not bother anymore.

You can see short clips of the Capture 3 series on ACE's own website.

[ link ] ACE Website Capture Video's

February 15, 2005

ACE on Camera

Although unwilling to speak on camera concerning Article19's funding application ACE North East Chief Executive Andrew Dixon goes before the lens to speak about a few other issues close to our heart.

Following our request that ACE go on camera to justify their decision making process they did agree to a video interview with Andrew Dixon. During the interview we discuss ACE's national funding policy, incredibly popular dance websites and funding not so popular dance websites among many other things.

The interview will be online later today.

February 14, 2005

ACE North East Shy's From The Camera

Arts Council England North East (ACE NE) have declined Article19's offer to go on camera with their reasons for rejecting an application from this publication for £15,000 to continue our activities whilst at the same time supporting Londondance.com (LD.com) to the tune of more than £100,000 over the last few years.

Citing that " [applications that are refused will not be discussed]" as the reason the ACE NE press office suggested that if Article19 had a complaint to make then we should follow their complaints procedure. When we made it clear that it was not a complaint but a desire to have a member of the ACE NE management speak on camera about the curious decision of the organisation as a whole to heavily support the ACE friendly LD.com we were only met with the same response.

The complaints procedure ACE uses appears to be nothing more than an exercise in futility since there is no appeals procedure and funding application decisions cannot be overturned. Application monitoring is carried out by ACE itself and not a third party.

Following ACE's expensive changeover from many regional arts boards to a single national entity their funding policies and procedures were supposed to take on a national flavour. It seems our efforts to explore this with them on camera have been thwarted, for now at least.

ACE North East is not responsible for deciding funding to LD.com. Article19 received £4,500 from ACE some 14 months ago (cut from £5,000 applied for). At least 50% of our funding application was to pay external writers, most of whom would have been professional dancers.

February 09, 2005

Londondance.com, Part Time Press Releasing

Information obtained by Article19 under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed some interesting facts about Article19's, for want of a better word, competition in the online dance publication stakes at Londondance.com (LD)

For the coming financial year, 2005/2006, LD will receive £31,050 from ACE to continue publishing, for the most part, other people's material.

LD's application form reveals some interesting details about the site and those that manage its updates and some things that turned into nothing more than vaporware! During a conversation with Claire Hyde of Sadler's Wells it also became clear that LD does not operate in the dance sector it operates as part of the 'leisure industry!'

Leisure would appear to be the operative word with regard to the site since the Editor works for just 3 days a week for the princely sum of £15,750 per year. Ms Hyde did not warrant criticism of this cost as fair when we cited that a professional dancer working a 6 day week for a whole lot less may be a little peeved about this and that the money may be better spent on something of more use to the dance industry.

The old chestnut of 'not comparing like with like' was rolled out with Ms Hyde appearing to state that dancers were altogether less important and therefore worth a lot less money than the average 'Web Editor'.

In the vaporware stakes LD was aiming to develop a nationwide news network involving the National Dance Agency Network. When we asked Carmel Smith the sites editor about this she stated that it was 'just an idea' and apparently nothing has come of it. Sources inside the NDA network told us that they had never even heard of such a plan.

That the plan never came to fruition is probably just as well however as their ability to report on what is happening in their own backyard appears to be somewhat limited.

In the application proposal LD state that "[since] 80% of UK dance activities happen in London, londondance.com is already serving the UK-wide dance audience". Sadly they seemed to have missed the 6 week long Resolution festival as it appears nowhere in their January news section and there is no other coverage anywhere on the site of the festival.

Also missing from the site seems to be any of their own content. The application proposal makes some noise about 'Online Chat Sessions' whereby questions are submitted online for live responses. However there are only seven of these sessions from the last four years and the last one was several months ago.

One particular web chat with Mark Morris revealed the man to be as articulate as a rusty spanner and serves only to illustrate the severe limitations of the format used by LD.

After 2006 ACE will have spent over £100,000 on londondance.com and in the time we have been monitoring the site little progress seems to have been made in relation to the content they provide or the style with which they provide it. LD seems confused about whether or not it is a news/feature based publication or the Yellow Pages of dance and it comes across as not being particularly effective at either of those tasks.

If you want to know a dance company address then ask the ACE publications office for the White List. It's free and it didn't cost £100,000 to put together.

February 08, 2005

ACE doesn't get FOIA

Arts Council England has been found wanting when it comes to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that came into force on January 1st of this year.

Several requests made by Article19 for information regarding various projects have either been returned incomplete, lacking even the most basic information or have simply not been returned at all. Failing to provide information under the terms of the act is against the law and ACE could be subjected to an enforcement notice from the Information Commission if a complaint is made.

The consequences of such an enforcement notice could not be determined at the time of writing.

A request regarding details of the funding provided to the Dance Consortium, who run the wordwidedanceuk.com website, has failed to materialise altogether along with a separate request regarding the Royal Ballet. Other requests have been returned minus basic documents and email transcripts that must be provided when asked for. At least one request has been sent to the wrong address but we give them some marks for at least making the effort and it did show up the next day.

ACE Central in London did not immediately respond to requests for a comment about this somewhat chaotic approach to the new act.

Article19 currently has five more requests in the pipeline with several more being made this week. Under the terms of the act any organisation that receives a request must provide information within 20 days or give a specific reason for not doing so.

Although the Act does apply to ACE it does not apply to any organisation that they fund irrespective of how much money they receive. Requests for information can be made by anyone and you do not need a reason to request information. Charges may apply to requests that require a substantial amount of resources to recover.

February 07, 2005

Lorent Wins an Award

A choreographer not based in London has received an award for what the company's press release calls her "outstanding tribute to her art form'.

The Arts Foundation Choreography Award was presented to Newcastle based choreographer Liv Lorent and her company Ballet Lorent. The company's current touring projects are 'La Vie' and 'The Ball' both of which are featured here on Article19. We don't know if any silver ware was involved but the company did pick up a cheque for £10,000 to spend on new work.

In a press release the company states that the Arts Foundation is;

"The Arts Foundation was established as an independent trust in 1990 through an anonymous bequest to the arts. The remit of the Trust has been specifically to support talented and emerging artists at a time in their careers when they have shown commitment to, and reached some professional standing in their artform. "

Other shortlisted candidates for the award were Charles Linehan and Cathy Marston both of whom are based in London.

In a slew of recent awards events the arts community has showed its more cynical side with most awards going to London based companies and the big ballet companies.

We will be running and interview later this week with Liv Lorent. You can find video's of La Vie and The Ball in our features section.