April 18, 2005

Don't Call Us We Won't Call You

Stung by a raft of negative news stories the dance department of Arts Council England in London is now refusing to accept phone calls from everyones favourite dance publication (maybe not 'everyone's' favourite! Ed!)

When calling ACE's central switchboard last week we were immediately informed that should we wish to contact the dance dept. we should do so by email. Lab members were somewhat perplexed since the nature of the call had not even been explained. The switchboard supervisor admitted when pressed for further details that the dance dept. had put a block on any calls from Article19 being put through.

To date the dept. has refused to answer question regarding ACE employees apparently misleading Article19 on the existence of press material for their Capture series of films and missing Freedom of Information Act requests.

Alex Holdaway, press officer for ACE in London told us via email that;

"As with most organisations, the usual practice at the Arts Council is that all media enquiries are directed to our press offices, any emails sent to Rebecca Dawson or any one else in the dance department would be forwarded to me or my colleagues in the relevant regional office. We are unable to provide a cuttings service but obviously, it is the press office that is like to hold cuttings rather than the art form departments and if we can we will of course be happy to help."

Ms Holdaway did not respond to the specific points on ACE misleading Article19 or the missing FOIA requests.

To date the dance dept. has not replied to numerous request by email for information or several phone messages to answer specific points.

ACE Propping up ENB

Arts Council England's (ACE) recent funding announcements for their spending plans over the next three years were notable for the funding giants description of having to make "hard choices" in the coming years. The Independent has revealed that some of these hard choices were whether or not to save English National Ballet (ENB) from oblivion.

While contemporary dance companies received modest increases in their funding for the next three years and a couple of companies lost their funding altogether the classical companies received substantial increases to their already well funded coffers.

It has now emerged that ACE has been propping up ENB for some time as the company suffers a drop in audience numbers and the recent loss of its artistic director Mats Skoog.

The Independent reports;

"For the past two years, the Arts Council has been quietly advancing £750,000-£800,000 of the following year's grant; ENB faced insolvency last year, and the ACE had to decide whether to let it go down or not. The £2.3 million package is a vote in ENB's future."

The £2.3million is from ACE's so-called "stabilisation fund" although many in the arts have another name for the scheme which at this hour of the day is un-publishable. The stabilisation fund was introduced years ago in a desperate attempt to save many large scale companies that were floundering. The scheme was heavily criticised for appearing to endorse poor management and incompetence in the large scale organisations in the UK almost all of which at the time had substantial deficits.

English National Opera and Royal Opera House have received substantial amounts of money from this fund in the past.

As we highlighted in our recent editorial on the ACE funding review, in the dance world they are pleading poverty whilst simultaneously providing large funding increases to big ballet and contemporary dance continues to struggle.

[ link ] The Telegraph Piece

April 04, 2005

Dance Academy's Poor Showing

If you thought the point of getting dance onto TV was to increase levels of public interest in the art form then guess again. According to the BBC and the independent audience monitoring company BARB viewing figures for the Dance Film Academy shown on BBC4 on Saturday 19th March could well have been less than 100,000.

According to the Broadcast Audience Research Board (BARB) the top rated show on BBC4 for the week ending 20th March had an estimated 200,000 viewers and the 10th rated show pulled in just 90,000. This is for the same week the Dance Film Academy bowed on the channel and it does not feature in the top 10.

A BBC4 spokeswoman was quick to point out that BARB'S audience figures when the projected audience is below 250,000 are somewhat unreliable. However the BBC is quick to champion the audience figures for shows like Doctor Who and Eastenders as being completely reliable in every respect and they are collected in exactly the same way. BBC news was gloating about the 9.9 million rating for the new Doctor Who series that premiered last week on the main channel.

The BBC were also keen to emphasise that programming is not just about getting ratings particularly not on the lesser know digital channels such as BBC4. While it is commendable that the BBC is willing to make risky shows it is not commendable that they are shunted to BBC4 and advertised so poorly that almost nobody watches them.

If contemporary dance is to become more popular then well made exciting television programming is the perfect way to accomplish that goal. On this front the BBC has failed miserably and the program makers and the public have been let down.

When you are exposing contemporary dance to a potential audience of 30-40 million people you expect some good exposure. Less than 100,000 is an embarrassing flop by any standards and once again dance is humiliated when placed onto a national platform.

April 01, 2005

ACE Man was a G Man

Chicago, Illinois - Leading political correspondent William J. Hibb of the US based paper the Chicago Tribune has uncovered some startling facts about Peter Hewitt the current Chief Executive of Arts Council England.

During a routine Freedom of Information request to the Pentagon in Washington DC regarding an unrelated matter several documents came to light highlighting Hewitt's involvement in a covert operation in the late 70's and early 80's throughout many European cities. The ACE front man was employed by MI6 and seconded to the US intelligence giant for up to 10 years from 1976 to 1986.

In a telephone conversation Hibb explained that the nature of the operation;

"Appeared to be centered around persuading young artistic radicals to subvert their local governments and destabilize their day to day operations in order to provide the USA and the UK with certain advantages. Although what the advantages were are not made clear in the documents".

Hibb went on to explain that he had no idea who Hewitt was and it took several hours of searching on the Internet before arriving at the conclusion that the Peter Hewitt at ACE and the Hewitt code-named, somewhat bizarrely, as 'Wombat" were in fact one in the same. The Tribune's front page piece reports that a 'handler' of Hewitts said he was "..very keen about the work and longed for a more active role in the agency."

ACE in London did not immediately respond when asked for comment about their Chief Executives history in counter intelligence. Mr Hewitt or Wombat as he may prefer to be known remains unavailable at present.

Because of the time difference the early edition of the Tribune has not yet been published but an advance PDF version of todays front page is available at the link below. Full publication on the Tribunes website will follow at about 3pm UK time.

[ link ] Tribune Front Page PDF (needs Acrobat)

(Yes this was a joke but we are leaving it here for posterity)