ArtScape: The new chairwoman of the Arts Council, Olive Braiden, was part of the three-person delegation that made a submission to the Joint Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs on Wednesday, where there was a generally positive and informed discussion about a range of issues.
About a dozen members of the committee were there, plus chairwoman Cecelia Keaveney, and Braiden was joined by Arts Council director Patricia Quinn and vice-chairman Jerome Hynes, who had a mad dash afterwards to make that night's previews at the Wexford Festival Opera.
Braiden's initial address covered the economic devastation of the arts sector and the issue of geographic equality, including funding for regional arts centres. In seeking to have next year's council funding restored to the level it should it have been this year, €53.7 million, the council was extremely reasonable - a point borne out by a couple of the committee members, many of whom were well up to speed on the effects of the cutbacks. Braiden said the council, and everyone present, were expecting and hoping for a favourable response from the Minister next month.
The issues brought up by committee members included the vital role of the arts in education (Keaveney) and the damage done to regional areas when cuts mean productions can't tour (Deenihan). Labhras Ó Murchú mentioned the row about traditional arts and felt the arts would be all the healthier for debate (and he said "mea culpa" if anybody was hurt in the process). He asked about the developmental role of the council, and queried how the council defined amateur and professional, saying he would prefer if standards rather than occupation was the defining characteristic. He also wondered whether failure is rewarded rather than success, with well-managed organisations being penalised.
In detailing the effects on the sector - 1,000 people losing work, productions and tours cancelled, artists moving abroad, uncertainty reigning once again - one of the striking things to emerge is what a piddling amount of money is actually at issue. A cut of just a few million euro has led to the rug being pulled from under a sector that was only beginning to establish a basic infrastructure and become secure about planning and multi-annual funding. But as well as undermining people trying to create art and make a living, the effects are felt by the general public in the form of fewer productions and less activity in fewer places. And incredibly, all for the sake of that few million euro.
When seen in the light of the massive waste and incompetence that has led to overruns of billions in disastrous infrastructural projects, or the money going into tribunal lawyers' pockets, for example, you really wonder what all the fuss by the Department of Finance is about. For the wider well-being of Irish people, and our international standing, the arts are well worth the relatively tiny amount of money the State spends, quite aside from the employment it generates and the money that is ploughed back to the Exchequer.
What are you looking at?
Why are disabled people often portrayed by "normal" actors on stage and screen? Why are disabled characters often seen as embodying deviant or evil characteristics in art? (Look, for example, at John B. Keane's Sharon's Grave, currently on a Druid tour.) Should a performance or work by a disabled artist be assessed in the same terms as that of a non-disabled artist, or does the therapeutic value for the artist alter the way we look at the work? Arts and disability raises a number of issues, some of which will come up for discussion at next Saturday's half-day seminar, 'What Are You Looking At? - Representing Disability', presented by the British Council, in partnership with Project and the Forum for People with Disabilities.
The seminar is the culmination of next week's performances of Peeling (Wednesday to Saturday at Project), a production by Graeae, the UK's foremost theatre company for professional performers with disabilities. Peeling is a darkly comic play by Irish writer Kaite O'Reilly about three actresses who form the chorus for a production of The Trojan Women and are marooned on meringue-like frocks, bickering, gossiping, heckling and sharing juicy tales of sex, lies and recipes. The show, which was at Edinburgh this year, is funny, thought-provoking and superbly performed. It demands no concessions because of the issues it deals with or the status of its performers.
The seminar, which aims to raise debate and discussion about the inclusion of professional disabled artists within and outside mainstream arts practice and performance, is at Project Arts Centre, Dublin next Saturday, October 25th, from 9.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. It will be opened by the chairwoman of the British Council, Helena Kennedy QC, and will be chaired by Willie White, director of Project. The keynote speech will be by Peter Kearns, a leading arts practitioner in the realm of disability. Admission is free and booking is advisable (tel: 01-8819613). Graeae will also host a workshop for able and disabled professional performers in Project on Friday.
Meanwhile, on a related subject, there's another arts and disability seminar at Millennium Hall, City Hall, Cork on November 14th, looking at ways to address the ongoing difficulties with the provision of a professional arts service for disabled artists and art in a care context. Information from Valerie Byrne (tel: 021-4507992) or e-mail vbap@eircom.net
This one's on Joyce
When James Joyce sent Leopold Bloom into Davy Byrne's pub for a glass of burgundy and a Gorgonzola sandwich in Ulysses, he was doing brothers Redmond, Michel and Colclough Doran one big favour, writes Rosita Boland. The Dorans own Davy Byrne's, and its literary associations have meant a constant flow of international customers over the years.
On Thursday, John O'Donoghue, Minister for Arts, launched the one-off Davy Byrne's Irish Writing Award in the Duke Street pub. The award, sponsored by the pub, is worth an impressive €25,000, with a first prize of €20,000. This is serious money, and it's immensely cheering to see a commercial business engaging in a bit of imaginative and altruistic sponsorship. Next year is the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday and the prize is part of the ReJoyce Dublin 2004 celebrations. The Minister also launched the festival website, www.rejoycedublin2004.com.
"For a long time, my brothers and I have felt indebted to Joyce," Redmond Doran explained at the launch. "Joyce immortalised Davy Byrne's and we wanted to do something for 2004."
A regular customer, Paul Jacob suggested a literary prize two months ago; Doran got in touch with the James Joyce Centre and the idea was formalised. The award is open to all Irish citizens and those normally resident in the island of Ireland. Entry fee is €10 and the deadline for submissions is February 2nd 2004. Entry forms will be available in bookshops or can be downloaded from www.jamesjoyce.ie. The five runners-up will each receive €1,000 and a week's residency at Annaghmakerrig's Tyrone Guthrie Centre, attending writing masterclasses. Any Irish writer, famous or not so famous, may enter. As Lisa Jane Duffy of the James Joyce Centre quipped, "even William Trevor could win".
And furthermore . . .
• It's strange how a shortage of Arts Council funds can cloud the mind. Opera Ireland, which was reduced to concert performances this year as a result of a cut to its grant, is quite confused about when it is actually going to present three concert performances of Norma at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre next month, writes Michael Dervan. It has taken an advertisement in the Wexford Festival programme suggesting November 20th to 22nd. Those same three days, a Thursday, Friday and Saturday, are also listed on the Gaiety's website. The company's own website, however, suggests days that you won't find in this year's calendar, Thursday 19th, Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd, with arecital by soprano Suzanne Murphy on November 20th (no day listed). Opera Ireland's publicity flyer ducks the day of the week issue, with Norma listed for the 19th, 21st and 22nd, and Murphy for the 20th. Somebody should buy the company a calendar.
• The Dorothy Walker Memorial Lecture is by Abigail Solomon-Godeau (art and architecture historian, University of California) at the Hugh Lane Gallery from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m, Saturday, October 18th. It is presented by AICA Ireland, in association with Critical Voices 2, and also includes guest speakers Patrick Scott, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Gerard Byrne and Brian O'Doherty.
• Cinemobile, Ireland's mobile cinema, is screening films celebrating film-makers' portrayals of the Blasket Islands over the past 80 years. It kicks off at 3 p.m. tomorrow with Another Island/Oilean Eile at the cinemobile outside Páidí Ó Sé's pub in Ventry, Co Kerry, and it will be followed by craic in Páidí's pub. The programme marks the 50th anniversary of the evacuation of the Blaskets and has been produced in association with the Samhlaiocht Kerry Film Festival, with materials kindly provided by RTÉ Archive.
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