----------
ST Life! MARCH 23, 2004
Arts glut
SO MANY CENTRES, BUT ARE THERE ENOUGH STAFF, TALENT AND ART WORKS?
By Clarissa Oon
OF LATE, there has been an explosion of arts centres in Singapore to serve a population of four million.
This Friday, Old Parliament House reopens as an elegant Arts House for music, dance, theatre and other forms after a $15 million restoration paid for by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.
If you prefer edgier forms from kabuki to new media, the International Centre of Asian Arts (ICAA) is slated to open in April next year in a converted Mohamed Sultan Road warehouse. It is the brainchild of drama company TheatreWorks.
They join two older arts centres: the 1 1/2-year-old Esplanade for large- and small-scale performances, and the 13-year-old The Substation whose art gallery and black-box theatre show offbeat, experimental works.
The diversity of spaces is a good thing for audiences as well as local and foreign artists who now have more platforms for their works.
But the rash of arts centres is also symptomatic of hardware-happy Singapore.
After years of high-profile lobbying turned the durian-domed Esplanade into a reality, it now seems easier to invest in shiny new buildings than in the talent and artwork to fill them.
At least $619 million has been or will be spent on the four arts centres, with money going to renovation or building from scratch, as in the case of the $600 million Esplanade.
As more arts centres and performance venues are built or proposed here, one cannot help but feel the country is spreading its resources too thin even as the cash-strapped woes of older venues persist.
At least $50 million a year is required to keep the four arts centres running, with money coming from the Government, corporate sponsorship, rental and ticket sales.
With cost-cutting in a climate of economic uncertainty, both the Esplanade and The Substation have said they are under-staffed and facing a budget deficit.
Among the factors leading to this were fewer hirers of its venues last year, as well as a 12.3 per cent cut in the National Arts Council's (NAC) operating budget last year.
The Esplanade, which houses a 2,000-seat Theatre and 1,600-seat Concert Hall, has about 150 full-time employees.
This is a stretch considering other similar-sized international arts centres such as the Sydney Opera House and London's Barbican Centre have about 250 full-time staff each.
The Substation has only 12 full-time staff, including eight administrators and two technicians. To be a really dynamic venue, it should ideally have at least three more full-timers.
WHITHER SPONSORS
AND then there is the problem of corporate sponsorship which every arts organisation must tap to supplement funding from the Government.
This is especially critical now that the NAC has stressed that the arts should leverage on business as well as technology in order to grow.
But for The Substation, with its experimental focus and a black box theatre which seats only 120, corporate sponsorship is hard to come by.
As Ms Audrey Wong, its co-artistic director, notes: 'We cannot promise companies that we'll help them reach out to tens of thousands of people.'
The Arts House is targeting a more yuppie audience base for survival, with help from three in-house restaurants and its genteel yet intimate setting.
As part of what general manager Colin Goh calls a 'business model that engages the tripartite relationship between the artistic community, audience at large and the business community', it plans to have corporate nights where companies host clients by buying up tickets for an entire show.
In addition to competing for funding and sponsorship, these arts centres also face the task of developing audiences for their programmes.
The most recent arts survey conducted by the NAC has shown that in 2002, 27 per cent of Singaporeans had attended at least one arts event throughout the year.
This figure is low in comparison with neighbouring cities like Hong Kong, which registered 30 per cent in 2000, and Melbourne, which ranged from 30 to 35 per cent in 1999.
Still, the arts centres can take heart from the proposed setting up of a new high school for the arts, as well as the slew of measures announced in Parliament last week to encourage students strong in non-academic subjects like sports and arts.
These measures will help expand the pie of arts-going audiences here. It is still too early to pass a verdict on The Arts House or the ICAA, especially as it is not known how much funding these and other institutions will be allocated by the NAC for the new financial year, beginning next month.
Hopefully, the arts centres will benefit from the 21.6 per cent increase to the NAC's operating budget this year, to $34.62 million.
But with another multi-purpose arts venue coming up in the form of Capitol, there may be little point in dedicating yet another new building to the 'arts', in a generic, catch-all sense.
The Capitol, which will reopen as a performing arts centre, is being handled by the Singapore Tourism Board, which is expected to announce more details soon.
What is needed is not only a bold, clear-sighted vision for each arts centre as to the kind of art it serves, but also the resources to back that up.
No comments:
Post a Comment