Pain in the arts

(Budget speech, October 2016) THE REFERENCE to arts and culture in the Budget speech was short enough to reproduce in its entirety without really affecting my allocated word limit. Yep, the above extract is it, 96 words dedicated to arts, culture and heritage.

Although this offering is vague and confusing at best, insulting at worse, my purpose is not to analyse the statement in the Budget. It is included so you can assess if for yourself.

Rather, my intention is to distract from the casual attention historically given to this sector and remind about its importance in nation building, community enrichment and personal transformation.

We had an opportunity this week to perform an extract of Eintou Springer’s play Shades of I-She at a youth rally focused on gender- based violence. Although the raw portrayal was clearly shocking to both young people and adults present, it opened up the channel of communication – important to find out what’s going on in the minds and lives of young people.

The piece shattered traditional or accepted understandings of family, religion and power relations. The students were stunned to learn that the piece was based on true stories of dysfunctional relationships.

The issue of relationships drew a question about being in a relationship with a “gunman” and what to do about this. The responses from the panel ranged from placing responsibility on the young people to “check themselves”, to encouraging them to love themselves and seek help from responsible adults and organisations.

The experience confirmed for us a number of truths. First, young people continue to be forced into situations that even adults find difficult to unravel. Secondly, the adults around them remain illequipped to manage the end results of challenging home environments, the influence of media and peer pressure.

It is obvious to us that arts and culture should be an integral part of the curriculum to provide much needed support for teachers, to help them to manage these complicated issues. But perhaps the most important truth is that while events like that youth rally are important, sustainability of effort is key.

We in the artistic community have honed our ability to treat with difficult subject matter through easily accessible forms such as theatre, dance, film, poetry or literature.

References to “income-generation” and “productivity” in the artistic sector mean little without an over-arching understanding of the real purpose of our art, and hence a clear philosophy of our place in the scheme of things. Emphasis on community arts is good, but who will define the needs of each community and articulate the critical difference between “entertainment” and “empowerment”? Every day dancers, theatre practitioners, musicians or mas-makers tend to their craft, treating with the issues that are important to them, disseminating the messages that they believe will make a difference.

What our sector needs now is clarity of vision and purpose from those with the power to make a difference. More than economic imperatives, our art is vital to social well-being. And nothing could be more important than that.

D a r a Healy is a perform a n c e artist and f o u n d - er of the N G O , the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN