To think that £1 billion of tax payers money spent on the arts in this country really only serves a minority

[goodnessgracious]

AIBU to think that organisations such as The Royal Opera House (they receive 26 million a year) should be self funding and not relying on tax payers money.

I would have thought that arts funding should be to support up and coming arts or at least arts that will benefit all of society. I really don't understand why certain organisations receive so much help from tax payers?

Personally know of at least four uk born, uk trained soloist ballet dancers working in the UK today. As well as a good half a dozen corps de ballet dancers. These are girls and boys who trained locally to where I live, progressing to the vocational ballet schools and now have places with British companies.

To say most British trained dancers work abroad, yes, they may well have seasons abroad, but they also work in Britain when opportunities arise. Take away funding from the ROH and other institutions and you force these talented dancers to take more work abroad as that is where the work opportunities are.

Ok so a quick google shows Ballet Theatre Uk has 8 female dancers. 4 of which are from overseas.

So lets add 12 more dancer for that company and generously round it up to 100 ballet dancers employed that the article missed.

So 389 jobs for the sector of which at least half will go to foreign trained students. So 200 jobs in the whole sector with a each performer having a job life span of 10 years?

Dancestomyowntune
So you know of 4 uk born soloists? Presumable they span different year groups? So maybe 1 per year or maybe 1 every other year, hardly great stats is it considering the funding that goes into it.

To take a random example, taxpayers money is spent on IVF. I have never had IVF and I never will. But that doesn't mean I think my taxes shouldn't be spent on it, just because I don't benefit directly. But it is something that some people consider to be an 'unecessary luxury' (I don't subscribe to that view).

I know of at least four ballet dancers who started there training local (within a 20 mile radius) of my home town. NOT within the M25. If I know that many, successful, professional currently working within the English National Ballet, the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet alone then I would say that there are a damn sight more.

Dancestomyowntune

I think the stats in the article are probably more reliable than your basis of people you know and assumptions made.

Cinnamoncookie
Good point.
I can't argue with that

My point is that you are assuming at least half will go to foreign trained dancers. That is not always the case, and when they do, do you not stop to ask yourself if the reason for that is because foreign dance schools are better funded and supported? Take the funding away and we will lose the foothold we do have on the ballet community.

There has been a big debate recently on whether Vritish training is providing dancers if a high enough calibre, it's seen as a reason why more foreign dancers are being brought in to the top companies.

There are other companies too plus the larger amount if dancers companies like ENB employ for their Swan Lake in the round.

I have no idea why we bother funding the Arts.

It seems to me that 'the Arts' are what well educated London Metropolitan elite define as being worthy of funding - whereas really popular Art that is self funding is people going to see a band at the O2 Arena.

I think ballet, opera, RSC, etc should pay for itself. People will pay for something if it is worth seeing and frankly most of it isn't. I used to live in London and have done live theatre, opera, ballet, etc and it really is dross so much of it. People are too frightened of saying it though for fear of sounding uneducated. It is Emperor with no clothes.

Dances

There are a total of 209 dancers in those 3 companies you mentioned you have friends in who all lived locally to you.

Of the 209 dancers, of which at least half are not from the UK.

Of those 100 UK dancers they range in age a few decades. So even if half are in your age group say around 5 years then around 50 dancers would be both UK born and in your age group.

So, if you have 4 friends local to you and of similar age out of that 50 then you are not the norm for this country.

Or have I missed something?

Dances

There are plenty of articles written that show how many ballet jobs are given to non British dancers.

Do you really need me to link you to them?

Morebeta

I agree, you only have to read some of the comments belittling my cultural taste for starting this thread.

The school of Paris Opera for example is completely free if charge for French Nationals to attend whereas our Big Four schools require parental contribution (on a sliding scale).

Then you have the situation where a child can have trained from age 11-16 but finds that at Upper School the funding chsnges from MDS to DaDa where a family income of over £70,000 means you have to pay full fees of up to around £30,000 per year.

i am not disputing that many foriegn dancers dance with uk companies. just as many uk dancers choose to go abroad for work.

yes, a dancers performing career is usually over by the age of thirty, but then there are many other oppurtunities for them to persue (teaching, choreographing, consulting etc). giving back to the dancing community.

ballet encompasses a wide range of the population, from the tiny tots going once a week to do good toes naughty toes, to the festival conpetition dancers, to the vocational schools, to the ballet companies and dance companies that tour or have residency in posh London Theatres. there are many more people employed in the industry than the couple of hundred that you appear to think make up the whole community. there are amazing touring companies (Matthew Bourne Ballet, ballet Rambert, Birmingham Royal Ballet). Take away the funding at the top and you lose tje enrichment programmes, outreach programmes and that means the standards drop.

And even if dancers don't get classical contracts they have to have trained in ballet at a very high level to gain contracts in other genres. Think shows such as Phantom which features a classically trained corps or Cats or Wicked which has a female en pointe plus other classically trained dancers.

Many if these dancers began in Associate or enrichment programmes run by these funded institutions.

as i have heard recited over and over again, Ballet is the basis of all forms of dance, and you will very rarely find a professional dancer who does not have at least some ballet training in their background.

It seems to me that 'the Arts' are what well educated London Metropolitan elite define as being worthy of funding - whereas really popular Art that is self funding is people going to see a band at the O2 Arena.

It's so much more than that.

I'm biased I work in 'the Arts', but I've spent all day seeing streams of families coming in and out of the FREE museum & art gallery I work in, visiting our exhibitions, our collections and taking part in free or £1 entry children's activities.

The fact is, if we ran a museum & art gallery on donations, we'd make about 11p a head. That's how generously everyone views it, and yet like a library or a swimming pool, if it closed there'd be chaos. If you take the view that art should be self-funding, we'd have very little, very quickly.

Bye bye exhibitions (not just art, Grants for the Arts funds a lot of project-based work too), schools visits, children's activities, and that's before we even touch on the fact that many regional museum & art galleries have their library or their archives now housed within them. Rugby's a great example; not only a space for their collections and temporary exhibitions, but the local library and tourist information centre all under one roof.

We have had to diversify, and I honestly believe that's led people to be completely unaware of the extent of where that money goes. I urge all of you, the next time you write on TripAdvisor 'great day out and it was free' think about where that money comes from.

There are plenty of articles written that show how many ballet jobs are given to non British dancers.

You cannot segregate art down into jobs and nationalities. Small museums can tour exhibitions all over the world, with fees of £10,000 attached to them per showing. For that £10,000 we can run a year of family friendly activities during half-term. If we took the inward view that we should only support our own, we wouldn't change, we'd hardly do anything exciting and we wouldn't benefit from international working - and what if every other country did the same?

The great thing about art, on whatever level, is that we collaborate, we share, we talk and that is why we can do what we do on a shoestring.

The associates are not funded by the institutions.

They are funded by either the parents or yet more tax payers money.

here here spangled fabulous post!

Ballet is the basis of all forms of dance

I think you'll find ballet to level that the royal ballet trains is actually detrimental to someone being able to dance other forms.
It is so rigid and stylised that it makes it almost impossible to adapt to other forms of dance.

spangandgled

And I agree that that art funding is fantastic because it benefits EVERYONE. Not a minority.

I disagree goodness. I've seen some great dancers come out of RBS & Elmhurst & transfer to other genres. Some admittedly at 16 (but even then they've had 5 years of training)

The only genre they really struggle with in my opinion is street.

Spandangled

The only reason nationality was brought up is because I was answering someone who was stating that what would all the ballet kids do if there was no Royal Opera House. I was merely answering that they would do the same as they do now and go abroad to find work in the main.

Picture
So it is not the basis of all forms of dance then?