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?

You see I HATE art. It bores me rigid.

But I don't begrudge it's funding as I know my local museum & art gallery does some very worthwhile stuff.

I never said it was, that was dancestomyowntune

But in the genre I know most about (musical theatre) it's seen as essential.

Plus it probably says more about their talent than the fact they have done ballet.

'The fact is, if we ran a museum & art gallery on donations, we'd make about 11p a head.'

Then either charge £1 a head or close. People will pay what they think it is worth.

That is the problem. Arts funding subsidises things people do not value.

and as pictures pointed out, many rbs graduates transfer into the west end. Phantom of the Opera, wicked all have classically trained ballerinas in their companies.

Picture

My OP is about whether it is right that the ROH gets such a huge slcie of the arts pie when it really is only a minority who enjoy it.

street dancers do also benefit from some basic ballet training. ask ashley banjo

Morebeta

You are spot on

I'd love to see more money coming up here to the regions. But it's an iconic building, London is our capital city & events in London do seem to reach more people.

I'd love to go there one day (dh would live to see an opera too)

Dances
I would eat my hat if a trained ballet dancer came out and looked credible as a street dancer.

The thing that's pissed me off is that the arts were relatively well protected from austerity.

I'd rather cut a bit of culture than have food banks open quite frankly.

I saw a fabulous street routine performed by the grads ofvthe upper school where dd is in lower school. All had trained to a high level in ballet but I have seen lots struggle & would imagine a solely RBS trained dancer not to look right at first.

my dd does both, at competition level. at her first street dance comp ehen she was six she placed 3rd, out of 100 kids. she had never really done much street, had concentrated on ballet from 2yo. now at 11 she often competes in both genres to a relatively high level as do several of her friends. street has even become a seperate class at her performing arts dance festivals where it is now recognised as an importsnt genre for serious performers.

My poor dd isn't very 'street' I'm afraid but she dies her best as she knows its important to be versatile.

It seems obscene that 26m is paid to an organization that only the privileged attend. YANBU.

I've watched probably a dozen productions by the ROH over the last few years, amazing skin tingling, productions that have made me weep at times with the beauty of the music and the skill of the performers and directors, costume designers, set producers...

All for the princely sum of £12- £15 at Vue cinema Ellesmere Port (or the Odeon in Wrexham).

I've seen some Shakespeare too, Helen Mirren in the audience, the Marinksy Ballet from St Petersburg, even Mary Beard gave me a live lecture about the art from Pompeii and taught my children the choice phrase of 'cock suckers', that was a tenner I think.

Live cinema broadcasts are bloody brilliant, and I can access them all year round if I want, except I couldn't if there was no arts funding, or arts funding was slashed even more than it already has been.

Screenings tend to be packed, with tickets sold out well in advance. Lots of normal folk seem to be there, no evening dress tiaras and pearls in Ellesmere Port or Wrexham.

I reckon you probably get a lot of kids/parents from dds school at Ellesmere.

Not seen a live screening yet. Must try & do so.

The arts were not even a little bit protected from austerity. There have been sweeping cuts to budgets, which you'll see in the next couple of months as the next 4 years of Arts Council funding is announced.

I am a trustee of a contemporary dance company & work with lots of other xompanies in the dance/music sector and I can assure you that every single arts organisation is preparing for the day that funding is withdrawn altogether. Many will close down. Many have closed down already.

That said, there is always a debate around whether money should be diverted to ROH or to genuinely grass roots organisations. I think that's a valid debate to have. However the current view is that one of the things that funding seeks to support is excellence - world class institutions are training grounds, employers of choice and draw cards to Britain. I think that is absolutely right and that kind of analysis is not unique to the arts.

However, have a think before you start using the "well most people don't WANT this subsidised stuff" argument. Most people don't want money spent on translating everything into pointless welsh and other fossilising languages. Most people don't want disabled carers to be given more money to look after their charges. Most people don't want to pay for women to stay home on maternity leave. What most people want is not a good benchmark of where our tax base should be spent.

Excellent post Angelatulips.
Made me think

Pictures they are so good, I'm a total convert. I would have had to have saved up for a long time to pay for train tickets, overnight accommodation and then stalls tickets to take my dds to see the Royal Ballet perform The Sleeping Beauty earlier this year.
Ellesmere Port, change from £40 iirc. Never to be forgotten experience for them. Sublime music and dancing.

And watching Natalia Osipova dancing Giselle... Beautiful, incredible, amazing performance, that one will stay with me for a long long time. Life enriching.

We are going back later this year to watch the live broadcast of Alice in Wonderland, can't wait. I watched it a couple of years ago. It's a fantastic ballet full of humour.

Live screenings work well although it's not quite like being there. The Royal Ballet is really the crème de la crème along with The Bolshoi, The Marinsky and New York City Ballet.

NYCB were regulars at the Edinburgh festival for a while. I remember one year sitting behind a school party of little girls who were chattering away like little monkeys but sat as good as gold when it started. The curtain opened with the corps de ballet still as statues on stage all on point, in the traditional white mid-calf dresses and there literally was a collective "ooh "from the little girls. It was lovely.

I've never really been into ballet slumbered. I went to see BRB years ago do Sleeping Beauty & dd adored Luttlw Mermaid. It's kit something I would necessarily choose to go to off my own bat (I much prefer opera & musicals) but I accompany dd.

Then either charge £1 a head or close. People will pay what they think it is worth

That is the problem. Arts funding subsidises things people do not value

£8 a head and you'd be closer.

Of course, that's what people began complaining about early on; that ticket prices for some were unaffordable. Yes in some cases they are, in the same way that things I don't desperately want to attend, but might if it was cheap, are unaffordable; I wouldn't pay bucketloads to go see Dolly Parton, but if she was on for a fiver I'd have a gander.

In order to fulfill your brief above, we could never show niche things, we could never have experimental art, we could never give artists a starting ground, because those things would never sell. You're not going to pay £8 to see an upcoming artist in Walsall but you might pay £8 to see David Hockney. But then because that artist is known to attract an audience, he can go to the highest bidder for an exhibition, which would undoubtedly be in London, not because of arts funding, but because there's a bigger audience and more private investment in the arts.

All of those things have to start somewhere in order for them to become something.

You see exactly the same thing with gig tickets as someone mentioned earlier. Difference being they're not trapped with their collections in big buildings that are divided in their purpose.

Of course, we could close, collectively as a culture, but we'd be looking at unemployment in the region of 110,000 and that's just full-time staff - before you even get to the artists, plus all the empty buildings we'd have to hand back to councils all over the land, which would still cost them money to convert or maintain. Since it's usually the case that the council owns their collections in regional galleries they'd still have a responsibility to store and conserve them, so that will be an additional cost to regional councils. How they'll do that without any staff I don't know but I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Then there's the £850 million we'd lose in tourism and the people employed in those jobs. Not forgetting every school of art & design up and down the country.

All it will create is a two-tier system. The kind where the kids who can afford to go somewhere private, or abroad will go and study art, in institutions who then churn out the next amazing artist to be shown at a high-end London gallery that knows they will sell their work because of the clientele they attract. Then art will definitely not be for everyone. And it most likely won't be good because competition won't be fierce, it won't be based on quality, it will be based on ability to pay.

And I totally agree with angeltulips on that one. There are a hundred things that I do not value within this country, but my taxes still support them and I am happy for them to do so, because I can understand and appreciate there is a wider ecology they support at play.

We're not stupid. We know more cuts are coming. Every arts organisation in the land is trying to generate income. The problem is, that's a culture that takes time to foster, on both the organisational side and the visitor side.

Personally I wanted to see all subsidies to all sectors removed after the last election. I wanted to see Quangos closed too.

We really cannot afford Arts funding when we are struggling to keep basic services going.

I want to see a zero based budget at the next election.

angeltulips I agree with much that you say, but a welsh is not pointless. Language us the absolute corner stone of culture. It is vital ANC is not 'fossilised' - for many it is a genuine first language and as a learner I feel privileged to have access to the culture it represents v