Lessons in Survival: The De-funding of Restless Dance Theatre
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Maggie Tonkin
Abstract
In March 2020, Michelle Ryan, Artistic Director of Restless Dance Theatre, an Australian dance company that includes both disabled and non-disabled dancers, was awarded Australia’s highest dance honour by the Australia Council, the federal arts funding body, for her transformative leadership of the company. Almost simultaneously, the very same Australia Council removed funding support for Restless, threatening the company’s survival. This essay examines Restless’s response to the fundamental incoherence of the Australia Council’s decision and situates it within the broader context of the company’s own evolving practice in disability art, which in effect saw it attempt to create policy in the field. I outline the government policy contexts that underpin both the funding cuts and Restless’s pivot to an alternate source of funding: the ideologically driven ‘culture wars’ underpinning the Coalition government’s hostility to the arts sector, and the establishment of a National Disability Insurance Scheme that enables individual ‘clients’ to access money for arts training. Finally, the essay examines the implications of a dance company receiving funding from a disability service provider rather than from a mainstream arts funding body, questioning whether this is a further ‘ghettoization’ of disability art.
© 2022 by transcript Verlag
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Contents / Inhalt 2022/2
- EDITORIAL CONVERSATION
- Artists and cultural workers in cultural policy and creative practice: From the big break narrative to mutual aid and collective care. Simone Wesner and Jane Woddis in conversation with Stephanie Taylor and Greig de Peuter
- RESEARCH ARTICLES
- The Agonistic Politics of Invitation: Narrating Moments of Cultural Policy Interventions in Berlin, New York and Vancouver
- The Devaluation of the artist
- From a few resounding voices to a multitude of whimpers. The role of writers towards modern cultural policy in Mexico
- Artists’ Mobility Across Borders: A Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Dance on the Island of Ireland
- ESSAYS
- Von der Institutionskritik zur Moral Economy. Hans Haacke, Dana Schutz und eine queer-feministische Buchhandlung
- Lessons in Survival: The De-funding of Restless Dance Theatre
- Artists Shaping Policies Through Higher Art Education. How Visual Artists Develop Policies that Affect their Lives, Practices, and Careers
- CASE STUDIES
- Activism and bottom-up narratives of change in Greek cultural policy: the case of #SupportArtWorkers
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Editors Picks: Simone Wesner, Jane Woddis
- Helena Reckitt and Dorothee Richter (Eds.): Instituting Feminism. On Curating Journal Issue, 52, November 2021
- Saehrendt, Christian: Kunst im Kreuzfeuer. documenta, Weimarer Republik, Pariser Salons: Moderne Kunst im Visier von Extremisten und Populisten. Stuttgart (Franz Steiner) 2020
- Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy
- Aims and Scopes
- Peer Review Process
- Call for Papers
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Contents / Inhalt 2022/2
- EDITORIAL CONVERSATION
- Artists and cultural workers in cultural policy and creative practice: From the big break narrative to mutual aid and collective care. Simone Wesner and Jane Woddis in conversation with Stephanie Taylor and Greig de Peuter
- RESEARCH ARTICLES
- The Agonistic Politics of Invitation: Narrating Moments of Cultural Policy Interventions in Berlin, New York and Vancouver
- The Devaluation of the artist
- From a few resounding voices to a multitude of whimpers. The role of writers towards modern cultural policy in Mexico
- Artists’ Mobility Across Borders: A Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Dance on the Island of Ireland
- ESSAYS
- Von der Institutionskritik zur Moral Economy. Hans Haacke, Dana Schutz und eine queer-feministische Buchhandlung
- Lessons in Survival: The De-funding of Restless Dance Theatre
- Artists Shaping Policies Through Higher Art Education. How Visual Artists Develop Policies that Affect their Lives, Practices, and Careers
- CASE STUDIES
- Activism and bottom-up narratives of change in Greek cultural policy: the case of #SupportArtWorkers
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Editors Picks: Simone Wesner, Jane Woddis
- Helena Reckitt and Dorothee Richter (Eds.): Instituting Feminism. On Curating Journal Issue, 52, November 2021
- Saehrendt, Christian: Kunst im Kreuzfeuer. documenta, Weimarer Republik, Pariser Salons: Moderne Kunst im Visier von Extremisten und Populisten. Stuttgart (Franz Steiner) 2020
- Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy
- Aims and Scopes
- Peer Review Process
- Call for Papers
