Having trouble focusing?

What with one thing and another, it's time for some light relief.
Actually.... it's not a bad idea, really.

Dear Scott— and the performance of protest

Thanks to actors Georgina Naidu and fellow 7-ONer Ned Manning, to dramaturg and director Kathryn Millard, all at fortyfivedownstairs (what a fabulous performance space that is) and to the audience for making this first outing of Dear Scott— such a successful one.

This is Ned, myself (Noëlle) and Georgina rehearsing Dear Scott--

I originally got into the arts via political activism. Years later, I’m back doing the performance of protest. These are very dark days in Australia. Last night I watched Tony Abbott (and Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison’s replacement as Minister for Immigration & Border Protection) refuse even to consider resettling any of the Rohingya or Bangladeshi asylum-seekers stranded in rickety boats off the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia with dwindling supplies of food and water. The UN may deem the Rohingya one of the world’s most persecuted people, but for Mr Abbott it’s a big Nope—actually 3 Nopes. We are the wealthiest country in the region, but this government seems happy to let our less well off neighbours do all the heavy lifting.

For more about the Rohingya see Clara Tran’s report for ABC News

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-21/explainer-who-are-the-rohingya-fleeing-myanmar/6487130

Dear Scott— is in part about the role of writers and artists in society. About the responsibility we have to speak out about injustices and hold elected governments to account for the things they do in our name.

You can do something about this - please write to your MP

We're copying in a letter that is circulating among artists. See below, and please write to your MP. 

Dear Arts Colleagues and Friends,

As you will know by now, Federal Arts Minister George Brandis has taken $104.8 million off the Australia Council, over four years, to start a National Centre for Excellence run by his own office. This will decimate the Australia Council's discretionary budget, and has threatened the new programs and initiatives that started only this year.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

1. Please write to your local federal MP to tell them how poor this decision is, and how it threatens the fundamental democratic process of arts funding. It doesn't matter what political party they are from, they represent you and your interests.

>       Click on: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members

>       Put in your postcode, and it will give you the contact details for your local MP.

2. Get busy on social media: #FreeTheArts

3. Sign the petition: http://australiansforartisticfreedom.org (this is still under construction at time of writing, so please check back at the end of the day to add your name).

TNV's response:

We are vehemently opposed to Minister Brandis' plan to take millions of dollars from the Australia Council into the control of his own office.  We know that the Australia Council's processes are completely democratic, rigorous and efficient. The agency's fundamental platform - of arms length, peer assessed funding - would be undermined with this plan. Minister Brandis has himself expressed a desire for greater freedom of expression, but his own actions belie that principle. We agree with the outrage many of our colleagues have expressed in the media across the country in the past 48 hours, that the basis of democratic, accountable arts funding is at risk. We urge the government to reverse this plan. Do we really want a country that has tightly controlled, government managed arts activity?

Below is some of the media coverage from the past 48 hours. Many thanks to our excellent media colleagues who have taken this issue on in a big way.

Now is the time to act! Please!

Nicole Beyer

Ben Eltham for Arts Hub - Budget shock decimates Australia Council

$104.8 million over four years has been ripped out of the Australia Council's budget to create a new slush fund, apparently to be decided at the discretion of the Arts Minister of the day.

The funding cuts total $29 million in the coming year, a cut of 16 per cent for the Australia Council on 2014's appropriation.

'The National Centre for Excellence in the Arts will allow for a truly national approach to arts funding and will deliver on a number of Government priorities including national access to high quality arts and cultural experiences,' Minister Brandis wrote in a media release.

The budget also removes $5.2 million in funding from the Australia Council, and gives it to Creative Partnerships Australia 'to foster private sector support for the arts'.

http://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/grants-and-funding/ben-eltham/budget-shock-decimates-australia-council-248017

Ben Eltham for The Drum

 (IN RESPONSE TO MINISTER BRANDIS: Arts funding has until now been limited almost exclusively to projects favoured by the Australia Council. The National Programme for Excellence in the Arts will make funding available to a wider range of arts companies and arts practitioners, while at the same time respecting the preferences and tastes of Australia's audiences. )

Ben writes: It's not even true that arts funding has been "limited almost exclusively" to the things that the Australia Council likes. The Federal Government spends $100 million a year on screen culture through Screen Australia. It funds two national art galleries, two museums, a national library, a war memorial, a film and sound archive, and a media school. Together, those bodies get more funding than the Australia Council itself.

Even within the Australia Council's ambit, the majority of the agency's funding is not given to "projects favoured by the Australia Council", but is in fact quarantined away from project funding. In 2013-14, the Australia Council gave $102 million of its $199 million grant budget to the 29 major performing arts organisations. That money, the majority of the Council's funding, is not available to projects.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-13/eltham-brandis-extraordinary-raid-of-the-australia-council/6467534

Debbie Cuthbertson, The Age – 'Distressing' cuts to Australia Council halve discretionary budget

Mr Dreyfus [Shadow Minister for the Arts] branded the changes as "distressing" and said they had come without warning.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Australia Council said it would give "careful consideration" to its priorities as a result of the measures announced in the budget.

"The announcement of the 2015-16 Budget last night included measures which will significantly impact the work of the Australia Council on behalf of the arts sector," Australia Council chair Rupert Myer said.

Mr Myer's carefully worded statement, according to Mr Dreyfus, was "code for major disruption. They of course can't publicly criticise their own minister, you can expect a degree of diplomacy in their public statements," Mr Dreyfus said of the Australia Council.

"What we can see here is a grab here for the Australia Council budget to be administered on a personal whim, without any explanation, or any peer review."

http://www.theage.com.au/national/distressing-cuts-to-australia-council-halve-discretionary-budget-20150513-gh0ym3.html

Live Performance Australia's summary of the budget

The Visions of Australia and Festivals Australia programmes will return to the Ministry for the Arts after being transferred to the Australia Council by the previous Government. The Major Festivals Initiative will also be transferred with support for this programme to be doubled to $1.5 million using existing funds transferred from the Australia Council to Ministry for the Arts under the National Programme for Excellence in the Arts.

http://www.liveperformance.com.au/federal-budget

Matthew Knott, Sydney Morning Herald - Federal Budget 2015: Australia Council loses $104m, funneled to Arts Ministry

The Australia Council will also swallow $7.2 million in efficiency savings over four years to 2018-19. These combined cuts represent an annual funding reduction of around 13 per cent for the nation's principal arts and funding body, which has an annual budget of $230 million.

Funding for Screen Australia, which supports new Australian films, will be cut by $3.6 million over the same period.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/federal-budget-2015-australia-council-loses-104m-funneled-to-arts-ministry-20150512-1mzjxi.html

VAN BADHAM IN THE GUARDIAN: After the budget: shh! Australia's era of artistic silencing begins

Brandis has made no pretence that these changes are about anything other than government resentment of the council's independence, whose current appointments, led by chair Rupert Myer, predate the Coalition's election to government. "Arts funding has until now been limited almost exclusively to projects favoured by the Australia Council," was Brandis' statement on Tuesday.

Yes, George, it certainly has. But this is what's desirable.

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/commentisfree/2015/may/13/after-the-budget-shh-australias-era-of-artistic-silencing-begins

Statement By The Arts Industry – To Be Published On: AustraliansforArtisticFreedom.org

We the undersigned are shocked by Abbott Government proposals in the 2015–16 Budget to make cuts of massive size to the Australia Council for the Arts and other organisations, and to compromise the political independence of current arts funding arrangements.

We reject outright Federal Arts Minister George Brandis' proposed redirection of $104.8 million over the next four years from the Australia Council for the Arts, to be dispersed at Ministry discretion into a  "National Centre for Excellence in the Arts".

We oppose this redirection as contrary to the informing principle of independent arts funding as a guarantee on democratic freedom of expression. The government's budget proposal contradicts the current Minister's own prior statement - that to provoke debate, "that's why we have an arms-length and peer-reviewed structure for the allocation of the funding".

Australia does not need a second national arts funding organisation: over its 42-year history, through a rigorous peer-review process, the Australia Council has realised a mission to 'invest in artistic excellence' and make art 'accessible to all Australians' and already cultivates a national engagement for audiences and creators.

We oppose also the proposed funding cuts of $3.7 million from Screen Australia, almost $4 million from galleries and museums, $5.2 million from the Australia Council for Creative Partnerships Australia, and $7.3 million in 'efficiency dividends' from the Australia Council. The cuts will compromise programmes of quality, equity and diversity within the arts sector, and destabilise the viability of encouraging the development of future arts leaders. Threats posed to the small-to-medium organisations and independent artists who are exposed to a reduced funding pool are an unconscionable threat to building diversity and encouraging innovation in the sector.

The many small-to-medium galleries, libraries, theatre groups, performers and publications now exposed to funding cuts are the primary cultivators of Australian culture, as they foster the early work of those artists we now celebrate. Their diversity in structure and location allows millions of diverse individuals to imagine, collaborate and participate in culture-making. Broad-based civic participation in culture is a necessary resource for a cohesive democracy.

In 2011, the arts sector directly employed 531,000 people, and indirectly created another 3.7 million jobs. In 2008–9, the arts contributed $86 billion (7%) to the Australian GDP. Artists are workers and taxpayers, and a vital part of the economy. Jobs and economic opportunity should not be lost for this number of Australian workers, nor should the cultural, social and educational opportunities of citizens face threat.

We call on the Federal Government and Minister for the Arts George Brandis to reverse all proposed cuts to the arts sector, and to cease political interference in the works of creative Australia.

The undersigned generation of artists, writers, publishers, editors, theatre makers, actors, dancers and thinkers from across Australia ask that government policy affirms that artistic freedom and artistic opportunity are principles enshrined within our democracy.

The Budget and the Arts

We learn today that $104.7 million is to be stripped from the Australia Council, with Screen Australia losing $3.6 million under Hockey's budget. Here's a timely and relevant article written in the wake of the Tory win in the UK.

Dear Scott—

If you live in Melbourne or are going to be there later this month, I’ve got a Melbourne reading of Dear Scott—

Thursday 21 May, 7:00 pm

fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Written by Noëlle Janaczewska

Dramaturgy & direction by Kathryn Millard

Read by: Georgina Naidu, myself, and fellow 7-ONer Ned Manning

Dear Scott—

A playwright’s more or less unrequited correspondence with the Minister/s for Immigration & Border Protection

I’d signed petitions and marched on demonstrations. With friends and colleagues there was a lot of talk—about mean spirits and narrow minds, about dirty political tricks to win votes. But it wasn’t enough. For all the anger I felt about Australia’s treatment of asylum-seekers, what had I, Noëlle Janaczewska, actually done? My outrage was aired in cafés and across dinner tables with people who shared it, and there it stayed. Because whenever I thought about the cruel and punitive way this country deals with refugees I felt hopeless—or helpless—or both. The issue seemed too big. The people who could change things had no heart to do so. But it wasn’t enough to sigh and splutter at each successive policy announcement. I needed to translate my anger into something tangible, challenge those responsible for sending asylum-seekers to offshore gulags.

Words would be my weapon of choice.

Christmas Day 2013. I wrote a letter to Scott Morrison, then Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. A paper, snail-mail missive, not an email likely to get ‘lost’ in his department’s spam filter. And every Wednesday for the next 6 months, I wrote to the Minister.

This is our correspondence …

The reading is free, runs for about an hour, and there will be a short Q & A afterwards.

More information: http://www.fortyfivedownstairs.com/events/dear-scott—/

Booking: info@fortyfivedownstairs.com or 03 9662 9966

Gothic

Hilary says: 
I recently had the great pleasure of collaborating with composer Andrée Greenwell on 'After Julia', a song cycle about life after Julia Gillard that was performed at, and broadcast from, ABC's Ultimo studio. (You can find the podcast here.)

Andrée has created a new show, Gothic, for Sydney's Vivid Festival. To invoke the idea of 'gothic' in song, she's scored nineteenth-century texts, reimagined folksongs, and commissioned lyrics from writers, including myself. The others are Alison Croggon, Felicity Plunkett, Maryanne Lynch and Hugo Race.

I wrote a lyric inspired by Daphne Du Maurier's short story 'The Birds'. It's interesting how little the story has to do with Hitchcock's film. Far away from American sophistication and Tippi Hedron's glamour, the original is set on the bleak Cornish coastline, its protagonist a disabled middle-aged farmer. Written in 1952, it's a thrilling, unnerving read that speaks to our present relationship with the natural world.

If you're in Sydney, check us out: Gothic
May 27-29 at the Seymour Centre.