€75k for dancing at the crossroads

Ken Foxe Public Affairs Correspondent

City Council is happy that money on dancer is well spent

Fearghus Ó Conchúir: 'It is right to invest in these skills'

A "GUERILLA" dancer who brought his art to the streets of Dublin was funded to the tune of more than €75,000 by the government last year.

Fearghus Ó Conchúir was given two tranches of funding, €25,000 by Dublin City Council and a further €50,000 from the Arts Council, documents released to the Sunday Tribune have revealed.

Dublin City Council, who approved the original €2,000 a month stipend said it was money well spent and that they now planned to hire a filmmaker-in-residence instead.

Ó Conchúir, who lives in London, even managed to squeeze in trips to Shanghai during his tenure as Dublin's dancer-in-residence. His job was to surprise and entertain members of the public with his impromptu routines. One email sent by the dancer to the city council says: "In the meantime, I'm going to Shanghai at the start of April – a curious way to start my residency in Dublin but one which I hope will bear interesting results."

In another, he says: "It's been a busy few months for me. I've been working in Shanghai building links with performers there whom I hope to bring to Dublin and also beginning there the work on Bodies and Buildings I hope to pursue during my residency. I'm also performing this week in a new piece at the Opera House in Covent Garden."

Mr Ó Conchúir also received €50,000 in funding from the Arts Council for his programme to bring dance to the streets of Dublin.

In an email, he says: "Some pieces of good news to report. I've been successful in my Arts Council application to support the involvement of other artists in my Bodies and Buildings project and my Dublin City Council residency. It's not as much as I'd asked for but it rarely is and I will revise my programme according to the budget and update you about what I expect to be doing, if you're interested."

Mr Ó Conchúir even secured a Safe Pass so that he could dance on building sites. He said: "For the residency, I'm making dance that can be discovered around corners, in doorways, on tops of walls and, with the Safe Pass sanction, on building sites.

"So far, I've danced on the side of Guild Street, under cranes in IMMA's gardens, and in front of offices and building sites of the Grand Canal Theatre."

Jack Gilligan, Arts Officer with the City Council, said no decision had been made to cancel the dancer-in-residence scheme and that it was always intended to run for a period of 12 months. He said: "Most of our residencies would be no longer than a year, that's just the normal duration of a residency like that. What we try to do is rotate them so that we might have a dancer, then a musician, then a visual artist and a writer.

"We are expecting we will soon have a filmmaker-in-residence and we are just processing applications for that. These are quite common throughout the country, these types of residencies."

Fearghus Ó Conchúir told the Sunday Tribune: "Dublin City Council gave me €25,000 for the year to develop my work. Unlike a writer who is able to pursue his or her art at home without much input from others, the nature of my choreography is that I work with other people and that I need rehearsal space to make work. Therefore I applied to the Arts Council for funds under their Project Awards to allow me to pay for experienced dancers, for rehearsal space and for a variety of other artists (including a director and a filmmaker) to be involved.

"The Arts Council generously gave €50,000 towards these costs. None of that €50,000 was spent on me. From the total of €75,000 … I received a fee for the year of €25,000.

"As the Irish economy faces difficulty, I think there is something of immense value to be learned from the investment of the Arts Council and of Dublin City Council in the arts in general and in my work in particular. The number of outcomes, the range of employment, the raising of the profile of Irish creativity and innovation abroad are examples of how much can be achieved with limited resources. They were possible because artists are resourceful and innovative. It is right to invest in these skills. I am proud of these achievements."

November 30, 2008

Comments

#1 David McKenna commented, on December 1, 2008 at 10:49 a.m.:

What is the point of this article? Is it saying that this money was mis-spent by Dublin City Council and by Fearghus Ó Conchúir. If so, where is the evidence to support this? (If not, why was it written and published?) What does the phrase "squeeze in trips" imply? That artists-in-residence should not leave the country during their appointment? That they shouldn't set up connections with artists from aboroad? Why are the projects created and the employment generated by Fearghus Ó Conchúir during his City Council residency not detailed? Has this journalist any idea of the possible damage done by this article to one of the country's most innovative, committed and determined dance artists, in the eyes of readers who aren't aware of his work?

#2 Davide Terlingo commented, on December 1, 2008 at 12:42 p.m.:

Agree. What is the point of this article? I find difficult to understand if it is the child of a partisan stance towards dance or if it is the mere product of questionable journalism – i.e. without the necessary field research and a basic understanding of the topic under discussion. Are residencies based programmes wrong? Is it making a point about how artists should work? Is it trying to define proper artistic practise? Is he making a point at all through the “revelations” that always were in the public domain (Residency was advertised nationally, while Arts Council funding information can be viewed online at any time)?
In a piece of “guerrilla” journalism, Foxe introduces the scent of imprecise accusations failing to report on the difference between a ‘stipend’ and ‘production costs’; the resources needed for the creation of a dance work; the timescale involved; the promotional needs; and, in fact, failing to introduce any form of meaningful contextualisation.
An artist job is to create art. This article seems to imply that artists shouldn’t be considered as professionals and their remuneration is unethical. It also implies that an annual stipend of €25,000 is somehow extravagant. Considering the difficult state of the arts and the poor living conditions of artists in Ireland, it is disheartening to see these sort of attacks finding their way and space in the mainstream media.

#3 Michael Klien commented, on December 1, 2008 at 1:41 p.m.:

A spiteful, unreasonable article aimed to discredit one of Ireland’s most acknowledged and respected artists working in the field of dance today. The author, most obviously, has no insight into contemporary dance and its conditions whatsoever. One must surely realize that artists of the future need to be invested in, need the resources to produce and be enabled to earn the economic means to hold their bodies and souls together.

#4 Kate Harris commented, on December 1, 2008 at 5:39 p.m.:

I would rebut Mr Foxe on all points, with an excerpt from a speech by Adrian Ellis, regarding the value of the arts:
* Economic -- investment in certain arts has a high 'multiplier effect,' generating direct and indirect expenditure, through the first round of construction or other investment related activity and subsequently by attracting inward investment and tourism, and thereby creating jobs;
* Social -- investment in the arts can ease social divisions by creating a context in which otherwise socially disempowered groups can participate in society on a more equal basis; and it creates 'social capital' -- to use the concept developed by Pierre Bordieu but catapulted into popular currency by the political sociologist Robert Putnam -- which increases social cohesion and therefore ameliorates the anomic, morally corrosive and socially divisive impact of the unfettered marketplace.

* Civic -- the civic argument, an amalgam of the above, is that a city with a vibrant cultural infrastructure, in which a range of different forms of public and private sector investment in the arts are undertaken, can create a virtuous circle of high economic performance, high inward investment, high educational attainment and high levels of civic engagement. The most powerful current incarnation of the argument is that promoted by the ubiquitous urbanist Richard Florida in his recent book The Rise of the Creative Class.

#5 Jo Mangan commented, on December 2, 2008 at 12:07 p.m.:

I agree with the above comments. What is this journalist getting at? What does he think he is revealing to us? Why on earth pick on a particular artist and the funding he received to create work? All information on the extremely limited funding any artist receives is freely available, no digging is required to find out what, who or why anyone receives funding. By contrast to many public bodies currently in the spotlight and no doubt yet to be discovered, artists have to account for every single penny that is spent and do so willingly.

#6 Shelia O'Connell commented, on December 3, 2008 at 7:02 p.m.:

Ken Foxe clearly can't find any other stories to write about. Perhaps the Sunday Tribune should reconsider funding him.

#7 Paul Redmond commented, on December 4, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.:

The article speaks more to the ignorance of the author than anything else. Perhaps Mr Foxe would care to disclose his interest in use of this funding ?

#8 Paul Johnson commented, on December 4, 2008 at 10:35 a.m.:

On behalf of Dance Ireland, the national resource for professional dance, I write to record our disappointment with such an ill-informed and biased article - what a wasted opportunity. I agree with the other contributors; other than spurious claims, no effort was made by Mr. Foxe to seriously investigate how these peer assessed grants were actually spent. It is further disappointing to note that The Sunday Tribune, a paper known for its excellent investigative journalism - endorses such inferior work on this occasion. The arts and the role of the artist in society, play an important part in our cultural life and demand serious, considered and balanced reporting. Paul Johnson, Chief Executive, Dance Ireland

#9 Anon commented, on December 4, 2008 at 1:29 p.m.:

How does the €25,000 provided by Dublin City Council added to the €50,000 granted by the Arts Council equal funding to 'the tune of more than €75,000', nevermind the fact that a monthly stipend of €2000 over the course of a year leads to a total of €24,000.

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