Disturbing, not pleasing, should be art’s role

Many arts organisations have become dinosaurs, failing to evolve to respond to the needs of new work, delegates at the Australian Theatre Forum were warned.

The 2017 Australian Theatre Forum: ABOUT TIME – LISTEN, EXAMINE, SPEAK, CELEBRATE takes place in Adelaide from 3-5 October. In the lead up to that event, we believe it's time to celebrate some of the highlights of ATF 2015, such as this provocative, closing keynote speech. 

Belgian festival director and curator Frie Leysen challenged Australian artists and arts organisations to be bold, and to challenge an increasingly ossified status quo in her closing keynote address at the 2015 Australian Theatre Forum(ATF).

‘We created a culture of “pleasing” that is now hijacking us,’ she said. ‘We want to please everybody: the audiences, the subscribers, the sponsors, the press, the colleagues… a big mistake! ‘Art should not please. On the contrary. Art has to show where it hurts in our societies, in our world. We urgently need the courage back to pick up this role of disturbers again.’

Delivered at Sydney Opera House on Friday 23 January, Leysen’s speech – entitled About embracing the elusive or the necessity of the superfluous – was wry, witty and well received by ATF delegates. In it, she reflected on the role of art in a time ‘of right-wing nationalism, extremism, racism and intolerance … where politicians understand creating fear is the most efficient weapon to keep us all under control’; in a world where traditional boundaries were increasingly blurred.

‘We all know that in the contemporary arts, the former labels for disciplines are no longer valid. The borders between them have become blurred. In Europe, I see the difference between art, culture and entertainment vanishing. I have a strong feeling, certainly after attending some of the meetings here, that the same is happening in Australia. But the three are completely different, have different missions, different needs and different logics.’

One of the key themes in her broad-ranging speech was a concern that existing structures in the arts sector were outdated, and not being renewed. ‘We have built theatres and arts centres, and we created festivals to produce and present art works and to welcome audiences in the best possible conditions. But, during the years, most of these structures and organisations have become rusted and sclerosized. They became dinosaurs,’ Leysen said. ‘Originally meant to support the artists, they got organised very well, often too well, and so lost the needed flexibility to respond to the specific needs of specific works. The artists now have to follow the policy and the rules of the houses instead of the other way around.

‘We urgently have to reconsider the role of theatres and festivals, as instruments to facilitate and valorise artists again. And we need more flexible structures, production houses that can work tailor-made with artists.’ Festival-makers in particular were sometimes guilty of under-estimating their audiences, Leysen continued. ‘Often I hear organisers say “it is nice, but not for my audience”. Who is that audience? A monolithic block of people? And who are we to say what they want to see? Underestimating is an insult. Being demanding is a sign of respect.’

Though the ability to rethink structures and systems does exist, it seems largely restricted to the periphery, among individual artists, she said. Leysen also identified a lack of focus on the creative – on the arts themselves – among contemporary culture-makers.

‘Also, in this pleasing culture, we constantly adapt to who is addressing us. We answer in the different languages, in the different logics of our counterparts. Mistake again. ‘To the politicians we speak with political arguments; to subsidisers and sponsors we speak with financial, economic arguments and of huge audiences. To audiences we speak with entertaining arguments; with the press we speak with superlatives and exclusivity arguments. And with colleagues, we confirm each other. We must urgently find our artistic language and artistic arguments again,’ she said.

One way to do this was to change our language; to focus on the risk of making art instead of trying to sell works of known quality. ‘How can we make the audience a partner in adventure instead of a consumer?’ she asked. ‘How can we communicate with audiences that theatre is a living art form, every night created again and again. And fragile. That even the biggest artists also make work that is not fantastic? ‘We should valorise the risk, the adventure, the ephemeralness of theatre, the uniqueness of the experience, the temporary community that is created every evening again with the actors and the audience.’

RICHARD WATTS - first published on Wednesday 28 January, 2015

http://performing.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/performing-arts/richard-watts/disturbing-not-pleasing-should-be-arts-role-246981