At the Department for Culture, Media and Sport last Wednesday as part of the McMaster Review into excellence and funding in the arts, Brian McMaster asked those of us - a mixture of directors, producers, administrators - sitting around the table how we first became involved in the arts. In almost every case the route in was via school and participation, suggesting that the Jesuit credo "give me a child before the age of seven and he is mine for life" may well be true for the arts too.
In the circumstances it would seem that the government has got it utterly wrong because its emphasis on literacy and numeracy within the curriculum has squeezed out the arts in many schools. Indeed the problem with the literacy strategy is that it teaches children (or in too many cases entirely fails to teach them) to decipher the squiggles on the page and does nothing at all to encourage a love of reading. The short-sightedness of reducing arts provision in schools is demonstrated by projects such as First Draft that came to fruition at Live Theatre in Newcastle last week, in which six nine- and ten-year-olds had their plays presented by professional actors. It's not a new idea - I saw a brilliant Quicksilver project called Primary Voices that worked with schools in North London in a similar way, and at Soho children have been encouraged to write plays too. But Live's success is a reminder that talent has no age restriction and that through the arts many find a way to express themselves who might otherwise remain voiceless. In my own case I was an intensely shy child who hardly spoke until I discovered theatre.
So I think the Arts Council has been right in its emphasis on funding participation and the fact that it has made it clear the young will be a priority in its funding decisions that will be announced on December 14. But too often companies and buildings have found themselves in situations where they struggle to get the kind of core funding they need to survive and flourish but can access money for education and add-on projects. This can lead to a curious situation where those who have no real desire to work within the community or with the young are leading projects and where a company or buildings' core activities have absolutely no relationship with its education and outreach work. The result is a two tier structure in which the latter is not genuinely valued and is simply seen as a way of securing funding and is therefore often of poor quality.
But it doesn't have to be like that. On Thursday night I popped down to Shunt Vaults where the entire space had been taken over by YPT3, BAC's participatory group for 17-25 years olds. Called Ripe and Rotten, it was an evening of installations, bands, films and performances curated by the young people. It was fun and innovative. Over the past year YPT3 has worked with artists including Marisa Carnesky, Rabbit and Punchdrunk - in the latter case the work done with YPT3 was a crucial part of the development process for Masque of the Red Death. It's this equality and real sense of purpose in the relationship of artists and participants that is the key. Both the artist and the participants put something in and get something back that is about more than just funding or social inclusion. For artists it's an opportunity to try out ideas, often with a larger group of people than you could ever afford in a workshop situation, and enjoy the input of a group of young people who have their own ideas. On Thursday at Ripe and Rotten Melanie Wilson's playful use of stories was apparent in two promenade pieces, while Bits and Bobs offered a thoroughly enjoyable experiment in the role of the audience within performance. I imagine that the artists involved - Wilson, Hannah Ringham and Silvia Mervuriali - learned as much during the process of making the work as the young people did, and the experiments they made will feed into futures shows that they make. Everyone benefits and it is exactly as it should be; but sadly so seldom is.
