An Open Letter to Hull City Council about Arts Funding and their Proposed Budget

Dear Hull City Council,

Please consider this an open letter in response to the Revenue Proposed Budget 2011-12 you are currently considering.

There are huge savings to be made, in many areas, and I would encourage the Council to extend and enhance links with the local Voluntary and Community Sector. Helping newer organisations to 'be better placed to bid for new services' could be especially helpful in the coming years, particularly if Hull is to be a city that retains and attracts young professionals (the key demographic group for a 'thriving city centre economy' – as mentioned in your proposed Priority C). It is these groups and these people that are the partners most able to bring the 'best and most cost effective ways to improve the lives of the people of Hull' (Hull City Council's vision over the next three years).

On the subject of Priority C ('Making Hull a place where people are proud to live and work'), mainly on the point about making Hull a place to visit, I do feel that the proposed budget neglects provision for the arts and culture of Hull. As someone who has lived in Hull and Cambridge, I'd like to draw your attention to the attitude taken by Cambridge City Council toward their arts provision. I admit there are significant differences between the two cities, but some statements in the proposed Cambridge budget carry weight for Hull too. For example: 'The arts provide experiences that bring people together and inspire them. Without them Cambridge would be a less desirable place to live, work and visit.' [my emphasis] – the proposal goes on to state that 'The arts provide a platform to celebrate and showcase our local cultural diversity and create a sense of excitement and pride in our city'. If Hull City Council wants to instil a sense of pride in Hull – making people 'proud to live and work' here – then they cannot overlook the contribution made by the arts in Hull.

But, as Cambridge City Council has recognised, the arts offer more than civic pride; they provide experiences too, experiences that bind communities together (the Freedom and Vista Festivals comes to mind) and that inspire people and help them to reach their potential. This is especially true with children and young people – those saddled with the debts passed on in this spending review, and I would urge the Council to hold young people's interests very much at heart when implementing cuts to their inheritance. The Council rightly identifies 'Giving children and young people the best start, and everyone the opportunity to achieve their potential' as Priority B of their proposed budget.

The Council is no doubt already aware of various pieces of research demonstrating the benefit of children having an active engagement in culture and their surroundings. They must also be aware of the DCMS Taking Part survey which found that 'in inner city areas those who participated in culture were 10% more likely to be satisfied with where they live' – linking culture with civic pride again.

The Council has been already been involved with projects that have helped children's cultural engagement from an early age, and it is achievements like that – and other signs of Hull's regeneration – that are likely to suffer from cuts. Equally, they are precisely the achievements that should be safeguarded and built upon. A city's children are its future, and without the young people the city has no future. If Hull is to be an aspiring city, a city worthy of pride, its youth has to be stimulated, involved and engaged in the arts and in culture and in sport and in education. These are the things worth building on, for the sake of our youth and for their future (which is, after all, our future).

I don't see this letter as a call for greater investment in Hull's culture, nor as a cry for ring-fencing of cultural spending; maybe it's a point in a larger debate about arts funding and public service cuts in general. What I'm really asking is that the Council strengthens its bonds with charities, the Voluntary and Communities Sector, cultural organisations, the education sector and local artists. Ask us what we can do and how we want to help (I admit to a vested interest here...). Encourage and support the newer organisations, work with the established ones, help them to help each other. Deliver on the budget's commitment to 'support areas of the community who wish to develop services and activities'. In these difficult economic times, it is only by working together that we can hope to secure a decent future for this city and for the young people in it.

Thank you for reading,

Richard T. Watson,

Artistic Director, Merge Arts Festival

twitter.com/merge_arts_fest

artisticdirector@mergearts.org.uk

The arts inspire us and lead us to a deeper engagement with each other and the world we live in. They are not the icing on the cake of a community; they are one of the critical ingredients that binds it together.
Rod Cantrill, Executive Councillor for Arts & Recreation, Cambridge City Council

Why Burlesque isn't just stripping for posh people

Thought dead for the last half century or so, burlesque as an artform has been undergoing a revival in recent years. That's probably most noticeable in 2010's Cher and Christina Aguilera film, Burlesque, though that's only the most recent outbreak of burlesque into mainstream culture.

I realise I'm a bit late on this, but it's been a thought bubbling away for a while. I blame these Guardian articles: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/dec/13/burlesque-stripping-posh-empowering and http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/dec/13/burlesque-dita-von-teese-christina-aguilera

Burlesque has caused controversy – most recently in Cambridge – mainly on the grounds that women taking their clothes off for money from dirty old men is distasteful and a regressive step for the feminist movement. That's no doubt true; attaching commercial value to displays of a woman's body is a clear case of objectifying women. There's a feeling that burlesque bars are simply upmarket strip joints, exploiting young women in much the same way as a brothel would.

But to accuse burlesque performances of committing this act is to miss the point of burlesque, in both its earlier and its modern form. As various opponents and insiders have pointed out, early burlesque was satirical, a light relief that used things like cross-dressing as a way of bursting the pomposity of the ruling classes. In its more modern form, burlesque can be easily confused with striptease, but there are significant differences. It's also a misinformed approach to associate all burlesque with nudity; burlesque embraces a variety of artforms, and provocative dance is only one of those.

The satire element may not be so prominent in modern burlesque, but the idea of treating the performance as an art form certainly is. For a start, the amateur nature of many burlesque performers contrasts them with the strippers that Laura Barnett reckons are getting money furtively stuffed into their garters. But, deep down, burlesque is a different activity to stripping – even the acts that involve some clothes coming off. The two activities have different objectives and different approaches, even different audiences.

A striptrease in a strip joint is a commercial venture, where the stripper is earning money (not necessarily for herself), in exchange for stripping. The point is to make her male audience want to sleep with her, and pay more money to gain visual material for their own imaginings. The striptease offers the male audience member the hope that he could sleep with the stripper – or at least get a good idea of what it would look like (and in some cases, paying enough means that his dream comes true). The stripper has to offer everything up before the audience gets bored, give them what they want and get to the point. It falls apart if the audience doesn't believe she'd go all the way.

The art of a burlesque erotic dance lies in the restraint and the control, the titillation and

knowing when enough is enough.

Amateur performers aim to entertain, rather than arouse.

Their mixed-gender audience doesn't need to be attracted to the performer, and that's where the empowerment can come in; performers needn't be svelte paragons of beauty (however you define beauty). More importantly, the burlesque erotic dance is about giving the audience a little bit of what they want – in a light-hearted way, without the earnestness of the striptease – gradually. The performer plays with the audience, working them up, and then judges the right moment to withdraw leaving them wanting more without feeling that they've missed out. Unlike stripping, a burlesque performance doesn't need the audience's gratification.

The two performances have superficial similarities, but the underlying intentions and outcomes are different; it's a bit like the difference between having sex and making love.

Images courtesy of No Saints and Anna Fox, The Ringside