【Kevin专栏】China versus the West

Dear friend, Dear HeartBody,

This article has been in my mind for a long time, after living almost 4 years in China and being me, wanting to understand traditions, laws and habits of where I'm and then compare them honestly to the way its done in the west based on my own experiences and view on life.

I will tackle three points based on my experience. The points I will compare are Art, Finance and Politics. You all know me for going deep into the matter, so I will explain each point in a separate article. As being an artist I will start with Art.

I will explain the Dutch (being Dutch) and the American system first because they’re very wide apart and I'm sure the rest of the west is a similar or a combination of these two. I will cover the point: subsidy, related to possibilities and artistic freedom in the broadest sense.

Subsidy system, China versus the West:

As being Dutch I know the Dutch subsidy system through and through, and trust me it is suffocating for true artists.

In the Netherlands every 4 years companies or individuals can apply for subsidy, during the last 40 years the rules have changed a bit, but in general it stayed the same.

The government decides what is the theme for the coming 4 years. For example themes like Cultural Participation, Cultural Education, Entrepreneurship and Art, Cultural community etc.

This sounds at first as a great idea, a little guidance form the government, but here’s what is really happening.

Every company forgets what they stand for and are becoming prostitutes of the government, writing their plan according to the theme the government has set for the coming period. There is no consistency in this because the Political parties keep on changing every 4 years and of course every new political coalition has a different idea. This results that almost every company is writing the same subsidy application plan. Just to write these plans takes 6 till 12 months for a company. In my eyes a waist of time that could have been used instead for developing their artistic value, but that’s besides the point. Companies are forced to do things that they actually do not really want to do. I know form experience that those companies are hiring external people to take care of this. Their (artistic) leaders couldn’t care less about it, all they care about is getting the money so they can maintain their position and income. Yes this is the fact, it has nothing to do with art anymore. Companies are just holding their hands up awaiting the bag of money.

Of course all these plans are being judged by a commission. And if you think the west is without any corruption, trust me if you know the commissioners from your Art department you will have already a step ahead. Big companies will always survive, which I think is good, they have proven their value over the years and should stay, they're our cultural history. But when it comes to middle or small companies or even free lance artists it’s a hell.

The government starts complaining that the Art companies are not being innovative, but how can they be innovative if you set the theme first. If you set a theme every company is going to write according to the theme, losing their integrity and authenticity.

I remember a certain episode. One period of the culture plan the theme was Cultural Participation, in other words a company has to do something to make people participate, get the people in contact with what the companies do. All the companies where forced to set up an participation concept, and I know they hated to do this. Even better the Dutch national subsidy Foundation -The Dutch government decided at one point they didn’t want to be bothered anymore by all these applications and espacially the angry disappointed companies and decided to just give all the available budget for art to an ‘independent’ foundation -. This Foundation decided to give a lecture about the topic Cultural Participation and invited the British Opera to explain one of their projects. It was indeed a beautiful project. After this lecture, being me, I was curious and went to see the lecturer and asked him ‘ Is the British government asking or demanding of the companies to do Cultural Participation?’ To my surprise he said ‘NO, we feel as a company receiving so much subsidy from our government we wanted do this, to give something back to the community’. wow this was an eye opener. He even said that there was a company deciding not to do any secondary projects but instead focus a 100 % on their artistic idea. This is my point. If you force something upon the artist how can they be free to create. They are just writing to impress, its just an application with a lot of difficult words and excuse the word just a lot of ‘bullshit’. And the more bullshit they write the more chance they are getting funded. But is it out of free will? No it’s not, it’s forced upon them by the government.

So artistic freedom in the Netherlands doesn't really exist. It’s a complete left wing intellectual program forced upon the artist by the government. The Irony of this is that if a company or artist writes these intellectual plans, it is forced to make an intellectual completely not understandable work of Art. And then the government and the artists wonder why nobody is coming to watch Art anymore, why the audience for Art is shrinking every year. I mean nobody wants to pay 250 RMB (the average ticket price for performing Art in the Netherlands) to feel stupid. If Art becomes a self masturbation of the Artist to show (off) to fellow artists, then off course the number of audience is dropping. Its not that difficult to understand.

I’ve seen performances where even I as a well educated Artist am wondering What the F… and then you read the description In the program book and honestly: ‘The negative space of a frozen vegetable in an utopian society’. I mean what the F… is that all about. The artist can do anything he or she wants, the money is already in their pockets, and try to prove the performance is not about the subject they said. No one can tell, actually you could have labeled it with any title. If I can’t see it, how is the general art uneducated person in the audience going to get it, and then you wonder why nobody comes to watch, why the audience for art is shrinking..

Now going into my field of Art, Dance. These days choreographers depend on their dancers, ask their dancers to improvise and create steps. Then the choreographers look or film it and decides what to use. The choreographer is not making 1 single step anymore. The time of masters like Jiri Kylian, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin and Hans van Manen has yet to be surpassed. All we see are failed clones of these masters, with no dance language of their own. I’ve worked from the top till (young) upcoming ‘talented’ choreographers and trust me maybe only 10 % of them really create themselves. These new generation of choreographers are depending on the input of their dancers. There are only a few that truly have their own language, style or concept, like Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Yoann Bourgeois, Marco Goecke, are some new innovators that bring a clear recognizable style and concept of their own.

Like a great dancer ones said: These days its not important anymore how good the choreographer is but how good his dancers are. RIP Gerald Lemaitre.

Now lets look at America.

America is not doing any better, the government almost gives no subsidy but instead wants companies to raise money from private investors. And yes again the prostitution starts.

If you donate this amount you get this in return. In the ‘worst’ case if you donate generously you’re entitled for example to a private diner with the artists. Again the artists are becoming indirect prostitutes for the company to raise as many donations as possible. And I’ve been to those diners where the female and male artists are being harassed by those wealthy donators.

Trust me the system in other western countries is not any better. I’ve yet to see a good and fair system where the artist can be himself.

What happens in China then?

The Subsidy system is a bit different, for small projects you don’t get any money to start with, you can create anything you want, and only when its finished, a commission will look at it and decide if what you made is good for China and their standards. They will come to watch your show, they will watch your video, you will have to explain to them what, why etc. and only then, if they think its valuable they will give you the money you spend back. This I find very interesting. Because a true artist will want to create from its heart and will find a way to make it happen. I wonder how many companies or artist in the west would like to take this risk for their passion. I'm sure 50% or more will not. Which will reduce a lot of intellectual bullshit, and make the ones that are truly an artist get what they deserve. Because a good and talented artist is not per definition a good subsidy plan writer. Something to think about for the west. Judge artists on what they created not on what bullshit they wrote.

For big productions in China you can apply for subsidy, if you have earned your steps, won prices etc. this again I think is interesting, you have to prove first your talent and are qualified.

Similar to the West, there are rules and themes to follow. But no secondary themes as Cultural Participation or Education etc.

The theme has to be related to showing the great history of China. China has so many beautiful legends and mythologies that for artists the pool of possibilities is endless. Personally I think this is good, if I was a country and am giving big budgets to artists then at least I want them to make something that I can be proud of that shows who I'm. To show the public those stories to make them aware again of their past. Another advantage is, People know these stories so they already understand what they are going to see, no questions, no misunderstanding no feeling stupid.

Some call it propaganda, maybe so, but why not? The government is giving you money to create, so I think its more then fair that what you create has some value to the country and its people. And again the artist is free to make anything in anyway he wants. I‘ve seen some amazing performances like for example of Yang Li Ping and I’ve seen some where I'm doubting the creativity of the artists, where in general they stay within their frame of what they know. Its good that there are Companies like LDTX, GMDC and Dlab that want to promote Chinese artists, educated them and help them develop their talent, as in the west NDT 2 does and some workplaces where choreographers can test and develop their concepts and discover if they have talent.

What I also like is, if the commission is not satisfied with the levelor the performance they can refuse to pay you, or demand of you to improve yourwork. You will not get your bag of money beforehand, maybe a small percentageto get you started but the rest only when you're finished and thecommissionaires have watched your performance. They come with a delegation, notjust one person but a delegation to watch your show.

I’ve co created a big subsidized performance, and I talked and listened tothe stories to create this performance. First the choreographer got selected tocreate an example performance based on his awards and proven records and onlythen he got subsidy to create this big performance. I think this is good, showyour idea to a commission instead of writing down your idea.

To conclude:

There is not much difference between the West and the Chinese subsidysystem. Both demand from the artists to create on the points they give. Themain difference is that China is not asking for secondary projects likecultural education, community work etc. On the other hand the sponsor idea of America makes it almost impossibleto create anything that might be shocking because the investors would not wanta bad name. So when it comes to Subsidizing Art there is not much differencebetween the west and China. Both have their plus and minus points.

Like I tell everybody if you don't agree also give another option, don'tjust comment on what is not good but give a suggestion or an alternative.

My suggestion;

If you want artists to be free, to be innovative, to be authentic, don'timply rules, don't make artists prostitutes, but give them their freedom, don’timply any unnecessary themes on them. Create a new system of judging, not onlybased on their artistic intellectual bullshit plan, but also on what they actuallycreate, how many performances they give and most important how many public areactually coming and did get something from it.

The sole purpose of Art according to me is to educate people, make themfeel something, make them think and reflect on themselves and society.

Free Art, Love, laugh, cry, live, live with Body and Heart, live fully, feel fully, touch fully, love fully, Be. Be one, be full, be One-body, Be a HeartBody.

Hug,

དཀོན་མཆོག་བསྟན་འཛིན།

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