Next week, an extraordinary international show will arrive at Sadler’s Wells after a journey that began on a beach in Senegal more than two years ago. Rite of Spring / common ground[s] brings together 38 dancers from across 14 different African countries, to perform Pina Bausch’s legendary work The Rite of Spring. It is Sadler’s Wells’ internationalism writ large, a collaboration between Germaine Acogny’s Ecole des Sables in Senegal, The Pina Bausch Foundation in Wuppertal, Germany, and Sadler’s Wells in London.
This was a project halted by lockdown, but reborn in a new post-covid era, in a world where we are adjusting to the long-term ramifications of both Brexit and the Covid pandemic. And what a post-Brexit statement to make: the dancers will be fresh off the plane having performed in Copenhagen, Madrid, and Adelaide over the past nine months.
The arts, and particularly the performing arts, had a tough time during the pandemic lockdowns but coming out of that and getting on the road again has revealed the difficulties of international travel for artists. In short, we have found that Covid may have masked unresolved issues in our immigration system, in part a fallout from Brexit.
International exchanges are always complex and require, as well as artistic impetus, an administrative effort to get everyone safely in the same place at the right time. The changes that we are facing as a result of Brexit and changes to visa processes have added a complexity to these arrangements which make both the export of our productions, and the invitation to international companies, even more challenging.
The difficulties of acquiring visas on time jeopardise scheduled performances, and extra costs are incurred through last minute changes and delays. The journey to make this leg of the Rite of Spring tour was a long and perilous one, and the team at Sadler’s had many sleepless nights chasing missing passports and navigating a changing playing field, in terms of what was needed by various High Commissions and the Home Office over different timescales.
And it’s not just at Sadler’s Wells that this is happening. The Royal Opera House are also among those having to announce late cast changes because visa approvals have not come through in sufficient time, while Glyndebourne Opera are experiencing long delays on visa extensions.
Post-Brexit, much emphasis has been placed on the role that culture plays in providing the ‘soft power’ that enhances our reputation abroad and makes the UK an attractive destination for tourism and inward investment (not to mention the £32 billion generated for the economy by the sector every year). We have been incredibly successful in the past on both fronts, but if we are going to continue to play our part then two things need to happen.
Firstly, the movement of artists, sets and costumes has to run in the way that show business demands - everyone has to be in the right place at the right time or the show simply can’t go on. However complex it may initially seem to introduce, we need a more efficient system that doesn’t require physical passports to be travelling back and forth from visa centres to international embassies with all the associated risks of delay. Otherwise, our status as a creative hub for performers - whether going to the Edinburgh Festival, Glastonbury or Sadler’s Wells – will be in jeopardy.
Second, investment in the creation of the work itself has to continue if we are to keep up with our international competitors. In real terms Arts Council of England funding has reduced at least twenty percent in the last ten years - while costs have continued to increase and the resources to make new and ground-breaking work have become more and more marginal. Countries like France and Germany provide a much more significant base of funding that artists and companies can build on to enhance the creation of dance, theatre and music and it pays off in their influence in the world, enhancing their political position in Europe and far beyond.
In the arts, we understand that the current financial context is tough for everyone, and we do not want to make special pleading - but the cutting of red tape costs nothing; innovative policy mechanisms to smooth the wheels of the migration system could even end up saving the government money. And then, we would ask that when we are past the present crisis that the government begins to replace the investment that has been lost. A colleague once gave me a great analogy - a man is so happy that he can, each day, give his donkey a little less food - all seemed to being going very well until of course one day the donkey died.
In the end we, in the performing arts, make things work – an opening night is an opening night and although the old adage ‘the show must go on’ has taken a bit of a knock over the last couple of years it is still part of what I love about our world we strive together, across boundaries and borders to bring cultures together to share and learn form we each other – despite all the obstacles in our way. Let’s not let this golden goose become a dead donkey.
