|
More Buzz
Go Home
The Buzz, 7-15: States
& the Arts
Why the French Exception Matters; the Exceptional Beverly Jensen
"I have requested that
the government put in place, by January 1, 2004, the date the regime
of the Intermittents must be modified, a system to aid in cultural
creations with a view to regulating the problem of the Intermittents,
of the young Intermittents in particular, the young creators, so
that their projects are financed and financed for the duration."
--Jacques Chirac, president
of France, July 14, 2003
"I must feed the children
first."
-- John Burton, president
pro-tem, California State Senate, explaining to arts activists why
Senate Democrats have proposed to eliminate state arts funding from
the state budget
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2003 The Dance Insider
PARIS -- Saying he has
"the highest respect for the Intermittents," and with the major
summer arts festival in Paris on the precipice, French President
Jacques Chirac Monday ordered the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre
Rafarrin to come up with a plan to ensure the survival of French
artists and of the French "cultural exception." Chirac's clear declarations
of support for freelance artists (or Intermittents), the Intermittents
unemployment compensation regime, and their forceful militating
against any change in that regime should serve as a model for arts
activists in the US, including those who, lead by actor and former
California Arts Council chair Peter Coyote, will rally tomorrow
in San Francisco against a proposal by the state's Democratic senators
to eliminate the state's art funding agency and its entire $18.2
million budget.
The Intermittents' largest
union, the CGT, is protesting an accord signed by smaller unions
with the government and employers that would reduce benefits for
Intermittent performing artists and technicians from 12 months to
eight months. As well, instead of having 12 months to log the 507
hours needed to qualify for unemployment compensation, performing
artists would have 10-and-a-half months, and technicians ten.
So far this summer,
strikes or threatened strikes by CGT members have shut down theater,
dance, music and film festivals in Avignon, Montpellier, Aix-en-Province
and elsewhere across France. This morning in Paris, employees of
Paris Quartier d'ete, a city-wide festival of dance, music, and
theater, voted to cancel tonight's performances, a day after the
festival opened. Philip Decoufle has pulled out of his planned solo
show, Mathilde Monnier spoke with audience members last night about
the Intermittents' situation, and Stephen Petronio's company is
still expected to open at the Palais Royal Monday.
Officials at the Avignon
"Off" festival, where artists had earlier indicated they would not
perform if the main festival was cancelled, announced Friday that
the shows -- some 600 of them -- would go on. "While the organization
is in solidarity with the strike movement, it is also in solidarity
with the companies who want to perform," said Off director Alain
Leonard. For many of these companies, he explained, 'It's a question
of short term survival." Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Gallotta, who had
been scheduled to perform at the "In" festival until it was cancelled,
announced he'll go ahead anyway and present excerpts of his work
at an alter-festival.
Speaking to French television
yesterday in his traditional Bastille Day interview, Chirac managed
to both deflect government ownership of the long-simmering Intermittents
problem and convey presidential sympathy for the Intermittents'
unique situation.
"These are people who,
in the majority, face particular constraints, and who we must take
into account," the president said, adding, "These are not ordinary
workers. Second, they are in the majority young people or 'less
young' people, who bring the best of themselves to their art and
who therefore leaven society (with art) -- one of the elements of
national cohesion. Therefore, they must be taken into account."
Artists, arts activists,
politicians, arts funders, arts patrons, and especially unions representing
artists in the US would do well to take the "French exception" into
account as well as a model of artist empowerment.
Initially, I had trouble
sympathizing with the Intermittents' refusal to accept a revised
regime. To a dancer struggling to make a living in the States, working
five jobs so she can afford to take low- or non-paying dance jobs,
even the "reduced" Intermittents regime must seem like a dream:
All you have to do is log 507 hours, which can be with different
companies, over 10-and-a-half months and you qualify for eight months
of unemployment. You can even take related jobs, such as teaching,
and continue to receive the unemployment. In this light, the freelancers
here might seem to be spoiled. And forcing their own summer festivals
to shut down might seem suicidal. (Or, as Gallotta says in today's
editions of the Paris daily Liberation, such actions resemble "a
massada de spectacle.")
But the Intermittents
have been demonstrating for over a year and getting little media
attention. If they hadn't forced the cancellation of the festivals
and thus "perturbed," as they say here, the bourgeosie summer life
style, I doubt that his interviewers would have asked Chirac about
their situation and that Chirac would have attached his presidential
prestige to finding a long-term solution. (It may have helped that
650 leading artists wrote him an open letter yesterday urging just
such a course.)
Let me repeat that word:
Long-term. California has been reeling from budget crises since
at least the 1970s, when I was in high school and when, as a student
at the pilot program for the School of the Arts, I benefited from
professional theater teachers paid for through the California Arts
Council. (Then chaired by Peter Coyote.) In my senior year of high
school, facing draconian cuts in school funding because of state
property tax cuts, we marched to Sacramento and protested, a ritual
repeated, it seems, every year since. As the student member of the
school board and president of the citiy-wide student council, I
helped to lead these marches and denounce the planned cuts.
This year, they are
marching and demonstrating and railing again in California. Last
month in Los Angeles, and tomorrow on the steps of San Francisco's
City Hall. The arts council, say organizers, "has never been in
such a dangerous position and we need to show our legislators that
the arts are a vital part of our social, cultural, and economic
well-being."
If the recent case of
New Jersey is any indication, the threat by legislators to totally
eliminate public arts funding in California is probably a prelude
to simply reducing the budget -- for which artists will then be
expected to get down on their knees and offer profuse thanks. Next
year, the cycle will start again. And artists will march and talk
and indignate again, but without taking stronger action.
In this context, I love
that the French example exists as a model of artists believing they
deserve the best, to the point where a) they will not even accept
a reduction in benefits that others might think reasonable, and
b) they are not afraid to take actions that might actually piss
the public off (and actions that demand real sacrifice, including
not performing) in order to get what they feel is theirs.
Speaking of artist support systems, the Dance Notation Bureau Sunday
night lost one of its own bulwarks when Beverly Jensen, the DNB's
former administrative assistant, passed way of pancreatic cancer.
Beverly would have been 50 on Thursday. Having had the pleasure
of encountering Beverly's irreverent wit and irrepressible spirit
on more than one occasion, I can say that she surely must have leavened
the hard work in dance preservation that goes on at the DNB every
day. A colleague who worked with Beverly at the DNB described her
yesterday as "one of the kindest, most generous people I have ever
known, not to mention one of the wittiest." Beverly is survived
by her husband, Jay Silverman, and their kids Noah and Hannah Silverman.
Our hearts go out to them and her colleagues, and the world feels
just a little bit heavier without her.
More Buzz
Go Home
|
