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Mad Doggerel Cabaret, featuring poet Laureate David Eggleton, poet Daren Kamali and musician Richard Wallis, have taken to the road as part of Arts on Tour.
An arts group that has brought Kiwi performers to small New Zealand towns for nearly 30 years will have to scale back after missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding.
Arts on Tour NZ has been funded regularly by Creative New Zealand since 2005, but was denied another three years of support in the latest round of funding decisions. The group was granted $705,000 from 2020 to 2022.
The group is one of four that missed out on Creative New Zealand funding this month. An artist residency run at the former Auckland home of New Zealand painter Colin McCahon and the Shakespeare Globe Theatre of New Zealand were also dropped from the long-term funding scheme.
A staff member for McCahon House confirmed they had lost the funding, but could not comment further. The group had received $175,000 in funding from Creative New Zealand to run three artist residencies a year for the past three years.
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Arts on Tour artistic director Steve Thomas said they would have to find other funding sources to keep running tours. The group has helped musicians, actors and poets tour to small and remote New Zealand towns since 1995.
“It was an incredible shock and really disappointing,’’ he said.
“We will scale back because we don’t have the level of funding that we are accustomed to receiving.
“We have a programme that has been very popular and is greatly appreciated for reaching places that most other agencies don’t get anywhere near.”
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Actor Michael Hurst has taken shows across New Zealand with Arts on Tour.
Creative New Zealand will grant the group $80,000 in transitional funding for the first six months of next year. They will also be able to apply for annual funding.
“They are making their best effort to support us having kicked us into touch,” Thomas said.
He said they had 200 bookings across New Zealand this year and 259 bookings lined up for next year.
Creative New Zealand chief executive Stephen Wainwright said the longer term support fund was contestable and funding agreements had fixed terms of three or six years.
“We acknowledge the good work Arts on Tour has done to provide New Zealanders in the regions with access to high-calibre arts experiences,’’ he said.
“I appreciate it’s difficult for established organisations to not have funding renewed.”
He said Creative New Zealand was short of money after supporting many arts groups through the Covid-19 pandemic.
RYAN ANDERSON & JASON DORDAY/STUFF
August 1 marks 100 years since the birth of one of New Zealand’s most important artists – Colin McCahon. This video was first published in August 2019.
“This year we have been particularly challenged by our reduced financial capacity.”
They had granted funding to arts organisations in Gisborne and Northland to bring more culture to regions “where traditionally there has been relatively low levels of public investment in arts infrastructure.
“Creative New Zealand wants to ensure that, over time, our investment programmes better reflect the diversity of New Zealand’s population and its arts practices. We also aim to extend the reach of our investment to make arts attendance and participation accessible to more communities.
“We realise in the case of Arts on Tour that some regions will feel that this signals a lack of support for them and their ability to participate easily in the cultural life of Aotearoa.”
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