 And my staff, Andrew, and Mei Yin have been working with Andy Horowitz to put together this series of talks. And thanks for coming. I'm amazed at the turnout. It's good. I'll let Andy explain why we're all looking at each other and not you. That's, you know, it's just too experimental for me. Why did I ring the bell? This is, we rang this bell the night after Ellen Stewart died two years ago. And so just as a commemoration of that, when we started, Ellen used to open all her shows, ringing a bell and then leaving the program, which I will spare you. And then, but anyway, just to sanctify the space. So Andy, are you ready or should I say some more things? No, I can talk, you know. Thank you to the Public Theater. That's where you are, actually. It all belongs to the Public Theater. And we only get to inhabit it for like two weeks. We're a project of the Public Theater. Very good. Great. So I can't, so thank you, Mark and Leigh-Anne and everybody. I'll come stand over here for now. So this conversation is just a little bit of explaining why it's set up the way it is last year. We did a couple of conversations during Under the Radar, Mark invited us in. And we did one on visual art performance versus contemporary performance. And it was really interesting, but afterwards we had a lot of really great people come up and go, you know, the presentational aesthetics of the panel format reinforced the hierarchy, the power hierarchy that you're trying to superb. And I was like, you're totally right. And we had been talking to Lois Weaver. Lois Weaver is this amazing artist and director. It's just a real inspiration. And she has had developed this framework called the Long Table, which is based on the movie Antonia's Line where she keeps inviting more and more people to dinner and the table gets longer and longer and they finally have to move out into the art. And it's sort of this horizontal platform for discourse to try and sort of make it more porous and to allow people to have a sort of conversational approach towards big ideas. And so we decided to do this year's conversations in this format. At the moment, there are one, two empty seats. If, you know, at some point during the conversation you're moved to like ask a question or participate, you can take a seat. In the front of your program there's a Long Table etiquette and sort of some public rules of how it works. One of the things that we wanted to do also is everyone has name tags in front of them or name plates in front of them. Everyone's bios are in the program. I mean we wanted, you know, a lot of the panel formats sort of you take 45 minutes with everybody explaining who they are and what they do. And we wanted to really sort of skip that part. We have amazing people at the table. You can identify them and I'm sure from their remarks they will contextualize themselves as well. And so that's the basic format. We will continue, we will normally, so it's an unmoderated discussion. There's no opening statements. There's no formal statements. There is a host. Barbara Lanciers was going to be our host but she was felled by a rather nasty flu that's going around from which I have just recovered almost and I will be hosting for a little while. So, and we will continue until 1.30 when, do you want to ring the bell at 1.30 or shall I? Someone else should. Someone else should, okay. I will ring the bell. And, you know, if people feel like that they have to, you know, get a, you know, step out for a second. They're free to do so. You're free to tap, try it. If you're like, I really have something to say. And, you know, if people are free to say no. So, and that's why unfortunately this area we can't go to because of the paper. But, you know, think of it as a group conversation. So, on that note, good morning everyone. Hi. Hi. I'm very impressed that everyone made it so early on a Saturday. And, when Mayin and I were talking about what conversations to have, you know, during the festival and what would sort of relate to the program and what are the conversations that maybe are happening in the cocktail lounge but aren't necessarily being, you know, had in public, maybe we could find a way to address some of those things in a thoughtful, you know, non, you know, lower the temperature a little bit. And, just have a conversation about the changes that are happening in the wake of the economy both in America and Europe and, you know, and see how Ellen and I were talking right before it started. And it's like, well, do we want to talk about, you know, what's happening right now? Do we want to talk about sort of how we got into this? Do we want to, and I think, you know, obviously I think the things that inspired me and Mayin and I were, one, you know, how is this going to affect, how does the change in economic climate? I mean, it's an interesting question. I mean, is the change in America's economy going to actually change much of anything? Because our funding for going abroad has traditionally been less than Europe. Are the changes in Europe going to affect the way we culturally exchange? And I think the question is also like, well, what is the, what can we imagine the future holds? And how are we going to adapt to that? So, and personally, I'm also really interested to think about the aesthetic issues. Particularly, I think we've seen, particularly in this year's festival, when we look at under the radar the work that's in there with hollow roots and debate society and ERS's argumento. But then also if we look at like American realness and so the other work. I mean, I think we're seeing a sort of a claiming of a sort of American DIY aesthetic that has been sort of not owned for a long time. And I'm wondering if that aesthetic shift might inform the conversation. And of course, the larger issues of like cultural diplomacy. So that DIY aesthetic, which is sort of a, that's been Americans aesthetic for a long time. That's what we do. I think for my perception was that in many cases, some of the European countries were very interested in that. And just in the way that our artists made things, even from the 70s, 60s on through. And that influenced the way they made things. And they took it on into a more European context and funded it better and gave them more tools to be honest. But of course, one of the things I'm seeing is that many of the governments over in Europe, especially art, turning more conservative. And defunding the arts and using the U.S. as an icon. Like if they can do it that way, then we should. That that's the wave of the future. You know, make the arts sit on their own bottle. This is what I think. And a lot of it is right wing inspired because it can defund and isolate the intelligentsia and other alternative ways of thinking about the world. And I think a lot of people over there were caught by surprise thinking that these things were sort of facts of the culture. That cultures is supported by the state. And every city should have a cultural house like PS 122 and a big opera theater. And now those assumptions are being very much shaken. And it's a very scary time, I think over there. And we're always scared. It's just, but we're so scared for whatever we're just used to it. It makes me feel a little bit like, well, the theater is always this fabulous invalid. And it's very interesting as the theater continues doing its thing that people like radio and music business and even broadcast television are scrambling for new models. And we can teach them something. Anyway, that's a lot of what's going on in what I'm seeing out there. Did you find programming more difficult as a result? Because you're feeling the effects of less funding or less work is available to tour or has it actually not had yet? It's having an impact. This is the first year in many years that we haven't had something from Ireland and supported by Culture Ireland. And it was a great relationship we had. And I think we were able to help launch several of their artists or give them a really good platform to see what's going on in Ireland in that rich, rich theater scene there. But Culture Ireland got a little remodeling over the last year and they're not able to assist us as much as they would like. So there's certain gaps. I can see this becoming a bigger problem down the line. The joke always is that you pay to come to New York and then you pay New York artists to come to you. And there's always a little bit of a chip. And that's one reason I was interested in. I've been always trying to struggle to make that more of a parody. And it's becoming a parody, whether I like it or not. But the wrong way. I believe that the crisis in Europe, you have to talk about it in different ways. I believe that we have countries that really, really struggle because of the economy. And that is why they cannot support the arts. And then you have countries that can take a more ideological place and see, okay, we have a crisis. People don't want to pay an attack. Okay, let's get rid of the arts in different ways. And then you have countries that still have the same support towards the arts and the culture in Europe. So from a European point of view, you have to differ those issues. And from Sweden we can see we still have a budget that is okay. It hasn't been cut. But our artists, they struggle because they cannot tour. They cannot get out because they will not get paid enough. And we cannot support them entirely. So of course the internationalization will suffer from it, even though separate countries may still have a large budget or support the arts. There are far new ways. So I believe that is what we will see. How we co-produce in the future. We have one strong state. And in weeks, how can they together co-produce people? But that I think we will see in Europe. If I could add something to the problem with people, we tend to look at governments right and left. In Holland they did research on the voters. And people wanted to get budget cuts, which were higher than what we are spending on culture. I mean, I think that is really a big problem. If the people, you cannot convince the people that you should spend money on culture. Then this is going to be difficult. And we were just discussing it in Holland for two years. And to be quite honest, I love culture and I hope it will stay there. I didn't hear convincing. I can make it for myself, but I didn't hear it in the newspapers. And then the next step, why should you spend money to present yourself? I think I have actually said too narrowly to disentangle them. Especially when it comes to the whole context around cultural diplomacy and exchange. And there are two storylines which are connected, but really separate. One is the inevitable breakdown of the welfare state because it is unsustainable economically. So later there was going to be a questioning of some kind of generous European system. It has been exacerbated by the economic crisis. It has been accelerated. That's one story. I think the other story is which is the surprising, the challenging of the idea of Europe. And the fact that not only a strong divide between countries that are going backwards. Budapest and Hungary, if you read the new article this week in the New Yorker, final, which are literally disawowing these sort of western values that we thought that they would naturally assume after they took the frame for maybe that we should be talking about. Because it seemed to be a strong rationale anymore for cultural engagement. You know, America won. Stories, you know, cold war is over. And it was assumed that everybody from Prague to Budapest, et cetera, will sign a strong quick decline in American cultural diplomacy. Interestingly, now we have a new rationale. I mean, you could probably argue that from Moscow to Budapest, there's now sort of a need again to assert some of those positive values both inside Europe and from the United States to Europe. Yes, I definitely agree that the situation is much more Eastern Europe, whatever that means. In a way, we, I mean, the performing arts of the system, the capitalism of the system, that has already collapsed 20 years, and I don't know if it's the situation in Croatia or in Hungary, but in Poland it's only now that we are, that we are talking about the transformation and the coast of the transformation of the change of the system. And to speak about the situation of maybe it was not on some part of the societies paid too much for that. For instance, the other is that there are a lot of financial sciences, let's say, who try to convince all the politicians that the way of really sort of still well existing way of public support for the development of the culture shall not exist anymore that way because it's just too expensive. So this is one thing and the other, it's just like one way of thinking among the politicians. And on the other hand, there are artists who like realize that we really in a way benefit still from the system and it would be wonderful if we could sustain, if we could make it sustainable. But, and what was really in a way funny was that it was a series of meetings with the Frederic Martel, who used to be the culture at the shelf of friends. He was in the US and he wrote a marvelous book about the cultural policy or actually the way of non-existing cultural policy in the US. And he was in a way used or he even was, I mean, it was his idea to go to come to run some meetings and to speak about the danger of giving up with that system. So that was really, so in a way this example of the ideal system was for the very first time used as a very bad one. That was interesting. I think there's a big difference between Western Europe and history to talk about culture. The culture scene where the spokesman of the system till the 89, and in Hungary you still see a culture organization that is criticizing anything of the government that's going to, the wings are being caught. I mean, we don't have that in Western Europe. Both are instruments, I think, in the Cold War period to show how well developed you were. And I think that was even the reason for the US to do a little bit of cultural policy to show that we are not even better than the Russians. But at the very now, I mean, that there's a huge difference between Eastern Europe or Central Europe, you name it, than Western Europe. Yeah, I think also what happened in Europe, particularly from the Dutch side and the Western European countries where there was much more, when it started the cultural diplomacy, much more both ways of thinking, maybe because of the whole Europe becoming one, you see now also in Holland where we used to be very much about enriching our own culture from cultures from abroad. It's now much more sending our culture like we need to kind of make a stand on what's going to happen in the Western European countries a lot more. We want to show that we're still there separately instead of, you know, all working together. What Mark talked about in terms of Culture Ireland, and certainly the case right after the crash, you know, there were cuts in arts funding, but in that first year post-crash, Culture Ireland actually increased the budget, particularly around the Imagine Ireland programme. And, you know, the thing that was completely apparent was that the only positive news story that was possible to project around Ireland at that point was cultural activity. And on the one hand, you know, you're moving into the territory of culture being instrumentalised and being used as PR, but, you know, it felt that the government, there was no other way of promoting a positive image of the country at that point other than through culture. What's happened subsequently is that in any way it's possible that Culture Ireland has been a victim of its own success, and actually the department, the government department, has wanted to take some of that responsibility back into itself because Culture Ireland was having all of this sort of sexy international success. And the department, so the Culture Ireland was making things possible, whereas the Department of Arts was cutting stuff. So this restructuring partly is about being able to take credit for that. But it feels now what's happened is that, you know, I mean, it's interesting that the cuts are not so severe, and in fact the cuts to the arts budget, the Culture Arts Council are less than the cuts across the board, and actually the cut that the Arts Council has passed on to the artists is less than the cut that was given to the Arts Council by the government. But even so it feels like there's having to be, it's a lot about stability now, and when you start talking about stability it means less project funding for new work. And it's the case that in a way the thing that sustained the independent scene in Ireland in the time immediately post-crash was the fact that Culture Ireland was supporting work to have longer lives. So work, you know, newer companies were able to tour work and the work was able to have a life. It feels now like we're, people are kind of clinging to each other for warmth a little bit more. And we're not quite sure what's going to happen now. The current round of funding is very much about maintaining what's happening and is less about, you know, what might happen. So who knows. But that's in a way being able to talk to use the language of promoting the image of the culture abroad is one of the things that will maintain some of that support but then we run the risk of instrumentalising what we're doing. And it's becoming a promotional tool rather than something that has an intrinsic value in itself. We see that happening in Holland also from the governmental point of view that now what is important is the top segment. It's the theatre group Amsterdam's the Royal Concerts about orchestras because that's where you can kind of score so to speak. And indeed the young developments where the production houses are leaving and it's a shame in a way because from an artist point of view I felt that the younger generation the newer generation was actually already in Holland at least was already really starting to look at different ways of funding themselves at different ways of collaborating I feel maybe also because of the whole internet and everything their generation I feel like they were already much more looking outside their own borders making co-productions, co-deliberating which I feel might be the new way of making international work. Fundamentally I think our problem is that all of our systems United States, rich western countries they're all national systems still. So even in the United States where you say the non-existing culture policy is a very clear culture policy it's sort of a default culture policy but the reality is that all of our funding mechanisms 99.9% are domestic and they rest on completely outdated assumptions I always say our culture policy is sort of like our farming policy subsidized production like more milk even if nobody wants to drink it more milk we're not thinking about the real issues here we are in a global society we're not incentivizing that that remains 0.1% of our cultural funding and if you go to U.S. foundations and try to make a case for funding international exchanges you're going to be unlikely to get a very positive response it's always been the case we thought after 9-11 that would change I ran a conference at Columbia right after 9-11 it was called Arts and Mind which I was very proud that we came up with a clever title I did a study at the time of foundation support for arts exchanges and we found that a year after 9-11 the sum of all arts exchanges with the Middle East was amounted to the average value of a one bedroom apartment in New York City so that was it and 10 years later the Robert Sterling Clark foundation repeated this study and found that there was actually decline so state mechanisms are not equipped in the culture or elsewhere to catalyze global cultural flows and we have no nobody minding, nobody looking after that so we keep subsidizing and dropping up our local institutions but we're not really doing anything about this collaborative global aspect I'm not saying we should stop I'm saying we should be more nuanced to go to Tom's point about instrumentalization and then to everyone's point about putting our product out into the market if you will does that play a role is the idea is that we're going to take the frameworks of the late stage capitalism and apply them to culture and say it's another product that we want to get into other markets we want to treat it in that way I mean this is my political bias obviously it feels that government and business actually have their different things and culture also is a different thing like it's not profit based in the same way that a corporation should be so it's like is there an element of sort of applying inappropriate frameworks to the exchange of ideas or I don't know I don't really agree with you I think in the dance group everybody has been it's the way that you do that's the way that you progress and that is funded because that is the high quality that we will see or performing arts and other things but where do you go where do you go for the money I think you go internationally because of that I feel that in some countries and I think if you work with it you will understand that arts will increase if your arts go above because that's the only way that you will get that inspiration but who's financing it it's the government financing it I can always be from my side where the internationalization is something that is emphasized every year to increase and also in Europe you have the European, the EU European funding system that is for culture because culture and the arts is the way that we can collaborate over the borders to get a better understanding so I believe that it exists but of course the cultural policies will be from a national point of view but if you speak about the arts and the culture the only way to have a high standard in your country for example you can really do that and we have that collaboration between your friends with an movement researching Europe just for that we have scholarships to go to New York and then come home and keep collaborating and keep moving and keep pushing the borders of the arts as well so then the resources of the policies and the funding and now the yard in a way to collect the funds that would be big enough for you as an artist to work is to really be able to collect it from different countries, different institutions it's certainly possible working Does this have an impact on the kind of work that's being made and it's interesting because on the one hand of course it's something that we're finding in Ireland where the only way that's happening in Ireland really for the first time is to focus on philanthropic support Previously philanthropic support up to now has only been 3% of the budget and so suddenly everyone is talking about a philanthropy and capacity building and of course you don't want to you know I've talked about the caution of not instrumentalising the work but on the other hand I'm discovering that there are certain kinds of work particularly I'm thinking of participatory actually it's possible in social entrepreneurship where it's possible for potentially non-cultural philanthropies to engage in supporting cultural projects but you know if you're relying on a lot of international co-producers for a piece of work for example there are very few companies I'm thinking of there's a handful of companies in Europe making text based work in English that can get a lot of European co-producers for example if you're not Simon McBurnie or Chief Bajow to get non-English speaking companies to co-produce the work it means that there's less money for that and also I suppose when you think thinking about work that's directly engaging with the national condition which is something that of course the work should be doing if you're having to fund work which is about things that are happening locally and if you're trying to fund that internationally those challenges so I suppose I'm interested in are there are people seeing that there are particular kinds of work is the funding having them to kind of work this way there is not yet a national exchange funded in this country unless I'm going to a university and the university is supporting doing someone in some of the faculty role into a student in Ireland which is which national dance project is created to use there is this trend in the dance world of moving in that collaborative direction or scenario of reciprocity and I think about work once they've started they're often staying there back to New York with their post office address here and raising so it's becoming very artist driven and less institution driven over time it is tricky though because it came up yesterday in the form as well this EU system where you can apply with three countries together and then a separate country outside of the EU out of the EU and indeed stuff came up with people in Harlem being called could you be our third partner just so they can apply for that I think it is a very valid question but the residencies also came up in that discussion where I feel like for example we set up a matching with the Department of Cultural Affairs in Los Angeles where the money we put in they put in and I think that is also a very interesting way of bringing these artists together because you do see long term relationships companies that came to LA now are working with companies from LA and they bring the company from LA back to Holland and vice versa I agree with you that these things are happening around the edges and they are not corresponding with the actual level of need or interest here we are there is a whole group of people here on a Saturday this is always what happens there is tremendous interest in cultural exchanges usually there are panel discussions but actually the reality is if you look at the overall level of activity it remains a sliver in terms of our overall cultural activity and while there are a few enlightened foundations Rockefeller Foundation has pretty much pulled out Fort Foundation has de-emphasized the arts Pew Foundation has de-emphasized the arts National Endowment now maybe we will get into artist grants again their international program is tiny I just wanted to let it go kind of like the dinner party modalities I will share a little personal story years ago I was interviewing for a possible job to run a arts portion of a major foundation on the west coast and this is one of the biggest arts funders actually in the country and it flew out meeting with the very smart, clever young foundation president so I thought I wasn't sure I wanted the job let's just really put this out there you should really make international exchange the main priority going forward this is the state of California Pacific Ocean very diverse group of people and he said I understand why we would bring in arts from abroad I understand that we have all these people they want to appreciate their heritage and this is not a trick question this is an honest question make me understand why I should pay for our artists to go abroad and this is not a trick question and I think it's reflective of the mindset of our funding system which is all about feeding the starving mouths in your backyard what about promoting global cultural interaction and that's what I think is the issue here is that there is a difference between like Europe and I definitely think from what I understand like Sweden for example there's a great interest and support for artists to go to America for example to train or have an exchange and then go back to Sweden or elsewhere but is there really a climate in America and the United States for our artists and seen as valued for our artists to go elsewhere in the world and have an exchange because there is this sort of isolationist mentality in America where we're the best and who needs to go anywhere else and of course the artists are doing I mean the fact is that you know if we just look at the first place in New York at the moment and the American world that's being shown in that, in fact, nature is not a non-profit and you know there is an example of an American theatre company working in England with European sources now that may dry up and then the question I think is how can we, I mean we're now in a situation which actually I think is pretty damaging for our local institutions local audiences here where many pre-eminent young American artists are not creating work in the States but are creating work internationally and I would argue that you know that's actually not domestically necessarily in our interest to produce artists of the caliber of, you know, Nigel who dwells most of his work in Europe of big art group of nature theatre so then, you know, my question as somebody who now runs an institution in the States is what can we do instead of being really entrepreneurial in the way that we partner with artists we create environments in which both local artists New York City artists, national artists but also international artists and developed work here and, you know, I always get a little concerned that these kinds of conversations that we spend the first hour and a quarter the moaning the situation, the crisis rather than, you know, taking a look at where there is success where institutions where digital artists are being really entrepreneurial in figuring out in the new reality how they can actually create work and, you know, because the fact is work is still being created and artists are being enormously enlightened in the way that they are managing the project. It may be very badly supported you know, many of them may be operating in a bread line, many of them may come from you know, trust funds but I think that there are lessons that we can learn about how to create support and the last thing that I just want to say is, you know, somebody who has now spent really the whole of my career working at universities I think what Barbara said very briefly is really important which is that we are now in a situation where universities and colleges in this country are becoming de facto the major sources of support for artists and I'm really interested in ways that we can break open institutions of higher education more and turn them into really valuable cooperative partners who are supporting artistic creation and understanding that having high caliber practicing artists around on campus is great for everybody. Universities are also international institutions. I think you should look at the successes and maybe maybe look outside, further than the performance but if you look at the Dutch culture the most successful that is parts that were never financed electronic music design on the edge of art and commercial business, you know I really want to look at it it is a part of photography and if you ask the people why did you how did you manage to get successful without government support that solidarity, they help each other they are working together and with the performance in the Netherlands you can get your money for four years that's done, you don't have to cooperate anymore with other partners of course you won't cooperate with international, that's interesting but there is no need to cooperate and I think that's a very interesting model I am just finding it out lately and I think that's something that the more traditional arts should have a look at think out of the box because I agree with you we are already, every time we go back to the funding what should the government do and what is happening now in the Netherlands is the government is running after success our electronic music is very successful they should be ambassadors of Holland they don't see us standing like the government why would we, I mean you never saw us standing there and now we should sell that we are Dutch and the names are afrojack and you don't recognize it as Dutch anyway but I think the performance that's an interesting angle to look at the budget cuts in the Netherlands that was 20%, I mean still doable, but of the 20%, 8% is by performance so that's a big that's really a huge budget cut just goes from one point, why is that why is everything going on and it's not really a problem in the Netherlands I mean for the performance it's a problem, for the rest but couldn't I ask you isn't the idea with state funding to fund the things that will not succeed without funding if electronic music and photography survives without then we shouldn't support it if you look at the internet I'm going to talk about this so I look like how are we also selling our country maybe we should not you should not invest in the things that could not happen without funding also there's a I mean this actually really reminds me without us submerging back into the wallow I mean this reminds very much of the US debates on funding why should we fund the arts and I do think that there's a philosophical if you will question about what should funding be about because I think if you reduce funding to the idea of subsidizing products that otherwise wouldn't come about or wouldn't be consumed by the narrow interpretation the broader interpretation is how do you support with the tools of government policy funding whatever and ecology in which a certain kind of culture can thrive and I think part of our problem has been that we keep slipping back into the mindset of one more season one more play one more parties versus the and this is what I think is so exciting moment because some of these mechanisms seem to be happening on their own how do you create information mechanisms, networks sourcing funding channels that by the way in the mainstream economy happen I mean if you think of capital markets you know I bet you that every single country on the planet in the exception of North Korea there are investors in Apple computing whereas we have to sort of finance it on our own and then figure out a way to work similarly our tariffs are very high you know especially okay not in the US-European relationship but if you're trying to do productions with Arab countries you know you have incredible visa problems which is sort of the equivalent of putting a tariff on trade it's an obstacle to trade so I think that there's a kind of ecological set of issues that we could address directories, databases information, access to opportunities matching people up and that infrastructure is missing because the people who fund that infrastructure whether it's government or foundation aren't thinking about it I would say that I agree vehemently and I think to Gideon's point it's about reframing I think in a sense what performing arts are now in the 21st century in a way because if we look at the work that is just me tends to fall under the Rupert contemporary and I sort of feel that there's two characteristics of it one it's investigative in that they start from a question we do not answer and that it's interrogative that the sort of assumptions around well if this is a spin are to be interrogated and I think if we look at work being made in that way then all of a sudden we're like well wait a minute we do kind of research and then if we start thinking well how do we bring software development models into place or how do we bring scientific models into place how do we publish research how do we open the work to peer review how do we look at a development process and any product is not a finished product but always sort of moving towards a more perfect iteration I think there's a way of I mean I think the thing is that yes text based work that's hyper local may not tour very well and maybe that has a different sort of ecology around it funding wise resource wise then work that's predicated on a different context but I think I mean that's very the idea that like well how do we really really look at like how information moves how money moves how things actually move in the global 21st century the big problem one of the big problems in America is that the cultural production models are still predicated on like Henry Ford's assembly line you know it's like well how do you build a 21st century product and you're building like Model T cars you know and I think as institutions people in institutions can start to think okay well how is my institution based in this sort of like assembly or you know hierarchical model or whatever how do we how do we delink capital from you know this type of like structure and let it free in the market how do we encourage how do we build platforms to allow information to travel more freely if anybody wants to fund it from me I think it's in a time of really everything about economy and about money I think actually the question is really about aesthetic because it it will be affected you know not all money will go away and safer things will be always present and easier to travel and will be used by states and cultural institutions to promote themselves but then it will be just one side of culture that's very accessible that's very easy to that's where we the programmers have even more responsibility now to fund and try to find money and try to support risky work now more than ever and that is you know if it's a silly report that's not depending on success you know Pinabao should not happen in the first few years she was you know slashed and there are many examples I'm sure but I would just also like to say I'm coming from Croatia and we are in a constant state of crash so we are still waiting for you at the bottom you are not there yet but I can say even when you hit bottom things will not stop you know things will happen it will just adapt in a way and I just want to say that for example there was a country in transition still it was never behind the iron curtain but we did inherit the socialist way of funding culture and what happened with all over eastern Europe is that when the transition came 20 years ago the state wanted to preserve the institutions this huge humongous you know theaters with 600 employees and that still is the case so that's where the money goes and actually this crisis is having a positive effect in Croatia because we are the scene where I'm working is in a growth why? because now the state is trying to think to redistribute the money that already is there so people in my field are actually receiving more money now so it will have hopefully a more positive effect on the artistic scenery for smaller companies because now the national theater will not take 80% of the budget that already is there and we will try to commercialize at the same time some of the institutions because this is what happens this is the darker side of this crisis this is what happens for instance in Poland right now that as you have said it's exactly the same way in my country that we inherited all these big institutions and the institutional theater works quite well although it's not very experimental but the government tries not to diminish this funding but to redistribute it in a way but then the result is that some of the theaters got commercialized or become sort of private institutions and so on so I don't see probably you are just in a much better situation because in Poland I don't see this attitude to redistribute the money towards independent organizations then it's really a problem if the Balkans is the best example I think the focus on ecology and infrastructure and these things are important but there's also a danger in terms of managing resources that the money gets better and everything except the artists that's like that to make all of these structures but the artists can't develop them because they're all working in restaurants and I think to think about those the problem with looking at a software development model is that the end point of that is commercial that it's about at a certain point it becomes something which pays for itself and it is the problem and this question about do you fund things which are never going to be able to pay for yourself because actually there is a certain kind of performing arts which just because of the scale because of the resources it's a completely different model to say electronic music which you can make in your bedroom on your own and doesn't require bringing people together physically but it is one if you talk about models it's really instructive to what's happening with universities and massively online courses I mean if there's one institution that's like big foot institutions straddling a cultural sector it's the university like it doesn't get more you know bigger and bureaucratic and we all understand that so much of that funding is sucked into the university bureaucracy and the people who lose out are the public and the producers of the knowledge who get you know delinquent from jobs so and in the middle is this big hairy institution that's sucking up all the resources so I think in that context it's really interesting to watch what's going on with these courses where you've got 160,000 people lining up I think that in a way there's something we should be paying attention to share culture very widely using new mechanisms I think in contrast to the 19th century I think that there are models that are developing that allow culture whether it's intellectual culture or artistic culture to be shared across borders much more efficiently and that these things can suddenly pop up I mean this university really sort of suddenly is upon us and now everybody is sort of freaking out what are we going to do with these formal universities who are now rushing to do it because they're afraid that now the market share is developing so I think that for us that's a very interesting one I think the Gideon's example of an Asia theater of Oklahoma getting their money in Europe we now start to almost see the opposite in certain ways with the universities where for example Carolina performances is commissioning Netherlands dance theater for a new piece I mean it's like the reversed world almost exciting because it means that these universities indeed are starting to take up a role of creating new works that is already an international exchange they do have the capacity I think I don't want to lose track of the audience and our culture we have this thing called the cultural wars which woke up a lot of people in the the US is that like oh we weren't including everyone because just as in another one there wasn't this intense protest about you're cutting all the performing arts and it happened here as well we found Hollywood actors going yeah I don't care about the NBA and so I think there's always a lot more politics we need to work as far as and continuing lifting the discussion about why this why should there be international exchange and I think we're running into it always would like well I have starving artists in my backyard why you know why should I also fund fund for this exchange I think we also have to stop whipping ourselves that we are always justifying the little budgets that we get because the budget of the state and totally is crazy military I read somewhere in the US military orchestras get more money than all the orchestras that is the balance so we just need to also step back and see that we are doing the best we can with little that we have I think Mark I think you're actually intertwining the points that you make one of the reasons that is that Kaiser essay you know on Huffington Post you know low those two years ago you know where he basically you know said that audiences should have no opinions and they shouldn't comment on websites and anybody you know and he was basically like you know I think this sort of 19th century production model and this sort of huge institution arts model has that's why nobody gave a hoot when the NBA went down because it's always been this well we're the titans of culture and new masses will come be educated by us rather than seeing the arts as something that's actually generative, creative and you know people actually do and respond to and I think and live with and that you know in fact you know most of the arts audience not most but you know like there's just not that many jobs in the arts or not many people that are willing to like take them and an arts audience is often made up of a very thoughtful and engaged people and for years people at the arts establishment has been like screw you and I think that like to Tom's point it's not about building more structures it's actually about breaking down all these huge sort of like brick sponges if you will you know bricks and mortar sponges that suck up capital you know in and sort of figuring out well how do they you know how do we how do we re-examine the role of capital and also revenue models like I mean come and you know I mean there's a different aesthetic proposition between going to see the Lion King and are similar you know I buy a ticket I sit in my seat I watch the show I leave and so if we start and start saying well what is you know is the revenue model for what this type of work is the same as for that type of performance is and you know and so when I say software development it may not be an end product but maybe you know the musician that's cooperating develops an awesome CD during the process or like when I saw the show the big musical show with the detectives and everything that you did a couple years ago like that was a great you know musical like maybe that's the I don't know I think I really have no idea but I guess what I'm saying is that I feel like what's exciting to me about this moment is but is what horrifying is but is also exciting is that actually everything's up for grabs I thought it was interesting what Taylor Mack said in his propagation on the birthday where he said I think Richard Forman is commercial theater I think everything that everyone is talking about here is commercial theater and the idea of actually but how we also how we sort of yeah reframe what that audience engagement is and how we and you know also that we kind of sort of stop apologizing you know for the work being surprising and difficult and interesting and you talk about one thing that this is a great moment as these things are melting down and there is a little bit more chaos this is where we can really make some statements and get some different structures or or reinvent these things and it's a really exciting moment but I think what's happening here I mean we're here we're sitting we all agree as always I mean that's also these kind of meetings are getting a bit boring because everyone you know actually should step out to the people who are not really even trying to get them I mean what happened in the Netherlands was just before the elections the right wing party which isn't that right wing I mean it's liberal party much bigger than this one and he was stating to the cultural field like you should come up with a good story I mean I'm an art lover if you don't come with a good story you're gonna be he was mentioning the number exactly that's gonna be the budget part boo go away you don't understand it he did that once just before election there was no story of 250 million he knew it already before and that's what's happening still in the Netherlands the cultural field is not stepping outside they are not starting to convince the people who don't believe in culture and that's I think what it's starting it's good to sit here but actually we should I should sit here and you should always agree with me I just want to throw in another country into the mix my name is Evia Moore I'm on the panel the fourth panel and I'm a Canadian which is a rather large part of North America perhaps not population wise but we are kind of straddled the middle of the cultural production spectrum and that we do have state funding both on a provincial level and on a government federal level but it is a bit of a lot of terror going on in the arts community as we want to get in cut particularly by the Conservative government that we have right now and but one thing I have noticed as I look at the funding landscape starting to change in Canada is that there does seem to be an emphasis from the Canada Council for the Arts which is the primary federal they seem to be emphasizing international exchange and international touring as well as national touring but there seems to be an emphasis on collaboration and optimistically I would like to think that that's actually about bringing things back into Canada and that's the argument my argument may be a somewhat optimistic one I think that there's something about selling the country as well but when you apply for these programs the primary question and I actually find this similar on an academic forum I went abroad to do academics and they always ask you what you're going to bring back what are you bringing back to Canada they don't want to find you if you're just going to go and stay they want to know what you're going to contribute to the Canadian scene whether academically or culturally and again here's my optimistic standpoint but I would like to think that it's about bringing up these hierarchies we can bring back models from other places that do shake things up we have a regional system in Canada a regional theatre system that's not particularly experimental and the people who are going away and creating work in other places or going away and studying whether it's in Europe or England or Latin America or Asia are bringing back new models and new ways of working to develop that regional theatre system I agree with your optimism and I particularly like I do think there's reasons for optimism mostly outside of the European-American relationship from China to Brazil to Mexico other countries are ramping up and there's huge opportunities there and actually those are the relationships we should really be worried about in the end but US they're always going to be a cultural dialogue but I think going back to the larger picture I do think that the cultural community does need to wake up to a few facts in order to survive one is that they are going to be held accountable and whether you like it or not whether it's governments or private funders individual funders I know we all hate this but we are going to have to demonstrate why what we do is valuable in ways that doesn't involve a Shakespeare quote but probably a statistic my view that could be a software statistic it doesn't have to be about number of cups of coffee consumed it can be something more meaningful the other is that I think we can't hide behind the idea that we're experimental and use this as a justification if the audience doesn't care about what we do and I think we can look at the mainstream world in all of its guises long tail and to introduce that we can't deny the role of the audience in what we do I think that's another thing and the third thing perhaps is that we need to be in ourselves of government I say this mostly to my European friends we misunderstand the role of government I think we had a panel once, maybe you were there here in New York about cultural exchange and it was the usual thing funding is going down, government doesn't get us and finally somebody said you know you used the word whipping ourselves why are we always talking about how we can be instrumentalized and how we can do such a great job helping a country project its image why are we like every other sector that looks at government and says what have you done for me lately you know whether you're a trade group for the antipiracy issues in the software or you know you represent farming or you represent aerospace you don't come looking for subsidies you're looking, you're saying what are you doing for me as a government as an important part of your GDP and as an important piece of your national economy what are you doing as a government to mold me and I think that we should be okay with that language but Hollywood is, but the arts are not I think it's important that maybe the competition should be about do we take a more proactive role in terms of what that accountability is how we the terms of success are ones that we can define rather than just looking to borrow success from how other industries work but actually that there's a conversation which is about how do we define this shared agenda and actually there are I mean I think that's interesting what you talk about in the Netherlands where actually he's going I love art that makes us not cut 250 million and that to do that together and that it's not a dirty thing to learn to speak other languages but on the other hand that it's also to communicate actually what the value is but it means that we actually really need to think about that and not take it for granted you know I think it's interesting with Canada I mean it's not a coincidence that we're presenting five new works from young Canadian companies in Cork and it's been you know so easy and it feels that that policy is really certainly for me having an effect in terms of the amount of time I'm able to spend there we've made it we've co-produced one of these pieces that we're presenting and you know certainly I think that of all of the models that I've been engaging with over the last 18 months in my capacity in Cork the Canadian model seems one that that I'd love to see some other governments emulating actually I also think that we should define what success is because I believe that it's that's the colours we theater are here they do not have governmental support state funding is different in different countries and in some countries perhaps you shouldn't have state funding in Hungary perhaps we have a group here next year that got their money otherwise because that is what we want to see that might be success and in the Nordic countries if we support and give funding that will give new perspectives on freedom of speech that would be a success for us to fund so success is always something that you can define as statistics is something that you can discuss what that is and I believe that that can be a successful funding for the states I think for the just speaking from the artist side I work with the Wooster Group that one thing that has changed for us over 40 years is that when we first started going to Europe we were invited because there was an excitement about the aesthetic exploration that the company was doing and I feel that recently when we're invited places it's usually because there's another agenda to because they want to get things up or because they want to say that they presented the Wooster Group because there's some cache to that I guess or there's an agenda to reach a certain community but it's usually not because they're passionate about the work and but we're still passionate about the work and we like reaching different audiences we're very happy to be used I think you have to be cognizant of that of how you're using artists for other ends to meet other purposes and when we talk about audience there's always this discussion that you have to justify yourself because the public you're not selling enough tickets but for me I think I understand a little bit in Croatia where the problem there can be where you always have to defend that you're not elitist or whatever you are trying to hit is actually uneducated the public system I mean the education system art education does not exist properly anymore and in Croatia it stops in mid 19th century so when people are used to read things with eyes that can only read linear things or literal things or traditional traditional plays of course when you come to an experimental show you don't see it you don't have the skill to see it with your eyes and to appreciate and I think there is it's a lot also to do with this outdated idea about art that you have to come and admire the beauty or whatever that's the nine things that stop them but we moved on and that may be also the target how to justify the arts in the future the arts education in schools is something that has to come back there I think that we have to re-uphorspond to some of all of it the problem I think with what is the story is that at least in America you actually come up against a very difficult situation because from my perspective what you're talking about is giving the general world an opportunity to create to look at non-traditional work and inviting them into a process that may and giving them the tools to do so what you're talking about is I guess there are some people that adhere to a certain sort of set of the idea of the sort of the social contract of civic space and that somehow the conversations that we have through contemporary performing arts are supportive of building a stable society in a way and that may be wrong like that may be instrumentalization I don't know but I feel like in the 50's America subsidized certain types of art to go abroad because they wanted to show that we were progressive and modern and not Moscow or they sent tap dance because they wanted to show how great entertainers we are and I think that I'm not sure how to articulate this other than I feel like when you start to ask why is it good then you start to get these really fundamental questions about like what is our society supposed to be like and those conversations are really hard to have But the difference between you and Gracia you are focusing on people who understand experimental art and there's where you find the financing but in the Netherlands it's completely paid by the tax payer I mean and that's what that is the problem I mean if you cannot and the people who are voting and that's a completely different story so if there is a political party that got budget got some culture because we don't understand and I can do it myself better than you know look at this these discussions you are having in the Netherlands if either we like it or not so you can focus on the people who should fund and pay their tickets but in Europe you have to explain something to the society but I'm saying what is called and it's also like you should start to do something else or but you need to have a story that people will vote for the party that say we should spend more on culture I mean I guess when I look at work like Remeny Protocol or artists who are doing this socially engaged practice I feel like that is actually a really good argument for like it's like experimental insofar as it's not a play but I mean it's actually something that is very accessible and it's built in community and so when we talk about sort of different um I guess I feel like there is a story to be told that an artist said to me when I was talking about the Marina Abramovich show up at MoMA he said well you couldn't get further from Broadway I'm like actually Marina is pretty Broadway you know I mean she's a huge personality like it's glitz and glamour and people are waiting in line and paying lots of money to go and she was kind of you know experimental but now she's Broadway so I think that there's actually like I think there's a framing like I agree like we do have to come up with a story but I don't think and we're not doing a good job of it I think I want to go back to the way you started which I think all these comments remind me ultimately of this segmented reality I think that we on both sides of the Atlantic are feeling our way one is how do we put Humpty Dumpty back together again as far as financing as far as the sustainable culture and the other is how do we advocate a role for culture in a global society and those are things that are works in progress and we're also scratching our heads and but we're sort of getting there bit by bit I think that for me this is a whole separate reality from cultural diplomacy and I actually would like to make a strong case for that culture of diplomacy because I think whether it was after 9-11 where everybody looked up and said holy shit they don't you know there's an issue here or now with places like Budapest and Croatia and parts of Eastern Europe like really falling off the cliff I think it's really time for some good old-fashioned propagandistic instrumentalized cultural diplomacy where we sort of take the place I know I grew up in I left Hungary in 1988 I know how much it meant to get Woody Allen or the abstract expressionist or Charlie Parker and I know that in today's Budapest 2013 whether it's the Rooster Group or the 40 year younger version of the Rooster Group it would be a big deal it would speak truth to power at a time when it's needed and I think that's it old-fashioned rationale for old-school cultural diplomacy and there's a room for that as well which is a whole separate thing from everything else. What you were saying about that story when we had the conversation about cultural diplomacy in Georgetown that whole idea came up as well the measurements of the arts and what are you measuring because it becomes very important that you now see a shift to indeed that the artists and the presenters are measuring economically in Europe because they have to and is that the right way to go obviously not we don't think so but that comes back to the story what do you tell what is the story, why is it not on an economic level important but on the other level which for us is such a given but it somehow got lost in the way in the conversation with the audience with the society this is where I to the old-fashioned thing I think it is about ideas I mean I think we still have not had, at least I haven't been invited to have a meaningful multiculturalism conversation across the divide the way Americans deal with multicultural issues and the way Europe deals with multicultural issues and let's face it that's probably the number one issue with so many people leaving their countries of origin and moving around the globe and the juxtaposition of different cultures like diaspora and economic shifts actually dealing with people keep maintaining western style democracy in a polyglot world is actually very we handle it very very differently America has a very very different history than Europe does and we're not having that conversation so it's like but culture is a great way to have that conversation but I don't know anybody that's actually saying hey let's talk about that you know why you come here under the radar and you see the conversation happening from multiple perspectives but I'm sorry but I'm sort of building up what you said which is that there are many good arguments for what culture can be instrumentalized to do one of the things happening with me I'm just going to change the whole conversation I'm moving forward for a bit of time and so I'm going to be a foreign correspondent for the public theater and it's interesting like how many theaters or institutions, cultural institutions in the US have an idea of a global thing we all talk about we're in a global world but actually I'm going to be trying to develop with Oscar and the artistic team here what is our national policy in a way why do we why would we bring this piece from Hungary and not this piece from the Congo or you know that's one of the things I'm facing and the other thing that now that you can work anywhere people are able to choose where they want to work and so many of the folks in India are staying home because they can work and still get their project to Microsoft so it's becoming a lot about what the quality of communities are so if I move to the west coast I think I pick Portland you know because it has a cultural it's a good cultural environment it's a good place to raise your kids up but the culture is becoming very important in those ways in the way people look at their communities and what's what's happening well it almost goes back to what Tom was saying quite a bit ago how do you maintain you know how do you maintain the local and the global context it's like the awesome part about living in Portland is what Portland is or actually I had a conversation about San Francisco and we were talking about how hard it is in New York because in New York when you're an artist you feel like you just can't fail and your mistakes are so high and this person was saying like in San Francisco the problem is like in San Francisco you just can't fail because no matter what you do it's good so it's like that's a local condition but how do we have that conversation how do we one thing that what you said about culture being a source speaking about multiculturalism and other things the most important thing in that is that culture has to be strong for culture's own sake because if we take culture to help you help kids get better at school if you use culture to get a lower blood pressure if you use culture to solve poverty what do we do when it doesn't do that because that's when the person will kind of say culture didn't do this kept the budget to find that story and say in one culture no, no I'm just saying that the question that you all see is that you have to be so careful doing that because if that isn't a good way to have the dialogue okay let's not use it so you have to be so careful doing that this is the lesson that Europe cannot try to copy American industry because it was a dead end street here and that there is a great danger right now that we can see a replay of what happened here in the 90s where basically after the cultural wars the cultural community obliged the powers that be by developing this new setting where you could no longer say art is great because that was under attack so okay, we instrumentalize it we said it's going to be leading scores and high tax rates and wife college jobs and that was a complete dead end argument because number one that's what you want if you want safe streets or healthier kids is really the smartest way of going about that by putting on more plays and then waiting two years later for the social effects to come it seems like not an efficient policy number two the demonstrated outcomes never really came but more importantly you were no longer advocating for art as arts and I think the single biggest mistake we made here or they made was that they wanted these metrics and they went to the wrong scientists so they went to the economists it was sort of the obvious thing and the economists when you have a hammer you look for a nail so the economists said hey we can develop metrics so guess what now all of our metrics are you know economic metrics if we had gone to different scientists psychologists and we would have we would still have ended up with metrics but they would have been different metrics so maybe one thing that Europe can help us do or where we can sort of work together as you were saying is that we need to work in the direction of better metrics the metrics issue is not going to go well but we don't have to go down the same dead end and this is exactly the conversation that was had at Georgetown where and Diane Rexdale was for example very very clear in that also where she said that's going in the very wrong direction if you go to those economic metrics we'll lose we totally will lose and a great report I mean great but it's a try to go into other scientists was from the British Council the trust pays report where they're actually trying to measure in a different way or does it take much longer times often to measure that other outcome and the irony is that the economists themselves have moved in that direction so it's the question to GDP it's natural well-being index I mean there's a lot of very progressive economic thinking that also tries to have a broader view of the social benefits I think there's a lot of work to be done and we need to loop all of that back back in to the accountability to what on that note thank you thank you everyone it's not over it's just tomorrow it's very early tomorrow