Hot City Cats; Jazz on the Dole

Aspirations to a career in the arts very often leads to the dole queue.

In recent years the long line of unemployed has included a large and growing number of young artists. Among them, actors, writers, musicians and dancers, some with qualifications and experience. Yet no suitable employment is available to this group.

The arts scene, especially in the performing arts is dominated by established professional groups and experienced artists. Without the necessary background and contacts many find the arts scene hard to penetrate and virtually impossible to make a living out of.

What does it Do?

The Wellington Community Arts Centre is an attempt to alleviate this problem. Working under the umbrella of the Labour Department, the Arts Centre provides temporary employment for unemployed artists. The artists are employed under two schemes: the six month Project Employment Programme (PEP) and the slightly longer Work Skills Development (WSD) scheme.

As well as providing temporary employment, The Arts Centre aims to prepare artists for their re-emergence in the employment sector once their temporary stint at The Centre is over. Because one of the factors why these artists are unemployed is their inability to compete in the 'open-market' of their field, The Centre provides advice on management techniques, budgeting and 'packaging' their art. (In this age of marketing and advertising not even the arts are spared!)

As well as these survival skills, one of the most important things The Centre gives artists is time. Not having the usual struggle for money, artists at The Centre have time to assess why they are in a particular arts field and what they hope to achieve. They have time to sharpen their craft and skills, and literally 'get their act together'. The forming of groups is encouraged. For example a musician working in isolation can through The Centre form a group with other musicians.

Past Performance

Darcy Nicholas, the Director of The Arts Centre, stresses that The Centre not only provides artists with experience but also a back up for employment. He believes one of the reasons many of the artists are unemployed is because they are working in isolation and lack contacts. One of his functions as Director therefore, is to liaise with people in job potential areas and build up contacts. He descirbes this as developing "an employment network into which The Centre feeds in artists."

Providing artists on the scheme with a back up for employment may be the ideal but it is not always the reality. Many of the artists find themselves back amongst the masses of unemployed once their six months at The Centre is over.

But The Centre also has its success stories. One of them is The Hot City Cats (a group of jazz musicians) which is off the scheme now and very much in demand. Colin McColl the Artistic Director at The Centre envisages more successful groups emerging from The Centre in the future. In the past people on the scheme did not necessarily form into groups but instead operated on an individual level.

The Arts Centre has not been static. Many changes and improvements have been made. The Artistic Director, Colin McColl, sees an improvement in the quality of the work emerging from The Centre, since the Summer City programme. Although Summer City was highly publicised the quality of the work failed to live up to its expected image. McColl describes the quality of most of the Summer City performances as 'mediocre'.

Not a Holiday Home

There have also been changes in the administration since the Summer City programme. The dispute between the employees and authorities during Summer City effectively disrupted the status quo. The new Director, Darcy Nicholas [replacing Graeme Nesbitt who was sacked during Summer City because of conflicting opinions with the Wellington Community Arts Council (WCAC) and the WCC] says "After Summer City things were beginning to crumble." In his first few months as Director, Nicholas has been attempting to structure the crumbling edifice. He says this has involved The Centre changing direction so as to fit within the framework of the Labour Department. This has meant adhering more rigidly to the original concept of the PEP scheme (ie temporary employment for six months only). Nicholas says "In the past The Centre was treated too much like a holiday home where people could stay on the scheme indefinitely."

If artists stay at The Centre for longer than six months they are in effect preventing other artists from coming onto the scheme. This causes a build up of unemployed artists at the Labour Department. Nicholas means it when he says that artists cannot stay on the scheme longer than six months. The 'holiday home' attitude towards The Centre seems to be over. The Centre therefore has a constant turnover in staff. Fourteen artists completing their six month term, have left The Centre recently. All will be replaced.

Many of the changes in direction at The Centre can be attributed to the new Director and new Artistic Director. Both have been at The Centre for only a few months, and were initially attracted to it because of the wide possibilities and potential for innovation. Both are artists.

Darcy Nicholas, the Director, has had a long association with the Arts. For 8 years he was a full-time painter. In contrast he was also a policeman for 10 years. He is very active in the NZ arts scene. He is the Vice President of NZ Maori Artists and Writers as well as the National Projects Officer. In recent months he has been involved in running 'The Art of the Maori in the 1980's Festival' at the Pipitea Marae. Currently he is working on building up a collection for a series of overseas exhibitions.

Promoting New Zealand Art

Nicholas is particularly interested in the arts of indigenous people, especially in the Pacific. One of the directions he would, personally like The Centre to take in the future is to express and promote the multicultural nature of NZ. He feels that NZ art should reflect NZ's total history not just the colonial aspect. NZ arts should reflect its Maori background. He sees The Centre as having the potential to explore this often neglected area. At the moment the artists at The Centre do not reflect any cultural diversity. There are no Maori or Polynesian artists on the scheme.

Colin McColl The Centre's Artistic Director, has had a varied and interesting background. His large experience in the field of Community Art has been a big plus for The Centre. After spending a year at drama school and a few years working, McColl left NZ for the greener theatrical pastures of England. His four year stay in England included working in children's theatre, television and films (as well as working in pubs and dishwashing).

In 1972 he returned home to NZ, working for 5 years at Downstage, initially as a stage manager and then as an associate director. He was mainly involved in education and community work. In 1978 he once again left NZ, this time for Australia.

All Around Oz

In his 3 years stay in Australia he managed to zig zag around the country and also cram in a large amount of work. One job he recalls as being very exciting was his time as Drama tutor at a rough Sydney Centre for 'latch-key kids' called Kids' Activities.

He then did a tour of the Australian outback as project director for a theatre company. This involved touring with a couple of shows and performing community activities such as face-painting, juggling and circus skills demonstrations. After this he spent a time in Perth as artistic director an 'alternative' theatre called 'Hole in The Wall'.

The next stop was Melbourne, and a part-time job as [unclear: tator] at the Victorian College of the Arts. He was also involved in directing plays for 'alternative' theatre groups. It was then back to NZ and a new job at The Arts Centre.

This position as Artistic Director at The Centre offers a lot of scope. McColl is responsible for devising the various Arts Centre projects along with the Director, and having some quality control over them. McColl points out that community art is a very specialised field and because so little of it has been done in NZ, The Centre has to take on artists not especially skilled in that area. With his wide experience in community art he is attempting to resolve this dilemma of the scheme.

Innovative Theatre

As well as community based art, The Centre is also exploring theatre work. Some have noted this as a recent change in direction. In the past they feel there was a greater emphasis on community level activities (eg performing in schools etc); and work in the theatre proper, which would compete with established theatre groups for audiences, was discouraged. This was seen as a paradox; in that the scheme, envisaged as a skill developing programme, was being conducted on a very low-key level and not greatly promoting development and innovation.

McColl's other functions as artistic director include interviewing and selecting the artists referred to The Centre by the Labour Department. Another more general function of the artistic director is to evaluate the needs of the community in the arts area and ensure that there is a demand on The Centre from the community for artists and their services.

The Arts Centre is financed by the Labour Department. The Department pays the wages of the artists and administrative staff. Also provided by the Department is Labour Related Overheads, (a weekly sum paid per artist). LRO provide The Centre with working capital for projects and administrative costs. A small amount of funding is also acquired through private sponsorship. Groups at The Centre also charge a nominal fee for their performances.

A Professional Service

Colin McColl says he doesn't want "The Arts Centre looked upon as a freebie." The artists are offering a professional service and should not be exploited.

McColl also points out that if groups at The Centre did community performances for free, it would be very difficult for them to ask for payment in the same venues once they were independent of The Centre.

McColl cites another reason why a fee is always charged "It's extraordinary the way the general public look down at it (the performance) if it is free."

The capitalist ethic that 'if anything is worthwhile it has to have a price put on it' seems to be deeply ingrained in our society!

Both Nicholas and McColl feel that the level of financing is adequate. They are also both satisfied with the amount of decision making freedom available to them, even though they have the bureaucracy looming over them. As their wages are paid by the Labour Department, both are somewhat accountable to the Department for their actions. McColl mentions that he would ultimately like to see The Arts Centre move away from dependence on the Labour Department.

The concept of The Arts Centre is exciting and innovative. It has a great deal of potential for growing in new directions, and providing an alternative to the mainstream of the arts scene. Both Nicholas and McColl are optimistic that The Centre has a future. Colin McColl sees The Centre as "a big step forward in recognising alternative and community art in NZ." Darcy Nicholas says The Centre "has capabilities to open up areas that established arts groups are not concentrating on."

It seems that the dole queue can sometimes lead to a career in the arts.

Latika Vasil