Of fridges, theatres and the two-metre distance
A few weeks ago, just before Easter, I went to the supermarket. As soon as I stepped through the doors, I realised I had made a grave mistake. The place was so full of people, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were giving stuff away for free.
Have you ever seen those videos of Americans going nuts in a store on Black Friday? That’s the kind of scene that greeted me as I arrived at the supermarket (I’m only slightly exaggerating). The queues for the tills snaked all the way to the back wall. Zero social distancing.
All the hand sanitizer bottles dotted around the place were empty. There must have been hundreds of people in close proximity, milling about on the longforgotten “2 metre distance” stickers on the floor. And yet, the remarkable thing was that that same evening, I went online to do a virtual performance because theatres are closed, because the government wants to avoid having people in close proximity.
Am I saying that theatre is as vital as a supermarket? No, I realise that stocking your fridge is arguably more important than watching a play, but the performing arts industry is important and has been one of the hardest hit of all industries. Yet the government doesn’t seem to have any kind of plan for it.
On Sunday, the government announced the easing of restrictions after an enforced shutdown. In recent days the number of Covid cases on the island have plummeted to sometimes record lows, and a gradual re-opening of the country is the next logical step.
The restrictions that are to be eased or lifted cover a variety of industries and sectors. Restaurants, snack bars, sports (contact and non-contact), tourism, weddings, even catechism, but unfortunately there was no mention of the performing arts. Yes there was a brief mention of “mass events” but that all-encompassing phrase hardly applies to the entire spectrum of the performing arts. I’ve performed in some gigs that had so few people attending, you’d be hard pressed to call it an event, let alone a mass event.
My question is, why? Why ignore the performing arts industry? If we can have supermarkets packed full of people, why not socially-distanced theatre or cinema? If a wedding can take place with tables of up to six people and a cap on attendees, why can’t a theatre do the same? If we’re comfortable receiving tourists that have been stuffed together in a sealed tube, breathing recycled oxygen for hours at a time, why can’t we go watch a play? Or a stand-up comedy show?
The answer is there seems to be no real reason. In the eyes of this government, the performing arts is not a priority. That much is painfully obvious. Admittedly, this week we saw the announcement of a Memorandum of Understanding between Arts Council Malta and Malta Enterprise to further the professionalisation and development of the cultural and creative industries through things like business training. The announcement was rather overshadowed by some poorly worded comments from the minister and some even more poorly reported journalism on a partisan news site. Such initiatives are welcome, but action needs to be taken now.
The ship is sinking and whilst it’s good to think about adding extra ballast tanks to the hull, if you don’t stop the leak and bail out the water quickly, there soon won’t be a ship left to repair.
Independent creatives need to put out work to be able to survive. A recent survey by Culture Venture found that 38% of the respondents working in the creative sector have stopped their artistic activity altogether. In one year we’ve lost a third of our creatives. The survey found that those who are unemployed in the arts, but engaged in other sectors increased from 2.7% to 14.5% in the space of a year. As stated in the survey report, “a sectorial brain drain from the artistic sector may have commenced.”
The actions we take today (or lack of them) will have a long lasting impact. The performing arts sector can open safely and responsibly. If we want our independent creative practitioners to continue to produce work so that they can contribute to the sector, to the economy and to society as artists, then we need to give them the space to do so. Otherwise the loss will be felt for years to come.