Province forsakes Luminato
Senseless to savage funding as festival verges on breakthrough. Knelman,
Why did the government of Ontario forsake Luminato, until now one of its favourite cultural enterprises, and leave the annual arts festival reeling from the damage inflicted by a sudden, brutal funding cut?
For the arts world, the big shocker in the otherwise predictably moderate budget presented by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan on Tuesday was the damaging and unexpected cut in Luminato’s funding for 2013 and 2014 from $8.5 million to $5 million, a reduction of more than 40 per cent for those two years.
That’s a foolish and self-destructive decision.
Luminato is about cultural innovation; it is the MARS of the arts world. And Luminato is on the verge of realizing its exciting potential. That’s why it represents Ontario’s best shot at a growth industry for culture and tourism, with a big potential payoff, but only if it can count on stable funding.
This drastic cut is all the more startling because virtually every other Ontario arts organization got off lightly, with the kind of minor trims that they can live with.
Except for Luminato, the arts news in the budget was perfectly in keeping with what was presumed to be the Mcguinty government’s treatment of the arts world. The message was to be: “We love you, but times are hard and everyone has to share the pain. Still, this won’t hurt.”
For nearly a decade, the Ontario government has earned a reputation for being generous to the arts, and recognizing what they contribute to both quality of life and the economy. Indeed, without the support of Dalton Mcguinty and former finance minister Greg Sorbara, I doubt Luminato would have been launched.
The Liberals clearly wanted to find a way to stay true to this philosophy while at the same time facing up to the current economic problem.
Accordingly, restraint and moderation were the key messages of the day. And for almost everyone in the arts world, the details of the budget were consistent with those guiding principles.
Except for Luminato. It’s as if, in order to spare other members of the culture club, one scapegoat had to be targeted to absorb all the punishment. Compare and contrast: seven Ontario arts attractions, including the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario, took cuts adding up to about 2 per cent of their operating subsidies for the next three years. But the ROM and the AGO will each go on receiving well over $20 million a year each from Queen’s Park. So by what logic can Duncan explain cutting Luminato by more than 40 per cent? It’s as if some powerful force at Queen’s Park decided that Luminato should be attacked in the dark by knifewielding hooligans and left in an alley staggering from its wounds and needing to be taken to an emergency room. Is there anything in Luminato’s track record over its first five festivals, starting in 2007, that would justify this vicious assault by a government that previously loved and appreciated it? The short answer: no. With a budget of around $12 million annually, Luminato has already established itself as the leading multi-arts festival in North America, ready to compete with the world’s most revered arts festivals in Edinburgh and Sydney. It offers scores of free events, such as last year’s k.d. lang concert in David Pecaut Square, creating a celebratory atmosphere and bringing crowds of happy people into the streets. Despite the tiresome grumbling of certain players in the Toronto arts world who see Luminato as an unwelcome intruder, the festival has shared its wealth and given major boosts to many local arts groups. In its first five festivals, Luminato invested $10.5 million in Ontario artists and producers through fees and commissions. Without Luminato money, Volcano would not have been able to stage The Africa Trilogy; Soundstreams could not have staged The Children’s Crusade and Necessary Angel would not have had the funding to produce Toute Comme Elle. Large cheques have also been received by Harbourfront Centre and Soulpepper for various special festival events. Others who have benefited from partnering with Luminato include the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Ontario Museum, Theatre Direct and Tapestries. As the premier himself knows very well, Luminato has had a very positive impact on the Ontario economy. Over five years, its economic impact is $600 million in visitor expenditure.
Unlike most of our venerable arts institutions, it’s a young and growing creature with huge potential — rather like the Toronto International Film Festival in its early years.
That’s why it has become a top performer in the cultural world in terms of support from corporate sponsors and philanthropic donors. And that’s why a Chicago Tribune columnist has urged his city to start its own version of Luminato, a suggestion its mayor, Rahm Emanuel, is likely to heed.
With so many free events, and only 10 per cent of its revenue coming from sales to ticketed events, Luminato depends on both strong public funding and major private backing for its survival.
Here is the most ludicrous twist. Having invested about $25 million in Luminato, it makes no sense for this government to whack the festival at the crucial moment when it is on the verge of a breakthrough.
Luminato’s board has been working on a strategic plan with Gail Lord, one of the world’s leading cultural consultants, and her team at Toronto-based Lord Cultural Resources. And this year marks the arrival of a new artistic director, Jorn Weisbrodt, with the kind of exciting international vision that could help build Luminato into the greatest arts festival in the world.
The slashing of Luminato is a huge mistake that could result in the loss of the greatest opportunity for a cultural leap forward that Ontario is likely to have in this decade.
Given the magnitude of the blunder, I have to ask whether decisionmakers at Queen’s Park knew what they were doing. And if he signed off on it, what could Mcguinty have been thinking? mknelman@thestar.ca