Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning.
The Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation is pleased to be associated with the Dance Umbrella.
We are particularly excited that the initiative responds directly to the objectives we have set ourselves as part of positioning Gauteng as the home of artistic and cultural excellence that contributes social cohesion and nation building.
As you would know the national department of Arts and Culture has described the creative economy as the second big driver of economic growth since the discovery of gold hence the dictum: Mzansi’s Golden Economy.
The Gauteng Provincial Government has approved various strategies as part of ensuring that we play our part in contributing to the drive to ensure that an environment exists for the creative economy to thrive.
The Dance Umbrella which celebrates a quarter of a century is a shining example of the things we can achieve if we act together in pursuit of a shared vision that serves as a compass for all of us.
The strategies we are referring to emanate from our Creative Industries Framework and they are Music, Performing Arts, Craft and the Visual Arts. Our objective is to build these sectors into viable entities that create jobs, develop skills and drive the cultural and heritage tourism agenda of the province.
As such the partnership between the Provincial Government and the Dance Umbrella must be one that goes beyond financial support but also one that looks at the future sustainability of the programmes that you initiate.
There are two important issues I wish to bring to your attention that we are currently dealing with:
The first is that through the Gauteng Arts and Culture Council the Provincial Government disburses funds on a yearly basis to organisations that involved in various initiatives in the sector. This practice may have been relevant at the time it was initiated.
But perhaps the time has also come to ask the vexed question: is it sustainable. We have taken a view that it is not. And therefore part of what we consider to be the way forward is that we must consider the change in the business model of the Council.
Is it not appropriate that we should look at a council that is more proactive in terms of policy formulation and is empowered to undertake raising funding for programmes? We think that this will also help in defining the agenda collectively, raise the resources and ensure that the environment allows space for qualitative growth.
So this is food for thought for all of us. The second point relates to the whole institutional arrangement of the creative industries. The current set up in the Province is that we have a film commission to the exclusion of the rest of the creative sector.
We have held an indaba to talk to the sector and we have concluded the report and we will have to turn that into action: a bankable business plan that will ensure we unearth the next generation of creative industries practitioners.
We wish you a productive festival and are looking forward to this year’s works.
