NATIONAL ARTS COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA
25 October 2005


REPORT TO THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE


Presented by Julie Diphofa: Acting CEO of the National Arts Council of South Africa


REPORT TO THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE


Thank you for granting me the opportunity to present the National Arts Council to you today.


1. Background of the NAC


The NAC was established through Act no 56 of 1997. Its vision is to promote through the arts, the free expression of South Africa's cultures, while its mission is to promote excellence in the arts.


The NAC receives its annual grant from the National Department of Arts Culture. The NAC is governed by a Board which comprises 23 members, 14 of whom are appointed by the Minister of Arts and Culture, the remaining 9 members are the provincial representatives.

The Board is mandated to approve recommendations for funding from Advisory Panel members. Advisory Panel members are publicly nominated and appointed by the Board.


The National Arts Council currently offers financial support to organisations and individuals involved in dance and choreography, literature, music, theatre, multi-discipline, visual arts and craft projects. Each discipline is chaired by a Board member.


2. NAC Funding Activities


Applications for funding are invited twice a year. Closing dates for applications are in February and September each year. The NAC advertises in the national and provincial newspapers and on the NAC website. People apply for funding by filling in application forms.


2.1 Project Funding


Individuals, organisations and community groups engaged in arts projects are eligible for funding. Arts projects in the above mentioned disciplines are considered.


In performing arts, funding is considered for projects that are involved in research and documentation, performance, workshops leading to performance and creation of new works; the latter being inclusive of choreography, music composition and scriptwriting.


In the craft and visual arts disciplines, projects in research and documentation, creation of new works, as well as exhibition costs and residencies are considered for funding.


Although the NAC has two funding cycles per annum, projects will only be funded once a financial year. The second cycle is aimed at those projects that did not apply in the first cycle. Applications for national bursaries are also considered in the second cycle.


2.2 Bursaries


The NAC offers national and international bursaries for the arts at tertiary level. The bursaries awarded are primarily for tuition fees. National bursaries are categorised in undergraduate and post graduate studies.


Block bursaries are awarded to institutions for undergraduate students under criteria specified by the NAC. Postgraduate students apply to the NAC directly.


Students studying outside of South Africa are awarded bursaries for tuition or residential fees. Students have to prove that they have raised part of the costs towards their studies.


2.3 Company funding


Company funding is in fact a three year funding, a funding cycle which was started in 2002. It was preceded by lnterim funding" in 2001 which was funded through a R10m saving from the State Theatre by the Department of Arts and Culture; Performing Arts companies were invited to apply.


The following year the then Minister of Arts and Culture Dr Ben Ngubane announced that there was a further saving of R20m as a result of the restructuring of the playhouses. Performing arts companies were then invited to apply for the three year funding cycle.


The NAC recently undertook field visits to evaluate the impact of this funding-policy. We are in the process of finalising a report on our findings.


The preliminary outcomes illustrate that clear terms of reference on how the funding should be spent, must be drawn up.


Companies were asked to create new works, to ensure that theatres are staging quality productions and to contribute towards the development and growth of the performing arts circuit.


The majority of the performing arts companies that received company funding are situated in the four metropolitan provinces. Some provinces, to be exact:

Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and Limpopo are not represented at all in this funding; Limpopo and the Northern Cape for example do not have fully equipped theatres, while Northwest has only one playhouse (Mmabana) and no performing arts company funded.


The performing arts companies that were granted three year funding fall mainly under the contemporary genre: 60% of the funded dance companies have a contemporary repertoire, African dance is not represented.


Eight out of the 9 funded Music companies are either opera or philharmonic orchestra's. African Music Arts forms, contemporary or traditional, are not represented.


The funded theatre companies' main domain consists predominantly of staging drama performances, rather than creation of new plays.


The funding of the performing arts companies has created 2784 jobs for artists and 234 for administrative staff within these companies. However the jobs created for artists were not sustainable, they are employed on an ad hoc basis and are often shared and/or exchanged between the companies for the duration of a theatrical season.


3. Achievements

Since the Minister dissolved the previous Board, the NAC has stabilised itself remarkably.


From the NAC-staff, an acting CEO was appointed to continue with the mandate of the organisation. The NAC's annual grant is R47m. The yearly funding-budget amounts to R35m, of which R20m is designated for company funding. As mentioned earlier, the NAC holds two funding sessions a year. The first session, which was conducted successfully, was held in May of this year and R11,876,263.00 was allocated to various projects and individuals throughout the country.


Furthermore, the NAC also organised informative 'road-shows' in our more rurally-orientated provinces such as KZN, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West and Free State. The main aim of theses workshops was to inform the artistic community about NAC processes.


It is heart warming to note that in the Literature discipline alone, the number of applications received had increased tenfold for the September 2005 funding session.


The workshops that formed part of the NAC-road shows have increased the visibility and prominence of the National Arts Council, on the other hand it gave the Arts Development Officers an added challenge of actually really meeting the funding needs of artists.


The NAC has - through research in the field- realised the importance of having the application forms printed in all 11 official languages of South Africa. It has therefore undertaken to have the forms available to the public in their language of choice; a process that will be phased in over the next twelve months.


For the September- session where the forms were only available in English, the applicants were however allowed to fill it in, in their preferred language.


This decision was made to enable and capacitate applicants to supply the NAC with a clear and good application in their own wording, thus avoiding any possible discrimination on the basis of usage of the English language.


The NAC has also started to pre-monitor projects before assessment, this in order to give the advisory panels a much clearer and better picture of the project and to enable the panels to assess projects in a realistic manner rather than judging them based upon what is reflected on paper only. We must not forget that many members of the artistic community were previously disadvantaged -or advantaged for that matter- but should now at least be given equal opportunity in obtaining NAC funding.


4. Challenges of the NAC

The funding model currently used by the NAC is purely reactive, whereas pro-activity should be a factor, if not encouraged.

Although there were a few initiatives in 2002-2003, such as the Writers' Grant, the Search for New Plays and the National Craft Development Initiative, these were all mothballed with the appointed of the previous Board In 2003.


Applicants are simply invited to apply for funding and funds are disbursed. The NAC does not identify projects nor create initiatives that will promote and support the arts in South Africa.


As mentioned before: projects are only allowed to apply for funding once per financial year. This implicates that short-term projects, which are completed within a month or so, are not legible for subsequent funding until the following year.


Due to budgetary constraints coupled to the overwhelming demand for funding, only limited amounts of money are being allocated. This poses a major problem if, either the project in question cannot start because of insufficient funding or the work of artists is to be sustained for a longer term.


The NAC is often regarded as merely a bank where artists and arts related projects can simply cash in for funding.


The NAC Act states that it may fund arts projects and can play an advisory role to the Minister.


It is of viable importance that the NAC not only fulfils its funding mandate but is also an active role-player in the promotion of the arts, acts in an advisory capacity regarding policy and, lastly provides support to artists and their concerns.


During the recent funding session the NAC received 922 applications requesting a total of R159m across all the disciplines.


Dealing with these big numbers of projects, it becomes difficult to monitor and evaluate each and every one that is funded, particularly those that only received a very small amount of money.


There is also an added responsibility put onto the NAC because the Provincial Arts and Culture Councils are either not fully functional or have very limited budgets.

In 2000 the NAC took a stance not to fund projects of local or provincial significance; however this was not well received by the arts community and over time it seemed unfair to artists from poorer provinces.

Not unimportantly, the NAC is also mandated to redress past imbalances and if projects that are seen to be of local significance are not assisted, the NAC would seem to be absolving one of its responsibilities. The NAC is currently funding worthy projects from all over the country but ideally the NAC should be funding projects of national significance.


There is also the issue of unequal distribution of funds: funding is biased towards Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape.

Other provinces do not receive a fair share of the cake, which may be attributed to the fact that artists are concentrated in particular provinces.


In the case of Gauteng access to the NAC office is quite easy and artists are able to receive the necessary assistance and information from the NAC staff.


On the other hand, some - mainly rural- provinces, where the mere existence of the NAC is hardly known and that coupled to the lack of infrastructure and information-access, regretfully receive minimal funding.


The NAC intends continuing with and striving for a national information dissemination for next year as well.


When the inaugural Board restructured the NAC and provided for new posts, such as accountant, manager, marketing officer, etc, the previous Board however did not approve the appointments and these posts are up-to-date not filled.


This was one, if not the main reason, that rendered the NAC to only fulfil the role of disbursement of funds.


In August this year a strategic planning meeting was held to try and sort out issues in the short term. These included pre monitoring of projects, translation of application forms into all official languages and distribution of funding equitably.


5. The way forward


Concentrate on projects of national significance.

· Align the NAC with major festivals in all provinces by way of providing funding.

· Three tier system of funding to be effective (national, provincial and local).

· Restructure the NAC with full staff complement (fundraising, marketing and communication, international liaisons, research and special initiatives).

Partnership with provincial departments.

· Negotiate with DAC to provide additional funding to establish NAC regional offices

· Implementation of an arts-orientated library open to the community within the NAC's premises.

· Initiate a research/documentation project aimed at preserving and advancing the national artistic heritage


Julie Diphofa,

Acting CEO of the National Arts Council of South Africa.

25 October 2005.