WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU ON ARTS ADMIN COURSES

LETTER TO PHD STUDENT OF MEDIA AND MOVING IMAGE AT BIRKBECK

Dear Haris,

the problem with audience questionnaires is that all questionnaires are entirely subjective.


In short, if I ask the audience:

Did you travel far to see the show today?

They will say "no", if 100 miles is no distance to them and they are real afficianados of the form - I had 4 film makers sleeping on my couches, floors and spare bedroom who had come from San Francisco, Amsterdam and Vienna to see their films presented for the first time anywhere on the big-screen and they had rounded up at least ten supporters each who had come to see the screenings and support them.

Others will say "yes" if they regard Notting Hill Gate to Hammersmith as a long way and had ten minutes of difficulty trying to find somewhere to park outside the cinema!


I actually set out a table of criteria for the audiences, similar to the ones which I explained in terms of the selection criteria for the films in the document I sent back previously.

As yet there exists very little in the way of a developed set of critical principles by which to agree what constitutes dance film, let alone what makes a "good", "well-made" or creatively satisfying dance/moving image project or film.

Our audience was probably a mix pretty nearly 50/50 dancefilm makers- dance afficianados and general public who came out of interest.

We averaged 60 people per show, which I believe is higher than average for Dancefilm festivals and certainly much bigger than the audiences I have experienced at similar international dancefilm festivals such as Cinedans, SouthEast Dance Festival in Brighton or at IMZ in The Hague.

Of this average of 60 people a show, we got around 30% who bothered to fill in the questionnaires (20 per show) and very few of these offered informed critical observations on the films, other than "very good" or "I did not like the one which..." which is not exactly the kind of quality feedback which might spark much of a critical discourse.

The problem is that no-one is either brave enough of feels sufficiently qualified publically to adjudicate on an art form which is so predominantly experimental and has such a broad set of ways of expression.

Since the international Academic lobby is also very influential in the "Moving-Image" making processes and the exhibition areas of dancefilm - these guys have a strong vested interest in dressing up often shallow and relatively incompetent output of their students as "professional" examples of the form, - thus the picture becomes ever less easy to clarify and for curators, ever more difficult to separate the well made from the merely well-intentioned without inviting calumny and approbation from the politically corrected and financially motivated Moving Image pundits.

It might further interest you to know that the dance critics from the national papers, stay away from dancefilm despite very large efforts to interest them in the form, including sending out taster DVD's and personal invites to adjudicate entries .

This says great deal about the quality and level of interest of dance criticism in the UK , much of which seems to suffer chronically from a lack of breadth in critical observation.
Critics often appear at best slightly star-struck fans, in the middle the usual herd always found following in the wake of this weeks Hot Property and at worst, the paid lobbyists for the main live performance spaces such as The Place, Sadlers Wells, The Royal Opera House and the vastly overfunded and currently creatively underpowered South Bank Centre. All of the above tend to focus on a small select band of favoured choreographers and companies who can afford the PR machinery to shoehorn their work into these spaces.

So as far as my questionaires go, I could report that I had a "healthy" and unusually "high response rate" of which the majority was "favourable", "liked" the films on offer, "thought that the schedule and programme was catholic and discerning" etc, etc, etc and therefore provides us every justification in applying for further funds and continuing the important work of the LIDFF. ......

They also told me where and how the festival publicity had caught their eye, whether they would use the online Festival resources ongoing, how much they knew about the art-form, what was the type of interest group to which they belonged, was the ticket price value for money, were the festival dates convenient, was the location good for them, and sundry other useful but relatively inconsequential pieces of information.

In reality i should report that the questionnaires were as useful as anyone might want to make them or might be politically expedient in terms of future arts fund lobbying.

Most feedback forms are used merely by the Fundees to prove to the Funders that they actually spent the money given them and someone turned up to see them spend it . Thus conveniently closing the self-justification loop of Jobs for the Arts funding adminstrators and the projects they support.

Questionnaires therefore should be regarded as not much more value than this.

If, as part of your research, you come up with a questionnaire that is both meaningful, valuable, tells you something you did not know previously about the exhibited work and offers critical insights that cannot be ignored and fundamentally changes the way in which dancefilm festivals might present themselves or approach their markets, please let me know, I will use it!

My belief is that until the audience for dancefilm grows and begins to mature and the critical discourse begins to elevate, we should not look for questionnaires to provide anything of particular creative value in the world of Dancefilm.

I hope this helps