Dear LGI Community,
LGI is relieved and fortunate to have received Four Year Funding from the Australia Council for 2021-2024. However, after this notification last Friday, it quickly became clear that the national dance landscape has been dramatically impacted with a number of our colleagues receiving no support or minimal transition funds for their valuable work.
It is deeply disturbing to contemplate this new, diminished place for dance. Multi-year funded dance companies now number eight in comparison to thirteen companies funded in the last round and pathways for new companies to enter this category are more limited than ever. Our already-struggling art form continues its trajectory of compromise and it is disappointing that the arts sector doesn’t appear to be valued by this Government. It is so clear that dance is not only an art form to take pleasure in, but a way of thinking through physical experience. At this time, dance and movement are all important reminders of our bodies as we sit on the couch with our laptops.
LGI has always championed independent artists and partnered with our peer organisations in the dance sector. But it is with a more urgent sense of this purpose that we envision the future ahead of us. We know that as a small company our knowledge and inspiration comes from our relationships both locally and nationally. We draw great strength from our community and are committed to contributing all that we can to its health and vitality as we believe it offers something essential to the lives and culture of people in our society.
This is such a brutal time for artists, but also a time for solidarity with our colleagues, looking out for each other and believing in the importance of what we do.
All at LGI
Image: Gregory Lorenzutti