Clare Walters - theatre director, singer, bodyworker, project manager, UK

I am writing in support of the value of the work of the CPR. I have been a supporter of and involved in the work of the CPR since 1990. In that time I have had the pleasure of attending many of their workshops, shows, festivals and other events. I still regularly tell the tale of my first CPR event, the phenomenal Political Theatre conference I attended at my old University, Lancaster, in 1990. I was a directing student at Bristol Old Vic and happened to see a flyer at the Arnolfini about it and was drawn to go. I had never seen anything like it and I had no idea until that point of the power and the potential of the industry I was already committed to working in.

I was also lucky enough to be a UK-based performer in Adriadne's Thread in the mid 1990s - the fabulous sensory experience, event and show from Columbia that toured in Wales - and this had a huge impact on my work both as a theatre director and and bodyworker. I am also a regular participant at Giving Voice and this too has been a massive professional asset for me, in this case in my work as a singer and voiceworker, as I know it is for many other people. I will be there again this year.

I also now describe myself as an 'original UK Georgian' as I attended the first workshop in the UK taught by Georgian Ethno-musicologists Edisher Garadkanize and Josef Jordania who were invited by the CPR, I think in 1993. Georgian songs, and these men who came to teach them have gone to the hearts of the singers in the UK and a great many of us have shared these songs and taught them on. It was an honour to perform these songs at the Georgian banquet held at the marvellous Performance, Food and Cookery Conference in 1993.

As the former project manager of the International Workshop Festival, a companion organisation in some ways to the CPR, certainly in its 1990s' incarnation under the direction of Dick McCaw and before him Nigel Jamieson, I was and am still in a position to recognise and appreciate the long term and wide ranging affects of the collaborations and dialogues that have come from the work both organisations. CPD and facilitated dialogue of integrity plus support and awareness is of massive importance to performers and theatre artists who often work alone and unsupported and there is no-one else doing what the CPR does. They are unique.

I am desolate to receive the news that the CPR are now to enter into a struggle to continue to produce, welcome and respond to work of the calibre they recognise and inspire. The loss of anything this organisation wants to do will be a great one. Welsh Arts Council please reconsider your intention to remove the CPR's revenue funding and please change your minds. This work needs to continue. With love, support and the best possible wishes See you at Giving Voice!

Love Clare

Clare Walters
theatre director, singer, bodyworker, project manager, London