Jessica Naish - Wales

Dear Judie and Richard,

It is with utter disbelief that I hear of the news of ACW proposed cuts to CPR. I offer my unreserved support for the continuation and increased funding for the essential and uniquely outward-facing work that CPR carries out in Wales. No other arts organisation in Wales, perhaps even the U.K other than LIFT, has developed such a strong and well established international portfolio of work, training and artistic collaborations as CPR has done over the past 20 plus years. The international reputation and reach of CPR has at all times been rooted firmly in Wales, and has quite literally put Wales on the performance map of the world. The Arts Council for Wales stated only last year, in bold terms the position that CPR has a unique place in the strategic development of drama, theatre and performance in Wales:

‘CPR is a vital and prestigious player in the arts in Wales. It is at an important transitional stage with new possibilities opening out with occupancy of The Foundry. It’s history, experience, and present interests are important to mobilise into the challenges of new resources for drama theatre and performance, centring now in Wales on the development of a non-building based national theatre.’ (ACW Director of Arts, 2007)

My personal support for your work with CPR is as a former student of theatre and performance for whom your work in the early '90s was an inspiration and a source of academic study, as a practitioner CPR provides specialist training opportunities and experiences unrivalled in Wales (and the U.K in my opinion) and now as Head of Learning and Engagement at Sherman Cymru I am looking forward to collaborating in the programming of international workshops and training programmes. Your approach to collaboration, performance making, artistic dialogue and training is so open, richly underpinned with experience and always ahead of the game.

The work of CPR matches unequivocally the strategic and capacity-building aims of ACW and an outward-facing Wales, and so ACW’s decision to cut CPR is brought sharply into question.To lose CPR would be to lose an essential, 'vital' part of Welsh culture and heritage as well as a future in which Wales can confidently embrace a progressive world vision in its theatre, reasearch and performance practice.

Yours in support,

Jessica Naish

Wales