Anoushyie Yarnell - CPR Associate Artist, Cardiff

TO whom it may concern

I am writing in concern about the planned withdrawal of Arts Council Wales funding from the CPR, not only as present associate artist of CPR but also as an artist making work in Wales with a view to placing this work in an international context. In fact it is hard for me to fully believe that the Arts Council is considering this action, when it seems to be a move in the very opposite direction from what arts practice in Wales needs.

It seems to be a backward vision of what is a “national” vision for arts practice in Wales, which fails to represent the diversity and unique range of artists and performers working in Wales today. The question is what kind of territory does ACW wish to create: an insular brand- enclosed fortress for Welsh performance, or a global site of creative exchange between Wales based and international artists/performers.

CPR is an important international cornerstone of performance practice exchange that brings together many diverse arts practices- dance, theatre, devised performance, voice and sound- from the traditional to the cutting edge- from long established practitioners to newly emerging artists seeking to discover their particular voice of exploration. An organisation with a working vision of this kind cannot simply be supported by a university, with an academic agenda with institutional hierarchies without compromising the far reaching experimental nature of its work- the emphasis of a university being one of learning, study and knowledge- the emphasis of the CPR being one of practice, discovery, curiosity and crossing into the unknown.

I have had the benefit of several workshops with the CPR, which have taken me beyond the boundaries of my own familiar practice-, and had the opportunity to meet with and work with artists whom I have encountered through the CPR. Though I am an artist who has lived and worked in Wales my whole life I have only ever performed in Cardiff and abroad until coming to work with CPR. The CPR is central to evolving both the audience for ,and practice of, cutting edge contemporary diverse performance practices in Wales, and creating a dialogue between them- here and internationally.

I also feel that artists in Wales often do not have the opportunity to benefit fully from the existence of CPR, but I do not believe that CPR can be held accountable for this. I feel the CPR should be assisted more fully to become a site of exchange between Wales based and international performance practitioners. The CPR attracts hundreds of performance practitioners every year to Aberystwyth from Wales and all over the world who would have no real motive to come there otherwise- if this is what the Arts Council of Wales wants, it is digging a backwater ditch for Welsh performance and denying the possibilities and the enormity and reality of the ocean.

Anoushyie Yarnell