Centre for Performance Research

Caroline Waterlow, Artist, Bristol

2008-05-09T06:56:00.001-07:00

Dear Richard and Judie

I hope this doesn’t come too late but I wanted to write as by way of giving support for your work.
I first came across CPR with the publication of the excellent and constant source of reference, the Anthropology of Performance Art. Subsequently I attended ISTA in Copenhagen and partook in some Giving Voice events. Although I haven’t been in contact for a while, I always consider finding out about your work, ISTA’s work, as a milestone in my career and work as an artist, a visual artist.
I do hope you will receive the support you need as I believe you are engaged in the valuable and necessary work of taking art across boundaries – and I hope it will be appreciated and valued as such.

All best wishes
Caroline Waterlow

Christian Wolz, Vocal Artist, Germany

2008-05-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Giving Voice - an international Festival:

Artists, Scientists, Professionals, Students, Technical Engineers and Voice Enthusiasts from around the world and from different cultures meet each other in Aberystwyth to give each other new stimuli and to exchange new life experiences. New meetings take place and some meet once again. It is like a family meeting and the family is constantly growing. Never before have I experienced a Festival like Giving Voice. Everyone is a part of this vocal society, at least for the week. People are not nervous of each other and it is easy to mingle with others, whether this is after a performance, during a lunch break or in a workshop. Everyone takes the opportunity to be a part of this big event.

The Voice is the most direct tool that can be used to represent the mental and physical human state. Singing is the most natural art of expression of a human being. The work with and the development of the voice is the basic requirement for all forms of performing arts - singing, theatre, performance arts and even dance. Any new arts development is an interdisciplinary collaboration between these arts forms. The human voice has so many facets. Only through the exchange of the different methods of using the voice is it possible to develop it as a tool, to go much further and to develop new forms of its expression.

The influence of different cultures such as Inuit singing, classic singing, Belcanto singing, oriental singing, Gaelic singing and avant-garde singing flowed through the Festival and were offered to festival participants and local public in the form of presentations, talks and workshops. The artists and scientists also exchanged views and got together to make new plans for development and co-operation, which will in turn be distributed around the world. And in this way art is constantly expanding. The Festival offers a special opportunity to get together. It is important to save such an event because this Festival continues to grow and develop further from year to year. It grows, the voice community grows and through it a pool of so much information about the voice is collected. In addition, so many creative processes take place there which lead to an excellent understanding between cultures.

I was a part of this festival as an artist and as a teacher and enjoyed my time there immensely, although I wished I could have had more time for myself to be able to process all the new information that I was given during the day. I met people during the Giving Voice Festival who I would have otherwise never met in such intimate circumstances. Something has happened to me since then - I have had contact with new experiences and thoughts, which have caused very deep reflection. It was a special meeting and I wish to meet this vocal family in Wales again in the future.

I will live on the food of Giving Voice 2008 for a long time. In the future, I will be working together with other participants of the Festival and I hope to come once more to Wales, Aberystwyth to find some more impulses and friends of the arts.

Christian Wolz, vocal artist and composer, teacher, Berlin - Germany

Martin Orbach, Founder and Director, Abergavenny Food Festival

2008-05-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Richard

Alicia Rios has drawn my attention to the difficulties you are facing and I am writing to add my voice to the many others who are calling for the Arts Council of Wales to urgently rethink their decision to remove CPR's revenue funding.

As founder and Programme Director of the Abergavenny Food Festival, I am well aware of the precariousness of existence for independent not-for-profit organisations. I am also aware of the sustained commitment, dedication and clarity of purpose that is necessary to achieve the kind of reputation that you have achieved at CPR.

With small amounts of public funding you have been able to create something of truly international significance. Although the amounts are small they are nonetheless absolutely essential. They show that your work is appreciated and valued. But more than that, they offer the minimum amount of financial security that you need if you are to sustain work of this calibre over time.

Providing funding project by project is not the answer. It's a double whammy. While sapping your morale by removing the limited security you have, it also asks you to divert a greater amount of your limited resources to meeting funders' agendas. This is not the way to treat an organisation that has consistently delivered exceptional value for public money year-on-year for 20 years. Nor is it the way to nurture one of Wales’ all-too-few genuinely innovative and internationally-celebrated cultural institutions.

The ACW must find another way.

Yours sincerely

Martin Orbach
Director of Programming / Cyfarwyddwr Rhaglennu

Ilan Abrahams, Artist, Australia

2008-05-08T09:27:00.001-07:00

hello
my name is Ilan Abrahams. Sending you support and energy in what sounds like a difficult time with your funding cuts.Your centre sounds great, hope it can continue.
kind regards
Ilan Abrahams
Sense of Place Projects

Gerald Tyler, Artist, Wales

2008-05-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Reader,

I understand and accept that things cannot stay the same forever. I also know that money doesn’t grow on trees and that the already limited resources that ACW manage on behalf of the Assembly, are dwindling as I write this letter. And of course I agree that there are a swathe of exciting, unique and new projects and companies, which warrant having these same shrinking funds invested in them. And to be fair, I don’t think there is a practising artist in this country’s creative community who doesn’t know all of these things.
So please accept that when a large number of us unite to ask you to think again before withdrawing core funding from what could easily be thought of as one of our competitors for scarce financial succour, we are doing it because we honestly think you are making a mistake.

I have no pretence of knowing how the Centre for Performance Research, rates as a financial success. I don’t know even if they manage the funding they have received up to this date efficiently. I can only imagine that their “value for money” must figure greatly in your decision to stem the fiscal flow to them, since even their most fierce critic can plainly see their continual and generous artistic value to ALL of those within the creative community of Wales.

There is no point in my extolling the virtues and achievements of CPR in this letter because they are obvious. What you might not be aware of though, is the huge number of people, organisations and companies throughout Europe and the world at large, who find the resources, networks and support systems established by CPR, invaluable. You might be surprised also to find out just how many of the active and respected artists working in Wales today, owe at least some part of their success or inspiration to being involved at some stage with CPR or one of their many projects.

I don’t claim to have a unique knowledge of how and why artists come together to make new works or find inspiration but I do have a reasonably broad one. In my experience, the “surgery or master-class” type gatherings, painstakingly engineered by CPR, yield a disproportionately high rate of successful new collaborations and exchanges of ideas. These events are ego-less and generous and regardless of scale; consistently attract artists, teachers and enthusiasts who DO NOT meet elsewhere.

But you know all of this. Anyone who has been paying attention over the last quarter century does.

So again I suggest that with their artistic value undeniable, it must be a financial “failure” which you feel demands this withdraw of support. If this is the case and you feel that CPR are just not doing enough with the money; help them out. Appoint them a consultant or a small team of experts to advise and help “tune” their practice. Present them with successful models to aspire to.

I know that there is more to ACW than “giving out money”. I know that within the organisation there are a wealth of experienced and capable individuals and whole teams, with skills and specialist knowledge which could help “rescue” CPR if that is what you feel they need.

Please, I urge you to at least try to help before you pull out.

Thank you for reading this.

Yours sincerely

Gerald M Tyler.

Zaka Aman,Choir Leader and Vocal Trainer

2008-05-08T09:20:00.001-07:00

Hi Judy, to the Welsh Arts Council:
How often can you say about an event or a time in your life that it has truly changed the path that you were goin?Giving Voice organised by CPR has done that for me. Through attending courses at CPR I became a choir leader. I have been leading a choir in Leeds, and rehearsals, workshops and seminars for choirs around the world since being inspired at CPR. CPR has given me a second career through its courses. One that enabled me to affect lots of people's lives positively, creatively and lovingly. I find it incomprehensible that an extremely creative, profoundly educational, positively life-changing, and nationally and internationally highly acclaimed Welsh organisation could have its funding withdrawn by its own council. Courses at CPR are attended by people from all over Europe, in fact the whole world. For the international art world CPR is one of the institutions that puts Wales on the map! Why would Wales NOT support that? I think it should. It would be worth it. For Wales and its reputation as the home of ground-breaking artistic activity.
Zaka Aman,Choir Leader and Vocal Trainer

Mark Williams MP

2008-04-17T07:41:00.001-07:00

House of Commons
Early Day Motion

WITHDRAWAL OF ARTS COUNCIL WALES FUNDING
03.04.2008

Williams, Mark
That this House notes with concern the decision of Arts Council Wales to withdraw funding to six clients across Wales; further notes that two of these clients, the Centre for Performance Research and Dawns Dyfed are based in Ceredigion; regrets that the decision to reprioritise Lottery funding to the London Olympics has left Arts Council Wales with significant budgetary pressures; pays tribute to the achievement of Dawns Dyfed with children, young people and the disadvantaged across three counties for over 18 years; pays tribute also to the excellent regard in which the Centre for Performance Research is held on a national and international level for being a trailblazer in intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange in theatre and performance; further notes that the achievement of both organisations have been fully recognised by Arts Council Wales; reminds the Welsh Assembly Government of its commitment made in November that there would be no cutbacks to funding to arts bodies outside Cardiff; and urges the Arts Council Wales to work with the Assembly Government Culture Minister and the UK Government to reconsider their decision to withdraw funding, which stands to jeopardise the future of these two very successful organisations.

Moira Vincentelli - Senior lecturer in Art History, School of Art, Aberystwyth and Board member of CPR

2008-04-17T01:29:00.000-07:00

Letter of Support for the Centre for performance Research

I am very concerned about the decision to cut the revenue funding to the Centre for Performance Research. This company may be based in Aberystwyth but it plays a unique role in the international world of avant-garde performance. Wales has enough such companies and CPR has a very special place among them. It has proved over decades its ability to attract considerable additional funding but all such funds are predicated on having the infrastructure in place from which grant applications and new initiatives can be launched. In removing the base funding which attracts partnership funding from the university and many others the Art Council embarks on a very dangerous game of brinkmanship. It may claim that it wants to maintain this organisation and recognises its excellent work but cuts at this level will quickly lead to withering away of the fine initiatives that have been established and were so clearly reaching to new audiences with the opening of the Foundry.

Moira Vincentelli
Senior lecturer in Art History
School of Art
Buarth Mawr, Aberystwyth
Board member of CPR

Gordon Kennedy - Performance Artist, Glasgow

2008-04-15T02:47:00.001-07:00

Dear Sir / Madam –

I am a writer and performance artist from Glasgow, and recently visited Wales to attend a workshop at Giving Voice Festival, run by the Centre for Performance Research at Aberystwyth.

I am aware that the Centre is currently funded by yourselves, and would like to congratulate you on your support for this excellent resource.

I was delighted in particular, by the intensely practical and applicable basis of the workshop training, and by the way in which the practical, theoretical and performance aspects of the festival as a whole informed and cross- pollinated each other. The environment provided by the CPR was intensely stimulating, and I have to say I have not encountered anything quite like it elsewhere.

I understand that you are presently considering withdrawing funding from this institution, and feel bound to say that this would represent a major blow to the performing arts, both in Wales and further afield. A few countries can boast a broad-based voice festival of this stature, attracting such a calibre if international coaches and performers – and that fact stands as testament to the international status of the Centre.

Events such as this, and institutions such as the CPR, are the seedbed of artistic practice.

It would seem strange, entrusted with the stewardship of a house, to invest in the windows, doors and furniture, and remove the foundations.

Best Wishes
Gordon Kennedy

Frankie Armstrong - Singer and Voice Teacher, Wales

2008-04-10T02:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Joan, Richard and all at C P R,

I must thank you for another wonderfully stimulating and enlivening Giving Voice event. As you know I have been to nine of the ten previous Giving Voice Workshop/Conferences and this one was full of the same rich mix of highly educative hands-on workshops, stimulating
papers and discussions and extraordinary world class
performances.

For me, as a Professional voice teacher and singer, Giving Voice has consistently given me the range of development opportunities
I need, all in an intense period of time. This was no exception. As well as the two day Workshop I ran, the three days with Lin Snelling from Canada was a profound learning experience and I know I will continue to work with her whether here or when visiting Canada.

I have participated in a variety of Voice Conferences in the U S and Australia as well as on the continent of Europe, but none offer me the stimulus and learning across such a wide spectrum of skills and understanding.

I can think of no other way in which, as a busy practitioner, I could keep developing my skills and hence for me, as for many others, it would be a terrible blow and impoverishment to our art should Giving Voice events have to end. There are teachers and practitioners from Wales and around the world who, like me, would feel bereft. It seems inconceivable that funding should be withdrawn from this rich unique event. Everyone I spoke to over the five days, be they like me, regular attenders or first time students or teachers, were astonished that this is now a real possibility. I thank you again most warmly and sincerely hope that the funders will recognise, however belatedly, the extraordinary work you do
here in Wales.

With very best wishes,

Frankie Armstrong
Singer and Voice Teacher, Wales
http://www.frankiearmstrong.com/

Pauline Down - Voice Practitioner, Wales

2008-04-10T02:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Joan Mills,

I attended two days of CPRs Giving Voice Festival last week and I want to thank you for yet again providing an incredibly exciting professional development opportunity for me as a voice practitioner.

My work is in North Wales where I offer voice training to young people wishing to develop their theatre skills, lead the Bangor Community Choir, run various other singing and voice projects in the community and also perform and compose for voice myself.

Like any other artist, in order for my practice to develop and thrive I need to seek training, mentoring, exposure to new work etc. The Giving Voice Festival is the only opportunity I have found in Wales to develop my practical skills, through exciting workshops with international voice practitioners who are leaders in this field.

The 2 day workshop that I attended this year with Frankie Armstrong (Wales ) and Janet B. Rodgers (USA) was excellent and extremely valuable . The lecture/demonstrations that I attended in the late afternoon/early evening were all inspirational in different ways and the innovative evening performances gave me the exposure to new work in this field which I crave.

Simply being amongst other voice practitioners for two days with the networking and discussion opportunities that that brings felt as beneficial as an intensive mentoring session.

I’m not aware of other events that offer such a comprehensive mix of practical workshops, lecture/demonstrations and performances in the voice field.

I know that this mix is a familiar format to the CPR and used for other projects in the year not just the Giving Voice project.

I think we are very lucky here in Wales to have an organisation so committed to professional and artistic development that they put enormous energy into maintaining and developing a thriving international network which feeds practice back here in Wales and also enables positive and fruitful exchange between the different countries.

This is the 7th Giving Voice Festival that I have attended and every single time I have come away thrilled, inspired and with a fresh commitment to my work.

I am aware that the future of the CPR is uncertain at the moment and so I would be grateful if you could forward my letter to the Arts Council of Wales as a way of offering my support because it would be an enormous loss to me, and to those in North Wales with whom I collaborate or to whom I offer my skills, if the CPR were unable to continue offering such important events.

With thanks and appreciation,

Pauline Down, Wales

Peter Brook - Director of Film, Theatre and Opera

2008-04-08T02:18:00.000-07:00

I am very sad to hear of the difficulties that CPR are having.

It has achieved much and carries out immensely valuable and varied work.

It would be a great loss not only to Wales but also to the world of culture should they not be able to carry on.

Mr Peter Brook
Paris
France

Mark Williams MP

2008-04-08T02:15:00.000-07:00

Ref: AR/CPR/ACW/290208

Dear Mr Tyndall,

I was baffled and extremely disappointed to hear of Arts Council of Wales’ decision to withdraw revenue funding for the Centre for Performance Research, based at Aberystwyth University in my constituency.

I should not need to remind you of the excellent regard in which the CPR is held on a national and international level. Indeed I have seen the glowing tribute the Arts Council to the work carried out by the Centre last year.

The CPR, whilst being an organisation deeply rooted in Wales, has been a trailblazer for intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange for many years, often ploughing a lonely furrow. The work it has done in these areas, and the expertise it has, makes the CPR an invaluable resource as this sort of collaborative work becomes ever more popular.

I have seen an astounding collection of letters of support from those who have worked with the CPR, which pays testament to the very high regard in which it is held across the country.

I appreciate that the ACW has serve pressure on its budgets due to the Government’s decision to shift lottery funding to the London Olympics. Nevertheless this decision runs counter to the assurance given by Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM, Assembly Culture Minister in October, that there would be no cutbacks to funding to arts outside Cardiff, when a further £13.5 million was found to save the Wales Millenium Centre. The current £118,300 revenue grant is a tiny proportion of this sum.

As you will know, the Centre is a very efficient, lean organisation that already operates on skeletal staffing levels.

I join with many others as Aberystwyth’s Member of Parliament to urge you to reconsider this decision, and continue to provide the CPR with revenue funding. Without it, there is a strong likelihood that at best, the CPR will be reduced to a shadow of its former self.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Williams MP

Yvon Bonenfant - Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts, University of Winchester

2008-04-08T02:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Arts Council of Wales:

RE: Centre for Performance Research

Having just returned from Giving Voice 10, the international voice festival run by CPR, I feel compelled to express my opinion about the threatened defunding of the Centre for Performance Research by the Arts Council of Wales.

This festival is unique not only in the UK but in the world. It brings together workshops, presentations, and a wide variety of performances from across the worlds of music and theatre in a way that is representative of the practical nature of the CPR’s commitment to developing new art and allying this with relating that art to the work of the ‘past masters’ of the field.

Nowhere else on Earth could one hear Fatima Miranda, doing her avant-garde, theatrical, highly musically refined and visually vibrant pieces; Christian Wolz, a pioneering German artist working with extended voice and technology, and a wide variety of intercultural voice practices and experimental music theatre, and then be able to take workshops in these and many other techniques, all within one week.

This is special. It is original. It is practical. It allies thinking with doing, and embodied reflection with creative practice. It is what a centre for performance research funded by an arts council should be about – bringing otherwise rare and difficult to access performance practices to a constituency hungry to enrich their own artistic practices with this wide variety of cutting-edge and underexposed work.

The workshops, dissemination practices, and dialogue the CPR provides for artists and audience are important. They occupy a special place on the international performance scene. I hope you see fit to continue supporting this idiosyncratic and necessary star in the constellation of performance today.

Yours sincerely,

Yvon Bonenfant
Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts
University of Winchester

Dr Jonathan Bollen - President, Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies

2008-04-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Judie and Richard,

The Executive and Membership of the Australasian Association for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies is dismayed and appalled at the proposal by the Arts Council of Wales to withdraw funding for the Centre for Performance Research.

For many years, the work of you and your colleagues has provided stimulation, provocation and inspiration far beyond the boundaries of Wales, contributing to an apprehension of Wales as a progressive, sophisticated and innovative site of performance culture and research. The CPR is itself a model to which many of us aspire, and it is deeply shocking that such a vibrant, dynamic site of international excellence could be so unceremoniously chopped off at the knees.

We urge the Arts Council to reverse any decision it has made about defunding the CPR, and offer you our deepest and sincerest support in what must be testing times. We are confident that sanity will prevail, and look forward to many, many years of your contribution to our discipline and artforms, and to the maintenance of Wales’ reputation and profile as a proponent for and advocate of all that is exciting and worthy in culture and the arts.

Please let us know what we can do to support you further, and keep us posted on events as they unfold.

Yours sincerely

Dr Jonathan Bollen,

ADSA President On behalf of the Executive and Membership of ADSA

Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies

www.adsa.edu.au

ADSA is the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies. It is the peak academic body in the western Pacific region promoting the study of drama in any performing medium.

Tim Etchells - Artistic Director, Forced Entertainment, Sheffield

2008-03-31T06:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Sir or Madam

Re: CPR – The Centre for Performance Research, Wales

I’m writing in support of the Centre for Performance Research with the request that you reconsider, as a matter of urgency, the funding of this important national organization.

As artistic director of Forced Entertainment – creating work at the cutting edge of performance and presenting theatre projects over the world – I am aware how rare it is to find an organization with such a vision, professionalism and commitment to a serious investigation of theatre and performance forms. CPR is a shinning example in its field, consistently delivering workshop, research and symposia projects of the highest caliber. It has been a national and international resource for practitioners at many different levels and many different ages, aesthetic and intellectual persuasions. What has brought them together – to talk, to train, to debate with artists of international significance and to experience contemporary performance work of the highest caliber has been CPR. There are – really – not so many organizations in Europe with this kind of track record. The fact that we have one in the UK is something you should be proud of, something you should champion and continue to support.

I know that many many other artists across the UK and much further afield are dismayed and perplexed by the recent news on CPR. I’d like to add my strongest support to the reversal of your decision.

All the best,
Tim Etchells
Artistic Director
FORCED ENTERTAINMENT
Sheffield

Dr Sharon Mazer, Head, Department of Theatre & Film Studies, University of Canterbury & Peter Falkenberg, Director, Te Puna Toi, New Zealand

2008-03-31T05:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Richard and Judie

We are writing to express our astonishment and dismay at the decision by the Arts Council of Wales to eliminate CPR’s revenue grant. This will cripple the ability of CPR to sustain its diverse programmes on an ongoing basis. Given the extraordinary contribution that the Centre for Performance Research has made to the understanding and practice of theatre, performance, art and culture – in Wales and internationally – such a decision seems to run counter to the fundamental principles of the Arts Council.

It is impossible to overstate our reliance on CPR, as partners to our own Te Puna Toi (Performance Research Project NZ) and as leaders in the field. For so many years, we have looked to CPR – from our small island outpost to yours – to provide resources, expertise and inspiration and also as a mirror to our own efforts to develop performance research in a way that is at once locally specific and internationally significant. Where would we be without your annual and special events, your performances, publications and provocations, and your archives? How can it be that the Arts Council of Wales no longer recognises the value of CPR, CPR’s committed contributions to Welsh culture and arts and the ways in which CPR has made Wales a destination for all of us, performers, artists and scholars throughout the world?

Through you, we wish to add our voices here to those urging the Arts Council to reconsider its decision. The money involved cannot be so great, not when the value of what is produced as a result of CPR’s day-to-day operations is considered fully.

Best, and kia kaha

Dr Sharon Mazer Peter Falkenberg
Head, Department of Theatre & Film Studies Director, Te Puna Toi
University of Canterbury Artistic Director, Free Theatre
Christchurch Christchurch
New Zealand New Zealand

Yvette Vaughan Jones - Executive Director, Visiting Arts, London

2008-03-31T04:57:00.002-07:00

Dear Richard and Judie

We are extremely concerned to hear of the threat to Centre for Performance Research funding as Visiting Arts has worked with the company consistently over the thirty years of our existence.

We have always found CPR to have the highest professional standards when working internationally. You have selected the most interesting work and then produced and promoted events with great sensitivity to the cultural context as well as creating accessible and informative platforms for the public to engage. As examples, Judie was on the very first Producer visit to the Fadjr Festival in Tehran in 2001. This resulted in the first presentation of Iranian theatre in the UK for 20 years. In April 2002 Theatre Bazi’s The Mute Who Was Dreamed and That’s Enough Shut Up were presented at Castle Theatre Aberystwyth and then (through a tour organised by CPR) at CCA Glasgow; Riverside Studios London and Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff. Both Productions were poetical and political works from one of the leading figures in contemporary Iranian theatre: writer, director and actor Attila Pessyani and his Bazi Theatre group.

CPR also hosted two young Iranian directors at their summer school in 2002.

Out of all the promoters in Wales, CPR represents the longest standing partner and certainly one of the most valued relationships. We all hope very much that CPR will be able to continue to work internationally bringing the best of world cultures to the people and professionals in Wales.

Yours sincerely

Yvette Vaughan Jones
Executive Director
Visiting Arts
London

Antonia Cowan

2008-03-31T04:57:00.001-07:00

Dear CPR,

I am horrified to learn that the Arts Council of Wales is proposing to cut your funding. That would seem to me to be an act of gross philistinism and short-sightedness. What else could possibly give Wales such world-wide importance.

I have only been on one of your wonderful ‘Giving Voice’ events, but I’ve met people who have been on others and have been equally enthusiastic. I have been on many other music courses of various sorts over the years, but the Aberystwyth one on chant and other religious music from all over the world was by far the most exciting, educative and enriching week of my life!

You always seem able to attract the cream of the cream of educators and performers in their various fields, and it is a privilege and an inspiration not only to attend their performances but to sit and learn alongside them when they come to learn from each others’ workshops.

Obviously it must cost a huge amount to bring together the most expert teachers and top performers from all over the world, and I don’t see how they could possibly continue without the subsidy that has enabled you to set up this world centre of excellence.
It would be a devastating loss to thousands of your students, and to Wales itself, if the proposed cut were really to go ahead. But it seems so unthinkable, I hope it won’t happen.

With Best Wishes,
Antonia Cowan
Ludlow

Anoushyie Yarnell - CPR Associate Artist, Cardiff

2008-03-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

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

Bianca Mastrominico and John Dean - Organic Theatre

2008-03-26T04:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Judy, Richard and CPR staff,

It is with great sadness that we witness and follow your struggle against the Arts Council, and apologies for a not-so-prompt response, due simply to overwork, necessary to keep our own little boat straight!

It would have been hoped that a certain kind of knowledge, a certain kind of working ethic and a certain kind of shared and collectively creative space could have resisted and not got crushed in the general global insensitivity of economically driven forces, but regrettably it is happening, and for us - a younger generation, committed to the same stubborn research and practice, with the same spirit of valuing culture in all its complexity - it is a dark sign.

How can bureaucrats not understand that eroding and sweeping away your invaluable work can only create misery and loss in the UK artistic field? And how long can an arts organisation have to constantly adapt to social changes or die just because, paradoxically, it needs to remain consistent with its identity in order to fulfil its function within the contemporary scene?

Our image of CPR is that of a river into which many sources converge; there is knowledge and experience at work which will be irreplaceable in future years, and connections made up of truly human encounters and other "immaterial" stances, which belong to the very nature of performance practice and which happen in the long term. Delivering immediate results is not the logic behind this kind of engagement towards theatre and performance culture, an engagement which we admire and practice ourselves, not without great sacrifices.

Now, what the Arts Council should really understand is that the attitude of wanting to drain this river, thinking that a motorway in its place would better serve the inhabitants of the land, will in fact only leave a permanent and disgraceful scar on the land itself. And if they just hope that, in time, it may be forgotten that once there was a river there, well, this is a misjudged belief. The wise inhabitants will always keep seeing the dry bed as the trace of the river's water and will lament its unnatural loss.

It is also so unfortunate to see how, in the Arts Council's choice, there is no sense of history and no ability to value the heritage of your work and the concrete possibilities that the holistic and multicultural environment you have created - and create with each project - opens to performers and practitioners of all backgrounds, offering them the chance to retrace their creative roots, and to dialogue with other cultures in the perspective (which we find indispensable for the contemporary arts in this country) of allowing local and foreign artists to meet, share and network. All this unique endeavour should NOT fade and discussions, as well as protests, MUST carry on.

Please let us know if we can do more - you have all our support!

With our best wishes, for a serene Easter as well,

Bianca Mastrominico and John Dean

Organic Theatre
www.organictheatre.co.uk

Liz Hodgson - Natural Voice Practitioner, Oxford

2008-03-26T04:33:00.001-07:00

Dear Judie Christie and Richard Gough,

I'm crestfallen to hear of your funding crisis, as I have promised myself a visit to the Giving Voice Festival one day! Its inception coincided with my developing rheumatoid arthritis so I've had less stamina, money and career ever since. So I've never actually been.

But I'm convinced that the world in which I do manage to operate, albeit at a reduced level, is so much the stronger for your work. The many singers and teachers who have inspired me have all been through the Festival and have clearly been enriched by it and each other. Without that forum, I know that many other practitioners like me would have had less to work with. I only appear on your mailing list, so you wouldn't know, so that's why I'm writing now.

This year's cloud world design is breathtakingly simple and just lovely. Good visuals into the bargain!

I can't make it this year, either! Rats. But I can write to people, if it helps. On behalf of all of us who still want to make it, all power and much passion to you.

Liz Hodgson
Natural Voice Practitioner
Oxford

Jodie Bray - Performer, London

2008-03-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Richard and Judie

Firstly, apologies for not writing sooner. I'm currently working on a new show and in the true nature of fast theatre time is of the essence! I was heart-broken to learn of the Arts Councils decision to cut funding to CPR, but it seems such a ridiculous thing that I have every hope that it's just a mistake that will be rectified.

CPR's work has been a direct inspiration to me for the past 10 years, not only fuelling my desire to make professional theare, but also to open my eyes to the everyday, to travel and to embrace every culture. At the CPR I was continually amazed by the motivation and drive you have as a company to ensure each programme is full, varied and essentially succeeds in opening Wales up to the rest of the world. Living at the end of the road (as many visitors would say of Aberystwyth) should perhaps have been limiting, however the CPR made my world that much bigger through your continued curiosity and passion for making and programming work that is both unique, varied and essential.

I am of course behind you 100% in your fight to achieve a level of funding which no longer serves as an unsult to everything that the CPR stands for.

I urge the Arts council of Wales to reconsider and make steps towards rectifying it's mistake.

Wishing you a wonderful Giving Voice festival, and I shall look forward to seeing you for Summer School 2008

Kind Regards

Jodie Bray
Performer,
London UK

Jenna Kumiega

2008-03-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Richard and Judie

This being (hopefully) a good friday, in that I have had a bit of space to breathe, I have taken some time to read through both your blog, and additional comments on the petition list (which I signed some weeks ago when I first heard the news of your threatened cut).

So many names - some familiar, some old friends - and so many impassioned testimonies to the achievements and benefits of your life work! Whatever the outcome of this latest potential bureaucratic blunder, I am sure you must find comfort and strength in knowing that such an illustrious international community is standing shoulder to shoulder with you.

As I read through the many succinct and powerful arguments for ACW to continue support which (up until now) has gained Wales a reputation for vision and courage in the international cultural community, I found myself thinking: they can't possibly ignore these persuasive and powerful voices........can they?

My fear - knowing and understanding how bureaucracy works - is that they can. The very fact that they were able to throw you the sop of 'project funding' (possibly without even blushing at the crassness of that suggestion) betrays a level of disingenuousness of which any senior ACW official should be deeply ashamed. The fact that they can bandy about excuses such as prioritising 'front-line' work (without acknowledging that such work will inevitably stultify without the level of cross-fertilisation that CPR has brought about over the years) is also not hopeful.

However, they can also change their minds. They could listen to those many voices on your website and in the petition (from very local community groups and individuals as well as from across the world) and re-think their position and decision. They could ponder the fact that, at times with very little support and subsidy, you have built up over the years an irreplaceable and towering resource of interlinked activity, experiment, teaching, and fellowship, which has fostered a truly electric and fertile environment for local, national and global performance creativity in Wales. With one short-sighted and misguided act they could indeed pull the plug on that. Or they could stop and think - hang on a minute, what on earth are we doing withdrawing our wholehearted support from a creative centre which more than any other in Wales has carved out for our nation a global reputation for the most exciting, daring and consistently rigorous exploration in performance work? Hell - let's double their grant!

with love, and support, and gratitude that you were there, doing what you do best, so many decades ago, and hope that you will still be there in decades to come.

Jenna Kumiega

William Huizhu Sun - Vice president, Professor, Shanghai Theatre Academy

2008-03-21T04:27:00.000-07:00

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing this letter of support for the Centre for Performance Research, Aberystwyth. I strongly believe CPR should to he supported continuously so that this increasingly important research area will remain active in Wales.

I have known Richard Gough the director of Centre for Performance Research, for twenty years, since I became a contributing editor of TDR, The Drama Review a Journal of Performance Studies, in New York.

In the new but rapidly growing field of Performance Studies, CPR is one of the most important research/teaching/ practice institutions in the world, and probably the most important one in the UK. TDR has published many high quality papers based on research projects done at CPR. I personally visited CPR in ‘02 and was very impressed by its devoted staff, inspired students and stimulating programming.

I have also invited Mr. Gough and his colleagues to visit my school. Shanghai Theatre Academy, China’s only comprehensive university training performing artists at national level. They gave lectures and workshops to enthusiastic students. We planned quite a few future exchange programs and collaborative projects. I am just. about to send them invitations to next year’s event. I sincerely hope that you will continue to support CPR so that our joint projects can be carried out and more cultural exchanges between the UK and China will prosper.

Yours sincerely.

William Huizhu Sun. PhD
Vice president, Professor
Shanghai Theatre Academy

Bob Godfrey - Head of Theatre Studies, University of Northampton, 1975-2000.

2008-03-21T04:22:00.001-07:00

Reference: Proposed cut in ACW Grant to CPR, 2008

To whom it may concern:

As a former Associate Member of CPR I am writing in support of the work of the Centre.
It is unique in the United Kingdom for having provided sustained access to and a study centre for understanding the most vital creative work in theatre and performance over many years. This has placed it in the international field. It has been able to bring together both theatre professionals and academics in the UK giving them unprecedented access to the widest experience of practice and innovation available from across the world.

While Head of a Theatre Studies Department in the 1980s and 90s I know that colleagues and myself gained immeasurable benefit from the opportunities set up by CPR though workshops and conferences with leading practitioners. It is without doubt that performance curricula in Universities and Colleges across the UK have been enhanced by these experiences.

Similarly CPR’s work will have contributed greatly to professional practice in the UK. Not only did I have the privilege of hosting performances by their own theatre company but also of European theatre companies introduced through them. All in all, therefore, CPR have to date made an inimitable contribution to theatre understanding in the UK. I see no dimming of their enthusiasm or reach in this respect.

Now retired I have developed interests that take me on other journeys in the arts but I remain an interested and enthusiastic supporter of the work of CPR and cannot imagine the world of Theatre and Performance Studies without them as an essential ingredient. As ACW has said ‘a vital and prestigious player in the arts.’ A phrase that suggests it would be self-defeating to withdraw their grant and, some might say, persevere, even perfidious.

I fully support opposition to the curtailment of the ACW grant to CPR. I would like my name to be added to any petition or representation as required.

Bob Godfrey,
Head of Theatre Studies, University of Northampton, 1975-2000.

'In Praise of CPR' - Cards received from local community choir members

2008-03-21T03:05:00.000-07:00

Roxanne Smith, Christine S, Olivia Chandler, Gill Everard, Tony Hodgeson, Han, M.L Glover, Carolyn, P.Ryell, Liz Lee, D.Marsden, Jane Burnham, Christine Conway, Susie Emals, Aleda J Clark, Mrs Meads, Penny Morton, J.Warne, Jackie Farley-Harper, Ulrike Muuz-Willis, Tyr Klemols, Sharon Clark, James Davis, Peter Jackson

Support Letters

To whom it may concern: As a voice practitioner working in Powys and the whole of Wales, I have worked for the CPR as well as being involved in many of their excellent projects and workshops. To cut the funding, in this way, at this time is short sighted and very disappointing. It reflects more the poor management on the part of the Arts Council than anything, as I am sure you will see when you reconsider this decision.
With Regards
Roxanne Smith

To the Arts Council:
I am horrified to learn that you are planning to cut the funds to the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth. I am a regular singer in 2 local community choirs weekly and look forward to the singing put on by this body, one of the few cultural organisations in West Wales.
Christine S

The CPR has proved over the years to be a valuable art resource in mid-Wales.
I have attended some wonderful singing events which have served to increase my own confidence. Many people need this chance to try out performing arts in an experimental way.
Anon

I have attended several workshops and performances at Giving Voice, and performed in the Karl Jenkins, all organised by CPR. I would like to see their funding continued so they can continue their excellent work.
Olivia Chandler

CPR, I am devastated to hear that funding for the CPR may be cut. I have been to workshops over a period of at least 5 years. In addition – this remote part of Wales has nothing else to match the professionalism and innovative work – does the Arts Council want to help creating a barren desert?
Gill Everard

Dear Sir,
As a regular singer who has sung with several of the CPR workshops, I am sad to hear that funding ahs been withdrawn from the organisation. Please reconsider as food for the soul is an essential to human well being. Yours,
Tony Hodgeson

They say “all the worlds a stage” but the problem you’re facing are a drama that we could all do without,
Han

Aberystwyth CPR has brought culture within the reach of the ordinary person and must continue. It is used by a diverse array of people.
M.L Glover

Giving Voice was really fun. I learnt a lot.
Thanks, Carolyn

It would be a tragedy to lose such a vibrant and successful organisation, criminal actually.
P.Ryell

Dear Arts Council,
CPR in Aberystwyth is central to so much of our cultural life. You should not cut the funding, it would be uncivilised to do so, Yours
Liz Lee

The performing arts are crucial for a civilised society. CPR has made a significant contribution in this regard and must get appropriate funding.
I am aghast at the stopping of revenue funding for CPR. Their courses and their archive material are second to none.
D.Marsden

CPR has done grand work, especially Giving Voice
Jane Burnham

I am writing to appeal against the decision to withdraw funding from CPR Aberystwyth. I have attended excellent workshops that have brought much social benefit.
Christine Conway

Dear Arts Council,
Please do not take CPR’s funding away.
Susie Emals

CPR has introduced me to companies, performers and styles of singing I would never otherwise have encountered and been much the poorer for having missed.
Aleda J Clark

I have always enjoyed the workshops organised by the CPR and am very concerned and distressed that funding for this excellent organisation is being cut.
Mrs Meads

I am writing to convey my dismay that the very enjoyable workshops organised by the CPR are in danger of ceasing due to ending of funding.
Penny Morton

I have enjoyed many times with Blazing Hearts and various others, as organised by CPR and am appalled to hear about the funding being withdrawn. Please don’t allow this to happen.
J.Warne

‘Blazing Hearts’ was a life changer for me. CPR has joined voices and choirs together all over Wales and enriched all who have joined because of them.
Jackie Farley-Harper

I attended CPR’s ‘Local Voices, World of Song’ years ago which was marvellous. Also, I was part of Karl Jenkins ‘Travels with my Uncle’ which was a great experience. It would be a great shame if CPR could not operate anymore.
Ulrike Muuz-Willis

I am writing to express my concern and dismay at the news of funding being cut for The Centre for Performance Research. I have attended their events for a number of years and have found them most edifying. To have such facilities in West Wales is extremely important for our cultural future.
Tyr Klemols

As a keen amateur singer I found it a very sad day that singing workshops that all enjoy will be ending because of lack of funds.
Sharon Clark

May I express my displeasure at the planned cut in funding to the CPR. I have thoroughly enjoyed workshops provided in the past and am saddened to hear of its potential closure.
James Davis

I Gyfarwyddwyr Cyngor y Celfyddydau
Gair byr i ddweud pa mor siomedig yr ydw i glywed bod CPR wedi colli eich nawdd. Mae CPR yn chwarae rol pwysig ym myd cerddorol Cymru. A wnewch chi ddim ail ystyried eich penderfyniad.
Peter Jackson

To the Directors of the Arts Council.
A short word to say how disappointed I am to hear that the CPR have lost their funding. The CPR plays an important role in the world of music in Wales. Will you not reconsider your decision. Peter Jackson

Oliver Hale, UK

2008-03-21T03:00:00.001-07:00

I grow increasingly upset that there is still no resolution to CPR's funding situation.

The CPR is such a useful tool to performance studies students such as myself for valuable research within my chosen field. Never before have I come across a research centre so well organised and filled with people who are not only enthusiastic but also extremely passionate about the knowledge they safe guard. To close the CPR would be an absolute mistake in my opinion! Its efforts are clear in furthering the recognition of not just performance art but creativity. I sincerely hope that this remarkable resource is allowed to continue with its endeavors as it is so strongly needed!

I kindly wish you all the best of luck in sustaining funding for the CPR as it deserves. I have already signed the petition but if there is anything else I can do to offer my assistance please do not hesitate to let me know.

Kindest regards,
Oliver Hale

Helen Chadwick - Singer, Composer and Voice Teacher, UK

2008-03-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Judie and Richard

I am so sorry to hear about the threat of cut which the CPR is facing. I am deeply indebted to the CPR for the richness of its projects and the breadth of its thinking. Giving Voice does something no other organization is doing in the UK. As a singer, composer and voice teacher, this festival brings together international artists in order to open the ears and develop the working practices of artists such as myself as well as to a wider interested public. The international and experimental vision of the CPR's vision makes it a unique organization in the UK, and a ground breaking arts organization. Arts practice and thinking in the UK would be diminished if it was cut.

Perhaps I should add a personal note. The work which I experienced through the CPR in its long history has deeply affected my own work. For example you introduced me to the work of voice practitioners who have deeply affected the way I compose and prepare performances, including performances for the ROH, ETO and WNO, and previously at the RSC and NT. . It will be a tragedy if younger practitioners will be denied this opportunity in the future.

All good wishes
Helen Chadwick
Singer, Composer and Voice Teacher, UK
http://www.helenchadwick.com/

Caroline Hasler, UK

2008-03-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

Dear CPR,

You provide and have provided the most interesting and meaningful opportunities for continuing exploration, study and training I know of in Britain. You are a strong link with the kind of work and practitioners which have interested me and you were my first introduction to more physical European style theatre, especially the Grotowski legacy.

You offer an opportunity for international exchange and support artists from abroad by inviting them and believing in their work; you are interested in unusual work; you manage to gather together a wonderful mix of extraordinary people from many backgrounds to contribute to conferences and events.

It would be a tragedy if you were no more!

My heartily supportive wishes,

Caroline Hasler.

Deborah Hunt - maskmaker and puppeteer, Puerto Rico

2008-03-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

You will not know us and you will not, perhaps know our work, ; but we know you and your immense effort. We have followed your work and we say in our world that work has been immense...even life saving...

That you have had you funding cut....is intolerable.....

Deborah Hunt

maskmaker and puppeteer, Puerto Rico

Adam Somerset - Theatre-Wales Writer

2008-03-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

It was only a few weeks ago that I was reading the then Secretary of State’s warm recommendation of the McMaster Review. Sir Brian called for a bonfire of the target culture, that excellence, innovation and peer review should be the hallmarks of an artistic Renaissance.

The Centre for Performance Research straddles borders. That in itself makes it a troublesome creature to the audit culture.

Production, presentation, teaching, publishing, a touch of cultural criticism, merge and meet- there is nothing quite like CPR in Britain. It may be an organisational hybrid but the proven truth is that where borders merge innovation flourishes.

Without the blurring of borders, with the assent of their funding bodies, the Enigma Code would be unbroken, Sir John Sulston would not have unravelled the Genome Sequence and Theatre de la Complicite would not have not have won Best Play Award of the year last Sunday. That life-enhancing production “A Disappearing Number” did not even have a playwright to its name.

I have not understood everything CPR has done. I have not always agreed but that is not the point. I have never doubted the passion. If a playwright- director of Greg Cullen’s stature states he is for them then I am with him and for them.

Creative endeavour, in whatever field, will always outpace the resources available. That is how it is in a vibrant civil society. Wales aspires to a different kind of governance; in the week that “The Wedding Singer” opens at the Millennium Centre a statement from Cardiff is due for what greater artistic good, for audiences and practitioners alike, this particular light in Aberystwyth is to be extinguished.

Adam Somerset
Theatre-Wales Writer

Rachel Rogers - Merseyside Dance Initiative, Liverpool

2008-03-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

16th March 2008.

To the Arts Council of Wales – Professor Dai Smith,

It has been brought to my attention that the Arts Council of Wales have decided to cut all revenue funding for the Centre for Performance Research (CPR). I am writing to protest about this decision and ask that it be seriously re-considered - ideally reversed.

More than any other arts organisation in Wales the CPR have brought International Culture to the heart of the country by prioritising bringing the highest quality training, lecture talks and performances to the Welsh artistic community and general public through their long-standing workshop, conference and festival programme.

Since 1974 The CPR have striven to bring internationally renowned theatre and performance makers to Wales. Allowing students, Welsh and international artists, and the general public to get involved in quality performance training and experimentation. The CPR have built a unique legacy in Wales and the UK for working with artists, developing participatory programmes and essentially getting people involved with international performance practice. As an organisation they have provided the time and space that has allowed many practitioners to expand and develop their practice whilst at the same time, retaining the connection with the local community.

I first became aware of the CPR in 1994 as a student at the University College Wales, Aberystwyth as a student where I attended the lecture talk and performances of the ‘Compagnia Laboratorio di Pontedera’. I immediately became involved in projects, workshops and events as a participant and volunteer. I went on to become a member of staff in 1996 on a part-time, then full-time basis. During my time at CPR I saw the expansion and development of the archive, the establishment of a regular public workshop programme, the publication of Performance Research, the continuation of the Conference programme, the launch of Black Mountain Press, the link to University College Wales, Aberystwyth, the beginning of the MA Theatre and the World and the growth of international membership of the organisation.

Having since taken a position at Merseyside Dance Initiative in 2005 I have continued to attend many dance and performance events in the UK and internationally. Whenever I meet people talk about the CPR people always comment on how this organisation has impacted on their own work and / or their involvement in the arts. Similarly, my own career has been shaped by the experiences I was given through participating in CPR projects and working as part of the team. I know that I speak for others in the UK and further a field that shared similar experiences as colleagues and participants.

What unfortunate short-sightedness to threaten the continued longevity of such a unique organisation who have, and continue to have a highly respected international reputation and bring worldwide recognition to the arts in Wales.

I hope that this letter and the many others will encourage you to re-consider this decision.

With best wishes,

Rachel Rogers
Project Development Manager
Merseyside Dance Initiative - Liverpool
http://www.merseysidedance.co.uk/

Karine Décorne - Migrations, Caernarfon, Wales

2008-03-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

Monday 17th March 2008

Dear Judie,

It is with extreme shock that I received the news about ACW cutting the revenue funding of CPRW.

I strongly believe the activities of CPR are vital to the arts sector.

It is essential to have a balance of activities across the sector to ensure the best standards of practice, delivery and presentation.

It is crucial to understand that delivery, training and professional development for students and professional, access to presentations by international professionals all feed from one another.
Removing one of these elements will have an impact on the rest.

We have been experiencing this in North Wales for many years; we have had an on going shortage of qualified dance practitioners in the area due to the lack of training, professional development and performance opportunities, but also due to the lack of dance presentations by international artists.

Bringing intensive training with high profile international artists for professional dance practitioners, offering support, nurturing them, helping to create a network for them, giving access to presentations has had a very positive impact over the last 4 years.

It has generated inspiration, critical debate, optimism, enhanced creativity, improved the artistic quality of the delivery. As the Director of Dawns i Bawb (community dance organisation for North West Wales) I can see the direct positive benefits on our activities, on the skills and commitment of the dancers to the area.

As a dance programmer I do feel it is my role and responsibility to bring work and training which will challenge the perceptions of dance and question this art form.

The emphasis is too often put on what is easy to quantify: the community activities delivery, the number of sessions and participation figures, are all there to testify of the amount of delivery and value for money.

However this same community delivery cannot maintain its standards of quality if the people delivering it do not have access to training, experimentation, presentation or possibility to improve and question their own practice. The same applies to choreographers, performers, theatre directors, programmers, lecturers…

CPR has enabled this vital element to happen at a high standard and their activities have had multiple positive ripple effects on the rest of the practice.

Without such a vital institution, the risk is that theatre and performance practice in Wales will loose in quality as there will be far too little opportunities for professionals and audience members to have access to such type of international work.

CPR has played an essential role in raising the visibility of Wales internationally.

Before coming to Wales I had heard of the work of CPR as it is internationally renowned. To my astonishment when I arrived in Wales, people from CPR were among the only professionals in Wales knowing about major international performance and contemporary dance artists. When I would have thought that these influential artists would be known by anyone claiming to be an expert in dance, it wasn’t the case.

This is why closing CPR will deprive audiences and Welsh professionals to access high quality challenging work and continuing professional development.
Wales will certainly loose in international visibility.

The decision to cut revenue funding seems to go against the strategic and capacity-building aims of ACW and an outward-facing Wales; innovation, an international perspective and rigorous training policy are matching their aims.

It is absolutely impossible to think that CPR can realistically be sustainable and continue its activities on a project basis. This will only lead to the number of activities decreasing dramatically and far worse loosing crucial knowledge, experience and skills.

I sincerely hope that your appeal will be successful.

Best wishes,

Karine Décorne
Migrations
Caernarfon, Wales

http://www.migrations.ws/

Simon Whitehead - Artist, Ceredigion, Wales

2008-03-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

Judie and Richard,

It has taken me a while to respond to your situation in written form, a while to assimilate what is happening in relation to the wider culture of 'rationalisation' and risk reduction.

My relationship with CPR goes back.
In the early nineties I was sent to a CPR workshop whilst a young, 'green' dancer with Ludus Dance Co., to widen my experience..later that year, and partly influenced by my 'experience', I left the company to make my own work in London.

I came to 'Performance and Shamanism', the images are fleeting now, but the work I was exposed to was to become formative and soon after I left London to work in Wales with Scott de La hunta.

Later, and in 'Mapping Wales' the journey I made with Rachel Rosenthal remains with me and although I was the physical guide, Rachel continues to be a voice of guidance in my practice.

So, CPR has, as i am sure is the case with many other artists/ practitioners, been invaluable in 'opening up Worlds' at different points in a working career.

I am grateful for the experiences CPR has offered, I hope that this time offers reflection for the Organisation and the wider community, both here in Wales and Internationally.

A reflection that considers the need for risk taking, the evolution of new and relevant forums and how artists and organisations can continue to muster each others voices in difficult times.

I wish you well,

Simon Whitehead
Artist
Ceredigion, Wales

Martin Boroson - Author, organizational consultant and speaker, UK

2008-03-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

CPR organised one of the best conferences I've ever been to.

Their approach covers so much more than 'the arts' as typically understood. It addresses the arts as the meeting place of many disciplines, and a means for genuine celebration, ritual, community and intercultural understanding. They are in a different league to other arts organisations, combining serious scholarship with serious practice.

Please preserve, honor and fund them

Martin Boroson
Author, organizational consultant and speaker
UK

Bill Hamblett - Director, Small World Theatre, Wales

2008-03-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

23rd Feb 2008

Dear Judie Christie and Richard Gough,

It is shocking to hear of the Centre for Performance Research’s (CPR) recent ACW funding cut. CPR plays an important role in Wales’ theatre ecology. To take this vital element out of the picture or to lessen it’s effect and influence would have an immediate and detrimental effect on the quality and direction of theatre in Wales and on how theatre from Wales is viewed internationally.

CPR’s inspired decision to move out of Cardiff to West Wales presaged the current thinking on viewing the culture of Wales as a national entity with a wide geographical spread. Indeed the newly emerging National Theatre of Wales would benefit a great deal by having strong links with this inspiring, knowledgeable and influential organisation.

The view from the capital may not be as informed as the theatre community is, of CPR’s work. CPR’s presence has enlivened and nurtured a huge spectrum of performers, directors, writers, scenograpers, actors, critics and singers. Both through their inclusive support and respect for all forms of performance, however experimental, and by providing access to iconic practitioners from all over the world by bringing them to Wales.

The picture of theatre in and from Wales would be diminished without CPR. You may not notice it at first but without CPR as a reference point new companies would be doomed to re invent the theatre wheel, have only limited knowledge of, or access to, great moments of international theatre history, contemporary theatre or an open focussed approach to the theatre of the future.

The Centre for Performance Research is important to the theatre community of Wales. It is as if a person walking across a vast, burning desert with a huge pack on their back is reaching for the water flask (with CPR embossed on it) saying “I must lighten my load or I’ll never get there fast enough, I’ll throw this away, water is heavy isn’t it ?”

There are some organisations that ACW should be proud to support, The Centre for Performance Research is one of them.

Bill Hamblett
Small World Theatre
Cardigan, Wales
http://www.smallworld.org.uk/

Sally Marie - Dance Artist, Bridgend, Wales

2008-03-18T04:09:00.001-07:00

Since I have been living in Wales, my main source of inspiration as a dance artist has been the workshops provided by CPR.

The artists they attract are simply staggering. For instance I was thrilled to be able to do a workshop with my favourite company Ridiculusmus. It turned out to be the only one in the UK this year.

Next weekend I shall be visiting the Centre for three days and I hope connecting with lots of other Welsh dance artists when I do a workshop with the incredible Lin Snelling.

Sally Marie
Bridgend, Wales

Prof. Ken Friedman - Dean, Swinburne Design, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

2008-03-18T04:08:00.000-07:00

It is disappointing to learn that the Centre for Performance Research is under threat due to potential budget cuts. I have signed the petition urging continued funding to the center, and I write you to confirm my support for your programs and publications.

You have provided a lively forum for research, reflection, and practice in performance since the centre began in 1988. With roots going back to 1974 at the Cardiff Laboratory Theatre, this adds up to three and a half decades of work.

As Dean of Swinburne Design, I am responsible for our School of Film and Television. In this role, I am aware of the vital contribution that the Centre for Performance Research makes to the arts and to the creative industries in Wales, the UK, and around the world.

The cost of funding CPR is far less than the value this outstanding centre creates. I urge the continued funding of this important institution.

Sincerely,

--

Ken Friedman
Professor, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS

Dean, Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia

Pedro F Marcelino - Mindel'jazz: International Jazz Festival of Mindelo, Cape Verde

2008-03-18T04:06:00.002-07:00

Dear Judie Christie,
Dear Richard Gough,

I am distraught, saddened and upset by the news that the Art Council of Wales intends to cut down costs by drastically reducing funding to the CPR. I would like to urge the ACW to seriously reconsider this plan, in light of the importance of the CPR for Wales, and for the performance world in general, as testified here by so many dedicated professionals around the globe.

When I came to Aberystwyth for further studies, the city was all but unknown to me. In Aberystwyth I found not only a brilliant academic institution, the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, providing a surprising program in an isolated area of the country, but also - to my astonishment - the CPR. Over the last two years, I had the chance of witnessing the world class quality of performance periodically presented at the Centre; I observed with awe the amazing line-ups presented in several workshops on cutting-edge areas of performance; and, most importantly, I have been shocked to learn that many colleagues in Portugal, in West Africa, in England, in Canada, and elsewhere, knew a lot more about the CPR than I did, and tremendously respect its work. Although it was a surprise to me, it shouldn't have been: the CPR has a proven track record of an avant-garde approach to performance; an astounding program that represents a clear asset to the community in Aberystwyth and in Wales; and one of the best specialized libraries in the world. This is what professionals around the world (and now me) know, and this is also why they resent the ACW's shameful decision. For some strange reason, we, as a society, continue to place a reduced amount of importance in the arts.

The ACW has the prerogative of identifying one case in which things could be different, and act accordingly by keeping the CPR fully funded.

Since 2006, I have acted as PR rep. for a new jazz and performance arts street festival in Mindelo. Mindelo is an amazing cultural vortex in the Republic of Cape Verde, West Africa. I have discussed this event with members of the CPR and identified a number of contact points that would enable a collaboration between the two institutions. This education-through-the-arts development project, and its social, economic and cultural consequences would be greatly enhanced by enabling synergies with institutions like the CPR. Without this funding, it is certain that the Centre's ability to partake in cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary projects such as this will me severely reduced.

I am therefore requesting in the strongest possible terms that the ACW reconsider this decision.

Your have all our support in this quest.

Yours sincerely,

Pedro F Marcelino
Director of Communications,
Marketing and Sponsoring

Mindel'jazz: International Jazz
Festival of Mindelo, Cape Verde
ACCVE's Cultural Development project:
Association for Cooperation w/ Cape Verde
Republic of Cape Verde

Joc Mack - Norwich

2008-03-18T04:06:00.001-07:00

Last year I recommended the CPR to drama teachers / practioners in a review section of the Times Educational Supplement.

The CPR is a unique gem of an organisation, bringing languages, cultures, forms and new forms of performance together like no other. I continue to be amazed by the depth and finesse of its work and gladly travel across two countries to take part in events, It is able to inspire true cultural fusion and offer world class events with and for academics and practitioners.

Joc Mack

Norwich

Bill Hopkinson - Senior Lecturer in Drama, Edge Hill University

2008-03-14T05:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Judie and Richard,

May I add one more voice to the chorus of condemnation that is greeting ACW’s short-sighted and poorly thought through proposal to cut CPR’s funding. I have been coming to Giving Voice since the early nineties, and cannot think of a more vibrant, multicultural or inspiring meeting place for artists.

Traveling the country as Literary Manager for Sgript Cymru between 2000 and 2004 I was continually meeting young artists, writers and performers who had been inspired by time spent with CPR. I am speaking of the emerging generation of Welsh performing artists who in so many respects are so poorly served by ACW elsewhere. To suggest that CPR is not a “frontline” organization betrays a lack of understanding of how emerging performers, and indeed those more advanced in their careers, are sustained and nurtured.

I can also think of no organization in Wales which has so consistently and visibly placed the nation on the international stage; as the growing list of dissenting voices from around the world testifies. I will be in Aberystwyth once again in a few weeks time, I anticipate that my own work will be once again renewed and inspired by the extraordinary meeting which is Giving Voice: I sincerely hope to be able to say the same again in the future.

Yours in sorrow

Bill Hopkinson
Senior Lecturer in Drama, Edgehill University, Lancashire.
Literary Manager, Sgript Cymru 2000-2004

Pierluigi Castelli - Artistic Director, Arhat Teatro, Italy

2008-03-14T05:53:00.000-07:00

Preg.mi Judie Christie e Richard Gough

non ci conosciamo direttamente, ma so molto bene, attraverso Eugenio Barba e l'Odin Teatret, della preziosa opera che da lungo tempo tempo conducete nel campo della ricerca, dello studio e della diffusione delle pratiche e dei processi teatrali più innovativi e peculiari della scena internazionale.

E' con vivo sconcerto che apprendo ora della incomprensibile decisione dell'Art Council del Galles di ritirare i finanziamenti annuali che potevano dare stabilità e concretezza al vostro lavoro tanto complesso e necessitante di tempi lunghi e azioni articolate atte a condurre in porto, con rigore e alta professionalità, quei progetti di vasto respiro internazionale che sempre avete saputo proporre.

Non posso non esprimere tutto il mio rammarico per una presenza tanto importante che rischia di essere ridotta al silenzio, in mezzo al chiasso sempre più vuoto e sempre più assordante delle logiche imperanti del mercato di massa....magari ammantate qua e là di tratti definiti di innovazione (?)

Nell'esprimervi la mia solidarietà, e quella del gruppo che dirigo, unisco l'auspicio che una fitta rete di "voci altre", provenienti da ogni parte del mondo, possa indurre chi di dovere a riconsiderare le posizioni prese.

Sarebbe davvero un atteggiamento etico serio, capace di ridare speranza e prospettiva a scelte culturali di spessore di cui non ci si può privare.
Sempre di più è necessario resistere.

Sono con voi.
Pierluigi Castelli
direttore artistico
Arhat Teatro
Bergamo
(Italia)

My Dearest Judie Christie and Richard Gough,

We do not know you personally, but through Eugenio Barba and the Odin Theatre I know very well of the valuable work you have done for so many years in the research field, the study and the dissemination of the most innovative and unique theatre practices and processes of the international scene.

It is with great shock that I learnt about the ACW incomprehensible decision to withdraw revenue funding that could give stability and concreteness to your work. A work which is so complex and in need of a great deal of time and articulated actions which enable with rigor and high professionalism to bring to a successful conclusion all those international project you have always created.

It is impossible for me not to express all my regret for such an important presence as CPR which is risking to be reduced to silence, in the midst of an increasingly empty and increasingly deafening racket of the prevailing logics of the mass market (mainstream) … that are perhaps cloaked here and there of lines of innovation (?)

In expressing to you my solidarity, and my group’s solidarity, I also want to hope that a strong network of “Other Voices” from all over the world could induce those responsible to reconsider the decision taken.

It would be a very serious ethical attitude, capable of restoring hope and perspective to highly important cultural choices of which one cannot be deprived of.
Increasingly, it is necessary to resist. We are with you.

Pierluigi Castelli
Artistic Director
Arhat Teatro
Bergamo

Dr Daniel Watt - Lecturer in English and Drama, Loughborough University

2008-03-14T05:02:00.001-07:00

F.A.O. :
Arts Council Wales

Dear Sir or Madam,

It is with regret that I hear of your decision to withdraw funding from the Centre for Performance Research with effect from July 2008. I shall declare my interest firstly so as to keep you fully in the picture of my statement below. I worked for the Centre for Performance Research from January 2004 – January 2006, as a research and publications assistant. I am therefore familiar with their working methods and am writing to you in the hope that you will reverse your decision. Indeed more than that: that you will see sense and increase your funding of CPR rather than the proposed move to ‘possible one-off project funding’ for which I read ‘Death Sentence’.

As you must be aware, CPR has been at the forefront of innovative theatre and performance practice in Wales for many years. During those 30 years CPR has brought many leading companies to Wales that would otherwise never have visited. They have staged performance works of the highest calibre and been proactive in bringing theatre to many communities across the country.

CPR has consistently nurtured performers who have gone on to become leading international practitioners. As much of ACW’s current thrust of thought centres around the international context of the arts in Wales it seems quite illogical to cut the funding from an organisation that has continually worked to bring about such possibilities.

Put simply the proposed cuts you suggest will destroy CPR as an independent organisation, and in so doing will also make a number of highly skilled and dedicated staff unemployed. The ‘project funding’ plan is not viable. Who will run the projects? Who will plan them? Staff brought in piecemeal on a project by project basis, with no knowledge of the way the organisation functions, the venues available, the best means by which to provide context, and practical considerations of travel, accommodation and food? And beyond this there is the consideration of the amount of visitors who come to Wales and Aberystwyth specifically for CPR’s work using local hotels and restaurants and the economic impact of this decision. All of this from a core grant that enables a small team to function and projects to flow. The programme alone, additionally enabled by facilities and support from Aberystywth University, is ‘worth’ the small grant of £118,000, leaving aside other economic benefits for the region. This sort of programme is not possible without the knowledge and dedication of a core team of very experienced people.

CPR has stayed true to its commitment to Wales; please recognise and reward this commitment; reverse your decision, and put in its place an increase of funding and guarantee of support, rather than the precarious and unfathomable existence on ‘Death Row’ that ‘possible’ project funding would create.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Daniel Watt
Lecturer in English and Drama
Loughborough University

Tim Pearce - Footsbarn Theatre, France

2008-03-14T03:50:00.000-07:00

All of us at Footsbarn Theatre give our total support to CPR and their appeal to have the Arts Council's decision reversed.

There are simply not enough structures like CPR in the world let alone the UK.

We have spent 37 years working with multicultural performance, and CPR is more vital than ever today.

Good luck to CPR from the centre of France.

Tim Pearce
Maillet
France

http://footsbarn.com/

Helen Kozich - Artist, Machynlleth, Wales

2008-03-14T03:48:00.000-07:00

CPR’s work across a huge breadth of performance arts is invaluable – both for professionals and for nthusiastic amateurs seeking high quality new learning experiences.

Their work is especially relevant in a time when the boundaries between visual arts, performance, dance and voicework are increasingly challenged.

Helen Kozich
Artist
Machynlleth
Wales

Dr Deborah Middleton - University of Huddersfield

2008-03-14T03:47:00.000-07:00

CPR is a unique and precious resource, which has supported generations of artists, practitioners, students and academics.

Many careers have been founded on experiences gained because of the work of CPR. Debate and practice has flourished through training and conference activities which CPR has convened.

Loss of this organisation would be a severe loss of life-blood for the arts in this country and beyond.

Dr Deborah Middleton
School of Music, Humanities and Media
University of Huddersfield

Dr Karen Juers-Munby - Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts

2008-03-14T03:46:00.000-07:00

The CPR in Aberystwyth has been a vital meeting place for a vast number of theatre and performance practioners, academics and and students for years. It has always managed to be locally rooted while being internationally famous.

By any European arts funding standards the current funding must be considered a small investment for immeasurable returns. I last visited the CPR for the international ‘Towards Tomorrow’ Conference.

Please revert your decision and make sure CPR Wales has a tomorrow!

Dr Karen Juers-Munby
Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts

Dr. Claire MacDonald - Director, International Centre for Fine Art Research, London

2008-03-14T03:31:00.001-07:00

Dear CPR,

I am writing to add my voice of support to CPR and to ask that the Arts Council of Wales reconsiders pulling out its support. CPR is not only a valuable, long active, resource that deserves to be funded - many arts projects do. It is more that, in terms of its contribution to the arts internationally, the question should really be how to engage the arts community in further valuing what it does by using it as a model, an exemplar and a generative source of expertise, knowledge and skills. In a time when the word of the day is 'knowledge transfer' cutting CPR does not allow knowledge to be transferred, exchanged or valued.

Many of us can say that our own careers and success has been informed by the ideas, support and/or curatorial and directorial work of CPR and we would all mourn a serious threat to its future and I hope that this does not happen.

Strangely enough, it is always in some sense a pleasure to be able to respond to a valued organization by saying how valuable it is and continues to be - but in this instance it is bleak indeed to consider its possible demise.

in support

Claire MacDonald

Dr. Claire MacDonald
Director ICFAR
International Centre for Fine Art Research
University of the Arts London

Jack James - Actor, London

2008-03-14T03:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Richard and Judie

CPR has been consistent in its commitment to promoting cultural innovation, excellence in performance and rigour in research. It has provided a model of theatrical best practice and continues to inspire and encourage artists across the spectrum of the performing arts.
Whilst firmly rooted in Wales, CPR has provided a meeting place and point of contact for practitioners and academics internationally and has been a significant cultural ambassador for Wales throughout the world.

I was personally involved in the company's work for only a very short space of time (as a member of the CPR performance ensemble The Practice) but the deep and lasting contribution of that brief contact informs all my work; I am constantly struck by the realisation that ideas and practices which I first encountered in the context of CPR's theatre research are now accepted common practice in the arenas of subsidised main-stage theatre - fifteen years later. Many companies boast of being innovators, CPR really are. Long may they continue.

I join with the many voices here urging the Arts Council of Wales to reverse this retrogressive and ill considered funding decision.

Jack James

Actor, London

Jessica Yeung - Associate Director, Centre for Translation, Hong Kong Baptist University

2008-03-14T03:26:00.000-07:00

It is very saddening news to hear that the CPR is facing difficulties.

CPR is an extremely important body not only for arts in the UK, but also for the rest of the world. When I did my postgraduate studies on performing arts in HK (China) and in the UK, I constantly referred to publications of CPR for high quality and inspiring material. Now I am teaching in university and I always tell my students to go to CPR references when they need inspirations.

In my capacity of policy making for the arts in my part of the world, I also urge my colleagues to regularly check up on CPR, because CPR presents and represents some of the most cutting edge work done in the performing arts in the world.

I also tell my theatre friends in HK and China that Wales has one of the most interesting and progressive centre for performing arts in the world. It has a most amazing vision and truly reflects the spirit of internationalism. It will be a great pity if CPR has to reduce the scope or scale of its work and would not be able to make such wonderful contributions to performing arts in the world; I worry that it would also weaken the influence of Wales in the world scene of performing arts.

Jessica Yeung

Associate Director
Centre for Translation
Hong Kong Baptist University;

Advisor
Programme and Development Committee,
Leisure and Cultural Services Department, HK(SAR), China

Gabriel Paul Gawin - Theatre Director, Wroclaw, Poland

2008-03-12T10:55:00.001-07:00

The CPR has been one of the most infuential organisations that I have had the pleasure of engaging with. Early in my career as a theatre practitioner they brought me in to contact with an extraordinary array of World and Welsh theatre and performance practice allowing me to break through the limitations of Anglo- Saxon perspectives I had thought were universal. The quality, breadth and range of work they promoted over the years places them as one of the most important global cultural innovators.

Gabriel Paul Gawin
Director
Wroclaw
Poland

Stephanie Tillotson - Aberystwyth, Wales

2008-03-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Richard

I am writing to express my deep concern and shock at the recent news concerning the proposed change in funding status regarding The Centre for Performance Research. I believe that the Arts Council of Wales has decided to withdrawn revenue funding from CPR and has suggested that the organization move onto a project funded footing.

It is my opinion that CPR is an invaluable source and resource for artists, audiences, teachers and young people living and working in Wales. CPR provides access to instruction that would otherwise be impossible to undertake; invaluable to those wishing to train or to extend their areas of expertise and providing a space to be, to think and to dream. Furthermore, CPR is a priceless catalogue to those who wish for access to the innovative and internationally important artists, companies and thought concerning performance of the recent past. It is no wonder that CPR has an internationally respected place in the theatre and performance community, a place that I would think a huge deficit to Wales should the facility be lost due to lack of funding that makes core staff funding, and therefore the long term future of CPR, possible.

At his exciting and challenging period when the drama, theatre and performance community is looking forward to the proposed creation of a non-building based national theatre it is all the more important that the basic core work of the Centre for Performance Research be supported and utilized, without diminution, in the pursuit of excellence for, and by, the people of Wales. I wish, therefore, to lend my voice to the appeal against the Arts Council of Wales decision and to thank all concerned at CPR for the service they have rendered to the international community of artists over the years.

Yours sincerely

S. A. Tillotson
Aberystwyth, Wales

Electa Behrens - D-MOOR, Oslo

2008-03-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Judie and Richard,

I will have to begin this letter repeating the same words with which many of our common colleagues have opened their letters to you - but I must do this because there are no words more to the point: I am deeply saddened to hear of the Arts Council's ill-advised decision in your case. None of us in independent arts organizations are in it for the fat pension checks or fancy vacations, but we all do hope that continuity of good work will be noticed and rewarded. The quality of an individual piece of art is always debatable, that is the nature of our field. However, qualities such as: continuity of programming, positive effects on the community, fostering of individual artists, founding of world renowned festivals and responsible business practices ARE quantifiable. CPR's excellence on all of these fronts makes the Arts Council's decision seem unfounded and confused.

I first met CPR in 2002, as an intern. At this time, you introduced me to many major artists who have shaped my career, and taught me important lessons about the human and business elements of organizing artistic events. After this initial meeting, I went on to work in many countries around Europe and found consistently that CPR was named as one of the main organizations in the UK and definitely the only one in Wales, which was actively connected to the strong currents present on the continent. In 2006, I came back to CPR to work. I found that you had grown as a company: further developing your program of workshops, attracting qualified and dedicated collaborators - in the office and on the stage, furthering international partnerships through networks and co-projects and being honored with the gift of a new working space in the heart of the university campus. It seemed clear that your continued dedication and foresight were bringing good things to Wales and bringing CPR, Wales and the UK out to good things.

Although I am proud of your accomplishments, as a fellow artist can be proud of a colleague, I have to admit that I write this letter out of purely selfish reasons. Currently, I am starting a freelance group in Norway. Norway looks very much towards the UK for models regarding how to organize its funding system for the arts. The UK's Arts Council decision in your case is a very dangerous message to Norway, and the world. It seems to say: do not use continuity of quality work as a deciding factor when funding artists. For my part, I certainly hope that Norway doesn't listen to such advice.

But what to advise?

Put your face into the stiff welsh wind with joy and the sun will break over the sea.

All the best,

Electa Behrens
--
D-MOOR
Oslo

Webside: http://www.dmoor.com/

Angharad Wynne-Jones - Director, Lift - London International Festival of theatre

2008-03-11T03:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Richard and Julie

I am totally flabbergasted by the news of CPR’s impending cut.

CPR’s work as a meeting place, for ideas, exchange and discovery connects Wales internationally with the best of contemporary performance practice to promote innovation, experimentation, and process in theatre and performance. For over thirty years I have witnessed and been engaged by the depth of its programmes from its innovative training programmes and approaches to making theatre alongside programmes of high quality presentations and performances from around the world that pursue ideals of accessibility without artistic compromise; sharing with practitioners and audiences the ideas and skills of the best theatre practitioners from across the world.

It has located Wales as a critical and significant player to the development if international discourse in performance making within the international cultural community. There is simply nothing else like it and it is beyond belief that the Arts Council should withdraw its support.Now is the time to invest more in this extraordinary institution that offers so much to so many. We need innovation of this scale and quality to address the significant issues of our time from climate change to national and individual identities, from social cohesion in diverse communities to the development of active citizenship. Cutting the organisation sends messages of myopic poorly made decisions and processes, and reduces confidence and interest in Wales as a creative country, with a rich potential of collaboration.

I hope and trust that commonsense will out and CPR will be saved

Best regards

Angharad

Angharad Wynne-Jones
Director
Lift - London International Festival of theatre
London

www.liftfest.org.uk

Siegmar Schröder - Artistic Director of Theaterlabor Bielefeld and Festival 360°, Germany

2008-03-10T07:22:00.001-07:00

Dear Judie, Dear Richard,

we are going to celebrate our 25th anniversary this year and we are learning by the bad news that were arriving in Germany, that nobody can be sure of cultural subventions, however high the quality of work is.

I recognize the CPR as one of the strongest European institutes, which is working in the field of experimental theatre. The CPR is accompanying my theatre since the beginning. It is the only place in Europe, where the practical work is so close connected to the academic reflection.

The CPR with its publications, congresses, workshops was always helpful for us to get orientation in the world of modern Performing Arts.

Close Cooperation with the CPR was leading to be a part of a European network.
The Welsh Arts Council should support the institutions, which are representing the highest European level of cultural work.

Because of the CPR Wales is an important country in the world of researching theatres and theatre scholars.

I wish you the very best in your struggle, that the CPR can survive in a world of mainstream-culture.

Siegmar Schröder

Artistic Director of Theaterlabor Bielefeld and Festival 360° /Germany
http://www.theaterlabor.de/

Barbara Cavanagh

2008-03-10T07:21:00.001-07:00

Dear Judie and Richard,

I want to express, most strongly, my dismay that the Arts Council of Wales is planning to completely remove its financial support from the Centre for Performance Research. As an international bookseller specialising in performance arts I have known and admired your work for some thirty years, since you first started building your library at Cardiff Laboratory Theatre as a scholarly and stimulating background and springboard for all that you have achieved.

The late John Cavanagh and I have watched and appreciated as you have gone from strength to strength, culminating in your being invited to base yourselves at the University of Aberystwyth. Here, you seem to have matured in a most exciting way, continuing to engage with performance worldwide, and attracting many practitioners to Wales and Aberystwyth and new theatre students to the University of Aberystwyth. The University obviously appreciates your total commitment and contribution to the cultural life of both university and town, rewarding you with a splendid new building and handsome performance spaces.

I do realise, however, that the team you have built up cannot exist without some outside grants, and know that the financing you received from the Arts Council of Wales is essential to maintaining this team. I understand that there is talk of your being financed for particular projects, but know that it is virtually impossible to engender creative work in this way. There needs to be a reliable source of funding to enable one idea or project to lead to another; we all know that very few projects arrive as complete entities – they require a certain amount of time and imagination to come to fruition, and this naturally means financing a team which can make things happen and eventually result in an innovative, stimulating programmes and performances. It is what makes CPR internationally renowned for its ground-breaking work.

It is also the reason that John Cavanagh chose to deposit his international theatre library at CPR, for the purpose of professional and scholarly research into past, present and future performances. It is quite unusual to find a theatre department which has such a remarkable library, and there is strong reason to believe that it will attract other complementary collections to be deposited there, building an unrivalled bank of knowledge both for CPR, the University of Aberystwyth and to be shared worldwide by means of the internet and many plans for future publications.

It seems shameful that this relatively small annual grant should be withdrawn, endangering work and experimentation that has taken so many years to build. We are told that decentralisation is present-day policy, and it is hard to think of a place less central geographically in the British Isles, but more central philosophically in the world of international performance art and performance research.

I most sincerely hope that the Welsh Arts Council will not only reconsider its decision to withdraw the present grant, but pledge a new grant for at least ten years to enable CPR’s remarkable work to continue to flourish.

Yours sincerely,
Barbara Cavanagh

Kaspar Wimberley and Susanne Kudielka - Treacle Performance, Germany

2008-03-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Richard and Judie,

Hope you are both well. I hear from Germany with growing uneasiness about the current funding cuts that are taking place in the UK. The storms are brewing in Aberystwyth. I wanted to add my voice of support to your ongoing fight to save the work of CPR and hope that the huge potential for creating innovative and daring work at the new center is not jeopardized by short sighted decisions. The UK needs more places like the CPR. So does Germany.

Liebe Grüße,

Kaspar Wimberley and Susanne Kudielka (Treacle Performance)
Stuttgart, Germany

http://treacleonline.wordpress.com/

Ioan Williams - Professor Emeritus, Aberystwyth University

2008-03-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

I feel obliged not only to write in general support of CPR in the current emergency, but also to register certain facts about the relationship between CPR and the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth, which may well be the subject of some misunderstanding.

As Head of the Department concerned some ten years ago, I was responsible for the invitation to CPR to relocate to Aberystwyth and to enter into a relationship with the Department. The basis of this invitation was a belief that CPR’s work was closely cognate to that of the Department to a degree which justified our offering accommodation and financial support. The subsequent relationship was based on a mutual understanding that CPR could only continue with the wide and varied range of its activities with continued Arts Council support. The University could never have offered funding to these activities itself and this was clearly understood by the Arts Council at the time. The Arts Council were party to the discussions and arrangements and it was strongly in support of the arrangement on the grounds that it strengthened CPR as an organisation and enhanced its ability to carry out project work the Council was happy to support.

It should be clearly understood by all concerned that withdrawing financial support from CPR must seriously impair its ability to carry out the work which has earned it such an outstanding reputation nationally and internationally.

In that case it seems to me that the only rational basis for a decision to withdraw funding would be that the Arts Council had come to the conclusion either that the work was no longer of an appropriate standard, or that it was no longer relevant to the performance scene in Wales. I cannot believe that anyone could seriously maintain either of those propositions. There has been no decline in the standard of CPR’s work. It has been consistently outstanding over the years and just as consistently recognised as such by the Council itself. Nor has the environment in Wales or beyond altered in such as way as to reduce its relevance or productive effect. On the contrary, the trends in performance and performance theory which CPR recognised so early and has done so much to promote remain strong.

I am sure we all understand that the Council has a duty to ensure that funding mechanisms remain relevant to the overall situation of the Arts in Wales from decade to decade and that the decisions currently being made must observe relevant executive parameters. At the same time, revision should surely be founded on clear and consistent principles, rather than administrative convenience.

I remain optimistic relative to CPR, simply because it is difficult to believe that decisions can be made in the current political environment which are so clearly wrong. In the meantime I would like to offer the company my support and encouragement.

With best wishes,

Ioan Williams
Professor Emeritus, Aberystwyth University

Marion Carlisle - Composer and Musician, Cardigan, Wales

2008-03-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

The Centre for Performance Research is not only important for Wales; it also reaches out internationally to promote innovation, experimentation and process in theatre and performance.

Marion Carlisle
Composer and Musician
Cardigan

Nicholas Arnold - Principal Lecturer in Performance Studies at De Montfort University

2008-03-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

As Principal Lecturer in Performance Studies at De Montfort University, I protest most strongly at the proposed changes to the CPR's funding.

As a senior academic active within arts practice, I have long experience of funding structures, their operation and effect. Given the nature, structure and function of the CPR, the proposed changes are clearly a threat to its continued existence. They short-sighted and mis-conceived. They betray a worrying ignorance of the CPRs reputation and value.

Nicholas Arnold
Leicester

Dr Heike Roms - Aberystwyth University

2008-03-07T02:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Judie and Richard,

WITHDRAWAL OF FUNDING

I am writing in support of your appeal to the Arts Council of Wales to reinstate your annual revenue grant.

As a lecturer in Performance Studies at Aberystwyth University and Course Convenor of the MA Practising Performance I am particularly concerned about the impact the withdrawal of your grant will have on providing young Wales-based artists professional support for their work and a viable perspective after graduation.

In the past, when there were a significant number of publicly funded performance companies working in Wales, emerging performance artists would have developed their skills and experiences by doing a kind of performance apprenticeship with one of these – as, for example, now celebrated Welsh artists such as Eddie Ladd or Marc Rees did with Brith Gof in the 1990s. Today, when there are few revenue-funded performance companies left, the role of advanced training opportunities and performance placements is increasing in importance. The time between leaving university and working as an established artist is here crucial – emerging artists need opportunities to advance their skills and to develop their own practice.

The CPR with its publicly funded workshop and training programme and its Associated Artists scheme has been providing an essential service in this regard. Two of their current associated artists, Gareth Llyr Evans and Louise Ritchie, are graduates from our MA scheme, and their association with CPR and the access it gives them to a professional and non-institutional training provision has played a large role in persuading them to stay in West Wales after their studies and make a valuable artistic contribution to the community there. Furthermore, the CPR’s new performance space, the Foundry studio, has recently allowed the organisation to invite innovative medium-scale performance work for which there is currently no other space in Ceredigion. This programme offers young artists (as well as the general public) the chance to see a wide variety of high-quality work whilst they are forming their tastes and their own artistic styles. CPR’s international perspective thereby allows these young artists to learn from and aspire to examples of the best performance practice in the world.

There is today a very worrying lack of a younger generation of performance makers creating work in Wales. I fear that the withdrawal of funding to CPR, which will force it to abandon its public programme of training and performance, will further reduce the already limited opportunities that younger artists have in Wales to develop their own artistic practice.

I therefore urge the Arts Council of Wales to reconsider its decision and reinstate the revenue grant to the Centre for Performance Research.
Yours sincerely,

Dr Heike Roms

Julie McNamara - Singer/songwriter and Voicework Facilitator, London

2008-03-07T02:06:00.000-08:00

I think the decision to cut the Centre for Performance Research is one of the most unimaginative come up with so far.

The work of CPR has far reaching impact on the swelling population of theatre practitioners and live artists throughout the UK. Please revise your thinking on this one.

We need CPR as a sounding board for new work, a seedbed for new talent. Fund it!

Julie McNamara
Singer/songwriter and Voicework Facilitator
London

Abigail Lake - Performance Practitioner, London

2008-03-07T02:04:00.000-08:00

This would have a devastating effect on the performance culture and educational resources of Wales, and internationally.

This is a unique centre which facilitates groundbreaking research in various performance fields and opportunities for artists and academics from around the world to open dialogue.

To lose something that has been built up over, and sustained for 30 years, would indicate a grave loss for so many people and a disgusting and sad reflection of current cultural policy in the UK.

Abigail Lake
Performance Practitioner, London

Margot Morgan - Performer, Swansea

2008-03-07T02:00:00.000-08:00

I believed that the WAG was rediscovering the vital importance of linking the arts and performance with everyday life, and with a vital economy and ecology where imagination is life blood. Having witnessed the devastating effects of separating art from science and education, as a culture and a small nation, we cannot afford such folly as to allow such a successful and pioneering institutions close.

Margot Morgan
Performer
Swansea

Prof.Adrian Kear - Head of Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth

2008-03-07T01:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Judie,

ACW funding for CPR

I write to register my personal support for CPR as an arts organisation that has informed and influenced my professional development as a scholar of theatre and performance. CPR has long been at the vanguard of identifying, promoting and archiving innovative and experimental theatre and performance practice, and supporting the creative labour that goes into its making. It is acknowledged word-wide as source of inspiration and regeneration for theatre arts and artists, and has contributed considerably to putting Aberystwyth, and Wales itself, on the international map. The decision of the Arts Council of Wales to withdraw revenue funding for CPR at the very moment it is seeking to establish national institutions of international repute is therefore as questionable as it is regrettable.

The presence of CPR in Aberystwyth, and its close association with the University’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television, was an important part of my understanding of the cultural economy of West Wales long before my appointment to the University. I doubt there is quite such a successful model of partnership working anywhere else in the creative arts in the UK; and it is certainly curious that the added value this provides should be jeopardised at a point in time when partnership between agencies and organisations is very much part of public policy. The benefits to the people of Wales in having two world-class arts and education providers working in close conjunction with one another are without question considerable.

Certainly the TFTS-CPR partnership was key attraction to me in taking up my employment in Aberystwyth. I know that this is also the case for a large number of colleagues and students – whether or not they are specialists in theatre and performance. The impact of CPR on the economy of West Wales, through its contribution to the cultural infrastructure of the region, should not be underestimated and would provide sufficient justification alone to continue revenue funding. But the real benefit to Wales would be in continuing to support an organisation whose international reputation for excellence – and for risk and innovation – is already firmly established and which could help to generate and propagate these values within the nation more generally. Wales would be less creative and less respected without the dynamic contribution of CPR’s distinctive energies.
I therefore urge ACW to reverse its decision and to explore ways of nurturing CPR’s programme, profile and productive contribution to the cultural life of the nation.
Yours sincerely,

Adrian Kear
Professor of Theatre and Performance

Head of Department: Professor Adrian Kear (BA Hons.; MSocSc; PhD)
Department of Theatre, Film and Television StudiesParry-Williams Building, Penglais CampusAberystwyth SY23 3AJ

Paula & Ian Rylatt - Wales

2008-03-06T02:13:00.001-08:00

Dear Judie Christie,

I am writing on behalf of my husband and myself in support of the CPR appeal to the ACW. We are local residents, not theatre practitioners, but the positive work of the CPR is still felt by us. As direct participants, we have only taken one workshop, with Joseph Jordania (which was excellent), but as viewers we have seen inspiring performances put on by the CPR. We had felt extremely fortunate to live in an area where the arts are so well supported. As craft workers we benefited from the Cultural Enterprise Scheme, which has unfortunately also felt the knife. Wales is alive with music, theatre and art. It is inspiring to live in that climate of appreciation. Moving here from England was like stepping into the light! We thought this nation had it right! We see and hear the positive effect on friends and neighbours too. Lives are enriched. We sing in a choir with many members who have gained so much from the Giving Voice workshops.

Then this absurdity happens. It makes no sense to cut out one of the key players. The ACW talks the talk about forging international links, supporting new ideas, starting a new national theatre...in the CPR they already have a head start. What are they thinking? What is this really about? Could the Olympics be behind it? We are still 4 years away, and already the arts across the board in Britain have suffered. Why? Because it's an easy target. How do you quantify the value of an organisation like the CPR? You can't really. You feel it. And you know it in your heart. This withdrawal of funds is wrong. What is really absurd is that the CPR funding amount is tiny, a pittance. Yet so much is created to the benefit of so many on this shoe string that I can't help but be impressed by those who run the CPR. They should be congratulated and encouraged, not slashed.

In hopes that reason prevails and for once money doesn't rule the day, we submit this letter of support.

Yours most sincerely,

Paula & Ian Rylatt, Wales

Marc Rees - Performance Practioner, Wales

2008-03-05T05:06:00.000-08:00

I have always been appreciative and supportive of CPR's vital role in the performing arts landscape within Wales and have recently begun to forge a strong relationship with them. I was asked to present work at the ‘Speaking to the nation’ conference held at the newly inaugurated Y Ffowndri, and from it emerged exciting and vibrant possibilities, notably for me, is a proposed collaborative research and development period with Cai Tomos that would be hosted by CPR. With their demise, this and other valuable creative frameworks would disappear. This can not, must not happen as they are a crucial part our developmental practise as artists. There is so much more untapped potential, Welsh artists need CPR, Wales needs CPR and I am sure that I am not a lone voice within the milieu.

Marc Rees
Performance Practioner, Wales
http://www.r-i-p-e.co.uk/

Teatro Potlach: Pino, Daniela, Nathalie, Maurizio, Zsofia, Nicoletta, Lara, Alessandro, Lorella, Liliana, Lina, John and the town of Fara Sabina.

2008-03-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

Dearest Companions,

We from Potlach Theatre (Fara Sabina - Rieti - Italy) are your supporters in this battle. It is not permissible that the Council could withdraw the funding to such an Organization like CPR which has existed for over 30 years - ‘the Aberystwyth-based powerhouse of international theatre’ (The Guardian).

CPR has a fundamental and prestigious role within the Arts in Wales. We from Potlach Theatre, an Italian historical group which was born in Italy in 1976 as a theatre laboratory for research and experimentation, have met CPR in 1979 at the Santarcangelo Festival in Romagna. Since then we have always remained in contact, and have invited CPR to our Festival in Fara Sabina in the 80’s. In 2006 we have planned a five years collaboration (from 2008 to the 2012) which will take place in Aberystwyth, Fara Sabina and others 5 European countries.

CPR is present and has its center in Aberystwyth, even tough it is situated in the periphery it has a deeply branched international resonance with other important European groups that also have been existing for over thirty years and are situated in Italian, Danish, Polish, Spanish, German…peripheries. These organizations are all recognized for their abilities to artistically involve their own "periphery" with the Universities and also with today’s great European Festivals.

To cut CPR’s funding would be like to cut a prestigious identity which is resident in Aberystwyth but present in the entire world, an identity whose life has been based on years of work and relationships that have created a Centre that operates in both the micro and the macro, knowing how to deal with just its own territory and at the same time and in the same way with Europe and Abroad. A new model of transmission of the Arts for the new generations.

We from the Potlach Theatre, hope that the support from all the groups that have known and worked with CPR will be taken in consideration and will make the ACW think over, and reverse this decision into a catalyst for reflection and support to the important phase of transition that CPR is experiencing. We hope that the ACW will continue to support such a peripheral Centre of the Arts in Wales like CPR, encouraging its particularities and qualities.

Please! Do not take away from us these cultural partners who were created thirty years ago (not yesterday), who have dedicated their own lives to the Arts and that still have many things to express in relation to the new and old generations, and the recent opening of the new space The Foundry proves it!

The presence of the Potlach Theatre in Wales is estimated for the next Festival Giving Voice 2010 and we had also talked about the realization of an intercultural a Interdisciplinary project based on the book by Italo Calvino: "the Invisible Cities", through which Theatre Potlach works with the theme of buried memories with people from the local Associations of the place and artists coming from all over the world. Potlach Theatre has been realizing this project since 1991 throughout the world and is hoping to realize it in Aberystwyth in 2009.

Also CPR is planning to come to Fara Sabina to work on a series of projects in the next four years from 2009 to 2012.

To withdraw CPR’s funding would mean to cut the life of a tradition which is over 30 years old, its relationships, its exchange of ideas and all the relationships that came out of these ideas.

We vividly hope that the ACW‘s decision will reverse into a continuous support.

Dear Judie and Richard we embrace you and we keep our fingers crossed for you

Teatro Potlach: Pino, Daniela, Nathalie, Maurizio, Zsofia, Nicoletta, Lara, Alessandro, Lorella, Liliana, Lina, John and the town of Fara Sabina.

Carissimi compagni, lunedi 3 marzo 2008

Noi del Teatro Potlach (Fara Sabina –Rieti –Italia) siamo vostri sostenitori durante questa battaglia. Non è ammissibile che uno Stato tagli la sovvenzione ad una Istituzione più che trentennale come il CPR - 'Una potenza del teatro internazionale basata ad Aberystwyth' (The Guardian).

'CPR ha un ruolo fondamentale e prestigioso all’interno delle arti nel Galles.
Noi del Teatro Potlach, gruppo storico italiano nato come laboratorio di ricerca e sperimentazione teatrale in Italia nel 1976, abbiamo conosciuto il CPR nel 1979 nel Festival di Santarcangelo di Romagna. E da allora siamo sempre rimasti in contatto, invitando il CPR nel nostro Festival a Fara Sabina negli anni ’80 e progettando nel 2006 cinque anni di future collaborazioni (dal 2008 al 2012)insieme tra Aberystwyth' , Fara Sabina e altri 5 paesi Europei.
Il CPR è presente e ha la sua sede ad Aberystwyth', in periferia ma possiede una risonanza internazionale ramificata(che pochi altri gruppi di questa regione del Galles possiedono) con altri gruppi europei importanti anch’essi con un attività più che trentennale avendo sedi nelle periferie italiane, danesi, polacche, spagnole, tedesche etc…tutti riconosciuti per le loro capacità di coinvolgimento artistico della loro “periferia” con le Università (Roma “la Sapienza”, Roma Tre, la seconda Università di Tor Vergara, Università dell’Aquila, Università e DAMS di Bologna, DAMS di Cosenza , Università di Torino, Università di Lecce etc…) e con i grandi Festival dell’Europa di oggi.

Tagliare la sovvenzione al CPR, sarebbe come tagliare un’identità prestigiosa, residente ad Aberystwyth', ma presente nel mondo intero, basata su anni di lavoro e relazioni che hanno creato un Centro che opera dal micro al macro, sapendo trattare con il proprio territorio e nello stesso modo con l’Europa e l’Estero. Un modello nuovo di trasmissione delle Arti per le nuove generazioni.

Noi del Teatro Potlach, ci auguriamo che il sostegno di tutti gruppi che hanno conosciuto e che lavorano con il CPR sia di livello a fare riflettere l’Arts Council del Galles e trasformi la sua decisione in sorgente di riflessioni ed appoggio all’importante fase di transizione che sta attraversando il CPR continuando a sostenere un Centro periferico sulle Arti nel Galles come il CPR e stimolando le sue particolarità e le sue qualità.

Per favore! Non toglieteci i partner culturali che si sono creati trenta anni fa (e non ieri), che hanno messo la loro vita al servizio dell’Arte e che hanno ancora molte cose da esprimere in relazione alle nuove e vecchie generazioni. L’inaugurazione del nuovo spazio “The Foundry” ne è la diretta prova!

La presenza del Teatro Potlach è prevista per il prossimo Festival Giving Voice 2010 e siamo in “pourparlers” per la realizzazione di un progetto Interdisciplinare ed interculturale basato sul libro di Italo Calvino: “Le Città Invisibili”, nel quale il Teatro Potlach lavora con il popolo delle Associazioni locali del luogo dove viene realizzato il progetto insieme ad artisti che provengono dal mondo intero sul tema delle memorie sotterrane . Il Teatro Potlach realizza questo progetto dal1991 in tutto il mondo e spera di potere realizzarlo ad Aberystwyth' nel 2009.
D’altro canto il CPR è invitato a Fara Sabina con diversi progetti durante 4 anni di seguito dal 2009 al 2012.

Tagliare la sovvenzione a questo gruppo è tagliare la vita a una tradizione di più di 30 anni, alle sue relazioni, ai suoi scambi d’idea e alle relazioni che nascono da loro.
Sperando vivamente in una trasformazione dell’imposizione dell’ Arts Council del Galles in un sostegno continuo,

il Teatro Potlach: Pino, Daniela, Nathalie, Maurizio, Zsofia, Nicoletta, Lara, Alessandro, Lorella, Liliana, Lina, John e il Comune di Fara Sabina vi abbracciano, cara Judie e Richard e incrocciamo le dita per voi.

Richard Huw Morgan - Good Cop Bad Cop, Wales

2008-03-05T04:03:00.000-08:00

To whom it may concern.

I am writing to add my unreserved support for the campaign by the Centre For Performance Research to have their full revenue client status reinstated by the Arts Council of Wales.

If Wales as a country is truly to have a future on the international stage in any field of activity, let alone artistic, it will need more organisations of the standard of CPR, not fewer. Organisations that can evidence their international status through the level of support that this short-sighted and, to date unjustified, decision by the Arts Council of Wales has generated.

CPR should exist as part of an integrated network of specialised arts organisations that feed each other within Wales. What should not be forgotten is that CPR was just one of the, and last remaining ACW revenue client, organisations spawned by the highly influential and respected Cardiff Laboratory Theatre, each operating with a specialist area of interest.

It was inevitable that with the decline of Brith Gof and Magdalena that CPR could appear isolated and perhaps, to some, limited in the scope of their activities. But it never was the intention for it to cover all bases. What is particularly depressing, demoralising and frighteningly familiar is that following consultation with ACW, CPR directly addressed the needs of Wales’ based practitioners and other ACW agendas but then still gets notice of revenue funding withdrawal.

I admired CPR’s ability to respond and diversify, and was encouraged by the further development of the CPR associate artist scheme and more particularly the “speaking to the nation” conference which evidenced a groundswell of positivity about the field among Wales based practitioners, presenters, students, etc that I had not witnessed since the start of the 1990’s – things were looking up!

I do find it particularly galling that I was not consulted as a member of the ACW’s National List of Advisers as to my opinion of the value of CPR to the performance community in Wales, and would question whether this oversight in utilising the expertise at hand is indeed grounds for appeal. The ACW’s website declares that among the duties of NLA members is to, “Assist with the periodic review of funded organisations” Which, if any, members of the NLA were consulted, and on what grounds they were selected and others, myself included, who put themselves forward for the NLA with specified interest in performance, not consulted? Is this a process of "openess and transparency"?

Personally, though my individual involvement with CPR has not been enormous, it has been highly significant in the development of my artistic career in Wales. To give just three examples: The first presentation by my previous company “Das Wunden” in a critical context at CPR’s Performance: Process and Documentation retreat in Brecon in 1993; My participation as part of the academic TRAWS collective presentation at 2005’s major “Towards Tomorrow”
International gathering, and finally my recent participation in the aforementioned “Speaking to the Nation” conference.

But value should not be judged purely in personal terms, purely by “what does this organisation do for me?”, but also in terms of its value to the larger community/communities of which I am also a part, “what does this organisation do for the performance community in Wales, what does this organisation do for the representation of the performance community of Wales worldwide, what does this organisation do for the economy of Aberystwyth etc.” Obviously such questions are much more difficult to answer than the purely personal, and as such demand a greater degree of application and intellect to address. The purely personal is the basis of the free-market economy; the needs of communities are the realm of representational politics, and as such, of those who spend public funds.

I could go on at length. What I really hate about the situation now is that it has become a campaign to have a bad decision overturned – a costly and difficult process – rather than having been consulted in the prior to the decision being made as to what my ‘expert opinion’
of the organisation might be.

With all my best wishes and ongoing support.

Richard Huw Morgan
Co-artistic director
good cop bad cop

Raul Valles - Director, Teatro Necrotono, Mexico

2008-03-05T03:57:00.000-08:00

__ Estimados Judie Christie y/o Richard Gough.

Soy mexicano y soy director de teatro y hasta en mí país se ha sentido de
manera positiva el trabajo del Centre for Performance Research. Desconozco
los motivos por los cuales se desea suspender el apoyo al centro, pero
cualesquiera que estos sean, estoy seguro que no se acercan ni remotamente a
la importante e invaluable labor que el CPR ha venido haceindo durante
tantos años.

Gracias y por favor recapaciten.

Dear Judie Christie and Richard Gough

I am a Mexican theatre director and in the country where I work the Centre for Performance Research has been known positively.

I do not know the reasons why they want to withdraw your grant, but whatever they may be, I am sure that they do not remotely consider the important and invaluable work that CPR has been doing for so many years.

Raul Valles
Teatro Necrotono

Wojciech Krukowski - Director, Akademia Ruchu, Poland

2008-03-05T02:32:00.002-08:00

Dear Judie Christie, dear Richard Gough

CPR is constantly an important and inspiring place on the map of artistic world. CPR is important for us and for many more people in Poland, to whom a sense of creative solidarity is necessary. CPR means a reliable brand radiating ideas and spreading around fruitful theatrical and cultural practices.

We must believe that those, who should know those truths will fulfil this duty.

All the best,

Wojciech Krukowski

- Akademia Ruchu
- Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (director)

http://www.akademiaruchu.com.pl/

Graham Dodd - Cardiff

2008-03-05T02:32:00.001-08:00

Without this wonderful organisation I and many, many others would not have had the opportunity to learn from and sing with artists from many different cultures. It deserves continued funding to allow it to continue its culturally significant work. Fund CPR for the future!

Graham Dodd, Cardiff

Colleen Lanki - Performing Artist, Canada

2008-03-05T02:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Judie Christie and Richard Gough,

I am writing this short letter of support with a true feeling of dismay at the possible funding changes you are facing. I have never been to the CPR or to Wales, but I have looked upon your programs and publications with a dream in my heart of someday having a centre like the CPR in Vancouver, Canada. I have wanted for years to travel to Wales to visit the CPR, and in fact your activities and publications have made me think that Wales is truly a place of innovative, adventurous theatre creators.

The incredible balance of national and international, and between independent artistic practice and scholarly research that I perceive as happening at the CPR is something to be aspired to. Rather than facing a sudden loss of funding, I would think the ACW and the arts councils worldwide should be leaping over themselves to start satellite “Centres for Performance Research” around the world.

One issue facing artists in Western Canada is how often it is only short-term projects that receive funding, making the development of any long-term infrastructure difficult to impossible. I can only hope that the ACW continues to support the CPR in a meaningful and long-term way.

Yours truly,

Colleen Lanki

Independent Performing Artist
Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Theatre and Film, University of British Columbia

Canada
www.colleenlanki.com

Jane Lloyd Francis - Machynlleth

2008-03-05T02:29:00.000-08:00

CPR has been an enlightening, inspiring, educational, energising, illuminating influence in our lives.This energy and been channeled through our own work to inspire others to great achievements, in theatre, film and the arts and influencing some of the most well known artists in Wales and the UK.This is an organisation to be cherished and admired, an organisation worthy of national pride.Where else in the UK does such a resource exist?

Jane Lloyd Francis
Machynlleth

Nando Moraes - Joinville - Santa Catarina, Brazil

2008-03-05T02:28:00.000-08:00

Gostaria de registrar meu apoio aos trabalhos do CPR - Centre for Performance Research, reconhecendo seu imenso valor e seriedade em um trabalho desenvolvido há mais de trinta anos. Que seus recursos, por favor, sejam prorrogados.

Atenciosamente,
Nando Moraes
JOinville - Santa Catarina
Brasil.

I would like to register my support to the works of the CPR – I recognize the Centre for Research immense value and seriousness in its work developed over more than 30 years.

May its resources be extended.

Yours truly,

Nando Moraes
Joinville - Santa Catarina
Brasil.

Professor Betty Moulton - Voice, Speech and Text specialist, Canada

2008-03-05T02:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Richard,

I read with great dismay and frankly, anger, of the pending cuts to CPR funding. Your organization has brought so many diverse people together to share ideas, approaches, and theories of how we communicate with our voices. The cross-cultural understanding promoted by your activities and publications is a major force in the world of communication.

I had the privilege of attended the Giving Voice Festival in 2004, in Aberystwyth and Cardiff. There I experienced first hand, the work of a diverse set of master teachers, and your organization facilitated my interviewing of them for an article I published in VASTA's Voice and Speech Review in 2007. The theories and practices of these teachers and visionaries in the world of speaking and singing has therefore been represented and disseminated to many others who could not attend those vibrant and inspiring sessions. There is no other organization that brings together vocal theory and practice with the spirit of international exploration, in the way that CPR does. It is an extremely important voice that influences many fields of study within the human condition: psychology, philosophy, religion, sociology, linguistics, drama/theatrical performance, etc. The teachers I worked with at that Festival were operating in all those spheres as they delved with us into the very nature of communication.

Yours is a voice that must continue to be heard. I add mine to your protest of the funding cuts from the Arts Council of Wales.

Sincerely,

Professor Betty Moulton
Voice, Speech and Text specialist
Coordinator of the MFA in Theatre Voice Pedagogy
Department of Drama
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Rabab Ghazoul - Director and Performer, Cardiff

2008-03-05T02:26:00.000-08:00

I can't imagine the cultural landscape of Wales without CPR. It's an outstanding and unique resource that has brought richness and innovation and connection through so much diverse work and a combination of the uniquely local and international...As audiences, artists and practitioners we've all benefited immeasurably over the years through their work. We don't want this to stop.

Rabab Ghazoul,
Director and Performer
Cardiff

Joanna Weir Ouston - Head of Voice at Oxford School of Drama

2008-03-05T02:25:00.000-08:00

Dear Judie and Richard,

I have to congratulate you on what you and your team at CPR have achieved over the years. The CPR is a phenomenal artistic, educational and professional initiative with enormous prominence world-wide.

It astounds me that funding could be threatened to such a successful and unique organisation which does so much to advance research into the Arts and promoting Wales as an artistic centre internationally.

Please add my voice to what I'm sure must be a very long and passionate list of protesters (both in the UK and abroad) who simply cannot believe that funding of such a worthwhile and successful institution could possibly be threatened.

Kind regards
Yours sincerely

Joanna Weir Ouston
------------------------
Voice Coach and Theatre Director
Head of Voice at Oxford School of Drama
Visiting Lecturer at the Central School of Drama and Florida State University

Declan Connolly - Narbeth, Wales

2008-03-05T02:21:00.000-08:00

The CPR is a vital organisation for performing arts in Wales and it's loss would be a crime. We need cutting edge as well as mainstream!

Declan Connolly
Narbeth
Wakes

Jesus Jimenez Martinez - Director of Paso de Gato TV, Mexico City

2008-03-05T02:20:00.002-08:00

Es una Lastima que un lugar con esa gran trayectoria tenga que estar pasando por esta pena de sufrir por apoyo del Welsh Arts Council , reciban todo mi apoyo

Jesus Jimenez Martienz

Director Paso de Gato TV
Mexico City

It is such a pity that a place with such great trajectory must have to suffer this pain through the lack of support by the Arts Council of Wales, receive all my support.

Jesus Jimenez Martinez
Director of Paso de Gato TV
Mexico City

Stephen Fisher - Wales

2008-03-05T02:20:00.001-08:00

As an archive alone the CPR is vital to the ongoing establishment of Welsh theatre - without our past we have no present.

Save this vital resource that costs so little and yet reaches so far. Others produce far less value for their public money handout.

THINK AGAIN PLEASE, the arts in Wales needs the CPR

Stephen Fisher
Wales

Frank Rozelaar-Green - Performer, Cardiff

2008-03-05T02:19:00.000-08:00

I find it extraordinary and unthinkable that an organization of such long-standing excellence in the field of theatre, in its broadest sense, should have its funding withdrawn. The CPR (together with its former incarnation The Cardiff Laboratory Theatre) have been responsible for a huge proportion of Wales' exposure to International theatre and its directors/practitioners: work which, over the years, they have uniquely documented and archived. I would urge you to reconsider your decision.

Frank Rozelaar-Green
Performer
Cardiff

Prof. Richard Schechner - Tisch School of the Arts, NYU

2008-03-05T02:12:00.000-08:00

The CPR is one of the WORLD'S great institutions working to advance knowledge and practice across the broad range of performance. It is one of the "jewels of Wales"; that deserves the fullest support.

To even consider cutting CPR's budget is astonishing. The impact of CPR on thinking in academia, business, and arts communities is widespread and deep. The CPR has proven its excellence again and again over the years. Its leadership is hard-working. informed, and congenial. It is a great, alive, creative, and influential organization. It deserves to be fully supported.

Please do not cut back on your support for this stellar program.

Prof. Richard Schechner,
Tisch School of the Arts, NYU

Mary McGarry - Cardiff

2008-03-05T02:11:00.000-08:00

CPR is and always has been the most innovative and creative Arts organisation in Wales. It would be a travesty if it were to end through lack of funding.

Mary McGarry
Cardiff

NEW WELSH REVIEW

2008-03-04T08:19:00.000-08:00

Extracts from Chris Ricket’s review of CPR’s book A Performance Cosmology

…To read of the early years is to get a sense of a company working at something intense, provocative and full of experimentation. At times uncertain and chaotic it may have been, but it was clearly a period full of exchange and influence. Cardiff Laboratory Theatre and then CPR have had an enormous influence on theatre in Wales. Through all the touring, collaboration and networking they have instigated, they have made a similar impact on theatre internationally. And the international arena for CPR and its peers has been a rich interrogation of form, origin and purpose.

Any notion of stylistic hierarchy has been replaced by a commitment to recognise
and explore the matter at the core of performance, with CPR both drawing inspiration from theatre makers and performers throughout the world and offering its own inspiration and opportunity in return….

‘Evidence of the Past’ reveals CPR’s, and in particular Richard Gough’s, playfulness.
His ‘Perfect Time: Imperfect Tense’ is a record of a presentation in which the characteristics and importance of creativity and the backroom work of every cultural organisation are recorded through objects that emphasise the ephemerality and everydayness of performance artefact. It is a stimulating, serious and enjoyable mix.

Have I properly digested all its 320 large format pages? No, I don’t think so. Importantly, what I do know is that I will keep returning to it. Re-reading, re-treading.

Formerly Director of Wales Arts International, Chris Ricketts was recently appointed Director of the Sherman Theatre (Sherman Cymru) in Cardiff

Kevin Lewis - Artistic Director, Theatr Iolo, Wales

2008-03-04T05:49:00.000-08:00

Dear Judie and Richard,

I was shocked and saddened to hear that the Arts Council of Wales intends to with draw funding from CPR. Since coming to Wales in 1981 as an actor and then Artistic Director with Theatr Clwyd Outreach and Theatr Iolo, I have attended countless performances, workshops, conferences, and seminars organised by CPR. As a key component of the training policy of Theatr Iolo and Outreach Theatre I have also encouraged and funded performers, designers and directors working with me to attend performances and workshops as well. We have returned from such events reinvigorated , our horizons expanded and with inspiration and energy ready to start on the long journey of creating new work. I believe very strongly that the work of CPR has had a massive impact on the work created by myself and my colleagues both in Outreach and Theatr Iolo. Theatre making cannot happen in a vacuum - we need influences, inspiration and practical assistance to develop as individual artists and as companies - CPR as an organisation facilitates all of this and allows us to connect with developments in theatre and performance throughout the world.

If CPR does indeed have its revenue funding withdrawn and its future is thrown into jeopardy it will be a huge loss to those of us who value such inspirational and cutting edge influences on our work. As a young theatre artist working in Wales in the 1980's CPR was an artistic lifeline and has continued to be up to the present day. I would very much hope that an emergent theatre artist starting to make work in Wales in the early part of the 21st Century will still be able to use CPR as one of their artistic lifelines.

Yours sincerely

Kevin Lewis (Artistic Director Theatr Iolo)
http://www.theatriolo.com/

Simon Warner - Artist and Photographer, UK

2008-03-04T05:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Judie Christie,

I write in support of CPR's appeal against withdrawal of Arts Council Wales funding.

CPR publicity about its courses and activites has always had a very long reach, which is how I came to its training opportunities, in my search for tools to help me move into a performing arena from a background in pure photography.

I have always been delighted that the courses took place beyond the normal centres for such occurrences, and I have attended two weekend courses, and would have liked to come to more.

Both have been fascinating and challenging, and I'm really not aware of another organization that runs such a high profile programme of publicly accessible performance courses. The idea that theatre is Wales should from now on be inward-looking seems a terrible decision - a real recipe for stagnation.

Best Wishes and good luck,
Simon Warner
Artist and Photographer, UK

Eleonora Gimenez - Circus Artist, Dancer and Anthropologist, Argentina

2008-03-04T05:46:00.001-08:00

Judie Christie,

Mi Trabajo como artista de circo, bailarina y antropologa en la ciudad de Paris desde hace dos anios.

Estas lineas intentan brindar mi mas profundo apoyo al pedido de prolongacion de ayuda economica para el CPR – Centre for Performance Research destacando la enorme importancia que este centro ha tenido para mi formacion y para la de muchos artistas y/o estudiosos de las artes del hombre.

Estoy a vuestra dispocicion en este justo y genuino reclamo.
Saluda cordial y afectuosamente

Eleonora Gimenez

I have been working a as a circus artist, a dancer and an anthropologist in the city of Paris for two years.

These lines are attempting to offer my deepest support for the prolongation revenue funding for the CPR – I want to emphasize the Centre for Performance Research has had an enormous importance for my development and that of many artists and/or students of the human arts.

I remain at your disposal to assist you in your just appeal.

Warm regards

Eleonora Gimenez, Argentina

Lucy Gough - Playwright, Aberystwyth

2008-03-04T05:44:00.001-08:00

To: The Arts Council of Wales

As a playwright resident in Aberystwyth I am writing in support of the Centre of Performance Research. Over the years I have attended many stimulating lectures, symposiums, and performances arranged by CPR.

It is only when one is faced with the possibility of losing something that one realises what would be lost. To this end I would be very sorry if we were to lose the rich cultural diversity and intellectual rigour they bring to the world of performance and to Aberystwyth.

A culture thrives on diversity of knowledge and experience, if we lost CPR we would lose something unique and important.

Their presence here also enhances and nurtures international fertilisation.

I have always been an advocate of community theatre and more traditional theatre and I stand by those, but if we are to continue developing and discovering performance in its widest sense the work that CPR do is an essential and unique part of that.
So please reconsider you decision.

Yours Sincerely

Lucy Gough
Playwright, Aberystwyth

Lin Hixson - Director, Goat Island, USA

2008-03-04T05:42:00.000-08:00

I am the director of the performance group Goat Island and a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

CPR has been an irreplaceable part of the international theater and performance community and a vital part of my practice as a teacher and artist.

It would be a travesty to lose CPR and I strongly urge you to reconsider your funding cut to the organization.

Lin Hixson
Chicago
USA
http://www.goatislandperformance.org/

Daria Anfelli - Director, Uqbarteatro, Italy

2008-03-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

Cari amici,

leggiamo con preoccupazione la notizia della decisione dell'Arts Coucil di sospendere i finanziamenti a CPR. Ci sembra davvero una cosa inaudita, dopo tanti anni di attività e di costruzione di percorsi di ricerca interessanti per moltissii artisti e gruppi in ambito internazionale.
Vogliamo sperare che il Consiglio torni sulla propria decisione e dimostri di saper svolgere il proprio ruolo di mecenate intelligente delle arti e della cultura.

Purtroppo sempre più si sentono cose del genere, che dimostrano la difficoltà di chi ha i mezzi finanziari a comprendere il senso e l'importanza della ricerca in campo artistico.

La storia è costellata di amministratori che sono divenuti famosi per aver sostenuto artisti d'avanguardia divenuti colonne della storia dell'arte , ma anche di amministratori divenuti famosi per aver ignorato o affossato artisti e gruppi che poi si sono rivelati grandissimi. Speriamo che i membri del Welsch Arts Council vogliano passare alla storia nella prima categoria!

Siamo solidali con voi e chiediamo esplicitamente al Consiglio di ripensare le proprie strategie nei confronti del Centre of Performance Research. Con i nostri più sentiti auguri, cordialmente

Daria Anfelli e Uqbarteatro

Daria Anfelli
Uqbarteatro
www.uqbarteatro.blogspot.com

Dear friends,

We read with worry the news of the Arts Council decision to suspend the revenue funding to CPR. This is an inaudible decision especially after so many years of activities and creation of so many interesting pathways of research that have attracted so many international artists and groups.

We really want to hope that the Council would go back on their own decision and demonstrate to know how carry out its own role of intelligent patron of the arts and culture.

Unfortunately we hear more and more of such situations, which demonstrate how difficult it is for those with financial means to comprehend the sense and the importance of research in the arts.

The history is studded with administrators who have become famous because they supported avant-garde artists who have then become strong columns of the arts history, but history is also studded with administrators who have become famous because they have ignored or ditched artists and groups that have then revealed to be amongst the greatest.

We hope that the members of the Welsh Arts Council will want to go down in history as part of the first category!

We want to express our solidarity and explicitly ask the Arts Council of Wales to reconsider their strategies in relation to the Centre for Performance Research.

With our best wishes,

cordially Daria Anfelli and Uqbarteatro

Daria Anfelli
Uqbarteatro
Verona - Italia
www.uqbarteatro.blogspot.com

Amy Rose - co-artistic director, Bocadalupa, UK

2008-03-04T05:39:00.000-08:00

Dear Judie Christie and Richard Gough,

I am writing to support you in your appeal to the arts council. The influence that you have had on my practice has been subtle but extremely important one which I will try to explain. For years I have known about your activities, read your newsletters, looked at your journals and so on but it was not until this year that I have taken part in your activities. I recently attended a workshop that was very useful to me and of excellent value. But I feel overall that of far greater value has been your presence throughout my working life; the awareness of your research activities and international relationships have given me a quiet courage and belief to probe deeper into my own practice, pursue my own collaborations and research, to insist upon excellence even when it seemed at first to be economically un-viable, and to find expression through less mainstream ways for the performance work that I create. I am happy to report that I am a thriving performance director engaged in many interesting and worthy pursuits.

So while I cannot claim to be fully active consumer, in any immediate way, of your activities, my awareness of your work, and indeed it's influence upon the wider performance community is a constant inspiration and benchmark for my own creative and professional work.
I am very grateful to you and hope that the Arts Council will carefully
reconsider it's initial decision.

Best Wishes,

Amy Rose

Amy Rose
co-artistic director, Bocadalupa
Bristol

John Rowley - Cardiff

2008-03-04T05:37:00.000-08:00

CPR brought me to Wales in the first place through attending one of their international voice workshops (Zygmunt Molik). This then led to my first professional performance experience with the Welsh theatre company Brith Gof which was instrumental in me choosing to make my base here and contributing to the cultural industries sector for nearly 20 years.

From touring abroad it is obvious that CPR's work is widely recognised. When mentioning that I come from Wales I often hear the response “Yes.CPR?”

John Rowley
Cardiff

Miguel Almeyda Morales - writer, director and theatre actor, South America

2008-03-04T05:35:00.000-08:00

Judie Christie

Mi nombre es Miguel Almeyda Morales, soy escritor, director y actor de teatro, Durante estos años he trabajado con grupos de teatro y con niños, niñas, adolecentes, jovenes, mujeres, inmigrantes, trabajadores de pequeñas empresas, actores y actrices en diferentes paises, Peru, Canada, EEUU, España, Cuba, Francia. Acabo de recibir la primera mencion honrosa del premio INTEGRACION Y SOLIDARIDAD en Lima, Peru. Por el trabajo con TEATRO para el DESARROLLO HUMANO.

Muchas de mis tecnicas de trabajo son el resultado de investigaciones que grupos como el CPR - Centre for Performance Research - han investigado, trabajado y difundido por el mundo teatral. Desde este mi pais en America del Sur envio mi apoyo solidario al CPR.

Con mucho cariño
Miguel Almeyda Morales

www.miguelalmeyda.com

My name is Miguel Almeyda Morales, I am a writer, director and theatre actor. In the last few years I have worked with theatre groups and children, teenagers, women, immigrants, different people from small companies, actors and actresses in different countries like Peru, Canada, the U.S.A., Spain, Cuba, France. I received the honourable mention of the first prize for INTEGRATION and SOLIDARITY in Lima, Peru for my work with Teatro para el Desarrollo Humano (THEATER for the HUMAN DEVELOPMENT).

Many of my methods of work are the result of investigations that groups like the CPR – Centre for Performance Research – have investigated, developed and disseminated throughout the world. From this my country in South America I am sending my solidarity and support to the CPR

With much affection,

Miguel Almeyda Morales

www.miguelalmeyda.com

Franc Chamberlain - University College Cork and,Visiting Professor in Performance Studies and Creative Practice, University of Northampton

2008-03-04T05:33:00.000-08:00

In support of CPR

I first encountered the work of CPR in 1988 at the first Points of Contact symposium held at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University) and I have continued my association with them for twenty years attending a variety of conferences and workshops. That first conference, and subsequent ones I have attended, have been model conferences with an excellent balance of both theory and practice and an exploration of the intertwining of the two. There has been, and is, a commitment not simply to engage with the intellectual difficulties of thinking about performance but also with the psychophysical and social struggles of making performance. The conferences have always had a stimulating mix of university-based practitioner-academics, students, young performance practitioners, and established, internationally-recognised performers and directors.

The training programmes have offered people in Wales, and the rest of the UK, the opportunity to work with some of the most celebrated and innovative practitioners and teachers in the world as well as giving support to new and emerging talents. The Giving Voice Festivals are a good example of this, with the tenth festival opening in a few weeks.

I think that their own description of their practice is perfectly accurate:

CPR works to promote innovation, experimentation, and process, and offers access at all levels to innovative training programmes and approaches to making theatre alongside programmes of high quality presentations and performances from around the world that pursue ideals of accessibility without artistic compromise.

And there is nothing else like CPR in the UK and, even if something were to start up, there is no substitute for the experience and network that they have built up over the past 34 years of making performances and organising conferences, festivals and training opportunities plus publishing journals and books via their own imprint and in alliance with major publishers. They have also forged a unique relationship with the University at Aberystwyth that has been very productive and mutually beneficial.

Rather than cutting CPR's funding, I think that the Arts Council of Wales should be declaring CPR a national treasure and not simply making their funding secure, but increasing it significantly. This is a very small organisation with a large national and international impact.

If CPR's work could be reduced to the conferences there might be a rather weak case for arguing that the work belongs more in the University sector than in the broader public sphere, but what CPR attempts, and achieves, goes well beyond such a limited aim.

Franc Chamberlain
University College Cork and,Visiting Professor in Performance Studies and Creative Practice, University of Northampton, UK
Series Editor of Routledge Performance Practitioners

Calire Heggen and Yves Marc - Artistic Directors, Theatre du Mouvement

2008-03-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

Chers Judie Christie et Richard GoughNous tenons à vous apporter tout notre soutien dans vos difficultésinstitutionnelles et vous redire combien les événements organisés autour deEtienne Decroux étaient de qualité et importants pour la profession.

Noussommes de tout coeur avec vous,

Claire Heggen et Yves Marc

Artistic Directors
Theatre du Mouvement
www.theatredumouvement.com

Dear Judie Christie and Richard Gough,

We wish to bring you our support through the difficulties you are experiencing with the institutions and want to tell you again how important and of high standard and quality the events you organised around the Etienne Decroux Symposium were for the profession.

We are wholeheartedly with you

Calire Heggen and Yves Marc

Artistic Directors
Theatre du Mouvement
www.theatredumouvement.com

Gaynor Lougher - Artistic Director, Hijinx Theatre, Cardiff

2008-03-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Judie and Richard

Just sending you warm wishes of support and a quick and immediate response to you both. Over the years I have personally greatly benefited from some of the wonderful and diverse workshop/ conference opportunities that you have organized and I would be sad to see your unique contribution to the arts in Wales and internationally disappear. I remember a wonderful, sunny weekend in Brecon with companies and people working in every nook and cranny, sharing their work processes, debating the work; I remember being in Aberystwyth when the whole of the arts centre seemed to become a stage with wardrobes that opened or moved and the strangest of culinary performance… magical creativity, theatre performance, process and debate!

The frustration is that these decisions on cutting are made for all the wrong reasons – they are finance driven rather than artistically driven reflecting the fact that as always the arts are greatly undervalued. I would be the first to admit that much of what you do is unfamiliar and strange to me but this diversity is a cause for celebration and needs to be encouraged and nurtured, not cut and discarded in this arbitrary way. We want more, not less of everything and I support your fight to continue to be funded.

With best wishes,

Gaynor

Gaynor Lougher
Artistic Director
Hijinx Theatre
Wales Millennium Centre
Cardiff Bay

Rose de Wend Fenton OBE and Lucy Neal OBE - Founders, LIFT - London International Festival of Theatre.

2008-03-03T04:03:00.000-08:00

To Arts Council of Wales

CPR is recognised as one of the most pioneering and multi faceted centres for performance and research internationally; it is respected across the world and its influence is felt far and wide. CRP's global partnerships with artists, arts organisations , festivals, academics and writers have created a progressive vision of theatre, research and performance practice, one which as Directors of LIFT we welcomed and worked with over the years. Collaborating with CPR it became possible to bring a wider public in contact with influential artists including, amongst others,The Young at Heart Chorus and Rustom Bharucha.

Through its presentations, training, publications and conferences CPR has consistently been a touchstone of innovation, intellectual and artistic integrity. It is a valuable artistic, academic and community resource, a huge asset to Wales, the UK and beyond. To jeopordise all this is a folly and does not make sense, particularly when the Arts Council of Wales itself acknowledges what "a vital and prestigious player" CPR is in the arts in Wales. To withdraw a relatively small - given the ambitious projects CPR delivers - grant , smashes the fragile and carefully balanced ecology of funding and activity. Project funding can never begin to replace the certainties of an annual grant. Without Arts Council regular funding the organisation will unravel and a tremendous body of expertise and intellectual capital gathered together in one place will be lost. We urge you to reconsider, and to reinstate CPR's funding.

Rose de Wend Fenton OBE and Lucy Neal OBE,
Founders, LIFT - London International Festival of Theatre.

Alberto Grilli - Director, Teatro due Mondi, Italy

2008-03-03T04:01:00.000-08:00

Dear friends Judie and Richard

It was with great surprise and sadness that we have learned about your news.

The withdrawal of financial support to CPR from the Welsh Arts Council appears to us as a sign of a clear cultural shortsightedness. Today more than ever, our society, intended as a global community, needs people, artists, who work with the same passion and dedication with which you have been an example of for so many years.

Cultural and project work created not only with the mind but also and mostly with the heart.
It is this heart and this love that we want to defend, which is what we see reflected in your work and we feel close to our own work.

It is with the heart that we appeal to the authorities, and to all those men and women in theatre and not only, for a solution to be quickly found and to return wings to your dreams.

If beyond these lines we could be of any further support, do let us know.
A hug and a hearty wish

Alberto Grilli and all friends from TEATRO DUE MONDI in Faenza.
http://www.teatroduemondi.it/