new article: Epona & Kaja discuss about the social security realities of producers in the independent performing arts

For the new systemcheck topic dossier "Where is the difference?", a total of six professional perspectives come together to provide insights into the work structures and realities of those working in the independent performing arts. Among these six perspectives is the complex job description of production managers/producers. For the article on the reality of social security for this professional group, epona and kaja met online. Both work closely together within the network produktionsbande, but have never met in person.

to the entire dossier "wo ist der unterschied?" (in German) as pdf with all six professional groups: scenographers, curators, production managers, technical/sound/lighting design, musicians, mediators

Kaja:
I am happy about our meeting!

Epona:
I am also very happy that we could find a date. Your schedule is pretty tight at the moment.

Kaja:
Yes, there is a lot going on at the moment. All my projects want to quickly spend their Neustart-Kultur funds before it's all over by the end of June 2023, and all funding opportunities fall back to 2019 levels or below. The Performing Arts Fund, the most important funder at the federal level for the independent performing arts, drops from 65 million to 5 million per year. That's when the fee level goes down again.

Epona:
In the last few weeks, I have had repeated discussions about how we can plan sustainably under such conditions. The conditions affect all professional groups working in the independent performing arts, including producers and production managers.

Kaja:
Production managers in the independent performing arts are not characterized by a uniform job description. Mostly it is about the responsibility for conceptual and organizational, financial and contractual framework conditions of productions of the independent performing arts, but also the strategic orientation of the artists' activities in the long term. That seems to me to be the broadest possible definition. What do you mean?

Epona:
Yes, the professional field of producers and production managers is quite broad. That's why there are so many different names for them: Production Manager, Creative Producer, Production Dramaturg, Producer or Production Manager. Some focus on administration, management and budgetary tasks, others concentrate on accompanying the conceptual-dramaturgical development and the organizational implementation of an artistic work. What most of them have in common, however, are the structural conditions within which they work.

Kaja:
The majority of production managers work independently, in most cases solo self-employed. Some production managers have joined together to form GbRs. But here, too, they only accept work assignments from artistic project directors on a project-by-project basis. In addition, there are few employed production managers. Most of them work for institutionally funded houses and venues. The ratio could be estimated at one employed production manager to nine freelancers.

Epona:
How do you come up with that ratio?

Kaja:
From my gut. That's about the ratio at which experienced independent production managers in my environment end up in the safe harbor of institutions, where they are taken with a kissing hand because of their extensive knowledge and skills.

Epona:
Due to the lack of specific training for the profession, many begin their work in precarious conditions and acquire their expertise through learning by doing. In many cases, production managers have studied a humanities subject or completed an arts education. They usually only switch to a permanent position once professionalization as freelancers in the independent scene has taken place.

Kaja:
For many, working for theater and performance projects is the main business, but besides that they lead workshops and work as coaches and consultants, public relations and dramaturges.

Epona:
In a recent produktionsbande meeting, the term magical being was established. On the one hand, many are united by a wide range of interests, and on the other hand, due to the precarious working conditions, it is advantageous to be as flexible as possible. To ensure financial security, many have several projects at the same time. This is sometimes due to the fact that it is not possible to predict in advance which projects will receive funding. Due to the structural working conditions, solo self-employed workers cannot fall back on a substitute in case of illness or overload. A permanent position naturally offers more security. But the more producers go to institutions, the more professionalized expertise migrates there.

Kaja:
Production managers not only have many projects, they also practice different professions side by side. They have this in common with many who work in the liberal performing arts. It's better to have a second leg to stand on. It's not uncommon to see choreographers teaching body awareness, musical theater directors teaching performing arts, or actors earning extra money by giving seminars.

Epona:
One point is the lack of access to the KSK for production managers. Because the KSK does not classify the work of production management as an artistic activity, it does not accept most production management. However, their fees are similarly low as those of artists. They have to pay their pension and health insurance out of manageable income. This raises the question of who can afford it and for how long?

Kaja:
Access to jobs in the performing arts is sometimes very different, right?

Epona:
Yes, absolutely. If we want more diversity in the cultural sector, structural barriers have to be broken down. After all, the lack of diversity is primarily due to structural conditions. This includes being able to achieve financial security through work and thus being independent of one's social and financial capital, family of origin or marital status. From an intersectional perspective, multiply marginalized people are the most affected by exclusions in the cultural sector. Diversity means polyphony, and this feeds on the multiplicity of lived realities. Polyphony implies increased complexity, which should basically be a characteristic of free spaces of discourse and reflection. Not only publicly visible positions should be diversified, but all trades and subfields of the independent performing arts. Also in the field of producers. Being able to create financial security through one's own work would be a structural barrier removal.

Kaja:
If you can calculate before you start your career that you will probably never live in economic security, people without financial support from their families, for example, will think three times before entering the field. At the moment, the generally low level of income in the liberal performing arts means that in most cases, after deducting health insurance contributions and taxes, there is not enough left over to pay for private pension insurance or the like. Therefore, most do not provide for their own old age, or provide too little. This is where career entry and career exit meet again: If you don't have an inheritance or some other kind of provision, you won't be able to retire - because there is no pension. At the moment, my pension amounts to about 120 euros a month. I am almost 40!

Kaja:
Everything can be summed up in one formula: low income level plus no access to KSK equals guaranteed old-age poverty. If I can't afford to provide for my old age with my income, I won't do it and will live on the basic pension in my old age. I probably won't get the basic pension supplement either because of almost continuous self-employment. But we share that problem with the flower seller.

Epona:
What does the flower seller have to do with it?

Kaja:
Social legislation for the self-employed still assumes that all self-employed people are in such a powerful position vis-à-vis their clients that they can charge high prices, which they can use to cover the risks of self-employment. But in more and more sectors, the income level is so low that hourly rates that would make individual coverage possible are never achieved. This is also the case for the flower seller who is no longer employed in a store but works as a self-employed person with a cargo bike at the weekly market. In the liberal arts, the vast majority of performers across all professions earn a salary that is only just above the minimum wage, despite having completed their studies. This can be seen from the fact that - when the minimum wage was increased - the stage association and the GDBA frantically adjusted the NV-Bühne-Solo tariff upwards because it would have been below the legal minimum wage. But it is on the NV-Bühne-Solo-Tarif that the calculation of the minimum fee recommendation (in German) for the independent performing arts is based. The problem continues here.

Epona:
In addition to the low fees, there is the question of planning. In a field where freelancers live from project to project and where project durations range from two to six months, many still don't know at the beginning of the year how they are going to pay the rent in December.

Epona:
First and foremost, it can be said that access to the KSK would provide better coverage for self-employed producers. Against the background that the activity is related to the artistic creation or even only through it, it makes sense that production managers get access to the KSK. An artistic work is not possible without a specific, individually adapted, planning implementation that corresponds to the artistic creation. Therefore, production implementation can be understood as part of the creation of the work. Moreover, production managers work under the same conditions as artists, i.e. their fees are the same or similarly low and their income fluctuates or cannot be planned in the long term.

Kaja:
I'll go even further: the work of a production manager has its share of artistic work, insofar as the public relations work is proportionately artistic. Of course, it is based on the work of performers, directors, designers and so on. But it complements it, for example through the design and further development of concepts, application texts or target group-oriented communication. This makes it part of the artistic process. But it is also true that even if all production managers were to be included in the KSK, this would not mean that all problems would be solved.

Epona:
Because we are then still dealing with a low fee level! If the exclusion criteria for the basic pension continue to be based on an average of 30 percent of gross pay, a large proportion of KSK members will precisely remain excluded from the basic pension supplement. In 2019, the percentage was 25 percent. Of these, about 17 percent were women and 7 percent were men. (KSK 2021)

Kaja:
At the same time, it must be said that those who do not go to institutions have chosen self-employment. Self-employment is not "the other" that deviates from the no-longer-valid norm of being employed for life - I think fondly of my grandpa. Self-employment is legitimate work reality. We have to look very closely at where the law protects the self-employed from exploitation and where it makes employment relationships impossible. Keyword: bogus self-employment. You don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater!

Epona:
We don't know how many people in the performing arts have decided to become self-employed. Of course, you could also employ everyone involved in the projects on a temporary basis, but then you would see how little pay would be left over after deducting social security contributions.

Kaja:
Ultimately, the question remains: What value do art and culture have in a society? Is there a majority for the idea that free spaces for discourse and reflection are essential for a democracy? Then the state is called upon to make these spaces available to society, just like schools, bridges and hospitals. If art and culture are an existential factor in our coexistence, then funding is needed across the board to provide cultural workers with adequate fees and financial security.

Epona Hamdan has been working in the independent performing arts since 2016 - as production manager, critical companion and curator. Currently, she works for Spielart Festival and is simultaneously active at produktionsbande. Here Epona curates the event series "[un]learning structures" together with Nara Virgens and Melmun Bajarchuu. She is co-founder of the residency program for producers. From 2018 to 2022 she worked for the writing and directing collective Rimini Protokoll, both in international touring and in new productions and adaptations. In her homebase Berlin, Epona started freelancing for projects at Ballhaus Naunynstraße and Ballhaus Ost, as production manager for the Academy of Autodidacts and with the organization for the Arab Film Festival. At Freie Universität Berlin she studied Theater Studies, Islamic Studies and English Philology and was part of the Academy of Perfoming Arts Producer in 2020.

Since 2012, Kaja Jakstat, together with Maike Tödter and Aishe Spalthoff, has been running the office "Zwei Eulen" (Two Owls), where, as a dramaturge and production manager, she takes care of the conceptual as well as pragmatic support of artists and independent groups, and of the organizational framework for independent projects. As a workshop leader, moderator and mediator, she accompanies a wide variety of transformation and team processes in the independent performing arts. Kaja Jakstat studied scenic arts at the University of Hildesheim with a focus on "contemporary theater", where she founded the theater platform "State of the Art", among others. She was a scholarship holder of the International Forum at the Theatertreffen 2011 as well as the Impulse Festival 2011. As a dramaturg she worked for Meyer & Kowski, Die Azubis, the label PARADEISERproductions, She She Pop (dramaturgical collaboration on Testament and Schubladen) and the group Interrobang (among others Callcenter Übermorgen, To Like Or Not To Like, Der Prozess 2.0). At home in Hamburg, she has worked successfully as production manager in organizational and conceptual support for projects by Helge Schmidt (since 2018), Marc von Henning (since 2015), Julia Hart (since 2019), Anne Schneider (since 2015), among others.