Reaction to the present draft budget of the Federal Government for the DaKü fund from 2023 on
Reaction of the two networks produktionsbande and FESTIVALFRIENDS to the present budget draft for 2023 and the budgeting of the Performing Arts Fund „Fonds Darstellende Künste“ (Fonds DaKü).
We support the developed proposals of the Fonds DaKü for the sustainable strengthening of the independent performing arts from 2023.
With its six funding programs (research, residency, process, adaptation, network & structure, and conceptual funding), the Fonds DaKü, together with the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), has designed groundbreaking perspectives for the funding of the independent performing arts in Germany during a global pandemic.
The fact that, in the midst of this global crisis, innovative funding models could be conceived within a very short time, implemented with less bureaucracy, and offered on a regular basis is a great success of the cooperation between the BKM and the Fonds DaKü, among others, as well as other protagonists. The joint development of these models is an immense structural gain for the independent performing arts.
For example, the BKM allocated a total of 164 million euros from the program Neustart Kultur to Fonds DaKü from 2020 to 2022.
The close cooperation between BKM and Fonds DaKü within the pandemic shows the innovative power and creative possibilities that arise from sustainable networking and joint exchange. A driving force that shapes the present and future of the independent performing arts.
The BKM and the Fonds DaKü show with the highly developed funding programs: The production of art is equal to its conceptual and development process. The result and its process of creation are interconnected. Thus, in addition to adaptations, research and conceptions, residencies, processes as well as networks and structures have also been the subject of funding.
From our point of view, this expansion to include process-related objects of funding is central to support the potential of the independent performing arts in a holistic way.
Networking and structural work thus attempt, among other things, to sustainably transfer the visions and proposals of artistic practice from the stage to its back, from the theater to the world and from the ephemeral theater evening to the structures of our society.
The federal government's current draft budget for 2023 provides funding for the Fonds DaKü with a pre-pandemic budget. This means: With this budget draft, the six funding programs of the Fonds DaKü cannot be continued from 2023 on. In addition, this also means: The innovative driving force of jointly developed funding models cannot have a sustainable effect.
But even with EUR 16.5 million annually, all six funding programs can be continued and have a sustainable effect. This budget proposal is equal to about one tenth of the Neustart Kultur budget that was given from BKM to Fonds DaKü. With our network and structural perspective, we therefore support the developed proposals of the DaKü fund in response to the previous budget draft of the federal government for 2023.
If the independent performing arts create a space in which a different world can be imagined, they need funding models that provide time to openly create such spaces that draft those environments of thinking, moving, learning and living differently. The independent performing arts are therefore relying on stable and long-term funding models that can provide literally independent spaces.
Approaches for necessary models and independent spaces already exist thanks to the cooperation between BKM and Fonds DaKü, among others. We support the sustainable continuation of the funding models for strengthening the independent performing arts, which the DaKü Fund has proposed to BKM.
This statement can also be obtained in German language as a PDF here.