reaction to the draft federal budget for 2025

The federal government's current draft budget for 2025 plans to cut the federal cultural funds - including the Performing Arts Fund, which is important for the independent performing arts - by around half.

In addition the Alliance of International Production Houses - an association of seven performance and production venues in the independent performing arts that, among other things, has been offering the "Academy for Performing Arts Producers", a key further educational format for producers, since 2018 - is on the brink of collapse. The Dance On Ensemble, which sheds light on contemporary dance, particularly with regard to the issue of ageing in and with this profession, is also affected by the complete closure.

Actually, there is good news: We are happy about the increase in the federal cultural budget for the 2025 budget. A closer look at the draft quickly disappoints this joy. Despite the increase in the federal cultural budget, the draft budget provides for the Alliance of International Production Houses and the Dance On Ensemble to be cut and the federal cultural funds to be reduced by around 50% of their funding (based on their budgets in 2024). This sends the wrong message to a civil society threatened by ever louder hostility from the right.

In the independent arts in general and in the independent performing arts in particular, we as produktionsbande - a network of producers in the independent performing arts - have seen innovative and effective work on structures in recent years, e. g. the increase and fixing of minimum fees as well as the development of accessibility and sustainability concepts, which were supported by the Fonds Darstellende Künste, the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste and the Dachverband Tanz together with the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

However, if this draft budget for the coming year means that such substantial alliances as the Alliance of International Production Houses and the Dance On Ensemble are on the brink of collapse and at the same time the federal cultural funds are losing almost half of their funding, then the draft simply makes it impossible to achieve these new standards in artistic production from 2025 onwards, which have been developed together with politicians. This is not only an irritating backward movement, but also undermines the productive cooperation that has been built up over many years between the independent performing arts community, state and federal associations and cultural politicians, which was based not least on an explicit agreement in the 2021 coalition agreement.

Not only is the work in the independent performing arts losing its existential basis; the independent arts are also losing alliances relevant to cultural policy and their associated political voice as a result of the draft budget. At the same time, culture as a whole is losing perspectives, projects and aesthetic experiences that would create urgently needed spaces for social exchange and reflection due to the massive loss of central funding budgets.

The deletions and cuts envisaged in the 2025 draft budget will not only affect the associations and federal cultural funds, but also directly affect the professional careers of artists, technicians, producers and many other protagonists in the independent performing arts, whose work and social impact absolutely require access to funding as well as support from existing networks and structures.

Particularly from our interface perspective as producers in the independent performing arts, this kind of austerity policy in culture and its funding, which affects both structures and project funding, is a disastrous reaction to current challenges and existing crises that we cannot afford. If culture in particular is called into question as an expression of our shared understanding of society, as is currently happening on the right, then such massive savings, especially in the structures and funding of the independent performing arts, while at the same time increasing the cultural budget, is the wrong decision.

Especially in our complex present, we must not formulate simple and above all frugal futures for culture; especially in the present and the immediate future, the strengthening of existing and long-established associations and the stabilization of funding budgets in culture is all the more important in the face of political backsliding.

produktionsbande therefore agrees with the demands of the Alliance of International Production Houses and the statement by INITIATIVE TANZ regarding the Dance On Ensemble. We also agree with the demands of the Federal Cultural Fund and speak out against its funding cuts.

Statement of the Alliance of International Production Houses (in German): here

Statement by INITIATIVE TANZ in relation to the Dance On Ensemble (in German): here

Joint statement of the Federal Cultural Funds (in German): here

Petition "SAVING ON FREE ART COSTS TOO MUCH!" (in German and English): here

produktionsbande is a decentrally organized network of and for producers in the independent performing arts.

As a polyphonic association, we jointly strengthen the transfer of knowledge between protagonists in artistic production in the independent performing arts. The network serves the supra-regional exchange of knowledge and provides spaces for the selective try-outs of collaboration models. Thanks to the decentralized structure, the concerns, observations and wishes of producers from all over Germany come together and can also be compared in international exchange through cooperation. As producers operate at the interfaces of artistic creation, the link between administration and sustainability, cultural policy developments and socio-political structures, the network is always on the move.

The aim is to contribute heterogeneous perspectives of cultural producers as interfaces between art practice and its structural framework conditions to cultural policy matters. We design and implement various formats to strengthen the exchange of knowledge, which we also see as an important opportunity for joint networking.

produktionsbande - netzwerk performing arts producers is funded up to and including 2025 by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media via the "Fostering Connections" program of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts.

martin bien | communication
martin@produktionsbande.org