Theatre director, art director of the Macao Experimental Theatre, has been living and working in Shanghai and Berlin. Representative works from these years are Mr. Shi and His Lover and Lungs.
After long anticipation, the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC, from the Portuguese acronym) has finally optimised the 2020 Subsidy Scheme for Cultural Activities and Projects. Major changes in the subsidy scheme for theatre plays are as follow:
1. The maximum subsidy has increased from MOP250,000 to MOP350,000;
2. Added two-year and three-year programme schemes for art performance groups (including community art scheme);
3. Increased the base score;
4. At most five programmes will be approved and subsidised (for those annual plan activities).
From my perspective, this subsidy policy should have come ten years earlier for the art performance community in Macao. In 2004, the housing price in the city surged by 12 times while civil servants’ salary increases each year or every two years. The amount of money this subsidy policy provides is only sufficient back in 2010 considering the inflation. If you look at the average cost of performance production in Macao since 2015, you would find that it ranges between MOP380,000 to MOP500,000 without covering the promotion and venue budget. Without a doubt, the IC definitely knows how much money and human resources a quality production would cost. It is uncertain why the maximum subsidy amount provided by the IC is still merely MOP250,000 in 2019. Even though the maximum subsidy amount has increased to MOP350,000 for 2020, it is still not a sufficient fund that can help art performance groups and professional artists realise their ideas. But the reality is there will still be a lot of professional performing arts groups and individual artists applying for the subsidy scheme. It is uncertain when the IC will optimise this policy again. After all, how can we expect performing arts groups use maximum MOP350,000 to complete a theatre play covering the production, scriptwriting, administrative, technical, venue rental, equipment and promotion cost?
Designing supporting policies that can help local performing groups and individual artists thrive is the most effective way to improve the cultural and art industry. It is important to differentiate between professional art productions and amateur productions so as to better help develop the cultural industry. Even if we are able to invite producers and theatre owners from the 42nd Street Broadway in New York to Macao Arts Festival to watch local productions, it is unlikely for them to find productions that they want to invest in. Let’s look at Asia. What about the Greater Bay Area or even the entire country’s theatre industry? It is still difficult to attract investors in these regions as well since the standard seating capacity of theatres in mainland China is over 1,000. In Macao, theatre productions are still struggling to even cover the cost of small and mid-sized productions. Most of the cultural industry exchange programmes we have in Macao focus on providing opportunities for local artists and producers to visit theatres in other places instead of facilitating meaningful conversations and collaborations.
Young professional talents are now entering their 30s, no longer at their best. What is worse, the difficult situation that the cultural industry is facing in Macao remains unchanged, which is incredibly frustrating. It is true that the resources for further development, such as hardware, performing spaces and audience base, etc., are limited, Macao can still work on nurturing talents in the city as talents are the most important resource for society. Cultural policies should correspond to local conditions and serve the unique demands of society.
Since the Macao government has identified cultural industry development as a policy priority, it should provide supporting policies that can help performing groups and artists with their creation. This can be achieved through a subsidy scheme that is designed to promote performance productions that combine technological innovation, preserve and innovate Chinese culture and promote crossover and cross-border collaboration. The government should increase the subsidy amount to between MOP800,000 and MOP1,500,000 and provide a limited number of quotas to cultivate competition and encourage groups and individuals to apply for the subsidy. This subsidy amount is the standard in the international market for productions of similar scale. Macao Cultural Centre and Macao Arts Festival have also been procuring performance productions at the similar price annually for many years. The required project duration should be two to three years and the projects should position themselves to be quality productions that can be shown at major theatres both at home and overseas. Assuming that there would be six projects in three years, the subsidy cost would not even exceed 10 million. If there are 12 projects, the cost would be around 18 million, which is the one-year budget for the 2019 Wushu Masters Challenge.
If MOP20 million can get a person’s youth back, would you pay for that money?
But policy cannot really buy back one’s youth. The future of a city’s cultural development is definitely worthy of investment. Adequate and sufficient supporting policies for performing arts groups and individual artists are urgently needed in Macao.
