music theatre in flanders - Muziekcentrum Vlaanderen

to handle productions on a scale no company could ever handle
single-handedly.
SubSIdy STATuS
Between 1993 and 2005 an ever increasing number of organizations
became involved in music theatre production. In 1993-1997,
we count 125 different music theatre producers, in 1997-2001 this
number has risen to 207 and in 2001-2005 their number increases
to 381: that is more than a threefold increase compared to
the first subsidy term. An ever increasing number of companies
turned to music theatre production: the number of main producers
doubles – from 64 in 1993-1997 to 128 in 2001-2005 – and the
number of organizations that restrict themselves to co-producing
or to giving co-production support rises even faster.
A closer look at the music theatre producers’ backgrounds
will shed more light on the motives behind this increasing cooperation.
In the following, we shall examine the land of origin
and – for the Belgian organizations – the producers’ subsidy status.
We shall work with four overall categories: ‘Performing Arts
Decree’, ‘other public funding’, ‘foreign organizations’ and a rest
category ‘non-subsidized Belgian organizations’, taking a closer
look at some of them.
performing Arts decree
The ‘Performing Arts Decree’ category includes organizations
that during a certain subsidy term made an appeal to structural
or project support from the Flemish Government within the
framework of the Performing Arts Decree. To this group primarily
belong organizations which received structural recognition. During
the period 1993-1997 these were exclusively theatre, dance
and music theatre organizations and arts centres. As of 1999, festivals
were also included. Arts laboratories were not recognized
until 2006, with the introduction of the Arts Decree.
The decree granted project support to separate, individual productions,
not to organizations. Still, we shall also include a ‘project
companies’ sub-category, referring to organizations that at least
once received a project grant during a certain subsidy term.
Between 1993 and 2005 there was an in and out flux of organizations
into and out of the Performing Arts Decree. For that
reason, we have avoided putting one single label on an organization
throughout the entire term. Instead, we reviewed the labels
for each of the three subsidy terms, thus allowing for ‘migration’
of producers from one category to another during the examined
period.
As for the organizations that received subsidies in the capacity
of ‘music theatres’, it can generally be stated that during the examined
period the ‘migration’ of project-based supported organizations
to structurally supported organizations was very limited.
There are, actually, only two cases. Opera Mobile received project
subsidies in 1993-1997 and structural support in 1997-2001. The
organization stopped its activities after 2001. Puppet-theatre
company De Spiegel – established in 1965 and, therefore, hardly a
‘newcomer’ – received project subsidies in 1997-2001 and structural
support in 2001-2005.
Other public funding
The ‘other public funding’ category includes organizations that do
receive government support, but not within the framework of the
Performing Arts Decree. The first group includes organizations
that received ‘ad nominatim’ subsidies from the Flemish government
culture budget. The most prominent example is, as far as
music theatre is concerned, the Flemish Opera. Our category
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