Submission
9 year plan feedback
Should we remove 231 Stuart Street (formerly the Fortune Theatre) from the list of strategic assets in the DCC Significance and Engagement policy?
Do you have any comments about 231 Stuart Street?
Should we charge an entry fee of $20 (incl. GST) for international visitors aged 16 and over, at Toitū and Dunedin Public Art Gallery?
Do you have any comments about the entry fee for international visitors?
Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
The Dunedin Collaborative Theatre Trust has leased space in Athenaeum building for about 7 years.
We started in the same year the Fortune closed its doors, in the same building that the Fortune started in fifty years ago.
We even still use many of the same chairs. We know that plans have been proposed for the Athenaeum Building, but as tenants in that building we have no guarantees that there will be a suitable space for us in it if those plans were to come to fruition.
Several prominent performing arts venues across Dunedin are at various stages between "making do" and "woefully inadequate". Some issues are related to accessibility and heating, while others are serious structural issues that restrict the nature of performances and audience sizes. The parlous state of our facilities discourage audiences and practitioners alike, and might lead to sudden closure. When the Fortune closed its doors, we were assured that funding was put aside to fill the gap it left, and for around seven years the Dunedin performing arts community has heard rhetoric about "UNESCO City of Literature" while we waited for Council to make a decision. Well, so it goes. It seems the prevailing sentiment on Council is that promising money for long enough is the same as actually contributing it.
The needs expressed by the Dunedin performing arts community are not gold-plated luxuries. Some of the needs are not even bare necessities. Some of them are existential requirements that need resolution as soon as possible.
Rather than filling the hole left by the Fortune closing, Council has stood by and watched that hole steadily get deeper. Now the proposed plan is to watch it get deeper for another nine years. Will any other piece of Dunedin's performing arts heritage disappear in that time? We can only hope not.
Dunedin says it values its literary and artistic heritage, but while other communities follow that rhetoric with actual investment in their creative groups with support, cornerstone funding, and new or refurbished facilities Dunedin offers little more than flaccid "consultation" and empty promises.
Our observation is that an entire community of artists and audiences have been doing our best with restricted resources to BE the creative community the Council says it values. The current state of Ōtepoti performing venues is desperate, and frankly, when we see other communities receive real support from their elected representatives, the lack of Council impetus to want a thriving ecology of performance is becoming downright embarrassing.
The Dunedin Collaborative Theatre Trust urges Council and politicians to follow up on their rhetoric regarding Dunedin as a city of culture and heritage. Hard limits are fast approaching on the operations of a number of venues in Dunedin, and we need Council to actually do something. As soon as something firm is set, the community will be able to work with it. Uncertainty is slowly killing a vibrant community of artists who want to produce more than one show a year and actually make enough to finance the next one.
Local Water Done Well feedback
Which water services delivery model do you support?
Why did you choose this option?
Do you have any other feedback related to the proposed water services delivery models?
Supporting information
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Submitter
Submission id number: 1132481
Submitter name:
Andrew Wicken
Organisation
Dunedin Collaborative Theatre Trust