While the State’s corporate sector has received much of the publicity for the $11.1 million in business support for the arts last year, the contribution of smaller businesses has performed an equally meaningful role.
While the State’s corporate sector has received much of the publicity for the $11.1 million in business support for the arts last year, the contribution of smaller businesses has performed an equally meaningful role.
Among the big sponsors is a host of small and medium Western Australian businesses that have forged relationships with small and grassroots arts organisations.
One example of this is the ongoing association between unique Western Australian contemporary circus company, Skadada, and audio-visual supplier Gearhouse.
Gearhouse has provided audio-visual equipment and technical support for Skadada since 1996 after an approach by the artistic company, which wanted to combine dance and technology.
Gearhouse’s contribution to Skadada was recognised in 2000-01 when it won an ArtsWA award for the most outstanding long-term patron of the arts.
Skadada co-director Jon Burtt said that, as a small company, they could not afford to hire the equipment needed to achieve the vision. Gearhouse’s support had enabled Skadada to achieve a very high standard of visual presentation, he told WA Business News.
“We have projected onto entire buildings, like Winthrop Hall at UWA, and there is no way we could have afforded to do performances to the scale and scope that we have without Gearhouse’s support,” Mr Burtt said.
Skadada has performed internationally and nationally, and forthcoming performances include the Perth Convention Centre opening and the City of Perth’s Northbridge New Year’s eve celebration for 2004-2005.
“We recently toured to the 4th China Shanghai International Arts Festival, and one of the Gearhouse staff toured with us to provide technical support and back up,” Mr Burtt said.
“We are a very small outfit trying to do something different.
“It is fantastic when smaller businesses get recognised for their contribution to the arts, which in terms of what is contributed is often a bigger portion of turnover than a lot of the big companies.”
Mr Burtt said the relationship between Gearhouse and Skadada worked so well because they were both constantly trying to develop and take on new initiatives and challenges.
He said Gearhouse manager Basil Fuller had a great deal of commitment, which had generated an incredible amount of loyalty and affection towards him within the industry.
Mr Fuller said the arrangement with Skadada was mutually compatible, and that it had been a pleasure assisting a local group trying to grow.
“We do it to support and help generate a new style of presentation, rather than for any commercial benefit we get,” he said.
“I am so pleased we could assist a group of young people to succeed, and am looking forward to the future to see what John and the group can come up with.”
Australia Business Arts Foundation State manager Henry Boston said the Skadada-Gearhouse relationship demonstrated it was not only big businesses that could have a meaningful involvement in cultural organisations.
“Sponsorship of the arts has really moved beyond business just giving an amount of money and in turn getting some marketing benefits” he said.
“There can be a real transfer of skills between corporate and culture, and vice versa. Both organisations can be taken out of the sphere in which they normally operate and learn from each other.”
Nominations close at the end of this month for the West Australian State Arts Sponsorship Scheme Awards, which acknowledge collaborative relationships that stimulate life in communities across WA, and promote the benefits business-arts partnerships can offer.