Christopher Barron’s Olive Branch

In today’s Herald, there’s an inter­view with Christo­pher Barron, chief exec­u­tive of Scot­tish Ballet, under the head­line Ballet offers Tramway olive branch. A closer read­ing of Barron’s com­ments reveals that his ‘olive branch’ is noth­ing of the sort.

First, he feigns sur­prise at the strong reac­tion against the pro­pos­als, as if to sug­gest the out­rage felt by artists, gallery-​goers and the wider public is a storm in a teacup. If the reac­tion is such a sur­prise, why didn’t the Scot­tish Ballet allow public scrutiny of their pro­pos­als before sub­mit­ting them? Could it be that they knew full well that hijack­ing Tramway would be con­tro­ver­sial, and pre­ferred to slip in under the radar? It cer­tainly wouldn’t be the first time the Ballet has been crit­i­cised for making ill-​conceived deci­sions behind closed doors. Indeed, a report by the Scot­tish Parliament’s Cul­ture and Sport Com­mitte branded the Ballet’s han­dling of a 2001 change in artis­tic direc­tion ‘truly appalling,’ high­light­ing the fact that their atti­tude to con­sul­ta­tion was at best ‘flawed,’ at worst ‘arrogant and secretive.’

Next, Barron takes a swipe at Tramway:

…what I do know is that build­ing has a large prob­lem, and that is that there is not enough going on there.

Yes, Tramway is under­used, thanks in part to the fact that the main space presents a chal­lenge to artists and each show requires sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment which is rarely forth­com­ing from the public purse. But to sug­gest that Tramway is close to a waste of space bor­ders on the offen­sive. A quick glance at the web­site shows that the space not only plays host to a vibrant pro­gramme of visual art, from both emerg­ing and estab­lished inter­na­tional artists, it’s also a valu­able resource for the local com­mu­nity and encour­ages young artists with a pro­gramme of res­i­den­cies and oppor­tu­ni­ties to show new work. Even if, as Barron seems to sug­gest, visual arts pro­gram­ming is to be judged on quan­tity not qual­ity, Tramway can hardly be accused of not pulling its weight.

Then comes a closer look at the plans for the site, and it turns out that Scot­tish Ballet plan to sink mil­lions into new build­ings to house a dance centre. This is a great idea. I truly believe Scot­land would ben­e­fit from a purpose-​built centre devoted to ballet and con­tem­po­rary dance, on an inter­na­tional scale. Imag­ine, it would be just like the Tramway, only for dance. And there’s the rub - if exten­sive new build­ing is required to house such a centre, why destroy an exist­ing resource in the process? Why not scale back the plans by half a mil­lion and buy another site?

In the end, it looks to me as if Barron is being disin­gen­u­ous with his talk of ongo­ing dia­logue with the artis­tic com­mu­nity in Glas­gow. His aim with this inter­view was to down­play the vital impor­tance of Tramway, sug­gest that the reac­tion to the Scot­tish Ballet’s wrong-​headed pro­pos­als is over the top and offer a halfway-​house solu­tion rel­e­gat­ing the visual arts to a back room at the ballet.

Dis­grace­ful.

As men­tioned above and below, if you feel as strongly as I do about these pro­pos­als, please vist SOS Tramway for more infor­ma­tion. And apolo­gies to read­ers out­side Scot­land for the recent focus on mat­ters Tramway. But just imag­ine if the North East was being robbed of Baltic, or that plans were afoot to turn Tate Modern into a new home for the Eng­lish National Ballet. You’d be up in arms too, I bet.

Posted at 2pm on 17/10/03 by Jack Mottram to the art and culture category.
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