To the Committee Secretary My Name Is Ross Ganf and I Am An

To the Committee Secretary My name is Ross Ganf and I am an independent artist making work with two other independent artists Vincent Crowley and Ingrid Weisfelt under the presenting name Torque Show. We are artists who have straddled work for major and small to medium companies including Australian Dance Theatre (Meryl Tankard), Force Majuere (Kate Champion), Adelaide Festival (Paul Grabowski & David Sefton), The Malthouse Theatre, State Theatre Company of South Australia, Vitalstatitistix, Brisbane Powerhouse, Arts House and many others. Torque Show has toured internationally and brings on average two full works to presentation each year sine 2011. This number of presentations rivals many tri-annually and annually funded companies. Torque Show is not a ‘company’ in a formal sense and because of this has been very successful in applying to state, federal and local government to make new Australian work. We only apply for grants to develop or present new Australian work. We are not weighed down by company structures and administrative red tape. All the money we raise goes towards entertaining our audiences. Often this has meant that we are not paid to administer our collective but we see the value in spending tax payers money on art and not administration. In short we demonstrate incredible ‘value for money’ often at our own expense. The new guidelines of NPEA totally side step Torque Show as we are independent and individual artists. We are not able to apply to NPEA based on the current guidelines. Mr Brandis has decimated the Australian arts industry in a matter of months. The cuts to the Australia Council mean we are not able to present work to our audiences because of the cancellation of the June round. Our presenting partners are often small to medium companies who were all busily engaging in a rigorous 6 year funding application which were canceled due the establishment of NPEA. When Torque Show works with majors more often that not we are required to bring funding to the presentation relationship. The guidelines of NPEA will not allow this to happen. Funding is a bargaining chip for independents who are often powerless or at a disadvantage in negotiations with majors. Funding is a bargaining chip that is used to extend the cultural and curatorial risk taking of majors by independents. Torque Show was lucky enough to be awarded an ‘Interconnections’ grant from the Australia Council which was applied for and administered by the South Australian State Theatre Company. This grant allowed us to develop a work that was later programmed by the South Australian State Theatre Company but only if we were able to bring funding to the presentation. In the current landscape I cannot see a roadmap for Torque Show to continue presenting work. Mr Brandis anecdotally made claims that our sector was craving a second funding system. Torque Show was never consulted by Mr Brandis and indeed I believe that the arts sector at large was not either. Torque Show did have a lengthy consultation at the 2013 Australian Theatre Forum in the creation of Labors Creative Australia policy. The Creative Australia policy was by no ways perfect but at least was a superior policy in in its depth of sector wide consultation and most importantly upholding the 40 year history of arms length peer assessment. As an independent artist I am deeply shamed by Mr Brandis and his action and fail to see how he can continue to be an effective Minister for the Arts. Kind regards Ross Ganf .

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