the arts of ethnic minorities in britain

THE ARTS OF ETHNIC MINORITIES IN BRITAINAuthor(s): NASEEM KHANSource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 128, No. 5290 (SEPTEMBER 1980), pp. 676-688Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41373155 .

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THE ARTS OF ETHNIC I

MINORITIES IN BRITAIN I

HI A paper by I

JI NASEEM KHAN, MA I

Director , Minorities Arts Advisory Service , given to the Commonwealth Section of the Society on Thursday 20th March 1980 ,

with Sir David Hunt , KCMG , OBE, Chairman 3 Board of Governors , Commonwealth Institute , in the Chair

The Chairman: I am pleased and honoured to take the chair for this lecture by Miss Naseem Khan, whom I have known for a long time. The theme which she has chosen for her address tonight is one which is of great interest to all of us and, if I may be pardoned for reminiscing, it is one which appeals very particularly to me. When some 45 years ago I was an archaeologist the particular period of Greek archaeology that I studied most was the Archaic period. One characteristic of that period is the strong, vitalizing influence on Greek art and culture of the cultures of Asia. This influence is particularly prominent in Corinthian art - and from there reached as far as Sicily - and very much so in Ionian art, which was my special subject. Many themes of Oriental painting and sculpture were adopted and adapted by Greek art in that period, perhaps the liveliest period in Greek artistic life. It was the period of the great lyric poets, for example Sappho and Alcaeus, who were influenced by and were very knowledgeable on the affairs of the East.

Another period which I think is relevant and which I used to take particular interest in is the period of the successors of Alexander, and particularly the successor states in the Far East, the Greeks in Bactria and in India, especially in the Punjab. When I was Deputy High Com- missioner in Pakistan in 1955 serving in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, I was still able to collect Greek coins of all those kingdoms without difficulty. Here is an example of influence coming from the West to the East. I need not remind you of the Greek influence on Gandhara sculpture, for example, and the

I fact that it was under Greek influence that the ! very first Buddha statues were carved. Indeed, ! it has been argued that the very idea of the ! representation in anthropomorphic shape of a divinity must have come from Greek inspiration.

Looking back on these periods I cannot help feeling strongly that we in Britain are singularly fortunate in that we are open to and ready to receive the influence of other cultures. On the whole, in spite of our alleged conservatism, British society and British artistic aspirations have always been open to influences from abroad. And this is not a characteristic only of Britain but also of other countries in Europe, as you can see by going to the Royal Academy's Post-Impressionist Exhibition, where you will see how Indian, Far Eastern and particularly Japanese influences were working in that last quarter of the nineteenth century in Europe.

I must not forget also the strong influences which have come to Britain and Western

I Europe from Africa. The great visual art of Africa is woodcarving and sculpture - more woodcarving than sculpture in my view, if there is a way of distinguishing between the two - and these of course influenced the next artistic movement but two after Post-Impres- sionism. The testimony of such artists as Picasso, Braque and Brancusi to their high estimation of African art is extremely well known.

To-day we are to hear more about the influence in Britain of these arts and what can be done to encourage the practise of them. This is a theme that no one can deal with better than Miss Naseem Khan.

The following paper , which was illustrated , was then given.

We thing immigrants

have

in the

approximately

area in this

of 3.3 country: per

two

cent.

million some- This

immigrants in this country: something in the area of 3.3 per cent. This

small percentage has been variously des- ;

cribed as a menace, a scourge, a threat and - somewhat more moderately - as a social problem. This afternoon I should like to present the other side of the picture to you.

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SEPTEMBER 1980 THE ARTS OF ETHNIC MINORITIES IN BRITAIN

That there is another side will come, I am sure, as no surprise to this audience. However, I am constantly astounded that the argument for the advantages of immigration is not only so rarely voiced, but when it is, is in such limited terms - appreciation, for instance, for the way in which Gujarat is have given new life to the corner shop, that Cypriots have done the same for small bakeries, and that Chinese takeaways are now as common as bingo-halls throughout the length and breadth of Britain. We have, however, only to look to America to see how European immigration has proved a gal- vanizing factor, and produced a wide array of side benefits.

That in itself deserves a lecture. To-day I shall limit myself to the assets Britain has acquired in the arts of its ethnic minorities. Firstly, I shall describe what exists. Secondly I shall explore what sort of significance they have for Britain at large and how that can be maximized.

There is no convenient starting point for a history of ethnic arts in Britain. There is nothing like the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948, so commonly taken as the genesis for discussion of immigration in general. The arts, in some form, have I believe always been there. As a child in Birmingham, when Indian immigration was in only three figures, I remember being taken to private performances of Indian dance and music. On one occasion I even remember being coached in a dance by an enthusiastic Indian student at the university. (I still wonder what prompted my father, generally an orthodox Muslim and opposed to dancing, in sanctioning this unusual act of licence.)

I am, however, convinced that the existence of arts in ethnic minority communities depends on one crucial element, and that is women. Asian immigration, to take one example, was initially a male immigration. Men migrated from situations of great poverty in the sub-continent in response to the boom years of our '50s economy. For some time they lived lives of singular barren- ness: doing shiftwork, living in all-male lodging houses (frequently sharing a single bed with a man on a different shift). They lived frugally and they saved. In time, they were able to send for their families. With the family, art begins.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, there's the women themselves. If you cast your mind back over the people who have

been the pioneers of Asian music and dance, in this country, they have very often been women, women who have had a bit of train- ing in their single days, and who have the time and the motivation to want to pass on their skills over here.

That key- word, 'motivation', deserves a great deal of examination. As families become increasingly settled here, they become - broadly speaking - aware of two things : firstly that they themselves and their culture are devalued by this society ; and secondly, that there are many elements in this society that they find unacceptable for their children - basically, drugs, sex and family breakdown.

As a result, the arts take on a significance beyond the aesthetic. They become signals of what is seen - certainly in the Asian view - to be a saner society. Let us take one example - the Raas-Garba groups that abound in Gujarati communities, particularly those who have made the journey via East Africa. Basically, Raas and Garba are folk dances, done in the round by men and women. They are infectious, lively dances, performed by whole communities on days when the Hindu religion calls for rejoicing : on Navratri, for instance, the nine-nights festival during which demons are quelled by the forces of good, or Dussehra when Rama conquered Ravana. The point about these occasions is not so much the finesse of the dance, but the meaning of the event. It is a time when the marriageable young are on display to each other - a lot of giggling, teasing and just plain sho wing-off goes on - when the old remember their youth, when the community is bound together by memories and the present. It is a tangible expression of confidence and self-respect.

I make no excuses for an apparent tangent. I promised to provide you with a general guide to the arts that exist. However, without some sort of context, however slight, such a guide would be meaningless.

Let us start with the Polish and Ukrainian communities. I must, of course, stress that bracketing the two communities together - communities who frequently regard each other with mutual suspicion - is primarily for convenience. To the outsider, their artistic manifestations appear to have simi- larities. Both are particularly proud of their folk cultures. Both came to Britain as a result of the dislocations of the Second World War, and resolutely set themselves to building up organizations and acquiring buildings for them, in the palmy days when property was

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS SEPTEMBER I980

Photographer Jan Siegbeda records Britain's Polish community

cheap. The actual results are impressive. When I was doing the research for The Arts Britain Ignores , I discovered 96 Polish centres, 46 Ukrainian centres, 40 Polish music and folk groups and 20 Ukrainian ones.

In addition, the Polish community sup- ports a deep-rooted drama element: there's the Polish Actors Equity, long-established at the South Kensington Polish Centre (where you can be hard put to make yourself understood in English, so totally Polish is j the ambience); there's Syrena, the 22-year- ¡ old Polish youth theatre, and Pro Arte, to mention only the foremost. There's a lot of interchange - groups travel the country to play to other Polish communities. j I am showing a photograph by Jan Siegbeda, part of a series he took of his com- j munity in Britain, 'Spirit of My People'. For me it records the resilience, the loyalty to | their history and culture, that characterizes the Poles in Britain.

The Chinese have less to offer, in artistic terms. They have, firstly, been here much less time. And reports like ACE's on Chinese children pinpoint another reason. That report details a hard life led by the majority in the restaurant and catering trade: long hours, little money, minimal English.

The Chinese dragon is the best-known

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aspect of Chinese culture. He, or his silk brother, the lion, make their appearances at Chinese New Year celebrations, the most famous of which are in London's Gerrard Street. It is interesting that those particular festivities sprang, in fact, out of a bid for survival. Local restaurant owners became aware that massive reconstruction was scheduled for their area, threatening every- one's livelihood. They decided, through the New Year celebrations to make their presence tangible and desirable. There is no question that the strategy worked, and has come to mean more than a protective device.

There are other developments beside the annual street dances of the lion or dragon. The most notable has been up in Merseyside where Brian Tai-Shen Wang, a man of great vision and persistence, started the Chinese Play Association. The name, with its echoes of activities for the under fives, is misleading. In fact the Association presents Chinese mime-dramas, their style derived from the movement of Tai Chi. They are gorgeous to look at - the costumes are made by women in a WE A class. Equally interesting, the project draws in both Chinese and English, and is probably unique for that. Brian Wang has been instrumental in a number of other activities - he's organized a calligraphy exhi-




The silk dragon greets the Chinese New Year in London

bition, and he's also been the moving force behind the new Oriental Centre recently set up in Liverpool.

The Cypriot situation is, in some ways, similar to the Chinese one. There are some folk groups - most often existing as youth activities under the wing of the Greek Orthodox Church. As in the Chinese community there is - from the point of view of the arts - one pre-eminent man : in this case, George Evgeniou. More than twenty years ago, he started his theatre group, Theatro Technis, in a Camden garage. Through various vicissitudes, he has survived and, little by little, his theatre has prospered. Originally presented in Greek, the plays are now mainly in English - a sign of his community's greater familiarity with the lan- guage, and a fact that has allowed him to reach more than his central target audience of the Cypriot community.

The themes of Evgeniou's theatre are the same, ones that affect in some way the Cypriot community here, from racism to the Greek Junta.

When we come to the numerically major communities, the Asian and West Indian, |

things cannot be so neatly encapsulated. The range of work is vast.

There's reggae and 'Asian rock' (and even within those categories there's a great variety of philosophies and type); Caribbean and Indian folk dance; the formalized 'Mush- airas', extremely popular public readings in Urdu by poets of their own work, and attended by hundreds; West Indian dialect plays ; Caribbean steelbands, Indian classical music and dance. Housing these are a few ethnic centres, like Mattafancanta in North- ampton, Keskidee in North London, the Bharatiya Vidaya Bhavan in West London.

There are a number of important annual events. The one that immediately springs to mind is the Notting Hill Carnival. But there are also less well-known events, like the annual Asian Youth Festival. It began as a small evening's event, featuring music and dance groups, in 1975. Since then it has burgeoned. The group I show are a folk group from Loughborough. Folk, however, is only one - though an important - element. The sixth festival is due to take place next month at the Commonwealth Institute. It will spread over three days and take in a range of arts, from drama to painting, and activities that range from performance to workshops. The festival, organized by the National Association for Asian Youth, has an important function : it brings work together on a national basis, and hopes through exposure to create critical standards for a diverse field.

Exposure is one of the most critical factors - the opportunity for work to be seen, and to improve in the process - and as yet there is still much room for improvement. One organization that has provided it is the Bharatiya Vidaya Bhavan. An arm of a long- established chain of Bhavans in India, the London Bhavan opened its doors in a shop in New Oxford Street in 1973. Here, against all odds of cramped space, it set up classes, a bookshop, a lecture programme and performances of music and dance. The Bhavan has now moved to an enormous old church a few yards from West Kensington Under- ground station, which it is developing into a thriving centre.

On the West Indian side, the prime centre is the Keskidee, an old mission hall in a development area of Islington. It functions as both youth and arts centre. On the arts side, its most constant element is its professional theatre company under the direction of Rufus Collins. But it has also had other

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS SEPTEMBER 1980

Sitar¡class at the Bharatiya Vidaya Bhavarìs first base

Sculptor Emanuel Jegede teaching at the Keskidee Centre

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SEPTEMBER I98O THE ARTS OF ETHNIC MINORITIES IN BRITAIN

Agor-Mmba bring African living arts to London

activities, such as a dance class, and pottery, painting and printing under the supervision of its then artist-in-residence, Emanuel Jegede. There is also a gallery that has exhibitions running concurrently with theatre productions.

Drama groups are diverse, from the professional as at Keskidee to groups like the Bristol West Indian Drama Group. A semi- amateur youth group, its most interesting work has been plays that its members have devised themselves, based on their own experiences, such as How Do You Clean a Sunflower ?, which was a compendium of the children's reactions on coming to England.

You cannot compartmentalize ethnic arts too strictly, although for the sake of brevity I've been forced to do so to-day. Groups like Agor-Mmba (or 'Children of Joy') take their music to young people. They draw their inspiration from both Africa and the Carib- bean. So does ' Steel 'n Skin', a first-rate group. The latter are particularly successful in their longer stays with communities, and dispose effectively of the myth that ethnic arts are purely for ethnic minorities. 'Steel 'n Skin's' most signal achievement has been in communicating Afro-Caribbean/Black

British culture through their music and dance, and through their workshops in drum- making, batik, costume and even cookery. (A film on their work is available from the Arts Council.)

The most interesting area of ethnic arts is, as in the 'Steel 'n Skin' example, their potential for development. For this, I believe I can claim some credit.

Before my report, The Arts Britain Ignores , the ethnic arts were far more ťparlour arts'. They sustained and served various communities; and even though amongst their practitioners there were men and women of great talent, their work did not often emerge from a small ambience.

The Arts Britain Ignores evoked a tremendous response, not so much in the press (since the media prefer bad news to good), but in the widespread interest it generated. The book - much to my surprise - went into a second edition and had a wide circulation amongst local authorities, education bodies, regional arts associations, arts centres, and the ethnic arts groups themselves. It led to examination of practice and, in some cases, change of policy. All the regional arts associations, for example, had discussions in their executive committees on the way in which they catered for ethnic arts. Some commissioned further specifically regional reports. Some funded ethnic arts officers, a move that had begun to be followed by local authorities. South Yorkshire County Council set up a massive ethnic arts programme as a direct result of The Arts Britain Ignores. Other areas, such as youth festivals, began to realize that they were not representing the total spectrum of youth as ethnic arts were absent. The research in the report was also timely with regard to subsequent developments in multicultural syllabuses in schools.

The recommendations in The Arts Britain Ignores have been followed up by two bodies.

Firstly, there is MAAS, the Minorities Arts Advisory Service, which I set up immediately after the publication of the report. MAAS is a small unit, whose function is to advise ethnic arts groups and the bodies for whom they are relevant, from local authorities to community festivals. Its aim is to see the arts develop and to acquire the regard, funding and facilities to which they are entitled.

MAAS publishes registers of artists and arts group, and a monthly news-sheet, the Echo .

Secondly, there's been the work of the

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CRE (Commission for Racial Equality) through its Advisory Group on the Arts, a body which MAAS suggested be set up and on which it serves. They have done a con- siderable amount of work in pursuing the recommendations of The Arts Britain Ignores , which - despite some progress - are as valid as when they were first made in 1976. In particular, the CRE has increased (or, in some cases, created) contacts between regional arts associations and their own local network of community relations councils.

But why, you might ask, all this activity ? If the arts existed in ethnic communities ever since they became fully established, then why disturb them? Is it not going against the natural process of things ? If they have survived, unsubsidized, hitherto, why now cry for subsidy ?

There are three main answers to this. Firstly, our arts provision is intended to cover the expressed needs of the total popula- tion. The needs of ethnic minorities have not been adequately considered in any way. Even in heavily 'immigrant' areas, local authorities have been extremely tardy in realizing there is a provision to be made. Why should they ? - some might ask. Indeed, when I was researching The Arts Britain Ignores , it was not unusual to discover a local authority which proudly claimed that it made no separate provision for minorities; that it would be racist to do so. That seems to me very close to the idea that race is a problem, with the tacit assumption that if you will ignore it, it will go away. But other cultures are different: they all have their strengths, and their needs. Nothing but increasing discrimination is achieved by ignoring that.

The second reason, closely related to the first, is financial justice. Minorities pay, like the majority, rates and taxes. It is surely only equitable that their entertainment and cultural needs are considered.

Thirdly comes the far larger matter, the health of Britain's artistic life as a whole. We have the tremendous advantage in this country of being a multicultural community. It is shortsighted in the extreme to disregard the artistic assets of such a situation. They can add diversity and colour to life in general ; they can generate new insights, and new perceptions. If we want people to understand what the Commonwealth is about, how better to do it than through the arts ?

More specifically, I can see spin-offs for the arts as a whole. Isolationism never did

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them any good. They have prospered as a result of cross-currents and outside stimulus. In a recent Sunday Telegraph , the critic Richard Cork rightly complained of parochialism in the visual arts world. An initial step in overcoming that parochialism, in areas wider than visual arts alone, is to open up the arts in this country. It is not primarily a case for more money (though goodness knows, the arts as a whole need it), but a recasting of attitudes : the attitude that says Indian classical music is exotic while Western classical music is not; the attitude that sees Caribbean Anansi stories as being only for black children, while Grimm's Fairy Tales are for all society. Ethnic arts and the cultures behind them are now new aspects of British art. Were they recognized as such, the way would be open for far more cross fertilization.

It would be simplistic to suggest that the ethnic arts are there waiting, fully-fledged, behind the door, just waiting for someone to open it and let them in. They are not. Like any arts, they need a suitable climate and sympathetic development. They are dis- advantaged in comparison with indigenous arts, partly because arts-funding bodies still have difficulties in assessing them and partly because they themselves still have to learn the stringent mechanics of arts organizations in Britain; planning, accounting, etc.

However, the shift in climate of opinion in the last five years has allowed some interesting developments that hold pointers for a possible future. Four relatively recent projects will illustrate them. The first - the Oriental Centre in Liverpool - is still on the drawing board. (I gather the Government, which is providing some funding through Urban Aid, is arguing about what it sees as the unnecessary expense of a curved Chinese roof.) When completed, it will provide a social and cultural centre for Merseyside Chinese and English. It is the first project of its type to cater for the Chinese and broader community.

The next two developments are in the field of dance. The MAAS Movers started in 1977. The name needs some explanation. The black dancers who started the group took as their base-line the following passage in The Arts Britain Ignores: this report believes 'that a professional black dance company is desirable - firstly because it is necessary to stir the ambitions of potentially talented young black people; secondly to give more range, exposure and experience to




The MAAS Movers, the pioneers of professional black dance

trained dancers ; thirdly, to help shape vary- ing dance traditions behind West Indians' - I would now rephrase that as 'behind black British' - 'into a visible shape ; and fourthly, to provide not only West Indians but all possible audiences with entertainment of high standard.' Since that statement is also part of MAAS's own philosophy, the Movers asked whether they could use MAAS's name, though remaining independent in all other ways (including funding).

The Movers have made a good start towards those objectives. The group- members come from a variety of different backgrounds, not only in terms of country of origin but also in the dance styles in which they have trained. Their repertoire consequently contains, and tries to fuse, classical ballet, modern dance and Afro- jazz. And although they have been hounded by organizational problems, the work they've done has been dynamic, innovatory and polished.

At about the same time the Movers started, the particular problems of Indian classical dance in Britain had presented themselves to a dancer, Tara Rajkumar. Lack of per- manence has dogged the field. For as long as I can remember, there have been teachers taking classes in most of the major classical styles. But since they have been, almost

without exception, women, they've been subject to the job dictates of their husbands. When their husbands have either been re- posted or moved to a new university, they have followed them and left half-trained pupils behind them. I have direct experience of this. I started learning Indian classical dance in 1964 at a small school established by Ram Gopal. After a year, the school closed and its principal teacher in Kathak had followed her teacher to Canada. In the following year, the Asian Music Circle brought over a couple to teach. Krishna Rao and his wife, Chandrabhaga Devi, gave four classes a week for two years. By that time we senior students were competent enough to perform all the items of a traditional programme, from Alarippu to Thillana. But after they left to return to India, came another hiatus. Some time later, a beautiful Sri Lankan dancer, Balasundari, started classes. But then her doctor-husband took up a post in Uganda. I hope I have made my point.

The answer to this inherent instability is, Tara Rajkumar believes, an academy for Indian dance. It would provide permanency, consistency of standards. It would be a framework into which visiting first-class dancers from the sub-continent could give master classes. Even if, to imagine the worst,

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all the teachers had to leave, then the board of trustees could bring someone over from India to continue activities. Pupils would not be left marooned. Being a woman of energy and decision, Mrs. Rajkumar has followed her conclusion through by setting up the nucleus for such an institution.

It's early days yet. Funding is slight, and she has no base of her own. She relies for space on the generosity of the Regent Street Polytechnic. But she does have 80 keen pupils, a full diary of workshops, recitals and lecture-demonstrations, as well as plans to have an officially-recognized diploma course in Indian dance.

My last example is also Asian, but this time in the area of theatre. It's called the Tara Arts Group. Its young members come from a variety of Asian backgrounds - Pakistani, Indian, East African. And un- usually for Asian drama, they work in English. This is no accident or mere convenience. The group feel strongly that they may be Asian, but they are also British : their future lies in this country, and their concerns are with conditions here. Their plays are a far cry from the drawing-room comedies set on Malabar Hill so loved by other Asian theatre groups. They are colloquial, rough pieces that deal with themes like racism in the classroom (or the headmaster's study), double standards within the Asian community, indentured labour to East Africa paralleled with immigration to this country. If that makes their work sound heavy and rhetorical, it is only because it leaves out the group's humour, intelligence and charm. They constitute a hopeful pointer to the future, as do all the other examples. They are all steps out of isolation. All are indica- tions of growing confidence in certain areas of ethnic arts.

I began by promising an introduction to the forms of ethnic arts in this country. Although it has proved impossible not to speculate about their future within that section, I should like now to move on, and examine the future in greater detail.

The major problem facing ethnic arts far beyond that of funding is that of isolation, as it has always been. Groups and artists have been contained within small communities. They've known little - though MAAS has done much to remedy this - of similar artistic work going on in other parts of the country.

Isolation is a deeper phenomenon. It is also isolation, despite improvements, from

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the institutions of this country and the arts- funding bodies. This is slowly being broken down. Regional arts associations now, for instance, appoint a member of staff with responsibility for ethnic arts. Some support ethnic arts workers within the community (such as in the West Midlands). Steel bands have penetrated schools, and so has a measure of Indian folk and classical dance.

It is the breaking down of isolation that has made possible the four examples I gave you of recent developments. They represent a new confidence within the ethnic arts: a confidence to 'go public'. And they also represent what 'going public' must entail - a fusion of traditions.

Asian drama before Tara served only the community - valuable in itself, but contained in its development. The Movers are also looking for a fusion of styles, a fusion that has some meaning for Britain to-day. Tara Rajkumar's academy and Brian Wang's Chinese centre both serve the wider community from a traditional base.

These are all hopeful developments, but there is one important element missing : the element of interchange, specifically with the country of origin.

It is something that ethnic arts, almost without exception, need, from folk groups to classical groups. They need to acquire fresh material and new ideas. They need to measure themselves periodically against a more professional standard. (Most ethnic arts are, for obvious reasons, part-time.)

It is possible to prove the feeding rôle that artists from outside have filled if you consider the pattern of, say, George Dzikunu. Originally he came to this country from Ghana with an African dance troupe, Sankofa, who performed here with great success. When their time was at an end, Dzikunu stayed on here and was the force behind a new group, Dabuo. Later he put his formidable talent at the disposal of Steel 'n Skin. And the corporate work of Steel 'n Skin has resulted in, among other things, young black people being fired to learn dance and form their own groups : as with Ekome in Bristol and Lanzel in Wolverhampton.

Other examples may be cited of the electric effect that one talented individual can have. The groups themselves are aware of the dangers of atrophy. There is hardly a group I know which is not eager to acquire a tutor or a short-term group member from outside : whether it be the Turkish Fine Arts Society which needs a musician who can




play the saaz, or Tara Rajkumar's academy which needs a teacher for the styles she herself cannot cover.

A network for interchange does exist, but it is different in character from these specific needs. British Council-operated, it sponsors British artists on overseas visits and tours. It does not invite or subsidize artists to come to Britain. Again, the relatively new wing of the British Council, Arts Council and Foreign Office, called the VAU (Visiting Arts Unit), is responsive rather than working to a particular policy. If artists have already made all arrangements to come to Britain - have located their venues and negotiated their contracts - then the VAU is em- powered to give them financial help.

Artists abroad, however, very rarely have the know-how to do all that. At MAAS (which I left actively running last year), we were frequently approached by groups and individuals who wanted to appear in Britain, mainly from Asia and the Caribbean. There was little we could do beyond putting them in touch directly with venues we knew would profit from their visit. We had too little money and too small a staff to organize tours, lectures and workshops.

There is, however, a crying need for a unit to emerge with that function. I do not mean that it should necessarily fund the artists. But it should stimulate artists to visit this country, it should devise an imaginative programme for them (one that goes beyond the normal venues).

Basically what appals me about artistic visits is the waste. A troupe will, for instance, come to do a two-week season at Sadler's Wells Theatre, and at the end of it all, vanish. Why can't they be used better ? Why does it all have to be display ? Opportunities to enhance the experience of the visiting group are being missed all the time. Why, for instance, when the superb Peking Opera was here, was there no arrangement whereby some of the cast worked with young teams of gymnasts ? Gymnastic classes exist for children from 5 years old upwards. Learning some of the marvellous Chinese technique first-hand would have been an experience they would have never forgotten.

Let me, to explain myself more fully,

devise a hypothetical example. Let us suppose the National Dance Theatre Com- pany of Jamaica were coming here for a short season. Let us suppose that they have had their statutory two weeks in London, and maybe in Manchester. Now let us play organizers. When the two weeks or so are up, divide the group into two. Let one mini- company take a smaller, tailored programme round arts centres, colleges, dance centres, and team it with lecture-demonstrations. The second group will go off in separate pairs to work with, say, the MAAS Movers, Legba, Omnibus, Marya-Pili : in short local black dance groups, ranging from the professional to the community grass-roots.

The net result of such an operation, say a month in duration, would be to maximize the effect of the company. It would also, I suspect, present a stimulus and challenge for the dancers. But the last thing one could call it is wasteful. It uses the company and dancers to the last shred. The venues are there, the artists are there. What we need is something to bring them together. Perhaps this is a rôle that the newly-formed Common- wealth Arts Organization might care to consider? It surely has relevance for more than Britain.

In this country, the benefits of such an operation would be tremendous. It would serve to break down British artistic isolation, generate new activity and development in existing arts groups and help to develop ethnic arts. It would bring the arts to our doorstep rather than keeping them shut up in institutions. And it would also give a new and direct meaning to that tired word, the 'Commonwealth'.

The Commonwealth has long been per- ceived as a convenience of politicians, a structure that has little meaning for our daily lives. Reporting from the future forty- third member was a clear indication of how little we have understood of the nature and culture of the black inhabitants of Zimbabwe.

If we want to survive into the twenty-first century, then we will have to make that leap into international understanding. How better, how more humanely to acquire it than through that most humane of activities, the arts ?

DISCUSSION The Chairman: I was taken with a remark which Miss Naseem Khan made at the end of her speech about the Commonwealth so often being regarded as a mere political convenience

or inconvenience, as the case may be. I think that she pointed the way to some extent when earlier on she alluded to the newly formed Commonwealth Arts Organization. For those

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who have not perhaps followed it in the daily prints (and it has not had the publicity that it deserves), this is an organization which came into existence as a result of a conference attended by some 35 Commonwealth countries in London at the end of January this year. The Common- wealth representatives were largely official, many of them from artistic organizations, most of them sponsored by their own governments. On the British side the representative, Sir Roy Shaw of the Arts Council of Great Britain, appeared with the blessing of Mr. St. John Stevas, the Minister for the Arts. It is the intention of the organization, which is based temporarily at the Commonwealth Institute, to encourage that very interchange of artistic experiences about which Miss Khan has spoken so eloquently.

Mr. R. B. W. Haines (Arts Division, British Council) : The British Council's function in arts work is to support the interests of Britain, essentially in terms of foreign policy, and with attention to commercial spin-off. Our aim is to increase friendship and regard: we have FCO and Department of Trade support. Increasingly now we allocate some money to send small groups, or individuals, to work together with national bodies overseas, for example the work with the Turkish National Theatre. A case in point was the Mexico Arts Festival in 1979, where we mounted quite large presenta- tions, and a great deal of commercial and tax- payers' money was used. One quite low-cost item was that Clifford Williams and Adbul Farrah went to direct and design a production of Richard III at the festival in August, and it had quite an impact. That production of Richard III in Spanish in Mexico is still running, in March. We have been learning that there is much to be said for liaising with the arts of another country.

We do not really 'represent' the British arts in work overseas: we use the British arts in work which is in the interests of foreign policy or commerce. Among the arts we use (and I am sorry I have to disagree with the speaker) are ethnic minority arts. To the Arts Conference in Lagos we sent Osibisa. Steel 'n Skin went to a Swedish conference on the making of new communities in Western Europe. The reggae group, Aswad, went to Kenya last year. It is true these are special uses for special purposes. Greenwich Young People's Theatre, on the other hand, went to Czechoslovakia (about 18 months ago) and the production that they had available to take was a rock musical Othello. The Othello naturally was a black lad, and there were other black people in the group. The reports we have tell us that the tour included some good discussions about multi-ethnic, multi-racial Greenwich. I hope we can see that sort of thing developed.

The British Council sees the minority arts as part of the British arts. This does not necessarily imply a special Cethnic' tour. For example, when

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the Spinners tour they include music that they themselves learnt when touring in Africa. They go down very well in West Africa and the Far East. So I would want to put in record that the British Council sees the arts we have been con- sidering this afternoon as part of the British arts scene.

The Lecturer: You quote examples of black groups you have sent overseas. This illustrates very much what I have been talking about. I don't know about Aswad, but I know that Osibisa went to Lagos to a black festival. Obviously you would send a black group to that. Steel 'n Skin went to a European minorities festival; but what I am talking about is that I should like to see the British Council sending these groups abroad not because they are black, not because they are minorities, but because they are British. I should like to see, for instance, groups of children playing in steel bands being sent abroad as another example of British musical skill.

Mr. Haines: They are. They were sent to Canada, for example. I have not given you the whole list.

The Lecturer: I remember clearly that when I was researching the arts, I came to talk to the British Council and said, 'Why don't you send ethnic minority groups abroad ?' This was a totally informal talk, but the person concerned said, 'Well, they are not really British arts, are they ?'

Mr. Haines : That was in what year ?

The Lecturer: That was in 1975. Mr. Haines: A lot has happened in five

years, and that is what I am reporting. The Lecturer : I am delighted to hear it.

Mr. Haines : That was what worried me; a sense that you were speaking from experience of 1975 and not of 1980. Mrs. Eileen Craine (British Federation

of Music Festivals): I would have thought our concern was not so much about travelling groups going overseas, as whether the ordinary white person living, say, in Walsall, has any appreciation at all of what the Indian families in the neighbourhood are doing ? Would they go and watch Indian dance ? I am the Secretary of the British Federation of Music Festivals, which is the headquarters of the amateur competitive festival movement, and it is very much a new concern of ours to try and bring immigrant groups into our competitive festivals in the various towns and centres about the country. We are having very little success, and I came here this afternoon in the hope of making some contact or getting some advice on it.




The Lecturer: The problem you are talking of has been experienced by a lot of other organizations. Drawing the activities of different communities into festivals is not easy. I think we have perhaps to concentrate on an interim step, which is actually building up those arts themselves and supporting the festivals that spring out of communities, such as the Asian Youth Festival. Not until people get the confidence and expertise are you going to entice them into the next step. That is not a very satisfactory answer from your point of view!

Miss Beverley- Jane Stewart (a teacher and an artist) : I found your report very interesting. I think a strong emphasis should be placed on ethnic arts in the schools. Certainly the schools are places where the creative arts are flourishing, but more emphasis should be placed on a multicultural curriculum, possibly inviting different groups into the school. Could you comment on this ?

The Lecturer : I agree with you that the development of a multicultural curriculum is very desirable, incomplete as it is at the moment. I agree that inviting people into schools is extremely important. But at the same time, in terms of realities of the moment, groups like, for instance, Steel 'n Skin who do go into schools are being very much affected by the present cuts in expenditure. I don't know whether you find this in your own experience ?

Miss Stewart: The expenditure cuts are having an effect on the development of ethnic arts. In some areas, such as Brixton, great efforts are being made by teachers to help the children to become aware of their cultural heritage.

When you examine areas which are composed of mainly white people you find that ethnic arts are not adequately promoted.

Dr. N. S. Junankar : One of the points in your speech was the rôle of ethnic arts in the school cultural activities. The question really is : How far and to what extent they can be inte- grated with the educational system of this country. They should be part of this country's educational system for ethnic minorities. I understand a Commission of the European Economic Community concerned with education (I forget the exact name of the Commission) has already recommended that the EEC countries should provide facilities for the education of ethnic minorities in their own languages and for the understanding of their own cultures. It is in this direction that efforts should be made to introduce the arts of the ethnic minorities in this country. This will not only help the children of the ethnic minorities in acquainting themselves with the artistic and cultural heritage of their own but also enable them to become part of the British scene and part of the composite culture of this country.

The Lecturer: I agree with you. Also, it is important to children not only from ethnic minorities but to all children. Until relatively recently we have been bedevilled by the fact that ethnic arts on the whole have been seen as a sort of loose adjunct to school work. You might have, for instance, a teacher who runs an Indian folk dance group in his dinner hour, but this is gradually changing with ideas of a multicultural curriculum and I hope, for instance, that they are going to start setting up a pilot project for 'O' Level Indian Music. I don't know if James Porter from the Commonwealth Institute would like to add anything ?

Mr. James Porter (Commonwealth Insti- tute) : It is important to acknowledge that ethnic arts practised in Britain become essentially an extension to British arts. The more one absorbs ethnic arts into British life, into the tradition of what the arts in Britain are about, the more difficult it is to give them their own separate sense of definition, and possibly of separate support in the way Miss Khan referred to earlier in her lecture. With a more stable situation in terms of the numbers involved, a large number of minority arts groups in this country will develop their arts here, and the ways in which one regards the ethnic arts over the next ten years or so may be dramatically different from the way they have been regarded in the seventies.

I should like to ask whether Miss Khan sees this tendency - a greater emphasis upon citizen- ship of this country - meaning that the future rôle of the ethnic arts will be to enrich and develop what we mean by British art rather than to develop a separate art form ?

The Lecturer: There is a tendency to regard ethnic arts as being traditional arts, folk- lore arts that cannot be changed, or indeed as being something like the Indian classical arts. I believe that there is a large area - and this for me is the most interesting one - where the arts themselves will develop, where they will in effect become hybrid or mongrel arts. The danger of containing them simply as ethnic arts is that you diminish the possibility of that development.

The Chairman : Miss Khan, you are using the term 'mongrel' no doubt merely in the sense of hybrid. It seems to me that there is a very great advantage in this hybridization; hybrid vigour is a well known agricultural concept. I was particularly struck the Monday before last at the service in Westminster Abbey by a steel band playing in the transept. The sounds had that ethereal, disembodied quality that one associates with Mozart's compositions for the glass harmonica. The two genres are certainly very similar. In an art with which I am better acquainted, that of literature, there is no doubt that, particularly in the late

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eighteenth century, the influence of Asian literary forms was welcome by Goethe, and also very strongly in England; and it was capable of producing something which had to some extent the merits of the two parents. This, I think we are in agreement, is a good thing for the artistic development of people who have been there all along, that they should take advantage of new strains in order to give greater vigour to their own artistic traditions.

Mr. Donald Gillate (British Council, Films Department): I wonder if we are not taking this all too seriously. In this country we tend to absorb influences very well and we may be in danger of making ethnic art something that we suddenly have to think of too much as 4 a subject'. Other cultures are something people feel free to take or leave alone. For generations we have had the Scots, Irish and Welsh in England in very large numbers, but apart from the odd evening institute Scottish dancing session, I don't think we have made very much of it one way or the other. Nobody ever insists on teaching us how to make haggis and certainly the Welsh arts are not studied especially. I wonder whether we are therefore not making too much of a plinth for ethnic art,

when in fact it can be absorbed more easily than we think.

The Lecturer : I am not sure I agree with the argument about the absorptive nature of British society; but to leave that aside, the reason why one is talking about ethnic arts is that before the phrase was coined nobody believed that they existed. Before the field was named, so to speak, there was virtually no provision made for this very extensive range of arts, either by the funding bodies or in local authority programmes or in British Council tours overseas, etc. If you want to have a body of art brought into the mainstream, you have to identify it.

I myself will be happy when we can throw away the tag 'ethnic arts'. It's only marginally better than the original one - 'ethnic minorities' arts'. They are not 'minorities' arts'. They are the arts of all of us.

T he Chairman : We have had an extremely interesting lecture. I shall now bring the pro- ceedings to a close by expressing our very warm thanks to Miss Naseem Khan.

The meeting concluded with acclamation.

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the arts of ethnic minorities in britain

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