Recently, there has been some
talk amongst the Indian rock and metal crowd about musicians having to ‘pay to
play’. This means that instead of artists getting remuneration for performing,
they pay a fee to enter the festival as performers. Some musicians have been
voicing concerns about it, calling it a dangerous trend. Others nonchalantly
stated that this has been the case in a lot of music festivals the world over
for many years. None the less, it reminded me of the similar situation that
exists in the dance world in India.
Certain festivals or platforms
for dance in India have been following this system for several years. It is
said that many artists pay large sums to be able to perform in these prestigious
festivals. Other festivals may not have this policy of paying to perform, but
they offer such inadequate remuneration that an artist does end up ‘paying to
play’ in some form or another.
As was the case with the music
crowd, dancers are also divided in their opinions about having to pay to
perform. Some are vociferously fighting the trend, while others have resigned
to adopting the same nonchalance expressed by some in the music world.
As a dancer and a writer, I am
entitled to my opinion about this system of paying to perform, but more
illuminating than my opinion was an analysis of what happens to art when this
system is applied to it. This is not to trivialize what it does to artists –
such as the fact that the pockets of artists are hemorrhaging money every time
they want to showcase their work, and that artists cannot give their full
attention to their art because they must have a steady job to pay the bills - but
I have written about this in an earlier article on performance ethics.
The ‘pay to play’ syndrome does
contribute to the above mentioned issues for artists, but it also highlights a
very specific reality. In this scenario,
there is no room for artists who are gifted and talented, but cannot afford to
pay. It forces art into the hands of the relatively more affluent, and snatches
it away from the less affluent and the poor.
And yet, rather paradoxically,
throughout history and in literature, art has belonged in the realm of the
common man, not the elite. Sure, the people that patronized the arts have been
royalty and the affluent but the artists and practitioners have not. The
devadasis in India were wealthy by patronage, but they certainly did not come
from affluent backgrounds. The famous painter and sculptor, Michaelangelo also
lived the life of a common man. The birth of jazz and the blues, was amidst
poverty. And our very own M.F.Husain walked all over Bombay barefoot,
paintbrush in hand, painting billboards.
My intention is not to
romanticize the poverty of artists, or to say that artists have always been and
will always be poor. That certainly should not be the case. Every artist hopes
that he or she will be able to survive and thrive through their art. However,
art is not something that can or should be taken away from the common man or
the poor.
This syndrome almost declares art
to be something like a luxury that only the affluent elite can afford to
practice. If an artist cannot pay out of his or her own pocket, they don’t get
to show their work. The ‘pay to perform’ scenario is as bluntly simple as that.
If you don’t have substantial amounts of money that you can spare every time
you want to show your work, then you simply don’t show your work. Then, is the
message that is being sent out by the syndrome this – pick up a paintbrush, a
musical instrument or a set of ghungroos only if you are wealthy? That, in
turn, begs for introspection about a crucial question – is the practice and
performance of art only for the affluent, or is it for everyone?
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