Rural communities across New Zealand will be deprived of good quality art productions, and Lake Hāwea is no exception, local Arts On Tour coordinator Lindsey Schofield says.

Her comment follows Creative NZ’s decision to cut core funding for the Arts On Tour New Zealand Trust (AOTNZ), which has been bringing high quality performances in music, theatre and other arts to regional and rural New Zealand since 2005. 

AOTNZ has had regular funding on a three-year cycle in the past but is now reduced to applying for annual grants, creating uncertainty about its ability to deliver its programme. 

The Lake Hāwea Community Centre has hosted an impressive lineup of AOTNZ productions, including works by well known actors, children’s shows, and cabarets.

“We get really, really good audiences out there,” Lindsey said.

Arts on Tour offerings for next year. PHOTO: The Central App

The high quality shows make it easy for local organisers, she said, who just need to “do a bit of publicity and sell some tickets”.

“They just arrive with a show in the van, perform, then leave the place as they found it.

“It’s just fantastic.”

Lindsey said the shows charge a fee and any money local communities make over and above the fee they get to keep.

“The costs of running the community centre keeps going up,” she said, and the funding cuts mean not only a loss of funding for the community centre but “a loss of some fantastic productions we would never see”.

“It seems incredibly short sighted,” she said, and raises “some pretty big questions” about Creative NZ’s criteria for funding.

“You’re depriving your rural community of some really great productions.”

The most recent AOTNZ show at Lake Hāwea was The Bicycle & the Butcher's Daughter, staged early last month. 

Lindsey said a petition opposing the funding change was available and there was “a queue of people” wanting to sign it.

But Lindsey said AOTNZ general manager Steve Thomas - who has vocally opposed the change - said Creative NZ made it very clear it would not revisit the decision.

“I think they’ve made their minds up,” she said. 

The AOTNZ programme for next year had been circulated and Lindsey had chosen a range of productions for Lake Hāwea; two of which will definitely take place. 

They are a play called ‘Hanna’, directed by Jennifer Ward Lealand, in March; and a children’s puppet show called ‘The Boy With Wings’, in April.

“What happens after that I don’t know,” Lindsey said.

Central Otago woman Loretta Bush has prepared the petition for Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni, saying: “It’s no good sending it to Creative New Zealand because they won’t review their decisions.”