With a relative dearth of broadcast opportunities for the genre, performing arts programming has been an area particularly sensitive to changes in funding and questions about the role and scope of public broadcasting.

Some of the producers of this year’s Gemini-nominated programs in the category of performing arts acknowledge the particular challenges of creating arts programming and the increasing importance of the world market and the marketplace in general in bringing a program together.

Leanna Crouch, formerly a producer of tvontario’s Imprint and producer of Gemini-nominated Have You Heard the Word, an exploration of spoken word performance, says one of the primary difficulties of producing a performing arts program is finding a broadcaster who is willing or has a mandate to be involved.

‘All docs, but particularly arts docs, are really hard to sell,’ says Anthony Azzopardi, who was nominated for Making Ballet, the second in a trilogy of performance arts documentaries. Azzopardi is currently producing Making Theatre, which follows the process of creating the stage play version of Rachomon at the Shaw Festival.

With tvo on board as a broadcaster, Making Ballet was funded by Telefilm Canada and the ofdc, tfo, cbc’s Sunday Arts and Entertainment, and, to a lesser extent, Vision tv and the Saskatchewan Communications Network. Also involved in the production were distributor Films Transit International and V.I.E.W Video in New York.

Without ofdc funding available and with the demise of cbc’s Arts and Entertainment, Azzopardi says funding Making Theatre will be more difficult and an eye to the foreign market more important.

‘There are very few players involved,’ says Azzopardi. ‘It’s going to make it almost mandatory for people like me to get foreign investment in production whereas in the past that wasn’t always necessary. Making Ballet didn’t have any foreign investment but the ofdc was there for a third of the budget. Now that is gone, it creates chaos.’

The Planets, which features Olympic skating stars Paul and Isabelle Duchesnay and was produced by Rhombus Media with cbc, Radio-Canada, a&e, RTP-Portugal, BBC, S4C Wales, NOS Television Holland, Decca Records, Telefilm and ofip, was put together with a smaller consortium than usual, says director Barbara Willis Sweete.

Sweete says Rhombus has had as many as 14 coproduction partners on one project, and that having access to Telefilm and previously ofdc funding has made Canada an attractive country with which to coproduce. Rhombus programs are broadcast by the cbc as primetime specials and on tvo.

Azzopardi expresses concern over the lack of involvement of the cbc in arts programming: ‘It’s an issue with most producers of arts and performance docs that I know – Where is the cbc? What is their mandate and what are they doing?’

Questions regarding the possible privatization of tvo also raise questions about its future role as a supporter of arts programming. Azzopardi says the broadcaster shouldn’t be discounted, but the element of uncertainty creates problems.

‘Even as an acquisition, they just don’t know where they’re going to be a year from now, which is when I’m hoping to deliver the next film.’

Stan Lipsey, producer of Have You Heard the Word, also acknowledges the declining opportunities at tvo. Lipsey says the show’s producers had a good measure of freedom within the arts department at tvo, but that reduced financing will probably limit that and result in more coproduced programming.

‘This show would never be produced this year or next year,’ says Lipsey. ‘They just don’t have the money. It’s a sad state of affairs.’

With the public networks in a crunch, specialties such as Bravo! emerge as alternatives. ‘They are interested in innovation and trying new things,’ says Crouch. ‘They’re one of the shops in town where the problem isn’t the vision it’s the money.’

Sweete says Bravo! has been a ‘godsend’ and has been involved in a number of projects with Rhombus as an additional source of funding.

‘They can be an alternative source too, but they don’t always have the money to put in,’ says Sweete. ‘If there’s something they see as prestigious or important they can make a difference. The station is becoming very interesting to look at.’

Azzopardi says Bravo!’s acquisition fees are generally ‘average to low’ – Making Ballet was acquired by Bravo! for $6,000 – but prelicensing agreements can be substantial.

Craig Moffit, producer of the nominated Cirque du Soleil segment of tvo’s Journeys, which is part of the broadcaster’s science department, says this season the program is a coproduction with the Discovery Channel, and that the specialty service has also purchased the first two seasons.

Paul Gratton, station manager at Bravo!, says the lack of ofdc funding has capped the number of programs his outlet sees from Ontario producers and that much of Bravo!’s content originates from Quebec and b.c.

‘It’s easier in Europe where they have public channels like Arte that are government-financed,’ says Gratton. ‘Here in North America, you’ve found most public broadcasters are less and less interested in arts programs – the cbc has practically abandoned its mandate.’

Azzopardi says even in the u.s. there isn’t an overabundance of broadcasters for arts programming, citing pbs, a&e and Bravo u.s., and to get a broadcaster like the u.k.’s Channel 4 or the bbc on board is a hard sell unless the production is ‘something really spectacular’ or involves well-known or foreign names, which raises the issue of Canadian content and creating the program as it was envisioned.

‘If I were to make Making Theatre based on Keanu Reeves doing Hamlet, some doors would probably have opened,’ says Azzopardi. ‘You’re talking about the difference between a filmmaker doing what they have to do versus having to cater to the market, and it’s becoming clearer that you have to cater to the market more and more.’

Lipsey acknowledges the increasing importance of foreign involvement., but adds: ‘That doesn’t mean making it so general that it makes no sense anywhere, it means making it specific and Canadian, and if the stories are true and the art is good, it’s universal.’

Lipsey says the nature of the arts program can influence how it is perceived and how hard it is to get made. ‘We didn’t have the difficulty that some people in things like dance and opera have in overcoming the idea that it’s elitist,’ says Lipsey.

The Planets came about following a suggestion from the cbc to produce a skating special, and later, the news that Decca Records and the Montreal Symphony were interested in doing a laser disc of Gustav Holst’s symphony The Planets.

The project was originally put aside because of questions about the qualifications of skating as art, but Sweete says that sentiment was due to the type of programs typically associated with skating and that the end product, produced by Niv Fichman, satisfied artistic and financial demands.

‘It was an attempt on our part to be commercial but also do something we felt good about artistically in terms of treating skating as dance and integrating it with dance and underwater choreography and a skeletal story line,’ says Sweete. ‘It was a case where we knew where the money was coming from and then came up with the concept to suit the market and where I feel the magic is there artistically.’

Crouch says producers are charged with reinventing the medium. ‘We have to see its currency as entertainment,’ says Crouch. ‘Sometimes broadcasters don’t have an interest in it because it often isn’t done terribly well.

‘Some of what is offered doesn’t translate well to tv,’ says Lucie Amyot, executive producer of tfo’s arts show, Classique Dimanche, citing Azzopardi’s Making Ballet as a good example of an effective tv vehicle which makes the art accessible to an audience beyond the ballet maven.

Amyot says the Sunday evening slot enjoys relatively high ratings, and as an addition to this season’s program, an in-studio commentary by a relevant artist is shot to accompany the acquired program to provide more information about the performance to a wider audience.

According to Crouch, exacerbating the problems associated with fiscal restraint is a tendency for broadcasters to be more reluctant to take risks on different types of programs.

‘I’ve always considered it ridiculous,’ says Crouch. ‘When an institution is under siege it seems to me that’s the time to be more daring because it may be the only chance you’ve got left. I think that kind of thinking is not only shortsighted it’s disastrous, because it’s places like the cbc and tvo we depend on to produce or coproduce this stuff with us.’

Lipsey says trends in arts programming will eventually be dictated by the larger societal trends toward downsizing and more sophisticated technology, with smaller crews producing programs, and multitasking, where one person runs the show.

Azzopardi says while he’s not getting out of making arts docs he will pursue other genres of filmmaking: ‘It won’t necessarily be easier but I think there are more players out there for social and political docs and drama. I like making arts docs but I can’t be dependent on it because of financing.’