Anthology of Fab Four by Gunduz Kalic

Move over John, Paul, George and Ringo.  There’s a new Fab Four in Brisbane town.  Foley, Soorley, Gould and Kotzas have teamed up to show you one hell of a good time.

Coming to you live, fait accompli, the all-new, bigger and better Brisbane Festival is here.  Warana was obviously their private party and they’ve cancelled it ‘cos they wanted to.

In a mere day, last week, the Brisbane arts establishment rearranged itself.  Warana was out, finished, done like a dinner, gone.  In was a new Brisbane Festival, copycatting Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Melbourne and centred on the State Government-controlled Performing Arts Complex Trust, headed by local arts tsar Tony Gould.

Very interestingly, on Friday, in The Courier-Mail, John Kotzas, then artistic director of Warana was crying foul.  Warana’s funding had been cut in the 1996 art funding allocations announced by Arts Minister Matt "I used to be an actor too" Foley.  Kotzas said he was confounded by the inequities of the system.

But by Saturday morning, lo and behold, everything was suddenly sweet indeed.  The new festival was announced by Foley, Soorley, Gould...and Kotzas.  There he was, thigh deep in cream, whistling Dixie at the head of the Warana hearse, the new Managing Artistic Director of the Brisbane Festival.

An excited Mr Kotzas declared that the Brisbane Festival would be a peoples’ festival for all of Brisbane.  Hmmm, wasn’t people’s festival also Warana’s by-line?  And wasn’t the major problem with recent Warana festivals that they somehow missed "the people"?

Perhaps, instead of stitching up a copycat backroom deal, our representatives Foley and Soorley ought to have talked to the people, instead of the bureaucrats.  Open the windows in the downtown towers, fellas.  Have you actually asked anyone other than your own minders and offsiders what they want?

Community groups, schools, art organisations, musicians, actors, venue operators, arts and recreation professionals and many others - the grassroots - ought to have been involved in the future of Warana.  Not to mention the taxpayers and ratepayers.   A 33 year-old festival has been killed off in a day by politicians and arts bureaucrats with, apparently, no broad-based consultation whatsoever.

Salesmen who have disposed of an old car without permission now boldly announce that they are getting us an even better one at a very affordable price.  Mr. Gould is already blowing the fanfare:  "It could take a couple of years for the Brisbane Festival to rival festivals in other states".

Who is he kidding?  People’s festivals grow organically, not bureaucratically.  They grow out of and come from the year-in, year-out activities of thousands of people.  Why is it so automatic that an imposed-from-on-high Brisbane Festival is the solution to anything?  And what is the price tag?  Mr. Gould says he expects it to be several million dollars.  (Warana’s budget was to be $460,000).

Suddenly, another chunk of public money is going, going, gone, without public input.  Is not the steady accumulation of exactly this sort of decision-making the very thing that makes citizens feel insulted and isolated?  By the public bodies which are meant to be their own?  Indeed, is this not exactly the sort of decision-making which put the Goss Government in jeopardy?

Foley, Soorley, Gould and Kotzas seem to be re-testing the Archimedes principle.  If they can all get in the bath together, the cream will rise to ever-increasing levels, eventually completely covering them.  Against the laws of nature and displacement, how far can the cream keep rising?

How exactly will our dollars be spent and our cultural life affected in the years ahead?  Never mind.  Just stay tuned to watch the show.

This article appeared in the Brisbane Courier Mail, November 25, 1995.