Jerwood Arts have published two research reports under the title 1,243 Voices: Live Performance Artists’ Experiences of Covid-19 and Live Performance Artists’ Hopes for a Post-Covid Future.
The first captures survey responses from 1,243 artists, creatives and producers about their experience of lockdown as they tried to hold onto their livelihoods. The second looks at their hopes for the future and how the live music and performing arts sector might rebuild post-pandemic.
Jerwood Arts believe that the 1,243 Voices reports provide a valuable resource for arts organisations, funders and policy makers, especially those in positions of power, responsibility and decision-making in relation to the freelance artist workforce. They channel the experiences and ideas of classical and contemporary composers and music creators to choreographers, live and circus artists, writers for the stage, theatre makers, directors and set, lighting, sound, movement and video designers, and all types of independent producers.
A year on from when the surveys were completed, Jerwood Arts decided that now is the right time to release these reports. Music, theatre and the performing arts have come back to life at venues, festivals and outdoors settings up and down the country, and while there remains much uncertainty, we are starting to see whether people’s hopes for the future are being matched by reality.
In particular, the Live Performance Artists’ Hopes for a Post-Covid Future report digests 1,816 individual freely written responses: a powerful collection of reflections from early-career artists, creatives and producers that can help us all shape the future of the music and performing arts sectors. Their voices contain hope, inquisitiveness, reflection, humour, tiredness, resignation, frustration and anger.
For More Information and to view the reports, click here.