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Was it about a canon of imperialism or was it about something else entirely? (Image Design: Tina Tiller)
Was it about a canon of imperialism or was it about something else entirely? (Image Design: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureNovember 3, 2022

‘A weaker delivery’: Shakespeare funding feedback released in full

Was it about a canon of imperialism or was it about something else entirely? (Image Design: Tina Tiller)
Was it about a canon of imperialism or was it about something else entirely? (Image Design: Tina Tiller)

Was it really about Shakespeare after all? Sam Brooks sifts through Creative New Zealand’s feedback to the Shakespeare Globe Centre’s funding application.

Yesterday, Creative New Zealand made the unprecedented decision to proactively release its feedback to the funding proposal from the Shakespeare Globe Centre (SGCNZ). For nearly a month, the organisation being let go from CNZ’s Toi Uru Kahikatea Investment programme has been at the centre of a roiling controversy, with heated opinion pieces and responses flying back and forth both here and overseas

That SGCNZ was to be dropped from funding was reported in mid-September, but the story was reignited after the publication of an open letter from SGCNZ supporter Terry Sheat. That open letter highlighted two phrases from the nine pages of CNZ feedback to the application, in which the assessors questioned “the role and relevance of Shakespeare in Aotearoa” and claimed “the genre [Shakespeare] was located within a canon of imperialism and missed the opportunity to create a living curriculum and show relevance to the contemporary art context of Aotearoa”. This led to several days’ worth of media furore and talkback appearances. You can read a summary of the stoush here.

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Now, CNZ has published its entire feedback to the SGCNZ proposal in response to an OIA request. Its stated reasons for releasing the feedback include the “many requests” for the information, excerpts of the feedback already being shared in the public arena, and to provide more detail around the Arts Council’s decision to decline the proposal.

A statement from the organisation reads: “We don’t typically discuss declined applications in the public arena. While we’ve had to make an exception in the case of SGCNZ … we don’t typically discuss or comment on declined funding applications in the public arena for the following reasons.”

SGCNZ has been consulted on the release of this information. In the interest of clarity, The Spinoff has read through the feedback and pulled out relevant parts to help readers can understand the process.

No to all of this discouse. (Image Design: Tina Tiller)

The feedback

Two external assessors, whose names have been redacted for privacy reasons, were hired to provide feedback on the funding application, which the Arts Council then bases its decision on.  There are three overall criteria that the assessors hold the funding application against: relevance, viability, and investment outcomes (as in, whether the organisation aligns with the CNZ’s investment priorities). Underneath these three criteria, there are 10 factors the application is measured against, including budget, vision, planning and ability to deliver. The assessors score these 10 factors a number between 1 and 5, 5 being the highest.

The feedback for SGCNZ is largely positive from both external assessors, with all of its scores being either a 3 (“good”) or a 4 (“very good”). Positive feedback includes passages like:

“The endorsements that you highlight demonstrate that participation in the Festival can be life changing, leading to increased confidence and a life long passion for the performing arts.”

“Shakespeare’s texts remain imminently suitable for adaptation and experimentation, with young people drawing connections with Shakespeare’s themes and making the plays relevant to themselves and their audiences through directorial and acting choices.”

“This programme of activity is well conceived, with regional festivals leading towards a national festival, complemented by education workshops and other initiatives.”

The few critical notes from these assessors revolve around the organisation itself, not anything to do with Shakespeare. Those include one assessor noting they would have appreciated a “more robust self-examination of its practice and functions” and another wanting “to get a clearer idea of SGCNZ’s longer term goals and where it is heading”. That same assessor notes that the emphasis on succession planning in the application was not reflected in its strategic and operational plan, another part of the application.

Ultimately, the organisation scored a 70/100 on its application, with one assessor giving it 34 marks and the other 36. (To crudely give it a grade, that would be a B.)

Creative New Zealand also solicited feedback from a strategic advisory panel. That feedback is summarised here as recorded minutes, not the detailed feedback provided from assessors above.

It’s from here that the quotes “located within a canon of imperialism” come from, not from one of the assessors, as previously reported. This panel notes the strong youth engagement, positive impact of participants, and the continued love of Shakespeare, but agreed the proposal did not demonstrate “the relevance to the contemporary art context of Aotearoa in this time and place and landscape”.

The panel’s feedback is summed up in four bullet points: that the proposal was “not strong”, the organisation seems “quite paternalistic”, “located within a canon of imperialism” and “relies heavily on schools who have busy calendars”.

As a result, it did not recommend SGCNZ for funding. Its rationale was that the proposal did not demonstrate the relevance to the contemporary art context of Aotearoa, and the panel was concerned for the number of theatre organisations in the round. It also questioned the role and relevance of Shakespeare in Aotearoa.

Not to be, thanks. (Image Design: Archi Banal)

Recommendations from Creative New Zealand

This part of the feedback sums up what both the external assessors and the panel said, as summarised above.

Of particular note here is that Creative New Zealand staff noted that the views of the assessors and the panel “do not seem to be held by the many thousands of young people who have participated in the programme”, and that the panel hadn’t considered that the programme (by which it means the Sheilah Winn Festival and its resulting offshoots) acts as an on-ramp to a career in the performing arts. The CNZ staff also noted that this was one of the few proposals received with a “primary focus” on providing opportunities for youth participation and leadership.

CNZ staff also acknowledged that SGCNZ had consistently met or exceeded CNZ’s expectations for quality and alignment, and that as an organisation receiving less than $75,000 a year in funding, isn’t required to report on financial or organisational health. CNZ agreed that SGCNZ delivers on CNZ goals, and a gap will “be created by its exit from the Kahikatea programme”.

The CNZ staff finally noted that there were concerns about the relevancy and future focus of the proposal that challenged the assessors’ confidence in the organisation’s capacity to “deliver strongly”.

They did not recommend the organisation for Kahikatea funding.

Financial exposure

The one part of the application that remains opaque is the internal assessment, which looks at an organisation’s financial viability. It is largely redacted, to protect “information subject to an obligation of confidence”.

The one piece of information left unredacted is that “the organisation is perceived to be exposed to financial risk”, which led to it scoring a 2 out of 3. It’s important to note that without knowing what other organisations scored in this funding stream it’s hard to correctly weigh the importance of this ranking. At any rate, SGCNZ scored 12 of 15 in this internal assessment.

The Arts Council meeting

Here’s where the final decision actually gets made, based on the feedback in the application that you’ve seen above. Again, this feedback is provided via minutes, not detailed feedback.

The Arts Council discussed what options were available to continue youth participation and leadership offered by SGCNZ. The council noted SGCNZ would be able to apply for funding under the Annual Arts Grants (and might do better financially under this scheme), and that there were other organisations delivering to youth.

They ultimately agreed SGCNZ had a “weaker delivery to assessment criteria than others”, and approved the recommendation to not offer funding through the Kahikatea programme.

The outcome

Creative New Zealand funded 58 out of 62 applications that applied for the Kahikatea funding stream. Shakespeare Globe Centre NZ now receives funding through the Ministry of Education, and the Sheilah Winn Festival will go ahead as planned in 2023.

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— Editor
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Jesse Tuke (Photo: TVNZ / Design: Tina Tiller
Jesse Tuke (Photo: TVNZ / Design: Tina Tiller

Pop CultureNovember 3, 2022

‘Lone wolf time’: Jesse Tuke talks us through his Celebrity Treasure Island win

Jesse Tuke (Photo: TVNZ / Design: Tina Tiller
Jesse Tuke (Photo: TVNZ / Design: Tina Tiller

The CTI 2022 winner opens his monolith of secrets.

Before he entered Celebrity Treasure Island, sports commentator Jesse Tuke didn’t want to lie to anyone about anything. “I don’t think I am a massively cunning person,” he told The Spinoff on a Northland beach back in February. “That is what I am most nervous about: upsetting someone or having to make a decision to work behind someone’s back.” He didn’t know back then that he would soon be privy to the biggest secret in the game’s history and would have to spend weeks lying about it to his teammates.

Tuke, the brother of Team New Zealand sailor Blair, had intended to play a “low key” game in the beginning. “I was just having fun for the first half, really just enjoying myself on the beach playing stupid games and meeting people that were a lot more famous than me,” he explained. But in week four, everything changed. When Tuke won the first Celebrity Treasure Island Games, he was granted access to the mysterious monolith that loomed above camp. The contents? The treasure chest containing $100,000. The challenge? To bury it. 

Jesse Tuke wins one of many challenges. (Photo: TVNZ)

“The game got flipped on its head for me halfway through and it was like, ‘this is my this is my life now, and I got to live it’.” With the knowledge of the final prize location and the secret label of traitor, Tuke spent weeks weaving yarns to his teammates about what was in the monolith, including something about a combination lock and something about Harry Potter. “I remember telling the initial lies and it was as bad as it looked,” he said. “I was so deep in some stuff I didn’t know which way was up.” 

What made it harder was the fact that the cast had bonded in the week leading up to the game following the shock death of cast member Va’aiga Tuigamala. “When you have a tragedy like that, everyone just comes together,” said Tuke. “It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known each other when you’ve got something shared like that.” Outside of the game Omicron was also at its peak in Aotearoa, and the cast knew nothing about what was happening unless a producer forgot to turn their radio off during the drive to remote challenge locations. 

“You’d hear ‘there’s 40,000 cases here today’ and you’re just like ‘what?’” said Tuke. “You have these very little moments where you get an insight into the outside world.”

Jesse Tuke in one of many wide-brimmed hats. (Photo: TVNZ)

With the external pressures of the real world and the internal pressure of his massive monolith secret, Tuke continued to win just enough challenges, leadership titles and elimination battles to survive in the competition – all while spinning his web of lies. “It’s gonna take me a few years to get over the trauma of of doing that,” he told The Real Pod on the evening of his triumphant Celebrity Treasure Island win. “It’s when people actually believe the lies that makes it really tough… that makes you feel even more crap as they eat it up.” 

But when the tribes merged, Tuke had another problem: his two long-standing alliances clashed. “It’s like you’ve gone to uni and you’ve made some new mates and then they don’t get on well with your high school friends,” he explained. After he eliminated Ron Cribb in a bizarre pendulum-based challenge, Tuke realised he would have to go out on his own. “The vibe was pretty clear that it was everyone against me at that point,” he said. “No amount of schmoozing was going to get my way back in to any of this. It’s the lone wolf time, and I backed myself to to do it.” 

In the final episode, Tuke finally came clean to his fellow finalists Courtenay Louise and Elvis Lopeti about his secret after a sleepless night. “I just felt like I needed to tell them and wanted to tell them,” he said. “It was shit, you know, these people thought that I had their back and even though I did, I knew that they felt like I betrayed them.” 

Jesse digs in one of many digging challenges. (Photo: TVNZ)

With his fellow competitors thoroughly “pissed off” going into the final treasure-hunting challenge, it made for a tense finale challenge. Courtenay Louise, who Tuke describes as “an absolute powerhouse”, stayed on his tail throughout building rope bridges and doing puzzles, but was foiled at the final dash by a fall that saw the contents of her bag spill across the dunes. Elvis Lopeti was hindered by some diversion challenges, but basically won the moment of the finale for sprinting down the beach in a crop top yelling “Mate Ma’a Tonga” despite being dead last. 

In the final moments, Tuke returned to the sandy basin where he had buried the treasure all those weeks ago. He did his best to remember the spot – “I pretty much had to place my bets on a sand dune that I hoped was still going to be there” – and started to feverishly dig. So feverishly, in fact, that his spade snapped and he was left to claw at the sand with his bare hands. As Courtenay Louise raced over the dunes, he unearthed the treasure chest and became the winner of Celebrity Treasure Island 2022. 

With $100,000 going to his chosen charity Live Ocean, which support marine scientists, innovators and communicators in the ongoing protection of the ocean, Tuke said the money will be far from “chump change” for the cause. “That’s money we can invest in a whole new project,” he explained. “We can get someone that just has an idea, we can turn that idea into reality.” 

And, after keeping yet another secret – this time about his win – from charity founder and brother Blair for many months, Tuke was looking forward to all finally being revealed. “I didn’t really get to have that celebration moment. So now to actually sit back and be like, ‘cool. I’ve done it, I’ve got $100,000 for a charity that means so much to me’… I feel really proud. I am just absolutely stoked.”


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