SARS means curtains for Asia shows

ARTS companies are pulling up the drawbridge on tours to Asia as a result of the SARS virus which is spooking performers and sponsors alike.

ARTS companies are pulling up the drawbridge on tours to Asia as a result of the SARS virus which is spooking performers and sponsors alike.The Australian Ballet yesterday cancelled its planned $300,000 tour of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which was to take place in October and would have been its first international trip since 2001.This follows the cancellation this week of The Australia Council’s planned participation in next month’s Asian Arts Mart in Singapore.AB general manager Richard Evans said yesterday that aside from the “obvious health risks” associated with SARS, it was also proving virtually impossible to raise the $300,000 needed to fund the tour.”Traditionally it hasn’t been a problem but at the moment asking people to sponsor events in China, even if they are in a few months time, is not on,” Evans said. The tour, which was a year in the planning, will be replaced by classes and choreographic workshops in the company’s home town of Melbourne.Evans said it was not likely that the AB would get to China for a number of years now, as it had tours locked in for the US in 2004 and Europe in 2005. It would not lose money on the cancelled tour, he said.”We’re very disappointed, but we can’t do anything that will endanger the company’s health or finances,” he said.Bangarra Dance Theatre has also scuttled tentative plans to tour China on the back of a US-Britain tour in October, and will now stay at home until October 2004.The Australia Council was to have invested $40,000 in showcasing local performing arts companies through a stall at the Asian Arts Mart, which aims to sell productions to venues in the region and beyond.Two local companies were also to perform at the mart, one of which, Perth-based Barking Gecko, has withdrawn. The other company, Melbourne-based The Heart of the Journey, is “monitoring the situation closely,” according to an Australia Council spokesperson. Musica Viva, which organises tours of classical chamber groups, has also had its Singapore activities curtailed by SARS. Its April schools program was cut two weeks short due to SARS-related schools closures, a related event with the Australian high commission was cancelled and a question mark hangs over its upcoming July tour of the Goldner String Quartet.Some artists are persisting with their touring plans. Photographer William Yang, eRTH Visual and Physical Inc and Generation Films will all perform at next month’s Singapore Arts Festival.SARS-related school closures also affected The Bell Shakespeare Company, whose Actors at Work schools program in Singapore was cut short in March. General manager Jill Berry said it planned to return in July. “The hyperbole of treating Asia collectively as if it’s one thing is wrong,” Berry said. “As far as I am concerned there is no reason not to go to Singapore.”(Source: The Australian, By Katrina Strickland, May 09, 2003)