Theatre Company
Vision
To support artists and Australians on the journey to wisdom and full experiences.
Mission
Ithika will expand, improve and reinforce the Australian arts and culture industry by:
- training commercially and creatively skilled artists,
- listening and responding to the wants of audiences, therefore strengthening them, and
- making innovation and evolution in form, presentation and content of the highest priority.
Ithika will prove that art can be, at once, challenging and entertaining—both accessible and financially successful—can maintain large appeal and quality.
The Ithika Ideology
Ithika was conceived in response to a number of weaknesses within the industry, such as:
- Lack of management, marketing and leadership skills and henceforth, lack of education in these areas (March/Thompson 1999)
- Its status as a supply driven industry (www.createaust.com), resulting (with poor management) in large unemployment in the field, inadequate funding and an excess of poor quality work
- Its reputation for being 'inaccessible' and therefore unenjoyable (Planning for the Future 2001), that is,
- Although all research shows Australians are keen to attend, they resist due to the industry's failure to respond to the changing needs of Australians in terms of leisure activities, particularly in the areas of pricing, location/venue, timing, content, format (Australians and the Arts)
- Its reliance on outside funding (government grants, corporate sponsorship, etc)
And, above all, the greatest weakness lies in the misconception, held even by the Australia Council and most professional artists, that 'theatre is not a business or an industry, nor is it a sector. Yet it is within this economic paradigm that theatre artists operate; and, accordingly, they adopt a "hopelessly inadequate language" to survive.' (Planning for the Future 2001) The misapprehension is that to consider marketing, consumer needs and financial strategy is to 'sell out'; that is, to sacrifice the objective of the art to commercialism (a concept that repulses most artists). So instead, artists randomly 'push buttons'—they demand that varied audiences of unidentified and random demographics should simply like what they're given, in the name of art (and moreover, blame the audiences when their work is poorly received).
On the other hand, however, the economic paradigm shares equal blame: in so much as artists refuse to look outside of their own register or in any way attempt to understand commerce, so too does commerce trivialise the register and concerns of artists. When we take art back to its primitive roots, it is the collective soul of a culture. Art once portrayed the history, traditions, morals and mythology of a people through stories, song and dance around a campfire. And promoted the culture's intellectual evolution; its betterment. Just as psychology and emotions remain the most mysterious areas of science, so too does the spiritual role of art elude quantification (whether for amusement, escapism, challenge, etc). But we know it helps us advance. We know it is spiritual, or soulful. Which is perhaps why the industry has so many unpaid participants—only 11% receive payment for their work (www.createaust.com). So its value takes more forms than just profit—in order for Australia's collective soul to survive, it must be profitable, but it is more important than the profit alone, and the content and the audiences' experience must not suffer at the hands of a few extra dollars.
Which is why a middle ground must be established between commerce and art. It is here that we arrive at the point of difference, the purpose and the value of Ithika. Ithika will help build this bridge. In three steps:
- training and mentoring artists creatively, ensuring the highest quality work,
- training and mentoring artists commercially, ensuring the work is 'fitted' and then marketed to the most appropriate audience, and
- using all available knowledge on Australia's changing needs and wants to create new innovative practices, ensuring that from leaving home to arriving back their again, our audiences are receiving the service they want, and indeed, demand.