The woke virus gets Shakespeare

One News reported:

For the first time in 10 years, Creative NZ declined a funding proposal for $31,000 to go towards the Shakespeare Globe Centre NZ for 2023 – 2025.

It’s the organisation behind the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival, an annual competition where high schools around the country perform scenes from the author’s plays.

Since 1991, 120,000 students have performed in the festival and more than half the secondary schools in the country currently participate.

In the funding proposal assessment document, the assessors said, “the proposal did not demonstrate the relevance to the contemporary art context of Aotearoa in this time and place and landscape.”

The assessors also added that “this genre 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.”

We have become a laughing stock around the world as this decision has made global headlines. And even back home prominent left leaning actors have decried it:

New Zealand’s top actors Sir Sam Neill, Robyn Malcolm and Michael Hurst have slammed Creative NZ’s defunding of the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival.

Malcolm called the agency “complete knobs”, Sam Neill says it made New Zealand “look bloody stupid” and Hurst said it was “beyond short-sighted, reactionary and just plain dumb”.

This follows a highly-critical letter by top University of Auckland English Emeritus Professor Michael Neill’s open letter to the agency’s chief executive saying the cut in funding of the annual school Shakespeare festival was “highly questionable” and “ill-considered”.

“With respect , if you decide to cancel the greatest writer in English, or any language come to that, you sound like a f***ing idiot. And you make NZ-Aotearoa look bloody stupid,” actor Sam Neill said.

The decision is not surprising. Wellington is infected with a woke virus, with almost every government agency obsessed with trying to prove they are decolonised. This of course includes the Government that pushes this at the governance level.

Yes Shakespeare is an English playwright. But at a time there was no British Empire, so the comments from Creative NZ are idiotic. English is an official language of New Zealand and he is regarded as the greatest English language writer and also the world’s greatest dramatist. His plays have been performed in every language in the world almost, and in fact are often redefined into a modern context.

The $30,000 of annual funding they scrapped from the School Shakespeare Festival is around 0.5% of the funding the Government has given to The Spinoff. So how about reduce their funding by 0.5% instead!

Not often I agree with Robyn Malcolm but she says:

“What complete knobs,” actress Robyn Malcolm said.

“I’ve judged the Sheila Winns at the local and National level. I’ve followed a number of kids over the years as they’ve travelled to the Globe in London as part of winning the national final and subsequently gone on to professional careers as actors and directors.

“I’ve taught Shakespeare performance in school to kids right across the social and cultural demographics.

“This is about kids, their own creative force and theatre. No matter what the school or the kids they all respond the same. They love it and they take ownership of it for themselves.”

Malcolm said the decision to defund was “beyond short sighted, reactionary and just plain dumb.”

Well said.