The fourth decibel Performing Arts Showcase will take place in venues across Manchester in September 2009. decibel is central to Arts Council England’s aim to bring “great art to everyone”, and works to promote diverse practice in the sector. Building on the successes, investment and ambition of previous years, the 2009 Showcase aims to increase artists’ touring opportunities by offering a snapshot of England’s culturally diverse performing arts talent to international arts professionals. By ‘diverse artists’, we mean artists who are black or minority ethnic (BME), disabled or with a background which may have caused them to be treated less than equally within the arts.
Previous showcases have resulted in new opportunities for artists, including new bookings around the UK. This has enabled them to bring work to areas where these kinds of performance are rarely seen. In 2007, performer and director Mem Morrison came to us with a tour-ready work, ‘Leftovers’. It is representative of the work that we do, exploring Morrison’s Turkish-Cypriot heritage, and using culinary concerns to address how cultures meet, mingle and influence one another. This humorous and autobiographical piece looks at the cultural connotations of the traditional greasy spoon café, and at how English café culture has been assimilated by successive generations of immigrant families.
 

There are several potential obstacles to be overcome when touring. There are marketing issues, with venues sometimes unsure as to whether a piece should be promoted as diverse work, or simply as a high quality piece of art. Alternatively, regional venues can express concern about booking the work if the audience demographic will not reflect the artists’ performance or culture, fearing that the performance is not relevant to audiences in their region. This had at times been the case for Mem Morrison Company, represented by Artsadmin, who had previously experienced regional venues turning the work down due to there being few Turkish or Turkish-Cypriot people in the area. decibel Performing Arts Showcase gave Artsadmin and the Mem Morrison Company the opportunity to showcase work to a much wider range of audiences than would have otherwise been possible, including local authority arts officers and smaller regional arts centres. The showcase was also an opportunity to overcome some of the prejudices performers can encounter when working with regional venues, and was a chance for Morrison to show work directly to programmers. Left-overs, like so many of the works brought to Showcase, appeals to a wide audience, and to people from a range of cultural backgrounds. Showcase is a meeting place for promoters, programmers and artists, and works to bring diverse performance to the fore, reminding us that this work deals with universal themes and can be successful in rural as well as urban contexts. As a result of the 2007 decibel Performing Arts Showcase in Birmingham, Leftovers was booked for a nine-date tour in Spring 2008.