Performing arts’: a key to Europe’s cultural diversity

While the rich diversity of the performing arts sector in Europe is a major asset for European societies, several critical obstacles prevent performing arts works from reaching their potential and circulating beyond national borders: 

• market and sector fragmentation
• linguistic barriers
• travel costs
• logistics issues
• insurance
• copyright, etc

Beyond the negative impact on the performing arts companies and hosting venues, these obstacles to cross-border distribution are hampering the potential of the sector to contribute to the EU's social, economic and integration ambitions.

Performing arts’: a key to the competitiveness of Europe's cultural sectors

According to Eurostat figures, cultural and creative sectors employ 8.7 million people in the EU, equivalent to 3.8% of the total workforce in the EU, representing 1.2 million enterprises. 

Performing arts is among the top 3 of the sectors funded through Creative Europe’s Culture strand, after heritage and music, it is a sector that is largely dependent on public funding. 

Performing arts: a key role in society

Performing arts has a transformative power and often acts as an agent of change in society. Through awareness-raising, collective action and new narratives, the sector is arming itself to face the challenges and crises of contemporary society: the increasingly precarious working conditions of artists and cultural professionals, the undermining of democracies and the values of the EU and culture, all the issues linked to sustainable development, inclusion and equal opportunities.

Why this support is needed

Performing arts is one of the sectors that was most impacted by Covid-19 and the recovery of the sector in it’s aftermath is extremely slow, as highlighted in the Annual Single Market Reports of 2021 and 2022 have shown. The estimated overall losses of revenue in 2020 are around 31%, going beyond 70% for sectors such as performing arts, music and cinema.

As the crisis underlined structural challenges, the sector needs to be supported in building sustainability, equity and fairness, as well as new models of collaboration. 

In light of the dramatic situation in Ukraine, Creative Europe and performing arts stand for promoting the key value of culture and creativity in building inclusive and cohesive societies founded on the European values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights. 

Inclusion, diversity, and gender equality

Performing arts is a sector enabling a concrete impact on inclusion, diversity, and gender equality. It facilitates access to European cultural and creative content for diverse groups and audiences, especially for professionals and participants with disadvantaged backgrounds and fewer opportunities related to disability or health problems, economic, social or geographical obstacles or cultural differences. Fostering gender equality, in particular as a driver of creativity, economic growth and innovation, they  promote gender equality and non-discrimination mainstreaming in accordance with the Gender Mainstreaming Toolkit.

Sustainability

Regarding the environment and the fight against climate change, performing arts contribute to the European Green Deal by encouraging its operators to adopt more environmentally sustainable practices and, by this, contributing to the achievement of the overall target of 30% of the Union budget expenditures supporting climate objectives. Playing an important role in the green transition through awareness-raising, learning, communication and in the sharing of knowledge and good practices, the sector has to be supported in reaching is full potential to develop innovative ways of tackling environmental challenges.

Covid-19 accelerated the debate under the digital shift as well as the development of tools but also left the sector with a lot of challenges in terms of skills, rights, repartition of revenues and the fair remuneration of artists in the ever evolving digital environment.

The beneficial role of performing arts in societal and economic terms is not yet fully exploited in European and national policymaking. This is also because reliable and comparable data on the sector, its sub-sectors, its functions and its performance are lacking and are instrumental for the evidence-based policies. 

How the European Union helps

The European Commission conducts a dedicated sectoral social dialogue Live performance with workers' organisations and employers' organisations.

The Creative Europe Culture strand offers dedicated support for the performing arts sector through Perform Europe and the European Theatre Initiative.