There is no specific national strategy for performing arts in Croatia. The instruments related to this sector are based on the yearly public calls for public needs in culture through three streams of financing: funding for professional theatres, funding for amateur theatre activities and funding for programmes in contemporary dance and movement. The Cultural Council for Theatre and Performing Arts is a consultative body to the Minister of Culture and Media in connection to performing arts activities. A special measure for encouraging Croatian drama and theatre creativity is the ‘Marin Držić’ Award given by the Ministry of Culture and Media (see chapter 7.2.3). The new pilot Call introduced in the 2022 is the Call for the Contemporary Dance Creativity with the aim of providing additional support to dance artists in their further professional development ‘and additionally strengthening the quality and vitality of the field of contemporary dance creativity’. The Ministry provided support for 36 projects in the amount of 1 322 400 HRK (179 808 EUR) and has announced its’ further development of the programme. Another newly introduced programme is the Consortium of Croatian National Theatres – K-HNK whose aim is the decentralisation of the theatre production from national theatres in Zagreb, Rijeka, Split, Osijek and Varaždin. The budget for these activities in 2023 was 699 114 HRK (92 788 EUR), while the proposal for 2023 amounted to 3 903 487 HRK (518 081 EUR).
In 2019, the debates within the sector were concentrated on the Draft of the new Law on Artistic Activities that would have an impact on performing artists and thus the performing arts sector in general. After a number of comments from the professional community, the draft Law was halted, but the discussions on its implications continued in the following years. The Ministry announced that it will put the new draft of the Law in the public discussion in 2023. Further debates in 2022 were related to the draft of the new Law on Theatres that was in public discussion during summer of 2022 and that opened a number of issues related to the status of the theatre workers, the changes in the appointment procedures of theatre directors, which caused dynamic debates in professional community. The Law went through the first reading in the Parliament and the Ministry announced that it plans that the new Law on Theatres will be put into force during 2023, at the time of the finalisation this report.
Furthermore, during 2020-2022 period the focus of the discussions in the performing arts sector were also concentrated around the impact of the Zagreb earthquake on the theatre buildings and the assessment of the financial and social repercussions of the damages, the impact of COVID-19 on the (lives of artists and workers in the) performing arts, functioning of the private theatre companies and the applicability of the online environment for the performing arts sector.
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