Europarådets rådgivande kommitté för ramkonventionen för skydd av nationella minoriteter har i sin nyligen avlagda rapport lyft fram Giron Sámi Teáhters arbete mot en samisk nationalscen. Kommittén lyfter fram teaterns betydelse för både det svenska och det samiska kulturlivet och uppmanar den svenska regeringen att besluta positivt i frågan.
Utdrag ur rapporten när det gäller Giron Sámi Teáhter på engelska följer nedan. Klicka här för att läsa hela rapporten.
- Representatives of the Sámi Theatre indicated that their repeated request for the last six years to the Ministry of Culture and the Swedish Parliamentary Committee on Culture to be provided with a national scene status has not been met yet. Such a status would give the Sámi Theatre access to more resources, notably state budget,56 more visibility nationwide so that the Sámi culture and language be better known to the general public. In this respect, a report from April 2022 entitled “Conditions for Sámi Culture” concludes that the Sámi cultural infrastructure needs to be strengthened and proposes several measures to achieve that goal, inter alia a substantial increase of financial grants to the Sámi Parliament for cultural activities, the establishment of a competency and language centre, capacity-building training activities for Sámi cultural organisations, and the creation of an itinerant exhibition that could work over all of Sápmi and eventually beyond.57 Representatives of the Sámi Theatre are also calling for the creation of an Indigenous Department within the Swedish Arts Council and for a more sustainable funding mechanism, such as a pluri-annual budgetary allocation, considering that the current project-based and annual funding approach has its limits as it does not allow for long term planning of theatre performances.
- The Advisory Committee finds the work of the Sámi and Tornedalian theatres crucial as they not only contribute to the promotion of minority cultures and languages but also contribute to improve knowledge of and interest in these minorities and to the building of a more cohesive society. Therefore, it is of the view that their sustainable long-term funding is essential and that the Sámi Theatre’s longstanding request to be granted a nation-wide status needs to be answered and thoroughly examined by the competent authorities keeping in mind its contribution to cultural life in Sweden.
- The Advisory Committee invites the authorities to respond to the longstanding request of the Sámi Theatre to be granted a nation-wide status keeping in mind its contribution to cultural life in Sweden. The authorities should, in any event, provide long-term financial support to both Sámi and Tornedalian theatres,
