Artist handed small fortune of taxpayers cash to dance in the Calais Jungle… and she’s not even British!
Rita Marcalo received the grant from the Arts Council of England
A WOMAN was handed £9,931 by the government so she could dance with migrants in the Calais Jungle as part of a bizarre art project.
Rita Marcalo received the grant from the taxpayer-funded Arts Council England last year.
The controversial Portuguese artist was given almost £14,000 in 2008 by the same department to have an epileptic fit on stage.
Miss Marcalo, 44, who calls herself Instant Dissidence, used the latest pay-out to travel to Calais and film herself dancing with migrants.
The second part of her bizarre project, titled ‘Dancing with Strangers: From Calais to England’, saw her don a t-shirt that read ‘Dance with Me’ before trying to jig with people across Britain.
Defending the wacky project Miss Marcalo, who is in a civil partnership and lives in Ilkely, West Yorks, said: “Because the project was Arts Council England funded, it had to focus on how it could benefit people in England.
“It raised awareness for the people in England about the stories behind what would make people flee their own country - the country they love and were born in.”
Eight years ago the department handed Miss Marcalo £13,889 to put on stage show ‘Involuntary Dances’ in which she attempted to induce an epileptic seizure.
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She has suffered from epilepsy since the age of 17 and suffers about two seizures per year when taking medication.
John O’Connell, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said last night: “What an utterly bizarre way to waste taxpayers’ money.
“How can spending nearly £10,000 on these projects be possibly justified?
“Who are the projects meant to help and in what way?
“To families who are struggling with forever rising tax bills this will come as a cruel joke.”
The Arts Council defended the decision to give Miss Marcalo funding.
A spokeswoman said: ‘Dance with Strangers saw Rita Marcalo dance with refugees in Calais, with elderly residents of a Leeds care home and people on the streets of Hull, Leicester and Croydon - to pick out a few locations.
“The project was about seeing the world from another person’s point of view, all via a free chance to dance.”
Calais’ ‘Jungle Camp’, where migrants gathered in hoping to penetrate the border from France to Britain, became a politically toxic subject before it was dismantled earlier this year.
The base, containing 10,000 migrants, was used as a springboard for those hoping to make their way to Britain.
In Miss Marcalo’s interviews with migrants one teenager from Afghanistan admitted to trying to infiltrate the UK’s borders ‘every night’ by climbing into lorries.
He said: “I’ve been here for six months and I don’t like The Jungle. The Jungle is a big problem.
“After six months I am getting really tired here, because every night I try, try, try to get onto a lorry.
“And the police tell me: ‘don’t, don’t’. So every night, you know, every night I try, try by lorry.”
Another migrant called Addisu claimed to be from Ethiopia and said he wanted to come to the UK for residency.
He told the artist said: “OK me I’m going to England because in Africa we learn English in school.
“In England they will give me the documents within four months or six months, whereas in France or Germany it would take two years.”