Gambling, Marriage, and Great Theatre

A new year and already the same old news: governments giveth, and they taketh away. To wit:

BC Premier Christy Clark announced this week that her provincial Liberals were reversing a decision of her predecessor, Gordon Campbell, and re-instituting gaming grants eligibility for arts groups, sports organizations, and the environmental sector, as well as permanently extending her previous one-time boost in available monies from $120 million to $135 million per year. But that's still well below 2009 levels, which is what an independent review of the gaming grants program called for by Clark herself recommended returning to. And such announcements notwithstanding, Clark can't outrun Campbell's long shadow, not least in the inevitable delays in reversing the HST based on last year's referendum results, and which will almost certainly follow her into the next provincial election. Perhaps that's why she's looking so grim these days.

Then came front-page headlines from the federal Conservatives that cast doubt on the legal validity of same-sex marriages of foreign nationals performed in Canada. While Prime Minister Harper quickly dismissed any notion that the stunning announcement from his Justice Minister, Rob Nicholson, was a covert way of re-opening the same-sex marriage debate in this country, there was a lot of nervous chatter on various news wires and Twitter feeds until Nicholson clarified that the government would act quickly to amend legislation to guarantee the legality of said marriages--as well as to provide easy mechanisms for their dissolution (which is what prompted the whole tempest in the first place). One such tweet came from sex advice columnist Dan Savage, who married his partner Terry Miller in Vancouver in 2005, and who quipped that he woke up to discover he had been divorced overnight.

Speaking of Dan Savage (and sustainable arts funding), he's part of a group of Seattle-based cultural figures who have come together in a recent YouTube appeal by the Intiman Theatre in support of their goal to raise $1 million towards their reinvention as a sustainable live theatre company after their financial collapse and canceling of their 2011 season. If they are successful (they've raised just shy of half so far, but have only three weeks more to raise the rest), that reinvention will be launched this summer with a four-play festival performed by a repertory of 12 actors, and featuring a new work written and directed by Savage himself (who began his career as a theatre artist). Richard and I have seen many very fine productions at the Intiman over the years, and it would be a tragic loss to Seattle, and west coast theatre more generally, to see this institution disappear. That's why we've pledged money, and that's why I urge those of you who can to do the same. They are not asking for the money up front, just commitments to give. If they reach their goal, they will be in contact to collect the money; if not, well, let's not even go there. Here's the link to give. And here's the YouTube video describing the appeal:

Finally, speaking of great theatre and performance in our own backyard: only two more sleeps to the start of the PuSh Festival! We launch at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre (and we'll be thinking of you, Milton--RIP) this Tuesday with Amarillo, from Mexico. Join us there if you can, or afterwards at our opening gala party at the Waldorf Hotel. Tickets for both events and a host of other great shows are available at pushfestival.ca. And, as I've already shamelessly solicited your dollars on behalf of a rival arts organization, I would be remiss (especially as the Board's Fundraising Chair!) if I didn't also make an appeal for donations on behalf of PuSh. You can give online when you buy your tickets, or by taking away a pledge card at any of the performances over the next two weeks.

Thanks in advance for your support and hope to see you at a show. I will, as per past practice, try to blog about all the productions I see on this site.

P.

Golden Girl?

No, I don't mean Natalie Portman, though she did look ravishing at Sunday's Oscars, and even if we were rooting for Annette Bening, it's hard to hate any woman who not only survives a Darren Aronofsky movie but scores two men two boot. Granted, one is more fleet-footed than the other (and even has the last name to prove it).

I'm actually referring to Christy Clark, newly minted Premier-elect of British Columbia. Though I have no intention of voting Liberal in the next provincial election, I was silently rooting in this race for George Abbott, who is the most left-leaning of the leadership candidates, and who actually came out and said that he would restore arts and culture funding to 2008 levels.

What, one wonders, is Clark's stance on such an issue? How does it square with her "Families First" platform? I'm always deeply suspicious of such slogans, as their populist message usually masks a conservative agenda regarding what is perceived as elitist add-ons like the performing arts, etc. Never mind that an education in the arts should be a prime criterion for every family.

But then we already know how Clark feels about education...

P.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Once again something smells in this province. As Premier Gordo undertakes yet another cabinet shuffle in a desperate bid to shore up some shred of his party's dwindling popularity, news not only that Kevin Krueger is out as Minister of Tourism, Culture, and the Arts (welcome), but that the ministry itself has been renamed--it's now the Ministry of Community, Sport, and Cultural Development (which is perhaps not so welcome).

Read the details here.

It's not just that art has been banished altogether in this new moniker; it's also that whatever might be meant by the at once overly capacious and hopelessly vague category of "cultural development" comes a distant third in this catch-all ministry's apparent list of duties and priorities.

Add to that a first-time cabinet minister, Stephanie Cadieux, who is quoted on page 4 of the print edition of today's Vancouver Sun as being a bit "trepidatious" about her new job, and members of the BC arts community have yet more grounds to be worried about the direction of this government.

When is the next election, again?

P.

Another Casualty of the BC Arts Cuts

Kudos to Jane Danzo for taking a principled stand in resigning as Chairwoman of the BC Arts Council.

Citing the deep cuts in core funding and gaming grants to arts organizations across the province and, as crucially, the lack of consultation on the recent Arts Legacy Fund announcement (i.e., throwing money at youth-oriented "spirit festivals" rather than restoring core funding to existing arts organizations), Danzo said that the Council's was hamstrung by a lack of independent voice from the provincial government. She said she was "stepping down" in order to "speak up."

Kevin Krueger, Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, said that he accepted Danzo's resignation with regret, but offered no further comment.

Here is the link to the media announcement of Danzo's resignation in the Vancouver Sun.

And here is the full text of Danzo's letter.

P.

Dis-spiriting

The hand of government that taketh away also now giveth, it would seem.

Having denied long established arts and cultural festivals in the province much-needed gaming funding, the Minister of Tourism, Culture, and the Arts, Kevin Krueger, has just announced a three-year, $30 million fund to stage BC "Spirit Festivals" across the province starting next February.

The idea is to tap into and reanimate the residual good feeling from the 2010 Olympics (about which I talked in a previous post) and, according to Krueger, to help cultural organizations across the province get a leg-up in their funding. You can read the details here.

Never mind that it was the government that slashed that funding in the first place. Or that this new fund--and its "inspiriting" mandate--is yet another disturbing incursion by the Liberals into the cultural programming of arts institutions in BC.

Why some festivals in the province are denied sustainable funding and told to fend for themselves and others (as yet to be chosen) merit infusions of cash as long as they can somehow rekindle our lost Olympic mojo has yet to be explained by Minister Krueger.

To paraphrase Kurt Cobain, this exercise in spirit-making certainly smells like something.

P.

Were They Worth It?

So the numbers are in, and apparently the little wingding Vancouver threw for the world this past February cost close to $1 billion--$925 million, to be exact. That is, if you go by the government's internal accounting--which is, shall we say, rather creative.

Gary Mason, in the Globe, thinks all of this was a small price to pay for the pride and confidence and overall warm, fuzzy feeling Vancouverites have been left with as a result of the Olympics.

Vaughn Palmer, in the Sun, is a bit more sober in his assessment of the figures, wondering how Finance Minister Colin Hansen can get away with saying that the $325 million extra on top of the $600 million the BC Liberals (and Premier Campbell, in particular) kept repeating the Games would cost doesn't represent an overrun of 50%.

Apparently because that $600 million, according to Hansen, was just for a specific list of projects. And none of those projects, nor any of those covered by the additional $325 million taxpayers are on the hook for, includes the Canada Line from YVR to downtown ($2 billion extra), the new convention centre ($900 million extra), or the expansion of the Sea-to-Sky Highway ($800 million extra).

Indeed, if the government were honest, and factored in all Olympics-related costs, we're looking at a price-tag of at least $5-6 billion--and that's a conservative estimate.

But then this government is not honest. Witness the HST. And as anyone working in the arts in this province well knows, there definitely won't be any attempt to connect the dots between Olympic cost overruns and the decimation of funding to cultural industries and social programs.

That would require the sort of audit Mr. Hansen is unprepared to authorize.

P.

Beyond the Status Quo

The 22nd edition of the Dancing on the Edge Festival got off to a flying start (quite literally) last night at the Firehall Arts Centre, first with Byron Chief-Moon's Essence of Life, his dance-media reinterpretation of the Blackfoot Sun-dance ceremony, and then with Amber Funk Barton and Shay Kuebler's return presentation of Status Quo (see photo above), a high-octane, high-altitude surfing/surfeit of gravity-defying movement and thumping music.

It's always intoxicating to see Barton and Kuebler--joined here by Kuebler's fellow 605 Collective member Josh Martin, and Manuel Sorge--launch themselves horizontally through the air, and the kinesthetic energy pulsing through the audience was palpable. However, I think I've had enough of the jerky convulsions and spastic gasps of air that often accompany their work. These young and immensely talented dancers certainly have a distinct and urban/hip-hop inspired aesthetic. Now I think it's time to change things up a bit, which was ostensibly the motive behind the two solos by Kuebler and Barton that preceded the quartet. In this regard, I think Kuebler's was the more successful of the two.

In her opening remarks, Firehall Artistic Director and DOTE Producer Donna Spencer mentioned that they were selling raffle tickets (at $20 a piece) to make up a shortfall in funding due to the BC Government's cuts to gaming fund allocations to the arts (and festivals like DOTE, in particular). I bought two, and I encourage other patrons to dig into their pockets and do the same. We want this Vancouver dance institution to stick around for another 22 years.

Next up for us on the program is the Vancouver premiere of German choreographer Thomas Lehman's Schriebstück at the Dance Centre on Saturday. Looking forward to what promises to be a fascinating experiment.

P.

Imprint and In Print

Turning Point Ensemble, Vancouver's fantastic new music collective co-directed by my SFU colleague Owen Underhill, has a new show up at SFU Woodward's Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, with performances continuing this afternoon and tomorrow evening.

The program features three world premieres: Minx, a short orchestral work by Vancouver Island composer Rudolf Komorous; Cut Flowers, by Linda Caitlin Smith, a lush setting of 44 lines taken from the sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning for orchestra and soprano (the superb Phoebe MacRae); and Imprint II, an ambitious collaboration between Underhill and choreographer Henry Daniel (also a colleague at SFU) that combines music, dance, film, and multi-media installation, and that in putting all of these elements together makes fantastic use of this terrific new theatrical space.

Read David Gordon Duke's review of the evening in the Vancouver Sun here.

Meanwhile, in today's Globe and Mail we learn that the Victoria Fringe Festival, like Vancouver's event, is the latest community arts festival in the province to be denied a gaming grant this year. But not because they're a "commercial enterprise," as was claimed earlier by Rich Coleman in justifying the freezing out of festivals from eligibility for such grants. No, in the government's latest Kafkaesque (not to mention, tautological) logic, they have written (in an unsigned letter, no less) to Victoria Fringe Director Ian Case that the hugely popular 23 year-old festival does "not reflect the community, regional or cultural characteristics of [its] community," and is thus ineligible for a grant. Clearly, as with grants to municipal school boards and social programs across the province, Campbell and his band of philistines are just making their arts policy up as they go along.

In between trying to get their stories straight for the Basi-Virk trial, no doubt.

P.

Fringe Fury

Further to my last post, on the website for the Vancouver International Fringe Festival, Executive Director David Jordan has posted a wonderful, righteously--and rightly--infuriated open letter to Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman pointing out the folly and untruths in Coleman's recent justification for making arts festivals in the province ineligible for future gaming funds.

Game on, Mr. Coleman!

P.

Ambassadors for the Arts?!

Just back in town after our extended sojourn in glorious España. Still adjusting to the shift in time zones and the chill, rainy weather. Not to mention the latest chill our benighted provincial government has sent through the arts community. I can't believe the fuckers have now cut off all festivals from gaming grants! Read all the sorry details, including Rich Coleman's bafflegab about "commercial viability," here.

Meanwhile, a 15-day BC Human Rights Tribunal hearing opened this past Monday investigating a complaint against the Downtown Ambassadors by Pivot Legal Society, VANDU, and United Native Nations for unfairly targeting the drug addicted, street homeless, and Aboriginal populations of the Downtown East Side. My friend, Jamie Hilder, who went "undercover" to train with the Ambassadors in 2008 as part of an online art project he created for the Audain Gallery at SFU Woodward's, was the first witness. Read what Jamie had to say here.

And check out the amazing project Jamie created as a result of his experience here.

My kind of ambassador; my kind of art.

P.

Post-It Protests

The folks over at Creativity Counts have started an Arts Cuts Memo Call to Action, asking concerned British Columbians to send creative memos to the government reminding them of the importance of the arts, and to follow the recommendation of their own Finance Committee by restoring funding to 2008 levels.

In my contribution, which I've included below, I've taken the opportunity of sneaking in a bit of publicity for the upcoming PuSh Festival:

And here's a related video from the Alliance for Arts and Culture:

P.

Deconstructing Government/Reconstructing the Arts

The Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services has released its Report on the 2010 Budget Consultations. Not as forceful as one would have wished on arts and culture, though it does call for a full restoration of funding to 2008/09 levels in next year's budget. The Report can be accessed here.

Meanwhile, the latest edition of The Wrecking Ball, a night of short sharp political theatre ripped from the headlines, is coming to Vancouver next Monday, November 23. And it's taking on the BC arts cuts. Here are the details from their website:

The Wrecking Ball: Vancouver

Wrecking Ball to tackle Draconian Cuts to the Arts
Canada’s leading Theatre Artists take on the BC government from Coast to Coast

Vancouver’s theatre community joins actors, directors and designers from across the country in creative and satirical protest to the BC government’s mind-boggling and short-sighted plan to slash 90% of cultural funding, which will make it the only jurisdiction in Canada not to invest in culture.

In 2008, during the federal election, Wrecking Ball events across Canada helped turn the tide of public opinion against the Harper government’s planned culture cuts, and prevented a Harper majority. This time, events across Canada throughout the month of November will highlight the devastating arts cuts announced by the BC government in their September budget update.

Vancouver’s Wrecking Ball features some of Canada’s most nationally and internationally recognized actors and directors, including multiple award-winning actor/playwrights Daniel MacIvor (House, Twitch City) and Linda Griffiths (Maggie and Pierre), Leacock-winning writer Mark Leiren Young, Alcan Award winner Carmen Aguirre, Steven Hill of Leaky Heaven Circus, and Camyar Chai.

Margaret Atwood asks, “What is it that power-hungry politicians want from BC artists? Control over the story through the annihilation of the former story-tellers? Is this the agenda behind the decapitation of arts funding in British Columbia, while mega-millions are poured into the Olympics? The BC arts community will retaliate, of course. Over the past 50 years they’ve put BC on the map.”

“It won’t just be a protest,” adds Wrecking Ball Spokesperson Adrienne Wong. “It’ll be a night to laugh and celebrate what we know – that British Columbians care about culture.

“And it’s not just arts and culture,” Wong adds. “Cuts to Gaming investments in many sectors indicate to us that this government is looking for ways to subsidize its corporate welfare, low-tax environment on the backs of civil society organizations that provide essential services to British Columbians. It seems that they don’t think much of activities like culture and sport and places where people come together for reasons other than profit. They call it a frill. We call it democracy.”

The Wrecking Ball
Vogue Theatre, 918 Granville Street, Vancouver
Monday, November 23, 2009, 8:00pm
By donation

Contact: Ellie O’Day, O’Day Productions
Website: www.stopbcartscuts.ca/thewreckingball

100 Days/14 Shows

A short post long on numbers for those into keeping count (and/or accounts)...

This past Wednesday marked the 100-day point till the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics here in Vancouver. The occasion coincided with a new role for VANOC: strike-breakers. That's right, the provincial government is preparing back-to-work legislation for striking paramedics in the province, in part based on a document forwarded by Olympics organizers stating that in the wake of a likely escalation of the H1N1 pandemic, the government would either have to put an end to the strike or ensure that some contingency plan was in place should emergency health care workers potentially still be off the job come February.

Needless to say, this wasn't being played up in various symbolic ceremonies around the city celebrating the countdown event. Among those ceremonies, perhaps none was more weighted with significance than Mayor Gregor Robertson handing over the keys to the False Creek Athletes Village to VANOC CEO John Furlong. Media and invited guests were treated to a tour of of the facilities, and the rhetoric surrounding the whole event was decidedly more upbeat, conciliatory, and even congratulatory than the doom and gloom scenarios painted a year ago by the newly elected Vision Vancouver City Council, who upon examining the books, forecast a billion dollar deficit for the Village that taxpayers were potentially on the hook for. Now, it seems, things are looking up, with condo king (and contemporary art collector) Bob Rennie on hand to assure everyone that post-Olympics sales in the development were looking golden.

Today, however, we learn that the overall economic benefits of the Olympics for the 2003-2008 period have been much less than predicted by Games organizers and government politicians alike. As Vaughan Palmer notes in his Vancouver Sun column today, parsing the numbers outlined in the 4-part report on Olympics impacts prepared by PriceWaterhouseCooper, you eventually discover that the mega-event boosted both the provincial GDP and job creation by, respectively, one-tenth of one percent.

Whooeee, baby! Let's not spend it all in one place--like on wage increases for those paramedics, for example, or, heaven forfend, on arts and culture!

Arts and culture in this city was in fact precisely what I and 100+ other people were celebrating yesterday at the VanCity Theatre on Seymour Street, as we gathered there to witness the launch of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival's 2010 line-up. Full disclosure: while I was there as a supporter and fan, I also attended in my official capacity as a new PuSh Society board member, a role I am very excited about.

But just now I'm even more excited about the program Executive Director Norman Armour and his talented team of colleagues (including new Associate Producer Dani Fecko) have assembled for this coming January and February: 14 shows totaling 93 performances over 18 days at 11 different venues across the city, and featuring artists who hail from 12 different cities and 6 different countries working in at least 6 related disciplines (theatre, dance, music, film and video, installation, and multi-media). How about them numbers?

Or how about these, cited by Norman in his program guide message, and repeated at yesterday's event: "BC's arts, culture and heritage industries generate 80,000 jobs in the creative sector and $5.2 billion of annual revenue." In strictly monetary terms, then, art is a good investment, and would that Liberal politicians who've been anticipating windfalls from the Olympics that have yet to materialize pay closer attention to the wealth of creative resources we have immediately to hand.

Then, too, as those of us who listened yesterday to an excerpt from Stefan Smulovitz and Eye of Newt's new PuSh-commissioned score, to accompany a January 28th screening of Carl Dreyer's classic 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc at Christ Church Cathedral, were undoubtedly thinking at one point or another, there all sorts of other ways (aesthetic, social, political, ethical) that art's value far exceeds one-tenth of one percent.

The Festival officially launches on January 20th with a performance of Jérôme Bel's The Show Must Go On at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU Woodward's. The first chance to get a glimpse of this amazing new venue (even before Robert Lepage touches down in it with The Blue Dragon later in February), the show itself promises to be truly "spectacular": in its showcasing of the potential for emancipated response in live performance; and in its use of the talents of 20 dynamic local performers, some professional dancers and actors (Noam Gagnon, Billy Marchenski, Adrienne Wong), some not, or no longer (Jim Green, Max Wyman). Definitely not to be missed.

PuSh passes are now on sale. Visit the Festival website for purchase details, and for descriptions of all the shows. Or pick up a free program guide at any JJ Bean location across the city. For information on how you can become a member of PuSh's new Patron's Circle (and reap fantastic benefits in the process), contact our Fundraising Manager extraordinaire, Bobbi Parker at 604-605-8285 or bobbi@pushfestival.ca.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by...

P.

Playing Catch-Up

It’s been a while since my last post—no doubt this will continue to be one of the perils of trying to maintain this blog while in full-on teaching mode and, as at present, also trying to juggle home renovations.

A lot has happened in that time, from Mayor Gregor’s announcement yesterday of Vancouver’s rebranding as the Silicone Valley of the new Green Economy to the arrest of Roman Polanski. Rather than trying to summarize it all, let me instead draw people’s attention to one important bit of political news, and two favourite returning cultural events in Vancouver.

The political news concerns the public hearings currently being conducted across the province by the Finance Committee of the BC government. These hearings were, of course, announced with very little notice, and the first of them, held this past Monday at the Wosk Centre for Dialogue here in Vancouver, left members of the arts community scrambling to make their voices heard in all their fulsomeness and all their fury. (I’m told representatives accomplished both tasks admirably.) I reprint the schedule for the remaining hearings below, and I urge concerned citizens in relevant communities to attend and make their own voices heard—and not just about the dreaded HST! If you are unable to make one of the meetings (as in my case), you can also fill out an on-line survey, or make a written, video, or audio submission. Here is the link to do so: https://www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations/index.htm.

The deadline for public input is October 23, 2009. There is still time, before the government finalizes its September budget update, to get the Liberals to reconsider their cuts to the arts. I urge all who can to tell Campbell, Krueger, Hansen and their cronies why culture matters. Again, here is the schedule for the remaining public hearings:

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 8:30 am to 12:00 pm
Date: Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Place: Douglas Fir Committee Room 226, Parliament Buildings, Victoria, British Columbia
Agenda: Public hearing

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 9:00 am to 1:00 pm
Date: Friday, October 09, 2009
Place: Community Futures Strathcona, #200-580 Duncan Ave, Courtenay, British Columbia
Agenda: Videoconference public hearing

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 9:00 am to 1:00 pm
Date: Friday, October 09, 2009
Place: Community Futures East Kootenay, 110A Slater Road NW, Cranbrook, British Columbia
Agenda: Videoconference public hearing

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 9: 00 am to 1:00 pm
Date: Friday, October 09, 2009
Place: Commumity Futures Peace Laird, 904-102 A Ave, Dawson Creek, British Columbia
Agenda: Videoconference public hearing

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Place: Summit Room, Hudson Bay Lodge, 3251 E. Highway 16, Smithers, British Columbia
Agenda: Public hearing

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Place: Skylight Ballroom, Ramada Hotel, 444 George Street, Prince George, British Colimbia
Agenda: Public hearing

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
Date: Thursday, October 15, 2009
Place: Somerset Room, South Thompson Inn & Conference Centre, 3438 Shuswap Road, Kamloops, British Columbia
Agenda: Public hearing

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Date: Thursday, October 15, 2009
Place: Thompson/Shuswap Room, Woodfire Conference Centre at the Best Western Inn, 2400 Highway 97 North, Kelowna, British Columbia
Agenda: Public hearing

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

Time: 9:00 am to 6:00 pm
Date: Friday, October 16, 2009
Place: Guildford B, Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel, 15269 104th Avenue, Surrey, British Columbia
Agenda: Public hearing

Now on to some of the remaining fruits of arts and culture in this province. It’s the beginning of October (where did the last month go?), and so that means that hot on the heels of the Fringe the Vancouver International Film Festival is underway (as of yesterday, in fact). I haven’t yet had a chance to peruse the program in any depth, but my money so far is on Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues’s To Die Like a Man, which follows veteran Lisbon trans performer Tonia as she deals with younger competition, a petulant boyfriend, and her estranged son. The festival runs until October 16th.

Finally, DanceHouse, as part of its 2009-10 international dance series at the Playhouse (to which Richard and I have bought season passes, and which begins this November with the Hofesh Shechter Company) is bringing back its very popular "Speaking of Dance" series at the Vancouver Public Library. The talks are Tuesdays, from 7:30-9pm, in the Alice MacKay Room, on the lower level of the VPL,
350 West Georgia Street. The line-up of speakers is as follows:

October 13, 2009
Speakers
> Kaija Pepper, Dance Critic & Author
> Janet Smith, Dance Critic & Arts Editor, Georgia Straight

November 17, 2009
Speakers
> Santa Aloi, Professor Emerita, School for the Contemporary Arts, SFU
> Claire French, Independent Choreographer & Dance Teacher

January 19, 2010
Speakers
> Martha Carter, Director & Choreographer, marta marta HoP
> Emily Molnar, Interim Artistic Director, Ballet BC

April 6, 2010
Speakers
> Day Helesic, Co-Artistic Producer & Choreographer, MovEnt
> Rob Kitsos, Assistant Professor, School for the Contemporary Arts, SFU

That’s it for now. More news soon.

P.

Arts Rally this Wednesday

Alas, I teach, but for those of you who can attend, please do so:

Media Release: Sept 8, 2009
From the Direct Action Committee of the Alliance for Arts and Culture

CULTURE MATTERS – DON’T TORCH THE ARTS!
We call on all those who believe in the value of arts and culture in our communities to join a rally at noon on Wednesday, September 9th in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery to bring public attention to the recently announced, brutal cuts to our sector by the BC government.

Funding to the arts and culture sector has NOT been restored; the provincial government is planning to cut over 80% of what has consisted of only 1/20th of 1% of the provincial budget. No other provinces in Canada have reduced support for a sector that, according to government statistics, produces significant returns on investment. This is a sector that creates both social and economic capital. ART WORKS!

We ask you to consider the ways that arts and culture touch your daily lives at home, in the streets, your children in schools, community centres, on TV, your music, on the internet, in videogames and in theatres, museums and galleries. We ask you to think about culture as part of our individual and community identities, a way to connect with our diverse origins…with who we are today and with what we care about. Arts and culture are woven into the fabric of our daily lives. The arts are NOT A FRILL!

Our symbol is a grey and empty rectangle, a metaphor for a world without art and culture.

Please join us.

Media Contacts:
Brenda Leadlay: brendajoy@shaw.ca or 778-990-2690
Judith Marcuse: Judith@jmprojects.ca or 604-319-8436

More Flip Flops on the Arts

So it appears that, in the face of massive outrage from the BC arts community, Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman has had an eleventh-hour change of heart on the gaming revenues, restoring $40 million of previously promised money that was then subsequently--and summarily--cut (see the story in today's Vancouver Sun). All well and good, but in the same breath he also announced that the three-year funding model the government had previously adopted regarding the allocation of these revenues will be eliminated, and that they will revert to a year-by-year application process.

However, the even more alarming news is the further erosion of funding to the BC Arts Council, with the 40% rolling cuts announced in February's budget now escalating to more like 80-90% in Finance Minister Colin Hansen's revised budget this past Tuesday. In February it was announced the Council's funding would drop to $9.6 million in 2010-11, before increasing slightly to $9.8 million in 2011-12. Now we're told that those numbers will be $2.25 million in 2010-11 and $2.2 million in 2011-12 (see the article from yesterday's Globe). And this at the same time as $400 million is being set aside in the form of various "relief measures" to offset the phase-in of the controversial HST. Why not scrap the HST altogether, and move that $400 million over to arts? Clearly there seems a plan afoot to gut the BC Arts Council completely and absorb all arts funding decisions and administration within the Ministry, as was recently done with BC Tourism. Kevin Krueger's silence during the past few days is most telling in this regard.

I wasn't going to reply to the boilerplate email Krueger's office sent me in response to my August letter, but now I definitely will, asking for an explanation of these further cuts, and what they mean for the government's long-term funding priorities for the arts.

I know there is division in the community about using the Olympics as a platform to voice dissent about the Liberals' neglect of the arts. While a boycott of the entire Cultural Olympiad is perhaps extreme, I do think something needs to be made of the international spotlight in getting the word out to the rest of Canada and the world about what low esteem this government has for the arts. Pointing to Turin as a model we could have and should have followed re tying long term arts and culture commitments to an event like the Olympics might be a way to go here.

In the meantime, I repeat the exhortation that ended my last post: we all need to reach deeper into our own pockets to help support our favourite institutions. The Fringe opens next week, and is accepting grateful donations with tickets purchased on-line, and will also have donation buckets at all venues. And the main stage space of the Cultch reopens this long weekend with a special two-for-one ticket deal for Midsummer, a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe. (As a side note, see the interview in The Georgia Straight with Cultch Executive Director Heather Redfern about the amazing changes to the venerable old venue on Venables.)

P.

Whither BC: The Sequel

As expected, most arts and culture organizations (along with several other social programs) in the province received letters last week advising them that previously promised revenues from BC gaming revenues were being withdrawn owing to the ballooning deficit and Finance Minister Colin Hansen's revised budget projections (read the Vancouver Sun story here). This despite the fact that most of these organizations had already gone ahead and programmed their seasons in anticipation of the funds they had been contractually guaranteed.

As Lorna Brown noted in a recent email sent to the community urging people to join a Facebook campaign protesting the cuts, combined with the cuts to the BC Arts Council announced in last February's budget, this amounts to a de facto 75% cut to arts and culture in the province. Where else in the world would this be allowed to happen?! We live in a largely information-based and creative economy: why aren't, therefore, the creative industries duly rewarded with stimulus spending the likes of which was lavished on so many other dead or dying industries? When will the people of this province wise up to the dirty tricks of this government? Everyone's in an uproar about the HST (as well they should be--another kick in the pants to arts and culture in the form of higher ticket prices); but this is an administration that has gleefully--and with impunity--lied to us before. And that continues to do so (BC Rail, anyone? Missing emails?).

Of course, the Liberals are hoping the outrage over all of this will blow over as a result of the massive party that will be the Olympics. But what kind of party will it be with no money for the artists and creative producers who are best positioned to showcase the city culturally? I vote for riding this wave of anger right on into the Olympics themselves, letting the world know in no uncertain terms just what price this government puts on the second pillar of the Olympic Movement.

In the meantime, the public must do all it can to support the organizations whose programs and livelihoods are now imperiled. The best way we can do that is by going to see their work. The Vancouver Fringe Festival starts next week--I've just bought my Frequent Fringer Pass. Soon after that it will be time for the Vancouver International Film Festival. Though there's the little matter of teaching to contend with (the sabbatical is officially over today-boo hoo!), I hope to attend as many films as possible. And The Dance Centre's 2009/10 program just came in the mail today. It's chock-a-block with exciting offerings, starting with my SFU colleague Rob Kitsos's new work, Wake, next Friday and Saturday (Sept. 11-12).

Dig deep into your pockets, people, and buy a ticket to these and other events. And, since we can't vote Campbell and the Liberals out of office for another four years, consider doing so to the federal Conservatives instead. I hear Michael Ignatieff has just withdrawn support from Harper's minority government, so I guess that means we're headed to the polls once again this fall.

P.

On Fire

Things have finally cooled down here in the Lower Mainland, although no rain yet. And most of the province continues to be ablaze. As Alanis Morissette might say, it's rather ironic that as Vancouver plays host to the World Police and Fire Games (who knew such an event even existed?), BC's interior is going up in smoke.

Things are heating up in the arts community as well. A letter-writing campaign is in full-swing in response to remarks made by Kevin Krueger, Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, regarding the 40% cuts to the BC Arts Council's three-year service plan laid out in last February's budget. Ever since Krueger announced on a Victoria radio show in early July that he's seen no evidence of anyone in the arts community "lighting their hair on fire about what is coming down the pipe," arts administrators and cultural producers have been sending an avalanche of scorching memos (if I may mix my metaphors) precisely to this effect.

As an incoming Board member to the PuSh Festival (did I mention that yet on this blog?), I've recently lent my voice to the chorus of protest. For what it's worth, I reprint my letter, which I've just today sent off, here. I urge other BC citizens who care about the arts to pick up their pens and follow suit.

Honourable Kevin Krueger
Minister, Tourism, Culture and the Arts
Province of British Columbia
PO Box 9071, Stn Prov Govt
Victoria, BC
V8W 9E9

7 August 2009

Dear Minister Krueger,

I am writing to express my concern over the cumulative 40% cuts to the BC Arts Council’s three-year service plan (2009-2012) announced in the most recent budget tabled by your government. As an avid consumer and patron of the arts, an educator, and incoming board member to the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, I am dismayed that at a time when other sectors of the economy are being provided with unprecedented stimulus funding, the budget for BC’s cultural industries will be reduced by more than half by 2011-12.

Combined with the recent announcement that the province is freezing $36 million in grants from lottery and gaming revenues, as well as the proposed HST’s likely adverse effect on ticket prices, these core cuts to arts and culture will seriously imperil the ability of organizations like PuSh to continue to stimulate BC’s performing arts scene, present cutting edge work, attract major talent from around the world, and expand its audience base. In its five short years of existence, PuSh has steadily advanced its mandate to produce the very best of international cross-disciplinary performance, has gained an enviable reputation in Canada and around the world for the quality of its product, and has attracted more and more audience members each year—over 24,000 in 2009. And yet I learned at my very first board meeting on 22 July that the cuts announced by your office will almost surely bring this process of growth to a halt.

I was pleased to read in the most recent Georgia Straight (6-13 August 2009) that you have recently begun meeting with local arts advocacy groups, including the Alliance for Arts and Culture, to discuss the funding situation. With this letter, I wish to echo the concerns of arts administrators and cultural producers across the province that you’ve no doubt been hearing in these meetings. I urge you to reconsider your planned cuts, which will have lasting—and wholly detrimental—consequences for one of the most vibrant sectors of the BC economy, a sector, moreover, that will be in the global spotlight during the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics. Heeding your recent appeal in the Globe and Mail (28 July 2009) for “constructive dialogue” on this issue, I also wish to explain a bit further how I, as a university educator and a private citizen, benefit from a creatively stimulated and financially robust cultural community.

In the English Department at Simon Fraser University, I regularly teach classes in dramatic literature, film, and the performing arts. In these classes I stress to my students the historical importance of artistic and cultural production to a healthy democratic society, going all the way back to the central role played by dramatic festivals in helping to foster community dialogue in ancient Greek society, as well as the way in which the patronage of writers and master painters in the Renaissance was considered a key social duty and citizenry responsibility. I then tie these historical examples to the contemporary Vancouver and British Columbia performing arts scene, noting not just what fantastic entertainment is available at my students’ fingertips, but what so much of this work has to teach us about some of the pressing social issues we will have been discussing in connection with past works from the dramatic canon.

Now let me tell you how my job in conveying such matters to my students is potentially made more difficult by the announcement of your rolling cuts to the BC Arts Council. Emphasizing to my students that an appreciation of the importance of the performing arts can only be fully obtained by attending a live performance, I regularly program class outings to local productions as part of my curriculum. As many of the students in my classes cannot afford to pay even the discounted prices for student tickets, I rely on the goodwill of various arts companies and producers in providing further discounted group rates. With these companies now facing severely reduced budgets over the next several years, I fear that school outreach programs such as these will have to be curtailed. Coupled with the almost certain decimation of these same companies’ touring budgets, this means that my colleagues teaching in the interior of the province will have even less opportunity to expose their students to some of the best live performance being produced in BC. To put this in the starkest possible terms, this means that an entire generation of BC’s youth will potentially never be exposed to the unique pleasures and importance of live performance in this province.

It is one thing to say that the proliferation of electronic and digital media in our technologically sped-up society has meant that it is more and more difficult for the plastic and performing arts to compete for the attention of our youth. However, it is quite something else to aid and abet this turning away to the recorded, the remixed, and the remediated by willfully slashing the budget for the production and dissemination of bold and challenging new live performance. I became a professor of drama in large part because my high school and university teachers exposed me at an early age to the power of the stage; this was made possible by crucial provincial and federal funding to two areas of social and cultural (and, dare I say, economic) production I care deeply about: education and the arts. In both these areas, let me suggest, your government needs to do better. We need creative solutions for the myriad of pressing social issues currently facing our province and the globe, including climate change, homelessness, and the economy. The arts teach us to think creatively, to look at problems from a different angle. In short, without a vibrant cultural community we are lost.

So much for the moral argument. Let me now turn to the economic one. I don’t need to remind you that arts and culture is a multi-billion dollar industry, that it accounts for approximately 3 ½ % of Canada’s overall GDP, that it employs tens of thousands of people in BC, and that for every dollar invested in the arts, the province earns back approximately $1.38 (as cited in the aforementioned Globe article). Your Ministry’s own research backs this up. As does the pioneering and globally respected research of Richard Florida, Professor of Business and Creativity at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. In books like The Rise of the Creative Class and Who’s Your City?, Florida notes that with the transition from a resource- to a knowledge- and information-based economy, and with the majority of the world’s population now living in urban “mega-regions,” the creative industries and their ancillary offshoots (especially hospitality and tourism) have now become a driving engine of virtually every national, regional, and municipal economy. Combine this with a growing movement advocating localism not just in terms of work, but also in terms of play, and one can see what good business sense it makes to invest in arts and culture in this province, providing citizens with multiple creative outlets on which to spend their money.

And yet rather than injecting more money into a sector of the economy that actually stands a chance—with the right stimulus—of thriving and turning a profit (unlike the automobile industry, for example), your government is gutting the BC Arts Council’s budget and asking the province’s cultural producers to accept this as a necessary belt-tightening measure. This seems at odds with Finance Minister Colin Hansen’s own words, in announcing one-time bridging funding of $15 million to offset a “difficult” year ahead, that “Our artists, our performers and the people who support them… the volunteers, the sponsors, the suppliers, the umbrella groups… help to shape our vision of who we are. They bring to life the concept of culture, and—just as important—bring us together, entertain us, intrigue us, and challenge us intellectually.” These laudable goals will be increasingly difficult to achieve given the current fiscal constraints, especially for fledgling organizations whose 2010 funding applications will almost surely be reassessed in light of the extra funding they received in 2009, with further slashes to their budgets.

In a related section of his budget speech, Minister Hansen cites the 2010 Cultural Olympiad as a prime example of the province’s investment in and showcasing of the arts. However, given the cuts announced by your office, I wonder how the momentum and opportunities generated by the Olympics for the cultural community will be maintained? In the spirit, once again, of engaging in constructive dialogue, let me conclude this appeal by citing the example of the previous Winter Olympic city, Turin. The government of Turin consciously identified arts and culture as the most significant legacy that would be provided from the Olympics in helping it to make a transition from a post-industrial car-manufacturing city to a service-based and creative economy. And they did so not by resting on the laurels of their historical cultural patrimony, but by consciously rebranding themselves as a contemporary art destination, building new modern art galleries, investing in various art and design biennales, and injecting cash and new infrastructure into their film and performing arts festivals. The city is now a prime destination for arts and culture patrons the world over.

Vancouver, with its abundance of creative talent, its reputation as a world-class city (known, in particular, for its photo-conceptualist art production and its cutting-edge dance), and an increasingly revitalized downtown core that would be further enhanced by being anchored between a new Vancouver Art Gallery, a refurbished Playhouse and Queen Elizabeth Theatre, and a soon-to-open Woodward’s Building, with its stunning new SFU Contemporary Arts performance facilities, has the potential to repeat and enhance upon the Turin model. It just needs the political and financial support of your government. Government investment in arts programs subsidizes audiences, makes important cultural work accessible to everyone, and provides core and related industry jobs for large sectors of our society. This has been recognized by other Canadian provinces, even in the midst of an economic recession. I urge you to demonstrate the same foresight and vision by reversing your cuts to the arts and culture sector of this province.

Sincerely,



Peter Dickinson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Dept. of English, SFU
Nominee to the Board, PuSh Performing Arts Festival Society

Cc. Hon. Gordon Campbell, Premier of BC
Hon. Margaret MacDiarmid, MLA, Vancouver-Fairview
Hon. Spencer Herbert, MLA, Vancouver-West End