Terminal City Dance Research

Victoria Foundation halts grants

2008-11-03T12:42:00.000-08:00

Victoria Foundation halts grants

Market meltdown means money will stop flowing to arts, cultural groups

Sandra McCulloch, Times Colonist

Published: Saturday, November 01, 2008

The venerable Victoria Foundation has fallen victim to turbulent financial markets and announced yesterday that until the economic situation improves it will not hand out funds.

Chuck Burkett, chairman of the foundation board, said no grants have been given out since the end of August, when the markets began their plunge.

Last year, the Victoria Foundation bestowed $7 million in grants to more than 300 individuals and groups involved in charitable activities.

Click above for link to the entire article.

Ephemeral experience might be the next economic currency

2008-11-03T12:22:00.000-08:00

Ephemeral experience might well become the next economic currency, or so says Harvard Business School professor John Quelch. How about that - a perfect entryway for dance to stand up and shout "We are fleeting! We're expensive! We're an experience! Come here!"

It'll all make sense when you read the article at Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge website: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6067.html His post is based in part on Professor Quelch's Economist article "Too Much Stuff."

John Quelch is Senior Associate Dean and Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Here's a taster:

The Next Marketing Challenge: Selling to 'Simplifiers'

Published: October 29, 2008
Author: John Quelch
Watch out for a new brand of consumer in 2008: the middle-aged Simplifier.

She finds herself surrounded by too much stuff acquired. She is increasingly skeptical in the face of a financial meltdown that it was all worth the effort. Out will go luxury purchases, conspicuous consumption, and a trophy culture.

Tomorrow's consumer will buy more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff: fleeting, but expensive, experiences, not heavy goods for the home...

Transversal web journal - translations

2008-11-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Transversal web journal is currently looking at translation. This is interesting to dance as countries and citizens buckle down into their national and international identities in reaction to 'economic disaster' discourses, and reinvent themselves and reidentify themselves in realms of expression. I've heard of some work being done in Wales and Switzerland about multilingual nations affecting expression and identity in dance - this is certainly parallel to Canada and could readily be considered not only in the official languages (English, French, plus Aboriginal languages) but also all the mother tongues of immigrants that have populated this country since early colonial days (you pick a language, we have it here).

I like keeping in touch with Transversal's thinking. You too can get on their e-list. It's always interesting to see what they're up to - some great minds coming together and clashing (like cymbals, music and noise all at once)....

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talks on translation | gespräche zur übersetzung
transversal web journal

“Talks on translation” is in fact a cluster of six interviews discussing the topic of translation from different angles: philosophy, cultural and literary theory, political activism, critical reflexion on migration, globalization, European integration, etc. The partners in the dialogues are a British philosophy professor curious about how modernism functions beyond its allegedly original context; an Indologist and feminist philosopher, herself a cosmopolitan migrant, speculating on the notion of mother tongue; a German cultural theorist who wrote a book about “cultural turns” (and a “translational turn” among them); an American professor of Slavic and Comparative literature who is the author of “A Manifesto of Cultural Translation”; a theorist from Paris, director of the famous international journal of critical thought “Transeuropéennes” and political activist who reflects on translation in the context of European integration; a professor from Tamkang University (Taiwan), an ex-American living in East Asia, interested in heterolinguality and the phenomenon of broken languages. What do they all have in common? At least the fact that in each of their particular fields translation has a problem to solve.

http://eipcp.net/transversal/0908

Boris Buden in conversation with:
Doris Bachmann-Medick: Cultural Studies – A Translational Perspective
Ghislaine Glasson Deschaumes: Europe – A Construction Site of Translation
Rada Iveković: Place of Birth: Babel
Tomislav Longinović: The Answer is in Translation
Peter Osborne: Translation – Between Philosophy and Cultural Theory
Jon Solomon / Hito Steyerl: Mission Imbpossible - Jon Solomon in Conversation with Hito Steyerl about the Project „DeriVeD“

New texts in the issue „Borders, Nations, Translations“:

Boris Buden: A Tangent that Betrayed the Circle. On the Limits of Fidelity in Translation
Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez: "Lost in Translation" - Transcultural Translation and Decolonialization of Knowledge
Stefan Nowotny: The Multiple Faces of the “Civis”. Is Citizenship Translatable?
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: More Thoughts on Cultural Translation
Michaela Wolf: Translation – Transculturation. Measuring the perspectives of transcultural political action

http://eipcp.net/transversal/0608

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contact@eipcp.net
http://www.eipcp.net

ending a hiatus

2008-11-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

With the early onset of winter in Ottawa (hello again snow!) I'm returning to this site after a hiatus that left me with lots of unfinished thoughts. Prepare for a bit of sporadic spew in the next few posts as I get the most prominent interests out of my head and into collated cyberspace.

Like before, mostly this is a collation of material that interests me and that I want to return to. It's handier to me than bookmarking, and for anyone else out there who wants a glimpse into the early stages and inner workings of my idea synthesis, voila.

Hello world. Welcome back.

Artist Development Bursary 2008 from Dance in Herts

2008-01-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

Artist Development Bursary 2008 from Dance in Herts A bursary of £3000 is available from Dance in Herts (managed by essexdance) for an emerging dance artist or a dance/media artist to research and develop a new dance project. The Bursary may be used as part of a wider range of funding that the artist has acquired. The project should be completed by 31st July 2008.

We are looking for work that is:
· Innovative
· Pushes the experience of dance into new realms
· Has some elements of how\ndance engages with and uses new technologies
· Stimulating for an audience
· Site specific - firmly\nrooted in a place or theme of Hertfordshire

The bursary would be particularly appropriate to artists/companies who:
Wish to engage specifically with the County
Wish to explore dance and new media/interdisciplinary work
and/or wish to explore work in a site-specific context or non-traditional space
Deepen their thinking\nregarding engagement with audiences and communities and how they can achieve audience development in relation to their artistic output

The bursary fits into Dance in Herts’ wider programme of professional activity aimed at engaging with and developing partnerships and relationships with dance artists, companies and Hertfordshire venues.

The funding for the commission is provided by Dance in Herts (essexdance) through funding received from Arts Council England East via Grants for the Arts.

Deadline for applications: 29th February 2008.

Interviews: 11th March 2008.

Contact admin at essexdance.co.uk
Contact 01245 346036 Visit www.essexdance.co.uk for information and application form.

-------------------- The £5000 Site Specific Commission from Dance in Herts is also still receiving applications so visit http://www.essexdance.co.uk/pages/noticeboard.htm commission for details. Deadline 15 February 2008.

British Council disbands its specialist arts departments, including dance

2007-12-23T06:36:00.000-08:00

This story comes from Dance UK and offers their research into this new development.

British Council disbands its specialist arts departments, including dance

Some Dance UK members have contacted Dance UK this morning (Thursday 20 December) to raise their concern about a story that ran in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph that the British Council’s executive board has decided to disband its departments in film, drama, dance, literature, design and the visual arts.

We attach a link to the story below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/12/19/bacouncil119.xml

As many of our corporate members work closely with the British Council to facilitate their work internationally Dance UK contacted the British Council to ask for their response to the story. They issued us with the following statement:

The British Council is committed to the arts and will continue to deliver arts projects internationally. Examples include the British Council Edinburgh Showcase, managing the British Pavilion and showcasing the best of Britain at the Biennales as we have done since 1938.

The British Council has a global arts programme of £30m and there will be no reduction in this budget. We have re-structured our arts group. We will retain sector expertise in all of the art forms but are mobilising our resources in different ways so that we can deliver bigger, global projects with the same amount of cash resources. This reorganisation involves the merging of sector expertise into more flexible project teams.

We are in a period of consultation with external stakeholders and a more formal announcement will be made in the January/February, 2008. A process document outlining this timeline is available on the website.

Martin Davidson CEO of The British Council said ‘The arts provide a unique space for creative dialogue and underpins our understanding of the world around us. In all its forms, the arts stimulate debate and allow us to better understand what we have in common and the differences between ourselves and other societies. The British Council is deeply committed to the arts in our cultural relations work, now and in the future - especially at a time when the arts and creative industries are flourishing in the UK’

It seems at present that we will have to wait, as do British Council staff, until the New Year to see how this situation develops and how it will affect dance. When we have more news we will let Dance UK members know, formulate a formal response, and if necessary write to the Foreign Office and the DCMS to express members’ concerns.

Sian McAulay, Deputy Director, Dance UK

Culture Vultures book, England

2007-12-06T20:54:00.000-08:00

There is no doubt that in the last decade or so, arts in the UK has seen a massive injection of money for new projects and exhibitions... The book 'Culture Vultures: Is UK arts policy is damaging the arts?' shows official claims about the social benefits of art are based on exaggeration, and that arts practice suffers as a result. The book is being published by the think-tank Policy Exchange....

The collection of essays show that many of the claims made about the social benefits of arts are exaggerated, resulting in wasteful projects of poor artistic quality. The criteria for funding means that arts organisations are drowning under a tidal wave of 'tick boxes and targets'.

The book's authors are a mixture of academics and commentators. They recommend:

More honest and independent use of evidence in cultural policy. Too much research is driven by arts advocacy and is therefore biased.

Less bureaucracy around arts funding. The funding framework forces artists to spend valuable time and resources on ‘ticking boxes’, at the expense of producing excellent work.

Debate about true value of the arts. The government and arts quangos should promote the importance of art for its own sake.

Click here for more info.

EU funds research into roles for older female performers

2007-12-06T20:43:00.000-08:00

An article in The Stage published Tuesday 4 December 2007 by Matthew Hemley explains:

"Grant money of more than €150,000 has been awarded from Brussels for the research, which will examine what roles exist for older women and how decisions are made when casting parts which can be played by either sex. It will also look how women over 40 are portrayed in television and theatre.

Entitled Changing Gender Portrayal: Promoting Employment Opportunities for Women in the Performing Arts, the research will include a survey that will be handed to each of the federation’s affiliated unions in Europe."
Read the whole article by clicking here.

Policies and Programs of Support for Senior Artists

2007-12-06T20:37:00.000-08:00

D'Art research report: Policies and Programs of Support for Senior Artists
D'Art Topics in Arts Policy, no. 28, December 2007
IFACCA and Joyce Zemans

The research, headed by Professor Joyce Zemans of York University, was undertaken at the request of the Canadian Artists’ Heritage Resource Centre Steering Committee. The D'Art report outlines a selection of policies and programs that provide support to senior artists who are experiencing financial difficulty or are no longer able to work. The initiatives, which come from eighteen countries, are classified into six broad types:

pension schemes
multi-year grants
guaranteed income
subsidised housing programs
dancer’s transition centres
grants for senior artists awarded for artistic contribution.

Click here to download the document in pdf.

Conference on Art Institutions as Catalysts or Indicators: the Role of Art Institutions in Gentrification Processes

2007-12-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

Conference on Art Institutions as Catalysts or Indicators: the Role of Art Institutions in Gentrification Processes - click here for more info.

The conference on the role of art institutions in gentrification processes will focus on the interaction of culture and art institutions with processes of urban development, and the role of such institutions in gentrification processes in Latvia and abroad.

CHRC's Mentorship Strategy for Managers and Administrators of Cultural Organizations

2007-12-04T06:36:00.000-08:00

CHRC's Mentorship Strategy for Managers and Administrators of Cultural Organizations (March 2005)

The goal of the mentorship strategy is to increase support for and invovlement in the mentorship of managers and administrators in the cultural sector across Canada.

To view the Mentorship Strategy, click here.

CHRC Online Module Critical Thinking for Cultural Planners

2007-12-04T06:30:00.000-08:00

The Cultural Human Resources Centre has released a new online module – Critical Thinking for Cultural Planners. This interactive module works to further clarify the roles critical thinking plays in cultural management. The material is designed to allow Cultural Managers to engage with various aspects of critical thinking as it pertains to their everyday work.

The module is available here. CLICK HERE.

The internationalisation of cultural life (Ministry of Culture Sweden)

2007-12-02T10:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a fact sheet from the Ministry of Culture in Sweden (October 2007) on the Internationalisation of cultural life.

excerpt:

The development and vitality of Swedish cultural life is dependent on international exchange and cooperation. As a result of this, an international perspective must permeate the activities of cultural institutions and action to promote internationalisation must be integrated into the infrastructure of cultural life and government grant systems. Culture has assumed an increasingly important role in building relations with other countries in such fields as the promotion of Sweden, democracy promotion and development cooperation. The role of culture and the media for the development of democracy and freedom of expression is becoming increasingly clear. The consequence of this development is that the creators of culture both should, and must be given more scope in the international dialogue. Internationalisation is a long-term cultural policy process...

There are three major objectives:
1. High quality, artistic integrity, a long-term perspective and reciprocity
2. Swedish successes abroad
3. International cultural meetings in Sweden
4. Deeper cooperation between different policy areas

The turn to cultural internationalism is happening across the board.
Read the full Swedish version by clicking here.

Add Value to Contents: the Valorisation of Culture Today

2007-12-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

This article (on www.transform.eipcp.net - a site worth checking out) talks around and through the industry-paradigm of culture.

As a critique of the industrial frameworks surrounding valorization of culture, Esther Leslie offers a thoughtful portrayal of perspectives on culture, and she responds to it. Starting with UNESCO's insistance that:

‘cultural industries’, which include publishing, music, audiovisual technology, electronics, video games and the Internet, ‘create employment and wealth’, ‘foster innovation in production and commercialisation processes’ and ‘are central in promoting and maintaining cultural diversity and in ensuring democratic access to culture’

She rapidly moves on to attest that within this paradigm, "value is a gift of industry, not a quality of artifacts themselves."

What I find particularly resonant (and strangely not paradoxical, even as it ironically tempts hypocracy), is the say she frames her statement that value has become a debased term. She rephrases the cultural economic argument (the value that is more valuable than all others is monetary) with cultural marketability.

Alongside, Adorno and Benjamin, she invokes Marx in the article.

Click here to read the whole article

excerpt:

In Britain today, as elsewhere, culture is the wonder stuff that gives more away than it takes. Like some fantastical oil in a Grimm fairytale, this magical substance gives and gives, generating and enhancing value, for state and private men alike. Culture is posited as a mode of value-production: for its economy-boosting and wealth-generating effects; its talent for regeneration, through raising house prices and introducing new business, which is largely service based; and its benefits as a type of moral rearmament or emotional trainer, a perspective that lies behind the ‘social inclusion’ model, whereby culture must speak to – or down to – disenfranchised groups. Culture is instrumentalised for its ‘value-generating’ spin-offs.

Raises for me broad questions of value, valorization, partnership, leadership, and the relationships between culture and art (both theoretical, perceptual, and functional) in post-industrial capitalism and productive consumerism.

Trade in Culture Services - A Handbook of Concepts and Methods

2007-11-25T15:10:00.000-08:00

Trade in Culture Services - A Handbook of Concepts and Methods

Culture, Tourism and the Centre for Education Statistics
Research papers, 2007

This is a very basic handbook, and what makes it interesting is the discourse employed - the choice of language signals how they are conceptualising issues and topics, and how the Cultural Statistics Program is creating frameworks of reference and justification.

Here is an excerpt:

The Canadian Framework for Culture Statistics includes the following activities in
the definition of culture services: creative services, intellectual property rights for
culture products, artistic expression, content services, and preservation services.
Perhaps the most intuitive example of a creative service is a performance.
Live performances are intangibles that can be bought and sold and involve creative
artistic activity. Performances can be final demand products (you pay to see a show)
or intermediate inputs (production services). Examples of live performances are
theatrical plays or musical performances.

This sure is revealing about who their intended audience might be (for this handbook I mean) and how much current knowledge they assume their audience has. For example, live performance, in this excerpt, is regarded as material product where services are cash transactions rather than services that may also include other 'intangible' and 'intuitive' human exchange. How this handbook defines cultural services infers a lot about what is valued in the trade of cultural service, and the directed choice of approach.

Find the whole handbook by clicking here.

Historic five-year action plan by Assembly of First Nations: The Rebuilding Our Nations Youth Accord

2007-11-25T15:02:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of First Nations youth from across Canada gathered November 1, 2007 in Winnipeg to complete a draft five-year action plan called: The Rebuilding Our Nations Youth Accord. The Accord will set out specific actions to address health, cultural, economic, political and social issues. A draft of the Accord was presented to AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine and Assembly of Manitoba Grand Chief Ron Evans.

Some of highlights in the Accord are:

Mandatory First Nation history curriculum in the public education system and a requirement for all teachers to take mandatory courses in First Nations history;
Recognize First Nations languages as official languages of Canada;
Mobilize First Nations youth in voting campaigns;
Establish a First Nations History Month;
Establish First Nations youth governance systems including regular youth gatherings;
Increase funding to First Nations schools and addressing the crisis in post-secondary funding;
Create healing circles to address intergenerational impacts;
Create environmentally friendly enterprises more aligned with First Nations values;
Strengthen the child welfare system including better support to families as a first measure

The Accord will be presented to the AFN Special Chiefs Assembly, December 11 – 13, 2007 in Ottawa, Ontario.

Click here to see the full press release on the Assembly of First Nations website.

Artist colonies rise above USA politics for new funding

2007-11-24T22:59:00.000-08:00

Artist Colonies, `Heat Shield' From Critics, May Get U.S. Funds

By Laurence Arnold

[See the original source article, in full, at www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=ab8gKgmzjyaU# ]

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Twelve years after Congress ended most funding to individual artists, the National Endowment for the Arts may reopen the flow of money to poets, musicians, writers and painters through artist colonies.

The NEA, which is in line for a budget increase of as much as 28 percent next year, plans to direct some of the additional money to the hundreds of U.S. colonies and communities that provide artists with residencies, funding and, above all, creative freedom.

``We're very excited about this,'' NEA Chairman Dana Gioia said at a Nov. 7 conference in Washington sponsored by artist communities. ``It's something we've been talking about internally for a couple of years now.''

Gioia said his plan would amend the endowment's application categories to create a specific opportunity for artist communities to win funding. The goal, he said, is to support ``individual artists creating new work.'' Arts groups apply for NEA funding in several different categories.

Colonies give artists the freedom to explore works that otherwise might be imperiled by public criticism, said Cheryl Young, executive director of the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. ``They provide a heat shield,'' she said.

Congress in 1995 sharply limited the NEA's authority to fund individual artists, a response to controversies over publicly financed art that involved nudity or addressed homosexuality and religion.

Budget Slashed

For years, Republicans in Congress expressed outrage that the NEA supported exhibits that included erotic gay photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe and an Andres Serrano work depicting a crucifix immersed in urine. Republicans took control of Congress in 1995 and slashed the NEA's budget by 40 percent during the next five years while imposing the new limits on support for individual artists.

The NEA's budget, which peaked at $176 million in 1992, fell to a low of $97.6 million in 2000 and was $127 million in 2007.

The new Democratic-controlled House has approved giving the NEA $160 million in 2008, a 28 percent increase. In the Senate, also now controlled by Democrats, the Appropriations Committee has proposed a smaller, 7 percent increase, to $133 million. Differences between the House and Senate plans would have to be worked out during budget conferences.

Gioia said the NEA's plan to boost support of artist colonies is dependent on the agency being ``well treated in this budget, as we have every expectation to be.'' A program to support artist colonies, if created, wouldn't begin providing money until 2009, according to NEA spokeswoman Felicia Knight.

Creative Freedom

A poet, music critic and former General Foods executive, Gioia was appointed to the NEA post by President George W. Bush and took office in January 2003.

In an interview, he said artist colonies are technically eligible to apply for NEA funding, though they face obstacles under the agency's current system of categories.

``We don't recognize them as a unique kind of cultural entity,'' he said.

Creating a new funding category ``without question'' will increase the number of colonies that receive support, he added.

Gioia said there are hundreds of such colonies in the U.S.

The Providence, Rhode Island-based Alliance of Artists Communities says its 250 members -- communities, residency programs and individuals -- collectively support 12,000 artists annually in the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries....

There is more to this article. Read the rest by clicking here .

USA Scholars Ask For Normal Relations with Cuba

2007-11-24T22:51:00.000-08:00

U.S Scholars Ask For Normal Relations with Cuba
20 de Noviembre del 2007

"In an open letter to Bush, more than two hundred artists and scholars from the United States asked their president to end the travel ban that prevents U.S. citizens from visiting Cuba and allow Cuban artists and scholars to visit the United States."

Read more at ahora.cu and find the entire article by clicking here.

Source: ACN

Art & Innovation: An Evolutionary Economic View of the Creative Industries

2007-11-24T22:40:00.000-08:00

Art & Innovation: An Evolutionary Economic View of the Creative Industries
Unesco Observatory, The University of Melbourne Refereed E-Journal, 2007

by Jason Potts ; Arc Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation,
Queensland University of Technology, School of Economics

"This paper argues that the economics of the arts and culture, and more formally the economics of creative industries, should be based on evolutionary economics. The reason is simple. The value of the arts and culture to an economic system is dynamic: it is change value, and naturally experimental and uncertain. New ideas and technologies are the drivers of economic growth, yet only to the extent that they are adopted and retained by people. The creative industries are the entrepreneurs and manufacturers of this socio-technical process. They are, I will explain, part of the innovation system of the economy in terms of what I shall call the ‘creative systems’ framework.
This suggests a new line of thinking for those engaged in research on the arts, education and cultural development that is based on a rather different conception of the economy than is conventional."

The paper asserts that the value of the arts and culture are dynamic, and Jason Potts explains in this paper how arts, education and cultural researchers could benefit from working with an analysis of economic dynamics (as open system processes of change and re-coordination) ratherr than making futile attempts to defend (static) cultural value against (equally static) economic value.

Juicy!
- R

Beyond Performance: Building a Better Future for Dancers and the Art of Dance.

2007-11-18T20:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to read: Beyond Performance: Building a Better Future for Dancers and the Art of Dance.

This is a 64 page document providing rigorous comparative research that documents and lluminates the issue of dancer career transition on a global basis, providing a platform for analysis, action, and advocacy.

An excerpt:

OBSERVATION #4:
Multiple strategies will be necessary to address the career transition needs of dancers
on an international scale, because the broader context in which dancers carry out their
work varies from country to country. Factors that come into play on a country-by-country
basis include the degree to which the arts are publicly or privately supported, cultural
attitudes towards the arts in general and dance in particular, the dominant dance
genres in a particular country or region, and the nature of existing worker protections in
the form of social benefit programs. Because of this variability, the global dance community
has much to learn from shared information about “promising practices,” which
can be adapted and refined to meet local conditions.

R

wow, what a bibliography! (CECC)

2007-11-15T06:54:00.000-08:00

The Centre of Expertise on Culture and Communities has an increadible resource of bibliographic listings on their site.

Culture and Sustainability http://www.cultureandcommunities.ca/resources/bibliographies/culture-and-sustainability.html

Cultural Infrastructure
http://www.cultureandcommunities.ca/resources/bibliographies/cultural-infrastructure.html

Impacts and Indicators
http://www.cultureandcommunities.ca/resources/bibliographies/impacts-indicators.html

Cultural Planning (Culture in Communities)
http://www.cultureandcommunities.ca/resources/bibliographies/cultural-planning.html

Creative Cities (Culture in Communities)
http://www.cultureandcommunities.ca/resources/bibliographies/creative-cities.html

Cultural Ecosystems (Culture in Communities)
http://www.cultureandcommunities.ca/resources/bibliographies/cultural-ecosystems.html

Talk about winter reading....

-R

Vancouver long-range cultural facilities plan underway

2007-11-15T06:47:00.000-08:00

"In May 2007 the Managing Director of Cultural Services and the Manager of Materials
Management sought proposals for consultant services related to the creation of a long-range
cultural facilities priorities plan through an RFP (PS07083). The RFP was posted on the City’s
website, BC Bid, and circulated to the cultural community through the City and Alliance for
Arts and Culture email distribution lists.
Five proposals were received and reviewed by the interdepartmental staff team using a
comparative and consistent matrix format. The matrix compared the proponents’ teams past
experience with large complex public art programs, proposal content, methodology, and cost.
Proponents were scored out of a total of 100 points.
The review team short-listed two of the proponent teams for further consideration.
Following input from references and the interdepartmental staff team ranked the proposal
from Toronto Artscape as superior to the other proposals. The Toronto Artscape team
proposed a project budget of $91,250 plus GST and disbursements.
Subject to Council approval, the program review will commence October 15, 2007 and be
completed by March 31, 2008. The result of the review, along with the implementation
planning reports, will be reported back in June 2008.
The Cultural Facility Priorities Plan will be developed by the consultants working with a
Steering Committee comprised of the Managing Director of Cultural Services (Chair), the Co
Director, Office of Cultural Affairs (Policy Planning & Infrastructure), the Director of Financial
Planning & Treasury, the Assistant Director, Vancouver Civic Theatres, the Senior Cultural
Planner, the Senior Social Planner and the Directors of Planning and Facilities Design and
Management.
An Advisory Committee with representation from arts and culture organizations will be
convened to provide advice on community input and process, as well as recommended
outcomes. Additional public engagement will take the form of a surveys, interviews,
discipline-based and cross-discipline focus groups, as well as public open houses. The goal is
to create a plan that reflects community input and develops consensus-based criteria for
prioritizing in outcomes. The full scope of work for the Cultural Facility Plan is contained in
Appendix A."

Click here for the administrative report Vancouver long-range cultural facilities plan underway

Arts debate - Arts Council England's public value inquiry

2007-11-12T16:56:00.000-08:00

Arts debate

Learn about the findings from Arts Council England’s first ever public value inquiry! An overall summary of arts debate findings now available.

The arts debate, Arts Council England’s first ever public value inquiry, ran from October 2006 to September 2007. It involved a number of stages of in-depth research as well as an open consultation. During that period we learned an enormous amount about how different people value the arts and their views on arts funding in England.

We have now brought together the findings from all stages of the inquiry into an overall summary report, Public value and the arts in England: Discussion and conclusions of the arts debate, available on the summary & conclusions page.

You can also access detailed findings from each stage of the inquiry on the research & consultation page.

Next steps

We are currently taking time to reflect upon all that we have learned and to consider the implications for future policy and practice. We will also be sharing and debating the findings with our partners in the arts sector and beyond.

The Arts Council will be different as a result of the arts debate. We will use the next few months to develop a detailed response to the findings, combining:

short term actions in our next corporate plan
a long-term policy response to be published in spring 2008

More details on how we are responding to the arts debate will be available on this website in 2008. In the meantime, we would like to thank everyone who has helped us by supporting or taking part in the debate. Your contribution is making a difference.

British arts funding - final rites, or olympic transmogrification?

2007-10-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

My particuar weakness for admiring the practices happening far from home involves yearning for them with a longing that is unashamedly transparent. At times like these (everything is greener...) a reality check or two is necessary.
This article by Norman Lebrecht titled "London needs to form its own arts council" is a kind of wake-up call:

"The final rites were administered last week to the founding principle of British arts funding. In Scotland, an aggressively secessionist government announced new laws to replace the arts council with a state-run ‘cultural agency’. Wales is mulling a similar move while England abolished any pretence of arm’s-length independence by appointing a Yes Minister official from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to be chief executive of Arts Council England, effectively its terminator."

Lebrecht's article goes on to talk about the changes in London and England, the troubles brewing (I'd call them troubles, and look forward to seeing how reactions unroll), and the need for a concerted London arts council, especially in the run up to the 2012 olympics. Good thinking Lebrecht, thanks for the mini expose.

To read the entire article, click here.

Alan Davey appointed new Chief Executive of Arts Council

2007-09-29T03:41:00.000-07:00

Alan Davey appointed new Chief Executive of Arts Council

- To read the full article from Dance UK, click here -

Sir Christopher Frayling, Chair of Arts Council England, announced on Wednesday 26 September the appointment of Alan Davey as the new Chief Executive of Arts Council England.

Alan Davey, 46, is currently Director of Culture at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, (DCMS) a post he has held since 2003 having worked in the Department as head of the arts division since 2001. In an earlier stint at the then Department of National Heritage he was responsible for designing the National Lottery. Mr Davey is well known as a dance fan and is often seen at dance performances. He recently attended the All Party Parliamentary Dance Group event at the Ballet For the People Gala at the Royal Festival Hall, which featured performances by the Ballet Boyz, English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Rambert, and new choreography from Christopher Wheeldon, Craig Revel Horwood and Rafael Bonachela.

His appointment to Chief Executive of the Arts Council is potentially good news for the dance sector and early responses from dance professionals are all positive. Mr Davey is seen as a supporter of dance as an art form, whilst also being informed about a crosssection of current issues facing the dance sector, such as tax and dancers’ health, all issues raised in the recent DCMS Dance Forums.

Born in Stockton-on-tees, the son of an electrician, Alan Davey studied English at Birmingham University and went onto Oxford where he received an MPhil. He was then offered a provisional place at Manchester University to study medicine, but when he failed to raise the money to attend the course, he opted for a career in the civil service.

Mr Davey will take up his new appointment at the Arts Council in early 2008 – succeeding Peter Hewitt, who will have been in post as Chief Executive for ten years.

Alan Davey says: “I couldn’t be more excited about my new role. The arts in England have never been healthier, more challenging, innovative or popular. I want the Arts Council to be at the forefront of building on that success – working with artists to reach even greater heights, leading the arts with passion and excellence, and forging new partnerships that secure the position of the arts in national life.

“Building on what has been achieved by Peter Hewitt, I am confident that a creative, focused and entrepreneurial Arts Council can do just that. I can’t wait to get started.”

New post

2007-09-25T20:50:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted much since I took up my 'new post', leading me to move halfway across Canada (to Ottawa) and begin a year-long contract with the Canada Council for the Arts, in the dance section.

Now with feet on ground and head in stars, more will be posted here again soon.

- R

ERASING THE LINE BETWEEN WORK AND LEISURE

2007-09-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

Robert A. Stebbins, FRSC
University of Calgary
Paper presented at the “Leisure and Liberty in North America” Conference held 12-13 November 2004, University of Paris IV, Paris, France. Read the entire paper - click here.

Change is afoot regarding human resources, young administrators, aging dance artists and devotee work in relation to working in the arts.

“devotee work,” is work that is so attractive that it is essentially leisure for those engaging in it. The only important difference between their work and what their counterparts in "serious leisure" do is that devotee workers get paid for their efforts...

... Vis-à-vis other kinds of work and leisure, both occupational devotion and serious leisure stand out, in that they, alone, meet all six of the following distinguishing criteria:
1) The valued core activity must be profound; to perform it acceptability requires substantial skill, knowledge, or experience or a combination of two or three of these;
2) the core must offer significant variety;
3) the core must also offer significant opportunity for creative or innovative work, as a valued expression of individual personality;
4) the individual devotee must have reasonable control over amount and disposition of time put into the occupation (the value of freedom of action), such that he can prevent it from becoming a burden;
5) the individual must have both an aptitude and a taste for the work in question;
6) the individual must work in a physical and social milieu that encourages them to pursue often and without significant constraint the core activity.
It should be understood that these six criteria do not necessarily constitute an exhaustive list; for through further exploratory research and theorizing, other criteria may well be discovered...

... What is happening today to this interface between work and leisure? In answering this question note, first, that the modern work ethic – most generally put that hard work is good – is manifested in at least two main ways: workaholism and occupational devotion.

Devotee? or Serious leisure? Hmmm. Read the entire paper - click here.

Presto-chango: Josée Verner as Canadian Heritage minister

2007-08-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has appointed the Honourable Josée Verner as the new Minister of Canadian Heritage, switching places with the Honourable Bev Oda who has gone to replace her at International Cooperation. Verner, a francophone from the Louis-St-Laurent riding in Quebec City, assumes the Heritage portfolio.

First elected Member of Parliament in January 2006, Ms Verner represents the riding of Louis-St. Laurent, in the Québec city area. She became Minister for international co-operation, la Francophonie and Official Languages in the very first Conservative Cabinet. Previously, she had been spokesperson for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Region of Québec in Mr. Harper’s shadow cabinet. This was widened in September 2005 to include the Official Languages portfolio.

She also chaired the Québec Caucus for the Conservative Party of Canada. More bilingual than her predecessor, Ms. Verner has spent close to 20 years in the communications and public service fields. She served in the office of former Québec Premier Robert Bourassa and in the office of the Deputy Speaker of Québec’s National Assembly, and also worked in the Ministry of Health.

Cabinet shuffle for Bev Oda?

2007-08-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

August 8 2007. The Toronto Star reports that the biggest cultural development of the summer could be an impending cabinet shuffle, said to be in the works for next week.

"That's because Bev Oda – who has been an enigmatic and lacklustre head of culture as heritage minister since early 2006 – is a likely target for Stephen Harper... if Harper shuffles Oda, it won't be because she has disappointed the arts world. He may opt for the political advantage of a French-speaking heritage minister, knowing culture gets votes in Quebec."

Read the article - click here.

A profile of professional dancers in Canada

2007-08-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

A Profile of Professional Dancers in Canada

Based on a questionnaire from the Dancer Transition Resource Centre

Profile prepared by Kelly Hill, Hill Strategies Research Inc., February 16, 2005 http://www.hillstrategies.com

Professional dancers were asked about the dance-related activities from which they earned income during the past tax year (generally the 2003 calendar year). Almost all selected performing (92%). The next most common sources of dance earnings were teaching (51%), choreography (31%) and grants (22%). The following table summarizes the responses to this question. (Because dancers could choose all applicable responses, the percentages in this table add up to more than 100%.)

Click here to download the entire research paper.

Arts in Health and Well-being Strategy

2007-07-27T09:40:00.001-07:00

Arts in Health and Well-being Strategy

The Arts Council of Wales has published for public consultation a draft strategy on Arts in Health and Well-being

The strategy has been developed in partnership with a steering group of representatives from health, education, local government, the arts and Welsh Assembly Government, and chaired by Professor Stephen Tomlinson CBE (Provost, Cardiff University). Comments are invited on the direction and content of the strategy, which has been recognised as a significant step forward in valuing the impact of the arts within the health sector and the excellent work already being delivered across Wales. The deadline for comments is 20 September 2007. The document is available from www.artswales.org/viewnews.asp?id=621.

deadline: 20 September

Jude Kelly, telling it as it might be... 2012 Olympics

2007-07-26T15:27:00.000-07:00

“I’m the Joan of Arc of the Southbank”

Here’s a taster from the Guardian online click here for the original.

“As artistic head of the resurgent Southbank Centre, Jude Kelly has confounded her critics - and there were many. She tells Lyn Gardner how they had her all wrong.‘Do I think that having the Olympics here in 2012 is damaging the arts? No, I don’t,” says Jude Kelly, so firmly that I feel like a heretic summoned before the thought police for having allowed such a dangerous notion to enter my head. The former artistic director of West Yorkshire Playhouse, Kelly is one of the most powerful people in the arts. Not only is she chair of culture, ceremonies and education at the London organising committee for the Olympic games, she is also the artistic director of the recently reopened Southbank Centre, the 21-acre site which encompasses the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery. She is a woman who has always had a finger in many pies and whose mantra of access and diversity has chimed well with New Labour’s agenda over the past decade as it has increasingly seized upon the arts as a vehicle for delivering social policy. (At one point it looked as if Kelly might be the first woman to run the National Theatre. Instead, she has had to settle for the Southbank, potentially the more far-reaching empire.) …

…”Do I think that doing the Olympics is easy? No - it’s messy, chaotic and difficult. I don’t underestimate how people whose grants have been affected must feel. But am I personally responsible? No. Should we not have bid for the Olympics? No. Is it a paradox one has to live with? Yes,” says Kelly…

"Space&Place" and "LAND2" get it on

2007-07-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

Look what took place in June! Summer studio about art, geography and re-placement... right up my alley.

Space&Place is hosting a summer studio with LAND2, a U.K. visual arts network, to begin a dialogue about creative/research practice and to explore the possibilities of an international partnership.

Space&Place (click here for bibliographies etc) is an interdisciplinary, intellectual and creative collaborative begun in 1999 by Drs. Sonja Kuftinec (Theatre Arts and Dance), Jani Scandura (English) and Karen Till (Geography), and, since 2004, co-directed with Dr. Margaret Werry (Theatre Arts and Dance). We have become a vital interdisciplinary and experimental forum that bridges the methods, concerns, theories and practices of the Humanities, Performing Arts and Social Sciences, bringing faculty and postgraduates in conversation across the University.

LAND2 (wow, very cool group!) is a creative practice-led national research network of faculty, artists, and research students started in 2002 by Dr. Iain Biggs (Reader in Visual Art Practice, Bristol School of Art Media and Design, University of West England (UWE)) and Dr. Judith Tucker (Lecturer in the School of Design, University of Leeds); currently, artist Dr. Ruth Jones is an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Fellow (Appendices II and III). Members share a common interest in how art can engage with the possibilities and problems associated with landscape, place, and space, as they are understood today.

"The main focus of the studio will be presentations of works in progress that will refer to participants’ self-understanding of their location, positionality and social situation, and of how their various geographies may have framed their theoretical understandings and practice-based deployments of place, matter and memory..."

"To begin the summer studio, we reframe questions both groups have explored in recent years: Why, how and when does memory matter? What is the matter of memory? How do people negotiate the temporal and spatial landscapes of becoming and being subjects in and through memory and forgetting? How do we think about, represent and respond to a modernity seeped in the oldness of its newness? Although intellectuals and artists have interrogated these questions in recent years, few institutional spaces foster translocal intellectual and creative projects that interrogate the very terms that divide them: place, space and memory. The main focus of the studio will be presentations of works in progress that will also refer to participants’ self-understanding of their location, positionality and social situation, and of how their various geographies may have framed their theoretical understandings and practice-based deployments of place, matter and memory. By initiating, articulating and discussing the similarities and differences related to participants’ current practice, work and locations, the studio will also seek to create “re-placements” as a basis for further work in an international context."

Love it.

R

Diversity in Canada

2007-07-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

Culturescope.ca continues to do a great job of providing accessible and weighty research.

Here you can find Diversity in Canada, an independent research study. It quite comprehensively explores consumer behaviours, social attitudes and demographics of Canadians in six target groups: Chinese, South Asian, West Asian/Arab, Black, Hispanic, Italian in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. It was created by Solutions Research Group for the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Click here to check out their work.

Call for artists to participate in mediatised sites

2007-07-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR ARTISTS TO PARTICIPATE IN MEDIATISED SITES

Artists with an interest in exploring relationships
between mediatised performance and site-responsive
work are invited to participate in a research and
development project that investigates notions of
place, performance and mediatisation

The project will involve participating in a curated
making process from November 2007 to April 2008. The
curation and performance process will take place
through new media, such as free online social
technologies, wikis, blogs, streaming video etc.

The project will culminate in online and live
performances on April 18th 2008. Performance
participation can be live or through online
technologies. Geographical presence at or proximity
to the live performance is not a requisite of
participation.

Each selected project/participant will receive £100.

To apply to participate send:

• A short biography

• A rationale for your participation, including what
you think you might bring to the project and what you
hope to gain from taking part

• Contact information

Send the above, or any questions that you might have,
to Kate and Tamara mediatisedsites@yahoo.co.uk

Final year undergraduate students, post-graduate
students, emerging and established artists are all
encouraged to apply.

Deadline for submission: Friday 28th September 2007

Kate Craddock is currently a graduate teaching
assistant at Northumbria University, where she is
engaged in PhD research on notions of cross-cultural
interdisciplinary collaboration. With Lynnette Moran,
she is co-artistic director of mouth to mouth: a
globally dispersed performance collective.

Tamara Ashley is currently undertaking PhD research
into improvisational practices in mediatised
performance sites at Texas Woman’s University. She
also co-directs Brief Magnetics, with Simone Kenyon
and is a senior lecturer in choreography at
Northumbria University.

The project is supported by Northumbria University.

Risk and relief

2007-07-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

Talking about risk...

"There are times that break apart and the indefinite comes to light: the grey time of the inbetween. lt is a time without definition, rare and precious, when all seems to be possible, and that after all passes most swiftly. There are moments in which one feels inevitably to be on an inclined plane, and as there is no short-term release in sight, there is no escape. Only one thing is helpful here: to look precisely, to listen, to become all pervious and sensitive. In these in-between-times dreams can change into spaces which it is worthwhile to occupy and then to defend."

Talking about artist residencies, check out this article - Artists' Residency: A Model
There are opportunities to escape, look precisely and dream: www.resartis.org

R

Community art or finding the way home?

2007-07-05T13:33:00.000-07:00

The Canada Council's website has some great 2-pagers (or in this unusual case, five) about their workshops in 2003-04 about critical practice in art. My favourite to date (still working through all of them) is 'Community art or finding the way home?' - looking at the ethical issues fundamental to community art practices.

Find the whole paper here.

A quote to whet your whistle:

It is all about relationships and responsibilities.
What kind of relationships are you coming from,
and what kind are you
developing in the work you are doing?
What are your responsibilities?
This assumes that we are never operating as
individuals, but rather within a community or
multiple communities. We carry
responsibilities in all our relationships,
human and other.
How does our work as artists play into all of this?
- Kim Anderson

Necessary kudos and details:

Saturday, March 13, 2004, La Caserne, Montreal, Quebec
A day of discussion organized by Engrenage Noir on the ethical issues fundamental to community art
practices.
Joanne Gormely (yoga instructor)
Kim Anderson and Pam Hall (speakers)
Louise Lachapelle and Devora Neumark (facilitators)

Return to risk

2007-06-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

I've heard it around, but never as much as recently. There is a lack of risk going round, and choreography is suffering for it. So what if the political tendency is towards security, lockdown, safety, the thrill of art is that it can show us a different truth.

"It is not just new work that we need; it is work that has genius and resonance. It is up to the people who are in the positions of power to discover the new talents and bring them into a bigger scale and take risks. We need to be more daring, and OK, maybe we fail. Maybe it won't sell. But does everything we have to put on necessarily have to sell?"

So says extraordinary ballet dancer Carlos Acosta in 'Dance must be more daring' in The Telegraph June 23 2007.

Equally, the recent Vancity report The power of the arts in Vancouver: Creating a great city (by Pier Luigi Sacco) alludes to the fact risk is essential for the growth of artists, economies and cities. If we don't risk we lose.

In spite of the popular cultural concerns with fear and terror, all aspects of dance arts require a rigorous return to risk for the ongoing development of the form.

New book plus peripherals: "Engaging Art"

2007-06-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

There's a new book out there, coming to a mailbox near me hopefully soon. If anyone has read Engaging Art: The Next Great Transformation of America's Cultural Life (Co-edited by Steven J. Tepper and Bill Ivey), I'm keen to hear your thoughts.

Here's what The Curb Centre for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy has to say about it: click here
Here's what Taylor & Francis books have to say (and they have the best price): click here

The Engaging Art group blog is a discussion based around the idea that the ways in which audiences and artists interact are changing. Twelve bloggers have been lined up to participate in the conversation beginning June 14, 2007 - that's TODAY! Get your fill here http://www.artsjournal.com/league/ See also http://madsilence.wordpress.com/

R

Nonprofit Arts Organizations Face Leadership Crisis

2007-06-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

Nonprofit Arts Organizations Face Leadership
Crisis as Baby Boomers Retire

Menlo Park, CA – The world of nonprofit arts organizations must act now to forestall a looming crisis of leadership that will occur as the current baby boom generation of administrators and volunteers starts to retire, according to a newly released report commissioned by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The sixty-two-page report, “Involving Youth in Nonprofit Arts Organizations: A Call to Action,” was prepared by Barry Hessenius, former Director of the California Arts Council. Hessenius cites a shrinking pool of young people, increased competition for their services and a lack of attention to the issue of generational succession on the part of arts organizations as key reasons for the problem.

“The vast majority of arts organizations have too few young people on their boards of directors or staffs, even fewer young advocates and financial supporters, and no means to track their young audiences,” Hessenius says in the report. “No quarter of the arts community can afford to remain silent or fail to participate in crafting a response to this looming problem.”

Moy Eng, Director of the Performing Arts Program at the Hewlett Foundation, said she decided to commission the study after hearing anecdotal accounts from the arts community about the rising age of their audiences and growing concern from them about attracting a new generation to the arts.

“A generation has passed since the arts have been given their due in the California public schools,” Eng said. “In a sense, a new generation is rising that doesn’t even know what it might be missing. And an increasingly competitive marketplace for fewer young people will only make the arts leadership problem more acute."

The report has three parts: a survey of youth programs among California’s nonprofit arts organizations, case studies of a dozen successful youth engagement programs in the arts, and a comparative analysis of youth programs in the environmental movement, with an in-depth look at the youth programs of two leading organizations. An advisory committee of leaders from all areas of California’s arts community was created to review the survey and recommend arts organizations to include. The survey tried to embrace the broadest possible range of organizations geographically, in size and by discipline. A total of 720 organizations comprised our final master list.

The report recommends that national service organizations for the arts craft a plan to increase young people's involvement in the arts nationwide. Local and regional arts organizations are called upon to budget time and money to involve youth, add young adults to their boards and strengthen ties to high schools and colleges. The report also recommends that funders to support research into young people’s views and behavior regarding the arts.

The full report can be viewed and downloaded here . An executive summary is available here.

Hot research 4 - Society for the Arts in Healthcare

2007-06-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

Round the world work...

The Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH) is a non-profit... in Washington, DC. Founded in 1991, the Society for the Arts in Healthcare is dedicated to promoting the incorporation of the arts as an integral component of healthcare by:

Demonstrating the valuable roles the arts can play in enhancing the healing process;
Advocating for the integration of the arts into the environment and delivery of care within healthcare facilities;
Assisting in the professional development and management of arts programming for health care populations;
Providing resources and education to healthcare and arts professionals; and
Encouraging and supporting research and investigation into the beneficial effects of the arts in healthcare.

Hot research 3 - CCAHTE Journal

2007-06-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a source I've happily stumbled upon. I'm subscribing.

The CCAHTE Journal is your creative arts, health, training and education connection. You'll find information about creative arts approaches in staff health and wellness, arts raising awareness about social issues and health, information and resources that will benefit those involved in gerontology and education, nursing education, social work, medical education & health training.

Here you can also subscribe free toThe Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education CCAHTE Journal which features topical news and stories from professionals across the country involved in cutting edged research and progressive programmes making a difference in health, training and education in Canada and internationally.

www.cmclean.com

Hot research 2 - Arts in health: a review of the medical literature

2007-06-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Arts in health: a review of the medical literature by Dr Rosalia Lelchuk Staricoff

This review of medical literature published between 1990 and 2004 explores the relationship of arts and humanities with healthcare, and the influence and effects of the arts on health. See the full document (90 pages) by clicking here Arts in health: a review of the medical literature. For a bite-sized version click here - it's the executive summary.

Another option is to read Can the arts have a positive effect on health? A review of the medical literature by the same author. It's the promo version.

Hot research 1 - Arts and Culture in Medicine and Health

2007-06-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Arts and Culture in Medicine and Health, by Nancy Cooley, January, 2003.

This is a survey paper on research available in English on the ways that arts and culture promote the health of individuals and communities, contribute to effective medical treatment, and assist doctors, nurses, and other health care workers to cope with the grief, frustration, and other stressful demands of their work.

The paper briefly looks at the current relationships between arts and medicine and then summarizes research from the United Kingdom, United States, Sweden, Australia, Japan and Canada that indicates various aspects of arts and culture make positive contributions to at least seven of Health Canada’s twelve Key Determinants of Health.

This paper is now available in PDF format at Arts and Culture in Medicine and Health: A Survey Research Paper.

Community-Engaged art research

2007-05-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

Three to refer to:

IMAGINE: An External Review of the Canada Council for the Arts’
Artists and Community Collaboration Fund by Laurie McGauley (February, 2006) click here

The City of Rich Gate: Research and Creation within Community-Engaged Arts Practices by Rita L. Irwin, Principal Investigator, Ruth Beer (Emily Carr Institute for Art and Design), Kit Grauer (CUST), Stephanie Springgay (Penn State), and Gu Xiong (UBC Fine Arts), Co-Investigators (2004-2007) click here

Whose voice is this, anyway? Exploring Artistic Control and Issues of Ownership in Community Arts Practice by Douglas David Durand click here

R

The Nature of the Beast: Cultural Diversity and the Visual Arts Sector.

2007-05-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

There's a new book out called The Nature of the Beast: Cultural Diversity and the Visual Arts Sector by Richard Hylton, a UK curator and art critic. It's a a study of diversity policies in UK arts between 1976 and 2006. The Spiked Review of Books reports it to be a "thoughtful, thorough and searing critique of the introduction of divisiveness into the visual arts in England" click here to read the full review.

Looks like a good book to read alongside its US counterpart The Trouble with Diversity: How we learned to love identity and ignore inequlity by Walter Benn Michaels.

-R

Speaking up, speaking about

2007-05-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

The recent reading I've been doing about artists and artists' voices was mostly published in the 70s - views of critics, views of artists, views of scholars. Yesterday on New York Sun's website, Kate Taylor published Artist's Own Words Can Drown Out Scholars', raising the question of roles in speaking:

The deluge of available information on American artists from the 1960s on
is both a blessing and a curse to art historians. Since the 1960s, most artists
have been audiotaped or videotaped talking about their work; because of changes
in how they are trained, artists have become increasingly sophisticated in
talking about their work and cooperating with critics to shape the
interpretation of it. But where does this leave the historian?
Not only is this an issue about who is or feels entitled speak about art and artists, or who can hold the attention of listening ears, but also, what is the current-day role of an artist and a system of people that surround artists (critics, presenters, historians, scholars, managers, funders, etc)? In an environment in which people speak for themselves (reality-tv led/followed), what is the place of disciplinary expertise in a network system of art? And what of the emerging problem of 'qualification overinflation' - what results is a confusion in conferrance and entitilement.
Ongoing determinations about what makes a dance artist 'professional' (and what professionalism is) fuels a whole other set of related questions.
Rolling it all around my mind...

Flexible Management Models report

2007-05-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

Jane Marsland created a report on Flexible Management Models for the Canada Council in 2005. It offers some material to think about when feeding back to the Council's stragetic plan, and their questions about it.

Find the whole report: click here.

Here's the briefest excerpt.
Three critical aspects emerged from the review:

1. Nonformal or alternative producing entities require new supporting administrative and management structures.
2. The increasing deficit of trained administrators, managers, producers, agents must have training/development/mentoring programs in place to alleviate the impending crisis.
3. Changing the ‘institutional lens’ as the primary way of seeing arts organizations – for both the funders and artists, will take time and the building of trust.

- R

Department of Canadian Heritage's 2007/08 priorities

2007-05-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

The federal Department of Canadian Heritage put out a report on their cultural priorities.

Click to see: 2007-2008 Report on Plans and Priorities (RPP) Provides Further Clues to Federal Government’s Cultural Policy

Here are some key excerpts from the report:

Priority - Canada's Cultural Interests Abroad

The arts and cultural industries play a vital role in our economy, engage Canadians, and
represent the face of Canada abroad. The Department has identified three key initiatives that
collectively serve to promote Canada’s cultural interests abroad.
These include:

taking an active role in Canadian trade policy, delivering the cultural trade development program, sharing Canada’s expertise in cultural trade with developing countries and expanding on an international level to strengthen industry at home;
promoting the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, an instrument that reaffirms the right of countries to take measures in support of culture, while recognizing the economic nature of cultural goods and services; and
managing Canada’s participation in international expositions - events that promote Canadian interests and strengthen bilateral business relations with host countries.

Priority - An Inclusive and Participatory Society

Canada’s ability to leverage the benefits of diversity depends on its success at ensuring that all citizens have the opportunity to participate economically, socially, politically and culturally in Canada. The Department aims to identify and work towards addressing the barriers to full participation in Canadian society through targeted interventions.

Canada Council is all ears

2007-05-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

The Canada Council for the Arts has a discussion paper out called "Creating our Future" and it's looking for feedback.

Don't be slow about it - they want to hear back by July.

It's a strategic plan, with questions imbeded. A historical overview is provided, for a bit of depth.
Read it with a thoughtful mind... it's policy in the making.

http://www.50.canadacouncil.ca/Downloads/Discussion_paper.pdf

Artists as entrepreneurs

2007-05-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

There was a conference on social theory, politics and the arts (the 32nd Annual STP&A Meeting) held in Vienna in July 2006 with some heafty topics. Going through some of the transcripts (I wasn't there for the conference) I found this one quite interesting, it's by Elmar D. Konrad. Artists as Entrepreneurs acknowledges the skills, talents, and contributions of artists to society, as entrepreneurs. It's a pdf done in the format of powerpoint. Read the document at www.culture.info/images/stories/konrad.pdf.

The main conference listing website is stpa.culture.info/listings... it's worth a look.

Building Bridges - Strengthening Provincial Government and Community Voluntary Sector Relationships in British Columbia

2007-05-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

Building Bridges - Strengthening Provincial Government and Community Voluntary Sector Relationships in British Columbia
This is a paper that addresses the volunteering sector - related to but different from the non-profit sector. Sometimes they get confused, and also confusing.
Anyways, as this paper says, despite the significant role of the community voluntary sector in society and economy, and the vast numbers of community organizations delivering public programs, there are far fewer examples of relationships between government as a whole and the sector overall. Where those links have been made they rely on:
• structures supporting alliances,
• policies guiding and sustaining relationships, and
• knowledge and capacity building initiatives increasing understanding about the sector
and the capacity of community voluntary sector organizations.

I believe we need to develop these relationships for the goodwill, in the interests of, and to benefit the arts sector. Here's a line from the executive summary:

"Over the past five years, there has been much work done to promote positive relationships
between government and the community voluntary sector. This paper, commissioned
by the Centre for Non-Profit Management, outlines what has been learned from this work and describes examples of relationship-building initiatives linking the voluntary sector and both federal and provincial governments in Canada. It also discusses the relationship between the Government of British Columbia and the province’s community voluntary sector since 1998 and proposes actions that could be taken to strengthen that relationship."

The report's conclusions?

A sound relationship between government and community is critical for developing effective public policy and the management of programs.
Mutual understanding between government and the community voluntary sector is vital.
It is important to continue building a body of research and capacity.
Structures in both government and the community voluntary sector are critical for the development of relationships.
An accord sustains the relationship between government and the voluntary sector.

Read the full report - click here.

- R

Economic Contribution of the Culture Sector

2007-05-02T18:16:00.000-07:00

Economic Contribution of the Culture Sector to Canada’s Provinces by Culture Statistics Program

A Statistics Canada report that provides a descriptive analysis of the economic contribution of the culture sector to the Canadian economy. Culture sector output and employment levels are measured for each province, for the years 1996 to 2003.

The results of the study demonstrate that, on average, the culture sector accounted for 3.8% of national output and 4% of national employment, over the period under investigation. Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia were among the largest contributors to the culture sector in Canada, accounting for more than three quarters of total output and employment.

Read the report online by clicking here.

Canadian report on Mental Health and the Arts

2007-05-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

No joke, this is hot stuff. Everyone's after the not-so-elusive connection between mental health and dance, and it's top of the charts for today's research.

In September 2006, the National Arts Centre held the second in its series of three roundtables on healing and the arts. The roundtable addressed the interconnections between the arts and mental health. A report, The Roundtable on Mental Health and the Arts, provides an overview of the day’s dialogue, including information on some of the current research being undertaken in Canada in this field.

Check out the report - click here to download your copy.

New online network for emerging arts professionals

2007-05-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

Mentor of the Month?! Great idea!

The Emerging Arts Professional Network is a new online community network, podcast, blog magazine, discussion forum (coming soon) and career resource for Canadian arts professionals.

The blog-magazine will be dedicated to articles written by arts professionals across the country. Each month will feature a new Mentor of the Month and the discussion forum is on it's way to provide another outlet to share ideas and communicate. Visit the EAP at http://www.eapnetwork.ca/blog/archives/welcome/

EAP is looking for writers with all levels of experience and insight, is seeking more article submissions for a monthly blog magazine and also seeking emerging arts professionals from across Canada to interview seasoned arts leaders. See www.eapnetwork.ca/pages/submit/ or contact Blair Francey editor@eapnetwork.ca for more details.
- R

City of Vancouver reviews funding approach for grants

2007-05-02T17:41:00.000-07:00

Is Vancouver is poised to be a world leader for arts and culture, or, just like everyone else will it keep plodding along at the usual speed? Which will it be? Don't get me wrong, I am for funding reviews. Who doesn't like time to reflect, review and respond to current opportunities? Thought the last - about responding - is the clincher. The Creative City Conversation that happened in Vancouver on April 23rd wasn't the response I was looking for when all the promo material focused on contributing my point of view as an arts worker living here. I spent the whole day listening to other people: people on stage, people who were facilitating, people who felt more entitled to interject... I barely got a word in edgewise. To my mind, a review should host many views, it should consult by listening with an ear open to multiple perspectives, it should take into account (and in order to take into account, it needs to encourage) others' innovative ideas in transforming the way things are now into *the way things could be*.

That's not even taking into consideration the fact that the Creative City Conversation was predominantly foolscap white... in this day and age, this makes me ask how the event was marketed and, because of this, who was excluded. We all missed out big time.

Okay, so the Creative City Conversation has nothing really to do with the funding review. The only thing is, it occurs around the same time, things are interlaced in time, and a pattern is being woven.

Here's the blurb from the Alliance for Arts and Culture - for the original click here.

"On April 3, Vancouver City Council unamiously supported a motion brought forward by Councillor Elizabeth Ball that will have city staff report back to council in three months with plans to develop a collaborative, comprehensive, streamlined and multi-year funding approach for grants that will include:

• Consultation with Corporate Services (Budgets/Finance) and Law to review the city’s legislative framework and budgetary process;
• Review of funding models and cycles utilized by other funding organizations, both public and private, in the non-profit sector;
• Consultation with community groups and other funders;
• Cost/benefit analysis;
• Development of funding guidelines;
• Potential alignment or augmentation of existing evaluation and monitoring mechanisms;
• Identifying any additional resource requirements to conduct the above noted work."
...
"At the April 17 Vancouver City Council meeting, Ference Weicker & Company were awarded the contract to provide consulting services for a comprehensive review of the city’s current arts and cultural grants and support programs administered through the Office of Cultural Affairs, at an estimated cost of $75,000 plus GST, with funding to be provided by the 2007 cultural budget."

Planning process underway for Cultural Tourism Strategy

2007-05-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

"On April 3, Vancouver City Council approved the planning process, outlined in the report Cultural Tourism Strategy – Planning Process (click here to read), for the development of a Cultural Tourism Strategy to be presented to city council in the fall of 2007 at a cost of $65,000. The approved process includes the creation of a temporary Cultural Planner I position at an estimated cost of $45,000 with the source of funds to be Cultural Tourism Strategy planning funds, budgeted in the 2007 contingency reserve. Council also approved an additional allocation of $300,000 per year for four years starting in 2008 in order to leverage support from other funders, agencies and organizations towards the implementation of the Cultural Tourism Strategy. The source of funds will be a $300,000 increase to the 2008 through 2011 operating budgets.

City staff were also directed to review and report back in the fall with potential funding implementation partners and in particular, potential funding support for the City’s 125th anniversary celebrations through the federal government’s Cultural Capitals of Canada program."

This was listed in Synergy, from the Alliance for Arts and Culture.

England cuts arts to pay for Olympics

2007-05-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Controvercy over Olympic wangling here in Vancouver is at the forefront of many dance artists' minds, as the 'cultural olympiad' dribbles by without much ado.

England has taken the bull by the horns:

"To pay for the 2012 Olympics, the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, is taking another £675m out of the national lottery fund. This comes on top of the £410m she already plans to withdraw. The losses will hit a raft of good causes: not just arts and heritage, which will give up at least £273m, but also community projects. Even local sports groups are losing out to the 2012 celebration of athletics." Read more on The Guardian website.

Artists in England are rallying around, creating petitions, fighting for their survival. Check out Dance UK for details.

These cuts also affect Humanities Research in England (often underpinning and reinforcing art processes and products) - for more on this, check out Shirley Dent on theblogbooks.

As my favourite fortune cookie aptly says: the future is uncertain.

- R

Relational aesthetics

2007-04-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've recently picked up a copy of Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics, which is a great read for thirsty minds. Proposing art is relational at its core (taking impetus from Althusser and Marx), Bourriaud spins a fresh scent around modernity, urbanization, and the role of art in current societal developments. He's writing as one of those revered thinkers in France, and as so often, his book was translated into English several years after it was originally published.

I'm interested in Bourriard's take on the legitimacy of art in a mechanicalized world. This is not new, and Walter Benjamin tumbles to mind as an early songbird in this regard (anyway, Bourriard says the 'new' does not factor as a criterion for art anymore - a cool relief.) Here's what he notices: If the world continues along the line of increased machinery, human interaction will be increasingly restricted. He sees contemporary art as aloe on the burn of mechanization and asserts contemporary art provides intersticial opportunities. Contemporary art is a buffer zone of time and space in which interaction (relational engagement) can take place, and interaction between humans and art (humans and humans; art and humans) becomes a form of special 'limited time only' chance, therefore still commodified but in a radically different way.

This goes to reinforce Bourriard's understanding of the relational in art - that contemporary art serves to look at things not only in a different way, but through a whole set of new categories, new forms of paradigm shifts that collide with earlier modernist understandings of art. He believes we are not out of modernity, but we are in a different form of modernity, a form developed through a pile-up of encounters that beg borrow and steal a renewed take on the world, one that takes into consideration the extreme urban and demographic changes we have undergone in the past century.
- R

The latest occupation

2007-04-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

It's been an occupied springtime, and I have been run off my feet with work: organizing pitch sessions, receptions, attending performing arts tradeshows, writing articles, fundraising.

My latest occupation is represented at madeinbc.org. No I have not changed jobs... I continue to develop the three-year pilot project Made in BC - Dance on Tour.

I've taken on the challenge of reinvigorating regional touring in the most westerly province of Canada. British Columbia is absolutely beautiful, and its geography is considerably challenging. The many mountain ranges cut off the north and south at the midriff of the province. The west of centre strip at the midline is nearly impenetrable and almost inhabitable wilderness. The 'regions' of the province are basically everything outside of greater Vancouver, which is our relatively mammoth city in the furthest southwest corner of the province.

In the 2006 census report, British Columbia is the most urban province in Canada - we have more people living in Vancouver than we do in the rest of the province... that's loosely 4.3 million in the province and 2.2 million in greater Vancouver. It makes sense that Vancouver is growing - the less the provincial economy is based on resources and industry, the more people are migrating to the city for alternative work. Too, as Vancouver's reputation for 'the best place on earth' spreads, the more populated it becomes.

Regional BC is filling up with moneyed retirees, and housing prices in 'beautiful British Columbia' are outpacing earners, especially young ones and growing families, so it becomes unaffordable in several ways. Here is a forecast for the next few years: schools will close, hospitals will be oversubscribed, second and third home ownership (which lacks resident taxation) will increase, golf courses will flourish, tourism will fluctuate, and young workers will be absent from the regions.

Remember, there are few roads crossecting the province, and the landscape and weather mean that road travel can be challenging (no, not impossible - don't be misled). Flights are costly, and nearly all are routed through Vancouver. Travel distances are long - arrive in Vancouver from Prince Rupert (close to the Alaskan border) in 2.5 hours by plane (plus you must take a bus and ferry to get the airport in PR) or drive it in 18hours. When I lived in Germany, the popular comparison was that Germany fits into B.C. two and a half times, yet the population of Germany is 82.4million now. We are a piddly population in comparison, but want and expect the same level of infrastructure and provision. No less, everyone deserves it. And yet, the demographic shift towards the one city is remarkable and has repercussions.

The regional and urban divide are strong here - we actually have a town called 'Hope' which marks the barrier for this divide. Both parties say that once you've crossed it, you're in the territory 'beyond hope.'

In the midst of this comes contemporary dance. Yes, contemporary dance. In the isolation of regional British Columbia (towns settled according to resource bases, not proximity), the presenters I work with are upping the level of dance in their communities. They are interested and committed to bring more BC contemporary dance to their audiences, and exposing their communities to new ideas through performing arts. Reciprocally, BC contemporary dance artists are reaching out to the regions with refreshed enthusiasm and developed understanding.

If you want to see how I'm working with presenters and dance artists to exchange ideas, bridge the urban/regional divide and stimulate awareness of contemporary dance in local communities, check out the work at www.madeinbc.org. There is plenty going on.

- R

The business and social case for sustainable communities in British Columbia through investment in arts and culture

2007-02-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

A brief to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services

"The creative economy is becoming increasingly important to the stability of communities. Success is not supported by one-off programs but rather by long-term commitment and investment in access, artistic vision, a unique expression of our multi-cultural society, revitalization of resource-based economies, good management, and integration with economic, educational and community goals. It is vital that at this juncture the government of British Columbia invest in core funding to sustain emerging artists, established arts organizations, vibrant Aboriginal communities, culturally diverse communities, museum and heritage sites, and its regional arts councils and presenters. By supporting the BC Arts Council the government will ensure that the arts and cultural sector can contribute to achieving the five goals stated in its strategic plan for the province.
The time to act is now. Arts and cultural organizations and individual artists are critical to the success of the 2010 Olympics and they must be stabilized immediately in order to take advantage of this opportunity. "

Arts Future BC is a coalition of citizens and organizations from across BC. We represent thousands of British Columbians from every walk of life and every corner of the province. We share the goal of creating sustainable communities across the province through significant long-term investment in the arts and culture of the province. We represent 903 organizations from across the province: 423 museums; 96 Community and Regional Arts Councils and community arts organizations; 123 community presenters; 183 professional arts organisations; 27 educational institutions; and 51 arts service organizations. We also represent thousands of individual artists and their students and audiences across British Columbia.

More...

The Cultural Tribes of Public Relations

2007-02-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

This is what I'm reading right now:

The Cultural Tribes of Public Relations by Greg Leichty, Department of Communication, University of Louisville

click here to download the pdf

I believe there are links to be made between cultural contexts of public relations and the reception of cultural products and processes by the public. I'm reading it with 'relational aesthetics' in mind, and I am interested in the connections between the posited foundational beliefs (for example, beliefs about 'nature') and the contextual positions listed (fatalism, egalitarianism, hierarchy, autonomous individualism and competitive individualism). What if we take art, or dance, as a foundational belief, and relate the contextual positions listed... what if we are able to articulate and validate a spectrum of perspectives for dance? What will this say about how we relate to our performers, to our audiences?

These are my questions.

- R

All around the city, street artists are stopping people in their tracks ... and thoughts.

2007-01-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

There is work going on in London town.

Guerilla artists are on the warpath of delivering art to audiences, and causing twitters with their work.

Brendan O'Neill, correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, writes in his article on January 9, 2007:

If all the world's a stage, then all of London is an art gallery. It feels like the world capital of guerrilla art. Spray paintings with a message, hastily made paintings, and elaborate pieces of graffiti are popping up on the sides of buildings, bus-stops, and sidewalks across the city... guerrilla art seems to be going increasingly mainstream - crossing from street to gallery, and is making big bucks. So some ask: How democratic is this "democratic art"?

To read the full article "Backstory: A London scene set by guerilla art" click here.

-R

Margaret Atwood and Bill Moyers on myth, faith and reason

2007-01-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

Check out this video (UTube) in which Bill Moyers is interviewing Margaret Atwood on myths, mythmaking, faith and reason.

An excellent approach to not knowing, and the ongoing questioning of what we believe we know.
http://www.artsjournal.com/video.shtml

- R

Trends in dance criticism - four NY women writers

2006-12-27T20:49:00.000-08:00

"Four American women, Marcia Siegel, Deborah Jowitt, Arlene Croce and Nancy Goldner, are writers who became dance critics partly by accident and partly by design and who came of age as dance critics during the ‘heyday of formalism’ in New York.(1) The ‘heyday’, from 1965 to 1985, gathered momentum as a ‘golden age’ of choreography (as Croce coined it). In responding to the age, these critics were informed by a mission to publish ‘serious’ writing about dance and to consciously generate and promote a distinct development in the discipline of dance criticism through the profile of their work and teachings. Although they have rarely shared dialogue, exchanged views in public forums, or aligned themselves in any formal way (2), I nevertheless proceed cautiously but confidently with the notion that this pas de quatre of women writers form the core of a New York School of dance criticism..."

Article by Diana Theodores, first published in: Dance Theatre Journal, December 1995

Read more...

'Remarkable return' shows in social, artistic and economic impact

2006-12-18T17:02:00.000-08:00

edmontonjournal.com

Published: Thursday, December 07, 2006

The economic impact of the arts and culture sector has grown considerably in the last six years, according to a study commissioned by the Edmonton Arts Council and Edmonton Economic Development Corp.

Between 1999 and 2005, the economic impact grew from $82.5 million to $123.7 million.

“This remarkable return on the City of Edmonton’s investment shows in social, artistic and economic indicators,” says Allan Scott, president and CEO of Edmonton Economic Development Corp. “This investment is helping to build on the outstanding quality of life this region offers.”

In the same six-year period, the number of active arts and festival organizations grew to 126 from 101. Patrons attending arts events grew from 2.7 million to 3.9 million.

“The study shows not only the very positive return on investment realized in this sector but also an impressive growth in that return,” says John Mahon, executive director of the Edmonton Arts Council.

To see the original, click here.

Talking about "home"

2006-12-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

Dr Alessandra Lopez y Royo of Roehampton University presents a discussion at IKJ (23 February) and Yogyakarta (7 March) on Dance and Cultural Diversity in the UK.

... The discussion of ethnicity and cultural identity has grown in terms of the number of interventions over the past two decades, embracing several political shifts and positionalities. It is worth reiterating here that definitions of “ethnicity,” “race” and “culture” do not reflect absolutes, are not universal and unchanging conceptual realities, “on the contrary, they represent specific, historically contingent ways of looking at the world, which intersect with broader social and political relations” ( Jones, 40). Typically, historical, sociological and anthropological discourses have defined and redefined “culture” accordingly and continue to do so. Dance and the performative are inscribed in this political discourse, playing a role in articulating perceptions, including self-perceptions, of cultural identity. Changing definitions of “home” affect the content and even the form of dance and influence the organisation of dance and its points of reference, with changes determined by new challenges in a new and constantly self redefining social context and new audience’s expectations. Those changes are engendered through a process of negotiation.

The debate on classicism and contemporaneity is central to British dance discourses but significations of these terms are contextually derived so that the terms resonate in different ways when used by policy makers and funders and by the artists engaging reflexively with their practice. As a result, in the British context, the issue of contemporaneity in non-European dance praxes becomes indistinguishable from that of attitudes to modernity and postmodernity in dance and the search for a dance language which can articulate the specificity of being a migrant in today’s Britain.

Being a migrant is a condition characterized by changing definitions of home and origin. There are several “places of origin,” many “homes” and “homes-in-between” resulting in multiple and fluid identities and ethnicities, intersecting with racial, gender and class realities. The concept of diaspora, which is increasingly being used to describe the migration of large groups and communities, such as the South Asian and the Chinese, is in itself problematic; it is important to be aware that diasporic is not simply another word for “being away from home” but, as Brah suggests, “the concept of diaspora signals processes of multi-locationality across geographical, cultural and psychic boundaries” (Brah 194) and can be better understood in terms of “diaspora space,” which goes beyond the idea of “borders,” presupposed by the idea of diaspora (Brah 208).

Read more...

New structure at the Arts Council of England

2006-12-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

The Arts Council England national office now has two new departments. Arts Strategy provides national leadership in the arts, combining art form specialism with expertise in areas such as broadcasting, education, diversity and research. Arts Planning and Investment leads in terms of Arts Council’s relationship with central government as well as heading up their corporate planning and strategies for investment.

There have been a number of permanent appointments in these departments and where this is not the case an interim has been made. These are listed below.

Arts Council England national office also hopes to appoint Executive Directors – in Arts Strategy and Arts Planning and Investment – in early December 2006. Announcements will be made as new people are appointed over the next couple of months.

Arts Strategy

Interim Executive Director- Michael Eakin (Executive Director Arts Council England, North West)

Arts Planning and Investment

Interim Executive Director- Pauline Tambling

-R

Dance Touring consultancy results, Australia (2003)

2006-12-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

The federal Department of Information Technology, Communications and the Arts (DCITA) wrote to the dance community in June 2003:

I am writing to bring you up to date on the results of the initial research conducted as part of the Dance Touring Facilitator Coordinator Consultancy.

In September 2001, following the cessation of Made to Move and on the advice of the Playing Australia committee, the then Minister for the Arts and the Centenary of Federation, the Hon Peter McGauran MP, approved an allocation of $65,000 (from Playing Australia grant funds), for a consultancy to survey issues relating to contemporary dance touring.

The aim of this consultancy was to refocus support for contemporary dance by providing an advisory service to encourage and advocate for dance touring to performing arts presenters and producers. This included:

examining audience demand;
exploring ways to encourage more applications from the sector;
gathering information from contemporary dance producers and presenters, and encouraging greater communication between the two;
providing assistance in the development of applications submitted to
Playing Australia; and
exploring alternative funding sources.

The consultancy was awarded to the Canberra Theatre Centre (Cultural Facilities Corporation of the Australian Capital Territory). Ausdance National and the Australian Choreographic Centre were partners (nominated sub-contractors). Formally titled the ‘Dance Touring Facilitator and Coordinator’, this consultancy was given the working title of ‘Greater Exposure’ by the consultancy partners, and commenced in June 2002.

The consultants produced an excellent first progress report, which was delivered to the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts in late 2002. This report contained the results of extensive consultation and discussion with those involved in the contemporary dance sector, including producers, presenters and representative bodies. As an adjunct to the report, the consultants also developed two information kits. The Information Kit for Presenters contains information and contact details for all contemporary dance companies who participated in the consultations, as well as contacts in the State and Territory touring agencies and in other dance-related organisations. The Information Kit for Producers includes a comprehensive list of touring and funding organisations, and provides ‘step-by-step’ advice on developing a tour.

The Greater Exposure consultants found in their initial survey of venues and presenters around the country, that there was a very low level of demand for contemporary dance productions. In particular, regional venues were less able to take the box-office risk.
The consultants considered that in view of this finding and given the key objective of Playing Australia to respond to audience demand, it might not be possible to achieve the objectives of the project. It appeared unlikely that continuation of the consultancy would change the outcomes already found or affect the broader issues confronting the sector.

The report was discussed by Playing Australia committee members at their grant round meeting in April 2003. In considering the advice contained in the consultants’ report the Committee noted that marketing of productions and audience development are significant impediments in arranging viable tours. While Playing Australia support may indirectly assist in building audiences, the program’s capacity to do this is limited. Viewing this in a broader context, the Committee decided to await the outcome of the review of the dance sector before looking at options for further specific support for contemporary dance. The Dance Board of the Australia Council is currently considering this review.

The Committee remains strongly committed to supporting the contemporary dance sector. While the decision not to proceed further with this consultancy will cause some disappointment, the ‘Greater Exposure Report’ brings together a great deal of information from producers and presenters, and as such will provide a useful reference point for considering ways in which Playing Australia can best assist contemporary dance...

Rhonda Thorpe, Manager
Regional Policy and Programs

http://www.ausdance.org.au/outside/nat/news/dec2003.html

Greater exposure for dance touring in Australia (2002)

2006-12-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

Greater exposure for dance touring
www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_4-2_4008-4_110346,00.html

The Federal Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, today announced the appointment of a consultant to facilitate the touring of dance across Australia.

The Cultural Facilities Corporation of the ACT, in partnership with Ausdance National and the Australian Choreographic Centre, has been awarded the consultancy.

This partnership, with extensive experience in performing arts touring and the dance sector, will facilitate greater opportunity for both presenters and producers of dance in the way they participate in the Playing Australia program.

As part of the consultancy, Ms Carla Hartog, Programming Manager at the Canberra Theatre Centre and former national touring coordinator for the Australian Presenters Group, will manage the Dance Touring Facilitator Consultancy. She will act as an advocate for dance touring to presenters and producers of the performing arts and provide assistance in preparing and developing proposals for Playing Australia grants, particularly exploring new and innovative touring models.

This position has the potential to create stronger links between presenters and producers, more efficient touring circuits and improved audience development initiatives.

It also signifies the Commonwealth Government's continuing commitment to the touring of dance through Playing Australia.

It is hoped that the dance touring industry will work closely with the consultancy partners to improve national opportunities for the touring of dance.

The partnership will be funded $65,000 for one year initially though Playing Australia-the Commonwealth Government's national performing arts touring program.

The Playing Australia program provides grants to companies, producers and tour organisers to tour performing arts across Australia.

Media contact: Richard Wise, 02 6277 7350 or 0438 204 554

186/02
1 August 2002

Never heard of dance: The decline and near-disappearance of dance in America.

2006-11-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

Ballet? Never Heard of It.
The decline and near-disappearance of dance in America.

BY TERRY TEACHOUT
Saturday, November 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page Opinion Journal.

According to the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, conducted every 10 years by the National Endowment for the Arts, the percentage of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 who attended one or more ballet performances a year fell from 5.0% in 1992 to 3.1% in 2002. That's a huge drop in a small number, and everybody in the business offers a different reason for why it shrank so fast:

• Not only has dance vanished from American TV, but newspapers and magazines have cut back on dance-related news stories and reviews.

• The quality of new choreography has fallen off significantly.

• Swan Lake"-style classical ballet, with its tutus and Tchaikovsky, is "irrelevant" to today's young people...

...now that the mass media have largely stopped paying attention to high culture, the art-loving public is increasingly unaware of the existence of [new] masterpieces.

...That's why the dance boom went bust. No classics, no stars, only a handful of long-lived institutions . . . so why take a chance on dance? And therein lies the challenge of reviving dance in America: Anyone who seeks to launch a new company, or revitalize an old one, must start by figuring out how to make large numbers of Americans want to see something about which they no longer know anything...

Mapping interpretation practices in contemporary art , Questions!

2006-11-16T23:54:00.000-08:00

Scottish Arts Council commissioned a report from consultants 'engage Scotland', which was written by Dr Heather Lynch and called Mapping Interpretation Practices in Contemporary Art (published in May 2006).

The aim of this study was to map current interpretation practices of contemporary art in relation to intellectual access.

Interesting premise to start off with. Isn't this what dance artists keep referring to when confused about the lack of general public interest in contemporary dance? Partly we refer to their emotional, instinctive, intuitive, kinaesthetic interest, but what serious dance artists seem to desire is their intellectual interest.

So how did they go about researching intellectual access (to contemporary arts in general and specifically)? They devised main research questions, in consultation with the Scottish Arts Council and representatives from engage.

These were as follows:
• What is the nature of interpretation practices across a range of venues?
• What are the perceived values of the range of practices employed?
• How is intellectual access considered by venues that exhibit contemporary art?

What I want to point out is the nature of the questions they chose to ask. These are open-ended questions, true research questions seeking a result that is not preformulated, or inherently hypothesized within the phrasing. Okay, they could be clearer, and yes, they are somewhat convoluted (who is really going to use this information? what will it actually inform in the end?). However, these questions and the report's answers are precisely of benefit to me and to other dance professionals in Canada. We need broad strokes, an enlarged understanding of the emerging context for dance. We must ensure we relate this information to our own context, and our own sets of knowledge and expertise, and thereafter it offers significant insight into how we can creatively work to solve our challenges of audience development in our nation, in both urban and rural Canada.

- R

Mobilise and socialise at dance gigs - new motivation research

2006-11-08T11:06:00.000-08:00

Social time - Food - Drink - **Show** - Drink - Food - Social time

If we want to increase audiences, we have to feed audiences' motivations for attending, and maybe this involves actually feeding them.

Research from the Urban Institute (USA) offers new insight into different motivations for attending cultural art forms. In "Motivations Matter", the key motivators for dance are time to socialize and to engage the emotions. We could do so much more to add value to audiences' experience, solely by increasing opportunities to socialize with one another and engage emotionally with dance art.

Here's one small example. Having an intermission with a concession goes a long way to providing added value - suddenly there is an opportunity to socialize before, during and after the performance, and a distraction (food and beverages) to help lubricate social engagement and artistic (and perhaps emotional) engagement.

Backing up this idea, here is a post by poet and longtime dance critic Eva Yaa Asantewaa to open up Foot in Mouth's question, If nearly everybody likes to move and watch others move, why are dance audiences so small?

" Are you old enough to remember the days when we would fortify ourselves first and then head off to a dance concert, or perhaps see dance and then replenish ourselves afterwards? Now many dance venues provide refreshments, encouraging audience members to belly up to the bar or chow down to their hearts' content--or ultimate discontent.

...At poet Carl Hancock Rux's recent BAM Next Wave multidisciplinary show, "Mycenaean," I watched a large group of college kids get tickets and then, en masse, head straight to the café counter where popcorn is a major draw. These youngsters had gone from my neighborhood in the East Village--a.k.a. NYU's Food Court, and Theme Park to the World--to another borough where they could exercise their inalienable right to consume." More...

Okay, so inalienable rights to consume is not so great, but the idea of inticing new audiences is great. And as they say, if you want something you don't have, you have to try something you haven't done.

Food is novelty, an available distracting focus, a topic of conversation (especially useful an entrypoint, sort of like the weather). Too, food is calming, reassuring, grounding, and may make them more receptive to what they are about to see. Selling food at dance performance may well be a major draw to bring in new audiences, especially younger ones, families and colleague groups.

- R

Talking about us talking about dance

2006-11-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

Apollinaire Scherr's fantastic dance blog "Foot in Mouth" is well worth checking out.
I mentioned her in the last post, but want to raise another point she makes regarding topics for dance writing, and the relationship of these topics to dance talking.

What we write matters, and we need to be mindful of how dance is presented in the media. "What's the story? Same as it ever was" (halfway down the page) is an exposition of the shift in topics in dance writing. I would argue that this has a gigantic impact on how dance is perceived, received and how we as dance artists are not only identified but also our ideas of our own identities.

Here it is:

"What's the story? Same as it ever was

I'm not sure when it started, but the center of gravity for dance writing has now shifted from reviews to features, profiles, and trend pieces.

Flacks love the previews -- advocate for them, are hired to make them happen -- because in the short term they get people into the seats. But they do little in the long term, as they don't adequately prepare a person for what she's going to see.

They tell you about the inspiration for the dance, but not what the dance might inspire. They tell you about the occasion of its making, but not the occasion the dance itself invents. The terms that a preview establishes for the dance can only be approximate, whereas a review -- if it's given enough room and knows what it's doing -- can be precise.

Issues and personality drive features and profiles, while structure and impersonality -- or at least the distillation of the personal -- drive dances. As Croce notes, dancer Sara Rudner is great not because she looks sexy or because she has terrific sex after hours, but because onstage she transmutes disco exhibitionism into lyrical wit. We're not watching Rudner so much as the character of her dancing.

If you ask of dance the classic, cigar-chomping newspaperman question, "What's the story?" the answer will always be, "The dances." Forget the back story -- the drama is in the dances.

Because we have not been writing about these dances particularly well, more and more we're being asked to skip the story. We need to find our way back, with our editors -- and their editors -- in tow. "

That's it. For now.

- R

"How NOT to Write, So Dance Will Matter" or, More context please!

2006-11-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

In her article "How NOT to Write, So Dance will Matter", Apollinaire Scherr turns the tail on dance, saying we're culpable for the lack of audience for dance.

Audiences are smart. Dance attenders are saavy. They don't lack knowledge, ability or interest in appreciating dance performance, they lack context.

We're not supplying enough context.

We need to supply more context.

Here's some of her discussion (find these excerpts and the rest of the article here) :

"We've let movement description dominate our reviews for too long. You know, "Miriam Morningflower lifts her leg, whirls, climbs on her partner's back." We show and show and show, when we ought to mainly tell.

Or if a dance reviewer is particularly short on space -- as in the New York Times -- she summarizes each work on the program, then adds opinion for spice: a salty laundry-list review. On the rare occasion that she is granted more space, what does she do? Add more movement description! (If the Times upped the typical wordage to 500, from 350, she'd eventually figure out what to do. Right now, she's caught in a vicious circle: editors aren't generous because writers don't use the extra space well, and writers don't use it well because they haven't had the practice.)

The usual defense is that description is a form of contextualizing. Yes, but an insider's form. If someone already knows about dance, then she knows what it means that a dancer moves in one way rather than another. For everybody else, explication is in order.

...

Description-heavy reviews came to prominence in the '60s among downtown critics of the avant-garde. The reviews resembled the dances themselves: factual, investigative, and not very interesting if you weren't already clued in to the thinking behind them.

Most reviews still resemble those dances, except now there's that sprinkling of snark. What they lack is argument, which is how a civilian figures out what's at stake.

...

The preeminent 20th century dance critic Arlene Croce -- at the New Yorker for more than two decades and somehow mainly remembered for her essay on Bill T. Jones and what she dubbed "victim art" -- never buried dances in an impressionistic haze, and she was parsimonious in her descriptions of passages of movement. But she always made a powerful case for why the dance mattered or didn't -- to all of us, not just readers in the know. And she never presumed that if you didn't know about dance, you didn't know about a whole lot of other things.

...

People won't discover dance until critics express more curiosity and insight about the culture it's wedded to. Since dance isn't sealing itself off from the world, why are we?

When a dance does live in a crypt, though, critics should take note."

I hear people in the dance milieu ask all the time - how can we build audiences for dance? It would be a good start to ask audience them what they lack in dance performance. If it's context, give them context. Experiment (which is what we do in art all the time anyway) and try something new. Maybe audiences will respond to your fresh approach, and maybe you will end up getting what you want.

- R

Creation-Based Collaborations

2006-10-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

There's a nifty program happening at the Canada Council for the Arts called Creation-Based Collaborations for dance. It's been heralded as one of the most successful funding projects around the international scene... see the Arts Research Monitor's paper Successful Dance Policies and Programs (Sept 2003) for more information.

"The objective of the program is to further vitalize the art form of dance by building strong relationships within the local, national and international dance milieux."

Presenters apply, but everyone benefits. Dance artists can create new work or remount work in new communities. The common goal is to enhance opportunities for artists and develop innovative ways of increasing public appreciation for Canadian dance.

Sound great? Click here for more details.

- R

BC dance advocacy

2006-10-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

Here is some targeted reading for BC dance advocacy:

1) Arts Future BC is a brief written by the Alliance for Arts and Culture for the provincial finance committee, intended to ensure that an increased investment in the BC Arts Council is part of the 2007 provincial budget.

2) To the Canada Council for the Arts, is a document presented jointly by the Canadian Dance Assembly (CDA) and the Regroupement québécois de la danse (RQD), 2006. The source of this info is the advocacy section of the CDA website .

3) Here is Max Wyman's BC Arts Summit Report.

4) The BC Arts Council's Annual Report for 2005-06.
Plus, for keeners, here are their service plans:
BC Arts Council 2006/07 - 2008/09 Service Plan
BC Arts Council 2004/2005-2006/2007 Service Plan

5) Another good source of BC information, aside from the Dance Centre and the BC Touring Council, is the Assembly of BC Arts Councils.

Other

The UK's recent Dance Manifesto - Here is their 2006 Dance Manifesto aimed at the UK government to promote dance.

- R

When Push comes To Pull: The New Economy and Culture of Networking Technology

2006-10-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

A new trend has been resounding across sectors: push is coming to pull, rather than to shove.

David Bollier's article When Push comes To Pull: The New Economy and Culture of Networking Technology explores this change.

We are living in an epochal period of transition bridging two very different types of economies and cultures; we're transitioning from a "push" economy to a "pull economy".

A “push economy” is based on anticipating consumer demand and then making sure that needed resources are brought together at the right place, at the right time, for the right people. A "pull economy" uses more open and flexible methods of production that use coordinated networks of technologies to produce customized products and services that serve localized (demand-driven) needs on call.

The days of puahing a dance work are departing. Welcome the age of mixing the push with the pull; imbedding versatility into the framework of dance to allow for flexibility, tailored value-added experience, and coordinating communication and interaction with artistic integrity. I believe we need to continue to produce artistic work, while equally aligning ourselves with our markets. We must cultivate more demand for dance, build a market appetite, and become renowned for addressing localized interests with our extraordinary art. Not one or the other, but both.

To read the full article (78 pages), click here.

To read the summary, and the first source of my information, click here and go to 2006/10/13.

- R

What I'm reading: "Blink"

2006-10-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

"Blink: The power of thinking without thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell

If you read this book too slowly, it defies the message. The first few seconds of exposure are decision-makers - this is the premise of the book. Blink focuses on snap decisions.

My interest lies in the connection to dance and dance audiences (but is relevent to other live performing arts also). In a period of time compression [for more information, check out David Harvey's thoughts on time-space compression and conditions of modernity], if our attention span has decreased to the point of blinking, what value do we derive from sitting silently in a dark auditorium attending to a performance lasting an hour or more? Is this a renewal of 'slow'?

In developing our audiences, we can promote the virtue of having time, feeling present, being 'forced' by chosen circumstance to reflect and reevaluate. Live performance offers us the rare occasion to give our snap decisions second (third, fourth...) chances. Dance is both about blink, and about anti-blink.

-R

What I'm reading: "Pas de deux..."

2006-10-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

"Pas de deux: The intricate relationship between business and the arts" a special collection of articles from Business Quarterly.

Topics here range from managing the performing arts, the interface of business and arts, reaching elusive audiences, and towards more professionalism in the arts. It's a gentle academic read with golden nuggets of information, like the "Young at Art" program that was originally devised by Lyman Henderson (then chairman of Davis & Henderson and president of the National Ballet of Canada) who sought to encourage younger, with-it executives to become familar with arts groups and groom them for a future of being on arts groups boards.
This is a tight publication, and a quick read.

-R

What I'm reading: "Don't just applaud - Send money!"

2006-10-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

"Don't just applaud - Send money! The most successful strategies for funding and marketing the arts" by Alvin H Reiss

This is a snappy read, chockablock full of great ideas. From tongue-in-cheek ads to handwritten fund appeals, to targeted marketing to specialized groups, this book has chops. In eleven thematic chapters, it offers 1-2 page vignettes telling organizations' stories, from challenge to plan and then the result. Inspiring.

-R

On Interaction in Contemporary Art (1999)

2006-10-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

On Interaction in Contemporary Art:

"One of the consequences of the rise of Internet is the possibility to engage in public debates on a wide range of subjects, in open but often structured forums that offer you various protocols for speaking your mind. Far from neutralizing the expression of opinions, the reign of the virtual seems to sharpen the appetite for polemical exchange, which inevitably spills over into physical places: lectures, round tables, philosophical coffee houses, associations, seminars, political formations. The effect is to shake up the consensus of our somnolent societies – to the point where the mass media, and television first of all, begin to worry about losing shares of what had been a captive market. The media then start to simulate an interaction which their conditions of production and distribution do not really allow, and a complex joust emerges between "traditional" channels of distribution and independent actors on the margins, who seek to develop new architectures of debate. The art world, itself divided between well-established distribution systems and particularly imaginative fringes, naturally becomes one of the testing grounds for this larger confrontation, pitting a kind of direct democracy with a more-or-less anarchist spin against every force that would seek to channel the expressions, to restore the audience ratings and the hierarchies....

...Speaking out, the political prise de parole, or what Michel de Certeau called "the constitutive principle of society," is no longer prohibited in any of the contemporary media. But it can be neutralized by fragmentation and blurring. That's exactly what the media have excelled at since the 1980s. Investigating the process, reflecting it, displaying it from every angle, has paradoxically become one of the favorite means for professional artists to maintain their positions in the institutional market. And so one is scarcely surprised, in an exhibition that claims to deal with debate and judgment, when the results are finally described by their authors as "a decor for a televised scene" in which the actor Robert De Niro will be invited to appear and "explain everything"! Is it the ultimate irony, or just an involuntary mimesis of the dominant media? Whatever your answer, the artists have clearly left all the hierarchies in place, like worthy inheritors of the feigned struggles between pop and advertising. The desire for a real debate is channeled into aesthetic forms, and resolves into its opposite..."

Read the rest of this online article by Brian Holmes click here.

Also check out the fantastically rich host site Universite Tangente, with postings of "years of subversive studies that crisscross and contradict each other". Delightful, smart, sassy!

A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts

2006-10-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts has to be the most comprehensive report I've read about audience participation.

Before you rush to it and have a heart attack, I want to tell you it's 118 pages long... but every page is well organized, well structured, and full of thoughtful and insightful discussion. It's not a difficult read, regardless of the fact it will contribute to your fitness regime by lugging it around.

This research paper comes out of the USA. We could really benefit in Canada from conducting our research similarly, to the benefit of our knowlege and critical development.

As it says in the conclusion of this paper,
"Information is essential to the alignment of goals, target populations, and tactics, and it must flow both from potential and current participants to arts organizations and from arts organizations to potential and current participants. Arts organizations cannot properly align their goals with their target populations and tactics if they do not have accurate information about those populations."

We must collect and analyze accurate information about our situation, because the longer we go without it, the longer we stay in the past. How can we be satisfied with basing our significant decisions and vital advocacy on outdated information?! No other sector would make do with this, and nor should we.

We must conduct research into our situation, and yet until this happens must keep reading, learning, and being responsive to our changing contexts.

- R

Reggae to Rachmaninoff

2006-10-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

This paper, Reggae to Rachmaninoff: How and Why People Participate in Arts and Culture, offers whole new perspective on strategies for increasing arts involvement.

It offers new information about who participates, how often, where, and what motivates them; it illuminates the complexity of cultural participation and suggests varied, targeted methods of reaching new audiences.

One of the more worthwhile reference documents in my audience development library.

- R

Choreographing architecture - dance in the world

2006-10-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

JFK Airport is building a new terminal, and is applying dancerly knowledge to the task.

Honouring the experience of choreographers who organize human spatial environments with intelligence and grace, David Rockwell (architect and set designer) hired choreographer Jerry Mitchell to help plan and orchestrate human movement in an airport setting.

This apparently led the architects to eliminate crisscrossing and straight edges in favor of a merry-go-round approach since “people move easiest in circles,” and to recognize the “different emotional experiences” of arrival and departure and treat them accordingly.

Particularly interesting about this project is the broad human response to the personalisation of spaces (designing spaces/places that are concurrently useful to both individuals and crowds - think about it... it's not all that simple) and the personification of spaces (for example, in contrast to the welcoming embrace of Grand Central Station, Penn Station seems to sneer and say, "Get lost!", or so attributes this New York Times article At the New JetBlue Terminal, Passengers may Pirouette to Gate 3). This article also reveals that directors of JetBlue wanted the terminal to 'feel sexy', which somehow translated into making movement feel sexy (or at least not random and leadfooted), and this in turn translated into one possible definition of dance. A sexy building, a sexy embodiment, a dance. Not the same thing!?

A slideshow of initial ideas/research and resulting plans can be found here. Overall it's alright (rather plodding), but the best thing about it is seeing Mitchell's scribbled notes on landmark NY photographs. These are revealing, interesting and controversial.

To read more about this project, and to see my original source of information, click here.

- R

Bright Stars!

2006-10-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

How about this: rural Minnesota is coping with economic challenges and a declining population by reinventing themselves... not with industry but with art!

I find this publication Bright Stars: Charting the Impact of the Arts in Rural Minnesota (www.mcknight.org/brightstars) extremely inspiring.

This report shows how even the smallest of communities can reinvent themselves through art. The arts act as communication, economic drivers, and significant (they even call them vital) links to other small communities, their State, the nation and the rest of the world.

This is a perfect pick-me-up when things are looking dour. A solid alternative to chicken soup for the sickened art soul.

Read it by clicking here.

For newcomers to this site

2006-10-11T17:12:00.000-07:00

In case you are tuning in now, this site is offering postings of interest (to me, and I hope to others) about international dance research including perceived changes happening in dance studies, funding, audience development, and fluctuating trends in research.

I'm on the lookout for currents of new activity, currencies of discourse, savvy and sassy (yet also implementable) ideas, and other brainwaves that others are exploring around the world. These ideas stimulate me, and I hope others, to experiment freely and learn deeply.

- R

Slow Dancer: Moving In The Material World

2006-10-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

This article, published in Animated is an adaptation of a paper by writer, researcher and consultant François Matarasso given as the keynote speech at the Country Dancing? symposium, held in the UK in May 2005.

Here is a teaser...

"Whatever else it may express, dance values health and life in the present, celebrating the human animal’s being and worth. Although, in some forms, dance has become tyrannical in its pursuit of certain ideals of physical beauty, one of the most heartening aspects of its recent evolution has been the recognition that people with all kinds of physiques and of all ages can be marvellous dancers. As Fergus Early has written, ‘We who are working with dance and older people are challenging the 'general misunderstanding […] that ageing is about the failure and disintegration of the body.’ The acceptance of wheelchair users, blind people or elders in contemporary dance has enormously enriched its language. However abstract or complex the ideas in a dance performance become, they cannot escape – indeed cannot want to escape – the physical reality of the performer and their humanity. Because the body is the medium of dance, it is also necessarily its subject. And what a subject: there is nothing it does not touch, from ethical questions of how the body is used and by whom, to philosophical speculations about the nature of existence. Understanding of the body is now being interrogated in new ways as a result of medical and genetic advances; dance will help define what it is in future and, more importantly, champion its integrity in the face of attack, whether from natural causes of nutrition, disease and age, or from human ones like war, terror and torture. It can do that because dance is an art that, in the end, always comes down to what someone can communicate through gesture, expression and movement: and that is the most fundamental human interaction."

To continue reading the entire article click here.

- R

Community Dance Resources from the UK

2006-10-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

The UK has a fantastic organisation called The Foundation for Community Dance.
Under the banner of 'Making Dance Matter', they promote a broad spectrum of dance practices and offer useful resources.

Check out their online resources by linking here.

Their homepage is www.communitydance.org.uk

One of the best things about The Foundation for Community Dance is their magazine called Animated. To read some articles, click here.

-R

Getting the most out of dance by blogging

2006-10-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

I'm posting here an interesting paper entitled "Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet" by Doug Fox.

Why do I like this paper? It makes sense.

This paper (yes it's 24 pages, and they are a quick read) focuses on the value and importance of blogs as an invaluable tool for helping dance companies:
- Increase the size of dance audiences
- Generate more donations and sponsorship revenue
- Get more coverage in the press and other media outlets
- Create more knowledgeable audiences, and
- Inspire greater interest in and enthusiasm for all forms of dance

It offers "a plan for how dance companies can create and promote Internet marketing campaigns that increase audience sizes, generate more revenue, get more press coverage, create more knowledgeable audiences, and inspire greater enthusiasm for all forms of dance."

Who can't appreciate that?

Fox shares some smart thinking, and we will all be better off for it, if we read and consider and implement.

Statistics Canada: Consumer Demand for Entertainment Services Outside the Home

2006-10-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

This is a recently published document from Statistics Canada, analysing the statistical change in Canadians' consumption of entertainment from 1998 to 2003. Link to the document here.

We (as Canadian dance workers) need to increasingly justify our public worth and cultural value to hostile government cuts to the arts. Use this information as fodder!

They report an increase in demand for entertainment outside the home; in this article discusses attendance at movie theatres, performing arts and spectator sports events and admissions to heritage institutions.

Did you know the average household's spending on entertainment services outside the home rose by nearly one-third in nominal terms from 1998 to 2003, a period in which the all-items consumer price index rose by only 13%?

Knowing consumer characteristics such as income, type of household and geographical location can affect entertainment spending will help us to create thoughtful, rational and articulate counterarguments to the ones presented by the current conservative government.

- R

Dance in Canada - Then and Now

2006-09-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

Dance in Canada - Then and Now

Massive country. Massive subject.
Where to start.

The Canada Council has started, and they've a nourishing but not very succulant read about it on their website. Check it out for historical comparisons (with advocacy appeal) here for the facts, and here for the numbers.

Something is brewing; there are changes going on that we need to be paying attention to. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for patterns, these will emerge sooner or later.

- R

New Zealand strategy for contemporary dance at the turn of the century

2006-09-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to the document Moving to the Future: Creative New Zealand’s strategy for professional contemporary dance 2001-2003 (http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/resources/dance_strategy.pdf)

This document is outdated but still very interesting and a really useful resource to see past (and ongoing) priorities of contemporary dance in NZ at the turn of the century.

There has since been a report created about the 2006-2009 'Statement of intent' of Creative New Zealand, but it's not solely for dance. To see this statement go to http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/resources/dance_strategy.pdf

For other good resources see www.creativenz.govt.nz

- R

Knowing your audience in New Zealand...

2006-09-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

Know your audience, me möhio ki tö whakaminenga: a survey of performing arts audiences, gallery visitors and readers (http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/resources/Audience.pdf)

Some of the findings in this report may challenge
your assumptions about arts audiences.
Other findings may reinforce what you know already
from anecdotal evidence. See what they've found out for themselves
in NZ.

How does this inform us as Canadians? Both in countless ways,
and not at all,
and everywhere in between.

What do we share with our Kiwi colleagues?
We won't find out until we start looking.

- R

A New Zealand approach to cultural diversity in dance

2006-09-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

Experiencing diversity: a response to "Seeing Dance Trends in New Zealand" by Karen Barbour

This article raises issues of cultural diversity in contemporary dance in a responsive way (written as a response to a previous article), and flags up assumptions and challenges of articulation and intention in dance.

It goes about its business in an amorphous way, and consequently stimulates questions and triggers contemplation.

Originally published in danz, 11 on 6 November 2000.

Here's the link: http://www.danz.org.nz/sidestep.php?article_id=60&type_id=4

- R

Recent New Zealand research: attitudes, attendance and participation in the arts

2006-09-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

Here's some interesting data collection and a solid analysis of New Zealand audiences' attitudes, attendance and participation in the arts. It's all the arts, not just dance and it doesn't really separate styles of dance. But it demonstrates what is possible in terms of research, and gives a thorough snapshot (approach with a smidgeon of incredulity and scepticism) of current New Zealand and their perception of arts.

Here's the link: New Zealanders and the arts: Attitudes, attendance and participation in 2005 (http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/resources/arts-survey-06.pdf)

This research was done by Creative New Zealand. If you want to see their Strategic Plan 2004-07, click on this link.

Happy reading.

- R

Great article on Cultural Diversity: Identity as a complex network

2006-09-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

This thoughtful article, "Between Temple and Forum: South Asian Dance and the refiguring of cultural identities", is a special edition of the keynote address from the Navadisha 2000 conference, written by Ranjit Sondhi. Ranjit Sondhi originally presented this article as a keynote paper at Navadisha, a conference organized by the British organization SAMPAD, in Birmingham, UK on February 25, 2000.

Find the article at http://www.danceadvance.org/03archives/sondhi/index.html

Ranjit Sondhi is Chairman of SAMPAD; a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, Westhill; and a Governor at the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC).

SAMPAD is a development agency for South Asian arts based in Birmingham, UK. It plays a significant role regionally, nationally and beyond, in promoting the appreciation and practice of the diverse artforms of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Navadisha 2000 ('New Directions') was a major international dance conference that took place from 24- 26 February 2000 in Birmingham and Coventry, UK. As South Asian dance in the UK continues to evolve and grow, and similarly around the world, Navadisha 2000 was envisioned as a celebration of the various South Asian dance idioms and a timely evaluation of the developments of the past 50 years.

The first conference of its type and scale to be held in the UK, Navadisha 2000 was designed to provide the opportunity to view, discuss, debate and reflect on the South Asian dance scene and programming opportunities, as well as to identify models of good practice that could be shared.

This article comes from the Dance Advance website www.danceadvance.org ... they have other great articles too... worth checking out.

- R

Scottish Audience Development Forum 2006

2006-09-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

The Scottish Arts Council is providing a forum to talk about audience development. See below for more information.

-R

Scottish Audience Development Forum 2006

The Forum 2006 will take place on Wednesday 8 November in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Seminars

The topics for this year’s seminars have been informed by your online votes:

E-Marketing & New Technologies
How do I know my Audience Development is Working?
How can Audience Development and Artistic Development Work Together?
Planning Together: Integrating Audience Development into your Business Plan
'Open Space', an exploratory session

Delegates will be emailed information re booking seminar places.

Surgeries

A new addition to the Forum this year, delegates will be emailed information re booking on a first come first served basis for a limited number of short, confidential one-to-one surgeries.

Book now -http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/professional/audiences/scottishaudiencedevelopmentforum.aspx

Research on Cultural Diversity strategies from Scotland

2006-09-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

Here's an example of research on Cultural Diversity strategies. This comes from the Scotland Arts Council, and offers interesting insights.

The Scottish Arts Council's Cultural Diversity Strategy, Cultural Diversity Strategy 2002-07 http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/resources/publications/Strategies/Pdf/STR7%20Cultural%20Diversity%20Strategy%202002-07.pdf

The Scottish Arts Council's Cultural Diversity Strategy sets out the approach towards developing and promoting creativity, the arts and other cultural activity in Scotland.

There's a lot of good learning here. Worth noting: as with all strategy, things change fast. As with all identity, it is in ongoing flux. Becoming attached to created structures or definitions is inappropriate when it comes to cultural diversity initiatives. Working the plan is good, obeying the plan is lousy. This makes me see the strategy in a different way, a more considered way.

- R

Scottish perspectives on building dance audiences

2006-09-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

Here are links to great work that is coming out of the Scottish Arts Council, addressing their dance strategy and their dance audience research. These are very useful for Canadians, as the context they are working with is relatively similar to our current circumstances.

Listed below are the links with annotations:

Dance Strategy 2002-07
The Scottish Arts Council's Dance Strategy give the aims and objectives for the next five years to develop and support the Dance sector in Scotland.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1000312.aspx

The Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland, Dance Audience Research: Executive Summary
Scottish Arts Council commissioned research into the Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland. Section 1 of the final report which is the Executive Summary .
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1000317.aspx

The Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland, Dance Audience Research: Qualitative Information
Scottish Arts Council commissioned research on the Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland. Section 3 is the Qualitative Research Report.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1000649.aspx

The Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland, Dance Audience Research: Research Review
Scottish Arts Council commissioned research on the Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland. Section 4 of the final Report which summarises available secondary research into audiences for dance.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/dance.aspx?p=2

Briefing - Dance 2004/05

Information on the Scottish Arts Council's aims for the Dance sector in Scotland and how they are investing in Dance.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1000818.aspx