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Kaitlyn Riordan on the Family Dynamics of Governance
In the sixth and final post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, theatre artist, playwright and former Artistic Director for Shakespeare in the Ruff, Kaitlyn Riordan offers a personal response to a session led by Erin Kang.
This is the sixth and final post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, theatre performer, playwright and former Artistic Director of Shakespeare in the Ruff, Kaitlyn Riordan, offers a personal response to a Governance Reimaginings session and follow up conversation with Erin Kang, Manager of Networks at the Ontario Nonprofit Network and project co-lead of their Reimagining Governance initiative.
Warning, this is an imperfect metaphor.
Last summer, I had the pleasure of participating in and witnessing my dear friend have a baby. She’s a single parent who, like many, has created a non-nuclear family model. I was her birthing partner and her sperm donor was her primary care-giver for the first seven weeks of the baby’s life. His husband came by for visits (they are uncles to the baby) and my friend invited their family to come by and meet the new nibling/grandchild. Oh wait… were we calling the donor’s parents ‘grandparents' if the donor wasn’t ‘dad’? A precocious five year old nibling asked; but if you aren’t married, is she really my cousin? And would my friend and her baby now be included in family portraits?
Alt-family royalty free clip art
Well, sure, yeah, and we don’t know yet. But what was perfectly clear, is that this baby would be loved by a large and extended family because my friend and her donor had chosen this path. They had been intentional, they had to be, because the traditional model (hetero couple gets married and has a kid) did not fit their needs. And rather than court that model, my friend identified her desires and did the work to create a model that would fit those. Yes, she's a badass. It took time, research, lots of conversation, informed consent and eventually, a document that both parties signed.
What my (badass) friend’s situation revealed to me is that I so often default in life; into roles, into timelines, into structures without giving them a second thought. Much like many nonprofits when it comes to governance.
Photo of Erin Kang
This is where my metaphor really falls apart - apologies to anyone who has given birth. Now, if we imagine the physical act of birthing a child (something that simply has to happen for a human to exist), like say, an AGM, appointing directors, getting an annual audit, etc (things that simply have to happen for nonprofits to exist) does that really encompass all that it means to “have a child”? I put that in quotes as I transition my metaphor over to Erin Kang’s area of expertise; governance in the nonprofit world.
The Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN) and Kang, in collaboration with Ignite NPS, have co-created a virtual hub for governance innovation, full of tools and resources that enable nonprofits to explore all the other parts of governance and figure out what their company needs in a DIY/choose-your-own-adventure kind of way. Like bottle feeding vs breast feeding, disposable vs reusable diapers - every parent needs to figure out what they and their baby need and build a system to support that. So why do we only talk about the technical (birthing/AGM) part of it? Again, apologies for the AGM/birthing parallels…
Partly, it’s because we’re all overworked & under-paid and governance feels like the least of our priorities. Partly it’s because we’ve only been exposed to one model. The top down Board of Directors model that feels daunting and cumbersome and can sometimes feel like the adults (business people) making sure the kids (artists) don’t land the company with a deficit. Most literature and training around governance is based on Board performance, efficiency, and engagement, that’s it. No wonder we associate all things governance with Boards. When in fact, the work of governance can play such an important role in the health and development of an organization.
So the ONN asked: what is governance? Who is doing it? Who should be doing it? And how? One of the big realizations they made was that organizations were being forced to squish their values and practices into the existing model. There are 58,000 nonprofits in ON, how can one or two models work for such a diversity of organizations?! A bit like my friend navigating a system that expects a family to look a certain way.
The initiative decided that instead of creating a different model, they wanted to develop a process that would empower orgs to create their own models, one day hopefully flooding the nonprofit sector with an abundance of working models to be inspired and not shackled by. They collaborated with nine nonprofits over a period of several months to co-create the materials, and supported them in experimenting and working with new ideas.
First, they identified that the ultimate goal of governance is to “enable positive impact on the community”. Initially, I didn’t think this would resonate with my baby metaphor, but the more I think about it… They then identified the high level functions of governance: developing strategy, setting and upholding org culture, tracking finances, etc. Turns out, fundraising is not a governance function, but can be a board function if that choice is made. Whoa… Then, once all of those factors were identified, the orgs moved to the design playground: Processes, People, Structures, Culture. Get an in-depth look at that here
For 10 months, these nine organizations tested the tools and resources they, along with ONN and individuals in the sector, helped to co-create. The Reimagining Governance Lab will contain multiple access points, not a set process, so organizations can choose how deep to dive in based on their current capacities. In early conceptions of the project, the goal was to create a process for organizations to follow. However, it became clear that a set process would still be too limiting. This evolution moved the thinking from a circular model to more of a 3-D governance ecosystem, responding to the various needs from the different organizations.
The ONN has just launched their public Reimagining Governance Lab online. It includes stories and examples from the nine organizations they worked with and will have updates as the nonprofits continue to evolve their governance models, each experimenting with specific elements and needs. The Lab will continue to be animated by convening communities of practice, inviting other organizations to join in and try things, all of which will be documented and included in the Lab as the experimentation/implementation evolves.
This work is an experiential process and requires organizations to name, identify, and reflect on how they do governance. What are the external/internal influences? It requires space & time to put intentionality into how a governance system is designed. Kang clarified that these questions almost never get asked and requires those in power to reflect on why they have power, and then often to relinquish it for deep and lasting change to manifest. Anti-oppression work needs to be woven into the fabric of governance, particularly because the nonprofit model is based in white supremacy .
Kang identified the concept of intentional vs implied ways of functioning, and how so much of what we do is implied, based on “how it has always been done”, sometimes for over 100 years. One of the surprising things Kang shared with us was that documenting comes later in the process. By-laws, documents, policies etc. should reflect the decisions being made about your governance system, not vice versa. Much in the same way the contract between my friend and her donor came after they had done all of their homework and discussed all the foreseeable possibilities. At that point, making a contract was easy because they were coming from a place of understanding each other’s goals, desires, and values.
And just so you don’t think that I’m the only one who sees these parallels, Kang herself reflected that:
“I liken [challenging governance models] a lot to family dynamics. We often think about the birth parents of a child; that they are responsible for the whole development of this child. Whereas, in fact, there are all these environmental, societal factors - also chosen family, friends, educators etc. So imagine if we only focus on a child’s parents, and then we’re like, yep, that’s it. The idea of co-parenting, for a lot of people, and the idea of challenging the dominant norm of what those relationships look like, is hard to imagine.”
Yes, hard to imagine, but the work that Kang, the ONN, and their invested partners are doing (not to mention my badass friend) is making it easier for nonprofits to imagine other models and develop ones that work for them. ‘One size fits all’ worked when there was only one nonprofit in Ontario. 'One size fits one’ will be far more responsive and effective with 58,000 in this province alone.
Governance Reimaginings asks how we can deconstruct inherited governance structures to create systems of accountability and community care that support, and are aligned with, the values of the organizations and individuals they serve. Structured as a knowledge exchange between Generator, Shakespeare in the Ruff, and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, Governance Reimaginings took place between April-December 2021 and featured a series of instigations by invited guest speakers. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Chalmers Family Fund, administered by the Ontario Arts Council, for this project.
Kaitlyn Riordan is a settler of Irish and French descent. She lives in Tkaronto and is a four-time Dora nominated actress and a playwright. She was part of the leadership team at Shakespeare in the Ruff from 2012-2021, including Artistic Director from 2017-2021, where her 'feminized’ Shakespearean play; Portia’s Julius Caesar, premiered in 2018. It was later produced at Hart House Theatre and is being produced at the University of Waterloo this spring. 1939, which she co-wrote with Jani Lauzon, premiered at The Stratford Festival in 2022. Plays in development include Gertrude's Hamlet, I Sit Content – a story of Emily Carr, and The Naked Nun. As an actor, she has worked across the country with Punctuate! Theatre, The Stratford Festival, Tarragon, The Grand, The Segal Centre and many in between. She has performed Linda Griffith’s one-person show; Maggie & Pierre multiple times and done Shakespeare on a national tour of England, in Colorado for two summers, and repeatedly in Withrow Park between two majestic willow trees.
Glenn Sumi: My first month as an independent theatre blogger
After being associated with a certain well-known publication for 25 years, Glenn Sumi has struck out on his own. Here's what he has learned so far.
Just over a month ago, my life changed.
The night of December 21, having been advised earlier by my newspaper’s union rep not to continue writing for an employer who hadn’t paid me in months (it’s a long story), I cracked open a can of cider, signed up for a CMS my friend Norm had recommended, bought a domain name, wrote a few paragraphs, pressed send and launched a new blog/site/newsletter about Toronto theatre and the performing arts.
I called it “So Sumi,” a pun on my last name and a cheeky, ironic reference to what I hoped had been my approach to writing about theatre during the previous 25 years. “You don’t like what I wrote? So sue me!” Or, “That’s so Sumi!” I keep discovering new meanings. After a show last week, an acquaintance, by way of greeting, said simply, “So, Sumi?” (i.e., what did I think?).
(At the time, I didn’t realize that Sosumi is also an alert sound – you’ll recognize it when you hear it – named for Apple’s lengthy court battle with the similarly-named Apple Corps over the use of music on its computer systems. There is something oddly appropriate about this fact, since I’ve basically spent the last eight months on career alert and weighing my legal options.)
A screenshot of the homepage of So Sumi - goaheadsumi.com
In my introductory post I filled in my background and what I hoped to do with the site. I thought it looked okay – a little basic and obviously DIY. (I recommend the open-source Ghost platform, but if you're not a coder you'll need to watch some YouTube videos or scan its FAQ pages to learn how to make full use of the system.) On the home page, photos showed up at too low a resolution, and strangely cropped or askew. There was no “Welcome” or “Contact” page (I’d figure that out later, I thought). I didn’t even include a Paid Subscriber option, a decision I would soon come to regret.
The next morning, I learned that, after working for them for just over 25 years, I was locked out of my magazine’s email account. That hurt. No advance notice. No “Thank you for your years of service and loyalty, but…” I still have never been told that I was let go, even though the paper has since been bought by someone else.
That inspired my second post.
Still, as someone pointed out on Twitter around that time, perhaps there was symbolism in the date I began this new venture. It was the winter solstice, and from then on there would be a little bit more light every day.
That has turned out to be true – symbolically if not literally, since Toronto has mostly been grey and depressing for the past month.
As I set about trying to retrieve email contacts from marketing people and scouring the internet for production photos to compile my Toronto stage year-end lists – not an easy thing to do during the holidays! – I was gratified and heartened by the support from all members of the theatre community.
Glenn Sumi interviewing the great Elaine Stritch at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2012. Photo by David Hawe
Actors, directors and writers I had written about when I was first hired by my publication in 1997 subscribed and left comments. Devoted theatregoers I recognized from standing in line at the Fringe signed up. Publicists offered up tickets for contests to help spread the word about their show and the site.
In fact, through all this, those hard-working theatre publicists, some of whom I have worked with for decades, have been among the most supportive and understanding people. When I see them at the theatre, their (masked) hugs are always the firmest and most heartfelt.
I’ll never forget an email I received from one publicist a few months ago, when I anticipated this would all happen and, in debt, depressed and struggling to keep up with reviewing so many shows, I told her I didn’t know if I’d be able to write about her show.
“[Unnamed publication] has/had caché, but Glenn Sumi has more!” she wrote. “If there is anything I/we the theatre community can do to help - we could collect testimonials, start a petition, build an altar - please reach out.”
Messages like this have kept me going.
During the pandemic, many people have found themselves taking stock of their lives and careers. After being let go from jobs or leaving them voluntarily, they’ve thought about what kind of work they really want to do, where they want to live, who they want to spend their time with.
When all of this was going down, I knew I didn’t want to start from scratch somewhere. I didn’t even know if I had the energy or patience to seek work as a full-time arts writer or reporter. Those positions, I feel, should be taken up by younger, hungrier, more ambitious journalists.
I just knew I wanted to keep writing about theatre. When I started out, there were at least half a dozen writers in this country being paid to write full-time about theatre; now there is one. And yet the art form has never been so exciting, so diverse.
Bloggers have attempted to fill the gap left by traditional media. My understanding of the local theatre scene would be much poorer without sites like The Slotkin Letter, Stage Door and (more recently) Istvan Dugalin and Lights Up Toronto. I'm proud to join their ranks.
So... what have I learned in my first month running So Sumi?
• Even though I was associated with a certain (once) respected publication and its brand for over two decades, my own voice and experience might have some value.
• At most outlets, theatre coverage has to share space with other departments (restaurant reviews, a music profile, a column from City Hall, the crossword). Having a devoted audience that has proven they’re interested in Toronto theatre is something special and unique.
• It’s nice having a focus. For more than two decades, I’ve written about the stage scene, but I’ve also contributed to staff-written features like “Reader’s Choice” or “Best Summer Dishes” or “50 Things to Do This Summer.” Now I’m thrilled to be able to narrow my focus but also expand it. When a new season of the musicals-obsessed series Schmigadoon! was announced last week, I thought: I need to review that for the site.
• I’m learning how to navigate the separation between editorial and advertising. Some companies have expressed interest in advertising or sponsorships. This seems necessary if I want to eventually make this a sustainable venture. But do I take meetings with companies whose work I will eventually be critiquing? (I’ve decided I’ll only collaborate with people whose past work I respect. So, you won’t find a sponsored post about Pierre Polievre.)
• I’ve always loved the work of photographers and designers. But I have a huge respect for them now that I’ve had to source my own photos and try to make things look half-way decent on my site.
• I can write whatever I want, whenever I want! The other night I couldn’t get to sleep so I fired up my computer, did some research and, two hours later, launched my site’s Toronto theatre listings section.
• People want to help. Sometimes it seems like the world is filled with awful people doing awful things to each other. But this month has taught me otherwise. Theatre industry folks; my theatre critic colleagues; other people in media; even strangers I simply know from social media – dozens of people have reached out with advice, opportunities, encouragement and, bare minimum, well wishes.
So that’s it. It’s been an eventful month. But I’m grateful and hopeful because every day there’s a little bit more light.
Glenn Sumi is a Toronto writer and editor specializing in the performing arts.
Shelby Wright on the shape of governance
In the fifth post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, dance artist and former Co-Artistic Director for Toronto Dance Love-In, Shelby Wright, offers a personal response to a session led by Cynthia Lickers-Sage.
This is the fifth post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, dance artist and former Co-Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Love-In, Shelby Wright, offers a personal response to a Governance Reimaginings session led by Cynthia Lickers-Sage, Executive Director of the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA). This post was co-written by Brendan McMurtry-Howlett, artist and board member with Generator.
What did I picture Board Governance to be when I first joined the Governance Reimaginings project with Generator? I think I imagined turning our attention to a rule book covered in dust, but a rule book nonetheless; information that I didn’t have experience with, and therefore couldn’t yet have an opinion on. I was without an entry point. But, as I have learned through this project, board governance is in fact just what you make it, and what it needs to be. Governance is, in many ways, a record of the relationships formed and intentions created within a group of individuals who share a common goal: to manage and maintain the health of an organization.
Cynthia Lickers-Sage joined the folks participating in the Governance Reimaginings project to talk about her extensive and invaluable experience in the field, particularly in her role as the Executive Director with the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA). It was wintertime, and we were meeting on Zoom.
In our session with Cynthia, she talked with us about the ways that she, and IPAA before she arrived, are reclaiming board governance through a linguistic and cultural grounding in Indigenous practice and ways of working. At IPAA they name the individuals who fulfill the function of a board, The Grand Council. Cynthia described a way of organizing that is holistic in structure, a way of interacting that is unwritten and collaborative; a beautiful contrast to the image of a dusty rule book.
Photo provided by Shelby Wright
One of the first things she talked about was that she didn’t practice a hierarchy, “but rather, a…” she searched for a word, and then, laughing she said, “linearchy!”. Sharing this in-the-moment creative languaging was a perfect exercise in governance reimagining. Linearchy captured my imagination: is she describing lineage? Or a line drawing? I sat there thinking of the various possible sketches and line drawings I came up with when, in a previous Governance session, we were asked to draw what we thought board governance looked like. What emerged from my page were lines that continued to the outer reaches of the page in all directions. A depiction of constant growth but connected to some centrifugal force, a cycle or a spiral, a flowering center. Or possibly the shape of an ear. Could it be that board governance is actually the traces of our work together, the various sketches, ideas drawn up, a series of images from dialogue and collective thoughts?
“We do have a structure but it’s more in a circle format,” Cynthia said in describing the governance practice at IPAA. For them, the circle is both philosophy and function. The shape of a circle provides endless continuity, one thing turning into another, motion. An open and dynamic shape that generates many iterations from the place of beginning; there’s no distinct starting place, and infinite entry points. Everyone joining an IPAA Grand Council circle is considered equal to others, and has the opportunity to contribute and voice their ideas. It also guides procedure: when an idea or issue is brought forward to the Grand Council, discussion always goes around the circle with each member of the circle given space to speak if they are moved to. In fact, at the bottom of all their meeting minutes, they have a diagram of the circle, and the names of who sat where. When everyone has spoken on the matter, a collective decision is made in an interconnected way. Cynthia shrugs her shoulders and says it’s a way of working that “was comfortable with my DNA, I don’t know any other way to put that.”
This comment gave me pause. What are the ways of working that are compatible with my own life experience? Most boards use the colonial standard structure of “Robert’s Rules of Order”, where a director leads the meeting, motions are made, and decisions are made by majority rule voting. Before having any board experience, I didn’t know who Robert was and what his rules were, and upon review I can definitely say it is nothing to inspire what is needed in my own practice of meeting, gathering, discussing. What is my grounding within dance, within creative exploration in rehearsal halls, that can point me to a way of working with governance? I am familiar with coming to complex decisions in collaborative group dynamics - that is my whole world as a dance artist.
So why have I been undermining my own experience and competence as soon as I step into the context of board governance?
Moments for the Neighbouring Room, photo provided by Shelby Wright
Cynthia went on to describe their AGM which uses open space facilitation to gather ideas and collect talking points; a space to share stories, to paddle down the river, spontaneously dancing, feasting together, eating words, eating thoughts, visioning the future. A space to become family. Space is made for organizational conversations to take place in many forms, and that arise, free form, in the moment. “Why not,” she said. She reminded us that we are adults, we are not in school, we can show up and be receptive to our own thoughts and share them with others and organize accordingly. Language and terminology are important and sometimes need to be insisted upon, as Cynthia continues to do with IPAA. If the funders and stakeholders do not understand, it is our responsibility to teach them, to lead them. “I’ve got a lot of strength in my shoulders now to push back”, Cynthia said. To make her point, she tells us that granting agencies didn’t always give the option to apply for funding as an artist collective. That was something artists had to advocate for. To do something different, one must simply do something different.
This was a refreshing reminder, and for me, it allowed me to visualize throwing that dusty imagined rulebook, those stale “Rules”, right into the garbage.
“Respect what is needed,” Cynthia pointedly stated. Start at the beginning, which could be anywhere, and keep in mind that every journey starts with a step. This will be a work in progress, but that’s a good thing. Board Governance should be a living document, absorbing the knowledge brought forward with new members, quivering with ongoing dialogue, rippling outward when the dial finally moves forward. The performing arts sector is at the beginning of possibility, a paradigm shift, of shaping the foundations of support. That is what Governance is meant to do.
Shelby Wright at Toronto Biennial, photo by Nick Rose
Since our session, I have continued to ask myself: what do I know in my life as an artist that can shape the way I practice Governance? What are the words, shapes, and ways of collaborating that I can use to reimagine Governance? As artists we practice being courageous enough to trust ourselves, our own ways-of-knowing, in knowing what is needed. The way forward is written in our own bodies.
Governance Reimaginings asks how we can deconstruct inherited governance structures to create systems of accountability and community care that support, and are aligned with, the values of the organizations and individuals they serve. Structured as a knowledge exchange between Generator, Shakespeare in the Ruff, and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, Governance Reimaginings took place between April-December 2021 and featured a series of instigations by invited guest speakers. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Chalmers Family Fund, administered by the Ontario Arts Council, for this project.
Shelby Wright is a Toronto-based dance artist, choreographer and producer. In her work, Wright celebrates the unique genre of dance as a means of relationship building through collaboration, and critical experimentation in scene and score building. Wright has received training from Canada’s National Ballet School (Toronto), École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, The Limón Institute (New York), and holds a BA from the University of Toronto in Cinema Studies and History. She has performed professionally in New York, Toronto, Montréal, Halifax, Winnipeg and Vancouver, with artists Kahtryn Alter, Susan Wolf, Jamee Valin, Robert Kingsbury and Lauren Runions. Since 2015, Wright has worked with Toronto visual artist Katie Lyle on a collaborative performance practice combining their artistic backgrounds in dance and visual art. Selected presentations of their co-authored work include: the Toronto Biennale (2019), SummerWorks Festival (2018), and the Canadian Art Foundation (2017).
Reframing Board Structures
In the second post in a series of artist responses to the Get on Board: Workshop and Speaker Series by the Creative Champions Network, Aria Evans (interdisciplinary artist, intimacy coordinator, activist, filmmaker, and educator) reflects on the Organizational Culture and the Partnership Between Board and Leadership session on November 23, 2022.
This is the second post in a series of artist responses to the Get on Board: Workshop and Speaker Series by the Creative Champions Network, an initiative of the Toronto Arts Foundation. As a co-creator of the series in 2022/23, Generator has engaged Artist Responders to attend each session, to summarize, reflect and respond to the emerging conversations and activities. In this post, Aria Evans (interdisciplinary artist, intimacy coordinator, activist, filmmaker, and educator) reflects on the Organizational Culture and the Partnership between Board and Leadership session on November 23, 2022.
Following the October 4th Creative Champions Network workshop about Governance Reimaginings, I attended the November 23rd gathering that investigated: Organizational Culture and the Partnership between Board and Leadership facilitated by Erin Kang.
Building on the ideas from the first session, we looked at ways to approach governance differently and more imaginatively. It was expressed that so often nonprofits look for templates that are not necessarily aligned to their organizational purpose, values, or current circumstances. This workshop offered that a way forward could be to find where the organizational and artistic visions can be aligned and in balance.
In my experience, the bulk of the conversations by those that attended this workshop centred around the fact that there are no cookie-cutter approaches to nonprofit governance, no quick fixes or 1-2-3 steps to follow. It offered that individually as organizations we can start by being self-reflective then make unique assessments and finally carve an individual path forward.
The workshop started with a sentiment from Claire Hopkinson that surprised me. There are 2000 volunteer arts board members in our city (Tkaronto). That is 2000 people dedicated to advocacy in our sector who are engaged in this kind of governance! Facilitator Erin Kang went on to point out that there is a larger nonprofit sector that arts organizations get grouped into and our organizations actually need vastly different structures that directly support the ways our industry works as opposed to adopting strategies from these other sectors.
Right from the beginning of the workshop care and sustainability were themes that came forward.
I think about the ways artists have been having conversations about this internally; in creative processes and on stage. I wondered how often we consider these themes from a board perspective.
In our first breakout discussion we were asked to define governance for the nonprofits we are connected to; is it the governance rules that make the organization function? Is governance a set of values that ensure mission statements align with the actions of the organization? Is governance something else? We were also asked about how we define the responsibility of the board in relationship to the staff and who the board is accountable to.
A beautiful offer that came out of this discussion was to centre humanity vs. the rules or the technical legislature - to think about what the spirit of your nonprofit is. We were encouraged to look at: what is the legal minimum the board needs to do, and to think about intentional governance design that launches from that foundation.
The conversation flowed to the idea of innovation; innovation, as it pertains to new ways of making decisions … and thus other questions were posed: “what are your organization's issues and what is at the root of them?”. We were given an example of an organization struggling with communication that had no clarity around roles … the root of this points to the idea that the way governance has been designed isn’t working.
Are our boards just fitting into models that we think can work vs. are we finding systems that work on a project-to-project basis that aren’t always prescribed?
In contemplating the questions posed during a second breakout session, another consideration came up around what the culture of decision making looks like. Accountability plays a huge role in this and we were asked to consider if decisions are guided or directed by funders, by members of the organization, by artistic leads, by staff etc. and what the implications of these realities are and what a governance structure that supports this could be.
A metaphor about the way we think of family was used that really resonated with me. Yes, there is the dominant model of family in society but there are also queer families, people who adopt children, chosen families, non-monogamous families and so on.
How can this perspective allow us to re-imagine, re-model or turn over and start anew with our governance models?
A question I am interested in carrying forward from this workshop is: How do we work toward a cyclical ecosystem as opposed to a hierarchical one?
Aria Evans (she/he/they) is a queer, Toronto-based, West Coast-born award-winning interdisciplinary artist who’s practice spans dance, theatre and film. As a public speaker, activist and creative leader, Aria draws on their experiences of being mixed race. Aria is a certified Intimacy Coordinator and with a large-scale vision, collaboration is the departure point to the choreographic work that Aria creates under their company POLITICAL MOVEMENT. Advocating for inclusion and the representation of diversity, Aria uses their artistic practice to question the ways we can coexist together.
The Need to Reimagine Learning
In this first post in a series of artist responses to the Get on Board: Workshop and Speaker Series by the Creative Champions Network, Coman Poon (arts consultant, creation doula, interdisciplinary artist, activist, curator and producer) reflects on the Governance Reimaginings session on October 4, 2022.
This is the first post in a series of artist responses to the Get on Board: Workshop and Speaker Series by the Creative Champions Network, an initiative of the Toronto Arts Foundation. As a co-creator of the series in 2022/23, Generator has engaged Artist Responders to attend each session, to summarize, reflect and respond to the emerging conversations and activities. In this post, Coman Poon (arts consultant, creation doula, interdisciplinary artist, activist, curator and producer) reflects on the Governance Reimaginings session on October 4, 2022.
At the October 4, 2022 Creative Champions Network (CCN) workshop promisingly entitled Governance Reimaginings, Generator Board member and keynote speaker Brendan McMurtry-Howlett referenced “relational governance structures”, a concept he attributed to Indigenous decolonial theory and ways-of-knowing. Acknowledging Indigenous arts leaders Yvette Nolan and Cynthia Lickers-Sage, he cited the need for “relational” governance structures in the arts, where “the strength of the decision-making process rests on the strength of interpersonal relationships within the organization”.
What does this REALLY mean? Does relational ‘strength’ refer to both structure and quality of ONLY internal collaboration and decision-making? Short of assuming or fantasizing about some generalized indigenous cultural imaginary, couldn’t it be argued that solely self-propagating, diminishingly relevant, insular and/or nepotistic, colonially powered Arts Boards can also potentially be included in the above broad definition?
While puzzling over this feel-good word/idea of “relationality”, contrasted with how I, as a Board member of CanAsian Dance, experienced the very formally* structured Governance Reimaginings CCN workshop, I had the opportunity to converse with Michael Caldwell, Creative Director: Programming at Generator.
Following on the heels of their own internal governance ‘think tank’ journey, Generator is newly partnering with the Toronto Arts Foundation’s lauded Creative Champions Network to deliver a co-learning series that aims to reignite action to address the so-called crisis of governance in the arts. The result is the CCN’s four part Get On Board: Workshop and Speaker Series.
WHAT CRISIS? you may ask. Let’s start at the beginning.
For nearly a hundred years, board governance of the not-for-profit sector (of which 9% lies within the arts sector) has been following the corporate model of “authority”, “responsibility” and most importantly, “accountability”. The latter seems to consist of:
monitoring and mitigating risk, and
measuring results (for corporate stakeholders).
Brendan powerfully untangled that when faced with the application of this to a complex of ecosystems within the arts, there is often the weaponization of “fiduciary duty”. Itself simply referring to the onus of making decisions in the ‘best interest’ of an organization, fiduciary duty is often conflated and used interchangeably with ‘liability’, which refers to taking on responsibility for damages.
Art-making and participating in the co-witnessing and gift-exchanging of art is arguably far from generating the type of liability engineers may face when building a bridge. In fact, what artists and audiences revel in as “risk-taking” in art is arguably the essence of the “unique value proposition” of art.
What is needed in this period of initial transition from the strictures of pandemic coupled with the ongoing awareness and outrage at systemic inequities in the arts sector (and beyond) is none other than a radical act of collective unlearning and reimagining.
As Michael metaphorized, the boat (moving toward positive change) comes around in cycles and it is up to each one of us to examine our privilege/resistance and pursue our willingness to wrestle with the complexity involved in sustaining change-making.
WHAT IS CO-LEARNING (aka. collaborative learning)?
A quick online search provided me with refracting definitions such as:
Co-learning is a manner of group learning that enhances communication skills, cultural awareness, thinking skills and so much more
Co-learning aims at the collaborative construction of knowledge, in which co-learners are able to expand their social networks
Collaborative learning is rooted in Lev Vygotsky's concept of learning called “zone of proximal development”. Typically there are tasks that learners can and cannot accomplish. Between these two areas is the zone of proximal development, which is a category of things that a learner can learn with the help of guidance.
Indigenous people of the Americas utilize collaborative learning through their emphasis on role sharing and responsibility sharing within their communities.
My wish for future CCN activities and sessions?: A more flexible structure and framework for co-learning as a baseline strategy for movement building around reimagining/decolonizing ‘governance’.
Collaborative learning challenges assumptions and questions “business as usual” or “this is how it’s always been done”. Afterall, it’s not everyday where I get to engage with board members from long-standing performing arts organizations who proudly declare that their organizations are on “autopilot” and cite that succession planning is simply about “who gets to be the Chair”.
*This session was hosted in the office spaces at Adaptivist. White square tables were organized in a relatively tight grid with a podium for the speakers at one end, and bar and catering table flanking the seated participants at the other. The intros and keynote speech took up the majority of the two hours followed by a quick round of prompts and questions from rotating facilitators who hurriedly captured themes and insights from workshop participants. A small amount of time was left for networking and informal conversation at the end.
Coman Poon | 潘灏文 is a Tkaronto-based arts consultant, creation doula, interdisciplinary artist, activist, curator and producer working within the context of decolonization and intercultural exchange. He is a bilingual, English/Cantonese community-centred Torontonian of Hong Kong & Canadian upbringing. He writes about live art, dance and performance and profiles diverse artistic practices as a journalistic act of re-centring on the margins. He is the current Board President of CanAsian Dance, a 25 year-old arts organization engaging in its own governance transformation.
Reflections on the Prep, and a Hopeful Timeline
In the second post in Generator’s ‘Charting Waters - Transitions in Arts Organizations’ blog series, board member Brendan McMurtry-Howlett reflects on the launching of a leadership hiring process and discusses the timeline that was created by the committee responsible for creating a smooth transition for Generator.
This is the second post in Generator’s ‘Charting Waters - Transitions in Arts Organizations’ blog series, which highlights our ongoing process of organizational growth and leadership transition. You can find all ‘Transition’ posts here, and everything we’ve published related to hiring here. In this post, Generator shares the early work that went into organizing the leadership transition for the organization. Board member Brendan McMurtry-Howlett reflects on the launching of this process and discusses the timeline that was created by the committee responsible for creating a smooth transition for Generator.
As Annie mentioned in the first post of this series, the process of undergoing a leadership transition is a LOT of work. In this post, we’re going to set the stage for the leadership search that Generator launched in 2021, and share the timeline that was created to keep our project on track.
Through the upheaval of 2020 and into 2021, there was much planning happening at Generator. Kristina Lemieux, who had been the Lead Producer for Generator over the last 5 years, had announced her intention to move on from her role. In addition to Kristina’s departure, the remaining part-time staff had also announced their intention to move on to other career opportunities. This was going to be a full staff turnover in addition to the hiring of new leadership.
But with great foresight and sensitivity for the times we were living, Kristina, along with the rest of the staff and the board, put in place several tools, resources, and processes to ensure a smooth and healthy transition for the organization. Among those tools and resources was the establishment of the Strategic Advisors (SA), a group of professional artists connected to different communities who would help guide the transitional and transformational work of the organization through this period. We will talk more about this group on individuals in a later blog post. While the Strategic Advisors covered several areas of organizational change, they played a key role in the leadership search and transition. Another resource was engaging Angela Sun as an accessibility consultant to advise on issues of access for the organization, the hiring process, and leadership candidates. We will also be featuring a blog post on her work in the future.
With the advisory committee and accessibility consultant in place, Generator laid out the framework and timeline for the process in a shared document for all involved. A crucial aspect of the work was the execution of a robust and accessible outreach plan with participation from current staff, leadership, board and the SAs. The following are excerpts from that original timeline document. Please note that this was drafted early in the process and that the document continued to grow and change with the circumstances.
Key assumptions for the proposed timeline:
All departing staff had said that they were flexible about how they exit and wanted their exits to support knowledge transfer with a deep desire to see the next leader(s) do well and be well supported.
Outreach activities were intended to offer prospective candidates diverse perspectives on the work and impact of the organization, and therefore featured changing combinations of staff, board, and strategic advisors with emphasis on offering one-on-one conversations and information sessions that featured the experiences of equity-seeking artists connected with Generator.
The next leader(s) would likely need 6-8 weeks (at least) between job offer and start date. This is the generally accepted timeline for someone(s) with leadership experience coming into the role, assuming they would have another position they are leaving.
At the time, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC) three-year operating grant and Toronto Arts Council (TAC) annual grant were due in March 2022. We wanted to give the next leader(s) as much time as possible to consider future programming before having to write these grants. Canada Council for the Arts was a mid-cycle report.
The plan included Kristina, supporting with a month of training.
How much did this plan change over the course of the hiring process?
Stay tuned to this blog series!
Interested in the transition blog posts to come? Make sure you’re signed up for Generator’s newsletter here. You also may enjoy ‘A Values-Based Approach to Hiring,’ our December 2020 blog post based on an interview with Shakespeare in the Ruff and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in.
Sophie Dow on Values, Feasting, and other Board Business
In the fourth post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, dance/music artist and board member for Toronto Dance Love-In, Sophie Dow, offers a personal response to a session led by Yvette Nolan.
This is the fourth post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, dance/music artist and board member for Toronto Dance Love-In, Sophie Dow, offers a personal response to a session led by Yvette Nolan.
Tansii - Bonjour - Good Morning!
I’m Sophie - In day-to-day life, I fulfill roles as a classically ballet/modern/jazz/contemporary/hip hop/acrobatics/etc. trained (and actively un-training) dancer, choreographer, musician, filmmaker, fire spinner, writer, busker and bodyworker.
My first coffee date with Robert’s Rules came while holding executive roles in various undergraduate student associations at York University.
I generally recall thinking of the rules, motions, seconds etc. as a stupid game and load of hubbub. It felt like we were creating problems and verbal jargon for no other sake than in case “the great and terrifying Big Brother” came checking on our records and if we didn’t have all the i’s dotted, the association would be shut down forevermore....
Sophie Dow - photo credit: Graham Isador
Fast forward to 2021: how is this relevant and how did I land in THIS Generator circle?
After leading what I believed a fairly “successful” first 11 months of the pandemic, I sank into the common existential hole, harbouring feelings of guilt and responsibility - What am I Actually doing in my creative communities? How can I be engaged as an active support to companies that have generously offered me their services? What is the changing definition of “getting involved” and if there’s a need for change, how can it be sustained?
In a surge of “pandemic-passtime-passion” and in response to these questions, I joined the Board of Directors for two companies: Toronto Dance Love-In and Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA).
Little did I know that these groups were in the midst of asking similar questions about the relationship between their executive staff and Board of Directors, with common desires of “shifting board governance structures.”
This brought up an extreme thrill. I had just joined a setting that I thought I knew how to engage with “the rules” (even if I found them silly) and suddenly there was an overwhelming wave to throw the rules in the trash… but without clarity of how to do so. HOW EXCITING!!
CUE GENERATOR
Luckily, the Love-In, alongside Shakespeare in the Ruff, were invited into an epic circle: Generator’s Governance Reimaginings project, to zoom in on why and how we can disrupt these cycles of colonial, not-for-profit board models for ourselves, our own companies, and on a larger scale, offer examples for other arts organizations.
For a hearty description of what this Generator circle is, check out Brendan McMurtry-Howlett’s post HERE. - http://generatorto.com/blog/governance-intro
OCTOBER’S GUEST OF HONOUR
As a past employee of Native Earth Performing Arts and a Métis artist myself, I was naturally OVER THE MOON when it was confirmed Yvette Nolan would be one of our guests.
As an official introduction:
Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright, director and dramaturg. Her vast body of work includes the plays The Unplugging, the dance-opera Bearing, and the libretto Shanawdithit. From 2003-2011, Yvette served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts. Her book, Medicine Shows, about Indigenous performance in Canada was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2015, and Performing Indigeneity, which she co-edited with Ric Knowles, in 2016. An Artistic Associate with Signal Theatre, she is currently pursuing her Masters in Public Policy at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy.
We enthusiastically welcomed Yvette into our circle on October 7th, 2021. What follows is a shared summary and reflections, as I understood them, of Yvette’s offerings to our group.
CONTEXT
A primary point of clarity tying us all together highlighted the question: WHY are we still engaging with a corporate Board of Directors (BoD) model in non-corporate, arts settings!?
In short form response: because we are saddled with legislation to incorporate in order to access funding… but from Yvette’s perspective (which many of us agreed with), the issue is that the BoD is a FICTION! This means one of two things: that the structure is adhered to in name only, or that the existing BoD’s don’t have the ability or capacity to be responsible for all that the legislation says they should be - their powers are fictional.
Yvette spoke about the past and current parts of the model that contribute to this issue, and that are definitely NOT working. These include:
-The People
BoDs consist of volunteers who don't always have a clear understanding of what is happening in the organization, or the industry, and are not necessarily patrons of the arts. They often create their own work to justify their existence, rarely have the time to accomplish work between meetings, and only truly exist when assembled. Though even when assembled, it is not clear WHAT their roles are.
-Crisis
Frequently the BoD is spurred to substantial action only when there is a crisis, and the only crisis a BoD knows how to respond to is financial. Rarely is a BoD equipped to handle prolonged crises that are connected to significant cultural or societal shifts, such as those dealing with systemic racism, sexual misconduct, or fallout from the pandemic.
(A prime example of this took place at Soulpepper between 2016 - 2018, where women who came forward with allegations of sexual abuse and harassment were reportedly dismissed by management and the BoD. The only instance when the BoD addressed the situation was when a civil lawsuit was filed against Albert Schultz AND the BoD for not responding. In this case and many others, BoDs demonstrate a sole concern for being held accountable for financial debacles without offering compassion to the company in any other crisis.)
-Missing Tools
When financial crises do arrive, there are only two options: The BoD can step in to use network/power to address this financial moment OR artistic staff can shut down the company and go to funders. This is when the BoD is supposed to be most effective, but not all crises are financial nor are they singular moments. We are in MORE than a Moment now, we are in MOVEMENT - so boards are in crisis because this extended moment is asking boards for further support, BEYOND finances.
CHANGE NOW
In a time of pandemics: COVID and racial reckonings, we are pulled directly into the present moment and movement. The whole world is being asked to make great change. Yvette made it clear that it is uncertain how long this window of opportunity will remain open. So, HOW do we change our structures so they’re more reflective of the way we’re doing our work? (and while the federal and provincial Not-for-Profit Corporations Acts still kick around.)
Some organizations simply do the minimum to comply with the legislation, and then do their own thing outside of that. However, to manage a Board of Directors - whether it follows the laws or not - is such a huge job, there is reluctance to create another thing that causes additional labour for staff.
At Common Weal in Saskatchewan, (where Yvette is the BoD Chair), the changes they’re delving into look at Responsibility and Accountability. Yvette suggests, “the person who holds the circle (ie. the board Chair) is not responsible for having all the answers, they’re responsible for holding all the knowledges in the room; turn the hierarchy on its side so it becomes a circle”
The Earth and nature’s cycles all move in circles - what are ways we can approach the governance of our own organizations with this same pattern?
Five dancers counterbalance each other in a circle - the only possible formation to hold each other up in this position - all reaching up towards the a globe - still from They Move on Tracks of Never Ending Light (2017) by Sophie Dow - photo credit: Mackenzie Clarke
COMING HOME TO VALUES
When writing a grant, companies craft their Vision, Mission and Mandate which is then assessed and argued about in peer review committees. If we can question this legitimacy through grants for the organization, why can’t we bring this scrutiny to our BoD – their role in a company and how they function?
While a company’s values should guide decision making, most BoD’s are more concerned about their bylaws which are required by Not-for-Profit Incorporation Acts. But the ONLY legal requirement of a non-profit organization’s bylaws is to define the conditions of membership for that organization. That’s it. So, rather than endless pages of bylaws, what would happen with a collective writing of the VALUES of the BoD? Once the BoD’s values are identified, do they align with those of the organization? And if so, how do the values become tools that can be called upon in crisis (financial and beyond) while remaining mindful that expectations are truly being fulfilled? I.E.: how are these values actionable?
Furthermore, could the staff of the organization be the initiators and guides of these values? Since the staff carry the practical responsibility of finding new board members and training the board, couldn’t it be possible to do this with a values-based approach? A person would be invited to join the board under the advised values and the positions would only be fulfilled should the values at the heart of both the organization and the BoD be honoured and upheld.
Sophie Dow & Vitantonio Spinelli holding each other’s hearts in performance of ‘all my relations’ - a circular ceremony at Shambhala Music Festival 2019 - photo credit: Caspian Kai
ALL MY RELATIONS
As artists running organizations, we KNOW everything is in relation and we’ve been trying to make any kind of relationship with BoDs. Unfortunately, we’ve failed under the prevalent belief that we need lawyers, stake-holders, accountants, etc in order to comprise a “good” BoD. This belief lands us with a BoD comprised of people who are not connected to the arts or professionals in the arts field, overseeing us and our arts organizations. It just doesn’t make sense to have non-professionals governing professionals in any other given field.
To put it in perspective, approximately 30 hours of one board director’s year is offered in overseeing the organization, while staff members invest 40 - 80 hours per week. HOW do we reconcile these relationships? How do we make our approaches to artistic creation, ALSO the way we are governed? Is the circle of reciprocity alive here?
Perhaps the desire and change could come by having people involved who actually have the time and experience to KNOW what the organization is doing and why.
THE FEAST
What are other creative ways to fulfill the “requirement” that a BoD meet 4 to 6 times a year?
In a traditional Indigenous council, important decisions and sharings took place in community, over a feast. It would be possible to replace the dreaded BoD meeting with something like a feast. The board & staff could come together four times a year over food and the intentional conversation would be around how the organization’s work is going. Perhaps there’s a showing, a discussion, a discourse and finally a paper signing, but the core of the gathering would be in the spirit of the relationships.
FURTHERING REIMAGININGS
What are other possible steps forward? Here are some thoughts that arose during our conversation with Yvette:
Changing bylaws is possible. The legal requirements for the content of a non-profit board’s bylaws are absolutely minimal. Even the kind of legalese language found in most bylaws could be up for change.
The way a board meeting takes place could change. Although the legalities still require “motions” and approvals, you may redefine how motions are made. The common usage of Roberts Rules in board meetings are not based on any legal requirement whatsoever - this is merely a convention first created in 1876.
Celebrating and uplifting transparency - imagine a board where anyone could call upon a board member at any time and the board member could explain exactly what the organization is doing and presenting at all times.
Understanding and being clear that there are no good models. Every step we take in this window of change - between now and the time we are free from this legislation - is as good as everything else.
DREAMING BEYOND
In this (possibly brief) window of change, we are privileged to be in the role of the dreamers. We know the window exists and we know the model needs to shift. SO, circling through values, relations and feasts, what other shifts are you open to and curious about? How can you contribute to the movement? How could you dream of your next board gathering beyond the past prescribed rules?
Governance Reimaginings asks how we can deconstruct inherited governance structures to create systems of accountability and community care that support, and are aligned with, the values of the organizations and individuals they serve. Structured as a knowledge exchange between Generator, Shakespeare in the Ruff, and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, Governance Reimaginings took place between April-December 2021 and featured a series of instigations by invited guest speakers. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Chalmers Family Fund, administered by the Ontario Arts Council, for this project.
Winnipeg-born Sophie Dow is a multidisciplinary creative, inspired by dance, music, collaboration and Métis-Assiniboine + settler roots. An avid adventurer, Sophie has a passion for busking, yoga and traveling on top of holding a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography. With a unique list of credits deeply impacting personal process and vocabulary, Sophie has experienced the bounties of working with some of Turtle Island’s wonderful dance innovators, including Chimera Dance Theatre, Kaeja d'Dance & O.Dela Arts.
In 2021/22, Sophie fulfills roles as: a creative director of FLIGHT: PEC’s Festival of Contemporary Dance, residency artist with NuSqool/KindePay, Dance West Network and Dance Victoria, musician with The Honeycomb Flyers and a licensed practitioner of Traditional Thai Massage.
desirée leverenz on Feeling Governance to Heal Governance
In the third post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, Shakespeare in the Ruff’s former Associate Artistic Director, desirée leverenz, offers a personal response to a session led by Zainab Amadahy.
This is the third post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, Shakespeare in the Ruff’s former Associate Artistic Director, desirée leverenz, offers a personal response to a Governance Reimaginings session led by Zainab Amadahy.
My name is desirée and i am writing this blog post as part of generator’s governance re-imagining series.
You’ll find in this post that I am going to center myself a lot. This is not an attempt to distance you from my words, but rather invite you into my journey, my experience, my thoughts, my spirit. I feel like in writing so often, I search for my own opinion by the author telling me how “we feel.” We are tired of the state of affairs, we must work hard to overturn them, we feel happy, we love tik tok, we are quirky, we love femininity and uphold it in a patriarchal world (I am dragging myself here, and I hope you can chuckle with me).
One time, an academic advisor told me I should take out “I feel,” statements from my writing, because for some reason, feeling isn’t legitimized in writing…
This piece is filled with feelings.
I am working, and I believe many people are, to transform structures and institutions that are doing a disservice to us, and our neighbors. And when I say “working” i mean working in the most absolute capitalist- possible, in a way that i center the work. When the work or the art, or the people need me to rest so i can be awake for the next part, i will rest.
Zainab Amadahy showed me that centering my own healing will lead to the transformation i am working for.
The structure, function, and existence of non profit boards, and the default ways for them to function within canada, upholds patriarchy, colonization, capitalism, white supremacy, all the things we are working hard to eradicate right now. So I go to trainings, seminars, anti-oppression workshops, I learn from new teachers, I use the word “decolonize” a lot. But…
I feel like I’m not transforming. I feel like I am learning details, but nothing is changing. I feel stuck. I feel like I can’t imagine a future.
I don’t really know what other structures look like. This happens to me when I talk about an anti-hero’s journey or non-linear storytelling. There’s no other structure for it. What can other structures even look like? If I was a cool highschool teacher I would hold a piece of paper with a triangle on it and then crumple it and say that’s the structure I want.
How can I say I want others to have power and say that I want to abolish power all in one breath? The questions of transformation and reimagining feel filled with polarity in a way that I actually can’t feel the transformation, and instead just details of the polarity. I get frustrated when people ask me if not this then what. I get even more frustrated when people ask me what decolonization looks like. It feels connected for me.
How do we grow into different ways of thinking and believing together as a society when we can’t think and dream the potential that we hold within ourselves first?
Part of the reason I am intentionally centering myself in this writing, is because Zainab shared exactly that. She began the conversation with telling us that she was not there to critique current models of governance, but rather offer her theory of change: “When individuals change, their organization changes. How do we want to be? Who do we want to be? How do our organizations reflect who we are back to us?”
Well, I can tell you this much, dear reader: I do not like most of the organizations (if any), around me, and what does that tell me about myself?
It would be a dishonour to Zainab if I offered to share her theory and teachings in a regurgitative way. To me, that feels like the opposite of her teachings. So instead I offer you my experience of the conversation, and with it my curiosities and wonders and dreams that were facilitated by these teachings.
I wonder where the cells of my body end?
I wonder where the tips of my fingers, and the electricity in this keyboard intersect, and what the difference in those atoms look like?
I wonder if the atoms love each other?
I wonder what their relations are?
I wonder if they are like air and earth, or instead like different states of water?
I wonder how that feeling you get when your lover sings along to music softly is felt by a plant?
I wonder what could happen if we were to center anything else other than ourselves?
I wonder if humans intentionally stepped outside of this human-oid/meat sack centered orbit, and put anything else inside of it?
I wonder how that would feel?
Zainab says that: “cultural wisdom has been villainized because of separation, competition and inequality.”
I wonder what happens if I center my ancestors in my ways of learning (my ways of knowing)? I wonder about the healing and work I would have to do in order to even access those teachings? I wonder what happens if I not only think about, but embody the idea that all of existence is in relation to each other – including my ancestors, and the future relations I will have?
I wonder what happens when I stop villainizing spirituality? I wonder how this will change my conversations with my friends, my colleagues, my boards?
I wonder how that would feel?
Zainab spoke about feelings and transformation.
I felt defensive and frustrated about some of Zainab’s sentiments. I felt fiery, and sparked. So much that I stopped listening.
In case you can’t tell, I am a big feeler with feelings that creep feelingly around my feels.
I asked later:
ISN’T SAYING THERE’S NO SPACE FOR FEELINGS IN THE REVOLUTION JUST RE-ENACTING PATRIARCHAL IDEALS?!?!
Zainab shared that there’s space for it, but that the work can’t happen from there, and instead offered that it needs to happen from a place of love.
She also suggested that maybe that was a wound I needed to heal.
She was right. I could easily go into a spiral rant about how offended i was, and frustrated, but in an attempt to center my own healing i will tell you that Zainab was right. I have often felt like I offer feelings and emotion, and I make it acceptable and necessary to bring those things into professional settings; so, when Zainab said feelings weren’t necessary, (and my feelings are so intertwined to my self worth) I felt like I wasn’t necessary to those spaces.
I wonder what happens when instead of linking our self worth to what we bring to the room, we connect our self worth to the quality of connections that we hold with the universe?
I wonder what happens when we operate from places of love and generosity and spirit?
I wonder what happens when we carry all of life in all of its relations, with us?
Zainab says that even the things we don’t like are our relatives.
They are an expression of us. So, I wonder what happens when we love ourselves so that we can heal ourselves.
I wonder if healing ourselves, could heal our relations which could heal the way our relations are organized.
We cannot heal structures with more structures. We must find ways to exchange with anything and everything. We must stop delineating experiences. From human to human, from energy to energy.
And perhaps then our organizations will serve us, because they will be us.
I wonder.
Governance Reimaginings asks how we can deconstruct inherited governance structures to create systems of accountability and community care that support, and are aligned with, the values of the organizations and individuals they serve. Structured as a knowledge exchange between Generator, Shakespeare in the Ruff, and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, Governance Reimaginings took place between April-December 2021 and featured a series of instigations by invited guest speakers. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Chalmers Family Fund, administered by the Ontario Arts Council, for this project.
desirée leverenz is a theatre director, creator, mover and shaker, who will never wash treaty 6 soil from beneath her feet. she exists here to bring questions, and reveal stories and conversations, for artists and audiences alike, so that we can all dream of a better future together. desirée is attracted to epic stories: epic in content, in aesthetic, and in spirit. she’s received institutional education from university of alberta (BA), and york university (MFA), and has directed in large institutions, and quiet back alleys. desirée has a particular affinity for working on art that is devised in nature and loves to play with traditional text in a way to transform ideas and institutions that are no longer serving us.
Nidhi Khanna on Reframing Governance
In the second post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, Generator Strategic Advisors Co-Chair Nidhi Khanna responds to a session on Reframing Governance led by Jane Marsland.
This is the second post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, Generator Strategic Advisors Co-Chair Nidhi Khanna responds to a Governance Reimaginings session led by Jane Marsland.
Nidhi Khanna
Over my 20-year non-profit arts career, I have interacted with various organizational boards in different capacities, ranging from frontline employee that only hears sparingly about the nebulous “Board”, to senior leader presenting and pitching at board meetings and committees, to Board Member myself. I’ve worked with large institutional boards, smaller community non-profit boards, governance boards, working boards, and all the committees that go along with Board governance.
Most boards I’ve worked with have had similar characteristics: members are predominantly white men—more recently, increasing numbers of white women—with varying levels of experience working in the arts or non-profit world.
When there is a diversity of representation in the Board composition, members from equity-seeking groups rarely have any real power, are frequently relegated to committees that have limited reach within the overall organization, and are often a lone voice expected to represent a whole spectrum of opinions in the governance of the organization.
It’s encouraging to see changes in these demographics in the arts space, however we have a long way to go before the dynamics of board composition filter into meaningful impact on the work accomplished by an arts organization. We see organizations tout their EDI initiatives and attempts at achieving representation in their workforce, but when marginalized and racialized people are still accountable on paper to a predominantly white board, we must accept that this is tokenism and colonialism in action. Generator’s outgoing Lead Producer, Kristina Lemieux, breaks down the history of the prevailing governance model in Canada in this blog post, and surprise, dear Reader, “the nonprofit/charity model is inherently patriarchal and capitalist and therefore colonial and racist.”
In the midst of many challenges in the arts sector, our entrepreneurial, grassroots model for engagement, creation and audience building is often at the mercy of an archaic model of non-profit governance.
Arts boards are often composed of volunteers who have little or no experience with the creative process. Rather, they are chosen for their potential fundraising network or expertise, creating a power dynamic that is fundamentally rooted in capitalism and white privilege, leading to board dysfunction, particularly amongst boards that are embracing “diversity” without truly giving up power.
So what to do about this archaic model that at best has active, engaged members who understand their responsibilities to the organization and the overall arts ecosystem, and at its worst, is padding in someone’s corporate bio or LinkedIn profile?
Traditional roles and responsibilities of non-profit boards are summarized elsewhere (you can refer to this webinar or to the Board of Directors page on ArtistProducerResource.com here), so let’s move to the more potent question for today: “what exactly is the responsibility of a non-profit arts board in this current time?” As part of Generator’s Governance Reimaginings project, Jane Marsland led a session addressing this very question, focusing on the need to shift board dynamics beyond approval of audited statements and strategic planning sessions, to broader discourse around transformation of the current arts ecology away from classism, patriarchy and subservience to….well, something else.
ARTS Action Research’s arts-centric concept for a healthy arts organization, via Jane Marsland. The Centre holds the principles, values, mission, purpose and particular aesthetic of the arts organization which is articulated in a document that is most fully understood by everyone in the first circle around the Centre, the Core.
Jane Marsland on Reframing Governance
With over 40 years in arts leadership, and many a board experience over the years, Jane has been instrumental in pushing to redefine non-profit board governance in the arts. In her session, Jane highlighted several areas of current governance fragility to be considered as we better understand how to create a dynamic and sustainable arts sector.
Here are three questions any arts board should be asking itself as we move through the next iteration of the arts sector in Canada:
1. Do we truly understand the artistic process?
The effective functioning of an arts board is tied to the creative process. Board members must have a true understanding of the artistic process of an organization in order to bring those values into this process at the governance level. Many of us have been there, that first meeting when you welcome in new board members, round robin introductions ensue, and sure enough a newer board member openly jokes about how this is the first time they are interacting with the organization, they know nothing about the arts, and thank so much for having them. It seems absurd, but it happens more often than you might think. A board that doesn’t understand the artistic process of the organization cannot understand how creative ideas are incubated and explored, how conflict is uncovered and resolved, how fiduciary decisions take place, and ultimately, how the organization functions—yet these are all foundational frameworks of effective governance, even for a board that is not involved in day-to-day operations.
2. Who is on our Board and why?
If you have sat on a board you may be familiar with the often heralded “board recruitment” conversation. Board renewal is an integral part of governance, but all too often arts organizations will use the opportunity to bring on board members who are believed to hold value without any real connection to the mission, vision or values of the organization. I once interviewed for a board where staff had asked me to put my name forward because of my understanding of the organization, my previous volunteer activities with the company and my overall expertise in the arts. I had a great conversation with the Board Chair for over an hour only to be told that at this particular moment, they needed someone with more fundraising experience. The traditional understanding of Board composition prevailed, with the Board looking for someone who had fundraising listed on their resume. This rigidity in their approach meant they missed out on someone with a network of emerging potential donors to contribute to donor renewal, new relationships with sponsor organizations, strong business acumen and sector expertise. Next time you engage in board renewal, ask yourself, does the “job description” work for the communities you want to engage, or is it based on a colonial notion of what it means for someone to add value to a board?
3. What is the lifecycle of our organization?
Understanding the lifecycle of arts organizations is central to understanding how they function. Boards are generally galvanized around the hope of growth, increased funding, dynamic programming, and the proliferation of hiring. Exciting times. But what about the opposite end of the life cycle, the part that no one wants to speak of or engage in strategically? When is it time for an arts organization to have its last curtain call? What is the Board’s responsibility in that discussion and strategy? I have seen first-hand as boards struggle with the difficult choice of saying “no” or redirecting staff when they know at their core that operations aren’t working, the financials are a mess, staff are unhappy and the narrative they are receiving isn’t the complete picture of what is going on. Toxic soup for sure! These conversations usually play out with one or two board members raising concerns that are explained away with vague answers or discussed “in camera” or, when they really hit the nail on the head, are met with silence or redirected (often these board members suddenly leave the board at the next AGM). This odd dynamic can fuel an environment that is psychologically unsafe for board members to speak up and truly adhere to their fiduciary responsibility. What is left is a rosy picture of success—until the organization is in crisis, put on notice by funders, and forced to consider winding down operations. But what if there was another way, one where arts boards openly discuss the lifecycle of the organization? A healthy arts organization fuels creativity by ensuring arts leaders and board members are only in their positions for a set period of time (a topic for another day). What if the same intentionality was applied at the organizational level? Like the last season of your favourite TV show, the last season of a performing arts organization could be one of celebration, excitement, and renewal as it morphs into a new form.
Strategy Knotworking from Liberating Structures, via Jane Marsland: six Strategy Knotworking questions are arrayed graphically with LS [Liberating Structures] methods useful for answering each question in parentheses. A visual approach reinforces the sequence of answers that reveal a story unfolding. Read more here or visit LiberatingStructures.com.
With all this food for thought, I encourage you to engage your board in central questions around governance. Maybe these ideas resonated with you or maybe they sparked another train of thought. Maybe you think I’m off-base. Great. My call to action is for Board Members to make this a standing agenda item at your board meetings, a discussion for your next board retreat and an action for your next board renewal process.
Let’s start talking, because the next generation of the arts in Canada needs to rethink structures and systems at every level, including governance, reimagined.
Governance Reimaginings asks how we can deconstruct inherited governance structures to create systems of accountability and community care that support, and are aligned with, the values of the organizations and individuals they serve. Structured as a knowledge exchange between Generator, Shakespeare in the Ruff, and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, Governance Reimaginings took place between April-December 2021 and featured a series of instigations by invited guest speakers. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Chalmers Family Fund, administered by the Ontario Arts Council, for this project.
Governance Reimaginings (or, There’s Got To Be A Better Way)
Brendan McMurtry-Howlett on the challenges of navigating a board of directors as a young artistic director, and the project Generator has undertaken with Shakespeare in the Ruff and Toronto Dance Community Love-in to look at alternative governance models.
This is the first post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, Generator Strategic Advisors Co-Chair and Board Member Brendan McMurtry-Howlett introduces the project.
Kaitlyn Riordan, Brendan McMurty-Howlett, and AJ Richardson (left to right) in Withrow Park, Shakespeare in the Ruff’s home base, in 2012 (perhaps contemplating the nature of governance, who’s to say?) — photo by Daniel Daley
So, my friends, we’ve had a couple blog posts about boards and governance already, primarily highlighting the shortcomings and challenges of the legislated model (i.e. systemic patriarchy and white supremacy). You can do a quick little recap here and here. You can also basically ask anyone who has ever sat on a board or worked with a board and they’ll likely give you a litany of issues…as well as a handful of positives.
Despite the widely acknowledged flaws of the non-profit board governance system that a company becomes beholden to as soon as it incorporates, “to incorporate or not to incorporate” is a question Generator hears routinely.
This, of course, is never as simple a conversation as the independent companies asking hope it will be (although we did write an ArtistProducerResource.com page about it to cover the basics). There’s pressure on indie companies who are looking to grow to pursue incorporation, either for regular non-profit status, or the coveted, yet misunderstood “charitable status” (Cue the pots of gold dancing in artists’ eyes.)
We’ve been having this discussion on repeat for years, emphasizing the systemic white supremacy and patriarchy that plagues the non-profit board of directors model—but we haven’t really had a clear alternative to point to. So, we thought we’d try to do something about it. We teamed up with Shakespeare in the Ruff and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, two companies we’ve worked with closely over the past few years through our Company Collaborator program, to propose a project exploring alternative governance models—and lo and behold, the funding came through!
But first, how did I get here?
I’ve been peripherally connected to Generator (and even the former version: STAF) for a number of years. I helped found Shakespeare in the Ruff and served as the Artistic Director for the first five years, before passing the torch to Kaitlyn Riordan and Eva Barrie, who have now completed their tenures as well. More recently, I joined Generator’s board, curious to experience the board structure from the other side. See, as a young artist producer launching Shakespeare in the Ruff, I myself was lured by the promise of incorporation and charitable status. Well, to be perfectly honest, we were forced to incorporate in order to obtain a permit to perform in a city park. But, it seemed like a reasonable step to take since we wanted to grow the company and increase our access to resources.
I flew headlong into incorporation, and the accompanying “corporate” requirements and mandated board of directors, without much thought to what it actually meant.
I soon found myself trying to quickly learn the language of a corporation: Robert’s Rules, by-laws, minute-taking and motions. I filled our board with non-artists, as per the advice of the day: lawyers, accountants, corporate marketing experts, and the like.
I soon found I was living a double life: an artist in the rehearsal hall, actively embracing uncertainty with a robust creative process and vocabulary to navigate it; and a corporate executive in the board meetings, faking my way through meetings, discussing corporate decision-making procedures —steering clear of uncertainty at all costs lest the board of non-artists get scared and panic in a way that might undermine the organization. I found I was frequently undermining my own expert knowledge of the arts industry to defer to a corporate lawyer who waved around their “fiduciary duty” like a beating-stick.
I couldn’t provide leadership within the vocabulary and processes of a corporation, and the corporate directors couldn’t provide leadership for an arts industry they knew nothing about.
At the lowest point, our board imploded over disagreements of corporate procedure, and the company very nearly folded. No joke: Shakespeare in the Ruff, now celebrating its tenth anniversary and welcoming a third generation of leadership, almost went belly-up in year three.
I don’t believe there was malicious intent from any party. We were all simply pushed into a system of operating that did not arise from the values or ways-of-knowing of the artistic company itself. None of us had clarity on the actual functions of governance, beyond fulfilling the legal structure insisted upon by the Incorporation Act.
There were also many great experiences with Ruff’s board, where I was genuinely supported by a community of artists and non-artists alike to achieve more than I ever could have on my own. These polar oppositional experiences piqued my curiosity, and ever since leaving Shakespeare in the Ruff, I have sought to learn more about the spirit of governance and the legal structures we have in place. (I even went and did a Master’s degree looking at some of this stuff, but that’s a different story.) When the opportunity arose to join this project (and help write the grant), I jumped at it.
Brendan with Wayne Burns (right) in a production photo from Romeo and Juliet in 2016 — photo by Cylla von Tiedemann
Brendan welcoming Ruff audiences before a performance of Two Gents in 2012
So what is the project?
From the outset, the core of this project has been the desire to tackle the seemingly overwhelming topic of ‘governance’ within the context of a community of artist producers thinking about similar questions, but each through the lens of slightly different operating structures.
The Toronto Dance Community Love-in is an incorporated non-profit, and has operated with a collective leadership model since their inception. Shakespeare in the Ruff is a theatre company that has been operating under a co-leadership model, but is now undergoing a leadership transition towards a collective model, as well as a moment of transition with their board. Ruff is an incorporated charity which means they’ve got an extra layer of regulations and reporting requirements on their “corporate” structure.
We wanted to achieve a few things through this project. First, we wanted to learn. What are the other possibilities for governance models and structures? What are the exact legal requirements, and are there any loopholes in fulfilling them? What does “governance” actually mean separate from the non-profit board-of-directors model? Second, we wanted an opportunity within each of our three organizations, to try things out, do things differently, and experiment with governance and organizational structures based on our learning. Third, we wanted to share our learnings with the broader community…hence this blog post. And there will be more blog posts coming.
Throughout the past six months, we’ve structured our project as a series of (mostly Zoom) learning sessions, inviting in various knowledgeable folks who each bring a different perspective to the concept of governance and non-profit structures. These have been incredibly enlightening and exhilarating sessions, filling my head and heart with so many ideas, and allowing for an intimate discussion about the issues. We’ve been meeting with folks such as Jane Marsland, Yvette Nolan, Zainab Amadahy, Elder Whabagoon, Cynthia Lickers-Sage, and others.
What has struck me so far in these sessions is that governance is no one thing for any one person. It is about a practice of decision making that is undertaken in community. There is no magic wand, or perfect structure that will solve all the problems. Anything we create must be engaged with, nourished, and sustained by those impacted by and connected to the organization.
We’ve also had sessions where we’ve all shared our current thinking and questions, as well as how each of our uniquely structured organizations are wrestling with the shared issues. These sessions have been just as enlightening as those with invited guests, as I’ve been exposed to the innovative thinking and practical adjustments that my fellow participants have been doing within their own organizational contexts.
Over the next couple of months, we will be publishing a series of blog posts written by various people participating in this project. Some of them will be engaging with the learnings offered to us by our guest speakers. Some of them will be personal reflections on an evolving understanding of governance. We hope they will all be wildly entertaining. Or, at the very least, we hope to contribute to a growing community of folks in the arts (as well as other sectors) who are taking a good hard look at governance and the ways we make decisions together. We are all starting to recognize that in order to address systemic racism and patriarchy, we need to address our systems, and be bold in dreaming up something different.
These times of upheaval are an opportunity, if we can find the energy. As Yvette Nolan said to us, "I don't know how long this window is going to be open for." This is urgent work, and the more we share our growing knowledge on the subject of organizational transformation, the better our chance of enacting change that will reverberate through our sector…and honestly, hopefully the world too.
Governance Reimaginings asks how we can deconstruct inherited governance structures to create systems of accountability and community care that support, and are aligned with, the values of the organizations and individuals they serve. Structured as a knowledge exchange between Generator, Shakespeare in the Ruff, and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, Governance Reimaginings took place between April-December 2021 and featured a series of instigations by invited guest speakers. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Chalmers Family Fund, administered by the Ontario Arts Council, for this project.
Reflections on Peer Mentorship
Generator’s partnership with SummerWorks looks a little different each year, and this past summer it took the form of peer mentorship. Read reflections from SummerWorks Assistant Artistic Producers Fatima Adam and Haley Vincent and peer mentors Kitoko Mai and xLq (Maddie Bautista and Jordan Campbell) here.
Generator’s annual partnership with SummerWorks Performance Festival looks a little different each year—from the “Imagining the Future” Pecha Kucha in 2016, to “Creating Sign Language Magic” in 2019, and all of the conversations and collaborations in between. This past summer, our partnership took the form of peer mentorship: we had the absolute pleasure of connecting SummerWorks Assistant Artistic Producers Fatima Adam and Haley Vincent with peer mentors Kitoko Mai and xLq (Maddie Bautista and Jordan Campbell), all three of whom are alumni of Generator’s Artist Producer Training program.
We’re so grateful to these five wonderful individuals for experimenting with this format with us (and on Zoom, no less)! We’re delighted to share some of their learnings and reflections with you here.
xLq (Jordan Campbell + Maddie Bautista)
HALEY: What role has peer mentorship/mentorship played in building your career?
xLq: A sense
Of wonder
And belief
In ourselves
To validate
Our wildest
Fantasies.
A way forward in the darkest hours
A tiny crack of light to crawl into
Being held accountable by other artmakers
For the kind of art and the choices we made
Learning about the kind of artists we wanted to be
And who we didn’t want to be.
GENERATOR: What’s something from the mentorship sessions that resonated with you?
HALEY: There are so many wise words that have stuck with me from my time with Maddie and Jordan. An idea that really resonated, that they both embrace so well, was committing to fun. Even during the mundane or frustrating or difficult parts of creating and producing, making a conscious effort to have fun is a priority! There have been times when the stress or pressure has made me forget that making art and working with creatives is the best!
FATIMA: The most important piece of advice Kit gave to me is, make your voice heard even if you think no one is listening. So often we choose not to speak up because we think our words will be ignored but, if we say nothing, we are guaranteed to be ignored. Reaching out to people with inquiries, comments or even criticisms, is not something I did regularly before our mentorship. However, since speaking with Kit about this, I have contacted multiple organizations to ask questions, critique their productions/policies, or just let them know I enjoyed a show of theirs. Doing so has not only connected me with theatres and artists across Toronto, it has also started necessary dialogue about issues pertaining to our community.
xLq: How are you becoming the mentor you wish you had when you started out?
KIT: By showing up as my authentic self—meaning I brought my disabilities in the room with me and asked for accommodations—by being flexible and asking the mentee what they need and want, by being honest about how I have to navigate the industry with my identities, my low capacity, and the oppression clique (white supremacy, patriarchy, etc).
FATIMA: An aspect of this mentorship I deeply appreciated is the care and flexibility Kit and I provided to each other. It was lovely being part of an artistic collaboration where your personhood is placed before your workload because unfortunately, that’s not always a guarantee.
GENERATOR: What’s something about this mentorship relationship that really worked that you want to remember and repeat?
KIT: The fact that Fatima and I are only a few stages apart when it comes to our careers. I feel like the advice I offered was stuff that I learned recently, tried recently, and shared with her. It's advice that she can use immediately. It's not dated because it reflects the industry that we are both navigating right now. I think peer to peer mentorship is incredibly valuable.
HALEY: I really enjoyed getting to know Jordan and Maddie through having casual non-outcome-driven chats about life and art. These conversations led to learning and activities in a very organic way. Based on our talks, xLq led a few career planning exercises, that we all did together, that made me rethink how I approach my work!
xLq: An exercise
Or two
Couldn’t hurt
(no need to hit the gym)
We know more
Than we think
We can share
Ourselves
And be honest
(candour is key)
Making lists of 50 puts things into perspective
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
Haley Vincent
Fatima Adam
KIT: I often felt like I was giving you information that I learned yesterday, was using today, that you might use tomorrow. What was it like for you to engage in mentorship with someone who is literally only a few steps ahead of you versus more established within the industry?
FATIMA: I found it incredibly helpful to engage in mentorship with Kit because the part of my journey I am currently in, is where Kit was not too long ago. The advice and suggestions they gave felt more applicable because they can speak directly to their experience being in my position and the circumstances they faced are similar, if not the exact same. Often when speaking to those who are further along than myself, so much time has passed since they were where I am that the environment, conditions and challenges that I am experiencing, either did not exist or were completely different for them. Therefore, the advice they’re able to give feels incomplete but, with Kit that’s not the case. We are experiencing the same or similar barriers, opportunities, joys, difficulties, etc. Being able to confide in, seek guidance from, and create community with someone who’s only a few steps ahead of myself, has been incredibly helpful both personally and professionally.
SUMMERWORKS: What are some ways that creative curiosity can be made more a part of our processes as producers?
KIT: If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that we can be creative about finding ways to meet the needs of our communities as they change. We shouldn't need a pandemic to force us to find more ways to pay artists, develop more ways to share art or make art, or even curate communities within digital space. Challenges (especially those related to disability accommodation) should be embraced as they are opportunities to explore and be innovative. I think the Toronto and Hamilton theatre communities have been more creative (in terms of how we curate community, make and share art, find ways to pay artists) during this pandemic because everyone was affected. There wasn't a choice. When this is all over, I want that creativity to continue, I want challenges that stem from community needs to be embraced as exciting opportunities to grow and provide care. Theatre (performance as a whole) is an art form that is living and meant to grow (i mean like every performance builds on the last, can change, can develop in ways that more static forms of art don't. Yes this is debatable.) When we stop being curious, we stop growing.
HALEY: I want to investigate and dive deeper into projects that are aligned with the values I hold. Using producing as its own form of storytelling, a place to ruminate on important questions and a way of exploring human connection.
xLq: We must
let go
Of all we thought
We knew
A playful practise
Is a prerequisite
For this pathetic pathological party
Do you still remember how to play????????
It might take practise
Practise isn’t perfect
A process isn’t a production line
When do producers really get to play?
Kitoko Mai
1 month ago
We wrote a poem
(it was an application)
It felt true to us
It was still under 1000 words
FATIMA: If you could give one piece of advice to yourself from 3 years ago, what would it be?
KIT: Only one???? Okay. To Baby Kit: You are a bad bitch (even if you don't see it ) and everything that doesn't make sense about producing will make more sense after you try it, fail, learn, and then try again!
HALEY: To Haley from 3 years ago, although it may seem like nothing will ever work out, it sooo will! It'll work out exactly how it's supposed to. Your path won't look like everyone else's and that's okay.
Keep exploring what you love, caring about community and those around you, building your skills, and being you! Love, present Haley.
About the Artists
Fatima Adam (she/her)
is a Toronto based writer, performer, facilitator, and producer. Passionate about creative collaboration, she has worked with BlackCAP, The AMY Project, SummerWorks Performance Festival, and more. Currently, she is an Associate Producer with the Culchahworks Arts Collective. Fatima hopes to continue working within media production and the performing arts, bringing underrepresented talent to the forefront, and widening accessibility for artists in the GTA to pursue theatre.
Haley Vincent (she/her)
is an emerging artist originally hailing from Treaty 1 Territory, Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is a graduate of the University of Winnipeg, holding a BA Honours degree in Theatre and Film. Haley is a creator, performer, administrator and producer with a passion for multi-disciplinary performance, nuanced storytelling and community building. Her work has taken her across Turtle Island and to the UK. Haley is always searching for new creative outlets and opportunities for diverse and meaningful learning.
Kitoko Mai
is a disabled, non-binary, multidisciplinary performance, media, and community artist. Their artistic practice is best described as a chaotic collage. It is a collection of film & video art, photography, performance, collage, installation, sound, poetry and chaotic Alt Black femme weirdness. Kitoko is the recipient of the 2021 Promising Pen Prize from Cahoots Theatre and the 2020 Gilded hammers Emerging Artist Award. They are a member of the community arts collective, Care Collective, are currently taking part in a residency at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, and completing a year-long script development program with Nightwood Theatre through their Write From the Hip program. You can also see their cheeky and informative YouTube series called “The BIPOC Survival Guide”, designed to support post-secondary students and produced by the CBC. Their work is rooted in social justice, anti-oppression, and the pursuit of messiness. Their personal philosophy is to produce work that aims to destabilize hierarchies of power, embraces fluidity of content, form, and process; as well as prioritizes accessibility.
Bio written by Kitoko and made infinitely better by Claire Calnan
xLq
is a POP ART performance duo comprised of Jordan Campbell and Maddie Bautista. Dedicated to radical performance forms, xLq combines ritual, fashion, dance, music, and queer pop aesthetics to create complicit audience experiences.
Their original performance creation 4inXchange received Nightswimming’s 5x25 Commission and won the NOW Magazine Audience Choice Award at the 2018 SummerWorks Festival, then proceeded to tour to the rEvolver Festival 2019 (Vancouver, BC), FEM FEST 2019 (Winnipeg, MB), the Grand Theatre (Fergus, ON), Registry Theatre (Kitchener, ON), and Waterford Old Town Hall (Waterford, ON).
They are currently in residence with Nightswimming Theatre, where they are developing All for One for All, which premiered at CAMINOS 2019, and was created while in residence with lemonTree creations.
Board Governance: What is it? What is possible?
Reflections on a discussion about what power boards have, what is possible when we look at alternative ways of operating, and what we mean we talk about accountability.
A conversation with Generator Generations
What power do boards have? Generator’s Lead Producer Kristina Lemieux used this prompt to launch a conversation around what we know (and what we think we know) about boards of directors, and what is possible when we look at alternative ways of operating.
Present at the Zoom discussion this blog post was based on: seven community members (Eva Barrie, Robyn Breen, Jacqueline Costa, Rohan Dhupar, Brock Hessel, Brendan Howlett, and Kaitlyn Riordan) and Generator’s staff team (Annie Clarke, Sedina Fiati, Kristina Lemieux, and Keshia Palm).
Over the past few months we’ve been inviting our community of program alumni to ‘Food for Thought’ conversations, exploring topics related to transformation, opportunity, and growth—much like we’re doing right here on our Learnings + Explorations blog. One of the big topics we’ve been exploring is boards of directors (Kristina got us started on the blog in October with We’re going to talk about boards a lot—here are some introductory frameworks to get us started). This post is based on a discussion that took place over Zoom in October that we called ‘Board Governance: What is it? What is possible?’
Why boards?
Boards of directors of non-profit organizations in Canada have a fiduciary duty, tasking them with the responsibility to act in the best interests of the organization by overseeing the resources of the organization in line with its stated mandate. There may be additional external oversight if the organization has charitable status and/or is operating beyond the financial threshold at which public funding bodies require an annual external audit.
It’s important to note that many of the reasons why our boards are the way they are stem from the requirements of public funders.
The relevant acts for organizations incorporated in Ontario, BC, and at the federal level, all say that compensating board members is permitted for non-profits (this is not the case for registered charities); the funders, however, expressly forbid it. As a result, one of the givens we work with in the non-profit sector is that individual board members are volunteers—a fact that inevitably dictates the amount of work and engagement it is reasonable to expect from them.
Boards are often held up as forces for accountability. But what kind of accountability are we talking about exactly? Financial accountability is achieved by an audit—having boards as additional oversight is arguably redundant. Accountability to the funders is provided through reporting—if you’re awarded money for programming, you need to provide evidence of that programming being carried out. You probably do similar forms of reporting to donors, sponsors, even audience members. But what about the more nebulous form of accountability that many of us crave so deeply: accountability to community?
Towards community accountability
“The more involved artists are in an organization, the easier it is to support them,” says Sedina Fiati, Generator’s Training Consultant. She offers the example of the outbreak of Covid-19: institutions were too cut off from artists to understand how to best support them in a crisis. Artists are often intentionally held at arm’s length from an organization’s governance: an artist who sits on your board is an artist who’s no longer easy for you to hire for a project—that would constitute a legal conflict of interest. Sedina challenges this premise: if artists are both engaged by an organization and involved in the decision-making that goes into it, “why is that a bad thing?”
We want organizations in our community to be accountable to their mandate, to their values, and to their community—but we don’t feel like that’s happening. So if boards are failing to achieve that accountability, what happens if we take it out of their job description? Kristina asked the group:
“How do you want to create systems that hold organizations and leaders accountable?”
She asked folks to reflect both as leaders and as community members, and emphasized the importance of identifying the community they want to be held accountable by.
Brendan Howlett adds that an accountability structure would optimally include people who are inside the organization’s operations and those who are not. “So in the case of Generator, if you want to be accountable to the people who have gone through your programs [Generator Generations], you also need to ask: who are the people who are not participating in Generator Generations, and why?”
Dreaming of alternatives
Seeing an organization’s programming is not the same thing as seeing their mandate. Accountability to the community you’re working in would mean moving beyond quantitative measures—Did this program happen? How many programs did you run? How many people participated? What was your box office revenue?—to investigate the qualitative.
What would it be like to centre the people who are working on the projects, and their experiences with your organization?
“The people who are the most engaged are artists,” Sedina says, “partly out of love, partly out of desperation.” (And this can extend to all those who work on your projects—the production team may or may not identify as artists, but you better believe they’re just as engaged as those who do!)
So how do we make space for those voices to impact the way your organization works, and integrate feedback into production processes? Sedina suggests sending out a pre-rehearsal questionnaire so that you can begin a process with access needs in mind. Kaitlyn Riordan wonders about sending out a survey at different points throughout the process as a way of actively checking on how you’re doing on your values. Whether you’re managing a staff team, production team, creative team, or some combination, you can allocate time and money for feedback in your contracts, and identify what folks will be evaluating from the outset.
One of the models that was suggested to support community accountability was membership. If you have a membership, you can consult with them! Kristina references the long-standing model of the artist-run centre, which is prevalent among independent galleries in the visual arts sector. The first step? Defining who your membership is, or could be.
“Clear terms of engagement and incentive,” Brendan emphasizes, are key to any governance model. If you’re looking at taking accountability off the board’s plate, and/or redefining what accountability can mean for your organization, clarity and intentionality will serve you well. The questions we kept coming back to in this discussion were Who do you want to be accountable to? and How do you create systems that support community accountability? The ideas above are just a beginning!
One of the areas non-profits tend to lean on boards for? Fundraising! The Generator board put a ton of work into our summer fundraising party, Wrecked, in June 2019. Left to right: Sedina Fiati (staff), board members Elenna Mosoff, Claire Burns, and Quinn Harris, with Kristina Lemieux (staff) and Mikaela Demers (seated).
What do we want to keep?
In the current/dominant model, there are certainly ways in which the institution of the board of directors provides value to the organizations it serves, and to the individuals who serve as directors. Brendan talks about how rewarding he’s found some of his work with boards; he sees them as a potential avenue for meaningful involvement from non-artists. They can “help us make sure we’re not exclusively making art for other artists,” he says.
Kristina has found that boards can, at times, be a useful place for organizational leadership to go for emotional and professional support; for better or worse, they’re the closest thing the non-profit sector has to the clinical supervisor model (whereby social workers have access to someone with context for their profession, who can offer some support and function as a sounding board).
Boards may also operate as a place for leaders to consult as they make decisions. But the question then becomes who should leaders be consulting before making decisions? Is it the board? Their peers? The staff team? The broader community? All of the above?
Where do we go from here?
It feels as though there’s great interest in moving away from positioning boards as the arbiter of organizational accountability, towards a model that emphasizes accountability to community. In one sense, there’s already room to play around with different models—when you start to unpack it, the intrinsic power that boards have is actually pretty limited—but in another, there are very real obstacles that prevent us from subverting the systems and norms that are already in place. Funders are certainly the source of many of these norms, and it stands to reason that we would see a much greater diversity of governance (and accountability) models if certain requirements were changed. Advocating to policy-makers for the removal of the compensation prohibition for boards (and, while you’re at it, the requirement to have a board in the first place) is a great start. Other obstacles come from a place of scarcity, or at least perceived scarcity: limited time and resources to experiment and make change happen.
And yet, if nothing else, 2020 taught us that there’s room to dream bigger, to demand better, and to move with intention. Questions about governance and accountability aren’t so different from the bigger questions we’re asking each other right now: what does it mean to be in community? What is the role of an artist? And how can there be space for those who want different things, and for institutions that support different ways of working? No one on this Zoom call had all the answers—but if you do, we’d love to hear them: info@generatorto.com.
Further Reading
We will never stop recommending this fantastic piece by Yvette Nolan, published on MassCulture’s website in September 2020: ‘Governance structures by theatres, for theatres—what I wish existed.’
For a really comprehensive report on reimagining governance in the non-profit sector in Canada: ‘Peering into the Future’ by Lisa Lalande, published in August 2020.
If you’re looking for some basic context about how boards currently function in the sector, and what that means for artist producers and non-profit workers, visit the Board of Directors page on ArtistProducerResource.com.
Generator will be continuing to write about boards as part of this Learnings + Explorations blog throughout the year to come. If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to explore, please contact Kristina Lemieux, Lead Producer, at kristina@generatorto.com.
A Values-Based Approach to Hiring
Generator in conversation with Shakespeare in the Ruff and the Toronto Dance Community Love-In, two companies in residence with us who have both undergone hiring processes this fall.
Generator in conversation with Shakespeare in the Ruff + the Toronto Dance Community Love-In
“It’s a transitional year,” Eva Barrie says of Shakespeare in the Ruff, the company she leads with Kaitlyn Riordan—but she may as well be speaking for the entire arts sector. From small organizations to large institutions, and every CERB-supported artist in between, we are being asked to confront, create, and navigate massive change this year. Announcements of departures, job postings, and review processes signal major shifts happening at all levels of our sector—and they just keep coming.
This fall, the Toronto Dance Community Love-in and Shakespeare in the Ruff have both undergone hiring processes. The Love-in welcomed applications for a new ‘Lover’ to join their existing team of co-Artistic Directors; Ruff sought new artistic leadership to replace current co-Artistic Directors Eva Barrie and Kaitlyn Riordan. (Applications to both are now closed). The two companies are in long-term residence with Generator through our Company Collaborator program.
“I think these companies are at similar but different points in their development,” says Kristina Lemieux, Lead Producer at Generator.
“Because of their agility, Ruff and the Love-in can both teach larger institutions about a values-based approach to hiring.”
Their respective approaches offer insight for companies currently undergoing transition, as well as companies seeking to clarify values to support long-term transition processes and work culture.
Ruff and the Love-in also represent something more specific: the point in an organization’s life cycle in which processes become more formalized and ‘operationalized.’ Kristina offers the analogy of a tech start-up, where you receive outside investment for years before you become profitable; similarly, what we tend to see in the arts is people volunteering their time for years before they get paid commensurate to the hours they contribute. Both Ruff and the Love-in started to move towards more operational, less project-based funding a couple years ago; as a result, they’re now able to offer more stable income to leadership. At both companies, all leadership positions remain part-time, and the staff continue to be engaged as contractors, not as employees.
We brought them together over Zoom in October to discuss the ways they’re carrying out their hiring processes in this, 2020: the year that looks like no other.
Shakespeare in the Ruff's co-Artistic Directors Eva Barrie (left) and Kaitlyn Riordan in Withrow Park in 2018 (photo by Dahlia Katz).
The Love-in's (left to right) Robyn Breen, Shelby Wright, Ann Trépanier, and Oriana Pagnotta at a winter 2019 company retreat.
An atypical year
A typical year for The Toronto Dance Community Love-in would feature monthly in-person dance/movement workshops from October-June. There would be a two-week intensive period of workshops and performances in July, plus other discussions and productions from time to time. Ruff does one mainstage production of a Shakespeare adaptation—“we use the word adaptation very loosely,” Eva says— in Withrow Park each August. They also run a Young Ruffian education program for youth, and a Guerilla Ruffian mentorship program for Emerging Artists. Needless to say, programming at both organizations has shifted in the time of covid-19. Both companies have relied on a combination of shifting programming online and experimenting with carefully controlled, distanced in-person offerings in Toronto.
Why now?
Hiring processes take work—usually enormous amounts of time, energy, and care. “We have the resources to do that now,” says Shelby Wright, a Lover since 2018, “but in the past it wasn’t possible for us.” The Love-in has always had a collective leadership model, with the number of Lovers in co-leadership fluctuating between two and seven over the years. Historically, new people have joined organically, through some form of interaction with the organization. “We've been curious about what would happen if we put out a call for this role,” Shelby explains. “Who would apply and what could they bring to the team?”
“We firmly believe that the health of an organization depends on new perspectives and fresh ideas,” Eva says.
“Ruff, because of its size, is a great place to experiment. And it has a great community backing it, of audiences who are excited to see something different.” Earlier this year, Ruff hired Associate Artistic Director Desiree Leverenz after putting out an open call for submissions. Their current process will mark the first open call for artistic directorship in their history. Previous transitions have arisen from informal conversations and internal decision-making. Eva and Kaitlyn have been co-Artistic Directors since 2018, replacing the previous model of a single Artistic Director. With that transition in 2018, Eva explains, “what we wanted to put forth was an offer of how to work collaboratively, and within a flattened hierarchy.” For their call for applicants this fall, they were intentionally open to different forms of leadership models. “People assume there's a status quo that you have to maintain. And we're saying, you bring your own—you can change it!”
What’s changed?
At the Love-in, the approach to hiring for a new ‘Lover’ has been informed by some shifts in thinking that have emerged this year. They’re moving away from the language of “teaching” (workshops are now called Practice Labs), re-assessing engagements with artists to deepen them and make them less “transactional,” and changing how they find artists to engage with. “In the past, most or all of our engagement with artists was based on a list of artists that the Lovers would contribute to based on people that they knew about, or were referred to,” Shelby explains. “A big shift for the end of this season and into the next year is that we're meeting artists that perhaps we've never heard of, which is exciting. And specifically artists who are local—Toronto or GTA-based.”
Ruff had been working towards leadership transition for a while, and the past few months have pushed them to make the hiring process as thoughtful and considered as it can be. “We landed on this one,” Eva says “because we wanted to ensure the process connects to our values.”
The application process
Eva explains that a lot of her and Kaitlyn’s time went into contacting individuals who they saw as capable—even before the job posting went live.
“Some of the best leaders I’ve seen in the arts community didn’t know they were leaders.”
This process also included reaching out to other Artistic Directors and asking who they needed to know about. It also meant following up with folks who said they weren’t interested in applying, and investigating why that was. “We were heavily looking into how we could create an anti-oppressive, anti-racist job posting. So we're looking at how, specifically, what factors and what barriers stop people from applying.” One of the issues Eva identifies is one of transparency: people can be discouraged by simply not knowing what they’re getting into. With that in mind, Ruff prepared an Applicant Guide to accompany their job posting, the aim of which was transparency about things like salaries, workload, and what the application process would look like. They also identified their Hiring Committee (which does not include any staff), so folks would know who would be making the decisions. “We're very clear that our values are anti-racism. As a company that presents Shakespeare, I think it's very important to say: we do not worship Shakespeare; we use that text as a playground. We don't use it as a way to push forth colonial values.”
Perhaps the biggest takeaway for Ruff? “Build in time.” Allow people time to not only complete the application, but to consider applying in the first place—and then allow for enough training time once they’re hired. Another thing Eva found valuable was a Facebook Live Q&A event that she and Kaitlyn facilitated, helping them engage with potential applicants and see how they were reaching people halfway through the process.
Part of outreach for the Love-in has been not only reaching out to specific organizations to share the call with their communities, but also making a point of getting on the phone or on a video chat with those organizations. “Just so they know about the changes we’re going through,” explains Robyn Breen, a Lover since 2014. “Our organization has changed, and continues to change all the time.” They’re working hard to make sure applications aren’t just coming from people they already know. “The contemporary dance community is small,” Shelby says, “but we don’t want it to continue to be small.”
A priority for the Love-in has been taking a CV/resume out of the application process.
“We're less interested in what someone has done and more interested in what they want to do,” Robyn says.
“So much of our collective leadership is that we teach each other really valuable skills,” adds Camille Rojas, a Lover since 2020. “With other hiring practices, there’s maybe a checklist of this and that, but what we're really interested in is seeing how we can help nurture each other and our community in different, less institutionalized ways.”
Kristina points out that the way the Love-in has built their call “reflects the way in which the Lovers are constantly shifting and changing how they hold roles and responsibilities within the collective.” Shelby explains that’s an important facet of the Love-in being artist-run: “by collectively working, it means that if someone needs to step away, or take some time to pursue their own artistic project, there isn't a big gap that's left—we all carry the work together.”
The Love-In’s Ann, Oriana, and Shelby (left to right) working at the Generator office in 2019
Eva performing in Withrow Park in 2017 (photo by Dahlia Katz)
The interview process
Eva shares that her own experiences as an artist have helped emphasize the importance of respecting artists’ time. “Kaitlyn and I are both freelance artists, and we recognize that hustling for jobs is like 80% of your job—so people need to be compensated.” Ruff has been clear that anyone engaged in an interview process will be paid for their time. “This also allows people to prepare more for the interview, and to feel more valued when they come into the interview. We stole that from AMY Project I think!”
Shelby agrees—the aim is for the “interview process” to be a ten-minute phone call; if it goes beyond that, people will be paid. For both the applicants and the Lovers doing the interview, Shelby wants it “to feel like they’re participating in a Love-in event—joyful, loving, respectful.”
“We are constantly trying to push against hierarchical structures, which is why we've organized ourselves the way we do.”
Even though it will be still an interview, “we want to find a way for it to be a little bit horizontal,” Shelby says.
How they got here
There is an openness inherent to both Ruff and the Love-in’s calls for applicants—they know they’re going to be faced with radically different proposals, visions, and offers. But they’re not worried. “For me,” Eva says, “it's about clarity in values.” She is fully supportive of future leadership going in their own direction. “My only thing would be, we've worked very hard to ensure that this is a place where that does not perpetuate harmful stereotypes and practices of white-centered organizations. Ultimately, Ruff is a playground, and however people want to play with it, go for it. And those sorts of values, I hope, are ingrained in the company already.”
Reading through the applications that have come in, Shelby says, “it’s really nice to be able to either see Love-in values there, or not.” The company has gone through the process of identifying their values, even (and especially) as those values change. Ruff has done the same, and they’ve shared their ‘5 Key Values’ as part of their job posting.
“None of this work was born this year,” Kristina says. This kind of clarity in values comes from years of sustained effort by these leaders, and a commitment to running organizations that put values at the forefront.
Eva emphasizes that the work of building the culture of an organization has an important bearing on who gets hired, and how they navigate that role. “If you’re looking to hire from Black, Indigenous, or people of colour communities, the culture of the organization already needs to be moving in that direction. Otherwise, if it's a white centered space, it's likely it will stay a white-centered space—unless you actively, actively dismantle that. When we were talking about what’s stopping people applying to Ruff? The question became do they see themselves in classical work? Eva sees this deep groundwork and space-making as central to her and Kaitlyn’s jobs as Artistic Directors:
“We need to prepare people and set people up to come into these work cultures, and to thrive.”
Ruff and the Love-in are both examples of organizations that have transformed their values and work cultures over the past couple of years. They have managed to grow in scale and stabilize their funding while remaining agile; this has been accomplished by a commitment to self-examination, continued learning, and accountability. We believe their collective insights speak to the importance of companies putting time and care into identifying their values (especially when they are at inflection points in their growth), and infusing hiring practices with those same values and priorities. We hope their insights will inspire those in similar situations, and lay bare some of the work and thinking that goes into these processes.
Generator will be undergoing its own leadership transition over the next year (you can find the announcement about Lead Producer Kristina Lemieux’s coming departure in our 20/21 Season Update here). We’ll be documenting more about the thinking and processes that are going into it, right here on our Learning + Explorations blog. If you have any questions for us about anything discussed above, or any questions you’d like us to explore around leadership transition, send us an email at info@generatorto.com.
This blog post is based on an October 23, 2020 Zoom conversation between Generator, the Love-in, and Shakespeare in the Ruff. Present at that meeting—from Generator: Kristina Lemieux and Annie Clarke; from the Love-in: Camille Rojas, Robyn Breen and Shelby Wright; from Ruff: Eva Barrie.
About Shakespeare in the Ruff
Shakespeare In The Ruff is a Toronto-based theatre company dedicated to exploring the possibilities of outdoor, site-specific theatre, re-imagining classical works, and fostering the next generation of theatre artists. Ruff strives to create accessible work in Toronto's Withrow Park, and welcome those who may not have connected with classical works in the past. The company has multiple training programs for emerging artists, and prides itself on deep connections with the Riverdale community. Shakespeareintheruff.com
About The Toronto Dance Community Love-in
The Toronto Dance Community Love-In is a not-for-profit artist-run dance organization based in Tkaronto, with a mandate to uphold generosity, respect and LOVE. The organization is nomadic, hosting an array of programming including workshops, performances, facilitated talks, collective practices and a summer festival in various spaces across the city. By connecting, supporting and welcoming artists locally and abroad, the Love-In provides a responsive platform for sharing experimental approaches in dance education and creative practice. tolovein.com
We’re going to talk about boards a lot—here are some introductory frameworks to get us started
“I have lost my faith in this model, but what it really comes down to is: the nonprofit/charity model is inherently patriarchal and capitalist and therefore colonial and racist.”
Over the next couple months, Generator is going to unpack and share the thinking we’re doing and steps we’re taking in this time of immense transition and opportunity for our organization, and for the live performance sector as a whole. We’re chronicling this process in this blog, which we’re calling ‘Learnings + Explorations.’ Our goal with these sharings is to be as transparent as possible about our decision-making and path forward, as well as to offer opportunities for cross-institutional learning.
Kristina at the Generator office, back when we were humans who worked out of offices! #throwback
One of the areas we’ll be writing about is boards of directors. I’ve been the Lead Producer at Generator since 2017, and I have over two decades of experience with board governance. I have several topics planned around boards, and this initial blog post will serve as the primer for what comes next. If you want to know more about boards, I encourage you to check out the links at the end of this post and the Board of Directors page on ArtistProducerResource.com. If you have a specific question, please reach out (you can email me at kristina@generatorto.com) and I’ll make sure to incorporate it.
At any given time between the ages of 19-39 I sat on at least one board of directors, and often reported to 1-3. Currently, I sit on none and report to two boards directly, as well as others indirectly. A large portion of my professional career in my 30s was dedicated to being a consultant to leaders and boards around the transition from friends and family/cheerleader boards to policy/governance boards—i.e. the process of increasing the professionalism of the board and creating and maintaining clear guidelines between management/staff and the board. In all these cases the size of the non-profit (sometimes charitable) arts organizations were under $750K operating budgets.
Over time, I realized that no matter how much we planned, established policies and procedures, and went on retreats to help us learn and work the ways we wanted to, the fact remained: boards members are distracted kittens who are only paying attention 30% of the time, even when they are sitting in the same room as you— even less when they are not. I’m being a tad hyperbolic here, but in my 20 years’ experience working with boards, I have found that at best they support and don’t get in the way of leadership, and at worst you get what we are currently seeing all over Canada’s arts community—massive sector-wide failure to be leaders. I have lost my faith in this model, but what it really comes down to is:
The nonprofit/charity model is inherently patriarchal and capitalist and therefore colonial and racist.
![The first meeting of the Carnegie Foundation in 1911. I know - women! Not what you were expecting. But don’t get too excited, that’s his daughter and wife on the right. We call this a ‘Friends and Family’ board, folks! [Wikipedia Commons]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5565ecede4b0df78d78d2b36/1601931727139-2TEP62153IESWILYUXRS/Carnegie+Corporation+1911+board+meeting)
The first meeting of the Carnegie Foundation in 1911. I know - women! Not what you were expecting. But don’t get too excited, that’s his daughter and wife on the right. We call this a ‘Friends and Family’ board, folks! [Wikipedia Commons]
The charity model comes from the success of capitalism. Rich white guys, who were also super religious, began to feel bad about all the financial success they were having—plus, they had to pay taxes on all those profits. Their social and religious backgrounds were steeped in a sense of social responsibility, volunteerism, and altruism. So they created a system that allowed them to do all of: appeasing their rich-person guilt by helping those who can’t help themselves; looking and feeling good about their actions in support of the “social good”; and providing themselves tax breaks. But of course, the people who were actually interested in doing the work of helping those who can’t help themselves as their profession couldn’t possibly be trusted to manage these dudes’ money (oops, I mean the money they graciously parted with because of altruism/tax breaks), so naturally a system had to be set up to oversee the management of that money. This system was designed to ensure that those doing the overseeing would be acting out of the best interest of that money—oops I did it again, I mean the best interests of the people that money is intended to serve/improve the lives of. And, tada, we were gifted the non-profit, volunteer board structure.
The idea that we need the board to oversee fiduciary duties (especially for organizations with budgets under a million that are already being independently audited on an annual basis) seems ridiculous to me, but funders still love this model and see it as necessary—though that is changing...slowly. Very slowly.
I have taken some creative license here (no distracted kittens were harmed in the making), but if you want to learn more about where the charitable model has come from, have a look at these books and links:
If you want to be the first to hear about Generator’s latest blog posts, make sure to sign up for our newsletter and follow us on social media @generatorTO.
#UrgentExchange Stop Abuse & Exploitation in Toronto Dance
We partnered with Company Collaborator the Toronto Dance Community Love-In and Daniels Spectrum for our first-ever #UrgentExchange devoted to dance: how do we dismantle harmful power structures and create safer spaces?
Left to right: Kate Nankervis, Tina Fushell, and Robyn Breen of the Love-In, Kristina Lemieux and Sedina Fiati of Generator, and Oriana Pagnotta of the Love-In.
In December, we partnered with the Toronto Dance Community Love-In (now a Resident Company at Generator) and Daniels Spectrum for our first ever #UrgentExchange devoted to dance. Together with the Love-In, we asked community members to vote in Twitter and Instagram polls choosing between the topics “Accessible Process Now” and “Stop Abuse and Exploitation.” The results were 50/50 on Twitter, so the deciding votes were on Instagram, where 74% told us that what was most urgent in dance was stopping abuse and exploitation: how do we dismantle harmful power structures and create safer spaces?
On December 17, we gathered at Daniels Spectrum. ASL interpretation was provided by Rogue Benjamin. After introductions from Generator and the Love-In, we invited participants to rotate through each of the following four topics, in 25-minute sessions:
Social Location facilitated by Jiv Parasram: understanding the ways in which we ALL hold power and privilege
Race facilitated by Rodney Diverlus: examining the race problem in dance, and what we can do about it
Gender facilitated by Sze-Yang Ade-Lam: from understanding how gender plays a role in conversations about power, to asking everyone’s pronouns
Community Agreements, facilitated by Sedina Fiati: what they are, what goes into building them, and how to incorporate them into your process
We also had an open table available for folks who had other topics they wanted to discuss. Before we started, a participant proposed that this be a space to discuss Accessibility. Unlike many other #UrgentExchange conversations (like #MeToo One Year Later on December 9), there was no recorded or live-streamed component to this event - this was to encourage open and frank dialogue. Instead, we invited “witnesses” to observe each of the four topics, as well as the open table, and write down their thoughts and learnings. What follows are the responses of our five witnesses, along with resources we suggest for further learning. To find out more about each of the witnesses, scroll down to the bottom of the page.
→ General Resource for Talking about Power and Privilege Diversity Toolkit: A Guide to Discussing Identity, Power and Privilege
Molly Johnson responds to RACE, facilitated by Rodney Diverlus
First up, this discussion was COMPLEX - beyond a summary listing of what we got into, I don't have the means with which to fully share it. The following is one distillation of my experience and what it sparked for me - I could offer many others.
I'm a witness at the race table and as a white person talking about race, my cheeks are pretty fucking red as soon as I speak. I don't want to fuck up, you don't want to fuck up - there are different measures of what that means at this table. Discomfort is necessary. Discomfort is something I have spent a lot of my life avoiding. Discomfort is a thing some of us get to avoid and some of us are thrust into, and that becomes real apparent real fast.
The speed dating vibes are almost useful in that there's no time to waste and we get to it as quickly as we can but it feels a little too emblematic of [my experience of] the dance community - and the white capitalist hetero-patriarchal society from which it takes its cues - AKA as a place where good intentions and conversation starters abound but very rarely result in meaningful change. The system is in full effect even in environments like this where the intention, I believe, is wholehearted.
One of the prompts Rodney gives us is to answer what is missing in the conversation on race in dance. I look around the room and think not so much about what topic is missing but about who is missing: 99% of the white men in the dance community are missing, dance artists over the age of 45 are missing, the power holders in the dance community are missing - the two previous categories and the educators, presenters, funders, and artists who are on operating are missing. These people are not in the room. These people need to be in the room. I take my sharpie marker and write this down on my little post it note. But then what? I write it here and maybe somebody reads it and feels called out but then gets over it and pays attention. Or...business as usual.
It's weird and informative and enlightening and troubling to see Rodney run the same drill for each session. All I can think about it is how many times he's had this conversation. He's civil and articulate and kind. I recognize these things and how I appreciate them and then recognize the scary mental space of appreciating racialized people conducting conversations about something that is actually pretty fucking abhorrent in a civil, articulate, kind way so that white people can feel okay inside the conversation about the thing they created and continue to perpetuate but mostly avoid discussing. None of that is exactly what it is but it's also not not that.
What is missing in the conversation on race in dance? White people are missing. Urgency on behalf of white people is missing. The point is very often missing. We are still getting confused between having enough and having privilege. We are still crying meritocracy at the same time as knowing full well that meritocracies are a fallacy when each of us begins with very different resources, very different access points, and that this dance world is still being built for a certain kind of person to thrive.
→ Resources “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, Jonathan Osler on Moving from Actor to Ally to Accomplice
Mikaela Demers responds to SOCIAL LOCATION, facilitated by Jiv Parasram
On Monday, December 17th, #UrgentExchange Stop Abuse and Exploitation in Toronto Dance was co-hosted by Generator TO and The Dance Community Love-in at Daniels Spectrum. All who attended rotated between four tables every 25 minutes, set up with stationary facilitators focused on different topics. I had the fortune to sit with Jivesh Parasram who was facilitating conversation around the topic of social location or position.
After quick introductions, Jiv led our table in a fairly common exercise:
The Power Flower, with all of its flaws, is designed to demonstrate where you fall in the societal power structure of a chosen community. The idea is, that through completing the Power Flower, as a group, conversations between table members will surface. Jiv explained the Power Flower with transparency and facilitated each group with a personalized sense of care. As a witness of three different groups of people who came to the table, it was hard not to notice the radical differences between groups as a whole during their experience of the Power Flower.
Group 1 selected a community of focus and flew through completing the Power Flower. When Jiv asked, for example, “Sexual orientation? Which group has the most power in community X?” answers from the group came with immediacy, confidence and often from multiple people. Some categories did give some group members pause, but it seemed that even lack of knowledge was admitted with certainty and in the spirit of learning. ‘Human/Non-human’ is an example of a category that resulted in an exchange between an artist who admitted to not understanding what the category meant. A fellow artist reciprocated, with care, on a perspective to consider for this category (SUCH A BEAUTIFUL MOMENT). But in general, the group went around the Power Flower and the categories were filled in with small clarifying conversations by different folks in the group.
When Group 2 was asked the same questions by Jiv, responses were more frequently returned with whole minutes of silence. Answers came as offerings; suggestions or guesses in quiet voices and a questioning tone. The group was preoccupied with the semantics of the exercise as opposed to the goals, spending the majority of their time dissecting the Power Flower as opposed to generating productive and critical discourse. By the end of the 25 minutes, a third of the Power Flower had been completed.
In reflection, there were a number of takeaways from the evening:
The varying responses in groups as a whole and the productivity or level of understanding surrounding the topic of social position is a reminder that it is important to recognize and call out power structures around us.
The Power Flower requires the active participation of its participants. Much like creating change, active conversation in a safe space provides more learning opportunities and overall productivity.
Members of the Toronto Dance Community are at varying levels of understanding or comfort with conversations that focus on critical observation and reflection on the community.
Upon reflection, group 2 brought to light blind spots or areas to be considered in future conversations for the Toronto Dance Community. Seeing gaps in understanding or an inability to participate is essential to continuing conversations of this nature with goals of critical discourse and affecting change in a community as a whole.
→ Resource “Express Yourself: Crafting Social Location Maps and Identity Monologues,” The New York Times
Kallee Lins responds to COMMUNITY AGREEMENTS, facilitated by Sedina Fiati
Efficiency. Legacies of colonialism. The way things have always been done. Inequalities and hierarchies in the creative process. These were some of the responses cited as reasons why community agreements have historically not been used in the studio.
Implicit in hierarchical processes of dance creation is that the product is prioritized above the people involved. As a collaboratively built document, community agreements have the ability to flip this equation and fundamentally shift the distribution of power. Creating an agreement allows a group to explicitly – and contractually – answer the question, “How do we want to operate in this space?” Its strength comes from everyone involved agreeing to what is included and seeing their needs reflected.
During our #UrgentExchange conversation on the topic, facilitator Sedina Fiati outlined three key questions to scaffold a community agreement:
How do we want to be treated?
How will we deal with conflict?
What accessibility needs do we have?
The second question is crucial – it builds in an accountability structure. Who can performers go to if someone causes them harm, particularly if it’s the choreographer/director at fault? Should a “mediator” be named to resolve intractable conflicts? While a safer, more joyful creative space may be the goal, ensuring the rules of that environment are enforced is vital to its sustainability.
Participants were urged to consider accessibility in a broad way, and to ask themselves what would allow all participants to not only function, but to thrive. This approach considers physical barriers like venue accessibility, and less visible obstacles like access to childcare, knowing when performers will be paid, or the use of video and other memory aids in rehearsal.
Specificity in detailing how a group wants to be treated is crucial, yet what became clear in responding to question one is how rarely we’re asked to articulate our needs in a work setting. Common responses expressed a desire to be treated “with respect” and “with dignity”. The next level of conversation prompted us to describe exactly what those conditions look like. For some, it meant that “the physical and emotional health of each person is valued,” that “there’s permission to fail, slow down, and divert,” and that “my opinions will be listened to”.
While community agreements are a practical tool to create a safer work environment, perhaps their greatest strength is in providing the space to question our needs and envision what a fairer, more equitable process of creation looks like. The possibility of better creative spaces exists; we can start by rewriting the terms of engaging with one another.
→ Resource Nikki Shaffeeullah discusses Container Building at #UrgentExchange in January 2018
Nickeshia Garrick responds to GENDER, facilitated by Sze-Yang Ade-Lam
I'd like to preface this by saying that #UrgentExchange organized by Generator is a necessary start to the thoughts and conversations needed to inform change within the Dance and Arts community. If we are fighting for equity, accessibility and fair representation for those on varying spectrums (QTBIPOC, BIPOC, NB, People with Disabilities etc...) within the Toronto Arts Community, it starts with these discussions in hopes of bringing about action.
The topics being discussed for the event were Gender, Race, Social Location, Community Agreements and Accessibility, all being facilitated/witnessed on separate tables. Those attending had approximately 20-25 minutes at each table before they had to move on to the next one. I personally would have preferred us all being able to sit together and openly discuss the topics as a large group, as what was being said wasn't mutually exclusive. The set up for me resembled speed dating, being pressed to quickly get your points in before the timer went out, which can be increasingly difficult when delving into these topics, especially for individuals on varying points of the intellectual spectrum.
Being a witness for the event also allowed me access to the thoughts and suggestions of those who participated. The topics discussed were necessary, but folx were looking for more prevalent and urgent topics such as the #metoo movement, intersectionality, meritocracy, ableism etc... Other main points were, how do we get these conversations in the dominant arts institutions within Toronto? If we're fighting for institutions to update their methods of hiring, teaching/training and offering programs that are more accessible, how do we get them to change? How often will #UrgentExchange be held, and will we discuss what actions to take?
With the advent of revolutionary movements such as #BLM and #timesup, action has been made to change the mentality of corporations. The arts community in Toronto should be under the same scrutiny to change their ways as well.
Ultimately, #UrgentExchange was a night to stir things up and get people thinking about the major issues. Hopefully these talks will continue, in hopes of reaching the dominant Arts companies in Toronto so that our thoughts and concerns do not fall on deaf ears.
→ Resources Working with Trans, GNB and GNC Artists, on ArtistProducerResource.com, “Finding Our Way in a World of Gender Fluidity” on Howlround
Fabien Maltais-Bayda on THE PROCESS & OPEN TABLE
The topic of December 17th’s #UrgentExchange was abuse in our dance communities, and more specifically, how to stop it. It’s a subject both pressing and challenging, not only because systemic abuse is a complicated matter rooted in longstanding power dynamics, but also because stopping it remains a hefty task requiring no small feat of endurance.
It was interesting to note that quite little of what I witnessed at #Urgent Exchange addressed abuse directly. This may be due to the evening’s structure, with participants rotating through sub-categorized tables: community agreements, gender, race, social location, and an open table that convened a conversation on abilities during one of the event’s multiple sessions. Significant topics in themselves, these themes tended to become the focus of discussion at the tables I observed. Yet beyond mere logistics, the event’s tendency to coalesce around topics alternate to the tagline may have had much to do with the main issue at hand. Abuse and exploitation are rarely simple questions of bad or inconsiderate behaviour. Rather, they are inherently tied to power – its imbalances and hierarchies – and are always circumscribed by factors like ability, gender, and race. To work at stopping abuse requires, almost as a prerequisite, active engagement with these social formations. It is perhaps unsurprising that, in the context of a single evening, this is about as far as things got.
Each of the conversations I observed held many important moments, but since I was tasked with witnessing the open table, it seems useful to note just a few of the ideas generated around it here. Of course, it’s important to remember just how inaccessible Toronto’s dance infrastructure is. One participant noted that engagement with the city’s contact improvisation community remains nearly impossible for many since events tend to be held at Dovercourt House – a building with many stairs and no good options for getting around them. Another significant point raised in the discussion was that accessibility is never one-size-fits-all – doorways and halls meant to provide access, for example, might be wide enough for some wheelchairs, but not others. The conversation foregrounded that accessibility requires us to consider the diverse needs of individual bodies, and asserted the importance of centering folks with lived experience.
Returning to #UrgentExchange more broadly: without a coherent plan of action generated, without the “stop” of its title put in motion, the evening and its goals might be considered unfulfilled; indeed, some of the community feedback I’ve heard suggests this. But such a feeling is also hardly surprising. Thinking back, I cannot recall even one event meant to tackle an important issue facing our community that did so comprehensively. (And this certainly includes those I’ve organized or coordinated myself.) Issues of systemic abuse, of equity, of access, are immensely complex, and a gathering of two, three, or even four hours will always be unequal to the task of making change. This isn’t to excuse or justify our many shortcomings as organizers and community members – rather, I want to re-assert the constant collective effort that tackling oppressive structures requires. If #UrgentExchange served, primarily, to begin unseaming the sturdy social fabrics of the status quo that allow abuse to continue, it succeeded in something important. Now, I think, it rests on all of us – organizers, participants, witnesses – to pull the threads further, and to build actions out from these moments of reflection.
→ Resources on Accessibility ArtistProducerResource.com: Audience Accessibility, Artist Accessibility, Writing an accessibility statement for your event or website; HowlRound.com: Article Round-Up
About the Witnesses
Molly Johnson
Born and raised on Cape Breton Island, Molly Johnson makes body-based texts and performance projects exploring alternative ways of being in a capitalist patriarchal society. A Dora Award-winning dance artist, Molly has danced for and with many brilliant humans including Nova Bhattacharya, Susie Burpee, Sabina Perry, Julia Sasso, Riley Sims, and Heidi Strauss. She has spent a decade performing in public spaces with Dusk Dances, toured internationally with Montréal’s Danièle Desnoyers/Le Carré des Lombes, and was a key collaborator with Marie France Forcier from 2007 to 2016. Her collective and individual work has been presented at PS: We Are All Here, SummerWorks, Kinetic Studio, Dancemakers, Mile Zero Dance, and the Halifax Fringe Festival. Based in Toronto, Molly is co-artistic director of hub14 art + performance works and a freelance writer in the space between. thisismollyjohnson.com
Molly was a member of Generator’s 2018 Performance Criticism Training Program.
Mikaela Demers
Mikaela Demers is an emerging artist and producer originally from Northern Ontario. She has been a member of earthdancers, Lila Ensemble, Parahumans, the Garage, and worked as a performer for Vanessa Jane Kimmons, Allen Kaeja, Love Letters Cabaret, Brian Solomon, Megan English and Fernando Troya. Demers has been a part of numerous collaborative choreographic performances including Celestial Play (2013), checkbox (2015) and most recently maelstrom (2017), a co-choreographed work that toured to Toronto and Thunder Bay. Her current independent creative process is based on the physical study of eye focus and awareness. Demers hosted her first independently produced show the pack: creature in May 2018. She is a member of Branch Collective, and the producer of Branch Intensive, a week-long dance intensive hosted in Sudbury, Ontario. Demers has hosted three rural residencies to date in Sudbury and on Manitoulin Island. Mikaela is part of Generator’s 2018/19 Artist Producer Training Program cohort.
Kallee Lins
Kallee moved to Toronto in 2012 to meld her love of the performing arts, research, and writing. After completing an MA in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University, and spending a number of years in the PhD in Dance Studies program, she worked as the Marketing and Communications Manager for the Dancer Transition Resource Centre. Today, Kallee is the Manager of Membership & Community at Imagine Canada, an organization working to build a strong, resilient future for all charities and nonprofits. She sits on the Board of Directors of Dusk Dances and Dance Umbrella of Ontario.
Nickeshia Garrick
Nickeshia Garrick was born in Toronto, Ontario and has been performing since the tender age of six. She received her dance training at the NYIDE (New York Institution of Dance and Education), National Ballet School of Canada, Toronto Dance Theatre and Simon Fraser University.
Nickeshia holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), is currently working toward the 2019 Premiere of No Woman’s Land with Roshanak Jaberi and Karen Kaeja, and has recently become a 2018 Dora Mavor Moore Award winner for Outstanding Ensemble in Pool (no water).
Fabien Maltais-Bayda
Fabien Maltais-Bayda is a writer, researcher, and arts administrator based in Toronto. He was a Dancemakers Writer-in-Residence in 2016/17, and was shortlisted for the Ontario Association of Art Galleries art writing award in 2017. He writes for Canadian Art, Canadian Theatre Review, The Dance Current, esse, and Momus, and recently published an essay on curation and the dance retrospective, co-written with Joseph P. Henry, in the Berghahn Books volume Curating Live Arts. Fabien currently works as the Administrative Director for the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists - Ontario Chapter.
#UrgentExchange #MeToo One Year Later
One year later, how has #MeToo has impacted the performance community? From triggers in the rehearsal process, to the changing role of the stage manager, to nudity and violence on stage, to the biases and blind spots that hold back change.
Last January, #UrgentExchange asked “Who is A Monster? What Makes A Monster? Am I Monster? #MeToo What Next?” - three days after the news broke about Soulpepper.
One year later, we partnered with PARADIGM productions and Daniels Spectrum to investigate how #MeToo has impacted the performance community: from triggers in the rehearsal process, to the changing role of the stage manager, to nudity and violence on stage, to the biases and blind spots that hold back change.
On December 9, 2018, we gathered at Daniels Spectrum following a performance of The Philosopher’s Wife, written by APT grad Susanna Fournier and produced by Resident Company PARADIGM productions. (Pictured: Generator’s Kristina Lemieux and PARADIGM’s Susanna Fournier and Alison Wong.)
Part One: Watch the Videos
We began with presentations exploring three perspectives across disciplines: Meghan Speakman on Stage Managing with #MeToo, Matthew Eldridge on Intimacy and Touch from the Perspective of Health Practice, and Andrea Zanin on Consent and Power: Lessons from Kink. Watch the videos below!
Inspired in part by this #UrgentExchange, the Toronto Star’s Karen Fricker wrote “One year after Soulpepper, what stage have we reached?” including reflections from both Meghan Speakman and Sedina Fiati. Read her article here.
Part Two: Read the Highlights
For the second half of the event, Generator’s APT Facilitator Sedina Fiati (pictured below) sat down with The Philosopher’s Wife team to talk about how they tackled these issues in the production. We heard from playwright, producer and actor Susanna Fournier, producer Alison Wong, and actor Chala Hunter. As a jumping-off point, we asked participants to share what they noticed about the production, and what their questions were (responses pictured below). You can watch the whole conversation on Periscope, or read some highlights below:
“It took me a long time to become the proud feminist killjoy that I now am.” -Susanna
On the Relationship with the Audience
Susanna “I think in terms of getting to a point in my practice as a playwright where I am now starting to really meet and develop audiences, for me I think the theatre contract is a stand in for a kind of social contract. So, I've invited you all to come into a space, and I’ve made something and brought other people in and I’m going to offer something, but I need you to come, and so, now we are in relationship with each other. I’ve asked you to come into relationship with me. And so I need to be aware of what my desire is, why have I asked you here, what do I think I have to offer you, what do I hope you might receive, and what am I hoping you might bring to this relationship that now we are in together.”
Alison “Introducing this work to an audience involved setting the stage, so to speak, for conversation. And really working with the intention that these plays are not meant to be let loose into the world and have them, necessarily, speak for themselves; the intention that we want to work in a way that allows the audience to come back to us, whether it is through conversation on the internet, whether it is through events like #UrgentExchange. Even the fact that it’s a trilogy, so knowing that we are building a relationship; the idea is that we want to build a relationship with our audience so that these ideas and the themes that are in the play continue to evolve and we continue to contemplate them each time we meet each other. And trying to, as much as we can with the resources we have available, to create avenues for that.”
On Theatre and Trauma
Susanna “I deal with a lot of difficult topics in my work, and I know that I am looking to create a kind of ritualized space; that potentially we can come together and grapple with some of these traumas in a way that creates even just a moment with which we can feel through them. Because I think if we are not willing to feel through them, they won’t pass through us. And so that is a really delicate thing, to go: I know I am purposely asking folks to come experience a wound, and I think if we can experience that together there is a possibility for changing a narrative around it, or allowing it to maybe leave our bodies, work through our body. I think theatre is a place for and of the body and I feel that I live in a very disembodied culture. And even sometimes in the act of theoretical talking about, of analysis around trauma, analysis around power, it’s like yes: in my head, and my body is not included. And what I find in theatre is when I am moved it’s because I am allowed to feel my way through the things I experience, not just intellectually, but in my heart, and my gut, and I guess that is the power of catharsis.”
On Power in Process
Susanna “I am learning a lot as a playwright and a producer. There is a huge amount of power you have as a playwright, in that I’m choosing content and I’m choosing whose story we are looking at and where should we look in a story in the same way the director can tell us where and who to look at. As a producer I feel that it is the most crucial realm of putting a different kind of politic in action, because I wield our culture’s powerful symbol, which is where does the money go. And you can create a process that reflects where you want to put that money. But you also choose who is on the team, how the team is going to gather, what are we going to talk about, what are we going to prioritize.”
Above: production photos from The Philosopher’s Wife. Cast: Chala Hunter, Aviva Armour-Ostroff, Susanna Fournier and Danny Ghantous. Photography: Haley Garnett and Bernie Fournier.
Chala “A question I have been asking myself in many rooms, as a performer, certainly, but just as a person on the street, or in my home, or in any community or room that I happen to be in, is about how I can embody a kind of equality or community or togetherness or how I can embody the way that I hope or wish power could function in our communities, in our society. And that’s a question; I don’t have the answer to that, but I’m asking it of myself in many different circumstances, and as I ask it, trying to catch myself when I am behaving in ways that I feel I have been conditioned to, out of fear, or learned power structures, or all sorts of things. And so I would say that within the rehearsal hall, especially having been a fairly involved part of the conversation around #MeToo or Not in Our Space, or many of these conversations around harassment and consent in the performing arts and in the world, I’ve been looking to embody in rooms, to be an ally. To show in my behaviour that I will ask questions, ask for consent, be respectful, but also kind of demand it for myself. And that means doing things that make me uncomfortable, like saying no, like asking questions when I don’t understand something but feel embarrassed to ask the question. Even standing next to someone that I feel might be vulnerable in a moment, and that’s an assumption, certainly sometimes, but I’m trying to trust my intuition in those moments and err on the side of being caring and hopeful, rather than this kind of silent ‘I’m going to stay away from a situation or moment that seems like it might be dangerous, or someone might be feeling a bit vulnerable, or they maybe they need some help. And I don’t mean that specifically in this process: I’m talking about in the last year of my life, and I operate in the same way in grocery stores now as well, which I find is necessary sometimes; crazy things happen everywhere.”
Sedina “Now I’m asking myself what kinds of spaces I want to create, and who do we need to be in the space for it to be affirmative and joyful, what do we need to say. …We really have to cultivate character in ourselves, as theatre artists, black performance artists. We are always like ‘In the room, in the room’ but if you are not that outside of the room, how will you be it, how will you suddenly summon up the courage, how will you suddenly summon up knowledge that you don’t have? It behooves us to keep having conversations like these.”
On Safety in Process
Susanna “We do need to always be taking the temperature in the room and go: How are we doing? Is this enthusiastically working? Or are we all like ‘Oh, knives in the air, elephants all over the place?’ And if that happens let’s talk then, before one of the elephants pierces another elephant. If we feel the temperature rising, we can always go ‘Are we ok? Is there something we need to discuss? Has something happened?’ Cause that might have happened two days ago. People’s reactions to things - I was chronically: something bad happens and three days later I’m upset. But I’ve learned to just kind of deal with it. We can’t expect everyone in the moment to react like, ‘Hi, I have the language and tools with which to do this.’ They may react three days later by having a small meltdown in a corner. I think it’s another reason why having producers in the room - or having outside eyes who are watching the process, just there for feedback - is really important. Because I’m still learning, and I still miss moments. There are still moments where I go, ‘I should have said something.’”
Chala “Asking questions is so important, just checking in with people, like kind of maybe more than seems reasonable, is important… There is so much talking that has to go down to make people feel safe.”
Photos: Speakers Meghan Speakman (left) and Andrea Zanin (right); PARADIGM productions in conversation with Sedina.
On Yes and No
Chala “I had an experience of realizing that I think of no as a rejection, or as like, ultimately negative; as a creative rejection, as a personal rejection, when really what I discovered through this process was that yes and no are both just pieces of information towards greater understanding and more complicity, and that is very fundamental for me.”
Sedina “Our theatre training has trained us out of ‘no.’ Yes and… but the spirit behind yes and is let’s collaborate - it isn’t do what you want. It isn’t yes to anything. It means a spirit of collaboration and that’s what we should be entering into. ‘No’ means, close this door but open a different door. Because that means we have to be creative in the way we do things…‘No’ can be so generous because you are helping the other person navigate, instead of letting them walk into a minefield.
#UrgentExchange The White Guy Shuffle: Changing Hiring Practices in Canadian Theatre
In 2016, over half a dozen Artistic Director jobs were up for grabs across Canada. While many were excited at the chance to finally diversify the leadership of some of our country's most recognizable institutions, all of the positions were filled by white men.
On January 15, 2017, Generator and the Toronto Fringe Festival hosted an #UrgentExchange on the topic of:
THE WHITE GUY SHUFFLE: Changing Hiring Practices in Canadian Theatre
What is an Urgent Exchange?
Urgent Exchange is an opportunity for the community to nominate topics that they think are both important and timely conversations that we need to be having as a collective. During the Next Stage Theatre Festival, we hosted two discussions: one topic is crowdsourced on Twitter with the active hashtag #UrgentExchange, and the other we pick based on conversations we keep hearing in our offices and among our peers. (More about #UrgentExchange).
Why did we pick this as an urgent topic needing a platform?
In 2016, over half a dozen Artistic Director jobs were up for grabs across Canada. While many were excited at the chance to finally diversify the leadership of some of our country's most recognizable institutions, all of the positions were filled by white men.* How can we influence boards and hiring committees to change homogenous hiring practices? We invited the community to examine the mechanics of how these decisions are made and strategize how the community can be of influence. (Links to background reading provided at the bottom of this post)
*Since the Urgent Exchange in January, more AD roles have been announced and happily we are seeing more diverse voices filling artistic leadership roles.
#UrgentExchange in action at Theatre Passe Muraille
Why isn’t this on Twitter?
Unlike previous #UrgentExchange dialogues that were live-streamed in their entirety and live-tweeted using the hashtag, this session was partially closed to protect participants who may have wanted to share personal or sensitive experiences during the group breakouts.
As this exchange brought the often closed-door activity of hiring practices to a public discussion, we felt it was important to ensure that some part of the experience is still open to people who weren’t able to be in the room. Therefore, we asked a few people for their thoughts:
ALISON WONG
“In the Canadian Theatre business, we seem to believe that a certain type of person is supposed to run things. There’s a pervasive ideology that rewards non-risk-takers and seekers of institutional status when it comes to Artistic Leadership in Canada. A mold that “successful” and “enduring” companies are supposed to fit into; a perfect formula of art-making and balanced business. Our boards are made up of the most amazing members of our community, but they are tasked with hiring in a field in which, often, they do not have professional experience. In a well-meaning desire to build the legacy of an organization, they can be led to disproportionately consider how well a candidate can model existing “best practices” (which by the way aren’t working for a lot of companies as it is, but that’s for another #urgentexchange), rather than investing in a candidate’s ability to innovate practices for their organization specifically, and their art, specifically.
A barrier that artists from equity seeking groups face is that they are not expected to fit into this certain type. There is not enough precedent for how the stories we want to tell, the perspectives we hold, marry into these assumed best practices. I like to imagine a future where equity seeking artists are mentored to lead by flexing their muscles in exploring and developing the ways they want to connect to community, to build resources, to give the work the support it requires; where governing bodies require existing leadership to create apprenticeships that reward creating new solutions for art-makers, rather than modelling old ones; where funding bodies measure sustainability by looking at an organization’s ability to adapt and change to its ever evolving community of artists and audience.”
Alison Wong is a director, performer, and producer. Her work in opera and theatre has taken her to the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, and India. Currently wrapping up her 5th season as Artistic Producer with b current, other Toronto-based companies she’s worked with includes MYOpera, Canadian Opera Company, Factory Theatre, and Small Wooden Shoe.
JIVESH PARASRAM
“Despite a majority representation of women in this conversation, it was demonstrated that white women were occupying the most discursive space. Perhaps proportionately enough due to who was there by demographics, but within that space, the same micro-aggressive tendencies (interruptions, authoritative reinterpretations, etc.) that have come to be reductively associated with “White Guys” were quite present as well.
The concept of whiteness was not addressed, nor was the colonial ideology at play in the structures of boards actively questioned. (But there was an implied invitation to do so when the concept of the board was introduced.)
Finally, the implication that the absence of White Male ADs in attendance was equivalent to a lack of representation of leadership felt a bit off. Disrespectful to two ADs who were in attendance, both of whom are female POC artists; and who lead operationally funded organizations, and who have also (as a bonus!) actively advanced inclusion throughout their careers.
For many people this was the first time engaging with this topic in such a public forum. And that this event gave an opportunity to do so is excellent.
Moving forward, I would just highlight that what can happen in spaces such as these – open democratic-ish spaces – and indeed did happen - was the replication of systems of oppression that can prevent the advancement of discourse.
Democracy is not equitable –and there is no universal experience. We just have to remind ourselves of that and ensure that we are always striving to actively listen more.”
Jivesh Parasram is a cultural worker of Indo-Caribbean descent. He is Artistic Producer at Pandemic Theatre, and the Associate Artistic Producer at Theatre Passe Muraille.
KATIE LEAMEN
“As an emerging artist myself, I had no idea what the board of directors did or the decisions they made until I started taking the meeting minutes at Generator’s board meetings. I have witnessed the important advocacy and education that comes from having multiple artists on our board to help encourage artistic risk-taking in board members more accustomed to making decisions based on safe, traditional business practices.
While there are many steps to be taken to encourage better inclusion in Canadian hiring practices for artistic leadership positions, I personally think that the first step - which is manageable without any increase in budget or resources - is to challenge every board of directors of arts organizations to recruit at least one (preferably more) artist to join their ranks. This will enable artists to advocate from the inside and empower them to make decisions that affect their peers, while giving wider perspective to board discussions, and support to the Executive Director or Artistic Director. Artists are trained to make strong choices, and we need to encourage them (and ourselves) to be in the positions to make them.”
Katie Leamen, Director of Coordination and Communications at Generator, and Artistic Producer of No Porpoise Productions. Also testing her hand at playwrighting with some success.
KRISTINA LEMIEUX
“Four thoughts:
1. I regularly wonder about what more I can be doing with my privileges while still fighting against the systematic barriers that hold me back, often at the expense of others held back by those barriers in different ways. I often feel unclear on what “battles” I can enter into and which ones I have the chance of “winning.”
2. The White Man Shuffle asked the question of what barriers hold you back from accessing leadership jobs in the arts. These institutions and structures are settler, Eurocentric structures designed to uphold capitalism and hierarchical means of organizing. These events are generally attended by those excluded from those structures, who are equity seeking, but generally with little power to enact the changes they want to see.
3. What if the folks who are identified as equity seeking or historically disenfranchised just don’t give a fuck about these organizations? I have zero interest in working for The Citadel, Touchstone Theatre, Western Stage or any of these other institutions that just reinforced white supremacy with these hires and these institutions, in theory, are designed to speak to me.
4. Seeing yet another white man hired in an artistic leadership job leaves me feeling harmed, with less hope and more tired. I want to work in spaces where leadership is about ideas and capacity to connect to people. Knowing how to fundraise, write grants, read financials statements or advocate for policy change are important skills, but they are not the skills I find inspiring. “
Kristina Lemieux, Executive Director of Generator, is a recent transplant to Toronto from Vancouver where she was a producer, facilitator and manager of live arts.
MAMITO KUKWIKILA
“My career in theatre is relatively new and young as I started out in film (and still continue to work in film) and I think one of the challenges or barriers that I felt when I first journeyed into theatre in Toronto was this sense of not belonging due to my sense of not "knowing". I did not think I had a leg to stand on with regards to having an opinion on a show or engaging in a piece of theatre as an actor as my "knowledge" on theatre was not up to a certain "standard". But who's standard, right? For someone like me - a woman, black, new to the country, new to the city, theatre in Toronto can be intimidating to navigate because what one sees is an ecology that is lead and driven by predominately white male voices making artistic choices for the majority and what that suggests to a someone like me is that my experiences and voices can only be filtered through a predominately white patriarchal framework. This, of course, is not unique to Toronto. Creating art is an amazing privilege but that privilege should not be reserved for the few. I would like us to move to a place in which there is room for arts organizations and theatre companies to take more risks in terms of artistic leadership and move away from what can sometimes feel like a top down model but towards a model that fosters mentorship and collaboration.”
Mamito Kukwikila is an actor, writer, producer and programming coordinator for b current Performing Arts Theatre Company. Mamito now resides in Toronto.
KAREN FRICKER (Toronto Star)
Karen attended both Urgent Exchange discussions this year and followed up on the topic in her article, "World Stage returns, female theatre heads retreat: A season of reflection and greatest hits for Harbourfront festival while Next Stage panel considers ‘white guy shuffle’. (Jan 25, 2017)
New:
"White Guy Shuffle" is becoming a national meme it seems as it is picked up in this article by Jessica Werb from The Georgia Strait on the West Coast. "Arts Club Theatre's search for new leadership prompts debate" (May 24, 2017)
Thank you to everyone who came out to listen and share their thoughts!
Background reading (links in the article title):
· White Fragility in the Hour of Chaos by Michael Wheeler (SpiderWebShow)
· Briefing Notes for Hiring Committees by Christine Quintana (SpiderWebShow)
· Basing pay on salary history is a harmful, borderline-unethical practice that we need to abolish by Vu Le (Nonprofit with Balls)
· Our hiring practices are inequitable and need to change by Vu Le (Nonprofit with Balls)
· Palm Springs film festival ex-interim director was offered half the salary of her male predecessor, lawsuit claims by Brett Kelman and Bruce Fessier (The Desert Sun)
· New Study Investigates Why Few Women Hold Leadership Positions in Theatres by Olivia Clement (Playbill)
"Imagining the Future" - Pecha Kucha at SummerWorks 2016
Speakers had seven minutes each to give mini-presentations focusing on the question “How do you imagine arts and culture 20 years from now?” Featuring Dr. Mary Fogarty, Alex Johnson, Jane Kirby, Andy Moro, Christine Quintana, Joseph Recinos, Katie Sly, Donna Michelle St. Bernard, and Joshua Vittivelu.
Full recording of the curated event featuring artists, thinkers, makers, doers, activators, and leaders from Toronto and beyond. Following the fast-paced Pecha Kucha format, speakers had seven minutes each to give mini-presentations focusing on the question “How do you imagine arts and culture 20 years from now?”
FEATURING (alphabetically): Dr. Mary Fogarty, Alex Johnson, Jane Kirby, Andy Moro, Christine Quintana, Joseph Recinos, Katie Sly, Donna Michelle St. Bernard, and Joshua Vittivelu.
Presented by SummerWorks, Koffler Centre of the Arts and Generator.