Reframing Board Structures

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.

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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?

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Written by

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.

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The Need to Reimagine Learning

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.

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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:

1. monitoring and mitigating risk, and

2. 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:

1. Co-learning is a manner of group learning that enhances communication skills, cultural awareness, thinking skills and so much more

2. Co-learning aims at the collaborative construction of knowledge, in which co-learners are able to expand their social networks

3. 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.

4. 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.

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Written by

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.

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Not-for-profit Law and Governance in the Creative Industries

We’re in a time of unprecedented momentum for reimagining systems of board governance in the performing arts sector.

Generator teamed up with ALAS (Artists’ Legal Advice Services) on May 11, 2021, for a webinar and Q+A to help non-profit workers understand legal requirements, and explore what’s possible.

The webinar begins with a presentation from Terrance Carter, Managing Partner of the law firm Carters, laying out the legal responsibilities of board members, and legal requirements for non-profit organizations and charities. The second presentation is from arts consultant Jane Marsland, exploring how small to mid-size non-profits can safely navigate legal structures, explaining paradigm changes in the sector towards new conceptual understandings of organizations, and offering ways to align governance with company values. Topics range from recruitment, to strategic board management, to successful planning.

Thanks to our wonderful panelists and moderator Cat Lovrics, as well as to the participants who joined us live for the webinar and contributed questions to our discussion.

Watch the Webinar

Watch a recording of the webinar on our YouTube channel here.

Part One: Understanding Legal Requirements

0:01-9:40 Introductions from Generator’s Lead Producer Kristina Lemieux and moderator Cat Lovrics
9:40-31:00 Presentation from Terry Carter about the legal landscape for charities & non-profits
31:00-40:00 Question and answer period with Terrance Carter

Part Two: Exploring What’s Possible

40:00-1:11:40 Presentation from Jane Marsland about emerging thinking in non-profit governance

Part Three: Discussion Period

1:11:40-1:30:50 Question and answer period with Jane Marsland and Terrance Carter
1:30:50-1:48:29 Extended question and answer period with Jane Marsland and Kristina Lemieux

Please note we did experience some technical difficulties, but they were resolved promptly. Captions are available in YouTube.

Resources

From the webinar

• Slide deck from Terrance Carter (includes link to Legal Risk Management Checklist for Ontario-based Charities)

• Slide deck from Jane Marsland (includes links to the reports 'Peering into the Future: Reimagining Governance in the Non-Profit Sector' and 'Framing Forward: Reimagining Governance'

• Organizational Profile referenced by Jane Marsland

Websites for further learning

• CharityLaw.ca (affiliated with Terrance's firm Carters)

• Carters.ca

• ALASontario.ca (Artists' Legal Advice Services - webinar presenter)

• ArtistProducerResource.com (generated by Generator, this website has basic information about boards, as well as Incorporation and Non-profits)

As a general note, as you do your own searching for resources around boards, you may find the most success looking for resources created specifically for charities—generally these will still be applicable and helpful for non-profits (even if you are not in fact a registered charity).

About the Panelists

Terrance Carter

Terrance S. Carter, B.A., LL.B, TEP, Trademark Agent – Managing Partner of Carters, Mr. Carter practices in the area of charity and not-for-profit law, and is counsel to Fasken on charitable matters. Mr. Carter is a co-author of Corporate and Practice Manual for Charitable and Not-for-Profit Corporations (Thomson Reuters), a co-editor of Charities Legislation and Commentary (LexisNexis, 2020), and co-author of Branding and Copyright for Charities and Non-Profit Organizations (2019 LexisNexis). He is recognized as a leading expert by Lexpert, The Best Lawyers in Canada and Chambers and Partners. Mr. Carter is a member of CRA Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector, and is a Past Chair of the Canadian Bar Association and Ontario Bar Association Charities and Not-for-Profit Law Sections.

Jane Marsland

Jane Marsland has been an articulate advocate for the arts for many years and has served on a wide range of boards, advisory groups and committees. Jane was co-founder and director of ARTS 4 CHANGE, a three-year program designed to create positive change for and by arts professionals in Toronto, as well as co-founder and Director of the Creative Trust: Working Capital for the Arts. Ms. Marsland has managed arts organizations since 1970 and was General Manager of the Danny Grossman Dance Company from 1982 to 1999.

Since 1999, Jane has been working as a free-lance arts consultant and has worked with more than 100 arts organizations. Recently, Jane worked with the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts and ARTS Action Research on a two-year community initiative, Theatres Leading Change Toronto involving 18 small and mid-sized theatre and dance organizations. Theatres Leading Change was designed to illuminate and better understand change: on an individual learning level; on a community co-learning level; and as a function of broad-based change that may hold within the possibility of paradigm change in the field.

She has been the recipient of two arts community awards: a “Harold” in 2001 and the Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in the Arts in 2002. In 1995, she received the first M. Joan Chalmers Award for Arts Administration for outstanding leadership in the arts. In 2011, she was the winner of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Rita Davies and Margo Bindhardt Cultural Leadership Award. In 2012, Jane was awarded the first Metcalf Foundation Innovation Fellowship in the Arts to examine Shared Platforms and Charitable Venture Organizations and their applicability to the arts sector in Ontario. Jane was honoured as the recipient of the Silver Ticket at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2017.

Cat Lovrics (Moderator)

Catherine (Cat) Lovrics is a Partner at Marks & Clerk Canada. Cat’s practice focuses on copyright law, as well as trademark, personality and publicity rights, as well as marketing and advertising, consumer protection and data and privacy laws. She specializes in emergent legal issues related to the Internet and digital media, in addition to traditional entertainment and media. Cat helps her clients protect, exploit and enforce their IP, and advises on clearance, rights acquisition and licensing. Her clients range from multinational and Canadian media companies to individual artists. Her experience spans a wide range of sectors, from creative industries to AI & emergent tech to consumables.

Artists’ Legal Advice Services (Co-Presenter)

ALAS’s mission is to empower Ontario’s creative community by providing access to summary legal advice, information and education. Learn more about their work here.

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You read Kristina Lemieux’s bio here. We also recognize the contributions of Carol Hansell, who was unable to attend the live webinar but contributed important thinking to the development of the ideas presented here. You can read Carol’s bio here.

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Find more posts related to boards on our Learnings + Explorations blog here.

Have a question or a reflection to share? Please email info@generatorto.com.

Board Governance: What is it? What is possible?

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.

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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.

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#UrgentExchange Stop Abuse & Exploitation in Toronto Dance

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.  

3. 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:

1. How do we want to be treated?

2. How will we deal with conflict?

3. 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

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!

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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 Precarity and Mental Health + New Faces of Criticism

With the new POSTSCRIPT patio  Generator, Toronto Fringe and The TENT Program brought a new round of #UrgentExchange. The twitter crowdsourced topic was Precarity + Mental Health = :( and the topic Generator, Toronto Fringe and The TENT Program sourced was The New Faces of Criticism.

On July 10, 2018 we held our crowdsourced Precarity + Mental Health = :( #UrgentExchange. Representatives from Artist Health Alliance, Artist Health Centre, Dancer Transition Resource Centre, Workman Arts, and AFC met with artists to talk about to the precarity of our sector and how most artists are left with negative impact on their mental health. With a solid turn out of 30+ people on a Tuesday evening, we began brainstorming as if we were on the playground.

Afterwards we gathered in one large group and discussed what came up in the brainstorming session. We discussed how we can take better care of ourselves, such as making our rehearsal spaces safer and breaking down these impractical normalities we have in our sector such as being busy is good and to suffer is to make great art. Money, uncertainty, and success were the most common topics being discussed regarding the mental health of artists.  

At the end, all representatives from the organizations present went over some of the resources they provide. All of those will be compiled at ArtistProducerResource.com next month.

On July 13, 2018 The New Faces of Criticism #UrgentExchange was held at POSTSCRIPT. This event was ASL interpreted. Generator’s Performance Criticism Training Program and U of T Criticism Course both coordinated and facilitated by Toronto Star’s  Karen Fricker and Carly Maga, the city has been gaining some new emerging voices in the performance criticism scene.

The #UrgentExchange began with break out groups where participants led by facilitators began brainstorming a future criticism. Karen Fricker led a breakout group discussing “Embedded Criticism” which is a “behind the scenes” way of approaching criticism that isn’t about analyzing/judging a piece of performance but more about following  creative process. The notes from that discussion are here. Carly Maga facilitated a breakout group discussing the current landscape of performance criticism in Toronto, touching on some of its strengths and weakness, and what an ideal landscape would look like in the future. The notes from that discussion are here. Shay Erlich, who completed Generator’s Performance Criticism Training Program, facilitated the discussion of criticism is Disability Art. A fourth group which included graduates of our Performance Criticism Training Program, discussed the future of criticism.

At the end, the whole group came together to discuss what needs to change in the the criticism landscape right now to make a better future for artists and critics. A point that was touched on was doing research as a critic, to make sure facts and details are correct to accurately write with nuanced critique. Good questions came up such as:

• Can we use theatre criticism to work against an existing system/use writing to challenge a system?

  1. How should accessibility play into theatre criticism? How do we deconstruct "able body" as "neutral body?"

  2. Are actors comfortable with a critic in rehearsal?

  3. How can we move past land acknowledgements and integrate our lived colonial experience into theatre reviews, which are usually cis male dominant spaces?

  4. Do you have to be a critic to have influence? Or can you build up your own following? How can we make criticism accessible?

  5. How has the rise in online journalism affected arts coverage and criticism?

Both #UrgentExchanges at 2018 Toronto Fringe ran for 1 hour and 30 minutes, which was not enough time for either topics to be discussed but both events were a great jumping off educate ourselves and make change for the future.

#UrgentExchange #WhoIsAMonster Video playlist

This #UrgentExchange was planned weeks before Kristin Booth, Trish Fagan, Diana Bentley and Hannah Miller came forward. When they did, it became an opportunity for the Toronto theatre community to come together, reel, and start talking about some concrete things we can do to create concrete change. A special thank you to Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and Jivesh Parasram, who moderated a community convening before the #UrgentExchange began. 

On Saturday, January 6th, seven groups of presenters (pictured) spoke about models for change, followed by on opportunity for audience members to learn more in break-out sessions. We are so glad to be able to share these presentations with you in video form (shot and edited by Ryan Weatherby) and we hope they will serve to educate, inspire, and bring change. 

On Twitter: What people were saying
On Periscope: Watch the recording
On Youtube: Watch the whole playlist, or click individual links below

Nikki Shaffeeullah - Container-Building: Facilitating Accountable Creative Spaces
Thalia Kane - Sharing the power, sharing the freedom.
Pippa Feinstein BA (Hons), JD. - Conflict resolution processes and strategies for healthy work environments
The JONNO team (Paul Van Dyck, Mirka Loiselle & Erica Anderson) - Violence in Theatre: Staging Triggering Material
Brook Thorndycraft - How to learn better ways of relating before the big damage happens
Sedina Fiati - Bystander Intervention 

#UrgentExchange #DesiringDiversity - a summary

Left to Right: Kristina Lemieux, Michael Maranda, Jivesh Parasram, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

On Thursday January 4, 2018, in conjunction with Toronto Fringe, we held an #UrgentExchange entitled "DESIRING DIVERSITY, but who can afford to work for free?" The desire to do work with more diversity, inclusivity and accessibility is strong in Toronto’s independent performance community but can our communities be truly inclusive if financial obligations keep many artists out of our rehearsal halls? Who has the ability to ride the financial risk of a career in the arts? What can creators with financial privilege do to shift the systemic classism in the arts?

Our Executive Director, Kristina Lemieux was joined by speakers: Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, Jivesh Parasram, Michael Maranda, as well as a video instigation by Shaista Latif.

You can watch the Periscope Live Stream of the event here.
Keep reading for the Things We’re Still Talking About A Week Later, compiled by Generator Staff Kristina Lemieux, Deanna Galati and Annie MacKay.

Basic or Universal Income

This was a big one. If artists didn’t have to devote time and energy to figuring out where their rent money was going to come from (or to concealing that struggle), how much richer would their creative output be? If theatre-goers didn’t have to think about seeing a show as a financial risk (what if the show is terrible?) they would see more theatre - period.

Learn more about Basic or Universal Income here:

• Wikipedia: Basic Income

• BasicIncome.org

• Ontario Pilot

• A case against

Adjacent Jobs

Our most liked and retweeted comment of the night was from Donna-Michelle: “Why are we not encouraging people to find adjacent careers in ways that support art, and not stigmatizing them as failed artists?” Jiv said something that’s helped him find balance has been finding the right “day job” (throwback to our July #UrgentExchange on work/work balance) For many artists, that is working in a production or arts management role, but the stigma that you can’t both be an artist AND and an administrator is REAL. And we need to change that.

Peer Assessment

"The idea that my work is adjudicated by someone who doesn't share my values is abhorrent to me," Donna-Michelle said. She encouraged all eligible theatre professionals to sit on peer juries and to consider this a public service, one that we all need to do for our community.

Here’s how to sign up!

• Toronto Art Council (contact your program manager)

• Ontario Arts Council

• Canada Council for the Arts

Privileged Artists: Step Up & Step Back

In her video instigation, Shaista Latif called out privileged white artists who seek out POC artists as “consultants” without making them integral parts of their projects (and she told POC artists to just SAY NO, even if it’s hard to turn down the money). So, privileged white artists, if you’re looking for a takeaway, that’s one. More takeaways: Jiv says if you are lucky enough to have leisure time, spend it advocating for change. Donna-Michelle says DO NOT push into spaces that aren’t for you, just because you are used to being welcome.

Looking for ways to use your privilege? Watch this video on Bystander Intervention with Sedina Fiati at #UrgentExchange #WhoisaMonster.

Pay Structures

There’s a balance between knowing your worth and being paid accordingly, and working within the financial constraints of the indie community. Leah-Simone Bowen, the Theatre Officer at the Toronto Arts Council, spoke from the audience and said what we need is for people to be more honest with each other. She has seen people walk away from projects because they demanded more money, but the organization simply had nothing left to give. Jiv said that we need to look beyond the Equity agreements for insight into how to pay artists properly. Also: when you are posting a job, DISCLOSE THE SALARY. Every time. Don’t waste people’s time. (This awesome article has sparked conversation across North American on pay disclosure.)

BONUS! What we’re putting up on our wall: “Patterns make systems. So break the pattern. And of course, break the system.” (Donna-Michelle)

Here’s a place to start breaking the pattern: Nikki Shaffeeullah’s video on Container Building at #UrgentExchange #WhoisaMonster

#UrgentExchange The White Guy Shuffle: Changing Hiring Practices in Canadian Theatre

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

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.