Transform Dance: Final Report

After sharing a draft version of our Transform Dance report in June 2020 and wrapping up work on the project in August, we are now releasing our final report, prepared by Project Coordinator Meg Saxby.

Transform Dance was a pilot project about finding ways into healing and transformation—both at the individual and at the collective level—within the dance sector in Toronto. In particular, we were interested in addressing harassment (sexual, gender-based and otherwise) and transforming the culture of the dance sector.

Transform Dance was designed to support three Transformative Justice (TJ) processes for individuals or groups of individuals who had experienced workplace harassment within the Toronto dance community.

In the end, the project supported two processes around past harms, as well as a third process that took the form of a multi-part workshop series, designed to build the capacities of men who are emerging and established leaders within the dance community.

Transformative Justice is a non-punitive approach to justice and healing that grows out of the experience, wisdom and practice of communities of colour who seek to resolve harm without resorting to policing structures and the judicial/legal system.

TJ processes seek to create opportunities for people who have been harmed to heal, for those who do harm to learn, change, and grow, and for repair and transformation of the relationship to occur if/when possible and desired. For an introduction to Transformative Justice, read our 2019 blog post here.

We believe this report shows that the TJ approach has considerable merit as a means of providing healing and transformation for the dance sector as a whole, as well as other parts of our culture.

Our report highlights learnings from the Transform Dance project and makes some recommendations for how this work could grow and serve the arts sector. We are optimistic and hopeful that all participants in the arts sector, including funders, governments, arts organizations, and artists themselves will see the value in this approach and continue to invest in it.

The Transform Dance Podcast

Transform Dance was about learning, experimenting, and trying new things. As Transformative Justice is a community-based framework that centres accessibility, we thought documenting our experiences as a conversation would be a valuable way to reflect the project, and to deliver our insights in an accessible way.

We made a podcast where you can hear different people who were connected with the project talk about their experiences.

You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts, or find the transcripts here: Episode 1—Our Advisory Board; Episode 2—Conversation with a Participant; Episode 3—Facilitator Roundtable. The Transform Dance podcast was produced by Katie Jensen of VocalFry.

Report Contents

Introduction
Appropriation and Accountability Statement
The Framework: Transformative Justice
The Problems: What Were We Trying to Address?
The Process: What Steps Did We Take?
The Cases: What Processes Emerged?
The Money: What Did It Cost?
Ideas for the Future: Where Could We Go Next?
Closing the Circle: Thoughts on Accountability for the Future
More Insights: the Transform Dance Podcast
Thank You
Appendices

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Acknowledgments

The Transform Dance project came out of a summer 2018 conversation discussing what service organizations could do for harassment in dance in the wake of #MeToo. This project was supported through Toronto Arts Council Strategic Funding (Open Door), and was also supported through Generator’s core funding from Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.

Resources

A list of resources related to gender-based harassment and violence, including mental health and healing services, was created for this project in July 2019 and can be accessed here.

We also invite you to visit resources on the Harassment and Mental Health pages on ArtistProducerResource.com.

Transform Dance: Initial Findings

Update: Our Final Report was published on March 9, 2021—find that blog post here.

Generator has been working on a transformative justice and mediation project for the past year, supported by the Toronto Arts Council’s Open Door program. Transform Dance is a project about finding ways into healing and transformation (both at the individual and at the collective level) within the dance sector in Toronto. In particular, we are interested in addressing harassment (sexual, gender-based and otherwise) and transforming the culture of the dance sector.

This project is still ongoing (due to wrap up in August 2020, when we will be publishing a final report), but given all that is happening in the world right now, all of the harm being vocalized and exposed, and in particular the past experiences of harassment being discussed in the Toronto dance community, Generator has decided to share a draft version of our findings.

Graphic: What makes sexual and gender-based harassment in dance such a complex and persistent problem?

2018/19 Annual Report

Generator has published our 2018/19 Annual Report! Our 2018/19 Fiscal Year was September 1, 2018-August 31, 2019. Here are some highlights:

• Six fantastic, thoughtful Artist Producers who are working in equitable, interdisciplinary, and revolutionary ways graduated from the Artist Producer Training Program

• We launched the Transform Dance program, a pilot project designed to offer transformative justice processes to folks who have experienced harassment within the dance community

• ArtistProducerResource.com is now supported by monthly Patreon donors, who receive a subscribers-only newsletter with all the latest updates and features from the wiki

• We sold out the first year of public registration for our Financial Literacy Program

• More than 6,000 users made ArtistProducerResource.com part of their producing practice

Thank you for being part of our 2018/19! You can read the full report here:

2017/18 Annual Report

Generator has published our Annual Report for 2017/18! Our 2017/18 Fiscal Year was September 1, 2017-August 31, 2018. Here are some highlights:

• We launched ArtistProducerResource.com after years of development, reaching over 1,600 visitors in the first 48 hours!

• We piloted a Financial Literacy Program, addressing an urgent need for money management skills and knowledge in the arts community

• We launched a series of social justice labs - Woke 2.0 - with the Storefront Theatre

• We held our first ever fundraising event - Boat Booty Bash - in June

• After a two-and-a-half year research and evaluation study commissioned by the Toronto Arts Foundation, a sector study reported on initiatives at Generator and Why Not Theatre that are transforming the landscape for independent artists (read the Toronto Star feature here)

Thank you for being part of our 2017/18! You can read the full report here:

2016/17 Annual Report

Generator has published our 2016/17 Annual Report! Our 2016/17 Fiscal Year was September 1, 2016-August 31, 2017.

Kristina and Katie with our 2016/17 Artist Producer Training cohort

Kristina leads an APT session in Spring 2017

Here are some highlights:

• We welcomed nine Artist Producers to the second year of our Artist Producer Training program

• We had a leadership transition—Kristina Lemieux began as Executive Director in January 2017

• We expanded our Resident Company program when Shakespeare in the Ruff and Outside the March weren’t ready to leave after only one year

• We hosted four #UrgentExchange events, exploring critical and timely issues with the arts community

• We co-presented a redesigned S.L.I.P. (SummerWorks Leadership Intensive Program) with SummerWorks in Summer 2017

Kristina and Katie at 2017 S.L.I.P. with SummerWorks’ leader Laura Nanni

Katie leads a self-producing workshop with New Blue in June 2017

Thank you for being a part of our 2017/18 year!