Panel & Roundtable
9:00 -- 10:30 am -- April 4th, 2002

Written Transcript
Audio Transcript in QuickTime format. 10.7 MBs | 1 hour, 17 minutes
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Moderator:
Wendy Newman
Panel Members:
Tracy Jack, Valerie Dare, Bronwen Sutherland,
Margo Kane, Tom Figel, Sandy Scofield, Joyce Hinton

Wendy Newman:
This is a workshop on Accepting the Challenge and I think we all know there are challenges in whatever kind of programming we’re doing. Whether as a community presenter, whether you’re programming a venue, whether it’s a festival, there are different kinds of challenges at every point. You’ve got to balance your artistic vision, you’ve got to take into account the mission of the non-profit society you may be working with. You’ve got to look at just the balance of programming itself. You’ve got to look at saleability, marketability, you’ve got to look at community acceptance of the programming you’re doing and you’ve got to look at ticket sales, because that’s part of the balance, that’s part of the mix.

Those are just givens, those are the challenges we face,

There are the same kinds of challenges, obviously, with any kind of programming of First Nations or cultural diversity. But there are also some other challenges. Challenges which must be acknowledged, then they must be understood before you can actually succeed.

I’m hoping at this workshop that we cover off a number of different issues. I want to be able, with the panel and with all of you to really look at the nature and scope of the challenges that are faced in presenting culturally diverse programming.

We’d like to create a dialogue that shows examples of success and we have a panel who have succeeded in presenting, producing, creating culturally diverse work.

We want also to look at some of the myths and some of the misconceptions around culturally divers programming especially, perhaps around community acceptance, unfamiliar territory and some of those other issues that are underneath it.

For me, the purpose of this workshop is how to welcome diversity and how to make it work for everybody: how to make presenting, how to make the venues, how to make programming, how to make creating art work for everybody within our community.

We have a panel of individuals who are working in many aspects of the field of presenting, producing. There are artists, there are artist’s agents, there are venue managers, there are venue programmers, there are educational programmers, there are promoters -- just a wonderful mix that the Touring Council has put together here.

I want the panel to introduce themselves and just ask the panel to say a little bit about what you do. Who you are and what you’re doing and what your area of interest is.

Valerie Dare:
Thanks Wendy.

My name is Valerie Dare. I’m actually a teacher at Britannia Secondary School in Vancouver. I co-ordinate a World Music programme, I do a fair amount of curriculum development, I do a small amount of presenting at the school level and I try to connect with the community during Multiculturalism Week in particular and World Music day as a focus.

I’m particularly interested in Multicultural education and anti racist education. This is why I’m committed to working with World Music and First Nations artists.

Tom Figel:
Hi, my name’s Tom Figel and I have an independent production company and artist management company. I work with artists like Buffy St. Marie, and Inuit group from Nunavut called Axonee, and Sandy Scofield who’s here today with us as well, who’s a Metis singer. I’m happy to be here to share thought on this topic.

Margo Kane:
Good morning, I’m Margo Kane. I’m an aboriginal performing artist. I’m also the Artistic Director and Managing Director of Full Circle First Nations Performance, which is a company that I began to create and tour my own work from, but I’m also working with a number of young aboriginal people who are developing theatrical work and we’re developing some ensemble work together. I live in Vancouver. Thanks.

Tracy Jack:
Hi, I’m Tracy Jack. I’m the Programme Director for the Indigenous Arts Service Organization, which is a provincial organization to advocate and support emergent and professional artists in BC. We host a number of regional festivals in under represented, small rural communities in multi-discipline activities.

Dianna Stewart-Imbert
My name is Dianna Stewart-Imbert. I co-ordinate activities for the Vancouver World Music Collective, which is a group of World Music artists who have come together to basically promote themselves on a local level, but mostly to combine their talents musically and to create shows that can go out into smaller communities and across Canada. And also to represent them at showcases around the world and do exchanges with other countries with these great Vancouver based artists. Thanks.

Dianne Kadota:
My name’s Dianne Kadota. I’m an artist manager, promoter and sometime producer. I manage Izume Tyko, Kitari Tyko, the Chinese Music Ensemble. Also some contemporary artists: Standing Wave, Hard Rubber Orchestra, Talking Pictures. And I work with some individual artists such as Tikao Yammashuro and Tony Wilson, who’s up on Hornby Island. I’m actually, formerly an agricultural reporter with the Western Producer in Saskatoon and I’m very proud of that. I’ve travelled more good roads in Saskatchewan than probably anyone in this room. Thank you.

Sandy Scofield:
Hi, I’m Sandy Scofield. I’m a Metis musician, singer, songwriter. I’ve put out a couple of records, working on my third record right now. I was self-managed for a few years and now Tom’s (Figel) come on board to give me a hand with things. I work, not just in the music community, I also work in theatre and I’ve provided soundtracks for film and documentaries, things like that. I’ve gone off and mentored Native youth on a couple of occasions.

Joyce Hinton:
Hi, I’m Joyce Hinton. I’m the Director of Programming and Administration at the Chan Centre at the University of British Columbia. I’m very involved in all the scheduling of the activities that go on at the Chan Centre. I work with the Managing Director and other staff in the presenting we do there as well.

Bronwen Sutherland:
I’m Bronwen Sutherland and we spoke earlier. I am a presenter and I have worked in municipally run facility that’s run by a society and now I work for a school district in Mission.

Wendy:
Thank you.

All of the members on the panel are doing extraordinary work in creating, in producing, presenting, promoting culturally diverse and First Nations artists throughout BC in various and many ways.

They really are facing the challenge that we’re talking about, which is the title of the workshop. They’re accepting that challenge and facing it.

This workshop is an opportunity to pick their brains, to learn from their experience, to ask them questions, to contribute to the dialogue, to give your opinions and thoughts and perhaps, look at the broad, whole issue.

The panellists are people who are, in fact, succeeding in presenting a wide variety of artists and groups.

But there are pitfalls. For the other side of success there is the other side of success. Not everybody is going to make it work. Those pitfalls are the challenges. Those challenges, while they can be very positive and they can build your experience level, they can also stop you from wanting to do it again. I know there is often the time -- and it happens with things like modern dance -- where presenters in a community will say, “I tried that. I tried modern dance and nobody liked it. People stayed away in droves and the people who came didn’t understand it and don’t ever want to come again.”

Presenting something new, presenting anything that is, perhaps, unfamiliar territory, there is a process -- there is also, as Tracy will tell you, a protocol -- and that process is one of learning and understanding the issues and the challenges of what it is that you’re doing.

There are some, I’m sure, of the presenters in this room who have been working in cultural diversity and presenting First Nations artists. There are probably some of you who have never programmed outside of a Western European cultural art form and tradition.

But I think as Canadians, as British Columbians and, for me, as a Vancouverite, cultural diversity is a reality and it is the face of our country. As presenters we have to include that and embrace that in what we do. That is certainly my opinion on the way that we must work in the world in arts and culture. I think that for the last few hundred years, that’s not been the case and that there has been the culture of one continent that has dominated the presentation of the arts and culture in our society. When we think, for example, of classical music, we’re not thinking of one of Dianne Kadota’s groups, the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble. That’s not what comes first to mind in terms of classical music and yet they work in a classical art form.

We have to move beyond that and moving beyond that really is the challenge that we’re facing. I think that there have been great strides that have been made and continue and will continue to be made. But it isn’t easy. It doesn’t sound easy. Sometimes it does. Sometimes one can think, “There’s funding for it, there’s money, let’s try it.” And then when it doesn’t work you get shy of that.

What we’re hoping in this workshop, is to lay some of the groundwork, some of the foundation of understanding of how you go about, from learning from the experience of the panel, of how you might go about beginning to present, or continuing to present, culturally diverse and First Nations artists in your own communities.

What I’m going to do with this workshop is not have everybody on the panel present their ten minutes because then all of our time would be up and our discussion wouldn’t happen. What I’m doing instead is asking all the panellists to act as resource people, to contribute their knowledge, their experience, their opinions, their guidance, their advice on questions; questions that you can have, questions that they can have amongst themselves or indeed, questions that I may come up with and actually begin the process by asking some questions. And asking the conversation and the discussion to really asking everybody to feel very free to jump in and follow in the conversation.

I’m going to ask the first question. Part of my question comes out of some of the discussions I’ve had with members across the panel over the last week as we’ve tried to figure out how to structure this.

The first question is: in accepting the challenge, in taking that on, it’s important to recognize that there are many cultural differences that need to be understood and acknowledged when presenting First Nations or culturally diverse artists. And my question to the panel is, can you name some of those cultural differences that you are aware of, that you know from your experiences of presenting could have, or did the first time you tried it, cause some misunderstandings? Thank you Margo.

Margo Kane:
It’s been a while since I’ve toured BC regions. It was a very rewarding and a very difficult time. I toured in and out for a few years with Moon Lodge, a one-woman show, one of my first, most successful solo theatrical pieces that I toured for over ten years. I found that some communities, it always depended upon who was presenting, who was most passionate about the work and actually connected with people in the aboriginal community. Some towns or cities, perhaps they didn’t have a large aboriginal presence as others and so that always made a difference as well. The most successful were the community cultural worker who connected with the aboriginal school education worker or with the band worker. Often it was the personal contact that really made a little team, and they worked together. They really worked within the school, within the Band, within the theatrical community arts council to make something happen. I think I was one of the first aboriginal people to tour in the BC region with theatre. I don’t know about other work, but I accept that, being a pioneer of some sort, I’m gong to run into all kinds of things. One down side of it is that, people don’t know the protocol of including the First Nations community of the diverse cultural community within their community. They don’t have the contact. They haven’t made the personal contact, so they expect their little audience, or big audience, to come out to see a work that perhaps their audience is reticent about or think favourably about diverse cultures or aboriginal people. So I experienced the brunt of that as a solo artist. It’s very hard for me, going out, putting myself out on a stage to a largely non-aboriginal community who was afraid of me, who didn’t necessarily know how to respond to my work. One or two places the band office was down the street or a short ways away, there was no contact made with them at all. There was no introducing one’s self, ‘we want to bring this work, would you like an artist talk, perhaps there’s the school audience…’ Working with the aboriginal community to ensure that the aboriginal community was aware that I was even coming. Some of them wanted me to come and speak to their school, I love to do that work, I’ve done that work for years. I always love to talk to an audience; I like to talk to schoolchildren. Anything I can do to make contact, as opposed to just coming in, doing a show, having no aboriginal people in the audience -- and I know the band office is just over the way -- and feeling disappointed that my own people weren’t there to welcome me or be part of a coming together. I think for me, that’s always important, that there’s a coming together. Not everybody’s going to like the work, not everybody’s going to want to come out, but for sure, the aboriginal community’s going to want to welcome their own and they’re going to have ideas they’re going to want to share with the non-aboriginal presenters, if that be the case. They’re going to want to have the artist present in their community as well, and have access to that performance. So that was sort of the downside of some of it.

Wendy:
So making those connections within the community is a must. And not just for the community but for the artist, for you coming in, making you feel as though you’re welcome.

Sandy Scofield
I’d like to echo what Margo is saying. That’s been my experience as well. Often when the presenter is from the dominant society that outreach isn’t happening. I think part of that’s a fear based thing because you’re kind of intimidated. Let’s face it, as human beings we’re intimidated by things we don’t understand or we don’t have a personal connection to. When the presenter has been a First Nations presenter, that’s all fine and dandy. Again I’d like to reiterate what Margo is saying, when the presenter has been from the dominant society, often times I’d don’t see the First Nations community there. And it’s a two way street. I think -- may I be so bold as to speak for the First Nations community in which these events are happening -- I think, perhaps, they as well are being intimidated. ‘This is a dominant society event, this has nothing to do with us they don’t know about our…’ So they aren’t always aware that this event is presenting somebody from their community where they could and celebrate as well. I think there has to be a little more outreach from a presenter’s point of view. It’s really easy to access these communities. If you're totaly illiterate, you don’t know how to do that, there’s Indian Affairs in Vancouver. They can provide you with a listing of all the First Nations Band Council phone numbers, fax numbers, things like that in the communities. From a First Nations perspective, I think for Dianne who’s presenting a lot of Asian cultural music, it works the same way. Doing the outreach to the relevant community. I think art is a really powerful tool to do bridging of racism.

I think its about staring our fear down and saying, ‘these are human beings. We want our event to be successful so we want to reach out to as much of the community as possible.’

That’s been my experience.

Wendy:
Are there community presenters who have succeeded in reaching -- and how did you do it?

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