Val:
I just wanted to respond by suggesting that there are different way of going about achieving the result you’re looking for: there’s the component within the show itself; there’s the possibility, as I’ve seen with Caravan World Rhythms presentations where there’s an introduction to the evening, and someone who is perhaps from the community that the artists represent, someone who is knowledgeable about the culture will introduce the evening by talking about the audience is going to be seeing on stage, and that’s really helpful; another possibility is to arrange separate workshop presentations or some kind of presentations to the community that could be offered the day before or the day of that would also give the audience a chance to become more knowledgeable about what they will be seeing on stage and therefore, appreciate it more when the show happens; and of course, from my point of view, it’s really helpful to have the artist or artists appear in schools.

A model that we’ve worked with over the years at Britannia that is highly successful, is to have the members of a group, in the case of Britannia it’s often not culture specific but a group that’s made up of artists from a number of cultures because we want to show these students that these artists, although they’re from different cultures, work together very well and present a performance that perhaps represents their own culture but comes together to provide a larger experience. As Sal Ferreras was saying last night, it becomes a Canadian performance because all these people represent our culture.

We have the artists come in and work in different classrooms so the students are interacting with the artists on a personal level.

There are lots of different classroom situations where that will work well. Anywhere where there’s a subject that deals with culture, so you’ll be looking at Social Studies, obviously, Language Arts, English, Home Economics works, Modern Languages is wonderful. And these artists come in and work with the different classes, come together for a school show at the end of the week. The kids have gotten to know the artists on a personal level, become connected with them on stage and are, therefore, that much more responsive to them when they see them in their performance mode. So that works really well. Then an evening performance often is successful because of the fact that the students have been so enthusiastic about what’s been happening in their classroom and then the parents and the community will come out and support the performance.

Wendy:
I would just like to strongly say that that workshop component, that residency component that the artist can do, whether it’s in a school situation or at a community centre, in the studio theatre they’re learning for two days solid how to play the marimbas, is very very fundamental in the education of your audience. Exposure, just seeing it onstage, only gets you so far in your understanding. Picking up that instrument, or learning how to do some part of it is where understanding and knowledge really do develop.

Val:
The last word I wanted to say about that is that understanding is definitely fundamental. Understanding that leads to appreciation of the performance and also respect for the artist.

Wendy:
Dianne?

Dianne:
You both said it admirably.
Artists are, for the most part, if it’s well planned, they’re amenable to giving artists talks or workshops or demonstrating their instruments. But it has to be planned. And sometimes it just doesn’t work on a tour to go an extra day because of costs or whatever. In some instances, they don’t want to do the workshop before the performance because they’re putting everything into setting up and preparing for the performance that it’s very difficult, sometimes, to do that on the day of the show.
More often than not, they are prepared to do even short workshops.

Wendy:
Sandy.

Sandy:
I just wanted to make a comment to that gentleman’s concern. The most immediate solution to your concern around the education component of performances, is to make it very clear to acts that your bringing in that you expect that, or could they speak to what it is they’re doing, the tradition they’re coming from, these aspects as well, rather than it just be one song, or whatever it is they’re doing, one after another.
The workshop aspect, I think, is really constructive, but there might not be the time to involve that. So perhaps the performance is going to be half the length because we’re going to do a little discussion around each piece. Even a little interaction with the audience, getting them to repeat words in languages. Just participation in that capacity I think is a really easy solution to that.

Audience member 5:
Just to tell everyone about a success we just had. We had Norman Foote come to town, he’s been in town before, he’s a huge success. This time, what we decided to do was do just that -- cut the performances a little bit short and then after the performance, we invited the intermediate students to come back and do song-writing workshops with Norman. They wrote some amazing songs. We did this in five different schools. One of the songs that was written by the kids was called The Kids from Dawson Creek. Now our city is actually developing an entire community pride project around this fabulous song these kids wrote. And they wrote it in about 45 minutes. Norman’s gone back home, he’s recorded the song all professionally and sent it back to the kids. Now the kids have this and they go, ‘”Wow, this is great. This is something we could do like that, it’s a piece of cake, everybody’s done great.’ Now come performance time, Friday evening I had the most sold-out packed house I could ever ask for because these kids wrote these songs and he incorporated their songs into the performance that night…

Wendy:
And it became a family event.

Audience member 5:
…with some of the kids choirs actually up on stage with him. And it was an amazing performance. The town’s still talking about it. It’s been months since it happened.

Wendy:
Lindy.

Audience member 3:
I think sometimes it’s genre specific, too. I’ve worked in many different genres but dance is one where I often find, it’s really important to know who’s a dancer and who can also teach. Actually that applies to any genre. Not all artists are teachers, but we are very because most artists want to share where their inspiration came from and about their artistry or their genre. But in dance, often, choreographers feel that their piece speaks for itself. And sometimes I don’t like everything to be explained to me. Maybe that’s why I love dance so much, because it can mean so many different things to different people, you go away with something different.

When you’re doing your booking, you really need to know where your audience is at in that scale of learning about the genre or what their taste is or where you want to take them. Ask the artist questions; do they like to do this, does it fit well in the performance or is it disruptive.

We’re brining in a piece called Every Body with Joe Laughlin and an African company. It’s a piece about racism and how you feel about your body. It has a message in itself and afterward we’re going to talk about that.

Wendy:
Joyce. I saw you…

Joyce:
Oh, I just wanted to mention something that we had done.
We presented a group who were of African heritage from the States. They did their first set on their own. The second set, they worked with the UC Choral Union, which is an enormous choir and performed with them in the second set. I know a few people who are in the choir and they said it was just the most amazing experience to work with these artists, it was so great for the performers. From an audience perspective -- I should say, really, from a presenter’s perspective -- what happened of course, because this is a large choir, we had huge amounts of family members come. So it was quite a successful event. But what I remember most was just how much the students enjoyed working with this group in a different kind of music that they weren’t used to performing in and it was a very interesting, good experience.

Tom:
All these things are great ideas and it comes down to having them properly planned. That’s something that Dianne mentioned. If, on the morning of the show you suddenly say to your performers, ‘Oh and can we have these two bus loads of school kids come and watch your sound check?’ it’s not going to work. You don’t know how long they’ve travelled the night before, etc.

Right from the word go, when you start looking at a group, ask them what are the thing they can involve around their performance. Do they visit schools, do they visit libraries. Talk to people at your schools and libraries, find out what the teachers are doing, say, in a particular grade -- find a person in your community you can connect with that is interested in the arts and is involved in the community outside of the standard arts presenters and bring them in. We see examples of that in the First Nations community all the time. If you find the right person in the band office, because the first person you talk to might not give you the time of day or might be upset about the way they’ve been treated by somebody else in your community, so find out who that person is who can educate you about First Nations artists. Find out who they’d like to see in their community. And almost get them involved as a co-presenter. That might not be in terms of a financial commitment, but just in terms of their groundwork and their assistance. A lot of times, in dealing with the First Nations protocol, it’s great to have somebody welcome everyone to that evening. That can be in terms of an elder speaking for five minutes, or an opening drum group that can do a welcoming song. Those types of things help to draw in all the different parts of the community. It’s got to be planned from the initial discussion so that everybody, the agent, the artist, the presenter, everybody knows what’s going to happen. And everybody pulls together when that happens, because it makes for a great evening.

Margo:
There is something about honouring the artist that I find really problematic in our society. I’m sure, many of you who are artists or who have presented artists, you maybe know a little bit about that.

It’s also true in the aboriginal community that there’s been a devaluing of their place, of their territory. Not just the territory of the land, but the territory that they occupy in this country. Sometimes it feels like a double whammy for me as an artists and as an aboriginal artist because there seems to be a lack of really seeing who I am and really seeing the art form and the value of that art form to the development our community cultural life.

I just wanted to reiterate, with all the fine points that everyone has raised, the actual development of a relationship with aboriginal peoples in your community or diverse cultural communities, is really important to development of the fabric of your cultural community life and really valuable to all who are involved in that relationship building.

It means that when we come in as an artist, we’re not expected -- which has been the case in most of my life, has been the case that I, somehow, have to do all your community development work. I’ve been more than willing to do it, but I’m tired. I want to come in and I want to have a community that welcomes me into the theatre, that falls over themselves to say,’ Hey, we’re here to support you in any way we can.’ Things won’t always be perfect. We know that touring. It’s difficult enough to get your artwork and do the best you can for an audience. So to feel that welcome and to feel that there are people there who are attempting to work together is really important for an artist.

As well, when I come into a community, I’m dealing with the fact that I’m a Canadian Actors Equity member and I have all these rules that go along with me being an actor on a stage. They really get in the way of me working with my First Nations communities, for instance, because they don’t always have the right kind of playing area, the right kind of theatrical presentation area. So I’ve worked outside of my Equity -- for many years in the aboriginal community.

As I’m attempting to bring these worlds together, I also recognize that -- for instance, I’m doing solo work primarily now, I can do a number of things with a guest artist’s agreement from my union. If I start working with a company of some young work and ensemble work then I’m going to have to deal with bigger issues of rulings and how to move these people around and how long they need to be in the theatre and yadda-yadda. It gets quite complicated for me.

One of the things, though, that makes all of this worthwhile is when I come into a community and the aboriginal community has some way of welcoming me with the committee that has brought me in. That there’s an event, whether if after the performance there’s a reception and an opportunity to welcome, or whether there’s an Elder opening the performance. That there’s some kind of sense that your community has worked together to honour the First Nations territory that is there by making connection with those people. As Tom says, it’s not often the first person you meet or talk to in the Band office, either. Sometimes those cultural people are not situated in the Band office. It’s really great for the development of your own community to find out who those people are and get to know the aboriginal people in your territory so that you can develop together a way to welcome or open the event or to work together in the future. And you develop a feedback around how you might like to do things. You might like to share your co-presentations or your activities further down the line, things that you might work together on.

There’s some wonderful, lovely ideas here and that’s really encouraging for us all -- for the artists and the communities.

Tracy:
I just want to talk about venue space cause of what we do in our Regionals.
We specifically go to the aboriginal community and we say, ‘Is there a venue space that you have in mind?’ We don’t go to the local theatre, we don’t go to the local auditorium, we ask the aboriginal community.

Two weeks ago, we had, for the first time ever, an art festival in Alert Bay with the First Nations community.

When I contacted Barbara Cranmer she said, ‘Well that’s not done here. We’ve never done that here. I don’t think there’s be any interest here.’ She was very reluctant about it and I sort of massaged her and I talked to her and because she’s an artist herself, we worked through this. As it unfolded, we decided to have it in the big house. The Big House is a ceremonial place for the Alert Bay -- for the Nengis First Nation.

It was an absolutely wonderful festival. The artists came from their reserves, from their communities, they came out of the woodwork. Their self-esteem was heightened.

When I talk about venue space I’d like to see the Arbour in Kamloops utilized as a ticketed event and as a venue space. I’d like to see people come out of their rigid boxes of the theatrical spaces in terms of presenting First Nations art form, because those spaces are available.

With the rebirth of aboriginal culture in Canada, more and more cultural spaces are being built on reserves and in communities. Money can be utilized for those spaces.

Of course, as Margo says, we have to be creative about it and sometimes it doesn’t always work but the opportunity to look at that is something I’d like to see in the next phase of development for working with First Nations and venue spaces.
Sinclipt Theatre from the Okanagan use an outdoor setting and only perform during the summer time. They use the environmental setting because they’re performing the oral stories of the Okanagan First Nation. They can only do it in that setting. That is why, when they tour their show, it’s not always the same.
I’d just like to put that out there for the creativity in working First Nations communities, utilizing their cultural spaces, their arbours, their Big Houses and working with the protocol in the community to see that happen.

We never go into a community and say, ‘we want to use your big house.’ That’ll never work. We go into the community and we talk to the people there and we say, ‘is this appropriate?’ They go to their traditional senior arts council because they are in the community. There are resources in the communities that work together and they will say, ‘Yes, this is appropriate, yes we can do this, we’ve met on this, we’ve talked to the elders, we want to do this.’

Wendy:
Often, in cultural facility development we talk about the multi-purpose hall. By that we mean can it play the symphony and do the ballet simultaneously.
I think what you’re saying is way beyond that. That multi-cultural multi-purpose is used in many more ways.

I know that when I was doing some work on a facility development, I was speaking to members of the Indo-Canadian community about what they needed. Well, they have to start at least at nine o’clock in the morning, and there’s food constantly, and they need a kitchen that is a phenomenal size because you never have cultural events without food. So if you build something you need a kitchen as big as the stage. Of course. And that’s not normally put in to the facilities that we build. But in order to be inclusive, I think it must be.

Sandy:
This brings me to a question that’s been running through my mind since you were speaking, Bronwen, about you situation in Prince Rupert. I really appreciate what you’re saying, Tracy, about looking at alternative spaces for presentation, but if we’re also looking to blend communities in a cultural experience -- I don’t know how to put this necessarily diplomatically -- but what is our job, too, in getting the boiled vegetable crowd to even go to the big house if we’re looking to build bridges.

Audience member 6:
But the boiled vegetable crowd will go to the Big Houses. Tourists from England would just love to go see the culture from another country. That’s an automatic thing. But our everyday people, we’re so busy as everyday people that we’re only go see cultural experiences that we really want to see, or if our kid’s performing in them or those kinds of things. It has to be something that people are going to put their hard earned money out to just go and see.

Tracy:
We did a community forum in Penticton BC called Moving Forward. One of the problems in Penticton is the racism that occurs between Penticton First Nation and the City of Penticton. One of the commitments that Penticton City Council made, and this goes with the arts community as well, is to commit to interpersonal relationships with each other. That doesn’t happen. We stay in our positions and we don’t move forward beyond that. I would like to see more things happen in the city with the art gallery. We’ve never had exhibitions at the art gallery until that forum. Finally we decided, ‘I’m gonna move outta my box,’ we’re going to do shows in the gallery and it’s a wonderful partnership. But that means having coffee and going out there and meeting -- and they, themselves make a commitment to come out to our venues. It really is about committing yourself to moving forward with this process. Sure we can all stay in our communities, we can all stay in our boxes. And we can say, ‘well we don’t have the money for you. We want to support ours.’ But that is the very reason that there is a lack or representation for First Nations communities in these venues in Canada. I see it time and time again, I hear it from programmers and presenters all the time, ‘We don’t have the money for that,’ or, ‘We need to protect our dollars.’ That attitude has to stop. We need inclusion for our artists.

Wendy:
And they are public dollars. They are all of our dollars.

Tracy:
Yes because they’re public dollars, but also because we have the resources in our communities that can facilitate that. We’ve been working on this -- Margo’s been working on this for twenty years and I’m sure Sandy has, too -- and they’re getting tired. We need people to understand that and accept that and move out of the box.
When I say Alert Bay said that, I’m talking about the First Nations community, I’m not talking about the non-First Nations community. We have to educate ourselves, as well. We’re working on it, too. It’s not like we all have this heightened awareness within the First Nations community. We’re doing groundwork in our own communities to convince our Bands and councils that art is important, that performance is important. They want to fund business, they want to fund anything to do with dollars and treaty negotiations and everything else. We have a billion dollar art industry that they have no interest in because it’s not going to bring anything back to their community. That’s how they feel, so we’re faced with our own barriers ourselves.

Dianne:
I also sit on -- well, for another month or so, I sit on the BC Festival of the Arts board until the end of June, which is really a shame because I think that it has changed itself and evolved and done some work collaborating with communities. It has faced these situations because it’s based in an urban centre. Their office is in Victoria and a lot of the board members are from Vancouver. When they move into a community, they bring their urban ideas in and there’s always some resistance. I think there has to be, from the very beginning, a willingness to expand and accept risk. If you don’t have that openness to this then don’t bother going there. It’s not going to work. You’re just going to come up with one problem after another. But if, in your mind, you want to open up, and I’m saying this -- it’s not just the ethnic communities or the First Nations communities, it’s the young people as well. That food issue -- I was at the Orpheum Theatre at a classical music concert and the kid next to me was eating sunflower seeds. There’s this huge pile that was growing and I was getting really uptight about it, but it was in the middle of the concert and there was nothing I could do. What it made me realize is that there are a lot of young people who don’t have the experience or haven’t been given the protocol in how to behave in a theatre. Are we expecting too much of them. That’s just a question, I don’t know the answer to that. If we’re looking at growing in many ways, in audiences and culturally and in terms of understanding each other, then I think we have to move forward in partnership. It’s about accepting the risks involved on both sides and creating partnerships. It’s this mental thing. I think things can be overcome but there needs to be dialogue and communication.

Margo:
One of the things that I grapple with as a performing artist is that, because I end up doing all these different things to try and make a company or get the youth involved or create a work so I can keep making money -- I’m multi-tasking myself to death, I’m sure a lot of people in contemporary living are doing the same thing, They’re balancing all these things. What we don’t have, or what gets neglected is a support group or support contact with people who are like-minded, who support you in what you’re trying to do. So when you’re talking about the challenges of actually widening your audience or giving them new faire, something that might challenge them, that might excite them, that might interest them, then often, you’re talking about ‘my community’ ‘my audience’ will they accept this? Well, you know what? Your audience is much bigger than what you’ve got right there. We need is to find those people that we can connect with and relate with in our communities, outside our communities, to really begin to really talk and vision what it is that we want and to support each other in the development of that. ‘Cause this is not easy work. This is not easy work for anybody, never mind one person who feels they’re all alone in their community trying to bring something to their audience who’s expecting a certain fair or expecting things to go a certain way. It’s that kind of support mechanism that I think we need to develop. And all that inter-personal relationships really help support each other so you can actually plan together. Sometimes we get very limited on how we think and how we see. The more that we share that with each other, the more we can find solutions together. Then we’re having an inter-personal relationship, then we’re building together for a wider, larger vision than what our limited mind can sometimes take in. We come up against a wall, we get stuck places and we really need help to move. We need to work together. And that’s what community is and that’s what artistic vision can provide. With the sharing of that vision you start to solve those problems. You start to find the resources, you start to find the human resources, the financial resources. You make that happen.

Wendy:
Margo, I think you have nutshelled it very well.
And it is the sharing of resources, it is the partnerships, it is getting out of your box, as Tracy says, that is the beginning of accepting the challenge.
I want to thank all of you. I want to thank our panel very much.
Thank you all for coming.

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