INNOVATION & RESILIENCE
IN CANADA’S CULTURAL SECTOR

Eid is usually a time of getting together, sharing big meals, and praying. But this year, it was celebrated in Yellowknife in a physically distant way, with organizers passing out boxes of chocolates and goodie bags for the children with sweets and toys inside. They wore protective gloves, along with masks. Hand sanitizer was also available.

"Eid is a day of happiness so we wanted to celebrate, we wanted to meet with people, and we wanted people to get out of their homes," said Ullah.

Online summit to amplify and celebrate Indigenous voices and artistic excellence around the world

This is less the story of a project, per se, but of the way our overall work evolved over the pandemic period. We expanded our org and our impact - arguably in ways that would have taken us many years to do, if we did it at all.

SWM is dedicated to connecting and working with and for artists, audiences, organizations, and professionals from equity-deserving communities. That happens through live events (annual festival, concerts across the Toronto area), as well as through our subsidized venue/studio (SWCentre), our artist development program for newcomer/refugee/emerging artists (eMERGEnce), our international showcase/conference (Global Toronto) and related outbound efforts to international events (Going Global), and being a resource to the various communities we serve.

With the pandemic, we had a bleak first several weeks, like many organizations - to say nothing of the artist communities we were designed to serve. But through partnerships - with presenters such as Music Together, the National Arts Centre, Humber College, and many others - we were able to take advantage of both our growing network of artists/orgs and our Small World Centre, which continued to be enhanced with upgraded tech and gear to find performance opportunities beyond having folks set up their phone cams in their living rooms (though we also helped with that).
Until Ontario locked us out of the venue for most of the first half of 2021, we'd recorded/broadcast over 100 performances from the SW Centre for a range of artists from inside and outside the SW 'family', offering high-quality production and recording for a hugely subsidized rate.
Our artist development program for newcomer/refugee/emerging artists benefited from the re-think of the program already underway when things shut down. The online pivot of the program proved essential to the mental/emotional health and wellbeing of the cohort of 23 musicians; we continued, too, to offer professional development activities that will help their career. We were able to host some jam sessions - an essential part of the program - in the Centre, and 6 new bands developed; they, and other bands the cohort led, were the focus of our 2020 SW Festival, giving them an opportunity we never planned but will continue to affect the future of our work. All along, we sought the program participants' guidance to ensure we were on the right path together. Our next Cohort will benefit from this work.
Our conference, Global Toronto, also benefited from the re-think. Rather than doing it as usual (fly in a couple dozen delegates, put together meetings, the occasional panel), we leaned hard into the guidance we received from the global community of contacts, colleagues, friends, and counterparts, hosting consult sessions that told us we had an opportunity with Global Toronto to make an impact not just for the showcasing artists but for the sector. Participants of the event, which went online in late July, before most other conferences on the calendar, gave us incredible feedback. From feeling safe to share hard talk and experiences - unprecedented in the conference context - to a sense of a real international community, we were dubbed an 'activist conference' with the goal of making change in the industry, building an accessible, sustainable, and equitable sector.

There is more but I'll stop there, except to say we pride ourselves on our energy and desire to serve the community of artists, organizations, and professionals from equity-deserving communities and continue to find ways of making a difference despite (because of) the challenges faced as a result of the pandemic.

Pivoted to an online event, building a new structure that supports connecting artists with collectors and an audience that can continue when in-person festivals return

Example of continuing to support artists and take on a huge challenge to switch from a solely in-person event to a successful online event, leading to a blend of both, where artist sales and careers continue to be supported

À peine trois mois après le début de la pandémie, le Centre des arts à initié une consultation publique de la communauté artistique pour assurer la relance du secteur culturel (arts, patrimoine, événements).

Suite aux consultations publiques, une feuille de route a été développée, permettant ainsi d'identifier des axes stratégiques et des initiatives prioritaires pour la communauté culturelle. Le plan a aussi permit de rassembler de nombreux partenaires non-culturels pour appuyer la relance. Sans cette approche de concertation, il aurait été impossible de mettre en oeuvre tant de nouvelles initiatives. Notre secteur culturel est maintenant plus vivant que jamais.

With public events on hold over the summer, we designed, fabricated, and installed 5 selfie stations throughout Pickering that feature a background view of Public Art and Cultural Spaces that will allow and encourage residents and visitors to still go and visit their favorite locations in Pickering and create their own experience while social distancing. These 5 locations will be moved throughout the summer, and can be rebranded to suit our needs going forward.

We are showcasing Public Art, and the multitude of Cultural Spaces available to encourage our community leaders to come back to hosting events of all sizes again in 2022, and to show Artist around the province that we appreciate the work of all artists, and will continue to showcase installations as key elements of our community.

Upcoming - goal is to have the festival

Since 1973, Tyne Valley has been the home of the Canadian Oyster Shucking Championship. From its humble beginnings, it has grown into an event that is unforgettable to most in attendance. Oyster shuckers from across the country travel far and wide to perform like rock stars on the main stage. With all eyes on them, it’s a mixture of excitement and nervousness as the whistle blows and they begin opening the finest PEI oysters.

Festival in 4 parts: Our Favourite Sounds, Let's Read, Intro to Lighting Desgin Workshop and Step-in-time.

Mixture of online and in-person.

The Charlottetown community

Instead of a traditional parade, Long said that from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 a convoy made up of a police cars, fire trucks and Santa will weave through seven Charlottetown neighbourhoods. "After much discussion with fire and especially with police and thinking creatively, we thought we really wanted to, as much as possible, take Santa as close as possible to the children and to the community," said Long. "And that's what we're doing." There won't be a tree lighting ceremony this year, Long said, but "the tree will still light in all its glory." Fundraising concerts for the Salvation Army Christmas Kettle campaign are still a go, he said, but have been moved to the Confederation Centre of the Arts where patrons can be spaced out. Once Upon A Christmas Tour and A Christmas to Remember will take place Nov. 28 and 29, with both concerts performed on both nights. Although there is a limited capacity, free tickets will be available starting Nov. 13.

"Physical Distancing Officers" adapted INCIRQUE's roaming Stilt walking characters to support Business Improvement Area's, Malls, Farmers Markets, and open air events.

For BIA's, Malls, and communities where small businesses were severely impacted by closures during COVID, these "Physical Distancing Officers" used Clowning to promote distancing, alleviate anxiety for visitors returning to public space, educate visitors on protocols, and encourage safe ways to connect.

These Stilt characters were highly visible, supported crowd management, and used principles similar to therapeutic clowning to help rebuild communities and support small business.

This service won a 2021 Service Excellence Award from Festivals & Events Ontario!

A fully free and virtual version of the Summerside Lobster Carnival. A 90 minute video to be streamed at home.

A Seafood Taste of PEI Kitchen Party will be streamed into people’s homes, where they can gather their own health approved party numbers to join in the celebration. Lobster Carnival event chef, Robert Pendergast will be demonstrating to home chefs how to prepare affordable lobster dishes for that at home lobster supper. Ingredient lists will be made known beforehand so home cooks can have everything on hand. A number of special guests such as Island fishers will join Chef Pendergast to talk about what makes Island lobster such a delicious, healthy, and affordable food. The Richard Wood Trio will bring their kitchen party to the stage. Anyone who has seen a Richard Wood show knows the energy level is at the high end of the voltage meter. A few other guests may also appear, and harness racing will be represented at the party. Contests will run throughout the evening. People are asked to stay tune to learn more about A Seafood Taste of PEI Kitchen Party. As plans are finalized more will be revealed. The plan is to make it a night of fun that will bring the Island way of celebrating to the world. And to our supporters and attendees of the Carnival, please make your plans to attend in person the 2021 Summerside Lobster Carnival. As the world overcomes Covid 19, the carnival will be a wonderful way to celebrate.

“Saskatoon has a really vibrant theatre scene and we didn’t want to not be able to showcase that because of COVID,” said Megan McDonald, executive assistant of 25th Street Theatre.

This is NOT That Festival is taking its place this year and offers a variety of live digital theatre performances and collaborative workshops.

They are being streamed on 25th Street Theatre’s website and Facebook page and are available for viewing after they’ve aired.

“We really wanted to make sure that we could still feature great local artists as well as artists across North America. Just because we can’t do it in person doesn’t mean we can’t all come together around this shared experience of theatre,” McDonald said.

She added that it was very important to the theatre company to still be able to showcase local artists and give them a platform to share their stories.

Some physical distanced events are also taking place on Broadway throughout the festival, including an interactive art installation that shows videos of people’s experiences during quarantine, McDonald said.

Also including: "Live From Your Lawn" shows.

Finding alternate ways to host a Fringe Festival and celebrate theatre.

Juggling Mental Health offers free online juggling tutorials that also support mental health.

Through COVID lockdowns, 4 out of 5 people experienced a decline in their mental health - including anxiety and depression. Before COVID, that number was 1 in 5 people.

Kyle Sipkens is a professional street performer who realized each time he was juggling, it was helping his anxiety and depression. Juggling is more than an artistic skill, it increases brain matter and is a great anxiety coping strategy!

When the province put out a call for ideas to support mental health support, Kyle decided to create a video series of juggling lessons that also teach coping skills for anxiety or low mood.

While the project didn't receive any grant support, the need for mental health support was urgently needed. So Kyle and his partner Jake produced a free-to-use video series on youtube, facebook, and instagram to use Circus Arts to both entertain and support health of anyone (particularly in remote areas) with internet access to connect through juggling, and add a "tool" to their "tool box" for personal resilience.

With the COVID-19 restrictions and the cancellation of events with over 50 people, we decided to re-imagine our great outdoor parks and recreation spaces within the BC Province’s public health guidelines and provide a safe but small scaled experience for residents, families and seniors during the summer 2020 and this year. It cannot replace the full experience of large festivals but provide some options for people over the summer as a weekly program series.

One of the main reasons we implemented this program was to provide some entertainment and enjoyment for citizens within the health guidelines as there were limited or no options available. Also, it helped to bring some vibrancy to the Town Centre and local businesses which were impacted during the pandemic. We shared our learning and the infrastructure needed to operate safely in this new environment with our community partners and helped them to create their own with support from us.

We are always looking for ways to support our community partners who, under normal circumstances, would have been presenting their festivals to the community – many identified artists for our lineup. These artists had gigs to make up for events previously cancelled. For the artists, Happenings and our modified signature events were the only live performances they had for the year. In addition, it also encourages positive activities and use of our popular parks and provides in-direct support for businesses in the downtown.

The program was popular and fully subscribed as it allowed people to get out safely and experience something live but small scale and controlled. Attendees were very appreciative and it contributed to more positive mental health and raised community spirit. A number of municipalities across Metro Vancouver and Canada have indicated that Maple Ridge is one of the few to offer some live outdoor performances and opportunities in 2020 and into 2021. These learning helped us to produce some of the larger (maximum) outdoor festivals in the fall/winter. There was no playbook on how to do this. We were all, truly in this together. We learned and adapted on the fly and grateful that BC's situation was better than other provinces and our corporate management team and Council supported us to continue our work to deliver programs safely in person mainly and some online.

This experience helped us to look at programming and plans for fall, winter and 2021. We transitioned to larger outdoor drive thrus that allowed families, grandparents and pets in the same bubble to attend in their vehicles. Some of these experiments/pilots will continue as audiences really liked the new formats. Although there are large blow up screens for movies pre-Covid, we repurposed the wall of the Curling Club as a screen, 34'x18'! The Curling Club will also use this screen in future to project their big games.

Going digital turned this festival from local/regional to international, creating new opportunities for the festival.

Over 6 weeks in April-May 2020, Vancouver Mural Festival teamed up with local artists, Business Associations, Vancity Credit Union, City of Vancouver and Goodbye Graffiti to create temporary murals on storefronts boarded up (to avoid break-ins and looting) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The result was 60 incredible murals to inspire hope, brighten streets, celebrate resilience and connect communities. With stores reopened, most murals have been removed and re-purposed.

VMF and local artists transformed our downtown core from apocalyptic-feeling to inspirational with a coat of paint -- demonstrating the true power of public art and collaboration. When local businesses and local governments understand to the power of colour and creativity in public, we can move quickly and wear our shared cultures, values and pride on the outside. While importantly -- ensuring artists are well compensated for their skills and contributions.

Fibrefest 2020 continued with success online, recruiting artists from across the province. And as the community grappled with COVID-19, The MVTM collaborated with Ryan Gordon Photography to capture the historic shift through the eyes of everyday people in Mississippi Mills in the exhibition, ’Faces & Fabric of a Small Town During Pandemic’. In a historic win for the community, the inaugural Pride Mississippi Mills Committee and the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum championed and fought for the inclusivity of 2SLGBTQIA+ people and June was declared Pride Month by the Municipality of Mississippi Mills Council.

Organizers made the decision to move the market online this year, said Larsson, who is also a well-known Gwich'in artist herself. And the result was a craft sale with more reach than previous years, she said. The online market had about 300 items for sale online when it launched last Saturday, including parkas, jewelry, ulus and more — and the majority of that sold within the first hour, Larsson said.

Larsson said this year's market showed how highly valued northern Indigenous art is around the world. "We sold products all across Canada, all across the United States, and we even sent products … all the way to the U.K." "It really blew our mind to know this was the impact," she added. Last year, about 1,000 shoppers came through the typically in-person market, she said.

In 2020, the Kick & Push Festival was reimagined in ways that pushed the boundaries in terms of live performance in partnership with Canadian theatre artists through creative uses of technology coupled with physically distanced in-person gatherings. It did so by switching from a presentation model to one composed entirely of creative residencies in which artist were asked and paid professional rates to respond to the pandemic via their practice.

The opportunities the Festival generated brought energy and attention to the local theatre scene during the summer months and it also resulted in the increased involvement of artists, audiences and supporters. It was the only presenter of live theatrical performance in southeastern Ontario in the summer of 2020.

The goal of the project was to make original, contemporary performances with local artists. Undercurrents budgeted conservatively, but were blown away by the amount of support. They received just shy of 15, 000$ in revenue, and an additional 850$ in donations.

Undercurrents presented 6 shows which were a mix of live-streamed and pre-recorded performances, as well as an audio drama and a performance that took place entirely through an app. Undercurrents used a pay what you can format for ticketing where patrons could choose tickets at 5$, 20$, 50$, 75$ and 100$. They expected ticket sale numbers to be mostly 5$ tickets, however, 5$ tickets only made up 36% of the sales (compared to 50% in 2020). This pay structure allowed Undercurrents to be much more accessible to the public.

An extended re-imagining of the annual Jack Frost Winterfest.

Even though COVID-19 hasn't managed to keep winter away, it has forced Charlottetown's annual winter festival to stay in hibernation this year. The Jack Frost Winter Festival is normally attended by up to 15,000 people and has a provincial economic impact of about $2.5 million. Organizers have instead planned an alternative called Ice City, a month-long festival of activities which they say is a "distant cousin" to Jack Frost. "We want people to have fun, respect others, wear their mask, socially distance and just hopefully everyone feels as fortunate as we do that we live in a place where we can still do a lot of this great stuff," said Heidi Zinn, executive director of Discover Charlottetown. Events range from free snowshoe rentals, themed skating nights, snoga (yoga in the snow), horse and wagon rides and a park-it-market taking place in one of Charlottetown's parking garages. Typically the festival is held at one central location. In years past, it's been at the Charlottetown Event Grounds and outside of Founders' Hall. This year, events will be held all over the city. Organizers recommend checking the full list of events online, as some require pre-registration and have varying COVID-19 protocols.

"The festival will be entirely based online and stretched out over a 24-day period through to Aug. 2. Typically the event draws a few thousand people over the three-day weekend and takes place in Yellowknife’s historic Old Town."

“There will also be a larger reach this year as well because it will be not just people in Yellowknife coming here, but families who might be living elsewhere. The (virtual festival) will provide a little window into what Old Town and the community is about, and Old Town specifically.” The event will also provide “a time capsule” for future years where people can look back at performers in 2020.

unsure - article was from pre-festival

Happenings is the first and only Toronto festival made by community artists, giving centre stage to the talents and skills of immigrant, newcomer, and refugee artists. This year’s festival takes place during the entire month of May and will bring together over 80 artists and performers belonging to diverse communities.