Register now to join the cultural community on Friday, June 20 for Arts Summit 2014 and take part in the work of developing a cultural policy framework for all of British Columbia.

The morning will feature presentations by Michael Davis of BoardVoice on the similar work being done on provincial social policy, reports on the recent Where Next BC gathering and the ArtsBC conference, and an update from Bob D’Eith of Music BC on the creative industries’ experiences since last year’s launch of Creative BC.  

The main order of business will be the presentation of the BC Creative Convergence draft cultural policy framework. 

There will be plenty of opportunities at this one-day Summit for you to share your views, critique the draft framework, and send the BC Creative Convergence team back to the drawing board to incorporate your ideas in the final document.

We will also be fine-tuning our engagement strategies for the coming months as we continue the BC Creative Convergence roundtables in communities throughout BC, seeking further input into the final framework document.

Breakout sessions will be facilitated by Dialogue Leaders representing most of our sectors and disciplines and many of our province’s regions. These will include arts consultant Dawn Brennan, Peter Sandmark of ProArt Victoria; Linda LaFleur of the Columbia Basin Trust; Joanna Maratta of the BC Touring Council; and Judy Robertson of Metro Vancouver.

Check-in opens at 8 a.m., Summit proceedings commence at 9 a.m, wrap-up at 4:30 p.m. Lunch and refreshments are included with registration. 

Register here to join the conversation.

Lane Harwell, Executive Director, Dance/NYC
Huff Post, Posted: 05/14/2014
There are lessons for the creative sector in the story of 280 Broadway, whose new tenant, Gibney Dance, opens its doors to the community to shape the future. In a real estate climate where too many are losing space and reporting escalating costs -- real threats to creative life -- some, like Gibney Dance, are making solutions.

The first of the lessons I offer here is the value of community engagement. As examples, opportunities for 280 Broadway are generated by the testimony of artists previously displaced by its closure in the fall of 2013 and new ideas brought forward both online through a Community Idea Portal and ongoing community forums. For example, see this video of a welcome session co-hosted by Dance/NYC.

For those focused on future space solutions, there is power to be leveraged through local community organizing--perhaps especially in non-Manhattan geographies, where increased attention by our sector, and all New Yorkers, is needed.

Second, there is a lesson learned from "'We Make Do' More Time Is Better, But Budget Is King,'" an Exploring the Metropolis study on dance rehearsal space commissioned by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Crucially, the study recommends shifting focus away from new construction to expanding use of existing facilities. Such is the case with 280 Broadway, which in its new incarnation makes use of previously occupied dance work, training, rehearsal, and performance space.

Third, there is a lesson about efficiencies of scale, achieved at 280 Broadway through synergies with Gibney Dance's other spaces at 890 Broadway. Beyond administrative and cost savings, the expanded Gibney Dance can offer space and programs to better support artists and organizations along the continuums of creative process, from rehearsal to performance, and of career and institutional advancement, from emerging to mid-career. 
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By Robert Sibley, Ottawa Citizen, May 15, 2014
Canada’s artists enjoyed a major legal victory Wednesday when, in a surprisingly fast decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the National Gallery of Canada was obliged to negotiate minimum fees with the artists whose work it exhibits.

“It was a great day for Canada’s artists after many years of fighting,” said Grant McConnell, president of the Canadian Artists’ Representation (CARFAC). “We’re finally going to go back to negotiating with the National Gallery of Canada.”

Wednesday’s decision effectively forces the National Gallery to do what it has been trying to avoid doing for the last seven years. Since 2007, the National Gallery and organizations representing Canada’s 20,000 visual artists — CARFAC and Le Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Quebec – have been at loggerheads over the issue of whether artists have the legal right to bargain minimum fees when the gallery uses their work.

The issue goes back more than a decade. In 2003, CARFAC and RAAV began negotiating with the gallery on a “scale agreement” as provided for in the federal Status of the Artist Act. The associations wanted an agreement that would set minimum fees for artists if the national institution displayed or reproduced their existing artworks.

In 2007, the gallery obtained a legal opinion that binding provisions on copyright issues couldn’t be legitimately included in a scale agreement. It then pursued an agreement that cut all reference to minimum fees for the use of existing works.

The arts group complained the gallery was acting in bad faith and won a tribunal ruling requiring the gallery to stop acting illegally and bargain in good faith. The gallery, however, turned to the Federal Court of Appeal, which overturned the tribunal’s decision, ruling that matters relating to copyright, including the imposition of minimum fees for the use of existing works, didn’t come within the purview of the Status of the Artist Act.

Basically, the appeal court accepted the gallery’s argument that some fees come under the Copyright Act, which sets individual negotiations ahead of any collective agreement.

The artistic groups appealed to the Supreme Court. Essentially, what was at issue was a perceived conflict between the Copyright Act and the Status of the Artist Act. CARFAC and RAAV want to negotiate binding minimum fees for their members in much the same way that unions negotiate collective agreements. The gallery, however, maintained that CARFAC and RAAV were undercutting the right of artists to be paid less if they so chose.

The gallery lost, but even more surprising was the speed with which the Supreme Court judges rendered their decision. Normally, the court reserves its decisions pending a written judgment, which can take two or three months or more. But in a rare move, the judges made their ruling for the artists within minutes of hearing arguments from both sides.

For the artists, it was a welcome — and long overdue — win. “It’s an important, historic win for us,” said artist and CARFAC member, Karl Beveridge. “The amazing thing is it includes all issues of copyright, not just exhibition right, but also reproduction right.”
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PHOTO L to R: Melissa Gruber, Wendy Nelson, April Britski, Susan Tooke, Manon Pelletier, Gerald Beaulieu, Julie McIntyre, Deborah Carruthers, Kristian Clarkem Christian Berard, Deirdre Logue, Grant McConnell. All are part of CARFAC. The Supreme Court will hear a case Wednesday that will determine whether, CARFAC, an association representing visual artists has the right to negotiate minimum fees for visual artists if the National Gallery of Canada uses their work. Photo by Jean Levac

May 09, 2014 - By Mark Brownlee
Ottawa festivals are getting creative in their bid to compete for the sponsorship dollars many of them need to survive. “You can’t just do logos anymore,” said Kelly Neall, the managing director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival. “You have to do something where the company is involved and where they can brand a component of the festival as their own.”

Ms. Neall cited a partnership her festival created between two different companies as an example of how sponsorship is changing.

She provided an animation company with a sponsorship for the festival in exchange for producing a 30-second animated film for another Ottawa company. The company that received the film then agreed to sponsor the festival as well.

Ms. Neall said she isn’t concerned that these sorts of activities take the festival away from its core function. Almost all of her time is consumed with getting sponsorship dollars, she said, which account for about half of the organization’s revenues.

“Sometimes you have to get a bit creative with things like that,” she said.
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The Shoemakers' Holiday, or the Gentle Craft is an Elizabethan play written by Thomas Dekker. It was first performed in 1599 by the Admiral's Men. It falls into the sub-genre of city comedy. It contains the poem The Merry Month of May.

O, the month of May, the merry month of May, So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen.

Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the forest quire,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale:
Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.

But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;
See where she sitteth; come away, my joy:
Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo
Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.

O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green;
And then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen.