Review of the Interdisciplinary Work and Performance Art Program - Final Report (1999)
Appendix III
Voices of Artists
As part of the consultations with the artistic community I invited artists from across the country to submit further comments and suggestions. The following is a sampling of the feedback we received, mostly by email. All artists have given their permission for these excerpts to be published. Thank to all participating artists.
Artistic Practices
As a former playwright and theatre director I’ve always marvelled at theatre’s bastard children. By bastard children I mean the circus performers, cabaret performers, drag queens, stand up comedians, theatrical wrestlers, clowns etc. Each has its own specific history in our culture dating back hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. Each is an offshoot of theatre that has disavowed their lineage. This program could respond to these hidden histories encouraging work in these fields, which reaches beyond the commercial standards set in these forms. Through this program Council could support work that doesn’t exist just in cultural space but high end work that exists in entertainment venues such as stadiums and nightclubs.
- Glenn Alteen, Grunt Gallery (Vancouver), by email, June 6, 1999
It has been my observation that for interdisciplinary artists, it is often the conceptual and contextual aspects that define which visual medium and form is used. Performance art often operates in the same manner.
- Tagny Duff, interdisciplinary artist (Vancouver), "Defining Interdisciplinary Art Practice and Reconfiguring the Canada Council's Interdisciplinary and Performance Art Program", Emily Carr Institute Student Paper, 1998
There is an assumption that in order to get a grant you have to propose a project with a product or substantial results. This pressure to produce a project with a product is demoralising and exhausting. Introducing a subsection within the Interdisciplinary program that supports development and research, especially for emerging artists applying under the umbrella of first works, would be very useful.
- Tagny Duff (ibid)
A thought, observation, experience, or vision usually is the initial trigger for a project, and this encounter defines the medium and disciplines.
- Judith Scherer, interdisciplinary artist (Charlottetown), by fax, June 11, 1999
Interdisciplinary work is more complex to produce, requires a long time line and greater expense than many comparative projects in any one discipline. And that seems to involve more collaborative partnerships and complex technical requirements.
- Haruko Okano, interdisciplinary artist (Vancouver)
The current marriage of performance art with interdisciplinary art is not particularly productive for performance art. While many interdisciplinary works include performance as an element, and many performance artists work in an interdisciplinary way, there is a divergence of aesthetics and concerns that probably works against performance artists.
- Paul Couillard, performance artist and presenter (Toronto), by email June 10, 1999
The term interdisciplinary indicates "between" disciplines. While the Western Front is an interdisciplinary centre with numerous exchanges, interactions and partnerships across music, new media, visual arts, performance art, and literary arts, its interdisciplinarity stems from combining the individual history of each discipline, not through the view that interdisciplinary art has its own discrete form.
- Cindy Spence, Director, Western Front (Vancouver), by email, June 25, 1999
Program Design
The suspicion that the CC is keen to eliminate artists from my practise the way the CC eliminated artists who came to the CC via Explorations. Performance Art and Interdisciplinary Art are very difficult to define, marshall, and co-ordinate. I am encouraging tolerance.
- Margaret Dragu, performance artist (Vancouver), by email, June 05 1999
The whole concept of interdisciplinary practice is varied and often subverts categorisation Performance art has a similar history of subverting traditional artistic categories. Never-the-less, lo and behold, even the subversive can be co-opted into a category; and performance art and interdisciplinary practice are no exception.
- Tagny Duff (ibid)
We feel it is very important that our discipline, performance art, which is all too often ridiculed or marginalized, and certainly misunderstood, is named and acknowledged, not assimilated into a more general, catchall program title. It also seems to us that interdisciplinary and performance art need to remain flexible in their definitions, open to changing artists' practises and the broader contexts in which they operate.
- Lorri Millan and Shawna Dempsey (Winnipeg), by email, June 04, 1999
Other than being accountable for the literal obligations of a project, does the Council use these project reports to evaluate the efficiency of their programs in general or use them, not as a punitive system but as a tool for evaluating where weaknesses exist in their programs?
- Haruko Okano, interdisciplinary artist (Vancouver), by email, June 5 1999
Circus artists must become visible, known to the Council. … The Council needs to let go of its inability to discuss circus. It needs to let go of the 'circus as commercial venture' point of view. The new generation of circus artists is capable of entertaining but they are also capable of self-expression, meaningful commentary, provocative images, and social satire. These artists should be encouraged and supported by the Council. … Interdisciplinary Arts may be the best category for circus artists since the artform is neither theatre nor dance but a hybrid art form using many other art forms to create something that inhabits the terrain of live performance.
- Don Rieder, performer/clown (Montreal), by email, July 14, 1999
Performance Art's status at Council has been one of almost constant change. Room has been begrudgingly made for it in each section but only for its bare survival and definitely not allowing the tyke to flourish. Performance Art, as you said at the meeting, is a wide field but I've always felt art forms were not about individual elements but about intentions and the histories they address.
- Glenn Alteen, Grunt Gallery (Vancouver), by email, June 6, 1999
The disappearance of the Explorations Program, a program which allowed for the birth of so many projects which now are the glory of Canada, made us already fear for the worse regarding the desire of the Canada Council to sustain artistic innovation. Today, with such cuts, we have the confirmation which makes us fear that very soon the very idea of interdisciplinarity will topple to the profit of sectorial ideology which leaves once again certain kinds of creation in an enormous grey zone.
- Robert Faguy, interdisciplinary artist and member of the IWPAP advisory committee in 1995-96 (Québec City), April 23, 1997 in a letter to then Director of the Canada Council, Roch Carrier in reaction to the transfer of the Interdisciplinary Work and Performance Art Program from the Strategic Initiatives Unit to the Media Arts Section.
Assessment
Encountered difficulties when work was assessed in a disciplinary program: Criteria from that discipline are applied to my project and can work against an acceptance; specialisation, virtuosity of medium comes into play specialist vs universalist.
- Judith Scherer, interdisciplinary artist (Charlottetown), by fax, June 11, 1999
Again, to have a wide variety of interdisciplinary jurors will help a lot. I think it's key because they will have an automatic understanding, and be able to help the council better define its application process. And to allow the application process to focus on individual vision, whatever that vision may be, will be crucial so that artists feel absolutely free and liberated to propose exactly what they intend to do, without fear of being misunderstood or met with conservative attitudes. The applications will have to have specific requirements and questions, but allow for the widest possible response from the artists.
- Mark Lonergan, interdisciplinary artist (Toronto), by email May 31, 1999
Every multidisciplinary group is going to have its own specific set of "rules" and aesthetics. I think part of the point of working in this field is for artists to define for themselves what makes a great piece of art and what elements are necessary to create the kind of experience they are trying to achieve. So I believe that the assessment should focus on the clarity of that vision, knowing it will be absolutely unique to its group. I also believe that the jury should be made up of artists who work in non-traditional and non-disciplinary fields, as they will have a much better understanding of the groups applying to the Council than will a group of jurors who work with only one discipline. Mainly, I believe that the assessment should allow for artists to break rules and experiment as much as possible, but only with a strong foundation and clear vision for the work. These grants should be anti-conservative, as I can guarantee you, the artists applying will be anything but conservative in their approach.
- Mark Lonergan, interdisciplinary artist (Toronto), by email May 31, 1999
The Council-wide policy of allowing only 2 grants over a 4-year period cannot be seen as anything other than punitive to collaborators. In all programs except interdisciplinary and performance art Shauna and I are forced to live on shared subsistence or apply for grants separately. The later option totally undermines 10 years of hard work we've put into changing the way Council and the arts community at large views collaboration, a subject on which we are passionate. Applying together and sharing subsistence threatens our continued ability to function as fulltime artists, despite the demand for our work.
- Lorri Millan and Shawna Dempsey (Winnipeg), by email, June 04, 1999
Why is it that emerging artists, many of who are recently out of school, jobless and dragged down by monthly loan payments receive 5,000$ and 10,000$ grants? In light of the complexities and costs involved in interdisciplinary practice, the emerging artist's grants are minimal. I believe emerging artists could use the $20,000 grant just as effectively as those receiving that same amount in mid-career in established categories.
- Tagny Duff (ibid)
It seems to me that the rules restricting applicants to a single deadline despite an unsuccessful application are unhelpful. Given the vagaries of the established peer system, which is a kind of lottery (success determined by factors such as how many and which other artists happen to apply to the same deadline, which "peers" end up on that particular jury, etc.), such restrictions are quite unfair. Their only function is bureaucratic, to limit the number of applications processed, and limit artists' opportunities for receiving funding. Artists should also be permitted to resubmit an application for an unsuccessful project.
- Paul Couillard (ibid)
I urge you in your difficult task of reviewing the programme to look at the values and beliefs embedded in the ruling aesthetic and management of interdisciplinary work that penalise maturity and to address that in developing a new programme.
- Elizabeth Chitty, interdisciplinary artist (St-Catherines), by letter April 17, 1999
I consider art as a discipline by itself; it is a state of mind brought then into a transcending form: the interdisciplinary artist just works with different mediums. Artistic quality, scope, relevance and depth of work should be the criteria for grants.
- Judith Scherer, interdisciplinary artist (Charlottetown), by fax, June 11, 1999
I hope that there will be much more discussion on the topic of Interdisciplinary Arts and the Canada Council's role in funding the practice. This area of arts is vibrant and exciting. Increased funding to the Interdisciplinary artists and artists from all disciplines will inherently enrich Canadian culture. The positive impact of Canada Council funding on the practice of art in Canada cannot be underestimated.
- Tagny Duff (ibid)
If the Canada Council can see the horizon without trying to define it, concretise it, or rhetoricize it, that would be a great help. Innovation is risk. Councils are not designed to underwrite risk, but in art as in life, the process has to have integrity and support in order to give the performance a chance to be born.
- Anna Fuerstenberg, interdisciplinary artist (Montreal), by email, May 27, 1999
You need to create a strong interdisciplinary sector that will show its vitality and principles before it can mix with the other sections.
- Jocelyn Robert, interdisciplinary artist, Québec City consultation, May 14, 1999
Canada Council must become more polymorphous if it really wants to respond to the current and new cultural communities. It must revision itself in a post-modern way where the disciplines do not become walls shutting artists out. Canada Council Sections must recognise the hidden art histories they have swept under the carpet and they should stop passing performance art around as so much chattel and realise the little brat's potential. He could be the crown prince in the next century.
- Glenn Alteen (ibid)
Dissemination
I believe that to develop touring in Canada the Council should broaden its eligibility criteria so as to encourage solo outings. I find it strange that the work of numerous artists is presented regularly in Europe and that it is almost impossible for them to tour in Canada. Another problem is that presenters have no agreement on dates amongst themselves. A semi-annual meeting for presenters to organise themselves is needed, perhaps with some help from the Canada Council.
- Isabelle Choinière, interdisciplinary artist (Montreal) by email, July 10, 1999
Whenever small programs have been developed to address inadequacies - for example, the Visual Art section's former Special Assistance for Performance Art program in the mid '80s - they have resulted in bursts of important activity, regrettably unsustainable when the programs die as a result of budget cutbacks. It is time for a rational, adequately funded performance art program that will encourage activity, stimulate critical understanding and interest, and improve exhibition conditions for performance artists. The Presentation and Circulation grant programs initiated last year are a start in this direction, but the applications are difficult and unwieldy for performance, as they reflect a performing arts model that is not appropriate to performance art.
- Paul Couillard, performance artist and presenter, (Toronto), by email June 10, 1999
One of my direct problems with the CC has revolved around touring. The CC has not understood my needs/concerns as a touring performance artist. The forms/application procedures do not "work" for me.
- Margaret Dragu, performance artist (Vancouver), by email, June 05 1999
Communication
One of the real constraints facing the performance art community is a lack of information and networking structures to find out what is happening in other communities. It appears that practices have become highly regionalized, not only in response to local conditions, but also due to a lack of communication with other communities. … There are very few possibilities for artists from different communities to find out about each other's work. There is no network of venues for taking work to other parts of the country, no English language publication that reports on work on a regular basis, no publisher or distributor of performance catalogues, writings, images, videos or other documentation.
- Paul Couillard, performance artist and presenter, (Toronto), by email June 10, 1999
Communication is the biggest problem with this current Canada Council. Decisions are increasingly made without real consultation. Program reviews are fine but are no substitute to ongoing communication with artists and producers.
- Glenn Alteen, Grunt Gallery (Vancouver), by email, June 6, 1999
Funds
We are all very concerned about the funding issues, I am sure that you have heard that the Alberta Foundation for the Arts is thinking of changing the funding formula to a prorated system using a community derived revenue formula. As we do not charge ticket sales etc. this could be the beginning of the end for us, so most of our energy in Alberta has been directed at the AFA.
- Tammy McGrath, The New Gallery (Calgary), by email, June 5, 1999
The unavailability of any kind of operating funds severely disadvantages interdisciplinary and performance art companies such as ourselves. After 10 years of constant activities, meaning the production of 18 performances, 12 films and videos, 3 bookworks, a number of postcards and billboard projects and a touring schedule that keeps us on the road up to 7 months of the year, we are still unable to access any money to assist us with infrastructure support.
- Lorri Millan and Shawna Dempsey (Winnipeg), by email, June 04, 1999
Unlike Dance and Theatre companies, interdisciplinary companies have nowhere to apply for ongoing organisational support. What I, and others like myself, am requesting is the chance to be assessed as interdisciplinary companies without having to disguise or alter our work to fit existing categories.
- Nelson Gray, interdisciplinary artist (Gabriola Island, BC), by email, July 2, 1999
The vast majority of artist-run centres, the traditional Canadian exhibition network for performance art, are currently unable or unwilling to act as presenters of performance art. Financial pressures have forced most centres to narrow their exhibition focus, generally squeezing out performance or limiting performance activity to admission generating or fundraising events.
- Paul Couillard, performance artist and presenter, (Toronto), by email June 10, 1999
I hope that there will be much more discussion on the topic of Interdisciplinary Arts and the Canada Council's role in funding the practice. This area of arts is vibrant and exciting. Increased funding to the Interdisciplinary artists and artists from all disciplines will inherently enrich Canadian culture. The positive impact of Canada Council funding on the practice of art in Canada cannot be underestimated. Artists from all disciplines must have an active voice in the way funding is distributed and allocated.
- Tagny Duff (Ibid)
November 1999