Also wanted to link to Canadian Stage Artistic Director Matthew Jocelyn’s thoughts on the topic of the Canadian cultural ecology, newly available on the Toronto Star website. It is titled, Entire performing arts industry is to blame for the demise of the Vancouver Playhouse

Please read Brad Wheeler’s lips–no local Toronto companies engaged for this festival supposedly created to shine a light on the arts in this city. Pretty clear to me.

Lynn Slotkin

I’d like to take exception with one thing you say in an otherwise wonderfully thoughtful comment: “Many times artists pitch their work for their own needs and not the needs of the presenting platform that is inviting it to participate.” I believe this is EXACTLY what artists must do. When an artist begins to make work to fit the criteria of a festival (or of any external funder or presenter), rather than to serve and explore their own imagination, we are all in trouble. It is the cart leading the horse. As a producer and theatre-maker, i am familiar with having to bend my narratives to fit the funding criteria of various grant-givers in both the private and public sectors – but I always hope that presenters – Luminato being no exception – see exactly what I’m doing, and program THAT. What i hope i never do is make work to please a funder or a presenter. Rather, what i hope to do is make work that i believe addresses some pressing need in the world i see around me. If that work is successful – then i hope it garners support. Of course, festivals have themes, and can themselves address issues in vibrant and exciting ways, and if the art i make happens to line up with that conversation – or (and perhaps this was your intention) is INSPIRED by that conversation, then wonderful! But i worry about criteria. I worry about too many strings being attached. I worry about artists following rather than leading. As artists, we need to think about what the art is for, what the conversation is, and not about a festival or funder’s needs. With The Africa Trilogy, this is exactly what happened, and so i think Luminato got it right then – and all parties (audiences especially) benefitted. So – it’s possible. And when it does work, when the artist and the festival line up behind a conversation that is essential for our time and place, then – as you so rightly point out – long term capacity is increased. Not just the organizational capacity of the arts company involved, but the imaginative capacity of the artists. And THAT is what a big festival can do for a city’s artists – allow them to think beyond their normal boundaries. If anything, this means attaching fewer strings…

Let me first say that I missed a word in my previous post that I think is important. What I meant to write was ‘The formula to get a festival like Luminato RIGHT takes some tinkering to be sure.’ Now, that said, let’s first acknowledge that Luminato has programmed local work in the past. Let’s also acknowledge that this year we are in Artistic Director transition and that seeding commissions and local work takes time and specific artistic producing resources talents and collaborations that I believe Luminato is looking to further develop. I have met with Jorn Weisbrodt and he has an exciting energy and a solid vision and I am sure that dialogue like the one you are engaging us in will only have a positive influence.

In order to programme local work one must have a knowledge of the local performance ecology and to be sure Jorn has his homework to do. Let me say that in my experience, programming a festival or a series is not easy. You have to consider both the retention of current audiences, balancing the needs and desires of your sponsors and donors as well as developing a strategy to acquire new audiences. We should all want that. And to be fair to the previous Artistic Director, I think that Chris Lorway was very sincere of his support of local companies and made a lot of effort to see a lot of work and meet with a lot of Toronto’s creators. Also I think its important the the work lead the audience and not the other way around.

But what I mean by local artists need to think about proposing and making work that meets the needs of a city wide arts festival is to first recognize what Luminato is. Luminato is a city wide arts festival. Like Mr. Leep says “it is a festival of creativity that presents a spectrum of events across music, dance, theatre, film, literature, magic, food and visual arts-and moreover, celebrates when those disciplines collide in interesting new expressions.” Many times artists pitch their work for their own needs and not the needs of the presenting platform that is inviting it to participate. I think that pressure to present local work for its own sake is a dangerous proposition. Like I said, Luminato is a different platform. If it were up to me I would be considering artists who are only interested in taking the opportunity to create and present work in Luminato that will increase their longterm capacity, those who are ready and able to participate in a discussion about work on the international stage, those who want to pitch work that they would not be able to do under normal creation circumstances and those who consider scale both conceptually and or physically to meet the city and the people who live in it.

If you are asking me, my advice to artists is this. Read again what the festival claims to be/wants to be and propose work that you think will help provide solutions in activating the city.

The Laura Secord Opera is with the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus which includes students from First Nations School of Toronto and a Toronto-based librettist.