Hi all. Not being able to blog on the road has made posting a challenge the last few weeks. So this is going to be a quick summary of things I've been following recently.
- The federal budget is released and while there is infrastructure funding for arts institutions and festivals, no money is budgeted to support export or individual artists. In related news, money is given to Luminato to institute an arts prize for emerging international artists. A lot of people, including me, are not impressed.
- La Boite's new artistic director, David Berthold, announces a change of direction for the company, with a focus on education and expanding the repertoire to include international work. I expressed some concerns and David replied here. This is after the theatre had its funding cut by the Australia Council in December and put out a call for help.
- Subscription sales hold steady for most of the major Australian theatres despite the economic news.
- The Indie Caucus of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts has been working on a new Equity agreement that better addresses the way much work is being created. Artists are sharing their stories in this Facebook group.
- Our friends at Theatre is Territory are currently running their new show, The Stranger. Support your local blogger!
- Actually, a lot of stuff is just opening: Andrew Moodie's new play Toronto the Good, Tarragon/Theatrefront's production Ubuntu (The Cape Town Project), bluemouth inc's new show Dance Marathon, and David Yee's new play The Lady in the Red Dress.
- Tim Freedman is performing at the Spiegeltent in Adelaide in a couple of weeks. The same Spiegeltent I spent much time at while we were producing The Kabbalistic Psychoanalysis of Adam R. Tzaddik in 2002. Two of my favourite things together and I'm on the other side of the world.
Comments
I just want to clarify the first point in your posting.
Luminato did not receive any money, directly or indirectly, from this year's federal budget.
The Canadian government awarded a one-time $25 million grant to The Canada Prizes for The Arts and Creativity, AKA The Canada Prizes.
The Canada Prizes is an individual, not-for-profit organization. While its founders Tony Gagliano and David Pecaut founded Luminato as well, the two organizations operate completely independently of one another and are in no way affiliated.
The Canada Prizes will have its own board members, its own staff, its own operating budget and its own mandate, independent of Luminato.
At this time, there is no guarantee or formal agreement in place that participants in The Canada Prizes would be invited to perform at Luminato.
For further information on The Canada Prizes, I urge you to read Martin Knelman's articles from this week's Toronto Star, which I have linked below.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/580087
http://www.thestar.com/Entertainment/article/581921
Thanks,
Daniel Davidzon
Publicity Coordinator
Luminato
www.Luminato.com
This still doesn't make me feel any better about it. I'd be a lot more inclined to get behind it if there was an infrastructure in place that allowed Canadian artists to promote their work internationally. Since that got decimated last year, this really feels like a huge move backward.