UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
Performing Under Pressure: Understanding the Relationship Between Government and
the Performing Arts.
by
Brigit Marite Knecht
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
INTERDISCIPLINARY GRADUATE PROGRAM
CALGARY, ALBERTA
APRIL, 2010
© Brigit M. Knecht 2010
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Abstract
The research investigates the manner in which government imposes its economic
priorities onto arts organizations and the corresponding response by those same
organizations. Specifically the question asked is: What is the nature of the economic relationship between governments and performing arts organizations?
Using Bourdieu’s concepts of symbolic violence and the State-as-meta-field, the subtle imposition of economic demands through funding applications is observed as a manipulation that allows governments to maintain the power of consecration granted by the accumulation of symbolic capital in society while simultaneously edging the performing arts slowly into the market economy. The dissertation analyzes ten years of granting documents from both the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts. It explores how the gradual inclusion of business language in grant applications influences the organizational operation of large performing arts organizations. Interview data from members of government funding bodies, peer assessment jury members, and members of the Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization
Fund help to understand how the government’s demands are made and transferred first to arts funding bodies and then to the performing arts organizations themselves. The investigation then uses interview data from participating performing arts organization members in Calgary, Alberta to examine how the imposition of government-driven economic initiatives has complicated the organizational workplace interactions. The investigation reveals the struggle of organization members to achieve organizational balance between their bottom line and their artistic output.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are owed to many who offered advice and encouragement through the
writing process. My supervisor Dr. Barbara Schneider walked me from A to Z and back again. I owe her a new pair of shoes! Committee members Dr. Liza McCoy and Dr. Jeff
Everett offered valuable guidance in shaping the dissertation. Dr. Daryl Caswell paid the bills by letting me teach for his course – and learn a little something while I was at it.
Norm Knecht spent several days proof-reading, and Pat Knecht helped me keep spirit and body together. Many friends also supported and encouraged me along the way; I promise
I’ll find a new topic of conversation.
Above all I thank the people of the arts community who everyday make something with nothing. Thanks for sharing your time, knowledge, and enthusiasm. I wrote this for you.
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Dedication
To my parents, Pat and Norm, and my brother, Garrett, for unfailing support, encouragement and love in all my harebrained undertakings. And to my dog, Bizmark, for his daily reminder that nothing is as important as a game of frisbee.
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Table of Contents Abstract ...... ii
Acknowledgements ...... iii
Dedication ...... iv
List of Tables ...... xii
List of Symbols, Abbreviations and Nomenclature ...... xiii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1
The Economic Perspective ...... 6
The Chapters ...... 8
Chapter Two ...... 8
Chapter Three ...... 9
Chapter Four ...... 9
Chapter Five ...... 10
Chapter Six ...... 10
Chapter Seven ...... 11
Chapter Eight ...... 11
Chapter Nine ...... 11
Appendix I ...... 12
Appendix II ...... 12
Appendix III ...... 12
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 13
Production and Consumption ‐ A Sociology of Art ...... 14
Impact Surveys – The Quantitative Approach to Arts Research ...... 19
Economic Impact of the Arts in Alberta ...... 23
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Arts Policy and the Justification of Funding ...... 24
Granting Literature ...... 28
Marketization ...... 33
Cultural Economics ...... 37
The Landscape of Cultural Economics ...... 38
The problem of market failure ...... 39
Intrinsic Value ...... 43
Cost Disease ...... 43
Public Finance ...... 45
Public Goods ...... 50
Conclusions ...... 52
CHAPTER THREE: THEORY AND METHOD ...... 54
Literature Review ...... 55
Bourdieu on Art ...... 55
The Literary Field and the Performing Arts ...... 59
Bourdieu on Power ...... 61
Discussion ...... 65
Theory ...... 66
Habitus ...... 66
Field ...... 68
The Artistic Field ...... 69
The Field of Power ...... 71
Field(s) and the Traditional Performing Arts ...... 72
The Economic Field ...... 73
The State as Meta‐Field ...... 74
Symbolic Capital and the Economic Field ...... 81
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Language and Symbolic Imposition ...... 82
Symbolic Violence ...... 86
Discussion ...... 90
Method ...... 91
Approaching the Research ...... 91
Data Collection ...... 94
Initial Data Organization ...... 96
Document Analysis ...... 98
Challenges ...... 99
Discussion ...... 101
CHAPTER FOUR: THE PERFORMING ARTS Organizational structure of a genre .. 103
The Organizational Structure and Governance ...... 104
The Board of Directors ...... 107
The Administration ...... 115
Programming ...... 118
Finance and Accounting ...... 122
Artistic Departments ...... 125
Sponsorship and Development ...... 128
Corporate Sponsorship ...... 131
Discussion ...... 133
CHAPTER FIVE: CANADA From Massey to the Canada Council ...... 135
The Massey Commission and High Culture in Canada ...... 135
From Colony to Nation...... 135
The Massey Commission...... 139
The Canada Council for the Arts ...... 143
Mandate ...... 143
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The Canadian Commission for UNESCO ...... 147
Structure ...... 148
“The Council is not an Agent of Her Majesty” – The arm’s‐length principle ...... 150
The Applebaum‐Hebert Commission and the Commoditization of the Arts ...... 156
Mulroney’s Cultural Industrialism ...... 158
Chretien and the Status of the Artist ...... 162
Conclusion – from Martin to the Present ...... 165
CHAPTER SIX: CANADA The Canada Council grant applications ...... 168
General intent of the Canada Council funding programs ...... 169
Evolution of the Funding Applications ...... 171
Professional Orchestra ...... 171
Opera/Musical Theatre ...... 177
Professional Theatre ...... 178
Creation/Production in Dance ...... 181
The Peer Assessment Process ...... 189
Discussion – Applying Bourdieu ...... 194
CHAPTER SEVEN: ALBERTA Cultural prioritization and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts ...... 198
The Social Credit Years – 1935 – 1971 ...... 198
Alberta in Camelot – 1971‐1985 ...... 201
The Getty Government – 1985 ‐ 1992 ...... 205
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts ...... 208
The Klein Revolution – 1992 ‐ 2007 ...... 210
Privatization ...... 212
Creating the Special Interest Group ...... 216
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The Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization Fund ...... 218
Arts Funding Overview ...... 226
Stelmach and Alberta’s New Cultural Policy ...... 229
Discussion ...... 230
CHAPTER EIGHT: ALBERTA The AFA grant applications ...... 233
The AFA Grant Applications ...... 233
19971998 ...... 233
1998/1999 ...... 234
2000/2001 ...... 236
20012004 ...... 237
2004/2005 ...... 242
20052008 ...... 244
2008/2009 ...... 244
The AFA Grant Assessment Process ...... 246
Discussion – Applying Bourdieu ...... 247
CHAPTER NINE: ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSE ...... 251
Between a Rock and a Hard Place ...... 252
APASF Regulations and Board Liability Fallout ...... 254
Administration – Coping with the Grant Applications ...... 259
Programming ...... 265
Canadian Content ...... 270
Finance and Accounting ...... 276
The Myth of the One‐Dollar Surplus ...... 278
Building the Endowment ...... 282
Sponsorship ...... 285
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Outreach and Education ...... 291
The Balancing Act of Sustainability – The Strategic Plan ...... 296
Discussion – Applying Bourdieu ...... 300
CHAPTER TEN: CONCLUSIONS ...... 303
The State as Meta‐Field ...... 303
Symbolic Imposition ...... 306
Symbolic Violence and Organizational Collusion ...... 307
A Word about Habitus ...... 312
The Strategic Plan as Symbolic Violence ...... 313
The Nature of the Relationship ...... 316
The End ...... 318
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………………………………….321
APPENDIX I: Participating Performing Arts Organizations ...... 357
Alberta Ballet ...... 357
Alberta Theatre Projects ...... 358
Calgary Opera ...... 359
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra ...... 359
Theatre Calgary ...... 360
APPENDIX II: Canada Council complete grant analysis ...... 362
19992000 ...... 362
Professional Orchestra Application ...... 362
Opera/Music Theatre Application ...... 367
Opera/Musical Theatre Application ...... 377
Professional Theatre Application ...... 377
Creation/Production in Dance Application ...... 378
x
Professional Orchestra Application ...... 382
Creation/Production in Dance ...... 385
20022003 ...... 387
Professional Orchestra Application ...... 387
Opera/Musical Theatre Application ...... 388
Professional Theatre Application ...... 388
Creation/Production in Dance Application ...... 388
20032004 ...... 390
Professional Orchestra Application ...... 390
Opera/Musical Theatre Application ...... 390
Professional Theatre Application ...... 391
Creation/Production in Dance ...... 391
20042005 ...... 391
Professional Orchestra Application ...... 391
Professional Theatre Application ...... 400
Creation/Production in Dance ...... 400
20052006 ...... 400
Professional Orchestra Application ...... 400
Creation/Production in Dance ...... 404
2006 – 2007 ...... 404
Professional Orchestra Application ...... 404
Professional Theatre Application ...... 406
Creation/Production in Dance ...... 406
2007 – 2008 ...... 410
Professional Orchestra Application ...... 410
Professional Theatre Application ...... 411
Creation/Production in Dance ...... 412
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APPENDIX III: AFA Grant Programs ...... 414
List of Tables
Table I - Characteristics of the Performing and Non-Performing Arts ...... 60
Table II - Canada Council Grant Amounts from 1998-2008 ...... 164
Table III - Assessment Criteria – Orchestra Section, 1999/2000 ...... 171
Table IV - Organizational Health Criteria – Orchestra Application, 2004/2005 ...... 174
Table V - Assessment Criteria – Professional Theatre Section, 1999/2000 ...... 179
Table VI - Assessment Criteria - Creation/Production in Dance Section, 1999/2000 .... 183
Table VII - Realization criteria subheadings – Creation/Production in Dance application, 2006/2007 ...... 188
Table VIII - AFA and Canada Council Grant Amounts from 1998-2008 ...... 228
Table IX - Canada Council and AFA Application Demands ...... 253
Table X - 2007-2008 Season for MPAO’s in Calgary ...... 267
xii
List of Symbols, Abbreviations and Nomenclature
Symbol Definition AFA Alberta Foundation for the Arts APASF Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization Fund ATP Alberta Theatre Projects CPO Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra MPAO Major Performing Arts Organization TC Theatre Calgary
xiii
1
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
The fall of 2008 found the Canadian arts community in an uproar. The federal government had recently announced that within the next few years it would cut $50 million dollars from government sponsored arts programs. Community supporters, arts groups, high profile artists, academics, and politicians launched protest rallies, signed
Facebook petitions, and wrote letters to the editors of major newspapers and Members of
Parliament protesting the cuts to arts funding. The government responded with statements
like the following by Stephen Harper (cited in Akin & O’Neill, Aug. 26, 2008, p. 2):
“We have a responsibility to make sure the spending that we’re doing is effective and that
involves analyzing every program and making sure we spend where we’re getting the
best results.” The government response only served to further outrage arts-supporters.
What was not explained during the course of the debate, however, was the simple fact
that the economic priorities of government have long been a major part of arts funding.
Harper’s statements, and the cuts themselves, were not out of line with the economic
mindset that has directed arts funding initiatives (and all social funding) both federally
and provincially for decades. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in Alberta where arts
organizations have been required to run their organizations with strict financial efficiency
since the economic crash of the 1980’s. Arts funding bodies in Alberta have long been
operating from a best results position and looked to economic indicators as a measure of
organizational success and sustainability. Indeed, Harper’s statements reflect Alberta’s
approach to arts funding, an approach that over the years has translated to the granting
bodies of other provinces and to the federal funding agency, the Canada Council for the
Arts.
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Economic thinking, such as that expressed by Prime Minister Harper, is nothing new when it comes to arts support. For governments, the arts are merely one area in a long list of worthy social services that require funding. Because they have a niche market appeal to the public, and a perceived lack of economic value to the nation, the arts are often the first to be cut when budgets need trimming and the last to share the wealth when times are good. However Canada’s major performing arts organizations (of which there are 29 nationwide) have been part of the nation’s artistic life since even before Massey used them in his 1951 project of nation-building. Over the years the importance of performing arts organizations has become clear. They are the major employers of
Canadian artists, the major developers and producers of new Canadian works of art, the hallmarks of Canada’s major cities, and indicators of Canada’s advanced citizenship.
Nonetheless, in the mid-1990’s reductions to government funding for the arts occurred both federally and provincially as part of a larger spending overhaul. The result for performing arts organizations was devastating. Unable to cope with a 45 percent reduction in their funding, arts organizations began to accumulate significant deficits to the point where most of the performing arts organizations in Canada, and every major performing arts organization in Alberta but one, was on the brink of financial disaster - in danger of closing their doors forever.
Government funding itself was not entirely responsible for the financial woes of performing arts organizations, but the funding cuts were the tipping point. Other contextual issues were facing performing arts organizations at the time. There had been an exponential growth in the number of arts organizations across the country, which increased the competition for audiences. For example, in the 1950’s the Canada Council
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funded 29 arts organizations in total. By 1995 the Council funded 1,700 arts
organizations (Canada Council, 2001). The increase in options for audiences meant that it
was more difficult for performing arts organizations to attract patrons, and more difficult to entice those patrons to become sponsors. The growth in the arts sector also meant that there was increased competition for grants. Funding bodies had to categorize all cultural organizations and spread their limited funds among them. This resulted in a significant decline in the value of public sector funding for performing arts organizations. The
Canada Council (2001) itself has published details which reveal that “as a share of the average budget, the Council’s contribution is worth about one-third of what it was 30 years ago” (p. 11).
The decline in funding resulted in a growing reliance of performing arts organizations on private sector sponsorship and ticket sales. However here too government cutbacks to social services impacted the arts. Where government funding for services such as education and health were reduced, corporate sponsorship for these services increased. The increased competition for private sector funding resulted in a leveling off of corporate sponsorships for the arts in the 1990’s. Ticket sales could not be
raised to cover the shortfall because higher prices would limit the number of patrons who
could afford to attend, and would alienate potential newcomers. The cutbacks had
increased the need for performing arts organizations to rely on self-generated income, but
that income was itself difficult to procure and to an extent presupposed and required arts
organizations to have working capital reserves and endowments in place in order to
withstand financial crises.
4
The perfect storm of government funding cuts, a private sector sponsorship
plateau, increased competition in the arts sector, and lack of preparedness or business
know-how resulted in the financial insolvencies of several major performing arts
organizations in the 1990’s. Since then, a series of developments have pulled jeopardized
arts organizations back from the brink. Arts stabilization programs were put into place in various cities and provinces across the country, governments improved tax incentives for investment in the arts, and a series of grant increases to both the Canada Council and the
Alberta Foundation for the Arts occurred in between 2006 and 2008. However, all of these actions have come with significant strings attached. Where the arts crisis of the mid-1990’s was an economic catastrophe, the restructuring that has been, and is, ongoing in the arts sector has likewise been economically oriented. Government funding now
depends primarily on economic indicators with the focus of funding applications shifting
from artistic production to financial stability, good governance, and surplus. But what are
the repercussions of this transition to economic thinking for the artists and administration
of Alberta’s performing arts organizations? How are they achieving surplus budgets and
organizational sustainability? What concessions are being made? How is the balance
between art and economics being maintained? Furthermore, how was the transition
achieved and who was responsible for the imposition of regulations and sustainability?
Now established, interaction between arts organizations and governments will
continue to be based on the primary requirement of economic sustainability. The nature
of the relationship stands to impact the artistic output of the nation’s arts organizations,
however, and the interaction therefore gains importance as something other than a dollars
and cents debate. The artistic traditions and heritage of the country will be influenced by
5 the ramifications that economic prioritization has on artistic production. Of interest is the manner in which government imposes its economic priorities onto arts organizations and the corresponding response by those same organizations. Specifically the question asked is: What is the nature of the economic relationship between governments and performing arts organizations?
The research before you intends to explore the question by comparing the demands of government funding applications with the responses of arts organization members revealed through interviews and artistic programming. The research has several goals: a) to explore the history of arts funding; b) to understand the ways in which government priorities influence the day to day operation of performing arts organizations; c) to investigate the conversion of government priorities into funding requirements; and d) to consider the participation of arts organizations in reproducing the imbalanced relationship with government.
The topic of the research holds interest for anyone involved in the production or consumption of traditional works of the performing arts. The purpose of the investigation is therefore to provide an understanding of the impact that shifting government policies, fluctuating funding amounts, and the transition to economic thinking have had on the ability of performing arts organizations to accomplish their artistic mandates. The intention and hope is that the research will provide each of the three players involved with a new view of their interactions. The research hopes to provide governments with an understanding of the repercussions their market focus has on non-profit sectors of society. It hopes to provide government funding bodies with an understanding of the organizational conundrum that is caused by overwhelming and conflicting grant
6
application requirements. And, perhaps most importantly, the research hopes to provide
performing arts organizations with a view of the nature of their interactions with government through granting agencies such that they may consider, or begin to reconsider, their own interactions and ongoing participation in such relationships.
The Economic Perspective
Approaching the economic facet of the relationship between performing arts organizations and government does not accurately reflect all of the social issues which currently influence the operation of traditional performing arts organizations in modern society. Indeed, taking such a focus could open the research up to accusations of economic determinism, or reductionism, in that it could reduce all artistic processes down to ultimately economic driving forces (Hesmondhalgh, 2002; Williams, 1981). This is not the intention of the research. The relationship between the arts and government is far more complex than the simple interaction of a top-down power structure. It is one of conflicting ideologies and power struggles which encompass, among other things, history, education, class, and social beliefs. Both traditional performing arts organizations and governments must contend with the changes in society resulting from globalization, technology, cultural sensitivity, mass media, the instant dissemination of information, and changing taste habits of the populace. However, inasmuch as social change is a unified dilemma, the priorities of both arts and government differ. Where the arts seek to adapt to the changes and incorporate what elements they can into their traditional forms, government maintains an economic focus. Therefore, because of the difference in the approach to economic priorities that exists in the artistic and political sectors respectively, the relationship between arts and government appears to be constructed as a
7
battle of ‘us versus them.’ The artistic position is seen as stemming from the romantic
tradition of the starving artist and the anti-economic belief that to make art for money
somehow degrades both artist and art work, while the economic position of government seeks quantitative measurements of success even in sectors where value is best measured
intrinsically. The research herein, however, prefers to identify the relationship between the arts and government as a conflict between the “economic world and the economic
world reversed”, wherein to strive for economic success is the antithesis of the goals of
artistic autonomy (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 29). This identification directs the focus of the
research onto the economic relationship between the two sides. Therefore, though the
research recognizes that the economic interaction does not represent all of the issues
affecting either the arts or government, it approaches an understanding of the relationship
between the two from an economic viewpoint.
Identifying the economic priorities of government and seeking to know how such
priorities are visited onto performing arts organizations, the research looks to the use of
language. As the investigation reveals, language provides a tool for the imposition of
demands. Used by government, language is a way to achieve economic goals in a manner
that is not readily identified as being violent or physical, and thus it becomes a technique
of manipulation that is quasi-invisible to both society and to the organizations being
influenced. When directed through government funding applications the result tacitly
forces arts organizations to operate according to the demands and priorities of the market
but simultaneously reproduces the funding cycle of indebtedness, financial instability,
and dependence which reliance on government funding creates. Used by arts
organizations, language either asserts autonomy through a reflection of artistic priorities,
8 or is taken up as a means of acquiescence and accommodation of the imposed economic priorities of government. In the case where economic language is used by arts organizations it is possible to suggest that this adoption is a form of collusion with the demands of government done for the purpose of securing funding. If such be the case, then the nature of the economic relationship between government and the arts may possibly be identified as one of symbolic violence.
The Chapters
The chapters herein follow the order in which I feel the discussion at hand can be best understood. They begin by presenting an overview of the interactions involved in the daily operation of a major performing arts organization. The chapters then situate the research historically in a discussion of Canada’s federal contribution to the Canada
Council for the Arts and provide an analysis of ten years of Canada Council funding applications. Subsequently the shifting priorities of Alberta’s provincial governments are outlined and followed by an analysis of ten years of Alberta Foundation for the Arts funding applications. The active elements of government interactions with funding bodies and performing arts organizations are broken down analytically through the use of organizational documents, government funding documents, and interview materials.
Finally, the relationship between arts organizations and government is considered as a whole.
Chapter Two
Chapter two is a review of the literature that informs the discussion. The historical chapters necessary for understanding the government imposition of economic demands themselves contain significant portions of what would traditionally be a literature review.
9
Therefore major cultural policies are broken down in the historical context of their
evolution rather than appearing here as stand-alone overview. Similarly, literature about
the Cultural Industries is included at the point of their historical and political inclusion in
the Canadian cultural landscape. The review of theoretical literature by Bourdieu is
covered in the theory chapter, as is a review of the work of other scholars whose
contributions inform the use of Bourdieu’s theories. The goal here is clarity. The
literature review chapter, therefore, contains information and an overview of literature
that will inform the reading inasmuch as it informed the research and analysis. It includes
a discussion of cultural economics, marketization, public finance, literature discussing cultural consumption and attitudes towards government funding for the arts, and finally literature that addresses onerous funding applications.
Chapter Three
Chapter three is a discussion of Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of field, meta-field language, symbolic imposition, and symbolic violence which form the theoretical foundation of the research. The chapter includes a review of Bourdieu’s cultural writings, and criticisms of his theories. It also looks at ethnographic studies by other authors who have taken up and advanced his notions. The chapter presents the methodological process of the research as it progressed through interviews, document analysis, and the understanding of data provided by Bourdieu’s theories.
Chapter Four
Chapter four is the on-ramp to the organizational interactions which inform the understanding and results of the research. In the chapter the non-profit structure of performing arts organizations is outlined and the way that organization members interact
10 in order to ensure effective operation of the organizations is introduced. In this chapter the complications that arise from the need to balance the artistic mandate of the participant organizations with the economic requirements of conflicting funding applications is presented such that the reader may proceed to the history and analysis chapters with some indication of the impact the outlined developments have on organization members.
Chapter Five
Chapter five presents a history of the Canada Council for the Arts and the evolution of the priorities of federal governments. The chapter reveals how the national shift toward economic goals and the development of internationally competing cultural industries results in fluctuating funding amounts for the Canada Council. The chapter also reviews major federal cultural policies from the Massey Commission to the present day.
Chapter Six
Chapter six discusses the analysis of ten years of Canada Council grant applications. The chapter outlines the major changes to the applications and also presents the individual shifts seen in the grant documents for each Section of the performing arts area of the Council. These include, Opera/Musical Theatre, Professional Theatre, and
Creation/Production in Dance. The chapter includes interview information from the
Canada Council, peer assessment committee juror, and an analysis of the Council’s past and yet unpublished documents explaining the grant assessment process.
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Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven turns the lens from federal government priorities to the shifting provincial priorities of governments in Alberta. A history of changes to cultural departments, policies, and funding is outlined from the Social Credit government to the
Stelmach government. The chapter discusses the government introduction of privatization, sustainability, and the creation of the special interest group. It also provides an overview of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, as well as the rise and influence of the Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization Fund.
Chapter Eight
Chapter eight extends the Provincial arm of the research through an analysis of ten years of Alberta Foundation for the Arts funding applications. The transfer of the provincial governments’ economic priorities onto arts organizations is clearly shown in the evolution of financial requirements in grant applications.
Chapter Nine
Chapter nine turns from shifting government priorities back to the organizations themselves. The chapter extends the data analysis in an examination of how conflicting priorities from the national to the provincial level funders, the demand for Canadian content, and the need to generate surplus budgets create obstacles for arts organization members attempting to satisfy the demands of both funding bodies. It explains how organization members maintain the artistic/economic balance in programming, administration, sponsorship, and outreach. The chapter also observes how the dominant language of the economy is taken up and used as organizational discourse and how that discourse combines with the artistic goals of organizations. The chapter seeks to identify
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sites of interaction in organizational documents, programming, and in the language used
in the research interviews with organization members.
Chapter Ten
The final chapter assembles the analyzed data and attempts to draw conclusions
about the nature of the economic relationship between arts organizations and government.
It uses a direct application of Bourdieu’s theories of field, meta-field, and symbolic
violence to understand how the various actions and interactions observed in the analysis
combine to result in the specific relationship between performing arts organizations and
government.
Appendix I
The first appendix presents a brief outline of the participating performing arts organizations, their mandates, and histories.
Appendix II
Appendix two is the complete analysis of the ten years of granting documents
from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Appendix III
Appendix three lists all of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant programs in
the year 2007-2008, and the amount of funding given to each program.
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
The recent academic focus on media communications has meant that scholars have turned their gaze away from the traditional arts and are instead focused on mass market entertainment and the various technological forms of media consumption recently developed in the modern world. The literature left to analysis of the traditional performing arts is therefore found to comprise readings on cultural production which use the arts as a marker for the greater national culture, quantitative surveys about the economic impact of the arts, sponsorship of the arts, and arts attendance, works in cultural economics, outdated policy studies which primarily focus on cultural consumption habits while debating the value of continued arts funding, and the occasional newsy bit in union papers and trade magazines which purport to speak from the perspective of arts organizations themselves. The research in this investigation, however, does not seek to examine the consumption habits of the populace or to reiterate the intrinsic value of the arts to society; rather it seeks to understand the nature of the economic relationship between arts organizations and governments. This chapter will provide an overview of the literature relevant to the discussion. It will review the literature on cultural production and cultural consumption, review the extensive quantitative studies available, present the general tenets of the cultural economics literature, and outline the basics of public finance. Other literature that proved relevant to the discussion are included in the body of the work proper and thus are not included in this chapter.
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Production and Consumption - A Sociology of Art
Cultural production literature is the body of work that applies social theory to an understanding of the arts. Though the name of the genre suggests that reading would provide insight into the actual operation of arts organizations, or into the process of artistic creation, the literature actually uses the arts as a vehicle for understanding the greater social culture of nations and sees the participation of individuals in arts consumption or in amateur performance as cultural production. Thus, the cultural production literature does not provide the artistic perspective one would expect but is nonetheless valuable for understanding the social atmosphere in which cultural events exist. Much of the reading of cultural production discusses the differences between high culture and mass culture through an investigation of social class and elitism (Blau, 1989;
DiMaggio, 2000; Kaplan, 1990; Corrigan, Kuhn, & Wolff, 1979; Johnson, 1979).
Statements such as that by Blau (1979): “Commercially produced culture has deleterious consequences for the integrity of American arts, if not for the moral fabric of the society”
(p. 430) and DiMaggio (2000): “fading urban upper classes, at once elites and status groups, formed the principle constituency for and organizers of a bounded high culture.
[…] The passing of self-reproducing urban upper classes […] threatens conventional forms of insulation of high-culture audiences and artists alike” (pp. 48-49) reflect the primary arts perspective of this body of literature. The secondary intent in the cultural production literature is to reinforce the intrinsic value of the arts in society. As such several readings carry a certain fatalistic undertone (Without Art, Iwanska, 1989;
Shadows of Anxiety: Popular culture in modern society, Simpson 1989; Whither
Classical Music, Preece 2001) and use the image of a world without art to reinforce the
15
social good of the high arts in contemporary society. The cultural production literature is
arts focused but yet it remains dedicated to understanding the larger social constitution of
society as it is observable through arts consumption. For example, Kaplan (1990)
discusses the traditional social function of the arts as a vehicle for his “holistic
configuration” (p. 39) which puts the social roles of the arts “into some context so that we
may proceed to see them in relation to those social factors that make up the total society,
either to parts of it (family, education, the state), or to the whole (community, nation,
historical period)” (p. 39). Corrigan, Kuhn, and Wolff (1979) likewise use modes of
cultural production as a means of exploring “modes of signification” (p. 10): “We see
cultural products and practices in terms of the relations between their material conditions of existence and their work as representations which produce meanings” (p. 10).
The cultural production literature thus explores larger social structures using the arts and culture as a vehicle, a means to an end. Though the literature can be used to formulate an understanding of the social landscape in which the arts in North America developed, and to understand sociologically how and why the landscape is shifting from the consumption of high to mass culture, it does not really present the perspective of arts producers in cultural production. Some light reading can be found in this vein (Ballet as a
Career, Sutherland, 1989; The Choice of Acting as a Profession, Levy, 1989) but these do not address the financial and ideological struggles faced by arts organizations that are operating in the shifting society that the literature discusses. As such, the cultural production literature leaves a gap to be filled.
The body of literature which operates parallel to the cultural production literature uses arts consumption as a lens for understanding audience behaviour. The consumption
16
literature is similar to the cultural production readings in that many grapple with the
shifting nature of social class. However these readings attempt to understand
consumption habits and class as derived from education. Thus the literature sees
education, not class specifically, as an indicator of arts consumption. DiMaggio and
Useem (1989) state:
Schooling, particularly higher education, by virtue of both the opportunities it affords for introduction to ‘high culture’ and its diffuse emphasis on aesthetic experience, is likely to be an important determinant of artistic taste. Since exposure to education is, to a considerable extent, a function of social class origins, education is therefore also likely to contribute to the class differentiation of arts consumption. These considerations […] suggest that education, independent of class origin, should have a major bearing on individual propensity to consume one art form or another (pp. 142-143).
The notion of education being a marker for cultural consumption extends naturally into discussion of cultural capital and the literature proceeds to discuss arts consumption as generative of social status through the accumulation of cultural capital. DiMaggio and
Useem (1989) point out that “some families will undertake to bestow cultural capital on their children as a means of enhancing their prospects for upward social and economic mobility” (p. 155). Thus the cultural consumption literature, like that of cultural production, is ultimately concerned with identifying the larger social ramifications of the arts.
Understanding society through cultural consumption, readings by Fisher and
Preece (2003), DiMaggio and Mukhtar (2004), Lopes-Sintas and Katz-Gerro (2005),
Peterson (2005), Peterson and Kern (1996), and Peterson and Simkus (1992) extend the literature to a discussion of “cultural omnivorousness” and “cultural diversity” which
17
attempt to explain the dual fact that people now tend to consume a variety of cultural products which consist of both highbrow and lowbrow entertainments. The research done by these scholars suggest generally that there exists “little support for the notion that the arts are in decline as a form of cultural capital”; however, they do suggest that “change is
occurring in the composition of artistic cultural capital in response to societal trends
towards multiculturalism and greater inclusivity” (DiMaggio & Mukhtar, 2003). Thus,
the various authors introduce and discuss the concept of the cultural omnivore - meaning
an audience member who does not subscribe to any one art form but participates in the
consumption of many. Peterson (1992), Fisher & Preece (2003), and Peterson & Simkus
(1992) alternately contrast omnivores and univores (which they define as being patrons of
lowbrow art forms exclusively), in a discussion of contemporary consumption patterns.
Peterson & Kern (1996) suggest that omnivores are highbrows who are open to
appreciating middle and lowbrow cultural forms, while univores tended to be lower-class
individuals who participated in lowbrow entertainments exclusively. The
omnivore/univore thesis “which associates culturally mobile upper class with
omnivorousness and a lower class with a culturally univorous lowbrow taste” (Garcia-
Alvarez et al., 2007, p. 419) has become more complicated with subsets of each
classification emerging. Thus, the exclusive/inclusive highbrow omnivore and the
inclusive elitist omnivore/exclusive elitist snob distinctions were made (Peterson & Kern,
1996; DiMaggio, 2000). Lopez-Sintas and Katz-Gerro (2005) further confounded the
classifications by forming a scale of consumption in accordance with class. Thus
inclusive elitist highbrows were labelled ‘omnivores’, exclusive elitist highbrows labelled
as ‘snobs’, non-highbrows with lowbrow taste are branded as ‘lowbrows’, while non-
18 highbrows with lowbrow distaste are given the assignation ‘passive consumers’ (Lopez-
Sintas & Katz-Gerro, 2005).
The omnivore thesis is frequently debated and expanded upon in the literature.
One such expansion is that by Emmison (2003) who seeks to reconfigure the omnivore thesis as “cultural mobility” in which he contrasts the culturally mobile with the culturally sedentary and discusses the “strategic nature” of cultural consumption.
Emmison suggests that the omnivore classification is too indeterminate and that cultural mobility allows for the introduction of the element of choice. Cultural mobility, however, is also tied to education and class and thus Emmison (2003) states: “Cultural mobility and the inclusive cultural competence on which it depends remain a restricted commodity, largely the preserve of the professional and managerial knowledge classes”
(p. 227). Where Emmison challenges the omnivore thesis on the basis that it denies the strategic nature of consumption, Garcia-Alvarez, Katz-Gerro, and Lopez-Sintas (2007) challenge the idea that omnivores are exclusively highbrows. The authors undertook a significant research investigation in which participants’ omnivorousness was classified and only subsequent to the classification were the highbrow or lowbrow tastes of the consumers sorted. They conclude by suggesting that “the highbrow/lowbrow split in taste must be combined with a highbrow/lowbrow split in breadth to facilitate classification of individuals into more carefully defined positions within cultural stratification” (Garcia-Alvarez et al., 2007, p. 438). Many tests have been undertaken for the purpose of proving or disproving the omnivore thesis; of these Vander-Stichele &
Laermans (2005) tested the theory in Flanders, authors Ward, Wright, & Gayo-Cal
(2008) explored omnivorous orientation in the UK, Warde, Martens, & Olsen (1999) test
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omnivorous taste distinctions quite literally in an investigation of ‘dining out’, and
Erikson (1996) applies the theory in the work environment of the Canadian security
industry discovering that there are different levels of omnivorousness accorded along the
lines of occupational hierarchy.
Cultural consumption literature is quantitative in nature and the conclusions are
mostly determined from survey information about arts attendance, education levels, income, and age. The literature does not extend to any investigation of the effect that
shifting consumption habits are having on arts organizations in modern society or how
arts organizations may be manipulating and contending with the rise of the cultural omnivore or the shifting educational and class structure of society. Rather, the cultural consumption literature limits itself to the back and forth exchange between education, cultural capital, and cultural consumption. Again, the identifiable gap in this body of readings is the lack of extension of knowledge and findings to the concrete practice of arts organizations. The literature deals more with society than it does with the arts themselves.
Impact Surveys – The Quantitative Approach to Arts Research
On the opposite end of the spectrum from the sociology of art are the many impact surveys conducted by various government bodies which paint a quantitative picture of the state of the arts. As with most data of this sort, presented without interpretation, the relevance of the many lists of numbers and various pie charts is easily lost. Though survey information is useful for fast facts it is nonetheless difficult to grapple with in a social context when it is not tied to some larger theory as with the cultural production and consumption literatures. Survey material, notably, tends to be
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geared toward understanding the economic impact that the arts have on society; any
information that reports on arts organizations themselves does not factor in how
economic changes impact arts organizations. Therefore this literature tends to be used for
two purposes: one, to attempt to quantify the intrinsic value of the arts as a justification
for government funding; and two, to put forth numbers from arts organizations to
strengthen the plea for more funding and thus to influence cultural policy.
Impact surveys tend to offer the following type of information. From the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts study, Economic Impact of the Arts in Alberta (2005):
The arts sector has a significant impact on the Gross Provincial Product of Alberta
with a value-added impact of $153.2 million […].
The province of Alberta receives a 12:1 return on their initial investments in the
arts through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
All three levels of government receive tax revenue through the arts sector […].
The arts are clearly an important part of Alberta’s economic vitality – however,
the intrinsic social and cultural value of the arts must not be under-estimated.
(p. 11)
Commissioned by the Government of Alberta, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts report is clearly geared to reinforcing the economic benefits of continued arts funding. The same can be said of the report on economic impact of the arts in Calgary (West, 1994) which argues that “the arts contribute not only to the community’s quality of life, but to its economic development as well” (p. i). Both of these surveys reiterate the intrinsic value
of the arts to the community, point out the economic return generated by investment in
21 the arts sector, and reinforce the need for continued sponsorship of the arts by government.
Other studies accomplish similar tasks in slightly different ways. For example, the Calgary: Talent and Innovation – creative industries sector profile (Calgary
Economic Development, 2007) incorporates Calgary’s arts community into a more general promotion for Calgary overall. Here information on arts and culture spending can be found in close proximity to information such as “airport driving and flight times” (p.
40). The overall intention of a survey of this type is to draw attention to the “exceptional quality of life” (p. 51) that is available in Calgary and to show how a vibrant arts and culture scene is integral to the promotion of the local image. The report states: “A creative city is one in which its cultural resources are seen as more than just assets – they are recognized as economic drivers in the attraction of talent, innovation and ideas which point to a new paradigm for urban change” (p. 3). Though the report offers interesting statistical information – “In Alberta, more households spend money on live performing arts than on sporting events” (p. 28) – the use of survey information of this type for arts organizations themselves is limited. Aside from proving the value of arts and culture to an urban lifestyle, the report does not offer any tangible information on the operation of arts organizations.
A few surveys do exist which attempt to quantify the experience of arts organizations for the purpose of soliciting greater funding dollars from the various levels of government. Such surveys tend to be solicited by a combination of governments, funding bodies, and arts advocacy organizations such as the Ontario Arts Council. These reports offer valuable comparative information such as “revenue sources and percentage
22 of […] grants by age of organization, by category, dollar values, and as a portion of total revenues respectively” (Calgary Arts Development, 2007, pp. 21 – 26). Other comparisons include quantitative information on income for arts organizations across
Canada (Business for the Arts, 2006; 2007; Hill Strategies Research, 2003). For example, information gathered from the Annual Survey of Performing Arts Organizations, 2005-
2006 (2007) includes:
The 226 organizations had […] earned revenues accounting for […] 49% of total
revenues. Government revenues were […] 28% of total revenues, while private
revenues equalled […] 23% of total revenues.
The 226 performing arts companies put on more than 35, 000 performances in
2005-2006, drawing 10 million spectators […]. Box office revenues were the
most important source of revenues – larger than total government or total private
funding for the 226 organizations. (Business for the Arts, 2007).
From the Current State of Granting in Calgary (2007) useful information provided includes charts which illustrate various sources of revenues within the context of the total budget of performing arts organizations from the year 2005. These figures include Casino
Revenue – 5%; Earned Income – 43%; Touring Income – 2%; Donations – 31%; Other
Grants – 16%; Calgary Regional Arts Foundation grant – 3% (p. 22). Statistical information such as this is readily understandable and accessible for anyone seeking to justify arts funding as a percentage of an organization’s overall budget. Given the economic focus of society, having numbers such as these available allow arts organizations to prove their financial need and/or stability to anyone who would question the necessity of arts funding by government.
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Though survey information can be useful in quantifying the value of the arts to
society in a way that becomes relevant to those who would challenge the need for arts
funding by the government, the information generated does not provide any insight into
the methods used by arts organizations to achieve the numbers. Surveys are geared
toward understanding the economic impact of the arts on society and not on
understanding the impact of economics on the arts. Therefore this body of literature
leaves open the same gap as that of the cultural production and consumption literature in
that it provides only the external perspective on the operation of arts organizations and
does not attempt to understand the organizations themselves.
Economic Impact of the Arts in Alberta
Though economic impact surveys are of limited use to the research, it is
interesting to examine the results of such research in Alberta specifically. The AFA study
report, Economic Impact of the Arts in Alberta: Measuring the value of the arts (2005)1 reports that “the Gross Provincial Product (GPP) of the province is permanently increased by $153.2 million as a result of the creation and production of artistic activities and events” (p. 4). The number represents the actual value added to the economy due to the support of the arts sector. The report differentiates the direct impact of arts spending from the indirect or induced arts spending (which is spending by suppliers, producers and consumers). These figures are: Direct impact - $58.4 million; Indirect impact - $94.7 million (p. 4). The report states that “if the initial investment of the AFA in the sample
1 Note that the figures in the report are from 2003-2004 and do not therefore correspond to the 2006-2007 information presented earlier in this chapter. The information nonetheless provides a strong example of the economic impact of the arts.
24 organizations is considered (their figure is $13 million for the 2003/2004 year) then the value added impact will be $153.2 million at a 12:1 return” (p. 5).
Contribution to the GPP is not the only economic value that the arts return to society. The report states that about 3500 jobs are created as a result of the arts sector. Of these, 1816 jobs are directly in arts organizations while the remaining 1692 jobs belong to the indirect impacts of initial expenditures by arts organizations (i.e. the wood supplier who provides construction materials for sets, service industry representatives, etc.)
(Alberta Foundation for the Arts, 2005, p. 6). Job creation leads to taxes and therefore taxes also play a role in the impact made by the arts on the economics of the province.
All levels of government receive financial benefits from the operations of the arts sector through the tax system. The overall taxes returned to government through the arts sector is close to $70 million. The largest portion of this impact goes to the federal government through personal income tax, GST, corporate profit taxes, employment insurance and CPP contributions. The provincial government nets about $20 million through the taxation system with half of this amount coming from personal income tax. Local governments receive the remainder of the balance through property and business taxes (Alberta Foundation for the Arts, 2005, p. 9).
In short, the provincial government realised a return of $1.50 through income taxes alone, for every $1.00 invested through AFA grants (Alberta Foundation for the Arts, 2005).
Arts Policy and the Justification of Funding
Writings about arts policy tends to be primarily American in nature. Canadian writings on the topic form historical overviews of policy shifts that occur under various governments (Whitson, Wall, Cardinal, 2006), policy analyses of the cultural industries approach (Hesmondhalgh & Pratt, 2005; Oakley, 2006) and models for comparative
25 analysis (Colbert, d’Astous & Parmentier, 2004; Mulcahy, 1998; Gattinger, Saint-Pierre
& Gagnon, 2008; Rushton, 2002; Imbeau et al., 2000). Canadian writing about cultural policy tends to reiterate the main ideas of culture, including the public good, the civilizing effect of culture, and the romantic notion of the artist as an isolated genius
(Hesmondhalgh & Pratt, 2005). Azmier (2002) provides an example: “Arts have the potential to promote intercultural understanding and to help validate a diversity of cultures and populations” (p. 4). Once again studies and statements such as the above do not open windows into the operation of arts organizations and serve only to reinforce the value of the arts to society. On the other hand the cultural policy literature emerging from the United States offers a greater analytical and academic perspective. Though comparisons to the situation in Alberta must be inferred, the readings nonetheless provide some insight into the function of cultural policy and the intention behind its creation.
Cultural policy studies attempt to bridge the gap between policy and society by drawing conclusions about the effect of policy on the people. “Cultural policy produces zones of public memory and learning, organized by rules and coloured by debates in historiography, that regulate the past, in a way that is determined by the concerns of the present” (Miller & Yudice, 2002, p. 23). Because the focus of these writings attempts to reach into the sociology of art, they follow the same tendency to approach arts research from the perspective of audiences, public participation, and patronage (Morris &
Pankratz, 2003). DiMaggio (2003) attempts an explanation for the singular “outsider” focus on the arts and cultural policy by stating:
Few problems in arts policy research are as basic as the difficulty of finding the organizations and people that policies are meant to affect. […] This is a problem because to the extent that the kinds of artists and organizations we
26
study differ from those that policy is meant to research, our research will not serve policy makers’ needs (p.23-24).
The assumption made in the statement reflects a problem with umbrella arts policies.
Emerging and established artists and arts organizations are not the same and “many public policies aim to provide resources like working space or health benefits to artists
who are starting out, sporadically employed, or averse to joining organizations”
(DiMaggio, 2003, p. 24). Given the confusion it is not surprising that most policy
research focuses on those elements, like audience participation, for which data is more
readily available. Once again the gap in the literature is identified as being research
which operates from the perspective of arts organizations themselves. Though arts policy
directly impacts members of arts organizations, the research and analysis prefers to
observe the effects of arts policy on consumers rather than on producers.
An offshoot of arts policy literature is work which debates the value of arts
funding by government (DiMaggio & Pettit, 1999; Colbert, D’Astous & Parmentier,
2005; Heilbrun & Gray, 2001; Sullivan 1997; Hansen, 1995; Mulcahy, 2003). These
articles tend to be relatively short and either reiterate intrinsic value statements of
government surveys in support of arts funding or point to larger social ills as justification
for the elimination of arts funding. The literature is interesting as a measure of social
attitude but tends to be politically driven more than analytically considered and is thus
limited in its scope. Nonetheless the debate is easily outlined. To begin, DiMaggio and
Pettit (1999) observe the changeable nature of funding support in American society:
“Americans are equally united in believing that the arts are good for their communities.”
DiMaggio and Pettit (1999) point out that though the public generally support the idea of
27
the arts they are “ambivalent about government funding programs” upon which arts
organizations currently rely for survival.
If you ask people if they believe that the government should support the arts, most will tell you that they do. If you ask them if they are willing to pay more taxes so that the federal government can spend more money on the arts (as opposed to health care or child welfare), they may respond very differently. (DiMaggio & Pettit, 1999)
On the other hand, research by the Canadian team of Colbert, D’Astous and Parmentier
(2005) suggest the contrary position that “some people have a negative perception of the association between the private sector and the arts, believing that government, through its
funding of the arts and in the absence of any commercial considerations, is the only worthy custodian of culture” (Gagnon and Mantorella in Colbert, D’Astous and
Parmentier, 2005, p. 217).
Going back and forth between pro and con positions for arts funding, arguments
for government arts funding state the need for arts support as proven by the incapacity of
the arts to function in a market economy (Heilbrun and Gray, 2001), the external benefits
provided by the arts to the community (Sullivan, 1997), and the need for arts support
based on the arts as an indicator of cultural identity (Mulcahy, 2003). Arguments against
arts support tend to reflect statements like the following by columnist Andrew Coyne.
There is a distinction between support of the arts and state support for the arts. There is no stopping Canadians from supporting art. If they want to, they will. If not, I don’t see any point in forcing them through government use of their tax dollars (Coyne in Sullivan, 1997, p.4).
Heilbrun and Gray (2001) cite the work of Ernest van den Haag in illustrating the case
against public subsidy: “A) There is no good socio-political reason for the government to
compel taxpayers to subsidize government selected art; B) to do so compels all classes to
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subsidize the middle class; C) to do so is more apt to harm than to help in the creation of
actual, valuable art” (p. 244).
The literature about arts funding reveals the same gap as has been observed
previously. Arts funding is assumed to be to the benefit of artists and therefore is not
debated from their perspective; rather arts funding is seen as a social issue quite apart
from the actual producers of artistic products.
Granting Literature
There is, however, a recent development in funding literature which originates in
the United States. This literature specifically seeks to improve foundation effectiveness
by facilitating discussion and reports on topics such as grantee perception of foundations,
board member effectiveness, foundation management, etc. The part of the literature
which is relevant to the research here is the reports which assess the burden placed on
organizations in the funding application process. These reports are compiled by
evaluating application and reporting practices and their impact on both granters and
applicants. The literature originates primarily with foundation and grant-maker
organizations such as the Center for Effective Philanthropy, the Foundation Center, The
Urban Institute, and the Council on Foundations.
In the United States the arts receive very little funding from government. As a
result numerous foundations have been established which handle the dissemination of funding for arts organizations and other non-profit entities. There are more than 71,000 foundations in the United States each with their own reporting criteria; as a result the burden of satisfying funder demands has become overwhelming both for foundations and for applicants.
29
Foundations strive to increase their own impact, in part through specialized application and reporting practices. Many feel that they cannot be responsible stewards of philanthropy’s resources without requiring significant and customized information from nonprofit organizations. But these individualistic practices – multiplied by thousands of grantmakers - place a heavy burden on organizations seeking funding and hamper their ability to be efficient with time and ultimately effective in their missions. Most foundations don’t fully appreciate the extent and consequences of these inefficiencies (Bearman, nd, p. 5).
The literature generally outlines ten major flaws in the American grant system, which
result in frustration, fatigue, burn-out, and high turn-over rates in non-profit executives
(Bearman, n.d.; Eakin, 2007; Center for Effective Philanthropy, 2002a, 2002b; Lara-
Cinisome & Steinberg, 2006; Lara-Cinisomo, 2005, Huang, 2006; Buchanan, Bolduc, &
Huang, 2005). The flaws include:
• variability of types of information required;
• requirements that aren’t “right sized” - meaning that requirements for small grant
amounts are as onerous as for large grant amounts;
• insufficient net grants – which weights the total amount of funding minus the cost
of seeking grants;
• outsourced burdens – wherein “grantseekers are required to accomplish
administrative tasks that are essentially the grantmaker’s work without
compensation” (Bearman, nd, p. 13), e.g., providing multiple copies of
application materials;
• undermined trust – in which applicants feel they are mistrusted by foundations,
the application requirements are seen as evidence of that distrust;
• reports are not used to evaluate impact or results;
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• “fundraising gymnastics – nonprofits continually reinvent their programs on paper
in response to foundations’ preference for the new and different, and reluctance to
pay core operating support” (Bearman, nd, p. 16). Organizations keep multiple
versions of their budgets for the purpose of quickly satisfying different reporting
formats. And grantmakers must still use typewriters for some forms, and complete
others in a single sitting because the computer forms do not allow applicants to
‘save and continue’ (Bearman, nd).
• Due diligence redundancy – In the US post-Sept 11/01, the Patriot Act and
Pension Protection Act have instated certain due-diligence requirements. These
are not clear and therefore Foundations request multiple copies of different forms
from applicants just to make sure they’ve satisfied the requirements.
• Streamlining of applications – the attempt to simplify the application process has
resulted in annual changes to format, types of information required, and the
process of application. This has resulted in increased workloads, in the short term,
for both grantmakers and grantseekers alike.
• Time Drain on Grantmakers – “grantmakers, like grantseekers, are poorly served
by the current state of application and reporting practice” (Bearman, nd, p. 20).
Of the flaws outlined, the data gathered by these studies is most succinctly summed up by
Lara-Cinismo & Steinberg (2006) whose case study found that compliance with funding requirements cost the organization 11% of the budget, and 44% of organizational time (p.
29).
Other uses of case-studies seek to examine foundation impact and to identify ways in which foundations can be more effective. To this end Lara-Cinisomo (2005) undertook a
31
study of family oriented non-profits in Pittsburgh examining compliance challenges, and
the Center for Effective Philanthropy (Bolduc, Buchanan, & Huang, 2004) surveyed the grantees of 30 large foundations to assess what elements grantees value most in their
interactions with funders. The 2002b study by the Center for Effective Philanthropy also
sought to identify indicators of effectiveness in the running of foundations, while Ross
(2008) prepared a case study of the David and Lucille Packard Foundation which likewise looked to identify the elements of “quality interactions and clear communications” (p. 1). Buteau, Buchanan, Bolanos, Brock, & Chang (2008) extended the communication research between foundations and grantees by assessing the value of assistance provided by foundations which is non-monetary. To this end, the report provides a case-study of three major foundations – The Hartford Foundation for Public
Giving, The Wallace Foundation, and The Winter Park Health Foundation - which demonstrates how foundations can provide ongoing support and advice to non-profits.
Support ranges from simple encouragement to internet technology advice and is found to make a significant difference in the development of sustainable non-profit organizations.
Nonetheless, the report notes that “the majority of grantees of a typical large foundation receive no assistance beyond the grant” (p. 8). A Canadian parallel to the American foundation support discussed above can be seen in several Canada Council for the Arts support programs (the Flying Squad for example) that are designed to provide business and organizational assistance to grantees.
Of the body of literature considered, a small number of Canadian reports exist, though none of them are directed to non-profit arts organizations specifically. Of these reports the Eakin (2007) report, We can’t afford to do business this way: A study of the
32 administrative burden resulting from funder accountability and compliance practices, evaluates community non-profit organizations in Ontario. The report makes the same findings as its American counterparts, noting that weaknesses in the system result in overburdened grantee administration, ineffective use of administrative time, interference with the mandate of the organizations caused by compliance, and tenuous reliability of funding sources. Notably, for the research in the investigation at hand, Eakin’s findings also reveal that grantees feel that the political vulnerability of grants and programs is increasing. She states:
There are two parts to this, which agencies see as interconnected and reinforcing. First is the uncertainty resulting from rapid and unpredictable funding and program shifts. Second is that when programs are seen by funders or politicians to be more high profile, contentious, or risky, the agency can be subjected to more onerous compliance and other demands or to explicit political interference (p. 8).
Eakin (2007) identifies funding with high, medium, and low political vulnerability, noting that homelessness hostels and anti-gang youth organizations have the highest instances of interference, whereas seniors’ programs have the lowest. She does not categorize the arts. The findings in this report are relevant and useful to the research project at hand; however, Eakin’s report presents quantitative measures and does not identify how the imposition of accountability plays out in the organizations themselves.
Scott (2003) also provides insight into Canadian funding issues, again drawing the same conclusions: “The shift away from core funding that is evident across Canada, to name just one example, has heightened competition among nonprofit and voluntary organizations for increasingly scarce resources. Much organizational time is now devoted to chasing short-term sources of funding, often at the expense of the organizations’
33
mission and core activities” (p. ix). Scott directs her attention primarily to private
sponsorship and not to government funding. She notes that private sponsors are adopting
targeted funding and are reluctant to fund those aspects of organizations that are not
directly tied to a project or program. She also notes the ‘house of cards’ situation in
which funders (she does not say ‘government’ though it is implied) require in-kind support from other sectors in order to guarantee funding; therefore the loss of funding in any area can result in overall loss of support for the organization (Scott, 2003, p. xiv).
Other papers in this vein report very similar findings. As with the granting literature of the US, foundations such as the Canadian Council on Social Development,
Canadian Policy Research Networks, the Muttart Foundation, and the Institute for Third
Sector Research likewise generate the Canadian granting literature. Literature by Eakin
(2001, 2004, 2005, and 2007 discussed above), Scott & Struthers (2006), Phillips &
Levasseur (2004), Muttart Foundation (2006), Phillips (2004), Scott & Pike (2005), and
Smith (2003) all seek to identify the impact of funding accountability, governance practices, and results-based sponsorship. As with the works by Eakin and Scott discussed above, the results are quantitative and offer very little insight into the influence that funding changes over the years have had on organization members. As well, the literature focuses on community non-profit organizations (after-school programs, homelessness programs, youth programs), and health organizations. It does not attempt to address the performing arts.
Marketization
The granting literature, as seen, attempts to make a quantitative assessment of the impact that business practices have on the ability of non-profit organizations to operate
34 effectively. The works are a response to the larger marketization of society generally.
Marketization is the term ascribed to the use of economic factors and business practices as the basis for decision-making and the measure for effectiveness (Fairclough, 1992,
1995; Leitch & Davenport, 2005; Gilbert, 2008). The term also refers to “the adoption of state policies explicitly designed to create a competitive market […] in order to secure state priorities” (Harbour & Jaquette, 2007), and the view that “human needs are best served by an unregulated free market” (Hesmondhalgh, 2002, p. 87). Combined with other economic impositions such as privatization and performance accountability, marketization has the result of inducing institutions which are not typically thought of as corporate entities to operate as businesses. Such institutions include education (Apple,
2005; Witte, 2000; Rice & Prince, 2000, Harbour, 2006; Trow, 1996; Williams, 1995), social programs (Massey, 1997; Townsend & Donker, 1996), the non-profit sector
(Salamon, 1993, 1996; Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004), health care (Hassan, 1996; Mulgan
& Landry, 1995; Brown, 1996), and cultural organizations (Milz, 2007; Rice & Prince,
2000, Pennee, 1999; McCormack, 1984, Woodcock, 1985).
Marketization in the arts and culture sector is described by McCormack (1984) as a turn away from a nationalist model - art as Canadian heritage - and away from a welfare model – art as public resource and social right. Instead the adoption of a market approach considers art as a commodity. Rice & Prince (2000) note that the market approach to arts and culture places the audience in the roles of consumer and investor; they accuse marketization of spurring a decrease in national sovereignty. Eikenberry & Kluver (2004) extend this suggestion by positing that marketization may “harm democracy and citizenship because of its impact on a non-profit organization’s ability to create and
35 maintain a strong civil society” (p. 1). They suggest that non-profit (cultural) organizations enhance civil society through their role as “value guardians, advocates, and builders of social capital” (p. 2). Though Eikenberry & Kluver (2004) are critical of marketization, suggesting that organizational mission is threatened by the need to generate commercial revenue, they do note a few benefits that non-profit organizations can reap from marketization trends. These include greater efficiency and innovation, better targeting of services to client needs, greater accountability, more reliable resource streams, and increased legitimacy. The research here will show how these trends influence the day to day activities of performing arts organization members and suggests that they are not all beneficial as Eikenberry & Kluver assert.
Stemming from neo-liberal market orientation and neo-conservative processes of accountability, marketization is one hand of what Apple (2005) would refer to as conservative modernization. Conservative modernization is identified as being the combination of marketization and centralized government control over values, business processes, and accountability. Discussing the transformations in higher education in the
United States, Apple (2005) explains that neo-liberalism requires a constant “production of evidence that you are doing things efficiently” (p. 14) and suggests that North America is moving toward what he terms an audit culture. Expanding on Ley’s (2001) discussion of the proliferation of auditing, using “business derived concepts of independent supervision to measure and evaluate performance by public agencies and public employees” (p. 70), Apple (2005) suggests than an audit culture depends on the de- valuation of public goods and services. “It takes long-term and creative ideological work, but people must be made to see anything that is public as bad and anything that is private
36
as good” (p. 15). This perspective is particularly evident in the transformation of social
attitudes towards the arts that occurred in Alberta under the Klein government and thus,
though Apple does not speak of the arts, the work is directly relevant to the discussion at
hand.
Gilbert (2008) discusses the commodification of public goods and explains that
marketization of services such as education and health care is extremely problematic because the services themselves do not, and cannot, be reduced to a seller/buyer transaction. He explains that the collaboration between providers and users of such
services is integral to the successful outcome of the relationship. “Without the
willingness of users to defer to the expert authority of providers at key points in the
process, and without the simultaneous willingness of professionals to defer to users in
determining and identifying their needs at key points, no successful outcome can really
be expected” (Gilbert, 2008, p. 558-559). Thus Gilbert refutes the notion that relations
can be disguised as ‘things’ which, he suggests, is the fundamental drive of neo-
liberalism. Though Gilbert does not extend his discussion into the public service of the arts, his discussion of the buyer/seller interaction and the imposition of commercial goals onto non-profit entities may be useful in considering the prioritizations of government, and the relationship between government and performing arts organizations.
Salamon (1996) explains the evolution of marketization in the American non- profit sector as stemming from significant government cuts in the 1990’s. He suggests that the non-profit sector moved into the commercial market as a response to these cuts and that this action actually protected the non-profit sector from the Reagan era budget cuts. However, “having created, or newly entered markets that could yield substantial
37 commercial returns, [the non-profit sector] is now encountering massive competition from for-profit providers attracted to these same markets” (Salamon, 1996, p. 5). As iterated by Eikenberry & Kluver (2004) competition in the market is seen as undermining the ability of non-profits to maintain the organizational missions (such as charity or research) that were both the foundation of the organization, and the impetus for market- driven survival (Salamon, 1996). Suggesting that the “non-profit sector is being hoisted on its own mythology” (p. 9), Salamon (1996) adopts the term of Yale Law professor
Hansmann and identifies the new non-profit organization as a “commercial non-profit.”
This term, considering the marketization of the arts sector in Canada, can easily be applied to the performing arts organizations whose organizational mandates include surplus budgets (as shall be seen). Salamon’s work discusses health care specifically but parallels can easily be made between non-profits in the health sector whose work is heavily funded by fees, as opposed to public or private support, and the reliance of arts organizations on ticket sales as a major part of their income.
Cultural Economics
The field of cultural economics provides yet another approach to arts research.
Cultural economics attempts to explain the situation of arts and culture in the market economy. Evolving directly from Baumol and Bowen’s seminal text, Performing arts:
The economic dilemma (1966), cultural economics investigates the predicament “created by an ever increasing level of economic welfare and the concomitant increase in the cost of staging the lively arts” (Frey, 2003, p.3). Spurred on by Baumol and Bowen’s initial conclusion (1966) that the richer a society becomes the more difficult it is for that society to support the performing arts, an academic field has developed which attempts to explain
38
the statement by relating the operation of the arts to the market economy. Cultural economics generally works from a supply and demand perspective. As Frey (2003) states: “the economic approach to art focuses on the fact that scarcity exists with respect
to resources (capital and labour, natural resources and the environment), time and the
physical as well as psychic potential of persons” (p. 25-26). Based primarily in rational
choice theory, cultural economics sees the economic impulse as individualistic, while the
cultural impulse is collective (Throsby, 2001). By approaching the arts with a rational
choice perspective, cultural economics manages to tie arts production to supply and
demand and thus draw several conclusions about market failure, the crisis of value, cost
disease, and consumer behaviour2.
The Landscape of Cultural Economics
Because the research herein takes several key points from the field of cultural
economics, I will outline the basics of the discipline at this point.
Given the existing distribution of income, competitive markets in most circumstances can be relied on to satisfy consumer preferences optimally (Heilbrun & Gray, 2001, p. 219).
The above statement is the dominant view of a market society. The simple statement of
supply and demand justifies the existence of various industries and sets the prices for the
commodities they sell. However, the traditional performing arts do not fully operate
within the laws of supply and demand. Some artists will say that this is because the arts
2 Other areas covered by cultural economics do not contribute directly to the investigation of this research, they include such things as cultural accounting (Peacock & Godfrey, 1973), welfare economics (Peacock, 1969), supply and demand in the performing arts (Moore, 1966; Weiss, 1974), and inflation (Baumol & Bowen, 1984).
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are not a business, while others will tell you that it is because arts organizations are
community driven and thus don’t belong in a competitive financial situation. These
reasons fail to adequately explain the position of the arts within the market economy, and
therefore we must turn to the reasons which have been concretely established by
economists and scholars to account for the extra-market position of the performing arts.
The problem of market failure
The prime economic reason that the arts do not operate within the laws of supply
and demand has been identified as market failure (Heilbrun & Gray, 2001; Throsby &
Withers, 1979; Baumol & Bowen, 1966). There are three key points of market failure in
the arts sector which reveal that fault lies not so much with the product, though demand is
low, but rather with the larger social structures intended to protect and optimize the
operation of performing arts organizations. The first reason identified (Heilbrun & Gray,
2001; Throsby & Withers, 1979; Baumol & Bowen, 1966; Caves, 2000) as a cause of
market failure is monopoly - there is frequently only one symphony orchestra, opera, or
ballet company in a given city. Where profit oriented corporations might use a situation
of monopoly to maximize profits, “in performing arts markets monopoly [results] from
the existing forms of assistance, [wherein] quite often subsidies are given to foster
particular performing institutions, whose growth then occurs at the expense of other
companies which receive no such subsidy”3 (Throsby & Withers, 1979, p. 172). Despite being the first explanation on the lists of economists and scholars, monopoly is not considered a significant source of market failure in the arts (Heilbrun & Gray, 2001;
3 In Canada different grants are allocated to established and emerging arts organizations, with the institutionalized organizations receiving the larger amount.
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Throsby & Withers, 1979) except insofar as it limits competition, the hallmark of a
functioning market system.
A second cause of market failure in the arts is due to productivity lag, “a market
process that causes unit cost to rise in any technologically unprogressive industry”
(Heilbrun & Gray, 2001, p.238). Because they are unable to automate production - a
Beethoven symphony today requires the same number of musicians and takes as long to
perform as it did when it was composed, a play by Shakespeare the same number of
actors and so forth – arts organizations are unable to cut production costs significantly.
Nor are arts organizations able to raise ticket prices to cover the cost of inflation as it
pertains to production because the ticket cost would then be prohibitive to buyers.
“Market failure occurs where transaction costs are so high that the existence of the market is no longer worthwhile to participants” (Throsby & Withers, 1979, p. 180).
Adding to the lag is the fact that arts organizations today require full administrative staffs
to cope with grant applications, sponsorship drives, and to fulfill fiscal requirements of
transparency and accountability. This means that rather than cutting costs or automating
tasks, the manpower and production costs of performing arts organizations have
increased. The problem is not exclusively that arts organizations cannot automate the
basic production elements but also that as other industries progress technologically arts
organizations will be left behind and will “experience increases in costs which stem not
from their own decisions but from the inexorable march of technological change in other
parts of the economy” (Baumol & Bowen, 1965, p. 48).
Furthermore, Richard E. Caves (2000) identifies as a basic economic property of
the performing arts the fact that creators of works of art (artist, performer, author) care
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about the quality of their product. Caves suggests that this fact puts the arts at odds with
market processes. Standing in contrast to most workers who do their jobs for the money,
Caves (2000) explains that producers of art care about the “originality of their work, the
technical prowess demonstrated, and the resolution and harmony achieved in the creative
act” (p. 4).
The musician may value the achievement of some finesse of execution that will elude the typical concertgoer, although it will be noticed by fellow music professionals. Hence, the artist may divert effort from aspects of the task that consumers will notice (thus affecting their willingness to pay) to those they will neither notice nor value (Caves, 2000, p. 4).
Productivity lag is thus reinforced by the performers themselves who, given the chance to
automate even portions of their performances (i.e. the band-in-a-box technology which
makes it possible to produce operas and musicals with only a skeleton orchestra supplemented by computer-generated sound), will refuse to do so in order to maintain the integrity of the live product.
The third major reason for market failure is attributed to externalities or collective benefits produced by the arts, which assume that the social benefit of the arts outweighs the cost of subsidy. “Because externalities are not mediated through markets, the resources used in their production are not subject to the rationalizing influence of the price system” (Heilbrun & Gray, 2001). Collective benefits arising from the performing arts are listed by Throsby and Withers (1979) as being: “a) provision of public creative ideas and aesthetic standards; b) social improvement of participants themselves; c) development of national feeling and identity; d) provision of social comment and criticism.” To this list Heilbrun and Gray (2001) add: “Legacy to future generations,
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benefits to the local economy, contribution to a liberal education, and encouraging artistic
innovation.” Arts organizations have no way of capitalizing on the externalities provided by their product; one simply cannot raise ticket prices based on the fact that the work will someday have a legacy value to future generations and “the market, left on its own, will ignore external benefits and therefore produce too little output” (Heilbrun & Gray, 2001, p. 225). Thus subsidy is a method of payment for those aspects of artistic production which cannot be billed.
There exists, however, some debate surrounding the externalities of the performing arts. Since there is no measure to quantify the actual social benefit of the arts, though economic impact has been frequently surveyed, it is difficult to prove that there is any collective benefit which cannot be accomplished through popular entertainments, the media, and simple belonging in a civilized society (Throsby and Withers, 1979). The subsidy of arts organizations based on externalities leads to the further issue of ‘option demand’ where it is assumed that people who rarely attend performing arts events nonetheless benefit by having the option to attend if they so wish (Throsby & Withers,
1979). “Assistance to preserve choice is not costless, and the benefits may not be considered so important by consumers if other desired options are recognized as being foreclosed because of the diversion of resources to sustaining the arts” (Throsby &
Withers, 1979, p. 173). This last statement rings particularly true in Alberta where privatization has wreaked havoc on health and education systems and where government support for the arts is not popular when so many other tabs are being picked up by the citizens of the province.
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Intrinsic Value
Heilbrun and Gray (2001) observe that: “We do not find it necessary for the
government to intervene in the markets for running shoes, television sets, or tennis
rackets. Instead we accept the market outcome. Why should the arts be an exception?” (p.
222) The question is one of worth. The social understanding of worth largely affects the
way we give value to commodities, events, and experiences in our lives. Throsby (2001) explains intrinsic value as bestowing pleasure on the creator of a product and thus
“something of this goodness upon the user of the product” (p. 21). Therefore, the creative process itself imparts value to the work of art which then becomes embedded in, or intrinsic to, the work itself.
Cost Disease
The problem of cost disease in the performing arts was first explained by Baumol and Bowen in Performing arts: The economic dilemma (1966). In short, cost disease is a way of explaining that artistic products cost more to make than they can earn. Combining the issues of productivity lag, non-profit organizational structure, and performer salaries cost disease “condemns the cost of live performance to rise at a rate persistently faster than that of a typical manufactured good” (Eatwell, Milgate, & Newman, 1987, p. 99).
Since I have previously discussed productivity lag as a cause of market failure I will not reiterate the fundamental point here, except to add the suggestion by Baumol and Bowen
(1965) that there does exist an avenue by which arts organizations may reduce the costs of production, though I cannot imagine an organization which would willingly adopt their suggested cutbacks. Baumol and Bowen (1965) state:
Performing arts organizations can reduce the rate of increase in their unit costs by permitting some deterioration
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in the quality of their product – by fewer rehearsals, the use of more poorly trained performers, shoddy costumes and scenery (p. 175).
Where temporary cutbacks such as these may prevent an organization from closing its
doors forever, in the long run Baumol and Bowen (1965) admit that deterioration of the artistic product would lead to “loss of audience and community support” (p. 175).
Organizations, however, are frequently willing to cut the pay of their performers as a cost saving measure, and this is a second point of cost disease. The tradition of the starving artist and the assumption that the gratification performers receive in the production of their art will be enticement enough for performers to remain in the profession have allowed arts organizations to pay salaries which are typically below general wage trends. However, there are limits to the financial sacrifices society can extract from the performers in exchange for psychic returns, and the underlying economic pressures which manifest themselves in low performer salaries are transmitted through arts organizations (Baumol & Bowen, 1965). So cost disease arises when organizations are faced with the necessity of raising salaries to ensure a living wage for their performers - or the necessity of returning salaries to a pre-cutback level, as in the case of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra which is still trying to return the salaries of the players to the 2002 pre-bankruptcy protection scale – which drives the cost of production higher than the organization can tolerate.
The non-profit structure of performing arts organizations is another contributing factor of cost disease. Non-profit organizations are structured such that any grant funds from government agencies must be spent in order to justify the requirement of funds the following year. The fundamental purpose of the organization must be socially driven.
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Baumol and Bowen (1965) state: “The objectives of the typical non-profit organization are by their very nature designed to keep it constantly on the brink of financial catastrophe” (p. 45). Given that production costs rise with inflation and performer salaries must be maintained at a minimum level, the income gap that exists in non-profit organizations between expenditures and earned income constitutes the amount which
“society must be prepared to contribute, by some means, if the nations’ existing performing arts organizations are to be kept stable” (Baumol & Bowen, 1966). Thus cost disease is now, as it was when Baumol & Bowen wrote their text, the single largest problem facing arts organizations. There is more money going out than coming in and ticket prices cannot be raised to cover the difference.
Cultural economics is, as with the other arts literature discussed, primarily focused on the consumer (being the arbiter of demand), and looks to arts organizations themselves in the role of the supplier. As such the literature does not attempt to understand how the production of art operates as it does and instead looks only to market indicators for an explanation of why the non-profit sector is doomed to failure in a market economy.
Public Finance
The inclusion of public finance in this chapter is intended to be more an acknowledgement of the government’s complicated decision-making process than a literature review. Public finance is a complicated and extensive field and there is some overlap with cultural economics in the discussion of externalities and market failure.
Nonetheless a few interesting points can inform the research. In discussing government’s approach to its fiscal responsibilities Kirchen at al (1968) outline a series of economic
46 objectives by which governments craft an economic policy. These include: “employment; price stability; improvement in the balance of payments; expansion of production; improvement in the allocation of factors of production, including promotion of international competition; satisfaction of collective needs which include defence, international affairs, public health, education, culture and science; and improvement in the distribution of income and wealth” (p. 8). The objectives outlined by Kirchen et al. are echoed by Musgrave, Musgrave, and Bird (1987) who describe three major fiscal functions of government that accompany the objectives. Objectives and the relative function are described as follows:
• The provision for social goods, or the process by which total resource use is divided between private and social goods and by which the mix of social goods is chosen. This provision may be termed the allocation function of budget policy.
• Adjustment of the distribution of income and wealth to assure conformance with what society considers a ‘fair’ or ‘just’ state of distribution, here referred to as the distribution function.
• The use of budget policy as a means of maintaining high employment, a reasonable degree of price level stability, and an appropriate rate of economic growth, with allowances for effects on trade and on the balance of payments. We refer to all these objectives as the stabilization function (Musgrave, Musgrave, & Bird. 1987, p. 6).
Explaining the allocation function, Musgrave, Musgrave, and Bird (1987) state that social goods (distinguished from private goods) cannot be provided for through the market system. Social goods are of benefit to all and consumption of the goods by one consumer does not reduce the quantity of goods available to other consumers. Therefore the
“benefits from social goods are not vested in the property rights of certain individuals,
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and the market cannot function” (Musgrave, Musgrave, & Bird, 1987, p. 6). Given the
market failure of social goods it falls to governments to provide for them. Musgrave,
Musgrave, and Bird (1987) explain that the political process (choice through voting)
substitutes for the proper operation of the market in these instances and helps to
determine how much of any given social good needs to be provided. The allocation
function therefore works to ensure that there is an efficient provision of social goods by government.
Discussing the distribution function, Musgrave, Musgrave, and Bird (1987) explain that the function concerns the equitable distribution of wealth. The concept itself is complicated and the authors acknowledge that “modern economic analysis” has shied away from “what constitutes a fair or just state of distribution” because fair distribution requires consideration of “social philosophy and value judgement” (Musgrave,
Musgrave, & Bird, 1987, p. 10). Distribution of wealth is achieved by tax brackets wherein people are taxed according to income level and their ability to pay taxes, and by goods and services taxes which tax high-income consumers while subsidies are applied to goods used more frequently by low-income consumers. Of course, distribution is far more complicated than simple taxation and subsidy; nonetheless, this explanation will
suffice inasmuch as the distribution of wealth will not be discussed in relation to taxes at
any future point in the discussion.
The stabilization function outlined explains that “fiscal policy is needed for
stabilization, since full employment and price level stability do not come about
automatically in a market economy but require public policy guidance” (Musgrave,
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Musgrave, & Bird, 1987, p. 12). Such control prevents problems like the simultaneous existence of high unemployment and inflation from occurring.
Fiscal policies may affect the rate of saving and the willingness to invest and may thereby influence the rate of capital formation. Capital formation in turn affects productivity growth, so that fiscal policies are a significant factor in economic growth (Musgrave, Musgrave, & Bird, 1987, p. 13).
Stabilization instruments can include the leverage effects of a given budget on the demand for public and private goods, changes to budget policy, built-in responses, and selective policies like employment programs or subsidies to influence private investment behaviour.
Understanding the fiscal objectives of the government is useful, and understanding the financial structure of the government is also beneficial. Hyman and
Strick (2001) outline the financial structure of the Canadian government, including detailed descriptions of the role of various federal agencies, the auditor general, the receiver general, the comptroller general, and the finance minister. Describing the budgetary process they state:
Budgeting in government, a series of annually repeated stages overlapping fiscal years, involves the determination of expenditure direction and priorities and of expenditure and revenue levels by the Cabinet; multiyear planning by departments of their expenditure programs; review and approval of these programs by Cabinet committees and the Treasury Board; preparation of detailed expenditure estimates for the fiscal year by departments and review by the Treasury Board; authorization and appropriation of expenditures by Parliament; determination of revenues, tax proposals, and their implications by the finance department; administration of spending and revenue collection; preparation of the Public Accounts; and finally an independent audit for the House of Commons by the auditor general (pp. 202-203).
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Underlying all of the above interactions is the basic principle of efficiency.
Hyman and Strick (2001) describe the efficiency criterion as being a “normative criterion for evaluating the effects of resource use on the well-being of individuals” (p. 33). Where efficiency is particularly relevant to the arts sector is in the fact that the “supply of a public good through political institutions requires agreements on the quantity of the public good and the means of finance” (Hyman & Strick, 2001, p. 149). Here the allocation function is at play. Hyman and Strick (2001), as with Musgrave, Musgrave, and Bird (1987), assert that voter choice is the primary determinant of the quantity of a public good to be provided. However, governments also “operate within a political environment where decision makers are subjected to considerable pressure from special- interest groups whose concerns seldom correspond to the public interest or to the objectives of an efficient allocation of resources or equitable distribution of income” (p.
199). Lest government decision-makers become swayed by lobbyists, program evaluation, performance measures, and cost-benefit analyses are used to monitor and justify budgetary decisions. These instruments, which emphasize outputs and outcomes have become important to the management of government projects and funds (Hyman &
Strick, 2001). Not only are the measures of fiscal efficiency useful to government in creating budgets and controlling spending, but they are also used to assess the performance of a government in fiscal affairs and as a possible indicator of future performance (Jackson, 2008). Thus measures can be used to determine the fiscal responsibility of a given government in the same way that financial reporting can be used to determine the financial responsibility of an arts organization. As a point of interest I note that “the major areas of expenditure in Canada are social service, debt charges, and
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national defence at the federal level, and health, education, social services, and debt
charges at the provincial and local levels” (Krelove, Stotsky, & Vehorn, 1997, p. 211).
Public Goods
Public finance deals quite specifically with public goods. Because the arts are a
type of public good, the discussions are particularly important for the investigation at
hand. Public goods are those goods which typically provide externalities such as were
discussed in the earlier section on cultural economics. Consumption of a public good
produces benefits which cannot be limited or charged to one particular consumer
(Musgrave, Musgrave, & Bird, 1987). Public goods (also called social goods) are
classified as pure public goods, price-excludable public goods, congestible public goods,
merit goods, and mixed goods (Hyman & Strick, 2001; Rosen, 1988; Musgrave,
Musgrave, & Bird, 1987). Rosen (1988) defines a pure public good as being “non-rival in
consumption. This means that once the good is provided, the additional resource cost of
another person consuming the good is zero” (pp. 62-63). Rosen (1988) explains that
though the pure public good may be consumed by many people without diminishing the
resource, there is also nothing which intends that the good should hold equal value to all
people. Rosen (1988) also explains the notion of excludability as it is associated with public goods. “The consumption of a good is non-excludable when it is either very expensive or [when it is] impossible to prevent anyone from consuming the good if they are not willing to pay for it” (Rosen, 1988, p. 63).
The categorization of a price-excludable public good, therefore, refers to a good which provides positive externalities to the general public, but whose benefits can be priced and whose consumption can be individual (Hyman & Strick, 2001). “The
51 production or consumption of these goods can be subsidized to account for the positive externality associated with their sale. The good therefore, would be financed by both the revenue from sales and the taxes used to finance the subsidy” (Hyman & Strick, 2001, p.
127). The examples provided are mass transit and public schools. Price-excludable public goods are referred to by Musgrave, Musgrave, and Bird (1987) as mixed goods. The authors explain that the problem with mixed goods is, in part, the challenge of evaluating the external benefits of the goods and then determining the proper rate of subsidy
(Musgrave, Musgrave, & Bird, 1987).
Given that the public generally does not value public goods in the same way, or to the same degree, how is it that certain goods receive subsidy even though their externalities are not readily evident to all (such as with the performing arts where one externality is simply the option to attend). The classification of a good as a merit good is one where an imposed preference is subsidized because society wishes to encourage consumption of the goods (Musgrave, Musgrave, & Bird, 1987). Because the consumer still has the opportunity not to consume the good, his or her individual preferences should not be considered violated. “Many budgetary practices appear to involve imposition of preferences but on closer consideration reflect a mechanism directed at implementing individual choice” (Musgrave, Musgrave, & Bird, 1987, p. 73). Nonetheless, subsidy of goods which are given a social approval by government is an occurrence which forms part of the understanding of public goods overall.
The final categorization of public goods listed is that of the congestible public good. Here the definition is best explained using the example of road traffic. “Crowding or congestion reduces the benefits to existing consumers when more consumers are
52 added” (Hyman & Strick, 2001, p. 126). This categorization does not typically apply to the traditional performing arts, unfortunately.
Understanding the performing arts as being both price-excludable (mixed) goods and merit goods helps provide an understanding of the way subsidy is determined.
Understanding the overall functions and objectives of government budgets provides for an understanding of the actions of government within a system of fiscal responsibility.
Thus, when discussing arts funding and the prioritization of economic goals in government it becomes possible to understand government choices as belonging to the larger budgetary pictures of the province or nation respectively. It also allows for an understanding of the way that consumer choice and voting influences the amount of subsidy (as a provision of a public good) that governments are willing and able to provide.
Conclusions
The bodies of literature discussed all share distinct characteristics. The works
(with the exception of the public finance literature) all espouse the intrinsic value of the arts to society, they all speak from a historical perspective which is not critical of the structure of the relationship between producers and consumers of artistic products, and they all look to arts audiences and arts participation as markers by which the value of arts to society may be evaluated. Though the literatures do now and then attempt some statement of facts about arts organizations (survey percentages of income sources, for example), none of them considers the operation or perspective of arts organizations in the larger social world. The gap left in the research of the arts is thus substantial. The production perspective as a sociologically accessible arena for understanding the
53 constitution of art and of society has been left unexplored. The methods used and challenges faced by producers of art, the organizational structures in which they exist, and the perpetuation of centuries old traditions and systems of beliefs remain uncharted in the context of contemporary society.
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CHAPTER THREE: THEORY AND METHOD
Seeking to understand the nature of the economic relationship between
performing arts organizations and government requires a theoretical base which allows
not only for an understanding of the performing arts as an individual social area, but also
accounts for the way that social areas interact and change. To this end, the theory of
Pierre Bourdieu is needed to facilitate an understanding of the intricate and complex
nature of the interactions between performing arts organizations, the market, and society.
Bourdieu allows us to identify these areas as individual fields (the artistic field, the
economic field, and the field of power) which shift and influence one another. Bourdieu’s
concept of the State as meta-field allows for a consideration of government in the interaction, and provides a way in which we can understand the over-arching influence of the State over all other fields.
Bourdieu’s writings informed the research investigation in two distinct ways.
First, they provided a basic foundation for how the value of culture is determined in an exchange of capitals, how taste habits reflect education, class, and upbringing, and how the artistic field is constituted and reconstituted. Though these ideas had to be translated to the performing arts, they nonetheless provided a theoretical entry to the problem at hand. Thus, the first part of this chapter is a review of Bourdieu’s writings on culture, consumption, and taste. The second contribution of Bourdieu’s theories to the research was made through the use of specific concepts - the State as meta-field, symbolic imposition, and symbolic violence. The meta-field concept facilitates the understanding of
how the actions of government(s) influence the daily activities of people and
organizations, and the concepts of symbolic imposition and symbolic violence facilitate
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an understanding of the qualities of interactions that can inform relationships of governance. As well, the related concepts of symbolic capital and symbolic power
provide a means by which understanding the dominant perspective, that of government, is
also possible. The second part of the chapter, therefore, outlines the elements of
Bourdieu’s theory that were useful in understanding the data collected during the
research. It will also discuss the work of scholars whose work takes up the main concepts
in a manner useful to the research. The final part of the chapter at hand will show how
Bourdieu’s theory informed the method of inquiry and analysis of the data. It explains the
research method of the investigation.
Literature Review
Bourdieu on Art
Bourdieu’s writing on art generally develops his concepts of the artistic field and
the field of cultural production through lengthy descriptions of the genesis of the artistic
field (1993, 1996), various classification schemes (1990a), the pure aesthetic (1993,
1996), and research into the participation and taste habits of audiences (1984). As with
his deliberately theoretical writings, Bourdieu’s writing on arts and culture all build upon
one another, reiterating, clarifying, and expanding previous ideas. His work on art
focuses primarily on the constitution of the artistic field and on art consumption by the
general populace in a manner that uses the arts to reach for a larger understanding of
society generally. Using a perspective which could be considered economic in that its
focus is the exchange rate of different capitals, Bourdieu attempts to explain the anti-
economic position of the artistic field as it relates to the economic field and field of
power. Bourdieu begins his discussion on art in the book Photography: A middle-brow
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art (1990a) in which he introduces a classification scheme he calls the “hierarchy of
legitimacies” (p. 95). In the hierarchy Bourdieu sorts artistic practices in a range from the
high-brow “legitimate” arts, which are those arts consecrated by training academies and
upper class patronage, to the low-brow arts such as cookery.
Figure 1
(Bourdieu, 1990a, p. 96) Focusing on the investigation of photography as a middle-brow participant-oriented art form, Bourdieu’s writing provides a basic understanding that all artistic forms operate in a moveable, changeable set of fields without delving into theoretical concepts such as boundaries or dispositions. Though the hierarchy of legitimacies opens the door to an understanding of the artistic field it is The Field of Cultural Production (1993) and The
Rules of Art (1996) which discuss the evolution of the artistic field from the early bohemian rupture with the Bourgeoisie, to the dualist structure of art and money, and the participation of artistic works in a market of symbolic goods.
Bourdieu (1993) describes the artistic field as an “economic world reversed” (p.
29). Where earlier works explain the reversal as occurring through a schism between art
57 and money, The Field of Cultural Production explains that the economic world reversed is not the artistic field as a whole. Instead the economic world reversed refers specifically to the field of cultural production and to the place that cultural production occupies in the larger artistic field and field of power. Bourdieu (1993) states: “The relationship to the audience and, more exactly, economic or political interest in the sense of interest in success and in the related economic or political profit, constitutes one of the bases for evaluating the producers and their products” (p. 46). Though his work on the artistic field has far more direct relevance to artists than the cultural production and consumption literature reviewed earlier, it is nonetheless a theoretical approach rather than a research investigation revealing salient points about the actual operations of arts organizations in society. Bourdieu’s use of arts research as a tool for observing larger social interactions and structures is revealed in his (1993) statement:
Few areas more clearly demonstrate the heuristic efficacy of relational thinking than that of art and literature. […] The science of the [artistic] field is a form of analysis situs which establishes that each position […] is subjectively defined by the system of distinctive properties by which it can be situated relative to other positions (p. 29).
Though most of Bourdieu’s cultural writings are theoretical, his work Distinction
(1984), an in-depth study of the “judgement of taste” in France, does offer an example of the practical application of data to theory. The research in Distinction systematically compares attendance at arts events with levels of education of arts participants and then correlates education and class in order to reach conclusions about cultural consumption habits. The work outlines the cultural pedigree of the upper class and discusses the social conditioning necessary for the constitution of various fields, appropriation of works of art, and reinforcement of dominant tastes. It is in Distinction that Bourdieu tests his own
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hypotheses on highbrow and lowbrow taste habits which inspired the omnivore discussion of other consumption scholars. Distinction is not specifically a work on art but
rather it uses the consumption of different types of art products as a barometer to
illustrate Bourdieu’s theories about cultural competencies derived from a combined
history of family and education.
Two basic facts were established [from the research in Distinction]: on the one hand, the very close relationship linking cultural practices […] to educational capital […] and, secondarily, to social origin […]; and, on the other hand, the fact that, at equivalent levels of educational capital, the weight of social origin in the practice and preference-explaining system increases as one moves away from the most legitimate areas of culture. (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 13).
Given that Bourdieu’s Distinction contains a chapter entitled “Culture and
Politics” (Chap. 8) it seems necessary to mention it here if simply to juxtapose the
political inclusions of this research with Bourdieu’s discussion. As with his examination
of the dispositions necessary for the acquisition of both cultural and educational capital,
Bourdieu’s consideration of culture and politics generally refers to the acquisition of
political capital. Specifically, he identifies political capital as being the ability to
participate in political discussion on any level, from the simple answering of political
questions in a survey to the expression of political opinions in general discussion. The discourse on culture and politics is interesting and circuitously returns to Bourdieu’s overall discussion on taste and class, but because Bourdieu discusses political participation as representative of certain class and cultural affinities it does not have tremendous relevance to his discussion on art. Instead, politics seem to be used to parallel statements made about the artistic field in the field of power for the purpose of
59 reinforcing conclusions about class and education that he has drawn from cultural examples. Though Distinction is a central work in Bourdieu’s oeuvre, it has not greatly informed the research herein simply because I do not seek to understand audience taste habits or consumption patterns as part of this project.
The Literary Field and the Performing Arts
Bourdieu’s writings on art very rarely make specific reference to the performing arts. Nonetheless his explanation of the genesis of the artistic field, formulated through an understanding of the visual and literary arts, can be directly correlated to the situation of the performing arts. Though the performing arts did not experience the same rupture with the Bourgeoisie that the literary field experienced, as a Bohemian rejection of the publishing of popular novels, the overall result is the same. The constitution of the field as an economic world reversed and the designation of traditional performing arts as high- brow in the hierarchy of legitimacies is similar to that outlined by Bourdieu in the literary field and allows for a direct comparison between genres. The participation of the performing arts in the market of symbolic goods, in the creation of a class structure, and in the development of taste habits is likewise similar enough that direct association between Bourdieu’s theories and the situation of the performing arts can be made.
However, differences and distinctions between the literary and visual arts discussed by
Bourdieu and the performing arts discussed here do exist. While these differences are not enough to disqualify Bourdieu’s theories from use in the analysis, a brief comparison will be useful to briefly outline characteristics which distinguish the performing arts from other artistic works.
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Characteristics including time, communication, the audience, collective
production, final product, methodologies, training, presentation mode, costs, patronage, executors, and purpose all distinguish the performing arts from the visual and literary arts
(Bensman, 1983; Wolff, 1981; Zolberg, 1989; The American Assembly, 2000; and the
President’s committee on arts and humanities, 2000). While the above characterizations select their labelling systems according to the focus of each individual author, for our
purposes as a general overview the following table, which selects information from
Bensman, Zolberg and includes my own contributions, outlines the basics.
Table I - Characteristics of the Performing and Non-Performing Arts Performing Arts Non-Performing Arts
Artistic Product Is performed Is concrete (a book, a Consecutive work (one painting, a sculpture, a work performed at a time) poem) Simultaneity of work (many displayed at once)
Time Fleeting; Specified Infinite; Unspecified
Consumption Audience in a given Audience in various moment; cannot be moments; can be repeated; repeated; limited seating; unlimited entry; experience codified audience practices can be codified or not
Artists Often constitutes a full-time Work can be full-tine, career; performers are occasional, or part-time; highly trained in artists can be fully trained, institutionalized or untrained amateurs (folk universities, conservatories, art) or studios
Communication Direct communication Deferred communication (production and reception (encoding and decoding of of meaning occur meaning occur across time, immediately) distance, space)
(Bensman, 1983, p. 4; Zolberg, 1989, p. 333)
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Bourdieu on Power
Discussing power, Bourdieu’s theories offer a tool by which relational power
struggles can be understood. Though occasionally included in his writings on art or
culture, Bourdieu’s concepts of symbolic power, symbolic violence, symbolic imposition,
and the State as meta-field are fully developed in his other writings. The sources of
Bourdieu’s material on power relations are his more theoretical works, Outline of a
Theory of Practice (1977), The Logic of Practice (1990b), In Other Words (1990c),
Language and Symbolic Power (1991), and Practical Reason (1998). The earliest
references to symbolic violence in Bourdieu’s work occur with the discussion of power in
his research on the pre-capitalist Kabyle society in Algeria. Analyzing the tradition and
meaning of the gift exchange Bourdieu states that the “reason for the pre-capitalist
economy’s great need for symbolic violence is that the only way in which relations of
domination can be set up, maintained, or restored, is through strategies which, being
expressly oriented towards the establishment of relations of personal dependence, must
be disfigured and transfigured lest they destroy themselves by revealing their true nature”
(Bourdieu, 1977, p. 191). Bourdieu thus initially introduces the theory in terms of man’s
power over man through gratitude. Later works take this idea and apply it to other
situations – land and matrimonial strategies (1990b) for example – all the while
developing the idea more fully. In The Logic of Practice symbolic violence is included in a discussion of symbolic power, symbolic capital, and economic wealth. Here Bourdieu develops the “unbroken progression [that] leads from the symmetry of gift exchange to the asymmetry of conspicuous redistribution that is the basis of the constitution of political authority” (1990b, p. 122). From The Logic of Practice we also learn Bourdieu’s
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developing notion that “relations of dependence have an economic foundation that is only
disguised under the veil of moral obligation” (p. 123). The work makes these observations using examples of master-servant relationships, goat or oxen trades, and the give and take in trade of such items as fleeces. It is not the performing arts to be sure, but given the economic world reversed of the artistic field, the parallels which Bourdieu’s research present are strikingly relevant and thus the seemingly unrelated discussion about goats holds metaphoric value for the contemporary state of the performing arts.
In Language and Symbolic Power (1991), Bourdieu begins to examine the political state in greater detail. Specifically he tackles the constitution of a politically driven “legitimate” worldview through discussion of official languages and their correspondence to political unity. Here the reader is introduced to the suggestion that it is through official language that a “normalized product” (p. 46), being the people of the state, may be constructed. Bourdieu’s example here is the language of the French
Revolution but again it is not difficult to find modern correlatives, though none quite as dramatic as the observation of the language which led to the fall of the French monarchy
(in short, local dialects supplanted the more correct poetic language of the langue d’oc).
Bourdieu proceeds from understanding the political language to understanding the linguistic power of social constitution through a much expanded idea of symbolic power.
I cite Bourdieu’s own example (1991) for the sake of illumination:
For the philosopher’s language to be granted the importance it claims, there has to be a convergence of the social conditions which enable it to secure from others a recognition of the importance which it attributes to itself (p. 72).
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From this example Bourdieu considers the institutionalization of language as “authorized language” (p. 107) from which he moves to a discussion of the rites of institution and
then on to the imposition of form which is, naturally, tied to censorship. In all of the
extensive discussion of language, politics, and imposition Bourdieu slowly builds the
concept of the State as a meta-field. Through examples in language, Bourdieu is able to
expand on his field of power concept such that it becomes possible to consider that all the
fields are at once manipulated by the meta-field, but in their turn through capital, also
manipulate the meta-field. The meta-field concept is explained with examples later in the
chapter, therefore I will not delve into it here.
Though Language and Symbolic Power (1991) lays the groundwork for the meta-
field concept, the idea is left to inference and it is not until later works that the meta-field
becomes illuminated. Bourdieu’s book Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology (1992), written
with Loic Wacquant, is the text which begins to “outline a theory of the state as a sort of
meta-field” (p. 111). Discussing the state’s “power to constitute and to impose […] a
common set of coercive norms” (p. 112), Bourdieu (1992) states:
The notion of “state” makes sense only as a convenient stenographic label […], for spaces of objective relations between positions of power that can take the form of more or less stable networks, and which manifest themselves in phenomenally diverse interactions ranging from open conflict to more or less hidden collusion (p. 112).
Thus, Bourdieu rejects the idea of correspondence (or dependence) and autonomy and
instead sees the state as manipulated by agents with the power to manipulate the
exchange rate of different capitals and understands the power struggle between the State
as meta-field and other fields as being relational.
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It follows that the construction of the state goes hand in hand with the constitution of the field of power understood as the space of play in which holders of various forms of capital struggle in particular for power over the state, that is, over the statist capital that grants power over the different species of capital and over their reproduction. This kind of meta-capital capable of exercising a power over other species of power, and particularly over their rate of exchange […], defines the power of the state (Bourdieu, 1992, p. 114).
Further illuminating Bourdieu’s concepts of meta-field and meta-capital is the
Bourdieusian analysis of the power of the media by Nick Couldry. In “Media meta-
capital: Extending the range of Bourdieu’s field theory” (2004) Couldry aims at
“contextualizing the extended version of Bourdieu’s field theory” (p. 166) in application
of the concept to contemporary media power as meta-capital. Couldry (2004) suggests
that Bourdieu’s habitus does not fully explain “what underlying mechanism field theory
has at its disposal to explain the convergences of sets of fields in a fast-changing
economic and cultural environment” (p. 171). Therefore, by examining the media as a
symbolic system Couldry (2004) is able to reinforce Bourdieu’s idea that the meta-field concept develops earlier field and habitus (defined on p. 66) theories by understanding fields as swayed by capital. Bourdieu states: “The concentration of different types of capital goes hand in hand with the rise and consolidation of the various fields” (Bourdieu
1992, p. 114). Seeing the media as having influence over the constitution of the social sphere in the same way as systems of education, Couldry (2004) proposes the idea that media power can also be understood as a “form of meta-capital through which media exercise power over other forms of power” (p. 179).
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Discussion
Bourdieu’s cultural writing provides an excellent framework by which contemporary research into the performing arts may be accomplished. His concepts of artistic field, hierarchy of legitimacies, and the economic/anti-economic worlds as they are illustrated through the fields of power and art allow for a consideration of the arts in a way that is different from the other literature available on the subject. However
Bourdieu’s ethnographic studies are themselves primarily limited to European examples, though he sometimes mentions the United States in passing, and are now significantly dated. Furthermore, they are almost entirely geared towards an understanding of taste and consumption. Though they lay a solid foundation for understanding the cultural sphere, they do not offer concrete examples of the dilemma of cultural production caused by the structure of the artistic field. His literature on the State as meta-field likewise does not go so far as to include an analysis of the concept in relation to the field of art. Nonetheless the concept of the State as meta-field itself can be applied to consideration of the interaction between arts and the government as a relational power struggle which is more intricate and nuanced than a simple top-down power struggle between dominant and dominated. Combining Bourdieu’s theories of cultural production and State as meta-field offers a new approach to understanding the situation of the arts in contemporary society.
Specifically, the combination helps to clarify the question “why” when contemplating the actions of government and the position of the traditional performing arts in the artistic field and field of power.
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Theory
For the purposes of the research herein several of Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts provide a basis for understanding. As stated, these are field, symbolic imposition, symbolic violence, and the State as meta-field. Habitus also plays a role in the theoretical understanding of the ongoing participation in the relationship with government of performing arts organization members.
Habitus
Habitus: Systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles of the generation, and structuring of practices and representations which can be objectively “regulated” and “regular” without in any way being the product of obedience to rules, objectively adapted to their goals without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary to attain them and, being all this, collectively orchestrated without being the product of the orchestrating action of a conductor (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 72).
The above, considered to be the most clear of Bourdieu’s offered definitions of habitus, (1990a, 1977, 1993, 1990b) is the most frequently employed by scholars grappling with the concept (Swartz, 1997; Fowler, 1999; Mahar, Harker, & Wilkes, 1990;
Robbins, 1991; Vladiv-Glover, & Frederic, 2004,). Understandably, considering the complicated definition alone, the concept of habitus is dense and multi-layered. Habitus, as a method of understanding our social world, is specifically formulated to illuminate the dualism that exists between the individual and society. By suggesting that individuals constitute their world through deliberate actions and thoughts as well as by actions and thoughts that are internalized and thus, essentially, subconscious, Bourdieu suggests that society is both created by individuals and recreated over and over through social
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structures (as Bourdieu, 1977, states: “structuring structures”, p. 72). As explained by
Mahar, Harker, and Wilkes (1990), habitus refers to a set of dispositions, created and
reformulated through the conjuncture of objective structures and personal history.
Dispositions are acquired in social positions within a field and imply a subjective adjustment to that position. Often the adjustment of position on the part of the individual occurs on a subconscious level as “unreflective practical habits” (Browitt, 2004, p. 2).
The schemes of the habitus, the primary forms of classification, owe their specific efficacy to the fact that they function below the level of consciousness and language, beyond the reach of introspective scrutiny or control by the will. Orienting practices practically, they embed what some would mistakenly call values in the most automatic gestures or the apparently most insignificant techniques of the body – ways of walking or blowing one’s nose, ways of eating or talking – and engage the most fundamental principles of construction and evaluation of the social world, those which most directly express the division of labour…or the division of the work of domination (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 466).
Though the objective structures of society have a structuring effect on individuals who then subjectively recreate the same structures in the course of their daily lives, habitus does not imply that the objective structures are an ever fixed mark, or that the individual
has no direct control over his or her thoughts or action. Rather, habitus intends to imply
that as positions within fields change, the habitus itself adjusts through changing
dispositions. Thus, in a performing arts organization where organizational members each
bring their own histories, dispositions, and knowledge to the interactions, these
differences have a constitutive power which, in turn, results in a realignment of the
dispositions and habitus of members in the shared field.
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The above explanations of habitus do bring us closer to an understanding of
Bourdieu’s 1972 definition and, from an academic perspective, seem clear. However, the definition of habitus which I find the most intuitive uses as its analogy that middle-brow art, jazz.
Habitus is like a thematic riff that jazz musicians improvise on, produce countermelodies against, or restate in a different key, but it is not a pre-coded musical score. It provides a coherent thread to the musicians’ play, but they are active creators of a previously unheard cultural experience. And the resulting music cannot be reduced to a score, a recording of the improvisation made by an onlooker, the individual players, or their instruments. The music is jazz – it is the practice – created by a group of musicians who elaborate on a theme (habitus), known to all and thus available for modification (Moore, 2004, p. 334).
Field
For Bourdieu, the concept of field represents the location where all social games and actions are played out and wherein the constitution and re-constitution of society occurs. Fields in society are many and denote areas of “production, circulation, and appropriation of goods, services, knowledge, or status, and the competitive positions held by actors in their struggle to accumulate and monopolize these different kinds of capital”
(Swartz, 1997, p. 117). Bourdieu (1993) defines Field as the following:
A network, or configuration, of objective relations between positions. These positions are objectively defined in their existence and in the determinations they impose upon their occupants, agents or institutions, by their present and potential situation in the structure of the distribution of species of power (or capital) whose possession commands access to the specific profits that are at stake in the field, as well as by their objective relation to other positions (domination, subordination, homology, etc.) (p. 97).
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While Field is seen as a broad concept which attempts to allow for all elements of
social struggle and definition, it must not be confused with social space in general.
“Social space refers to the overall conception of the social world. Social space may be conceived as comprising multiple fields which have some relationship to each other and
points of contact” (Mahar, Harker, Wilkes, 1990, p. 9). Thus Field refers not only to the
specific area in which an individual operates, i.e. literary field, artistic field, intellectual
field etc., but also to the relation of their position to and within the larger field of power
and their position to and within other, related, fields.
The Artistic Field
The artistic field is one of the most interesting, and indeed, among the first, of the
fields researched and analyzed by Bourdieu. Because the capital being produced by the
artistic field must not only hold material value but also struggle for social legitimacy
and/or artistic legitimacy, which do not necessarily represent equal positions in the field
of power, the artistic field is among the most complex of the fields of cultural production.
Bourdieu (1993) states: “the artistic field is a universe of belief” (p. 15) and suggests that
the artistic field is very different than other fields because it is driven by impulses
(“beliefs”) rather than by the more common goals of money and power. Bourdieu (1993)
explains that the artistic field is the economic world reversed wherein to strive for
economic success is the antithesis of the goals of artistic autonomy. Consider as
comparison the business field, where power is money. Financial success is the mark of
power and legitimacy; to achieve economic success is to establish and reinforce position
in the field. In the artistic field, however, the notion of position based on economic capital
is reversed. Economic success reflects a lack of artistic autonomy and is therefore a less
70 desirable position, according to a certain faction, in the field. Thus, Bourdieu (1996) sees the artistic field as:
The site of a struggle between two principles of hierarchization: the heteronomous principle, which favours those who dominate the field economically and politically, and the autonomous principle (for example, ‘art-for-art’s- sake’), which leads its most radical defenders to make of temporal failure a sign of election, and of success a sign of compromise with the times (p. 216).
An individual actor in the artistic field therefore occupies one or the other position, each of which is, in its own way, a position of power. The bourgeois artist - here using Bourdieu’s (1984, 1996, 1993) original term which defines bourgeois art as being socially legitimate and of the “dominant fraction of the dominant class” (1993, p. 102) creating economic cultural capital - occupies the position of social legitimacy and economic power in the field while the ‘pure’ artist - creating “art-for-art’s-sake” or artistic cultural capital - occupies the position of artistic legitimacy and power based on the artistic rejection of economic success. Of these two positions, Bourdieu (1993) establishes bourgeois art as the dominant position of the artistic field within the larger field of cultural production despite the limited autonomy of the position within the artistic field itself.
Bourdieu further elaborates on his discussion of the hierarchy of power within the field of cultural production by introducing the notion of autonomy as it relates to the principles of external or internal hierarchization. “The degree of autonomy of a field of cultural production is revealed to the extent that the principle of external hierarchization there is subordinated to the principle of internal hierarchization” (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 217).
His principles of hierarchization “constitute the surest and clearest indicator of the
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position occupied in the field” (p. 218) and are thus of tremendous value to any researcher seeking to identify dominant or dominated positions of art within the field of cultural production.
The principle of external hierarchization is “in force in the temporally dominant
regions of the field of power, and also in the economic field” (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 217).
According to the principle of heteronomy, the dominant position accords to temporal success, measured by indices of commercial success or social notoriety. Referring to
bourgeois and commercial art, and restating their dominant position in the field of cultural
production, Bourdieu (1996) simultaneously suggests that the principle of external
hierarchization is characterized by artistic “subordination with respect to the demands of
the ‘general public’ and the constraints of the market” (p. 218).
The principle of internal hierarchization reflects artistic “adhesion to the values of
disinterestedness” and suggests consecration as favouring “artists who are known and
recognized by their peers and only by them and who owe their prestige, at least
negatively, to the fact that they make no concessions to the demand of the ‘general
public’” (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 217-218). Thus, art that is subject to the principle of internal
hierarchization is subordinate in the fields of cultural production and power yet has a
primary position of autonomy.
The Field of Power
Having established two clear poles of position of the artistic field within the field
of cultural production, which include among others the intellectual field and the
educational field (Bourdieu, 1998), consideration may now be given to the position of the field of cultural production within the all encompassing field of power. The field of power
72 itself is “the space of the relations of force between the different kinds of capital or, more precisely, between the agents who possess a sufficient amount of one of the different kinds of capital to be in a position to dominate the corresponding field” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 34). The dominant position will be taken by whichever type of capital is able to control, or sway, the “bureaucratic instances which are in a position to modify the exchange rate (being the conservation or transformation of the different kinds of capital) through administrative measures” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 34). Thus, the fields of cultural production, and in particular the artistic field, being those fields which generally offer the lowest economic return, and economic value having unparalleled importance in contemporary society, hold the dominated position in the field of power.
Because of the hierarchy established in the relations among the different kinds of capital and among their holders, the fields of cultural production occupy a dominated position, temporally, within the field of power. As liberated as they may be from external constraints and demands, they are traversed by the necessity of the fields which encompass them: the need for profit, whether economic or political (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 216).
Field(s) and the Traditional Performing Arts
The position of the traditional performing arts within the fields of art, cultural production, and power, reveals a situation of positional confusion which perhaps reflects an occurring shift in North American culture. Within the artistic field the traditional performing arts, being arts which are highly legitimized, consecrated, and subject to economic and societal values, can be said to belong to the heteronymous position.
However, there has been (is ongoing?) an evolution of position within the field of cultural production wherein commercial art has surpassed bourgeois art as the dominant of the dominant positions. Thus, the traditional performing arts now seem to occupy a position
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of upper-middle-brow art. That is to say, they belong to the dominant class but are
subordinate to those middle-brow arts, movies and pop music, which now seem to have a
higher position in the field of power as based on the ability to generate economic profits.
The Economic Field
Far more straight-forward in concept than any part of the artistic field is the
economic field. The economic field is based on the trade of goods and services for
money. Bourdieu asserts that the economic position is such that it favours “the creation of
relatively autonomous fields, capable of establishing their own axiomatics (through the fundamental tautology ‘business is business’, on which the ‘economy’ is based)” (p. 113)
and therefore the position of the economic field as diametrically opposed to the economic
world reversed of the artistic field is clear4. Bourdieu (1990b) devotes little time to
explaining the economic field, instead drawing distinctions between the economy of undisguised self-interest and the good-faith economy as they relate to his work with the
Kabyle. The economic field is therefore discussed as being the “distinction between
personal rights and real rights, the separation of purchases from gifts and exchanges, the
dissociation of moral obligations from contracts, and, above all, […] the difference
between ritual, rights and interests” (Bourdieu, 1990b, p. 114). For Bourdieu, discussion
of the economic is always related to a discussion of the symbolic and since “the economic can find no place in its analyses, still less in its calculations, for any form of
‘non-economic’ interest” a proper consideration of the economic field must be achieved
through understanding its relation to other fields and to other forms of capital (Bourdieu,
4 Though there is “no business like show business” the heteronymous position in the artistic field does not typically belong to the traditional performing arts and is not the one being discussed here.
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1990b, p.113). A discussion of symbolic capital follows, therefore I will leave the
economic field defined simply as “a system governed by the laws of interested
calculation, competition and exploitation” (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 172).
The State as Meta-Field
Tied to the concepts of symbolic capital, meta-capital, and symbolic power, the
notion of the State as a meta-field for Bourdieu suggests “not so much a power to act in this or that specialist field but pre-eminence over the definitions of status” (Couldry,
2004, p. 178). The definition of status is primarily achieved through the exchange of different types of capital. For Bourdieu any type of capital that is considered legitimate in a field can be called symbolic capital and endow its holder with certain powers of consecration. In this way the State acts directly on the infrastructure of all fields: it is the site of struggles, whose stake is the setting of the rules that govern the different social games (fields) and in particular, the rules of reproduction of those games (Bourdieu &
Wacquant, 1992, as cited in Couldry, 2004, p. 179). Furthermore, the State’s power over the other fields is augmented by its “influence over the educational field that everyone passes through and indirectly therefore over the key entry-points into all or most specific fields of production” (Couldry, 2004, p. 178). For example, Bourdieu (1998) points to the fundamental presuppositions of the national self-image which are universally imposed
and inculcated as a dominant culture, and thus constituted as a legitimate national culture,
through the school system’s teaching of history (especially the history of literature). Thus
the State as meta-field exercises power not only in the exchange of capital(s) and the
definition of status, but also in the constitution of the fields themselves and across the
whole of social space.
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The State as meta-field operates both as a position in the field of power, and as an
external force. The idea of the State as a meta-field, however, becomes somewhat
muddled in Bourdieu’s identification of the field of power as “the space of the relations of force between the different kinds of capital or, more precisely, between the agents who possess a sufficient amount of one of the different kinds of capital to be in a position to dominate the corresponding field” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 34). If the field of power is manifest in a struggle between types of capital, how can the State wield the capacity to influence the struggle? The answer lies in the rate of exchange of capital(s) which the
State manipulates through meta-capital. In the struggle for position in the field of power the dominant position will be taken by whichever type of capital is able to control, or sway, the “bureaucratic instances which are in a position to modify the exchange rate
(being the conservation or transformation of the different kinds of capital) through administrative measures” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 34). The statement suggests that whichever field gains the upper hand in the power struggle may influence the meta-field of government. To clarify, the fields and positions referred to here are “the specific fields that historically have contributed to the power of the state” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 114). In the days before the separation of church and state the contributing field would have been the religious field and in the contemporary world, where money is a god, it is the position of economic dominance that may sway the influence of the meta-field in the exchange rate of capital(s)5.
The result of this process is the emergence of a specific capital, properly statist capital, born of their cumulation
5 Thus we will come to understand the influence of business and economic power holders in the push of arts organizations toward market priorities and operational structures of business.
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(sic) that allows the state to wield a power over the different fields and over the various forms of capital that circulate in them. This kind of meta-capital capable of exercising a power over other species of power, and particularly over their rate of exchange […] defines the specific power of the state. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 114)
Understanding the relationship between the meta-field and the field of power, Couldry
(2004) suggests that the field of power is, arguably, not a true field in the traditional sense. He argues that the field of power “is better understood as a general space where the State exercises influence (very much like general symbolic power) over the interrelations between all specific fields (in the usual sense)” (p. 178).
Very few scholars have adopted the meta-field concept. Bourdieu himself made very little use of it, coming as it did in the later years of his work. Indeed, only Couldry
(2004) has explicitly attempted to expand Bourdieu’s field theory through use of the meta-field. Couldry adopts the meta-capital element of meta-field to explain how the media are able to exercise power over other forms of power; this he calls media meta- capital. Couldry (2004) explains that the media “may affect social space through the general circulation of media representations” (p. 180) and that these representations may in themselves be definitional. Thus the media, like the State in Bourdieu’s concept, are endowed with the power of definition of status which allows Couldry to define the media as a meta-field. Couldry acknowledges that the relationship between the media and the
State remains unexplored in his investigation. Yet his use of the concepts of meta-capital and meta-field provide an empirical example of the way in which the State as meta-field concept can be taken up.
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Adopting Couldry’s media meta-capital, Garman (2007) employs the concept in an investigation of text and reception in South Africa. Garman seeks to know if an individual, in this case poet Antjie Krog, can obtain meta-capital.
If an individual, by differentiating her productive output but remaining true to the autonomous logic of the field, manages to accumulate cultural capital within the field (and preferably also economic capital), the resulting capital can be converted into forms of capital acknowledged as valuable in other fields. […] And when an individual’s symbolic capital has been enhanced or created in part by media meta-capital, not only is it portable, but it gives the individual the ‘power to construct reality’, which has effects on other fields, and across the social landscape.
Here too, the discussion on media meta-capital as a contributing factor to an individual’s
own symbolic capital does not address the relationship between media and the State.
Thus, the dependence of the individual on transforming their own symbolic capital into
meta-capital based on the constitutive power of the media is not recognized as being
subject to the transformations of the meta-field in which the State is the ultimate arbiter
of definition-making. Nonetheless, the idea that one can acquire meta-capital through
alignment with a meta-field is particularly interesting.
Benson (2006) very loosely continues the thread of meta-field discussion in
relation to media by discussing the “journalistic field.” The paper intends to define the
journalistic field according to all of the elements in Bourdieu’s own concept of field, and
to contrast them with new institutionalism. Thus it is not in itself an empirical study using
the meta-field as a theoretical point. However, in his discussion of field and capital
Benson makes several salient points about the State as meta-field which expand
Bourdieu’s original thinking. Benson (2006) conceptualizes the news media as a “social
sector at least partially autonomous from external pressures and exhibiting some degree
78 of internal homogeneity, which taken as a whole is able to exert a significant amount of power vis-à-vis other social sectors” (p. 189). This, in effect, defines the media as a meta- field without employing the term. As a definition this clarifies the concept by including the notion that the meta-field is ‘partially autonomous from external pressures’ which explains that the other fields are able to influence the exchange rate of capital(s) within the meta-field. Benson also suggests that the journalistic field itself may be a political institution which then places it within the State as meta-field. What is interesting in this point is that where the media exert a form of power, it is the meta-field of the State as well as the market which help to constrain its autonomous power (Benson, 2006). If one meta-field can be constrained, cannot another? Benson reconfigures Bourdieu’s economic pole/cultural pole model into one of state-cultural/civic pole and state-market pole. This suggests that while the State accords value to all field logics, it is nonetheless not an autonomous entity. Rather, the State is divided by its “various agencies and elected bodies” (Benson, 2006, p. 197). Benson (2006) also points out that “the State does not always and only serve to augment market power” (p. 195) which is notable in the discussion of the relationship between government and the performing arts.
Burkitt (2004) also makes use of the meta-field concept in his discussion of the lived experience of everyday life. Rather than look to the State as meta-field, Burkitt suggests that there are many meta-fields and that the State is not the only agent involved in normalization, codification, and legitimization of social practices. Other social fields, which he identifies as science, art, religion, and ethics, also have an over-arching power of constitution and thus can themselves be called meta-fields. Although Burkitt (2004) acknowledges that these other fields “may have the backing of the state in terms of
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funding or support” (p. 214) he does not recognize the influence of the State as meta-field
over the fields in his discussion. His assertion that other social fields are meta-fields
stems from his identification of their influence over State policy and legislation. What
Burkitt is therefore ultimately outlining is the relationship between fields (not meta-
fields) and the exchange of capitals. He goes on to define everyday life as an object of social organization which he calls the “bureaucratic society of controlled consumption”
(Burkitt, 2004, p. 218) and moves away from Bourdieu in his analysis. Had he continued
with the meta-field concept, he may have been able to return both the ‘controlled
consumption’ and ‘bureaucratized society’ back to the influence of the State.
For the purpose of the research herein, several points can be taken from the other
uses of the meta-field/meta-capital concepts seen above. All of the authors identified
consider the main constitutive element of the meta-field to be the power of definition or
of consecration. By observing the transition in priorities of various governments the
constitutive element should become visible in the actions and reactions of performing arts
organization members. Similarly, Benson’s (2006) statement that the State does not
always serve to augment market power provides the impetus to look for those instances
where State support of the arts contradicts its own economic priorities. Garman and
Burkitt both suggest that entities and fields other than the State can have meta-capital.
While connections to the performing arts are not immediately visible, these ideas may
provide some insight into the transformation of symbolic capital into economic capital
and influence over the State.
Symbolic Capital / Symbolic Power
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The constitution of the State as a meta-field is very much tied to the notion of symbolic capital, which in turn explains State control as symbolic power. “Symbolic capital is any property (any form of capital whether physical, economic, cultural or social) when it is perceived by social agents endowed with categories of perception which cause them to know it and to recognize it, to give it value” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 47).
For example, the concept of high art in Western society as elite is a typical form of symbolic capital which exists “only through repute, that is, through the representation that others have of it to the extent that they share a set of beliefs liable to cause them to perceive and appreciate” it as elite (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 47). The categories of perception by which capital is recognized are the product of the “embodiment of divisions which structure the distribution of a species of capital (strong/weak, large/small, rich/poor, cultured/uncultured)” (Bourdieu, 1998, p.47).
It follows that the state, which possesses the means of imposition and inculcation of the durable principles of vision and division that conform to its own structure, is the site par excellence of the concentration and exercise of symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 47).
Symbolic power is achieved through the transformation of symbolic capital based on collective recognition to an “objectified symbolic capital, codified, delegated and guaranteed by the state, in a word bureaucratized” (Bourdieu, 1998, pp. 50-51). Thus we recognize the authority of the State in determining social policies (including arts policy) because it presents itself as a “fount of sovereignty”, a position achieved through the development of nationalism and the logic of taxation (see Bourdieu, 1998 pp. 40-46 for a historical overview). Bourdieu (1998) states: “It is the State, acting in the manner of a bank of symbolic capital, which guarantees all acts of authority” (p. 51). For example:
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The president of the country is someone who claims to be the president but who differs from the madman who claims to be Napoleon by the fact that he is recognized as founded to do so (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 52).
Symbolic power, essentially, is the power to impose a vision of the world and the power to produce groups. This power is achieved through the possession of symbolic capital; “symbolic capital is a credit, it is the power granted to those who have obtained sufficient recognition to be in a position to impose recognition” (Bourdieu, 1990c, p.138).
The power to impose recognition is the power of imposing a vision of divisions, it is the power to make groups, and it is the power to manipulate the objective structure of society
(Bourdieu, 1990c). In Bourdieu’s words (1990c) symbolic power is a power of worldmaking. The symbolic power of worldmaking through bureaucracy tends to reproduce and to reinforce the existing power relations which constitute the social structure, however, the acknowledgement and recognition of the symbolic capital required of symbolic power is done in accordance with the “categories of perception it imposes” (Bourdieu, 1990c, p. 135).
The legitimatization of the social order is not the product, as certain people believe, of a deliberately biased action of propaganda or symbolic imposition; it results from the fact that agents apply to the objective structures of the social world, structures of perception and appreciation that have emerged from these objective structures and tend therefore to see the world as self-evident (Bourdieu, 1990c, p. 135).
Symbolic Capital and the Economic Field
Symbolic power as emerging through the accumulation of symbolic capital is the result of the interaction between symbolic capital and the economic field. Symbolic capital is, for Bourdieu, a concept through which the objective (in Bourdieu 1990c,
“objectivist”) truth of the economy (economic field) may include a theory of the
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subjective. In other words, through juxtaposing symbolic capital with economic capital it can be revealed that economic wealth only has power when it is linked to an economic apparatus, when it is recognized as capital. Similarly, symbolic capital is valid only when it is misrecognized as capital, for example, when an individual manipulates relationship
or reputation for the purpose of persuading a third party to conduct an economic
transaction, as in the case of private or corporate sponsorship of arts organizations
(discussed in a later chapter). The misrecognition of symbolic capital is further explained
in Bourdieu’s concept of the market of symbolic goods wherein investment in the pure
arts is an investment which, by the very position of the pure aesthetic in the field of
cultural production, is not intended to recoup economic profit. Rather it is an investment
in symbolic capital which in turn denotes a “capital of consecration implying a power to
consecrate objects” (Bourdieu, 1993, p.75) which increases the status of the investor in
the social field and circuitously contributes to the accumulation of economic wealth by
virtue of social position. Thus it becomes clear that economic and symbolic capital are so
“inextricably intertwined that the display of material and symbolic strength, represented
by prestigious affines, is in itself likely to bring in material profits which is perhaps the
only economic guarantee” (Bourdieu, 1990b, p. 119).
Language and Symbolic Imposition
For Bourdieu the understanding of symbolic imposition is tied to an understanding
of language. Considering language itself includes an understanding of the economy of
linguistic exchanges in the creation of symbolic capital, as the social institution of
symbolic power, and as the operation of symbolic power in conjunction with the political
field in the determination of the institutions of language (e.g. national language).
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Extending from these ideas is the transformation of symbolic power into symbolic
violence and the ways in which language can be used to reinforce relations of dominance
(Bourdieu, 1991). Because symbolic imposition primarily occurs through language
Bourdieu’s ideas regarding the use of language in the “social institution of symbolic power” are most relevant and thus we begin with his (1991) statement that:
The power of words is nothing other than the delegated power of the spokesperson, and his speech […] is no more than a testimony of the guarantee of delegation which is vested in him (p. 107).
In the same way that possession of symbolic capital manifests as the power to impose recognition, or the symbolic power of worldmaking, the use of language as the practice of that symbolic power relies on the recognition of the symbolic capital/power held by the authorized spokesperson. Bourdieu states (1991):
The spokesperson, speaking with the authority and authorization of an institution, is only able to use words to act on other agents and, through their action, on things themselves, because his speech concentrates within it the accumulated symbolic capital of the group which has delegated him and of which he is the authorized representative (p. 111).
In other (arts-based) words, because the government is recognized as protecting the intrinsic benefits of cultural production through arts support, and thus carries the symbolic capital such support amasses, the language the government uses to make demands and impose pressures onto arts organizations is recognized as having power.
Bourdieu (1991) refers to the use of language to impose commands, injunctions, or even threats as symbolic imposition. Bourdieu (1991) suggests that “symbolic imposition can function only if there is a convergence of the social conditions which enable it to secure from others a recognition of the importance which it attributes to itself” (p. 72).
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The efficacy of ‘symbolic imposition’ presupposes that all the social conditions are in place to ensure the production of appropriate senders and receivers to secure the reproduction of the dominant language and the recognition of its legitimacy (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 72).
Clarification of the concept will occur with a later discussion of the shift in Alberta’s
provincial focus from one of arts support to one of market orientation. However, if the
reader will permit an example that is momentarily out of sequence, clarity of symbolic
imposition can be made here. The social condition of the province during Lougheed’s
tenure was such that the terminology of the market was not the dominant language. Thus
the symbolic imposition of a government declaration that arts organizations would
henceforth be run as businesses would have failed even though the government is
recognized as a center of power. However, through the use of language Klein’s
government was eventually able to execute such symbolic impositions in a way that was
not only taken up by the public but actually reiterated by the arts organizations
themselves. How? The government changed the social conditions of the province such
that the language of the market became the dominant language recognized as legitimate
by the populace generally.
Bourdieu (1991) explains that the successful symbolic imposition of demands
rests on the “belief of an entire group, that is, on the socially fashioned dispositions to
know and recognize the institutional conditions of a valid ritual” (p. 125). Such
inculcation has the capacity to “deprive people even of the sense of deprivation”, and “it
can also tend to inculcate durable dispositions like class tastes which […] make all social
agents the carriers of distinctive signs capable of uniting and separating people as surely
as explicit prohibitions and barriers” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 125).
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Exploring the use of language as a mechanism of control, the 1998 work of
Oakes, Townley, & Cooper (henceforth Oakes et al.) examine business planning as a pedagogic practice that has the power of transforming organizational identities through
the use of capital. They explore the subtle ways that language is used in organizations to
effect change. Oakes et al. explain that through language business plans are able to
introduce and legitimize new understandings, hierarchies, and knowledge which act in a
transformative way on the organizations and persons that implement them. The use of the
language of business in arts organizations (museums in the case of Oakes et al.) imposes
an economic vocabulary which, taken up by organization members in order to retain
funding, has a transformative influence on the organization itself. Looking at provincial
reforms which impose the methods of business operation onto arts organizations it is
possible to see that the use of business plans and the language of business create a shift in
the value of the cultural capital of the organization. Oakes et al state:
What is valued in the field shifts, in our case from representing a historian’s view of authentic culture and artefacts to a concern with what will generate revenues and visitors. Economic capital becomes more important, and cultural capital remains valued to the extent that it can be transformed into economic capital (Oakes,Townley, & Cooper, 1998, p. 271).
The business plan in Oakes et al’s investigation, though within the business field,
parallels the strategic plan which performing arts organizations use both to determine the
direction of the organization and to acquire government funding. Indeed, the study by
Oakes et al. is as close to the research at hand as has been discovered in the course of the
investigation. The data are 10 years old now, the focus is business planning in museums,
and the authors employ Bourdieu in an expansion of institutional theory, but nonetheless
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the study directly identifies the imposition of business language in the arts as a site of
symbolic violence.
Symbolic Violence
Symbolic imposition can lead to a conversion of economic into symbolic capital.
This conversion produces relations of dependence that are fundamentally economic, but
that are disguised under a veil of moral obligations (Bourdieu, 1990b). Commitment to
moral obligations on one hand creates for the other hand a relationship of indebtedness,
obligation, and dependence which becomes a cycle that can remain invisible to its
participants. Such a relationship is one of symbolic violence, which Bourdieu (1998)
defines as “the violence which extorts submission, which is not perceived as such based
on collective expectations or socially inculcated beliefs” (p. 103).
Symbolic violence [is], the gentle, invisible form of violence, which is never recognized as such, and is not so much undergone as chosen, the violence of credit, confidence, obligation, personal loyalty, hospitality, gifts, gratitude, piety – in short, all the virtues honoured by the code of honour – [which] cannot fail to be seen as the most economical mode of domination, i.e. the mode which best corresponds to the economy of the system (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 192).
From Bourdieu’s definitions two important points must be drawn out. The first is that symbolic violence is based on “socially inculcated beliefs”, and the second that symbolic violence “is not so much undergone as chosen.” Understanding that members of a field will follow the socially inculcated beliefs which they hold it becomes possible to see how a relationship of symbolic violence requires the complicity of the whole group. Bourdieu
(1977) explains:
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The collective misrecognition which is the basis of the ethic code of honour, a collective denial of the economic reality of exchange, is only possible because, when the group lies to itself in this way, there is neither deceiver nor deceived (p. 195).
When the State as meta-field transforms social conditions the members of an organization
are susceptible to the transformation and will be inclined take up said beliefs.
In the second point, Bourdieu’s statement that people choose to participate in
relationships of symbolic violence, we can observe participation as a form of “structural
subordination” which itself contains two elements: the market; and the system of
“durable links, based on affinities of lifestyle and value systems which unite [artists] to
certain sections of high society, and help to determine the direction of the generosities of
state patronage” (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 49). Given that the State as meta-field has the power
to manipulate all other fields, and that the State places economic capital in the dominant
position in the field of power, are we left to assume that relationships of symbolic
violence thus created are permanent? The answer is no; the “function of the concept of
symbolic violence is not to reinforce relations of domination by presenting them as inescapable or as eternal. Rather it is to serve as a way to identify them […] as a preliminary step toward their elimination” (Le Hir, 2000, p. 136).
The application of the symbolic violence concept in works by other scholars is most often found in relation to gender, feminism, race, and class. Scholars such as Le Hir
(2000) take up Bourdieu’s own discussion of male dominance and employ the concept of symbolic violence in a discussion of women’s underrepresentation in certain professional fields as a “self-exclusion” (p. 136). The analysis provides an understanding of the ways in which the dominated participate in their own domination. Le Hir (2000) states:
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“symbolic violence, in short, can be as efficient a form of violence as oppression, but it is
much more difficult to detect” (p. 136). McRobbie (2004) uses Bourdieu’s concept of
symbolic violence to examine how “social inequalities are perpetuated as power relations directed towards bodies and the dispositions of individuals” (p. 103), focusing on the
‘effectivity’ of the practice. Here, symbolic violence is cast as a process of social
reproduction which, once again, relies on the complicity of the victim. Discussing women and body image, McRobbie questions the way in which symbolic violence contributes to the notion of field and how field in turn can procure the submission of the habitus. Citing
Butler (1999), McRobbie (2004) criticizes the ways in which Bourdieu’s concept of
habitus appears to “capitulate to the demands of the field” (p. 104).
For the research at hand, the problems of capitulation of the habitus are avoided
because habitus itself is not applied in the research. The wide variety of backgrounds,
dispositions, and positions of performing arts organization members make a discussion of
habitus nearly impossible and, as stated, could result in a separate investigation at a later
point. Here, however, the State as meta-field concept, and the manipulation of capitals, is
employed to account for the ways in which different fields and performing arts organizations as a whole capitulate to the demands of the State as meta-field. This notion will prove useful in the investigation.
Kauppi (2004) politicizes symbolic violence in a discussion of European integration, stating: “Political agents attempt to monopolize the legitimate means of manipulating the social world. They compete with journalists and social scientists in the struggle for the ‘monopoly of legitimate symbolic violence’” (p. 321). Furthermore,
Kauppi explains that for Bourdieu politics themselves are stateless, “understood as a
89 genuine shared public authority” (p. 323). This allows the research to proceed with
Bourdieu’s discussion of the State as meta-field without considering the political situation in France at the time of his writing.
McNay (2004) discusses gender as a lived social relation and addresses the ways that symbolic violence is tied to determinism. Discussing linguistic exchange and performative speech acts (bringing symbolic violence and the earlier look at language together), McNay (2004) states: “the imperialism of the universal that is implied in the over-extension of a linguistic model of identity formation is, in the final analysis, a form par excellence of symbolic violence perpetuated by ‘enlightened’ elites upon the practical activities of social actors” (p. 181). She goes on to cite Butler’s (1999) criticism that
“symbolic violence is problematic in that it ties the speech act too closely to its institutional context and misses the process of temporal deferral and dissemination that are constitutive of the indeterminacy of the performative” (p. 180). McNay (2004) concludes that while Butler’s account of agency “subsumes the social within the linguistic”, Bourdieu “underestimates the autonomy of agents because of the tendency to reduce symbolic relations to pre-given social relations” (p. 182). Indeed, these criticisms are relevant to the discussion ahead particularly where the State language of the special interest group and sustainability are taken up by the participants of the research. McNay
(2004) suggests that Bourdieu’s larger concept of social space, as a complex interaction between symbolic and material power relations, helps his theory to side-step the earlier criticisms. Here, it is hoped, the use of the concept of symbolic violence in the context of the research will also side-step any problems of determinacy caused by the use of the concept because of the participation of the arts in the market of symbolic goods. Thus,
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the material power relations cannot be considered but in relation to the trade in symbolic capital which, in part, accounts for the value of the arts to society. McNay (2004) states:
The essence of social being is not encompassed in experience itself but it does only begin to reveal itself through experience which must then be situated in a broader context. This contextualization involves tracing the links between the immediacy of experience and abstract systems of power that operate at one remove from every day activity. (p. 184).
This, in short, is what the research attempts to do.
Discussion
Bourdieu’s concepts are useful for the research because provide a lens through which we may observed the performing arts. While the research could be undertaken solely as an analysis of budgetary practices and their impact on the arts, the application of
Bourdieu’s theory allows the analysis to reveal a deeper understanding of the relationship between the arts and government. In other words, where the analysis could be achieved simply by stating that government approaches the efficient subsidy of the arts as a public good based on the representation of voter preference, Bourdieu’s theory allows us to understand that voters and governments alike are engaged in the trade of symbolic, cultural, and economic capital. The exchange rates of these different types of capitals accord or reduce position in the field of power. Manipulation of the exchange rate of capitals is deliberately done by the State as meta-field, which is itself influenced by outside fields. Thus, the research gains depth and subtlety through the application of
Bourdieu’s concepts and the research can be understood as a power struggle as much as it is a discussion of the ramifications of governments’ economic decisions.
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Method
Taking as a point of departure my personal experiences as a performing artist, and understanding the areas of arts research covered in the literature review, my approach to data collection for the research was a combination of interviews and the analysis of organizational and government funding documents. By comparing the changing demands of grant applications with information about arts organizations presented in organizational documents certain conclusions were reached. Comparing the statements from organizational members to the grant documents and strategic plan documents ultimately led to an understanding of the degree to which government demands were imposing operational mandates onto arts organizations. To determine the level and type of interaction in which organizational members were engaged with government funding the social theories of Bourdieu were applied in analysis. The methodological approach used was therefore a combination of qualitative interviewing and analysis based on
Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts.
Approaching the Research
The basis upon which I decided to undertake the research was the idea that market pressure was having a negative effect on the autonomy of performing arts organizations.
The initial approach to the interviews and the data collection of organizational documents therefore focused on discovering instances of market pressure, on understanding organizational conceptions of market pressure, and on seeing how market pressure could be observed in the marketing and programming approaches of several different performing arts organizations. Market pressure was initially not anticipated as stemming from government sources, but rather it was assumed that such pressure originated through
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competition with mass entertainment products. Furthermore, the increasing consumption
of pop culture through digital means was also assumed to be playing a role which
necessitated the performance of popular culture works in an attempt to draw patrons to
the theatre and concert hall. The process of investigation, however, revealed an entirely
different economic struggle occurring through the relationship that arts organizations
have with government as it manifests at the site of government funding.
In undertaking an investigation of arts organizations I had several options
available when determining a sample group for research: traditional, established,
performing arts organizations (Symphony, Opera, Ballet, and Mainstream Theatre
Companies), Avant-Garde organizations dedicated to furthering contemporary
performing arts (Modern Dance Companies, Contemporary Music Ensembles, and
Performance Art Theatre Companies), or emerging organizations with little to no budget,
funding, or outside sponsorship. My decision to focus on Major Performing Arts
Organizations6 (MPAO) stemmed from the fact that established mainstream organizations had extended histories, highly developed organizational structures, bases of both core and new audience/subscribers, significant corporate and individual sponsorship, and participation in government funding programs at all levels. Furthermore, it is these traditional performing arts groups which are most in the news when financial instability threatens their demise. Therefore I chose to investigate the following organizations:
Alberta Ballet, Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary Opera, The Calgary Philharmonic
Orchestra, and Theatre Calgary. Though there are ten Major Performing Arts
6 MPAO is a designation given by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts to any organization that maintains a minimum two million dollar operating budget.
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Organizations in the Alberta Foundation for the Arts category, the other organizations were not included in the research because I wanted one representative from each performing arts genre. Though Alberta Theatre Projects and Theatre Calgary are both theatre companies they have significantly different mandates and were thus chosen as representatives of new (as opposed to ‘modern’) and traditional theatre respectively. The structure of other organizations removed them from participation - The Citadel Theatre, for example, has been protected from the economic ups and downs experienced by other organizations by its wealthy founder, the recently deceased Joe Shocktor; Fringe Theatre
Adventures is primarily a fringe festival and though it runs a season of performances based on festival plays it would not qualify as an MPAO financially if it did not have the festival component to its operations. Since the research herein does not deal with arts festivals, this organization was excluded. In Calgary, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD) was the only MPAO not included in the research. This was for two reasons. First, because of DJD’s distinction as a contemporary jazz dance ensemble it did not fit the traditional and high-brow framework that Bourdieu’s theories expound. Second, the organization has been on the verge of losing its MPAO status by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for the past several years and I was concerned that the organization would fall out of eligibility for the research during the course of study. The decision to focus on operating grants to MPAO’s was made, not to deny the existence of other project-based grants, but because it is in the operating grant documents that the major influence of funders and governments is exhibited. Project grants are determined based on the merit of the project, not on the operation of the organization as a whole. Operating grants, on the other hand, stipulate the maintenance of reserve funds, accounting transparency, and governance
94 regulations. As such, operating grants provided a clearer example of government imposition of economic priorities.
Data Collection
Data collection for the research was done through semi-structured interviews with members of arts organizations and analysis of both organizational and government funding documents. The interview questionnaire was initially divided into five sections which included general questions about society and the arts, organizational questions pertaining to the financial health of the organization, questions regarding interaction with government funding documents and other organizational documents, questions about fund-raising methods, and questions about the non-profit organizational structure. In this way interviews proceeded along a structured line of thought but were not themselves structured. An open-ended interview technique was used which allowed the discussion between researcher and interviewee to proceed along flexible lines with questions emerging as part of the discourse. In this way the information gathered by the interviews was able to unearth not only views and opinions about the specific topics being asked, but also to provide a larger picture of the situation of arts organizations in contemporary society.
Qualitative interviews were conducted with participants from each of the selected
MPAO’s in Calgary, Alberta. Initial interviews were undertaken with organizational members in the following positions: Artistic Director, President/CEO, Board of
Directors, Marketing, Development, Finance, Artists, Director of Operations, and
General Director. Avenues of dialogue included lengthy discussion of marketing programs for productions such Beauty and the Beast at Theatre Calgary, the business
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backgrounds of certain organizational members and how that knowledge translated to
work in the non-profit arts sector, organizational restructuring experiences following near
catastrophic financial problems, and other indirectly related topics. Interviews were also
conducted with a member of the American Federation of Musicians (local 547) for the
sake of understanding how artist unions fit the interplay, a Canada Council jury member, a government representative from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, a Canada Council liaison officer, a theatre organization board member, and a founding member of the
Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization Fund. Twenty-three initial interviews were conducted in total. All of the participants agreed to allow their names and job titles to be revealed in the research.
Following the analysis of government and organizational documents it was necessary to undertake some follow-up interviews with organization members for the purpose of clarification. Follow-up interviews were conducted with participants in the positions of president/CEO or organizational directors because arts managers are primarily the ones who deal with the completion of grant applications and thus had the information necessary for clarification. Three follow-up interviews were conducted which in the end clarified the response that organization members have had to increasing
imposition of economic priorities by government funders. Interestingly, the results
obtained by the follow-up interviews revealed no new information, and points of
clarification tended to reflect the initial interview responses even though the topic of
question had changed. This in itself proved fascinating and pointed the research towards
the application of Bourdieu’s formal theory of symbolic violence wherein organizational
participation recurs because of the invisible nature of symbolic violence.
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Interviews undertaken with members of government funding agencies were particularly fruitful, and frustrating. From the Alberta Foundation for the Arts I was able to interview the person directly responsible for calculating the funding formula, organizing the bonus award committees, and who had been a government representative to the AFA over the course of three decades. The interview with the member of the
Canada Council was far more problematic. Though I tried to access people in different departments for over a month I could get no one to speak with me directly. Information officers were unwilling to share information, the research officers to whom I was repeatedly transferred never replied to phone or email messages, and heads of arts sections were consistently unavailable. Finally, however, I spoke with a liaison officer who was able to provide access to documents not yet published by the Council. However, the Council required that all of the interview questions had to be presented in written form. The responses would also be written and submitted first to a senior officer of the
Canada Council before any consent could be given for my use of her comments. Needless to say this significantly delayed the process of information gathering from the Canada
Council and prevented the interview from having any discursive flow. The questions
answered were only those which were presented on paper.
Initial Data Organization
Following the initial interviews the transcribed sessions were broken into categories. The first breakdown involved grouping the responses to shared questions into a single document so that congruencies or disagreements could be easily observed.
Questions and their responses were first identified through the use of coloured markers, and then cut and pasted (on the computer) into individual Word documents for ease of
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reading. Because the interviews had been open-ended there was a great deal of
information which did not clearly fit under a shared question. Therefore, a second
breakdown was undertaken in which data was sorted in subject groupings. Here too the
data was initially sorted using colours and then cut and pasted (on the computer) into
individual Word documents relating to the groupings. Where responses could be
associated with multiple subject groupings they were included in each. In this way the
interrelations and intricacies of the organizational interactions became clearer. The
preliminary subject groupings, driven by the research question, included: audience,
sponsorship, market indicators, government funding, organizational focus (mandate),
artistic aesthetics, and uses of popular culture.
Having approached the research from the preconception of market pressure, the
data collected had an economic focus. As the participant responses were sorted into
groupings, however, it became increasingly apparent that the core of the research lay
within the interaction between government and the participant organizations. The data
continually circled back to the relationship between arts organizations and government in the sense that everything from organizational culture to marketing seemed to relate in some way to State constitution of the social conditions for art, the economic focus of government, and the language of policy and funding documents. Thus, I supposed that the source of the challenge faced by the arts was thought to be some larger phenomenon that directly involved government interaction. Having followed the data to this arrival point the research direction changed and the data was re-read and re-grouped according to the new subject groupings that made themselves apparent. Subject groupings became
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those of perspective, language, capital, government funding priorities, and organizational
participation.
Document Analysis
From the questions raised by the new direction of the research, granting
documents for the past ten years were requested from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts
(AFA) and the Canada Council for the Arts. The grant documents were then analyzed for
the purpose of determining the evolution of granting programs. The analysis of the
documents included categorizing instances of data according to artistic or economic
criteria. It looked to see how artistic criteria came to include financial indicators, and
how, in the case of the Canada Council, economic criteria were to be judged artistically.
The analysis considered assessment methods (by jury or formula) and how these contributed to the demands and language of the application documents. The analysis also examined the number of criteria and sought to weigh the balance against the mandate of the funding institution. Using Bourdieu, the changes in grant applications were considered in terms of capital, with the analysis looking to see how the impositions of economic demands were causing a shift in the value of economic capital over artistic capital.
The increasing economic prioritization in the grant applications over ten years led to research about the shifting economic and cultural priorities of both the federal government and the provincial government of Alberta. Upon understanding the progression of the governments’ prioritization of economic indicators, a second reading of the grant applications was undertaken for the purpose of observing the use of language as a point of government imposition. Grant application documents were linked to
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significant events in the evolution of provincial and federal governments, party
affiliations, and global shifts in market thinking. The connection between government
histories and the language of the grant application was facilitated by the State as meta-
field concept. The direct translation of government priorities to arts organizations through
the use of funding bodies became clear, and an understanding of the constitutive power of
the State began to reveal the nature of the interaction.
An analysis of organizational documents was then undertaken in order to observe how the economic language was used by the organizations themselves as an indicator of
organizational collusion and change. Using the strategic plan documents of the
organizations, the same comparisons as those made for the grant application analysis
were done. Interview data was then incorporated to identify how the increasing demands
of funders, and the adoption of economic thinking were influencing the interactions and
operations of performing arts organization members. At this point elements of Bourdieu’s
theory of symbolic violence were used to consider whether participants’ actions were
knowing or unknowing, whether collusion with government impositions was willing, and
ultimately, whether or not the relationship between government and performing arts
organizations could be defined as one of symbolic violence, or if it was something else
altogether.
Challenges
The interview process presented a series of challenges to the research. Though
initial contact with each of the five organizations was very positive, obtaining interview
participation proved difficult. Thus it was not possible to interview all members of every
participant organization, instead I spoke with some members from each organization. I
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was nonetheless able to get overall representation from every organizational area. Aside from participants’ lack of available time, the main challenge was staff turnover. For example, during the course of interviews the marketing position at the Calgary
Philharmonic Orchestra was filled and vacated three times. The staff situation at Alberta
Theatre Projects was not much better and staff that had arranged interviews left their positions before the interview date which then disrupted interviews with other staff members as the organization adjusted to the addition of new members in those positions.
At Alberta Ballet the only interview obtained happened after the participant had left the organization and had time to speak with me. Other members of the Alberta Ballet organization, though they had initially shown interest in participating, found the summer tour to China and the production of several original ballets to be too onerous and time consuming to allow for participation. The granting literature, as seen, reveals that staff turnover is an indicator of stress related to the challenges of running a non-profit organization given the economic demands of funding bodies.
While some organizations (Calgary Opera, Theatre Calgary) had staff that had been in their positions for more than five years and were thus able to offer in depth discussion of the questions asked, many organization members were brand new in their positions and thus were ill equipped to respond in-depth. Some organization members had vast experience in an array of organizations and though they were interviewed about their organization specifically, they were able to relate their experiences from one organization to the other through a lengthy time period. Nonetheless, the research did manage to involve members from all five of the organizations and organizational documents were easily obtained from all but Alberta Ballet. Furthermore because the
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organizations are non-profit and thus public, financial information is public domain and
readily available. Though there were limitations to the number of interviewees available,
the information gathered was nonetheless determined to have sufficient depth to proceed
with the research project.
A second challenge to the process of the research was the unexpected economic
crash in September 2008. The initial interviews had mostly been undertaken during the
height of the economic boom in Alberta and thus the outlook of performing arts organizations was particularly positive. The uncertainty created by the economic crash has undoubtedly caused organizations to change their budgeting, and granting bodies to consider the repercussions of their system of penalties in a time of global recession.
However, it was not possible to re-interview all of the participants in order to readjust their statements. Therefore, where the recession stands to impact the participants’ statements, or the analysis of the data, a comment is inserted that explains how the information reflects one or the other economic reality.
Discussion
The use of qualitative interviews and analysis of organizational and government documents combined with the theoretical concepts of Bourdieu allowed the research to proceed in a manner that was both flexible and theoretical. While the interviews opened
the door to facts about the relationship between government and the arts that could not be
discovered in the arts literature, Bourdieu’s theories provided a framework which allowed
me to play out his concepts in the situation of the performing arts and to reach a
conclusion about the nature of the economic relationship between government and the
102 performing arts that is logical and supported. Thus both method and theory operated together in the process of discovery and understanding that became the research at hand.
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CHAPTER FOUR: THE PERFORMING ARTS - ORGANIZATIONAL
STRUCTURE OF A GENRE
The research presented deals specifically with the interaction between arts
organizations and government; however, a thorough understanding of the issues at hand
demands a certain initial acquaintance with the general modus operandi of performing
arts organizations. Thus, a basic overview of the operation of such organizations will
facilitate an understanding of the influence that government funders exert in diverse areas
of organizational operation. The chapter before you, therefore, is an exposition. It makes
initial observations, through the voices of the participants, of the challenges faced by
performing arts organization members trying to run sustainable organizations in the
current socio-economic climate7. By outlining the elements that combine to form an arts
organization as a whole - the personnel, the jobs performed, the division of tasks, and the
internal and external sites of governance that influence organizational operations - the
chapter will represent the over-arching conundrum faced by organization members in
balancing economic sustainability with artistic mandate. Thus outlined, subsequent research can proceed to reveal the catalysts which propel, and have propelled, performing arts organizations to adopt the methods of operation, and participate in the types of
interactions, that influence their day to day existence.
7 Note that the data collection occurred before the economic crash of 2008 and thus the “current” socio- economic climate refers to the general economic prioritizations of Canadian society, rather than to the ongoing recession.
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The Organizational Structure and Governance
Though there are a few exceptions to the rule (the New York Philharmonic, the
Metropolitan Opera), performing arts organizations in North America are generally structured as non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations are defined by the
Government of Alberta as organizations that are “formed to promote art, science, religion, charity or other similar endeavours, or they may be formed solely for the purpose of promoting recreation for their members” (Government of Alberta, 2009, p. 3).
In Alberta, non-profit organizations are regulated by the Companies Act and can take one of two possible forms – private or public. Where a private non-profit organization must restrict the number of members and shareholders, public non-profits do not have any such restrictions. Most arts organizations are public non-profits which operate under the legislation of the Societies Act8. The Societies Act (Government of Alberta, 1980)
provides a clear foundation of regulations and legislation upon which the organization
may build. It includes the following:
• Five or more persons may become incorporated under this Act for any benevolent, philanthropic, charitable, provident, scientific, artistic, literary, social, educational, agricultural, sporting or other useful purpose, but not for the purpose of carrying on a trade or business (p. 3).
• No society shall have a capital divided into shares or declare any dividend or distribute its property among its members during the existence of the society (p. 3).
8 Separate legislation exists for each of the following: The Business Corporations Act for corporations and extra-provincial registrations of corporations and non-profit organizations; Societies Act for societies; Companies Act for non-profit companies; Religious Societies Land Act – Cemetery Companies Act; and the Partnership Act for organizations that are limited liability partnerships.
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• A society shall hold an annual general meeting in Alberta and shall present at that meeting a financial statement setting out its income, disbursements, assets and liabilities, audited and signed by the society’s auditor (p. 10)
The Act also lays out a set of regulations by which admission to the organization,
appointment of directors and officers, the exercise of borrowing power, audit of accounts,
and manner of making, altering and rescinding bylaws are specified (pp. 5-6). Thus the
non-profit legislation in many ways influences the interactions between the different
departments and personnel of a non-profit performing arts organization. These
interactions are further complicated, as we shall see, by the various demands made by
funding bodies from which arts organizations seek sponsorship.
Though the structure of the organization is strictly legislated, the acquisition of funding is left to the discretion of the society. The Societies Act (Government of Alberta,
1980) provides only a few stipulations with regard to sources of funding. They include the following:
• A society may acquire and take by purchase, donation, device or otherwise all kinds of real estate and personal property, and may sell, exchange, mortgage, lease, let, improve and develop it, and may erect and maintain any necessary buildings.
• The funds and property of the society shall be used and dealt with for its legitimate objects only and in accordance with its bylaws.
• For the purpose of carrying out its objects, a society may borrow or raise or secure the payment of money in any manner it thinks fit, and in particular by the issue of debentures (p. 8).
Though the points above reveal that the acquisition of funding is very much left to the judgment of the organization’s members, actual fund-raising itself is covered by a
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separate legislation. The Charitable Fund-raising Act (Government of Alberta, 2003) sets
out eight Standards of Practice for fund-raising. These standards are in no way limiting or
particularly strict; rather, they are a code of ethics which, for example, directs fund-
raisers to act in accordance with municipal, provincial, and federal laws, to honour
donors’ intentions, to prevent disclosure of donor’s private information, to use accurate
accounting, and not to take unfair advantage of a donor.
Non-profit legislation, therefore, specifies certain parameters within which the
organization operates. The legislation itself does not exert any particular economic pressures on non-profit arts organizations, except to specify that capital shall not be divided among the organization’s members. The legislation also states that any non-profit venture is not intended for the purpose of running a business or carrying on a trade and thus, with these regulations as a foundation for operation, performing arts organizations are very clearly not businesses. Though this is a fundamental premise of the non-profit structure, evolving economic pressures have been consistently encouraging a more business-like approach in the running of performing arts organizations. An international incidence of financial failure and bankruptcy protection in major performing arts organizations, combined with the crises of Enron and Nortel in Canada, the Sarbanes-
Oxley legislation in the United States, Thatcherism, and the influence of the Chicago
School of Economics, have resulted in an adoption of the language and operating method of business for non-profit organizations generally, and for performing arts organizations specifically. These transitions play out in the interactions that arts organizations have both internally, between artistic and executive staff and board members, and externally, with government funding agencies.
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The Board of Directors
Among the legislation of the Societies Act (Government of Alberta, 1980) is the regulation that non-profit organizations are to maintain a Board of Directors whose purpose is, essentially, to protect the public interest. Board positions in non-profit organizations are volunteer positions. The lack of remuneration is intended to ensure that individuals do indeed have the public interest at heart. Wolf (1984) points out that board members “are expected to serve for the public good and to exercise, on behalf of the public, a legal and fiduciary responsibility” (p. 21). The role of the board is fundamentally to uphold the organization’s constitution and bylaws, and to accept responsibility and liability for the organization. Though liable, the board of directors does not have authority over, or responsibility for, the operations and programming of a non- profit arts organization. As Gahlinger-Beaune (1990) states in her book, Not for profit, you say! An operations manual for Canadian non-profit organizations, the board has an obligation to work for and with the staff rather than to adopt a leadership role. Therefore the board may approve or reject suggestions made by the staff, establish organizational policies, and coordinate certain administrative and business affairs of the organization, but should not interfere with the day to day operations.
The role of the board of directors is thus clearly stipulated and while most boards do have good intentions in regard to the limitation of their duties, the interaction of boards with the artistic administration of arts organizations is, in reality, far more collaborative than the regulations would suggest. The mid-1990’s saw the inclusion of a new provincial regulation whereby board members became personally liable for the success or failure of the organization. The liability of the board of directors in relation to
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the performing arts, the responsibility was dictated by the Alberta Performing Arts
Stabilization Fund (APASF) in the mid-1990’s and adopted by provincial and federal
governments in successive legislation. Though the intention was to make boards
responsible for the financial stability of arts organizations, the liability of the board has
understandably resulted in greater personal investment by the board into the operations of the organization. The resulting involvement in organizational activities by members of
the board of directors has, in the past, caused significant problems for some arts
organizations. For example, The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) found itself in
bankruptcy protection in 2003, after the APASF process had begun, and interference by the board in operational decisions has been, in part, blamed.
CPO - One of the reasons that led to the kind of administrative cancer that we
had prior to the bankruptcy is that the board was starting to react to the
pressures around us and started jumping into operations without the
proper skill set. But they thought they had proper skill set and so they kept
getting in the way and tripping over our development staff and tripping
over our marketing staff and that got into a big mess with customer
service nightmares and not getting messages and things like that.
The example of the CPO is an obvious case of board interference, but board interaction in operational activities occurs in more subtle ways as well. The example
below reveals how board participation in organizational activities, in this case programming, is achieved through the use of an artistic committee.
TC - We have an artistic committee [of board members] that does not pick
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plays, contrary to popular belief. Canada Council got really mad when we
created an artistic committee. It was a committee that was built for the
Artistic Director more than anything else. It was a chance for that person
to go and talk to a group of people and say, “here’s what I’m dreaming
about, what do you think?” It’s that kind of thing, so they look at 20, 30
plays a year and they talk about them. It’s sort of like a study group
almost and Dennis [the Artistic Director] will go in and say, “alright,
here’s 12 plays I want to do,” and then pick six. And he listens to what
they say but he still makes his own picks because they don’t pick. Well, we
negotiate back and forth, it’s an iterative process, and my concern is that
we have a mix of plays and we budget accordingly.
The ‘iterative’ process described above reveals an involvement by the board in programming choices by the artistic director. The “mix of plays” refers to a balance between plays that will sell and plays that will satisfy the artistic staff. Though the artistic director has the final say, the board committee members, by virtue of their participation in the selection discussion process, can be said to have a voice in programming and thus a direct influence over the economic outcome of the artistic season. The impact of board responsibility will be discussed at length in later chapters, but the initial understanding of the interaction between board members and organizational administration, as observed in the quotes above, reveals that the board of directors plays an integral role in the operation of a performing arts organization, is liable for the success or failure of the organization, and thus is not as hands-off as it is thought to be.
The constitution of the members of the Board of Directors also plays a role in the
110 approach of the board to the operation of the organization. The cohort of the board is individual to each organization and tends to reflect the priority of the board President vis-
à-vis financial stability. To this end, some boards are comprised exclusively of business people and community leaders, while other boards include artists. The balance between financial sustainability and artistic output is greatly influenced by the perspective taken by the board towards the work of the organization. The kinds of risks taken by an organization – financial and/or artistic – will thus be mediated by board priorities.
TC – The art [in the organization] is Dennis Garnhum, he’s the Artistic Director.
The artists perform, we exist for the artists. That’s why I’m here, that’s
why the Board [is here], that’s why we raise money. It’s all for the artists.
Artists on the Board can do us no good because they can’t raise money.
They don’t know how to run a business. Their job is to perform on stage
and do a good job of that. Our job is to make sure they’ve got the
resources to do it. So if that’s the job of the board, I don’t want artists on
the Board. I want people that can raise money, do things for me.
ATP - As a board member I think it’s important that on any arts board you have
an artist, and I don’t even care if it’s a writer or musician or you just have
an artist who has some sensibility to the craft. Because sometimes people
will hear something and they just won’t quite understand it, or you can
explain how the artists are thinking. You know whereas when I sit on the
board the oil guys have to explain to me the finances, I can explain to
them why this [artistic] risk is valuable and this one might not be. I think
most of the people, actually I think I could say all of the people, on ATP’s
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board are interested in the arts. They aren’t on the board because it makes
them look good. They’re not on the board to pad their resume. Do you
know what I mean?
The comment that some board members in arts organizations are simply there to “pad their resume” reflects an erstwhile problem and a hindrance to the effective operation of non-profit boards of directors. From personal experience as a board member I know that some professional associations, law in particular, mandate that their members spend a certain amount of time sitting as volunteer board members for non-profit organizations.
These people often arrive on the board of a performing arts organization with no knowledge of the arts or of how arts organizations operate. Nonetheless they frequently proceed to assert fundraising or other operational ideas (ticket prices, for example) which are impractical or unfeasible in the milieu of operation. Their economic focus can detract from the artistic mandate of the organization. When this occurs the efficiency of the board is diminished and the relationship between the board members and the administration of the organization can be placed in jeopardy.
American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Representative - There’s a lot of
people that sit on those boards for prestige, for future whatever, I mean at
one point there were a whole bunch of oil guys that sat on the CPO board,
and probably still are, and you tend to wonder where the relationship is.
In fact they had a CEO that came from the oil business, and in my
experience they’re two different industries. Ultimately you want it to be
businesslike and run like a business, but you can’t necessarily run it like
an oil business.
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The challenge of limited competency, or limited artistic knowledge, on the part of board
members is also addressed by Calgary Opera’s artistic director.
Calgary Opera - Sometimes I think that the non-profit board structure is wacko
[…] sometimes I wonder if it should be the profit-board structure. If
you’re on the board of Imperial Oil, you get paid to sit on that board. Our
board members are volunteers, and God bless them I’ve got great ones,
and they can often come to the rescue when there’s a really tough time.
There’s other times when they come into your board room and you think,
what happened? Did you leave your brain at the office? You know because
it’s a non-profit and because it’s an art form, the logic that they use within
their corporate situation doesn’t always walk in our door. And somehow,
would paid boards deem more of a competency and a responsibility on the
part of their activities? I don’t know, maybe. One of the purest things
about the non-profit status is that our boards don’t get paid, they’re
volunteers; but sometimes I wonder if that’s the right way to go.
The relationship between a Board of Directors and the artistic administration is very important to the overall health of an arts organization. In part because the board must balance the economic sustainability of an organization with the organization’s artistic mandate and vision (represented by the artistic administration), the relationship
between board and administration is not always amicable. Some Artistic Directors refuse
to abandon the art for art’s sake approach, while others are adept at merging art and
finance; some boards refuse to be flexible on the economic front, while others will weigh
artistic and economic risks separately. Nonetheless, the relationship between board and
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administration can be jeopardized if either side takes a hard-line stance on either art or economics. A board member from ATP explains:
ATP - Well what happens [is that] the artistic director comes to us and he says
“okay this is the season”, he gives us a long thing of the season, he talks
to us about the season, he explains about the play and whatever. If
something were to ring strange or if it would be over-budget or whatever
someone might say something, but a board’s job is never to say you can or
cannot do this. The board’s job is to say okay we want you to have sixty
percent of the house full all the time. So then if the play doesn’t get sixty
percent of the house then you have a discussion. Then the next time the
discussion will be “now will this get sixty percent or will this get forty
percent” and you know for sure that it won’t get eighty percent.
The liability and responsibility of board members for the success of the
organization is felt not only in the interaction with the members of the organization, but
also in the interaction that the board has with external funding bodies, especially during a
period of restructuring or instability. The interaction and pressure put onto a board of
directors by external funding bodies is revealed in the anecdote of ATP’s search for a
new artistic director during its period of financial difficulty. The search was, surprisingly,
subject to the input of the AFA and the APASF though it was up to the board’s final
discretion as to who ultimately filled the position.
ATP - Oh yes I was there when ATP almost died. [We were] in the middle of that
stabilization grant at that time and they said you have to stop this search
process and you have to hire someone right now or you have to just die. I
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was very annoyed at them because they were business people and didn’t
understand the artistic world. Their whole thing was that we should fold
and join TC [Theatre Calgary]. ATP and TC should become one. That’s
what a lot of these people had in mind. So then we hired Bob White and
they were not impressed with that either because they thought Bob White
was just a Michael Dobbin [the outgoing artistic director]. [With Michael]
it was his way or the highway and it was art for art’s sake. He did a lot of
really, really good things but those were the problems. So they felt
because Michael had brought in Bob from Toronto to form Playrites and
because he had worked for Michael for so long he was a Michael. But he
wasn’t, there [are] no two men that are more different.
The interaction between ATP’s board of directors and Alberta’s funding bodies (AFA
and APASF) at the time reveals that though it is the board’s responsibility to hire the administrative staff, the decision is not outside the reach of external governance bodies.
Nor, apparently, are the salaries of the performers as the example from the CPO shows.
AFM - Well it also came down to some of the funding agencies too which was
interesting because they started to dictate about how they were going to
fund the orchestra since it was in trouble. Hence the musicians took a
twenty percent cut which was what the funding agencies wanted to see
happen. You’re dealing with a lot of bureaucracy and those people aren’t
necessarily looking at the art, they’re looking at how much money they
can give away without being on the hook for their decisions, those sorts of
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things. So the funding agencies required the CPO to have X amount of
dough in the bank at the end of a certain period.
The examples above show that in a time of organizational crisis, funding agencies encourage boards of directors to act in certain desirable ways. However, such interference in organizational operations by funding bodies does not only occur during bankruptcy protection situations. The research will show that government funding agencies routinely impose their priorities onto the operation of performing arts organizations, most notably in the imposition of sustainable business practices as a requirement for sponsorship, and that it is this imposition which most directly impacts the balance between economic and artistic operations in an organization.
The importance of the board of directors to the successful operation of a non- profit performing arts organization is found in its various roles as advocate for the organization, as artistic collaborator, as financial watchdog, and as volunteer overseer.
Board members must cope with pressure from external funders, assume personal liability and responsibility for the organization, maintain a balanced relationship between the economic and artistic operations of the organization, and support the artistic and administrative staff. The interaction between board members and administrative
(particularly artistic) staff can foster successful or acrimonious relationships as both sides struggle to balance art with economics.
The Administration
The administration of arts organizations varies slightly according to art form
(music, theatre, dance) and organization. Generally speaking, however, administrative roles fall under the following categories: Executive Management, Artistic Operations
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(Production), Development, Marketing & Sales, and Finance & Administration. The face
of the administration is the CEO while the face of the organization as a whole is the
Artistic Director; the relationship between the two, as between the Board and the
Administration, is crucial to the successful operation of the organization. The interaction
between CEO and Artistic Director is similar to that between the board of directors and the administration as a whole, wherein both struggle to find a balance between the artistic
product of the organization and the economic requirements mandated by government
funding bodies. The Theatre Calgary (TC) President and CEO describes the nature of his relationship with Artistic Director Dennis Garnhum.
TC - Dennis came to me and said he’d like to do the Cripple of Innishman. We
talked about it and I read the play and he read the play and I said what do
you think about the language? And he said maybe we should take some
out. We talked about it at the end of the day and said don’t take any out,
don’t bastardize the play. Do it the way it is and we did and it worked fine.
So I’m a sounding board for him too and we talk about stuff and we set
budgets and we expect him to live within the budgets, if he goes over, he
goes over.
Both the CEO and artistic director are actively involved with the board members and thus
it is not surprising that the relationship mirrors the interaction between the board and
administration generally. Both the CEO and the artistic director are responsible to the
board for decisions made vis-à-vis programming and staffing which stand to impact the
sustainability of the organization. The CEO and artistic director have direct involvement
with the grant applications, corporate sponsorship demands, audiences, and performers.
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Thus their task in balancing both the artistic and financial direction of the organization is particularly challenging and requires close collaboration. On occasion, the job is held by a single person, as is the case with Calgary Opera.
Calgary Opera - I’m lucky because I’m a single head with two eyes - one on the
artistic and one on the business. But as this shift to the accountability on
the business side and the board side increased, it was a frustration in
operations where there were two heads – the general manger and artistic
director - because it was a difficult balance for the two players. Not so
hard for me because I argue with myself. It’s a nice life, a benevolent
dictator I call it.
With the increasing demands for sustainability, as shall be seen in the grant application analysis in subsequent chapters, the work-load involved for a single person occupying both the CEO and Artistic Director positions is overwhelming. Thus the separation of duties has become commonplace and only Calgary Opera continues with a single person performing both jobs. ATP implemented the division of duties after their successful financial restructuring in the mid-1990’s.
ATP - We didn’t [have two leaders] before, but Bob [Artistic Director Bob White]
chose that instead of having one head of a company, he’d like a dual head.
So now we [have one] person who takes care of the business and the
finance end, Bob takes care of the logistics side and they are both
answerable to the board. That’s the important thing. They’re both
answerable to the board. Bob decided he would prefer to have a dual
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thing because he just couldn’t do it all and he was willing to give up some
of his own pay cheque in order to achieve that.
Programming
As seen, the balance between the artistic and the financial sides of an arts organization influence the interactions between the organization’s leadership team, and between that team and the board of directors. For all involved, the planning of programming and the marketing of the season are among the most important interactions in the organization because it is through these elements, and the quality of performance, that the organization will sell tickets and subscriptions, fulfill grant requirements, find sponsors, and ultimately survive. As seen above, programming involves discussions with and between board members, board committees, artists, the CEO, and the artistic director, and on occasion community members - programming a season is an interactive process.
CPO - Programming is an art. During the first 3 years I was here I was head of
the programming. There’s a programming committee which is made up of
some musicians, a board member, a couple of community members, a
marketing director, myself, the staff conductor, and what-have-you. And
we would sit down and talk about ideas – what we might program, what
we haven’t played in years and years. What was very interesting, and I
found this with every orchestra that I ever worked with, is that the people
who are involved in the programming are always very conscious of the
balance between maybe what they would like to do and what they think
will work. So I think that people are, you know, here particularly because
they had experienced the financial hardship a few years back, the
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suspension and what-have-you, I think they were particularly concerned
about that.
The importance of good programming cannot be overstated. Successful programming can bring audiences into the house where they will become subscribers and then donors, and bad programming can bring an organization to its knees.
ATP - In the late ‘90’s we went to repertoire9 - everything was done in rep. So
that was 1998 and the idea was there’d be three rep cycles. There’d be a
fall rep of three shows, then the Playwright Festival rep which we had
been doing since ‘87, and then another rep cycle in the spring of three
shows. So basically, over the period of mid-September to Christmas you
could see three shows on alternating days… a total disaster. Yeah, I mean,
the audience was so pissed off, it wasn’t necessarily the plays. But they
couldn’t figure out when they were coming and all of that sort of stuff. So
we had a huge revolt really and the subscriptions plummeted down to
1800. By the second year, the spring of 1999 we were approaching a-
half-a-million dollars in debt. By the fall, we were three-quarters of a
million in debt. And so my predecessor quit and I became artistic director
in November of ‘99. At the press conference I announced that we were
doing a million dollar fund-raising campaign, throwing out the
programming and all.
9 A company who performs in “repertoire” will mount several productions simultaneously with performances occurring on alternating days.
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While programming may be geared toward attracting audiences, it also plays a
significant role in attaining funds from granting bodies. The Canada Council mandates
that Canadian materials must be commissioned and performed in order to receive funds.
Therefore attention must be paid to the inclusion of Canadian content in a season. The
AFA funds based on a formula, to be discussed at length in subsequent chapters, that is
calculated according to the amount of revenue that the organization generates from
community involvement (both ticket sales and donations). Thus attention must be paid to
programming works that will have a broad appeal. Because the two, Canadian content
and broad appeal, are not always mutually exclusive the marketing department must work
closely with the artistic administration to make sure that the season as a whole will sell well and that subscriptions will balance the reduction in single ticket sales resulting from performances featuring less popular works. The marketing director at Theatre Calgary explains the interaction:
TC - So he [the artistic director] finds ways to do things big and then I say, “Now
we can market it this way.” And so he and I put our heads together on a
lot of angles in terms of, okay what’s going to be the wow factor because
he knows how to make everything a wow no matter what.
Because of the conflict between the demands of granting bodies, arts organizations frequently rely on one major show or series to sustain weaker shows in a season. At
Alberta Ballet, for example, The Nutcracker fills this role, for Theatre Calgary it’s A
Christmas Carol, Alberta Theatre Projects will stage something with family appeal such
as The Adventures of Robin Hood, or next season’s planned Toad of Toad Hall.
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TC - So Christmas Carol will sell 600 000 dollars worth of casual tickets. Ah,
Retreat From Moscow will sell 30 and I know that ahead of time. So you
can make a balance.
The purpose of programming popular works is both to ensure ticket sales and also to draw new audiences into the world of the performing arts. Theatre Calgary’s artistic director, Denis Garnhum, explains how the inclusion of a popular work will generate interest in the company and how the sale of tickets for that particular show, available only as part of subscription package, serves to bolster the overall ticket sales for the season.
TC - Elitism is particularly strong, and you think well I haven’t been to Theatre
Calgary so I don’t think I can go now. I’m 30 and I have never been so
they won’t let me in the doors. I won’t understand it. So one of the things,
quite blatantly, that we’re doing next year to see how can we attract new
people to the theatre is we’re programming Beauty and the Beast –
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. It’s a conscious effort, not at being
popular so much as bringing in people who don’t typically come to
Theatre Calgary. So hopefully they will subscribe to the whole season
right now because they will understand that if they really want to see it,
they’d better buy their 6 tickets now, and thereby they will come to other
shows cause they already have tickets.
Programming is not merely a question of appealing to granting agencies or to funding bodies by fulfilling their different requirements, however. Nor is it just to appeal to both new and returning audiences. Programming plays an important role in satisfying the needs of the artistic personnel that comprise the raison d’être of the organization. The
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balance between the artistic and economic sides of the organization here too becomes
important. A musician member of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) explains:
CPO - If all you looked at is the business model, how are you gonna make money,
well then all you’d ever play is Pops concerts. But if you did that, then you
wouldn’t have an orchestra because those players aren’t gonna stay. It
wouldn’t be meaningful to them. It’s not meaningful to the players but it is
to the audience. So then there’s this balancing act of how are you gonna
make all this work? And so it becomes a juggling act where the more
money pressure you’re under the more those kinds of concerts you’ll end
up doing.
The brief overview here reveals that programming is essential for the financial
and artistic success of an organization. It has been briefly mentioned that programming
plays an integral role in the generation of corporate sponsorships, which are responsible
for one-third of an organization’s income. Corporate sponsorship will be discussed later
in the chapter, but as an aside here it will be useful to note that sponsors often make
specific programming demands and organizations must align with the corporate image
and community focus of sponsoring companies in order to secure funding. Needless to
say, this further complicates the programming challenge.
Finance and Accounting
Ultimately, the quantity of artistic versus popular works that any organization performs will be dictated by the bottom line. The financial department of a non-profit arts organization therefore is an integral part of the operation of a performing arts organization. However, unlike a business, the financial person in performing arts
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organizations are not as responsible for the decisions of the organization as it may be
thought. The major decisions occur between the CEO, artistic director, and the board of
directors. The financial director of an arts organization is responsible for maintaining the
financial statements, filing the tax return, and preparing for the audit. Nonetheless, the
financial director is as much influenced by the balance between artistic and economic
elements of the organization as are the other administrative personnel. Thus, even though the financial director is primarily focused on the economic priorities of the organization, he or she nonetheless tries to achieve a balance. The financial director of the CPO
explains:
CPO - Now for example, we just had a board meeting last night, not a finance,
not a committee meeting, and there’s suggestions maybe from some of the
[board] members that we have development events like ‘Cork and Canvas’
and other events as well. And they think well how much money did we
make on this event? And is it greater than this, okay, if it’s less than this
shut it down. Well that’s not the right approach to take every time because
we don’t necessarily have those events to make money. We also have those
events to promote our image of the CPO. So you get a lot of influential
people in Calgary at those events and the auction as well. Did it make a
lot of money? No. Did it make some? Yeah, it made some money but was it
tremendously profitable, no. That’s not why we did it. We did it to promote
our image. That’s really good, so then the next challenge, let’s convert
those people that went to that event from the CPO to season ticket holders
– to come in and buy tickets. That’s Marketing’s challenge now. So having
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these events gets new people interested in the CPO. That’s what I see and
I’m strictly a financial person with no arts and culture background but I
can easily see that, let’s not shut down events because they don’t make
money. Let’s see the other value of these events that they have that will
bring in money indirectly, through sponsorship. And probably, you know
most of the people on the finance audit committee make the financial
decision and you can’t always do that with arts and culture, it’s not about
finance always. It’s about maintaining or sustaining arts and culture.
While the financial department, in collaboration with the CEO, artistic director, and board members, works to ensure that both the artistic and economic obligations of the organization are met, it is interesting to note that many financial people in large performing arts organizations come from corporate backgrounds. Although the balance between art and economics is difficult, the actual record keeping for an arts organization is a relatively simple and low-stress occupation.
CPO - I worked with KPMG. I was the controller of the world headquarters in
Europe and it was a much larger organization than this you know, like 6.1
billion dollars in your books and 75 thousand employees and this is only
like 65 musicians and 20 in the office and the part-time musicians so it’s
not even a thousand. [At KPMG there were] 75 thousand and the books
were in 7 different currencies and 14 thousand accounts and this is just
Canadian dollars.
I’ve done audits for 25 years it’s just routine for me now. I don’t
get excited on a year-end audit. A lot of people don’t like the auditors
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because the auditors come in and this and that everything. But if you do
your job well you have nothing to worry about. It’s just another week.
Artistic Departments
As seen, the administration of an arts organization operates to ensure that an organization is financially sustainable and artistically viable through a series of interactions and collaborations within departments, and with the board of directors.
Another layer of interaction which influences the successful operation of an arts organization is the creative, artistic personnel. These artists comprise performers, set and light designers, costume design, choreographers, stage managers, etc. Different performing arts organizations hire their creative teams in different ways. For example, a theatre company hires its artistic personnel on a contract basis, with different actors and designers working on each production. The Philharmonic and Ballet, on the other hand, retain a core of performers who are salaried. Therefore, a theatre company can manipulate its budget by programming shows that require fewer performers, while the symphony and ballet must pay their performers regardless of the size of ensemble required for a given performance. The symphony also employs a cadre of extra players who are professional performers that can be called in to supplement the core musicians, to fill in during injury or illness, or to play rarely used instruments (the accordion for example). Extra performers are paid a per service fee.
The creative personnel of an arts organization, though separated from the financial concerns of the organization generally, nonetheless must operate in a collaborative interaction with the administration of the organization. The artistic director of Calgary Opera explains:
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Calgary Opera - Designers come up with a concept and design and then your
production team goes away and costs it and they come back and say well
the budget was 200 thousand for this and what you’ve designed is gonna
run us around 230 thousand. I’ve seen designers say, “Well that’s the
concept, I must have it otherwise don’t do my concept you know I’ll
walk.” Whereas, in the case of one young designer, a similar thing
happened but he immediately stated, “Okay well if we try cutting this and
if we add this in, if you build it this way can we make it the going cost,”
and it worked out. But there was a time when, “I’m creating and that’s all
there is to it.” Those days are gone. I hope they’re gone. I don’t want to
work with those people and you know money doesn’t buy creativity,
especially in design. Some of the most creative sets and looks for
production can be minimal in cost but they’re so slick, and so hot, and so
cool, and so creative, money doesn’t buy good art always. It helps, it
helps, but it doesn’t really determine the outcome.
The idea that money is not necessarily required to achieve creativity is one that reflects artists’ general ability to do a lot with very little. However, it also reveals that the creative personnel in arts organizations are as dedicated to maintaining a stable and sustainable economic balance in the organization as are the administration and board members. That the economic prioritization is reflected even in the actions of performers, who are removed from the day to day financial operation, reveals that both the economic struggles of the major organizations and the demands of funding agencies has impacted artists. The research in subsequent chapters will discuss how the economic prioritization of
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government has influenced how creative personnel in an organization think economically
about the production of their artistic work.
The interaction that the administration of an arts organization has with its artists is
not only directed by the artistic satisfaction that the season programming provides for the
creative personnel. Artists in Canada, thanks to the Status of the Artist Act (Government
of Canada, 1992), are members of artistic unions and thus the work they do must be
properly remunerated. While not all creative personnel are unionized, most musicians and actors belong to the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and/or Actors Equity
Association, and, for dancers, the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). The interaction between arts organizations and artist unions is one wherein the union represents the artists’ best interests financially. In the union mindset, sustainability of an organization is the job of the organization’s administration and must be attained regardless of the artist fees. Only in an exceptional circumstance, like the CPO bankruptcy protection where the players took a 20% pay cut, will artist fees be reduced for the good of the organization. The Calgary Musician’s Association (AFM Local 547) players representative explains:
AFM - Well ultimately we are the bargaining agent on behalf of the musicians,
but we also have certain rules where we have to have input from those
musicians we just don’t unilaterally go in and bargain right? So you want
to have the ear of the musicians that you’re representing and ultimately I
mean it’s a negotiation, you do whatever you can for whatever’s there. I
think when you’re in negotiations the responsibility of each side is to
remind the other side of that middle ground. What we’re trying to do is to
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find that compromise and walk away from the table and everybody go,
“Hey you know we did okay, we got what we needed,” and people are
happy. ‘Cause you never want to walk away from the table where one side
feels like they got beat up.
Different unions, of course, have different regulations and where the AFM negotiates
general agreements in the case of salaried musicians, the Actor’s Equity Association
works on a contract and permission basis with theatre companies. Thus, a minimum base
weekly pay is suggested for rehearsals and performances but where a company is amateur or semi-professional there may be permissions granted for professional equity actors to participate for an honorarium.
Sponsorship and Development
Marketing, finances, programming, the board, the artists, and artistic direction are all, as seen above, integrated in certain ways and all working towards the same art/economics equilibrium. The department of Development in arts organizations is responsible for the integration of sponsors and donors into the financial fabric of the organization. Sponsorship is directly responsible for approximately one-third of an organization’s annual budget. Sponsorship is also indirectly responsible for an organization’s successful government funding applications because these applications rely on community derived revenue numbers to prove sustainability and/or relevance to the community (the AFA and Canada Council respectively). The CPO director of
Development explains:
CPO - The way that I see Development’s role is that we’re here to renew and
revive and energize and rejuvenate, but all to create the sense of
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belonging because once somebody feels comfortable, they’re gonna bring
their friends. Movement Management is something I try to instil. If you
give them [new audience members] a bad experience, they’re not gonna
come back. But if they have a good experience, they might come back and
then you’re gonna engage them in single tickets, you’re gonna get them to
be a subscriber, you’re gonna get them belonging to an Amadeus
program. You’re gonna get them to donate because you’re gonna tell
great stories and they’re gonna tell 10 friends; and then you’re gonna get
them on a committee and then what? They’re gonna open up their
corporate doors for you wherever they work. If they work at HSBC, and I
haven’t been able to get in there, guess what, I now have a new friend.
Individual sponsorship of arts organizations occurs not only through engagement with single ticket buyers at performances. The development team works to ensure that single ticket buyers become subscribers, and that subscribers become donors, by selling both the performance and also the overall experience. A second development challenge is to try and bring new audience members to the theatre or concert hall. Often, this task is accomplished by providing patrons with elite and with non-threatening events that are entirely separate from the performance venue and/or event.
Calgary Opera - One of our big mandates is to engage with audiences outside the
concert hall. So we do brunches and we do a series called Taste of the
Opera and then a symposium around the new work, dinner, gala all those
kinds of things where we’re trying to create more social activities for
people who are curious about us, and it’s not just always about the opera.
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So for Dead Man Walking we did a community symposium and we did
stuff about ethics and the law and capital punishment and that kind of
thing. And then last year for Frobisher, we did a community symposium
with the Arctic Institute of North America. We talked about climate change
and that kind of thing, and this year for Baby Doe we’ll do a community
symposium about boom and bust because that’s what the Opera’s about. It
kind of resonates in Calgary. So we’re trying to find more and more ways
to get involved with people outside the Jubilee Auditorium. That’s what
the school tours are about too, just to try and get the opera genre out there
and get people excited about it. To build a real opera community as
opposed to just some audience members. And I think almost all the
companies are doing that kind of, ATP does their Pizza with Bob, and the
CPO does their art auctions and things like that. We’re all doing the same
thing but I think it’s another way to say this might be of interest to you if
you don’t know about it and you don’t have to come and sit through a
whole opera the first time. Come and try something little and then maybe
you’ll be ready later.
Development activities also fulfil grant application requirements for community involvement, initiative, outreach, and education. Thus they serve multiple purposes - generating audiences, providing opportunities for sponsorship, and fulfilling grant application requirements. Such events also help organizations to realize their non-profit community mandate, which is a legislated requirement of non-profit organization and also a condition of Canada Council grant approval.
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Corporate Sponsorship
Individual sponsorship, though important, is only one part of the overall
sponsorship mechanism. As mentioned earlier, arts organizations’ interaction with
corporate sponsors has an impact not only financially, but artistically as well.
Corporations today generally sponsor organizations for the purpose of promoting the
community involvement of the corporation. Sponsorship dollars are seen as marketing
dollars and therefore arts organizations seeking donations are required to provide
opportunities for sponsorship, including artistic programming choices, which align with a
corporation’s community mandate.
CPO - We’re getting their marketing dollars, so they’re using us to ground
themselves for the most part. They want their name out there. They want
to be seen as doing this good. They want to use it to bring clients to
entertain, to send staff and volunteers, for retention and recognition. So
[sponsorship] is a business decision for the most part.
Challenged with requests for funding everything from Breast Cancer to Boy Scouts
corporations have had to specify the direction of their sponsorship dollars. Therefore
corporations will align themselves with a specific mandate such as education, health care,
and even animal rescue. What occurs when corporations limit the scope of their philanthropy to a specific community need is that corporate funding opportunities for arts
organizations are also limited. What arts organizations do to surmount this obstacle is to
present corporations with sponsorship opportunities aligned to the community mandate of
the corporation. For example, the CPO might perform at the Alberta Children’s Hospital
in return for sponsorship from a corporation whose mandate is children’s health. The
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corporation pays for that single performance and can then be approached to increase their funding of the orchestra to include not only future hospital performances but also sponsorship of a series in the CPO’s main performing season.
CPO - You go in and you learn as much as you can about the company, the key
people in the decision levels, [the] CEO. You look at the web site, and then
you go in and say, “what else are they supporting through the community
investment.” So then maybe they’re supporting something to do with kids
and health, or kids and literacy. Could be anything and so you say, “okay.
How can we link our message to that?”
TC - Each of the sponsors […] also has their direction that they want to go in.
There are certain areas that they deal with and we try to tailor something
that will fit in with their interest specifically.
Seeing that corporate sponsorship is a business decision, arts organizations must
remember that the corporate donor is not giving out of sheer good will. Rather, they are
consciously investing their marketing dollars in community exposure. Programming
choices that are aligned to a corporation’s mandate thus stand to have significant impact
because of the dollars which can be generated. There is the risk, however, that programs
such as these which often occur outside the formal theatre or concert hall venue can be
unsatisfying for the artistic personnel of the organization and logistically challenging for the administration. Nonetheless, the financial good of corporate sponsorship outweighs the artistic downside and thus many such events are programmed for every organization in each season.
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Discussion
The interlaced operation of an arts organization has been outlined as one wherein a volunteer board of directors interacts with upper level management (the CEO and
Artistic Director) to determine the direction, both financial and artistic, of the organization. The Board, CEO and Artistic Director generally work to ensure that the organization is meeting its financial targets and is sustainable. The Artistic Director works to ensure that the organization is artistically engaging for both audiences and performers, that it meets its artistic mandate, and that the performances are both high quality and economically successful. The CEO and Artistic Director oversee the administrative and artistic staff. The administrative staff handles marketing, development, education, financial reporting, and all other tasks of running the organization while the artistic staff is engaged to design, rehearse, and execute the performances. The interaction between the board, administration, and artists is so enmeshed that should any one part of an organization fail, the whole organization is put at risk.
The exposition presented in this chapter shows that the major challenge for arts organizations is that of achieving a balance between economic sustainability and the artistic mandate. Every element of the organization is impacted by this balance and, as suggested by the interview data presented, much of the origin of economic pressure appears to be situated at the site of government funding. Where the current state of operations for arts organizations includes board influence in programming, the programming of popular works to ensure ticket sales, and alignment with corporate community mandates in exchange for sponsorship, the history of both the federal and provincial prioritization of sustainability in the arts will reveal how the situation has
134 arrived at this point. As the research will show, the demands and expectations of government serve to direct the actions of all the participants in an arts organization.
Though the organization itself may have a purpose and direction, the decisions of government, imposed through the grant applications of different funding bodies, increase the challenge of operating.
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CHAPTER FIVE: CANADA - FROM MASSEY TO THE CANADA COUNCIL
“God help the Minister who meddles with art” –Lord Melbourne (1797-1848)
Having presented a brief overview of the operation of performing arts
organizations the research gaze turns outward for the purpose of situating such organizations within the larger scope of the arts in Canada. Specifically, the interaction
that arts organizations have with government bodies extends from the history of art and
culture in the nation generally, and from the cultural evolution of the provinces
specifically. Therefore an understanding of the history of high culture in Canada, the
creation of the national arts funding body, the Canada Council for the Arts, and an
overview of federal government cultural prioritizations will form the body of this chapter.
Note that the Canada Council for the Arts is often referred to as the Canada Council, or
the Council, interchangeably.
The Massey Commission and High Culture in Canada
From Colony to Nation
For most people, speaking of the traditional performing arts (symphony, ballet,
opera, and theatre) conjures up thoughts of class distinction and elitism. The perception is
not incorrect. In North America, the performing arts were structured as a vehicle for the
acquisition of social and economic status. The quest for elite status contributed to the
institutionalization and consecration of what has come to be called high culture. In the performing arts, the institutionalization of cultural entities was a conscious effort on the part of social elites seeking to differentiate themselves from the lower classes (DiMaggio,
2000). While DiMaggio’s work provides an understanding of the rise of high culture in
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North America generally, his works are based on the situation in the United States. The evolution of institutionalized high art in Canada took a slightly different path.
In Canada the evolution of high culture was a progression from private arts groups intended for pleasure to a more formal system of public institutions which rose as a reaction to rapid technological change, industrialization of production, demographic upheavals, and the emergence of mass communications that occurred in the early 1900’s
(Tippett, 1990; Edwardson, 2008; Bissell, 1986; Finlay, 2004; and Milz, 2007).
The turn of the [20th] century had brought with it radical alternations to everyday life, from the discovery of x-rays and electrons to the invention of automobiles and air travel to the building of industrial factories and skyscrapers, a so- called modernity shaking the foundation upon which the colony-to-nation process rested. In some areas the changes were merely baffling; in others they threatened to plummet the population into a melting pot of soulless consumerism and debauchery (Edwardson, 2008, 28).
The changes occurring in the nation were not merely problems of consumerism and mass media; the real concern was the moral effects that such changes were seen as having on the values of Canadians. The Canadian elite (at this time European immigrants, particularly the British) saw the increasing commercialization and commoditization of culture as an erosion of the spiritual and moral values that were essential to nation building. Thus they undertook the nationalization of the country with two main (cultural) purposes – first, to develop a national cultural identity; and second, to ensure that the national culture espoused the morals and values deemed desirable by the Canadian social and political elite.
The colony-to-nation transition facilitated the emergence of an up-and-coming ‘intelligentsia’ of educated elites who possessed economic, political, and cultural capital. These figures were capable […] of forming a tentative hegemonic
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class by combining the popular and democratic aspirations and struggles of people, including the desire for nationhood, with its own class interests so as to achieve national leadership (Edwardson, 2008, p. 9).
Milz (2007) explains that the new Canadian elite held a liberal humanist agenda and saw
high culture as a form of enlightenment and education that not only served to improve the
mind, spirit, and morals of society, but also marked the existence of a civilized society.
The Canadian nation-building intelligentsia were keen on canonizing and
institutionalizing Canadian arts and artists as quickly as possible so that a distinctly national art might be defined. To this end institutions were created for the purpose of both professional and amateur arts education. However, the art world was itself not so easily persuaded, and criticism of cultural nationalization “decried the usurping of art for nation’s sake” (Edwardson, 2008, p. 34).
Art, generally speaking, can be encouraged by organization and the result of that encouragement will in the process of time become, naturally, the “national art.” But to presume there is such a thing as “the national art” which the Canadian writer can achieve by “trying”, or by using Canadian “settings”, is to betray ignorance of the real nature of art. (Canadian Forum, March 1922, as cited in Edwardson, 2008, p. 34).
Though nationalization and institutionalization of Canadian art at this time was creating such organizations as the National Gallery of Canada (est. 1880, inc. 1913), the federal government wanted little to do with the arts. Involvement in cultural affairs was a minefield of controversy (including censorship and artistic dictatorship) and the government saw more problems than opportunities in arts governance. For this reason governors general and Provincial lieutenants-governor played supportive roles in arts festivals only, since such events were seen as being ‘safe’ activities wherein some state
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participation was expected (Tippett, 1990). Thus various national arts events such as the
Diamond Jubilee of Confederation (1927), and the Dominion Drama Festival (1932) were
both well attended and well promoted. Notably, events that were supported by vice-regal patronage were distinctly British in character, reflecting the fact that all Governors
General and Lieutenants Governor were themselves British until the appointment of
Massey in 1952. “Almost any organization which patterned itself after a British model could expect vice-regal support” (Tippett, 1990, p. 68). Edwardson (2008) points out that at this time American philanthropists such as the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations did more to fund the arts in Canada than did the federal government10. Notably, the
government was willing to associate with the funding of media organizations rather than
with traditional arts organizations. Government-sponsored film production led to the
establishment of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (1932), which would
later become the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1936), and the National Film
Board (1939). Tippett (1990) explains that these organizations created opportunities for
Canadian writers and actors, recorded live performances of the Canadian National
Railway’s resident hotel orchestras, and provided an outlet for lectures on the subject of
painting and sculpture (p. 80). Only in one area did the government show any inclination
toward arts support; the area of visual arts (painting and sculpture specifically) saw some
government funding through the goal of building a national collection.
Funding and support in the early decades of the 1900’s were distinctly separate
(unlike today where they are synonymous) and though government did little to fund arts
10 The Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations aided many artists and universities in the name of international intellectual progress. (Edwardson, 2008, p. 36).
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organizations, the participation of Canada’s viceroys was integral to the development of a
cultural life in the country.
At Rideau hall they [viceroys] set an example through the paintings they hung on their walls and the musical and theatrical programs they organized for their own entertainment. Some established festivals of music and drama; others, academies of art. In doing these things governors general were recreating the cultural environment they had left behind [in Britain] and were setting standards of taste and excellence (Tippett, 1990, p. 63).
Thus through their support of festivals, the establishment of the National Gallery11, and
commissions to produce commemorative artistic works (such as Canadian war
memorials), the governors general of Canada began a process of sponsorship which has,
over time, become the system of government patronage that provides support to the arts
today.
The Massey Commission
During the Second World War, several events linked the “cultivation of the arts
with the national concern with war-time unity” (Bissell, 1986, p. 199). First, given
Canada’s increasing profile at an international level, the underdevelopment of her
national culture was beginning to become an embarrassment. Second, a meeting held at
Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in June 1941 was convened for the purpose of
discussing artistic techniques, trends, and the need for arm’s-length state patronage
(Druick, 2006; Edwardson, 2008). The meeting, called the Conference of Canadian
Artists, was funded in part by the Carnegie Corporation who used the opportunity to exert
11 The National Gallery of Canada was established in 1880 as a result of the founding of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts by the Marquis of Lorne. (Tippett, 1990, p. 81). For a full history of the Gallery see Tippett (1990).
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pressure onto conference organizers to include sessions on the need for federal aid for the
arts. The conference concluded with the formation of a new group, the Federation of
Canadian Artists (1941), and the presentation of The Brief Concerning the Cultural
Aspects of Canadian Reconstruction to the House of Commons. Upon receiving a
favourable reception, the federation became a formal body under the name, the Canadian
Council of the Arts (1945) (Edwardson, 2008; Bissell, 1986). Third, the creation of an
international body, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) spurred the Canadian government to extend its international profile by
sending delegates to participate in drawing up a constitution for UNESCO in London,
and to the first meeting of UNESCO in Paris on November 19th, 1945. One of the
delegates sent was Canada’s high commissioner in London, Vincent Massey.
The “social engineering of culture” (Lum, 1999, p.77) in post-war Canada led to a
political ideology of the arts which echoed the emphasis of the early Canadian
intelligentsia on state participation in cultural affairs for the purpose of ensuring the development of Canadian virtues and morals.
Although in general public opinion was moving in this direction as well, laissez-faire principles were still deeply ingrained in Canadian society. Perhaps in the ideal democracy the average citizen would be educated to the need for state action, but the reality of Canadian politics was that public advocacy was required to make new state initiatives politically acceptable (Litt, 1992, p.39).
The organization of Canada’s artistic community, the creation of an international body,
and the call by the nation’s elite for a Canadian commission on culture exerted pressure
on the federal government to act. However, Prime Minister Mackenzie King rejected the
idea of a culture commission, famously decrying that the notion was nothing more than a
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“mad desire to bring about state control and interference beyond all bounds” (Edwardson,
2008, p. 56). The government wanted no part in issues such as culture which offered
inextricable entanglements. King’s successor, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, however,
bowed to the pressures and reluctantly announced the Royal commission on National
Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (henceforth the Massey Commission) during the 1949 speech to the throne.
Often romanticized as a cornerstone of state support for the arts community, the Royal commission on national development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences needs to be understood more as a moment of cultural consolidation, one in which nationalists and social critics justified decades of ad hoc intervention while laying out measures to further imprint a cultured national design (Edwardson, 2008, p. 57).
The Royal commission came to be known as the Massey Commission after
Vincent Massey, who was named chairman of the commission on April 8, 1949. He was tasked with choosing the other members of the commission and chose from his fellow members of the Canadian elite Father Georges-Henri Levesque, Norman A.M. (Larry)
MacKenzie, Hilda Neatby, and Arthur Surveyer. The commission spent two years holding public hearings across Canada, in sixteen cities and in all ten provinces. It heard over 1200 testimonials and received 462 briefs (Finlay, 2004, p. 211). The report was tabled in Parliament on June 1, 1951. The commission’s report included extensive recommendations with regard to Canadian broadcasting, the National Film Board, the
National Gallery, national museums, federal libraries, archives, historic sites, aid to universities, the fine arts, Canadian culture abroad, and the creation of a national funding body for the arts, letters, humanities, and social sciences (Finlay, 2004, pp. 211-212).
While each of these recommendations is of import, the one which holds relevance for the
142 research herein is the creation of the Canada Council for the Arts. With the creation of the Council, an arm’s length federal arts funding body, the arts in Canadian society shifted from publicly supported and privately funded leisure activities to a system of institutionalized professional organizations. Not only were the arts now considered a professionalized part of the cultural sector, but the government involvement in funding the arts allowed for bureaucratic judgements on what was, and what was not, culture.
“Making an occupation out of the arts meant sacrificing some of culture’s autonomy – or, in a more sympathetic view, emphasizing the national components of cultural activity – in order to secure state monies” (Edwardson, 2008, p. 75).
Edwardson’s points speak most directly to the Canada Council’s Canadian content regulations (which will be discussed at length in subsequent chapters), but as a general comment on the nature of government funding they also point to the challenges faced by arts organizations as they “sacrifice autonomy” by meeting the government’s demands in exchange for “state monies.” Thus, the transformation of the arts in Canadian society from independent to government sponsored served to alter both the cultural identity of the nation and also the structure of arts organizations. “What patrons had done out of their own pocket, it seemed, could now be bankrolled by the government” (Edwardson,
2008, p. 75). This fundamental shift contributed to the reliance of non-profit arts organizations on government funding, a reliance which today is seen as a necessity for organizational survival, a social obligation of government, and a basic right of high culture. Though the Massey report has been lauded as the most important cultural document in Canadian history, its creation of a national arts-funding body has influenced
143 the relationship between arts organizations and government to the extent that, today, arts funding has very little to do with Canadian nationalism and everything to do with money.
The Canada Council for the Arts
Massey’s recommendation that the federal government create a national Council for the Arts did not, however, mean that the government was enthusiastic or particularly supportive of the idea. Massey’s recommendations languished for several years. Indeed, the years between the tabling of the Massey report in 1951 and the election of the
Liberals to power in 1953 reveal a consistent pattern of government evasion (Whittaker,
1965). The Canadian Arts Council during this time continued to exert pressure on the government to establish a national Council but even the change in leadership would see no improvement in the willingness of government to act. Thus it was not until 1957, when a government surplus of one million dollars assured that establishing the Council would not detract funds from military defence, old age pensions, housing subsidies, or any of the other previous excuses, that the way became clear for the establishment of the
Canada Council for the Arts (Whittaker, 1965).
Mandate
The Canada Council for the Arts was created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 with a very broad mandate – “to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts” (Canada Council, 2007, p. 1). Prime Minister St.
Laurent issued the following statement about the relationship of government to the support of culture:
Our wish is that the Canada Council should be a body as free from state control as it is prudent for anybody entrusted with public funds to be. It is not to the government that this council is to look for control and
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direction. […] It is, in effect, to be endowed with freedom to carry on its work in the light of its own wisdom and with the advice of existing organizations whose cooperation it may wish to enlist as, in its turn, it may help them. (House of Commons Debates, 5th Session, 22nd Parliament as cited in Whittaker, 1965).
The mandate for the Canada Council included six objects:
a) Assist, co-operate with and enlist the aid of organizations, the objects of which are similar to any of the objects of the Council;
b) Provide, through appropriate organizations or otherwise, for grants, scholarships or loans to persons in Canada for study or research in the arts in Canada or elsewhere or to persons in other countries for study or research in the arts in Canada;
c) Make awards to persons in Canada for outstanding accomplishment in the arts;
d) Arrange for and sponsor exhibitions, performances and publications of works in the arts;
e) Exchange with other countries or organizations or persons therein knowledge and information respecting the arts; and
f) Arrange for representation and interpretation of Canadian arts in other countries (Canada Council, 1982a, p. 2).
The Canada Council defined the arts as “architecture, the arts of the theatre, literature,
music, painting, sculpture, the graphic arts, and other similar creative and interpretative
activities” with the Council’s concerns including existing and emerging artists, audiences,
arts organizations, and works in the arts (Canada Council, 1982a, p. 2).
The Council’s early years were a difficult period. Debate about how the Council
should carry out its mandate revolved primarily around the discussion on whether the
Council’s priority was “to lift standards of excellence by responding to the best in the
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arts, or distribute its resources more broadly and democratically” (Canada Council, 2007,
p. 1). The tendency in the early years of the Council was to focus on the development of a
professional arts infrastructure in both official languages, principally in urban areas
(Canada Council, 2007). In the 1960’s, the Council began to be more active in its attempts to broaden the scope of the organization, and to reach out to people across the country. “The Canada Council improved access to its programs for new artists, expanded
the disciplines it funded, and launched special initiatives to address underserved regions”
(Canada Council, 2007, p. 1).
In 1957, the Council was also mandated to foster and promote the social sciences
and humanities in Canada. However, in an act of government imposition, it was
determined that support to academic research required its own body and in 1977/1978 the
Canada Council Act was amended, moving responsibility for research support to the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The late-1970’s to the mid-1980’s saw Council’s methods of funding begin to prioritize original Canadian work.
In this time the Council began supporting a new stream of creator-based organizations and encouraged repertoire- based arts organizations to present new Canadian works. It also put a special focus on grants to individual artists.[…] In addition to incentives for new Canadian work, the Council provided support to artist-run centres, alternative theatres, contemporary dance companies, arts magazines, new music groups and small classical music ensembles (Canada Council, 2007, p. 1).
The early 1990’s saw the Canada Council turn its focus to culturally diverse arts groups, specifically the Aboriginal arts communities. “It made an active commitment to
Aboriginal and culturally diverse arts practices and to equity as a corporate goal”
(Canada Council, 2007, p. 1). The Council also expanded its grant program with the
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establishment of multi-year operating grants. The mid-1990’s, however, saw a series of
financial cutbacks wherein the Council reduced its staff by 50% and eliminated or consolidated a number of grant programs (Canada Council, 2007). Recent years have brought the Council increased funds from the federal government and yet another shift in the organization’s primary focus. The goal of the Council is now “to encourage greater stability among arts organizations”; it has therefore “emphasized capacity building and long-term organizational health” (Canada Council, 2007, p. 2). The Canada Council website lists the nine fundamental values of the Council which reflect the current outlook of the organization. Though the original points of the mandate are not eliminated, these fundamental values extend the mandate by incorporating human rights, multiculturalism, diversity, and the Canada’s official language policy into the language of the organization.
The nine fundamental values are:
• maintain an arm’s length relationship from government, which allows the Council to develop policies and programs and make decisions without undue political pressure or influence. • support freedom of artistic expression from control or dominance by external forces such as governments and markets, a value reinforced by the arm’s length relationship. • believe in government investment in the arts as a public good enabling the arts to contribute to peoples’ lives, encouraging arts development across Canada, and freeing art from complete reliance on the marketplace. • seek to develop excellent art in Canada by focusing on professional artistic activity by individuals and organizations, respecting artistic excellence as the primary criterion in providing grants, and relying on peer assessment as the best method for determining comparative merit in a national context. • believe in the value of a national perspective of the arts, to enrich knowledge within the Council and the arts community, foster attitudes inclusive of all art forms and artistic traditions, and provide national and international leadership. • respect Canada’s official languages and recognize the need to support professional artistic activity by both French- and English-speaking Canadians. • respect the regional diversity of Canada and recognize the need to support
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professional artistic activity in all parts of the country. • respect the histories, traditions, languages and contemporary practices of Aboriginal Peoples and seek to foster the development of Aboriginal artists and organizations. • respect artists and arts organizations from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds and traditions and seek to develop the work of these artists and organizations. (Canada Council, 2007, p. 1).
Though the nine fundamental values appear in the Canada Council documentation as the tenets of Council operation, which indeed they are intended to be, the research will show that adherence to these values is less rigid than expected particularly where arm’s length and freedom of art from government and the marketplace are concerned. The following chapter will demonstrate the extent to which market thinking has permeated grant applications, and the degree to which government imposition of economic thinking has eroded the arm’s length designation of the Canada Council.
The Canadian Commission for UNESCO
From the outset in 1957, the Canada Council was given the additional duty of operating an independent division within the Council that holds responsibility for
Canada’s participation in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO). The division was created to uphold the Canadian government’s treaty obligation to UNESCO. The initial participation of the Canadian Commission was to perform advisory, liaison and information roles with respect to Canadian participation in UNESCO’s international activities. The Canada Council run Commission facilitated
UNESCO meetings in Canada and helped “Canadian institutions investigate subjects such as pre-school education, life-long learning, adult literacy, anti-drug campaigns, popularization of science, biosphere reserves, water conservation strategies, world heritage sites, multiculturalism and international understanding” (Canada Council, 1982a,
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p. 3). The Canadian Commission for UNESCO website updates the role played by
Canada in UNESCO today. It reveals that the participation of the Commission now has
both an inward and outward focus. On the one hand it “assists the government in defining the directions this country will follow as it faces the challenges of globalization and a rapidly changing knowledge society”, while on the other ,“Canada’s active membership in UNESCO plays a major role in promoting Canadian values and objectives on the international stage, reinforcing the ideals of justice, equality and human dignity”
(Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 2009, p. 1). The website outlines the
Commission’s specific tasks which include: the coordination and implementation of
UNESCO activities in Canada; encouragement of Canadian participation in UNESCO
activities; advice to Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada; and carrying out
activities in Canada in support of UNESCO’s programs and objectives. (Canadian
Commission for UNESCO, 2009). The Canada Council’s Canadian Commission for
UNESCO is independent of the Council’s art support program and as such has no
ramifications for the research herein. However, as it is one of the major elements of the
Canada Council, I deemed a brief overview worthy of inclusion.
Structure
The Canada Council consists of a Chairman, a Vice-Chairman and nineteen other
members appointed by the Governor in Council12. Members, hailing from all regions of
the country, hold three-year appointments and hold final authority and responsibility for
the Council’s policies, programs, and procedures (Canada Council, 1982a).
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The Council meets four times a year and reports to Parliament through the Minister of
Canadian Heritage. The Council appointed Director (CEO), Assistant Director, and
administrative staff undertake the program and policy implementation of the Canada
Council. Other structural roles in the Canada Council are the divisions of Arts and
Administration respectively. The Canada Council (1982a) explains that the Arts division
“is responsible for assessing and recommending applications for support to individual
artists and arts organizations”. The division consists of nine sections including the
Awards service, Dance, Explorations, Media, Arts, Music, Theatre, Touring Office,
Visual Arts (including the Art Bank), and Writing and Publications” (p. 5). The
Administrative division operates under the direction of the Treasurer and is responsible
for “receiving, processing and recording grant applications and for the conduct of the
administrative business of the Council” (Canada Council, 1982a, p. 5). The
Administrative division comprises seven sections including the Central Registry,
Finance, Information Systems, Office Services, Personnel, Reproduction, and Research &
Evaluation.
Though the Council’s Arts division assesses grant applications it is not the area of
the Council that makes decisions about the general direction of support to the arts
(Canadian content, cultural diversity, sustainability, etc.), the assessment and advisement
of policies, and the monitoring of competition results and the composition of juries.
These tasks fall to the Advisory Arts Panel, an appointed panel of “approximately forty
12 A Governor in Council (GiC) appointment is one made by the Governor General, on the advice of the Queen’s Privy Council of Canada (i.e., the Cabinet) (Government of Canada, http://www.appointments- nominations.gc.ca/)
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members selected from all regions of the country who are generally representative of the
various artistic disciplines supported by the Council” (Canada Council, 1982a, p. 4).
Individual artists and arts professionals, who serve collectively in juries and selection
committees, accomplish the adjudication of competitions and grant applications.
“The Council is not an Agent of Her Majesty” – The arm’s-length principle
Following Massey’s recommendation that such a body should be independent of
government, the Council was designated an arm’s-length institution both organizationally
and financially. Massey’s report clearly expressed the importance of the arm’s-length
principle: “We should consider it a misfortune, if this Canada Council became in any
sense a department of government” (Canada Council, 1981, p. 4). The sentiment was
echoed by Prime Minister St. Laurent who stated: “Governments should, I feel, support
the cultural development of the nation but not attempt to control it” (Canada Council,
1981, p. 4). Thus, in 1957, the Council was given complete financial independence over
both the investment and expenditure of funds. However, as a safety measure, an advisory
Investment Committee from the government was appointed to assist and make recommendations to the Canada Council. The recommendations of the Committee were not considered binding; however, a caveat also existed that the Canada Council could not itself make investments without the approval of this advisory committee (Canada
Council, 1982; Whittaker, 1965). Thus arm’s-length was still within arm’s-reach. The initial funds allocated to the Canada Council were one-hundred million dollars. Of this,
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$50 million was to be used for university construction over ten years13, and the remaining
$50 million would become an endowment fund for the Council.
The Canada Council submission to the Federal Cultural Policy Review
Committee (1981) reports that the initial endowment allowed the Council to operate
independently for the first six years. However, by 1965 the Council’s endowment could
no longer support the needs of the artistic community and, as a need for growth in the
Council’s funds had not been foreseen, increased funding necessitated more involvement
from government (Canada Council, 1981; Woodcock, 1985). Thus, in 1965 a special
grant of $10 million was given to the Council which was meant to fund programs for
three additional years. However, the money was spent in two years and by 1967-1968 the
Council, at this time led by Director Jean Boucher, had once again to ask for more
funds.14 At the same time Boucher put forth a proposal that the Canada Council should
receive an annual parliamentary grant. With the increased need for funding came an
increased involvement by the government in the activities of the Council. The federal
government, now under Prime Minister Pearson, changed the portfolio of the Secretary of
State to include the supervision of government activities that did not fit easily into other
departments. These included the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the National Film
Board, the Board of Broadcast Governors (later the CRTC), the National Gallery,
National Museum, National Library, Public Archives, National Arts Center, and the
Centennial Commission (Woodcock, 1985).
13 This announcement was an unexpected addition to the role of the Council but provided a solution for the government dilemma of attempting to provide federal funds for the expansion of universities without appearing to be trespassing upon the rights of the provinces (notably Quebec) in the realm of education (Whittaker, 1965, p. 148).
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“The expansion of the Secretary of State’s responsibilities gave the Canada Council a supervising government department whose presence in the shadows threw into doubt the practical validity of the crucial clause of the Canada Council Act – that ‘the Council is not an Agent of Her Majesty’” (Woodcock, 1985, p. 61).
Though dependence on annual government grants did serve to bring the Council
under the wing of government supervision, it was not really until the Trudeau
administration that direct government interference in arts funding administration began to
appear. Through the 1960’s and early 1970’s government involvement, first through the
Secretary of State and later through the Minister of Communications, was primarily one of supervision. The minister could approve budget estimates of various cultural agencies, but had no control over the operation of said agencies, nor the dispersal of their funds to individuals and organizations. Parliamentary pressure and criticism, however, was able to be exerted through arguments about patronage, taste, the morality of art works being funded, or the political unorthodoxy of the artists (Woodcock, 1985, p. 100). A particular battle of influence was waged over the granting of funds to Quebec artists who were separatist party members, and again when the Council gave funds to writers “whom some
MPs regarded as pornographic” (Woodcock, 1985, p. 102). At the time, however, there was enough resistance by artists, the public, and the Council itself that the body was able to continue making grants of its own accord, without relinquishing such decisions to
Parliament.
In 1976, the appointment of Charles Lussier as Director of the Canada Council
marked a turning point in government policy from one of support for the arts to one of
14 The request earned the Canada Council another $17 million dollars.
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directing artists. Lussier, a Trudeau appointee, “initiated his term in office with a warning, he told performing groups to make their programs accessible to wider publics on the grounds that a broadening of appeal was necessary if the Council hoped to gain adequate funding from Parliament” (Woodcock, 1985, p. 106). Culture, and the arts, now became part of a larger discourse about a cultural economy of the country. But where
Massey saw culture as a way of building a unified nation, Trudeau saw culture, and especially the arts, as a means of reinforcing political power. Cultural policy became a tool for reinforcing the ruling party’s agenda. Trudeau’s goal was national unity and in his goal he would “radicalize the relationship between the state and cultural activity for the sake of a federalism challenged by Quebecois separatism” and a new nationalism represented by the New Democratic Party (Edwardson, 2008, p. 186). The Liberal policy was to see the arts as an industry, and the Canada Council as a body upon whose shoulders the politicization of arts support could be achieved.
Over the course of the next decade, the Trudeau administration set the groundwork for […] a cultural industrialism in which the federal government established itself as the guardian of nationhood and posited Canadian [arts] within massive bureaucracies operating upon industrial precepts – a Canadianization still occurring today under the aegis of the Department of Canadian Heritage (Edwardson, 2008, p. 187).
The politicization of the arts and the industrialization of culture did not occur through any overt orders to the Canada Council about how it should be run. Rather a variety of parallel programs were created which were under the direct control of various government ministries. The programs created were not arts programs per se, rather they were summer work programs for youth, the Opportunities for Youth Program, and community development programs, the Local Initiatives Program. However, the
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programs often had an arts focus and, indeed, several experimental theatre companies
received their first grants from the Local Initiatives Program (Woodcock, 1985). These
‘arts’ programs were essentially amateur arts funding which served to extend the realm of
the arts away from the high culture model. The presence of these programs forced the
Canada Council, under pressure from the Secretary of State, to modify their emphasis
slightly away from the professional arts and to begin an inclusion of amateur artists and
organizations in their funding mandate. The pressure away from exclusively professional
arts funding was only the first in a list of direct government interferences with the operation of the arm’s-length Canada Council. In 1972, the government gave funds to the
Council which were specifically earmarked to subsidize the publishing trade; it also created the Art Bank in this way in the same year (Woodcock, 1985). In 1977, the government withdrew the academic role of the Canada Council by creating the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council which was “set up as a corporation subject to a governmental directive power…of unlimited scope” (Woodcock, 1985, p. 117).
Earmarked funds to the Council continued and were responsible in 1977 for an additional
$1.7 million to the Canada Council and $1 million dollars to the National Arts Centre, both for initiatives and touring shows which would promote national unity (Woodcock,
1985).
In 1978, the federal government made several cuts to arts funding which reflected the government’s turn away from the traditional arts and toward the cultural industries.
For example, cuts included eliminating the appropriation budget for the Art Bank. The cuts prompted Council Director Gertrude Laing to state: “the willingness to fund
‘national unity’ through the arts, but not adequately to fund the arts themselves, is
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evidence of an attitude to cultural policy that gives me great concern” (as cited in
Woodcock, 1985, p. 118). The Liberal party, however, was interrupted in its appropriation of culture for power by the loss of the 1979 election to the Conservative party and new Prime Minister Joe Clark. Though Clark’s was a minority government,
that ultimately was to last only nine months, the new federal government nonetheless
made some positive contributions to arts funding. David MacDonald, the new Secretary
of State, restored the money that had recently been cut from arts funding, developed a
Cultural Initiatives Division within his department meant to increase funds to book
publishing, and planned a complete review of federal cultural policy (Woodcock, 1985;
Schafer & Fortier, 1989). A defeat of the minority government interrupted several of
these initiatives and the return of the Liberals to power in 1980 brought with it several
more changes that would push the arts further down the list of government priorities.
With their re-election, the Liberals made significant changes to several
departments of State. For the arts, the major transition occurred with the amalgamation of
the Secretary of State with the Department of Communications. Now represented by a
single minister, at this time Francis Fox, the arts were to play a minor role in the
Department of Communications. The importance of the arts was recognized only insofar
as “their creativity could be tapped to provide the content for the various media of
communications” (Woodcock, 1985, p. 119). The simultaneous launch of the
Applebaum-Hebert report in 1980 and tabling of the controversial Bill C-24 created a
situation for arm’s-length funding bodies, the Canada Council in particular, which would
challenge their autonomy and importance to Canadian culture.
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The Applebaum-Hebert Commission and the Commoditization of the Arts
Throughout the 1970’s the arts had slowly been undergoing a commoditization as
a result of the Trudeau government’s creation of a cultural industrialism in Canada. The
Canadian Conference of the Arts itself recommended that an active effort be made to
“develop international market demand for Canadian books, periodicals, films, recordings, television programs, paintings, sculpture, craft objects, and other Canadian cultural materials” (Canadian Conference of the Arts, 1980, p. 77). The Canada Council’s reply to the Conference in the 1981 Submission to the Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee states that the cultural industries approach to arts funding “is in the process of becoming the new dogma of arts support theory” and criticized its “imprecision” for the way it “has been variously applied to the electronic mass media, the distribution and diffusion aspects of various forms of cultural expression, and occasionally to any segment of artistic creation that shows the possibility of making a profit” (Canada Council, 1981, p. 20).
Better known as the Applebaum-Hebert Commission, the Federal Cultural Policy
Review Committee was initiated by Conservative Secretary of State David MacDonald.
The commission was intended to be a nation-wide survey of the cultural policies of the country; in this one respect it was a revisit of the Massey Commission. The Applebaum-
Hebert Commission, however, was notably different from Massey’s in two ways. First, it
did not have the status of a Royal Commission though it had most of the attributes; and
second, it was not specifically directed, as had been the Massey Commission, to
investigate the state of the “Arts, Letters, and Sciences.” Rather, the Applebaum-Hebert
Commission was more vaguely assigned to a review of “Cultural Policy”. The
government intention behind the Applebaum-Hebert Commission was to provide short-
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term advice to the Department of Communications in order help to avoid conflict
between the cultural communities and the recommendations of that department by
Minister Francis Fox (Schafer & Fortier, 1989). “Such an arrangement would be
impossible in the case of a formal Royal Commission” (Schafer & Fortier, 1989, p. 45).
The Applebaum-Hebert Commission initially “placed great emphasis on artistic creativity, over and above any of the other facets of our cultural life”, and in the report
urged the federal government to focus on cultural objectives in the making of new
cultural policies (Government of Canada, 1982, p. 3).
We therefore urge the federal government to make and administer cultural policy as much as possible with a view to the implementation of cultural objectives. No doubt a successful cultural policy will achieve desirable economic, social and political results as by-products […] but these should not be allowed to dictate the aims or content of cultural policy itself (Government of Canada, 1982, p. 8).
Though the Commission recommended a focus on cultural policy in support of the arts,
its recommendations spoke more to the commoditization of the arts than to the support of
arts and artists for less industrialized creations. The Report states:
Canadian artists and their work must be publicized – and marketed – more effectively than they have been in the past. Success in these efforts will stimulate demand for and consumption of the cultural output of the country (Government of Canada, 1982, p. 95).
If this marketing and promotion […] is to be successful, one of its goals will be to promote stars. Stars not only help buyers choose but also serve to highlight various kinds of excellence. They should be recognizable not only among rock musicians and film actors, but also among composers, choreographers, painters, writers, and performing arts companies (Government of Canada, 1982, p. 96).
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The Applebaum-Hebert Report recommendations fell largely on deaf ears because the
country was in the midst of the worst economic recession since the 1930’s (until now).
However, the transition from the cultural priorities of the Massey Commission to the cultural industry prioritization of the Applebaum-Hebert Commission did serve to reinforce the idea that the cultural industries, specifically the technologically developed ones, stood the best chance of making a profit. The cultural industries thus held more appeal for the federal government than the traditional arts because of their promise, among other things, of profit and international prestige. The Canada Council’s response to the increased industrialism of culture was to undertake the production of reports on the economic impact of the arts to prove, in any way possible, that the arts and artists to which its funds were distributed were economically valuable to the Canadian government. Such economic impact studies have since become routine for both provincial and federal arts funding bodies. The problem with such reports, Woodcock
(1985) states, is that they “play into the hands of those who wish to subordinate artistic values to material ones, who want to turn the arts into cultural industries” (p. 129).
Mulroney’s Cultural Industrialism
The last years of Trudeau’s government saw the cultural sector take several cutbacks in funding partly as a result of the increasing national debt and partly as a move toward fiscal conservatism. Particularly hard hit were those public institutions which did not, in the name of the new cultural industries rhetoric, “provide substantial economic return to federal coffers” (Edwardson, 2008, p. 251). The cultural industrialism era presented a challenge to traditional performing arts organizations and to their governing bodies, the Canada Council in particular. Because the movement was directed toward
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commoditizing culture, its emphasis was directed onto media arts – specifically film,
television, and radio broadcasting. Publications about the cultural industries in Canada
include chapters on periodical publishing, sound recording and radio, film and video
production, public and private television, cultural labour, and copyright and trade regimes
governing print, television and film (Dorland, 1996; Beck, 2003; Power & Scott, 2004;
Jones & Thornton, 2005). Indeed, even the Minister of Communications (in 1986 Flora
McDonald) stated in her introduction to the government document Vital Links: Canadian
Cultural Industries (Government of Canada, 1987): “these industries are the principle conveyors of Canadian culture to Canadians.” Thus, with the prioritization of industry, the “social value of the public sector had been supplanted by the economic value of the private sector” (Edwardson, 2008, p. 253). It would appear that with the transition in government thinking the traditional arts were all but forgotten in the halls of Parliament.
The election of Brian Mulroney to the Prime Minister-ship of Canada in 1984 occurred during a period of deep recession in Canada and a general turn to Neo-
Conservatism among the Western superpowers Great Britain and the United States. The approach of Thatcher, Reagan, and now Mulroney was to turn away from government involvement in the social sector and towards a market economy approach of supply and demand. “The new agenda had many targets, including trade unionism, welfarism, and government as an economic manager; the public service was also singled out for criticism” (Savoie, 1994, p. 90). The work of Doern, Maslove, and Prince (1988) outlines the degree to which Mulroney took up the conservative ideas of Britain and the US, and the differences between the three leaders. Doern, Maslove, and Prince (1988) state that
“the Mulroney government’s manner of expressing its main policy preferences was much
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milder than his fellow practitioners of the ‘new right’ version of politics and budgeting”
(p.7). Nonetheless the parallel actions of all three governments with regard to
privatization and market focus revealed a purposeful move towards the marketization of
Western nations. Revealing the transition in government direction was the statement by
new Finance Minister Michael Wilson in 1984:
Government policies and programs must be changed to ensure that Canada’s private sector can become the driving force of economic renewal in an increasingly competitive world marketplace. To foster growth in the private sector, Canadians must begin a process of change towards a new environment that encourages entrepreneurship and facilitates adaptation to new market realities. In some cases, this will mean less government regulation and intervention. In other cases, it will require reducing government subsidies and other expenditures which undermine the efficient allocation of our scarce resources (as cited in Pitsula, 2007, p. 362).
In Canada, the federal deficit was huge and privatization offered a means of deficit-
reduction by off-setting some of the costs of public services to private industry. However
budget cuts to all federal programs, as intimated by Wilson, were nonetheless inevitable.
Arts and culture in Canada suffered budget cuts in the same proportion as other areas of
government support. The total cuts of $85 million15 (including cuts of $3.5 million to the
Canada Council) were devastating for arts communities, though the extent of the damage would not become clear until the mid-1990’s.
During the turn toward privatization the federal government launched a task force
on Funding of the Arts (Government of Canada, 1986) which was meant to present an
15 The total $85 million in cuts included $75 million from the CBC, $3.5 from the Canada Council, $1.5 from the National Film Board, and smaller cuts from other cultural agencies (Schafer & Fortier, 1989, p. 50).
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overview of problems related to arts funding. The purpose of the task force was to promote the passing of responsibility for arts funding from government to the private sector. However, the task force resulted in a demand for governments at all levels to promote arts development in Canada while simultaneously suggesting that more should be expected from arts organizations themselves, private and corporate sponsorship, and the private sector (Schafer & Fortier, 1989). The government was not off the hook. The task force also recommended an annual rate of increase in funding for the arts and tax breaks to stimulate consumption of the arts and contributions from the private sector
(Schafer & Fortier, 1989). The arts were not off the hook either as the task force report was almost entirely based on the idea that arts organizations needed to operate more like businesses: “The business community will become more interested in the arts when artists learn to speak the language of business and to sell themselves, their ideas and their work” (Government of Canada, 1986, p. 75).
By this time, the Mulroney government had become involved in Free Trade talks with the United States and a concern larger than funding was the inclusion of culture in
the trade agreement. Though Mulroney subscribed to cultural industrialism, the concern
of Canadians, and Communications Minister Flora MacDonald, was that the inclusion of
culture in the Free Trade Agreement would threaten the nation. The conflict led to
confusion in the free-trade negotiations.
The United States demanded that cultural industries be included in the discussions; Canada refused, saying that culture was of vital national importance and could not be touched, all the while implementing policies premised on the belief that culture was an industry (Pitsula, 2007, p. 363).
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Thus it becomes clear that the Mulroney era in Canadian federal politics was one of cultural indecision wherein no significant cultural policies were established, and no significant changes were made to the funding of the Canada Council (the $85 million in cuts was largely restored following protests in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Moncton,
Edmonton, and Winnipeg). Mulroney’s government encouraged market thinking with regard to the arts and cultural industries, but provided no clear strategy in which the private sector could assume responsibility for Canadian culture. As Pitsula (2007) states:
“the Mulroney government’s cultural policies lacked clarity and coherence” (p. 375), and thus the lasting legacy of Mulroney’s contribution to the Canadian cultural landscape is the questionable development of cultural industrialism.
Chretien and the Status of the Artist
Assuming control of the federal government following the crushing defeat of the
Conservatives in 1993, the government of Jean Chretien was no less strapped for cash than had been the Mulroney government. As with his predecessor(s) – Kim Campbell notwithstanding – the Liberal government began their term in office with deficit-cutting measures which further depressed public sector spending. The impact of a decade of cuts to arts funding became visible in the fiscal jeopardy faced by major arts organizations across the country. Maloney (1999), explains that “between 1994 – 1999, 87% of arts service organizations in Canada underwent major organizational upheaval, two-thirds of them as a direct result of losing significant public-sector funding” (p. 1). In Alberta at this time each of the major performing arts organizations were facing bankruptcy protection (except for the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, and the Calgary Philharmonic
Orchestra which held out until 2003 before their bankruptcy protection occurred). One of
163 the first acts of the Chretien government was to separate the arts and culture portfolio from the Department of Communications. Culture was given an important place in the new Department of Canadian Heritage. Even before its designation within the new department the government had passed the Status of the Artist Act in 1995 which not only alleviated some taxation concerns about self-employed artists, but also “established a framework for professional relations between independent professional artists and producers working in fields under federal jurisdiction” (Dewing, 2008, p. 5). The Calgary
Musicians’ Association representative explains how the national Status of the Artist Act operates:
As a union we’re out to negotiate contracts or standards for musicians throughout North America really. And in Canada of course we have National Status of the Artists for the Toronto office. The head office in Toronto negotiates agreements with the National Broadcasters that sort of thing. So Status of the Artist nationally [means that artist unions] can ask to negotiate agreements with national producers, where CBC would be a national producer.
By 1997, the Chretien government had managed to combat the debt to the extent that the first federal surplus in 25 years was achieved. By 1998 some of the surplus funds were directed towards the arts and, after a 14 year drought, the arts were once again included in government policy initiatives. In 1998 the government, in the wake of an election and a second majority government and on the strength of strong economic recovery, promised an additional $25 million in support to the Canada Council annually for five years (Maloney, 1999, p. 4). The increase in funding was partly meant to make up for the deep spending cuts of both the Mulroney government and the preceding Liberal government, when funding dropped from $108 million in 1991-1992 to $88 million in 1996-1997 (Maloney, 1999, p. 4). The financial commitment seems not to have occurred as planned, though the reason why is not clarified in any government documents or secondary sources. Below is a table of the Canada Council funding from 1998 – 2008,
164 including Alberta’s allocation though that is not part of the discussion at this point. The $25 million annual increase is nowhere to be seen, and indeed a reduction occurs in 1999- 2000.
Table II - Canada Council Grant Amounts from 1998-2008 1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 In Millions of Dollars Canada Total 112 111 114 134 142 137 132.5 132.1 152.6 164.6 Council Alberta 7.1 6.8 7.4 7.7 7.9 7.8 7.6 7.0 9.3 11.0
Prime Minister J. Chretien P. Martin S. Harper
(Information gathered from multiple sources including the Canada Council, AFA, and interview participants)
Despite the changes made during their early tenure the Chretien government did not have a clear cultural policy until 2001 when it announced Tomorrow Starts Today. The policy was intended to “foster arts and culture, maximize Canadians’ access to culture, and develop partnerships” (Dewing, 2008, p. 6). The programme provided significant support to Canadian artists, arts organizations, and cultural industries by investing $500 million over three years. The investments were intended “to target all aspects of the creative process by encouraging excellence among artists, promoting arts and heritage among the general population and providing cultural industries with the means and capacity to prosper” (Government of Canada, 2008, section 8.1). Support was provided from 2001 to 2006 through the following programmes:
The arts and heritage (Arts Presentation Canada, Canadian Arts and Heritage Sustainability Programme, Cultural Capitals of Canada, Cultural Spaces of Canada, National Arts Training Contributions Programme), book publishing (Aid to Publishers, Supply Chain Initiatives Publishers, Collective Initiatives), the Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Culture Online (Applied Research in Interactive Media Programme, Canada New Media Fund, Culture.ca, Francommunautés virtuelles, Partnerships Fund, Virtual Museum of Canada Investment Programme, Canadian Memory Fund) and Trade Routes (Government of Canada, 2008, section 4, “priority 5”).
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Though Tomorrow Starts Today marked an increase in funding, the primary focus of the programme was the cultural industries. The shift in the function of cultural policy which had occurred under Mulroney, from “creating and managing cultural infrastructures necessary for the growth of an independent national culture to that of adjusting existing infrastructures to the needs of internationally competing, profit-generating domestic cultural industries” (Milz, 2007, p. 95), was entrenched. Tomorrow Starts Today was renewed through 2010, though it is slated to be ‘sunsetted’ by the end of 2009-2010 (Government of Canada, 2008).
The Chretien period in government was generally one of retrenchment, particularly in the area of social assistance, and thus general policy shifts towards decentralization, privatization, and anti-welfare conservatism are evident. The new cultural policy was a reflection of the larger economic priorities of the government; “Domestic as well as international pressures to reduce government spending, eliminate deficits and push citizens who received public assistance toward greater individual self- reliance meant that [although Chretien was Liberal], his government largely continued on a right-of-centre path” (Bashevkin, 2007, p. 11). Part of this indeed was due to the growing strength of the Reform party and the ongoing challenge presented by the Bloc Quebecois, both of whom advocated a reduced social policy platform for the federal government.
Conclusion – from Martin to the Present
Paul Martin’s leadership from 2003-2006 is most notable in the exclusion of
culture from the federal government’s list of priorities. Notably, Martin’s first budget in
2004 was lacking in cultural funding. The CBC Arts Report of March 26 in that year
quotes Heritage Minister Helene Scherrer stating that the arts didn’t figure prominently in
the official 400-page document “because it’s not a major priority for the government of
Prime Minister Paul Martin” (as cited in Canadian Conference of the Arts, 2004, p. 1).
The 2005 foreign policy statement was likewise notable for its exclusion of cultural
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affairs which had previously been cited as a pillar of Canadian foreign policy (Dewing,
2008).
The government of Stephen Harper has been considerably more generous to the
Canada Council, and to culture generally, in part because his minority government’s term
began in a time of financial largesse. In Harper’s 2007 speech to the throne a
commitment was made to improving the protection of cultural and intellectual property
rights in Canada and to copyright reform. In 2008-2009 a $30 million permanent increase
was made to Canada Council funding, and although the 2009 budget will not make any
further increases for the Council, several new arts initiatives were created. Harper is most
notoriously known for his decision to cut $45 million from an arts touring program right
before the 2008 election. The resulting brouhaha has yet to fully subside and does not merit a discussion here, outside of the introduction chapter, simply because it is nothing more than another arts cut by a federal government. The brief history of federal arts funding through the Canada Council as presented in this chapter reveals that arts funding is not the purview of one party over another. All governing parties have been responsible for arts funding cuts and increases in their turn. Usually these changes are a reflection of the economy of the nation generally and of shifting political ideologies which are not unique to Canada. The Harper government’s 2009 budget revealed a reaction to the criticism it received as fallout from the 2008 arts cuts. In short, it promised the following:
• Two-year funding of $60-million to support infrastructure-related costs for local and community cultural and heritage institutions such as local theatres, libraries and small museums.
• Increasing funding by $20-million over the next two years and $13-million per year thereafter to the National Arts Training Contribution Program.
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• Providing $30-million over the next two years to support access to Canadian magazines and community newspapers.
• Providing $28.6-million over the next two years to the Canada New Media Fund, and $14.3-million annually thereafter.
• Providing the Canadian Television Fund with $200 million in funding over the next two years (Farquharson, National Post, January 27, 2009).
Notably no further increases to the Canada Council are included. One would hope that the additional funding to programs and infrastructure is an indication of a renewed
federal focus on the arts and culture but with the new reality of economic recession, and
the accompanying tradition of cuts to all federal programs during times of economic
hardship, hope is not high.
Once again, it is important to reiterate that the changes and cuts felt by the arts
sector during various governments has also been felt by other social services. Education,
health, and all other welfare sectors have experienced the same cuts and the same
increased demand for financial reporting and business-like operations. The focus of the
research here is the performing arts, but the arts sector is by no means alone in the
challenges being faced. The demise of the welfare state has impacted all social goods.
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CHAPTER SIX: CANADA - THE CANADA COUNCIL GRANT APPLICATIONS
The preceding chapter provided an historical overview of federal Canadian governments’ shifting economic priorities vis-à-vis the cultural sector, and a brief look at how governments attempt to impose their various policies and priorities onto arm’s- length funding bodies like the Canada Council. As demonstrated, the Canada Council made changes to the focus of their funding in order to align with the cultural goals and mandates of various governing parties at various times. Thus, in examining the nature of the economic relationship between government and performing arts organizations, we can analyze government funding documents as a site of interaction. It is at the point of grant application forms that arts organizations are annually instructed what administrative and artistic achievements they must make in order to secure funding. This chapter undertakes an analysis of the past ten years (1999-2008) of Canada Council annual funding applications for major performing arts organizations. The analysis begins an understanding of the ways that government actions and decisions are translated into funding application requirements. In other words, the analysis reveals how the State as meta-field priorities become symbolic impositions which direct the operation of performing arts organizations. Throughout the years analyzed the funding applications undergo a transformation wherein financial requirements increase dramatically and the overall character of the documents is changed from one of artistic focus to one of economic focus. The ramifications of these instances of symbolic imposition will be examined in a later chapter, but their impact begins to be apparent even within the
Canada Council itself; the comments of peer assessors show the extent to which the symbolic imposition of economic priorities is obscured even to those who are charged
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with their assessment. Peer Assessors, selected artists who evaluate the applications of
other artists, weigh the applicants on their artistic product but seemingly do not recognize
that the grant application itself is now almost entirely a financial reporting document.
Thus arts organization members, already struggling to balance the conflicting
requirements of the Canada Council and the AFA (as subsequent chapters will show), are trying to demonstrate high artistic achievement to their peer assessors and simultaneously fulfill the extensive financial requirements of the application which are needed to pass the second phase of assessment. In the Canada Council applications’ economic criteria, therefore, symbolic imposition is apparent and a microcosm of the larger struggle is illuminated.
Unlike granting documents for other arm’s-length funding agencies, which include all major organizations in a single form, the Canada Council separates the different artistic genres and requires different applications for professional orchestras, opera/music theatre, professional theatre organizations, and professional dance companies. The detailed breakdown of each year’s applications are found in Appendix II.
What follows is a brief synopsis of the evolution of the application documents and an analysis of the changes vis-à-vis the discussion at hand.
General intent of the Canada Council funding programs
The grant application forms from 1999 forward appear to be focused on fostering
Canadian art and supporting Canadian artists. Among the goals of the programs listed are mandates which clearly intend that the arts come first, the audience second, and management practices third. Though each program outlines specific goals, they generally
170 follow the same principles. As an example, the goals for the Professional Orchestra application from the Music Section of the Council are outlined below:
• To recognize and support artistic excellence and achievement in orchestra music;
• To advance the creation, development and production of Canadian works, while continuing to advocate for the vitality of the international repertoire;
• To promote Canadian artists;
• To encourage innovative education and outreach programs that attract and serve new audiences for orchestra music, including young audiences;
• To stimulate the appreciation and enjoyment of orchestra music in Canada;
• To encourage exemplary management practices within the orchestra field;
• To foster mutual understanding, co-operation and collaboration among creators, performers, administrators, audiences of diverse cultural backgrounds, other fields and artistic forms in development (Canada Council, 1999/2000a, p. 1).
The artistic priorities of the Canada Council’s funding program are clearly visible in the early document. Throughout the years analyzed the goals of program(s) overall do not change. However the analysis reveals a significant increase in financial requirements and shift in tone of the applications from artistic to economic over the years analyzed.
The bulk of the applications become overwhelmingly economic. As an example, in the
Dance Section, appendices relating to financial reporting requirements increase from three in 1999/2000 to eleven by 2007/2008. The shift reveals that the priorities of the
Canada Council, as with government priorities, have changed. Appendix II details the
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changes specifically, the following is a brief synopsis of the changes visible in each
section throughout the years analyzed.
Evolution of the Funding Applications
Professional Orchestra
Table III - Assessment Criteria – Orchestra Section, 1999/2000 Artistic Quality Outreach and Institutional Dissemination Stability Overall Weighting 60% 20% 20% Weighting 30% - excellence in Audience Financial stability Sub-Division musical performance, development of the organization and/or assessment quality of criteria programming, merit of artistic goals, and the success with which the orchestra meets them Weighting 15% - commitment to Role of the Judicious planning Sub-Division and contribution to the orchestra in its and effective and/or assessment development of community allocation of criteria Canadian artists resources Weighting 15% - commitment to Outreach, Diversification of Sub-Division the production and education, and revenue sources and/or assessment dissemination of community criteria Canadian orchestra programs works Weighting Overall importance Administrative Sub-Division of the orchestra to structure and/or assessment the cultural wealth criteria of Canada (Canada Council, 1999/2000a)
The initial year of the applications analyzed was very straightforward. Applications were weighted (meaning that certain application criteria were to count more heavily than others toward the final assessment) to emphasize the artistic criteria in keeping with the goals of the Canada Council funding programs. The analysis in Appendix II shows that each subsequent year, however, includes increased economic criteria (i.e. profile of organization; structure of the organization including corporate affiliations; a letter from
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the Chairperson of the Board of Directors which addresses board responsibilities,
succession planning, governance policies, fundraising and development plans; a
document which clearly outlines the past, present, and future goals for the organization
(particularly focused on sustainable business practices and organizational health); deficit reduction plans; and employment statistics and budget expenses). As the economic requirements of the applications increase, the artistic priorities are gradually eclipsed by the sheer volume of financial reporting materials. Though the goals of the program do not change, and the percentage weighting of the artistic and economic criteria change no more than 5% in ten years, the increase in economic criteria shall be seen to precipitate a shift in the approach that arts organizations must make to their operations in order to fulfill the economic requirements.
In the earlier applications (1999/2000, 2000/2001, 2001/2002) the greatest
weighting appears to be placed on the quality of the performance, the ability of the
organization to fulfil its mandate, and the commitment to Canadian artists and art works.
Though not clearly stated in the table above, even Institutional Stability is tied directly
and clearly to the artistic mandate and product of the organization. But artistic growth
and development, however positively evaluated, do not necessarily provide markers of an
organization’s financial and administrative management. Though the supposition that
artistic quality can be used to measure organizational stability, because the product of the
company would suffer were management not doing a good job, is most likely correct, the
possibility exists that a downturn in stability may not be visible in performances until
long after the organization’s management has begun to struggle. The professional
performers employed will not allow the quality of their performances to deteriorate, and
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indeed, they may be unaware of a managerial crisis until a significant deficit has
accumulated. This was the case with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra’s financial
downturn in 2003. Since the applications are reviewed by a peer assessment committee
comprised of artists judging artists, the qualification and ability of the committee to
review financial documents is questionable. Thus it is understandable that the assessment
of Institutional Stability, in the early years of analysis, is related to the artistic product.
Financial reporting requirements nonetheless must be assessed by the peer committee,
which begs the question: how is financial information assessed by a committee of artists?
The Canada Council member explains:
Canada Council - the Council is committed to inviting artists as well as arts
administrators and other arts professionals to take part in its peer assessment
committees. Arts administrators are essential to committees adjudicating
operating grants. They provide expert assessment of the information provided
by the applicants, and assist other Peer Assessment Committee members in
evaluating financial statements and, more generally, in assessing the
“organizational health” of applicants. The program officer who chairs the
meeting is also available to help assessors interpret the data and
contextualize it. Program officers also strive to ensure that every application
has been treated fairly, and that the information submitted is not
misinterpreted or overlooked.
The analysis of subsequent years’ applications (2001/2002, 2002/2003,
2003/2004) reveal the addition of criteria which suggests a turn toward economic thinking. Most notable is the inclusion of the criterion – “congruency with thinking
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differently”(Canada Council, 2001/2002a, p. 4) – which appears in the applications from
the years 2001/2002 through 2002/2003. The point is never explained, nor could the
interviewed peer assessor or Canada Council member shed any light on its meaning. I can only hypothesize that the different thinking in question perhaps had to do with governmental notions of cultural industry, or perhaps the operation of organizations in response to the prioritization of privatization and sustainability. On the other hand, perhaps the criterion was intended as a reinforced encouragement for organizations to further push the envelope artistically. The phrase is replaced in the 2003/2004 application with the sentence: “demonstration of administrative stability leading to continued strength in artistic growth and development” (Canada Council, 2003/2004a, p. 4). While this statement is infinitely clearer than “thinking differently” it still suggests that the stability of a performing arts organization is visible through the artistic output of the company.
By the application year 2004/2005, the transition from artistic to economic prioritization of the application becomes evident. Though each year analyzed reveals increasing demands for sustainability and financial reporting, the application from
2004/2005 sees a greatly expanded Institutional Stability section – now called
Organizational Health.
Table IV - Organizational Health Criteria – Orchestra Application, 2004/2005 Criteria Assessment Measures
Quality and coherence of the orchestra’s Human resource management; engagement of governance, management structures and human staff in the vision of the organization; accurate resources. Evidence of shared vision among forecasting of necessary changes to the key stakeholders within the organization. allocation of resources for production, marketing, and administration; and clear planning tools Quality and effectiveness of administrative The strength of governance, including the
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operations. existence of clear and updated governance policies and procedures, […] demonstration of an understanding of the role of the board as steward of the organization’s vision and mandate, and in strengthening the organization’s link to the community; Quality of the organization’s long-range The diversification of revenue sources, as planning and evaluation mechanisms. Ability demonstrated by strategies and achievements; of the organization to plan for and support artistic growth and risk-taking in the future.
Financial planning and performance. The financial stability of the organization, as demonstrated by an appropriate balance between expenditures and revenues and the ability to forecast the potential risks associated with a project or with expansion plans; plans for the organization to develop capacity to respond to future contingency or artistic risk. (Canada Council, 2004/2005a)
Needless to say these new criteria are much more specific than the previous Institutional
Stability criteria had been, and they are far more business oriented. Nowhere in the
section does the application state that Organizational Health will be assessed by a
positive artistic review. The section does refer to the administrative infrastructure
supporting and strengthening the artistic mandate of the organization, but it goes on to
state that Organizational Health “provides a framework to manage changes within [the organizations]” (Canada Council, 2004/2005a, p. 6). The above statements of how the peer assessment committee is to consider the criteria in Organizational Health mark a
distinct departure from applications in previous years. Though the weighting of the
section remains at only 20 percent, the demands of the section have increased to where they now form the bulk of the application. Thus the focus of the Canada Council in
2004/2005 is clearly shifting from innovative artistic work, and the forgiveness of deficits thus generated, to a more business-like approach.
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To the end of the years analyzed, 2007/2008, financial requirements in the
applications continue to grow. In the Organizational Health section of the application a new sub-heading, Fair Notice to Organizations, appears in the year 2005/2006. Previous applications had stated that additional materials would be required if an organization had three consecutive years of financial deficits, or if the overall deficit was 20 percent of the operating budget. The 2005/2006 application states that fair notice will be made if the assessment committee has “concerns about the viability of the organization” (Canada
Council 2005/2006a, p. 3). A fair notice warning places the affected organization on concerned status which may include a recommendation for a reduction in the grant amount (up to 10 percent). Reassessment of the fair notice warning will occur in the following year’s application. Fair notice may be given if the organization:
• Has a major deficit (10 percent or more of its annual operating budget), shows evidence of not being financially viable, and/or
• Has a significantly reduced audience or sales base […], and/or
• Does not demonstrate the ability to plan into the future, and/or
• Does not address major artistic concerns such as artistic/editorial direction, declining quality of activity, failure to achieve activity plan, and/or
• Does not meet contractual obligations or minimum requirements outlined in the guidelines, and/or
• Demonstrates management practices which do not conform to generally acceptable practices in the discipline (Canada Council 2005/2006a, p. 3).
Though the application overall continues to assess Artistic Quality at 60 percent of the weighting, the issuance of fair notice is based (in all but one point) on the business and
177 financial qualities of an organization. The shift in focus of the application that was observed in the 2004/2005 application thus continues through 2007/2008 with economic markers of sustainability and vision taking priority over the artistic elements.
Opera/Musical Theatre
The Opera/Musical Theatre application shares much of the same wording and criteria as the Orchestra application because both divisions belong to the Music Section of the Canada Council. Nonetheless, differences exist. First is the statement that the
Canada Council will not support any production that has a market-driven purpose:
The Opera/Music Theatre Program does not support projects involving market-driven forms of music and/or music for which an established commercial support structure exists (such as musicals, rock operas, etc.). (Canada Council, 1999/2000b, p. 1).
Second is that the Artistic Quality section, here called Artistic Excellence, specifically looks for “commitment of the company, as shown in its productions, to expand the ideas and techniques of the musical stage” (Canada Council, 1999/2000b, p.2). As the years of analysis progress, the same changes to the financial reporting requirements as seen in the
Orchestral application are visible. The application differs slightly in 2003/2004 where an additional requirement relating to the calibre of performers contains the following instruction:
Organizations that use the same performers/singers on a regular basis and/or that may not be well known on the national scene, should also send an audio or video illustration of their previous work on stage (Canada Council, 2003/2004b, p. 2).
That any performer not known nationally must have his/her work additionally scrutinized by the peer review committee can arguably be seen to reflect the federal government’s
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goal of creating a “star” system which emerged with the rise of cultural industry thinking
(see Edwardson, 2008, Chap 9 for a full discussion). This requirement, however, seems at
odds with the applications’ ongoing emphasis, in the Artistic Excellence section, on the
“development of current and future generations of singers” (Canada Council,
2003/2004b, p. 5). The development of Canadian performers is a requirement of the application, as it is in the applications for all sections, but the use of established
performers with national reputations is encouraged. Furthermore, the addition of this
requirement seems to fly in the face of the earlier statement that the Council does not support market-driven projects. It would seem that the use of nationally recognized “star” performers falls into the market-driven category as it relates to ticket sales and sponsorship.
The Opera/Musical Theatre applications therefore reveal the same shift toward economic priorities as seen in the Orchestral applications, so details will not be reiterated here. In the Opera/Musical Theatre application the artistic elements most notably make a shift toward the economic thinking of the Cultural Industries priority of the federal government; an artistic reinforcement of the economic prioritization seen in other areas of the application.
Professional Theatre
Belonging to the Theatre Section of the Canada Council, the Professional
Theatre grant application differs significantly from that seen in the Music Section applications. While the main points are the same – innovation, Canadian productions and performers, financial stability – the wording, weighting, and sections are remarkably
179 different. To begin, the professional theatre application differs in the weighting of the criteria.
Table V - Assessment Criteria – Professional Theatre Section, 1999/2000 Artistic Criteria Dissemination Administrative Criteria Criteria Overall Weighting 65% 15% 20% Weighting 20% - Artistic Impact of the Financial stability of Sub-Division and/or quality and interest organization and its the organization assessment criteria of the work work on the public and on Canadian theatre Weighting 20% - Relevance of Activities and Judicious planning Sub-Division and/or programming to initiatives and effective assessment criteria artistic mission and undertaken to allocation of audience, and maintain and resources vitality of artistic expand audience direction Weighting 15% - Commitment Advocacy for Diversification of Sub-Division and/or and contribution to theatre and theatre revenue sources assessment criteria the production artists in society and/or development of Canadian works Weighting 10% - Commitment Hosting activities – Administrative Sub-Division and/or and contribution to support to other structure assessment criteria the development of theatre Canadian theatre organizations artists Dissemination activities – specifically the type of production (co- production, invited production, etc.)
(Canada Council, 1999/2000c)
In the theatre application, the importance placed on the relevance of the organization’s programming to its artistic mission and audience is significantly emphasized. The application form for the 2000/2001 year sees the weighting of the
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Artistic Criteria raised from 65 percent to 70 percent. The additional five percent is taken from the Administrative Criterion and added to the Commitment and Contribution to the
Production and/or Development of Canadian Works criteria of the artistic assessment, which was previously worth only 15 percent of the total 65 in the section. Where the applications of the other Sections had already placed a stronger emphasis on the production and development of Canadian works, in terms of Canadian Content this change brings the Theatre Section in line with the Music Section.
The theatre application goes unchanged for several years, but by the 2005/2006 application financial reporting and administrative reporting criteria increase dramatically.
Added are two new appendices which call for detailed information on everything from the organization’s facilities and equipment revenues and expenses for all facilities owned, managed, or rented, to the use of vehicles and the status of computer equipment. Of these new appendices the one titled Funds/Reserves, Working Capital and Amortization is particularly extensive. The Funds/Reserves section of the appendix refers to the organization’s surpluses and can be “restricted to facility renovation or construction, equipment purchase or replacement, artistic development projects, or for stabilization purposes or meeting contingencies” (Canada Council, 2005/2006c, p. 6). The application states that “unrestricted funds can be worth up to 25 percent of annual revenues, covering up to three months’ of operations, without affecting the level of operating support received from the Canada Council” (Canada Council, 2005/2006c, p. 6). The Working
Capital of the organization must be provided so that assessors may compare the difference between current assets and current liabilities. The necessity of including the
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Working Capital figures in yet another separate appendix for assessment is clarified by the following paragraph which appears in the application:
A good working capital ratio underpins the soundness of an organization’s cash management and helps it face urgent or unforeseeable events. Standard accounting practices require that cash received related to next year’s activities should be included in current liabilities as deferred revenue. For example, this would include subscription sales and operating funding for next year (2005-2006c, p. 7) .
In the final year of analysis, 2007/2008, the professional theatre application adopts the Fair Notice section seen in the applications of earlier years in the Music
Section (orchestra and opera/musical theatre). The fair notice section contains the provisions for second and third year assessment and the penalties that accompany an unsatisfactory evaluation are the same as those for other applications.
As with the applications of the Music Section, the dramatic increase in financial reporting requirements in the professional theatre application mark a shift in priority from the artistry and innovation of the organizations being funded to the sustainability and stability of the applicants. The changes will be shown to impact not only the administrative operation of the organizations, but also the programming and artistic output of the organizations.
Creation/Production in Dance
The application for creation/production in dance is vastly different from the applications in the other Sections. The application form, unlike those of the other
Sections, specifies the maximum value of entry level grants at $40,000. Also of note is the fact that the dance application expressly states that any media-related materials will not be considered in the assessment and are thus not to be included with the application.
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The instruction is clarified in the application’s description of the adjudication process
wherein the following statement reveals that peer assessors in Dance must attend live
performances in order to judge the applications.
Because evaluations of artistic merit are made at public performances only, applicants must inform the Dance Section of dates, times and locations of performances at least six weeks in advance so that arrangements can be made to send assessors. To this end, an activity form is sent to all clients each summer asking for the dates of performances scheduled during the next season (Canada Council, 1999/2000d, p. 2).
The reason for the live performance attendance is clarified by the Canada Council member.
Canada Council - The technology for easily available audio-visual equipment has
not yet reached the stage where dance is well-served by seeing it on video.
For operating requests in Dance, it is generally felt that viewing 10
minutes of excerpts is not a fair presentation of the organization’s work.
As well, the vast majority of the performances in the dance community are
of new creations – even the large organizations are commissioning and
mounting new creations each year, including full-length ballets – so it
requires viewing a complete performance in order to evaluate
appropriately the quality of the choreography and presentation. It should
be noted that, starting with the 2008 multi-year round in Dance, each
organization must submit a DVD showing a complete performance of its
most recent work. These are copied and distributed to all the committee
members, not so much for them to critique the work (because it is only one
recent work, because of the challenges of seeing dance on video, and
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because of the varying quality of video production as mentioned above),
but for them to gain a sense of the company’s style to add context and a
better comprehension to the external written assessments.
In keeping with the weighting of the applications in each Section, where the artistic criteria are more heavily weighted than the other elements, the dance application outlines criteria and weighting as follows:
Table VI - Assessment Criteria - Creation/Production in Dance Section, 1999/2000 Artistic Merit Professional and Administrative / Audience Financial Stability Development Activities Overall Weighting 65% 25% 10% Weighting Intent – the quality Contribute to the Financial stability of Sub-Division and/or of artistic practice ongoing the organization assessment criteria and the degree to development of which the artistic the professional work reflects and dance milieu fulfils the artistic mandate Weighting Realization – the Develop effective Judicious planning Sub-Division and/or onstage work. outreach and and effective assessment criteria Choreography, marketing allocation of dancers, physical and strategies and resources artistic demands of initiatives the work, music, design elements, and production values Weighting Impact – the Expand audiences Diversification of Sub-Division and/or response of the for the company’s revenue sources assessment criteria assessor, peer work and for committee, and dance audience to the work Weighting - - Administrative Sub-Division and/or structure assessment criteria Weighting - - Calendar of Activities Sub-Division and/or – schedule for each assessment criteria year; structure of the organization; overall
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financial information including revenues and expenses (Canada Council, 1999/2000d)
The weighting and breakdown of Artistic Merit suggests that the Dance Section is more
interested in the product of the organization than the financial stability and administrative
operation. Thus it is no surprise to discover the same paragraph in the dance application
as appears in the orchestra application, which offers understanding of temporary financial
difficulties resulting from risk-taking and innovative programming.
As with the application form for the professional theatre program, the
creation/production in dance application sees interesting details included in the
appendices. For the 1999/2000 year, Appendix A is of particular interest. Called the
Artistic Work Plan and Budget, the appendix asks for each work of the current and next
season to be separately detailed. Unlike the applications in other Sections, this is the only
application which calls for such a specific breakdown of plan and budget per work.
Another distinction of the application is the inclusion of a Reporting section wherein it is
made clear that “three months after the end of the organization’s fiscal year, a final report
on the activities of the completed season, along with audited financial statements or a financial review, will be required” (Canada Council, 1999/2000d, p. 3). Therefore though the application overall prioritizes the artistic elements over the economic, certain specific and demanding financial requirements exist which are particular to this application of the
Dance Section.
A notable change to the application occurs in the 2001/2002 explanation of the
Peer Assessment Committee. Where previous years had clearly explained that assessors
185 were to attend live performances, the 2001/2002 year is not explicit in this point. Instead a new paragraph is added which states:
To assist the peer assessment committee in effective adjudication of all applications, the Dance Section commissions in-depth reports and papers in various forms from specialists (Canada Council, 2001/2002d, p. 2).
Because the application continues to disallow the submission of media recordings as supplemental materials it is assumed that assessors still observe live performances.
However, where the application states that “professional dance in Canada is inevitably a larger field than the collective expertise of the seven to nine peer assessment committee members”, it explains that outside specialists are also invited to adjudicate live performances and give their opinions to the jury in order that the assessors are able to make an educated and balanced decision. The inclusion of specialists further emphasizes the quality of the artistic product in the evaluation of the grant application.
Canada Council - Dance Peer Assessment Committee members are selected from
several regions of the country with an expectation that they are familiar
with the artistic activity and see performances in their region. The Dance
guidelines say “Peer Assessment Committee members who have seen the
applicant’s work will contribute also to the discussion …” To ensure that
the artistic evaluation does not rely on the opinions of only one or two
Peer Assessment Committee members, the Dance and Theatre Sections
call upon external assessors to attend the productions of companies
applying for operating funding. These assessors are asked to respond to a
standardized set of questions concerning the quality of the production,
their response and the audience’s response, and discuss the overall
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quality of the experience, including reception and environment. Their
reports are presented to the peer assessors, who take them into account in
their assessment of the organizations. For each applicant, the committee
sees three to four external assessments from different productions
presented by the company over the last two or three years. In this way, one
particularly successful or unsuccessful production does not overly
influence the evaluation of artistic merit.
As with the applications from the other Sections of the Canada Council, the dance application gradually increases the financial requirements through the inclusion of appendices and other required documents, for example, the letter from the Chairperson of the Board of Directors. The application from 2006/2007 adds specific requirements in the
Administrative and Financial Stability section. New to the section is the addition of yet another appendix (K) in which the organization is required to summarize the three key objectives and the anticipated outcomes for each year. A series of guidelines are provided to assist organizations in summarizing key objectives. The guidelines themselves are extensive and are designed to assist organizations “in presenting [the] company’s administrative, financial and physical infrastructure; its organizational and administrative strengths and successes; as well as internal or external challenges” (Canada Council,
2006/2007d, p. 9). In brief, the added guidelines include:
• Self-assessment – includes a discussion of the unrestricted reserve fund, and all other restricted funds, and their uses.
• Human, financial and organizational resources – working conditions, employee benefits, a guarantee that financial planning and budget are realistic and that professional leadership and members of the
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board of directors are aware of the implications of financial risk in the budget; roles, responsibilities, structures and working relationships of human resources in the company; transition processes and plans for key staff and board members; a planning process that promotes the sustainable development of the company.
• Governance – responsibilities shared between professional leadership and members of the board for achieving the artistic vision/mission of the company and ensuring its health and viability.
• Physical resources – rehearsal studios, technical equipment, computers, archives etc, and how these are used to the attainment of the company’s artistic vision; investment planning to maintain, improve, and replace resources (Canada Council, 2006/2007d)
These new guidelines show a significant increase in the attention paid to the financial elements of the application. The new call for specific discussion of governance, resources, and (un)restricted funds show that the economic stability of dance organizations is now playing a more balanced part in the assessment process with the artistic criteria of the program. These additional guidelines bring the Dance Section in line with the other Sections of the Canada Council whose applications have contained large financial reporting requirements for several years already.
Through the years analyzed 1999/2000 – 2007/2008, the Dance application acquires the same financial requirements as the applications for the other Sections, and also continues to demand ever increasing requirements that are specific to dance. For example, in the 2006/2007 application, the Realization subdivision of Artistic Criteria is further subdivided as follows:
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Table VII - Realization criteria subheadings – Creation/Production in Dance application, 2006/2007 Artistic Merit – Realization Subdivisions B1 – Realization B2 – Other activities B3 – Other activities connected with the connected with the creative company’s creative process process but involving entities other than the company Choice of Programming Creation residencies Contracting or transmission of company works to a performer who is not part of the company or to another dance company Quality of Practice Research labs Creation of a work for an artist or group of artists (who are not members of the company) that is presented in your venue. The revenues of this presentation to totally or in part to your company Nature and significance of Creation projects that involve the Creation of work for another performance production values community in which members of Canadian or foreign company if the company participate the fee paid is included in your revenues and/or results in collaboration with significant benefits to your company Nature of approach chosen: Film projects relating to existing Works that are not your innovation/tradition or new choreographies company’s but which you present in your facilities or in the course of your season Risk-taking/Preservation Creation mentoring or Internships, workshops, creation sponsorship of one or more seminars, master or technical company members classes for professional performers (and emerging artists) who are not part of your company Outcome/Integrity of the whole Creation workshops or seminars Invitations to companies within for company performers your own season. - Training and professional - development for members of the company - Training for apprentices and/or - understudies - Recruitment/performer - auditions/performer integration process
The addition of these very specific requirements in combination with the growing financial reporting burden of the applications, as seen above and in Appendix II, make
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the Canada Council application for Dance the most detailed and cumbersome of all the
applications studied.
The Peer Assessment Process
The applications for funding from the Canada Council make constant reference to
the assessment process by a peer committee. “Peers, in the Council’s definition, are
people who, by virtue of their experience, knowledge and open-mindedness, are capable
of making a fair and informed assessment of the comparative merits of grant
applications” (Canada Council, 2009, p. 2). It is in the use of the peer jury that the
Council’s funding process mirrors the challenges faced by arts organization members in
the larger interaction with government. Assessors are artists attempting to artistically
evaluate an application which has become, over time, an increasingly economic
document. The assessors, furthermore, are ill equipped to grapple with the financial
reporting of the applications and thus turn to the artistic product of the application
without fully realizing that the applications themselves are no longer balanced.
Statements by the interviewed peer assessor, pp. 190, 191 below, will clarify.
Peer assessment is the Council’s way of ensuring community participation in the funding process, and fairness in grant decision-making. The Council states:
It is essential that applicants for Council grants have confidence that they have been assessed by people with the knowledge and expertise to make sound qualitative judgements in their field of the arts – even if, in failing to get a grant, they are unhappy with the outcome (Canada Council, 2009, p. 2).
The Council selects its peer assessors according to professional experience, knowledge
relevant to the program criteria, diversity of specializations, artistic practices, cultural
diversity, regional perspectives, language, gender, aboriginal representation, and the
190 ability to provide aesthetic context to the jury discussions (Canada Council, 2009).
Because the Council recognizes that no committee of three to seven people, as comprise a jury, can represent all these characteristics, it will occasionally call on an individual assessor from the field to provide specialized expertise to supplement the work of the assessment committee in, for example, the form of a written report on a performance
(Canada Council, 2009). As seen in the applications this occurs particularly in the dance
Section. Thus the peer assessment committee process is intended to provide a knowledgeable and fair arena in which applications will be judged and grants given.
It is intimated both in the application forms and other Canada Council documents that the peer assessment committee is responsible for making the final granting decisions.
Statements such as the following: “funding decisions are made by the consensus of committee members” (Canada Council, 2009, p. 3) lead to an assumption that it is the committee itself that decides the grant amounts. However, this is not the case. In fact, peer assessors only recommend which applicants receive grants and which do not. They have no input as to the grant amounts that successful applicants receive. A peer assessor interviewed for the research states:
Peer Assessor - We don’t discuss the money, we don’t discuss who gets what.
What we did at the end is put everybody in a list and then the department
took care of it. You tend to deal with generalizations you know? They get
funding or they don’t and then you put everybody in order after that. [The
Council], they’re not going to change the order of the peer review. They
decide how much money […] based on the list that we give them with the
order and the amount of money that’s available. I don’t know [how they
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divide the funds]. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to know. Once we do
the peer review we’re done.
The Canada Council document Peer Assessment: How the Council Makes its Grant
Decisions (n.d.) does not clarify who, in fact, does make the final grant amount decisions.
It merely states:
Following assessment committee meetings, the program officer prepares the necessary internal documentation to obtain approval of grants, based on the assessment committee’s recommendations. Authority to approve grants belongs to the Board of the Canada Council, which, for purposes of efficiency, has delegated this responsibility to the Council’s Director for grants of $60,000 and less. The decisions by the Board and the Director are based on the recommendations of the peer assessment committees (Canada Council, n.d. p. 7).
The Canada Council member interviewed did explain the process of fund allocation, clarifying that after the peer assessment committee makes its recommendations the
Sections then weigh the histories and the financial progress toward stability of the funded organizations, the equitable distribution of funds nationally, and other factors.
Unfortunately, due to the censoring of the participant’s responses by the Council administration, the following is all that I am able to quote:
Canada Council - In all cases, a balance is sought between:
• the desire to offer stable support to stable organizations, and
their capacity to plan in the medium and long term;
• the desire to distribute available funding on a competitive
basis, and address the dynamic nature of the artistic
ecosystem.
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The application evaluation itself, so clearly specified in weightings and criteria, also does not play out entirely according to the assertions found in Council documents.
Here specifically is where the struggle between the artistic and the economic becomes visible. Particularly where weighting of criteria are concerned, assessors will make decisions wherein the impact of the performances sometimes takes precedence over other criteria. The interviewed peer assessor outlines the process below:
Peer Assessor - So basically you read, you familiarize yourself with the group,
you read the history, you take a look at the numbers, at their mission
statement at their present situation, their future season they’re applying
for and you make notes. I think that the first thing that you want to do is
[discover] what are they about. This generally [was] the thing I wanted to
know, especially if it was a group that I wasn’t necessarily very familiar
with. So what is the purpose of each group, why do they exist, what are
their areas of interest, what is it that they want to share with their
audience, how much of an audience seems to have an interest in what they
do and why? And that to me is always the first thing, I have no idea for
specific goals, I can slide toward the numbers, you know, financial
statements a little bit as well. You want to know if what they’re doing has
at least touched some people, so they’re not just speaking to themselves.
What surprised me the most in the process once we got together with all
the peer jury was that in the end, despite what people might have as a
presupposition, the quality of the output was by far, by far the most
important thing. And I’m telling you I put a lot of care in the tapes I send
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now to Canada Council specifically because I would say, I mean, to me,
80 percent of everything was is the group any good. I was almost shocked
at how seriously they took the rigour in assessing the artistic quality right
off the bat, [if] something went a little bit inferior it was basically
dismissed.
Thus, the application makes many demands which must be fulfilled in order for the application to be considered, but the jury’s decision, according to the assessor interviewed, is heavily swayed by the quality of the recorded materials submitted. The mandate of the organization, paired with the quality of the submitted performance also
plays a large role for the peer review committee. Organizational mandate is specified a
number of times in the application process and thus the committee attaches meaning to the financial outcome (ticket sales) as an indicator of an organization fulfilling its mandate.
Peer Assessor - The marriage of what they did to the audience that they were
trying to reach was really something that would speak in favour of certain
groups. They [the committee] really felt that they advertised something
that was reasonably broad or reasonably specific and that they were
extremely well attended because of that particular mandate. [If] the
amount of money [spent] and the amount of revenue is really balanced a
funding body, Canada Council or any other, looks at that very favourably
I think. [If] they really service the needs of that particular community
really, really well.
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The Canada Council (2009) is highly committed to ensuring that the peer assessment process is fair and equitable. It states: “it is essential that artists and other arts professionals who serve as members of peer assessment committees are able to attest to the credibility, honesty and fairness of the process” (p. 2). In fact, the Council encourages “discussion and disagreement as a natural outcome of its intensely competitive work” (p. 2) and thus, the peer assessment process is intended to ensure fairness and to prevent any assertions that grants have been unfairly awarded or that the granting process itself is biased. The peer assessor interviewed reinforces the impartiality of the committee adjudication:
Peer Assessor - I know that there’s a lot of talk that Canada Council is highly
politicized. I don’t know if it’s true or not but I can tell you from my
experience with music that it isn’t politicized at all. Absolutely not, if there
is a real problem you have to remove yourself. And there was one group,
for example, that had a youth group and my niece played in that group
and I even asked if I should [excuse myself] and in the end they said no.
They said you should stay in, it’s not enough, but I mean my niece played
in that group. We wanted to make them aware that sometimes people knew
somebody and they would just say so. And it [was] very rigorous and I’m
very happy about it. You know I mean I was impressed and pleased. I was
surprised, I was actually very surprised.
Discussion – Applying Bourdieu
Considering the analysis of Canada Council grant priorities in comparison with the shifting priorities of the federal government seen in the previous chapter, it is possible
195 to suggest that the economic priorities of government are delivered to arts organizations directly through grant application requirements. As the government moves towards an economic focus generally, the prioritization of sustainability and a business approach to organizational operation become requirements for arts funding. These requirements can be seen as an example of the State as meta-field exerting influence through symbolic imposition. The result of the State’s changed priorities is the ultimate reduction of the value of the cultural and symbolic capital in which performing arts organizations trade.
The government reflects its reduced support of the arts sector by reducing the funding and making economic indicators and economic capital the markers of organizational success. As a result, the symbolic value of investment in the traditional arts (by corporate and individual investors) is likewise reduced. These actions not only challenge the autonomy of the performing arts, but they also subordinate their position in the field of cultural production.
The Canada Council applications become contradictory when balancing the
Artistic Quality assessment weighting with the consistently growing financial demands of the application. The changes to the Canada Council application reflect the government shift toward cultural industries thinking, but the persistence of the artistic priority in the weighting scheme suggests that the Council resists full acquiescence to the economic dictates of the federal government. That peer assessment committees, comprised of artists, place a heavier weight on the quality of performance over any other criteria show that though organizations must fulfill the economic requirements of the application in order to even be considered for a grant, the artistic output is the primary measure of funding. What is occurring here is what Bourdieu might see as field members resisting a
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boundary change. However, where the State as meta-field controls the amount of
economic capital being allocated to arts funding and requires the satisfaction of certain criteria in exchange for funding, the economic priorities will be gradually taken up by artists. Alternately, the persistence of the peer assessment jury in evaluating applications based on artistic quality may be considered an indicator that the financial requirements, and their impact, are not clearly seen as symbolic impositions even by those who assess them. A subsequent chapter will discussion the collusion that forms an integral part of the relationship between arts organizations and government and thus I will elaborate no further on it here. Suffice it to say that the Canada Council maintains its artistic priorities, and certain peer assessment jury members place heavier weight on the artistic qualities of the organization being assessed. However, the applications over time reveal an ever increasing economic focus which belies, or at least challenges, the artistic assertions of the Council itself.
For arts organizations, the tacit struggle between artistic and economic criteria in the applications manifests in the hours required to complete the application, in the dictated organizational structure vis-à-vis governance and the board of directors, in the programming of Canadian repertoire, and in the running of education and outreach programs. The struggle also manifests in the fluctuating funding amounts given, the competitive nature of the process and the clear statement that some deserving organizations won’t be funded simply because there is not enough money to go around.
The peer review system of evaluation for the Canada Council is as fair as possible but given the limited knowledge of peer assessors vis-à-vis financial matters, the scope of arts disciplines requiring outside assistance, and the input of Section members and board
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members in the final amount of the grant, the challenges facing a peer review committee are evident. The evaluation of applications, as seen in the peer assessor statement, does not necessarily reflect the weighting system and the subjectivity of the artistic assessment is problematic though rigour is exercised in order to eliminate juror bias.
In observing the applications for the Canada Council, the source of the struggle
between economic and artistic priorities that was originally outlined in Chapter Four
begins to appear. Eligibility demands extensive financial reporting, clear governance
practices, outreach and education programming, adherence to the organization’s mandate,
innovation, and Canadian content. Even within this simple statement of requirements the
challenge is apparent. How might an organization run a vital and innovative season while
splitting focus with education and outreach programs directed at young audiences? How
might an organization program artistic works that reach the mandated audience while
adhering to the Canadian content criteria? How might the organization spend its time and
energy on artistic output while also worrying about the governance practices of the Board
of Directors? It is not yet possible to see the full effect that these issues present for
performing arts organizations because the Provincial funding bodies also play a major
role in directing the organizational operations. Thus the nature of the economic
relationship between government and the performing arts cannot yet be determined,
though the first part of the analysis reveals that the economic priorities of government are
passed to arts organizations through the grant applications of the Canada Council as
symbolic impositions.
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CHAPTER SEVEN: ALBERTA - CULTURAL PRIORITIZATION AND THE
ALBERTA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
The evolution of arts policy, funding, and prioritization of the Canada Council by
various federal governments placed a focus on developing a national culture and fostering
original works by Canadian artists. However, the provincial history of cultural
prioritization is unique to each province. To chart the progression of the arts in Alberta we must examine the evolution of provincial arts policy, funding, and prioritization. For
the purpose of discussion, unless otherwise specified, the ‘State’ considered in this
chapter will refer to the provincial government of Alberta. The chapter will also outline a
brief history of both the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) and the Alberta
Performing Arts Stabilization Fund (APASF). As with the previous chapter outlining the
history of federal governments vis-à-vis the Canada Council, this chapter intends to
provide background material which will inform the analysis of the AFA grant documents.
The Social Credit Years – 1935 – 1971
Alberta was granted provincial status in 1905 after the population of agricultural
settlers to the prairies grew to a recognizable size. Finkel (1989) explains that the
province was a predominantly agrarian society with cultural activities that reflected the
interests, and pocketbooks, of its rural farming communities. Activities such as sports,
community dances, and amateur music and theatre provided what cultural entertainment
there was in rural communities. In the urban centres a small core of independent
(professional) artists were active in vaudeville, reviews, and community orchestras
among other performance activities. The Canmore and Edmonton Opera Houses were in
existence as venues for professional concerts and arts events at the turn of the century.
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However, it was not until the radio broadcasts of the CKUA in 1927, and the Canadian
Radio Broadcast Corporation in 1930, that the performing arts became wide-spread throughout both urban and rural Alberta.
During the early provincial development of Alberta a form of prairie populism led to the rise of the Social Credit party of “Bible Bill” Aberhart in the 1930’s (for a full discussion of early Albertan society, see Finkel, 1989). The Social Credit party is often viewed as being anti-finance because of its early monetary policies directed at the financial institutions that were believed to be responsible for the Great Depression
(Brownsey & Howlett, 2001). However, Finkel (1989) explains that “the early Social
Credit is best understood as a loose coalition of reformers rather than as a single minded
[…] movement to tame the financiers” (p. 4). As such the party promoted progressive policies in labour, health, and education. In 1943, Aberhart was succeeded by Ernest
Manning. Under Manning’s leadership the Social Credit party shifted to the right and
identified Socialism as its major opponent, rather than big business.
The discovery of oil near Leduc in 1947 was a turning point for the province in
many ways. First, the increased revenues allowed the provincial government to spend
generously on social services. Second, the development of urban societies in Calgary and
Edmonton greatly increased the service sector of the province (Brownsey & Howlett,
2001; Finkel 1989). In 1947 the first steps towards an institutionalized cultural sector was
made with the introduction of Alberta’s first cultural policy, the Cultural Development
Act of 1946. The Cultural Development Act allowed for the establishment of boards for
arts organizations and created the position of ‘coordinator of cultural activities’, a
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position which reported directly to the Minister of Economic Affairs. (Melnyk, 1995;
Whitson, Wall & Cardinal, 2006).
[The function of the Act shall be] the encouragement, co- ordination, expansion and development of different aspects of the cultural life of the Province, and in particular, library facilities in both urban and rural districts, music, art, drama, handicrafts and physical recreation (Revised Statutes of Alberta, 1955, as cited in Melnyk, 1995).
Thus the Cultural Development Act, in reality, simply allowed for the creation of boards.
Over time, however, the Act led to the creation of a Cultural Activities Branch and with the appointment of Edmonton actor and drama teacher Walter Kaasa as assistant deputy minister, the Branch became a “dynamic facilitator for culture and the arts in Alberta over the next thirty years” (Fraser, 2003, p. 33). The Cultural Activities Branch concerned itself primarily with amateur artists and arts organizations, gave small grants and scholarships, and provided consultative services. It was not until 1968, with the collapse of the Recreation portfolio in government, that any focus was put upon developing a professional level of arts and culture in the province. In 1968 a new program was initiated that would fund qualified artists to perform their works in various communities of rural Alberta; the program was the first opportunity for performers to earn an income as artists in the province. Another notable event during the Social Credit regime was the 1955 building of the Jubilee Auditoriums in Calgary and Edmonton, to mark Alberta’s 50th anniversary as a province.
Though the Social Credit party under Manning did, with the benefit of oil
largesse, invest some time and thought into the cultural future of the province, there still
existed an ‘old guard’ attitude which was held by the Depression-surviving Social Credit
members. To these party members the arts were seen as “at best a harmless but
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unessential frill, less charitably as a waste of time and money, and at worst as a potential
threat to their (Christian) way of life” (Fraser, 2003, p. 25). Following Manning’s
footsteps as premier was Harry Strom, who attempted to modernize the party by
instituting new freedoms (including Sunday movies and allowing alcohol to be served
with restaurant meals). Strom’s tenure saw the expansion of the Banff (summer) School
of Fine Arts into a year-round institution, the first educational television station, and the
new Department of Culture, Youth, and Recreation in 1971 (Whitson, Wall & Cardinal,
2006).
Alberta in Camelot – 1971-1985
Though it was the Social Credit government of Ernest Manning that introduced
the first arts and culture initiatives to the province, it is the Conservative government of
Peter Lougheed that is credited with building a cultural tradition of art and arts funding in
Alberta. Lougheed’s personal interest and patronage of the arts (largely attributed to his wife, Jeanne, a former dancer) changed the perception of the arts and raised their value to
Albertans. As the voice of the province shifted from rural to urban, the arts were able to
compete with agricultural exhibitions like the Calgary Stampede and Edmonton’s
Klondike Days in the list of government cultural spending priorities. Furthermore, Horst
Schmid, Minister of the Department of Culture, Youth, and Recreation, had a penchant for arts advocacy. His “commitment to making the arts matter in Alberta, and his influence with the Premier and in cabinet, would result in steadily improved budgets for
arts and cultural development over the next eight years” (Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal,
2006, p. 6).
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Peter Lougheed came to power in Alberta at the height of an economic boom similar to the one recently experienced. Lougheed believed that the province’s wealth had something to offer the spirit and thus he used the powers of the state to gain policy objectives through what was termed his province building strategy. The strategy greatly expanded the provincial bureaucracy adding Departments of Federal and Governmental
Affairs, Energy and Natural Resources, Advanced Education, and Economic
Development. Within the Department of Culture, Youth and Recreation, the creation of the Cultural Development Branch presaged a decade in which the provincial government of Alberta placed culture high on its list of priorities. The evidence of increased government arts prioritization is visible in the dollars spent annually on arts grants and scholarships. In 1971 at the end of the Social Credit government, the annual arts funding total stood at $282,797. By 1979 under Lougheed, the annual arts funding total was
$7,511,647. Thus the period of Peter Lougheed’s reign, 1971 – 1985, is frequently referred to as the “Camelot” era in Alberta (Fraser, 2003; Melnyk, 1995; Smith, 2001).
One of the first initiatives of the Cultural Development Branch was to host a series of conferences, bringing together artists and arts groups, for the purpose of exploring what specific sorts of programs might enhance cultural life in the province
(Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal, 2006). The programs which emerged from these conferences were to bear fruit in the second term of Premier Lougheed’s tenure with the creation of an independent Department of Culture in 1976 (Youth and Recreation were moved into the
Department of Parks). Creation of the Department of Culture was the first major step in establishing a vital arts and culture scene in Alberta. Still Minister of Culture, Horst
Schmid took charge of arts funding and established a wealth of grants organized under
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two major units: the Cultural Development Branch meant to encourage the performing
arts, the visual arts and crafts, film, and literature; and the Cultural Heritage Division
meant to oversee grant programs that supported a wide variety of heritage projects
(Fraser, 2003). He also ensured that the Alberta government’s support of the arts
delivered not only money but also “advice, training, education, scholarships, and expert
consultation” (Fraser, 2003, p. 71) to arts organizations. To manage the volume of arts grants being distributed the government established many arms-length funding institutions including the Alberta Art Foundation, the Alberta Foundation for the Literary
Arts, and the Alberta Foundation for the Performing Arts. Receipt of grants was possible for any organization which met the requirements of artistic merit and suitability (what determines the ‘suitability’ of an organization is not defined).
In all of these granting programs, however, the most important assistance program was the Alberta Matching Grants Program which matched private donations to arts organizations dollar for dollar up to 25% of an organization’s budget. This program encouraged new levels of corporate and private philanthropy in support of Alberta theatre groups, symphony orchestras, opera and dance companies (Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal,
2006). The program was available to both professional and amateur performing and visual arts organizations.
The Alberta approach to legislation, programming, and financing of the arts became a model in the cultural field and was echoed in provinces across Canada. The
Matching Grants Program was the recipient of an international award for innovation in financial support (Fraser, 2003; Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal, 2006). The mid-1970’s thus, unsurprisingly, saw an explosion of cultural events and art organizations in Alberta.
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Included in the cultural growth of the province were the creation of major arts
organizations such as the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta Theatre Projects and
Calgary Opera in Calgary, the Edmonton Fringe Festival, and numerous summer arts
programs, folk, jazz and film festivals and an “Artist-in-Residence program” that funded
visits by Alberta artists to rural communities and schools in the province. Also, the
establishment of the Banff Centre as an arts institution of international renown was
achieved with the passing of the Banff Centre Act which established the Banff Centre for
Continuing Education as an autonomous institution with university status (Whitson, Wall,
& Cardinal, 2006).
Of course the days of wine and roses were not to last and the Alberta economy
suffered a collapse in the early 1980’s. Fuelled in part by an American recession and in
part by the National Energy Program16 instituted by the Federal government, the “bust”
of the 1980’s resulted in a major shift to arts funding in Alberta. The Matching Grant
Program faced its first shortfall in the 1982-83 year and “as demand outstripped the funding available from departmental allocations, more and more of the funding for the arts and culture would come from lottery revenues” (Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal, 2006, p.
8). The transformation in government from politics of plenty and consensus to politics of scarcity and conflict would become complete with the retirement of Peter Lougheed from politics and the economic restructuring of the province by the Getty and Klein governments in the following years. Whitson, Wall, and Cardinal (2006) point out that
16 “Introduced in 1980, the NEP strove to keep the oil-patch in Canadian hands and to prevent foreign firms from making obscene profits on booming oil prices. Its chosen weapons included a combination of subsidies, regulated prices and heavy taxes that had the effect of keeping domestic oil and natural gas prices as much as 30% below world price levels. This took about $50 billion out of
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Alberta’s pro-arts policies during the Lougheed years were a product of the belief of the leaders in the province itself, and in the value of the arts in public life. However, the
changes were not sufficiently institutionalized to survive the changes in political
leadership that Alberta would undergo in the following decades.
The Getty Government – 1985 - 1992
In 1985 Don Getty took the helm of a province in crisis. The economic recession
and National Energy Program had depleted the provincial coffers and the province was
now dependent on oil and gas royalties and investment income from the Heritage Fund.
“Premier Getty inherited the on-going costs of the Lougheed expansion in a vastly
changed economic and political climate, and unlike Lougheed, he lacked the desire, the
initiative, and perhaps the ability to ride herd on a group of ambitious big spenders
around the cabinet table” (Cooper & Kanji, 2000, p. 34). The spending programs of the
Lougheed era-of-plenty were now driving the province into debt as revenue could not
keep pace with expenditures and the budgetary surpluses of previous years were being
wiped out. Instead of cutting expenditures, the Getty government committed two of what
Albertans would now consider cardinal sins. The first was Getty’s use of the provincial
‘credit card’ to keep up appearances, and the second was his misrepresentation to
Albertans that the government spending problem had been addressed (Cooper & Kanji,
2000). From 1985 – 1994, the province moved from a net asset position of $12.6 billion,
to a net debt position of $8.4 billion (Kneebone, 2005).
Alberta’s economy in five years, sent major oil companies to the US and elsewhere, and precipitated a recession in the oil-patch” (Cox, 1987, p. 37).
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In the arts sector the increasing economic retrenchment was reflected by a change in the attitude of the provincial government toward the performing arts, and even some
resurgence of the anti-culture attitudes associated with the bygone Social Credit years
(Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal, 2006). Culture was considered an easier target for cutbacks
than health care or education (Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal, 2006; Melnyk, 1995). Thus
under Getty several significant changes were made to arts funding in Alberta. The first of
these changes was presaged in 1986 by the Cultural Heritage Division Five Year Plan, a
confidential document which outlined recommendations based on a review of existing
programs in the Cultural Heritage Division of the Department of Culture. Instructions for
the review – given by Mary J. LeMessurier, then Minister of Culture – included
examining new and existing programs “with a view toward cutting costs, contracting
services to the private sector, encouraging volunteer involvement and private sector
support, and improving grant programs” (Alberta Culture, 1986, p. i). Following these
instructions the report recommendations included an increased use of the private and
commercial sectors in the delivery of both existing and new programs; organizational
development programs enabling access to greater private sector support with a view to
self-sufficiency; and most notably, collaboration with other government departments and
agencies and with agencies in the private sector to co-ordinate services (Alberta Culture,
1986). The intent was to ensure the best use of resources by avoiding duplication, cutting
costs, and encouraging partnerships, while filling program gaps that might become
evident (Alberta Culture, 1986). The Five Year Plan, though specific to the Cultural
Heritage division, was indicative of the approach the government would take toward
culture generally. Following the report, and after ongoing erosion of its budget, the
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Department of Culture was, in 1987, renamed the Department of Culture and
Multiculturalism. The ministry underwent significant budget and staff cuts and the
mandate of the department also shifted. It now included “a new emphasis on the cultural industries and on the economic importance of the arts including a new language of
‘cultural goods and services’” (Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal, 2006, p. 11).
The second major change of the Getty government was to shift the source of arts funding from revenue funding to lottery funding. The Western Canada Lottery was at this time a significant source of revenue for the province, and since the federal government had long since (1970’s) agreed that lottery business was a provincial jurisdiction, the
Getty government opted to use lottery money for arts funding. Melnyk (1995) observes that many members of non-profit arts organizations got used to volunteering at casinos in order to fund their organization’s activities. He comments that “the Lougheed view of
State intervention and support for the arts was replaced by the Getty view that the arts could be funded through (…) State supported gambling” (Melnyk, 1995, p. 258). The fundamental shift in policy was not debated as much as it might have been in the arts community. This was because in a time of much uncertainty “there was still money around” and some feared that the likely alternative to gambling money was no money at all. (Whitson, Wall, & Cardinal, 2006, p. 11).
Though the government was now placing more importance on arms-length funding bodies to manage the distribution of lottery funds, in 1991 the third major Getty government change to arts policy took place. This was the decision to amalgamate all of the Lougheed-established arts foundations – the Alberta Art Foundation, the Alberta
Foundation for the Literary Arts, and the Alberta Foundation for the Performing Arts -
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into a single body, the newly created Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) (Whitson,
Wall, & Cardinal, 2006; Melnyk, 1995). The AFA assumed the programs of the other
foundations as well as programs which had once enjoyed their own envelope in the
Department of Culture.
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) was established with a mandate to
support and contribute to the development of the arts in Alberta. According to the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts Act of 1991 (Alberta Foundation for the Arts, 2000) the purposes
of the Foundation are:
A) to support and contribute to the development of and to promote the arts in Alberta;
B) to provide persons and organizations with the opportunity to participate in the arts in Alberta;
C) to foster and promote the enjoyment of works of art by Alberta artists;
D) to collect, preserve and display works of art by Alberta artists;
E) to encourage artists resident in Alberta in their work (p. 2)
Stated in the 2002-2003 Report to the Community, the AFA Foundation vision statement
is: “An Alberta where a vibrant arts community inspires creativity and innovation and is part of the fabric of how we live and work” (p. 2).
Strategically, the AFA believes in healthy and sustainable arts organizations; province-wide public arts participation; helping artists to realize their creative goals; partnerships to support the arts; communicating the intrinsic value of the arts; increased public exposure to the AFA art collection; and, contributing to the growth of a healthy, sustainable arts community. Financially stable and well-governed arts
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organizations are the cornerstone of a vigorous and productive arts community (AFA, 2002-2003, p. 2)
The AFA receives its funds from the Alberta Lottery Fund (ALF), which holds the government’s share of net proceeds from VLT’s, slot machines, electronic bingo, and ticket lotteries (Alberta Lottery Fund, 2008a, p. 1). The Alberta Gaming and Liquor
Commission administers the ALF to thousands of volunteer, public and community- based initiatives. “Lottery fund dollars are allocated to specific ministries, and through those ministries to public initiatives, foundations and grant programs” (Alberta Lottery
Fund, 2008b, p. 1). The Alberta Foundation for the Arts is one of 14 ministries to which funds are distributed annually. In the 2008/2009 year the projected revenue of the ALF will be $1.5 billion dollars. Of this $475.5 million will go to the Department of Culture and Community Spirit who administers the funds as follows:
Major Community Facilities Program $140.0 million
Community Facility Enhancement $38.5 million
Alberta Foundation for the Arts $35.0 million
Community Initiatives Program $29.2 million
Community Spirit Donation Program $20.0 million
Alberta Historical Resources Foundation $9.5 million
Wild Rose Foundation $8.5 million
Human Rights, Citizenship & $2.0 million Multiculturalism Education Fund Total $307.7 million
(Alberta Lottery Fund, 2008b, p. 2)
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Interestingly, the total amount of funds given to the department of Culture and
Community Spirit stated here do not match the total $475.5 million stated in the same
document earlier (p. 1). I was unable to discover why or where the discrepancy occurred and so make the assumption that the remaining portion ($167.8 million) is used for other initiatives that the ALF states were funded in previous years by the Department which was then known as Tourism, Parks, Recreation and Culture. Though these initiatives are not listed in the 2008/2009 estimates, they are included in the 2007/2008 initiatives. They are: recreation and sports facilities grants, horse racing and breeding renewal program, major fairs and exhibitions, First Nations development fund, community facility enhancement program, Alberta film development program, bingo associations, hosting major athletic events, and other initiatives unspecified (Alberta Lottery Fund, 2008b, p.
3). The Alberta Foundation for the Arts distributes the lottery fund money through several different grant programs. The program of focus to this research is the operating grant for major performing arts organizations; therefore other grant programs run by the
AFA are listed in Appendix III.
The Klein Revolution – 1992 - 2007
The Getty days, however, were still not as difficult for the arts in Alberta as were the years of Ralph Klein’s government. Elected on a platform of change, Klein promised to balance the provincial budget, eliminate the deficit, and pay off the debt. He began a crusade of public sector downsizing and a systematic marketization of the province which saw program expenditures fall by 21.6% by 1996 (Kneebone, 2005). Klein’s revolution was largely influenced by the rhetoric of globalization which, in the 1990’s, was an international phenomenon. Though globalization has social and cultural definitions, it is
211 most frequently associated with the “linkages between financial markets in different countries” (MacGillivray, 2006, p. 5) and this economic focus of globalization was the one which resonated most with the Klein Conservatives. Klein made it a goal to ensure that Alberta became a competitor in the global marketplace and his restructuring of the provincial government included a strict corporatist model (with congruence between state, market, and society) and the implementation of business plans which held the government accountable in ways similar to those in the private sector (Smith, 2001;
Flanagan, 2005; Harrison, 2005). “The application of a business plan concept to all of government operations, in a comprehensive, systematic, and coordinated way […] was unique at the time” (Flanagan, 2005, p. 121). The expectation that government be run as a business reflected the Klein administration’s approach to all things. As services were privatized, government reduced, and new management strategies implemented, Albertans soon realized they had to compete in the global market economy, and that public policies were no place of safety as they too were subject to economic prioritization.
In the culture sector, one of Ralph Klein’s first acts was to fold the Department of
Culture and Multiculturalism into a multi-purpose Ministry of Community Development.
In the new ministry culture competed for attention with social housing, programs for women and seniors, and the provincial addictions treatment agency (Whitson, Wall, &
Cardinal, 2006). As with all other areas of government, the cultural sector was expected to develop performance measures by which their value, social and fiscal, could be evaluated. The “quantitative measures of performance and the establishment of clear standards against which public services could be assessed by users and taxpayers”
(Smith, 2001, p. 299) were not measures that arts organizations could easily implement to
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the satisfaction of the government. As Klein’s vision of government did not readily
include support for any organization that couldn’t cut it in a market economy, arts
organizations began to feel the increasing pinch of financial cutbacks and the constantly
growing requirements of self-sustainability, transparency, and accountability. The
Matching Grants Program which had earned recognition for the province was abandoned.
The government, using the discourse of the new department mandate of community
development, encouraged arts organizations to seek corporate sponsorship and to rely
more heavily on volunteers for organizational work. The Alberta Foundation for the Arts,
whose budget had been frozen since 1998 (at $16.5 million annually), became the sole
source of arts funding with all of its money coming from lotteries (Fraser, 2003).
Privatization
The main technique used by the Alberta government to downsize and reduce costs
was privatization. Government services such as liquor sales, registry services, property assessments, labour mediation, employment standards and most highway maintenance were transferred to the private sector. Other institutions such as Alberta Tourism
Education Council, the Alberta Securities Commission, and the Workers’ Compensation
Board became self-financing (Melnyk, 2005). The Banff Centre was one such newly- independent institution and to facilitate its transfer to self-sustainability it was given funds to set up a Leadership Development program and Conference centre - a profit- making operation designed to fund the arts programming for which the centre is renowned (Melnyk, 1995). Though Klein did not attempt to privatize the cultural sector outright many of the changes he implemented are in fact elements of privatization and therefore, though not occurring in the same fashion as the privatization of the liquor
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board or the Banff Centre, it can be stated that the arts were privatized by Klein’s
provincial government. A brief overview of privatization will reveal the forms in use in
Alberta.
Privatization as a method of increasing efficiency in government was an idea that
had been around since the 1970’s. Margaret Thatcher’s Britain was a first major
proponent of the concept. Vera Blotho (1998), head of the Cultural Policy and Action
Division of the Council of Europe, calls privatization “one of the main engines of change
at the end of [the twentieth] century” and points out that it “affects all sectors of
governmental action, including culture” (p. 20). In its most strict definition privatization means the selling of public property to private investors (Boorsma, 1998). There are, however, other modes of privatization which do not simply hand services to the private sector but instead encourage a mixed-mode of sustainability. Boorsma (1998) outlines several types of privatization but I have included here only those which relate to the cultural sector and arts organizations. 1) Divestiture: Management-buy-in or
Management-buyout is the form of privatization in which an organization is sold and the property rights transferred to a private party. If to an outside player this is called a management-buy-out, if to an organizational member then it is called management-buy- in. With divestiture the government may opt for a partial privatization wherein it still provides some subsidy to the organization, an attractive option for cultural organizations with products of limited marketability. 2) Transformation of a State organization into a more independent organization is privatization which suggests an arms-length operation.
In this form of privatization the organization remains in the public realm though privately run. Therefore the private manager of the business is basically running an operation
214 which for the most part is owned by the state. The privatized functions include planning, rehearsing, and executing productions while strategic decision-making remains a shared responsibility. 3) Use of Volunteers is privatization as a means of reducing operating costs while capitalizing on expertise, as in the case of arts boards, or manpower in support services such as house usher positions and ticket takers. 4) Private Funding is seen as the final step in transforming public funding into private funding. Private funding takes two distinguishable forms: income from product sales, and income from private donations. Therefore when public funding is cut, an organization has the option of raising ticket prices, attracting more patrons, and soliciting more private donations.
Another form of privatization, not discussed by Boorsma, called deregulation
(Weiler, 2000), is widely discussed in terms of funding for education. Deregulation involves the dilution of the control and financing of public-sector activities, and the mobilization of external resources in the face of a shortage of public funding (Klees,
2008; Weiler, 2000; Dennison, 2003; Tooley, 2003; Brighouse, 2004). Seen often in the arts, the mobilization of external resources involves seeking funds from individual or corporate donors, and private foundations. Deregulation creates the conditions which necessitate survival strategies such as the sale of services (language teaching or the use of libraries and data networks in the case of education, Weiler, 2000, or paid corporate performances in the case of arts organizations). In education, it has resulted in raised fees, targeted programs (where a university may choose to offer only one or two saleable programs to students), and the adoption of the for-profit college structure (Dennison,
2003). Deregulated privatization and the quest for external resources have significant drawbacks. First, acquired funds may be of questionable longevity, and external funds
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may carry hidden costs that have to do with the erosion of basic capabilities (meaning libraries, equipment, and the physical plant in the education literature). And second, “the seeking of outside support typically entails compromises between the institution’s own priorities and the priorities of the outside funding agency” (Weiler, 2000, p. 335;
Dennison, 2003). Weiler (2000) posits that privatization itself presents an organizational and structural alternative to the traditional university operating methods.
Returning to the arts in Alberta, we can see these forms of privatization at work in the cultural sector and elsewhere. Alberta has a 53% rate of volunteerism, over the national average of 46% (Statistics Canada, 2007). Arts organizations, and arms-length funding bodies, make extensive use of volunteers on their boards of directors, as front of house personnel, and, in the case of smaller companies, as backstage workers as well.
Private funding is likewise a large element of artistic operations as most companies work with a three-legged-stool approach to financing – government funding, private sponsorship, and ticket sales. Thus, according to Boorsma’s definition of private funding, arts organizations in Alberta rely on this form of privatization for approximately two- thirds of their income. Divestiture is at work here as well, though perhaps not in ways as clearly suggested by Boorsma. For example, arts companies in Calgary occupy space in the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts – Epcor pays a certain amount to the city to have its corporate name on the building, but the building itself is city owned and operated. The arts organizations are privately run and pay a certain rent to the city for space in the centre, but they rely on municipal funding for staffing, maintenance, and operations of the buildings. The centre itself is a cultural facility of divested privatization
- partly funded by the municipal government and partly paid for by the tenancy of arts
216 organizations. Finally, deregulation can be seen in funding fluctuations which result in arts organizations relying heavily on external revenue streams such as sponsorship.
Creating the Special Interest Group
Under Ralph Klein, as we have seen, Alberta became a profit-oriented, market- focused society. The goal of Klein’s provincial government was to reduce the size of government and the number of expenditures through privatization and the combination of previously independent departments and social programs. Not all of his goals were accomplished through the technique of overt budget-slashing, however; some of them were achieved through the use of new terminology which served the purpose of isolating segments of society and thus reducing the value of their capital(s) in the economic field.
In particular, the terminology I refer to is the language of the special interest.
Harrison, Johnston, and Krahn (2005) state that the term special interest group emerged Post-WWII as a core concept in the restructuring of the relationship between the state and the market, or, as a vehicle for transforming the expectations of citizens in regard to government. By labelling as special interest certain groups which were seen to be “demanding excessive amounts of government funding, and exerting undue influence on the political process” (Harrison, Johnston, and Krahn, 2005), the government was able to direct the attention of the populace towards those who were ‘responsible’ for the financial state of the province. Smith (2001) points out that in essence any group that was not of mainstream interest to the government was labelled as a special interest. Groups thus branded included, among others, arts organizations, organized labour, environmentalists, ethnic minorities, First Nations, welfare recipients, teachers, advocates for the poor, and women’s groups (Harrison, Johnston, and Krahn, 2005). By holding
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accountable the special interest groups the government was better able to place itself in
the role of public defender, slashing government expenditures that could easily be
labelled frivolous, excessive, or unnecessary.
Attacks upon “special interests” were useful in mobilizing and cementing support among core voter groups, especially members of lower and middle income groups feeling squeezed by the fiscal downturn (Harrison, Johnston, and Krahn, 2005, p. 88).
Klein’s provincial government was attempting to erase a significant Provincial deficit and trim a government which had ballooned during the Lougheed and Getty terms in office.
Thus the Klein government identified the special interest groups as an opposition to ‘the people’, which automatically placed government in the position of being ‘for the people.’
Among the solutions presented to remedy the problem of special interest groups was the
idea that “politicians should be insulated from the excess demands of ‘special interests’
through a greater reliance upon the market as the arbiter of policy decisions” (Harrison,
Johnston, and Krahn, 2005). Needless to say this solution was tied directly to the government goal of market competitiveness in all aspects of provincial operations. The
transition from a language of government support to a market language occurred slowly
during the initial years of Klein’s tenure. Always reiterating the need for smaller
government, less expenditure, and market competitiveness the government was able to
slowly turn the language of the market into the dominant language of the province. The
special interest terminology was a key component of the shift. It should be noted that
special interest discourse was not unique to Alberta; indeed it was a New Right idea
which arose from the Thatcher and Reagan revolutions. The special interest rhetoric was
effectively used in North America generally, but in Alberta it was implemented to the
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extreme (Harrison, Johnston, and Krahn, 2005). Indeed, Klein’s overall use of the special
interest group language and focus on privatization represent the larger demise of the
welfare state that was occurring (and is ongoing) throughout the Western world. Though
the focus here is the performing arts, other institutions such as health and education have
experienced the same cutbacks and labelling.
The Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization Fund
Fall-out from Klein’s de-prioritization and cuts to the cultural sector, as well as
the recession of the 1980’s, was most noticeable in the arts community from the mid-
1990’s through the most recent bankruptcy protection, of the Calgary Philharmonic
Orchestra in 2003. During this period several of the major performing arts organizations in the province encountered significant financial difficulty. Deliberately employing the
Klein accountability and sustainability approach, the Alberta Performing Arts
Stabilization Fund (APASF) was created as a means of giving financial direction to arts organizations. The APASF was founded in 1995 by members of the business community who were “concerned about what they viewed as unsustainable practices of arts management” (Edwards, Cosgrove & Lawes, 2004, p. 47). The fund began when the head of the Kahanoff Foundation, an avid arts supporter, took a trip to San Francisco to investigate the San Francisco Stabilization Fund. His intention was to see what impact the foundation was having on the stability of arts organizations in the region. Upon his return he, and other members of the business community, formed the APASF. The interviewed
Alberta Foundation for the Arts member explains:
AFA - It started up as a partnership between the federal government, the
provincial government and the Kahanoff Foundation. There were other
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corporate dollars and things that were raised to build that particular fund
but the three major players were federal, provincial and Kahanoff. And it
was called ‘stabilization’ because they wanted to break this cycle of
[deficit] and so what those people did, or what that board did which
included our Chair [of the AFA], was they developed a contract with the
companies.
“The mission of the APASF was to improve the financial viability and self-reliance of
Alberta-based professional performing arts organizations in a manner which would allow their artistic missions to be advanced more fully” (Edwards, Cosgrove & Lawes, 2004, p.
47). Though the provincial and federal funders were eager participants in the APASF, the board member interviewed explains that funding for the foundation was exclusively corporate.
APASF - No, no [funding] was all corporate. And the deal was that, I was on the
fundraising team, we would go visit corporations and say if you put the
money up you can’t do it at the expense of your normal operating funding
you’re giving to the arts, so that was one of the principles. Yeah so we
didn’t rob, you know we were trying to raise a bunch of dough but if you
take it out of everybody’s pocket it just doesn’t work.
The APASF acquired funds over three years and developed a series of regulations for the distribution of funding to performing arts organizations. Included in the APASF requirements were the development of a business plan, the generation of surpluses with which to build a Capital Reserve fund, and strategic planning that provided business
objectives and strategies for five, ten, and fifteen years into the future. According to a
220 member of Calgary Opera, the APASF was a “reward program that basically praised or rewarded good governance and good business management.” According to the interviewed member of Calgary Opera, the criteria of the APASF were as follows:
Calgary Opera - So they set up all these criteria that you had to meet before you
entered the program, and your cumulative debt couldn’t be anymore than
25% of your annual operating cost or you had to get that down to there
before you went in. Then you had to have a strategic plan in place -
organizational policies, personnel policies, management policies, and
board policies. And then they would allow you to enter into the program
and they gave incentives over a period of time. I think the maximum was
five years. For five years you had to have a balanced budget. But over that
five years, eliminate the 25% cumulative debt that you had; and if you
achieved those things, they gave you substantial awards depending upon
the size of your operating budget. But if you failed and you didn’t meet the
criteria over that five-year period, you were booted out and you didn’t get
a cent. The Edmonton Symphony made it through, ATP did, Theatre
Calgary did, Decidedly Jazz Dance and I think pretty much everyone else
didn’t make it through the program.
The adoption of certain regulations by the APASF was a point of major contention with the arts organizations being funded.
APASF - At first a lot of people objected to the fact that that they were going to
decide whether you get the money or not instead of it sort of being an
automatic thing. And there’s a lot of resentment about that - of a private
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sector group sticking their nose into the operation of an arts company. So
there was push back. But eventually everybody saw the wisdom of it.
Protests about the APASF introduction of regulations mainly centered on the insistence
that Board members follow the rules of corporate registry in the same way that for-profit organizations (with paid Board members) do - taking full liability for the organization.
AFA - There were a couple of major fights that APASF and the foundation [AFA]
had when this was coming in, and it was primarily APASF because they
were the big meanies, and it was “we have a contract with you and these
are rules. You want to play the game, you play by the rules.” So anyway
the two big fights were, [first,] the governance document that every
member of the board had to sign. For some reason it was [frightening],
and the ones that it seemed to scare the most were the lawyers to the point
where we had lawyers resigning from major company boards because they
refused to sign this and the APASF said, “Well, we’re sorry, either
everybody signs it or you’re not part of the game.” We sent it to the
Department of Justice and we said you know here’s what we’re asking
them to sign, and the question was that we couldn’t make them add
responsibilities to their governance above and beyond corporate registry.
And we got the legal [authority]. I keep a copy of it so that every time the
question comes up I just take it out, run a photocopy of it, here’s the legal
opinion. And it basically said no you’re not asking them to do anything
[excessive]. The minute they agree to be a board member they are legally
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responsible, they are financially responsible for the operations of that
organization. And yes you can get insurance to protect them against that
but you know legally those are the rules of corporate registry; they’re not
our rules. So anyway so there were [arguments], I mean we’re talking
yelling and screaming. One of the organizations in Edmonton was in their
annual meeting with the APASF, them, our board and their board. My
office was like about five doors down the hallway. You could hear from my
office the yelling and screaming in the boardroom, it was that bad. There
was yelling and as I say people resigning, there was a lot of [it] at that
point. It was very confrontational with most of the groups.
ATP – All of a sudden, I went to a board meeting and found out that if they [the
company] folded we had to pay all of their salaries and everything I mean,
and I had a rude awakening because as a high school drama teacher I had
no idea of what my real responsibilities were. And so I came home to my
husband, “Ah I could be going to jail. These oil company guys on the
board they’ll just pay it, but we don’t have that money.”
The second major objection to the APASF regulations was toward the adoption of a Capital Reserve fund that could not be touched without the approval of the APASF, and now the AFA. While the cash reserve requirement is now part of the non-profit accounting regulations, at the time of the APASF, new regulations regarding restricted funds were only in their initial stage of adoption by the Canadian Institution of Chartered
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Accountants17 (CICA). Thus, the idea of a cash reserve being a restricted fund that was essentially controlled by funding bodies via organizational board members was new and foreign to arts organizations. Up to this point performing arts organizations had been accustomed to running up deficits and then receiving government bailouts. As stated by the interviewed government representative:
AFA - In the performing arts that was the tradition, every year you ran a deficit
and when your deficit got to something that was a little unwieldy the
government would step in and bail you out.
The arguments about the adoption of the cash reserve requirement thus manifested as follows :
AFA - A smaller hurdle, but still a hurdle, was this cash reserve and how that
had to be handled and what they could do with their cash reserve. Some of
them thought it was a nice way to deal with cash flow, that they could use
it or not use it. It was in the bank but you know, if they needed to write a
cheque on it they could dip in whenever they wanted. And it was sort of
“no we’re sorry, this money has to be in an account and the only
withdrawals from that account can be with a motion of the board and I
have to see that motion in writing, signed by the Chair before you’re
taking any money and I would suggest to you that you want to talk to me
before you go down that route so that I know, ‘cause I don’t want any
surprises.” And my board certainly doesn’t want any surprises, they
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[don’t] want me coming to them and saying, “The Alberta Ballet just
took…” So anyway that was the other big challenge for them and it was
like, “Well okay why are they making us do this?”
Participants in the APASF program report a mixed benefit to participation. One
Yellow Rabbit (OYR) theatre company (not a major performing arts organization) successfully navigated the APASF requirements. Grant Burns, OYR’s founder and executive director during the years it received APASF grants, attributes some of the company’s subsequent success (OYR now enjoys a national reputation and critical acclaim) to participation in the APASF program (Clark, 2007). Other participants, who were unsuccessful in their application, found that the APASF program actually hurt their organization more than helping it. Clark (2007) reports that the Calgary Philharmonic bankruptcy protection was, in part, due to the demands of the APASF: “Some major organizations with high overheads, struggled to meet the financial objectives set by review committees. The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) depleted their endowment (a source of long term income for the organization) to meet balance sheet objectives set by the Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization Fund (APASF) review committee” (p. 13). Ultimately the CPO did not pass through the program successfully.
The APASF is no longer in existence; the plan of the organization was always to operate for ten years and then close down. However, the directives that the program set out for participating organizations have had a lasting impact on the structure of government arts funding bodies. Indeed, as the analysis of AFA grant applications will show, the APASF influence is readily visible in the AFA formula for arts funding and, to an extent, the changes being made to the Canada Council grant applications as well. This
225 is no accident. As the interviewed AFA member reveals, the adoption of APASF requirements was consciously done by the AFA as the APASF prepared to cease its activities.
AFA - That was really the start of the sustainability, accountability component [of
the AFA grant applications] and if you look at the major performing arts
companies you’ve noticed how there are more and more things added [to
the grant applications] okay. If you look at those, all of those things can
probably be traced back at least partially if not totally to the stabilization
fund because the foundation was a major player. The Chair of our
foundation was always on the board of any major component of the
stabilization fund.
And basically my predecessor and I sort of became the custodians
of those rules. You will not, you know you will not run a deficit, you will
do this, you will have an annual meeting. Originally we were having
meetings with the stabilization, our board, stabilization fund board and
the companies would meet once a year to sit down and hash out questions,
so slowly we took over that role.
The impact that the APASF has had on the AFA grant documents, arts organizations, funding bodies in other provinces, and the Canada Council, is significant.
In short, a group of business people in Klein’s Alberta took it upon themselves to apply the financial principles of the provincial government and corporate Alberta directly to performing arts organizations. The major performing arts organizations in the mid-1990’s
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were all (with the exception of the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton18) in jeopardy of closing their doors thanks to the spate of funding cuts in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The organizations were desperate for additional funding and had almost no choice but to participate in the program. That most participating organizations were unable to successfully navigate the APASF program reveals how unprepared the arts sector was for such a direct imposition of the tenets of sustainability. Though recent newspaper articles suggest that it was the APASF and the AFA who prepared arts organizations to weather the current economic recession19, the adoption of sustainability itself has not been an easy fit with the operation of non-profit arts organizations. The subsequent analysis of AFA grant applications will reveal how the provincial funding body adopted the imposition of sustainability.
Arts Funding Overview
At this point it may be useful to briefly outline the arts funding situation as it stands heading into the years of the Stelmach government. In the province of Alberta 10 of the 140 listed performing arts organizations are designated as being major performing arts organizations by the Alberta Foundation of the Arts. They are: Alberta Ballet,
Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary Opera, Calgary Philharmonic, Citadel Theatre,
Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, Edmonton Opera, Edmonton Symphony, Fringe Theatre,
18 AFM Member – “Citadel has always been [fine] because at that point Joe Shocktor [the wealthy founder of the company] was still around. If there was a problem, he wrote a cheque.” 19 “Most arts administrators in the city (of Calgary) are cautiously confident in their ability to survive a recession, which reflects either an outbreak of blind optimism or a realization that they have spent years getting their financial houses in order for just such a day” (Hunt, 2009, A1)
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and Theatre Calgary20. Each of these organizations qualifies as a major performing arts organization because of its ability to maintain a Community Derived Revenue of $2 million over the course of five consecutive years (Alberta Foundation for the Arts,
2008/2009, p. 2). Typically these organizations obtain approximately one third of their annual operating revenue from grant funds from the three levels of government (federal, provincial, municipal) (Statistics Canada, 2007, p. 2). For example, in 2006, Alberta arts organizations (not exclusively MPAO’s in these figures) received $7.2 million from federal grants, $7.8 million from provincial grants, and $3.4 million from municipal grants (Statistics Canada, 2006, p. 7). No further data is currently available.
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts 2006-2007 Arts Funding in Alberta Report to the Community (Alberta Foundation for the Arts, 2007) reveals that of its 22 million dollars in available funding for 2006-2007, $8.5 million was distributed in 227 grants for
Creation and Production. Of these funds “$5.2 million was given in 10 grants to the major performing arts organizations of the province” (p. 4). At one-third of an organization’s operating budget the importance of grants to the operation of major performing arts organizations is evident. As with the Canada Council funding table, the table below provides a ten year summary of total AFA funding, and AFA funding to the
10 Major Performing Arts Organizations (MPAO) in Alberta. The Canada Council figures are provided for comparison. For interest sake, the CPI Adjusted figures are included. The CPI Adjusted figures reflect what the annual grant amounts would have
20 Of these ten organizations, research discovered that at least two of them may not qualify as a major performing arts organization next year. As the organizations in question are not participant organizations, I will not name them.
228 been, had they kept pace with inflation and thus allows for a comparison of actual funding to inflation adjusted figures. The CPI Adjusted amounts have been determined based upon the 1998/1999 actual grant amount, adjusted for the annual increases in the
Consumer Price Index21 (CPI) through the 10 year period. CPI Adjusted figures, as determined, may not be completely comparable to actual grant amounts in that the funding figures are for performing seasons (i.e. 2007-2008) and CPI increases are used
for calendar years. Any errors arising from this inconsistency are not material for the
purpose of the research.
Table VIII - AFA and Canada Council Grant Amounts from 1998-2008
1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007-
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
In Millions of Dollars
AFA Total 16.48 21.5* 16.5 16.5 19.3 19 19 19 20.6 25.1
MPAO22 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.6 5.1 4.9 4.9 5.1 5.5
CPI Adjusted - 4.52 4.63 4.72 4.87 4.95 5.06 5.16 5.25 5.40
Canada Total 112 111 114 134 142 137 132.5 132.1 152.6 164.6
Council Alberta 7.1 6.8 7.4 7.7 7.9 7.8 7.6 7.0 9.3 11.0
CPI Adjusted - 7.29 7.47 7.64 7.85 7.99 8.17 8.33 8.52 8.71 (Alberta) * The increase in this year was due to the Film Development program coming under the AFA for one year only. (Information gathered from the Canada Council, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and interview subjects)
21 CIA World Factbook provided the listing of the annual CPI over ten years.
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Interestingly, a comparison of actual grant amounts with the CPI adjusted amounts
reveals that Alberta arts funding has very nearly kept pace with inflation in the last ten
years. Although grant amounts have varied from year to year, in total, for the ten year
period, actual AFA funding was only 2.7% less than the inflation adjusted amount. In two
of the years examined, actual grants exceeded the CPI adjusted figure. The overall
shortfall is even less (0.7%) for Canada Council grants to Alberta, with the increase in
grants during the past two years almost eliminating the shortfall entirely. What the CPI
Adjusted figures reveal is that increases to arts funding are very rarely true increases.
Rather they simply allow arts funding to keep pace, more or less, with the general rate of
inflation.
Stelmach and Alberta’s New Cultural Policy
The province of Alberta has recently begun a new government regime. Premier
Ed Stelmach has stated that he intends to build on the Lougheed history through the
support and promotion of culture. Does he intend a return to Camelot? The very recent
launch of Alberta’s official Cultural Policy, called the “Spirit of Alberta” (2008), sees
culture defined “in a broad sense, to include not only the arts, but also heritage, sport and
recreation, and the natural environment. It also includes creativity and innovation,
especially in business and the arts.” The economic language of the document, particularly
in the suggestion that culture is defined as “creativity and innovation […] in business”,
does not suggest a renewed value for the arts in Alberta. Particularly perplexing is the
discussion of cultural innovation being found in business; is business now an art form?
Or are the arts a business?
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The policy outlines four main goals: a) to ensure Albertans […] access to a wide range of cultural experiences and opportunities; b) to enhance community capacity to support and promote cultural activity; c) to encourage excellence in the work of Alberta’s artistic and cultural professionals and organizations; and d) to foster growth, sustainability and investment in Alberta’s cultural industries. That two of the four goals suggest an intention to increase the “community capacity to support” and “invest” in the arts suggests that, even in a government intending to recapture Lougheed’s glory days, arts organizations will be seeking private and corporate sponsorship in order to secure minimal government funding. The document’s implementation strategy further reveals the economic impositions to be exerted on cultural industries:
In order to maximize return on investment, leverage the existing programs and initiatives, effectively communicate the benefits both internally and externally and ensure the successful implementation of the Cultural Policy, a coordinating team will be created by reallocating and refocusing existing resources (Government of Alberta, 2008).
The implementation plan for a new Cultural Policy explicitly states a desire to “maximize return on investment”, a clear indication that the State is operating with an economic priority.
Discussion
What is most striking in the brief history of Alberta’s provincial government prioritizations of the arts is the degree to which the individual priorities of the Premier are able to trickle down to the government as a whole, becoming the organizational culture.
Furthermore, once the Premier’s general attitude has been absorbed by government bodies it then disseminates in a similarly invisible fashion to the public, where it has the
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potential to become the general social perspective. Where Lougheed personally supported the arts, he emphasized their importance by creating a separate department within government for arts support (the Department of Culture). The cultural emphasis of the government then influenced corporate and individual attendance and sponsorship to the extent where Lougheed’s tenure as leader was a Camelot period for the arts in Alberta.
Where Klein’s focus was economic, he grouped the arts into the special interest category
and proceeded to lower their social value by identifying them as an unworthy draw on
government resources. His government implemented business accountability, limited
funding and introduced sustainability into the lexicon of arts management, and indeed
into the entire non-profit (special interest) sector by insisting upon transparency in
operations and accounting. Klein’s priorities were adopted by the business sector who in
turn imposed the regulations onto the arts sector through the APASF. Also, Klein’s
government placed greater responsibility upon the boards of non-profit organizations to
maintain a controlled business focus in the operation of the organization. The demand for
sustainability has allowed government granting bodies, and arts boards themselves, to
impose regulations and demands for arts organizations to maintain such emergency
resources as a Cash Reserve Fund, and/or an Accumulated Surplus Fund (Alberta
Foundation for the Arts, 2004). Furthermore, the adoption by the public (voluntary or not) of the government’s economic priorities has slowly undermined the support of the
arts as a philanthropic endeavour and instead made it more of a business transaction (see
‘sponsorship’ in the previous chapter). For the fifteen years of Klein leadership, arts
funding in Alberta remained basically stagnant. During this time each of the major arts
232 organizations in the province encountered significant financial difficulties and/or near dissolution.
Though there has not yet been enough time past to dissect the provincial government of current Alberta premier Ed Stelmach, his leadership began during an economic boom and he announced in press conferences that he intended to take up the
Lougheed mantle of arts support. Indeed, initial arts funding increases supported his statements. With the recent economic crash, however, and Alberta suffering more than other provinces in part due to low oil and gas prices and in part due to Stelmach’s oil and gas royalty scheme, what will become of arts funding and support in the next few years is unknown.
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CHAPTER EIGHT: ALBERTA - THE AFA GRANT APPLICATIONS
As with the Canada Council grant applications, the interaction between
performing arts organizations and the provincial government occurs at the site of funding
applications from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA). The AFA application
documents reveal the evolution of arts funding from a discourse of artistic autonomy into
one of economic viability for arts organizations. Particularly notable in the applications is
the emerging emphasis on sustainability in the style of the APASF requirements. It is
possible to see the evolution of financial funding criteria in the applications as the
symbolic imposition of economic priorities onto Alberta’s arts organizations by the State
as meta-field. More clearly delineated in the situation of Alberta than in the broader
scope of the federal government and the Canada Council, the middle step of the APASF
program allows for an understanding of the way the State as meta-field priorities are
disseminated to other sectors. Therefore the AFA applications reveal distinct years where
the government’s economic initiatives are deliberately imposed onto performing arts
organizations. This chapter provides an analysis of AFA grant application documents from the years 1998 – 2008.
The AFA Grant Applications
1997-1998
Though having already undergone some transformation under the market focus of
Klein’s provincial government, the granting process ten years ago was fairly simple. The application was a three-page document that reflected the government focus on economic sustainability in the truest sense of the word. Among the requirements, the application
(1997/98) called for:
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• A detailed description of the three-year business and artistic plans
• A detailed budget indicating the past year and current year operating budgets listing projections to year-end
• Two year operating budget projections
• A completed “Funding Terms and Conditions” Agreement
• A “Statement of Eligible Expenses” form
The economic focus of the document is obvious but, balanced by the required artistic plan, which called for an artistic philosophy, and programming principles, the economic requirements appear reasonable. Though the application states in its Program Rationale that the AFA recognizes that Major Performing Organizations “enrich the cultural and social life of the province” (1997/98), the economic priority of the document, nonetheless, is the dominant focus. In the next paragraph the Program Rationale plainly states that the program “will continue to lend stability to professional performing arts and support the development of organizational financial self-sufficiency.” The document’s efforts to encourage such self-sufficiency are found in the “Terms and Conditions” form, which directly reflects the Klein government’s priority of privatization. It states:
To maintain eligibility in the year of the application, organizations must raise in the previous year from community derived revenue sources, i.e. municipal grants, fund-raising and earned revenue (including box office), an amount at least equal to 65% of total revenue in the same year (1997/1998).
1998/1999
The same grant application for the following year contains several changes that reveal that the economic priorities of government and the principles of the APASF,
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imposed through the language of sustainability, are becoming more prominent. A most
notable change in the ‘98/’99 document, from the earlier ‘97/’98 version is the introduction of a formula which will be calculated based on the information required of
the new Community Derived Revenue form. The formula is as follows:
Company Allocation = company 5-year average
community derived revenue, divided by the total 5-year
average community derived revenue (expressed as a
percentage) multiplied by the total AFA program budget.
(1998/1999)
As a quick explanation: the total 5-year average Community Derived Revenue refers to
the sum of all Community Derived Revenue averages from every company applying for
the grant in the same year. As explained by the AFA member interviewed, Community
Derived Revenue in 1998/1999 was based on all income of the organization. By the
application year 2005/2006, municipal funding was removed from the definition and thus
Community Derived Revenue became all income of the organization, minus government
funding from any level.
Though the grant document still requires a three-year Artistic Plan, the grants will
now be allocated based not on the artistic product of the company but on the ability of the organization to generate income outside of government sources. The statement of
“financial self-sufficiency” remains in the document and the meaning of the statement becomes clearer with the imposition of the formula. Furthermore, the grant application now includes a Management Performance Factor that intends to reduce organizational debt by imposing a series of monetary penalties.
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Step 1 - If an applicant’s accumulated debt rises above 15% of its expenditures, the organization will be required to produce cash flow and other financial information [...] before each monthly installment will be released.
Step 2 - If […] debt rises above 20%, the company must prepare and submit to the Foundation a detailed debt reduction plan with quarterly goals. If the company does not meet these goals, the Foundation may […] reduce funding.
Step 3 - If […] debt rises above 25%, the Foundation will reduce the annual grant at the rate of 3% for each $100,000 increment, or portion thereof.
The Management Performance Factor achieves two things: it puts the operation of the organization into the hands of arts managers and boards with business backgrounds
and experience, effectively taking it out of the hands of artists; and it imposes an increased number of working hours to accomplish the drafting of debt reduction plans should the organization falter. These penalties, when tied to the new formula for funding, seem more of a training ground for “financial self-sufficiency” than they do a reflection of government support. Indeed the Management Performance Factor and the Community
Derived Revenue plans of this 1998/1999 AFA grant application are a strong example of government imposing their economic priorities onto arts organizations. In other words, the organization must jump through these hoops in order to maintain funding; they must adopt this new language of business and mode of operation or jeopardize the funding for
their art. The 1999/2000 application is unchanged from the 1998/1999 application.
2000/2001
By the granting period of 2000/2001, the application has grown into a six-page
document with each year adding more reporting requirements. While the 1999/2000
application was basically the same as that of 1998/1999, the first form of the new
237 millennium includes many added features. Among the changes is a statement that grant money is not to be used for “purchases that increase in value (e.g. building or property) or capital development (e.g. studio construction or renovations).” This reflects the common practice of separating operating funds and capital funds. The operating grant is not designed to support infrastructure projects. The application requirements also expand to include “past-year operating budget actuals; a board-approved current-year operating budget, listing projections to year end; and additional two-year operating budget projections” (2000/2001). The formula remains intact, as does the Management
Performance Factor; however, a limit to the funding for major performing arts organizations of $780,000 is now imposed.
While the document still states that arts organizations “enrich the cultural and social life of the province” the statement is now so buried in requirements and financial terminology that the document reads, almost exclusively, in economic terms. The notion of support as being a measure of sustainability is nearly eliminated by the document’s emphasis on debt elimination and community derived revenue. Thus what is meant by the term sustainability is increasingly obscured, and the increasing adoption of the APASF principles into the AFA documents suggest that funding is becoming a surplus-oriented
(as opposed to arts-oriented) beast.
2001-2004
The years which follow the 2000/2001 grant application make no major changes, though they do consistently increase the requirements necessary to complete the application. Added requirements include things such as lists of organizational directors and officers (2002/2003) and single copies of audio and visual support materials
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(2003/2004). Organizations now must be in operation in Alberta for at least a year to gain eligibility, which removes any possibility for emerging arts organizations to define themselves as major organizations and secure funding (2003/2004). Funds for emerging artists are available as part of a project-based grant program. Furthermore, applicants who receive significant funding from the Alberta Lottery Fund independently may not be eligible for further government funding (2001/2002). While these added requirements serve to limit the number of applicants, they also increase the working hours necessary to secure/produce the required documents.
The most significant change in this period occurs in the 2003/2004 granting period. In the application for 2003/2004 the Management Performance Factor sees a reduction in debt allowance. Stage 1 moves from an accumulated debt allowance of 15% before penalty to 10%; Stage 2 from 20% to 12%; and Stage 3 from 25% to 15%. Also, at
Stage 3 the reduction of the grant moves from 3% per $100,000 to 5% per $100,000.
Thus the government increases the pressure on arts organizations to become “financially self-sufficient” by tightening the restrictions on funding, increasing the requirements of the application, all the while maintaining a limit on funding at $780,000.
In the applications of these years (originating in the 2002/2003 document), a notable oddity appears. The inclusion of audio/visual support materials for an application where funding is based on a formula seems inconsistent. The interviewed AFA member explains that the audio/visual material is intended to be an artistic measure by which any bonus funds may be distributed. The idea of meritorious bonus funds originates with the
APASF who, at the end of their term found themselves with some surplus funds and began the tradition of distributing these funds as a bonus. The practice was adopted by
239 the AFA who based the distribution of bonus on two factors, artistic merit (judged by the audio/video submission), and surplus funds.
AFA Member - APASF had surplus dollars at the end of the thing because CPO
didn’t get all of the money, so there were dollars left and there were still a
few private corporations who were willing to throw a few more dollars
into the pot. So they were looking at doing bonuses over the last two or
three years of their existence. And so our board looked at it and said well
all right until the APASF is finished we’ll put that, I think it was three
hundred thousand dollars if I remember correctly, we will put that three
hundred thousand dollars into the formula. We’ll add that to your formula
and you’ll get a bonus from the APASF. [So] you’ll get slightly larger
grants, but be forewarned this is a three-year window. You know, when
they’re gone that three hundred thousand dollars is coming out of your
operating funds and that three hundred thousand dollars will be our bonus
fund for these groups once the APASF is gone. So that’s where the bonus
thing comes in.
We really liked the idea of bonuses for performance so we set aside
that money and that way I mean they got their three hundred thousand
dollars, it went into their budget. Now in the interim fortunately our
budget grew and grew so that in fact we now have a five hundred
thousand dollar bonus package as well as a much larger base operating
package. So it wasn’t a matter of sort of taking money away from their
operating to give them a bonus, it was going to increase the operating
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funding but we also feel strongly that this is a way of dealing with the
organizations. I mean everybody’s on an equal playing field, there’s no
well you’re the little guy so you only get five thousand a year and the big
guys get fifty thousand automatically. It’s no, you did a good job so you
get fifty thousand dollars whether you’re the little guy in the pot or not.
The AFA bonuses are assigned by a jury. Unlike the rigorous peer assessment process of the Canada Council, the AFA bonus jury is handpicked in the following way:
AFA Member - So for this year [2007/2008] for the first time ever the bonus, the
three hundred thousand dollar bonus program was determined by an
independent jury, actually an international jury. I brought in three
experts, well three professional experts from the major performing arts
community in western Canada, one from eastern Canada, two from the
western half of the continent - I’m not supposed to tell you who’s on the
jury, so - plus a representative from CADA [Calgary Arts Development
Authority] and a representative from the Edmonton Arts Council. So those
five people, plus one member from our board.
The jury members listen and/or watch the audio/video submissions of the organizations and make a determination on the artistic bonus allotment. The jury does not read the application itself and the interviewed participant alone is responsible for the calculation of the Community Derived Revenue formula.
Though the AFA member, who actually works for the government department of
Culture and Community Spirit and is thus both AFA member and government representative to the AFA, asserts that the bonus funds are given for outstanding artistic
241 achievement, a more accurate representation of the five hundred thousand dollar bonus slowly emerged during the course of the interview. Notably, the quote above discussed the jury decision on “three hundred thousand” dollars. The other two hundred thousand bonus dollars, it was revealed, are presented as a formula-based surplus reward.
AFA Member - The other two hundred thousand dollars is again a formula based
reward and it’s based on your surplus because we want, I mean we insist
[on organizations accumulating a surplus], and it’s a very interesting
process the whole area of cash rewards. So what we said was, “yes we
know you have to have a cash reserve but that cash reserve also needs to
grow with your growth so yes we want you to have a surplus and yes we
will encourage that surplus by putting some matching dollars towards but
the matching dollars that we’re giving you to match your surplus has to go
into your cash reserves. Now your surplus doesn’t have to go into your
cash reserve but your, any money that we give you above and beyond, out
of that two hundred thousand dollar pot that has to go into the cash
reserves of the ten companies.
CPO Member - And so now with AFA every year they do kind of an assessment of
each organization. They review your AFA grant application and then they
determine whether you shall also get a merit award. They also have a bit
of money in a fund to match to a certain percentage anything on your
surplus position at the end of the fiscal year; and that little bit of money
goes into, they mandate it goes into your cash reserve. So I might get three
thousand dollars.
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2004/2005
In 2004/2005, the now eight-page AFA grant application undergoes a significant
transformation. This is not surprising given that the final year of the APASF was 2005
and the AFA was adopting the APASF regulations. The Program Rationale moves to the
front of the document and makes several changes and additions which will be elaborated
upon later in the application. To begin, the statement of support for operational “financial
self-sufficiency” is replaced by the program’s new intention “to support the annual
operating expenses of Alberta’s nine largest performing arts companies in a manner
consistent with a philosophy of artistic and financial sustainability” (2004/2005). Lest
organizations question the magnanimity of government intentions, the Community
Derived Revenue plan is, for the first time, defined as intending to “encourage artistic
mandates which resonate in and are supported by the broader community.” In other
words, if you can’t sell it to the public such that you can make an appropriate percentage
for the formula, we’re not interested in funding it. This statement alone harkens to
Klein’s special interest rhetoric by suggesting that any artistic endeavours that cannot
secure sponsorship or ticket sales from the public will not be supported by the AFA. A
new Disclosure of Governance Practices form is included which is “intended to encourage a high standard of board stewardship for strategic planning, and operational, financial, and artistic risk management” (2004/2005) which tacitly demands/requires increased board participation by business people in the operation of arts organizations.
A business oriented operational focus is not all that the 2004/2005 application reveals. In it are included two new demands – the Cash Reserve and Accumulated
Surplus funds. As stated these “concepts are intended to encourage the maintenance of a
243 fiscal cushion against unforeseen financial deficits” (2004/2005), and, as seen, originate with the APASF. Both of the reserves must be maintained at a level decided upon by the
AFA and failure to maintain either may result “in a company’s removal from the program.” While the Cash Reserve fund is defined as an “unencumbered, restricted cash account that can only be accessed upon a resolution of the company’s board of directors, and may only be used to temporarily finance unforeseen operating deficits,” the
Accumulated Surplus requirement refers to the matching bonus formula. The Cash
Reserve fund must, at minimum, be “equal to the original amount of working capital reserve dollars the Company was eligible to receive under the terms of the Alberta
Performing Arts Stabilization Fund program” (Calgary Opera member), typically a minimum of 500 thousand dollars. If an organization touches the Cash Reserve fund, the amount must be paid back into the fund within “three fiscal years”; furthermore, “failure to maintain the Cash Reserve at the level approved by the AFA, as well as an
Accumulated Surplus will result in an automatic grant reduction equal to 5% of the total grant for every $100,000 off the reserve target or a range of reductions up to and including removal from the program” (2004/2005).
How may we interpret the simultaneous transition away from the explicit wording of “financial self-sufficiency” with the gentler sounding “artistic and financial sustainability” and the simultaneous imposition of surplus funds and governance practices disclosure? Once again, the APASF regulations are at play.
AFM Member - One of the things that all of these organizations had to have was a
cash reserve, basically a rainy day fund. So as the end of the stabilization
fund loomed it was “well okay the day they close their doors that
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requirement is no longer there, can we spend our [cash reserve]? You
know we got five hundred thousand dollars sitting in the bank can we
spend it? Can we? Can we?” So […] that’s when you would notice the
major additions to our requirements, was [that] we will now be the
monitors of your cash reserve.
2005-2008
In the years between 2004/2005 and 2008/2009 requirements continued to swell with such additions as the “current year update short narrative, year-to-date income statement, balance sheets, cash-flow forecast, statement of operations and operating fund balance, and statements of cash flow” (2006/2007), but the general structure of the application remains the same.
2008/2009
By 2008/2009, the funding document encompasses 25 pages, takes months to complete, and is the full time job of one organizational member with the assistance of everyone in the administration. The 2008/2009 application is the first fully electronic submission. The document contains many of the same elements as seen in all the previous years - a 65% requirement for community derived revenue, the formula for grant allocation (though the maximum allowed amount is now “to be determined by the board of the AFA”), the necessary Cash Reserve fund, etc. The Accumulated Surplus fund is now more clearly called the Working Capital Reserve fund and the small reward mentioned by the CPO member above “will be divided between applicants who have generated an annual surplus, in proportion with the previous year’s surplus.” Three key areas of responsibility are defined in the new document. They are: Governance Practices,
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Fiscal Responsibility, and Artistic Mandate. New requirements include several AFA
forms, including the Operating Grant Financial Form, a Diligence Questionnaire, the
Governance Principles form, and a “copy of the organization’s most recent return to the
Alberta Corporate Registry.” Fortunately some concessions have been made and
organizations are now required to submit the three-year business, artistic, and
programming plans, as well as the Cash Reserve Policy only once every three years.
New to the current document is a list of Principles of Organizational
Sustainability, which includes four points:
1) The organization has a solid foundation for management and a structure that enhances and compliments its unique initiatives;
2) The organization encourages artistic excellence, and has a vision for artistic development that acknowledges its audience, donors, members, and sponsors (stakeholders);
3) The organization has a long-term financial plan in place, and has a structure to verify the integrity of financial reporting;
4) The organization values and recognizes the contributions of its Board of Directors, staff members, community members, volunteers, and has a succession plan in place to preserve and further its mandate (2008/2009).
The above Principles for Organizational Sustainability speak very plainly about fiscal responsibility and show that the duty of the Board of Directors is to ensure good financial management and transparency. Making a statement that the vision for artistic development should acknowledge its extra-government supporters is in line with the community derived revenue formula and reasserts the position that arts organizations must first turn to the consumer for recognition of their artistic product before the government will offer support. Notably, in the Principles of Organizational Sustainability
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the accumulation of surplus is not mentioned even though the bulk of the application form deals with its mandatory requirement. Thus the sustainable business practices function as a tool for financial responsibility in non-profit organizations, all the while
infused with the subliminal message of surplus.
The AFA Grant Assessment Process
A brief mention should be made of the AFA grant assessment process. The
surplus funds, as discussed earlier, are distributed by a jury which is selected by the AFA
member interviewed. The application of the Community Derived Revenue formula is also
evaluated and calculated by the AFA member interviewed. Funding decisions are based
on the formula and no one but him is involved in the calculation process. Of course larger
decisions, like the determination of the overall amount available for distribution, are
determined by the Board of Directors of the AFA.
AFA Member – They [the board] take one day a year to sort of review the
strategic plans, update their programs, their direction, their five year
plans, align it with the Department [of Culture and Community Spirit]. I
actually work for the Department so although most of what I do pertains
to AFA programming, I’m actually employed by the department. So the
foundation gets its money through the department so therefore their goals
have to be you know moved in the direction that it supports the
government’s cultural policy. At this point we’re very conscious and that’s
sort of the main thrust of where we’re going.
How cuts might be administered is also a Foundation decision, as explained below.
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AFA Member – So the operating side of those programs are a formula. So all of
those groups have a formula grant process, […] and the foundation
generally made a commitment to not increasing or decreasing any
organization by more than ten percent in one year so that you know if we
did make a change in a program it would be phased in so that you know if
you were taking a thirty percent cut in your grant it would be done over
three years so that you had a time to figure out what you were going to do
or how you were going to replace that money or how you were going to
change your operations.
Therefore, while the distribution of operating funds is determined exclusively by the application of the Community Derived Revenue formula, certain bonus funds for artistic merit are allocated based on a jury system, and a second formula determines the reward
for an organization’s surplus budget.
Discussion – Applying Bourdieu
Observing the progression of arts funding from the prioritization of various
provincial governments through the creation of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and
Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization Fund, from funding figures, from the introduction
of sustainability, and from the constantly increasing demands of the AFA grant applications, a picture of the arts in Alberta begins to take shape. Similar to the changes seen in the grant applications of the Canada Council vis-à-vis federal government
prioritizations, the AFA grant applications reveal the actions of the provincial
government to be a State as meta-field exertion of symbolic imposition. Where the State
as meta-field under Lougheed elevated the position of the arts and the value of symbolic
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capital associated with arts support, the provincial government of Klein adopted a
marketization strategy for the province. The marketization approach, along with the
special interest initiative, moved the arts into the special interest category which devalued
both their position on the list of government priorities and their capacity to exchange
symbolic capital for sponsorship dollars. As discussed, the actions of the provincial
government reflect a larger turn away from a welfare state and towards developing a
market economy in Alberta. Adopted by the business community and government alike,
the economic standard was then introduced to the arts sector by business people as the
principle of sustainability. The AFA, facing pressure from the government and seeing
before them the APASF template for sustainable arts operation, introduced measures into the grant applications which demand that arts organizations operate with an economic focus. Thus, symbolic imposition can be seen as stemming directly from government initiatives. Though governments budget according to larger fiscal systems, here the transition away from funding the arts (and other social services) as a merit good was deliberate. Transforming the legitimacy of economic language and business thinking in society has resulted in an obfuscation of the impact that symbolic impositions have on the operation of arts organizations. Even the APASF board member asserts that the health of performing arts organizations today (recession notwithstanding) is a direct result of the imposition of sustainable business practices onto performing arts organizations.
Sustainability may have helped arts organizations to get their houses in order, but are the significant demands of funding programs helping them, at this point, to keep house? Discussing sustainability, the interviewed AFA member said the following:
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AFA Member - I mean we’re not there to penalize you know? We’re there to make
sure. The whole thing about the sustainability has been we want to see you
here for the long term so we don’t want to see you getting yourself into
[trouble] and the minute we see you, you know, starting to move, stray
onto that other side we’re going to put some flags on it and say well wait a
minute we’re a little concerned.
When asked if the AFA is also concerned that the push toward sustainability will result in
organizations programming too many ‘popular’ works that are only designed to satisfy
the funding formula, the interviewee revealed that there is some concern that the
pendulum could swing too far in the economic direction.
AFA Member – Well, it’s certainly a concern for me as a theatre goer when I see
things on a season… well, there have been a couple of things over last
couple of seasons in Edmonton that I look at and I think this isn’t even
theatre, I mean this is Stage West23 dinner entertainment. I mean we’ve
got Wizard of Oz on at the moment, which would be the comparable
Beauty and the Beast. Actually we’re getting Beauty and the Beast back
next year again. I’m thinking “oh [good] grief not again.” So you know
it’s a concern. It’s unfortunate that organizations have to sort of perhaps
mount things that they wouldn’t; it isn’t their first choice.
Because economic language has been adopted by funders in grant applications, and by the APASF as a condition of funds, arts organizations really have very little choice in the
23 Stage West is a for-profit dinner theatre that operates across Canada and in the US.
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matter. Thus they adopt the language and structures imposed upon them. In this way the
State as meta-field successfully induces the arts sector to conform with their economic priorities. However, symbolic imposition has resulted in increased work hours required to complete the applications and, coupled with the fact that arts funding has seen no parallel increase, brings to question the value of continued participation in funding programs.
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CHAPTER NINE: ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSE
The historical overview of federal and provincial government priorities paired with the analysis of funding applications from the Canada Council and Alberta
Foundation for the Arts demonstrates how government principles are transmitted through
funding bodies to performing arts organizations. As we have seen through the increasing
demands of grant applications, the government imposition of economic priorities quietly
shifts the focus of arts organizations toward sustainability, accountability, and
governance. The repercussions of such a shift, however, extend beyond organizations’
bottom lines to impact operational interactions and artistic decision-making. That arts
organizations have not ceased to apply for grants even though no further money is given
in exchange for the increased workload reveals two things; first, that organizations feel
they must comply with grant application demands because they cannot exist without government funding, and second, that organization members have not recognized how their participation in granting programs perpetuates a relationship wherein government priorities influence both the financial and artistic operation of the organization. Where organization members do recognize the relationship they are powerless to act because of the point made in the first statement. The cycle is one which has, to an extent, become obscured to participants because, in complying with grant application demands, they have taken the economic language and principles into their organizational discourse.
The relationship between governments and performing arts organizations can thus be called a relationship of symbolic violence. That the economic mindset is an awkward fit with performing arts organizations is evident in the struggle revealed by arts organization members trying to balance the artistic mandate of the organization with
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surplus thinking. Bourdieu would suggest that participation in such relationships constitutes a choice. Rather, the dependence created by the funding relationship, and the
adoption of economic language into the organizational discourse, has led organization members to believe that there is no other choice. This chapter examines, through
statements made by organization members, how the increased and conflicting demands of
grant applications impact organizational interactions and operations. The chapter will also examine how the economic language of government is taken up by organizations in
operational documents such as the strategic plan.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
As we begin to examine the organizational response to funding applications, a
brief summary of the demands of the Canada Council and the formula of the AFA will
present a clear picture of the conflict between the requirements of the two bodies, and the challenge the conflict presents to arts organizations. As seen, the Canada Council supports innovation and vitality; the commission, production, and development of new
Canadian works; and outreach (to Canadian youth in particular). Applications demand certain financial information in order for the applicant to be eligible for funding, but the judgement is completed by an artistic jury of peers, along with certain departmental processes, in a subtle and nuanced (subjective) evaluation. For organizations this means producing a certain number of Canadian works per season, running education and outreach programs, and attempting to broaden the artistic scope of the organization through innovation in programming or production techniques.
The AFA, on the other hand, supports sustainable business practices and distributes funding based on a formula. The formula recognizes Community Derived
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Revenue which can be obtained through ticket sales or sponsorships. Thus, the product
must appeal to audiences or garner financial support through association with donors
(which, as seen in Chapter Four, is a sales process in itself). For the AFA, funding is
primarily based on the saleability of an organization’s artistic season. A small bonus is
given for artistic quality which is judged across all disciplines by the same (non- specialized) committee comprised of people from the arts community, patrons, and municipal funding bodies. A second small bonus may be given to match an organization’s surplus funds at the end of the season. This bonus goes into the Cash
Reserve fund and must not be touched.
Table IX - Canada Council and AFA Application Demands
Canada Council AFA
Canadian Content Community Derived Revenue
Artistic Innovation and Vitality Bonus - Artistic Quality
Outreach (Youth) Bonus - Surplus Funds
Organizational Health -
The disconnect between the requirements is clear. Though both funders require strong
financial reporting and transparency, the emphasis on artistic elements on the one hand, and on business operation on the other places organizations in a difficult situation.
ATP - Well I don’t think it’s a plan because I can never see these organizations
having a plan. They tend to be funding different things. Canada Council
tends to be funding the Art and because of the peer jury process there.
You know my colleagues from across the country are looking at those
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applications and going, “okay the work that they’re doing is great, they’re
taking new initiatives, they’re supporting emerging artists, oh that’s good
so therefore we’ll support it.” The Alberta Foundation for the Arts is all a
formula called Community Derived Revenue. How much money you bring
in from sources other than Government funding. So it’s just totally a
formula. It’s about how much support you have financially from the rest of
the community. So in many ways every application is different because
what you’re doing is highlighting different aspects of the organization. So
it’s a bit of a nightmare when you kind of go, “Okay what am I suppose to
say to this one?”
As the Canada Council moves closer toward the governance model of the AFA these
regulations will possibly come into alignment. However, at the moment, what has been
created by the differing requests is a conflict within organizations between artistic output
and the bottom line.
APASF Regulations and Board Liability Fallout
To a large degree, the conflict at hand was made in Alberta. The regulations put into place by the Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization fund, and subsequently adopted
by the AFA, led to the prioritization of economic sustainability in performing arts
organizations in Alberta. That the organizations must also satisfy the Canada Council
requirements places them in the quandary outlined in the preceding section, a quandary
which influences every part of organizational operation. We begin with the Board.
Chapter Four revealed that the interaction between Board members and
administrative staff is more collaborative than the non-profit legislation suggests. The
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conflict created as a result of the introduction of the APASF regulation reveals the
organizational fallout from those directives. The intention behind the APASF regulations
was to place financial governance of arts organizations into the hands of business people
who, it was assumed, had a better understanding of how to run a financially stable
organization than artists.
TC – [Artists] don’t know how to run a business. Their job is to perform on stage
and do a good job of that.
However, the adoption of the liability regulation has had the secondary result of causing
Boards of Directors to become involved in areas of the organization in which they do not
have adequate knowledge. Their actions are revealed in statements from organization
members, cited in Chapter Four. Salient points of those statements are excerpted below:
CPO – […] the board was starting to react to the pressures around us and started
jumping into operations without the proper skill set. But they thought they
had the proper skill set so they kept getting in the way […].
TC – [The Artistic Director] listens to what they [the Board’s artistic committee]
say but he still makes his own picks. […] Well, we negotiate back and
forth, it’s an iterative process and my concern is that we have a mix of
plays and we budget accordingly.
The involvement of the Board in operations poses challenges for organization members who are trying to accomplish their daily tasks while satisfying the concerns of Board members who may not have the “proper skill set” to issue instructions. Boards of
Directors are intended to ensure good governance, not to participate in daily decision- making. However, because Board members are liable, and because organization members
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are answerable to the Board, the level of Board involvement can become excessive. For
the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra the involvement of the Board in daily operations
created a mistrust between musicians and the administration which exists to this day. So
many errors were committed when the Board began “getting in the way and tripping over
our development staff and tripping over our marketing staff and that got into a big mess with customer service nightmares and not getting messages and things like that” that the organization member interviewed (a musician member in this case) referred to the situation as an “administrative cancer” (Chapter Four). For Theatre Calgary the creation of an Artistic Committee of Board members has been less meddlesome but nonetheless results in the “iterative process” of play selection mentioned in the interview (Chapter
Four). The hands-on interaction created by the adoption of the liability regulation has left
performing arts organizations seeking a very delicate equilibrium between art and
finances, between business people and artists, and between Board members and
organizational administrators.
The result of a bad balance between art and economics in the organization could
be the loss of financial support from both the Canada Council and the AFA. Therefore
Boards of Directors look for ways to achieve a surplus on the season while allowing
artistic development. Boards try to take an approach that allows Artistic Directors to take
artistic risks (fulfilling the innovation criteria of the Canada Council) while keeping them
on a financial leash (so as not to jeopardize AFA funding). Statements like the following
(cited in full in Chapter Four) reflect the give and take between Board members and
artistic administration:
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ATP – […] The board’s job is to say okay we want you to have sixty percent of the
house full all the time. So then if the play doesn’t get sixty percent of the
house then you have a discussion. Then the next time the discussion will be
“now will this get sixty percent or will this get forty percent” and you
know for sure that it won’t get eighty percent.
Board responsibility for performing arts organizations originated with the APASF
and was adopted by the AFA. However, the initial introduction of financial liability into
Board operations originates with the Klein government. As seen in Chapter Seven,
Klein’s imposition of business practices into all areas of the public sector, insistence on
measurable performance indicators, and destabilization of special interest groups caused
an overall shift in the province of Alberta. The adoption of market thinking,
sustainability, and best business practices became the only acceptable modes for
organizational operations. These concepts, as seen, were passed from corporate Alberta to
the non-profit arts sector by the APASF’s corporate founders. While the changes made by
the APASF have, in most cases, had a positive impact on the finances of arts
organizations – gone are the days of bankruptcy and deficit operations – the balancing act
that the regulations have created poses a significant challenge for Board interactions with
organization members. However, the techniques used by the APASF in implementing
their business standards have also presented problems for interactions between Boards of
Directors and funding bodies themselves. The black and white introduction of new measures by the APASF (play by our rules or you’re out) gave a sense of empowerment
to the AFA in its dealings with arts organizations. As seen, the influence that funding
bodies attempted to assert during periods of organizational crisis, regarding the hiring of
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an Artistic Director (ATP) and the size of the organization (CPO), indicate that the
funding body will directly threaten an organization’s funding if they do not approve of
Board actions. In the case of Alberta Theatre Projects the Board of Directors made their
own decision regarding the hiring of an Artistic Director. In the case of the Calgary
Philharmonic Orchestra, the union representing the players bowed to the pressure and
presented the organization with a choice, cut the orchestra size to 43 players or take a
20% pay cut. The orchestra unanimously voted take the pay cut.
The Canada Council’s “concerned status” provision presents a similar situation.
The fair notice policy (outlined in Chapter 5) lists a series of signs by which a peer
review committee can place an organization on concerned status.
Canada Council - As mentioned in the peer assessment policy, organizations
receiving multi-year funding may also come across unforeseen difficulties
in the middle of their funding cycle, in which case the Section may call in
a committee of advisors and ask them whether the situation warrants a
return to annual funding, for the closer monitoring it affords. A peer
assessment committee can put an organization on ‘concerned’ status, a
decision that may also come with a change from multi-year to annual
funding. In general, these notices effectively galvanize boards and
executive managers. Organizations tend to respond quickly and
effectively.
Thus the nature of the economic relationship between government and arts organizations in this instance is one of top down influence where the government establishes priorities
259 and transmits them to funding bodies who then assert specific demands onto arts organizations in exchange for funding.
Administration – Coping with the Grant Applications
For the administration of performing arts organizations, the challenges presented by the conflicting requirements of the Canada Council and AFA grant applications, and the balance between the artistic priorities of the organization and the economic priorities of funding bodies, manifests in the interactions between organization members. The intricate relationship between artistic directors and CEO’s was discussed in Chapter Four.
The balancing act is further revealed in the statements of organization members trying to reconcile the artistic integrity of the organization with a budget that requires a certain amount of popular entertainments to fulfil surplus requirements. The economic contribution which ‘Pops’ generates in the form of higher audience attendance, single ticket sales, and subscription rate, helps organizations to meet the Community Derived
Revenue requirements of the AFA.
Alberta Ballet - You have to have the Nutcracker type of thing. And it’s balanced.
It’s a complete balance and artistic directors who don’t understand that
will eventually take your company down, period. You have to understand
there’s a balance between artistic and creative freedom and artistic
license, and you want to create these great whatever but at the same token
you have to look at what your market is. You have to look at what will sell.
Calgary Opera - We’ve started to sort of develop a formula around here in that
the first one and the third one might be more popular operas but the
middle one is usually the lesser known or contemporary or whatever. Did
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I want to do another Rigoletto? No, not really artistically. Would I like
more variety? Sure. But I get my kicks. I get my satisfaction but ultimately,
I know, and I think every artistic director knows, that the only way I’ll be
able to do the projects, the exciting projects that turn me on artistically,
the only way we’ll be able to do that is if the company is solvent and
steady. If we’re in a financial problem, my board is not gonna say yes to
another commission revenue opera. They’re not. That would be stupid
management on their part to let me go ahead and do that. So I know that
I’ve got to financially make the company secure so artistically I can do the
things I want to do.
The statements of arts organization administrators often, as above, speak to both sides of the dilemma, with artistic comments usually referring to the economic and vice- versa. However sometimes organization members make statements that express one perspective or the other and it is in the juxtaposition of these statements that the potential for conflict within arts organizations and between organizations and Board members becomes visible.
Calgary Opera - Art is to be shared with people. Artists have an innate sense that
they have to create. I believe that you’re born with that. You need to
create, you will create but ultimately your satisfaction comes from
someone experiencing it and giving you a message back; good or bad
back.
TC - So this last season I really wanted to do a play called Retreat from Moscow,
and I wanted Martha Henry to star in it ‘cause I wanted the audiences
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here to see an enormous talent. And it’s a play that I felt was fantastic. I
knew it would not be the most popular play of the year. So technically
speaking that play probably cost us more to do than the money we got
back for it.
Calgary Opera - Our organization very clearly has said that our bottom line is a
priority for us.
TC - I don’t believe running an Arts company in a non sustainable fashion is
appropriate quite frankly.
The statements reveal that the artistic mindset, though becoming trained to the economic
reality of sustainable business practice, easily slips into a traditional focus where creating
and sharing great works and great performers is the priority. The administrative and
Board focus, on the other hand, can sometimes forget the needs of the arts themselves and direct attention only to the bottom line and the generation of surplus. The challenge for organization members on all levels (artists, administration, and Board) is to maintain a dual perspective which allows the artistic goals to balance the financial and vice versa.
Calgary Opera - The balance between whoever your general manager or
executive director is and the artistic director has ruined some of those
relationships over the years because of that pressure of “I want this
because I’m creating art and you’re doing the business side you just get
me that money. I don’t care how you get it … this is what I want to do.”
There’s elements of that in a lot of my colleagues.
The conflict between producing works to share talent and to communicate with an audience and producing works to satisfy the bottom line also reflects the challenge of
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satisfying the demands of the Canada Council and AFA applications. In coping with the grant applications themselves, the words of organization members reveal the toll these
applications take on their organizations:
Alberta Ballet: If you could ever survive without it, it would make your life a heck
of a lot easier for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the complexity
and time that it takes to fill out all the forms. The Canada Council ones
are brutal. I mean they should just be shot. They should be made to spend
3 weeks or a month or 2 months and fill out their own application.
Calgary Opera: [It’s] more of a manpower issue and a time issue with my staff in
preparation; a lot of work to get 20 thousand dollars [the Canada Council
grant]. The work could be better done on seeking out something else. [..]
The time spent would be better getting a sponsor for 100 thousand dollars.
It’s hugely time consuming. It’s hugely frustrating in that they [granting
bodies] all ask for the same things in slightly different ways. One would
have a great desire to see a uniform application, […] even the financial
side of the report let alone the narrative, but if the financial application to
the City, to the Province, and to the Feds was the same way of doing it, it
would be wonderful, but they’re not. They ask for the numbers this way,
they ask for the numbers that way, they want more stress on bums-in-seats
attendance, they want more stress on you know. It’s frustrating because
it’s a lot of work, but you do it.
The issue of work hours is reflected in the granting literature discussed in Chapter Two which sees conflicting requirements as a passing of administrative time and costs to
263 applicant organizations rather than the funding body absorbing these costs into their own budgets. The situation is also identified as being a cause of the high rate of staff turn- over. However, where the foundation literature deals with the situation in the United
States and is not tied to government funding, in Canada the conflicting applications represent the priorities of federal and provincial governments. Thus the onerous applications here do not represent the whims of individual foundations but rather the economic and ideological directions of the governments of Canada and Alberta respectively.
In the United States, government funding for the arts was all but eliminated during the culture wars of the mid 1980’s; therefore, funding falls now to 71,000 individual Foundations (see foundation literature cited earlier). In Canada funding still resides under government purview, which on the surface suggests that federally and provincially Canada strongly supports its arts. The overwhelming weight and conflicting requirements of the funding applications, however, and the methods used by funding bodies to impose government priorities onto arts organizations, have resulted in a cycle of funding that is based on penalties rather than rewards.
CPO - If we post a deficit we have a fund, a restricted fund that we’ve put money
in. [If] we have a deficit, we can use that money, but we have to pay it
back within a very short period of time. If we don’t then we’re penalized,
we get less money. So it’s a negative cycle we go on.
CPO - Provincially, they certainly beat you up to be an ideal business model.
Calgary Opera - I would say it’s demanded of us almost to not be budgeting in a
deficit situation. We have to show profits but we also have to show artistic
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direction too whatever that may be. So they want to see some sort of
balance in there but they also want to see that what we’re doing is logical
and sustainable. […] Yeah, there’s much greater stress on the
sustainability and the business plan and the strategic plan. There was a
time when, back when I was starting, that yes you submitted your budget
and you submitted your artistic plan. You didn’t really submit the
documentation on your marketing plan, your development plan, all of
those. It was pretty loose on the business side of the documentation, and
at one point Canada Council only judged you on your artistic merit or
what they view, the jury system. Now you’re judged on community
outreach, education programs, bottom line, quality of Board, all sorts of
things that are not core artistic evaluations.
Though they continue to participate in funding programs, arts organization members don’t necessarily believe that government funding will be perpetuated in the long term.
CPO - You have to balance your budget every year and the idea is to not live off
the Government grants. That is to help you, because it may not be there
tomorrow, next year. That’s great and we really appreciate that we get
funding but I see that as a percentage of our revenue declining year after
year after year. So eventually, we probably need to be weaned off that.
Now I don’t know how many years. Maybe long after I’m gone we’re still
getting Government grants, great. But I don’t think we should put our
future on that.
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ATP - There’s no doubt we’re seeing an erosion, right, of this money over time.
So we’re fairly well placed to deal with that but I’m loath to give it up.
The only one that worries me in the long run now is provincially, right? I
know, until we get those farmers out of there and have a different kind of
Government, even if it is a Conservative Government, we’re gonna be
doomed.
CPO - When we heard that AFA had got another million dollars to give out in
Arts in Alberta, you know us biggies were like Woohoo. That money is not
coming to us. It’s going to the smaller grass roots, the new and emerging
artists.
The imposition of sustainable business practices onto performing arts organizations through government funding applications, with no significant increase to funding for operations, has not created a wealth of good feeling toward arts funding bodies or governments. The shift toward economic priorities in performing arts organizations has had the desired result of eliminating bankruptcy situations in said organizations, but it has also added pressure to organization members, created tension between funders and arts organizations, increased the workload on organization administrators, and obliged organizations to maintain a delicate balance between artistic innovation and the generation of surplus funds.
Programming
The involvement of Board members and CEO’s in the selection of the season of works reflects the importance that programming has on the maintenance of the balancing act. The economic dependence on a successful season explains the inclusion of
266 blockbuster productions, such as that of the musical Beauty and the Beast in the 2007-
2008 season at Theatre Calgary, in the artistic seasons of major performing arts organizations.
TC - If you look around, we have a lot of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ posters. You’ll
see all of our advertisings gleaming with it for subscriptions because we
find, we found last year that new people weren’t coming. So again, going
with the popular given – something they know, they like, they love, it’s a
musical and it’s Disney, and it’s family – bring them in, in something
that’s, you know. The belief is kind of that if this doesn’t do it, I don’t
know what will.
By associating the Theatre Calgary brand with the Walt Disney brand the organization is quite deliberately attempting to capitalize on the popular culture juggernaut that is Disney and to use the musical as an anchor for the season. Tickets to Beauty and the Beast were only available as part of a subscription package for several months thus ensuring that the musical would contribute substantially to the season’s overall success. That programming the musical was a bottom-line decision and not an artistic one most certainly reflects economic prioritization in programming the artistic season.24 However, it has been stated, both in this Chapter and in Chapter Four, that programming a season requires a mix of material. Organizations, in trying to satisfy the Community Derived Revenue
24 Of course my statement here does imply that a work of art which is geared for mass entertainment cannot be artistically satisfying and it is possible that those involved with the show were very satisfied artistically. I acknowledge that this is a personal judgment and most certainly leaves room for the age-old debate about ‘what is art and who has the right to decide’; nonetheless from this position I draw my conclusions in this instance.
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requirement of the AFA, cannot forget the innovation and vitality requirement that helps
to fulfil the Canada Council weighting for Artistic Quality. Nor can they sacrifice the
artistic mandate of the organization in favour of programming for surplus.
The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra attempts a balanced season by offering traditional fare in the form of the Classics and Baroque series, ‘greatest hits’ repertoire that verges on the popular in the Light Classics series, and popular music with the Pops series, Special Concerts, and a variety of sold service performances,25 which can be
anything from Asian Heritage concerts to the Juno Awards. The balance achieved in the
2007-2008 season was 21 classical programs to 22 popular and outreach programs. The
numbers become clearer when the different series are separated (see the table below). As with Theatre Calgary, a breakdown shows that the “balanced season” is economically focused. Looking briefly at the seasons for the participant organizations, the same situation is visible across the board.
Table X - 2007-2008 Season for MPAO’s in Calgary
ATP Alberta Ballet Calgary Opera CPO TC (# of concerts/ series) Rabbit Hole Othello Rigoletto Classics – 9 The Wars (Cdn) (Cdn) The Nutcracker Ballad of Baby L. Classics – 6 Still Desire Doe Vigil You (Cdn) Dangerous Baroque – 6 Liaisons Tosca A Christmas Oliver Twist Pops – 14 Carol
The Syringa Outreach - 8 Our Town Tree Enchanted
25 A ‘sold service’ is a rehearsal or performance, or series of rehearsals and performances, for which the orchestra does not itself foot the bill. The orchestra is in effect hired out. Examples include performances for Alberta Ballet, the Vienna Waltz concerts on New Year’s Day, and the annual Asian Heritage Concert.
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Half Life (Cdn) April
ATP PlayRites Beauty and the Festival – 5 Beast new Cdn plays
The Artistic Director at Alberta Theatre Projects explains how the tipped scale works:
ATP - But it is all about that balance, right? And sort of what seems to have
worked for us for a formula for the last little while and hopefully will for a
bit longer is that, we do the holiday show, right, which makes a whack of
cash just, you know? It’s Christmas time and as long as it’s a familiar
title, as with ‘Peter Pan’ or ‘Treasure Island’ two years ago; it runs for 6
weeks at Christmas and we just jam them in there, and as it happened this
year we went way over budget in terms of revenue on that show. The rest
of ‘PlayRites’ [ATP’s new play festival] did very well but the other four
shows didn’t make their targets. But at the end of the day, we’ll show that
our Box Office has increased and we met our target largely because of the
holiday show. So that’s the kind of trickery involved in one sense. But it’s
about finding that balance. So that I guess is the formula that we’ve come
up with to kind of get to that surplus place at the end of the year.
“Trickery” is an apt description. Organizations bank on the success of certain ‘Pops’ productions to ensure their surplus, while making artistically focused programming choices to satisfy the artistic mandate and needs of performers. In the same way that actors may wait tables so that they can supplement their acting income, so companies will produce and perform popular repertoire to support their more artistic offerings. The
269 compromise seems to satisfy the performers, the audience, the funding bodies, and the economic focus of the government.
CPO - So for us we’re very aware and we want to bring in higher calibre artists
and conductors. That should drive ticket sales, it should help with fund-
raising. But you also need some money in a marketing budget to help sell
it because you’re building – It’s audience education of who are these
people and why should they come, because they are some of the best in the
world. But there isn’t strong name recognition. So we really think about
okay how will it sell, what is its name when we are looking at the concert;
what are we going to name the concert? We may have three different
works but what do we name it? This year, for example there [was] a
concert, I think it was Firebird, and they had some other name and I said
no, you’ve got to put Firebird in there. And I was absolutely right. It sold
on the name Firebird. And so we look critically at the titles of our concerts
to help sell, and what works we put in combination with each other. We
know concerts sell more strongly with a guest artist and conductor than it
does if you don’t have any guest artists. And chorus will also help sell it
stronger cause usually it’s interesting words, which is part of the scenario
as well. We very much take it into consideration you know, and it was the
same at the Ballet too. So what is it you’re bringing in, and I think, oh my
God everybody knows Carmen and they’re all going to come, it’s a slam
dunk. At the same time we also have to be thinking of what do we bring
that challenges the orchestra so they get stronger and better and improves
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the quality of the sound. So you know you can’t do all Mozart cause it’ll
get boring after a while.
Canadian Content
For organizations seeking to satisfy surplus and dissemination requirements,
Community Derived Revenue, and sponsorship demands, the Canada Council inclusion of Canadian content requirements presents a problematic obstacle. Looking at the seasons in the table above, the bankable productions in any given season are typically not the
Canadian works. Thus, when it comes to programming, the requirements of the AFA and
Canada Council applications collide head-on. The Canada Council encourages the
development and dissemination of new Canadian works but the AFA funds based on the
saleability of the season. Canadian works, unfortunately, rarely appeal to audiences and are thus very difficult to market (for a full discussion on Canadian consumption of
Canadian art works read Edwardson, 2008). Organizations are therefore faced with a choice to either program Canadian works and hope they’ll sell, program Canadian works in an innovative way, or refuse to program them and forfeit Canada Council funding. For the participant organizations of this research, each of these options is considered.
CPO - You know in our case, we still need to be true to our mandate, which is
classical music. So we will provide classical music balanced by some pops
and specials. Well, classical music would include light classics and
baroque so we have pops and specials to help offset or help fund the true
mandate music. But when planning it, that’s when they go back to Canada
Council. The federal grantor has a heavy mandate in bringing in
Canadian content. So when we’re now setting our season, we consider our
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mandate from Canada Council. We consider the audience and the
sophistication of our community; and you have to think in context of what
is this community ready for in music. […] There’s some works that aren’t
all that palatable to an audience and we take that into consideration. In
our case, you might have three different works on a concert so we might
mix it a bit so you’ve got two really strong ones and one that isn’t quite as
strong to balance it out. Maybe it’s Canadian content that isn’t as well
known. So next year we’re looking at… and we have a lot of Canadian
content, a lot of it. And we have some new works which may or may not go
over well, and it can for the most part distract from selling a regular
concert well if you slip in a modern piece. You hear it all the time. So
we’re testing going forward.
The CPO has the benefit of performing multiple works in every program. Therefore Canadian
works can be inserted into a concert of other material and fulfil the Canada Council content
requirement. However, as stated above, these works “may or may not go over well, and […] can
distract from selling a regular concert.”
CPO - When we have Canadian content people complain, like” what was that?”
In contrast to the CPO which mixes Canadian content into programs of other works, Alberta
Theatre Project was founded with a mandate to do Canadian work. The company therefore takes
every opportunity to present Canadian works including a new play festival, PlayRites, which
premieres five new Canadian plays every season. Interestingly, the organization still balances the
budget with non-Canadian blockbusters (Oliver Twist and The Syringa Tree) but of the ten plays
they produced in 2007-2008, eight were Canadian.
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ATP - The founders of ATP were basically Canadian Nationalists who decided
that, you know, we’re gonna celebrate who we are and we’re gonna do
plays about who we are and what Alberta is - that’s why this weird name
of this theatre company. So it’s always been fairly grass roots and fairly
low key and [it] developed the reputation I think, over certainly the first 20
maybe 30 years of its life, of priding itself of being aggressively folksy. So
it was fairly laid back, and this links to people like John Murrell and
Sharon Pollock you know, writers from Calgary who were telling our
stories. And that spirit has sort of hung in there even though we’ve been
down here [the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts] for the last 15 years
and are an institution with a budget of over 4 million dollars. I think,
whether it’s true or not, we still see ourselves as being connected to our
audience in a way that we share the same values. It’s not about us - here
this is good for you - but it’s like sharing our stories and what do you
think about that? And we do have I think, well I personally do have, a very
interesting dynamic, personal relationship in many ways with many of our
audience members. It’s very much about sharing.
For Calgary Opera the development of new Canadian operas has put the company on the map nationally and internationally. Though the organization may not produce a Canadian opera in every season, their development program has so far yielded three new operas –
Filumena, Frobisher, and the young person’s opera (fulfilling dissemination and outreach requirements in the process) Hannaraptor. Nonetheless, the organization balances opera’s ‘greatest hits’ with its Canadian fare to ensure financial stability.
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Calgary Opera - There’s a really huge appetite for familiar programming in
Calgary. […] All the companies, like Theatre Calgary, they’re doing
Beauty and the Beast this year, when we do Carmen or one of the top ten
operas or something like that, [there’s a] huge appetite for that. People
really feel comfortable with the familiar here. But Calgary is quite
renowned for its experimental side. I think that’s got to do with the
entrepreneur spirit of Calgary and the West and all that kind of thing and
the dark days of winter and let’s create something new and all that good
stuff. But they’re not huge numbers even though we sold out Filumena, we
sold out Frobisher, there’s a lot of buzz. But when you look at the whole
population of Calgary its still a pretty small number of people going to
them, right? So we call sell out three nights at the Jube [the Jubilee
Auditorium], that’s 7500 tickets. There’s a million people here [in
Calgary], you know. We’re stewards of public funding, and we’re here for
the community so if the community loves that program you do that
programming. At the same time you also do new stuff because people have
an appetite for new stuff and you also do brand new commissions because
you want to play a leadership role in developing work.
The interviews with Alberta Ballet didn’t yield any data that was specifically about Canadian content. The very nature of dance, however, means that the Ballet can use source material from anywhere and develop a new ballet from that material, which will then qualify as Canadian work. The Nutcracker, for example, can be Canadian if it is a new Canadian production; Othello can be a Canadian work, etc. For the Ballet, the issue
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is not so much about programming existing Canadian works as it is about developing new
work of their own regardless of the national origin of the source material. Nonetheless,
the recent production based on the music of Joni Mitchell was distinctly Canadian, with a
distinctly Canadian viewpoint, and was so successful for the company that they have
since been approached by Elton John to do a ballet based on his music as well.
For Theatre Calgary, the interaction with Canada Council has not been
particularly positive. The mandate of the organization is to do traditional works of
theatre, not experimental new plays as with ATP. The challenge for TC, therefore, is the lack of large-scale Canadian plays that fit the mandate. The company, until the 2007-
2008 new production of The Wars, simply did not do Canadian works and as a result did
not reap the rewards of funding from the Canada Council. In fact, because of their low
funding from the Council, TC is the lowest funded performing arts organization in
Alberta.
TC - We’ve never been driven by Canada Council, so if we find a good Canadian
play, we do it. If we don’t, we don’t. Canada Council’s never liked us so
we get 70,000 dollars a year from Canada Council on a 7 million dollar
budget, so figure it out, you know. Now that seems to be about to shift
because all of a sudden they like us again, Canada Council. The reason
they didn’t like us was because we didn’t do Canadian plays. Well
unfortunately, there’s not many Canadian plays [for A Theatres26].
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That’s the problem. It’s hard to find a 3 act, 3 hour play that’s written in
Canada. And there’s not many, so this year we’re writing our own after
Timothy Findlay’s book, The Wars. And that really got Canada Council’s
attention. They said, well this is great, now you’re doing something that’s
really good for the [country’s art]. And it’s a good thing to do. If we could
find a few of those to do, it would be fine, but it’s not easy.
As seen, programming in its entirety is a balancing act. An organization’s
financial and artistic stability rests on the administration’s skill at programming works
that will entice audiences to attend, satisfy performers’ artistic needs, and meet the
financial expectations of the Board. When government funding also rests on the ability of
a season’s works to produce a surplus, while simultaneously developing Canadian works
which can be hard to sell, the task becomes that much more difficult. In discussing the
nature of the economic relationship between government and performing arts
organizations, it is possible to see that the provincial government’s imposition of
sustainability has resulted in the production of more works of popular entertainment for
the purpose of ensuring a surplus. The Canada Council’s mandate for Canadian content,
however, puts their funding at odds not only with the economic priority of Alberta’s
provincial funding body, but also with the Council’s own economic impositions. The
economic priorities of both levels of government have already created a balancing act
26 An ‘A Theatre’ or ‘A List Theatre’ is a company like Theatre Calgary who typically only perform major works that have a running time of approximately two hours. These companies typically don’t produce one- act plays as part of their mainstage programming.
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between programming for artistic development of the organization and programming for
organizational stability. The added challenge of programming specifically Canadian
works on top of it all makes organizational equilibrium even harder to maintain.
Finance and Accounting
Chapter Four discussed the manner in which the organizational balancing act is
shared by all members of the organizational administration, including the financial
director. However, the financial results must show that, no matter what balance the season programming reveals, the finances will end up in a surplus situation. Budgeting
for the season is explained by the financial officer from Calgary Opera.
Calgary Opera - What he’ll [Artistic Director Bob McPhee] do is he’ll pick his
season, we budget to that season, and if it doesn’t work then he will play
with that season until he can make it work. So he may take out one
production all together and replace it with something else. I mean he’ll
discuss it with other people but, but he’s the decision maker. [Then] we do
a breakdown of what the projected budgets are for each performance. It’s
based on set size and costume and number in the cast, all of that stuff. It’s
based on all the administrative costs, all the fundraising costs, everything
is in that ledger, everything we do in a year. So Tosca’s definitely more
profitable than Baby Doe. Baby Doe will be budgeted at a very low
revenue based on the fact that it’s new, mostly a lot of people don’t know
it, it’s contemporary. Tosca is one of the top 10 so we expect it to sell very
well.
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Even here, however, the balance between art and finance, as seen in Chapter Four, is
supported.
CPO - Some classical concerts you know, like Baroque, don’t seem to be as
popular as they once were. Sometimes you have to maintain your address
because this is the show you put on for 50 years. You have to do that, and
so some of them would lose money. And I think I would encourage us to
continue. As a financial person here I would encourage us to continue to
lose money on some of those events if it maintains our image. I think it has
to maintain classical music [because we are] an arts and culture
organization.
The statements reveal that though the organizations must show a surplus at the end of the
season, the integrity of the organization must also be maintained. Organization members,
including the financial members, are constantly aware of maintaining the artistic focus of
the organization while simultaneously satisfying the need to show financial sustainability.
The balance continues to speak not only to the art/economic juxtaposition within performing arts organizations but also to the conflicting demands of the Canada
Council’s organizational mandate requirement and the AFA funding formula.
For financial officers, the imposition of governance regulations, the prioritization of sustainability, and the importance of financial statement presentation both for successful grant applications as well as for corporate sponsorships, has resulted in an increased emphasis on transparency.
CPO - It is a charitable organization so we don’t pay taxes in that sense, but in
such an organization where there’s so much public funding going through
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and donors and sponsorships and things like that, it is really important
that the financial officers are totally transparent. People have got to be
able to look right through me, literally, and not have anything in the
records that is anything suspect or anything like that. And I’ve been told
by the Board that we’ve added a lot of transparency to this office in the
last 6 months, and we have to. They’ve said the quality of reporting has
never been this good, and I think it can even get better yet. When we issue
a tax return to Revenue Canada, it gets on the Internet. So it’s public for
anybody to see. So we have to be accountable to the patrons, to our
sponsors, to our donors, to Government granting agencies, to anybody
who supplies us with any flow of funds.
The burden on an organization’s financial members is therefore to show that everything the organization is doing is financially responsible, that risks are balanced, that funding is wisely used, that the Cash Reserve fund is at its mandated level, that the endowment is being built, and that the budget (and three-year projection) is realistic. However, as shown, all of this is to be achieved without losing sight of the fact that performing arts organizations are “arts and culture organization(s).”
The Myth of the One-Dollar Surplus
In discussing the balancing act of programming vis-à-vis sustainability the term surplus frequently arises. Organizations, attempting to win the matching surplus fund bonus from the AFA, and prove organizational stability to the Canada Council, have begun to mandate surplus budgets. However, the goal of surplus, for any non-profit organization, is problematic. The tenets of the non-profit structure dictate that surplus
279 cannot be distributed to organization members – no one can profit from a non-profit organization – and the provincial government has declared that surplus cannot be carried over from one year to the next in an organization’s operating budget. It must be placed either in the Cash Reserve fund, or into a restricted fund set up by the organization to be used for anything other than operations or salaries.
Alberta Ballet - Budgeting for a non profit organization is like trying to land a
helicopter on a dime because if you’re over you can’t use it the next year.
You can’t roll it over and say, “great I’m 500 000 dollars over, I’m gonna
dump that into my operating cost for next year,” you can’t. You can hang
onto it and it can go into a reserve fund and you can use it for artistic
creation and that kind of thing. You can’t use it for operations if you’re
not for profit under our legislation.
Arts organization members are quick to declare that a one-dollar surplus more than meets their expectations.
TC - I’m always happy if at the end of the year we make a dollar. Anything over
a dollar is wild success I think in the arts.
ATP - [The goal] is not so much to make a profit, but it’s kind of making sure that
people understand what a not for profit organization is. To make them
understand that if we’re to come out at the end of the year with a one-
dollar surplus, that’s perfect. That means that we’ve spent the money
that’s been given to us by our subscribers and by the government and used
it for the work. And yes, we have to find ways to create endowments and
create rainy day funds and all of that. But at the end of the day, [the goal
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is] not to have the largest surplus on the block, it’s to have one-dollar
surplus. And for business types, boy, they go, “what”?
Though the one-dollar surplus was lauded by some interview participants as a hallmark of great success in the arts, suggesting that a balanced budget reflects the achievement of sustainability without artistic compromise, the truth is that there is no such thing as a one- dollar surplus in today’s non-profit world. There is only deficit or surplus. The logic of surplus, driven by the economic focus of the State and rewarded by bonus funds from the
AFA, has permeated the non-profit organizational structure. Evident in the strategic plan documents and interviews with organization members, the goal of surplus is mandated by government funders and Boards of Directors and celebrated as a marker of an organization’s good financial management, governance, and sustainability.
Calgary Opera - Our board has mandated a two percent surplus that we have to
come up with every year and we try very hard to meet it. I mean it’s not set
in stone you have to be two percent but we’ve got to be at least on the
positive side, and budgeting, we have to be at about two percent.
TC - We embedded right in our bylaws that we will not knowingly incur a debt or
an operating deficit…and we’ve had 11 surpluses since.
The strategic plan documents of the participant organizations reveal the following: for
Calgary Opera the primary goal of Prudent Financial Management is to “achieve a 2% annual operating surplus”; the CPO states that “for the last four years the CPO has
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operated at a profit”; and Theatre Calgary lauds its “tenth consecutive surplus of
$319,88627 well in excess of our business plan.”
Calgary Opera - It’s gone from a 2 million dollar budget up to a 5 million dollar
[budget] in 9 years. There was about 250 000 dollar deficit when I started
here. Now we’re at a surplus of something like 900 000 dollars.
The myth of the one-dollar surplus in performing arts organizations reveals that
arts organizations are making artistic decisions based on mandated surplus budgets while maintaining government imposed Cash Reserve funds and building endowments. The ability of the organizations to accomplish these financial feats shows a complete permeation of the State’s economic focus into the daily operation of performing arts organizations. That organizations work to achieve surplus budgets, though the surplus is small compared to a for-profit business, shows the degree to which the imposition of economic thinking has become invisible to organization members. Regulations prevent an organization from using their own surplus funds for operations, and from making individual decisions regarding the amount of money in the Cash Reserve fund, but organization members work to achieve surplus funds nonetheless because it is the only way to ensure government funding the subsequent year. Organization members discuss the surplus requirement below:
CPO - Mind you, we have to run it like a business and yes, maybe we’d like to
seek a surplus, which the business world would call it a profit, we call a
profit a surplus. And surplus, I think it’s healthy to have surpluses that are
27 Theatre Calgary’s surplus includes a $100,000 Encore reward from the Alberta Performing Arts Stabilization Fund.
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acceptable because it gives us sustaining power and maybe some financial
strength on our balance sheet when times are a little bit tough. So
surpluses are good.
Alberta Ballet - If you’re projecting a surplus you try to spend it in the year
you’ve got it because there’s really no point in carrying it over. But it’s
nice to show a surplus, but it would be really nice if you could use it, if it
was at your own discretion, you know.
ATP - A Board will not approve a deficit budget. So therefore you have to get very
clever with how you kind of… You know, accounting wise, if you’re going
to say, “Okay we’re gonna do this show. We know it’s gonna cost us X
amount more than we should but if we’re gonna do it for these reasons
that’s okay.” But we have to make sure though, still at the end of the year
that budget, that audit says we’re in a surplus situation.
The final statement by ATP above, reveals that surplus can be, to an extent, a numbers game. In the same way that programming involves some ‘trickery’ so too does the accounting that balances the artistic risks of the organization – “gonna cost us X amount more than it should” – with the presentation of the surplus numbers at the time of the audit. The balance here shows that organizations play within the rules, but still manage to find little ways to manipulate the game.
Building the Endowment
Performing arts organizations currently rely on three revenue streams: ticket sales, sponsorship, and government funding. However because the government funding stream comes with strings attached, and because some members don’t trust that government
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funding will continue indefinitely, organizations are attempting to generate unrestricted
funds through the building of endowments.
CPO - So let’s develop a nest egg and let it grow and then only the interest from
the nest egg, we’ll give that back to the CPO. But I think that’s more
important for the future than government grants. I think our next
[endowment] goal is 50 million. Then after that I think our next goal is
100 million and once we get 100 million then we’re self-sustaining, then
we can take the grants and (ripping sound).
The successful building of an endowment, in the manner of the CPO, could conceivably
allow organizations to use their time and resources toward the running of the organization rather than to complete exhaustive grant applications. Of course the income generated from endowments would be relatively small until the endowment fund itself became sizeable; however, as a revenue stream endowments stand to offer organizations the most autonomous control of both income and artistic product. Given the fluctuating amounts of
government grants and the uncertain future of granting programs themselves, many arts
organizations recognize the importance of building endowments for the sake of financial
security. Other organizations, Calgary Opera for example, are building endowments to
provide funds for programs which they cannot currently afford either because they do not
have adequate funds in the operating budget or because too much of their income is tied
up in Cash Reserve and other restricted funds.
Calgary Opera - So we’re looking at building our endowment. We’ve set a goal,
an initial goal of 15 million and that’s really to sustain the new programs
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that we added. The endowment we’re going for is to fund our special
programs not our base operations.
Though arts organizations in Calgary are looking to endowment funds to ensure sustainability of programs and/or organizational operations, the building of endowment funds is sometimes seen as risky and problematic. As pointed out by Richard Bradshaw at the 2004 National Arts Centre Roundtable on Philanthropy in the Performing Arts:
“endowment schemes leave the arts subject to the whims of the market […] and can sometimes conveniently divert attention from what arts organizations really need to stay alive, operating funding.” Maestro Bradshaw’s comments came as part of a speech which strongly stated that government should provide substantially increased funding to the arts.
“The arts don’t need an excuse for adequate funding…as the repository of the best that’s being fought, felt, dreamed, they’re central to a healthy society” (Bradshaw in National
Arts Centre, 2004). Bradshaw’s remarks, notably, do not reflect the balance that performing arts organizations in Alberta are struggling to maintain. His comments speak directly from the artistic perspective, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the arts alone provides the necessary justification for government funding, without considering all the strings attached to government funding and how they influence organizational operations on a day to day basis. Bradshaw also fails to see that the “whims of the market” already impact arts organizations, regardless of their endowment size.
The economic boom in Calgary has been a mixed blessing for the arts community in general. On the one hand disposable income has never been higher nor has profitability in the oil patch. On the other hand Calgarians have never worked harder and our view, and that of others, is [that] the economic boom has been at the expense of leisure time activities. Additionally the capital requirements of the oil patch to meet the growing oil sands boom have
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siphoned off profits at the expense of corporate sponsorship. (Theatre Calgary Strategic Plan, 2006).
The statement above reveals that even in a time of financial largesse, market forces play a large part in the generation of the Community Derived Revenue upon which the AFA funding rests. The economic crash of September 2008 and the subsequent recession have no doubt further jeopardized all of the revenue streams for performing arts organizations in the coming year(s). Nonetheless, arts organization members see endowments as the cornerstone of their future operations.
Sponsorship
The importance of generating revenue from ticket sales and sponsorships is given equal priority within performing arts organizations as the acquisition of government funding. This is due partly to the fact that government funding relies on proof of
Community Derived Revenue, but also because ticket sales and sponsorships prove that an organization has relevance to its community (which satisfies both the Canada Council and an organization’s own mandate to serve its community). According to the research report The Current State of Granting in Calgary (2007), grants account for 19% of an arts organization’s total income, Sponsorship accounts for 31%, and Earned Income accounts for 43%. Casino revenue and touring income round out the figures at 5% and 3% respectively (Calgary Arts Development Authority, 2007, p. 22).
Ticket sales are generated based on programming, but sponsorships arise from organizational interactions, personal relationships, and directed programming.
Calgary Opera - Subscriptions and single tickets are very significant. Over a
million dollars worth out of a 5 million dollar budget, what is it? About
one-and-a-half million is budgeted for this year alone, so yeah, it’s a
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significant part of our budget and we worry about those people a lot. We
try to take care of them the best way we can. But our season is geared
towards all three revenue strings, and that would be tickets, fundraising
and grants. I don’t know that we focus on anything one thing more than
another really in a season. It’s all gotta be done.
Sponsorship dollars are an integral part of an organization’s revenue and help to provide
the surplus which is needed to ensure government funding. Where the AFA looks to
Community Derived Revenue as proof of sustainability, the Canada Council lists
community partnerships as a criteria of Outreach and Dissemination. Thus, the financial
health of the organization, once again, is doubly impacted because a failure to generate
individual or corporate donations will also hurt the acquisition of government funding.
Sponsorships however, as seen in Chapter Four, do not come without
compromise. In order to acquire financial donations, arts organizations must align their programming and outreach with the priorities of the funding corporations. In the case of individual sponsors, arts organizations must continue to perform works which provide appeal to whichever audience those sponsors belong to (popular or traditional).
Regardless of whether a sponsor is individual or corporate, there has to be something in it for them. Thus, for individual sponsorship government tax relief is an important incentive which helps arts organizations to secure donations.
CPO - So the Federal Government, Revenue Canada has given charitable
organizations a bit of a break because they have allowed people to have a
higher tax credit, I believe, when they claim charitable donations. So the
tax credit is better bang-for-your-buck in 2007-2008 and going forward
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than it was in the past. So there’s more incentive for people to make
donations because they’ll get more of a tax kick back, which is good.
For corporate donors the alignment of an arts organization with the corporation’s own community mandate can provide the necessary motivation. The statements of organization members, here reiterated from Chapter Four (p. 28-29), show that the give and take between the sponsor and the sponsored is an economic interaction.
CPO - We’re getting their marketing dollars, so they’re using us to ground
themselves for the most part. They want their name out there. They want
to be seen as doing this good. They want to use it to bring clients to
entertain, to send staff and volunteers, for retention and recognition. So
it’s a business decision for the most part.
TC - Each of the sponsors […] also has their direction that they want to go in.
There are certain areas that they deal with and we try to tailor something
that will fit in with their interest specifically.
Because corporations align their own images with the organizations being supported, the programming that bears the sponsor’s name (as recognition) is important to the successful renewal of that sponsorship in following seasons. The experience of
Alberta Theatre Projects several years ago shows how a corporation will withhold, or threaten to withhold, funds if the organization does not reflect the values of the corporation. ATP’s example is a case where a sponsor pulled funding from a production in the PlayRites festival due to the moral content of the work (the play had a pedophilic character).
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ATP - There are no-holds-barred in terms of the material that happens in
PlayRites, right? Nothing about any topic - we haven’t shied away from
anything quite frankly. And we did The Coronation Voyage by Michel
Marc Bouchard. And one of the lead characters in that play is a
pedophile. And one of the stories in the play is how he’s seducing the 12
year-old son of one of the other characters. Now it all ends poorly for this
guy because his plan doesn’t work and he gets thrown off the boat, so it’s
like the bad guy gets it right? So it’s not like we’re saying pedophilia is a
good thing, that this character is a good character. Anyway, we had
Halliburton, the oil company, pull their sponsorship because they didn’t
want, they had come to see it and, you know. And that’s the only time that
I know of that a company has pulled because of the content of the work.
[But] we didn’t inform them properly or we didn’t have a process that
allowed them to find out what the material was and make a decision based
on that. And [that’s] why we don’t do that [now]; the individual works
aren’t sponsored. The whole festival is sponsored, and so we’ve done
things like that.
The example shows how performing arts organizations find ways to satisfy corporate concerns and demands within the programming balance. For the CPO, concerts that are tied to a corporate sponsor’s own initiative (children’s health for example) may be held at a location directly linked to the cause (the Children’s Hospital). For ATP, as seen above, sponsorship is directed toward an entire festival rather than to an individual production.
Nonetheless, organizations must find ways to produce works that are artistically
289 satisfying, financially profitable, generate audiences, and now, satisfy the individual and corporate demands of sponsors.
On occasion, the mandate of the organization itself may align with the mindset of the community. In the case of ATP, the exploratory nature of the organization aligns with the exploratory nature of the oil and gas industry, which organization members cite as being an essential element in the generation of corporate sponsorship.
ATP - The great thing about the PlayRites Festival is that it attracts funding at a
corporate level that is almost perfectly in synch with the Calgary mind set.
You’re doing research and development, you’re taking risks, you don’t
really know how these plays are gonna turn out - it’s a celebration of who
we are. So for those who are involved in the oil patch and research and
development, they get it totally. They understand the idea of digging a hole
in the ground and sometimes the oil don’t come up, but you take the
chance and you find out. So in many ways it’s a great place to be doing
[that kind of work]. And it’s just a big enough city that we can get into
places that we probably couldn’t if we were based in Toronto or
Vancouver, right? So it’s a kind of really fortuitous alignment of various
factors. But the PlayRites Festival is a perfect example of enterprise that
does okay at the box office but doesn’t do extraordinarily well. But that
doesn’t matter to the Enbridges and the other people, it’s about
supporting this kind of work and being seen attached to a forward looking,
risk taking, organization. So we can use that as a calling card that allows
us to attract the kind of corporate support that we desperately need. And
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we’re very, very successful at it I think. When you look at the percentage
of the money that we do raise, we’re right up there, not just in Calgary but
in the country in terms of [sponsorship]. But it’s also something about the
nature of the product appeals in a way that other things don’t.
Corporate sponsorship, as an alignment with a compatible arts organization, also has a focus on sustainability. Corporations, like government funding bodies, look for evidence of good financial management in the organizations they consider sponsoring.
Therefore, organizations must align themselves to donor corporations artistically, but must also prove their financial sustainability to secure funding.
CPO - Since the bankruptcy protection […] all those companies are going, are we
gonna support these guys or not? Let’s wait and see if they really have
dug themselves out of the hole. And so they’ve looked, the last few years
they’ve really been looking at that closely and it’s huge, their perception,
and whether they’re gonna get behind it cause no one wants to support a
loser.
The generation of corporate sponsorship, as seen, is integral to the achievement of a surplus budget and to the satisfaction of the AFA Community Derived Revenue formula. As an indicator of the relationship between government and performing arts organizations, we can see that privatization in Alberta has led to the encouragement of community partnerships between arts organizations and corporations. Because corporations are looking to attach themselves to a cause in order to generate good-will in the community, arts organizations must align themselves with the goals of the sponsor.
Additionally, because corporations will not fund an organization that is not financially
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stable, arts organizations must prove good economic management and sustainability.
Therefore, it is clearly evident that partnerships are not created for the good of the art form and the artistic goals of the arts organization itself become, once again, subjugated
to the need for economic support and financial sustainability.
Outreach and Education
Individual sponsorships are not generated in the same way as the corporate
sponsorships discussed above. Though individual sponsorships, as stated, do come with a
few strings attached (programming must have appeal to individual donors), performing
arts organizations generally don’t have to make large concessions to individual sponsors
in the same way they do to corporate sponsors. Individual donors are sought out through
outreach programs first as audience members, then they are encouraged to become
subscribers, and gradually the organization hopes to entice them into giving. The
generation of individual sponsorship often begins outside the theatre or concert hall as a
result of community events.
Calgary Opera - I would say there’s not too much financial motive since we don’t
really make any money out of it. We might break even but that’s about it
with some of those community events. And some of them even cost us
money so no, I would say it was strictly nurturing that audience again,
trying to bring them in and hopefully they’ll buy seats one day or make a
donation or both.
CPO - If they have a good experience, they might come back and then you’re
gonna engage them in single tickets, you’re gonna get them to be a
subscriber, you’re gonna get them belonging to an Amadeus program.
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Attracting individual donors through community events serves, on the one hand, to generate funds for the organization but it also builds a sense of community, which in itself helps to fulfil the Canada Council outreach requirement.
Calgary Opera - one of our big mandates is to engage with audiences outside the
concert hall because we, obviously when we do operas, they come there
and that’s what people are used to. We’re trying to do other stuff too, so
we do the brunches and we do a series called Taste of the Opera and then
a symposium around the new work, dinner, gala all those kinds of things
where we’re trying to create more social activities for people who are
curious about, and it’s not just always about the opera. And I think almost
all the companies are doing that kind of, ATP does their pizza with Bob,
and the CPO does their art auctions and things like that. We’re all doing
the same thing but I think it’s another way to say, this might be of interest
to you if you don’t know about it and you don’t have to come and sit
through a whole opera the first time. Come and try something little and
then maybe you’ll be ready later.
ATP - I do a lot of cocktails and lot of sitting around and power breakfasts and all
that kind of stuff. But I actually enjoy it and I think that’s part of my job, to
go back to where we started, is to talk about the work to people. Cause I
know I can get them excited about the work right - and this play is about
and this is who’s in it. And these people crave this kind of contact with us,
right? That world that they live in is so spiritually deprived that any kind
of contact with people who are you know, lively and kind of plugged into
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things, yeah, they find enormously exciting right, and that helps to get the
money out of them. But I do enjoy it you know, and again I feel that’s very
much my responsibility - is to be an ambassador for the work, a
proselytizer you know, and a cheerleader and all of that kind of stuff; and
if that helps bring in the dough, great. I have no problems doing any of
this. I don’t feel I’m a whore. I don’t feel I’m cheapening my artistic
integrity or any of that stuff.
CPO - Most of our stuff we do in the city, actually every program within the city is
pretty whiz bang I think. It’s great, lots of stuff going on especially in the
schools and performing in little clusters of places within Calgary’s
community like a shopping centre or an office building here and there.
They’re not so much as marketing gestures but just as community
enriching gestures.
Outreach, however, is in itself problematic. Where an organization can bring a community in to an event, the cost of running that event can be minimized. But when an organization takes its work out to the community, as the Canada Council expects them to do, the costs can skyrocket. A member of the CPO explains:
CPO - I mean well we try as much as we can to actually go and perform in
smaller communities. But it’s that sort of vicious circle, you need funding
to be able to do that. You can’t just go because you know it costs x amount
of dollars to transport 65 people by bus to a certain place and set up a
stage and haul a whole bunch of music stands and chairs out there. And of
course the economic spin-offs of those activities are intangible, they aren’t
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immediate right? So it’s difficult and risky to do it because part of our
responsibility as an arts organization is to function in a financially
responsible and sustainable way.
The Canada Council Outreach and Dissemination section of the grant applications specifically emphasizes outreach to youth. For applicant organizations, this is accomplished by running education programs as part of their outreach mandate.
Organizations perform in schools and offer opportunities for classes to attend dress rehearsals at reduced prices. The goal in education is to generate long-term arts supporters by introducing them to the arts while they are children and youth, which will hopefully translate into adult audience development.
CPO - I want Musician trading cards. I want kids in our SMATS [Saturday
Morning at the Symphony] programs and in our education outreach
programs to say, “I’ll trade 3 Steve’s for 1 Phil.” I want coloring books
for the kids for our season. So what in a sense am I doing? I’m getting
lifers. I’m getting their parents because we’ve treated the kids so well and
we’ve engaged their minds and instilled in them a different direction
besides X-box, right? In getting the parents – they come. Our attendance
goes up, and our attendance goes up across the board. So [it’s] really
global thinking on how we can not just take that one experience but turn
that into a million experiences.
CPO - I’m gonna tell you a story about my daughter. She hated coming to
concerts, and right from day one arts was not part of her genetic makeup.
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I bet I brought her out ten times kicking and screaming to concerts. And so
then, she moves away, gets married, she’s living in Washington, D.C., and
she phones me up one day and she says, “Dad you’re not gonna believe
what I just did?” Well, what? She says, “I bought season tickets to the
National Orchestra in Washington, D.C.” I’m going, you gotta be
kidding? She says, “Yeah, I know,” she says. “Truth is I now really miss
it.” So here’s a kid that didn’t even like it, was exposed to it, and later on
it became part of her culture. And then she realized as she gets a little bit
older, there is a void there and I do like this stuff and now I want to
embrace it. Now isn’t that an interesting thing? Fact of the matter is, if
they’re exposed enough times, and I think that exposure’s is at least five
times before it starts to become something they’re gonna want later in life.
You’re gonna have to reach them at least five times. If it’s something less
than that, I don’t think you’re gonna get them.
Dissemination and Outreach programs, while also fulfilling grant application requirements, serve important purposes for arts organizations. They build community, develop audiences, and generate sponsorship. They also, however, pose financial challenges of their own in that to run outreach and education programs requires funding.
But you cannot get funding if you don’t run outreach and education programs.
Considering the relationship between government and performing arts organizations, the grant requirement of such programming therefore contributes to the organizational
balancing act being outlined. Education programming must engage youth and entice them
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to continue arts participation as adults; outreach programs do not need to be artistic but
must have enough allure that they draw a crowd and encourage donations.
The Balancing Act of Sustainability – The Strategic Plan
The chapter, to this point, has examined how arts organizations react to the
demands of the Canada Council and AFA grant applications. It has shown how
organization members try to balance the finances of their organizations and satisfy the
conflicting demands of funding bodies while simultaneously fulfilling the artistic
mandate of their organizations. The data presented has shown how organizations adapt to
the demands of the grant applications. However, it has not yet shown how the adaptation
has been, and to an extent must be, embedded into the discourse of performing arts
organizations through organizational documents. The Strategic Plan document for arts organizations is both a required component of funding applications and the guide which
organizations use to move forward. Strategic plan documents reveal the duality that
exists in arts organizations between maintenance of the artistic needs of the organization
and the necessary alignment with the economic priorities of government.
At first glance, the strategic plan documents seem to strike a balance between the
“triple bottom line of artistic quality, community relevance and financial responsibility”
(David Park quoted in Finley, Gralen, & Fichtner, 2006). Certainly the artistic visions are
clearly stated and for the most part the artistic goals outlined are in keeping with the arts
and culture mandates of participant organizations. However, upon closer analysis the
weighting of the documents tends heavily toward the economic and very clearly reveals
the business focus of the participating arts organizations. Considering that the AFA
grants are decided by the Community Derived Revenue formula, and that the provincial
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government focus on sustainability has been absorbed into the Canada Council
applications as well, it is not surprising that the strategic plan documents emphasize the organizational goals of corporate and individual sponsorship, fundraising, sustainability, and governance. What is remarkable, however, are the ways in which the economic and artistic priorities co-exist.
To begin, the Calgary Opera strategic plan includes in its section called Artistic
Vision the goal to “achieve artistic excellence and recognition.” Strategies for achieving
this goal include the statement: “seek a way to enhance dollar investment in artists and
production.” From this statement it appears that the success of the organization’s artistic
vision is to be measured in dollar amounts. Strangely, in the financial section of the
strategic plan, called Prudent Financial Management, the same statement as that found in
Artistic Vision appears in reverse. The goal stated is to “increase the investment in the
product towards artistic and production excellence” with the accompanying strategy to
“continue to increase expenditure on artists and productions.” Here it seems that the
financial goal will be measured quasi-artistically, in much the same way that the Canada
Council applications appear to be assessed. Reflecting the organizational challenge in
achieving balance, the organization states a clear artistic goal of excellence and recognition but acquiesces to the economic focus of government funding bodies by acknowledging that it needs to “seek a way to enhance dollar investment” which makes the statement that no artistic endeavours will be undertaken without sustainable financing. The artistic mandate, however, being the foundation upon which the organization is built, stands firm with the organization’s inclusion of artistic priorities in the financial section of the document. Thus for Calgary Opera it is possible to suggest
298 that the organization is making an effort to ensure that its artistic mandate will not knowingly be subordinated to its economic mandate. Unfortunately, the very fact that the
Artistic Vision colludes with the economic focus of the State signifies that the economic priority is dictating what may, or may not, be accomplished artistically and thus reveals the relationship between organization and government as one of imbalance.
The strategic plan documents of the other participating organizations reveal a similar quandary for organization members, though none quite so clearly as the strategic plan of Calgary Opera. In the strategic plan document of Theatre Calgary the structure of the document itself speaks volumes about the organization’s adoption of economic priorities. In the Objectives section of the document, the artistic goals for the company appear as the seventh point, following sales and customer service, development, financial development, human resources, marketing and communications (in that order). The first thing a reader encounters in Objectives is the economic focus of the organization and its plans for growth through subscriptions and fundraising. In other words, Community
Derived Revenue. The document is quite clearly designed to emphasize the economic strengths of the organization, particularly where income is acquired through sources other than government funding. As seen in the previous chapter, such a focus will enhance the possibility of grant money based on the AFA formula. Reading through the document, however, one comes across the tenth and final point under the heading communications which reads: “We want to re-focus the media and the public that we are first and foremost a major arts company and our art is the most prevalent thing people see at all times.” The statement certainly intends an assertion of the artistic; however, the document itself always puts the focus on sustainability ahead of the artistic goals and accomplishments of
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the company. The structure of the strategic plan document thus reveals that the company’s acquiescence to the economic priorities of the government funding bodies is
causing them to subordinate their artistic mandate even while stating the very opposite
intention as an organizational goal.
The strategic plan of The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra takes a slightly
different tack and I believe that this is because the CPO very recently recovered from
bankruptcy protection and thus has a different viewpoint from the other participating arts
organizations, most of whom are a decade past their own financial troubles. The strategic
plan of the CPO reflects the belief of organization members that government funding will
not continue indefinitely and that it is best not to rely on grant funding. The first sentence
in the document, following the table of contents, states: “The Calgary Philharmonic
Orchestra is on a path of strengthening and growth to become more self-sufficient while
delivering on artistic excellence.” The document goes on to declare: “With little increase
projected in government grants, the CPO will give priority attention to philanthropic
donation activity.” How should such bold statements be interpreted? Given that the
organization receives government grants annually it is not possible to see the statements
as intending a rejection of government funding programs or a breaking-off of the
relationship between the organization and government. If anything the organization’s
goal of self-sufficiency and the resulting financial implications precisely align the
organization with the State’s economic priorities. For example, the Guiding Principles of
the CPO strategic plan use the language of sustainability which directly reflects the focus
of government grant applications. The Guiding Principles are: A) Preservation and
extension of the art of orchestral performing; B) Fiscally responsible operations; C)
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Sound corporate governance. Terms such as “corporate governance” and “best business practices” come directly from the profit oriented business world and reveal how the language of sustainability has become imbedded in the organizational language.
Strategic plan documents are integral to the successful completion of grant applications and therefore the inclusion of points of sustainability are neither unexpected nor untoward. And, given that the documents play a role in securing funding for organizations, there may also be an element of document creation which is deliberate
(organization members ‘playing the game’.) The use of this document as an organizational tool, outside of the application process, also has the potential of inculcating the economic priorities espoused therein as organizational ideology (see
Oakes, et al, 1998). Thus the strategic plan document reflects the ways in which the economic priorities, imposed by government, are taking priority over the artistic mandate of performing arts organizations.
Discussion – Applying Bourdieu
The balancing act outlined in this chapter reveals the extent to which the economic impositions of government, passed on to arts organizations through granting documents, misalign with the long-established operation of performing arts organizations. The non-profit legislation which asserts that arts organizations are not businesses, the artistic mandates which give direction to the art of the organizations, and the traditional role of the performing arts to challenge, innovate, and push artistic and social boundaries are all thrown into disarray by the imposition of surplus budgets, Board of Director liability regulations, and the concept of sustainability. The result are organizations that struggle on every level with the challenge of balancing artistic risk
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(which they want to take) with financial risk (which they cannot take) while
simultaneously protecting the artistic mandate of the organization and needs of the
performers and audience. Organization members are doing their best to balance the
demands of the State with the needs of the organization but are ultimately struggling in
the service of two masters.
The relationship between government and arts organizations can be called one of
symbolic violence. Bourdieu suggests that a relationship of symbolic violence requires participation on both sides. Thus arts organizations, by continuing to participate in the funding programs which provide an opportunity for government to exert symbolic impositions, are seen as colluding with government in the relationship. Whether or not the symbolic violence of the interaction is fully visible to organizational participants is in question. On the one hand, organization members see and acknowledge that the increased financial requirements of funding documents place a significant burden on their organizations. On the other hand, however, it is not clear if organization members can see
that the balancing act outlined in this chapter is also a result of those same government
impositions. Performing arts organizations have adopted the economic language and, as
seen, go to great lengths to maintain the balance between art and finance. They do these
things to perpetuate the cycle of government arts funding which has been the tradition of
non-profit arts operations in Canada for decades. To a certain extent this indicates an
invisibility in the interaction because arts organization members are not advocating for
unified or simplified funding regulations, they are not asserting that the government
should be funding the artistic side of their organizations over the economic, and
ultimately they are not leaving the funding programs. They continue to participate. Thus,
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I assert that the symbolic violence, or at least the extent of the symbolic violence, in the relationship is obscured (if not invisible) to organization members.
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CHAPTER TEN: CONCLUSIONS
In examining the balance achieved by the organizations in programming, strategic
plan documents, and the actions of administrators, it is possible to see that the
prioritization of the economic over the artistic is becoming the norm in the operations of
performing arts organizations. Viewed in conjunction with the government manipulation
of the social conditions for art through language (the special interest group) and the
imposition of demands seen in the grant applications, we can see the shift in structure and
language of arts organizations as being a direct result of the economic demands of
government in exchange for funding. Therefore it is possible to assert that the nature of the economic relationship between governments and performing arts organizations is one of symbolic violence. This final chapter brings together all of the elements of the research
– government priorities, granting documents, and organizational responses – to clarify the
conclusion.
The State as Meta-Field
Returning to the political histories presented we can see how the State functions
as what Bourdieu would call a meta-field. The actions of federal and provincial
governments activate their influence for the purpose of defining or reducing the value of
the performing arts socially. At the beginning of the history discussed, the federal value
of the arts (cultural capital) was initially ascribed by Massey in his determination to form
a national arts council. The creation of the Canada Council for the Arts in 1957 saw the
beginnings of the constitution of Canada’s arts sector begin with the prioritization of
professional arts organizations in urban areas. Provincially, and some years later, the
Lougheed government likewise placed a high value on the arts in Alberta. The result of
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these prioritizations of the arts was the constitution of both Canadian and Albertan artistic
field(s) as autonomous, wherein the performing arts were elevated to a dominant position.
Artists and arts organizations were maintained by government support and their elevation
in society reinforced the legitimacy of high culture to Canadian society. Furthermore, as
the performing arts were consecrated by governments, so artists felt themselves deserving
of the consecration. Provincially, the elevated position of the arts was accorded by
Premier Lougheed himself, who used the symbolic capital of his reputation through
participation as a patron to generate financial support for arts organizations (matched by
the government). Thus the government exercised its influence over the economic and
business sectors of society, encouraging them to support and attend the arts, and to
recognize their importance.
As seen, the 1980’s brought a shift in government priorities which was both a
reaction to the onset of recession and the desire to participate in a global market. Prime
Minister Trudeau’s government (both before and after Clark’s minority government of
nine months) shifted the federal culture focus away from the arts and towards the cultural industries, which could provide products for export. Other economic federal prioritizations were passed on to the provinces through various programs. In Alberta, one such program was the NEP. The NEP can be seen as an example of the federal state prioritizing economic capital and imposing that priority onto Alberta. The resulting shift of power in the nationally constituted economic field resulted in the Alberta government adjusting its own priorities (its own exchange rate of capital) to compensate for the federally precipitated economic downturn. Thus in this moment we see the federal State meta-field influencing the national economic field, which in turn swayed the bureaucratic
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capacities of the provincial State meta-field. This action resulted in the provincial government’s move to restructure the province with an eye to fiscal management. As a result, the arts themselves were labelled a special interest and moved from a dominant position in the provincial list of priorities.
In both federal and provincial governments a restructuring of granting bodies occurred at this time. Federally, the Art Bank funding was eliminated, the academic role of the Canada Council was transferred to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council, and other funds for the arts were ‘earmarked’ for specific national unity programs. In Alberta, the Department of Culture became the Department of Culture and
Multiculturalism. In both cases the arts sector was subordinated from its previous position and placed in a situation of economic constriction. In other words, as the value of cultural capital was reduced so the consecration of the performing arts as symbols of stature (with the generative power of symbolic capital) was placed in jeopardy by an economic position which did not recognize their status and made them consider their own means of survival. Thus, the autonomous position of the performing arts in society was challenged in two ways. First, the federal shift in focus towards the cultural industries, and the provincial transformation of the Department of Culture, challenged the position of the traditional performing arts by according multicultural art forms and pop culture forms such as television the same billing in government. In Alberta, the dilution of the
Department of Culture moved the performing arts to a lower position in the overall cultural sector due to the elevation of cultural events, not institutionalized and consecrated as high culture and perhaps not even art forms per se (an international culinary festival for example), to an equal position based on government and financial
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support. The second challenge to the autonomy of the performing arts occurred through the reduction of programs and funding in the Canada Council, the earmarking of funds for specific federal programs, and the provincial combination of funding bodies into the single Alberta Foundation for the Arts. These actions represented the diminished amount of economic capital that the governments were willing to invest in the arts and therefore the value in symbolic capital of investment in the arts was likewise reduced. In the reduction of programs designed to support arts organizations we can see a physical, tangible instance of a changed position within a field as the arts move from a dominant government priority to a sub-dominant position.
Symbolic Imposition
The State as meta-field uses the manipulation of language to transform social
perceptions and slowly alter the deep structures which traditionally served to insulate the
performing arts from the market. By asserting a market oriented focus into all sectors of
society the State is able to transform public attitudes towards the arts and use the now-
dominant economic language to both devalue cultural capital and obscure the act of
devaluation. We see in the example of the Klein government in Alberta, and to an extent
the Trudeau and Mulroney governments federally, that the State manipulates the
dominant language of society in order to create the necessary social conditions for the
successful symbolic imposition of economic demands. (It is also possible to see the
manoeuvring of language as the practice of the manipulation of the value of different
types of capital(s) by the meta-field). As the terminology of the special interest group was gradually adopted by the populace, along with the business language of fiscal responsibility and reduced expenditures, the concomitant transformation of the language
307 of arts policy and funding documents to reflect economic thinking occurred almost invisibly. The symbolic imposition of market pressure applied through funding documents, and reinforced by strategic plan documents, therefore went unnoticed (or at the least unremarked) because the language was recognized as legitimate and was being adopted by both the public and by arts organizations themselves. The actions of the State as meta-field, therefore, are not fully recognized as an imposition but are justified as being logical, and even essential, requirements for sustainability in the arts sector. Thus, the State as meta-field is able to surmount the obstacles of embedded social beliefs by manipulating language and altering perceptions. Such symbolic imposition allows the
State as meta-field to assert economic priorities and demands onto the arts in a way that is obscured both to members of society and to those who are most affected, the members of arts organizations themselves.
Symbolic Violence and Organizational Collusion
For Bourdieu (1982) the successful symbolic imposition of demands requires the participation of an entire group. In this way symbolic impositions become absorbed and inculcated. Because inculcation can serve to introduce “durable dispositions like class tastes which […] make all social agents the carriers of distinctive signs capable of uniting and separating people as surely as explicit prohibitions and barriers” (Bourdieu, 1991, p.
123), it has the capacity to deprive people even of the sense of deprivation. Thus, the identification of symbolic violence requires observing both the participation, and justification of that participation, in the actions and words of performing arts organization members themselves.
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As we have seen, the government imposition of economic priorities through the increasing demands of grant applications quietly induces arts organizations to operate in a desired manner. In the words of arts organization members it is possible to identify symbolic violence at work. On the one hand members recognize and resent the time required to fill out grant applications and acknowledge that the applications force them to operate with a focus on sustainability, surplus, and business-like governance. On the other hand the language of the artistic mandate is prevalent, with organization members speaking of the need to create and to offer new works and challenges to their audiences.
Organization members speak of community service and of the desire for artistic satisfaction. The actions of arts organization members are also telling as they juggle every aspect of the organization in an attempt to find a balance between their artistic mandates and the economic requirements for funding. The balance achieved is seen in programming where compromise is made between artistic and financial risk, between mandated Canadian programming and Community Derived Revenue, and between art that will generate sponsorship revenue and art that will satisfy the creative personnel. The balance achieved is seen in the relationship between boards of directors and organization administrators wherein everything from outreach to programming decisions involves collaborative decision-making, despite legislation which is intended to prevent Board participation in daily activities. And the balance achieved is also seen in the fiscal management of organizations which seek a surplus season, maintain the Cash Reserve fund at the appointed level, and attempt to build stability through the creation of endowment funds. However, when asked how they feel about the pressures imposed on
309 them by the government, organization members adopt the language of sustainability and reiterate the State’s economic focus.
ATP: It seems pretty good to me because it has checks and balances that allow
the public, who are in many ways paying for it through taxes and
Government support, a way to transparency, to see how organizations
work.
CPO: I think it has also helped each organization think about how they’re
managing their own resources, and whether we like it or not, you have to
build your cash reserve and it’s good for us. We have one and we need to
continue to build it, so it’s just good business practice.
Calgary Opera: Our organization very clearly has said that our bottom line is a
priority for us.
Statements such as the above reveal that the economic focus of government is being inculcated into the beliefs of those who would in the past have rejected a focus on surplus as being contrary to the very idea of performing arts organizations as non-profit entities.
The adoption of economic language by arts organizations, and the lengths to which organization members go to maintain an equilibrium between art and finance, reveals that the belief that arts support is necessary for survival is preventing arts organization members from seeing that the symbolic imposition of the economic priorities of government is creating a relationship of symbolic violence. The relationship is one in which arts organizations will never gain the upper hand, but in which they participate for the purpose of perpetuating the system of patronage which is the only institutionally
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experienced mode of existence for the arts. And because these dispositions and beliefs are
ingrained, symbolic violence is invisible.
That arts members’ views towards the future of government patronage lean
toward the pessimistic certainly does not make their acquiescence to the ever increasing
demands of grant applications and economic priorities of the government seem logical.
However, seen through the lens of symbolic violence, the ongoing participation in a
relationship which by most accounts is “doomed” in one way or another reveals the
extent to which relationships of symbolic violence are invisible. No matter what attitude
organization members hold, all of the arts organizations participate in government
granting programs. Even the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, whose members are the
most pessimistic about the future of arts funding because their financial troubles have
been the most recent of all the organizations in the city, participates in every level of
funding (Federal, Provincial, Municipal). Such participation is an example of
organizational collusion: participation in one’s own dominance because of tradition and inculcated beliefs. Given that organization members are not without introspective thought when it comes to evaluating the state of the arts in Alberta, how are we to reconcile the ongoing participation of these organizations in granting programs with the negative attitudes expressed? The answer lies in the habitus, and particularly in that part of
Bourdieu’s concept which explains that “structured structures [are] predisposed to act as structuring structures” (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 5). Recalling Chapter 3, structured structures were explained as those internalized systems, such as morals, beliefs, or behaviour that are produced by the “material conditions of life, and of pedagogic action” (Bourdieu,
1977, p. 63). Therefore, though organization members hold attitudes towards government
311 funding which appear negative, they do not question the legitimacy of the programs themselves because the “material conditions of life” have never required them to exist without patronage of some sort. Furthermore, the “pedagogic action” involved in becoming either artist or arts manager includes extensive discussion of funding and how to manage, apply for, and demand support from the State. Thus, the structured structures involved do not easily permit consideration of the possibility that participation in arts funding programs is optional. Therefore the negative opinions expressed by the interview participants do not reject funding programs outright but rather center around the fact that there isn’t enough funding.
TC: Our Government grants are probably the lowest of major Arts companies in Canada. We only get 15 percent of our funding from the 3 levels of Government. Alberta Ballet: For the Ballet I think about 18 percent of our funding came from
Government funds – Municipal, Federal and Provincial. Okay, that’s
lower than most Provinces okay?
The reason for organizational collusion in relationships of symbolic violence also extends to the second part of the habitus statement discussed above, that of structuring structures. Again recalling the earlier explanation: structuring structures are ‘tacit mental habits’ which are not only transmitted by institutions, practices, and social relations but also function as a ‘habit-forming force’ that generates schemes of thought and action
(Swartz, 1997). The idea that arts funding is an entitlement, the belief that the arts sector cannot operate in a market economy, and the notion that to make art for money is selling out, have the structuring action of reconstituting the artistic world as an economic world reversed wherein arts funding and the relationship with the State is unquestioned. One
312 problem which arises with the explanation of organizational collusion is the fact that several organization members, especially those from the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, do not believe that arts funding by the government will continue indefinitely. Does this not disprove the whole idea? As I see it, the statements which suggest that the demise of government funding is inevitable are always accompanied by the statement that organization members do not believe that the termination will occur in their tenure or possibly even in their lifetimes (see quotes above). These back-pedalling comments allow the habitus to operate unchallenged, which is to say that artists do not have to confront a life altering change in their belief system because they believe that such a change, though coming, will not happen to them specifically.
A Word about Habitus
One interesting twist to the discussion is the make-up of the personnel in a performing arts organization, and the accompanying habitus involved. Of course an arts organization is full of performing artists whose training, dispositions, attitudes, and backgrounds accord with the artistic habitus, but arts organizations also include arts managers who come from a variety of backgrounds. Some have had successful careers in the business world and turn to arts management as a precursor to their retirement, others come to arts management from other non-profit organizations, some are trained in newly created arts management degree programs, and some are artists who have chosen to add management to their established careers as performers. Still more people are involved on the boards of directors of arts organizations, the make-up of which contains community members, artists, and business people. Every group involved in arts organizations, indeed every person involved, comes with a different perspective on the arts and a different
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habitus. How is it to be explained then that arts organization members seem to have a uniform approach in the form of an organizational attitude? Again I turn to Swartz
(1997) who defines the structuring structures of the habitus as tacit mental habits which are both transmitted by institutions, practices, and social relations and also function as a
‘habit-forming force’ that generates schemes of thought and action. Therefore, the explanation for the adoption and perpetuation of the artistic viewpoint by people in arts organizations who are not themselves artists is found within the organizational culture, which in turn influences the habitus of individuals.
The Strategic Plan as Symbolic Violence
The examples drawn from the strategic plan documents reveal again and again the
prioritization of the economic over the artistic in the operations of performing arts
organizations. Seen in conjunction with the government manipulation of the social
conditions for art through language (the special interest group) and the symbolic
impositions of the grant applications, we can see the strategic plan documents as being a
direct result of the State as meta-field manipulation of the exchange rate of capital(s) and
subordination of the arts sector. Though the strategic plan documents are a required
component of grant applications, and thus must espouse the economic priorities of the
funders, we recall the work of Oakes, Townley, and Cooper (1998) who assert that
business planning is a pedagogy which induces organizational change. Thus the adoption
of the language of sustainability in the strategic plan documents of performing arts
organizations serves not only to satisfy grant requirements, but also to tacitly direct the
actions of organization members. While strategic plan documents are in part written to
secure funding, and thus it could be stated that they represent a knowing collusion by
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organization members who are ‘playing the game’, their use over time will eventually
cause the approach stated in the documents to become organizational culture, approach,
and belief. At this point, the function of the documents will be invisible to the
participants. Thus strategic plan documents reveal both the extent of the collusion and the
invisible nature of the relationship of symbolic violence which occurs between
performing arts organizations and the State.
Coupled with the balancing act observed in member statements, the strategic plan documents also demonstrate the difficult position in which arts organization members
find themselves. Trapped between the organization’s artistic mandate and their own acquiescence to the economic demands of government, the grinding down of organization members by the ongoing balancing act is evident in elements of the strategic plans -
Calgary Opera’s inclusion of the financial in the artistic and the artistic in the financial,
Theatre Calgary’s primary assertion of the art of the organization which doesn’t appear until page 37, and The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra’s goal of self-sufficiency declared in a document which is an integral part of the organization’s grant application.
The myth of the one dollar surplus in performing arts organizations reveals the extent of the government’s ability to manipulate the social conditions for art and inculcate a system of beliefs even in the very organizations whose members have all the dispositions necessary to reject them. The fact that arts organizations are making artistic decisions based on mandated surplus budgets reveals the permeation of the State’s economic focus into the daily operation. That these surplus funds, still small compared to a for-profit business, are in effect untouchable by arts organizations is the act wherein symbolic violence becomes tangible enough to be called physical because it actively
315
directs the work of people in their organizations. Recalling Bourdieu’s (1982) statement
that inculcation has the power to deprive people even of the sense of deprivation we can see in the situation of arts organizations vis-à-vis surplus that the regulations preventing an organization from using their own surplus funds for operations, or from making individual decisions regarding the amount of money in the Cash Reserve fund, that there is indeed almost no sense of deprivation. Organizations work for the reward of government grants, but because of their perspective cannot see that the symbolic violence of the relationship with the government is actually depriving them of the funds which they spend countless hours to obtain.
Invisible State alteration of social beliefs through language has the remarkable result of causing performing arts organization members to participate in their own domination. Such collusion occurs for two main reasons. First, as society adopts the economic language of government so too do arts organizations, which for the State serves
the double purpose of obscuring the imposition of economic demands and making arts
organization members believe such demands are reasonable. And second, because
members of arts organizations are so overwhelmed by the task of balancing art and
economics, coupled with the structured structures and structuring structures of the
habitus, it is impossible for them to truly see their relationship with the government as
one of symbolic violence. The more the government imposes economic operational
demands on arts organizations the more arts organization members are willing to fulfill
those demands, even though funding remuneration remains essentially static. The
imbalance of the relationship is able to perpetuate because of both the inculcated belief
that arts organizations simply cannot exist without government funding, and the newly
316 imposed social belief that the road to arts funding is through sustainable business practices, surplus budgets, and Cash Reserve funds.
The Nature of the Relationship
In observing organizational response to the imposition of economic demands in grant applications, the nature of the economic relationship between arts organizations and government(s) becomes clear. The arts are not the masters of their own fate and though the government increasingly imposes economic demands upon arts organizations, the fulfillment of government requirements does not actually move arts organizations any closer to sustainability. Government legislation that prevents non-profit organizations from using surplus funds for operating costs also prevents organizations from building a cushion of stability from one season to the next. Although surplus funds can be used by the organization for special needs or strategic initiatives, the Calgary Philharmonic
Orchestra’s recent purchase of a new harp for example, surplus funds are not permitted to be used where they are needed most. The result is that arts organizations must cope with the difficult task of “starting from zero” (CPO member) every season. The government mandated Cash Reserve and Restricted funds which must be maintained to a percentage determined by the AFA, and whose use results in penalties to future funding, likewise limits the ability of arts organizations to control their own destinies. Though these funds are presented as a necessary cushion against financial disaster, they prevent organizations from using funds which might otherwise generate further income in the form of buildings, production values, education programs, etc. Thus the symbolic violence in action is visible both in the ways that it directs the work of organization members, and
317
also in the way that it prevents organizations from accumulating economic capital in
accordance with their own needs.
Arts organization members, as we have seen, continue to participate in
government granting programs because they cannot see that the increasing demands of
government, though perpetuating the tradition of State patronage, are actually limiting
their ability to operate effectively. Furthermore, arts organization members are loath to
give up government funding because to do so would require their finding ways to replace
that income. Organizations are already building endowment funds, budgeting for flat
grants, operating with mandated surplus budgets, and generating two thirds of their
income themselves through corporate or individual sponsorship and ticket revenue.
Nonetheless organization members are unable to envision a world without State
patronage of the arts and therefore they continue to participate in granting programs.
Having seen the imbalanced relationship between the arts and government as one
of symbolic violence and having seen the degree to which the arts are kept in a subordinate position socially, financially, and in the field of power, the conclusion drawn from this research is very simply that the arts will never have stability as long as they continue to rely on government support. What changes are possible? How is change to be
achieved given the economic recession, the competition for sponsorship, and the niche
appeal of the performing arts? That is not for me to say; my hope is that in observing the
relationship for what it is, arts organizations may begin to consider ideas and options for
organizational operation that are outside the realm of the traditional.
318
The End
The research motivates further research about the relationship between
government and the performing arts in other provinces, countries, and even situations
within Alberta (emerging arts groups, and those who are not Major Performing Arts
Organizations, for example). It is possible to envision many routes for future
investigation which could expand upon the research begun here and which could address
some of the limitations of this research project. Because the research was limited to a
provincial discussion of Alberta, a study of the relationship between the arts and government in the other provinces of Canada is a natural extension. Likewise, a study of the different municipal approaches to arts support would address the lack thereof in this research and prove interesting in the comparison between culture and other municipal priorities. An examination of techniques used by arts organizations who receive no government funding (mostly in the United States) may also open windows of new thinking for arts organizations in Canada. Also, an investigation into alternate modes of distribution would help to bridge the divide that exists between the traditional dissemination of the performing arts and the modern infatuation with new technology.
Most importantly, research must be done to better understand how the State makes its
priorities and subsidy amount decisions. The problem of government’s role in the
interaction with performing arts organizations is not fully investigated as part of this
research and further knowledge may possibly challenge some of the assertions herein.
The research in this investigation fills an important gap in the arts literature. By
tangibly explaining how government priorities are passed onto performing arts
organizations through granting documents it makes a link between the State and the arts
319
which reveals the direct imposition of economic pressure. By exposing the resultant
actions and interactions that occur in performing arts organizations, the research is able to
show that government decisions have a direct impact on the lives of people in their day to day work environment. Most importantly, however, for arts professionals the research reveals that the situation of their existence is not entirely made by underfunding or lack of social interest in their artistic genres (a common perception). Rather, it is the interaction with government through funding bodies that has placed the arts in a subordinated position and contributed to the challenges of organizational operation. It is this revelation that contributes to the arts literature and which, hopefully, will have some use to those who participate in, or interact with, performing arts organizations. The application of Bourdieu’s concepts to the research allows the findings to be seen theoretically as a manipulation of capital by the State. The interactions at hand become clarified as a power struggle within and across fields. Organizational responses are likewise explained through the concepts of symbolic imposition, organizational collusion, and habitus.
I began this research because, as a performing artist, I struggled to understand the place of the performing arts in society. I’m sure that to my colleagues in the arts community, as to me, the revelation of the nature of the economic relationship between the arts and government as one of symbolic violence perpetuated through funding bodies will be startling. I hope, however, that having seen how collusion with the symbolic imposition of demands by government perpetuates the dominated position of the arts, members of arts organizations will be persuaded, encouraged, and inspired, as I have been, to look beyond the established boundaries and inculcated beliefs that structure their
320 existence. In so doing I hope that the arts community will find the willpower and the means to discover other avenues of stability, operation, and artistic success.
321
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APPENDIX I: PARTICIPATING PERFORMING ARTS ORGANIZATIONS
The appendix briefly outlines the history of the participating organizations for supplementary information.
Alberta Ballet
The Alberta Ballet was formed in the early 1950’s by Dr. Ruth Carse in
Edmonton, Alberta. In 1966, it officially took the name Alberta Ballet after a suggestion
by the Provincial Government was made that the company, then based in Edmonton, take
the name Alberta Ballet Company. In 1990, the organization merged with the Calgary
City Ballet and completed a move to the Nat Christie Centre in Calgary. The Ballet now
operates and performs in both Calgary and Edmonton, using the Calgary Philharmonic
Orchestra and Edmonton Symphony Orchestra as musical collaborators. The company
employs 26 professional ballet dancers from Australia, Canada, England, France, Japan,
Italy, Korea, and the United States. It is the third largest dance company in Canada and is
about to begin it’s 43rd season. Albert Ballet performs across Canada and internationally with tours to the United States, Europe, China, and Africa. As well as running their own season of performances the company presents other national ballet companies including
the National Ballet of Canada, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de
Montreal, and Ballet British Columbia (Alberta Ballet, 2009). In the 2007/2008 season
the organization received funding from the Canada Council ($332,000), the AFA
($794,648), and Calgary Arts Development ($346,122). The early 2000’s saw the
organization struggle financially, with threats of a labour strike and job losses making
local newspapers (Burroughs, 2007). The organization’s deficit in 2000-2001 was
$459,636. The organization has managed a turn-around since 2005 and now sits in a
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surplus position with an operating budget of $7 million per season. The mission of the
Alberta Ballet is to “enrich and bring beauty to people’s lives through creating,
performing and teaching ballet. Alberta Ballet bases its success on a positive culture that
values dancers, staff, teachers and volunteers through adherence to the following
principles: Honesty, Trust, Integrity, Respect, Tolerance, Diversity, Teamwork, Freedom of Expression, and Excellence in Artistry” (Alberta Ballet, 2009).
Alberta Theatre Projects
Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP) was founded as a children’s theatre company in
1972. The mandate of the organization in its early years was to bring prairie history alive for children. ATP spent its first 13 years performing at the Canmore Opera House at
Heritage Park. In 1985, ATP moved to the Martha Cohen Theatre in the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts and broadened its audience. Though remaining dedicated to
Canadian playwriting, ATP now performs for adult audiences and is one of the largest theatre companies in Canada. The Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays has become the largest new play festival in Canada and has helped to launch the careers
of many of Canada’s most prominent playwrights (Alberta Theatre Projects, 2008). In the
2007/2008 season the organization received funds from the Canada Council ($315,037),
Alberta Foundation for the Arts ($293, 460), and Calgary Arts Development ($261,000).
In the mid-1990’s the organization fell into serious financial jeopardy and was
encouraged by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts to merge with Theatre Calgary. The organization instead restructured its operations and managed to effect a financial turn-
around. It now runs a $4 million annual season.
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Calgary Opera
Calgary Opera was formed in 1972 with a mission to “engage our audience, and
enhance our community through the magic of opera” (Calgary Opera, 2009). After
financial difficulties in the mid-1990’s the organization has increased its operating budget
from $1.9 million to $5 million for the 2007/2008 season. The organization proudly states
that it has a subscriber base of 4500 and routinely fills the Jubilee Auditorium to 90%
capacity. In 2005, the opera moved to a dedicated space, the Arrata Opera Centre, which
provides a venue for rehearsal, offices, wardrobe and props. Performances are held in the
Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. Calgary Opera has made a national and
international name for itself through the creation of new works. By the end of the
2007/2008 season the company had presented four world premieres, and three Canadian
premieres. By the end of the 2008/2009 season the company will have built five new
productions, presented five works by living composers, and six works written in the 20th century (Calgary Opera, 2009). Calgary Opera performs with the Calgary Philharmonic
Orchestra and also runs an emerging Artist Development Program which employs a cadre of young singers for training within the context of a professional opera company. In the
2007/2008 season the organization received funding from the Canada Council
($360,177), the Alberta Foundation for the Arts ($457,511), and Calgary Arts
Development ($150,000). It runs an annual season of three full-scale operas and operates on a budget of $5 million.
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra
The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) was formed in 1955 as a merger between the Alberta Philharmonic and the Calgary Symphony. The CPO performed in
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the Jubilee Auditorium until 1985 when it moved to the Jack Singer Concert Hall in the
Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts. The orchestra runs a full season with several
different series including Classics masterworks, Classics horizons, Light Classics,
Baroque and Beyond, Pops, Specials, Family Fun, Lunch Learn and Live, and the
Education Series. The CPO plays for the Alberta Ballet, Calgary Opera, and the Esther
Honens International Piano Competition. After a bankruptcy protection in 2003, the orchestra has restructured and in the 2007/2008 season received funding from all levels at a total of $1,632,690. The organization runs an operating budget of $8 million and has an endowment valued at $22 million. The organization currently performs to 66% capacity audiences (Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, 2007). The mandate of the CPO is to be celebrated as one of North America’s pre-eminent and innovative symphony orchestras, committed to consistently captivating audiences with an unparalleled experience of artistic excellence, and being a community leader in the cultural and education fabric of the arts (Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, 2007).
Theatre Calgary
Theatre Calgary (TC) began in the 1940’s as “Workshop 14.” A dedicated amateur theatre company, the organization was lead by Dr. Betty Mitchell. Twenty-years later a second company, the “Musicians’s and Actors’ Club” (a group of local business people staging short plays and excerpts from musicals) merged with Workshop 14 to become MAC 14. In 1968, MAC 14 became the fully professional theatre company now known as Theatre Calgary (Theatre Calgary, 2009). In 1985, TC moved into the Max
Bell Theatre in the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts. Theatre Calgary also experienced a bankruptcy protection situation in the late 1990’s and was successfully
361 restructured. It was one of the only organizations to successfully complete the Alberta
Performing Arts Stabilization Fund requirements. Theatre Calgary’s mission statement is
“to produce classic plays from the Canadian and International repertoire, emphasizing powerful, evocative language and substantial, complex stories relevant to the people of
Calgary and Southern Alberta” (Theatre Calgary, 2009). In 2007/2008, the organization received funding from the Canada Council ($72,000), the Alberta Foundation for the Arts
($652,666), and the Calgary Arts Development Authority ($295,000). It runs an annual season of seven productions from an operating budget of $6.7 million.
(All figures taken from the Canada Revenue Agency returns - http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/tx/chrts/menu-eng.html).
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APPENDIX II: CANADA COUNCIL COMPLETE GRANT ANALYSIS
1999-2000
Professional Orchestra Application
The grant application forms in 1999, though following the years of the federal government’s economic prioritization of the cultural industries, are very much focused on
Canadian art and Canadian artists. Among the goals listed are mandates which clearly put the art first, the audience second, and management practices third. The goals are:
• To recognize and support artistic excellence and achievement in orchestra music;
• To advance the creation, development and production of Canadian works, while continuing to advocate for the vitality of the international repertoire;
• To promote Canadian artists;
• To encourage innovative education and outreach programs that attract and serve new audiences for orchestra music, including young audiences;
• To stimulate the appreciation and enjoyment of orchestra music in Canada;
• To encourage exemplary management practices within the orchestra field;
• To foster mutual understanding, co-operation and collaboration among creators, performers, administrators, audiences of diverse cultural backgrounds, other fields and artistic forms in development (Canada Council, 1999/2000, p. 1).
The purpose of the program is to “contribute to the development and presentation of
(orchestra) repertoire, with particular concern for excellence in the presentation of
Canadian music and in the performance of musical works by Canadian artists” (Canada
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Council, 1999/2000, p. 1). Thus the goals and purpose of the granting program are very clearly stated; the arts come first with Canadian art in the lead. The priority of the grant program is reinforced by a series of Assessment Criteria by which the application forms are judged by the peer review committee. The criteria and weighting are as follows:
Assessment Criteria – Orchestra Section, 1999/2000 Artistic Quality Outreach and Institutional Dissemination Stability Overall Weighting 60% 20% 20% Weighting 30% - excellence in Audience Financial stability Sub-Division musical performance, development of the organization and/or assessment quality of criteria programming, merit of artistic goals, and the success with which the orchestra meets them Weighting 15% - commitment to Role of the Judicious planning Sub-Division and contribution to the orchestra in its and effective and/or assessment development of community allocation of criteria Canadian artists resources Weighting 15% - commitment to Outreach, Diversification of Sub-Division the production and education, and revenue sources and/or assessment dissemination of community criteria Canadian orchestra programs works Weighting Overall importance Administrative Sub-Division of the orchestra to structure and/or assessment the cultural wealth criteria of Canada (Canada Council, 1999/2000)
In evaluating the assessment criteria the greatest value appears placed on the quality of the performance, the ability of the organization to fulfil its mandate, and the commitment to Canadian artists and art works. Even Institutional Stability, though not clearly stated in the table above, must be tied directly and clearly to the artistic mandate and product of the organization. The Canada Council, nonetheless, is quite serious about the financial health of funded organizations. The Institutional Stability section of the application is
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also assessed by the only real financially explicit marker of the application process at this point, that of sound financial management. The application states: “if the orchestra’s cumulative deficit increases, or if it amounts to 20 percent or more of its income, the organization must explain the reason for the deficit and propose a realistic plan for reduction and elimination” (Canada Council, 1999/2000, p. 2). However, the application
quickly qualifies the Council’s expectations by stating:
The Music Section encourages innovative programming and, therefore, takes into consideration temporary financial difficulties that may result from such programming. However, the section does not encourage poor management of Canada Council funds, particularly if the severity of the accumulated deficit prevents a company from fully achieving its mandate (Canada Council, 1999/2000, p. 4).
Artistic growth and development, however positively evaluated, do not necessarily provide markers of an organization’s financial and administrative management. Though the supposition that the product of the company would suffer were
management not doing a good job and therefore artistic quality can be used to measure
organizational stability is most likely correct, the possibility exists that a downturn in
stability may not be visible in performances until long after the organization’s
management has begun to struggle. The professional performers employed will not allow the quality of their performances to deteriorate, and indeed, they may be unaware of
managerial crisis until the deficit has accumulated significantly, as was the case with the
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra’s financial downturn in 2003. Since the application is
reviewed by a peer assessment committee comprised of artists judging artists, the
qualification and ability of the committee to review financial documents is questionable.
Thus it is understandable that the assessment of Institutional Stability is turned back onto
365 the artistic product, as is indicated by the Institutional Stability assessment criteria herein.
The Canada Council member explains how the financial reporting requirements are considered by the peer assessment jury:
Canada Council - the Council is committed to inviting artists as well as arts
administrators and other arts professionals to take part in its peer assessment
committees. Arts administrators are essential to committees adjudicating
operating grants. They provide expert assessment of the information provided
by the applicants, and assist other Peer Assessment Committee members in
evaluating financial statements and, more generally, in assessing the
“organizational health” of applicants. The program officer who chairs the
meeting is also available to help assessors interpret the data and
contextualize it. Program officers also strive to ensure that every application
has been treated fairly, and that the information submitted is not
misinterpreted or overlooked.
Throughout the 1999/2000 document the focus on artistic vision, originality, innovation, and premiere presentations of specially commissioned Canadian works suggests that what the Council is interested in funding are dynamic and innovative arts organizations, regardless of how such programming plays out in the financial statements.
The requirements of the application strongly emphasize the importance of an organization’s relevance to its community, the use of mandates which fit in the community of origin, and the development of new and existing audiences. The dissemination section of the application also focuses on things other than organizational sustainability. As shown below, the dissemination section of the application suggests that
366 audience development is directed at Canadian works rather than the organizations presenting them.
Describe how you have identified the core audience of your orchestra and what measures you undertake on a regular basis to strengthen and expand that core base of support. Outline as well your strategies (marketing or other, short- or long-term) to build your audiences’ knowledge of and appreciation for Canadian works (Canada Council, 1999/2000, p. 3).
The focus on exposure of audiences to Canadian works is reinforced by the application’s directive that young audiences, in particular, be reached. The application requires a summary of major activities, along with a list of all concert series, how many programs in each, the overall number of works performed, how many of these are Canadian works, and a list of all Canadian artists performing. However, only the programming for young audiences requires a specific calculation. Programming for young artists is listed in an appendix to the application and requires that organizations specify, for the current and next seasons, a “list of all series, events, and stand-alone concerts related to the development of young audiences” (Canada Council, 1999/2000, p. 4). The number of concerts or events, venue capacity, and venue location must also be provided. The application then states: “Calculate the number of tickets sold and total audience reached.
Calculate your costs and indicate specific revenues associated with these activities (ex. sponsorships, special grants, etc.)” (Canada Council, 1999/2000, p. 4). Thus the Canada
Council in 1999/2000 clearly intended the development of an audience for Canadian music, starting with youth.
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Opera/Music Theatre Application
The opera/music theatre application from this year contains two additional paragraphs to the information outlined from the professional orchestra application. First is the statement that the Canada Council will not support any production that has a market-driven purpose:
The Opera/Music Theatre Program does not support projects involving market-driven forms of music and/or music for which an established commercial support structure exists (such as musicals, rock operas, etc.). (Canada Council, 1999/2000b, p. 1).
Second is that the Artistic Quality section, here called Artistic Excellence, specifically looks for “commitment of the company, as shown in its productions, to expand the ideas and techniques of the musical stage” (Canada Council, 1999/2000b, p.2). Included in this assessment are indicators of originality and innovation as they are made visible in the production programming and artistic/stylistic approach taken to the productions, in the context of the organization’s artistic mandate (Canada Council, 1999/2000b). Further to this is a statement included in a special note to the section that deals with the commitment to Canadian works, production, development and artists:
Please remember that the Canada Council is looking for the best creative mix of these elements, adapted to the particular milieu in which the company operates (Canada Council, 1999/2000b, p. 3).
Professional Theatre Application
Throughout the years analyzed, the theatre application contains several differences from the applications in the other sections. While the main points are the same – innovation, Canadian productions and performers, financial stability – the wording,
368 weighting, and sections are remarkably different. To begin, the professional theatre application differs in the weighting of the criteria.
Assessment Criteria – Professional Theatre Section, 1999/2000 Artistic Criteria Dissemination Administrative Criteria Criteria Overall Weighting 65% 15% 20% Weighting 20% - Artistic Impact of the Financial stability of Sub-Division and/or quality and interest organization and its the organization assessment criteria of the work work on the public and on Canadian theatre Weighting 20% - Relevance of Activities and Judicious planning Sub-Division and/or programming to initiatives and effective assessment criteria artistic mission and undertaken to allocation of audience, and maintain and resources vitality of artistic expand audience direction Weighting 15% - Commitment Advocacy for Diversification of Sub-Division and/or and contribution to theatre and theatre revenue sources assessment criteria the production artists in society and/or development of Canadian works Weighting 10% - Commitment Hosting activities – Administrative Sub-Division and/or and contribution to support to other structure assessment criteria the development of theatre Canadian theatre organizations artists Dissemination activities – specifically the type of production (co- production, invited production, etc.)
(Canada Council, 1999/2000c)
In the theatre application, the importance placed on the relevance of the organization’s programming to its artistic mission and audience is significantly emphasized. The assessment of this portion of the application is undertaken in relation to the artistic
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mission statement made in a required Profile of Organization document to be completed
by the president of the Board of Directors. The instruction states:
Explain how your past and proposed programming choices further the ongoing dynamism and relevancy of the company’s artistic mission. The ability of a company to provide this explanation is considered an essential yardstick of the vitality of its artistic direction and vision. Describe the nature of the actual and potential audiences your company serves at the local, regional, national and international levels, if applicable. Describe also the links between your artistic mission and the audiences served (Canada Council, 1999/2000, p. 3).
Though organizations in other sections of the Canada Council are required to list the artistic mandate of the organization, the professional theatre application returns several times to the artistic mission of the applicant organization. It is assumed that artistic mission and artistic mandate are considered the same thing. However, the wording of artistic mandate somehow evokes a more community-centred focus, where artistic mission speaks more to an art-for-arts-sake mentality.
The Dissemination Criteria also differ from those seen in both the opera/musical theatre and orchestral applications in that they do not specifically stress the outreach and
generation of audiences for Canadian works. Dissemination for theatre companies
includes support given to other theatre organizations in terms of artistic support, physical
infrastructure, rehearsal space and time, box office, mailings, etc. that does not form part
of the applicant company’s own core programming (Canada Council, 1999/2000c). What is revealed here is the difference between the types of organizations being researched.
Where there may be only one symphony orchestra or opera company in a city, theatre
companies number in the tens. Calgary, for example, has 43 theatre companies including professional, semi-professional, children’s theatres, and amateur companies. Rehearsal
370 space and budgets for most of these organizations are severely limited and thus any major theatre company in the city will often be called upon to assist with costume and props, rehearsal space, marketing, and other donated services. Such collaborative production contributes to a healthy theatre community and creates goodwill among organizations for whom the shared pool of creative talent all work.
The Administrative Criteria section overall is the same as that seen in the applications evaluated earlier. Of note is an additional paragraph which states:
Point out how the financial projections for the forthcoming year are consistent with the financial performance of the past three years. If there are major changes from past practice to these budgets, provide a detailed explanation. If there are major discrepancies between past budget projections and actual figures, explain how these discrepancies occurred and what measures are planned to deal with the results (Canada Council, 1999/2000c, p. 4).
As seen, the orchestral application contains a statement of understanding related to any financial challenges which may be incurred through emphasis on innovation. In the theatre application no such paragraph exists. Thus, it would appear that the professional theatre organizations are held to a slightly higher standard when it comes to the statement of financial stability. Such a suggestion is reinforced by the inclusion in the application of a section that does not, at this point, appear in the applications of the other Canada
Council Sections. Titled Grant Modification the paragraph states that the grant amounts approved for an organization may be subject to change over the course of the year if :
• the company fails, in a significant way, to meet its own stated objectives or to execute its confirmed program of activities;
• the company undergoes significant changes to senior artistic and/or administrative personnel or a disruption of activities is predicted;
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• the company fails to meet its financial obligations and/or the required reports are not forwarded to the Theatre Section in a timely fashion;
• the Theatre Section is unable to fulfil its funding commitments due to a reduction in its grants budget;
• the Theatre Section receives an increase in its grant budget or new moneys become available during the year (Canada Council, 1999/2000c, p. 2).
Though the possibility thus exists that additional funds may become available, four out of
five points suggest that the opposite is a greater reality. Thus for professional theatre
organizations an emphasis on financial stability, consistency of administration, and the
honouring of artistic obligations vis-à-vis the scheduled program of activities is clearly
asserted by the Canada Council in the 1999/2000 application.
Creation/Production in Dance Application
The application for creation/production in dance is vastly different from the
applications in the other Sections. Clearly the Dance, Theatre, and Music Sections of the
Canada Council are independently responsible for authoring their own grant application
forms. Though similarities do appear, the wording of the different applications is distinct.
Thus the application form for 1999/2000 for dance contain differences which should be noted. First, the program eligibility requirements state that applicants to the program must
“operate on a seasonal basis or be attempting to operate on a continuous basis” and must
“have received project funding from other public sector funders in the last three years”
(Canada Council, 1999/2000d, p. 1). These requirements are notable at this point only
because of the way they will be seen to change in the analysis of subsequent years. The
application form, unlike those of the other Sections, specifies the maximum value of
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entry level grants from the creation/production in dance program as being $40,000. Also of note is the fact that the dance application expressly states that any media-related
materials will not be considered in the assessment and are thus not to be included with the
application. The instruction is clarified in the application’s description of the adjudication
process wherein the following statement reveals that peer assessors in Dance must attend
live performances in order to judge the applications.
Because evaluations of artistic merit are made at public performances only, applicants must inform the Dance Section of dates, times and locations of performances at least six weeks in advance so that arrangements can be made to send assessors. To this end, an activity form is sent to all clients each summer asking for the dates of performances scheduled during the next season (Canada Council, 1999/2000d, p. 2).
The reason for this live performance attendance is clarified by the Canada Council member.
Canada Council - The technology for easily available audio-visual equipment has
not yet reached the stage where dance is well-served by seeing it on video.
For operating requests in Dance, it is generally felt that viewing 10
minutes of excerpts is not a fair presentation of the organization’s work.
As well, the vast majority of the performances in the dance community are
of new creations – even the large organizations are commissioning and
mounting new creations each year, including full-length ballets – so it
requires viewing a complete performance in order to evaluate
appropriately the quality of the choreography and presentation. It should
be noted that, starting with the 2008 multi-year round in Dance, each
organization must submit a DVD showing a complete performance of its
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most recent work. These are copied and distributed to all the committee
members, not so much for them to critique the work (because it is only one
recent work, because of the challenges of seeing dance on video and
because of the varying quality of video production as mentioned above),
but for them to gain a sense of the company’s style to add context and a
better comprehension to the external written assessments.
The application form for the creation/production in dance program also differs in
the way that the organizational profile is requested. As seen, the professional theatre
application lists the profile in the documentation requested and the role of the profile in
the assessment process is significant. Where theatre applicants must use the profile to
outline an artistic mission, dance applicants are encouraged to submit a vision statement.
As part of your vision statement, explain how the artistic activities of the current year have contributed to or challenged the company’s projected artistic development. This could be particularly interesting if the work did not fulfil your artistic objectives for your company. Risk-taking is part of creating art and implies that not every work will be “successful” (Canada Council, 1999/2000d, p 3).
The inclusion of the above statement in the grant application form shows that the Dance
Section, like the Music Section, places an emphasis on innovation and vitality. That there may be rewards for such risk-taking, rather than penalties, is in keeping with the weighting of the applications in each Section, where the artistic criteria are more heavily
weighted than the other elements.
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Assessment Criteria - Creation/Production in Dance Section, 1999/2000 Artistic Merit Professional and Administrative / Audience Financial Stability Development Activities Overall Weighting 65% 25% 10% Weighting Intent – the quality Contribute to the Financial stability of Sub-Division and/or of artistic practice ongoing the organization assessment criteria and the degree to development of the which the artistic professional dance work reflects and milieu fulfils the artistic mandate Weighting Realization – the Develop effective Judicious planning Sub-Division and/or onstage work. outreach and and effective assessment criteria Choreography, marketing strategies allocation of dancers, physical and initiatives resources and artistic demands of the work, music, design elements, and production values Weighting Impact - – the Expand audiences Diversification of Sub-Division and/or response of the for the company’s revenue sources assessment criteria assessor, peer work and for dance committee, and audience to the work Weighting - - Administrative Sub-Division and/or structure assessment criteria Weighting - - Calendar of Sub-Division and/or Activities – assessment criteria activities and schedule for each year; structure of the organization; overall financial information including revenues and expenses (Canada Council, 1999/2000d)
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The weighting and breakdown of Artistic Merit suggests that the Dance Section, far more
than the theatre section, is more interested in the product of the organization than the
financial stability and administrative operation. Thus it is no surprise to discover the same
paragraph in the dance application as appears in the orchestra application, which offers
understanding of temporary financial difficulties resulting from risk-taking and
innovative programming.
The assertion that performance is the priority in the creation/production in dance
application is reinforced in the Professional and Audience Development Activities
section of the application. Where the applications for the other performing arts genres
analysed revealed a focus on the development of audiences for Canadian works, the
creation/production in dance application discusses audiences for dance in general. Thus,
the interest is in the organization itself rather than on dissemination and outreach for the
purpose of promoting Canadian works. Indeed, the only mention made to the
development of Canadian work is attached to the Development section which states that
an organization should describe any activities undertaken in the development of Canadian
work, “if your organization is a repertory company” (Canada Council, 1999/2000d, p. 4).
As with the application form for the professional theatre program, the creation/production in dance application sees interesting details included in the appendices. For the 1999/2000 year, Appendix A is of particular interest. Called the
Artistic Work Plan and Budget, the appendix asks for each work of the current and next season to be separately detailed. Unlike the applications in other Sections, this is the only one which calls for such a specific breakdown of plan and budget per work. Another distinction of the application is the inclusion of a Reporting section wherein it is made
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clear that “three months after the end of the organization’s fiscal year, a final report on
the activities of the completed season, along with audited financial statements or a
financial review, will be required” (Canada Council, 1999/2000d, p. 3). Therefore though the application overall prioritizes the artistic elements over the economic, certain specific and demanding financial requirements exist which are particular to this application of the
Dance Section.
2000-2001
Professional Orchestra Application
The application for the year 2000/2001 makes no significant changes to the
priorities of the Canada Council, or to the grant application, but for one notable
exception. The Artistic Quality and Dissemination/Outreach portions of the application
now include reinforced criteria. These are criteria which were listed previously but now
require greater emphasis from the applicant organizations. The weighting of the
assessment does not change to reflect the reinforcements. The reinforced criteria in
Artistic Quality are:
• Commitment and contribution to the development, production and dissemination of Canadian orchestra works;
• Commitment and contribution to the development of Canadian artists, emerging or established.
The reinforced criteria in Outreach/Dissemination are:
• Commitment of the orchestra to the development of audiences;
• Commitment of the orchestra to the specific development of young audiences (Canada Council, 2000/2001, p. 2).
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Opera/Musical Theatre Application
Interestingly, in 2000/2001 the Opera/Musical Theatre application does not have
reinforced criteria, instead the listed criteria appear merely as part of the sections of the
application. In this year, the application contains a multi-year funding option despite the fact that the 1999/2000 application stated that multi-year funding would not be available until 2001/2002. Perhaps the very slight increase in funding to the Canada Council this year (from $111 million to $114 million) meant that the multi-year funding program was able to be instituted ahead of schedule. Multi-year funding details are discussed below.
Professional Theatre Application
The 2000/2001 application for the professional theatre section contains a multi- year funding option. Where 1999/2000 had been an annual funding application exclusively, the multi-year funding option specified in the current year states that the next multi-year application will be available in 2004. For professional theatre organizations, the multi-year funding option contains specific criteria by which the peer review committee will determine “whether applicants should receive a multi-year or annual commitment” (Canada Council, 2000/2001c, p. 2). These criteria are not found in the applications forms of the other Sections. They include:
• A pattern of positive artistic assessments;
• Artistic and administrative stability leading to continued strength in artistic growth and development;
• Sound financial management – if an applicant’s deficit represents more than 10 percent of its total revenue (as verified by its last financial statement), the applicant has to explain the cause of the deficit and propose a realistic plan to reduce it (Canada Council, 2000/2001c, p. 2).
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The final criteria listed above does appear in the other applications under the heading of
Institutional Stability, but here it appears both in the multi-year criteria and in the
Administrative Criterion sections. Once again, it appears that the financial stability of
theatre organizations is at this stage more thoroughly assessed.
In contradiction to the above however, a change occurs in the 2000/2001
professional theatre application. The weighting of the Artistic Criteria is raised from 65
percent to 70 percent. The additional five percent is taken from the Administrative
Criterion and added to the Commitment and Contribution to the Production and/or
Development of Canadian Works criteria which was previously worth only 15 percent of the total 65 in the section. Where the applications of the other Sections had already placed a heavier stronger emphasis on the production and development of Canadian works, this change brings the Theatre Section in line with the Music Section. None of the information accompanying the criteria is changed and it may be that this is the Theatre
Section’s equivalent of the Reinforced Criteria which appear in the orchestra applications for this same year. The orchestra application, however, made no change to the weighting of sections as part of the reinforcement whereas the professional theatre application sees a transfer of five percent.
Creation/Production in Dance Application
The 2000/2001 application in the Dance Section contains a few changes. The first includes an additional criteria for Eligibility. Not only must applicants have received project or operating funding from other public sector funders in the last three years, but
now they must also have “received creation/production in dance program support or
project support for the production of dance works through the Dance Section’s national-
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level competitions, within the past three years” (Canada Council 2000/2001d, p. 1). In
keeping with the quality of production upon which dance assessments are made, the idea
that applicants must have risen through the Canada Council competition process in order
to be eligible is understandable. However, it does seem to tie Canadian dance
organizations to a hierarchy that is Canada Council-made.
The second change to the application in this year is found in a note to the Value of
Grant section. The note states:
In 2001-2004, with limited and targeted funds, the Dance Section will begin to acknowledge organizations that have shown, and continue to show, a commitment to dance for and with youth [age 30 or younger]. This emphasis is a modest response to a key strategic initiative of the Canada Council (Canada Council, 2000/2001d, p. 1).
As seen in the applications for other Canada Councils Sections, outreach to young
audiences and the development of emerging Canadian talent has been a priority. The
addition of this statement to the creation/production of dance application seems logical.
Its inclusion, however, as merely a note made within the Value of Grant section rather than as an element of Artistic Merit (where it appears in all other applications) is puzzling.
The most significant change to the dance application in this year comes in the
Artistic Merit section. Where before, the three parts were described in brief paragraphs, they are now explained in detailed point form as follows:
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Detailed criteria – Artistic Merit – Creation/Production in Dance, 2000/2001 Intent Realization Impact
Establish the company’s Quality of Practice – clarity of Resonance – how much of artistic practice through style, techniques and content and what about the work is the points of artistic (including themes, patterns, singular and memorable mandate, purpose, phrases, shapes, gestures and mission, or vision. structures), and the nature and consequence of production values
Outcome – what the work Positioning – the looks like in a public relationship of the work to performance the balance of the artist’s or company’s body of work, Innovation – inventiveness or as well as its palce relative the re-invigoration of what to the work of colleagues – already exists past and present – on the local, provincial, national and international scenes, where relevant
Risk-taking – how the work Creative Process – the extends the range of the artist artistic momentum or company, and whether the generated by the company extension is a function of form and its collaborators or or content, process or product participants as the work develops
Integrity of the Whole – all Effect – the effect of the relevant artistic choices, work on audiences including whether the creation was by an individual or collaboration, and/or the effect of bringing other art forms together with dance
(Canada Council, 2000/2001d) The vastly increased specifications of the Artistic Merit section of the application are notable in that they reinforce the emphasis put upon the product of the organization both
through performance assessment and resonance with audiences. The other sections,
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Administration and Financial Stability, for example, are unchanged and thus the application as a whole leans to the artistic elements of the applicant organizations.
The application in 2000/2001 contains an option for multi-year funding. Though the 1999/2000 application was for annual funding only, the creation/production in dance applications are, with the one exception, all for multi-year funding. Thus, any hope of discovering a pattern in Canada Council annual or multi year funding seems futile. In clarification of the multi-year funding confusion, the Canada Council officer offered the following statement:
Canada Council - In the first year of each multi-year cycle in an operating grant
program that offers both annual and multi-year funding, both types of
funding are considered, and the peer assessment committee determines the
type of funding to be offered. The beginning of each multi-year cycle is an
opportunity for the Section and the peer assessment committee to review
the current ecology in the art form and examine the quality, contribution
and stability of all its funded organizations. Organizations that have been
funded on an annual basis may have become important leaders in the art
form, while some that have been funded on a multi-year basis may have
been declining over a number of years. The beginning of a multi-year
cycle is the time to respond to the evolution of the art form and recognize
the organizations that form the foundation of the discipline’s ecology –
whether these are the same organizations that have been funded on a
multi-year basis for years, or one that has been funded annually and has
developed to the point of now having an “important” place in the milieu.
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Though this does not really explain how each section determines the start of a multi-year
funding cycle, it does explain how each Section of the Council determines the necessity
for overall evaluation and support of its funded organizations.
2001-2002
Professional Orchestra Application
While the previous year had seen little in the way of changes to the Canada
Council grant application process, the 2001/2002 application contains several new
requirements. The most notable change is that the application is now not only for annual
funding but also includes a multi-year funding option. The multi-year funding is a three
year program and the application requires that all organizations who have received annual
funding in each of the last two seasons must apply for multi-year funding28 (Canada
Council, 2001/2002). The application process for multi-year funding is generally the same as for annual funding, with very few individual requirements or supplemental materials demanded. I will return to multi-year specifics at the end of this section; first though, the general changes in the application will be reviewed.
The first of the changes to be discussed occurs in the Outreach/Dissemination section which is expanded to include several new elements. To begin, the section is now titled Outreach/Dissemination/Partnerships/Changes Within the Community. The reinforced criteria remain and a section titled New Criteria Linked to Additional Funding is included. New Criteria, wherein elements are based on the receipt of additional funding in the previous year, are described as:
28 Multi-year funding did exist prior to 2001/2002, though before this year it was not included in the applications or programs assessed as part of the research.
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• Consolidation or creation of new partnerships in the community;
• Changes within the organization in response to community needs and expectations.
Though these criteria, at first glance, seem to be leaning towards partnerships and
community changes that could impact the financial side of the organization, this is not the case. Recalling that in 2001 Chretien launched the Tomorrow Starts Today program and gave the Canada Council $20 million additional funds, the application’s explanation that assessment of these criteria will continue to be based on outreach is not unexpected. The application states:
[…] In short, outline what your organization is doing “better or more of” than before in terms of Canadian content, outreach and dissemination, education programs and young audience development, partnerships and changes within your organization (Canada Council, 2001/2002, p. 4).
New Criteria Linked to Additional Funding are also added to the Institutional
Stability component of the application. Added to this section of the documents are the following:
• Congruency with “thinking differently”;
• Potential impact of additional funding on the organizations; and
• For multi-year applicants only, the quality of the long-term (next three seasons) artistic and financial objectives approved by the organization’s board.
What is particularly interesting, and confusing, in the additional requirements stated above is the idea that applicant organizations should show congruency with thinking differently. Nowhere in the application is this statement clarified, nor could the peer
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assessor interviewed provide any illumination. Thus I can only hypothesize that the
different thinking in question perhaps had to do with governmental notions of cultural
industry, or perhaps “thinking differently” referred to the operation of organizations in
response to the prioritization of privatization and sustainability. On the other hand,
perhaps it was a reinforced encouragement for organizations to further push the envelope
artistically. The other new requirements, “impact of additional funding”, are linked to
dissemination and outreach rather than to the bottom line.
The multi-year funding part of the application makes a few demands for that
application alone. These specify that the second and third year grant payments “will be made upon receipt, review and approval of an annual report from the organization”; a three-year plan is also required along with the previous season’s audited financial statement and an updated, concise artistic and administrative/financial plan for the second and third seasons of the funding cycle. (Canada Council, 2001/2002, p. 3). The additional requirements for the multi-year funding also require a list of three main artistic objectives and three main administrative/financial objectives of the organization. An explanation of
“why each objective has been chosen as a priority and how [the] organization intends to achieve it” is also needed (Canada Council, 2001/2002, p. 3).
The funding application of 2001/2002 shows a (very) slight shift in tone from the development and dissemination of Canadian works towards increased rationalization of the use of additional funds, financial objectives, long term planning, and administrative direction.
Opera/Musical Theatre Application
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The Opera/Musical Theatre application in this year differs significantly from the orchestral program. To begin, the multi-year funding option which had arrived in
2000/2001 ahead of schedule is no longer an option. The application states that multi- year funding will next be available in 2004/2005 which suggests that, unlike the orchestral program, opera and musical theatre organizations are not provided with multi- year funding competitions on an annual basis. Also different in this application is the lack of new criteria linked to additional funds. There is no mention of additional funds for opera/musical theatre, nor is there any requirement for ‘congruency with thinking differently’. Thus, it would appear that the orchestral organizations are subject both to more scrutiny in the management and financial element, but also that they are given greater rewards in terms of distribution of additional funding in this year.
Professional Theatre Application
The 2001/2002 application for the professional theatre program was not included with the package sent from Canada Council. The application for this year was not found in the archives and as it is not stored digitally there was no possibility of obtaining it.
Therefore it will be assumed that there were no significant changes in this year of application and seeing that the professional theatre application contains no changes from
2000/2001 to 2002/2003 the assumption is most likely correct.
Creation/Production in Dance
The Dance Section application contains very few alterations in 2001/2002. The most notable change to the application in this year is found in the explanation of the Peer
Assessment Committee. Where previous years had clearly explained that assessors were
386 to attend live performances, the 2001/2002 year is not explicit in this point. Instead a new paragraph is added which states:
To assist the peer assessment committee in effective adjudication of all applications, the Dance Section commissions in-depth reports and papers in various forms from specialists (Canada Council, 2001/2002d, p. 2).
Because the application continues to disallow the submission of media recordings as supplemental materials it is assumed that assessors still observe live performances.
However, where the application states that “professional dance in Canada is inevitably a larger field than the collective expertise of the seven to nine peer assessment committee members”, these specialists are invited in order that the assessors are able to make an educated and balanced decision. The inclusion of specialists further emphasizes the quality of the artistic product in the evaluation of the grant application.
Canada Council - Dance Peer Assessment Committee members are selected from
several regions of the country with an expectation that they are familiar
with the artistic activity and see performances in their region. The Dance
guidelines say “Peer Assessment Committee members who have seen the
applicant’s work will contribute also to the discussion …” To insure that
the artistic evaluation does not rely on the opinions of only one or two
Peer Assessment Committee members, the Dance and Theatre Sections
call upon external assessors to attend the productions of companies
applying for operating funding. These assessors are asked to respond to a
standardized set of questions concerning the quality of the production,
their response and the audience’s response, and discuss the overall
quality of the experience, including reception and environment. Their
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reports are presented to the peer assessors, who take them into account in
their assessment of the organizations. For each applicant, the committee
sees three to four external assessments from different productions
presented by the company over the last two or three years. In this way, one
particularly successful or unsuccessful production does not overly
influence the evaluation of artistic merit.
2002-2003
Professional Orchestra Application
The examination of the 2002/2003 applications begins to reveal an inconsistency of elements. For example, in 2001/2002 the application was for annual and multi-year funding. The 2002/2003 application states that it is only for annual funding once again, though parts of the application suggest that multi-year funding is still available. Where
2001/2002 called for a summary of works to be performed in the current and next season,
2002/2003 returns to the request for a list of works to be performed in the current season only. And, where previous years called for certain criteria and then subsequently reinforced those same criteria, 2002/2003 makes no mention of reinforcement for any elements of the application. The previously reinforced criteria are still included in the
2002/2003 application, but they now appear the same way as they did in the 1999/2000 application. The fluctuating demands of the applications year to year can be interpreted as signifying two things. First, that the Canada Council members themselves feel uncertain as to what requirements are valuable and what data best serves the peer assessment committee, and second, that the author(s) are responding to the requests of the peer
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assessment committee and thus trying to satisfy myriad different ideas in each year29.
Regardless, the ever-changing demands of the application present a challenge to the participating organizations because what is required to complete the application from year to year is not consistent.
The 2002/2003 Canada Council grant application otherwise contains no changes from 2001/2002. Gone are any reference to ‘additional funding’ and the uses or benefits thereof. The New Criteria have simply been absorbed into the application. Congruency with “thinking differently” remains a criteria of the Institutional Stability section and remains unexplained.
Opera/Musical Theatre Application
Where the orchestral program application contains a few changes to supplemental materials in 2002/2003, the opera/musical theatre application in this year contains no changes whatsoever. The supplemental materials remain the same, annual funding is still the only option in this year, and the assessment criteria are unchanged.
Professional Theatre Application
The professional theatre application in this year is an annual funding application and contains no changes from the application analyzed in 2000/2001.
Creation/Production in Dance Application
Unlike the opera/musical theatre and professional theatre applications, the application for creation/production in dance contains a few changes. In 2002/2003 the minimum annual or multi-year grant amount given in the program goes up from $40,000
29 The Peer Assessment document of the Canada Council states: “peers are asked for their comments on the competition and how further improvements can be brought to the process. They are free to share any
389 to $50,000, which reflects the $10 million dollar increase to the Canada Council in that year. The Assessment section, however, contains a new caveat which suggests that even the increased funds will not be enough to fill the demand for grants.
The context for the peer assessment committee discussions is national in scope, and competitive in nature. Awards are made on the basis of available funds, meaning that submissions of high merit cannot always be accommodated, due to lack of funds (Canada Council, 2002/2003d,p.2).
To this end, a few requirements of the application have also been changed. The
Realization subdivision of the Artistic Merit section includes new points including:
• The nature and consequence of the evening’s production values; and
• Repertoire – the artistic choices in terms of programming;
While assessment of successful programming provides an opportunity for assessors to discuss the development of Canadian works undertaken by the organization, the first point is vague and very subjective. Another change to the creation/production in dance application in this year is an added explanation of the peer assessment process. Where the previous year saw the request of in-depth reports and papers from specialists, the
2002/2003 application reveals that non-voting specialists may be invited to contribute to the discussion of specific files. “The aim is to develop an in-depth context for dance sectors that are underrepresented in the collective experience of the peer assessment committee” (Canada Council, 2002/2003d, p. 3).
criticisms of any aspect of the peer assessment process in their responses” (Canada Council, 2008, p. 7)
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2003-2004
Professional Orchestra Application
As with the 2002/2003 application, there are no significant changes to the application in this year. However, the troublesome phrase “congruency with thinking differently” has been replaced in the Institutional Stability section with the following:
Demonstration of administrative stability leading to continued strength in artistic growth and development (Canada Council, 2003/2004, p. 4).
While this statement is infinitely clearer than “thinking differently” is still suggests that the stability of a performing arts organization is visible in the artistic output of the company.
Opera/Musical Theatre Application
The application form for the opera/musical theatre section in this year sees parallel changes to those outlined above. However an additional requirement relating to the calibre of performers contains the following instruction:
Organizations that use the same performers/singers on a regular basis and/or that may not be well known on the national scene, should also send an audio or video illustration of their previous work on stage (Canada Council, 2003/2004b, p. 2).
That any performer not known nationally must have his/her work additionally scrutinized by the peer review committee can arguably be seen to reflect the federal government’s goal of creating a “star” system which emerged with the rise of cultural industry thinking
(see Edwardson, 2008, Chap 9 for a full discussion). But this requirement seems at odds with the applications’ ongoing emphasis, in the Artistic Excellence section, on the
“development of current and future generations of singers” (Canada Council,
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2003/2004b, p. 5). The development of Canadian performers is required of the
application, as it is in the applications for all sections, but established performers with
national reputations are encouraged.
The Opera/Musical Theatre application in this year offers a multi-year funding
option, as planned, and makes an additional request of multi-year funding applicants.
“The clarity of the board-approved long-term artistic and financial objectives (for the next three seasons)” must be outlined as part of the Institutional Stability requirement of the application (Canada Council, 2003/2004b, p. 5). Thus, in parallel to the orchestral application, the focus on administrative stability is emerging.
Professional Theatre Application
Once again, the professional theatre application in 2003/2004 is for annual funding only. The next multi-year funding option is slated to occur in 2004/2005. The application contains no changes.
Creation/Production in Dance
The application for the Dance Section in this year contains no changes.
2004-2005
Professional Orchestra Application
The Canada Council applications from previous years, as seen, have made small changes to required materials and assessment criteria. In the 2004/2005 year, however, the application contains many significant changes. The first of which is that the multi- year funding option is once again included in the annual funding application for orchestral organizations. As before, the two programs, annual and multi-year, share requirements with very few extra requests contained in the multi-year application.
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Notably, the 2004/2005 application makes several references to the availability of funds.
Where before there was no mention of the competitive nature of the application process – the applications simply stated that grant recommendations were based on assessment criteria – now the application specifically states that the program is “a competitive granting process” with “recommendations based on the program’s assessment criteria and availability of funds” (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 1). It is important to note that at this time the Canada Council had undergone two successive years of funding cuts under the Martin government, from $142 million in 2002/2003 to $132.5 million in 2004/2005.
The funding cuts to the Canada Council resulted in a more competitive environment for organizations participating in the grant application process. Perhaps related to these cuts is the inclusion in the application form of the following new statement:
Information provided about the organization’s past, current and future activities and financial profile will be used in the peer assessment process and for data gathering and analysis within the Music Section, as well as for the Canada Council’s planning requirements (Canada Council 2004/2005, p. 2).
The criteria in the Artistic Quality section remain the same as always and continue to be weighted as 60 percent of the assessment. While the criteria have not changed, the explanation of how these criteria are to be analyzed is significantly expanded. The section now explains that the “excellence in performance, quality of programming, and [organization’s] artistic goals” will be evaluated based on how programming reflects the organization’s artistic vision, how much originality and innovation is evident in the programming, and how the organization serves the needs of the community (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 5). The artistic director’s ability to move the organization forward in a vital and innovative way is part of the assessment, as is the
393 assessment of audio/visual materials which are judged on “quality of execution, vitality and interpretation, and the choice of material submitted” (Canada Council 2004/2005, p.
5). These assessment criteria are not different than they have been in previous applications, but the new specificity with which the criteria are explained suggests a more rigorous and competitive application process. Included in the section, as well, is the clear stipulation that development and outreach programs must specify the organization’s
“strategies to heighten public appreciation for Canadian repertoire” and “indicate how the
[organization’s] creative resources are applied to ensure that these activities produce results” (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 6). Though the previous applications did include a formula for calculating outreach to young audiences, which is still included in the
2004/2005 document, the requirement that outreach must produce results is a stronger language than has previously been observed in the applications. Interestingly this language on results is not in the dissemination section of the application but applies to the
Artistic Quality section criteria for “commitment and contribution to the development, production and dissemination of Canadian orchestral works” (Canada Council,
2004/2005, p. 5).
The section titled Outreach/Dissemination/Partnerships/Changes Within the
Organization also undergoes changes in the 2004/2005 application. The first being a new title. The section is now called Outreach/Dissemination/Community Engagement. When considering the assessment criteria of the re-named section, two changes are notable.
First, in the criteria which assesses the importance of the organization to the cultural wealth of Canada a new addition, international impact, is now included. The criteria is stated as: “The importance of the orchestra to the cultural wealth of Canada, including its
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impact on the Canadian orchestral music field and, where applicable, its impact
internationally” (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 6). Referring once again to the brief
history of government priorities vis-à-vis culture, the transition of the Mulroney government from national culture to internationally competitive cultural industries could possibly be responsible for this shift in language. However, at this point in time the government of Paul Martin was at the helm and, as seen, his attitude towards the arts was one of disinterest. Nonetheless, the international focus of previous governments seems to have trickled into the grant application of the Canada Council at this point. In the face of grant cuts perhaps the intention was to assert the international importance of traditional arts for Canada in the same way that economic impact studies were meant to prove that the arts had value that was more than simply intrinsic.
The second change in the dissemination section of the application is that the listed criteria no longer include “Changes within the organization in response to community needs and expectations” (Canada Council, 2003/2004, p. 2), but instead demand an
“ability to anticipate, create or respond to new opportunities within the organization and to meet community needs and expectations” (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p2). The two are similar but where one indicates a response, the other suggests an anticipation. The anticipation of change is in line with the new Community Engagement heading in that one must be connected with the community in order to anticipate changes, needs, and expectations. The document’s explanation states that the section “refers to the
[organization’s] engagement with its current stakeholders, as well as its initiatives in finding and responding to new or non-traditional audience groups. The organization’s leadership role in the community, not only as a responsive entity, but also in creating
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need and expectation, is considered” (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 6). Thus the ability of the organization to assert its value and generate audiences now plays a larger role in
the funding application. The demand for Canadian content and the dissemination of
Canadian works is still there but the application now places more emphasis on the core
base of support of the applicant organizations than it has previously.
In the 2004/2005 application the most notable changes come as part of the
Institutional Stability section. Now titled Organizational Health, the section no longer
contains vague criteria measured artistically.
Organizational Health Criteria and Assessment Measures – Orchestra Application, 2004/2005 Criteria Assessment Measures
Quality and coherence of the orchestra’s human resource management; engagement governance, management structures and of staff in the vision of the organization; human resources. Evidence of shared accurate forecasting of necessary changes vision among key stakeholders within the to the allocation of resources for organization. production, marketing, and administration; and clear planning tools Quality and effectiveness of The strength of governance, including the administrative operations. existence of clear and updated governance policies and procedures, […] demonstration of an understanding of the role of the board as steward of the organization’s vision and mandate, and in strengthening the organization’s link to the community;
Quality of the organization’s long-range The diversification of revenue sources, as planning and evaluation mechanisms. demonstrated by strategies and Ability of the organization to plan for and achievements; support artistic growth and risk-taking in the future.
Financial planning and performance. The financial stability of the organization, as demonstrated by an appropriate balance between expenditures and revenues and the
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ability to forecast the potential risks associated with a project or with expansion plans; plans for the organization to develop capacity to respond to future contingency or artistic risk.
(Canada Council, 2004/2005)
Needless to say these new criteria are much more specific than the previous Institutional
Stability criteria had been, and they are far more business oriented. Nowhere in the
section does the application state that Organizational Health will be assessed by a
positive artistic review. The section does refer to the administrative infrastructure
supporting and strengthening the artistic mandate of the organization, but it goes on to
state that Organizational Health “provides a framework to manage changes within [the organization’s]” (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 5). The above statements of how the
peer assessment committee is to consider the criteria in Organizational Health mark a
distinct departure from applications in previous years. Though the weighting of the
section remains at only 20 percent, the demands of the section have increased to where they now form the bulk of the application. Thus the focus of the Canada Council in
2004/2005 is clearly shifting from innovative artistic work, and the forgiveness of deficits thus generated, to a more business-like approach. The application, in this section, also calls for organizations to make clear the administrative structure of the organization, how the organization develops its operating budgets, the rationale for any budget changes, discrepancies between budget projections and actual figures, and provisions for accurate budget forecasting in the future (Canada Council, 2004/2005).
The section has not yet exhausted its demands however, and where previous years contained the statement that “the Music Section encourages innovative programming and,
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therefore, takes into consideration temporary financial difficulties that may result from
such programming” (Canada Council, 2003/2004, p. 5), the 2004/2005 document
includes a new sub-heading – Deficit Reduction Plan. In the new section the Canada
Council’s statement considering financial difficulties is modified to state:
The Music Section takes into consideration temporary financial difficulties that may result from any number of circumstances. However, an organization’s ability to plan for and mitigate risk is an indicator of organizational health (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 6).
Where previous applications called for a “short explanation for the deficit and […] a plan to reduce and eliminate it” (Canada Council, 2003/2004, p. 5), the 2004/2005 application asks for a two page (maximum) debt reduction or elimination plan, in which
an executive summary of strategic or business plans may be included. A deficit amount
of 20 percent, or any deficit that has accumulated over three consecutive seasons, marks
the point at which organizations must complete a deficit reduction plan. This amount
(20%) is not greater than in past years’ applications. The inclusion of a deficit reduction
plan in the 2004/2005 application reveals that the Canada Council is newly committed to
supporting stable and sustainable organizations. Peer review committees are still
comprised of artists judging artists, but the language of sustainability by this point in time
has been absorbed by arts organizations across the country and thus artists are better able
to make judgements which consider economic factors as well as artistic ones. However, the grant process outlined by the Canada Council (2002) reveals that following the assessment meetings the committee’s recommendations are taken to the Canada
Council’s Director, who has been delegated the task of approving grant recommendations under $60,000 (which is the authority of the Board of the Canada Council). The Director
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then reviews the information and recommendations and makes the final decisions. The
fact that the peer assessment jury, upon which the entire application process is predicated, does not make the final grant amount decisions reveals that there is another level of assessment. The as yet unpublished document, Peer Assessment at the Canada Council for the Arts: How the Canada Council Makes its Decisions (Canada Council, 2009) explains:
When the Council needs to ensure that relative artistic merit is considered and responded to among multiple committees within the same program, or among several competitions held in the same period of time, final amounts may be contingent upon a review of the available budgets once all committees and their priority rankings have been finalized and consolidated. This is why some committees’ final recommendation lists may show precise grant amounts while others may show ranges of funding, lists of highly recommended applications, etc. (Canada Council, 2009, p. 8).
The 2004/2005 application document includes other new information and requirements. First among these is the new requirement of a Letter from the Chairperson of the Board of Directors. The two to three page letter is intended to express the Board’s knowledge of the organization and its view of its stewardship role. “The chairperson should demonstrate his or her knowledge and understanding of the board’s role in determining the artistic vision and mandate of the organization” (Canada Council,
2004/2005, p. 4). This includes descriptions of hiring strategies, evaluation and succession planning, accountability within the organization (including how well they work together), board committee structures, governance policies, and mechanisms for
board recruitment, training and renewal. As well, the chairperson is expected to address
the Board’s responsibilities in fundraising and development, the Board’s vision for
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moving the organization forward, any pending initiatives, and strategic planning. Also,
the chairperson’s own leadership role within the organization and the community may be
included (Canada Council, 2004/2005). This new requirement is extensive and puts the
emphasis for the organization’s successful operation onto the Board of Directors.
The application’s other additions include a lengthy description of formatting
expectations and content guidelines. Content guidelines include examples of how to ‘tell
the story’ of the organization’s past, present, and future. It discusses the presentation of
the application, the tone of the language used , and the organization of the material using
“prose, point form, tables, or photos” (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 5). Finally the
application, having made extensive new demands and having given exhaustive
instructions about what materials are to be included and how to include them, states the
following:
Please note that you are not expected to submit the maximum number of pages allowed. Peer assessment committee members have a large volume of material to read and limited amount of time to discuss each applicant. It is more important to tell a concise and compelling story of your organization than to focus on volume or details (Canada Council, 2004/2005, p. 4).
Page limits are specified as 10 pages maximum for annual funding applications, and 20
pages maximum for multi-year funding.
Opera/Musical Theatre Application
In this year the orchestral program application makes several significant changes which do not appear in the opera/musical theatre application. Indeed the only change to
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the opera/musical theatre application in this year is the return to annual funding with the
instruction that the next multi-year funding competition will be in 2007-2008.
Professional Theatre Application
As occurred with the application form in 2001/2002, the application form for the professional theatre section is missing for the year 2004/2005. While the year was one of significant changes in the orchestra application forms, it would appear that this year contained very little in the way of changes to the Theatre Section. The deduction is made based on the application form to be seen in 2005/2006. It will be assumed that the
changes in the upcoming year occurred in that application alone, and not in 2004/2005.
What is known from the previous and subsequent applications for this section is that the
2004/2005 application was for multi-year funding.
Creation/Production in Dance
Once again, the dance application contains no changes.
2005-2006
Professional Orchestra Application
Following the extensive changes of the 2004/2005 grant applications, the year
2005/2006 makes only one change. In the Organizational Health section of the
application a new sub-heading, Fair Notice to Organizations, appears. Previous
applications had stated that additional materials would be required if an organization had
three consecutive years of financial deficits, or if the overall deficit was 20 percent. The
2005/2006 application states that fair notice will be made if the assessment committee
has “concerns about the viability of the organization” (Canada Council 2005/2006, p. 3)
A fair notice warning places the effected organization on concerned status which may
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include a recommendation for a reduction in the grant amount (up to 10 percent).
Reassessment of fair notice warning will occur in the following year’s application. Fair notice may be given if the organization:
• Has a major deficit (10 percent or more of its annual operating budget), shows evidence of not being financially viable, and/or
• Has a significantly reduced audience or sales base […], and/or
• Does not demonstrate the ability to plan into the future, and/or
• Does not address major artistic concerns such as artistic/editorial direction, declining quality of activity, failure to achieve activity plan, and/or
• Does not meet contractual obligations or minimum requirements outlined in the guidelines, and/or
• Demonstrates management practices which do not conform to generally acceptable practices in the discipline (Canada Council 2005/2006, p. 3).
Though the application overall continues to assess Artistic Quality at 60 percent of the weighting, the issuance of fair notice is based (in all but one point) on the business and financial qualities of an organization. The shift in focus of the application that was observed in the 2004/2005 application thus continues in 2005/2006 with economic markers of sustainability and vision taking priority over the artistic elements.
Opera/Musical Theatre Application
Though the opera/musical theatre application in the 2004/2005 year showed none of the changes made to the orchestral application, in 2005/2006 the section does adopt
some of the same alterations. The introduction of the Fair Notice portion of the
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application appears, though the Debt Reduction plan requirement does not. Institutional
Stability is still thus titled, and all other requirements remain unchanged.
Professional Theatre Application
The application form for 2005/2006 in the professional theatre section contains
several notable changes. First, is a specification of the assessment process which may
provide some insight into the comments made by the interviewed peer jury member
regarding the distribution of funds and the committees lack of involvement in that final
stage of the granting process. The professional theatre application states:
The peer assessment committees for this program make recommendations to the Theatre Section of the Canada Council, which makes final recommendations for approval by the Board of the Canada Council (Canada Council, 2005/2006b, p. 2).
Thus it is made clear that there are multiple stages in the assessment process and that the
peer assessment committee is the first of these.
The professional theatre application in this year adds two new appendices. The
first, Appendix E30, calls for detailed information on the organization’s facilities and equipment revenues and expenses for all facilities owned, managed, or rented. The
duration of the mortgage or lease is also to be stated (Canada Council 2005/2006c, p. 6).
Of these facilities, the organization must specify as part of the detailed expenses the
amount of “space allocated to administrative spaces (e.g. office), and the amount
allocated to production spaces (e.g. performing venue, rehearsal space, front of house,
etc.)” (Canada Council, 2005/2006c, p. 6).
30 Other appendices include A) Summary of Major Activities; B) Dissemination Activities; C1) Production Expenses and Revenues; C2) Co-production Expenses and Revenues; and D) Personnel Remuneration.
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The second new appendix, Appendix F, is titled Funds/Reserves, Working Capital
and Amortization. Though the Theatre Section neither changed its applications to reflect
Organizational Health or Institutional Stability, nor included the specific criteria of those sections, it has instead included very specific financial reporting requirements as an
appendix to the application. The Funds/Reserves section of the appendix refers to the
organization’s surpluses and can be “restricted to facility renovation or construction,
equipment purchase or replacement, artistic development projects, or for stabilization
purposes or meeting contingencies” (Canada Council, 2005/2006c, p. 6). The application
states that “unrestricted funds can be worth up to 25 percent of annual revenues, covering
up to three months’ of operations, without affecting the level of operating support
received from the Canada Council” (Canada Council, 2005/2006c, p. 6). The Working
Capital of the organization is provided so that assessors may compare the difference
between current assets and current liabilities. The application states that “a ratio of $2.00
in short-term assets for each $1.00 of current liabilities is considered desirable” (Canada
Council, 2005/2006c, p. 6). The necessity of including the Working Capital figures in a
separate appendix for assessment is clarified by the following paragraph which appears in
the application:
A good working capital ration underpins the soundness of an organization’s cash management and helps it face urgent or unforeseeable events. Standard accounting practices require that cash received related to next year’s activities should be included in current liabilities as deferred revenue. For example, this would include subscription sales and operating funding for next year.
The third section of the appendix, Amortization, is an application of standard methods of
accounting from the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. These may include the
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depreciation of stage and audience seating equipment, vehicles, furnishings, computer equipment, buildings, land, and leasehold improvements. Because the amortization is more accounting practice than a government imposition of sustainability onto arts organizations, I will not elaborate further.
Creation/Production in Dance
The application for the Dance Section in this year also contains the Fair Notice clause seen in the orchestra application. The only other change in the application in
2005/2006 is found in the Eligibility requirements. Previous years had stated that an organization was eligible if it was operating based on an annual season, or attempting to operate continuously. The application in this year simply states that an organization is eligible if they “operate on the basis of an annual season” (Canada Council, 2005/2006d, p. 1).
2006 – 2007
Professional Orchestra Application
Where the previous two years of Canada Council grant applications both saw changes that emphasized the economic operation of performing arts organizations, the year 2006/2007 makes no major changes.
Opera/Musical Theatre Application
The opera/musical theatre application in this year receives the same overhaul seen by the orchestral program in 2005/2006. Suddenly the opera/musical theatre program is competitive and based on the availability of funds, the emphasis on international impact appears, Institutional Stability is renamed Organizational Health with all of the accompanying changes previously seen, and the Letter from the Chair of the Board is
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now required of the opera/musical theatre organizations as well. The
Outreach/Dissemination section, though still not including the Community Engagement
heading, sees the addition of the assessment requirements for partnerships in the community and the anticipation of change. Once again ahead of schedule, the program
offers a multi-year funding option (which was not to have appeared until 2007/2008)
which, as before, reflects the $20.5 million dollar increase in funds the Canada Council
received in that year from the new federal government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The Deficit Reduction plan seen in the orchestral program application in 2004/2005, is
included in the 2006/2007 application for opera/musical theatre organizations and the
Fair Notice section includes expanded penalties for any organizations who receive
unsatisfactory evaluations in the second and third years of assessment. This is a change which presages the same alteration in the orchestral program application that will appear in 2007/2008.
The only distinct addition, which differs from the orchestral application, is the inclusion of an entire section related to Audio/Visual Support Material. The new section outlines specific standards for visual recorded support material. It includes the following:
• One CD, video, DVD or CD-ROM of a maximum two 10-minute samples that exemplify the work of your company
• Companies may also submit one copy each of photographs or drawings of selected productions (Canada Council, 2006/2007b, p. 2).
The new section replaces the call for supplemental materials relating to the use of performers who have yet to establish a national reputation. Notably, the audio/visual requirements stated above are mandatory only for organizations who are new to the
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Annual Grants program, they are optional for all other organizations. However, the
requirements are “recommended for any organization who is primarily involved in the
development of new works, or emerging artists, or if it has a regional focus” (Canada
Council, 2006/2007b, p. 2). Once again, the optional submission of recorded materials
seems inconsistent with a granting program that emphasizes the creation of new Canadian
works and the support and development of emerging Canadian performers. It should
follow that all applicant organizations participate in these initiatives because they are an
important part of the peer assessment process and the subsequent award of funding and therefore, all organizations must submit recorded materials.
Professional Theatre Application
The theatre application in this year, notably, contains no changes. It is an annual funding year.
Creation/Production in Dance
While the applications in the other Sections contained very few changes, the creation/production in dance application in this year contains many. To begin, the Artistic
Merit section subheading Realization has now been further subdivided into three sections
within itself. The other headings, Intent and Impact, are unchanged.
Realization criteria subheadings – Creation/Production in Dance application, 2006/2007 Artistic Merit – Realization Subdivisions B1 – Realization B2 – Other activities B3 – Other activities connected with the connected with the creative company’s creative process process but involving entities other than the company Choice of Programming Creation residencies Contracting or transmission of company works to a performer who is not part of the company or to another dance company
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Quality of Practice Research labs Creation of a work for an artist or group of artists (who are not members of the company) that is presented in your venue. The revenues of this presentation to totally or in part to your company Nature and significance of Creation projects that involve the Creation of work for another performance production values community in which members of Canadian or foreign company if the company participate the fee paid is included in your revenues and/or results in collaboration with significant benefits to your company Nature of approach chosen: Film projects relating to existing Works that are not your innovation/tradition or new choreographies company’s but which you present in your facilities or in the course of your season Risk-taking/Preservation Creation mentoring or Internships, workshops, creation sponsorship of one or more seminars, master or technical company members classes for professional performers (and emerging artists) who are not part of your company Outcome/Integrity of the whole Creation workshops or seminars Invitations to companies within for company performers your own season. - Training and professional - development for members of the company - Training for apprentices and/or - understudies - Recruitment/performer - auditions/performer integration process - Contracting or transmission of - works in the company’s repertoire to one or more company performers - Professional renewal activities by - the company’s artistic directors (Canada Council, 2006/2007d)
Interestingly, with the inclusion of new subdivisions within the Artistic Merit
section is included the statement that emphasizes the importance of external assessors.
The Dance Section commissions written artistic assessments of public performances. These assessments constitute the peer assessment committee’s principal tool in their evaluation of the company’s realization. Peer assessment committee members who have sent eh applicant’s work will contribute also to the discussion of the application […]. Their opinions should be placed in the
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context of the written assessment (Canada Council, 2006/2007d, p. 6).
In the creation/production in dance application for 2006/2007 a second major change is found in the Audience Development, Dissemination and Touring section. The title now includes the word Outreach. The criteria are completely changed. Where previous applications had seen this section list three criteria – contribute to the ongoing development of the professional dance milieu; develop effective outreach and marketing strategies and initiatives; and expand audiences for the company’s work and dance
(Canada Council, 2005/2006d, p. 6) – the current application lists the following:
• Outline your main dissemination activities as well as projected activities [..]
• Describe the company’s successful outreach and marketing strategies as well as new initiatives developed
• And specify activities and initiatives to develop and/or expand audiences for the company’s work and for dance, if relevant (Canada Council, 2006/2007d, p. 8).
To clarify these points the applicant is suggested to include a discussion of activities undertaken for “non-professionals in dance” (Canada Council, 2006/2007d, p. 8) including awareness workshops, discussions, lectures, talks, rentals of materials or equipment, rental of dance studios, and participation in committees of public funding agencies or other organizations (Canada Council, 2006/2007d). Though still not as stringent as the Outreach/Dissemination/Community Engagement for the other sections because it does not include and Canadian creation requirements, the expansion of the dissemination section for the creation/production in dance application does signify that an emphasis on audience development is being made by the Dance Section overall.
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A third expansion of the application for dance organizations in this year is found in the Administrative and Financial Stability section. New to the section is the addition of
an appendix (K) in which the organization is required to summarize the three key
objectives and the anticipated outcomes for each year (annual or multi-year). A series of
guidelines are provided to assist organizations in summarizing key objectives. The
guidelines themselves are extensive and are designed to assist organizations “in
presenting [the] company’s administrative, financial and physical infrastructure; its
organizational and administrative strengths and successes; as well as internal or external
challenges” (Canada Council, 2006/2007d, p. 9). In brief, the added guidelines include:
• Self-assessment – includes a discussion of the unrestricted reserve fund, and all other restricted funds, and their uses.
• Human, financial and organizational resources – working conditions, employee benefits, a guarantee that financial planning and budget are realistic and that professional leadership and members of the board of directors are aware of the implications of financial risk in the budget; roles, responsibilities, structures and working relationships of human resources in the company; transition processes and plans for key staff and board members; a planning process that promotes the sustainable development of the company.
• Governance – responsibilities shared between professional leadership and members of the board for achieving the artistic vision/mission of the company and ensuring its health and viability.
• Physical resources – rehearsal studios, technical equipment, computers, archives etc, and how these are used to the attainment of the company’s artistic vision; investment planning to maintain, improve, and replace resources (Canada Council, 2006/2007d)
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These new guidelines show a significant increase in the attention paid to the financial
elements of the application. The new call for specific discussion of governance,
resources, and (un)restricted funds show that the economic stability of dance
organizations is now playing a more balanced part in the assessment process with the
artistic criteria of the program. These additional guidelines bring the Dance Section more
in line with the other Sections of the Canada Council whose applications have contained
large financial reporting requirements for several years already.
2007 – 2008
Professional Orchestra Application
In the final year of analysis several changes appear in the 2007/2008 application.
To begin, the Fair Notice warning reveals additional penalties if an organization receives a second unsatisfactory evaluation. This is the same change seen to the opera/musical theatre program application in 2006/2007. According to the expansion of the section, the grant amount can be further reduced by another “ten percent or more” (Canada Council,
2007/2008, p. 4). The statement that a third unsatisfactory evaluation may result in the organization’s removal from the program is also made along with the following statement:
The Canada Council reserves the right to reduce, withdraw, delay or suspend a grant I the second or third year of the multi-year cycle if it has concerns about the viability of the organization, as determined using the criteria set out in the Fair Notice Policy (Canada Council, 2007/2008, p. 4).
Thus it becomes clear that a fair notice warning and the application of concerned status
to a struggling organization applies to both the annual and multi-year applicants.
Furthermore, though an organization may find itself in financial difficulty the Canada
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Council will continue to provide (reduced) funds until the third unsatisfactory review.
Clearly the intention of the Council is not to abandon struggling organizations, but to
provide every opportunity for the organization to right itself before the Council ultimately removes them from the program. The application states that in the case of an organization’s removal from the program it will be “advised to apply for project assistance” (Canada Council, 2007/2008, p. 4).
A second change to the application in 2007/2008 is that the financial information required of the application, though it has not changed from the previous year, is now to be included on a single form, the Operating Grant Financial Form for Arts
Organizations. Included with this new, streamlined, form should be separate sheets detailing any project budgets including touring, commissioning, music festival support
etc.
Opera/Musical Theatre Application
In the final year of analysis, the opera/musical theatre application makes no
changes except to specify that the multi-year funding option, which remains in place for a
second consecutive year, is no longer a three year program. Instead the multi-year
funding has been cut back to two years.
Professional Theatre Application
In the final year of analysis, the professional theatre application adopts the Fair
Notice section seen in the applications of earlier years in the Music Section (orchestra
and opera/musical theatre). The fair notice section contains the provisions for second and
third year assessment and the penalties that accompany an unsatisfactory evaluation are
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the same as those for other applications. There remains no Deficit Reduction plan
requirement, nor do theatre organizations adopt the Operating Grant Financial Form for
Arts Organizations that is provided in the orchestra application though these may appear
in future years.
Creation/Production in Dance
The final dance application analyzed continues to see changes and additions. The
eligibility requirements are once again expanded. In this year eligible organizations must
“operate on the basis of a season or have a sustained activity level” (Canada Council,
2007/2008d, p. 1). They must also now “have independent revenues and an appropriate
company infrastructure” (Canada Council, 2007/2008d, p. 1). Other points in the
eligibility section include the phrase “full-evening programs” and while the points
themselves are not different from previous years, this addendum does put a distinct
parameter around the type of performance expected. A full-evening program would
typically suggest a two hour performance in a fairly traditional or respectable venue. No
outside festival performances or afternoon performance in alternative venues would be eligible. The application also states that any organization that has “received a negative
answer in previous competitions must […] speak with a Dance Section Officer before
submitting another application, failing which the application shall not be eligible”
(Canada Council, 2007/2008d, p. 2). Thus it is clear that a more business-like approach
to organizational operation is being encouraged by inclusion of the above requirements in
the Eligibility section of the application.
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Final changes to be noted in the application for 2007/2008 include the adoption of the Operating Grant Financial Form for Arts Organizations, and an expanded explanation of the granting process which states:
The peer assessment committee, with Dance Staff input, recommends the amounts and number of grants to the Canada Council’s Board for final approval, within the context of the budget available to this program (Canada Council, 2007/2008d, p. 2).
This statement contrasts the statement by the interviewed peer jury member but is in keeping with both the stated Canada Council procedure and the statement made in the new peer assessment document (Canada Council, 2009).
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APPENDIX III: AFA GRANT PROGRAMS
Grant programs from the AFA in the year 2007/2008
Program Name Number of Grants Total Amount Awarded Awarded Aboriginal Arts Organizations Project 9 $85, 551 Art Acquisition by Application 42 $214,750 Alberta Games Cultural Component 1 $148,000 Alberta Major Performing Arts Companies 10 $5,500,000 Artists and Education 251 $1,038,731 Art Acquisition – Curatorial 18 $1,888,000 Arts Festivals 64 $1,150,000 Arts Partnerships 4 $46,635 Community Presenting 119 $1,150,000 Cultural Industries Organizations Project 11 $100,000 Book Publishers 10 $360,000 Cultural Relations 12 $76,384 Community Performing Arts Organizations 129 $1.055,000 Designated Arts Organizations 4 $174,632 Magazine Publishers 8 $184,999 Post Secondary Institutions 16 $700,000 Major Facilities 2 $750,000 Professional Performing Arts Companies 38 $1,900,000 Operating-Community Support Organization 118 $1,980,868 Projects–Community Support Organizations 12 $85,000 Projects Development 5 $1,730,000 Projects Music 113 $560,626 Projects Dance 64 $281,635 Projects Theatre 75 $310,859 Projects Film/Video 45 $271,246 Projects Visual Arts 92 $539,513 Projects Multidisciplinary 16 $83,492 Projects Writing 65 $310,983 Provincial Arts Service Organizations 11 $1,599,998 Public Galleries 18 $1,799,997 Travelling Exhibitions 5 $400,000 Sound Recording Labels 3 $100,000 Summer School Operations 4 $320,000 Tommy Banks Award 1 $3,000 (AFA, 2007-2008, pp. 29-33)