Request for Proposals: Evaluation of CPAMOPOC IV

Request for Proposals Evaluation of CPAMOPOC IV

Introduction:

In 2016, CPAMO designed and delivered its first Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Pluralism Organizational Change Project (CPAMOPOC – https://cpamo.org/equity-education-in-the-arts//).  CPAMO has developed and delivered this project to 4 cohorts of diverse arts organizations – arts services, creation-based small, medium and large – involving between 10-16 organizations per cohort for a total of 60 organizational participants.

CPAMOPOC’s structure and delivery methods have remained somewhat the same for each cohort.  However, changes have been introduced for each cohort based on external evaluations conducted at the end of each project.

CPAMO’s current cohort is in collaboration with the Saskatchewan Association of Theatre Professionals (SATP – https://sasktheatreprofessionals.ca). This cohort began in the winter of 2022 and will conclude in May/June 2023.  At this stage, CPAMO and SATP are looking to engage an external resource to evaluate CPAMOPOC 4 (https://cpamo.org/equity-education-in-the-arts/cpamo-poc-cohort-4/)

Background:

CPAMOPOC evaluations have been conducted to:

  • identify program challenges and strengths and capture recommendations for future cohorts; and
  • assist in determining participant experience as to its relevance.
While previous cohorts have expressed appreciation of CPAMOPOC, some have noted that it asks a significant time commitment from participants, and while participants expressed that the program duration was a “long time”, the majority felt the time was required to become immersed in the program objectives.   Other areas of previous participant concern include:
  • the desire to have more opportunities for sharing and networking within the cohort and more support for developing and implementing their Action Plans;
  • the need to plan how to sustain this focus within their organization post-program completion.
Built on the premise of a ripple effect, the overall goal of the program is to make change with participants, their organizations and the arts/culture sector as a whole.  This recognizes that wide-scale change is needed to shift attitudes and behaviours which takes time for participants to both unlearn what are considered standard Eurocentric approaches to arts and culture and to learn new models based on methodologies that are decolonial, anti-racist, anti-oppressive and pluralist.

Scope of Review:

CPAMOPOC runs for 18 months with participants meeting for between 8 and 3 hours per month.  It has 3 major components:

  1. Understanding where each participant organization is at on these issues.  This is done by having participants make 20 minutes presentations on their related initiatives and receiving comments/feedback using the Critical Response Process (CRP);
  2. Convening 2 4-hour facilitated sessions every other month with external expertise on the 5 main issues CPAMOPOC addresses in its goals and objectives: Organizational Leadership/Personal Accountability; Community Engagement; Programming and Decision-making Involving IBPOC arts; Conflict Resolution; Employment Equity; and
  3. Convening 3-hour action planning sessions involving CPAMO Program Associates and external facilitators to support/guide program participants.  CPAMO Program Associates also meet with selected participants in-between sessions
Along with presentation materials provided participants and by external facilitators, all sessions are video recorded and the materials and recordings are shared with participants for their own review, to share with those in their organization and/or to make connections with other organizations pursuing similar outcomes.

In addition, participants are invited to attend CPAMO’s bi-annual Gathering Divergence: Multi-Arts Festival (https://cpamo.org/the-gathering/).  Some have participated as panelists for various sessions.

To conduct an effective evaluation of this program, interested applicants will be required to:

  • Understand CPAMOPOC’s Goals, Objectives, Methodologies, resources provided and staffing;
  • Assess the Attendance, Structure And Scheduling of the various sessions, including materials provided by project participants, CPAMO and external facilitators;
  • Assess Session Design, Tools And Content;
  • Assess Program Impact on participants’ knowledge, commitment and change work supported by CPAMOPOC, including implementation and planning for sustainability.
Timeframes:

It is anticipated that the evaluation will occur between February and May of 2023.  Interested consultants are to submit a proposal indicating how they would carry out this evaluation, with particular attention to time required for each section of the review.

The total budget for this project is $12,000, exclusive of HST.  Interested applicants should submit proposals by February 10, 2023.  The selected applicant should be ready to engage by February 23.

Proposals should be submitted to:
executive@cpamo.org and markc@sasktheatreprofessionals.ca

Call for Submissions: The Gathering Divergence – Spring 2023

Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival / Conference Spring 2023
Call for Submissions: Performing Arts and Workshops

The Gathering Divergence Interdisciplinary Festival & Conference is a festival and conference with a specific focus on Indigenous, racialized, deaf, disabled and mad, women and other historically – marginalized arts communities. Held over 3 days, GDMAF/C features performances, literary readings, visual arts exhibition, panels, workshops and creative investigations from diverse practices.

Geared towards meaningful conversations, professional development, sharing strategies, it encourages divergence across arts practices and collaboration. This year’s theme for Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference SPRING 2023 | Visioning Canada’s IBPOC Artistic Transformation: Implementing Future Strategies. 

We facilitate

  • an interactive space where arts organizations artists and attendees share
  • dedicated to advancing, visual arts and performing arts , while advocating  for  pluralism in the arts
  • dialogue on common interests, experienced and strategies towards a better more equitable and inclusive arts sector.

We believe
Systemic change is more effectively achieved through collective, creative action, and seeks to:

  • create, support and learn through open-source resources and toolkits
  • advance strategies to understand how we are influenced by issues of equity and digital technology in and out of
  • amplify the artistic practices and administration of IBPOC individuals

We aspire? We hope that everyone arrives at a better understanding of the many ways in which we support, create from and within the Arts sector as indigenous / ethno-racially identified artists with a pluralist lens.

APPLY NOW! Deadline: March 31, 2023

When is the festival and conference?
Week of May 15 – 19, 2023

Location: Online / In-Person events (with consideration of CV 19 safety guidelines)

What we offer:
Opportunity to display / showcase / facilitate a workshop or performance (performances should be NO more than fifteen  minutes in length)

Required for consideration:
– Explanation of how your proposed work relates to the Conference’s Themes:

  • Broadening capacities for IBPOC Arts makers
  • Implementing creative process for the future
  • Advancing Equity, Diversity and Inclusive Learning
  • critically understanding IBPOC Artists & Organizations and their work

– Works where contributors / artists or those self identify as IBPOC
– Works created by Black / IPOC artists and Organizations
– Artist / Organization Website URL, Social Media Info, Biography (150 words)
– Headshot / Company Image / Bio Image 300 dpi
– Links to previous work(s) or work proposed.

For Performances or  Workshop Proposals include:

  • Set up and installation requirements
  • Estimated time for set up and striking
  • Whether assistance is needed or included
  • 300 Word Explanation on how your work applies to the CPAMO Call for Submissions

Compensation Range varies:

– Dance / Theatre  / Music Honorariums between $500 – $1000
  (based on the number of artists)
– Literary Readings between $400 – $600
– Workshops $300 (1 hour maximum)
Selection Process: 
Administered by a Selection Committee including: CPAMO Board member(s), Program Manager, Executive Director, and Pluralism in Organizational Change (CPAMOPOC) members.

AN IMPORTANT NOTICE: CPAMO operates in a Cloud-based platform. Documents MUST be submitted via (Google Drive, Box, One Drive, Dropbox etc.) and the link should not require permission for the Selection Committee to view.

Submission Link:  https://forms.gle/JqdhwvPNRPwQnVzA7

Please make sure all submitted links are functional and include  accessible links to a headshot and your support materials. Personal links from your computer / laptop should not be sent. Please upload all required

QUESTIONS? Contact: Kevin A. Ormsby programming@cpamo.org

Applicants will be notified by April 14, 2023

Meet our artists – Day 1!

The Gathering Divergence
Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Fall 2022

Visioning Canada’s IBPOC Artistic Transformation:
Then and Now

Nov. 29, Nov. 30 and Dec. 2, 2022
In-person at Aki Studio (Toronto) and via Zoom 

The multi-Arts Festival and Conference; a positively impactful  and supportive convening in the Arts sector. The festival’s specific focus is on Indigenous, racialized, deaf, disabled and mad, women and other historically – marginalized artists’ communities.  Geared towards meaningful conversations, professional development and sharing strategies in the Arts, this year’s theme for Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Fall 2022 | Visioning Canada’s IBPOC Artistic Transformation: Then and Now.

Meet our artists:

Maria Victoria and Y Josephine
Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 12pm 

Maria Victoria Mata
Venezuelan-Canadian Dancer, Choreographer and Director with a background in expressive arts therapy.  Mata’s career was first sculpted by pedagogic, self-directed training, which proceeded with training under internationally renowned choreographers. As a settler in T’Koronto, Mata’s sensibility to inclusion and border stories are due to her eclectic upbringing across three continents before the age of fifteen. Mata’s contemporary genre/style is rooted in Afro-Indigenous Venezuelan genres, harness/aerial dance and installation dance. She received an MFA in Contemporary Choreography from York University and has been a beneficiary of the Metcalf Foundation as well as a finalist of the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award. Since recently completing her second self-produced, full-length dance/theatre production “Cacao | A Venezuelan Lament,” Mata is working on a number of independent works with Toronto Choreographers Charles Smitt, Lucy Lupert, Roshanak Jaberi, Rosina Kazi and Irma Villafuerte. Each of these choreographers  committed to working on projects that centre the arts as core and tangible modes of sustaining and transforming paradigms of exclusion.
www.victoriamata.com / www.cacaolament.ca

Y Josephine
Y Josephine is a Venezuelan singer/songwriter, percussionist, writer, and visual artist. She has presented and published her work throughout Venezuela, Aruba, Spain, UK and Canada. Best known for her distinct vocals and cajon-playing, Y has worked with musicians such as Rigel Michelena, Gustavo Dal Farra (El Rabo del Ojo), Joan Tena, Kabanayen and Charanga del Norte. In a 4-star review in December 2007, Edinburgh’s The Skinny (magazine) said, “Y Josephine. plays guitar, somehow gets a whole drum kit out of a Peruvian fruit box, and sings in a sweet, smoky, untouchably cool voice.”
 
In addition to her work as a performing/recording artist and as a poet, Y Josephine studied visual arts at Telford College in Scotland. Since 2013, Y Josephine has been recording, performing and teaching in Ontario as part of the duo Amai Kuda and Y Josephine, otherwise known as ‘Y and Amai.’ Their new CD, AfroSoul VolumeII:MaZai, has been described by CBC’s Errol Nazareth as “Earthy and rootsy and good for your ears.” You can find them at www.ynamai.com.
 
Josephine has worked with a variety of artists, such as Nourbese Philip; performing for poetry readings of Zong!, Sofi Gudino; composing and performing for Taura, recently showcased at Augusto Bitter’s theatre production ‘Good Housekeeping’ with her paintings, part of B’atz’ Recinos’ theatre offering ‘TAOS’ (The Art Of Storytelling), as the musical director, and currently part of Victoria Mata’s theatre production “Cacao” -a Venezuelan lament-. Y Josephine is the co-founder of the band Baoba, an all-female percussion group, playing an Afro-latin, funk, samba, soul fusion, and has also recently become part of the Salvadorian Cumbia group Cachada Band, and the rock cover band All That and a Bag of Chips.

Lillian Allen
Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 12:30pm 

Lillian Allen – Godmother of Everything

Lillian Allen is an acclaimed foremother of Canadian Poetry. She is a poet, writer/performer, and a long-time arts activist. She is an international exponent of dub poetry with its politically charged reggae-infused aesthetic of resistance, a call to poetic arms. Lillian has also been a successful Cultural Strategist who played a key role in transforming the Toronto and Canadian cultural landscapes and is a mentor to the mentors, mentoring individuals and groups across many cultures. Termed a ‘cultural de-programmer’ in the arts, she imagined initiated and led community-building BIPOC youth-supporting programs such as Fresh Elements and Fresh Arts as well as net works and programs such as Groundings and Minquon Panchayat. She has received numerous accolades and awards and is the recipient of The Toronto Cultural Champions Award, The Margo Bindhardt Award for significantly impacting the arts in Toronto through both creative work and activism, the William P. Hubbard Award for Race Relations. Lillian is the author of Make the World New- selected works, old & new, edited by Ronald Cummings, WLU Press 2021, other books include Women Do this Every Day, Psychic Unrest, plus books and recordings for children and young people. Also a globally recognized recording artist, Ms. Allen is a two-time Canadian Juno award winner for her recordings Conditions Critical, and for Revolutionary Tea Party which was recently nominated for the prestigious Polaris Heritage Prize in Canada. A creative writing professor at OCAD University, she initiated and led the development of a BFA in Creative Writing Program that acknowledges community connected writing, traditional and new writing forms and writing as possibility as service and transformational possibilities. 

Photo credit: Lillian Allen at the Edmonton Poetry Festival. Photo by Randall Edwards 

https://lillianallen.ca

Jaz ‘Fairy J’ Simone
Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 2:00pm 

Jaz ‘Fairy J’ Simone, formerly known as Jasmyn Fyffe, is a Barbadian-Canadian multi hyphenate artist based in Toronto ON. She started her career in 2007 and for the past 15 years has been building her career as a performance artist, choreographer, movement director, dancer, singer/musician, outside eye/creative mentor, group facilitator and more recently, handmade skincare small business owner. 

Jaz ‘Fairy J’ has created over 30 original dance works, presented in Toronto, Montreal, North Bay, Brooklyn NY, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Berlin, Birmingham UK and Sinop, Turkey. Her choreography has been commissioned by Toronto Dance Theatre, Art Gallery of Ontario, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Cawthra Park Secondary School, Dance Immersion, Etobicoke School of the Arts and the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival. She made her debut as a movement director and choreographer for theatre in 2011, working under the direction of Philip Akin and Obsidian Theatre. In 2017 she worked with Soulpepper Theatre as the Co-Choreographer for “For Coloured Girls” under the direction of Djanet Sears. In 2019 she had the opportunity to work under the direction of Mumbi Tindyebwa as the Movement Director (MD) for “The Brother’s Size” and she made her return to the theatre post pandemic, working with Mumbi again as the MD of “Is GOD Is”(2022) through Obsidian Theatre, Canadian Stage and Necessary Angel Theatre. This past summer was jam packed for Jaz.

She made her debut with Stratford Festival as the Choreographer for “Death and the King’s Horseman” under the direction of Tawiah BenEben Mfoafo-M’Carthy. In addition, she also made her debut at the Shaw Festival as the MD for Just to Get Married directed by Severn Thompson. She was the co-choreographer for Bahia Watson & Liza Paul MASHUP pon di road and her solo “open light” was presented by the Yensa Dance Festival created by Lua Shayenne Dance Company. This Fall she premiered her interactive art experience titled “The Reception” at Nuit Blanche, performed on tour with “Wannabe” Spice Girls Tribute band, and she to be the choreographer for the 20 year anniversary of “da Kink”.

 The schedule is available here!

Registration: 

Tickets $5 – $10 | To register to attend in-person or over Zoom the day sessions:

Attend online via Zoom:  Register on Eventbrite

Attend in-person at Aki studio:
Location: Aki Studio
585 Dundas St E #250, Toronto, ON M5A 2B7

Register at Aki’s online box office (select [3] CPAMO on the left side menu). 
Covid protocols: People attending the event in peson need to follow Aki Studio’s vaccination and mask policy – please read before registration: 
www.nativeearth.ca/c19safety

To register to attend the Reception and Publication launch at the CSI Community Living Room: 

To register to attend the Reception and publication launch click here, please note the Covid policy is different for this event, for more information click here.

If you have any questions please email: info@cpamo.org