Wednesday, December 2, 2015 | 12:30pm – 5:30pm
COBA – Suite 130
585 Dundas Street East, Toronto, ON M5A 2B7

How do artistic directors work together to produce a work that captures both of their visions? What do they give up? What do they take from each other? How do they find common ground? This is a challenge for artists who share similar aesthetic views yet are unsure of how to break through to another like-minded artist. This session is led by someone who has been doing this for years and has had great success in producing work that is valued by audiences, presenters, artists and communities.

At this session, you will learn how to:

1) negotiate the space and develop common themes;
2) develop and promote a collaborative program;
3) engage communities and develop audiences;
4) seek funding and do fundraising; and
5) make the space to move on or to work again.

Each year since 2012, Aluna Theatre has developed a collaborative theatre program involving performances, exhibits and workshops. In 2013, Aluna Theatre worked in partnership with Native Earth Performing Arts for the second edition of panamerican ROUTES | RUTAS panamericanas: an International Festival of Performing Arts that was held from February 27 and March 9, 2014. This theatre event brought together Canadian, Indigenous and Latin American artists from across the Americas including Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, the United States and Canada. For the winter of 2015, Aluna Theatre will be working in partnership with Modern Times Theatre.

The series of activities during this festival included main stage performances, gallery exhibits, installations, concerts, and master classes with international artists and an engaging four-day conference on performance and human rights where artists, academics and activists met with the public to discuss how art can mobilize social change.

This project is highly successful in its engagement with artists from Indigenous and diverse backgrounds, bringing in diverse audiences and providing opportunities for critical dialogue on contemporary issues in the arts and society that promote pluralism and social justice.

CPAMO supported the 2014 program and has now invited Aluna Theatre’s Artistic Director, Beatriz Pizano, to conduct two full day workshops that will unpack how Aluna Theatre developed, promoted, staged and received the funding for panamerican ROUTES | RUTAS panamericanas. This session will focus on:

1) negotiating the space and developing common themes;
2) program development and program promotion;
3) audience development and engagement;
4) funding, including fundraising; and
5) follow-up and evaluation.

Fee: $20 Regular | $15 Underemployed | $10 Student
Registration: http://2015-16-cpamo-workshops.eventbrite.ca

We would like to thank our funders, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, for their support.

OVERVIEW

Scarborough Arts is a not-for-profit organization that has been serving the community through the arts since 1978. Scarborough Arts develops, delivers and promotes arts programming and cultural initiatives in collaboration and partnership with the community. For more information, please visit www.scarborougharts.com

The Program Director, reporting to Executive Director, a one year full-time maternity leave contract position, is responsible for the management, implementation, and evaluation of current Scarborough Arts’ programs and events, as well as developing future programs and program models—that better meet the community’s needs, increase impact, and have long-term sustainability.

If you are applying for the position, you have an entrepreneurial spirit and are attracted to community arts. You are a self-starter and a self-learner. You are a problem-solver. You see challenges as opportunities. You take initiative and responsibility. You have an abundance of positive energy that is contagious. You deeply listen to the community that you are serving.  You are driven to create value for others and make an impact. You are both a leader and a collaborator. You are a high performer.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The role will be divided into 2 parts: Program Management and Program Development

Program Management (50%)
• Develop work plans, schedules, and budgets in collaboration with the program team.
• Develop program budgets on an annual basis, and oversee individual program budgets and ensuring that they stay on track.
• Hands-on management of the program team and monitoring its work performance.
• Ensure that programs are efficiently run, with the appropriate balance of instructors, volunteers, and student intern resources.
• Manage program administration and onsite coordination of programs and events where necessary.
• Oversee the creation and distribution of program marketing communications material
• Work collaboratively with the Gallery Manager to develop Bluffs Gallery exhibition, programming, and event schedule
• Implement rigorous individual program impact and evaluation processes, analyzing data that will be basis for grant reports, and also determine future high-impact programs that meet evolving community interests and needs.
• Chair and/or be a part of Advisory Committee meetings as required
• Attend evening/weekend events and programs as required
• Other administrative or operational duties as required

Program Development (50%)
• Conduct sponsorship outreach for programs and events
• Assist the Executive Director in fundraising (seeking in-kind support, corporate sponsorships, project grants, awards, and donations) that allow for program capacity building.
• Develop new external partnerships and strengthen existing external partnerships in Scarborough and the City of Toronto at-large.
• Develop models to increase the impact and sustainability of current programs
• Make recommendations for new, innovative, and high-impact programming with budgets for children, youth, adults, and seniors in response to Scarborough’s evolving community needs, ensuring exclusivity, relevance, and diversity.
• Build membership development into the program models to increase lifetime engagement with participants and their supporters
• Other development responsibilities as needed

QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience with financial management, work plans, timelines, and reporting
• Experience designing and developing innovative arts programs and community-based initiatives
• Experience in supervising and managing staff, volunteers, delegating tasks, etc
• Experience in event management and public relations
• Experience with grant, sponsorship, and proposal writing
• Knowledge of Toronto arts scene and broad spectrum of arts mediums, with connections to different cultural, non-profit/for-profit organizations
• Post-secondary education in the arts, community development, or related field (Bachelors’ degree or higher preferred)
• Effective time-management, multi-tasking, and organizational skills (utilize systems)
• Ability to work effectively and collaboratively with diverse communities and organizations
• Knowledge of Microsoft applications, Google Calendar, and Google Drive
• Knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) and WordPress preferred
• Additional language(s) considered an asset
• Access to a vehicle considered an asset

ADDITIONAL INFO:

Contract: 1 year contract commencing early December 2015
Salary commensurate with experience and qualifications

HOW TO APPLY:

1.) Apply with a cover letter, resume, and 2 references attached as ONE PDF or Word file.
2.) Save attachment as FIRST NAME_LAST NAME_PD2015
3.) Send by email with “Program Director” in the subject line to ed@scarborougharts.com by 5pm on November 27th, 2015.
4.) In your cover letter please include 2 ideas/examples of how Scarborough Arts can increase the impact and/or sustainability of our programs.
5.) Please also note in your cover letter where you saw this job posting
Thank you to all those that apply, however, only those applicants selected for an interview will be contacted. No telephone or walk-in inquiries please.  All applications are considered confidential.

Scarborough Arts is a charitable, not-for-profit cultural organization whose mission is to bring arts to the community and community to the arts.

Wednesday, 21 October 2015 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM 

Arts & Letters Club
14 Elm Street, Toronto, ON M5G 1G7

You are cordially invited to the launch of the report Thinking Collaboratively – Acting Collectively: Creating and Operating a Collaborative Learning Community for Indigenous and Ethno-Racial Artists in Ontario.

Over the past six months Jane Marsland examined the available literature on the concept of shared platforms in their broadest context – from simply sharing office space to the ideas of charitable venture organizations. A particular emphasis of her research was to investigate new collaboration systems in both the for-profit sector as well as the arts.

Over the same period there have been two focus group sessions, two board meetings and three advisory committee sessions to gain a better understanding of what Indigenous and ethno-racial artists want and require in order toachieve their artistic visions. CPAMO has also surveyed its membership on several occasions to learn what its members wish to participate in and the level of relationship they wish to have with their peers.

This evening will feature remarks and performances by artists and arts professionals:

Opening remarks by Shannon Thunderbird (First Nations Elder, artist and educator).

Additional remarks by Brandy Leary (multidisciplinary artist); Helen Yung (multidisciplinary artist); Patty Jarvis (Prologue to the Performing Arts); Rebecca Burton (Playwrights Guild of Canada and coordinator of Equity in Theatre), Jane Marsland (consultant) and Cole Alvis (Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance).

Performances by Newton Moraes (dance); Mahlikah Awari (spoken word and indigenous opening); Gein Wong (dance) and Sedina Fiati (multidisciplinary Performer).

The event is free and open to the public!

RSVP online: www.cpamo.eventbrite.ca

Speaker’s Bios:

Shannon Thunderbird is a Coast Tsimshian First Nations Elder, Artist/Educator, Playwright, Songwriter, Recording Artist, and Author. Her dedication to her First Nations culture and her artistic craft creates an extraordinary combination of vibrant storytelling, vocals and insightful perspectives on First Nationscontemporary life, history and spirituality.

Jane Marsland has been an articulate advocate for the arts for many years and has served on a wide range of boards, advisory groups and committees. Jane was Co-founder of For Dance and Opera, a strategic collaboration to book and tour four companies, Co-founder and director of ARTS 4 CHANGE, a three-year program designed to create positive change for and by arts professionals in Toronto, as well as co-founder and Director of Technical Assistance of the Creative Trust: Working Capital for the Arts, 2003-2011.

Ms. Marsland has managed arts organizations since 1970 and was General Manager of the Danny Grossman Dance Company from 1982 to 1999. Since 1999, Jane has been working as a free-lance arts consultant and has worked with more than 100 arts organizations. From 2012 to 2014, Jane worked with the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts and ARTS Action Research on a community initiative, Theatres Leading Change Toronto involving 18 small and mid-sized theatre and dance organizations. Theatres Leading Change was designed to illuminate and better understand change: on an individual learning level; on a community co-learning level; and as a function of broad-based change that may hold within the possibility of paradigm change in the field.

She has been the recipient of two arts community awards: a “Harold’ in 2001 and the Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in the Arts in 2002. In 1995, she received the first M. Joan Chalmers Award for Arts Administration for outstanding leadership in the arts. In 2011, she was the winner of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Rita Davies and Margo Bindhardt Cultural Leadership Award. In January 2012 Jane was awarded the first Metcalf Foundation Innovation Fellowship in the Arts to examine Shared Platforms and Charitable Venture Organizations and their applicability to the arts sector in Ontario.

Cole Alvis is proud of their Métis heritage from the Turtle Mountains in Manitobah. An acclaimed actor, theatre creator & artistic leader, their (gender neutral pronoun) creative process is enriched with rigour, inclusivity and community building under the umbrella of indigenization (reclaiming Indigenous knowledge and values that have governed this land since time immemorial).

Cole is the leader of the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance, Artistic Producer of the queer theatre company lemonTree creations and was an Associate Festival Director for the 2015 Rhubarb Festival at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Select credits include “outstanding performance” in Nelly Boy, dramaturging The House You Build by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard for the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company, “outstanding direction” of ROW by T. Berto at the SummerWorks Festival (NNNN – Now Magazine), and creator / performer for the Dora-nominated Gorey Story (The Thistle Project).

Performers:
Sedina Fiati is a multidisciplinary performer, producer, creator and activist for stage and screen. She proudly identifies as queer, femme and of Ghanaian and Trinidadian descent. Sedina holds a BFA in Music Theatre from the University of Windsor and was also a member of b current’s rAiz’n ensemble. She was named as a Fierce Femme Organizer as a part of the 2014 World Pride Honoured Dyke Group. She is the co-chair of ACTRA Toronto’s Diversity Committee, chair of the CAEA Diversity Committee and soon to be CAEA councillor. Most recent credits: Love’s Labours Lost (Princess of France, Dauntless City Theatre), Bad Luck Bank Robbers (Assistant Director, 4th Line Theatre), 30 People Watching (Producer, Subtle Vigilance), Chicken Grease is Nasty Business (Jolene, SummerWorks), Blind Eye (Lucinda, Mysterious Entity), Various cabaret performances (Les Femmes Fatales, World Pride 2014, Unapologetic Burlesque, Rhubarb Festival).

Mahlikah Awe:ri, Enml’ga’t-Saqama’sgw, Walking Woman, is a First Nations drumtalk-poetic-rapologist; musician; hip hop MC; arts educator; radio show host; artivist, curator and the recently appointed Deputy Executive Director of the Toronto Centre for Community Learning & Development in Regent Park; based in Toronto, with Nova Scotian Roots. Mahlikah is also a founding member of Red Slam Collective Indigenous Hip Hop Movement, 2013 nominees of the inaugural TD Diversity Arts Award. In 2011, Awe:ri released the spoken word EP Serpent’s Skin; currently published in five literary anthologies, she was nominated for the KM Hunter OAC Literary Arts Award in 2013. In 2015 she was selected as one 0f 18 Toronto Arts Council Cultural Leader Lab Fellows.

Newton Moraes was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 1991, he moved to Toronto where he studied at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Program. He is the Founder, Choreographer, Researcher and Artistic Director of Newton Moraes Dance Theatre. He has toured extensively with his company as well as a solo artists to Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, the U.S. and Germany. Some of Newton’s mentors include Jean Sasportes, Fred Traugth, David Earle, Patricia Beatty, Danny Grossman, Patrick Parson, Marcelo do Nascimento and José do Nascimento (Brazil). He has been teaching extensively in many schools across Ontario with the support of Ontario Arts Council “Artists in Education” as well as giving master
classes in several Universities including: Dance Department of York University, UFRGS in Brazil, Unicamp University in Brazil. Newton Moraes also teaches African-Brazilian classes weekly at Geary Lane in Toronto.

Gein Wong is an interdisciplinary director, curator, writer and video artist of First Nations and Asian descent, who is queer and two-spirit.  Her works focus on obvious things like gender, class and race, as well as things a little less obvious like gender, class and race.  Her more recent works focus on Indigenizing minds and spaces. She is an inaugural member of the Toronto Arts Council Cultural Leaders Lab where she is a part of Revolution City, a project that seeks to centre Indigeneity in the city. Gein has also co-developed this summer’s, “Water is Our Womb”, a water retreat that centres Indigenous water teachings and outdoor artistic creations. She is a recipient of the 2014 Ken McDougall Director’s Award and a 2015 Canadian Youth Role Model Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity and a three time nominee for the KM Hunter Award in Both Theatre and Literature.  She was a 2012-13 Canadian Stage Director in Residence, a 2013 Harbourfront Centre Resident Artist, a two-time Philadelphia Asian Arts Initiative Resident Artist, the inaugural resident artist at fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre, and collaborated on a New York HERE Arts Centre Residency. Gein is Artistic Director of Eventual Ashes, the community arts organisaiton, Asian Arts Freedom School, a co-owner of the world’s oldest LGBT bookstore, Glad Day Bookshop. Gein creates large scale performance experiences that empower and elicit empathy.  She conceived and directed “Say Their Names, Remember”, a 500 person performance art piece which will opened the Ai Weiwei exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario. As well, she co-created “The Forgetful City”, a site specific interactive video installation that reopened the RC Harris Water Filtration Plant in Toronto – an art-deco castle closed to the public for a decade due to 9/11. Her interdisciplinary play “Hiding Words (for you)” premiered at Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre.  She was commissioned by World Pride to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots by creating a large scale immersive performance experience to remember and relive Stonewall. Currently, she is developing a play about Ashley Callingbull, Calling Bull;  Ocean Carving a performance underwater; and the Indigenous Hip Hop dream play Dreaming 4D.

We would like to thank our funders the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for their support.