Contracting In Unprecedented Times
As the live arts sector continues to create and present work in digital spaces, how do we make agreements that are transparent, realistic, and meaningfully consensual? How do we consider the traditional ephemerality of live events alongside the realities of digital platforms, and be intentional about recording, distribution, archiving and posterity? What are the opportunities, limitations, and barriers are posed by working in digital spaces, in general but also specifically for artists and others used to the conditions of live work? How can arts organizations host spaces for performance and performance conversation that are online, and still experimental, iterative, emergent, and honest? How can performing artists and arts workers best protect themselves when entering into agreements for work in digital space? How can all involved collaborate to create agreements that are responsive to changing circumstances?
Undercurrent Creations hosts “Contracting in Unprecedented Times”, a panel exploring how the performing arts sector can navigate agreements, consent, and contracting, in healthy and anti-oppressive ways, as we adapt to digital spaces.
Panel: Contracting in Unprecedented Times
June 2nd, 2021
6-8pm EST
Moderator Rachel Penny guides a conversation with panelists Donna Michelle St. Bernard (Artistic Director, New Harlem Productions), Owais Lightwala (Assistant Professor, Ryerson University School of Performance), Kim Sənklip Harvey (Indigenous Theorist and Cultural Evolutionist), and Nico Elliott (Lawyer, Artists’ Legal Advice Services).
Curated by Rachel Penny and Nikki Shaffeeullah.
Presented in partnership with FOLDA as part of The Start-Up industry series.
ASL Interpretation will be provided.
We are grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support.
Kim Senklip Harvey is a proud Syilx and Tsilhqot’in and an Indigenous theorist, a cultural evolutionist and an award-winning writer and director whose work focuses on igniting Indigenous power by creating comedic- and joy-centered narratives that nourish her people’s spirits. She is currently working on the development of two television series, her Salish love story, On the Plateau, and the adaptation of her play, Kamloopa, she is completing her first prose and poetry book, Interiors: A Collection of NDN Dirtbag Love Stories and is in pre-production to film a musical feature of her next artistic ceremony Break Horizons: A Rocking Indigenous Justice Ceremony. Kim holds a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Victoria and will be starting a PhD in Law in the fall of 2021. All her work is created out of respect for her Ancestors and for the future generations—to whom so much is owed.
Owais Lightwala is an arts leader and creative producer. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Performance, Faculty of Communication and Design at Ryerson University, where his teaching and research focused on creative producing and arts management. Prior to that, he spent 8 years as the Managing Director for Why Not Theatre, where he produced sold-out runs of award-winning new works, national and international tours, presentations from around the world, and co-helmed the creation of innovative new producing models like the RISER Project. He advises many arts organizations (including theatre and dance companies, music presenters, film festivals and more) as a strategic consultant, particularly on finding better ways of doing things, changing who’s on stage and in the audience, and anything to do with numbers. He also dabbles in theatre making as an artist, and is a prolific web and graphic designer. Owais is a graduate of York University’s Theatre program, and currently pursuing his MBA at Ryerson University.
Nico Elliott (she/her) is an associate in the Entertainment Law practice group at the law firm Cassels in Toronto. Nico routinely works with artists and performers using a variety of forms of contractual agreements to protect ownership of artists’ works and facilitate collaborations and opportunities. Before becoming a lawyer Nico worked in the music industry at a prominent independent record label, music publisher and music festival, and in film post-production.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard aka Belladonna the Blest is an emcee, playwright and agitator. Her main body of work, the 54ology, includes: Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Gas Girls, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, and The First Stone. Works for young audiences include the META-nominated Reaching For Starlight, The Chariot, and Rabbit King of Kenya. Opera libretti include Forbidden (Afarin Mansouri/Tapestry Opera) and Oubliette (Ivan Barbotin/Tapestry Opera). DM is currently the emcee in residence at Theatre Passe Muraille, associate artist at lemonTree Creations, artistic director of New Harlem Productions, coordinator of the AD HOC Assembly, and of Nightwood Theatre’s Write From the Hip play development program. She’s so cool.
Rachel is a creative producer working in dance, theatre and community-engaged arts. Rachel supports new work creation and centres relationships in her work. Rachel has worked with a diverse range of organizations including Harbourfront Centre, The Luminato Festival, Young People’s Theatre, Volcano Theatre, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, and The AMY Project. Rachel has been mentored in producing through Theatre Ontario’s Professional Theatre Training Program (with Aislinn Rose) and the Metcalf Foundation Performing Arts Internship Program (with Meredith Potter). Currently, Rachel works as the Artistic Producer for adelheid dance projects, as a Creative Producer with The Theatre Centre, and on freelance projects.