The enthusiasm is palpable: artists are eager to reconnect with an audience that is starving for arts and entertainment, and broadcasters can finally start rolling out their programming. The fact remains that the cultural sector has been shaken by the crisis.

“For a year and a half, the broadcast has been stopped,” explains Marcelle Dubois, also co-artistic director of the Théâtre aux Écuries . “Now it’s a matter of catching up on projects and honoring contracts that were already in the pipeline. Theatre seasons are prepared one, two, or even three years in advance. We find ourselves with a real bottleneck in access to the stages.” The same story goes for dance: rehearsal studios have been able to stay open and shows are lining up to be programmed: “The artists have created and rehearsed,” confirms Jamie Wright of the Regroupement québécois de la danse . “We have to move on to the next step and broadcast, or we risk nipping all these projects in the bud.”

Uncertainty hangs over emerging and up-and-coming artists. “We will need to be vigilant so that we don’t miss out on this generation,” worries Ms. Dubois, herself an author and playwright. “If they aren’t already in the system, how will they be able to access it? And what about the eminently contemporary works that are rooted in a reflection on the present? When will we be able to present what the artists had to say about these upsetting times? Will we collectively be somewhere else when they can be part of the dissemination?”

Exodus of cultural workers

The forced break also affected technicians, stage managers, editors, lighting technicians, and administrative staff. “Not only do we feel like we were really at the limit of what we could ask of artists, but we have already started to lose our specialized cultural workers who no longer want to live with this financial insecurity. Many have had to reorient themselves,” laments Ms. Dubois. “The issue of contingency has been an issue for years, and the pandemic has only exacerbated it,” notes Ms. Wright. “We risk experiencing the impact of this loss of expertise in the field for a long time.”

The regions, poor relations of dance and theatre

Some disciplines were more affected than others. Theatre and dance, which were operating at full capacity in major cities, were caught off guard when the red came! The dance community, in particular, suddenly stuck between four walls, realized that it had mainly developed outside of borders over the years. “Dance has no language, it is universal, which is why it was able to be exported so easily,” explains Ms. Wright, also a performer and dance teacher. However, several local initiatives were born from the needs of the pandemic. There were virtual meetings, spontaneous gatherings to bring the performing arts to the region. I hope that these projects will leave their mark and become structuring.”

In an open letter sent to Le Devoir on June 9, 2021, 15 artists and directors of regional venues called for a sustainable and concerted deployment of professional dance " which suffers from severe centralization in Montreal […] With the suspension of international tours, the dance community turned to its local distribution network to find that it was clearly underdeveloped ."

All of these issues, aside from the abundance of creation within the limits of broadcasting, existed before the pandemic, but it has revealed them with brilliance. The business model surrounding the performing arts in Quebec needs to be rethought. Solutions are being considered. Read tomorrow on danielehenkel.tv