Jeff Melanson's on 'The Evolving Role of the Arts in Canada': Tomorrow's Leaders Need Support Today!

 

You might have missed this but on May 18, 2011 Toronto City Council unanimously approved the new Creative Capital Initiative Report, Creative Capital Gains: an Action Plan for Toronto. The six recommendations and thirty-three actions outlined in this updated Culture Plan for Toronto foreground culture as “an economic catalyst” and support of the arts and culture at the institutional and community levels as integral to strengthening “Toronto’s economy and enhance our competitive advantage on the world stage” 
 

 

This remarkable achievement in the City Council was highlighted by Jeff Melanson, Executive Director of the National Ballet School and Special Advisor to the Mayor on Arts and Culture, in his talk on “The Evolving Role of the Arts in Canada,” given Tuesday May 24th as part of the Literary Review of Canada’s Big Ideas series. As he noted with justified frustration, the unanimity of Council on this report failed to get the media attention that more acrimonious exchanges in Council on the privatization of garbage have received .

 

I had the great good fortune to attend this talk and hear Melanson speak about his vision for the arts and culture and of the necessity of building relationships between artists, communities, private and public stakeholders. His talk was both a clear-sighted overview of how the arts have been positioned and supported in Canada since the formative Massey Commission’s Report in 1952 and a window into his own experience as a series of case studies of best practices leading the Royal Conservatory of Music and Canada’s National Ballet School.

 

Listening to Melanson speak one can see why he has been so successful. He’s engaging, articulate and extraordinarily positive. In describing an early meeting at the National Ballet which was then wrestling with a substantial annual operating deficit, Melanson recalls realizing and stating “We can’t afford to have a recession!”  In his talk and his answers to the questions following, his challenge was to find to find ways to reimagine the role of arts and culture, to articulate the value of the arts and culture in all spheres from business to cultural (and to recognize the interdependence of these spheres), to open new lines of dialogue between artists, communities, private and public sectors, and to approach the future of our cities with an openness and spirit of collaboration rather than suspicion and cynicism.

 

As one example of a risk-taking initiative, Melanson invited us all to the Toronto Graffiti Summit Town Hall at the Drake Hotel on May 31. As he noted, the value of bringing together graffiti artists, community members, and law enforcement officers was the discovery that all communities were equally concerned with how to protect graffiti art and deter vandalism.

 

Melanson began and ended with his three recommendations for the future support of arts and culture in Canada.

 

1. Redo The Massey Commission.   
2. Re-imagine the role and implementation of arts education.
3. Establish an independent cultural policy think tank that should be privately funded in order to offer objective recommendations.

 

Melanson’s call to redo The Massey Commission foregrounds how profoundly different the Canada of today is from the 1950s and the necessity of understanding the distinctive challenges Canadians face and the diversity of stories Canadians now tell. Perhaps one of the great strengths of Melanson’s talk was his ability to clearly connect the past to the future, to tell us a story that detailed practical strategies for realizing a better future for all of our GTA’s Three Cities. In speaking to an audience that was for the most part, older, established and successful, he left us with a number of challenges beginning with the importance of fostering an early engagement with the arts, of supporting the future generations who are here now in order to find those under 25 who will be tomorrow’s leaders in arts and culture.

 

So take note, Toronto! we only have Jeff Melanson until September when he will be leaving to head The Banff Centre. Let’s benefit in every way we can from this creative visionary while he’s here. 

 

 

Read the report here:

 

http://www.livewithculture.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/CCI-Final.pdf

 

http://www.livewithculture.ca/category/creative-capital-initiative/

 

http://www.1loveto.com/tag/toronto-graffiti-summit/ 

 

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales