Metro artists protest funding cuts with theatre; ask voters to consider issue when they cast their ballot on Oct. 14

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By Aloma Jardine
Times & Transcript Staff

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Take a shot at culture and you can be sure artists will find an original way to hit back.

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Greg Agnew/Times & Transcript

A group of artists came together yesterday to put on a piece of theatre aimed at the cuts to funding for culture and the arts. As they entered the Capitol Theatre they were handed signs, a cup of peanuts for tossing and fake money to toss. The theatrical piece was a fictional game show pitting banks, big agriculture and big oil against lowly artists and musicians.

Drawing on their acting talents, a group of local creative types gathered in the lobby of the Capitol Theatre yesterday to stage a free short theatre performance to protest cuts to arts funding made by the Conservative government.

"When we are treated in a condescending way, well, we own the stage. We are in front of the mic as much as politicians are," says Marc Chouinard, general manager of the Capitol Theatre. "We write, we speak, we dance, we sing and we probably have more talent than politicians."

The group presented a joint statement at the end of the show which included figures from the Conference Board of Canada estimating that the culture sector in Canada was worth $84.6 billion in 2007 or 7.4 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product, compared to the retail sector, which represented 6 per cent, and more than 1.1 million people were employed in the industry.

"We are a large group of people and we don't make that much money," Chouinard says. "People do it because they love it."

Chouinard questions why, when the government funds so many other sectors either directly or indirectly, funding to the arts is considered a hand out, rather than an investment.

He says the more time people like him spend fighting for funding, the less time and energy they have to focus on creating shows and entertaining people.

Chouinard says the idea of the theatre piece, which pit Bankrupt Bob, Slick Paul from the oil patch, and Rodeo Marc against Mamadonnée of the Arts, Janice Belle Maman and Mic Jack in a reality-style show, was to present the difference of opinion between the right and the left.

Arming their audience with peanuts and fake money, they ask people to toss out what they think appropriate according to what the speaker has to say.

"All the culture I need is in the yogurt my wife makes me in the morning," says Bankrupt Bob, saying he'd rather see funding go to propping up the stock market and bailing out banks as he gets liberally pelted with nuts.

Mamadonnée explains when he was 16 a group of Canadian artists came to his hometown in Senegal and not only put on a wonderful concert, but gave a workshop on how to make a living in the arts. The presentation made him choose to come to Canada to study and he now works as an arts administrator.

"I don't care if I ever see a ballet in my life," Rodeo Marc, played by Chouinard dressed in cowboy hat and leather vest and chaps, says in his defence of putting more guns in the hands of Canadians. "But if somebody scratches my brand new Hummer, I want to be able to shoot him."

Janice LeBlanc played the role of Janice Belle Maman, a woman who dreamed of being a ballet dancer, but who didn't have the opportunity to do so without moving away.

"I watch (my daughters) train, they have their own dreams, but I worry with all the cuts in the arts, will there be any place for them to pursue their dreams?" she asks.

LeBlanc says she did have dreams of being a ballet dancer as a child, though the rest of the story was fictional.

However, her concern about cuts in funding is very, very real.

"Canada without culture isn't Canada," she says. "Supporting arts is supporting Canadian identity. It is our voice, it's what we project, it's so important . . . I can't understand that our politicians would do this. I think it is very shortsighted and damaging."

LeBlanc says the cuts to arts funding is going to have a huge impact on the way she votes in the upcoming federal election.

LeBlanc spent her working life as an engineer and says 10 years ago she might have been on the other side of the stage with Rodeo Marc, Slick Paul, and Bankrupt Bob.

But about a year ago she took an acting class at the Capitol School of Performing Arts and getting an up close look at the other side of things has changed her perspective.

"There is so much richness, so much talent," she says, adding she sees real momentum in arts in culture in the city and says we need to be tapping into things like the movie industry, for example, which offers huge economic potential.

"Moncton is just about to explode," she says. "The talent is here, the creativity is here."

But LeBlanc says that talent will disappear without support.

Melanie Fournier may be a good example.

Fournier attended the event yesterday to show her support for arts and culture funding.

The cuts actually cost her a job.

"It's difficult enough for the arts and culture sector to have funding to support itself," she says. "People are overworked and underpaid and if they cut more it will just be worse for us . . . Culture is our identity and we need the support to grow in it and create."

Chouinard says some provinces have said they'll just cover the cuts or have asked the federal government to give provinces jurisdiction over culture funding, but he worries what that will mean for artists in provinces that can't afford to pour more into the arts or for Canada-wide programs.