Technology in the Arts Conference, the Canuck version

Doug and I first heard about the Technology in the Arts conference sometime last year when we were called to participate in an impromptu brainstorming session by Bill Poole. It appears that Carnegie Mellon's Centre for Arts Management and Technology had launched this conference as a sort of anniversary party get together thing and it ended up being so successful they decided to bring it North of the 49th. The whole thing was at that time orchestrated by a fascinating and charismatic woman named Cary McQueen Morrow. Since leaving Carnegie Mellon she has started her own arts consulting firm in San Francisco.


During the brainstorming session to choose possible conference topics, we discovered three things.
1) Nobody had much to say about technology. One man amused/bored us for hours with his tale circa 1985 of the discovery of word processors.
2) Our firm actually has a strange amount of experience with leading arts clients to technology, the way one might try to lead a horse to water (you can't make them drink). Our most recent experiences with that involved the Canadian Music Centre, whose plight I described in an earlier entry. Another project involved creating an evaluation template for an arts facility. More on that project another time, I think.
3) Although funding bodies felt strongly that they had the perogative to decide whether certain agencies deserved increased funding for technology projects/upgrades, one officer pretty much outright admitted her department lacked all knowledge in this area (and were therefore unable to evaluate the usefulness of any project).

Doug later sat on the advisory panel for the conference in Canada, which took place May 9 and 10th (we were unable to attend due to prior committments).

It is also worth noting that the Canadian Music Centre did end up submitting and presenting the story of their digital revolution and newfound awareness during the conference. We congratulate them.

Santee Smith of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre wins Canada Council's first ever John Hobday Award

NetGain would like to extend its congratulations to Santee Smith & Kaha:wi Dance Theatre (KDT). Santee has just been awarded the Canada Council for the Art's new award for arts management, the John Hobday award. She shares this honour with Sherri Johnson. The award comes with a $10K prize which is to be used for professional developement.

Last night we attended the ceremony at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton, Ontario where KDT performed excerpts of two new(-ish) works, A Story Before Time and A Soldier's Tale. Bob Sirman, the Director of the Canada Council for the Arts had many nice things to say.

Santee is one of Netgain's current clients (strategic planning as well as general management) but we have also been friends with her ever since Doug helped her negotiate free studio space at the National Ballet School and she occupies an office above ours. I found a biography of her here, but it is a little out of date and I am pretty sure she was born in '71 and not '61. She would be appalled.

Kaha:wi Dance Theatre will be performing a full evening of work at the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa on June 10th; at Luminat'Eau @ Harbourfront in Toronto on June 14th, and sometime later in the summer as part of Dusk Dances @ Withrow Park. Please feel free to contact us for more information, or contact her directly. Santeekahawi (AT) aol.com. She does not yet have a website. It's one of the things I'm working on this summer! Look out for that.