Our shared goal is: To co-create and mobilise effective, sustainable, and transferable interventions into pedagogical, institutional, and systemic practices and structures currently acting as barriers to DC/AR/EDI in post-secondary theatre education in Canada.
To our knowledge, SBF/MSMA is the first partnership approach to systemic change ever undertaken in post-secondary theatre education in Canada, and the first cross-sectoral attempt in Canada to effect widespread DC/AR/EDI-focused change in the discipline. As a partnership for “cross-sectoral creation of… new knowledge on critical issues of intellectual, social, …and cultural significance” engaging in knowledge mobilisation “to build institutional capacity” (SSHRC 2021), SBF/MSMA integrates Insight and Connection objectives in our research and integrated knowledge mobilisation activities:
Objective 1
To amplify, mobilise, and archive existing and emerging knowledge and resources for DC/AR/EDI-focused post-secondary theatre education. OBJ1 will be pursued through an annual survey of the evolving state of DC/AR/EDI-focused initiatives in post-secondary theatre programs in Canada; project-wide and community-outreach workshops and meetings; and an expanding web-based, multi lingual, accessible, open-access, digital platform for internal Knowledge Synthesis (KS) and external Knowledge Mobilisation (KM). Resources housed on this platform will include a directory of freelance artist-educators with relevant expertise, a multi-media repository of bibliographies and teaching tools, documentation of SBF/MSMA’s research activities, outcomes, and scholarly and non-scholarly publications, which will be interoperable with relevant, project-external resources and publications. OBJ1 makes minoritized artist-educators more visible and increases their short-term employment prospects (Ayache, Farbridge); reduces the burden on minoritized artist-educators by providing professional development resources to all post-secondary theatre instructors and administrators (Griffin, Lynch, Michelot, Riordan); narrows the knowledge transfer gaps from the profession to post-secondary (Aquino, Pearson, Varma) and among post-secondary institutions (Moll, Sinclair); stores empirical survey data and an emerging archive of project activities for reference in self-evaluation (Freeman, Skelling-Desmeules); and offers centralized, open, multi-lingual access to outputs (Fricker, Brown).
Objective 2
To collaboratively develop, implement, and assess new, context-specific DC/AR/EDI focused pedagogical and employment practices and institutional and systemic structures. OBJ2 will be pursued through knowledge co-creation pilot projects addressing barriers particular to individual partner universities and colleges. OBJ2 directly benefits minoritized theatre students by acknowledging and working to reduce the harms and traumas they experience in post-secondary training environments (Griffin, Michelot, Robbins, Thompson, Walker); and minoritized educators by working to improve their employment prospects, conditions, and opportunities for advancement (Knaapen, Lee, Lynch, smith, Stewart). Post-secondary theatre programs will benefit from increased DC/AR/EDI capacity, including strategies and support for allyship (Brauer, Cant, Freeman, Lee, Senewiratne, Sun), resulting in theatre training environments “that function well for more diverse people with various abilities, backgrounds, and lived experiences” (Thomspon), and leading to increased ability to recruit and retain minoritized students and educators (Barker, Talbot). In turn, the theatre profession will benefit from a more diverse, qualified labour pool and a reduced necessity to “reprogram the damage and trauma that theatre training institutions have done” (Aquino, 58).
Objective 3
To collaboratively develop and assess new, transferable conceptual and methodological frameworks for DC/AR/EDI-focused systemic change. OBJ3 will be pursued through participatory knowledge translation and self-reflective, participatory governance. OBJ3 amplifies and sustains the impacts of context-specific pilot projects by identifying transferable elements, testing them through new pilot projects in other programs and institutions, and proposing applications in other disciplines and economic sectors. Post-secondary theatre educators will benefit from a wider repertoire of “wise practices” (59) for sustaining DC/AR/EDI-focused change (Fricker, C. Jones, Moll, Skelling Desmeules, Talbot); and post-secondary partner institutions will benefit from increased means and opportunity to instantiate the explicit commitments to systemic change that most have already made as signatories to the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education (60), endorsers of the Tri-agency charter Dimensions: Diversity, and Inclusion in Canada (61), and/or through statements of commitment to EDI (44, 47). This approach will position partners well for continued capacity-building through EDI-focused CRC and CERC hiring. Further, OBJ3 extends theatre and professional organisation partners’ capacity for DC/AR/EDI by establishing “a network of collaborators in theatre education and organisations locally, regionally and nationally” (Moll, Burton, Fancy). As a cross-sectoral partnership, SBF/MSMA broadens the impacts of the Tri-agency EDI Action Plan (62) and the Dimensions charter (61), which focus only on the post-secondary sector.
SBF/MSMA Partner Organizations identify four categories of benefit they anticipate from participation in the Partnership (see Partner Letters of Support):
1. Advancement of related projects already in progress, including:
- the future of work in the arts (Mass Culture)
- undergraduate student professionalisation (National Theatre School, National Arts Centre)
- theatre artist professional development (Mass Culture, Postmarginal)
- digital platform and software projects (ConcordiaU, GuelphU)
- relaxed and radically accessible performance (Re.Vision, BrockU)
- post-secondary theatre education (UToronto Scarborough)
- institutional programs supporting minoritized members (ConcordiaU, Conseil québécois du théâtre, National Arts Centre, Sheridan College, UToronto Scarborough)
2. Organisational benefits, including:
- advancement of strategic priorities (BrockU, ConcordiaU, DalhousieU, National Arts Centre, UToronto Scarborough)
- increased organizational capacity for DC/AR/EDI (BrockU, National Theatre School, Sheridan College, Teesri Duniya Theatre, Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts, UQAC, UWaterloo)
- enhanced theatre pedagogy (ConcordiaU, DalhousieU, Factory Theatre, National Theatre School, UMoncton, Suitcase in Point Theatre, UQAC, UQÀM, UToronto Scarborough, UWaterloo)
- enhanced community engagement (DalhousieU, National Theatre School, UMoncton, UToronto Scarborough)
- organizational reputation (Factory Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, UToronto Scarborough)
- a richer pool of emerging artists (ASSITEJ Canada, Associated Designers of Canada, Conseil québécois du théâtre, Persephone Theatre)
3. Sectoral and cross-sectoral benefits with reciprocal benefit to the organisation, including:
- a more inclusive and diverse professional theatre sector in Canada (ASSITEJ Canada, Carousel Players, Diversité artistique Montréal, Factory Theatre, Mass Culture, MT Space, Persephone Theatre, Playwrights Guild of Canada, Suitcase in Point Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, UMoncton)
- more diverse perspectives in theatrical works (Playwrights Guild of Canada)
- enhanced education across the post-secondary sector (Associated Designers of Canada, Carousel Players, ConcordiaU, Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario, Playwrights Guild of Canada, Sheridan College)
- creation of a pan-Canadian network (Diversité artistique Montréal, Playwrights Guild of Canada, UQAC, UWaterloo)
- enhanced K-12 education (ASSITEJ Canada, Carousel Players, Playwrights Guild of Canada, Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, UMoncton)
- potential to effect policy in other sectors (Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario, Mass Culture, Professional Association of Canadian Theatres)
4. Broader social benefits with reciprocal benefit to the organisation, including:
- responding to calls for change from IBPOC communities (Sheridan College)
- fulfilment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action (Playwrights Guild of Canada)
The Partnership’s intended impacts are:
- Demonstrably and sustainably improved working and learning conditions for minoritized post secondary theatre students and educators;
- increasingly broad and sustainable uptake of the repertoire of wise practices, extending beyond the project membership, and continuing after the life of the project;
- more equitable relationships among academic and non-academic organisations and individuals in the field of theatre education in Canada, with long-term sustainability (Carter, 186).
