Vancouver\'s Olympic Decade: a professional arts perspective.

http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.164.008 - Duncan Low - Monday, November 02, 2015 10:16:00 AM - IP Address:23.16.168.51

Vancouver’s Olympic Decade

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Vancouver’s Olympic Decade from the Professional Arts Perspective by Duncan Low

legacy to BC’s arts community. I had no idea how that experience would impact the next few years of my life. After leaving the VECC I enrolled in the Master of Urban Studies program at Simon Fraser University to test the legacy theory through my research project, “2010 Cultural Olympiad Study.” The material contained in this article flows from this experience. The BC Liberals’ 2001 provincial election platform, entitled A New Era for British Columbia, spoke of BC’s “new economy,” which included the changing political status allocated to the professional arts, cultural, and creative industries. Don Shumka, the former Chair of the British Columbia Arts Council (2002–2009), noted that this new economic role for the arts and culture was a top-down vision led by former Premier Gordon Campbell: Gordon Campbell had a very keen interest in the arts. … He saw how the arts would form the basis of the creative economy … He was very interested in how you would change BC’s economy from a resource driven economy into something that would position us better for the future … He was a big reader of Richard Florida and saw the arts as a catalyst for a new economy. (Shumka)

2001 Cartoon “Promise and Reality” depicting Gordon Campbell. Cartoon by Bob Krieger

In 2002, I was the Executive Director of the Vancouver East Cultural Centre (VECC) when I was approached to produce a three-week-long, province-wide event called Celebration 2010 to coincide with the International Olympic Committee’s last visit to Vancouver before the final host city ballot. The event was aimed at engaging the British Columbia arts community in the Olympic and Paralympic process. Taking a leave of absence from the VECC, I worked out of the Olympic bid office for several months. What really struck me during that period was how the word legacy was used. Everyone from the media to politicians to policy makers claimed that securing the Games would provide a lasting doi:10.3138/ctr.164.008

As BC’s new era dawned there was already widespread political evidence of this “new economy” across the country. In November 2001, months after being elected, the BC Liberals organized The Prosperity Panel: New Economy, New City, a component part of the Greater Vancouver Community Leadership Summit that was intended to reinforce the important role of the arts in the provincial economy (McCullough).

What Happened in Vancouver?

Vancouver’s Olympic bid included a proposed three-year Cultural Olympiad that resulted in three-week festivals in 2008 and 2009 and a seven-week festival in 2010. The bid-to-actuality changes that took place in the arts had a dramatic impact on Vancouver’s Olympic cultural winners and losers. Vancouver has a number of arts festivals spread throughout the calendar year. Figure 1 highlights three Vancouver festivals: two of these events, The Push International Performing Arts Festival (PuSh) and the Vancouver International Dance Festival (VIDF), occurred in close proximity to the Cultural Olympiad dates in January and February, and ctr 164 fall 2015

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800 700

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VICF Total (including Olympic Funding)

400

PUSH Total (including Olympic Funding)

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VIDF Total (including Olympic Funding)

200 100 0 2002–2003

2007–2008

2008–2009

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Figure 1: Vancouver Festival Funding Comparison (including Olympic Funding) Source: Cultural Olympiad Impact Study (Low) 1,800 1,600 1,400

Thousands

1,200 Vancouver Opera

1,000

The Playhouse Theatre Company The ScotiaBank Dance Centre

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The Arts Club/Stanley Theatre The Contemporary Art Gallery

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The Firehall Arts Centre 400 200 -

Figure 2: Lower Mainland Case Study Funding Comparisons Source: Cultural Olympiad Impact Study (Low) 200 180 160

Canadian Heritage Arts Presentation

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Thousands

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Cultural Olympiad

120 100

BC Arts Council

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City of Vancouver

60 Total

40 20 0 2008–2009

2009–2010

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Figure 3: DanceHouse Funding 2008–2013 Source: Cultural Olympiad Impact Study (Low)

one, the Vancouver International Children’s Festival (VICF), took place in May. The graph reveals two points. First, festivals occurring in close proximity to the Olympic envelope received funding increases during the Cultural Olympiad years 2008–2010 while the event outside the Olympic envelope, the Children’s Festival, did not. The two festivals that had close proximity to the Cultural Olympiad period received sustained Olympic funding. PuSh received 52

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$444,157 over four years, the VIDF received $156,350 over three years, while the Children’s Festival in May received one funding grant of $7,500 in 2008–2009. Figure 1 illustrates how the Olympic experience can arbitrarily benefit some while sidelining others. The second point is that all three festivals experienced postOlympic funding declines in 2010–2011. In all cases, the funding decline placed them at pre-2008 funding levels, exploding the much-touted myth that mega-events lead to sustainable funding increases for local arts organizations. In the case of the Children’s Festival, its 2010–2011 funding level was lower than when Vancouver was originally awarded the games on 2 July 2003. If we look at the arts organizations throughout the Lower Mainland (the suburban region surrounding metro Vancouver) that participated in the “2010 Cultural Olympiad Impact Study” a similar pattern emerges of a post-Olympic decline in funding support (Figure 2). The case studies included arts organizations that by the very nature of their operation (e.g., season program, building/facility, full-time staff) were unable to simply “opt out or in” of the Cultural Olympiad’s dates. For my study, I recruited participants from organizations that met Building/Season and Festival criteria. There are several points of interest in Figure 2 that offer helpful indicators when making an assessment of Vancouver’s professional arts sector’s Olympic experience. First, there is a trend of increased funding in the period 2008–2010 followed by a marked post-Olympic decrease in funding in 2010–2011. The exception being the ScotiaBank Dance Centre (SDC), which never received an Olympic boost in funding in the first place, due to sponsor conflict causing a funding decline from 2007–2008 through 2010–2011. The SDC, the only purpose-built centre for contemporary dance in Canada, presented no dance during the 2010 Cultural Olympiad nor did it receive funding support in 2010. Why? Simply put, the Royal Bank of Canada, not ScotiaBank, were official sponsors of the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games. The examples presented in Figures 1 and 2 are all organizations that had a pre-Olympic history. What happens when an arts organization’s emergence coincides with hosting an Olympic Games? Independent of the SDC, 2008 saw the launch of Vancouver’s newly formed mid- to largescale dance presenter DanceHouse. Figure 3 clearly illustrates the impact that the Cultural Olympiad had on this new dance presenter. While the other funding sources remained relatively stable, Olympic funding fluctuated from $40,000 in the organization’s start-up year in 2008–2009 to $70,000 in its second year, 2009–2010. The Olympic funding spike is once again clearly visible. As the Olympic window closed, we again see the funding fall away. While it can be argued that the Olympic “start up” funding may have played an important role in getting the program up and running, the “fall away” that occurred in DanceHouse’s third year of operation placed it in a worse funding position than its first year of operation. Looking at the data, it is apparent that the much-touted positive Olympic financial legacy for metro Vancouver’s operating arts clients did not materialize. Christina Ritchie, former director of the Contemporary Art Gallery put it this way: [The Cultural Olympiad] was a competition amongst arts groups. … It is totally appropriate for an Olympic Games to doi:10.3138/ctr.164.008

Vancouver’s Olympic Decade

want a city’s leading cultural organizations to participate; it is however inappropriate for them to say we want you to be involved but you have to provide or raise the majority of the funds necessary in order to participate. (Ritchie)

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What Happened in BC?

Widening the circle to examine cultural groups outside BC’s Lower Mainland draws similar conclusions. Figure 4 reflects the BC Arts Council funding for theatre companies across the province and their support levels during the Olympic decade. The same funding pattern as seen in Figure 4 emerged for art galleries and arts festivals. One could expend considerable time and effort examining each sector in depth. However, the overall significance of these figures is again the trend lines over the Olympic period. An important point to note is organizations outside the Lower Mainland experienced their funding spike in 2008–2009, which was one year before the 2010 Olympic Games themselves and one year before the spike experienced by arts groups in the Lower Mainland in 2009–2010. How can this be explained? Historically, the professional BC arts community received operational funding through both the BC Arts Council (BCAC) and BC Gaming funds. An illustration of the ideological shift from government subsidy to market-driven “new economy” methods that accompanied the Olympic decade was the introduction of the BC 150 fund, a one-time investment allocation of $150 million. Since 1996, the provincial government’s annual allocation to the BCAC was arms-length and controlled by the council. Bill 2, ratified by the province in 2008, expressly stated that the revenue generated through the new BC 150 fund would remain in the domain of the then–Minister of Tourism, Culture and Arts, Stan Hagen, and that the BCAC board could only make recommendations regarding the allocation of funding as opposed to controlling these funds. The Liberal government substantially reduced operational public funding to the BCAC, believing that the difference would be made up by return on market investment. Unfortunately, the

$120,000

TNW Prince George

$100,000

WCTC Kamloops

$80,000

Belfry Victoria

$60,000

Bill Miner Society, Armstrong

$40,000

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It is true to say that the arts and other sectors can be primary targets for austerity measures. That said, when looking at Canadian provincial and territorial budgets from an arts and cultural perspective, over the period 2007–2010 we find that BC was the only province that posted a continuous decline in per capita spending on arts and culture. market didn’t provide and the result was a severe funding shortfall. In 2012, Finance Minister Kevin Falcon summed up this Olympic period by saying that arts and cultural groups got the short end of the stick when the government tried to exert fiscal discipline in 2008–2009. “In retrospect, it was a mistake at how aggressively we did that” (Burgmann). Funding to BC’s Arts Council was slashed by more than half in 2008–2009, with the government later injecting a $7 million top-up in September 2010 as money from the newly created 2010 Sports and Arts Legacy fund. The argument has been put forward that the dismal arts funding figures were not associated with the Olympics but with the 2008 financial crisis. It is important to state that BC’s figures do not indicate that government arts funding is typically tied to economic crises. It is true to say that the arts and other sectors can be primary targets for austerity measures. That said, when looking at Canadian provincial and territorial budgets from an arts and cultural perspective, over the period 2007–2010 we find that BC was the only province that posted a continuous decline in per capita spending on arts and culture.

2007/08

2008/09

2009/10

Average Provincial per capita spending

$86

$92

$90

British Columbia

$76

$62

$36

$160,000 $140,000

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$20,000 $0

To reinforce the significance of these trends it is important to restate the context surrounding these cuts that were implemented when BC’s cultural and creative industries were only months away from welcoming the world in 2010.

Visual and Performing Arts: One-Off and Infrastructure Funding Figure 4: BC Arts Council Funding: Theatre Source: BC Arts Council Reports

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ed funding announcements that illustrate the ideological preference for the one-off, market-driven—rather than institutionally based—public subsidy approach. It became progressively more advantageous to frame the value of arts and culture in economic terms. This method of advancing the agenda for creative change continues to be delivered through mega-events and tourism initiatives. Hosting an Olympic Games is often considered the “ultimate prize” in creative opportunity. We see this reflected in many of the government’s initiatives that fell into the special one-off funding category, many of which supported the 2010 Olympic Games. Summarizing the Olympic decade from the arts perspective is complicated. If we take as a starting point the BC Liberals’ 2001 election manifesto that promised to “[i]ncrease funding for the British Columbia Arts Council to promote and support BC arts, music, artists and culture” (British Columbia Liberal Party 10) and compare it against the arts funding figures presented in this article, we could conclude that the opposite occurred. A series of cultural policy decisions, both pre- and post-Olympics, created an environment that not only destabilized but also highlighted the political vulnerabilities of BC’s arts community. First, over the Olympic decade British Columbia Arts Council (BCAC) funding was reduced by nearly 50 per cent (from $14 million to $8 million). Second, the government rejected the recommendation of its own Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services that arts funding be restored to 2008–2009 levels. Third, the government eliminated Gaming grants to adult arts programs. Finally, and perhaps most revealing, came the announcement that a new $10 million Arts Legacy Fund would not be administered by the BCAC, and that the funds would be distributed only to arts

groups meeting the needs of Spirit Festivals to be held as a tribute to the 2010 Winter Olympics. On 16 August 2010 Jane Danzo resigned from her position as chair of the BCAC. In her open letter, Danzo stated that “[i]nstead of restoring the funding to the BCAC, the government announced the establishment of an Arts Legacy Fund, a surprise as much to the board as to the arts community,” once again illustrating the preference for one-off projects, as opposed to sustained public funding. This series of decisions illustrated the government’s disdain for the long-held practice of arts and cultural policy being “arms-length” from the day-to-day operation of government; confirming in Danzo’s opinion, that the BC Arts Council board did not “have a voice independent of government”: In my opinion the work of the BCAC board has not been supported by government on a number of different levels. … the devastating impact of that decision is now being felt by artists and arts organizations throughout the province as they receive notification of substantial cuts to their core funding. (Danzo)

Evidence of this crisis was clearly visible in the immediate aftermath of the 2010 Olympics, and it cut across Vancouver’s arts community. This began with the 2 March 2010 budget delivered three weeks before the official closing of the 2010 Cultural Olympiad, confirming the provincial government’s substantial cut in arts funding through the BC Arts Council and BC Gaming Funds (Rossi 30). Several announcements followed that highlighted the post-Olympic position, including the Vancouver Art Gallery’s announcement of an $886,000 operational deficit during the 2010

The Vancouver Sun ran the following headline in an article by Erika Thorkelson: “Sadness has centre-stage as Playhouse closes; Supporters gather before final performance to mourn end of vital, thriving theatre.” Photo by Arlen Redekop/Vancouver Sun

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Vancouver’s Olympic Decade

fiscal year (CBC News 2011). Vancouver Opera posted a $1.4 million deficit for the same fiscal year (Hoekstra). It also emerged in September 2011—through confidential documents leaked to the press—that city council had, during “in-camera” meetings held months earlier in March and June, awarded an “immediate cash advance of $300,000 to the Museum of Vancouver (MOV)” and a “$1 million bailout” to the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company (PTC), the city’s regional theatre company. The in-camera June 2011 Administrative Report entitled “Immediate Financial Support for Key Cultural Institutions” offered several reasons for the PTC’s and MOV’s financial difficulties, including that their problems “were further compounded by

…the City of Vancouver spent $67 million in upgrading the Civic Theatres in preparation for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad yet was unable to financially support the PTC [Playhouse Theatre Company], Vancouver’s recognized regional theatre company, whose performance home for many years was within that same building [the Vancouver Playhouse]. the intense competition for sponsorship dollars during the pre and post 2010 Winter Games” (City of Vancouver 2). The final chapter in this saga is that the PTC called a press conference on 9 March 2012 to announce that despite receiving the million-dollar bailout, its position was financially untenable: after fifty years, Vancouver’s regional theatre company would be ceasing operations, with the last performance taking place the following day on Saturday, 10 March 2012. The Province reported the board chair as saying: “It wasn’t like our business was actually tanking—that wasn’t an issue at all. We had a couple of really tough years, with the economic downturn, with the Olympics, with some issues in respect to having to pay for production facilities and we accumulated a large deficit” (Raptis, Oliver, and Schaefer A15). Perhaps the ultimate Olympic irony here is that the City of Vancouver spent $67 million in upgrading the civic theatres in preparation for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad yet was unable to financially support the PTC, Vancouver’s recognized regional theatre company, whose performance home for many years was within that same building.

Conclusion

Reflecting upon Vancouver’s Olympic decade, it would be fair to say that the BC’s arts and cultural community position did not greatly improve, and in many instances organizations were worse off in 2011. This was neatly summarized in my interview with then–BCAC chair, Don Shumka:

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The focus on many things, not just the arts, became the Olympics. We were going to be successful at the Olympics, come what may, so the priorities changed. I think the Olympics and Olympic related projects, whether it was the Sea to Sky or the Canada Line, all of which, I think, turned out to be a real asset to the community, were sucking money away from other things and I think that in that decade it took over the priority, and that is why I say, I don’t think there was a huge lasting benefit to the arts. (Shumka)

The facts and figures contained in this article support Shumka’s statement. So what did the Olympic experience add to our overall knowledge of Vancouver’s professional arts landscape? The following passage was taken from a recent report entitled “Canadian Heritage 2013-2014: Plans and Priorities.” The spending trend section is punctuated by a series of mega-events in Vancouver and Shanghai, China: The reduction in actual spending from 2009 to 2011 was primarily due to the end of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Expo 2010 in Shanghai and the winding down of funding for Canada’s Economic Action Plan. The increase in planned spending in 2014-2015 is mainly due to the Toronto 2015 PanAmerican and Parapan American Games. (Canadian Heritage)

The document goes on to describe the proposed decrease in planned arts spending from $117 million in 2013–2014 to $37.1 million in 2015–2016. Vancouver’s Olympic experience has highlighted how all levels of government all too often view arts funding as an instrument to be deployed in the securing and hosting of mega-events in the pursuit of the cultural tourist. The artistic investment often acts merely as a conduit through which funding passes in search of other objectives. There is an alternative, a path where substantive, as opposed to tokenistic, professional arts funding is a component part of the national landscape, where it does not just rise and fall according to what next mega-event is on the horizon. When Quebec City held its 400th anniversary in 2008 the government invested in the arts and artists themselves. Director Robert Lepage was commissioned to tell Quebec City’s story, which he did through the use of moving images projected onto the grain silos in the harbor. The Image Mill project was the largest of its kind ever produced, was free of charge, and attracted thousands of visitors each night (myself included). In fact, it has proved so successful that it was remounted every summer for five years, ending in 2013. The art was the attraction—not the sideshow—a philosophy that we should all remember for the next mega-event in order to provide a positive and, more importantly, a sustainable arts legacy.

Works Cited

British Columbia Liberal Party. “A New Era for British Columbia: A Vision of Hope and Prosperity for the Next Decade and Beyond.” Part 1—Electronic Political Texts. Electronic Manifestos Canadian Provinces (British Columbia). Poltext. 2001. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. Burgmann, Tamsyn. “BC Finance Minister Calls Arts Funding Cuts a Mistake.” The Canadian Press. CTV News Vancouver 11 Jan. 2012. Web. 7 Apr. 2015.

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Canadian Heritage. “Report on Plans and Priorities.” Catalogue and ISSN: CH1–5/2013E-PDF 1494–2127. 2013–2014. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. CBC News. “Vancouver Art Gallery Deficit Hits $886,000.” CBCNews: British Columbia. 30 Sept. 2011. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. City of Vancouver. “Emergency Grant to the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company.” Admin. Council Meeting. Vancouver: City of Vancouver, 2011. Danzo, Jane. “Jane Danzo, Chair of BC Arts Council, resigns with Damning Letter.” Stop BC Arts Cuts and Increase Funding to the National Average! 17 Aug. 2010. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. Hoekstra, Gordon. “Vancouver Opera Falls $1.4-Million Short on Operating Budget.” The Vancouver Sun Canada.com Classic Edition. 4 Oct. 2011. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. Jeannotte, Sharon J. “Flat-Lined but Still Alive: Overview of the 201213 Provincial and Territorial Budgets from the Perspective of the Arts and Culture Sector.” Canadian Conference of the Arts. Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa. 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. Low, Duncan. “2010 Cultural Olympiad Impact Study.” M.Urb. Thesis. Simon Fraser University, 2010.

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McCullough, Michael. “In Pursuit of Prosperity: A Who’s Who of Business, Political and Community Leaders Tackle Issues from the Economy to the Arts at the First Greater Vancouver Leadership Conference.” The Vancouver Sun 21 Nov. 2001. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. Raptis, Mike, Olivier Cassidy, and Glen Schaefer. “Final Curtain Falls on Playhouse Company; Vancouver Theatre Group, Downtown Fixture for Nearly 50 Years, Performed Last Show Saturday.” The Province 11 Mar. 2012. ProQuest. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. Ritchie, Christina. Personal interview. 20 Apr. 2010. Rossi, Cheryl. “Future Uncertain for Arts Groups; Proposed Funding Cut in Half Says Alliance for Arts.” Vancouver Courier 5 Mar. 2010: 30. Print. Shumka, Don. Personal interview. 12 Dec. 2012. Thorkelson, Erika. “Sadness Has Centre-Stage as Playhouse Closes; Supporters Gather before Final Performance to Mourn End of Vital, Thriving Theatre.” Vancouver Sun 12 Mar. 2012: D5. Print.

About the Author

Duncan Low is a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow and PhD candidate in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.

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