The performing arts are still paying the price of the pandemic. The country’s companies are unable to regain their touring rhythms, neither in Canada nor abroad. This is what a recent survey conducted by CINARS reveals, including The duty got a copy. Conclusion ? Shows from here travel much less around the world. On the French-speaking side, 77% of companies and agencies that organize tours have had more than 30% fewer performances for the 2022-2023 season compared to the previous year.
In the report Weakening of the performing arts ecosystem, we can also read that 80% of English-speaking companies have more than 30% loss of representations. “We clearly see, in the light of this survey, that companies are having difficulty regaining their international market share,” explains the general director of CINARS, Gilles Doré.
“The tours are being prepared in three-year cycles: now is the time to sell the shows which will travel in 2026 and 2027.” If the recovery is done too slowly, the effects could therefore still be felt in four , five or six years, explains the director.
CINARS represents nearly 35,000 performing arts professionals in 55 countries, and wants to promote the export of Quebec and Canadian performing arts. The organization brings together theater, dance, circus, music and multidisciplinary arts companies.
Why is touring so important in art? “With the small population of Quebec, to perpetuate the works and the work of artists, we must increase tours. This is the direct way to keep the shows and their artists alive for longer,” explains Mr. Doré. “It’s also a way for companies to increase their own revenue. This is important so that they can balance their budgets, especially since exchange rates are currently in our favor” when a Canadian show sells in Europe or the United States.
For national tours, within the country, the survey concludes that 40% of experienced companies on the French-speaking side saw a drop in performances on tour compared to the previous year. Among English speakers, it is 65% less. This difference in percentages is not linguistic: it is rather that of institutions and cultural contexts. In Quebec, the provincial arts council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, is the best-off in the country — and consequently, it offers more support than those in other provinces.
What makes restarting touring so difficult? The French-speaking companies name, starting from the most restrictive, the increase in the cost of living, the reduction in federal financial aid for touring and the withdrawal of national broadcasters, who tend to prefer local productions, which are also less expensive.
General tour
“We have to find how to maintain what we have achieved, how to support this network which allows the circulation of our works and which took us 40 years to build,” continues Gilles Doré.
“We must recognize that we are in a generational transition. It’s no longer just four or five companies that are touring, but many more now. We are witnessing a burst of contemporary, everywhere across the world, and here too. This means that there are lots of new artistic words, styles, genres, aesthetics, but also business models. »
“There are these companies with an established brand image, which produce large sets and tour in prestigious theaters. But we also see small companies, with more niche works, which circulate in very specific networks. We must welcome all these new words and circulate them,” he emphasizes.
The general director of CINARS repeats it: he fears an erosion of the networks which allow works to travel and be seen elsewhere if the tours do not soon regain their cruising speed. “We have to think, for example, of the agents. If they don’t complete tours for their customers, they don’t get their commission, and they will close. And we need their expertise: they are the ones who know how to obtain visas, send sets by cargo ship, draw up tour schedules, etc. »
How to react ? Gilles Doré would like to bridge the distance between the arts and funders, with foreign broadcasters, by also helping to finance the purchase of plane tickets, among other things, in order to maintain “the influence of our culture, which has a very good reputation, in the world “. Have travel insurance, in a way, for the works here.