A Look Back on the Roundtable on CARE

In celebration of the 20th edition of the Festival Quartiers Danses (FQD), the RQD co-organized a round table with the FQD on the notion of Care. A panel of 5 collaborators from the dance sector were invited to share their actions and/or reflexions on the subject, followed by thematic discussion workshops in which the panelists and audience participated.

The panelists were Kimberley De Jong, Marie-Hélène Bellavance, Sophie Corriveau, Charles Brécard, Sam I Am Montolla et Andrea Peña.

Some of the questions that were discussed included: What are the challenges and obstacles to implementing the notion of Care on a daily basis? What tools could be used to integrate more Care in the dance sector? Several sharing of practices and philosophies had been done, making us realize that there should be more be more events on the subject to better equip our sector and encourage the sharing of knowledge on Care. Some propositions were made, including the creation of a list of resources to share with invited artists or employees of an organization, in order to equip them to seek trusted support with regards to their needs (ex: psychology, clinics, coaches, daycares, etc.); to create more spaces or moments that allow us to get to know each other better (to break the commercial ties); giving time for expression, also for pieces or projects to mature; taking care of the vulnerabilities of others; a bilaterality of care (ex: in creation, the dancers take as much care of the choreographer as the choreographer takes care of the dancers; in presentation, the creative team takes care of the spectators as the spectators take care of the creative team; etc).