A first quarter of outreach and hearing you out

What 3 first months! A tour in the East of the province, a member’s annual meet with stimulating presentations on public and private funding, meetings with member groups, CALQ submissions, and several meets with the Minister of Culture and Communications. It was a quarter that represented pretty accurately the scope of work that the RQD undertakes. Considering the small size of its team, our federation delivers an honorable and demanding mandate.

For the last week, we have been working with a reduced team, just like many of our member organizations. The RQD is therefore recruiting and increasingly renewing. With a vision based on efficiency and democratic representation, the RQD is working on improving its processes and deliverables, as well as on expanding its team in order to better support its members. Let’s also congratulate and welcome our newly elected Co-Chairs, Paul Caskey and Fannie Bellefeuille, two members who are fully devoted to the positive growth of our sector.

As I visited dance actors between Quebec City and Gaspé, I heard the need for more collaborations, for opportunities to elaborate ambitious projects together as a sector, for more presence from the RQD across the territory and among its corporate members, for more targeted support to members outside of the city centres, for increased transparency from funders, and more discussions between member groups in order to understand different existing realities in the sector. 

In the last months, many representations have taken place with the provincial minister, either by the RQD alone or in collectivity with the other cultural sectors. Issues facing the entire cultural sector are quite similar: a lack of human ressources, lack of funding, medium-term recovery support, resistance from the public to fill our theatres, exhausted members, overworked teams, among other issues. We are seeing the impacts of the pandemic materialize before our eyes and it is overwhelming. Know that we are not alone; that this fatigue is generalized throughout the entire cultural sector, in Quebec and Canada.

By remaining unified and considerate to the humans behind each of our roles and responsibilities, we will come out of it proud and dignified. The RQD continues to support its members by developing more training and discussion groups that respond to their needs, by finding experts to advise them, by discussing with Minister Roy, Minister Rodriguez, the CALQ, and the CCA of the specific needs in dance. We are also continuing to develop partnerships with key actors in order to support the development of dance, such as with CAPACOA, the CDA, the UDA, and others.

Let us not give up now and let us keep communication channels open.

Proudly yours,

Nadine Medawar.