Moving Forward — An Important Announcement from WAA
An Open Letter to the WAA Community from Executive Director, Tim Wilson
October 25, 2021
These are challenging times with unprecedented change sweeping over our field. Arts Midwest’s decision to suspend its annual conference, announced earlier this month, only underscores the stress on arts practitioners, leaders, funders, and systems.
We will miss the Arts Midwest Conference and our colleagues Angela Urbanz and Maria Vorhis, and we wish them the very best. For many years, Arts Midwest has been a close collaborator, partner, and friend to WAA. We celebrate their many contributions to the field and support of arts practitioners in the region and across the country.
The close and long-standing relationship we have enjoyed with Arts Midwest will continue as we work with Torrie Allen and his team in this new environment. Western Arts Alliance will do everything we can to support the work of artists, agents, and presenters in the region.
For those of you worried WAA is at risk – I want to assure you that we are moving forward. We are actively planning our 2022 Annual Conference for Calgary. We look forward to making our Arts Midwest colleagues feel welcome and at home in Calgary (August 29 – September 1).
In the meantime, WAA is looking ahead:
We have funding in place to help us recover and rebuild;
With generous grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the NEA, and others, WAA is home to two national programs that serve our region and beyond - Advancing Indigenous Performance (AIP) and the Performing Arts Discovery Program (PAD);
WAA remains committed to its EDI work, providing tools, training, and resources to help our constituents make change in their organizations and communities; and
Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, the WAA Board is launching a search for the next Executive Director after I step down at the end of September 2022.
The road ahead is tough, but we remain determined. With the leadership of the WAA Board, the professionalism of the staff, and the support of our members, constituents, funders, and sector partners, Western Arts Alliance will find its way forward.
Sincerely,
Tim Wilson (he/him)
Executive Director
Western Arts Alliance
Western Arts Alliance stands in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and is based respectfully in the now occupied traditional lands of the Chinook, Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Tualatin Kalapuya, and Molalla tribes.