Introducing the Advancing Indigenous Performance Program

Andre Bouchard

I have asserted far and wide that for years now, Western Arts Alliance has been a leader in advancing equity in the performing arts.  This leadership is, perhaps, most apparent with regards to breaking down barriers for Indigenous artists.  In 2015, the Indigenous Performance Symposium pre-conference in Vancouver, BC was a sold-out success, which has inspired arts service organizations and presenters across the field to do more.  The 2015 conference introduced many people to the concept of Indigenous land acknowledgement and Welcome to Country which have now been adopted at dozens of conferences and venues across the country.  

WAA's leadership in this field is critical.  Native people in the United States are more frequently imagined rather than engaged with, and in the performing arts there are continuing issues of red-face, cultural appropriation and cultural mis-representation.  If these injustices are to be remedied, the stories about us, need to be replaced with stories by us.  Native performing artists today face all the same barriers that all artists face across the field related to money, information and connection. To succeed, these artists frequently also act as cultural educators as well.  Among the people working in the Indigenous performing arts there is a shared experience that Native performers are confronted about whether they should be or why they want to be touring, why they do the work they do (why don’t they wear regalia on stage?) and about their identity (how Native are you?)  Misconceptions, as they say, abound.

In the past ten years the field has seen continuous growth in the number and quality of Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian performing artists.  These artists are changing the perception of and the narrative about Native peoples in the United States.  As the number of artists grows it is vitally important to provide education to presenters, agents and communities about how engage with Indigenous content and communities in a culturally conscious fashion.  This year will mark an exciting expansion to these efforts, thanks to generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.  

One of the main elements of this effort will be an expansion of the Launchpad Program for Indigenous artists.  This targeted expansion of WAA’s Launchpad Program will kick off with three artists—offering them three years of support to engage with  both WAA and APAP at their respective conferences.  The benefits of this program are symbiotic.  These artists will see opportunity to advance their careers through access to new markets.  Presenters and agents will benefit from the presence of these artists through sustained exposure to Native cultures and values and providing opportunity to explore new touring content, rarely seen on stages across the United States.

Native Launchpad is a multi-year program and will be accepting applicants every year for the next three years.  Participating Native artists will be selected by an all-Native committee of performing arts professionals and will receive mentoring, financial and travel support and professional development opportunities.  Watch for special opportunities to engage with Native Launchpad participants at the Las Vegas Conference.

The application for this program will be open until June 18th, 2018.  Awardees will be announced on June 30th and three artists will be chosen in the first year of the program.  Please direct any questions you have regarding this program to aipp_mgr@westarts.org.

About the Author

Andre is the Principal and Founder of Walrus Arts Management and Consulting and Indigenous specialist consulting firm and booking agency.