“We are
nothing,
without
you”
“2020 has proven to be quite the year
for MASC, as it has for everyone! Starting
off with school strikes which resulted in
many cancelled bookings and then of
course COVID had us all packing up our computers
and files on March 13th, as we closed the office. This
newsletter gives us the opportunity to reflect on the
new realities that will guide our program delivery in
the future, as well as to celebrate all the creative
work that MASC does from the perspective of
students, partners, funders, artists and volunteers:
“in their own words”.
The small but mighty MASC team is busily working
from home and we are becoming experts in the
world of online zoom meetings. As it turns out
there is a lot of work in ‘undoing’ all our bookings as
well as cancelling three of our annual events:
Festival de danse, MASC Young Authors and
Illustrators Festival and MASC Arts Awards.
Throughout this time, we are very concerned about
our artists and the loss of so much work.
We are so grateful that (thanks to some flexibility
with our funders and dipping into MASC’s ‘emergency
reserve fund’), we’ve been able to compensate our
artists for 50% of the more than 500 workshops
and performances that were lost due to the strikes
and COVID-19. The response from artists has been
heartfelt.
While we have been busy with the work around
cancellations, we haven’t stopped thinking of the
future. We have decided to take this opportunity to
be innovative and develop brand new online artist
programs. Our community partners have already
joined us in this initiative, and at the time of
finalizing this newsletter, we have already made
many online bookings in schools and throughout
the community!
We are building a bright future for MASC. An
important step in this direction is MASC’s success
in securing our first federal operational funding
grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. We will
use these funds to help advance the important
work we offer in partnership with our artists,
schools and community venues.
We are so proud of our office team and of course
our artists, who continue to produce and create in
even the most challenging of times. Online
meetings have led to discussions of collaborations
and problem-solving, inspiration and just “face-toface”
connection. We encourage you to keep upto-date
with MASC via our social media channels as
well as check out Apt613.ca, and Le Pressoir both
arts and culture blogs, where we have regular
articles featuring MASC artists. See here for the full
list!
We wish you all well and look forward to when we
can resume our work in-person. This time has truly
underlined how important our community is. We at
MASC know that we are nothing without our artists,
we are nothing without our participants, we are
nothing without our funders and volunteers and
we are nothing without our school and community
partners.
We are nothing, without you!”
Micheline Shoebridge and Wendy Hartley
Co-Executive Directors
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