If the re-opening of the front rooms Saint-Jean is a view of a good eye, recovery brings many challenges for these artisans of the scene that are, for many, self-employed income is often irregular.
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June 2, 2020
Updated June 3, 2020 to 4h17
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Performing Arts: the workers of the shadow forgotten
Leah Martin
The Sun
Quebec announced on Monday a program of$ 400 Million to support artists, cultural organizations, and venues of dissemination. If this plan is a glimmer of hope for the arts community in quebec in a time of crisis, the technicien(ne)s of the living arts remain on their hunger.
“The change of tone is good, but for the designers, the technicians, nothing has been announced in concrete terms,” laments Julien Mercé, chief lighting designer at the salle Pauline-Julien, Sainte-Geneviève.
On the group Facebook support in the time of a pandemic of the TRACE (workers grouped together arts, culture and events), the conclusion is almost unanimous: the recovery plan does not meet the needs of many workers in the middle. Many complain of a lack of compensation for contracts lost, and the non-extension of a source of income such as the PCU.
“If the halls re-open, it’s going to perhaps create a little bit of work, but as everything was cancelled, that’s going to leave a big piece of this labor at home”, is afraid of Roch Lavoie, business agent at I. A. T. S. E (international Alliance of employees, stage, theater and cinema). “There was no news of the extension of the PCU and, for the moment, it is vital.” The organization has also published a press release which expressed its concerns regarding the government’s recovery plan.
Problems of logistics
If the re-opening of the front rooms Saint-Jean is a view of a good eye, recovery brings many challenges for these artisans of the scene that are, for many, self-employed income is often irregular. “In 2021, I already have shows planned, so the performances of 2020, which have been carried over to the next year will make it so that I’m going to lose contracts, because I couldn’t do everything,” says Keven Smith, lighting designer and video in theatres in Quebec.
Technicians at work before the festivities of the new year on Grande Allée, in 2015.
Library The Sun, Caroline Gregory
With the Central Alternative, Patrick Labbé wants to offer help to workers in the music community by offering administrative resources, accounting, legal, psychological help, help to get out of the crisis. “With our events, we will be able to give them salaries, but we want to help them in the long term,” says the one who is also the producer and director of programming of the festival of alternative music, Seal OFF, to Quebec. “Let us be in 2020 and work directly with the self-employed to work as they want and that they are not dependent upon a producer.”
For Hyacinth Root, lighting designer, casting director and founder of the company, The switch, the self-employed status in the field creates a lot of uncertainty and precariousness. “There are so many different realities that it is difficult to frame a collective agreement, but if, at least, within the different institutions, there was a budget to create this social safety net, or something that resembles the status of intermittent worker of the spectacle in France, does it. There is a big challenge collective to have to know how we want to see the result for these workers-there.”
Creative solutions
For his part, Karl-Emmanuel Picard, co-owner of the Anti Bar & Entertainment in Quebec city, organizes shows virtual at a cost of $ 15, shot in his room. A way to hire more technicians, even more than for a classical concert. “I propose it the same, but the festival of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, instead of making a big show, there could be full with local artists in several rooms. One way to achieve each of the communities of these rooms there and make it work for much more of the world”, cogitate there during the interview.
