STAC 3P93 Producing a Performance Event prepares students for careers in business and the arts by focussing on the practises and procedures to produce a professional performance event. Collaboration through teamwork and adaptability to the creative, dynamic and stimulating conditions of cultural production are just two important skills that students develop in this intensive 12-week course.
In a recent capstone event, each student group pitched their ideas to a trio of panellists in a time-limited competition for producing success. The presentations included a conceptual outline of the cultural experience, supported by the planning, operating, funding, marketing, staging and production components of a successful audience and community engagement event.
Canadians recognize that the performing arts improve their quality of life and acknowledge the impact of the arts on the social and economic health of their communities. Events that imagine storytelling, music, dance and visual arts in different spaces of community engagement, such as theatres and cafes are often proposed by the students in this course. The students share a concern for improved mental health, sustained housing security and the well-being of the individual and the community, and they propose cultural experiences that will contribute to these outcomes.
“Do not be afraid of the art!” – Colleen Smith, CEO, First Ontario Performing Arts Centre.
Colleen Smith (FOPAC) and Steve Remus (NAC)
The guest panellists, invited for their breadth and depth of experience in their professional fields, share their wisdom learned from many years of successful leadership in the arts and culture sector. In recent years this has included the CEO of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre (FOPAC), Colleen Smith, the Minister of Energy, Minds and Resources at the Niagara Artists Centre (NAC), Stephen Remus, and the Director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, David Vivian.
Students conceptualize the events through an examination of the complexities of planning and creating public productions. Each group integrates the technical and business demands with the creative experience. And what was the overwhelming advice from the panelists at a recent presentation? Keep the production – the art – at the centre of the plan.
Art is the most important part of an artistic event, and I realized that it’s easy to lose sight of that in all the technicalities and logistics of planning, but it’s important to always come back to it.
Hannah Cain (Student, STAC 3P93, Winter 2022).
Impressed by the enthusiasm and originality of the students’ proposals, the panelists encourage students to further explore their ideas and make suggestions of how to take their work from the classroom into the community. Some students have received invitations to pursue the projects with the community partners.
Fleshing out a fully comprehensive plan, and then having the opportunity to pitch our performance event not only created an opportunity to apply my learning from the myriad of lesson materials but also gave me the experience of working with a team of other passionate peers whom I could see myself working with in the future…theory alone cannot teach the valuable life lessons that occur when you get your hands dirty and create something that excites you.
Skye Rogers (Student, STAC 3P93, Winter 2022).
STAC 3P93 Producing a Performance Event will be available for registration in the Fall session of 2023-24.