News: ELAN announces State of the Art Summit

ELAN QUEBEC ANNOUNCES 

2011 STATE OF THE ARTS SUMMIT

September 22-25

Four days of collective ideas, intellect, and talent!

Montreal, June 7, 2011 – The English Language Arts Network of Quebec returns this fall with an unprecedented four-day event that will unite hundreds of the brightest creative talents and cultural professionals from Quebec’s English-speaking arts community. The 2011 State of the Arts Summit (September 22-25) will permit us to collectively develop an action plan for the community’s growth over the next 5 to 10 years, probe the complex issues behind the community’s contributions to the province, and celebrate the artistic diversity that binds us all together!
The Summit centres upon a two-day conference entitled “Creative Solutions for a Creative Community”, to take placeSeptember 22nd and 23rd at the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT, 1201 St-Laurent Blvd). These working sessions will gather 200 of the province’s most active and influential cultural professionals within the English-speaking arts community – alongside members of the French-speaking arts community and representatives from the education and government sectors – in order to develop a viable action plan for the growth of this thriving cultural sector.

While the working conference is restricted to invited guests, all other events within the 2011 State of the Arts Summit are open to the arts-loving public! ELAN has partnered with several of the city’s leading arts organizations to present a series of English arts-appreciation events intended to spotlight the hot talents currently working within the major creative disciplines that thrive in Quebec.

On Friday, September 23rd, ELAN will host a celebratory soirée of theatre and dance at the historic Centaur Theatre (453 Saint-Francois-Xavier St.) in Old Montreal.  That evening, in collaboration with our partners in the theatre community – Centaur Theatre, Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, and the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada – ELAN will present a series of staged readings from influential English plays written by Quebecois playwrights over the years. That same night at the Centaur, ELAN will present, in collaboration with Wants & Needs Dance, an exquisite showcase of contemporary dance. These two stellar showcases and the party to follow are all free to the public!

On Saturday, September 24th, ELAN will host an afternoon of thought-provoking panel discussions at the Atrium de la Maison du Conseil des Arts de Montreal (1210 Sherbrooke St. East). Well-known journalists and intellectuals will discuss the economic and ambassadorial value of the English-speaking art community’s contribution to the province, as well as dissect the old but still prevailing stereotypes of what entails a Quebecois Anglo in the 21st century.

Later that evening, ELAN will move to the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts (5170 Cote-Ste-Catherine Rd.) for a second multi-disciplinary evening highlighting the many talents of our writing and film communities. In collaboration with the Quebec Writers’ Federation and the Association of English-Language Publishers of Quebec, ELAN will present an exciting session of writing improv at the Segal’s Studiospace. Meanwhile, down in the Cinemaspace, the screening room’s curators will present two bold showcases of contemporary Quebecois cinema from English-speaking film-makers. Once again, it’s all free to the public!

On Sunday, September 25th, the fourth and final day of the 2011 State of the Arts Summit, the public will be invited to join us onan afternoon walking tour of Montreal art galleries, as we explore the adventurous works of the province’s English-speaking visual artists. That evening, we join our friends at Pop Montreal, with whom we’re collaborating for our grand finale! At theTheatre Outremont (1248 Bernard Ave. West), ELAN Quebec and Pop Montreal will present the world premiere of a brand-new musical written by left-of-centre composer, rapper, producer and musician Socalled and starring a who’s who cast of Montreal’s brightest talents from the musical community!

Taken as a whole, the four days of the 2011 State of the Arts Summit will bring together an unprecedented showcase of ideas, intellect, and talent for a community whose many factions far too often work alone and without a collective voice.  In doing so, ELAN hopes to further build upon the hundreds of artists it successfully spotlights in its RAEV histories, videos, and artist portraits, all of which are available through the ELAN Quebec website noted below.

For more information, please visit: www.quebec-elan.org