(header pictures by Sébastien Raboin)
‘circuit’ en anglais
circuit: in french and/et
‘circuit’: en/in ȡɐȡɐ: ‘”Ceci n’est pas ‘circuit’/This is not ‘circuit’”
But what is circuit? (EN FRANÇAIS ? ICI !)
‘circuit’ is a curated grassroots music performance network that began it’s operations in 2009 and has now encompassed nine presenters and venues in nine cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Kingston, Ville de Québec , Rimouski, Montréal, Fredericton and Halifax . We are constantly networking with other centres in Canada and anticipate the network adding more participants.
The existence of community based (artist-run) spaces across Canada was something that was pretty standard in terms of new creative music for decades but had previously not had a dedicated network in place.
The need for this particular organisation stemmed from the fact that the major f festivals/presenters in Canada are less and less interested in booking new and creative Canadian music. The advent of internet based collectivity has given us the tools to make something happen on an indie basis where Canadian improvising musicians can apply to tour this network and take advantage of the contracts, promotional and organisational support provided by this network.
This network not only provides an excellent opportunity for grassroots interaction between musicians and ensembles on a cross country basis but provides access to the public on a grassroots basis itself. This is accomplished by, not only traditional forms of advertising in media outlets in each city but also through the extensive internet networks built by the musician activists in each centre in the course of their own outreach.
‘circuit’ prides itself as being the only network consistently presenting improvised music and i mprovising musicians from canada, in the world.
How It Works:
The model that we have been working on is one where funding to provide transportation and per diems for musician/ensemble exchanges between major centres,is provided by the Canada Council Touring Office to individual artists.
Selected artist musicians must submit an application to tour ‘circuit’ through federal, provincial or municipal arts councils.
Each national touring grant deadline is communicated to artist musicians of each centre with a document outlining our procedures and mandate. Each centre representative then gets MP3 submissions and shares these submissions with the members of the collective.
Artist musicians who have unanimous consent from the collective are provided with contracts to submit to the Canada Council as part of their grant application. While we encourage our communities to interact with individual collective presenters, no one gets a ‘circuit’ contract unless they are unanimously chosen to tour ‘circuit’.
The approach we take to accessing interested artists is to have musicians in our community apply for the touring grants program as well as relevant provincial and municipal programs, using the network as presenters. We will provide support to our communities by providing a centralized source of contract templates, links to arts council programs, presenter contacts /links as well as assistance in coordinating between members of the network re: promotion, logistical support etc.. When the granting agency gets the applications, they will be standardized, viable and clear to the point that they will be instantly recognizable as a national community effort. The grant officer will be thoroughly briefed, so that they can advise from a solid knowledge base.
canadian circuit for improvising musicians 