Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today on behalf of the professional dance community in Quebec. The Regroupement québécois de la danse is the only professional association representing all practice sectors, that is to say teaching, research, performance and choreography. It has some 500 members, including the majority of professional dance companies, 300 performers and a hundred or more teachers. Of the 300 performers, at least 100 are young graduates of our schools. All this to say that is a very dynamic discipline.
Between the two linguistic communities, and specifically, between Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver, there is a free flow of dance artists. Dance is neither Québécois nor Canadian. It is international in scope, and it travels in all languages. According to statistics from the Department of Foreign Affairs, it visited almost 35 countries between 2004 and 2007. Almost one third of the performers who are members of our dance companies in Quebec are from abroad: Europe, the United States, Holland, Argentina, Russia, Vietnam, etc. Dance is international.
Before coming today, I carefully re-read a speech given by the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage, when you were beginning your work on February 9. I would just like to quote a couple of sentences from it, which helped me prepare my own arguments. He said, and I quote:
Building stronger communities has been a priority for our government since day one. It is stable, vibrant communities that will provide opportunities for individuals and contribute to our great country's health and identity.
Funding from the federal government for the purpose of supporting and fostering outreach activities by all our companies internationally, whether it is through grants for touring, market development, hosting foreign programmers or budgets for cultural embassies in the major capitals of the world, has allowed dance to exist in Quebec and Canada. Without that outreach internationally and upstream through festivals, live performance markets, embassies and cultural centres, dance would not exist.
Behind that hard won reputation, which has been patiently built up over the years, even now, several hundred artists, performers, teachers, choreographers and others involved in dance have unacceptable working conditions and compensation because of public funding which has not kept pace with the exceptional expansion in this discipline that began in the late 1970s.
A strange destiny has accompanied professional dance in Canada. Having come through three economic recessions and, facing an unprecedented financial crisis, the dance sector now finds itself cut off from what has thus far been a lever for artistic development and excellence: access to foreign markets and the most prestigious stages in the world.
I don't have to tell you that the new generation is growing in strength, talent and number and that it would very much like an opportunity to step into the shoes of those dancers who are members of our current companies. The economics of dance is based on exports. The majority of sales revenues comes from outreach, not including the significant investments made by co-producers in the creative work itself.
Let me give you two examples: the Édouard Lock Company and the Marie Chouinard Company. If you calculate both investments by co-producers and international outreach revenues, you can see that 80 per cent and more of their operating budget is composed of funds raised abroad. The growth of small- and medium-sized companies depends almost entirely on their ability to perform on the international market and pique the interests of programmers who are beachheads in international performance networks, in the hope of securing investments from co-producers. That is the only way they can develop.
Let me give you another example: b.l.eux, a young company. Despite the fact that the performer-choreographer already has more than 20 years of experience under his belt, this is a young company. As such, it receives very little money in the way of operating grants. Its last two creations, by a Quebec and Canadian choreographer, were co-produced by 15 foreign producers. That represents $350,000 in revenues for the creative work. The results in terms of outreach are about the same. The company receives $250,000 in public funding from the three levels of government. However, it was able to leverage that funding by $1.2 million through international outreach. And this is a young company.
I would like to quote another sentence from the speech given by the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
Is that it?