Director's Message - August 2018

Guy Rodgers presenting a Minute Market

Photo by Nasuna Stuart-Ulin

August brings us the second wave of Arts Alive! Québec with simultaneous weekends in Quebec City at the Morrin Centre (August 3 – 4), and in Knowlton (August 3 – 5). ELAN’s partners have programmed an engaging array of performances and hands-on artistic activities for all ages. Click here for full details.

ELAN’s 14^thAnnual General Meeting plus Schmoozer and Minute Market are coming up on August 27. The AGM is your chance to meet ELAN office staff and project managers, discuss what we have been working on, and get a glimpse of what is planned for the year ahead. It is also a chance to meet the current board of directors and vote in some new members. I hope to see many of you there.

I want to pay tribute here to an old friend, Harry Gulkin, who passed away July 23 at the age of 90. I first met Harry in 1986. He was the new Artistic Director of the Saidye Bronfman Centre, and had programmed an ambitious season of theatre, music, readings and visual arts. I had recently graduated from the National Theatre School’s Playwriting Program and convinced Harry to hire me as General Manager of the freshly renovated theatre. We embarked on a tumultuous season that incurred a significant deficit, and were both out of work when the Saidye Bronfman Centre’s chief benefactor put a stop to additional funding, bringing that particular adventure to a screeching halt.

Fortunately, we both landed on our feet. Harry was immediately hired by SODEC (Société de développement des entreprises culturelles), the provincial funding agency film and television, and by a happy coincidence, a film producer I was working with received funding from SODEC to develop my script. When ELAN was created, Harry joined our advisory board to share his vast knowledge and passion for the arts.

The NFB (National Film Board of Canada) documentary, Red Dawn on Main Street, and Bill Brownstein’s tribute in the Montreal Gazette provide some insights into a multi-faceted human being: merchant marine, union activist, retail marketing executive, artistic director, legendary film producer, and tireless champion of Canadian culture. Harry’s impact on Quebec’s cultural scene was immense, and his influence on those who had the privilege to know him was immeasurable.

Guy Rodgers

Executive Director

Land Acknowledgement

ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtià:ke, the original name for Montreal in Kanien’kéha, the language of the Mohawk—also known as Mooniyang, which is the Anishinaabeg name given to the city by the Algonquin. While we are based in this city, our projects have also taken place in many regions across Quebec.

We acknowledge the colonial origin of English and French in Canada, and recognize that both languages benefit from official status throughout the land. The province that we know as Quebec is an amalgamation of the traditional territories of the Innu and Inuit nations, Algonquian nations, as well as the Mohawk nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kanien’kéha and Anishinaabemowin are but two of the original languages of this province; Atikamekw, Cree, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun are also among the many Indigenous languages spoken across Quebec as majority languages, all well before French and English.

ELAN acknowledges the important work being done by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to revive the traditional languages of these territories, and their advocacy for the official status of Indigenous languages.