Nov 06 2019
Dear Alberta dance community! culturecapital is a trading card game and live art performance that uses public funding data and interviews with artists (like you!) to reflect upon how value is determined and shifted within the Canadian performing arts industry. We (Milton Lim + Patrick Blenkarn) are reaching out to you in hopes that you might carve out some time to share with us your experiences making dance in Alberta.
We have already created the Vancouver-Victoria edition, and we will be making the region-specific iterations in Edmonton-Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto from November 2019 – August 2020, with presentations and card tournaments in all these cities in the works. More information about the project as a whole can be found here: https://www.culturecapital.cards
At its most simple, the game works like this:
Adopting the role of stewards of the arts, players summon Companies, roll a die for government Grants, use those Grants in order to realize Projects of differing values, and then use these Projects to compete for Communities. Strategic planning cards are played to change the tide of the competition and whoever has the most Communities at the end, wins. We hope that this sounds familiar to you.
The game is constructed from a mix of two sets of data:
(1) five years worth of municipal, provincial and federal public funding data on performing arts companies based in particular regions and
(2) interviews with artists about their experiences making performance in Canada — which is where we hope you can help us.
We’re looking to hold conversations and games with members of the Alberta dance community. These sessions will only take about an hour and a half of your time and it would mostly be us playing the game with you and having a super casual conversation.
If this is something you can help us with, we would love to meet up with you.
Patrick will be in Calgary:
- November 18th – 21st, Patrick will be running around Calgary to studios and offices doing individual meetups and concentrated outreach with companies and artist groups. Contact him to set up a time. The more the merrier.
Patrick will be in Edmonton:
- November 25th – 27th, Patrick will be running around Edmonton to studios and offices doing individual meetups and concentrated outreach with companies and artist groups. Contact him to set up a time. Again, the more the merrier.
- November 28th – 30th (12 pm – 6 pm), will be open office hours at Azimuth Theatre’s office (11516 103 Street) — come see the game and have a chat with us! Feel free to email ahead to guarantee a time.
- November 30th (6 pm), will also feature an informal game/showing also at Azimuth Theatre’s office (11516 103 Street).
Please email him at pjblenkarn@gmail.com with your availability if you are interested and available to chat with us.
And stay tuned for the inaugural Alberta tournament in Edmonton in February 2020.