To our friends, colleagues, and fellow artists:
While Soup Can Theatre has not been publicly active for some time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been paying close attention to the ongoing violence against IBPOC individuals, frequently at the hands of law enforcement, and the calls for justice surrounding these events. Systemic racism and institutional inaction and indifference are harmful realities across many sectors, including Canada’s arts and entertainment industry; an industry that is widely Eurocentric, colonial, and lacking in diversity.
It is our responsibility as artists to be activists for equity as an integral part of our work. We must take an honest accounting of ourselves and examine our complicity in oppression. To this end, we have been taking part in anti-racism and anti-oppression workshops and online courses and engaging in independent research to better our practices, examine our implicit biases, and further our knowledge of systemic racism.
Our training and research require subsequent action:
- Soup Can Theatre will expand our Creative Core team to include more IBPOC individuals, aiming for a minimum 30% increase. We have taken a step back from working on a semi-regular basis due to COVID-19 and other life changes within our current core team; when the time is right to start working regularly again, we will put out a call to IBPOC artists. We are also exploring ways that the Creative Core can be paid regularly, rather than only on a project-to-project basis.
- Soup Can Theatre will engage more IBPOC individuals for all contract artist positions on and off stage for all-new productions moving forward, aiming for a minimum 30% increase. Should any white artists who are currently attached to existing projects that do not already meet the 30% threshold decide to leave the said projects, we will prioritize hiring IBPOC individuals for those vacant roles.
- Soup Can Theatre will reach out to all IBPOC artists who we have worked with in past to discuss their experiences with us (should they wish to share them) and for their feedback. For their labour, these artists will be financially compensated.
We will continue to examine additional ways we can move forward as an independent collective to make our practice and work more equitable. These conversations are not finished; they will be ongoing for as long as we operate.
We, as a Creative Core team – currently composed exclusively of white, European-descended people – are complicit in systemic racism. We are privileged, and we acknowledge this privilege and complicity. We will do better. We must actively listen, educate ourselves and implement substantive changes.
Soup Can Theatre stands in solidarity with IBPOC and the Black Lives Matter movement. You can learn more at:
Sincerely,
The Creative Core of Soup Can Theatre:
Sarah Thorpe (they/them), Justin Haigh (he/him), Scott Dermody (he/him), and Leslie Thorpe-Dermody (she/her)
