The Uniter asked Kier-La Janisse and Michael Petkau Falk to discuss the arts in Winnipeg – what’s working well, and what could be improved.

A former Winnipegger, Janisse now lives in Montreal where she operates a film screening venue called Blue Sunshine. While in Winnipeg, Janisse booked live music events at Into the Music and started Big Smash! Productions, a non-profit organization that promotes and exhibits Canadian and international film and video art.

No stranger to Winnipeg’s music scene, Michael Petkau Falk is the artistic director at the West End Cultural Centre (WECC) and singer-guitarist in art-rock four-piece Les Jupes. He also runs Head in the Sand, a record label collective that includes Royal Canoe and The Liptonians.

What follows is a series of emails Janisse and Petkau Falk exchanged this past week.

Dear Mike,

There is definitely a strong, thriving arts community in Winnipeg that is not only internally supportive, but also very supported by local funding bodies.

The Winnipeg Arts Council staff is so approachable and actually involved with the community that it’s really quite special. They actually go to arts events of their own volition!

You really feel that the support from them is tangible, not just some floating bureaucracy making decisions on whether or not to fund you with no concept of your actual impact in the community.

So there is a support system there for sure, on many levels – the funders support the artists, the artists support other artists.

The only problem with it is that it is very incestuous, and you do get the sense that you’re just tapping the same small audience over and over again—at least, for the niche-type programming I do.

I always really enjoyed the local arts community, so that is not why I left Winnipeg. It’s just that the stuff I program is not going to do gangbusters on a regular basis without casting a wider net.

Programming events in Winnipeg once a month is great – you’ll get the support you want and need.

But if I wanted to program films three nights a week, there would be no way to sustain it, because the same 60 people are just not going to give me their money three times a week. No one can afford that.

So, if I wanted to be an ongoing operating business with obscure film screenings, I had to go somewhere with a more established film-going audience.

At my place in Montreal, we have some problems with the city, local bureaucracy, advertising restrictions, etc. that hurt us financially, but the audiences themselves are solid.

I don’t think I’d be able to get that many people out on a regular basis in Winnipeg.

But Mike – music is a different beast than film. What are your experiences with trying to build up audiences? Do you feel the WECC benefits from having a long history and built-in audience behind it, or is it still always a struggle to get people out?

Kier-La

Hey Kier-La,

The audience-development conversation one is an important one for music too.

The WECC itself is unique because it has spent almost 25 years building a dedicated and loyal fan base.

That makes some things easier as a programmer – I know that certain artists will always sell 200-300 tickets and can use that to help support some of the more “fringe” shows that I want to present. And it means that our dedicated team of 150-plus volunteers helps spread the word and get excited about shows.

I do sometimes wish for your freedom to present whatever I want at the WECC and have people join me for this ride.

But the music industry is very much that – an industry – and most booking agents won’t even consider sending an artist to Winnipeg if it won’t be worth their while.

This is where the Folk Festival has such a large opportunity and responsibility to Winnipeg audiences – to use its muscle to expand our collective musical consciousness.

From an artist’s standpoint, Manitoba Film & Music and Manitoba Music do an exceptional job of helping fund albums, tours, showcases, etc.

Once acts get to a certain level and are showcasing nationally and internationally they also act as a lobbyist and industry-wrangler, which is helpful since there is very little actual music industry in Winnipeg – the labels, distributors, booking agents and publicists we want to be working with are mostly in Toronto, Chicago, Montreal and New York. 

Not living there means that introductions need to be made. This is, after all, an industry built on relationships.

I’ve often described Winnipeg’s musical fanbase as “conservative,” and by that I mean “safe.” Being a small Canadian city as isolated as we are means we aren’t introduced to new music nearly as quick as our big-city friends. 

It’s also a city of extremes where both folk and punk have long been the standard, without a lot of interest in the grey areas in between.

As a musician who falls into neither camp, I’ve long felt that there is a limited audience for me here – and that’s part of the reason I moved to Montreal in 2005.

There was a time when I resented Winnipeg’s tastes, but have since realized that there is a big, big world out there, and you make your own opportunities.

It doesn’t really matter where you live so long as you’re going to where you need to be to build an audience. 

As a presenter, my hands are tied by Winnipeg’s size and culture. If we were two million people instead of 700,000, I could have more freedom in presenting some of the artists I really wish I could present.

As it stands, the best I can do is jump on any chance to present something that may help expand our collective musical appreciation.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I remember when I lived in Winnipeg and I would talk about bands I wanted to bring in, people would look at me with blank expressions – it’s OK to not be familiar with the band, Winnipeg is pretty isolated after all – but you would just hope you could get to a point where people would trust you, and get excited about stuff because they trust you.

As for my freedom, sure I have it, but I also live in complete poverty. And I probably will continue to do so for the rest of my life – and it’s not that I don’t want to be more mainstream – I really try! I just can’t figure it out!

If I could figure out how to play something that will make me money so that I could then fund all my weirdo projects, I would do it in a second. I would gladly sell out for a night to turn that income around into support for independent unknowns.

So, I don’t really have that safety net that the WECC has, in the sense that you know you can get an audience out for certain artists and that’ll pay the bills.

As for bookers not wanting to deal with booking bands in Winnipeg unless they totally think it will be worth their while, it’s the same with films – most films, even if they have a Canadian theatrical release, skip over Winnipeg.

And if they give you the film, they send a DVD, whereas everyone else gets a 35mm print.

It’s considered a dead market, so they didn’t even want to waste the five minutes it will take to talk to you on the phone.

A lot of times that’s why I ended up dealing with foreign directors and distributors. They just thought any opportunity to make money was good, and didn’t have those preconceived notions about Winnipeg being a lame city for film audiences.

And truly, while Winnipeg nurtures a lot of artists, those artists don’t tend to support art unless they made it or their friends made it.

I know this is partially because they are busy creating their own art, but you have to be careful not to stay inside a vacuum.

I’d be surprised if more than a handful of members of the Winnipeg Film Group actually go to the Cinematheque once a month.

There are people who watch films and people who make films – and the people who make films need to be watching more films, because sometimes it’s painfully obvious that they are a decade behind the times.

That said, this isolationism creates a regional aesthetic which has served Winnipeg well in the outside world – so who am I to criticize?

Kier-La

“ Winnipeg is considered a dead market, so they didn’t even want to waste the five minutes it will take to talk to you on the phone.

Kier-La Janisse

Dear Kier-La

Jack Jonasson at the Lo Pub is doing exactly what has been needed here since the Blue Note closed—building a place that people just want to hang out at, that also hosts events. It’s a place that fosters the scene. There should be five to 10 other places like it around downtown/Osborne/Exchange.

One thing that concerns me is that there isn’t a culture of exploration among audiences here. People don’t like to take risks. People want to be guaranteed exactly what they expect, and often expectations are pretty low.

This is largely why I’m so excited about what we’re doing with Head In The Sand.

I feel that with Royal Canoe, The Liptonians and Les Jupes, Winnipeg finally has three bands that are willing to take risks, excited about trying new musical ideas, demanding a really high quality of work of themselves, and will be able to eventually find a home in the pantheon of cool shit that’s happening elsewhere in the world. 

When Jesse (Warkentin) was leaving Les Jupes and we had to find another keyboard player, I was worried. Luckily, we found Kelly (Beaton), who is the perfect fit.

But in Montreal there are 30 people who could step in and take over that role without blinking – people who know synths, understand different types of gear and are on top of their shit musically.

It’s a higher-level musical culture built on training, experimentation and risks, and that’s why we’ve seen so many bands blow up from Montreal. 

Here, the people who are into more out-there music often aren’t very good musicians, and they’re not supported in growth because Winnipeg doesn’t support weird music and the government-funded people at the top don’t understand it.

As a result, they’re not encouraged to get better, and it becomes this sad cycle of Winnipeg’s potential innovators not being given the right kind of mentorship and opportunities and eventually just fading out of the picture. 

We need musicians who are passionate about artistic innovation and willing to dedicate their life to it while having the supports in place to help foster their careers.

Mike

Hey Mike,

I actually think there are a ton of talented people in Winnipeg who will take risks for their own art, and I think the local community is totally supportive of them when they do – but those risk takers and innovative voices tend to leave.

Matthew Rankin and Daniel Barrow come to mind, from the film/video side of things, but even they are drawn back to Winnipeg again and again because of the support that exists there. It really is unique. 

So without that support, Winnipeg would be shit out of luck. Instead, artists there are given a lifeline. And I think there are more resources for curators and presenters now too, which helps keep the lifeblood pumping, because it allows for interplay between Winnipeg artists and visiting artists – which is integral to Winnipeg’s artistic development.

So there is hope—as long as you can stomach the winter!

Kier-La

Hey Kier-La,

I totally agree that there are lots of risk takers in Winnipeg. Our visual arts, theatre and literary circles are filled with artists who bravely make both challenging and relevant art. 

It’s primarily the music scene that my critique is aimed at, where development and funding support has been primarily focused towards marketability rather than artistic development. 

I’m constantly amazed at the quality of work coming from our galleries, theatres and authors.

My hope is that more dialogue will continue to grow between Winnipeg artists of different disciplines and that we can collectively build on our natural strengths.

There are lots of signs of life and an overarching quality of work rarely found in a city this size.

While I think there is definitely room for artistic broadening of the local music scene, perhaps the answers lie in looking deeper into what makes the rest of the Winnipeg arts community tick. 

But the common thread that I see throughout is an understanding of our history, commitment to ongoing support for all arts and pride in being a Winnipeg artist. 

And that puts us in a pretty great position going forward.

Mike

***Kelly Beaton is incorrectly identified in the print edition of this article. The Uniter regrets the error.

Published in Volume 65, Number 25 of The Uniter (March 31, 2011)