Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) is a movement of Aboriginal and ethno-racial artists working with presenters to empower the performing arts communities of Ontario. CPAMO seeks to open opportunities for Aboriginal and ethno-racial performers to engage with presenters across Ontario and to enable presenters to develop constructive relationships with Aboriginal and ethno-racial performers.
CPAMO is supported bv Aboriginal and ethno-racial artists who are involved in theatre, music, dance and literary arts. These artists are members of CPAMO’s Roundtable and include representatives of Sampradaya Dance, Native Earth Performing Arts, Diaspora Dialogues, Nathaniel Dett Chorale, Little Pear Garden Theatre Collective, Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Sparrow in the Room, b-current, why not theatre, urban ink productions and backforward collective, Culture Days, Canada Council Stand Firm members, Obsidian Theatre, the Collective of Black Artists, CanAsian Dance and others.
With the involvement of artists from these organizations, CPAMO is working with CCI and its members to build their capacities, cultural competencies and understanding of pluralism in performing arts so that CCI and its members engage performers from these communities and, thereby, enable audiences across Ontario to access artistic expressions from diverse communities on a regular basis.
CPAMO aims to facilitate the following:
- Aboriginal and ethno-racial performers will have opportunities to showcase their work to and build relationships with presenters across Ontario;
- Presenters will have opportunities to see and learn about the diverse cultural values, histories and practices of Aboriginal and ethno-racial performing artists and to develop relationships with these performers;
- Education and training programs on cultural pluralism will be set up to provide performing arts organizations with practical guidance on successfully integrating culturally diverse values and principles in their operations, planning, audience-development, marketing, programming and decision-making processes;
- The performing arts community in Ontario will have useful and appropriate tools and guides related to cultural pluralism;
- Diversity practice and implementation will be guided and facilitated by a professional equity/diversity arts specialist with hands-on and ongoing field experience.