While I was attending this meeting, there was a concurrent session on “Balancing Life and Art” facilitated by Tiffany Vega-Gibson and Adriana Gaviria, longtime LTC “commoners” (folks who share the responsibility for the commons) and leaders of the Parent Artist Advocacy League (PAAL). Vega-Gibson is a PAAL national board member, and Gaviria serves on the PAAL executive team. Cristina Fernandez, PAAL chief rep for Los Angeles, also joined the roundtable where conveners shared their experiences as artists with caregiving responsibilities, such as childcare, elder care, and care for family members with special needs and disabilities. Gaviria noted, “Our one-hour scheduled session extended to two hours, demonstrating the desire we all had for more of these conversations and spaces.” She continued:
We all have so many varied experiences, and it was deeply special hearing and learning from each other. As champion for the 2019 LTC Miami Convening, we held our first national conversation for caregivers, allyship, and community in the arts specifically geared toward Latiné artists, and five years later, although I have seen a shift for more supportive workplaces, I still see the importance and value in checking in with each other on a human level, learning what challenges we are facing, and continuing to explore with each other more supportive solutions in balancing life and art.
The first ten years were about growth, and the next ten would be about self-determination.
Next came the meeting for LTC steering and advisory committee members. With so many attending this weekend, a conversation about the LTC’s future was an opportunity not to be missed. Important concerns were on the table, including the future of the movement itself. The day before, the LTC’s next three-year round of programming had been announced, an ambitious slate of diverse projects reflecting the LTC’s passion and scope for projects that would continue to transform the narrative of the American theatre and elevate the visibility of Latine theatre making and theatremakers. Saturday’s steering and advisory committee meeting was necessary to take the pulse of the LTC and support its healthiest future. As Lisa Portes put it, the first ten years were about growth, and the next ten would be about self-determination.
During the first half of this meeting, we sat around six tables that held the same materials: a page with the LTC’s mission, vision, and values statements; copies of the LTC’s budgets over the past few years; the notes from the LTC small group meeting held in April 2018; the consultant agreement for the LTC producer, and the relationship language between HowlRound Theatre Commons and the LTC. This set of documents allowed us to generate questions about all the above, beginning with, is the LTC eternal? Do our budgets match our ethos? Are we supporting our producer (who supports all our programming) equitably and humanely? Do we feel the relationship with HowlRound is sound and mutually beneficial? We were charged with generating investigatory questions; what more do we need to know to make informed decisions?
A quick break for lunch provided another opportunity for hugs and hellos to dear friends, but soon we were guided on to the next task. Knowing that it would be impossible to have a deep dive into all five potential topics, we were invited to vote for those we most wished to discuss. Strips of stickers were distributed to everyone, and we voted by posting them among the sheets that named the five talking points. Few stickers were placed on “the future of the LTC,” perhaps indicating that most of us were not quite ready to say goodbye to this remarkable instrument of solidarity and change. “The Producer’s Agreement” and “Relationship with HowlRound” were selected for our topics of discussion. Soon, the conference tables were struck, and the room was transformed into one dominated by a large circle of chairs. From this point on, we would all be in conversation together.
I was grateful for the wisdom of the organizers who placed our most pressing questions before us and invited us to determine which we felt were right to discuss at this moment.
Tara Houston, one of last year’s Producer’s Support Group (a small group of volunteers who covered the producer’s work while the LTC producer was on leave), continued to facilitate this conversation. She invited us to center ourselves with breath and then, keeping our feet flat on the floor, to imagine roots stemming from the soles of our feet into the ground, and further, to imagine our roots intertwining with those of everyone gathered in the room. With this image we became more than a hive mind: we were grounded together. Tara reminded us of something said by José Luis Valenzuela on an earlier day, about the flame we carry within us. She invited us to imagine that light illuminating the ones who came before us, the ones who worked beside us but who might not be in the room that day, and the ones yet to come. We were holding the past, present, and future simultaneously in our hearts and minds. Thus, we began the conversation on the relationship between HowlRound and the LTC.
HowlRound and the LTC were birthed at almost the same time, in 2012. Since then, HowlRound has provided infrastructural support for the LTC’s operations, and it serves informally as a fiscal sponsor so that the LTC can apply for grants. HowlRound hosted Café Onda, the LTC’s blog, before it became unwieldy; after that, the essays were folded into HowlRound, supported by HowlRound’s editorial team. Now funders were asking if the LTC should be hosted by a different organization, such as an independent Latine cultural organization that more reflected the LTC’s cultural identity. We imagined the burden that such a realignment might place on a typically under-resourced arts organization. We also imagined becoming our own nonprofit 501(c)3 and the organizational responsibilities that would require us to function and carry out our plans. Clearly this conversation would need to be picked up in the future. There were too many variables to consider and too many questions to answer. Tara Houston wisely reminded us that “decisions are an illusion.”
We turned our attention to discuss the producer’s contract, which since the beginning has been as a consultant, not an employee. While this status allowed the producer to remain free of allegiance to a “boss” such as HowlRound or Emerson College (over the LTC), it also means that the producer has had to source their own benefits, such as health insurance, and pay self-employment tax, which, as any independent contractor knows, can take a big bite out of one’s earnings. Advocacy was raised for the health and well-being of the LTC producer. It was clear from a review of the job description and glance at the upcoming schedule that they were asked for more than was possible. That is, to be in multiple places at once, producing multiple programs within a too short period of time. Even with an increase in the fee and added benefits, the demands were simply unhealthy. We called upon the LTC steering committee to reactivate the Governance Committee, and to consider the schedule of the proposed LTC programming. Perhaps some can be moved to later dates. Again, this conversation is one that will need to be continued, and soon.
