Manitoba arts organizations feel the post-pandemic pinch

With the news over the weekend that the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra posted a $1.3 million deficit last season — due in large part to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic — other local arts organizations say they’re struggling as well.

Royal Winnipeg Ballet artistic director Andre Lewis told 680 CJOB’s The News on Wednesday that his organization is looking at a more than half-million dollar deficit of its own.

“It’s very simple — the pandemic still has an effect on the organization as a whole, within our school and within the company,” Lewis said.

“The lower attendance at performances, lower student enrollment, higher costs (due to) inflation, all led to that number.”

Lewis said he doesn’t believe this is the “new normal” for the arts in Manitoba or elsewhere, and that with some rebuilding efforts, things will rebound and improve.

“We just performed Snow White to a sold-out audience, so I think it’s moving back in the right direction, but there are other challenges — especially with inflation, and funding organizations that have remained at the same level for 20 years. So it’s a challenge,” he said.

“We have also reserves, which are largely due to the wage subsidy, which we’re applying to that half-million dollar deficit. Our reserve is only so much, and after a while, you run out of cash, and you can’t let that happen.”

Lewis said the ballet is bringing in a new executive director to work alongside his own role as artistic director, with the goal of helping to rebuild the organization, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet has applied at both the provincial and federal levels for emergency funding.

The best thing fans of the ballet can do to help, he said, is show up.

“To support us, the best people can do is come and see the performances, and also become donors — supporters of the ballet, supporters of the symphony, supporters of the opera, supporters of the theatre — all of this makes for a vibrant city that has world-class arts institutions,” he said.

“We are blessed here in Manitoba to have such wonderful arts organizations.”

1:56 Arts and entertainment seeing dip in audience

On a much smaller scale, but with a similar impact, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers is also struggling with post-pandemic difficulties.

With the organization on the verge of opening its 59th season, artistic director Jolene Baillie admits it hasn’t been easy.

“We operate with a very, very small budget compared to these large institutions, but we have the same problems — it’s just the ratios of dollar numbers that are different,” Baillie told The News.

“It’s all those things of comparing before-COVID and after-COVID, and in some ways, it’s just healthier to accept that things are just really different now. We have different needs. Inflation, I think, has just caught everybody managing budgets a little bit off guard because we didn’t expect it to be so extreme.”

Baillie said the organization will finish its year-end with a deficit, and will have to take a look at whether things will improve by next season, or whether they’ll have to scale anything back.

One thing that isn’t a question mark, though, is the importance of the arts to the community.

“The arts have been with us since humans have existed. We’ve needed these creative outlets, we’ve needed these creative experiences,” she said.

“Yes, we’ve needed the audiences back, but it’s not just them doing things for us. When people come to an arts experience and are moved by arts, it’s something for themselves as well. It enriches their own human experience.

“The call and response in a community or in a society is really, really important. It’s not just ticket sales and ticket money. … We want also a secure and stable future for any arts community. We want people to need the experience of artistic exchange.”

0:45 Royal Winnipeg Ballet $7.5 million closer to expansion goal after provincial funding