During life’s brightest moments and most challenging times, music and the performing arts have brought us joy and comfort. This is especially true now — across our platforms, we’ve seen arts performers sharing their craft online, playing an important role in helping people feel connected while practicing social distancing.
Yet, as performance venues close and tours are canceled due to COVID-19, many Canadian performing artists’ livelihoods have been deeply impacted. In direct response, today, the National Arts Centre (NAC) and Facebook Canada are launching a $100,000 relief fund that will pay Canadian artists for online performances and to put the value of our platforms to work in celebration of the Canadian arts community.
NAC will receive and administer applications from artists. Selected artists will then share an online performance between today and March 31, 2020. In addition to receiving financial support, selected artists’ performances will be shared on NAC’s Facebook page and will be discoverable by searching #CanadaPerforms. More details on this announcement and how this will all work can be found here.
How You can Help Canadian Performers
As a Canadian creator, we would love to work with you to encourage artists to apply and help Canadians tune in.
- Helping Performers – If you know an artist who would benefit, please share this update with them so they can apply.
- Fun for your Fans – Your fans and followers can tune into the performances searching the hashtag #CanadaPerforms. Canadian artists including Serena Ryder, William Prince, Irish Mythen, Erin Costelo, and Whitehorse also plan to share online performances in support! Jim Cuddy is kicking things off today at 2pm ET with an online performance from his Facebook page.
