ARTS REPRESENTATION
ISPA
Access
for all
For David Baile, CEO at ISPA, the most important
discussion for the whole arts sector right now is how
to improve diversity and accessibility
S ince the turn of the century, a key
focus for the International Society
of Performing Arts (ISPA) has
been diversification, moving away
from being what could have been
perceived as an exclusively “Western, white
institution”, says David Baile, who has been at the
helm since November 2007.
The board of directors has made conscious
efforts to diversify. ISPA always holds a January
congress in New York and had gravitated toward
well-known cultural capitals such as Paris and
Vienna for its international mid-year congress,
but this changed around 2004. “We started
exploring cities that have a rich cultural scene,
both in terms of heritage and performing arts,
but that our members may not have been as
aware of,” says Baile.
The 2004 mid-year congress was held in
México City, Mexico, and Latin America was
revisited in 2009 (São Paulo, Brazil), 2014
(Bogotá, Colombia) and 2019 (Guadalajara,
Mexico). “I dare say very few of our members
from outside of Latin America had been to any
of those cities, and it really opened awareness of
regional cultural diversity,” says Baile.
Fellowship program
The second of ISPA’s diversification initiatives
was its fellowship program, introduced in 2007.
The idea is to support emerging and mid-career
arts leaders to participate in ISPA events.
“Initially, we probably had two or three fellows,”
explains Baile. “This past year we had 66, hailing
from virtually every corner of the globe. We had
fellows from Rwanda, Nigeria, Zambia, China,
Taiwan, as well as Australia, Sweden and the
Netherlands. This initiative has really diversified
our membership regionally, but also in terms of
age group and the type of work and organizations
that are represented.”
Baile has seen a surge in the number of
creative producers, who may work with
institutions on a project basis, but are not
connected to them on a formal or ongoing basis.
“It’s a really interesting development that we are
seeing in all parts of the world,” he says.
As well as ISPA membership, fellows are
given free registration to the congress and a
travel subsidy. A pre-congress program is held
to encourage fellows to build ties and share
knowledge with each other. Each fellow is also
matched with a current ISPA member,
to facilitate introductions.
“When we started this program, we went
into it with a bit of hubris, thinking that the
fellows had so much to learn from us,” says
Baile. “In fact, we’ve learned how much we have
to learn from them. Virtually every one of our
committees has at least one fellow on it, and we
also now have some past fellows on the board.
We’re aiming for continuous engagement.”
32 AUDITORIA 2019 VOLUME ONE