A co cre­ation project with adults faced with men­tal defi­cien­cy and autism issues through the rein­ven­tion of Car­men. With work­shops on opera, meet­ing with cre­ators, and train­ers help­ing them pro­duc­ing it as well.

For many years, Opéra de Mon­tréal has offered inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ty-engaged activ­i­ties with the objec­tive of ini­ti­at­ing under­rep­re­sent­ed and under­priv­i­leged publics to opera. Sev­er­al co-cre­ation projects have been led, such as YO’péra for men­tal health, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Espace Tran­si­tion (CHU Saint-Jus­tine) and La Gang à Ram­brou for this with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Con­seil des arts de Mon­tréal, Pierre Vachon, our Direc­tor for Com­mu­ni­ty Engage­ment and Edu­ca­tion, has devel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion four videos explain­ing the prin­ci­pal stages of a project in part­ner­ship with non artis­tic orga­ni­za­tions and with groups that are under-represented. 

Cap­sule #1: How to find and part­ner with organizations

• Under­stand­ing the mis­sion and objec­tives of the artis­tic organization

• Iden­ti­fy­ing an orga­ni­za­tion with whom to build a partnership

• Ini­ti­at­ing contact

• Explorato­ry meet­ings: under­stand­ing the val­ues and social fac­tors for the orga­ni­za­tion and poten­tial collaborations

Cap­sule #2: Defin­ing the project

After iden­ti­fy­ing the orga­ni­za­tion you want to work with, it is the moment to deter­mine the nature of the project. Pierre Vachon, Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ty Engage­ment and Edu­ca­tion at the Opéra de Mon­tréal, and Suzanne Beaulieu, Direc­tor of La Gang à Ram­brou, explain the foun­da­tion­al premis­es of their collaboration.

• Ideation: the project

• Roles: artis­tic team, facil­i­ta­tors, and participants

• Con­tri­bu­tions: (finan­cial, human, resources, etc.)

• Bud­get: invest­ment by partners

Cap­sule #3: Project realization

Now is the time to take action and estab­lish time­lines, plan work­shops, let your cre­ativ­i­ty take wings, write the plot, in brief, put the project together!

• Objec­tives

• Project frame­work: sched­ul­ing, roles, work­shop content

• Pro­duc­tion modalities

• Tak­ing par­tic­i­pants’ sto­ries into account

• Flex­i­bil­i­ty and production

Cap­sule #4: An deceiv­ing­ly sim­ple but essen­tial step: Eval­u­at­ing impact!

You will want to col­lect obser­va­tions from par­tic­i­pants, part­ner orga­ni­za­tion and mem­bers of the pub­lic. Often, we deal with this infor­ma­tion quan­ti­ta­tive­ly. It’s also impor­tant to eval­u­ate the effects on par­tic­i­pants’ per­son­al devel­op­ment. Dis­cov­er how La Gang à Ram­brou and their team has led this stage of the project.

• Eval­u­a­tion: under­stand­ing impact (artis­tic, per­son­al, professional)

• Mea­sured and ‘felt’ results

• Research: con­tribute to the method­ol­o­gy for eval­u­a­tion of the impact of social action on orga­ni­za­tions and participants