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After the anglophone arts scene in Montreal fell apart in the turbulent political clime of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and after flights of anglo exodus before both the 1980 and 1995 referendum, English-language arts have enjoyed a resurgence here over the past decade.

Both to celebrate this success, and further, to examine how to ensure its sustainability, the English-Language Arts Network (ELAN) of Quebec will bring together a cross-section of Quebec artists at the State of the Arts Summit, running from September 22-25.

2010 was a year in which two Montreal novelists were shortlisted for the Giller Prize (one of whom, Johanna Skibsrud, won), Arcade Fire won a Grammy Award, and the Montreal-centric film of the Mordecai Richler novel Barney’s Version was a critical success. Figuring out how to keep the community’s momentum going without stepping on the toes of the francophone artistic community is a timely goal.

“We have no idea at the moment if this is a bubble that’s about to burst, or if this is the beginning of a beautiful future,” Guy Rodgers, ELAN’s executive director said. “It’s really hard to say which way this is going to play out.”

On Sept. 22 and 23 there will be a closed conference—”Creative Solutions for a Creative Community”—wherein 120 artists from all disciplines, language groups, and stages of their careers will gather to discuss an action plan for the cultural sector. Rodgers selected candidates based on a number of criteria to achieve as truly representative a sample as possible. But one trait was obviously near and dear to his heart.

“[P]riority was given to people who, as well as being artists, are really involved in community development. So, they’re either involved in a collective, or an association or studio, so they wear the hat of both artist and community developer,” Rodgers said.

Community has long been Rodgers’s cause. He was instrumental in the founding of the Quebec Drama Federation (QDF), which in turn inspired the Quebec Writers Federation (QWF), and, eventually, ELAN.

Following the two-day conference, there are a number of events that are open to the public. On the evening of Sept. 23, Centaur Theatre, Quebec’s largest anglophone theatre company, will host the publishing launch of Minority Report: An Alternative History of English-Language Arts in Quebec. The book was commissioned by ELAN and features essays by journalists and art critics. It focuses specifically on the oft-ignored contributions of English-language artists to Quebec’s major artistic disciplines.

On Saturday Sept. 24, ELAN will host two discussion panels at the Atrium de la Maison du Conseil des Arts de Montreal. Between 12 a.m. and 2 p.m. the discussion will centre on the topic of “Many Peoples, One Official Language,” discussing the changing terms of the social contract between Quebec’s francophone majority and minority anglo– and allophone speaking communities. From 2 p.m. until 4 p.m., “Invisible or Too Visible?” will be the subject of debate. Regarding the current and future visibility of English-speaking artists, the panel will have representatives from the Gazette, le Devoir, Festival Accés Asie, and Festival Voix d’Amériques—giving anglophone, francophone, and allophone perspectives.

When radio-journalist Anne Lagacé Dowson, moderator for the two panels, was asked how difficult her job would be, she replied, “I think people feel really strongly about this stuff. There’s a lot of passion about the arts and about the arts community. It goes into issues of identity and self-expression so people get quite animated. I don’t think it’s going to be contentious necessarily. I think there’s going to be some strongly-worded stuff but I think the overwhelming majority of anglos have accepted the francophone fact. It’s not Bill 101, it’s Law 101, and for the most part, anglophones have accepted that French is the public language of Quebec. But they want to be able to function and operate in English, so it could be a little bit fractious. I think it’s really a fascinating sort of contradictory and interesting relationship.”

The finale of the festival will be the premiere of a new musical, The Season, written by Montreal rapper Socalled, and performed at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts.

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The interesting question underlying all of this: why are there so many good anglo artists here?

According to Elise Moser, President of the QWF, McGill alumni, and author of Because I have Loved and Hidden It, there are a number of factors that have made Montreal so popular to artists, including its relatively cheap cost of living, as well as the draw of the language itself.

“[I find it exciting] the way that the different language cultures in Montreal, primarily English and French, keep recombining in creative combinations … the way people start a sentence in one language and end up in the other, or the way people make bilingual puns … It expands the way we are able to think about things to have more tools to think about them.”

For more information visit http://www.quebec-elan.org/pages/about/StateoftheArts-Summit