Vertical City, BLM and Antiracism

Vertical City Performance stands in solidarity with our Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) collaborators; with BIPOC creators, performers and artists around the globe; with BIPOC individuals and their communities within and beyond our home city of Calgary; and with all people calling out for an end to anti-BIPOC racism, discrimination, and brutality.

We acknowledge that as individuals and as an organization we are the direct and indirect beneficiaries of past and present injustice, and of systems we have both inherited and sustained. While we recognize the potential value of allyship, we also understand that expressions of solidarity are inadequate without action towards actual redress, reconciliation, and equitable opportunity.

Among the most immediate and important forms of action are critical self-reflection, listening, learning and unlearning. These represent the necessary beginning of an informed commitment to being agents of change. Beyond these first steps, however, we also recognize the need to assess each attitude, each choice and each opportunity in order to actively pursue fairness, equity, inclusion and advocacy in all our artistic processes.

As we move forward in the exploration of new ideas and the creation of new work, our contribution to this struggle will be measured by these attitudes, choices and opportunities. Our emerging projects embrace this responsibility and grasp for this awareness; it is in these actions that we will strive to perform our commitment.