Tag: Artist

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Speaker event at PWNHC with Inuit artist Angus Cockney to celebrate the completion of sculptural collection Ataa! Soona Luna?

Speaker event at PWNHC with Inuit artist Angus Cockney to celebrate the completion of sculptural collection Ataa! Soona Luna?

Join the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC) for a speaker event celebrating the completion of this important sculptural collection by renowned Inuit artist Angus Cockney (the Icewalker).

Through art, Ataa! Soona Luna? (Listen! What Moon?) interprets the Inuit stories of the year’s 12 moons as handed down from the Icewalker’s great-great-grandfather to his grandfather to the artist himself. Through this personal presentation about his journey translating these meaningful stories into physical sculptures, Cockney will share the importance of oral history in preserving Indigenous culture through the generations.

Two sculptures by the Icewalker will be on display during the event.

Date: Thursday, September 22, 2022

Time: Doors open at 7 pm, speaker starts at 7:15 pm

Location: Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre Auditorium

Tea and bannock will be available in the café after the event.

This event is free of charge.

 

For media requests, please contact:

Briony Grabke

Manager, Public Affairs and Communications

Department of Education, Culture and Employment

Government of the Northwest Territories

briony_grabke@gov.nt.ca

867-767-9352  Ext. 71073

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Hip hop artist Santa Fe Klan to play the Rio Rancho Events Center – Rio Rancho Observer

Hip hop artist Santa Fe Klan to play the Rio Rancho Events Center - Rio Rancho Observer

Rio Rancho — Live Nation Entertainment brings hip hop Artist Santa Fe Klan and his 2022 Summer
Tour to the Rio Rancho Events Center on Thursday, August 25 at 8 p.m.

Joining Santa Fe Klan will be Mexican Rapper Tornillo, as well as Mexican Rapper MC DAVO.

The Rio Rancho Events Center “is proud to offer a range of culturally diverse events,” according to the announcement.

Tickets are available now at ticketmaster.com. Concert goers are encouraged to arrive early for the best parking options.

Born and raised in Guanajuato, México, Ángel Quezada AKA Santa Fe Klan has been part of the hip‐hop world since he
was just 12 years old.

Now, 7 years later and with six albums under his name, he continues to impress with his powerful
performances, style and unique sound.

In 2020, he was a finalist of MIDEM´s “Talent Accelerator” and named The Latin
Youth´s voice.

“An MC capable of connecting with thousands and millions of people through his reality: that of a young
man from Santa Fe (name of the colony where he was born and raised) who explores all the vices and virtues of the
Mexican neighborhood.” – VICE

The Rio Rancho Events Center is an 8,000 seat multi‐purpose venue, which opened in
October 2006, and is home to the New Mexico Runners (Major Arena Soccer League) and the Duke City Gladiators
(Indoor Football League).

The arena, which is owned by the City of Rio Rancho, is managed by OVG360.

 

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First Black artist in Vancouver given city’s Studio Award hosts zero-proof event

First Black artist in Vancouver given city's Studio Award hosts zero-proof event

Since 1995, the City of Vancouver’s Artist Studio Award Program has supported local artists by providing studio spaces and one of this year’s recipients is the first Black artist to receive the award. 

Naomi Grace is a multisensory artist and entrepreneur who’s work is “centered around reclaiming sacred medicine in its many forms, which she expresses through painting, mixed media, music, text, culinary arts and sculpture,” reads Grace’s biography on the city’s award recipients page.

“I’m really grateful to have access to this space,” Grace tells Vancouver Is Awesome via phone. 

She plans on using the space for an large scale art installation, community arts integrated workshops, pop-ups and events, and intimate concerts and talks. The space will also serve as an order pickup location for her brand Melanin Rising. 

To celebrate, Grace is hosting a zero-proof open studio event on Saturday, Aug. 20.

Grace wanted to create a sober social event for several reasons, partially inspired by her own transition to an alcohol-free lifestyle. 

“People don’t drink for a number of different reasons. Sometimes it’s because people are pregnant. Sometimes they have friends who just don’t like the feeling of alcohol. Some people are allergic to alcohol. For some people, it’s for religious or cultural reasons. Sometimes people are in recovery,” she tells VIA.

Aside from the non-alcoholic lemonade cocktail bar, she will also be setting up a Melanin Rising pop-up sale.

Zero-Proof Open Studio Pop-Up

When: August 20 and 21 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Where: Naomi Grace Studio – 1573 West 6th Ave

Cost: Free

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WATCH NOW: Kenosha Opera Festival hosting public events

WATCH NOW: Kenosha Opera Festival hosting public events

The Kenosha Opera Festival, launched in the fall of 2019, is back in a big way this season, with two operas, a recital and even a night of bawdy songs at a local brewery.

All of that activity continues the mission of the opera festival’s founders, Nicholas Huff and Kaila Bingen, to “unstuff” opera.

“It’s been going great,” Huff said of their efforts to bring opera to the general public.

“We’ve got more ways to move that ball down the court this year,” he said, “including a Kenosha Opera Festival app with games on it.”

The app — developed by Bingen’s husband, Rick, a computer science professor at Carthage College — is free to download and features opera “fun facts” and games. (When we talked, the app was only available on Android systems.)

“We’ll be playing games on the app during intermission of ‘The Barber of Seville’ with the audience,” Huff said. “It makes the opera fun and energized, not snobbish, which is what we’re all about.” As a bonus: There will be prizes awarded during those “Barber” intermission games.

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Fellowship program

The Kenosha Opera Festival features four young members in the troupe’s fellowship program — two singers and a pianist.

“We’re proud that our program is completely free for these college-age students to attend,” Huff said.

The fellowship program includes workshops on singing, of course, but also offers practical guidance on such topics as how to file your taxes if you’re a freelance performer and how to use social media.

The “fellows” will be performing an opera, “Orfeo ed Euridice” (“Orpheus and Euridice”), based on the Greek myth.

In the story, Orpheus is promised that he may enter Hades and retrieve his wife, Euridice, from death on one condition: he may not look back to see if she is there for the entire journey from the underworld back to the land of the living.

The opera, composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, was first performed in Vienna on Oct. 5, 1762.

The opera is the most popular of Gluck’s works.

“It’s a full-length opera but is a short show,” Bingen said, adding that while the story is based on the classic Greek story “this version isn’t quite so tragic. We can’t leave everyone sad walking out of the theater.”

Note: The opera will be presented in Italian with English supertitles. This is a black-box production, accompanied by piano.

‘Barber of Seville’

This season’s main production is “The Barber of Seville,” Gioachino Rossini’s comedy, which premiered in 1816 and has remained popular ever since.

“It’s one of the most fun operas ever written,” Huff said. “Also, people kind of know this one — from the ‘figaro, figaro, figaro’ singing and some of the familiar arias in it.”

Audiences, he said, “should enjoy it because it is somewhat familar — and it’s just a hoot.”

The cast features this season’s six guest artists — who are coming to Kenosha from New York, Cincinnati, the Chicago area, Florida, Portland, Ore., and even from South Korea.

“We reached out in the opera world and received a lot of interest from all over,” Huff said of casting this year’s production.

The cast, he added, “are all great singers — real bangers.”

This opera — a frantic comedy about, yes, a barber in the city of Seville — features the classic opera plot devices of romantic pursuit, false identities and disguises.

“The show is filled with big personalities,” Bingen said. “All the cast members get to go really big on stage. The vocal fireworks will blow your hair back.”

Note: The opera will be presented in Italian with English supertitles, accompanied by an orchestra.

Guest artist recital

Before they perform on stage in the opera, those guest artists — Heeseung Chae, Max Hosmer, Edith Grossman, Stacey Murdock, Alex Boyd and Janese Pentico — will perform in a Friday night recital at First United Methodist Church, 919 60th St.

“This is a great opportunity to get up close and personal with this group of singers,” Bingen said. “The recital features a fantastic set list, and the church is a wonderful setting for the concert.”

The recital will feature “a teaser” for “The Barber of Seville,” along with songs from musical theater, plus a Mozart set and “Easter eggs” — arias that are routinely cut from operas.

“There will be opera and non-opera pieces, and music from all genres and from all periods,” Huff said.

Overall, the two are happy with the audience response to the opera festival’s productions and other events.

“We’re building up momentum, with everything from our YouTube Channel to our live productions,” Bingen said.

Huff added that our little local opera group is also “becoming more well-known in the opera world. That’s very exciting.”

Opera via ‘Gilligan’s Island’

When it comes to opera, we need to talk about “Gilligan’s Island” — specifically, the “Gilligan” episode featuring Phil Silvers as Hollywood producer Harold Hecuba.

That episode is just one example of how opera is all around us, said Kaila Bingen, a co-founder of the Kenosha Opera Festival.

Bingen posts short videos to the Kenosha Opera Festival’s YouTube Channel, featuring opera “fun facts” and her “Score Keeping” series, which “shows how opera is all around us,” she said, including a “Game of Thrones” music episode.

“People know more opera than they think they do,” she said.

And that includes fans of the 1960s “Gilligan’s Island” sitcom.

In the 1966 episode called “The Producer,” curmudgeonly film producer Harold Hecuba crash lands on the island. The castaways put on a musical version of “Hamlet” to impress him and score a movie role for their resident actress, Ginger.

The cast performs three “Hamlet” songs, including a spot-on parody of the famous “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” speech, set to the “Toreador Song” from the opera “Carmen.”

The “Toreador Song” can be heard tonight, performed by the Racine Concert Band as part of the “Carmen Suite” by Georges Bizet. The band’s free concert starts at 7:30 p.m. in the Racine Zoo, 2131 N. Main St. Note: There is limited seating at the concert site, on the east side of the zoo grounds. Audience members are encouraged to bring blankets and/or lawn chairs.

Here are the “Gilligan” lyrics, if you want to sing along:

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

Do not forget: stay out of debt.

Think twice, and take this good advice from me:

Guard that old solvency!

There’s just one other thing you ought to do.

To thine own self be true.”

Now that’s opera! Seriously, why hasn’t anyone taken this “Hamlet” musical idea and run with it? Lin-Manuel Miranda, are you listening?

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Artist Talk with Ballet BC Choreographers – GlobalNews Events

Artist Talk with Ballet BC Choreographers - GlobalNews Events

Ballet BC is hosting a free Artist Talk ahead of our May program ‘What If’ (May 12/13/14), featuring all four choreographers behind the program: Felix Landerer, Dorotea Saykaly, and David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen (Out Innerspace). Moderated by dance journalist Pia Lo, the event is free to attend and a fantastic opportunity to further engage the choreographers and their brand new creations before their premiere at ‘What If’ at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on May 12/13/14. Save the date: Monday May 9 at 6pm in the Birmingham Studio at Scotiabank Dance Centre (677 Davie Street). No registration is required. We hope to see you there! More info: bit.ly/balletbcwhatif

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EARTH DAY: Cleanups, events, festival fill the April calendar

EARTH DAY: Cleanups, events, festival fill the April calendar

EARTH DAY: Cleanups, events, festival fill the April calendar  The Salem News

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Events: Symphony orchestra in Hillsboro, improv in Beaverton

COURTESY PHOTO: NORDIC NORTHWEST - Beaverton-area nonprofit Nordic Northwest is hosting an exhibit on the history of Swedish-style cabins in the Pacific Northwest.

Westside venues host musicals, dance troupes, singer-songwriters and more, from March 31 on.

COURTESY PHOTO: NORDIC NORTHWEST - Beaverton-area nonprofit Nordic Northwest is hosting an exhibit on the history of Swedish-style cabins in the Pacific Northwest.

Exhibits

GLOBAL WARNING — A group exhibit curated by Chehalem Cultural Center arts director Carissa Burkett features work addressing our global ecological concerns, displayed through Friday, April 1. Featured artists include Tyler Brumfield, Cynthia Camlin, Ann Chadwick Reid, Noelle Evans, Aron Johnston, Christina Kemp, Sheryl LeBlanc, Molly Magai, Natalie Niblack and KaitLynn Spain. Chehalem Cultural Center, 415 E. Sheridan St. in Newberg.

CREATIVE BRILLIANCE — Bonnie Burbidge, Elizabeth Higgins, Alice Hill, Jaymee Martin, Lynee Phelps, Justin Rueff, and Victoria Shaw share their artistic talents in this exhibit through April 22. All of the artists are educators at the Walters, and their work gives a glimpse into their class offerings. Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center, 150 E. Main St. in Hillsboro.

MARCH/APRIL ARTIST RECEPTION — The Valley Art Gallery is displaying the work of local artists Andrea O’Reilly, Carol Schallberger, Dave Weber and Maureen Zoebelein in March and April. Valley Art Gallery, 2022 Main St. in Forest Grove.

SPRING AWARD SHOW — Village Gallery of Arts exhibits award-winning artwork through May 1. Mixed-media artist Kerry Schroeder is this year’s juror, while artist Laura Hopper’s “big and bold painting” will be showcased. Village Gallery of Arts, 1060 N.W. Saltzman Road in Cedar Mill.

CELILO – NEVER SILENCED — The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts hosts “Celilo — Never Silenced,” featuring the work of Indigenous artists Don Bailey, Rick Bartow, Joe Cantrell, Jonnel Covault, Ed Edmo, Joe Fedderson, Analee Fuentes, Sean Gallagher, Lillian Pitt, Pah-tu Pitt, Richard Rowland, Sara Siestreem, Gail Tremblay, and Richard York, through June 5. Artwork depicts and explores the history of Wyam (Celilo Falls), a sacred ground, gathering place and important fishery for generations destroyed by the construction of The Dalles Dam in 1957. The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

SWEDISH CABINS — Cultural nonprofit organization Nordic Northwest presents the exhibit “Swedish Cabins: The Legacy of Henry Steiner and Fogelbo,” on display through June 5. Nordia House, 8800 S.W. Oleson Road in Garden Home.

FIRE & ICE — Form, technique and subject are contrasted in this exhibit from April 5 through May 20. Presented are ceramic works by East Creek Art, depicting flame and ash, and photographs by Don Jacobsen, showing ice formations along the Columbia River Gorge and thermal pools at Yellowstone National Park. A reception will be held from 5-8 p.m. Tuesday, April 5. Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center, 150 E. Main St. in Hillsboro.

PMG FILE PHOTO - The Hillsboro Symphony Orchestra will perform at the Glenn & Viola Walters Performing Arts Center on April 8.

Music

CHRIS COUCH — The frontman and chief songwriter of World’s Finest brings his original music to the Garage Door for a free live show from 7-10 p.m. Friday, April 1. Ages 21 and over. McMenamins Grand Lodge, 3505 Pacific Ave. in Forest Grove.

J.T. WISE DUO — Rock, blues and Americana performers play live at the Garage Door from 7-10 p.m. Saturday, April 2. This is a free, all-ages show. McMenamins Grand Lodge, 3505 Pacific Ave. in Forest Grove.

JACOB WESTFALL — Indie singer-songwriter Jacob Westfall returns to the Garage Door from 7-10 p.m. Friday, April 8. Music fans may recognize him from appearances on “American Idol” and “The Voice.” This is a free, all-ages show. McMenamins Grand Lodge, 3505 Pacific Ave. in Forest Grove.

HILLSBORO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA — In an evening of world-renowned classical music, well-known popular arrangements, and locally composed original pieces, 7:30-9:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, the Hillsboro Symphony Orchestra presents three of its ensembles: Jazz & the Harpist, a brass quintet, and a woodwind quintet. Tickets $12 advance, $15 day of show, at cityofhillsboro.ticketspice.com/hillsboro-symphony-orchestra. All proceeds go to support the Hillsboro Symphony Orchestra. The Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center, 527 E. Main St. in Hillsboro.

EDGE — Classic and Southern rock collide with this show from 7-10 p.m. Saturday, April 9, at the Garage Door. This is a free, all-ages show. McMenamins Grand Lodge, 3505 Pacific Ave. in Forest Grove.

OMAR SOSA & SECKOU KEITA SUBA TRIO — Cuban piano virtuoso Omar Sosa and Senegalese kora master Seckou Keita perform featuring percussionist Gustavo Ovalles at 8 p.m. Sunday, April 10. Tickets from $30 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

GABRIEL KAHANE — Oregon Symphony presents the world premiere of Gabriel Kahane’s new song cycle, “Magnificent Bird,” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 14. At once intimate and ambitious, Kahane’s latest work toggles between personal loss and a series of public crises that continue to roil the nation. Tickets from $35 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

JACK MCMAHON — Featuring country blues and acoustic roots, singer-songwriter Jack McMahon performs from 7-10 p.m. Friday, April 15. This is a free, all-ages show. McMenamins Grand Lodge, 3505 Pacific Ave. in Forest Grove.

OREGON SYMPHONY — George Frideric Handel’s “Water Music” becomes a foil for five contemporary works that draw inspiration from water as the Oregon Symphony performs “Be as Water” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 15. Along with selections from Handel, music by Andy Akiho, Timo Andres, Inti Figgis-Vizueta, Nico Muhly and Gabriella Smith will be featured. Tickets from $35 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

PAUL MAUER — Now a solo act, acoustic indie-rocker Paul Mauer performs at the Garage Door from 7-10 p.m. Saturday, April 16. This is a free, all-ages show. McMenamins Grand Lodge, 3505 Pacific Ave. in Forest Grove.

COLIN MELOY — Indie folk-rock ensemble The Decemberists’ frontman and songwriter appears for a solo show at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 16. Tickets from $45 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

DAKHABRAKHA — Its name meaning “give/take” in Ukrainian, this quartet from Kyiv, the capital city of war-torn Ukraine, performs an eclectic but undeniably Ukrainian blend of folk, punk and pop music in two 7:30 p.m. shows Sunday, April 17, and Monday, April 18. Tickets from $25 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

THE AMERICAN REFRAIN — A celebration of jazz, this hour-long show from 7-8 p.m. Tuesday, April 19, with narration walks the audience through the tenets of the genre and how it has shaped community, culture and music. There is no charge for admission, but seats must be reserved at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

ACOUSTIC MINDS — Identical twin sisters Jenni and Amanda Price perform their soul-tronic dance-pop at the Garage Door from 7-10 p.m. Friday, April 22. This is a free, all-ages show. McMenamins Grand Lodge, 3505 Pacific Ave. in Forest Grove.

THE BEN ROSENBLUM TRIO — Award-winning New York City jazz pianist and accordionist Ben Rosenblum leads a trio of performers in concert at 7 p.m. Friday, April 22. Tickets from $25 at chehalemculturalcenter.org. Chehalem Cultural Center, 415 E. Sheridan St. in Newberg.

SONNY HESS — Local blues legend Sonny Hess performs fiery rhythm and blues at the Garage Door from 7-10 p.m. Saturday, April 23. This is a free, all-ages show. McMenamins Grand Lodge, 3505 Pacific Ave. in Forest Grove.

JOHN SCOFIELD — Triple Grammy-winning jazz guitarist John Scofield performs a show featuring Vicente Archer, Jon Cowherd and Josh Dion at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 23. Tickets from $29.50 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

LISA LYNNE & ARYEH FRANKFURTER — Hear Celtic harps, rare instruments and wondrous stories from performers Lisa Lynne and Aryeh Frankfurter from 1-2 p.m. Sunday, April 24. This is a free performance most suitable for adults, held in a comfortable library hearth space. Tualatin Public Library, 18878 S.W. Martinazzi Ave.

SPRING ACCORDION CELEBRATION — Andy Mirkovich is the featured performer at the first accordion celebration in Forest Grove since October 2019, set to take place from 1:30-5 p.m. Sunday, April 24. Amateur and professional accordionists alike will entertain the audience. Tickets $5 at the door. Forest Grove Senior/Community Center, 2037 Douglas St. in Forest Grove.

TAMBUCO PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE — The four-time Grammy nominees showcase the limitless colors, voices, and expressive capabilities of percussion instruments, from the melodic strains of four marimbas to the rhythmic sounds of tapping stones, at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 24. Tickets from $35.50 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

COURTESY PHOTO: PATRICIA RESER CENTER FOR THE ARTS - Nassim, a partially improvisational play featuring a new actor each night, has two upcoming performances at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts on April 8-9.

Theater & Dance

ORIGINS — White Bird presents “Origins,” a hip-hop dance performance by Versa-Style Dance Company, opening 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 1. The show follows the evolution of hip-hop dance from its roots in communities of color. Showtimes 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday before closing with a 2 p.m. Sunday, April 3, matinee. Tickets from $19 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

NASSIM — The Reser presents “Nassim,” an innovative play that explores the power of language and friendship, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, and Saturday, April 9. The play features a different actor every night: Josie Seid on April 8 and Troy Metcalf on April 9. Tickets from $25 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

LEADING LADIES — Lakewood Theatre Co. presents “Leading Ladies,” a comedy written by Ken Ludwig and directed by Stephanie Mulligan, through Sunday, April 10. The play, in which two struggling Shakespearean actors scheme to inherit a stranger’s wealth, is described as “Some Like It Hot” meets “Twelfth Night.” Showtimes at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, plus a special showing at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 23. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a recent negative test are required for all audience members age 12 and older. Tickets from $25 at lakewood-center.org. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S. State St. in Lake Oswego.

DON’T HUG ME — Broadway Rose Theatre Co. presents “Don’t Hug Me,” a Minnesota musical comedy directed and choreographed by Dan Murphy, beginning Thursday, April 14. The production is described as “Fargo” meets “The Music Man,” without the blood or the trombones. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, except on Easter Sunday, through May 8. Tickets from $5 at broadwayrose.org. Broadway Rose New Stage, 12850 S.W. Grant Ave. in Tigard.

SEA SICK — The Reser presents the Theatre Center’s “Sea Sick,” written and performed by Alanna Mitchell and directed by Franco Boni with Ravi Jain, with two showings at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 21, and Friday, April 22. An award-winning Canadian journalist and author, Mitchell explores the deep topics of climate change and the changing state of the global ocean, but not without her own wit and hope for the future. Tickets $35 at thereser.org. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St. in Beaverton.

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Ignite the Arts offers 10 days of superb events

Weekend events guide

The enthusiasm for the first-ever Ignite the Arts Festival from co-organizers Paul Crawford and Julie Fowler is contagious.

The 10-day event kicks off Friday and runs through until April 3 at various venues across the city.

“We want people to know there’s all these incredible artists coming, but as well, we have a lot of free stuff to offer,” Fowler said in an interview. “We have the more-traditional ticketed festival on the final weekend, but a lot of what we offer is free, especially in the first week.”

Fowler coordinated the Arts Wells Festival in Wells, B.C. for 17 years. She retired on good terms in 2019 and then COVID — combined with a shortage of accommodations — basically sealed the fate of the event.

Much of what was done in Wells will be mirrored in Penticton.

“A lot of this will be an experiment for the first year,” Fowler admits. “We will learn a lot and we are hoping to lay down a foundation for years to come.”

Ticket buyers might be confused by the fact a lot is going on — all at the same time.

Organizers encourage visitors to go online to research the artists and then plan their week accordingly.

Part of the festival’s concept was to involve all of the partner groups from the community and many are hosting their own events during the 10-day period.

“There’s always been a notion that arts are fractured in our community,” Crawford said. “We want to gather everyone under one umbrella. This is not the Penticton Art Gallery’s festival, even though we’re the ones organizing it. It’s Penticton’s festival.”

Fowler, a board member with the Penticton Arts Council for four years, said she’s never witnessed so much positive collaboration in all her years in Penticton.

On the first weekend, a free concert, “Awakening: First Blossoms/Spring Equinox” will be held at the Cleland Theatre. Victoria Jaenig and Ullus Collective, Devyn Destinee, Mariel Belanger, Rich n Beka, The Melawmen Collective and Curtis Clearsky and the Constellationz will all perform sets on Sunday, March 27 from 7-11 p.m.

Other week-one highlights include the unveiling of the square mini-murals on opening night and then a parade to nowhere, Saturday at 6:30 p.m. outside the gallery. The parade’s walking route will be determined spontaneously based on the number of people who show up.

On the weekend of April 1-3, the festival will have simultaneous performances at venues including the Penticton Art Gallery, Slackwater Brewing, Cannery Brewing, The Dream Café, Tempest Theatre and Okanagan Lake Park.

Vaccine passports will be required at most indoor venues as provincial health orders are not being adjusted until April 8.

The format for the final weekend is similar to the Pentastic Jazz Festival where visitors can travel from venue to venue or remain at one venue for the entire day.

Among the recognizable names scheduled to perform are Juno nominee Al Simmons, a longtime collaborator with children’s performer Fred Penner; internationally-renowned Aboriginal musician Kym Gouchie; and Juno nominees Oot n’ Oots.

“Ours is offering a much more diverse lineup of artists than other festivals,” Crawford said. “If you listen to CBC or go to folk festivals, you will have heard a lot of the artists we have coming here. Just because you haven’t heard of them doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy them. With the exception of the Cleland (Theatre), our largest venue seats 100 and everything is going to be an intimate performance.”

While the final week of March seems like a strange time to host a major festival, Ignite the Arts team believes it’s perfect.

“By having this over spring break, there’s a lot of people who traditionally leave (for holidays) and we’re looking to have people stay here,” Crawford said.

“Why do something over the summer when you’re competing against 100 other special events?”

Fowler echoes, “With climate events such as forest fires, summer is now becoming a challenging time to organize anything. In the spring, the worst thing we’re looking at is maybe a major snowstorm that will make it hard for people to get up here from the mountain pass.”

While most of the attendees are expected to be from the Okanagan, tickets have been purchased from as far away as Vancouver Island.

Tickets for the final weekend are available until Thursday at the reduced rate of $100 which includes a $15 voucher for select businesses, gallery and artist merchandise.

Tickets for students ages 13-17 are $25 for the weekend and children 12 and under are free. Adult tickets are $125 as of Friday at midnight.

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To view the entire schedule, purchase tickets, sign up to volunteer or view artist biographies visit: pentictonartgallery.com/ ignite-the-arts-festival

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Artist Stan Douglas unveils historical work inspired by political events

Artist Stan Douglas unveils historical work inspired by political events

Artist Stan Douglas on the Vancouver set for his photo series Penn Station’s Half Century in 2020.Handout

During a March snowstorm in 1914, a vaudeville troupe stranded in New York’s Penn Station spent the night entertaining itself. What might such a scene have looked like?

With dramatic lighting and vintage costumes, the Canadian artist Stan Douglas conjured up the acrobats and musicians for a photographic series devoted to key moments in the life of the famed Beaux Arts building before it was demolished in 1963. Penn Station’s Half Century features elaborate set pieces that were shot at Vancouver’s Agrodome early in the pandemic and then laid over computer-generated recreations of the lost station’s grandiose waiting room.

The images were commissioned as murals for the new Moynihan Train Hall, which opened at the current Penn Station in December 2020, but the whole series can now also been seen in Canada. Montreal’s PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art ordered exhibition prints of the giant photographs as part of a show devoted to Douglas’s work that includes Penn Station’s Half Century and the 2012 photo series Disco Angola. Consider it something of an appetizer for Douglas’s next big assignment: He will be unveiling new work, inspired by political events of 2011, at the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in April.

Douglas’s photography devoted to past events is usually displayed without any history lessons taped to the wall and often raises an immediate question about context. Does the viewer in Montreal or New York need to know about vaudevillian Bert Williams and his stranded performers or – to name two other scenes featuring folk celebrities arriving at Penn Station – the Black union organizer Angelo Herndon or the Brooklyn armed robber Celia Cooney?

Knowing all the historic detail may enrich the experience but it shouldn’t suggest to the viewer that these works are simply records of events.Handout

“That’s always a question with my work. People say: ‘You have all this backstory, how can we be expected to know that?’ I don’t expect it at all,” Douglas said in a recent interview. “People who do know that will have a different experience of the work, but there should be something in the pictorial experience that should give you a clue as to what’s going on. So, it’s not a requirement to know that stuff, but it does make it a more rich experience.”

Knowing all the historic detail may enrich the experience but it shouldn’t suggest to the viewer that these works are simply records of events, moments in the life of a train station or, in the case of Disco Angola, the unlikely juxtaposition of the Angolan civil war that erupted in 1975 with the simultaneous rise of disco in New York. Instead, the scenes play with storytelling, relying on the unconscious education in image-making that we have all received through media to conjure up scenes that are as much about their own creation as their content – hence the Montreal show’s title, Revealing Narratives.

The Penn Station scenes, for example, are visibly stagy, with chiaroscuro lighting and expressive postures. In the most meta moment of the series, Douglas recreates Hollywood recreating the station for the 1945 Judy Garland movie The Clock. The Disco Angola series, imagined as the work of a fictional photojournalist who intersperses his trips to the war zone with nights at dance clubs, might let the viewer consider the way both conflict and entertainment are presented for the camera.

“If we are informed by our knowledge of the language of film and television we will understand these works,” said Cheryl Sim, the PHI curator who organized the show and compares Douglas and his photographs with the great history painters of old. “They have that grandiose and gravitas. There are so many narratives going on in the frame. … His ability to master composition is central to the work.”

Douglas is interested in history’s secondary plots and bit players – the now forgotten figures such as Cooney, the so-called Bobbed-Hair Bandit who robbed Brooklyn stores at gunpoint.

“One of my key habits or interests is to look at minor histories and to see how minor histories actually reflect a larger condition,” he said. He cites the situation of the vaudevillians trapped in the station – they had to travel to entertain – as a specific example of a more general cultural condition: Before film and TV, all entertainment was live.

Not coincidentally, the African diaspora features in many of these forgotten histories: Williams, a Bahamian-American, broke the colour barrier in vaudeville; Herndon was convicted for “insurrection” after his attempts to organize Black and white workers in Atlanta. And, in the faded spaces of midtown Manhattan’s abandoned hotels, disco emerged from Black and Latino communities as a counterculture dance movement before it ever hit Studio 54.

“I have always depicted Black people but with a very broad sense of what blackness actually is. What is Afro-German? Afro-Cuban, Afro-English, Afro-Canadian, Afro-American? All these kinds of blackness are manifested in different ways,” he said.

Douglas, born in Vancouver to Caribbean immigrants, has a long and subtle relationship with such content. He’s not that impressed with the current rage for Black art.

Douglas, born in Vancouver to Caribbean immigrants, is not that impressed with the current rage for Black art.Handout

“There’s a certain homogeneity to the way in which Black bodies are being represented these days. Unfortunately you can’t tell the artist is a person of colour unless it’s a representational image, and this has allowed a lot of regressive art to get a lot visibility. A lot of art that kind of verges on kitsch is being shown because it’s got a Black body or something, even though there are still many interesting Black artists who are doing nonrepresentational work, conceptual work.”

Educated at what was then the Emily Carr College of Art and Design (now University), Douglas has made his career in Vancouver and, despite ever-increasing international attention, still lives there when not teaching at the ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles. Part of the fertile school of West Coast photo artists that emerged in the 1980s, and which also includes Jeff Wall and Ken Lum, he finds Vancouver a useful place to work because its busy film-production industry means he can easily source lights, costumes and extras.

But it is not a large enough centre for any practitioner of the visual arts to be parochial or complacent: Douglas, who has shown around the world, will be representing Canada in Venice this spring. He is the first Black artist to be featured in the Canada Pavilion, but this is not his first Biennale; his work has been included in four previous group exhibitions there, most recently in 2019.

The Venice Biennale always encourages big and surprising unveilings, so Douglas is keeping details under his hat, but he does give a broad hint as to the historic events that will feature in the work. This Biennale, he reminds you, was supposed to take place in 2021, a decade after 2011, the year of the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring protests. Douglas will be showing a series of photographs in the light-filled Canada Pavilion at the Biennale’s main Giardini site and screening video work at an off-site location on Giudecca. More revealing narratives are sure to follow.

Educated at what was then the Emily Carr College of Art and Design (now University), Douglas has made his career in Vancouver.Handout

Stan Douglas: Revealing Narratives continues at the PHI Foundation in Montreal to May 22 and will then tour to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax in June through November. The Venice Biennale runs from April 23 to Nov. 27.