Arts Scene

By Wendy Elliott

The Advertiser

NovaNewsNow.com

Dance in January

Mocean Dance will soon have its premiere performance at Festival Theatre in Wolfville. The performance is part of the Acadia Performing Arts Series and takes place Saturday, Jan. 19.

The contemporary dance company, voted “Best Dance Company” in The Coast Best of Halifax 2007, will present a mixed program sure to engage and inspire all audiences. With repertoire by some of Canada’s finest choreographers, Mocean’s work is diverse, athletic and emotionally charged, showcasing technical skill and exceptional professionalism.

Mocean is delighted to bring their unique brand of contemporary dance to one of Nova Scotia’s most distinguished theatres. “We’re thrilled to be performing in Wolfville,” says Carolle Crooks, co-artistic director and founding member, “It’s always a privilege to perform here in Nova Scotia and we’re very excited to share our work with our home audience.”

Mocean is also offering three days of residency in the community leading up to their mainstage performance. Mocean Dance sees residency and outreach activities as an essential part of their work, and will be working closely with elementary and high school students in Wolfville, as well as a number of dance schools in the community.

To purchase tickets, call the Acadia box office 542-5500 or 542-8425. Tickets are $17/$26 and the performance begins at 8 p.m., Jan. 19.

Make a video

A Community Video-Making Workshop will be held at the New Minas Baptist Church Youth Centre, Commercial Street, New Minas Saturday Jan. 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This workshop is presented jointly by the County of Kings, the villages of New Minas and Kingston and the Canning and District Recreation Commission. It’s open to adults and youth 16 years plus and the cost is $30 for adults and $25 for youth. Lunch is included with the registration.

Facilitated by veteran Kings County videomaker Kimberly Smith, from Creative Action Digital Video, this interactive workshop will help you make the most of your video camera.

Participants will learn the video improv ensemble process, which covers shooting, directing, acting, and editing. Participants will have fun learning how to create short videos and to prepare them for posting on the web. You don’t need a video camera to register, however those with one are encouraged to bring them.

To register contact the nearest sponsor: Kings County Recreation (690-6191); New Minas Recreation (681-6577); Kingston Recreation (765-2800); or Canning Recreation (582-2033). The deadline for registration is Jan. 21.

Up at Ross Creek

Ross Creek Centre for the Arts and Two Planks and a Passion Theatre have teamed up with the Beacon Program on a unique project designed to bring new possibilities.

The Beacon Program in Waterville is a voluntary growth and recovery program offered to adults in Nova Scotia who have a serious and persistent mental illness. The program helps individuals gain the greatest amount of independence possible.

While at Ross Creek last July, Richard Pingert, an occupational therapist for the Beacon Program, approached executive director Chris O’Neill with the thought that experiencing Ross Creek would be an excellent experience for their clients.

“Our organizations have a long history of using the arts as a tool for creative empowerment – for helping people find their voice and a creative outlet,” O’Neill said. “The confidence that people gain through telling their own stories and acquiring the skills to express themselves clearly through theatre or visual art is hugely rewarding for both the participants and the instructors. Ross Creek and Two Planks are proud to be involved with the work that the Beacon Project is doing.”

The project is a pilot program, with two short workshops for participants. Each workshop, one in visual arts, one in theatre will be introductory in nature and focus on empowerment, self-expression and collaborative creation. At the end of both sessions, each sub-group will share their work with the other. Participants will be encouraged to explore their fears and aspirations through a variety of activities supervised by professional artist/instructors.

Artistic director Ken Schwartz will lead the theatre portion. He said that if the project goes well, he hopes the work will expand so other groups can use the power of the arts to improve the lives of Nova Scotians.

“The theatre is accessible to everyone,” says Schwartz. “Sometimes it’s necessary to open the door for someone and to show them they’re not only allowed, but very welcome. It can be, for some individuals, a turning point in their ability to articulate their inner feelings and express how they view the world around them.”

Reaching new audiences

The Canning-based theatre company has also just received $9,432 in provincial funding to reach out to international audiences.

Traditionally a touring company, Two Planks introduced a local outdoor summer theatre program last year in partnership with the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts. The new funds will help brand a new program and create a database to manage out-of-province sales.

"Our new summer theatre program is different from anything we’ve done before," said Schwartz. "This funding will help us market this unique, site-specific experience to international audiences and bring new dollars into Nova Scotia."

The culture sector in Nova Scotia generates about $1.2 billion annually and creates 28,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Plan ahead

There’s a bonus for any families booking a March Break week now at the Ross Creek Centre before Jan. 19.

With programs ranging from dragons to DJing, hip hop to high art, there’s something for everyone aged 5-18.

Each day is $50 or $200 for the whole week. All applications received before Jan. 19 will get a five per cent discount. Bursaries application accepted until Feb. 10.

Digital Days

Starting Saturday, Jan. 26, the Fundy Film Society has lined up a blitz of films to show on a borrowed digital projector.

Meet the Robinsons, a new high definition release, will be screened at 1:30 p.m. as a W.A.C.K.Y. film offering. That evening Close Encounters of the Third Kind will be shown at 7 p.m. presented by Fundy Film Society. It’s the 30th anniversary Director’s Cut of Spielberg’s classic, also in high definition.

On Sunday, Jan. 27 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City will screen at 2 p.m. The Acadia School of Music is presenting it. This 1927 silent film will be set to original student music.

A Room with a View is lined up for 4 p.m. Presented by Fundy Film, this is Merchant Ivory’s breakthrough blockbuster.

Fundy Filmmakers Night 1 is set for Sunday at 7 p.m. Fundy Film is offering a showcase of local filmmakers’ work. They include: A Ballad of South Mountain by Hubert Schuurman, Fundy Tide by Fred Macdonald, The Geometry Of Love by Bev Bliss, Inside Time by Jason Young, and Upright Grand by Tim Wilson. A number of the directors will be on hand afterward.

Then on Monday, Jan. 28, there will be a second Fundy Filmmakers Night, also at 7 p.m. This showcase of local filmmakers’ work features: P is for Papaya by Aube Giroux, Portia White: Think on Me by Sylvia Hamilton, The Prince and the Grail by Robert Hutt, The Three Dimensional World of Joshua Kalfa by Kim Smith, and The Wait by Ann Verrall.

Opera buffs will be pleased to see La Bohème Tuesday, Jan 29 at 7 p.m. Tickets for this Fundy Film presentation are $20. It will be an Opus Arte high definition encore from Teatro Real in Madrid.

Finally, on Wednesday, Jan. 30, two documentaries are being offered. They are Madame Tutli-Putli and Up the Yangtze, which are both new from the NFB. One is a stunning animated short and the other a dramatic, disquieting feature doc with the epic and unsettling Three Gorges Dam as a backdrop.

All films are subject to change without notice.

Sunday Music in the Garden Room

The Associated Alumni of Acadia University (Valley branch) has announced its winter 2008 classical chamber music series, Sunday Music in the Garden Room. All concerts are at 2 p.m. Sunday afternoons in the Garden Room of the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre, Acadia University in Wolfville. There is no charge for admission.

On Jan. 20, Russian chamber music will be played by first desk string players of Symphony Nova Scotia (new concertmaster Robert Uchida; principal second violin, Christopher Wilkinson; principal viola, Susan Sayle; and principal cello, Norman Adams), plus Lucas Porter and John Hansen on piano.

Porter, from Port Williams, will first play a prelude by Rachmaninoff and a toccata by Prokofiev and then be joined by Uchida and Adams in Shostakovich’s E Minor Piano Trio. Following the intermission, all four string players will join forces with Hansen to play Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet, Opus 67.

Then, on Feb. 17, the brilliant young Canadian pianist David Jalbert, on tour under the auspices of Debut Atlantic, will perform works by Shostakovich, Wijeratne, Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann.

On March 16, two of the greatest quintets ever written for piano and winds, one by Mozart and the other by Beethoven, will be performed. They are to be played by SNS members David Parker, horn; Margaret Isaacs, clarinet; Suzanne Lemieux, oboe; Christopher Palmer, bassoon; and Acadia’s John Hansen on piano.



Art classes

Starting last week at Harvest Gallery’s classroom, Wolfville, eight consecutive weeks of classes that cover mono printing, collagraph prints, woodblock prints, and mixed media prints get underway.

Thursday afternoon classes start at 1:30 p.m. with the same class repeated that evening at 7 p.m. Cost is $220 per student and covers all materials and equipment. Maximum 12 students per class. No previous art experience required. The instructor is Bob Hainstock. www.theprintmaker.ca).

In July, Hainstock will offer at his studio a five-day series of classes on introductory printmaking techniques. Intermediate workshop starts Aug. 18. Class size is limited to 12 students. Call 582-3656 for information.

The Harvest Gallery is also hosting eight consecutive Monday evenings with art coach Paul Syme. Developing artists may benefit from one-on-one discussion and through art projects no matter the level of his/ her previous experience. Class size is limited. Cost is $150, plus $25 supplies. Syme is a well-known artist/ educator. www.paulsyme.ca)

A Healing Through Art course has started and will run on eight consecutive Tuesday evenings. Learn to discover, trust and develop your innate creative abilities with work in a variety of art materials and techniques. Class size is limited. Cost is $150, plus $25 materials. Instructors are Gudrun Mueller-Both and Janet Edwards, experienced artists and counselors.

After School Art For Children will run for eight weeks at 3:30 p.m. Each week, students will learn about a different artist and create artwork exploring the style and/or techniques of the artist. Class size is limited. Cost is $120, plus $20 materials. Instructor is Terry Drahos, an educator and visual artist.

Call 542-7093 for further information or to register for any of these courses at the Harvest Gallery, Wolfville.

C.S. Lewis and ‘mere’ Christianity

Writer Mel Malton will lecture Jan. 22 on “Mere Christianity and C.S. Lewis” at St. James Anglican Church in Kentville.

This lecture is part of a 1942 series of BBC radio broadcast talks by British theologian C.S. Lewis. It was meant, in his own words, “to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times.”

Lewis, born in 1898, was for many years an atheist, and described his conversion to Christianity this way: “In 1929, I gave in and admitted that God was God… perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

It was this experience that helped him to understand not only apathy, but active unwillingness to accept religion, says Malton.

His works are known to millions of readers all over the world and have enjoyed a recent revival with the reissue of his more popular books, including The Chronicles of Narnia, a series for children; and The Screwtape Letters, a correspondence between two hard-working demons trying to win souls for the dark side. Lesser known, but enormously popular at the time, were the 1942 radio broadcasts Broadcast Talks, Christian Behaviour and Beyond Personality. These lectures were published together several years later, under the title Mere Christianity.

The lecture is set for 7 p.m.

See the talent

An art show by artist Dr. Ron Stuart will take place at the Wolfville Professional Centre, 4 Little Road, Wolfville, Saturday, Jan. 26 from 1-5 p.m.

If there is a storm the show will be held Sunday, Jan. 27 at the same time.

Call to artists

The annual Acadia Art show in Wolfville is in its 17th year. Works may be submitted until Jan. 17 during gallery hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 1-4 p.m. Exhibition dates are Jan. 25 to March 28, with an opening reception Jan. 25 at 7 p.m.



Coming up

Jan. 15

Anne Simpson reading, Vaughan Library, Acadia University, Wolfville, 7 p.m.

Jan. 15 – 20

Fallen Angels, Acadia Theatre Company, Wolfville, 8 p.m.

Jan. 16

Norman McLaren films, Fundy Film Society, Wolfville, 7 p.m.

Jan. 17

Tommy Hunter, Convocation Hall, Wolfville 7 p.m.

Jan. 19

Robert Lamar’s Theatre of the Mind hypnotist show, 7:30 p.m., at Central Kings. Tickets $10 at the school

Mocean Dance, Festival Theatre, Wolfville, 8 p.m.

Jan. 25

Opening Acadia Art Show, Acadia Art Gallery, Wolfville, 7 p.m.

Until Feb. 19

Senior Follies, CentreStage Theatre, Kentville, 678-8040

(Please send arts items to (welliott@kentvilleadvertiser.ca)