And who said?

The girls were having a blast… their friends had all arrived for the party. There was a pink frosted cake, gifts to be unwrapped, loot bags, and the whole neighbourhood had turned out. My little Cleo and Sammie were turning five and I was a proud momma. Sure – Cleo and Sammie are basset hounds but those are the kind of details I never bother to dwell on.

Before the final Community Building webcast with Ian Hill this past Friday, I mentioned on the chat board that I was planning on hosting a basset birthday batch. This had Ian in stitches.

“That’s pretty hilarious,” he said later on the webcast. “But, hey, community can happen anywhere.”

This really did make me think. It is true, community does happen anywhere. Because let’s face it, even I know that birthday parties for dogs are a little silly. The reason for this bash, like with many others that I’m sure will happen this summer, was that I really just wanted to be surrounded by my people… my peeps… as the cool kids say.

This was undeniably a fabricated way to bring my community together. One of the messages that ACE Communities promotes is that it is ok to dig up a reason to build community. Back in the day we had the barn raisings, quilting bees, and canning circles as ways of bringing people together. Nowadays, we seem to have lost those positive avenues or catalysts for individuals to connect to different types of community.

It was interesting to see what transpired during my basset bash. I had my parents mixing with the ladies from my basset hound rescue group (they brought the basset guests). Our art-world friends hung with my group of tried-and-true neighbours. One of our basset hound foster moms met my neighbour who happened to work at the Calgary Humane Society. They exchanged info and job-hunting tips.

The same foster mom reconnected with one of my husband’s artist friends who happened to have taught her how to make pottery a year before. This pottery teacher is a rather new addition to our street so she was able to formally meet all of the neighbours that she had only ever knew in passing.

Two new moms with similar aged children watched as their kids played with each other’s toys amongst the basset hound chaos. Everyone sang happy birthday when the girls’ cake came out because that’s what you do at a birthday party.

I would say I had 20 people at my shindig from the age of 3 months to 65 – and those were just the people. Six basset hounds, two great danes, and one grandma poodle made up the rest.

One friend volunteered to go shopping for me when I got too busy with other party-related things. One of my neighbours went over to the other’s to help her organize her two young children for the basset party – help that was much appreciated as her husband was away for the weekend.

I even had the young, impressively tattooed guy from across the street knock on my door the following morning with Cleo in tow. A partygoer had forgotten to close the gate and so Cleo went for a morning stroll down the street. Until that point I had never even chatted with this unexpected Good Samaritan but boy was I relieved that he had taken the time to note that we were the house with the crazy bassets.

And who said that basset hounds couldn’t build community?

The show will go on!

The pilot for the ACE ARTS Tour has now officially been completed. It is a bittersweet ending, no doubt. I will definitely miss being on the ground, working with amazing rural communities in their exploration of the arts, culture, and heritage. I danced, I laughed, and thankfully didn’t sing my way across Alberta. I really can’t sing… well, maybe I can hum a little when inspired.

As this was a pilot project, ACE Communities is hoping to take what we have learnt and apply it in our hunt for funding for future initiatives. We have seen the potential of the arts, culture, and heritage as a catalyst for community building and want to see this potential grow.

You know what that now means? Reports… a lot of them. Individual community reports, a master ARTS Tour report, financial reports – the list could go on.

But I’m okay with that because I know the effort will be worth it. I have seen the transformative power that the arts have had in the lives of many Albertans in the communities that the Tour has visited.

So I think it is time that I take a few minutes to reflect on those who have been affected by the ACE ARTS Tour:

-Imagine 150 elementary school kids hip hopping all together in Hanna

-Meet Olive in Longview who, at the young age of 92, not only baked bread for the ARTS Tour opening event but also took on a Cape Breton dance class

-Hear about the record 75% attendance for the dance and guitar classes in the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation Susa Creek school outside of Grande Cache

-Celebrate the seniors in both Hanna and Longview who did not let their assisted breathing apparatuses deter them from getting up and dancing in their Movement classes

-Cheer on Ann in Longview whose love of the mandolin, and some help from the artist ARTS Tour facilitators, inspired her to perform in front of an audience along side John Wort Hannam despite serious stage fright

-Be inspired by the guitar peer group forming in Grande Cache made up of people who just kept running into each other all week in workshops during their ARTS Tour

-Admire Jesse in Hanna who has the goal of being an actress once she graduates from high school. Not only did she attend 15 workshops in 4 days (4 of which she attended the 1^st day!), she made huge advancements with overcoming her fear of singing in public

-Celebrate Stu in Longview, who has worked at overcoming a serious rodeo-related brain injury. Stu not only sang at the ACE ARTS Tour Open Mike, he took a guitar class and is now committed to performing a song composed by ACE musician John Rutherford and a group of other workshop attendees

-Smile at the young group of songwriters who performed their new song ‘Hanna Rocks’ at the school assembly

- Acknowledge Sherril from High River who attended ARTS Tour classes in BOTH Hanna and Longview!

-Be motivated by the families who hip hopped together in ‘Mommy and Me’ classes in Grande Cache, Longview, and Hanna

-Admire the determination of a group of over 20 guitar-loving individuals of all ages who travelled 2 hrs from Kindersley, SK, to take workshops in Hanna

- Congratulate Michelle in Longview who not only organized her local tour but also participated in singing and guitar classes. Way to lead by example, Michelle!

-Applaud parents in Hanna who gave their kids permission to attend as many workshops as they liked even if it meant missing school. “Who can miss this type of educational opportunity?” one parent (and school board trustee) is quoted as saying.

- Cheer on the mayor of Grande Cache who not only endorsed the ACE ARTS Tour initiative but also got up and danced with her granddaughter in the Pre-school dance class

Like this list, we intend that the proverbial show will go on! There is just too much potential for the arts and culture to affect the quality of life in rural Alberta for us to stop now. So stay tuned….

The New Black is... the new black.

The New Black was right under my nose the whole time – all I had to do was stop and take a look. Funny how that happens sometimes with the things in your community that really, truly matter.

I first heard about the New Black: Center for Music and Art, an all age music venue/recording studio, at the Alberta Recreation and Park Association’s (ARPA) youth symposium in January. The City of Calgary, Community & Neighbourhood Services, was there giving a presentation on their ‘Toast ‘n’ Jam’ program – an arts engagement initiative with a focus on teaching youth how to become professional musicians.

This symposium session caught my eye because of my role at as the Creative Cultural Liaison with ARPA’s ACE Communities. With my latest baby – the ACE ARTS Tour – soon to be on the road, it was increasingly apparent that music and youth was kinda becoming my thing. It was time, I thought to myself, to get some insight on the topic.

The focus of the City of Calgary’s talk was their transition to a more grassroots, community driven approach to the ‘Toast ‘n’ Jam’ program. Part of this transition was the city’s partnership with the New Black, a youth-friendly music venue in Inglewood. As I just happened to live in Inglewood and was now snuggly wearing my youth & music hat, I quickly put the New Black on my list of places to visit.

Flash forward four months and there I finally was, standing in the uber cool, yet still punk-flavoured New Black. Earlier that week, I had been jogging and stopped to tie my shoelace right in front of the venue’s slightly obscure front entrance. Ah ha, I thought! New Black now located – check one on the list accompli.

“It can be tough to find us,” says Darren Ollinger, one of the venue’s founder, “but that’s all part of the appeal to the kids who come here. It makes it like a destination just for them.”

Hunkered in a cluster of commercial buildings, with the Canadian Pacific Railway right in their back yard, the New Black is the perfect spot for music lovers of all ages to come and see live gigs, create music themselves, or simply hang out with their peers.

“The goal of the New Black,” continues Ollinger, whose day job is as the creative director of the X92.9 FM – Calgary’s alternative radio station, “is to provide a place where kids want to hang out and, just as important, a place where their parent’s feel they are safe to be.”

Oozing professionalism tapered with a grunge edge, the New Black offers its all aged clients a stage to practice their stuff (with a fully equipped music system and acoustic set-up) as well as a recording studio. Bring your own gear and rent the studio for $20/hr. Don’t have your own gear, then the New Black will provide it for a fee of $30/hr. These are rates that would make the average hockey parent turn green with envy.

Parents, of course, are always welcomed at the New Black and Ollinger himself has had chats with parents who have secretly come by to check up their kids.

“We tell parents that this is a place for kids to have a real life educational music experience. They can come here and either perform or just get a feeling for how it really feels to be a working musician,” says Ollinger. “This is what the kids said they wanted so we rose to the challenge and tried to provide it.”

The New Black is currently in the midst of becoming an incorporated non-profit society. Its existence comes from the fact that two guys, who loved music themselves, believed that every kid should have access to music. So fret not – even the non-jock, artsy-punks, wanna-be rockers, and music loving alternative kids can have a place of their own.

For more info on the New Black: http://www.thenewblackcentre.com/

When I hear the drum...

I could feel the drumbeat literally vibrating through my breastbone. A group of men sat around a large format drum, playing in unison, and I was in awe, taken back by the pure visceral sensation. Standing there and feeling the pulse of that drumbeat was easily the most amazing musical experience of my life.

This encounter with the drum took place last Friday at the Indigenous Sport Council Alberta’s (ISCA) conference. It was part of an award ceremony that the ISCA was hosting for young Aboriginal leaders in sport.

The MC had just explained that, in his culture, they recognized accomplishment not only with material items like awards but also with spiritual accolades through the drum. Afterwards, someone explained that the physical experience I had was intentional and that the drum was meant to mimic the heartbeat of the listeners. As I felt the beat in my chest that night, I understood the valuable tie that the arts had to the spirit.

Later that weekend, I attended the funeral of Ethel Wolf. She was the mother of Helen Zenith - my former boss and mentor who is now a much-respected friend. As her friends and family remembered Ethel’s life, they spoke of the strength of a young Jewish girl who survived the Holocaust and went on to brave a new life for her family in Canada.

One fond story of Ethel was how she advocated that we must always pay good fortune forward and celebrate the joy in one’s life. Charity didn’t count, she said, unless you tore the charitable receipt up. Ethel worked hard but always had time for her friends, her family, and the community. When I heard these words it was as if I could feel the drum vibrating again in my chest.

These two experiences gave me comfort this week as I moved through my days. I found comfort in the knowledge that we can still move pass the material world and celebrate our successes with something as powerful as music. And I remember the power of this spirit through the story of a young girl who not only survived the horror of the Holocaust but also travelled across the world to make Alberta her home.

When I was in Susa Creek for the last ARTS Tour recently, I was given a book created by the elementary school and their community, the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation. It was a book of prose and drawings dedicated to the power of drum. Here is my favourite poem:

“When I hear the drum…

My heart beats.

Beats its beat.

It sings along.”

When I personally hear the drum again… I will remember those who have went before me. And I will always remember to always celebrate the strength and the spirit of those who make a difference in my life.

My thanks to Principal Mark McGimpsey and the students at the Susa Creek School for allowing me to reproduce excerpts from their book.

Ties that bind

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the ties that arts, culture, and heritage have to community building. I’ve also been thinking, in fact, about culture’s ties to recreation, capacity building in general, and the economic impact of creativity. Gah! As you can rightly imagine, my brain is quickly filling to the brim.

There has been a lot of interest lately in the connection that the arts have to the quality of life sectors like recreation but also the connection they have to building both community and economic capacity.

I recently attending a talk on this very subject in Calgary called ‘Creativity as an Economic Force’, the Indigenous Sport Council Alberta’s (ISCA) upcoming conference in Red Deer touches on this as well (I know because I am hosting the session!!), and even the Canadian Confederation for the Arts (CAA) has just made a conference call for topics related to artists powering the economy.

Why all the recent interest?

Much of my personal musing on the subject has been sparked by two things: 1) the recent ACE ARTS Tour in Grande Cache and 2) the various ways I hope to report on what I have learnt.

If you haven’t, by some miracle, heard me mention it yet, the ACE Alberta Rural Talent Showcase (ARTS) Music and Dance Tour is a 4-day initiative meant as an opportunity for communities to come together to celebrate and grow local talent. ACE truly believes that fostering arts, culture, and heritage is what make all communities better places to live, work and play.

The ACE ARTS Tour, with musicians John Wort Hannam (Juno-nominated) and John Rutherford as well as dancers Michelle Greenwell and Emma Forman, have just returned from Grande Cache and the first inaugural, dare I say groundbreaking, ARTS Tour. This Tour culminated in dance and music workshops and performances in Grande Cache schools, senior centers, their recreation centre as well as workshops in Susa Creek for the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation.

If I were to use my recent experience in Grande Cache as a test example, I can easily think of many ways that arts, culture, and heritage were used to both build community capacity and drive the economy.

It was during this recent ARTS Tour that I saw a group of complete strangers meet over their love of the guitar and form a brand new peer group. It was there that I also saw a local café donate their space for artistic workshops and then benefit from the business of the attendees.

I visited the Susa Creek School and was gifted a book of drawing and poems made by community members of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation to both celebrate and promote their culture. Myself, along with over 500 participants, benefited from the knowledge and skills of two professional musicians and two professional dancers and they, in turn, made a living wage. I also heard these same artists comment repeatedly on how much they were personally inspired by the enthusiasm of the Grande Cache community.

The list could go on…

Because of history, we know that it has been celebrations involving arts, culture, music and dance that have strengthened families and communities. It is these celebrations that build our confidence and self esteem and express a vision for the kind of community we’re seeking. It is the arts, culture, and heritage that ultimately teach us that joy can be achieved in sustainable ways.

For images from the Grande Cache ACE ARTS Tour see: http://acecommunities.ca/gallery/P12/

Just apply, already!

Let’s talk resources for arts and heritage. How many of you know about the ‘Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage Program’? Well, if you don’t, I think it is time that you did.

An initiative of the Canadian Heritage Department, the ‘Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage Program’ was created to help Canadians celebrate their communities. The Program is meant to increase opportunities, through festivals or other events and activities, for local artists and artisans to be involved in their community and for local groups to commemorate their local history and heritage.

Studies say that it is the festivals and celebrations that are pivotal to community engagement, identity, and cohesiveness. And it is in the fostering of our communities’ cultural identities that we find social, capital, or civic renewal. Festivals, concerts, and events create opportunities for people to be active and engaged and we know that families who play together, stay together. And you don’t have to take my word for it… the actual studies for these facts can be found in ACE’s online Benefits Catalogue. (Yes, this is a shameless plug for the Benefits Catalogue. Seriously people, this is another resource that kicks butt… use it!... http://benefits.acecommunities.ca)

Because let’s face it…each of Canada’s communities is unique and each is uniquely Canadian. This is, by far, one of our nation’s biggest strengths. Geography, history, their founders and those who came to live there shape our communities. And they continue to grow and change as the people who live there now build on those foundations.

The ‘Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage Program’ is one of those resources that can truly be used to celebrate your community. This program has three components:

Local Festivals: Festivals, events and activities that involve your whole community, give opportunities to local artists and artisans and/or celebrate local history and heritage.

Community Anniversaries: One-time commemoration through festivals or other activities that celebrates a major anniversary of a significant local person or event.

Legacy Fund: 
Awards for the creation of tangible, lasting capital projects which commemorate or celebrate a major anniversary of a significant local person or event.

Eligible events and activities must be local – created by and for your community. They must be open and accessible to the public and strongly encourage and promote the participation of everyone in your community.

So the opportunity is there for those entrepreneurial enough to look more into the potential of this grant and then to apply! Imagine what cultural impact this would make in your community.

For more info and the application process see: http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/communities/

Don't be afraid...technology loves you

It’s like looking into an eye of a chicken…. That was an expression that my Ukrainian grandmother used to say. As you can imagine, it’s not the most flattering of comments - implications of pea-sized brains, futzing around with chicken scratch, and instinctual urges to flee were the associations that always popped into my head whenever she would use it.

Something along those lines is what I suspect my Workshop Instructor, Calgary-based filmmaker Michael Welchman, was probably thinking about me last weekend at EMMEDIA’s Final Cut Pro Class for Beginners. I was there to upgrade my almost non-existent editing skills and he was there to teach me about batch capturing, scratch disks, and Digital Betacams.

It was then that my grandmother’s saying popped into my mind as I was most definitely sporting my best chicken eye. New technology can be a scary and a humbling thing.

I had bravely ventured into EMMEDIA that weekend because, as mentioned above, I was looking for some skills. And it so happens that EMMEDIA is a place where many people with film-related endeavours go to find them.

Established in Calgary in1979, EMMEDIA is a non-profit organization managed and directed by practicing artists. It offers the general pubic and artists alike affordable access to media art production tools, to technical and educational support, and to an array of public exhibition programs. The centre provides a focus for media arts activity and a gathering place for people to interact and exchange ideas.

Other innovative EMMEDIA initiatives include, Digital Direct, launched in 1998, which takes portable digital production and editing equipment to remote or isolated communities in southern Alberta and within the City of Calgary. For many in the art world, EMMEDIA is a hidden gem. For the rest of us, it is a one-stop stomping ground for those adventurous enough to take on the world of new media.

My interest in learning editing skills was specifically job related. Looming over my head is a whole library of ACE-on-the-road footage crying to be made into jazzy little promotional snippets. My fellow classmates varied in their interests. One was a freelance actress who did voice work and was now interested in creating her own documentaries. Another was a retired arts administrator who wanted to return to filmmaking, as it was his first love. We were a sassy little bunch, comrade-in-arms in the new media trenches.

The most important realization that I think we all took away with us from our time at EMMEDIA was that the technology and the resources are there for those willing to dive in and use them. Sure, you might look silly and suddenly lose your ability to work the right-click on a mouse. But who cares! New technology doesn’t judge you… it just doesn’t do ANYTHING until you figure it out.

When you are first starting out, it’s not about brains or brawn – it’s about the willingness to learn. It’s about fearlessness, an open mind, and fighting the urge to flee. It’s about quashing that inner chicken eye…

For more info on workshops available at EMMEDIA see: http://www.emmedia.ca/