Alianait’s 2012 Concert Series Starts on January 21

Alianait organizers will present five fantastic concerts in 2012, beginning this month with a celebration of Nunavut favourites who will play together.

On January 21 Alianait will host an evening of music featuring button accordionist Simeonie Keenainak, singer-songwriter Tim Evic and gospel singer-songwriter Etulu Aningmiuq. This concert is sure to be an amazing event for fans of these top Nunavut musicians!

Others in the 2012 concert series line-up are:

• Pat Braden, storyteller and songwriter from Yellowknife, NWT – March 31.
• Multiple award-winning fiddler, singer, songwriter & step dancer April Verch – May 26.
• September concert performer to be announced shortly.
• Suzie Vinnick, a multiple award-winning roots/blues singer-songwriter - November 17.

Subscription series and individual show tickets go on sale January 13 at Arctic Ventures. Series buyers will save more than 20 per cent. Even better prices are offered to those who opt to become members and ongoing supporters. Concerts will take place either at Inuksuk High or Nakasuk School. Elders and children 12 & under accompanied by an adult can get in for free.

For more information:
Heather Daley, Executive Director
867-979-6468, ext 3
heather@alianait.ca

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Friday January 20th

Panel Discussion: 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Reading and Reception:  7:30- 11:00 pm

Saturday January 21st

Ray Hsu “Writer or Rockstar?” 9:30 – 10:20 am
Kevin Loring “The Extraordinary in Native Theatre” 10:30 – 11:20 am
Yvette Nolan “Tricksters & Spirits & Medicine” 1:30 – 2:20pm
David Bergen “Out Stealing” 2:30 – 3:20 pm
Norman Nawrocki “Urban Tall Tales” 3:30 – 4:20
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Raven Spirit Dance with Nyla Carpentier Present: Pow-Wow Bootcamp!

Work up a sweat; build stamina & muscles dancing to the fast heartbeat of the drum!

Nyla Carpentier

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Raven Spirit Dance’s ongoing training and artist development workshops present and welcome Traditional Pow-Wow Dancer, Nyla Carpentier for this active, fun, and dance filled bootcamp!

Basic steps and formations will be shown and the history and origins of dance styles will be discussed. Please dress in comfortable clothing and be ready to get sweaty.

No experience necessary. Ages 16 and up. See below for more information!

Rates:

Full 6-week program – $65

Drop-in class – $15 (pre-registration or pay at door)

Fancy Dancer Nyla Carpentier

Dates: Sundays Jan 15–Feb 19 from 11am-1pm

Location: Scotiabank Dance Centre 677 Davie St.

Registration: martine@ravenspiritdance.com

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Celebrating Aboriginal Performance & Art

February 20-March 4, 2012

Talking Stick Festival 2012

Full Circle First Nations Performance is very excited to present the 11th Annual Talking Stick Festival from February 20-March 3, 2012. This vibrant citywide festival provides a stage for extraordinary Aboriginal artists; established and emerging, national and international, performing live music, dance, theatre, multi-media, storytelling and performance art.

The festival will have performances and workshops that will take place in the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, The Cultch, Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites Vancouver Downtown and Grandview School.

Since its inception, the festival has become a place to honour Aboriginal tradition in contemporary forms, the artistic wealth of the people, and the promise of their future in Canada. The festival is a smorgasbord of Aboriginal artistic expression including, but not limited to music, dance, and spoken word and provides a stage for emerging and established artists.

More information coming soon here on IPAA’s Events Page. Keep checking the website during the festival for updates, blogs, images, and videos!

Check out Full Circle’s website for details (and great images & videos from last year’s festival)

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP: ABORIGINAL ARTISTS & ARTS MANAGERS

JANUARY Workshop: THIS FRIDAY, January 13! Build stronger and more rewarding relations through creative communication in 2012! The Conflict Resolution workshop is part of the fifth season of the Professional Development Series for Artists and Arts Managers presented by Thunderbird. This workshop is FREE and takes place in the lower level meeting space at the 167 Gerrard Street East (Miziwe Biik). Lunch is provided so please do RSVP!

CONFLICT RESOLUTION WORKSHOP:

Friday, January 13
Time: 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Build your tool kit for dealing with conflict – be it personal or professional – by understanding some of the fundamental principles and theories behind conflict resolution. This workshop will help improve your skills when negotiating contracts and for dealing with potentially emotional and heated discussions. Understand why we avoid dealing with conflict and learn how to redirect reactionary responses through problem solving, focusing on issues and choosing the right strategies to find mutually acceptable agreements.

FACILITATOR:
Marcia Nickerson, B.H.A., M.A, is an independent consultant, managing partner of Sustain Design Studios, and the Chair of the imagineNATIVE Film Festival. Marcia has extensive experience working as a consultant and in the public sector in the areas of negotiations and mediation, policy and program development, facilitation and strategic planning, and the creation of partnership arrangements.

GUEST PROGRAMMER:
The success of the five Professional Development Series for Artists and Arts Managers is through the programming insight and organization of independent, Arts Presenter, Denise Bolduc. Bolduc has an extensive background as an artistic director, producer, event manager, administrator, facilitator, consultant, speaker and programmer spanning over 20 years in the arts and culture sectors.

To RSVP & for further information, please contact: d.m.bolduc@gmail.com

Important Reminder! Call for Submissions: Theatre Creator’s Reserve for Native Earth Performing Arts

Anii, it’s that time of year again! The Theatre Creator’s Reserve Program (through the Ontario Arts Council) assists Ontario-based professional theatre artists, and informal collectives of creators, by funding them to create new work.

Native Earth accepts submissions from artists, emerging and multidisciplinary theatre creators. Applicants may request between $1000 and $5000.  Only one submission per artist, please.

Refer to our company mandate to ensure your work is suitable for consideration. Now, as always, we ask all those working with Native Earth to work from the seven values that govern Native Earth: Courage, Generosity, Tolerance, Strength of Character, Patience, Humility and Wisdom.

For your application please submit the following:

• A project proposal or artistic statement, including the development history of the project.
• Information on all company members and/or collaborators.
• Up to 15 pages of a script (if applicable), or links to video documentation of work for non text-centered projects.
• Any information, documentation or media that will further our understanding of your project (if applicable).
• Three copies of the OAC application form.

Please visit the OAC web site to download the necessary application form. Be aware that we take every opportunity to share learnings, and so each applicant will receive some specific feedback.

Deadline to apply: January 15th, 2012

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The Avenue Community Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Saskatoon is producing a short video as part of an upcoming Sexual Health for Queer Men social marketing campaign. We’re looking for makes, any age, who want to gain acting experience to appear in the video.

You must be comfortable playing the part of a queer man and comfortable dealing with issues of queer sexuality. While there is no set pay for these roles, a small honorarium of $100 will be paid to those appearing in the video.

If you are interested, please send your information, a photo, and anyquestions to Gens Hellquist, sexualhealth@avenuecommunitycentre.ca

This is a call for papers from interested scholars and artists of all disciplines…

From 23-25 March 2012, the Aboriginal Studies Program and the Jackman Humanities Institute Program for the Arts are hosting an interdisciplinary conference entitled “Locating Compassion in Land Ethics.”

The late Anishinaabe activist and educator Rodney Bobiwash likens the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), before the arrival of the Europeans, to the bustling coastal cities of the ancient Mediterranean. A key site of “trade and commerce,” cultural exchange and ceremonial praxis, the GTA (then as now) was a key hub at which countless nations gathered a flourishing centre of Indigenous activity and syncretism thousands of years before the Old World stumbled into the “New.”  Now, as it was then, the GTA continues as the hub at which countless nations gather; indeed, it is has become a catch-basin for the world, but with the legacy of modernity and the postmodern spirit-dance of fragmentation and willful forgetting, this Gathering Place has become a non-place of dislocation and despair: here, life is cheap. Cynicism, rage, murder, exploitation, and environmental destruction permeate quotidian existence.  It seems that despite our hyper-connectedness, without electronic mediation, human-to-human, human-to-non human and human-to-history connections are becoming increasingly untenable, while compassion and the acts it engenders are becoming increasingly rare.

How might a mindful application of localized Original Instructions to the infrastructures that contain and direct the ways in which we do (or must do) life address the ever-increasing dearth of compassion and basic respect for human life in this “Gathering Place?”

To address these issues and consider solutions, University of Toronto’s Aboriginal Studies Program and Jackman Humanities Institute Program for the Arts invite proposals for papers and workshops (from scholars in all disciplines) that concern themselves with the history of this territory (the Gathering Place), the original laws that governed this place, the connections and responsibilities contemporary Torontonians hold to the Indigenous Peoples who stewarded this land long before contact, to other citizens of or strangers within the city, to the species who have been forced (by development and environmental degradation) further and further into the city to seek sustenance, and to the very land itself.

Please email a paper abstract or workshop proposal (250 words) by 19 December 2011.

Submissions and/or inquires may be addressed to Jill Carter at: jill.carter@utoronto.ca. We invite paper-abstracts and workshop proposals from interested scholars and artists in EVERY discipline.