Just a week ago tonight I was in Vancouver, slogging through the Downtown Eastside core in the rain carrying a self-erasing placard behind aboriginally-inspired community dancers, Morris Men and fake cows in a parade called The Procession of Performing Circles that's part of six weeks of Public Art in the Downtown Eastside (www.bright-light.ca) And I came back sulking, since "everything neat happens everywhere else."
Wash my mouth out! As I finally got un-lagged, I was immediately immersed in my art-filled new world of the Art Rental Gallery and Shop at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (www.aeac.ca) and I got a reminder about the Apple Crisp 2010 Music Festival. Gadzooks! We just made it to a free - FREE - concert from the great Gertrudes at Chalmers Church, and was admonished that whatever we did, we had to stay for The Happiness Project with Toronto's Charles Spearin and his group. Extraordinary. In short, the music came about after Spearin interviewed his neighbours for their stories, prompting them to discuss things that made them happy and he and the group captured the cadences in their voices and built music around the words and tonal patterns. As he said. "they start singing their own thesis" --the experience was more than infectious, it was utterly transformative. Gorgeous. Laugh making. Happy happy happy and unique. Not since I first heard Laurie Andersen live have I had such a buzz. Get the music at http://www.myspace.com/charlesspearin
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE- At 108 Charles Street, 4-7 p.m. until March 20, you can wander through a lovely little house for The Happiness Project Art Exhibit, and see rooms done by artists to suit each of the pieces. Ceramicist Marney McDiarmid and fabric artist Annie Clifford set a table for lovers and friends ...Josh Lyon has three videos to go with the piece about the joy of challenged children... and the uber-cool artist Don Maynard does an amazing bathroom piece (including a painted tub, babies, and bubbles) to go with the story/song of the Trinidadian neighbour. Seriously, nothing in the world should keep you from this. I first decided the high was second only to hearing Leonard Cohen here --but after seeing the art show (and buying the CD) it's now actually pulling out ahead of Leonard. Yes, it is -since it's a feast for literally all the senses (free cookies, too ). And while you're still zinging from the inspiration, go two blocks away to see the newest Swamp Ward Window installation at 448 Bagot Street. As good as it gets, this stuff.
More Apple Crisp stuff every night this week...including False Face at the Mansion, then especially the Friday Night Flux with the Cedar Tavern Singers, co-presented this Friday March 19 at the Baby Grand Theatre (www.modernfuel.org) (www.kingstongrand.ca) Limited seating there - I'd buy early. But, there's something about small city life. When something good hits -- you're right in the middle of it, it's almost like a command performance. Congrats, Apple Crisp people. You keep it up, and we just might stay!
Showing posts with label Modern Fuel Artists Run Centre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Modern Fuel Artists Run Centre. Show all posts
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Friday, November 13, 2009
Art openings this weekend in Kingston, and other bits
I'm so nervous about winter coming on, that I've got to keep moving to take my mind off it. Anyone want to join me, hopping around on Saturday evening, Nov. 14? You can go to receptions at both Union Gallery (6-8 pm.) and Modern Fuel (starting at 7 pm.) Now, I love free munchies and good art – which is probably why I had to start a diet after last weekend’s food-packed (and buyer- thin) Modern Fuel auction, so I have no shame about going to two openings this Saturday night…just to graze, meet and watch! Since The Hub is off to Greater Perth (!) and I'm Dog-a-Mama, I have to pick events that will at least give me some human contact, as opposed to being spectator sports only.
This weekend’s openings at both galleries coincidentally highlights Canadian artists born in Zambia, Hong Kong, and Guyana as well as Canada. Union Gallery’s show, runs from November 10-November 28, and features the work of Donald Chan and Carlyn Bezic who “ create bizarre bodies, many-limbed monsters, and unsettling scenes.” In the other room, Vancouver’s Tondela Myles’ Mechanisms for Selection “explores portraiture themes based around identity, gender and sexuality as a way to speak about awkwardness, secrecy and instabilities found in the human condition.” I can relate to that.
I'll then zip down to the waterfront and across King Street to Modern Fuel between 7-9 pm for the opening of two video installations, Storytellings by Lucy Chan and Peter Kingstone, which runs from November 12– December 12. Also a look at a different perception of sexuality, Kingstone’s 100 Stories about My Grandmother is a four-channel video installation that weaves together documentary portraits of male sex workers telling stories about their grandmothers Chan's video installation Yearning to See was created during a residency in Banff where she, according to Modern Fuel, " drew portraits of people that she met while asking them if there was a personal cultural lesson they might share. "
Union Gallery is at the corner of Union and University, in the corner of the Stauffer Library. Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre is located at 21A Queen St, Kingston
Now NEXT Friday night (Nov. 20 already!), Theatre Kingston's GOBLIN MARKET (on for only a week) opens....and on Saturday night I'll be at both the Kyra and Tully launch at Sydenham United Church and the Delhi 2 Dublin Dance (tix at Tara, etc) for Livewire. Buying tix today!
RECENTLY IMPRESSED : Really enjoyed the speakers/slides at the Solo Studio-Watch Series' Round Table Salon (well, it wasn't much of a salon, but cozy all the same). A great set up to find out about the people behind the art: the purposely self-effacing conceptual art of Michael Davidge; the political meets cultural drawings of Doreen Inglis; the whimsical but meaningful drawings and paintings of Chantal Rousseau, Lisa Visser and Erika Olson, and the gorgeous work of relative newcomer painter (who knew?) Su Sheedy. Kudos to Jan Allen for making this discussion happen. More like these, everywhere, please.
ALSO - who knew how much I'd love the Kinsmen's amateur Wizard of Oz. I frequently find the varying skill levels' reaching for the sky sort of embarrassing in amateur theatre, but this brought out nothing but the best in everyone (and there was a lot of big skill, as well as emerging skill). It's only on through Nov. 21 at the Grand, though.
Out of town: The exhibits by Hoffos and Daphne Odjig at the National Gallery were fabulous. Loved Hoffos's peeping tom holograms. At the Canadian Opera Company, Robert Lepage's extraordinary staging of The Nightingale was wonderful all around, (and the cheap Kingston Opera Guild return bus trip to Toronto was good too) but the uber-magical moment was when the dying Emperor's semi-waterborne deathbed transformed into a gigantic skeleton. The U.S. has Sondheim. We have Lepage.
NOT SO IMPRESSED: The discussion at the library about some Journal readers' complaints about the lack of inclusivity in the music scene was so politically sensitive that it accomplished nothing, after taking 40 minutes to set up "the discussion." More will follow from this, though. That's the good thing. And the students' acting, set, movement and Judith Fisher's concept were perfect for the Queen's Drama major Twelfth Night...except the kids were just too cool (or laid back) to understand that "Yes, Virginia, Shakespeare can be a fast moving farce."
This weekend’s openings at both galleries coincidentally highlights Canadian artists born in Zambia, Hong Kong, and Guyana as well as Canada. Union Gallery’s show, runs from November 10-November 28, and features the work of Donald Chan and Carlyn Bezic who “ create bizarre bodies, many-limbed monsters, and unsettling scenes.” In the other room, Vancouver’s Tondela Myles’ Mechanisms for Selection “explores portraiture themes based around identity, gender and sexuality as a way to speak about awkwardness, secrecy and instabilities found in the human condition.” I can relate to that.
I'll then zip down to the waterfront and across King Street to Modern Fuel between 7-9 pm for the opening of two video installations, Storytellings by Lucy Chan and Peter Kingstone, which runs from November 12– December 12. Also a look at a different perception of sexuality, Kingstone’s 100 Stories about My Grandmother is a four-channel video installation that weaves together documentary portraits of male sex workers telling stories about their grandmothers Chan's video installation Yearning to See was created during a residency in Banff where she, according to Modern Fuel, " drew portraits of people that she met while asking them if there was a personal cultural lesson they might share. "
Union Gallery is at the corner of Union and University, in the corner of the Stauffer Library. Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre is located at 21A Queen St, Kingston
Now NEXT Friday night (Nov. 20 already!), Theatre Kingston's GOBLIN MARKET (on for only a week) opens....and on Saturday night I'll be at both the Kyra and Tully launch at Sydenham United Church and the Delhi 2 Dublin Dance (tix at Tara, etc) for Livewire. Buying tix today!
RECENTLY IMPRESSED : Really enjoyed the speakers/slides at the Solo Studio-Watch Series' Round Table Salon (well, it wasn't much of a salon, but cozy all the same). A great set up to find out about the people behind the art: the purposely self-effacing conceptual art of Michael Davidge; the political meets cultural drawings of Doreen Inglis; the whimsical but meaningful drawings and paintings of Chantal Rousseau, Lisa Visser and Erika Olson, and the gorgeous work of relative newcomer painter (who knew?) Su Sheedy. Kudos to Jan Allen for making this discussion happen. More like these, everywhere, please.
ALSO - who knew how much I'd love the Kinsmen's amateur Wizard of Oz. I frequently find the varying skill levels' reaching for the sky sort of embarrassing in amateur theatre, but this brought out nothing but the best in everyone (and there was a lot of big skill, as well as emerging skill). It's only on through Nov. 21 at the Grand, though.
Out of town: The exhibits by Hoffos and Daphne Odjig at the National Gallery were fabulous. Loved Hoffos's peeping tom holograms. At the Canadian Opera Company, Robert Lepage's extraordinary staging of The Nightingale was wonderful all around, (and the cheap Kingston Opera Guild return bus trip to Toronto was good too) but the uber-magical moment was when the dying Emperor's semi-waterborne deathbed transformed into a gigantic skeleton. The U.S. has Sondheim. We have Lepage.
NOT SO IMPRESSED: The discussion at the library about some Journal readers' complaints about the lack of inclusivity in the music scene was so politically sensitive that it accomplished nothing, after taking 40 minutes to set up "the discussion." More will follow from this, though. That's the good thing. And the students' acting, set, movement and Judith Fisher's concept were perfect for the Queen's Drama major Twelfth Night...except the kids were just too cool (or laid back) to understand that "Yes, Virginia, Shakespeare can be a fast moving farce."
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