There’s no rest in the arts community in Flin Flon!
“Tale of a Town-Canada” is a “national oral history and theatre initiative aiming to capture the collective community memory of the country’s main street culture.”
It is a three-year project to commemorate Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017.
The creators are Lisa Marie Di Liberto, artistic director, and Charles Ketchabow, managing director of Fixt Point, a not-for profit theatre company in Toronto.
They are touring the country gathering stories in small towns and in big cities to create performance installations in capital and other major cities in every province and territory.
The mandate of Fixt Point is to preserve local heritage and promote neighbourhood culture through the telling of tales.
They describe themselves as Toronto-based but with national reach and see themselves as a grassroots company, planting seeds across the country. They want to be leaders in public engagement and to support outreach and community development in their travels from place to place.
The project was developed in collaboration with the National Arts Centre in Ottawa with financial support from the Canadian Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
The Flin Flon Arts Council also applied for a grant on their behalf, to assist with Flin Flon portion of their tour.
Lisa Marie and Charles have already covered Atlantic Canada in 2014 and have performed those stories in Halifax, Summerside, Fredericton and St. John’s.
This year they’re touring the Prairie provinces and southern Ontario in the late summer. They will be in Flin Flon for their last date in Manitoba from June 19 to 21, so please stop and talk to them on Main Street to give them the full range of Flin Flon stories.
Celebrations
On the same weekend we have National Aboriginal Day, June 21. The Flin Flon Aboriginal Friendship Centre will lead the celebrations and present a terrific show from 1 to 5 pm.
Featured are the Youth Centre Drum Group, our local hoop dancers, the Northern Lights Singers supported by Elder Margaret Head-Steppan, and Ron Burwash on guitar and vocals.
The show at the Friendship Centre will have two star performers.
First is Tracy Bone, from Keeseekowinin First Nation in western Manitoba. Tracy is a singer-songwriter who has been nominated for a Juno and has won Aboriginal People’s Choice awards for her songs.
Her 2012 CD, Woman of Red, was recorded to “encourage forgiveness and healing after the Residential School plague that swept across our Red Nation.” Tracy has been in Flin Flon before and will be amazing to watch.
The second star is Dallas Arcand from Kipohtakwa Cree Nation, near Edmonton. He now lives in Calgary.
Dallas has won the World Championship of Hoop Dancing three times and will definitely be dancing here in Flin Flon. His Aboriginal name, which is given at birth, is Dancing Buffalo Man. He did not know for many years how important, or true that would be.
Dancing is not his only talent, however; he is also a motivational speaker who as a youth found himself in a situation that is sadly typical of many indigenous teens – idle and angry.
Dallas found himself in a juvenile detention facility at age 14 but by 19 was dancing at a Universal Studios theme park in Spain!
He plays traditional cedar flute in styles from traditional to hip-hop. He won a Canadian Aboriginal Music Music Award for his CD, Picking Sweetgrass.
Dallas now makes his own flutes in various soft woods in different keys. His latest CD is Thunderbird Spirit. He will use all of his talents here in Flin Flon, so be sure to come out and visit.
(The Reminder will have more on National Aboriginal Day, including a full schedule of events, in our Friday, June 19 edition).
Calendar
June 10: Photography Club meeting, NorVA, 177 Green Street
June 11: Sketch Club meeting, NorVA
June 19 to 21: Tale of a Town story collecting, Main Street
June 19 to 20: Foundation Painting (for beginning painters), NorVA, $100
June 27: Cabar-eh! fundraiser for Recycling Centre with Quebec-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alan Gerber and Friends (stay tuned)
