This Week In Art/Culture/Entertainment
By John Swartz
Arts Orillia and the Chippewas of Rama have their annual Gathering storytelling festival this week. It’s changed a bit from previous versions of the festival with more focus on events in schools Thursday and Friday. The festival begins Wednesday evening with a showing of the film Walking Through the Fire. The film is the visual documentation of the album of the same name by the Sultans of String.
What started as an opportunity to make an album of music featuring the Sultans collaborating with various Indigenous artists, turned into a 50 date concert tour and then a documentary of the performance combined with interviews of the performers.
The Wednesday event at Creative Nomad Studios has Jeff Monague opening and after the doc is shown Q&A with filmmaker/Sultans of String producer Chris McKhool and Shannon Thunderbird.
Saturday has a lineup of speakers at the Rama Community Hall telling their stories and reading from their books. The day begins with an opening prayer and breakfast at 9:30 a.m. The program begins at 10:30 with Nancy Cooper, author of children’s books, First Nation Consultant with the Ontario Library Service and editor with children’s oldest publisher of children’s books, Annick Press and Tristan Douglas who had his second short story become a runner-up in the Alice Munro Festival Short Story Contest and has won the Royal Canadian Legion Literary Contest three times.
New York Times bestselling author, Angeline Boulley will speak at noon. She has three mystery novels written for young adults; he latest is Sisters in the Wind.
After lunch, Jessica Shonias will speak about her work with language revitalization aimed at adults learning to speak Native languages, followed by National bestselling author Monique Gray Smith. Sherry Lawson, has published three great books, will close out the day.
Having been to every Gathering Festival these are as much educational as they are entertaining. Attendance is free on Saturday. You can get tickets for Wednesday evening online.
When They Sing If I Only Had A Brain, It’s Not About….
Wednesday evening St. Paul’s Centre has a preview performance at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday of the musical, The Wizard of Oz. With a cast of thousands, wait… dozens (couldn’t get all the flying monkeys, or any monkeys needed) they will be performing the version created for the Royal Shakespearean Theatre.
There are performances at St. Paul’s May 21, 22 and 23 at 7:30 p.m. and matinees May 23 and 24 at 1:30 p.m.
It is directed by Jody Maltby and Blair Bailey is the musical director. You can meet some of the cast on their Youtube channel and get tickets online. The preview is pay what you can
Here’s Looking At You
The Orillia Museum of Art and History is opening two new exhibits May 30. One is The Many Faces of Paul Shilling: A Retrospective. You may have seen his work at Apple Annie’s over the years and know almost every painting featured a face, or faces. The other is Awaken The Spirits. The art is by Drake Williams, who is from Rama, but now lives in Toronto.
This week is the last chance to see OMAH’s International Women’s Day Art Show and the annual student art show, Icons and Alter Egos. Other exhibits to see are a textile show, From Hand to Heirloom: The Art of Craft , and the permanent exhibit of Gordon Lightfoot’s personal effects.
At other galleries, Cloud Gallery has the first of their summer Meet the Artist events Saturday May 23 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with Dana Cowie. Cloud also has their My Happy Place show happening starting May 29.
Peter Street Fine Arts has works by Maria Skrypnik up all month.
The Shorts
- The Youth Centre’s concert June 13 will happen at the Leacock Museum, in a tent, and/or under the stars (there will be stars that night, read on). The gig is with Weber Brothers, the Ronnie Douglas Blues Band and Andrew Ali/Josh Small. Tickets are on sale now online. The new news is Lance Anderson has been doing Weber Brothers gigs of late as part of their band, as he will with this concert.
- The Orillia Vocal Ensemble has a concert June 3 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Centre. It’s called Starry, Starry Night and all the proceeds from the concert will be donated to OMAH’s Young Creative Kits Initiative.
- Bleeker has another smoking new tune, Elephant, out. They just got back from a short, successful with sold out gigs European tour, which followed an equally successful swing through theaters in a few Ontario cities.
- Quayle’s Brewery has Mark Gunn playing May 21; Johnny Toonice May 22; Michael Martyn May 23, Darcy Windover May 24 and Chris Staig May 29… Kensingtons has an open mic lead by Timmy Kehoe every Tuesday night… The ANAF Club has a comedy night May 22; Mil and the Thrills play May 22 and an open mic jam is from 2 to 5p.m. May 24… Marc Jordan plays the Opera House June 11 (tickets); and now is a good time to get tickets for The Lightfoot Band’s gig Oct. 29… The next Orillia Silver Band concert is June 8 at St. Paul’s Centre (tickets)… Brewery Bay has music on their patio Saturday, two shifts, early is Country Josh and late is Johnny Toonice.
(Images Supplied) Main: Some of the Gathering Festival speakers; Tristan Douglas, Angeline Boulley, Sherry Lawson and Jeff Monague
