This Week In Art/Culture/Entertainment
By John Swartz
Its a Scottish Festival weekend in Orillia. This year they are honouring Clan Buchanan.
Things start Friday night at the legion with the Orillia Pipes and Drums playing at the legion’s Ceilidh. Brad Woods will be along to tell stories about the time the pipes and drums were hired to play music for a dinner and other things. A band called Ugly Horse will wind things up with some East Coast kind of party music. Tickets are $15 at the door, which opens at 6:30 p.m.
Saturday there’s a parade downtown starting at noon. It ends at Couchiching Beach Park where the opening ceremonies with the Mass Band is at 1:15 p.m. The 78th Fraser Re-enactors will do their thing in the afternoon and there will be a tug of war. The pipe bands will be performing in various spots, and most usually take a tour through the pub. Along about 5:15 the Mass Band will reform and play to end the day’s activities, at least in the park.
The annual Kirkin of the Tartan is at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Sunday at 10 a.m. Then it’s back to the legion in the afternoon for entertainment by Tom Leadbeater, a pipe band or two and Scottish dancing.
Arty Stuff
If you want to see what patience looks like, check out Ronald Regamey’s art at Lee Contemporary. He uses coloured paper to create some intricate designs, almost like the kind you would do on a Spirograph, but bigger, and you can hang them on the wall.
The pieces he makes look simple in completed form, but when you start to consider each one has hundreds of tiny strips of paper to cut, then each component has to be shaped, then they have to be connected (most of the glue gun technicians whose handiwork I’ve seen would fail at this point) you start to realize the immediacy of just about everything else you could do artistically. I think if you ever needed someone to hold something steady, Ronald is your guy. His stuff is up until Aug. 3.
Hibernation Art has work by Lise Rowlandson up for the rest of the month. Some of her pieces are obviously inspired by Tom Thomson, but in a different style.
The exhibit at OMAH by Victoria Ward and Gary Blundell has a variety of pieces. It’s called Project Voyager and the work is the result of a road trip they took to rediscover the route Champlain took into the interior, influenced by memories of the Apollo 11 moon landing (50th anniversary is Saturday) and an immigrants childhood memories of seeing Champlain statues in various places. Of course the Voyager spacecrafts, having left our solar system, are still travelling outward and sending back data (the Eveready rechargeables will run out of juice in 2025).
I particularly liked some small pieces of impressions of rock patterns and plein air paintings by Blundell. The pair will have a workshop on plein air painting all day July 26 (registrations details here) and an artist talk July 25 at 12:30 p.m.
OMAH has a new exhibit of work by Melody Madden ready for public consumption on Saturday. OMAH also has a storytelling night July 28 called Dangerous Dames. It’s about women standing up for themselves and the environment. Tickets are $15 for those who aren’t member of OMAH yet, less if you are, and you can call 705-326-2159 to get them.
Peter Street Fine Art has the work of Myra and Lori Korkola and Karen Hudgin featured. The Orillia Fine Arts Association is having a garage sale July 20 at 13 Cowan Street from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. It’s a fundraiser for the Mary Rose Bursary
The Shorts
* What do you think the toughest job would be? Writing jokes for Stephen Harper is probably pretty high on the list. Comedian Rob Ross did it for Harper’s Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner. He’s a masochist, doing it twice, or maybe he had go back and explain the jokes to Harper so they could be told correctly (the journalists probably wouldn’t notice retreads because as a breed, they forget what they experienced and wrote about yesterday). He’ll be at the Geneva Event Centre Saturday night with Darryl Orr and Jeff Paul. Get tickets here.
* The Swartz was way too powerful with this guy and it affected eyesight. For two weeks I ran a line about Movies in the Park at the Aqua Theatre informing you Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs was being shown. It was Space Jam. Spaceballs in being shown July 24. Showtime is whenever the sun goes down.
* You only have until July 19 to see one of the funniest plays, Where You Are finishes its run tomorrow night. See my review here. Get tickets here. The next play, The Gentleman Clothier, starts July 24. Also at the Opera House, Duck Soup Productions has Annie every Tuesday at 7 p.m.
* The annual Leacock Museum children’s day is happening July 27 from 1 to 4 p.m. They’ve had some pretty spectacular children’s days the last few years. This time Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of the themes kids can dress up in. There are other books and author’s works your little clothes hound can emulate. It’s $5 to attend
* Strings for Students is a project to raise money to donate 15 Fender acoustic guitars to Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary for the music program. There’s a concert July 27 at the Geneva, with the Doug Trucker Band, Bleeker and Danny Webster. Tickets are $10 in advance at Gilbert Guitars or Alleycats, $15 at the door. Greenhat Studios, the Geneva and Gilbert Guitars are sponsors.
* Coming up… the Hog ‘N Penny has Jakob Pearce in Friday; the Sean Patrick Trio is in Saturday night… the Brownstone has Mattie Leon in Thursday evening; Friday is Tech Night with DJ Subverse Tech; Kevin California plays Saturday; Monday Kimberly Sunstrum with Kira Montfort are at 8 p.m.… Lake Country Grill has Even Steven playing July 20… the Sunday evening band concert at the Aqua Theatre is with the Newmarket Citizens Band at 6:30 p.m. … the chamber of commerce’s next Summer Concert Series at the Port of Orillia is July 27 with Dav and the Crash Monkey Mob 6 p.m. … the concert series at the bandstand in Couchiching Beach Park July 24 has the Tradesmen and Straits play at 6:30 p.m.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia)
