Come To The Fire
In 2023, the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) will invite visitors in by asking them to gather outside. That’s the idea behind a new firepit…
YAC
Gwich’in Moccasins
In 1995, the Yukon Arts Centre began acquiring works of art by Indigenous and northern artists—art significant to First Nations…
Song in the Dark
Longest Night 2022 ‘Song In The Dark’, New works by Scott Maynard, Ben Johnston-Urey, poet Peter Jickling, and Daniel Janke.
Music for a Winter’s Eve
Come out and warm your hearts and toes with the All-City Band Society and Friends, Music for a Winter’s Eve Concert Series.
The Choir Is Back
The Whitehorse Community Choir’s annual Christmas shows are happening Dec. 2-3, and won’t be scaled down due to pandemic restrictions.
YAC Permanent Art Collection: Carl Beam
The Yukon Arts Centre began acquiring works of art by Indigenous and northern artists significant to First Nations and northern Canadians.
Yukon Arts Centre Permanent Art Collection: Bella Simo
In 1995, the Yukon Arts Centre began acquiring works by Indigenous and northern art significant to First Nations and northern Canadians.
A look at the fate of Earth’s other inhabitants, should humanity disappear?
If humanity for some reason disappears, what will become of Earth’s other inhabitants? David Curtis: Shall Inherit at Yukon Arts Centre.
YAC SHOWCASE Spirit: Alice Park-Spurr
Alice Park-Spurr explores the interplay of line and shape through the gestural application of paint on canvas
Yukon Arts Centre 2022 Live Shows
You can tell the Yukon Arts Centre loves you because on Valentine’s Day, it announced ticket sales for eight new live shows. Those shows, all taking place in March and April, will mark the first time YAC has been open for performances since pandemic measures forced a closure on Dec. 21. After the three-month hiatus, …
We Will Rendezvous
Rendezvous weekend takes place Feb. 26 to Feb. 28, with a mix of in-person and outdoor action.
Culture meets couture
Robyn McLeod’s dresses from her fashion collection, Dene Futurisms, are featured in this story, which is part of a series about the three Chu Niikwän residency artists and their work.
What’s in a name?
Chishti’s Then and Now: Water and a Name is the second in a series of stories featuring the Chu Niikwän artists and their work.
All in the family
The Jennifer Scott Quintet will bring an electric jazz program to the Yukon this weekend In one sense, Jennifer Scott’s newest CD, due to be released sometime in the next few months, is a fitting tribute to the Vancouver singer/pianist’s own musical upbringing. Titled Music for Bigs & Smalls, the album consists of what Scott calls …
Bringing mentors and mentees together
COVID-19 is a challenging time for artists, which is why the Yukon Arts Centre is so excited about their Yukon Emerging Artist Program.
Art education wherever you are
Kids Kreate, the Yukon Arts Centre’s education program, needed to bring art into the lives of Yukon’s youngsters. The solution, go virtual.
Spoiled for choice
When coming up with a description of the Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) for the uninitiated, Andrew Connors, the festival director and artistic director of the Yukon Film Society, highlights the festival’s diversity and character. “It’s an intimate festival that celebrates northern, Indigenous and Canadian cinema with some international spice thrown in for good measure, …
Tenor of his times
The Sam Taylor Trio will present an evening of jazz standards at the Yukon Arts Centre on Sunday, Jan. 26, as part of the Jazz on the Wing series. Besides Taylor, personnel will include Aaron Seeber on drums and Neal Miner on upright bass.
Getting nutty
Go Nuts show created by the students of The Heart of Riverdale is an opportunity for the community to celebrate the successes of our students, which contributes to their self-confidence.
Lawyered up and ready
Without question, Phil Dwyer was the only first-year law student at the University of New Brunswick in 2014 sporting an Order of Canada pin in his lapel. Odds are strong he was also the only frosh who could claim a 30-year career as one of Canada’s most in-demand jazz musicians. Or that his other option for …
Read all about it
Disney’s Newsies, put on by Yukon Theatre for Young People (YTYP), will premiere on June 14 at the Yukon Arts Centre. The cast for the Tony-winning Broadway play consists of more than 30 youth performers, ranging from nine to 19-years-old, as well as another eight professional Yukon actors. Brian Fidler is the director, Allyn Walton is …
Spirit of the times
The German term zeitgeist is generally rendered in English as the spirit of a given time, as shown in prevailing thought or customs. (Think, perhaps, how Carnaby Street reflected the social values of mid-1960s Britain.) In 2019, are Yukon audiences ready for an evening of music and comedy that offers a glimpse at the zeitgeist of contemporary …
Music to warm your soul
Donovan (comes to our neck of the) Woods His music soothes the soul like that first warm beverage on a busy morning; his lyrics surround your senses with the sort of calm that’s equivalent to a warm, lingering hug from someone you love. Once described as “Canada’s best kept secret,” Whitehorse will be privileged to …
Fractured and beloved northern landscapes
A cool, open feeling struck me as I walked into the current show in the main gallery at the Yukon Arts Centre. An aqua-blue wall, a glimpse of glaciers painted on spacious canvas and metal sculptures evoked this feeling. The gallery features the work of two circumpolar artists, mostly responding to time spent in Svalbard. …
Enjoyment is the whole point
Vocalist-bass player Katie Thiroux brings her jazz trio to Whitehorse for a Jazz on the Wing concert
Things that go bump in the night
Renowned dancer Peggy Baker brings her new show to Whitehorse on March 13 Relieved – that’s how Peggy Baker feels to be bringing her latest choreography to the stage after more than a year of preparing for it. “We’re so ready to do this,” she said over the phone, two weeks before who we are in …
Croon your way to confidence
If you love to sing, but you’ve never stepped onstage in front of a crowd of people to do it, maybe you’ve just never had the proper motivation. How does $1,500 sound?
Champion fiddler makes his Yukon debut this Rendezvous
Having won over judges at competitions around Canada and the United States with his uniquely Canadian style, Ontario born fiddle player Shane Cook is coming to Whitehorse this Rendezvous for his first gig north of 60.
The anarchy element
At the age of nine, Tomáš Kubínek gave his first performance before a group of experienced magicians. Four years later, he had an agent. He would soon make his circus debut with a duo of Brazilian clowns.
From the Punjab to the Yukon
Gurdeep Pandher was one of the first people I met when I moved to the Yukon. I walked into a Scottish country barn dance at the Old Fire Hall, in Whitehorse, and here was a guy in the remote North in his pagri, at an event, sitting and absorbing the dances and people.
Swinging Hard
After more than two decades as a jazz guitarist, Sheryl Bailey still invokes the name of a player who first inspired her love of the genre, but who died when she was just two years old. “I got into jazz when I was about 15. I heard Wes Montgomery on the radio. I just fell …
Bah! Humbug!
Christmas —’tis the season to be jolly, for many; but for others, not so much (think “Grinch”!). Perhaps … just maybe … a little balance to the celebrating is in order? This year on Friday, November 30 and Saturday, December 1, the Whitehorse Community Choir will take the stage, at the Yukon Arts Centre, to …
Evoking kintsugi
Whitehorse artist Leslie Leong applied for a residency at the Ted Harrison Artists Retreat to work towards a large show at the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery in the fall of 2019. But she had lots of other ideas to work through first, both larger and smaller. At the artists’ retreat, on Crag Lake, she was …
Fiery energy and spirit
Fate has a habit of steering flute and saxophone player Jane Bunnett in unexpected directions. If tendinitis hadn’t forced a break from her intense piano practice regime, for instance, she might not have gone to San Francisco and met Charles Mingus’s pianist, Don Pullen, who would become her mentor, friend and musical collaborator. If she …
Overloaded by motherhood
It’s a comedy about the darkness of parenthood. That’s how Emelia Symington Fedy describes Motherload, the collectively-created play she and three castmates are bringing to the Yukon Arts Centre’s mainstage on October 13. Fedy traces the play’s conception to a specific outing with her infant son, at a time when she was grieving her own …
Scavenging for Raven
Upper Tanana artist Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé has teamed up with Whitehorse-based artist Nicole Bauberger to create a scavenger hunt of installations and events this fall. The artists began collaborating a year ago around the idea that the shattered tire fragments you find by the side of the road resemble ravens. They began exploring the material’s …
A decade of experiencing culture and heritage
The Yukon portion of Culture Days will happen at numerous locations around Whitehorse on the last weekend in September as part of a national effort to increase participation in arts and culture. The event was created in response to the success of Québec’s Journées de la culture weekend that first took place in 2007. Michelle …
Amsterdam to Tucson to Yukon
Cory Weeds credits the influential jazz label, Criss Cross Jazz, for his initial introduction to long-time friend and musical collaborator, David Hazeltine. In the mid-’90s, the Vancouver sax player, impresario and Juno-winning producer had finished his studies at the University of North Texas and returned to his home roots. Before long, he was spearheading a …
The Queer Songbook Orchestra
The Queer Songbook Orchestra is a Toronto-based 12-piece chamber pop ensemble making their Yukon debut on September 30. The group formed in 2014 and has been dedicated to exploring and elevating queer narrative in pop music. “I was at loose ends after several years freelancing in the indie pop music scene in Canada,” said Shaun …
Canadian concert series comes to Whitehorse
Aurora, a Canadian company that produces and distributes medical marijuana, is putting on a national series of free concerts to celebrate cannabis culture and the imminent legalization of marijuana through music and arts.
It’s an attack of breakdance, hip hop and street-style art
Intense break-dance battles, powerful performances, live painting showcases and wild parties — CypherFest consistently delivers it all.
From the California gold rush to the history of the Yukon
Josh Winkler combines traditional media with print media and sculpture. Reaching for the Sun is the title of his recent project. It references natural growth, but also the growth of humanity, the accumulation of products, and the fragility of the planet.
Riverside rave
Beginning on May 31, guest DJs will perform on the Whitehorse Wharf, providing a summer dance floor for Yukon families and dance music fans.
Can wisdom save the world?
The post-apocalyptic, not-so-distant-future world of The Unplugging, an award-winning play by Canadian playwright Yvette Nolan, is the latest production on offer from the Yukon-based Gwaandak Theatre.
A weekend of laughs
The Yukon stand-up comedy scene can be fickle. Some years comics will perform to packed houses that turn people away at the door. Other years, not so much. Whether it’s a lack of comics, audience, or both, northern life can bring a number of challenges that make live comedy difficult to maintain. Richard Eden, George …
Taking Cues
When a band calls itself Peripheral Vision, you might be excused for thinking it’s a rock group, or possibly a folk/roots, or even bluegrass ensemble. But you’d be wrong.
No Sour Grapes
Kevin Kane (left) and Bryan Potvin on a break during a Northern Pikes recording session in Calgary earlier this month. Kane & Potvin will perform at the YAC on March 2. PHOTO: Don Schmid If he hadn’t been so exhausted from a 23-hour train ride, Kevin Kane might have joined forces with fellow singer/guitarist Bryan …
Heating up the music scene with Frostbite 2018
The Frostbite Music Festival returns in 2018, on a new date, and has embraced the theme of rising from the ashes.
Celebrating First Nations’ achievements and culture
The Skookum Jim Folklore Show has become an annual tradition that celebrates First Nation traditions, community and culture.
Let there be light
The 2018 Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) features a strong Indigenous presence in this year’s films – and in the audience, with more than 40 guests attending from Outside.
What do we do to the natural world?
Two art shows at the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery explore the tension between the human and the natural world.
Big, driving quarter notes
Jen Hodge had just spent five hectic days in Asheville, North Carolina, rehearsing every day and performing late into every night as part of the massive celebration of swing music known as Lindy Focus XVI. Despite the grinding schedule, the Vancouver jazz bassist and singer considered the Christmas-week event “a really incredible experience” that allowed her …
Ten days to celebrate Pivot Festival’s 10th year
The Pivot Festival runs Jan. 24 to Feb. 3 with local and national acts Since Nakai Theatre launched the Pivot Festival in 2008, there have been some big names and unforgettable performances that have graced stages and pop-up theatre settings in Whitehorse. The festival has boasted bringing unconventional and award-winning shows from across Canada and …
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Not your grandma’s chamber music
Musical ear candy – that’s how Daniel Janke describes the Problematic Orchestra. “It’s pretty wacky music,” he said of the 20-person chamber music group he directs. “Some of it is very playful, as the title implies. “It’s not often you get a chance to enjoy such a large ensemble, and one that performs in almost …
Lots of condos, no place to live
From chic, clean condos, to drafty old Chevy vans, the 2017 documentary film Vancouver: No Fixed Address brings you the residential experiences of, in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald “the inexhaustible variety of life” in Canada’s most expensive housing market.
Debaters Bound
Whitehorse comedian Jenny Hamilton will be performing live on the CBC Radio One show The Debaters in North Vancouver on Nov. 22
Past and present fuse on new record
Dakhká Khwáan Dancers new album is called Deconstruct/Reconstruct, and it is a double CD.
Stonecliff brings together a remarkable team of artists (Part 2 of 2)
The new musical drama Stonecliff tells the story of Michael J. Heney, the son of poor Irish immigrants in the Ottawa Valley who went on to build one of the world’s most spectacular railways – the White Pass and Yukon Route – to serve the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898.
Making it last
Cathy Stubington doesn’t mind being in the shadows when she does a show. In fact, she prefers it.
No earbuds aboard
Have you heard the one about the farmer’s daughter, the music teacher, the composer and the jazz singer? It’s not a joke. They’re all the same person: Karin Plato. Although she has called Vancouver home since 1985, Plato grew up on a grain farm near the tiny (current population: 129) community of Alsask, Saskatchewan. That’s where …
It’s all about the performance
Prep your pipes: Klondike Karaoke is back. And even if you’re not onstage at the finals, you could be cheering from the crowd. For the second time this year, the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) and the Canadian Filipino Association of Yukon (CFAY) are co-hosting a sing-off that will see one Yukoner crowned karaoke king or …
Bringing the White Pass story to musical life
Any of the millions of passengers who have ridden the White Pass and Yukon Route – “the scenic railway of the world” – in the 117 years since its completion, would immediately recognize it as a marvellous technological achievement. Indeed, the White Pass and Yukon Route is recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers …
From the North to the South
We deserve a pat on the back. That’s part of the point of From the North says Kim Winnicky, executive producer of the arts performance and show, a Canada 150 project being produced by Music Yukon. “We (in the territories) don’t often get a chance to celebrate ourselves.” Beginning this month, the show’s all-northern team …
The whole fish tale
Many people wouldn’t be surprised to hear that long-time Yukoner Josée Carbonneau is a passionate fisher. Like many northerners, Carbonneau has an affinity for fishing. It’s what she does with the fish that leaves people awestruck. Long after her fly fishing flies have been tied, and after her hip waders have dried, Carbonneau takes the …
What was that?
NOTE: After this story went to print, we were informed that this event was postponed until Friday, February 16th, 2018, 8pm. They met as teenagers at an improv comedy club called Lucifer’s in Calgary, Alberta. Now, more than two decades later, they’ve just launched their seventh season performing together weekly for a coast-to-coast-to-coast audience. Peter Oldring and …
Quietly Connecting
“For the first – I don’t know how many hundred thousand – years of human life, (when we were out on the Savanna learning about the forest) silence was essential to our survival. So, silence is our natural milieu, and the farther we get away from silence the more we lose our humanity.” — Maggie …
A Family Tradition
Of all the portraits Daphne Lovett-Barber’s has drawn so far, her favourite is one she did of her grandmother. The 5-year-old Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in artist may have just started kindergarten this year, but she has been creating art since she was a toddler. “My mommy is an artist and my daddy is an artist,” Lovett-Barber tells …
Sorcery, Swans and Love
For a cosmopolitan afternoon in downtown Whitehorse, head over to The Old Fire Hall for a screening of Swan Lake, performed by the internationally acclaimed Russian ballet company Bolshoi Ballet. The film will be shown on Sunday, October 1 at 2 p.m. as part of the Yukon Arts Centre’s Performance in HD Series. In the …
Tel Aviv to L.A.
Tamir Hendelman’s list of players who have inspired him as a performer and composer includes unsurprising names such Evans, Davis, Corea, Hancock and Peterson. But how many other jazz musicians could also such early influences as a grandmother continuously humming everything from Yiddish songs, to opera, to Frank Sinatra in the apartment below? Or, for …
Return to the Yukon
It’s been 30 years, or thereabouts, since I first ran into the iconic Canadian folksinger-songwriter-poet who goes by the simple – but exotic-sounding – name of Ferron. There was no reason she should remember me. I was just a volunteer driver for the Edmonton Folk Festival, shuttling performers to and from the airport. But I …
Very Old, Very New
Not many art forms can trace their origins back to a single year. But according to Toshi Aoyagi, program officer for the Japan Foundation, Toronto, the popular theatre genre known as Kabuki started in exactly 1603. And it’s still going strong. Aoyagi will be in Whitehorse this week to introduce Yukon Arts Centre audiences to …
Real Stories from Real People
Three years of collaborating, interviewing and gathering has culminated in one powerful play that shares both beautiful, heartfelt reflections and the harsh realities of northern living. Busted Up: A Yukon Story presents the colourful and eclectic real-life voices of the Yukon – politicians, mothers, fathers and children – 33 voices, to be exact. The play, …
Stay for the Conversation
“Prepare to be moved, disturbed, engaged. Come for the film. Stay for the conversation,” says Canadian author and media critic Geoff Pevere. Pevere is director of programs for Rendezvous with Madness, a Toronto based film festival focused on movies that delve into the world of mental health and addiction. The festival is travelling across Canada …
Orchestra at the Edges of Canada
“Come as you are, bring a friend or a parent or a daughter or a nephew, and be prepared to be blown away by NYO Canada’s talented and passionate young musicians,” says Blanche Israël, external relations manager at the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) of Canada. The August 10th concert at the Yukon Arts Centre will …
A Year of Firsts at the Yukon Arts Centre
There’s a lot to look forward to at the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) this coming season. “We want all Yukoners to enjoy the arts and not have to go down to Toronto,” says YAC Marketing and Development Director Sarah Frey. This season the centre is celebrating its 25th anniversary year. “It’s a big year for …
Changing Direction
John Stetch was already part of the New York City jazz scene when he first played in front of classical pianist and teacher Burton Hatheway in Fairfield, Connecticut back in 1993. Hatheway, who is still teaching at the age of 87, didn’t mince words. “Do you want to be serious?” Stetch recalls the maestro asking. …
“Build the strength of your people”
Al Cushing may be leaving, but he’s not going anywhere. When he steps into retirement at the end of this month, one aspect of the Yukon Arts Centre’s evolution during his nine years at the helm pleases Cushing the most. “I think the highlight is that the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) has gotten closer to …
Identity Crisis
What does it take to make a puppet show that is also a stage show and a live-action video all in one? A script, a bunch of performers, some music. Lights, cameras, action. And cardboard. Miles of cardboard, according to Edward Westerhuis. “We go to different stores, to the dump behind their stores. The stuff …
Where Tradition and Youth Converge
The fiddling tradition is alive and well in the Yukon thanks to the Fiddleheads, a group of young fiddlers ranging in age from 7 to 14,
Finding a New Way Home
From Tomaso Albinoni to Django Reinhardt, by way of Led Zeppelin? It’s all part of guitarist Marc Atkinson’s musical journey. The 48-year-old Atkinson grew up on B.C.’s relatively remote Quadra Island, without YouTube, or even television, but with access to the major music source of the day, vinyl records. “I didn’t know that humble peasants …
Getting Down to Motown
A nun, another nun, and a mystery illness all contributed to the development of Lucie Desaulniers as a singer. Growing up in the small Manitoba community of St. Jean Baptiste, not far from the U.S. border, Desaulniers attended a Roman Catholic school attached to a Grey Nuns convent. That’s where she met a “really cool” …
Making her Own Trail
“It’s sort of like a straightforward country approach to old-school, ’30s vocal jazz,” she says. “I would say it’s got folk roots, a bit of blues and bluegrass, but jazz is sort of where I draw inspiration from and is probably the top of my influences.” Producer Bob Hamilton of Old Crow Recording Studio selected …
New Colours
An exhibit featuring paintings by 22 year old Yukoner Anna Thompson is currently on display at the Atco Electric Yukon Youth Centre Art Gallery. Thompson has a cognitive disability as a result of a brain injury as a baby which left her with cerebral palsy – and is a prolific and enthusiastic artist, says her …
Life After Tragedy
When asked about the message she hopes to convey in the film, Ohama responded, “It’s a moving and inspiring story of how people find real joy, love and meaning in life again… even in the face of extreme loss. In our busy, cluttered world filled with stress… we tend to forget how to see and …
Yukon Stories
Arctic Secrets Directed by Allan Code, a Whitehorse based filmmaker, Arctic Secrets is a symphony of immensely strong and surprisingly fragile elements that comprise the wilderness of the Yukon Territory. Stunning imagery abounds in this visual adventure through its waters, mountains, and forests. Focusing mainly on the more arctic regions of the territory, Code and …
Youthful Exuberance
Memphis, Tennessee has been dubbed both the “Home of the Blues” and the “Birthplace of Rock and Roll”. But it’s no slouch in the jazz department, either. In a four-year span from 1934 to 1938, at least half a dozen future jazz luminaries were born there. That mid-’30s crop included trumpeter Booker Little, as well …
Triple Threat
The Pivot Theatre Festival – Nakai Theatre’s annual performance showcase – begins a seven-night run this weekend in multiple Whitehorse venues. In addition to smaller-scale offerings such as a theatrical pub walk, an evening of spoken word material and a “speed-friending” event called Stranger Connections, the festival will feature the three major pieces, including: A …
Burning Questions
“If this show is revealing something about me that’s touching people and moving them, then I have to pursue it,” he decided. The burning personal question Heins originally set out to address came from the fact that he was an only child, and grew up wondering what it would be like to have a brother …
No Orchestra? No Problem
Trying to provide professional-calibre orchestral music in a small northern city can be … well, problematic. Just ask Daniel Janke. “The main problem is we don’t have an orchestra. We live in a community where the demographic doesn’t really provide for all the players we need.” Still, skilled performers continue to move to the Yukon, …
What to do on Sunday Night
In the 2016 film Captain Fantastic, Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen – The Lord of the Rings, A History of Violence), is a father with meticulous survivalist and socialist ideals. He lives live an isolated off-the-grid life in the forests of the Pacific Northwest with his six children. The 2015 documentary Sonita chronicles the heart-wrenching story …
Gimme That Tessitura
Full disclosure: Steve Maddock and I have a few things in common. We’re both PKs (preacher’s kids) who grew up in southern Ontario adding our piping, angelic treble voices to the choirs in our fathers’ churches. Point of departure: I struggled through the guy-hood change of voice as a scholarship student of an Ursuline nun, …
Diving into the Depths of Creativity
“There’s a lot of performing opportunities within the French community, but it’s not necessarily places where artists can try new things and take that risk. Onde de Choc – that’s exactly what it’s for. It’s for artists to not just perform but also create and feel that they have the space to do something completely …
Banging on the sofa
Willie Jones III isn’t shy about crediting his late father, a renowned pianist from Los Angeles, with sparking his interest in jazz. “Even before I started school, he would take me to rehearsal with him and I would watch while he rehearsed. For some reason, I would always sit next to where the drums were, …
Tantalizing Varietease Returns
Varietease VI: A Burlesque Carnival is the Yukon’s very own burlesque variety show. Varietease runs every second year. This is an on-year, Oct. 25 to 29 at the Yukon Arts Centre. This year’s theme is a repeat of the 2009 carnival and promises to be bigger and more creative than ever with six acts, the Varietease …
And now for something completely cifferent …
Straddling comedy, horror and drama genres, Anders Thomas Jensen’s 2015 film Men & Chicken is on the brink of insanity. It is certain to be any dark comedy director’s dark comedy; Jensen has crafted a unique blend of laconic humour, deadpan wit and outlandish setting. Upon learning from their father, posthumously, that they are not …
Doors are Open for Culture Days
The Yukon is recognized for its rich cultural diversity, and you are invited to experience it during the seventh national Culture Days and Doors Open celebration, from Friday, September 30 through to Sunday, October 2. “The best place to start your Culture Days experience is at The Old Fire Hall,” says Michele Emslie, co-ordinator and …
Perpetual Curiosities: A 30-Year Retrospective Art Exhibit
On Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7:30 p.m., the ODD Gallery in Dawson City will be holding a reception for the opening of Perpetual Curiosities: A 30-Year Retrospective. The exhibition is by long-time Dawsonite Shelley Hakonson, whose last show at the gallery was a shared exhibition. This time she’s going solo. “It’s nerve wracking, but also …
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Recognizing Amazing Art
Our community will soon welcome an expected 100+ Indigenous curators, artists, and academics participating in the first northern gathering of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective. The collective is a national service organization of Indigenous curators and artists from across this land now known as Canada. The collective was created in response to the dominating non-native curatorial …
Yukon Music with a Side of Lychee
Add a fruity kick to your fall with a lychee martini! Try the cocktail at the CD release party and concert for Yukon musician Nicole Edwards. On Sept. 23 the songstress releases Genre Bender at the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse. The first single off her new CD is called “Lychee Martini” and was co-written …
13th Century Music
Katelyn Clark and Julie Ryning , as musica fantasia, released their first album. They stopped in The Yukon as part of the album tour.
A Matter of Taste
Musical talent is over-rated, and taste is under-rated. At least, that’s how Canadian-born sax player Grant Stewart sees things. “I know many, many, many players who can play anything they hear, and that’s kind of what you’re told is the ideal to shoot for,” he says. “But if you don’t develop the things that you’re …
Amazonian Mythology and Western Hallucinations
Somewhere between Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the writings of Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gómez lies Ciro Guerra’s film Embrace of the Serpent. Shot in stunning 35mm black and white film in the Amazon, Embrace of the Serpent is a dream-like manifestation of the psychotropic diaries of two ethno-botanists’ encounter with an Amazonian shaman. Switching …
Through the Eyes of our Youth
“I call this one ‘The Matchmaker’… because she’s the one who matched my mom and dad to me.” Ryan Lawrence, 14, beams at his work on the table. He’s staring at one of about eight photos he is entering into this year’s art show at the ATCO Youth Art Gallery in the Yukon Arts Centre. …
Hands-On Haute Couture in the Junction
From beading to working with hide and hair, “Textile and fashion endeavours are followed by a huge number of locals,” says Heiko Hähnsen. He’s the director of the Junction Arts and Music, or JAM, an organization that “nurtures the arts”, according to its website, and is hosting Haines Junction’s first Hands-On Craft Weekend. Given that …
A portal to the world
Yukon artist Lawrie Crawford imagined a gallery, an airy space with high ceilings and big beautiful windows. She could picture Suzanne Paleczny’s sculpture of Icarus hanging there. With that vision an idea was born. Crawford and her colleagues in the Southern Lakes Artists Collective were inspired to create a gallery space filled with a wide …
The Human North
Three photo-based shows currently on exhibit at the Yukon Arts Centre all aspire to convey something of the experience of living in the North. Of course there is no “the” when it comes to north; there are many norths. In my opinion, the exhibits were most successful where they conveyed a particular place, inhabited by …
CypherFest
For the sixth year in a row, Breakdancing Yukon Society (BYS) is inviting professional and aspiring dancers from across Canada for a weekend of performances, dance battles and workshops. This year they are bringing up two renowned dance groups to the Yukon for the festival: OURO Collective and Tentacle Tribe. OURO is a dance collective …
Leaving the Road
When Oliver Jones was a mere 65 years old, he and his wife both felt it was time for him to retire after years of playing piano on concert stages throughout the world. So he did. Briefly. Now, 16 years later, the legendary jazz pianist is about to retire again, insisting his current tour of …
Who’s Out There?
Don’t bother asking Damien Atkins whether or not he believes in UFOs. He won’t tell you. What the Toronto-based playwright and actor will do instead is talk about his one-person play, We Are Not Alone, which he’s bringing to Whitehorse next month as part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival. “When I do interviews about …
Crossing Borders
Alex Goodman doesn’t really cross borders so much as straddle them. Although the Toronto-raised guitarist and composer has made his home in New York City for the past three-and-a-half years, he seems to keep one foot planted in the musical soil of his homeland. “I think of Toronto as a very vibrant music scene. The …
Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of
“The play was inspired by the shooting of a young man named Freddy Villaneuva,” Vancouver-based playwright Omari Newton tells me. “A young man that was apparently unarmed, had no previous criminal record. He got into some kind of altercation with the police, and he ended up getting shot. He died.” His play, Sal Capone: The …
A Room within a Room
The intensely charged film Room was the Winner of the Audience Choice Award for Best Canadian Feature at this year’s Available Light Film Festival. If you missed it in February, The Yukon Film Society is bringing it back to the screen March 20th. Adapted from Ireland-born writer Emma Donoghue’s Booker Prize nominated novel of the …
Folk VERCH-uoso
If you’ve got a yen to hear some some good old-fashioned country fiddle playing, you won’t want to miss April Verch. Verch, along with bandmates Cody Walters (banjo and electric bass) and Alex Rubin (guitar and mandolin) will be stomping, singing, fiddling and strumming their way into Whitehorse Friday, March 4th. A self-described “Ottawa-Valley Girl,” …
A Champian for Dinah
“You know how kids like to pretend and tell stories? My story was that I was Dinah Washington.” { legendary jazz singer who died in 1963}
Joyful Performance
Donnell Leahy remembers exactly how he felt when he made his stage debut as a fiddler at the age of four. “Mom and Dad had a band when we were growing up as kids. They played locally at round dances and square dances and weddings and things,” he says. “One night they took me up …
What’s on at Rendezvous
It’s that time of year again, when it’s totally normal to see girls walking around in period costume, when men compete in beauty pageants, when that guy with the really long beard who comes into the restaurant you work at starts talking about the medal he hopes to win. And this year is no …
Hone Your Craft
This year marks the 14th anniversary of the Available Light Film Festival. Each year, the festival seems to grow and attract greater talent from a variety of places. This year also has a substantial amount of filmmaking workshops, some free and others requiring tickets. The festival’s keynote address will be from Dylan Marchetti, chief creative …
Cinema for Lunch
The Available Light Film Festival running Feb. 6–14 there will be showing films during the daytime, right in the middle of your lunch hour. So pack a sandwich or a smoothie and head over to either the Yukon Arts Centre or the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre for some truly fascinating cinema. Here is a rundown …
The Must-See Guide to the Pivot Theatre Festival
By La Compagnie L’Immédiat/Camille Boitel Jan. 27-29, 8 p.m., Yukon Arts Centre Co-presented with the Yukon Arts Centre, this European classic comes all the way from Paris, France. Perhaps more exciting than the distance travelled, or the point of origin, is that its Yukon debut will also be its North American premiere. Yukon audiences will be …
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Awesome Canadian Films
For years Canadian cinema was referred to as invisible cinema for its lack of global impact and struggle to compete with Hollywood’s massive export of blockbuster films. Each year film festivals around Canada aim to disprove this notion and push the potential and visibility of Canadian cinema to other parts of the world – and …
Available Light Film Fest shines on Canada’s North
This year’s Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) features a series of films draw audiences’ attention to the experiences of life in the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. The North on Screen series comprises a third of the Yukon Film Society’s 14th Annual film festival, which runs Feb. 7 to 14 in Whitehorse. Nunavut Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner) returns …
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Into the Fire
Steve Maddock owes at least part of his resumé to the bad judgment of another singer. In 1998, the crooner/actor/voice teacher from Burnaby, B.C., got an unexpected call from a cruise ship line, asking him to fill in for its previous male vocalist, who had been fired for having marijuana in his cabin. “I kind …
‘Novelty is as Old as the Hills’
The film Les Enfants du Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1945) has been called the greatest film ever made since its release. The film’s resurrection of the vaudevillian Paris theatre of the 1820s and 1830s is the most lavish realization of France during that time. It was hailed as France’s answer to Gone with the Wind (Victor …
The Twelfth Night, Lumbersexualized
Attention all lovers, poets and dreamers: this holiday season The Bard is returning to the Whitehorse stage. The Guild Hall will launch its second show of the season on Nov. 26 with Shakespeare’s classic comedy Twelfth Night, Or What You Will. The play was first performed in 1602 and takes a comedic spin on mistaken …
Back on Bourbon Street
James Danderfer didn’t intend to be a clarinet player. In Grade 6 he selected the drums as his preferred musical vehicle, but the band director overruled him. “He looked at my choice, then he asked to look at my hands, and then he asked to look at my teeth,” the Vancouver musician says. The verdict: …
Still is Still Moving: Portrait of a Genius
In the 1870s and ‘80s English photographer Eadweard Muybridge was feverishly photographing animals, people in the nude, and people with physical deformities. He is famous for successfully producing a stop-motion sequence of still photographs demonstrating that all four legs of a horse are off the ground at a gallop. Sallie Gardner at a Gallop, as …
The Secret to Russian Hockey Power
Wayne Gretzky once stated that Viacheslav Fetisov was the greatest defenseman he had ever played against. Fetisov (nicknamed Slava) was known to be the “Bobby Orr of Russia.” Winner of three Winter Olympics (2 Gold, 1 Silver), seven World Championships, one Canada Cup, three World Junior Championships and two back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Detroit …
Blue Feather Turns 15
Gary Bailie has taken a personal tragedy and turned it into the fuel that powers him to produce the popular Blue Feather Music Festival. Now in its 15th year the annual music event was never meant to be the large-scale music festival it has become. It initially began as a celebration of life for Bailie’s …
Murderously Funny
This Halloween season The Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) will present Butt Kapinksi at The Old Fire Hall, an interactive comedic murder mystery set in the style of a classic film noir movie. The show’s creator and star, Deanna Fleysher, slips into the gritty shoes of private eye Butt Kapinski as he endeavors to solve a …
Keeping the Memory Alive
In 1943 Operation Husky was put into motion. Canadian Soldiers travelled deep into the Sicilian countryside to fight against the Nazi presence that had been established there. More than 500 Canadian Soldiers lost their lives during the campaign in Sicily. The cemetery in Agira, Sicily is not a well-known place to be visited in the …
Dancing To All The Sounds
On Friday, October 23, the Yukon Arts Centre will be presenting a multimedia experience that weaves together dance, video, music and costume. It’s called Eunoia and is based on Canadian poet Christian Bök’s book of the same name. Denise Fujiwara, of Toronto-based Fujiwara Dance Inventions and a veteran of the Canadian contemporary dance scene, heard …
Deep Ecology
The year was 1971. Three Dog Nights’ “Joy to the World” became RPM’s top chart hit alongside The Stampeders’ “Sweet City Woman”. Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister and James Smith was Commissioner of the Yukon. Smith was instrumental in creating the Kluane National Park and Reserves and designating the Chilkoot Trail as a National Historic …
Duncan Sinclair – Instrument of Change
Your first perception of Duncan Sinclair may be of a reserved, buttoned-down guy – a civil servant, most likely. You wouldn’t be wrong. Sinclair spent decades in the territorial public service, rising through the ranks before retiring in 2002 as top dog of the Yukon Development Corporation. Next time you see him, he has …
YAC’s sound investment
Every seat in the Yukon Arts Centre costs the same. Yet the sound is not the same in each seat. That is why some people choose seats away from the speakers while others have figured out that there is “muddy sound” in the centre of the house. “Right now, there are four spots,” says Al …
Taking His Music Around the World
Homegrown singer-songwriter Gordie Tentrees is releasing his sixth album, Less is More, with a Northern tour this month. Tentrees is playing in Skagway, Dawson City,Keno City, and two shows in Whitehorse. This Northern tour follows his recent tours through British Columbia, the United States and Australia. In the next six months he plans to tour …
Spitefulness is best served as satire
Argentinean director Damián Szifron’s 2015 Best Foreign Language Academy Award Nominee Wild Tales is a completely jarring and poetic collection of old wives’ tales and urban legends about vengeance and vulnerability. Its characters plan revenge on instinct, using whatever is at their disposal to aid in their gratification. The film’s common theme of spitefulness and …
Inside Rhythm
Forget the metronome, and don’t even bother trying to play like someone else, no matter how much you admire them. “When I was young, I figured that out real quick, because it was uncomfortable; it didn’t work,” says legendary drummer Louis Hayes. “You’re influenced by all sorts of things, and you can do certain things …
Unravelling the layers of existence
A brilliantly layered and sensitive look at the contrasting stages of life, the 2014 film The Clouds of Sils Maria stars Juliette Binoche as Maria Enders, an accomplished stage actress who becomes painfully aware of the relationships between herself and the characters she portrays when she is asked to perform in the play that kick-started …
The (Tom)boy is back in town
The term tomboy usually refers to a girl who has “male”interests, and has a preference for “male” clothing. You know, the type of girl who likes to wear sweats, plays soccer with the guys and wants be an auto mechanic. That was then. Now, gender fluidity is becoming more common. Some people don’t even want …
The beauty and the decay of life around the planet
Since being presented the Palme D’Or and Best Director credits at the Cannes Film Festival for Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987) respectively, German filmmaker Wim Wenders continues to be intrigued by the human condition has ceased to allow his intrigue of the human condition to weaken. Wenders’ more recent films Buena Vista …
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Touch and Tell
A series of demonstrations and hands-on activities is helping animate the current exhibition at the Yukon Arts Centre’s Public Gallery, Found, Forged & Fused, a survey of handmade works from the Yukon Permanent Art Collection. The idea for this interactive component stems directly from the thinking behind the exhibit’s curation, explains Garnet Muething, art curator …
Creative Getaway
Perhaps your partner is sick of navigating around that massive quilting frame to get to the living room couch. Perhaps you’re tired of moving that big felting project off the kitchen table day after day, so the family can have supper. If so, a month of free studio space in a delightful location, with very …
Laurel Parry – Loud and Proud
On her first day as a government arts consultant in 1987, Laurel Parry was ushered to a desk that held a typewriter, a large black ceramic ashtray, and an in-box loaded with letters and materials from Yukon artists. “The job had been vacant for quite awhile and the sport consultant had been pinch-hitting, so I …
The Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Festival
A camera obscura is an optical device, and is the prototype of the photographic camera we know today. It consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside, where it is reproduced and rotated 180 degrees. Camera obscuras …
Japanese Drums Arrive in the Capital
Whitehorse is about to get a dose of Japanese culture from the upcoming Festival of Taiko Drumming. June 11 to 13 will see the Japanese Canadian Association of Yukon host the world-renowned drumming group, Uzume Taiko, for a series of workshops and concerts. Canada’s first professional taiko drumming group, Uzume Taiko has released four CDs, …
Talking in Tune
One of Canada’s busiest and most versatile violinists will perform in Whitehorse on May 17 as part of his collaboration with local composer Daniel Janke on an upcoming CD of contemporary string music. In a career spanning more than 20 years, Mark Fewer has been — among other things — a chamber musician, a symphony …
Flowers in the Concrete
Rich Hill, playing at the Yukon Arts Centre on Sunday, is a poignant observational snapshot of three boys on separate, but similar, journeys through the early days of youth, as spent in America’s povertystricken heartland. Poverty is crushing. But it’s always amazing to see that the human spirit, especially in children, is remarkably diffi cult …
Fixing to Play
Campbell Ryga has a thing about saxophones. When he’s not playing them, chances are you’ll find him at a workbench repairing one, or conducting clinics to teach others to do it. “Saxophones and clarinets always kind of interested me. I like to take them apart and I have an aptitude for the repairing of those …
Burn Away the Dark Times
The Yukon winter is so long that Dawson City-based filmmaker Suzanne Crocker once said winter has its own seasons. Most Yukoners I know divide their very existence between their “winter” and “summer” selves. More often than not, winter versions mirror the still, silent, and slow environment outside our frosty windows. Unfailingly, I spend each spring …
There’s Something About Twenty
The Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) is challenging Yukoners to embrace “spring break up” in all its disparate meanings. To help with that, YAC is hosting a Pecha Kucha evening on Friday, March 13 at the Old Fire Hall. Pecha Kucha, which translates to “chit chat” in Japanese, is a unique presentation format that will bring …
Behind the scenes Of Canada’s bilingual heritage
In mid-January, I was given the opportunity to coordinate Je parle français And I Love in English, 2015, a theatrical performance written by and for Francophone women that will be presented this weekend, March 6 and 7, at the Old Fire Hall. As a newcomer to the Yukon, I did not see the sold-out début …
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Classical Challenges
Building an orchestra in a city as small as Whitehorse poses a variety of pesky challenges. How do you fill the bassoonist’s chair, for instance? More dauntingly, can you corral enough qualified — and available — players to form a string section that can hold its own against the more forceful brass and woodwinds? Henry …
The fiddle remembers
Harold Routledge did not remember that he had built this fiddle with his own hands; but the tunes, and the skill to play it, were memories that had not yet been robbed by Alzheimer’s. “There is something about music that it is so deeply ingrained to memories from a long time ago,” says Keitha Clark, …
Overcoming Emotional Collapse Through Creation
Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic broke up in 2003 in Zagreb, Croatia. Like most post- relationship humans, they had ordinary objects kicking around their houses that sparked emotions, relating to the relationship, or the demise of it. The two artists joked about starting a museum. They asked their friends for their relationship remnants. They got …
East Coasters Come North
When I reach Jon Mckiel he’s in the middle of a New Brunswick snowstorm. I’m in the Yukon, where the temperature has dipped below -30°C. We talk about what to expect when he arrives in Whitehorse to perform at the Available Light Film Festival on February 13. He’s never been here, and I’ve never been …
ALFF Breakdown, Part Two
Thursday, February 12th The day kicks off with the festival’s final installment of the Fire Hall Film Talks, a series of free lunchtime discussions between filmmakers and artists about behind-the-scene development of projects. Thursday’s talk is on the changing face of music videos and narrative film. Panelists are singer-songwriter John Southworth; Violent director and member …
Film Festival Round Up: Part One
The 2015 Available Light Film Festival is bringing a jam-packed program to Yukon Arts Centre this February. The first half of the festival, Feb 7 to Feb 11, is covered here. Itinerary from Feb 12 to Feb 16 will be in next week’s paper. Prices of events may vary. Get your day planners ready — …
Tanya Tagaq Reclaims Stories of her People
For those who missed Tanya Tagaq on stage at music festivals in Dawson and Atlin, the Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) is giving Yukoners another chance to experience this acclaimed musician’s work on February 10 at the Yukon Arts Centre. Tagaq rocketed onto radar-screens last year when her newest album, Animism, won the 2014 Polaris …
Two 4 One Breaks New Ground
Move over Ben Affleck and Julia Roberts, the Canadian filmmaking world would like to thank you for solidifying conventions for the romantic comedy genre, so Two 4 One can break those conventions into a million pieces. This progressive look at real-life love is refreshing and accessible: a movie about a transgendered Canadian in which an …
The Wooden Sky Kicks Off ALFF
For Yukoners who miss having a music festival in February, the Yukon Film Society has stepped up. This year, the Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) has expanded to include musical performances. Andrew Connors, ALFF director, explains: “It’s twofold. We realized that the way we configure the Yukon Arts Centre for cinema, we move the screen …
Winter Folklore
The dances are coming. On January 31, Skookum Jim’s annual Folklore Show will take place at the Yukon Arts Centre. The vibrant show will feature many First Nation dances and songs. Doris McLean, of Carcross/Tagish First Nation, is now the vice president of the friendship centre, but she was the program coordinator for 30 years. She enjoys …
The Road Frequently Traveled
Yukon artist Nicole Bauberger has decided to take on quite the challenge. She is working on a project called Get Here From There, which will depict Canadian roads from one coast to the other. Bauberger will be driving across the country, stopping along the way to paint scenes. While some artists prefer to photograph and then paint, Bauberger plans …
Dan Mangan is Back in Town
Dan Mangan is almost as excited to see the Yukon again as Yukoners are to see him. In 2010, Mangan played both the Frostbite and Dawson City Music Festivals and was impressed by the local cultural scene. He says, “it seems to me like there’s a really good music community up there, a really strong arts …
A Drinky Thingy
According to Tim Tamashiro, there’s “thinky” jazz and then there’s “drinky” jazz . “I’ve always had a bit of a problem with the serious nature of jazz, so I wanted to come up with some sort of a name to put it into a bit of a context for the greater population,” he explains. Oh, …
Beautiful Designs, Tools of Destruction
Hayao Miyazaki, of Japan’s Studio Ghibli, has declared that The Wind Rises, playing at the Yukon Arts Centre on December 28, will be his last film. It is a truly beautiful piece of animation, complete with painterly landscapes and a remarkably textured soundscape. Listen for strange human voices that imitate the sound of an airplane …
Face Us
There are currently two mammoths at the Yukon Arts Centre. But they don’t interact; they are on different schedules. The one hanging out in the Public Art Gallery belongs to the Ice Age Mammals exhibit. The other mammoth — the one of current interest — is symbolic. He lives in the Community Gallery as part …
Michele Emslie Loves Art
Michele Emslie doesn’t even try to disguise her enthusiasm for her job as an arts administrator. “ I love art. I love artists. I love what they give to the world,” she declares. The Yukon Arts Centre’s community programming director is proud to live in a “fairly isolated and remote” place that “can boast a …
No Tuning Required
He may be a classically-trained pianist, but Chris Donnelly doesn’t get bent out of shape if his instrument is less than brilliantly tuned. “There’s nothing inherently bad about an untuned piano. It just sounds different. It has its own vibe,” he says. Donnelly is the pianist with the Toronto jazz trio Myriad3. Along with bassist …
Better Than Busking
Milena Parajo-van de Stadt was little more than a toddler when she noticed some buskers playing violin in a park in Oxford, England. She promptly switched her focus from the piano, which her father was teaching her, to the violin. At the age of 15 she changed directions again, to play the viola in a …
Coincidental Bassist
Richard Whiteman’s career as an upright bass player began virtually by coincidence. About 10 years ago, as leader of a highly regarded piano trio, he was doing a photo shoot with Juno-winning vocalist, composer, and bassist Brandi Disterheft. “I was holding Brandi’s bass while she was adjusting her hair or something, and I thought, ‘This …
Do I look Enlightened to You?
I recently heard the term “supermarket spiritualism” to describe folks walking down the proverbial aisle picking and choosing bits and pieces from every spiritual practice imaginable. And then paying for it all at the checkout. Emelia Symington Fedy, a Vancouver-based theatre artist, performer, writer and yoga teacher uses the term, “spiritual capitalism” in her lovingly …
We Are Golden
As I walk into the Yukon Arts Centre early on a Tuesday morning I pass a woman holding some wild flowers in her hands. Our eyes meet in the way eyes seem to meet in the Yukon — a second longer than normal, accompanied by a smile. I feel a trickle of warmth down my …
Yukon Arts Centre CEO Al Cushing jokes that a fortune cookie clinched the decision to come North
Al Cushing sits on a bench in historic King’s Square in Saint John, New Brunswick, reminiscing about his high school grad party on this very spot. It was a blistering day, and the hotel where the event was scheduled had no air conditioning. “We were going to die of heat prostration,” he recounts. “One of my classmates was a son …
Yukon Arts Center Prepares for Kick-Off
The Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) has released the roster for the 2014-15 season, with a line-up they hope has a promising selection of new and exciting events for everyone. Exhibitions for the YAC begin on September 4. The season officially starts on September 12 with a performance called The Damage is Done, staring Dr. Gabor …
Mary Bradshaw sees her curator’s role as a bridge between artists and the public
Tourism officials in Barbados market their island as “Distinctively Charming”. But when Mary Bradshaw was weighing the option of a Barbadian internship against one in Whitehorse, she opted for the distinctive charm of the Yukon. “I figured, ‘Oh, I can live anywhere for six months, and it’s the same time zone as where my family …
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A Tribute to a Colourful Artist
“I’ve had a good demand for my work, so I didn’t have to hang anything.” Jim Robb says. “It was never my thing to put stuff on exhibition.”
More Quality Films to See on a Big Screen
Fresh from one of its most successful festivals to date, the Yukon Film Society presents a trio of superb films in its monthly Available Light Cinema series, March 22 and 23. Headlining the bill is the triple-Oscar winning Twelve Years A Slave, followed by award-winning documentary Cutie And The Boxer, and a new Coen Brothers …
A Testament to the Disappearances of Aboriginal Women
International Women’s Day is Saturday, March 8, it’s a day to pause and consider women’s health, dreams, and safety — worldwide, and in Canada. It’s a perfect time to see The Hours that Remain, a play by Ontario Métis artist Keith Barker. The play explores the love, loss, and grief for families and communities surrounding …
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Too Hot To Stop
Sexy, smart, sassy, sultry, superfragilisticexpialidocious: five words Big Mama Lele uses to describe her music, and it’s pretty spot on. With titles like “Dirty Old Man” and “Montreal Boys,” as well as soulful pipes to go with her twangy ukulele tunes, it’s hard to stop listening. Big Mama Lele, a.k.a. Amelia Merhar, started singing and …
The Natural, Bizarre, and Heart-Wrenching
Three luscious, solo visual art exhibitions are coming to the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC). Rosemary Scanlon’s The Rose Parade, Helen O’Connor’s Salutation, and Michèle Karch-Ackerman’s Foundling each open at YAC’s Public Art Gallery on March 6, and run until May 10. Scanlon and O’Connor are Whitehorse-based artists and Karch-Ackerman is visiting from Ontario. All three …
Triple Threat
With three noticeable talents, namely photography, singing, and fashion design, Emma Blair is exceptional – and not afraid to be loud and proud about her interests. Her father ignited her passion for photography when Blair was four years old. It was 2005, Christmas time in the Yukon. The family had just moved to the Yukon …
My Husband, the Artist
My husband, Ken Burke, was a late bloomer. It wasn’t until he retired from Canada Flooring in 1998, that he took up painting. As his wife, I knew he was looking for a hobby to fill his leisure time, and I also recognized he has artistic talent. So I encouraged him to take an art …
Making a Living by Making Art
There’s a classic struggle among artists to find a part-time job that will afford them enough money to pay the bills and enough time to make their art, but won’t suck the soul out of them. Another classic struggle is justifying the pursuit of money, when, as an artist, passion, creativity, communication, love, light, colour, …
Some New Wines to Look For and Try
Since September there have been some good additions to the Yukon Liquor Corp. (YLC) shelves. October and November seem to be emerging as the wine tasting season in the Yukon. In the span of five weeks, I participated in, or organized, three events: the October Rotary festival in Whitehorse, the second annual tasting held by …
Award-Winning Jazz Guitarist Heads Our Way
How often do jazz musicians point to the Beatles as their inspiration? It may be evidence of their broad interest in music, and their versatility. That’s the case with Vancouver jazz guitarist Bill Coon. “Let it Be is the first pop record I ever owned, and that’s when my interest started in pop music,’ he …
Northern opry pairs budding musicians and seasoned pros
Get your cowboy hats and boots ready: this year’s Northern Opry Project is fast approaching. The concert first arrived on the Yukon scene last year, causing a stir among country music fans. This year, the Opry, which takes place on Dec. 20 and 21, promises to be bigger, showcasing the talents of more than 40 …
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Finding beauty in all the right places: Artist teaches how to appreciate art
Emma Barr is helping people find more beauty in their lives. As a professional artist of mixed media, that has always been her goal. But there is so much more art out there and much of it go unappreciated because many people just do not know enough about it. Or, perhaps, they know they …
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Clowns running amok at Yukon Arts Centre: Humour in the finest traditions of Bugs Bunny
Skating on wash buckets, pratfalls, explosions and fart jokes – Fart jokes! What can be better than fart jokes? – combine for a rollicking fun circus show. “It’s the funniest show I’ve seen on a Canadian stage in five years,” says Eric Epstein, the artistic director of the Yukon Arts Centre. He had heard good …
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A Subversive Singer-Songwriter Comes to the Yukon
While Martha Wainwright began her current tour a year ago to promote her latest CD, Come Home to Mama, she says the North American portion of the tour has evolved into something a little more wide-ranging. “At this point we’ve moved from promoting the latest album to doing songs from the previous two or three …
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Indulging the Senses: Yukon Arts Centre Fall Lineup
The biggest stage in the territory returns with a full schedule of performances. We’ve highlighted some of this season’s standouts with the help of Yukon Arts Centre’s artistic director Eric Epstein and gallery director Mary Bradshaw. THEATRE Theatrical performances at the YAC make up a giant portion of the season. From docu-theatre about a Canadian’s …
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Exploring his American side: Canadian artist Pat LePoidevin
Pat LePoidevin is coming to the Yukon to debut his latest album, American Fiction, which will kick off his Canada-wide tour. On August 23, LePoidevin will be playing at Bombay Peggy’s, a local Dawson City pub, and on August 24, the official launch will be held at the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse. LePoidevin has …
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Dancing the fine line between reverence and irreverence
The Yukon Arts Centre will become a church Feb. 27 to 29. This may appear to blasphemous to some when you consider the name of the play—Bigger Than Jesus—and the “priest” will be gifted comedian and voice impersonator Rick Miller (the same guy who brought MacHomer here some years ago). However, if you measure religious …
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Just for the love of music
The Mennonites are known for their love of singing. And that is exactly why the West Coast Mennonite Quartet will be performing at the Yukon Arts Centre March 1. This is not part of a tour and it is not a money-making venture … unless you count the CD sales, but all of that profit …
Just the sweet sounds of Africa
“There is no political message as we are not a political group,” says Thomeki Dube, a singer with Black Umfolosi. Then he adds, “That way we stay out of trouble and stress.” From Zimbabwe, an African country that is ravaged by 80 per cent unemployment and an inflation rate of 1,700 per cent, a Yukon …
The young and fearless play ‘true jazz’
The pianist just turned 33 and the clarinetist will be 84 next week. And yet it is the older gentleman who has been described as “fearless”. “The amazing thing about Phil,” says jazz pianist David Braid, “is he is in the autumn of his career and he is putting everything on the line.” Phil Nimmons, …
Singers sing sea shanties
“They are clean drinking songs,” says Barbara Chamberlin, half laughing and half pleading. “There is such a thing.” The conductor of the Whitehorse Community Choir was explaining the name of the spring concert, All Hands On Deck, and wanted to ensure audiences knew that this would be clean fun. Chamberlin, who collects songs throughout the …
Grace under fire
The hands move as they do in Spain, the hips move as they do in Africa and the shoulders sway as in Cuba. It is a style of dance pulled together by Liszt Alfonso to great success these past 17 years. On April 20 and 21, she brings this “sensual mix of fire and spice” …
The piano with the calm words
In The Netherlands it is almost 2 a.m. and yet Amina Figarova is bursting with energy and she wants to talk. Even better: she wants to talk to someone from the Yukon. “How is it up there?” she asks, straining to offer silence to allow an answer. She apologizes, saying she just came from a …
A lightbulb, a chair and a bowl
It must be a magic trick, because Andy Massingham is going to hold the attention of a Yukon Arts Centre audience for one hour with just a lightbulb, a chair and a bowl. “… and incredible shadows,” says Massingham over the phone discussing his play, Rough House, which shows at the Yukon Arts Centre April …
Leaping Feats: on stage and screen
Andrea Simpson-Fowler has a choice for audiences: if you want to see cute little kids and a mix of entertainment, come to the recreational show; if you want to see more professional, more polished pieces, then come to the repertory show. The owner and operator of Leaping Feats Creative Dancework is planning for its annual …
Yukon Supergroup, Dandelion Wreath, Says Goodbye
“The Last Potluck. Catchy isn’t it?” The man behind the cluttered desk utters this phrase while framing an invisible marquee with his hands. “I wish I could afford a marquee,” says Morty Mungden, manager for roots/folk/emotronic Yukon supergroup Dandelion Wreath. “Those things are classy. Right now I got my car parked in the abandoned parking …
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These Comedians are Ready for the Big Time
Deep down in the cockles of my President’s Choice Deluxe White Cheddar macaroni and cheese clogged heart, there’s a yearning for some recognition. But not for myself. My need to perform is juxtaposed with my general shyness and predilection for reclusivity. I’m talking about a group of young folks out there that I can be …
A musical journey through time
Two weeks: that’s all Hank Karr came for, and that’s when his love affair with the Yukon began. But, as a clock chimes (his wife, Pam, likes clocks), the Saskatchewan-born singer/songwriter rewinds just a bit, to an earlier time — to his musical journey “before Yukon”. “I guess it really started in about 1955 … …
The nations of the Yukon celebrated
A long time ago, Deb Jutra was at the T&M Hotel when a visitor said to her, “This is amazing, I see seven different cultures here and they are all getting along.” “Oh, yeah,” said Jutra, not in a surprised way but, rather, in an “of course” kind of way. “In the Yukon, we are …
The strength and grace of Irish dance
Irish dancing is known by its row of stiff upper bodies and crazy strong legs moving in quick union. But Andrew Vickers, lead male dancer of The Magic of Ireland, is a student of the dance and he sees much more: “It is the girls and their light dancing; it is almost like a ballet, …
Kidd Pivot Is the dance you want it to be
Crystal Pite knows that audiences will watch her contemporary dance company, Kidd Pivot, with trepidation. “They feel they don’t have enough knowledge to get something out of it,” she says over the phone. “I would advise people to trust themselves to watch it the way it needs to be watched. “Trust your eyes, trust your …
The Yukon’s own Lilith Fair
It isn’t easy to mount the Yukon’s own version of Lilith Fair. “It was a lot, a lot, a lot of work,” says President Erica Heyligers of the latest Yukon Women in Music project. “Yeah, a lot of work,” agrees her vice-president, Barbara Chamberlin. And even though the CD, Tether Hooks & Velcro, has been …
Roman Danylo knows how to make you laugh
Buy your tickets early for Thursday night’s comedy show at the Yukon Arts Centre so that you can get a good seat in the back. You see, Roman Danylo is one of those comics who gets the audience involved. If you sit too close to the front, you may end up in a slow-motion shoot …
Jazz, as good then as it is now
Jazz On The Wing has reached back to the early 1900s for its show Nov. 9 at the Yukon Arts Centre. New Orleans flair and Louis Armstrong arrangements will be presented by Bria’s Hot Five. The bandleader, Bria Skonberg, is not unusual because she is a woman – “There are a lot of good female musicians …
Go where the music takes you
From the gritty, primal rhythms to the lingering, sweet slide of steel guitar; and from the soulful roots of jazz to the vintage romance of classical guitar – and so much more – the music of Fathers & Sons takes you places you never thought you would go. “Sometimes it sounds like you’re kind of …
The very human story of Frankenstein
Just as the movie Twilight surprised the film industry, the success of Catalyst Theatre’s Frankenstein is surprising theatre watchers. Both are a hit with teenagers. “Teenagers really respond to stories of the outsider,” says Jonathan Christenson, the play’s writer, director and composer. “It’s that fear of being a social pariah.” And Frankenstein’s monster is the …
It’s gonna be a ‘blue’ folklore
Skookum Jim Friendship Centre is doing something different this year with its 2009 Folklore Show on Saturday, Jan. 31: it will be A Night of Blues. Well, it is always a little different from year to year. This 36th edition’s theme emerged after Chris Nash, the producer, and the Folklore Committee saw which acts were …
Memories, though invisible, are very real
“Go easy on the references to the Holocaust,” Jonathon Young says to me over the phone. “People will go into the theatre expecting it. “This play is much more about memory and how our actions affect our descendants.” The Invisible Life of Joseph Finch is, indeed, about re-creating one man’s life for the benefit of …
Taylor Mac wants to shake you up
Taylor Mac would like you to know that he doesn’t want to offend you. If his fantastical makeup and clothes surprise you, then that’s OK because if you are surprised, then you are being shaken up a little. And shaking things up is what this drag queen considers his job to be. If audiences are …
‘Cirque du Soleil, with brass instruments’
Bellows and Brass is a trio of three respected and accomplished soloists. Each have been invited to perform as concerto soloists with orchestras such as the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. When they get together as a trio, however, they like …
Artrepreneur: Gesturing the ‘S’
Centred in one of the Yukon Arts Centre galleries, as if on a page, stand 10 plinths and a “desk.” Imagine the other 10 plinths stuck together without the spaces between them – that is the desk. A clear-handled, wide-edged brush; a small oriental slate ink stone and a block of ink to grind on …
A case of questionable identity
It is in the fall, off-season for a ski chalet, yet there is still excitement. A woman has disappeared. She returns, but it is not the same woman according to her husband. The police get involved and they are convinced she is who she says she is. “Oh boy,” is all that Pierre Gauthier will …
Make some noise for Brandi Disterheft
Jazz Yukon had already told Brandi Disterheft what “On The Wing” means, and she is looking forward to it. “It is definitely one of my favourite types of venues,” says the stand-up bass player of her upcoming visit to the cozy stage of the Yukon Arts Centre Sunday, March 1. “You can really interact and …
Stories of the scientific nude
Yes, they know it is cold in the Yukon. The cast of Studies in Motion has been checking out the temperatures here daily. Yet they will all be nude sometime during the play when it shows at the Yukon Arts Centre March 24 to 27. “I was already nude on that stage a couple of …
In the ‘language’ of belly dancing, Raqs rocks
It’s not I Dream of Jeannie—not even close. “The North American image of I Dream of Jeannie is so ‘Hollywood’,” Nita Collins chuckles, but acknowledges that, yes, belly dancing is sensual. “I Dream of Jeannie is a combination of Turkish and Eastern and Hollywood.” But, she says, it did help introduce the whole concept and …
This couple makes beautiful music
Individually, the members of Duo Diorama are expert and greatly respected. Winston Choi, the pianist, was laureate of the 2003 Honens International Piano Competition and winner of France’s 2002 Concourse International de Piano 20e siècle d’Orléans. Minghuan Xu, with her violin, is a winner of the Beijing Young Artists Competition and has collaborated with the …
Montréal Danse: Up close and personal
It will be an unusual connection between the audience at the Yukon Arts Centre and the dancers of Montréal Danse when it presents On the Ice of Labrador on Saturday, Feb. 28. The seven dancers will each be presenting their own stories – stories of aviators, trombone players, blood-sugar cycles of a diabetic, Alzheimer’s disease …
Where sex meets the ice
There are four corners of a net that hockey players shoot for to score a goal. The ‘Five Hole’ is that other spot that could lead to a score: between the goaltender’s legs. That is where Five Hole: Tales of Erotica spends its time … and in the locker room and hotel rooms and bars …
Jazz great’s 70-year journey north
After a career of 70 years playing jazz piano, on every continent in the world, Oliver Jones is finally coming to the Yukon. “I guess someone up there figured an old man should get up to Whitehorse at least once in his lifetime,” says Jones over the phone from his summer home in Florida. He …
Artrepreneur: All Art and No Sandwich
It’s 8:30 p.m. I’m driving Scott Marsden, curator of The Reach Gallery, in Abbotsford, and erstwhile curator at the Yukon Arts Centre, back to his hotel. He wants to catch the dining room before it closes at 9. That’s when I learn he hasn’t even eaten lunch yet. “I went to get a coffee and …
Don Ross brings us a surprise
Playing a guitar as fast as he can is a novelty that wore off for Don Ross by the time he was 17 years old. “It wasn’t about how many hand stands I can do on the thing,” says Ross over the phone. “But, really, a good tune is more important than how fast I …
Real entertainment from Fred Eaglesmith and Gordie Tentrees
You have to be thrilled for Gordie Tentrees. The first time his ears perked up to enjoy a folk tune, it was at a Fred Eaglesmith picnic. The first 20 songs he learned to play on a guitar were Fred Eaglesmith songs. This week, Tentrees is hosting the Canadian music legend and will be opening …
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Saxophones B to Z
Take a string quartet: two violins, a viola and a cello. Imagine it whipping up a challenging entrée of Bach. As side dishes, how about some 1930s-era Glazounov romanticism and a bit of contemporary Canadiana? A little Zappa for dessert, perhaps. But first, replace the strings with saxophones. That’s the menu Whitehorse Concerts has in …
Still funny after 500 years
In Italy, about 500 years ago, the lower classes liked to present plays that made fun of the higher classes. And the higher classes enjoyed them, too. Today, five members of Théâtre de la Pastèque (Watermelon Theatre) are borrowing this commedia dell’arte to entertain and, as four of the members of the cast are teachers, …
Artrepreneur: Hunter, Dentist, Artist, Priest
Beautiful portraits of the people and dogs of Colville Lake, NWT, encircle the Yukon Arts Centre Community Gallery. Arctic Journal was put together by Deb Jutra in honour of Bern Will Brown. Jutra knew the artist as Father Brown, her Catholic priest when growing up in Uranium City, Saskatchewan. Brown arrived in the Arctic in …
Day after day after day of festivals
The Solstice Festival is the Perfect Storm of parties. It is three festivals – one right after the other – that will keep Shipyards Park booming and bopping from Friday, June 26 to Sunday, June 28. Kicking things off on Friday will be the fourth annual Sunstroke music festival that will be raising money for …
A week jammed with jammin’
Yukoners are an inclusive bunch and the Yukon Summer Music Camp is no exception. According to Steve Gedrose, camp coordinator for his second year, the camp is for all ages, “from three to 93”. Last year, they offered classes for children as young as 18 months old. This year, they’re starting at age three. Gedrose, …
A love that made the gods weep
“It is a space of no expectations,” says Carol Prieur, a dancer in the upcoming presentation, Orpheus and Eurydice. Since Yukon audiences probably remember the choreographer, Marie Chouinard, who urinated into a bucket onstage, then, yeah, there probably aren’t any expectations for this performance. Prieur laughs at this and only gets more excited: “That is …
Stop … and listen to Mike Daisey
Mike Daisey talks. He is a monologist; it’s what he does. In a day when we watch our videos in one- and two-minute clips and read messages from our friends in 140 characters or less, Mike Daisey will talk for two hours. No dancing. No music. No pyrotechnics. Just talk. And audiences are listening. That’s …
The Bob Couchman Yukon Theatre Award
Each and every one of us at What’s Up Yukon finds local theatre to be a fantastic entertainment value. We like to think that covering theatre in our pages shows our support and we are happy to do it. But is there something more we can do? Yes, there is. We have a lot of …
A guitar like no other
Some have called Marc Atkinson’s music “gypsy jazz”. Over the phone line, I could almost feel Atkinson shrug: “It’s a common denominator,” he says. “The fact that I play the guitar, I get associated with it.” And audience members often ask him if he is influenced by various guitar players and he sometimes has to …
Dance explores pain and pleasure
Hélène Blackburn is looking forward to bringing her contemporary dance company, Cas Public, to the Yukon next week. Long ago, she dismissed the notion that those in small towns can be closed- minded and that the west is saturated with with conservative tastes in entertainment. And, having visited two venues in northern Québec, she knows …
The return of jazz dance
Kimberley Cooper retraced the rise and descent of North American jazz dance: It is primarily a folk dance mixed by African slaves and the Europeans who enslaved them. But it died out with the Second World War, bebop and the taxation of dance halls. “It was kind of lost in the world, and that’s sad,” …
Good jazz needs a good audience
“It’s like apples and oranges,” says Bill Coon, a member of Era Bom, as well as having his own Bill Coon Quartet. “You love them both.” Era Bom is a Brazilian duo he shares with Michael Creeper, and was scheduled to perform at a Jazz On the Wing event Sunday, Nov. 15. Unfortunately, a health …
Little hands are ‘Kreative’ Hands
Take one child or a group of children, add some art supplies and mix it with limitless imagination and what do you get? Kreations. One Sunday, each month, children create at the Yukon Arts Centre. Jessica Vellenga’s role is visual-arts engagement, precisely what Kidz Kreate is about, engaging kids of all ages in exploring artists’ …
The stories behind Nutcracker
As audience members at the Yukon Arts Centre allow the Christmas tradition of Nutcracker to wash over them – joined, for the first time, by an audience in Dawson City – it would be interesting to note that this is a production of the Northern Lights School of Dance. As a school, it has many …
From Memories of Slavery to Laughter and Dance
McCartha Sandy-Lewis remembers her great-grandmother squatting down every evening before sunset with her frock between her knees, smoking a pipe and looking out toward Mount Irvine Bay. That’s where the slave ship had brought her from her home in Guinea, West Africa, to the Caribbean island of Tobago, where she would spend the rest of …
Northern Opry Project takes the Yukon back In time
Lovers of old-style country music will gather together this month to recreate the golden age of country radio. Singer-songwriter Kim Beggs and music fest organizer Dale Harnish have rustled up country and folk musicians from inside and outside the Yukon for two Grand Ole Northern Opry concert performances on Dec. 20 and 21 at the …
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A Journey Inspired by Jack London
As a young girl, growing up in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Ruth Armson was an avid reader. She read whatever she could, but the selection was limited by her rural circumstances. “I read all the Jack London books,” says Armson. “I went to a small country school and that’s what they had in the library.” …
A fresh longest night
In an interview, two weeks before Longest Night 2009, director Daniel Janke said the evening was still a mystery to him. “I’ve been writing new material – we are all writing new material – so there is not much that anyone has ever heard before,” he says. “And that’s a nice, fresh energy.” Celebrating the …
The Many Worlds; and Faces; of Charles Ross
He’s a hobbit and an Ewok, Princess Leia and Gandalf — plus about 80 other denizens of deep space and Middle Earth. In a more mundane dimension, he’s a 38-year-old actor from Victoria, B.C. named Charles Ross. For the past dozen years, Ross has travelled through four continents, evoking a multitude of characters from two …
Ron James shifts comedy paradigm
Ron James used to be the spokesman for Texas tourism for three years on CNN. “It was during George Bush senior’s term. I can imagine Saddam Hussein, who watched CNN all the time, really getting to know my face.” James is talking like a freight train on the phone with me. Not jokes, but gems …
Don Juan has come to save us
“Don Juan? I love Don Juan,” said my fiancée when I asked her if she wanted to see The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan at the Yukon Arts Centre. She loves Don Juan? I don’t get it. Don Juan was a cad who used women and left them . I would have been just as …
Pop goes the Hammond B-3
Besides hearing jazz played as tight as only a quartet of professionals can, the Jazz Yukon audience Sunday night will enjoy a spectacle. Have you seen the Hammond B-3 organ at The Cellar? Well, you will see it played by jazz veteran Mike LeDonne … and it will be a spectacle. “The funny thing is …
The music of Frank Zappa plays on
I remember where I was when I first heard Frank Zappa. It was 1980 and I was at C.F.B. Borden; Joe’s Garage Act I was blasting out of a buddy’s tent. I drew near, sat down and listened right to the end. Nobody told me it was a rock opera (just as well). All I …
Painter in the Ditch
I’m painting the road. When I tell people that, they figure I’m painting the yellow line some different colour. What I’m actually doing is stopping every 50 kilometres on the drive from Edmonton to Whitehorse and painting a picture of the road and the landscape it’s travelling through. I paint it where it curves right …
Beloved Nutcracker Ballet draws audience into the seats … and onto the stage
There is no surer sign of the holiday season than the annual staging of The Nutcracker. The Northern Lights School of Dance is presenting the traditional ballet on December 2, in Dawson City and on December 7 and 8, in Whitehorse. This is the fourth year that this holiday favourite will be performed in Dawson, …
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Dedication, Hope and a Hug for Mother Earth
With all it’s going through, the world needs a hug. That’s one of the messages underlying this year’s Blue Feather Music Festival, which takes place November 5 and 6 at the Yukon Arts Centre. “We just figured the world needs a big bear hug, and it’s up to us to take care of our planet …
Epstein leaves, stage right
Eric Epstein and I are sitting in the black box — the creative centre of the Guild Theatre — the room that can become anything, which has become everything. He reflects back on his last 10 years with the Guild. As he steps out of the position, he recalls the first show he did in …
A Marriage of Minds, Words and Music
For Russell Braun, the accompanist’s role is not to play second fiddle. Figuratively or literally. The Frankfurt-born lyric baritone will share the Yukon Arts Centre stage this Sunday with his favourite accompanist -– and his wife – pianist Carolyn Maule. “We’re both soloists,” Braun stresses. “It’s like a marriage, you know. You don’t become one, …
On His Own, With Lots of Company
Raoul Bhaneja is his own uncle. Which means he’s also his own stepfather. Not to mention his mother, his sort-of girlfriend, the ghost of his father and even his father’s windy old court advisor. Bhaneja will bring all these characters and several more to the Yukon Arts Centre stage next month with his one-man version …
Maybe we are not alone
Yukon skies could be busier than usual next week as extraterrestrial visitors zoom in on the Yukon Arts Centre. The annual Longest Night celebration is taking a playful look at alien life forms through film, story and music. Among the close encounters will be three distinct takes on the theme “we are not alone” by …
Artrepreneur: An Uneasy Wonderland
Valerie Salez gives voice to her mixed feelings about beauty in Fourth Nature up at the Yukon Arts Centre. Italian Renaissance grottoes inspired this show. Salez was fascinated by those layered spaces. One generation of art patrons commissioned artists to create “sculptures, murals and architectural friezes” in caves as part of elaborate and controlled gardens. …
Escaping to Bluegrass
It was bluegrass, as much as anything, that lured Radim Zenkl to slip through the Iron Curtain and become a political refugee in the United States. “At the beginning I played folk music, but as soon as I heard some country music on the records that were smuggled from the USA, I was really interested …
Turning Hollywood Upside Down
It’s 6:05 on a Sunday morning, and she has a play opening in only six days. So why is Sarah Rodgers sitting in the airport waiting for a flight to Vancouver? Well, so she can spend her day off with Poppy, her 13-month-old adopted daughter from Vietnam. “I feel like a jet-setter,” she quips. Rodgers …
Noh Comes to Town
Whitehorse rare opportunity to experience Noh Theatre, a form of classical Japanese theatre that dates back almost 700 years.
Musical Friends
They’re doing it One More Time. For the fifth year in a row, two of the Yukon’s most popular – certainly most durable – musical groups are teaming up for a show loaded with nostalgia and upbeat melodies. Hank Karr and Company and The Canucks will get together at the Yukon Arts Centre next week …
Pop With a Gypsy Touch
Don’t let the name fool you. True, the Québec-based trio, The Lost Fingers, took its name from the two fingers of legendary gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt that were rendered useless in a fire, leading him to develop a unique and unmistakable playing style. And it’s true that the group’s sound is highly influenced by the …
No Squeaking or Squawking
Young and not-so-young musicians from throughout Whitehorse will perform together in two separate concerts at the Yukon Arts Centre next week. The occasion is the All-City Band Society’s annual pre-Christmas presentation, which this year is going under the title of Music for a Winter Eve. While some of the players are veteran performers, for others …
Breaking the Silence
Tom Jackson’s words come in a slow, measured cadence when he talks about hunger and poverty. It is the second day of Jackson’s current Christmas concert tour, ‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime. His Twitter feed for the day reads, “Poverty is often silent. It’s time to break that silence.” On the phone from Parry …
Tone and Diction Rule
It’s 7: 25 on a Monday evening. Over the past few minutes, 67 members of the Whitehorse Community Choir have arrived at the Whitehorse United Church and taken their places. Microphone in hand, Barbara Chamberlin calls out, “OK, let’s stand up. Let’s have a massage.” The atmosphere is lighthearted as the singers turn in their …
Keeping the Folk Flame Burning
When you ask Eliza Gilkyson about her early musical influences, the first name she mentions is Joan Baez. So when Baez included two of Gilkyson’s songs on her 2008 album, Day After Tomorrow, it was a special occasion. “That was just stunning,” Gilkyson says from her home in Austin, Texas. As a singer-songwriter who recorded …
Confessions of a Boy Soprano
The Rotary Music Festival – which gets off the ground again next Thursday – has been a masterpiece of logistics since its beginning in 1969. It now involves somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2,000 people: organizers, adjudicators, music teachers and, of course, the talented singers and players who will put their best work on display …
Colourful and Varied
It has been called “the clown of the orchestra” and “the burping bedpost”, among other things. But it’s no laughing matter for Nadina Mackie Jackson. In fact, the Toronto-based musician has made a successful career playing the deep-voiced bassoon, a double-reed woodwind with a rich history as a solo instrument. Mackie Jackson’s love affair with …
A Pan-Northern Performance
It may not have the national audience of a CBC-TV True North concert. And it may not cover as much geography as the cultural events at the upcoming Arctic Winter Games. But a concert at the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) this week is still a major undertaking that will showcase traditional and contemporary performances from …
A Touch of Brazil
Full disclosure: one of the most treasured albums in my vinyl collection is the 1962 Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd classic, Jazz Samba. Fuller disclosure: I’ve had a mad crush on Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “tall and tan and young and lovely” girl from Ipanema ever since Astrud Gilberto, hand-in-hand with Getz and her then-husband João …
Finding Her New Voice
When Caroline Drury-Márkos last performed at the Yukon Arts Centre, she was a jazz crooner with the popular Peter Drury Trio. When she returns next week to kick off the Whitehorse Concerts 2011-12 season, it will be as an opera singer. Although she studied voice with Barbara Chamberlin as a teenager, and took a few …
Capturing Canada’s Boreal Forest
Kelly Borgers considers herself a family photographer. Except that her subject matter is not human faces, but Canada’s boreal forest. “I probably have at least 15,000 pictures of the boreal,” she says. “The pictures to me are little individual portraits. They show different little nuances of the forest, whether it’s a rock or a flower, …
Documenting Polar Change
Ark Terry sees himself almost as an interpreter. As a filmmaker who has documented rapid changes in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, his goal is to make complex scientific information about global warming and climate change understandable, especially to policy-makers. “We’ve got to remember that policy-makers are just politicians, which means they’re kind of …
A Tale in Two Tellings
Ten years after Louis Riel was convicted of high treason and hanged, a young Cree warrior shot a cow near Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, where the so-called North-West Rebellion had begun. According to some versions of the story, the animal was intended for his wedding feast. That young man, known in English as Almighty Voice, was …
MacHomer Erectus
Somewhere along the line, Rick Miller wandered from Moshe Safdie’s Legoland and the Bauhaus world of Walter Gropius to the raucous playground of William Shakespeare and …wait for it! … Homer Simpson. Miller is an actor, writer, singer, painter, comic and mynah bird capable of mimicking the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Meatloaf, Andrea …
Practising Fast in Slow Motion
Listen. That’s the word concert pianist Ian Parker expects to use the most while adjudicating the senior piano classes at this week’s Rotary Music Festival in Whitehorse. That advice that was drummed into him by his teacher at the Julliard School of Music, Yoheved Kaplinsky. “But what my teacher really taught was the way to …
Adding to His Mileage
Mike Rud has packed a lot of musical mileage into his 44 years. The Edmonton-born jazz guitarist has three CDS to his name, not to mention an impressive list of performing and teaching stints in Vancouver, Edmonton, New York City (where he studied with guitar master Jim Hall) and Montreal, where he lives and works. …
Conflicting Concepts of Justice
The discovery of long-buried human remains in Dawson City two years ago shone a public spotlight on a little-known chapter in Yukon history. The four bodies unearthed at the site of a former Northwest Mounted Police palisade turned out to be those of prisoners executed and secretly buried during the Klondike Gold Rush. Two of …
Matching Timbres and Colours
At the age of three, Heidi Krutzen announced to her non-musical parents that she wanted to play the harp. She had to settle for the piano until she was nine and big enough to tackle the hefty, 47-string instrument of her choice. At the age of three, Ariel Barnes, whose parents are both professional musicians, …
And the Winner Is …
I was reminded again recently of the role that sharing wine can have in igniting enthusiasm and making new friends. As I mentioned in my last column, I had been invited by the staff of the Yukon Arts Centre to help them offer up a wine tasting as part of the launch of their new …
Unpacking Memory
What is memory? Where does it live? Where can it take you? Who does it belong to? What is it like to live without it? These are some of the questions at the heart of Broken, a new play by Whitehorse theatre maker Brian Fidler that opened this week in as a Nakai Ramshackle Theatre …
A Little Off the Top: Saluting an Icon
Anyone who comes to Yukon quickly becomes aware of several things: the vast landscape, the clean air, the soft colours, the friendliness, the compulsion of many locals to test their endurance in feats of outdoor derring-do. Something else newcomers soon discover is the remarkable depth and breadth of artistic and cultural expression available in the …
“We’re Going to Make a Party”
Astrid and Otto Røt are two musical orphans from Berlin. Or maybe not. Their parents were killed by a train on her 12th birthday, Astrid explains. Or maybe eaten by lions, as Otto claims. Together, the ersatz siblings form the music and comedy duo, Die Røten Pünkte, which is often compared to such acts as …
A Taste for the Arts
Love of (and interest in) wine has opened wonderful doors for me in my life. Tasting wine has been the lens through which I have experienced lessons in history and geography. Friends have mailed me bottles from places such as Malta, and I have had the chance to sit with vineyard owners and chat over …
Growing Up to Play Barbie
As a young boy, Nina Arsenault’s desire to be beautiful came from a “deep, deep place.” Now a full-fledged woman with the face and body of a Vegas showgirl, Arsenault makes a living from talking about her life experiences. Next Thursday at the Yukon Arts Centre, as part of the Nakai Theatre Pivot Festival, she’ll …
Photography as big as Canyonlands
“On top of everything else, you are a photographer, too?” Didier Delahaye has a bemused look that I don’t quite understand. As the marketing director of the Yukon Arts Centre, I knew he was handy at graphic design as he creates much of the advertising. And I knew he is a songwriter, musician, singer and …
Feast at the Yukon Arts Centre
Michelle Moreau and her potter partner Patrick Royle want to assure purchasers of local pottery that no glaze used on Royle’s or any other local potter’s dinnerware contains lead. It’s bad for the potter working with it, too ….. Phyllis Fiendell’s wheel-thrown, handmade stoneware is on display in the plexiglass boxes in the Yukon Arts …