Thursday 29 September 2011

Prince George & Kenora Celebrations

 'Ut'loo Noye Khunni - Weaving Words Celebration

  • author readings
  • writing workshops for youth & adults
  • community dinner
  • cultural showcase
  • storytelling events … and much more!

  • The festival brings together authors and storytellers from local communities and across North America for four fun-filled days to promote cultural exchange & sharing and Aboriginal literary arts.

  • WHEN: September 28 to October 1, 2011
  • WHERE: at UNBC and various locations around Prince George

  • FOR MORE INFORMATION, check out:
  • Facebook: ‘Ut’loo Noye Khunni - Weaving Words Celebration
  • www.unbc.ca/firstnationscentre 

  • Hear Our Words ~ Youth Short Story Writing Competition 
  • Click here to read the selected submissions     
  •           
  • "Ut"loo Koye Khunni ~ Weaving Words Celebration
  • Please join us for this year's festivities.  Click here for to view a copy of this year's itinerary.    
  •  ~

    All-new SWEETGRASS FILM FESTIVAL about to hit the Treaty #3 Territory!!!












    SWEETGRASS FILM FESTIVAL: ENVIRONMENTAL AND WOMENS ISSUES FILM FESTIVAL COMING TO KENORA THIS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30TH IN
    CELEBRATION OF WOMENS PLACE KENORA 30th ANNIVERSARY!!

    KENORA— In an area known for rich Aboriginal traditions and strong culture, a new Indigenous-based film festival is about to hit the Lake of the Woods area!!! The Sweetgrass Film Festival will begin this Friday, September 30th through to Sunday, October 2nd in Kenora, Ontario and will feature film and video by Indigenous filmmakers from across Canada and the United States.
    Presented by Women’s Place Kenora and produced by Harmony Rice, the festival will include screenings, discussions, a youth video-making workshop and performances by Sarah DeCarlo and Michelle St.John. Filmmakers will also be in attendance to screen and discuss their work throughout the festival.
    “It is so great to have an opportunity to promote the arts, present contemporary film and video and to discuss environmental, womens and Native issues in a venue that will be safe, respectful and positive,” says Sweetgrass Film Festival Producer Harmony Rice. She adds, “It’s an honour to be presenting the important and beautiful works created by some of the most amazing Native talents out there today.”
    As part of the Culture Days celebration in Kenora, the Festival will begin on Friday night with an opening reception, opening screenings and a live performance by Sarah Decarlo. Saturday will begin with a video-making workshop with Sarah Decarlo at 10AM, performances and screenings under the big tent at 1PM and an environmental program scheduled at the Discovery Centre at 3PM. Sunday will continue with brunch,  more screenings and a 30th Anniversary celebration at Women’s Place.
    “It is an important and significant time in the history of Women’s Place Kenora, we are celebrating 30 years of Women’s Place here in Kenora,” says Womens Place Kenora Executive Director Colette Surovy. “Women’s Place has been a rock through constantly changing times and continues to remain a place for women to come that will embrace, support and honour them.”
    Featured film and videos will include: Jules Koostachin’s Remembering Inninimowin, Sarah Decarlo’s Land of the Silver Birch, Home of the Beaver, Michelle St. John’s The Road Forward, Michelle Desrosiers’ Return to Manomin, Tannis Nielsen’s Not Forgotten, Xstine Cook’s Spirit of the Bluebird, Ryan Red Corn’s Bad Indian and more. This festival was made possible through the support of the Ontario Arts Council.
     For more information, please contact Women’s Place Kenora at 807.468.9095 or email rootsandrights@gmail.com
    MORE DETAILS @ CULTURE DAYS

    Monday 26 September 2011

    my first mister


    Happy Tenth Birthday to one of my recent favourite films, My First Mister.


    Found on dvd during some late night rental excursion, I watched it again this morning, on youtube, for it's cross-cultural, cross-generation, cross-gender humourous explorations. A feel-good movie for sure, both a Harold & Maude for the new millenium, and for the female perspective.


    Like Harold & Maude (1971), it begins with an unhappy young person using their creative genius to express their discontent, or perhaps their essential selves in very stressful circumstance, and goes through many thoughts, shocks, and landscapes before warming into it's freeing, life-affirming conclusion.

    What is friendship for?


    Unlike Harold & Maude however, the resolution in this film doesn't rest at the place of individual solutions, but goes the bodhisattva next step, and seeks creative resolution through the transformative approach to one's relationships. The movie implies that humans are a resource to one another, and that coming together is not only safe, but necessary, not only possible, but wise.

    Both movies will offend some and replenish others, and that's the way life goes. While both have art-- as well as friendship-- as a teaching and a transformative path, My First Mister begins and ends with poetry.

    Thursday 22 September 2011

    transferring traditions ~ poetry feast days

    coming up Oct 15 2011
    ~

    100,000 POETS FOR CHANGE, VANCOUVER
    False Creek Clean Up + Poetry Reading: Saturday, Sept 24, 2011

    1 pm to 5 pm

    1 pm: Meet near Science World to clean up False Creek East, a World River's Day/Great Canadian Shoreline event hosted by Fraser Riverkeeper (who will provide supplies and a speaker, environmental lawyer and Riverkeeper Doug Chapman)

    3:30 to 5 pm: 6 poets will read at the Carnegie Center, room 2 on the third floor: including Wil George, Steve Collis, Alex Leslie, Garry Thomas Morse, Rita Wong and Elaine Woo, in conjunction with the Enpipeline, a collaborative project of 47,000 km of poetry in resistance to Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal, coordinated by Christine Leclerc.  http://enpipeline.org/




    After that, collaborative workshops and an open-mic reading
    at the Carnegie Centre. All are welcome.

    This day is organized in solidarity with events around the world on Sept 24 called for by both 100,000 Poets for Change and 350.org  (a grassroots response to the global climate crisis), with the support of Word on the Street Vancouver and Mary Woodbury of Moon Willow Press.  

    We gather to work toward a healthy watershed and wild salmon forever, which have been vital to Vancouver’s cultural and environmental history for thousands of years. We encourage people to celebrate 

    World Rivers Day, Sept 25

    Sunday 18 September 2011

    Peace It Together Haiku



    Haiku: the transition to creative expression

    Peace it Together participants were asked to write haikus or short poems as a way to distill their experience in the dialogue sessions. The result was an inspiring expression of the creative process.

    Source: Peace It Together


    Peace it Together unites youth from opposing sides of a conflict for a program of dialogue and filmmaking. The films they co-create are used as peace-building tools to advance reconciliatory approaches to ending the conflict.


    Building peace, frame by frame.

    As a follow-up to the dialogue sessions, Peace it Together participants work together to create short films that express their viewpoints on the conflict.  In this short video, Film Mentors and students discuss the filmmaking process.

    Source: Peace It Together

    To watch participants' films
    (2006, 2008, 2011)  visit:


    Sunday 11 September 2011

    Story Medicine!

    Interview: Kim Anderson, Author, "Life Stages and Native Women"




    Poetry reading & book launch
    Thursday September 15th, 3 to 5 pm
    Four Directions Aboriginal Students' Centre
    Queens University
    Kingston ON

    For more about Kim and her new book, see:
    Digging Up Medicines: Life Stages and Native Women

    See Table of Contents, here.

    For more about my book Mother Time: Poems New & Selected, see 
    Mother Time