Ice Follies 2018 – Closing Reception
February 19, 2018 (Family Day)
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Marathon Beach – North Bay, ON
Looking for something fun to do this Family Day? Come check out the closing reception for this year’s Ice Follies. We will be serving Hot Chocolate and Cool Artist Talks out on the ice, and our interactive arts installations provide an opportunity for the whole family to explore, engage, and experience. Hope to see you there!
Ice Follies Community Visioning Session
February 15, 2018
7 pm at Big Medicine Studio
Ice Follies invites all interested parties to attend a community visioning session / roundtable discussion at Big Medicine Studio on Febraury 15, 2018 starting at 7 pm. The festival organizers want to hear your feedback, ideas, and visions for the future. What does Ice Follies mean to you? What are we doing well and what could we be doing better? Where should Ice Follies go from here? Hope to see you there!
For more details, check out the event page on facebook.
Photo by Liz Lott
Aanmitaagzi has once again teamed up with the Near North Mobile Media Lab and White Water Gallery to present Ice Follies 2018. Ice Follies is biennial festival of contemporary and community-engaged art on frozen lake Nipissing. Audiences are invited to engage with works situated off shore from the North Bay waterfront (Marathon Beach) and along the shores of Nipissing First Nation. This year’s theme is Exposing to Strengthen:
The creation of ice roads requires the clearing of snow to expose the ice to the cold. The snow is cleared well beyond the used roadway to ensure safe ice thickness from the center to the edges of the used portion of the ice road. What do we bring to light, allow or expose so a strengthening can occur?
For this year’s Ice Follies, Aanmitaagzi will present a series of installations from their ongoing Serpent People project alongside artists Aylan Couchie, Reece Terris, Chris Kosloski & Andrew Ackerman, and others. For more information, please contact Aanmitaagzi or visit www.icefollies.ca.
Aanmitaagzi invites artists, arts enthusiasts, and community members of all abilities to participate in their Winter Workshop series as part of their ongoing Serpent People project. The weekly workshops are free to the public and take place at Big Medicine Studio. Hope to see you there!
January 15 – April 25, 2018
Tuesday 3:30 – 5:15 pm Kids Multi-Arts Workshop
6:30 – 8:30 pm Pow Wow Jam!
Wednesday 7:00 – 9:00 pm Adult Contemporary Dance
January 22 – February 15, 2018
Thursday 1:30 – 5:30 pm Open Studio Art-Making for Ice Follies
IPAA Roundtable Discussion
Big Medicine Studio
161 Couchie Memorial Drive, North Bay, ON
January 15, 2018 at 6:00 pm
The Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA), working with the Department of Canadian Heritage, will be holding a roundtable discussion at Big Medicine Studio on January 15, 2018 at 6 pm. Hosted by Kerry Swanson and Christine Friday, this session will explore how Indigenous communities, organizations and groups can host Indigenous performers in local venues and spaces, as well as discuss the development of a network for Indigenous performing arts presentation in our community. The session will open with an artistic performance and light refreshments will be served.
For more information, please contact Aanmitaagzi.
The Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA) is a member-driven organization of professional Indigenous performing artists and arts organizations. IPAA serves as a collective voice for its members and for Indigenous performing arts in Canada. IPAA provides leadership, support, representation, advocacy, and practical assistance for the national development of Indigenous performing arts. IPAA claims space for all Indigenous performing artists by connecting the Indigenous Performance Network across Turtle Island (North America).
Canadian Heritage is responsible for national policies and programs that promote Canadian content, foster cultural participation, active citizenship and participation in Canada’s civic life, and strengthen connections among Canadians. The Canada Arts Presentation Fund (CAPF) provides financial assistance to organizations that professionally present arts festivals or performing arts series (arts presenters) and organizations that offer support to arts presenters. Through the CAPF, Canadians have access to a variety of professional artistic experiences in their communities. Each year, the CAPF supports approximately 600 professional arts festivals and performing arts series, as well as other activities related to art presentation, in more than 250 cities or communities across Canada.
Christine Friday is from Temagami First Nation (Algonquin/Cree). She began her professional career in 1992 at the age of 18 with the production of In Land of Spirits, which led to a three-year contract with Desrosiers Dance Theatre. At 18 she won the YTV award for dance along with many grants and awards for artistic her choreography. Christine was trained in classical ballet at the National ballet school, Ottawa school of dance and the Royal Winnipeg ballet, in contemporary dance at Winnipeg Contemporary dancers and Main dance place in Vancouver. Christine has maintained a dance career for 24 years while having a family of three boys. She has performed in six productions of the Aboriginal Achievement Awards since its inception and in 2017 her third choreographic role in the Indspire Award show. She has worked in many of our First Nation communities including, Bear Island, Lake Temagami, Attawapiskat, Moose Factory, Cape Croker, Yukon, Banff, Ottawa, Golden Lake, Peterborough, Toronto, Kehewin and Lac la Croix.
Kerry Swanson is an arts consultant and project manager committed to increasing capacity and opportunities for Indigenous artists. As Associate Director of Granting at the Ontario Arts Council, Kerry led the design and launch of the Indigenous Culture Fund, a $5 million annual funding program supporting Indigenous communities and way of life. While Partnerships and Grants Officer at the Toronto Arts Council, Kerry launched multiple new funding programs and created TAC’s first Indigenous Arts Projects program. Kerry is the former Executive Director of the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, where she worked for six years. She was born and raised in Chapleau, northern Ontario, in a family of Cree/Ojibwe, Irish and French heritage. She is a member of the Michipicoten First Nation, with familial ties to the Chapleau Cree First Nation.