Tag Archives: installation

New Weekly Workshop Schedule leading up to Ice Follies

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Winter workshop schedule
January 21 – February 6, 2025

Aanmitaagzi is continuing to host weekly drop-in workshops in the weeks leading up to the opening of Ice Follies on February 7, 2025. Through these workshops, Aanmitaagzi’s artists and community participants will develop stories and pieces that explore the themes of All My R(el)ations and Ice Follies’ theme of “Ozhaashikwaa” (The Ice is Slippery). The workshops will take place at Big Medicine Studio – 161 Couchie Memorial Drive. They are free to attend and newcomers are welcome.

NEW WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

Tuesdays

All Ages Multi-Arts with Sherry Guppy & Sid Bobb
3:30 – 5:30 pm  
A multi-arts drop-in class for artists of all ages. Activities will include drawing, painting, storytelling, crafts, dance, textile work, and more as we develop installation pieces for Ice Follies! Materials will be provided.

Choreographic Exploration & Story Creation with Penny Couchie
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Contemporary dance and movement explorations, and guided written and visual activities to explore the stories and themes of All My R(el)ations to develop performance pieces for Ice Follies.

Wednesdays

Choreographic Exploration & Story Creation with Penny Couchie
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Contemporary dance and movement explorations, and guided written and visual activities to explore the stories and themes of All My R(el)ations to develop performance pieces for Ice Follies.

Thursdays

Community Dinner
5:15 pm – 6:00 pm
A time to gather and share a meal with our artists, workshop participants, and community members each week.

Pow Wow Making & Jam Night with Sid Bobb & invited guest artists
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Weekly drop-in making & jam sessions for all things pow wow. Bring your regalia, beadwork, or other unfinished projects to work on or bring your voice and/or an instrument for singing, drumming, and dancing! Sid Bobb and other invited guest artists will be on hand to help out and join in the fun.

For more information, please call Sid or Penny at 705-474-2227 or email aanmitaagzi@gmail.com.

Ice Follies 2025

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Ice Follies Celebrates Local Creativity in Honor of North Bay’s Centennial | February 7 – 21, 2025

For Immediate Release:

[North Bay, ON, January 8, 2025] – Ice Follies, Northern Ontario’s premier biennial festival of contemporary and community-engaged art, returns to the frozen expanse of Lake Nipissing from February 7 to 21, 2025. This 11th edition of the festival highlights local artists as part of a special celebration of North Bay’s Centennial, showcasing the area’s deep cultural roots and artistic talent.

In addition to its signature on-ice installations at Shabogesic Beach, this year’s festival expands its footprint to include Olmstead Beach on Trout Lake, with special events designed to bring the festival closer to more of the city’s residents.

Under the theme “Ozhaashikwaa” (The Ice is Slippery), Ice Follies 2025 reflects on the resilience and adaptability required to navigate the shifting landscapes of our community and environment. This year’s installations explore themes of connection, collaboration, and history, offering a uniquely Northern perspective.

Reflecting on the origins of Ice Follies and its enduring legacy, festival founder and participating artist Dermot Wilson remarked: “In 2003, when I first stepped out onto the ice of Lake Nipissing, I thought ‘this is like a blank canvas…white cloud-filled sky and equally white plain of snow stretching out to an almost invisible horizon’. Over 20 years later, this icy site still helps artists and audiences alike to discover the freedom and expansive embrace of the Canadian winter.”

Not-to-Be-Missed Festival Highlights:

  • Opening Night Performance by Aanmitaagzi (February 7): A powerful community event to kick off the festival at Shabogesic Beach.
  • Family Day Activities on Shabogesic Beach (February 17): Free community engagement for all ages.
  • Listening Party Events (February 15 & 16): Hosted at Olmstead Beach on Trout Lake, these intimate evening gatherings will feature sound-based art and storytelling, creating a unique and immersive festival experience.

As always, Ice Follies is free to attend and open 24/7, offering visitors the opportunity to experience the installations in the unique interplay of light and ice, whether during the day or under the stars.

About Ice Follies:

Founded in 2004, Ice Follies transforms the frozen shores of Lake Nipissing into a dynamic gallery of contemporary art every two years. Co-presented by local arts organizations Aanmitaagzi, Near North Mobile Media Lab and White Water Gallery, the festival creates space for audiences to engage with contemporary works that reflect upon Northern Ontario’s unique cultural and environmental identity.

For more information on Ice Follies 2025, visit: icefollies.ca.

Ice Follies is made possible thanks to the generous support of our funders, sponsors and community partners. We gratefully acknowledge our 2025 funders: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, NOHFC, FedNor, City of North Bay and Tourism North Bay.

Media Contact:

Jameson Toye
Ice Follies Communication Officer
705-476-6402
medialabnorthbay@gmail.com

Misdemeanor Dream in South Dakota

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Production image for Misdemeanor Dream

After several weeks of rehearsals and prep, Spiderwoman Theater’s Misdemeanor Dream is hitting the stage in South Dakota! From February 20 – 24, the company will be at the University of South Dakota (USD) in Vermillion, presenting a series of workshops in addition to two evening performances on Friday and Saturday in the campus’s Knutson Theatre. South Dakota is the first of three stops on Spiderwoman’s three-week midwest tour.

Misdemeanor Dream is a multi-generational, multi-disciplinary theatre project which brings together Indigenous performers, designers, and cultural practitioners from communities across Turtle Island. Weaving uncomfortable conversations with irreverent humour, it sheds light on personal and community stories of chaos and reclamation, of tricksters and spirits, of journeys through the star worlds and the between worlds.

Aanmitaagzi has been working on this project with Spiderwoman since the beginning, and our Co-Artistic Director Penny Couchie, who is the choreographer for Misdemeanor Dream, travelled to New York City earlier this month to be part of the rehearsal process. After briefly returning home, Penny and other members of the company are now in South Dakota to help with the production, including putting up the installation & set pieces that were developed at Big Medicine Studio and helping to facilitate the workshops.

Here are a couple of images of the installation at USD, the set being built, and the storyweaving workshop facilitated by Muriel Miguel, Penny Couchie, and Imelda Villalon.Photo of the Misdemeanor Dream installation at USD.

Photo of Aanmitaagzi members showing the installation work for Misemeanor Dream.Set building for Misdemeanor Dream in SDMisdemeanor Dream storyweaving workshopAanmitaagzi would like to acknowledge and thank everyone that has supported and been a part of this project over the years. It has been an amazing project to work on and we are thrilled to continue to be a part of it.

ALL MY R(el)ATIONS opens Ice Follies 2023

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A poster for Aanmitaagzi's presentation of ALL MY R(el)ATIONS, a spontaneaous performance and celebration of community on the ice. The performance will take place on February 10, 2023 at 7 pm at Shabogesic Beach (formerly known as Marathon Beach) in North Bay, ON as part of Ice Follies' Opening Night celebrations.

Aanmitaagzi is pleased to present ALL MY R(el)ATIONS, a large-scale multi-structure installation and performance on February 10, 2023 at 7 pm. The performance will take place as part of the Opening Night festivities of Ice Follies 2023. ALL MY R(el)ATIONS is part of our multi-year project, All My R(el)ations, a multi-disciplinary project of gathering, reflecting, and dreaming that explores the themes of relationality and resource capacity.

When developing this work we looked at stories around the abundance that was present when the first person arrived at this world, contemplating this abundance and our role within it. We explored stories of the rationing of our culture, language, traditional territory, and ourselves. The installation and performances were created collaboratively with our artists and community members through our ongoing weekly winter workshops series.

We are also excited to co-present Paper Canoe Projects’ Prophecy Fog, created and performed by award winning theatre artist Jani Lauzon. The performance will take place over two nights at Big Medicine Studio on February 16 & 17 at 7 pm.

Ice Follies is a site-specific biennial festival that takes place on frozen Lake Nipissing (Nbisiing) near Shabogesic Beach (Shaabgiizhig Jiigbiik). The 2023 theme “Thin Ice” (Nbagzi Mkwam) looks at our shifting landscapes and communities, including our changing relationships with our environment and each other. This is Ice Follies’ 10th Edition, and they are celebrating this year with free performances, large-scale art installations, community engaged artworks and activities, and a curated look-back at the history of this one-of-a-kind festival.

For more information, please visit www.icefollies.ca or contact Aanmitaagzi at aanmitaagzi@gmail.com or (705) 474-2227.

*Note: Shabogesic Beach was formerly known as Marathon Beach.

Ice Follies 2018 opens this Friday

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Ice Follies / Mikwamiike
February 9 – 20, 2018
Opening – Marathon Beach, February 9 at 5 pm

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.