Thanks to generous funding from Kent-Harrison Foundation, the Kent Harrison Arts Council is able to offer some excellent workshops free-of-charge to the community this year.
Coming up on March 2nd, and 7th, in partnership with the Agassiz Public Library, is our annual World of Words event. This year, the focus is on poetry, and our event, “Who Let the Poets Out?” is all about discovering your raging inner poet. Spoken word performer, videographer, and arts educator Chris Gilpin is coming all the way from Vancouver to lead our Saturday afternoon workshop entitled, FORGING IRONY INTO STEELY RESOLVE: How to Write Parody & Satire.
From petty personal hypocrisies to political double speak, the absurd contradictions that surround us provide ripe material for parody and satire. Learn how to use humour to attack dogma and ignorance. Using the trickster archetype as a guide, Chris Gilpin will lead you through a series of writing and performance exercises that will allow you to connect with your inner provocateur while still engaging the audience with compassion and conviction.
The workshop will be at the Library on Saturday, March 2nd at 1-4 pm, and is free of charge. However, please call the library at 796-9510 to register. Teenagers and adults welcome.
Gilpin works as the Onsite Program Facilitator for Animating History at the Museum of Vancouver, and as the Program Coordinator for VPH’s Word Play, Poetry in Schools. He is also a two-time member of the Vancouver Poetry Slam Team (2008 & 2009), the champion of Vancouver’s 2008 Haiku Death Match, finalist in the 2010 Write Bloody Press manuscript competition, winner of the Vancouver’s 2009 CBC Poetry Face-off, and the 2011 Vancouver Individual Poetry Slam Champion
In the summer of 2006, he toured the Canadian Fringe circuit with his play “87% True: The Lies That Bind”, co-created with Rosemary Rowe. His literary work has been published in Geist, PRISM international, CV2, Poetry is Dead, Vancouver Review, The Canadian Review of Literature in Performance, and many others. He performs as part of the interactive multimedia clown rock supergroup Awesome Face.
On Thursday, March 7th at 7 pm, also in the Library, is our annual public readings event. All are invited to come and perform their poetry, the poetry of someone they admire, or even just to listen to your local community poets and provacateurs. Musical interludes will be performed by local a capella quartet, Eviva, and refreshments will be served.
Ranger Station Art Gallery artist in residence, Siobhan Humston will offer a workshop to children on March 16 in preparation for the annual Young at Art Student show in April. “Using a variety of tactile materials, participants will go home with a piece of artwork which they can display and which celebrates their ability and who they are,” says Humston. Local teenager Jessica Sparks will host a button-making workshop for kids on March 18. For more information on these and other visual arts workshops, and to register a week in advance, please call the gallery at (604) 796-2723, email kentharrisonartscouncil@shaw.ca, or visit us on Facebook or at kentharrisonartscouncil.com.
Contributed by Rebecca Schram, Kent Harrison Arts Council