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An entertaining year

Year in Review
Year in review
The year in arts and entertainment.

Art is everywhere

Visual arts on the Coast included everything from fairytale princesses to designer stockings.

The year opened with the annual Friends of the Gallery show at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre, an eclectic collection representing local artists.

In February, Matthew Talbot-Kelly and Jacqueline O Rogers brought their intriguing mixed media show to Gibsons Public Art Gallery (GPAG). It was followed by Marleen Vermeulen’s spectacular paintings and Pauline Lawson’s paintings on silk in April.

Artist Shannon Woode and skipper Gillie Hutchinson teamed up to paint the ocean and talk about sailboats at The Landing Gallery. Later in the year, Ruth Rodgers with her paintings of fairytale princesses teamed up with Terri Whitaker’s jewelry for a show.

The Roberts Creek Arts Festival in May generated interest in talented local artists and artisans.

Artist Elizabeth Evans created a painting with an environmental message to be hung as public art in Gibson’s Landing.

Four local artists turned a Wilson Creek warehouse venue into a lively and well-attended show in June. About 20 glass artisans gathered to show their work, both functional and creative, at the GPAG in July.

Rogest brought his talent and wit to a summer painting session with kids at the Arts Centre. Madeira Park Elementary turned a week of arts into something creative for children. The Art Farm near Langdale held a summer camp in which kids explored all aspects of the aquifer and rendered their work in mixed media.  

Fibre artists had a great year with a collaborative show at Fibreworks Gallery in May. The Spinners and Weavers Guild held a fibre camp in September and interested crafters learned how to use local plant dyes. The Guild showed their colourful wools in November at the Seaside Centre. In Roberts Creek, artist Ryley O’Byrne designed colourful stockings sold around the world.

New banners adorned Gibsons, painted under the direction of Connie Johnston.

The Forest Show at GPAG brought together paintings that paid homage to trees and a few protest pieces into public view. Later in the year Ross Muirhead continued the forest topic with his powerful combination of video, photo and text show.

The Eleven Equal Artists that make up the Power of Paint show rose to the occasion again in August at the Seaside Centre. Jennifer Drysdale and Rochelle Nehring opened an excellent portraiture show at the Arts Centre in Sechelt. St. Hilda’s Anglican Church put on an interesting panel discussion that explored issues of art and spirituality.

There’s nothing quite like the ever-growing, ever-engaging Art Crawl in October to draw attention to the arts. This year the Crawl, produced by Coast Cultural Alliance, generated 21,000 studio visits at 141 venues. During the same period the Sechelt Arts Festival put on an exhibition at the Seaside Centre that involved collaborations between Native and non-Native artists.

On the 20th anniversary of the late Louise Baril’s passing, her family put on an event at the Arts Centre to honour her and ensure that the award named after her continues to help promising music students.

Sheila Page, fresh from her November show at the Arts Centre, organized the Young Artists’ exhibition in December. Twenty young artists were chosen from elementary schools to design banners for Sechelt.

On the screen

Timothy Webber of Roberts Creek continued to fly the frozen north in the CBC TV series Arctic Air. Shendra Hanney of Pender Harbour made her second journey to the forests of Mexico to meet the Lacandon Maya tribe, as was described in a film of the first journey seen on the History Channel.

She and Maynard Kaasa of Sechelt will have their vintage Bolex film, made by Hanney’s husband and Kaasa’s father respectively, turn up in a film about the Bolex by a California film-maker, Alyssa Bolsey.

The Bensons set their horror film in Halfmoon Bay while Lauren Grant earned honours in Toronto as a film and TV producer. The Green Film series, brought to the Coast by Rhizome Up, showed films on environmental issues, and later in the year, Rhizome teamed up with Queer Projections film series to offer films that explored LGBTQ stories.

Powerful performances

Valerie Mason-John and Bertha Clark (Adelene da soul poet) talked about bullying, among other topics, at a TEDx conference in Vancouver. Their performance inspired the Sunshine Coast Museum to feature the two writers in a Black History month presentation. Jean Pierre Makosso put together his tribute to Nelson Mandela and performed it at the Heritage Playhouse with a cast of local people.

The Sechelt Seniors Activity Centre was transformed into a vaudeville music hall for the aptly named Funtastics troupe. Later in the year some of the group took a musical journey to Dixie in a presentation on the same stage.

Driftwood Players wrote and performed their own dinner theatre murder mystery this year based on a Beachcombers theme.

The Synchronicity Festival combined many genres: music, circus, dance, crafts and food in an August weekend celebration of nature and art.

Body of Light, a video, dance and performance presentation by Gordon Halloran, was a hit at the Sechelt Arts Festival.

Driftwood Players got serious with their fall production, Marion Bridge — three clever actors turned a play about bickering sisters into good theatre.

Restless Spirits, a staged reading from the Chair Actors about Sechelt’s pioneers, was written by Louise Phillips with help from a big cast.

When the Christmas season rolled around, Charles Dickens’ famous A Christmas Carol was reproduced at St. Bart’s Anglican in a fundraiser for the hungry. Father Knows Best, a staged radio play based on a 1953 Christmas programme, proved a winner for KOC Productions.   

Delightful dance

Jasmyn Evered, 11, danced in competition in Poland and brought home a silver medal. A newly formed group, the Sunshine Coast Youth Dance Association, has their eye on 2015 when they will take many of Dominique Hutchinson’s DSdanse members to Belgium to perform in a memorial for the centenary of Canada’s participation in the First World War.

Taps Rhythm Factory held their first ever student recital of tap dancers.

The Halfmoon Bay Performing Arts School put on their year end recital at the Heritage Playhouse. Coast Academy of Dance once again shone with its June presentation, as did Dance Works Academy’s season ending show.

The Sunshine Coast Dance Society gave out three scholarship bursaries to promising dancers this year: Cassidy Rainer, Evangeline Larson and Kristie Sita.

In September Kathleen Holmes of the Coasting Along Theatre Society auditioned hopeful ballerinas for the third annual Nutcracker, with performances set for December.

Bevy of books

Students learned classic and contemporary poetry at Elphinstone Secondary and competed for best recitation under the guidance of poet Susan Telfer.

In Roberts Creek, Jane Covernton organized a March poetry festival with several speakers and artwork at a gallery venue.

The Gibsons & District Library began their centennial celebrations in April complete with costumed characters from books roving through the crowds. Writers and poets Marion Quednau and Heidi Greco organized an event at the library for Freedom to Read week.

Coast writers proved prolific: Pender Harbour’s Roy Dimond published a second novel, The Rubicon Effect, and he collaborated with another author on Saving our Pennys. Harbour Publishing was once again the toast of the BC Book Awards, while Gibsons author Kathy Para read from her award-winning novel, Lucky. Bev Shaw of Talewind Books described life in an indie bookstore.

Adventurer and film-maker Dianne Whelan followed up her video about Mount Everest, 40 Days at Base Camp, with a book on the same subject published by the Coast’s Caitlin Press.

Valerie Mason-John was co-author of a book on addiction and organized a launch in Gibsons with other writers including Micheal Mann and Martha Royea.

The second annual Aboriginal Story-Telling Festival drew a full house in May to hear tales of the true and traditional. Ken Budd published his fourth and final book in the Buddy series of nostalgic boys’ adventures. Rosella Leslie brought out her long awaited non-fiction, The Cougar Lady, about the Coast’s colourful characters, Bergliot Solberg and her sister Minnie. Randy Shore, who writes for the Vancouver Sun, launched his book that encourages eating from your own garden.

Jennifer Fraser and Melanie Eastley wrote and illustrated a sequel to the children’s story of Scott the Starfish, while writer  Marina Sonkina told the tale of The Wandering Violin, both by local publisher MW Books. Jim Woods recounted his short stories of boats, shipwrecks and lighthouses on the West Coast, along with his sketches. Frank White launched his second memoir, That Went By Fast: My First Hundred Years, at age 100. The Festival of the Written Arts drew crowds to Sechelt’s Rockwood Pavilion in August to hear the likes of Canadian writers Richard Wagamese and Audrey Thomas.

Musical Coast

Bands of all musical genres tore up the stages at the Legion halls, in restaurants and at festivals.

The Midds, a band of like-minded guys played rock. Joe Stanton and Simon Paradis showed that their teamwork makes the best music. Matt Watson became a new vocal force on the local scene. Robotic Horse Mechanical Sun issued a new CD and were a hit at the Synchronicity Festival, among other venues.

In Pender Harbour the same organization that brought you the Chamber Music Festival arranged a Beethoven weekend in January with distinguished musicians Catherine Ordron-neau and Kai Gleusteen. Steve Wright (aka Steve Weave) was honoured for his many endeavours in music and the Across the Lines project with the Gillian Lowndes Award. It was given to him by the Arts Council’s Linda Williams at a popular Pecha Kucha evening in February. Later in the year Wright set up a series of sound workshops at the Arts Centre for adults with developmental disabilities.

The Coast Symphony Orchestra outdid itself with a collaborative concert of music on the theme of love, led by the group’s artistic director Edette Gagne; it was combined with the words of poets.

Patricia Hammond visited from England to her coastal home base to sing in a programme of parlour song and piano.

Vocalist Verna Chan put out a new CD, Restless, as did the prolific songwriter/lyricist John Lyle.

The Festival of the Performing Arts, in its 41st year, showcased mostly young local talent in April. One of its alumna, Rose-Ellen Nichols of Pender Harbour, landed a career-changing lead role in Pauline, the opera. The mezzo soprano performed to excellent reviews in May.

Do Re Tea set up a delightful concert series at the Lutheran Church in Davis Bay.

In June the Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival took over Gower Point Road again with a new main stage and many swinging and danceable acts. Also in June, the Coast String Fiddlers held a reunion and filled the Roberts Creek Hall with tunes and nostalgia.

Allan Crane, the Coast Recital Society’s (CRS) founder and man of many musical talents, passed away. He was honoured at CRS’s first season concert in September.

The Pender Harbour Music Society’s series saw musicians of every style come to Madeira Park to perform. Music Makers held a special anniversary celebration in Davis Bay. Highway 101 Music Festival sprung into country/roots/rock musical action at their home in Lions Park near Pender Harbour.

A group of music-loving amateurs met under the direction of Sara Douglas to form a choir for the summer only. Later, Douglas took over direction of the Suncoast Phoenix Choir for their Christmas concert.

Sechelt rising star Robyn Edgar sang at the Pacific National Exhibition in August as a semi-finalist in their talent competition. Later she was awarded the Louise Baril music award by the Arts Council to further her career.

The Pender Harbour Chamber Music Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary by premiering an original composition by Kelly-Marie Murphy.

Choralations Children’s Choir sought members in September and director Janice Brunson led a small group, the new Poco Choralations.

The Pender Harbour Jazz Festival had everyone on their feet dancing to Wil Campa’s Afro Cuban music or grooving to the Dan Brubeck Quartet. The Vancouver Welsh Men’s Choir visited the Coast and invited two local choirs to sing with them.

Coast String Fiddler alumna Sophie Heppell had great success with her recording by Two Bears North, while musician Charlotte Wrinch produced her first album, Kiss the Ground. Daniel Kingsbury, formerly of the Mindil Beach band, took up a position as director of the Jellyfish Project, urging other musicians to talk to their audiences about global warming.

Choirs and Christmas are synonymous. A Cappella Strait, Suncoast Phoenix, Pender Harbour Choir, Arbutus Sounds Chorus and the newly-formed Christmas Choir all performed during the season.

Best wishes to all readers and a happy New Year!