Alberta Culture Days will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and will feature hundreds of free, hands-on activities for the public to experience their heritage and celebrate what it means to be Albertan.
The three-day event running Sept. 29th to Oct. 1st is put on in partnership between the City of Red Deer and the Red Deer Arts Council.
“With that we invite any community groups that are interested in participating to join us for the three-day event. They can feature their community group how they choose,” said Caryn Ouwehand, special events programmer with the City of Red Deer.
“We have various groups representing different ethnic backgrounds, we have different dance groups and different artistic groups in Red Deer.”
The majority of events run on the Saturday, with many taking place in the downtown core.
“Some of them are at the Dawe facility and at Red Deer College. As well, we do branch out of the downtown a little bit over towards the museum and the Norwegian Laft Hus is in there as well,” said Ouwehand.
Ouwehand is mainly responsible for the City’s event which runs Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. called the Canada 150 Art Jam. It will take place at City Hall Park, and if the weather is bad, the G.H. Dawe facility.
“With the Canada 150 celebration they’ve put forth four themes, and that is reconciliation, environmentalism, youth and diversity. We are featuring those four themes in four different areas of City Hall Park and the Ross Street Patio.”
For the diversity component they have the diversity stage, which will feature 11 different performances on the stage along with community groups featuring their group, what they do, and they will be putting on a performance for the public along with a couple of different bands at the end of the day from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
“Kerry Wood Nature Centre’s partnering with us to do the environmentalism area, so they’re going to be doing some crafts and different environmental activities,” she said.
They will also be featuring the Red Feather Women’s Community Tepee.
“It’s the reconciliation tepee, it’s an art piece theme surrounding the reconciliation focus of this year that we’re trying to have,” she said, adding that the Red Feather Women will be there to interpret the tepee and chat with the public about it.
For the last area of youth, they will be bringing in Pound It Hip Hop Studio along with a hip hop dancer and rap artist, who will be putting on a day long drop-in workshop on Ross Street Patio for people to learn about what hip hop and rap are all about.
There are 25 other community groups and different artists that will be putting on displays throughout the weekend.
“Red Deer has such a diverse population and I think Alberta Culture Days is a great way to feature that in close quarters with one another. In terms of families and children I think it’s a great opportunity for any family to show their children the different groups that are here in Red Deer,” said Ouwehand.
She said the Art Jam is very family-oriented in terms of bringing the kids out to have a great experience.
“I think families look for an opportunity to expose their children to these sorts of activities and so this is the weekend, this is it. It’s all going to be community groups displaying the best of what they have to offer our community and so what better time to bring your children out and show them all the different groups we have in Central Alberta?”
People can expect everything from visual art displays to artists actively working on art, performing artists, street performances and more.
The fall back location for bad weather is the Dawe Community Centre.
For a complete schedule of the three-day event activities, visit www.reddeer.ca/AlbertaCultureDays.
carlie.connolly@reddeerexpress.com
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