It’s Thursday time! it’s Thursday time!

And you know what that means… personal updates, calendar occasions, or local events!

Let’s spin the wheel and find out. Tick, tick ticktick tick tick tickticktick ticktickticktickticktickticktick ticktick tick tick tick tick tick

And the wheel stops on local events!

Which is fantastic because I want to write about a local event today – it’s an event that started exactly one week ago and which will be wrapping up this Sunday, an event called Nextfest.

Nextfest is a multi-disciplinary event which showcases the talents of dancers, musicians, actors, writers, and visual artists. It has been around since 1996, which means this year marks the 20th anniversary of the festival.

Founded by Bradley Moss and now run by festival director Steve Pirot, Nextfest is a celebration of the next generation of artists. Those up-and-comers who are undiscovered and just sorting out their individual voices. It is a well known festival in the Edmonton arts community and if you are talented & lucky enough to be selected to participate, you just might be one of the 700+ artists that gets featured in the event.

To top it off, if you are a visual artist, you might even have the tremendous opportunity to grace the cover of the festival program. Which is pretty dang cool.

I’m probably going to date myself somewhat by writing this, but I remember when I think about this event I am transported right back to when I graduated from the UofA in 2007. 4 of my friends and members of my graduating class were invited to showcase their work in the exhibition and that was my first exposure to the festival. It was a lot of fun and the parties were fantastic. Then a couple of years past by and then my girlfriend at the time was also invited to exhibit her work, which gave me even more exposure to how the production worked and incredible amount of time spent by the artists and the festival organizers.

So when it came time to see my little brother participating on the theatre side even more years later, I had a deep respect for Nextfest and a belief in it’s inherent significance for the Edmonton landscape.

Which is why I decided that this year would be a great time for my re-entry into the mix and an opportunity to attend the Nextfest Visual Art Niteclub, a gallery event hosted within the larger framework of Nextfest and tonight happens to be THE best night to attend the gallery.

the Nextfest Visual Art Niteclub features art making all night, a play, live music, and performance art pieces for small audiences of 1 or a few. The event is licensed, all ages, and FREE. I’ve already been down to meet with the curator Steven Teeuwsen, and meet with one of the artists, who MAY be doing an interview with me shortly.

So come on down to Bonnie Doon Shopping Centre tonight and enter in the west door between RBC and Bonnie’s Lounge – It’s gonna be awesome. And that’s all I’ve got for this week folks, I’m out of theories, so I’ll see you on Sunday!

Tim!