Edmonton

Nuit Blanche Takes A Break (Petite Nuit)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Write a post about a festival you’ve never been to they said, it’ll be fun they said. I’d rather be sleeping right now.

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Let’s get down to business, dear readers. I was tasked with the opportunity to write about Nuit Blanche, which lots of my friends have attended in 2015, but which I have absolutely no experience with.

If you haven’t heard of it before, you shouldn’t be too surprised, as it’s fairly new to Edmonton and area. Though the festival has been active since 2002. Formed in the city of Paris, France under the direction of Jean Blaise, founder of the Centre de recherche pour le developpement culturel (Research Center for Cultural Development), Nuit Blanche is an annual all-night AKA “night-time” artists festival that begins in the evening and carries through to the following morning.

The goal of the festival is to attract people to the streets and buildings of a concentrated area, allowing local businesses to participate in and support the display of all kinds of art works. Since the first event was successful, the idea has slowly expanded to be featured in over 120 cities across the world – Paris, Brussels, Rome, Madrid, Riga, Bucharest, and Valletta to name a few. In Europe, several of these capital cities work together to share and exchange ideas and artists, keeping up with the theme of community.

Canada of course is not one to shy away from opportunities to support the arts, and has slowly integrated each of it’s capital cities and major urban centres into the mix. Edmonton hosted it’s first Nuit Blanche last year on Saturday September 26th in Edmonton’s downtown. It had over 30 artworks and 50,000+ attendees, which was pretty awesome.

I wasn’t able to attend at the time, but as I mentioned previously, a number of my friends in the arts admin scene were talking about it like crazy. So I decided to check it out this year, and report back with my own findings later.

This year, Nuit Blanche Edmonton will be putting on Petite Nuit, a smaller scale version of contemporary art and urban spaces. Featuring 5 artworks and taking place on both Friday night (September 23) and Saturday night (September 24) between 7pm and midnight. You will need to go to Beaver Hills House Park (10440 Jasper Ave NW
Edmonton, AB) in order to see the exhibits, but you can easily get there via LRT, bus, bicycle or car.

I hope you’ll be there, because it’s near Enterprise Square, and you wouldn’t want to get caught being one. But that’s just a theory. I hope you creative cuties have an excellent weekend, and I’ll see you on Sunday with the new episode of Cross Talk.

Tim!

Strike A Fine Balance (Ryan Andrade preview interview)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

After a long day at the office, salt mines or looking after the rug rat(s), we all need a bit of a breather, something to rejuvenate the mind, heart, and spirit. And that dear readers, is what we in the creative industry like to call striking a work/life balance.

Well to be honest, in any industry they would call it same thing, but some industries don’t realize the creative potential to be had in learning the art of balancing all of your responsibilities so that you can be fulfilled. Which is why I’ve spent some time thinking on this topic and ever vigilant to see if I can dig up any theories on balance.

That we way can all learn how to address it proper.

Luckily for you, my friends, I’m in the habit of making friends with people that are experts in exactly these types of skill sets. As the buddhist saying goes, when the student is willing, the teacher will appear.

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You must be suspecting a pattern here. That I’m going to share a theory I unraveled all on my own, without any effort on my part, and which I’m building up to sharing, aren’t you folks?

No of course you aren’t, you read the title and so there isn’t a ton of mystery to be had here. After all, even though the website is called timotheories, you don’t need to expect everything to come from my own cranial activity.

Just like you, I need to spend time in recovery every once and a while, and it’s important for me to do this in order to maintain a healthy balance in my life.

Which is where Ryan Andrade comes in. He is a creative professional who is in the process of completing his bachelor of fine arts. He is also a journeyman welder. Ryan has found a way to make art and find creativity in everything he does, but this is not what I’m excited to share with you today, I’m sharing a single question from our interview that highlights his uncanny ability to combine separate concepts and strike a balance among them.

I’m incredibly stoked to be sharing this preview of episode 11 of timotheories interviews, you’re in for a treat!

Friends it really is time for you to sneak a peek of the Ryan Andrade interview… and don’t worry, you’ll still get the full meal deal, but for now, enjoy our brief Q&A interlude and the rest of your Sunday. It is the long weekend after all, so that means no work tomorrow!

I’m out of theories for now, dear readers! Have a fantastic night, and I’ll see you tomorrow with something featuring glass animals, and I’m not writing about porcelain.

Tim!

Theatre Adventures (Fringe Festival)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

When I was a kid my siblings and I used to love running around the department store, hiding from our mom, pretending we were ninjas, royalty, spacemen, and all kinds of other imaginary characters.

At the time, it made sense to shuffle through the crowd of shoppers and challenge our mother’s patience, but as we grew up we started to challenge that creative energies into various pursuits. I was interested in drawing and video, Ryan was excited about music and drama, Katrina was a poet and a piano player, and Neil was a lover of comedy and performance.

We didn’t know it at the time, but Neil was eventually going to participate in something much larger than himself, and become a member of a society of performance artists where his love of comedy and acting would make perfect sense for him. And now he is a regular on the Fringe circuit.

What the heck is Fringe timotheories?

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Well, every summer during the month of August a group of artists, performers, and curators get together to organize an international event that hosts over 800 creative types in something north of 200 shows across a 10 day period. That event is known as the Edmonton International Fringe Festival or simply Fringe for short. It is quite seriously the oldest and largest fringe theatre festival in all of North America.

It takes place in the heart of Old Strathcona and features a chain of participating permanent theatres of the area. For instance, The ATB Arts Barns, The Walterdale Playhouse, the Varscona Theatre, and the Catalyst Theatre are all staples of the event, but neighborhood churches and restaurants like El Cortez take on their share of performers in the system – which is designed to provide artists with a venue, technicians and ticketing services, all in all a great opportunity for those types of artists to get some more exposure.

The major goal of the festival is to promote theatre, but all kinds of artists put in bids to participate in the festival via the lottery system. Which is why the crowd is always so diverse every year, you aren’t guaranteed the same set of performers every year. The second goal of fringe is to promote the spontaneity available in exploring the festival and trying out all kinds of shows. There are festival guides available for purchase, show listings online and at the the venue ticket stations, and of course, festival maps to help you find your way.

The Edmonton International Fringe Festival can be found all throughout the Old Strathcona area from August 11-21 inclusive. Consider taking public transportation to get there as parking is limited and the streets will be PACKED! And if you want to check out my brother’s show, it’s called Drinking In America, presented by Ronin Theatre, and takes place at The Backstage Theatre. I’ve dropped the link for you here.

That’s all I’ve got for the week my friends, I hope you have an excellent weekend and I’ll see you on Sunday with a new Cross Talk episode!

Tim!

The Name Game (K-Days)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Come on everybody, I say now, let’s play a game. I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody’s name. K-Days!

K-Days, K-Days bo B-Days Bonana fanna fo F-Days
Fee fy mo M-Days K-Days!

Well actually it doesn’t really work there, because it’s a truncated word, but it was still a fun exercise in naming.

And speaking of naming, let’s talk about K-Days dear readers. K-Days is an annual event spanning back as far as 1879 and with a fairly cool history to boot. It has also been called Capital Ex (from 2006-2012), Klondike Days (1962-2005) and The Exhibition (1869-1963) throughout various stages of it’s history. Though I do distinctly remember my parents and grandparents refer to it as the Ex well after the name changed to Klondike Days during the 90’s.

K-Days originally started as a fair for agriculture, and slowly added in a parade, then a community driven parade, even being moved to Northlands during WWI from it’s original location at Fort Edmonton. At a certain point the event turned into a carnival as well, and when it was re-skinned as Klondike Days, people would dress up in period based Klondike Gold Rush costumes. By the early 2000’s people had lost most of their interest in the Klondike theme, and thus the name was changed to Capital Ex. Though Edmontonians weren’t especially interested in the name change, and we saw attendance dip consistently until the rebrand to K-Days.

K-Days is quite an event – it features rides, food vendors, games, live music on two separate stages, street performers, merchandise inside the Northlands building, exhibitions which are usually themed around pop culture or environmental issues. All in all, there is something there for everyone.

But what I think is the most profound component of this festival is the cheap gate admission ($17 for an adult). It lets you in to see some great musical acts. For instance, you already missed X Ambassadors, Matthew Good, Moist, The Trews, Coleman Hell, and Tim Hicks. But you should know that Tom Cochrane is playing tonight, Monster Truck is playing tomorrow night, and then Simple Plan and Finger Eleven close out the weekend.

All in all, if you haven’t been yet, it should be a fantastic opportunity to soak in some local culture and especially if you’ve already taken the time to check out Taste of Edmonton and all of the food and ambience associated with that downtown festival.

With that said, I’m out of theories for now friends, I hope you have an excellent weekend and I’ll catch you on Sunday with something stimulating.

Tim!

The Good Life (Taste of Edmonton)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

This has gotta be the good life, we’re all still young enough to say that right? Right! The city is on fire and there is a feeling you can’t fight, so I know that means we should get out there and watch the day turn into night, because after that who knows what’ll happen.
Well I have a pretty good idea – Good music, food, drinks, and friends.
That’s usually what you hone in on when you look to develop your taste. And I’m not just talking about your cultural preferences of art, style and behaviour, I’m also referring to that which determines your food palette.
Luckily enough there is a local event that takes place every summer, and right around the the time that Fringe festival is getting ready to ramp up. That’s right, I’m talking about Taste of Edmonton. A local event that takes place over ten days and which is held at the core of downtown Edmonton in Sir Winston Churchill Square.
Like a few other festivals that take place in the summer here, Taste of Edmonton is the largest food tasting based festival in all of Western Canada. And it just so happens to include some other components.
There are culinary based workshops and lectures, and a fantastic sound stage which features all kinds of musical talent, both local and international, to give some fantastic atmosphere to all of the food trucks and pop up tents that appear during the festival.
Some of the names that I’m familiar with already are Shawn Desmon, Prozzak, and Scenic Route to Alaska, but there are twenty nine acts  taking the stage over the ten days, and because we are THE festival city, you know that whoever is performing will be high-calibre and entertaining.
After all, Taste of Edmonton gets attendance in the neighbourhood of 500,000 people every year, and this year marks the 30th anniversary of the event with a new venue called Sip ‘n Savour to help you take it all in. And I think best of all, entrance to the festival is free, so if you don’t “want” to eat every single time you visit, you can grab a drink and enjoy some music outside.
Now for the details.
Taking place between July 21-30, at Sir Winston Churchill Square (intersections are 101a avenue & 100 street and 102 avenue & 99 street), you can reach the event by bus, LRT or car. Though if you plan on parking I recommend taking your car to the Stanley A. Milner library parkade which is just south of Churchill Square.
And that’s all I’ve got for this week friends. I hope you have a fantastic weekend, and I’ll see you on Sunday with something stimulating.
Tim!