Yesterday was a good day to be a Canadian, but beyond that, it was a good day to be a Canadian artist.
Posts Tagged ‘calgary’
True North Strong and Free
Posted By Alida on February 13th, 2010
Yesterday was a good day to be a Canadian, but beyond that, it was a good day to be a Canadian artist. The level of artistry, skill, technical ability, and talent that went into the Opening Ceremony last night was amazing, and it made me proud to be a part of a community of artists that has the skill to pull that off. Beyond that, it was a great day for Calgary artists. The composer/music director, Dave Pierce; the assistant music director, Donovan Seidle; and the choreographer, Jean Grand-Maître, are all Calgary-based artists with huge international successes.
However, aside from the dampening of the day for the most obvious reason (and my heart just aches for the Georgian team and the Kumaritashvili family), there’s something that has been nagging at me for weeks. The more I hear of the controversy and ill-will surrounding the Games in Vancouver, the sadder it makes me. The Olympics in Calgary were such a great experience for the city — culturally, they put Calgary on the world stage, and the arts and culture (not to mention both amateur and professional sports) have flourished so much in the last 22 years due to the foundation laid by the Games — they seemed to draw the city together, not tear it apart. (more…)
Nights on the town
Posted By Alida on February 11th, 2010
The other day, I participated in a focus group that was part of a study commissioned by a theatre company in Calgary, to explore theatre-going trends and opinions in the city. The focus group that I was part of was one of three types: people who have been to the theatre within the past six months; people who have been in the past (2 or more years ago), but not more recently; and people who have never been to the theatre. Of course, this one was the first type, and most of the people there were even more frequent than every six months. I think that I was the only theatre professional in attendance, but most of the others were season ticket holders, and many regularly attended shows presented by more than one company.
The first question we were asked was, “What is your ideal night out in Calgary?” (more…)
Best of all worlds
Posted By Alida on January 25th, 2010
One of the things that disappoints me most about Calgary is the lack of foresight in the city’s planning. It’s a city that has exploded in the past decade, and the foundation hadn’t been laid in the decades before to sustain such rapid growth. It’s still a city that’s scrambling for its infrastructure to catch up to the population growth, and while it’s growing well in many areas, there are many where the city is being held back by its own short-sightedness.
Imagine what it would be like today if city planners had believed, 40 or 80 or 100 years ago that Calgary has the potential to be a world-class city — to someday stand up against any great city in the world in its arts and culture, industry, nature, and people. Imagine what it would be like if, when it was a city of 100,000 people, city planners had dreamed — and planned — ahead to Calgary as a city of 5 million, instead of seeing it grow to a small city in the something-hundred-thousand range. Imagine how much further ahead we could be now if, instead of playing catchup with roads and transit and infrastructure, the city was able to allocate those resources differently. If Calgary had the resources to be a city friendly to a large population, rather than struggling to sustain it and finding ways to both grow and retroactively fit at the same time.
What would it look like now if the dreams had been bigger then?
I’m on the brink of several new adventures, both career-wise and otherwise, and I’m looking at the steps ahead and finding ways to dream big. As I’m stepping out into a career as a freelance producer and consultant, what does it mean to dream big — and more than just dream big, to plan big? To lay the foundation for whatever success I want to see come my way? To create a starting point that can lead to something big — or to something smaller?
If I plan for the best, the smaller result will always fit into the larger foundation. Being over-prepared for a more humble end point is never a bad thing, but anticipating something small can be disastrous when the opportunity for something bigger comes along. What a waste of time, money, energy, and potentially opportunity it is if I have to do the work to retrofit myself or my projects to sustain something grander than anything I’d originally dreamed.
So tell me. What does it mean for you to lay the foundation with an eye to the best possible outcome?
Posted in Real Life
Let’s get back to business
Posted By Alida on January 11th, 2010
Well, Christmas is over, and I had absolutely no contingency for any sort of regular updates during the last month of school and over the break, but it’s time to get back to posting regularly. For that matter, it’s time to get life back into a routine of some sort, even though I don’t really know — yet — what that routine will look like.
It’s been a wonderfully relaxing few weeks; time for both Colin and I to decompress from our very busy fall seasons. We’ve spent more time sitting in front of the TV in the past 3 weeks than we did in the rest of 2009 combined. I think the past few weeks have included season 1 of Dexter and Weeds, seasons 1 and 2 of Chuck (in preparation for the season 3 premiere last night), season 2 of Friends… and I know I’m missing something, but those are the ones that stand out right now. (more…)
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Posted By Alida on October 7th, 2009
Earlier this summer, I wrote about why I love producing and how I got to the place where I knew I wanted to be a producer.
One thing that I didn’t mention in that entry, however, is my surprise at realizing that I have an interest in municipal public policy as it relates to the arts. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I realized that the interplay between a city and its arts and artists is a fascinating dynamic. They have such a symbiotic relationship — most cities are defined, in some way, by their arts; and at the same time, the arts in that city are shaped by the city’s treatment of them. They impact each other in all kinds of crazy, wonderful, frustrating ways, and neither can really thrive without the other. (more…)
The best thing about WorldSkills
Posted By Alida on September 6th, 2009
The 40th WorldSkills competition has been held in Calgary this past week — basically, it’s like the Olympics of the trades. Over 900 competitors from over 45 countries competing in 45 categories, ranging from plumbing to cooking; confectionaries to floral design; robotics to landscaping; cabinet-making to HVAC; interior design to web design; health and beauty services to fashion design. We spent a few hours wandering through, and it was a very cool experience (even though we were there for the last 3 hours of the last of 4 competition days, so we only caught the tail end of competition or finished products on display, rather than seeing the competition in full swing).
It’s the largest non-Stampede event ever held at Stampede Park; the largest event that Calgary has hosted since the ’88 Winter Olympics, with 2/3 the total number of Olympic competitors in ‘88; the largest international competition after the Olympics; and quite groundbreaking for the WorldSkills competition itself, with a rather long list of “firsts” happening this year.
And the thing I was most grateful for this week?
Good weather.
I want Calgary to be recognized as the world-class, internationally-renowned city that it can be, and unseasonally cold weather can overshadow those elements to the detriment of the city’s reputation. I feel like I’m the parent of a misbehaving child when guests come to Calgary and the stereotypes about cold Canadian weather (at least, cold weather that’s not, y’know, in winter) are confirmed. But this week, all the children have behaved, and instead of having 10-degree (Celsius, of course) weather or, worse yet, frost or skiffs of snow during the first week of September, we’ve had 30-degree weather and sunny skies all week. (And this weekend, it’s cooled off a bit, so it’s more seasonal, but still nowhere near the unseasonal early-September frost and/or snow that we sometimes get.)
Because isn’t it nice that the world can go back home saying, among all the other raves and accolades about Calgary that are sure to be shared, that — hey, guess what? — Canada isn’t always cold!
Posted in Uncategorized
