A couple of items I wanted to write about this week, both local and both highlighting great success stories you can take in during 2013. With January dragging on and on, any opportunity to get out and support the arts is always welcome!
This week our local MP, Rick Dykstra, announced as part of the Government's Economic Action Plan 2012, federal funding to the tune of $24,400 for improvements to the Niagara Artists Centre in downtown St. Catharines. In a release this week, Dykstra said: "Our government, through the Community Infrastructure Improvement Fund, is demonstrating its continued support for communities across Canada. Here in St. Catharines, these local projects, like the one being undertaken by the Niagara Artists Centre, will create jobs, growth and long-term prosperity in our community."
According to Stephen Remus, Minister of Energy, Minds and Resources for the Niagara Artists Centre (I love that title, by the way!), the funding will go towards installing a grass roof above the Show Room Gallery along with a small area for film screenings, music and literary events.
The Niagara Artists Centre is one of our great local arts resources, housed in a historic building at 354 St. Paul Street in downtown St. Catharines. The wide range of arts-related programming paired with the vision provided by Remus means yet another reason to venture downtown for some cultural fulfillment. You can even become a member of NAC for a very affordable price, so that might be something you want to consider for the new year.
For more information on NAC, call them at 905-641-0331 or go to www.NAC.org. They are open to the public Saturday afternoons from 12 to 4.
The Shaw Festival might be dark as far as live theatre is concerned, although the box office is now open for orders for the upcoming 2013 season. But in this quiet time at Shaw, people in the know head to the Festival Theatre Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons for the annual Film Series. There are two series, the Documentary film series on Fridays at 5:30 pm and the Feature Film series Saturday afternoons at 3 pm.
The Documentary film series continues until February 15th, with the remainder of the schedule including Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel on February 1st; Chasing Ice on February 8th; and Under African Skies February 15th.
The Feature Film series continues this afternoon, in fact, with the Oscar-nominated film Argo at 3 pm. The rest of the series includes Robot & Frank January 26th; A Late Quartet February 2nd; Anna Karenina February 9th; Silver Linings Playbook February 16th and finally, Quartet on February 23rd.
Now, I don't go to a lot of movies these days, although my far better half attends both series regularly each season. But two in the Feature Film series have caught my eye and I likely will be attending Quartet and A Late Quartet, both classically-themed films that look very interesting.
Consulting the online bible of all things film-related, the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), both these films get good reviews from contributors since they were released last year. Quartet is directed by Dustin Hoffman and stars Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and Billy Connolly, and according to IMDB, the film takes place at a home for retired opera singers, where an annual concert to celebrate Verdi's birthday is taking place. For opera singers, this would be a big deal, you know. But an eternal diva named Jean arrives on the scene just in time to throw the proverbial wrench into the proceedings, as she is the former wife of one of the residents. Opera intrigue in a movie about retired opera singers? Why not?!
A Late Quartet is directed by Yaron Zilberman and stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Catherine Keener, and looks to be a rather more serious affair than Quartet. The synopsis from IMBD describes the storyline thusly: "members of a world-renowned string quartet struggle to stay together in the face of death, competing egos and insuppressible lust." Insuppressible lust? I'm in!
It is rare two classical-music-themed movies would come out in a single year, and rarer still they are both garnering a lot of buzz in movie circles, but that seems to be the case with these two, so I will be attending both at the Shaw Festival next month to see for myself what all the buzz is about.
For more information on the Shaw Festival film series, go to www.shawfest.com/films or call 905-468-2172.
See you at the theatre!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment