We think we know all about our Northern neighbours, but this year Scene Festival aims to show that our image of the Canadian Arctic seldom matches up with the reality of life up north.
The National Arts Centre recently announced the complete lineup for the Northern Scene Festival.
The festival will feature the work of 250 artists from Northern areas.
It begins on April 25 and will run for 10 days at 26 venues across Ottawa and Gatineau.
This is the festival’s 10th year and, according to the NAC, this time around the Scene Festival will be the largest gathering of artists from the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to ever meet outside the region.
Some of the best-known acts will include singer-songwriter Sarah MacDougal, a Yukon native, and the circus troupe Artcirq.
The festival will kick off with an art gallery crawl by bus through the city, followed by an opening night party, featuring a high-fashion runway and stage show with Nunavut throatboxing star Nelson Tagoona as the main attraction. There will also be art for sale.
Artists hoping to make connections will have a chance to meet informally with dozens of art agents, promoters and gallery owners.
A circus spectacle at the Canadian Museum of Civilization on April 30 will feature Artcirq, a group founded in the small town of Igloolik, Nunavut. They represented the Canadian North in front of the Queen as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations last summer.
Heather Moore, producer of Northern Scene, says audiences should be excited.
“It’s a very contemporary look at a snapshot of what’s going on in the arts and culture world in the North, and a chance for audiences of the South to understand a different region through the artists and their work,” she says.
She adds that the NAC tries to show the true Northern arts scene.
“We do a lot of watching and talking to really get a handle on what truly is the Northern Scene,” Moore says. “We try to travel as much as possible to make sure it’s not Ottawa’s view of what the north is.”
She adds that the festival is coming at an important time for Canada.
“The Scene Festivals have been working their way across the country. It was the North’s turn,” she says.
“The Festival does seem to be coming at a time when there really is more and more interest in the North, whether it's political interest or geological interest. The North seems to be more and more in our consciousness.”