SaskScapes – with guest Harold Hague

It’s the final episode of 2015! Happy holidays to you all.  Kevin Power is joined by WWII veteran Harold Hague, who, at the young age of 94 shows no sign of slowing down. Harold shares some heroic tales from his time serving overseas, reminding us, that in war, nobody wins.  Harold is joined by his wife Jan who is an artist in her own right and certainly has enough to keep herself busy during her own retirement. Regina residents will know Harold as the owner of Loggie’s Shoes, part of the downtown retail landscapes for years, and now home to Regina’s Creative City Centre and the Hague Gallery.

Jan & Harold HagueJan Hague art workHarold Hague

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SaskScapes is a podcast featuring the stories of arts, culture and heritage in Saskatchewan. The series is produced and hosted by Kevin Power.  Visit www.iheartculture.ca. Click on the Community Engagement Animateur link to view the work being done by all three of the SaskCulture CEA’s.

Host: Kevin Power www.kevinpower.net

Music provided by Jeffery Straker www.jefferystraker.com

SaskScapes is also available through the iTunes Store on Stitcher Radio and TuneIn RadioSaskScapes now has its own app for both apple and android devices available in the iTunes store and Google Play.

Follow SaskScapes on Twitter @saskscapes

Follow Kevin Power on Twitter @kevinpowerlive

SaskScapes – with guest Dominga Robinson

Kevin Power is joined by his guest Dominga Robinson in a discussion about interracial marriage, identity perceptions, racism, and internalized racism.  Dominga has drawn from the very best of her cultural background, using this knowledge to develop a strong identity founded on her own truth. Dominga paints an honest and inspirational portrait of her past, present and dreams for the future.

 

Dominga

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SaskScapes is a podcast featuring the stories of arts, culture and heritage in Saskatchewan. The series is produced and hosted by Kevin Power.  Visit www.iheartculture.ca. Click on the Community Engagement Animateur link to view the work being done by all three of the SaskCulture CEA’s.

Host: Kevin Power www.kevinpower.net

Music provided by Jeffery Straker www.jefferystraker.com

SaskScapes is also available through the iTunes Store on Stitcher Radio and TuneIn RadioSaskScapes now has its own app for both apple and android devices available in the iTunes store and Google Play.

Follow SaskScapes on Twitter @saskscapes

Follow Kevin Power on Twitter @kevinpowerlive

Telling Stories

It’s been a whirlwind of a spring, summer and fall. My fellow Community Engagement Animateurs and I began our journey last April, and now, more than six months later, we’ve covered tens of thousands kilometres and engaged in more than 75 communities across the province. Each of us had our own unique way of engaging with those communities, but I think we can all agree that one thing we shared in common was stories.

Whether telling stories, hearing stories, or capturing stories, Carol, Kevin and I were champions of storytelling. Storytelling is one of the most profound ways that people connect with each other. One of my goals in my position as a Community Engagement Animateur was to empower people to tell their own stories, as individuals and as communities.

I am a storyteller myself and as a folklorist, I study and try to interpret other people’s stories as well. My work with Intangible Cultural Heritage is essentially about safeguarding stories, whether they’re tall tales or the knowledge passed from one person to the next. In my workshops, I used storytelling as a tool to connect people to place, to each other, and to their own selves. I asked each participant to tell me about their home place and the story of that place in relation to their own identity. I showed communities how story can be used in powerful ways to connect community members with each other, and to connect community with the wider world.

In the later stages of my time as an animateur, I had the unique opportunity to partner with the National Film Board of Canada’s Grasslands Project. The Grasslands Project is a series of short films documenting life in the southern prairies of Saskatchewan and Alberta which has been shooting over the past six months. I teamed up with the project’s director to offer media clinics in communities across southern Saskatchewan, in Gravelbourg, Mankota, Ponteix and Radville.  In addition to communities, we had a couple of workshops which resulted from outreach to people who may not typically access opportunities like this: one was with the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge and one with the Southwest Newcomer Welcome Centre.

It was an intensive day which began with my presentation on story, what it means, how we can learn to tell our own stories, and exercises which demonstrate how storytelling brings us together. From this exploration of story and place, participants had a good foundation to begin learning about the craft of film-making from the Grasslands Project director Scott Parker.

Video is one of the most powerful media available for storytelling, for it combines the visual with speech, and it allows us to share our stories with a global audience. But the media clinic participants were not concerned with the global during the making of their short films – each and every one was grounded in local place. The films speak for themselves, and all of them can be viewed on the Grasslands Project Media Clinics Youtube Channel here.

At the end of this particular journey, I have heard many more stories than I told, which is how it should be. I have seen, and heard, firsthand the incredible diversity of this province. And I have learned that despite the diversity of people, landscape and story across this province of ours, we all share one thing in common: we all belong somewhere and we all have a story to tell.

Here is the film we made in Mankota. For the rest of the Grasslands Project media workshop films, visit its Youtube Channel. For more information, see the Grassland Project’s blog and like it on Facebook.

SaskScapes – Urban Canvas

Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming (SCYAP) offers a unique employment experience known as URBAN CANVAS. After an hiatus period, Urban Canvas is back with massive support from the city of Saskatoon and the province of Saskatchewan. At-risk youth learn the vital skills to propel them forward in life using art and culture as a tool. Kevin Power is joined by past participants who are now instructors at SCYAP, as well as current participants. Together they share the personal impact this program has on their lives. At  the end of the podcast you’ll hear part of a speech given by SCYAP’s executive director Darrell Lechman (heard last season in Episode 30). Darrell spoke at the opening exhibit and media launch of Urban Canvas held at the SCYAP gallery on November 20, 2015. An impressive crowd including Saskatoon Mayor Don Aitchison, members of the Saskatoon Fire Department, Police Department, and many more.

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SaskScapes is a podcast featuring the stories of arts, culture and heritage in Saskatchewan. The series is produced and hosted by Kevin Power.  Visit www.iheartculture.ca. Click on the Community Engagement Animateur link to view the work being done by all three of the SaskCulture CEA’s.

Host: Kevin Power www.kevinpower.net

Music provided by Jeffery Straker www.jefferystraker.com

SaskScapes is also available through the iTunes Store on Stitcher Radio and TuneIn RadioSaskScapes now has its own app for both apple and android devices available in the iTunes store and Google Play.

Follow SaskScapes on Twitter @saskscapes

Follow Kevin Power on Twitter @kevinpowerlive

SaskScapes – The B.E.A.T.S. Program

Recognize, improvise, adapt and thrive.

Those are the key skills which lay the ground work for a phenomenal program in North Battleford called B.E.A.T.S. (Building Expression and Awareness Through Theatre and Sound). Alan Corbeil, a North Battleford social worker, created this program in partnership with the Living Sky School Division and the Prairie North Health Region.  The program targets at-risk youth and teaches them the skills that set  a course for a future full of hope. B.E.A.T.S. uses creativity to tap into each of the participant’s gifts, and the result is proof in this episode. Kevin Power is joined by Alan along with Holly (artistic director), and two of the programs success stories – Talia and Sereta.  You’ll be truly touched by just how articulate, dynamic and confident these two young girls are, and they both credit the B.E.A.T.S. program for their newly found sense of self.

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SaskScapes is a podcast featuring the stories of arts, culture and heritage in Saskatchewan. The series is produced and hosted by Kevin Power.  Visit www.iheartculture.ca. Click on the Community Engagement Animateur link to view the work being done by all three of the SaskCulture CEA’s.

Host: Kevin Power www.kevinpower.net

Music provided by Jeffery Straker www.jefferystraker.com

SaskScapes is also available through the iTunes Store on Stitcher Radio and TuneIn RadioSaskScapes now has its own app for both apple and android devices available in the iTunes store and Google Play.

Follow SaskScapes on Twitter @saskscapes

Follow Kevin Power on Twitter @kevinpowerlive

 

beats 2

SaskScapes – with guest Jeffery Straker

SaskScapes turns 70 and what better way to celebrate than with the man who has provided the theme music for the podcast since episode one. Saskatchewan born singer/songwriter Jeffery Straker has established himself as one of the most successful (and busiest) artists this province has produced, and has gone on to international acclaim.  Kevin Power joins Jeffery in a conversation that is more fun than two people ought to have in a podcast!  And, it’s another “6 degrees” moment as Jeffery reveals his musical lineage which connects him to Beethoven and Chopin. Even Jeffery is part of Taron Cochran’s 6-degrees world.

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SaskScapes is a podcast featuring the stories of arts, culture and heritage in Saskatchewan. The series is produced and hosted by Kevin Power.  Visit www.iheartculture.ca. Click on the Community Engagement Animateur link to view the work being done by all three of the SaskCulture CEA’s.

Host: Kevin Power www.kevinpower.net

Music provided by Jeffery Straker www.jefferystraker.com

SaskScapes is also available through the iTunes Store on Stitcher Radio and TuneIn RadioSaskScapes now has its own app for both apple and android devices available in the iTunes store and Google Play.

Follow SaskScapes on Twitter @saskscapes

Follow Kevin Power on Twitter @kevinpowerlive

SaskScapes featured on CBC’s “Podcast Playlist”

What a thrill for us all to have SaskScapes featured in an episode of the national CBC radio show “Podcast Playlist”.  The show features podcasts from around the world and in this weeks episode entitled “Keeping it Local” episode 57 of SaskScapes is featured in the last segment.

A stand-out experience this summer has been the opportunity to feature a series of podcasts on “The 60’s Scoop”. Episode 57 features Dr. Raven Sinclair.  Raven’s story is heartbreaking yet triumphant and I was honoured by her openness.

A big thank you to CBC for bringing SaskScapes to “Podcast Playlist”. It is my hope that Raven’s story, and all of the stories that comprise SaskScapes continue to be heard in Saskatchewan around the world.

Raven_Sinclair

 

SaskScapes – The Meadow Lake Story Slam

It’s another live Story Slam episode! Recorded with an audience at the Meadow Lake library, these stories, told by locals, range from pap smears, to being lost on the side of a mountain, to a crises of translation in a foreign land. Perhaps, most stirring of all the stories is that told by a local doctor. Gavin, originally from South Africa speaks powerfully about his experiences growing up under an apartheid regime, and the lasting effects he still lives with today.

 

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SaskScapes is a podcast featuring the stories of arts, culture and heritage in Saskatchewan. The series is produced and hosted by Kevin Power.  Visit www.iheartculture.ca. Click on the Community Engagement Animateur link to view the work being done by all three of the SaskCulture CEA’s.

Host: Kevin Power www.kevinpower.net

Music provided by Jeffery Straker www.jefferystraker.com

SaskScapes is also available through the iTunes Store on Stitcher Radio and TuneIn RadioSaskScapes now has its own app for both apple and android devices available in the iTunes store and Google Play.

Follow SaskScapes on Twitter @saskscapes

Follow Kevin Power on Twitter @kevinpowerlive

SaskScapes – School Stories

It’s great to be back in Meadow Lake, and this time Kevin Power heads off to school! This episode features conversations and stories with two high school classes over two days. The school: Carpenter High School. The stories: funny, silly, and touching. Does it make you wish you could live your high school years again?!

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SaskScapes is a podcast featuring the stories of arts, culture and heritage in Saskatchewan. The series is produced and hosted by Kevin Power.  Visit www.iheartculture.ca. Click on the Community Engagement Animateur link to view the work being done by all three of the SaskCulture CEA’s.

Host: Kevin Power www.kevinpower.net

Music provided by Jeffery Straker www.jefferystraker.com

SaskScapes is also available through the iTunes Store on Stitcher Radio and TuneIn RadioSaskScapes now has its own app for both apple and android devices available in the iTunes store and Google Play.

Follow SaskScapes on Twitter @saskscapes

SaskScapes – Culture Days in Kamsack

Join Kevin Power in this 3rd episode during the Culture Days weekend in Saskatchewan. In this episode Kevin visits the community of Kamsack where once again food is front and centre; baked goods, ethnic cuisine and even lessons in butter churning. Bannock making, lessons in history, First Nations song and dance, and Doukhobor tradition are all part of Kamsack’s rich cultural fabric.

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SaskScapes is a podcast featuring the stories of arts, culture and heritage in Saskatchewan. The series is produced and hosted by Kevin Power.  Visit www.iheartculture.ca. Click on the Community Engagement Animateur link to view the work being done by all three of the SaskCulture CEA’s.

Host: Kevin Power www.kevinpower.net

Music provided by Jeffery Straker www.jefferystraker.com

SaskScapes is also available through the iTunes Store on Stitcher Radio and TuneIn RadioSaskScapes now has its own app for both apple and android devices available in the iTunes store and Google Play.

Follow SaskScapes on Twitter @saskscapes