Get #OnBeat with Culture Days!

What is OnBeat?

Presented by National Partner Sun Life Financial, OnBeat is a collective drumming and rhythm-inspired event bringing together Canadians from coast-to-coast, in-person and online, to celebrate making the arts accessible, inclusive and fun!

Drumming is:

• Universal – nearly every culture in the world has some form of percussion music
• Varied – there are thousands of rhythms and patterns to explore
• Accessible – whether someone is a toddler or a centenarian, they can bang a drum!
• Inclusive – collective drumming events are welcoming, and designed to include all willing participants
• Powerful – the rhythm of a drum excites the heartbeat, moves the feet and stirs the soul

OnBeat programming does not have to be limited to drumming. Rhythm can make its way into many different art forms and cultural practices including dance, visual arts, theatre, digital arts and storytelling.

OnBeat events will activate public squares and plazas, parks, streets, concert halls, community centres, gymnasiums and other public spaces where thousands of Canadians will get on beat together!

Coordinated live-streams will broadcast from locations across the country, direct to the Culture Days homepage throughout the weekend reaching thousands more.

Here are a few other ways you can incorporate rhythm into your Culture Days weekend:

• Develop a dance workshop. Recent examples include tap, powwow dancing, hip hop, break dancing, Bhangra, line dancing, Scottish ceilidh and belly dancing
• Schedule a jam session or instrument petting zoo
• Lead a deep-listening hike through a park or urban environment to identify the rhythms all around us
• Plan a beat poetry slam to find the rhythm in spoken word
• Host a build your own instrument workshop. How many different ways can you build a drum? A guitar? A trumpet?
• Program a paint-to-the-beat event. Have participants listen to music and paint what they hear
• Organize a DJ workshop and mix your own beats
• Coordinate a Battle of the Bands or musician mash-ups

Check out Saskatchewan’s Culture Days events listing so you can get OnBeat for Culture Days!