Cultural Events

RAEKWON CONCERT AT THE DISTRIKT

A hip-hop concert was among one of the events that I frequented. The headlining artist was Raekwon from the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. Wu-Tang Clan is a nine person hip-hop group that topped the rap charts in the 90’s and has established without question the largest and strongest cult following of any hip-hop group. Their first album is my favourite album of all time so I was excited to go to this event. The show took place February 26^th at the Distrikt.

One thing that I experienced during this show that stood out for me and I did not expect was the opening acts. There were about 6 to 8 opening acts that were locals who only performed for a short amount of time. I was not aware of the vibrant hip-hop scene of Regina until this concert. What I really enjoyed is one of the MC’s who began to speak about supporting local talent and keeping the scene alive. He was an older artist who clearly had been involved in the hip-hop music scene for while and the sincerity of his passion and dedication was felt as he spoke. It was kind of sad to see that not many people showed up for the opening groups and that the people who did show up were not paying attention or drinking at the other sections of the bar. This appears to be a common dilemma for opening acts. I stood close as I wanted to show some respect for the artists. As the show progressed, more and more people showed up until Raekwon walked on stage and people from other parts of the bar began to rush towards the stage. I have much admiration for Raekwon as this is the second time I know of that he has come to Saskatchewan to perform. He hails from New York and not many American artists do Canadian tours crossing the prairies. He had a really positive vibe and kept saying how good of a time he was having throughout the show and it was felt. He had a drink in his hand and cheered the drinkers in the crowd. “Who out there gettin’ they drink on tonight. I know I am so let’s have a good time y’all. Support real hip-hop!” He was also really generous to share the stage with another Canadian rapper who Raekwon had signed to his record label. The Canadian rapper whose name I forget was praising Raekwon for supporting Canadian music and helping him out.

I have to say that I was a bit disappointed because as he is part of a 9 group collective, the members in his group were not present to rap their parts of the songs. As a result, he would sing the other members’ parts or cut the song short. I still enjoyed hearing my favourite songs like “Ice Cream” by Raekwon and “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu-Tang.

PASS THE HAT COMEDY SHOW AT THE EXCHANGE

Pass The Hat is a monthly comedy show that features mostly amateur local stand up comedy. There were also some out-of-towners as well as professional acts that work in television or have solo shows. In total there were about 10 stand-up acts and the show was about two hours. There was one MC hosting the show who spoke briefly between acts making jokes, commenting on the preceding act and introducing the next act. The show progressed from comics who were more amateur with a smaller amount of stage time to comics whose acts and stage persona were more refined with more stage time. It was easy to distinguish the amateurs because of multiple factors. They had notes that they frequently paused to look at, they stuttered and mixed their jokes up, lack of confidence and stage persona and sometimes were even asking the audience to have pity for them as it was their first time. What was interesting is that although these beginners’ acts were unrefined, they were sometimes funnier than the later refined comedy acts. Some of the later acts were confident, well spoken, clear and concise but extremely boring and unfunny. This was interesting to me because it demonstrated that content is sometimes more important presentation. I would compare it to watching a typical Hollywood comedy/romance to a gritty underground low budget cult film. One of my two favourite comics were a young guy who had notes, stuttered a lot and lost himself in his train of thought. He made jokes about dealing with his stereotypical Asian dad and dating. He imitated his dad with an Asian accent which got a lot of laughs. He also generated a lot of laughter by his own incompetence. He stuttered so much that it almost became his persona and appeal. The other comic that I quite enjoyed was a woman in her early 40’s who had worked in the television industry and it was clear that she had much experience performing stand-up comedy. Her material was almost exclusively sexual in nature. She spoke about being horny and wanting to get laid. She touched on S&M a bit and on buying multiple sex toys to which she said her friend reacted by saying; “What are you gonna do with all those toys, gang bang yourself?” to which she said she replied; “Well I hope that if I was going to rape myself that it would be consensual.” She said all these things with total conviction and without apology. She was definitely my favourite act of the night.

THE LIVING SKIES STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF REGINA

The entries of the living skies student film festival were mostly from students who were in the film production program. I recognized films from people in second, third and fourth year. There were also a few films from Regina high school students and film schools from elsewhere like Vancouver and Montreal. It was a two day festival and I frequented all screenings but did not go to the gala as I was only interested in seeing the films and did not want to pay the 15$ cover charge. The screenings took place in the Education Auditorium 106 and when I arrived I was surprised to see such a small turnout. As a film student I am curious to see what other people are creating and would think that everyone else in the program would have the same attitude. Many of the people who put in submissions did not even show up. In total there was about 15 to 20 maximum throughout the screenings.

The first day consisted mostly of high school student short films. Most of these films were shot on low end digital cameras with low production value. (poor quality of sound, lighting, exposure, even image framing and editing in some cases.) Following these films were films made by university students. They comprised short documentaries, narratives and experimental films. This continued the following day with more screenings. There were a couple films that impressed me including one narrative about two students trying to write a screenplay for a short film. The setting is simple but what made it an interesting film was the use of comical interaction between the two and it was well shot and acted. Another film that I found interesting was an experimental film about a social worker and her client. I would say the film was experimental because it does not follow a linear narrative. All we see is a conglomeration of scenes going back and forth between the social worker in her office talking about the client and the schizophrenic client doing various things. The story slowly unfolds giving us information implicitly which I thought was done very well and had a great sense of drama to it.

On the other hand some films were so corny that they made me cringe. The dialogue of these films were almost comical they were so bad. In one case we see two lovers talking about how their relationship has deteriorated and this film is extremely overdramatic without the acting skills to back it. Another cringe-worthy film was about a clean freak arachnophobic mama’s boy who chases a spider around the house trying to kill it eventually setting the house on fire. Once again it is overdramatic and corny.

UNIVERSITY OF REGINA BFA GRADUATING SHOW AT THE MACKENZIE ART GALLERY

As the title of this show indicates, artworks of graduating students were featured at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. I was interested to go see this show because I am curious to see what new young up-and-coming just-graduated students are doing. I am interested to see how an education may have developed their skills and/or formed their styles. Works on display consisted of many different mediums such as charcoal and ink drawings, oil paintings, pottery, sculpture, film, installation and mixed media.

My favourite piece was 16 large charcoal drawings, about 70-80 centimetres square I estimate, of the artists’ family members. She had done four for each family member. The drawings were very crisp, detailed and powerful because the faces were drawn so large. The skin of the faces contained a surrealist texture of what can be compared to crumpled paper. In the next section was an installation of a bunch of what appeared at first to be miniature parachutes hung at varying heights made out of some paper-like material and died in pinkish purplish colour. This created a visually appealing effect that I inspected closely and enjoyed its use of space. In a smaller segregated area was another installation consisting of four or five papier-mâché bodies placed on the ground with a video projected onto one of them of what I interpreted as the artist nude in a bathtub making the papier-mâché sculptures. The projected body appeared to be intended to fit within the frame of the contour of the papier-mâché body it was projected on. This piece covered addressed the topic of depression through the metaphor of the feeling created by having one’s body wrapped in papier-mâché. The theme of depression was also visited in another series of work further along where black and white ink drawings of large black hostile masses were contrasted with small vulnerable human figures. The black visually representing depression.

There were a few people who were at that section of the art gallery when I was there and I picked up on their conversations that some of them were acquainted with the artist. From this I assume they had come to see what their friends were doing and support them. After only seeing 5 or 6 artists’ works the expo appeared to end. I was confused as I thought that there were supposed to be 11 artists in total. I walked around the gallery for a bit but it appeared that the expo was only in the area I had previously been. After returning one more time I was lucky to see some people walk through an emergency exit where the expo continued. Aside from some really nicely made clay pottery that were said to be urns for cremation remains nothing else really sparked my interest.

NEUTRAL GROUND/SASKATCHEWAN FILMPOOL FIELD TRIP

On Wednesday March 21^st the class visited Neutral Ground art gallery and The Saskatchewan Filmpool located downtown. There was an art exhibition at Neutral Ground which we spent time looking at. Works displayed consisted mainly of installations by artists Tamara Rusnak and Stacia Verigin. Tamara’s installations incorporated a variety of materials including papier-mâché, wood, wax, basket weaving materials among others. She seemed to be more inclined to use found/recycled and natural materials. Her installations appeared abstract in nature but as she spoke about them, she revealed different kinds of thoughts and feelings that they evoke for her. A large rounded papier-mâché ball that stood on naturally shaped wooden stilts evoked humour for her. Her installation of an intestine-like long chain of a variety of materials laying on the floor and then climbing up the wall and back down again to come full circle to her represented instinctual feeling. The relation was between this feeling and the installation was the popular “gut feeling” because the work evoked a bodily process resembling the intestines or “guts”. The works of Stacia were much smaller in contrast and consisted mainly of plaster cast fingers and hands. One interesting sculpture of hers was a shark or fish-like figure where two hands placed palm to palm formed the mouth and individual fingers pointing outwards running down the creature to form its vertebrae and fins. This was a very visually interesting work to look.

There was also another installation by an artist named Jamie Drouin where we see plates stacked and placed on a low but elevated door sized board with what appears to be some kind of motor. I had difficulty appreciating this work because its lack of visual interest but later on I discovered that this work was an audio installation where a motor was placed to create a low frequency.

After this visit we went to The Saskatchewan Filmpool. The film pool is a film co-operative which provides an impressive amount of resources for people interested in pursuing media production. This was the first time I payed it a visit and I was impressed indeed. They had a whole room filled with all kinds of film equipment and cameras and lights etc. They had a room with an elaborate animation set-up, rooms for editing and sound production. After this we went to the downstairs space where we saw Chrystene Ells working on a puppet animation project with some U of R students. She discussed with us the project she was working on and spoke about her experience and the film industry a little bit which was interesting.