Practising the art of storytelling

Workshops to be offered at new Stephen Blucke Memorial Arts Centre in Birchtown

A new arts academy has opened at the Birchtown Community Centre.

While the Stephen Blucke Memorial Arts Centre has been hosting events since the spring, an open house on Wednesday, Aug. 29 will mark its official opening. Then, in September, the centre will kick into high gear with two main programs: storytelling workshops and Student Idol.

Davie Hartley, the centre’s administrative co- ordinator, has applied for a grant to bring multidisciplinary artist and performer David Woods to the Blucke Centre to facilitate storytelling workshops.

“This storytelling series is open to anyone who’s interested in learning about storytelling,” Hartley explains, adding museum personnel and educators are the target groups.

“The end goal is to have trained storytellers who can go into the schools and the museums and teach local black history through storytelling,” he says. “If you want to learn through a black lens how to tell the story of black history, you’re welcome to come to these workshops.”

The Blucke Centre will also be hosting coffee houses, open to anyone interested in sharing their own works, and youth-oriented programs like Student Idol.

Back in 2016, Hartley coordinated a Student Idol program with students at Shelburne Regional High School. This year, he will be doing the same for participating SRHS students, as well as elementary school students from Shelburne’s Hillcrest Academy. Student Idol will run through the entire school year, culminating in a project created and performed by the students.

Hartley, who has written plays and spoken-word poetry about Blucke, chose Blucke as the namesake for the new arts centre because of Blucke’s work as an educator.

Originally from Barbados, Stephen Blucke arrived in Birchtown in 1783 with the Black Loyalists. Blucke was the commander of a company of Black Pioneers when they were settled in Birchtown. Later, he became the first teacher for the black students living in Birchtown.

Rather than taking part in the Black Loyalists’ Sierra Leone exodus, Blucke stayed in Birchtown.

Blucke died under mysterious circumstances. He was accused of stealing money and later disappeared. After his disappearance, the money was discovered not to have been missing and his name was cleared. Blucke’s body was never found, but torn and bloodied pieces of his clothing found near the Annapolis Road led many to conclude that he’d been killed by an animal.

The Birchtown Community Centre Association offered a space in its community centre for the arts academy. Once that process was completed, renovation work began and the centre began hosting events in the spring. Hartley has applied for grants to fund the storytelling workshops and also to build a garden at the centre.

Anyone interested in participating in any of the programs at the new Stephen Blucke Memorial Arts Centre can contact Hartley at hartley.davie43@gmail.com.