Calgary 2012 extends helping hand
Calgary culture just got a kick-start.
That’s because Calgary 2012, the organization in charge of dispersing grants to individuals and arts organizations as part of our year as a cultural capital, directed $818,000 in funding to the arts on Wednesday.
The 99 grants, which were divided into two groups, ranged from small ($750, poet Derek Beaulieu) to significant ($25,000, Calgary Philharmonic).
According to Calgary 2012 curator and creative producer Michael Green, one of the goals of the project is to spread the word about Calgary culture — both to the outside world and to the city’s residents.
“This is our opportunity to shine a little more brightly on the national and international stages,” said Green. “I believe that people from outside Calgary will enjoy looking at what’s going on here, and I believe we’ll be able to raise the profile of Calgary as a cultural centre.”
That’s the aim of Connecting Calgary grants, which are going to groups and institutions from the Cantos Music Foundation (to host a National Jazz Summit), to the Alberta Ballet (for their U.S. tour of Love Lies Bleeding) to Afrikadey. They’re also about raising awareness in Calgary.
“I’m in the festival business,” said Green, longtime curator of the High Performance Rodeo. “I know what a grant of $20,000 or $25,000 means (to a festival organizer). It doesn’t mean you change course.
“It doesn’t mean you are suddenly into the stratosphere — but it means that this year will be a little bit easier. And maybe it means you’ll be able to bring in that one artist that you feel will make a big difference and this contribution’s going to make that possible.”
A range of individuals and organizations also received peer juried Calgary 2012 Project Grants, including the Chinook Country Historical Society, Loose Moose Theatre and the Single Onion Poetry Society.
The Calgary Opera received $12,000 to be put toward a community opera projectm to create a uniquely Calgarian opera featuring the life stories of Calgarians who hail from Bosnia, Sudan and Iran, says Emily Forrest, the opera’s education and community outreach director.
“It gives a chance for different pockets of Calgary to be included in the arts,” said Forrest. “I think oftentimes they are not sure what their place is in the arts here, and whether or not they’re accessible.”
Beginning in May, the Calgary Public Library will be using their grant to help fund the launch of a digital storytelling library, says Carolyn Reicher, the library’s customer service manager of adult programming.
That will involve having Calgarians share (in under two minutes) their story of how the library affected their lives, the lives of their family or community.
The stories will be uploaded onto Youtube, with links provided on the library website so that visitors will be able to view them.
“Our new vision is around inspiring life stories,” Reicher says, “and that’s how we see the Calgary Public Library making an impact in the community is by inspiring (Calgarians to share their) life stories.”
Playwright Melanie Jones received $12,000 in order to stage her one-woman show Endure! at the London Olympics.
“There’s still more money to be raised,” she wrote, “but this grant was a huge injection of financial and artistic support. I’m officially representing Calgary at the Olympics. It doesn’t get much better than that.”