The Paprika Festival is now accepting submissions for the EIGHTH ANNUAL PAPRIKA FESTIVAL, a two-week festival of original short works created by artists under 21. One of its kind in Canada, this festival gives young artists – playwrights, directors, actors, designers, composers, video artists, songwriters and stage managers – the opportunity to develop their own work with a professional artist mentor and then showcase it in a two week festival at Tarragon Theatre in March 2009.

We encourage submissions from young artists of all levels of experience.

There are three streams this year!
1. PRODUCTIONS
You provide the script and the team – director, actors, stage manager – and we give you the chance to work closely with a professional artist mentor and perform in the studios at Tarragon Theatre. EMAIL or MAIL us an application form, script and project description.

2. CREATOR’S UNIT
Do you write stories, poems, songs or scripts? Do you compose music, take photos, make films, perform on the street or in the theatre? Do you sing, dance, paint or create installation art? Apply to the Creator’s Unit where you’ll get a chance work with professional artists and meet, collaborate, and develop your work with other young artists. EMAIL or MAIL in a sample of your work and tell us a bit about yourself and why you want to be part of the Paprika Festival.

3. BACKSTAGE: DESIGNER’S AND PRODUCER’S UNIT
Do you like getting your hands dirty and making things happen? Do you want to design costumes, set, lighting, sound or graphics? Apply to this unit and work with professional theatre artists to design, produce or work backstage. EMAIL or MAIL us a sample of your work (if you’re a designer) and tell us a bit about yourself and why you want to be part of the Paprika Festival.

All application forms are available here.

Email or mail submissions to:
info@paprikafestival.com OR
Paprika Festival
c/o Tarragon Theatre
30 Bridgman Ave
Toronto, ON M5R 1X3

For more info please contact:
Briana Brown
Associate Producer
briana@paprikafestival.com

A few years ago I wrote a piece for This Magazine on the important role campus/community radio stations have played in the lives and activism of feminists. The piece isn’t available online, so I’ll just cut and paste my general point.

Campus/community radio has long been welcoming to women and their views, especially considering the limited access feminists have historically had to mainstream media. Campus/community radio has been an important platform for feminists to engage in discussions rarely heard on mainstream airwaves, tackle important women’s issues and give underrepresented female musicians a presence. It’s a vital outlet in the face of mass media that is becoming increasingly hostile to feminist ideas and generally perpetuates narrow, stereotypical ideas about gender.

That said, I’d like to draw your attention to the horrible situation over at CKLN, the campus/community based at Ryerson University in Toronto. Over the past few months, many programmers and hosts that have been at the station for years have been shut out by illegitimate station management in an effort to make the station commercial.

Among the lists of cancelled shows is Radio Cliteracy, an important and bold feminist talk show, as well as Frequency Feminisms and Honour The Earth, which have been removed from the Sunday grid. So far, over 30 volunteers have been dismissed from CLKN without warning and without cause, including many LGTB, First Nations, psychiatric survivor programmers, women of colour and a trans person.

Luckily, people have been fighting to get back into the station and onto the airwaves with pickets, and by organizing meetings and a website. They need our support, so please do what you can to spread the word about keeping campus/community radio open for all.

There has been much outrage over the Harper government’s quiet cuts to Canadian arts funding.

In the case of the PromArt program – a grant that enables artists to travel abroad to perform, show their films, or promote their books – the cuts weren’t made so quietly. Toronto band Holy Fuck received a lot of media attention, their name evoking the reactionary nature of the government’s assessment of who has been getting (arguably a small slice of) taxpayer dollars.

But it’s not just a band with a swear in its name or lefty journalists like Avi Lewis and Gwynne Dyer who’ve received money, although, as many have suggested, artists’ politics might indeed have something to do with the Conservatives’ budget slashing. Recipients of PromArt have included ballet companies and other high-art performances, which makes the cuts even more confusing at a time when “culture” is increasingly used by governments around the world to attract investment dollars for business development.

The discussions over the arts cuts have directed some attention to the role culture plays in our lives and the often precarious careers of people who make the art and culture that are the base for campaigns like Toronto’s Live With Culture, for example.

Here’s a sample of what people have been saying about the arts cuts, including the always insightful Heather Mallick.

If funding, sustaining and promoting Canadian art and culture is important to you, then take a moment to send an email to your MP. Here’s an action alert from the Council of Canadians with background info and directions on how to send a note of protest.

On September 3, Fuse, a magazine of arts and politics, is hosting a town hall meeting to talk about the impact of cuts to arts funding. Details here.

In celebration of Aboriginal People’s Day, and, you know, just because it’s awesome, the indigenous media production company Isuma will be hosting a live internet broadcast of the Alianait! Arts Festival in Iqaluit. That means that you can tune in from anywhere there’s an internet connection and check out music, storytelling, circus acts, and more from the northern community. Just go to the Isuma TV website starting tomorrow, June 21st - events run all the way to July. It’s a great opportunity to see what northern youth are up to, and to get acquainted (or more familiar) with an amazing Inuit-owned, Inuit-run film and video company. Full schedule of events here.

The Isuma team in Igloolik

The Scream Literary Festival is coming up again, and there are a few events that we at Shameless are particularly excited about.

First of all, Julie Wilson, who runs the delightful Seen Reading blog is going to be running a writing workshop for teens called Seen Writing. The workshop, which is free, will be followed by readings by young poets Rupi Natt and Aaryn Zhou. Check out the event on Saturday, July 5th at 4:30 at the Tinto Cafe, 89 Roncesvalles Ave.

On July 11, the Toronto Women’s Bookstore is going to be hosting poets Camille Martin, Harmony Rice and Monica Rosas.

Camille Martin, a poet and collage artist, works with both found and original materials; Harmony Rice is a reporter for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, publisher of SPIRIT Magazine and a burlesque dancer; Monica Rosas is an educator/agitator/artist whose work aims to challenge and provoke discussion on gender, the environment and the visible minority experience. Readings will touch on issues of language, authorship and power, space and place, land and its ownership, the body, and belonging.

And last but not least, on July 14, the Scream in High Park mainstage event has a terrific lineup this year including Dani Couture, rap-storytelling-poet Motion and Skim author Mariko Tamaki. Sigh.

Find out more about the Scream Literary Festival on the website.

On Monday, May 5, a bilingual panel discussion called “Women and Radio in Canada”/ « Les femmes et la radio au Canada » will be held at McGill University in Montreal, featuring a range of women from academia and the world of radio, Shameless favourite Patti Schmidt (CBC Radio 2).

The panel with explore the challenges of radio in the 21st century, the differences between working in French or English in this milieu, historical contributions of women to radio, the role of women in the industry, and the contributions of minorities. They will also share a few trade secrets of the trade and anecdotes.

A complete program can be found here.

Participants: Colette Brin (Laval University), Kristiana Clemens (CKUT, 90.3 FM), Annie Lessard (RockDétente, 107,3 FM), Christine Maki (McGill University), Andra McCartney (Concordia University), Lise Millette (103.3 FM), Thomasina Phillips (The Monster, K103.7 FM), Gertrude Robinson (McGill University), Kim Rossi (CHOM, 97.7 FM), Patti Schmidt (CBC Radio 2, 93.5 FM), Gregory Taylor (McGill University).

Presented by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada
Monday, May 2, 2008
Thomson House Ballroom, 2nd Floor, 3650 McTavish, 1 p.m.

RSVP to genevieve.bonin at mail dot mcgill dot ca

White Ribbon Campaign Canada has partnered with a group of youth from Serve!’s Experience This! program who have organized “Da Big Block Party” event at Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto.

The event starts at 5pm this Friday, April 4th, and features musicians, spoken word artists and poets. This event seeks to raise awareness about eliminating violence against women.

The line up includes Canadian Idol finalist Kamilla Miller; spoken word artist Truth Is, who was the Up From the Roots’ 5th Annual Toronto International Poetry Slam finalist and Boonaa Mohammed, who has won numerous poetry slams around Toronto and is the 2007 CBC poetry face-off champion. Da Big Block Party will also feature folk musicians, hip- hop (“Stolen from Africa”), Reggae (Trinity Chris), drama and dance artists.

MuchMusic VJ Hannah Simone is also scheduled to appear.

The Miss G______ Project for Equity in Education is looking to put together an activist anthology (an “actology” if you will) of art and writing by high school aged youth that take on and challenge the media. The working title for the project is “‘The Media is Not Fooling Me’: an Actology.”

Interested? Here are the details:

We want you to put your fabulous critical lenses on and take a long hard look at the media and mass-produced images of “how people should be” in society. At the same time, we want you to share your own positive affirmations, images, and ideas that are alternatives to those currently being produced by the mainstream.

Be creative, be critical, be satiric, be political!

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If you’re looking for feminist superheroes, look no further than the Guerrilla Girls. These gorilla-masked feminist avengers — anonymous activists who work under the assumed names of dead female artists — tackle sexism and racism in the art world and beyond, through poster campaigns, billboards, books and presentations.

Launched in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls’ first campaign was born out of frustration with the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture,” which, though supposedly a roundup of the world’s best contemporary art, turned out to be 92 per cent male and 100 per cent white.

More than 20 years later, founding members Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz are still hard at work, lecturing at campuses and museums, writing a book about women in Hollywood and, of course, stirring shit up in the art world. They’ll be speaking in Toronto tonight at 7pm, at a lecture presented by the Ryerson Student-Run Lecture Series (info here). The event is sold-out, but free rush tickets may be available at the door.

I had the chance to chat with Kahlo for an article appearing in today’s EYE WEEKLY. For the full text of our conversation, click the “More” link below.
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