This story is part of a feature that first appeared in print in Revelstoke Mountaineer Magazine’s September 2022 issue. Read the entire e-edition here:
LUNA FEST
September 23-25, 2022
LUNA Festival is three days and nights of art and music. LUNA is the town’s leading arts festival, a weekend-long celebration of art and energy in the streets of Revelstoke. The festival will feature live performances, art installations, and combinations of the two that are sure to inform and amaze.
LUNA SOUND
Friday, September 23, 2022
A wild night of music that kicks off LUNA Festival weekend. LUNA SOUND features hip hop, blues, punk rock, RnB, EDM and everything in between, with 10 bands across four stages.
LUNA ARTS
Saturday, September 24, 2022
Watch as the streets of Revelstoke become living art galleries during LUNA ARTS. A mind-blowing extravaganza of installation art, interactive performances and Art Allery discoveries spread across Revelstoke’s downtown core.
LUNA STUDIO
Sunday, September 25, 2022
LUNA STUDIO is an opportunity for an intimate insight into LUNA artists’ inspiration and creative process. LUNA STUDIO has something for every art enthusiast with scheduled talks, workshops and forest walks!
Pharis and Jason Romero
Thursday, October 13, 2022
Pharis and Jason Romero started together playing mostly traditional music — banjo, guitar, and sometimes fiddle. The folk artists hail from Horsefly B.C., where they write music, sing, build beautiful banjos, and raise two adventurous children. They’ve moved their original songwriting and nuanced singing to the forefront of their performances, and audiences love their songs, sound, and illusionlike ability to be two people while singing like one. Their newest record, Tell ‘Em You Were Gold, is a banjo-focused release on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. It’s a sonic journey through the tones of seven of Jason’s hand-built banjos, original songs and traditional tunes, half stripped-down duo songs and half soundscapes made with fiddle, mandolin, bass and pedal steel.
The Cave by John Millard and Tomson Highway
Saturday, October 22, 2022
The Cave is a new cabaret event and music theatre piece by renowned Canadian artists John Millard (composer), Tomson Highway (lyricist), and Martha Ross (book). It is their distinctive and imaginative response to our planet’s precarious survival. As the forest fire rapidly encroaches, Moose, Beaver, Skunk, Snake, Wolf, Crow and Fox seek safety in Bear’s cave, a theatrical world that is part cave, part nightclub. The animals take solace in unlikely companions as they face their growing anxiety together by sharing stories and pondering the reckless human activity that has destroyed their homes. The Cave is the company’s way of telling the story of the earth’s precarious survival.
Th’owxiya by Axis Theatre
Saturday, November 5, 2022
Immerse yourself in the legend of the basket ogress, Th’owxiya, an old hungry spirit inhabiting a feast dish full of delicious foods. This Kwantlen First Nations tale follows a sly Mouse (Kw’at’el) who is caught stealing cheese from this feast dish. To appease an angry Th’owxiya, Kw’at’el embarks on a journey to find two children for the ogress to eat, or else! Enjoy the traditional Coast Salish and Sto:lo music, masks, and imagery while learning how Raven (Sqeweqs), Bear (Spa:th), and Sasquatch (Sasq’ets) trick a hungry spirit and save Kw’at’el and their family from becoming the feast!
Ridge by Brendan McLeod
Sunday, November 13, 2022
Often called the “battle that made Canada,” Vimy Ridge resulted in over 10,000 Canadian casualties. Through direct storytelling, verbatim theatre, and live music, Brendan McLeod examines misconceptions and varying perspectives around the battle while drawing parallels to other formative events in our nation’s past. Ridge probes difficult yet necessary questions about how and why we grieve, featuring inventive musical interpretations of WWI soldier songs. Ridge is a visceral work that passionately argues against the exploitation of young lives, a vivid, kinetic ride through history and an intimate, personal examination of our connection to the past. Ridge premiered at the Chan Centre in Vancouver in March 2020.
Begonia
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Begonia’s Alexa Dirks has never been able to fit into the box of being a “conventional woman.” “I’m loud, awkward, and I’ve always taken up space. I’ve done things my whole life that some people would tell me weren’t appropriate ‘for a girl.’” That narrative that once tore Dirks down is now what empowers her to take charge of her own story in her way. The Winnipeg-based Dirks is a Juno Award winner with her former group Chic Gamine. As Begonia, Dirks is bold and brazen with her florid, surprising pop tempered with sensitivity and wisdom. Dirks’ first solo output with her 2017 debut EP, Lady in Mind, was well-received, being listed on NPR’s 10 Artists You Need To Know in 2017 and “Juniper” reached #1 on the CBC Music Charts in 2017.
Mînowin, Dancers of Damelahamid
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Mînowin is a new multimedia dance work that integrates narrative, movement, song, performance, and multimedia design, connecting to landscapes from contemporary perspectives of customary Indigenous dance forms. M.nowin describes how we clarify direction as we recover and reinterpret the teachings that define and redefine who we are and are accessed through story, dance, and song.
Swan Lake Circus by Circus West
Saturday, December 10, 2022
Swan Lake Circus is a CircusWest reimagining Tchaikovsky’s timeless love story blending circus, dance, and romance. Under a magician’s spell, a lovely princess must spend her days as a swan swimming in a lake of tears and her nights in her beautiful human form. Her suitor, a Prince, immediately falls in love but struggles to deal with her plight. Swan Lake Circus is realized through compelling ground circus acts, including contortion, acrobatics, and magical object manipulations. The show takes flight with aerial silks, dance trapeze and ariel bungee as the Swan Princess edges towards her freedom from the spell and a new life with her Prince. Swan Lake Circus is 75 minutes, family-friendly and a great way to kick off the holiday season!