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the quality of creative engagement in the Okanagan through publications and events.
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The Creative Child
FOSTERING THE FUTURE
» Thursday 1 April 2010 | 5 pm
» The Bohemian Café, 524 Bernard Avenue
An informal afternoon hour showcasing ideas
and people in the Okanagan creative economy. Join us as filmmaker and creative entrepreneur Nikos Theodosakis and festival producer and recording artist Gordon Osland explore the energy, creative genius and giving spirit of children.
» $2 at the door. Refreshments are available at a modest cost.
» Seating is limited, please reserve yours HERE
Arts Leaders Engage and Foster the Creative Gifts of Children
What we value, we will preserve. What we treasure we will safeguard. Ways of life, truths of relationship, rites of passage - all handed down to our children who, we trust, will preserve them for our grandchildren and theirs - interpreted and recorded in representations that ingrain their messages through every sense modality: dance, music, visual arts, literature. These are the arts. This is culture: the collective wisdom, history and creations of societies. Through the gains of the past, hard-won through many generations, culture sustains the present, and in nurturing the present, it informs the future and guides innovation.
But as hard-won as culture is, it is also easily lost - and within many fewer generations if those generations fail to appreciate its legacy. Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist when he grows up." Picasso recognized the unconstrained creativity of the child artist who delights in pure and uninhibited expression. Who can recall when he or she last picked up crayons or paintbrushes, danced or sang, with the unedited freedom and unalloyed joy of a child?
On Thursday, April 1st at 5 pm the ongoing weekly Okanagan Institute Express series at the Bohemian Café presents The Creative Child: Fostering the Future. Join us as filmmaker and creative entrepreneur Nikos Theodosakis and festival producer and recording artist Gordon Osland explore the energy, creative genius and giving spirit of children.
To paraphrase William Wordsworth, the Child is the parent of the Adult. If we are to raise up adults who will ensure that the treasures of culture are valued and preserved, that the Arts will be enshrined as necessary components of civilization - not frills to be abandoned when fiscal realities demand frugal measures - we do well to join with those who engage their efforts in the nurturance of the Creative Child!
 The Okanagan Institute welcomes two speakers who have made it their lives' work, and an art itself, to harness, inspire and support the gifts of children.
Gord Osland, founder and Executive Director of the Rotary Okanagan International Children's Festival in Penticton has had more than twenty-five years experience directing theatrical, musical and festival events for and with children. His list of accomplishments includes the production and artistic direction of festivals across Canada, and he is a co-founder of the Canadian Children's Festival Association. He has presented well-known children's performers, including Sharon, Lois and Bram, Fred Penner and Robert Munsch, as well as many international performance companies. He is a drummer and percussionist with a career in radio, television, recording and touring that spans four decades and credits that include CBC television, the Juno Awards and ten albums.
 Nikos Theodosakis has, for over a decade, worked with students and teachers, from kindergarten to college, exploring filmmaking in the classroom. As a filmmaker, he has produced and directed short and feature length films, including "The Date" which received Canada's Genie Award nomination for Best Short Film. He is an advocate for meaningful education and is the architect of the InStill Life, Preserving Your Culture and The Director in the Classroom projects and author of The Director In The Classroom. He is founder and executive director of the OliveUs Education Initiative Society, a non-profit organization that provides rich learning projects around the world that promote personal connection, purpose and meaning. He is one of only twenty five entrepreneurs in Canada to receive the Financial Post Best Partnerships award for innovative leadership in connecting business, arts and education."
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER ONLINE CLICK HERE
The Creative Child: Fostering the Future takes place at the Bohemian Café. This marks the 132nd event the Okanagan Institute has held since the Express series got underway in July 2007.
Express has played host to many Okanagan luminaries, including former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International Derek Evans, artists Lee Claremont and Gary Pearson, BC Book Award nominee Don Gayton, CBC Literary prize winner poet Harold Rhenisch, distinguished editor and author Jim Taylor, poet laureate and professor John Lent, animator and filmmaker Jim Cliffe, community activist Don Elzer, dancer David LaHay, architect Jim Meiklejohn, culinary artist and writer Heidi Noble, broadcaster Marion Barschel and many others from a wide range of creative fields.
The Okanagan Institute is a group of creative professionals that has gathered around the goal of providing events, publications and services of interest to enquiring minds in the Okanagan. We partner with individuals, organizations, institutions and businesses to achieve optimal creative and social impact.
Our mission is to ignite cultural transformation, catalyze collaborative action, build networks and foster sustainable creative enterprises. We invite the participation by all members of the creative community.
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