From Stewart, with love

Monday, October 15 2012

Our first full day in Stewart! With a population of 500, Stewart is a peaceful little ex-mining town surrounded by incredible glaciers and massive mountains veiled in low-floating clouds. With a newly-established Arts Council, the town fundraised extensively to bring Homewerk over! Every shop appeared to have signage in the window of our arrival.

Having been hot glue-gunning velcro to our sets late into the evening yesterday, we all could've used more sleep. Regardless, I woke up feeling fantastic; this town has been nothing but welcoming and generous. The six of us are being hosted under three different roofs. Marg, one of our host, had us over for an incredible waffle and muesli breakfast. Nothing to start the day off like whipped cream..!

First order of business: I aided Jennifer in running the first two of four Mascall dance school workshops for Bear Valley School, with a population of 80 students from K to 12. We had them exploring what is dance and dance-making through the asking: how do you get to your home? Working with the kids got me so pumped about performing for them in the evening!

We pulled off perhaps our best performance yet to a wonderfully captive audience of more than one hundred, one-fifth of the town! I loved seeing familiar faces in the crowd of people we've met. The reception afterwards gave us a chance to talk to the audience, thank all those involved in making the show possible, and even sign autographs for some kids. Due to weather conditions, the town won't be expecting another arts presentation until the Spring.

Mary, the school's principal, also mentioned that about half the crowd tonight had never seen a live dance performance before. All this made me realize how privileged and honoured I feel to have the opportunity to connect with this community through dance and share a bit of what we do as artists.

Once we had packed up the van, we went seeking a place for late-night dinner and notes. As expected, nothing was open. In our exhausted states, we headed back to our respective homes to make our own dinners and pack to head off for Prince Rupert in the early morning...

Until next time!