Visiting Artists -- 2011
TODD HENNESSEY -- Animateur
With a BFA (Theatre) from Sir Wilfred Grenfell College and an MFA (Directing) from the University of Calgary, Todd has been an assistant professor with Grenfell's Theatre Program for the past eleven years. In addition, he has directed for many of the province’s professional theatre companies including Rising Tide Theatre (Saltwater Moon, Death and the Maiden, a few musicals and several new scripts by some of the province’s leading playwrights); Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador (Of the Fields, Lately; Corner Green); and The Stephenville Festival (Noises Off, Stones in His Pockets).
Todd toured a production of Saltwater Moon to Ireland in 2002 and is currently at work on a touring production of Antigone/Oedipus Rex. Todd has been chair of the Theatre Program at Grenfell Campus, Corner Brook for the past two years and is nearing completion of a PhD from the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute.
Todd is excited to be the animateur for this year’s Labrador Creative Arts Festival.
TRIOLET D'NORD -- Percussion Group
Triolet d'Nord is a dynamic percussion trio who has entertained crowds of all ages. With their mix of multicultural and contemporary Triolet d’Nord is a dynamic percussion trio who has entertained crowds of all ages. With their mix of multicultural and contemporary music, they offer an exciting and educational view into the world of percussion. Their repertoire consists of melodic pieces for mallets and high energy percussive numbers.
Kevin Johnson, Patrick Gaudet and Joey Roy formed their trio in 2007 during their first year in the music program at the Université de Moncton. They were all members of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra and the university’s different musical projects. They have all participated in a variety of music festivals: Patrick won the 2011 National Percussion competition and Joey won it in 2010. Since then, they have delighted a wide range of audiences in schools, conferences, festivals, galas and their own evening concerts.
NELL LEYSHON -- Playwright:
Nell Leyshon’s Nell Leyshon’s Leyshon’s second play Comfort Me With Apples won the 2005 Charles Wintour Award for most promising playwright in the Evening Standard Awards, and was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Her play Bedlam was on at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in 2010, and was the first play written by a woman to be performed at the Globe. The Beauty Manifesto, a Connections play for the National Theatre for young people, will be produced in 2011. She is currently working on ‘Unheard Voices’, a project at the Royal Court uncovering Romany culture, and her play Winter opened the Gros Morne Theatre Festival in Newfoundland this past summer.
Nell writes regularly for Radio 3 and 4, and her first radio play, the co-written Milk, won the Richard Imison Award. Other plays include Soldier Boy and Glass Eels.Her first novel, Black Dirt, is published by Picador, and was long-listed for the Orange Prize. Her third novel, The Colour of Milk, comes out in May 2012. Nell is the writer in residence with Vita Nova, where she works with recovering drug addicts, and she regularly teaches at the Arvon Foundation. She is developing creative writing workshops in Bethlem, with mental health service users, and has experience working with many marginalized communities
KATHY JESSUP -- Storyteller:
Kathy Jessup was raised in a remote village on the Alaska Highway in northern British Columbia. Growing up she never dreamed there was such an occupation as ‘Storyteller’. One fateful day Kathy opened a brochure in her school counsellor’s office and discovered a career called Broadcasting. “You mean you can get paid just for talking?” For a kid who never shut up it was a dream come true! She studied Broadcast Journalism in college and spent a decade working in current affairs for CBC Radio.
For the past 20 years Kathy has enjoyed storytelling at schools, libraries, concerts and festivals across Canada. Her student workshops on storytelling and writing skills are also popular. Kathy’s storytelling CD LISTEN UP! Tellable Tales for Hungry Ears was recommended by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre in their guide “Best Books for Kids and Teens, 2010.”
DARREL BRENTON -- Theatre/Directing:
It all began on a cold Labrador night. For the first time in Darrel’s life he found himself under the warm lights on a stage in a high school play. Unsure of how he got there, he quickly discovered a true sense of belonging. He was never the same again. There was no turning back, the passion was ignited. Now some 20 years later, the passion lives on...
Darrel has performed and directed productions with Beothuck Street Players, Northern Lights Theatre Company, Carol Players, and Art of Rao Productions. He directed and performed in What Cod’s Ferryland Folk Arts Council. He also worked with Blue Rose Theatre Company in Ireland, where he co-wrote and acted in Stand & Speak, a play on bullying that continues to tour the country. Most recently he directed and performed in Wajdi Mouwad’s Scorched, withBeothuck Street Players. He has twice been awarded Best Director at NL Provincial Drama Festival.
By day, he performs as a Biology teacher at Booth Memorial High School in St. John’s, N.L., but continues to be very active with high school drama, producing and directing a volume of shows. He currently sits on the Eastern School District Drama Festival Steering Committee.
Darrel is truly delighted to return “home” to Labrador and be part of the Creative Arts Festival. It is his hope that participants find their own sense of belonging under the warm lights of the O'Brien Arts Centre.
DEREK NORMAN -- Filmmaker:
Derek is considered a modern-day trail blazer in filmmaking in Newfoundland and Labrador. In the 1970’s, working with MUN Extension Services Film Unit he made his first filming forays to the Labrador Coast enabling people to express their concerns on many issues from transportation, communication, to uranium mining proposals. He was a founding member of NIFCO, the Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Co-operative and has had a career as a film artist, producer, director, cinematographer, and editor. He has won many awards in all aspects of film and video making.
Not one to see others without the means or the skills to pursue their cinematic dreams, he has devoted himself to teaching and training new filmmakers through workshops, seminars, formal university courses and the ongoing mentorship of hundreds of working film artists in the province and beyond.
Derek is currently the Coordinator of the Digital Research Centre for Qualitative Fieldwork at Memorial University. This Centre provides audio-visual services, facilities, equipment and training to faculty and graduate students who are engaged in field research and use digital media to collect, preserve, analyze field data, and disseminate the results of their research back to the communities in which they work and beyond.
MIKE HOLMES -- Graphic Artist:
Mike Holmes is an award-winning illustrator and author. His graphic novels include Shenanigans (Oni Press, 2007), This American Drive (Invisible Publishing, 2009) and True Story (Invisible Publishing, 2011). He contributed a story to the graphic anthology This Is A Souvenir (Image Comics, 2009), and has been drawing his comic strip True Story in Halifax's free newspaper, The Coast, since 2007.
He's been teaching visual storytelling to kids of all ages since 2006, and was the Creative Consultant on the CBC-TV art instruction series Artzooka. His new children's book Imaginary Friends will be out in 2012. Mike lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia with his partner Megan and their cat Ella.
TANYA DAVIS -- Performance Poet :
Tanya Davis is a poet. She is a storyteller. She is a musician and a singer-songwriter and she fuses these elements together in a refreshing matrimony of language and sound, side-stepping genre and captivating audiences in the process.
Recently named the Mayor's Poet Laureate of Halifax, Nova Scotia, she works to bring poetry to more people and more people to poetry. Her creative collaboration with Andrea Dorfman, the videopoem How to be Alone, has had more than 3.5 million views on Youtube, thus garnering Tanya new fans and supporters from the world over.
She regularly receives commissions to pen poems and verse and has worked in this regard for such bodies as the Canada Winter Games, the PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women, CBC Radio, and the National Film Board of Canada. She has also released 3 full length albums - picking up awards and nominations for each one – and her first book of poetry, At First, Lonely, was published in 2011 by Acorn Press. With this diverse resume, Tanya forges ahead, unflinching, as a creative and independent artist committed to unique expression, human connection, and honest effort.
REDMASK CREW -- Dancers:
Redmask Crew is a Montreal based dance crew that has been competing and performing all over the world since 1999. They won the provincial championship (WAR is WAR) three years in row. In 2005 they started collaborating with another Montreal based group called Illmatic styles and in 2007 as Illmask they won the Canadian National Breakdancing competition. Later that year they placed second in the international event called ‘La Battle’ presented at the Just for Laughs festival.
In 2010 they performed in front of 60,000 live spectators, and millions watching from home, for the opening ceremonies of the Paralympic Games with disabled crew member Luca "Lazy Legz" Patuelli.
Every year Redmask hosts an event called "Who's Hungry?" to motivate the younger generation but also to give back to the dance community.
MARGARET WALSH BEST -- Painter:
Margaret Walsh Best is a Canadian artist from Newfoundland and Labrador whose paintings are detailed representations of the natural world in her chosen medium of watercolour. Her interest is in the variation and complexity of her subjects and the stories which surround them.
Besides being a participant in nearly 100 group shows, her solo exhibitions have been informed significantly by scientific and historical research. Her exhibit of the coastlines of the Irish Loop area of Newfoundland “From an Island to an Island: Landscapes of the Southeast of Ireland & Newfoundland” drew on the stories of migration of the Irish to Newfoundland.
The Colony of Avalon Archaeological Site in Ferryland, NL, gave an interesting insight into the journey of plants with our early British settlers; this was the inspiration for a solo exhibition, "A Brush with History: The Gardens of the Colony of Avalon".
Her most recent exhibitions, “Balancing Act: Invasive Alien Plants” in Ireland in 2010 and in Ontario and New Brunswick in 2011 and upcoming exhibitions in the United States, have as a subject the non-indigenous plants of this province and of the areas of the exhibitions.
As an art educator, Margaret Walsh Best has created and executed dozens of school-related multimedia projects and is an advocate for the incorporation of art into all areas of educational curricula. She offers adult weekly classes and workshops throughout her home province and also nationally and internationally.
MARSHALL BUTTON --Actor:
Marshall Button is a playwright, actor, comedian, artistic director and teacher. For the past 26 years, he has been entertaining audiences as Lucien - New Brunswick's Blue collar philosopher.
Lucien began as a character played for friends at parties and to pass the time at various jobs in the paper mill in Dalhousie, N.B., during his university days. He has performed Lucien well over two thousand times, in every Canadian province, as well as in the United States and Afghanistan, where he entertained Canadian Armed Forces personnel. He has contributed several commentary performances for CBC Radio and Television, including a guest appearance on Royal Canadian Airfarce. His benefit performances have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charitable causes such as sports groups, cultural institutions, literary projects, health care and churches..
In a six month period of 2008, he achieved a rare feat for a professional actor, having performed a major role in English for Theatre New Brunswick in March and in French for Théâtre populaire d’Acadie in July/August. Marshall sits on the board of Theatre New Brunswick and is the N.B. rep for the Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre.
Fourteen years ago, as Artist-in-Residence at Moncton's Capitol Theatre, he established a Summer Drama Camp which grew into year-round theatre training with the opening of the Capitol School of Performing Arts in 2005.
In 2001, Marshall co-founded Moncton’s Hubcap Comedy Festival, where he continues to serve as president. The bilingual festival recently celebrated its tenth edition by featuring 30 plus performers playing to record-breaking crowds.
Marshall was named one of the 100 exceptional people of Dalhousie in 2005 and is considered an ambassador for that community. In 2008, he was bestowed an Honourary Doctorate from St. Thomas University in Fredericton, and was inducted into the Order of New Brunswick for his contribution to the cultural landscape of the province. This past September, he was named the first "Agent for Change" by the United Way in Greater Moncton.
ANDY BROWN -- Musician:
New Brunswick’s Andy Brown has emerged a must-see performer on the Canadian music scene. Touted as a performer that 'gets into your head and heart', the 2010 Galaxie Rising Star winner has a contemporary folk-rock style all his own, taking you on a lyrical journey that transcends a realm torn between love, happiness, and sorrow.
Andy is making headway with his band’s sophomore album, False Alarm (released August 2009), a wonderful blend of belt-out ballads, folk-rock anthems, and pop-infused hits. “Crazy”, the first single from the album, has made its way onto 100+ radio stations across the country, landed #1 on the nationally syndicated East Coast Countdown, and recently placed Andy as a finalist in the prestigious International Songwriting Competition. Last fall, the band won the North-American wide “Test Drive” competition sponsored by Taylor Guitars and Elixir Strings and nabbed three Music New Brunswick Awards (Male Recording Artist, Emerging Artist, and Pop Recording of the Year). The band’s visceral energy on-stage is contagious and has landed them at some of the countries top music festivals (Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival, NXNE, Indie Week, Canadian Music Week).
Andy is set to start recording his third album at the end of this year.
DARREN HYNES -- Writer
Darren – the second youngest of eight children – was born on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, but grew up in Labrador City.
As an actor, he has worked in many of the regional theatres in Canada, including The Canadian Stage Company; The National Arts Centre; The Citadel; Theatre Calgary; Theatre Aquarius; and The Stratford Festival. Closer to his birth home, Darren spent two seasons with Rising Tide Theatre’s Trinity Festival, and was a member of the inaugural company of the Atlantic Theatre Festival in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He has also appeared on film/television, most recently in Single White Spenny, Heartland and The Republic of Doyle. Other credits include: Degrassi – The Next Generation; The Bridge; This is Wonderland; The Newsroom; Mayday; The Trojan Horse; Hockey: A People’s History; and Lars and The Real Girl.
In 2006, Darren attended the Humber School for Writers under the mentorship of Michael Helm. Killick Press published his first novel, Flight, in 2010. He was a participant in the 2010 Word on the Street Festival in Halifax.
Darren lives in Toronto where he’s busy working on his second novel tentatively titled: Running With Keanu.
PHILIPPA JONES -- Artist:
Philippa is a British artist living and working in Newfoundland. Her art practice spans traditional printmaking, gaming, active myth making and New Media relational installations. In her art her aim is to create a space into which the participant can project their imagination and to some extent determine their own experience.
JUSTIN BURNETT -- Musician/Actor:
Justin is making a return visit to the festival. With Byron Hamel he is "Ticklish Brother" and you may remember him as the kidnapped husband in the music video "Close to You", produced during the 32nd Creative Arts Fest in 2007.
