Calgary, have I told you lately that you’re awesome? There’s so much to see and do this week. Like checking out the works submitted to Papergirl before they’re gifted at the giant giftervention. How about poetry and word play at People’s Poetry Festival and the Spoken Word Safari . Like demons, catchy songs and blood at Evil Dead: The Musical. Then there’s the UEnd:Foundation and their U:Party. And a bunch of wonderful works on display like Translations by Kristine Zingeler and Sage Wheeler’s exhibition Young Art. Here’s your Arts Round Up this week. Enjoy.

PAPERGIRL OPENS: Papergirl 2012 kicked off it’s exhibition last Thursday at the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts in the Arts Learning Centre with 550 works from 133 different artists. It’s your chance to see the pieces submitted to the project from all over the world before they’re given out randomly during the massive giftervention on August 18. The exhibition runs until August 17, noon till 6pm and they’re still looking cyclists to help out with the giftervention. For more information head over to their website and read our interview with Sunshine Frère here.
Photos by Amy Jo Espetveidt, Quadrophonic Image

Poetry for the People
It’s street poetry at it’s finest and you are all invited to come by.
The People’s Poetry Festival heads to the streets of  Kensington this week, August 17 to 19, and combines poetry, spoken word and visual art. The free three-day festival includes Poetic Graffiti walks (an outdoor art show combining words with visual art) through the side streets and between the buildings of Kensington, DIY poetry stations, open mic and scheduled readings. There’s even a napkin and coaster poetry portion that encourages patrons of the areas coffee shops, pubs and restaurants to scribble down their thoughts – poetry or other – and stick it in a Poetry for the People branded jar. They’ll be read, enjoyed and published in their annual collection of poetry.
Another thing to check out is the Alberta Magazine Publishers Made with Mags DIY Poetry Station. They’ll be in front of the Plaza Theatre on August 18 from 11am to 4pm making poems from words cut from Alberta’s magazines. You’re welcome to join in too and their favorites will be featured on their website and on Pintrest.
For more information check out their blog and follow them on Twitter.

Splatter Zone? Yes please.
The bloodiest, silliest, campiest musical you’ll ever see is coming back to Calgary starting this Tuesday, August 14.
Evil Dead: The Musical wowed crowds (myself included) back in the summer of 2009 with seven weeks of sold out shows and now it’s back. Dubbed the “same bloody show [with a] new bloody cast [at a] new bloody theatre,” Hit & Myth (the guys who brought this to you last time around) has teamed up with The Pumphouse Theatre.
Based on cult movies Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn and Army of Darkness, the stage version is just as out there as the films. The music is as catchy as any other musical but unlike the others, there’s demons, ancient evil sprits and lots and lots of blood (fans spend extra money for seats in the Splatter Zone and come out covered head-to-toe).
It was a great time in 2009 and I’m sure it will be a great time again.
For more information head over to Hit & Myth’s website and get ready to be splattered.

Wonderful Window
During my walk through the +15 System, I came across one window exhibition that really stood in my head – Translations by Kristine Zingeler.
It’s hidden in the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts at The New Gallery +15 Window and will be there until October 1 (with the reception at 7pm on September 20). The bright and beautiful abstract nature of the exhibit really drew me in and I would recommend anyone near by to have a gander.
It’s a blend of photography (to create realism) and painting (to create abstraction). I must have stood there for 10 minutes looking at the tiny display, it was so multi-directional that I had to keep moving and looking at it from different angles. Well worth the trip.

LowBrow V Highbrow
When talking about art, certain images pop to mind when someone mentions highbrow. Grand paintings. Classic works. Hallowed museums. But the flip side is lowbrow, an art form that’s giving the highbrow a run for its money.
The 2nd Annual LowBrow Art Show is looking for submissions. The show will run October 15 to November 3 at Resolution Art Gallery (233 10th Street NW) and is curated by Lizzie Carr.
For more information, check out the Call for Submissions through the Calgary Arts Development website or email Lizzie.

In Case You Missed It
Sage Wheeler’s exhibition Young Art, is a light-hearted look at life and consciousness. It opened last week but runs until September 1 and if you get a chance, take in a performance on August 18 at 1pm, August 25 at 1pm and September 1 at 1pm at the UAS Satellite Gallery (343 11th Ave SW).
“Consciousness is a precious thing in the universe. And if you’re reading this– let me tell you– you’ve got it! You are a bloody miracle,” reads her artist statement. “But so much of our precious time and mental energy is used in youth. Our experience in life is a product of our surroundings, our culture, our religion, our internal beliefs. Being young is existing within a hypothesis of how the world should work. It remains unknown how much we create that hypothesis ourselves or how much it is created by environmental factors. My work is the results of that hypothesis. It is less about communicating facts and more about proposing a guess. The guesses of a youth. The guess includes words, images, performances and failures. Young Art is a seriously light-hearted look at what structures surround our lives.”

Best of the Fringe
And as voted by you, the Best of Fest winner of the 2012 Calgary Fringe Festival is Burnt at the Steak by Carolann Valentino.
A special encore presentation of the Best of Fest winning performance took place at the Alexandra Centre on Saturday. The winner was determined by audience vote, popularity and media selection.
Congrats!

On Word Safari in Inglewood and Ramsay
Going on a word hunt, a spoken word hunt.
The Spoken Word Safari will be wandering New Street in Inglewood on August 15 at 7pm as part of Findit – a year-round series of “pop-ups” designed to bring visitors to the community and expand their knowledge of history and culture.
A group of Calgary’s top spoken word artists (including Poet Laureate Kris Demeanor) will showcase one of the city’s best kept secrets, New Street. It’s just one block long but has some of the city’s most interesting homes and stories, poems and personal musings will be shared with guests as a team of Findit volunteers lead them onwards.
Tickets for the event are $10, with only 75 available, and are for sale at local merchants Zyn, Reworks, Gravity and the Double L Bakery. A free concert by the New Street Band will wrap the evening in Nellie Breene Park and is open to the general public.
For more information visit Findit’s website.

Calgary Artists Hit the Stage to End Extreme Poverty
A group of top Calgary artists are joining forces to raise funds to end global extreme poverty.
UEnd:Foundation is hosting U:Party at Flames Central on August 18 at 8pm. The event is being touted as a serious party to raise some serious funds for a great cause – ending property globally through Calgary non-profit UEnd. The funds raised will go towards growing the organization, enhancing their website, increase education initiatives and continue to end poverty. According to the foundation, UEnd has donated $873,829 to 162 poverty-ending projects affecting over 545,000 people.
Amp 90.3 Radio Rock Star winners Makeshift Innocence, Calgary Poet Laureate Kris Demeanor, Jocelyn Alice with Lisa Jacobs and Trinity Bradshaw will be providing the entertainment and Mike Morrison of Mike’s Bloggity Blog will be hosting.
For more information visit their website. Tickets are $10 and can be bought online or at the door.

The Truth about Modern Art
What happens when you ask a group of kids what they think of Warhol, Pollok, Lichenstein and other artists whose work graces the halls of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York City? The truth.
This hysterical unofficial audio tour created by Audio Tour Hack has been dubbed MoMA Unadulterated. Each piece of art on Level Four is analyzed by a different kind of art expert, children aged 3-10.
“This is Modern Art without the pretentiousness, the pomposity or any other big “p” words,” reads their website.
Sigmar Polke’s Spiderman is the “main attraction”, Andy Warhol’s Double Elvis makes one child think he’s out to kill someone with broccoli and Jackson Pollock’s One: Number 31, 1950 shouldn’t be in a museum because it’s “just splatter paint”.
Audio Tour Hack is made up of artists and communications professionals who have set out to use creative storytelling to change the way people look at the world around them.
It’s worth a listen for anyone who loves art.

Do you have something cool and great coming up and want to be part of the Calgary Arts Round Up? Drop me a line at calgaryisawesome@quadrophonicimage.com!