AHA! has two great November playshops lined up for you on the last weekend of the month:
Friday, Nov. 29, 6-8: Holiday Baking with 4th year StFX students and staff (at least one student is a pastry chef!): $10 at the door – you’ll be taking home your goodies! Please preregister as numbers are limited.
Saturday, Nov 30: Imagine all the Stories! With story facilitator Susan Walsh, Creating stories with people living with dementia can be great fun! Learn how Susan does it…….preregistration not necessary.
As many of you know, we are undergoing some changes in how Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!) is organized. It was a team decision over a year ago to pursue charitable status for AHA!, with the hope that we could become more sustainable through hiring staff and attracting donors to sustain our work.
We reached our first goal in 2018, that of becoming a registered not-for-profit. I am most grateful to those of you who let your names stand as our inaugural council. Moving forward, we will continue to formalize this council, creating a team of strategic and creative thinkers who are passionate about AHA!’s mission.
As our year end is December 31, I would like to invite any who are passionate about AHA!, who have participated in AHA! in any way, and who are interested in helping to lead the team through 2019, to please let me know. Anyone who has regular paid work through AHA! isn’t eligible to be on the leadership council while working for us.
AHA! will continue to host open meetings, though perhaps not quite as frequently as previously, and will continue to value your input at meetings. Please save the date of Feb. 27, 5 pm to attend our inaugural AGM!
Your name will remain on our contact list for the open meetings unless we are told otherwise. Please feel free to connect with us at any time through email or social media.
Many thanks for your interest in, and support for, AHA! We are anticipating an exciting year!
Arts Health Antigonish
invites you to celebrate Arts Health Month at……
AHA! Tuesdays!
Tuesdays in November, 7-9 pm
Please preregister for participatory workshops on the form below.
Preregistration will assist with planning spaces and supplies, as well as ensuring your place in sessions that have limited capacity.
Donations will be welcomed at the door to help cover the costs of the workshops: venue, facilitators and supplies. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.”.
These are adult workshops see below for locations.
Clare Marie Gathering Place, Martha Place, St. Martha’s Hospital, Antigonish
CACL Lunchroom – CACL / Legion on St. Ninian St., Antigonish
Tuesday, November 6th Storytelling: Compassionate Listening, Compassionate Sharing Maureen St. Clair
Maureen will guide participants in developing a deeper understanding of compassionate listening and story sharing as a tool and skill for building relations and cultures of peace. Come share, write, dance, listen, and embody your own and other’s personal stories!
Maureen St. Clair is an artist, peace educator, activist and writer. She holds a Master’s Degree in Adult Education with a focus on women’s self and community empowerment. Born and raised in Canada, with Grenadian citizenship, Maureen has lived in Grenada, West Indies for over 20 years with Grenadian partner and daughter, Theo and Maya. Maureen is known throughout the Caribbean and internationally for her vibrant, multi-racial, women-positive paintings inspired by her work with women and youth. While in Nova Scotia, Canada, Maureen is an Associate of Coady International Institute where she facilitates programs in community peacebuilding, global youth and community leadership. Maureen won the Beacon Award for Social Justice Literature and the Atlantic Writers Festival with her novel, Big Island, Small published by Fernwood Publishing and released spring 2018.
Tuesday, November 13 Songwriting: Word Power in Song Kim Wempe
Join Kim in collaborative songwriting to know the power of words in song. Through the use of ‘free writing’, participants will collaborate in groups to create songs, then share the experience. If you play an instrument, please bring it! However, you don’t need to play an instrument or consider yourself ‘musical’ to attend this workshop.
Hope to see you there!
Kim Wempe uses her past experience as a touring musician and her current experience as a nursing student at St.FX to combine art and health through songwriting as an outlet workshops that address mental wellness, coping, and social inclusion. Kim has worked with youth and music in a variety of school settings since February 2016 thanks to the support and funding from Arts Health Antigonish and SchoolsPlus-Antigonish. She also teaches private voice and guitar lessons, as well as continues to play shows as a singer-songwriter. Currently, Kim is completing her Bachelor of Science in Nursing with a final clinical in Youth Health Centres.
Tuesday, November 20 Dancing and Dreaming with Fingerpaints Nancy Turniawan
Do you remember those first mud puddles you stuck your fingers in? The wet sand? Did you get to paint your whole hand green… maybe even up to your elbow? Did those first paintings adorn the walls or fridge with your name and age in bold letters? When was the last time that you created with your fingers? Nancy will nurture participants into focusing on the joy of letting our fingers ‘dance’ across the page. Red? Yellow? Blue? Which colour will you choose first?
Supplies: Please bring scissors and rags
Nancy describes herself as a mosaic artist, clay sculptor, photographer, and mixed media artist. She draws on her creative energy by immersing herself in the natural world and regarding everything with awe. Nancy is drawn to the texture, rhythm and light in nature. She can express this beauty, and find healing and balance in her life, through the creative process of art making. In her 31 years of teaching Art in public schools at all grade levels, Nancy has always integrated Arts into every subject, school life, and within the arts community.
Tuesday, November 27 Laughter is the Best Medicine! Laura Teasdale
Everybody knows that laughter feels good. But did you know it is a great workout for your muscles and releases lots of stress relieving hormones? It even has the power to fight illness. The good news is, there are simple ways to bring more laughter into our lives so we can take advantage of all the rewards laughter brings.
In this workshop, Laura will fill us in on the science of laughter therapy and its benefits. Then we’ll play some simple games that begin as exercises, but end in genuine laughter. Laura will leave us with some techniques to bring laughter into our lives everyday.
Laura Teasdale is an actor, singer, playwright and teacher. She spent twenty four years living in Quebec, but recently returned home to her beloved Antigonish. She hasn’t regretted it for a minute. You may have seen her this summer at Festival Antigonish in Lunenberg, Burnin’ Love or in her own show Being Hank & Patsy. She was probably laughing when you saw her. Laura has always been very active and dedicated to community groups. Most of her plays involve local history. As part of her Performing Arts degree, Laura learned all about comedy, from the ancient Greeks on down to clowns and British Farces. She is a long time member of a comedy improv troupe and a clown troupe. She studied with the great Canadian Laughologist, Albert Nerenberg. But she also learned that the funniest moments are the ones we share among family and friends.
July 18, 2018AHA!jobComments Off on AHA! Sound Installation Request for Proposals
Statement of Purpose:
Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!) seeks a sound artist (“the artist”) to create a sound installation using “field sounds” such as voices, hand clapping, toe tapping, song, laughter, chatter, excerpts of poems or stories, from Arts Canopy sessions with participants who are living with dementia. The artist will unify these sounds into a complete, artistically realized vision. The intent is to inspire and engage the community in re-envisioning how we see people with dementia, especially in terms of appreciating how the arts give meaning to the lives of those who still have much to offer.
Background Information:
AHA! is a non-profit collaboration between local artists, health care workers, and educators, which began at the Sustainable Antigonish table in 2013 with an exploration as to how culture contributes to community sustainability and resilience. Since 2013, AHA! has lived its mission of ‘fostering creative expression for community health’, creating about 20 arts-based programs over a five-year period. AHA! is particularly interested in helping those in our community with less access to the arts, those in transition, isolated, ill or vulnerable in other ways: youth, seniors, immigrants, those in hospital and in long term care facilities.
Arts Canopy was created by AHA! in 2016 with the goal of focusing on the abilities and capacities of those living with dementia, rather than on their deficits. Between 2016 and 2018, AHA! will have offered 29 x 10 week arts-based programs, in music, poetry, visual arts, movement, dance, pottery and storytelling, all facilitated by professional artists. An annual celebration of the artwork of Arts Canopy is part of valuing the creative contributions of participants. A visual community installation of the art produced in 2017 was held through GoArts, a celebration of local arts and a highlight of the Highland Games in Antigonish. Through Arts Canopy programs, participants have found new ways to express themselves, other ways of remembering, they have enjoyed greater socialization, improved mood, lessened anxiety, and those effects lasted well beyond the end of the programs.
This sound installation project will celebrate the 2018 Arts Canopy programs. AHA’s hope is that through this installation, we can share more widely participants’ joy, their engagement in song and in ‘other ways of remembering’, their empathy for one another, their creativity. By listening to and understanding what people with dementia have to offer, all of us become recipients of their creativity.
Scope of Work:
The artist will consult with the Arts Canopy and AHA! teams to understand the Arts Canopy program goals and outcomes that have become evident, as well as the intent of the installation. The artist will create a vision for the project and will use previously professionally recorded (by a sound technician) audio clips of Arts Canopy sessions to create the sound installation, working with the sound technician. The artist will have full responsibility for all creative and technical aspects of the project and will report to designated members of the AHA! leadership team.
Deliverables:
A sound installation (about 30 minutes), ideally to be completed by Feb 28, 2019, but this will depend on artist availability and funding being secured.
Terms and Conditions:
The terms of payment will be negotiable with the successful applicant. Our proposal is that the artist will be paid a flat rate: 35% on the first iteration of the project, 65% on the final iteration and delivery of the completed installation. A final two-page report on the project will be expected by AHA! prior to the final payment.
It is anticipated that the project will be completed within 4-5 months, depending on the start date, but a final timeline will be negotiated with the successful artist. The installation will be fully owned by AHA!, and the organization will have complete control over its distribution. The artist will be given full credit for the work done.
Proposal Instructions:
Please send clear, organized documents in easily accessible programs (such as MS Word for written documents and MS Excel for the budget). Please also ensure that your name is on each document you send. Include the following as part of your proposal:
Letter of Intent including the proposed method (techniques, etc.) to be used to communicate the key messages. Please note that AHA! is open to discussing a visual component to accompany the sound installation;
C.V. of no more than 3 pages showing education, experience, and previous accomplishments, including 2-3 professional references with names and contact information;
Samples of previous similar work (include media files or links to online sources);
Budget
Timeline for making and completing the installation
Evaluation and Award Process:
Proposals will be considered on both artistic and financial merits, to include the artist’s experience, the proposed creative direction for this project, and the financial proposal. Final terms will be negotiated with the winning artist. Since the project is subject to the availability of funding, AHA! reserves the right to reject all proposals. All applicants will be notified, whether or not they are successful.
Proposal Deadline:
Proposal should be sent in electronic form to AHA! at artshealthantigonish@gmail.com by noon on Monday, September 17, 2018.
Contacts:
Any questions should be sent to AHA! at the above address.
Position Summary: We are seeking a musician to facilitate after school programs with youth in both Inverness and Richmond Counties during the 2017-2018 school year, 2-3 afternoons each week at each site. We hope to improve learning outcomes, communication skills and socialization through engagement with musical programming. This position is supported by Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!), in partnership with the Department of Education, the Strait Regional School Board and Schools Plus.
Major Responsibilities and Commitments:
Create and implement an after school music program (of any form – instrumental, song writing, singing…), using music as a tool to improve learning outcomes, social skills and communication skills for small groups of youth, aged 8 – 13 years.
Liaise with School Administration, Schools Plus staff and teaching staff to identify learning outcomes to be addressed
Report regularly to AHA! and the Department of Education
Assist with evaluation of the program as requested by the NS Health Research Foundation
Available 3-5 days/week for 1-1.5 hours after school during the 2017-2018 school year. Other hours will be required, but can be at applicant’s convenience. This position supports up to 20 hours/week, divided between Inverness and Richmond Counties. These positions could be separated into two positions or treated as one.
Requirements:
Trained musician
Ability to articulate the health-related benefits of engagement with music
Experience in counseling, social work, community services or a similar field will be considered an asset
Experience working with groups of children from diverse backgrounds, having unique individual needs
Demonstrated oral and written communication skills
Demonstrated excellent interpersonal skills
Ability to maintain accurate records and reflections of practice and to submit records in a timely manner to supervisors and funders
Able to work independently and with a team
Responsibility and accountability for actions and decisions
Criminal Record Check and Child Abuse Registration Check required prior to beginning employment
“Art has the power to inspire, the power to heal, the power to transform, to rehabilitate, to bear witness, and to make us believe that there are better days ahead.”
Michaelle Jean, former Governor General of Canada
