Join Esker Foundation for a celebration and premiere screening of Keystone Is, a short film about the history of Breton, AB and its connection to Alberta’s Black migrant families, created by The Prairie Place-Ancestors Collective.

Following the screening will be a panel with the filmmakers. The event will also feature photography by Aliya Logun and a fiber painting installation by Madi LeBlanc.

The Foundation is proud to support The Prairie Place-Ancestors Collective, convened by Co-Artistic Director of Swallow-A-Bicycle Theatre Mpoe Mogale and including Cheryl Foggo, Lebogang Disele, Lisa LaTouche and Masani St. Rose, who have been trying to make sense of Blackness in the Prairies, their relationship to this land, and who has come before them.

 Image Still from Keystone Is, Masani St. Rose. Cinematography by: Joel Varjassy.

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Join Esker curators for a tour of our current exhibition, Black Drones in The Hive.

Deanna Bowen: Black Drones in the Hive Until August 25, 2024

Curated by Crystal Mowry

Organized by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.
Circulated in partnership with the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina.

For more than twenty years, Deanna Bowen’s practice has evolved from its roots in experimental documentary video into a complex mapping of power as seen in public and private archives. Research and exhibitions are rarely mutually exclusive modes for Bowen, in part because her subjects are capable of revealing new perspectives over time. Whether it is through strategies of re-enactment or dense constellations of archival material, Bowen’s work traces her familial history within a broader narrative of Black survival in Canada and the United States.

Some days, I just want to sing the blues. Not just because powerhouse blues singers Shemekia Copeland and Dawn Tyler Watson are coming to perform here in the Jack Singer Concert Hall at Arts Commons on February 9. Well, because of them, but they make me want to sing the happy blues. Right now, they are the remedy to my current malaise. 

What malaise you say? Well, as I encounter another Black History Month, I feel like we've gone backward in terms of most R&B, pop, hip hop etc. And here it comes, nostalgia for the '90's and early aughts. I remember when Lauren Hill and India Arie felt free to loc their hair while Ciara whipped her blond back and forth. Black women could be any and everything.

But now, it seems like the focus is narrowing. It feels like, whenever I start to admire some exciting new talent with a fresh unforced look, something happens. My new faves transform, like a bad magician trick, into the same Beyonce-Riri-Cardi-Minaj-Meg barely dressed Glamazons, spitting very similar explicit lyrics. And yeah, I know, Beyonce has her deep moments.

Yet it feels like the look and vibe and power have turned even in her dreadlocked proteges into leather corseted "boss bitches." Which can get a little one note after a while. Melanee Murray-Hunt - Read more.

Queens of the Blues: Shemekia Copeland and Dawn Tyler Watson

• Presented By.

• Event Venue. Jack Singer Concert Hall.

• Show Date. February 9, 2024 7:30PM.

• Price Range. $39.00 - $74.00.

• Fee Information.

• Event Series. Special Presentations.

• Learn more: Arts Commons

Shemekia Copeland and Dawn Tyler Watson have energized the music world like few others, shaking up the blues with unmatched powerhouse vocals and soulful songwriting.

Copeland, the daughter of Blues legend Johnny Copeland, has performed with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, and has even shared a bill with The Rolling Stones. She’s been hailed as “the greatest blues singer of her generation” by The Washington Post, with a voice that “cansummon pain with a sorrowful wail, then trumpet her triumph over a no-good man in the very next number.”

Watson is “one of Canada’s true blues treasures” (Blues Music Magazine) who, after five Maple Blues Award wins, won her first JUNO Award for Blues Album of the Year in 2020.