Try something NEW! The Culture Days weekend is a unique interactive celebration of arts and culture. Local organizations invite the public to roll up their sleeves and join the behind-the-scenes world of artists, curators, designers and creators.
The events are fun, creative, and free!
Below is a list of activities happening at locations accross St. Catharines:
St. Catharines Kiwanis Aquatics Centre, 425 Carlton Street
Drop Cloth Abstracts
Always wanted to paint? Join artists Janice Low and Matthew Low to create your own abstract painting while they share tips on colour theory and composition. Put a little colour in your day!
Sunday Oct. 2 | 11 a.m. to 3.p.m.
TREEmendous Creative Workshop
Join artist Deena Colling Gelentso for a workshop that features the Canadian landscape, especially the beautiful fall colours! Use tissue paper and cork print making techniques to add a creative touch to our large fall tree collaborative piece or create your very own work of art!
Sunday Oct. 2 | 2 p.m. to 5 p.m
4Cats Art Studio, 305 Niagara Street
Fall Family Tree Sculpey Board
Build a mini self-portrait out of polymer clay using hand-building techniques or paint a fall tree on canvas board (one project per family). While waiting for your clay to bake, throw some paint in the splatter room, experiment with watercolours, and explore 4Cats' vibrant studio!
Sunday Oct. 2 | 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Rodman Hall Arts Centre, 109 St. Paul Crescent
Art-Making Activities for Families
Enjoy FREE hands-on art activities and button-making for the whole family. Meet our instructors and see what we have to offer! Check out our Summer Student Art Exhibition during your visit.
Friday Sept. 30 | 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday Oct. 1 | 12 p.m. tp 5 p.m.
Sunday Oct. 2 | 12 p.m. tp 5 p.m.
Puppets on Land in a Digital Age
An interactive, drop-in workshop for all ages with Carousel Players. Create puppets influenced by our digital age. With guidance from workshop leaders, participants are led to explore how their newly-made puppets interact in 5 diverse theatrical spaces. How do we enter Cyber Space and retain our own humanity?
Saturday Oct. 1 | 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Historic Tours
Tours include a description of the History of Rodman Hall and the Merritt family, responsible locally for constructing the early Welland Canal. Tours also give you an up-close look at the architectural details that give the building its charm. After your guided tour, we invite you to explore the grounds and the sculptures in the Walker Botanical Gardens.
Saturday Oct. 1 | 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Gunilla Josephson Exhibition Tour
Houses and Whispers, a survey of recent video work by Gunilla Josephson, acknowledges the subtle energies, quiet voices of residual, intermural memories and infuses the old house with flickering presence. The artist writes: "The face, isolated and observed closely over time, with all its minute variations, greater emotional repertoire and its exposed naked presence, becomes a drama in itself. Truth and fiction collapse into each other."
Saturday Oct. 1 | 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Silver Spire United Church, 366 St. Paul Street
St. Catharines Art Association Art & Culture Experience
A fun event filled with lots of different hands-on art activity stations! Try your hand at mural painting, zentagle or watch a demonstration of painting to poetry. Listen to a guest speaker discuss art media or enjoy a variety of "make and take" activities. There's something for everyone, so bring the whole family!
Saturday Oct. 1 | 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Pop-Up Art Hive
Create a piece of self-expressive art! Professional artists Paula Engstrom and Lenore Walker guide participants in 3 activities: The Weave (fabric art); Downtown Art Quilt; and Sculpting City Places. No previous visual art experience is required - just have fun and make something all your own.
Saturday Oct 1 | 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Odd Fellows Hall, 36 James Street
Comedy Improvisation Workshop
Join Suitcase in Point as they open their doors to host a drop-in, public comedy improv workshop with Lisa Brooke (Second City Alum) and SIP ensemble members. Sit in or take part in engaging comedy games, talks and presentations.
Saturday Oct. 1 | 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Encaustic Painting for Beginners
Join artist and photographer Sandy Middleton in her studio for a creative and easy way to try painting with wax! Participants, with help from the instructor or a guardian, will learn how to brush on and fuse encaustic medium to a board, add colors and create a collage or small painting - all with hot melted beeswax.
Recommended age: 12+ (Younger participants can do a photo transfer to wax)
Saturday Oct. 1 | 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Voice in the Community
Ensemble members of Twitches & Itches Theatre will be teaching their signature method for singing and improvising sounds over the course of two hour-long workshops. Learn the basics of the members' improvisation method, then build on the techniques to create original singing compositions. No experience necessary!
Saturday Oct. 1 | 2 p.m. to 5 p.m
Mahtay Cafe, 241 St. Paul Street
Slam Poetry 101: Learning To Speak Your Truth
The 2016 St. Catharines Poetry Slam Team will guide participants through writing and performance tutorials to help them create their own slam masterpieces. Recommended age: 12+
Sunday Oct. 2 | 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St Paul Street
Essential Collective Theatre - The Fighting Days
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of a woman's right to vote. Set in Winnipeg between 1910-1917. Join the Canadian Suffrage movement in this interactive drama workshop about some of the fierce Canadian women who were a part of the fight.
Lead by artistic director, Monica Dufault in role and in costume as a character from the time period.
LIMITED SPACE - Please RSVP
Saturday Oct. 1 | 11 a.m., 12 p.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m.
Niagara Symphony Orchestra - Instrument Petting Zoo
Explore the orchestra: try a trumpet; give a flute a flutter, or sidle up to some strings! Everyone gets a chance to experiment on these and other orchestral stars with the Niagara Symphony Orchestra's Instrument Petting Zoo.
Saturday Oct. 1 | 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Kaha:wi Dance Theatre - Powwow Boot Camp
Kaha:wi Dance Theatre(KDT) is pleased to offer a high energy PowWow/dance training class. An Intensive boot camp style workout for people interested in maximizing their physical fitness let by artistic director: Santee Smith and KDT instructor. Powwow boot camp allows participants to learn or practice skills in Indigenous dance forms of PowWow and Onkehon:we (Iroquois) social dances.
These dances are performed in combination with exciting and challenging physical exercises, contemporary dance. Move, Dance, sweat, Energize your body-mind-spirit, while listening to fabulous music in a social invigorating environment.
LIMITED SPACE - Please RSVP
Saturday Oct. 1 | 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The Film House - Short Movies Screening
Come enjoy special NFB short movies screening.
Saturday Oct. 1 | 11 a.m to 12 p.m.
SOFIFRAN - Textes d'automne
Après le succès de Péninsule littéraire, venez vivre de nouvelles aventures littéraires avec nos textes d'automne.
Il y en aura pour tous les goûts et pour tous les publics.
Saturday Oct. 1 | 12:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.
Niagara Jazz Festival
Niagara Jazz Fest AD and Pianist, Peter Shea solo performance. Come out and enjoy some of your favorite musical selections.
Saturday Oct. 1 | 12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Marilyn I. Walker School, Brock University, 15 Artists' Common
Open House
The Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) welcomes guests for guided tours of the new facility (opened 2015). Meet your hosts inside the David S. Howes entrance (Raceway) or feel free to visit the facility on your own. Visit the poster exhibition of research from the Faculty of Humanities. See the exhibition of contemporary art in the MIWSFPA Art Gallery on the occasion of the Merleau-Ponty Circle Conference. (12 p.m. - 4 p.m. only)
Friday Sept. 30 | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Saturday Oct. 1 | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Sunday Oct. 2 | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
citySounds with percussionist Devon Fornelli
citySounds with Percussionist Devon Fornelli: a site-specific engagement with the sound of the city using traditional and found instruments: in the Raceway between the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre and the Marilyn I. Walker School of FIne and Performing Arts (if rain: Main lobby)
Saturday Oct. 1 | 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
