Shane Birley's blog

We are taking part in a new venture! It is the H.E.R.O.'s Healthy Mind, Healthy Business Conference! Shane will be speaking about social media and we will have a booth set up to chat with anyone working in the health industry. Hope to see you there!

Here is a bit of information about the event:

H.E.R.O's Business Solutions and Brio Integrative Health Centre invite you to participate in the "Healthy Mind... Healthy Business" Conference and Tradeshow.

Across Canada, 50,000 health, wellness, sport and recreation facilitators and practitioners dedicate their time and expertise in supporting the mental and physical health of others. As entrepreneurs, they learn from experience and in so many cases, do not achieve the levels of success needed to sustain a healthy business. The bottom line is, "they cannot help their patients / clients, if they can't stay in business."

What
Announcing Come and Dance: an Aboriginal Dance Festival, featuring the Annual Louis Riel Day Celebration!

When
November 16 - 19

Where
The ScotiaBank Dance Centre (677 Davie Street)
and the Aboriginal Friendship Centre located at 1607 East Hastings Street.

Single day tickets: $20 (non-members: $15 and members/students: $5.)
Three-day pass: $49 non-members; $33 members.
Free membership and tickets available from www.vnidansi.ca

Come and Dance: an Aboriginal Dance Festival

Bringing Traditional & Contemporary Dance to Vancouver’s 125th Celebrations.

Compaigni V'ni Dansi (CVD) Society is thrilled to announce Come and Dance: an Aboriginal Dance Festival, taking place in Vancouver November 16-19, 2011.

Vancouver is located in the heart of traditional Aboriginal territory and as the city celebrates the 125th year of its founding, Come and Dance honours the traditional and contemporary dance of our Aboriginal communities.

November 12, 2011 at 8pm
The Roundhouse Community Centre
Pacific and Davie St. in Vancouver

Director
Coat Cooke

Special Guests
Joane Hétu & Rainer Wiens

Orkestra Futura’s Phoenix Rising will be an inspirational evening of sound and stories illuminating the human spirit’s infinite capability to overcome adversity and to shine and flourish despite the challenges that we all face in our lives.

We welcome Montréal composers Joane Hétu on saxophone and Rainer Wiens on guitar for this one-time evening of music. The concert will feature ten of Vancouver’s most inspiring improvisational musicians for a magnificent night of music as we premiere commissioned work from Ms. Hétu and Mr. Wiens.

Our ensemble will feature horns (Coat Cooke/reeds, JP Carter/trumpet, Brad Muirhead/bass trombone), strings (Chad MacQuarrie/electric guitar, Tommy Babin/bass), voice (DB Boyko/voice),  electronics (Chris Gestrin/keyboards, Lee Hutzulak/electronics) and percussion (Skye Brooks/drums).

Tickets information over here.

Another year is coming to and end and Left Right Minds is heading into a birthday!

As a quick reminder, we are closed from December 23rd to January 3rd, 2011. We will reopen on January 4th, 2011.

For emergencies, call (604) 873-6373 and dial extension 410. You can also e-mail info@leftrightminds.com - we look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

There are only a couple of weeks left until the Neanderthal Arts Festival.  I can't believe it is so close now.  We started this process last fall and it is almost here!  Here is the latest press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEANDERTHAL ARTS THEATRE FESTIVAL: Theatre Festival More Fun Than Play With Rocks

JULY 9 2010 AD – VANCOUVER – You thought theatre extinct like Neanderthal.  Theatre not extinct. Neanderthal not extinct!   Me show you what extinct. Listen now human. Or me crush skull. 

Humans come Neanderthal Arts Theatre Festival July 21 - August 1, 2010 Cultch Theatre in East Vancouver. Look 6 one-act plays. Four plays by local humans.
Two plays by far away human tribes. That not all. Upintheair present Walking Fish Festival as part of Neanderthal Festival. Five short plays by new human artists.

“Festival good time for humans,” say Neanderthal Consultant Og Ra. “Make laugh. Make think. More fun than play with rocks all day.”

Tell friends, Og say. “More good: all bring spear and bear not come in!”

Showtimes and ticket sales, visit http://www.thal.ca/

Neanderthal Theatre Arts Festival Media Contacts:

Tok Bok, Neanderthal Media Rep

To contact Tok, send message chiseled onto rock at cave #3, Vancouver BC.

No Phone
No Email

Andrew, Human Media Rep
andrew@thal.ca

I hope to see you all there!  Here is a video that may entice you.

We received an official announcement today that one of Left Right Minds client's, the author Terry Gould, has recently won yet another award!  Terry has also revealed that his book Murder Without Borders: Dying for the Story in the World's Most Dangerous Places, will also be translated into Spanish.  Here is the press release:

Dear Colleagues,

The Spanish-language edition of Terry Gould's Murder Without Borders: Dying for the Story in the World's Most Dangerous Places (2009, Random House Canada) will be published in Spain on September 7, 2010, by the Spanish publishing house Los Libros del Lince.

On May 27, Murder Without Borders won its third major kudo.

• Winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-fiction book of 2009.
• Winner of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression 2009 Tara Singh Hayer Press Freedom Award.
• Finalist, 2009 Writers Trust of Canada Award for Best Political Writing of the Year.

In the United States, the book is published as Marked for Death: Dying for the Story in the World's Most Dangerous Places (2009, Counterpoint Press).

"A book of love and passion. The portraits of slain journalists who reported from the world’s most dangerous places are unquestionably tragic, but this book is uplifting and even inspiring. Through his meticulous reporting and his compassionate storytelling, Gould performs a small miracle, a literary resurrection, allowing journalists so cruelly killed to tell their own stories completely and honestly. In an age when journalism is threatened by economic collapse and deep public cynicism, Gould’s book reminds us that journalism can be beautiful and meaningful and that its power to combat injustice so great that some journalists around the world are willing to give their lives to tell the truth.”
--Joel Simon, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists

"Terry Gould has made all of [these journalists] more than mere statistics. By digging so deeply into their lives, he has not only memorialized them but has helped us understand their martyrdom." --Columbia Journalism Review

"Terry Gould has done an enormous service to journalists everywhere with this macabre collection of murders most foul.... Fathoms why these individuals came to be martyrs."
--National Post

Visit Terry Gould online at www.terrygould.com and you may contact Terry at: gouldink@shaw.ca   

We have some very exciting news to share today.  One of our clients, Angela Cameron Fine Art has been chosen by the Vancouver Olympics to hang her art work in their VIP room at the Olympic Village.

But don't take our word for it, here is a bit from their news release:

It took the 2010 Vancouver winter games Olympic committee Vanoc, minutes to choose Angela Cameron's fine art photography to decorate the city of Vancouver Mayors Media Room and VIP lounge.

Her signature brand impressed the Olympic organizers to have this artwork showing in the prestigious VIP lounge and the Mayors Media office at the 2010 Winter Games Olympic Village.

The artwork will be viewed by athletes, dignitaries, media and celebrities over the course of the 2010 winter games.

If you want to check out her website, you can find it here.

I suppose it is fitting to say something about the new site.  The first thing is, we're not done yet.

But enough about technology.  Here is our official message:

What a year it's been! We've launched new sites, worked with new clients, sent artists on tours, produced several shows here in Vancouver and continued our work with Plank Magazine. For 2010, we're excited to announce that we will be co-producing a new summer theatre festival at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre... we'll be looking for volunteers and donations in the new year!

But now it's holiday time and Left Right Minds will be closed from December 23, 2009 until January 4, 2010. We'll be checking our e-mail but if you need to reach us, the best way is by cellphone (Shane Birley 778.386.7220 or Allyson McGrane 604.671.0890).We hope you've all had a lovely 2009 and we are looking forward to working with you in 2010!

That about does it for me at this point.  I am off to ready myself for more Christmas excitement and finish up a few things before a well deserved break.  I wasn't able to get back to everyone today but if you have any emergencies, don't hesitate to drop me an e-mail.

Daniel Martin from Up In The Air Theatre dropped me a line today for some help with his website.  He said he was having a few problems embedding a Youtube video into his web site.  I sent him a few words of help and got him up and running fairly quickly.  Then I got a little curious about the video because I remembered that he and Dave Mott had disappeared into the wilds of Montana to do some research for their next project.

"What's the video about?" I asked.

"You have to see it.  Just watch it.  It makes Dave and me look like a couple of goofs."  He replied.

This is theatre in the making, boys and girls - pure, unadulterated live performance.  From the amount of effort going into this production I can tell that it is going to rock.  I can't wait for part two!

Technorati Tags: daniel martin, david mott, up in the air theatre, theatre, johnny grant

Hey, Left Right Minds followers.  One of our clients, Springboard Performance, has a great project called containR that launches this week.  If you are in Vancouver, why not head over to the Vancouver Public Library's main downtown branch and check it out. 

Think of it as green cinema meets performance films. Recycled shipping containers are reconfigured to house free screenings of Canadian and international dance, sport and performance films that celebrate physicality in art and sport.

Presented by Springboard in partnership with the Vancouver 2009 Cultural Olympiad, containR is a street installation at the nexus of video, public art and urban design. Sited on the northeast corner of Vancouver’s Library Square, containR sits at the cross roads of mountain and urban culture; art and sport cinema, embracing public art and sustainable design.

By using reconditioned shipping containers and integrating alternative energy sources, the installation references Vancouver’s rich history as a major port as well as a centre for green design. It also features artwork by Vancouver artists Zak David (aka Virus) and the dark.

containR asks the question: where is the line between art and sport? How does a dance performance differ from a snowboarder’s ‘performance’ on the slopes? What are the differences between how the body is used by athletes or artists? How is this reflected in cinema? containR allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

The project will run from today until March 1st, 2009.  It will also be re-appearing in different places around Vancouver in the coming months.

Technorati Tags: containr, sports, environment, dance, film festival