The time has come for every reasonably sized city in BC to open up their proverbial creative stage and flaunt what they have to offer for BC Culture Days.
Since 2009, British Columbia’s Bridge Arts and Community, a non-profit charitable organization, gets together with up to 10 artist ambassadors and promotes the awareness of arts and culture. This year, each of these artistic ambassadors is given $1,000 worth of work with a professional mentor; the ambassadors also get to present their own art at the event. These teams create and establish connections with people who may or may not have had the chance to explore their particular style of art.
The Victoria ambassador this year is Dyana Sonik-Henderson, the artistic director of the non-profit dance company Broken Rhythms. Broken Rhythms specializes in rhythmical contemporary, a style with numerous influences, including jazz and hip-hop. Sonik-Henderson found out about BC Culture Days when an ambassador from a previous year contacted her.
“I got contacted two years ago by the ambassador who was representing Victoria,” says Sonik-Henderson. “She encouraged me to put up an event for Culture Days, and through that introduction I got introduced to the website and saw how many classes were being offered and how diverse it was.”
Sonik-Henderson says that the new program of mentorship is in honour of Culture Days celebrating its tenth year. Each ambassador works with a senior artist who can offer both creative and professional advice.
“I am doing dance, but there is going to be a ton of arts, classes, photography; someone is even doing a treasure hunt,” says Sonik-Henderson. “There are a bunch of interesting events coming up. I believe it is to bring awareness of the arts and to bring accessibility and engagement of Canadians in the arts and cultural life in the community.”
Sonik-Henderson encourages anyone who has been interested in dance to break out of their own barriers and check out her workshop.
“I am doing a rhythmical contemporary workshop at Dance Victoria, which I chose because it is so central, so people can come to the class and experience movement,” says Sonik-Henderson. “There are going to be some advanced dancers there, as well as people who have never danced before, and we are just going to be introducing the dance to everyone.”
Sonik-Henderson believes that there is an artist residing in everyone, whether they know it or not.
“There are so many different levels of being an artist,” she says. “Some people work at it full-time, some of them do their art and instruct as well. Some people haven’t discovered it yet. It is amazing how many people have that side to them, that artistic, expressive, connecting side.”
Sonik-Henderson understands that her own part in Culture Days is to help people connect with that creativity.
“It’s a chance for people who have not experienced the arts fully to really get a feel of it,” she says. “A good example is in one of my own dance classes, I get a lot of people who say they’re not dancers. And my belief is we are all dancers; we are all movers. My interest in this is taking away some of those boundaries. They might be stopping people from expressing who they really are.”
BC Culture Days 2019
Various times,
Friday, September 27 to Sunday, September 29
Various venues
culturedays.ca