| Naked protest
Members of the Calgary Animal Rights Coalition will be shedding their clothes to protest the fur trade on February 11.
The group has decided to revive the anti-fur slogan "We’d rather go naked than wear fur" for this year’s protest.
"We’ve got a few people who are going to be as legally naked as possible in a public area," says coalition spokesperson Michael Alvarez-Toye. "We’re trying to bring about the message that it’s cruel. It’s an antiquated and completely unnecessary fashion statement to be adorning themselves with dead animals and we’re doing it in a way that’s going to be a bit of good humour, if you will."
The protest will take place in front of Renfrew Fur between noon and 1:30 p.m. on February 11.
Theatre Junction to have full-time ensemble
Theatre Junction has received a $760,000 donation from a private benefactor that will allow the company to hire a full-time multi-disciplinary ensemble. Currently most theatre artists work on contract without any permanency.
Artistic director Mark Lawes says the money will allow his theatre company to hire 12 theatre professionals and pay them up to $35,000 for a ten-month contract. The company has enough money to pay the ensemble for two years, and is currently fundraising to extend that. Lawes says the average annual salary for performing artists in Alberta is a meagre $13,490, so the potential to make $35,000 would be very attractive.
"What’s unique about this company that we’re putting together is it’s a multi-disciplinary company, so it’s not just a company of actors…. But this will be actors, dancers, choreographers, writers, visual artists, so it will be diverse," says Lawes.
Lawes says Theatre Junction will be doing a cross-Canada search for talent for the new ensemble and he’s excited about what it will enable Theatre Junction to do.
"I think it just really allows us to pursue the creation of new work, especially multi-disciplinary work and contemporary theatre," he says.
Harry and Martha Cohen Award recipient named
Clarice Evans has been awarded this year’s Harry and Martha Cohen Award for her contribution to Calgary’s theatre community. The award includes a $1,400 cash prize and the recipient’s name is inscribed on a scroll that hangs in the lobby of the Martha Cohen Theatre. It is given out annually to an individual who has made an "outstanding and long-term" contribution to the city’s theatre scene.
Evans has been involved in many aspects of theatre as an actor, teacher, mentor, promoter and patron. She most recently played the role of Martha in Vertigo Theatre’s production of Arsenic and Old Lace.
Controversy over fate of head grizzly biologist continues
The provincial government is continuing to deny that Gordon Stenhouse was removed from his position as the province’s head grizzly biologist after comments he made to the media.
Stenhouse is also interim chair of the grizzly bear recovery team and in January he expressed concerns that the province still hadn’t taken any action on the team’s plan, which it submitted a year ago. The plan recommended temporarily suspending the grizzly hunt until the grizzly population was high enough to sustain one.
Alberta Sustainable Resource Development spokesperson Dave Ealey says Stenhouse was seconded from his job as grizzly biologist to do research at the province’s Foothills Model Forest in September 2003, and he wasn’t removed from his job as chief grizzly biologist last month due to media comments.
However, Peter Zimmerman, member of Alberta’s grizzly bear recovery team, which Stenhouse chaired, says Stenhouse sent out an e-mail to all recovery team members on January 31, 2006.
"It just said that he had recently been informed he was no longer the provincial grizzly bear biologist," says Zimmerman. "From our external perspective it looks that he was punished for doing his job."
Zimmerman says the recovery team knew Stenhouse had been seconded to the Foothills Model Forest, but understood that he was still the province’s lead grizzly biologist.
"As far as we were concerned, that secondment didn’t mean he was no longer the provincial grizzly bear biologist," says Zimmerman. "By title, we understand he was that and certainly the role he played was that."
Stenhouse is still listed as grizzly biologist in the government’s online directory. Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA) spokesperson Nigel Douglas says Stenhouse gave a presentation at the AWA last year "and he was the grizzly specialist then." Stenhouse was unavailable for comment.
Meanwhile, Ealey says the government will soon be releasing information that several environmental groups have been demanding be made public, including grizzly DNA population estimates and details of the grizzly recovery team’s plan.
Ealey says both were undergoing a third party review, but now that it’s finished, they will soon be released to the public. He says the government will announce whether this year’s grizzly hunt will proceed soon.
Correction
The story on Dancers’ Studio West’s Alberta Dance Explosions in the February 2-8, 2006 issue contained an incorrect phone number for tickets and information. The correct phone number is 244-0950. |
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