About Calgary's Cultural District
What
Located in the heart of the city, Calgary's Cultural District is home to dozens of arts and culture hotspots like galleries, museums, theatres, concert halls and outdoor festival space, plus excellent shopping, dining and nightlife all within a few browsable blocks.
The Cultural District is a public gathering place and offers a tantalizing mix of things to see and do including browsable streets with surprises and discoveries on every block, a hotspot for creativity and experimentation, street vendors and markets, festivals, parades, fireworks, great food and a place for reading, relaxing and people watching.
Video
Where
The Cultural District encompasses 14 blocks of downtown Calgary and includes many of Calgary's arts and culture venues including the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts, the recently restored Grand Theatre, Vertigo Theatre, the Glenbow Museum, the Art Gallery of Calgary, Cantos Music Foundation and Art Central, along with many other galleries and music venues.
Close to the downtown transit lines, the District also includes several major hotels, the Calgary Tower, Stephen Avenue Walk and Olympic Plaza, a key Calgary landmark that served as the medal ceremonies site for the 1988 Winter Olympic Games.
Why
The vision for the Cultural District is to become Calgary's - and one of Canada's - most loved urban destinations for arts and entertainment.
The Cultural District offers a place that melds history and the future, reflect's Calgarians enormuous zest for life, capacity for innovation and is a place where Calgary can come together as one.
Who
The Cultural District Renaissance Society of Alberta, a non-profit operating as the Cultural District, is a group of property owners, business managers, arts organizations, attractions, hotels, restaurants, retailers and citizens.
The group has been working together since 2001 to animate and promote the Cultural District, working closely with many community members including The City of Calgary, the Calgary Downtown Association and Calgary Arts Development.
SILVER: 25 Years of Children's Art
The Museum of Contemporary Art, in conjunction with the City of Calgary's Wildflower and North Mount Pleasant Art Centres, presents:
MOCA CALGARY CELEBRATES 25 YEARS OF
CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY AND THEIR TALENTS
IN A WHIMSICAL EXHIBITION:
SILVER: 25 YEARS OF CHILDREN’S ART
We're Gonna Die (by Young Jean Lee, NY)
2 May 2012 - 8:00pm
- 2 May 2012 - 8:00pm
THEATRE JUNCTION presents
By Young Jean Lee (New York)
Canadian Premiere!
May 2 – 5, 2012
The clearest indication that the avant–garde isn’t dead, and has never been funnier.
New York Magazine
Time Out New York - Lee confirms herself as one of the best experimental playwrights in America.
Alley Oop
On Friday May 4th, Mercury Opera, Downtown Calgary and Stephen Avenue present Alley Oop, a unique operatic performance and celebration of the downtown core while reclaiming an alley for the urban landscape.
Stroll Calgary's historic Stephen Avenue in a festival atmosphere, stopping at participating host businesses, sampling light bites and refreshments while enjoying pop-up performances by Volante string quartet before being ushered into the back alley for a unique and moving mini oepra spectacle of some of opera's greatest hits sung by rising talent. All staged and performed in a totally unexpected manner with dazzling costumes by Natasha Lazarovic of Temnafialka.com.
Afterward, meet the cast at a "through the back door" prohibition-style premiere afterparty with nibbles, refreshments (exchange your passport holder for one complimentary beverage at either the James Joyce Tavern (Belvedere vodka cocktail) OR one beer at The Palomino (Village Brewing Company)) and music - and to talk about the fearless performance.
For more information about artists, event sponsors and participating businesses, visit MercuryOpera.com.
This Is My City - FESTIVAL FINALE
Join us on the Festival’s closing night for a spirited celebration!
See live performances, film screenings, art exhibits, and more. Be inspired by artists who portray their city in innovative ways.
Contribute your vision of Calgary to our collaborative mural in the back alley.
Raise your voice in honour of the inaugural This is My City Festival and in anticipation of many more!
The EPCOR CENTRE presents...
NEW FIRST THURSDAY EVENTS
yycARTS CoLAB
5:30pm to 7:00pm (every Thursday until June 7)
EPCOR CENTRE’s Arts Learning Centre, Centre Court
yycARTS CoLAB is a free program that provides an opportunity for the public and artists of different disciplines to collaborate in real-time and be inspired to interact and explore in a welcoming and inclusive environment, embarking on a journey of artistic discovery.
Everyone is welcome!
FREE
Artist Reception
5:00pm to 8:00 pm
EPCOR CENTRE, Ledge Gallery
Join us for a celebration of visual and media arts at this joint reception. Artists currently exhibiting at EPCOR CENTRE’s Window Galleries, Ledge Gallery and Gallery of Media Arts will be in attendance (see below).
FREE
Fun and Fanciful
6am – midnight
EPCOR CENTRE, Window Galleries (outside Max Bell Theatre)
EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts is thrilled to present works by Calgary-based artists, Jane Durham, collaborative drawing trio drunken paw, Kathryn Blair and Stephanie Murray. The new exhibits showcase playful and whimsical themes through collaborative drawing, plaster, ceramic and porcelain sculptural installations while expanding traditional notions of what constitutes art-making practices.
FREE
The Uses of Enchantment by Erin Belanger
6am – midnight
EPCOR CENTRE’s Ledge Gallery – located above Centre Court, T2G 0K9
By seeking to stimulate collective-memory through a short nostalgic narrative of the fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk, Calgary-based artist Erin Belanger showcases how a simplistic fable can operate on a deep level to reveal universal truths. Participants are encouraged to question what is truly of value to them by playfully bartering for some enchanted beans.
FREE
Mortality, memory and history (threefilms)
Gallery of Alberta Media Arts (GAMA):
6am – midnight
EPCOR CENTRE, three video monitors: +15 near CKUA; second level of Jack Singer Concert Hall west end
West end of Jack Singer Concert Hall main floor foyer, Near Baraka Café and the stained glass window
EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts is proud to partner with the Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society to present a selection of short films, animation and video created by Xstine Cook, Jesse Gouchey, Dan Hudson and Stefanie Wong.
FREE
The Collaborative Spectrum
OPENING NIGHT
Group AB-strakt 373
Endeavor Arts
Fools Tales
Fools Tales
CURATOR'S TALK & TOUR by Jeffrey Spalding
FREE at MOCA:
Street Life Curator’s Talk and Tour – Jeffrey Spalding
Join us after work at MOCA for a glass of wine, personal tour, informal talk and walk through the exhibition "Street Life" with its curator, Jeffrey Spalding.
Talk and Tour begin at 5:00 PM, cash bar opens at 4:00.
Jeffrey Spalding is an artist, writer and curator. He has served as Director at major art museums, including Glenbow Museum, University of Lethbridge, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Appleton Museum of Art, Florida. He is author of numerous books and catalogues and organizer of several exhibitions including Canada’s visual art entry for Expo 93 Korea. Spalding was President, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (2007-2010). Jeffrey Spalding has been a recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including: of the Alberta College of Art and Design Board of Governors Award of Excellence (1992) awarded the Order of Canada (2007), and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012). Currently, Spalding serves as the Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Calgary.
First Thursday at Parkerhouse Grill & Wine Bar
FIRST THURSDAY at PARKERHOUSE, 131-6 Ave SW
