One of the dancers at the PAGC Fine Arts Festival on Wednesday. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
On Wednesday, the Prince Albert Grand Council Fine Arts Festival crossed the halfway mark of its four-day event.
Already, there have been upwards of 1,600 kids from the different communities in the PAGC region cycling through the Senator Allan Bird Memorial Centre.
Not only are they performing for spectators in the centre of gym, they’re also practicing on their reserve’s buses or behind dividers in the crowded gym.
They manage to pack all the singing, dancing, art, poetry, and poetry performances by splitting into age divisions. The first two days are all for kids up to Grade 6, and the final two days are for Grade 7 to 12.
Shona Stapleton has been a key organizer for decades, and said it’s rewarding to see the hard work of the younger ones pay off as they enter the older division.
“You see that progression from practicing and from gettign into it and spending time doing something that you like to do. Like, the square dancing is amazing in the high school level,” she said.
Stapleton is a big believer in the arts as a way of finding meaning and confidence in those younger years.
“Not everybody is into sports. Not everybody is into academics. You’ve got people that don’t know where they belong yet and they’re trying to figure that out. And when you’re a teenager and you don’t know where you belong, I think it makes it tough for them. So I think by expressing themselves on paper or singing or acting in a play, I think it kind of helps them find themselves a little bit and gives them a little bit of strength and courage,” she said.
This isn’t just an event to make parents proud—Stapleton said officials from Prince Albert’s Mann Art Gallery comes to scout out the paintings that will be displayed over the summer.
“Art is important. I think some people just look at art as a fluff course or whatever, but really if you look at the art galleries and what they display, and the accomplishments of the artists and singers and actors… and see what it means to them, I think the students can see some of that in their future.”
The grand entry for the older categories started at 2 p.m. and spectators settled in to watch powwow dancing, jigging, square dancing and more throughout the rest of the day.
Thursday is focused on oratory, drama, and music before everyone heads back to their home communities.