Artbeat

Ontario Mennonite Music Camp explores ‘pride and prejudice’

Laura Bruno (Eliza Doolittle), Josh Neufeldt (Henry Higgins), Kate Strathdee (Eliza Doolittle), and Ben Thiessen (Colonel Hugh Pickering) perform in My Fair Lady. At music camp roles are often shared and at this point the two Elizas were changing places. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)

When Linnea Thacker suggested to her co-director of Ontario Mennonite Music Camp, Elizabeth Rogalsky Lepock, that they perform a shortened version of My Fair Lady as the musical at the camp’s closing program, Lepock wondered at its non-religious content.

7th Cousins auto-mythography

Christine Brubaker (left) and Erin Brubacher walk the last kilometre of 700 as they approach the Brubacher house on the grounds of the University of Waterloo. An invitation had gone out and a number of people joined them for the last hour of the journey. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)

Erin Brubacher and Christine Brubaker are seventh cousins, more or less. Before their 700-kilometre walk from Brubaker Valley Road in Lancaster, Pa., to the historic John E. Brubacher House in Waterloo, Ont., they discovered a common ancestor, Hans Bruppacher, born in Switzerland in the 1600s. Erin comes from the Abraham Brubacher line and Christine from the Hans Brubacher line.

Concerts raise funds for relief

Bethany Horst sings in the benefit concert in Kitchener on May 24, 2015, helping raise funds for MCC’s Nepal Relief fund. (Photo courtesy of the Grand Philharmonic Choir)

Six local Nepalese youth sing in the benefit concert in Kitchener on May 24, 2015, helping raise funds for MCC’s Nepal Relief fund. (Photo courtesy of the Grand Philharmonic Choir)

With the Canadian Federal Government’s pledge to match funds for Nepal relief coming to an end, a flurry of events in Waterloo and Toronto raised an additional $28,000 on May 24.

New Christian music festival focuses on justice

The Greenbelt Festival in the U.K. draws 20,000 people a year.

Diem Lafortune (Mama D), nominated for a 2013 Canadian Aboriginal Songwriter of the Year Award, will play at the inaugural Skylight Festival, in Paris, Ont., this summer. (Photo by Bear Image Productions Marchand/Vaugeois)

Organizers of Canada’s newest festival of music, faith and social justice hope that the Skylight Festival will invigorate a generation of socially conscious Christians.

Pax Christi Chorale revives Judith oratorio

Soloist Jillian Yemen (mezzo-soprano) sings to four young singers from the St. Michael`s Choir School who played the king’s sons in the Pax Christi Chorale’s May 3, 2015, performance of Parry’s Judith. (Photo by Dave Rosgalsky)

The apocryphal book of Judith contains the story of a righteous Jewish widow who saves her people from the ravages of the Assyrian/Babylonian army led by Holofernes. While her city is besieged she leaves with her maid and is welcomed into the general’s tent. He thinks he will seduce her, but when he is alone with her and drunk from partying, she beheads him.

‘Inspired by his own vision’

Ken Esau, right, director of biblical studies at Columbia Bible College, cuts the ribbon opening the Metzger Collection to the public. At left is Greg Thiessen, collection manager. (Photo by Amy Dueckman)

Columbia Bible College student Shelby Gulka views a life-size replica of the Rosetta Stone on display as part of the Metzger Collection. The discovery of the stone in 1799 was a valuable key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. (Photo by Amy Dueckman)

A one-of-a-kind collection of museum-quality art and artifact replicas has found a permanent home at Columbia Bible College. With the cut of a ribbon, the Metzger Historical Collection was officially opened to the public on March 14 in the basement of Columbia’s Resource Centre.

‘A window into our shared local history’

‘Barn raising,’ an iconic image by David L. Hunsberger of mutual aid, has come to define the essence of community for many, including Governor General David Johnston. (Photo by David L. Hunsberger, The Mennonite Archives of Ontario)

With his camera and notepad, David L. Hunsberger captured on film Mennonite life in Waterloo Region in the 1950s and ’60s. (The Mennonite Archives of Ontario)

Pastor Wilfred Ulrich greets his congregation at Stirling Ave. Mennonite Church, Kitchener, Ont., on a Sunday morning  in 1958. (Photo by David L. Hunsberger, The Mennonite Archives of Ontario)

Abner Martin, founder of the Menno Singers, examines one of David L. Hunsberger’s photographs on display at Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ont., at the show’s opening on Feb. 27, 2015. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)

The 1962 Mennonite World Conference assembly at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, Ont. (Photo by David L. Hunsberger, The Mennonite Archives of Ontario)

According to Paul Heidebrecht, director of Conrad Grebel University College’s MSCU Centre for Peace Advancement, “Advancing peace requires many hands. It requires shoulders to lean on, and to stand on. It is sustained by the mundane tasks that make daily life possible. Peace becomes possible when we experience genuine community.”

‘A place in the kingdom’

Artist Lynda Toews is pictured in her studio with some of her works from ‘A place in the kingdom: Paintings and heritage stories celebrating farm animals,’ on display at the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in Winnipeg until June 20. (Photo by Gary Brown)

‘Supper Chores’ by Lynda Toews (acrylic on canvas) - ‘I recently learned that there was a time when cows were milked right on the field, instead of being herded into barns,’ says artist Lynda Toews. ‘Of course the farmer may only have owned a few cows. The housebarn in the background was my great grandfather’s in Blumenhof, Man., and the late autumn afternoon landscape is invented.’

‘Equally Yoked’ by Lynda Toews (acrylic on canvas) - ‘I obtained permission from Janet Kehler, the graphic artist for the South East Manitoba Draft Horse Association, to use her photograph of Mark and Tracy Bergen’s Percheron mares,’ explains artist Lynda Toews. ‘Many of my paintings are based on photographs that members of this association have allowed me to take of their horses and this is much appreciated.’

‘Border Action’ by Lynda Toews (acrylic on canvas) - ‘We found this border collie running circles around the horse-jumping practice ring at Birds Hill Park,’ says artist Lynda Toews.

With brilliant and detailed clarity, Manitoba artist Lynda Toews has painted a series of farm animal portraits that will be on display at the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in Winnipeg from March 13 to June 20.

‘Bring the wall down’

Rhonda Harder Epp stands beside the final panel of ‘Green Lines,’ where the image of barbed wire unravelling leaves observers with hope for the eventual removal of barriers.

“Walls became an obsession when I went to Berlin in 2010,” artist Rhonda Harder Epp told the crowd at the opening of her Walls: Arbitrary Impediments art exhibition at King’s University College, Edmonton, last month.

Normal people doing normal things

The Rosco boys, from left to right: Trevor Hunsberger, producer; Ken Ogasawara, writer/actor; and Jonathan Steckley, writer/director. (Photo courtesy of Rosco Films)

Ken Ogasawara, right, hangs out with a friend in The Volunteer, exchanging stories and working through bad relationships. (Photo courtesy of Rosco Films)

When filmmakers get around to showing their work to their family and community, it is usually a past project for them.

Such was the case for Rosco Films, whose principals—Jon Steckley, Ken Ogasawara and Trevor Hunsburger—grew up at Shantz Mennonite Church, Baden, Ont.

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