CENTRE NEWS

 Shortly, thereafter, we formed the Centre for Performing ARTS as a non profit corporation, filing for registered charity status, and moved forward to acquire space in an old heritage (but run down and seldom used) theatre, f/k/a Yeo’s theatre. This theatre was once the mecca and melting pot for community activity, starting with the first flicker films being brought to patrons who came by horse drawn carriages to watch magic on the great silver screen by entrepreneur, Bruce Yeo.

So, we felt as though we are not only right at home in the old theatre, but in excellent company of the visionaries who came before us.  In early 2005, we breathed light and life into the darkened hallways and stage, illuminating the footlights once again and named ourselves, The Centre for Performing ARTS, and our performance stage was affectionately dubbed, The Cavern. Those footlights came on in June of 2005, and I am happy to say we are hitting our mark and exceeding our own expectations in our mission statement and our goals. In August, 2009, we acquired a new facility, formerly used as campus to Holland College, East, at 239 Valleyfield Road, and began carving out our goals and dreams of expanding to a regional arts, culture and heritage facility for Eastern PEI.

Our initial mandate was to bring affordability, accessibility, and availability in the Arts to the community of Montague. Imagine our surprise when that community actually extended itself all the way out to Souris, Eldon, Belfast, Wood Islands, Murray Harbour, Murray River, St. Peters, St. Theresa, Mt.Stewart, Morrell and communities all in between. Why we even have students attending from Charlottetown, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and even the US for our summer camps and to provide student internships in the ARTS to young budding artists to train and grow. <;/span>

Our stage has enjoyed many artists from both afar and away, near and close in all sorts of concerts, events, plays, theatrical performances, live pageants, and coffee houses. From the likes of Chuck and Albert to SlowCoaster to the local garage bands, we’ve enjoyed a wealth of good talent, which there never seems to be a shortage of. We’ve hosted Maritime Idol so that up and coming rising stars would have the opportunity to showcase their talents and vie for the title of PEI regional winner and go on to compete with other provinces.

Shortly after landing in the theatre, we formed the School for Performing ARTS with one dance class for youth with one student enrolled, and one teen respectively. Today that number has grown to the healthy proportion of youth classes, teen classes, adult classes and programs for youth, teens, adults, and seniors in dance, music, and drama with everything from ballet to tap and step, hip hop, modern, lyrical, to Latin ballroom and even belly dancing. We even teach couples to dance for their Wedding Day spotlight dance. Our theatre/drama dept. offers youth, teen, adult, senior adult, and women’s theatre with classes, workshops, and performances.  The Music Program has expanded to include vocals, guitar, piano, violin/fiddle, and flute.

Visual Arts has been added this year headed up by a local artist and teacher offering everything from acrylics, watercolours, oil, pastels and folk art, as well as Creative ARTS a combination of both drama with visual arts.

It’s always a good day, when you can attract staff to do what they love doing best…..artists teaching their craft and enjoying it.

One of the areas of concern recently identified by the PEI Cultural Sector Council of which I am a board member, was that there would be a significant shortage and drop off in professionals within the cultural industry, if we continued to neglect and address employment for those dedicated and educated in the cultural sector fields. As the numbers of our artistic professionals continue to grow in age and head for retirement, doors have been closing in terms of replacement staff, and in many instances those professions are becoming instinct simply because our youth graduate and leave this province for lack of work or the lure of work and the promise of big bucks elsewhere. It’s time we think seriously about the impact that this will have on this generation of upcoming graduates as well as our future generations.

Having community and regional ARTS Centres such as ours is our future if we are to preserve our cultural heritage and richness.

Our Centre is a non profit but sustainable corporation with a mandate forfiscal responsibility. We attain that responsibility through our tuition, our admissions to events, donations, grants directly related to programs and/or performances from the stage, as well as in house fund raising. The Centre for Performing ARTS is a Canadian registered charitable organization. We are proud of our accomplishments and look forward to a healthy vision of growth in our future. We do not receive any operating funds from government but work hard to keep ourselves sustainable through good sound business management and accountability.

Some of the goals of our initial mandate have already taken place with our School, our stage, and The Screening Room. Thanks to the generosity and support from businesses and our patrons, as well as the tenacity of our students and parents in selling lobster raffle tickets, we’ve been able to secure a state of the arts projector to bring movies back to Montague . Once again, just as Bruce Yeo did back in the day, we will have the wonders of cinematic art come to life down East.

The common thread heard at the many Montague visionary meetings that I’ve attended was that people wanted to have wholesome family entertainment. They wanted to be able to watch movies here again Montague. I am happy to report that will be happening very soon with the launching of our Family Movie Nights, and Saturday morning cartoon shows as well as independent film makers launching the premier of their films, and hopefully one day hosting a film festival right here in Montague.

Part of our 3-5 year plan also included establishing a community radio station, and we have made application to be able to do so and are in the throws of the tedious and endless mounds of CRTC paper work. Imagine one day driving around in your car in this area, and hearing a local broadcast, and maybe even a “traffic report”, in our Eye on Montague, or local community programming being broadcast right here in the heart of our lovely town. These are not pipe dreams, they are a vision..and one that is very attainable and do able.

BUT, we cannot do it alone..it was never about ‘me” doing it alone…It just wouldn’t make sense, or be much fun. So it is with immense pride that I tell you that we have now grown to the extent, that we have formed a preliminary board to found a “regional arts center” which will include the Center for Performing ARTS, as well as the Schools of Music, Dance, and Theatre, the Screening Room, CMON-FM Radio Station, and the newest part of our organization, ARTSpace East Gallery which will be a full scale visual arts gallery and school for art. We hope to include such programs as community schools once again here in Montague, as well as attracting programs through the seniors college, and perhaps, to provide access and space to the Montague family of schools and surrounding communities to provide classrooms for arts programs to our students.

It is our anticipation that we will have the support of our local as well as provincial government, our business community, our civic leaders, from all over down east to come together to see this dream become a reality. It will be a collaborated effort and a dream to build a regional arts facility with nearby communities coming together in support of a common goal….that is to have ARTS well represented in a facility, down east.

Now that the wellness centre and the regional high school are completed, we hope to be the next project for this region..a partnership and marriage of the many communities down east with a sharp and keen eye toward the future. We will be complete..we will have our regional wellness center, our new regional high school, and our new regional state of the arts…Cultural Arts Center.

We intend to utilize the existing infrastructure and facilities to build a state of the art theatre and facility which will be affordable, accessible, and available to not only Montague but to all the communities in Eastern PEI including our schools with educational arts programs and outreach creating a partnership of literacy through the ARTS for all ages. We’ve just spent almost 6 years on the prototype..and proven that if we build it they would come…it’s time to take this a step forward, a giant leap forward, into the future, and into the realm of what we deserve for our cultural preservation for generations to come. Our goals are to create partnerships so that together we can have a cultural arts presence here in Eastern PEI for all artists regardless of discipline choice.

I hope you will support our endeavors and share our vision for REACH: Regions East ARTS CULTURE HERITAGE. We are always looking for people to get involved and welcome your input as well as support.

Very truly yours,

Virginia Winter

Executive Director