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This article was published 28/09/2017 (3092 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nelson Tagoona

Not many people can say they’ve pioneered a style of music, but Nelson Tagoona can.

Not many people can say they’ve pioneered a style of music, but Nelson Tagoona can.

The 23-year-old from Baker Lake, Nunavut is a “throat-boxer,” a vocal style that combines traditional Inuit throat-singing with beatboxing. And his music isn’t just incredibly innovative — it’s also inspirational. Growing up in a remote community, music was both a refuge and an outlet for Tagoona, who lost his father to suicide and struggled with his own mental health issues. Having performed since he was a teenager, he’s forged strong bonds with his young Indigenous fans throughout the North — many of whom are going through the same challenges he did. In 2012, Tagoona was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work with youth.

This weekend, he’ll be in Winnipeg as part of Urban Shaman gallery’s Floe Edge: Contemporary Art and Collaborations from Nunavut exhibition. Tonight (Sept. 28), from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., he’ll be participating in a Meet and Greet at Urban Shaman with fellow Floe Edge artist Jamasie Pitseolak.

On Sept. 30, he will be performing at 10 p.m. on the rooftop of Deer + Almond as part of this year’s Nuit Blanche, a free, dusk-to-dawn celebration of contemporary art. Over 100 public art events will take place from 6 p.m. on Sept. 30 until 4 a.m. on Oct. 1 throughout downtown, the Exchange District, and St. Boniface.

Visit nuitblanchewinnipeg.ca for the full schedule of events.

— Jen Zoratti

 

Jane Goodall

In July 1960, Jane Goodall first set foot in Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in Tanzania. The 23-year-old British woman was there as a research assistant to famed anthropologist Louis Leakey, despite the fact that she had no university degree. Over the next two years, her patience and skill led to groundbreaking discoveries about the chimp population, including the fact that they use tools. In 1962, Goodall was accepted to Cambridge University as a PhD candidate on the strength of her work in Gomba.

In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research and in the decades since, the primatologist and ethologist has been a clear voice on conservation, sustainable agriculture and environmental issues. She founded the Roots and Shoots program in 1991 to inspire young people to become agents of community change.

On Friday, Sept. 29, Goodall will receive an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Winnipeg. The ceremony will take place at 12:30 p.m. in Convocation Hall.

Goodall will also speak about her life and ongoing work at the Burton Cummings Theatre that evening at 7 p.m. Tickets range from $40 to $125; all proceeds go to the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada to fund efforts to save Earth’s endangered species.

— Jill Wilson

 

Joe Calendino

You’ve got to sink pretty low in life to be kicked out of the Hells Angels — especially when you’re a full-patch member.

That’s exactly what happened to Vancouver’s Joe Calendino. A high-profile assault in Kelowna in 2005, fuelled in part by mounting drug use and ensuing violent behaviour, led to Calendino’s expulsion from the group.

But Calendino had yet to hit rock bottom. After his drug use intensified, Calendino was arrested in 2008 for trying to sell about $10 worth of crack cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was visited in jail shortly after by Kevin Torvik, a schoolmate who had taken a very different path than Calendino — he had become part of the Vancouver Police Department’s drug squad.

Something about Torvik’s visit sparked a change in Calendino — he knew he had to shake his crippling addiction.

“When you’re mired in addiction and you hit bottom multiple times, you start to feel the dirt on top of the coffin,” Calendino, now 49, recalls. “Call it psychosis, call it what you want… there was a moment of clarity sitting on the floor of that jail cell. Whether I had seen something or looked into my son’s eyes through some kind of dream, I just looked up at Kevin and said, ‘I never want to see a kid go through this.’”

Calendino’s downward spiral and difficult road to recovery (aided by his tight-knit family) is chronicled in To Hell and Back: A Former Hells Angel’s Story of Redemption and Recovery, a book written with Gary Little, Calendino’s former counsellor.

As he recovered, a support system of Calendino’s friends and family helped him shake his drug habit and put his life together. Calendino eventually went on to start Yo Bro / Yo Girl, an outreach initiative for kids that combines Joe’s story with a supporting curriculum and a martial arts program to help at-risk youth get out (or stay) of trouble — specifically drug and gang culture. The program has been adopted by school districts in Vancouver, Surrey and Chilliwack.

“It’s only getting worse,” says Calendino about the state of today’s drug culture. “Nobody could have predicted we’d have an elephant tranquillizer (carfentanil) that makes it into the streets, a drug called fentanyl that you can buy online. If they were around when I was hitting rock bottom, I wouldn’t be alive — there’s no question.”

And while not all law enforcement has been supportive of Calendino’s involvement in trying to get kids back on the right track, most have come around to the positive work being done by Yo Bro / Yo Girl. “There have been a lot of police officers from Delta, from Vancouver, through the RCMP who get it. They come into the program, participate with the kids. They understand it; they have a sense of compassion and care,” Calendino says.

“The kids who are in the program truly believe that Yo Bro / Yo Girl is an extension of their family. A lot of kids struggle with a variety of things at home. This, at times, is their safe place.”

Joe Calendino will launch To Hell and Back: A Former Hells Angel’s Story of Redemption and Recovery at McNally Robinson at 7:30 p.m. tonight.

— Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson

 

Slow Leaves

Last month, local singer-songwriter and Allan Slaight Juno Master Class winner Grant Davidson — who performs under the name Slow Leaves — released his newest album, Enough About Me, and followed it with a small show at the Handsome Daughter. Now, after a handful of Canadian tour dates, he’s back in Winnipeg for a larger show at the West End Cultural Centre tonight, Sept. 28.

Enough About Me is the followup to Davidson’s critically-acclaimed 2014 record, Beauty is so Common, which landed at No. 1 on the National Folk/Roots chart.

Davidson spoke to the Free Press earlier this year about the new music, saying he felt it is his most personal work to date.

“I feel like it’s a much more honest representation of where my musical ideas come from, but also as a songwriter I try continually to write more and more honestly from some sort of true place, like whatever that is, and that’s a process I’m a continually on. I’ll probably say that about my next record, too, that it’s my most personal, but it’s a process,” he said.

Tickets for the show are $15 and music starts at 8 p.m. with local songstress Carly Dow.

The first person to email leesa.dahl@freepress.mb.ca will take home a pair of tickets to tonight’s (Sept. 28) Slow Leaves’ Enough About Me album launch at the West End Cultural Centre. Doors open at 7:15 p.m. and the show gets underway at 8 p.m.

— Erin Lebar

 

Manitoba Mega Train

They hear that train a-comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend.

But instead of heading to San Antone, like in Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues, this train’s stopping at Red River Exhibition Park on Saturday, Sept. 30 and Sunday, Oct. 1 for Manitoba Mega Train 2017.

The event, launched by Vector Garden Trains, will include 17,000 square feet of model trains and 11 layouts designed and set up by hobbyists from across Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Last year, more than 3,000 model train enthusiasts of all ages checked out the displays, according to the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club’s website.

There will also be 95 vendor tables for those interested in expanding their collections.

Not fired up about model trains? Other types of toys will also be on display, including a pool for remote-controlled boats and submarines, a miniature doll house and hotel, and a diorama contest. Lego lovers will also have a chance to connect with a 3,000 square-foot display and play area.

Family passes are $20, while single adult tickets are $7, and kids four to12 are $5. Children under three are admitted free and all tickets include unlimited rides on the 7.5-gauge train that will rumble throughout the site

— Alan Small