Friday, November 24
Friday, November 24
8pm – BESSIE WAPP & KIYO ELKUF – a night of music
at Oxygen Art Centre

Kootenay-raised musicians Bessie Wapp and Kiyo Elkuf are so “rural” they make the distinction between one growing up in Queens Bay versus the other growing up near Toad Rock a few kilometres down the highway!  Please join us for a night of music and reflections about becoming an artist in the Kootenays.

Bessie Wapp is a Kootenay-raised musician, theatre artist, educator, and Nelson Cultural Ambassador (2015) who was based in Vancouver for 20+ years. Bessie created original works with some of Western Canada’s most exciting groups (Mortal Coil, Zeellia, Electric Co., Caravan Farm Theatre, Only Animal, Old Trout Puppet Workshop, Radix, Vancouver Symphony) and toured extensively (Lincoln Centre: NYC, Festival D’ete: Montreal, and Zagreb Danceweek: Croatia). In 2006 Nelson’s vibrant arts scene called Bessie home and she co-founded Twin Fish Theatre as a vehicle to create & produce original theatre works (Hello, I Must Be Going, Loco Phantasmo, Letters from Lithuania). When not conducting the Blue House and Common House Choirs, singing the song of the Roasted Swan (Carmina Burana), teaching her well-known Singing the Blues class, harmonizing with the Kootenay Divas, or composing for interactive sound sculptures (Summoning, Oxygen Art Centre), Bessie takes great pleasure in playing her little red accordion. With a focus on strong lyric content, Bessie’s musical terrain is diverse – singer/songwriter, jazz, Eastern European folk, Southern blues, cabaret and beyond!

Upstream Benefits – Rural Art Symposium’ is a 4-day-long symposium that explores and celebrates the role and impact that the arts have in rural communities and will bring into focus artist-run culture in the Kootenays.  Symposium programming includes multiple panel discussions, artist talks, literary readings, a night of performance art and music and an art exhibition.  All symposium programming is free to attend and everyone is welcome!  (Donations are appreciated.)

For more information and to see the symposium schedule link here https://oxygenartcentre.org/upstream-benefits-symposium/

Oxygen Art Centre gratefully acknowledges support for this programming from Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance, Columbia Basin Trust, British Columbia Arts Council and Province of British Columbia, Touchstones Nelson Museum of Art and History, The Writers’ Union of Canada, Elephant Mountain Literary Festival, Pacific Association of Artist-Run Centres, City of Nelson, Region District of Central Kootenay, Hall Printing, Nelson Star and the Hume Hotel.