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Arts briefs

Life Drawing naked people is now a bi-weekly affair

The Whistler Arts Council (WAC) is now offering two life-drawing sessions per week, from 4 - 6 p.m. on Monday evenings and 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday mornings. Participants will sketch models in various gesture poses, from 30 seconds to five minutes, to hour-long poses where artists can create more detailed sketches and paintings of their nude subjects.

These are drop-in sessions and are open to anyone with any ability or lack thereof. Participants don't have to show their work, nothing is graded and instructor Lisa Geddes said there is no pressure.

"There are people who had never done it before and now love it and come all the time and have really improved," she said.

She will occasionally offer instruction for beginners a half-hour before the session, going over the basics for life drawing. As the classes have been rising in popularity they have been attracting between 10 to 15 people per day and everybody from seasonal residents to lifelong seniors.

"Really it's for anyone: young, old, beginner, advanced," Geddes said.

Drop in fees are $15 for non-WAC members. There are a variety of flex passes available for members.

 

Canada's Worst Driver looking for Whistlerites

Bad drivers. They are out there and they are numerous. They are our sons, our wives, and our godfathers. They make driving difficult and unpleasant and Canada's Worst Driver wants to help them out.

The Discovery-channel's top-rated program is enlisting Whistler's worst drivers for their upcoming seventh season.

"Anything that affects their ability to drive at a competent standard we will consider them and we're in the habit of trying to improve upon it as well," said the show's executive producer, Guy O' Sullivan

While showcasing the nation's worst drivers, O'Sullivan said they also treat the experience as a rehabilitation program for bad drivers by teaching them the basic skills of operating a motor vehicle - of which, he said, there are an astonishing number of people who lack these basic skills.

"We're very experienced at figuring out what people's proficiency levels are and what kind of hope there is to improve them," he said.

If you're a bad driver or would like to nominate someone for the show, call 1 866 598 2591 or email them at driver@propertelevision.com . The producers will come out to "observe the driver in their natural habitat," and if they still think they're bad enough, they'll invite them on the show.

 

Whistler Secondary Drama Club learns "How to Succeed in Business..."

If it's good enough for Harry Potter, it's good enough for Whistler Secondary.

As Daniel Ratcliff brings the seven-time Tony-award-winning musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying to Broadway for its 50th anniversary, so too will the high school's Drama Club visit the play for three nights at Millennium Place. It's not quite the same thing, but it's better than a high school version of Spiderman.

The production will run from Friday, March 11 to Sunday, March 13, telling the story of a young window cleaner, J. Pierrepont Finch, and his great success in the business world....without really trying. The original stage play won a 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle award and is generally regarded as being great.

Tickets are $5, $10 and $15 and available at Millennium Place or online at arts.whistler.tix.com. An open-dress fundraiser for parents only will take place tonight March 10.

 

Drum Making workshop at the SLCC

Look, if you're not connected to the heartbeat of Mother Earth, you're missing out on, well, the most important heartbeat of all time. This heartbeat unites the planet dude! Get with it! Rock on with that fantastic rhythm! And so on.

And what better way than to make your own drum, the great conductor connecting the resonant sound of the human heart to lovely Mother Earth. Aboriginal cultures have been on this train for thousands of years and now the Squamish and Lil'wat nations want to share it with you at their cultural centre, this Sunday, March 13, from 1 to 3 p.m. It costs $130 but at least you can keep the drum, and beat in sync to the planet that gave you life, and thus the ability to make that $130 in the first place. That's a plum deal, when you think about it.

Call Tsawavsia at 604 897 1421 or email her at tsawaysia@hotmail.com , or visit the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre, to register.

 

Applications for Student Art Award now open

The Whistler Art's council is accepting applications for the Student Art Award from Grade 12 students graduating from schools in Whistler, Pemberton and Mt. Currie who have shown artistic excellence in the visual, performing, literary and media arts.

A student from each school will win the $500 award, and another $100 award will be given to students graduating from Myrtle Philip, Spring Creek Community School in Whistler, as well as Signal Hill Elementary and Ecole La Passerelle in Pemberton.

Applicants must submit a portfolio of three to four recent works that were completed in addition to school projects, as well as a letter from a teacher stating that the works were created outside the classroom. Deadline is May 6 and the awards will be presented during the graduation ceremonies of each school in June.

Visit artswhistler.com for the application form, or for more information.