Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Telling Tales Festival 2016, at Westfield Heritage Village

Main Stage Audience at Telling Tales Festival 2016 - Photo by M.L.Holton

I had the good fortune of attending my first Telling Tales Festival (now in it's 8th year) at Westfield Heritage Village this past Sunday. What a joy-filled & brilliant event this is!

The Festival convincingly engages & entertains on multiple levels, all geared towards developing and encouraging interest in literacy for youngsters. The focus is 'story-telling' at its very finest.

A 'Good Book' gives so much, much more then just 'a story'. Converting a child to read in this current age of 'screen dominance' is, seemingly, an up-hill battle. But, as the author, Dr.Daniel Coleman, rightly explains in this video, literacy can OPEN a child's IMAGINATION in ways unimaginable by just vision-based content. It creates complex synaptic associations that build the ground-work for future constructive & creative thinking. It envelops the MIND in worlds outside of one's own experience or knowledge. All told, a Good Book nurtures a profound love of the essential 'code' of language - WORDS. 

What follows are my own impressions from my first visit to this heart-warming Festival. It's like nothing I've ever seen or heard before.  I truly wish 'Telling Tales' would SPREAD nation-wide like wildfire ...

Much credit must go to the Festival founder, Susan Jasper: a woman with a clear & well-developed innate literate VISION ... KUDOS to the WHOLE 'Telling Tales' team!!

And, next year, For Sure, GO with your Children!


Impressions of Telling Tales Festival 2016 from canadada on Vimeo.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Footage from Premiere of The FROZEN GOOSE

NB: This is my first time posting with Bloggers innate video tool.
FYI,  it does NOT link to Youtube, so don't bother popping over there ...
(You can use the bracket tool on the lower right corner to enlarge the video to full-screen.
 Quality is not so hot when you do that. So far, it seems to work on PCs, but not on APPLE mobile products.)


Canadian artist/filmmaker, Margaret Lindsay Holton, introduces Mayor Rick Goldring at the World (!) Premiere of The FROZEN GOOSE at the Art Gallery of Burlington, (Ontario, Canada) on September 11th, 2016.  The Mayor offers up amusing insights into acting & local film production ... Missing is second speaker, CEO of the Art Gallery, Robert Steven. No footage of that.


Canadian Fiddler  David Clarence MacLean sets the pace for the 1st screening of classic Canadian short story The FROZEN GOOSE, during the World Premiere at the Art Gallery of Burlington (Ontario, Canada) on September 11th, 2016.



Between the two screenings of the FROZEN GOOSE, fab folk group Whiskey Epiphany - led by fiddler extraordinaire (and cast member) David Clarence MacLean - entertain with toe-tapping traditional rural reels. Excerpts of that fine performance are included in this final clip.

All footage generously supplied to MLH Productions by David's wonderful mum, Judy Holbrook.
THANKS JUDY!