By Robin Tarnowetzki
Journal Staff Writer
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Humboldt residents were exposed to a wide variety of arts and culture as part of the Canada-wide Culture Days on Sept. 26 and 27.
With the new gallery, the museum and gallery was able to put on more events in different venues, something that wasn't doable in other years.
One of those new venues was the street, with several different musicians providing a variety of music for anybody passing by on the street.
"We are always interested in educating our community and ourselves about all the different types of music that is out there, and especially because we are so lucky to have many people gathered in Humboldt, such a nice diversity, that it's nice to have that in our music as well," said Culture Days organizer, Annah Gullacher.
Friday saw performances from Lauchlan Maclean and Katie and Greg. Maclean performs traditional Scottish music and incorporates bagpipes and banjos, while Katie and Greg perform with a straightforward guitar and piano.
On Saturday, Kevin and Michele Ackerman performed classical music on flute and guitar.
"He does a lot of intricate finger movement and strumming and things like that," Gullacher said.
Sega Band had two performances on Saturday, showing the audience traditional Sega music, which is a genre that comes from Mauritius. The band performed both instrumentals and songs with lyrics. Sega music has origins in the music of slaves, and one version of it is used to protest injustice against the people on Mauritius. Their performance took place at the museum and people of all ages were seen dancing and clapping along to the beat.
In addition to the street performers, there were several workshops offered to school groups at the gallery. Students could learn about graphic novels from Humboldt resident Elaine Will, and then ask her questions about her career.
"Having a career-focused question and answer period is a new thing to do to think about careers in the arts," Gullacher said. "I think that's really new, so that was an exciting opportunity for us."
Students also learned clay sculpture from Sandy Christensen, who is originally from Watrous, and Sooraya Durgahee taught traditional Mauritian fabric painting on Friday and demonstrated how to do henna tattoos on Saturday.
"We see a lot of new cultures being welcomed to our community and we also see a lot of growing interest in the arts, and we need to provide ways for people to get involved in both of those things," Gullacher said. "This is a way to do that because it's free, so it's available to everybody."
