Fall Arts Guide

www.CanstarNews.com 10 FALL ARTS GUIDE | SEPTEMBER 2014 www.CanstarNews.com Celebrating 11 th Anniversary! 204-334-0080 / www.ladanceacademy.com Unit 200-2405 Main Street, Winnipeg Spacious NEW 4600 sq. ft. facility with 3 studios, Marley dance floors, large dressing rooms and lobby, big parking lot and front desk associates available 7 days/week. REGISTER NOW FOR FALL CLASSES! Dance Classes for All Ages Preschool Combo • Mommy & Me • Ballet • Hip Hop • Jazz • Lyrical • Pilates • Tap • Boys Only Hip Hop • Ladies Only • Just one year removed from its centennial season, the Winnipeg Art Gallery is look- ing to outdo its 100th anniversary of 2013, this year. It's no easy task, admits Dr. Stephen Borys, WAG director, but it's a challenge he wel- comes with open arms heading into a new season of programming and exhibitions. "The question always is: how can you top that off?" Borys said. "But I think we are doing that, not just in terms of bringing in masterworks, but diversity of cultures, periods and media." The WAG will kick off its 2014-15 season on Nuit Blanche on Sept. 27. Nuit Blanche is a free all-night exploration of contem- porary art that happens annually on ei- ther the last Saturday of September or first Saturday of October. It attracts thousands of people to the downtown area and the WAG usually hosts the city's biggest and best-attended Nuit Blanche event. WAG will open two shows from the Bea- verbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, N.B. on Sept. 27 — Dali Up Close, a multimedia show of the works of Salvador Dali that has never been seen before in Winnipeg and Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. "Beaverbrook happens to have the most important British art in Canada over the last four centuries," Borys said. "On top of that, they have Salvador Dali's most important paintings in North America. "Dali Up Close brings together about 35 works," Borys explains. "Paintings, sculp- tures, drawings, watercolours and some jewelry from Salvador Dali, just to take it a bit further. This was a chance for us to do something even bigger." This season WAG will also be hosting the Sobey Art Award Exhibition, the first time it has been in Western Canada. The Sobey Art Award, first introduced in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation, is an annual prize given to an artist aged 40 and under who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery in the past 18 months leading up to being nominated. First place walks away with $50,000. "It is probably the most coveted contem- porary art prize in Canada right now, and they have never taken it past Toronto heading west, so this is a first and an honour," Borys said. "Not only will we an- nounce the winner at a gala event on Nov. 19, we will also exhibit the five finalists for the award." The 2014 short list includes two Winnipeggers, Neil Farber and Michael Dumontier, selected from the prairie region. In the New Year, Borys is thrilled to have Olympus: The Greco-Roman Collections of Berlin, which will open in April 2015. "This is 160 marble sculptures, bronzes and terracottas coming from the Berlin State Museums," Borys said. "Because of the magnitude of this show, there are only two venues in North America, so we have decided to have an extended exhibition spanning over nine months that will allow us to truly do an outreach with all schools." For more information on the various exhibitions and programs at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, visit: www.wag.ca VISUAL ARTS: WINNIPEG ART GALLERY By SCOTT BILLECK Special to Canstar Stephen Borys, Winnipeg Art Gallery director and CEO, looks forward to 2014-15. Winnipeg Free Press Photo Archive Salvador Dali Photo courtesy Philippe Halsmann Archive

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