Labrador Creative Arts Festival

At the beginning of the school year, the teachers are informed of the theme for that fall's Arts Fest, as it's affectionately known. The students then get together and brainstorm, coming up with a script for an original play that they then cast and produce. In November they travel from their communities and gather in Happy Valley-Goose Bay to perform their play for their peers and the community at large. In order to make this Arts Fest a great learning experience, artists from many different disciplines are invited to Happy Valley-Goose Bay to give workshops to the participants. Since only a limited number of students can travel to the Fest, artists are dispatched to the schools throughout Labrador as well as to local institutions such as a day care center, community college, prison,etc. This ensures that the Fest is a true Community event and has an impact on thousands each year. The community, in turn, opens its homes to billet the hundred or so students and dozens of artists who are here for a week or more. At any given time during the Fest you can find young people learning painting techniques, creating masks, learning about movement and dance, mounting a puppet show or having their play positively critiqued to make it the best that it can be.