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| Welcome back! I am sorry it has been a while since I have been able to have the mental space to write and to get the news from the Creek out to you. Our summer season went very well, with lots of incredible audience feedback about Chased by the Bear, The Mountain and the Valley and KOQM. We had our biggest overall attendance since before COVID and some new initiatives like a bus from Eastern Front Theatre coming for a matinee and talk back were wonderful new additions to the season. We were incredibly proud of the shows and working with our second largest cast to date for our mainstage productions, employing thirteen performers, two stage managers, and many others in the course of making this season. Camp also went great with Lucy Forrester-Wendt, our programming assistant, stepping into the role of Camp Director alongside Camille Denny-Harris. Camille (who was back for her fourth season!) mentored Lucy so she can in turn train new directors in the future. It was our second largest season of camp in our history, and our youth leadership cohort is amazing. We couldn’t be prouder of the youth staff who are volunteers and who are young leaders who give me lots of hope about the future. We are slowly able to start planning further ahead after the mighty disruptions of the past four year and below you will see our camps are already up and ready for registration! Ken is also hard at work on the 2025 theatre season and we will be announcing that in October. We are thrilled that due to the generosity of Jason Roth and Cheryl Steadman-Roth, the Province of Nova Scotia, and Efficiency NS, we have operational solar power installed by Skylit, and we can’t wait to watch the energy produced! Dollars saved will be going back into youth leadership programming. We are excited to be working with Deep Roots Music Festival this month on a residency in collaboration with other artists (see below) which centres on the theme of displacement. At Ross Creek we have a staff that reflects both European settler heritage and also includes an Inuk woman, and people more recently arrived from Syria, Mexico, and India. One of our summer staff lived in Ukraine until the war began. We continue to take food to the shelter in Kentville, and welcome campers from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and down the road. Through all of this, we have been thinking about what home means, especially when you have to leave home not of your choosing but because of money, work, repression or war. Even in my very privileged position, when people ask me where I am from, I always answer that it is complicated. I moved 21 times by the time I was 20, and though I have been in our house for over 25 years, and connected to the valley for over 50, even though our children were born and raised here, I am still not quite ready to say this is where I am from. But that sense of rootlessness perhaps, is what has driven us to make Ross Creek into a place where people feel a sense of belonging, whether they are campers or theatre patrons or visiting artists, or staff or volunteers. Ross Creek, in the middle of a field, down a dirt road, in rural Nova Scotia, can have a microcosm of the world in our daily lives, and we want it to be one that looks like the world we want to make together. With intention and caring and respect, creativity and stories, and lots of laughter. We are also so clear about the fact that this land, especially on the North Mountain, on the same ridge as Metuwatqek Metoqtek (Blomidon) is sacred and that to be here is a privilege. You may not know that the first art piece we commissioned was a puowin or shaman by Alan Syliboy, placed so that it is the first thing you see as you approach the building. Similarly, when designing the food gardens, the centre design is in the shape of the Mi’kmaq star (above) to remind us daily of the people who have taken care of this land for thousands of years. We are now working to make the Wabanaki, or old growth forest part of the wooded areas of Ross Creek into part of the National Healing Forest network, with an accessible trail that leads to a forested place of creativity and contemplation, and also remembrance and inspiration. This Saturday, September 28, we will hosting our first Community Arts Day of the Season, where you will meet some of the artists in residence and hear their stories, make arts inspired by Ericka’s spectacular new print show, and inspired by some of the cultures reflected at Ross Creek, and eat incredible Syrian Food. Please join us in re/making the world, one creative place of welcome, at a time. If you would like to support our mission, and the way we work, please consider becoming a donor – every bit makes a difference and to those who have been with us on this journey already – we are so grateful. Also, we are looking for volunteers for the fall and spring who have specific passions – see below! We will be closed on September 30 to honour the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. With love, Chris and Ken PS: We congratulate our wonderful colleague Kim Barlow of Music In Communities who is being honoured with the Valley Arts Award this weekend – Brava! |
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