Kezia’s dance season begins…
Kezia had a blast at her first dance competition of the year this weekend in Jasper. She was invited to this competition’s nationals in July for four of her dances and had an absolute blast performing, hanging out with her teammates and swimming in the heated outdoor pool! I’m excited to see her soon but wanted to share my admiration for her dedication, attitude and enjoying every minute of it.
These two photographs are from her musical theatre solo performance, “Sayonara” that she performed at the Springbank Dancers Competitors Spring Showcase on March 11th. You will continue to open this world up my little, not so little, sweet.
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Tsuu T’ina Pow Wow: Friday’s Grand Entrance
The Pow Wow is the centre of the Tsuu T’ina Nation’s Annual Celebrations. Last Friday evening Kezia and I went to the Redwood Meadows Fairground before the Grand Entrance. Kezia was invited to join her friend dancing afterwards which hit the night out of the park for her. The photography was great along the way with the beautiful regalia in the late sunlight.
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Merry Christmas… with a Dancing Elk
We enjoyed a great Christmas day around our home today. Outside, the sun was bright, the sky was blue and the snow draped everything in a blanket of white. Inside, we played games, built toys, laughed a lot and had a really good time.
I showed my family this video embedded above of a dancing elk that I had taken a couple of winters ago up in Jasper. My mom thought that would be a good one to share online today – the kids agreed so I worked on that this evening (and here is the Youtube link as well). It was a fun encounter with a young female elk who separated from her herd for a few minutes. At several points, she broke into a dance, or rodeo bull impersonation, while I watched.
I hope you and yours have enjoyed a merry Christmas and I wish you all the best throughout the holidays.
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The bear’s dancing in the UK!
The backscratching bear dance series has been picked up by a couple of publications on the far side of the Atlantic due to a partnership with UK-based HotSpot Media. There has been a photo of the day in the Telegraph and two really funny stories so far, you can check them out if you are interested. It is fun for this image to have a little life of its own!
- The Metro: http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/01/is-it-just-us-or-does-this-bear-really-look-like-john-travolta-in-saturday-night-fever-5224154/
- And this scan from today’s Daily Mirror:
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Kian at the Springbank Dancer Recital
Kian was in the Boys Hip Hop class at Springbank Dancers this year. During the end of season recital, the boys performed and entertained the audience with their moves and poses as they strutted across the stage. Below, they started their performance in these “tough” silhouetted positions.
Teaching a troop of 6 to 8 year-old boys dance requires bundles of energy to match them and an equal measure of patience. Miss Shana had more than enough of both. She created a place where the boys were supported, encouraged and had a lot of fun. A great teacher for a bunch of wild guys.
Kian had a great time throughout the year. It was a lot of fun to watch this performance and see all of their new dance moves and the confidence and fun they were all having on stage.
Kian’s looking forward to next year’s dance classes. He will be practicing his helicopter spins, freezes, windmills and top rocks over the summer and we should be treated to a few impromptu concerts before the next session starts.
At the end of the recital all of the dancers assembled on stage. The boys sat off to the side and waited fairly patiently while the teachers finished a couple of speeches and thank yous. That gave me one more chance to photograph these young men hanging out.
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Kezia at the Springbank Dancers Recital
The weekend before the flood, both of my kids had their dance recital performances. Kian is in the boys hip hop class and Kezia is in a creative class at Springbank Dancers.
Miss Devon and her staff are wonderful with all of their dancers. Both of my kids love their teachers and had a great year dancing.
First up was Kezia. She is only four but she casts a pretty long shadow under the spotlight. Not that she’s tall, she just has a big presence when she’s performing. It was plain to see that she was having a great time on stage.
We were all so happy for her to have had such fun and to be able to share this moment.
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Tsuu T’ina Pow Wow Dancer
A dancer in full regalia spins during the Grand Entrance on July 29th at the Tsuu T’ina Pow Wow.
I was under the weather this year and only went over to the Pow Wow one day this year for a few hours. I still have to work through the images from the Grand Entrance but I can say it was another great event put on by the Tsuu T’ina Nation. This year seemed quite a bit bigger than last year and I again enjoyed the excitement, fun and enthusiasm on display among the dancers, the organizers and the crowd. It is a fantastic weekend and I’m disappointed I wasn’t able to spend more time across the road with my neighbours.
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Stage silhouettes
I was at my daughter’s dance recital this morning. She had a lot of fun during her performance and we had even more watching her. We were able to enjoy a number of enjoyable performances. The image above, taken just before the stage lights came on, reminded me why I like photographing so many events with a 70-200mm zoom lens. I saw the dancers getting into position and dialled in the exposure to create silhouettes. The image below was the first shot where I wanted to catch the moment before the dance started. Above, with the overall scene photographed, I tried to work into it and find a more compelling composition. Within the frame as David duChemin and others have discussed eloquently on occasion.
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Tsuu T’ina Pow Wow 2011
This past weekend was the Tsuu T’ina Pow Wow and Rodeo held in Redwood Meadows, just east of Bragg Creek. This event has an incredible atmosphere with band members from First Nations across Canada and the United States attending.
The Pow Wow starts with the Grand Entrance where all of the dancers enter and then move around the center of the Beaver Dome. As the drum circles from different nations take turns pounding and singing out songs, the dancers stream in and join the throng of people dancing, walking and jumping as they circle around the central pillar.
I live on the Tsuu T’ina Nation’s land and feel very lucky to be a neighbour of the people and to be able to so easily enjoy their culture. The performers dance for healing and the spirituality that envelops the dancers and the crowd is palpable and inescapable. Just as I said last year at the end of the 2010 Pow Wow, I am already eager for next year’s.
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Earth Day – First Nation Dancing
Our community, Redwood Meadows, is built on land leased from the Tsuu T’ina Nation. We have great opportunities to work with them and to invite them to share their culture with us. Our new mayor, John Welsh, is carrying forward with this relationship and I believe he is making great strides to strengthening the connection between the Redwood community and the people of the Tsuu T’ina. Yesterday, as the culmination of the Earth Day celebrations at the community center, several Tsuu T’ina dancers and drummers performed. I have enjoyed their performances before during their Pow Wow and Rodeo that is an annual event every July but it was great to watch them in this smaller environment. Here then, are a few images from the dances. A very warm thank you to the dancers and musicians – it was a wonderful celebration!
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Pow Wow Dancers
I previously posted about the Tsuu T’ina Nation’s Annual Pow Wow and Rodeo event that I attended in July. Now that we are almost into September, I took some time to work through the stack of images that I made while I was at the Pow Wow. There were great characters, incredibly ornate outfits and a wonderful cacophony of color – it really was a lot of fun for everyone. For photographers, there was a lot to work with and the opportunity to make some interesting, beautiful photographs.
I choose two main types of images that I wanted to make. For one, I wanted to get sharp images of the regalia and the people. Beyond documenting the event, I wanted to show some of the emotion and purpose that the people put into their dancing. With the second type of images I wanted to convey the motion of the event. All of the dancers moved in a clockwise direction around the central supports of the Beaver Dome. There were upwards of a couple of hundred children and adults moving around the circle and within this path, performing their particular dance. The swirls of color grabbed attention as the dancers and their dancing outfits traced out their stories in response to the drum circles and chanting. I started out at floor level using a wide angle lens (Canon 17-40 F/4) to be in the middle of the scene and then went up to the sound booth, had a good chat with Jim a sound technician from Hobbema, and spent much of the afternoon using a longer lens (Canon 70-200 and 300 IS) from up there. I wanted to get higher so that I could shoot downwards and keep the bright daylight outside from spilling into my shots. The Beaver Dome is an open sided building so during a sunny day, the outer edges show up as very bright, very wide horizontal patches of white in the background of your images if you are at ground level and facing outwards. Going higher, allowed me to have other dancers, the carpet and the crowd in the background instead. Adjusting the aperture, I was able to choose whether to have these background elements in focus or blurred into abstract.
The two types of images required two different techniques. For the sharp images of the people, I used short exposures with a high ISO to freeze the action and minimize any blurring. With the relatively dark lighting inside this often worked out to 1/40 second and 1/80 second at F/4 with an ISO 800. I put up the shutter speed to 1/160 and 1/200 a few times just to make sure I had sharp images in the bank but, back at the computer, I have been happy with a number of the relatively slower shots that allowed more light in so the colors could really pop as they did when I was there.
Conversely, longer exposures To capture the motion, ended up being between 1/4 and 1/15 seconds using an ISO range of 100-400. I kept my aperture mostly locked at F/4 as it was working to separate individuals from the surrounding crowd and distracting background elements while keeping most or all of the person and their regalia in focus.
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Tsuu T’ina Nation’s Pow Wow
Right across Highway 22 from my house is the location of the annual Tsuu T’ina nation’s Rodeo and Pow Wow. What an incredible event to have in the Bragg Creek area.
Yesterday, I spent the day on the grounds photographing the Pow Wow Grand Entrance and then the evening’s rodeo events. The people working, competing, dancing and enjoying these events were great to talk to and extended great warmth and friendliness to me. I feel very honoured to have been able to enjoy these festivities with our local Tsuu T’ina band members and the people from other nations all across North America.
I will have more photo essays up but wanted to get a quick post up with images from the Grand Entrance. This ceremony sees all of the first nation people who are dancing in the Pow Wow enter into the Beaver Lodge. This is an large pyramid open all sides with a two tiered roof sloping upwards resembling a beaver lodge in a general sense. Moving in a steady procession, the center of the lodge is soon completely packed as men and women, boys and girls of all ages circle around the main column in the middle. Easily a couple of hundred dancers pulsed inside at the height of the ceremony.
They were carried onwards, dancing with little break for up to half an hour, by the drumming circles from different nations attending. The drums and accompanying singing was incredible, powerful and charged the atmosphere. It was a mesmerizing scene to be in, around and a part of.
Here are a few more images from my first look through the images I made (click on the photographs to see larger images).
As a footnote, Tsuu T’ina means beaver in their language although I do not yet know how they came to be called by the name. Much to learn about my neighbours across the road, I better find time to do so as I’m very interested.
Christopher Martin Photography 