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Celebrate a variety of cultures Saturday at Chilliwack Cultural Centre

BC World Music Collective concert kicks off Cultural Centre’s 2017/18 season same night
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Jonah Kassel, 8, plays the violin while performing during last year’s Cultural Collaboration. This year’s event is set for Saturday at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre. (Jenna Hauck/ Progress file)

Celebrate B.C. Culture Days and Chilliwack’s art community with the Chilliwack Cultural Centre’s seventh anniversary and Cultural Collaboration this weekend.

BC Culture Days showcases the province’s vibrant arts and cultural communities, offering free, hands-on and interactive activities to the public. As part of the event, Cultural Collaboration will take place Sept. 30 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cultural Centre. This is a free event.

Join the Chilliwack Arts & Cultural Centre Society’s partners — The Chilliwack Players Guild, Chilliwack Academy of Music, Chilliwack Visual Artists Association, Chilliwack School of Performing Arts, and many more organizations — as they showcase their specialties at the Cultural Centre, and provide information about the various ways to get involved with arts in Chilliwack.

Venture through the art studios to see beautiful pieces being created right before your eyes as artists enjoy themselves in the open studios. You can also admire finished pieces of art by exploring the Artist Village, where artists and artisans will explain how they achieve their craft.

The Rotary Hall Studio Theatre will be filled with local talent performing snippets from dance to theatre.

The kid-favourite scavenger hunt is also back, along with guest appearances from the Queen of Hearts, Alice from Wonderland, and a Pirate Jack from Ever After Princess Party Events.

Chilliwack School of Performing Arts and the Chilliwack Music Academy will also have information booths letting you know what programs they have available for kids. Info about the society’s art classes for kids will also be available, from Magic Mud to Theatre Peeps — there is something to let any child’s imagination run wild.

Stop by the hot dog stand located out front of the Cultural Centre or indulge in complimentary cake and refreshments that are available inside.

In addition to Cultural Collaboration, that night also kicks off the Chilliwack Arts & Cultural Centre Society’s 2017/18 presentation season.

Bringing together musicians from Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Africa, and London, the BC World Music Collective will take you on a worldwide journey without ever leaving Chilliwack. Thirteen musicians, all with their own professional music career, will weave their musical traditions together to create a unique experience.

The BC World Music Collective is made up of musicians from around the world who have all made their home in B.C. The collective is comprised of Adonis Puentes, Celso Machad, Tonye Aganaba, Kurai Blessing, Locarno (Tom Landa, Pedro Mota, Robin Layne, Liam MacDonald, Nick La Riviere, Kalissa Landa, Ronnie Swirl) and Chilliwack-born First Nations rapper, Ostwelve. The eclectic collection of instruments that these musicians play ranges from percussion, guitars, bongos, trombone, jarana, pandeiro, fiddle, marimba, congas, bass, trumpet, and mbira.

The collective first came together in the summer of 2015, when the artists were asked to perform at the Vancouver Island Music Festival. After an intense week of rehearsals and their appearance on the main stage of the festival, the group decided that one performance would not be enough.

Their group is a collaboration that sees all the musicians playing with each other, and backing each other up as they sing their own songs and tell the stories of where they are from and how they got to B.C. Their celebration of multiculturalism is full of high energy fun and will have the audience fully engaged in their performance.

Local born rapper, Ronnie Dean Harris, is a Sto:lo/St’át’imc multimedia artist who returns to Chilliwack as a member of the collective. With an incredibly individual career as a multimedia artist, he has worked as a host for a podcast series that was the recipient of the United Nations DPI Gold Medal, as a creator of workshop programs for youth empowerment in media arts and hip-hop, as well as a prominent musical career under the name of Ostwelve.

The BC World Music Collective concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 30 in the HUB International Theatre.

Check out the website for details on events happening at the Cultural Centre throughout the year. Tickets are available online at www.chilliwackculturalcentre.ca, by phone at 604-391-SHOW(7469), or in person at the Centre Box Office (9201 Corbould St.).