15 minute read
A different rooute
Holiday life hacks
Put your focus on time well spent
By Fawn Logan-Young
It’s the season of buying gifts and spending time with family, but with COVID-19, traditions have changed. Gift shopping is harder, as is spending quality time with loved ones. Not to mention, funds are tight for many during this global pandemic.
I would love to share with you some of my holiday life hacks that I have been using over the last few years. They feel relevant now more than ever. They can be as inexpensive and low-waste as you make them. Most importantly, they’re a great way to spend quality time with young ones this season.
Secret Santa with a twist
Want to find a creative way for your children and their friends to connect this winter?
This version of Secret Santa has the same rules as your standard exchange — draw names, assign the exchanges, get presents and send — but the gifts must be homemade.
During this pandemic, homemade helps make the exchange more personal when sending a gift in the mail if you’re not able to spend time with a friend. Another benefit is you have control over
Give children an opportunity to be part of the creative process when customizing decorations and gifts.
your input costs. Your child gets to customize something special for their friend (and vice versa), while you and your young one will be able to bond and enjoy the creative process.
Make advent calendars and New Year’s countdowns
Customizing your own can be as inexpensive as you wish, depending on the treats you use. You could even exchange chocolate for something else, like mini toys, or personalized coupons for fun activities that children can redeem another time. There is a lot less to waste with this process if you stick with recycled materials.
The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Here’s what we came up with in my house. • Wrap 25 chocolates with opaque tissue paper. • Use decorative rope and space out the 25 chocolates. • Hot-glue gun the rewrapped chocolates to the rope. • Number the chocolates one to 25 in random order. • Starting Dec. 1, chow down.
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Prepare for a wonderful blast of winter with a Family Beach Break at White Point. You’ll need bathing suits, and an appetite for bottomless buffets. Bring boots for a romp around the golf course, and workout clothes for a demanding game of foosball. Pack holiday spirit, warm jackets for evening bonfires, and a yearning for singing in the Lounge. Be ready for Christmas magic and a winter-long adventure!
Go vintage
Thrifting sessions can be a hit or miss. I do love mom-and-pop thrift shops because they tend to have more unique and quirky finds that kids tend to love discovering. Let us not forget, you also get to support local and a more mindful approach with upcycling.
Giving kids a mission to find something can be game with a potential reward. I have done this with my little cousins before, promising them if they found what I was looking for, they would get one item in the store of their choice. Nothing feels better than finding the right gift for the right person, knowing you took the effort to do so. You can teach kids this lesson too.
Make your own decorations
In my house, about 90 per cent of our holiday decorations are homemade ornaments, besides the lights and a few vintage decorations that have been passed down to us from family.
Making your own is a whole lot of fun and over the years you can build up a nice collection of ornaments without laying out a lot of cash. Crafting is great family bonding time, and you can’t beat the holiday smells and bustle that fills the house.
A few of my favourites tree trimmings: • Popcorn and cranberry garlands • Dehydrated cinnamon sticks tied up with string • Cut out gingerbread salt dough cookie ornaments • Little bundles of dehydrated flowers and foraged berry bush branches.
The benefits
The holidays can be a stressful, so I hope these hacks are a help.
Not only do you get more time with your family, but you also get more time to teach your children the importance of concepts like low waste, re-thrifting objects, and the bond between friends and family. n
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Joel Chaisson, M.J. Massey and Owen Chaisson engage in weekend theatre training at the Neptune Theatre School in Halifax.
The power of performance
A performing arts education teaches commitment, connection and creativity
By Heidi Tattrie Rushton Photography by Harmony Adesola
Extracurricular activities in the performing arts may not get as much attention as sports in our region, but for many kids, they’re just as important.
More evidence is emerging that children who participate in the performing arts receive many benefits beyond the actual skills they learn, such as increased confidence, enhanced communication skills, emotional development, an improved ability to concentrate, and intellectual development in academics.
Our Children spoke with three students whose performing arts education is shaping their future.
COMMITMENT
Owen Chiasson is in Grade 4 in Cole Harbour and loves to sing, act and compose music. Owen plays the violin, cello, and piano, and attends theatre school on the weekend. They admit it can be challenging some days to fit in homework and social time, but somehow manage to get it all done. Owen spends about 4.5 hours each week attending structured programing in the performing arts and many more hours practicing and self-teaching.
Owen’s older brother, Joel, age 12, also plays multiple instruments and acts. He clocks in about six hours per
week, including band, violin, cello and theatre school practices, but adds that he probably spends another three hours per week on the piano teaching himself songs. “I rarely walk past the piano without playing,” he says.
Marijane (M.J.) Massey, 12, of Bedford has been involved in various performing arts, including jazz dancing, throughout her life. This past summer she signed up for five weeks of drama camp at Neptune Theatre and fell in love with the craft. She estimates that she now spends about five hours per week pursuing her acting interests in structured activities, but says she keeps those mostly to the weekends which allows her to keep up with schoolwork and other interests during the week.
CONNECTION
M.J. has continued with the classes at Neptune Theatre throughout the fall, along with drama club at school, and plans to continue in the winter and spring. Her goal is to audition for the TD Youth Performance Company next summer. She also had her first taste of an on-screen experience this year when she appeared in a TV commercial.
One of the biggest hurdles many performers face is stage jitters, but M.J. is learning skills in her programs to work through those feelings, as well as how to support peers who might be struggling.
“You just take some deep breaths. Maybe you feel like you just want to get it over with, but you should feel the moment and think about how hard you’ve been working for this,” she advises. “Even though there’s going to be a ton of people and even though you might mess up, that’s okay because it’s really all about having fun.”
She says the sense of belonging in the theatre world is a big part of why she keeps coming back.
“I like acting because I feel like it’s a place where I can connect with people who are a lot like me,” M.J. says. “Sometimes I can’t find a group of friends
who like to do the same stuff as me or have the same personality. When I’m acting, I feel like I’ve found the right group of people who just get me and understand me, and I feel like they feel the same way too.”
Joel says being involved in the performing arts has given him a unique way to connect with others too.
“One of my most memorable moments was when I brought my violin to school. At lunchtime, I took it out and started playing … and people started watching me. They were suggesting songs and it was really exciting for me and I saw the people getting excited,” he says. “I love that music is kind of this universal thing, especially instrumental music, that everybody understands.”
CREATIVITY
It’s the creation part that Joel loves most about the arts.
“Theatre is really, really fun. I enjoy acting and I enjoy creating characters and stories. Creating weird, quirky characters is my favourite,” he says. “Really, for all the arts I enjoy them so much because I’m creating something.”
The grade seven student says his love of music began with piano lessons. When the formal lessons stopped during the pandemic, that didn’t stop him from continuing to learn on his own.
“I use YouTube tutorials now. Sounds weird, but it started during COVID when I wanted to play ‘Let It Go’ for my friends as a joke. I was like I’m going to use YouTube to learn how to play it and I kept doing it and got to learn a lot,” he says. “Instead of songs you learn just to practise piano, I got to learn more songs that I actually wanted to know.”
Owen also likes learning new musical instruments on their own time. They remember receiving a ukulele for Christmas when they were about four years old. At the time, they didn’t know how to play but started strumming while singing and began to put together a song. This past year, at age nine, they started working on the song again and finished it, but now it’s performed on the piano.
When asked what they love most about the performing arts they say, “I like entertaining people and I like writing songs.”
M.J. agrees with the love of entertaining others and thinks the performing arts are a great place for anyone who wants to have a new experience, especially if you’re looking for a welcoming community.
“(Acting) is a really great thing to do when you feel a little bit different from everybody else,” the Grade 7 student says. “It’s just really fun and amazing for anybody to try.” n
Page 14: Brothers Joel and Owen Chaisson love the creative process and entertaining and audience.
Left: M.J. Massey fell in love with acting at theatre camp.
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Arts incubator
With a rich history and a welcoming environment, the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts inspires emerging talents
By Janet Whitman and Dorothy Grant Photography by Bruce Murray/VisionFire
Janet Bradbury, like many, loves the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts. “It’s special for so many reasons,” says the former student and long-time dance teacher at the Halifax arts institution. “If you’re there with little ones starting their lessons, they can be walking down the hall and hear someone singing opera from one room, piano from another or a brass ensemble, or see dancers practicing. Because it’s all under one roof, even if you’re only going in for one little thing, you’re exposed to the entire artistic experience.”
A big part of the magic is the conservatory’s historic home.
Since 1996, its studios have been in the former 14-classroom Chebucto School on the corner of Chebucto Road and St. Matthias Street. The landmark 20th-century Classical Revival-style brick building was built between 1908 and 1910 for the growing community straddling West End and North End Halifax. Touted at the time as Halifax’s largest and finest school, it was built on the site where Barnum & Bailey had pitched circus tents.
In the aftermath of the 1917 Halifax Explosion, when a wartime ship collision led to an explosion that devastated the city, the school was used as a triage and first aid centre, basement morgue, and later funeral home, with students sent to other schools for a time.
The conservatory acquired ownership of the property in 1997 from the municipality. It was sold for a dollar with the stipulation that the buyers spend close to half a million dollars on renovations.
“I love that it’s an old building — it feels like there are a lot of stories in the walls,” says Alice Prichard.
She enrolled her two kids in classes on the recommendations of her new Halifax neighbours after her family moved to the peninsula from Calgary in the summer.
Her six-year-old daughter Maëlle Prichard-Fong, who’s taking violin, says the building is “really beautiful” and the window at the front is “really pretty.”
Her nine-year-old son Xavier Prichard-Fong likes that there’s room not only for a grand piano for him to play, but also a separate piano for his teacher to accompany him during lessons.
Like Bradbury, Prichard appreciates the variety of talented people she and her kids are exposed to as they head to and from classes. “I love that there’s so much music and creativity going on whenever we’re there; we see dancers, musicians and musical theatre actors,” she says. “It is inspiring to be there.”
The conservatory’s roots stretch back to 1887, when Rev. Robert Laing launched the Halifax Conservatory of Music as part of the Halifax Ladies’ College on what’s now Barrington Street.
Photos from top left: Maelle Prichard-Fong practices violin. Dance Director Janet Bradbury gives instruction to ballet student Cecelia Peters. Piano student Xavier Prichard-Fong and instructor Michael Coburn. Cecelia Peters is a multidisciplined performing arts student studying piano, voice and dance.
NOTMAN STUDIO NOVA SCOTIA ARCHIVES 1983-310 NUMBER 21893 / NEGATIVE: N-5133 O/S N-21893
The construction of the Chebucto School was completed in 1910 and has importance in the history of education in Halifax.
In 1954, the Halifax Conservatory of Music combined with the 1934-era Maritime Academy of Music to form the Maritime Conservatory of Music.
The conservatory moved at least seven times over the decades, sharing and renting space until 1996 when it ended up in the old Chebucto School.
In 1998, it became the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts, a move reflecting its diverse offerings: performance, instrumental and vocal music and music theory, Kindermusik, group and ensemble music and its school of dance, which includes ballet, jazz and teacher training.
Margaret Whitehouse, who’s in her third year of music education at Acadia University, took private violin lessons at the conservatory with teacher Susannë Brown from the age of five until graduating from high school at 17.
“It is a very special place for me with fun memories and people I’ve met and people I’ve gotten to work with,” says Whitehouse. “It was nice to have that community to go to. There’s a large range there in terms of music, in terms of dance, but also with the age range too.”
Some of her fondest memories are playing in Christmas concerts with the adult orchestra and younger kids, she says. “Especially when I was older, it was nice to be that role model for the younger kids playing violin.”
Whitehouse says Brown and chamber orchestra teacher Celeste Jankowski inspired her to pursue a career in teaching music. “I still look up to them to this day,” she says.
Beyond learning to play the violin, she got a valuable education in the different genres and periods of classical music and orchestra etiquette.
She joined Symphony Nova Scotia’s Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra four years ago. “That was probably the biggest step up for me,” she says. “I don’t think I’d be able to get there if it wasn’t for my experience with the conservatory.”
The aging building caused a rift a few years ago, with nearly half the conservatory’s music teachers leaving amid talk the board was considering a move.
Of particular concern in the community was the fate of the Lillian Piercey Concert Hall, which a “save-the-conservatory” petition at the time touted as having “some of the best acoustics in the city.”
A major capital campaign is in the works to raise restoration funds so the building “will last for another 100 years or more,” says Bradbury, the conservatory’s dean of dance. “The brick needs a lot of work and that’s very, very costly ... But I think everybody, especially those of us who stayed, realize there’s so much potential.”
More than ever, the conservatory is a hub for the community, she says. “Obviously, things have changed a lot since 1887. I feel like when it started it was probably a music school for the elite of the city. Now it’s the whole community.”
Her three children attend the conservatory.
Her oldest son William, 13, plays violin and piano, sings and participates in musical theatre. Her daughter Cecilia, 11, dances and sings. Her littlest one Benjamin, 5, is in Kindermusik, and a new adaptive dance program which he does in his wheelchair. “He just started his first dance class last week that he can fully participate in,” she says.
“There’s lots of fun things for children, but they’re also seeing people working at high, professional levels,” says Bradbury. “It’s special for them. Yet it doesn’t feel intimidating. It doesn’t feel like, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t be in here when I’m six years old and just want to be running up and down the hallway.’ That’s OK.” n
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