Belleville’s Culture Days – this is one of the Culture Days donation bins found in a Belleville shop. Culture Days is a national initiative, one that Belleville has taken by the horns. Photo by Shelby Wye
By Shelby Wye
Canada’s nation-wide movement ‘Culture Days’ is finding a permanent place in the heart of Belleville.
The national movement encourages each town, city and village of Canada to find what makes it different from the rest. From Sept. 27 to 29, a spectacle of culture can be found unfurling in events across the country. It was launched officially in 2010.
It was inspired by an annual tradition of weekend of art that started in Quebec. It snowballed as The Canadian Arts Summit picked up interest in the event and voted unanimously to replicate the event across Canada.
The beginning of autumn has always been a busy time for Belleville’s artists and performers. However, this year, the Belleville Downtown Improvement Area (BDIA) has taken on the challenge of fitting all of Belleville’s cultural activities in one weekend, so it would fall under the umbrella of Culture Days.
This is the second Culture Days that Belleville has participated in, but the BDIA has now combined all the other annual events that occur in September to happen during Culture Days.
“We’ve done such a great job incorporating all these (activities from different traditions) that we’ve been named the third largest Culture Days in Ontario,” said Sarah Tummon, BDIA’s executive director.
Belleville’s Culture Days is a combination of arts, music, dance, architecture appreciation and performance arts. There are around 30 local businesses involved, and over 85 different events being hosted.
“In Belleville, there’s this stereotype that it lacks culture. We want to open the eyes of locals: that they don’t need to go to big cities to find art, literary events, or fine films. It’s all in your own city,” said Tummon.
Tummon has been working with the BDIA only for a year, and is taking Culture Days as a very serious commitment. Last year, volunteers mostly ran the event, she explained. This year, Tummon and another full-time staff worked on the project.
“Before, we lacked man power,” she said, “Now that we have more staff and stronger event committees, we’re able to make events like Culture Days even stronger.”
In other towns, Tummon said, the local arts council or the municipality hosts these sorts of events.
“We’re one of the only (Downtown Improvement Areas) running something like this. It goes to show how strong downtown cores can be. (We) should be the ones to take (on these events) because we know what shines in every downtown.”
The Quinte Arts Council. Heritage Belleville and local downtown businesses are all also helping with the tasks at hand. This next week will be a lot of organizing how each of the events will run.
The events will offer a wide range of activities, ranging from Music Crawl, where bands will be playing in the strip of downtown restaurants so people can sample both the food and the music to the Art Walk which encourages people to stop by the shops to view local talent’s pieces and hear live readings and throughout the weekend. Workshops will be also held to refine writing, mastering different art forms and learning to dance.
“This week will definitely be a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. sort of week,” said Tummon.
The events start this Friday at 9 a.m. and will end with a flash mob performance on the Sunday afternoon. Look into Belleville’s Culture Days’ page for a list of all the activities.
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