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Red Deer Arts Council invites artists of all genres to participate in first Online Arts Festival

It will run on the council’s website and social media
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Detail from The Dream Ring, a watercolour by Gordon Klaassen. The work is part of an online arts festival being held on the Red Deer Arts Council’s website. (Contributed image).

With regional galleries and theatres closed to the public due to COVID-19, the Red Deer Arts Council is planning to celebrate local creativity online.

The arts council is announcing “the first ever 2020 Online Arts Festival.”

It will run to May 31, and then be held again from July 1 to 31, on the Red Deer Arts Council website, as well as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

“In the month of June, we’ll pause the festival for a special presentation from the Kiwanis Gallery,” states a news release.

The online festival will showcase visual, performing and literary arts through emailed submissions to the Red Deer Arts Council. Accepted contributors will receive an artist fee for their participation in the juried project.

“We are calling on artists of all kinds in Red Deer to submit performance videos and images of 2D, 3D and written works to reddeerartscouncil@gmail.com for sharing with the wider community.”

Actors, dancers, musicians, writers, potters, painters and photographers are invited to share their creativity. Submitted images can be of a painting, drawing, photograph or sculptural work, or an image of a written page.

Artists can also submit tutorial videos, 10 to 20 minutes long, “demonstrating a specific element of your artistry.”

Videos could be of a drawing or painting lesson, a dance number (please credit the musical artist for audio), a theatrical scene or monologue, a song, or a reading from a piece of original written material.

The arts council is a non-profit group that receives public and private funding. It is supporting local artists through a City of Red Deer culture services grant.

Submissions will be accepted on an ongoing basis until July 25. Entries will be juried for appropriateness for all ages and for the quality of the content.

Submissions must have not been previously displayed in the Red Deer Arts Council’s Kiwanis Gallery, or shared online in 2020.

“Every effort will be made to protect intellectual property of the artists,” says the council.

More details, including applications, are available on the arts council’s website.

The festival can be viewed at www.reddeerartscouncil.ca/online-arts-festival, or www.facebook.com/reddeerartscouncil, or twitter.com/RDArtsCouncil, or www.instagram.com/rdartscouncil.