Tag Archives: CFRO 100.5 FM

World Poetry Celebrates Celebrated Author Joy Kogawa!

Ariadne’s Notes! On the World Poetry Café Radio Show, CFRO 100.5 FM March 21 was so honoured to have the acclaimed and talented author Joy Kogawa calling in from Toronto, Ontario, Canada to promote her latest adventure, East of the Rockies and offer words of wisdom for the people of the world. Her new AR apt sounds wonderful , giving reality to the lost or hidden stories of the families of those in Japanese internment in WWII.

LISTEN HERE TO THE SHOW! To save the link, right click and save as.

East of the Rockies, an augmented reality (AR) story by Vancouver-born, acclaimed author Joy Kogawa, produced by Jam3 and the National Film Board of Canada, launches in the App Store today.

Joy Kogawa, Jam3 and the NFB bring Canadian history to life through immersive AR experience East of the Rockies:
An interactive app retelling of acclaimed author Joy Kogawa’s story about Japanese internment in WWII

(On the left: banner of East of the Rockies. Image provided by the NFB/ Top image: Joy Kogawa. Photo: Yukiko Onley/ Bottom image: Anne Canute. Photo: Katja De Bock)

March 1, 2019 – Toronto – National Film Board of Canada

Acclaimed Canadian author Joy Kogawa, Toronto-based design and experience agency Jam3 and the National Film Board of Canada have unveiled East of the Rockies, an interactive augmented reality (AR) app based on true events about life in one of Canada’s Japanese internment camps.

East of the Rockies’ AR narrative follows 17-year-old Yuki as her family adjusts to life in a Japanese internment camp during WWII. The story takes inspiration from Kogawa’s novels Obasan and Itsuka, which chronicle the persecution of Japanese citizens in Canada during the war.

After activating the AR mode, app users can interact with Yuki’s story by tapping, inspecting and zooming in on key elements inside the Slocan Internment Camp. Each of these elements activates a scripted narrative spoken by Yuki, illuminating different aspects of the camp. East of the Rockies is a fully animated and voiced narrative, with Kogawa’s granddaughter Anne Canute providing the voice of Yuki.

“I’m grateful that this little story in Canada is not going to be lost,” says Joy Kogawa. “There are so many stories that are lost, that ought not to be, so it’s a wonderful thing to see it happening here in this way. I think it’s very exciting to be at the beginning of this kind of thing, how lucky is that?”

“By using immersive storytelling in East of the Rockies, we can educate a brand-new audience with a learn-through-gameplay experience leveraging the power of AR on iPhone and iPad,” adds Dirk van Ginkel, Creative Director at Jam3. “In working with Joy, we’ve been able to show what life was like when the Canadian government exiled the Japanese community. Sometimes to move forward as a society, we must look back and acknowledge past injustices – we hope that this is a platform for reflection.”

“At 83 years old, Joy has teamed up with artists and producers to leverage an exciting new technology and craft an important historical story for a new generation of Canadians,” says NFB Executive Producer Rob McLaughlin. “It’s an intergenerational story of love, loss, injustice and healing, and we hope it will lead to a greater understanding of Canada’s past at a time when issues of identity and race remain at the heart of so many contemporary debates.”

Students will also have the opportunity to take a more in-depth look at East of the Rockies with a high-school learning kit. The NFB Education kit poses questions and scenarios to help students understand and go deeper into the experience of life in the Slocan Internment Camp. The learning kit is available at eastoftherockies.com.

The AR features in East of the Rockies leverage Apple’s ARKit framework, bringing immersive visuals and a dynamic way to learn about an important moment in history. The experience is exclusive to iPhone and iPad running iOS 12, including iPhone 6s and newer, iPad (5th generation) and all iPad Pro models.

East of the Rockies is available on the App Store beginning March 1, 2019.
The app will be free to download in the first week, from March 1-8.

About Jam3

Jam3 is a design and experience agency known for smart, innovative and inspired work. We work closely with our clients to understand their problems and solve them in creative ways. From our offices in Toronto, Los Angeles and Montevideo, we team up with forward-thinking brands from around the world.
Our partners include Google, Spotify, Microsoft, Adidas, Facebook, Ford, Sephora, MTV and Disney Pixar. Modesty aside, our diverse work has received global recognition from Cannes to The One Show, and even the Pulitzer Prize. To learn more, visit us at Jam3.com.

About the NFB

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is one of the world’s leading digital content hubs, creating groundbreaking interactive documentaries and animation, mobile content, installations and participatory experiences. NFB interactive productions and digital platforms have won 100 awards, including 18 Webbys. To access acclaimed NFB content, visit NFB.ca or download its apps for mobile devices.Related Products

Electronic Press Kit | Images, trailers, synopsis: East of the Rockies

Source and with thanks to Katja De Bock.
Publicist
National Film Board of Canada
BC and Yukon Studio / North West Studio

World Poetry Celebrates the Unique Poet Chad Norman!

***One of our last World Poetry Festivals . Thanks to CTV News for their invaluable sponsor help several years ago.***

Ariadne’s Notes: We were so honoured to feature the incomparable Chad Norman from Nova Scotia on April 19, 1-2 PM PST on the World Poetry Café Radio Show, 100.5 FM, CFRO. Chad was and still is a friend and mentor that helped World Poetry launch and provide a intercultural, multilingual venue, radio show website and special events. It is timely that he joined us as we celebrate 20 years on the show and even more on our venues. To hear this important show which also includes a celebration poem for our 20 years by Mohan Sanjeevan, India. Our great Tech, Victor Swartzman read it twice on the show-he liked it so much! Music by Feature Dan Pugach.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SHOW!

Brief Bio: Chad Norman, Truro, NS, Canada

His poems have appeared for the past 35 years in literary publications across Canada, as well as a number of other countries around the world.

He hosts and organizes RiverWords: Poetry & Music Festival each year in Truro, NS., held at Riverfront Park , the 2^nd Saturday of each July.

In October 2016 he was invited by the Nordic Assn. for Canadian Studies to give talks on Canadian Poetry and read from his books at Borupgaard Gym in Copenhagen, and Risskov Gym in Aarhus, as well as other readings in both cities and Malmo, Sweden. Because of that tour Norman has started the manuscript, Counting Coins In Denmark And Sweden.

His most recent books are Selected & New Poems, from Mosaic Press, and Waking Up On The Wrong Side of The Sky, from Grant Block Press, and a new book, Squall:Poems In The Voice Of Mary Shelley, is due out Spring 2020, from Guernica Editions. Presently, he also working on another manuscript, The Black Rum Poems.

In October of 2017 he will reading at various Eastern Canada venues in Kingston, Ottawa, and Montreal. And in the Fall of 2018 Norman will undertake a speaking/reading tour of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, as a celebration of literacy and Canadian Poetry.

His love of walks is endless.Chad

HOW TO TUNE A MIND

If you wait long enough

and the wind

is quite right

each illuminated hardwood

will select you

and send or drop

one yellow

then one red leaf

at a time, until

what you thought

were the sounds of them

hitting the forest floor

turns out to be

one of those big

red-headed woodpeckers

letting you see it

feeding on whatever

insects are still alive

in a brief patch

of sunlight.

Chad Norman (C) All rights reserved by the author.

I

In Loving Memory Tributes on the WP Radio Show!

Ariadne’s Notes: World Poetry Café went live for the first time ever to New Westminster, BC, Canada to celebrate our yearly program In Loving Memory with Ariadne Sawyer and Anita Aguirre Nieveras along with super tech Victor Schwartzman at the controls in Vancouver!

Each year World Poetry features a tribute to our World Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award winners who have passed on but are with us in spirit.

LISTEN TO OUR FIRST OFF LOCATION SHOW HERE!

*If anyone has a picture of Shulamit , please send it to me and I will post it.

Featured on the In Loving Memory show: World Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Shulamit Joffre.

Shulamit was a valued member of our World Poetry family. She was a mystical poet with a deep and abiding attraction to all things spiritual, believed that writing poetry was a condition of her birth. Born in Montreal, she lived and wrote in Vancouver, British Columbia. She shared her life with her husband Ray, their dog and cat. She also spent as much time as she could with her daughter Jessica and her grandson Nathaniel. Shulamit was a World Poetry Lifetime Achievement award winner and the organizer and host of the successful reading series, First Tuesday Assembly of Poets held at Chapters in downtown Vancouver. Syllables of Creation was her fourth book of poetry.

In Loving Memory: World Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award Winner and Crusader for Justice Dugald Christie. or a special program about the life and work of World Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award Winner poet and lawyer Dugald Christie. Christie often wrote poems about the justice system and presented them to lawyers and judges. One of his published books, A Journey into Justice described his cycling trip to Ottawa, Ontario to burn his robes in protest. It also contains many poems.

In loving Memory Tribute to Vera Manuel , First Nations Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, mentor to many. Vancouver-based Secwepemc-Ktunaxa playwright, poet, and storyteller. Vera was the eldest daughter of Grand Chief George Manuel, the first president of the National Indian Brotherhood.

Her play, Strength of Indian Women was staged through-out North American and published as in the anthology Two Plays about Residential Schools (along with Larry Loyie). Her work was honoured with inclusion at the Native American Women Playwrights Program, housed at Maima University, in Oxford, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared in various publications, most recently in ROCKSALT: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry. Vera was one of the inspirations along with Elder Gabriel Bartelman, MA lay faculty member for Ariadne for her thesis and mentor for an upcoming book, Love Poems for the World.

In Loving Memory tribute to World Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, Madge Kimball of Salt Spring Island. An amazing pianist and beloved piano teacher as well as a poet, writer and mentor to many. Beloved mother of Ariadne Sawyer and her brother . Cherished wife and the inspiration of Hudson Kimball, Poet and writer. She moved 35 times in her lifetime, in various countries and was well loved by her students. Her Poems appeared in The World Poetry Anthology and other publications.