2024 Kaleidoscope of the Arts

Posted on May 31, 2024 by Ryan Dahlman

By Samantha Johnson
Prairie Rose Public Schools Content Writer

The 15th annual Kaleidoscope of the Arts will take place this week on Thursday, May 30 at the Esplanade in Medicine Hat from 10 a.m. until 8:30 p.m.

The morning workshops are open to all students within Prairie Rose Public Schools (PRPS). For elementary students there are art and music workshops. The art workshop will include anime and character design along with Indigenous beading and storytelling. Fun in the Music Classroom is being run by Justine Wilks, choral director at Medicine Hat College. Kaleidoscope organizers Tiffany Molin and Ann Morrison will put together a presentation on this workshop where the students will be participating in fun, games, singing, and body percussion. All teachers who bring their students to Fun in the Music Classroom will receive a copy of the presentation so they can continue to use it after Kaleidoscope.

The art workshop for senior and junior high students, which is already fully booked, is alcohol ink with Kameko Ballantyne from Eagle Butte High School and Brian Sloan from Parkside School. Local musician Greg Herman is running a singer/songwriter workshop for junior and senior high students that will take place at the Medicine Hat Public Library.

In the afternoon, all students will gather in the Esplanade auditorium for a show, which will include choirs from different schools along with students from Parkside School performing a scene from this year’s play. Tiffany Molin will bring the choir from the Seven Persons Academy of Fine Arts and Ron Mason, who teaches music at I.F. Cox and Margaret Wooding schools in Redcliff, will also be bringing a choir for the show. Additionally, some students will be performing solos. Last year, Morrison had upwards of 20 students audition for three solo spots at the 2023 Kaleidoscope.

Over 200 students are already registered for the afternoon show, which will be repeated in the evening for those parents and community members who are unable to make it during the day. The event is free to the public and everyone is welcome. Last year, the lower level of the auditorium was full, and the upper level needed to be opened for the evening performance and Morrison is hoping for a larger turnout this year.

The silent auction, which was added to Kaleidoscope last year, will be running again beginning at 5 p.m. New this year, bidding for the silent auction will start online two weeks prior to the event. The auction items can be found on Facebook at Kaleidoscope of the Arts PRPS with the final bids on Facebook becoming the opening bids on May 30.

While the silent auction is running, students will be busking in the studio theatre, just inside the main entrance. Upstairs, Karen Dion will be holding the year-end art showcase, featuring hundreds of pieces of art from the Academy of Fine Arts in Seven Persons. Those viewing the artwork on the upper level will be treated to busking by elementary students. There will be sparkling juice along with cheese and crackers available for attendees on both levels and this portion of the evening will run from 5 p.m. until 6:15 p.m. Additionally, in the gallery theatre there will be an exhibition featuring artwork from students within both Medicine Hat Public School Division and the Catholic Board of Education.

“We are really excited to have Kaleidoscope again, it’s such a good opportunity to celebrate the fine arts and for us to get together. We are such a spread-out division, the fact that we can get Ralston, Burdett, Seven Persons and other schools together is something. Each of us, in our schools, ends up being our own little island and when we get together you see what other people are doing in their own classrooms and what the students are doing,” stated Morrison. “The students love seeing each other. Some of the kids I have at Eagle Butte had Mr. Mason in elementary and will help in his ukulele workshop. They get to see the kids who are in I.F. Cox or Margaret Wooding and get to help their previous teacher run the workshop and see what the choir they used to sing in is now doing.”