The Polka Dot Dragon Lantern Festival is an outdoor, community-engaged arts festival showcasing local artists and performers and for two days in February it will light up Nelson.
The two-day event includes street performances, a lantern parade, an interactive outdoor gallery and lantern workshops.
“Part of the appeal of this festival is the invitation for everyone to get involved,” said festival artistic director Myra Rasmussen, who initiated the Lantern Festival in 2014.
Ahead of the festival there are lantern workshops open to the public, hosted at Kutenai Art Therapy Institute on Feb. 2 and at Association des Francophones des Kootenays Ouest on Feb. 6.
Workshops are for all ages and cost $10 per person. See polkadotdragon.ca/workshops to register.
The Lantern Festival begins soon after — running from Feb. 7-8 — and starts in Hall Street Plaza with an hour of street performances from (6-7 p.m.), including Corazon Choir, Zen Wang’s Chinese Lion performance and Material Theatre.
At 7 p.m., the Moving Mosaic Samba Band will lead a lantern parade down Baker Street.
“The parade was a wonderful addition to the festival last year, and will feature the Polka Dot Dragon, along with other creations,” said Rasmussen. “Everyone is welcome to bring a lantern and participate in the parade, or to just come and observe.”
The interactive outdoor gallery will take place the following day at Lakeside Park (5-7 p.m.).
People are “invited to bring a lantern, stroll among the artist installations and enjoy the ambient performances,” said Rasmussen. “This year’s theme is cross pollination with a focus on collaboration between artists, and features giant flowers, a glow worm cave, honey combs, mosquitos and butterflies.”
There will also be performances by Wild Rose Dance, Lance Ledger, Quilombera Afro-colombian Ensemble and Baque Zero Graus.
There will also be traditional jar lantern kits with paper hand-dyed and marigold petals, as well as honey bee silhouettes available for purchase at Cowan’s Office Supplies for $3.
“Please note that nobody is allowed to release lanterns into the water or air (no sky lanterns),” Rasmussen stated.
The Lantern Festival is hosted by Polka Dot Dragon Arts Society — with funding from the Government of Canada, the province of British Columbia, Columbia Basin Trust, Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance, Nelson Kootenay Lake Tourism and Nelson and District Credit Union — and is offered free to the public (but donations are welcome).
Viva Carnaval!
There’s more to the Lantern Festival than one weekend.
With the festival becoming such a “beloved event” in Nelson, people can help support it by coming out for Viva Carnaval!, the annual fundraiser for The Polka Dot Dragon Arts Society.
Viva Carnaval! will take place on March 1 at the Spirit Bar in the Hume Hotel. The first part (7-9 p.m.) will be a showcase of music and dance celebrating carnaval traditions of Latin America, open to all ages.
This will be followed by a 19 and older dance party with DJ B. Lee, DJ Mochileiro and DJ Dubconscious.
- Tickets are $15 in advance, and $20 at the door, and are available on the SpiritBar website.
Artistic director
Lantern Festival artistic director Myra Rasmussen is a community-engaged artist, who focuses on the role of festivals and celebrations in bringing people together.
Originally trained in sculpture, her interest in festival arts developed through time spent assisting in carnival and parade productions in Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Port-of-Spain, Cleveland, Toronto, and Minneapolis.
In 2008, she received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council to travel to Aomori, Japan and apprentice with master artist Sakuryu Chiba, learning to make giant lanterns for the Aomori Nebuta Festival.
She is drawn to events that showcase the compelling combination of visual arts, theatre, dance and music, as well as the experience of creating art in community.
Since 2009, she has been based in Nelson where she is the artistic director of the Polka Dot Dragon Arts Society, which focuses on creating multi-disciplinary events that link the arts, nature, and community and produces a lantern festival.
Further afield
