Ice Follies is celebrating its 10th edition, presenting contemporary art on frozen Lake Nipissing at the North Bay waterfront at Shabogesic Beach.
This year’s free festival, considered to be bigger and better showcases nearly one dozen creative artworks along with “free performances, large-scale art installations, community-engaged artworks and activities and a curated look back at the history of this one-of-a-kind festival.”
COVID did impact the timing of this most recent festival.
“We were supposed to be on in 2022, but we shifted it so that all the artists could be in attendance this year. It is biennial, running since the early 2000s,” explained Sid Bobb, Co-Artistic Director of Aanmitaagzi.
Bobb is originally from Vancouver. The other Co-Artistic Director is his wife, Penny Couchie from Nipissing First Nation.
“Aanmitaagzi is one of the co-producers along with Near North Mobile Media Lab, and White Water Gallery,” explained Bobb, who came in as an artist performer in 2010.
“The founder, Dermot Wilson invited us to come and perform. “
This year’s theme Thin Ice looks at “our shifting landscapes and communities, including our changing relationships with our environment and each other.”
Friday night’s opening ceremony was kicked off with a performance by Aanmitaagzi, which has four installation structures in the festival.
“We’ve had workshops since last fall with elders, with children, dance workshops, multi-arts looking at the question of “How close are we to our relations,” said Bobb.
“All my relations is an Anishinaabe worldview, and it asks us to consider our relationship to the land, to the cosmos, to our ancestors, to ourselves, to each other, to the animal world, and to the water. And so that is a big part of a lot of our ceremonies, and that is a question or a concept that we reconsider and revisit,” explained Bobb.
“So all these structures, one is an ancestor's lodge, we have a language lodge, we have a universe lodge, and then we have a land lodge. So when people come here, they can look at the art, they can read some of the stories and they can consider these things, maybe even under the stars. Maybe they want to come down here with their own blue-tooth speaker and dance at the dancer's lodge. People can come down and do some of their own storytelling and see the visual expression of this community through our installations.”
Bobb keeps coming back because of his love of making art.
“Ice Follies is about me developing my knowledge and relationship with Lake Nipissing. So I’m always trying to rebuild my knowledge base of being out on the land. And Ice Follies is a great way to do that.”
Weather conditions leading up to the opening night were a mixed bag which included a downpour Thursday evening.
“We’ve called the festival ‘On Thin Ice’ and that it is exactly what we’re on right now. And I think that is why Ice Follies is important because we need to understand the water, especially in the winter and I think we’ve got work to do.”
Colby Kilner attended Friday night’s official opening.
It was her first time taking in the festival.
“I think it is really cool. I’m really impressed with the amount of people that came out. It is a community coming together to appreciate art,” observed Kilner.
“I used to be an artist actually and I appreciate all the detail. Everything I’ve seen here has been based in nature and based in our community, which I love.”
Kilner brought along a friend visiting North Bay from Guelph, who was equally as impressed.
“They have community events in Guelph, but nothing where you would be out on a frozen lake to celebrate community or culture, not that I’ve seen,” said Nicole Marshall.
“Because we’re here in the evening, the incorporation of light to me is, with everything that has been going on in the world the last few years, it is a little bit of light in the darkness. So I think it is something to look forward to. It definitely gets the kids involved, and gets the community involved. They’re looking at it together, celebrating something that is important to the local community, so that is what I like about it.”
The festival runs 24 hours a day until Friday, February 24.
For more information on the festival and the various installations, go to icefollies.ca.
