ACTIVATE!

July 14 will always be a day etched in my memory. In the midst of raising funds for India, my daughter, Anushka, had an idea.  She always has an idea.  A fundraiser.  Poets, artists, mics, performance. She had the idea, but I figured, she didn't have the time. There were summer weddings she was attending, cities she was traveling to and friends across the country she was visiting, but she was insistent, in the mass chaos that is her general M.O., she was going to put together a show that people were going to attend and love. 


She called it "ACTIVATE" as in activate the human impulse to band together, activate to support one another, activate to make this trip happen.  It happened, we painted trees gold and made signs late into the night before the big day. She booked a poetry troupe from Ottawa, she booked Eau Claire Market, we found vendors to set up, my cousin helmed the henna and body art booth, we found an audience.  It was wonderful, my daughter is a poet, spoken word performer herself and we've had the opportunity to see her perform but had never taken such a deep venture into her world of performance and artistry.  I, and the rest of the audience were loving it, there were poets from Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary and Ottawa and they were, each of them, powerful and thrilling to watch. 

The main attraction of the night was "The Recipe", the Ottawa troupe, and they were phenomenal. A mixture of jazz, poetry, beats and the sounds of my country, Africa.  I hadn't heard anything like it, many members of the audience hadn't heard anything like it, but all of us, we were still and silent.  Then singing along and dancing. 


While the night didn't raise us a whole lot of money, it did raise our hopes, people were interested, people were talking, everyone was enjoying themselves, happy, and that was more than enough.  


There are a list of people I need to thank for making this happen, so, here we go:


1. Jen Kunlire for hosting and performing.
2. Ian Keteku, Komi Olafimihan, Brandon Wint and Ikenna Onyegbula, together who make the Recipe for performing and winning the audience.
3. Morley Tuttle for doing sound.
4. Shelina Hassanali for volunteering her Henna art skills.
5. Mahi Printers for putting up with my daughter's pestering and ensuring we had posters and info sheets at our show.  
6. Eau Claire Market for hosting us, free of charge, in a fantastic space.
7. Steve Miller, Andre Prefontaine, Shayne Avec I Grec, Anne Petitclerc and Johnny MacRae, for performing.
8. For all those friends, family and audience members who showed up and made the event such a success, thank you.
9. Last, but certainly not least, to my daughter, thank you for making this happen.