Sharing diverse stories of creativity in our city, The Storytelling Podcast shines a spotlight on artists and projects that connect Calgarians to the arts.

Part of The Storytelling Project, this series raises awareness about Calgarians who, by living creative lives, are making Calgary a better city, effecting positive change and enriching others’ lives.

Have a story to share? Email us at news@calgaryartsdevelopment.com.

The Storytelling Podcast

Dipping his toes into all sorts of materials, backgrounds, and artistic endeavours, Jared Tailfeathers continues to push forward and break boundaries with his creative life. 

Tailfeathers is a Blackfoot artist. His work spans graphic novels, painting, music, and building musical instruments, and he works as a facilitator and community builder.

Tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to hear about his work, his journey, and to learn more about Calgary’s Cultural Instigators group.

Jared Tailfeathers | The Storytelling Podcast

Gayathri Shukla is a Calgarian who lives a very creative life! 

Following in her father’s footsteps, not only does she have an electrical engineering degree, she also holds an executive MBA, and is a digital innovation leader at Suncor. On top of that, she is a volunteer on the board of directors at the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, she is a certified guided autobiography instructor, and is the founder of Campfire Kinship—a hearth of stories that may not make headlines, yet resonate with our own experiences.

Tune into this week’s podcast to hear about the importance of storytelling, how she used it to breakdown barriers as an engineer, and how story crafting allows her to be her authentic self. And be sure to follow her on Instagram at @campfire_kinship!

Gayathri Shukla | The Storytelling Podcast

Coming to Calgary via New York City, Alex Sarian moved here to take on the role of president and CEO of Arts Commons after seven years of holding senior and executive level positions at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

From Buenos Aires to Shanghai to New York City, Sarian has worked with artists and arts organizations in 15 countries spanning five continents.

Tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to hear about his journey, how he believes arts organizations can embrace their civic responsibilities, and what is next for Arts Commons.

Alex Sarian | The Storytelling Podcast

A Calgary-based documentary filmmaker, photographer, composer, activist, and community collaborator, jaqs gallos aquines’ work focuses on anti-racism.

Their first anthology Home is in the Body: 2SLGBTQIA+ Filipinx Femme, North of the 49th Parallel is published by Anak Publishing out of Winnipeg. This book features portraits and interviews with over 40 radical, brilliant FilipinX femme, mostly from Canada, some from the States, who identify as trans Pinay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, queer, questioning, asexual, aromantic, gender non-conforming, and some as allies of 2SLGBTQIA+.

Tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to hear about their journey, how the Cultural Instigators came to be, and the constant anti-racism work being done in Moh’kinsstis.

jaqs gallos aquines | The Storytelling Podcast

This year’s RBC Emerging Artist Award winner, Tank Standing Buffalo is a self-taught Calgary-based animator and filmmaker. He is the creator of many short films including the autobiographical animated short RKLSS, which has had recent screenings at numerous film festivals including its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2020. 

One frame after the next, he focuses on each piece while creating a film instead of thinking about the sheer amount of work it takes to make animation happen.

His art and his animation go beyond drawing cartoons—Standing Buffalo uses the medium to tell some very deep and personal stories. RKLSS tells his own story of incarceration and solitary confinement within the prison system.

Tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to hear the story behind RKLSS and what is to come.

Tank Standing Buffalo | The Storytelling Podcast

Nigeria-born, saxophonist, songwriter, arts manager, culture enthusiast, and aspiring producer, Perpetual Atife is constantly carving expressive means to wave pieces of her life’s experiences and dreams, into an open box of treasure—music.

Also known by her stage name, Perpie, she won the 2021 Calgary Catholic Immigration Society New Canadian Artist Award at this year’s Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions and is currently the Calgary Public Library’s Newcomer Artist in Residence. You can catch her final concert in that role on September 11, 2021.

Listen to this week’s podcast to hear about her journey into music, why Calgary is now her home, and how she has connected with the local arts community.

Perpetual Atife | The Storytelling Podcast

The Vice President, Government Relations for Shaw Communications, Chima Nkemdirim is a born and raised Calgarian with a background in law, politics, and civic administration who just happens to be passionate about building Calgary’s arts community.

A prolific board member actively working to make Calgary a better place, he currently serves with the Calgary Foundation, Arts Commons, The Walrus, and Calgary Arts Development.

Listen to this week’s podcast to hear more about his community work, the role of boards, and why he is a passionate local arts champion.

Chima Nkemdirim | The Storytelling Podcast

Community builder, administrator, facilitator, writer, spoken word artist, and Program Lead for Trico Changemakers Studio at MRU, Sally Njoroge is heavily involved in Calgary’s arts community and looking at promoting artists as change makers.

Working with artists and organizations throughout Calgary, she seeks to bring people together in a shared space to address some of the more complex challenges in our society today.

Listen to this week’s podcast to hear more about her further efforts building community through the upcoming virtual workshop and gathering, Why Art for Social Change?

Sally Njoroge | The Storytelling Podcast

Founder and director of Woezo Africa Music & Dance Theatre, choreographer, dancer, filmmaker, producer, and member of the Cultural Instigators Program in the Black Led Spiral, Wunmi Idowu is working towards equipping Black artists with the tools needed in order to succeed in Calgary’s arts sector. 

The Black Arts Development Program was created to offer opportunities for Black artists to learn from Black instructors, to train and hone their skills in order to thrive in their craft.

Listen to this week’s podcast to hear more about the Cultural Instigators Black Led Spiral and the Black Arts Development Program, as well as upcoming workshops and events arising out of this initiative.

Wunmi Idowu | The Storytelling Podcast

Paula Timm is a visual artist, writer, mixed media arts instructor, and a community collaborator. A life changing decision to live her life as a creative person while coping daily with illness led to her co-creating and co-facilitating an arts-based workshop series with creative partner, Michelle Dyer. 

The Creative Wellness Program combines art therapy with the physical practice of art, allowing people to connect to the material and to express themselves fully in the moment.

Paula Timm | The Storytelling Podcast

Cowboy Smithx is a filmmaker, a theatre artist, a community organizer, and curator, and Jennifer Armand brings her background as a photographer and graphic artist to their collaboration—showcasing local artists with #T7NFT, a project that explores the new art space of crypto art and NFTs. 

Smithx and Armand see this new space as an opportunity to demystify crypto art for Calgary artists. By offering a new way to monetize their work and to share their work wider, they hope to expose as many artists as they can to a new realm and new possibilities.

Cowboy Smithx & Jennifer Armand | The Storytelling Podcast

She's an award-winning filmmaker and director, a theatre maker, a mentor, the creator of a re-imagined Herland, as well, Sandi Somers is a past recipient of the Doug and Lois Mitchell Outstanding Calgary Artist Award, part of the Cultural Leaders Legacy Arts Awards at Calgary Arts Development. Having started her career in visual arts and theatre, then moving into film, Somers saw how film could incorporate different aspects of the arts.

Somers feels that a lot of her stories deal with connection and how we connect, a theme that runs throughout her work and continues to inspire her.

Sandi Somers | The Storytelling Podcast

Always writing about meaning and purpose as an aging senior, Louise Day is the president and producer of the Seniors Acting Lab.

The Seniors Acting Lab is group of all senior storytellers whose theatrical productions reflect, educate, and challenge the status quo on seniors’ issues.

Tune into The Storytelling Podcast to hear more about how the group came to be, why it’s important to share these stories, and what is next.

Louise Day | The Storytelling Podcast

A dancer, a choreographer, a visual artist, and a community activist, Nicole Tritter created an Indigenized University of Calgary coat of arms as part of her master of fine arts research in Indigenization and actions of reconciliation.

The Storytelling Podcast returns with a conversation about growing as an artist, actions of reconciliation through art, and parallel practices.

Nicole Tritter | The Storytelling Podcast

Born and raised right here in Calgary, Adora Nwofor is a comedian, a stylist, an activist, an anthropologist, a mom, and the host of Calgary Art Development’s Living a Creative Life web series.  

Here’s your chance to get personal with Nwofor—tune in to the next episode of The Storytelling Podcast to hear her story.

Adora Nwofor | The Storytelling Podcast

This year’s recipient of the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society New Canadian Artist Award, Aya Mhana is a Syrian-born singer, songwriter, and oud player. Now a proud Canadian citizen, Mhana moves easily between English and Arabic, writing lyrics with a poet’s sensibilities.

Get to know her inspiration and more about her journey—tune into The Storytelling Podcast to hear her story.

Aya Mhana | The Storytelling Podcast

Making extraordinary change in Calgary, community developer Cesar Cala believes in the power of ordinary people making extraordinary change.

Cala has worked and volunteered for organizations like Oxfam-Canada, the Developmental Disabilities Resource Centre of Calgary, Citizen Artists YYC, Calgary Arts Development, and ActionDignity, and has been involved in local initiatives like Calgary Vital Signs, grassroots grant-making, cross-cultural dialogue, and community organizing.

Tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to hear more about his work in anti-racism, community building, and the opportunities artists and creatives play in this moment in history.

Cesar Cala | The Storytelling Podcast

If Kacey Musgraves and Meghan Trainor had a country soul love-child, the result would be Mariya Stokes. But her desire to give back to the community is what drives this local musician and songwriter.

Stokes cares deeply about her community and is an artist in residence for the Women's Centre of Calgary in 2020. In support of the Women's Centre, she produced and hosted two live band karaoke fundraisers. 

But that wasn't her first foray into combining social consciousness and artwork. Her project with the Calgary Drop-In and Rehab Centre was called Shelter From the Storm, and was full of songs, poems, and stories that captured the essence of the community with clients of the organization. They released their first album in 2015 and released their second in 2016. She has also independently created and executed two coat drives for the Drop-In Centre.

Tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to hear more about her community work and how it supplements her artistic career.

Mariya Stokes | The Storytelling Podcast

Colin Menzies is a Calgary-based artist, facilitator, educator, and an all around wonderful human, who practices here on Treaty 7 territory through the alias The Subliminal Rabbit.

Talking about their practice and projects in the worlds of mental health, art, and creativity, tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to learn more about leaning into the arts as a way of wellness.

Colin Menzies | The Storytelling Podcast

Empowering marginalized people and equity-seeking communities to tell our own stories from our perspectives, MelVee X is a Black queer multidisciplinary artist. Her primary means of expression are spoken word poetry, burlesque performance, and photography—also known as the MelVee trifecta. 

Real and unapologetic, tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to learn more about her community, her practice, and the importance of mentoring and facilitating new artists.

MelVee X | The Storytelling Podcast

As the city’s designated arts development authority, Calgary Arts Development supports and strengthens the arts to benefit all Calgarians. 

These podcasts are part of our Storytelling Project, a series to raise awareness about Calgarians who, by living creative lives, are making Calgary a better city, effecting positive change and enriching others’ lives through arts and creativity.