Through Home Routes/Chemin Chez Nous, a not-for-profit arts organization and the Centre francophone des Battleford, a bilingual house concert was held at the home of Jennifer and Andrew Miller recently.
Musician, storyteller, marionetist and folklorist Roger Dallaire was the featured artist. Part of his show included introducing youngsters to the accordion and he brought out the cutlery to teach his audience how to accompany music on spoons.
The Centre francophone des Battleford is a place where the French-speaking community can find resources, opportunities to socialize and share their heritage and enjoy activities and entertainment in the French language. Bringing entertainers in through Chemin Chez Nous is one of the ways the centre meets those goals.
The mandate of Chemin Chez Nous is to expand the performance infrastructure for folk music including the development of house concert circuits, urban folk clubs, travelling folk shows and the animation of new folk festivals. During the last season, its house concerts circuits numbered 14, including 12 Anglophone, two Francophone and one classical, which welcomed over 23,000 audience members.
Dallaire has been performing in schools all across Canada since 2000. Proud of his French-Canadian cultural heritage, he is passionate about sharing his "joie de vivre" in schools.
Although rooted in Franco-Albertan earth, he indulges his wandering soul by spending several months a year travelling the roads of Western Canada and Ontario to perform at schools and festivals.
Having trained at the School of Physical Theatre in Toronto, Dallaire’s talents also include mime, physical comedy and directing. He has appeared in over 20 plays, in addition to writing and staging a dozen multidisciplinary works.
