KHL! Into THIN AIR II

Host Kelly Hughes interviews Writers Festival performers Ismaila Alfa, Ignatius Mabasa and Dominique Rey, with music by Naomi Guilbert and Hiroshi Koshiyama of Fubuki Daiko

When: Friday, September 17/10 7pm
Where: Aqua Books, 274 Garry Street
Cost: Free

Winnipeg's only live talk show, Kelly Hughes Live! brings you all the trappings you've come to expect from the television talk show: comedy, music and celebrities.

The only difference is that (with the exception of a few ringers like Kids in the Hall's Kevin McDonald and Hugo-nominated writer Nick DiChario), it's all local heroes.

Guests like Tina Keeper, Fred Penner, Al Simmons, Brian Glow, Margaret Sweatman and Robert Enright have been joined onstage by the likes of stellar Winnipeg musicians The Paperbacks, Todd Hunter, Ingrid Gatin and Rollin Penner and the Traveling Medicine Show.

(But it's not like TV in that you will have to leave your house.) It's the TV talk show without the TV.

* * *

Ismaila Alfa completed his early school years in Edmonton, then moved to Winnipeg. After starting a civil engineering degree at the University of Manitoba, he followed his musical dreams and spent eight years touring North America as a hip hop musician. Magnum KI, a band he formed in 2005 with DJ Michael Arnone, opened for the legendary band The Roots at this year’s TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival. When he’s not on a stage tangling with words, he is an audio technician, jingle writer, and traffic reporter for CBC Radio.

Ignatius Mabasa is an acclaimed writer and storyteller from Zimbabwe. He has published stories and poems for children and adults in both English and his native language, Shona. His most recent book, The Man, Shaggy Leopard and Jackal and other stories (Lion Press), was nominated for Zimbabwe’s National Arts Merit Award as the best book in the children’s literature category. Mabasa has performed his stories and poems in many countries, and will spend the fall term in Winnipeg as storyteller-in-residence at the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture.

Dominique Rey is a painter, photographer, video artist and performance artist. She has shown her work across North America with solo exhibitions at Plug In ICA, Clark Gallery, Michael Gibson Gallery, Alternator Gallery, Gallery TPW, Truck Gallery, Gallery One One One and La Maison des artistes. As part of the Winnipeg Cultural Capital of Canada 2010 program, Dominique was selected as the Arts Ambassador for Visual Arts.

As founding members of Fubuki Daiko, Naomi Guilbert and Hiroshi Koshiyama have shared a stage with luminaries such as Blue Rodeo, the Nylons, the McGarrigle Sisters, Cake and a ventriloquist. They received their formal training from the founder of North American Taiko, Grandmaster Seiichi Tanaka. After leaving the San Francisco Taiko Dojo and moving to Winnipeg, they’ve been in constant contact, rehearsing, performing, touring, and writing/editing bios for close to fifteen years. Not once have they ever wanted to kill each other (well, maybe once).

Kelly Hughes Live! Into THIN AIR I

Host Kelly Hughes interviews writers Charlene Diehl, Ariel Gordon and Jordan Wheeler, with music by classical guitarist Skender Sefa

When: Friday, September 3/10 7pm
Where: Aqua Books, 274 Garry Street
Cost: Free

Winnipeg's only live talk show, Kelly Hughes Live! brings you all the trappings you've come to expect from the television talk show: comedy, music and celebrities.

The only difference is that (with the exception of a few ringers like Kids in the Hall's Kevin McDonald and Hugo-nominated writer Nick DiChario), it's all local heroes.

Guests like Tina Keeper, Fred Penner, Al Simmons, Brian Glow, Margaret Sweatman and Robert Enright have been joined onstage by the likes of stellar Winnipeg musicians The Paperbacks, Todd Hunter, Ingrid Gatin and Rollin Penner and the Traveling Medicine Show.

(But it's not like TV in that you will have to leave your house.) It's the TV talk show without the TV.

* * *
Charlene Diehl is possibly best known in these parts as the brightly plumaged dynamo at the hub of the THIN AIR writers festival. But she is also a hard-working poet, and the author of the new book, Out of Grief, Singing.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. She has two chapbooks to her credit, The navel gaze (Palimpsest Press, 2008) and Guidelines: Malaysia & Indonesia, 1999 (Rubicon Press, 2009) and this spring, Palimpsest published her first full-length poetry collection, Hump. She is the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.

From the Charles Gordon First Nation (Southern Plains Cree), Jordan Wheeler has been writing professionally since 1982 and working in film and television since 1984. An author (Brothers In Arms, Just A Walk) and columnist (Winnipeg Free Press, Weetamah), Wheeler’s focus since 1992 has been scriptwriting, story editing and show running for television drama including the award winning series North of 60, The Rez and renegadepress.com. He’s been nominated for numerous awards including three Geminis. He won one, but still smarts at losing to Paul Haggis in ’94.

Skender Sefa is a professional classical guitarist with four full length classical guitar CDs on the GFI Masterworks, Uncontrollable Records and Marquis Record Labels. He teaches classical guitar performance and music theory at the Manitoba Conservatory of Music and Arts and is a Director of the Winnipeg Music Festival and the President of the Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society. In recognition of his career in classical guitar performance, Skender has received awards from both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council. In addition to performing, teaching and recording, Skender is an active music adjudicator/clinician.