Ellipses Thinking...

For the past decade theatre artist, Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks has been surfing some incredibly wild waves, fuelling her love of what she refers to as creative chaos.  Since graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 2015, she has appeared across North America on stages of all sizes, hopping confidently from comedy to drama. From the soul building and edifying work of bringing the seed of...

For as long as she can remember, Cassandra Lemoine had been surrounded by pop music and show tunes.  Inspired by the acclaimed Canadian tenor, Benjamin Butterfield during a master class he delivered at her high school, she soon found herself in a classical music program at the University of Victoria, where much to her delight everything was new!  She delighted in the adventure of living in a kind...

Max Wyman's most recent book, "The Compassionate Imagination: How the Arts are Central to a Functioning Democracy" serves as an invitation to consider what might be possible, not if, but when we embrace culture, and creative imagination at the core of what it means to be a member of a thriving, growing, curious, healthy and functioning society. Wyman who worked as an arts critic and columnist for...

"Innovation = Transforming Ideas into Value" Leo Chan firmly believes that everyone is an innovator and his mission is to create space, opportunity and practice so that everyone might believe it to be true as well and then to make it so in their lives. Leo is a people and heart-first entrepreneur and the founder of Abound Innovation Inc. An innovator himself, Leo holds 55 US patents and over 20 ye...

Poet Diana Hayes has walked with grief for over 20 years since the death of her mother. The fact that both she and her mother, whom she remembers as her confidant, muse and dearest friend, were both facing a breast cancer diagnosis at the same time, added even greater complexity to her grieving process. Diana's collection of poetry, The Language of Light serves as her tribute to her mother and has...

Season 3 - Oct 27, 2023

Jeremy Schonfeld's powerful storytelling voice, reveals the heart of a man on a journey, vulnerably seeking to understand himself, his family and friends and his community.  Weaving across the story-threads of Jeremy's musical tome, is his own deeply genuine exploration of fatherhood.  Having been moved by his music since it first landed in my ears over a decade ago, I continue to be drawn to this...

As a musician and producer of musical performances, Zohreh Gervais is fascinated by those all too rare moments within a musical performance, when an undeniably powerful, even transcendent experience occurred within audience members as they received the power of the art. It is her pursuit of these moments of awe that get her up and out of bed every day.  Having spent most of her life on stage conne...

When Bob Bonniol's mother took him to the opening weekend of the very first Stars Wars movie (and then every Saturday for the next 20 weeks), something stuck. While he laughs at the memory, his obsession for all things Star Wars was hardwired as a child and this core memory, well seeded would remain dormant for many years he discovered his own pathway to what has become a thrilling professional jo...

Christina Dempsey studied in the professional division of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School while still in high school, after which she went on to graduate from the Juilliard School in New York City in 2005 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Christina's professional career included performing with Koresh Dance Company in Philadelphia for two seasons before returning home to Canada in 2007, to join Les B...

An in your bones belief that each of us can live, lead, learn and be our best version of All Of Me, is the powerful frame that anchors Lisa Strogal firmly through her unique frame of Whole Person Intelligence™.  While we might think of harnessing the energies of which we as humans are a part of, it seems for Lisa more important to listen deeply to the energies and focus on harnessing the wisdom to...

Lolla Devindisch's life has been a creative quest to "live fully and authentically" and through it all, she has held a channel open, at first intuitive and then intentional; a space to more fully be at peace with the little girl who left her home at 7, left a life she loved and a father she adored. In her self-published memoir, A Dancer's Pilgrimage, she acknowledges the journey has been one of se...

On stages across Canada for over 30 years, John Ullyatt has been fortunate to build a career as actor, worthy of being considered by any measure, successful. He has played leading roles in multiple genres, singing, dancing  and entertaining audiences while earning high praise and respect from his fellow artists. The joy he brings into a collaborative community is as infectious as his laughter. And...

For Krista Monson, a shift from mastery to mystery feels almost seismic as she has been committed to creating breathtaking, masterful performances of virtuosity on stages around the globe.  For many artists, the work of creativity can often feel both precarious and dangerously precipitous...It's not uncommon to feel caught in the pendulum swinging between pure artistic, passionate joy and the pres...

If you live in Edmonton, Alberta, have been in any number of schools, community centres and places where people meet, you have likely passed by, hopefully admired some of  Theo Harasymiw's visual art.  She is best known for her large colourful, graphic, and often whimsical murals found all over the city.  Her visual palette includes equally vivid collections of acrylic paint and assembled bits and...

At the heart of Miranda Lucas' PhD in human behaviour and evolution lies her curiosity in understanding how people engage with visual art, and what physical and social affordances public art galleries use (or lack) to encourage a deeper human experience, one that can lead to curiosity and meaningful encounters with art, rather than feeling alienated or that these public spaces are a place reserved...

At the outset of the pandemic, writer and theatre director, Dennis Garnhum found himself facing a crisis of confidence and the despair that so many artists around the world were experiencing when their primary venues for creative expression went dark. Garnhum, who has directed theatre and opera productions across North America, has written and co-written several award-winning plays and adaptations...

Award winning actor and playwright, Beth Graham, has come to know the voices of her inner critic(s) well, having adopted the term Weasels to capture the sometimes playful, more often threatening nature of such characters to the creative temperament.  She was so familiar with the nature of her own Weasels, that she chose to give them the title role in one of her latest plays, examining the turmoil...

As someone who loves to walk, wander and wonder, Katharine Weinmann travelled to Spain last fall to walk the famed Camino de Santiago. Our conversation touches on her actual Camino experience and more so, how she has found inspiration to continue to live life artfully with a true Camino spirit.   One of Katharine many gifts is her ability to be fully present and pay attention to the world and ours...

Ellipses Thinking... will return on Wednesday Jan 25.  In this special Season 2 preview host Greg Dowler-Coltman offers listeners, a sense of what he and his guests will explore this season. As well as paying tribute to his friend and coach Bruce McLeod. 

Julia Coltman is the host of "OFF THE SHELF", the newest podcast from the Ordinary Podcasting Network. On this special Bonus episode of Ellipses Thinking... She shares her love of literature and why she decided to launch a podcast book club! 

In Lena McKenzie's words, she "inherited a fabric of beliefs, woven by generations of women…a fabric that tells stories of not just one family line, but a constellation of them." Her memories of the bond forged between her mother from the Philippines and her paternal Grandmother, from Minneapolis, speak to a powerful wisdom co-created by a shared desire to embrace all there was to learn. A proud F...

Deep integration of past and present as we dream forward and design our collective future…that is one of the many things that is on the mind and in the heart of Lance Cardinal. Lance is a multi-disciplinary creative professional and proud member of the Treaty 8 Bigstone Cree Nation. His family roots stem deep from his small home community of Calling Lake, Alberta. Over the past 2 decades, Lance ha...

Nicole Schafenacker, lives her life in a constant state of ellipsis thinking. Her work as an interdisciplinary artist and researcher has always existed in the liminal spaces between; a space of curiosity in which the unknown is the only way we can ever truly be discovery-ready. She sees in art, the existence of pathways to create both meaning and understanding, to bridge knowledge systems and ways...

Facing the challenge of choosing a focus for his PHd thesis in Computational Media Design, Owen Brierley felt the panic we so often feel when the canvas feels too blank, too wide open…But almost immediately he found himself drawing courage from the voice of a mentor dating back nearly 3 decades, specifically on the importance of trusting self in order to enter the void. By his own admission, Owen...