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BANFF CENTRE NURTURES ART CULTURE
BY JACKIE GOLD SPECIAL TO THE CRAG & CANYON

In 1933, under the leadership and guidance of Ned Corbett, the Banff School of Drama was founded as part of the University of Alberta 's Department of Extension. It would form the foundation of what would become The Banff Centre. The two-week program, with its 190 participants, would be the be­ginning of a major cultural explo­sion in Banff .

While artists such J.E.H. Mac­Donald, Katherine Daly and her husband George Pepper made nu­merous trips to the area, attempt­ing to capture the spirit of the mountains in their work, no real fa­cilities existed to help boost the cre­ative urges within the community itself.

Debra Homsby, director of com­munications for The Banff Centre, said that, 'Today, The Banff Centre is a globally respected arts, cultural and educational institution, and conference facility.'

Thus, when the Banff School of Drama opened, it marked the start of a whole new era in Banff . Funded by a grant from the U.S.­ based Carnegie Foundation, the drama program flourished, gener­ating attention and acclaim to the school.

In 1935, creative writing and playwriting were added, expanding the Banff School of Drama's num­ber of programs to three. That same year, A.C. Leighton, a nationally acclaimed artist who had spent the past 11 years painting for the Canadian Pacific Railway, was hired to establish a visual arts program at the school. Leighton, known for his love of the mountains and solitude, once said of his work that, "...the moun­tains, the peaks, the glaciers; that's where I want to be and that's what I want to paint!' His love of the area was appar­ent in his works, making him the perfect candidate for the painting program, which would run in the, summer months.

That year was filled with a vari­ety of changes to the school as it also renamed the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1935, in order to prop­erly pay tribute to its rapidly ex­panding repertoire of classes.

A year later, in 1936, the school offered its first course in music. As the years passed, the variety of courses grew to include ceramics, French immersion, weaving, dance, opera and photography. Confer­ence programs were introduced in 1953 and leadership programs in 1954. The Banff Mountain Film Festival was launched in 1976. In 1970, the school was renamed The Banff Centre for Continuing Education and in 1978 Alberta government legislation granted it full autonomy as a post-secondary educational institution under the governance of an appointed Board.

When educational funding was cut in the mid-1990's, the centre launched a campaign called The Creative Edge, which successfully raised enough capital to create some badly needed new buildings, including a new music and sound complex. The new complex and other facilities opened in 1996 along with a new mountain culture division.

Three years later, the centre was rewarded for its efforts by being recognized by the federal government as a national training institute. As a result, it was awarded $3 million which would be spread over three years, to go toward more training programs.

Five years later, in 2004, Province of Alberta also recognized the importance of The Banff Centre to the overall cultural development of the province and provided $20 million dollars to help revitalize the campus.

'Our goal is to create a campus that inspires creativity and collaboration, and that reflects the beauty of our mountain environment,' Hornsby said of what they plan to do with the injection of funds to the centre.

Today, the centre offers a full range of programs in the perform­ing, literary, new media and visual arts, in leadership development, and mountain culture, as well as a world-class conference facility.

‘Programs are added in re­sponse to the needs of our partici­pants and to help support and sus­tain cultural communities and or­ganizations across Canada ,' Horns­by said. ‘In the early years, the centre of­fered courses for artists in the initial stages of their careers. Today our programs are more focused on par­ticipants with a proven track record in their chosen field.'

Over the past 70 years, some of the best and brightest in Canadian and international arts and culture have passed through The Banff Centre doors including writers Tim­othy Findley, Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel, and W.O. Mitchell; musicians Oscar Peterson and Dave Douglas; dancers Evelyn Hart and Margo Kane; mountaineers Sir Ed­mund Hillary and Jon Krakauer; and actors Cynthia Dale, Eric Mc­Cormack, and Kim Cattrall, among many others.

‘Our alumni create, produce and perform works of art all over the world, lead our institutions, or­ganizations and businesses, and play significant roles in our cultural, social, intellectual and economic well-being, and in the preservation of our environment.' Hornsby said.

With anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 participants now enrolled an­nually, The Banff Centre has far outreached its humble beginnings of 190 students. Though the centre has grown and developed over the years, its original vision has held true, to create a school for the fine arts within an inspirational moun­tain environment - but then again, the mountains never move, do they?

For more information on The Banff Centre's history visit the web­site at www.banffcentre.ca .

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