Free This Week

Check out tons of launches, showcases, and so much more

  • Price: Free

Looking for something fun and free to do this week? Calgary’s arts community has you covered with a bunch of awesome events! Check out book launches, screenings, Earth Hour celebrations, and more.

Canada Reads Screening

Until March 28, 2019, 11:00am – 12:00pm
Shelf Life Books (1302 4th St. SW)
Free admission

Local indie publisher Freehand Books has a book featured on Canada Reads, CBC’s annual week-long battle of the books, and you can cheer it on each morning this week. Homes: A Refugee Story by Abu Bakr Al Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung is the sole contender from Alberta and the first Calgary-published book to ever be involved in the competition. Cheer it on as the debates are screened each morning.
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ProArts Presents Calgary Opera’s Emerging Artist Program Ensemble

March 27, 2019, 12:10 – 12:50pm
Cathedral Church of the Redeemer (604 1st St. SE)
Free admission

Each season, Calgary Opera’s Emerging Artist Development Program provides up to eight young singers with the opportunity to study and perform under a highly prestigious professional staff of teachers and performers. Always a highlight, this free lunch hour performance features arias and ensembles bringing to light the wayward wiles of young lovers. And, as a special treat, this concert includes selections from Calgary Opera’s just announced upcoming season.
proartssociety.ca

Bogart Creek Book Launch

March 27, 2019, 7:00 – 9:00pm
Shelf Life Books (1302 4th St. SW)
Free admission

Collecting the best of Bogart Creek, Derek Evernden’s laugh out loud funny, single-panel comics of absurd and dark humour, celebrate the launch of this new book. With over 300 comics posted online, his first book, Bogart Creek Volume 1, is being launched by Canmore publisher Renegade Arts Entertainment.
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Vivacity: Civic Innovation Showcase

March 27, 2019, 4:30 – 7:30pm
Central Library (800 3rd St. SE)
Free admission, registration required

Over the past eight weeks, this program’s second cohort of students has been researching, testing, and prototyping citizen experiments aimed at building awareness of Calgary’s creative and cultural economy. Learn more about Vivacity and the impact of the arts in our community at this upcoming showcase.
eventbrite.ca

Tabula Rasa Book Launch

March 28, 2019, 7:00 – 9:00pm
Shelf Life Books (1302 4th St. SW)
Free admission

Tabula Rasa is a comic anthology featuring local artists as well as a number of special guests from around the world. Eighteen illustrators were given the prompt to create a three-panel comic on the same blank slate, with the only rule being that there can’t be any words. Celebrate this collection of comics that showcases a broad range of approaches to narrative and to the concept of silence at its launch.
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Meshes of the Afternoon and La Jetée

March 29, 2019, 7:00 – 8:00pm
Esker Foundation (1011 9th Ave. SE)
Free admission, registration recommended

A screening of two beautiful art films, head to the Esker Foundation to see Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and Chris Marker’s award-winning short, La Jetée.
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The Three Little Pigs and B.B. Wolfe

March 30, 2019, 1:00 – 2:00pm & 3:00 – 4:00pm
Evergreen Community Spaces (2, 1709 8th Ave. NE)
Free admission, registration required

A free eco-inspired musical theatre production for families, join Evergreen Theatre for this show from award-winning Alberta playwright, Jana O’Connor. Since the dawn of time, audiences have agreed that the Three Little Pigs were totally right to refuse entrance to the wolf in order to keep the hairs on their chinny chin chins intact. But in this timely environmental twist on the classic tale, the huffing and puffing threatening houses isn’t coming from a wolf.
eventbrite.ca

Nocturn Opening Reception

March 30, 2019, 1:00 – 3:00pm
Jubilee Gallery, Southern Jubilee Auditorium (1415 14th Ave. NW)
Free admission

The artworks shown in this Alberta Society of Artists juried exhibition reveal the diversity of artistic response. It’s one of the most intriguing thematic exhibitions the society has held and will be staged in several Alberta locations.
albertasocietyofartists.com

Calgary Unplugged

March 30, 2019, 7:00 – 9:30pm
St. Patrick Island (1300 Zoo Rd. NE)
Free admission

Featuring free family fun for Earth Hour, head to Confluence Plaza on St. Patrick’s Island to take part in a DJ dance party, activities, fire pits, and games! There is also an Earth Hour Bicycle Brewery Tour and walk to check out.
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Spring Glass Sale

March 30 & 31, 2019, 12:00 – 4:00pm
Bee Kingdom Glass (427 22nd Ave. NW)
Free admission

Spring is here so stop by Bee Kingdom’s studio to enjoy glassblowing demonstrations and buy some bright, colourful, and locally made handblown glass.
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