Tag Archives: toronto

The Four Winds at The Beautiful & The Damned tonight!

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It’ll probably look a little something like this:
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To hear us you’ll have to come out! Hope to see you tonight! 

WonderFest 2014: Spreading Empowerment Through Art!

Here it is! The official call for artists and empowerers! Let’s continue our contributions to a positive and creative world!

WonderFest 2014 happens Sunday April 6 at Revival in Toronto Canada! Hope to see you there!

More info at WonderWomenWorld.tumblr.com<//

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Fundraiser: Baby It’s Warm Inside

Wontcha come on in?! This Sunday December 1st we bust into December raising funds and warming the cockles of the holiday spirit with some holiday tunes! Hope you can join us at The Cameron House 7pm! Ho! Ho! Ho!

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Fundraiser-Typhoon Haiyan Relief

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Check out the lineup of genius and fun convening this Sunday afternoon, November 24, to raise funds for the Canadian Red Cross to help with Typhoon Haiyan Relief! Show is 1pm-4pm at the glorious Central bar and eatery at Bathurst/Bloor in Toronto. Let’s help make a difference! Let’s Make Good Productions! 

Fundraiser extravaganza: Warm Coats, Warm Hearts!

In a week from now, on Sunday Nov 24th, let’s all come together for a night of fun, frolic and fundraising in order to spread some warmth! Have an old coat or two kicking around? Bring it, along with your quest for a good time! I’ll be singing my hit Santa’s Sack and others with Arlene Paculan as our duo Musedy Tag Team!

Happy Holidaze!

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To Stress or Not to Stress…

SAC songwriting challenge-Week 4

Oh man, during this week’s Pat Pattison songwriting lesson, I got lost by “industrial strength magnets” when a squirrel hopped upon my windowsill… or rather I was drawn vegetatively to the windowsill in hopes of luring a squirrel to hop on by and entertain me. This week’s lesson felt like someone forced me to go camping against my will. And camping is ALWAYS against my will. Ugh. Perhaps I’m over-exhausted from Canadian Music Week shenanigans.

cmwnap2Me saying goodnight to CMW 2013 and dreaming of CMW 2014!

To stress or not to stress… within music, means to analyze the syllables and whether they’re nouns or articles or verbs or squirrels. I tried sooooo hard to pay attention. Okay, to be honest, I can’t precisely qualify how deep my effort to pay attention was, for I kept winding up unconscious. I felt a tangible resistance to attention paying. It felt like the times I’d feigned attention while being scolded for something I planned to do again anyway. The stress was definitely ON.

I didn’t like it.  So I shifted my attention to something else important to me: my next live show, for which I plan to perform new songs that are in various stages of incompletion.  The most amazing thing happened! I was working with lyrics and– guess what! I found myself employing the tactics of syllable stress in my writing– and– I altered the chorus of one of the songs so that the chorus’s title was more defined! I couldn’t believe it! It worked! Pat Pattison’s songwriting tools had hoed their way into my songwriting process and it wasn’t painful or numbing! Weehaaaaahoooooooey! I believe there’s hope for me yet! I CAN use tools outside of myself! Needless to blog, I am thrilled with the prospect, and recharged with vigor! I feel like I’ve benefited from a long-needed nap! Yowza! Yowza!

And on the songwriting note– ha! Get it?! If you’d like to be among the first to hear these new songs, you should come out to Smiling Buddha Bar next week! There’s even some open mic slots, so you could play a song new or old as well! I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be a smack-on good time! Come if you can!

The Four Winds Collective smiles at Buddha Thursday April 4th 9pm!

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Cabaret Noir

There’s a new monthly cabaret show in town! I had the honour of being part of Lizzie Violet’s Cabaret Noir kick off!

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Writer/poet/horror aficionado/editor Lizzie Violet launched her brand new monthly cabaret – Lizzie Violet’s Cabaret Noir – at Q Space last night. And what a fun, sexy and thought-provoking night it was.

The cabaret premiere included feature performers Mullet the Clown, David Bateman and Kat Leonard, as well as a very talented line-up of open mic folks. Music, comedy, spoken word, poetry, a zombie clown telling stories and performing card tricks – it was a mix of the ridiculous and the sublime, visceral and cerebral, personal and political, as these talented artists took the stage. Q Space is a casual, intimate, welcoming storefront place, with a cool, eclectic and creative group of folks – and it’s the perfect home for the cabaret as friends, fellow artists and neighbourhood peeps gather to support some incredible local talent.

Lizzie Violet’s Cabaret Noir will be a monthly event, the second Sunday of…

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WonderFest Report Day 4: Wowza!

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Oh, man!!! There is so much of the spreading of empowerment through art happening during WonderFest that I feel I can’t do it justice in prose!

For fuller details on our experience, see our WonderWomenWorld blog!
In a nutshell, Day 4 brought us:

Workshop: Turning Wounds Into Wisdom lead by Nova Browning Rutherford.
The group learned to accept the discomfort of change, to focus on actions that lead toward our goals and values, and that life is in fact long and not short therefore we have plenty of time to figure things out and follow our path!

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The Workshop group!

 

Super Men Concert!  Wowza Wowza what a lineup of talent to digest!  The evening was jampacked with music and words to move the soul, friendship to fill the heart, and laughter to jiggle the belly!

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Arlene and I with the wonderful Super Men!

 

Which brings us to tonight! Tonight is the WonderFest finale: Wonder Women in Concert! Gladstone Hotel 7pm (doors) 8pm (show) with art displays, videos, vendors, a special comic book photo booth for all, and of course the lineup of Wonder Women!  I’ll be performing my new song Love Mania! Wakawakawakawaka!  We hope to see you there spreading empowerment through art!

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The foundation of friendships is a force for mountain moving! (Arlene Paculan and I, WonderFest co-conspirators!)

WonderFest Report-Day 1!

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WONDERFEST IS HERE!

What a wonderful kickoff!

WonderFest Day 1 was a huge ball of fun and success!  It started out with Arlene and I interviewing and performing on Rogers Daytime Peel! Arlene and I both wore turquoise– and we didn’t even plan it!  Sonia our host wore boots to match us– again not even planned!  We were meant to be on Daytime on this day to spread empowerment through art as well as hues of blue! 🙂

Yukking it up with Sonia Sache on Daytime Peel!

Yukking it up with Sonia Sache on Daytime Peel!

Yes, that's empowerment being spread by those gyrations!

Yes, that’s empowerment being spread by those gyrations!

Even my socks and the rim on Arlene’s boots matched the Daytime set! I mean, come on!  What a wonder! 😀  You can watch our video segment here: Kat & Arlene on DayTime!

In the evening we headed to The Central for the first free workshop of the week: Business Planning for Artists with Heather Hill! We had an intimate group of lovely attendees!  Heather Hill is an easygoing and compelling workshop leader with engaging personal anecdotes and effective tangible knowledge to share. The tools and advice shared by Heather is applicable to all business types, and the information was soaked up by the mix of musicians, filmmakers, massage therapists and producers alike!

With our fearless and funny leader Heather Hill!

With our fearless and funny leader Heather Hill!

Learning learning learning!

Alissa Vox Raw (L), Ty Hyland, Lisa Sciannella, Christine Battiston, Angela Saini (centre)

I couldn’t be more proud to be part of such a great evening and start to a wonderful week of wonderment at WonderFest! We still have 3 more free workshops and 2 concerts to celebrate during WonderFest!

Tonight we meet at The Central again for a night of collaboration and open mic performances! Sign up is at 7pm.  Hope to see you there!

Happy WonderFesting, everyone!  May you always feel empowered to make all your dreams come true!

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For full details on WonderFest’s events, visit: www.WonderWomenWorld.tumblr.com

love KAT

Life With More Cowbell interviews Lisa Anita Wegner, an amazingly stunning woman who credits art for saving her life after a brain injury! She shares her story during Wonder Fest Wednesday March 6th 7pm-8:30pm at The Fringe Creation Lab. Details here: http://wonderwomenworld.tumblr.com/WorkshopDetails
“Figure out what it is you love doing and never stop… Everyone can do this, and I encourage everyone to find what it is for them and go after it with gusto. Pierce the mundane to find the marvelous inside you. You are worth it!” Lisa Anita Wegner.
Do yourself a favour and check Lisa out! For serious, yo! love KAT xoxox

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When Kat Leonard introduced me to multi-talented, muti-faceted, multi-media working artist Lisa Anita Wegner, what struck me the most was that Lisa credits art with saving her life. You can read her story here. And when I visited her blog site, I was blown away by the imagery in her pixel paintings.

I had a chance to interview Lisa over email – here’s what she had to say:

LWMC: Hi, Lisa. I was looking at your WordPress blog site and the Mighty Brave Productions site to get a sense of the work you do – and was amazed at the multi-faceted aspect of your work overall, and how it all boils down to authentic storytelling, and using story to make interior and exterior connections. You’ve worked as an actor, producer, writer, filmmaker and visual artist. What else? What came first for you and how did the media you work…

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