Live Nuit Blanche Winnipeg events not going ahead this weekend, but some art moves online

Like many artists, Pluetoe Ilunga hasn't performed since COVID-19 hit in March.

Nuit Blanche Winnipeg was supposed to be his first opportunity to introduce live audiencesto his masked rap persona, "Zueos,"in an art project as part of the festival on Saturday night.

Audiences will still get to see that project but not in person.

On Thursday, organizers pulled the plug onart activities and installations that werescheduled for the evening of Saturday, saying they will instead be rescheduled throughout the month of Sept. 25 to Oct. 25.

Unlike so many festivals that were cancelled outright this summer, Nuit Blanche an annual event that typically draws thousands of people to downtown to see public art and participate in installationshad hoped to go ahead this weekend with COVID-19 safety measures in place, includingcrowd limits, physical distancing, masks and sanitization.

But with the rising case count in Winnipeg this week, that plan changed on Thursday, a day before Manitoba health officials announced the city will be shifted to the orange, or "restricted," level on the province's colour-coded pandemic alert system starting next week.

While the one-night festival is cancelled, Nuit Blanche organizers say many projects already had an online element, and are able to still go ahead in some form on Saturday.

That includes the projectIlungawas involved with.

He was amongtwo dozen artists, including musicians,dancers and filmmakers, who created avideo exhibit called Kindred.

WATCH | More than two dozen artists collaborated to create Kindred:

'Kindred' exhibit brings Winnipeg artists together during pandemic

4 years ago

Duration 2:15

Nuit Blanche has pulled the plug on its regular event, but work still going online.

The original plan was to project thevideos created for the project onto the side of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Now, they'll be streamedonline on Saturday.

The project a collaboration between Wall-to-Wall mural festival, skihiw festival, Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery, and the Winning Art Gallery involved young people who weregiven artistic mentorship, to help them polish and present their work in a series of music videos.

"A lot of these artists already had music prepared for this, and this is how they worked with professionals," said Rene Marriott, assistant manager of Studio 393, who helped organize the project.

There were limits on who could take part, plus extra steps to keep things safe, like masks and sanitization, which meant the youth who were chose to takepart were serious about what they were creating, Marriott said.

Even though the public won't see their art in person, the artists involvedsaid just getting to work together again duringthe pandemic has been a huge boost.

"It's honestly been kind of weird, being isolated from everybody and doing things on my own at home," saidIlunga.

"Now, being around people makes you appreciate community even more."

Jane Fuentez, another of theyoung artists who was mentored as part of the project,missed out on a full summer of performances because of COVID-19.

"It was great working with other musicians, because I feel like when musicians don't get to see others work and everything, you aren't learning from anyone," she said.

Pandemic as inspiration

Rapper Jimmy "The Jammer" Thomas, who wrote a song that will be featured in Kindred,took inspiration from the pandemic.

"I couldn't be with all my friendsbecause of COVID," Thomas said. "I had no one there with me. I had some tears in my eyes. I was kind of broken up inside. And then all of a sudden I thought to myself, 'I should probably write a song about this,'" he said.

"Man, music is my therapy. Music is my counselling. It gets all thestuff off my chest."

While Nuit Blanche has yet to release its reworkedschedule, Kindred will still be available to live stream on Facebook, YouTube on Vimeostarting at 8 p.m. CTSaturday.