Tidemark and CR Literacy Gift Community with Free Family Live Stream in Celebration of Literacy Week!

 The Tidemark Theatre and Campbell River Literacy Association have partnered once again to present their annual FREE family literacy event in celebration of Family Literacy Day on January 27th. Traditionally presented as a live concert event, this year will feature a special live stream experience that can be accessed for free via the Tidemark Theatre website or Facebook live to accommodate current provincial health protocols. 

“Family Literacy Week is the Campbell River Literacy Association and its community partner’s gift to the families of Campbell River,” says Kat Eddy, CRLA’s Executive Director. “All events are free and celebrate the parents of our city as their children’s first and best teachers.”

The 2021 theme for Family Literacy Week is: Let’s be Active – Travel the World Together! “This year’s theme is so much fun.  Children love to move! The benefits of being active are lifelong and life wide. When we move and play, we learn, we have fun, we feel good and our bodies are healthy and strong.  In celebration of Family Literacy Week, we encourage you to get outside and take advantage of all the great activities our community has to offer!  Learning can happen anywhere and our community partners such as the City of Campbell River Parks and Recreation Department and the Downtown Business Association are creating family scavenger hunts to encourage us all to get outside!” says Eddy. “Learning through experiences build family connections and deepen learning for our kids.  Travelling the world together in our own downtown business core will spark conversations about places you’d like to see and future adventures that await.  These conversations and connections are very important in helping your child as they become readers, and these special times spent together help kids to learn about their world. “

The free literacy celebration for Campbell River families was made possible in part by donations from community members and local businesses to the Tidemark’s Theatre Angels Program.  “We have this incredible program called Theatre Angels,” Heidi Cuff, Tidemark’s Programming and Marketing Coordinator says, “and through it, we make tickets available to people and families in Campbell River with limited incomes to attend selected presentations throughout our season. This helps increase exposure to the arts and promotes inclusiveness of the theatre, as well as reaching youth and adults who wouldn’t necessarily have access to the arts otherwise.”

Last year, the Tidemark and CRLA partnered to present a free concert with award winning Canadian storyteller and children’s author, Michael Kusugak. “This is our very small way of giving back to the community,” says Cuff. “It’s been a challenging year for everyone and community events that help keep us connected, while safely apart – are more important than ever.”

This year, award-winning multi-disciplinary artist DiANNA DAVID will be headlining the celebration. DAVID fuses urban hip hop dance with physical comedy, characterization, prop manipulation, and contact juggling to deliver thought-provoking messages that impact self-discovery and social change. As a gifted motivational entertainer, DiANNA seamlessly blends the comedic innocence of Mr. Bean, the optimistic spirit of Charlie Chaplin, with the magnetic dance appeal of Michael Jackson in all of her one-woman shows, speaking engagements, energizers and workshops for children, youth and adutls. She has toured both nationally and internationally to audiences of over 3,000, completing her first nine-country world Red Ball Movement tour in June 2019.

After DiANNA left a successful, yet passionless, career as a mechanical engineer, a chance encounter with a little red ball changed her life forever. It wasn’t until she quit her job and turned her passions into purpose that she started reinventing her own definitions of success. Thus was born her TedxTalk, “Have the Balls to Follow your Dreams,” with the The Red Ball Movement Show stemming from this, asking the question: “What’s your red ball?”

DiANNA DAVID’s work as a transformational entertainer, inspirational speaker, creative educator, humanitarian, freestyle dancer and expressive arts therapist, allows for audiences around the world to question their passions, actualize self-love, and practice discovery.

Whether delivering a speech or miming and energizing audiences at events, she inspires people of all ages to live a life of PLAY: Passion, Love, Art and Youthfulness.

Sponsored by the Campbell River Mirror, City of Campbell River and BC Touring Council, the Tidemark Theatre and Campbell River Literacy Association proudly present, DiANNA DAVID in celebration of Family Literacy Week in a special live stream performance on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021 at 1pm.  Tickets are FREE and can be reserved on the Tidemark Theatre website: tidemarktheatre.com OR tune in via Facebook Live on the Tidemark’s main page.

For the full schedule of free events during Family Literacy Week, be sure to follow the Campbell River Literacy Association on Facebook. For more information about the Tidemark’s Theatre Angels Program or to donate, please visit tidemarktheatre.com or call 287.PINK.