4th Annual Ottawa Lumière Festival

The 4th Annual Ottawa Lumière Festival took place on Saturday August 11th in beautiful Stanley Park. Keeping with the tradition of the Lumière Festival, amazing performers showcased their talents throughout the evening, delighting the crowd as the sun fell, and the park glowed with the light of thousands of lanterns.

Community response continues to be very positive with over 9,500 people in attendance. Festival goers streamed into Stanley Park as part of the first ever Lumière Procession and were greeted by enchanting lanterns of all shapes and sizes many of which were created by local artists and members of the community. The 2007 entertainment line up was impressive – featuring many talented and enthusiastic performers.

A highlight of the event came after the fact, when Lumière went NATIONAL - local journalist Julie Smyth published a glowing review of the festival on page 2 of the National Post, Tuesday, August 14, 2007, as part of their Best of the Summer Series! We were also excited to welcome VIA/TVA the day of the event as they will be featuring Lumière as part of a series highlighting French activities outside of Quebec.

The Crichton Cultural Community Centre would like to sincerely thank the hard work and enthusiasm of the 2007 Lumière Festival (www.lumiereottawa.com) staff, Board, volunteers, and partners.

The Lumière staff included Producer Joanne Hughes, Co-Producer Caroline Elson, Artistic Director Manon Doran and Production Assistant Graham Lawford. This team did an incredible job by pulling together the festival during the summer months, working day and night to get ready for the big event.

The 2007 poster was designed by award winning animator, Lillian Chan. Lillian and the NFB also allowed us to screen her short film, Jaime Lo, small and shy, with the help of Kelly Neale and her crew from the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Board members Ellen Goodman, Johan Rudnick, Marion Haunton, and Carol West, were dedicated event day volunteers.

Our volunteer photographer Michael Scott really captured the magic of the lantern festival.
Volunteers who went the extra mile, worked the long hours, sweated and slaved and carried and glued include Peter Honeywell and Hilary Armstrong who worked setting up and cleaning up until 2:30 am, Cecile Latour who awed us all with her beautiful swans and water dragon, Robin Campbell our capable Lumière Boutique manager, Allison Prindiville, who continues to design lovely lanterns, Dan Hughes who put up most of the posters and created a beautiful City installation. Also thanks to Alice (and her helpful grandfather), Ara, Kevin, Jenny, Jason, Josee Anne, Grant, Tanya, Andrea, Stefan, Murray, Zaina, Louise Imbeault for producing a heart felt photo CD of the event, and to many others who helped make the festival shine.

We also would like to give generous thanks for the government grant received from Arts - City of Ottawa, with which we hired local choreographer Natasha Royeka to create a beautiful Fairy dance and which also allowed us to pay a professional performance fee to our many talented performers. TELUS also gave the festival generous project funding to expose youth to creativity, photography and videography.

Installations from local visual artists Tick Tock Tom, Stefan Thompson, Ross Nicholson, Jennifer Mohring, Marie-Kim Landriault, Catherine Macdonald- Zytveld elevated the artistic content of the festival.

Our collaborators included Crichton Community Council (for sharing the fieldhouse with us and providing funding for much needed movers), St John’s Ambulance, Pathway Patrol, Jer’s Vision, Spins & Needles, Manor Park, Folk Fest, Harmony House, Ottawa Art Gallery, Dragon Boat Festival, Embassy of Japan, NFB, Ottawa Animation Festival and Volunteer Ottawa. The City of Ottawa staff in Special Events, Parks and Recreation, Funding and every other department we contacted was efficient and friendly and responded quickly and without complaint to our every request!

The media were also instrumental in helping Lumière information reach the region. Those were CBC Radio, The Citizen, CHIN Radio, The Jewel, CHUO FM and the New Edinburgh News.

Finally, from all of us at Lumière we sincerely thank the Ottawa region for taking such delight in this event, for feeling enchanted, for seeing magic in lantern light, for making their own lanterns, and for attending in costume.

Visit the Lumière website at www.lumiereottawa.com for pictures of the event, and to relive the event celebrating the magic and beauty of light.