About The LCAF

The Labrador Creative Arts Festival is a celebration of the arts created by and for Labradorians. This Festival upholds two main principles:

1. There is an expressed need for young people resident in Labrador, be they Innu, Inuit, Metis, or resident, to know their past and their role in the developing Labrador community, to aid them in becoming active in the preservation of their heritage, as well as arbiters of their future.
2. To provide individuals with an opportunity to come together and share their creative experiences because of the geographic and social diversity within Labrador, thus becoming aware of the varied and composite lifestyles in Labrador.

The Festival is not the embodiment of an arts curriculum. However, it becomes an integral part of many different subjects such as language arts, through composition, discussion and debate; and part of a social studies/history program through study of demography, research and analysis of historical phenomena. In effect, the Arts Festival attempts to infuse the total curriculum, where the goal is to utilize the skills and learning styles offered through the arts and to apply them in other subject areas to develop a sense of students' own identity.

In this way students learn self-expression, self-confidence and social interaction skills as well as a keener aesthetic sense and critical thinking skills.

The Festival involves:

• stage and school performances of student-written material,
• travelling shows of children's art and photography
• publication of students' scripts,
• workshops in music, mime, dance, writing, drama, puppetry, improvisation, visual art and film
• presentations and exhibitions by visiting artists
• community-based projects.

In addition, teachers are exposed to a variety of professional development experiences, which augment their teaching in all areas.

The objectives of the Labrador Creative Arts Festival are:

1. to foster and reinforce a sense of Labrador identity among its youth.
2. to provide for young people the means to develop self-expression and confidence in exploring different arts forms.
3. to develop and promote research methods to produce ongoing Labrador arts content and curriculum for school.
4. to provide a formal setting wherein young people from Labrador communities can interact with professional artists to share, create and experience a wide spectrum of arts activities.
5. to develop among young people a sense of appreciation for the arts in their various forms, particularly with regard to continuing recreation in home communities.
6. to provide opportunities for acquiring technical knowledge and skills in the use of tools, materials, and processes for art expression.
7. to foster understanding, appreciation, and a sense of responsibility for the visual environment in which the students live.
8. to help develop critical thinking techniques in becoming selective of what is important in the students' lives through research, playwriting and performance.