The Village Squire, 1981-09, Page 30People
Young mime
troupe tours
Ladies and Gentlemen: the Centre Ring
Theatre Company.
A unique little band of youngsters, the
mime troupe performs in centres around
Southwestern Ontario. Based in Owen
Sound, the group has grown as an
off -shoot of the All -Canadian Children's
Mime Theatre. The summer experience
has been funded by two government
programs, Experience '81 and Summer
Canada.
The spotlight first focuses on Kathleen
Heeney, director and emcee. An English
and drama graduate of the University of
Guelph. Heeney has written, directed and
acted in plays which the company
performs. Heeney wants a future career in
Toronto theatre.
The remaining members of the cast
range from ages 12 - 18. The star of "Joey
the Clown,", Andrew Hodkinson, 18, has
been in mime for three years. Frank Cain,
12, plays a lion and Joshi Keeshig, 17, is
the circus lion tamer. Keeshig is a status
Indian who practises pow -wow dancing.
The elephant trainer. Carrie Crampton,
17, has been in the mime corps for four
years.
A marvelous mime of an egotistical
magician and his simple assistant is
performed by Greg Connolly, 15, and Rick
Clark, 16. Both have been in mime for
more than four years and Clark also does a
juggling routine. The tight -rope walker is
played by Leslie Bauman, 17. who teaches'
jazz and has done ballet for 10 years.
Debbie Taylor 17 does a gymnastic routine
in the skit and hopes to be a professional
gymnast.
The talented young actors have per-
formed for senior citizens, pre-school
children, and groups of all ages. Their
kind of entertainment knows no age limits,
although sometimes their subtle humour
can't be fully appreciated by children.
The vounteer Mime Theatre will
operate throughout the year.
Another top McQuaid fiddler
For the second time in five years a
member of the McQuaid family of
Seaforth has won The Graham Townsend
Trophy. The trophy is awarded to the
winner of the 12 -and -under class at the
annual Shelburne old-time fiddling
competition.
Madonna McQuaid of Main Street in
Seaforth took the trophy at the recent
31st annual fiddling contest. It was the
first time she has won a fiddling
competition. but the second time the
trophy has been in the family. Madonna's
older sister Anne Marie McQuaid won it in
1977.
Twenty-one competitors were in Miss
McQuaid's division at this year's event.
Each had to play a waltz, jig and reel
within two minutes. The twenty-one were
narrowed down to three before the
Seaforth youth was declared the winner.
Besides the big trophy, which will have
to be returned, Miss McQauid won a
smaller trophy which she can keep.
Ways of seeing
Gallery Stratford has come up with a
couple of new programs, one of which
should delight children and the other to
please the older crowd. The Gallery kicks
off is Sunday Art Series, Sept. 20 (2 p.m.)
by showing parts one and two of John
Berger's four-part video tape series called
Ways of Seeing. Berger, according to The
Gallery's co-ordinator of education and
extension Bruce White "looks at art in a
different way." Parts three and four will
be part of an October program at The
Gallery.
On Friday, Sept. 25, The Gallery is
setting itself up as a haven for the
elementary school children in Stratford
and area whose teachers are using that
day for professional advancement. The
Gallery's program (from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.)
features video and art projects and films
called Closet Cases of the Nurd Kind,
Hardware Wars, Twenty Thousand
Leagues under the Sea and Huckleberry
Finn. Admission is free and as White says,
"It will help get the kids out of their
parents' hair."
He's potty about potteries
For David Newlands the hunt
continues.
The Royal Ontario Museum's Canad-
iana archeologist (and also co-ordinator of
the post -graduate program for museum
studies at the University of Toronto) is in
search of red ware flower vases, pots. tea
pots and other works. And he's been
pretty successful, uncovering one hun-
dred and fifty-one potteries in a seven-
year dig across this province.
Residents of Seaforth and Egmendville
remember him for the visits he paid to
their area, taking out 18,000 artifacts from
a Bayfield River site in eight weeks over a
three-year period a couple of years ago.
Ontario's first potter was an Empire
Loyalist named Samuel Humberstone, in
Grenville County about 1796, says Mr.
Newlands. The heyday for Ontario potter-
ies however, was about a century later.
Their demise was signalled by introduc-
tion of other containers. For a while
potters made pans to skim the cream off
milk to make butter. But then the cream
separator came along.
The potteries were not big business for
a long period of time. That's what makes
the hunt challenging for Newlands.
Young runners tackle Ohio
Ten youngsters from an Owen Sound,
Ontario track club recently ran an
850 -kilometer relay to Miamisburg, Ohio.
The six-day marathon to Owen Sound's
sister city started Aug. 13 and covered
about 140 kilometers a day. The young-
sters, who ranged in age from eleven to
fourteen years, did it in one -mile relays.
They were accompanied by coaches Myles
Caskiie and Bill Page of Owen Sound. who
took the team to the sand and water of
Sauble Beach for rigourous training
sessions to sharpen their stride and
endurance before the marathon.
Andrew Carruthers of Goderich, though
not a member of the track club, also
participated in the run.
Exeter's hockey
stick builder
An Exeter man made a domed green-
house out of broken hockey sticks and his
wife ended up chasing them across an
open field in a wind storm because they
weren't anchored correctly.
Since then, Peter Aunger has had better
luck building things with broken sticks -
shelving, tables, drawers, an antenna
frame, a sawhorse and a scaffold.
The fifteen -metre scaffold which
enables him to work on the highest peaks
of his home was his latest piece of stick
work. It contains more than one hundred
sticks, screw -nailed together in five
sections and can be taken apart and stored
until the next time the house needs
painting.
The Exeter high school teacher
estimates he has recycled about a
thousand broken hockey sticks, -which he
carts off from area arenas.
VILLAGE SQUIRE/SEPTEMBER 1981 PG. 29