A Night of Freedom

Last night was the "Freedom Ball", an event at the Art Gallery of Alberta organized by the Edmonton Public Library to celebrate Freedom to Read Week. First of all, I do not think that they should have used the word "ball" to describe the event. I had imagined it as being a lot more free (pardon the pun) where one could wander about the art gallery and then also listen to the DJs and watch presentations. Instead, it was very structured and it was held in a sort of presentation room in the basement of the art gallery. However, it was still very excellent, just not exactly what I had expected!

We got to the event at 8:00 PM (one hour after it actually started) in the middle of the concert of the rap/hip-hip band called the People's Poets. The People's Poets were excellent, and in the end we ended up buying their CD. They are from Chile, but they now live in Edmonton and they write and rap about social justice issues and consider themselves as "raptivists". I was even pleasantly surprised to hear an excerpt of one of Che Guevara's speeches as a part of one of their songs!

Visit the People's Poets website to listen to some of their songs online.

After the People's Poets, there was the presentation of the "Freedom Movie". This was a movie filmed by various people around Edmonton. It was a compilation of interviews of citizens of different backgrounds answering questions such as "What does freedom mean to you?" and "What do you think you take for granted?".

It was very interesting to hear what people had to say in response to those questions. What was also interesting to see was how open people were to respond to the questions.

In all, it was a great night and I thought it was a great activity to celebrate our freedom to read! Perhaps next year though, just don't use the word "ball" to describe it.