SappyFest have just announced some exciting highlights for their twelfth annual Sackvillian shindig. As the town floods with festival-goers this August, and increases its artsy factor by… well not that much, it’s Sackville after all, but at least we now know their line-up.
“I’m so excited about the lineup we are putting together for Sappyfest 12!” says SappyFest director Steven Lambke. “We’re inviting artists that are uniquely bold, brave, visionary, wise and wild and weird – and thrilling and celebratory and joyful. We have artists from away and artists from the vibrant Atlantic Canada scenes participating. We’re reinvigorating our literary and visual arts programming alongside our music programming and we’re trying not to be too strict with those categories or designations. We want to clear a freewheeling and creative space where we can gather.”
Lambke says it’ll be a comfortable business as usual this year, with no major upheavals, expecting that the festival, now in its twelfth year comes together not so much as a hardlining music festival, but more of a family reunion that features special guest performers.
“My feeling is that we come together at Sappyfest every summer and we celebrate and we are happy together and we have conversations through and about and around art and music. And since we are programming music and art that is challenging and exciting to us, that conversation is inevitably a bit different every year – and that is so positive! We are alive and awake and alert. That is what is so exciting about art and culture: it’s a way to participate in the world in a joyful and active and creative way.”
This year’s line-up includes names like Daniel Romano, Weaves, and Lido Pimienta, but most importantly will see returning Sackville / Sappyfest champions Partner. We’re not saying that it’s a contest, or that we’re playing favourites, just that we love them and that they won last year.
Here’s everything we know so far:
Weaves
Lido Pimienta
Daniel Romano
Partner
Willie Thrasher
Bernice
Tough Age
Teenanger
Myriam Gendron
The Courtneys
Fiver
Jon Mckiel
Not You
Booji Boys
Heaven For Real
Vulva Culture
BUDI Big Band with Aquakultre
Richard Laviolette
Kirsten Olivia
Protruders
Sweet Dave and the Shallow Graves
Bird City
Construction & Destruction
Zones
The Magic
Sarah Denim
Klarka Weinwurm
Jane Blanchard
Eamon McGrath
Exit Someone
Beverly Glenn Copeland
The Highest Order
Tess Roby
The festival will also include an exhibition and artist talk by Lido Pimienta, readings by ‘Notes Of A Feminist Killjoy’ author Erin Wunker, film screenings programmed by Native North America Vol. 1 curator Kevin Howes, and intimate small-scale acoustic shows in the Golden Bus, a converted school bus. Also BAH NAH NAH.
Sadly, the town’s famous swans will once again be remaining in a state of permanent dormancy this year.
SappyFest takes place from August 4-6, 2017.