Chapter 1 ~ Exploring Nanaimo’s Artistic Landscape (FREE)

FREE EVENT ~ In-theatre & Livestream tickets available!

The Port Theatre presents…

Chapter One ~ EXPLORING NANAIMO’S ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE

This four-chapter series is created and hosted by Nico Rhodes

You’re invited to the theatre — your theatre, to be precise. You’re invited into a space of magic, creation, and profound beauty. A place where the impossible is made concrete, feats of wonder are routine, and the only boundary to reality is your imagination.

Nanaimo is a vibrant community of artists from a myriad of backgrounds, identities, and perspectives — a living organism that is perpetually growing, changing, and adapting. The most iconic symbol of our shared artistic community is The Port Theatre. A labyrinth of wonders, a home away from home, or a place to escape the worries and misgivings of life.

You are formally invited in, and so are our artists. Over the next 4 shows, we will be blending and presenting musicians, dancers, spoken word artists, poets, visual artists, and more, in an attempt to celebrate and spectate the artistic richness of our community.

This is our gift to you and to ourselves. An opportunity to further strengthen the ties that bind us, to open our minds and our hearts to people and creations we may not even know exist right in our backyard. To meet the movers and shakers, and to engage in passionate discourse about the reality of being an artist in our community, and more importantly, how we are all welcome and may feel at home in our Port Theatre.

The nature of community identity is dynamic. Boundaries and perspectives shift fluidly, constantly in flux. Music, language, food, dance, stories, all adapting to their places and times, adopting features of their surroundings, molding to the political and structural landscapes. One thing, however, does not change, and that is community itself. Though the nature of its identity may change thousands of times over, the desire to understand, to connect, the want and drive to seek mutual ground is inevitable, and intrinsically human. The nature of this project is based in this unshakable truth. We need community, perhaps now more than in recent memory.

About Nico Rhodes

Equally at home on keyboards and woodwinds, Nico Rhodes is a much sought-after composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and teacher who inhabits all styles, eras, and genres of music. Son of internationally renowned chanteuse Joelle Rabu and technician Dusty Rhodes, from an early age he grew up on the road and in theatres, assimilating skills and preparing for life as a touring musician.

At 17, Nico began his professional career in pit orchestras for musical theatre and was quickly promoted to the role of musical director. By the age of 30, he had conducted and arranged more than 40 professional productions across Canada from the Arts Club and Chemainus to Persephone and Drayton Theatres.  He’s created 5 original musicals and musical adaptations and his many kudos include multiple Ovation and Jessie award nominations for ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ (2014), ‘Out of my Dreams’ (2015), ‘Best Laid Plans’ (2016) and ‘Talking Sex On Sunday (2020). In 2018 he was honoured with the Emerging Cultural Leader Award by the City of Nanaimo.

Nico’s hundreds of compositions and arrangements include choral and chamber works, symphonic pop concerts, jazz originals and a portfolio of 75+ commissioned cinematic works. He performs and records with several jazz trios, numerous solo artists and the duos ROOTS & GROOVES with Rick Scott and Full Circle with Joëlle Rabu.

Nico’s love for Ragtime led him to develop ‘The Art of Ragtime’, a one-man historical-musical journey through the evolution of Ragtime from classical to contemporary, combining the rags of best-known proponents and little-known stars with insightful history, humour and anecdote.

An avid believer in the joy of sharing experience, skills and knowledge, Nico teaches piano, woodwinds, music-theory and arranging to a wide variety of ages. Having been blessed with formidable teachers, he strives to engage  his students with fun, disciplined and insightful lessons that delve into everything from boogie-woogie piano licks to composing for string quartet.

FREE EVENT