The Galt Museum explores Japanese culture and pop culture with  a new travelling exhibition “From Geisha to Diva: The Kimono of Ichimaru,” which runs Sept. 25- Jan. 9.

“It’s an exhibit from Barry Till from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. It’s been travelling for two decades,” said Graham Ruttan, Galt Museum Marketing and Communications Officer.

 “This exhibit tells the story of  Ichimaru,” he continued, noting  she  transitioned from geisha to pop diva in the 1930s.

Geishas have a long and honourable  history in Japan as entertainers and hostess/ courtesans. They were trained in many of the Japanese arts including music.

“ The local connection is there is a large Japanese Canadian community in Lethbridge,” he said, adding the Galt Museum has partnered with the Nikka Yuko Japanese Centre to bring this exhibit to Lethbridge.

 Ichimaru (1906-1997) was one of Japan’s most famous geishas of the twentieth century, who mastered singing and shamanism. She began recording music in the 1930s. One of her songs is part of the exhibit in a motion activated box.

“She was quite active from the 1920s to the 1980s,” he said.

There are several kimonos and a few Obi, long sashes wrapped around the kimonos. There are also some wood cut paintings plus personal effects  and wigs.

It looks like Arts Days will be blessed with good weather for Arts Days this week.

 It’s not like a couple years ago when we had snow,” said Allied Arts Council Projects manager Tara Gillanders, noting due to Covid , most events will be outside this year.

“We’re working hard to ensure that everything is safe. So we had planned to move as much as we could outside even before the current restrictions came into effect,” she continued.

 Lethbridge’s annual celebration of the arts begins on Thursday, Sept. 23 with local artists painting the outside windows of of several downtown local businesses including Classique Dance Works, The Allied Arts Council shop, Casa and Sill and Soil.

“It’s an excellent opportunity for people to stop and chat with the artists about their work,” Gillanders said.

 The musical portion of ArtsDays begins on Friday, Sept. 24 with doom folk band Makiisma and local garage rock/new wave band Body Lens, who perform on Rotary Square outside Casa from 7 -9 p.m.

After a year -long hiatus due to Covid 19, the ninth annual LEMF (Lethbridge Electronic Music Festival) is set to get you dancing all day long in Galt Gardens, Saturday, Sept. 25.

The free, family, friendly event features a Kidzone with a bouncy castle, beer gardens and a “chill tent” called the T Bird Lounge which is a tribute to Tanner Dietrich, who passed away last year, featuring her artwork. The Lethbridge Handmade Market will provide vendors.

 LEMF, which began with one stage back in 2012 and expanded to three stages, before they were forced to cancel last year’s event, is back to two stages this year featuring 26 DJs, mostly from Alberta.

Toronto Skratch Bastid and Saskatoon’s The Gaff headlines the Zodiac Stage at 9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. and 7 p.m.- 8:30 p.m. respectively. Calgary’s Woofax headlines the Luminosity stage in between those two from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.. The rest of the line-up is from Alberta. J DJ Funkhauser will be on at 1 p.m.

 The other performers are on stage for an hour. 

“The Zodiac stage is more house music and the Luminosity stage is more bass,” noted Lethbridge Electronic Music Festival president David Fritz, who is also on the bill as his alter-ego Marty Funkhauser.

He is excited to have watched the festival grow, and, more importantly, to have the festival back this year.

“Usually we’re in August, but we had to cancel last year. This year it‘s been moved up to September, which we may continue to do because the students are back at university,” Fritz said, noting most of the line-up originally scheduled to perform last year, will be performing this year.

“We kept all the contracts,” he said, adding he is also excited that the festival has a local flavour.

“We wanted to keep travel down plus, there is so much talent here that deserves to be supported,” he said. 

He is excited to welcome Skratch Bastid  back to Lethbridge.