Discover the strength of your own artistic voice, join our community and become familiarized with the rich worlds of artistic and cultural works through Ethnik Learning and Empowerment Program, ELEP.. Our weekly guided classes are perfect for beginners and people who are on all stages of their creative journey. Our instructors (Artists Mentors) come with wealth of experience and information on the genres, styles and modes of art and creative expression and are ready to share their expertise in a supportive growth-environment. Group classes are offered online and in-person when its safe to do so, by Ethnik Art Instructors from our communities at locations and community centers throughout the city.
Ethnik Art Instructors are a group of skilled and talented creative minds from different schools of art discipline. We pride ourselves in taking you through a journey that will live you wanting for more during our weekly art classes and workshops. Our instructors are professionals who understand well enough that we are work in progress in becoming the best version of ourselves. We listen first, understand client’s needs and fashion our classes to suit your needs. We make a creative genius out of you.
Ethnik Learning & Empowerment Program (ELEP) - Courses
More courses coming soon
ARTIST MENTORS
WAKEFIELD
Wakefield
Since January 2000, Wakefield Brewster has been known as one of Canada’s most popular and prolific Performance Poets.
He is a BlackMan born and raised in Toronto, by parents hailing from the island of Beautiful Barbados and has resided in Calgary since 2006. He has spoken across Canada, several States, and makes countless appearances on a regular basis in a variety of ways, for a myriad of reasons throughout each and every single year.
Facebook, Facebook Fan Page, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, radio, online, in pictures, in video, in print, Wakefield Brewster is accessible and everywhere.
Anthologies:
•T-Dot Griots, Trafford on Demand Publishing, 2004
•The Great Black North, Frontenac House, 2013
•The Calgary Project, 2006
•The Black Prairies: An Anthology, 2019
In a point-and-shoot fashion, he is also currently wearing these hats:
•Spoken Word Artist
•3-Time Calgary Poetry Slam Champion & Team Captain; 2006, 2008, 2009
•Calgary Poet Laureate Finalist
•Reading Series Founder of Poésie à la Pâtisserie & Pitbull Poetry Reading Series
•Resident Poet & Spoken Word Artist of The Grand Theatre
•Poetry Coach/Mentor
•Classical Pianist
•Percussionist
•Registered Massage Therapist
•1st Dan, Black Belt, World Tae Kwon Do Federation
•Advocate for The Humanities, Addictions & Recovery, Healing Arts, and Mental Wellness
PERPIE
Perpie
Known for her warmth, rich tone and lyrical expression, Perpetual Atife, popularly known as Perpie, is an Alternative African saxophonist, singer and songwriter who most recently released her first five-track mix album Meditation, successfully followed by a live presentation of the entire work at the Steinway Gallery in Lagos with rave reviews.
On tour to London with Nigerian hit musicals; Saro and Wakaa with TerraKulture by Bolanle Austen-Peters, she played multiple saxophones as the only horns player on board for a two-week run of multiple shows at London’s Shaw Theatre in 2016 and 2017. She also toured with MUSON as a student musician to Beijing, China for the ISME conference.
As soloist, she has featured as Headline artist for the MUSON Jazz Festival, Capital Jazz Festival in Abuja, the Steinway Piano Jazz Series, and the TELON Nights at COVA. She is often marked by her warmth and charming tone on the saxophone.
Perpie’s performances encompass rich African tones, rhythms and light percussions. She has had the pleasure of performing with Nigeria’s iconic Orchestra, the MUSON Symphony Orchestra as part of a classical music festival.
Born in Kaduna, raised in Lagos, Nigeria, faced with the harsh realities of life; turbulent childhood, separation and raised mostly be her mother, Perpie finds solace in music. She pulls in all her experiences and dreams into her art to inspire and awaken hope. Her first major performance and involvement in a competition was with Art Colony in 2012. She won the competition to support the SOS Children’s Village Nigeria with computers.
Through music, Perpie aims to continue to inspire hope and to deepen connections with the creator and with humanity.
LEAH
Leah Nicholson is an award winning Producer, Director, and Writer with Downtime Productions as well as the past President of the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers.
She has completed many projects including web series’, music videos, and short films including an original musical she produced/directed entitled My Life is a Musical, winner of an Alberta Film and Television Award at the 40th annual Rosies.
Her project Fictions, a half hour television show, was a part of the CBC Comedy Coup Program and was selected as one of the Top 50 new Canadian comedies.
She is currently in-development with several film and television projects while continuing her work as a freelance Director.
SAM
Samuel Obadero is an enthusiastic learner, a lover of life, and people.
An immigrant from Nigeria using his photographic skills in changing the Calgary landscape. Samuel is a professional documentary and portrait photographer with over 10 years’ experience. As a result of his creativity and commitment to community building, he won the Mayor’s Artist (CCIS New Canadian Artist Award 2019) and became the first black Artist in Residence at the new Central Library in Calgary.
Apart from photography, he has a degree in Computer Science and Statistics with other certifications in digital photography.
He work as an IT expert, currently supporting the YMCA’s IT infrastructure with the most amazing colleagues.
DIELLA
Diella is the founder + health coach at Cokr8 Wellness, where she coaches women entrepreneurs, runs a podcast called”Cokr8 Convos” and curates events (such as Empowered Movement YYC -an annual health and wellness event in Calgary) that encourages proactive healthy habits amongst black, indigenous and people of colour. Diella has both Health & Life Coach certificates from the Health Coach Institute in Boise, Idaho, USA. She is an accredited practitioner/trainer in Meditation, Emotional Intelligence & Fitness. She also recently completed a Global Public health course from the SDG Academy. Diella believes in having a healthy relationship with one’s self, that which is greater, people and the environment around us AND that applied knowledge with belief is the most powerful tool we have in creating true transformation.
LANRE
Lanre Ajayi, a passionate storyteller and multi-dimensional artists, using every available medium as a means of creatively expressing his artistic instinct.
A firm believer in the community to be a place for common unity in uncommon times. He has been contributing in one way or the other towards making Canadian communities a place where everyone is welcome to work, live, love, learn and earn.
He has on several occasions collaborated with community organizations like Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditoria, National accessArts Centre, Studio C Prospect Collaborative Arts Centre, Calgary Public Library and Calgary Catholic Immigration Society etc., using his art and craft impact knowledge to different community members. He used his artistic works as a therapy for immigrant’s children and youth from war torn countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, and other parts of the world. He participated in community initiatives working with different organization to get food for the Calgary Food Bank, worked with people who are assigned to clean community spaces like the Calgary Dream Center and volunteered with Wood’s Homes, Chinook Blast, Genesis Life Centre etc.
He started his artistic career as a teenager making arts and selling them when he was in Nigeria to help support some of his friends with financial challenges regarding their education. Fast-forward after his University degree, he organized Youth Empowerment Scheme programs to help trained youths within his community and ultimately impacted them with the necessary knowledge needed to start a career for themselves. He organized these bi-weekly trainings in collaboration with his friends across multi-disciplinary skills ranging from Art, Fashion Design, Cooking, Make-Up Artistry, Graphic Design and Computer Literacy. Apart from providing the skills and training at no cost to the participants, he established a mentoring platform through which a follow up mechanism is made available for his many mentees to get mentored after their training for as long as they needed him and his friends to provide advice and guidance in their chosen fields of endeavor.
Today, many of his protégée then own their business and are making impact by paying it forward in providing the same skills he impacted to them to other members of the society in Lagos, Nigeria.
As a member of a new community in Calgary Canada, Lanre have been privileged to use his artistic and community building skills to educate, entertain and provide information to different community organizations. As a community builder and connector, he started a not-for-profit art collective for artists of color to create the platform for expression and belonging. He uses his artistic and community building skills to provide mentorship, guidance, and assistance to members of this group.
As a result of his community building efforts using his art to create an inclusive and diverse society, he received the 2018 Mayor’s Art Champions award for a new Immigrant making our community thrive and beautiful.
Furthermore, he is the host and producer of some major community outreach events on different media platforms. Some of them are My City Speaks To Me, a storytelling project about people, places and events. A project adopted by Calgary Arts Development to showcase happenings within the creative Calgary Society.
He is the Founder, Artistic and Creative director of Ethnik Festivals Association and the lead instructor for Ethnik Learning and Empowerment Program (ELEP). His mission in designing the ELEP is to use art as a means of creatively engaging the minds of our diverse student base. In collaboration with Artists Mentors (Instructors), we do this by offering both Art instruction and Art therapy courses that go beyond the four walls of the classroom. We are pushing the boundaries of creative art instruction with the infusion of movement and mindfulness practice, offering consciously curated art and craft compulsory and electives courses to enhance our students’ mental health and overall well-being through art forms for beginners, intermediaries and professional artists, teens and youths in our community and beyond.