The Sundance Theatre Lab is a unique experience. It has some similarities to The Banff Centre’s Playwrights’ Colony, but it stands on its own as a creative hothouse.

If there is one word to describe this summer at The Banff Centre – and the stories in this issue of Inspired – that word is transformative.

Recipient of a 2011 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award, Governor-General Award winner, and Banff Centre Paul Fleck Fellow, Robert Kroetsch was one of Alberta’s most beloved writers. The Banff Centre is deeply honoured that the Kroetsch family has requested that donations in Robert Kroetsch’s memory be made to the Centre: banffcentre.ca\robertkroetsch.

The film dialogue is barely audible over the heavy techno beat, and the overall effect is remarkably immersive and realistic. You are in that club, at that table, part of that conversation.

“I remember a story my Uncle Jack told me – a Dunne-Za creation story about how animals once ruled the earth and were ten times their size and that got me thinking about scale and using the idea of the antler…”

You know it’s the good blues when the artists close their eyes.

In a human performance, the audience thinks, “Who are you to talk to me about death?”

“These ingredients have challenged the ways I engage with collectivity in my art practice and theoretical research.”

Four countries, 14 performances, three network broadcasts in just over three weeks.

At the heart of The Banff Centre campus, a new garden has been sculpted in recognition of a beautiful friendship spanning more than 30 years.