

The third annual FREE outdoor mid-winter dance party!



The electrifying spectacle returns, transforming Olympic Plaza into a winter wonderland of new media. This FREE event under the stars will engulf you in a world of fantastic ice sculptures, magical trees, hot cocoa, fire performers, art installations, brilliant video and a showcase of international electronic artists whose music will get you movin’ and shakin’ to the rhythm of their beats!

This year's lineup includes Kid Koala, An-ten-nae, VibeSquaD, Adham Shaikh, Erica Dee and Cary Chang, with sound, lighting and stage design by PK!

The party will also feature ArcFire, Green Fools Theatre, Mousai Entertainment, Beama Visual Environments, La Gogue and Space Invaders, plus burn barrels, body paint art, food trucks, an indoor bar and more! Join us as we heat up downtown!

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SNOWBLOWER AFTERPARTY!

Take the party indoors at the Official Snowblower Afterparty, featuring edIT of the Glitch Mob, Subvert, Piranha Piranha and Slim Pickins, with PK Sound and Beama Visuals. Special $15 Early Bird tickets available - click here to get yours now!

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Artist Bios:

Kid Koala - An-ten-nae - VibeSquaD - Adham Shaikh - Erica Dee



KID KOALA (Montreal, QC) - Ninja Tune

www.kidkoala.com

Presented by Calgary Downtown Association

Back in 1996, Kid Koala became the first North American artist signed to UK label Ninja Tune. In the years that followed Kid Koala released a string of remixes and toured North America with fellow Ninja artists: Coldcut, DJ Food and DJ Vadim. But it was not long before his skill, innovation, and performance style led him to attract attention from those outside the club community. In 1998, he was invited to join Money Mark’s band, and then went on the road to open for the Beastie Boys on their “Hello Nasty” world tour.

In 2000, Ninja Tune released Kid Koala’s debut album “Carpal Tunnel Syndrome” which received international praise by the press for having defied expectation. The album featured a video game and a 32-page comic illustrated by Kid Koala himself. Following the release of the album Kid Koala toured extensively in North America and Europe as a member of groups such as Deltron 3030, Lovage, Bullfrog and on his own, opening for some of his favorite artists, Radiohead and Bjork.

While on the road, Kid Koala kept busy with pen to paper, illustrating a 350-page book called “Nufonia Must Fall” which was accompanied by a soundtrack that he composed on the piano. Shortly after the release of this book came the release of his second album, “Some of My Best Friends are DJs” complete with a 50-page comic book and mini chess game. This album was supported by a cabaret-style tour known as “The Short Attention Span Theatre”, which featured 3 DJs on 8 turntables, a slide show and a bingo game among other quirky surprises. Following this tour Kid Koala performed DJ sets in Australia, Asia, Europe, Russia, North America and South America, all the while working on a new book.

Kid Koala’s most recent release on Ninja Tune was “Your Mom’s Favorite DJ” in 2006. On this record he shows that his chosen means of expression (the turntable) is used not as a way of showing that he can do faster crabs than anyone else, but as a way of telling stories. Although there is the romance, silent movie comedy and swing that your mother may well smile at and even shake her booty to, the enthralling deftness and complexity you’d expect from Kid Koala is also here – woven together with classic hip hop beats, breaks and generous swathes of heavy guitars.

In 2009, Kid Koala put together 3 “Music to Draw To” performances in Montreal for which he basically invited people to come and draw while he played records. There was no dancing allowed, but people could enjoy a free cup of hot chocolate, purchase some treats and either draw or do some writing. These events where initially created just for fun, but they became a huge success. As the series progressed, he received more and more requests for us to take our event to other parts of Quebec, North America, Europe… Even South America and South Africa…

Later that year, Kid Koala embarked on another journey, that of presenting a project called “The Slew” – live with the former rhythm section of Grammy Award-winning Australian rock band Wolfmother. Featuring drums, bass/keys and DJs working across a truly excessive six turntables, the set featured raw guitar cuts and heavy beats that set out as a one-time-only tour across North America. Due to the high demand by fans for a return and the amount of fun the band had playing together, they toured the North American Jazz Festival circuit and also appeared at SONAR Spain and Chicago. Somewhere in between their busy tour schedule the ex-Wolfmother rhyhtm section joined Kid Koala in the studio to lay down some new songs. Currently Dynomite D is working on the songs at his studio.

In late 2010, Kid Koala finished his latest graphic novel and soundtrack titled “Space Cadet”. To work out the accompanying live show and gallery exhibition, he took part in an artist residence at MASS MoCA (Massachussetts Museum Of Contemporary Art). The Space Cadet Headphone Concert and Gallery successfully debuted there in December 2010 with 2 shows. The novel and soundtrack are set to be released during 2011 through Uni Books and a world tour will commence July 2011 in Montreal at the Biosphere Museum.

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AN-TEN-NAE (San Francisco, CA) - Multi Music / Acid Crunk

www.an-ten-nae.net

Presented by Calgary Downtown Association

An*Ten*Nae is one of San Francisco’s most sought after DJs and live performers. He has taken the art of live remixing to new heights with his own customized setup that bends genres in ways seldom heard. This sound is called Acid Crunk, and there are no rules, no restraints in its quest for pure dance floor devastation. 2010 also sees the birth of An*Ten*Nae “The Live Experience, featuring an audio visual barrage including live drums and synths combined with dramatic theatrical and visual stimulation. Welcome to the future, and no it wont be televised.



An*Ten*Nae is an entity possessing the human mind of one Adam Ohana, giving him the ability to transcend above the constraints of music rigidity and transmit bass heavy, crunked-out beats of the highest order. His bar raising live mix mash-up compilations, “Punk Rock Country Hop” and “Acid Crunk Vol. 1” have set the standard and has defined an era with over 300,000 downloads to date. Picking up steam in 2009 Acid Crunk Vol. 2 maintained the # 1 seller in Dubstep, Electronica and Chillout genres simultaneously while also having all 14 tracks in their respective genre top 10, as well as rocking the charts on iTunes, Juno Digital and a host of other sites. With an album in the works and the ever growing Acid Crunk series running at full steam, we see no end in site for the ever changing chameleon known as An*Ten*Nae.



Besides DJ’ing and producing electronic music for over 10 years on a wide collection of esteemed labels, Adam Ohana has also been an instrumental part of the underground music culture in SF. From being the Music director at of San Francisco’s largest Club venue 1015 Folsom, to his production company called An*Ten*Nae Presents. These events helped break a lot of artists in Bass oriented music on the west coast, including Bassnectar, Glitch Mob, Rusko, Modeselektor and Tipper to name a few. His events have helped catalyze what is now a thriving music scene that spans the west coast and increasingly proliferating dance music culture as a whole. He also produces and performs with DJ Laura as The Lo Riderz, a project that can only be described as a concoction of liquid sassafras that aims to take the party to a deeper level, new music from this duo will be available shortly.



“An-ten-nae goes for the lowest, loudest bass on this reworking of the track "Hold the Line," which also features Santigold on vocals.” - XLR8R



“He produces the kind of stinkin' Bass heavy beats that make you nod your head so hard it gives you a concussion. ” & “He's come up with probably our favourite name to describe the sound so far, infact from now on it is Acid Crunk.” - Chrome Kids

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VIBESQUAD (Colorado) - The Crunkadelic Space Traveler

www.vibesquad.com

From coast to coast and beyond, the electronic music spectrum has shifted radically to the low end, generating ribcage-rattling blasts from the underground on up. Tucked away in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the Boulder-Denver-Ft.Collins triangle is the epicenter of this low-frequency onslaught, producing some of the biggest names in the game. At the top of the heap is Aaron Holstein, a.k.a. VibeSquaD, a musical juggernaut and fearless vanguard in a flourishing scene. Circling the globe with his wholly original brand of bass exploration, VibeSquaD is reaching wider and wider audiences with his studio tracks and out-of-control live shows.

Perpetually on the prowl for that new sound, Holstein has always been far ahead of the curve, adding his signature sound to the bass-heavy style that was filtering over from the U.K. The 2006 inception of VibeSquaD at Symbiosis put Holstein at the forefront of the burgeoning bass craze. From his discombobulating beats and minimalist, gurgling bass on “Domepiece” from 2007’s Return of the Pudding People, to the flexed out kicks and bombastic wobbles—replete with his own signature pitched up hip-hop vocals—of “Flipping Acrobats” on 2010’s The FIRE, VibeSquaD has maintained his position, poised on the cusp of the next big sound while staying true to his unique voice. Over time, Holstein has carved out a distinctive niche, which blends his love for all things bass music, with the funk obsession of his youth. This bouncy, glitched-up, and wobbled-out style is most apparent on his latest EP, Remix Mashers Vol. 1, which opens with a rehashing of Sly & the Family Stone’s “Family Affair.” With four full-lengths, three EPs, and a slew of remixes out on forward-thinking labels Muti Music, Interchill, and Proboscis, Holstein is as prolific as he is a pioneer.

That being said, studio tracks can’t begin to prepare fans for VibeSquaD’s outrageous live performances. Bobbing up and down uncontrollably, arms raised with a permagrin plastered across his face, Holstein hits the stage full throttle, and doesn’t let up until every last spot on the floor is packed with bodies exhausted from a marathon dance session. 2011 has been a breakout year for Aaron, with marquee performances at Sonic Bloom, Electric Forest, and Wakarusa, where he played a sunrise set for a massive crowd. VibeSquaD has supported huge acts like Pretty Lights, Bassnectar, EOTO, and Tipper, but the time has come for Aaron to step up and step out. Having reached the next level, expect to see the VibeSquaD circus packing even bigger clubs, theaters, and festivals across the country, and around the world. The VibeSquaD has arrived.

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ADHAM SHAIKH (Nelson, BC) - World Music

www.sonicturtle.com

As a music producer and composer, Shaikh skillfully weaves organic and electronic sounds into global music tapestries that take listeners on sonic journeys transcending time and place. He has released 12 albums and many individual compositions, among them the 2004 release, Fusion, which was nominated for a Juno Award in the World Music category. Music labels from around the globe have released his music, including Interchill, Dakini Records, Electronic Soundscapes, Liquid Sound Design, Native State, One World Music, Water Music, Nia, Sounds True, Stoned Asia, and the infamous Six Degrees. Recently, Shaikh co-produced and mixed the award-winning debut CD for global fusion group Delhi 2 Dublin, and has just completed re-mixes for internationally renowned world fusion artists Nickodemus, Deya Dova, Kaya Project,Tripswitch and David Starfire. Shaikh has also completed remixes for Stephen Kent, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Issa Bagayogo, Ganga Giri and the Footsteps in Africa Project (Turag remix).



Adham has scored original soundtracks for numerous film and television productions, including Sacred Planet (Disney Imax), Velcrow Ripper’s Fierce Light (National Film Board, Fierce Light Films), Rainbow Jaguars’ Earth Pilgrim, Word Love (Avanti Pictures), Getting Married (TVO), and Secrets: A Parent’s Guide to the Teen Sexual Revolution (CBC’s Passionate Eye, Make Believe Media), for which he received a Leo Award nomination for Best Musical Score in a Documentary Program. His music has also been licensed to an extensive list of media productions, including Suzuki Speaks (Avanti Pictures)– “Let It Ride”(Locomotion Films),Burton Snowboards. Look out for his latest original work on the upcoming television series The Edge of the World: BC’s Early Years (Knowledge).

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ERICA DEE (Los Angeles, CA) – Music is Love

missericadee.com

Erica Dee is a Boston-born, Canadian-grown vocalist-DJ-emcee ready to break all the rules. She sings while she DJs, raps while she sings, and mixes while she rocks her tambo. Hailing from one of Canada’s “rave” capitals (Nelson BC), Erica was submerged into DJ culture at the age of twelve, and opened for Lyrics Born by 16. She has since wooed crowds across North & Central America, including a recent tour with DJ Shadow.



Erica DJs her own live set and also rocks straight up DJ sets known for their diversity…she plays everything! Blend your favorite hot sauce with a twist of lime and your choice of dessert: this will equal the heart throbbing, bass thumping, crowd rocking DJ that is Erica Dee.



Erica currently resides in Los Angeles, where she has dug back into writing and producing her own music. Since her move toLA for six months, Erica Dee has already played at the a number of events in Hollywood, including MTV’s 4 Real Host Sol Guy’s series “Truth Tourette’s,” where she performed and spoke about inspiration alongside the original James Bond, Pro Skater “P-Rod,” and the Creator of the Simpsons, which was held at the exclusive Soho House in Hollywood. Her new mixtape “GOLDEN” and her new music video “For a Minute” are out now and ready for you!