Howl at big money
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Stefan Christoff aims to melt resistance to socialism
by GEORGE MADDUX
Although the YTV show My Home Town might not seem the likeliest vehicle for social change, the salary that the program paid to 17-year-old gofer Stefan Christoff might end up boosting the lefty cause. After working on the now-cancelled kiddie drama, the pouty-lipped Vancouver native decided to make Montreal his home and poured his savings from the job into Howl, what he calls "a festival of art and revolution."
The four-day Howl Festival, organized to raise awareness about G-20 issues last September, almost fell apart when Christoff's partner quit, but ultimately came together. The event was a benefit, fusing spoken word, music and politics. "In a social movement you can talk about facts and numbers but if you don't have something to pull somebody's heart into it, you won't get anywhere," he says.
Christoff, now 19, says organizing a festival isn't too complicated. "I had been to a couple of gigs around town and had seen people like Martha Wainwright, so I looked them up in a phone book and they all said yes."
Although Christoff boasts that he "barely graduated high school," his festival worked so well that it'll be repeated again this September, both here and in Toronto. He says Naomi Klein, artist Seth Debachmann and godspeed you black emperor! have promised to perform.
Along with the festival, Christoff hosts a Tuesday morning poetry show on CKUT, performs in a spoken word duo and is working on a documentary about Paul Martin, which he says will come out in September. He's also receiving arts funding for an audio project on the role of music in the lives of Montreal's working people. And does being a tender 19 lead anybody to doubt him? "I just don't tell them, and everybody assumes I'm 25."
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