At 6:30 this evening, Thursday, Nov. 12, Walter Productions lights the first of three fire shows on the Arizona Canal. The second goes at 7:30 and the third at 8:30, and the artists choreograph each one live. Upstream, a 25-foot hot air balloon sculpture spins rainbow light over the water. A glowing wild horse lets people climb up inside its neck and slide down its mane. This is the 15th Canal Convergence. It's free, the theme is "Western Nature," and it runs ten nights at the Scottsdale Waterfront, along the canal between Scottsdale Road and Goldwater Boulevard.
If you skipped opening weekend, you missed less than you'd think. The installations stay the same all ten nights. What changes is everything going on around them, and the last four nights, Thursday, Nov. 12 through Sunday, Nov. 15, have programming the first six didn't.
Same art every night, a different program every night
Scottsdale Arts counts nearly 100 workshops, performances, tours and other activities over the festival's ten nights. They're spread unevenly, so the night you pick decides what you see beyond the art. Here's the closing stretch at a glance, using the hours on the Scottsdale Arts event page and the dates in its program announcements:
| Night | Hours | What's on the schedule |
|---|---|---|
| Thu, Nov. 12 | 6–9 p.m. | "WEARABLE WILDS" fashion show and Jeremy Arviso's "Working West" garments on the Herberger Stage |
| Fri, Nov. 13 | 6–10 p.m. | Late hours return; SRP Canal History Tours resume |
| Sat, Nov. 14 | 6–10 p.m. | NicoleOlson|MovementChaos dance at the Chalk River Labs swing sculpture |
| Sun, Nov. 15 | 6–9 p.m. | Scottsdale Community College Dance at 7 and 8 p.m.; bandana printing with Jeremy Arviso |
The festival stays open until 10 p.m. on only four nights. The opening Friday and Saturday were two of them, and Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13 and 14, are the other two. Both dance groups in Scottsdale Arts' program announcement perform on the final weekend, NicoleOlson|MovementChaos on Saturday and Scottsdale Community College Dance twice on Sunday. If you've been waiting for a free evening, you waited well.
The art you'll walk past on any of the four nights
Since the installations don't change, here's what's on the water this year so you can choose your route before you park. All of these come from Scottsdale Arts' artwork announcement:
- KaKtos by Amigo & Amigo of Sydney: a forest of 10 giant inflatable cacti, lit from inside.
- Dream Rider by William Nemitoff with Curious Form: a larger-than-life wild horse you climb into and slide down.
- Sky Wrangler, also by Nemitoff and Curious Form: a 25-foot balloon with a rotating basket. As the basket spins, historic Western films swirl across the balloon.
- Desert Choir by OTTOMA of Montreal: microphone stations that turn your voice into trails of light and animal calls on three circular screens hung over the canal.
- grandmother turtle by In Theory Art Studios: a desert tortoise with contemporary petroglyphs and poetry laser-cut into its steel shell. Santa Clara Pueblo artist Nora Naranjo-Morse and Arizona Poet Laureate Laura Tohe collaborated on it.
- the weight of light, also by In Theory Art Studios: a crystalline lightning bolt that hums until enough people interact with it, then erupts in a vertical strike of white light with a boom of thunder.
- Prairie Fire by True North Absurdities of Calgary: a life-size rearing horse that shoots controlled bursts of flame when you push a button.
- Western Fire Garden by Walter Productions: floating fire, light and sound that turn part of the canal into a Sonoran Desert garden.
- The Way The West Was Sold by Jolly Productions: four performers playing period snake-oil salesmen and broadcast advertisers who pitch you a romanticized West from inside a vintage media installation, all ten nights.
- Another Slice of Reality: An Evolving Nature by Tempe's Shaoyu Su x LedPulse: a piece that grows as more visitors gather and interact with it.
- The Chalk River Labs swing sculpture: two swings under hypnotic, Western-inspired projections, from the Melbourne studio.
Several of these work better with a crowd. The weight of light needs enough participants to fire its lightning strike, and Another Slice of Reality grows as people gather. A busy Friday or Saturday may show those two pieces at their fullest. A Thursday or Sunday is the better bet if you'd rather take your time on the swings.
Thursday, Nov. 12: the stage that's new this year
Weekday activities at the Herberger Stage at Soleri Plaza are new to Canal Convergence this year. Thursday's lineup is "WEARABLE WILDS: Fashion, Technology & Ecologies of the West," a fashion show by Arizona State University FIDM students that imagines the West as a lab for future clothing.
Garments from "Working West" also come to the stage that night, during Jeremy Arviso's own fashion show. "Working West" is the returning dress-up space, curated by Arviso, a Phoenix-based Indigenous designer, with Diné hatter Geri James and Diné weaver Gloria Fain. All week, visitors have been able to put on reclaimed-material pieces in that space. Thursday is the night the clothing goes on the runway.
Thursday also closes at 9 p.m. If you'd like dinner first, the Old Town blocks in our five-minute restaurant walk sit close enough to finish dinner and still catch the 7:30 fire show.
Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13–14: the late nights, and the canal's own history
The weekend nights run to 10 p.m. On weekends, the Herberger Stage hosts free live music from Arizona and regional performers. The festival's headliners are QVLN, a Latin pop act, and Nodaway, an indie rock band. The Beer and Wine Garden next to the stage is open every night, with food trucks, dessert vendors, wine, beer, canned cocktails and soft drinks.
The SRP Canal History Tours ran on opening weekend, took Monday through Thursday off, and come back Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 6 p.m. They're free with an RSVP. Salt River Project staff lead the one-hour walks, covering how the Arizona Canal was engineered and what it has meant to life in the Valley. The tour treats the canal itself as the exhibit.
On Saturday, NicoleOlson|MovementChaos returns with a dance performance at the Chalk River Labs swing sculpture. For one night, the swings are also a stage.
Sunday, Nov. 15: closing night stacks dance, a workshop and a tour
Sunday runs 6 to 9 p.m. Scottsdale Community College Dance does two site-specific performances, at 7 and 8 p.m. At the Nationwide Innovation Zone, Jeremy Arviso leads a bandana-printing workshop. It's the last of three workshops led by contemporary Indigenous artists and makers. The first two were natural-pigment painting with the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands on Nov. 9 and beading with Maxica Colectivo on Nov. 10.
Some workshops are ticketed and some are free drop-ins, so check the listing before you count on a seat. Fire shows at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 still run on closing night, and there's a dance set between each one.
The part of the festival that isn't on the water
The Scottsdale Arts Roundabout at Marshall Way sits apart from the stage and the light pieces. Its activities are hosted by community organizations, including CALA Alliance, Monarca Center for Healing and Justice, Art Heals Arizona, RUMBO, Puente, Cahokia, Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale, Arizona Dream Act Coalition and S'edav Va'aki Museum. Yaritza Flores Bustos, community engagement coordinator for Scottsdale Arts Learning & Innovation, explained the idea behind it in the festival's program announcement:
"For Canal Convergence, I wanted to create a space where the roundabout could hold many forms of knowledge, memory and collective imagination."
Getting there and getting a tour spot
A few practical details for the last four nights:
- Book Art Tours early. The $6 Art Tours run every night at 6 p.m. through Sunday. They're one-hour walks with Scottsdale Arts staff, with audio headsets. Scottsdale Arts says they often sell out. Tickets and the free SRP tour RSVPs are both on the Canal Convergence tours page.
- Pick your 6 p.m. The Art Tour and the SRP tour both start at 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday, so you can only do one per night. Take the SRP tour one night and the art tour another, then plan your fire-show timing around whichever you pick.
- Park in a garage. Old Town Scottsdale's public garages are free, and street parking has a three-hour limit, according to Old Town Scottsdale's parking guide. On a 10 p.m. weekend night, three hours goes fast.
- Skip the ticket line. Admission to the festival itself is free all ten nights.
The fire shows, the climbable horse and the singing canal will be there on any of the four nights. The runway, the dancers and the bandana printing each get a single night, and the SRP canal historians are back for the last three, all between Thursday, Nov. 12 and Sunday, Nov. 15.
I spend a lot of time showing people around Scottsdale, and the stretch of canal between Scottsdale Road and Goldwater is one of my favorite places to bring them, especially in November. If you'd like to talk about which parts of town put this kind of evening within walking distance, Wendy O Real Estate is happy to walk it with you. Let's Connect.
