The Performing Arts Centre and celebrating Canada 150 were big themes in 2017, says the Steinbach Arts Council's chief creative officer.

Cindi Rempel-Patrick says in 2017 the City of Steinbach made the Performing Arts Centre a priority, which turned into a bit of a roller coaster.

"They had asked the Arts Council to form a community group to raise some funds and to be involved in this project, we had six months to do it. We worked really, really hard for the first six months of 2017 just to create awareness and to raise the funds. We did raise the funds that we needed on the community end, unfortunately, the project did not go forward."

Rempel-Patrick adds the council's dream is to have a performing arts centre in the community. She notes their current facility is really old and quite dilapidated in areas adding she feels they're currently stunted in growth.

She says 2017 was also a celebration of Canada's 150th birthday where they boosted each event with a celebration component, including the annual Celebrate The Arts Gala.

Rempel-Patrick notes in 2017 they also announced programming to highlight a greater variety of cultures in our community.

"We added an Aboriginal arts program. We partnered with the Stonybrook Middle School and we've had opportunities to do several events now and workshops of Indigenous arts and bringing Indigenous leaders to meet with the community and to work on projects and to help create awareness of what their culture is all about."

She adds the City of Steinbach continues to grow and they're looking forward to adding more programs and continuing to offer arts programming for the Southeast.