All Bodies Dance is an inclusive dance company located on unceded Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, BC, Canada). Our work brings together artists with and without disabilities. We seek to make opportunities for every body to discover dance and for artists with disabilities (and without) to access pre-professional dance training.

Harmanie Taylor is a disabled dance artist born on the unceded territories of the Semiahmoo, Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations. She is an Associate Artist with All Bodies Dance Project, working as a facilitator, choreographer and performer. With over a decade of working in inclusive dance, she is committed to furthering discussions about inclusion and creating new opportunities for artists with disabilities. She is interested in discovering her own interpretation of the interactions between body perception, place and privilege

Rianne Svelnis is an independent dance artist and a 2nd generation settler born on unceded, occupied Coast Salish Territory. Rianne has had the pleasure of working with All Bodies Dance as a teacher, choreographer and performer. She is curious about the interfaces between privilege, place and perception of the body and movement.

movement ~ water ~ deep care ~ poetry of life
I work as a kinesiologist and somatic movement educator. I embrace the perspective that nature is our true nature and that dance, movement, and art are essential ways to experience and express this inter-connectedness. I explore what it means to be an embodied being, living in relationship to seasonal rhythms & tides while living & working in an urban setting. As a fourth/fifth generation settler to Turtle Island, I am grateful to live on this unceded land.

Anjela is a first generation Canadian originating from the Philippines and graduated from Simon Fraser University in 2014 with a BFA in Theatre Performance.

In 2014 Anjela co-founded New(to)Town Collective. With the funding of BCAC`s Early Career Development Grant, Anjela was Producing Intern at Playwrights Theatre Centre (PTC) in 2017-18 and is currently the Associate Producing Artistic Director of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre. Anjela works freelance as an actor, teacher and collaborator with various artists of different disciplines. She has extensive experience in collaboration and devising original work. In the past she has contributed to various local theatre companies such as Resounding Scream Company by originating the role of the Guide in Trojan Women: A farce tragedy by Catherine Ballachey, and CC in The Spark by Pedro Chamale of Rice & Beans Company.

Presently, she continues her study of clown and performance training with various local teachers such as David MacMurray Smith, Raina von Waldenburg, and Dolores Drake as well as international teachers such as Mary Overlie and Steve Wangh. Anjela is currently honing her leadership skills so that she can a mindfully create and support theatre art in the emerging artist community.

Anna Lathrop is a visual designer and artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She has designed graphics and visual identities for various non-profits including Seedleaf, California Wilderness Coalition, Freshkills Park, Turks & Frogs Wine Bar, and TLTW, among others. She is the co-founder of GROUNDWATER ARTS, a consulting group advising arts institutions through a climate justice lens. She is also the co-creator and visual designer of LET’S TALK, a soon-to-be-launched Instagram-native infographic detailing the neurological and cultural affects of trauma. She is the former Executive Director of NYC-based theatre company The Muse Project, and co-founder of the Washington DC Coalition for Theatre & Social Justice.

Annalisa Dias is a Goan-American citizen artist, community organizer, and award-winning theatre maker working at the intersection of racial justice and care for the earth. She is a Producing Playwright with The Welders, a DC playwright’s collective; Co-Founder of the DC Coalition for Theatre & Social Justice; and Co-Founder of Groundwater Arts. Credits include: WRITING: 4380 Nights, the earth that is sufficient, One Word More, The Last Allegiance, A Legacy of Chains, Crooked Figure, Consider the Dust, Matanuska, Coal, and Servant of the Wind. DEVISING: Wit’s End Puppets: Malevolent Creatures; banished? productions: Tyger; Theater Alliance: I Love DC. DIRECTING: Source Festival: Dust to dust to dust and Dressing Bobby Strong; The Salima Project (film). Annalisa’s plays have been produced or developed by The Welders, Theater Alliance, Signature Theatre (DC), the Phillips Collection, The Gulfshore Playhouse, the Mead Theatre Lab, The Hub Theatre, Spooky Action Theater, Tron Theatre (Glasgow), and Theatre 503 (London). Annalisa frequently teaches theatre of the oppressed and decolonization workshops nationally and internationally and speaks about race, identity, and performance. She is a TCG Rising Leader of Color and also works toward diversity and inclusion full time at the American Political Science Association.

Anne Montgomery is a Vancouver textile artist who uses hand stitching, embroidery, crocheting, felting, dyeing and weaving to create multi-media textile collages and stitched stories. Anne’s first sewing project was a hand puppet made out of an old oven mitt, with button eyes and yarn hair, that she made at the age of 5, and she’s rarely been without a needle in hand ever since. For her, hand work, especially using pre-loved,used or scrap textiles and materials, is a way of connecting to other people’s histories and creating a continued community of spirit and creative industriousness.

Anya Saugstad is a dance artist from Vancouver Canada, where she resides and creates on the stolen lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh first nations. Anya trained at ArtsUmbrella, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance for four consecutive summers, and at Simon Fraser University where she received a BFA with honours in dance. Currently, she is a part of the Performance Research Program mentored by Lesley Telford, and is also working on her own choreographic projects. Anya has worked with Inverso Productions, interned with Action at a Distance, and with the response. Recently, she was commissioned to create a work for SFU, where she researched empty space and how we leave and arrive from one another. Through her work she is interested in making worlds similar to those which she dreams about; removed, intimate, often empty, chaotic, or exhausting. Her work has been shown at Bloom, SFU performances, BoomBox, PreShow, Dance Cafe, and other local studio showings. Anya is grateful for her collaborators in this project for their extreme dedication, friendship, strength, and earnestness. For so willingly, again and again, to mesh their imaginations with her own.

Ariel Martz-Oberlander is a theatre artist, writer, producer and director on occupied Coast Salish Territories with a background in community theatre. She divides her time between theatre and community organizing with much overlap. Ariel is the Youth Program Manager at the Cultch, supporting and facilitating mentorships for artists 13-26 and producing the IGNITE! Youth Arts Festival in May. Her own practice often explores her complex relationship to land and body as a descendant of refugees. Recent works include The Full Light of Day with Electric Company Theatre (Assistant Director); on behalf, a movement and ritual based piece which premiered at Vines Festival 2018 and is currently in further development; and Safe: The Jewish Vault, at HIVE part of Magnetic North Theatre Festival. Upcoming projects include Time Machine with Radix Theatre, and Hysteria with Direct Theatre Collective. Ariel is the recipient of the 2017 Mayor’s Arts Award for emerging community artist.

In 2002 Avyen received a film production diploma from Vancouver Film School. His vision of becoming a director inspired him to travel, study theater, indigenous ways, practice film and explore performance. In 2003 he moved to New York City for 5 years and studied many aspects of performance with teachers such as Acrobat of the Heart author Steve Wangh, 6 Viewpoints creator Mary Overlie, and Balinese Mask with Per Brah as well as a few others. It was David MacMurray Smith’s style of teaching Clowning that brought Avyen back from his world travels to Vancouver in 2010. He has since been fascinated with it’s fusion of Clown: the medicine wheel, Bio- Kinetic release work, presence and Grotowski techniques. Over the years he has been performing at cabarets and festivals around BC.

Born in British Columbia, Carmen Wong is a multidisciplinary artist working and living in Vancouver, Canada. She is currently completing her BFA at Simon Fraser University with a major in Visual Arts. Her practice includes installation, painting, and multimedia work where she draws inspiration from myths and fairy tales in creating her work. Through last year’s Powell Street Festival, she was able to explore her interest in manipulating recyclable plastics to create a quirky and fun installation and intends to expand on what she learned in the future.

Cecilia Cackley is a playwright and puppeteer based in Washington DC. She is the artistic director of Wit’s End Puppets and co-creator of their shows Cabinets of Kismet, Saudade and Malevolent Creatures. Her bilingual children’s plays have been presented by GALA Hispanic Theater and toured around DC to local schools. Cecilia is an affiliated teaching artist with Imagination Stage, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Ford’s Theatre and Young Playwright’s Theater. Internationally, she has performed or taught workshops in France, Canada, Armenia, Guatemala and El Salvador. Her new project Son Titere, a fusion of street puppetry and Mexican folk music, will premiere in May 2019.

A member of the Musqueam Nation, Cecilia Point is a political activist who stood for 200 plus days protecting her nation’s ancestral burial site from development in 2012. Since then she has taken part in countless political actions advocating for human rights and the environment. Cecilia has also dedicated many years to cultural preservation in the field of Indigenous cultural and eco tourism. She currently holds the position of Director of Operations for the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada. She is a facilitator for reconciliation workshops with the Bright New Day organization, and has been designated a public speaker for her nation. She holds a Certificate in Business from UBC, supplemented with courses in First Nations studies, including hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ (the Musqueam language).

Christie Lee Charles or “Miss Christie Lee” of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm ,with lineages to surrounding Coast Salish Nations, is an artist who expresses her gifts in many forms such as storytelling, Salish singing, poetry, weaving, film raps, keynotes ,facilitating workshops and more.

“Our language teaches us our way of life and holds us strong to work on our path”.

Growing up in a world of music her focus has been hip hop, where as an emcee incorporates her traditional knowledge and ancient hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ dialect. A Global performer visiting : Beijing BC pavilion, WEDay, Talking Stick Festival, Fuse, Drum is Calling, TedX Distortion Vancouver 2018, TedX Langara College 2019, Junos 2018 .Christie is Currently Vancouver’s Poet Laureate 2018-2021 and Musqueam arts and culture Liaison for the Vancouver Creative City Strategy . On June 21st 2021 Christie and her team will be hosting the first annual International Indigenous Hip Hop Awards in Winnipeg Manitoba.

Prior to her degree, Cindy Kao is a classically trained violinist. Her works include performing in the International Youth Symphony Orchestra in Bremen, Germany (2009), Tafelmusik Baroque Institute at the University of Toronto (2010), Banff International String Quartet Competition Young Musicians Program (2010), a chance to do workshops in music and dance with the New York cast of Wicked, as well as various events and awards with the Performing Arts BC. During her time in the Theatre Performance Program, Cindy was re-acquainted with music while performing as an actor and a sound designer in the 2016 Blackbox shows. Since then, most of her works with SFU has allowed her to explore her background as a musician while executing her training as an actor. Some of those listed works include The Anti-Gardener, directed by Ian Macfarlane, Topophilia, directed by Steven Hill and Rob Kitsos, and Thy Neighbour’s Wife, directed by Darylina Powderface. Cindy’s most recent works include Still Life Continuum with Redshift Music at the Orpheum, and Bombogenesis, spring mainstage with SFU, directed by Steven Hill.

A mixed media artist, whose passion for the creation of creatures/ monsters burbling up from the subconscious signify Claudia Segovia’s prolific art practice, she has been creating art since childhood. Diplomas in Fine Art and Graphic Design from the Emily Carr Diploma program gives her the formal structure that offers her work control allowing the wild nature of the imaginative creatures to play.

Born in England to a Spanish, chemist father, whose artistic past times included opera, he was also a fabulous piano player. Her Mexican mother trained as a dancer but her career as a dolphin and brain researcher saw the family living in different parts of Mexico, Los Angeles and Spain. As a child, her art practice and ballet classes were a constant. After high school, she attended and graduated from the National Centre for the Arts in Mexico City with a degree in Contemporary Dance Choreography.

In 1997, she moved to Vancouver,Canada. A creature maker in three dimensional soft fabrics, paintings and drawings, an art and dance teacher, a choreographer, a mother and a dog lover, Claudia is passionate about the value of honouring the artistic spirit and nourishing the physical body with healthy choices.

Presently she teaches art and ballet/modern at Arts Umbrella, art at Vancouver School Board, Butterfly Yoga and Oakridge Child Centre and has created a book binding workshop offered to Vancouver schools. She shows internationally at the following galleries: Galeria Arte Contemporaneo (Lagos de Moreno, Mexico), Animorphs at Ainsworth Custom Design (Vancouver, BC), Anonyumus Show (North Vancouver, BC), Seymour Art Gallery (North Vancouver, BC), Arts off Main (Vancouver, BC), Maker Fair (Vancouver, BC); Whistler Arts Council, Hycroft (Vancouver, BC) , Canadian Federation of Artists (Excellence Award), North Vancouver Art Council, Port Moody Arts Centre, Mexican Consulate/UBC (Vancouver, BC), and Raw Canvas (Vancouver, BC).

“The Coven” is a vogue collective comprised of three professional, queer artists from across the country. Ralph Escamillan (House of Gvasalia), Ross Wirtanen (RiaToss Productions) and Kevin Fraser (Immigrant Lessons) are all highly distinguished and versatile dancers / choreographers within their hometowns of Vancouver, BC and Toronto, ON. With an innate passion for LGBTQ2IA+ arts and culture, the “unholy trinity” strive to cultivate the growing Canadian vogue and ballroom scene by hosting community dance classes, workshops and balls . Their macabre sense of theatre, editorial fashion and gender-bending style are woven into entertaining and educational live performances that elevate the expressive, underground dance style of Vogue.

There are many faces and many personalities to Vancouver based blues singer Dalannah Gail Bowen. All of those personalities have something in common – a spark, joy, determination and a fire inside. She is more than a singer – she is woman through and through. Dalannah Gail Bowen is all women – beautiful, tough, talented, nurturing and spiritual.

Born of African-Canadian/Cherokee heritage, Bowen has been music-making for forty years in the Canadian blues, rock and soul scene. Bowen started her musical career with the all-female group The Feminine Touch who toured Canada and the USA opening for acts such The Monkees and The Guess Who.

As an in-demand vocalist, she has performed with or opened for other major artists including Led Zeppelin, B.B. King, Willie Dixon and many more. Her 2007 CD recording, Mamma’s Got The Blues, was released to wide acclaim and rave reviews from across the globe. Then in 2015, her Been Around A While CD was selected by Downbeat Magazine as one of the Best Albums of 2015.

Dalannah Gail Bowen’s live performances are known for their powerful and energetic delivery while taking an old-school approach, as well as adding contemporary elements. As a versatile and knowledgeable artist, Bowen can also be heard performing in a wide- range of musical collaborations, including traditional drum group The Snowy Owl Drummers, Songs of Mahalia Jackson, a tribute to the world-renowned gospel singer and East Van Morrison, a jazz group that performs selections from Van Morrison’s repertoire.

Daria began her training in Vladivostok, Russia, where she was born and raised, and after moving to Canada in 2014, she continued her education with Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Program, while also completing her BA in art history at the University of British Columbia. While in BC, Daria got to work with Dance Victoria, FakeKnot, MascallDance, very deep and meaningful company (Diego Romero) and is currently working with companies Wen Wei Dance, Vision Impure and Kinesis Dance Somatheatro. Daria’s solo works were supported and presented through the Shooting Gallery Performance Series, FORM (Festival of Recorded Movement), Body+Camera Festival in Chicago and Jersey City

Dario is originally from Italy, a former dancer of Aterballetto (Italy), Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal and Ballet BC (Canada), Tanz Luzern Theater (Switzerland).

In Vancouver he collaborates as dancer, teacher and choreographer with Action at a Distance, Aeriosa, ArtsUmbrella, LamonDance, Mascall Dance, Modus Operandi, Plastic Orchid Factory, Small Stages, The Underground Circus and WenWei Dance. Former Artist in Residence with Ballet BC and board member at Cada/West.

Currently working as a contemporary performer in dance, dance-theater and circus, Dario has had the fortune to connect and interact with artists coming from different cultures and background. Each one of them has deeply influenced, contributed and inspired him to cultivate his interest for a choreographic language that extends beyond the forms of dance.

Davey Samuel Calderon (he/him/his)- is a queer Filipino-Canadian, American born, theatre artist based on the unceded territories of the coast salish peoples: the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and səlil̓wətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Sníchim-speaking Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation). He has his BFA in Theatre Performance and Communication from Simon Fraser University. Co-Founder of New(to)Town Collective, an emerging theatre collective aspiring to provide accessible, experimental training workshops and creating new interdisciplinary works together.

He is an emerging actor, director, and theatre maker. Recent performances include: Big Queer Filipino Karaoke Night! (Tender Container/Neworld Theatre/New(to)Town Collective), Down in the Uncanny Valley (Nebula Theatre), Finders Keepers (Theatre in the RAW).

Recent directing credits include: KIND (Child): A Staged Reading (New(to)Town Collective) and Donut Holes in Orbit (Directing Projects 2013 & New(to)Town Collective).

Wrote and produced a short film, RUN, which was featured in the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.

Big Queer Filipino Karaoke Night! was his first written solo show that premiered at the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival. Produced by Tender Container and associate producers New(to)Town Collective and Neworld Theatre.

Dawn Livera is an eclectic community artist. She believes that making art should not be the private domain of the “talented” or “learned” few. Rather, everyone should feel free to explore their own creativity without worrying about whether their art is “good enough”. Her current work uses traditional fibre art techniques – weaving and hand stitched embroidery to explore community connections and the possibilities that open up if we believe “there are no mistakes”. She often repurposes worn out or cast off materials that may be viewed as “garbage” to demonstrate the value of things that other people might casually discard.

DeLesslin “Roo” George-Warren is a queer artist, researcher, and organizer from Catawba Indian Nation whose work ranges from performance to installation art to community education to food sovereignty to language revitalization. Since 2017 he has been the Special Projects Coordinator for the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project where he facilitates the Catawba Language Project, several food sovereignty initiatives, and other community education projects. He has performed, lectured, and exhibited throughout the U.S. including the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, College of Charleston, Vanderbilt University, Ithaca College, and more. In 2018 DeLesslin was recognized as a 2018 “40 Under 40” by the National Council on American Indian Enterprise Development. In 2017 he was selected as a Dreamstarter by Running Strong for American Indian Youth and in 2016 he was recognized as a “25 Under 25” by United National Inter Tribal Youth. Some of his work can be seen at delesslin.com

Elisha Wang is an interdisciplinary visual artist living and working in Vancouver, BC. Born and raised in China, Wang is currently studying Visual Arts and Interactive Art and Technology at Simon Fraser University. Her works include paintings, short films, installations and digital illustrations. Her practice involves utilizes storytelling techniques and visual effects to enable a visceral connection with the viewer. Through her group collaboration project with the Powell Street Festival in 2018, she gained new insights around engaging the local community as a way of art making, and what it means to make work for the public.

Emilia Belliveau is a painter, dancer, community organizer, and political ecologist. Her creative projects consider the fraught relationship between environment and economies, grapple with fear and uncertainty in the face of climate change, and draw inspiration from the long and beautiful history of social movement and resistance art. Climate justice is at the heart of her work, research, activism, and art.

Eowynn is a contemporary dance artist who strives to consciously and rigorously take part in the creative process, committed to researching how she can physically and physcologically encompass the work she performs. Eowynn obtained her BFA at Simon Fraser University and was awarded the Amir Algahband Award in Contemporary Arts (2016). Eowynn has been fortunate to collaborate professionally with: Wen Wei Dance 2017-2019), Vision Impure Compagnie (2017-2019), Mascall Dance (2016-2019), and others. Eowynn is thrilled to continue working with Anya Saugstad in the studio, as she finds that Anya’s work feeds the soul, and is something of its own; constantly engaging the momentum of physical movement.

Raw, timeless and dynamic, Erica Dee offers playful melodies over energetic rhythms with a magnetic presence. A Vocal Artist, Producer, Facilitator, Event Curator, DJ and Performer. Born into linage of Jewish and Italian Jazz musicians Dee brings a captivating performance, honoring elements and influences of soul, hip-hop and R&B. This Vancouver based creative has been carving out her own path in the music industry for over a decade, having supported and toured with Artists such as: Lil Kim, Mos Def, Quest Love, A Tribe Called Red and Bad Bad Not Good.

Dee’s diversity and musical capabilities have taken her all over the world, from Brazil, to Israel to Europe. She has an infectiously warm personality, which can be felt by the way she lives through her heart and centers her passion for authenticity in her music. Erica Dee puts on an engaging live show with a full band or with her DJ, singing and MCing performance. She often features guest MC’s, vocalists, and dancers to join her on stage. Past guest artists include: Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Desiree Dawson, Evy Jane, Ndidi Cascade and Climbing Poetry. Despite the nature of the event, Erica Dee creates a guaranteed unique interactive experience.

Estíqw is a 2 spirit anti-professional, working as an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on decolonization and indigenous autonomy. they are a defender of the sacred and use their craft as a tool to decolonization and land sovereignty. they and their fire are from the secwepemc nation of the south central interior of so called british columbia.

Evan Ducharme is Metis with ancestral ties to the Cree, Ojibwe, and Saulteaux peoples, and is from the Métis community of St. Ambroise, Manitoba. His work explores Metis identity and it’s cultural iconography, with particular focus on creating images of contemporary Indigeneity, reclamation of Indigenous sexualities, and a commitment to environmentally conscious practices.

Ducharme currently lives and creates with gratitude on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil Waututh, and Squamish Peoples (Vancouver, BC.)

Gathering and Singing (GaS) came to reality from a spontaneous post on a Vancouver Vietnamese community Facebook group. The original intention was to create a forum for Vietnamese music lovers to gather and simply share our passion for singing. The first official GaS meet-up event was on March 31, 2018. It was the start of everything we have today. All members from GaS today came from these meetups over the year. All being international students, we realized that music is the perfect portal to live in the feeling of home. Only at the most simple and natural meet-ups can this feeling become true, where everyone takes turns to share their voices, and where passions are received and echoed with the songs they sing together.

Since then, GaS has always been eager to bring more Vietnamese music to the community. Beyond our meet-ups, the band has since participated in many cultural events in the Vietnamese community.

Artists: Annie Hoang (Nhi Ngoc Hoang), Huy Ta, Steve Dau (Son Minh Dau), Nhat Minh (Nhat Minh My)

George Rahi is a composer, performer, and installation artist based in Vancouver. He uses self-created & altered instruments as a method of exploring new relationships between sound, space, technology, and listening. Drawn to the tactile, mechanical, and sculptural realms of sound, his artistic works are frequently expressed as large-scale installations, electro-acoustic compositions, and works for radio, theatre, and public spaces, notably for Vancouver New Music, the Canadian Music Centre, Western Front, Fusebox Festival (Austin), SPEKTRUM (Berlin), Regenerative Feedback (Rotterdam), Global Composition (Darmstadt), and Insitu Recordings (Indonesia). He holds an MFA degree from Simon Fraser University and is the recipient of the 2018 R. Murray Schafer Soundscape award.

Glen Andersen is a multi-disciplinary artist practicing mostly in public sculpture, mosaic, community-engaged art and digital video installation, often with an eco-historical focus. His permanent work can be found around the Pacific Northwest. After a short and inevitably-doomed career doing agit prop and installation-based guerrilla art about land-use issues, some of his earliest legally-sanctioned public art work involved working at Trout Lake, in the 1990’s, including with Public Dreams as a visual artist and stilt-performer, contributing ephemeral installations and performance tableaux. He explores ways for audiences to participate more directly in the full realization of art works. Recently he collaborated on a crowd-sourced documentary montage about the Fraser River (thevoiceoftheriver.com).

Haylee Marx is an interdisciplinary artist currently living and working on the unceded Coast Salish Territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Marx took two years of the BFA Theatre Production and Design program at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta and is currently enrolled in the BFA for Visual Arts and taking the Extended Minor for Theatre at Simon Fraser University. Her group work with the Powell Street Festival last year has introduced ideas around community engagement that she hopes to continue utilising within her practice.

Established in 2016, Immigrant Lessons is a Vancouver- based, international dance/fashion/art collective created to promote cultural pluralism utilizing: dance, music, fashion, media, and visual design. The collective is founded/co-directed by Kevin Fraser, and co-directed by Alyssa Amarshi. It’s core members are comprised of multidisciplinary artists: Jason Bempong, Sophia Gamboa, Marisa Gold, Sharon Lee, and Joshua Ongcol. It’s diverse members, are all first or second generation Immigrants to Canada, with ancestry scattered across oceans. With a shared love of movement and art, Immigrant Lessons incorporates their extensive street dance background, experimental practice, contemporary ideology, and the investigation of societal norms and intersections to give voice and visibility to marginalized and oppressed communities. Immigrant Lessons aims to: heal, inspire, excite, inform, motivate, and uplift.

Ishan Sandhu, native to Chandigarh, India, is in the BFA Acting program at UBC. Ishan’s theatre experiences include the role of Bobby Groves in” Book of Days”, Arlecchino in “Festival De Commedia” and film crew in the western premier of “Goldrausch” at UBC. Ishan has also has been part of many VFS and UBC student directed films. When he is not acting, Ishan enjoys writing, playing squash and cooking Indian food.

Born in a town in southern Spain, Isidro Rodriguez is grateful to be a theatre artist on the Unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. His theatre credits include productions such as Twelfth Night, Guys and Dolls, Cyrano de Bergerac and The Suppliant Women. He would like to thank the students and teachers at Studio 58 for making his time in theatre school a dream. Special thanks to Kathryn for believing in a crazy Spaniard, and to Wendy for changing his point of view on life and art. ¡Olé!

Jacky Yenga –aka Jacky Essombe– is the founder of the Spirit of the Village. She is a performer, TEDx speaker and best-selling author, and teaches how to use the power of community to grow and to create a life of happiness, belonging, fulfilment and inner harmony, and how to access joy through movement and connection. She brings the healing message of her African ancestors through wisdom teachings, songs, stories, rhythm and dances from her village in Cameroon and beyond.

Jana Ghimire is a Visual Arts Major and Publication Minor at Simon Fraser University. Intrigued by intersections of natural and manmade worlds, this has influenced the Karakasa Obake’s choice materials––particularly the repurposed plastics. Her recent studies in Berlin have facilitated an ongoing project concerning the subjectivity of ears, as problematized through both modern facial recognition software and anthropometry. Ghimire works transdisciplinarily, and lives on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Janelle Reid is a singer, actor, mover and songwriter. She has completed her Bfa with a double major in music composition and theatre performance. Janelle enjoys performing reggae, soul, jazz, gospel and R&B styles. She performs her original work and collaborates with other artists. Janelle has performed in a variety of musical theatre productions including, Hair, Ragtime, Spring Awakening, Little Shop of Horror and played Esmeralda in Hunchback of Notre Dame. Janelle is also a voice couch and trains students from ages 3 to 50 and truly enjoys the exchange. She is currently working on completing her Bachelor of education while still performing throughout Canada. She is always excited to take this precious opportunity to share her passion and love for anyone who will receive it.

Please enjoy this visual art installation from Jason Bempong. Jason Bempong is a Canadian born Dancer, Performance Artist, Actor, Stylist, Videographer and Healer currently residing in Vancouver, Canada. Jason’s interest in dance was sparked at the age of 12 when he saw the moonwalk done in person for the first time. Ever since Jason has been studying from the greats from Michael Jackson to Tight Eyez while attending workshops to help him expand in a variety of styles. From ages 13 to 16 Jason lived in Ghana. There he was exposed to a new side of expression and storytelling and spirituality through dance. This trip enabled Jason to connect to his roots in a way he had never done before. In later years, Jason had the opportunity to learn from Lady C, Majid and Henry Link, to name a few. He eventually began entering dance battles and even took first place at Don’t Sweat Da Technique thrown by Douglas Collage Hip Hop club. Winning this 2vs2 Allstyles battle was shortly followed by another victory at Got Soul. Jason claimed first place in both the All-styles and Hip Hop categories. Aside from battling Jason also teaches how to move energy through movement, breath and focus. Jason also runs a successful streetwear brand called Sleepless Mindz which encourages individuals to embrace their creativity and quench their burning desire to create. Sleepless Mindz has collaborated with other artists and dance clubs throughout North America. Most recently Jason has starred in Lidos Visual EP IOU2 which was screened all over north america. He has also traveled to Los Angeles to paint a backdrop for Lafa Taylor’s latest single in which he also performed with immigrant Lessons. They also performed at Raw Artists LA where they shutdown the entire show with a breathtaking dance performance while modeling pieces from Pattern Nation. Vancouver has also been a great benefit to Jason as he has collaborated with many dancers within the city who often visit from all over the world. Being able to collaborate via fashion, dance, videography and photography has been a great way to help artists cross promote and network.

Jennifer Toshiko Aoki is a dancer, choreographer and teacher based in Vancouver, Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from Simon Fraser University. As a choreographer, her work has been presented at the Dancing on the Edge Festival (Vancouver, 2018), Winnipeg Fringe Festival (2018), Calgary Fringe Festival (2017), Summer Solo Series (Amsterdam, 2016), Art for Impact (2015) and Nah DranXXXVI (Berlin, 2013). As a performer, she has worked with artists Meredith Kalaman, Jenn Edwards, Machinenoisy, Body Narratives Collective, Anna Kraulis, Gemma Crowe, Jamee Valin/ Valence Movement (Toronto), Patricia Alison/ LastName FirstName Production (Toronto) and Barabara Lindenberg (Toronto). She co-founded Triadic Dance Works (2010-2013) and is co-founder of The Body Orchestra with Jenn Edwards; together they have created and produced an eclectic triple-bill show Conduit which has been presented at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival and Calgary Fringe Festival and will be presented at the Vancouver Fringe Festival in September 2019. Her interest interdisciplinary work has led her to collaborate with sound designer Jakob Liljenwall and musician Zane Barrett in her past projects, and will be experimenting with the intersection between the embodied mover and lighting with lighting designer Jonathan Kim in a residency in partnership with The Dance Centre in May 2019.

Jillian Christmas lives on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam people, where she served for six years as Artistic Director of Versəs Festival of Words. As an enthusiastic organizer and advocate in the Canadian arts community, her focus has been to increase anti-oppression initiatives in spoken word. She has executed programs in partnership with Toronto Poetry Project, The Chan Centre, Vancouver Opera, and more. Jillian has performed and facilitated spoken word workshops for youth and adults across the country and beyond. Her forthcoming debut book of poetry will be released in Spring 2020 with Arsenal Pulp Press.

Julie B. (aka Chronfused) is a poet, vocal looper, performance artist and, odd ball of the highest caliber. Having grown up in community theatre, improv classes and in hazy jam rooms of the north her natural inclination is to play with the inspiration of those around her. This has taken her from private events, to cabarets and festivals around western Canada and beyond, most notably “Astral Harvest” and “Hulaween FL” Having combined the majority of her passions (spoken word, collaborative improv, and silly magic) into the act of “folly telling” Julie has extended an invitation for whimsical manifestation to anyone who picks a card. (Reactions rage from joyful tears to tackling hugs.)

June Fukumura is a Japanese-Canadian theatre artist with a BFA in Theatre Performance and a Certificate in Sustainable Community Development from Simon Fraser University. June is the Co-Founder of New(to)Town Collective an artist collective with a mandate to create new experimental works; provide ongoing accessible physical theatre training; and experimental research workshops in Vancouver. June is also the Co-Artistic Director of Popcorn Galaxies an experimental theatre company interested in re-enchanting the everyday through unconventional site-responsive works. Popcorn Galaxies has produced over ten independent productions in five years and has been presented at Centre A, Vancouver Fringe Festival, BC Culture Days, and the rEvolver Festival. Additionally, she is the Assistant Dramaturg at the Playwrights Lab at the Banff Centre for the Arts. She has studied: Grotowski inspired physical theatre, clowning, directing, dramaturgy, devising, and improvisation.

Her practice is a blend of experimental contemporary theatre, site-responsive and site-specific art making, embodied performance techniques, and community engaged theatre and education. She has a deep interest in playing with and subverting traditional theatrical conventions, often blurring the line between reality/fiction and performer/audience in her work.

Justin Calvadores is a contemporary dance artist who is curious to link his artistic practice in conjunction with activism. Originally from Winnipeg, Justin began training in Ballet and then moved to Vancouver to attend Arts Umbrella contemporary dance training program. Shortly after graduating Justin joined Ballet British Columbia as an apprentice for the 2017/18 season under the direction of Emily Molnar where he performed and toured works by Sharon Eyal, Emily Molnar, and Medhi Walerski. Most recently Justin participated in a choreographic residency at The Banff Centre for the Arts with Alan Lucien Oyen. Justin is keen to intersect with diverse artists and engage in conversation that will bring joy and expansion to his artistic practice.

Descending from mixed ancestries, Kallfümalen – Sussan Yáñez, remains in a vibrant state of surrender into the present. Not the kind of surrender that gives the efforts up without working for ideals, but the kind of surrender that receives each experience as an opportunity to devote remotely to our inherent sacredness. She fervently believes that if we allow ourselves to listen to that divine inner guidance, we have the power create realities. Situating herself as a resilient single mother that is a survivor of domestic violence, colonization and intergenerational trauma, carrying blood from the oppressors and the oppressed, her life purpose is to broaden the perspectives. She envisions that, by shedding that which is no longer beneficial and reclaiming the interrelated self-sovereignty that we all carry, we can heal the wounds that have taken us to the states of destruction that we can see in our world today. Kallfü is a cultural facilitator, a multidisciplinary artist, funding her performances in sometimes improvised and others not, poetry, while also weaving in dance, storytelling and singing. She currently studies a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in the Quest University on the unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh territories. Her family decided to move to the province of Quebec in 2003 and as an occupant of the territories of the Iroquoian, Mi’kmaq and Mohawk nations in Montreal, she became a Canadian citizen. She was born on the Wallmapu, today politically known as Viña del Mar, in Chile, and is now learning to become an ally of the indigenous nations of the world, including her own ancestry, that was once erased from the official records, by reclaiming her indigeneity.

Kara Turner is an actor and artist. Recent regional credits include: Anon(ymous) with Theatre Prometheus, New Game Theatre’s Play Cupid, and the mixed media piece, Positive. SAFD-certified in rapier and dagger and unarmed combat (recommended pass), she continues to train in broadsword in 2019. In 2017, she served as a devised theatre teaching artist for tweens. Kara is a proud graduate of The Theatre Lab Honors Acting Conservatory and Stetson University.

Karmella Cen Benedito De Barros is an Afro-Indigiqueer Nehiyaw, born and raised as a guest on the unceded, traditional and ancestral xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territories. Raised by her badass and beautiful Grandmother, Karmella is a former Foster Kid and currently plays the role of Youth outreach worker and Counsellor for Indigenous Youth in care while also studying Psychology and Education at Simon Fraser University.

Focusing mainly on music, photography and writing, Karmella has been at it for about three years making sounds with the ukulele that she stole from her high school ex boyfriend. She currently covers songs new and old, adding her own personal spin and spirit to the music as well as writing her own tunes. Recently branching out to other forms, Karmella has been experimenting with electric guitar, sound design, looping and electronic music composition. Using both film and digital cameras, Karmella’s photography practice is grounded in witnessing and honouring the beauty of the people, communities and land that she is in relationship with on the daily.

You can find her on Instagram @kc.bdb and YouTube karmellabeneditodebarros

Keliya is an innovative artist and hip hop persona who draws roots from right here on Coast Salish Territory. She is an activist and filmmaker; her current solo work speaks to Indigenous worldview, rise, voice and passion for unity and change. Through her music, she invites everyone from every background to feel what hip hop has to offer, in a new way.

Kelly McInnes is privileged to be a settler based in Vancouver, B.C. on the unceded Coast Salish lands and waters of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Kelly dances with the intention of healing and through this works as a choreographer, performer and facilitator. A graduate of the Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Training Program, Kelly has also trained extensively in contact improvisation at EDAM Dance and in somatic movement practices with Helen Walkley.

Often multi-disciplinary and site specific, Kelly’s work explores the socio-political and invites an attention to sensation through her work. She investigates pleasure as resistance, ritual, voyuerism, body image, gaze and our bodies’ connection to the earth. She seeks to challenge the status-quo and accepted normalities of how bodies, experiences and expression are censored. Kelly’s choreographic work has been presented throughout Canada and in Mexico.

As a performer, Kelly has interpreted the works of EDAM Dance, MACHiNENOiSY, Restless Productions, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, 605 collective, LINK Dance, Metal Dog, Chick Snipper, Anne Cooper, Daina Ashbee, Sammy Chien, Jacinte Armstrong & Ashley Whitehead.

Community-engagement is an important part of Kelly’s practice. She has co-facilitated MINE Youth Project for the past two seasons and begins a new youth project this fall 2018. This fall, Kelly is also begins her artist-in-residence at The Roundhouse Community Centre for their 18-20 season, where she will facilitate the centre’s community dance group.

Kelly is a member of the collective, Pressed Paradise, that focuses on activating public and unconventional spaces with performance. She is also a member of Mutual Futures collective with a focus on the practice and performance of improvisation.

Kimit Sekhon (Paperwave) is a multimedia artist, electronic musician and DJ based in East Vancouver. Their work has been influenced by the experience of growing up as a queer second generation immigrant in the suburban sprawl of Surrey. Kimit recontextualizes their experience through digital manipulation of the never ending audio/visual stream of the internet. The sound of Paperwave traverses the history of House and Techno while reaching for the future of Footwork and Deconstructed Club music. Physical works include hand folded modular origami polyhedrons which are paired with live customized projector visuals, DMX lighting rigs and improvised interactive sound modules. Kimit is the founder of Terrestrial FM, an underground electronic music show on Vancouver Co-op Radio CFRO 100.5 FM Friday nights from 10 – midnight. Kimit is also a co founder of the Acceleration Arts Collective, an group dedicated to uplifting marginalized people through music, dance and community.

From the Indigenous lands of Cuxkatan, Nekepio, El Salvador, born in the heart of a peoples revolution, raised in the northern lands of turtle island, burying his heart in the pain and urban warfare as a youth with a soul hungry for meaning and connection, years later learning to die to a lifestyle that has shattered the foundation of his community and country with blood and fire, Kin Balam In Lenca, Poton and Maya Qechi translating to The path of the jaguar Is an artist who in having the courage to live of what the elders call the nahuatl or destiny has also come to originate a new style of music.

Flamenco, Latin American, Indigenous Meso-American, Afro Latin, Latin Jazz, Classical, Rap, Hip Hop, are all the elements that makeup the powerful fabric of this new yet ancient rooted musical style.

Fusing the hardcore rap delivery usually associated to gangster rap KB has decided to utilize that same vein of art and feeding the streets medicine, hope, healing, and revolutionary evolutionary guidance. The Mesoamerican Indigenous instruments integrated into the musical landscape are all of pre-colombian colonial origin and therefore bear with them the unique identity of central american indigenous culture and spirituality. The Afro Latin rhythms deepen the meaning of this reality with the connection and bridging of african culture and struggle in the earth and flesh of the Americas Colonial history. And finally The virtuoso Flamenco guitar is the sword that ties all of these elements as one diverse family which sets to speak as one heart, one voice, in one language. The language of our humanity.

Balam Santos aka Kin Balam (the path of the jaguar) studied under the renowned flamenco guitar master Jeronimo Maya In Spain Madrid at the age of 22. He has been producing hip hop since the age of 11, has been playing guitar since the age of 8 and also focused on afro cuban percussion since the age of 2 years. Among his peers in any genre of music at the professional level Kin Balam is held with deep respect and appreciation for not only his level of musicianship but also the originality and quality of his music and soul.

Kiran Shoker is a poet, artist, and educator located in Vancouver, Canada. Kiran seeks to empower, educate, and elucidate through her poetry and writing, as well as through her pedagogy. Much of her poetry focuses around themes of diaspora, love, culture, and womanhood. She has competed successfully in various Slam Poetry Competitions in Edmonton and Vancouver, is a poet and representative for the South Asian community in Calgary, and is always seeking new ventures and opportunities.

Kwiigay iiwaans tina7 tla sekwitl’ ta Xaada Laas iy Sḵwx̱wu7meshúlh úxwumixw.Kwiigay iiwaans is a 2-spirit performing and multidisciplinary artist from the Haida and Squamish Nations. Their music explores intersectional, existential and extraterrestrial Indigenous+QTIBIMPOC futurisms via a mix of traditional songs and their original electronic and alternative compositions- all in the Squamish language. Other mediums they enjoy include illustration, graphic design, formline, hand poke tattoos, murals, comics/zines, poetry/writing, printmaking, and weaving.

Light The Stage Community Arts + Education is pleased to be returning to Vines Art Festival for its third consecutive year, offering FACE PAINT and BODY ART! Light The Stage is committed to offering opportunities for children and adults to explore their creative self in a safe, supportive and engaging environment. We encourage participants to take risks, share ideas and risk being unique. We celebrate individuals who come as they are and enjoy just being themselves! Allies of LGBTQ2+ Community! Visit us at www.lightthestage.ca.

Lisa Butel and Brent Cross are sound artists living in Vancouver, BC. The couple create experimental music using live vocal looping, vocal sound manipulation, improvised and live sound synthesis and sample collage and prepared guitar. Their live performances are energized and directed by their love of improvisational aesthetics that they have absorbed and crafted over years of involvement in the NOW Society’s improvisational workshop series. Their music bends and drifts, rages and diminishes, layers and undulates and is original in each performance. Butel brings the analog world of live vocals front and centre to the music and delivers vocals from operatic to guttural and machine-like to demonic growls through complex and multiple loop cycles. The music is a juxtaposition of vocal acoustic sound and analog and digital wave forms. Their sound explores the psycho acoustic properties of sound and attempts to create tension, release and structural fruition via changing and evolving, additive and subtractive synthesis and the affected vocal performance. Visit them at www.lisabutelandbrentcross.com and www.lisabutelandbrentcross.bandcamp.com

Madeline Terbasket is a Syilx, Ho-Chunk, Anishinaabe performing artist that explores themes of cultural identity and mental health in her work. Madeline began making films as a teenager in her home territory of the Similkameen Valley in the South Okanagan. She attended six summer sessions at the Gulf Island Film and Television School. Madeline was in the Acting for Stage and Screen program at Capilano University. She discovered a passion for clowning and stand-up and expresses her comedy by telling traditional Okanagan coyote stories. In 2017, Madeline was in šxʷʔam̓ət (home) with Theatre for Living, directed by David Diamond. In 2018, they toured BC and Alberta with the production. Recently, she was awarded a STORYHIVE Indigenous Storyteller Edition grant to make her film Q’sapi Times. Madeline is reconciling through her comedy, healing our colonial history through play and laughter.

Mariam Barry is an actor, writer and theatre producer from Norway and The Gambia. She is also a filmmaker and a youth worker. Mariam immigrated to Unceded Coast Salish territories five years ago and holds a BFA in Acting from UBC. As a theatre artist, Mariam has worked with companies such as Rumble Theatre, Universal Limited, PTC, Ensemble Theatre Company, Axis Theatre Company, Pacific Theatre, Bard on the Beach, Zee Zee Theatre, Peninsula Productions, The Arts Club, Boca del Lupo, Dope Hearts Theatre, Belfry Theatre, LAMDA (England) in roles on and off the stage. Mariam’s work has appeared internationally on stages in the United States (Goodman Theatre, Chicago) and curated for festivals centring black voices in the arts. Mariam was a company apprentice at Pacific Theatre during their 2017/2018 season and is currently a co-producer for Killjoy Theatre. Mariam is most inspired when creating with artists of colour, and loves telling stories connected to her Black and international identity within the African diaspora.

Matthew Tomkinson is a writer, composer, and doctoral student in Theatre Studies at the University of British Columbia. His most recent chapbook, For a Long Time, is available through Frog Hollow Press (or Pulp Fiction). Matthew has worked as a composer and sound designer with Company 605, Kinesis Dance somatheatro, and a number of other local dance artists, and his music has been presented at festivals including PuSh, Dancing on the Edge, and Vines. He lives in Vancouver on the unceded territory of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Elissa Hanson is an independent performer and collaborator who gratefully resides on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. She was born in Vancouver, BC where she began training and performing in dance, music, and theatre. Elissa has performed and collaborated with Kinesis Somatheatro, Justine A.Chambers, EDAM Dance, Fight With a Stick, The Biting School, and Mascall Dance, and has been a guest performer with battery opera, Pressed Paradise, and Company 605, as well as toured nationally and internationally with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Deanna Peters, and MOVE: the company. Elissa has worked as a moderator, rehearsal director, and dance writer. She continues to investigate somatic, theatrical and political practices.

Maura Garcia Dance offers performances featuring choreographic works of Artistic Director Maura García and collaborating artists. García (non-enrolled Cherokee/Mattamuskeet) founded MGD to uplift Indigenous cultural values, to form connections and to explore the rhythms of the natural world. From interactive performance experiences to compelling solos to community-integrating ensemble shows, MGD provides deeply engaging performances for the stage, the out-of-doors and in response to specific places and events.

García is dedicated to collaborating within communities to create stories of identity and place. Accordingly, MGD facilitates long-term collaborative arts projects exploring narratives and history through dance and other art forms. MGD also provides workshops, residencies and artists talks for both adults and children.

Canadian singer-songwriter Meiwa (a.k.a. Kristie McCracken) has earned praise across western Canada with her maturely thoughtful lyricism and subtly sophisticated, genre-melding creativity that reflects an artist who is adroitly expanding her musical horizons. She is a WCMA 2016 ‘Urban Artist of the Year’ nominee for her debut solo album titled ‘Let Go & Grow’. Encouraging, patient and tender, she captivates with the gentle, mesmerizing allure and vulnerability of her touchingly beautiful vocals. Meiwa expresses her keenly observed and heartfelt emotions with an authentically touching candor and insightfully poised intelligence.

Meiwa has performed alongside legends such as Jim Byrnes, Ken Boothe, Leroy “Heptones” Sibbles, Barrington Levy, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Toots and the Maytals. Other internationally acclaimed artists Meiwa has performed with include Shaggy, Easy Star All Stars, and Taj Weekes and Adowa.

With the release of her new single “Wonder”, Meiwa is gaining traction overseas in Melbourne where she currently resides, as well as across Canada and USA. She performs solo, with a 6 piece band, and as a backing vocalist for Australia’s first lady of R&B, Thando.

Mel Vee X is a queer Black (out)spoken word artist, burlesque performer, photographer and model who was born and raised in Mohkinstsis- the Blackfoot word for the place where the Bow and Elbow rivers meet, colonially known as Calgary. The prairies are her great love, but the prairies have never loved her. Smashing misconceptions along the way, her unflinching insights into race, gender, sexuality and class form the bedrock of her artistic practice. Having struggled for years to find her voice, Mel Vee X is dedicated to empowering marginalized people tell our own stories from our own perspectives. Mel Vee X was a member of Calgary’s 2017 slam team, who finished 5th place in Canada. She is Communications Coordinator and co-founding member of Uproot YYC, Calgary’s premier grassroots collective for Artists of Colour. Most recently, Mel Vee was a member of the 2019 Saskatoon Poetic Arts Festival (SPAF 2019) ensemble team. Mel Vee also created Wellness for the Revolution, a series of wellness postcards bursting with insight, empowerment and irreverence for radicals and revolutionaries. Her greatest aspiration is to become a mom to a daschund baby someday.

Melissa Strova-Valencia is a Colombian artivist, actress, storyteller, dancer, and educator. She appeared in Yo también hablo de la rosa and Volcanes at GALA Hispanic Theatre, in Siempre amigos and The rainbow´s magic at Teatro de la Luna in Celebremos and Madres de la Revolución Part I and Azul with Teatro la Bolsa. Among her other credits in Colombia, in Washington, DC, works as an actress and Education Department director of Teatro la Bolsa. A native of Cali-Colombia, she earned a Master’s in Advanced Theatre Studies from La Rioja University-Spain. See her next in Madres de la Revolución Part II, Jukumari and La gallina y la tortilla at Teatro la Bolsa. Currently, she is doing studies in Neurobiology and brain plasticity with a focus in dramatherapy and teaches music to early childhood at Children´s House Kindergarten, Sitar Art Center and at Levine Music school.

mia susan amir (she/her/hers) was born in Israel/Occupied Palestine. A queer, Crip+MAD Jew of mixed Ashkenazi and Sephardic ascent, she lives as an uninvited settler on the unceded and occupied territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh Nations, Vancouver, BC. mia works at the intersection of creative and community practice as an educator, cultural organizer, writer, director, dramaturg, and theatre artist creating immersive, transdisciplinary works. mia is interested in how live performance offers a prefigurative space to respond to the conditions currently shaping our world, to challenge and expand perception, to unearth relationship, and to engage in democratic narrative production, starting from the site of physical sensation.

mia’s research, solo and collaborative works have/will be presented by Undercurrents (Ottawa), The Welders (DC), foldA (Kingston), Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg), Magnetic North (Vancouver), Talking Thinking Dancing Body (Vancouver), Ergo Arts Theatre (Toronto), FestivALT (Kraków), International Federation for Theatre Research (Belgrade), rEvolver (Vancouver), Vines Arts Festival (Vancouver), Feminist Art Conference (Toronto), AMC (Detroit), among others. Select dramaturgy credits include her work with Sick + Twisted Theatre (Winnipeg), Killjoy Theatre (Vancouver), The Only Animal (Vancouver), Vines Arts Festival (Vancouver), PTC (Vancouver), Fight With a Stick (Vancouver).

mia holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Mills College, traditional Ohlone Territory, Oakland, CA. She received a 2018 LMDA Bly Creative Fellowship, and a 2019 Arts Club Theatre Bill Millerd Artist Fund award. She is a co-founder of EdgeForms Collective (Vancouver/Winnipeg), and Subjects of History (Vancouver), and is the Convener of Unsettling Dramaturgy. mia is the Dramaturgy Research Associate at PTC, the Artist in Residence at Fight With a Stick, a member of LMDA, IFTR, PGC, the CATR Disability, Pedagogy and Performance Working Group, and the Board Chair of All Bodies Dance. https://www.miasusanamir.com

Mildred Grace German
b. Philippines

As a multi-disciplinary artist, German participated in many art venues including Art in the Court, Asian Canadian Online Project, Pinoy Poetiks, Roots, Rhymes and Resistance, World Mad Pride, the Work of Migration Exhibition, Centre A Political Fashion Show, Heart of the City Festival, Canadian Federation of Artists, Vancouver Public Library, LIVE World Biennale of Performance Arts, the Maleta Exhibition at Gallery Gachet, the Museum of Vancouver, and more. For many years, German was a member of Sinag Bayan Arts Collective, where she was able to express her roots. As a former youth in the DTES, she also fell in love being a programmer for several years at the Vancouver Coop Radio.

German studied Culinary and Patisserie Arts, and apprenticed under the Red Seal Program.

“My inspiration for my artwork is the undying will of the people to live and struggle through all this life’s madness and beauty. The Art of Mildred Grace German is born out of a combination of experiences and exposures to the many social realities and probabilities. Through art, my perspectives are allowed to remain creative, abstract, outside, and experimental. Art is how I find discipline and contradictions in these many new ways of viewing the world and the universe.”
Mildred Grace German
mildredgracegerman@gmail.com | https://mildredgracegerman.wixsite.com/website

Miriam Esquitín has an extensive dance career that started in Mexico and has carried on in Edmonton and Vancouver, Canada. In over 25 years she has danced with artists like Kathy Ochoa, Tamara Bliss, Leticia Vera, Sunny Savoy, Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Brian Webb, Susan Douglas-Roberts and dozens more. For the last 8 years she has directed Polymer Dance, researching and deepening ensemble improvisation methodologies and practices. She holds a Certificate in Contemporary Dance Instruction from the Universidad de las Américas-Puebla, and 15 years teaching experience at Moberly Arts Centre, Hillcrest Community Centre, University of Alberta, Orchesis Dance Group, Mile Zero Dance, and Compañía Danzare. Her training is based on improvisation, Bartenieff fundamentals and Laban Movement Analysis, diverse contemporary dance techniques, ballet, qigong, and music.

Miriam is interested in movement per se. She guides an open creative process, exploring genuine movement, inviting dancers to go beyond their habitual patterns, in community and in dialogue with the space. She believes that dance art belongs to everyone at the same time she takes seriously training and curation.

Two time Juno nominated Ndidi O is a larger than life figure, a force of nature with a voice that sounds and feels like a long lost friend.

Hailing from the wilds of British Columbia she found her voice in the “open mic ‘” scene in New York, discovered her sound in the heart of Toronto’s blues and folk scene, fine tuned her live show across Europe and has now finally settled for the moment back on the west coast where her latest album “These Days” was made.

“These Days” finds Ndidi returning to her early blues/soul roots. It is a testament to where she came from and where she is today. Oscillating between upbeat power blues soul tracks like “ No Mercy” and “Hands High” and softer country soul ballads like “Daggers” and “Baby Please”. “These Days“ is album dedicated to the tales of loving, losing then dusting yourself off and trying again.

New(to)Town Collective is an emerging theatre collective based in Vancouver BC, aspiring to provide accessible, experimental training workshops and creating new interdisciplinary works together.

We are interested in collaborating and cross pollinating our practices and ideas with collaborators from across all artistic disciplines through our Training Jams. As a Collective, we bring together a unique blend of practices including: Grotowski, devising, clowning, visual arts, contemporary dance, playwriting, dramaturgy, directing and more! We are integrating these practices to train and create new works as a collective while supporting each others individual artistic endeavors.

Nina Budabin McQuown is a poet, essayist, puppeteer, printmaker and gardener. Originally from the Bronx, they live in Washington, DC, where they make puppet shows with Wit’s End Puppets and with the Bread and Puppet Theater, print at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center, edit poetry books for The Word Works Press, and garden with Love and Carrots. You can find their poems and reviews published with Thethepoetry.com, SAND, The Cimarron Review, The Kenyon Review Online, Hotel Amerika, and Rabbit Catastrophe Press. You can find their essays, contact info, and all the rest at yeswehaveno.com

My name is Ocean Hyland I am a youth from the Tsleil-Waututh nation also descending from Coast Salish, Polynesian, and European ancestry. I am a part time student at Simon Fraser University currently completing a certificate program in the Squamish language. My time is also spent working in two apprenticeships with coast Salish artists.

My connection to the land and my understanding of Coast Salish practices and culture is deeply woven into my DNA. As an multidisciplinary artist, I am driven and committed to engaging in community projects and collaborative works that nurture my growth as artist while also sharing with communities in my territory -what I have learned through my education and many mentor ships. This is why I love projects and commissioned pieces that flourish through reciprocal community relationships.

Bold. Upbeat. Immense and Soulful is the cutting edge sound which is Old Soul Rebel. A powerhouse duo, coloured by brass and driven by drums, puts a brand new shine on soul and rock n roll. Check them out as finalists on CTV’s The Launch 2019.

Phoebe Huang is a visual artist working in installation, photo-sculptures and drawings. Her practice takes on an interdisciplinary approach by re-framing concepts from critical theory, media history, and personal narratives. Currently, she has found collaging, layering, and staging narratives fruitful in bearing new knowledge. More specifically, knowledge around how land is occupied and how homes are represented for dissemination in the production of culture and place. Through last year’s Powell Street Festival Design competition, her group’s design proposal was selected and presented at Oppenheimer Park. She intends to incorporate her experiences working collaboratively and consciously in her practice around the conception space and reality. Born in Edmonton Alberta, Huang is currently occupying and working on the unceded Coast Salish Territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Huang recently graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BFA in Visual Arts.

Polymer Dance started in the fall of 2012 by Miriam Esquitín and Kristina Lemieux. We are a contemporary dance troupe group of non-professional adult dancers. Our goals are to provide a space for continuous training and to cultivate an improvisation ensemble. We want to be creative, be challenged and have fun as a group.

We have weekly classes for beginners and intermediate/advanced levels led by professional teachers. Classes progressively build skills and body awareness in a way that will allow us to dance for many years. We also practice and experiment with group improvisation techniques, learning to craft dances together and in the moment with artistic sense.

We perform at traditional and non-traditional venues a few times a year. We strive to bring dance to public spaces to reach broader audiences, and hopefully generate a shared sense of joy, identity, and safety. We are part of a movement that aims to democratize access to the arts and dance in particular.

We believe that “Dance is for everyone, Dance is for everywhere”.

Rabbit Richards is learning how to exist on stolen land in a marginalized body. The Brooklyn-born poet writes into the awkward to explore the connections we deny and mischaracterise with the emotional grounding of lived experience. Relentlessly compassionate with fierce integrity, Rabbit currently serves as the chairperson of the Anti-Oppression Committee for the board of Spoken Word Canada and as the Accessibility Coordinator for Verses Festival of Words. When not touring throughout Canada, they and their cat, Cat, are currently making their home in Lek’leki, Downtown Eastside Vancouver.

Ralph Escamillan is a queer, Canadian-Filipinx performance artist/choreographer/teacher and community leader based in Vancouver, BC. His arsenal of performance skills include a variety of street dance styles, ballroom, contemporary, circus, and drag. He graduated after 4 years in Modus Operandi, Vancouver’s contemporary dance training program, in 2015. He’s apprenticed with Kidd Pivot and worked with Vancouver companies: Company 605, Co.Erasga Dance, Kinesis Dance Somatheatro, Out Innerspace Theatre and is currently on contract with Wen Wei Dance. In the commercial industry, hes worked with choreographers including AJ Aakomon, Luther Brown, Paul Becker and Tucker Barkely, as well as artists Victoria Duffield and Zendaya Coleman, and was a guest dancer for Janet Jackson’s “Unbreakable” tour in 2015. With his company FakeKnot he creates work that strives to understand the complexities of identity using sound, costume and technology. The founder of VanVogueJam, Ralph shares his passion for Vogue/Ballroom culture at his weekly by-donation class and vogue balls, acting as a beacon for the queer dance form in Western Canada.

Raven John, artist, involuntary comedian and two-spirit activist, is of Coast Salish and Stolo Nation decent. This Two-spirit Trickster is a BFA graduate from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, with a major in visual art and minor in social practice and community engagement, as well as a graduate of the North West Coast Jewelry Arts program at the Native Education College. Raven is a visual artist, cultural consultant, mediator, storyteller, photographer and sculptor. A jack-of-all-trades (and master of a few), their practice covers a wide array of mediums from provocation and humor, puppet making, ceramics, dressmaking, interactive electronics and indigenous technologies. Should you wish to participate in direct action regarding Truth and Reconciliation and/or the ongoing colonization/genocide of the indigenous peoples of Canada, feel free to visit their following website to directly wire them money for coffee, comic books and/or art supplies.

Www.ravenjohn.com

The artistic vision of Raven Spirit Dance Society is to share stories from an Indigenous worldview. Our medium is contemporary dance; and, we incorporate other expressions such as traditional dance, theatre, puppetry and multi-media to tell these stories.

By sharing this work on local, national and international stages, Raven Spirit Dance reaffirms the vital importance of dance to the expression of human experience and to cultural reclamation. Raven Spirit Dance aims to explore how professional artistic work is responsive and responsible to the community it is a part of and to continue to redefine dance’s place in diverse community settings. Raven Spirit is Vancouver-based yet indelibly tied to the Yukon through its projects and inspirations, as our Artistic Director, Michelle Olson is from the Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation.

Rosemary was born in Dalian 大连, China. Her family immigrated to Vancouver when she was 3. Since then she has run and jumped and gotten depressed many times. She is nearing the ending parts of her degree in Speech Sciences at UBC and her research focusses on language preservation work on the endangered indigenous language: Gitksan. She performs at various open mics throughout the city, and just recently published her first chapbook, titled: words crack, my broken brain. You can contact her at rosemaryhu123@gmail.com if you would like to purchase a copy! She likes to make earrings. She tries to be hopeful. She likes to paint. She doesn’t have answers, but she knows at least we could continue to have words.

Samantha is a passionate and driven dance artist who trained at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a dance major. She has had the opportunity to present her own work at SFU, as well as work with artists such as dumb instrument dance, Warehaus Dance Collective, Rob Kitsos, and Yossi and Oded Graf (Israel). Samantha has also recently been certified as a yoga instructor and is excited for the journey ahead. She is determined that her passion for creativity, choreography and movement will help her achieve her artistic goals.

Sanam Emami is a space alchemist. Her art dives into all the variables needed to align for us to be able to receive art. She is the head creatrixes of a womyn artists’ collective, The Omi Collective, where she encourages ALL art lovers and artists from as far as the mind’s eye can reach.She aspires to strengthen the bond between all by communing artfully and welcoming as much cray cray an artist or art lover can bring.

Sara Brooke Cadeau is an Anishnaabe Kwe with mixed European heritage. A ceremonialist, singer, writer, maker of medicines and helper of people. It was not always so.

As a youth, unanswered questions about her ancestry led to both deep suffering and artistry. The power of her voice propelled a journey that stretched from Canada to Europe and India. Searching for women’s medicine teachings landed her many places, including a circus. This odyssey also found Sara locked in an Indian jail for a year. (Smuggling hash for cash can do that, sometimes.)

From there, Sara’s passion for creation led her to deepen her writing practice, explore filmmaking, and perform live on hundreds of stages. Despite the successful veneer of her artistic life, Sara was suffering and coping though “epic” drug and alcohol binges.

Through recovery, she has turned her love of words and spirit into a study of her gifts – ceremonies and medicine songs. This work has given Sara purpose, and she has established herself as an acknowledged hands-on helper with many different nations.

Sara has recently joined M’Girl and Women in the Round, two of Canada’s longest running Indigenous women’s hand drum groups. She is a dog mom of two and has also become an auntie to an incredible group of indigenous youth leaders, artists and warriors whom she is grateful and proud to support, in and out of the amazing Resilient Roots program.

Senaqwila Wyss is Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), Tsimshian, Sto:lo, Hawaiian and Swiss. She has a linguistic certificate at SFU in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim. She is raising her young daughter to be a first language speaker, which has not been done in her family four generations through colonial impacts. She has been working with Vines festival for the second year in a row coordinating resilient roots. She will graduate from SFU this fall with Bachelors degree in Communications and First Nations Studies in the Fall. She practices ethnobotany with traditionally trained mom Cease Wyss with indigenous plant medicines, which they also share their knowledge on indigenous plants through education of plants with people of all ages. She is a warrior entrepreneur and runs a small business called Raven and Hummingbird Tea Co., indigenous made small batch teas and other medicines with her mother.

Shion Skye Carter is a performing artist and teacher based in Vancouver, Canada. Originally from Japan, she now holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance with a minor in Kinesiology from Simon Fraser University. As a performer, Shion has worked with artists such as Rob Kitsos, KT Niehoff (USA), Vanessa Goodman/Action at a Distance, plastic orchid factory, and Yossi Berg & Oded Graf Dance Theatre (Israel). She is co-founder of the interdisciplinary duo olive theory projects with Stefan Nazarevich; together, they are currently experimenting with the intersection between live sound, embodied performance, and installation art.

A natural born powerhouse dancer, Sophia “SoSa” Gamboa is a Philippine born and raised artist whom also partly spent half of her life as an immigrant in Vancouver, Canada. She molded and cultivated her skills and love for art as an escape to break through all the pressure of fitting in to the “western” society. Along the way, she became one of the original members of a dominating fashion/dance/art collective in west coast Canada called “Immigrant Lessons”. Since then, she has broken through all the barriers of what it means to be a street dancer and a high caliber artist. She is a dancing phoenix on the rise. A force to be reckoned with in the freestyle/battle realms. Her passion for street dance culture has gotten her to work with some of the best up and coming artists of the generation. Whether it is performing at a stadium to open for T.I’s concert, working on set for a Disney movie, or as a featured dancer in music videos, Sophia a.k.a “SoSa” will always bring it to you as if she’s the main event of the show. As she reconnects more with her Tagalog roots, she aspires to give back and build a home dedicated to the street kids of the Philippines and guide them into learning, appreciating and utilizing art to inspire peace, love, unity and having fun.

Sharon Lee is an emerging professional artist who has trained with the best in the street dance community and industry. Always actively seeking opportunity to learn, train, and create has opened many doors to Sharon’s knowledge and movement. In Vancouver, she has trained under Kim Sato, and is one of the original members of twofourseven Company. Sharon has also trained in New York with Buddha Stretch, Henry Link, Poping Pete, Caleaf, Majory Smarth, and so many more. She’s also trained in Los Angeles, and in Europe with many known industry choreographers. With Sharon’s background in training, it has lead her to work with local and international artists such as Elise Estrada, IMUR, A Tribe Called Red, JB the first Lady and many more. Her talent has also opened doors to perform at many high profile events such as Juno Fest, TED talks, and Takashi Murakami’s preview showing Art Gallery Night/Birthday Bash, When Sharon is not training, and/or performing, she partakes in many local and international battles. She was also a member of the initial creative team of Vancouver Street Dance Festival, which is a free event that promotes street dance, and artists by offering free dance classes, and opportunity for local and international artists to perform their passion. In the future, Sharon hopes to create a movement that opens doors to street dancers, and/or people of colour. Also, to decrease any negative connotations and stigmas associated with street dance and fashion.

Still Moon Arts Society’s mandate is to inspire vibrant and connected communities by creating art and nurturing a passion for nature. It was founded in 2004 by Carmen Rosen, winner of the Mayor’s Arts Award and the Queen’s Jubilee Award for Community Engagement. Our goals are to: (1) Promote and engage in activities that educate, raise environmental awareness, enhance, and restore sustainable natural environments; (2) Develop, engage, and promote the creation of art from a diversity of disciplines; and (3) Promote community participation in environmental and artistic projects. Key projects include 17 years ongoing stewardship and environmental awareness activities for Renfrew Ravine and Still Creek; the annual Renfrew Ravine Moon Festival, now in its 17th year, highlighting the community and natural beauty of the Ravine and attracting approximately 5,000 members of the public; the Alder Eco-Arts Hub, a community art studio running out of the Slocan Park Fieldhouse 2018 – 2021 with biweekly programs; Birds on Parade, a community performance to open the 2018 International Ornithological Congress at the Vancouver Convention Centre; and a book of Still Creek Stories, with accompanying site-specific performances, published with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2017.

Youth and Lead Artists: Starr Muranko, Isabelle Kirouac, Carmen Rosen, and Bea Miller

Alaaeldin studied music at the High Institute of Music and Drama in Khartoum. He founded a band there called “Masarb’eldai”, which means “Sun Rays”, with jazz musican, Yasir Bastawi. Some of the songs Alaa and Yasir composed in Sudan were not played till Sudanda formed in Canada. In 1991, Alaaeldin was forced to leave the Sudan, because the new government at that time brought violence and abuse of human rights, and repression of artists of all kinds. He was able to make the difficult journey to Libya, and after that lived in Cairo, where he worked at the Sudanese Human Rights Organization, and formed another band and a choir. Later, he emigrated to Canada as a refugee. After coming to Vancouver, he met other musicians, and formed Sudanda in 2004.

Artists Include: Alaaeldin Abdalla, Earle Peach, Jane Kalmakoff, James Griffiths

Suna Galay is a Vancouver-based Indigenous visual and performance artist of mixed descent (Chipewyan, Nepalese, German and Ukrainian). She studied painting and sculpture before exploring the world of clown and performance. Her visual art practice began with an examination of cultural identity and expanded into an exploration of the human spirit’s inherent fluidity, realized through the many masks of her own character. Her goal in performance is to remind us all of our raw humanity and the validity of emotions.

Her paintings have been exhibited at Hapa-Palooza Festival, Toast Collective, and Slice of Life Gallery. She has also performed at Vancouver’s Vines Art Festival, Car Free Days, Elk Lodge, Anza Club, and Kanti Children’s Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal.

You are mineral and animal. You are water and matter. You know roots and sky. You think in story. You travel backwards in time and imagine your future. You are the only animal who can do that. We make theatre for you.

The Only Animal creates immersive work that arises from a deep engagement with place. The elements are our main media: water, sand, snow and ice and trees. We mix these media with theatrical adventurism, and a love of the extreme. Our performances seek to connect us with all that we are: our elemental identity. The backbone of our humanity. And forge new ways of understanding how to be on earth.

We act on huge stages; the forests, the ocean, human possibility. There we find enormous challenges of the times, including the climate challenges that threaten our existence as a species. We seek creative ways forward and solutionary actions. We love the impossible.

We create theatre to thrill the blood, stir the soul and revitalize the planet.

Our previous work includes NiX, Canada’s first theatre of snow and ice; Sea of Sand, a live action radio play on the beach; Tinkers, an adaptation of Paul Harding’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in an old growth forest; and SLIME, the urgent story of an inter-species conference in the not-so-distant future. Founded in 2005 by current Artistic Director Kendra Fanconi and Eric Rhys Miller, The Only Animal has been nominated for 30 Jessie Awards and has won 8.

Tomoyo Yamada is an interdisciplinary artist whose primary media are dance and choreography. Born in Japan and educated in the United States, Tomoyo has spent most of her life traveling between North America and Japan, negotiating distinct cultural identities. Her practice is influenced by her ongoing research into identity politics and her self-reflexive interrogation of transnational cultural difference. Upon receiving her bachelor’s in Health and Sports Science, she has been presenting works both in the States and Japan, including at the REVERBdance Festival (New York) and All Japan Dance Festival (Kobe). In 2016 Tomoyo attended the winter intensive programme at the University of North Carolina School of Arts as an exchange scholar, where she re-created her piece Femme Façade (2014) with students. She also works as a translator and has assisted several independent artists from around the globe during dance workshops in Japan.

Tonye is a singer-songwriter born in London England to an a Nigerian father and a Zimbabwean mother. She moved to Canada in her teens and started a career in music at 17. Her style can be described as Soul/ Neo-Folk/ Hiphop. She has been likened to folks like Lauryn Hill, Ani Difranco and Sia. She is a Much More Music Video Award recipient, social justice advocate and the kind of singer/performer that turns heads wherever she plays.

For the past 2 years Tonye has been working on healing and finding herself again. A new Phoenix-like person is emerging from the proverbial ashes. She now calls MS the best thing that ever happened to her. It was a wake up call. It has offered her a new lease on life and more importantly, a new perspective. She now has a new career trajectory. One that involves connecting deeper with her audience and that sees her creating a new community for herself. She’s not only interested in taking her music to the traditional venues but into schools, community centers, hospitals and generally places where her music can heal, connect and make a difference.

Born in North Benin, Africa and chief’s son of the Waama people, this multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter learned the art of storytelling and drumming from his family as they traveled the region sharing their cultural traditions. Now in Canada, Yoro is in great demand as a performer, having mastered the donga (talking drum), kokomba (congas), and djembe. On stage, both solo and with his band, he is a dynamic and mesmerizing performer, drawing you in to the sights, sounds, and rhythms of West Africa.

Zion Fyah is a Persian troubadour singing the poetry of love and freedom. Based in Reggae principles, the music is informed by the melodies of the Middle East and the rhythms of the Caribbean. He is accompanied by his wife, Zunelvis Fonseca, on percussion and vocals. Zunelvis is a multi-instrumentalist musician born and trained in Havana, Cuba. Together they present, with love, the music of the people, for the people, by the people. www.zionfyah.com.