PAST ARTISTS
“All of us come together here, it feels like this is a place that connects all of us to become more of a community”
– Arash Khakpour
2018 ARTISTS
Art is Land Network
PERFORMANCE
Art is Land Network (AILN) is an artist collective whose shared connection is the use of natural and repurposed materials to engage with the landscape. Based in Vancouver, our collective functions as a vital social network where members share ideas and opportunities, and find common ground for collaboration and partnerships, within and beyond the artistic community. Intent on raising awareness and involvement with alternative art making methodology, AILN approaches the land itself as impetus for locative art strategies: artists working in the land, site generated art and social engagement.
AILN is made up of a core group of established artists: Nicole Dextras, Pierre Leichner, Fae Logie, Tiki Mulvihill, Robin Ripley and Shirley Wiebe. The member artists have active practices at the local, national and international level. Within Vancouver, AILN has realized major outdoor exhibitions including our inaugural ‘Art Is Land’ on Granville Island in 2011, organized in partnership with the Vancouver International Fringe Festival, and a yearlong series of art and events at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Public Park in 2014. Members have been involved in the Stanley Park Environmental Art Project, VanDusen Earth Art Exhibit, Means of Production Garden, the Vancouver Maritime Museum’s Debridement project and numerous community festivals and exhibitions. Internationally, they have participated in art residencies in Spain, New Zealand, Mongolia, Germany, France, the USA, Sweden and Iceland.
AILN was formed in response to the growing need to initiate and foster more local opportunities. Citing the current global importance of land art initiatives here and abroad as an indication of how art can act as a catalyst for change, AILN seeks to recognize Vancouver’s potential to become a thriving centre for contemporary art practices beyond the gallery walls. Their undertaking is to extend into communities and neighbourhoods and become part of the local fabric in ways that encourage a sense of engagement and a stewardship of the land.
All Bodies Dance
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. With 10 + years working in inclusive dance, she is committed to furthering discussions about inclusion and creating new opportunities for artists with disabilities.
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.
Anna Kraulis
Anna grew up with a deep love for wilderness and wildness. This has completely infused her practise as a dancer and choreographer, which in turn has connected her more closely with nature. She has created pieces amongst old growth forests and clearcuts, on top of buried city streams, in conversation with urban bird populations, and in the ocean of the Pacific Northwest. For her the strength of collaboration across disciplines has the potential to be a powerful and unique voice for change.
Anne Montgomery
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, is a way of connecting to other people’s histories and creating a continued community of spirit and creative industriousness.
A graduate of the University of Waterloo in Fine Arts, and Capilano University in Advanced Textile Arts, Anne works primarily as an Office Administrator, but still finds time to create and teach workshops in crocheting, weaving and stitching. At any given point she’s got a dozen projects on the go and she’s trying hard to work through her stash of fabric, yarn, buttons and beads.
an̓usáyum̓
an̓ usáyum̓ is made up of two young Indigenous artists from the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation. Currently they are both studying their language, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Sníchim, full time at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver BC. On top of learning their language, they write and sing contemporary western music as well as Coast Salish traditional singing. With a passionate about their roots and dedicated to always learning more about their culture, their sound mixes the traditional and contemporary.
Ariel Martz-Oberlander
Ariel is a theatre artist, writer and teacher. As a settler on Coast Salish territories with Jewish diasporic and refugee ancestry, her practice is rooted in a commitment to place-based accountability through decolonizing and solidarity work. She divides her time between theatre and community organizing with much overlap, specializing in creative protest tactics on land and water. Ariel is the Youth Program Manager at the Cultch, supporting and facilitating mentorships for youth in East Van, and producing the Ignite! Youth-Driven Arts Festival. She is also a facilitator with the True Voice Theatre Project, producing new shows by residents of the Downtown Eastside, and vulnerably housed youth in collaboration with the Gathering Place and Covenant House. Ariel has recently written and directed three plays about the climate crisis centering the personal in the global. Her play “water, memory”, a conversation between a woman and a river, created with support from the LEAP program, won a research and development prize from the Arts Club, and was showcased during rEvolver Festival’s Plunge workshop event. In 2017, Ariel was the associate producer for Vines Festival, presenting accessible, free ecoart in Vancouver parks. Good art is accountable to the community, raises up voices rarely heard, and is vital to repairing our world.
Barbara Adler
Barbara Adler is an interdisciplinary artist whose work brings together writing, literary performance, composition and event-making to explore the intersections between text, music, sound and theatre. Her writing and music have been presented through multiple solo and band albums, publication in spoken word anthologies and at performances including The Vancouver Folk Festival, Ballet BC, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, The Vancouver Writers Festival, The Winnipeg Folk Festival, and the Vienna Literature Festival. Recent collaborators include choreographer Lesley Telford, composer Ron Samworth, documentary filmmaker Jan Foukal and theatre artist Kyla Gardiner. She currently leads Ten Thousand Wolves, an intimately collaborating ensemble whose projects gather together songwriting, storytelling, poetry and design to create a form of music theatre which could be described as ‘contemporary songspiel’. In 2016, Barbara joined Cole Schmidt and James Meger to launch Sawdust Collector, a weekly performance series presenting new, experimental and improvised works by established and emerging artists in an interdisciplinary context. Barbara holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies and a BA in Art and Cultural Studies, both from Simon Fraser University.
Ben Wylie
Ben Wylie is a composer, improviser, and sound artist originally from Washington State, now based in Vancouver, BC. His work is concerned with tuning systems, theatricality, light, space, coded text, natural phenomena, drones, resonance, amplification, and many other things. His music has been performed in the United States, Canada, and Spain by ensembles and performers including Boston Musica Viva, the Bozzini Quartet, Ensemble 2e2m, Chris Watford, the Ludovico Ensemble, Naomi Sato, Sylvie LaCroix, Stereoscope, Rick Sacks, Brandon Ilaw, and Ecstatic Waves, among others. He graduated with a BM in Composition from the Boston Conservatory in 2014, where he studied with Marti Epstein, Curtis Hughes, and Jan Swafford. He received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Simon Fraser University in 2016, where he studied with composer Owen Underhill and theater artist Steven Hill. As an improviser he has created live scores for choreographers Linnea Gwiazda and Emmalena Fredriksson, he has also been featured in the 2015 Big Joy Festival, Quiet City concert series, and Sawdust Collector concert series. He is a co-host and producer of Soundscape, a show about experimental music on Vancouver’s Co-Op Radio.
Cease Wyss – T‘uy’t’tanat
Skwxwu7mesh/Sto:Lo/Metis/Hawaiian/Swiss
T‘uy’t’tanat- Cease is an interdisciplinary artist who works with new media and interdisciplinary arts as well as community engaged and public art. Cease is a Coast Salish ethnobotanist and recently has returned to a textiles art practice through learning Coast Salish weaving techniques in wool and cedar. She is a member of the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast and lives in East Vancouver. She is a beekeeper and community engaged gardener.
Charlotte Priest
Charlotte Priest grew up in Victoria, B.C, traditional territory of the WS‘ANEC’ (Saanich), Lkwungen (Songhees) and Wyomilth (Esquimalt) peoples of the Coast Salish Nation. She moves as a means to facilitate healing. A soon-to-be graduate of the contemporary dance program at SFU she also has training in contact improvisation, the Meisner acting technique, authentic movement and voice training through the Royal Conservatory of music (Victoria). She began practicing yoga at 16 and received her teacher training certification in 2011. She finds joy in sharing practices that make one aware of the power of energy. She strives to live a fully embodied life, one connected to self, community and the sacred planet.
Christian Vistan
Christian Vistan is a Vancouver-based Filipino Canadian artist originally from Bataan, a peninsular province in the Philippines. His recent work question notions of labour, lineage, and artistic production as it pertains to his migrant identity through painting and writing installations. His paintings and writings often use and consider water, liminal states and spaces, and personal histories as way to examine hybridity and the processes and effects of displacement.
Claudia Segovia
Claudia Segovia grew up in Mexico City and moved to Canada in 1997, where she danced, taught and choreographed professionally. She is a visual arts teacher, ballet and contemporary dance instructor, a choreographer, and a mixed media visual artist. www.claudiasegoviaart.blogspot.com
Studied Contemporary Dance Choreography at the National Centre for the Arts in Mexico City and a Diploma in Fine Arts and Graphic Design at Emily Carr. She has extensive experience teaching art and dance to children all ages and with learning differences, ADHD and ASD.
She is currently faculty at Arts Umbrella Visual Arts, Richmond Academy of Dance, The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Spotlight Dance Centre and Dolphin Kids. Receiver of the Excellence Award from the Federation of Canadian Artists. Shows and sells her work in the Lower Mainland, USA, Mexico and Spain.
Crystal Smith
Crystal Smith is Tsimshian, Haisla and has been adopted into the Heiltsuk nation. She is a single mother of two beautiful children and is raising them to be proud Tsimshian and Haisla beings. She writes to bring awareness of the devastation colonialism is having on Indigenous peoples but more importantly the resilience and power of Indigenous peoples to engaged and uplift each other. She recently achieved her Masters in Educational Administration and Leadership with a focus on Indigenous leadership at UBC.
Dalia Levy
Dalia is committed to reviving textile folk traditions that challenge a highly extractive economy and grows local fibre and colour within a regenerative paradigm. Her decade long textile art practice employs natural dyeing, yarn bombing, street art and slow textiles as a medium to cultivate wearable and sustainable art beyond the traditional confines of the gallery/museum.
Dawn Livera
Dawn Livera is a textile and mixed media artist who believes that “there are no mistakes”. She was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, spent her childhood in London, England and her adolescence in Kelowna, BC, Canada. She has lived in Vancouver, Canada her whole adult life. Dawn 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”.
George Rahi
George Rahi is a composer, sound artist, and instrument maker exploring new hybrids between the acoustic, electronic, kinetic, and sculptural. He commonly works across a diverse array of interests including electro-acoustic music, the soundscape, and large-scale instruments such as the pipe organ and the Indonesian Gamelan. He has produced work for the Western Front, Vancouver New Music, VIVO Media Arts Centre and Vancouver Co-op Radio’s Media Arts Committee and is currently an MFA candidate at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. He is a founding member of the percussion ensemble Gamelan Bike Bike and art collective Publik Secrets, currently in residence at the Hadden Park fieldhouse.
Hip Hop Drop
“The Hip Hop Drop” is an East Van weekly drop in space for youth 12 to 18 who want to come learn or show off their rap, singing, break dancing, graffiti/art, DJing, Beatboxing skills! This community space is hosted by 3 local East Van MC’s: Dani and Lizzy as well as HK – Higher Knowledge. With weekly Hip Hop guests who will come cypher, teach, and throw down their skills with the group!
Immigrant Lessons
Immigrant Lessons is a dance/art/fashion collective created to promote cultural pluralism through: dance, music, fashion, visual media, and visual design. It is the soul child of the collaborative effort of two professional artists, Kevin Fraser and Alyssa Amarshi. Immigrant Lessons is a combined front to aid in the creation of more opportunities in: dance, fashion, music, stage performance, film, urban performance, concert dance, as well as community development for people of colour and other marginalized communities and groups such as: People of Colour, Women of Colour, Queer/trans/Non-Binary Individuals/LGBT community, and Women. Immigrant Lessons shares and explores their stories and experiences, utilizing a variety of different dance forms from various global cultural art movements. Dance forms that the collective routinely explore, train, and experiment in are: Traditional African, Afrobeat, Pantsula, Hip hop, House dance, dancehall, as well as dance forms that have been explored on an individual basis.we emphasis utilizing forms that are rooted to us as a collective, which in turn includes many dance forms birthed out of oppression. We explore these dance forms because of the enormous emphasis on culture and art as a beacon for political commentary and communal unification of marginalized groups. Culture is the soul and essence of a community and we strive to uphold the values of these revolutions. We also strive to further bridge the gap between what is considered high art/culture and what is considered low art/culture. Although a new collective being founded in 2016, Immigrant Lessons has performed and been featured in: The Vancouver Short Film Festival, RAW artists Los Angeles, Nomadic Massive, Vancouver Street Dance Festival, 12 Minutes Max, and Ted Talk.
Members:
Kevin Fraser, Alyssa Amarshi, Sharon Lee, Sophia Gamboa, Jason Bempong, Joshua Ongcol and Marisa Gold
Janelle Reid
Janelle’s constant quest to have different experiences has led her to explore different practices ranging from theatre production, various dance styles, martial arts and acting. After completing her double major degree in music composition and theatre performance, she involved herself in dance projects, short films, music accompaniment for contemporary dance classes and musical theatre such as Hair, Ragtime and Spring Awakening and Little Shop of Horrors. Singing has been where most of her adventures emerged as it has led her to singing in various genres, various settings and original music creation. She is excited to revisit her love for movement in this beautiful setting.
Jaye Simpson
jaye simpson is a Oji-Cree Anishinaabe Two Spirit warrior whose roots hail from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation. jaye is a libra sun, sagittarius rising, scorpio moon but delusionally identifies as a scorpio since it’s all over their birth chart. jaye holds firm their rage about being a former youth in care, as well as a queer indigenous person and weaves it into poetry and prose. jaye explores the magic, intimacy and vulnerability they encounter as a healing creature amongst other healing beings. you can find them being awfully cliché in cafes on Commercial Drive and East Vancouver, they are in fact NOT writing screenplays, but sending important emails and trying to meet deliverables for several contracts. jaye held KPU’s Slamapalooza 2017 Champion and is now on Vancouver Slam Poetry’s Team 2018 heading to Guelph in the fall. they have competed across the country and have been nationally recognized, as well as published in Poetry is Dead’s issue Coven. jaye is a displaced indigenous person living, creating and occupying on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations territories.
Jaz Whitford
Jaz is an anti-professional, working as a street musician, slam poet and overall bad ass 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 reside as a guest on unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nation peoples, otherwise and colonially known as Vancouver. they and their fire are from the Secwepemc nation of the south central interior.
Jessica McMann
Jessica McMann is a Calgary based Cree musician, contemporary dancer and choreographer. She is also a classically trained flutist, with a Bachelor of Music from the University of Calgary. Her research focus has been contemporary music, jazz, and improvisation. She is currently pursuing her MFA in unceded Coast Salish territory. Her recent compositions and soundscapes explore Indigenous identity and history. Jessica’s skills enable her to contribute as a side musician, soloist or ensemble member.
She has been dancing fancy shawl and hoop dance for 17 years, and has had the opportunity to present contemporary and traditional work at festivals across Western Canada, and tour Northern Europe. Currently her personal experience, Cree and Blackfoot language, and the strength of Indigenous women guide her current contemporary dance work. She works regularly with Elijah Wells, a Blackfoot animator to bring the stories of Transgender, Two-Spirit and Queer persons alive.
Her work has been shown at AlterNative: IndigiQueer (2017), IndigeDIV (2017), Talking Stick Festival (Vancouver 2012, 2013) Kootenay Cultural Festival (2012, 2015, 2016) Fairy Tales Film Festival (2012), ASTAM; Cree Festival (2012), Coastal First Nations Dance Festival (2011,2012, 2014, 2017, 2018) Vancouver Queer Film Festival (2011), Q the Arts Festival (2011), 7a*11d (2010). Her most recent large work was shown at the Urban Shaman Gallery in Winnipeg as part of “The 60’s Scoop; A place between”. She has also toured in Sweden, Netherlands, and Belgium. She has created soundtracks for the ITWE Collective, performed with the Ambrose University Chamber Orchestra and the Foothills Philharmonic Orchestra, and was a guest musician for Arcade Fire at the Junos and regularly with Laura Vinson and the Free Spirit . She also is a dance artist in Calgary schools.
Jolene Andrew
Jolene Andrew, from the village of Witset “people of the first village” (near the Moricetown Band Reserve in Nothern British Columbia) from the Luksilyu Clan, Small Frog Clan, from The House of Many Eyes. Grandfather was Alfred Mitchell, from Hagwilget, and Grandmother, Elizabeth Michell from Witset. Identifies as Gitskan-Wit’suwit’en. Has been creating original designs of Northwest Coast shapes and symbolisms since a young age. Influenced by her mother, who was a carver, and her uncle Eric MacPherson who both when to K’san Carving School.
Kathara
Pronounced Kat-hara, Kathara’s beginnings are in the Philippines, a vision to coexist in peace and harmony with one another and the abundant environment; to celebrate the beautiful diversity of tribal peoples in Mindanao. “Lupa Ay Buhay” Land is Life!! Kathara continues the legacy here in Canada between Filipinos and the Aboriginal peoples of Canada.
Premiering a groundbreaking collaboration at Surrey Fusion Festival (SFF) as part of the journey towards a historical event titled: The Third International Babaylan Conference held on Sept.23-25 at Gibsons aimed to revitalize indigenous traditions of Filipinos, Coast Salish and Turtle Islanders. Kathara has touched Vancouver’s community for 14 years and annually showcases in Surrey Fusion Festival engaging audiences in a vibrant musical dance presentation. Kathara features inter-generational, mixed heritage artists in traditional and contemporary approaches Mindanaoan of indigenous cultural arts. Preserving heritage and to deeply explore one’s ancestral roots connected to an indigenous past, ignites the passion of Kathara’s artists.
Butterflies In Spirit (BIS) is a dance troupe made up of mostly family members of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women that raises awareness of violence against indigenous women and girls across Canada. BIS commemorates the victims of violence in Vancouver and across Canada. Founder Lorelei started wearing the image of missing Auntie Belinda Williams, and murdered cousin Tanya Holyk. Other dancers perform wearing images and honouring family lost. Their fusion of contemporary, hiphop with traditional dance choreographed by PowWow dancer- Madelaine McCallum and for the first time with live musical accompaniment by Kathara.
This collaboration was spearheaded by Co-Founder/ Artistic Director/Dancer Choreographer of Kathara- Babette Santos and Founder/Dancer of Butterflies In Spirit-Lorelei Williams.
Kathara and Butterflies In Spirit are proud to present a powerful presentation of Filipino and Turtle Islander Indigenous arts on beautiful Unceded Coast Salish Territory.
Katie Cassady
Katie Cassady is a performer, interpreter, and creator based in Vancouver, BC. Katie completed her training at Simon Fraser University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance under the direction of Summer Lee Rhatigan, and currently performs with TWObigsteps Collective and Donald Sales/Project 20. As an independent creator, her work has been presented at the Shooting Gallery Performance Series, BC Buds at the Firehall Arts Centre, and 12 Minutes Max. Katie holds a BA in Art History from the University of British Columbia.
Kimmortal
“K!MMORTAL ISN’T JUST A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ARTIST, SHE’S CREATING A UNIVERSE.” – CBC ARTS
My name is Kim Villagante, also known as my emcee name Kimmortal. I am a queer filipin@ diasporic first generation settler based on unceded, unsurrendered Coast Salish Territories also known as Vancouver, BC, Canada. I’m primarily known as an emcee/singer-songwriter/poet but I use music as an umbrella for all my mediums as i am an interdisciplinary type of artist. I went to school for Visual Arts and Art History and would hit up open mics and share poetry and raps on my guitar. My work has evolved since to incorporate song, poetry, rap, dance, and visuals. Some of the highlights of my work thus far have included: being featured on CBC Exhibitionists, having my music-video animation screened at the Queer Women of Colour festival (San fran), performing with at Kultura FIlipino Arts Festival (Toronto), featuring at Junofest 2018 and SXSW in Austin, TX alongside my fellow femcee Missy D. I received a nomination as Best Female supporting actress in the theatre production called Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy for Montreal’s English Theatre Awards and also facilitate workshops that utilize the arts as a tool for healing, decolonization and resistance. I have opened up for some of my favourite artists including Ruby Ibarra, Shad K, and Saul Williams. My second album is coming out in August. Stay tuned in!
“HER FLOW, HER STORYTELLING AND THAT UNMISTAKABLE VOICE CULMINATES INTO, WHAT I FEEL, CAN BE ONE OF THE MOST RELEVANT ARTISTS TO COME OUT THE COUNTRY”- ROMEO CANDIDO, CBC PRODUCER
Leslie Kennah
Leslie has been exploring life through a lens for over a decade. Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, she studied photography at Emily Carr University. Leslie’s passion for photography naturally evolved to encompass digital media, filmmaking and animation. She is passionate about crafting evocative imagery with impactful messages. Keen to collaborate on projects that contribute positively to the cultural landscape, Leslie began working with choreographer Anna Kraulis on a series of hybrid dance multi-media projects. Together the team has produced a body of work exploring the intersection of art making and activism. Their collaborative work includes various site specific performances, a DanceLab residency and Verge, a short dance film.
Lesley Dawn Kosinski
Born and raised in St. Albert, Alberta, Lesley has been dancing for three decades. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance at the prestigious Simon Fraser University School for Contemporary Arts. Her true passion for movement is rooted in deep self-expression; opening to channel emotions shared in our universal human experience. This intense process is amplified through interdisciplinary collaboration and improvisation. Spirit and intuition guide her flow in movement and in life. Practices for self-study and teaching others include Qi Gong, Pranayama, Meditation, Yoga, and Dance Therapy in Nature. Lesley is a newly certified Yoga Teacher and is pursuing her Masters in Expressive Arts Therapy. She is truly honoured to travel from Edmonton to be a part of this unique and beautiful community of Vines.
Our gross overuse of plastic has devastated countless ecosystems. Every single choice we make, each cup of coffee, plastic bag or takeout container used contributes to this global epidemic. For this piece I collected my own plastic waste, contemplating the environmental impact of my actions and choices. Tuning in to my inner landscape to sense fear, guilt, shame, and grief; allowing these emotions to move me; physically embodying the struggle of Nature versus Plastic. Is there hope? Can we Rise above Plastics? It is up to us to make a change and protect our sacred home, Planet Earth.
Facebook Page and Instagram @soulshinehealingmovement
Deep gratitude to all my teachers past, present, and future. Special thanks to George Hong, Vancouverite at heart, for his unwaivering support and guidance on this journey known as life.
Lily Cryan
Lily Cryan is a dancer, choreographer, and theatre practitioner originally from Seattle, now living and working in Vancouver, BC on unceded Coast Salish territory. She graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BFA in Dance and Communications and has gone on to work on local dance and theatre pieces with MascallDance, The Vines Festival, Vancouver Fringe Festival, and BC Buds. Lily started dance training in Ballet, but is grounded in classical Modern techniques- Graham Technique and Cunningham Technique and is influenced by clown, drag, and anything campy and off-kilter.
In her time away from the studio, Lily is also an arts administrator and producer, working with ArtStarts in Schools as a Program Coordinator. Lily is working to bring the community centered work of ArtStarts to her dance practice and blend discipline areas to create immersive and engaging performance works with a strong movement base. Lily is influenced by Twyla Tharp, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Jiri Kylian, Robert Wilson, Cherdonna Shinatra, Trey MacIntyre, Jerome Robbins, RuPaul, and more.
Marisa Gold
Marisa Gold is an empathatic dance artist with a passion for all things soulful. Movement as a form of expression has been her instinct since the beginning of her memory. With a BFA in dance (SFU), certificate of completion from The Ailey school Independant Study program (NYC), and most recently, from The Graham school 2017/18 Intensive(NYC), Marisa has trained in a wide variety of Modern/Contemporary styles. Her professional performance/choreographic experience ranges from modern/contemporary concert dance to musical theatre productions to film and TV work. One her most important artistic influences is very deeply rooted in her Canadian and African-American background, which has profoundly affected her artistic endeavors. Marisa feels powerful and expansive when she remembers all who have come before her in artistic and self-expression. As she continues her poetic wandering, Marisa hopes to delve further into the mystery of our collective humanity as well as her own.
Matthew Tomkinson
Matthew is a multidisciplinary artist from Vancouver, B.C. Over the years, he has been involved in various experimental bands, noise acts, and computer music collaborations. Recently, he has been composing music for local contemporary dancers and companies, including Kinesis Dance somatheatro and Company 605. His compositional practice explores a wide range of sonic paradigms including acoustic ecology, deep listening, musique concrète, harsh noise, and techno.
Mitcholos
mitcholos aka Łapḥsp̓at̓unakʔi Łim̓aqsti, is a nuučan̓uɫ poet living on stolen Coast Salish Territory, of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh & səl̓ilwətaɁɬ first nations. as a guest for 3 years and running, they believe ʔuusaḥiniš tiič č̓aʔak, they believe hishukish tsawaak, and they believe in iisaak. and thusly, stands in solidarity with tseil-watuuth first nations against kinder morgan pipeline. mitcholos was a Poet of Honor Rising Voice of Canadian Festival of Spoken Word 2017. and is now a Vancouver Poetry Slam team member representing vanslam for 2018-19.
Monica Trejbal
Monica is a physical comedy artist who performs a unique style of classic clown, mime and *Bouffon. She enhances her comic presence with the movement-based techniques of dance, juggling, fire-spinning and object manipulation. Her process for creating show material involves lightening up the body and mind, an idea, a prop or object, experimenting, playing with possibilities, and a great amount of repetition. Themes of inspiration include facing fears and perseverance.
Monica’s roving clown is interactive and improv based, emphasizing connection both with groups and individual members of the crowd. Both on stage or in an open public space, her clown pokes fun at taboo topics of social convention. Her body is flexible and versatile and her movements enhance her ability to take on an extraordinarily playful form. The infectiousness of her warm and whimsical nature open the spectator up to delight, abandoning the confines of rigid social roles, closing the gaps in humanity…bringing lightness. *Bouffon: a performing relative of clown representing the outcast and which focuses primarily on the art of mockery
Naomi Steinberg
Naomi Steinberg is an accomplished performer, storyteller, and site-specific installation artist with over 16 years’ experience. Her creative praxis is centered on notions of place, indigeneity, belonging, nomadism, identity, inter-culturality and curation. Her output is in the realms of social-justice and map-making. For Vines Festival, she draws on nearly twenty years of performing traditional oral literatures in contexts such as schools, theatres, festivals, and conferences, to foster health, community, vision, and action.
Naomi is currently writing a book about the experience of going around the planet by land and sea, carrying the story of Goosefeather. She aims to publish early 2019. (www.goosefeather.ca)
New(to)town Collective
N(t)TC 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.
O.Dela Arts
Olivia C. Davies teams up with Emily Long of Subscura Collective to envision new dances for Earth and Sky. Emily is a contemporary aerial dance artist whose passion for art and expression is a constant force in her life; using the body to invent, infuse, inspire, re-wire, confuse, and create.
Olivia is a contemporary dance artist who honours her mixed-blood Indigenous heritage in her practise of choreography, facilitation, and interpretation.
Both women recognize they are guests working unobstructed on unceeded Coast Salish territory and acknowledge the traditional, ancestral guardians of these lands and waters. Emily and Olivia have created and performed together in site-specific dance activation since 2015.
Old Soul Rebel
Old Soul Rebel named one of 11 best new bands across Canada in 2016 by CBC Radio is based out of Vancouver B.C. Old Soul Rebel is the musical stylings of Chelsea D.E. Johnson and Lola Whyte. Their most pressing concern in their artistry is to create content that represents them; people of color and indigenous peoples. Having found power in their voices, and the ability to connect audiences with ancestry, Old Soul Rebel considers their work meaningful.
Old Soul Rebel offer a raw blend of Soul and Rock n Roll. Formed in August of 2015, they have graced many stages across North America in their short time together. They have been a regular feature on CBC radio, CKUA Radio, Whistler FM, CICK radio, Vancouver Coop Radio and Victoria Campus Radio. OSR has shared stages with renowned talents of The Zolas, David Beckingham, C.R. Avery, Iskwe, Aida Victoria, Rae Spoon, Kinnie Starr, No Sinner, Pack A.D
Old Soul Rebel is focused on creating work that envokes change with in their audience, while speacking directly to thier hearts.
“Chelsea Johnson is truly one of the most talented singers Vancouver has ever been blessed with” (vanmusic.ca)
“Amazing new local band. Will make you think of Alabama Shakes in the best way possible.” (Andrea Warner, CBC Radio)
Onibana Taiko
Formed in 2016, Onibana Taiko are three veterans of Vancouver’s Taiko community whose performance presentations draw from Japanese traditional music and festival rituals – all with a touch of punk aesthetics. Onibana is a type of flower that grows in the grave sites in Japan. Through taiko, the group seeks to transform shadow elements into beauty. Their performances allows audience members to commune with ancestors via obon dance, song, sensu (fan) cheerleading, fue (flute), shamisen and kick-ass taiko. The group is comprised of Eileen Kage, Noriko Kobayashi and Leslie Komori whose depth of performance and taiko experiences combine to over 100 years.
Since the early 1980’s all three members have been active in the performing arts; Kage and Komori began training in Taiko and has been pushing the boundaries of the form, co-founding groups such as Sawagi Taiko, Uzume Taiko, LOUD among others and touring parts of Europe and North America. Since 2006, Kage and Komori have been working and performing in JODAIKO, an International Professional Women’s Taiko Ensemble lead by T Tamaribuchi. Meanwhile, Kobayashi (aka Mahoo) in San Francisco had co-founded the renown riot grrrls queercore punk band Tribe 8, recording and performing extensively in the U.S.(with Bikini Kill, 7 Year Bitch, Lunachicks, Fugazi, MDC, Shonen Knife, the Boredoms) Later, Kobayashi was introduced to taiko in Vancouver (with Sawagi Taiko) and traveled to Japan to spend a decade training and performing with various masters in taiko (such as Oedo Sukeroku Taiko and Miyake Jima Geinou Doushi Kai), shamisen, and earned her shigin certification in Kokusai-ryu Shigin Kai.
When the trio joined forces in 2016, they combined their unique skills and abilities to further push the envelope of ensemble taiko drumming by referencing unique Japanese drumming traditions, borrowing elements of Japanese folk music and classical forms such as Kabuki while recontextualizing within a Nikkei perspective streaked with feminist ideals and political activism.
Pia Massie
Pia Massie is a multi-media artist, environmental activist, and teacher. She is currently at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, in the faculty of Culture + Community, as the artist/designer/scholar in residence. Her work has been exhibited in museums, festivals, and galleries throughout North America and Europe, including The Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne; and the grunt gallery in Vancouver, BC. – receiving international awards, including: the American Film Institute’s Independent Filmmakers award (LA), Prix St. Gervais (Geneva), and Prix de l’Institut de Design de Montréal. Her writing has appeared in DAMP: Contemporary Vancouver Media Art, Foret-Frontiere : Une Action Art /Nature, TheBulletin, Adbusters and Ricepaper magazines. She is deeply grateful to work and live in the Pacific Northwest unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
Polymer Dance
Polymer Dance is a community-based contemporary dance troupe founded in 2012 by Miriam Esquitín and Kristina Lemieux. Our philosophy is that dance is for everybody and for everywhere, in other words, we aim to democratizing the artistic experience of dance. We train and perform as improvisation ensemble at a mix of traditional and non-traditional venues a few times a year. Currently we run two groups, one for beginners and one for intermediate/advanced dancers as a residency of Parks and Recreation Board at Moberly Arts & Cultural Centre.
Quin Lawrence
Working, learning, living, and dying on the unceded land of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, Q is a self-described survivor, failure, and begin-againer with work centering queer love, disability justice, crip liberation, and radical vulnerability.
Rabbit Richards
Rabbit Richards was born in Brooklyn and incubated in cka Montreal, and refuses to choose between bagels. They are two different delicacies from two different cultural heritages and each have their merits. Richards has been performing poetry since 2012 and is a member of the Kalmunity Vibe Collective. They have relished winning at poetry slams such as the Underground Indies, but they find more meaningful their work with the Anti-Oppression Committee of the Board of Spoken Word Canada. They particularly enjoy touring across the continent continuing conversations they start on stages, and consider the cultivation of the community of poets in Canada to be a major focus of their work. They serve on an ongoing contract basis as Accessibility Coordinator for Verses Festival of Words in cka Vancouver.
Rafal Czachor
Rafał Czachor is a sociologist, hiker, gardener, social practice nerd and student of detoxifying masculinities raised in and working on the unceded and occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh people. Rafał’s practice spans writing, research, performance, youth work and community action.
Raven Spirit Dance
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.
Robyn Jacob
Robyn Jacob is a pianist, singer, composer and educator based in Vancouver, Canada. She has been striving for beauty that defies category in Canada and internationally with her avant-pop project Only A Visitor, and has self released four albums Of Course the Journey (2012), Climb the Glass Mountain (2014), Tower Temporary (2015) and Lines (2017). Committed to writing and performing avant-garde music, recent composition projects explore writing for voice and small ensemble, balancing between the pop and new music realms. As a music educator she believes in discovery through teaching, and learning through discovery, and has taught youth workshops on free improvisation and deep listening. Since 2012 she has been part of the multi-disciplinary arts collective Publik Secrets, currently artists in residence at the Hadden Park Field House.
Sara Cadeau
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.
Shamin Zahabioun
Shamin Zahabioun is an interdisciplinary Visual Artist, living in Vancouver, BC. Along with her graduation from emily carr University of Art and Design, Shamin has been focusing on the relationship of the human body through different spaces. As an Iranian-Canadian, her art reflects on the issues of cultural identity as well as gender politics.
Shamin works on individual and group based projects, for a more sustainable future.
Sharon Kallis
With a “one mile diet” approach to sourcing art materials, Sharon works to discover the inherent material potential in a local landscape. Involving community in connecting traditional hand techniques with invasive species and garden waste she creates site-specific installations that become ecological interventions. Graduating from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1996 she began working materials from the land in 1999 and has exhibited and engaged communities with her practice in Ireland, Spain, Mexico and throughout the United States. At home in Vancouver Canada, Sharon works with Vancouver Park Board, Stanley Park Ecology Society, Artstarts, Community Arts Council of Vancouver and Environmental Youth Alliance. Sharon is a member of MOPARRC, the artist collective that activates the Means of Production garden -a community garden that grows art materials. Sharon has received Canada Council and British Columbia Arts Council grants and was the 2010 recipient of the Brandford/ Elliott International Award for Excellence in Fibre Arts and Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Studio Design: emerging artist.
Swallow Cacn
Swallow is from China and had been a reporter, editor and writer there for more than 30 years. Her journalist career has not only broadened her world outlook but also her outlook of the arts in the world. Swallow started making art when she was a child. It was not called art then but a hobby. As a small child Swallow collected colorful candy wrappers whenever she could. With the help of her grandmother, she used the beautiful patterns to make whatever she wanted to express, the green hills with a clear brook, a small wood lodge with flowers and trees in bloom and she would never forget to draw the swallow flying from North to South. The reward from her grandmother towards her art work was urging her to do better and the walls of her childhood home were full of her and her sisters’ art work. They would compare, comment, argue and help each other out. This kind of initiatory art education made Swallow and her sisters full of passion for life, work and study.
Swallow was born and grow up in Beijing, the culture, political and economic centre of China. There is a well known street in Beijing for the shopping and selling of art and paintings, a market that has existed for over 300 years. Swallow’s father took her and her sisters to the market to do some window shopping. While at the market they stopped quite a while in front of an ancient painting. While highly praising the artwork, Swallow’s father asked her and her sisters to conclude life and art in a brief and precise words, phrase or sentence. Her eldest sister said “art is an important part of history.” Her youngest sister said “love art, love life”. When it came Swallow’s turn she said “Life is short, art is long.” Her father was very happy with all of his daughters’ replies, he specially asked Swallow where she learned what she said. She told him that her painting class teacher often repeated that sentence in class. Swallow’s father and teacher’s early education inspired Swallow to respect art and to love it in her pursuit of life happiness even though she was not an artist when she grew up.
She gets inspired by the desire to be a perfect member in the community. It forces Swallow to study all subjects and learn from all the different cultures since she is new to this country and the community.
Tess Conrad
Tess is a recent graduate of SFU’s Theatre Performance Program with an extended minor in music composition. She is an interdisciplinary artist with experience in activism including working with groups such as Occupy Edmonton and Idle No More. Her work in fundraising for nonprofits, such as, Doctor’s Without Borders has encouraged her curiosities for the connections between art and social justice. She is also interested in site-specific work, and has done so with the Harvest Festival with Theatre on Earth.
Tom Catry Todd
Uschi Tala
A self taught multi instrumentalist and poet, Uschi Tala draws inspiration from the elements the underworld and the light found within darkness. Wielding a loop pedal, beat machine and various instruments, she creates ambient soundscapes that dance along hauntingly serene vocals and rhythmic rhymes. Uschi’s music has been described as tragically beautiful, otherworldly and pure magic. Her lyrics embody an ocean of healing and encourage others to sea the radiance in themselves as well as the bigger picture. She will ground your spirit, and raise your heart into ethereal worlds of the in between.
Valeen Jules
Valeen Jules, also known as Kā’ ānni, is a determined young Indigenous warrior from the Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwakwaka’wakw Nations. A former foster kid, homeless youth and 1st-yr college dropout, she is now known as a political organizer, motivational speaker, youth outreach worker, spoken word artist, black snake killer and ”overeducated extremist” across Turtle Island. She released her first chapbook ʔiiḥmisic in July 2016 which has been used in the curriculum of a Humanities course at Emily Carr University.
Yolanda Weeks
Yo is an artist, art facilitator and support worker out of Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). Her art is about connection; gathering meaning through the beautiful and tangled web of realities we weave. A love of movement, community art and grassroots work inspires her collaborative collages and interactive installations. Yo’s current series, Nomadic Nests, is a body of work that contemplates the constructs and concepts of home, security, territory, comfort, change, migration and materialism. Yo has been nesting on Coast Salish Territory for roughly two years now.
Yoro Noukoussi
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.
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