Heather Lamoureux is an uninvited guest on the Coast Salish Territory of the Musquem, Squamish and Tsliel-Waututh nations. Here she is a producer, artist and facilitator. Her work stems from her relationship with the earth and the dedication to walk with generosity. Heather is the Artistic Director of Vines Art Festival, Community Outreach Co-ordinator at Raven Spirit Dance and has worked for other performing arts organization including the PuSh International Arts Festival and Dancing on the Edge. She is trained in Expressive Movement Therapy from Tamalpa Institute under instruction of Anna and Daria Halprin. Heather uses this practice with youth in foster care and runs various youth programs. She has a BFA in Dance with minor in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University. Heather is currently being mentored by Cease Wyss at Harmony Gardens on community engagement in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh. She volunteers at BC Crisis and Suicide Prevention Centre and at kwekwecnewtxw – Coast Salish watch house.

Amanda is a recent graduate of the BFA Theatre Design & Production program at the University of British Columbia. With mainly a stage management background, Amanda is thrilled, honoured and grateful to have the opportunity to produce for Vines Arts Festival this year. Select stage management credits include: Gathering Light (Raven Spirit Dance); Hosanna, Much Ado About Nothing, Great Slave Lake, Love and Information (UBC); Incident at Vichy (Theatre in the Raw), God Is in My Typewriter (Canadian Prison Tour, with Anna-Mari Laulumaa).

Senaqwila Wyss is from the Squamish Nation, Tsimshian, Sto:lo Hawaiian and Swiss. She is completing her Bachelors in Communications and First Nations studies at SFU. She is an ethnobotanist and warrior entrepreneur. She co-owns Raven and Hummingbird Tea Co. With mother T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss using Indigenous plant teachings to share with people of all ages. She is also sharing her knowledge to the next generation with daughter Kamaya. Senaqwila facilitates indigenous plant knowledge workshops and has experience in professional communications and coordination and event planning.

jaye simpson is an Oji-Cree Saulteaux nonbinary transfemme storyteller whose roots hail from the Sapotaweyak and Skownan Cree Nation. An avid community organizer with a fondness of Social Justice and Equity, they find themselves often planning rallies, teach-ins, reading series and celebrations of resistance.

jaye is a spoken word Champion, holding titles for both Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Slamapalooza 2017 and Vancouver Poetry Slam’s Women of the World 2019. they were in the Vancouver Poetry Slam’s 2018 team which placed third in the Nationals at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word 2018.

jaye is a displaced indigenous person living, creating and occupying on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations territories.

Jesse Del Fierro began her practice as a performer, playwright and dramaturg on Treaty 7 territory and now lives and works on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Her work explores sensation of space and time, and the human’s capacity for empathy. She has collaborated on works presented at PuSh International Performance Art Festival, SummerWorks, and rEvolver Festival amongst others. She trains in theatre performance at Simon Fraser University.

Ivan So is a multimedia artist and graphic designer who graduated with a BFA at Simon Fraser University. He focuses on topics such as the exploitation of land and the ephemerality of materials, aiming to use paint, poetry and drawings to acknowledge the complex issues. Ivan has exhibited his work at Audain Gallery and collaborated with Arts Club.

Marcelo is a Mexican living in the unceded, stolen, traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ nations since 2012. They dedicated a couple years to building HIV and Hep C resources for trans, Two-Spirit, and non-binary youth, and will likely continue working with and for these communities. He is in love with their communities and likes to show that love through sharing meals and stories.

Originally from Tehran and based in Vancouver, Arash Khakpour is privileged to be a dance artist who has immigrated to the ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory including the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
Arash’s desire is to see whether the theatre can be a place to interrogate the body and to investigate the alternate ways of being – how can one just be a body? He is interested in dance as a way to research human nature and human conditions through historical, social, political and existential interpretations.

Arash is the cofounder of the dance-theatre company The Biting School (alongside his brother Aryo Khakpour), the cofounder of Vancouver’s performance group Pressed Paradise and the founder and co-host of How About A Time Machine a podcast on the history of Canadian performance. Arash is grateful to be the 2017 recipient of Dance Victoria’s Chrystal Dance Prize’.

Photo by Angel Lynne