I am a community organizer, artist, and facilitator living on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsliel-Waututh territories. I am the Artistic Director at Vines, and have grown with the festival since it’s beginning over the past seven years. I am so grateful to have been learning with the community of artists who percolate the work we do. I am committed to my responsibility to imagine and co-create nurturing creative spaces for artists. Outside of Vines I utilize my Somatic Education training from Tamalpa Institute to facilitate movement and expressive arts classes. In the past I have worked for Raven Spirit Dance, PuSh International Arts Festival, Dancing on the Edge and the Firehall. I love to garden at Harmony garden, X̱wemelch’stn pen̓em̓áy, hang out by a river and eat good food with community. I can sometimes be found performing in unexpected outdoor spaces with the collective Pressed Paradise.

My favourite plant: impossible to choose I love so many..… wild columbine or raspberries

Art piece that has impacted me: Ana Mendieta – Siluetas

Amanda Parafina is a performing arts stage manager and producer. A second-generation Filipino settler, she has grown up, lived and worked throughout the unceded and ancestral territories of the Kwantlen, Tsawwassen, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. With a BFA in Theatre Design & Production from UBC, Amanda finds joy in working with artists to create and play; to ensure everyone feels supported and cared for in creating their art, and is grateful to be a part of the process. Also an aspiring linguist, Amanda hopes to intersect the arts and languages in her own work in the future.

My favourite plant: I know it’s really basic but… I love my monstera deliciosa! It was my first plant and my mom gifted it to me, so it’s really special to me.

Art piece that has impacted me: watching the play The Unplugging by Yvette Nolan, produced by The Arts Club in 2012. I took a Reading Plays class at SFU during my first year and it was put on the syllabus to read and watch. This was before I even considered pursuing a career in the arts. That was the first professional production I had seen, and when I decided to pursue theatre two years later, it still had an impact on me.

jaye simpson is an Oji-Cree Saulteaux nonbinary transfemme storyteller from the Sapotaweyak 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 displaced indigenous person living, creating and occupying on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations territories.

Their favourite plant is hard to choose as they love time with nature and gardening. Daffodils and dandelions are especially important to them. An art piece/work that deeply impacted them was Children of God, a play by Corey Payette.

Hello! This is Marcelo. I’ve been a settler on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories since 2012. I’m from Iztacalco, Mexico City. I joined Vines in 2019 and quickly took to putting time and thought into the way that we do accessibility. My work is grounded in my experiences of being casted out of multiple spaces because of my immigration status, trans experience, queerness and autism. I have experienced organizations whose accessibility efforts are performative and who refuse to take accountability. My focus as an “accessibility coordinator” is to make sure that we are reaching out to communities that have been systemically pushed away from witnessing and making art. You can email me at marcelo@vinesartfestival.com to ask questions, give me feedback, and make accessibility related requests.

My favourite plant: my peperomia rubella. It somehow has not died on me.

Most impactful art piece: Years ago I saw my now coworker Arash Khakpour break a watermelon with his fists and the memory has followed me since.

Katia Asomaning (pronouns: fluid) is a settler on the unceded territories of the šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmaɁɬ təməxʷ (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíx̱w (Squamish) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. They are passionate about: advocating for marginalized people; community building; uplifting and celebrating QTBIPOC voices; storytelling and narrative; and wellness.

In addition to her work in community relations and outreach with Vines, Katia is also Director of Operations for Pink Flamingo, a Black-led advocacy group that uplifts the QTBIPOC community by facilitating art, events, workshops, education and safer spaces. Katia’s values are intersectional, anti-racist and in solidarity with ongoing social justice movements and they are passionate about building equity across as many sectors as they can get their hands on.

Her favourite plants are carrots and cannabis and the art piece that most impacted her to date is The Guide & Protector, a mural located in Mohkinstsis by Jae Sterling.

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jaz is a mixed secwe̓pemc & scottish interdisciplinary artist who embodies anti-professionalism & anti-colonialism as a way to move toward a future where indigenous knowledge and ways of being are not only respected but valued & revered. using a range of materials, forms and mediums they work to investigate and express their lived experience and understanding of spirituality, resistance, ancestral connections, and community care.

jaz’s ancestry ties them to cstálen “adams lake” in unceded secwepemcúl’ecw in the southern interior of so-called “british columbia” where they had the privilege of being raised close with the lands and waters within their territories & beyond, and it informs their work expansively.

living predominantly on the west coast since 2017, the bulk of their work has bloomed within the traditional territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, xʷməθkwəy̓əm, and Stó:lō where they have been overwhelmed with the warmheartedness, & generosity of the host nations and allied communities

Jesse Del Fierro is a non-binary, Filipinx – Canadian theatre creator, performer and facilitator with the privilege to work in both Moh’kinstsis on Treaty 7 Territory and on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples colloquially known as Calgary AB and Vancouver BC respectively. They will have the absolute joy of being vAct’s 2021-22 MSG Emerging Dramaturg and have collaborated on works presented at PuSh International Performance Art Festival, SummerWorks, Audain Gallery and rEvolver Festival amongst others. Intersectionality is their only reality. Honesty is the policy and so is screaming. Say hello at www.jessedelfierro.com

Ivan So is a multidisciplinary artist, graphic designer, and educator who is currently working in Vancouver, BC. He has exhibited artwork at the Audain Gallery and created graphic art for Arts Club, Vancouver Playhouse, Gateway Theatre, and more. Ivan’s art practice focuses on mental health, empowering the marginalized, and environmental justice. As an educator, he is interested in integrating good pedagogy in his work and encouraging the use of art to deliver meaningful messages. Ivan So studied at Simon Fraser University and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts. He is currently studying Graphic Design and UX/UI design at British Columbia Institute of Technology.

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 Sheng Ho

Originally from Treaty 4 Territory, Fanny moved to ‘Vancouver’, the ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory including the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations amidst the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic. Fanny, a social worker in Regina for 7 years, began to question the institution in which she was apart and re-discovered her creative passions as a means for healing in uncertain times, especially after the death of George Floyd. Fanny brings a unique, holistic and storyteller’s approach to being the Marketing Manager. Fanny has led various fundraising campaigns for the Shania Twain Children’s Foundation and Give Kids A Chance Charity, in addition to years of direct client care.

Fanny is an aspiring Screenwriter, Playwright, Poet; Multi-hyphenate on her way. She is the winner of The Harold Green Theatre Company Monologue Slam, shortlisted PEN Canada Emerging Writer and is on the Word Play Poet roster.  Fanny is an avid hiker, amateur boxer and advocate for creating greater representation of BIPOC folks in spaces where these folks are not typically seen.

Favourite Plant: Aloe Vera- it’s healing and I can keep it alive 🙂

Art that has impacted me: Maya Angelou’s poem, ‘Still I Rise’