text:
"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
Art is Land Network
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 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.
Mia Amir
Resilient Roots Artist
For nearly two decades, mia has worked at the intersection of creative and community practice as an educator, dramaturg, cultural organizer, curator, publishing writer, and performance artist creating immersive interdisciplinary works. Born in Israel/Occupied Palestine, mia is a queer Jew of mixed Ashkenazi and Sephardic descent, who is disabled by chronic illness. She has lived most of her life on the unceded and occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh. mia is the Creative Director of The Story We Be, and the Associate Dramaturg at PTC. She teaches Creative Writing at UBC in Continuing Studies. In her creative work, mia explores the way sociopolitical events are manifest intergenerationally in the spaces of the home and the body; the narrative hauntings that emerge when our stories go untold. mia has performed her work across so-called Canada and the US. Her writing has appeared on SpiderWebShow, Lemon Hound and Digging Through the Fat.
Davey Calderon
Performance Artist
Davey is an emerging actor, director and devising artist. Filipino Canadian-American born in Oakland, California and grew up in Newfoundland. He has his BFA in Theatre Performance and Communication (Simon Fraser University): studied with various artists such as Penelope Stella, Steven Hill, DD Kugler, Stephen Atkins, Raina von Waldernburg and Iris Lau. Recent performances include: Finders Keepers (Theatre in the RAW), Pipef@%! (Vancouver Fringe 2015), The Cold War (SFU Mainstage) and Two Birds on a Wire (Psyche Theatre). 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).
EartHand Gleaners
Founded under 5 years ago, EartHand Gleaners Society's specialty is connecting makers with materials that come directly from the land around them; we model 'How to be a Producer without first being a Consumer'. By working with the plants around us using ancestral skills common to all cultures, we inspire participants to discover cultural connections, learn new skills, and discover novel sources of raw materials for creative practices, including garden waste, invasive plants, and textile waste. Respect is the core of EartHand's practice. Our environmental art projects spring from collaborative research, skill development and skill sharing among community members and professionals in the fields of education, sciences and the arts. We aim to strengthen intercultural connections and relationships to place, and find meaningful ways to acknowledge our Host Nations. Our regular partners include Vancouver Park Board, local schools, environmental stewardship non-profits, and our community arts organization peers.
Maddi Grier
Resilient Roots Artist
Maddi Grier is a visitor to the Coast Salish lands from the Blackfoot Confederacy, Piikani Nation. As an Undergraduate student at Simon Fraser University she is studying Gender Studies and Communications working towards freelance journalism. She is very active in advocating for Indigenous Voices. She holds close to her heart issues such as Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Two Spirited Indigenous People, and Indigenous Womenism. She is co-creator and publisher of a Zine called I AM Indigenous Alternative Media, to raise awareness to these issues since they are hardly recognized. She also has set goals of creating documentaries in the future that are directed towards these issues as well as other issues that intersect with the BIPOC communities.
Claris Figueira
Resilient Roots Artist
Claris is a 24 year old poet and organizer who grew up on the unceded and unserrendered territories of Coast Salish peoples / Vancouver, BC. She centres her work and around climate justice, which she sees as a hub for intergenerational and social justice work, and in November 2016 she joined the Canadian Youth Delegation to COP22. She believes that the intersection between art and political activism is immensely powerful, and is honoured to be a part of Vines festival for a second year.
June Fukumura
Performance Artist
June Fukumura is Japanese-Canadian born and raised in Vancouver. She has a BFA in Theatre Performance and a Certificate in Sustainable Community Development from Simon Fraser University. Her artistic practice includes: Grotowski inspired physical theatre, clown, dance, devised theatre, writing, producing, and directing. She has studied with Penelope Stella, Steven Hill, DD Kugler, Raina von Waldenburg, Cole Lewis, David MacMurray Smith among others. In addition to her role as a Co-Founder of New(to)Town Collective, June is also the Co-Artistic Director of Popcorn Galaxies, she devised, directed, and produced six independent productions. She is the Associate Producer Intern at Theatre Replacement.
Zion Fyah
World/reggae music with a conscious message. Zion Fyah is a local favourite with extensive live performances internationally. Please see web site for more details.
Marisa Gold
Dance Artist
Marisa is a professional dancer, choreographer and instructor with a passion for all things soulful. Her movement vocabulary draws from a variety of styes based mostly in modern, ballet, contemporary, afro-contemporary and hip hop techniques. Since earning a BFA in dance from Simon Fraser University's contemporary dance program, she continues to grow as a performer, choreographer, and collaborator through her work with Mayce collective. Most recently, Marisa completed a year of modern dance training at The Ailey School in New York city.
David Gowman
Mr. Fire-Man is the shopkeeper/instrumentmaker at Oncle Hoonki's Fabulous Hornshop in Strathcona. He is also the lead singer of the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra and a Vancouver fine arts practitioner since 1995. Currently, he divides his time between facilitating wood carving classes and mounting musical events in (mostly) East Vancouver.
Caitlin Griffin
Dance Artist
Over the past decade, Caitlin has performed in ballet and contemporary productions across Canada and in China, Thailand, and Israel. She has worked on stage with companies including Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, MOVE: the company, Sony Pictures' Center Stage: Turn it Up, and the 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Presentations of Caitlin's work have included multiple installments of at Dances for a Small Stage, 12 Minutes Max, The ROMP! Festival, The City of Vancouver's Biennale Open Air Museum, The City of Coquitlam's 125th Anniversary Celebration and for the BC Children's Hospital A Night of Miracles Gala. Acting as ballet choreographer for Team Canada West in 2014, Caitlin's choreography won 4 gold medals at the international competition in Poland. Caitlin is also a sought after adjudicator and guest teacher for youth and is passionate about community engagement through the arts. Caitlin is an active member of The Margie Gillis Dance Foundation Legacy Project, in which she continues to study and perform under the Canadian Dance icon. "Loon" was originally choreographed and performed by Margie Gillis and it is through the Legacy Project that it can appear today. You can find out more at www.caitlingriffin.com.
Vanessa Grondin
Resilient Roots Artist
Vanessa Grondin is a visual performing artist who interweaves dynamic processes of movement, spatial intervention, and the breakdown of language as a form of embodiment. As a soft spoken woman, I am often led towards actively grounding strength in vulnerability through body motion and vocalization. I am interested in how performative, linguistic, and collaborative processes can become documented and re-activated through zines and printed ephemera. With a mindfulness for decolonial ways of being, I often work alternatively with existing structures and conditions to make way for seeing beyond imposed visibilities. I seek to let processes flow for shape-shifting ways of interconnecting by looking towards Indigenous practices of sovereignty and navigating intercultural relations. Coming from a mixed ancestry of Asian-European roots with gaps in between, I carry much gratitude for continuing to grow and learn as a guest on unceded ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
Elissa Hanson
Resilient Roots Artist
Elissa Hanson is a performing artist and multidisciplinary collaborator who gratefully resides on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. She investigates somatic, theatrical and political gestures. Elissa has performed and collaborated with Kinesis Somatheatro, Justine A.Chambers, EDAM Dance, Fight With a Stick, Mascall Dance, The Biting School, been a guest performer with battery opera, Company 605, and Pressed Paradise, as well as toured nationally and internationally with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Deanna Peters, and MOVE: the company. She has worked as a rehearsal director, teacher, moderator, outside/inside eye, assisted Jennifer Mascall in Experiential Anatomy workshops, and joined Josh Beamish as a mentor in his Choreographic Mentorship Program for talented youth from Western Canada. Her training and performing has taken her to France, Germany, Israel, Spain, and Thailand. Elissa's independent work comprises several solo dances, installation, and video works, and expanding her teaching practice in TRE technique by Dr. David Berceli, specializing in releasing body trauma.
Kwiigay iiwaans
Resilient Roots Artist
Kwiigay iiwaans is a queer Indigenous tenderboy and existential robot prince.
Valeen Jules
Resilient Roots Artist
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. Originally from Kyuquot, she now resides on Snuneymuxw territories.
Arash Khakpour
Resilient Roots Artist
Originally from Tehran and based in Vancouver, Arash Khakpour is a dancer and choreographer. Arash is privileged to be a dance artist on the ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory including The Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First 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. 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 Vancouver's performance group Pressed Paradise, cofounder of the dance-theatre company The Biting School (alongside his brother Aryo Khakpour), 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 with Emmalena Fredriksson from Sweden.
Heather Lamoureux
Resilient Roots Artist
Heather Lamoureux is privileged to be a guest on the Coast Salish Territory of the Musquem, Squamish and Tsliel-Waututh nations. Here she is a producer, artist, activist and facilitator. Her work stems from her relationship with mother earth, she lives with determination to walk with generosity in her feet and with honesty and in her heart, planting seeds where she may on her path.
Heather is the Artistic Director of Vines Art Festival, producer at Raven Spirit Dance and a support in other performing arts organization. Trained in Expressive Movement Therapy from Tamalpa Institute under instruction of Anna and Daria Halprin and a BFA in Dance with minor in Business Administration. She volunteers at BC Crisis and Suicide Prevention Centre.
Isabelle Kirouac Arevelo and Robert Leveroos
Dance/Interacting Installation
Robert and Isabelle met while completing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Simon Fraser University. They first worked together in 2015 while taking a workshop with Belgium-based interdisciplinary artist Kate McIntosh called MisUse/DisPlace. Inspired by her approach using objects, site, and bodies, the two began a collaboration of their own as creators and performers, building on their interests in site-responsive and interactive performance.
Robert Leveroos is a multidisciplinary artist and insatiable tinkerer. Robert creates original performance pieces for all ages and collaborates as a performer and scenographer with a number of Vancouver and Canadian companies. His work has been presented in Canada, the USA, Germany and Taiwan. Robert was honored to receive SFU's CD Nelson Graduate Fellowship as well as awards from the British Columbia Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.
Isabelle Kirouac is an interdisciplinary choreographer and movement artist from Quebec, currently living in Vancouver. She has shared her work both as a creator and teacher in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and West Africa. Isabelle received the Elsie Jang Fellowship in Contemporary Arts, Creative Spark Grant and awards from the British Columbia Arts Council, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec and Canada Council for the Arts.
Kelly McInnes
Resilient Roots Artist
Kelly McInnes is privileged to be a dance artist, choreographer, performer & facilitator based on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Kelly creates performance work exploring socio-political issues as a call to action. Her work has been presented at festivals throughout BC, in Toronto and in Mexico. Kelly is thrilled to be included in Vines Art Festival for the third year.
Anna Kraulis
Performance Artist
Anna Kraulis is a choreographer and budding environmental advocate. She is grateful to live and work in Vancouver, unceded territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-waututh and Musqueam nations. She feels that re-connecting with our physicality as humans is fundamental to renewing our connection to the wild, and this informs all of her dance work. She collaborates with environmental activists, filmmakers and visual artists, presenting work at Planet in Focus Film Festival (Toronto), Vancouver Society of Storytelling's Creek Forum, BC Buds Festival, Popcorn Galaxy's New Narratives, Aesthetica Short Film Festival (UK), Toronto Urban Film Festival, The Interplay Projects, BLOOM, RADAR: Exchanges in Dance Film Frequencies, Art for Impact, and through the Dance Centre's DanceLab program. This summer she looks forward to working with Soaring Eagle nature school, learning more about local birds, and finishing her environmental studies degree at Langara college.
Sarah Lapp
Dance Artist
Sarah is a co-founder of the All Bodies Dance Project and the Administrator for the society and its projects in addition to her roles as dancer, choreographer, and mentor for the ensemble. She holds a certification in Advanced Arts and Entertainment Management from Capilano University. Recently, Sarah was a recipient of two grants, one from the British Columbia Arts Council and the other from Canada Council for the Arts to support her professional development. As a result she has been mentoring with local contemporary artist, Naomi Brand and has traveled to the UK to study with Stopgap Dance Company and Candoco Dance Company, leaders in the field of integrated dance.
Pierre Leichner
Visual Artist
Pierre is as an interdisciplinary research artist. He has worked full time as an artist since finishing MFA studies in 2011 following a 35year career as a psychiatrist. His practice has evolved to be a composite of socially engaged art, environmental art, and visual art. Most of his works address bio-psychosocial and spiritual issues simultaneously. He uses various media as needed to explore an issue because of his interest in creating multisensory works. "Roots have fascinated me since my childhood and are rich in metaphors. We all need roots. We have them within our body, with our family, community and spiritually with our planet and the cosmos. During my MFA I started to work with plants using roots as the sculptural medium. My first project was the Root Laboratory and Dr Legumes, a plastic surgeon for vegetables whose daring surgeries can be seen on YouTube." Pierre is a member of the Gallery Gachet and the Art Is Land artists' collectives, on the board of the Community Arts Council of Vancouver and the ECU Alumni board. Since 2007. He has created 10 solo shows, participated in 40 group shows, presented in several art conferences and completed 10 community-engaged projects. He is presently artist in residence on a community project bridging Art and Sports and the artistic director for the first Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival.
Dalia Levy
Fibre/Performance/Installation Art
Dalia Levy is an urban fibre and theatre artist based in East Vancouver. Her slow textile practice began while working at a Vancouver environmental non-profit and has lead to an adoration of rare breed sheep, earth's hues and "weeds". Natural dyeing is a medium to experiment with and share nature's bounty and her creative passions sustainably. Dalia is committed to reviving wearable folk traditions that challenge an extractive economy and grows local fibre and colour within a regenerative paradigm.
She has appeared in local art exhibitions and her business, Wildcrafted Wool appears at countless craft fairs and in select Canadian retailers. Dalia is a member of the Blackberry Artist Co-op in Port Moody, BC and her workshops appear at venues such as UBC Farm. Dalia is a graduate of UBC Theatre's bachelor of arts program and her Boalian participatory art has appeared on the streets from Vancouver to Chiapas.
Anjela Magpantay
Anjela Magpantay is a theatre performer, co-founder of New(to)Town Collective and co-artistic director of Neon Elephant Cirus Productions. She has a BFA in theatre performance from Simon Fraser University and has a creative arts degree in Clowning. Her curiosities have led her to research the Grotowksi physical training and it's legacy. She continues to explore and expand her understanding of the various forms of theatre and performance.
Kelly McInnes
Dance Artist
Kelly McInnes is a dance artist who creates performance work exploring socio-political issues. Kelly began creating MINE in 2012 to express her concerns with capitalist consumerism and fast fashion. Over the past few years, the project has grown to explore other aspects in relation to clothing such as identity, body image, value, design, upcycling, history and memory. MINE has seen many lives from studio, outdoor and theatre performances, as well as collaborations with musicians, a musical seamstress, and several dance artists including Rianne Svelnis. Kelly is excited to see the work find another life through MINE Youth Project with support from Made In BC in partnership with the Vancouver Parks Board through BCAC. This past season, Kelly has been thrilled to co-facilitate the project with Rianne and musician Alex Mah. The MINE Youth Project participants are an inspiring, unique and committed group of 13-18 year olds with a wide range of experience, interests and approaches to the work. The project will continue in the fall at Trout Lake Community Centre, as well as through short residencies throughout B.C. Get in touch with us if you are interested to join, host or support the project!
Linnea McPhail
Visual Artist
Linnea's artistic pursuits are plentiful and ever-changing. Never to be fixated or obsessed with one medium she is constantly growing and challenging herself to use both new and traditional medium in unique ways. Her preference is in 3D interactive art installations which include both traditional arts and crafts such as drawing, painting, textiles and including natural objects such as rocks, shells, and driftwood. Her pieces are often highly welcoming yet incredibly personal. Returning to Vines for her second year Linnea is excited to talk whales and plastic consumption with her community members. This year she will be using single-use coffee cups, plastic bags and beach driftwood in facilitating community knowledge sharing and creation.
Matthew Metz, Samaj, and Trevor Dykstra
Environmental Interactive Installation
Matthew Metz is the executive director of Coltura, an organization which uses the arts to change the culture surrounding the use of carbon. Matthew had the original conceptualization for the piece. Matthew was awarded the 2017 Sustainable Seattle arts and culture award for his 2016 performance work, gasoline ghosts. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including this piece. http://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/coltura-performance- webversion/
Samaj is a visual artist who has exhibited extensively in New York, Europe, and the West Coast. He developed the shape and material of the piece. http://samajfinearts.com/
Trevor Dykstra is an architect and the leader of the Seattle branch of Design Nerds. He oversaw the fabrication of the piece. http://www.seattledesignnerds.org/
Ej, lásko/O Love!
On the supernatural, unceded, Salish Territories of the wet West Coast, in the complex context of Truth and Reconciliation as well as Canada 150+, Ej, lásko/O Love! extends a space within which right-relation might be experienced and practiced.
Naomi Steinberg, Julia Ulehla, Georgia Johnson, Jocelyn Anderson, & Ana Elia Ramón Hidalgo weave together singing and storytelling. We invite release, wild tears, howling and keening as well as laughter, breath and relief. We offer this as a means of moving together – moving away from paralyses and stagnation towards contributing, grief, joy, heart and possibility to the ecology of our here & now.
Maggie Blue O'Hara
Multidisciplinary Artist
Maggie Blue O'Hara is a lover of life, Reiki practitioner, singer/songwriter, actress, sensual clown, dancer, writer/director and facilitator of transformational workshops. For 10 years she was artistic director of a multimedia theatre company in Hong Kong writing, directing and choreographing contemporary dance theatre productions until moving back to Vancouver in 2015.
In 2013-2014 she was the voice and movement teach at The International Academy of Film and TV in Hong Kong and in 2015 she was the voice and movement teacher at Vancouver Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Maggie continues to study and expand her knowledge of performance and alternative healing modalities and enjoys sharing her skills with others. Maggie Blue is currently a private acting coach, acting teacher for kids and adults at SchoolCreative and focusing on her band, Lovedrunk www.lovedrunk.ca
Soyoung Park
Interactive Art
I am Korean-Canadian. I studied photography and Interactive art in Canada, and Visual Cultures in London, UK. Studying intuitive intention in art, I surveyed unintentional forces that drive the artist to create artwork with a certain trajectory. To further study this improvisational intention, I turned to ritual dance in religion and to East Asian philosophy, which emphasize removing one's intentional mind to discover – instead of deciding – choices in practicing life, and to unify mind and body. This brought me to do residencies in South Korea in 2015 and 2016, regarding 'nature art' on the basis of East Asian philosophy. I also participated in a yoga program for Zen meditation at a Buddhist temple in Korea last spring. Along these lines, I was an artist-in-residence and participant in workshops at Ponderosa Stolzenhagen in Germany in October last year, researching intuitive consciousness in improvisation, and instant composition of movement. I plan to continue my study of improvisation. I regularly organize improvisation events for the public. My work is site-specific, made of everyday objects gleaned from streets or bins. I pursue an aesthetic of ordinariness.
Angelica Poversky
Spoken Word Artist
Angelica uses both vivid and comforting images in her spoken word poetry to tackle the inner-workings of huge manatees. She is 5'3″ (moving into the 5'4″ realm) of vertically challenged creative passion who wants to use spoken words to create movements of thought.
Interested in improvisation, music and writing, Angelica is Vancouver's Top 24 under 24, Richmond's 30 under 30 and a Richmond Arts Award Winner. She's been on the author panel at National Culture Days, a speaker at The Top 25 under 25 Canadian Environmentalists Awards and the feature performer at the CHIMO Violence Against Women Conference. Other notable performances include Word Vancouver, The Vancouver Sustainability Conference and The Vancouver Earth Day Parade.
Growing up in the lagoons of Richmond, her natural habitat included in addition to her artsy fartsy behaviour- also partaking in arts programming. After founding and co-directing Richmond's first youth-led outdoors arts festival, Arts in the Park. Recently, she was a member of the 2016 Van Youth Slam Team from Vancouver, and now on the 2017 UBC slam team as well as a trio called The Tiny Tricycle Poets. Even more recently, she has released a new chapbook "Strange and Quiet Odours from Within the Eggs of Imagination."
Charlotte Priest
Performance Artist
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.
Meegin Pye
Theatre Artist
Meegin is happy to be back for her second year at Vines Art Festival. Originally from Vancouver Island with the mountains and ocean as her playground, Meegin was raised with an appreciation and love for the natural landscape that BC has to offer. Currently residing in Vancouver she has adapted to the cityscape and come to understand the opportunities it too provides, but seeks ways to bring both natural and structural topography together.
Recent credits include: The Girl on the Moon (Pull Festival), Love, Lust & Lace (Gas Pedal Productions at The Firehall Arts Centre), Eurydice, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Bacchae 2.1 (UBC); The Children's Hour (Ensemble Theatre Company).
Jacquie Rolston
Visual Artist
Vancouver-born Jacquie Rolston is a visual artist working in community art, animation and illustration. She also teaches drawing to kids and terrified adults. You may have seen her delicate paper lanterns at the Vancouver Folk fest or other local lantern celebrations. A graduate of Emily Carr's animation program, she also studied Recreation at Langara College, and loves the combination of art, environment and community. Somewhere along the way, she became obsessed with garbage! A longtime volunteer with SPEC's Waste Committee, Jacquie is also a certified Master Recycler and the founder of Zero Waste Club Vancouver. She is happy to answer any and all recycling questions.
Kristen Rulifson, Nathan Swedlow, Cynthia Arellanes
Theatre Artist
This is an exciting, newly-formed collaboration of 3 research artists, each bringing a unique approach to the intersection of social and environmental justice. The fresh squad is excited about having the opportunity to learn and develop connection through intentional art-making. Kristen Rulifson is an interdisciplinary artist and movementologist. She is the Co-Director of FloorPlay, an Oakland-based dance company and Program Director of Naturally Expressive Leaders. She is fascinated with the body and the stories it holds. You can often find her spiraling into chaotic planes and asking questions. Cynthia Arellanes derives from San Diego as a teacher, dancer, lover of humanity. Through movement, connection, and understanding Cynthia hopes to create meaningful work in effort of creating a stream of connections to other individuals. Nathan Swedlow focuses on cultivating his relationship with sound through creative and scientific media. His creative work is focused in multi-channel sound design, instrumental performance, composition, and audio engineering. His background in neuroscience informs his creative work and he currently collaborates as a science engineer at Dolby Laboratories.
With her first play Amber, she explores how to connect people to a realistic idea of the future with climate change accelerated, and to confront all its possibilities – the bleak, the hopeful and everything that lives in between.
Claudia Segovia
Visual Artist
Born in England to a spanish opera lover, fabulous piano player, chemist father and a mexican dancer, brain researcher, fantastic genius, dog lover mother… Claudia Segovia grew up in Mexico City and moved to Canada in 1997: a mother, a creature maker, a dog lover, a choreographer, and an inevitable mixed media artist.
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. Danced, taught and choreographed professionally in Mexico before moving to Canada in 1998. She is currently faculty at Arts Umbrella Dance and Art. Teaches Dance and Art all over the lower mainland. Receiver of an Excellence Award from the Federation of Canadian Artists. Shows and sells her work in the Lower Mainland, USA, Mexico and Spain.
Her son Diego, diagnosed with ADHD and LD inspired her to create a dance program called DANCE OUT LOUD! for children with Invisible disabilities such as Aspergers, Anxiety, LD, ADHD, etc. who do not get a chance to participate in a regular dance class and she brings to public schools in the lower mainland.
Julia Siedlanowska and Ulla Laidlaw
Performance Artist
Julia Siedlanowska and Ulla Laidlaw are a collective formed through mutual interest of creating immersive theatre experiences for all ages. We aim to create work that is genre-defying and engages audiences in a social manner, dissolving the line between performance and life, and creating truly life-affirming work.
Crystal Smith
Resilient Roots Artist
Crystal is Tsimshian, Haisla and was adopted into the Heilsuk Nation. She now lives upon Unceded Coast Salish Territory. As proud mother of two beautiful children, Crystal is taking it upon herself to fight for their future and writing poetry is one way she is able to battle. Crystal often writes about the lived oppression of Indigenous people and more importantly the will and skill to survive daily attempts of assimilation and colonialism.
Stefan Smulovitz, Lara Amelie Abadir, Dave Biddle, Andrew Scott
Lara Amelie Abadir (Belgium) is an interdisciplinary creator and performer whose work lands at the intersection between Performance (Contemporary Dance & Theatre), Film/Video and Sound Design. Lara's hybrid methodology seeks to create a sophisticated balance between dark comedy, the uncanny, yielding and challenging the conventional categorizations of voyeurism, empathy, identification and/or exploitation.
Stefan Smulovitz (composer, violist & laptop artist) has performed with leading improvisers around the world and created more than 60 live film scores. He is one of Canada's most in demand composers for dance and is recognized for his groundbreaking interactive work with Radix Theatre. Kenaxis — Stefan's game-changing music software — is used around the world and his Mad Scientist Machine LED light cueing system has opened new possibilities for global collaborations. Recently Stefan travelled to Bhutan to collect sounds and create a score for the award-winning documentary "Power of the River". www.stefansmulovitz.ca
Dave Biddle asks "how can we heal the world?". Linda Fox answers "by gliding through its cracks". So the artist looks for cracks, glides toward them, is not sure if he's really finding any but will keep trying, and will be forever grateful to Linda for being his GlideGuide™.
Andrew Scott has been experimenting with sound since 1995 and a beekeeper since 2012. Work with sculpture based on insects lead to a lecturing position with the Stanley Park Ecology Society, where a focus on ecology and evolution led to the study of colonial and polinating insects which provided a basic understanding of honey bees. Work as a beekeeper drastically expanded Andrew's knowledge of the insect world and also lead to experimentation with sounds recorded from the hive.
Snotty Nose Rez Kids
Resilient Roots Artist
As the Snotty Nose Rez Kids, we speak back to the stereotypes that present us as untamed, ill-mannered and vulgar savages, reclaiming ourselves as the 7th generation on the rise. We tell our stories to show that we may be a little rough around the edges but that roughness makes our lives interesting. We don't carry certain privileges afforded through colonialism -fenced in backyards, green grass suburbia- but we are privileged in other ways. We were privileged to be raised by the ocean with a forest in our back yard. We are rich through learning our traditional way of life while being raised on our ancestors' territory – there is a great deal of wealth in knowing who and where you come from. We were able to learn by doing, to run around the reservation, get stung by devils nettle and not cry over it but wipe our snot on it and keep going. We learnt about the ocean's depth and the rivers' current. We learned how to survive without actually having to only survive. We ran in packs. We were raised by our parents; we were raised by our community. Our culture is strong and continues to shape us into who we are today. We are storytellers, dancers, singers and artists. We are survivors. Our ancestors live through us and as individuals, we have a platform to communicate this with our community. With whatever lens you see us through, we will always be the snot nosed kids from the rez and that's what makes us beautiful.
Lori Snyder
Urban Plant Educator
Lori is a mother, artist, educator and herbalist. She grew up in a small town and remembers hearing whispers of the family being "Indian". In her thirties she became curious and contacted the Historical Society in St. Boniface Manitoba, which specializes in researching Metis ancestry. Lori discovered that her ancestry is from the T'suu tina (Sarcee), Nakota (Assiboine), Cree, Nipissing & Ojibwa Nations.
Base in Vancouver on unceded Coast Salish territories, Lori works with elementary and secondary school children teaching urban foraging from a First Nations perspective. Recent work with other community organizations includes: the Aboriginal youth at Britannia consulting on a native plant garden and along with medicine making, at the UBC Farm; SFU Embark Gardens; University of Gastronomic Sciences, Bra, Italy; and the Vancouver Park Board and for various events around Metro Vancouver. Lori collaborated with artist and author Lori Weidenhammer and designed & built the Medicine Wheel Garden at Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre. The garden is used by the school adjacent to the centre and by new immigrants to help identify native species. Recently Lori has volunteered with the Riley Park Community Garden design committee. In 2015/2016 Lori was invited to teach for the Small Neighbourhood Grants program, hosting plant identification and illustration workshops. Currently Lori is working on a perpetual harvesting calendar and regularly leads medicinal plant walking tours in the city.
Son Bohemio
SON BOHEMIO is; Nyra Chalmer (Violin), Hector Falcon (Cajon) and Joaquin Gonzalez (Guitar.Voice),is an ensemble that performs music from all over Latin America and Spain with a gipsy bohemian style,the vocals in their performances blend beautifully with the sound of the guitar,the violin,and the the peruvian cajon and invite all the audiences of different cultures to an imaginary trip in to the hispanic heritage.
Harmanie Taylor
Dance Artist
Harmanie has been actively involved in the integrated dance movement since 2006 as a dancer, performer, teacher, mentor, choreographer and organizer. She holds a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Lethbridge and an Arts and Cultural Management certificate from MacEwan University. Harmanie was a participant in the Made in BC Community Engagement Mentorship program where she was mentored in facilitation by Naomi Brand and continues to develop her teaching practice with All Bodies. Harmanie was a recipient of Canada Council for the Arts to support her professional development allowing her to travel and take the Axis Summer Dance Intensive in 2015, a leader in the field of Integrated Dance.
Elisa Thorn
Theatre Artist
Elisa Thorn is harpist known for her extended techniques, electronic effects, versatility and active involvement in the creative music scene. She is part of many projects including Gentle Party and Hue, both of whom released their debut albums this year. Her music has been featured in Dances for a Small Stage, Coetani Festival for Experimental Flamenco (Greece), BC Buds Festival, Sonic Boom Festival, Suoni Il Per Popolo Festival (Montreal), Vancouver International Jazz Festival, and the Detroit Free Arts Festival.
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 begun to work with local contemporary dancers and choreographers as a composer for live performance. In his compositional practice, Matthew explores a wide range of sonic paradigms including acoustic ecology, deep listening, musique concrète, and harsh noise. His site-specific work draws on a longstanding tradition of soundscape studies in Vancouver and asks critical questions about the politics and aesthetics of field recording and our perception of sound in 'natural' spaces.
T'uy't'tanat - Cease Wyss
Resilient Roots Artist
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.
Kat Vriesema-Magnuson
Fresh Roots is a non-profit organization working with school communities towards Good Food For All! We believe everyone deserves access to healthy food, land, and community. We work towards this vision by cultivating engaging gardens and programs that catalyze healthy eating, ecological stewardship, and community celebration. Since 2011 we have grown the first schoolyard market gardens in Canada. We foster leadership and employment training through schoolyard farm programming, offer food literacy professional development for BC's educators, distribute delicious, freshly grown food into schools and local communities, and provide an inspirational voice in our community. We are excited to connect with the community near our home base in Norquay park through food, fun, and art!
Avyen Von Waldenburg
Performance Artist
Avyen is an emerging director and actor obtaining a Film Diploma from VFS in 2002. His vision of being a director inspired him to travel, study indigenous ways, practice film and explore acting. 2003 he moved to New York City and studied with teachers as: Steve Wangh, "6 Viewpoints" creator Mary Overlie, Balinese Mask w/Per Brah, Meisner w/Terry Knickerbocker, Fitzmaurice w/Aole miller, Dance w/Annie Parson and Presence w/Raina von Waldenburg. Avyen has been studying clowning with David MacMurray Smith since 2010. Avyen is the Executive Creative Consultant for New (to) Town Collective, the Co-artistic Director of Neon Elephant Circus Productions.
Lori Weidenhammer
Lori Weidenhammer is a Vancouver-based artist and educator originally from Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan. It is in this place, bordered by wheat fields and wild prairie, that she first became enchanted with bees. She is the author of a book called Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees published by Douglas and MacIntyre. She appears as the persona Madame Beespeaker, practicing the tradition of "telling the bees". Lori works with students of all ages on eating locally and gardening for pollinators. On occasion, she likes to dress up in silly costumes and talk to bees. Join Madame Beespeaker as she leads you through an art exploration that helps you learn about the different species of pollinators in Vancouver. Learn simple ways you and your family can help to save the many species of bees that pollinate our flowers and food crops. Let's make Vancouver beautiful for bees!
Jaz Whitford
Resilient Roots Artist
Jaz Whitford is a youth in care and a guest on the unceded Coast Salish Territories, originally from the secwepemc nation – south central interior of BC. With a spark for street performing and a deep interest in decolonization, indigenous resistance and other frontline work Jaz is currently working towards gaining a better understanding of traditional plant knowledge and the many teachings that come with it. In order to more effectively spread awareness about indigenous issues through the arts, based in the understanding that many can be traced back to loss of land and title.
Shamin Zahabioun and Khorshid Moradj (Sunshine)
Visual Artist/Musician
Shamin and khorshid (Sunshine) started their collaboration when they found the possibilities of connecting to humanity within their creative practice. They connect through their arts as they believe both of their artforms are towards the same goal.
Shamin Zahabioun is an interdisciplinary visual artist, living in Vancouver, Canada. Since age of fifteen, Shamin has been drawing and painting under the mentorship of well-known artists in Iran and Canada. Shamin holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Recently, she has been exploring Performance-Art and Installation-Art; as she believes in "Art" as a democratic idea is a dimension to be yet investigated, and expressed through new genres of art.
Khorshid (sunshine) started playing Setar since age of 12. Her first teacher was her father who was also her inspiration in life. Although practicing in architecture full time, music has always been her passion and she is a part time musician, collaborating with different artists. She believes music brings people together and connects them through their hearts regardless of their backgrounds.
Matthew Ariaratnam
Matthew Ariaratnam is a composer, improviser and guitarist. His music and research explores sonic textures, graphic/alternative scoring, field recordings, prepared instruments, electroacoustic music, performative listening, and songwriting. Matthew's music has been heard nationally on CBC radio and also internationally. He is involved in the musical projects Mice Bards, Organic Strategies, Waylaid, Sweet Pieces, and Code of Silence. Matthew is currently exploring interdisciplinary work in Vancouver with performance artists, physical theatre makers, dancers, visual artists, laptop guru's, and other musicians. Matthew has a Bachelor degree in Music Composition from Wilfrid Laurier University where he studied with Peter Hatch, Linda Catlin Smith, Glenn Buhr, and Terry McKenna. He is currently a Master of Fine Arts Candidate and teaching assistant at Simon Fraser University.
Carolina Bergonzoni
Dance Artist
I'm a Vancouver-based Italian dance artist, yoga teacher and scholar. I hold an MA in Philosophy and MA in Comparative Media Arts. As a choreographer, I recently created site-specific works for Vancouver Fringe Festival, Dance in Vancouver, and BC Buds. I've been teaching dance and philosophy for children and community since 2008. In 2011, I graduated as Dance Educator and Community Engagement Facilitator. Since then, I've been working for building community of movers and thinkers. I am the new artist-in- residency with the Roundhouse Community Dancers. I'm a nature lover and a body nerd. Follow me on www.carolinabergonzoni.org
Forest Borch
Forest. Sometimes forest, sometimes phorest plays the fiddle, sometimes the violin. He has been doing this for 20 plus years in a variety capacities and intensities. From folk to old-tyme from classical to gypsy jazz, from cape breton to kajun; genres slip and slide between his fingers and bow. Forest's influences include Andrew Bird, the Fretless, and Casey Driessen. Exploring the elements of rhythm, tone, harmony and space, his looping ways will leave you questioning, full and centered.
Sophie Brassard and Carly Penner
Dance Artists
Carly Penner began training from a young age around the Fraser Valley. Having a multiple disciplinary background, she has since narrowed her focus and found a passion for contemporary forms. Carly's introduction to the Vancouver dance scene was through the Catalyst Dance Program, with whom she's had the opportunity to perform at various venues and in various festivals. Her drive to pursue further training brought her to study in Israel through the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company's Dance Journey Program, where she had the opportunity to learn Culberg Ballet repertoire, KCDC repertoire, perform an original piece by a current company member, and take class from various Israeli artists including Vertigo and Batsheva members. Since returning from Israel Carly has returned to train for another two seasons with Catalyst and has been an understudy for the most recent DezzaDance work.
Sophie Brassard is a Vancouver-based dance artist and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance from Simon Fraser University. During her time at SFU she explored her interest in choreography through the creation of works for several interdisciplinary productions. She also explored her passion for performance through the interpretation of several works by local choreographers such as Rob Kitsos, Judith Garay and Vanessa Goodman. Sophie has also had the privilege of dancing in a reconstruction of Merce Cunningham's Native Green under the direction of Megan Walker-Straight. Most recently, she has performed works for Project CPR and for Dezza Dance.
Jeff Christensen
Jeff Christensen has been an educator and performance artist for the past 20 years. His M. Ed. (UBC) investigated and explored the use of magic in an educational context to help promote imaginative thinking. Over the past number of years he has performed hundreds of public shows atschools, libraries, festivals, musicals and corporate events. Jeff has been mentored at the prestigious McBride Mystery School in Las Vegas and he's continually looking for new and innovative ways to share his magic. This year at the Vines Art Festival he's sharing his award-winning piece The Rainmaker. This piece traces the First Nations legend of the Thunderbird. In doing so it speaks to the dangers of mankind thinking it can control the environment. It's uses story telling, movement, music, political protest and illusion to create a wonderfully unique piece of magical theatre. The Shaman character portrayed successfully invokes rain from the spirit world only to find that s/he hisunable to control the eventual outcome. In 2016 Jeff was awarded the Mandrake Award for performance excellence by the Society of American Magicians. More information about Jeff can be found at his website: www.MagicalEducator.ca
Valerie Christenson
Performance Artist
Valerie Christiansen is interdisciplinary artist with background in theatre performance, directing and cinema. She is interested in political theatre and creating spaces that collapse social hierarchies. She is a member of The Uninvited Guests collective whose productions focus on local social issues.
Con8 Collective
Dance Artist
Con8 is a young Vancouver-based movement collective focused on the investigation and creation of original work through interdisciplinary collaboration. Lead by Artistic Directors Georgina Alpen and Charlotte Newman, Con8 explores human relationships – our actions, interactions, and impacts on the world around us, through a detailed language of magnified pedestrian gesture, found movement, and the serious investigation of play. Since 2013, Con8 has created a number of diverse site-specific and stage works, founded the collaboration intensive Fridays Like This, and has most recently presented works at 12 Minutes Max (Vancouver, Salt Spring Island) and BC Buds (Vancouver). We are thrilled to have the opportunity to create new, site-specific work for Vines, and explore the stages, spaces and environments of Trout Lake.
Graham Cunningham
Born London England 20/10/1930 Evacuated in wartime to Coldstream Scottish border. After war got a Certificate for Radio telegraphy. Went to sea in 1953. Served on British merchant vessels (also Liberian and Panamanian flags) all oceans all continents till 1968 landed immigrant in Vancouver. Opened Squamish Esso in 1969 and left in 1972 to take advantage of the "hippie" lifestyle. Became Canadian citizen in 1974. Bought a house and lived communally in Strathcona from 1978 till 2010. Studied Zen Buddhism under Joshu Sasaki Roshi at the Vancouver Zen Centre from 1972 till 1991. Pension started in 1992. I live frugally and dedicate all money to decreasing the inequality between the industrialized nations and the poorer nations. I support Ladakhi Women's Welfare Network and Ladakhi Nuns with land and construction costs and have bought houses for two Ladakhi interns I met thru Cynthia Hunt and her HEALTH Inc. I dance with Karen Jamieson at Carnegie Centre and sketch there on Fridays. I cycle to pick up groceries and to swim at Britannia Community Centre weekly.
Sydney Del
Sydney Del has been performing for the last 10 years with bands such as Miami Device, Indigo Kids, Reckoner, and LuciDream to name a few. His recent solo act mixes folk singer elements with electronic and percussive rhythms, bringing an authentic aim to modern music. Sydney's performance is both delicate and danceable, combining a set of gentle guitar strums that builds up into a lively jam of hand drums and bumpin' beats. Rooted with lyrics of spiritual, environmental, political, and life experience, each song has a journey to take the audience along. Sydney is excited to bring his view of optimism for human kind and Mother Earth to the Vines Art Festival!
Emmalena Fredriksson
Dance Artist
Born in Sweden, dance artist Emmalena Fredriksson has presented choreographic work, performed and taught internationally with Daghdha Dance Company (IE), SEAD (AT), Pact Zollverein (DE) and Falmouth University (UK) among others. Based in Vancouver, Canada since 2013 her work has been presented in Dance in Vancouver's Choreography Walk curated by Justine A. Chambers, The Dance Centre's Discover Dance Series and at the Audain Gallery. Emmalena holds an MFA degree from Simon Fraser University and regularly teaches at Modus Operandi and Training Society of Vancouver. Continuing her research into choreography as a relational practice in the expanded fields of dance, upcoming work includes collaborations with the visual art platform HAUNT, composer Alex Mah (EDAM) and a virtual reality dance film project. www.emmalena.se
Sarah Gallos
Performance Artist
Sarah Gallos is a performance artists, producer and movement teacher.She likes to laugh and play, and really, really loves bodies in motion. She loves them so much it makes her cry sometimes.She is also a parent, so moments of stillness and quiet are equally valued. https://www.facebook.com/SarahGallosArtist/
Katie Gartlan-Close and Carmine Santavenere
Theatre Artists
Katie Gartlan-Close and Carmine Santavenere are recent Simon Fraser University graduates and emerging artists on the scene. Both of them are interested in creating collaborative, unique, and eye-opening art in Vancouver. Between them they have many creative skill-sets (including design, physical performance, clowning and directing). Together they are devising a series deemed "Living Cardboard Projects", where they will bring their creations, installations, and performances out into the city, to spur inspiration and joy in the eyes of the public. "Over the Hill" is a piece in the series that illustrates the epic journey of two seasoned women in search of the home they always wanted- a home full of possibilities! For more information or to support our serie check out our Indiegogo page at http://igg.me/at/cardboard or keep up with us on our instagram @livingcardboardprojects
Elissa Hanson
Performance Artist
Elissa Hanson was born in Vancouver, BC where she began training and performing in dance, music, and theatre. She undertook post-secondary training with Modus Operandi during which time she was introduced to dance on film, physical theatre, and somatic practices. In 2012, she had the opportunity to complete EDAM Dance's scholarship program, under the mentorship of Peter Bingham. Elissa has performed and collaborated with Out Innerspace, Kinesis Somatheatro, Deanna Peters, Justine A.Chambers, EDAM Dance, MascallDance, MOVE: the company and Company 605. She has assisted Jennifer Mascall in Experiential Anatomy workshops, and joined Josh Beamish as a mentor in his Choreographic Mentorship Program for talented youth. Her training has taken her to France, Germany, Israel, Spain, and Thailand. Elissa's independent work comprises several small dances and video works, and she continues to investigate somatic, theatrical and political practices. Photo: Ed Spence
Eleanor Hendriks
Dance Artist
Eleanor Hendriks is a community-engaged dancer and choreographer based in Vancouver since 2015, founder of Community Verve and developing dances for ecoliteracy. Eleanor's work is situated at the intersection of performance art and social interaction informed by contemporary theories of mimesis and embodiment. Community performances include: Salmon up the Urban Stream in Pantei Rei Italy 2014; Pseudatsuga Dance at Night Quest 2015; Bog Tide Dances at Vinesarts 2015 and Burns Bog 2016; Community Gardeners Dancing: Cross-Pollination 1 at Sustenance Festival 2015 and Trans-Versus at VIVO Media Arts Centre 2016. She is also a trained dance therapist, and vice-president of the Association Danse Rythme Lien Social et Thérapie, CID UNESCO in France.
Georgia Johnson
Georgia Johnson is a Vancouver-based actress, singer-songwriter, and producer. She draws on her training in experimental performance to use song as a format for story-telling, mixing vivid imagery with lush harmonics. Her desire as a songwriter and artist is to capture the essence of what it is to be a wild, free spirit caught in a time-bound, linear human experience. She draws from the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest for her inspiration and imagery, the themes of her songs ranging from grief, to delight, transformation, and eventually, reverence for all creation. Songwriting influences include Josh Garrels, Anais Mitchell, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, James Vincent McMorrow.
Arash Khakpour (The Biting School)
Performance Artist
Arash is privileged to be a dancer and creator on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Originally from Tehran but currently residing in Vancouver, Arash's desire is to see whether theatre can be a place, where the body investigates the alternate ways of being through the historical information in the world and in the body. He is interested in dance as the language in the theatre, which allows him to research about human conditions and nature through historical, social, political and existential interpretations. Arash is the co-founder of The Biting School alongside his brother Aryo Khakpour.
Alex Mah
Alex is concerned with sound and the performing body —indeterminacy and vulnerability— and with scoring text — language and score interpretation. He regularly collaborates with dance and theatre artists, which informs his process as a composer. Alex holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Honours in Music from Simon Fraser University. He has participated in festivals and workshops across Canada and has studied composition privately with Antoine Beuger in Germany. As a composer, musician, and (sometimes) dancer, he has collaborated with EDAM Dance, Kinesis Dance somatheatro, Rob Kitsos, Quasar Quatuor de saxophones, and Quatuor Bozzini.
Ariel Martz-Oberlander
Theatre Artist
Ariel is a theatre artist, writer and community organizer living in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish Territories. She is a recent graduate of the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. Her work seeks to answer how the principles of drama and scene study can help us connect to each other and communicate in a way that fosters resistance to the things that divide us, such as race, education and gender presentation. Her play exploring the cacophony of experience in the face of climate chaos can be seen at this year's Vancouver Fringe Festival.
Molly McDermott
Dance Artist
Originally from Edmonton, AB, Molly McDermott is currently residing and working as an independent dance artist in Vancouver, BC. She attended Grant MacEwan College, and Simon Fraser University, graduating in 2007 with a BFA in dance. She has since danced professionally for Kelly Bowker, Justine Chambers, Deanna Peters, Alison Towne, Lydia Wagerer, Co. Erasga Dance Society, Kokoro Dance Theatre, and Mascall Dance. Molly was a co-director of the contemporary dance collective, The Story of Force and Motion, through which she collaboratively choreographed, produced and presented work in Vancouver and Edmonton from 2007-2012.
Kelly McInnes
Dance Artist
Kelly McInnes is a dance artist based in Vancouver, B.C. A graduate of the Modus Operandi contemporary dance program, she has also completed a scholarship at EDAM Dance under the direction of Peter Bingham, where she continues to develop her practice. Kelly has participated in creation mentorships through the Cultch's Ignite! and Contemporary Art Gallery's Summer Intensive. She has recently completed a year mentorship with choreographer Claire French funded through the BC Arts Council's Early Career Development and a second season in Made in BC's community engagement facilitation mentorship under Julie Lebel and Miriam Colvin with the Roundhouse Community Dancers.
Kelly creates her work, through a feminist lens, as a form of social activism; a call to action. Using her work to magnify, comment on and create dialogue around important issues within our society. To give material form to the socio-political in her work she often combines dance, visual art, sound, film and objects to create thought provoking performances. Her work involves long duration, installation, site specific location, community engagement and guerrilla performance.
Amara McPhail
Dance Artist
Canadian born contemporary dance artist Amara McPhail was awarded an Alberta Foundation for the Arts dance grant in 2006. She began her training in classical ballet in Edmonton, Alberta. In 2009 she moved to London where she trained at the prestigious Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. Since graduation, she has freelanced with renowned artists and companies such as SurFaceDance, Wet Paint Theatre, Inkyung Lee, Ishimwa, and Lauren Barri-Holstein. While living in Berlin, she began to discover her distinct style and performed two self-choreographed works in Theaterhaus Mitte Berlin as well as ada Studio Berlin. A strong ballet technique coupled with her fierce passion for contemporary dance, theatricality, and classical music makes for distinct and unique choreography and movement quality.
Linnea McPhail
Visual Artist
Ontario-born arts and crafter Linnea spent most of her childhood exploring art materials and wandering around the luscious Ottawa Valley. She aspires to share the magic of art making and is currently studying Art Therapy at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute and living out her dream of living by the ocean. As a student and creator, she is constantly shifting from multiple art modalities in hopes of discovering the beauty that is made during the art making process. Avid crafter, musician, dancer, and pun generator, her recent project "1000 Paper Whales" uses the relaxing process of folding origami, as well as acts as a pathway to an open discussion about whales and the health of our oceans. If you meet her say Hi, she is friendly. You can talk to her about Whales or her cat Vlad.
Monster Moon (Madelyn Osborn)
Theatre Collective
Monster Moon Theatre is a collective of artists exploring the darker side of the human mind to find ways to teach each other that it is not always apart of yourself we have to be afraid of. With their newest show Disposable Generation they question the true impact plastics and packaging have on the planet.
Polymer Dance
Dance Artists
Polymer Dance is a contemporary dance troupe for non-professional dancers over the age of 16 that started in 2012. It is directed by Miriam Esquitín and Kristina Lemieux. We offer progressive technique classes for beginners at Hillcrest Community Centre and for intermediate/advanced dancers with at least three years of experience at Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre where we have a residency. We also perform at a mix of traditional and non-traditional venues a few times a year with structured improvisation. For more info, visit polymerdance.com or firstname.lastname@example.com. Miriam is a contemporary dance artist that has taught for over 12 years in community-based dance groups and holds a Certificate in Contemporary Dance Instruction and a MA in Social Anthropology. Krisitna is a reputable arts administrator and contemporary dancer with a BA from the University of Alberta with a major in Sociology and minor in Drama.
Bronwyn Preece
Performance Artist
Bronwyn Preece lives 100% off-the- grid on Lasqueti Island/Xwe'etay, BC: an honoured guest on Straits Salish Traditional Territory. She is an improvisational, site-sensitive performer, community applied theatre practitioner, author and poet, walking and visual eARThist and the pioneer of earthBODYment, currently doing a performance-based PhD examining the embodiment of ecology and disability. She both facilitates workshops and performs internationally: including at World Stage Design 2013 in an outdoor, edible stage: in an international collaborative project examining how local gardening can serve as a metre for climate change. She served 6 years in local politics, with the Islands Trust, being the youngest woman ever elected to her post, operating under a 'green'; mandate. She is the author of In the Spirit of Homebirth: Modern Women, An Ancient Choice (2015), Gulf Islands Alphabet (2012), among multiple other publications. www.bronwynpreece.com
Meegin Pye
Theatre Artist
Meegin Pye is a graduate from UBC Acting. Originally from Vancouver Island, with the mountains and ocean as her playground, Meegin was raised with an appreciation for the natural landscape that BC has to offer. Currently residing in Vancouver she has learned to appreciate the cityscape but seeks ways to bring both natural and structural topography together.
Recent theatre credits include: Eurydice, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Bacchae 2.1 (UBC); Love, Lust & Lace (Gas Pedal Productions); The Children's Hour (Ensemble Theatre Company); The Shipyard Pals' Walking Tour (NVMA & Presentation House); Rimers of Eldritch, Romeo and Juliet (Malaspina Theatre).
Son Bohemio
SON BOHEMIO is; Nyra Chalmer (Violin),Hector Falcon (Cajon) and Joaquin Gonzalez (Guitar.Voice),is an ensemble that performs music from all over Latin America and Spain with a gipsy bohemian style,the vocals in their performances blend beautifully with the sound of the guitar,the violin,and the the peruvian cajon and invite all the audiences of different cultures to an imaginary trip in to the hispanic heritage.
Theatre on Earth
Theatre on Earth is a collective of theatre who came together in 2011 to create and produce Project Corndog. Our show took place on and around an organic farm in the Fraser Valley and was followed by a meal sourced off the land and shared by audience, performers and farmers alike. The following year Project Corndog was remounted at Stowell lake Farm on Salt spring island by Graffiti Theatre. For the past 5 years Theatre on Earth have been working as artists in residence at the Strathcona Community Garden in collaboration with the Environmental Youth Alliance. https://www.facebook.com/theatreonearth/
The Man Died On This
Theatre Artists
The Man Died On This. is an international clowning collective that is making their way through the light for the first time. Up and down, up and down, they went up and down and craved for the light of the arts. They have taken out their ballet pole and failed, they have taken out their yoga mats and failed, and left with only a few broken tents and a Hill to pass in the end. This Vancouver based international clowning collective is now making some trouble wherever they appear. Yours Sincerely, Louie, Tracy and Slaslaslav Slav. Slaslask
The Two Gents of New West (Generation Hot)
Theatre Artist
Two Gents of New West is a youth-organized production company that operates on the support of the community. As a founder of the company, Howard Dai is excited to extend the scope of this collective's project to a greater audience; while Nelson Ellis, the newest addition to the company, is ready to expand the horizon his theatrical pursuit. Both Howard and Nelson will be starting their first year of theatre school in college this September, and they are both excited to present their work (and the wonderful and and talented cast) to you!
Tin Gamboa
Dance Artist
Tin Gamboa is a vancouver-based emerging dance artist who was born and raised in the Philippines. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts, in Dance, at Simon Fraser University and has had the pleasure to work with renowned choreographers such as Amber Funk Barton, Jennifer Mascall, Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Cheryl Prophet, Henry Daniel, and Alvin Tolentino. She has also studied contact improvisation with Peter Bingham and gaga technique with Adi Salant. She is currently pursuing and enjoying opportunities that involve either or both dance and community. She does this through collaborations with other artists and working with non-profit organizations. Gamboa hopes to continue this pursuit and continue to learn, explore, and express through dance and human connection.
T'uy'tanat - Cease Wyss
Skwxwu7mesh/Sto:Lo/Metis/Hawaiian/Swiss Inter-disciplinary Artist Mediums/Formats: Digital Media Web Installations Public Art Community Based/Engaged Dialogues Storytelling Medicine Gathering Sharing Traditional Knowledge Creating and Building Communities Land and Wetlands Restoration and Remediation Collective and Collaborative Processes. I love plants. I love nature and all that we are gifted through Grandmother Nature and Grandfather Rocks. I am hoping to share information that I tend to share on a regular basis, about the work i do with plants. This includes forests and gardens, as I spend most of my outdoor time in these places. I spend as much time outdoors as I am able to. I have lived a rich cultural life in my traditional territories, working, learning, teaching, living, gathering medicines, creating art, building communities, and striving for a better living in other ways.
Danielle Vallee
Visual Artist
Danielle is a multidisciplinary artist and communicator with a passion for environmental and social change. Equipped with a background in psychology, she has a keen interest in facilitating human interaction along with community and personal growth. She sits on the Board of Directors for Vines, as the festival melds her love for the environment, her community and the arts in Vancouver. A Capilano University student by day, Danielle moonlights as a freelance graphic designer; working with organizations such as Luciterra Dance Company, Orb Clothing and Music Heals. She spends her limited free time enjoying local green spaces or good food – but preferably both.
Krys Yuan
Theatre Artist
Krys Yuan is a young theatre-maker who hails from the small, sweaty and lively island state of Singapore. Having graduated from the School of the Arts, Singapore, she currently studies anthropology at UBC and continues her theatre practice outside of school as an actor, director and writer. She is interested in the intersections of various social themes on global and local levels, and telling stories of people who have been affected by them through theatre and prose. When she isn't busy writing, she enjoys chasing cats and taking long bus rides with a good book.
With her first play Amber, she explores how to connect people to a realistic idea of the future with climate change accelerated, and to confront all its possibilities – the bleak, the hopeful and everything that lives in between.
Robert Azevedo
Dance Artist
Robert J Azevedo is a maritime artist whose work thrives in salty air. Although Moncton is home, he has been working on building his roots in Vancouver for the past six years. Like a young child, his performance practice depends on exploration, education, discovery and play – not to mention a sense of becoming. Robert is a recent graduate of Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts where he majored in Dance and English. Robert's most recent choreography has been seen at Mascall Dance's Bloom series (2015), and at SFU Woodward's in Ascension (2012) and Ascension 2 (2013). Additionally, he is a co-founder of MAYCE, an emerging contemporary dance collective who have performed for audiences in Vancouver and Seattle.
As a dancer he has most recently worked for Judith Garay and Rob Kitsos, for whom he also served as research assistant on his piece Con-found.
Although Robert's interests are varied – from dance and theatre performance, to choreography, to stage management and artistic production – he is happy to be a part of Vines in every or any capacity.
Zane Barratt
Zane's sound is characterized by his deep expressive voice and electronic baritone guitar, which features heavily on his tracks. Catchy hooks combined with innovative arrangements, creative recording and electronic sounds give Zane's music a unique character, which draws influence from Grizzly Bear, Mother Mother and Jack White. His fresh sound and charisma has secured him attention of promoters around Berlin, warming up at a sold out show for Sheppard (Universal), and recording as a featured artist for Chi Thanh and MC Fitti.
Jeff Christensen
Jeff Christensen is a graduate of UBC and has an M. Ed. in (Magical Education). Jeff is a member/student at the prestigious Mystery School in Las Vegas. His most recent performances were in Giggles and Gags 2.0 (PAL Theatre) and as "Presto" in Santa Claus; The Panto (Surrey Arts Centre). Jeff was recently awarded the Gold Medal in Mental(ism) from the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians. He has performed extensively as The Great Smartini — Magical Educator with his 4D show Music, Magic and Monkeys. www.MagicalEducator.ca He is thrilled to be part of the Vine Arts Festival and would like to thank Heather Lamoureux for this amazing opportunity.
Dissonant Disco
Dissonant Disco is a Vancouver based composers collective dedicated to the creation of new chamber music, site/context-specific performance, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The group first formed out of various dance and theatre collaborations, employing the use of live electroacoustic improvisation within a defined structure. It has since moved on to perform as a music ensemble in various venues around Canada. The group is currently developing a new concert series. Dissonant Disco has collaborated with Emily Starkey, Steven Hill, Rob Kitsos, Ray Hsu, MACHiNENOiSY, Hong Kong Exile, and QUASAR (quatuor).
Eleanor Hendriks
Eleanor's dance therapy training has found an exciting application in developing community dances for ecoliteracy. The current community dance project, informed by the Camosun Bog Restoration Group of the Pacific Spirit Park Society, is a creative collaboration with neighbourhood ecologist Helen Spiegelman, student Michael Hong, and codesign artist and environmental educator Susan Chung. Nonprofessional dancers, members of the local community and engaged citizens of all ages are welcome to participate. Both practice and performance provide opportunities to join forces in the creative and interactive process. The aim of our dance project is to explore and express a deep felt connection to other living organisms in our environment.
Arash Khakpour (The Biting School)
Performance Artist
Originally from Tehran but currently residing in Vancouver, Arash Khakpour is a graduate of Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Program. Arash had the privilege of working with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Kinesis Dance Somatheatro, The 605 Collective, Shay Kuebler, Constance Cooke, Meredith Kalaman and Battery Opera (David McIntosh). Arash's most recent choreography – in collaboration with Aryo Khakpour (his brother) – was presented at Dance Victoria.
Dance Collective
MAYCE comprises Robert Azevedo, Antonio Somera, and Marisa Gold who met while pursuing their BFAs at the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. An affinity for each other's movement and performance styles led to collaboration and friendship; MAYCE was born from these origins. MAYCE aims to take the skill-sets of three different performers, in body and in mind, and create a unified energy and intention, with a movement style that is fast and forceful with an emphasis on weight, efficiency and support. MAYCE has performed for 12 Minutes Max at On The Boards (Seattle, 2012), and premiered its first long-form piece No Fire in Space for Collectors at SFU Woodwards in April 2014, in addition to presenting research and development informally since 2011.
Kelly McInnes
Dance Artist
Kelly McInnes is a Vancouver based dance artist. As a graduate of the Modus Operandi contemporary dance program, Kelly has interpreted work for Metal Dog, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, the 605 collective, Daina Ashbee, battery opera, Jacinte Armstrong, Anne Cooper and Crystal Pite. She has apprenticed for Sara Coffin, Justine Chambers, Mascall Dance, MACHiNENOiSY and Restless Productions. Kelly creates performance work as a form of activism. Her work has been presented at Art for Impact, BC Buds Arts Festival, Dances for a Small Stage, Bloom, Emily Carr, Merge, the HopBopShop and ArtSwells (Vancouver); Dance: Made in Canada (Toronto); La Bodega & Casa de la Cultura (Mexico). Kelly has had the pleasure of mentorship and residency through the Cultch, CAG, the HopBopShop, Made in BC (Vancouver); The stable (Montreal); ELP (Mexico) and FAC Residency (Toronto). Kelly is currently working on various projects through a ten month mentorship with Claire French.
Darcy McMurray
Dance Artist
Darcy works as an independent dance artist, choreographer and rehearsal director in Vancouver. She is also the owner Full Circle Studio -Movements Arts- a venue in East Van that offers classes in Pilates, Dance and Yoga, and also is a space for Music, Performances and Visual Arts. www.fullcirclestudio.com She has attended SFU to study Art for Social Change, and Emily Carr for Mixed Media, Creative Writing and Photography.
Charlotte Newman
Dance Artist
Jeffrey Renn
Theatre Artist
Carolyn Schmidt
Dance Artist
Carolyn Schmidt creates, performs, teaches and produces contemporary dance in the Vancouver area and beyond. Training formally at The Ailey School in NYC, Carolyn has a deep knowledge of many modern dance techniques and a passion for dance composition. As a dancer, Carolyn has performed in work by emerging and established choreographers throughout the USA, Canada and Spain. As a choreographer, her dances have been presented at venues and festivals including Dumbo Dance Festival (NY), Young Choreographers Festival (NY), Green Space (NY), Feats Festival of Dance (Edmonton), Dancers Studio West (Calgary), Dance Victoria, Mascall Dance/BLOOM (Vancouver), HATCH Series (NY), Saco River Theatre (Maine) and Vancouver Fringe Festival. Carolyn is Co-Producer of To.Be.Announced Choreographic Showcase. Dedicated to a life of moving and shaking, Carolyn is constantly seeking opportunities to connect, share and grow through the art of movement.
Claudia Segnovia
Visual Artist
Born in England to a spanish opera lover, fabulous piano player, chemist father and a mexican dancer, brain researcher, fantastic genius, dog lover mother… Claudia Segovia grew up in Mexico City and moved to Canada in 1997: a mother, a creature maker, a dog lover, a choreographer, and an inevitable mixed media artist. 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. Danced, taught and choreographed professionally in Mexico before moving to Canada in 1998.
She is faculty at Arts Umbrella Dance and Art. Teaches kids 3-16 years old Ballet andModern. Receiver of an Excellence Award from the Federation of Canadian Artists. Shows and sells her work in the Lower Mainland, USA, Mexico and Spain.
Her son Diego, diagnosed with ADHD and LD inspired her to create a dance program called DANCE OUT LOUD! for children with Invisible disabilities such as Aspergers, Anxiety, LD, ADHD, etc. who do not get a chance to participate in a regular dance class and she brings to public schools in the lower mainland.
Megan Stewart
Theatre Artist
Megan Stewart is a theatre artist from PEI, currently based in Vancouver, BC where she is pursuing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Simon Fraser University. She makes solo and collaborative devised theatre, as well as installations and community-based performance projects. Recent projects include the performance/installation Ears Pricked, Eyes Peeled for Art in the Open 2014, and directing the ensemble-created performance Transmissions from Orbit for the Neither Here Nor There festival in Vancouver. She also co-created and led the Crow Parade for the inaugural Art in the Open festival in Charlottetown in 2011, which has since become a recurring feature of the festival. She is currently developing her MFA graduating project, The Builders, a devised theatre piece exploring ideas of home, belonging and creative transformations of space. She is also the co-founder of The Island Fringe Festival in Charlottetown, PEI. www.meganblythe.com
The Sands
The Sands is a rare confluence of Western Canada's foremost players from the jazz and indie scene including JP Carter (Inhabitants, Destroyer, Dan Mangan), Paul Rigby (Neko Case, AC Newman), Cole Schmidt (Pugs and Crows), Darren Parris (Frazey Ford) and Barry Mirochnik ( Neko Case, Veda Hille). Collectively, the ensemble comprises over a hundred years of musical experience — a vintage imbedded in the music.
Tin Gamboa
Dance Artist
Tin Gamboa is an emerging dancer who was born and raised in the Philippines. She moved to Vancouver five years ago to pursue an education in her two passions, dance and psychology. Gamboa has worked with Ballet Philippines as well as numerous renowned choreographers since she moved to Vancouver, such as Henry Daniels, Cheryl Prophet, Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Daisy Thompson, and Alvin Tolentino. She has also worked with a few other emerging artists, two of which are Charlotte Rose and Gina Alpen, the co-founders of Con8 Collective. Gamboa holds a passion for the way movement can empower individuals and she looks forward to sharing movement and art in a lovely space like Trout Lake.
Triadic Dance Works
Dance Collective
Triadic Dance Works is a contemporary dance collective founded in 2010 by Jenn Edwards, Jennifer Aoki and Philippa Myler. Having emerged from three very different artistic backgrounds, the three founders met as dance students at SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. Edwards trained in figure skating and theatre before shifting her focus to dance, and prioritizes musicality in her work. Aoki, who started with jazz, tap and acrobatic dance, has a wild imagination and a taste for highly conceptual choreography. Myler is a fiercely technical dancer from Seattle whose work focuses on the pure geometry and virtuosity of movement. TDW has performed their eclectic works all over the lower mainland, as well as in Seattle and Berlin. Past venues include The Dance Centre, Spectral Theatre, On The Boards, The Planetarium, lawns, outdoor festival stages, carports, pubs and cabarets. They have created full-bodied abstract works, performed as roving characters, ventured into theatrical explorations, and collaborated with many talented composers, visual artists and filmmakers. By performing relevant, accessible works in both traditional and unusual settings, TDW is committed to broadening the audience for contemporary dance both in Vancouver and internationally.
Jamee Valin
Dance Artist
Jamee Valin is the founding Artistic Director of Valence Movement (dance theatre) and beloved company member with Give Me Brilliance, Sweett Moves Dance Collective and The Lovers Cabaret. Jamee trained at York University and George Brown College for Dance Performance Studies and Fine Arts Cultural Studies as well as mentored with Andrea Nann of Dreamwalker Dance Company, Project CPR, and the Cultch Ignite Dance Mentorship. She has performed and/or choreographed for: Dusk Dances at Dancing on the Edge, BC BUDS, Vancouver Global Dance Project, Dime A Dozen, FRESH BLOOD (2012), Art For Impact, Diamond Tooth Gerties, EROS Thanatos & the Avant-Garde, Cadence Ballet, RS Divas, SERIES 8:08, La Scala Opera Company, Canadian Royal Opera Company, National Artist Program and more. Jamee had the distinct pleasure of dancing for Tumbling into Light at the Enwave Theatre and at Dance: Made in Canada, 2011 and 2013. Miss Valin has produced three full-length shows, created five short films and danced in eight of thirteen provinces/territories across the country. Jamee is also the proud mother of Seamus the cat and Nebo the dog.
Christian Vistan
Visual Artist
Christian Vistan is a Filipino artist living and working in Vancouver. Originally from Bataan, a peninsular province in the Philippines, his work (poems, paintings, lithographs and performances) addresses a space surrounded by water—floating, disoriented and liminal. He is a student at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
Chengxin Wei
Dance Artist
Chengxin graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy in 1997, where he studied classical Chinese dance for eleven years, and received his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. He is a former principal dancer of the Guangdong Provincial Dance Theatre, and since 2000, he has appeared with numerous Canadian dance companies including Ballet British Columbia, Anatomica, Company Erasga, EDAM, Judith Marcuse Projects, Joe Ink, the Lorita Leung Dance Company, Mandala Arts and Culture, MovEnt, and Wen Wei Dance. In 2004, Chengxin co-founded Moving Dragon, a contemporary dance company that focuses on cross-cultural fusion between Eastern and Western dance styles. He is the 2007 Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award recipient, and the 2009 recipient of the David Leighton Arts Fellowship Award from the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Chengxin hold his MFA degree in dance at the University of Washington, where he was awarded the 2010 Art Fellowship Challenge Grant. From 2012-2014, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Ohio University's School of Dance. Chengxin has recently taught as an instructor at Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts, and is currently working on his own projects.
Shamin Zahabioun
Visual Artist
Studying Visual Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Shamin Zahabioun lives in Vancouver, Canada. Coming from an Iranian background, she focus on how drawing and visual arts takes part in the changing lives. Through the last ten years, Shamin has been bringing classical techniques of drawing to an eastern sight, to combine the forms of the objective with subjective feelings.
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Vines Art Festival takes place on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
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