Vancouver Moving Theatre in association with Carnegie Community Centre & the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians presents
We are thrilled to announce the 22nd Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, October 31 to November 8, 2025!
For twenty-two years, the Heart of the City Festival has been grounded in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and focused on listening and learning from the community’s cultural practices. The Festival works with, for, and about the Downtown Eastside community to carry forward our community’s stories, ancestral memory, cultural traditions, lived experiences, and artistic processes to illuminate pathways of resilience.
This year’s Festival invites artists, neighbours, and audiences to reflect on what it means to live with dignity – on unceded land and with each other. Dignity in Community honours the everyday and extraordinary ways people care for each other, resist displacement, and make space to belong. We celebrate the strength and creativity found in our connections and imagine what is possible when dignity is a shared foundation for us all.
The 2025 Festival features over 100 events at over 40 local venues, including music, stories, poetry, theatre, ceremony, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, art talks, history walks, and more!
Here are ten exciting events in the upcoming 2025 Festival:
Festival Kickoff
Kick up your heels and get ready for a spooky time at the DTES Halloween Festival Kickoff! Dress up in your best costume, walk the red carpet, enter the costume contest to win an awesome prize, and gear up for disco-ball dancing with DJ Maxi and crew spinning tunes. Don’t miss out on a night of masquerade magic and community fun for friends and families alike — refreshments provided, and everyone is welcome! Hosted by Lance Lim of the Pigeon Den Art Collective.
Friday, October 31. 6:30pmCarnegie Community Centre Theatre, 401 Main | Free
Photo: Diane Wood, Teddy Parray by Tracy Moromisato
Famous Last Words
In Famous Last Words poets participate in a faux competition where they ‘battle’ in a series of rounds, ‘judged’ by Uni the Unicorn, the host, and the audience. A spoken word comedy show with a puppet poetry round, a unicorn interpretive dance, and much more. Come in costume, let’s have fun! Free chocolate! Featuring Grace Kwan, Marlo Browne, RC Weslowski, Sean McGarragle, SJ Valiquette, Spillious the Ridiculous One, and Uni the Unicorn. Presented by Death Rides a Unicorn with SFU and the Heart of the City Festival.
Friday, October 31. 7pm
SFU Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre, 149 W Hastings | Free. Tickets
Photo: Uni the Unicorn, Sean McGarragle by Tracy Moromisato
Nechako: It Will Be A Big River Again
The Festival is honoured to present Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again, a stirring documentary by award-winning Stellat’en filmmaker Lyana Patrick. Once a lifeline for the Stellat’en and Saik’uz Nations, the Nechako River in northwestern BC was diminished when the Kenney Dam diverted 70% of its waters, displacing the Cheslatta T’En, and disrupting wildlife, land, and culture. Through stories of resistance and resilience, Nechako reveals a decades-long fight for justice and renewal. Screening followed by a special talk-back with Lyana Patrick. Presented in partnership with SFU, with film provided courtesy of the NFB.
Saturday, Nov 1. 7:30pm
SFU Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, 149 W Hastings
$0 -$20. Tickets
Spirit Encounters
On the Day of the Dead, when the veil between the living and the dead is lifted, start your afternoon with a mask-making workshop, join a community procession to visit local ofrendas, and end the celebration at Spirit Encounters, Gerardo Avila’s latest theatrical performance, featuring shadow puppetry, comedy, Flamenco and Mexican dance, and music. Presented with puppeteers Hazel Bell-Koski and Dana Wilson, storyteller Steven Schwabl, flamenco dancers Maria Avila and Isabel Pacheco, and musicians Anna Lumiere, Peter Mole, and Graham Ord.
Sunday, November 2. 7pm
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell | Free. Tickets
Photo: Spirit Encounters Group by Tracy Moromisato
To Mum with Love XO: A theatrical triple bill
How I Met My Mother is Jonathon Paterson’s award-winning comedy about caregiving. An irresponsible bachelor answers the call to care for his ailing mother, while reckoning with his rambunctious past. Will his newfound skills be enough? It’s a true story of love, family, and the power of redemption.
The Unbreakable Popsicle Stick Gang One mom, four kids, more love than you can fit in several oceans; together they can never be broken. Join Jacques Lalonde on a fantastical journey into love, miracles, music, tears, and laughter.
How I Learned to Sing Having a musical mother involves gifts and challenges. In this twisting tale, East Vancouver-based storyteller Jim Sands explores the ups and downs of his musical upbringing in the search to find his own voice.
Wednesday, November 5. 7pm
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell $0 – $30. Tickets
Photo L–R: Jonathon Paterson, Jacques Lalonde, Jim Sands with his Mum
Indigenous Exhibition and Celebration
Join us for an evening of dance, drumming, and community for all ages at the Indigenous Exhibition and Celebration. This gathering brings together Indigenous dancers from many Nations, including Larissa Healey (2Spirit Grass Dancer), Pavel Desjarlais with Dancing Spirit, who share vibrant cultural performances. The evening also features shared food and an Indigenous art market with handmade goods. Open to all—everyone is welcome!
Thursday, November 6. 6pm
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell | Free
Photo: Larissa Healey by Tom Quirk
Maraschino Tonight with Reveal Yourself
A fabulous evening of entertainment that has it all! In this timeless variety show, host and enigmatic entertainer Cherry Maraschino is accompanied by a ragtag crew of artists, puppets, and nefarious rascals. Part bygone house party, part community theatre, Maraschino Tonight is a playful interrogation of contemporary nostalgia. Reveal Yourself, a lo-fi freak music duo, uses trashy drum samples, distorted bass loops, and zany guitar hooks to capture audiences with its vocal laments and feminist satire. Reveal Yourself’s avant-pop hijinx offers a compact mirror from which to view this strange, shit-stained world.
Friday, November 7. 8pm
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell $0 – $30. Tickets
Photo by Chris Eugene
Shelter
This original community-engaged art show features high-impact and striking visuals reflecting on housing and homelessness. With thirty marginalized, culturally and socially diverse Downtown Eastside artists, the exhibit includes city-wide transit shelter ads featuring large-scale individually-created artworks. The project is led by Gunargie Ga’axstasalas O’Sullivan and produced by Radix Theatre, in partnership with the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival.
Friday, October 31 – Saturday, November 8.
At local transit shelters near you!
Art: Weston Shupe
Mayor of Oz
Back by popular demand! Enjoy this hilarious and poignant community-led, grassroots play developed by Carnegie Learning Centre volunteers with support from Capilano University and the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival. Reimagining Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz through the lens of the DTES, Mayor of Oz explores housing instability, climate collapse, the toxic drug crisis, and gentrification, while celebrating resilience, solidarity, and community strength.
Friday, November 7 & Saturday, November 8. 1pm
Carnegie Community Centre Theatre, 401 Main | Free
Photo: Mayor of Oz Cast by Tracy Moromisato
Rhythms of Thunder: An Evening of Taiko
Enjoy the rare opportunity of a full evening of taiko for the Festival closing concert! This spectacular array of Vancouver taiko artists showcases a unique and thrilling lineup of Japanese drumming styles. Performances by Uzume Taiko, Canada’s first professional taiko group, who have developed a dynamic fusion of old and new styles of drumming with a flair for the dramatic; GO Taiko and Taiko 55, the only intergenerational taiko group in BC, who combine a youthful, energetic approach with the power of older adults through their love of the rhythms of the taiko songs; and Onibana Taiko, Nikkei veterans who draw from Japanese traditional arts, festival drumming, folk music and dance, with a feminist, queer, punk kick-ass taiko aesthetic. Join us and feel the rhythm and thunder!
Saturday, November 8. 7pm
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell $0 – $30. Tickets
Photos, L–R: Onibana Taiko, by Matthew Chun; GO Taiko, photo copyright Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre by Manto Artworks; Uzume Taiko by Adam PW Smith.
HATS OFF TO OUR FUNDING AND IN-KIND PARTNERS AND SPONSORS!
Thanks to our many individual donors, funders, media sponsors and partners for their generous support: Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage (Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage), BC Arts Council, Government of British Columbia through BC Gaming, City of Vancouver through Cultural Services, Homelessness Services and Transit Poster Advertising Program, CLICK, David See-Chai Lam Centre, Simon Fraser University, Hamber Foundation, Destination Events Program – BC Ministry of Tourism, Community Arts Council of Vancouver – Community Arts Fund, Federation of Russian Canadians of BC, Admiral Seymour Elementary School, Lord Strathcona Elementary School, VanCity Community Foundation (Lepawsky Family Fund and Lulu Fund) and media sponsors Georgia Straight, OMNI Television, City TV, and STIR Vancouver.
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Support the work of Vancouver Moving Theatre and the DTES Heart of the City Festival. Your donations will support community renewal through the arts; training and performance opportunities for Downtown Eastside residents; inclusive community and social justice. Donate Now