Community
ST. JAMES’ WOMEN’S GUILD BARGAIN SALE
Friday October 30, 11am – 12:30pm
St. James’ Parish Hall, 230 Gore
An hour and a half in bargain sale heaven! Eagerly anticipated, the Women’s Guild Bargain Sale is a gold mine; here’s your chance to pick up household items, gifts, Christmas presents and decorations, books, music, electronics, clothes, a last minute Hallowe’en costume and oodles of other items for cheap, cheap prices. It’s fast and furious so come early!
Workshop
REMEMBERING OUR DTES WOMEN
Friday October 30, 11am – 1pm
Also October 29
Oppenheimer Park, 488 Powell
Free
See October 29 for full workshop description.
Open House
HEART OF THE CITY OPEN HOUSE
Friday October 30, 12pm – 4pm
Evelyne Saller Centre, 320 Alexander
Free
The Evelyne Saller Centre has an exciting line up of events and activities for this year’s Heart of the City Open House. Discover the story of the Evelyne Saller Centre through photos and facts. Learn to make Hallowe’en skull cookies. View the art show of original paintings and the Legacy Wall Murals painted with contributions from talented local artists. Test your skill at the Heart of the City 9-Ball Pool Tournament Challenge. Enjoy the Hallowe’en decorations. Snacks and beverages. Everyone welcome!
Showcase
SLAM POETRY & MUSIC THERAPY
Friday October 30, 1pm – 3pm
Lifeskills Centre, 412 E. Cordova
Free
Artists from the Downtown Eastside craft poetry, mix it with music and perform their own original work. Led by Devon Martin aka “Dr. Metro”, the leader of the regular Slam Poetry and Music Therapy program at the Drug Users Resource Centre (DURC). For the Festival, they open their doors to an audience. Participate or sit back and enjoy. Everyone welcome!
Workshop & Interactive Exhibit
TERRAIN OF THOUGHT with Ruth Howard
Friday October 30, 1pm – 4pm
Carnegie 3rd floor Gallery, 401 Main
Also October 31 & November 2
Free
Last spring, over 75 artists traveled across Canada from Vancouver to PEI on the Train of Thought, with stops in 25 cities, towns and First Nation communities: a journey of reconciliation and collaboration through participatory art-making between First Nations and settler-immigrant artists and communities. Launched with a Leave-taking Ceremony in the Downtown Eastside, Train of Thought was produced by Jumblies Theatre (Ontario) and partners across Canada, including Vancouver Moving Theatre. To move forward on this vital work, Ruth Howard – one of the festival’s favorite visiting artists and the artistic director of Jumblies Theatre – returns to the Downtown Eastside to collaborate with Train of Thought artists on creating Terrain of Thought for the Carnegie 3rd floor gallery.
The artistic team will work with Carnegie patrons and festival guests to build a mini-landscape out of assorted materials, text and images from the national tour and the Downtown Eastside. The exhibit will be created over four days in three display cases, through open workshops. Come and contribute to an emerging imaginative terrain woven from thoughts on how we can live together on shared territory.
The artists: Ruth Howard, Bill Beauregarde, Columpa Bobb, Priscillia Tait, and Savannah Walling.
Workshop
LA VOZ: TU GRITO AL MUNDO (The Voice: Your Cry to the World)
Friday October 30, 2pm – 4pm
Carnegie Theatre, 401 Main
Free
Your voice is an instrument, a portal, and a source of personal and collective power. In this workshop you will engage your whole body to develop your voice quality, strength, and expression with experiential exercises inspired by flamenco cante (song). Facilitated by Spanish guest artist and rising star Naike Ponce, and Expressive Arts Therapist Kelty McKerracher, this workshop will lift your spirit and inspire your courage. All welcome: no singing experience or knowledge of flamenco necessary. Olé!
Workshop limit is 25 participants – first come first serve!
Celebration
LADIES TEA PARTY
Friday October 30, 2pm – 3pm
Oppenheimer Park, 488 Powell
Free
Thanks to a Neighbourhood Small Grant, the women of the Ladies Tea Party of Oppenheimer Park have spent the spring and summer making their own hand drums. This fall they learned a welcome song, and now invite you to celebrate with them the drum making project and to hear them perform what they have learned. Everyone welcome.
Community Celebration
HALLOWE’EN CARNIVAL & HAUNTED HOUSE
Friday October 30, 3:15pm-5pm
Strathcona Community Centre Gym, 601 Keefer
Cost is 50¢ or a can of food for the Food Bank
Come out to the annual Hallowe’en Carnival and Haunted House and have a Spooktacular time! Organized by the Strathcona Youth Council and Leadership Groups, the Carnival will have fun games and challenges. Participate and play and you will have a chance to win a big prize. Everyone leaves with a candy bag! Do your best to help out the Food Bank and families in need; if you can’t, that is all right too!
Balloons in the Street
SWALLOW ZHOU
Friday October 30 3:30pm Ray-Cam, 920 E. Hastings
4:30pm EWMA Studio, 800 E. Hastings
We welcome a new treat this year: Swallow Zhou will twist wonderful balloon creations. Swallow is very active in the Downtown Eastside and brings joyful enthusiasm to whatever she does.
Showcase
EASTSIDE FRIDAY: HEART OF THE CITY CELEBRATION
Friday October 30, 3:30pm – 6pm
EWMA Studio, 800 E. Hastings
Free
Join Enterprising Women Making Art (EWMA) for the Heart of the City Eastside Friday: Collective Expressions, a community open mic that showcases EWMA artists and community members in an evening of poetry, spoken word and acoustic accompaniment. All are welcome to participate! The host is multi-media artist Veronica Iza. Eastside Friday is a free monthly event hosted by EWMA, a program of Atira Women’s Resource Society that blends art, creativity and entertainment. We welcome the neighborhood to a family friendly community celebration. Dress up for Hallowe’en if you feel inspired! For more information go to www.atira.bc.ca/enterprising-women-making-art or facebook at www.facebook.com/EWMAstore. Everyone welcome, all ages!
Children
MERLIN THE MAGICIAN
Friday October 30, 4pm – 4:45pm
Ray-Cam Cooperative Centre, 920 E. Hastings
Free
The inventive and witty Merlin Cosmos offers hilarious comedy and amazing magic. A magician of many-years-standing, Merlin brings fun and fantasy, comedy and emotion to his awe-inspiring magic. Especially for children and families.
Community
BEAUTY WITHIN FASHION SHOW
Friday October 30, 6pm – 7:30pm
Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, SFU Woodward’s, 149 W. Hastings
Free
The Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre is excited to host another celebratory Beauty Within Fashion Show, in which women and elders from the DTES Women’s Centre model clothing from the Centre’s clothing room and donated by My Sister’s Closet. Come and see what the most fashionable women and elders in the neighborhood are wearing this fall season. The fashion show starts at 6pm with light refreshments. Thanks to SFU’s VanCity Office of Community Engagement for their support. Women and men welcome!
Comedy
COMEDY IS THE BEST MEDICINE
Friday October 30, 7pm – 9pm
Gallery Gachet, 88 E. Cordova
Free
Feeling under the weather? Here’s your prescription – have some comedy! Join host David Granirer and comics from Stand Up for Mental Health, including our favourite local funny guy Paul Decarie. Special guests are the Highs & Lows Choir, a choir for people with mental health issues, and their friends and supporters, who know a comic song when they sing one. Stand Up For Mental Health was founded by award-winning counselor, stand-up comic and author David Granirer who teaches stand-up comedy to people with mental illness. David and his comics look at the lighter side of taking meds, seeing counselors, getting diagnosed and surviving the mental health system. For more info: www.standupformentalhealth.com
Theatre
BENEATH THE SURFACE
Friday October 30, 7pm
Theatre Temp, Templeton Secondary School, 727 Templeton
Pay what you can
The Festival is honoured to partner with the native theatre company Imagi’Nation (AD, Jenifer Brousseau) and Templeton Secondary School to present Beneath the Surface, an original teen suicide prevention play developed in response to the tragic suicide of a young native student from Britannia Secondary. Performed by an all-native cast, the purpose of this powerful and moving presentation is, in the words of Jenifer Brousseau, ‘to educate youth [and community] and bring awareness and understanding on related topics about how to heal through art and live in optimal health.’ Talking circle to follow.
Films
REVITALIZING JAPANTOWN?
Friday October 30, 7pm – 9:30pm
Carnegie Theatre, 401 Main
Free
The Festival is proud to present two films by award-winning documentary filmmaker Greg Masuda – The Spirit of Nihonmachi and The Right to Remain.
The Spirit of Nihonmachi (2012, 28 min)
Commissioned by the Powell Street Festival for their 35th Anniversary, this commemorative film uses an experiential documentary approach to show the festival through the eyes of two Downtown Eastside volunteers.
The Right to Remain (2015, 45 min)
The CBC documentary looks at the Downtown Eastside residents and the fight to save community from development. Started as an idea five years ago, Greg Masuda accumulated over 300 hours of footage. He says “The Right to Remain is a culmination of my entire career as a filmmaker. As a Japanese Canadian, I could not resist participating in the advocacy for the Downtown Eastside community as it looked down the barrel of the real estate industry in the second most expensive city in the world.”
A talkback panel will follow the films with a discussion about the broader topic of Community Displacement: what is our responsibility to the Downtown Eastside? Panel guests include Wendy Pedersen, Grace Eiko Thomson, Herb Varley, Ethel Whitty and filmmaker Greg Masuda. Members of the Powell Street Festival Advocacy and Outreach Committee will also attend.
Theatre
FOR A MUSE OF FIRE
Friday October 30, 8pm
InterUrban Gallery, 1 E. Hastings, entrance on Carrall Street
Also October 28 & 29
Tickets at the door, sliding scale: 5 cents to $20
See October 28 for full description.