Community Celebration
Sunday November 9, 3pm, Supper follows
Ukrainian Hall, 805 E. Pender
Tickets $25
The festival ends on a high note at the East End’s historic Ukrainian Hall with lively music, high energy dance, haunting harmonies, exquisite costumes and cultural sharing at the Ukrainian Hall Community Concert & Supper. This annual favourite, produced with the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians, features the Barvinok Choir led by choral director Beverly Dobrinsky, the Vancouver Folk Orchestra – one of the oldest and largest folk orchestras in Vancouver, and the award-winning Dovbush Dancers.

Special guests include: Vancouver’s own Slavic soul band Zeellia (led by Beverly Dobinsky) playing songs and dances from Ukraine, Balkan states and Canadian Prairies; emerging rising stars Jamie Elliott and the Downtown Eastside’s own Hannah Walker perform as Twin Bandit with strong harmonies and original songs; and The Git Hayetsk Dancers (People of the Copper Shield) led by Mike and Mique’l Dangeli with ties to the Haida, Tlingit, Haisla, and Musqueam Nations. Sam George (Tse-at-sul-tuxch) of the Squamish Nation will open with a Welcome song. After this cultural feast, we gather downstairs for a delicious traditional Ukrainian Supper! Concert and supper $25. Be sure to book your tickets in advance for this very popular event. For tickets call 604-254-3436.

Presentation & Demonstration
Sunday November 9, 1pm – 3pm
Hastings Urban Farm, 58 W. Hastings
Free
“What fibre lies at my feet? How do I name it, gather and process, so cloth can spin from my fingertips, and cover my skin. Where do I begin?”

Join the Urban Cloth Project research artists, dancer and choreographer Mirae Rosner, cedar/fibre Squamish spinner and weaver Tracy Williams, community eco-artist Sharon Kallis, and community participants, as they perform a work-in-progress gestural dance. Through the dance they share what they have learned so far about growing plants, foraging, harvesting and processing flax for linen.

The Urban Cloth Project weaves together First Nation gathering traditions, early settler agricultural methods and contemporary environmental art practices, through shared investigations for urban cloth production. They’re exploring connections between labour, land and community as the growing season has inspired their dances.

This ongoing project is building layers as they continue towards next spring. The Arts Trust of the Community Arts Council of Vancouver has provided funding for this project. More information on the project can be found at the Terroir website.

with John Atkin
Sunday November 9, 10am (approx. 2 hours)
Meet at Chinese Cultural Centre courtyard, 50 E. Pender
$10, pay what you can for local residents
The novel The Jade Peony, by Strathcona/Chinatown-born and raised writer Wayson Choy, is much loved by Strathcona and Chinatown residents. The stories in the book are under our feet in the streets, homes and shops throughout our neighbourhood. Join John Atkin, author, historian, DTES/Strathcona resident and walking-history-encyclopedia on this walking tour that brings alive the stories and places of The Jade Peony.

Talkumentary
Saturday November 8, 6pm – 9:45pm
Carnegie Theatre, 401 Main
Everyone welcome – Free
It has been a year since the extraordinary Reconciliation Week of 2013 and the reconciliation walk across the Georgia Viaduct that took place in Vancouver. The Festival carries forward this important initiative between First Nations and settler communities with a “talk-umentary” evening of film, stories, guest speakers and live performance.

Join host Angela White of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society for a conversation about the need for all communities to work together towards reconciliation. Guest speakers will include, among others, Stephen Lytton, Grace Eiko Thomson, and Naveen Girn.

To mark the Centenary of the Komagata Maru, Imtiaz Popat will share a classical chant to the track “Crossing Pacific,” composed by Neelamjit Dhillon from the album Komagata Maru, with actress Leena Manroe performing a selection from Sharon Pollock’s 1976 play The Komagata Maru Incident.

The films shown this evening are:

• Yummo Comes Home, A Residential School Healing Journey (2013, 28 min) produced by Don Klaassen and the Mennonite Church Canada. This is the story of an Okanogan/Thompson Aboriginal man who revisits the residential school building to reclaim his boyhood confidence and finds what it means to experience reconciliation.
• Rex versus Singh (2008, 30 min) directed by Ali Kazimi, Richard Fung and John Greyson. A provocative film that shows how, in 1915, police in Vancouver used laws against homosexuality to jail some South Asian men and to discourage others in their communities from making Vancouver home.
• Stolen Memories (2012, 45 min) produced and directed by Kagan Goh, and producer Imtiaz Popat. About Goh’s quest to return a photo album “stolen” from a Japanese Canadian family during the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII.