In celebration of Asian Heritage Month of May and the launch of the 2018 explorASIAN Festival, Vancouver City Hall was illuminated in red last night!
This year’s festival “Pan Asian Routes” is placing a special focus on Pan Asian migration and the legacy, culture and accomplishments of the growing and diverse communities of
Canadians with Pan Asian heritage!
May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada, a time to reflect on and celebrate the contributions that Canadians of Asian heritage continue to make to the growth and prosperity of Canada.
The theme of the Government of Canada’s 2018 campaign – Passing it Forward: Culture through the Generations will connect the historical role that Asian Canadians have played with their continued contributions in building the Canadian identity. The Campaign also emphasize the indispensable contributions that women of Asian descent have made to Canada and supports the promotion of women and women’s issues.
The 2018 AHM Campaign, will provide the opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of several Canadian Women of Asian heritage who have helped shape Canada. Other notable Asian Canadians are featured on the Government of Canada’s Asian Heritage Month website and will be featured in social media throughout May.
To help you promote Asian Heritage Month, the Department of Canadian Heritage is making a promotional poster available for download. This poster is a way to engage students and clients in Asian Heritage Month, to prompt discussions and to raise greater public awareness of Canada’s rich diversity.
You can download the poster from Canadian Heritage’s website as of May 1, 2018, by clicking here.
Don’t forget to visit the Government of Canada’s Asian Heritage Month website, which presents video clips and links to a variety of additional resources. The website will be updated on May 1, 2018.
Mai est le Mois du patrimoine asiatique au Canada, une occasion de réfléchir et de célébrer les contributions que les Canadiens d’origine asiatique continuent d’apporter à la croissance et à la prospérité du Canada. Le thème de la campagne 2018 — D’une génération à l’autre : la culture en héritage, reliera le rôle historique que les Canadiens d’origine asiatique ont joué avec leur contribution qui a aidé et qui continue d’aider à façonner le patrimoine et l’identité canadienne.
La campagne met également l’accent sur les contributions indispensables que les femmes d’origine asiatique ont apportées au Canada et soutient la promotion des femmes et des questions relatives aux femmes. La campagne du Mois du patrimoine asiatique 2018 sera l’occasion de souligner les réalisations de plusieurs femmes canadiennes d’origine asiatique qui ont contribué à façonner le Canada. D’autres Canadiens asiatiques remarquables figurent sur le site Web du Mois du patrimoine asiatique du gouvernement du Canada et seront mis en évidence par les médias sociaux tout au long du mois de mai.
Pour vous aider à promouvoir le Mois du patrimoine asiatique, le ministère du Patrimoine canadien a créé une affiche promotionnelle à télécharger. Ces affiches constituent une excellente façon de faire participer les étudiants et les clients au Mois du patrimoine asiatique, afin de favoriser les discussions et de sensibiliser davantage la population sur la riche diversité canadienne.
Vous pourrez télécharger l’affiche sur le site Web de Patrimoine canadien à compter du 1er mai 2018, en cliquant ici.
N’oubliez pas de consulter le site Web du Mois du patrimoine asiatique du gouvernement du Canada qui présente des vidéoclips et des liens vers une variété de ressources supplémentaires. Le site sera mis à jour à compter du 1er mai 2018.
Indian Classical Vocal Music
Tuesday, May 15, 2018, 7 – 8:30pm
Come celebrate Asian Heritage Month and enjoy a vocal performance of Indian classical music in the traditional style of Mewati Gharana. This will be performed by the students of Guru Sangeet Martand Padma Vibhushan Pandit Jasraji ji, featuring principal Asha Lohia. Everyone is welcome.
Richmond Public Library
7700 Minoru Gate #100, Richmond, BC V6Y 1R8
Hours: Open ? Closes 9:30 p.m.
Phone: (604) 231-6413
ROOM Kwok-Chu Lee Living Room (BHB)
AUDIENCE All Ages
LANGUAGE English, Hindi
Opening Reception, May 12th, 2 – 4pm
Artist talk, May 17th @ 7pm
Exhibition runs May 12 – August 18
Curated by Paul Wong and SD Holman
Presentation Partner: On Main Gallery
Queer-sum a “Chinglish” translation and play on the words Queer Love, alludes to queer attraction that people experience, even though they believe themselves to be straight identified – or queer-sum (sum=heart=love).
Photo Credit: Chick Rice
QueerSUM? presents three of Karin Lee’s media works: a 2-channel remix of her classic 16mm film My Sweet Peony, a fantastical drama shot in the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens; Portrait of a Girl, a documentary shot in Beijing; and Small Pleasures, a period drama set in Barkerville BC.
The works not only investigate sentiments of being “Queer-sum,” but pay tribute to Vancouver’s Chinatown—where Lee spent her childhood—and examine the underlying racism which contributed to the very creation of “Chinatowns” amidst the colonization of Indigenous peoples.
My Sweet Peony, shot in 16mm film in 1994, is a short fantastical drama that spins a tale of sexuality, gender and desire featuring Zamma – a Chinese Canadian garden guide (played by Sook-Yin Lee) who is stalked by a white feminist outreach worker and a Caucasian Maoist student, but is awakened by her attraction to an Asian-Canadian dyke, all the while perplexed by an other-world cross-dressing Taoist monk. My Sweet Peony Remix plays with the notion of cultural identity (or identity politics of the 90s) and race: then and now—what remains the same and what has changed in the 25 years since the film was made.
Portrait of a Girl is a peek into the life of Han Dong Qing, a cage dancer who works in the Beijing club scene. She speaks about her life, her story of adoption and her sexuality. Candid and defiant, she is always searching for love, acceptance and family.
Small Pleasures tells the story of three women from very different worlds trying to convey complex ideas about feminist resistance to each other through a common language: Chinook Jargon—an intercultural trade language used throughout the Pacific Coast until the early 1900s. Set in the late 1800s in Barkerville, this film explores how marginalized women in late nineteenth century rural Canada create individual identities in a world prescribed to fit the needs of men.
About the artist:
“Karin Lee is a Canadian Screen Award-winning, trailblazing filmmaker who has focused on telling stories about women and Chinese-Canadians for more than three decades.” Sabrina Furminger / Westender June 7, 2017
Born and raised in Vancouver, Karin is a unique storyteller whose critical voice and perspective touches on the past and the present, both local and international. An artist who constantly traverses new territory, Lee challenges film and media forms and addresses new audiences.
Themes of trans-Pacific migration, gender, identity and intercultural contact surface in her documentaries such as Made in China, which portrayed Chinese adoptees in Canada searching for their identity; Cedar and Bamboo, which highlighted intermarriage between Chinese immigrants and First Nations people; and Canadian Steel, Chinese Grit, which depicted the outcome of migration for the Chinese who came to Canada to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Her early influences and links to China grew from her exposure to the ideology and the political movement of Chinese socialism in Canada through Lee’s father, who ran a fledgling communist bookstore in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in the 1960s – the 2005 film Comrade Dad.
Lee’s art has been heavily influenced by her own family history. For example, her great-grandmother Tsang Ho Shee, who herself had bound feet when she arrived in Barkerville in 1901, is the inspiration for Small Pleasures. Now, three generations after Tsang Ho Shee arrived in Canada, Lee’s realization that she benefited from her great-grandmother’s acts of feminist resistance, has driven her to expand representations of the history of marginalized women in the Chinese diaspora and, most importantly, to contribute to the minimal coverage of women’s stories in the arts and Canadian media.
In 2001, Karin received a Gemini: The Canada Award for her groundbreaking documentary Made in China, about Chinese children adopted in Canada. In 2005 she received a BC Leo Diversity in Cultures Award and 2015 –diversity award from Women in Film for Cedar and Bamboo.
She has just completed the TV pilot for Plan B, a black comedic drama series set in a women’s sexual health clinic. She is currently in pre-production on Girl with Big Feet (Ts’ekoo Cha Ke), a period drama and Incorrigible – a feature documentary about women who were incarcerated in Ontario for being morally “incorrigible”.
She was a Sessional Instructor at SFU’s Asia-Canada program and Adjunct Professor at UBC’s Film Production program. Karin was awarded the Mayor’s Arts Award for Film and New Media Artist in 2014 and was nominated for the 2017 YWCA Women of Distinction Award for Education, Training and Development and received the Spotlight Award from Vancouver Women in Film and Video Society in 2017.
ACCESS & ACCESSIBILITY
The address is 268 Keefer St, between Main St and Gore Ave. The SUM gallery is located on the 4th floor, suite 425.
Transit access:
Skytrain: Main Street-Science World or Stadium-Chinatown;
Bus: 22 on Gore; 03, 08, 19 on Main; 14, 16, 20 on Hastings.
– There is a paid parkade as part of the building, that unfortunately closes at 7pm. After 7pm, we recommend people to park at EasyPark at Keefer and Quebec St or street parking.
Accessibility: This location has not yet had an accessibility audit.
– Building entrance is street level with no steps at front entrance
– There is a ramp to reach the elevator
– Washrooms are accessible & non gendered, doors will be propped open
– The automatic door operators haven’t arrived yet but the main doors will be propped open.
– Our events are scent reduced.
– ASL interpretation will be provided.
Please let us know if you have any requests or need more information.
Note that BC Artscape is dog-friendly, so you may encounter some furry friends in common areas and elevators and in our suite.
“GAMELAN ALLIGATOR JOY PRESENTS”
TRIPLE-BILL OF GAMELAN AT THE ROUNDHOUSE FESTIVAL
Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Center When: Thursday April 26, 7 pm
Tickets: $15/$10 students & seniors/$5 children under 12, available at the door (cash only) or in advance from Eventbrite
More info/photos/video: Tony Reif, treif@songlines.com, 604 737-1632
Or Michael O’Neill, michealo@telus.net, 604 253-0542
www.gamelanattheroundhouse.ca/
www.gamelanmadusari.com
https://www.facebook.com/GamelanMaduSari/
Gamelan Alligator Joy, Vancouver’s central Javanese gamelan ensemble, will premiere a new program of intercultural music by three of its composer-performers, Sutrisno Hartana, Michael O’Neill and Mark Parlett, as well as performing music by the American composer and gamelan lover Lou Harrison. Gamelan Si Pawit, VCC’s Sundanese gamelan degung, led by Jon Siddall, will present premieres of six pieces. And Beledrone, Michael O’Neill’s ensemble of Balinese processional gamelan beleganjur, Scottish bagpipes, viola, solo voices (Ukrainian bilij holos or “pure voice”) and chorus (the instrumentalists), will play sections of its repertoire.
An initial impetus for this concert came from gamelan-aware pianist Rory Cowal, who approached us with the idea of honouring Lou Harrison’s 100th anniversary by performing his Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan. We’ll play the exquisite and somewhat less traditional middle movement. Cowal will also be featured in the premiere of Michael O’Neill’s Mode of Attunement, a multi-sectional piece which utilizes Alligator Joy’s distinctive tuning to create a beautifully strange fusion of gamelan and piano sounds and contemporary new music structures. Sutrisno Hartana will premiere Baureksa, a semi-ritual piece featuring overlapping polyrhythmic vamps and the deep, resonant tones of the suling gambuh (bamboo bass flute); its aim is to strike a balance between the spiritual and the physical. Mark Parlett’s premiere, Palindromnia, delves into expansion/contraction of rhythmic cycles within a non-idiomatic sense of jazz harmony. (Note: Gamelan Alligator Joy is the chamber ensemble incarnation of the performing group Gamelan Madu Sari, playing instruments commissioned by composer and Western Front co-founder Martin Bartlett in 1990.)
Opening the concert, Michael O’Neill’s Beledrone project will play sections from his full-length work, which was premiered in 2016 in Music on Main’s Modulus Festival. Beledrone also has a kind of ritual quality – its Balinese component is based on funeral music – but the piece weaves together its multicultural materials, including text by Vancouver poet Gerry Gilbert, to achieve an unexpected synthesis of solemnity and piquancy. Vocal soloists are Beverly Dobrinsky and Alison Jenkins.
Then, Gamelan Si Pawit, the resident gamelan at Vancouver Community College, will premiere works by Jon Siddall (who studied with Lou Harrison at Mills College), Scott Archibald, Anthony Fehr, Peki Hajdukovic, Rowan Tichenor and Tomas Valenzuela. Hip hop dancer Rupert Common will dance to Archibald’s composition “Go East.” Si Pawit’s light-textured music demonstrates the versatility and expressive potential of the gamelan degung style’s single tuning. Degung was in fact the first gamelan tradition played professionally in Canada, by Toronto’s Evergreen Club, founded in 1983 by, among others, Jon Siddall.
GAMELAN AT THE ROUNDHOUSE continues on April 27 when Balinese Gamelan Gita Asmara and Guests will hold forth. The Vancouver Community Gamelan Society acknowledges the support of the City of Vancouver, The Consul General of Indonesia in Vancouver, and The Western Front.
PRESENTED BY INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC SOCIETY OF VANCOUVER
Pandit Rajan & Sajan Mishra are two of the topmost Indian classical vocalists in the world, hailing from a family of great maestros from one of the oldest cities in the world, Benares, which has been declared as a UNESCO City of Music. Their music embraces those ancient sensibilities which are rendered in a contemporary setting to reach out to the world. 2017 marked the beginning of Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra’s world tour spanning India, North America, South America, the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Europe. Vancouver is 1 of 5 Canadian cities they will be visiting to present Bhairav Se Bhairavi Tak, which has been conceptualized by Saloni Gandhi.
Tickets available at this link
Above: Ho Tam, Guys at the Fair (installation mock-up), 2003/2013, Canada Line Waterfront Station Photo: Roaming the Planet
Saturday, April 28, 2018
3:00 PM
???????????? Canada Line Public Art Project ?????????????????????????? Karilynn Ming Ho?Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes?David Semeniuk?? Ho Tam ?????????
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RSVP: RSVP@capturephotofest.com
Richmond Art Gallery leads this tour in Cantonese of the Canada Line Public Art Project at Bridgeport, Aberdeen, Lansdowne, and Richmond-Brighouse Canada Line Stations featuring the diverse lens-based works of BC-based artists Karilynn Ming Ho, Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes, David Semeniuk, and Ho Tam.
FREE but RSVP required to: RSVP@capturephotofest.com
Please meet at the entrance to Richmond–Brighouse Station
The annual ThanksMom! Give Life event is just around the corner! We are in need of volunteers to help run our event. As a team, we can work together to promote stem cell, blood, cord blood, and organ donations, and help save lives. Help US help OTHERS.
We would like to offer you the opportunity to volunteer and help out with the ThanksMom Give Life 2018 event this year! The event will be on Saturday, May 5 (10:00 am to 9:00 pm), and Sunday, May 6 (10:00 am to 6:00 pm), at Guildford Town Centre, in Surrey, BC.
If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out the volunteer form below. We hope to hear from you soon! For more information, check us out on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!
Explorasian has been featured in the Today Commercial News epaper, available at the following links:
http://www.todaycommercialnews.com/???????????
http://www.todaycommercialnews.com/epaper/2324??????
To view more details about an event** including event organizer contact information, please click on the event name in the calendar. ?
For inquiries about the events listed in this calendar, please email office.vahms@gmail.com or contact the event organizer directly. ?
**Event information for explorASIAN 2018 festival is provided by our partner organizations. Although every effort is made to keep this calendar up to date, we recommend checking with each event organizer to ensure you have the most current event details, including dates and times. ?
Buy tickets/see more information about the explorASIAN 2018 Opening Ceremony April 21, 2018.
Buy tickets/see more information about the explorASIAN 2018 Recognition & Awards Gala June 2, 2018.
See this year’s explorASIAN 2018 festival guide.
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