19th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival Set For Next Month

The 19th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival featuring twelve days of live and online events - both indoors and out - including music, stories, poetry, theatre, ceremony, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, art talks, history talks and history walks.

Guided by the theme Community Is Our Mentor, this year's festival will focus on listening and learning from the lived wisdom and cultural practices of Downtown Eastside community organizations, artists and cultural circles; and engaging the transformative power of story, song, music, film, theatre, dance, visual arts and ceremony to illuminate pathways of resistance and resilience.

A few highlights of the 2022 Festival include:

● 'The Gathering' Mural Launch, a stunning tryptic mural created in 2016 by Richard Tetrault, is expanding with an additional seven new panels by Tetrault, Charlene Johnny, Marissa Nahanee and Jerry Whitehead. The Gathering Mural hangs in the Carnegie Theatre during the Festival and pays tribute to past and present DTES artists and activists, and to the diverse cultures and heritage of the Downtown Eastside. Meet the artists and hear the inspiring story behind the artists and activists in this extraordinary mural.

● Honouring Our Grandmothers Healing Journey - Keeping the Fires Burning . Through ceremony, cultural teachings, spoken word, visual art displays and ArtTalks, we honour Grandmothers who arrived in our community from Indigenous nations of the Thompson/Fraser River watershed area. Produced by Further We Rise Indigenous Arts Collective/Sacred Rock in partnerships with VALU CO-OP Community Projects/Love Intersections, Massy Arts Society, Carnegie/Oppenheimer Park and Vancouver Moving Theatre/DTES Heart of the City Festival;

● Intangible Treasures of the Downtown Eastside (Zoom Shadow Two), an online collection of short evocative shadow plays created on Zoom by seven Downtown Eastside involved residents who explore personal intangible treasures that give them strength. Co-produced by Runaway Moon Theatre (Enderby, BC) and Vancouver Moving Theatre;

● IronFest III, a three-night series of bands and improvised music combining a diverse cast of international and local musicians, including artists connected to the Downtown Eastside community and cultures. Produced by Coastal Jazz in association with Music on Main and the DTES Heart of the City Festival;

● Housing Justice with SRO Tenants, an interactive dialogue and film screening in collaboration with The Right to Remain Research Collective and filmmaker Eliot Galán, showcasing SRO (Single Room Occupancy) tenant researchers whose stories prompt moments of collective learning. Audiences are invited to share in the vision of transitional strategies for affordable, safe and healthy housing;

● The Prop Master's Dream, a new fusion opera produced by Vancouver Cantonese Opera inspired by the extraordinary true-life story of Wah-Kwan Gwan (1929-2000), a little-known Chinese Opera props master born to a local Chinese father and Indigenous mother;

● Honouring Writers of the Downtown Eastside, celebrates writers and poets past and present who mentor our community with their powerful thoughts, words, ideas, support and encouragement. The Carnegie Newsletter will hold the Sandy Cameron Memorial Writing Contest & Award Ceremony to honour and recognize poets of today; and throughout the Festival we will honour poets who have passed before us, including: Sandy Cameron, Bud Osborn, Jim Wong Chu, Robyn Livingstone, Muriel Marjorie, Lee Maracle, Joan Morelli, dn simmers, Wayson Choy, and Kat Zucomulwat Norris (Festival Elder in Residence, 2017 - 2022).

The mandate of the Festival is to promote, present and facilitate the development of artists, art forms, cultural traditions, history, activism, people and great stories about Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The Festival involves professional, community, emerging and student artists, and lovers of the arts.

The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival follows current health and safety measures to support the health and safety of our audiences, artists and staff.