Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 diverse events to catch at the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival

An opera blending Cantonese song, jazz, and Indigenous drumming; an immersive sound experience; and a collaborative dance work are among the highlights

By Gail Johnson

Haisla Collins (left), Jacky Lam, and Rosa Cheng, The Prop Master’s Dream. Photo by David Cooper

Vancouver Moving Theatre in association with the Carnegie Community Centre and the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians presents The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival to November 6 at multiple venues and online

THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE Heart of the City Festival is now on, with a packed, diverse lineup that ranges from a 4D immersive sound experience to the world premiere of a fusion opera. Here’s a handful of fest highlights, listed by date, to add to your cultural calendar. (For more, see here.)

Patrick Keating, Inside/Out: A Prison Memoir. Photo by Jeff Topham

#1

Inside/Out: A Prison Memoir

October 26 at 6pm at Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, SFU Woodward’s (149 West Hastings Street)

Patrick Keating served three sentences totalling 10 years in federal penitentiaries in Quebec and British Columbia. When he transferred to Matsqui, he took courses in the art and craft of theatre. Upon his release, Keating enrolled in the fine arts program at SFU, earning a bachelor’s degree in theatre studies. Over the past three decades, he has worked as a performer in nearly 60 film and TV productions and more than 40 stage shows; he has worked with the Firehall Arts Centre and Touchstone Theatre, among other local companies, and been nominated for two Jessie Richardson Theatre awards.

Inside/Out: A Prison Memoir is Keating’s story of the years he spent in and out of Canada’s penitentiary system. It’s described as “a story about a man’s search for community: the community of the street, the community of prison, and of the theatre”.

The theatrical-performance film is based on Keating’s solo theatre work of the same name, which first ran at Little Mountain Gallery in 2015 then at the 2018 PuSh Festival before touring across Canada. It had a virtual screening tour of prisons and correctional facilities nationwide in 2021 and also played at the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals, winning Best Inspirational Film at the Washington Film Awards in 2022.

Written and performed by Keating, Inside/Out: A Prison Memoir is produced by Norman Armour and Jeff Topam, and filmed by Mark Edwards. The film is being co-presented by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement and The Heart of the City Festival in partnership with Reel Causes. 

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A with Keating and other guests.

#2

Evil Cult Singalong With the Legion of Flying Monkeys

October 31 from 4 to 5pm at MacLean Park Fieldhouse (710 Keefer Street)

This third annual event features music protest-folk-rock music composed for original instruments built out of Strathcona-grown wood. People are encouraged to dress in costumes to become part of a “larger, completely benevolent corporation”. The event comes with a cheeky caution: “children will be exposed to humanist and socialist lyrics”.

Lobe Studio.

#3

Lobe Studio Artist in Residence, James Ash
November 3 at 3, 4, 5, and 6 pm at Lobe Spatial Sound Studio (713 E. Hastings Street)

Lobe Studio is the only spatial-sound studio in North America equipped with 4D technology to provide immersive listening environments with sounds around, above, and beneath guests. Lobe has partnered with RayCam Community Centre, Crackdown Podcast, and the Heart of the City for these drop-in, first-come, first-serve listening experiences.

With support from the City of Vancouver, Lobe provided a residency to musician-composer James Ash and RayCam to work on community audio projects. Mentored by Ian Wyatt and Alex Penney, Ash created two sound mixes: one to a 2008 recording of poet Bud Osborn reading his poem “No Matter How Vicious the System Is”; and one to an excerpt from the Crackdown Podcast, Episode 31: Love, Death and Benzodope (April 22, 2022). Crackdown is a Vancouver-based podcast about drug-user resistance led by long time drug user-activist, Garth Mullins. In the excerpt, Mullins talks to Trey Helten, a leader in the City's harm reduction response to the deadly new drug combo known as benzodope. 

Haisla Collins. Photo by David Cooper

#4

The Prop Master’s Dream

November 5 at  2 and 7 pm at the Annex Theatre (823 Seymour Street)

The Prop Master’s Dream is a new fusion opera inspired by the true story of Wah-Kwan Gwan (1929-2000), a legendary props master born in B.C. to a Chinese father and an Indigenous mother. Following Gwan’s journey from Vancouver to China and back again, the work explores themes of lost identity, migration, and race relations. Produced by Vancouver Cantonese Opera, The Prop Master’s Dream blends Cantonese opera singing, jazz music, and Indigenous drumming. Composers Leo Lee from Hong Kong and Vancouver’s Peter Tam wrote the score, which features diverse instruments from the East and West. Rosa Cheng (artistic director), Jacky Lam, and Haisla Collins (a Vancouver-based singer with Tsimshian, Nisga’a, Gitsan, and Celtic ancestry), are among the cast members in the production open to all ages that will be presented in Cantonese with English subtitles.

#5

Karen Jamieson Dance & Carnegie Dance Troupe
November 6 from 1 to 2 pm at Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, SFU Woodward’s (149 West Hastings Street)

The Carnegie Dance Troupe returns to live, in-person performance with this new in-process studio showing led by Rianne Svelnis and Karen Jamieson. Since 2006, the principle supporting the Carnegie Dance Troupe is absolute inclusivity. Performances are created through processes of collaboration, “seeking to connect us to our body, to our breath, to the energy of the earth, to each other and to our diverse communities”, according to the fest. The Carnegie Dance Troupe is part of Karen Jamieson Dance and partners with the Carnegie Community Centre and SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement.

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