IndieFest brings forward diverse new voices at musical gathering October 28 to November 7
Hosted by re:Naissance Opera, the program features both performances and workshops, live and online
Clockwise from left: re:Naissance Opera’s Debi Wong, workshop leader Shirin Eskandani, and Renae Morriseau of M’Girl.
BIPOC women are taking the lead at the just-announced IndieFest—a musical gathering that celebrates new opera, and brings together diverse new creative voices.
Presented by re:Naissance Opera, a Vancouver indie company dedicated to change through opera, this year’s festival takes place from October 28 to November 7. The full event schedule is now live at indiefest.ca.
Of note is a series of panels tackling visibility, identity, and how they inform creative expression; performances aimed at combatting rising anti-Asian racism locally and globally; and the many Asian female-identifying and non-binary arts leaders in the festival.
One of these change-making Asian women is re:Naissance Opera’s own Debi Wong, a Canadian mezzo-soprano known internationally after only a few short years of building the organization that’s hosting the fest.
“The programming this year lifts up but a few of the many female-identifying and non-binary BIPOC artists who are doing more than just showing up in our arts and culture scene; they are showing us, through their art, how we can build our communities in a more inclusive, respectful, and creative way,” says Wong.
Other female-identifying leaders joining the festival include acclaimed theatre and film artist Renae Morriseau, who opens the festival on October 28 with M’Girl, an Indigenous women’s ensemble that performs percussive-based hand-drum songs that reflect the diverse cultural practices and personal stories of the group.
Shirin Eskandani, as seen on The Today Show and in The New York Times & Cosmopolitan, grew up in Vancouver and will be joining #IndieFest to empower other local BIPOC leaders in her workshop series called “Compassionate and resilient creative leadership”.
New musical experiences abound, live and onscreen. Valerie Sing Turner premieres her first opera at IndieFest, co-directing and co-producing Did I Just Say That?, a musical comedy that explores themes of feminism, racial intersectionality, and what it means to embody artistic risk in a patriarchal society. Elsewhere, look for a watch party for Seamstress, a documentary opera based on the collected oral histories of Palestinian women and girls, on November 1; and soprano Mireille Asselin, tenor Asitha Tennekoon, violinist Parmela Attariwala and pianist Perri Lo, in Rivers of Grief, a musical journey through the Greek Underworld on November 5.
Much more is on offer to expand artistic practices and express creativity. Festival Passes and Single Event Tickets are available now.
Post sponsored by re:Naissance Opera