A Magical Time highlights the legacy of the early days of the arts at SFU

MAGICAL RIPPLES: Generating a strong and enduring cultural fabric

Welcome to my home of 50 years, here in the Downtown Eastside, on Coast Salish ancestral homelands. My life in the performing arts interweaves through the history of SimonFraser University’s arts programs. Employed in the bowels of SFU Library in 1968, Iembarked on…

Ten years at the non-credit Center for Communications and the Arts- as a dance student and performer, as an emerging choreographer, as a dance instructor…and with life-changingencounters with Karen Jamieson and Terry Hunter.

In 1968, shortly I graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Anthropology, my first husband and I immigrated to Vancouver in protest against the US Vietnam War and in shock over Martin Luther King’s assassination. I needed a job – fast - and found one working as a library clerk in the basement of SFU library. I’d been a folk dancer at Stanford, so I venturedinto the SFU non-credit beginner modern dance class, then taught by choreographer Anna Wyman. I danced for six months in blue jeans before I got up the nerve to wear a leotard: apublic confession that I was a serious dance student.

I skipped lunch breaks on the job, to catch noon hour performances in SFU’s theatre, and to dropinto John Juliani’s compelling and kind of scary theatre workshops. I got into trouble with mylibrary boss over my inventive juggling of hours of work, but I was so excited by events like John Juliani’s Savage God productions and by Mediums, Karen Jamieson’s collaboration with a composer, filmmaker and dancers.

After nine months of working in the library under harsh florescent lights, excruciating headaches drove me to quit my job. The headaches disappeared. Dance became my passion, the interdisciplinary performing arts my life work, and my creative path? Translating emotional realities, concerns, and questions about life into multi-art stories. I was hooked for life.

When Iris Garland took a six months sabbatical to work intensively with dance keeners, Ileaped at the opportunity- my fellow students included Karen. We trained, we toured, and I debuted my first choreography at the SFU Festival of Religion and the Arts.

SFU’s dance program incubated choreographies that I later toured. In 1976, I created ‘Pastorale”, inspired by a mother folly character, its costume designed by fellow dancer Carol Ute. Terry Hunter,a dance accompanist and my collaborator, had a vision: a dancing Drum Mother. We had bitterarguments before he convinced ME to cut holes in the costume for drums, and before I convincedHIM he needed to wear a mask. Drum mother previewed at the Chinatown New Year’s Parade.

She evolved from an audience-interactive solo into an ensemble choreography performed by graduates of SFU and produced by Vancouver Moving Theatre. For twelve years,“Samarambi: Pounding of the Heart” toured to festivals around the world.

All of this evolved from creative seed planted in an SFU non-credit arts program.

In 2003, Vancouver Moving Theatre collaborated with Carnegie Community Centre to co-produce In the Heart of a City, an epic scale community play created for, with and about the historicDTES community

The play launched an annual festival, followed by a series of productions honoring culturalcommunities of the Downtown Eastside and the Indigenous-led national touring production WeavingReconciliation: Our Way.

Our community-engaged arts practice in turn reconnected us to Simon Fraser University, when itmoved into the Downtown Eastside in 2010. We entered into a co-production with SFU Woodwards Cultural Programs and Partnerships. Director Michael Boucher’s vision was to connect with the Downtown Eastside community in a meaningful way and so he approachedVancouver Moving Theatre (and later Full Circle First Nations) as partners. He wanted to drawupon our deep community relationships to guide SFU Woodwards on its first steps towards engaging with its new inner-city home. He and I co-wrote Bah Humbug!, an adaptation of Dickens Christmas Carol inspired by parallels between Victorian London and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. I was the ghost of Christmas Future.

Bah Humbug! was embraced by the Downtown Eastside community and larger public. Its ten years of annual productions were a testament to how a university and community could worktogether. SFU Woodwards Cultural Programs represented SFU’s second grand and magical inter- mingling of great art, education and community outreach. They are missed.

I raise my hands to three people who contributed to transforming SFU into a vibrantcultural hub during the early days of Art at the university.

Nini Baird – the wizard of a director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Communications and the Arts for over a decade- has worked for over 50 years advocating for the arts.

John Juliani taught theatre at SFU from 1966 to the early 1970’s and established with Donna Wong the visionary Savage God theatre company. John was a fierce advocate for Canadian theatre and the arts and served for 17 years on Vancouver Moving Theatre’s board of directors: a rigorous mentor.

Iris Garland taught dance at SFU from 1965=2000 and started its non-credit and creditdance programs. Her driving passion for dance, her vision and perseverance, the high caliber guest instructors she brought into the program, her encouragement and mentoring of emerging choreographers like myself, providing us with access to the city’s best theatre fordance, supported by professional lighting and sound. Her generosity ignited creative fire thatcontinues to burn.

I also raise my hands to lifetime colleagues I met in the SFU’s arts programs: Among others…

Sheelagh Carpendale, a dancer I met on my first day of modern dance class at SFU, hasbecome an award-winning, internationally renowned researcher in data visualization, and a professor in SFU’s School of Computing Science.

Barbara Bourget, who danced in my choreography Pandora, went from SFU to co-found EDAM Dance and Kokoro Dance and co-produce the Vancouver InternationalDance Festival.

Doug Vernon, with whom Terry and I toured Burnaby Parks in the Simon Fraser MimeTroupe and co-founded the Mime Caravan, went on to perform with La Ratatouille clown theatre at Cirque du Soleil and with Ontario’s Theatre Beyond Words.

Sharon Macdonald, with whom I co-created the duet that captivated my husband, is now a freelance historian. Her newest book launches in Halifax this Friday: Disruptive Women: Untold Story of Nova Scotia’s Pioneers of Peace and Suffrage.

Karen Jamieson and I danced in each others’ choreographies,

And at John Juliani and Donna Wong’s living ceremony of a wedding at the Vancouver Art Gallery. We co-produced a dance concert at SFU in 1974

before co-founding with Terry the avantgarde collective Terminal City Dance. Seven years later, Terminal City could no longer contain our collective creative energies.

It exploded into the Karen Jamieson Dance Company and Vancouver Moving Theatre, while Terminal City Dance Society evolved into the Vancouver Dance Centre Society

The Magical Times of SFU’s early days of the Arts and its 15 years of engaging with community and the Downtown Eastside have generated expanding legacies that continue and will continue far beyond what we can see and predict today.

57 years after setting foot on Burnaby Mountain, Terry and I are midway through donating our lifetime of physical records to SFU Library’s Special Collections and rare books. I’ve danced my way from the library basement up to Special Collections on the seventh floor.

In September of 1969, fresh from graduating from Burnaby Central High School, I became a student at Simon Fraser University majoring in Geography and Political Science.

Within a month, I was walking in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. It was a radical time. And, a time of radical change.

One day in 1970, I headed to the campus employment office to get a part-timejob. As I walked there, I passed the theatre where I saw a sign that read: Audition: Actors Wanted. 2pm”.

The thought of speaking in front of an audience terrified me. In high school, I had seen my fellow students acting. I was in awe of their courage to stand on stage, in front of an audience, and speak.

I thought to myself: “This is my opportunity to try acting. And hey, I am looking for work.“

I went to the employment office, got a job as a dishwasher, and came back to the theatre for the audition. I got a part in the show!

After our second rehearsal, I was sitting with a fellow actor and I asked: “So, when do we get paid?”

He laughed, and said: “Hey man, this isn't a job. This is volunteer, man. You don’t get paid.”

“Ohhh,” I replied, “well…I am enjoying myself. I’ll stay with it.”

At that moment, I had - unknowingly - changed the trajectory of my life. I had fallen into the magical world of SFU’s Centre for Communications and the Arts.And I hadn’t the faintest notion of the incredible journey I was about to embark on.

Instead of finishing my degree, the SFU theatre became my place of learning. My home.

The Centre was also a community that established and nurtured life-long relationships that supported my community-engaged artistic practice to this day.

I could walk into the theatre for a free noon concert and be challenged by the experimental theatre work of John Juliani and Donna Wong.

I could witness ancient traditional art forms such as a memorable presentation by two very happy and laughing Inuit throat singers from the high Arctic.

I could wander into the theatre in mid-afternoon and witness a modern dance class or dance rehearsal, and be in awe of the creativity, courage and talent of the student dancers.

One life-altering evening, I attended a modern dance performance by the legendary Iris Garland and her dance students, where I was smittened by the radiating joy of Savannah Walling, as she danced in a duet with Sharon McDonald.

Not much later, to my lasting good fortune, I met this creative and courageous woman when we where hired by the SFU Mime Troupe to perform mime shows in Burnaby Parks over the summer.

What made those years with The Centre ‘a magical time’?

And how did it serve as a foundation for my life’s journey in the arts and community?

The emphasis of The Centre for Communications and the Arts was on exploration, interdisciplinary collaboration, creativity, accessibility, questioningthe status quo, and a fierce belief in the power of arts and culture to create a better world.

The Centre was a place where maverick imaginations like Savannah and mine could flourish, and not be forced into a box. It was a place and time of independent and fierce creativity, where we were encouraged to develop our craft and voice; and to take what we learnt and use it in our own unique way.

The Centre was also highly accessible. It was free. And importantly, it was non-credit: there were no tests or marks.

This accessibility attracted students from SFU and non-SFU students from all over Greater Vancouver and beyond. This, mixed with the countless free lunch concerts and evening shows featuring SFU students and artists, and stellarvisiting artists from across North America, created a synergy and excitement that made SFU, at the time, an epicentre for ground-breaking and creative artistic activity in British Columbia.

While Savannah and I continued throughout the 1970s to study and work at SFU on the hill, another life-changing moment came in 1975.

Savannah and I, with Karen Jamieson and our company Terminal City Dance, landed in Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside District where we opened a studio in the Lim Sai How Kow Mock clan building on Carroll Street near Pender.

Seeds of learning and exploration nurtured at SFU on the hill, were now being transplanted to the Downtown Eastside District.

Situated on the Homeland of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish, the Downtown Eastside District is made up of many distinct neighbourhoods betweenVictory Square and Clark Drive and Waterfront and Terminal Avenue.

This inner-city community, with its rich and diverse heritage, became our inspiration and our mentor. And it dramatically shaped our artistic practice and our lives.

Drum Mother, my iconic drum-dancing and masked character, seeded in the aforementioned dance piece by Savannah at SFU, emerged fully realized when Iwas inspired by the ancient tradition of mythical lions and dragons that I witnessed from the second-floor balcony of our Chinatown studio.

Drum Mother debuted at the first Peace March in 1982

Here in our new home, we learned to listen to community, to their lived experience and wisdom.

We learned that arts and culture is vital to a healthy community: that culture saves lives.

To survive - and thrive - as artists, we learnt to be entrepreneurial: to raise money, promote the work, plan national and international tours and large-scale high-impact productions. And stay on budget.

We learnt to build alliances and relationships with people and arts and non-arts organizations in our community.

And with the Indigenous community. 

A personal highlight, was the installation in 2016 of the Survivors’ Totem Pole in Pigeon Park in partnership with carver Bernie Williams, who in 2021, adoptedSavannah and I into her St’langng Laanas clan of the Haida Nation.

We were also blessed to meet and work with community-minded philanthropists such as Milton Wong, the former Chancellor of SFU, born and raised in Chinatown.

This exceptional theatre we enjoy today is the result of Milton’s commitment to community and to local arts and culture.

Thank you, Milton and Faye Wong.

Milton knew, and understood, the value of community-led renewal through the arts. And he was crucial in helping to establish the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival in 2004. The Festival is still going strong today.

The Festival was founded by Vancouver Moving Theatre in partnership with the Carnegie Community Centre, and over 40 community partners on the principles of collaboration and partnership.

The Festival takes place over 12 days and annually presents between 80-100 events throughout the community: including performing arts; history walks and talks, visual art and spoken word events, cultural events, community feastsand ceremonies.

One key festival partner included the SFU VanCity Office of Community Engagement. This best practice model of community engagement by a university with an inner-city community, is greatly missed by the Downtown Eastside community.

The values of the Festival are grounded in the artistic values that Savannah and I learnt at SFU: explore, experiment, uplift, support creative voices, bypass walls and break silos, and pursue interdisciplinary collaborations, partnerships and social engagement.

Today, fifty-five years after I fell into The Magical Time while seeking work, it is with astonishment that I stand here today, with you all, in SFU’s Milton and Faye Wong Theatre, situated here in the subterranean ground of the Downtown Eastside community.

I can cast my mind’s eye back, and trace the evolutionary line of my life’s work in the arts - and the artistic and cultural activity of the Heart of the City Festival - tothe values I learnt participating in the SFU non-credit program.

It is with no small amount of pride, that I can say that SFU has been a vitalcommunity partner that has greatly contributed to the success, and the impact, of the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival.

Thank you, SFU Centre for Communications and the Arts for seeding my extraordinary life in the arts, and in community.

It has been a life of hard work. And long hours. I have learnt from my mistakes. And there were many.

Through it all, I have been blessed with the opportunity to create and produce meaningful art; tour to over 45 national and international festivals all around theworld; and have the honour to work as a community-engaged artist with and for my beloved Downtown Eastside community.

My remarkable creative journey began at SFU in a magical time and place.

For this, I am immensely grateful.

Thank you to the team that put together this highly valuable legacy book, which captures a remarkable and important time in the life of SFU, our city, province and country.

The ripples created by that Magical Time have reverberated - for over five decades - to this day.

May this exceptional book help to sustain these ripples, well into the future.

Thank you.