Concurrence Gatherings

Concurrence Gatherings are concerts, talks and story-sharing events, featuring Indigenous Artists and emerging DTES Small Arts Grants recipients with NOW Society Musicians. Presented by O.Dela Arts and hosted by the NOW Society at 8EAST in partnership with the Carnegie Community Centre. Concurrence Gatherings 6 and 7 are curated by Sophie Dow.

 

Sunday December 4

6pm Artist talk, 7pm Performances at 8EAST

8 East Pender Street

FREE 18+

Featuring:
Dalannah Gail Bowen
Shawn Bullsheilds
Karen Colville
Francis Baptiste
Gunargie Ga'axstalas O’Sullivan

Presented by O.Dela Arts, hosted by the NOW Society in partnership with Skwachàys Lodge Aboriginal Hotel and Gallery and Carnegie Community Centre.

 

Dalannah Gail Bowen is now 77 years old and has been singing professionally for more than half a century. Dalannah released her most recent album known as Dalannah’s Diamond Collection titled “ In Her Own Words” . Her label Quest Records selected their 16 songs written and recorded by her on the label over the past 15 years and compiled this anthology to celebrate her 75 years of “Living and Loving.”  In November 2021, Dalannah was nominated for the very prestigious Maple Blues “Life Time Achievement” award. Meanwhile she has gigs and concerts and Festival appearances scheduled into late 2022 but even with all the music demands on her time she has still been very active and vocal about those issues she has espoused for more than 50 years… Shelter for the homeless and social housing; the wasteful and destructive behaviours destroying our environment, imminent climate change action and indigenous issues especially the “Missing Women Campaign, and of course the outrageous and inhuman Colonial disgrace and Canada’s shameful denials and shuffling under the carpet the Residential Schools program of cultural genocide and abuse of indigenous youth. She has been called “Our Matriarch of the Blues” and a “force of nature.” Seems about right so far.

Karen Colville grew up in a small rural town where there were bands with her neighbors on her street. The Musicians in her home town went on to great commercial success. Karen had some of the very same Musicians on her first release, Beauty of Dreams. Karen is a long standing member of SOCAN ASCAP. She attended Music educational conferences in Vancouver, Nashville and Hollywood to learn about the music business. She explored themes of cultural diversity in her work including Spoken word with First Nations, Cultural Anthropology with independent research in music history in arts and culture as a form of independent study. She is described as a soulful and a sweet Vocalist with themes of Peace, Love and Unity. She appreciates music from all backgrounds. Karen participates and supports a Music event Graceful Noise for over 5 years in a cabaret style with Trinity United Church. She is also interested in multimedia as an artistic cultural expression with performance art. Her recent release is included on the 100 Block2 compilation Rocking the Blues of DTES Artists. Karen is at present working on Country folk original songs based on her life experiences and her musical and connection to Canadian Americana nature journey.

Francis Baptiste is an Indigenous songwriter and music journalist from the Osoyoos Indian Band. His debut LP, Snəqsilxʷ (Family), features songs sung in Nsyilxcən [nah-silk-sen], the endangered language of the Syilx [see-ilks] people. Approximately 50 elders can fluently speak Nsyilxcən. For Baptiste, his journey in learning the language and teaching it to his son begins with this album. Family (Snəqsilxʷ) is his effort to preserve and connect with this vital part of his heritage. Baptiste is also a music journalist who writes for Exclaim, Permanent Rain Press, and Vancouver Weekly. Currently, he lives in Vancouver, BC.

Shawn Bullshields is a singer, guitarist and harmonica player with natural charisma and professional delivery.  His repertoire of songs include the genres of pop, country and folk: the point where they intersect is through his masterful singing voice. Shawn commands instant attention because his voice conveys the truth, beauty and deep meaning within each song, expressed with the full weight of his personal life experience. Shawn sings from the heart and each song is truly a gift.

A member of the Blackfoot Nation, Shawn grew up on the Blood Reserve, Standoff, Alberta. In the early ‘90s he moved to Vancouver and started singing and playing the guitar; the harmonica came much later. Shawn has an inspiring personal story along with a beautiful, grounded, humble presence. At any given time, you can hear Shawn performing James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel, Elton John, Cold Play, The Lumineers, Snow Patrol and many others. Fans have described Shawn’s voice as magic, angelic, and peaceful.

 

 

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Gatherings 1 - 6:

 

Concurrence Gathering 6 was presented in association with the Heart of the City Festival, much gratitude to the Festival!

Sunday November 6

6pm Artist talk at Skwachàys Lodge
7pm Performances at 8EAST

FREE 18+

Featuring:
Yvonne Mark
Gunargie Ga'axstalas O’Sullivan
Tyson Night
Edzi’u

Presented by O.Dela Arts, hosted by the NOW Society in partnership with Skwachàys Lodge Aboriginal Hotel and Gallery and Carnegie Community Centre.

Yvonne Mark

Yvonne Mark has been a pillar in the DTES community since 1972. Yvonne is a published author with Megaphone, currently serves on the Board at Carnegie Community Centre, is part of the Indigenous Advisory Committee, graduate of Employ to Empower, winner of the poetry slam at Cafe Deux Soleils, and part of the 2022 DTES Writers' Fest. She is currently in Journalism school at Langara, and working on an anthology of her written works to be released in 2023.

Gunargie Ga'axstalas O’Sullivan

Gunargie Ga'axstalas O’Sullivan has been dedicated to community and campus radio since 1989 and attributes her knowledge to her guests and her community. The Resonating Reconciliation project was originally her idea and she helped develop the proposal. Gunargie is the founder of the shows “Late night with Savages” on CFRO-FM Vancouver Co-op Radio and “Nation to Nation” on CJSF-FM and currently produces “When Spirit Whispers” and “Sne’wayulh” at CFRO-FM. She is a member of the Tlowitsis tribe which she says “means mad, angry people ;)” Gunargie is both a direct and inter-generational survivor of Indian Residential Schools, and was fostered and then adopted by the age of seven.

Tyson Night

From the prairies of Saulteaux First Nations, Saskatchewan, Tyson Night grew up reciting poetry by famous authors, competing in poetry showcases, and writing his own work while developing his passion for performance. ln 2015, he worked at Banff Theatre Alberta, joining as a creator/performer in the Banff Theatre Collective. This ignited Tyson into the improv world, participating in cabarets, and always trying out new material for audiences. Tyson is proudly lndigenous, and does a lot of work for the community (volunteering at drop-in centres, and caring for his younger brothers). His own experience growing up through many struggles has been a huge source of inspiration for his writing, and his desire to write stems deeply from wanting to give back to the next generation. ln 2019/20 Tyson was a member of Playwrights' Workshop Montreal's Young Creators' Unit, where he began developing his first full-length play "Hung Up", inspired by stories of mental health and addiction. With development support from the Alberta Arts Council, he has created a first draft and workshop of his fantasy/comedic with a mission to create hope for the younger generation of First Nation's People. He was recently a performer in the experimental physical theatre piece RED{Z} MAID{Z}, based on the residential school system (created by Waawaate Fobister), that remains in development. Tyson continues to work as a performer, writer, and model (represented by Edge Talent & Model Alberta) and is currently training in dance, song, and piano.

Edzi’u

Step into the lush and heart wrenching sounds of Edzi'u. A Tahltan and Tlingit artist, based in Vancouver, Canada on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, Edzi’u is an innovative songwriter and composer who paints stories of the past, present and future with textures, elders stories and words, and her ethereal voice. Her debut album, Kime Ani, features three generations of her grandmothers voices, as well as audio of future generations. Feature track, "What Does Nation Mean?" asks the listener to examine their hearts, mind, and place amidst colonial so called Canada. Being rich in culture, full of passion and spirit, the power behind their use of sound goes deep within the listener, inspiring them to be bold and genuine, while living fully within their hearts. Edzi'u has a style and sound like no other, a quiet icon in the landscape of Indigenous music on Turtle Island. Their music and sound installations have been featured on CBC Radio Reclaimed, Talking Stick festival, shown in Tkaronto’s film festival imagineNATIVE 2018 as well as 2019, while debuting internationally in 2019 at the Document Film Festival in Glasgow, Scotland.

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Concurrence Gathering 5
Thursday, March 12th, 2020

Featuring:
Dakota Camacho
Clayton Charleyboy
Apendilo Duo
Eva Cho and Wilson Liang

Supported by
Adrian Avendaño - drums
Lisa Cay Miller - piano

Wilson Liang - translation

7:00 - 7:30pm Carnegie Community Centre Theatre - 401 Main Street, Lower Level
8:00-9:00pm  8EAST 8 East Pender St

Artist Bios:
Apendilo Duo Erin Ryan and Cat Raphael perform songs of blues, folk and gospel origin. Cat is an accomplished slide guitar player and Erin is specifically trained in gospel soul roots singing. Their voices together make a soulful dynamic that touches the heart. Apendiglo Duo are DTES Small Arts Grants recipients!

Clayton Charleyboy (Tsilhqot'in) is a multi-instrumentalist and music producer. Recently he's been creating guitar-driven hip hop in an attempt to utilize all of his past experience performing with different bands playing different genres on different instruments. "I've put a lot of time and work learning the basics of music, live performance, and music production over the past 12 years, and yet I feel like I'm just getting started." - Clayton.

Dakota Camacho is a multi-disciplinary artist / researcher working in spaces of indigenous lifeways, performance, musical composition, community engagement, and education. Ancestral Lineages: Matao/CHamoru, Ilokano, European. Camacho holds a Masters of Arts in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in Gender & Women's Studies as a First Wave Urban Arts and Hip Hop Scholar. Camacho is a chanter, adjunct instructor, and core researcher for I Fanlalai'an Oral History Project based at the University of Guåhan. Camacho co-founded I Moving Lab, an inter-national, inter-cultural, inter-tribal, and inter-disciplinary arts collective that creates community and self-funded arts initiatives to engage and bring together rural & urban communities, Universities, Museums, & performing arts institutions. Camacho has worked at festivals, universities, and community organizations as a public speaker, facilitator, composer and performer across Turtle Island (USA), Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, Sweden, and South Africa.

Eva Cho and Wilson Liang -- Artist Statement --
We aim to encourage cultural sharing  understanding, exploring intersection of different art forms, and inspire hidden talents in our neighborhood. We develop our own music and write original songs for our performance. We blend contemporary dance and music elements into traditional Chinese cultural dance and music to inspire cross culture sharing and understanding. We will use expressive arts as a tool to develop, enrich, and inspire our performances.

 

 

 

River (Cassandra) Blondin-Burt is a Dene/Canadian Songstress, Poet, Storyteller and Agent Provocateur. She uses music and comedy to subvert ever-present colonial/patriarchal power structures, studies philosophy/creative writing at Vancouver Island University, is the owner and operator of Free Range Mama Herbal Living, as well as senior host and producer of Medicine Talk Radio - a program designed to give platform to Indigenous Politics and Music on Vancouver Island. She is new to the performing circuit, but story-telling, performance, and the arts have been weaving magic in and around her bones since pre-conception in her mother's womb.

Joe Chow is a singer song writer guitarists and composer and chord arranger!!! He has been a musician for over 40 years!

Janine Island The phrase, "No man is an island," suits the occasion when speaking of sound-sculptress and creative improvisor, Janine Island, whose isolated 70's-hippie/anarchist communal upbringing fostered a savant autonomy culminating in a staunch resistance to the military-industrial-complex affecting western culture.