The 10th Annual Talking Stick Festival, featuring dozens of Aboriginal artists, is one of over 60 community generated events taking place during the year long celebration of Vancouver's Anniversary.
Celebrations & Events
Community Projects, Events & Celebrations
In response to the excitement, pride and enthusiasm for Vancouver's 125th anniversary in 2011, the City of Vancouver established the 125th Anniversary Grants Program to support a range of projects that will enrich our city through civic engagement and the celebration of art, culture and heritage.
62 organizations have received funding through the anniversary grants program following the first intake of applications (October 1, 2010), and more will be added following the next and final deadline for applications to the anniversary grants program on February 25, 2011.
(176kb)Visit the new Vancouver 125 website for details on events and celebrations happening all year long: www.CelebrateVancouver125.ca 
PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
January 18 to February 6, 2011
Various venues city-wide, including: Performance Works, 100 Water St. in Gastown, Vancouver streets, Studio T and Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU Woodward's.
An expanded version of the PuSh Festival, the 125th Anniversary Series explores the idea of ‘cityness.’ The main program involves 18 shows, 110 performances and 11 venues. Highlights include La Marea, a free site-specific work co-presented with Boca del Lupo in Gastown, 100% Vancouver, a community–engaged performance of 100 everyday Vancouverites, Cartographic Exploits, a one-day symposium on mapping as a creative practice, Portraits in Motion, a ‘flipbook’ of images projected onto large screens, and more. www.pushfestival.ca
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La Marea
January 18-22, 2011 - Vancouver's Gastown
At night and in real time in Gastown’s streetscapes, Boca del Lupo Theatre Society presents nine different secret stories in La Marea. Whether on the pavement, in storefronts or restaurant patios, nine scenes are performed concurrently and repeated 10 times. Audiences move between sections watching the action, and reading projected subtitles to reveal the characters' thoughts and life-stories. An investigation of the cityscape, La Marea reveals the intimate lives of individuals amidst the collective hustle of a seemingly anonymous urban experience. La Marea is free and audience is welcome to come and go as they please. Dress warmly. www.bocadellupo.com
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Talking Stick FestivalFebruary 1 to February 13, 2011
Various venues throughout the city: Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, The Wise Hall, The Pond, Café Deux Soleils, Zawa Resturant, the Britannia Community Centre, The Holiday Inn and Suites, and the Scotia Dance Centre. Community workshops at Point Secondary School, Britannia Secondary School and MacDonald Elementary School.
The 10th annual Talking Stick Festival is a 2 week long celebration of Aboriginal performance and art. Over the course of 13 days the Aboriginal community gathers together in a fusion of cabaret, music, dance, theatre and storytelling. In venues across the city, the festival highlight the talents of artists from as far as the Yukon, Ontario, and the United States and as near as Vancouver’s own back yard! Everyone is welcome! Come and join presenters Full Circle for the 10th Annual Talking Stick Festival.
www.fullcircle.ca
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The French Presence in Vancouver: Lectures/Conversations and Walking Tours
Lectures will be held six consecutive Wednesday nights from April 6th to May 11th (7-9PM). Weekend walking tour dates to be determined - Lecture/Symposia-SFU Harbourfront Campus (classroom to be confirmed)
The French Connection Culture Association of B.C. in partnership with The City Program at Simon Fraser University presents six weekly lectures held at SFU's downtown campus. This series will discuss and document the French cultural and historical presence in Vancouver, as well as explore the impact of the city on diverse communities. The French Presence in Vancouver: Lectures/Conversations and Walking Tours will be supplemented by weekend walking tours, local radio broadcasts and Internet podcasts throughout the year. http://fccabc.org
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Vancouver Is Awesome presents Rain City Chronicles: Vancouver in Six Acts
February 1 (St. James Hall), March 30 (The Waldorf Cabaret), May 11, July 6, September, November
Rain City Chronicles: Vancouver in Six Acts, presented by Vancouver is Awesome. Your stories, live! Part lo-fi community event, part voyeuristic encounter, Vancouver in Six Acts is a six-part storytelling showcase for short and true tales on a changing theme, complete with home-baked snacks and music. Come laugh, listen and be entertained by the most interesting strangers you haven’t met. Yet. www.raincitychronicles.com
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WE: Vancouver
February 5 - May 1, 2011 - Vancouver Art Gallery
WE: Vancouver's exhibition and related programming will document the range of practices, actions and ideas by designers, artists, architects, filmmakers, writers, activists, and planners that shape and activate this city. The manifestos are based on twelve calls to action, twelve movements, strategies and practices that fundamentally shape Vancouver today: MOVE, ACTIVATE, CHOOSE, LISTEN, UNITE, REMEMBER, SEE, WASTE (not), CONSUME, PROJECT, SHAPE, SURPRISE). FUSE and other Gallery programming events will explore the many individual and collective ways in which Vancouverites creatively contribute to the City. www.vanartgallery.bc.ca
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DiverCity: Celebrating Vancouver's 125th Birthday
Edith Cavell Elementary School and Laurier Elementary School
Neighbourhood children, youth and community members come together to celebrate Vancouver’s birthday with DiverCity: Celebrating Vancouver’s 125th Birthday. To celebrate this momentous occasion, pre-event and event-day activities linked to Vancouver’s heritage, diversity and future have been scheduled. The celebration at Edith Cavell and Laurier Elementary Schools will include readings, video presentations, and student music and dance performances reflecting distinct cultural traditions within Vancouver. In addition to the day of celebration, participants will also publish a book of wishes for the city, produce a video contest on themes about Vancouver, and create an environmental legacy project. www.vsb.bc.ca
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Bhangra.me: Vancouver’s Bhangra Story
May 5 to October 23, 2011 - Museum of Vancouver
Vancouver’s Bhangra is a mash-up of South Asian music and dance traditions, pop culture influences and global Bhangra beats. Arising out of a joint desire of the Museum of Vancouver and the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration Society to document and reflect on this vibrant living art form, this exhibition looks at the relationships between Bhangra, identity and Vancouver. Bhangra.me is a space where the cultural, social, political and artistic stories of Bhangra intersect, contradict and are shared. www.museumofvancouver.ca
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The Changing Faces of Vancouver’s Chinatown
4 June to 3 July, 2011 - Chinese Cultural Centre Museum
The Changing Faces of Vancouver’s Chinatown exhibition celebrates the City of Vancouver’s 125th Anniversary by exploring Chinese Canadian history, culture and community in the city. The project documents Chinese Canadian experience and influence vis-à-vis Canadian history, and how the community has responded to shared environments, including areas shared with First Nations people. In addition to looking back at the past, this exhibition examines the current issues at stake in the community, as well as celebrates contemporary Chinese Canadian presence in the city, and considers the community’s future impact. www.cccvan.com
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The Vancouver 125 Books of Distinction
October 2011 (publishing date)
The Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia with Poet Laureate Brad Cran will coordinate with its member publishers to reprint 10 lost classic Vancouver books. In addition, we will celebrate and market 10 or more BC books that remain in print and which also represent the literary culture of Vancouver. Together these books will comprise the Vancouver 125 Legacy Books collection. The lost classic book collection will be announced in February and the books will be available for purchase in October 2011. books.bc.ca
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Come and Dance: An Aboriginal Dance Festival
November 17 - 19, 2011 - Scotiabank Dance Centre
Celebrating the Aboriginal heritage of Vancouver through the art of dance, Come and Dance: An Aboriginal Dance Festival will build connections between the Aboriginal dance community, contemporary dance artists and Vancouver dance audiences. Highlighting the importance of dance as a vital component and creative expression in many Aboriginal cultures, dance artists and companies will perform traditional and contemporary Aboriginal dance. In addition to these presentations, Compaigni V'ni Dansi Society will also design a special program for youth and children. www.vnidansi.ca
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