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Read about the performers at this year's Collingwood Days festivals!
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All Bodies Dance Project

All Bodies Dance Project (ABDP) is an inclusive dance company located on unceded Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, BC). Founded in 2014, ABDP brings together artists with and without disabilities to explore movement as a means of creative expression. The group offers accessible dance classes for adults and youth of all abilities in addition to creating opportunities for diverse artists to practice, research and create innovative, inclusive dance.

Ariel Amara

Ariel Amara is a multi-faceted performer, trained in clowning and a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader. Specializing in extreme tallness, elaborate costuming and engaging character, hoop dance and fire performance. She has performed and facilitated all around the globe. 

Her primary goals in life are to delight peoples senses and inspire a twinkle in the eye ~ enticing childlike joy, mischief and more…

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BS - Nov 2018e

Balkan Shmalkan

Balkan Shmalkan is East Vancouver’s premier dance party orchestra; think global music with local attitude. Their funky brass dance beats are rooted in the aural traditions of the Roma and Klezmorim of Eastern Europe and blended with a mixture of pop, funk, and jazz.

Carmen Rosen

Carmen Rosen is a visual artist, singer, and interdisciplinary performer. She has a long history of initiating art projects and creative community integrated projects. In 2010 Carmen received the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, and in 2012 the Queen’s Jubilee Award for her art with the community. She has an Art History degree from UBC and a diploma from Emily Carr Institute. Carmen is the founder and artistic director of Still Moon Arts Society: inspiring vibrant and connected communities by creating art and nurturing a passion for nature. Through Still Moon( www.stillmoonarts.ca ) and in collaboration with many community partners, she creates the Renfrew Ravine Moon Festival, and other projects and special events shedding light on Renfrew Ravine, Still Creek, salmon in the city, and the community’s creative capacity. In 2016 Carmen created a major public art sculpture “Still Here” on Kingsway near Earles St. In 2017 she was an artist in residence at CACIS Centre for Art and Sustainability in Spain. In 2018 she collaborated with artists Paula Jardine, Cathy Stubington, and Robi Smith as Birds in Residence and Birds on Parade for the International Ornithological Congress and the Vancouver Bird Festival. In 2018/19 she co-created living mushroom sculptures “Mycelial Connections” and “Fruiting Bodies” with artist/mycologist Willoughby Arevalo. Carmen also loves natural dyes and has been growing the Colour Me Local Dye garden since 2019 to learn the process of dyes from seed to coloured fabric. You can see her TEDx talk online.

the carnival band 2020

The Carnival Band

The Carnival Band is a twenty piece brass band based out of Vancouver. They started in 1999 as a protest band, and have been supporting community events with their own original music ever since. Inspired by Brazilian Samba and New Orleans Jazz they create an inclusive upbeat atmosphere wherever they go. The best part is you're already in the band; with their open door policy all are welcome to join in on workshops every Monday evening at Britannia Community Centre.

Clara Rose

Clara Rose is a performing artist with deep roots in the Renfrew-Collingwood community. Primarily a musician, Rose is a skilled violinist, vocalist and composer who finds inspiration in the vivid landscape of the unceded Tsleil-waututh, Musqueam, Squamish, and Stó:lō lands where she had the joy of growing up. Rose studied stilt dance, fire spinning and clowning through Ren-Col’s own Still Moon Arts Society and has performed at countless events in the community including The Renfrew Ravine Moon Festival and previous Collingwood Days!

Twisted Clara At Kispiox. pc Elizabeth Larsen
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Find Mutya a.k.a. mutya macatumpag

Mutya is a queer filipino of Spanish and Malayan descent, born a settler on the unsurrendered ancestral Coast Salish Territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Mutya is an interdisciplinary artist who combines music, movement, theatre and visual arts within her professional practice as a vocalist, creator, mc, performer, creative empowerment facilitator and event producer. While experimenting with a keyboard, looper, audio samples and guitalele, Mutya creates collages of sound landscapes. Her voice, a warm vibrato, lends a depth and emotion that has been described as transcending time and evoking ancient memories from within her audiences.

Passionate about social justice, Mutya seeks out opportunities to explore authentic exchange, while lending her leadership skills to empowering intergenerational communities through artistic expression. She has worked with a variety of intergenerational, intercultural and youth focused organizations across BC, Canada and the US. She is currently working with Partners for Youth Empowerment (PYE), IndigenEyez and Reel Youth. She recently completed a 13 week multi-disciplinary Glitter Technics workshop series at the SUM Gallery, and facilitated the NIKA Un-conference earlier this year with Pride in Art Society. 

Mutya has performed and MC’d at numerous events and festivals including Asian Heritage Month, Artswells Festival of All Things Art, Verses Festival of Words, BC BUDS, Banff Centre for the Arts, Vancouver International Dance Festival, Vancouver Art Gallery, VIVO, Tiny Tiny Cozy Fest, Queer Arts Festival, Koksilah Music Festival, Vancouver Dyke March, Vancouver Pride, Seattle Pride, Perversité Montreal, Montreal Jazz Festival and the New Forms Festival. Mutya’s most recent musical performances include the New Music Series on Galiano, New Forms Festival in Vancouver, and the Tiny Tiny Cozy Fest on Mayne Island. More performances to come in 2020 & 2021.

Listen to a sample of Mutya's music  - https://soundcloud.com/findmutya/i-am-the-sun-mix1

Photos by Phoenix Olivia

Gamelan Bike Bike

Gamelan Bike Bike draws its musical inspiration from Bali, Indonesia and its raw materials from the scrap metal bins of Vancouver. In 2012, instrument maker George Rahi collected over 100 discarded bicycle frames to build the instruments, configuring the colourful metal scraps into various types of metallophones instruments. The 10 member ensemble is dedicated to performing new works for gamelan, including recent compositions from guest composer I Putu Gede Sukaryana (Balot) from Bali. The ensemble has presented performances with the Western Front, Vancouver New Music, and the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, and in 2017 released Hi-Ten, a collection of original works with the Indonesia-based label Insitu Recordings.

Copy of Gamelan Bike Bike - Photo by Yohei Shimomae-7
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Heather Sparks

Heather Dawn Sparks engages collective action and inspired participation through immersive sculptural and performative works of art. Her dreamscape environments vividly bring to life forms from nature and the sublime absurdity of play.

June Fukumura

June Fukumura is a Japanese-Canadian theatre artist with a BFA in Theatre Performance from Simon Fraser University. Her practice includes acting and performance, clowning, dramaturgy, puppetry, and devised experimental theatre. June is the Co-Founder of New(to)Town Collective (2014 – present) an artist collective with a mandate to create new experimental works; provide ongoing accessible physical theatre training; and experimental research workshops in Vancouver. June is also the Co-Artistic Director of Popcorn Galaxies (2013 – present) an experimental theatre company interested in re-enchanting the everyday through unconventional site-responsive works. She is the Assistant Dramaturg at the Playwrights Lab at the Banff Centre for the Arts and was the Emerging Dramaturg for Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre in 2019/20. Recent acting and performance credits include: Akashi by Mayumi Yoshida (feature film workshop, 2020); Otosan by Shizuka Kai (workshop presentation, Little Onion Puppet Co., 2019); My Name is SUMIKO by June Fukumura (Vancouver Fringe Festival, New(to)Town Collective, 2019); and Forgiveness by Hiro Kanagawa (New Play Festival, Arts Club Theatre, 2019).

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Keely O'Brien

Keely O'Brien is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice incorporates intricately handmade objects with immersive, innovative theatre creation. Devoted to a thoroughly handmade, DIY process, Keely’s work includes puppetry in miniature and enormous scales, immersive installations, imaginative ephemera, and interactive experiences. As a community engaged arts educator Keely creates and facilitates participatory and collaborative artwork with community members and organizations. Deeply site-responsive and engaged with questions of place, home, and belonging, Keely's work aims to celebrate the potential for creativity and community in the place and people around her.

www.keelyobrien.ca

Nayana Fielkov

Nayana Fielkov is a performing artist living and working on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. She brings together the mediums of clown, dance, mask and physical comedy. Nayana is co-creator and performer in multi award winning shows Falling Awake and Hotel Vortruba from RAGMOP Theatre, Habitats (supported by Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council), the roving troupe The Ladies in White, the clown troupe Poupon Parade, the theatrical musical ensemble The Myrtle Family Band, and The Dusty Flower Pot Cabaret.

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Mountainview concert 2019 (1)

Treesong

"Treesong" is an interesting new Vancouver-based musical group formed by Brad Muirhead that features his original compositions for visual artist David Gowman's hand made instruments he calls "Fuhorns". The Fuhorns are weird and wonderful organically formed and individually unique pieces of musical sculpture, in that they are shaped the way they grew with some alterations by David to make them playable, and some custom carving at each end. Each individual horn has a unique tone color and also a unique set of notes it can play, vaguely reminiscent of "alpen-horns" but WAAAY funkier. The music ranges from rambunctious groove-based Afro-minimalism or angular rhythmic complexity to sonorous & soulful ballad-like songs. Improvised material also features prominently in Treesong performances.  The "Fuhornists" are all highly accomplished brass players from Vancouver's professional music community, and one or two percussionists round-out the group. Treesong has a little something for everyone - it is a fun, musically interesting, visually striking, artistically advanced and entertaining musical spectacle not to be missed.

Willoughby Arevalo

Willoughby Arevalo has been active in the performing arts since his youth, engaging in diverse projects including music, theatre, dance, and circus. He currently is a percussionist with the Carnival Band and performs as a bird on stilts occasionally. Costume by Carmen Rosen.

Headshot 2018