The Storyweaving Project

Vancouver Moving Theatre (VMT) and the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival are excited to announce the Storyweaving Project (working title), produced in partnership with the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Association.

Between now and early May 2012  VMT and our partners will undertake a series of community building and mentor workshops which will culminate in a full production/event early May 2012 at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre.

The Storyweaving Project is a community-event for here and now to help make sense of urban Aboriginal experience.  Storyweaving is about understanding how the past informs our present, and about learning from the past and the present to move into the future with hope.

This interdisciplinary theatrical presentation combines Aboriginal traditional symbolism of the medicine wheel woven with poems, dances, stories, song, testimonies, personal memories, and selections from the Downtown Eastside Community Play (2003). The script is co-written by Renae Morriseau with Rose Georgeson and Savannah Walling and with contributions from urban Aboriginal artists, James Fagan Tait, and Adrienne Wong.

The lead artists on the team are Renae Morriseau (Script Director), Rosemary Georgeson (Artistic Coordinator), Savannah Walling (Artistic Director), Terry Hunter (Producer) and Sherry Small of the Aboriginal Friendship Centre (Cultural Liaison).

The cast includes Aboriginal performers and elders from the Downtown Eastside community and lower mainland, and groups associated with the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre, including among others: elders Sam George and Marge C. White, Bob Baker, Wes Nahanee, Mike and Mique’l Dangeli and the Git Hayetsk Dancers, and DTES aboriginal community members Sue Blue, Stephen Lytton, Kat Norris, Brenda Prince, Priscillia Tait, Herb Varley, and Muriel Williams.

The Storyweaving Project has been made possible with the support the BC Arts Council Festival Enhancement Program and Theatre Project Program, Government of British Columbia through BC Gaming, City of Vancouver Cultural Services, and TELUS.