ARTS

ARTS Flamenco festival lures phenom for two free shows

by Charlie Smith

Longtime Vancouver dancer Kasandra “La China” describes Iminah Kani as a “killer guitarist” who’s far younger than her peers playing flamenco music in B.C. Photo by Karissa Chandrakate.

Almost all of B.C.’s flamenco guitarists are male. And for the most part, they’re all middle age at a minimum, according to “I never met him but I’ve heard his music and I think that was also an inspiration for me as well, just the feeling of that,” Kani revealed. “I’m somehow culturally tied to this music.” longtime Vancouver flamenco dancer Kasandra “La China”. But not Iminah Kani, a 24-year-old wunderkind from Victoria by way of Salt Spring Island.

“Iminah Kani is a killer guitarist and she’s a woman and she’s really young, too,” gushed “La China” in a phone interview with the Straight. “She’s a protégé of [Victoria flamenco guitarist] Gareth Owen.”

Kani is scheduled to play two performances with Peña Flamenca at Granville Island this weekend (September 4 and 5) as part of the free portion of the Vancouver International Flamenco Festival (September 4 to 26). The event nurtures the art form’s hybridized roots, which include Sephardic, Persian, Roma, and Indian influences.

When reached by phone in Victoria, Kani said that she was first exposed to flamenco when she began listening to the Gipsy Kings, which popularized flamenco rumba around the world. But it was Paco de Lucía, a Spanish flamenco guitar virtuoso, who really knocked her socks off, particularly when he played his hit “Entre dos aguas”.

She described it as an amazing song and felt compelled to figure out how to play it.

“Flamenco is a huge undertaking to learn,” Kani acknowledged. “There are so many different styles and so much technique.”

Cante jondo means “deep song” in Spanish. This term is often used to describe the deepest and most serious form of flamenco music coming out of Andalusia, which is the southernmost autonomous community in Spain.

“I enjoy how expressive it is,” Kani said. “I feel like it’s able to encompass a lot of different emotions. A lot of the songs are very jondo.”

Her mother was born in Kuwait and raised in Egypt; her maternal grandfather was a singer from Morocco. She likened flamenco music to a melting pot, encompassing a range of cultures. It’s a point also stressed by “La China”, who teaches this art form, which brings together guitar, singing, dancing, and hand-clapping, also known as palmas. “La China” said that flamenco actually has two broad lineages. One is the Spanish dance, which incorporates all the folk dances from all cities and regions of Spain. “The Spanish dance comes from aristocratic origins, so those dancers were trained in the conservatory,” she said. “They were fully trained dancers to perform for royalty.” Flamenco music, on the other hand, originated from marginalized races in Andalusia—and particularly from those with Roma bloodlines who traced their roots back to northern India. They made their way across northern Africa before eventually residing in southern Spain. “In Vancouver, we have a very hybridized form of what we consider to be flamenco,” “La China” noted. This hybridity will be reflected in the performances at Granville Island. “La China” will perform with her company, Mozaico Flamenco. She noted that this opening act will also feature youths dancing solos alongside legendary septuagenarian choreographer Oscar Nieto. “He’s going to be singing the show, and then, if we’re lucky, he might dance a bit.” Mozaico Flamenco embraces cuadro flamenco, which goes back to 1850s-era Andalusia. After that, it’s Kani’s turn onstage, followed by Jhoely Triana, who has a background in modern dance and ballet. According to “La China”, she’s also into salsa, samba, and Brazilian dancing in addition to flamenco. “So it will be interesting to see her try to do a full show of pure flamenco to contemporary flamenco,” she said.

An hour later, Jafelin Helten & Friends will perform. “La China” said that Helten sings a form of Latin jazz with Cuban musicians, describing their music as “quite a bit of fusion” that includes bolero. “It actually takes on a whole celebratory Latin American flavour.”

The weekend afternoons of flamenco at Granville Island will conclude with Bonnie Stewart & Friends. Stewart, like “La China”, has been dancing for two decades. According to “La China”, members of Stewart’s group are all protégés of the festival’s executive director, Rosario Ancer, who hails from Mexico and is one of the first-gen flamenco artists in the city.

“La China” pointed out that very few members of B.C.’s flamenco community are ethnically Spanish. She traces her roots back to China, hence her name. Nieto is MexicanAmerican. Triana is Colombian Canadian, and Helten’s roots go back to Venezuela. Guitarists Peter Mole and Kani are Canadian The Spanish think that flamenco is theirs, “La China” said, whereas the Roma argue that it’s their art form. “The truth is it includes three different religions,” she said. “It includes Judaism; it has Catholic and Christian roots; and it also has Moorish and Arabic and Islamic roots as well.” g

The Vancouver International Flamenco Festival’s free performances take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday (September 4 and 5) at the Picnic Pavilion stage at Granville Island.

ARTS Visual arts moves into spotlight at TAIWANfest

Lady Hao Hao, Cheng Chin-wen, and Chen Cheng-po are among those who are attracting attention

by Charlie Smith

This year’s TAIWANfest offers programming for music lovers, those interested in current affairs, film aficionados, and anyone interested in Taiwanese cuisine. Plus, the festival is hosting the fifth of its annual Dialogues With Asia series, this time focusing on South Korea.

But for some, the greatest appeal of TAIWANfest is its visual-arts component. Last week, the Straight covered Taiwanese-born artist Lady Hao Hao’s playful yet exceedingly serious Just Taiwan series of graphic images, which lampoon the propensity of some to label this independent nation as “Chinese Taipei”.

This online exhibition appears alongside another exhibition on the TAIWANfest website entitled Cultures Fermented, by artist Cheng Chin-wen. In depicting a giant urn, Cheng likens the development of Taiwanese and South Korean culture to the process of fermentation, with Confucianism and historical occupation by Japan as two of the base ingredients.

“The evolution of culture is just like the fermentation of food,” an accompanying video states. “Through different chapters in history, various traditions, and social movements, the making of today’s Taiwanese and Korean cultures has been gradually accumulating and transforming.” Taiwan and South Korea each performed the astonishing feat of transforming themselves from martial law to thriving democracies, which is also shown in the urn. And some freedom advocates in both countries paid a heavy price to achieve liberty for their compatriots. These efforts to create new narratives have become a staple of TAIWANfest’s Dialogues With Asia series. But another way in which the festival has helped reinforce a new national narrative is by elevating awareness of one of Taiwan’s most famous painters, Chen Cheng-po (also known as Tan Ting-pho). He was influenced by a Japanese artist, Ishikawa Kinichiro, who was among those who introduced western watercolours to the island when it was colonized by Japan from 1895 to 1945. Chen’s life story reflected the tumultuous history of his homeland in the early to middle part of the 20th century. He loved Chinese literature and moved to Shanghai, where he taught western art. But he was not welcome in China after hostilities broke out between Japan and China because he came from what was then Japanese territory. After he returned to Taiwan, Chen then ran into trouble with the Kuomintang government, which took control of the island after the Japanese surrendered. The KMT under Chiang Kai-shek killed him in the notorious February 28 Incident in 1947 because he was considered part of the Taiwanese elite. He perished along with thouands of other Taiwanese people. Chen’s eldest grandson, Li-po Chen, chairs the Chen Cheng-po Cultural Foundation, and he will be among those giving videotaped presentations at this year’s TAIWANfest. His is called Mountains, Seas, and Plains and explains how his grandfather’s many oil paintings reflected the landscape of Taiwan. In an interview with the Straight through a translator, Li-po Chen noted that his grandfather was trained as a teacher under the Japanese education system and taught elementary school for four years in addition to his formal art instruction from Japanese painters.

“Despite this kind of training background, he was never shaped into conventional Japanese elite,” Li-po Chen said. “On the other hand, after he became famous, he devoted his career to fostering an identity that differs from the contemporary western or classical Japanese styles. He had always wanted to see if this search of identity could help his home of Taiwan establish her unique cultural perspective.”

According to Li-po Chen, his father “shouldered the strong and undeniable devotion to find the most truthful positioning of Taiwan’s history” through his work.

“Exploring all the scattered material facts to adequately interpreting his artistic visions is what we are dedicated to do— and the result is our ultimate responsibility,” he said.

He noted that there are also some parallels between Chen Cheng-po and Emily Carr, who is one of B.C.’s most famous painters. That’s because both demonstrated strong passion and empathy that were always felt beyond their frames.

“Their respect for the forest and the land, as well as for the Indigenous peoples and their traditions, is a generational contrast,” Li-po Chen said, “and a good reflection for the contemporary generations of artists who focus on expressionism or the modernity of the arts.” g

Their respect for the forest and the land…is a generational contrast – Li-po Chen

Chen Cheng-po’s West Huifang, 1932 was painted when Taiwan was a Japanese colony.

MUSIC Meeka Morgan fights fire with Indigenous music

by Steve Newton

When Meeka Morgan picks up the phone at her home in Ashcroft, she’s feeling quite relieved. The wildfires that have been devastating that area aren’t burning out of control anymore.

“It was very horrible,” Morgan says, “there was just fire encroaching from all directions at one point. Looking at the evacuation-alert map, everywhere in our region was either red or yellow. And the smoke is gone—thank goodness. It doesn’t look like it’s turning into night at 1 p.m.”

Less than an hour’s drive away, though, the small town of Lytton wasn’t so lucky. On June 30, after making headlines for recording the hottest-ever temperatures in Canada three days in a row, most of the village burned to the ground in a horrific blaze. The 2 Rivers Remix Society, of which Morgan is artistic director, had its office there.

“It’s our host community, our host nation, and all of the people that I work with—the directors of the society—are either from the town or the nation of Lytton. Over $50,000 of equipment we just purchased was all burnt; we lost our arts projects that we exhibit at our festivals.

“My very close colleague’s home was incinerated as well,” she adds. “It’s quite jarring to get that kind of news and then to see the devastation after, and then to keep going at what we’re doing. But that’s probably the only thing that’s keeping us in a space where we can function.”

Since 2018, the 2 Rivers Remix Society has been presenting its Indigenous music festival in Lytton, which is also known as ‘Q’əmcín. Last year, it managed to secure an appearance by Buffy Sainte-Marie, although the COVID-19 pandemic meant the three-day event had to be presented online.

“We had hired Buffy even before the pandemic had started,” Morgan recalls. “It was one of our dreams to have our major musical cultural icon. We had wanted to bring her live, but when we came closer to the date, we realized that things weren’t changing, so we asked if she would instead do a personalized video, which was just incredible.”

This weekend, the 2 Rivers Remix: We Are Still Here! Virtual Feast Edition will raise funds for the Lytton evacuees. More than 30 Indigenous performers will take part, but Morgan knows which one she will be most thrilled to see.

“For sure Lido Pimienta,” she says. “She’s an AfroIndigenous Colombian, and a Polaris prize winner [from 2017]. I hadn’t actually heard of her until after that time, but once I did I just couldn’t believe that she hasn’t been on my radar before, because I can’t get enough of her. She is pushing the boundaries because she is bringing her Indigenous heritage, knowledge, her ways of being into the mainstream. She challenges our western ways of hearing things, even. So when I took a look at some of the performances that she did online, I was just so blown away.”

Another act Morgan is psyched about seeing this year is festival coheadliner Digging Roots, a Juno-winning bluesrock band composed of the husband and wife team of Raven Kanatakta and ShoShona Kish.

“They’ve been together for quite a long time,” she points out. “I even remember hearing about them over 20 years ago in musical circles, where at that time you just didn’t hear very many indigenous people on the lineups at any of the bigger festivals.”

Other acts taking part include Kinnie Starr, Leela Gilday, PIQSIQ, Old Soul Rebel, Murray Porter, Shawnee Kish, and Amanda Rheaume. Morgan’s own group, the contemporary Indigenous fusion trio Melawmen Collective, will perform as well, which makes the event even more special for her. Over the phone, the passion she brings to her roles as both artist and artistic director is easy to detect. It sounds like she really loves her job.

“I do!” she asserts. “And like I said, with what happened to the town, if I didn’t have this work, I would probably be feeling really lost. To be able to help get people’s spirits lifted and to support our artists during this time—and not just our artists, but our production crews that are so important in our work. All those people are suffering too in the industry. So any way that we can support those people during this time is such an honour.

“And because of the fire, we’ve really had to shift gears and focus on our support of our village of ‘Q’əmcín, which is also known as Lytton, and so we are fundraising to support the fire evacuees, and that can be done at help.2rmx.ca. It’s The people are all displaced, but they are still there in their hearts. And they will be there again.” g

2 Rivers Remix Society artistic director Meeka Morgan is a huge fan of Lido Pimienta. Photo by Billie Jean Gabriel.

The 2 Rivers Remix: We Are Still Here! Virtual Feast Edition takes place online September 4 to 6. Register at virtualfeast.ca.

Sounds of Korea and Taiwan come to Vancouver

by Charlie Smith

Taiwan’s road to democracy in the 1980s was paved by indie music. And, to a certain extent, so was South Korea’s as well. But now both countries are also producing pop music that attracts hordes of fans in countries around the world.

If you’re in the mood to enjoy some of this music from East Asia, check out these five virtual performances at this year’s TAIWANfest, which runs from September 2 to 12.

THE TUNE Most of us have heard of K-pop superstars BTS and iKon and the rapper PSY. But if you’re looking for a band that still retains some Korean traditions within modern music, you might want to check out The Tune. Billed as a world-music band, it plays Korean instruments such as the haegeum (traditional string), janggu (traditional percussion), and piri and taepyeongso (traditional woodwinds). And their shamanistic tunes are packaged in a contemporary and modern look, demonstrating that Korean music doesn’t have to pander completely to western tastes to attract an audience.

The Tune’s shamanistic music is augmented by the use of traditional Korean instruments.

SORRY YOUTH This popular Taiwanese band is paying tribute to overseas elders who fought for Taiwanese democracy from abroad from the 1960s through the 1980s. Some of these activists live in Canada and paid a tremendous price for their activism, being barred from returning to their homeland to visit friends and families. Sorry Youth’s song “Justice in Time” is dedicated to these elders, who haven’t always received their due for their contributions toward liberating Taiwan from martial law.

SUANA EMUY CILANGASAY Music producer, singer-songwriter, and theatre artist Suana Emuy Cilangasay didn’t know about his Indigenous heritage until he visited his mother’s Amis hometown in the mountains of eastern Taiwan. That led him on a search for his identity, which involved giving up his Chinese name and studying tribal languages with the help of his grandmother, mother, and godmother. Cilangasay also teamed up with Cree visual artist Kent Monkman on a music video. It features Monkman’s stunning paintings of Canada’s shameful treatment of Indigenous peoples juxtaposed with powerful vocals and memorable traditional and western instrumental music.

FLYING DANCE STUDIOS In another TAIWANfest nod to South Korea, the leader of Vancouver’s Flying Dance Studios, YingYing Wang, demonstrates how K-pop is reaching out across the Pacific Ocean and shaping not only stylistic tastes but also hip-hop moves in our town.

YAWAY MAWRING Taiwan’s Yaway Mawring writes and sings in the Indigenous Atayal language. But she didn’t always do this—it was only after she became a mother that she felt it was necessary to embrace her mother’s language in her compositions. Her first album, Swasieq, is named after her First Nation and it captured two Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan. Her second disc, ‘Iaqu’ ‘Tayal’ (Let’s Sing Together) has a grand ambition: through nursery songs for children in Atayal, she’s hoping to help revive the language for her young listeners. g