Live On The Drive: Summer Dreams 2010

Live On the Drive caught up with Bonnie Nish, executive producer of the 7th Annual Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival happening August 13-24 and featuring several local writers and musicians.
For more info about the event, check out their schedule at: https://sites.google.com/site/summerdreamsfest/
for full details.

Live On The Drive: The Arrivals Co(Lab) Exchange

The Co(Lab) showing: An Indigenous Crossroads laboratory

The Arrivals Co(Lab) Exchange (Nov 16-22) is a multidisciplinary performance project exploring root cultural practices, ancestral embodiment and intercultural exchanges. Using Commercial Drive-based urban ink’s Personal Legacy Creation process, led by Diane Roberts, Heather Hermant, Danielle Smith and Rose Georgeson- 18 artists of Aboriginal & diverse backgrounds from across the country will plant the first seeds for an exciting new cross-disciplinary performance work. The Co(Lab) will culminate in an invitational showing on November 22nd at 7pm. The Co(Lab) performance outcome will explode with contemporary and historic collisions of language, ancestry, and ceremony. – Join in the post-showing talk back session to piece out the Co(Lab) creation-compounds.
Live On The Drive talked to Roberts and co-creators Mayahuel Tecozautla, a transplanted actor, dancer and choreographer from Mexico, now living in Toronto; Gwen Armstrong, a visual artist and nurse from Winnipeg, Chimwemwe Miller, a storyteller, musician, actor and parent, to discuss what the process was like for each of them.
 The event takes place November 22, 2009 at 7pm- 112 W. Hastings (W2 Bldg.) Vancouver BC 

Contact: Siobhan Barker info@urbanink.ca and 604-692-0885 http://www.urbanink.ca/

Live on the Drive: Interview with Cast and Crew of Pink Floyd's The Wall @ The Rio

Live On The Drive caught up with Doug Thoms, the director of Pink Floyd's The Wall, and Mark Downey, who plays "Pink" in this live musical playing until the 14th at the Rio.

For more info check out our earlier post:
http://thedriveisalive.blogspot.com/2009/11/theatre-pink-floyd-wall-live-stage-show.html

Live on the Drive: Interview with Addena Sumter-Freitag

It’s tough enough to be a teenager, let alone a girl, let alone a teenaged girl in the only Black family in post-war Winnipeg and Nova Scotia!
No doubt one would have enough stories to fill a book.
Indeed, local writer Addena Sumter-Freitag had enough poems and stories to fill two!
Back in the Days – her second collection - recently published through Commercial Drive-based Wattle & Daub Press, brings to life the girls, boys, men and women of the Black communities in Winnipeg and Nova Scotia of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s adding to the tapestry of memories Sumter-Freitag brought to us with her first book, Stay Black And Die.
A 7th generation African Canadian, Sumter-Freitag was born in St. Boniface, grew up in Winnipeg's North End, and has lived all across Canada, before settling here.
She was a black child in a white prairie city and a young woman in the ungentle hands of racism and love. As personal as she makes every encounter, the collection helps flesh out the Black experience in Canada for many of us who can barely fathom it. And yet, as I read these stories, I can't help but see myself somewhere in these stories. Probably because Sumter-Frietag's writing reminds me a little of my own prairie childhood and I like that. Deep down – I don't need to be black or female to find something familiar to hang on to.
Addena says she challenges ‘form’ in order to bring her stories, characters, and worlds alive, inviting you love them, hate them, identify with them, or wonder at them.
“I love to make my audience laugh, and encourage them to cry, whatever the musical and composition of the language compels them to feel,” she claims.
RC Weslowski, Poet of Honour at the 2008 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, has this to say about her work:
(She) bounces between voices and characters with ease like a honey bee going from flower to flower pollinating our minds with the multiple perspectives of her subjects. Each person feels authentic as she takes on the weight and history of her family and provides them with release through these stories and poems. It’s a trip into the past well worth taking.
Wise, wild, woeful and knowing, the writer’s words lift off the page and sweep you with them into worlds hidden, forgotten, repressed and denied. She is a sage tale-spinner who will challenge and confront you, caress and console you. Oh yes, and she’ll make you laugh, too!
Her last book, Stay Black & Die, published by Commodore Books, has been included in the English curriculum reading lists at UBC, Emily Carr, Vanier College: Montreal, and Women’s studies, UBC.
When she's out making a living, she dreams of the blue oceans, white sands, and reggae music of Jamaica, “a land where she discovered a kaleidoscope of coloured faces who could be kin.”
Besides her big and extended family, the stage is Addena’s true love and you can tell by the brightness in her voice and smile that she's a strong character actor.
She co-directed Black Theatre West’s production of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” at City Stage here in Vancouver. She has also toured her award-winning play “Stay Black & Die” across Canada as well as at Australia’s Adelaide Fringe Festival, where she performed at each engagement to ‘sold out’ houses.
As a storyteller and performance poet, she is a familiar face and voice in Vancouver’s poetry and storytelling community, performing at the Vancouver Storytelling Festival, Vancouver Spoken Word Festival, The World Poetry Reading Series, Vancouver’s Women’s Film Festival.
“I live in East Vancouver,” she says, “because I love the swirls of color in the paint of its people, and the music of languages that play in the air. The neighborhood's vibrancy and diversity remind me of Winnipeg's North End, so it feels like home.” She shares a household with her husband Irvin and daughter April. "No dogs, no cats, no fish, and only plants that understand water is a rare treat."
We caught up with Addena in her East Van kitchen for this neat little interview and impromptu reading. For more info about the book and this talented writer, check out her website: http://www.addenasumterfreitag.com

Live on the Drive: Broadway Skytrain Station

I spent some time yesterday perched on a stool at Blendz, attempting a little work and wanting a slight change of scenery from Waves - my usual Commercial Drive branch office.
Blendz itself makes decent coffee and the service is always very pleasant, but man, especially on a dull, day like yesterday was, that is a bleak place to people watch. That particular corner is a true hotbed of crime. It is littered with school-aged kids, many with babies, who should be in school. There was even a dealer who had set up shop in the cafe, dealing right in the store!
One would think that, after the repeat stabbing incident a couple of weeks back, there would be a stronger police presence looming about, but that didn't seem to be the case.
What's with this corner? Perhaps it needs a smudging.
Those who remember that corner when there was a billard hall will recall that even then it felt like a troubled place. Although I liked it when that pool hall started selling used books, too. Might have even bought a hot dog there.

Live on the Drive: Interview with Summer Dream Literary Arts Festival organizers

Recorded July, 18, 2009

My interview with Bonnie Nish and Rhonda Milne, organizers of the 6th Annual Summer Dream Literary Arts Festival, held August 19th to 29th. For more info on the event go to www.pandorascollective.com/sdrfestival.

Thanks t.o Lynn Wilson for operating the camera on the intro.

Live On The Drive: Theatre In The Raw Takes Big, Raw Step

I had a chance to sit down with the Artistic Director of East Vancouver's Theatre In The Raw, Jay Hamburger and Serge Saika, one of the cast of its "2008 Rolling Stock Prairie Theatre" troupe, which heads out late in May for parts East with three original one-act plays (two of which were written by Hamburger and Downtown Eastside playwright Patrick Foley.
Our conversation concerned the plays' issues around encroachment, the environment, and aging.

The cast members, which also include zi paris, Maria Lakes, Roger Howie and Michelle Richard will all play various roles in the different plays and Richard starts each evening with a selection of traditional French-Canadian, jazz, and original songs, in both French and English.
Find out more about the tour at: http://www.rollingstockprairietheatre.blogspot.com

Some folks may not realize that Hamburger is a bit of a living legend, having written lyrics for the legendary Broadway musical, Godspell. As this interview shows, Jay Hamburger is truly a Commercial Drive original!

The tour launches in Vancouver at the PAL Lodge Theatre, 581 Cardero St. on May 20 (Preview), 21, 23, 24.

For more info call or write sergesavoy@gmail.com or phone (604) 708-5448

Live On The Drive: Mike Swan

A little street performance by Commercial Drive regular Mike Swan.

Live On The Drive @ The End Cafe

Last night I spent some time at the End Cafe, listening to Leonard and the Lab Rats. They are a tight, funky blues band from right here in Vancouver. http://www.myspace.com/leonardandthelabrats

They were joined on stage by Natalie von Rotsburg, who belted out a few great songs to an appreciative audience. Watch her version of "Black Magic Woman" below.





















































Jeff Ellis, Jhayne Holmes and Natalie von Rotsburg.

Live On The Drive

I took advantage of a Sunday afternoon without rain to snap some pictures. It was a great day on the Drive for sure.




As i walked, I ran into a group of BCIT students practicing some street interviews.
I stopped and let them ask questions.


After that, I gave Brooke, my interviewer (seen here), a Commercial Drive T-shirt, compliments of the Commercial Drive BIA.

Live On the Drive: Wyckham Porteous

We brought in the new year in style with Commercial Drive favorite Wyckham Porteous and his Skedaddlers at Chapel Arts. This video was taken just before midnight.



For more Live On The Drive videos check out our playlist on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=478EF0B433DBB8C3



Simon, keyboard wizard for the Skedaddlers.

Me, Natalie Von Rotsburg, and Joel Sliman (photo: Catherine Munn)

Drive fans Bryn Ditmars and Sarah Louise Atkinson.

Me with actress/singer Natalie Von Rotsburg, who blew people away with her version of Black Magic Woman helped out by members of the Skedaddlers.

Live On The Drive: Aaron Cadwaladr

This video was shot earlier last month at the EMBERS Christmas Craft Fair.
EMBERS is a great organization based in the downtown Eastside, that specializes in helping a variety of small businesses (and artists!) get off the ground.

If Aaron's sound stylings seem a little reminiscent of Neil Young, that might not be a coincidence. As well as being a music teacher, Aaron plays in a Neil Young tribute band called Live Rust.



For Commercial Drive videos, check out my playlist on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=478EF0B433DBB8C3

Merry Christmas!!!

To everyone, a very happy holiday and the best of the New Year to you.










Thanks to everyone from all over the world who have made Commercial Drive - Live! successful and a joy to work on. Keep visiting for more exciting developments as we continue to grow.

I'm including a little video I shot at the Britannia Christmas Craft Fair featuring the Voices Rising Ensemble led by Colleen Savage, to help get you into the Christmas spirit.

Live on the Drive: Sudanda

Live on the Drive: Queso Blanco at the Libra Room

Queso Blanco
A band that must be seen to be heard! This Vancouver quartet of Noah Walker, guitar; Michael Paterson, double bass; Tyson Naylor, Hammond B3; and Michael Simpson, drums and percussion, bring aspects of their many eclectic influences and a wild stage performance to combine into a wholly new and fresh sound. Strains of surf rock, jazz, Cuban tumbao, reggae, 60’s space age, and Hawaiian music all come together in the band’s strange stew of energetic compositions and arrangements.
Hear them every Saturday night at the Libra Room.

www.libraroom.com

Live On The Drive: Latin Quarter

The swinging band Sumaloo are on stage every Friday and Saturday night!


The Latin Quarter's Jose gives bartender Monica a peck on the cheek!


Me with artist and Yaletown Gallery curator, Jabbar Al Janabi.


Sumaloo's lead singer Oliver at work!


Monica does far more than serve great drinks! Here she is sitting in on with the band.


For more info on live events on the Drive, check out our sister site: www.liveonthedrive.ca