Literary: Poetry Olympians Hit Summer Dreams!

Jillian Christmas

While Canadians are watching our athletes in London, closer to home, a team of four young writers are going for it all in Charlotte, North Carolina, and being noticed by a large, discriminating poetry audience.

Vancouver is one of only two Canadian teams (the other being Toronto) in a sea of American teams, with a smattering of European contenders. Despite being considered underdogs, they have reached the finals with their group piece, this after a grueling round robin series of bouts where members of the audience are recruited to judge the poetry with score cards, figure skater-style on a scale of 1-10. Poems can be no longer than 3 minutes or the team is subjected to a time penalty.

The National Poetry Slam is the annual poetry slam championship tournament, wherein four- to five-person teams from all over North America and Europe gather to compete against each other for the national team title. It has become part superbowl, part poetry summer camp, and part traveling exhibition. Staged in a different city each year, the National Poetry Slam has emerged as slam’s highest-profile showcase.

This year’s Vancouver team is made up of Jillian Christmas, Erich Haygun, Zaccheus Jackson, Erin Kirsh and Julie Peters.

Jilian Christmas on YouTube

Fresh off the Greyhound, the team takes to the stage at Trout Lake with almost 90 other writers and performers on Saturday, August 25th for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival.

Volunteers are needed. It’s a great way to meet people and learn more about event planning and Vancouver's vibrant writing community.  Those interested can sign up on the website at www.summerdreamsfest.com.


For more information about the festival, including complete directions and line up, check out our website: www.summerdreamsfest.com or email srduncan@shaw.ca or call 604-788-8340

Literary: Award Winner Haley is a Renaissance New Media Artist

Stimulating and directing cultural fulmination is as natural to Heather Haley as manipulating media. She is an innovative programmer with a history of staunch commitment to the arts community and cultural awareness. 

With a strongly held conviction that artists, especially poets, needed to be represented on the World Wide Web, she founded The Edgewise Café in 1994, one of Canada's first electronic literary magazines, along with the non-profit arts organization, the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre. 

The EEC facilitated the Vancouver Videopoem Festival and Telepoetics, a videoconferenced reading series founded by Merilene Murphy. The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre's populist mandate and innovative programs effectively made poetry accessible to all and assisted Canadian artists in expanding both their audience and potential. 

Since 2004, Haley has been the host and curator of the Visible Verse Festival, North America's sustaining venue for the presentation of new and artistically significant poetry film and video. www.heatherhaley.com 

Haley and several other local literary figures of note will be honored at a ceremony on August 24, 2012, at CBC Studio 700. She then takes the stage the following day at Trout Lake with almost 90 other writers and performers for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival. 

 As one might expect, putting on a big event with 3 stages, a children's area, a market place and 90+ performers is a lot of work, so the more help the festival can have the better. Volunteers are needed. It’s a great way to meet people and learn more about event planning and Vancouver's vibrant writing community. Those interested can sign up on The website at www.summerdreamsfest.com. For more information about the festival, including complete directions and line up, check out our website: www.summerdreamsfest.com or email srduncan@shaw.ca or call 604-788-8340

Special Event: Summer Dreams "Comes Home" to Trout Lake!

Barbara Adler & Fang are this year's headliners at Summer Dreams

The biting humour of Barbara Adler's "Fang", is just one highlight of this year's Summer Dream Literary Arts Fest.

When you look at past rosters for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival, you quickly realize that the  "grassroots" used to describe it could easily be the grass of East Vancouver's Trout Lake,  the heart of the trendy neighborhood where many of the performers live and work.

Besides being only a few blocks away from the home of the city's and one of the country's oldest slam poetry venues, Cafe Deux Soleils and the Rio Theatre (which played host to a packed house for the finals for this year's Canadian Festival of the Spoken word), Trout Lake is a jewel in the neighborhood.

As in the past, the headliner for the event will be a familiar name to East Vancouverites, Barbara Adler and Fang. The accomplished spoken word artist cut her teeth at the local slam and has made a successful go of combining her poetry with her other passion, music.

This festival is not just slam based though. It truly lives up to its name of  a literary festival by having such literary greats as Joe Rosenblatt, Bryant Ross, Dennis E. Bolen, Daniela Elza and Heather Haley, just to name a few. There will be free workshops running throughout the day as well. 

For the festival to make the switch from it's long-time Stanley Park location is an important step for the festival's founder and executive producer, Bonnie Nish.

“Trout Lake has always been our ideal spot for the festival, “Nish states.
“While Lumberman's Arch obviously has a lot going for it too, East Van really is a huge centre for the city's writing scene. So many of our performers consider this (Commercial Drive) to be home, and because Pandora’s Collective - the non-profit literary organization which created and runs the festival – has put on so many events on the Drive, we can't help but feel like we are coming home as well.”

As one might expect, putting on a big event with 3 stages, a children's area, a market place and 90+ performers is a lot of work, so the more help the festival can have the better.  Volunteers are needed. It’s a great way to meet people and learn more about event planning and Vancouver's vibrant writing community.  Those interested can sign up on The website at www.summerdreamsfest.com.


For more information about the festival, including complete directions and line up, check out our website: www.summerdreamsfest.com or email srduncan@shaw.ca or call 604-788-8340

Special Event: New Trout Lake Rink Opens

Thursday, September 24th, 5:15 pm – 8 pm, Trout Lake Rink, near Victoria Drive just South of East 12th Avenue, VancouverJust in case you haven’t heard, the Olympics are coming! And with them comes some great new venues, including the Trout Lake Rink and it’s official opening will include a free public skate with mascots from 6:30 – 8 pm and more: vancouver.ca

Public Meeting: New Trout Lake Centre to be Discussed

A public meeting next week will be the perfect opportunity to offer your two cents regarding the redevelopment of the Trout Lake Community Centre.

The meeting is scheduled to discuss the second phase of the project with park board staff and project architects. Phase one of the project included the construction of a new ice rink, which will be used as a practice rink for figure skating during the 2010 Olympic Games.

The new community centre will replace the aging facility built in 1964.

Funding for the new centre was approved as part of the park board's 2009-2011 capital plan, but it wasn't included in the plan until the public loudly protested the centre's initial omission. The meeting takes place Sept. 15 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the community centre, 3350 Victoria Dr. More project details are available on the park board's website at vancouverparks.ca.

Read the full story here >>>

Special Event: Alice in Wonderland Festival @ Trout Lake

The 15th Annual Alice in Wonderland Festival at Trout Lake, SUNDAY, July 12th from 1:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Come as ANY character from Alice in Wonderland -

AND:

The World's Largest Gathering of ALICES, SATURDAY, July 4th at 1:30 p.m., English Bay

Yes, coming up one week from today - A World Record Challenge! If you've always wanted to be ALICE,

please attend! You still have time to assemble the basic Alice costume - blue dress, white pinafore, headband,

and a crinoline if you got one! All Alices must go to the website and state your Intent to Appear.

Please see our websites for full details:

http://www.aliceinwonderlandfestival.com

http://www.communityartsworkshop.com

Volunteers are always needed - many hands make delight work -

so please contact us if you'd like to be involved.

Hope to see you there!

And please forward this invite to all interested parties!

Yours in Wonderland,

The Hatter

hatter@communityartsworkshop.com

The Community Arts Workshop Society Invites You to Attend
The 15th Annual Alice in Wonderland Festival

Sunday, July 12th, from 1:00 - 5:00 PM at Trout Lake Park

"Curiouser and Curiouser!"

Lewis Carroll's delightful characters come to life at Vancouver’s 15th Annual Alice in Wonderland Festival, July 12th starting at 1:00 PM at Trout Lake (John Hendry Park, 15^th and Victoria).

On that special Sunday the east side of Trout Lake becomes an enchanted "Wonderland", complete with an impossibly long 30 foot table for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, giant tea pots, the Queen of Hearts Castle and dozens of characters roaming the Park in fantastic costumes.

This community festival boasts a cast of more than 50 actors, including Gina Bastone, Dan Vie, Kuei-Ming Lin, Christopher Sumpton, and Jim Sands, with musical refreshments provided by The Carnival Band, Toot-A-Lute, Gamelan Madu Sari and The End Tree.

Come dressed up as your favorite Lewis Carroll character and travel with Alice as she meets Humpty Dumpty and the Cheshire Cat, joins in the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, plays a wicked game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts, learns life lessons from the Caterpillar and dances the Lobster Quadrille. It’s all in good fun!

This free event offers participatory activities for adults and children. Come in costume, or get character make up and make costumes on the spot at our Imagination Station. Meet knights in real armor, visit with Queen Victoria, exchange riddles with the Mad Hatter, and have your picture taken by Lewis Carroll - plus meet the real-life ancestors of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell. Bring a family picnic and join in tea, biscuits and wild speculation at The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Don’t forget to bring your favorite pink flamingo! No tickets are required, just bring a smile and come down to the park.

In the case of inclement weather, the festival will occur at Trout Lake the following Sunday, June 19th at 1:00 PM.

Please Note: As a warm up to the Festival, you are also invited to the Alices Everywhere Event. On Saturday, July 4th at English Bay, we shall attempt to achieve a world’s record for the largest assembly of people ever dressed as Alice in Wonderland. Please see www.aliceinwonderlandfestival.com for more photos, video, Registration details.

News: Voters to decide on $23-million Trout Lake reno

Christina Montgomery, The Province

Published: Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Months of lobbying paid off yesterday for Trout Lake residents as Vancouver city council voted unanimously to find $23 million for long-awaited renovations of their threadbare community centre.

The project was added to the city's 2009-2011 capital plan that will be put on the ballot during the November municipal election.

If voters approve the plan, it will still be up to the next council to ensure the work is carried out as budgeted.

Read the full story here >>>

Special Event: Illuminares Tonight!

Public Dreams Society invites you to our 19th annual Illuminares Lantern Procession lighting up Trout Lake and John Hendry Park. The date for 2007 is TONIGHT!

The theme this year is "Drive of Dreams", in honor of the forces that guide us to the magical places in our lives. The theme is a play on words inspired by the neighborhood, celebrating Victoria Dr., Commercial Dr. and all the dreamers that live around and come out to John Hendry Park for Illuminares Lantern Procession.

Special Event: Alice in Wonderland Tea Party

Alice in Wonderland Tea Party - Sunday July 15th at 1-4pm on the east side of Trout Lake.

The fantastic characters of Lewis Carroll’s beloved 'Alice in Wonderland' come alive with an all-ages cast of more than forty community players at our 14th annual community festival, offering old-fashioned participatory fun for all.

Come as your favourite character, bring a family picnic and join Alice as she meets Humpty Dumpty, has tea with the Mad Hatter, plays croquet with the Queen of Hearts, and dances the Lobster Quadrille to the fabulous sounds of 'Toot-A-Lute' and eccentric duo 'Maria in the Shower'.

More info:
www.communityartsworkshop.com

The Illuminares Lantern Procession Needs You!

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Be a part of one of East Van's longest running traditions. With 20,000 patrons, hundreds of performers, and countless lanterns, the event doesn't happen on its own. We need your creative spirit and helping hands on our incredible crew of volunteers to help create the magic we do!

Help sought:

· Pre-event lantern building Team

· Event Production Crew

· Site Decorating Crew

· Hospitality (food and drink management)

· People Liaison (info booth, check-in, donation rovers)

· The Perimeters of the Party Barricading Team

Volunteers are the life of this event, and deserve to be well celebrated. In addistion to ensuring that you'll be well fed and watered during the event, There will be a Public-Dreams style Illuminares After-Party held Wednesday, August 1 ^st.

Let us know how you can help by emailing volunteer@publicdreams.org or calling us 604.879.8611 x 103.

Come meet the team and sign up in person! Wednesday, July 11 at the Trout Lake Community Centre between 6-8pm.

Eagerly and appreciatively yours,

Andrea Curtis, Volunteer Coordinator

Ari Lazer, Volunteer Coordinator Assistant

Public Dreams Society

141 – 2050 Scotia Street

Vancouver, BC V5T 4T1

Office 604.879.8611, Fax 604.879.8614

volunteer@publicdreams.org

www.publicdreams.org

Jah Jireh Family Soapworks at the Trout Lake Farmer's Market

Jah Jireh Family Soapworks will have a table at the first

Trout Lake Farmer’s Market

of the season, this Saturday, May 26. The market is located in the parking lot of the Trout Lake Community Centre on Victoria Drive at E.14th.

We’re new to the market and have only been able to secure a few dates so far this summer, (we’re hoping for more) so keep your eyes peeled for us!

Of course you can always get our soaps at one of our retailers:

Drive Organics, 1045 Commercial Drive

Virgin Mary’s, 1035 Commercial Drive

and always online at www.naturalpod.com.

Special Event: Paws for Peace Dog Walk

To end the suffering caused by landmines

On Saturday, April 28th, 2007, the Red Cross will be hosting the 5th annual Paws for Peace Dog Walk. This very short walk will be held at Trout Lake's picnic site and will be a family-based event featuring face painting, a dog agility course, and refreshments. The event starts at 10 a.m. Pre-register by emailing paws4peace@redcross.ca.

The Red Cross hosts this event annually to raise awareness abou the humanitarian costs of landmines and to raise funds to help end the suffering they cause. Landmines still contaminate over 80 countries and kill or injure someone every 30 minutes.

Proceeds from this event will support the training of mine detection dogs, who play a crucial role in assisting their human partners. These dogs are specifically trained to sniff out explosives, greatly accelerating the removal process. Partial proceeds will also support landmine victims assistance. At Paw for Peace, dogs will walk together for a better and safer world.

Come and participate so one day no one will have to walk in fear.

If you would like more information, contact Michelle Hassen at 604-709-6653 or email paws4peace@redcross.ca

When?

Saturday, April 28th, 2007 10 a.m. - noon