A Celebration in Dance and Music at Mountain View Cemetery, 5455 Fraser Street
June 21, 2015, 7:00 and 9:00 pm (performance approximately 25 minutes)
Summer Solstice 2015 celebrates the circle of life, death and renewal by bringing community together to mark the longest day of the year with art, live music, and performance by 35 community dancers!
The audience will gather near the cemetery’s Celebration Hall to hear music by Arvo Pärt, local powerhouse Sarah Wheeler and a new work composed for the occasion by Mark Haney. Thirty-five community dancers choreographed by Jessica Barrett will move through the beautiful green spaces of the central part of Vancouver’s only cemetery, past an art installation by Diane Park.
Musicians: Adrian Verdejo (guitar), Marina Hasselberg (cello), Mark Haney (double bass) and Sarah Wheeler (vocals).
Choreographer’s Assistant: Hailey McCloskey
The program begins with Arvo Pärt’s minimalist masterwork Spiegel Im Spiegel (Mirror in Mirror), chosen for it’s beauty and because it’s structure reflects the nature of the solstice with it’s mirroring phrases.
The second piece is Mark Haney’s first composition as Composer in Residence at Mountain View Cemetery, New Friends and Stranger Companies for guitar, cello, double bass and a rhythm track. Mark composed this work in collaboration with the dancers and choreographer, ensuring a real dialogue between the music and the dance.
The third piece will be an arrangement of Sarah Wheeler’s Open Up Your Heart. Sarah is a captivating singer and performer, and is a leader for QSONG (Queer Songwriters of a New Generation), a wonderful program that helps at-risk queer youth engage their creativity through songwriting. Open Up Your Heart is a perfect way to close a community celebration, with a simple, joyous message.
There will be choreography to all of the music for our 35 person community dance group. This aspect of the project grew organically out of Mark Haney and Diane Park’s participation in Le Grand Continental at this year’s PuSH Festival. Mark and Diane were two of the 70-plus community dancers who committed to two or three rehearsals a week for three months leading to performances on the Queen Elizabeth Plaza in January as part of PuSH. The original intent was simply to learn. Since we keep asking people to join our artistic process and events, it seemed like a great opportunity to put ourselves in that position and be part of someone else’s vision.
What we didn’t expect was the level of passion the participants would have, and the incredible need for another project many of them felt. The participants represented a great cross-section of Vancouver’s population, creating a new community through art. Community dance had truly become central to the lives of many participants, so when our partnership with Mountain View was finalized we saw the opportunity to help fill this need. Participants have been rehearsing for this event since March! We are very pleased to create a project that continues to nurture these peoples’ creativity while forming strong bonds to community. This program was free to participants to ensure there were no financial barriers to participation.
For the past two years The Little Chamber Music Series That Could has produced accessible inter-arts events in the cemetery as part of their enormously popular All Souls Celebrations. Our creative partnerships with Mountain View have been very rewarding, and led directly to our “In Residence” status. Like All Souls, we plan to balance a sense of celebration with the dignity and respect a cemetery deserves, using community arts events to weave this beautiful urban space more closely into the cultural fabric of the city.
