Warm wishes to our festival supporters and participants this holiday season! As our 40th anniversary year comes to a close, we’re grateful for all your contributions. From creative work and exchanges of ideas to financial support, it’s all been an invigorating affirmation of PSFS’s vision of building community through the celebration of Japanese Canadian arts and culture.
Our programming is in the capable hands of Artistic Director Leanne Dunic, so these updates will come upon her return from Japan in the New Year. In the meantime, please allow me to share my enthusiasm for the infrastructure improvements PSFS has been making!
Our 2016 Production Associate Tracy Moromisato is with us this winter thanks to a mentorship program hosted by Vancouver Community Network. In addition to “scrubbing” data and stickhandling our technological upgrade, she’s sorting through our paper archives to enhance the PSFS collection at Nikkei Museum.
We all know and love Michael Ouchi as our Food Booth Coordinator but after his stint as our 2016 Production Coordinator, he has also offered his computer expertise. Michael is contributing countless volunteer hours to design a new database to complement the festival’s new cloud-based office platform. Combined, this technological transition enables our team to work more effectively.
Our gear is now stored at the Vancouver Buddhist Temple, saving our festival production team over 80 human labour hours.
The tankless-hot-water pilot project was a success and we’re presently retiring our very-old, less-efficient hot water tanks.
The site expansion along Alexander Street alleviated the crowd flow issues during the festival and we’re looking forward to improving this change in 2017. We are reaching out to our suppliers and vendors for feedback and ideas. Feel free to send us an email or give us a call if you have ideas to share.
We look forward to bringing you awesome artistic programming in 2017 -- Yoi otoshiwo!
We’re launching a new Membership Reward program with Catfe, Coconama Chocolate, Kyzock Sushi Bowl and Tama Organic Life! Read below or give us a call for more details.
Our New Annual Membership Top-Up!
You are invited to take part in our reinvigorated membership program! Sign up now on eventbrite! In addition to our affordable Lifetime Membership for $12, you now have the option to “top-up” to an Annual Membership for an additional $12. Annual Members receive a Membership Card valid through 2017, entitling you a 10% discount at:
Coconama Chocolate, first ganache chocolate shop in North Vancouver. Discount at retail location;
Catfe, part cafe, part foster home for cats, and a space to hanging with kitties! Discount on food, drink and 'meowchandise';
Tama Organic Life, Japanese owned grocery store;
Kyzock / House of Sushi Bowl, offering popular Japanese food items (especially Donburi!) for eat in, take-out;
and on Powell Street Festival Society merchandise at any event and online throughout the year.
Your membership card also gets you:
An invite to an Members Only Setsubun Celebration following the Annual General Meeting in March, 2017;
Discounted rates at PSFS art presentations including Spatial Poetics in July.
Prices:
Annual top-up for current Lifetime Members......................$12
Annual top-up & new Lifetime Membership........................$24
Lifetime Membership only, no Annual Top-up.....................$12
Sign up now on eventbrite or email, fax (604.683-7911) or phone (604.683.8240) us! To become a member via fax or mail, please print out this Membership Form and mail it to us with your membership fee. Donations above and beyond the cost of membership are graciously accepted, and can be made through Eventbrite or Canada Helps.
Community News
New translation of book about Vancouver’s legendary Asahi baseball team
Story of Vancouver Asahi, a Legend in Baseball, By Norio Goto Translated by Masaki Watanabe
Launch on December 17at 2pm
at Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre, 6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby
“What I really wanted to record for posterity in the context of a baseball team called the Asahi were the candid voices of Nikkei Canadians straight from their heart.” – Norio Goto
Norio Goto’s exhaustively-researched book, Story of Vancouver Asahi, a Legend in Baseball, first published in Japan in 2010, captures the development of the team from their early struggles to their ascension to status as fan favourites, and ultimately league champions, to the internment years and beyond. A longtime sports broadcaster, he documents the baseball in painstaking detail while putting the team in the context of the times they were playing in, creating in the process a fascinating snapshot of a community that fought long and hard for acceptance against great odds. Goto also provides a window into baseball as it developed in Japan, and the crossover between teams from both Japan and North America.
A new English-language translation by Vancouver’s Masaki Watanabe makes Story of Vancouver Asahi accessible to English-language readers for the first time, adding an important chapter to the story of the Asahi baseball team.
The Special Events Hall at Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre 6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby
Free Admission
A partnership with SFU's David See-Chai Lam Centre for International Communication, The Centre for POlicy Studies on Culture and Communities in SFU's Faculty of Communications, Art and Technology, Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre, and Powell Street Festival Society.
In this event, filmmakers from Canada and the United States will come together to engage in discussion on documentation of Nikkei (the Japanese diaspora) histories. The discussion will be center around the history of the internment of Japanese Canadians and Japanese Americans, but will also explore the following themes:
- Film as a medium of historical storytelling
- Cinematic genres
- Filmmaking as community engagement
- Inter-generational & inter-community relations
- Implications for contemporary racism and xenophobia
Do you have a Japanese Canadian or Downtown Eastside community related event? Powell Street Festival Society is pleased to offer our community partners the opportunity to submit their own special events. We will publicize suitable events and activities. It’s our little way of saying thank you for your hard work in our community! Send us via Community Event Submission Form.