Mother Tree
Terry Hunter (Nang Gulgaa) + Savannah Walling (hl G̱at’saa)
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Mother Tree
Terry Hunter (Nang Gulgaa) + Savannah Walling (hl G̱at’saa)
Savannah Walling and Terry Hunter have been collaborating since meeting in 1971, nurturing the Vancouver Moving Theatre into a Downtown Eastside “mother tree.” Sharing resources, creating and producing, providing support and consultation, nourishing cultural practice, they are a seedbed for new creation and development across many cultural communities.
Co-founded in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 1983 by Savannah (Artistic Director) and Terry (Executive Director), Vancouver Moving Theatre transitioned to text-based creation and engaging with their home community after 16 years of touring drum-dance dramas. In 2003, they co-produced In the Heart of a City: The Downtown Eastside Community Play. This transformative event launched years of community-engaged Downtown-Eastside centred productions, projects and cultural work. The company has co-produced (since 2004) the annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival with a host of community partners.
“From the start, we’ve incorporated aesthetic practices, values and forms outside the ‘high art’ gates. Experience has taught us that redefining the arts is a political and spiritual act.”
Savannah Walling (hl G̱at’saa/Supporter of All Things) is a multi-disciplinary, community-engaged artist and story-maker. She has lived and worked for 45 years in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside on unceded homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. She collaborates with artists of many genres, traditions, and cultures to develop repertoire (original and adapted) and support projects big and small that interweave localized content with accessible storytelling, visual imagery, live music, movement and/or living cultural practice (projects ranging from community plays to evolving galleries, from storytelling concerts to Chinese opera and beyond).
A resident of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside since 1975, Terry Hunter’s (Nang Gulgaa/Industrious One) interdisciplinary and community-engaged artistic practice is built on the values of collaboration and partnership. His work focuses on artistic and cultural work by Vancouver Moving Theatre, and work that centres Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods, cultural communities, artists, cultural carriers, and knowledge-keepers, and low-income residents as well as their stories, concerns, hopes and dreams for the future.
“Most of Vancouver Moving Theatre’s creative journeys and projects have evolved via slow gestation, an evolutionary ethos, and multi-year collaborations nurtured over years, with learning journeys, research and exploration, relationship-building, and engaging with artists and cultural communities of the Downtown Eastside and beyond.”
In recognition of their leadership role in Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside and their ongoing support of Indigenous communities, Savannah and Terry were adopted by Hereditary Chief-in-Waiting Bernie Williams (Gul-Kitt-Jaad/Golden Spruce Woman) into the St'langng Laanas clan of Haida Gwaii.
Photo
Mark Montgomery
L-R: Bob Baker, Savannah Walling, Woodrow (Woody) Morrison, Quelemia Sparrow, Sue Blue, Sam Bob, Wes Nahanee, Mike Dangeli, Nick Dangeli, Natasha Smith, Priscillia Mays Tait, Marge Ce. White, centre Loni Williams
From Storyweaving
Co-written by director Renae Morriseau with Rosemary Georgeson and Savannah Walling, inspired by stories and memories from Greater Vancouver’s urban aboriginal community, and presented at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre May 11-20, 2012.
→ Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival
→ Artists’ Statement #1: Reflections on Working on the Margins
Mother Tree
Mother Tree
Terry Hunter (Nang Gulgaa) + Savannah Walling (hl G̱at’saa)
Savannah Walling and Terry Hunter have been collaborating since meeting in 1971, nurturing the Vancouver Moving Theatre into a Downtown Eastside “mother tree.” Sharing resources, creating and producing, providing support and consultation, nourishing cultural practice, they are a seedbed for new creation and development across many cultural communities.
Co-founded in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 1983 by Savannah (Artistic Director) and Terry (Executive Director), Vancouver Moving Theatre transitioned to text-based creation and engaging with their home community after 16 years of touring drum-dance dramas. In 2003, they co-produced In the Heart of a City: The Downtown Eastside Community Play. This transformative event launched years of community-engaged Downtown-Eastside centred productions, projects and cultural work. The company has co-produced (since 2004) the annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival with a host of community partners.
“From the start, we’ve incorporated aesthetic practices, values and forms outside the ‘high art’ gates. Experience has taught us that redefining the arts is a political and spiritual act.”
Savannah Walling (hl G̱at’saa/Supporter of All Things) is a multi-disciplinary, community-engaged artist and story-maker. She has lived and worked for 45 years in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside on unceded homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. She collaborates with artists of many genres, traditions, and cultures to develop repertoire (original and adapted) and support projects big and small that interweave localized content with accessible storytelling, visual imagery, live music, movement and/or living cultural practice (projects ranging from community plays to evolving galleries, from storytelling concerts to Chinese opera and beyond).
A resident of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside since 1975, Terry Hunter’s (Nang Gulgaa/Industrious One) interdisciplinary and community-engaged artistic practice is built on the values of collaboration and partnership. His work focuses on artistic and cultural work by Vancouver Moving Theatre, and work that centres Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods, cultural communities, artists, cultural carriers, and knowledge-keepers, and low-income residents as well as their stories, concerns, hopes and dreams for the future.
“Most of Vancouver Moving Theatre’s creative journeys and projects have evolved via slow gestation, an evolutionary ethos, and multi-year collaborations nurtured over years, with learning journeys, research and exploration, relationship-building, and engaging with artists and cultural communities of the Downtown Eastside and beyond.”
In recognition of their leadership role in Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside and their ongoing support of Indigenous communities, Savannah and Terry were adopted by Hereditary Chief-in-Waiting Bernie Williams (Gul-Kitt-Jaad/Golden Spruce Woman) into the St'langng Laanas clan of Haida Gwaii.
Photo
Mark Montgomery
L-R: Bob Baker, Savannah Walling, Woodrow (Woody) Morrison, Quelemia Sparrow, Sue Blue, Sam Bob, Wes Nahanee, Mike Dangeli, Nick Dangeli, Natasha Smith, Priscillia Mays Tait, Marge Ce. White, centre Loni Williams
From Storyweaving
Co-written by director Renae Morriseau with Rosemary Georgeson and Savannah Walling, inspired by stories and memories from Greater Vancouver’s urban aboriginal community, and presented at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre May 11-20, 2012.
→ Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival
→ Artists’ Statement #1: Reflections on Working on the Margins
Savannah Walling and Terry Hunter have been collaborating since meeting in 1971, nurturing the Vancouver Moving Theatre into a Downtown Eastside “mother tree.” Sharing resources, creating and producing, providing support and consultation, nourishing cultural practice, they are a seedbed for new creation and development across many cultural communities.
Co-founded in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 1983 by Savannah (Artistic Director) and Terry (Executive Director), Vancouver Moving Theatre transitioned to text-based creation and engaging with their home community after 16 years of touring drum-dance dramas. In 2003, they co-produced In the Heart of a City: The Downtown Eastside Community Play. This transformative event launched years of community-engaged Downtown-Eastside centred productions, projects and cultural work. The company has co-produced (since 2004) the annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival with a host of community partners.
“From the start, we’ve incorporated aesthetic practices, values and forms outside the ‘high art’ gates. Experience has taught us that redefining the arts is a political and spiritual act.”
Savannah Walling (hl G̱at’saa/Supporter of All Things) is a multi-disciplinary, community-engaged artist and story-maker. She has lived and worked for 45 years in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside on unceded homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. She collaborates with artists of many genres, traditions, and cultures to develop repertoire (original and adapted) and support projects big and small that interweave localized content with accessible storytelling, visual imagery, live music, movement and/or living cultural practice (projects ranging from community plays to evolving galleries, from storytelling concerts to Chinese opera and beyond).
A resident of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside since 1975, Terry Hunter’s (Nang Gulgaa/Industrious One) interdisciplinary and community-engaged artistic practice is built on the values of collaboration and partnership. His work focuses on artistic and cultural work by Vancouver Moving Theatre, and work that centres Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods, cultural communities, artists, cultural carriers, and knowledge-keepers, and low-income residents as well as their stories, concerns, hopes and dreams for the future.
“Most of Vancouver Moving Theatre’s creative journeys and projects have evolved via slow gestation, an evolutionary ethos, and multi-year collaborations nurtured over years, with learning journeys, research and exploration, relationship-building, and engaging with artists and cultural communities of the Downtown Eastside and beyond.”
In recognition of their leadership role in Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside and their ongoing support of Indigenous communities, Savannah and Terry were adopted by Hereditary Chief-in-Waiting Bernie Williams (Gul-Kitt-Jaad/Golden Spruce Woman) into the St'langng Laanas clan of Haida Gwaii.
Photo
Mark Montgomery
L-R: Bob Baker, Savannah Walling, Woodrow (Woody) Morrison, Quelemia Sparrow, Sue Blue, Sam Bob, Wes Nahanee, Mike Dangeli, Nick Dangeli, Natasha Smith, Priscillia Mays Tait, Marge Ce. White, centre Loni Williams
From Storyweaving
Co-written by director Renae Morriseau with Rosemary Georgeson and Savannah Walling, inspired by stories and memories from Greater Vancouver’s urban aboriginal community, and presented at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre May 11-20, 2012.
→ Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival
→ Artists’ Statement #1: Reflections on Working on the Margins
