Local Performers Celebrate Asian Heritage Month
May 11, 2005
The public is invited to join the variety of free and exciting activities featured as part of Richmond’s month-long celebration of Asian Heritage Month.
Saturday May 14 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Richmond Cultural Centre: A variety of short performances involving local Asian performers; Nagomi Kai, PHILCAS: Philippine Cultural Arts Society of BC, Sudnya Dance Academy, Yuanji Dance Association of BC, Rasika's Story Dancing, and Garba: Folk Dancing from Gujrat--West Coast of India. There will also be displays showing the exquisite beauty and complexity of Japanese porcelain and paper dolls.
Wednesday May 18 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in Richmond City Hall Council Chambers: Red Silk Readings, An Anthology of South Asian Women Poets. Edited and Introduced by Rishma Dunlop and Priscila Uppal with poetry by Hiro Boga, Kuldip Gill, Sonnet L’Abbé, Danielle Lagah, Soraya Mariam Peerbaye, Sharanpal Ruprai, Sandeep Sanghera, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Proma Tagore, Rishma Dunlop and Priscila Uppal.
As rich and exuberant as its title, Red Silk, which is an anthology of poems by women who identify as South Asian, is an important contribution to the growing body of South Asian Canadian literature. Edited by Rishma Dunlop and Priscila Uppal, with a superb “Introduction,” Red Silk launches some powerful South Asian female, and feminist, voices on the Canadian literary scene. These poets explore the complexity, diversity and heterogeneity of South Asian Canadian identity by examining their relationships, as women, to the South Asian cultures that they live in their bones, memory and daily lives. These poems enact how an ordinary household object, a word, a smell, a gesture, can all trigger a cascade of memories and responses soaked in cultural significance, and mark one as South Asian. Drawing on the deep well of South Asian cultural memory and its semiotic treasure house, these poets redefine and expand both Canadian culture and Canadian literature.
Thursday May 19 at 7:00 p.m. at the Richmond Museum: Island Heritage Talk: The History of Judo in Steveston. A local judo club talks about their 50-year history in Steveston.
For a complete list of all Asian Heritage Month activities, contact Suzanne Greening at 604-231-6433.
