Coastal Dance Festival 2020

The 13th annual Coastal Dance Festival is on now, celebrating Canadian and global Indigenous stories, song, and dance. Until March 1st, Dancers of Damelahamid are presenting a lineup of events at the Anvil Centre in New Westminster and at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC (“MOA”), where school performances will be performed in the Great Hall.

Coastal Dance Festival 2020

When: February 25 to March 1, 2020
Tickets: Available online now from $25

Program highlights in 2020 include the festival debut of Tooma Laisa and Leanna Wilson (Inuit), a musician duo from Canada’s Arctic, and youth workshops between the New Zealand-based Tuakana and Teina Leadership Academy Group, and two BC-based groups Ewk Hyaha Hozdii (Wet’suwet’en) and Yisya’winuxw (Kwakwaka’wakw).

This year’s festival welcomes 14 Indigenous performance groups from throughout British Columbia, Alaska, the Yukon, and Nunavut as well as international guest artists from as far away as New Zealand.

New and not-to-be-missed this year: the emerging talents of Tooma Laisa and Leanna Wilson, who revitalize Inuit drum songs through pairings with contemporary dance; and the Vancouver debut of New Zealand’s Tuakana and Teina Leadership Academy Group, a talented company of artists aged 5 to 18, who focus on cultivating leadership abilities through shared learnings. TNT will participate in workshops alongside Ewk Hyaha Hozdii and Yisya’winuxw from Alert Bay, BC.

Dancers of Damelahamid proudly acknowledge the festival takes place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Qayqayt and Musqueam peoples. 

Follow the festival on Facebook and Twitter for more info.