Have you ever gone through phases where you are on a hunt to know more about your family tree? I find I go through spurts of intense curiosity and then life gets in the way until the next spurt.
Vancouver might be going through something similar right now. This year marks Vancouver’s 100th birthday and, instead of looking back, is looking at its current population and who makes up this city.
Called 100% Vancouver, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival and Theatre Replacement present 100 non-actors taking to the stage, each representing 1% of our population: Larry is a Musqueam/First Nations/Chinese resident of the Dunbar-Southlands neighbourhood, Wade is a transgender Mount Pleasant local, and my favourite, young Serene Mitchell, a Taiwanese and Scottish Canadian living in the Kensington-Cedar Cottage area.
100% Vancouver at SFU Woodward's Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre. Courtesy of the PuSh Festival.
“We are the numbers made human”
After 100 introductions – “Hi, I’m Suzanne and this is my skateboard” “Hi, I’m Ethan and this is a picture of my poppy” – the “population of Vancouver” answers yes or no questions by organizing themselves on either side of the stage.
The questions are simple, the answers simpler, but the effect is surprisingly fascinating. Moving stories are told in between funny moments and the charm of everyday people is the winner of the show.
100% Vancouver at SFU Woodward's Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre. Courtesy of the PuSh Festival.
So who are we in Vancouver?
We are a motley crew of Canadian-born residents and immigrants striving to make our lives in Vancouver. I may not be totally clear on my own family tree, but I was happy to briefly take a peek inside the lives of Vancouverites, 100%.
100% Vancouver
Part of the 125th Anniversary Series
Presented with Theatre Replacement and SFU Woodward’s
Based on an ongoing project of Berlin’s Rimini Protokoll
January 21-22, 2011 at 7:00 pm
January 22, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Copyright 2011 Lori Henry
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