And that’s a wrap! The fabulous 44th edition of the Harrison Festival of the Arts is now history.
As always, the program was diverse in style and cultural influences. This year, notably, there were several bands that combined electronic and analogue sounds in contemporary expressions of identity and community.
Music on the Beach:
The festival followed its traditional format of ungated, unticketed concerts on the waterfront in Harrison Hot Springs, on our “Beach Stage”. Between Saturday morning July 8 and Sunday afternoon July 16 there was a total of 23 acts on the stage, representing a broad diversity of cultures, styles, and genres.
The Beach Stage was launched with a welcome from members of the local Indigenous Sts’ailes community and cultural sharing from the Sasquatch Dancers. The music commenced with the 14 piece brass band Balkan Shmalkan from Vancouver, followed by a day of performances that included top notch Canadian and Metis fiddling from Alex Kusturok, Eastern European music from Toronto’s Polky, and the rap and “Indigifunk” of Curtis Clearsky and the Constellationz. The first weekend ended Sunday with the Cuban rhythms of Timba Cartel bringing the crowd to their feet.
Midweek there were shows each night at 7pm on the beach, and a few daytime shows on Friday. The week included several cross-country and international artists making their way to other larger weekend festivals. Highlights were Mongolian Buryat singer Namgar, Ottawa based blues, Juno winning soul and gospel songstress Angelique Francis, who performed with her sisters on horns and father on drums, and middle eastern ensemble Al Qawha.
The second weekend was brought in with a stirring performance of songs of the sea from Newfoundland’s Rum Ragged, on Friday the 14th. The weekend of shows on the beach was MC’d by Californian musician and raconteur Joe Craven, who presented a few sets that featured his own mastery on numerous instruments, delivered with a playful sense of humour. Saturday, Wesli led an ecstatic audience with his high energy Haitian grooves, played by a 7 piece band, and Metis singer songwriter Amanda Rheume inspired audiences with her heartland folk rock. On the final day of the festival, a highlight was Ruby Singh and the Future Ancestors, a hip hop and funk band that included stellar Vancouver performers Khari Wendell McLellan, Gord Grdina, and Kenton Loewen supplementing Rup Sidhu’s socially conscious rhymes.
Concerts in the Hall:
As with the Beach Stage shows, the ticketed evening shows in the Harrison Memorial Hall were diverse in sounds and cultural representation, and ranged from high energy dance music to acoustic singer songwriters. The festival began on Friday the 7th of July with a film, Summer of Soul, that was focussed on the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, featuring performances from a broad range of funk, soul, Motown, jazz, blues, and gospel performers of the day. The film set up the week of acts to come, as throughout the programming there was a strong current of music influenced by these black genres and artists. The following night in the hall featured Congolese musician Kizaba, who leads from the drums with a charismatic performance style that would not let the audience be passive. The first weekend finished with an exquisite performance of Irish music on guitar, banjo and whistle from the Seamus Egan Project, featuring the lovely harmonies of singer Moira Smiley and her trio.
Music in the hall continued Wednesday with the best selling show of the week, featuring Indigenous blues and R&B singer Celeigh Cardinal. Thursday brought the historical storytelling songwriting of James Keelaghan, accompanied by the exceptional bass playing of David Woodhead. The second weekend was brought in on Friday night with a thoroughly engaging performance from East LA’s Las Cafeteras. This band has a strong Chicano identity and the draws on folkloric practices like Zapateado percussive dance and Son Jarocho, while entertaining the audience with various pop music influences and references, all the while with a strong social message. The next evening featured South Italian band Kalascima with Canadian singer and dancer Andrea Ramolo, in another show that combined folkloric and electronic influences in a highly creative way. The festival ended Sunday the 16th with a dynamic funky dance party led by Toronto’s Soul Motivators. Singer Shahi Teruko was a powerful front person both in voice and stage presence.
Literary Cafe and Evening of Theatre:
On the Monday and Tuesday, mid festival, other art forms are celebrated in the hall. Monday is the Literary Cafe, which this year was an evening of spoken word, and was a result of a new partnership with the Vancouver Poetry House. Poets Tawahum Bige, Johnny Trinh, and RC Weslowski all gave stirring performances of their work, and the evening ended with songs from Karla Mundy, with Michael Creber on piano. The Evening of Theatre featured a hilarious review of skits and songs from The Myrtle Sisters, which took the audience from retro 1930s harmonies to an array of comedic and satirical characters that kept the audience in stitches.
Children’s Day:
On Wednesday July 12 a “festival within the festival” took place, as the crew and volunteers set up on Maple St. in Harrison and around the Memorial Hall for the annual Children’s Day. The event featured the hands on crafts, a climbing wall, a tiny tots Get Creative zone, and concerts in and around the Memorial Hall featuring Will’s Jam’s, middle eastern group Al Qahwa, and Vancouver Puppet Theatre.
Visual Arts:
The festival features a juried Artisan Market that stretches along the waterfront in Harrison Hot Springs. There were 55 different vendors who took part this year. The market showcased an array of items and goods from jewelry to paintings, textiles, and ceramics. There were also some food and drink items such as distillery alcohol products and honey. After a few understandably slower years in the thick of Covid, the artisan market has bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers which is a huge positive takeaway from this year’s Fest.
The festival also curates an art exhibit at The Ranger Station Gallery throughout the month of July. This year, Chilliwack-based Sylvie Rousseau-Janssens presented a beautiful exhibit of her work with recycled plastic entitled Meld. The environmental theme was echoed outside of the building with an installation of string in the trees, Forest Markings, created by artist Alyssa Schwann.
