Celebrate Japanese Canadian Arts and Culture in Vancouver This August

Canada’s largest and longest-running celebration of Japanese Canadian arts and culture, the Powell Street Festival, returns to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for its 48th year this August with a program-packed festival of free entertainment and activities.

Held in the historic neighbourhood Paueru Gai, once a thriving hub of the Japanese-Canadian community before residents' forced internment in the Second World War, the festival serves as a poignant remembering of the homecoming of the local Japanese-Canadian population.

With a wide array of Japanese food and craft vendors lining Alexander Street and Jackson and Dunlevy avenues and two outdoor stages hosting live performances, the festival will transform the neighbourhood from Aug. 3 and 4. There will be rhythmic beats of taiko drumming, the excitement of live sumo wrestling, and activities for all ages in Oppenheimer Park, the historic site of the Asahi Baseball team.

Landmarks such as Vancouver’s Buddhist temple and the Vancouver Japanese Language School will host free live performances, adding to the festival's rich cultural tapestry.

This year’s programming highlights include a screening of the documentary Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama by Cindy Mochizuki, a multimedia documentary following the journey of late Japanese Canadian photographer Wakayama from joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the deep south during the 1960’s American civil rights movement to developing his rich body of photographic work on the Canadian west coast. Wakayama’s powerful pictures continue to document, celebrate and represent the spirit of Japanese Canadians who resided in the former Paueru Gai/Powell Street neighbourhoods.

Literary offerings include a reading by Leslie Shimotakahara, author of Sisters of the Spruce, and an intergenerational creative writing circle workshop hosted by Mata Ashita, Michael Prior and Leanne Toshiko Simpson ahead of an upcoming anthology featuring poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction from Japanese Canadians affected by displacement and dispossession.

The Centre A gallery will host the exhibit Kintsugi. The Japanese practice of kintsugi honours and celebrates the repair of what was once broken. Created by mixed-race musicians Annie Sumi and Brian Kobayakawa, Kintsugi is an anti-racist, interactive, multi-disciplinary art installation reflecting on racial identity, healing ancestral trauma, and the fragmented history of the Japanese Canadian internment. The audience can pump the foot treadle of the heirloom sewing machine to reveal the hidden depth of the installation: a cycle of songs and videos weaving the past into the present. On the morning of Aug. 3, you can also catch Annie and Brian performing a stripped-down performance of the songs from Kintsugi on Powell Street Festival’s street stage.

Other musical highlights include the ethereal trio Kotojiro melding Eastern and Western musical traditions, the soulful hafu artist Kimiko delivering her gut-wrenching and profoundly heartfelt melodies,, and local Asian-Canadian shoegaze pop artists Foxgloves, casting their sonic spell.

The festival’s program includes over 40 live performances from diverse genres on three festival stages, as well as martial arts demonstrations, children’s activities and a handmade craft marketplace.

To immerse yourself in the Powell Street Festival experience, visit the festival website. All events are free and take place Aug. 3 and 4, from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Vancouver’s Oppenheimer Park and surrounding area.