UBC Reports | Vol. 48 | No. 12 | Oct. 10, 2002

Uptown Meets Downtown in Free Concerts

Music of the streets mingles with UBC Music School

By Kate Jobling

The UBC Learning Exchange is presenting two free concerts featuring 20 performers from the community and UBC’s School of Music on Oct. 19 and 21.

This is the second year for I love the Downtown Eastside -- an uplifting coming together of musicians, actors and poets to explore the theme of love in their community through poetry, music and personal testimonials.

Performers celebrate the beauty, value and worth of friends and neighbours who they feel have been marginalized by society simply by living on the eastside of Vancouver. Despite this rather serious theme, the show takes the opportunity to poke fun at locations where ‘the needle raptors’ converge and celebrates the residents’ artistic expression in the form of homemade crack pipes and back-alley graffiti art.

I Love the DTES was developed and produced by the Savage God Theatre Company. Producer Donna Wong-Juliani says the show started as a pilot project to bring arts and culture to the heart of the city and it is back by popular demand. This year’s performance has been re-worked to include more music, specifically performers from UBC’s School of Music at the Point Grey campus.

“There is so much in the news about people who live in the Downtown Eastside, but we never hear or see stories through their eyes. That’s why we decided to pursue this,” says Wong-Juliani.

I Love the DTES will be staged on Saturday, Oct. 19, 7 p.m. at UBC’s Robson Square Campus and on Monday, Oct. 21, 12 noon, in the Dodson Room (adjacent to the Chapman Learning Commons) at the Main Library of the Point Grey campus.