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Asian
By Janet Lumb, Accès
Asie Director
FESTIVAL
ACCÈS ASIE |
Accès Asie was created in 1995 to present all artistic
disciplines in dance, comedy, theatre, video, film, visual arts,
music, poetry, performance and new media.
We feature artists with origins
from over twenty countries: East Asia (Japan, China, Korea);
Southeast Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand,
Singapore); South Asia (Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka); Central
and Middle Eastern Asia (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria,
Afghanistan and Armenia).
Festival Accès Asie,
aka the Montréal Asian Heritage Festival, was founded
on an Asian Heritage Month mandate established in the United
States in 1976. This was further developed by the Toronto Asian
Heritage Month Group in 1993. The national network of Asian Heritage
Month groups and activities vary in mandate from arts presentations
to forums, discussions to tributes of outstanding members from
the Asian Canadian communities. The Montréal version of
this mandate was revised to reflect Montréal's cultural
climate.
The Festival formed in response
to a need for a stronger Asian presence in the Quebec cultural
climate. The Honorable Senator Vivienne Poy declared the month
of May in the Senate as the "Asian Heritage Month".
Officially recognized by the ex-minister Sheila Copps in 2003,
Asian Heritage Month was celebrated by over 10 cities across
Canada in 2005 and the month of May as "Asian Heritage Month"
was officially declared by the City of Montréal in May
2004.
Accès Asie is the longest
running Asian Heritage Festival in Canada.
Inspirations
There are some past prominent
players who deserve to be recognized and acknowledged for this
formation. In 1995, impressario Bernard Nguyen first approached
Janet Lumb about organizing a Festival to celebrate Asian Heritage
Month. An ad hoc collective first formed with Bernard, Rebecca
Chong, Hunt Hoe and Lumb. A big thank you goes to Toronto's Asian
Heritage Month director Saheed Khan who initiated with Canada
Council for the arts with Garry Cristall, a national Asian Heritage
meeting in 1996. This meeting consisted of activists such as
Vancouver's Jim Wong Chu and Zainub Verjee, Toronto's Desh Pardesh
team and Montréal's team of Bernard Nguyen, Atif Siddiqi
and myself. With a small efficient team that included such folks
as Patrice Fouché, Atif Siddiqi, Salman M. Hussain, Nancy
Tatabe, Viviane Schami, Vivi Anthy, the Montréal Asian
Heritage Month Group was born. I would like to thank Bernard
for his great initiative and foresight during the formative years
in 1995 to 1996.
Artist, musician, writer and
gay activist extraordinaire, Himmat Shinhat was instrumental
from 1996-2000 in developing the spirit of the Festival. Himmat
is responsible for designing the primary graphic image of our
present day logo. Himmat was also a coordinator, translator,
performing artist, writer, steering committee member and essentially
helped to shape the Festival as it is today. A most grateful
kudos goes to Himmat Shinhat who is presently in Ottawa with
the Ministry of Immigration.
Milton Tanaka, a newly arrived
immigrant who fell in love with a Quebecoise and who shocked
the Montréal community with his unimaginable Japanese
Latino flair was a treat to work with from 1997 to 2001. During
this time until he became a father, Milton maintained a semblance
of order in the chaos as the irreplaceable right hand man, Festival
coordinator, translator and press attaché.
From 1996 to 2002, a loosely
knit group of artists met in various cafes and homes monthly.
Stories abounded then as they do now. Do you know about the time
when the Festival team was kicked out of Commensal and we were
out of a meeting place for awhile? Thanks to Mr. Timothy Chan
from the Chinese United Services Centre for saving us by offering
office space in Chinatown for a brief period. How about the one
about the Festival being run out of a bedroom for the first seven
years of operations?
In 2002, the Festival officially
moved into our office at Centre Gesù. The Festival has
since moved three times in this same building to accommodate
an expanding team from one staff on a weekly basis in 2002 to
our present situation in 2006 of five or six workers ranging
from contracted staff, salaried employees, interns, students
and volunteers. Wonders never cease.
Appreciation, thanks, gratitude
does little to express my heartfelt acknowledgement to the list
of the many incredible hopeful believers, urban warriors, fighters,
activists and kind souls.
Khosro Berahmandi danced his
way into the Festival in 1998 as an artist, volunteer, curator,
contracted worker and presently as General Manager. The devastating
horror of how and why he came to Canada is a head twisting mismatch
to his respecting, honourable integrity. Khosro is an angel who
fell to this earth.
Hunt Hoe has been ever present
but invisibly since our inception in 1995. As financial consultant,
he is responsible for the finances, finalizing grant budgets
and ensuring that we are not in debt. Because of Hunt, the Festival
has great dance music and rockin' parties during our potlucks
at his place and stays afloat in the wild and wacky runnings
of a festival.
Every right is fought for.
It is with great thanks that I commend Canada Council for the
Arts for their leadership to listen and to react to community
leaders such as Chris Creighton-Kelly, Sharon Fernandez and the
list goes on, for their belief to instill the national conscience
with the ideals of racial equity in the arts. Without such individuals
and leadership, our Festival would not exist. A great many thanks
to all individuals who support and help to make this Festival
come alive.
For more information on Festival
Accès Asie, contact Khosro Berahmandi
info@accesasie.com |
www.accesasie.com
Accès Asie Mandate
and Artistic Objectives
Mandate
- To dismantle stereotypes and
"cultural barriers"
- To encourage dialogue creating
interdisciplinary, intergenerational and intercultural solidarity's,
which further the level of appreciation and understanding of
Asian arts, culture and history
- To facilitate the expression
of the diversity and exchange of the cultural richness thereof
to the mainstream of Canadian society.
Artistic Objectives
- To present works by artists
of Asian origin and/or works that is based on Asia.
By Janet Lumb, Director of
Accès Asie
Background to Asian cultural
expression in Montréal
Montréal is one of the
most culturally diverse urban centres in Canada and includes
a significant Asian population. However, the Asian population
of Montréal is quite diverse in that it is comprised of
many communities, each with its own racial, ethnic, linguistic
and/or cultural identity. In addition to this cultural diversity,
Asian communities are also geographically fragmented across the
urban expanse of greater Montréal and its suburbs.
Such an environment renders
dialogue, exchange and collaboration between these communities
very difficult and generates great obstacles in the struggle
to establish any kind of solidarity. Asians wanting to maintain
their culture may often become isolated or ghettoized within
their own small community and find themselves at odds with the
mainstream. Others, perhaps because of alienation from their
own community or because the pressure to assimilate weighs more
heavily on them, may abandon their community or their cultural
identity altogether.
Barriers to mainstream culture
Even though Canada has officially adopted an ideal of multiculturalism,
long held prejudices about what constitutes Canadian identity
remain institutionalized. The images of Canadian culture and
identity propagated by the media remain predominantly "white".
As with many other communities, Asians have had great difficulty
in reconciling this image of Canadian culture with their need
to assert and to express their own identities.
Media stereotypes continue
to have a profoundly dis-empowering effect on Asians. The struggle
to establish that feeling "Canadian" while also taking
great pride in one's Asian culture do not have to be mutually
exclusive has only recently begun to receive the kind of attention
it deserves.
With regard to Asian artists,
the mainstream often groups all artists of colour and their work
together in ways that fail to recognize differences of race,
class and culture. Since their work is not seen to fit into the
arbitrarily defined norms of what constitutes "white"
Canadian culture, it is almost automatically excluded from the
mainstream.
Barriers between Asian communities
Historically, there has been
cultural and economic reciprocity between the different communities
in Asia. However, after arriving in Canada, the various Asian
communities tend to fragment. This isolation is often the result
of trying to adapt to a social environment that is considerably
different from the one in the country of origin. Consequently,
the interaction and dialogue that was present outside Canada
is severely reduced and cultural differences, religious and language
barriers further compound this effect.
Barriers for non-traditional
artists within their own communities
Many Asian artists are doing
work that is either experimental or constitutes a fusion of "east"
and "west". In order to do this kind of work, they
have often had to do so outside their communities. As a result,
Asian communities are unaware of these artists, are not exposed
to their work and rarely have opportunities to support them.
Consequently, it has become imperative to facilitate reconnection
of these artists to their communities.
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