Six-day Indigenous dance festival returns to Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology

The annual Coastal Dance Festival will return to the Museum of Anthropology this March. (Courtesy: Chris Randle)

After a six-year hiatus, the annual, Indigenous-led Coastal Dance Festival will make its return to its original home at Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology.

The festival, showcased solely at New Westminster’s Anvil Centre since 2018 to make way for seismic upgrades at the MoA, will expand to see Indigenous stories, song and dance take over the two venues between March 4 and March 9.

Grounded in a community of Indigenous artists, the six-day showcase reflects intergenerational practices and celebrates the diversity of Indigenous cultures, says the festival’s director, Margaret Grenier.

“The festival is about building relationships, and supporting the growth of these dance forms,” she says.

The CDF originally began as part of the Cultural Olympiad celebrations, designed to fill a gap of Indigenous dance in the local dance scene. Now in its 18th year, many of those original artists return annually and are joined by dancers from around the world as the festival’s community continues to expand internationally.

This year, its programming has expanded to include Australia’s Wagana group and New Zealand artist Charles Koronheo on the billing. The two will join Montreal poet and artist Natasha Kanapé Fontaine alongside a mass of provincial acts, including Vancouver-based powwow dancer Nyla Bedard, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) group Spakwus Slolem, and a group from West Vancouver Indigenous dance school Dancers of Damelahamid.

One particular focus of the festival is to uphold young and emerging artists and, in turn, encourage local Indigenous youth to reconnect with their culture and history, says Grenier.

“Indigenous people and communities face a strong presence of the ongoing effects of colonialism, and there are many Indigenous people that do not have a strong connection to their community’s artistic practices, language, and cultural teachings,” says Grenier.

“The youth component of the festival is an opportunity for established artists and young people to come together, strengthening intergenerational transfer of knowledge, and inspiring the long-term development of the art forms.”

This year’s festival offerings will also include an Artist Sharing series, where artists will divulge audiences on their processes and practices and their routes to Indigenizing their performance spaces.

Among those encouraging audiences to learn about Indigenous dance through their own personal stories will be Māori artist Koronheo, whose installation performance will transform the space inside the museum’s Haida House.

“Dance is a beautiful bridge towards cross-cultural understanding,” says Grenier.

“The values and belief systems of people are embedded in their dances, making dance an ideal window through which to expand our understanding of others and ourselves.”