This story was originally published in Coast Reporter's fall edition of Coast Life.
In a log-lined meeting room early this spring, an eclectic clutch of delegates eye each other with a mix of admiration and wariness. The summit is the brainchild of Maria Danysh, the District of Sechelt’s Arts and Culture Coordinator.
Its goal? To unite organizers who annually stir up a smorgasbord of celebrations on the Sunshine Coast. They are there to apportion an already-crowded calendar.
The Festival of Written Arts shouldn’t sideswipe the Sleepy Hollow Rod Run. If scheduled carelessly, the bustling Sechelt Farmers’ and Artisans’ Market could squash the Art Crawl. Rockers from Rogue Fest might overpower pianists at the Performing Arts Festival.
Linda Williams of the Coast Cultural Alliance is the first to do the arithmetic. Fifty-two weeks in the year, she shrugs, are simply not enough. Overlap and overflow are simply facts of life for this peninsula immersed in festivals.
Even so, one among them stands apart in its dazzling diversity. The Sechelt Arts Festival was begun in 2004 as a summer weekend of outdoor concerts in Hackett Park. Seven years later, in an attempt to attract visitors during the shoulder season, the festival was redesigned as a month-long happening during the cool days of mid-autumn.
“From the start we were really trying to bridge different disciplines in staging shows,” says Ross Powell, who led the festival alongside co-producer Diana Robertson from 2018 to 2023. “So there’d be arts and music and dance in one show but cross over in a sort of a collaborative way, and nobody was really doing that in those days.”
Under the direction of Powell and Robertson, exuberant eclecticism became the festival’s hallmark. The District of Sechelt sustained it as a presenting sponsor, complemented by dozens of donors and corporate sponsors. Each year, a theme (cedar, the art of water, Canada’s history) anchored contributions by Sunshine Coast creatives.
Last year, as the festival reached its 20th anniversary, more than 120 local artists, performers, technicians and volunteers participated in the two-week event.
A cinema showcase featured the world premiere of filmmaker Charlene San Jenko’s Coming Home for the Children. A celebration of Sunshine Coast youth dance talent was paired with a full-length presentation by choreographer Sylvan Brochu that included live vocals, keyboard accompaniment, and adult performers. An exhibition of visual
art emphasized Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists working together.
“Our mission? To help Coast artists do things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, and create new works,” says Robertson, who curated the display of visual art. Powell, himself a guitarist and vocalist, coordinated live theatre and concerts including a tribute to Grammy and Juno award-winning singer Joni Mitchell.
On the last night of the festival, a parade and outdoor concert blended Mexican Dia De Los Muertos traditions with Gaelic Samhain observances. Music by Venezuelan-born songstress Susana Williams and Romany jazz band Caravan Paradiso accompanied a performance of shadow puppetry created by professional clown Gerardo Avila.
“It’s all kind of a little bit of an experiment,” says Powell. “But then what isn’t in our world?”
This year, the District of Sechelt initiated an experiment of its own: it awarded the contract for festival production to the Sunshine Coast Arts Council. The council introduced new elasticity in its schedule: stretching the festival over months to complement existing programming, and telescoping its celebrations of the Salish Sea into culminating events this fall.
The council’s curator and director, Sadira Rodrigues, explains that the festival’s transition is designed to make it more rooted than ever in the environment of the Sunshine Coast.
“What we’re wanting to do is create an encounter between arts, ecology and our specific climate here on the Coast,” Rodrigues says. “What we’re wanting to do, over the course of a number of years, is inspire our audiences through art to fall back in love with our natural landscapes.”
The festival focus for 2024 is the Salish Sea, which will flow into similarly themed exhibitions and activities next year. The arts council even tied its regularly-scheduled programming into the theme. In March, filmmakers Scott Smith and Nettie Wild installed an immersive version of their documentary Go Fish at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre.
Over 1,300 visitors viewed the movie, which portrays the interplay of ocean ecosystems from divergent perspectives: the skies, fishing vessels, and aquatic habitats.
“It allowed you to have your own opinion,” says Malina, a member of the council’s emerging artists group. “It allowed me to see the narrative without it being forced on me.”
This fall, the Sechelt Arts Festival lineup will evolve into two marquee events.
On September 21, an equinox celebration at the Mission Point estuary will begin with a procession led by puppeteer Gerardo Avila and a menagerie of fabricated sea creatures. Avila will be accompanied by Japanese taiko percussionists and shíshálh Nation traditional drummers.
The festival joined forces with Rogue Fest, which is taking a hiatus from its customary extravaganza in Wilson Creek. Rogue organizers are recruiting a group of musical artists who will perform at Mission Point House.
“We’re also working with a number of artists from the shíshálh Nation to share shíshálh ways of knowing, including dance and performance,” says Rodrigues, who calls the event a “launch party” for the reformatted festival with its renewed ecological focus.
“I don’t know how many people know how critical that site was for the encounter between Indigenous Salish communities,” she adds.
“It was also the site of the first reservation in the area, and the location of incredibly important eel grass fields that have now gone.”
A cabaret-style celebration on November 15 at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre will round out the festival for 2024. In addition to visual art and music, the event will include dialogues on fish facilitated by local writers, and dramatic performances.
Steve Schwabl, who starred in the play Showing Size (written by Roberts Creek multi-disciplinarian Gordon Halloran) at the 2023 Sechelt Arts Festival, will premiere a new theatrical work. Schwabl has been researching the history of attempts to chart the Salish Sea, beginning with Portuguese explorers. His text reflects on the complex relationship between cultures and geographies that defines the West Coast.
During the cabaret, longtime organizers Diana Robertson and Ross Powell will be honoured for their contributions to the Sechelt Arts Festival.
In 2025, Rodrigues says, the festival will further crystallize as a celebration of the autumn equinox, with wide-ranging collaboration as a distinguishing feature. shíshálh weaver and educator Jessica Silvey has already joined its leadership team as a co-curator.
For a community always jockeying for space to celebrate, Sechelt’s arts festival has proved that constant transformation is the best way to thrive.
