2025 Recipients
Blueridge Chamber Music Society
Hailed by the Vancouver Sun as “ever-inventive” and “not afraid to take some pretty big chances,” the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival presents a unique blend of chamber music classics and adventurous new music. Over the past 15 years, the festival has grown from a grassroots musical meeting among friends to one of Vancouver’s most innovative classical music experiences, highlighting women and BIPOC composers of the past and present, offering novel and challenging listening experiences within a welcoming and inclusive listening environment, and rethinking the role of the audience through participatory events.
Project Description: Colorful, playful, and abstract, graphic scores are used by composers to visually represent music beyond the bounds of traditional Western notation. For the 2026 Blueridge Chamber Music Festival, we will commission 4 composers to create one-page large-scale graphic scores: Mark Takeshi McGregor, Viviane Houle, Jesse Plessis, and Jeff Younger.
The scores will be displayed in transit shelters across the city as part of the City of Vancouver’s Transit Shelter Advertising sponsorship program.
We will then host a series of workshops for members of the public of all ages to learn to interpret and perform the scores and create graphic scores of their own. The workshops, which require no prior musical experience, will culminate in public performances of each piece at the transit shelter locations. During the six weeks the scores are displayed, community-members will also be encouraged to record and submit their own performances for inclusion on a dedicated website.
Connection Salon Artist Collective Society
Connection Salon Artist Collective Society is dedicated to amplifying the voices of Mad, neurodivergent, and psychiatric survivor communities through the arts. Our mandate is to foster dialogue, reduce stigma, and celebrate diversity by producing inclusive, accessible arts events. Born in response to the loss of vital mental health arts spaces in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Connection Salon has become a welcoming hub for artists who have often been excluded from mainstream opportunities.
Our roots in the DTES run deep: after Gallery Gachet’s closure, our founding members created Connection Salon to ensure local artists could continue to connect, exhibit, and thrive. Since 2018, we have delivered exhibitions, workshops, and outreach initiatives-first at Lost + Found Café and now at the Gathering Place Community Centre, a cornerstone for DTES residents. Our programming is shaped by artists with lived experience, and we work collaboratively with local organizations to ensure culturally safe, meaningful engagement.
All events are low-barrier, trauma-informed, and artist-led, with a focus on equity and genuine community leadership. Through this work, Connection Salon continues to build resilience and pride in the DTES, championing inclusive arts for all.
Project Description: Mad Pride Festival 2026 is a barrier-free, two-day multidisciplinary celebration centering Mad, neurodivergent, and psychiatric survivor communities through accessible and inclusive arts experiences. “Mad” is a reclaimed identity for people with lived experience of mental health difference, psychiatric treatment, or neurodivergence.
The festival opens with an indoor cabaret-style event-already supported by the BC Arts Council-featuring performances and storytelling that center lived experience and creative expression. On the second day, the celebration moves outdoors for an accessible street festival with live performances, interactive arts workshops, community resource tables, and food. All activities are free and open to the public, with a strong emphasis on cultural safety. The festival’s mission is to amplify Mad and neurodivergent voices, foster inclusion, and build meaningful community connections through the arts.
Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival (Vancouver Moving Theatre Society)
Vancouver Moving Theatre Society is an award-winning non-profit, professional arts organization located in Vancouver’s historic Downtown Eastside (DTES). The primary activity of the Society is the DTES Heart of the City Festival, an annual multidisciplinary community-engaged Festival founded in 2004. The Festival serves as a bridge-building force, amplifying the voices of the DTES, its cultural communities, neighbourhoods, and inner-city residents. The annual Festival (late Oct.-early Nov.) features over 80 events at over 40 venues and involves hundreds of artists and residents. Most events are free or by donation.
With over 21 years of community engagement experience, the DTES Heart of the City Festival supports and connects the arts and cultural systems in Vancouver’s DTES. The Festival brings together artists and organizations to promote, present, and support artists, art forms, cultural practices, history, activism, and great stories about Vancouver’s diverse DTES.
The Festival has presented over 2500 events, dozens of Canadian premieres and works-in-development; hosted panels and symposiums; employed artists and community members; strengthened community connections and fostered community pride. Activities include performances, art-making and educational workshops, public dialogues, story and cultural sharing, interactive events, walking tours, symposiums, community celebrations and commemorative events.
Project Description: Mayor of Oz is a community-engaged grassroots play developed by Carnegie Learning Centre volunteers with support from Capilano University and the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival. Reimagining Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz through the lens of the DTES, the play explores housing instability, climate collapse, the toxic drug crisis, and gentrification, while celebrating resilience, solidarity, and community strength.
Many participants face housing precarity and are directly impacted by the play’s themes. After a successful script-reading at Carnegie Community Centre, a work-in-progress showing was presented during the 2024 DTES Heart of the City Festival to a full house with overwhelmingly positive feedback and requests for more shows. Participants were inspired and have called for further development and wider presentation.
This phase supports Mayor of Oz at the 2025 Festival. This process will encourage ongoing artistic expression and community storytelling, nurture lasting creative partnerships, and strengthen artistic development within the community.
soma anima arts (legal name: Kinesis Dance Society)
soma anima arts (Kinesis Dance Society), under the artistic direction of Rachel Helten, is dedicated to creating embodied, interdisciplinary dance works that foster empathy, connection, and transformation. Our personal mandate is to cultivate artistic experiences that deepen relationships with self, others, and the natural world through movement-based practices. With a focus on holistic, ecological and somatic approaches to dance-making, with a commitment to community engagement, our work often explores themes of care, interconnection, and resilience.
soma anima arts engages with local communities through workshops, performances, and collaborative processes that center accessibility and inclusivity. We facilitate movement sessions in community centres, outdoor public spaces, and educational settings, creating space for people of all ages and backgrounds to connect through dance. Our projects—such as Artemis’ Embrace and Bright Shadow— invite community voices into the creative process, fostering meaningful dialogue and shared expression. Through these experiences, we aim to bridge professional artistic practice with community engagement, enriching both spheres with reciprocity and mutual inspiration.
Project Description: Generations is a multifaceted dance initiative designed to harness the transformative power of contemporary dance and music, specifically engaging underserved populations in care facilities across Metro Vancouver. The project involves dancers and musicians visiting various assisted living and retirement homes, conducting room-to-room sessions that encourage residents to participate in improvisational movements tailored to their abilities. These interactions aim to foster creative expression and share moments of joy. Additionally, the outreach extends to hospitals, hospices and clinics, offering artistic experiences to young patients facing medical challenges and individuals in hospice care. Live musical accompaniment enriches these sessions, creating a multi-sensory journey for participants. These engagements are viewed as site-specific and immersive performances, incorporating workshops when applicable. The overarching vision is to honor the stories and resilience of participants through movement and music, transcending boundaries and fostering a sense of community across generations and life stages.
