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Meet the BIPOC Learning Lab Artists

We’re thrilled to have selected the following interdisciplinary performers to be part of our very first ever Learning Lab to build capacity for BIPOC artists. The Arts Integration Learning Lab is a one-of-a-kind professional development experience for artists, designed to build their capacity to work alongside educators in schools. These nine dynamic artists will participate in an immersive five-day series of practical, experiential workshops with a host of all-BIPOC facilitators and mentors. Get ready for this next wave of teaching artists as they prepare to lead arts-integrated experiences and performances in learning environments across the province!

Candice George

Candice George

Candice is a traditional singer and storyteller. She is Dakelh from the Northern Interior of British Columbia. Her U'loo (mother) Yvonne George is Stellat'en and U'ba (father) Wilfred George is Wet'su'wet'en. She belongs to the Luksilyu (Caribou) clan and her family crest is Dene Yaz (Little man). All of her late grand-parents inspire her to continue their legacy; to pass on the customs and values of Uda Dene (Ancestors of Long Ago).
Jackson Wai Chung Tse

Jackson Wai Chung Tse

Jackson Wai Chung Tse | 謝瑋聰 (he/she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist from Hong Kong, creating work in dance, poetry, facilitation, theatre, voice, film, prose, music, and the healing arts. As a queer, non-binary, 1.5 generation immigrant-settler, Jackson’s intersectionality is reflected in their creative work, which explores intentional community building in polarizing times, reverence for the land, challenging the mainstream dominant paradigm, queer identities coexisting with cultural values, and Chinese diaspora in the West. Jackson has created and performed for various national and international stages including the Vancouver Queer Film Festival (Vancouver), Queer Arts Festival (Vancouver), The Calgary Stampede (Calgary), Lazare Dance Company (Tbilisi, Georgia), and Le Moule Dance Company (Guadeloupe, France). Connect with Jackson on Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook @sonofjacky.
Jane Shi

Jane Shi

Jane Shi is a queer Chinese settler living on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. She is a poet, writer, editor, filmmaker, and organizer whose work has appeared in Room magazine, Poetry Is Dead, GUTS Canadian Feminist Magazine, LooseLeaf Magazine, The Bulletin, and others. She wants to live in a world where love is not a limited resource, land is not mined, hearts are not filched, and bodies are not violated.
Jotika Chaudhary

Jotika Chaudhary

Jotika is a Queer Femme of Colour. She is Fijian of Indian decent. She is a budding Expressive Arts therapist, Community Organizer and Interdisciplinary Artist. She lives on xʷməθkwəy̓əm, sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh lands. Through her art, she aims to work towards healing from the effects of colonization that her ancestors and family have experienced. She also aims to examine, understand, and learn to how stand with folks whose land she is a settler on. Her art centers around matriarchs, stories of struggle, learning self-love and working towards healing trauma. Writing, creating and sharing different forms of art is a way for her to connect with other who have similar struggles and to share her narratives as a working class, Queer woman of colour. www.Jotikart.com
Krystle Dos Santos

Krystle Dos Santos

Krystle Dos Santos is an accomplished Canadian soul singer/songwriter and performer with Guyanese roots. A graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts, Dos Santos released her debut, award-winning album in 2008, and has been honing her craft for nearly a decade. From singing on stage with Stevie Wonder to performances in Dreamgirls (2013), Chelsea Hotel (2018) and her own original productions (Blak & Hey Viola!), Dos Santos brings her eclectic style, powerful vocal prowess and magnetic charm to every performance she delivers. She is excited to showcase her new "History of Motown" show at ArtStarts' showcase in March and share this historically important music with students across B.C.
Maneesa Sotheeswaran

Maneesa Sotheeswaran

Manees(H)a was born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, and moved to British Columbia in 2014 to complete her Bachelors degree in Communications, Minor in Sociology and Certificate in Social Justice, at Simon Fraser University. As a first generation immigrant, she is a Sri Lankan, Tamil-speaking, introverted, vegetarian, post-colonial feminist, riddled with bundles of anxiety and trauma. During her free time, she enjoys critically consuming cultural commodities or creative expression and mindful experiences, such as, hiking, writing, painting, kneading dough, and laying on flat surfaces.
Simone Blais

Simone Blais

Simone is a Toronto-born dancer who has lived on Coast Salish territories for four years. Having spent seven years training in contemporary, jazz and Irish styles, she is now working to decolonize the dance world. Simone teaches Métis style jigging to the métis community as well as all-inclusive dancehall and soca dance classes for folks of colour and the queer community in Victoria, BC. Simone is currently working on a one-year dance mentorship and intergenerational knowledge exchange with champion dancer Yvonne Chartrand. Her most recent upcoming performance will be in the production Supernova, an all-Indigenous dance showcase in January in Victoria, BC.
Wanda John

Wanda John

Cree poet Wanda John-Kehewin studied criminology, sociology, Aboriginal studies, and has attended the Writer’s Studio Creative Writing program at Simon Fraser University. She uses writing as a therapeutic medium through which to understand and to respond to the near decimation of First Nations culture, language, and tradition. She has been published in Quills, Canadian Poetry Magazine, the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast anthology Salish Seas, and the Writer’s Studio emerge anthology. She has shared her writing on Vancouver Co-op Radio, performed at numerous readings throughout the Lower Mainland, and read for the Writers Union of Canada. She had her second book published in 2018, "Seven Sacred Truths" and is also publishing two children's grade one and grade two readers in spring of 2019