What's Happening this Sunday at Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner?
Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dinners always emphasize BC's cultural and historical past and present. While we acknowledge the Scottish and Chinese pioneers that helped to shape this province of British Columbia, we also look to see where we are going and what kind of cultural fusion is happening. This year's program is amazing.
Larissa Lai is the featured author (When Fox is A Thousand, Salt Fish Girl + new poetry book Automaton
Biographies). Larissa enjoyed last year's Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dinner when Rita Wong was the featured author. Larissa teaches Burns poetry at the UBC English Department.
Lan Tung
is the featured musician with her trio Birds of Paradox, with guitarist Ron Samworth and multi-instrumentalist NealamjitDhillon. Nealamjit has performed at Gung Haggis Fat Choy previously with Joe McDonald's band “Brave Waves.”
This will be Lan's first time at Gung Haggis Fat Choy, she is a
virtuoso on the erhu, and is well known with her group Orchid Ensemble
Marcus Youssef
is featured playwright and will perform excerpt from “Ali & Ali and
the Axis of Evil” which pokes fun at Asian Heritage Month,
Multiculturalism and Scottish history and culture. Marcus is one of the founders of Neworld Theatre with Adrienne Wong and Camyar Chai. Adrienne is a perennial favorite at Gung Haggis Fat Choy. She has co-hosted and last year, she presented a preview excerpt from her Neworld theatre play “Mixie and the Half-breeds.” In May 2009, Marcus and Adrienne co-produced and performed in a reading at the Vancouver Public Library for History Joy Kogawa House's inaugural Writer-in-Residence program with Montreal author John Asfour. This is Marcus's first visit to Gung Haggis Fat Choy, he will be joined by Camyar Chai and Charles Demers.
Tricia Collins,
is our Chinese-Irish-Guyanese-Canadian co-host. Her recent one-woman
play Gravity played to rave reviews in Vancouver, Montreal and Guyana. Tricia has performed in many theatre plays, and recently her work was featured at the Whistler Film Festival in
Gung Haggis Pipes & Drums – including Dan Huang – Drum Sgt of the Kelowna Pipes & Drums.
Alex and Aidan Huang – Scottish-Chinese-Canadian Highland Dancers age 6 &
9.
William Saunders, president of the Vancouver & District Labour Council, will give the Immortal Memory about our Ploughman's Poet
Joe McDonald, official bagpiper of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, will help lead some singalongs and special tunes
Todd Wong, creator of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, will read poems, lead singalongs and maybe play some accordion
GREAT PRIZES….
Tix for “Monkey King” at Centre for Vancouver for Performing Arts
Tix for Vancouver Opera's “Nixon in China“
Tix for Firehall Arts Centre “Where the Blood Mixes“
Great Book Prizes:
Jim Wong-Chu – Swallowing Clouds
Larissa Lai – Automaton Biographies
Fiona Tinwei Lam – Enter the Chrysanthemum
Charles Demers – Vancouver Special
Gu Xiong – The Yellow Pear
Ashok Mathur's A Little Distillery in Nowgong
+ Lots More