Hope for Haiti

Deep Dark Risms (DDR)

 

Alcvin Ryuzen Ramos Alcvin is one of the leading teachers and performers of the shakuhachi in the world today and Canada's first and only grandmaster of the shakuhachi flute. Alcvin is also a composer and player of a variety of instruments and has been experimenting with new ways of playing traditional instruments as well as with synthesized and electronic music. He has taught and performed all over North America, Europe and Japan, and pursues an active solo as well as collaborative career, playing with such distinguished artists as John McLaughlin, Bill Laswell, Hun Huur Tuu Mongolian Throat Singers, Toshinori Kondo, and Uzume Taiko, and has opened for Anoushka Shankar and the Yoshida Brothers. He has recorded both Japanese classical shakuhachi music and electronic fusion pieces with the group Dharmakasa, a group he co-leads, and received a Canada Council grant in 2007 to produce a full length CD of fusion/experimental works.

 

Kurai Mubaiwa Kurai, a native Zimbabwean who is determined to maintain his Shona cultural heritage, which was handed to him from his ancestors. He sings traditional Zimbabwean songs accompanied by the beautiful melody of the Mbira (thumb piano). He is also a talented multi-instrumentalist playing drums, electric guitar, bass and marimba and composes fusion music using dance rhythms such as traditional Zimbabwean, Sungura, Jiti, Soukous, Rumba, Zouk, Afro-Jazz, Afro-Funk and Afro-Cuban. Kurai Mubaiwa has been an established world musician, music teacher and theatre actor since 1994, who has toured across Europe, West Africa, Southern Africa and across Canada opening and/or performing with artists such as Chiwoniso Maraire, Cesaria Evora, Andy Brown, and Oliver Mtukudzi at internationally recognized concerts and festivals throughout Europe and North America. Kurai is currently leads the Zimbabwean fusion band, Zimbamoto.

Amrit Basi Amrit Basi has been playing actively in many different styles of projects ranging from electronic, worldbeat, turkish, punjabi, rock, funk and jazz fusion styles over the last 14 years in vancouver. He plays with BLACKBERRY WOOD actively around town and will be going back to the uk for the 4th time this spring/summer to perform at the world famous glastonbury festival.

Dasz (Haagen Live) is an electronic musician and live performer who likes to invent and design his instruments and performances.

 

www.bamboo-in.com

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Mira Hunter and the Whirling Dervishes

Emine Mira Hunter (née Burke) is a visual artist and second-generation sufi mevlevi whirling dervish, she began her traditional training at the age of 16 with her father Raqib Burke and Sheikh Jelaladdin Loras. As a visual artist, she studied at NSCAD and Yale, graduating with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and a minor in art history. For the past 10 years she has collaborated with Turkish born, Canadian producer/musician/DJ Mercan Dede, performing at such acclaimed international events as the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Vancouver Folk Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Paleo Festival. She has toured all over the world, from New York, to London, to, Dubai, to Japan. She was featured in David Michalek’s Slow Dance project that was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2008, and appeared in Fatih Akin's award winning documentary Crossing The Bridge: The Sounds of Istanbul. Mira continues to challenge the fundamental forms of whirling by incorporating innovative movements and concepts, coaxing the 13th century practice into a contemporary context. She recently returned from a tour in Switzerland with the avant-garde performance group Stimmhorn, and a series of events with Mercan Dede including the Dubai International Film Festival. She currently studies Sufism under Sherif Baba Catalkaya and lives and works in Istanbul, New York and Vancouver.

www.mirahunter.com

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Tambura Rasa

Tambura Rasa is a buoyant cultural cross-pollination that fuses contemporary grooves and traditional rhythms into one energetic musical brand all their own! Packed with fiery Spanish guitar, fully orchestrated Baladi Gypsy string section and burning Afro-Latin percussion. This act raises the roof and lights-up skies of any concert grounds they land on.

www.tamburarasa.com

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Navaro

Navaro is a cultural translator inspired by ancient traditions of earth based music, rhythm, and dance. She is deeply interested in the current movement of traditional knowledge into present day context, and how it can be brought forth to support consciousness, community, and healing in our modern world.  

 www.navarofranco.com

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Joseph 'Pepe' Danza

Joseph 'Pepe' Danza is an electrifying percussionist and multi- instrumentalist. Pepe is also an active studio musician, composer, arranger, producer and Musical Director, presently working and touring with jazz-funk supergroup Soulstream, as well as with world music group JouTou, Tambura Rasa, the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra, First Nations choral group M’Girl, and Jazz/World music fusion group Koan.  

www.pepedanza.com
 

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Robin Layne

marimbist, percussionist, bandleader and music educator
Robin is the leader and musical director of the Afro-funk collective Jarimba, which features Kocassale Dioubate. He performs with a wide range of ensembles from salsa and jazz to traditional West and South African music. He has performed across China, the U.S. and Canada at jazz and folk festivals. As an educator, he loves sharing his passion for music and rhythm with children of all ages and can be found teaching workshops around B.C. He is also on the faculty of the Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach Program, where he teaches mallets and percussion, and the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts where he accompanies dance. Robin is a graduate of the L.A. Music Academy and V.C.C. School of Music. His love for world music has taken him to Cuba where he studied with the Folclorico Nacional Ballet Cutumba.

www.myspace.com/jarimba
 

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Shine

Shine has been playing, performing, doing sound healing and teaching didjeridu for over 18 years. He was initiated into healing by an Australian aboriginal Elder, Deepak Chopra Eckhart Tolle, Andrew Wiel , Ram Das have all experienced Shine's work

  
 

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Bocephus King

Critics have struggled to slot Bocephus King into a specific genre, attaching such inspired labels as pop-folk, roots-rock and carnival burlesque to their unique sound.

   

 

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Nils of Beats Without Borders

Nils of Beats Without Borders has been connecting with and guiding Dance Floors in BC and around the world since the early 90's. In that time he has played at hundreds of events and has been on the same bill with such DJ luminaries as Cheb i Sabbah, Toby Marks, Adham Shaikh, Shakatura, and Bluetech. Never predictable, he has an uncanny ability to read the mood of a room and give it just what it needs.

In his capacity as a customer service specialist at Vancouvers HighLife Records he has had oppurtunity to get to know so called "World Music" very well, and to build up his incredible music collection in the process.The size and variety of his collection allows him to tailor a set to whatever the night (or day) calls for. He's as happy playing Reggae at Sunset as he is playing Deep Ethno-ambient at Sunrise.

Aside from being a DJ he is also an event organizer, with the legendary "Faeries & Fools" Costume Carnival on the Sunshine Coast being his signature event. He is a Sagitarius, a mystic raconteur, and a founding member of the Beats Without Borders Collective.

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Zamir

Zamir is an interdisciplinary performer devoted to bringing peace through culture. He has performed in many countries, with music, dance and storytelling as his primary mediums. His inspiration is the creative principle of life; this way he's always inspired.
His main instrument is called the 'hang drum', which was invented in the year 2000, and its sounds are at once nourishing, uplifting and meditative.
His art and life are dedicated to marrying mystical traditions with material concerns - illustrating the interdependence of art, science and religion – with the wish for an environmentally sustainable, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling human presence on the planet.

Zamir will be the MC for this evening.