HEART OF THE CITY: MUSIC OF COMMUNITY CHANGE IN VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA'S DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE KLISALA R. HARRISON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAMME IN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY AND MUSICOLOGY YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, ONTARIO MARCH 2008 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-90124-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-90124-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Canada iv Abstract This dissertation is a musical history of a North American inner city or centre city: Vancouver, British Columbia's Downtown Eastside (the DTES). One of Canada's poorest urban communities, the DTES suffers from problems of gendered violence, drug and alcohol misuse, survival sex and related disease. The community is further stressed by shifts in the ethnocultural and class make-up of its population due to migration and gentrification. In the 1990s and 2000s, music became a means of changing the DTES by initiating new opportunities for social interaction, public expression and wage earning. Musical encounters between individuals and groups, and complex musical representations of their narratives, histories, emotions and experiences became ways to keep alive or catalyze additional shifts in the perceptions, possibilities, experiences and constitution of the community and its participants. DTES musical "activists" were artists; arts administrators; agents of municipal, provincial and federal governments; employees of local social service organizations; health and clinic workers; and community members themselves. The musical urban improvement involved formal arts programs of opera, classic rock, country music, musical theatre, Northwest Coast First Nations traditional song and pan-Aboriginal powwow drumming. Some programs were music therapy sessions, others offered performance practice or education, but all explicitly addressed the theme of individual or community healing from stressful situations of transition. V Taking an applied ethnomusicology approach to research, I evaluate how musical initiatives, encounters and representations have negotiated well-being in the DTES. My ethnography reflects on the primary sociological influences on physiological health: the degree of control that one feels one has over one's life; one's status, particularly socioeconomic status in capitalist contexts; and the power dynamics of social connections in community or society. In the DTES, trying to shift community dynamics through musical encounters and representations turned out to be an enormously complex undertaking that lay bare sites of external and internal community control. My study reveals ways that musical encounters and representations may resist, nurture, negotiate, evade and drastically change social dynamics and human well-being in a situation of community transition. vi A cknowledgements My deepest appreciation to the people of Vancouver, British Columbia's Downtown Eastside (DTES) who shared their stories, music and souls for this dissertation, especially the following musicians and artists: Joanne Moen, Brenda Wells, the late Francis McAllister, May Kossoff, Andy Kostyniuk, Rick Lavallee, Stan Hall, Stewart Wilson, James Piche, Stephen Lytton, Priscillia Tait, Elwin Xie and Kat Norris. Many thanks also to music therapists who, when working in the DTES, shared their medical practices: Carol Wiedemann, Jeff Smith, Jeffrey Hatcher and Stephanie Swenson. Music jam and ensemble hosts including Peggy Smith and Ken Tabata were incredibly sweet and helpful consultants. Earle Peach, Brian Tate and others who direct ensembles associated with the neighbourhood contributed interviews and information, A very special thank you to Jay Hamburger, of Vancouver's Theatre in the Raw, who got me involved in the Downtown Eastside community play and in the fabric of the community. His spirit of generousity when teaching theatre in the DTES is an inspiration. Different theatre artists associated with the DTES also supported my dissertation research in important ways, particularly James Fagan Tait, Marie Clements (Urban Ink Productions), Donna Spencer (Artistic Producer, Firehall Arts Centre), and Savannah Walling and Terry Hunter of Vancouver Moving Theatre. Savannah Walling shared some of her meticulous and brilliant historical research on the DTES. It has been a joy to play violin in community theatre with music professionals Joelysa Pankanea and Wyckham vii Porteous, who gave interviews for this project. Still others, who have been involved in Downtown Eastside music initiatives, supported and informed my research: administrators and evaluators Valerie Methot, jil p. weaving, Doreen Littlejohn (R.N., Vancouver Native Health Society), Ann Suddaby (First United Church), Sharon Kravitz (President, Community Arts Council of Vancouver), Donna Wong-Juliani (General Director, Opera Breve), Miko Hoffman (General Manager, Powell Street Festival Society), Victoria Marie, Karen Lee-Morlang and Marlene George; First Nations elders Fred John and Gerry Oleman; also musicians and theatre artists R. H. Maxwell, the late "Rusty," Grant Chancey, Rosemary Collins, Naomi Narvey, Patrick Foley, the late Wilhemina Munro, Fanna Yee, Dalannah Gail Bowen, Tom Pickett, Robyn Livingstone, Caleb Johnston, Jim Sands, Susan Poshan Wong, Gena Thompson, Kuei-Ming Lin and many others. This dissertation would have been impossible without the practical support of particular institutions, friends and family members. Staff at the City of Vancouver Archives, Vancouver Public Library's Special Collections, and Chinese Cultural Centre Museum and Archives gave of their time and historical research expertise. Thank you to Jim Green, an anthropologist and politician, for his care and help regarding intellectual strategies, at a crucial time. The late Michael Ames, former director of the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology, gave me the research support of a Research Associate position at the museum in 2003-2004. Edith Iglauer Daly (of The New Yorker magazine) allowed me to write a Ph.D. comprehensive exam, which informed this viii monograph, in her charming boathouse suite. My grandmother, the late Ingeborg Bremer, ensured that I had some financial support to do a Ph.D. I also wrote some of this dissertation in her peaceful seaside home. I am appreciative of the funding bodies and institutions that also helped to fund this work: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities; and York University. Particular thanks to the Media Studies Department of Malaspina University-College on Vancouver Island, for four years of an amazingly friendly teaching environment while I researched this dissertation, and for all the research and professional development support. Researching and writing a Ph.D. dissertation such as this one requires creativity, critical thinking, intellectual flexibility and academic breadth. To those from whom I have learned such skills: heartfelt thanks. You are the people who have freed me to do the work that I need to do as an emerging scholar. Thank you to Nicholas Gunther, who with love, helped me to see complexity in many things. He nurtured in me gifts of articulateness, social fluency and confidence without which this dissertation would have been very different. My parents, Joseph and Solveigh Harrison, never cease to remind me of the most beautiful aspects of doing socially difficult research. I appreciate their very deep support. Thanks to Dad for tipping me off on so many interesting ideas, as always. Shendra Hanney, a filmmaker who has worked with the Lacandon Maya, shared her wisdom about interpersonal