One thing I love about projects like this is that the unknown often turns into the better-than-imagined. Case in point: this past Friday evening I gathered at the Minoru Chapel with about 15 people, mostly members of the City Centre Community Centre poetry appreciation group. I have been attending the group's Wednesday meetings for about a month and have been delighted by their laughter, enthusiasm for performance, and group conviviality. Despite not speaking any Mandarin, I can feel the emotion pouring off the page and through the voices and bodies of these performers.
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| Most of the group from Friday night's gathering. (Photo: Christine Corris-Wingfield) |
I had planned the Friday night event to include a short manifest gathering exercise, a stroll through the Chapel garden, and a bit of writing inspired by the sights, sounds, and scents I imagined we would encounter. To my delight, nearly all of my plans went out the window, to be replaced by so much laughter that I walked to the train with cheeks sore from smiling.
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| True to form, Irene strikes a dramatic pose. |
Our evening began with hellos on the front steps, invitation to explore the Chapel's interior, and a bit of bell ringing. Most of the attendees had never been inside the Chapel, and were charmed by its historical features and surprised by its not-so historical windows depicting life in Richmond. (The meta window with an image of the Chapel and its windows was a favourite, though I may be projecting.)
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| One of the Chapel's not so historical windows, and a manifest performance. |
While we waiting for everyone to arrive, the groups resident "senior in training" gave an impromptu piano concert. You would never have guessed her age, five years, or length of lesson taking, six months, from the fantastic sounds. It was a perfect start.
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A pre-activity concert! (Photo: Christine Corris-Wingfield)
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| Not a bad setting for manifest writing! |
We began with an introduction to the manifest (a list) and the instruction/invitation for everyone to write a Self Manifest: what you have on you now. I love this simple activity so much as it offers the chance for people to be very literal (these are all my clothes, objects, items), very abstract (these are my feelings, beliefs, emotions), or more often, somewhere in between. These lists become little stories made up of what is included and what is left out.
And on this Friday night, following the allotted five minutes of writing time, performances began. I was told that in Chinese culture no one would volunteer, so Irene appointed herself the decider of who would go when. One by one participants got up to read their cards. Some read in English and Mandarin, some in Mandarin with English translation by Irene, and as the night went on the readings evolved from simple list performances to speeches on gratitude and friendship and community.
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| Smiles, and manifest reading. |
As is often the case, as the night went on each speech got a longer and longer, building from one participant to the next. It was moving and heartwarming and inspiring to see this group of people declare their affection for each other publicly. Irene was one of the last to go and she spoke of what it meant that be in in a space, the Chapel, and a place, Richmond, that felt so inclusive to her and so many others who were born elsewhere.
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| Manifest performance from a "senior in training". |
There is much to be said about the promise of Canadian multiculturalism, not the least being the slow realization of Canada's ongoing colonialism and history/present of broken promises to First Nations, but on that Friday in the Chapel, I felt the honour of being surrounded by so many people who have lived such wide lives (that night's group included doctors and journalists and photographers, to name just a few) and who, one evening in Richmond, gathered with friends and strangers to sit and write and share.
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| Na, fearless leader of the remarkable Poetry Appreciation group. |
I have been dreaming and imagining and hoping that the act of creating a manifest might birth a manifesto or two, and on Friday night, I saw it happen. These seniors' manifestos were in full force favour of friendship and community and gratitude, and I am ready to get behind them as best I can.
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| Ballroom dance teacher extraordinaire, performing text! |
