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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: It's Vancouver's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:26] SPEAKER_00: Hello, this is Robert Smigel coming to today with a Vancouver entrepreneur.ca, where we talk to the entrepreneurs where making it happen here in British
[00:34] SPEAKER_00: Columbia. Today we are with Jen Ray, director and owner of Dance Cinema. Dance Cinema is a Canadian and American based company founded in Vancouver that fuses the arts and industries of dance and film through productions, education and events.
[00:52] SPEAKER_00: Next up is the third annual Cascadia Dance and Cinema Festival happening June 2nd and 3rd in Vancouver. Well, Jen, thanks for coming on the show today and taking the time to talk to all our listeners today.
[01:06] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, Robert. Great. Okay. I want you to tell us a little bit more about Dance Cinema and the Up and Coming Cascadia Dance and Cinema Festival.
[01:16] SPEAKER_01: Okay. Well, Dance Cinema, the abridged version is it's a company I started when I was a film student at UBC. I was also teaching dance and I just saw that there was this overlap in interest and in need with the two arts and there was room to really occupy that middle space, particularly in a place like Vancouver.
[01:40] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I just, it started as me making my first film as an experiment and they grew into, you know, something much bigger than that quite quickly.
[01:50] SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, I launched it at the end of 2013 and Cascadia is now in its third year. We started that in 2015 and my goal with Cascadia was, you know, not to, was not to create an opportunity to showcase my own films because I was already doing that at other festivals.
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: It was really to, you know, to have my take at curating because, you know, everyone has different tastes. Everyone has different things that they they value in films and different kind of, you know, projects that they want to highlight.
[02:24] SPEAKER_01: And I had a very clear vision on the kinds of projects I wanted to highlight and a reason why I thought Vancouver would be a good home for it being like both a dance city, but really a strong film city.
[02:36] SPEAKER_01: I felt like it it was a place that made sense to do that.
[02:40] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, especially with all the filming going on here, it's just a really a mecca for a lot of the production that goes on.
[02:47] SPEAKER_00: Okay, how is Cascadia connecting the dance and film industries? What does that look like?
[02:53] SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say it's, you know, we've had, we're in year three now. So, every year we've kind of tried some, there've been some events that are consistent like the short film screenings.
[03:05] SPEAKER_01: We've had those every year. And each year has been a little different. You know, in our first year, we screened nine feature films.
[03:15] SPEAKER_01: We also had the meeting of machines performances. So, the idea was, you know, dance and amazing isn't just video format. It's also like, how do you mix these things in a performance aspect?
[03:28] SPEAKER_01: Like how do you explore them from a discussion standpoint? Beyond doing a Q&A post screening. And, you know, that event was really my favorite.
[03:39] SPEAKER_01: Because dance film is not new, but it's something that, you know, even amongst people that agree that they're passionate about dance film, they don't even all call it the same thing.
[03:49] SPEAKER_01: They call it screen dance. They call it dance on camera, dance on, you know, dance on screen. Like, there's so many different terms for it.
[03:56] SPEAKER_01: So, really the idea was, is to explore, you know, what dance is doing right now? What film is doing right now? How people are combining them differently?
[04:07] SPEAKER_01: And do that by, you know, showcasing the short films, discussing, you know, industry topics or, you know, how different people are approaching their work.
[04:16] SPEAKER_01: And really, like, connecting people, you know, it's an opportunity for people to sum it because so often, like, we're getting all this information and we're watching all this content.
[04:28] SPEAKER_01: But we don't always have time to, like, stop and process it, particularly when, you know, there's things go viral or, I mean, you even think of the, you know, the Childish Gambino video, you know, this May 2018.
[04:42] SPEAKER_01: Like, that, that incorporate a dance that was a screen dancer, a dance film and some capacity. And, you know, it's, it's, when these things are a moment in time and of cultural significance, I think it's really important that we, we actually take some time to commemorate them in some way.
[05:01] SPEAKER_00: Okay. What is the vision for Cascadia? And why has Dan Sinema decided to offer this here in Vancouver?
[05:08] SPEAKER_01: Well, for those that don't know me, I, so, when I screen my, my first film at FS, well, I actually met my husband in the States.
[05:19] SPEAKER_01: And so now I live in the States. And I decided to still do Cascadia in Vancouver because I thought that I just saw like a need for it at the time.
[05:29] SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I, a festival is a long term project. So, you know, between starting Cascadia and the first manifestation, I am a graded, you know, but I still think that Vancouver is a place that makes sense for it because, as you said, we are a film city.
[05:49] SPEAKER_01: We're also a dance city, but I don't think that we're a city that necessarily, you know, in some ways people can sometimes stay in their own clusters.
[06:02] SPEAKER_01: And that's not necessarily a bad thing, you know, people have really strong loyalties or they have their community and, you know, the dance community is very vibrant.
[06:10] SPEAKER_01: But I just, you know, as kind of a, you know, a third party I came in and was like, why don't these two groups meet? Or why don't we try and create this third group? I actually call, you know, a cinephile is someone that loves film.
[06:27] SPEAKER_01: Well, I say dance cinephile, you know, people that love dance films. So I was like, what if we cultivate this third group here? Because I think it makes sense with Vancouver being a tech city, Vancouver being a film city.
[06:38] SPEAKER_01: Vancouver being a dance city, but also like a big attraction. We've consistently we've attracted people from elsewhere in Canada and from the States quite a bit because they're so, they're like, oh my gosh, Vancouver, I have to come to the festival.
[06:54] SPEAKER_01: And it's like, okay, like you really realize when you talk to people not from Vancouver who don't know about the daily rain, just how much of an attraction in a city itself is.
[07:05] SPEAKER_00: Right. Exactly. Yeah. And there's a lot of stuff going on, especially when when summer comes up spring, it's just that a lot of festivals and people are really starting to the cultures and the arts is just a perfect time to do that.
[07:16] SPEAKER_00: What is the balance between Vancouverites and others involved in Cascadia?
[07:22] SPEAKER_01: Well, every year we don't necessarily do a separate screening for all locals, but we do screen local films every year.
[07:34] SPEAKER_01: And that's something that is really important. I think is because we are sending films abroad, but it's important to also like be able to show it locally and have, you know, people that you know and people that you could actually more realistically work with.
[07:52] SPEAKER_01: Actually see your film in a certain forum, you know, like, we host our screenings at the Van City Theater and like that screen is so gorgeous. It's a nice, you know, internationally recognized facility.
[08:04] SPEAKER_01: Like it's so much better than like, oh, I'm going to put this on the projector in my living room and will appreciate like that has its place and I, you know, I love those kinds of screenings, but.
[08:14] SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's a level of respect that you show a work when you do show it in a more formal forum. We also have a lot of guests.
[08:23] SPEAKER_01: Particularly, it seems to be consistently from LA, I think because, you know, being a West coast thing and also just the volume of films coming out of Los Angeles. There's a lot of high quality dance films coming out of there and consequently we select quite a few.
[08:40] SPEAKER_01: This year we have, we have about four filmmakers coming up from LA. We have, let me think one, two, three, four, five. I think we have about five local filmmakers, which is really exciting. I think it's more than we've ever had.
[08:55] SPEAKER_01: And we also have someone who's from New Zealand as well. So I'm really excited that it really will be like this.
[09:03] SPEAKER_01: You know, cascadie is a place of mind and it's like a obviously the fictional, you know, the political movement for the Pacific Northwest to separate, but that's not why I named it cascadie. I named, you know, I named it because we're located in cascadie, but also because it's this idea of like a border.
[09:23] SPEAKER_00: You know, no, no US Canadian border and it really being a place of mind and a place of ideas and so good. Yeah, that's really interesting because I was just at the BC Tech conference summit and they talked about the cascadie of connecting Seattle and just like you said, the ideas and the technology and even the universities and things.
[09:43] SPEAKER_00: So I think that you nailed it as far as that, you know, it's now becoming one now with Amazon moving here and you know, Microsoft being here.
[09:54] SPEAKER_00: It's really inviting the two cities mainly in the calling of the cascadie. Now they got this rapid transit going on. So it's really interesting. So who will be involved and attending this year?
[10:06] SPEAKER_01: Well, this year, so I'm really excited. We do have some partner organizations that will be attending in the past. You know, we've tried, we've, you know, digitally or, you know, by way of mentioning or program ads or screening sites. There's been a presence in the past and trying to, you know, connect people that are there with other opportunities beyond our event.
[10:30] SPEAKER_01: But I'm really excited this year. We have. So one of our programmers, Hannah, she's one of the co founders of screen dance collective, which is a curated, you know, resource for high quality screen dance on Vimeo.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: And she'll be, she'll be present. I mean, she's been programming for both of our festivals for two years now. She's fantastic.
[10:50] SPEAKER_01: She, I just love working with her. And she actually has a degree in dance film as well. So it's nice to have a mix of people with, you know, formal education and industry experience.
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: And so she'll be presenting about screen dance collective. We also have Autumn miss Belk coming from North Carolina. She's from Raleigh.
[11:12] SPEAKER_01: She's with film art dance or rather she founded it. And this is like a touring. She curates dance films and graze them for K to 12 curriculum.
[11:24] SPEAKER_01: So that they actually go into schools in the States. They're not in Canadian schools right now. But basically it's an opportunity that our filmmakers can have.
[11:33] SPEAKER_01: And actually our filmmakers last year, Jemma Crowe made her film warehouse with warehouse dance collective. And their documentaries actually been part of the film art dance collective.
[11:45] SPEAKER_01: So already these opportunities are kind of rolling. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone present from standard vision this year. But, you know, this is an opportunity that I was connected with through Alexa Roman at Los Angeles Dance Film Festival.
[11:58] SPEAKER_01: So I'm really excited. We also have an opportunity with standard vision. They're an LA based company. And they have this giant LED screen outside the courtyard, Mary on Olympic Boulevard. And some of our filmmakers will be able to have their film screen there, which is a really cool opportunity.
[12:15] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I unfortunately don't have the measurements, but it's massive. And it's on the side of a building like in downtown LA, like that's so cool. I wish we had a big screen like that in Vancouver.
[12:25] SPEAKER_01: I mean, LA will have to do for this year.
[12:29] SPEAKER_00: Okay. What can attendees expect from the events at Vancouver International Film Center on Sunday, June 3rd?
[12:38] SPEAKER_01: Well, something I really love about our events is it's not like our audience is really mixed.
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: As I said, it's dance people, it's film people, it's dance cine files. It's people that don't know what dance film is, but they met somebody and somebody recommended it.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: And we're all ages too, which I really like. I'm such an old soul. I've been an old person since I was a child. And it's nice to have a mix of ages. You have from a school-aged children to elderly, wise, awesome people, including my grandma, who's not elderly at all. She's just fantastic.
[13:21] SPEAKER_01: So it's really nice that when you come to a cascading event, you're not kind of like, if you're looking to be with a hip crowd, there's some people in there, but it's really like a nice mix of there's families, there's people of all ages, people of all backgrounds.
[13:41] SPEAKER_01: We have our forum and our reception at the beginning of the day. And that's included with your dance cine file, pass. And then for those that just have the tickets, you can come to the two screenings.
[13:53] SPEAKER_01: We have an evening screening and a night screening with a break in between. And during the break, we'll have a prize draw with gifts from Kybu Market and fly over Canada.
[14:06] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean, it's a pretty, it's not like an all day event, but it is back to back. I plan things to kind of breathe. And I think screenings are about an hour each.
[14:22] SPEAKER_01: And you're just blocks of short films from all over the world, including some that are made right here in Vancouver. So should be good. I'm excited.
[14:30] SPEAKER_00: Good. How is this different from a dance festival or different from a film festival? And what will the events be like?
[14:39] SPEAKER_01: Well, we're definitely, I mean, we don't have any performances this year, which makes it, I would say different than most dance festivals.
[14:46] SPEAKER_01: So the course most dance festivals are focused on, you know, whether it's in a pristine stage or if it's in like, you know, some site specific performances.
[14:57] SPEAKER_01: You know, it's, I would say we probably feel more like a film festival, than a dance festival, particularly with events like the forum.
[15:06] SPEAKER_01: You know, and also being at Van City Theatre, which is like one of the film venues in Vancouver.
[15:14] SPEAKER_01: So I would say if you're familiar with both dance festivals and film festivals, it will feel more like a film festival, but all the content and kind of the, you know, we're going to have like the music and you're going to have like the personality of the dance people there.
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: So it'll be a little different. But I would say probably closer to a film festival given the kinds of events we're offering this year.
[15:39] SPEAKER_00: Okay. Who is Cass Gady of For is it designed for industry insiders or the general audience?
[15:47] SPEAKER_01: We offer a variety of events so that hopefully we can serve different people. And even the same events, you know, we, though we want to have intelligent conversation, we wanted to be accessible, you know, it's not, it's not, oh, we're going to, you know, the 10 of us that know a lot about dance film, we're going to huddle over here.
[16:08] SPEAKER_01: It's like we want to make it accessible. We want it to feel like, you know, if you're, if you're a dancer and you're saying, oh, like I'm shooting a concept video or I'm just doing my choreography, like we want, we don't want it to feel out of reach, like though quality is really important.
[16:23] SPEAKER_01: And though, like, you know, self proclaimed, we, we show top quality dance films.
[16:29] SPEAKER_01: You know, we want to welcome, you know, really welcome newer filmmakers and people that are at different stages or career, like looking to explore, you know, different ways they want to combine dancing film.
[16:44] SPEAKER_01: You know, and that said, like the films are, there's a lot of really accessible films that you don't have to be a dancer or a filmmaker to appreciate.
[16:53] SPEAKER_01: You know, I've found that over the past few years, like some people come in, they don't even know what dance film is and they leave and they're like, I'm a dance NFL or, you know, there's, we pick a variety.
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: You know, there's different dance styles, different countries, there's some documentaries. So like there really is something for everybody. And, you know, I mean, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be inspired. Like it's definitely design that way so that you'll get a lot out of it.
[17:20] SPEAKER_01: If you're, if you're looking to get a lot out of it and if you have some background with it, but if you don't, it's okay to and I'm sure that you'll still probably be moved by, by the films and inspired by the filmmakers present.
[17:34] SPEAKER_00: And you don't necessarily need to be in the industry. You can be just be someone who just loves film that is maybe if someone who enjoys that, we just want to check it out and, or they like dance. So it's something for everyone.
[17:46] SPEAKER_01: It totally, and I mean, the thing is we're really, we really want to push, you know, it's like we're going to do a, we're not going to make everybody meet each other and like walk around and police it, but like we do really encourage that people do connect at the event because that's part of the point of going to an in person event.
[18:05] SPEAKER_01: And I mean part of the partnerships have come out of this and you know we've seen people one year at Cascadia and then the next year they made a film together, which is really cool.
[18:14] SPEAKER_01: So I mean, it's also for people that, you know, maybe you're an animator or maybe, maybe you like, or a colorist or maybe you do, you know, set design or costume or any sort of job associated with, with the films because dance and film require so many different jobs.
[18:35] SPEAKER_01: To make them it's like, it's really an opportunity for people that do other jobs that are related to it, even if you don't think, oh, I'm not a choreographer, I'm not a filmmaker.
[18:45] SPEAKER_01: So it's not for me. It's like, well, I mean, are you a graphic designer because we need a lot of those. Are you an editor? Because we need a lot of those.
[18:52] SPEAKER_00: Right. Yeah.
[18:54] SPEAKER_00: Okay. So what's next? What is dance cinema doing beyond this June events?
[18:59] SPEAKER_01: Well, we, I do discover dance cinema workshops and those tour. So I've got a couple dates.
[19:06] SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to be in California this summer. So that'll be very fun.
[19:12] SPEAKER_01: And what discovered dance cinema is we do like a dance class, but we also learn about dance film history. Sometimes we make a video, but not always.
[19:19] SPEAKER_01: It kind of depends on the class. So workshops and we also have capital dance and cinema festival, which is a year younger than cascadia.
[19:30] SPEAKER_01: And that's the event I do in the DC area.
[19:34] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, not all the films are the same because the audiences are different.
[19:39] SPEAKER_01: But they're, and also the timing, you know, in six months, you can, you can get a lot of new projects coming in or some projects that maybe, you know, have been out too long.
[19:51] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, capital dance and cinema festival in September, September 9th.
[19:58] SPEAKER_01: If any listeners in the DC area, it's basically cascadia, the American version.
[20:03] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that's like, that's the most immediate stuff happening.
[20:07] SPEAKER_00: Okay. Okay. How can our listeners register, get their passes and tickets to cascadia 2018?
[20:15] SPEAKER_01: Great. All the info is at www.cascadia.dcfestival.com. DC like dance cinema festival.com.
[20:26] SPEAKER_01: So, there, you know, everything's there. It's a one stop shop. You don't do tickets on event, right? We use square.
[20:33] SPEAKER_01: So you just have to go into the site and click online box office and then you'll be able to find ticket links there.
[20:41] SPEAKER_01: And we do have separate events on June 2nd for children and for teenagers. So if you, you know, any young dancers, we're offering tap and jazz classes with myself and Mark Orsborn.
[20:52] SPEAKER_01: And we're also offering a dance cinema movie night for kids and teens as well.
[20:58] SPEAKER_01: So if the websites, I think pretty clearly divided to June 2nd for kids and teens and June 3rd for adults.
[21:06] SPEAKER_01: So today we were talking about the adult events, but when you, even when you do go on the website, you'll see that they're offerings for on Saturday as well.
[21:14] SPEAKER_00: And location?
[21:16] SPEAKER_01: On Sunday, the events are at Van City Theatre 1181 Seymour Street.
[21:21] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[21:22] SPEAKER_01: And Vancouver International Film Center.
[21:24] SPEAKER_00: Okay. And you are offering a code for my listeners for Vancouver Entrepreneur listeners and the promo code is Van Entrepreneur for a 15% discount.
[21:35] SPEAKER_00: And that's valid until June 1st. So I recommend you take advantage of that. That's a great offer for a 15% discount.
[21:42] SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you'll have a great experience. And I think it's something that everyone can learn from.
[21:49] SPEAKER_01: Thanks Robert. And I mean, we have individual tickets. So you can just come to the screenings if, you know, if that's all you're interested in or you can get a pass and you can come to the forum and you get a T-shirt, you get popcorn.
[22:01] SPEAKER_01: It is all bundled in there.
[22:03] SPEAKER_00: Okay. And you'll be there obviously both days. So they can, of course, they can come say hello to you.
[22:09] SPEAKER_00: And if they want to have a conversation with you or connect with you, you know, any of the entrepreneurs that are on the show would like to speak with you.
[22:16] SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you'd be happy to speak with them.
[22:19] SPEAKER_01: I would love to. I would love to.
[22:21] SPEAKER_00: Great. Okay. Okay, Jen. Well, thank you for coming on the show today. I've learned a lot about you and the festival. And I'm sure all the listeners have as well.
[22:32] SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much Robert.
[22:33] SPEAKER_01: And good luck with the podcast. Thank you for doing this. You know, it's really important for people to have resources like this because sometimes, you know, we have we have content that we listen to to turn off.
[22:46] SPEAKER_01: But I mean, when you when you facilitate a podcast like this, this is truly like a resource and it's educational and it's inspiring.
[22:52] SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really important place, you know, to occupy in the in the web space and in people's minds. So thank you for doing that.
[23:01] SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you very much. Yes. Vancouver is a very community oriented entrepreneurs stick together. They help each other and I'm finding as I do this.
[23:09] SPEAKER_00: Everyone's dialing into this so they can reach out to each other and everyone wins, right? So yeah, totally.
[23:16] SPEAKER_00: Great. Okay. Well, thank you again. And we'll see you next time.
[23:20] SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much. Okay. Bye.
[23:22] SPEAKER_00: Hey there. Thanks for taking the time to listen to the Vancouver entrepreneur dot CA podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show today. Make sure you sign up for our newsletters and write a review for us on iTunes and then connect with us on Twitter at Vance City podcast and like us on Facebook.
[23:36] SPEAKER_00: And you'll get all the latest news, including the BC weekly business support where you can find out more, but what's going on is fabulous problems of ours. See you next time.
[23:53] Speaker UNKNOWN: Bye.
