2023
About the Program
Dutch-Canadian cellist, Diederik van Dijk, and Taiwanese-Canadian video artist, Sammy Chien, will be performing together at TAIWANfest.
A coming together of culture, music, and visual arts! Diederik’s musical background and rich experience lends him to a brilliant presence on the stage. Paired with local multimedia artist Sammy Chien, this show will be a treat for your senses.
Diederik van Dijk is a versatile cellist with a playing practice that covers a broad spectrum of music history. He plays both baroque and modern cello and in a not very distant past, also the electric guitar. He is now mainly active as a cellist. Recently he has played with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, Les Muffatti, Insomnio, the Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht, the Metropole Orkest, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, and in Holland Opera productions.
Sammy Chien 簡上翔 is a Taiwanese-Canadian immigrant and queer artist-of-colour, who’s an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, director, performer, researcher and mentor in film, sound art, new media, performance, movement and spiritual practice. With over 500 collaborative projects, his work has been exhibited across Canada, Western Europe, and Asia including Centre Pompidou (Paris) and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), worked with pioneers of digital performance: Troika Ranch and Wong Kar Wai’s Cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and active in projects engaging various underrepresented communities. Sammy has been featured on magazines, TV and commercials such as Discorder, Keedan, CBC Arts and BenQ.
Sammy is currently leading a dance research project “We Were One” and media arts project “Ritual-Spective 迴融”, both funded by Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council. Sammy is the official instructor of Isadora, Member/Council of MotionDAO and Artistic Director of Chimerik似不像, an award winning interdisciplinary arts collective/design team.
From the Curating Team
Curating community performances at TAIWANfest is like painting a self-portrait, constantly questioning Taiwanese culture's role in a Canadian festival. With these community performances, we aim to foster cross-cultural dialogue and break down ethnic barriers, highlighting Canada’s diverse society.
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TAIWANfest Vancouver is grateful to be held on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish Nation), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation). We acknowledge our privilege to be gathered here, and commit to work with and be respectful to the Indigenous peoples of this land while we engage in meaningful conversations of culture and reconciliation.