šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énk Square, North of the Vancouver Art Gallery
7:00 PM - 9:30 PM
About the Program
Borders are open wounds. These imaginary lines stand as if solid and unmovable, when in reality they have continuously shifted throughout history and created scars in the land, water, and peoples. These lines, created, retraced, and maintained through bloodshed and systemic oppression by empires, have transformed and impacted ecosystems, communities, and cultures across the globe with repercussions rippling today and into the future.
What happens when we learn to live with those scars? What do we do with them?
Identity and nationality are blurry lines, which become more diffused once we travel outside these lines where our own “nation-states” exist. How do we carry and care for our culture? How do we share it, and what do we share as people with the wounds of a colonized past and present? What direct lines can we trace, and how have we transgressed and transformed foreign imposition and forced assimilation into our own cultures? How is this all reflected in the sound of our regions? What are the mutations we see today in the sounds of our contemporary electronic music as it tries to reconcile past, present, and future? How do we honor the sounds that survived and thrived despite and in spite of colonization? How does sound transcend borders?
With the geographical thread being the Pacific Ocean and Spain as a shared colonizer in our history, we are showcasing DJs from Mexico (Keygurr), Taiwan (Which Nancy), and the Philippines (IHA). Through this programming, we aim to create a space and opportunity for the public, performers, and as curators to engage in these questions and celebrate the resilience and adaptive nature of our sounds and cultures in this evening of electronic music.
Cadena is a coast to coast effort that aims to map out, showcase and connect the underground Latinx electronic dance scene across “Canada”. Within this focus and by community building, we aim to help facilitate easier travel pathways and opportunities for artists based in Latin America and of the diaspora to access these geographies. Cadena currently consists of audiovisual artists Elias Musiak [AKA Jaijiu | Montreal via Argentina] & Max Ammo [AKA El Ángel Exterminador | Vancouver via Mexico].
Max Ammo (they/them) is a non-binary audiovisual artist and curator from “Mexico City.” With over 10 years of working professionally as a graphic designer and illustrator, they’ve been closely working and inspired by the underground music scene in both CDMX and “Vancouver.” Beginning their music explorations upon immigrating to “Canada,” they started their electronic music project “Goo,” which merged their influences from the Mexican sonic imaginary with noise and industrial references utilizing analogue gear.
In 2021, they launched their DJ project “El Ángel Exterminador” as a response to the lack of bookings of Latinx artists in the city. Stemming from their ethos to showcase the sounds and talent from LATAM in their current geographical location, they started two projects that expand on this mission: Cadena and Hechizo. Hechizo is an esoteric party series dedicated to strengthening the sonic dialogues between Latinx underground electronic music and the broader “Global South.”
Elias Musiak is an audiovisual artist hailing from the depths of Soundcloud and Argentina. Influenced by the Argentine club sound, Jaijiu reimagines what folklore could sound if you hit it with a hammer and recorded it. He has worked alongside colleagues in Buenos Aires to find a new sound that is rapidly spreading to other hemispheres. In 2019, along with these peers, they started a record label called “Rebote” which encompasses music productions representing these sounds that have been brewing all across Latin America. With a shared agenda to showcase and connect this particular sound to “Canada”, Elias and Max Ammo (AKA El Ángel Exterminador) joined forces at the beginning of 2024 to create Cadena.
Keygurr is a producer and DJ from Tijuana, Mexico who specializes in mixing different global club genres with a strong preference for percussive, explosive, and energetic music, combining traditional Latin sounds with elements of electronic music. Keygurr is also a member of Tijuana's label and party series LATIGAZO, creating a space for alternative club music in the border city.
IHA is a music and arts project conceived by Apple Cabrera. Along with managing the young, genre-defying label NAGA, they are known to circuit Vancouver's underground and festivals local and beyond, equipped with crates often atmospheric and varying in flavours, textures, and depth. With roots in collective work for Acceleration Radio, crafting immersive multi-sensory experiences around experimentations with sound is at the forefront of their practice.Which
Which Nancy is a Taiwanese-Canadian DJ, media artist, and cultural producer acclaimed for their interdisciplinary works. They entered the realm of XR with the 2017 VR dance film "Tidal Traces" and co-created "Telepresence" in 2018, blending VR with live performance. Which Nancy's art has been showcased at prestigious festivals including Cannes, SXSW, and the Berlin Film Festival. Committed to community engagement, Which Nancy teaches XR at IM4 Media Lab, mentors at Festival of Recorded Movement, and co-founded Chapel Sound Art Foundation and CURRENT to uplift underrepresented artists. Recently, they premiered the full-length performance “OSMOSi: 422 Unprocessable Entity,” which they wrote, directed, co-composed, co-choreographed, and performed in.
ephemeral objects is a Chinese-Vietnamese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist, VJ, DJ, and sound artist based in “Vancouver”. True to her name, her creations carry this sense of ethereality, focusing on textures and organic forms, both ephemeral and suspended in time at once. She merges generative videos with real footage to create her own unique, audio-reactive and abstract style where rich colours, spanning the full spectrum, wash over the screen, streaking the viewer’s mind with a strong image of the audio-visual journey at play. ephemeral objects is passionate about how live visuals can increase the accessibility and immersiveness of in-person events. She is also a resident of Acceleration Radio, an open format FM radio, live stream, and events collective focusing on A/V experimentation, where she can fully dive into her combined interests as both VJ and DJ.
From the Curating Team
Through the universal languages of dance and music, TAIWANfest explores intercultural connections in flamenco dance, Chinese-language music, and more.
About the Program
Borders are open wounds. These imaginary lines stand as if solid and unmovable, when in reality they have continuously shifted throughout history and created scars in the land, water, and peoples. These lines, created, retraced, and maintained through bloodshed and systemic oppression by empires, have transformed and impacted ecosystems, communities, and cultures across the globe with repercussions rippling today and into the future.
What happens when we learn to live with those scars? What do we do with them?
Identity and nationality are blurry lines, which become more diffused once we travel outside these lines where our own “nation-states” exist. How do we carry and care for our culture? How do we share it, and what do we share as people with the wounds of a colonized past and present? What direct lines can we trace, and how have we transgressed and transformed foreign imposition and forced assimilation into our own cultures? How is this all reflected in the sound of our regions? What are the mutations we see today in the sounds of our contemporary electronic music as it tries to reconcile past, present, and future? How do we honor the sounds that survived and thrived despite and in spite of colonization? How does sound transcend borders?
With the geographical thread being the Pacific Ocean and Spain as a shared colonizer in our history, we are showcasing DJs from Mexico (Keygurr), Taiwan (Which Nancy), and the Philippines (IHA). Through this programming, we aim to create a space and opportunity for the public, performers, and as curators to engage in these questions and celebrate the resilience and adaptive nature of our sounds and cultures in this evening of electronic music.
Cadena is a coast to coast effort that aims to map out, showcase and connect the underground Latinx electronic dance scene across “Canada”. Within this focus and by community building, we aim to help facilitate easier travel pathways and opportunities for artists based in Latin America and of the diaspora to access these geographies. Cadena currently consists of audiovisual artists Elias Musiak [AKA Jaijiu | Montreal via Argentina] & Max Ammo [AKA El Ángel Exterminador | Vancouver via Mexico].
Max Ammo (they/them) is a non-binary audiovisual artist and curator from “Mexico City.” With over 10 years of working professionally as a graphic designer and illustrator, they’ve been closely working and inspired by the underground music scene in both CDMX and “Vancouver.” Beginning their music explorations upon immigrating to “Canada,” they started their electronic music project “Goo,” which merged their influences from the Mexican sonic imaginary with noise and industrial references utilizing analogue gear.
In 2021, they launched their DJ project “El Ángel Exterminador” as a response to the lack of bookings of Latinx artists in the city. Stemming from their ethos to showcase the sounds and talent from LATAM in their current geographical location, they started two projects that expand on this mission: Cadena and Hechizo. Hechizo is an esoteric party series dedicated to strengthening the sonic dialogues between Latinx underground electronic music and the broader “Global South.”
Elias Musiak is an audiovisual artist hailing from the depths of Soundcloud and Argentina. Influenced by the Argentine club sound, Jaijiu reimagines what folklore could sound if you hit it with a hammer and recorded it. He has worked alongside colleagues in Buenos Aires to find a new sound that is rapidly spreading to other hemispheres. In 2019, along with these peers, they started a record label called “Rebote” which encompasses music productions representing these sounds that have been brewing all across Latin America. With a shared agenda to showcase and connect this particular sound to “Canada”, Elias and Max Ammo (AKA El Ángel Exterminador) joined forces at the beginning of 2024 to create Cadena.
Keygurr is a producer and DJ from Tijuana, Mexico who specializes in mixing different global club genres with a strong preference for percussive, explosive, and energetic music, combining traditional Latin sounds with elements of electronic music. Keygurr is also a member of Tijuana's label and party series LATIGAZO, creating a space for alternative club music in the border city.
IHA is a music and arts project conceived by Apple Cabrera. Along with managing the young, genre-defying label NAGA, they are known to circuit Vancouver's underground and festivals local and beyond, equipped with crates often atmospheric and varying in flavours, textures, and depth. With roots in collective work for Acceleration Radio, crafting immersive multi-sensory experiences around experimentations with sound is at the forefront of their practice.Which
Which Nancy is a Taiwanese-Canadian DJ, media artist, and cultural producer acclaimed for their interdisciplinary works. They entered the realm of XR with the 2017 VR dance film "Tidal Traces" and co-created "Telepresence" in 2018, blending VR with live performance. Which Nancy's art has been showcased at prestigious festivals including Cannes, SXSW, and the Berlin Film Festival. Committed to community engagement, Which Nancy teaches XR at IM4 Media Lab, mentors at Festival of Recorded Movement, and co-founded Chapel Sound Art Foundation and CURRENT to uplift underrepresented artists. Recently, they premiered the full-length performance “OSMOSi: 422 Unprocessable Entity,” which they wrote, directed, co-composed, co-choreographed, and performed in.
ephemeral objects is a Chinese-Vietnamese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist, VJ, DJ, and sound artist based in “Vancouver”. True to her name, her creations carry this sense of ethereality, focusing on textures and organic forms, both ephemeral and suspended in time at once. She merges generative videos with real footage to create her own unique, audio-reactive and abstract style where rich colours, spanning the full spectrum, wash over the screen, streaking the viewer’s mind with a strong image of the audio-visual journey at play. ephemeral objects is passionate about how live visuals can increase the accessibility and immersiveness of in-person events. She is also a resident of Acceleration Radio, an open format FM radio, live stream, and events collective focusing on A/V experimentation, where she can fully dive into her combined interests as both VJ and DJ.
From the Curating Team
Through the universal languages of dance and music, TAIWANfest explores intercultural connections in flamenco dance, Chinese-language music, and more.
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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.