Scene opens to a bustling restaurant, The Havana on Commercial Drive. Sounds of Cuban music and the noise of din- ers. Amongst the regular diners are 3 women sitting at a booth, conducting an interview. Vanessa Richards, the interviewee is co-founder (along with Khefri Riley) of the London-based production company Mannafest, a “vehicle for urban expression and creative edge fus- ing spokenword, performance, music, DJ culture, visual arts and new media”. The company contributes “to the worldwide resur- gence of Wordsoundpower as a means or change, innovation, and beauty.” The women have come together 4 days after Transmetaphoria, a trans-continental poetical and live music throwdown featuring black poetics at Sonar on 16 August 2001 and showcased Vanessa Richards, Tanya Evanson, Wayde Compton, Kia Kadiri, Ndidi Cascade, Troy Jaxon, Seth Adrian Harris, Dov Grey, and Rha Goddess (NYC) on the mic; Mr. Rumble and Denise Galay, DJ's; and visuals by Heng Ou and Jan Wade. Mo Ling Chui, the interviewer is a Vancouver based video and new media artist. The third woman is 10 years the other two women’s’ junior. During the interview she observes and intermit- tently takes notes, soaking up their experience for future reference. MoLing: Could you tell me a bit about the identity history in the way you've developed into your identity and art? Vanessa: | came out of highschool in '82. | was hanging out a lot at the original Helen Pitt on Pender. It was a very do-for-self artist's movement. Everybody was working in collaboration, across music, across theatre. Today, before | came here, | was looking at a video called Apocalypso which featured dance and live music. Nothing much has changed for me since then. It's hilarious when | look at that video today. That video was 1984. | still do work with live bands and music and spoken word and cos- tuming and theming. It was strange almost to think, “Oh, that’s exactly what | do—except it’s more sophisticated now’”...It was a do-for-self, post-punk rock, Vancouver ethos, and | traveled with it... ML: Did you travel with it alone, or with partners... V: | carried it with me in my very Vancouver kind of self over to London. And then | started working in collaboration with other artists there. | hooked up with my girl Khefri who I’ve been working with for six years. And the difference is that now I'm trying to work across mediums. | also do a lot of teaching work. For instance, | do a show and we would have attached a workshop... It’s very much about teaching the gen- eration ahead of you, working in mentorship. It’s a socio-politi- cal agenda pushed forward in a multiformatted forum. Now, | have more access to more experience and | spend a lot of time building relationships with people internationally. The budget is bigger; the time is longer, the development periods are better. You have our company, Mannafest, committed to arts and edu- cation, not just for young people but for building communication and learning experiences for our peers. ML: So when you went away, was it going full circle to come back in the sense that you are from Vancouver and identify with being African-Canadian? V: Yes. My father is Trinidadian. So one of the things that was gorgeous about being in London is being able to access Trinidadian culture a lot easier and more frequently...it’s available. It's not like you're just an exotic other—tt just is. | was raised here and there's something distinctly Canadian about the people that live here, whether you're Filipino or Trinidadian or Quebecois or whatever. » 2 Trinidadian living in Britain because their overriding experience would still be A DIALOGUE British. | identify with EDITED BY JOY being Canadian because | was raised here. There weren't necessarily a lot of people of African descent but there was everyone else as well too. So it's a very unique place. ML: Because we're a part of artist-run culture, which is sort of uniquely Canadian from what | understand... V: That's another way how | feel Canadian... ML: | find that to be a really unique thing, a very DIY ethic. V: That's exactly how it is in London too. And that's what we'd like to develop further in terms of our next projects. All of our work, really, is about artist-centered work—artists working in col- laboration with funding organizations and institutions, certainly, it's been about acquiring and maintaining your own work... ML: [Here in Vancouver] you have to play all the roles. You have to play Art Director, Editor...you have to do it all... V: Yes, it’s a really different way. It's a real get-your-hands-in- there-and-get-dirty kind of way that isn’t particularly European. That's one of the things that made our work distinguished from some other work that was happening...our willingness to be effi- cient and delegating, “If you can’t do it, fuck it, I'll do it myself”, you know? That entire culture we've been talking about—artist- run spaces—is not to be sniffed at when you think about it, if you think about how it’s influenced my work. OSARIO ML: Can you generalize what kind of audience you get in Europe? V: | work mostly from the African Diaspora. When we were underground— when we weren't getting all the funding and profiling and resources we have now—we had a mostly black audience. Now, it’s a mixed audience. We just did a show called Mango Lick in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the Southbank Centre. It was sold out, 900 people. One of the comments from the organization was that they had not seen that many black people in that space. There was a whole set of other people but there was also a very large black audience. Our work is quite inclusive. Generally speaking it’s quite a sophisticated audience that's into arts and culture and taking risks...they've come with us through the different places and venues and experiences . Sometimes | would feel that | had more in} common with Canadian than a aaN VANESSA RICHARDS AND MO LING CHUI. ML: Do you ever do cross cultural work? V: You mean with people that aren't African? ...We don't have criteria that you have to be from somewhere. We have an agen- da to feature work that isn’t regularly featured. ML: Have you had negative crowds, challenges? V: No, | can’t say that we have, actually. I’m not into making work that people won't get. | don’t expect that they get every- thing, but I’m not trying to make work that’s esoteric. | want peo- ple to get the plan and get the program. | want them to feel the wonder and magnificence of human creativity when they see the work. | want...the wow-factor. | want them to go (She makes a face of drop-jawed amazement), “Wwwwooww!”"—when you saw the artists [at the Transmetaphoria show], they were feeling it and they saw the audience who were clapping and they felt “wow”. That's our trademark. | was so thrilled when | saw that in Vancouver because... ML: ...it’s hard to get that wow-factor here... V:...to take to show back home and...it just meant that it real- ly works... Scene end. For more on Mannafest, visit www.mannafest.net. Joyce Rosario is BFA student with a theatre major at UBC and is thrilled to contribute to some magazine. photo by andy mons; model: tara nicole donald