Word across the street
The Word on the Street festival's decision to move forward with its event this Sunday (September 30), in spite of the ongoing labour dispute between the City of Vancouver and library workers, has raised questions among members of the Writers' Union of Canada . For the past 12 years, the annual literary event has taken place at Library Square, which is currently behind picket lines.

"We're concerned any time Canadians are denied access to books, with the strike in general," said the Writers' Union's second vice-chair, Billeh Nickerson , in a phone conversation with the Straight . "We've been guaranteed that we won't have to cross any picket lines.…We'll definitely talk to some of the CUPE folks on the day of and see what we can do from there. But we just want a swift resolution for this because Vancouverites need their libraries and their librarians."

Nickerson, a local poet and essayist, is involved in two Word on the Street events.

Bryan Pike , coproducer of the Word on the Street, noted that the festival has cancelled most of its main-stage performances, which were to be located at Library Square, as well as a number of events that were to take place inside the library. Exhibitor tents will be moved to the parking lot of Canada Post on West Georgia Street and to the front of the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts on Homer Street. West Georgia will be blocked off.

"The reason we're going into debt is so we don't have to cross the picket lines," Pike said, adding that the library workers will have a booth at the festival.

According to Pike, the programming changes will cost between $10,000 and $20,000, out of a budget of approximately $360,000.

In other strike-related news, the Vancouver Flamenco Festival has been forced to move its Saturday-evening (September 29) event, Flamenco y Sus Mujeres, from the civic-run Vancouver Playhouse to the Waterfront Theatre, adding a second night on Sunday (September 30) to make up for the reduced capacity of the venue. Because of the new Waterfront Theatre performance, the Sunday event originally scheduled for the Cellar Jazz Club has been cancelled.

For updated programming for Word on the Street, see www.thewordonthestreet.ca/ . For information regarding the Flamenco festival, visit www.flamencorosario.org/ .

Arts Centre would welcome VSO
Plans for the proposed Coal Harbour Arts Complex will be changed to accommodate the needs of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra , which is exploring the idea of getting involved with the project, according to David Pay , CHAC Society board member and artistic director of Music on Main.

The original plans for the CHAC included an 1,800-seat lyric hall, with fly towers to serve the needs of theatre groups, in addition to a 400- to 600-seat theatre. Should the VSO decide to support the hall, the fly towers would be scrapped from the plans and the hall remodelled as a dedicated concert hall.

"What that means, therefore, is that you can get a superior acoustic for concerts," Pay told the Straight , "and the VSO gets to play in a space that's not an old movie theatre."

The CHAC was originally approved and funded by the City in 1991, but was bumped from its proposed site at the north end of Burrard Street by the expansion of the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre. The City pocketed a $10 million consideration for the loss of the site, which is now part of a $20 million endowment for the project. Now the CHAC is hoping to find a home on the site of the old bus depot adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, as part of the so-called cultural precinct being developed by the City, but nothing has yet been confirmed. A report from the City's Office of Cultural Services, with recommendations regarding the cultural precinct, will be presented to council in the coming weeks.

Fayad memorial fund to be established
The Vancouver International Dance Festival is establishing a fund in memory of Larisa Fayad , the 31-year-old technical and lighting director who perished in the September 16 plane crash that claimed 89 lives in Phuket, Thailand.

The Larisa Fayad memorial fund will be used to sponsor emerging and established lighting designers in dance, Barbara Bourget , coartistic director of Kokoro Dance and artistic director of the VIDF, told the Straight .

"She found dance the most inspiring," Bourget said of Fayad, who worked closely with Kokoro and with other Vancouver companies, including Co. Erasga and Kinesis. "She did several lighting designs for us and she was just beginning to flower in that direction, so we think that that's a fitting fund to remember her by."

How the fund will work has yet to be determined, but Bourget said there were plans to create mentorship opportunities within the technical-lighting field.

"She believed very much in mentorship," Bourget explained, "and she really learned through that process, of just attaching herself to somebody and saying, 'Okay, I'm going to learn about lighting. Can I be your assistant and shadow you?'"

In addition to the fund, Bourget said a memorial was being planned for October 21 at the Roundhouse Community Centre, where members of the local dance, theatre, and music companies with whom Fayad worked will perform and celebrate her life.

Contributions to the Larisa Fayad Memorial Fund can be made by contacting Kokoro Dance and the VIDF at 604-662-7441.