DANCER UNWELCOME IN CANADA
Despite letters of reference from the Canada Council for the Arts and First Nations arts leaders, the Canadian Embassy in Colombia has twice refused to grant aboriginal Colombian dancer and choreographer Diana Casas a temporary visa to allow her to work with Vancouver colleagues in the coming weeks. Casas has an invitation to perform at the Talking Stick Festival as part of its cabaret scheduled for February 9 and 10—just one stop in her planned month-long itinerary in Vancouver. Yet even though the proposed visit has been underwritten by grants from the Canada Council and the First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Culture Council, embassy officials in Bogotá have decided that Casas poses too great a risk of claiming refugee status once she arrives here.

“You have not satisfied me”¦that you would leave Canada at the end of the temporary period if you were authorized to stay,” states the embassy’s letter to Casas, obtained by the Straight . The letter explains that the visa officer “considers several factors”, including the applicant’s “financial means for the trip” and “ties to country of residence”.

In the view of Vancouver dancer and actor Tasha Faye Evans, who planned to be one of Casas’s collaborators, the decision dismisses not only the detailed funding and travel documents that Casas’s sponsors have gathered but also the fact that Casas has worked overseas in the past and returned home on schedule.

“Diana’s really upset,” Evans said. “She’s an artist and belongs to a theatre company there [in Colombia] that she’s been part of since 1996. She’s a dance teacher and trains people. They’re disregarding her art.”

Evans said that she and Casas’s other supporters are attempting one more application on the Colombian dancer’s behalf, this time with a letter from MP Libby Davies.

Melanie Carkner, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, refused to speculate on reasons that the Bogotá embassy officials denied the visa. “We’re not prepared to discuss how our checks are done or how decision outcomes are made,” she explained from her Ottawa office. “That would compromise the process.”

> Brian Lynch

DEAL QUESTIONS PRECINCT MANAGER
Vancouver city councillor Heather Deal has called for an independent conflict-of-interest investigation into public contracts awarded to Ken Dobell, a special adviser to Premier Gordon Campbell and the municipal contractor who serves as project manager for the proposed “cultural precinct” being planned for the site of the old bus depot at Cambie and West Georgia streets. Deal told the Straight that the appearance of overlap between Dobell’s municipal and provincial roles raises questions. She also noted that his municipal contracts were bestowed on him without competition from other bidders. Even so, she claimed that any investigation of Dobell, who was city manager during Campbell’s tenure as mayor here, would not interfere with progress on the precinct project, a development that may eventually include a range of facilities, from the long-delayed Coal Harbour Theatre Complex to a national museum of aboriginal art.

“Our main concern is how Ken Dobell continues to get this kind of work without having to go out to bid,” Deal said. “But in terms of the cultural precinct work, that’s come before council for discussion and so forth already, so I’m not too concerned about that.”

> Brian Lynch

DOUGLAS TAKES AWARD
Vancouver artist Stan Douglas is the winner of the inaugural Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award. The newly created $25,000 prize, intended to honour and encourage a Canadian artist at mid-career, was delivered at a recent ceremony at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Speakers included Lt.-Gov. Iona Campagnolo, Gerda Hnatyshyn (president of the Hnatyshyn Foundation and widow of its founder, the late Ramon John Hnatyshyn, a former governor general of Canada), and Scott Watson, director and curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.

About their choice, Watson said, “We wanted to propose an artist who would bestow immediate prestige upon the award.” He cited Douglas’s internationally acclaimed career and described him as one of the most influential artists working today.

> Robin Laurence

FLIGHT OF THE RAVEN
A pair of local contests will each send two winners on a whirlwind cultural tour of Haida Gwaii in honour of the late Haida artist Bill Reid’s birthday. Both CBC Radio and the Vancouver Museum are offering prizes that include airfare and accommodations—not to mention visits to prominent studios and galleries, as well as a paddle in Lootaas , a traditional canoe carved by Reid. You can enter the Vancouver Museum contest simply by filling out an entry form at the museum. The CBC competition is asking for an original poem, song, or story (250 words or less) celebrating the raven, a central figure of Haida mythology. Deadline is January 31; see www.cbc.ca/bc/ .

> Brian Lynch