Vancouver Moving Theatre in association with Carnegie Community Centre
& the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians
Present
23rd Annual Downtown Eastside
Heart of the City Festival
Friday, October 30 to Saturday, November 7, 2026
Over 100 arts & culture events throughout the Downtown Eastside
Tickets and Info: www.heartofthecityfestival.com
We are thrilled to announce the 23rd Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival!
The 2026 Festival features over 100 events at over 30+ local venues, including music, poetry, theatre, ceremony, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, art talks, history tours, and more!
We continue to be excited about the incredible artists, neighbours, and audiences who join us each year. This year’s theme, Belonging, celebrates the experience of being seen, heard, respected, and valued for who you are. At the Festival, Belonging is something we create together; it’s sharing stories, laughter, grief, and joy. Belonging reminds us that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect.
For 23 years, the Heart of the City Festival has been rooted in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and focused on listening and learning from the community. The Festival works with and for the Downtown Eastside community to carry forward our stories, ancestral memory, cultural traditions, lived experiences, and artistic practices, illuminating pathways of resilience.
Join the Heart of the City Festival in celebrating the wealth of art, culture, and community in the Downtown Eastside!
A few selected highlights in the upcoming 2026 Festival include:
Electric Company Theatre’s new play, Epigone, a modern myth about complicated grief, stigmas of addiction, and our responsibilities to the dead, runs for two weeks at the Russian Hall.
Reimagining Justice: The Circle Project is a series of three video installations created by The Circle Project, a Vancouver-based association of artists and people with lived experience of incarceration committed to creating provocative art.
Life at OPS, a collection of videos by Nathaniel Canuel aimed at raising awareness about the importance of the Overdose Prevention Society (OPS) .
Highlights – 23rd Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival
From October 30 to November 7, the Festival brings together more than 100 events at 30+ local venues — music, poetry, theatre, ceremony, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, art talks, history tours, and more — all rooted in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside!
Here are 13 highlights in the upcoming 2026 Festival:
- Summer City Street Mural Celebration
Join us in celebration of Richard Tetrault’s dynamic collage mural, Summer City Street. The mural will join the City of Vancouver’s Public Art collection, ensuring its continued presence in the public sphere and, importantly, on the walls of Carnegie Community Centre. Tetrault will present an overview of his collaborative and solo murals located in Vancouver’s Eastside, ranging from the 1998 Walls of Change project to other murals on themes of displacement, striving and empowerment.
Friday October 30. 6pm
Carnegie Community Centre Theatre, 401 Main
Free.
- Reimagining Justice: The Circle Project
The Festival presents three video installations created by The Circle Project , a Vancouver-based association of artists and people with lived experience of incarceration committed to creating provocative art. Produced in collaboration with artists Adad Hannah and Jin-me Yoon, the videos are stimulating riffs on classic theatre that invite us to reimagine justice. The installations will be presented at Gallery Gachet and KW Atrium Studio. The project concludes at Carnegie Community Centre with a screening of all three videos and a community sharing circle.
Time Freed (Beyond Capture) Opening Reception
Saturday October 31. 12pm
Gallery Gachet, 9 W Hastings
Free.
What Fools These Mortals Be & Harlequino’s Folly Opening Reception
Saturday October 31. 2pm
KW Atrium Studio, 110 – 351 Abbott
Free.
Screenings & Sharing Circle
Saturday November 7. 12pm
Carnegie Community Centre Theatre, 401 Main
Free.
- Drag Storytime Sing-along!
Celebrating their sixth year with the Heart of the City Festival, Drag Storytime Sing-alongbrings an all-inclusive flavour with the jazz stylings of Magic Triangle and the folk punk hijinks of Legion of Flying Monkeys. With host bearded lady Drag Satan , awards are presented for Best Strathcona Community Engagement Arts, Longest Serving MacLean Park Music Event, the highly anticipated Best Cable and Extension Cord Management Award, and, new this year, the Award for Best Dancing! As always, come in costume.
Saturday, October 31 . 4pm
MacLean Park, 710 Keefer
Free.
- Death and Taxes
Brass Tax brings their signature ‘circus jazz’ sound to a lively, otherworldly celebration of Día de los Muertos , accompanied by theatrical performer Gerardo Avila. Inspired by traditions of remembrance from Mexico and around the world, Death and Taxes imagines the graveyard as a place of gathering where music, memory, loss, mourning, and celebration meet. The infectious music of Brass Tax sets the stage as butterflies, hummingbirds, crows, and ghosts move among the graves in a playful tribute to the enduring connection between the living and the dead.
Sunday, November 1. 7pm
SFU Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre, 149 W Hastings
$0–$35. Tickets: Death and Taxes
- Creating Gastown, A History Tour
Gastown is one of Vancouver’s original heritage districts and one of the early points of colonial settlement on Burrard Inlet. On this tour led by civic historian John Atkin, we will look at the historic origins of the area and how, over time, what we now call ‘Gastown’ was created through abandoned development proposals, freeway threats, and real estate shenanigans.
Tuesday November 3. 10am; Saturday November 7. 10:30am
Register for a meeting place.
$0–$35. Tickets: Creating Gastown
- Epigone
Electric Company Theatre presents Epigone, a new play written by Kevin Kerr and directed by Jonathon Young. The play is a modern myth about complicated grief, stigmas of addiction, our responsibilities to the dead, and to one another. It follows an unlikely hero exiled to a remote northern double-wide trailer, where the living wrestle with loyalty, shame, and the unfinished work of care as the past refuses to stay buried. Cast: Lili Beaudoin, Kevin Macdonald, Tom McBeath, and Colleen Wheeler.
Wednesday, November 4 – Sunday November 15.
Preview Tues Nov 3, 7:30pm
Wed Nov 4 – Sat Nov 7, Tues Nov 10 – Sat Nov 14. 7:30pm
Matinees Sun Nov 8. 4pm; Sat Nov 14, Sun Nov 15. 2pm
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell
$0–$75. Tickets: Epigone
- From the Archives of Sid Chow Tan
Legendary Downtown Eastside documentarian and organizer Sid Chow Tan (1949 – 2022) spent four decades documenting the struggles, victories, celebrations, and everyday lives of DTES and Chinatown communities. This screening features selections from Sid’s extraordinary archive of volunteer-produced video journalism, with newly digitized tapes and old favourites alike, compiled by Sid’s collaborator, Byron Peters.
Thursday, November 5. 5pm
Carnegie Community Centre Theatre, 401 Main
Free.
- Solo Solo Together
All Bodies Dance Project presents a collection of new solo dances. Each work offers an intimate glimpse into the artist’s unique perspective, and together these solos form a portrait of a diverse community. Featuring work by Susie Gray, Nico Gruzling, Lance Lim, Peggy Leung, and Old Baby, Solo, Solo, Together celebrates the strength of the individual while asking what becomes possible when we gather our singular experiences together.
Friday, November 6. 1pm
SFU Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre, 149 W Hastings
Free.
- 1984:AGAIN
Big Brother isn’t coming. He’s already here. In Theatre Terrific’s gripping adaptation of Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984:AGAIN, Winston Smith commits the ultimate crime — he falls in love. In a world of absolute surveillance, his forbidden affair becomes a radical act of defiance against the Ministry of Truth. Drawing terrifying parallels to modern-day surveillance, disinformation, and politics, 1984:AGAIN asks: can human connection give us the collective courage to stand together and rebel?
Friday, November 6. 5pm
SFU Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre, 149 W Hastings
$0–$35. Tickets: 1984:Again
- Life at OPS
Featuring a collection of short films and videos by Nathaniel Canuel, Life at OPS aims to raise awareness about the importance of the Overdose Prevention Society (OPS) and follows the wonderful souls fighting to survive in an unjust society. OPS is an organization that faces backlash from those opposed to harm reduction and progressive drug policies. This project presents the organization’s reality, depicting everyday life at the busiest peer-led supervised consumption site in Canada.
Friday, November 6. 7:30pm
SFU Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema , 149 W Hastings
$0–$35. Tickets: Life at Ops
- House
Jonathon Paterson performs House, the acclaimed solo play by Daniel MacIvor — a cornerstone of contemporary Canadian theatre. With its blend of dark humour, psychological depth, and tour-de-force performance demands, House is a gripping exploration of memory, identity, and the fragile architecture of the self. Directed by Willow Lewmos.
Friday, November 6. 8:30pm
SFU Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre, 149 W Hastings
$0–$35. Tickets: House
- Dispatches
The new play by Jenny Simpson, Dispatches, follows a woman caught between caring for her dying mother and supporting her niece in crisis. As a disjointed family encounters the threats of addiction, this play offers an intimate portrayal of reconnection and recovery in a system ill-equipped to support them. Dispatches is an unflinching look at the human cost of the ongoing poisoned drug epidemic.
Saturday, November 7. 1pm and 5pm
SFU Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre, 149 W Hastings
$0–$35. Tickets: Dispatches
- Black Strathcona Neighbourhood Tour
Join Yasin M Kiraga from the African Descent Society on a popular heritage tour of Strathcona. Spend three hours in the neighbourhoods where Black people historically settled and built vibrant communities. Learn about the displacement of the community, the construction of the Georgia Viaduct, and the revival and celebration of Black culture.
Saturday, November 7. 2pm
Register for a meeting place.
$0–$35. Tickets: Black Strathcona Tour
Stay tuned for more Festival highlights, including:
- LIVE IN HELL, Marita Michaelis’ comitragic solo show featuring a self-obsessed and definitely NOT sexy She-Devil;
- Town Hall: How to Speak to City Hall with Carnegie Housing Project;
- Indigenous Exhibition and Celebration , hosted by Two-Spirit Grass Dancer Lolita Bird, Women’s Northern Traditional dancer Tanisha Shawna Pahtayken, and Pow Wow Dancer Pavel Desjarlais;
- Recycling Stories: Walking with Vancouver’s Binners , an exploration of the laneways where binners work.
*****
The mandate of the Heart of the City Festival is to promote, present, and support art forms, cultural traditions, history, activism, people, and great stories about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Thanks to our many individual donors, funders, media sponsors, and partners for their generous support: Admiral Seymour Elementary School, BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, City of Vancouver, CLICK, David Lam Centre, Destination Events Program – BC Ministry of Tourism, Federation of Russian Canadians of BC, Government of British Columbia, Government of Canada Student Work Placement Program, Hamber Foundation, Lepawsky Family Fund, Lookout Housing and Health Society, Lulu Fund, SFU Live, United Way BC, VanCity Community Foundation, and media sponsors City TV, Georgia Straight, OMNI Television, and STIR Vancouver.
