Dance

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of Sandy Rakhra and women dancing at an event held by the South Asian Women's Centre.

Sandy Rakhra has been a Case Manager and Employment Counselor at the WorkBC Employment Services Centre, Vancouver South, since March 1997, providing employment support services and guidance to clients for over 28 years.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of Sandy Rakhra and women dancing at an event held by the South Asian Women's Centre.

Sandy Rakhra has been a Case Manager and Employment Counselor at the WorkBC Employment Services Centre, Vancouver South, since March 1997, providing employment support services and guidance to clients for over 28 years.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of women dancing at an event held by the South Asian Women's Centre.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of Sandy Rakhra and women dancing at an event held by the South Asian Women's Centre.

Sandy Rakhra has been a Case Manager and Employment Counselor at the WorkBC Employment Services Centre, Vancouver South, since March 1997, providing employment support services and guidance to clients for over 28 years.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of Sandy Rakhra and women dancing at an event held by the South Asian Women's Centre.

Sandy Rakhra has been a Case Manager and Employment Counselor at the WorkBC Employment Services Centre, Vancouver South, since March 1997, providing employment support services and guidance to clients for over 28 years.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of women dancing at an event held by the South Asian Women's Centre.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of a dance performance at an art exhibit entitled, "Through the Eye of the Needle: Stories From an Indian Desert" organized by Maiwa and Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan. The exhibit was hosted at the Museum of Vancouver, in Vancouver, B.C.

Founded in 1986 by Charlotte Kwon, Maiwa (previously known as Maiwa Handprints) has evolved from being a retail store located on Granville Island into a School of Textiles, a Foundation, and an online presence. Their three guiding principles are: natural dyes, as they work directly with farmers and run a full-time natural dye studio; slow clothes, as they include hand spinners, hand weavers, embroiderers, and block printers in their workflow to counter fashion fashion; and finally, artisans, as they build relationships with them and recognize how everyone in the process of making clothing are connected.

Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) centres the experience of the women of second largest district of India, Kutch, which comprises of ten administrative regions. The area struggles with water scarcity and threats of drought due to its fragile ecosystem. The district is said to be home to 1.5 million people, according to the 2001 census, and the majority resides in rural areas. MKVS' mission is "total empowerment," which consists of economic, political, and social empowerment of the rural women in the Kutch district. They intend to do so through awareness-raising, organizing, mobilizing, building confidence to address problems, developing critical analysis skills, working as a collective, and many other empowering endeavours.

Located within the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, the Museum of Vancouver's vision is to inspire and foster a more socially connected, resilient, and publicly engaged city. They do so by becoming a gathering space intent on fostering connection, learning, and new experiences of Vancouver's diverse communities and histories.They are committed to four pillars: redress and decolonization, immigration and diversity, environment and sustainability, and urban and contemporary issues.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of a dance performance at an art exhibit entitled, "Through the Eye of the Needle: Stories From an Indian Desert" organized by Maiwa and Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan. The exhibit was hosted at the Museum of Vancouver, in Vancouver, B.C.

Founded in 1986 by Charlotte Kwon, Maiwa (previously known as Maiwa Handprints) has evolved from being a retail store located on Granville Island into a School of Textiles, a Foundation, and an online presence. Their three guiding principles are: natural dyes, as they work directly with farmers and run a full-time natural dye studio; slow clothes, as they include hand spinners, hand weavers, embroiderers, and block printers in their workflow to counter fashion fashion; and finally, artisans, as they build relationships with them and recognize how everyone in the process of making clothing are connected.

Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) centres the experience of the women of second largest district of India, Kutch, which comprises of ten administrative regions. The area struggles with water scarcity and threats of drought due to its fragile ecosystem. The district is said to be home to 1.5 million people, according to the 2001 census, and the majority resides in rural areas. MKVS' mission is "total empowerment," which consists of economic, political, and social empowerment of the rural women in the Kutch district. They intend to do so through awareness-raising, organizing, mobilizing, building confidence to address problems, developing critical analysis skills, working as a collective, and many other empowering endeavours.

Located within the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, the Museum of Vancouver's vision is to inspire and foster a more socially connected, resilient, and publicly engaged city. They do so by becoming a gathering space intent on fostering connection, learning, and new experiences of Vancouver's diverse communities and histories.They are committed to four pillars: redress and decolonization, immigration and diversity, environment and sustainability, and urban and contemporary issues.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of a dance performance at an art exhibit entitled, "Through the Eye of the Needle: Stories From an Indian Desert" organized by Maiwa and Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan. The exhibit was hosted at the Museum of Vancouver, in Vancouver, B.C.

Founded in 1986 by Charlotte Kwon, Maiwa (previously known as Maiwa Handprints) has evolved from being a retail store located on Granville Island into a School of Textiles, a Foundation, and an online presence. Their three guiding principles are: natural dyes, as they work directly with farmers and run a full-time natural dye studio; slow clothes, as they include hand spinners, hand weavers, embroiderers, and block printers in their workflow to counter fashion fashion; and finally, artisans, as they build relationships with them and recognize how everyone in the process of making clothing are connected.

Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) centres the experience of the women of second largest district of India, Kutch, which comprises of ten administrative regions. The area struggles with water scarcity and threats of drought due to its fragile ecosystem. The district is said to be home to 1.5 million people, according to the 2001 census, and the majority resides in rural areas. MKVS' mission is "total empowerment," which consists of economic, political, and social empowerment of the rural women in the Kutch district. They intend to do so through awareness-raising, organizing, mobilizing, building confidence to address problems, developing critical analysis skills, working as a collective, and many other empowering endeavours.

Located within the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, the Museum of Vancouver's vision is to inspire and foster a more socially connected, resilient, and publicly engaged city. They do so by becoming a gathering space intent on fostering connection, learning, and new experiences of Vancouver's diverse communities and histories.They are committed to four pillars: redress and decolonization, immigration and diversity, environment and sustainability, and urban and contemporary issues.

Creator: Bodalia, Chandra

Photograph of the attendees watching Scheherazaad Cooper perform Odissi at a charity event hosted by the United Way British Columbia (then United Way of Lower Mainland), and hosted at one of the Ismaili jamatkhanas in Lower Mainland, B.C.

Scheherazaad Cooper is a performer, choreographer, playwright, and dramaturg with over thirty years of experience as an Odissi classical Indian dancer. Her resume is extensive, highlighting a background in theatre, international performances, interdisciplinary collaborations, solo productions, as well as teaching in higher education. She received her PhD in Sociology and Performance from Goldsmith University of London. In 2022, she showcased a dramatic reading for her play, "The Bibliomancer." She has also published her academic work, including a journal article entitled, "The Alchemy of Rasa in the Performer–Spectator Interaction."

Odissi is a classical Indian dance style which originates from the eastern state of Odisha, India. It is one of eight classical dance forms in India. Since the 12th century, odissi has been danced by maharis (people devoted to the dance) in temples. Odissi expresses traditional poetry and songs through movements. Many of the poems performed through Odissi come from the Sanskrit collection of romantic poetry, Gita Govinda, written by Jayadeva Goswami.

United Way British Columbia (United Way BC) is a unified provincial organization with the mission to strengthen vital connections that support people in need in their local communities. Their vision is of creating and supporting a healthy, caring, and inclusive community. United Way BC undertakes many initiatives, such as maintaining a BC wildfire recovery fund, a BC flood response campaign, a campaign for Ukraine, and support for those vulnerable due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jamatkhanas, meaning "the house of the community," is a place of gathering and worship for Ismaili muslims. In jamatkhanas, the values of the Islamic faith are put into practice, including humility, generosity, kindness, compassion, pluralism, search for knowledge, and service to others.