Asian Heritage Month: Montreal hosts 1st multicultural drumming festival
Posted May 13, 2023 11:52 am.
Last Updated May 13, 2023 6:14 pm.
The festival ‘Drum for Unity’ was back to celebrate Asian Heritage Month with drumming teams from all over the world in Montreal’s Chinatown on Saturday.
Unlike its previous events, this year’s festival included, for the very first time, drummers from Indian, African, and Caribbean backgrounds to promote Montreal’s diverse and multicultural communities and fight against racism.
Jimmy Chan, founder of Drum for Unity, organized the event to bring the communities together to share and learn about each other’s culture.
“Today, we’re going to drum for friendship, drum for world peace, drum against racism,” Chan told CityNews. “This is something that all communities wanted to do, so we get to do it together today.
“The multicultural festival, I believe that it will bring people together to understand one another more and to support each other.”
PREVIOUS EDITION OF “DRUM FOR UNITY”
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Montreal’s Chinese Waist Drum Group and the Montreal-Caribbean carnival band Gwoup Miel performed at the festival.
“We thought that it would be good to share our culture with many other cultures today,” said Cauls GP with Gwoup Miel. “Because nowadays, cultures are really separated and today we have the occasion to regroup together. So we want to be a part of this.
“We can express ourselves with music, dances, and things like that. Our drum group is a part of our culture, so we’re going to show it today.”
Trinidadian drummer Cultural Farmer at the Montreal Chinatown Multicultural Festival on May 13, 2023. (Diona Macalinga/CityNews)
Grell Jack, who goes by the stage name Cultural Farmer, says the drum is one of the oldest musical instruments in the world. He adds drumming allows him to spiritually connect with his Trinidadian roots.
“It is something that has always preserved a discipline within any cultural group,” he said. “That’s why you find the Chinese, the Africans, Indians, everyone chooses to preserve it, because in our body we do have the same drum, which is our heart.”
Set at Chinatown’s Sun-Yat-Sen Park, the festival kicked off with a lion dance by the Montreal Chan Lion Dance Club. In Chinese culture, the traditional dance is performed as a blessing ceremony to bring good luck and fortune.
“It is amazing that we can come together and we’re going to drum our culture, music, dancing,” said Chan. “So did this show about culture and spoke about promoting diversity. So it is important not just only for me, it’s also important for all the other community that are coming in today.”
Jimmy Chan and drummers with the “Drum for Unity” event on May 13, 2023. (Diona Macalinga/CityNews)
Chan hopes the festival will help support local businesses and restaurants in Montreal’s Chinatown after many closures due to COVID-19 lockdowns and a rough few years.
“The last three years of the pandemic, they see the lockdown many times. The merchants are really having a hard time to survive in Chinatown here.
“Chinatown kind of got smaller in a way. And in order to protect our heritage, we have to come together. And not just only ourselves in the community. We also need all the communities to come in to make Chinatown busier and to be recognized, our culture, our heritage.”
The event included dance acts by the Mauritian dance troop Zoli Mamzelles, Chinese opera, and a performance by Montreal-Guadeloupean singer Aldo Guizmo.
