Into The Beautiful Blistering Night

Vancouver Poetry House and Verses Festival of Words present "Into the Beautiful Blistering Night," an evening of story, poem and song. Past Verses favorites, Kimmortal, Jillian Christmas, and Nyla Carpentier, are guaranteed to set your heart on fire and send you blazing into the night!

About the Artists:

KIMMORTAL is an artistic force to be reckoned with. As a visual artist, singer-songwriter/emcee, and arts-based community organizer currently based on Coast Salish Territory aka Vancouver, Kim fuses her phenomenal artistic talents with her activism. In 2013, Kim’s debut acting role in Sal Capone landed her a nomination in Montreal English Theatre Awards as “Outstanding Supporting Actress”. In 2014, she released her debut album, “Sincerity” and represented Vancouver as the only Filipina emcee in 2015’s Canadian Music Week. Her self-directed animated music video, “Brushing by heaven’s shoulder”, was selected to be screened at San Francisco’s Queer Women of Colour Film festival 2016. Kim was awarded the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award in Community-Engaged arts in 2013, and is also the founder of “SHE”, an annual East-Vancouver event celebrating indigenous, black, and women of colour in WORD and MUSIC (shefestvan.com).

JILLIAN CHRISTMAS was born and raised in Markham, Ontario. She currently lives on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam people (Vancouver, BC.), where she serves as Artistic Director of Versəs Festival of Words. Jillian is an enthusiastic organizer and activist in the Canadian arts community, her focus being to increase anti-oppression initiatives in spoken word. She has participated in, developed and executed programs in partnership with Toronto Poetry Project, Wordplay, Brendan McLeod’s Travelling Slam, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Opera, and the CULTCH Mentorship, and facilitated spoken word workshops for youth and adults across the country.

NYLA CARPENTIER (Tahltan/Kaska) is a multifaceted artist. She was recently Assistant Director on Hardline Productions’ Redpatch; she directed May’s Rock at Here Be Monsters, Rattlesnake Run at Walking Fish, Variations on the Death of Trotsky; and is currently co-directing SPAWN at the rEvolver Festival. Drawing on her experience as someone of mixed heritage, her goal is to blend the past, present and create new works for the future. In the fall of 2013, she debuted her first one act play 21st Century Tricksters at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, and in 2014 she created a powwow based dance piece Equating Echoes with musician David Newberry for Brief Encounters 21. As an actor she’s toured in Axis Theatre’s Raven meets the Monkey King, recently finished performing both the English and French version of The Flats/Les Flats with Prairie Theatre Exchange and Theatre Cercle Moliere, The Berlin Blues and Ipperwash at the Blyth Festival.

The Vancouver Poetry House respectfully recognizes that this event take place on the traditional and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) nations. We recognize the colonial violence that led to the creation of Vancouver, and how that allows our organization to exist.