Arts&life

EDITOR NICKLABA |

THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019 |

THE VOICE

Langara
has few
social
Structures

Residences would
make students feel
like they were part of a
community: student

= By TIERNEY GRATTAN

T he places most post-second-
ary students spend their time
building relationships—the
campus pub, the fitness centre, the
residences—Langara doesnt have.

Though relationships students
build in university and college can
last a lifetime, in the shorter term,
they can help students feel less
lonely and that they are part of a
community.

David Erasmus, a second-year
theatre student at Langara and
a former University of Alberta
student, said if there was a residence
at Langara, there would be a stronger
sense of unity right away.

“T think there’d be more friend-
ship, less isolation as you walk down
the halls,” Erasmus said. “More of
like ‘Oh yeah, there’s that guy who
was at that party that one time.”

Yvonne Ohara, manager of alumni
relations at Langara, said graduates
sometimes forget
after they transfer
to another institu-
tion that they are
still considered
Langara alumni.

“They have
memories of
Langara and the
education they got
here,” Ohara said.
“But they don’t
necessarily understand that they are
still considered one of our alumni.”

Many students who attend a
transfer school, like Langara, do it
to improve their grades for a better
chance at being accepted into a
university.

Computer science student Jeff
Schwanebeck came to Langara
because he wasn’t accepted at his
first choice of post-secondary
institutions.

Schwanebeck said he applied for
and had hoped to get into SFU, but
ended up at Langara instead. Now
in his second year here, he said he’s
glad he chose to come to a transfer
school first.

“They have smaller classes instead
of big auditoriums, and the profes-
sors, in my experience, are a lot more
personable here,” said Schwanebeck.

Some students, like Gurvir Kaur,
decide just to go to transfer school
for a diploma and then head straight
into the workforce.

“I want to study first and then
when I’m finished I'll think about if I

want to do it again or not,” Kaur said.

Yvonne Ohara
MANAGER OF
ALUMNI RELATIONS

Correction
In the March 7, 2019,

edition, The Voice erroneously
stated the National Film
Board of Canada aimed to
have gender parity amongst
its directors within the next
year.
In fact, the NFB had parity
the last two years.

The description of a recent sold-out event at Mountain View Cemetery stated participants could '
through prayer/song, visioning practices, and group dialogue." Rena MEDOW PHOTO

ii

"expect to engage lineage ancestors in heart-centered ritual

Lessons from the passed

Western guilt prompts locals to seek out ancestral healing

= By RENA MEDOW

ore Vancouverites are
seeking out the prac-
tice of ancestral heal-
ing due to a growing
awareness of historical guilt, accord-
ing to a local healing practitioner.

Shuana Janz said some Western-
ers want to resolve the historical
role they’ve played in oppressing
other cultures. Janz co-lead a recent
“Ancestral Lineage Healing Inten-
sive” at Mountain View Cemetery
March 1-3.

The sold-out event, which cost
participants $500, “embraces the the
relationship of ancestral engage-
ment with cultural healing and
decolonization work,” as stated on
the event’s website.

“We're kind of in a crisis to say it
bluntly,” Janz said. “With the state
of our world right now, I think

many of us are yearning for a sense
of belonging.”

Angela Prider, one of several local
healing practitioners said the popu-
larity of ancestry.com and DNA
tests over the
past 10 years
has allowed
people to
open the door
to their ances-
tors.

“A lot of
white people
don't under-
stand we are
our ancestors.
‘They are your
blood. They
are your DNA,” Prider said. “We
have a responsibility to amend the
mistakes that our ancestors made.”

Some clients who have had trans-
formative experiences with ances-

“Everything we do has
to be thought through
seven generations.
Now we don't even
think through one.”

— ELISE DE VILLIERS,
ANCESTRAL HEALING CLIENT

tral healing say the benefits go
beyond familial or historical recon-
ciliation. Elise de Villiers, who has
tried ancestral healing, said the loss
of ancestral connection may even
have played a
part in climate
change.

“We don't
know how
seven gener-
ations ago
affect us. Our
First Nations
here talk about
it all the time.
Everything
we do has to
be thought
through for seven generations. Now
we don't even think through one,”
de Villiers said.

Like other forms of alternative
medicine, ancestral healing has its

skeptics. An online thread about the
founder of the teachings offered at
the Mountain View healing inten-
sive, Daniel Foor, has been viewed
over 13,800 times.

An administrator of the website,
newagefraud.org, criticized Foor’s
teachings for being a “confused
mishmash of a number of tradi-
tions.” Some posters defended Foor.

Prider said she has researched
the way her ancestors honoured
their ancestors to develop her own
practice.

The administrator also criticized
Foor for charging money to perform
ceremonies.

Janz said that being a ritualist is
a career that deserves payment just
like any other.

“We put a lot of investment in
getting good at what we're doing
and getting effective results,”

Podcast club the new book

Global phenom-
enon is uniting
local listeners

= By MAXIM FOSSEY

T he ability of podcasts to
create a sense of friendship
between the listener and the
host is uniting local communities of
listeners, says the leader of a local
podcast club.

Podcast enthusiasts from around
the globe come together once a
month for the Podcast Brunch Club,
where they discuss podcasts related
to a monthly theme. The Vancouver
brunch club chapter, organized by
Daniel Mathews, is one of a growing
number of chapters worldwide, with
clubs in cities from Washington to
Moscow to Shanghai.

Adela Mizrachi, founder of the
first PBC in Chicago, said she is
honoured that so many people are
joining the brunch club, and are

willing to be open and connect
with strangers.

“I’m completely amazed and
shocked to be honest, that it turned
into something as big as it did,”
Mizrachi said.

As podcasting continues to
increase in popularity, Mizrachi said
she thinks that podcast club could be
the new book club.

“Podcasts lend themselves into
a multitasking society, and books
are hard to dedicate time into,”
Mizrachi said.

Local co-hosts Ian Bushfield and
Scott de Lange Boom said they
started producing PolitiCoast in Oct.
2016 to filla B.C. politics niche that
they hadn't yet heard in the form of
a podcast.

Bushfield said the minimal equip-
ment needed to produce podcasts is
a big part of why the community of
content is continuing to grow.

“It’s so easy in fact, to get a podcast
out there that the joke is: what’s two
guys and a microphone? It’s just
a podcast,” he said. “With that it
means there’s a lot better content
out there.”

club

lan Bushfield (left) and Scott de Lange Boom produce PolitiCoast at Pod-
stream Studios in Vancouver. They used to record the podcast from de Lange
Boom's basement. Axi FOSSEY PHOTO