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Pagoda marks it’s 40th year with SEA Liverpool, a celebration of East South East Asian (ESEA) Culture.

SEA Liverpool festival celebrates ESEA cultures in Liverpool and acknowledges their long histories with the port city, it recognises the bonds that Scouse ESEA communities have with it’s other vibrant multi-cultural communities.

Music & Performance
From 11am to 5pm

Craft Stalls
From 11am to 5pm
Calligraphy, Tea Ceremony, Chinese Knot Making

Market Stalls
From 10am to 5pm
ESEA Producers and special guest traders from the famous Granby Street Market

Children’s Activities
From 11am to 5pm
Workshops

Many thanks to Danny Pye, Katie Chen, Jilly and Tilly Reynolds, Hung Gar Kung Fu Association, Barbara Disney, Joe Farrag and Theresa Granby Market staff and volunteers at Pagoda… and to you!

Special thanks to Jah Wobble.

Jennifer Lee Tsai is a poet and critic. She was born in Bebington and grew up in Liverpool. Jennifer is a fellow of The Complete Works programme for diversity and innovation and a Ledbury Poetry Critic. Her work is widely published in magazines and journals as well as in the Bloodaxe anthology Ten: Poets of the New Generation (2017). Jennifer’s debut poetry pamphlet is Kismet (ignitionpress, 2019). In 2019, she was awarded an AHRC scholarship to undertake doctoral research in Creative Writing at the University of Liverpool. She is the winner of a Northern Writers Award for Poetry 2020.
Yeti Wang previously ran an underground club and record store in Hohhot, China, called DeepSwing. He is now began life as a university student in the UK studying music. His DJ set focuses on Asian music, including forgotten deep cuts, left field sounds and new released by Asian musicians. Expect deep, breezy and oriental tunes from China, wider Asian and beyond.
YiJia is a singer-songwriter from China, interested in exploring her cultural identity and diverse traditions though music-making. After coming to the UK, Yijia has established a career in traditional Chinese folk singing and Guzheng playing, having performed at WOMAD festival, Victorious Festival, BBC Radio 3, I Asia House’s ‘One Voice’ documentary series and Sofar Sounds London.

Yijia was the winner of the 16th CMA (Chinese Music Awards) for ‘Media’s choice Album’ and the nomination for ‘Best New Chinese Female Artists’ for the Chinese Media Music Award.

Tian is a musical duo made up two mixed heritage brothers of Chinese Irish descent. John Tianqi and GZ Tian, learned to play Chinese musical instruments from a young age. They have done a collaboration with musicians such as Youth, MC Jin and many others, and performed at Glastonbury Festival, Shanghai World Expo. GZ Tian released his debut album in April 2020. His single finished on Apple Music top 100 hip hop list, and No. 1 on the hip hop chart in Sweden.

John Tianqi was runner-up on two of the Wangyi Yun competitions for up and coming independent artists in China, (participant between April – August). He was signed to Kanjian Distribution in China.

Tamara Canada is an RnB artist based in North West London, who’s music merges elements of RnB, Soul and Hip Hop together to create her sultry sound. At the age of 16, she studied basic production techniques, going on to release her first single ‘Lose Me’ later which she wrote, produced and engineered.
Most of the members of the Guangxi Dance Group are from different ethnic minorities in Guangxi. They perform Guangxi traditional dances, and ethnic costumes and display folk customs.In this Festival, they brought us the traditional Zhuang intangible cultural heritage “Pan Dan Dance”, and “Zhuang girls love to sing”, and facilitate a dance workshop, so that we can experience the Zhuang village culture together.
“Pagoda Arts aspires to be a high quality organisation; to introduce Chinese Culture to a wide and diverse community and to develop our unique Youth Orchestra to be at the cutting edge of contemporary and classical Chinese and Western music”Everyone who is involved with Pagoda Arts perceives the organisation like our logo, 众 – multitude. This Chinese character has many meanings: audience, listener, spectators or the public.

We are a big family for those people who have an interest in Chinese culture.

The yurt was commissioned for a multi-arts project ‘Inner Skin’ in Bristol. It was central to the installation ‘Inner Skin’, stories of migration, hope and change people experienced moving from East Asia to England.‘Inner Skin’ involved 11 artists of European and East and South East Asian heritage working with the mainly Cantonese speaking community of elders in Bristol.

Devised by visual artist Barbara Disney. The process included a series of multi-disciplinary workshops involving visual arts, movement, photography and music. Including several visits by Pagoda Arts Director Zi Lan Liao playing the guzheng to inspire artistic creation during a session and performing at the launch of the project and within the yurt at the opening of the exhibition.

It is so appropriate that the yurt is moving to Sea Liverpool.

Danny Pye is a local vocalist who has been performing all over the UK since he was 14 years old.

Known for his emotive and refined style.

Jah Wobble is no stranger to combing his iconic sound with E/ESEA musicians, such as the award winning Chinese Dub, Molam Dub, and Japanese dub.Jah Wobble had worked with the PCYO  since 2008, and it is an honour that he joins us in this special event, and continue to inspire the next generation of up and coming artists/musicians to further expand the fusion of different forms of music.

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