Fragile: Handle With Care
Vancouver Independent Music Centre Society (VIM) and SUM gallery present:
FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE
Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute & movement | Parmela Attariwala, violin, movement & sound design
Sujit Vaidya, choreography & movement
Friday and Saturday, November 13-14: 7:30 pm | Doors and box office opens at 6:30 pm
Sunday Matinee, November 15: 2 pm | Doors and box office opens at 1 pm
Morrow, 910 Richards Street, Unit 204
This Concert takes place on the traditional and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.
About The Show
How does performance adjust as our bodies age? How do performers change as we age? What becomes more
important, what is less important? Sujit, Mark and Parmela explore the physical and sonic shifts time brings.
Fragile: Handle with Care is the first draft presentation of a new collaborative work featuring new movement and music
by three of Vancouver’s leading creative artists, composer/ flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor; composer/ violinist Parmela
Attariwala; and choreographer/ dancer Sujit Vaidya.
About Mark Takeshi McGregor
Described as a “mind-blowing” musician of “huge physical energy” (Times Colonist), flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor is a
Vancouver-based soloist, chamber musician, and improvisor. Mark has performed with various ensemble across five
continents including Innovations en Concert (Montreal), Ding Yi Chinese Chamber Music Festival (Singapore), Museo
Leonora Carrington (San Luis Potosí, Mexico), Melos-Ethos (Bratislava), GroundSwell (Winnipeg) and Núcleo Música
Nova International Symposium of New Music (Curitiba, Brazil). In 2021, he was honoured with the Friends of Canadian
Music Award, which recognizes exceptional to Canadian composers and their music. He is artistic director of the Queer
Arts Festival + SUM gallery, major platforms for 2SLGBTQIA+ art and artists.
https://marktakeshimcgregor.com/
About Parmela Attariwala
Born and raised in Mohkinstis (Calgary), Parmela Attariwala determined as a toddler that she had to play the violin after
seeing one on television. She studied music formally in the United States and Europe, then cultivated an eclectic artistic
practice over a twenty-five-year sojourn in Toronto, mixing traditional and non-traditional, cross-genre and
interdisciplinary, performance and creation, socially progressive pedagogy and applied ethnomusicology. Parmela is
particularly known for working with choreographers (as both composer and movement artist), for her Attar Project
recordings featuring works for Western strings and North Indian tabla (“a cross-cultural handshake to set the mind
spinning”), and for research on music and identity in Canada. Since moving to Vancouver in 2019, Parmela’s creative
work has expanded to include sound scores for gallery installations (Esker Foundation, Peter Morin and Ayumi
Goto’s the Salmon and the Crow are Everywhere and Morin’s NDN Lovesongs), dance film (Sujit Vaidya and Robert
Kingsbury’s Sacred/Sacrilegeous), and opera (Marion Newman and Yvette Nolan’s Namwayut). She also co-founded the
collaborative improvisation web series Understorysound.ca, and dedicates her spare time to tackling issues of equity
and ethics in the music sector.
About Sujit Vaidya
Choreographer Sujit Vaidya is an independent Vancouver dance artist trained in Bharatanatyam who works primarily as
soloist. His artistic choices reflect the curiosities and experiences he holds as a queer artist of colour, while deeply
engaging with an art form rooted in tradition. His choreographies question the narrative and relevance of non-inclusive
traditional texts. He aims to create space for queer expression within the context of Bharatanatyam. His works have
been programmed in festivals such as Vancouver International Dance Festival, Dancing On The Edge and MAI Montreal.
About SUM Gallery
One of only a handful of permanent spaces worldwide dedicated to the presentation of queer art, SUM gallery brings
diverse communities together to support artistic risk-taking, incite creative collaboration and experimentation, and
celebrate the rich heritage of queer artists and art. SUM produces, presents and exhibits challenging, thought-provoking
multidisciplinary art, including up to six exhibitions a year, a concert series, the SUM-AiR artist residency program, and
multiple workshops and public engagement initiatives. From its roots in the Pride in Art Society (PiA), SUM gallery was
founded in 2018 as a space for year-round programming of the Queer Arts Festival.