Cascadian Zen
Tea Ceremony
Readings of Poetry and Prose
Venue
Beaver Point Community Hall
1361 Beaver Point Road, Salt Spring Island, BC
Schedule
Friday, August 14, 2026
3:30-4:30 PM - Forest Awakening: Performance Installation
4:30-6:30 PM - Reading
Featured Readers
With Local Contributors to the Cascadian Zen Anthology
Peter Levitt
Shirley Graham
Adelia MacWilliam
Briony Penn
Ann Graham Walker
Ursula Vaira
Jason Wirth
Dan Clarkson
For additional information:
Adelia MacWilliam
adelia.macwiliam@gmail.com
Forest Awakening: Performance Installation
Presented by MOVE37XR and the WEN,NÁ,NEC Place-based Residency
In the cedar grove just meters from Beaver Point Hall, transdisciplinary artist and immersive field designer Pravin Pillay and artist and tea specialist Jennifer Maksymetz (Tea Mistress) present Forest Awakening—a live data-poetic performance and tea ceremony rooted in the living ecology of our temperate rainforest, with soundscape contributions by composer Matt Robertson.
Ecological data and field recordings are woven into an evolving sonic environment, transforming the rhythms and signals of the land into sound, texture, and presence. Through the quiet aesthetics and attentive gestures of the tea ceremony, poets and guests are invited to slow down, listen deeply, and enter into a more intimate relationship with themselves, one another, and the living world.
Come anytime after 3:30 p.m. to experience Forest Awakening and settle in for the readings, which begin at 4:30 p.m.
Pravin Pillay is a transdisciplinary artist, researcher, educator, and Creative Director of MOVE37XR. A Community Fellow at York University’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, he investigates immersive storytelling as a way to engage planetary health, bioregional knowledge, and interspecies relationships. He holds an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan, where he explored human-computer interaction and systems-based art. Pillay lives and works on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Jennifer Maksymetz (Tea Mistress) has been studying tea and practicing Gongfu tea ceremony since 2000. She has travelled extensively through renowned tea regions, studying with tea masters and sourcing exceptional teas directly from farmers. Jennifer co-founded Jade Spring Teas, the official tea shop of the Journal of Chinese Medicine, and has taught tea ceremony since 2012 in settings ranging from intimate tearooms to international arts festivals and cultural institutions. Holding an MA in Arts and Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London, her work explores tea ceremony as a contemporary ritual for cultivating presence, restoring attention, and reclaiming personal agency. She lives and teaches on Salt Spring Island, BC.