Terry Hunter is Executive Director of Vancouver Moving Theatre and Artistic Producer of the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, with whom he has produced numerous innovative community-engaged productions with residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Savannah Walling is a theatre artist, writer, and performer trained in dance, mime, and music. She collaborates with artists of many genres, traditions and cultures to create original repertoire: interweaving accessible storytelling, live music, and movement with localized content to celebrate the enduring power of the human spirit. She is the Artistic Director of Vancouver Moving Theatre, and the Associate Artistic Director of the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival.
Terry and Savannah founded Vancouver Moving Theatre in 1983. For over 15 years Vancouver Moving Theatre known as VMT has toured with original plays, concerts and interdisciplinary events, presenting over 4000 performances across four continents. VMT then shifted its focus to producing community-engaged festivals and community plays with, for, and about the Downtown Eastside Community, including In the Hart of a City (2003) and Storyweaving (2012).
VMT also co-produces the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, a twelve-day festival featuring hundreds of artists and residents, in partnership with the Carnegie Centre/Association of United Ukrainian Canadians and over forty community partners is currently working on a book about community engaged performing arts practice titled; From the Heart of a City; Community engaged music and theatre productions from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside 2002 – 2013.
Vancouver Moving Theatre has been honoured with the Vancouver Cultural Harmony Award (2008), VMT Directors are recipients of the British Columbia Achievement Award (2008), Vancouver Mayor’s Art Award for Community Engagement (2009), and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award (2013).