Natalie Lue enjoys working in the arts for several reasons. As the director of Vancouver Civic Theatres, she’s breaking down silos by bringing people together. Lue also takes pleasure in experiencing various perspectives. And she loves seeing the reactions from appreciative audiences.
“My goal wasn’t to be on-stage, but I wanted to be part of how to make it happen,” Lue tells Pancouver over Zoom. “In high school, I was the stage manager. I had all the controls at my fingertips in that situation and I loved it.”
She has a heavy workload, overseeing operations of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver Playhouse, Orpheum Theatre, and Annex on behalf of the City of Vancouver. This year, she anticipates that these venues will host 800 events and welcome more than 800,000 guests.
According to Lue, her work is about relationships—whether it’s with staff, audiences, performers, or the organizations that make use of the facilities. The pandemic certainly reinforced this reality.
“While we were in lockdown, we maintained relationships with our arts and culture clients,” Lue states. “And we really thought about how we were going to continue and strengthen them when we re-opened. That was a big piece of work.”
Lue embraces reconciliation
Vancouver Civic Theatres also manages šxʷƛ̓exən Xwtl’a7shn, the name given to the public square at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on June 18, 2018, by the City of Vancouver, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sə̓lílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh). It is “a place where people are invited to celebrate”.
It’s been the site of a variety of free activities, such as pop-up Dance Dance Dance classes, the Sunset Cinema program, the Sounds of Summer music series, and many other events.
“That’s our store window,” Lue declares. “During the pandemic, we did get a little bit of federal funding because we said we needed to animate the neighbourhood and support the businesses around us.”
In keeping with the City of Vancouver’s reconciliation initiatives, Vancouver Civic Theatres has wrapped the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and Vancouver Playhouse complex with artwork by Indigenous artists. This is part of the City of Vancouver’s public art program, Platforms: Nine Places for Seeing.
“We treat it as an entry point because the theatres are in closed buildings, and you may or may not know what is going on inside of them,” Lue explains. “So, we’ve tried to bring a bit of that out on to šxʷƛ̓exən Xwtl’a7shn.”
Make no mistake: Vancouver Civic Theatres is a critical component of the City of Vancouver’s arts and cultural portfolio. It’s also an important economic engine that will generate nearly $14 million in programming and ancillary activities this year for city coffers.
“One of the things about the theatres that a lot of people don’t understand is that we’re actually not a tax-based operation,” Lue says. “We are a revenue-generating entity.”
Learn about the history of the Jamaica’s Chinese community.
Growing up Jamaican Chinese
By the time she arrived at Vancouver Civic Theatres in 2019, Lue already had tremendous experience in venue management. She was the CEO of Mississauga’s Living Arts Centre, which has three performance halls. Prior to that, Lue was vice president, production and visitor experience at the Toronto International Film Festival and worked as a senior official at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. She’s keenly interested in the process of bringing audiences and creative artists together.
“That’s why I loved working at TIFF,” Lue says. “I produced 12 of the festivals while I was there. It was all about putting those pieces together. At Harbourfront Centre, it was the same thing.”
Lue was born into a Chinese Jamaican family who immigrated to the Lower Mainland when she was very young. They didn’t move into a Jamaican neighbourhood, nor did they live in a Chinese neighbourhood.
“We went to school with lots of different kids,” she recalls. “We ate all kinds of different food and listened to different kinds of music, different languages, and different accents.”
Her parents were young and there was always music and dancing in the home. They didn’t hold onto traditions in any strict way, but Lue grew up learning to respect her elders. She recognizes that this same value exists in many cultures.
“I was too young to have a Jamaican accent, but my parents sure did,” Lue adds. “It’s certainly made me more empathetic as our society works toward an Equity Diversity Inclusion ethos. I always look at a challenge or issue from other perspectives now, not just my own.”
Multiplicity of identities
Lue sees culture and nationality as things that people can draw upon in their lives. However, she doesn’t think they should define a person because it’s just one small part of the whole person.
“I really want to encourage people to be curious and open,” she says. “Once you’ve actually stereotyped, it’s game over for me. For me, you’ve created a box and there’s no way to get in it and no way to get out of it. I think that is so antithetic to arts and culture.”
For people interested in learning more about Jamaican Chinese culture, she recommends a book by her deceased godfather, Ray Chen. He was an eminent Montreal photographer who compiled and edited The Shopkeepers: Commemorating 150 Years of the Chinese in Jamaica, 1854-2004.
The first Chinese Jamaicans were Hakka indentured labourers, who came in 1854. Most came from Hong Kong and nearby Guangdong Province in Southern China. They performed work previously done by slaves, who achieved emancipation in 1838.
Lue’s family story is different. On her dad’s side, her grandmother was from Hong Kong and her grandfather was from China. They had an arranged marriage. Because her granddad was the second son, he couldn’t look forward to an inheritance.
“So, he went to Jamaica to work with his uncle, who had immigrated,” Lue says.
Both of these grandparents spoke to her in Chinese when she was very young. Meanwhile, her maternal grandfather is Chinese from Singapore whereas her maternal grandmother had mixed European ancestry.
“I’m of a generation where you weren’t encouraged to really explore your culture in the way that I feel like we do now,” Lue states. “It was assimilation—get rid of the accent.”
She also chairs the board of the Canadian Association of Performing Arts / Association Canadienne Des Organismes Artistiques (CAPACOA). It represents 150 organizations, agents, festivals, managers, and other stakeholders in the performing arts. It supports the touring and presenting sector.
“In addition to supporting a strong touring sector nationally, we work with arts organizations in Canada and other countries to create international touring networks to put the spotlight on our Canadian and international artists,” Lue says. “It’s been an incredible journey.”
Lue often advises organizations to know their audience and their capabilities when booking venues.
“I always say: ‘Be a risk-taker and be bold in your programs and the content of what you’re doing, but have a good business plan to support it.’ ”
For more information on Vancouver Civic Theatres, visit the website. Follow Pancouver on X (formerly Twitter) @PancouverMedia and on Instagram @PancouverMedia.
This article is part of “Beyond Chinese”, a joint initiative of Pancouver and the Asian-Canadian Special Events Association. Through interviews with artists and cultural workers, Beyond Chinese offers a nuanced view of people with Chinese ancestry. Pancouver and the Asian-Canadian Special Events Association gratefully acknowledge the support of Canadian Heritage.
