The Delta Heritage Society and Delta Stageworks Theatre Society have announced that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, their joint effort to present a heritage re-enactment of life in Delta during the 1920s has been postponed to 2021.
It had been scheduled to go ahead in September with public workshops leading to a live presentation on Delta Street in Ladner Village.
"The ongoing public health situation has, regretfully, impacted our organization's ability to forward plan and fundraise for a fall 2020 presentation," said Delta Heritage Society president Barbara Baydala.
Re-enactment writer/director Peg Keenleyside of Delta Stageworks has been following arts and heritage organizations and artists as, all around the province, they have been forced to cancel seasons, programs and shows planned for 2020.
"This last month has been truly heartbreaking for so many people working on cultural projects, including right here in Delta," said Keenleyside.
In 2018, Keenleyside directed and produced a well-received historical re-enactment of life in Delta during the First World War with the support of the Kirkland House Foundation, the Delta Heritage Society and the City of Delta.
To foster the public's interest in local historical re-enactments, Delta Stageworks is providing an online space for community story sharing centred around the 1918-1920 Spanish Flu pandemicand exploring how people in Delta coped with the virus that killed some 55,000 Canadians.
"One of the objectives of the re-enactment process we do is to connect people with the experiences people in their community went through in the past. It helps us reflect on what we're experiencing now, and what it means to be a part of the Delta community in 2020," she said about the new online project that invites people to share their personal stories of living through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Baydala said the Delta Heritage Society is launching a reboot of its 2015 Delta Stories project with an initial focus on the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and how people and families were affected by it locally, across the country or around the world.
The online project will also offer weekly postings of other local history stories and photos -- from the Delta Archives and elsewhere -- designed to encourage a wide range of responses about people's memories of the past.
Updates and more information about ongoing community programs and outreach by the two societies can be found on their respective websites: deltaheritagesociety.ca and deltastageworks.ca.
