You would think someone who's a former writer for CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the corporation's first person of colour to host a daily national radio program, a standup comedian and actor would be able to put together a 10-minute podcast in his sleep. But Tetsuro Shigematsu says he struggled for months with how to shape a short podcast play that will premiere at the 34th annual Powell Street Festival, which celebrates Japanese-Canadian arts and culture, July 31 and Aug. 1.

That's because he didn't know how to reconcile the romanticized history of Oppenheimer Park, the site of the "podplay" and festival, with a nightmarish experience he had there recently.

Shigematsu was working out timing for the audio play, walking along shooting his feet with a small digital camera, when a man swore at him, demanding to know what he was doing. Shigematsu says when he told the man he was shooting video footage, the man advanced, wielding an object in his hand.

Shigematsu, who as a reporter has been in riots and had a trigger-happy American military man point a pistol at his head, ran.

Once home, he realized he caught the incident--his would-be attacker--on video.

He didn't intend his audio play to be about a Downtown Eastside park of fear, but he didn't want to ignore the incident, either. He also didn't want to skew the work with only the sepia-tinged history of the park he'd been focusing on--the story of Asahi Tigers baseball team that won championships in the city before the Japanese were even allowed to vote, and the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement.

So Shigematsu returned to the park, hoping to find the threatening man, not sure what he was going to say.

He never found him. Instead, Shigematsu met residents of the Jackson Avenue Housing Co-op across the street from Oppenheimer Park, who gave him a whole new perspective about the community. He learned residents invite local drug dealers to their regular community dinners and work out agreements with them not to deal in their locale. He heard a story about one of the co-op's founders who ran from his home in the middle of the night to tell a man to stop roughing up a sex trade worker, that his behaviour was inappropriate and the co-founder's kids were sleeping across the street. The man returned the next day and apologized.

"They find that non-violence is the best approach because when they call the police and police show up, weapons get drawn on both sides and things really escalate," Shigematsu said.

With the help of Martin Kinch, executive director of the Playwrights Theatre Centre on Granville Island, and Adrienne Wong, artistic director of NeWorld Theatre, Shigematsu has created a piece that combines the personal with the historical for the podcast play.

Listeners can download the podcast onto their MP3 player a few days before the festival or borrow an MP3 player onsite, between noon and 5 p.m., to embark on the dramatized walk around the perimeter of the park that includes audio of the angry man crashing in. Shigematsu recommends wearing "cup" headphones rather than earbuds to appreciate the podcast's 3D holophonic spatial sound and music by Yota Kobayashi.

The site-specific work reflects the festival's theme of koen debut, or park debut, as the festival returns to Oppenheimer Park after moving last summer to Woodland Park while Oppenheimer underwent renovations.

In addition to Shigematsu's podplay, other festival highlights include Toronto-based, Vancouver-raised dancer Andrea Nann performing with Vancouver theatre artist Maiko Bae Yamamoto at the Vancouver Japanese Language School.

A double-bill at Chapel Arts Saturday night includes new media artists Tochka from Japan who will use light sources including cell phones, iPods and bike lights to draw in the air. Their doodles will be captured in a swift succession of photos then be projected onto a screen as live, stop-motion animation.

New York's Yoko Kikuchi, formerly of the pop band Dream Bitches, will perform on the festival's main stage Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.

The Powell Street Festival, Vancouver's largest Japanese-Canadian festival and the longest running community celebration in the city, also includes taiko drumming, sumo wrestling, martial arts demonstrations, Japanese food, crafts and displays.

The festival runs 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 400 Powell St. The daytime events are free. For more information, see www.powellstreetfestival.com.

crossi@vancourier.com