The many friends who came to know Christopher Armstrong during his nearly 15 years in Chemainus are gathering Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at Kin Beach near the Wike residence.
The community tribute will be fitting to a man who was known for his incredible artistic talents, courage in the wake of contracting Myotonic dystrophy and the lasting impression he made on people. Armstrong died last week at the age of 63.
“He was loved,” said Colleen Wike. “A lot of us got to know each other through him. He just rallied the community around him.”
“He was kind of a director,” added Tom Lowen. “He was always orchestrating things.”
Veroushka Tarazi, who formerly resided in Chemainus and now lives in south Nanaimo, still considers her community to be in Chemainus and that included Armstrong.
“Every person you talked to who has known Christopher would have amazing things to say,” she offered. “He reached out to people like myself and others who just fell in love with him.
“He was the most amazing human being I’ve ever met in my life.”
Armstrong was confined to a wheelchair about four years ago after the effects of his progressive disease took hold.
Armstrong had an amazing life in the arts before coming to Chemainus. At 14, he danced with the National Ballet of Canada. He later became a stage manager for international dance groups, worked in choreography, was a sound technician for corporate training programs and travelled the world with dancers.
Armstrong’s cousin S.T.R. Armstrong provided a written document that he had done before moving to Vancouver Island that included some interesting insights into his life.
It documents how his cousin Judy Armstrong taught him how to dance. After his dad died in 1962, he moved to Banff where he took dance classes along with his sister at the Banff School of Fine Arts. He attended classes at the Grace MacDonald School of Dance in Deep Cove, B.C. two years later.
Armstrong auditioned for the National Ballet School of Canada in his 13th year and boarded the train from Vancouver to Toronto for a three-day ride in June of 1968.
“Thus the adventure began,” he wrote. “I would become a seasoned traveler and would eventually travel completely around the planet over an eight-month period. I inherited the travel bug from both my parents.”
Studying and dancing with the National Ballet Company, he was exposed to all the classic disciplines of the arts.
“I met and worked with a number of great artists, the highlight being dancing in Rudolf Nureyev’s new adaptation of Sleeping Beauty that he created and performed for the NBC,” Armstrong noted. “It was a very exciting time, as the new generations of graduates were becoming prominent dancers within the company: Karen Kain, Frank Augustyn, James Kudelka.
“In the years to follow, I embraced the design and management side of theatre. My experience was useful over a wide variety of disciplines: mime, opera, drama, classical and modern dance and musicals. My travel bug was in high gear as I traveled with theatre companies all over North America and abroad as well as handling the design and management side for visiting companies from Russia, Taiwan and Yugoslavia. The next best way of visiting a foreign country and experiencing their culture is to travel with a group of dancers from Russia or Yugoslavia across North America for four months, and witnessing the culture shock as they adapt to a North American way of life.
“In 1979, needing to take a break from the arts scene, I crossed paths with Swami Sivanada Radha, which led me into taking the three-month Yoga Teacher Certification program at the Yasodhara Ashram, located outside of Nelson, B.C. Experiencing ashram life for a year and a half transformed me. Then life called me back into Canadian mainstream society. The film industry came a knocking as Hollywood North was beginning to open up in Toronto and I was drawn into work on a string of movies as a gaffer and as a sound technician. I then teamed up with a cinematographer working as a sound technician and lighting designer and we moved into making documentaries.”
Armstrong married the love of his life, Diane Jensen, in 1993. Their lives took a dramatic turn two years later when Diane experienced total kidney failure and was placed on dialysis for the next there years. A friend of hers turned out to be a perfect match to give her a kidney for a transplant in 1998.
After their lives returned somewhat to normal in the Toronto area, Diane suffered two heart attacks in four years and Armstrong fell off a ladder in May of 2002.
“In August after a week-long vacation, we returned to her parents’ cottage to pick up our blue tick hound dog, Blu,” Armstrong wrote. “Diane decided she wanted to go water skiing. On August 11, 2002 she donned her skis and away she went skiing the perimeter of the lake. As she was heading back to the dock, she had her final heart attack. Her body dropping away as her spirit once again became free to begin a new journey.”
Armstrong moved back to B.C. two years later and made an immediate connection with people in Chemainus as a mentor and teacher. He was involved with the “Men’s Group” meetings in Chemainus and the ‘Mankind Project.’