The Georgia Straight - Psychedelic Revival - Feb 1, 2018 by The Georgia Straight

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4 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 8 / 2018

CONTENTS

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Kenneth Tupper is part of a research team at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use that’s investigating the clinical benefits of psychedelic drugs, including MDMA for PTSD and psilocybin for addictions. > BY TR AVIS LUPICK

ARTS

For Jabberwocky, the Old Trout Puppet Workshop uses low-tech antique theatre arts but speaks to modern-day monsters. > BY JANE T SMITH

MOVIES

Our Time Will Come in old Hong Kong; Michael Haneke shoots for a Happy End; Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, much; Edward Hopper meets Reality in Shirley.

When the men of Milky Chance began to think about following up their hit debut, they decided to listen to no one but themselves. > BY MIKE USINGER

COVER PHOTO

14 28 14 14 7 31 13 23

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An Affiliate of the National University System. This program is offered under the written consent of the Minister of Advanced Education effective April 11, 2007 having undergone a quality assessment process and been found to meet the criteria established by the minister. Nevertheless, prospective students are responsible for satisfying themselves that the program and the degree will be appropriate to their needs.

FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 5

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For more information, please visit our website at: www.edst.educ.ubc.ca/future/algc, or contact the ALGC Program Coordinator Dr. Garnet Grosjean in the Department of Educational Studies at The University of British Columbia: garnet.grosjean@ubc.ca

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Women: make the first move > B Y LU C Y LA U

hen we’re not bitching about the rain and snow, you can count on Vancouverites’ shared disdain for the city’s apparently cold, debilitating dating scene to bring us together. Few places is this more obvious than in the Georgia Straight’s online Confessions column, where, on any given day, you can find men and women—typically of the cis, heterosexual variety—venting anonymously about their love and relationship conundrums. In the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, however, we’ve noticed an uptick in posts and comments addressing the act—or lack thereof—of women approaching men around town. “There’s been some talk of women needing to ask out men more often,” wrote one nameless user. “Does this only work if a girl is drop dead gorgeous?” “I have been so used by guys,” shared another. “There is no fucking way I’m asking one out.” “You will never know if he actually likes you if you ask him out ’cause he has done nothing in the beginning to show his interest in you,” someone else lamented. All of the above comments were presumably written by women; meanwhile, users who appear to be men have penned posts and responses encouraging women to speak to them and, in one instance, to “take control”. It’s a fascinating incongruity: although, today, women are more educated and occupy more leadership positions in the professional sphere than ever before—“leaning in”, demanding seats at the table, and, hell, even bringing folding chairs despite still being vastly outnumbered by men in some industries—it seems that they continue to take on more submissive roles in the world of heterosexual dating. Indeed, there are many strong, go-getting, and capable women out there who, even when single and ready to mingle, refuse to text a guy first. The question here, then, isn’t whether women should be making the first move (it’s 2018: go for what you want!), but why they aren’t. Oh, and why they sure as hell should be. “I don’t think that women are necessarily passive,” Deanna Cobden, founder of local dating-consultation service DateWorks, says by

In 2018, it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to ask a man out on a date. Or at least it damn well ought to be. Slphotography/Getty Images photo.

phone. “Regardless of work, most people really want to have a relationship with that masculine-feminine energy and balance.” A dating-and-relationship coach with over 15 years of experience in the industry, Cobden sees women’s reluctance to approach men as related to the complexities of mating in a perplexing, swipe-right era. “I think a lot of people are just really confused by modern dating,” she says. “They’re kind of paralyzed by their fears right now. ‘Oh, he only wants sex. Oh, I’m not good-looking enough.’ ” Yue Qian, an assistant professor in UBC’s department of sociology who has conducted research on the evolution of gender roles, explains this “uneven gender revolution” in more theoretical terms. While women have transgressed traditional gender norms and willingly faced adversities to enter male-dominated fields of education and work, they’re less inclined to do so in the arena of heterosexual dating because the economic incentive here is not evident enough to offset the judgment that persists. “In the personal realm, men and women are still socially penalized for violating different norms,” Qian relays by phone. The perks of defying these stereotypes, however, abound for both women and men. Making the first move can not only be empowering for women, but also help to dismantle performative gender roles—like men being the primary breadwinner— that may put strain on relationships in the long run. By vocalizing their intent and desires, women may also

experience more freedom and sexual liberty, especially at a time when the public dialogue surrounding consent is at an all-time high. (Plus, the handful of men we talked to described being asked out by the opposite sex as “hot”, “flattering”, and “sexy”.) “If society is more accepting of different relationship arrangements,” says Qian, “then those men and women can have less pressure to organize their relationships in a certain way.” For Cobden, it’s simple: have confidence in your badass self, leave fears and insecurities at the door, and, if you’re getting good vibes after striking up a conversation—whether IRL or online—ask him out. Smiling, making eye contact, and flirting are all ways to express interest without outright proposing a date, too. “You don’t have to go up and say, ‘Hey, I really like you, let’s go for dinner.’ You wanna throw him a few crumbs, drop the handkerchief,” she suggests. “You can be flirtatious in a very nonaggressive, nonsexual way and let that person know ‘Hey, it’s okay to talk to me. I like you.’ ” Above all, it’s about knowing what you want—and that you’re more than worthy of love and a fulfilling relationship—and going for it. (After all, the worst that can happen is they say no.) If anything, having both sexes behaving and interacting proactively could help to warm up Vancouver’s allegedly frosty dating climate. Not that Cobden subscribes to that narrow-minded view. “You can go out and meet people anywhere,” she states. “You have to be open; you have to be the common denominator in that situation.” -

The Georgia Straight | Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly | Volume 52 Number 2612 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 www.straight.com Phone: 604-730-7000 / Fax: 604-730-7010 / e-mail: gs.info@straight.com Display Advertising: 604-730-7020 / Fax: 604-730-7012 / e-mail: sales@straight.com Classifieds: 604-730-7060 / e-mail: classads@straight.com Subscriptions: 604-730-7000 Distribution: 604-730-7087 EDITOR + PUBLISHER Dan McLeod ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Yolanda Stepien GENERAL MANAGER Matt McLeod EDITOR Charlie Smith SECTION EDITORS

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Gregory Adams, Nathan Caddell, David Chau, Jack Christie, Jennifer Croll, Ken Eisner (Movies), George Fetherling, Tara Henley, Michael Hingston, Ng Weng Hoong, Alex Hudson, Kurtis Kolt,

Robin Laurence (Visual Arts), Mark Leiren-Young, John Lekich, Amy Lu, Bob Mackin, Michael Mann, Rose Marcus, Beth McArthur, Verne McDonald, Allan MacInnis, Guy MacPherson, Tony Montague, Kathleen Oliver, Ben Parfitt, Vivian Pencz, Bill Richardson, Gurpreet Singh, Jacqueline Turner, Andrea Warner, Jessica Werb, Stephen Wong, Alan Woo CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Alfonso Arnold, Rebecca Blissett, Trevor Brady, Louise Christie, Emily Cooper, Randall Cosco, Krystian Guevara, Evaan Kheraj, Kris Krug, Tracey Kusiewicz, Kevin Langdale, Shayne Letain, Matt Mignanelli, Mark “Atomos” Pilon, Carlo Ricci, William Ting, Alex Waterhouse-Hayward DIGITAL PRODUCT MANAGER

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6 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018

HOUSING

Developer plans to create interim park

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ancouver may have a new downtown waterfront destination this summer. Concord Pacific is transforming a third of its False Creek North property between B.C. Place Stadium and Science World into a temporary park. The public space was offered by the property developer as part of its application to continue using the site at 88 Pacific Boulevard as a presentation centre. Concord Pacific will transform part The interim park will be located of False Creek North this summer. on the eastern side of the property, which has been used as rental space McMillan, her organization met for special events and shows like three times with PWL Partnership Landscape Architects Inc., which the Cirque du Soleil. According to Patsy McMillan, has been retained by the property developer, over chair of the False the design of the Creek Residents public space. Association McMillan (FCRA), the City Carlito Pablo said that the more of Vancouver’s development-permit board has ap- than one-hectare spot will include three lawns and a separate part that proved Concord Pacific’s proposal. The FCRA previously battled and is planned to be “sandy like a beach”. “I think after waiting for 27 years lost to Concord Pacific in court over the company’s commercial use of for a park to be there…people are excited about seeing something other the almost four-hectare site. In 1990, the entire area was desig- than cement there for the first time nated for park use by the city in its of- in all these years,” McMillan told the ficial development plan for False Creek Georgia Straight in a phone interview, North, wherein it will become an ex- “and it’s going…to be used by the tension of the adjacent Creekside Park. community as well…[and] anybody However, the delivery of the new else in Vancouver who goes there.” Although the provision of the park is tied to the development of a neighbouring Concord Pacific prop- public space might be welcome progerty, which is subject to a deal involv- ress, McMillan stressed that it is not ing the B.C. provincial government yet the permanent park that resiand the city over the remediation dents have longed for in the area. According to McMillan, Concord and transfer of contaminated soils. As Concord Pacific’s permit to Pacific is paying to build and maintain use the site for its three presentation the field, which will remain part of its buildings was about to expire, the private property until its other land in company approached the city, park False Creek North is developed. McMillan said the recreation area board, and FCRA for an extension is expected to be complete between and its offer for an interim park. According to FCRA chair June and September this year. -

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8 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018

Patients and advocates protest outside Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s Toronto constituency office on January 26.

Patients decry cannabis tax It could have a dramatic effect on those who rely on the medical product > B Y A M A ND A S IE B E R T

anadian patients who rely on medical cannabis and the organizations that represent them are frustrated with the federal government’s proposed “sin” tax on their medicine. In November 2017, the Liberal government revealed a proposed excise duty framework that would see recreational cannabis taxed at a rate of $1 per gram (or 10 percent of the producer’s sale price) when it is legalized in July.

While most Canadians expected the duty would apply to all fresh and dried cannabis, cannabis oils, seeds, and seedlings, many patients, physicians, and members of the industry were appalled to learn that it would also apply to the sale of medical cannabis. Cam Battley, chief corporate officer at Canada’s second-largest licensed producer, Aurora Cannabis Inc., told the Georgia Straight by phone from Milton, Ontario, last week that the proposed framework came from a “profoundly wrongheaded” place.

“We were really hoping that… this would be the year they would remove the sales tax from medical cannabis, because it’s the only prescription medicine for which those taxes apply,” Battley said. “On so many levels, this excise tax is wrong.” Consider the financial stress of people who are dealing with a chronic illness, he said. With many patients already living in incomeconstrained circumstances, the added tax could have a dramatic effect on individuals who prefer to see next page

use cannabis over other, nontaxable drugs, both at the financial level and in their quality of life. Jonathan Zaid, founder and executive director of Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana (CFAMM), was among the first in Canada to advocate for the coverage of medical cannabis under private health-insurance plans back in 2014. While Justin Trudeau told Toronto’s Breakfast Television in December that the excise tax would be a way of dissuading Canadians from accessing the medical cannabis system to obtain recreational pot, Zaid argued that such a claim was an insult to honest patients and their doctors. “It’s quite frankly very offensive to patients, but even more so to the over 10,000 Canadian physicians who have authorized medical cannabis,” he told the Straight by phone from Waterloo, Ontario. “If there is any abuse of the system that is occurring, we’re happy to address it, but it can’t mean we place a tax on the vast majority of patients that are using cannabis legitimately.” Beyond the reasoning that Canada’s medical-cannabis system is plagued with “fakers”, some argue that medical cannabis should in fact be taxed because it hasn’t undergone the same rigorous clinical trials as standard pharmaceutical drugs. But with hundreds, if not thousands, of investigatorsponsored publications on cannabis, Battley said the notion that it’s understudied is misguided: “It’s easily one of the most studied substances in history,” he said. “The [clinical trial] process costs on average a billion dollars, and takes 10 years. What you get in return is intellectual property, but cannabis is a plant, it can’t be patented, and so no one is going to invest that kind of money into clinical trials.” As a regional coordinator at NORML Canada, one of the nation’s longest-running cannabis ad-

vocacy groups, and an attendant at Tweed Main Street’s Toronto store, Abi Sampson has seen firsthand how even slight price increases can affect patients. “When Canopy [Tweed’s parent company] started charging for delivery, that $4 a month really hurt some of our patients,” she told the Straight by phone from Pickering, Ontario. If the federal government were to follow through with the tax, Sampson said, it’s not unlikely that financially strained patients might resort to accessing their medicine through the black market, something many patients without a credit card or fixed address are currently forced to do. “Putting up a financial barrier to access medication that is improving the lives of so many people is unjust, especially at a time when more and more people are coming out of the green closet, so to speak,” she said. “It’s not in the spirit of cannabis.” Battley, Zaid, and Sampson are asking Canadian patients, advocates, physicians, and associations to rally behind their call for the elimination of tax on medical cannabis. Thanks to CFAMM’s “Don’t Tax Medicine” campaign, Zaid said, more than 16,000 Canadians have written letters to their MPs, while 11 nonprofit organizations and physician associations have shown support for CFAMM’s call for tax-free medical cannabis. He, Battley, and more than 70 patients and patient advocates delivered that message to Finance Minister Bill Morneau on January 26, when they gathered in peaceful protest outside his constituency office in Toronto. “ ‘Rethink this one, go back, be a hero, and change the policy,’ ” Battley said when asked what he might say to the minister should the opportunity arise. “ ‘We’ll cheer for you if you do. This is real medicine. Nobody is buying medical cannabis to get kids high.’ ” -

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FEATURE

Vancouver blazes psychedelic research trail Decades after Canada abandoned the field, the B.C. Centre on Substance Use is investigating the benefits of drugs like MDMA and psilocybin earlier research,” Dyck said. “There was increasing pressure on researchers around the world to stop using LSD.” Psychedelic drugs had also become associated with counterculture movements that were upsetting the status quo. Then, in August 1969, LSD and psilocybin were on display at the Woodstock festival, where they appeared to lead to dancing. The same month, Manson gave LSD to members of his cult following and they carried out a string of murders in and around Los Angeles. The nation was captivated and horrified. Less than one year later, the U.S. government made most psychedelics Schedule I narcotics. In Canada, they were placed under the Narcotic Control Act. Sanctioned medical experimentation effectively came to an end.

> BY TRAVIS L UPICK

n 2011, Gerald Thomas was invited to an Indigenous community in a remote area of British Columbia. Working for the Centre for Addictions Research of B.C., he was one of a small team of scientists who observed 12 people take ayahuasca, an Amazonian mixture that induces vivid visual and auditory hallucinations as well as deep emotional and intellectual reflection. “The ceremonies themselves are really intense,” Thomas told the Georgia Straight in a telephone interview. “People are pushed to their emotional edge.” The group remained in a longhouse and its surrounding forest for four days. They slept on its dirt floor and bathed in the nearby river. It wasn’t your typical experiment, Thomas conceded. At the same time, he explained how the team observed rigorous protocols for research involving human subjects. “There were months of work getting ethics approval, designing the study, finding the instruments that we would use to collect psychometric data. Then, for four days, we were all holed up in a longhouse.” Most of the 12 patients were victims of severe childhood trauma who struggled with addictions to a variety of drugs: alcohol, cocaine, and opioids such as heroin. “One man described how, when they were kids, their parents would throw parties and the folks would get drunk and then wander upstairs and molest them,” Thomas remembered. “Can you imagine being in your own home, in your own bed, waiting? The terror, the confusion. Can you imagine what that would do to your psyche?” Participants struggled with terrible memories and many years of drug abuse. In the longhouse, they delved into those issues. A shaman— an ayahuasquero—who had travelled to B.C. from Peru worked alongside a “retreat team” that ran group-therapy sessions and meditation. Participants’ reactions were encouraging. “When I went to this retreat, it more or less helped me release the hurt and pain that I was carrying around and trying to bury…with drugs and alcohol,” a 41-year-old female patient said, quoted in a report on the experiment. “Ever since this retreat, I’ve been clean and sober.” “I got my spirit back,” a 49-yearold woman told researchers. “It’s so beautiful outside, and where was all that all this time? You know, I was just living with a black cloud over me. And the black cloud’s been removed.” Positive feedback continued in follow-up interviews conducted during the next six months. “But we didn’t know what we actually had until we analyzed the data,” Thomas said. “Then we saw it.” A 2013 paper Thomas coauthored for the academic journal Current Drug Abuse Reviews describes the results: “Self-reported alcohol, tobacco and cocaine use declined, although cannabis and opiate use did not; reported reductions in problematic cocaine use were statistically significant. “Given the potential to decrease the personal suffering and social costs associated with addiction, further research on ayahuasca-assisted addictions treatment is warranted.” Five years later, very little further research has occurred. Rigorous studies of psychedelic plants and chemicals are rare. It wasn’t always that way. Decades ago, scientists across North America eagerly investigated the clinical benefits of psychedelic and otherwise psychoactive substances. They were fascinated with mescaline, found in the peyote cactus; psilocybin from socalled magic mushrooms; and lysergic acid diethylamide, better known by its acronym, LSD. And they were

Harm-reduction expert Kenneth Tupper is on a team that’s probing positive effects of psychedelics. Amanda Siebert photo.

making progress. Then, in 1970, the U.S. government classified all three as Schedule I narcotics, grouping them in with hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. Officially, they had “no currently accepted medical use in treatment”. Investigations into how psychedelic drugs might help people with disorders such as depression and alcoholism halted. Almost half a century later, a psychedelic renaissance of sorts is under way. Reputable scientists working for prestigious institutions are increasingly paying attention to these drugs. Kenneth Tupper is a director at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU). He previously worked in drug policy and harm reduction for the B.C. Ministry of Health, but his passion is psychedelics. Their “educational and cognitive value” was the subject of his master’s thesis, and his PhD dissertation for UBC is a 348-page paper on ayahuasca and public policy. Tupper also worked on the ayahuasca review of which Thomas was the lead author. Now he’s part of a team the BCCSU has assembled to put Vancouver at the forefront of this renaissance. “Psychedelic plants and drugs have been used for thousands of years in traditional healing and spiritual ceremonies, and contemporary western science has not paid them much attention,” Tupper told the Straight. “Now there’s new interest in these traditional practices, as well as interest in bringing a clinical, scientific approach to the substances contained in these plants.” One reason this is exciting, Tupper continued, is that many of the areas where psychedelics look most promising are ones where pharmaceutical medicines long ago hit a wall, areas like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety, eating disorders, and dependence on drugs and alcohol. The question of addiction is an especially urgent one. In 2017, more than 1,400 people in B.C. died of an illicitdrug overdose. In the United States, that number exceeded 64,000 in 2016. An overdose is now the leading cause

10 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018

of death for Americans under the age of 50. The majority of cases lead back to a dependence on opioids: OxyContin, heroin, or fentanyl. “Opioid addiction is a challenging one to treat, and whether this intervention is going to be helpful, we have yet to see,” Tupper said. “But we want to try.” THE STORY OF HOW research concerning psychedelic drugs fell out of favour in North America and then only recently regained some legitimacy is a long and strange tale. Parts of it are well-known. In 1943, a Swiss chemist named Albert Hofmann inadvertently ingested LSD and discovered that it stimulated hallucinations. In the 1960s, an American psychologist named Timothy Leary spread word of its therapeutic and recreational potentials with the zeal of a preacher. Rock ’n’ roll legends like John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix led youths to embrace the drug. Another musician, Charles Manson, caused the general public to fear it. According to Erika Dyck, Canada Research Chair in the history of medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada played an underappreciated role in this story. In a telephone interview, she began her story in 1951, when an English psychiatrist named Humphry Osmond responded to a want ad for a job at Weyburn Mental Hospital in Saskatchewan. Upon moving to Canada, Osmond connected with Aldous Huxley, a British author then living in America who two decades earlier had gained considerable fame with the publication of a dystopian novel called Brave New World. Huxley introduced Osmond to mescaline and other psychedelic drugs, and the two forged a close friendship. In 1956, they searched for a name for this category of substances that had so captured their imaginations. In letters, Osmond and Huxley traded words and debated their meanings and Latin roots. “To make this trivial world sublime,

take half a gramme of phanerothyme,” Huxley wrote in April that year. To which Osmond replied: “To fathom Hell or go angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic.” Meanwhile, Dyck continued, closer to Vancouver, a facility in New Westminster called Hollywood Hospital began using LSD and mescaline in the treatment of alcoholism. “This was an elite, private facility where people could pay to get a safe space to experience a psychedelic,” Dyck recounted. “There’s a lot of glitz and glamour and it’s shrouded in these really fantastic rumours.” Dyck, who holds Hollywood Hospital’s patient files in her possession, described how at 525 West 6th Street, Dr. J. Ross MacLean treated patients with psychological exams, counselling, and between 50 and 250 micrograms of LSD. “And they would talk about these really sacred moments,” Dyck said. “Sometimes with profound insight into a piece of trauma that they had experienced.” Hollywood Hospital’s results were promising. “Publications from there and other collaborating units suggested between 50- and 90-percent recovery rates,” Dyck said. But by the late 1960s, psychedelic drugs and researchers paying them attention were becoming badly stigmatized. Across the country, at the Allan Memorial Institute at McGill University in Montreal, another group of researchers was working with LSD using very different methods. Under the leadership of Ewen Cameron, and with financial support from the CIA, patients were administered LSD without their knowledge and often under conditions of sensory deprivation or repetitive stimulation. The program, which the CIA code-named MKULTRA Subproject 68, became public in a high-profile lawsuit and badly tarnished psychedelics research across North America. “All of those things emerging in the media spotlight in the 1970s really threw a dark shadow on some of the

FOR ALMOST HALF a century, the field lay dormant. Then, slowly, through the 1990s and early 2000s, academics’ interest perked and papers began to trickle forth. A fullblown “re-emergence of a paradigm”, as one paper describes it, is now under way. A 2014 article published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease described how a team in Switzerland found that LSD may help terminally ill patients cope with anxiety associated with death. A 2015 paper in the Journal of Psychopharmacology shared impressive results from a proof-of-concept study where psilocybin was used to treat alcohol dependence. A 2016 paper in the Lancet Psychiatry reported that patients who struggled with moderate to severe depression were administered psilocybin and, as a result, “depressive symptoms were markedly reduced.” Other projects have sought to explain the clinical effects that those sorts of studies associate with psychedelic drugs. A 2016 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, described how neuroimaging tools revealed how the brain and nervous system responded to LSD and how those changes appeared to correlate with states of well-being that patients reported after taking the drug. Dozens more papers have appeared in equally reputable journals during the past decade. The studies are generally characteristic of a field of research still in its infancy: their sample sizes are small; they sometimes lack control groups; and experiments are often not “double-blind” or “blind” (an experimental-standard procedure that hides information in order to prevent bias but is difficult to apply to psychedelic drugs because their effects are so obvious). But now a second period of research is under way wherein academics are expanding sample sizes and building on that earlier work. And scientists in Vancouver have positioned themselves at the front of the field. The B.C. Centre on Substance Use was established in April 2017 under the leadership of Dr. Evan Wood. At a café across the street from St. Paul’s Hospital, Wood described the team he’s brought together. “Kenneth Tupper probably brings the most knowledge from an academic perspective,” Wood began. “Mark Haden has come on to help.…Cody Callon is coming at this as a highly experienced researcher.…Katrina Blommaert was the lead study coordinator for a prior MDMA study.…and Dr. Keith Ahamad is experienced in conducting clinical research with the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse’s clinical-trials network.” Wood acknowledged there is a lingering stigma around psychedelic drugs. He noted that funding remains a challenge. (“I’m at the ready to help philanthropists and possible donors understand the nature of the work see page 12

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and why we believe this is a critically important research area,â&#x20AC;? he added.) But Wood said theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re taking a â&#x20AC;&#x153;science-driven and evidence-basedâ&#x20AC;? approach, the same as the BCCSU would for any field of research. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The potential here is enormous,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to do studies in a way that will stand up to the highest level of not only ethical scrutiny but scientific scrutiny. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the only way to move forward things that are in controversial areas.â&#x20AC;? In a separate interview, Tupper revealed the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first project: a clinical trial that will begin later this year to examine the effectiveness and safety of MDMAassisted treatment for PTSD. That is, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to study ecstasy, or molly (though street drugs sold under those names are usually cut with other substances unknown to the buyer, whereas the BCCSUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MDMA will be pure). The BCCSU will serve as one of 16 locations across Canada, the United States, and Israel where teams will work on the same experiment under the guidance of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (MAPS) MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy project. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a so-called Phase 3 clinical trial, which is normally the last phase of review a drug receives before it is approved for public use. Only 25 to 30 percent of drugs that enter Phase 3 pass successfully. But MAPSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Phase 2 review was promising. Concluded in 2016, it found that one year after participants diagnosed with PTSD were given MDMA, 68 percent no longer experienced symptoms. Phase 2 results were based on 107 participants. The goal for Phase 3 is for more than 200 patients to complete the study, approximately 18 of whom will do so at the BCCSU. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a larger-scale randomizedcontrol trial,â&#x20AC;? Tupper said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And at the end of it, we believe, this is a

hypothesis, but we believe it could generate sufficient data to move MDMA to become an approved medication for the treatment of PTSD.â&#x20AC;? However, Tupper added, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be like â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Take two and call us in the morning.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;? Similar to the ayahuasca ceremony that Tupper reviewed in 2011 and the earlier experiments with LSD at Hollywood Hospital, he explained, the MAPS Phase 3 review of MDMA will see it administered in highly controlled settings where two therapists are present and engage each participant to establish a strong therapeutic relationship. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The therapists sit with the patient in the clinic space for the duration of the effects of the medication, which is about eight hours,â&#x20AC;? Tupper said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Then, once the session is finished, they actually stay overnight for monitoring. And then they have subsequent sessions with the therapist team over the next couple weeks.â&#x20AC;? Actual work with patients likely wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t begin until mid-2018, but Tupper said the BCCSU is already preparing for its second foray into psychedelics: psilocybin for the treatment of substance-use disorders. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to be looking for people with alcohol-use disorder, stimulant-use disorder, and opioiduse disorder,â&#x20AC;? Tupper said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not sure whether psilocybin will be as effective with one versus another. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an open scientific question right now.â&#x20AC;? OPEN QUESTION is exactly how psychedelic drugs like MDMA and psilocybin work to help correct the problems that researchers suspect they do. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in part because we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fully comprehend the problems themselves. Modern science can usually explain how a medicine works to heal a physical ailment. For example, antibiotics resolve a bacterial infection by killing those microorganisms or inhibiting their growth. But ailments like PTSD and addiction are problems

ANOTHER

of the brainâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;disorders that we generally know much less about. Before joining the BCCSU, Mark Haden established a MAPS presence in Canada and served as the principal investigator for the Vancouver portion of the MAPS Phase 2 review of MDMA. That study marked the first time a psychedelic drug received a proper clinical review in Canada in more than 40 years. In a telephone interview, he explained what we know and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know about how MDMA could assist people with PTSD. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a very complex question,â&#x20AC;? Haden began. â&#x20AC;&#x153;For MDMA, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s go back a notch: what is PTSD? PTSD is an unconscious tape loop that repeats itself and is associated with emotional distress. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is expressly distressing because it is a process that is unconscious, therefore you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have control over it,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is associated with fear.â&#x20AC;? Taken in a therapeutic setting, Haden continued, MDMA can help address those symptoms. â&#x20AC;&#x153;MDMA creates a physicalrelaxation response, and so fear is reduced. It also reduces permeability between the conscious and the unconscious mind. It gives people access to parts of themselves they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t normally have access to,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;MDMA specifically is also an empathogen. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an alliance builder. And the greatest predictor of success of any therapy is the alliance between the therapist and the person who is seeking the therapy.â&#x20AC;? Haden suggested that, more broadly, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about addressing the root of a problem. With psilocybin and addiction, he hopes the same principle will be found to apply. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We would like to start to work with people in a way that is about dealing with underlying issues,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The larger view of drugs that only sees them as something that needs to be criminalized has failed us all miserably. And so now weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re approaching this with a more nuanced view.â&#x20AC;? -

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straight stars

March 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;April 19

Take it one step at a time Thursday/Friday; try not to get too far ahead of yourself. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let the stress or unfinished stuff get to you, but do jump full tilt into a good idea or spontaneous moment. This weekend, socialize, indulge, let yourself off the hook. Tuesday/Wednesday, an insight or an impulse could lead you some place worthwhile. Trust what comes naturally.

TAURUS

April 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;May 20

May 21â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 21

One thing after another, Thursday/Friday keeps you well on the go, productively so, even with the unexpected extras. Mars in Sagittarius and a concentration of planets in Aquarius keep the daily get-go and future prospects on a lively full swing. Now through next week, the stars loan you excellent steps ahead of the game radar. Pay close attention to instincts and impressions.

CANCER

June 21â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 22

LIBRA

SCORPIO

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August 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;September 22

Thursday/Friday infuses you with more get-up-and-go. Through the middle of next week, Venus is reviving or revitalizing in some major, perhaps unexpected, way. Another try could spell improvement. Then again, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hesitate to try something different. A budding inner or outer dialogue is worth heeding. September 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;October 23

The Libra moon keeps you going strong for the weekend. Indulge, enjoy, but know you can easily spend more, go farther, or get more involved than you originally planned. Sunday, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all good. Along with Venus in Aquarius drawing extra turbo from Jupiter on Saturday and Uranus on Tuesday, you should find yourself on a significant personal, social, and create-it refuel. October 23â&#x20AC;&#x201C;November 21

Dive into it full tilt this weekend. Anything to do with learning and growth, wealth generation, renovation, or reinvention gets a big thumbs up. The stars keep the action going strong regarding home, real estate, and family. Living with yourself can be the biggest attention getter. Right now, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a major work in progress. Through next Wednesday, you hit a lucrative roll.

SAGITTARIUS

November 21â&#x20AC;&#x201C;December 21

A fresh adventure, idea, conversation, or impulse could prove to be a great springboard. Socialize or spend quality time this weekend any way you like. Attend a workshop, trade show, or opening; go exploring; try a first date. Making it or gaining it, a first impression keeps the interest level going strong. Through the next few weeks, Mars in Sagittarius keeps you on the good-to-go dial-up.

CAPRICORN

December 21â&#x20AC;&#x201C;January 19

Getting you up and over the hump, Thursday/Friday fill in a blank. Use these days to top it up, clear it up, let it go, and/or move on. Saturday/ Sunday, easy does it best. Monday is a good day to connect and make inroads. Tuesday/Wednesday, act on a good idea, a fresh interest, or the spur of the moment.

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AQUARIUS

January 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;February 18

Minimize the work, expense, or output as best you can Thursday/Friday. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get into anything too complicated. Relationship- and activitywise, the weekend should prove smooth going. Venus in Aquarius triggers Jupiter on Saturday and Uranus on Tuesday. Expect to hit an opportune and lucrative fast track.

FEBRUARY 1 - 28

PISCES

February 18â&#x20AC;&#x201C;March 20

W YE NE AR

2018

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By choice or by force, a ride on the fast train is your best option. Has the recent eclipse surprised or upended you? Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t dwell on the past; commit your all to a better future. Venus and Jupiter are geared toward making the most of it this weekend. Take full advantage of your time. Next weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stars hold good promise too.

The end of the week gives you more to go on or choose from. Thursday/Friday, get onto task; bring yourself up to speed; improve it; or shop around. Saturday through Tuesday, Venus lights the go-for-it spark. An inspired moment, well-timed risk, impulse purchase, or big investment could take you someplace good.

HA P P

ARIES

July 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;August 22

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n the day that Mars completed its tour of Scorpio, two premiers and a federal cabinet member were taken out of the game. With or without Trump onboard, the rest of the political/economic world is on the move-along. The creative potency of this weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lunar eclipse continues. Something ends so something else, something better and more promising, can begin. Eclipses always produce something unexpected. They also serve to accelerate a circumstance, relationship, or an inner process. We can see action on the actual day of an eclipse, but they can produce in the weeks prior to and following. Watch for that which has been brought to the light of day through recent action and events to move through notable checkpoints again at the end of June and middle of October. The super-full-moon eclipse that has just passed and the solar eclipse on the way (February 15) serve as a shake-up/wake-up call aimed at revitalizing and revolutionizing the creative process. The catalyst can be something inspirational, synchronistic, and timely, or it can be of a more urgent nature. We can meet with fruition or face the breakdown and/or demise of that which no longer holds enough life force. Who and what is not meant to be leading the way will be replaced by something much more dynamic. The action or eventfulness of an eclipse is not negotiable. You cannot deny the reality; you must get onboard with it. The quicker you do that, the more you gain. Thursday/Friday, the Virgo moon sets a productive backdrop for getting a better handle on it. The weekend is a good one for socializing, romance, and getting your pleasure fill. Venus aligned with Jupiter on Saturday and Uranus on Tuesday keeps the spark well lit on good ideas, creativity, relationships, and money matters.

W YE NE AR

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Charged up about something new or something challenging? Your mind and your emotional draw can hit overdrive. As Friday moves along, so do you. The weekend is great for socializing, romance, fresh insights, creativity, and inspired moments. The week ahead keeps you sharp and quick on the uptake. Immerse yourself; make the most of it! -

One eclipse launched, one more to go. Both thrust health, job-related matters, and work-it-out mandates onto an acceleration fast track. They rev up necessity, but they also rev up better-than-average potential. A fresh attitude, try, or hunt could get you someplace good. Saturday, socialize; watch overindulgence. B o o k a re a d i n g o r s i g n u p f o r Monday to Wednesday, play it smart; Roseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free monthly newsletter at rosemarcus.com/. thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plenty to be gained.

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> Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < JAN 27TH ON THE 11PM #620 BUS FROM SCHWARTZ BAY FERRY TERMINAL TO VANCOUVER

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 27, 2018 WHERE: #620 Bus from Schwartz Bay Ferry Terminal Hi, I was sitting right behind you in the single seat section on the left side of the bus half way down. You long beautiful brown hair and a very gentle warm energy. I had a guitar case, and a black jacket. You sneezed and I lightly tapped you on your shoulder and said ‘ bless you ‘ I felt something... some very good connected energies with you during that trip, but I was too shy to open up a conversation on a crowded and loud bus. I felt the courage to talk with you after the trip, but that slipped away when the off loading became too chaotic. If you remember, please reply :)

I “TAUGHT” YOU HOW TO DANCE

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 26, 2018 WHERE: Passion Pit @ The Commodore Ballroom My friend and I made our way through the crowd, and stopped beside you after they had come on stage. I immediately started dancing. I saw you watching me, but you were just standing there. I asked you to show me your moves, and you said you didn’t know how. My friend said that I would teach you how to dance. We danced the whole night. You didn’t know the band, and I only knew a few songs. It didn’t matter, as I still had a great time. At the encore, you were clapping your hands with your ice-filled glass and I said, “You’re going to drop ice on my friend!” and grabbed the glass and slid it across the dance floor. You asked me to go for drinks, I agreed. But the line was long and you got a phone call, I went back to dance and didn’t see you again.

VSO NEW MUSIC CONCERT RACHEL BARTON PINE

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 22, 2018 WHERE: Orpheum Lobby In the Orpheum lobby before the concert we smiled in recognition that we’d seen each other before. You have a beard and dark blonde/grey hair. I’m petite with short dark hair and glasses. I couldn’t remember where we might have met and was too shy to approach and ask. We’re both in the over 60’s crowd. I’d like to meet for coffee and start the conversation.

YYOGA BLUE EYES IN KITS

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 26, 2018 WHERE: YYOGA Kitsilano I saw you right when I got into the lineup for the class: you had red long shorts and a blue tank top, blond hair and amazing deep blue eyes - drinking tea. I offered you to walk in the studio first but, you told me “After you”. I felt I knew you and couldn’t remember from where... and you disappeared right after the class so I couldn’t start any conversation. Not Sure I would of been game to anyway... BUT, maybe you’ll see that amazing cheezy “I saw you” post ... and next time you see me, you can say “Hi”! (Or just answer that post and let’s go for tea? ;)

GORGEOUS LOTUS

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 25, 2018 WHERE: North Shore You were so beautiful up there on the wall, feet pinched together on a single hold, knees out, back strong, hands rotated into the vertical slit above your head. I couldn’t help but watch you; the electricity pulsing through taught muscles, ready to leap. We smiled at each other on the mats. It was my first time bouldering and I was with coworkers. I would have talked to you if I had been alone. What colour were the holds you were using?

COMPLIMENTS AT THE FLYING PIG

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 26, 2018 WHERE: The Flying Pig, Yaletown You, in an orange sweater, stopped me as I was leaving and complimented me saying that you and your friend thought I was ‘very stylish’. Thank-you. You made my day. You caught me off-guard and I should have introduced myself. Maybe we will see each other at the bar for dinner again.

BLOND WOMAN AT THE MATT MAYES CONCERT

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 28, 2018 WHERE: Outside the Commodore Ballroom You are the blond woman I was speaking with outside the Commodore. I told you “I was my own child”. We kept looking at each other as you walked away. Should have given you a business card or SOMETHING. I liked your vibe. Perhaps we could meet again?

BRUNETTE WITH ENCHANTING SMILE!

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 12, 2018 WHERE: Expo Line SkyTrain Commercial Beautiful brunette with an enchanting smile, I missed the Commercial Expo Line train with you. I got off at Stadium and we smiled again. I wished you a Merry Christmas! I should have stayed on to the end of the line? So what’s it going to take for you to use that enchanting smile on me again. Me: tall, Stubble, dressed in exercise gear.

YES PLS

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 19, 2018 WHERE: Yaletown Station You had your headphones on, and dirty blonde hair. You were all by yourself, and seemed so lonely. I loved your long hair, and heavy metal swagger, and big brown beard. I just wanted to say something but I was just too shy.

Visit straight.com to post your FREE I Saw You _

Autostrada driven by pasta

arbs may have become one of the most villainized foods in modern history, but for many people there’s nothing more indulgent and comforting than pasta: maybe served simply, shells tossed with butter and cheese, or perhaps in a more celebratory dish, like linguine with fresh mussels, plump prawns, and white wine. If there’s one thing Lucais Syme loves eating and cooking, it’s pasta. Local food lovers who follow chefs will know his name from the many Italian restaurants he has been part of in one way or another since he moved to Vancouver from Edmonton in 2003 to study at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts: Adesso Bistro (now closed), La Buca, La Quercia, and La Pentola, to name a few. In 2014, he opened Cinara, an Italian-inspired eatery downtown, with his wife and fellow chef, Gillian Book. For proof of just how well received this restaurant has been, consider that Tacofino regional executive chef Stefan Hartmann (formerly of Bauhaus) and Donnelly Group director of culinary development Chris Stewart (formerly with Hawksworth) were both spotted dining there recently, and Andrea Carlson, executive chef/ owner of Burdock & Co. (formerly of Bishop’s), held a holiday staff party there. When some of the top chefs in the city pick a place to dine during their rare downtime, it’s a testament to what’s coming out of the kitchen. Whether or not Vancouverites recognize Syme’s name, they will want to know about his latest venture: Chef Lucais Syme and wine expert Dustin Dockendorf a casual Italian spot in the heart of Mount Pleasant. have opened a new casual Italian eatery. Britney Gill Photo. Autostrada Osteria takes its name from the Italian word for “highway”. Syme runs it with his business part- spaghetti. There’s risotto with apples and squash, too. ner, Dustin Dockendorf, whose résumé includes positions Highlights among the starters include whole white at Joey’s and the Beach House. It’s small (24 seats) and is anchovies on toasted focaccia with radish, pickled cusparsely decorated with a mural of a racing car (by Syme’s cumber, and herbed butter; the appetizer is borrowed brother Jonathan). And it puts the spotfrom Cinara, where it has long been light on what Syme does best: simple a customer fave. Another toast has but expertly executed share plates and delicate duck liver, aged balsamic pasta dishes, the kind of cuisine that’s vinegar, and cornichons. Gail Johnson served without fanfare all over Italy. Vitello tonnato—sliced veal with a Syme, who also worked for a short while at Cioppino’s thick tuna-and-caper sauce—can be found everywhere and later did a stage at the celebrated Charlie Trotter’s in the Boot, from Michelin-starred restaurants to nonRestaurant in Chicago, says he wants to bring a taste of descript eateries; here in East Van, it’s best when you orunfussy but reliable Italian dining to Vancouver. der it with a side of soft, salty focaccia. “I enjoy the whole Italian food philosophy: taking Meatballs in tomato sauce; a beet salad with walnuts, great ingredients and letting them shine in their most Gorgonzola, and apples; and a local-seafood Bibb lettuce perfect state,” he tells the Straight by phone. “It’s my fa- salad with preserved lemons help round out the offerings. vourite kind of cooking and cuisine: doing pasta that’s Several variations on Negroni (including a sparkling made well with good ingredients but doing it casually. version with Prosecco) lead the to-the-point drinks list. BeWe saw a bit of a void there in Vancouver. We wanted cause the wines will be changing regularly, they are listed a small, fun neighbourhood place, just like an osteria not by label but by description, in layman’s terms such as where people are caring about the ingredients and about “aromatic, touch of sweet” for a white and “elegant, bright their customers, a kind of mom-and-pop place.” Piedmontese” among the reds. Wines are poured straight For now, there are seven pastas to choose from (stuffed from the bottle, bringing home that family-style feel. pastas such as agnolotti are coming). There’s that classic Appetizers range from $5 to $17, while mains run cacio e pepe, consisting of cheese (here, Pecorino) and from $18 to $21. With any luck, this latest addition to the black pepper, with butter and snail-shell-like lumache city’s list of casual Italian-dining restaurants will not be noodles; it’s mac ’n’ cheese for grownups. Garganelli this team’s last. pasta is tube-shaped, like penne rigate; it’s enlivened with Pecorino, sweet fennel sausage, and bright peas. AUTOSTRADA OSTERIA 4811 Main Street; 604-428-6820. Rich duck-and-anchovy ragu, meanwhile, accompanies Open Wednesday to Sunday from 5 to 10 p.m.

Best Eats

New year brings new wine

he beginning of the new year has brought a good amount of new wine releases to retail shelves. I’ve recently had the chance to sample through a bunch of selections, whether new vintages or new wines to our market, and I’m pretty excited about these fresh faces. This column will be a two-parter, with another slate of newbies profiled next week. I have everything from lively sparkling wine to a sturdy, broad-shouldered Cabernet; we’ll look at things this week from lightest to heaviest.

While expected components like lime and green apples are indeed on offer, there’s a lovely twang of guava and a drop or two of honey added to the mix, providing a little extra character. DOMAINE DE L’OLIVETTE BLANC 2016 (Pays d’Oc, France; $15.99,

CONO SUR BRUT ROSÉ (Bio Bio,

HAVE YOU EVER MET ANYONE THROUGH I SAW YOU’s? ...well then we want to hear from You! email Isa wyo u@straigh t.co m and tell us you r sto ry.

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Chile; $17.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) Cono Sur has always delivered Make sure you have seafood handy bang for our buck, and this spark- when you try Garnier et Fils Chablis. ling pink wine allows the trend to continue. The Pinot Noir in this aromatics and front of the palate. fizz comes from Bio Bio in the Zibibbo, more commonly known as south of Chile, a cool-climate re- Muscat of Alexandria, carries the gion that keeps those plum and end with a tropical chime; think cherry f lavours bright and buoy- hibiscus, litchi, and pomegranate. There’s an octoant with zippy pus on the label, acidity, carrying which makes for ’em toward the fun branding, lengthy, citrusy, Kurtis Kolt but I can’t help but and slightly herbaceous finish. It’ll do just fine think it a good pairing suggestion with assorted cheeses, charcuterie, as well. and salty fried snacks.

The Bottle

CRUDO ORGANIC CATARRATTO ZIBIBBO 2016 (Sicily, Italy; $17.99,

B.C. Liquor Stores) The island charm of Sicily is in full force here, with Catarratto bringing both lemon blossom and orange pulp to the

SCHLOSS REINHARTSHAUSEN DRY RIESLING 2016 (Rheingau,

Germany; $22.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) It’s Riesling, it’s dry, and it’s really f loatin’ my boat these days. There’s a little bit of a spritz here, keeping things nice and fresh.

B.C. Liquor Stores) This blend of organic Grenache Blanc and Marsanne sings with yellow plums, gooseberries, star fruit, and Honeycrisp apple. A definite crowd pleaser, and at this price, it’d be handy to have an extra bottle or two around, ready for unexpected company.

GARNIER ET FILS CHABLIS 2015

(Burgundy, France; $37 to $42, private liquor stores) I grabbed a bottle of this Chablis most recently at Marquis Wine Cellars on Davie Street and was smitten with the lemony aromatics, along with the tangy river-rock elements on the palate all drenched in fresh-squeezed pomelo and pink grapefruit. The big fail on my part was not having fresh seafood at the ready. DOMAINE LAFAGE CÔTÉ EST ROUSSILLON BLANC 2016

(Côtes Catalanes, France; $17.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) There’s a waxy richness to this Grenache Blanc and Vermentino blend; the wildasparagus and young-almond f lavours are livened up by jasmine and gardenia f lowers, with a little see page 16

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Cono Sur’s Brut Rose, Domaine LaFage’s Roussillon Blanc, and Arrowood’s Cabernet Sauvignon are some fresh faces on the shelves of our wine stores.

The Bottle

from page 14

squeeze of mandarin orange as it trails off toward the end. There’s a good weight here, too: perfect for mild curries, barbecued chicken, and sharp cheeses. JEAN-MAURICE CHINON 2016

RAFFAULT

(Loire Valley, France; $22.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) This Cabernet Franc is fresh as can be, zippy and bright with red bell peppers and heirloom tomatoes, dusted with fresh oregano, thyme, and basil, then finishing quite mineral and dry. It’s quite light on its feet; do ensure it’s served with a bit of a chill to keep all those wonderful f lavours elevated.

Pourquoi tu pleures...? by Christian Bégin FEB. 16 – 17, 2018 WATERFRONT THEATRE | 8 PM WITH ENGLISH SURTITLES

16 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018

Tickets available at seizieme.ca

ARROWOOD KNIGHTS VALLEY CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2013

(Sonoma, California; $51.46, Everything Wine) It’s tough to find decent California Cabernet at a good price these days, especially one as well-built as this. If you’re looking for an opulent red ultraplush wine with sweet, ripe fruit, this ain’t it. What we have here instead is a balanced composition of red and black currants, dusty cocoa, espresso, cedar, and eucalyptus, all on point and showing well. There’s also a good streak of minerality and dusty tannins keeping everything in check. Hey, it’s still a Cabernet Sauvignon; feel free to give it a good decanting first so all those flavours can easily develop. Food pairing–wise, think lamb shank, sirloin steak, hamburgers, and other meaty delights. -

A L IGN E N T E RTA I N M E N T PRESEN TS

ARTS

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/The

BY JANET SM IT H

jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” So says the nonsensical poem “Jabberwocky”, about a monster and a monster-slayer, in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. And in these words, the Old Trout Puppet Workshop has found the inspiration for its latest twisted theatrical creature feature—complete with the essential “existential terror”, as Trout cofounder Judd Palmer puts it. “As a poem, it’s a nonsense piece, and we think of nonsense as a kind of nihilism with a sense of humour—which kind of suits the Trout aesthetic,” he tells the Straight over the phone from icycold Calgary, where the troupe is based and is in the midst of staging a fantastical new rendition of Twelfth Night. “It suits our childish whimsy but also has a dark heart. “The poem is about a monster but the monster is undefined,” he adds. “And what’s a ‘Bandersnatch’ or a ‘Jubjub bird’? So that allows us to make it about monstrosity.” The subject matter had just enough silliness and darkness to appeal to the Trouts, whose last stint here involved the giant bog deer and whirlygig birds of Vancouver Opera’s spellbinding Hansel and Gretel in 2016. And it allowed the troupe to make their wildly imagined work speak to contemporary fears and the “monsters” we face today. But creating this adult puppet show also allowed the troupe to dive down the rabbit hole of low-tech stage arts used in Carroll’s own Victorian times. “Digging around the dusty annals of theatre practices we found out about toy theatre,” enthuses Palmer. “Back then, everybody would have had a cardboard proscenium in their living room or parlour, and you’d go to a store and buy a script with paper cutouts.”

Diving down a new rabbit hole For Jabberwocky’s singular look, the Old Trout Puppet Workshop delved into the Victorian theatre practices of Lewis Carroll’s time After carefully cutting out each of the twodimensional characters, you’d put on a puppet show for your friends or family. “There was a line between puppet and illustration there that we loved,” says Palmer. At the same time, the Trout crew started to explore the giant old scroll panoramas used to change backgrounds on-stage in the 19th century. According to Palmer, his creative team looked to one at the New Bedford Whaling Museum that is a 300-footlong canvas with scenes painted on it. In Jabberwocky, toy-theatre puppets pop up against that human-cranked scrolling background. There are also moments of Victorian style shadowgraphy projected into smoke, taxidermy marionettes, and an extended family of white rabbits—sometimes appearing as humans with strange, exquisitely carved hare heads. (The young boy rabbit is the one who must wield the “vorpal sword” against the Jabberwock.) The Trouts—once again—have come up with a vividly rendered, singular look for this production. “It’s this laborious method of changing scenes

THINGS TO DO

Jabberwocky mixes carved hare masks with 2-D toy-theatre puppets, scrolling painted backgrounds, and more (Jason Stang photo); below left, Judd Palmer.

with puppets, and the combined effect is like an animated fi lm,” says Palmer. “But it takes more work and that pointlessness is right where the Old Trout sits!” Palmer says that Twelfth Night, which he’s working on today, inhabits an entirely different world based on baroque “wonder theatre”, which would use ropes and pulleys to change the scenery right in front of its bewigged audiences’ eyes. The Trouts start every production from scratch, using research to develop a different look for each show. “We always wanted to have a different approach. It’s a continuous exploration for us, where we change the technique, change the scale,” he says and then adds with a small laugh: “The idea is that eventually we’ll understand our art form.…It’s all part of the burden we put on ourselves, for some masochistic reason!” Jabberwocky, funded in part by the Nuits de Fourvière Festival in Lyon, France, and launched as an international coproduction with Republique Theatre from Copenhagen, took on an epic scale as the troupe started crafting the puppets in its Calgary workshop. And despite its antique elements, it turned into one of the most daunting logistical challenges the crew has ever faced. “It was the worst nightmare ever to figure out

how all this flowed and where you put the goddamn things backstage so they don’t fall over,” admits Palmer, who says he lost count of the nearly 100 characters that Jabberwocky contains. “The beauty of the toy-theatre aesthetic is that we could have a million characters because they’re drawings. It’s about visual density.” As usual, the puppeteers are fully visible in this production. The key to the Old Trout approach, Palmer says, is that the audience is as much a participant in imagining the work as the puppetmasters who bring the show to life. In a world where digital technology can conjure just about anything on a screen, the Old Trout’s simple, handmade magic still works a spell. “A CGI Tyrannosaurus rex comes out onscreen and no imagination is required, in a way,” Palmer observes. “That’s what makes this beautiful and fragile and maybe destined to be distinguished: it’s a last little stand for something ancient and peculiar and sweet and dangerous.” And somehow that reflects Alice’s own experience of the “Jabberwocky” poem. As she puts it: “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!” Jabberwocky runs from Tuesday (February 6) to February 17 at the York Theatre.

ARTS High five

Editor’s choice CINDERELLA STORY Starting with the bracelet that replaces the glass slipper, composer Gioacchino Rossini and librettist Jacopo Ferretti’s La Cenerentola whimsically upends the Cinderella tale that you know. Among the other surprises you’ll see in UBC Opera’s production of this comic gem, the wicked stepmother becomes an evil stepfather, the prince disguises himself as a valet, and the fairy godmother is a tutor-philosopher. And forget any Disney-esque preconceptions you have of pumpkin carriages or magical mice. But it’s Rossini’s beautiful music that’s the real draw here: the vocal virtuosity, the speeding patter, and the showcase for the title character’s mezzo voice. Gordon Gerrard conducts members of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra for this rendition, with Nancy Hermiston in the director’s chair. La Cenerentola is at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts from Thursday to Sunday (February 1 to 4).

Five events you just can’t miss this week

JITTERS (To February 25 at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage) An uproarious, backstage-nerveamped ode to Canadian theatre.

DUBLIN OLDSCHOOL (To February 3 at the Cultch) The Irish offerings at this year’s PuSh fest have been unforgettable, and this hit’s no exception.

SYMPHONIE ESPAGNOLE (February 3 and 5 at the Orpheum) French violinist Alexandra Soumm in fine form.

ALEX NUSSBAUM (February 1 to 3 at the Comedy MIX) The guy is simply a nonstop joke machine.

THE OCTOPUS EATS ITS OWN LEG (February 3 to May 6 at the Vancouver Art Gallery) Prepare for the art event of the year as Takashi Murakami hits town with flying colours.

In the news THE WRIGHT STUFF Long-time Vancouver Opera supporter Bruce Munro Wright has just been honoured with the inaugural National Opera Directors Emeritus Award. Handed out by Opera.ca, the national association for opera in Canada, the prize is meant to recognize “extraordinary contributions by a board member, not only to his or her opera company but to the opera sector at large”. Wright is a Vancouver lawyer, philanthropist, and art collector who chaired VO’s board through the successful years of 2006 to 2008, later serving as chair of the Vancouver Opera Foundation board of trustees from 2012 to 2016, growing the capital by almost 50 percent. Wright has also played roles at the national level, chairing the selection committee for the National Opera Directors Awards, and participating in many Opera.ca sector meetings and conferences. Along with Wright, Edmonton Opera’s Richard Cook won the Opera.ca National Opera Directors Recognition Award. Cook and Wright will receive their awards alongside Opera America winners at a special event in New York City in February. FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 17

ARTS

Znaider strings together Russian-flavoured program > B Y A LE XAN DER VAR TY

PRESENTS

he competition, if you can call it that, is daunting. Search YouTube for Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 2, which soloist Nikolaj Znaider and accompanist Robert Kulek will play for the Vancouver Recital Society, and the top hit will be a 1955 performance by the immortal David Oistrakh with Vladimir Yampolsky, both of whom knew the composer personally. For Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 8, the corresponding result will be a performance by AnneSophie Mutter with Lambert Orkis. And for Johannes Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 3, the third major work on Znaider and Kulek’s program, you’ll find Oistrakh again, this time with Sviatoslav Richter at the keys. Legends all. But for Znaider, having access to footage of masterful figures such as these is more a source of inspiration than insecurity. Historical recordings, the Danish-Israeli violinist says when reached at a Chicago hotel, “are essential in educating your taste and sensibility.…If used in the correct way, they can be very illuminating. And by ‘correct way’ I mean by not trying to copy anything. “These recordings are part of the history of these works, and they can inform you,” he continues. “Now, whether we decide what to play based on what we hear, no. But from time to time, I think it’s very informative to listen to others’ recordings of these works—although with these particular ones, I haven’t done that for a while, because they’re pieces I’ve played so much.” Znaider’s VRS program, he adds, has been developed in conjunction with Kulek—although their planning process is anything but formal.

TORONTO DANCE THEATRE HOUSE MIX A RETROSPECTIVE PROGRAM CELEBRATING 50 YEARS

“We’ve been playing together for a good 15 years, so by now the conversation goes something like this: ‘Robert, how is it going? How are the kids? What do we do on our next tour?’ And usually this question comes two or three years in advance, which is hard, right? Do you know what you’ll feel like eating in two years? Of course not!” He laughs, and turns his attention to the fourth and shortest component of his upcoming concert: four short preludes by Dmitri Shostakovich, transcribed for violin and piano by the composer’s friend and fellow Russian Dmitri Tsyganov. “Now we’re talking about food, somehow,” he says, still chuckling. “And these are a little bit like, in a beautiful gourmet meal, the little sorbet they give you between courses to cleanse the palate. You know— that kind of effect. And then we said, ‘Well, if we have that, we need something else Russian,’ and we wanted to pick something we hadn’t played together. We want to keep challenging ourselves, and since we’ve played a lot of Russian music, we settled on the second sonata of Prokofiev, because we did the first one a couple of years ago.” There’s a concept behind it all: the heft of the Germans Beethoven and Brahms balanced by the élan of their Russian counterparts. And beyond that? “It’s just what we feel like,” Znaider says. “Because to sell the music to the audience, to present it well, we need to want to play it. Music, if anything, is a declaration and an act of love, and if that doesn’t shine through, we don’t convince anybody.” The Vancouver Recital Society presents Nikolaj Znaider and Robert Kulek at the Vancouver Playhouse on Sunday (February 4).

“The play forgoes props, costumes and set pieces, creating

something simply beautiful - a love story between two humans.” – Broadway World

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S E A S O N PA R T N E R S

Mayko Nguyen & Kawa Ada Photo: Joseph Michael

SPEAKING OF DANCE CONVERSATIONS

BY DAVID FRENCH DIRECTED BY RAVI JAIN

Vancouver and Toronto’s Cultural Scenes in the 70s: A Comparison

A FACTORY THEATRE PRODUCTION

Moderated by Pia Lo (Dance journalist and blogger at Globe Dancer)

MAINSTAGE | FEBRUARY 15 – 24, 2018

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FEBRUARY 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 19

ARTS

Julia Ullrich (second from left, with Hannah Williams, Ali Watson, and Emily Matchette) is finding out that blonds really do have more fun. Anita Alberto photo.

M A RCH 1–24

Legally Blonde star gets set for a transformation > B Y JAN ET SMITH

FEATURING: Amber Funk Barton/the response. · Shen Wei Dance Arts · Harbour Dance Centre ITP · EDAM Dancers Dancing · Goh Ballet · WHITE WAVE Dance · Ferenc Fehér · Lucie Grégoire Danse · The Biting School pataSola dance · Lola Lince’s Experimental Dance Company · Info & Box Office: VIDF.CA · 604.662.4966

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usical-theatre fans know Julia Ullrich for iconic brunette roles—parts like the dark, tormented teen Veronica in Fighting Chance Productions’ Heathers: The Musical or the cockney flower-girl-cum-gentlewoman Eliza Doolittle in Royal City Musical Theatre’s My Fair Lady last year. It’s true: Ullrich is blessed with long, chestnut tresses. Which makes it a little bit of a stretch for her to take on Elle Woods—the ridiculously chipper, and famously platinum-maned, L.A. sorority gal/shopaholic in Legally Blonde: The Musical. In the over-thetop show based on the hit 2001 Reese Witherspoon movie, Elle follows her ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law School when he decides she’s not serious or intellectual enough for him. “It’s a bit tough to do,” admits Ullrich, explaining she’ll be wearing a long blond wig for the production. She’s speaking to the Straight over the phone on a lunch break at a local high school, where she’s just taught a junior drama class—her day job. She says putting on the platinum mane changes the way she talks and moves. Like, omigod: “I just exude more confidence and you feel like people are watching you. It feels less like me and more like her.” So who does Ullrich herself feel closer to? She admits it’s Veronica, the lead in Heathers: The Musical, by Broadway-hit writer Laurence O’Keefe, who also adapted Legally Blonde for the stage. “Veronica is very much earthy and awkward—a lot more like me,” explains Ullrich, who trained in Capilano University’s musical-theatre program before heading to UBC to study acting and then education. “I’m not that kind of a girly-girl. I don’t really feel like this Valley Girl. But all the other girls are great—the ones who play my three friends are super peppy and that helps a lot.”

Still, the experience of Heathers has helped Ullrich adapt to O’Keefe’s powerhouse, pop-rock-amped songs— ones that are more difficult than it might at first appear. “They’re composed by the same people, so the musical styles are similar: both [Heathers and Legally Blonde] have huge, belty songs,” Ullrich says. “And both my characters are very much in every scene. It’s very vocally challenging. And Elle is super outgoing—larger than life.” Adding to the complexity is the fact that Ullrich is joined on-stage by Elle’s ever-present Chihuahua, Bruiser—played here by a Port Moody canine named Molly. The actor is just getting to know the pint-sized pooch her character famously carries around everywhere and dresses in its own designer outfits: “We’re not sure how excited she’s going to be on-stage yet,” she says with a laugh. The show’s over-the-top antics extend to the sets for this Align Entertainment production, Ullrich says, adding it’s a full staging with a live band. “You can’t get away from the fact that there’s a sorority house and Harvard—and it’s going to be incredibly pink.” Yet, amid all the levity, pastel hues, and designer purses, Ullrich is learning not only to love her songs and her character, but to respect the messages the musical ultimately puts forth. “I really just appreciate Elle’s journey,” she says. “She starts off as a super privileged person. Near the beginning she says, ‘See, dreams really do come true. You never have to compromise.’ ” But then her character gradually sees that life isn’t all rosy and that she should embrace her brainier self: “She learns that if you are really determined you can succeed,” Ullrich says. Align Entertainment presents Legally Blonde: The Musical at Burnaby’s Michael J. Fox Theatre from Friday (February 2) to February 17.

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DAINA ASHBEE POUR

Dancer Paige Culley: photo Daina Ashbee/Alejandro Jimenez

February 1-3 | 8pm

20 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018

Scotiabank Dance Centre

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ARTS

No Foreigners mines mall culture > BY A LEX A NDER VA R TY

f you’re guessing that No Foreigners, an interdisciplinary theatre adventure from Vancouver’s Hong Kong Exile collective, has to do with discrimination, you’re guessing right. But it’s not quite as simple as that. The new piece began as a consideration of signage issues, particularly the ire raised by Chinese-only signs in the city of Richmond. But a bizarre incident in the Aberdeen Centre mall soon shifted the discussion. “One of the main through lines, if not the main through line, involves a character who goes to an expensive bag store, and the shop owner tells him, ‘Sorry, you can’t come in. No foreigners,’ ” explains project leader Milton Lim. “Which is actually something that happened.” Apparently, David Yee, who wrote the script for No Foreigners, was researching the signage issue when he was, quite literally, locked out of a promising locale. “He went to a store in Aberdeen Centre, an expensive bag store,” Lim says. “It said ‘Members only’ and he wanted to see what was inside, so he kind of dressed up a little bit and said, ‘Hey, I’m just moving here. I’d like to spend some money. Can I come in?’ He’s half Chinese, half Scottish, and the owner said, ‘Sorry, no foreigners,’ and closed the door in his face.” The incident sent Yee, and one of the two characters in the play, on a quest to find out what it means to be a member of the Chinese diaspora in the 21st century, a quest enacted by tiny figures on miniature movie sets, filmed by a pair of HD cameras that feed the action to multiple on-stage screens. Apart from a sequence set in a jade mine, the play takes place in a simulacrum of the kind of Asian mall one might find in Richmond or Markham, Ontario, but there are some twists.

COMING UP In Hong Kong Exile’s No Foreigners, tiny figures enact the quest to find out what it means to be a member of the Chinese diaspora, amid an Asian mall.

“For example,” Lim says, “there’s not usually a moth museum inside a Chinese mall. But in Chinese culture, moths are said to be ancestors. So we’ve taken that one idea and created a moth museum to which one of the characters brings a briefcase of ‘hell money’, so that he can burn it to honour his grandfather—who owned the jade jewellery store [in the same mall]. So there are themes of inheritance, or intergenerational misunderstandings and the reconciling of those things.” Also in play are considerations of demographic change, alongside the economic earthquakes that have been unleashed by online shopping. Lim notes that the flat, one-storey structures erected by the first generation of Hong Kong–born immigrants to Canada are being replaced by glitzy, multistorey plazas that cater to more recent arrivals from mainland China. And while Chinese malls have always been cultural centres, with the rise of Amazon and other Internet retailers that role is becoming increasingly important. “A lot of Chinese malls have a stage in the centre, or a big pond area, and

they’ve always been meant for social spaces or spaces for entertainment,” Lim explains. “That’s even more true now. People don’t really go to shopping malls for shopping as much anymore.” In No Foreigners, the mall’s koi pond becomes a metaphor for difference and class: some koi are gorgeous and glittering, while others are drably utilitarian, even though they’re all really just carp. And the signage debate also appears, in altered form: more than half the production is in Cantonese, with surtitles projected above the five HD screens where the action plays out. Technically brilliant and philosophically provocative, the work promises to be an enlightening look at what Lim calls “the multiplicity of how many Chinesenesses there can be”, as well as a welcome exploration of an urban environment that has only rarely been examined as art. Hong Kong Exile, fu-GEN Theatre, Theatre Conspiracy, and the Theatre Centre present No Foreigners at the Cultch’s Vancity Culture Lab from next Wednesday (February 7) to February 17.

LA CENERENTOLA

Feb 1 - 3, 7:30pm + Feb 4, 2pm Presented by UBC Opera A stunning production of Rossini’s take on the popular fairytale Cinderella, featuring the UBC Opera Ensemble and the Vancouver Opera Orchestra. Expect vocal fireworks, witty comedy, and delightful music.

UBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Fri Feb 9, 8pm

Presented by the UBC School of Music Bassist John Hines joins the UBC Symphony Orchestra for a program of orchestral works by Wagner; UBC Symphonic Wind Ensemble also performs.

BEETHOVEN: PASTORAL AND PIANO Feb 16 + 17, 8pm

Presented by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra The VSO is joined by pianist Stephen Hough for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and Symphony No. 6.

THE JAZZ EPISTLES: ABDULLAH IBRAHIM WITH GUEST TERENCE BLANCHARD Sun Feb 18, 7pm

Presented by the Chan Centre Celebrated South African pianist Ibrahim and New Orleans trumpeter Blanchard revisit the Jazz Epistles’ iconic catalogue. SOLD OUT.

KiDS TAKe OvER UBC!

MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN, PIANO Sun Mar 4, 3pm

Presented by the Vancouver Recital Society One of the world’s top pianists performs a program of Liszt, Feinberg, Debussy, and Godowsky.

LILA DOWNS

Sat Mar 10, 8pm Presented by the Chan Centre Oaxacan vocalist and activist Lila Downs returns for a performance in support of her 2017 Latin Grammy-winning album, Salón Lágrimas y Deseo, which honours iconic Latin American women.

TANYA TAGAQ AND LAAKKULUK WILLIAMSON BATHORY

For too long, UBC has been run by adults. It’s time for kids to rule at this fun-filled arts festival. Buy your family pass now!

Mar 16 - 18, 7:30pm

FREDERIC WOOD THEATRE: Th’owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish by Joseph A. Dandurand MOA: Takeover Day with youth-led arts, dance, tours + the Zhambai Trio musicians! OPERA: Meet Cinderella + stage tours + costumes + make-up BELKIN: Poem power – for mighty kids who want to change the world! + MORE: Marching band, photo booth + kid-friendly food!

Sunday, February 11

utown.ubc.ca/kidsrunubc

Presented by the Chan Centre Two trailblazing artists explore retribution and reconciliation through experimental vocals and Greenlandic mask dancing. Telus Studio Theatre

CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS 6265 Crescent Road, Vancouver (UBC)

Tickets and info at chancentre.com SERIES SPONSOR:

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Choreography Medhi Walerski

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What does reconciliation mean to YOU? In the racially charged Topdog/Underdog, two brothers (Michael Blake and Luc Roderique) scrape by in a grotty one-bedroom apartment. David Cooper photo.

“If you do nothing this year... at the very least GO SEE THIS PLAY! ”

Actors bring pain to life in two top-flight plays TH E AT RE TOPDOG/UNDERDOG By Suzan-Lori Parks. Directed by Dean Paul Gibson. An Arts Club Theatre Company production. On the Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre on Friday, January 26. Continues until February 11

–Betsy Bruyere, Aboriginal Community Equity Services

Firehall Arts Centre 280 E. Cordova St. Vancouver March 2 to 10, 2018 Tue-Sun @ 7:30pm 2 x 1 matinee March 7

my DNA.” Booth and Lincoln share all of that, and they share it with us in this modern Greek tragedy.

> DARREN BAREFOOT

THE ALIENS

By Annie Baker. Directed by Kevin Bennett. A Sticks and Stones Theatre production. At Havana Theatre on Saturday, January 27. Continues until Lincoln and Booth are African- February 4

brothers, named by a father with a peculiar sense of humour. He made a joke out of naming the elder for a president and the younger after Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth. Their parents left them when Lincoln (Michael Blake) was 16 years old and Booth was just 11. We find them together again roughly two decades later in Topdog/Underdog, trying to scrape by in a grotty one-room apartment. Recently divorced, Lincoln has landed an unusual job at an amusement arcade. He dresses up as his namesake, complete with white face paint, and tourists re-create the president’s assassination with a cap gun. Booth (Luc Roderique) is unemployed and at loose ends. He aspires to the criminal life his brother left behind, conning tourists with three-card monte. It’s against this backdrop of poverty and unfulfilled dreams that Topdog/ Underdog plays out. In this twohander, the performers almost never leave the stage. Though it’s a very intimate play, there’s the sense of something epic and timeless in this battle between brothers. The power shifts back and forth as they poke and prod at each other’s soft spots—Lincoln’s failed marriage, Booth’s inaction. The play’s creator, Suzan-Lori Parks, won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2002 for this script, making her the first African-American woman to do so. It’s a work that’s dense with layers of meaning, where moments circle back on each other—for example, Lincoln performing a death over and over again for white employers who pay him less than his white predecessor. In another exchange, Lincoln promises his brother that “your luck will change” when, in the con game of three-card monte, luck is not involved. Shizuka Kai’s set is a giant shoebox gnawed open by a dog. We look in through torn-open walls and split window frames. A lamp hangs from a ragged chunk of ceiling, improbably floating above the room. In most theatrical designs, the fourth wall is entirely removed. Here, a lip of that wall remains, increasing the show’s sense of imprisonment. Lighting designer Itai Erdal employs some subtle tricks to reinforce this feeling. A knife-sharp blade of light crosses the floor between scenes to cleverly convey the passage of time. It’s a script that’s simultaneously lyrical and very challenging. Both Blake and Roderique deftly manage the sheer volume of words. In Lincoln, Blake finds a kind of louche lethargy that makes his dexterous handling of the cards all the more convincing. Roderique, on the other hand, is all pent up, an ignited rocket that refuses to lift off. As the houselights dim at the start of the show, Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA” is played. Lamar raps “I got power, poison, pain, and joy inside my DNA/I got hustle though, ambition flow inside

What a story silence can tell if you tune in to it. This production of The Aliens is exquisitely tuned. American playwright Annie Baker’s script offers an extreme form of naturalism: her characters are far from heroic; they’re often barely articulate. More than a third of the playing time consists of silent pauses in the dialogue, and if you think that sounds tedious, think again: the quiet contains enormous emotional riches. The Aliens is set in an alley behind a restaurant, where Jasper and KJ, a pair of friends in their 30s, like to hang out. When Evan, a new employee, tells them they’re not allowed to be there, the trio strike up an odd sort of friendship. Evan’s innocence is counterpointed by the undertow of disappointment in the older men. Jasper’s an aspiring novelist grieving the end of a relationship; KJ is a college dropout whose apparent brilliance hasn’t found a conventional outlet—he still lives at home with his mom. The play’s title is one of the names of their erstwhile band; it explicitly alludes to a Charles Bukowski poem about the unfathomable fact of “people who go through life with very little friction or distress”. These characters are not those people; their silences give them space to be broken and make us relate to and care deeply for them. There’s very little action in the play; the first act culminates in a shared Fourth of July celebration behind the restaurant, complete with peppermint schnapps and fireworks. But the real pyrotechnics are in Baker’s masterfully mundane dialogue—and its abundant pauses— which director Kevin Bennett and his cast deliver with grace and humour. Jasper is often in denial, about his breakup (“I don’t need to talk about it,” is how he caps a minilecture on the subject) or a sudden crippling chest pain that doubles him over (“I feel fantastic, though,” he says without irony), and Tim Howe makes his every word and every pause ring true. It would be easy to make the eccentric KJ a caricature, but Zac Scott’s performance is grounded and authentic. As Evan, Teo Saefkow is eager to please, hesitant, self-effacing—a thoroughly convincing innocent. The actors are all fully committed to their characters’ vulnerability. The play’s intimacy is supported by the Havana’s cozy confines, and Stephanie Wong’s production design gets every detail right, from the paper lanterns hanging above the alley’s picnic table and its bleached-out daytime lighting, to the hole in the chainlink fence along the side. The run is short and the venue is small, but The Aliens is the real thing: theatre that opens your heart and expands your soul. Make sure you don’t miss it.

Touring

MAHLER SYMPHONY NO.8

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FEBRUARY 17 2018 AT 8PM I ORPHEUM THEATRE LESLIE DALA CONDUCTOR I FEATURING:WEST COAST SYMPHONY

MEMBERS OF THE VANCOUVER BACH CHILDREN’S CHORUS I LOCAL SOLOISTS

TICKETS & INFO: VANCOUVERBACHCHOIR.COM

K O ! O W B O N

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> KATHLEEN OLIVER

FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 23

ar ts/ timeout THEATRE 2OPENINGS THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH Studio 58 continues its 52nd season with Thornton

THEATRE DANCE MUSIC COMEDY LITERARY EVENTS ET CETERA GALLERIES MUSEUMS

< NO FOREIGNERS Multimedia performance investigates malls as racialized < spaces of cultural creation and clash < where fashion, food, and commodity communities to a vital sense of < tether home. Feb 7-17, Vancity Culture Lab < (the Cultch, 1895 Venables). Tix $27, info < www.thecultch.com/events/no-foreigners/. < 2ONGOING < TOPDOG/UNDERDOG A modern fable of

Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy, directed by Sarah Rodgers. Feb 1-18, 8 pm, Studio 58 (Langara College, 100 W. 49th). Info www.ticketstonight.ca/.

JABBERWOCKY New puppet extravanganza for adults about the journey of a young male hare. Feb 6-17, 8 pm, York Theatre (639 Commercial). Tix from $22, info www.thecultch.com/events/ jabberwocky/.

African-American brothers sharing a seedy, one-room apartment and looking for easy money in cards. To Feb 11, Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre (162 W. 1st). Tix from $29, info www.artsclub.com/ shows/2017-2018/topdog-underdog/.

JITTERS The Arts Club Theatre Company presents a comedy about four actors, a director, and a playwright with one grand dream of Broadway-bound success for their new Canadian play. To Feb 25, Stanley

Industrial Alliance Stage (2750 Granville). Tix from $29, info www.artsclub.com/ shows/2017-2018/jitters/. SHIT Canadian premiere of Australian playwright Patricia Cornelius’s play about the lives of three incarcerated underclass women. To Feb 10, Firehall Arts Centre (280 E. Cordova). Tix from $20, info www.firehallartscentre.ca/.

DANCE 2THIS WEEK DAINA ASHBEE As part of the Global Dance Connections series, the Dance Centre presents Daina Ashbee in a performance of Pour. Feb 1-3, 8 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre (677 Davie). Tix $36/28/26, info www.thedancecentre.ca/ daina_ashbee_pour/.

don’t miss out! For up-to-the-minute, searchable Arts Time Out listings, visit

www.straight.com

DANCE ALLSORTS: AFRICAN STAGES WITH COMFORT ERO African Stages’ youth group uses dramatized storytelling, drumming, and dancing to proclaim messages of solidarity and inclusion. Feb 4, 2-3 pm, Waterfront Theatre (1412 Cartwright St., Granville Island). Tix $5-15, info www.newworks.ca/2017/08/danceallsorts-african-stages-comfort-ero/.

MUSIC 2THIS WEEK JANUSZ OLEJNICZAK Early Music Vancouver and the Vancouver Chopin Society present two concerts featuring the Polish classical pianist. Feb 2, 3, 7:30 pm, Christ Church Cathedral (690 Burrard). Tix $18-68, info www.earlymusic.bc.ca/ events/janusz-olejniczak-plays-chopin/.

FRIDAY & SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9 & 10 8PM , ORPHEUM William Rowson conductor Jon Nakamatsu piano

Robyn Driedger-Klassen soprano Frédérik Robert tenor

Love and Romance are front and centre in the beautiful Orpheum theatre, as conductor William Rowson and the VSO perform music that will get you in the mood for Valentine’s. Joined by pianist Jon Nakamatsu, soprano Robyn Driedger-Klassen, and tenor Frédérik Robert, the orchestra dials up some of the most sensual and romantic music ever written, including Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, sizzling selections from Bizet’s Carmen, Dvořák’s Romance, and beautiful music by Strauss, Puccini, and Mascagni.

@VSOrchestra

VSO POPS SERIES SPONSOR

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2THIS WEEK STEVE NEWTON SIGNS GORD DOWNIE Vancouver rock journalist signs copies of his first book, Gord Downie, a retrospective of the career of the Tragically Hip’s late frontman. Feb 6, 7-8 pm, Indigo Broadway & Granville (2505 Granville St.). Info www. facebook.com/events/312302169282686/.

ET CETERA 2JUST ANNOUNCED LE HOMES—LANTERNS IN THE GARDEN Blast off your unique winter experience with music, performances, and Chinese myth-themed lanterns. Enjoy food, games, dazzling lights, and enter to win prizes. Feb 16-Mar 4, Friday-Saturday and select Sundays, 5-10 pm, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden (578 Carrall). Info www.lanternsinthegarden.com/.

2THIS WEEK PUSH INTERNATIONAL PERFORMING ARTS FESTIVAL Interdisciplinary festival showcases visionary, genre-bending, startling, and original work by international, Canadian, and local artists. To Feb 4, various Vancouver venues. Tix from $12, info www.pushfestival.ca/.

GALLERIES

COMEDY 2ONGOING

MUSEUMS

YUK YUK’S COMEDY CLUB 2837 Cambie, 604-696-9857, www.yukyuks.com/vancou ver/. Comedy club with Top Talent Tue at 8 pm, amateur night Wed at 8 pm, and professional headliners Thu-Fri at 8 pm and Sat at 7 and 9:30 pm. 2NICK BEATON Feb. 1-3

SYMPHONY VALENTINE

LITERARY EVENTS

VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 750 Hornby, www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/. 2TAKASHI MURAKAMI: THE OCTOPUS EATS ITS OWN LEG (over 55 paintings and sculptures are featured in the first-ever retrospective of Murakami’s work in Canada) Feb 3–May 6

THE COMEDY MIX 1015 Burrard, Century Plaza Hotel & Spa, 604-684-5050, www. thecomedymix.com/. Comedy club with pro-am night Tue at 8:30 pm, showcase Wed at 8:30 pm, and featured headliners Thu at 8:30 pm and Fri-Sat at 8 and 10:30 pm. 2ALEX NUSSBAUM Feb 1-3

a Romantic

VANCOUVER THEATRESPORTS LEAGUE Ok Tinder (Sat, 11:15 pm); Romance Week (Tue, 7:30 pm); Rookie Night (Sun, 7:30 pm); Theatre Sports (Wed, Sat, 7:30 pm; Wed 9:15 pm; Sat, 9:30 pm). Jan 31–Feb 7, The Improv Centre (1502 Duranleau, Granville Island). Info www. vtsl.com/.

THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT UBC 6393 NW Marine, www.moa.ubc.ca/. 2AMAZONIA: THE RIGHTS OF NATURE (Amazonian basketry, textiles, carvings, feather works, and ceramics) to Feb 18

TIME OUT ARTS LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge, based on available space and editorial discretion. Submit listings online using the event-submission form at straight.com/AddEvent. Events that don’t make it into the paper due to space constraints will appear on the website.

MOVIES

A poetically timely tale from the occupation RE VIEW S OUR TIME WILL COME Starring Eddie Peng. In Mandarin and Japanese, with English subtitles. Rated 14A

Tackling multiple themes as-

2 sociated with the Japanese oc-

cupation of Hong Kong during the Second World War, this well-crafted epic spends more time on poetry and personal entanglements than on derring-do—although crackingly choreographed fight scenes erupt often enough to keep the film’s 130 minutes moving swiftly. Director Ann Hui has lately been alternating between big-budget historical dramas (like The Golden Era) and small-scaled indie stuff (A Simple Life). In Our Time Will Come, she tackles the little-known, fact-based tale of guerrilla fighters who spirited artists and intellectuals out of the enemy’s clutches. Things begin with a dissident writer rescued by a Robin Hood–like hero called Blackie Lau, played by versatile, Vancouver-raised rising star Eddie Peng (Rise of the Legend). He soon meets shy schoolteacher Fong Lan (Cloud Atlas’s Zhou Xun, who manages to be both ethereal and earthy) and her peasant mom (A Simple Life star Deanie Ip). Lan helps Blackie without quite knowing what’s what, and she’s gradually drawn into the resistance, initially by spreading printed flyers. Represented in the present by occasional black-and-white footage of a Hong Kong taxi driver who served as a runner for partisans, the local fighters were led by communist cadres, battling it out with both the Japanese and the compromised nationalists working with them. The movie doesn’t dwell on political alignments, and they matter little to people like Mrs. Fong, who is merely trying to survive the whole ordeal. Some occupiers are

presented as being fat, crude, and stupid—in the manner of U.S. movies during the war—but the story isn’t simple-minded. People of many backgrounds mingle at Shanghai-style jazz clubs, where the music is hot and the clothes are gorgeous. It turns out that Lan’s handsome boyfriend (Wallace Huo) is working for the occupiers—or is he? In fact, the young man’s Japanese boss is an expert in Chinese poetry and has a complicated attitude toward the locals. (Jim Jarmusch fans will recognize Masatoshi Nagase as the visiting poet in Paterson and the rockabilly tourist in Mystery Train.) The movie celebrates the language its characters are fighting to protect, so it’s odd that distributors chose a random title over something closer to the Mandarin original, which translates as May We Last Forever, itself taken from a thousand-year-old poem quoted several times in the story and—lasting forever in the song form—still popular wherever Chinese languages are spoken. > KEN EISNER

FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL Starring Annette Bening. Rated PG

Annette Bening follows her

2 Oscar-worthy role in 20th Century Women with a more literal star turn, as film noir femme fatale Gloria Grahame, in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. Spoiler alert: the title doesn’t lie. (Gloria’s swan song happens somewhere else.) It’s taken from the memoir of Peter Turner, a 27-year-old Liverpudlian and novice actor who met Grahame in London in 1979, where she was doing Tennessee Williams— theatre being her best route after movies dried up. He’s played by Jamie Bell, the Billy Elliot kid who has turned into a quietly impressive adult actor, even if he hasn’t quite given up the dance. In

A shy schoolteacher (Zhou Xun) joins the resistance in Our Time Will Come.

fact, he first connects with the sultry Oscar winner (for 1952’s The Bad and the Beautiful) while hustling to disco records in her room at a theatrical boarding house. The place is a dump, but Gloria still has a trailer in Malibu and a hotel apartment in Manhattan. She also has cancer, something she’s loath to tell anyone about, or even admit to herself. (As she eventually tells her doctor, “I need my hair to work.”) Now pushing 60, she can still work any room, and has a thing for much younger fellas. Her fourth husband, in fact, was her stepson with second hubby Nicholas Ray, who directed her in her finest role, opposite Bogart in 1950’s In a Lonely Place. Her other best gig was as Ado Annie in Oklahoma!, in which she was “jest a gal who cain’t say no”. Actually, little Gloria, almost happy at last, excels at turning people away, over slights real or imagined. Although often considered trashier than rival Marilyn Monroe, Grahame was descended from British royalty, helpfully pointed out by her ditsy mother and bitchy older sister (born in Victoria, B.C.), played by Vanessa Redgrave and Frances Barber in one standout

scene. Even so, our fatal femme gets surprisingly close to Peter’s family, with veterans Julie Walters and Kenneth Cranham especially strong as his hardscrabble but loving row-house parents. It’s a wonder that any of them can survive the wallpaper! The story’s no doubt a downer, and this is why Control screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh and Lucky Number Slevin director Paul McGuigan (not the former Oasis bassist) chopped up its location-hopping time frame. Their purposefully artificial transitional devices—closing a door in Liverpool that opens onto L.A., for instance— may not be to everyone’s taste. But the lovingly crafted movie is quietly emotional, darkly funny, and deeply marinated in Old Hollywood nostalgia, summed up best by Turner himself, in a cameo as a London barman who asks his alter ego, “Say, isn’t that Gloria Whatsername?” > KEN EISNER

STILL NIGHT, STILL LIGHT Starring Éliane Préfontaine. In French, Spanish, and Mandarin, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable

The underlying principle of this

2 gently adventurous movie from

Quebec is the unfulfilled potential that humans carry around, whether with deep regret or some kind of sustained hope. It’s a fitting theme for a tale that frequently gestures at profundity without ever quite reaching its goals. This debut feature from writerdirector Sophie Goyette, who has made several well-received shorts, is divided into three parts. Initially, we meet Éliane (Éliane Préfontaine), a fair-haired Montrealer who works birthday parties as a Disney princess. Things haven’t clicked for her since she failed to get into a prestigious music school. In fact, she aced the piano audition, but hit the wall with music theory. “I had

never heard of it,” she admits to a sympathetic suburban matron. Instead of picking up a book, our pouty princess heads to a briefly explored Mexico City, where she gives piano lessons to the small son of a wealthy family. We never see the mom, but Éliane forms a kind of bond with the sad-eyed patriarch (Mexican TV and stage veteran Gerardo Trejoluna). The director’s not particularly interested in what connects them. Turns out the guy is preoccupied with his own ailing father (Felipe Casanova), and offers to take the older man on a final trip. The third part follows them to an unnamed city in China, although this doesn’t matter much, since they spend most of it in a dark hotel room, quietly discussing generic life problems. There is one arresting sequence. While riding a small train through an underground amusement park, the old-timer wonders why his middle-aged son—who wanted to be a professional photographer—didn’t bring a camera. He doesn’t offer much of an answer, and neither does the movie. Buried aspirations may be important to these characters, but passivity marks most of the action in Still Night, Still Light. Its original French title, translating as My Nights Will Echo, at least offers the promise of future reverberations. But most sounds in the present tense are disconnected from people here. The credits tell us that Préfontaine is the actual performer of the Chopin prelude used as a theme throughout. But Goyette shoots her from behind, with no hands visible at the piano, in the manner of movies forced to fake on-screen talent. Similarly, the camera often cuts from intriguing wide-screen compositions to empty sky or other blank space. Meanwhile, the actors put out as little as possible. These chilly manoeuvres invite projection of your own see next page

FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 25

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thoughts, and can be explained as blows against the empire of narrative expectation. But that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make them any more rewarding.

> KEN EISNER

SHIRLEY: VISIONS OF REALITY Starring Stephanie Cumming. Rating unavailable

Why do Edward Hopperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paint-

2 ings haunt us so? His accuracy of fashion, architecture, and body language makes us nostalgic, to be sure. Large fields of undecorated space and unforgiving light invite us to ponder what led those lonely souls to become, say, Nighthawks at the diner (1942). In this 90-minute experiment, Austrian film historian Gustav Deutsch and cinematographer Jerzy Palacz have captured these ineffable qualities; when spectral figures move across the familiar frames of 13 Hopper

paintings created between the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;30s and the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;60s, their gestures seem to effortlessly extend the trajectories of the originals. These beautifully choreographed vignettes provoke more wonderment at what the subjects were thinking at the time. Too bad they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t leave us wondering. Curiously, the filmmaker has chosen one performer to anchor every image. Canadian dancer Stephanie Cumming has a flame-haired presence that suggests Jessica Chastainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more mysterious sister. Unfortunately, Deutsch also has her speak, and Cumming has a flatly affectless modern voice that suggests forgotten shopping lists, whether the material at hand is excerpted from a Thornton Wilder play, a newspaper report about Elia Kazan ratting out friends to Joseph McCarthy, or just banal musings about another person in the room. Instead of linking the scenes in surprising ways, the filmmaker locks into a deadening format, separating them with chronologically fixed dates

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26 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 8 / 2018

Rendez-Vous with hard-tofind quality Vancouverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s French film fest brings the goods > BY ADRIAN MACK

t can sometimes fly under the radar, but the Rendez-Vous French Film Festival consistently brings topnotch and hard-tosee cinema to Vancouver. Last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s festival beat VIFF to the punch with its local premiere of QuĂŠbĂŠcois filmmaker Sophie Goyetteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s towering Still Night, Still Lightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;opening at long last at the Cinematheque on Thursday (February 1). Now in its 24th year, Rendez-Vous again provides access to cinema that usually remains on the other side of the francophone language barrier for Vancouver moviegoers, while also extending its scope to Europe. Arriving from France, Vino Veritas opens the festival on Friday (February 2) with a documentary tour of organic and â&#x20AC;&#x153;biodynamicâ&#x20AC;? European vineyardsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an expert choice for our cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ever more epicurean palate. An organic winetasting and reception follow the screening at Auditorium JulesVerne (5445 Baillie Street). The festivities continue at the same venue with titles including Simon Lavoieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gothic period piece La Petite Fille Qui Aimait Trop les Allumettes (The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches), and a first look at Mathieu Amalricâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s metabiopic on the glowering Parisian chanteuse Barbara (both February 4). Rendez-Vous then moves to the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts on Tuesday (February 6) with a matinee presentation of the sweet animated feature Ernest et CĂŠlĂŠstine en Hiver, making its return to Vancouver after a visit back in 2013. (Also for les enfants: Claude Barrasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s batty claymation favourite Ma Vie de Courgette [My Life as a Courgette], on February 9.) The screenings continue at Goldcorp with titles including Robin Aubertâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s critically acclaimed, ruralQuebec-set zombie flick, Les AffamĂŠs (The Ravenous), along with the latest from Red Violin director FranĂ§ois Girard, returning to the big screen with the century-spanning historical epic Hochelaga: Terre des Ă&#x201A;mes (Hochelaga: Land of Souls), both Wednesday (February 7). Other high-end treats include Olivier Asselinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind-and-timebending Second World War atomicbomb thriller, Le Cyclotron (February 8), and FranĂ§ois Ozonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Amant Double (February 9). Part Brian De Palma and part Georges Bataille, Ozonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s audacious thriller left Cannes audiences aghast last year at its, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s say, poetically graphic imagery. It all ends on February 10 with the Vancouver premiere of Les Rois Mongols (Cross My Heart), a family drama that slyly parallels the 1970 October Crisis. Like some of the other features coming to RendezVous this year, namely Les AffamĂŠs and La Petite Fille Qui Aimait Trop les Allumettes, Luc Picardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s film dominated the major categories in the just-announced nominations for the Canadian Screen Awards. Yet big-screen engagements out here on the West Coast remain aggravatingly rare. There is much more besides 30 films in all, including a program of African-themed shorts, a preview of TV5â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new series Terres dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Exploration, and La Sociologue et lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ourson, a documentary about Franceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s same-sex-marriage advocate IrĂ¨ne ThĂŠry, directed by her son and featuring, intriguingly enough, reenactments made with teddy bears! The Rendez-Vous French Film Festival runs from Friday (February 2) to February 10. More information is at www. rendez-vousvancouver.com/.

MUSIC

When it came time to think about a folBY MIKE US IN G ER

low-up to the surprise success story Sadnecessary, Milky Chance’s Clemens Rehbein and Philipp Dausch weren’t worried about pleasing their fans, record company executives, or booking agents. The upside to rocketing onto an international stage out of nowhere (the town of Kassel, Germany, to be exact) is that you end up very much aware of what’s at stake when considering the often-dreaded sophomore record. Having progressed from a casual bedroom project to YouTube sensations to playing Coachella and Glastonbury, the men of Milky Chance knew that the record after Sadnecessary would be important. Recognizing that, they decided—once again—to rely on each other when it came to getting creative. “A lot of times, people talk about the pressure that comes with having to write a second album,” Rehbein says, on the line from a tour bus just pulling out of Montreal. “But more important are the expectations that you have for yourself. In the past four years the band became kind of like our job. We are living off it now, so we want to keep it going every bit as much as other people wanted us to do something that was good. Sometimes it’s even

Swimming in the deep end

a studio, where the dollars mount up with every tick of the clock. So, instead, they went back to working at home during the writing process. “We did the second album just like the first one, working on the demos, just me and Philipp, in a very intimate way with just the two of us back home at Philipp’s flat,” Rehbein says. “That was really important to us.” That music has turned into a career has surprised both Rehbein and Dausch, high-school friends who played jazz in a four-piece before reinventing themselves as Milky Chance. “We never really had a backup plan, but also we didn’t plan to kick off a music career the way that we did,” Rehbein admits. “We wanted to go travelling after finishing high school. That was actually the main thing that we were focused on. But during the summer we recorded our album [Sadnecessary] just for fun. We didn’t have any touring plans or any schedule at that time—we just wanted to record some music because we were so into music. “Then that whole YouTube thing kind of started and we were thrown into the cold water having to swim. Suddenly we were getting emails from A&R people from big labels on our Facebook page asking to meet us. We were so skeptical about it all that it was actually pretty funny. Looking back, we actually didn’t really want to work with anybody but ourselves. But opportunities opened up, and so we were like, ‘Um, okay. Maybe we’ll do the travelling later.’ I think you could say that this has all been a super big accident.” Except that it’s not, really. Milky Chance has stumbled onto a mix that’s accessible enough for people who live on the likes of Jack Johnson and Ben Harper, and yet adventurous enough for

Milky Chance recorded its debut album with no goal beyond having fun—then that YouTube thing happened harder to deal with your own expectations than to deal with the expectations of people from the outside world. You can pressure yourself far more than anyone else can, which I can say is not too good for creativity.” Despite that, Milky Chance’s second outing, Blossom, is a triumph that’s going to both please the band’s fans and bring a whole lot of new folks to the party. Without straying too far from the folktronica template that got them on the world’s radar, Rehbein (vocals and guitar) and Dausch (production and beatmaking) pull on the black cowboy hats for the Americana-noir title track, fire up the Sgt. Pepper–brand vintage organ for “Firebird”, and re-create the sound of ’90s Seattle with the blackdays acoustic ballad “Stay”. Milky Chance sounds as at home diving into dub-flavoured Afropop (“Clouds”) as it does firing up a joint for the spacereggae jam “Bad Things”. The bandmates certainly had the means to do something different with Blossom. They crafted their debut in the Kassel home of Dausch, whose mom was often downstairs, happily letting the two know when they were truly onto something, such as “Stolen Dance”. After being uploaded to YouTube, the song went viral, and is currently sitting at an astonishing 366 million views. Buoyed by the video hit, as well as by the equally infectious single “Down by the River”, Milky Chance’s Sadnecessary topped charts around the world, going platinum in the States. When it came time to begin working on Blossom, the last thing the Milky Chance bandmates wanted to do was force themselves to be creative in

When the time came to write a follow-up to the surprise success Sadnecessary, Milky Chance opted to work at home rather than in a big recording studio.

those who can’t get enough of Pepe Deluxe and vintage Peter Gabriel. Sometimes it pays off to tune out everything but one’s inner voice. “When we work on stuff, we’re doing it very intuitively—we’re not the kind of people who go into the studio having a real clear vision,” Rehbein reveals. “We’re not going after a certain sound, or having a concept for how a whole album should be. It’s more like ‘Start working, start recording, and see what happens.’ ” Milky Chance plays the Commodore on Saturday and Sunday (February 3 and 4).

in + out

On drawing from multiple genres: “In the end the whole thing has to fit together. I think we did a good job of that. But if you listen to Blossom, there are a lot of different colours there. It’s colourful pictures that meld together.” On feedback: “When you finish songs or demos and show them to management everybody has an opinion—they want to feel good about what you are doing. But in the end it’s always been very clear that we are the only ones that have to be happy.” On original goals: “Basically, it was to stay in our hometown and maybe earn some clicks on YouTube.”

☞

YACHT MAKES THINGS SU P E R P E RS O NAL >>> In Los Angeles, home of elec-

2 tronic-pop duo Yacht, there’s

a six-storey, 55-tonne piece of public art called Triforium. Installed in 1975, the sculpture was created to match 1,494 glowing cubes with music from a 79-note glass-bell carillon: the largest musical instrument of its kind on Earth. Unfortunately, it never really worked. Enter Yacht. Appealing to the L.A. government 40 years later for a grant to restore the piece, instrumentalist Jona Bechtolt and singer Claire L. Evans won $100,000 to refurbish the musical machinery and lights. That’s not the limit of the group’s off-the-wall projects. Last March, for instance, the pair signed on to live-score an original, one-nightonly performance of a film selected by the band. They chose the cult classic Alien, and transformed Jerry Goldsmith’s orchestra into a desolate soundscape. “We knew that originally Ridley Scott wanted to have the Japanese synth pioneer Isao Tomita do the music,” says Evans, speaking to the Straight from her L.A. abode. “He wanted it to be an electronic score, but the studio didn’t go for it and pushed him towards something more

When they’re not making stomping disco-pop records, Yacht’s Claire L. Evans and Jona Bechtolt have countless other projects on the go.

traditional. We rescued that, and added stuff that I love. There’s a really stressful sequence when a character is hunting down the alien in a narrow passageway, and we rewrote it like an acid-house track. We’d never done anything

like a full film score—we just had to work it out from scratch.” The projects are among countless others the duo has produced to spotlight sci-fi, computer culture, and the products of late capitalism. Unsure where Yacht ends and she

Clemens Rehbein sounds off on the things that enquiring minds want to know:

begins, Evans sees the group as a creative outlet to explore all kinds of artistic ventures. All of those schemes, though, exist to complement Yacht’s main focus: releasing stomping disco-pop records. This year celebrating their 10th anniversary, the pair have dropped six self-produced albums over that decade covering weighty themes from mystery and utopia to the death of the CD. Evolving from the abstract pitch-bending of their 2009 record See Mystery Lights to the electronic funk of 2015’s I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler, Evans and Bechtolt have repeatedly pushed the envelope of ideas and styles. Yacht’s latest release, an EP named Strawberry Moon, continues that tradition. “This record is super personal, rather than a high-concept project,” says Evans. “We went through an intense Internet shaming [over faking a sex tape leak to promote a music video] a few months ago, which was big in terms of determining what our values are, and how we want to be understood. We’re at a point in our career where we want to communicate more clearly, because it’s very difficult to convey your identity across a large span of media. For us, the songs are a reflection of spending

the last couple of years on an inward spiral, thinking about ourselves and where the world is going.” Despite its more accessible content, Strawberry Moon is just as esoteric as the rest of Yacht’s catalogue. Angular synths punctuate guitar stabs and Evans’s clean, punk-inspired vocals, like LCD Soundsystem jacked up on amphetamines. Already in heavy rotation during the band’s live sets, it’s become an important part of the group’s collection of projects—a body of work defined by the differences between its components. “We never set out to create a cohesive collection,” Evans says. “The way we think about our output is maximalist—we just go ahead and do everything we want to do, both out of curiosity, and also to pick up new skills. We hope that over time it will evolve into a catalogue that makes sense in the rear-view. Our projects are very amorphous—it’s whatever makes us feel creative, and happy, and vulnerable, and scared in the right way. Strawberry Moon embodies that idea for us.” > KATE WILSON

Yacht plays the Fox Cabaret on Monday (February 5).

FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 27

from page 26

supported by a radio announcer reading the latest news about Hitler, the stock market, or Martin Luther King Jr. This has the effect of distracting from the gorgeous images and ultimately deadening their almost metaphysical effect. Deutsch further clutters the canvas by positing his central figure as an actress, called Shirley, who waltzes agelessly through New York Movie and other deathless frames. But if she’s a figure out of time, that only makes Shirley’s sociopolitical musings more irrelevant. Even if this bad writing were better-read, it

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> KEN EISNER

HAPPY END Starring Isabelle Huppert. In French, with English subtitles. Rated PG

This sleek study in upperdread covers a lot of themes close to that semifrozen organ Michael Haneke calls his heart. The Austrian writer-director be-

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would still ruin the contemplative mood of the originals. A few stabs at period music work better than anything in the script. But anyway, it’s not the meaning or the history we love about Hopper; it’s the silence. The people in his paintings are forever between thoughts.

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hind such twisted fare as Funny Games and Code Unknown is interested in deception and punishment as the most essential modes of existence. Born in Germany, Haneke grew up in Austria and worked as a film critic before producing and directing TV. Since 2000, he has mostly shot in France, with the suitably chilly Isabelle Huppert a near constant in his films. Heading up the construction company handed her by her ailing father, Huppert is here called Anne Laurent, while her Amour handle, Eva, is more or less passed down to the newest member of her troubled family. Eve (Fantine Harduin) is the 13-year-old

daughter of Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz), and has moved into the Laurents’ palatial home in Calais after her mother overdosed on meds. A successful surgeon but a questionable father and husband, Thomas has remarried into the Laurent family, although Eve twigs that he might already be straying. Anyway, this sad-face sprite might not be as innocent as she seems. The intriguingly fractured tale begins with spectacular footage of a construction-site retaining wall collapse. This puts the aristocratic clan under literal threat, especially when Anne’s ne’er-do-well son (Victoria’s Franz Rogowski) hassles one of the accident victims. The troubled lad has a special place in his mom’s

heart, but has no leadership skills, as she admits to her fiancé (Toby Jones), who is, conveniently, an English banker. Luis Buñuel made a whole career out of dissecting the charms of the bourgeoisie, discreet or otherwise, although his films had a satirical wildness this director lacks. Background details about African migrants, France’s growing economic divide, and the family’s Moroccan servants don’t fully connect, even if they suggest larger issues at play. This not-so-happy Haneke ends well enough, however—at least for those who like their humanism on the dark side of elegant restraint. > KEN EISNER

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The Georgia Straight Confessions, an outlet for submitting revelations about your private lives—or for the voyeurs among us who want to read what other people have disclosed.

Scan to confess Secret sexting So finally started texting with this man I’ve known for a while. Got really hot and heavy the first couple days, we both said some dirty things. Now it turns out his wife is pregnant and her due date seems to match the time frame of my nasty little words! Didn’t see that one coming!

There, I said it I hate soup.

A sort of ice broken Today I went on a date for the first time in three years. I was pretty nervous. She was a really nice and interesting person, but I didn’t really feel much of a click, and I don’t think she did either. I am very glad and proud of this, it feels like a big breakthrough for me. Maybe I can join the normal human race and find some intimacy and connection sometime.

Give a dog a Bone To the lady who went way out of her way to return dog bones I had left on the bus a couple weeks ago, I would like to say thank you so very much. I thought that was very nice of you and it was the highlight of my day for sure. The world could use more of you!

Give me some good pick-up lines

are

you

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LIST?

I’m woman back on the dating scene and I want to start approaching men (Outside of the bar scene)

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28 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018

Visit

to post a Confession

BEN HARPER AND CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE American blues-folk singer-songwriter and American blues artist tour in support of upcoming album No Mercy in This Land. Aug 23, doors 6:30 pm, show 7:30 pm, Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $75/59/49/35 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

music/ timeout

FRANK TURNER AND THE SLEEPING SOULS English folk-punk singer-songwriter and his band tour in support of upcoming studio album Be More Kind. Sep 8, doors 6:30 pm, show 7:30 pm, Vogue Theatre (918 Granville). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $39.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

CONCERTS 2JUST ANNOUNCED JESSIE REYEZ Colombian-Canadian soulpop singer-songwriter. Mar 24, doors 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $25 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. PUSSY RIOT Feminist protest-punk band from Russia performs a live show. Mar 25, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Rickshaw Theatre (254 E. Hastings). Tix $25 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat, Zulu Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/. AUSTIN BASHAM AND HOLLOW COVES Texas indie-folk singer-songwriter coheadlines with Australian indie-folk ensemble. Mar 29, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Fox Cabaret (2321 Main). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $15 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. JONATHAN DAVIS American alt-metal vocalist and Korn frontman tours in support of first solo album. Apr 9, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $46.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www. livenation.com/. DJANGO DJANGO British art-rock band tours in support of latest studio album Marble Skies. Apr 24, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $25 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. HARI KONDABOLU Brooklyn-based actor and comedian performs as part of Comedy Night at the Commodore. Apr 28, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $35 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. X AMBASSADORS American rock band performs on its Joyful Tour 2018, with guests Jacob Banks and Shaed. May 8, doors 6:30 pm, show 7:30 pm, Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $56/46/36 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS American experimental noise-rock trio tours in support of latest release Pinned, with guests Sextile. Jun 13, doors 8 pm,

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2THIS WEEK BOOKER T JONES American R&B multiinstrumentalist, songwriter, record producer, and arranger tours in support of new album Sound the Alarm. Feb 2, 7:30 pm, Kay Meek Centre (1700 Mathers Ave., West Van). Tix $29-68, info www.kaymeek.com/. THE HARPOONIST AND THE AXE MURDERER Capilano University and Centennial Theatre present the Vancouverbased duo known for combining rock ‘n’ roll swagger, decades-deep blues style, and high-energy, gritty performances. Feb 2, 8 pm, Centennial Theatre (2300 Lonsdale Ave.). Tix from $28, info www.capilanou.ca/ centre/. DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS Georgia guitarrock/alt-country band tours in support of latest release American Band, with guest Lilly Hiatt. Feb 2, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, The Imperial (319 Main). Tix $30 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat, Highlife Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/.

don’t miss out!

THU FEB 1

Mr.Boom Bap presents

FRI FEB 2

The Railway Stage presents

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MIND AND MUSIC MATTERS Wingspan DJs/Arts, Culture & Public Pedagogy at UBC presents Sarah Jickling and Greg McLeod from My Good Bad Luck Band, and the Jeff Standfield Band for an evening of music. Feb 3, 8-11 pm, The Round House in the Performance Theatre. Tix $10 at the door, info wingspan.educ.ubc.ca/.

9pm-late Live Acts Canada presents

MODERN DAY POETS SUN FEB 4

KATY PERRY American pop superstar (“Teenage Dream”, “Firework”) performs tunes from latest album Witness. Feb 5-6, 7 pm, Rogers Arena (800 Griffiths Way). Tix at www.ticketmaster.ca/.

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR Canadian experimental-music collective tours in support of latest release Luciferian Towers. Jun 4, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Vogue Theatre (918 Granville). Tix on sale Feb 2, 10 am, $29.50 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat Records and www.ticketfly.com/. BREAKOUT FESTIVAL Outdoor hip-hop and R&B festival features major international headlining acts alongside some of Vancouver’s rising talent. Lineup and ticket info announced on Feb 5. Jun 9-10, PNE Amphitheatre (2901 E. Hastings). Info www.breakout-festival.com/.

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B3 FOR BUNNY: NEW YORK’S PAT BIANCHI TRIO Two-time Grammy nominated organist and winner of Downbeat magazine’s 2016 rising star poll, Pat Bianchi is known for his harmonic prowess, rhythmic intensity, and versatility that are rivalled by few. Presented by Coastal Jazz. Feb 8-9, 8 pm, Frankie’s Jazz Club (765 Beatty). Tix $20, info www.coastaljazz.ca/. TROKER The Chutzpah! Festival and Cap Jazz presents Mexico’s Troker, known for blurring jazz, rock, mariachi, metal, funk and hip-hop. NPR describes their music as “a fierce huge sound”. Feb 17, 8 pm, Rickshaw Theatre (254 E. Hastings). Tix from $25, info www.capilanou.ca/centre/, info www.rick shawtheatre.com/1015/troker-with-guests/.

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savage love I am a 38-year-old lesbian, very femme, very out. I have a coworker I can’t figure out. We’ve worked together for a year and gotten very close. I never want to put out the wrong signals to coworkers, and I err on the side of keeping a safe but friendly distance. This is different. We are each other’s confidants at work. We stare at each other across the office, we text until late at night, and we go for weekend dog walks. Her texts aren’t overtly flirty, but they are intimate and feel more than friendly. I’ve never had a “straight” girl act like this toward me. Is she into me? Or just needy? Is it all in my head?

lesbian (lots of lesbians come out later in life), or she could be bisexual (most bisexual women are closeted, and others are perceived to be straight despite their best efforts to identify as bisexual)—and lots of late-in-lifers and/or closeted folks don’t come out until some hot samesex prospect works up the nerve to ask them out. If your coworker isn’t currently under you at work and you’re not an imminent promotion away from becoming her supervisor and your company doesn’t incentivize workplace romances by banning them, ask your coworker out on a date—an unambiguous ask for a date, not an appointment to meet up at the dog park. And this is important: before she can respond to your ask, WORKING, invite her to say “no” if the answer is no or “straight” if the identity is straight. Good luck!

> WORKPLACE OBSESSION ROILING KNOWING-IF-NERVOUS GAL

Five weeks ago, a letter writer jumped down my throat for giving advice to lesbians despite not being a lesbian myself. Questions from lesbians have been pouring in ever since—lesbians apparently don’t like being told who they may or may not ask for advice. Three weeks ago, I responded to a man whose coworker asked him if he might want to sleep with the coworker’s wife—a coworker who was “not [his] boss”—and people jumped down my throat for entertaining the idea because it is NEVER EVER NEVER EVER okay to sleep with a coworker and/or a coworker’s spouse. And now here I am responding to a question from a lesbian who wants to sleep with a coworker. Farewell to my mentions, as the kids say. Here we go, WORKING… Your straight-identified workmate could be straight, or she could be a

I’m a lesbian, and my partner recently reconnected with a childhood friend. At first I felt sorry for him, as he was having a health crisis. But he’s better now, and his pushy behaviour really gets to me. He texts her at all hours—and when he can’t get in touch with her, he bugs me. When I refused to go on a trip with him and his husband, he guilt-tripped me for weeks. He constantly wants us to come to his house, but they’re chainsmokers. I’m going to Los Angeles to interview a celebrity for a project, and now he’s trying to insert himself into this trip because he wants to go starfucking! He also wants to officiate at our upcoming wedding! My partner won’t stand up for me when I say

> BY DAN SAVAGE no to this guy. How can I get my part- likes it (the thirst is real), FRUSner to listen to me or get her jackass TRATED, or she’s making out friend to leave me be? with you because she wants you in > CAN’T THINK OF A CLEVER her life and believes—perhaps misACRONYM takenly—that this is the only way to hold your interest/fuel your obsesBurn it down, CTOACA. Call or email sion (the thirst is faked). If she likes your partner’s old friend and tell him it, then she’s a lesbian or bisexual you think he’s a pushy, unpleasant, but so invested in her heterosexual smelly asshole and that you don’t identity that she can’t “go there”. want to hang out with him—not at his (Alabama, you said? Maybe she place, not on a trip, and not at your doesn’t feel safe being out in your wedding, which he not only won’t community.) If she’s making out be officiating but, if you had your with you only because she’s lonely druthers, he wouldn’t be attending. and values your friendship and/or That should do it. You can’t tell your enjoys the ego boost of being your soon-to-be wife who she can’t have obsession, then you don’t want to as a friend—that’s controlling behav- keep making out with her—for her iour—but she can’t force you to spend sake (no one feels good after making time with someone you loathe. out with someone they’d rather not be making out with) and for your I’m a 40-year-old lesbian in own sake (those make-out sessions Alabama, and I work with a woman give you false hope and prevent you I find impossible to resist. The catch from directing your romantic and is she’s 66, straight, and has two chil- erotic energies elsewhere). dren. I love her deeply, she loves me, but we don’t have sex. She has given I’m a woman in my early 60s me a pass to sleep with whoever I with a healthy lifestyle and an even like, but I’m one of those weirdos healthier libido. I’ve had almost who requires an emotional connec- exclusively hetero relationships, tion to sleep with someone. The odd but I’ve been attracted to women thing is that she vacillates between all my life and all of my masturheavily making out with me every bation fantasies involve women. time we are alone together and say- The older I get, the more I think ing, “No, I can’t, I’m straight!” Why about a relationship with a woman. does she do everything but sex if The thought of being in love with a woman, making love with her, she’s straight? > FEELING REALLY UNSURE sharing a life with her—it all SINCE THIS REMARKABLY AMAZING sounds like heaven. The trouble is TEMPTRESS ENTERED DOMAIN that it’s really hard to see how I’ll meet women who would be interThat nice straight lady from work ested in me. There’s rarely anyone is making out with you because she my age on dating apps. I don’t even

know what age range is reasonable. What’s a reasonable age difference for women with women? Also, who is going to be interested in a rookie? Advice? > ENERGETIC LONELY DAME ENVISIONING RELATIONSHIP

Emmy Award–winning actress Sarah Paulson is 43 years old and Emmy Award–winning actress Holland Taylor is 75—and Sarah and Holland have been girlfriends for almost three years. Emmy Award–winning talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres is 60 years old and Screen Actors Guild Award–winning actress Portia de Rossi is 45 years old—and Ellen and Portia have been together for 13 years and married for almost 10. There are lots of non-Emmy/SAGAward-winning lesbians out there in relationships with significant age gaps—and at least one lesbian in Alabama who desperately wants to be in one. So don’t let the lack of older women on dating apps prevent you from putting yourself out there on apps and elsewhere, ELDER. As for your rookie status, there are two examples of lesbians pining over rookies in this very column! And remember: If you put yourself out there, you might be alone a year from now—but if you don’t put yourself out there, you’ll definitely be alone a year from now. On the Lovecast, the art of the consensual dick pic: savagelovecast.com. Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage . ITMFA.org.

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TALK MEN OFF GET TALKED OFF FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 31

T H E L A N D M A R K T H AT E L E VAT E S VA N C O U V E R T O T H E H I G H E S T I N T E R N AT I O N A L O P U L E N C E

T H E I N A U G U R A L E X H I B I T I O N – O N E D A Y O N LY S AT U R D AY F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 1 8 · N O O N – 4 P M 740 NICOLA STREET VANCOUVER BE THE FIRST TO EXPERIENCE 14,000 SF OF IMMERSIVE LUXURY 2 F U L L D I S P L AY S U I T E S

Impeccable Location and Breath-taking Panoramic Harbour View Only at Landmark On Robson, in the heart of Vancouver Vancouver’s Robson Street is many things. It’s a symbol of luxury and prestige; it’s one of the five most famous luxury streets in the housing top brands from all over the world. Landmark on Robson is located at 1400 Robson Street, and is the only highly anticipated new developement around the block in 15 years.

Location, Location, Location

Unique Sky Terrace with a 270° beautiful view

Location is the essence of an estate. Landmark on Robson is built on the former prestigious Empire Landmark Hotel, and is the star of the show. Surrounded by stores of international top brands, the building is situated between Coal Harbour and English Bay, and adjacent to the 400 hectare Stanley Park as well as the West Vancouver district where a ten-year development plan is about to roll out and add even more value to the land here.

Landmark On Robson is designed by top international architectural masters and combines sophisticated materials with modern aesthetics. All units feature a Sky Terrace. Two-bedroom and three-bedroom units have 182 sq.ft. balconies which is connected to living and dining areas, giving it some extra sense of space. The penthouse enjoys a built-in infinity pool that blurs the lines of the sky, the harbour, and the city. Lost Lagoon

Vancouver Harbour

nm De

Coal Harbour Waterfront

Lost Lagoon

Central Business District

English Bay

Burrard

Shangri-La Hotel Hyatt Regency Rosewood Hotel Georgia UBC Robson Square

Granville

The Orpheum

Rogers Arena

Vancouver City Centre

in the city.

The One-of-a-kind Clubhouse Being prominent is not just about the appearance, but also the quality within. Club Robson, an 18,000-square-foot private club, features an approximately 9,000-square-foot outdoor terrace with an ingenious design that blends the indoor heated swimming pool with the outdoor sunbathing deck. The terrace also comes with a gym, yoga room, billiard room and private dining

Stanley Park

Vancouver Downtown Location Map

Landmark On Robson has been developed by Asia Standard Americas, the North American subsidiary of Asia Standard Group, which has been listed in Hong Kong for more than 25 years. The Group developes, manages, and invests in high-end commercial, residential, retail and hotel properties in Hong Kong and first tier cities in China. Grosvenor Place in Hong Kong’s Repulse Bay has won a number of international awards, including the highest-honor MIPIM Award for Residential Development given in Cannes, France. Hong Kong’s Westminster Terrace and Shanghai’s Queen’s Gate are also recipients of international awards.

B.C.Place

Landmark On Robson Development Information Number of Units : 237 Suite Size : 584 s.f. – 1,623 s.f. (Typical Units) 2,631 s.f. – 8,200 s.f. (Special Units) Suite Type : 1 Bedroom, 2 Bedrooms, 3 Bedrooms and 4 Bedrooms Sky Terrace Size : 54 s.f. – 182 s.f. (Typical Units) 364 s.f. – 728 s.f. (Special Units) Kitchen : Minotti Kitchen and Gaggenau Kitchen Appliances Architects : PDP London Architects , MCM Partnership Interior Designer : Koichiro Ikebuchi Developer : ASNA Robson Landmark Holdings Limited

MASTER OF INTERIOR DESIGN Atelier Ikebuchi

– Koichiro Ikebuchi

Koichiro Ikebuchi is a leading Japanese master of interior design. His celebrated style combines simple lines with striking ingenuity, and a flair for both artistry and comfort. His designs in the UK, Italy and Singapore have garnered a number of international awards.

Hong Kong Westminister Terrace

THE ROYAL APPOINTED ARCHITECT PDP London – David Hoggard

The authoritative publication “The Architect’s Journal 2017” named PDP London one of Britain's top 100 architects. PDP was also appointed by the British royal family to renovate Prince Edward’s mansion into one of the world's highest value properties. It is the only architectural firm to be honored as one of the “Great British Brands 2017.”

AWARD-WINNING ARCHITECT

Shanghai Queen’s Gate Photo: B. Matheson Architectural Photographer

MCM – Mark Thompson Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership (MCM) was founded in Canada in 1965, and nd is now one of the top architects, designers and planners in BC. Known for surmounting ng great challenges successfully, MCM has been praised for its works such as The Convention vention Center, Pan Pacific Hotel and Bentall 5.

Hong Kong Westminister Terrace

Pre-Registration : www.landm www.landmarkonrobson.com

Enquiry : 604 566 2288

the project accurately accurately. EE.&O.E. &O E

32 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 1 – 8 / 2018

1400 Robson Street, BC, V6G 1B9

Vancouver Convention Centre West

Project Manager

MNP P Tower

Photo: Ema Peter Photography

Authorized agent