The Georgia Straight - I Saw You - Feb 8, 2018

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Photos are for illustrative purposes only. Pricing in effect Friday Feb. 9 to Thursday Feb. 15, 2018. Overwaitea Food Group LP, a Jim Pattison business. Proudly BC Owned and Operated.

2 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

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6 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

CONTENTS

Boundary Bay Regional Park. Fan Jiang photo.

15

COVER

When Courtney Jukich first saw Mik Byskov, it was during a scary Halloween event. She placed a free ad in the Straight’s I Saw You feature to reconnect, he saw it, and... Did “I saw you” become an “I do”? > BY K ATE WILSON

18

FOOD

Lunar New Year is approaching, so we offer some pointers on Asian foods to cook or seek out for health, prosperity, and flavour. > BY TAMMY K WAN

23

ARTS

The Talking Stick fest shows the fireworks that happen when a Quebec folk troupe joins forces with our Louis Riel Métis Dancers. > BY ALE X ANDER VART Y

31

19 10 16 29 18 36 12 39 17 9 27

The Bottle Cannabis Confessions Dance I Saw You Local Discs Renters of Vancouver Savage Love Straight Stars Straight Talk Theatre

TIME OUT

r

30 Arts 37 Music

MOVIES

Félicité drops us into the havoc of Kinshasa; sisters bust out in Arab-Israeli In Between; Permission gets too cute with its hall pass; happiness is not a warm gun in Winchester.

35

START HERE

SERVICES 37 Careers 12 Real Estate

MUSIC

The Brooklyn duo behind Diet Cig is still getting used to fans lining up after shows to say its music has changed their lives. > BY MIKE USINGER

GeorgiaStraight @ GeorgiaStraight

37

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TROUT LAKE COMMUNITY CENTRE FAMILY DAY - MONDAY FEBRUARY 12 Bring your family and friends to this FREE event featuring:

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Brought to you by Grandview Community Centre Association No strollers allowed in the building. Stroller parking available at north outside entrance

We acknowledge the financial support of the Province of British Columbia

FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 7

SIMON COUTTS

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This home sits on a large, beautifully landscaped corner lot, and has expansive views looking South West to the Fraser River and beyond. It is located in Central Coquitlam and is close to everything, including schools, public transit, and community amenities.

With 4,915 sq. ft. of luxurious living spread over 3 levels, this home offers all that today’s family is looking for: 4 beds & 4 baths up (3 ensuited), including a gorgeous master with spa-like ensuite. The main level has a spacious, open floor plan, welcoming grand entrance, huge open concept living and dining rooms, bright inviting kitchen with high-end appliances including 5 burner Bertazzoni gas range, powder room, large laundry/mud room, separate spice kitchen, and is all seamlessly tied together on gorgeous hardwood flooring. Downstairs offers a large media/family room with wet bar & fridge, full bath and bedroom. This home also has a spacious separate suite with1 bedroom plus den and full bathroom, a full kitchen and living room plus private entrance and easy access parking. A secured attached 2 car garage is conveniently located next to the kitchen and mud room. The large covered back deck overlooks an expansive, private backyard, and features outdoor speakers, heaters in the ceiling and gas hook up for your BBQ, making this home perfect for year-round outdoor living. This Stone Shore Builders and Thomas Homes built home is a must see.

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SIMON COUTTS PERSONAL REAL ESTATE CORPORTATION 8 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

This beautiful, serene 8,300 square foot property is situated in one of Point Grey’s most coveted neighbourhoods. With spectacular views of the mountains & water, and zoned RS-1, the potential is almost limitless. 4,000 sq ft of living space, 5 bdrm, 4 bath, and brimming with true heritage charm, this stunning family home possesses all the details one looks for in a West Side residence. The large yard is ideal for children to play in, and the generous sundeck is a perfect spot for adults to relax. This home offers something special for every member of the family. Rich wood details in the architecture and gleaming leaded glass windows add to the unique character and charm of this traditional West Side home. With the best schools within walking distance & UBC, golf, and beaches minutes away.

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straight talk OVERDOSE CALLS SPIKED ON HASTINGS LAST WINTER

Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside entered a new and more intense phase of the opioid crisis last winter, one that was characterized by significantly more overdoses beyond the increase that had already occurred before 2016.

That picture emerges from B.C. Emergency Health Services data supplied at the Straight’s request. It covers 911 calls for suspected overdoses in what is often described as ground zero for the drug epidemic: the two-block stretch of East Hastings Street that runs from Carrall Street to Main Street.

The statistics show that during the first six months of 2016, paramedics and firefighters were very busy responding to overdose calls there, at an average of 49 each month.

Then, in September of that year, the number of calls jumped to 103, and it continued to rise, to a peak of 262 in November 2016.

A downward trend followed.

For the first six months of 2017, calls declined but still averaged 180 per month.

Then the situation appears to have settled. During the last six months of 2017, there was an average of 125 overdose calls each month. That’s far lower than the peak of 262 but still more than double the average for the first six months of 2016.

The rise coincides with a period when fentanyl was detected in increasing numbers of overdose victims and when an even more dangerous synthetic opioid, carfentanil, is known to have arrived in B.C. Brian Twaites is an advanced-care paramedic who works for the B.C. Ambulance Service in the Downtown Eastside. “Did we expect it to get worse?” he asked in a telephone interview. “We didn’t think it would, but it did. And so we’ve carried on and dealt with it the best we can.”

In addition to call volumes, he noted that calls are more intense.

“Because of the strength of the drugs, these calls take longer than they used to,” Twaites said.

“The resuscitation period is longer, requiring repeated doses of Narcan [brand name of naloxone].”

Twaites also called attention to the total number of calls, noting

The winter of 2016-17 saw overdose calls skyrocket. Travis Lupick photo. “compassion fatigue” has become an issue.

During the two years for which the Straight was supplied numbers, these two blocks of East Hastings Street saw 3,004 calls for suspected overdoses (compared to 42,716 for all of B.C.).

Twaites said the provincial government has come through with additional resources.

B.C. Emergency Health Services received $5 million in new provincial funding in November 2016 and, in January 2018, hired 10 full-time and eight part-time paramedics. It is also in the process of adding 20 paramedic specialists, who provide clinical and technical support.

“We are getting more paramedic units out on the road, and we’ve developed a resilience course for occupation stress,” Twaites said.

According to the B.C. Coroners Service, 1,422 people in British Columbia died of an illicit-drug overdose last year, up from 993 in 2016, 518 in 2015, and 369 in 2014.

Fentanyl, carfentanil, and analogs were associated with 81 percent of deaths in 2017. > TRAVIS LUPICK

COPE SEEKS LEFT-WING UNITY AROUND HOUSING Vancouver’s oldest left-wing party wants to form an electoral alliance around the housing issue.

Connie Hubbs, cochair of the Coalition of Progressive Electors, said COPE is reaching out to OneCity, the Green Party of Vancouver, the team of former council byelection candidate Jean Swanson, and others.

“We would have to have some agreements on housing affordability if we were to have some kind of electoral alliance,” Hubbs told the Straight in a phone interview.

According to Hubbs, COPE has no plan at present to talk with Vision Vancouver, the party that has ruled the city since 2008.

“I don’t think that Vision intended to bring about the kind of housing crisis that we have now. I don’t think that that was their intention at all,” Hubbs said. “I think they thought that by using market-driven solutions, it would work out. That is the way capitalism is supposed to work. But it didn’t work.

“And a lot of things came together to contribute to that,” she continued. “It wasn’t just the policies of Vision Vancouver. But they were definitely involved with that, and it makes it difficult for COPE to work with Vision.”

Hubbs did not rule out the possibility that COPE may later consider a dialogue with Vision. There are concerns that the so-called progressive vote may fragment, allowing the right-ofcentre Non-Partisan Association (NPA) to take back city hall.

“What we’re hoping is certainly not to have an NPA government, because I think there’s many things about that that would be very unfortunate, but on the other hand, COPE isn’t going to ally themselves with those that aren’t prepared to be strong on housing,” Hubbs said.

The next municipal election will be held in October this year.

According to Raj Hundal, a former Vision park-board chair, discussions about forward-thinking solutions to the city’s problems inevitably involve talking about an electoral cooperation with Vision.

“It’s important for progressive organizations like Vision, COPE, and other parties to work together…to make sure that the city of Vancouver does not go backwards to the time when the NPA was in power,” Hundal told the Straight by phone. > CARLITO PABLO

LUNAR

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The Georgia Straight | Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly | Volume 52 Number 2613 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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Jodie Emery worries that the federal government is not coming to the aid of the many victims of prohibition, including herself and her husband, Marc Emery.

Criminal records could sink pot entrepreneurs > B Y TR AVIS LUPICK

A

n unusual aspect of Canada’s soon-to-be-legal cannabis market is that the activists who led the legalization movement may find themselves excluded from the industry for which their efforts paved the way.

Vancouver activists like Jodie and Marc Emery and dispensary pioneer Don Briere, for example, have criminal records for possessing and selling marijuana. Now those criminal records could be used against them in federal and provincial licensing systems that are under development to decide who gets to cultivate and sell recreational cannabis.

Another 23,329 people across the country were charged with marijuana offences in 2016 alone, according to Statistics Canada. So the question of whether or not those offences will prohibit participation in marijuana sales is one that affects a lot of people.

On February 5, the B.C. government released its first batch of detailed rules for recreational cannabis and went a long way in addressing activists’ concerns for those with criminal records. “Background checks of police/ criminal records which will be examined on a case by case basis,� reads a provincial licensing guide for would-be private-retail operators. “Having a record of criminal activity will not necessarily exclude you from obtaining a licence,� it continues. “Low risk criminal activity may not exclude a person from becoming a licensee whereas associations with organized crime will exclude a person from becoming a licensee.�

Kirk Tousaw is a Vancouver-based lawyer who specializes in drug policy.

In a telephone interview, he described the guidelines as good news. “I’m hopeful that the pioneers are not going to be excluded,� he said in reference to activists like the Emerys. “If they are prevented from doing so, then I think we’ll have a failure of implementation.�

Tousaw argued it’s a justice issue that’s larger than how retail licences are assigned. “If you’ve been charged with a crime and convicted and you’ve served your sentence, you’ve paid your debt to society,� he explained. “When your sentence is done, I don’t think it’s appropriate for the existence of that criminal record to then prevent you from participating in a lawful business in the future.�

Ian Waddell, a former B.C. MLA and lobbyist for the dispensary industry, suggested that Ottawa should act to prevent any possibility of the provinces making criminal records an issue. “The federal government could pass some sort of amnesty,� he explained. “If the feds don’t come across with some sort of blanket amnesty—and I wouldn’t hold my breath on that—the solution might be for the province and

the cities, when they’re granting licences, to give it a fairly liberal interpretation.�

Last December, Jodie Emery pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking and possession of proceeds of crime over $5,000. In a telephone interview, she suggested the larger issue is a systemic problem with how Canada has approached marijuana legalization overall.

Emery explained that the Liberal government has focused entirely on health and safety. In making his case for legal marijuana, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has seldom strayed from two points: first, that legalization will take marijuana and its proceeds away from organized crime; and, second, that regulation will keep marijuana away from children.

In stark contrast, Emery continued, U.S. jurisdictions working to legalize marijuana have focused on restorative justice, addressing racism inherent in the war on drugs and compensation for wrongs committed by law-enforcement agencies in their application of marijuana laws against people of colour.

Emery pointed to Oakland, California, for example, which in May 2016 announced it would create an “equity permits� program to see the city issue licences to sell cannabis on a basis that actually gives preference to applicants with past convictions for marijuana crimes.

More recently, San Francisco announced it would dismiss more than 3,000 convictions for misdemeanour offences related to marijuana. In support of the move, California lieutenant-governor Gavin Newsom said it would help address a “costly, broken, and racially discriminatory system of marijuana criminalization�.

Emery argued that is what is missing from conversations the Liberal government has led on cannabis reform. “The Canadian legalization message completely abandoned the civil-liberties argument and the justice side,� she said. “Federal government messaging has been about how marijuana is dangerous to society and that’s why they need to legalize it to protect us from it,� Emery continued. “That completely ignores the victims of prohibition and it continues the disenfranchisement and unfairness that we should be trying to fix by legalizing cannabis.�

Don Briere is the owner of Weeds Glass and Gifts, one of Vancouver’s largest chains of storefront dispensaries.

He also has multiple convictions for growing and trafficking marijuana that go back more than a decade. In a telephone interview, Briere warned that activists who have led the legalization movement will not be left out of the legal industry without a fight. “We went to jail for this; we fought for these rights,� he said. “So we’ll be filing in court if they don’t treat us fairly.� -

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778-786-0977 FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 11

HOUSING

Renters of Vancouver: “Then we got creative” > B Y KATE W IL SO N

Renters of Vancouver takes an intimate look at how the city’s residents are dealing with the housing crisis. Tenants choose to remain nameless when sharing their stories.

“W

e’d been living in our home for about six years when the owner decided to remortgage the house. He wanted to buy a place in the Interior, but because he was a tradesperson, he couldn’t get the financing. He had no choice but to sell our suite, which was part of the house that he grew up in.

“We had a very transparent relationship with him as a landlord. For the time we were there, we put a lot of maintenance into the property and undertook some big projects, like installing a front lawn. When he sold the house, he said, ‘Whoever buys this place, I’ll make sure I put in a good word for you. I’ll tell them what great tenants you are and recommend that they keep you.’

“When the deal closed, the new owner said that he would keep renting the property. But soon after, the realtor—who was the agent for our old landlord—issued us an eviction notice on behalf of the buyer. It said that we had to leave because the new landlord would be moving into the suite.

“Our first step was to ask the realtor for the new landlord’s address or phone—anything beyond just his name—so we could contact him. He just said, ‘No, I have nothing to do with this—it’s just between you and him.’

“Had our lives been in any semblance of normality, we would probably have looked up our situation online and found that we were able to challenge that eviction notice.

We could have required the buyer to provide proof that he was moving in, like receipts that he had hired a

This family of four triumphed over a medical crisis and an unfair eviction by chasing down their landlord. Belle Ancell photo.

moving company. But the window for that is really short.

“At that time, we were living in crisis mode. Six weeks earlier, my daughter had nearly been killed in a car accident. She was riding her bike and the chain came off. It was a bike with back-pedal brakes, which meant that there was no way to stop.

She rolled into 12th Avenue at rush hour and got hit by a pickup truck doing about 70 km/h.

“By some miracle, she only broke her heel bone and got a deep laceration on her leg. She was so fortunate. But she was nearly five years old then, and her sister was one-anda-half. With her in a wheelchair, and with another young child to look after, we were rushed off our

VANCOUVER

RICHMOND

feet. We had no family in town, no childcare, and we were trying to house-hunt after an eviction.

“We were lucky. We managed to find another place to live about a kilometre away. Thankfully, that meant that we didn’t have to change our daughters’ registration at kindergarten and daycare, but once we’d moved out, it was too late to challenge the eviction and have it overturned.

“We then found out that at the moment we left the house, the landlord had filled our suite with new renters.

We talked to them and discovered that he was charging them $500 a month more than we were paying. None of them were his family members.

“We decided to take our case to the Residential Tenancy Branch—and

RICHMOND

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that’s when the landlord’s true colours started coming out.

“First we had to figure out who this guy was. We went and did a title search on the house, which cost us some money. There were two names on the deed: the landlord’s, and that of a private company. I then paid another lot of money to go through the corporate records, and found out who the directors of the company were. It turns out that it only had one director—and that director was the landlord. From then on, everything we did, be it registered letters or filing paperwork, had to be done in duplicate—even though they were both at the same address.

“We’d figured out who we were doing business with, so we sent the

documents to summon the landlord to arbitration at the Residential Tenancy Branch. But the letters we sent were returned to us unclaimed. Both of them had sat at the post office for weeks and were never picked up.

“A little while later, we had our arbitration hearing. When the time came, the landlord never showed up. We told the facts to the branch officer, won the case, and were awarded a monetary order. What we didn’t know, though, is that the monetary order doesn’t mean anything on its own. If you want to get your money back, you have to go to small claims court.

“Then we got creative. Just by coincidence, the landlord had evicted the new tenants the day after we got our judgment. He’d raised the rent another $500, and was looking for more renters. I decided to catfish him. I made up an email address and said, ‘Hey, I’m interested in viewing this place.’

“When he met me at the property, I finally got to see him in person.

I took down the make and model of his vehicle, got a physical description of him, and I told him that we had won our case. I gave him a copy of the monetary order, informed him of a deadline to pay, and instructed him how to give us the money. When I put it in his hand, he denied all knowledge of our eviction.

“From then on, all text messages to him went unanswered. We still didn’t know where he lived. We once paid a visit to the home where the registered mail we sent was returned from, and it was vacant—it was just a building under construction. But then we got a new lead. We had the idea to talk to the residents who had just moved in, and they told us that the landlord’s address on their lease was a business—and that it was in Whistler.

“We had to figure out what that Whistler address meant. If you want see next page

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to summon someone to a smallclaims hearing, you must serve them notice, and we had to serve it in person. When I saw him the day after the hearing, I hadn’t registered anything with the small claims court yet, so the demand letter didn’t really carry any weight. Now we were faced with the task of handing over the legal documents in person, to an address in a different city, and we weren’t even sure if he lived there.

“I decided to hire a process server—someone to give him the documents for us. He was fantastic. He knew a ton about all the tricks that people pull to evade service, and he was extremely generous with his time.

He went up to Whistler, knocked on some doors, and he talked to the people who lived at the address.

“The woman there said she’d never heard of the landlord—but the process server got her full name. When we Google-searched her, it turned out that she was the corporate secretary at another company where the landlord was the CFO. The building was absolutely acting as a shell address for him to receive mail for his business affairs without him ever being there so that he could, presumably, avoid being served any documents.

“Here’s the thing about small claims. If you can’t serve somebody with a notice to appear at a payment hearing, you can apply for an order of substituted service. It says that if you have compelling proof that the person is deliberately avoiding being served, then it’s sufficient to tape a message to the door of their house.

“I went back before a judge at the small claims court and got that substituted order. Then I drove over to his previous business address in Vancouver—and here’s the twist. When I went up to the house, the landlord was there in person. He was just talking to a group of workers who were fixing up the property at the end of the workday.

“I walked up and addressed him by his name. He said, ‘I don’t know who that is.’ I told him that was strange, because I’d already met him before in person. When I started to

give him the documents, he put his hands behind his back. He physically wouldn’t take them. I just looked at him, and said, ‘Actually, I don’t care.

I just have to tape these to the door,’ and I did. He stared at me and I left.

I said, ‘I’ll see you in court.’

“As well as summoning him to the payments hearing, we had also put a lien on the house he’d bought. That meant that he couldn’t refinance or sell that house as long as the lien was on it. At this point, he’d been renting it for two years, and it was just about the time that the interest rates started spiking.

“The day after I taped the documents to his door, I got a call from a guy who said he was the landlord’s lawyer. After inquiring a little bit, I found out that he wasn’t a lawyer: he was an articling student and the landlord’s nephew. He said that the landlord didn’t want to come to the payment hearing and that he wanted to settle. He said he would finally give us the money. We were happy for the whole thing to be done.

“After a few more phone calls, we took the lien off the house. I didn’t push too hard about making him pay the other expenses beyond what he owed me, because at any point he could have gone to the court, written a cheque, and given it to them. Then it would be up to me to go through another lengthy process of going in front of a judge to prove that I was entitled to that money.

“Eventually his nephew came to my house and brought me a cashier’s cheque. I signed a form for the release of the lien, and it was over. I’m willing to bet that this wasn’t the first time he was summoned to court.

“I’m now paying $400 a month more for our new place. I’m further away from the school, and we’ve lost all the connections with our neighbours. There are really no kids in this neighbourhood for ours to play with, and we have to drive the girls to school now rather than walking. Yes, we finally got our money. But we’ll never get our old living situation back.” -

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14 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

VALENTINE’S DAY

From I Saw You to “I do”, couple finds love A message in the Georgia Straight about an evening at the morgue led Mik Byskov to begin a relationship with Courtney Jukich > B Y KATE WIL SON

I

t was Halloween of 2015 when Courtney Jukich first saw Mik Byskov.

That night, she’d booked a slot to ride the Haunted Vancouver Trolley Tour. Regaled with gruesome tales as they sped past landmarks like the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, Stanley Park, and Mountain View Cemetery, Jukich and her best friend spent the evening giggling at the horror stories. Eventually, they pulled up to the last stop—the Vancouver Police Museum morgue. There she caught sight of a “cute pathologist” who would change her life.

“I’d been doing this acting gig with my roommate at the time,” Byskov tells the Straight over coffee, seated opposite Jukich. “We were the final part of the Trolley Tour, and we would perform a 20-minute skit full of terrible puns. One of us would play a doctor and walk the visitors through an autopsy on a dead body. The other person would play the corpse, and we would switch it up to keep it fresh.

That night, I was the pathologist.

“I remember seeing this girl, and she seemed really, really excited,” he continues. “A lot of the scene is improv, and she was great at interacting.

She was wearing a big hat, and I was talking about spilling blood all over it. There’s a part where I’m meant to scare people, so I leaned over and said: ‘Are you comfortable getting soaked in blood and gore?’ She was just like, ‘Absolutely.’ I remember really wanting to talk to this girl some more, but the act ends with me dying. It was sad, because I was just lying on the floor as everyone walked out. I just thought, ‘Well, that’s the end of that.’ ” The next day, Jukich placed a three-sentence ad on the Georgia Straight’s I Saw You blog.

“I was the over-enthusiastic girl who jumped at the chance to head into the autopsy,” it read. “You were the cute ‘pathologist’ who lead [sic] the tour. Drinks?”

The Straight’s I Saw You column began running in print in 1993 and is now published online as well as in the paper. The feature gives individuals who felt a romantic spark with a stranger a second chance to connect by logging on to the website and writing when and where they met. If a reader identifies himself or herself as the person in the description, they reply to the post and the two can email back and forth. It remains one of the most popular sections of the Straight.

Courtney Jukich turned to the paper to reconnect with an actor she spotted at a Halloween show. Mik Byskov photo.

“The I Saw Yous was the only noncreepy way I could think of contacting him without ringing the Vancouver Police Museum and saying, ‘Hey, who was the cute doctor?’ ” Jukich says with a laugh. “I had no expectations that it would work out, but I felt I just had to put it out there.

I wanted to know that I did everything I could to try and reach him.

“I got an email a few days later,” she continues, “and we went out for the first time the next day.”

The pair began their relationship with a date at Merchants on Commercial Drive. It was pouring rain. Byskov was wearing a new pair of shoes and his best jeans, and both were soaked by

2

ran at the top of the feature.

“You were the over-enthusiastic girl who jumped at the chance to head into the autopsy,” it read. “I was the ‘cute pathologist’ who led the tour. You posted an I Saw You asking to grab a drink. It’s been the best two years of my life. Will you marry me?”

“She made me a really cool photo cube for our one-year anniversary, and one of the sides was the original ad,” Byskov remembers with a smile. “I used it as a reference when I was writing what to say. I liked the idea of the symmetry of the beginning of the relationship and the start of the next step. You always hear about people proposing at the spot where they first

Vancouver singer-songwriter Leah Barley found a connection through I Saw You

“It was the summer of 2010. I had just moved to Vancouver earlier that year in February to study at CSNN [Canadian School of Natural Nutrition] on West Broadway. We had class through the summer because it was a one-year intensive course. On our breaks, we would all go outside and sit in the sun. One day a group of us were standing on the sidewalk and two guys were walking toward us. As they came closer, one of them locked eyes with me as he walked past. He was rugged, tanned, and tattooed. Total babe.

“A few weeks later, I was heading to class and read the I Saw Yous and he had written about me. He described the group of us outside the school and what I looked like—cute girl with blond dreads and glasses—and I knew it was him.

“I was sort of freaking out when I got to class; I was laughing so hard and was really excited. When I got home, I logged on to the website so we could connect in person.

“It turned out that we were both fire spinners, so we hung out at different beaches to play and spin together.

Nothing serious came of it, but we’re still friends to this day.”

are you

on the LIST?

the time they sat down. He performed a magic trick with a pack of promotional cards that Jukich had picked up, and they drank craft cocktails. They split the bill and he walked her home.

They kissed at her door.

Two years later, the couple found themselves ready to take their relationship to the next level.

“With her, I was the happiest I’d ever been,” Byskov says. “It seemed right to propose.”

The actor, a fan of the theatrical, turned once more to the Straight’s I Saw You column. Byskov placed an ad that reversed his girlfriend’s phrasing, and contacted the editorial department to make sure his post

met. I felt like it would be a fun way to do it.”

With the post secretly coming out in the paper the next week, the couple took off for a holiday in the Cook Islands. Byskov carried the ring— a piece from a New York jewellery store—on the plane at the bottom of his bag, in a little box tied with a ribbon.

The edition of the Straight came out on the Thursday. He took a screenshot of the ad on his phone and saved it. Together, the pair climbed to the highest point on Aitutaki, an island surrounded by crystal-clear water and white sand, where Jukich and Byskov could see the ocean in panorama. Whales were breaching just beyond the reef.

“I used a GoPro for the trip, and it had a little camera case that came with it,” Byskov recalls. “The ring box was about the same size, so I put it right in the case and zipped it up. I was taking pictures but not really focusing on what I was shooting. I said, ‘Oh, babe, can you grab the cloth for the camera lens from the bag?’

“She went to get it, and in the meantime I was trying to pull up the Straight post sneakily on my phone,” he continues. “Then she goes to the bag and says, ‘It’s not in here.’ I said she should look a bit harder, because she was staring right at the ring box but it just wasn’t registering. So I came up to her and handed her my phone. I said, ‘Oh, look, there’s a pretty cute I Saw You in the Georgia Straight.’ And then it clicked.

“At first she yelled ‘No,’ out of surprise,” he says with a laugh. “Then she said, ‘Yes. Yes, a million times.’ ” With their wedding date tentatively set for Halloween this year— their three-year anniversary—the pair credit the I Saw You column as a unique way to reach out to individuals across the city.

“I have friends in their offices who read it and they’ll say, ‘I know that guy,’ and pass it on,” Byskov says.

“The thing about I Saw You is that you’ve already had that initial interaction before. You see online dating profiles and you wonder whether someone might be catfishing you.

When you’ve already had that initial meeting point that you can relate back to, the worry isn’t there.”

“People definitely pick it up,” Jukich says of the Georgia Straight, laughing. “We had about 20 copies of the paper brought to us by our friends and family. Honestly, we’ve collected so many that we don’t really know what to do with them all.” -

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Perfunctory Is the attitude that drips from every surface in this city.

Anti-Climactic Since my last LTR, I haven’t been able to find anyone that can come with me at the same time. We used to be able to every time we had sex.

No offence, but . . .

I would really like to go home. A very simple place of my own with a door that I can lock. I’m spending yet another evening sitting in a mall, trying to stall time before I have to face reality and return to the shelter where I occupy a space with 50 people not of my choosing. Some stand around and just swear at nothing. Others roam. Some seek sexual adventure.

Arguing, threatening, bullying, fear, and dark hours without sleep. I dread it all.

Found toy My confession is that I found one of my old sex toy’s while cleaning and haven’t shared the news with my husband! I quietly wait till he’s sleeping and enjoy it’s power myself.

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I looked the mirror today And thought “this god that religious people sometimes talk about sure blessed the planet with people like me & if people don’t believe in any god then evolution works pretty damn good with people like me here on earth

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Vancouver 24/7 #GeorgiaStraight 16 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

straight stars > B Y ROSE MA RC U S

T

February 8 to 14, 2018

he opening of the Olympics on Thursday—coinciding with Mercury in Aquarius dialing it up—is sure to be a standout event, not only for the creative spectacle but for the politics, too.

Thursday/Friday, Mercury teams up with the karmic axis (south node).

Serving as precursor to next week’s solar eclipse in Aquarius, agent Mercury is now promoting the next “live action� movie. Don’t underestimate the potency of what sparks you or what you run up against. Last month and this month places us at a peak destiny-in-the-making threshold, one that holds greater-than-average potential to make greater-than-average progress. This time of karmic recall provides an opportunity to meet with the past in order to rework and resolve it, or to meet with the earnings of the past as a fruition springboard.

Of course, evolution is, typically, a blending of the unresolved and fresh opportunity.

No matter how the eclipse just past or the coming one delivers for you, they serve to speed up the action. Eclipses set the future onto a faster track.

Venus leaves Aquarius for Pisces on Saturday. Venus is considered exalted in this idealistic, imaginative, and romantic sign. Along with sun/Jupiter pumping it up, Saturday evening sets a great backdrop for date night.

Monday’s Capricorn moon makes for a get-down-to-business day. As of Tuesday, Mercury/Jupiter and sun/Uranus put everything on the increase and on the move. Follow through on a good idea. Creative thinking/solutions and spontaneity are your best bet. Valentine’s Day is mostly notable because it is the day before the solar eclipse in Aquarius.

Anything goes; it’s all up for grabs!

ARIES

March 20–April 19

Destiny is in the making.

Do not underestimate the potential of what you feel inwardly or witness outwardly. Thursday/Friday are the advance triggers for next Thursday’s solar eclipse. As such, they are auspicious get-moving-on-it/take-flight days. Let intuition, inspiration, or spontaneity lead the way. A first impression, conversation, piece of news, or meet-up sets the future into high gear. Monday/Tuesday keeps you going strong.

TAURUS

April 20–May 20

No matter what the recent lunar eclipse has set in motion, the stage is set for you to make a major personal, career, or lifestyle leap. Off with the old, on with the new, perhaps abruptly or radically so. Your stars are built for speed, not for comfort.

Don’t deny the reality; get onboard ASAP. Thursday/Friday, someone or something can surprise you.

GEMINI

May 21–June 21

Mercury in Aquarius keeps you quick on the ball/perks up your intuitive smarts and creativity. This next week sets a synchronistic backdrop for getting your message across, connecting the dots, and making the most of it. A sudden hit, impression, or stroke-of-genius moment springboards you. A talk, meet-up, piece of news, or surprise could make your day.

CANCER

June 21–July 22

You may have extra to tackle right now, but know you have extra stellar assistance, too. Expand your repertoire; explore more; increase effort; and experiment with a new way of thinking, being, and living. Innovation and reinvention are where it’s at.

Venus in Pisces, starting Saturday, goes easier on you, but intensity and guesswork continue through to next Thursday’s solar eclipse.

LEO

July 22–August 22

Someone you meet or something you hear, see, or read will strike a deep chord. Never a dull moment; the action and opportunity continue on ready dial-up. A conversation, invitation, or surprise keeps you going strong. You can feel a strong sense of dÊjà vu or destiny at play. It’s an ideal time to take a break and/or dive into something new.

VIRGO

LIBRA

SCORPIO

SAGITTARIUS

August 22–September 22

Too much to deal with?

Overwhelmed of late? Allow yourself to take a break, let go, unwind, move on. As soon as you do, you’ll hit a quick physical bounce-back.

Even so, with all that you have been through recently, your emotions can need more time to come up to speed.

Friday through Monday, take a load off; go gentle on yourself.

September 22–October 23

Spur of the moment can make your day Thursday/Friday. Synchronicity is in high gear; destiny is too. Mercury in Aquarius can trigger something interesting, inspiring, unexpected, or even exceptional.

Saturday can see you spend more, go further, or take on more than you planned. Tuesday through solareclipse Thursday marks an auspicious time to sign a contract, meet someone, or start something new.

October 23–November 21

Thursday can get you going on something else or something fresh. The unexpected is in the mix.

When that sudden flash or stroke of genius hits, go the distance. The weekend is also an ideal time to let yourself off the hook; don’t wait for Valentine’s Day. Venus in Pisces, starting Saturday, enhances romantic potential, creativity, and reward.

Seize the moment! The moon in Sagittarius keeps you freshly refuelled and good to go through Saturday. For the weekend, ease up, relax, indulge. Saturday night, aim for quiet or play up the romance. It holds better promise than Valentine’s for date night. Tuesday onward, watch for something inspiring, sudden, or unexpected to get you up and rolling.

Someone may surprise or impress you.

CAPRICORN

December 21–January 19

Get an early start to the weekend or get a jump-start on Valentine’s Day. A weekend getaway is also ideally timed. Saturday night through Tuesday, take charge; have it your way.

Tuesday onward, the solar eclipse can fire up something auspicious, new, or unexpected. A contract, actual or karmic, is on the stellar agenda.

AQUARIUS

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Thursday/Friday can get you started. Saturday can see you pick up more speed and, as of next week, a new reality sets into play. Venus in Pisces increases your ability to attract, enhance, and make the most of the moment. Next Thursday’s solar eclipse puts the unexpected, perhaps even the exceptional, into high gear. Book a reading or sign up for Rose’s newsletter at https://rosemarcus.com/.

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FOOD

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> Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < LAST NIGHT ALONG COMMERCIAL BROADWAY

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 4, 2018 WHERE: Commercial Broadway, in Front of Entrance I’m posting this the morning after. You were the dark-eyed, dark-haired girl walking with a friend (you looked Italian or Spanish) heading north along Commercial; I was the darkhaired guy wearing the black hoodie and peacoat, and carrying a small plastic shopping bag. I passed by on your right and just happened to look up, and we locked eyes. I was enchanted. Coffee if you actually see this?

APEX

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 27, 2018 WHERE: Apex Adventure Park - Richmond Do these things ever work?

Saw you at Apex Trampoline Park, you are a lovely Asian mom with two young boys, bouncing in the basketball area. As we were getting ready to leave we made eye contact and smiled at each other two or three times. I was too nervous to approach you in that setting with the kids around.

Me - Caucasian, beard, think I was wearing black shorts and there with my 4 year-old.

Didn’t notice a ring, if you are not attached as well, I’d love to hear from you.

SARAH AT THE AMERICAN

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 3, 2018 WHERE: The American You helped me try to get a girl's number, but you were in fact much prettier, cooler, smarter and more fun than the girl you helped me talk to. We found out we lived close to each other and I asked you for a coffee date. My phone was dead so you told me to type my number into your's and text myself.

Upon arriving home I realized in my drunken stupor I must have typed my number wrong as I had no text. Still up for coffee?

NOT THE FIRST TIME...

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 2, 2018 WHERE: Elysian Coffee We both enjoy good quality coffee. We have crossed paths during the early morning rush a number of times over the past 6 months and there has been the occasional exchange in eye contact. You have a commanding presence and I feel intimidated that I cannot step into your space... but I want to. You dress to impress and appear to be a man of mystery. Coffee sometime?

LUNCH TIME SMOOTHIE

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 30, 2018 WHERE: Body Energy Club We were waiting for our smoothies at the Body Energy Club on Robson. We exchanged a brief smile as you left. You were dressed all in black, Arcteryx jacket. I was wearing a burgundy toque and have a nose ring.

Let me know if you are interested in a meet up, we can go for a smoothie. ;-)

BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN A RED TOYOTA

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 30, 2018 WHERE: Oak and 70th Tuesday Jan 30th, around 3:30 pm on Oak and 70th. I’m hoping to find the beautiful girl I just encountered, who made time stand still for those brief moments. I was sitting at my bus stop and you saw me jump up when I realized the bus was down the street. You were right in front of me, going the other direction in your little red Toyota. Your beautiful curly hair grabbed my attention while your smile made my heart melt. You smiled, I smiled, we were both just two goofy girls staring at each other, smiling. The light turned green, and my bus came. We waved goodbye and my heart sank. It truly felt like magic, I hope this isn’t where our story ends.

JAN 27TH ON THE 11PM #620 BUS FROM SCHWARTZ BAY FERRY TERMINAL TO VANCOUVER

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JANUARY 27, 2018 WHERE: On the 11pm #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

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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.

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18 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

Different Asian cultures have their own traditional dishes for Lunar New Year celebrations, including (clockwise from top) southern Vietnam’s bánh chung; China’s fat choi jau sau (Tammy Kwan photo); and Korea’s tteokguk.

Have a tasty Lunar New Year Many local Asian families will welcome the Year of the Dog with large feasts

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hat better way to major holiday because it can aid in welcome the Year of digestion (after overindulging) and the Dog than with tastes great. delicious food? With Lunar New Year quickly approach- VIETNAMESE CUISINE “Our family ing (it takes place on February 16 will traditionally get together and eat this year), many Asian families will before midnight,” said Amelie Nguyen, be preparing large feasts at home or co-owner of Anh and Chi (3388 Main making reservations at their favour- Street), to the Straight in a phone interview. “It’s a blend of ite restaurants. ancestral worship Whether you eat and Buddhism, in or out, it is esand it’s important sential to enjoy a Tammy Kwan that all the parents meal with loved ones during this important holiday. and children gather at home to enjoy Besides the Chinese population, different foods.”

Nguyen went on to explain that Lunar New Year is also celebrated by many other Asian cultures, in- she and her family enjoy dishes like cluding the Korean and Vietnam- khoˆ qua (stuffed-bitter-melon soup), ese communities. From tteokguk because eating this allows all the (Korean rice cake soup) to bánh tét hardships you encountered the past (Vietnamese sticky-rice cake) to tong year to go away in the new year.

During Lunar New Year (known yoon (Chinese sticky glutinous-rice dumplings), here are some tradition- as T t in Vietnamese), one of the al foods that different Asian cultures most important and symbolic foods is a sticky-rice cake made with gluindulge in during Lunar New Year. tinous rice, mung beans, and pork, KOREAN CUISINE There are all wrapped in a banana leaf. In many Korean eateries around Met- southern Vietnam, it is known as ro Vancouver, and plenty of menu bánh tét and is cylinder-shaped, items are known and loved for their while in northern Vietnam it’s called strong and spicy flavours. How- bánh chu’ng and is square. ever, these dishes are traditionally “All Vietnamese people, whether forbidden during Lunar New Year they are rich or poor, will have bánh (known as Seollal in Korean). “Dur- tét or bánh chung,” explained Chi ing this time, the food is also kind Le, chef and owner of Chi Modern of meant for our deceased ances- Vietnamese Kitchen (1935 West 4th tors,” explained Paul Lim, owner of Avenue), to the Straight in a phone Dolpan Seoul BBQ (1123–3779 Sex- interview. “It is cooked in water for smith Road, Richmond). many hours, depending on how big “We are traditionally not suppos- you wrap it.” ed to have any chili peppers or spiLe emphasized that in Asia sticky ciness in our dishes because we are rice has many good connotations, cooking for our ancestors,” Lim told because it can mean family memthe Straight in a phone interview. bers sticking together and having a One of the most important dishes strong bond. Another popular dish that Koreans eat during this holiday consumed during this annual holiday is tteokguk, which is a beef-broth is thi.t kho trú’ng (Vietnamese braised soup filled with rice cake. This food pork and eggs) made with everything item represents the old year passing from pork belly to caramelized egg and welcomes a new year of good to fish sauce. All the ingredients are health and longevity. added into one pot to cook.

Another popular item that is “This dish will last a few days, consumed during Lunar New Year because everyone is busy and don’t is jeon (fried and flour-based mini have time to cook due to celebrapancakes). There are many different tions,” said Le. “It is available all year varieties of jeon, including mush- long but is an important item to eat room, fish, and zucchini. “Because during Lunar New Year because of you aren’t supposed to eat anything auspicious meanings.” spicy, this food would be a good and Bánh tét and bánh chu’ng will be tasty alternative,” said Lim. Koreans available at Le’s Kitsilano restaualso like to drink sikhye (Korean rant for those who don’t have time sweet-rice beverage) during this to make them, or are interested in

Best Eats

trying them for the first time.

“People in Vietnam don’t usually make it anymore because it is a lot cheaper to buy than to make,” said Le. “But the point of all of this is that family will get together to cook and wrap and do things together.”

CANTONESE CHINESE CUISINE

Yiu Tong Leung, executive chef and owner of Hoi Tong Chinese Seafood Restaurant (8191 Westminster Highway, Richmond), is well aware that the younger generation doesn’t really celebrate Lunar New Year the way that their parents did.

But the highly respected chef understands the importance of Lunar New Year to certain individuals and why consuming Chinese dishes with favourable meanings is essential to help kick off the year.

“Traditionally, businessmen and merchants hold Chinese New Year dishes with prosperous names and lucky connotations in high regard because they believe it would pave the way to success in the coming year,” Leung said by phone.

One of the most popular dishes is fat choi ho see dai lei, which translates to “Have a prosperous year in the market,” and is made up of dried black moss, dried oysters, and beef tongue. Another item is fat choi jau sau, meaning “Wealth will come easy”—made with braised pork feet and dried black moss.

“Over the years, I feel like the enthusiasm and Lunar New Year spirit has dwindled,” Leung said.

“We used to have Lunar New Year menus, but it wasn’t popular with our customers, so we stopped offering them.”

Leung’s restaurant may not offer a special menu for Lunar New Year, but that doesn’t mean guests are prevented from ordering dishes with auspicious associations. Items like abalone, fish, chicken, and tong yoon (sticky glutinous-rice dumplings) are usually ordered because they symbolize everything from having a surplus of wealth to enjoying good fortune to reuniting with family.

“People these days are very casual about celebrating Lunar New Year. It’s not the same as in the past, where it was a big deal,” said Leung.

“Nevertheless, the most important thing is to be able to have a nice meal with your family.” -

FOOD

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s raise a glass to B.C.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best sommelier

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his may surprise some readers, but I almost never have a glass of wine in hand while writing this column.

Today I do.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve just poured myself a spot of Finca Las Moras Tannat Reserva 2015 (San Juan, Cuyo, Argentina; $13.99, B.C. Liquor Stores). A simmering blueberry compote with a few flecks of fresh anise is wafting out of the glass, and the juicy palate is brimming with ripe blackberries, dark chocolate, espresso, and basil, all dusted with some fine tannins.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m raising this glass to Sean Nelson of Vijâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Restaurant, who was named 2018â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best sommelier of British Columbia by the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers, B.C. chapter. Thirteen local candidates participated in the competition at Rogers Arena early last week, with a written exam and blind tasting in the morning followed by the three top-scoring sommeliers (Nelson, along with Todd Prucyk of Hawksworth Restaurant and Matthew Landry of Stable House Bistro) competing in various challenges in front of an audience of colleagues and supporters.

Nelsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wine list at Vijâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s is stellar, offering plenty of by-the-glass options to complement the restaurantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much-lauded Indian cuisine. Personal favourites include Orofinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hendsbee Vineyard Riesling 2014 from B.C.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Similkameen Valley, shimmering with fresh lime, pomelo, and a good crack of

Sean Nelson of Vijâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Restaurant was named B.C.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top sommelier thanks to a list that includes wines by Finca Las Moras, Medici Ermete, and Orofino.

minerality, and Medici Ermete glass to go with those legendary Concerto Lambrusco Reggiano wine-marinated lamb popsicles in 2015 from Emilia fenugreek-cream Romagna, Italy: curry. fizzy and bright, Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll likely with red berry also spot the guy Kurtis Kolt fruit and Italian attending numerherbs. Do drop into Vijâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to con- ous events at the next edition of gratulate him and have him pour the Vancouver International Wine something delightful into your Festival, running February 24

The Bottle

through March 4 at various venues across the city. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edition features Spain and Portugal as theme countries, but overall weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking at 173 wineries from 16 countries pouring more than 1,400 wines. As always, events are selling out quickly. Although attending a night or two of the grand International Festival Tasting is an absolute must (Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have a preview coming next week), there are still tickets left for a couple of events that local wine enthusiasts shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss.

Torres: History Builds Future ($65; March 1, 5:15 p.m., Vancouver Convention Centre West) sees the Vancouver Sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Anthony Gismondi in conversation with Miguel Torres Maczassek, a fifth-generation member of the famous Torres wine family. Numerous wines will be discussed and poured, from iconic Spanish regions like Priorat and lesser known appellations like Conca de BarberĂ . There will be lots to talk about, from winemaking philosophies that have guided the family during the years to sustainable methods being practised in their vineyards.

Then on March 3 at 5:15 p.m. at Vancouver Convention Centre West, $65 gets you the opportunity to sit in on the Decanter World Wine Awards session. Decanter is known as the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best wine magazine, and its annual awards are the pinnacle of achievement for wineries spanning the globe. Attendees will not only have the chance to taste

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through an assortment of silver, gold, and platinum winners, they will also be entertained by the producers of these wines telling their stories. Moderator Barbara Philip is a Master of Wine and the European category manager for B.C. Liquor Stores, and she also heads to London each year to help judge these coveted awards. Joining her are international luminaries like Spainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ă lvaro Palaciosâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;who will be sharing his eponymous 2015 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Les Terrassesâ&#x20AC;?, an old-vines Garnacha and CariĂąena from Prioratâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; and Sergio Zingarelli, family proprietor of Chiantiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rocca delle MacĂŹe in Italy.

For more information and tickets to all events, visit www.vanwinefest.ca/.

Your palate is indeed in for a bit of a workout, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always good to stretch before any workoutâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;even a wine-soaked one, right?

Well, keeping that in mind, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to go awfully literal here and mention the upcoming Woga (wine and yoga) event on Sunday (February 11) at Marquis Wine Cellars (1034 Davie Street) from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Yup, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just as it sounds. In the store, the folks from RYU Apparel are leading a 45-minute power f low, which will be followed by the Marquis team sharing samples of some of their favourite in-store wines. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all free, but you do have to head to ryu.com/ to register.

A little Downward Dog, then swirl and sip. Sounds like the makings of a fun Sunday night. -

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22 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

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Vancouver Chamber Choir Five Guest Conductors Stephen Smith, piano Jon Washburn, conductor Our Conductors’ Concert is always one of the most fascinating events of the choral season. As the culmination of our 38th annual National Conductors’ Symposium, Jon Washburn, five invited conductors from around the world and pianist Stephen Smith will focus on three distinct musical genres — famous prayers, indigenous songs and story ballads. Come and enjoy the unusual repertoire and the varied interpretations of the six conductors. Music by Mozart, Bruckner, Duruflé, Foss, Enkhbayar, Healey, Adams, Crossin, Bartók, Daunais, Washburn and more.

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ARTS

In Mexico, a zócalo is a meeting place, B Y ALEX ANDER VAR T Y

often a town’s central plaza, where inhabitants gather during the day to buy and sell produce and other wares, enjoy a refreshing coffee or agua fresca, and converse. Canada’s weather being what it is, we don’t often enjoy the same kind of amenity—or if we do, it’s purely a seasonal affair.

Never mind. The folk-inspired dance troupe Zøgma’s multicultural Sokalo, which makes its local debut as part of the Talking Stick Festival of Indigenous arts, offers a suitably warm and sunny place for different dance traditions to meet and exchange ideas. This year, its guests will be Vancouver’s Louis Riel Métis Dancers—and for Zøgma’s artistic director, Mario Boucher, it’s a natural fit.

“The Métis people, they have a few dances, traditional dances that I wouldn’t say really come from Quebec, but they’re really similar to things we might do in Quebec,” he explains, in a telephone call from his Montreal home. “So what we might do is create a piece where we’ll put both cultures together, one next to the other. We might choose a dance that is really similar, and we’ll do parts of it as the Métis would do it, and parts of it like we would do it in Quebec.

“The interesting thing is that they, too, are also working on contemporary dance,” he continues. “So we might want to add some contemporary movement to what we’re doing while we’re working together.

But we’ll see… It’s really a work in progress!”

Métis arts find a meeting place At the draws

Above, Quebec’s Zøgma seeks out cultures from around the world for meltingpot shows; below left, Map of the Land, Map of the Stars. Bruce Barrett photo.

And while she’s planning to bring her own Métis stories to Sokalo, she’ll also contribute Métis music, a fiddlebased idiom that adds Talking Stick Festival, the multicultural Sokalo “crooked” rhythms to traditional French on the music, stories, and dance of a vibrant people and Irish tunes, while So far, Zøgma has performed Sokalo in coun- embracing more recent inventions such as the tries as diverse as Ireland and Korea, with the bluegrass standard “Orange Blossom Special”. ever-evolving piece absorbing elements of every“People just go wild when that song is played, where it’s been shown. using a more dynamic way of stepping, using their “We’ve taken our travels, and put them with whole body,” she says in a separate telephone interimages from Montreal,” says Boucher, noting view from East Vancouver. “So we’re going to do an that this is a strategy that Zøgma has employed exchange where we teach them [Zøgma’s dancers] ever since its first production, 2003’s Chantier, some of those steps.” which drew equally on the “gumboot” dances At Talking Stick, the Louis Riel Métis Dancers of South African gold miners and the similarly and their parent company, V’ni Dansi, will also percussive clogging styles of rural Que- engage in another cultural exchange, this time bec. “As you know, Montreal is quite a with Santa Fe–based choreographer Rulan Tanbig city, but like many big cities we have gen: their joint project is titled Michif Medicines, the Chinese quarter, the Haitian quar- and looks at the survival and renewal of traditionter, et cetera. So, really, Sokalo is a mix- al healing practices among the Métis. ture of things that happen around us and Michif, Chartrand explains, is what the Métis things that have happened to us while we people of her father’s generation and before called were travelling—sometimes really stu- themselves. “Like Métis, it means ‘mixed’, and it pid things. Like, for example, one day also means the people and the language,” she says. we were in Korea, in Seoul, and we were “And Rulan has been exploring the idea of seeds in crossing a river, but instead of having the context of our plant medicines, and our kinship a bridge, they’d put some rocks in the with the Earth and the healing that comes from water so people could cross. The dancers that. So we’re going to go and speak to some of the started crossing, and at one point they people here in the Lower Mainland, some tradwere all in a line—like, one behind the itional medicine people.…And then we’ll just have other—and they started doing all the same this explorative, amazing time working together, movement. We took a picture of that, and later and we’ll see what we come up with! And that will on we said, ‘Oh, that was cool!’ and we created be a healing for ourselves and for our people.” some choreography from that movement.”

The Louis Riel Métis Dancers’ artistic direc- Zøgma and V’ni Dansi present Sokalo at the tor, Yvonne Chartrand, points out that Zøgma’s Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Cenall-embracing approach to art-making fits well tre next Friday and Sunday (February 16 and 18), as with Métis culture, rooted as it is in the inter- part of the Talking Stick Festival. Michif Medicines is mingling of First Nations populations with at the Roundhouse on February 23, also as part of early European immigrants to North America. Talking Stick.

THINGS TO DO

2

Talking Stick spawns plays, concerts, and more

This year’s Talking Stick Festival theme is Scháyilhen, which translates to “salmon going up”. While it refers to the fish taking their epic journey, the metaphor speaks well to the artistic work that Indigenous people have spawned here—as well as their fierce struggles.

With that in mind, here are some highlights from the festival, which flows from the Roundhouse Community Centre for Arts and Recreation around the city from next Wednesday (February 14) to February 24; see much more at fullcircle.ca/.

MAP OF THE LAND, MAP OF THE STARS (February 20 to 22 at the Roundhouse) Yukon’s Gwaandak Theatre tells the story of how the gold rush and the Alaska Highway altered traditional connections between land and sky, using a mix of theatre, dance, music, and striking archival video and photo projections.

SCHÁYILHEN VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITION (February 14 to 24 at the Roundhouse) Twelve Indigenous artists explore the theme of “Salmon going upriver”. Standouts include Shain Jackson’s 20-foot red-cedar Legacy salmon sculpture and Jay Haven’s Bargain Hunter, crafted from retail bags he collected on B.C. reserves.

HEARTBEATZ! (February 17 at the Russian Hall) Southern Tutchone/Tlingit singer Diyet, who mashes rock-tinged alt-folk with traditional First Nations music, headlines a concert of young Indigenous stars.

MÉTIS KITCHEN PARTY (February 18 at the Roundhouse) Follow the sounds of fiddles to an authentic afternoon celebration, complete with the Louis Riel Métis Dancers, jig workshops, and more. > JANET SMITH

ARTS High five

Editor’s choice WHEN HATE MEETS LOVE My Funny Valentine was honoured with the Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards’ Sydney Risk Prize for an outstanding original script by an emerging playwright when it debuted in 2011—and small wonder. Zee Zee Theatre’s Dave Deveau deftly interwove monologues to show how a community deals with the aftermath of a homophobic hate crime—in this case, the real, heartbreaking murder of 15-year-old Larry King. If you missed it the first time around, it’s worth catching and, unfortunately, as timely as ever: Zee Zee is bringing the play back here, after a trip to Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, to commemorate the murder’s 10th anniversary. My Funny Valentine runs from Wednesday (February 7) to February 18 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre.

Five events you just can’t miss this week

1

ROMANCE WEEK AT VANCOUVER THEATRESPORTS (To February 14 at the Improv Centre) Improvised rom-com clichés and red-hot late nights send up the V-Day schlock.

2

NEXT TO NORMAL (February 7 to 17 at Studio 16) West Moon Theatre takes on this brave, breathtaking musical about bipolar disorder.

3

NO FOREIGNERS (February 7 to 17 at the Cultch) Hong Kong Exile uses tiny projected figures in its multimedia musing on Chinese mall culture.

4

A ROMANTIC POPS VALENTINE (February 9 and 10 at the Orpheum) Piano star Jon Nakamatsu joins the VSO in music that speaks to the heart.

5

POP ART! (February 10 at the Annex) The Erato Ensemble mashes projections, folk tunes, John Cage, and much more in an imaginative ode to art song.

In the news ARTS CLUB GETS ECLECTIC Incoming Arts Club Theatre artistic director Ashlie Corcoran has announced a diverse first season for 2018-19. The roster features the West End hit The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the Broadway Pulitzer Prize winner Sweat.

Several shows dig into Punjabi, Chinese-American, and Indigenous heritage, including Sarena Parmar’s Punjabi Sikh Chekhov spin The Orchard (After Chekhov). There are works by Morris Panych (The Shoplifters) and Stars singer Torquil Campbell (True Crime). No locally written premieres appear in the lineup, but several Vancouver plays, including Mom’s the Word: Nest 1/2 Empty, will see remounts. Corcoran also launched a new resident-company program, naming Hardline Productions as the inaugural troupe. Hardline will remount its Indigenous war story Redpatch on the company’s Goldcorp Stage next March. See the full lineup at Straight.com. FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 23

CHUTZPAH FESTIVAL

Ezralow helps dance find its funny bone Whether he’s staging Grammy Awards, Broadway shows, or contemporary work, the American choreographer aims for enjoyment

2

> BY JA NET SM IT H

D

aniel Ezralow has choreographed the Sochi Winter Olympics opening ceremony, the Grammy Awards, Broadway shows, Cirque du Soleil, David Bowie and Sting concerts, and the humour-spiked works he mounts with his own company, L.A.–based Ezralow Dance.

The former Paul Taylor and MOMIX dancer has had an incredibly wild and diverse four-decade career. But there’s something that all his shows have in common—from epic ceremonies to intimate dance productions like the one his troupe is set to bring here for the Chutzpah Festival. Brace for it.

“I make dance accessible,” the affable Ezralow says, owning the A word that so many dance artists avoid like the flu. He’s speaking to the Straight over the phone while he enjoys lunch with his dancers at a tour stop in Austin, Texas. “Air is accessible, life is accessible, and there shouldn’t be any reason we shouldn’t make our work accessible.

People pay hard-earned money to see my shows. I want them to feel good when they come out.

“I’m very pointedly directing this show to get people who don’t love dance to enjoy,” he adds of the episodic Open, a Canadian premiere when it plays here. “My intention is to get everyone there.

I want people who like football to like it.”

Among the brisk and playful vignettes audiences will see when his company hits town: a wedding scene that turns into a boxing match; an ode to Carmen with finger puppets; a weary, overworked man who finds a mermaid wrapped in kelp. Expect

ROY ASSAF DANCE (February 22 to 24) The Israeli troupe makes its Chutzpah debut with The Hill, an all-male trio inspired by a Hebrew song about veterans’ experiences, and the yearning duet Six Years Later. Think intricate kinetic explorations from a choreographer who’s in demand everywhere from Batsheva Dance Company to the Royal Swedish Ballet.

MM CONTEMPORARY DANCE COMPANY (March 1 to 3) The honed troupe from Reggio Emilia, Italy, interprets Maurice Ravel’s Bolero and Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Expect exquisite technique and contemporary grace.

DANCE DOUBLE BILL (March 10 and 11) Jerusalem’s Machol Shalem Dance House presents Ofra Edel’s Black Label, with arresting Batsheva alumnus Tzvika Iskias dancing his journey as an immigrant from Ethiopia to Israel. It pairs with Bulgaria’s Derida Company, whose F 63.9 is a fiery duet that looks at the more problematic, obsessive trials of love.

SALOME: WOMAN OF VALOR (March 8 to 10 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre) A bold recasting of the mythical character, featuring dance by New York City–based Rebecca Margolick and Jessie Zaritt, melds with a multimedia spectacle that mashes spoken word, live music, and video.

choreography with the physicality of gymnastics, lots of video-projection eye candy, and classical music by composers like Frédéric Chopin and Johann Sebastian Bach backing it all up. But most of all, you will find laughter—not a reaction you normally associate with a contemporary-dance performance.

“Humour—it’s so important!”

Ezralow says. “If you look at Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton or Jim Carrey, the way they move their body. In dance we have conditioned ourselves to be serious about it.…

It’s actually very hard to give people humour and lightness. We’re all so heavy, it’s a very easy thing to be heavy and to see tragedy. It’s very hard to see things as good. Dance should have joy and irony.”

That same kind of joy seems to be what drives Ezralow, a father of three, on a lifelong adventure that regularly takes him around the world, from staging epic productions in China to, as he did earlier this week, judging an Italian TV dance show. What keeps his excitement and creative juices

Choreography Medhi Walerski

February 21 22 23 24 Queen Elizabeth Theatre Th balletbc.com SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

> JANET SMITH

Full of comedic touches and a gymnasticslike athleticism, Ezralow Dance’s playful Open is launching the Chutzpah Festival. Angelo Redaelli photo.

PREVIEW ADDED FEB 21

PRODUCTION SPONSOR

Chutzpah Festival brings in a world of dance When the multidisciplinary Chutzpah Festival whirls into action from next Thursday (February 15) to March 15, its dance programming will feature cutting-edge contemporary works from as far away as Italy, Bulgaria, and Israel. Here are the diverse offerings, all at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre, except where noted:

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DANCERS BRANDON ALLEY & EMILY CHESSA. PHOTO BY WENDY D.

24 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

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f lowing after all these years?

“I’m passionate, but it’s more complicated than that,” he offers thoughtfully. “I’m really curious about life.

I kind of feel like a kid every time.

I know I’m not—my body doesn’t feel like a kid’s anymore!”

Ezralow ref lects on where it all started, when he first took dance classes at Berkeley while studying for all his premed courses. Dance carried him away from his intended career as a doctor, and he’s never looked back.

“There are no answers along the

way—only the answers I created for myself,” he concludes. “There’s no manual or book about how to do it. The only testament you have is to be sensitive to everything you do—to become more sensitive to the performers and the people you collaborate with, and to the audiences.

“So stay awake. And stay sensitive.” The Chutzpah Festival presents Ezralow Dance from next Thursday to Saturday (February 15 to 17) at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre.

LYDIA AVSEC/ COPILOT DESIGN

ARTS

MAHLER SYMPHONY NO.8 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

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Mayko Nguyen and Kawa Ada help breathe new life into David French’s beloved Newfoundland-set Salt-Water Moon. Joseph Michael photo.

New Salt-Water Moon departs from tradition

Winner of the 2017 Latin Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal

Director Ravi Jain employs diverse casting and a stripped-down set to reimagine a Canadian classic > BY JA NET SM IT H

W

traditional renditions of Salt-Water Moon. He’s added a musician-narrator, played by Ania Soul.

“I was thinking about the East Coast storytelling traditions and troubadours, so I added this character of the narrator that would score the piece,” explains the affable director, who’s busy juggling rehearsals for an almost all-female version of Animal Farm at Soulpepper Theatre along with a new Punjabi Sikh, Kelowna-set spin on Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at the Shaw Festival. (The play, The Orchard [After Chekhov], by Sarena Parmar, has just been announced as part of the Arts Club’s 2018-19 season.) “It added this musical element that would be true to that part of the world. And that gave me the idea of the candles.”

The result is a production that’s been called “simply beautiful” and “emotionally honest”. This from a project Jain essentially built from scratch.

“I like to figure something out and I like to work on things that are saying something about the world that I’m in—where content is as important as the form,” says the actor-director, whose diverse training includes the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and the movement-oriented Jacques Lecoq school in Paris. “For me as a creator it’s about discovering something new. I love things where I’m a little out of my element; it forces me to exercise something new.”

As the show prepares to travel to the Gateway Theatre here, Jain finds himself at the forefront of changes that are finally happening on a larger scale on Canadian stages, where diversity and nontraditional casting seem to be top-of-mind.

“Progress is being made, but I think it’s still slow. People have been doing this for a long time in the independent sector and now the mainstream is catching on,” he observes. “I hope it can free us up from an idea of realism that has limited opportunities. It’s really narrowed ideas of what theatre can be.” -

hen Factory Theatre asked in-demand Toronto director Ravi Jain to stage a “classic Canadian play” for its strippeddown Naked season in 2015-16, the request set off an internal inquiry.

This is, after all, a guy who questions things so much he runs a Toronto company called Why Not Theatre.

“What is a Canadian classic?” asks Jain, who’s probably best-known out here for the Arts Club’s Brimful of Asha, a play he performed with his own mother about his parents’ failed attempt to arrange a marriage for him in India. Speaking to the Straight from Toronto, he continues: “What does it mean to be Canadian?

What do I picture when I close my eyes and think of Canada?”

Surprisingly, he chose David French’s Salt-Water Moon, a play he had heard about as a rite of passage for actors, but one he had never seen. And when he read the story of the fraught reunion between two young Newfoundlanders in 1926, he pictured it with actors of colour.

“I wanted to find a way to open up the story to a different lens—to honour traditions yet bring something new to it,” Jain explains. Was he making a statement in his casting? “Because the play is a classic and every time you do it you’re in conversation with every play that’s been done, it’s a political statement because it’s never been done before.”

Even Jain has been fascinated by the depth his casting of Mayko Nguyen and Kawa Ada in the roles of the former lovers has brought to the work. Their life experience speaks to all the important themes, from family and class to history and migration, he says.

Having the play pared down to its essentials, lit only with a dreamlike sea of candles to stand in for the starry night, adds to the performers’ duties, however. “It’s a challenge for the actors,” Jain admits. “They really have to be as honest as possible. Getting them to be as vulnerable as possible was really a lot of the work we did.”

The casting and minimalist yet Salt-Water Moon is at Richmond’s atmospheric setting weren’t the Gateway Theatre from next Thursday only areas where Jain departed from (February 15) to February 24.

SAT MAR 10 2018 / 8PM

Lila Downs C H A N C E N T R E AT U B C Tickets and info at chancentre.com

FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 25

ARTS

Angeli soups up his shape-shifting guitar > B Y A LE XAN DER VAR TY

C

M A RCH 1–24

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

Shen Wei Dance Arts photo by Christopher Duggan

THE OCTOPUS EATS ITS OWN LEG

FEB 3 – MAY 6, 2018 Advance Tickets murakami.vanartgallery.bc.ca Major Sponsors

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Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and curated by Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator Takashi Murakami, Klein’s Pot A, 1994–97 (detail), acrylic on canvas mounted on board in plexiglass box, 39 x 39 x 8.5 cm, Colección Pérez Simón, Mexico, © 1994–97 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved

26 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

kind of counterpoint between different musicians and instruments,’ ” the guitarist explains, on the line from a Montreal hotel. “At the beginning it was much simpler: ‘Okay, this song is with the bow. Next song, I just use pedals. Next song is with propellers.’ I mean, all the elements that I used to introduce on my guitar were separate, each one from each other. But right now it’s a different approach.…I can have different sounds, very, very fast.”

Angeli is also able to incorporate cover tunes—search YouTube for a gorgeous version of Björk’s “Desired Constellation”, for instance—and traditional Sardinian melodies into his approach, along with a new openness to North African and Middle Eastern sounds inspired by his 2006 move from Bologna to Barcelona.

“Now, when I play compositions, the compositions are much more connected to light, to sunny times,” he says. “In Barcelona we have this light that is very intense, and it’s very different than to live in Bologna, where it was raining every day! You can see the sky, and that’s a really big influence. And it’s different to spend time in a town where you can walk and have freshsqueezed juice and fish caught by the fishermen the day before they sell it in the market. All those experiences changed my mind about how to play music.”

Make no mistake: darkness and noise still play a part in Angeli’s approach. But there are few players who so successfully combine beauty and mad-scientist wizardry; his upcoming Vancouver concert is not to be missed. -

lose your eyes, and listen.

Is that a double bass? A cello? A sitar? A bagpipe’s droning plaint? A street percussionist wreaking havoc on trash-can lids?

No, it’s a guitar. But it’s no ordinary guitar. Paolo Angeli’s muchmodified instrument began life as the typical six-string of his native Sardinia. Bigger than the familiar Spanish instrument, it’s also tuned lower and has an attractively throaty sound. But to this framework, Angeli has added mechanical fingers—activated by a row of three foot pedals—that allow him to produce cyclical bass lines over which he can fingerpick contrapuntal melodies. A small propeller, protruding from the guitar’s soundhole, strikes the strings in just such a way that it produces a continuous drone. Extra strings— some running from headstock to tailpiece, others in an array across the soundboard—allow for harpor thumb-piano-like effects. By sliding metal objects beneath the strings, Angeli can produce percussive noises; by adding bonus bridges, he can suggest a mandolin or an oud; by stroking the strings with a cello bow, he can invoke, unsurprisingly, a cello.

Angeli has a unique bag of tricks to draw on. But, more than that, he also has enough imagination to use them in a marvellously musical way, often sounding more like a small ensemble than a solo performer. And that, he says, has been his goal all along.

“The idea with the guitar was like, ‘Okay, I am solo, but I would Vancouver New Music presents like to give the impression of being Paolo Angeli at Pyatt Hall on Saturday like many musicians in dialogue—a (February 10).

ARTS

Jitters aces biting but loving backstage romp KING ARTHUR’S NIGHT

TH E AT RE

By Niall McNeil and Marcus Youssef.

Directed by James Long. A Neworld Theatre production, presented with the UBC Department of Theatre and Film and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. At the Frederic Wood Theatre on Wednesday, January 31.

No remaining performances

JITTERS

By David French. Directed by David Mackay. An Arts Club Theatre Company production. At the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage on Thursday, February 1.

Continues until February 25

“We are not adults. We’re ac-

2 tors.” This laugh-out-loud dec-

laration comes deep into the final act of David French’s Jitters, a loving send-up of the fears and flaws of a small theatre company trying to make it to and through opening night.

There are antics and shenanigans, one-liners and wild physical comedy, and if that’s not enough, the Arts Club’s new production is set in 1979, the year Jitters was first produced, so the fashion is its own source of inspired hilarity (thanks to wonderful work by costume designer Mara Gottler).

Jitters begins four days before the opening night of a new play, and almost every single character has a lot riding on its success. Robert (Ryan Beil), the playwright, has spent three years on this follow-up after his debut earned critical raves, while Jessica (Megan Leitch), the star, is finally returning to Canada after having major success on New York and London stages. After two flops in two years, she hopes that after the play’s Toronto run, it will move to Broadway. This is essentially a nightmare for her leading man and rival, Patrick (Robert Moloney), a bully with a drinking problem and deep fear of failure who also happens to be Canada’s best actor. Director George (Martin Happer) doesn’t just have his hands full managing his leads, he’s also dealing with Phil (James Fagan Tait), a desperately insecure actor who has complaints about everything, and Tom (Kamyar Pazandeh), a young, first-time actor.

Take a deep breath and enter

2 another world. It’s Camelot like

Robert Moloney and Megan Leitch throw themselves into backstage Jitters, complete with circa-1979 setting and costumes. David Cooper photo.

Under David Mackay’s joyful direction, Jitters mostly buzzes along, though some cast members seem more comfortable with the rapid-fire dialogue and the physical comedy than others. When Beil, Happer, or Tait is in a scene, the energy immediately ticks up and the pacing is perfect. When the attention focuses elsewhere, Jitters loses a bit of steam.

Thankfully, these moments are few and far between, and only minorly distract from an otherwise relentlessly entertaining experience.

Almost four decades after its original production, Jitters holds up,

and in part it’s because there’s little malice at its core. In Jitters, every disaster, every personality excess, and every drama is big but still rooted in something very real and recognizable—fear—which only makes the laughs that much more meaningful.

It’s such an indulgent pleasure to engage in metatheatre of this calibre (owing to both the Arts Club’s standards and the quality of French’s writing). It’s not always a thrill to watch a play about a play, but it is when it’s like this: biting, affectionate, and funny in equal measure. > ANDREA WARNER

you’ve never seen it before. And it’s for everyone.

King Arthur’s Night is a bracingly fresh, radically inclusive take on the Arthurian legends. Playwright Niall McNeil, who has Down syndrome, wrote the script in collaboration with Marcus Youssef, and it is original, poetic, and full of surprises.

McNeil is a commanding presence as the title character, and his writing weaves elements of his own life into Arthur’s court: Camelot is modelled after Harrison Hot Springs, a place McNeil has often visited; and a bad childhood experience with a goat at the Caravan Farm Theatre, where McNeil worked as an actor, informs the depiction of this piece’s villains.

Elements of the story thread in and out in a nonlinear, dreamlike fashion: Lancelot’s affair with Guinevere, Mordred and Morgana’s plotting of revenge, goats undergoing military training. The play is a poetic collage of powerful theatrical moments; its dialogue is terse, contemporary, and full of surprising images. Arthur describes his enemy thus: “Mordred fights dirty.

He eats fingers.” Emotions are directly declared. “This is my anger mountain,” Morgana says in a confrontation with Merlin, “I wanna throw stuff.” Merlin tells her to calm down: “Take a bath or something.”

She replies, “It’s too late for that.”

These lines (and I could quote dozens more) may look plain on paper, but under James Long’s direction, such exchanges pack an emotional wallop, thanks to the full commitment of the cast—which includes three other actors with Down syndrome, whose abilities are beautifully showcased here. When Tiffany King, who plays Guinevere, enters in a royal procession, her joy in dancing—as a choir appears out of the shadows behind her—is contagious. Andrew Gordon has an impressive turn as a Saxon demonstrating military moves with a battle-axe. The other cast members provide support with refreshing openness and spontaneity.

Every scene between Billy Marchenski’s Lancelot and King’s Guinevere is moving. “The Queen loves you,” Guinevere confides at one point, and Lancelot’s reply of “I keep that inside of my heart” is delivered with heartbreaking sincerity. Kerry Sandomirsky’s Morgana is a sinister presence, circling the stage with menacing whispers. But McNeil’s writing has plenty of comedy, too; he frequently punctures the solemnity of a scene with a well-timed oneliner. “Well, you know how goats are,” Morgana says when telling the story of her incestuous relationship with Arthur.

And then there are Veda Hille’s musical settings for McNeil’s lyrics.

The songs range from eerie to romantic to aggressive, and the cast members are supported by percussionist Skye Brooks and the choir, Cor Flammae. Josh Martin’s choreography incorporates both the earthy and the regal.

Shizuka Kai’s set, in which tree roots climb like serpents around an upstage portal; Christine Reimer’s sumptuous costumes; and Kyla Gardiner’s moody, dim lighting all make the show visually gorgeous. see next page

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“MUSICAL THEATRE AT ITS BEST” —The Huffington Post

The cast of Fun Home. Photo by David Cooper

Now playing to Mar 10!

Music by Jeanine Tesori Book and lyrics by Lisa Kron Based on the graphic novel

by Alison Bechdel

playing at stanley industrial alliance stage

granville island stage

goldcorp stage at the bmo theatre centre

FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 27

(headlines theatre)

Sold

out

last

yea r!

What does reconciliation mean to YOU? “If you do nothing this year... at the very least GO SEE THIS PLAY! ”

–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

Erin Palm nails it as the rebellious Sabina in The Skin of Our Teeth, a big show that celebrates human survival over the eons. Ross den Otter photo.

So even though Wilder’s script sometimes feels a little like a tossed salad of ideas, you can’t fault the King Arthur’s Night is a rare op- energy being poured into his hopeful portunity to see what inclusion real- message: we will survive. > KATHLEEN OLIVER ly looks like—and to let its beautiful sounds and images wash over you.

SHIT Don’t miss it.

King Arthur’s Night

from previous page

> KATHLEEN OLIVER

Touring

THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH

By Thornton Wilder. Directed by Sarah Rodgers. A Studio 58 production. At Studio 58 on Saturday, February 3.

Continues until February 18

The Skin of Our Teeth is more stimulating to think about than it is to watch. I don’t mean to slight this production, which approaches the script with zest; it’s just that the play hasn’t entirely stood the test of time.

Thornton Wilder wrote this Pulitzer-winning script, which celebrates human survival in the face of impending disaster, just as the United States was entering the Second World War. It’s no surprise that it’s been revived in recent years, with the threat of doomsday lurking in the shape of Donald Trump.

In the first act, we meet the prehistoric family of Mr. Antrobus, renowned for his invention of things like the wheel and the lever, who brings home a number of refugees seeking shelter as an apocalyptic ice sheet draws closer. Act 2 takes place in Atlantic City as the Antrobuses celebrate their 5,000th wedding anniversary. They’ve survived the ice age, but here comes a flood! The third act finds the family members returning home after the end of a more recent war, having once again survived catastrophe.

Wilder heaps up the allegorical references, and plays fast and loose with theatrical convention in ways that must have been mind-blowing 75 years ago. “I hate this play,” the Antrobuses’ maid, Sabina, confides to the audience, filling time after a missed cue. “The author hasn’t made up his silly mind as to whether we’re all living back in caves or in New Jersey.” But in 2018 we’ve all gotten pretty used to metatheatricality, and less tolerant of passages that stretch on with little apparent purpose.

But, man, it’s a big show. Director Sarah Rodgers gets very solid work out of her cast of 27 (!), including Erin Palm’s rebellious Sabina; Aidan Drummond’s frazzled stage manager, Mr. Fitzpatrick; and William Edward and Mallory James, who are clear and confident as the Antrobuses. Rodgers also sprinkles 1930s jingles and songs (with help from composer and musical director Joelysa Pankanea) throughout the action. These are lively and well-executed, but along with Sheila White’s period costumes, they create a sense of nostalgia rather than an urgent contemporary relevance.

David Roberts’s clever set reconfigures Studio 58’s seating, with the audience on either side of the Antrobuses’ rooftop, which converts into a boardwalk for Act 2. Emily Cooper’s animated projections are very playful but unfortunately somewhat lost off on a side wall.

2

28 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

By Patricia Cornelius. Directed by Donna Spencer. At the Firehall Arts Centre on Thursday, February 1.

Continues until February 10

Warning:

coarse

language,

2 more coarse language, and a

dangerous gap between concept and execution.

Celebrated Australian playwright Patricia Cornelius earned a lot of praise in her home country for SHIT, which has its Canadian premiere in this Firehall production.

The play is set in a prison, where three women—Billy, Sam, and Bob—find themselves after committing a crime. Though we piece together parts of the women’s stories—all three have been abused and discarded from an early age—the script doesn’t follow a conventional narrative. The women are more like voices than fleshed-out characters, and Cornelius seems less interested in dialogue as a tool for exposition than as a proposition for rhythmic exploration. As a result, the women sometimes feel more conceptual than real, like pieces in a game that is primarily linguistic.

The play’s preoccupation with language begins in the first scene, during which Billy drops about a hundred F-bombs in two minutes. (Example: “Who’s this fuckin fuck fuckin telling me I’m fucked up?”) Sam and Bob criticize her for overdoing the swearing; Sam describes Billy’s speech as “a thick carpet of fucks”.

It’s hard to reconcile this playful analysis with Cornelius’s comments that preface her published script: “There’s not a single moment when the three young women transcend their ugliness. There’s no indication of a better or in fact any inner life. They don’t believe in anything.

They’re mean, down mouthed, down trodden, hard bit, utterly damaged women.…They believe the world is shit, that their lives are shit, that they are shit.”

Kayla Deorksen as Billy, Yoshié Bancroft as Sam, and Sharon Crandall as Bob embrace Cornelius’s wordplay like a trio of skilled slam poets, but I’m not sure that director Donna Spencer has made them or their world as mean and ugly as the playwright intends. Yes, there’s despair here—we get fragmentary glimpses of childhood neglect, foster care, and sexual exploitation—but also spirited defiance. And expansiveness: Conor Moore’s set consists of three elevated cells, but the women move around freely within and in front of them, at one point even frolicking around the bars during a scene change. What the fuck?

I applaud this production’s intention to give a voice to women who rarely get heard. But other shows have done it better, more authentically, and closer to home. > KATHLEEN OLIVER

ARTS

The Eternal Tides works a haunting spell D ANC E THE ETERNAL TIDES A Legend Lin Dance Theatre production.

Presented by the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, with TAIWANfest. At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Saturday, February 3.

No remaining performances

Whether or not you lost your-

2 self in The Eternal Tides’ loop-

ing, meditative trance on Saturday night probably reflected how much you had on your mind, or what you had to do in the morning.

That’s because Taiwan’s Legend Lin Dance Theatre asked you to let go of all your earthly concerns and submit to the striking, often slowmoving parade of painterly images that played across the vast Queen

Elizabeth Theatre stage. For western audiences accustomed to rushing around and processing information at the speed of 5 GHz, settling into The Eternal Tides’ Zen-like mood wasn’t easy. Still, for those who succeeded, the rewards were profound and the visuals were spellbinding.

Iconic Taiwanese choreographer Lin Lee-Chen made her message of “Hurry up and slow down” clear from the outset, candles burning on an artful shrine at the front of the stage, two traditional percussionists arriving to sit at giant dagu drums, their opening beats seeming to summon the show’s strange spirits.

And what a fury they conjured: as filmy white silk panels rose from the stark stage, they revealed a near-naked, powdered figure. She whirled for a seeming eternity, her

The Eternal Tides opened with a ghostly form. Chin Cheng-Tsai photo.

knee-length black hair flying around like she was a human tornado. The physical feat repeated to the point of impossibility. And finally, when we lost ourselves in its spell, she let out a scream piercing enough to reach the skiers on top of Grouse Mountain.

The rest of the intermissionless, 140-minute show was a flow of similar dreamlike tableaux. Skirted figures emerged slowly from the sides of the stage, clutching candles, then tall, featherlike stalks of grass, then skeletal trees. Bare-chested men in red bandannas fought, drummed, and shook bells. Apparitions materialized from the back of the stage to move toward us: in one of the show’s eeriest moments, a woman in a giant, birdlike pleated silk headdress simply shook her long nails like rattles in another unearthly endurance test.

The dancers were honed, committed, and disciplined in the extreme.

Rows of them crept, bent over, in perfectly synced slow motion, hands outstretched with candles.

The props were elemental: stones, fire, smoke, grass, and steam. The giant

grasses moulted around the stage, creating an ephemeral dust that the dancers kicked up when they moved.

Lin has said the piece is about the eternal cycles of life, and the endless flow of water. She is saluting both nature and the ancient rituals of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples here, but she also dissuades viewers from trying to find anything too literal in her work.

No doubt: some audience members were immune to The Eternal Tides’ spell, unable to let go of their to-do list or simply too attention-deficient to dial in, with a few leaving before the show was over. But the majority who stayed provided an extended standing ovation for the curtain calls. Though the strange ceremony we had just been a part of remained a mystery, it worked its heady, hypnotic power anyway. > JANET SMITH

MUST CLOSE

FEB 10TH

“imperfect and unapologetic – and fantastically entertaining” Room Magazine

“like a trio of skilled slam poets” Georgia Straight

“impressive work” Colin Thomas

FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 29

straight choices

MUSIC 2THIS WEEK A ROMANTIC POPS VALENTIRE William Rowson conducts soprano Robyn Driedger-Klassen, pianist Jon Nakamatsu, tenor Frédérik Robert, and the VSO perform romantic works by Gershwin, Bizet, Strauss, Puccini, and Mascagni. Feb 9-10, 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe). Info www.vancouversymphony.ca/.

ar ts/ timeout THEATRE DANCE MUSIC COMEDY ET CETERA

PAOLO ANGELI Vancouver New Music presents guitarist Paolo Angeli in a solo performance for prepared Sardinian guitar and voice. Feb 10, 8 pm, Pyatt Hall (843 Seymour). Tix $12-35, info www.newmusic. org/paolo-angeli-feb-10-2018/.

< < < < <

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

FUN HOME The Arts Club Theatre Company presents a musical about a woman who struggles to understand her father while also dealing with her own coming out. Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. Feb 8–Mar 10, Granville Island Stage (1585 Johnston, Granville Island). Tix from $29, info www. artsclub.com/shows/2017-2018/fun-home/.

BROKEN TAILBONE Writer and performer Carmen Aguirre leads a Latin-American dance lesson that flows into her stories of intimacy, politics, culture, and the forgotten origins of the salsa. Feb 13-24, The Cultch (1895 Venables). Tix $35, info thecultch.com/events/broken-tailbone/.

2ONGOING TOPDOG/UNDERDOG A modern fable of 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/topdogunderdog/.

on the web!

For up-to-the-minute, searchable Arts listings on your phone, visit

www.straight.com

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/.

RUINED Dark Glass Theatre presents the story of a bar that strives to remain neutral ground during the Congolese civil war. To Feb 17, 8-10:30 pm, Pacific Theatre (1440 W. 12th). Tix $20-36.50, info www.pacifictheatre.orgseason/ 2017-2018-season/mainstage/ruined/.

SHIT Canadian premiere of Australian playwright Patricia Cornelius’s play about

MASSEY MADNESS Arts events for families are hard to find these days, but the Massey Theatre is managing to address the shortage in a single day. The historical theatre comes alive from morning to evening on Saturday (February 10), with the Massey Madness Family Arts Fest kicking off at 11 a.m. with a performance of Axis Theatre’s lively First Nations mask-andmusic work Th’owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish. At 2 p.m., Capricorn Theatre Productions presents the youth-oriented Confessions of a Grocery Store Clerk, followed at 7 p.m. by the acrobatics of The New Conformity by Cause & Effect Circus and the comedic magic tricks and juggling of Straight favourite Travis Bernhardt (shown here). There are reasonably priced day passes for adults and kids, plus all kinds of free arts activities going on in the lobby and the onsite Plaskett Gallery from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the lives of three incarcerated underclass women. To Feb 10, Firehall Arts Centre (280 E. Cordova). Tix from $20, info www.firehallartscentre.ca/.

THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH Studio 58 continues its 52nd season with Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize–winning comedy, directed by Sarah Rodgers. To Feb 18, 8 pm, Studio 58 (Langara College, 100 W. 49th). Info www.ticketstonight.ca/.

LEGALLY BLONDE Align Entertainment presents the Broadway musical about a woman who thwarts stereotypes and sorority-sister scandals to become a Harvard law graduate. To Feb 17, 8-10 pm, Michael J. Fox Theatre. Tix from $15 , info www.alignentertainment.ca/tickets/.

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

DANCE 2THIS WEEK ANASTASIA Canada’s Ballet Jörgen presents the story of a Russian grand duchess who was born to privilege but cast out into a postrevolutionary world. Feb 9, 7:30 pm; Feb 10, 2 pm, Kay Meek Centre.

Tix $29-45, info www.kaymeek.com/.

EMERSON STRING QUARTET Friends of Chamber Music presents the classical ensemble performing works by Haydn, Barber, and Beethoven. Feb 11, 3 pm, Vancouver Playhouse. Tix $55/50, info www.friendsofchambermusic.ca/.

COMEDY 2ONGOING 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. 2MIKE WILMOT Feb 8-10 2JESSIMAE PELUSO Feb 15-17 YUK YUK’S COMEDY CLUB 2837 Cambie, 604-696-9857, www.yukyuks.com/ vancouver/. 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. 2JOHN PERROTTA Feb 8-10 VANCOUVER THEATRESPORTS LEAGUE Romance Week (Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, 7:30 pm; Wed, Thu, 9:15 pm; Fri, Sat, 9:30 pm; Fri, Sat, 11:15 pm); Rookie Night (Sun, 7:30 pm). Feb 7-14, The Improv Centre (1502 Duranleau, Granville Island).

Info www.vtsl.com/.

2THIS WEEK SNOWED IN COMEDY TOUR 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY Comedy by Dan Quinn, Paul Myrehaug, Pete Zedlacher, and Scott Thompson. Feb 10, 8:30 pm, Rickshaw Theatre (254 E. Hastings). Tix $35/25 at www.rickshawtheatre.com/.

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 YatSen Classical Chinese Garden (578 Carrall).

Info www.lanternsinthegarden.com/.

2THIS WEEK TALKING STICK FESTIVAL Seventeenth annual festival focuses on the diversity of visual arts, dance, theatre, music, powwow, and film in both traditional and contemporary formats. Feb 14-24, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews). Tix $5-90, info www.fullcircle.ca/.

TIME OUT ARTS LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge.

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.

2017-18 60TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON

Ąþ

Paula Kremer, Artistic Director

CANTUS MISSAE: RHEINBERGER AND THE ROMANTICS Saturday, February 24, 2018 7:30pm

Holy Rosary Cathedral 646 Richards St. Vancouver

For more information and tickets visit vancouvercantatasingers.com or call 604-730-8856

30 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

MOVIES REVIEWS FÉLICITÉ Starring Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu. Rating unavailable

Franco-Senegalese director Alain Gomis be-

2 gins Félicité by throwing you right into the

chaotic heart of nighttime Kinshasa. Revellers are guzzling beer and listening to music, many seated on the plastic patio chairs of a rundown street bar.

His freewheeling camera jumps between conversation snippets, the bottle a band member is using to keep the beat, a drunken brawl, wide shots of Congotronics masters Kasai Allstars, and long closeups of the fascinating face at the centre of it all: that of dusky-voiced singer Félicité (the real Congolese songstress and actor Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu).

Later in the movie, someone compares her mug to an armoured car—and yes, she looks tough, but that’s only half the story. She’s a single mother eking out a living, and her stoic gaze falls somewhere between rage and resignation—the opposite of her name, which translates as “Joy”.

Joy and chaos in Kinshasa Driven by a exposes us

Congolese songstress Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu stars as a single mother battling indifference while desperate to save her injured son in the ferocious drama, Félicité.

Leading this trio of 20-somethings is Leila (Mouna Hawa), a sleek, if huge-haired, attorney who moves easily from Arabic to Hebrew, and just as Congotronic soundtrack, director Alain Gomis comfortably between men of different backgrounds. Flatto the mayhem inside a modern African city mate Salma (Sana Jammelieh) When her son gets mangled in a motorcycle acci- is even more outré; she’s gay and frequently stoned, dent, the woman who’s insisted on going it alone is but most promiscuous with jobs that don’t matter forced to beg for help to buy his surgery. And with much—all of which annoys her Christian parents, striking style, Gomis paints a compelling portrait blindly picking out husbands for her.

Things are upended when these two get a new not only of her struggle, but also of those of an entire city. The guy knows Africa, and he exposes its roomie: observantly Islamic Nour (Shaden Kanbeauty, grit, and pain with the unsentimental hu- boura), a plump, fully covered student in town temporarily for an IT course. She’s initially put off manity and knowing eye of one of its own.

Gomis fills the movie with wide shots of by their urban ways—the colourfully shot movie Kinshasa’s anarchic dirt streets, with their parties to an electro beat—and they think she’s an tarp-covered markets, burning garbage piles, uptight bumpkin. They soon find common ground, and women swathed in colourful batik dress- though. It’s clear that Nour’s not into her fiancé es. When Félicité sets out desperately on these (Henry Andrawes), this supposedly pious comroads, striding through the dirt in her sandals, munity worker who disdains all things modern. you can sense through the mayhem the countless Meanwhile, Leila appears to have found a proper soulmate in Ziad (Mahmud Shalaby), a hunky filmother trials that drown her own battle out.

Gomis alternates this stark realism with dream- maker back from studying in New York.

The actors are excellent, and the film does a like touches, starting with scenes of the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra playing the otherworldly good job of setting up these nebulous situations. strains of Arvo Pärt. To escape her harsh urban real- It earns instant respect by conveying a range of ity, Félicité’s mind jumps to mysterious scenes of her Palestinian personalities unburdened by the usual politics and poverty. There is some mild minorityin a lush forest, awash in the blue light of night.

What Félicité can’t see is that everything she snubbing here, by random Tel Avivans, but most of needs might be right in front of her, in the un- the conflicts are internal, subcultural, and genderassuming form of her refrigerator repairman and based. And this is exactly where Hamoud’s finely drawn portrait gets sketchy. drunken bar patron Tabu (Papi Mpaka).

When Nour’s already arrogant boyfriend The film defies western structural conventions; it wanders and it’s prone to long, hypnotic Con- turns brutal, the women band together for regotronic interludes at the bar. But it introduces you venge, but the payoff is unsatisfying. Ziad turns to people who are enigmatic yet real, and to a coun- out to be less progressive than expected, but his try that’s ferocious, alive, and resilient enough to arguments with Leila feel forced and are poorsurvive the worst—like the film’s frowning heroine. ly written. And would Salma really bring her > JANET SMITH brand-new girlfriend (Ashlam Canaan) to meet her deeply conservative parents, without warnIN BETWEEN ing, the same night they invited a prospective spouse and his family to dinner?

Starring Mouna Hawa. In Arabic and Hebrew, with These plot turns seem designed to hammer home English subtitles. Rated 18A points, not make the characters richer or more comIn her debut feature, Hungarian-born writer- plex. The frequently disjointed editing doesn’t help, director Maysaloun Hamoud tells the stories nor does the fact that the main characters smoke of three very different Israeli-Arab women, pushed cigarettes through every scene without noticing together by circumstances in modern Tel Aviv. (or without the director noticing) that this may be

2

WEEK IN WIDESCREEN

2 Spooky action ENTANGLEMENT Silicon Valley’s Thomas Middleditch stars

alongside Jess Weixler (The Good Wife) and Vancouver’s Diana Bang (The Interview) in this sweet-natured, locally shot rom-com.

Check Straight.com for our interview with director Jason James and a link to the film’s killer soundtrack of obscure old country and R&B. Entanglement opens in Vancouver on Friday (February 9). -

3

> KEN EISNER

PERMISSION Starring Rebecca Hall. Rated 14A

What if your long-term relationship had a

2 do-over button? That’s the concept of this

indie rom-com, which—like most promises made in haste and on the cheap—doesn’t quite deliver in the end.

Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens play Anna and Will, college sweethearts now hitting 30 without ever having “been with” anyone else. Both Brits go Yank in the accent department, and also seem to have left their personalities on the other side of the Atlantic. Ensconced in their comfortable Brooklyn flat, and just about to move into the brownstone that Will is renovating, they are inarticulate nebbishes who are particularly tongue-tied in the bedroom, where things are not exactly 50 shades of great.

Will’s just about to propose marriage at one of many hipster spots visited (short beards are now the order of the day) when his best friend and custom-carpentry business partner, Reece (Morgan Spector), tipsily points out that the twosome are still virginal with everyone but each other. That’s enough to get them wondering if they shouldn’t give the ol’ dating scene one last shot—without breaking up. You know, to be sure!

Meanwhile, Reece has his own probs with partner Hale (David Joseph Craig), who’s also Anna’s brother. He wants to adopt a baby at the expense of everything else, including surprises and witty dialogue.

Writer-director Brian Crano, who directed Hall in his little-seen A Bag of Hammers, is Craig’s real-life partner, while Hall is actually married to Spector.

This incestuous arrangement would seem to support transgressive elements in Permission. But a dogged sense of narrative symmetry and budget limitations prove confining in a notably underpopulated New York tale that only concerns young, attractive white people abiding in exposed-brick lofts.

Anyway, the eros level stays low with characters who bumble around and offer so many apologies you might think they’re Canadian. In fact, actual Quebecker François Arnaud (I Killed My Mother) see next page

MOVIES

The projector

1

part of their basic unease. These ’tweeners are still well worth meeting. They should maybe just stay single for a while longer.

What to see and where to see it

VIMFF

KILLER OF SHEEP From 1978, Charles

Burnett’s milestone in African-American cinema gets two not-to-be-missed screenings at the Cinematheque on Wednesday and Friday (February 7 and 9).

COME DRINK WITH ME This clas-

sic martial-arts film is preceded at the Vancity Theatre on Sunday (February 11) by, get this, a whack of old kung-fu trailers discovered at the Rickshaw Theatre.

MAMA AFRICA: MIRIAM MAKEBA

Part of Black History Month at the Vancity Theatre, Mika Kaurismäki’s 2011 portrait of the South African singer and activist screens on Monday (February 12).

DIRTBAG: THE LEGEND OF FRED BECKEY One of the most purely entertaining docs at last year’s VIFF comes to the Centennial Theatre on Tuesday (February 13), thanks to the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival. Photographer Jim Herrington will be there to talk about Beckey, the garbage-eating, T-Bird–driving, hard-loving “Bob Dylan” of alpine climbers. FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 31

Permission

from previous page

makes an impression as a soulful musician who connects with Anna’s creative side. And Gina Gershon gives the tale a needed jolt of acting chops as a rich, older woman who lends Will a temporary thrill. His hair-trigger jackrabbit “technique” is raised but never really addressed, even by Mrs. Robinson. Anna stays curiously unchanged as well.

An indication of Crano’s Etch-ASketch scripting comes when we’re told that Anna is working on a master’s degree in feminist studies. Hmm. We don’t really get to see what her thesis is about, she has zero female friends, and on the evidence here she’s never given one thought to the relationship dynamics at play in, well, this movie.

Jason Sudeikis has a small role as a sleep-deprived new dad. He previously starred in Hall Pass, a Farrellybrothers comedy built on the same subject. It didn’t pretend to be about anything more. > KEN EISNER

SHADOWMAN A documentary by Oren Jacoby.

Rating unavailable

In addition to Jeff Wall, Ian Wal-

2 lace, and Roy Arden, Vancouver produced another art star—but his

trajectory was markedly different.

Richard Hambleton’s career was a total train wreck, tied into the drugafflicted, remarkably self-destructive Lower East Side scene of 1980s New York City. In this fast-moving documentary by Oren Jacoby, you witness his crash in all its ugliness—including a messy final attempt to get back on track before his death late last year.

Hambleton, whose outsider-art celebrity rivalled that of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, goes from glittering gallery shows and spreads in People and Vogue to living in a blood-spattered crack house and hawking his paintings for junk within a matter of just a few years.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Bolstered by an incredible wealth of archival footage and interviews, Jacoby chronicles Hambleton’s rocketlike rise in New York City’s art world. (The Vancouver School of Art alumnus travelled there on a government grant in the late ’70s.) Hambleton caught the zeitgeist of the then crime-plagued city with his sinister street art: fake whitechalked crime scenes with blood-red paint splashed on them and threatening black silhouettes that earned him the nickname Shadowman. (Banksy has cited him as an influence.)

Soon, the artist was putting those images on canvas, selling them to collectors, and becoming the talk of the town—a dapper dresser who always

over like a 90-year-old, a bandage covering a cancerous lesion on his face—a wasted shadow of his former self.

It’s not easy to watch. But set to the likes of Talking Heads and Blondie, the documentary succeeds as an unglamourized ode to the uncompromising ’80s art scene in New York—and one talented man that it consumed.

> JANET SMITH

WINCHESTER Starring Helen Mirren. Rated 14A

Three-and-a-half months ago

2 Jigsaw, the eighth entry in the Dame Helen Mirren makes an unstately horror debut in Winchester.

had several women on his arm. So where did it all go so terribly wrong?

Hambleton started painting massive sea- and landscapes instead of the splattery graffiti expressions his collectors so loved. Even in his later years, as two young collectors tried to get Hambleton to revive his career, he was difficult. Friends called it arrogance and pride.

But this is also a portrait of someone who simply lost himself to drugs.

By the end, even though he could still execute the same gestural genius with his brush strokes, Hambleton is shown in the film drawn and bent

Saw torture-porn franchise, was released. Not too surprisingly it was a mostly mediocre affair, although it included one memorable scene near the end where a guy’s head got sliced lengthwise into several pieces by a barrage of high-tech laser scalpels.

Lasting moments are also rare in the new haunted-house period piece Winchester. The only scene that sticks with you is the one where a possessed ginger kid with a rifle stalks an old lady along a mazelike hallway, blindly firing at her through its wooden partitions.

Both Jigsaw and Winchester were directed by the Australian twin-brother team of Michael and Peter Spierig, so hey, at least they’re consistent. In this unconvincing spook show, set in 1906, Aussie Jason Clarke stars as Eric Price, a San Francisco psychotherapist

who mixes hookers and laudanum to help him cope with a tragedy-laced past. The opiate-addicted shrink gets commissioned by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to assess the mental state of company heiress Sarah Winchester (Dame Helen Mirren), who oversees a 150-plus-room mansion in San Jose. The eccentric old coot has ordered around-the-clock renovations on the sprawling structure, with plans to house the angry spirits of those killed by her powerful namesake weapon.

When Price shows up to study Winchester’s wellness the movie soon morphs into a string of clichéd appearances by various apparitions, all delivered with routine jump-scares. The guilt-ridden Winchester offers longwinded commentary on the “guns make ghosts” theme and roams the mansion at night shrouded in black, scribbling plans for yet more rooms to secure her phantom guests. Her young nephew (Finn Scicluna-O’Prey) gets possessed by the spirit of a deranged Civil War soldier, puts a sack over his head, and dangerously sleepwalks before his eyeballs turn white and he has his mandatory Linda Blair moment.

The silliness continues as we’re waylaid by a wacky array of vengeful ghosts, culminating in a close-quarters shootout that produces plenty of splintered wood and shattered glass but nada in the entertainment department. > STEVE NEWTON

Celebrate the Georgia Straight’s

50th Anniversary with a beautifully produced coffee table book!

Co-written by the Georgia Straight’s Doug Sarti and Dan McLeod Visit straight.com/shop to buy the book

32 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

METRO VANCOUVER’S PREMIERE SOCIAL JUSTICE FILM FESTIVAL

K W A N T L E N P O LY T E C H N I C U N I V E R S I T Y

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February 15—18, 2018

Vancity Theatre 1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver, BC Open to all! Opening night and closing night receptions, speakers, panels, Q&As, and more! For more information and to purchase tickets, visit KDocsFF.com facebook.com/KDocsFF

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IN THEATRES FEBRUARY 23 FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 33

MOVIES

Mountain fest sobers up over pipelines > B Y A D RIAN MACK

Z

ack Embree sounds like a traumatized man when he talks about Fort MacKay. “It’s very sobering,” he says softly. “First Nations are typically at the frontline of resource extraction and environmental degradation, and that long history of exploitation hit me in the face when I went to Fort MacKay.” Just north of Fort McMurray, amidst Alberta’s bitumen-mining operations, this tiny hamlet on the Athabasca River is one of the sacrifice zones of the tarsands.

“People there are surrounded by trillions of litres of toxic water,” Embree continues. “They transform the boreal forest, which is a massive source of fresh water and oxygenation, and scrape it to the side, turning it into scorched-earth sand dunes and toxic tailing ponds surrounded by cannons to scare away the birds. It’s like sci-fi up there. The air is heavy with the smell of oil; the people have rare cancers and illnesses—it’s a very difficult place to be.”

Embree’s interest in the impact of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project is what prompted the visit to Fort MacKay. The roving filmmaker (helped by Vancouver codirector Devyn Brugge) went to Alberta, New Brunswick, and even Paris during a five-year mission to produce Directly Affected, a remarkably comprehensive doc on the dire costs of Canada’s mutation into “energy superpower”.

The Vancouver-based Embree spoke to the Georgia Straight by phone just one week after Suncor Energy Inc. announced its plan to replace some 400 tarsands workers with driverless trucks—so much for the persistent myth of more jobs—and three days after Justin Trudeau hit a spectacular

wall of pipeline opposition during a town-hall meeting in Nanaimo.

“It’s become clear that he’s continuing with a corporate agenda, except with hugs and teddy bears and shirtless photo ops,” says Embree, whose film begins by contrasting Trudeau’s PR effort at the Paris climate talks in 2015 with the National Energy Board’s dizzyingly antidemocratic approach to pipeline expansion. (“It’s a sham,” Burnaby South MP Kennedy Stewart states in the film.)

The doc goes on to examine the economic, social, and environmental catastrophes that await, while making the case for clean-energy solutions and signalling its faith in citizen resistance.

Beautifully shot and effective, the film premieres at North Van’s Centennial Theatre on Sunday (February 11) with David Suzuki and the director in attendance as part of the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival. Embree will be at a second screening at the Cinematheque next Friday (February 16).

It’s the perfect venue for Directly Affected. The title refers to newspeak used by the NEB to bypass community concerns about a substance that could, in the probable event of a spill, make parts of Vancouver uninhabitable.

“We have a duty to stand up for the life force of this Earth that supports us,” Embree says. “So if the Mountain Film Festival is about the human spirit experiencing nature, performing incredible feats, and overcoming incredible challenges, then I think that the challenge that we face in terms of climate change is our Everest right now.”The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival runs from February 9 to 17. More information is at www. vimff.org/.

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34 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

MUSIC Alex Luciano made the brave decision to pull back the curtain on her private life when writing songs for Diet Cig’s debut fulllength, Swear I’m Good at This. It’s to be expected, then, that fans at the Brooklyn duo’s live shows aren’t shy about getting personal when they line up to talk at the merch table afterwards.

“Things get heavy sometimes,” the frontwoman says, on the line from Missouri, where she and bandmate-drummer Noah Bowman have just had a Super Bowl–centred tour offday. “There are folks who tell us our music has really impacted them, so they want to talk about how they can really relate to our songs.

We’ve had people come up and literally say ‘Your songs have changed my life.’ That’s crazy, but amazing.”

That Swear I’m Good at This has proven inspiring makes sense. Start with the album title, which one might read as Luciano giving herself a heartfelt pep talk. For years, she dreamed of starting a band, but lacked the drive and focus.

After she met Bowman at an all-ages show— when Bowman was on-stage and she asked him mid-set for a light—the two began a friendship.

That led the older Bowman to push the singer to stop writing songs for herself and start sharing them with the world.

“Noah is a doer—someone who gets shit done,” Luciano says. “I feel like I’ve got a lot of ideas, but usually my head is in the clouds, which means I don’t always get a lot done. He’s the kind of guy who’ll go, ‘That’s a great idea— let’s do it.’ After meeting him, and having him go ‘These songs are cool,’ all of a sudden I was like, ‘Whoaaaa—I can actually do this.’ ”

2

This band changes lives

Alex Luciano (left) credits her friend and Diet Cig bandmate Noah Bowman with pushing her in the direction of sharing her songs with the world.

“I like his show, but he also seems like a good dude,” Luciano says.

“I like his attitude and That’s what some fans tell Diet Cig, but others just energy and that he’s a want to talk about a certain Food Network host goofball. After we play we Swear I’m Good at This finds Diet Cig pro- go to the hotel, throw on the Food Network, and gressing from the scrappy DIY garage pop of its watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It’s just cool.” > MIKE USINGER 2015 debut EP, Over Easy. The album’s 12 songs draw on ragged ’90s-vintage college rock (“Bite Back”) and Pacific Northwest grunge (“Leo”). Diet Cig plays the Cobalt on Saturday (February 10).

The pair knows the power of a duo cranking the amps (the savage “Bath Bomb”), but isn’t afraid to get vulnerable with the acoustic guitar, as on the wounded standout “Apricots”.

Luciano is proud of the way that she’s proAs the indie and grunge rockers of the 1980s gressed as a guitar player since Bowman conand ’90s approach late middle age, hatchetvinced her she had something to say, and she’s thrilled at the way fans have connected with her buryings and band reunions are becoming almost lyrics. She acknowledges taking a risk on the re- an everyday occurrence. But what happens when cord, starting with the kickoff track, “Sixteen”, aging songwriters revisit their younger selves? which begins with her going at it with a boy also Does getting into the head of an angry young named Alex in the back of his truck, and then woman when you’re pushing 50 demand a deshifts to town, where he’s telling everyone she gree of leather-clad role-playing? Or is that vexed 20-something still there, deep inside the subconsleeps around.

The payoff for the singer, who hails from the scious mind?

Those are questions Helium’s Mary Timony has New York backwater of New Paltz, can, again, be measured by the lines of fans waiting to meet Diet been wrestling with, to some degree, ever since the Cig after club shows. And as heavy as things can Matador label embarked on a program of reissuing the group’s 1990s recordings, which include the get, they’re not always so.

“It spans the spectrum from deep, intense albums The Dirt of Luck and The Magic City, the conversations about emotions to, sometimes, No Guitars EP, and a new collection of singles and ‘Oh my god—here’s a picture of Guy Fieri, be- rarities, Ends With And. Timony has been quoted as saying that she used to write out of anger, but the cause I know you like him.’ ” That’s right—Guy Fieri is something of an ob- person who answers the phone at her Washington, session. Sometimes on tour you have to do more D.C., digs is unfailingly sunny—and ready to laugh at her earlier self. than rock.

Mary Timony had to relearn her Helium songs to play them on tour

2

CHECK THIS OUT You gotta see MØ Need yet another reason to wonder why the hell anyone bothers making full-length albums in 2018? Consider the curious case of MØ. When the Straight interviewed the Danish electro-pop alchemist known as Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen back in 2014, she was working on her first LP, No Mythologies to Follow.

Flash forward four years, and there’s been no second album, despite repeated promises that it’s imminent. Instead, MØ has rolled out singles like 2015’s Diploproduced “Kamikaze”. Rather than buckle down, she’s been busy collaborating with the likes of Major Lazer and Justin Bieber, their joint venture “Cold Water” going Top 10 on charts all over the world, including America. The last time we heard from MØ as a solo artist was with 2016’s “Final Song”, which cracked the Top 40 in 10 countries. Despite having nothing new to push, the Danish singer—who last played Fortune Sound Club in Vancouver—jumps to the Vogue this Sunday (February 11). Who needs albums, anyways? -

“It was an interesting process to go back and go over those songs again,” Timony reports. “I was approaching songwriting from a really different place at the time, in my 20s. But I’m not always thinking about the meaning of the words when I’m singing them. I’m more just listening to melodies, and thinking about connecting with the band. Maybe there are a couple of songs that I just don’t really like doing, ’cause I was in kind of a darker place when I wrote them. So maybe we’ve tweaked the set around a little bit so it’s pretty fun to play—and I generally have a fun time, playing live. I guess I don’t really have to do the role-playing thing.”

More on her mind is presenting Helium’s music as well as she can. In this, she’s helped by the fact that her former bandmates are not onboard for her current Mary Timony Plays Helium tour, having been replaced by younger and harder-working musicians.

“The guys that I played with in Helium were amazing, but we were just kind of lazy as a band,” Timony says, laughing. “We had a little bit of a slacker mentality about practising, and I think I’ve gotten a little bit better about that!”

As far as reinvigorating her muscle memory goes, the guitarist notes that between her day job and the treasure box that is YouTube, she was able to piece her old songs together without much trouble.

“It was kind of daunting to think about relearning the parts, but it actually ended up being kind of a fun process,” she explains. “One of the things I do is teach guitar, so it just kind of felt like I was learning someone else’s songs. It really wasn’t that much different.

“There were a couple of songs where I couldn’t remember how the parts went on the neck—like, see next page

MUSIC Let’s talk about LIGHT MAKES RIGHT Beyonce’s 66-year-old dad, Mathew Knowles, has said his daughter—as well as Solange, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj—wouldn’t be nearly as successful if they had darker skin. Before you snort at that, ask yourself why CupcakKe’s “Duck Duck Goose” video hasn’t made her bigger than Oprah. (Hint: it’s not the dildos.)

SMELLS LIKE BABIES A new T-Mobile ad has reimagined Nirvana’s “All Apologies” as a children’s song, with glockenspiel replacing Kurt Cobain’s serrated guitar. The official song accompanying all T-Mobile bills remains “Rape Me”.

JUST SAY OZZY Ozzy Osbourne has announced a string of North American dates on his forthcoming farewell tour—but no Vancouver show. Sayeth Ozzy: “Dash ish foo fuckin’ wazza hud fuckin’ bizzo, Toronto beffa fuckin’ hoopa. Shaaaarrrrooonnnn!”

OFF THE ROAD AGAIN Willie Nelson has been forced to cancel several U.S. concert dates thanks to a bout of flu, which ought to be enough to prove conclusively that—sorry, cannabis advocates—weed doesn’t actually cure everything.

Fresh and local DEALS Johnny Musical genres and subgenres and microgenres come and go, but it seems there will always be a place for dudes playing guitar-based indie rock. And when we say “a place”, we’re referring to our own hearts. If you’re anything like us, Vancouver trio DEALS will hit that sweet spot with their latest five-song EP. The surfand-turf twang of “Bathrobe” and the garage-rawkin’ churn of “Ravens” highlight the work of three guys—namely drummer Brent Glasgow-Brown, guitarist Dave Warne, and bassist Jaroslav Welz (all three are credited with vocals)—who sound as if they spend a lot of time honing their chops in a sweaty rehearsal space. It may not be reggaeton-inspired trapstep, but we dig it. FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 35

MUSIC

Bend Sinister goes beyond nods to the greats L OCA L D I S C S BEND SINISTER The Other Way (Cordova Bay)

Bend Sinister has been many

2 things over the years—jaunty

rock ’n’ rollers, anthemic gut-bellowers, and sultry balladeers. The Other Way successfully takes all those elements and slots them together into one slick record.

Describing the collection as “six songs of fun”, the band has hit the nail on the head. Opening the collection with a Queen-esque masterpiece, the group shows its aptitude for tonguein-cheek pastiche without losing its own identity.

“Get Along”, the second track, kicks the EP off proper. High-octane drumming and honky-tonk keyboard riffs jostle with a persistent bass line FEB

10

and stadium-filling chorus, before sliding into lead single “Walk the Other Way”—a track that sports an Imagine Dragons feel, but with infinitely more swag.

“Rock and Roll”, on the other hand, returns to the band’s proclivity for pastiche. With a chorus featuring lyrics like “Rock ’n’ roll can’t be forgotten” and “We won’t lose our soul,” the self-referential track recalls classics like AC/DC’s “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” or the Stones’ “It’s Only Rock ’n Roll”—all elevated by singer Dan Moxon’s flawless vocals.

Bend Sinister evokes Queen and It’s certainly ambitious to nod to the Stones without being derivative. the greats. But with its excellent musicianship and immaculate production, FUNNY DEATH The Other Way is never derivative, Half Present (Independent) and injects new life into elements that Sure, it’s possible to appredefined rock bands of the past. > KATE WILSON ciate the music of Funny

2

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Mary Timony

from previous page

where on the neck I was playing them—and I just happened to find some very random footage of us playing in 1994 or something, and figured it out from that. It’s not like there’s a ton of stuff on YouTube, but there happened to be one random show at a college somewhere, and that helped me.”

It helps, too, that although Timony has been somewhat out of the spotlight since Helium disbanded in 1998, she’s kept active in music, performing with Portlandia star Carrie Brownstein in Wild Flag and more recently with her own trio, Ex Hex. “I haven’t really looked back that much in my musical career,” she admits. “This is the first time I’ve really done that, and it feels good!”

Death without knowing any background—but to really get it, it’s worth digging into his story.

Born Jad Mroue, the artist has roots in Lebanon, the Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso, and f led a number of war zones before settling in Vancouver. A nomadic soul, Mroue has been quoted as saying that nationalities and frontiers don’t matter to him—and that’s one of the reasons for the uniqueness of his music.

Heavily inf luenced by ’80s Japanese electronic tracks—he lived in Japan for a time—the producer creates dreamy songs filled with meditative synthesizers and occasional reverbed vocals. Western melodies and lyrics form the foundations of his songs, and each is augmented by Japanese scale f lourishes. On his first Canadian-

written album, the expansive 19-track Half Present, Mroue has created a collection that would sound perfectly at home soundtracking the original Blade Runner movie or Ryan Gosling’s moody Drive—at once saturnine and sparkling with eastern energy.

Sure, it’s a niche part of culture that few stumble across—but the genre still boasts an ardent following in the West. Mroue perfectly taps into the scene, borrowing motifs from the era and transporting them into 2018 by floating them over glitchy funk bass lines in tracks like “Misswave” and the soulful bossa nova of “Toden Arakawa Line”. It might be miles away from mainstream EDM, but Half Present has plenty to hook electronic-music aficionados of all stripes.

Hamasyan sought food for his soul in Armenia

by music and relatives and love.

Comfortable as that sounds, though, it hasn’t always been easy.

“It’s really a different kind of world here, compared to Europe or the U.S.,” the 30-year-old pianist reports in a Skype conversation from the Armenian capital. “There are challenges that are different here, and the challenge isn’t like living in New York. But there is definitely a lot of culture that I need for myself, like the soul food that I need, which is mostly the reason why I went back. Also there’s some kind of freedom I have here that I don’t have in other places. There are things that I can do that I wouldn’t be able to do if, say, I was living in L.A. or Paris. A lot of it has to do with the people and their traditions, and the way they live their life here. And also just being able to wake up and drive for 15 minutes and end up in a seventh-century monastery in the mountains… These are the things and places that inspire me to create, I guess.”

Hamasyan didn’t always admire his roots. “Actually,” he says, “I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Later on I got into jazz, and I really hated Armenian folk music because all I wanted to play was bebop.

But a few years later, some records came out on the ECM label—like Jan Garbarek records, Keith Jarrett records—and I realized that folk music can give you a different approach to improvisation, a different musical vocabulary you can use to improvise. So all these things led me into folk music in general, and to my own folk music.”

In solo performance, which is how we’ll hear him in Vancouver next week, Hamasyan mixes lyrical improvisation with Armenianinflected melodies and, sometimes, his own rich, flexible singing. In Armenia, however, he’s been working with larger forces—most notably the Yerevan State Chamber Choir, as heard on his 2015 release, Luys I Luso.

“I’m basically arranging Armenian religious music, church music from the fifth to the 20th centuries, for piano and a choir,” Hamasyan notes.

“This was something where I really had to be able to stay here to get this project going, because I had to find the right choir and work with them for six months nonstop before we could record. So it was a long process, but it was a really beautiful project— and definitely a learning experience.”

The learning continues: Hamasyan is currently working on a large-scale commission from the New York City–based vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth. In the as-yet-untitled work, the choir will interpret a 10th-century Armenian canto, or religious poem, with improvised counterpoint from the piano.

“I’ve gotten myself into a lot of trouble, because it’s a long piece and it’s complicated,” Hamasyan says with a laugh. “But I like a challenge!”

Discrimination and pogroms

2 forced the Jews of Europe into

exile; slavery brought Africans to the Americas; land clearances and near starvation sent the Scots around the globe. Every diaspora has its cause, or causes, and what fractured the Armenian people was genocide, which killed millions and dispossessed millions more of their ancestral lands during the early part of the past century. Only a rump country remains, a former Soviet republic nestled in the Caucasus Mountains and bounded by Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iran.

Yet the lure of that place, coupled with family necessity, led American jazz pianist and composer Tigran > ALEXANDER VARTY Hamasyan to undertake his own reverse diaspora, returning to YereMary Timony Plays Helium is at the van from California as an adult, and Cobalt on February 21. making a new life there surrounded

> KATE WILSON

> ALEXANDER VARTY

254 East Hastings | liveatrickshaw.com 36 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2018

The Armenian Cultural Association of British Columbia presents Tigran Hamasyan at the Vancouver Academy of Music next Friday (February 16).

FRENSHIP Los Angeles–based electropop duo performs on its Good Morning, Goodbye Tour, with guests Yoke Lore.

May 4, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Biltmore Cabaret (2755 Prince Edward). Tix on sale Feb 9, 10 am, $15 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

PAUL SIMON American folk-rock singer-songwriter (“You Can Call Me Al”, “Mother and Child Reunion”) performs on his Homeward Bound—The Farewell Tour.

May 16, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Rogers Arena (800 Griffiths Way). Tix on sale Feb 9, 10 am, $189/129/89/59 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

music/ timeout CONCERTS < OUT OF TOWN <

CONCERTS 2JUST ANNOUNCED TIGRAN HAMASYAN Pianist-composer fuses jazz improvisation with the folkloric music of his native Armenia. Feb 16, 8 pm, Vancouver Academy of Music (1270 Chestnut). Tix $40 at www.brownpaper tickets.com/.

LENNIE GALLANT Capilano University presents the beloved PEI singer-songwriter known for his emotive and lively performances, fresh off the run of his acclaimed musical, Searching for Abegweit. Feb 23, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts (2055 Purcell Way). Info www.capilanou.ca/centre/.

KATE NASH English indie-pop singersongwriter tours in support of upcoming release Yesterday Was Forever. Apr 4, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, The Imperial (319 Main). Tix on sale Feb 9, 10 am, $30 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat, Zulu Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/.

BURNABY BLUES + ROOTS FESTIVAL The 19th annual celebration of blues and roots music features Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. Also includes familyfriendly activities and local food vendors.

Aug 11, doors 2 pm, show 3 pm, Deer Lake Park (6344 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby). Tix on sale Feb 9, 10 am, $180/50/40 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketmaster.ca/.

For up-to-the-minute, searchable Music Time Out listings, visit

www.straight.com

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE American pop–R&B singer-songwriter and former NSYNC member performs on his Man of the Woods Tour.

Nov 8, Rogers Arena (800 Griffiths Way). Tix on sale Feb 12 at www.livenation.com/.

DESTROYER Canadian rock band tours in support of latest release ken, with guests Mega Bog. Feb 9, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix $25 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

JON AND ROY Canadian folk-rock/reggae band tours in support of latest release The Road Ahead Is Golden, with guests Old Man Canyon. Apr 6, doors 8 pm, show 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville).

Tix on sale Feb 9, 10 am, $20 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

GUS DAPPERTON Indie artist from Warwick, New York, performs on his You Think You’re a Comic! Tour. Apr 18, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Fox Cabaret (2321 Main).

Tix on sale Feb 9, 10 am, $15 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

HIPPIE SABOTAGE California-based electronica duo performs on its Path of Righteousness Tour. Feb 10, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, The Imperial (319 Main). Tix $20 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

TOM COCHRANE Canadian heartlandrock singer-songwriter performs with Red Rider. May 4, 8 pm, Molson Canadian Theatre at Hard Rock (2080 United Blvd.).

Tix $69.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.hardrockcasinovancouver.com/.

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MASON JENNINGS American folk-pop singer-songwriter tours in support of latest release Wild Dark Metal. Feb 14, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Biltmore Cabaret

2UPCOMING HIGHLIGHTS

2JUST ANNOUNCED

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/.

DAVE KING TRIO One of the most celebrated drummers in modern jazz, The Bad Plus’ Dave King plays with fellow Minnesota native Billy Peterson on bass and New Yorker Matt Mitchell on piano.

Luxuriant, atmospheric and inventive music.

Presented by Coastal Jazz. Feb 18, 8 pm, Frankie’s Jazz Club (765 Beatty). Tix $25, info www.coastaljazz.ca/.

SASQUATCH! MUSIC FESTIVAL Annual music festival features Bon Iver, the National, Modest Mouse, David Byrne, Tyler, the Creator, Ray Lamontagne, Spoon, Grizzly Bear, Explosions in the Sky, Neko Case, Vince Staples, TV on the Radio, Slowdive, Tash Sultana, Thundercat, Shakey Graves, Tune-Yards, Wolf Parade, and Japandroids.

May 25-27, Gorge Amphitheatre (George, Wash.). Tix on sale Feb 10, 10 am, at www. sasquatchfestival.com/.

TIME OUT MUSIC LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge.

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.

THU FEB 8

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SAT FEB 10

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STELLA SOUL w. gentle mind, ludic & jess perkins SUN FEB 11

SERENA RYDER Canadian folk-rock singer-songwriter tours in support of latest studio album Utopia. Feb 13, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Vogue Theatre (918 Granville). Tix $49.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

The Railway Stage presents

OPEN MIC NIGHT w. NIMBUS

Feb 12 The Take Back w. EMCEES KHINGZ & MIC FLONT Feb 16 Live Acts Canada & Live Agency present THE SEGUES Feb 17 Live Agency presents THE FALLAWAYS W.GUESTS

LP American indie-rock singer-songwriter, with guest Noah Kahan. Feb 13, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix $27.50, info www.bplive.ca/events/lp/.

THE HOT SARDINES Coastal Jazz presents the New York City–based jazz trio in a concert with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and maestro William Rowson.

Apr 25, 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe). Tix $75/65/50, info www.coastal jazz.ca/.

EMPLOYMENT

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY American metal band, featuring singer-guitarist Zakk Wylde, with guests Corrosion of Conformity and Eyehategod. Feb 14, doors 7 pm, show 7:45 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix $47.75 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

OUT OF TOWN

2THIS WEEK

DAN AUERBACH American blues-rock vocalist-guitarist performs on his Easy Eye Sound Revue Tour featuring Robert Finley and Shannon Straw, with guests Shannon and the Clams. Feb 10, 9 pm, Vogue Theatre. Tix $45 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

SLOAN Toronto alt-rock band tours in support of latest studio album Sloan 12. Apr 20, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, The Imperial (319 Main). Tix on sale Feb 9, 10 am, $35 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

SABATON AND KREATOR Swedish heavy-metal band coheadlines with German thrash-metal band. Feb 14, doors 6:30 pm, show 7:30 pm, Vogue Theatre (918 Granville). Tix $40 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

(2755 Prince Edward). Tix $20 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketfly.com/.

WESTWARD MUSIC FESTIVAL Featuring performances by Blood Orange, Kali Uchis, Angel Olsen, Metz, Saba, Ravyn Lenae, Ella Mai, Mudhoney, Odds, We Are the City, Tei Shi, Pell, Duckwrth, Buddy, Fatima Al Qadiri, Roni Size, Hannah Epperson, Jordan Klassen, Milk & Bone, and Close Talker. Sep 13-16, various Vancouver venues. Tix on sale Feb 13 at noon at www.westwardfest.com/.

THE BOOTS AND BABES BALL New Country 93.7 JR-FM presents music by the James Barker Band, Meghan Patrick, and JoJo Mason. Feb 10, doors 7 pm, show 8:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix $25 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketmaster.ca/.

on the web!

Theatre (254 E. Hastings). Tix $115/20 (plus service charges and fees) at www.rick shawtheatre.com/, info www.rickshaw theatre.com/1006/ron-pope-with-guests/.

MAJID JORDAN Canadian R&B duo performs on its Space Between a World Tour. Feb 13, 9 pm, Orpheum Theatre. Tix $59.50/43/36 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

RON POPE American pop-rock singersongwriter tours in support of latest album Work, with guests the National Parks and the Heart Of. Feb 14, 7 pm, Rickshaw

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Support, Education & Action Group for Women that have experienced male violence.

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The Compassionate Friends (TCF) Burnaby TCF is a grief support group for parents who have experienced the loss of a child, at any age.

Meet the last Wednesday of the month at 7:00 p.m.

For location call Grace: 778-222-0446 "We Need Not Walk Alone" compassionatecircle@hotmail.com Burnaby@TCFCanada.net www.tcfcanada.net

Sir/Dr James Charles Chapala BA (UBC) LLB (UBC) PhD (University of Lancaster, England) McKenzie Friend 39 years experience in the Justice System.

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Healing Our Spirit B.C. First Nations AIDS Society has volunteer opportunities for hospital visitation, information booths, office assistance & preparation of pamphlets & condoms for distribution. We offer volunteer orientation, training & recognition & bus tickets.

If interested, please call 983-8774 Ext. 13.

We are dedicated to preventing and reducing the spread of HIV in the aboriginal communities of B.C.

UBC Sexual Health Lab seeking participants: Do you experience pain with sexual activity or low sexual desire diffculties?

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Singers wanted for High Spirits Choir Do you love to sing? Do you want to sing with an established, friendly, inclusive and enthusiastic community choir? Then, High Spirits Choir might be the choir for you! Our Spring term starts 7 pm, Wednesday, February 14th at the Estonian Church (Oak and 49th).

Please contact our membership coordinator at highspiritschoirinfo@gmail.com or visit www.highspiritschoir.ca.

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Savage Love

> BY DAN SAVAGE

How does one get into the gay play buddy, and ‘check his references’.

BDSM bottoming and leather scene? Even better, if you can, go to a pub> SEEKING ANSWERS lic event like IML, MAL, or CLAW, CONCERNING KINK or to a play party like the New York Bondage Club, where you can parOne shows up, SACK. ticipate in a monitored space with “Eighty percent of success is just other people around or just watch the showing up,” someone or other once action. Don’t forget the motto ‘safe, said. The adage applies to romantic/ sane, and consensual’, and be sure to sexual success as well as professional have a safe word! And if you do want success, SACK, but showing up easily to explore bondage, take precautions. accounts for 90 percent of success in Never get tied up in your own home the BDSM/leather/fetish scene. (Being by someone you don’t know. If you a decent human being accounts for go to his or her place, always tell a the other 110 percent*.) Because if you trusted friend where you are going. aren’t showing up in kink spaces— And when hooking up online, never online or IRL—your fellow kinksters use Craigslist.” won’t be able to find or bind you. But “Be cautious,” said Ruff of Ruff ’s you don’t have to take my word for it… Stuff blog. “There are people out “The leather scene is a diverse place there who view ‘kink newbies’ as with tons of outlets and avenues, de- prey. Anytime anyone—top or botpending on how you navigate your life tom—wants to rush into a powerand learn,” said Amp from Watts the exchange scene, that’s a red flag.

Safeword (wattsthesafeword.com), a Always get to know a person first. A kink and sex-ed website and YouTube good-quality connection with any channel. “When I was first getting potential playmate is achieved only started, I found a local leather contin- through communication. If they are gent that held monthly bar nights and not interested in doing the legwork, discussion groups that taught classes they’re not the right person for you.” for kinksters at any level. It provided Follow Metal on Twitter @Metalan easy way into the community, and bondNYC, follow Amp @Pup_Amp, it helped me meet new people, make and follow Ruff @RuffsStuff Blog. new friends, and find trustworthy play partners. If you’re a tad shy and I’m a 28-year-old bi-curious work better online, these contingents female, and I ended a three-year have Facebook groups or FetLife straight LTR a month ago. It’s been pages you can join. And YouTube has tough—my ex is a great guy, and causa channel for everyone in the kink ing him pain has been a loss on top of spectrum from gay to straight to trans my own loss, but I know I did the right thing. Among other things, our sex to nonbinary and beyond!”

“Recon.com is a great option for life was bland and we had infrequent gay men,” said Metal from the gay sex at best. Now I want to experiment, male bondage website Metalbond- explore nonmonogamy, and have NYC.com. “It’s a site where you can crazy and fulfilling sex with whoever create a profile, window-shop for a tickles my fancy. I met a new guy two

weeks ago, and the sex is incredible.

We also immediately clicked and became friends. The problem? I suspect he wants a romantic relationship. He says he’s open to my terms—open/ fuck-buddy situation—but things have quickly become relationshipish.

I like him, but I can’t realistically picture us being a good LTR match. I’m hoping we can figure out something in between—something like a sexual friendship where we enjoy and support each other and experiment together without tying ourselves down—but I have found very little evidence of such undefined relationships working without someone getting hurt. I am sick of hurting people! Any advice?

couples can explore nonmonogamy together. If you can have this guy and have your sexual adventures, too, this could be the start of something big.

I’m a mid-20s, above-averagelooking gay dude into spanking guys. The weird thing is, the only guys I can find to spank are straight.

It’s not that they’re closeted—most of them go on to have girlfriends, and that’s when we stop—and they make it clear they don’t want anything sexual to happen. No complaints on my end! But why don’t they want a woman spanking them? > SERIOUSLY PERPLEXED AND NEEDING KNOWLEDGE

> HOPING OPEN PEACEFUL EXPERIENCES FEEL UNLIKE LOSS

How do you know their new girlfriends don’t start spanking them when you stop? And how do you know they aren’t closing their eyes and imagining that you’re a woman when you’re spanking them? And how do you know they’re not bi—at least where spankings are concerned?

(Also: There are tons of gay guys out there into spanking, SPANK. So if you aren’t finding any, I can only conclude that you aren’t looking.)

If “someone might get hurt” is the standard you’re going to apply to all future relationships—if it’s a deal breaker— then you shouldn’t date or fuck anyone else ever again, HOPEFUL, because there’s always a chance someone is going to get hurt. The fact that hurt is always a possibility is no excuse for hurting others needlessly or maliciously; we should be thoughtful and conscientious about other people’s feelings. We should also remember that no one is clairvoyant and that someone can hurt us without intending to. But there’s no intimate human connection, sexual or otherwise, that doesn’t leave us open to hurting or being hurt.

So fuck this guy, HOPEFUL, on your own terms—but don’t be too quick to dismiss the possibility of an LTR. Great sex and a good friendship make up a solid foundation.

You’re aware that nonmonogamous relationships are an option—and

I’m wondering about the application of the term bear to a straight man, such as myself. I’m a bigger guy with a lot of body hair and a beard. I love that in the gay community there is a cute term for guys like me reflecting body positivity. For us straight dudes, however, being big and hairy means getting thought of as an ape— big, dumb, smelly oafs. While I can be dumb, smelly, and oafish at times (like anyone), I’d also like to have a

way to describe myself that is masculine yet attractive. Bear is a great term, but I’m concerned about being insensitive in appropriating it. I haven’t asked my gay/bear friends about it (though they’ve referred to me as a bear on occasion) because I’m afraid I won’t get a straight answer (no pun intended). Would it be okay for me to refer to myself as a bear or, as a highly privileged straight cis male, do I need to accept the fact that I can’t have everything and maybe leave something alone for fucking once? > HETERO APE INQUIRING RESPECTFULLY, YUP

“If you want to be a bear, be a bear!” said Brendan Mack, an organizing member of XL Bears (xlbears.org), a social group for bears and their admirers. “Do you! There isn’t anything appropriative about a straight guy using the term bear to describe himself—it’s a body type, it’s a lifestyle, and it’s celebrating yourself. Gay, straight, hairy, smooth, fat, muscled—bear is a state of mind. It’s body acceptance. It’s acceptance of who you are. So if you want to be a bear, welcome to the woods!”

Matt Bee, the promoter behind Bearracuda Worldwide (bearracuda. com), seconded Mack. “The term bear, like any other animal descriptor, is a pretty playful one to begin with. Please, by all means, use it and any other well-meaning word to describe yourself!” * Math is hard. On the Lovecast, the robots are making your porn!: savagelovecast.com.

Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage .

ITMFA.org.

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FEBRUARY 8 – 15 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 39

40 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 8 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 15 / 2018