The Georgia Straight - Spring Arts Preview - Feb 25, 2016 by The Georgia Straight

The Birth of Modern Culture 371 ARTWORKS / 156 ARTISTS / 30 CURATORS / OUR BIGGEST EXHIBITION YET

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SUPPORT GROUPS Is your life affected by someone else's drug use? Nar-Anon Family Group Meeting Every Friday 7:30-9:00 pm at Barclay Manor, 1447 Barclay

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 Healthy & loving relationships alluding you? CODA: Co-dependency Anonymous 12 step Recovery: 604- 515-5585

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SUPPORT GROUPS We have peer-led support groups all over the Lower Mainland for people with depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety led by well-trained facilitators. Group sessions during days, evenings, or Saturdays. For location and times of groups:

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offers over 50 volunteer-led support groups throughout BC. These provide people with Parkinson's, their carepartners & families an opportunity to meet in a friendly, supportive setting with others who are experiencing similar difficulties. Some groups may offer exercise support. For information on locating a support group near you, please contact PSBC at 604 662 3240 or toll free 1 800 668 3330.

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LIVING THROUGH LOSS COUNSELLING facilitated support group for people who are grieving the death of a significant person. Monthly drop-in- last Wed of every month YLTLC #201 – 1847 W. Broadway Van. 604-873-5013 www.ltlc.bc.ca

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CONTENTS

Metallurgy Building, UBC. Kerry Banks photo.

STRAIGHT TALK

An FOI request reveals regional disparities in how mental-health resources are allocated. Plus, the mayorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expenses are revealed, and another FOI seems to show institutional racism in the courts.

HEALTH

Although stretch therapy has traditionally been used for rehabilitation, two locals are teaching it for preventive reasons. > BY CR AIG TAKEUCHI

START HERE

FOOD

Ramen may be all the rage, but waitâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another Asian noodle that has quietly wiggled its way into our city: Japanese spaghetti. > BY CR AIG TAKEUCHI

THE BOTTLE

The bottom of the world doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily mean the bottom of the barrel, as the Burch Family wines from Western Australia prove. > BY KURTIS KOLT

11 27 40 28 47 39 33 42 41 46 47 27

The Bottle Comedy Confessions Dance I Saw You Local Motion Movie Reviews Real Estate Red Meat Savage Love Straight Stars Theatre

COVER

In our spring arts issue, we preview the Vancouver International Dance Festival and the VSOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New Music Festival while our critics pick the seasonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most exciting shows.

MOVIES

The yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest short-film contest hits its climax of insanity as six fatigued directors bring their work to the Crazy8s gala. > BY ADRIAN MACK

TIME OUT 30 Arts 36 Movies 40 Music

SERVICES 43 Careers 4 Healthy Living 41 Real Estate

MUSIC

Local nightlife fixture Cherchez La Femme is throwing a weird-ass party with music, artists, a fashion show, and pop-up shops. > BY MICHAEL MANN

COVER PHOTO

CLASSIFIEDS

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GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight

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Volunteers Needed for Civic Agencies and Committees The City of Vancouver is seeking volunteers from the general public for positions on the following Civic Agencies and Committees: • Children, Youth and Families Advisory Committee • Chinatown Historic Area Planning Committee • Election Task Force • First Shaughnessy Advisory Design Panel • Gastown Historic Area Planning Committee • Seniors’ Advisory Committee • Vancouver Heritage Foundation Board

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Open House: Policy Planning Program for the New St. Paul’s Hospital and Health Campus The City has launched a policy planning program that will guide the redevelopment of the new St. Paul’s Hospital and health campus site on Station Street. Come to an open house and help us explore emerging principles for open spaces; mobility and connections; site planning and design; and sustainability. OPEN HOUSE: Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 4:30 - 7:30 pm Creekside Community Recreation Centre 1 Athletes Way, Multi-purpose Room 2

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FOR MORE INFORMATION ON POLICY PLANNING: vancouver.ca/newstpauls newstpauls@vancouver.ca or phone 3-1-1 FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HEALTH PROGRAMS AND SERVICES: Providence Health Care is concurrently developing a clinical plan to guide the programs and services that will be established at the new St. Paul’s health campus. To be a part of discussions and learn more: thenewstpauls.ca

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6 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

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straight talk BIG DISPARITY IN SHARES OF MENTAL-HEALTH BEDS

A freedom-of-information request has revealed significant disparities in how regional care providers allocate resources for mental health. In 2015, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), which operates Vancouver General Hospital, Richmond Hospital, and many smaller facilities in those cities, provided 5,292 beds for mental-health care. Meanwhile, the Fraser Health Authority, which operates 12 hospitals in neighbouring suburbs—including Burnaby, Surrey, New Westminster, Coquitlam, and Langley—provided 2,937. On a per-capita basis, the numbers show that while VCH had 457.3 mental-health-care beds per 100,000 people, Fraser Health had just 169.4. The average for the province as a whole was 247.9. (The definition of bed used to collect this data was broad, including everything from a residential care facility to an emergency-shelter space.) In a telephone interview, Sue Hammell, opposition health critic and NDP MLA for Surrey–Green Timbers, acknowledged that the numbers don’t tell the whole story, but she said they’re enough to cause concern. “When you look at the 2,937 community beds and you compare that to Vancouver, it’s just mindboggling,” she said. “We have an exploding population south of the Fraser [River], in the Fraser Health region, and we are not keeping up in terms of mental-health beds.” The B.C. Health Ministry did not provide an interview. Reached via phone, Fraser Health spokesperson Tasleem Juma said a more accurate picture would look at the system as a whole. “The beds are just one part of the services that we provide,” she said. Juma maintained that the region receives adequate funding for mental-health care. “We’ve had increases in our budget year over year,” she added. While researching this story, however, the Straight received a tip that suggests demands for mental-health-care services may be closer to capacity than Juma let on.

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“Given the geographic expanse of the Fraser Health Authority, which covers both urban and rural settings, we would say that that number, especially when you compare it to Vancouver Coastal Health, absolutely, it appears quite small,” he said. > TRAVIS LUPICK

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MAYOR AND COUNCIL’S 2015 EXPENSES REVEALED

Last year, Mayor Gregor Robertson billed the city $22,039 in expenses. On the weekend of February 6, Surrey Memorial Hospital operated exactly at capacity for three consecutive nights. Pressed on the situation that weekend, Juma said nobody was turned away. She explained that Surrey Memorial has 51 beds specifically designated for inpatient mental-health care, plus seven more available when needed, and an additional nine stretchers in the emergency department that can be used for mental-health care when required. That weekend, Juma continued, the number of beds recorded as used for mental-health care was 58. “It would be appropriate to say that it was a busy weekend,” she said. “We were working at capacity. But if a patient needed service, they would be found the service that they needed.” Jonny Morris, director of public policy for the Canadian Mental Health Association’s B.C. division, told the Straight that Vancouver has legitimate reasons to spend more on mental health than other jurisdictions. For example, there is a disproportionate number of people with mental-health challenges living in the Downtown Eastside. But Morris said the data—the first regional comparison of beds that both he and Hammell said they had ever seen—should prompt questions.

Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson racked up $22,039 in travel and conference expenses inside and outside the country in 2015. Robertson went to Paris twice, and his other international trips took him to Vatican City, New York, and Guangzhou in China, according to a staff report on council remuneration and expenses. The mayor also represented Vancouver in meetings in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton. In total, Robertson and the 10 members of council used $62,800 for travel and conferences last year. Coun. Geoff Meggs spent the least, at $607. He is followed by George Affleck and Tim Stevenson, who each spent $727. The three councillors didn’t travel outside the city, attending only the Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention held in Vancouver in September. Coun. Andrea Reimer’s foreign and domestic travels cost $10,975, second only to Robertson’s. The travel and conference bills of the other councillors are as follows: Heather Deal, $8,058; Adriane Carr, $7,764; Elizabeth Ball, $3,322; Raymond Louie, $3,262; Melissa De Genova, $2,858; and Kerry Jang, $2,461. The mayor and members of council in 2015 also cost taxpayers combined salaries of $904,274, local expenses to the tune of $28,386, and travel allowances totalling $41,483. > CARLITO PABLO

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B.C. ABORIGINALS DENIED BAIL MORE THAN WHITES On February 15, there were 1,685 people in B.C. lockups who had not been convicted of a crime. In the 2014-15 fiscal year, 12,964 see next page

The Georgia Straight | Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly | Volume 50 Number 2513

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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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Straight Talk

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citizens were similarly kept behind bars while they awaited trial. As the Straight previously reported, they account for more than 60 percent of the province’s total imprisoned population. Now a B.C. Ministry of Justice response to a freedom-of-information request reveals the extent to which aboriginal people are overrepresented in these numbers. It shows that although aboriginal people account for less than five percent of B.C.’s population, they make up 31 percent of B.C. inmates held on remand. Scott Clark, executive director of the Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement Society, described this situation as an extension of “colonialism” once embodied in Canada’s residential schools. “We have indifference within the system,” he told the Straight. “And when you have these types of indifferences, that’s when you get these statistics. It’s just another form of racism.” The fact that aboriginal people appear in disproportionate numbers throughout the justice system is not new. Depending on the source and the year, they make up between 24 percent and 28 percent of B.C.

inmates. But the figure of 31 percent for those held on remand suggests judges are more likely to deny bail for aboriginal people compared to white people accused of a crime. For Caucasians, almost the exact same statistical discrepancy exists, but in their favour. Although white people account for 60 percent of B.C.’s prison population, they are only 57 percent of those denied bail. The Ministry of Justice did not make a representative available for an interview. Presented with this data, David Eby, NDP MLA for Vancouver–Point Grey, said this could be for a number of reasons. He suggested that part of the problem likely begins with aboriginal people being more likely to live in poverty. “We should be asking the very serious question of whether aboriginal people are overrepresented in remand simply because they are more likely to be homeless,” Eby said via phone. He also noted how the proportion of remand inmates who are aboriginal has grown, to 31 percent, up from 22 percent in 200708, the last year for which data is available. “Things are getting worse,” Eby concluded. “There is a serious problem here.” > TRAVIS LUPICK

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oga may be all the rage, but there’s something simpler that can be even more effective for mobility and flexibility. Stretch therapy is a system of stretching and relaxation developed by Australia’s Kit Laughlin that enhances range of motion, alleviates tension, and improves posture. Personal trainer Rob Cole, who trained with Laughlin and holds Stretch Therapy Vancouver classes at Denman Fitness and Mascall Dance Studio, says this type of stretching, also known as proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching, is often used in North America in a clinical setting. “We teach people how to break down the fascia of the muscle and to improve mobility and flexibility,” he explained by phone. The main principle is the contraction and relaxation of muscles to increase mobility. “Once we establish new range of motion, we walk around [barefoot]. That way your body’s central nervous system accepts this new range of motion, so it makes it easier next time,” he said. An example of a stretch is the sitting rotational stretch, in which parRob Cole leads classes through ticipants bring their knee up to their stretches targeting various muscles. chest, rotate the opposite arm across their knee, and then turn further the stretch, or pulls them in variinto the stretch. ous directions. For example, as one Cole said the stretches, ranging person is seated on the ground and from lateral bends to cobra poses, extends their arms out behind them target the abdominals, lower back, while holding on to a rod, another upper back, spine, shoulders, hip person pulls on the rod while gently flexors, and hamstrings. Cole learned pushing into the other person’s back about stretch therwith a foot. apy from local Nish said by Australian transphone that the difplant Simon Nish. ference between Craig Takeuchi Nish, who also solo and partner trained with Laughlin, has practised stretching is “profound”. “Partner stretches enable…people stretch therapy for about five years and led classes at the Health Initia- to go into a much deeper stretch,” tive for Men as well as workshops he said. “It gives them both the confidence and the encouragement to and retreats for the past two years. He explained that in yoga, the ob- explore their boundaries, whereas jective is to emulate a specific physic- I think if you’re stretching by youral pose, whereas stretching is about self, you’re going to be much more protective of your boundaries and exploring your mobility potential. “Yoga is about attaining a defined much more hesitant.” Cole recommends stretch therform, whereas this practice is about relaxing into a stretch, so the desired apy for runners to offset the impact form is not the goal. Being more flex- of running, for anyone who sits at desks or drives for long periods of ible than you were is the goal.” Although Cole primarily leads time, and even for bodybuilders. his classes through solo stretch- However, he cautioned that it’s not es, Nish teaches partner-assisted for people who have injuries or hip stretches. Partner stretching in- replacements and added that due to volves one person stretching while the intensity of the process, he recanother person holds them in place, ommends four or five days of rest uses their body weight to deepen after a session. -

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Karuna Health Foundation at 3636 West 4th Avenue has an interesting story. It began its existence at 4510 Victoria Drive more than five years ago. Although this East Vancouver location will go ahead under the City of Vancouver’s licensing program, it’s not large enough to handle the volume of patients that Karuna has attracted or the volume that it will have to take on come April. Karuna’s success has come from revolutionizing the dispensary business from incorporating high-end coffee-shop-style service bars to carrying more than 100 strains of almost-all medicinal-quality products. There are even colour-coded vacuum jars for the three groups of strains. It’s why Karuna has become the place to go in Vancouver and across Canada for true medicinal cannabis. However, this success came with a requirement to expand. Rather than opening a series of typical hole-in-the-wall small outlets like everyone else, Karuna’s owners decided in true not-for-profit fashion to take what money the foundation had made and open clubs that Karuna members would have for years to come and that served the membership well. The owners searched for locations like a corporation would, keeping parking and access to transit in mind. They then contacted the city inspector who oversaw dispensaries, Bruce Peet. He told Karuna’s owners that they must build to code. So Karuna’s owners went ahead of all the other dispensaries and took the responsible route, like any business should, and hired interior designers, architects, and electrical engineers to do it properly. They submitted plans to city hall for three locations and continued paying rent and professionals $150,000 before anyone lifted a hammer. This occurred while other dispensaries popped up all around them. Karuna’s owners paid $600 each to fasttrack applications and months later, permits arrived. The dispensary at 3636 West 4th Avenue was the first of the three to be built. The others were going to be on Hastings Street and on West Broadway. There was back and forth with city hall and officials quickly caught on to the design and concept. With this feedback, Karuna had its design layout with edibles as a main focus. Eight months later, Karuna finally finished its West 4th Avenue store. It was completed after four stop-work orders due to the landlord’s building not being up to code. Karuna had to pay the cost of fixing all of that, too. Meanwhile, five other dispensaries popped up in the neighborhood with no building permits or public safety in mind and those other five operated with impunity. Then a few months after Karuna’s new location opened and well into construction on Karuna’s other two stores, the city announced new rules, including a ban on edibles. Karuna had already built a professional bakery and created packaging that rivalled the likes of Nestle’s. The health department appreciated the efforts of Karuna, whose hands were tied by city council. Then, the licensing rules came. This would be a shot in the heart for a company that had put everything on the line trying to do it right. Karuna dropped its planned store on Hastings right away, knowing it was too close to a school. It continued to build to code for its West Broadway location as it was just too well-designed. Why should the owners suffer for doing things by the book when all the others don’t play by the rules? But even if Karuna loses the West Broadway location as a dispensary, the owners still feel it could serve as an office or training facility. This was the location most sought-after by members. After all, we aren’t talking about just a few members. This is Karuna. We’re talking about thousands and thousands of people affected. But the city is resolved—$200,000 up in smoke, as they say. The real loss for all, including a city that needs good representation in the dispensary business, would be the Metta Lounge

at 3636 West 4th Avenue. This facility would be second-to-none in Canada. Featuring a Buddhist theme and friendly access for people with disabilities, it would amaze any who enter. This facility is the only one of its kind on the west side featuring the mandatory city requirements for disability accessible bathrooms and service bars. The problem, however, is that it’s just a few metres short of zoning rules, property line to property line, from a school. However, measuring the distance door to door, it’s well over the minimum of 300 metres. Walking the distance and envisioning yourself as a student of this half-school, you wouldn’t even know you were going past the nicest dispensary in Canada. Most kids at a half-school aren’t walking home alone anyway as it’s only up to Grades 4 or 5, so it’s likely that the children are being picked up by parents. But let’s address all the angles, anyway. A child can’t look through Karuna’s frontwindow decals, but they’re low enough for fire and police officials to view inside. Board of Variance members will be visiting this location. And after viewing Karuna’s West 4th operation, it’s hard to imagine they will find grounds to shut it down. That is, unless the decision is made prior to visiting, of course. There likely won’t be many dispensaries that make their way past the Board of Variance but Karuna’s is one case in which it’s hard to think it wouldn’t pass. If Vancouver council has a vision in place for what the dispensary of the future should look like, Karuna’s Metta Lounge is surely it. With a “walk-in-style safe” and panic buttons to the most relaxed professional vibe of any retail outlet, what’s not to love? Not to mention the vast quantity and quality of medicinal products available there that are hard to find elsewhere. But even though Karuna spent $1 million to bring this “to-code dream” alive, it won’t be that which saves them. Rather it will be a large community surrounding this place that doesn’t want to see it go. In fact, you can’t find a retail store on the block that hasn’t benefited or that would want to see Karuna disappear. It’s just too perfect a fit for this old neighborhood that has had its ups and downs, retail-wise. One director, Sacha C., is a Kitsilano Secondary School French-immersion grad who grew up two blocks from the store. He knew exactly what this quiet neighborhood would accept, and Karuna nailed it. You would never see headlines about Karuna selling edibles to some 15-year-old girl. As a matter of fact, Karuna staff met with the father of a 15-year-old girl who shopped at another dispensary on West 4th Avenue. They had a mature discussion about how and why this should never happen. Karuna has the toughest requirements for membership, stating that it’s selling medicinal-grade marijuana and people must see a doctor first. Having heard tales of people having seizures from taking sativa to not mixing products with other prescriptions, Karuna takes its members’ medical history seriously prior to accepting and caring for them. So if Vancouver is such a revolutionary city and wants to be an example of what a city should do with all these pot shops, it would seem hypocritical to deny its best hope in Karuna’s West 4th location. It’s not just the members who need Karuna to remain on West 4th, it’s also necessary for the city to have a proud example of what a dispensary can be. It’s a must.

If you would like to sign an alreadygrowing petition to save Karuna at 3636 West 4th, you can do so at any of its locations. Or email info@karunahealthfoundation.com.

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eeding the beast—otherwise known as Vancouver’s insatiable appetite for Japanese cuisine—has not come without its hits and misses. Waves of Japanese culinary trends have washed over our city. Many have taken root, such as okonomiyaki, ubiquitous sushi, and now ramen. Others have surged in and just as quickly receded. Sanuki Udon, Vancouver’s first stand-alone udon shop, opened in the fall of 2015 but has already closed. Yoshoku, or Japanese takes on western diner-style dishes, appeared in the form of trendy Ping’s and the West End’s Barefoot Cafe, but it never became a full-fledged phenomenon and those establishments have since washed away. That said, there is a Japanese food Robson Street’s Spaghetéi serves up intriguing Japanese spaghetti dishes, such style that has quietly established itas pan-fried beef, noodles, and onions coated in a teriyaki-like barayaki sauce. self in our city and combines both If you think these food combinanoodles and yoshoku. Yes, food be- toward the oily side and the bonito tions are odd, consider what Asian lievers, although it’s not necessarily flakes do have a sharp fish flavour. Café de l’Orangerie doesn’t spe- people must think when they see a culinary trend, Japanese spaghetti cialize in Japanese spaghetti, but North American sushi rolls for the first has found a cult following. You won’t find it on the menus of there is a West End location that does. time—sushi turned inside out, to boot. And, yes, vegetarians have options most Japanese restaurants around Spaghetéi is a chain that originated in too. There’s the salad spaghetti ($11) town, but there are some places Aomori, Japan, in 1975. The cozy premises, featuring a mix featuring egg, radishes, peas, tomatoes, that do serve it. One of them—the laid-back Café de of Asian and western décor, are clean and other vegetables, all in a housel’Orangerie in Marpole—offers several and quaint. Much of the charm comes made dressing. There are also side orfrom the staff: high- ders such as the mushroom salad ($7.80, Japanese spaghetti ly attentive, ex- or $4.80 for the small size) and tofu with dishes alongside tremely courteous, mentaiko sauce drizzled on top ($4.30). other yoshoku What is great is that there are opand ever so sweet. entrées, such as Craig Takeuchi All of their dish- tions to accommodate all appetites: Japanese curry, korokke (croquettes), ponzu-sauce ham- es come with complimentary garlic each dish can be downsized to a smallburger steak, chicken nanban, and French bread. Surprisingly, it has a er plate (one dollar off) or upgraded to green tinge to it, thanks to a coating of a larger one (one dollar more). Easy. doria (baked rice and vegetables). If you think you don’t have room The casual and cozy atmosphere, spinach, along with maple syrup, butfor dessert, think again. The powdercoupled with reasonable prices and ter, and—of course—garlic. Seafood lovers have a few dishes to snow milk syrup ($4.50) is a fascinatgenerous portions, attracts young ing curiosity. The shaved frozen milk, families and weekend brunchers to pick from. On one occasion, I took along topped with either raspberry, matcha, this South Vancouver spot tucked someone well-versed in Japanese or blueberry sauce, melts in your away in a strip mall. The pasta-menu options read al- cuisine—my mother—who tried the mouth just like real snow, leaving bemost like a Japanese home cook’s mentaiko dish. She was pleased to hind only a milky, sugary flavour, endearing, earnest attempts to make be able to discern umeboshi (pickled and almost nothing to actually swalwestern homestay guests feel at home, plum-apricots) within the mélange low. It’s perfect for washing away the with increasing degrees of experimen- of flavours. The mushy texture of the saltiness on a stomach full of pasta. tation, interpretation, and even that marinated roe may turn off those un- My dining companion was perplexed most delicious ingredient: eccentricity. accustomed to it, but the nori adds by its novelty as he tried to figure out Pasta options range from more trad- an attractive saltiness alongside the what to make of it. itional dishes, like spaghetti carbonara mushrooms. What’s more, happy hour isn’t just and creamy tomato spaghetti to seafoodAn appealing brunch option is the on weekdays but operates seven days oriented concoctions, such as masago egg and marinated shrimp with just a week from 11:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., creamy spaghetti (with squid, mush- the right amount of shoyu (soy sauce). offering discounted prices on dishes, room, roe, asparagus, and cream), all The dish with the strongest and drinks, and desserts. Selected main $9.80 each. Then there are the mashup most accessible flavour for western dishes are $9.80 each. comfort-food curiosities, like hashed- Japanese-food lovers is the barayaki While this may not become a beef-stew creamy spaghetti and ham- plate ($13), which they describe as dominant food trend, you can burger steak ($13.80)—just like Mom the “traditional food of Aomori”. enjoy it while it lasts. As they say in never used to make. The entrée offers noodles, pan-fried Japanese, buon appetito! A generous serving of wafu-style beef, and onions, all lightly coated spaghetti ($9.80), which came with in teriyaki-style sauce. The mix CAFÉ DE L’ORANGERIE 1320 West mushroom, garlic, bacon, and cabbage, of Asian saltiness and western in- 73rd Avenue; 604-266-0066. Open topped with nori (dried seaweed) and gredients makes it taste more akin daily except Tuesday. SPAGHETÉI 1741 bonito flakes (dried tuna), was a tasty to Malaysian or Singaporean noodle Robson Street; 604-428-1014. 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recently had the opportunity to sit MADFISH, 2014 SAUVIGNON with Sue Henderson, the commer- BLANC SÉMILLON ($23 to $27, pricial director of Western Australia’s vate liquor stores) Often with a classic Burch Family Wines, at the Icon white Bordeaux blend, regardless of Fine Wine and Spirits office in Yale- its provenance, the grassy, citrus, town. We should all be thankful to it herbaceous Sauvignon Blanc porfor bringing her company’s wines into tion dominates the cuvée. It’s often our market. While the corporate name upward of 90 percent of the blend, may not be familiar, the three key leaving just a smidgeon of the lovely brands the family-owned and oper- stone-fruit, honeyed, and beeswaxated business produces may ring a bell: y character Sémillon is known for, Marchand & Burch, Howard Park, to round things out. The charm of MadFish is we’re looking at a breakand the most common, MadFish. It was good to catch up with down of 56 to 44, allowing each varwines from “the bottom of the iety to shine. Fresh-squeezed limes, world”, as Henderson calls it. I’ve gooseberries, and peaches are oh so juicy, with a zip of been fortunate to lemon zest and a spend a decent nip of salty sea air amount of time breezing through in the region Kurtis Kolt it all. I would tell over the years. My wife grew up in Perth, West- you to think seafood when sipping this ern Australia’s capital city, so when one, but you will; oh, you will! Most we’ve been on trips visiting family recently spotted at Firefly Fine Wines and friends, I’ve taken jaunts south and Ales on Cambie. to Margaret River to enjoy the sun, the surf, and its position as the HOWARD PARK 2013 FLINT ROCK CHARDONNAY ($27.99, B.C. Liquor state’s key wine region. The area shares a kinship with Stores) To be blunt, when it comes Bordeaux, in that its oceanic cli- to Burch Family Wines brands, the mate and gravelly soils make it well Howard Park label’s fancier than the suited to Sauvignon Blanc, Sémil- MadFish—a little more boutique-y in lon, Cabernet Sauvignon, and other nature. The Chardonnay grapes in the key varieties. Things become more wine are all hand-picked in the Great remarkable if you travel farther Southern region, then fermented in south. A few more hours on the road French oak and stainless steel, with an will lead you to the Great Southern additional 10 months on the lees (the region some of Burch Family Wine’s natural fermentation sediment) before a final blending and bottling. Green unique labels hail from. On 450 acres in the Margaret grapes, mango, and papaya are disRiver region, and 550 in Great tinct flavours upfront, a little pie crust Southern—much of it farmed in rounds the edges, and then a splash of accordance with sustainable, or- peach juice finishes things off. ganic, and even biodynamic practices—the family produces lively, HOWARD PARK 2012 MIAMUP distinctive wines offering a sense CABERNET SAUVIGNON ($28 to of place and value at various price $33, private liquor stores) Try a toasty, points. Here’s a small, but heartily warm, and enveloping Cabernet Sauvignon from Margaret River that’s recommended, offering.

The Bottle

delicious now, but will be even better with a few years of aging. Blackberries, blueberries, and currants are all juicy and pristine, with dusty tannins giving appropriate texture, and plenty of eucalyptus offering a happy lift. Those concerned that Cabernet Sauvignon occasionally harbours a bitter, stemmy, bell-pepper character needn’t worry; this bottle is ripe and lovely all the way through. Availability is pretty good at places like Liberty Wine Merchants on Granville Island, Firefly Fine Wines and Ales, and Village Liquor Store at Park Royal. MARCHAND & BURCH 2013 CHARDONNAY ($52.19, B.C. Liquor

Stores, direct order 697136) A joint venture between Burgundian winemaker Pascal Marchand and the head of Burch Family Wines, Jeff Burch, the Marchand & Burch Chardonnay label sources fruit from biodynamically farmed old vines in the Porongurup subregion of the Great Southern. Simply put, there is a commitment to quality that results in the best Chardonnay I’ve had in recent memory. Fresh, young pineapple on the nose is echoed on the palate with marzipan, nougat, roasted hazelnuts, lime leaf, and a handful of glistening minerals. Returning to the glass, there’s Asian pear, quince, roasted cashews, and a hint of lemongrass. Further sips bring extra layers of star fruit, crab apple, shortbread, and jasmine. The complexity, layers, and enjoyment seemingly never end. I’m heartbroken to learn this isn’t on B.C. store shelves. Seriously crushed. On the upside, it can be ordered in six-packs via B.C. Liquor Stores, or we can beg private wine stores to carry it. (I’ll start!) In the meantime, if you’re tucking into the fine Japanese food at Coal Harbour’s Miku or Yaletown’s Minami, treat yourself to a bottle from their lists. -

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An Evening with JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN Canada The former host of the celebrated CBC program Wiretap brings us his wry, self-deprecating humour. “The Wes Anderson of podcasting.” The Atlantic March 31 > NRT

Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver

12 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

SPRING ARTS

Miguel Azcue’s dance career has taken BY JANET SM IT H

him thousands of miles from his birth country, Cuba—to the Compañia Nacional de Danza del Ecuador, to a modern-dance master’s of fine arts and the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Utah, to the avant-garde Carte Blanche in Norway, and to Philippe Blanchard in France and Sweden. He’s now based in Malmö, as an artistic director of Memory Wax, which he cofounded in 2004. But an irresistible force keeps pulling him back to Havana and its vibrant dance scene, spawning a truly unique Scandinavian-Cuban cultural partnership. “I left when I was very little but I was always very connected to Cuba,” Azcue says from his home in the southern Swedish port city. “I don’t know if it’s because there’s such a strong identity there, but I always go back there. It’s strange, because when I do go back, I feel a little bit like a foreigner. But what happens there is pure passion and impulse.” He adds that Cuba offers a welcome offset to his orderly Scandinavian surroundings: “Everything works perfectly here, and in Cuba you don’t know if things are going to happen on time. They’re two totally different worlds and two different ways of living your life, and there’s so much in the middle to learn.”

Dancing with two cultures

Masks, wigs, and pantomime meld with Cuban rhythms in the dance work of Memory Wax and Danza Teatro Retazos. Lia Sandberg Moustogianni photo.

“That’s where I can contribute and that’s very rewarding,” Azcue enthuses. “There is so much music and talent and art, and to actually contribute to that and take them out in the world is important.” It’s exciting work, but he might have had it easier if he had connected two countries that were closer on

Sweden’s Memory Wax joins forces with a Cuban troupe at this spring’s Vancouver International Dance Festival Memory Wax now collaborates regularly with Havana’s Danza Teatro Retazos, the Habana Vieja– based company that Azcue’s own mother founded and still runs, where he got his start as a dancer when he was a kid. The result is striking dance that draws on the rhythmic movement of the Caribbean island nation and the contemporary edge, as well as the theatrical imagery, props, masks, and multimedia touches, of his work in Sweden. Local audiences will get their first chance to see the bold hybrid when Memory Wax and Retazos make the Canadian premieres of two works here: the hiphop– and pantomime-pumped Crisálida and the physically flowing Possible Impossible. Azcue describes Crisálida as an investigation into individuality and the need to belong to a group: “Who is the person? There is the person outside the skin, but inside there is another world.” Mixing Afro-Cuban and other music, it plays with surreal white masks, curly white wigs, empty mirror frames, and other striking props. Possible Impossible is a contemporary-feeling work that pushes physically and plays with reality and illusion, projecting video versions of the dancers as they move. For these and other pieces, Cuba provides endless artistic inspiration for Azcue. “I feel I have more freedom in Cuba,” he comments. “Everything can be done there: we can fail and we can just have fun. I like to find that freedom to be playful and not carry too much baggage. It’s exploring and trying to find the human there and freeing myself from judgment.” So Memory Wax draws a lot of benefits from its Cuban counterparts, but it’s clear the dancers there, who work in a country often isolated from the world, also benefit from Memory Wax’s support—through everything from resources and equipment to touring and workshops by visiting choreographers.

THINGS TO DO

VIDF builds reputation on its dazzling diversity

The Vancouver International Dance Festival will be celebrating its 16th edition from Sunday (February 28) to March 19, but don’t think it’s been easy building the strikingly diverse lineup over the years. “In 2000, there wasn’t a lot of dance activity when we started VIDF, but within five years there was twice as much and now it’s quite dense,” explains cofounder Jay Hirabayashi, speaking alongside Barbara Bourget, his partner in life and art, from Kokoro Dance’s growing headquarters in the Woodward’s building. “There are actually more presenters in Vancouver for dance than in Montreal or Toronto, but it’s a smaller audience.” “But we are honoured and really thankful for this to be our 16th season, which we think is some kind of feat,” adds Bourget, saying she and Hirabayashi launched the fest because so many of the world’s dance companies were bypassing Vancouver. “To have a festival just dedicated to dance is quite unique, other than the Dancing on the Edge fest....It adds to the culture and texture of dance in the city.” On the spectrum this year are the SwedishCuban project Memory Wax/Retazos (see story above), bharata natyam virtuoso Sujit Vaidya, and local hip-hop heavyweights Project Soul. Here are some other highlights, according to

the map. “I have to travel a lot,” the affable artist says with a laugh. “It is a bit crazy. I don’t get used to the hours in one place and I already have to go back to the other. Or I have to get used to the snow again. But I like this combination of cultures—and weather!” The Vancouver International Dance Festival presents Memory Wax/Retazos at the Vancouver Playhouse on March 11 and 12.

Kokoro’s dynamic duo. (All are at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre.) COMPAGNIE VIRGINIE BRUNELLE’S FOUTREMENT (March 3 to 5) “We really like work that has a physicality to it, and here you have a female en pointe even though she’s wearing hockey pads,” Hirabayashi says of the ballet-infused love triangle. NATSU NAKAJIMA’S LIKE SMOKE LIKE ASH (March 8 and 9) “She’s 73 now and

she’s one of our teachers,” Bourget says of the Japanese butoh icon. “She was one of the original founders of butoh and it’s like a gift to pass on.”

EDAM’S THE SECRET LIFE OF TREES (March

10 to 12) Veteran choreographer Peter Bingham reflects on the West Coast rainforest. ZIYIAN KWAN/DUMB INSTRUMENT DANCE’S STILL RHYMING (March 17 to

19) “She’s collaborating with our son [Joseph Hirabayashi], who’s playing the music live,” Bourget says of the piece that riffs on text by Patti Smith. COMPANY 605’S VITAL FEW (March 17 to 19)

The former 605 Collective explores group dynamics in its signature ultra-physical, street-influenced style. “It’s a world premiere we’ve been helping to develop since last year,” Bourget says.

> JANET SMITH

ARTS High five

Editor’s choice HOOP DREAMS The spectacle of First Nations hoop dancing mixed with hip-hop? Count us in when Edmonton dance artist James Jones (shown here) joins this year’s Coastal First Nations Dance Festival at the Museum of Anthropology. Jones has performed with powwow-drum-driven electronic group A Tribe Called Red and was a 2009 finalist on So You Think You Can Dance. Other highlights of the fest: smoke dancer Tesha Emarthle, Dancers of Damelahamid, the Haida Rainbow Creek Dancers, and much, much more. The Coastal First Nations Dance Festival runs from Tuesday to next Sunday (March 1 to 6) at the UBC Museum of Anthropology.

Five events you just can’t miss this week

ITZHAK PERLMAN (At the Orpheum on March 2) One of the greatest violinists who’s ever lived joins the VSO.

MÉTIS SOUP (At Macauly & Co. Fine Art to March 6) Judy Chartrand’s clever hand-built ceramic cans play on Métis identity and Campbell’s, with a hint of Warhol.

MASHUP (At the Vancouver Art Gallery to June 12) Set aside a few hours to take in the birth of modern culture.

MICHAEL CHE (At the Biltmore on February 27) See SNL’s “Weekend Update” star kill live as part of JFL NorthWest.

WINNERS AND LOSERS (At the Cultch to February 27) Don’t miss Marcus Youssef and James Long’s jousting match.

Guest pick

10 SPEED Our guest selection this week is by Denise Jones, artistic director of Vancouver TheatreSports League. Here’s the show she’s most looking forward to: “Tom Hill and Devin Mackenzie of Hip.Bang! [Canadian Comedy Award nominees] are two of the funniest guys I know. Their always sold-out show, 10 Speed, is part of JFL NorthWest this year.” JFL NorthWest presents Hip.Bang! at the Improv Centre on Wednesday (February 24).

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 13

ARTS

Choral Tapestry Our Heritage of Song

San Francisco’s acclaimed Kronos Quartet brings a mind-blowing array of fresh work to the VSO’s New Music Festival.

8pm | Friday, March 4, 2016

Kronos kickstarts compositions

Shaughnessy Heights United Church Vancouver Chamber Choir Jon Washburn, Conductor The outstanding repertoire of North American choral music is based substantially on the models of musical immigrants from Europe. Jon Washburn and the Vancouver Chamber Choir illuminate many of these ties in this varied and invigorating concert of music from two continents.

1.855.985.ARTS (2787) vancouverchamberchoir.com

> B Y A LE X A ND ER VA R TY

rts groups, whether performing ensembles or presenting organizations, are most often assembled and held together by a charismatic leader. Which is all well and good; passion can overcome a multitude of problems. But what happens when that leader loses focus, gets diverted, or dies? Anyone who’s worked in the arts knows that the issue of succession is a thorny one—and anyone who knows the Kronos Quartet is also aware that the world’s most widely recognized string ensemble likely won’t have to face it anytime soon. Founder and first violinist David Harrington is still brimming over with youthful enthusiasm, still focused on bringing challenging contemporary music to the widest possible audience, and still enjoying his band’s busy touring schedule. But he’s also the kind of detail-oriented leader who is disinclined to leave anything to chance, unless he’s playing something by John Cage. And so he has a plan. It’s not that he’s identified a candidate to take over the reins on that sad day when he can no longer lift his bow. Instead, he wants to clone Kronos in a hundred different cities—or at least to give young string quartets access to the same kind of provocative material that has been his own group’s stockin-trade since 1973. That’s the purpose of the ensemble’s Fifty for the Future program, which aims to commission 50 composers to write new works over the next five years, and then distribute scores and recordings of those pieces, for free, over the Internet. “I’m really proud of this,” Harrington reports in a telephone interview from a Montana tour stop. “We’re attempting to make a repertoire for the next generation of quartet players,

and to give other players a sense of how we do what we do. The idea is that every year there will be five women and five men who will be writing pieces for this commissioning project, and by the end of this five years we should have a pretty comprehensive entry point into the work that Kronos does—if we get the kind of music that we have so far. “We’re trying to kind of create this living encyclopedia or something,” he adds. Kronos lives up to its reputation for inclusivity with its first batch of 10 composers: contributors include veteran performance artist Laurie Anderson, minimalism maven Philip Glass, South Indian violinist Kala Ramnath, Navajo noise musician Raven Chacon, avant-rock guitarist and keyboardist Trey Spruance, and Canadian experimentalist Nicole Lizée, who’s just been tapped as Music on Main’s next composer in residence. Lizée and Anderson both have pieces on Kronos’s Moments in Time program, which the quartet will unveil as part of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival this weekend. Kronos will also perform American film composer Thomas Newman’s It Got Dark with the VSO at a separate event, and during its local stay will workshop some of its new commissions with an assortment of young quartets—another indication that Harrington, violinist John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and cellist Sunny Yang are looking toward their legacy. In many ways, however, their Fifty for the Future undertaking is simply a digitally assisted expansion of what they’ve been doing all along: discovering the finest young composers and helping them find their feet. One that Harrington is especially excited about is Armenian-American composer Mary Kouyoumdjian, who

has two pieces in Moments in Time. One is a relatively simple arrangement of a song by the Armenian monk and ethnomusicologist Komitas, but the other is a harrowing multimedia undertaking, Bombs of Beirut, which will get its Canadian premiere here. As Harrington tells it, the work represents the first time that Kronos has had to issue a trigger warning before a performance. “I don’t think there’s any other work that I know of that takes the listener right into the sound and the feeling of modern warfare like Bombs of Beirut does,” the violinist explains. “For those people who are veterans of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam—or any war—this piece can take you right back to that. So in that sense a person needs to be prepared.” Consider yourself warned—but there’s probably no way to be adequately prepared for the rest of Kronos’s New Music Festival program, which ranges from Jacob Garchik’s effervescent arrangement of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” to the mysterious microtones of South Indian violinist N. Rajam’s Dadra in Raga Bhairavi. “You know, when I look at the program that we’re playing in Vancouver, I smile,” Harrington says. “It makes me very, very happy. I don’t know what else I can say about it except that, boy, do I ever want to celebrate where we’re able to be right now. It’s like, ‘Wow, we get to do this!’ What people are able to do in the world of music is just thrilling, and to be a little part of this incredible energy and creativity is just wonderful.” The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival runs at the Orpheum from Thursday to Sunday (February 25 to 28), with Kronos’s feature concert taking place on Friday (February 26).

FEST BOLDLY MIXES STYLES Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s New 2 The Music Festival is a wonderfully inclusive sur-

vey of contemporary compositions, but what’s really remarkable is that it follows a weekend in which the VSO played 10 different works of 20th- and 21st-century music as part of its regular programming. Modern music is no longer a rarity, says VSO composer in residence Jocelyn Morlock, in a telephone interview with the Straight. “Part of it is that there’s so many more different styles,” says Morlock, who programmed the New Music Festival in conjunction with the VSO’s music director, Bramwell Tovey. “Tonality is perfectly allowed. You can have minimalism or you can have maximalism. Rhythm is huge. Colour is spectacular. So we’ve got all these fun things happening, and we’re also back to personal expression being a huge big thing. If people want to express emotions that they have or express things about the world around them, that’s great!” Although Morlock’s own Earthfall, which the VSO will premiere on Sunday (February 28), is relatively abstract, a real-life horror story from the early 1900s inspired Undark, written for Standing Wave, which kicks off the festival on Thursday (February 25). 14 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

> BY ALEXANDER VARTY

“I’d heard of this thing called ‘Undark’, and I loved the name, although I hadn’t really thought about it that much,” she explains. “But it’s radium-based paint. So these women in this factory were painting clocks and watches with this glow-in-the-dark paint so they could be seen at night, and what happened was that they were told that it was perfectly safe to sharpen the tip of the brush with their mouths. For a while it was fun—sometimes they’d paint their cheeks to glow in the dark—but then in a couple of years all these women were dying, and they were only in their 20s. This was probably the first time that workers’ rights and industrial safety standards came up in such a huge way.” Morlock’s not the only composer using worldly inspiration at the fest. Thomas Newman’s It Got Dark draws on vanished Los Angeles streetscapes; Christopher Mayo’s urgent yet chilling Aerial Courser invokes a rash of UFO sightings that took place at the turn of the 20th century; and there are two works, one by Mark-Anthony Turnage and the other by Vancouver composer Rodney Sharman, that draw from the paintings of Francis Bacon. Hmmm… Bacon and Mayo—a far better diet than radium paint. -

ARTS

Pite reflects on Betroffenheit’s trip through trauma > BY JA NET SM IT H

n almost untranslatable German word, Betroffenheit, captures the shock, speechlessness, and distress that follow a trauma. And, as you might expect, the new dancetheatre work with that word as its title has been an intense journey of deep trust for its creative team. In building the piece, Vancouver dance artist Crystal Pite and theatre innovator Jonathon Young travelled into real emotionally fraught territory: the paralyzing grief Young experienced over the loss of his daughter and the posttraumatic stress and addiction that followed. But Pite reveals that their journey was far from depressing. “I was wondering about working with something so profound and loaded and how that would be to navigate through that progress for what has been two years now,” she tells the Straight from Ottawa, where Betroffenheit is showing before heading here for a sold-out DanceHouse run. “But what’s been amazing to me is the amount of joy in the process of creating it and just in the act of making it. “If there’s one thing I’ve taken away from the experience, it’s an affirmation of the act of creation,” she adds. “However challenging and destabilizing it is, it always contains an amount of joy, and that’s been beautiful to discover. And I would say we really took our lead from Jonathon there. Also, right from the beginning we wanted it to contain the personal, but also zoom out and be a universal story of suffering, rather than Jonathon’s story of loss. So zooming in and out: that also helped us to manage the responsibility and the emotion.” The resulting piece is drawing raves wherever it shows, starting with the Panamania festival in Toronto last summer. Staged by Pite’s Kidd

In Betroffenheit, Jonathon Young (lying down) plays a man struggling with grief and addiction. Wendy D photo.

Pivot company and Young’s Electric Company Theatre, Betroffenheit stars Young (who chose not to do interviews for this part of the tour) and a troupe of dancers, re-imagining his downward spiral as the dark, surreal variety act Showtime. Those delirious segments come complete with tapdancing, salsa, and creepy clowns. “One of the aspects of the show is addiction, so substance abuse is a coping strategy for our protagonist, because he is dealing with PTSD,” Pite explains. “Our stand-in for that substance is Showtime: he gives in to Showtime when he gets to a point where he can’t cope. He lets Showtime infiltrate his system and the space of the show. And it had to be seductive and very pleasing and beautiful and powerful and destructive. Each [segment] has to be more sparkly and exotic than the next. “It starts off as this kind of relief that floods in,” she adds, “and then it

becomes a more dark and malevolent presence. It twists into something malevolent where he needs more and more of it.” It’s unusual subject matter for Pite, who is no stranger to difficult subjects, but is more likely to take on the unknowns of the universe (Dark Matters) and the epic themes of Shakespeare (The Tempest Replica). “I think if you’d asked me a few years ago if I would want to make a show about addiction, I’d have said, ‘No, I don’t understand it; it doesn’t appeal to me’ or ‘I can’t handle it.’ But a lot of my shows, even if I think I can’t handle it, I let the process teach me. And working with more awareness and more compassion and a deeper understanding, and dealing with that content through dance, made it feel more approachable.” To understand why Young would entrust Pite with such a personal story—one so difficult to articulate— it’s important to understand that

their relationship goes way back to his early days at Electric Company Theatre, one of the city’s most adventurous interdisciplinary stage troupes. Pite collaborated with ETC over the years, helping to choreograph buzzed-about multimedia shows like Studies in Motion. Both have gone on to great success in their careers, with Pite heading for three years with Kidd Pivot to an artistic residency at Frankfurt’s Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and gigs across Europe—including work as an associate artist at the cutting-edge Nederlands Dans Theater. Young continued creating shows with ETC, like Palace Grand. Amid all this, in 2009, tragedy struck: Young and theatre artist Kim Collier lost their young teenage daughter and her two cousins to a cabin fire in B.C.’s Interior. Pite relates that Young had started to write a solo script about his struggle through that unimaginable grief,

and had approached her to direct it in late 2013. “As he described some of the ideas he had, I immediately thought of dance,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to choreograph something for Jonathon because he’s such an amazing mover and has such an articulate, clear way of movement.” Pite, who is more used to choreographing alone (albeit always with a creative team in her atmospheric sets and music), welcomed a partner in the studio. “I was with Jonathon every day to share those difficult moments, so even in those moments of extreme doubt and fear, I was not on my own,” she says. It’s a relationship that continues. Pite just got back from The Hague, where she created a 19-minute quartet for Nederlands Dans Theater, working with a script she commissioned from Young. And though the choreographer’s star continues to rise, with big new works debuting with the Paris Opera Ballet and the Royal Ballet later this year, she is excited about Betroffenheit touring to places like Seattle, Dublin, and London—and about its run here, where audiences are so familiar with the two artists’ work, and with Young’s loss. “I’m nervous and excited—so many people that know us, and it’s home for both of our companies, so it’s intense,” she says with a small laugh before heading back into tech rehearsals at the National Arts Centre. But, she adds, she’s reassured by the response so far: “It’s mostly just a relief that this show is connecting to people in the way we hoped that it would. People were moved, but also found the beauty in it. I felt like the audience was with us.” DanceHouse presents Betroffenheit at the Vancouver Playhouse from Thursday to Saturday (February 25 to 27).

2015/16 Season 30th Anniversary Season Program 2 March 17 18 19, 2016 Choreography Medhi Walerski Queen Elizabeth Theatre balletbc.com | ticketmaster.ca GOLD SEASON SPONSOR

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DANCER TARA WILLIAMSON. PHOTO MICHAEL SLOBODIAN.

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 15

ARTS

Italy’s Spellbound taps dancers’ personalities > B Y JAN ET SMITH

CHOR LEONI Erick Lichte

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

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CHOR LEONI MEN’S CHOIR CHOR LEONI’S MYVOICE CHOIRS BRITISH COLUMBIA BOYS CHOIR UBC MEN’S CHOIR VANCOUVER MEN’S CHORUS

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aunting, sculptural, and deeply human, Spellbound Contemporary Ballet’s dance is often praised for its beauty. But to artistic director Mauro Astolfi, who cofounded the Romebased company in 1994, that word suggests a surface allure that he simply isn’t after. “I’m very attracted to the possibility of the human body to create a certain aesthetic, but aesthetics, for me, comes from substance—something that can touch something very deep in the human body and the human brain,” he tells the Straight from Italy. “You can’t create aesthetics just with a nice body—the emotional, mental, and physical system has to work together.” When the company makes its debut here at the Chutzpah Festival, it will be with dancers—like recent Arts Umbrella alumnus Jayson Syrette— who have a polished technical ballet ability, but who have something else, too. “I always try to find people with different personalities,” Astolfi says. “I have them give me their personality through the moment. And I try to destroy what they think their limit is.” The result is dance that should appeal to fans of Ballet BC and other contemporary-dance companies here in Vancouver. Astolfi himself trained with the American companies of Paul Taylor and Merce Cunningham before going back to Italy after a serious injury at 30, but his style today speaks of European choreographers like Jiří Kylián and Jorma Elo—both of whom have created work for our regional ballet company. Astolfi himself cites a local bright light as a big influence. “You have Crystal Pite,” he says of the Vancouver choreographer behind such atmospheric pieces as Dark Matters and the recent Betroffenheit.

Spellbound tries to push past surface beauty. Cristiano Castaldi photo.

(See story on page 15.) “I love her work and the way she presents herself. And you have a lot of fantastic new choreographers, so it’s very exciting for me to perform there.” Because it’s our first look at Spellbound, Astolfi plans to bring a range of short works here to show off different sides of the troupe. Among the pieces is She Is on the Ground, a playful riff on the pointlessness of male courtship rituals and the power of women in relationships. Another is the enigmatic new Hesitation Day, in which four men form tangling sculptures that stretch and pull apart, set to the punk-metal of Iceland’s Norn. To build the work, the choreographer depends a lot on the personality of his dancers and their interpretation of his ideas, but Astolfi bluntly states he doesn’t ask them to improvise much. “I’m the sort of person who likes to choreograph from the first to the last,” he says, an attribute audiences here will be able to see in the detailed finesse of his creations. “A lot of choreographers just like to sit and there is a lot of words. That is not me.” The Chutzpah Festival presents Spellbound Contemporary Ballet at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre from Saturday to Monday (February 27 to 29).

Kyle Kinane mines funny tales from the everyday > B Y G U Y M A C PHERSON

B Kirsten Nash

INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR

VANCOUVER CONVENTION CENTRE MAY 26 - 29, 2016

PURCHASE YOUR TICKET: WWW.ARTVANCOUVER.NET PRESENTED BY:

16 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

ailment. When life gives you a bout with gout, make jokes out of it. “It’s not exactly like I was doing DMT driving a Cadillac through the desert,” he says. “I just had too many rodeo bacon cheeseburgers. But still, it’s something to report back on. A cautionary tale.” When he comes here, the unshaven comic will play the Biltmore with fellow beardo Graham Clark opening. “It’s a lot of beard,” he admits. “I do try to avoid double-beard bookings, but it’s Graham. Graham’s one of my favourite guys, so he’s doing it.” Kinane has played Vancouver a few times throughout his career, once right after he had thrown his back out. But even when not in pain, he wasn’t exactly a bouncy ball of jollity. “I was just coming to terms with the fact that maybe life wasn’t going to be how I thought it would have been,” he says, hesitating to describe what he was feeling as depression. More like a little down. But he’s “a little more jovial of an individual these days”. And that’s way more important than anything else—even his career. “I think I’d rather be happy and take my place as a mediocre comic over time,” he says. “People love all these artists that wind up killing themselves. They worship the art that they put out, but they were still miserable. Their own mind was still such hell for them that they took themselves off this planet. I don’t want to be that depressed. I’d rather just be happy and people be like, ‘Ah, 2.5 stars.’ Yeah, but I’m having a pretty good time. “That’s it, man. Third place. Just be happy with third.” -

efore Canada’s push for more and more gold medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics, our motto might have been “Shooting for third”. It’s a nice, unassuming place to be for a middle power. But third place for an American in any industry? You might as well go live in Russia. Moderate goals are working for Illinois native Kyle Kinane, though. He’s a popular standup who plays to sellout crowds wherever he goes. Maybe not arenas and theatres, though, hence his Tumblr account “Shooting for Third: The minimal efforts of Kyle Kinane”. “I think I may have some inherent Canadian in my approach towards the world,” he says over the phone on a brief layover at his home in L.A. before he hits the road again. “Not mass dominance. I’m just happy to be invited to the game, guys. I just like hanging out.” Known as a storyteller extraordinaire, the 39-year-old Kinane can turn a trip to the grocery store into a mesmerizing tale. Those everyday activities are where he finds himself after years of hard living. “I’m a pretty stereotypical comic who’s spent a lot of my time in bars and getting into pretty wild situations,” he says. “I’m not trying to Hunter S. Thompson my life here. Like, I want to have some brain space left to enjoy things. I don’t need to do acid with Hells Angels to get a story. I’ll just go down to the grocery store and hang out for a minute and something silly will reveal itself. I don’t need to live all the lyrics to ‘Kickstart My Heart’ Kyle Kinane plays the Biltmore Cababy Mötley Crüe.” To drive the point home, these ret on Friday and Saturday (February days Kinane is talking about a recent 26 and 27) as part of JFL NorthWest.

ARTS

Gay Heritage Project connects to queer past > BY C R A IG TA KEU CH I

ueer history is fraught with numerous forms of erasure, be it censorship, secrecy, destruction of records, avoidance, or exclusion. However, a new theatrical show barrels past those barriers to take a look at what connections today’s LGBT people might have to queer pioneers and historical events— and questions whether there is such a thing as gay heritage. On the line from Toronto, The Gay Heritage Project actor and playwright Damien Atkins explained that fellow actor-playwright Paul Dunn told him that he felt affected by research (for a role in the play East of Berlin) into how the Nazis treated homosexuals. Atkins said Dunn started to feel a connection along the lines of “that could’ve been me.”

When Dunn began to reflect upon queer stories he hadn’t known about, Atkins said, he also started to wonder: “What is there that links gay people across time, across generations, across ethnicities, genders, and different countries? Is there something that connects us?” Dunn invited Atkins and his partner, Andrew Kushnir, to become a part of what would become The Gay Heritage Project, which took years of research. With the help of historian J. Paul Halferty, the trio delved into books, documentaries, works by queer theorists, Toronto’s Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, and CBC video and radio archive material on LGBT rights, in addition to conducting interviews. Rather than attempting to speak on behalf of everyone and to narrow down the potentially expansive subject, Atkins explained, they chose to

Damien Atkins says working on the Gay Heritage Project changed his life.

dramatize their investigations into their own gay legacy. Atkins explained that their personal approaches would “hopefully.…function as an invitation for people, if they wanted to, to investigate their own gay heritage”. Dunn, who is of Scottish and Irish descent, focused on gays in the military; Atkins, who was born in Australia,

examined the HIV/AIDS crisis; and Kushnir, who is Ukrainian Canadian, looked at famous people in gay history. Atkins described the show as less of a narrative piece and more of a collage. He explained that they employed a theatre technique called vocal masque, which integrates content from various sources. Although there is an educational component to the show, using vocal masque helped them avoid a dry presentation by maintaining a sense of humour. “It’s perfect for a theme-based investigation like this because you just go at it from as many sides as possible and you create scenes and then you whittle it down,” he said. “It can be unabashedly instructional. It’s actually a form where it’s pleasurable for the audience to learn about stuff, just because of the athletics of the technique and the sense of humour to it, that it’s a way of actually getting into

deep, dense topics and learning about them, elucidating upon the topic but also being super fun about it.” Atkins said the project changed his life. “My life, I owe to a lot of people and their hard work and their sacrifice and their lives, and that makes me feel more present and more grateful in my everyday practice,” he said. With so many LGBT rights gains and Pride parades, it’s easy to forget what happened in the past. Consequently, Atkins hopes that the show inspires people to think about meaning in life. “It offers an imperative: do something with your privilege; do something with your life and your freedom.” The Gay Heritage Project is at the Cultch from March 2 to 19.

Tickets start at

$45.

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 17

presents

an intimate evening of theatreâ&#x20AC;Ś without a play

Joked by David Diamond â&#x20AC;&#x153;David Diamond LV DQ LQWHUQDWLRQDO WUHDVXUH Â¨ Mark Leiren-Young, Vancouver Sun

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Reservations Recommended at 604.871.0508 or rsvp@theatreforliving.com more info:

e 27Ă&#x2030;DITION

March 10 to 27 various Vancouver venues 7:30pm April 1 & 2, Scotiabank Dance Centre 677 Davie St

SociĂŠtĂŠ francophone de Maillardville prĂŠsente

Maillardvilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Music Festival !â&#x20AC;?

ur dian on o y t â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ge h Cana c Fren

MACKIN M A PARK COQUITLAM

March 4,5,6

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www.festivaldubois.ca f

spring ar ts/ theatre 5 @ 50 May 13-29, PAL Theatre. Tickets and info www.rubyslippers.ca/. THE ACT ARTS CENTRE 2LOVE, SEX, France Perras stars in The List at AND THE I.R.S. Mar 10-12 2DISNEYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ALADDIN, JR. Apr 13-14 2DISNEYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S the Gateway, Tim Matheson photo. PETER PAN, JR. Apr 14-16 2DISNEYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S THE LION KING, JR. Apr 20-23 2SHREK FIREHALL ARTS CENTRE THE MUSICAL JR. May 13-14 2JOSEPH 2POSTSECRET: THE SHOW to Mar 5 AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR 2THE OUT VIGIL Mar 16-26 2DEAD DREAMCOAT May 19-21. Tickets and info METAPHOR Apr 2-23 2HOW TO SURVIVE 604-476-2787, www.theactmapleridge.org/. AN APOCALYPSE Jun 2-11. Tickets and info 604-689-0926, www.firehallartscentre.ca/. ANVIL CENTRE 2CALL MR. ROBESON Feb 25-28. Tickets: $35/25, info 604-515GATEWAY THEATRE 2THE LIST Mar 3830, www.anvilcentre.com/. 10-19 2DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T DRESS FOR DINNER Apr 7-23. Tickets and info 604-270-1812, www. ARTS CLUB THEATRE 2PRIDE AND gatewaytheatre.com/. PREJUDICE to Feb 28, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage 2THE (POST) MISTRESS HAVANA 2SLACKS to Feb 27 2WAIT to Feb 28, Goldcorp Stage at the BMO UNTIL DARK Mar 1-12 2BONNIE AND Theatre Centre 2ONEGIN Mar 17â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Apr CLYDE Mar 29â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Apr 9 2REFERENDUM 10, Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Apr 12-23 2POETRY FESTIVAL Apr 24-30 Centre 2GOOD PEOPLE Mar 24â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Apr 24, 2ITHAKA May 3-14 2NUTS May 24-28. Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage 2THE Tickets and info 604-253-9119, www. VALLEY Apr 7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;May 7, Granville Island havanarestaurant.ca/. Stage 2BILLY ELLIOT May 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Jul 10, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage 2ROCK OF AGES KAY MEEK CENTRE 2THE LITTLE PRINCE Jun 16â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Jul 30, Granville Island Stage. Tickets Mar 5 24000 MILES Mar 7-8. Tickets and info and info 604-687-1644, www.artsclub.com/. 604-913-3634, www.kaymeekcentre.com/. BLUESHORE FINANCIAL CENTRE FOR NORTH VANCOUVER COMMUNITY THE PERFORMING ARTS 2CABARET Mar PLAYERS All performances at the Theatre 17-26. Tickets: $10-22, info 604-990-7810, www. at Hendry Hall. 2TWO ROOMS Apr 7-23 capilanou.ca/blueshorefinancialcentre/. 2MARY MARY May 26â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Jun 11. Tickets: $10-18, info 604-983-2633, www.northvanplayers.ca/. BROADWAY ACROSS CANADA All performances at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. PACIFIC THEATRE All performances 2MAMMA MIA! Mar 29â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Apr 3 2NEWSIES at the Pacific Theatre. GRUESOME 2 Jul 5-10 2THE BOOK OF MORMON Aug PLAYGROUND INJURIES Apr 1-16 2WIT 23â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sep 4 2KINKY BOOTS Feb 7-12, 2017 May 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Jun 18. Tickets: $13.99-29.99, info 2CINDERELLA Apr 11-16, 2017. Tickets and 604-731-5518, www.pacifictheatre.org/. info www.broadwayacrosscanada.ca/. PRESENTATION HOUSE THEATRE CAROUSEL THEATRE All performances 2REDPATCH Mar 9-12 2SAL CAPONE: at the Waterfront Theatre, except where THE LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF Mar 29â&#x20AC;&#x201C; noted. 2GO, DOG. GO! Feb 27â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Mar 20 Apr 2 2FAUX DEPARTS Apr 14-16. 2THE JUNGLE BOOK Apr 16â&#x20AC;&#x201C;May 1 2ON Tickets: $15-28, info 604-990-3474, MY WALK Jun 7-18, CTYP Studio Theatre. www.phtheatre.org/. Tickets: $15-35, info 604-685-6217, www. carouseltheatre.ca/. ROYAL CITY MUSICAL THEATRE 2FIDDLER ON THE ROOF Apr 7-23, THE CULTCH All performances at the Massey Theatre. Tickets and info 604-521Historic Theatre, except where noted. 5050, www.royalcitymusicaltheatre.com/. 2WINNERS & LOSERS to Feb 27 2THE GAY HERITAGE PROJECT Mar 2-19 SHADBOLT CENTRE FOR THE ARTS 2GA TING (FAMILY) Mar 8-19, Culture 24000 MILES Mar 10-11. Tickets: $29-44, info Lab 2DOOST (FRIEND) Mar 22-26 604-205-3000, www.shadboltcentre.com/. 2THE INVISIBLE HAND Apr 5-23 2LATE COMPANY Apr 5-9, Culture Lab 2DIRTY THE SIDEKICK PLAYERS CLUB All OLD WOMAN Apr 12-23, Culture Lab 2THE performances at the Tsawwassen Arts INTERGALACTIC NEMESIS: TARGET EARTH Centre. 2GOD OF CARNAGE Apr 14-30 Apr 30 & May 1, York Theatre. Tickets and 2LOOKING Jun 9-25. Tickets and info 604info 604-251-1363, www.thecultch.com/. 288-2415, www.sidekickplayers.com/. EVERGREEN CULTURAL CENTRE 24,000 MILES Mar 1-5 2LATE COMPANY Mar 29â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Apr 2 2MOTHERLOAD May 9-14. Tickets and info 604-927-6555, www.ever greenculturalcentre.ca/. FIGHTING CHANCE All performances at the Jericho Arts Centre, except where noted. 2CATS to Mar 12 2FACING EAST Apr 22-May 14 2VIRGINS May 17-21 2AMERICAN IDIOT Jul 29â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Aug 27, Waterfront Theatre 2HEATHERS: THE MUSICAL Jul 28â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Aug 26, Waterfront Theatre. Tickets and info www.fighting chanceproductions.ca/.

Wanna Yuk?

TOP TALENT SHOWCASE

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STUDIO 58 All performances at Langara. 2THE CROWD Mar 17-Apr 3. Tickets: $12.25-24.75, info 604-323-5227, www. studio58.ca/. SURREY ARTS CENTRE 24000 MILES to Feb 27 2BOO! Feb 28 2LOVE, SEX, AND THE I.R.S. Mar 16-19 2PETER â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; CHRIS: THE MYSTERY OF THE HUNGRY HEART MOTEL Mar 17-19. Tickets and info 604-501-5566, www.surrey.ca/arts/. TALKING STICK FESTIVAL 2INDIGENUITY Feb 25 & 27, Vancity Culture Lab. Tickets and info www.talking stickfest.ca/. THEATRE AT UBC 2THE ARABIAN NIGHTS Mar 17â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Apr 2, Frederic Wood Theatre. Tickets and info 604-822-2678, www.theatre.ubc.ca/. THEATRE FOR LIVING 2RECLAIMING HOPE...FROM A CULTURE OF FEAR Mar 10, Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre; Mar 11-12, Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House; Mar 13, Kitsilano Neighbourhood House; Mar 15, Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre; Mar 17, Heartwood Community Cafe; Mar 18-19, Groundswell Cafe and Learning Space; Mar 22, Unitarian Church of Vancouver; Mar 23, UBC First Nations Longhouse; Apr 1-2, Scotiabank Dance Centre. Tickets and info www.theatreforliving.com/. THEATRE LA SEIZIEME 2TU TE SOUVIENDRAS DE MOI Mar 8-12, Studio 16. Tickets and info 604-736-2616, www.seizieme.ca/. TOUCHSTONE THEATRE 2LATE COMPANY Mar 29-Apr 2, Evergreen Cultural Centre; Apr 5-9, Vancity Culture Lab 2HOW TO SURVIVE AN APOCALYPSE Jun 2-11, Firehall Arts Centre. Tickets and info 604-709-9973, www.touch stonetheatre.com/. UNITED PLAYERS All performances at the Jericho Arts Centre. 2THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR Mar 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Apr 17 2THE LION IN WINTER Jun 3-26. Tickets: $18-22, info 604224-8007, www.unitedplayers.com/. A VERY NARROW BRIDGE Mar 5-13, Jewish Community Centre. Tickets: $21-29, info www.chutzpahfestival.com/.

Comedy Club

www.yukyuks.com 2837 Cambie (at 12th)

18 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MARCH 3 / 2016

WHITE ROCK PLAYERSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; CLUB All performances at the Coast Capital Playhouse. 2BOEING BOEING Mar 2-19 2PRIVATE LIVES Apr 13-30 2THE ODD COUPLE Jun 8-Jul 2. Tickets: $22/19, info 604-536-7535, www.whiterockplayers.ca/.

SPRING ARTS

From Pushkin to BeyoncĂŠ and a Broadway hit On the spring theatre roster, intimate explorations of divorce and grief mix with a major new musical and an all-female look at 50 TH E AT RE

who has lost her job as a dollar-store cashier asks for help from an old friend from the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;hoodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;who has moved away and become a successful doctor. In this Arts Club interpretation, Colleen Wheeler will play the same role that Imelda Staunton took on in London and Frances McDormand won a Tony for on Broadway. The Draw: An intricate examination of class. Target Audience: Citizens who have been so bamboozled by the North American swing to the right that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve forgotten what class analysis is.

CRITICSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; PICKS

Not only are the weeping willows

2 at Kits Beach turning that fabu-

lous goldy green. Not only is the sun hanging around for an extra couple of minutes of company every day. The spring theatre season has also begun. This year, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a verdant offering of original works and intelligent scripts.

THE GAY HERITAGE PROJECT (At

the Cultchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Historic Theatre from March 2 to 19) Three young, queer theatre artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Damien Atkins, Paul Dunn, and Andrew Kushnerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ask themselves the twisty question: Is there such a thing as gay heritage? Reviews of the Toronto run of this Buddy in Bad Times Theatre production were orgasmic: â&#x20AC;&#x153;wildly entertainingâ&#x20AC;? (Globe and Mail), â&#x20AC;&#x153;deeply movingâ&#x20AC;? (Toronto Star). The Draw: Master puppeteer Ronnie Burkett (The Daisy Theatre) has endorsed this show. It must really be something. Target Audience: Homos. Heteros. Cheerios. Everybody.

A VERY NARROW BRIDGE (At the

Jewish Community Centre from March 5 to 13) Itai Erdal, Anita Rochon, and Maiko Yamamoto have created a play about Erdalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience of divorcing a woman and leaving Israel. The Draw: Intimacy. This Elbow Theatre production, which is being presented by the Chutzpah Festival, takes place in a boardroom. Target Audience: Anybody who has ever left a person or a place. But donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get carried away; if you have to leave in the middle of the show, they may not be able to reseat you.

THE INVISIBLE HAND (At the Cultchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Amiel Gladstone and Veda Hille, who teamed up for A Craigslist Cantata, have created the musical Onegin. David Cooper photo.

Oliver called solo actor France Perrasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performance â&#x20AC;&#x153;heartbreakingâ&#x20AC;?. The central character struggles to hold chaosâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and griefâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;at bay by making lists. The Draw: Perras has been performing in French in Vancouver for yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and hauling in awards. In Shelley Teppermanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s translation for this Ruby Slippers production, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sharing her talent with anglophones. Target Audience: Guilty English speakers who want to knowledgeably sing the praises of one of the stars of VancouTHE LIST (At the Gateway Theatre from verâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s French theatre scene. March 11 to 19) Reviewing La Liste, the French original of Jennifer Trem- THE CROWD (At Studio 58 from March blayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s play, the Straightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kathleen 19 to April 3) Studio 58â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not giving a lot

away about this brand-new George F. Walker script, which it is producing in association with Green Thumb Theatre, but, apparently, it involves a wedding, an arrest, and BeyoncĂŠâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest hits. The Draw: Student actors will be originating the roles in a world premiere by one of this countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most important playwrights. Target Audience: Walker is consistently tough, smart, and funny. If you are too, come on down. ONEGIN (On the Goldcorp Stage at the

BMO Theatre from March 23 to April 10) This new show from Veda Hille and Amiel Gladstone, part of the team that brought us the inspired Do You Want

OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT A Music Concert

$ YLEUDQWbfour-day festivalbFHOHEUDWLQJ WKH H[FLWLQJ ZRUNV RI FRQWHPSRUDU\ FRPSRVHUV DQG IHDWXULQJ WKH ZRUOG UHQRZQHG Kronos Quartet $QG HQKDQFH \RXU PXVLFDO H[SHULHQFH ZLWK SUH FRQFHUW WDONV DQG SRVW FRQFHUW JDWKHULQJV ZLWK 0DHVWUR 7RYH\ FRPSRVHUV DQG 962 PXVLFLDQV

BRAMWELL TOVEY

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 25

Nouvelle Vague

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 26

Bramwell Tovey host Jocelyn Morlock host Standing Wave

she told stories to survive until sunrise. by Mary Zimmerman March 17â&#x20AC;&#x201D;April 2, 2016 Frederic Wood Theatre Tickets: theatrefilm.ubc.ca

13 to 29) In Brad Fraserâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new play, which is being coproduced by Ruby Slippers and Zee Zee Theatre, Olivia loses control at her fiftieth birthday party, prompting a group of her friends to intervene. But Olivia and her partner, Nora, are not keen about being intervened upon. The Draw: The strong, all-female cast: Carmen Aguirre, Diane Brown, Deborah Williams, Donna Yamamoto, and Beatrice Zeilinger. Target Audience: GOOD PEOPLE (At the Stanley Indus- The old and cranky. Well, maybe the trial Alliance Stage from March 30 to middle-aged and cranky. You know April 24) In playwright David Lindsay- what I mean. Shut up. > COLIN THOMAS Abaireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s script, a South Boston woman

featuring the KRONOS QUARTET, MAESTRO BRAMWELL TOVEY, STANDING WAVE, and VSO COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE JOCELYN MORLOCK

KRONOS QUARTET

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

5 @ 50 (At the PAL Theatre from May

THE VSO NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Borealis String Quartet presents

Saturday March 5, 8:00 pm Orpheum Annex â&#x20AC;˘ 823 Seymour St Adults $30 Students $15 brownpapertickets.com/event/2495127

What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata, reimagines Aleksandr Pushkinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s verse novel as a musical. The Draw: A sneak preview of some of Hilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s music for this Arts Club production reveals a poignant combination of innocence and anticipatory despair. Target Audience: The story is about narcissism and the artificiality of the constructed self. Do you have a cellphone? A Facebook profile? Well, then, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about you, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;just like everything else.

Historic Theatre from April 6 to 23) In playwright Ayad Akhtarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s script for this Pi Theatre show, a banker who has been captured by Muslim fundamentalists convinces his jailers that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an asset they can capitalize onâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and he dispenses free-market advice while heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s at it: save your potatoes; when everybody else runs out, charge a fortune for them. The Draw: Complexity. None of the characters are entirely good or entirely evil. Target Audience: People who have been frightened by fundamentalist capitalism and/or fundamentalist Islam.

Kronos: Moments in Time

Bramwell Tovey host Jocelyn Morlock host Kronos Quartet

ALL CONCERTS 7:30PM AT THE ORPHEUM Pre-Concert Talks at 6:35pm each night and Post-Concert Gatherings, FREE TO TICKETHOLDERS. FESTIVAL SPONSOR

MEDIA SPONSOR

@VSOrchestra

STANDING WAVE

JOCELYN MORLOCK

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 27

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 28

Bramwell Tovey conductor/host Jocelyn Morlock host Ariel Barnes cello Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa piano Brendan Wyatt dancer Marie-Josee Chartier choreographer Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Bramwell Tovey conductor/host Jocelyn Morlock host Kronos Quartet Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Sacred and Profane

City of Angels

TICKETS vancouversymphony.ca/nmf

604.876.3434

FEBRUARY 25 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 19

SPRING ARTS

Dance scene rocks diversity

“Every time we hear him, he impresses us as better than we remembered, surprising us, surpassing our expectations and communicating perceptions that stay in the mind.”

DANCE

- Gramophone

CRITICS’ PICKS

You could say things are turn-

2 ing upside down in dance this

spring, with ballet taking on tough issues, a First Nations troupe embracing high tech, and programs where dancers move not to music but words. Add a brilliant Parisian, one daring Belgian, and a bunch of adrenalized Brazilians to the scene, and you have a pretty colourful season ahead.

FOUTREMENT (At the Roundhouse

Tickets selling quickly !

RICHARD GOODE

piano

Sun February 28 at 7:30pm I VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE Hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, Richard Goode has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic music.

ALL - BACH PROGRAM “One of the greatest American pianists of this or any other generation” - St. Louis Post

TICKETS: 604 602 0363 I vanrecital.com SEASON SPONSOR:

SERIES SPONSOR:

SUPPORTED BY:

Community Arts and Recreation Centre from March 3 to 5) The Vancouver International Dance Festival presents Compagnie Virginie Brunelle’s provocative exploration of love and lust. Brunelle uses buckled belts, hockey pads, pointe shoes, and bare skin to draw a triangle of obsession and betrayal. The Draw: The fearless, jaded take on love, and the brutally honest, rackingly physical dance that’s touched with balletic beauty. Target Audience: Anyone who considers relationships an extreme sport.

In Flicker, Dancers of Damelahamid blend First Nations myth with multimedia projections, West Coast graphic design, and masks. Chris Randle photo.

Fernando interprets Aislinn Hunter’s The World Before Us; and contemporary dance artist Paraskevas Terezakis explores Nancy Lee’s Dead Girls. The Draw: Top-flight wordsmiths matching minds with a truly diverse trio of choreographers. Target Audience: PROGRAM 2 (At the Queen Eliza- Bookworms who want to let loose beth Theatre from March 17 to 19) their inner dance fiend. Ballet BC has a lot of exciting stuff coming up for the latter part of its COMPANHIA URBANA DE DANCA 30th-anniversary season—including (At the Vancouver Playhouse on a work by bold Batsheva Dance Com- April 1 and 2) DanceHouse prepany alumna Sharon Eyal in May. But sents the red-hot Rio de Janeiro our pick is this full evening by Paris- troupe on its first Canadian tour. based choreographer Medhi Walerski The Draw: The company’s spicy and its promise of poetic, unpredict- feijoada of hip-hop, samba, capoable delights. Ballet BC is amping up eira, and contemporary dance will its corps to 25 with the help of Arts leave you adrenalized for days. TarUmbrella for this stage-filler. The get Audience: Travel bugs longing Draw: Walerski’s cheekily cool Pe- for a hit of Brazilian heat. tite Cérémonie ranks as one of the company’s biggest audience favour- GOING HOME STAR—TRUTH AND ites, and the Paris Opera Ballet and RECONCILIATION (At the Queen Nederlands Dans Theater talent has a Elizabeth Theatre from April 7 to 9) The gift for drawing out all the company Royal Winnipeg Ballet finally delivers members’ personalities on-stage. Tar- the West Coast debut of its powerful get Audience: Balletomanes who love residential-school work. Conjured by choreographer Mark Godden and centhe element of surprise. tring on an aboriginal woman dealWORDS IN MOTION (At the Chan ing with the same trauma that haunts Centre for the Performing Arts on so many in Canada’s indigenous March 18 and 19) In this copresen- community, it may be the most tation with the Dance Centre, words important piece ever mounted by the and movement meet as three chor- famous company. The Draw: Finding eographers interpret the work of three out if a classical form like ballet can be writers. Contemporary aboriginal- used to address an issue as painfully dance practitioner Olivia C. Davies relevant as today’s headlines. Target expresses Carmen Aguirre’s memoirs Audience: Those unafraid to look into about revolution in South America; the darkness of Canada’s past while bharata natyam specialist Anusha holding out hope for the future.

JUST WORDS (At the Firehall Arts Centre from April 27 to 30) Veteran dance artist Serge Bennathan creates a poetic reflection on the life of an artist. The Draw: Bennathan is doing some intriguing work with text and movement these days, and his dancers here—Karissa Barry and Hilary Maxwell—are magnetic. Target Audience: Fans of both the written word and the moving body. REVOLT (At the Scotiabank Dance Centre from May 5 to 7) Thierry Smits’s Compagnie Thor presents a solo for Australian firecracker Nicola Leahey in an intense study of power, resistance, oppression, and citizen protest—especially as they concern women. The Draw: Leahey, who is as insanely watchable as she is willing to push herself to extremes and embody whole worlds of conflict. Target Audience: Activists, feminists, and sociologists. FLICKER (At the Cultch’s Historic

Theatre from May 25 to 29) West Coast graphic design, projected environments, masks, and live-action shadow dance: the aboriginal Dancers of Damelahamid take their work into new multimedia territory as they conjure the spirit world of the title character. The Draw: Watching coastal art and dance intersect with the high-tech digital age. Target Audience: Those who want to see ancient forms speak to a new generation. > JANET SMITH

2MANDALA ARTS & SOCIETY Jun 12, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre. Tickets and info 604893-8807, www.newworks.ca/.

ROYAL WINNIPEG BALLET 2GOING HOME STAR: TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION Apr 7-9, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets and info www.rwb.org/.

spring ar ts/ danc e Discover Dance! series

LORITA LEUNG DANCE Co March 10

KAREN FLAMENCO April 21 Compagnie Thor | Thierry Smits/photo Hichem Dahes

Global Dance Connections series

COMPAGNIE THOR THIERRY SMITS

THE ACT ARTS CENTRE 2SLEEPING BEAUTY BY CANADA’S BALLET JORGEN Feb 25. Tickets: $15-40, info 604-476-2787, www.theactmapleridge.org/. BALLET BRITISH COLUMBIA All performances at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. 2PROGRAM 2 Mar 17-19 2PROGRAM 3 May 12-14. Tickets and info 604-732-5003, www.balletbc.com/. CENTENNIAL THEATRE 2ROMEO AND JULIET Mar 19. Tickets: $15-35, info 604-9844484, www.centennialtheatre.com/.

May 5-7

COASTAL FIRST NATIONS DANCE FESTIVAL Mar 1-6, Museum of Anthropology. Tickets and info www.dame lahamid.ca/.

Scotiabank Dance Centre thedancecentre.ca

THE CULTCH All performances at the Historic Theatre. 2DOOST (FRIEND) Mar 22-26 2FLICKER May 25-29. Tickets and info 604-251-1363, www.thecultch.com/.

MEDIA SPONSORS Discover Dance!

Global Dance Connections

20 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

DANCEHOUSE All performances at the Vancouver Playhouse. 2KIDD PIVOT AND THE ELECTRIC COMPANY THEATRE Feb 25-27 2COMPANHIA URBANA DE DANCA Apr 1-2. Tickets and info 604-801-6225, www.dancehouse.ca/.

SCOTIABANK DANCE CENTRE 2LORITA LEUNG DANCE COMPANY Mar 10 2KAREN FLAMENCO Apr 21 2COMPAGNIE THOR AND THIERRY SMITS May 5-7. Tickets and info 604-606-6400, www.thedancecentre.ca/. SHADBOLT CENTRE FOR THE ARTS 2TO COLOUR THOUGHT Mar 2-5 2TIES THAT BIND Apr 20-23 2LIVE AT THE ‘BOLT: SMALL STAGE WITH BALLET BC Jun 23-25. Tickets: $15-35, info 604-205-3000, www. shadboltcentre.com/.

Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Sophia Lee in Going Home Star. Réjean Brandt photo. EVERGREEN CULTURAL CENTRE 2SURSAUT DANCE: BOO! Mar 6 2NEWWORKS DANCE ALLSORTS Apr 24. Tickets and info 604-927-6555, www.ever greenculturalcentre.ca/. FIREHALL ARTS CENTRE 2JUST WORDS Apr 27-30. Tickets: $23-33, info 604-689-0926, www.firehallartscentre.ca/. KAREN FLAMENCO All performances at the Vancouver Playhouse, except where noted. 2CARMEN Mar 6, Terry Fox Theatre; Mar 12, Chilliwack Cultural Centre 2SNOW WHITE Jun 18-19. Tickets and info 604-721-4869, www.karenflamenco.com/. NEW WORKS 2OURO COLLECTIVE AND HEATHER LAURA GRAY Feb 28, Performance Works 2RAICES Y ALAS FLAMENCO Apr 17, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre; Apr 24, Evergreen Cultural Centre 2DEZZA DANCE May 15, Studio 1398

TALKING STICK FESTIVAL 2IN MOTION Feb 26, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre 2METIS TIME & SPACE Feb 27, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre. Tickets and info www. talkingstickfest.ca/. VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL All performances at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, except where noted 2MASCALL DANCE Feb 28 & Mar 6, Woodward’s Atrium 2VIRGINIE BRUNELLE Mar 3-5 2CIRCADIA INDIGENA Mar 3-5 2NATSU NAKAJIMA Mar 8-9 2SUJIT VAIDYA Mar 8-9 2KOKORO DANCE Mar 9, Vancouver Playhouse 2EDAM Mar 10-12 2PROJECT SOUL Mar 10-12 2MEMORY WAX/RETAZOS Mar 11-12, Vancouver Playhouse 2RAVEN SPIRIT Mar 13, Woodward’s Atrium 2COMPANY 605 Mar 17-19 2DUMB INSTRUMENT Mar 17-19. Tickets and info 604-662-7441, www.vidf.ca/. WORDS IN MOTION Mar 18-19, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Tickets and info www.chancentre.com/.

FREE

Crisálida MEMORY WAX / RETAZOS March 11 & 12, 8PM Vancouver Playhouse tickets: $40-$50

Book of Love KOKORO DANCE March 9, 8pm Vancouver Playhouse tickets: $40-$50

REsolve CIRCADIA INDIGENA March 3 – 5, 7pm Roundhouse Exhibition Hall free with VIDF membership

FREE

The Longing Courtesan SUJIT VAIDYA March 8 – 9, 7PM Roundhouse Exhibition Hall free with VIDF membership

Like Smoke Like Ash NATSU NAKAJIMA March 8 – 9, 8PM Roundhouse Performance Centre tickets: $25-$30

Excerpts from Into the Tao PROJECT SOUL March 10 – 12, 7PM Roundhouse Exhibition Hall free with VIDF membership

FREE

Still Rhyming DUMB INSTRUMENT DANCE March 17 – 19, 7PM Roundhouse Exhibition Hall free with VIDF membership

Foutrement COMPAGNIE VIRGINIE BRUNELLE March 3 – 5, 8pm Roundhouse Performance Centre tickets: $25-$30

The Secret Life of Trees EDAM March 10 – 12, 8PM Roundhouse Performance Centre tickets: $25-$30

FREE

Vital Few COMPANY 605 March 17 – 19, 8PM Roundhouse Performance Centre tickets: $25-$30

PLAYHOUSE PASS (2 shows): $70

Nijinsky Gibber Jazz Club MASCALL DANCE Feb 28 & March 6, 2PM & 4PM Woodward’s Atrium

ROUNDHOUSE PASS (4 shows): $84

FREE

Frost Exploding Trees Moon — and Steppin’ RAVEN SPIRIT March 13, 2PM & 4PM Woodward’s Atrium

ALL SHOWS PASS: $154

VIDF MEMBERSHIP: $3 (included in any ticket purchase)

F E BR U A R Y 2 8 – M A R C H 19, 2 0 16

I N F O & B O X O F F I C E : 6 0 4 . 6 6 2 . 4 9 6 6 · V I DF.C A

Company 605 Photo by David Cooper

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 21

spring ar ts/ music ANVIL CENTRE 2LIFT Mar 4 2APRIL VERCH Mar 5 2SHINE-TIME MUSIC OLYMPICS May 14. Tickets: $2-35, info 604515-3830, www.anvilcentre.com/.

TERFEL, BASS-BARITONE, AND NATALIA KATYUKOVA, PIANO May 4, Orpheum Theatre. Tickets and info 604-602-0363, www.vanrecital.com/.

EARLY MUSIC VANCOUVER 2HOUSE OF DREAMS: TAFELMUSIK BAROQUE ORCHESTRA Mar 4, Vancouver Playhouse 2HANDEL’S APOLLO E DAFNE Mar 18, Vancouver Playhouse 2HANDEL’S MUSIC FOR THE ROYAL FIREWORKS Apr 3, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts 2PHILLIPE HERREWEGHE AND COLLEGIUM VOCALE GENT: LAGRIME DI SAN PIETRO Apr 15, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Tickets and info 604732-1610, www.earlymusic.bc.ca/. ELEKTRA WOMEN’S CHOIR 2YOUR ONE AND ONLY LIFE: THE CHORAL MUSIC OF STEPHEN SMITH Mar 5-6, Ryerson United Church 2IN THE ABBEY GARDEN Apr 30, Christ Church Cathedral; May 7, Ryerson United Church. Tickets: $15-30, info 604-739-1255, www.elektra.ca/. FRIENDS OF CHAMBER MUSIC All performances at the Vancouver Playhouse. 2MANDELRING QUARTETT Mar 1 2TAKACS STRING QUARTET Mar 13 2CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER Apr 10. Tickets: $15-48, info 604-4375747, www.friendsofchambermusic.ca/.

BLUESHORE FINANCIAL CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS All performances at the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts, except where noted. 2MICHAEL BLAKE Mar 6 2NORMA KAY MEEK CENTRE 2STEELIN’ IN THE WINSTONE WITH “A” BAND AND NITECAP YEARS Feb 26-27 2FREE CONCERT: SILK Apr 1 2INFLUENTIAL MASTERS OF ROAD Mar 1 2DANIEL BOLSHOY Mar 4 EUROPE Apr 9-10 2HEROIC EPISODES 2HARRY MANX Mar 11 2PARVA: LIVE IN Apr 12 2LEMON BUCKET ORKESTRA Apr 14. CONCERT Mar 26 2JOELLE RABU AND Tickets: $5-36, info 604-990-7810, www.capila NICO RHODES Apr 2-3 2JANE BUNNETT nou.ca/blueshorefinancialcentre/. AND MAQUEUE Apr 16. Tickets and info 604-913-3634, www.kaymeekcentre.com/. CARAVAN WORLD RHYTHMS 2CONSTANTINOPLE AND FRIENDS Feb MUSIC IN THE MORNING All perform28, York Theatre 2AZAE LO! Mar 11, St. ances at the Vancouver Academy of James Hall 2VENTANAS: SLIVOVICA Music. 2STANISLAV PRONIN, VIOLIN, AND SOCIAL CLUB Apr 1, Seven Dining ALEXANDER SEREDENKO, PIANO Mar 16-18 Lounge 2NIYAZ & ADHAM SHAIKH 2BARRY SHIFFMAN, VIOLIN, AND JEANIE Apr 7, Venue 2BOMBINO Apr 30, the CHUNG, PIANO Apr 20-22. Tickets and info Imperial 2KASANDRA FLAMENCO May 1, 604-873-4612, www.musicinthemorning.org/. Vancouver Playhouse 2CHE MALAMBO! MUSIC ON MAIN All performances at the May 20, Vogue Theatre. Tickets: $5-50, info Fox Cabaret, except where noted. 2LORI 778-886-8908, www.caravanbc.com/. FREEDMAN’S THE VIRTUOSITY OF EXCESS CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING Mar 8 2PEP (PIANO AND ERHU PROJECT ARTS 2DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER AND May 3 2ONE NIGHT STAND: CAROLINE IRVIN MAYFIELD WITH THE NEW ORLEANS SHAW May 10 2ARCHYTAS QUARTET May JAZZ ORCHESTRA Feb 27 2MYVOICE AT 17 2HONG KONG EXILE: HKXXX May THE CHAN CENTRE Mar 12 2ANOUSHKA 24 2REBECCA WENHAM, CELLO May 31 SHANKAR Apr 8 2ARLO GUTHRIE Apr 2BHANGRA ON MAIN Jun 14. Tickets and 21 2DISNEY MEETS BROADWAY Apr 24 info 604-879-9888, www.musiconmain.ca/. 2CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT May 1 May 20-21. Tickets and info 604-822-9197, www. MUSICA INTIMA 2VOYAGES Apr 15, St. chancentre.com/. James Community Square. Tickets: $25/12, info 604-731-6618, www.musicaintima.org/. CHOR LEONI MEN’S CHOIR 2VANMAN MALE CHORAL SUMMIT Mar 12, PACIFIC BAROQUE ORCHESTRA Chan Centre for the Performing Arts 2HANDEL’S APOLLO E DAFNE Mar 2MYVOICE AT THE CHAN Mar 12, Chan 18, Vancouver Playhouse 2HANDEL’S Centre for the Performing Arts 2SEA TO MUSIC FOR THE ROYAL FIREWORKS SKY Apr 8-9, Ryerson United Church; Apr 9, Apr 3, Chan Centre for the Performing West Vancouver United Church 2CHOR Arts. Tickets: $17.50-66, info 604-215-0406, LEONI IDOL May 15, Lamplighter Public www.pacificbaroque.com/. House 2CHOR LEONI MANE STAGE Jun PHOENIX CHAMBER CHOIR 2TO SEE 20 & 27, Vanier Park. Tickets: $10-40, info 604-263-7061, www.chorleoni.org/. A WORLD Mar 11, Heritage Hall 2TELL ME

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra brings to life House of Dreams, the multimedia trip through art, with Early Music Vancouver on March 4. YOU LOVE ME May 7, Oakridge United Church. Tickets: $10-25, info 604-757-0389, www.phoenixchoir.ca/. SHADBOLT CENTRE FOR THE ARTS 2LA BOHÈME to Feb 27 2CAROL WELSMAN Apr 8 2OPERA ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON Apr 17 2OPERA ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON Jun 19. Tickets: $15-35, info 604-205-3000, www. shadboltcentre.com/. SOUND OF DRAGON MUSIC FESTIVAL Apr 22-24, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre. Tickets and info www.soundofdragon.com/. TALKING STICK FESTIVAL 2INDIGENOUS UNITE Feb 25, Studio Records 2MÉTIS TIME & SPACE Feb 27, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre 2MUSICAL COFFEE HOUSE Zawa Restaurant. Tickets and info www.talkingstickfest.ca/. TURNING POINT ENSEMBLE 2SUPERIMPOSITION Apr 29-30, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Tickets: $12-37, info 604-733-9023, www.turning pointensemble.ca/.

VANCOUVER CHOPIN SOCIETY All concerts at the Vancouver Playhouse. 2DINA YOFFE Apr 8 2NELSON FREIRE May 19. Tickets: $24-55, info 604-871-4450, www. chopinsociety.org/. VANCOUVER NEW MUSIC 2NICOLE LIZEE Mar 12, Orpheum Annex 2EIGHTH BLACKBIRD & SLEEPING GIANT Apr 30, Orpheum Annex. Tickets: $15-35, info 604-633-0861, www.newmusic.org/. VANCOUVER OPERA All performances at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. 2MADAMA BUTTERFLY Mar 5-13 2EVITA Apr 30-May 8. Tickets and info 604-683-0222, www.van couveropera.ca/.

VANCOUVER RECITAL SOCIETY 2RICHARD GOODE, PIANO Feb 28, Vancouver Playhouse 2BROWN, URIOSTE, CANELLAKIS PIANO TRIO Mar 20, Vancouver Playhouse 2MARK PADMORE, TENOR, AND PAUL LEWIS, PIANO Apr VANCOUVER CANTATA SINGERS 10, Chan Centre for the Performing 2LUX ANTIQUA May 13, H. R. MacMillan Arts 2SCHUBERTIADE SERIES Apr 12, Space Centre. Tickets: $10-30, info 604-7308856, www.vancouvercantatasingers.com/. 14-15, Vancouver Playhouse 2BRYN VANCOUVER BACH CHOIR 2BACH’S ST. MATTHEW PASSION Mar 19, Orpheum Theatre. Tickets and info 604-872-8789, www.vancouverbachchoir.com/.

MUSIC ON MAIN'S SPRING 2016 SEASON

8 great concerts at the Fox Cabaret and Studio 700

Order a 3-Pack Sampler and save! Visit musiconmain.ca for tickets and info. musiconmain.ca

and donors like you! We acknowledge the financial assistance of the Province of British Columbia.

22 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

VANCOUVER CHAMBER CHOIR All concerts at Ryerson United Church, except where noted. 2CHORAL TAPESTRY: OUR HERITAGE OF SONG Mar 4, Shaughnessy Heights United Church 2THE LOVE THAT MOVES THE UNIVERSE: BACH, HANDEL & SCHAFER Mar 25, Orpheum Theatre 2THE CHAMBER CHOIR AND THE ISELER SINGERS: TWO GREAT CHOIRS Apr 22. Tickets and info 604-738-6822, www.van couverchamberchoir.com/.

VANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA All performances at the Orpheum Theatre, except where noted. 2NOUVELLE VAGUE Feb 25 2KRONOS: MOMENTS IN TIME Feb 26 2SACRED AND PROFANE Feb 27 2CITY OF ANGELS Feb 28 2THE LEGENDARY ITZHAK PERLMAN Mar 2 2RUSSIAN CLASSICS Mar 5 & 7 2BEETHOVEN’S EMPEROR CONCERTO Mar 12 & 14 2BRAHMS, BRASS, AND STRINGS Mar 16-17 & 20, Pyatt Hall 2PIXAR IN CONCERT Mar 21 2THE GODFATHER LIVE Mar 30 2CZECH MASTERS Mar 31 2ROCKET MAN WITH CHRIS HADFIELD Apr 1-2 2VICTORIA SYMPHONY 75TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR Apr 3 2SETTING THE STAGE Apr 7 2BEETHOVEN’S NINTH Apr 9 2WAGNER VERSUS BRAHMS Apr 11 2THE CONSERVATIVES: BRAHMS REQUIEM Apr 16 2THE PROGRESSIVES: WAGNER’S RING WITHOUT WORDS Apr 18 2MOZART AND SHAKESPEARE Apr 22-23, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts; Apr 25, Bell Performing Arts Centre 2SUBLIME TO (SLIGHTLY) SILLY Apr 24, Annex 2FAUST PLAYS BARTÓK Apr 30-May 2 2CLASSICS OF DANCE May 5 2BROADWAY ROCKS May 6-7 2AL SIMMONS: SYMPHONIC SHENANIGANS May 8 2JAMES EHNES IN RECITAL May 9 2SHINE-TIME MUSIC OLYMPICS May 13, Vancouver Playhouse; May 14, Anvil Centre 2JOYCE YANG PLAYS MOZART May 14 & 16; May 15, Bell Performing Arts Centre 2NICOLA BENEDETTI AND DALE BARLTROP May 20-21, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts 2THE ELUSIVE, IMAGINARY FUTURE May 22, Annex 2A MAGIC FANTASY May 24, 26, & 29, Pyatt Hall 2LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS May 25 2A TCHAIKOVSKY CELEBRATION May 28; May 30, Centennial Theatre 2MAHLER’S TRAGIC SYMPHONY Jun 4 & 6 2SEASON FINALE: SHOSTAKOVICH SYMPHONY NO. 5 Jun 11-13. Tickets and info 604-876-3434, www. vancouversymphony.ca/. VETTA CHAMBER MUSIC All performances at the West Point Grey United Church, except where noted. 2POWERHOUSE STRINGS Mar 10-11 2SEASONS Apr 28-29 2ANGELA CHENG WITH THE VETTA CHAMBER PLAYERS May 27, Christ Church Cathedral. Tickets: $15-30, info 604-430-9527, www.vettamusic.com/. VIVALDI CHAMBER CHOIR 2MAD ABOUT MOZART Mar 13, St. Helen’s Anglican Church 2CLASSICAL CABARET Jun 4, St. Helen’s Anglican Church. Tickets: $22/18, info 604-221-0665, www. vivaldichoir.org/. WESTERN FRONT 288 TUNED BONGOS PIANO SERIES CONT. Mar 10-Apr 1 2ANTHONY DAVIS Mar 24. Tickets and info www.front.bc.ca/.

SPRING ARTS

The music scene flows with cross-cultural sounds MUSIC

spired by the wonders of nature. The Draw: The local lions’ lusty engagement with their material, along with their considerable sensitivity and technical prowess. Target Audience: Those acquainted with the eternal power of the Jungian anima.

CRITICS’ PICKS

Art music has definitely de-

2 veloped a global consciousness,

or at least it has here in one of the world’s most polyglot cities. Want to argue? Well, consider this: Vancouver’s spring concert agenda includes a recital of new music for suona (Chinese oboe) and bagpipes. It doesn’t get much more cross-cultural than that—and formal dress of any kind is not required.

MARK PADMORE AND PAUL LEWIS (At the Chan Centre for the

Performing Arts on April 10) In this Vancouver Recital Society concert, the acclaimed interpreter of Franz Schubert’s lieder reaches out to embrace Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Hugo Wolf. The Draw: Expressive singing paired with perfect piano. Target Audience: Those who like their art songs to have a German twist.

GLOBAL SOUNDSCAPES: NOTES FROM THE ARAXES BASIN (At

various venues in Vancouver and North Vancouver until February 29) Originating in Turkey and draining into the Caspian Sea, the river more commonly known as the Aras is a nexus of trade and cultural exchange that has fostered several major musical styles. The Draw: An assortment of Middle Eastern virtuosos, both solo and in conjunction with members of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra, the Emily Carr String Quartet, and others. Target Audience: Anyone with a valid passport. HOUSE OF DREAMS (At the Van-

couver Playhouse on March 4) Early Music Vancouver embraces technology in a multimedia production that pairs Toronto’s acclaimed Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra with images of the world that inspired its repertoire. The Draw: Illuminating eye candy and a band of the best. Target Audience: Time-travellers.

MADAMA BUTTERFLY (At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from March 5 to 13) Giacomo Puccini’s tale of a doomed intercultural romance still holds relevance, as do his heartfelt and heartbreaking melodies, presented here by Vancouver Opera. The Draw: A de-

The dazzling Doric String Quartet returns to the Vancouver Recital Society in a three-night celebration of composer Franz Schubert’s scintillating sounds.

servedly legendary showcase for stellar mystic R. Murray Schafer—sung here singing. Target Audience: Passport by the Vancouver Chamber Choir with the Pacifica Singers. The Draw: holders with a Japanese visa. The radiant, even transcendental ANTHONY DAVIS (At the West- Schafer composition that gives this ern Front on March 24) The ultim- program its title. Target Audience: ate underground performance space Listeners in need of awe. continues its 88 Tuned Bongos piano series with Anthony Davis’s first Van- WAR OF THE ROMANTICS (At couver appearance in more than two the Orpheum from April 7 to 18) decades. The Draw: A rare chance to This year, the Vancouver Symphony hear the composer of the great Afri- Orchestra’s annual Spring Festival can-American opera X: The Life and concentrates on the music of Ludwig Times of Malcolm X in an intimate van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, setting. Target Audience: Anyone and Richard Wagner. The Draw: The who files their Olivier Messiaen LPs most classic of classical compositions and a Ring Cycle without words. next to their Thelonious Monk. Target Audience: Romantics—and THE LOVE THAT MOVES THE UNI- those who love them. VERSE (At the Orpheum on March 25) It won’t be quite the same as lis- SEA TO SKY (At Ryerson United tening from the shores of a wilder- Church and West Vancouver United ness lake, but the Orpheum has got Church on April 8 and 9) Chor Leoni to be the second-best place to hear the and its youth affiliate, the PROMYS music of Canadian legend and nature Honour Choir, sing choral music in-

SCHUBERTIADE (At the Vancouver Playhouse from April 12 to 15) The Vancouver Recital Society and a cast of classical virtuosos offer an opportunity to get closer to Franz Schubert—a composer whose chamber music often sounds surprisingly contemporary, perhaps because it has not been robbed of its surprise by being overprogrammed. The Draw: The Doric String Quartet dazzled local listeners in its previous VRS appearance and returns for all three nights here. Target Audience: Subscribers to the view that everything old is new again.

a unique thrill. Target Audience: Anyone with both a kilt and a cheongsam in their closet. HAND EYE (At the Orpheum Annex

on April 30) Sleeping Giant is a collective of rising-star composers; eighth blackbird is a team of the best musicians in Chicago. In this Vancouver New Music program, they join forces to show us the future. The Draw: A look at what’s coming up next, now. Target Audience: Early adopters.

PEP (PIANO & ERHU PROJECT)

(At the Fox Cabaret on May 3) Erhu player Nicole Li and pianist Corey Hamm are virtuosos with a purpose: to develop a 21st-century repertoire for two instruments rich in musical tradition. The Draw: A pair of local musicians who are quickly developing an international following for their cross-cultural curiosity. Target Audience: Anyone looking for the upside of recent demographic shifts.

ONE NIGHT STAND: CAROLINE SHAW (At the Fox Cabaret on May

10) Vancouverites have definitely gotten to love New York’s Caroline Shaw during her tenure as Music on Main’s composer in residence, and here’s a chance to get to know her even better. The Draw: Shaw’s low-key charm, offbeat but accessible compositions, and impeccable musicianship. Target SOUND OF DRAGON MUSIC FES- Audience: Got ears? Just go. TIVAL (At the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre from MAHLER’S TRAGIC SYMPHONY April 22 to 24) Vancouver’s biennial (At the Orpheum on June 4 and celebration of Asian sounds returns 6) With the VSO at the peak of its with a program that spans every- powers, now is a good time to hear thing from new Chinese chamber our resident orchestra tackle Gusmusic to a genre-smashing show- tav Mahler’s complex and emotioncase of intercultural improvisation. ally freighted Symphony No. 6. The The Draw: The program as a whole is Draw: Deathless music and a lively impeccable, but getting to hear suona band. Target Audience: Listeners virtuoso Zhongxi Wu team up with willing to exult—and weep. > ALEXANDER VARTY bagpipe master Alan Walters will be

WAR ROMANTICS OF THE

THE MUSIC OF BEETHOVEN, BRAHMS & WAGNER

APRIL 7 to 18, 5-CONCERT SPRING FESTIVAL 1 THURSDAY, APRIL 7 SETTING THE STAGE

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

BROWN-URIOSTECANELLAKIS TRIO

2 SATURDAY, APRIL 9 BEETHOVEN’S NINTH

Tickets start at

$25

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Sun March 20 at 7:30pm I VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE

HAYDN I CHAUSSON I MENDELSSOHN Award-winning musicians Michael Brown, Elena Urioste and Nicholas Canellakis have established themselves as three of the most sought-after young virtuosos on the music scene today. They have performed in prestigious venues across the US and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and London's Wigmore and Royal Festival Halls.

RICHARD WAGNER

ALL CONCERTS 8PM ORPHEUM

SERIES SPONSOR:

4 SATURDAY, APRIL 16 THE CONSERVATIVES: BRAHMS REQUIEM

Bramwell Tovey conductor/host Tracy Dahl soprano+ James Westman baritone+ Phoenix Chamber Choir+ UBC University Singers+ Vancouver Cantata Singers+ Graeme Langager chorus director BRAHMS A German Requiem+

5 MONDAY, APRIL 18

THE PROGRESSIVES: WAGNER’S RING WITHOUT WORDS

Bramwell Tovey conductor/host LISZT Les Preludes WAGNER Der Ring Ohne Worte (The Ring Without Words)

@VSOrchestra

CONCERT SPONSOR:

The Board of Directors of the Vancouver Recital Society

Bramwell Tovey conductor/host Jeanette Jonquil clarinet* Monica Huisman soprano+ Sarah Fryer mezzo-soprano+ David Pomeroy tenor+ Alfred Walker bass+ UBC University Singers UBC Choral Union+ Graeme Langager chorus director WAGNER Lohengrin Prelude to Act III BRAHMS (ORCH. BERIO) Clarinet Sonata No.1 in F minor* BEETHOVEN (ARR. MAHLER) Symphony No. 9 in D minor+

Bramwell Tovey conductor/host WAGNER Die Meistersinger Overture WAGNER Tristan and Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor

MEDIA SPONSOR

TICKETS: 604 602 0363 I vanrecital.com SEASON SPONSOR:

Bramwell Tovey conductor/piano+ Sarah Fryer mezzo-soprano+ Jeanette Jonquil clarinet* Grace Huang piano* Christopher Gaze actor Dean Paul Gibson actor BRAHMS Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in F minor* WAGNER Five songs for Voice and Piano, Wesendonck Lieder+

3 MONDAY, APRIL 11 WAGNER VERSUS BRAHMS

TICKETS

vancouversymphony.ca 604.876.3434 FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 23

SPRING ARTS

Fresh forms defy old definitions and limits This season takes the art of the mashup to new heights, as wildly diverse ideas and materials mingle and redraw creative horizons VISUAL AR TS

between the 1860s and the early 20th century. The Draw: Nanitch offers us a fresh and provocative interpretation of an outstanding group of historic photographs.

CRITICS’ PICKS

The mashup theme of the Van-

2 couver Art Gallery’s current

blockbuster show finds interesting resonances in a number of exhibitions throughout Metro Vancouver this spring. The once radical and now ubiquitous act of creating new artworks by conjoining and reconfiguring unlike and unexpected images, objects, materials, and processes enables artists and audiences alike to explore a twirling universe of visual possibilities. Ideas abound around gender, culture, nature, colonialism, and utopian aspiration. Further afield, the much anticipated Audain Art Museum in Whistler opens to the public on March 12, celebrating an astounding collection of British Columbia art in a Patkaudesigned building set within an evergreen forest. Expect to be wowed.

MICHIKO SUZUKI: HOPE CHESTS

(At Griffin Art Projects from March 5 to June 4) This group show is organized around the theme of surrogates— of substituting one form, image, medium, or identity for another. Through found objects, appropriated images and texts, cut-up film posters, invented characters, and photo-sculptures of cultural objects, the local and international artists represented explore ideas of authorship and originality. What these contemporary artworks suggest, says the show’s curator, Helga Pakasaar, are “possible ways to negotiate our place in an unstable world”. The Draw: The exhibition and the venue provide us with rare and marvellous access to contemporary art held in private collections in the Vancouver region.

NEP SIDHU: SHADOWS IN THE MAJOR SEVENTH (At the Sur-

(At the Burnaby Art Gallery from April 8 to June 12) Trained as a master printer in her native Japan, Michiko Suzuki brings collagelike methods and a lively pop-art aesthetic to her most recent project. Her inkjet-printed silk tents contain the metaphoric hope chests of eight young women from diverse cultural backgrounds. Suzuki’s work includes juxtaposed and layered photographic and print images; some elements are beautifully patterned and others are highly pixelated, as if viewed through a screen. The Draw: Suzuki finds elements of both difference and likeness within the hopes and dreams of adolescent girls.

SURROGATES

Self-portrait, Sarah Cain’s mix of paint and sheet music, is just one of the works reflecting an unstable world in the group show Surrogates, at Griffin Art Projects. NANITCH: EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA FROM THE LANGMANN COLLECTION (At Pres-

entation House Gallery from March 30 to June 26) Nanitch is a Chinook word meaning “to look and watch”, suggesting the role photography has played in the history of colonization. However, the exhibition promises to

reveal some of the contradictions and even failures inherent in the colonial narrative of this place. Selected from more than 18,000 historic photographs recently donated to the UBC library by the Uno Langmann family, the show includes hand-coloured albumen prints, cartes de visite, stereograph cards, and photogravures created

rey Art Gallery from April 9 to June 12) Toronto-based artist Nep Sidhu describes himself as “someone who connects things in the world”. His practice—and this exhibition—includes designing a line of non-commercial clothing for artists and musicians, paintings that incorporate metal work and Arabic calligraphy, prayer rugs honouring the African-American activist Malcolm X, and a textile collaboration with First Nations artist Nicholas Galanin. The Draw: Bringing together a compelling array of media, materials, disciplines, and traditions, Sidhu injects social-justice ideals into his explorations of art, music, architecture, and education.

LYSE LEMIEUX: A GIRL’S GOTTA DO WHAT A GIRL’S GOTTA DO (At the

Richmond Art Gallery from April 23 to July 3) Spotlighting one of Vancouver’s most accomplished artists, this exhibition examines Lyse Lemieux’s recent mixed-media works and provides a stage for new, site-specific installations. Expect to see collages incorporating found fabric and ink drawing, large-scale wall works “drawn” with strips of felt and cloth, and a display of the small sketchbooks that serve as her source material. While bringing together elements of the abstract and the representational, the graphic and the sculptural, Lemieux’s art is almost always referenced to the human body, its strengths and its frailties, its awkwardness and its sensuality. The Draw: This show provides Lemieux with the much-deserved venue of a large public gallery—and a wide audience with the opportunity to encounter her “sculptural drawing”. RUST NEVER SLEEPS: GROWTH AND DECAY IN THE MAKING OF ART (At the Charles H. Scott Gallery

from June 1 to July 17) Viewers may recognize the show’s title, borrowed from Neil Young’s 1979 album, but might be unfamiliar with the natural forms and processes that the five participating artists marry to their art. Works and projects range from Ruben Ochoa’s rust-based paintings and Arnaud Desjardin’s mouldy portfolio of modernist prints to Jason de Haan’s salt-bearded portrait busts, Raphael Hefti’s “witch powder” photograms, and Holly Schmidt’s flower cultivation. The Draw: The second of the Scott Gallery’s fanciful reading of rock ’n’ roll lyrics, the exhibition demonstrates the risks artists take and the rewards they garner when they collaborate with the natural world. > ROBIN LAURENCE

The Birth of Modern Culture February 20 – June 12, 2016

SOMETHING HAPPENED 100 YEARS AGO THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT ART AND THE WAY WE SEE THE WORLD. THE LAST TIME THIS HAPPENED THEY CALLED IT THE RENAISSANCE, THIS TIME WE’VE CALLED IT MASHUP.

Presenting Sponsor:

Generously supported by:

Artworkers Retirement Society Joy Chao and John Henshaw Sherry Killam Visionary Partner for Scholarship and Publications:

The Richardson Family

24 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

FEB 17MAR 5

Media Sponsor:

Tickets from $23

604.689.0926 280 East Cordova

firehallartscentre.ca

A print from the Unger collection at Presentation House’s Nanitch show.

spring ar ts/ visual ar ts

MARCH 4-6TH, 2016

ART! VANCOUVER May 26-29, Vancouver Convention Centre East. Tickets: $8-100, info www.artvancouver.net/. AUDAIN GALLERY 2DANA CLAXTON: MADE TO BE READY to Mar 12 2SCA BFA CURATORIAL EXHIBITION Mar 24-Apr 2. Info 778-782-9102, www.sfuwoodwards.ca/. BILL REID GALLERY 2GWAII HAANAS: LAND SEA PEOPLE to Mar 27 2THE GREAT BOX AND THE FINAL EXAM to Mar 27. Info 604-682-3455, www.billreidgallery.ca/. BURNABY ART GALLERY 2NEW ACQUISITIONS to Mar 27 2ARTS ALIVE 2016 Apr 8–May 8 2MICHIKO SUZUKI: HOPE CHESTS Apr 8–Jun 12. Info 604-2974422, www.burnabyartgallery.ca/. CAPTURE PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL Apr 2-29, various Vancouver venues. Info www.capturephotofest.com/. CHARLES H. SCOTT GALLERY 2LIKE A ROLLING STONE: AN EXHIBITION ABOUT ROCK AND ROCK to Apr 17 2RUST NEVER SLEEPS: GROWTH AND DECAY IN THE MAKING OF ART Jun 1–Jul 17. Info chscott.ecuad.ca/.

APRIL VERCH singer

CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY 2I DIDN’T KNOW I DIDN’T KNOW to Apr 24 2THE FOUNDATION to Apr 24. Info 604-681-2700, www.contemporary artgallery.ca/. GRIFFIN ART PROJECTS 2SURROGATES Mar 5–Jun 4. Info www. griffinartprojects.ca/. GRUNT GALLERY 2SAUSAGE FACTORY Feb 25–Mar 31 2ANALEKTA Apr 7–May 7 2HIGH KICKS INTO THE LIGHT FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER May 12–Jun 11. Info 604-875-9516, www.grunt.ca/. HOT ART WET CITY 2I CHEW CHEW CHEW YOU to Feb 27 2ANTISOCIAL MEDIA Mar 3-19 2CARDED! Apr 2 2EAT YO SELF Jun 2-25. Info 604-764-2266, www.hotartwetcity.com/.

step-dancer fiddler

MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY 2CANCIONES DE LA MADRES / SONGS OF THE MOTHERS to Mar 27 2(IN)VISIBLE: THE SPIRITUAL WORLD OF TAIWAN THROUGH CONTEMPORARY ART to Apr 3 2LAWRENCE PAUL YUXWELUPTUN: UNCEDED TERRITORIES May 10–Oct 16. Info 604-827-5932, www.moa.ubc.ca/. MUSEUM OF VANCOUVER 2CESNA EM: THE CITY BEFORE THE CITY to Jan 25, 2020 2YOUR FUTURE HOME: CREATING THE NEW VANCOUVER to May 15 Info 604-7364431, www.museumofvancouver.ca/. PRESENTATION HOUSE GALLERY 2MY HOUSE: MIKE KELLEY AND RYAN TRECARTIN to Mar 3 2NANITCH: EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA FROM THE LANGMANN COLLECTION Mar 30–May 29. Info 604-986-1351, www.presentationhousegallery.org/.

Anvil Centre Photo: Grant Mattice

MORRIS AND HELEN BELKIN ART GALLERY 2LALAKENIS/ALL DIRECTIONS: A JOURNEY OF TRUTH AND UNITY to Apr 17. Info 604-822-2759, www.belkin.ubc.ca/.

“Absolutely captivating!”

April Verch Photo by Parker J Pfister

KIMOTO GALLERY 2GAMES PEOPLE PLAY to Feb 27 2THE NEW NEIGHBOURS Mar 4-Apr 2. Info 604428-0906, www.kimotogallery.com/.

Toronto Star

One Night Only!

Sat Mar 5 @8pm Anvil Centre Theatre 777 Columbia St, New Westminster

RICHMOND ART GALLERY 2PETER ASPELL: THE MAD ALCHEMIST to Apr 3 2LYSE LEMIEUX: A GIRL’S GOTTA DO WHAT A GIRL’S GOTTA DO Apr 23–Jul 3. Info 604-247-8300, www.richmondartgallery.org/. VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 2MASHUP: THE BIRTH OF MODERN CULTURE to Jun 12. Info 604-662-4719, www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/. WESTERN FRONT 2A SPACE FOR LOOKING IS A SPACE FOR LISTENING to Feb 27 2COLD FRIENDS, WARM CASH Mar 18–Apr 30. Tickets and info www.front.bc.ca/.

anvilcentre.com

BUY NOW!

MARCH 31 – APRIL 3 2016 • Burnaby • British Columbia

604.521.5050 FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 25

SPRING ARTS

Nonstop laughs lighten up spring COM E D Y CRITICS’ PICKS

What happens when the big festival leaves town? Are we relegated to looking for laughs on TV or among friends? Not a chance. It’s nonstop comedy around these parts year-round. Here are some shows to look out for in the coming months. And this list doesn’t even include gigs by the likes of Steve Byrne, Sean Patton, Ben Gleib, Penn & Teller, and the great Jon Dore.

2 comedy

DARRYL LENOX (At Lafflines on

March 18 and 19) He’s not technically a Vancouver comic, but we still consider him one of ours. The Las Vegas native spent 14 years honing his craft in the 604 before moving south. The Draw: Lenox’s one-hour special, Blind Ambition, was his coming-out party to the world, garnering raves for its raw honesty, humanity, and killer jokes. Target Audience: Old friends who used to see Lenox destroy at the Urban Well as well as his new fans who’ve seen him perform on Conan.

of comedian James Jimmy McNair and critically injured comedy superstar Tracy Morgan. It’s no laughing matter, but Morgan is feeling good enough to get back to making us laugh again. The Draw: He’s never been afraid of offending. Has the accident tempered his act any? We’ll see. Target Audience: Fans of raw comedy as well as curiosity-seekers.

spring ar ts/ c omedy

HOWARD (At the Rio Theatre on May 16) He may not be a regular on our TV sets in Canada, but the World Wide Web brings everyone together. The Draw: This being his first foray into the Great White North, we have the luxury of seeing Howard in the cozy confines of the Rio Theatre. This is a comedy superstar who’s booked into mid 2017 and makes millions of pounds per year. Target Audience: Who doesn’t love to check out fresh new faces on the scene?

ADAM CAROLLA Apr 22, Commodore Ballroom. Tickets: $38 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

RUSSELL

Tracy Morgan insists that he can still offend with the best. Alex Erde photo.

tumes and set add to the experience. Target Audience: Spontaneous types who like their humour in the moment. NOEL FIELDING (At the Vogue The-

atre on April 9) The cocreator and star of The Mighty Boosh and panellist on Never Mind the Buzzcocks brings his unique brand of comedy to North America. The Draw: Part standup, part animation, and part music, it’s a multimedia extravaganza. Target Audience: If you think variety is the SEAN TWEEDLEY (At Yuk Yuk’s spice of life and love a good Brit acfrom March 31 to April 2) Like it or cent, this is the show for you, yeah? not, Open Mike With Mike Bullard was Canada’s best late-night talk show. DUNCAN TRUSSELL (At the RickAnd Sean Tweedley, a regular and shaw Theatre on April 27) You are writer, was one of the best reasons to God. So sayeth Duncan Trussell. It’s watch. The Draw: Similar in tone to the name of his standup tour. He’s not David Spade, Tweedley exudes sar- being glib or ironic. The man is a praccasm. Target Audience: People with tising Buddhist. The Draw: Spiritualgood memories. There are precious few ity and comedy don’t often go hand in hand, but Trussell makes it work. clips online of the old Bullard show. Maybe it’s the drugs. Target AudiTHRONE AND GAMES—A ence: Make an appointment to see this CHANCE OF SNOW (At the Improv show and you’ll come away feeling allCentre from April 7 to May 28) The knowing and all-powerful. epic improv spectacle returns, this time with a chance of snow! The Draw: TRACY MORGAN (At the Theatre The Vancouver TheatreSports League at the Hard Rock Casino on May always puts on a first-rate production 13) It’s been almost two years since and this one is no exception. The cos- the horrific crash that took the life

COMEDY

BANG!

LIVE!

(At the Vogue Theatre on May 26) Comedy podcasts are no longer just adjuncts to a performers’ acts; they’re entities unto themselves. Scott Aukerman’s baby is a group effort that works in studio, on TV, or in front of a live audience. The Draw: Guest Paul F. Tompkins is draw enough on his own. Throw in Lauren Lapkus and Neil Campbell, and it’s a no-brainer. Target Audience: Comedy cognoscenti know the score. DEANNE SMITH (At the Comedy

MIX from June 16 to 18) Part American, part Canadian, DeAnne Smith is a woman of the world. The Draw: She’s sweet and socially awkward. What’s not to love about a neurotic elf who sometimes plays the ukulele? Target Audience: Fans of Last Comic Standing who saw her endear herself to judge Roseanne Barr with her proposed catch phrase, “Tell it to my balls!”. > GUY M AC PHERSON

COMEDY BANG! BANG! LIVE! May 26, Vogue Theatre. Tickets: $35 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketfly.com/. THE COMEDY MIX 2EDDIE PEPITONE Feb 25 2DINO ARCHIE Mar 3-5 2ANDREW GROSE Mar 10-12 2SIMON KING Mar 17-19 2DARCY MICHAEL Apr 7-9 2JERRY ROCHA Apr 14-16 2SEAN PATTON Apr 21-23 2PETE ZEDLACHER Apr 28-30 2MARK FORWARD May 5-7 2BEN GLEIB May 12-14 2GABRIEL RUTLEDGE Jun 2-4 2CHAD DANIELS Jun 9-11 2DEANNE SMITH Jun 16-18 Tickets and info 604-684-5050, www. thecomedymix.com/. DUNCAN TRUSSELL Apr 27, Rickshaw Theatre. Tickets: $22 (plus service charges and fees) at www.jflnorthwest.com/. THE GIGGLE DAM DINNER THEATRE 2VIVA LAS VEGAS to Mar 6 2FUDGED UP FAIRY TALES Mar 11–Jun 12. Tickets: $57, info 604-944-4453, www.giggledam.com/. HARD ROCK CASINO VANCOUVER 2LEWIS BLACK Feb 28 2TRACY MORGAN May 13. Tickets: $34.50-59.50 (plus service charges and fees), info 604-523-5361, www. hardrockcasinovancouver.com/. JEREMY HOTZ Feb 26, Vogue Theatre. Tickets: $45.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketfly.com/. JFL NORTHWEST to Feb 27, various Vancouver venues. Tickets at www.jfl northwest.com/. LAFFLINES COMEDY CLUB 2TRENT MCCLELLAN Feb 26-27 2DRED LEE Mar 4-5 2MICHELLE SHAUGHNESSY Mar 11-12 2DARRYL LENOX Mar 18-19 2PHIL JOHNSON Mar 25-26. Tickets and info www.thecolumbia.net/lafflines/. LEWIS BLACK Feb 28, Hard Rock Casino Vancouver. Tickets: $34.50/54.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketmaster.ca/.

NEW WORKS PRESENTS

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28

NOURA MINT SEYMALI • FEB. 28 @ 8 PM

ANTÓNIO ZAMBUJO • MAR. 5 @ 8 PM

One the most original saxophonists of his generation with Ben Allison (bass); Frank Kimbrough (piano) and Rudy Royston (drums)

Tickets: 604.990.7810 • Online: capilanou.ca/centre Capilano University • 2055 Purcell Way • North Vancouver

RUSSELL HOWARD May 16, Rio Theatre. Tickets: $29.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketfly.com/. TRACY MORGAN May 13, Hard Rock Casino Vancouver. Tickets: $39.50/49.50/ 59.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketmaster.ca/. VANCOUVER THEATRESPORTS LEAGUE All performances at the Improv Centre, Granville Island. 2THEATRESPORTS to Mar 26 2OFFLEASH to Mar 31 2IMPROV AFTER DARK to Mar 26 2ROOKIE NIGHT to Mar 27 2THRONE AND GAMES—A CHANCE OF SNOW Apr 7–May 28. Tickets and info www.vtsl.com/. VIR DAS Feb 26, Bell Performing Arts Centre. Tickets: $19.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.jflnorthwest.com/. YUK YUK’S COMEDY CLUB 2TODD BARRY Feb 25-27 2ROB ROSS Mar 3 2JOHN PERROTTA Feb 28 2JOHN BEUHLER Mar 3-5 2KELLY DYER Mar 3-5 2RON JOSOL Mar 10-12 2JOHN PERROTTA Mar 10-12 2JAMES KENNEDY Mar 10-12 2STEVE BYRNE Mar 18-19 2GARY CANNON Mar 18-19 2AARON BERG Mar 24-26 2ALEX SPARLING Mar 24-26 2SEAN TWEEDLEY Mar 31- Apr 2 2EDDIE DELLA SIEPE Mar 31-Apr 2 2SUNEE DHALIWAL Mar 31-Apr 2 2HOWIE MILLER Apr 7-9 2ROSS DAUK Apr 7-9 2JOHN CULLEN Apr 14-15 2JONATHAN KITE Apr 14-16 2ALLYSON SMITH Apr 16 2DAMONDE TSCHRITTER Apr 21-23 2JEFF ELLIOTT Apr 21-23 2JULIA HLADKOWICZ Apr 21-23 2RICHARD LETT Apr 28-30 Tickets and info 604-696-9857, www.yukyuks.com/.

FOR OUR

Ancient and modern worlds collide in this hypnotic mix of Mauritanian Afro-desert rock

MICHAEL BLAKE • MAR. 6 @ 8 PM

NOEL FIELDING Apr 9, Vogue Theatre. Tickets: $40.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketfly.com/.

LOOK

DANCE ALLSORTS

Direct from Lisbon, one of the most innovative fado singers on the scene today with his stellar quintet

DeAnne Smith is sweet and socially awkward at the Comedy MIX in June.

HEATHER LAURA GRAY

OURO COLLECTIVE

THE TUNNEL P A C E PERFORMANCE 2:00PM FREE WORKSHOP 3:15PM

Performance Works, Granville Island, 1218 Cartwright St. Vancouver Pay what you can at the door. Suggested: $15 adults, $5 children under 12. Advance tickets for guaranteed seating available www.eventbrite.ca

NEWWORKS.CA

SPRING

ADVENTURE FEATURE

MARCH 3 ➤TO ADVERTISE CALL 604-730-7000

Heather Laura Gray, The Tunnel, photo: Laura Zeke. OURO Collective, PACE, photo: Jeff Hamada

WEB AND MOBILE APP DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGR APHY

Design, create, and produce. CREATIVE ARTS AT LANGARA Learn more. www.langara.ca

26 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

PUBLISHING DESIGN FORMATION FINE ARTS

ARTS

Comedy fest mixes it up

C OME D Y

JFL NORTHWEST At various venues Thursday to Saturday, February 18 to 20

first weekend of the JFL 2 The NorthWest festival saw a variety

of comedy stylings at venues throughout town. The biggest name, and draw, was The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah at the Queen E. He’s like a modern version of Yakov Smirnoff, except with less setup and punch, and more animated act-outs. He’s noticing the differences between his old country and new surroundings. For instance, they “hoot” the car horn in South Africa, whereas it’s “honked” here. Not much there until he performs an extended scene on trying to get a driver’s attention. Or another where napkins are confused with diapers at a taco stand. Good stuff. Not groundbreaking, but fun and well-done. Noah gave a shout-out to the Georgia Straight, which scored an exclusive interview with him prior to his arrival. He said he found it a bit unnerving, when walking throughout “the rainbow district” of Davie Street, to see his face under the big word Straight. The crowd at Miranda Sings at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing

Miranda Sings rocks sweatpants and generally confounds our reviewer.

Arts on Saturday was mostly prepubescent girls wearing red sweatpants and badly drawn-on lipstick. The shrieks were Beatlesque and ear-piercing. In other words, this show wasn’t for me. Thing is, it wasn’t for them, either. Inappropriate songs with lyrics about dicks and whores and “your vagina smells like cat food” were probably not what the parents accompanying the kids had in mind. Or maybe they were. Who knows? They ate it up. At the Comedy MIX on Thursday, Ari Shaffir was the funniest I’ve ever

seen him be, and that’s saying something. It would appear New York has been good to the formerly L.A.–based comic. Over at Yuk Yuk’s on Saturday, former Saturday Night Live stalwart Tim Meadows was affable and funny, more when he strayed away from his material on O.J. (hot off the presses!) and his Ladies Man character. Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj did his one-man show at the Rio on Saturday. It looked like standup, but it felt more grounded. Tales of growing up brown took us from his junior high school through to the prom and beyond. Slides accompanied the presentation. There were laughs sprinkled throughout, but they weren’t the purpose. We cared about the outcome of the stories more than waiting for the next joke. Nick Thune at the Biltmore, also on Saturday, transitioned seamlessly from one-line-joke slinger with guitar into storyteller. His proven ability to write jokes kept the stories jumping without ever lessening the impact of his tales of a suicidal bridge-jumper, signing up for an ESL class at a community college, and almost getting beaten up by street goons in Denver. With the festival in full swing until February 27, the upcoming shows look to be equally inspiring. > GUY M AC PHERSON

Actors get Blue glowing T H E AT RE BRIGHT BLUE FUTURE By Sean Harris Oliver. Directed by Shawn Macdonald. Presented by Hardline Productions. At Pacific Theatre on Friday, February 19. Continues until March 5

Productions’ Bright 2 Hardline Blue Future has a lot going for it,

including stellar acting. But it’s hard to invest in the play’s generic characters. In playwright Sean Harris Oliver’s script, four young adults party their brains out in Victoria. Alex is wearing an ankle bracelet because she got caught with a bunch of drugs. Her livein girlfriend, Arianna, has quit school, but she hasn’t told her parents because she wants to keep spending the money that they’re doling out for her education. Arianna’s pal, Carston, needs to hide out with them because he stole a big bag of coke from a dealer in Vancouver. These three are in a nightclub when Carston picks up young Josh, who really likes getting high, but who has never had sex with a man before. Off the top of the show, when the characters are clubbing and when they

first come home to Arianna and Alex’s apartment, the dance music is so relentless, and the characters are so loud and wired, that they form an impenetrable wall of dysfunction. And they keep it up for a long time. By intermission, the only character I was invested in was Josh, and that’s because Carston was so obviously preying on him. Act 2 gets more interesting, but, throughout, Oliver’s characterizations stay in the shallows because of his wellintentioned but superficial analysis. Josh goes on a rant about his generation’s lack of economic opportunities. Arianna complains bitterly about being brought up with unrealistic expectations of success. Okay. Gen Y has its challenges. But there’s got to be a lot more behind dangerous drug use than generalized ideas about social disappointment, and Oliver tells us very little about the specifics of these characters’ lives. Even when he gets into interpersonal dynamics, the exploration is vague: Arianna hasn’t come out to her parents, which upsets Alex. Coming-out stories are important, but if you’re going to make them matter, you’ve got to do more than rough in the by now very familiar outline.

Fortunately, under Shawn Macdonald’s direction, the acting is excellent. Curtis Tweedie, whom I’ve never seen before, is splendid as Josh. His characterization is subtle and responsive, even as he plays both innocence and intoxication. Genevieve Fleming delivers an admirably layered performance as Arianna: mothering, selfish, principled, and ashamed. Rachel Cairns is solid—as always—as Alex. And Dmitry Chepovetsky is deeply creepy as the weak Carston. The show has an impressively consistent look about it, starting with the disco lights in the lobby and the glow-stick bracelets the audience gets to wear. Lighting designer Jill White does a spectacular job of tracking the characters’ extreme ups and downs: just wait for the cocaine special. There’s some lovely writing here— in the rhythms of a stop-and-start exchange in which Alex and Carston try to explain to Arianna why Josh is unconscious, for instance. I just wish that the playwright had allowed himself to explore these characters’ lives more deeply, as opposed to trying to make a point with them.

The Love that Moves the Universe Bach, Handel & Schafer

8pm | Friday, March 25, 2016 Orpheum Theatre Vancouver Chamber Choir and Orchestra Pacifica Singers | Jon Washburn, Conductor One of the Vancouver Chamber Choir’s most acclaimed performances was the 2010 premiere of R. Murray Schafer’s radiant choral/orchestral work The Love that Moves the Universe, based on the final lines of Dante’s Paradiso. In answer to popular demand, we repeat that magical experience, and extend it by singing the equally luminous Jesu, meine Freude by Bach and Dixit Dominus by Handel.

1.855.985.ARTS (2787) vancouverchamberchoir.com

> COLIN THOMAS

at the Chan Centre

Words in Motion Fri Mar 18 & Sat Mar 19 2016 / 7:30pm Telus Studio Theatre chancentre.com/beyondwords

Writer/choreographer partners Carmen Aguirre & Olivia C. Davies, Aislinn Hunter & Anusha Fernando and Nancy Lee & Paraskevas Terezakis bring three very different visions to the marriage of words and movement.

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 27

ARTS

Kuebler’s mashup delivers

Going Home Star

DANCE DANCE DOUBLE BILL Featuring Radical System Art and MADBOOTS Dance. A Chutzpah Festival presentation. At the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre on Saturday, February 20. No remaining performances

DANCER: SOPHIA LEE | PHOTO: RÉJEAN BRANDT PHOTOGRAPHY

Truth th + Reconciliation onciliation

“Ballet turns darkness into beauty.”

Tickets from $29!

plus applicable tax & fees

– The Globe and Mail

Ticketmaster.ca 1.855.985.ARTS (2787) choreography Mark Godden | based on a story by Joseph Boyden music Christos Hatzis | featuring the music of Tanya Tagaq (winner of the 2014 Polaris Music Prize) and Steve Wood & The Northern Cree Singers

April 7 - 9 / 2016 at 8pm Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver

Presenting Sponsor National Tour:

Production Investors:

Media Sponsors:

The Chutzpah Festival’s dance kicked off Saturday night with a palpable rush of fresh energy, spotlighting two companies run by young men trying to push forms and ideas that speak to a new generation. Vancouver’s own Shay Kuebler, of Radical System Art, blazed into exciting new territory. Known for playing with multimedia, narrative, and theatrical props—everything from pseudo-horror-movie clips to shaving cream to Japanese “anger booths” over the years—the artist here turned his focus back to the smorgasbord of street, contemporary, and martial-arts styles that have influenced him. The resulting show, the launch of his two-year Telemetry project, displays the mad skills that underlie

2 programming

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GOLDEN

PLATES ISSUE - MARCH 10 ➤TO ADVERTISE CALL 604-730-7000

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28 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

Telemetry Volume 1 mixes hip-hop, swing, and more. David Cooper photo.

Kuebler’s busier projects. The whoops and cheers that frequently interrupted the proceedings prove this kind of work is speaking to people. Young, local tap-dance genius Daniel Nielsen opened the show in darkness, suddenly activating the glaring light stands synchronized to flash with each dramatic beat of his foot. From there, Kuebler played the rushing, tangling, convulsing moves of his four dancers against Nielsen’s ever-quickening hoofing. When the piece worked best, there was a kind of mad synchronicity: Nielsen sliding back and forth on a long platform along the back of the stage as Kuebler and his crew tumbled in front of him, or Nielsen capturing the skittery

trance rhythms of electronica while the dancers pulled in and exploded out like a pulsing organism. Kuebler’s movement, meanwhile, is becoming more and more hybridized, mixing the top rocks and handstands of breaking with the fast footwork and nimble partnering of forms like bebop and swing. New York City’s MADBOOTS, too, pushed physicality to the edge, but to entirely different effect. What set it apart were the strong messages about homophobia and male identity that drove the work. At different points in (SAD BOYS), the four men spun each other around violently by chest harnesses, wore eerie white nylon lace masks, danced amid homophobic slurs projected on the floor, and kicked through a pile of mulch that tumbled in from one side of the stage. Most of the movement was athletic and earthbound, with a lot of running in circles and twisted torsos. The messages were passionate, the imagery was dramatic, and the emotion was palpable. It’s just that there was too much going on—a plethora of ideas that needed to be moulded. > JANET SMITH

VANCOUVER MARCH 10- 17 DAMIEN DEMPSEY w/ special guests Vagabonds Pre-festival concert w/ Ireland’s chart-topping folk music hero! SATURDAY, MARCH 5, IMPERIAL

PRESENTS 19+

THE IRISH ROVERS Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with the international ambassadors of Irish music on their last world tour! THURSDAY, MARCH 17, VOGUE THEATRE VANCOUVER WELSH MEN'S CHOIR w/ De Danaan Irish Dancers, piper Tim Fanning & Ballyhooley FRIDAY, MARCH 11 ST. ANDREW'S WESLEY CHURCH CELTICFEST CEILIDH w/ Blackthorn, Mairi Rankin, BC Regiment Irish Pipes and Drums, Pat Chessell, Shot of Scotch dancers + many more! SATURDAY, MARCH 12, IMPERIAL 19+ MOLL

Irish playwright John B. Keane’s uproarious comedy

ST. JAMES HALL: MARCH 10, 12, 14 DENTRY’S IRISH GRILL: MARCH 11, 13, 16 DOOLIN’S IRISH PUB WHISKY TASTINGS Come sample & savour - a taste adventure awaits! MARCH 14: Whisky 101 – introduction | MARCH 15: Whisky 201 – intermediate MARCH 16: Advanced – for connoisseurs 19+ SHARON SHANNON Irish trad-folk accordion legend co-presented with Rogue Folk Club SUNDAY, MARCH 13, ST. JAMES HALL

CELTIC VILLAGE

ST. MARCH 12 & 13 GRANVILLE DOWNTOWN

Celebrate all things Celtic all weekend long,with great music, dance,swordplay, workshops, food and shopping too. Come on down! TICKETS and INFO

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COMPANHIA URBANA DE DANÇA (BRAZIL) ID: ENTIDADES & NA PISTA “...SO WONDERFUL THAT IT SEEMS MIRACULOUS.”—NEW YORK TIMES

“...ALMOST SHOCKING IN THEIR INDIVIDUALITY AND PHYSICALITY.” —DANCE MAGAZINE

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SUNDAY, MARCH 13 STARTING AT 11AM JOIN THE FUN!

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SE ASON SPONSORS

Tickets & info: www.dancehouse.ca

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 29

straight choices

ar ts/ timeout THEATRE DANCE MUSIC COMEDY ET CETERA GALLERIES

< < < < < <

THEATRE 2OPENINGS RIGHT HAND MAN Play sees an ice climber recount the accidents that led to the death of his wife, a prominent environmentalist. Feb 25-27, 7:30-9 pm; Feb 28, 2-3:30 pm, Dorothy Somerset Studio Theatre (6361

A DOG’S LIFE There’s something endearing when animals come to life on-stage—regardless of your age— which makes the Carousel Theatre for Young People’s latest adaptation a home run in our books. A familyfriendly musical based on a classic children’s tale by P.D. Eastman, Go, Dog. Go! follows a group of canines as they sing, dance, climb, and snorkel through town. Grownups and kids alike will find themselves enchanted by the silly story, set to charming tunes by Michael Koerner and choreography by Arts Club Theatre Company vet Kayla Dunbar. Go, Dog. Go! runs from Saturday (February 27) to March 20 at the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island. University Blvd., UBC). Free admission, info www.facebook.com/search/top/.

AGAINST THE TIDE The fourth annual Jim Green–memorial event features a staged reading of excerpts from Against

straight choices

the Tide, which was written by Green. Feb 26, 7 pm, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (149 W. Hastings). Tix $20, info www.sfuwoodwards.ca/.

MAN OF MISERY Anyone who knows Jeremy Hotz (and who doesn’t in this country?) knows that his latest tour has perhaps the most fitting name: The International Man of Misery. Perfect. The Canadian-born, American-based Hotz has been complaining to great comedic effect to audiences all over the world, winning numerous awards along the way. The bundle of neuroses and self-hate plays the Vogue Theatre on his antepenultimate stop on his 19-city cross-Canada trek on Friday (February 26) as part of the JFL NorthWest comedy festival. It’s a completely new show. What could he possibly whine about now, you wonder? Don’t worry. That’s a well that will never run dry.

2ONGOING BRIGHT BLUE FUTURE Hardline Productions presents a play that explores one pivotal night in the lives of four 20-somethings and the decisions they make that will affect their futures forever. To Mar 5, 8-9:30 pm, Pacific Theatre (1440 W. 12th). Tix from $15, info tickets.pacifictheatre.org/. LAST OF THE RED HOT LOVERS Lovebird Artists Collective presents director Ian Farthing's story about a seafoodrestaurant owner with growing concerns about his own desirability. To Mar 6, Studio 16 (1545 W. 7th). Tix $25/20, info lovebirdartists.bpt.me/.

DANCE 2THIS WEEK VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL Annual celebration of dance features performances by Circadia Indigena, Compagnie Virginie Brunelle, Sujit Vaidya, Natsu Nakajima, Memory Wax/Danza Teatro Retazos, Project Soul, EDAM, Dumb Instrument Dance, Company 605, Kokoro Dance, Mascall Dance, and Raven Spirit Dance.

Feb 28–Mar 19, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre (183 Roundhouse Mews). The event also runs at Vancouver Playhouse and Woodward's Atrium. Tix start at $20, info www.vidf.ca/.

MUSIC 2THIS WEEK LA BOHEME Burnaby Lyric Opera presents Giacomo Puccini's opera about a poor seamstress who falls in love with a poet. Sung in Italian with English subtitles. To Feb 27, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts (6450 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby). $15-35, info www.shadboltcentre.com/.

TRADITIONAL & CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EASTERN CHAMBER MUSIC Music by Gevorg Dabaghyan, Neva Özgen, Navid Goldrick, the Emily Carr String Quartet, and Niel Golden. Feb 25, 8 pm, Orpheum Annex (823 Seymour). Tix $20-30, info www.vi-co.org/.

COMEDY 2THIS WEEK JFL NORTHWEST The inaugural edition of this comedy festival presents performances by headlining talent Trevor Noah, Wanda Sykes, Lewis Black, Miranda Sings, Jeremy Hotz, Janeane Garofalo, David Cross, Ron Funches, Todd Barry, Kyle Kinane, Hasan Minhaj, Nick Thune, This Is That Live, and the Nasty Show With Bobby Slayton, Big Jay Oakerson, and Kurt Metzger. To Feb 27, various Vancouver venues. Tix at www.jflnorthwest.com/. TEEN ANGST NIGHT Sara Bynoe hosts a comedic reading series where people share their embarrassing old journals, poems, songs, and essays. Feb 25, 8-10 pm, Fox Cabaret (2321 Main). Tix $15, info www.sarabynoe.com/shows/teen-angst/.

BUDDIES IN BAD TIMES THEATRE (TORONTO)

straight choices

C REATED AND PERFORMED BY D A M I E N A T K I N S , P A U L D U N N & A N D R E W K U S H N I R FEEL-GOOD LAUGH It’s feelgood comedy in the truest sense of the phrase. Expect hilarious live entertainment, plenty of vino, and wine-themed auctions as you support the Vancouver TheatreSports League’s efforts to provide free performances, show tickets, and tours to local youth organizations at the 11th annual Grapes of Laugh on Thursday (February 25) at the Improv Centre. Prizes include an at-home wine tasting and a luxurious Granville Island staycation, which you can bid on as you laugh along with MCs Fred Lee and Howard Blank, as well as some of the funniest comedians in town.

— DAILY XTRA

THE CRITICAL HIT SHOW: A LIVE D&D COMEDY EXPERIENCE Vancouver comedic performers present a night of improv comedy based on the classic role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Mar 1, 8 pm, Rio Theatre (1660 E. Broadway). Tix $12/10, info www.riotheatre.ca/.

ET CETERA 2THIS WEEK TALKING STICK FESTIVAL City-wide celebration of First Nations performance and art features dance, concerts, slam poetry, a visual-arts exhibition, theatre, workshops, artist talks, and panel discussions. To Feb 28, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre (183 Roundhouse Mews). Info www.talkingstickfest.ca/.

HISTORIC THEATRE 1895 Venables St.

GALLERIES VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 750 Hornby, 604-662-4719, www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/. 2MASHUP: THE BIRTH OF MODERN CULTURE (exhibition offers an international survey of mashup culture, documenting the emergence and evolution of a mode of creativity that has grown to become the dominant form of cultural production in the early 21st century) to Jun 12

COMMUNITY PARTNER

PHOTO by: TANJA-TIZIANA

30 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

CHUTZPAH FESTIVAL Dance, theatre, comedy, and music highlight this year’s festival with performances and workshops by international, Canadian, and local artists. To Mar 13, various Vancouver venues. Tix $21-36, info www.chutzpahfestival.com/.

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

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FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 31

MICHAEL MOORE’S MOST DANGEROUS COMEDY “HILARIOUSLY FUNNY! MICHAEL MOORE’S BEST YET.” “When you’re done laughing, ‘Where to Invade Next’ is a movie that stings.”

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MOVIES

Bedlam with benefits is the key to Crazy8s > B Y A DRIA N M A C K

ou have virtually no money and even less time to make a film, so what do you do? You come up with a nifty idea that uses one location, right? Wrong. “It was so challenging. I don’t think I could have written a more complicated script for Crazy8s,” says Jesse Lupini, a student at Vancouver Film School who, only a few days before the Georgia Straight catches him by phone, was directing none other than American Mary herself, Katharine Isabelle, through his whip-smart 15-minute sci-fi flick, “Iteration 1”. The finished product, about a woman who continuously wakes up in the same room with only a minute to find her way out, is crisp and impressive in the manner we’ve come to expect from the venerable short-film competition, now in its 17th year. The actual work—Crazy8s allows three days of shooting and another five days of postproduction, and that’s it— was a screaming hell. “I think I went through the full hero’s journey, including my meeting with the Goddess,” says Lupini, who went directly into his first day on-set after spending the entire night painting it. “It was pretty ridiculous. I don’t think I’ve ever lost that much sleep in my life before.”

Katharine Isabelle is the latest high-profile name to join in the fun at the Crazy8s filmmaking challenge, appearing in the sci-fi short “Iteration 1”.

Physical endurance aside, it turned out that Lupini’s best ideas for “Iteration 1” evolved into his biggest challenges. Using a single set is the time-honoured cheat behind Roger Corman’s cheapest and most infamous quickie, The Little Shop of Horrors. But unlike Lupini, nobody told Corman he needed to slash 50 percent of his effects sequences three days before the cameras rolled (“Our team said it

just wasn’t doable”) a disaster that required a rewrite of the entire script. But that’s also the point, the young filmmaker concedes: “You’re dealing with micro versions of all the same things that happen out in the real world.” For Shannon Kohli’s entry, size was an entirely different matter. “I know, I know,” she says, her voice reduced to a whisper, when the

Straight remarks that taking on a 19th-century period piece seems like a somewhat counterintuitive project for a microbudgeted eightday filmmaking competition. “I was on-set at one point,” she continues, “and I wanted to scream, ‘Who the hell wrote this? Seriously? Who the hell wrote costumes and crazy production design and a huge cast and visual effects…?’ I was really mad at myself. What was I thinking?” It is perhaps one of the more miraculous aspects of Crazy8s that nobody has ever failed to deliver their project. Kohli is no exception, despite the scale of her ambition. She managed to muster the period feel for her “A Family of Ghosts” by setting much of its action in the palatial University Women’s Club at Hycroft, thereby eliminating the most obvious headache. But nature had other things in store when Kohli’s crew moved to Langley’s Jamestown for some key exteriors. “There was just a torrential downpour,” she recalls with a sigh. “It rained so hard, and then the sun was going down and we were losing all of our light. Actually, the sun was never out.” After colour correction by Finale Editworks— Crazy8s provides an extensive production package above and beyond the $1,000 budget—”A Family of Ghosts” was saved.

“It’s one of those catch-22s,” she says. “Crazy8s had 179 applications this year, and they narrow it down to six, so you wanna outdo yourself. You wanna pitch something really big, but at the same time you’re like, ‘Oh, my god, I have to film this in three days and get it finished in eight.’ ” Lupini, meanwhile, is still reeling from the star power he secured in the shape of his lead, Isabelle. She received the script through his casting directors, liked it, and turned in a performance that gave her director goose bumps as he sat behind the monitor. By the same token, Crazy8s carries a lot of weight in Vancouver, with a list of alumni that otherwise acts as a roll call of Vancouver filmmaking talent, from Matthew Kowalchuk to Zach Lipovsky, Kaare Andrews, Dylan Akio Smith, Carl Bessai, Nimisha Mukerji, and Penelope Buitenhuis. Even with 14 years in the industry, Kohli knows the real-world value of the insanity to which she submitted herself. “To have the Crazy8s team supporting you is huge,” she says. “It opens so many doors for us. It was the only way we could have made this film.” This year’s gala Crazy8s screening takes place at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts on Saturday (February 27).

Drive-in flick squeezes flavour from the pulp

RE VIEW S TRIPLE 9

Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. Rated 14A. For showtimes, please see page 36

Behind generic poster art and a title that

2 will prompt waves of indifference—999

is police code for “officer down”, if you’re interested—this is superior hard-boiled pulp. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Michael Atwood, an ex special-ops officer stuck in a knotty paternity situation with a powerful Israeli-Russian mobster, coerced into one last and probably impossible job for the boss. If this kind of militarized badass is the most tedious new stereotype in American film, Matt Cook’s screenplay gives Atwood (and us) something to care about—his kid, namely. But it’s the hellish depiction of Atlanta that further humanizes a film full of desperate characters, including Anthony Mackie’s double-dealing cop, Marcus Belmont, who goes from bank heist in the morning to day job at the precinct immediately after. It’s fight or die in Triple 9’s landscape of desolate financial districts and bullet-pocked no-go zones. As with last year’s monumental Sicario, it takes a foreign filmmaker—in this case, noted weirdo and frequent Nick Cave collaborator John Hillcoat (Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, The Road)—to really present an unblinking picture of American rot. You’ll find cliché after

cliché in Triple 9—spiralling corruption, conflicted villains, incipient race war, the whole annihilated dream—but Hillcoat’s worldbuilding is terrifyingly vivid. The performances are what you’d expect from a cast of this calibre, including Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson (he goes full ham as a permanently stoned detective one C-hair away from figuring out the plot), and an unrecognizable Kate Winslet chain-smoking the scenery as a mob wife. Teresa Palmer is given roughly one minute to use her iffy southern accent as Affleck’s wife and another couple of seconds to bare some skin in the film’s sole moment of tenderness. This is basically a drive-in movie, after all, but it’s smart enough to turn a money shot into a symbol of something better. Sometimes you gotta work both sides of the fence.

> ADRIAN MACK

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT A documentary by Michael Moore. Rated PG. For showtimes, please see page 36

Michael Moore’s idea of invasion is

2 restricted to the part where you pil-

lage someone else’s resources for your own tribe. This he does with a small crew and an American flag, which—in his friendliest film to date—he waves in a universally recognized sign of aggression with a smiley face. The veteran provocateur mostly invades

WEEK IN WIDESCREEN

Europe, where health care, education, and food quality are top concerns. Even with two hours to fill, little time is devoted to contextualizing how these places got so civilized. (Short answer: unions, plus citizen engagement.) And he says his mission is to “pick the flowers, not the weeds”. So we have no idea how many steps Norwegian criminals go through before hitting the humane minimum-security prison he visits, why Italian governments keep falling when the standard of living is so high, or how Slovenia pays for the free higher education for anyone who wants it—including foreigners taking classes in English. Europe’s growing crisis over immigration—and, indeed, integration—is ignored, not that the U.S. isn’t miles worse in those departments, too. Still, the successes touted here are verifiable. Standouts include Portugal’s decriminalization of all drug use and superb school lunches in France (including cheese course!) that cost less than U.S. slop. There are darker segments, especially regarding Germany’s determination to keep public awareness of the Holocaust alive, as opposed to America’s blindness to its own history of slavery and genocide. (By now, some folks probably think Beyoncé started the Civil War.) Moore also slips across the Mediterranean to Tunisia to witness a recent assertion of women’s rights that helped topple an Islamic government. And a visit to Iceland discovers a system that has moved steadily toward gender parity. This is

THE REFLECTING SKIN This cult sensation has been hard to find since its release in 1990. Viewed 25 years later, Philip Ridley’s grotesque prairie gothic (shot in Alberta) will continue to win new devotees and prompt howls of derision in about equal measure— making The Reflecting Skin a must-see. Among its pleasures: exploding frogs, mummified fetuses, widowed vampires, a black sedan filled with child-killers, a very young Viggo Mortensen, and a cameo by Vancouver’s Robbins twins (above), who introduce the restored film at the Vancity Theatre on Friday (February 26). -

> KEN EISNER

A PERFECT DAY Starring Benicio Del Toro. In English, Spanish, French, Bosnian, and Serbian, with English subtitles. Rated PG. For showtimes, please see page 36

Benicio Del Toro, who often resembles a

2 Brad Pitt for whom life hasn’t gone quite

so swimmingly, is effortlessly charismatic as Mambrú, a beleaguered Puerto Rican aid worker who just wants to go home. Meanwhile, though, he has to solve a few more problems in the course of a day(ish) near the end of the 1990s Balkan conflict. He does this alongside an adrenaline-junkie pal called simply B, played by Tim Robbins, his white hair flopping over a Springsteen bandanna. They’re saddled with a naive sanitation see next page

MOVIES

The projector

What to see and where to see it

THE DEATH DEBATE Both sides of the issue are heard in Kevin Eastwood’s doc, which follows the BCCLA on its journey to the Supreme Court of Canada to argue in favour of assisted death. Premiering on Telus OPTIK on Thursday (February 25).

SOUTHBOUND Here’s your last chance to catch this killer anthology flick, in which a bunch of hapless people find themselves on the road to hell, Jesus Lizard’s David Yow included. Screens at the Vancity Theatre on Thursday (February 25).

HAUSU Demented, hilarious, visionary—this insane film from 1977 is full of happy violence visited upon giggling Japanese schoolgirls and features at least one floating head. Brace yourselves at the Rio Theatre on Friday (February 26).

Midnight mindfuck

meaningful, even if he romanticizes the inherent moral superiority of women in power—a notion dispelled quickly by any memory of Maggie Thatcher. As always, the dishevelled filmmaker is better at raising questions than answering them. But his overall case is well supported by a French-Tunisian woman who states that everyone is fascinated by the U.S. while Americans lack curiosity about the rest of the world. Of course, this is a reflection of their leadership, most of whom are happy to let them eat flags.

Action and anarchy

BRANDED TO KILL The Cinematheque’s Seijun Suzuki retrospective rounds on perhaps the best-known film by the Japanese B-movie god, a hitman’s odyssey from 1967 that sits somewhere between pop cinema, the avant-garde, and a peek at what filmmakers with names like Tarantino and Jarmusch would try to do with their own self-aware efforts many decades later. Branded to Kill screens on Friday and Saturday (February 26 and 27). Patrons are advised to bring their own boiled rice. FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 33

A Perfect Day

from previous page

SUN FEB 28

FRI FEB 26

1660 EAST BROADWAY @ COMMERCIAL DRIVE | SEE RIOTHEATRE.CA FOR CALENDAR + COMPLETE INFO

REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM Noam Chomsky discusses the deliberate concentration of wealth and power found in the hands of a select few. 6:00PM *Also screens Saturday, Feb 27 at 1:00PM HAUSU(1977) Friday Late Night Movie | 11:55PM BOY AND THE WORLD | 1:15PM Oscar nominee (Best Animated Feature) FREE OSCAR PARTY! DOORS 3:00PM KYdml] Oge]f af @gjjgj Egfl` oal` B]ffa^]j C]fl k THE BABADOOK at 9:00PM

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 29 CAROL at 6:30PM | BROOKLYN at 9:15PM

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TUESDAY, MARCH 1 The Critical Hit Show: A Live Dungeons and Dragons Comedy Experience 4th Year Anniversary Party! WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 BOY AND THE WORLD .2,-HE t Gk[Yj%fgeaf]] :ja] DYjkgf kàf]k Yk Y egl`]j `]d\ [Yhlan] with her 5 year old son in ROOM at 9:00PM THURSDAY, MARCH 3 HYmd 9fl`gfq k LYd]fl Lae] Kung Fu Easter! Live at the Rio Theatre FRIDAY, MARCH 4 Af\a]%`gjjgj àl THE WITCH .2,-HE t @Yjjakgf >gj\ klYjk af Ja\d]q K[gll k [dYkka[ k[a%â BLADE RUNNER Yl 12)-HE t @Yjegfq Cgjaf] k GUMMO Friday Late Night Movie at 11:55PM

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>gj log fa_`lk$ KYf >jYf[ak[g k hj]ea]j] f]g%[dgof cabaret troupe Fou Fou Ha! bring their original production of WHOA-MAN! A MUSICAL to Vancouver.

expert (The Princess of Montpensier’s Mélanie Thierry), embarking on her first mission in the unnamed mountain country. (It looks like Kosovo but is actually Spain.) Also aboard their twin Land Rovers, at times, are a cynical translator (Bosnia’s Fedja Stukan), who explains that this scrubby area is known for “yogurt and a sense of humour”, and a veteran UN crisis evaluator (former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko) who previously had an unfortunate fling with Mambrú. Written by director Fernando León de Aranoa (Familia) and adapted from a novel by former Doctors Without Borders head Paula Farias, the script tells us that Mambrú only has one week left on his contract. Our uhoh flags go up immediately, but no one gets killed or even injured during the film’s 100-minute duration—except for the “fat fuck” someone previously threw in a rural well, for revenge or to Michiganize the water supply. Still, the tension remains high, thanks to the alien settings, a harshly ironic rock score, and running patter that tries a little too hard to stay jokey. Like its subjects, the movie fails to accomplish all that much, but it does more good than harm.

> KEN EISNER

RACE Starring Stephan James. Rated PG. For showtimes, please see page 36

a truism that anyone with 2 It’s one drop of African blood has

to be 10 times better than everybody else just to have a crack at the system in the USA. The perfect 20thcentury exemplar of this dynamic is Jesse Owens, who repudiated American racism and Nazi ideology by earning four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. A slow-burning fuse of racial hatred runs through Race, giving its title a prismatic quality beyond the circumstances of that fateful event, and beyond what the lengthy film

can pull off. Toronto’s Stephan James (John Lewis in Selma) plays Owens, and he’s the most remarkable part of this Canadian-German-French coproduction, largely shot in Montreal. Born in hardscrabble Alabama, the athlete parlayed his spectacularly comprehensive track-and-field talent into a scholarship at Ohio State, under the tutelage of a failed Olympian but inspired mentor, Larry Snyder. Unfortunately, SNL veteran Jason Sudeikis’s compulsively modern body language and eagerness to please take attention away from Owens’s battles against poverty, entrenched racism, the constant threat of violence, and occasional selfdoubt. (Vancouver’s Amanda Crew is wasted as Snyder’s secretary.) The tale’s power is further blunted by wooden exposition, fruitless sidetracks, and ludicrous casting. William Hurt and Jeremy Irons have some good moments on opposite sides of the argument for U.S. involvement in the Nazi Games. But with villains as indelible as Adolf Hitler and his propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, why would director Stephen Hopkins shove handsome dudes in their 30s into those roles? Seriously. Much better is Holland’s Carice van Houton as Leni Riefenstahl, the Reich-approved filmmaker who used everyone for her own grandiose purposes. The track scenes here are excellent and mesh well with what she shot for her epic Olympia. And Race scores at the end, following Owens home to a hero’s welcome and a major snub by the White House. In case you were wondering, there’s no American money in this movie, either. Because the best still isn’t good enough for some people. RISEN

resurrection with familiar elements of film noir and the modern-day police procedural. It helps to imagine a cross between Spartacus and Chinatown. Or, better yet, a toga-draped CSI. Director Kevin Reynolds—who some may say is still being punished for the sin of giving us Waterworld— puts an initially refreshing spin on a very old story. We know we’re in for something vaguely hard-boiled when a Judean innkeeper utters the first line of dialogue in the Brooklyn twang of a 1940s bartender. Addressing the distracted Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), he makes small talk with: “Roman, huh?” Such clipped dialogue is juxtaposed with heavily embroidered lines that stop just short of “Who madeth this sandal print?” But intermittent jolts of tough talk prove to be a perfect match for the world-weary Clavius. A Roman soldier turned investigator, he’s plagued by the classic doubts of the eternal gumshoe. As we discover in flashback, he’s been given a special assignment by an increasingly agitated Pontius Pilate (Peter Firth). The postcrucifixion body of Jesus (Cliff Curtis) has disappeared from a sealed tomb. Clavius has been charged with solving the mystery. The case baffles him. He keeps interrogating people—like Mary Magdalene (Maria Botto)—who feed him ethereal answers with dreamy looks in their eyes. After a while, Clavius begins to chip away at his own hardened beliefs, prepping him for the catharsis of a spiritual lost weekend that no flagon of wine or Roman bath can wash away. Although the cast comes across as admirably restrained, we inevitably get bogged down in the usual Sunday-school clichés. Ultimately, Risen’s attempt to dress up the genre by giving us the Greatest Detective > KEN EISNER Story Ever Told simply tosses in a few more from a different direction. > JOHN LEKICH

Starring Joseph Fiennes. Rated PG. For showtimes, please see page 36

Set against the backdrop of an old-school biblical epic, Risen attempts to blend the story of Christ’s

movie time outs

For up-to-the-minute, searchable movie Time Out listings, visit p. 36.

March 8-13, 2016 Produced with VIFF’s Vancity Theatre www.womeninfilm.ca

CAFE DERBY George is overwhelmed by his idea to rent the Café Derby and earn a fortune during the Pope’s visit to the town. His wife and five children abandon their initial reluctance, and decide to help. Told from the point of view of the youngest daughter, the film is a funny and moving chronicle of a family both falling apart and pulling together. Tuesday, March 8 at 7:00 PM ADRIEN (LE GARAGISTE) While Adrien waits for a kidney transplant, recurring cycles of dialysis and ebbing energy leave him struggling to balance his work and marriage. Things take an intriguing turn when he hires a young man to help around the garage. Screened at festivals around the world, this atmospheric film explores inner strength and personal dignity, capturing compelling characters in an exquisite rural landscape. Wednesday, March 9 at 6:00 PM THE BIRDWATCHER Diagnosed with cancer, Saffron must ensure the well-being of her children. With a lack of better options, her biological mother becomes her last hope. This emotionally nuanced film builds on a strong female lead, capable of facing reality, no matter how daunting, and charting a path towards reconciliation. This mother-daughter drama shines with stellar performances by actors Gabrielle Rose and Camille Sullivan. Wednesday, March 9 at 8:30PM

Five Days of Female Driven Films #VIWIFF2016 34 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

MUSIC

“Why’d you call? To tell me my press release

BY MICHAEL MAN N

sucks?” a defeated-sounding Cherchez La Femme asks when the Straight rings her up. Even though the press release does suck—boasting the endearingly unprofessional subject line “Hi man here is my Free Association event any press would rule!”—the purpose of the call isn’t to admonish her, this time. Cherchez immediately begins weeping when it’s revealed we want to arrange an interview about her Free Association party at the Imperial. During the threeminute chat with the Vancouver nightlife fixture, known as Natasha Lands to her six siblings, a broad spectrum of emotion is covered: joy, denial, excitement, suspicion, and then back to joy with a few more tears. Welcome to the manic, ADHD mind of one of the city’s most creative and prolific event promoters. An hour and a half later we meet at her apartment in the West End, which is above a Korean restaurant that appears to have videos by Girls’ Generation playing on a continuous loop. In her IKEA-outfitted bachelor suite are camera and computer gear, a loft bed with less than two feet between the mattress and the ceiling, an inordinate number of Teen Vogue issues, and a copy of Social Media Marketing for Dummies.

Turning weird into great art

Cherchez La Femme (aka Natasha Lands) was just a pair of black pants away from totally nailing her one-woman tribute to John Hughes’s Pretty in Pink.

“You’re not gonna hear Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy in Love’, although that’s a great song,” she’s quick to note. “Maybe you’ll hear a remix they Cherchez La Femme wears a shit-ton of hats, all of made of it? I don’t know.” them designed to build an even better Vancouver Don’t let the uncer“Cherchez La Femme is a Napoleonic-times tainty surrounding whether or not you’ll hear any thing,” she explains of her moniker. “It means Bey discourage you. Last year the event was on a ‘to look for the woman’—it has a negative con- weeknight and had 1,200 people through the door, notation. When something fucks up, look for the and this year’s iteration is on a Friday and has an equally stacked music lineup. It includes dance woman, because she’s behind it.” Fucking things up is what Cherchez excels at— acts like Michael Red, a mainstay in the scene and meant with a positive connotation. For the past the Low Indigo label boss; Shaunic and Silence, seven years she’s been a force of nature in Vancou- beatsmiths from the Chapel Sound collective; and ver as a party-rocking DJ, a promoter, a gallerist, a Syre, an up-and-coming house producer whom label owner, a community-builder with a passion Cherchez is particularly excited about. “He’s got 13,000 followers on SoundCloud and for highlighting emerging talent from a variety of disciplines, and a self-identified weirdo with was referred to me from my friend Ekali,” Cherchez recalls. “A week later I asked Syre to headline flamingo-pink hair. “Whenever someone asks what I do for a living, Fortune. He’s 19 and was like, ‘I’ve never DJed in I say ‘Anything I want,’ ” she proclaims. “I don’t my life.’ I thought, ‘How bad could it be?’ It was wake up every day thinking how much money can incredible. The kids that are coming up now in I make. I wake up thinking about what creative, Vancouver are superhuman creatives.” Giving people their first shot is something weird-ass idea can I do.” These weird-ass ideas come to life at her that’s very near and dear to her. While earning a events, where, on any given evening, alongside “Bachelor of Fuck All” in photography at Emily local and international DJs, bands, and rappers, Carr University of Art + Design, and beginning there could be drag performances, skate ramps, to play in clubs, she found it difficult to get booked art and zine shows, giveaways of f lexi discs she for anything better than a 9 p.m. set time. “When I first started DJing all I knew were guy had made for the party, stages built to look like the basement from Wayne’s World, snow ma- DJs,” she says. “We all grew up collecting records chines, fashion models walking a runway, ap- at the same time, but I was never good enough. pearances by Terry from FUBAR, or inf latable So that’s why I started throwing my own parties. When you give people opportunities it very rarely Twister mats. “I’m really interested in people’s movements goes wrong.” Free Association will also be the de facto and what they’ve created. I try to bring as many people together as possible,” she explains. “I don’t launch for Cherchez’s creative agency of the have as much money as the big event companies. same name—she’s stepping away from the hellI don’t own a venue. So instead of competing, I’m acious grind of doing weeklies. On the horizon is doing what I’ve always done: highlighting what a series of parties called Free Grants. Their aim is to inject a bit more accessibility into arts grants Vancouver is all about.” The latest example of this is Free Association, while giving young talent a chance to showcase which, fittingly, is free to attend if you show up itself to new audiences. The idea is that you subbefore 11 p.m. It’ll be an all-locals bonanza with mit a proposal with a pitch for an event, and a seven dance-music producers on the stage, five jury awards the best ones funding to execute the visual artists projecting their work on the venue’s nights at venues around town. “I want to get creative kids paid and allow them movie screen, a fashion show with 10 lifestyle companies, and a variety of pop-up shops selling to do what they want and not leave the city,” she says. “I’m not seeing a lot of investment in creative DIY tchotchkes like shirts and zines.

CHECK THIS OUT

COMPTON CONNECTION Kendrick Lamar will induct

fellow Compton, California, graduates N.W.A into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April. Kid Rock will induct Cheap Trick while secretly worrying that he’s the “redneck, white bread, chickenshit motherfucker” in “Fuck the Police”.

TWO CENTS’ WORTH 50 Cent has dissed Meek Mill

OLIVER SWAIN We’re mildly disappointed that Oliver Swain is

touring with his backing band, the Big Machine. The reason? That reduces the odds of seeing him perform Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” solo on goatskin banjo. (YouTube it.) But we’re stoked to see the folk innovator backed by his Big Machine at St. James Hall on Saturday (February 27). Expect songs from last fall’s ambitious Never More Together, which the Victoria-raised Swain accurately describes as a “chamber-folk odyssey”. That means everything from the greyhued melancholia of the title track to the gothic “Apple Sucklin’ Tree”. And, perhaps, “I’m on Fire”, with or without the Big Machine. -

Free Association happens at the Imperial on Friday (February 26).

in + out

On people having so much fun at her parties that they defecate: “I did an Emily Carr grad party at the Waldorf Hotel and the owners called me the next day to talk about it. They explained the cleaning crew was mortified by the women’s washroom. Someone shit their pants, tried to flush them down the toilet, then walked out of the party with no pants on. And I was like, ‘What a great fucking party!’ ” On why she’ll book anyone to DJ: “I was DJing this party when I was going to school in London. Before I went on there were these two girls—they were creative It girls of London— and they’re using their iPods. I turned around to my friend and was all ‘What the fuck is this? This is so sacrilegious.’ My friend turned to me and said, ‘This is punk rock.’ That stuck in my head and now I’m an avid believer of letting anyone DJ.” On the low point of her career: “Last week I was saying my goodbyes on my last night at Fortune. We’re downstairs having some drinks and someone screamed, ‘Cops are here doing a walk-through!’ The cop came in and was all ‘Whose party is this?’ I was like, ‘Mine.’ I looked him up and down and it was a male stripper. Just great. Cool. That probably would have been the low point.”

MUSIC Let’s talk about

You gotta see

culture, which I think is really important to have in a world-class city. Vancouver’s still young and there’s room to grow. I love it. It’s like the Wild West. You can do whatever you want here.” And if you’re looking for evidence of that, how about the fact that someone like Cherchez is able to exist and even thrive in Vancouver, despite that hair and those substandard press releases? “I don’t know if there are pink-haired weirdoes running massive club nights anywhere else in the world,” she concurs. -

with the statement “That kid is not that bright.” This comes from a man who, after filing for bankruptcy last year to avoid a sex-tape lawsuit, caught his judge’s attention by posing in bed with stacks of cash on Instagram.

PLAIN TWISTED In case you needed another reason to hate makeup-caked ’80s metallers Twisted Sister, singer Dee Snider told Rolling Stone that U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump is “gracious, welcoming, considerate, and self-deprecating”. SONIC GOLD Kim Gordon has officially moved on from

Sonic Youth with her new project Glitterbust, whose eponymous EP arrived in early March on Burger Records. Based on the distorted and ghostly “The Highline”, we’re getting a truly kool thing.

Fresh and local VARIOUS ARTISTS CITR POP ALLIANCE VOL. 4 Spring’s a time for fresh beginnings, so how about discovering some new music instead of continuing to play the shit out of In Utero? CiTR Pop Alliance Vol. 4 is presented by the fine folks at Mint, and the compilation highlights the best of Vancouver’s rich and endlessly varied underground. Pour a shot of Maker’s Mark to Ora Cogan’s sun-dappled “Move”, dive into the artstar antipop of Genderdog’s “Aquarium Apartment”, and experience shoegaze at its druggiest with Cult Babies’ “Sister XIII”. After things wrap up with the ghost-world sound wash “Body as Landscape” by minimalviolence, feel free to make a donation to CiTR, which is in the middle of a—you guessed it—spring fundraising drive. -

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 35

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT Michael Moore, Krista Kiuru, and Tim Walker are featured in Capitalism: A Love Story director Moore’s documentary that explores what the U.S. can learn from other nations. 119 mins. Cineplex Fifth Avenue Cinemas and Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas

movies/ timeout NEW THIS WEEK REPERTORY CINEMAS SPECIAL EVENTS FIRST-RUN SHOW TIMES

REPERTORY CINEMAS Times are current as of Friday, February 26

< < < <

NEW THIS WEEK A PERFECT DAY Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins, and Olga Kurylenko star in Amador writer-director Fernando León de Aranoa’s drama about group of aid workers who attempt to resolve a crisis in an armed-conflict zone. Rated PG. 106 mins. Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas GODS OF EGYPT Brenton Thwaites, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Gerard Butler star in Knowing director Alex Proyas’s fantasy flick about a mortal hero who teams up with the god Horus to rescue Egypt from chaos. Rated PG. 127 mins. Cineplex Cinemas Langley, Cineplex Odeon Meadowtown Cinemas, Cineplex Odeon Park & Tilford, Cineplex Odeon Strawberry Hill, Galaxy Cinemas Chilliwack, Landmark Cinemas 10 New Westminster, Landmark Cinemas 12 Guildford Surrey, Scotiabank Theatre Vancouver, SilverCity Coquitlam & VIP Cinemas, SilverCity Metropolis Cinemas, SilverCity Mission and SilverCity Riverport Cinemas

THE CINEMATHEQUE 1131 Howe St., Vancouver, 604-688-3456, www.thecinematheque.ca 2BRANDED TO KILL Fri 6:30; Sat 8:15 2CARMEN FROM KAWACHI Sun 8:30 2DESERTERS Mon 7:00 2KANTO WANDERER Wed 8:25; Thu 6:30 2STORY OF A PROSTITUTE Wed 6:30; Thu 8:20 2TATTOOED LIFE Fri 8:15; Sat 6:30 2THE CALL OF BLOOD Sun 6:30 VANCITY THEATRE 1181 Seymour St., Vancouver, 604-683-3456, www.viff.org/ theatre 22016 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS: ANIMATED Fri 1:45, 6:00; Sat 12:00, 4:20 22016 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS: LIVE ACTION Fri 8:00; Sat 2:00, 6:30 2ACADEMY AWARDS PARTY Sun 3:30 2AMY Mon 8:45 2EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT Wed-Thu 6:30 2RECLAMATION Mon 6:30 2ROAD HOUSE Sat 9:30 2THE REFLECTING SKIN Fri 10:20 2TRUNK Wed-Thu 8:45

on the web!

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

www.straight.com

SPECIAL EVENTS

REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM In this film, Noam Chomsky explores the deliberate concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a select few. Feb 26, 6 pm, Rio Theatre (1660 E. Broadway). Tix $12/10, info www.riotheatre.ca/. CRAZY8S GALA SCREENING AND AFTERPARTY Ellie Harvie hosts the world premiere of six 2016 Crazy8s short films. Includes an after party at Science World at Telus World of Science. Feb 27, 7 pm, The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts (777 Homer). Info www.crazy8s.film/. TALKING STICK FESTIVAL - REEL RESERVATIONS: TRIBUTE: DEATH AND REEL REBIRTH Marie Clements’s film exposes the velocity in which our decisions are made on and off the ice. Feb 27, 7:30 pm, The Cultch (1895 Venables). Info www.talkingstickfest.ca/festival-shows/. THE RAIN CITY OSCAR PARTY 2016 Georgia Straight film editor Adrian Mack and CBC film critic Kim Linekin host a celebration of the Academy Awards. Highlights include red-carpet fashion commentary from Steven Schelling, popcorn, Oscarsballot bingo, and prizes. Feb 28, 3:30 pm, Vancity Theatre. Info www.viff.org/theatre/. RECLAMATION Director Ali Ghaffari’s film tells the story of an Iranian delegation is sent to Russia to reclaim the World War II indemnity. Feb 29, 6:30 pm, Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour). Tix $11/9 (plus membership fee), info www.viff.org/theatre/. AMY Director Asif Kapadia’s documentary chronicles the life, career, and death of late British neo-soul singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse. Feb 29, 8:45 pm, Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour). Tix $11/9 (plus membership fee), info www.viff.org/theatre/.

FIRST-RUN SHOWTIMES

Times are current as of Friday, February 26 THE COMEDY FILM SERIES JFL CINEPLEX FIFTH AVENUE CINEMAS NorthWest and VIFF present screenings 2110 Burrard St., Vancouver, 604-734-7469, of Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story www.cineplex.com 245 YEARS Fri-Sat, of The National Lampoon, comedy shorts, Tue 1:10, 3:40, 6:25, 9:10; Sun 1:15, 3:45, 6:30, Entertainment, Turkish Star Wars, Waiting 10:30; Mon, Wed-Thu 1:15, 3:40, 6:30, 9:30 for Guffman, The Lobster, and Roadhouse. 2BROOKLYN Fri-Sat, Tue 1:30, 4:10, 6:40, 9:30; TRIPLE 9 Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, To Feb 27, Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour). Sun 1:00, 4:00, 6:45, 9:30; Mon, Wed-Thu 1:00, and Anthony Mackie star in Lawless Info www.jflnorthwest.com/. 4:00, 6:45, 10:20 2DEADPOOL Fri-Sat, Tue director John Hillcoat’s thriller about 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:55, 10:40; Sun-Mon, Weda gang of criminals and corrupt cops MOVIE PALACE GHOSTS Screening of Thu 2:00, 4:45, 7:45, 9:00 2HAIL, CAESAR! Friwho plan the murder of a police officer Palestinian filmmaker Khalil Al-Mozian’s Sat, Tue 12:00, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30, 10:00; Sun 1:30, in order to pull off a heist. Rated 14A. “Gaza 36mm” and Canadian filmmaker 4:15, 7:15, 10:00; Mon, Wed-Thu 1:45, 4:15, 7:00, 115 mins. Cineplex Cinemas Langley, Lindsay McIntyre’s “Where We Stand”. 9:30 2WHERE TO INVADE NEXT Fri-Sat, Tue Cineplex Odeon Meadowtown Cinemas, Feb 26, 7:30-9:30 pm, Cineworks (300–1131 1:15, 4:15, 7:00, 9:45; Sun 1:30, 4:20, 7:05, 9:50; Cineplex Odeon Park & Tilford, Cineplex Howe). Tix $10/8, info www.cineworks.ca/ Mon, Wed-Thu 1:00, 4:20, 7:10, 9:50 Odeon Strawberry Hill, Galaxy Cinemas attend/event/153/. Chilliwack, Landmark Cinemas 10 New CINEPLEX ODEON INTERNATIONAL Westminster, Landmark Cinemas 12 HOUSE (1977) Nobuhiko Obayashi’s VILLAGE CINEMAS 88 W. Pender, Guildford Surrey, Scotiabank Theatre 1977 movie about a schoolgirl and her six Vancouver, 604-806-0799, www.cineplex. Vancouver, SilverCity Coquitlam & VIP classmates who come face-to-face with com 2THE BIG SHORT Fri-Sun 12:45, 3:45, Cinemas, SilverCity Metropolis Cinemas, evil spirits and a demonic house cat. Feb 6:50, 10:00; Mon-Tue 2:00, 3:45, 6:50, 10:00; SilverCity Mission and SilverCity Riverport 26, 11:55 pm, Rio Theatre (1660 E. Broadway). Wed 2:00, 3:45, 10:00; Thu 2:00, 3:45 2EDDIE Cinemas Tix $8/6, info www.riotheatre.ca/. THE EAGLE Fri, Sun-Thu 1:40, 4:20, 7:10, 9:50; Sat 11:05, 1:40, 4:20, 7:10, 9:50 2ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH Sat 11:00 2HAIL, CAESAR! Fri, Sun-Thu 2:15, 4:50, 7:35, 10:15; Sat 11:30, 2:15, 4:50, 7:35, 10:15 2HOW TO BE SINGLE Fri-Sun 2:10, 5:00, 7:45, 10:25; MonThu 1:55, 4:35, 7:25, 10:10 2KUNG FU PANDA 3 Fri-Thu 5:05 2THE LADY IN THE VAN FriSun 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 7:55, 10:30; Mon-Thu 1:30, 4:05, 6:45, 9:20 2MEI RéN Yú Fri-Sun 12:25, 10:30; Mon-Thu 1:45, 9:55 2A PERFECT DAY Fri, Sun-Thu 1:50, 4:25, 7:05, 9:40; Sat 11:15, 1:50, 4:25, 7:05, 9:40 2RACE Fri-Sun 12:50, 3:55, 7:00, 10:05; Mon-Thu 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 10:05 2RISEN Fri, Sun 2:20, 4:55, 7:40, 10:20; Sat 11:40, 2:20, 4:55, 7:40, 10:20; Mon-Thu 2:20, 4:55, 7:35, 10:15 2ROOM Fri-Sat 1:10, 4:00, 6:55, 9:45; Sun 4:00, 6:55, 9:45; Mon-Thu 1:10, 4:00, 7:00, 9:45 2WHERE TO INVADE NEXT Fri-Thu 1:35, 4:30, 7:20, 10:10 2WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT Thu 7:05, 10:00

SIX BRAND NEW SHORT FILMS MADE IN JUST EIGHT DAYS BY VANCOUVER’S HOTTEST NEW FILMMAKERS!

featuring: LITTLE INDIA / dj k-tel dj dubba g / dj ahtz / dj emilita vova bedzvin / imi oto / crazy dancers

CINEPLEX PARK THEATRE 3440 Cambie St., 3440 Cambie St., 604-709-3456, www. cineplex.com 2ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH Sat 11:00 2THE REVENANT Fri, Mon-Thu 5:00, 8:30; Sat-Sun 1:30, 5:00, 8:30 DUNBAR THEATRE 4555 Dunbar St. at 30 Ave., Vancouver, 604-222-2991, https:// www.facebook.com/DunbarTheatre 2DEADPOOL Fri, Mon-Thu 4:00, 7:00, 9:30; Sat-Sun 1:30, 4:00, 7:00, 9:30 RIO THEATRE 1660 E. Broadway, Vancouver, 604-878-3456, www.riotheatre. ca 2THE BABADOOK Sun 9:00 2BOY AND THE WORLD Wed 6:45 2BROOKLYN Mon 9:15 2CAROL Mon 6:30 2HOUSE Fri 11:15 2REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM Fri 6:00; Sat 1:00; Sun 1:15 SCOTIABANK THEATRE VANCOUVER 900 Burrard St., Vancouver, 604-630-1407, www.cineplex.com 2DEADPOOL Fri-Sun, Tue 11:35, 12:15, 12:50, 2:20, 2:55, 3:40, 5:00, 5:35, 6:35, 7:35, 8:15, 9:45, 10:20, 10:55; Mon, Thu 12:00, 12:30, 1:15, 2:00, 2:35, 3:50, 4:35, 5:10, 6:30, 7:15, 7:50, 9:10, 9:55, 10:30; Wed 12:00, 12:30, 1:15, 2:00, 2:35, 3:50, 4:35, 5:10, 7:20, 7:50, 9:55, 10:10, 10:30 2GODS OF EGYPT Fri-Sun, Tue 4:15; Mon, Wed-Thu 3:40 2LONDON HAS FALLEN Thu 7:30, 10:20 2THE REVENANT Fri, Sun, Tue 11:45, 3:15, 6:40, 10:00; Sat, Mon, Wed-Thu 3:15, 6:40, 10:00 2STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS FriSun, Tue 3:45; Mon, Wed-Thu 3:30 2TRIPLE 9 Fri, Sun, Tue 1:45, 4:35, 7:45, 10:35; Sat 12:30, 4:55, 7:45, 10:35; Mon, Wed-Thu 1:35, 4:30, 7:35, 10:25 2THE WITCH Fri-Sun, Tue 12:20, 2:50, 5:10, 7:40, 10:15; Mon, Wed-Thu 12:25, 2:55, 5:20, 7:40, 10:15 2ZOOLANDER NO. 2 Fri-Sun, Tue 12:00, 2:45, 5:20, 8:05, 10:45; Mon 12:10, 2:30, 5:05, 7:45, 10:20; Wed 12:10, 2:30, 4:55, 10:20; Thu 12:10, 2:30, 5:05

TIME OUT MOVIE LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge, based on available space. Every effort is made to acquire accurate weekly movie listings by press time, but info is subject to change without notice. To avoid disappointment, please confirm films and times by checking the cinema’s website.

36 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016

MUSIC

Sex days behind her, Young gets dreamy Young looks surpris2 Alexis ingly bright-eyed for someone

who admits that she’s been working 16-hour days. Upon meeting the Straight for an interview at a Kitsilano food market and café, Young says that, in addition to her full-time graphic-design job at Lululemon, she’s been devoting many of her waking hours to her current musical project, Youngblood, which has a single and accompanying video out in early March. The new song, “Feel Alright”, is a follow-up to Youngblood’s debut single, “Easy Nothing”, a darkly delicious concoction of throbbing electronic beats and powerful, emotive vocals. A self-described Air obsessive, Young has described her sound as “what the ’60s thought the future would sound like”, and it’s a markedly different aesthetic than the bombastic new-wave cyber-rock of Sex With Strangers. She played keyboards and sang with that band for four years, and while she says it was a lot of fun, after recording two albums with SWS, she knew it was time to move on. “I never really felt it was an expression of my musical identity, or how I wanted to be perceived,” says Young, who, in her black ball cap and “I ♥ NY” T-shirt, is a far more casual version of herself than the glammed-up one in her promo photos. “I always was writing my own songs anyways. When we started writing the secondlast album, Behaviours, and they opened up the songwriting to include me, I think I interjected a lot of how I wanted to sound—forcibly, maybe— and bless their souls for really trying to fit my ideas into their sound. Like, on Behaviours there’s a lot of dance rock and kind of postrock songs, and then there’s a ’60s ballad in the middle of the album, which is obviously Alexis’s song, like ‘We’re gonna give her a track on this album to placate her and make sure she’s happy.’ ” Her latest foray is the angst-ridden but dreamy “Feel Alright”. The video, produced in collaboration with ROOM Collective, features the singer as a trio of different characters, each desperately striving for one of what Young describes as the three primary indicators of “success” in our culture: “riches and fame, health and fitness, and finding love”. “I feel like those are the three biggest things that people obsessively centre their lives around; it could be one of those things, or it could be all three,” she says. “And I feel like all of them are relentless pursuits that will never materialize in any real form of gratification or validation, because you’re always going to be wanting more and pushing yourself to the extreme. You’re never going to feel fully satisfied, because you’ll probably never hit the highest level, because there is no such thing. And I feel like I’ve seen people in my life, and people around me, become obsessed with some of those things and destroy themselves.” That’s a pretty heavy theme to explore in a pop-music video, but Young doesn’t shy away from tackling thorny questions in her work. She says, for example, that although she’s in a very happy relationship, she finds herself drawn to the theme of “dissatisfied romance”. Chalk that up to human nature, and to Young’s deep-seated curiosity. “Love isn’t as simple as just being in a monogamous relationship and feeling satisfied,” she notes. “You’re always going to be meeting new people and feeling torn and having to struggle with your ethical responsibilities, or moral responsibilities, like, ‘Well, is it possible for me to care about multiple people at once? Is it okay for me to talk about this?’ “As an artist I have an innate desire to want to explore and push my boundaries,” she continues, “and see how far I can push something before I get in trouble for it. I get in trouble a lot, and I kick myself in the ass a lot, by pushing things, and pushing people, and pushing relationships.…I try to be a good person. I do find myself in situations where I’m like, ‘For the love of

their back pocket, but it’s tricky trying to get the sound. When Ry Cooder came onboard, it made a huge difference, not just for his great guitar work, but because he had a real idea what the songs were supposed to sound like.” Cooder also acted as a valuable sounding board, which was important, considering that in many ways the whole business of making music was new to Outlaw. And terrifying. “There are days when I’m performing a show and getting a good vibe from the crowd where I’m like, ‘This is all going to work out great because I was totally meant to be a singer,’ ” Outlaw says with a laugh. “Then, most every other day, I wake up with a voice in my head going, ‘You’re never going to make it and you’re a total loser.’ ”

God, Alexis, don’t. Just don’t. Or write it in a song.’ ” She has plenty of those, apparently, and a five-song EP in the works with her in-studio collaborators Parker Bossley and Cam “Sleepy Tom” Tatham. That’s due out early this summer, and its release will be followed by a tour with the Youngblood live band, which includes members of the Gay Nineties and Owl Skowl. That ought to keep Young busy, but here’s hoping she can keep the 16-hour workdays to a minimum. > JOHN LUCAS

Youngblood plays the Cobalt’s sixth-anniversary party on Sunday (February 28).

Sam Outlaw expands his sonic retro-minded palette never hurts to look ahead, 2 Itsomething that Sam Outlaw

has been doing ever since he bailed on a lucrative full-time advertising job to pursue a career as a retro-minded country singer. Reached in a van that’s headed to San Diego as part of a West Coast tour, the fantastically quotable Los Angeles transplant says he’s hard at work on a number of different projects. One of them is getting ready for a baby, as his wife is pregnant with their first child. Figuring that it’s better to be focusing on a follow-up to last year’s critically lauded Angeleno before he winds up on diaper duty, Outlaw’s been busy in the studio. He notes that his as-yetuntitled sophomore album is close to being done, and that folks can look forward to him mixing things up some. Where Angeleno is heavily indebted to the California-country sound pioneered by genre giants like the Flying Burrito Brothers, his next outing will expand his sonic palette. “It’s going to be similar in that there will still be the traditional, grounded country songs—it’s not like I’m abandoning those,” Outlaw says. “But I think it’s going to have a little more exploration. Some of my favourite music is ’70s singer-songwriter stuff. James Taylor is just as much an influence on the music I love as Ray Benson. I love Bread, America, and that whole vibe. “Even the Christopher Cross and Peter Cetera soft-rock shit that a lot of people make fun of is some of my favourite music. It’s the music that was probably being played when a lot of people of my generation were being conceived. And I think there’s a reason a lot of people were having sex to it.” For now, though, Outlaw—that’s his late mother’s maiden name—is busy supporting Angeleno. After getting off to a gorgeous start with the mariachiflavoured “Who Do You Think You Are?”, the album operates as a love letter to a California scene that’s inspired everyone from the Long Ryders to Uncle Tupelo to Ryan Adams. Outlaw cleverly nods to country’s golden-’60s era with “I’m Not Jealous” and “Jesus Take the Wheel (And Drive Me to a Bar)”, settles in at the quiet end of the tavern with “Love Her for a While” and “Old Fashioned”, and nods to a painful family past with the dramatic “Ghost Town”. Beautiful little touches abound, from sundown steel guitar to south-of-the-border horns. Before strapping on the guitar fulltime, he was making a decidedly more lucrative living in advertising. But at age 30, obsessed with the likes of Gram Parsons, Don Williams, and Dwight Yoakam, and tired of doing things half-assed, he decided to go all-in on music, something that still terrifies him today. Helping quiet those voices has been the fact that Outlaw is running with a heavy-hitting crowd, with big boosters including My Morning Jacket keyboardist Bo Kuster, who plays keys on Angeleno, and Ry Cooder, who coproduced the album. “I had the songs ready to go, and had a good idea what I wanted the record to look and sound like,” he says. “But trying to find a country-music producer

> MIKE USINGER

Alexis Young has begun to worry about the growth on her head.

Sam Outlaw plays the Cobalt on Saturday (February 27).

in L.A. and to go into the studio and find musicians who understand what the music should sound like was definitely tough. There are a handful of When he’s not playing trumpet musicians who know who the Flying on the bandstand or in the stuBurrito Brothers were and have the whole California-country thing in dio, Ralph Alessi can often be found

Ralph Alessi’s Baida Quartet refines the art of spontaneity

teaching others to do the same—either as an instructor at New York University or at the helm of his own School for Improvisational Music, which sounds a lot like an East Coast equivalent of the Banff Centre’s summer jazz program. Lesson one? Get on-stage, even if you don’t quite know what you’re going to do. “We start the experience by playing a concert on the evening of the first day of the workshop, and we feel it’s important to just throw them into the void. That’s where the music is made,” Alessi says of the SIM sessions, on the line from his Brooklyn home. “It’s tough, if you’re only used to making music based on X amount of rehearsals and trying to get everything neat and clean and planned out, but we’re trying to get people to be more off-the-cuff, and to really embrace that as something absolutely integral to playing this music.” Spontaneity is certainly integral to Alessi’s own approach: his new ECM release, Quiver, resembles an intense conversation between friends. As leader, he picks the topics in the form of his own strong melodies, but the other members of his Baida Quartet are free see next page

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 37

Ralph Alessi

FRIDAY MARCH 04

GoldLink w/ Falcons at Happy Ending Fridays

FRIDAY MARCH 11

SATURDAY MARCH 12

Sam Gellaitry (XL Recordings / Soulection) at Happy Ending Fridays

SATURDAY MARCH 19

THURSDAY MARCH 24

Northwest Division Album Release Party

FRIDAY MARCH 18

Frenchie (BSM) (early show)

SATURDAY MARCH 26

Pomo w/ Tennyson, Masego & James Deen #Seasons2016

RUTS: Hellzone Rico Uno & Geni3

Seasons Afterparty: Stwo & Sango #Seasons2016

SUNDAY MARCH 27

French Kiwi Juice (Live) #Seasons2016

TUE MAR 08 Protomartyr w/ Chastitiy Belt, TV Ugly SAT MAR 19 Young Fathers (early show) SAT MAR 26 Troy Ave (early show)

TUE MAR 01 Matterhorn Improv w/ Those Guys THU MAR 03 Mike Stud w/ Futuristic, Moosh & Twist SAT MAR 05 Baby Yu at Sup Fu? Saturdays

from previous page

to morph the written material into strange and beautiful shapes. A useful reference point might be the music that Miles Davis was making just before he went electric in the 1960s, but there’s nothing retro about the sound that Alessi, pianist Gary Versace, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Nasheet Waits produce. And by the time the trumpeter’s band comes to town this weekend, the music will have morphed again, with David Vireilles and Gerald Cleaver coming onboard to replace their studio counterparts on piano and drums, respectively. “This is the great thing about living in New York: I can go from a situation where I have Nasheet and Gary in the rhythm section, and then replace them with David and Gerald, who will have a fundamentally different sensibility about playing the music,” Alessi says. “The last thing they want to do is listen to the record and copy what we did. And even if it was the band that’s on the record, we’re all participating in the idea that we’re trying, to the best of our ability, to start with a clean slate every time we play.” > ALEXANDER VARTY

The Ralph Alessi Baida Quartet plays Frankie’s Jazz Club on Friday and Saturday (February 26 and 27).

Basia Bulat ironically opens up on dazzling Good Advice As unmistakably different as

2 Good Advice is from her past

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BUMPER JACKSONS

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EILEN JEWELL

Sat Feb 27

OLIVER SWAIN’S BIG MACHINE

Bulat won’t deny that something big happened back then, but she won’t really confirm it either. “I’m making something that is coming from me,” she cheerfully deflects. “Even if people are making work that seems really distant from who they are, there’s always going to be an element of the very personal. What I’ve realized is that everyone’s work is coming from a personal place, even if it doesn’t seem that way initially. So it’s part of the price of admission, but in a certain way I’m never going to get used to talking about myself. I’m much more comfortable making records, and just making things in general.” Her skillful evasiveness is in some ways to be expected. Tall Tall Shadow was also born out of trauma, and the general consensus was that Bulat had lost someone close to her, something that she was at the time also hesitant to discuss in detail. Based on Good Advice’s lyrics, an important relationship ended. Instead of making a record for drinking alone in the dark, Bulat chose to make her most sparkling, upbeat album yet. Looking back on the process, she has nothing but positive things to say about the album’s birth. First came a fresh start in moving from Toronto to Montreal. Eventually, she loaded up the car and drove solo to James’s Kentucky studio, Stevie Nicks and Prince getting heavy play on the stereo during the trip down. “It was good because I got to go off the beaten path,” she recalls. “I wasn’t going to L.A. or New York to record, somewhere really commercial. What happened was, really quickly, we just got down to business, and that made everyone open up.” If there was an unstated mission, it was to do something different both from Bulat’s early folk work and from the more chamber-pop-leaning Tall Tall Shadow. “We didn’t want to box ourselves in,” the singer says. “I sent the songs, but we didn’t really define what we’d do before I got there.” For those wanting more from Bulat, here’s some good advice for understanding where she’s coming from: she seems to be a firm believer that it’s best to use your imagination. “You want to use your personal experiences because that’s what you know best,” she says, “to make something that’s not just all about you. I don’t think that it would resonate with anyone if the songs were all incredibly detailed stuff about my life. The goal is to do something that speaks to something that’s a little bigger. Or, at least, you hope.”

works, Basia Bulat once again finds herself in a familiar place. The justreleased full-length sparkles with guitar-strafed pop songs that seem from another era. One minute Bulat sounds like she’s hanging in swinging-’60s Paris with Françoise Hardy (“La La Lie”), and the next she’s hunkering down in a classic Deep South church for the gospel-tinged soul of “In the Name Of”. Triple-fuzzed guitars—courtesy of producer Jim James (My Morning Jacket)—ebb and flow throughout, the drums and keyboards often seeming otherworldly on postpaisley numbers like “Time” and “Infamous”. It’s all a stunning departure from the wide-eyed folk of Bulat’s 2007 debut album, Oh, My Darling. What’s stayed the same is the way the singer is happiest speaking in code. Pick through Good Advice’s lyrics (“Tell me again how much you love me/Even the days when you doubt it”) and you’ll start to think there was some considerable drama in > MIKE USINGER the 31-year-old’s life after the release of 2013’s Tall Tall Shadow. When she calls the Straight from Basia Bulat plays Fortune Sound Club her adopted hometown of Montreal, on Thursday (February 25).

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MUSIC

Black Wizard has the idea that drinking and driving is bad, but drinking while someone else is driving is great for getting the party started. Milton Stille photo.

Black Wizard born again on dynamic New Waste

any metalheads will opt fuckin’ chasing that last line of coke at for a volume of Tolkien the end of the night. A lot of people do or some Norse mythol- pretty shitty things in that moment.” ogy for lyrical inspira“It’s not a secret,” Parkomenko tion, but Black Wizard singer-guitarist adds. “Everybody knows that our Adam Grant went against the grain on band likes to party a lot.” his band’s latest album, New Waste, If anything, the bash has only by taking a look at the obscure work begun for Black Wizard. Though the of Henry Darger. The record’s “Viv- band formed in 2009 and issued two ian Girls” confirms as much, taking full-lengths ahead of New Waste, it its name from the entrapped, pixielike wasn’t until the current lineup was characters that figure in the author’s cemented after the release of 2013’s fantastical, posthumously released Young Wisdom that the group gained 15,000-plus-page In the Realms of the momentum. Unreal. That said, Grant also tried to “Basically, it was the first time bring his band’s hard-churning prog where the other two members didn’t boogie back to earth by tying in a tra- have a bunch of other stuff going on. gic local angle. Everyone was free to focus on this “I wanted to relate it to all the mis- band,” Parkomenko explains. sing aboriginal women in town,” he “It wasn’t half-assed before, but it says during a weekwould take forever end meet-up with to write shit,” drummer Eugene Grant adds. The Parkomenko and change of pace Gregory Adams the Straight at is reflected in the Chinatown’s Caffé Brixton, hinting at amp-rattling opener, “Revival”, on B.C.’s Missing Women Commission of which the singer howls optimistically, Inquiry. “Not exactly referencing that, “You get what you give.” but it was the inspiration for pulling “This one came together so quickthe two together: these people being ly,” Grant says with a satisfied smile. treated poorly. The stories that [Darger] “It was like a new band again. “ had written, a whole anthology, were As a fully dedicated crew, Black Wiall about the Vivian Girls, about how zard toured Europe for the first time. they were abused. But they got revenge. In addition to rowdy crowds, the trip He was abused while growing up, and landed the group its current record made this whole weird world. I saw a deal with French imprint Listenable. weird relation between the two.” The label snapped up Black Wizard New Waste’s “Vivian Girls” bar- after catching a completely berserk, rels by with lyrics about people ris- beer-bottle-flinging show in Belgium. ing up in the face of darkness, and Now true road warriors, the outfit comes scored by a cannon-boom has just announced a stretch of Pacific marching beat, chunky licks, and Northwest dates with Portland sludge damaged wails that suggest the kings Red Fang, and has plans to tour New Westminster–spawned quar- Canada in the summer and Europe tet—Grant, Parkomenko, guitar- again in the fall. ist Danny Stokes, and bassist Evan But despite the ambitious travel Joel—was raised on a steady diet of sched for 2016, Black Wizard is still Iron Maiden and Mastodon. But a dedicated to the faithful in New Westsonic twist presents itself midtrack, minster. All but Stokes still live in the once a string-squealing and moshed- Royal City, with Parkomenko both up breakdown gives way to a lovely recording bands and hosting gigs at classical-guitar piece. These kinds of his Bully’s Studio. The album title New dynamics are key to Black Wizard’s Waste is a shout-out to the bangers still multifaceted approach to metal. residing in its hometown. Despite talk of an evolving New “We didn’t want the whole record to be pounding and in-your-face— Westminster becoming a gentrified that tires your ears out so quickly,” hipster hotbed with new tower projects Grant says. “So many bands just do and restaurant openings, the members of Black Wizard are skeptical about the that, one tone the whole time.” Black Wizard also dials down the dis- suburb’s alleged cultural makeover. “Everyone says it’s the ‘little tortion for the slow-burning and bluesy “Laughing and Lost”, which Grant lik- Brooklyn’, but it’s not. It’s just getting expensive,” Parkomenko notes. ens to a “Scorpions-style ballad”. The frontman concedes that while His bandmate quickly brings up a some seriousness has crept into the beef with a bit of local redevelopment. group’s latest long-player, Black Wiz“They made some stupid fake beach ard is still a party band at heart. (Tell- already,” Grant scoffs of the urban ingly, while everyone else was enjoying beach at Pier Park. “There’s sand down brunch at the Brixton, Grant and Par- there, but you can’t swim in the Fraser komenko were ordering beers.) New River. It’s fucking dirty, dude!” Waste’s “Final Ripper” is a scorching Black Wizard might not think it’s shot of adrenaline that’s all about keep- the best spot for a beach day, but you ing the good times going at any cost, could make an argument that it’s saving peace of mind for the afterlife. a great place to get wasted. “It’s kind of a joke on the way we handle shit and go about with our Black Wizard plays a New Waste band’s image,” Grant says with a release party at the Rickshaw on Satsmirk. “Bluntly, the song is about urday (February 27).

Local Motion

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FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 39

MAR 6

wisehall.ca

FEB 25

FEB 29

MAR 2

MAR 17

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

Scan to confess Dating for Introverts Someone should make a dating website/app for introverts and people looking for deep connections. No photos, people are matched according to answers to a questionnaire, and a period of anonymous courting must precede an in-person meeting. There appears to be a (niche) market for that.

The more people swear the less I care what they think.

Housing Prices I sold my house a couple of years ago and bought a condo in a more desirable area. I love it but now I’m kicking myself because I may never be able to own my own piece of land again. How can anyone afford the overly inflated prices on a modest income? Even the houses in/and past Surrey are insanely priced. sigh.

I hate it when people I don’t know... Say my name repeatedly. For instance if I have to call a service provider for help, or if I meet someone in a formal situation. It comes across as phony. Stop it.

What’s ‘COOL’ in Vancouver Ya know what? I’ve been in this town for 21 years. I have had some acknowledgments in a couple of independent films. I’m a writer. I write. my stuff has been used. Am I described as a writer. NO. meanwhile there are ‘musicians’ ‘painters’ ‘multimedia artists’ who are described as such and have never been commissioned, never do gigs and overall just walk around calling themselves ‘artists’ ... now Trevor Risk has made being a sports fan ‘cool’.........can you believe it? WTF....

Visit

to post a Confession

music/ timeout CONCERTS < CLUBS & VENUES < OUT OF TOWN <

CONCERTS 2JUST ANNOUNCED THE BILLS The Rogue Folk Club presents Canadian acoustic-folk group. Mar 3, 8 pm, St. James Hall (3214 W. 10th). Tix $24/20, info www.roguefolk. bc.ca/concerts/ev16030320/. SHARON SHANNON The Rogue Folk Club and CelticFest Vancouver present Irish folk multi-instrumentalist. Mar 13, 8 pm, St. James Hall (3214 W. 10th). Tix $40/36, info www. roguefolk.bc.ca/concerts/ev16031320/. THE AGE OF ELECTRIC Canadian rock band tours with original lineup. Apr 30, doors 8 pm, show 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix on sale Feb 26, 10 am, $35 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. DAMIEN JURADO Seattle indie singersongwriter tours in support of latest release Visions of Us on the Land, with guest Ben Abraham. May 14, doors 7 pm, show 8:30 pm, Biltmore Cabaret (2755 Prince Edward). Tix on sale Feb 26, 10 am, $18 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat, Zulu Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/. VIOLENT FEMMES Alt-rock band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, tours behind its first full-length album in 15 years We Can Do Anything. May 15, doors 7 pm, show 8:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix on sale Feb 26, 10 am, $39.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. PAUL SIMON American rock-pop singersongwriter (“Kodachrome”, “Mother and Child Reunion”). May 26, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre (650 Hamilton). Tix on sale Feb 26, 10 am, $164.50/104.50/64.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. CHICAGO American horn-infused rock band (“Make Me Smile”, “Saturday in the Park”). Jun 16-17, River Rock Casino (8811 River Rd., Richmond). Tix on sale Feb 26, 10 am, $109.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.riverrock.com/.

2THIS WEEK MONSTER TRUCK As part of the Straight Series, Canadian rock band tours in support of upcoming album Sittin’ Heavy, with guests the Temperance Movement. Feb 25, doors 8 pm, show 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix $29.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. THE CROOKED BROTHERS Winnipeg folk-blues band performs with James Lamb and the Crackling. Feb 25, 8 pm, WISE Hall (1882 Adanac). Tix $15, info www. facebook.com/events/663623453778988/. TRASH TALK American hardcore-punk band performs with Cherchez and Kash Honey. Feb 25, 8 pm, Venue (881 Granville). Tix $20 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat, Zulu Records, and www.bplive.ca/. THE BUMPER JACKSONS The Rogue Folk Club presents American traditionalfolk ensemble. Feb 25, 8 pm, St. James Hall (3214 W. 10th). Tix $24/20, info www. roguefolk.bc.ca/concerts/ev16022520/.

INDIGENOUS UNITE INDUSTRY NIGHT Suzette Amaya and DJ O Show host a night of pop, hip-hop, contemporary, and traditional music as part of the Talking Stick Festival. Feb 25, 10 pm, Studio Records (919 Granville). Tix $15/12, info www.talkingstickfest.ca/.

LE1F American rapper tours in support of debut release Riot Boi. Mar 1, doors 9 pm, show 10 pm, Alexander Gastown (91 Powell). NOTE: Moved from original date of Feb 29. Tix $18 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat, Zulu Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/.

INDIGO GIRLS American folk-rock duo tours in support of sixth studio album One Lost Day, with guest Lucy Wainwright Roche. Feb 26, doors 7 pm, show 8:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix $40 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

CLUBS & VENUES

BOWIE TRIBUTE NIGHT Local bands Orchard Pinkish, Pill Squad, and Toxiks celebrate the music of David Bowie. Proceeds go to the Canadian Cancer Society and Keep A Child Alive. Feb 26, 7 pm, Rickshaw Theatre (254 E. Hastings). Tix $12 (plus service charges and fees), info https://www.facebook.com/ events/917709501658562/. LADIES, SING THE BLUES Blues music by Joani Bye, Amanda Dean, Lisa Elliott Fennell, Kirsten Nash, and Rob Montgomery’s All-Star Band. Feb 26, 8 pm, Edgewater Casino (750 Pacific Blvd. S). Tix $10, info www.stadiumclub.ticketleap.com/. EILEN JEWELL The Rogue Folk Club presents American alt-country singersongwriter touring in support of latest release Sundown Over Ghost Town. Feb 26, 8 pm, St. James Hall (3214 W. 10th). Tix $28/24, info www.roguefolk.bc.ca/concerts/ev16022620/. CLASSIFIED Nova Scotia rapper tours in support of upcoming release Greatful, with guest Sonreal. Feb 27, doors 8 pm, show 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix at www.livenation.com/.

on the web!

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

www.straight.com

BEYOND THE CONFINES Vancouver alt-rock band, with guests Dark Stone and Chelsea’s Tail. Feb 27, doors 7 pm, Venue (881 Granville). Tix $13/10, info www.venuelive.ca/. DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER American jazz vocalist performs with Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. Feb 27, 8 pm, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts (6265 Crescent Rd., UBC). Tix $44-86, info www.chancentre.com/. OLIVER SWAIN’S BIG MACHINE The Rogue Folk Club presents Canadian folk-traditional singer-songwriter touring in support of new album Never More Together. Feb 27, 8 pm, St. James Hall (3214 W. 10th). Tix $20/16, info www.rogue folk.bc.ca/concerts/ev16022720/. NOURA MINT SEYMALI Mauritian worldrock musician performs with guitarist and husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly. Feb 28, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts (2055 Purcell Way). Tix $30/27, info www.capilanou.ca/ blueshorefinancialcentre/15-NouraMint-Seymali/. NIGHTCRAWLERS WITH DAWN PEMBERTON Vancouver jazz quintet coheadlines with local powerhouse vocalist. Presented by Coastal Jazz as part of its Women in Jazz series. Feb 28, 8 pm, Frankie’s (765 Beatty). Tix $15, info www.coastaljazz.ca/. ST. LUCIA South African-born, Brooklynbased electronica musician tours in support of latest album Matter, with guest Grace Mitchell. Mar 1, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Venue (881 Granville). Tix $22.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/. LAKE STREET DIVE Brooklyn-based jazz-pop band tours in support of upcoming debut release Side Pony, with guests the Suffers. Mar 1, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, The Imperial (319 Main). Tix $25 (plus service charges and fees) at Zulu, Highlife Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/.

ALEXANDER GASTOWN 91 Powell, 778379-0407. 2SAFE Feb 26 2NÜ MONTHLY POP-UP Feb 27 2REQUEST LINE Feb 28 2LE1F Mar 1 2J DILLA TRIBUTE Mar 3 2VINYL SWAP Mar 6 2LIL UZI VERT X PLAYBOI CARTI Mar 10 2KAWEHI Mar 19 2ONEMAN B2B MY NU LENG Mar 26 2BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD AND CHAD VALLEY Apr 30 2BREAKBOT May 28 BACKSTAGE LOUNGE Arts Club Theatre, 1585 Johnston, Granville Island, 604-6871354. Vancouver’s only live-music venue on the water, with music nightly. Hot Jazz night on Tue. BILTMORE CABARET 2755 Prince Edward, 604-676-0541. 2HARI KONDABOLU Feb 25 2JOSEPH Mar 4 2AOIFE O’DONOVAN Mar 5 2RUN RIVER NORTH Mar 8 2ELAQUENT Mar 9 2ROBYN HITCHCOCK Mar 10 2RADIATION CITY & DEEP SEA DIVER Mar 17 2JEREMY ALLINGHAM Mar 18 2GREG DULLI Mar 22 2CHAIRLIFT Mar 24 2RADIO RADIO Mar 26 2RA RA RIOT Mar 31 2GOLDROOM Apr 2 2THE BIG PINK Apr 25 2WILD NOTHING Apr 26 2BLEACHED Apr 28 2AIDAN KNIGHT Apr 29 2COASTS May 8 2DAMIEN JURADO May 14 2TITUS ANDRONICUS May 28 2ISLANDS Jun 4 BIMINI PUBLIC HOUSE 2010 W. 4th, 604733-7116. Twenty-four taps of rotating and interesting craft beers. Pub trivia Mon; beer club Tue; Wing Wed; dance party Fri-Sat; happy hour 3-6 pm. CINEMA PUBLIC HOUSE 901 Granville, 604-694-0202. Pub featuring craft beer and cocktails, pub food, late-night menu, and weekend brunch. DJs all night Wed-Sun. Happy hour 3-6 pm. COBALT 917 Main, 778-918-3671. 2SAM OUTLAW Feb 27 2REDRICK SULTAN Mar 3 2ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER Mar 4 2ANDERSON EAST Mar 5 2WHITE LUNG Mar 11 2ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE Mar 19 2COUNTERPARTS Mar 24 2ALEX G AND PORCHES Mar 26 2LITTLE GREEN CARS Mar 31 2PRINCE RAMA Apr 2 2LUKE RATHBORNE: CANCELLED Apr 3 2BANE Apr 5 2MATTHEW LOGAN VASQUEZ Apr 9 2FAT WHITE FAMILY Apr 23 COMMODORE BALLROOM 868 Granville, 604-739-4550. 2MONSTER TRUCK Feb 25 2INDIGO GIRLS Feb 26 2CLASSIFIED Feb 27 2FRANK TURNER & THE SLEEPING SOULS Mar 3 2CANNIBAL CORPSE Mar 4 2DELHI 2 DUBLIN Mar 5 2REBELUTION Mar 6 2ANJUNABEATS Mar 10 2DISTURBED Mar 11 2THE WAILERS Mar 12 2MOTOWN MELTDOWN Mar 19 2AFRO-CUBAN ALL STARS: CANCELLED Mar 20 2WINTERSLEEP Mar 25 2WOLFMOTHER Apr 1 2THE DECIBEL MAGAZINE TOUR 2016 Apr 2 2CIARA Apr 5 2I MOTHER EARTH Apr 8 2MIIKE SNOW Apr 9 2THE ARCS Apr 11 2GARY CLARK JR. Apr 12 2SPIRIT OF THE WEST Apr 15 2COLLECTIVE SOUL Apr 17 2ST. GERMAIN Apr 18 2COURTNEY BARNETT Apr 19 2LUSH Apr 21 2ADAM CAROLLA Apr 22 2YEARS & YEARS Apr 29 2THE AGE OF ELECTRIC Apr 30 2FOUR TET May 1 2THE HEAVY May 2 2VIOLENT FEMMES May 15 2AMON AMARTH May 16 2CHARLES BRADLEY AND HIS EXTRAORDINAIRES May 20 2BLACK MOUNTAIN May 21 2THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE May 23 2OH WONDER May 28 2AT THE DRIVE-IN Jun 7 2QUEER AS FUNK! Jul 29 DOOLIN’S IRISH PUB 654 Nelson, 604605-4343. Live music Sun-Thu, with acoustic soloist or duo Sun-Wed and live band Thu DJ Fri-Sat. FORTUNE SOUND CLUB 147 E. Pender, 604-569-1758. 2MIKE STUD Mar 3 2GOLDLINK Mar 4 2PROTOMARTYR

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ST. JAMES HALL 3214 W. 10th, 604-7363022. 2THE BUMPER JACKSONS Feb 25 2EILEN JEWELL Feb 26 2OLIVER SWAIN’S BIG MACHINE Feb 27 2THE BILLS Mar 3 2LENNIE GALLANT Mar 4 2MOLL Mar 10 2SHARON SHANNON Mar 13

AND CHASTITY BELT Mar 8 2YOUNG FATHERS Mar 19 2YUCK Mar 29 2CULLEN OMORI Apr 2 2OPERATORS Apr 5 2A TRIBE CALLED RED Apr 6 2LAPSLEY Apr 26

2BAG RAIDERS Mar 4 2DAMIEN DEMPSEY Mar 5 2SOAK. Mar 7 2SILVERSTEIN Mar 8 2JUNIOR BOYS Mar 10 2WE ARE THE CITY Mar 11 2KELTIC LANDING Mar 17 2ELECTRIC SIX Mar 23 2POLICA Mar 30 2QUANTIC Apr 9 2AURORA Apr 10 2PETE YORN Apr 11 2THE STORY SO FAR Apr 18 2SLOAN Apr 20 2TORTOISE Apr 28 2BOMBINO Apr 30 2MAGIC MAN & THE GRISWOLDS May 3 2LUCIUS May 10 2SAINT MOTEL May 22 2SAVAGES May 27

FOX CABARET 2321 Main. 2TEEN ANGST NIGHT Feb 25 2CBC LITERARY PRIZES AND THE FLAME Mar 10 2AMELIA CURRAN Mar 11 2RAPP BATTLEZ WEZT COAZT Mar 19 2FAST ROMANTICS Mar 24 2SARAH NEUFELD Mar 26 2ELEPHANT REVIVAL Apr 7 2SAID THE WHALE May 7 FRANKIE’S 765 Beatty, 778-727-0337. 2NIGHTCRAWLERS WITH DAWN PEMBERTON Feb 28 2HELEN SUNG QUARTET/JODI PROZNICK QUARTET Mar 2 2CHAMPIAN FULTON QUARTET PLUS MAYA RAE Mar 4 2HELEN HANSEN QUARTET Mar 6 2STRONG WOMEN STRONG MUSIC SERIES Mar 8

IVANHOE PUB 1038 Main, 604-608-1444. 2SAINTS AND SINNERS Feb 26 2CHRIS NEWTON BAND Feb 27 2SONS OF THE HOE Feb 28 LAMPLIGHTER PUBLIC HOUSE 92 Water, 604-687-4424. Pub trivia with Nice Guys Inc. Tue; bourbon and bingo Wed; Rocksteady with DJs Arems, Hoppa & Rexx Thu; FKYA DJs Fri; DJ Antonia & Friends Sat.

FUNKY WINKER BEANS 37 W. Hastings, 604-764-7865. 2XANADUDES (RUSH TRIBUTE), KILLING MACHINE (JUDAS PRIEST TRIBUTE), RED LINES (TEENAGE HEAD TRIBUTE) Feb 26 2DESTROY THE DESTROYER, LUNGFLOWER, HALLUX, GANGLYON Feb 27 2S.K.A.M., THE BRASS ACTION Mar 2 2SCARYOKE WITH WENDY 13 Mar 4 2AGGRESSION, VANTERA (PANTERA TRIBUTE), STRONGER THAN DEATH (BLS TRIBUTE), THE FIFTH CIRCLE Mar 5 2DAYGLO ABORTIONS, OBSCENE BEING, SEXY DECOY, THE TARLEKS Mar 11

MEDIA CLUB 695 Cambie, 604-6082871. 2HEY MARSEILLES Mar 4 2RIPPLE ILLUSION Mar 5 2WE HUNT BUFFALO Mar 11 2NAP EYES Mar 26 2MOTHERS Mar 27 2THE SUBWAYS Apr 26 2KEVIN MORBY Jun 7 ORPHEUM THEATRE 601 Smithe, 604-6653050. 2HEART Mar 8 2LEON BRIDGES Mar 15 2FATHER JOHN MISTY Apr 5 2CHICK COREA AND BELA FLECK Apr 22 2RAFFI Apr 23 2JAMES BAY Apr 27 2ANDREW BIRD May 21

HARD ROCK CASINO VANCOUVER 2080 United Blvd., Coquitlam, 604-523-6888. 2ED KOWALCZYK Mar 3 2IMAGINE FUNDRAISER Mar 5 2TONY ORLANDO Apr 9 2GEORGE THOROGOOD & THE DESTROYERS Apr 21 2JOE SATRIANI Apr 24

QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE 650 Hamilton, 604-665-3050. 2GENERATION AXE Apr 6 2TWENTY ONE PILOTS Apr 10 2RAIN Apr 20 2PAUL SIMON May 26 2LAMB OF GOD Jun 1 2JOE JACKSON Jun 24 2TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND Jun 28 2IL DIVO Nov 6

THE IMPERIAL 319 Main, 604-868-0494. 2LAKE STREET DIVE Mar 1

REPUBLIC 958 Granville, 604-669-3214. House, hip-hop, EDM, chart, and reggae. Open nightly from 10 pm to 3 am. RICKSHAW THEATRE 254 E. Hastings, 604-681-8915. 2CRADLE OF FILTH Feb 24 2BOWIE TRIBUTE NIGHT Feb 26 2BONGZILLA & BLACK COBRA Mar 4 2THE WHAMMYS: A NIGHT OUT FOR MUSIC HEALS Mar 5 2REVEREND HORTON HEAT Mar 10 2DEAD ASYUM AND SAINTS OF DEATH Mar 11 2CARAVAN CABARET Mar 12 2KYTAMI Mar 18 2ANIMAL BODIES Mar 19 2THIS WILL DESTROY YOU Mar 20 2GREENSKY BLUEGRASS Mar 24 2NEW MUSIC SHOWCASE Mar 25 2COMEDY SHOCKER: THROUGH A BLACK LENS Mar 26 2WEEDEATER Mar 28 2DIARRHEA PLANET Apr 1 2LA FIN ABSOLUTE DU MONDE Apr 7 2MODIFIED GHOST FESTIVAL 2016 Apr 9 2DUNCAN TRUSSELL STAND UP COMEDY BUS TOUR Apr 27 2KVELERTAK May 2 2KID CONGO & THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS May 7 2LUCA TURILLI’S RHASPODY AND PRIMAL FEAR May 9 2DIANA ARBENINA & THE NIGHT SNIPERS May 19 2BUZZCOCKS May 21 2KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD May 28 RIVER ROCK SHOW THEATRE River Rock Casino Resort, 8811 River Rd., Richmond, 604-247-8900. 2THE NYLONS Apr 9 ROGERS ARENA 800 Griffiths Way, 604-8997400. 2BLACK SABBATH Mar 7 2JUSTIN BIEBER Mar 11 2ELLIE GOULDING Apr 1 2IRON MAIDEN Apr 10 2RIHANNA Apr 23 2THE WHO May 13 2SELENA GOMEZ May 14 2HEDLEY May 20 2CITY AND COLOUR Jun 3 2JAMES TAYLOR AND HIS ALL-STAR BAND Jun 11 2DIXIE CHICKS Jul 7 2ADELE Jul 20 2DEMI LOVATO AND NICK JONAS Aug 24

VENUE 881 Granville, 604-646-0064. 2TRASH TALK Feb 25 2BEYOND THE CONFINES Feb 27 2ST. LUCIA Mar 1 2ERUPTION Mar 5 2THE REAL MCKENZIES Mar 10 2IAN FLETCHER THORNLEY Mar 12 2ULI JON ROTH’S ULTIMATE GUITAR EXPERIENCE Mar 19 2THE WILD FEATHERS Mar 31 2ATLAS GENIUS Apr 2 2NIYAZ AND ADHAM SHAIKH Apr 7 2FILTER Apr 16 2GIN WIGMORE Apr 26 2NAPALM DEATH AND MELVINS May 2 2NADA SURF May 17 2AUTOLUX May 28 2PRONG May 29 2PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT Nov 1 VOGUE THEATRE 918 Granville, 604569-1144. 2VINCE STAPLES Mar 1 2THE IRISH ROVERS Mar 17 2DAUGHTER Mar 18 2RACHEL PLATTEN Mar 28 2ALESSIA CARA Mar 29 2JOANNA NEWSOM Mar 30 2YUNG LEAN Mar 31 2KILLSWITCH ENGAGE Apr 3 2TINASHE Apr 10 2SANTIGOLD Apr 11 2HOPSIN Apr 14 2BOYCE AVENUE Apr 15 2BEACH HOUSE Apr 30 2CHE MALAMBO May 20 2MODERAT May 23 2JOHN PRINE Jul 9 WISE HALL 1882 Adanac, 604-254-5858. 2THE CROOKED BROTHERS Feb 25 2TABOO REVUE: FRISKY FEBRUARY Feb 27 2DROP-IN STITCH & CRAFT Feb 29 2AN EVENING WITH NICHOLAS KRGOVICH IN WISE LOUNGE Mar 2 2SHE Mar 5 2AN EVENING OF SONG Mar 6 2THE ANNUAL WISE ST. PADDY’S DAY BASH Mar 17 2FOOD NOT BOMBS VANCOUVER Mar 18 2SONGS FROM THE BLACK LODGE Mar 19 2LOCARNO Mar 26 2HAYSEED DIXIE Apr 16

OUT OF TOWN 2THIS WEEK CARLY RAE JEPSEN Pop superstar from Mission (“Call Me Maybe”). Feb 29, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Showbox at the Market (Seattle). Tix from US$25 (plus service charge) at www.axs.com/.

NO COVER

THE ROXY 932 Granville, 604-331-7999. House band Tattoo Alibi Sat & Mon; country band Locked & Loaded Sun; the Bulge and DJ Joe Pound Tue; Troys ‘R Us WedThu. 2THE TODDCAST PODCAST CHEAP THRILLS 3 Feb 25 2ECHO NEBRASKA Mar 4

FEB 26 SAINTS AND SINNERS FEB 27 CHRIS NEWTON GANG FEB 28 SONS OF THE HOE

DAILY SPECIALS, THURS POOL TOURNAMENT

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FRI FEB 26 HEAVY TRIBUTES * XANADUDES [RUSH] * KILLING MACHINE [JUDAS PRIEST] * RED LINES [TEENAGE HEAD] * SAT FEB 27 * DESTROY THE DESTROYER * LUNGFLOWER * HALLUX * GANGLYON * WED MAR 2 * S.K.A.M. * A SKA MONTHLY EVENT * WITH GUESTS * THE BRASS ACTION * S.K.A. * 7- 10PM * FRI MAR 4 * SCARYOKE WITH WENDY 13 * FREE SAT MAR 5 SARAH’S BIRTHDAY BASH * AGGRESSION * VANTERA [PANTERA] * STRONGER THAN DEATH [BLS TRIBUTE] * THE FIFTH CIRCLE * FRI MAR 11

CHRIS WALTER BOOK RELEASE FOR

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

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arlier this month, a new term entered She wouldn’t say whether she thinks public B.C.’s real-estate lexicon. Shadow flip- confidence would be enhanced if B.C. real-esping, in which a contract to purchase tate regulators had fi xed terms of employment. a home is sold multiple times, unbe“That’s a practice that exists in other jurisknownst to the original seller, became a hot dictions,” she said. “I can see why that’s done. topic of discussion following a Family Day news But, again, I would come back to my expericonference by NDP housing critic David Eby. ence. I don’t feel as though my ability to do my Eby also alleged that some real-estate agents job is compromised by not being appointed for were not disclosing the proper address of for- a fi xed term.” eign buyers on documents fi led with the FinanMunicipal and provincial politicians come cial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre under fire sometimes for taking large contribuof Canada, which is in the business of pre- tions from people in the real-estate industry. venting money-laundering. This, too, can undermine That prompted the B.C. the public’s confidence that Liberal government to apthere is a level playing field. point Financial Institutions When asked about this, RogCharlie Smith Commission CEO Carolyn ers replied that it’s “difficult” Rogers to chair an independent advisory group to for her to envision her group examining how review the Real Estate Council of B.C.’s (RECBC) provincial political campaigns are financed. handling of misconduct by licensed members. On “I’m not going to presume the scope of the February 22, Rogers named seven members to the review before we have an opportunity to talk,” group, including Tony Gioventu, executive direc- she added. tor of the Condominium Home Owners’ AssociaOn February 23, Eby wrote a letter to Rogers tion of B.C., and real-estate agent Carol Geurts. and the other advisory-group members saying In a phone interview with the Georgia B.C. needs an “investigative body, not an opinStraight, Rogers said her primary objective is to ion panel”. make certain that the real-estate sector is act“Too often, whether the matter is tax evaing in the public interest and that regulators are sion through misrepresentation, predatory ensuring this is occurring. She also said that marketing, enabling circumventing of anti– the advisory group wants to make sure that the money laundering protections, or so-called public has confidence in the advice and service ‘shadow flipping’, the public has learned about that they receive from real-estate agents. corrosive practices of some real estate agents “If we see a need to do so, we will make legis- through the media, not through the industry’s lative recommendations,” Rogers said. self-governing body detecting and removing Rogers is also B.C.’s superintendent of real the licenses of those engaged in such practiestate. In this role, she can appeal the RECBC’s ces,” he alleged in the letter. decisions to the Financial Services Tribunal or Eby also claimed in the letter that the RECBC take her own regulatory action against licensees. waits for complaints rather than conducting “I don’t report to the council,” Rogers said. proactive investigations, audits, and interviews. “So, in my view, I meet the test of independence.” “You must be active, not passive, in order to In many jurisdictions, regulators are ap- fulfi l the role that has been assigned to you,” pointed to fi xed terms of office to make it Eby advised, “and to be active, you will require more difficult for them to be fired for political resources.” reasons. In some cases, those terms are set so To that end, he recommended that the adthey don’t coincide with the government’s visory group retain a team of auditors and term in power. Rogers reports to the legisla- investigators, noting that these staff shouldn’t ture through Finance Minister Mike de Jong, come from the B.C. Real Estate Council or the but she maintained that she operates free from superintendent of real estate’s office. political interference. “You will have the full support of the Offi“I’m not appointed to a fixed term,” she ac- cial Opposition for the time and resources you knowledged. “But I operate day to day independ- need to do this investigation,” the NDP housently of government.” ing critic promised. -

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FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 43

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savage love Gay, thirtysomething male

in D.C. My boyfriend of three years has been acting strange—not taking his antidepression meds, says he’s feeling weird. He has withdrawn from me, sleeps 15 hours a day, and has been cancelling on commitments to socialize with friends. That I am fine with—he’s blue and I get it. Here’s why I’m writing: he was doing an online crossword, and when he got up, I was going to write a message in it—to be funny and sweet. What I saw messed me up. There was a browser window open about meth and depression. He is 48 and successful and isn’t a clubber or partygoing type. Meth? What the hell? I snooped further, and there was a detailed search history on meth, meth and depression, meth and sex. He doesn’t seem to have been high around me—and I would never use meth; it’s not my thing and I have a security clearance (no drugs for me, ever)—but I don’t want to date an addict. I don’t want to be with someone who would take such a dumb risk. And for what? Dude! You’re 48, you have a career, a business, and a guy who cares for you! WTF?!? I know what you’ll say: use your words—and, trust me, I will. But am I totally crazy? I feel shitty for having snooped, but it started innocently enough with me wanting to write a goofy note on his crossword puzzle. > SNOOP NOW ALL FUCKED UP

Meth addicts aren’t known for sleeping 15 hours a day, SNAFU. Meth addicts aren’t known for sleeping at all. So perhaps your boyfriend abused meth before you met—and there’s no using

meth, only abusing meth—and conquered his addiction and/or stopped abusing meth years ago. And now he’s depressed and off his meds, and he went online to investigate whether his past meth abuse could be contributing to his current depression. As for the snooping angle… When we snoop, we sometimes find out things we don’t want to know, don’t need to know, and don’t need to do anything about. For example, the new boyfriend has a few sexts from his ex tucked away on his computer; your dad is cheating on his third wife; your adult daughter is selling her used panties online. But sometimes we fi nd out things we needed to know and have to do something about. For example, your 14-year-old daughter is planning to meet up with a 35-year-old man she met on Instagram; your “straight” boyfriend is having unsafe sex with dozens of men behind your back; your spouse is planning to vote for Ted Cruz—in those cases, you have to intervene, break up, and fi le for civil commitment, respectively. Learning your depressed-andoff-his-meds boyfriend may have— or may have had—a meth problem falls into the needed to know/have to do something about category. So, yeah, SNAFU, you gotta use your words. Go to your boyfriend, tell him what you discovered and how you discovered it, and demand an explanation while offering to help. Urge him to see his doctor—whoever prescribed the antidepressants he stopped taking—and go into the

> BY DAN SAVAGE more than I ever thought was possible. I’m open about the fact that I fuck around a lot and that monogamy would never work for me. I use condoms with everyone except my primary partner, and I abide by your campsite rule. I don’t want to be anyone’s wonderful husband; I want to be the Casanova who climbs in through the window. Last week, the Internet was good at delivering. Usually, I can talk to 10 women who all seem interested, but in the end, only one or two want to actually meet. But last week, I had sex five times in five days with five different women. And that just made me feel awesome, turned-on, and wonderful. Is there a term for someone who gets turned-on by fi nding new people to have sex with? Have I discovered a new kink? Is there a name for people like me? If there is, I couldn’t find it. Google failed me. Can a person have a kink for finding new sex partners? What would it be called? Or am I just a slutty man whore?

convo armed with a list of the resources available to him. “We’re lucky to have a lot of great resources in D.C.,” said David Mariner, executive director of the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community (www.thedccenter.org/). “The Triangle Club [www.triangleclub.org/] is an LGBT recovery house, and they host all sorts of 12-step meetings. Crystal Meth Anonymous is really active here. And we’re just kicking off a harm-reduction group here at the D.C. Center.” I asked Mariner if your boyfriend sounded to him like someone currently abusing meth. “I’m not an expert,” Mariner replied, “but he doesn’t sound like it to me. He may be having a hard time talking to his boyfriend about this because for folks who have a history of meth use, sex can be tricky. Meth use and sexual activity are often so intertwined that it can make it hard to talk to a partner.” Finally, SNAFU, don’t make it harder for your partner to be honest with you by threatening to break up with him. You don’t have to remain in a relationship with an addict—if, indeed, he is an addict—forever. But start by showing him compassion and offering support. You can make up your mind about your future—whether you have one together—during a subsequent conversation.

> DUDE DRINKING DEEP

I don’t think “drinking deep from the bowels of [blank]” is a good way to describe something you enjoy, DDD. Watching a GOP debate? Perhaps best described as drinking deep from the bowels of the terrifying American id. Enjoying consensual sex with people you’re into? Better described as “drinking deep from Aphrodite’s honeyed mouth” or “licking Adonis’s jizz off Antinous’s tits” or simply “killing it”—really, anything would be an improvement.

I’m a

36-year-old hetero male, into BDSM and polyamory. I’ve been drinking deep from the bowels of the Internet lately, getting laid

As for what your kink is called… “What DDD describes is consistent with a motivational style once called Don Juan syndrome,” said David Ley, author and clinical psychologist. “It has also been called Casanova or James Bond syndrome. Essentially, these are folks most excited by the quest/hunt for novelty in sex partners. This was once viewed as deeply dysfunctional from a heteronormative, monogamy-idealizing therapeutic culture. What I appreciate about DDD is that, even though he uses sex-addiction language, it’s clear he has accepted himself and his desire. I’d say he has adapted fairly well, and responsibly, to that tendency in himself.”

I just posted a new word on the Physician Moms Facebook group and was told that I should send it to you. I got tired of hearing “She’s got balls,” so I made up a new word, clitzpah (“klitspe”), noun: a woman with guts! Origin of clitzpah: clitoris (“kli-teres”), noun: an organ of the female genitalia, the purpose of which is purely to bring women pleasure, and chutzpah (“hut-spe”), noun: a Yiddish term for courage bordering on arrogance. I hope this is useful! > JILL BECKER, CLITZPAH.COM

It’s a lovely word, Jill—and I’m happy to help you roll it out! Listen to Dan’s podcast every week at savagelovecast.com/ . Email: mail@savagelove.net . Follow Dan on Twitter at www.twitter.com/fakedansavage/.

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> BY ROSE MARCUS

February 25 to March 2, 2016

more. March 8 delivers a super new- immersed. You can easily lose track moon solar eclipse in Pisces involving of time. Monday through Wednese’ll have no problem Jupiter, the big planet. Keep on watch; day, you’re back in action. handling an extra day don’t underestimate the moment! CANCER of this one. The stars ARIES June 21–July 22 are on an ease-it-along March 20–April 20 Hey, sexy, take your track through the end of February. For the most part, you snake-charmer self out for a test The Libra moon and Mercury in Aquarius have a good grip on the end should find yourself on a smooth drive Saturday/Sunday. You don’t of the workweek. Thursday is a pro- move-along through the end of have to work it; it’ll come naturally to ductive one for getting down to busi- the month. There’s no lack of fresh you. The Pisces sun well aligned with ness. Friday finishes on the upbeat. things to pique your interest and Neptune and the Scorpio moon also Join the after-work crowd. Moon, people to engage with. Mercury and keeps your creativity and negotiating Mercury, and Uranus keep the con- Venus in Aquarius keeps the get-go skill in excellent flow. Of course you versation lively. This fresh-fuel trio is stimulating and social. Aim for ro- can write the weekend off if you want great for an early start to your even- mance, an escape, or let inspiration to, but come Monday, plan to hit it find you. It’s a great weekend to full-tilt. ing’s entertainment. It’s a hit-it-just-right weekend, no completely immerse yourself. LEO matter how you choose to play it. TAURUS July 22–August 23 The Scorpio moon holds our interest April 20–May 21 Mercury in good shape on and intrigue, while the Pisces sun, Looking for love, more Thursday/Friday keeps you getting beautifully aligned with Neptune, keeps us open, inspired, and hopeful. money, or more meaning to your around, motoring along, and timing It’s a great lineup for romance, for life? There’s plenty of good poten- it just right. Home matters, family dreaming and creative conjuring. Let tial out there and there’s no need to keep you well occupied for the weekthe movie, the music, or the moment struggle or to force a thing. Get up end. Stay in Saturday night, keep sweep you away. Seek a spiritual top- to something or nothing at all; the it quiet, cozy, and private. Monday up, or give it up to your pillow. Indulge weekend is built for ease and for through Wednesday gives you wings. in your favourite vice, but keep the chilling out. Monday onward can re- Use these days to rev it up, take it on, quire more action from you, but still, and/or show them how great you are. morning after in mind. Monday begins the new work- it’s all good. VIRGO week on a relatively straightGEMINI August 23–September 23 forward note. Tuesday is something May 21–June 21 Impulse or the unexpectof an uncertain or mixed-bag day. The end of the workday on ed could see you spend more than Keep at it, though; results are in the works. Midweek, the stars are Friday could see you catch a fresh you plan on Friday. Then again, you on a perk-me-up. Use Wednesday/ wind or get caught up in some- could bank more, too. Saturday/SunThursday to meet up, discuss, pitch, thing last-minute. Spontaneity works day, a talk, negotiation, or look-see best for your evening’s entertain- could clue you in to more than you create, refresh, or explore. The end of next week could kick ment. Friday is your best night out. thought was there. Give benefit of the it up a notch, perhaps unexpectedly. Whether your focus is work, study, doubt, delve deeper, try a fi rst date. There’s more potential building and health, or something personal, Sat- Someone or something can make more on brew than is obvious. Much urday/Sunday keeps you completely quite an impact on you.

‫ﺑ‬

‫ﺎ‬

‫ﺒ‬

‫ﺏ‬

‫ﺓ‬

‫ﺐ‬

‫ﺔ‬

LIBRA

‫ﺕ‬

SCORPIO

September 23–October 23

Venus, Mercury, and the Libra moon make for a great finish to the workweek. Thursday/Friday connection and conversation come readily, naturally, and easily. A first date or fresh attempt sets the stage for more. The weekend can simply evaporate. Helping you to make the most of your time, resources, and relationships, attraction planet Venus is also in good shape Monday through Wednesday. October 23–November 22

The end of the workweek keeps you well occupied and on a smooth accomplishment track. Friday evening is a good one for keeping your lover all to yourself. Come the weekend, you’ll be ready to resurface again and to plug into something fresh. Looking good, sounding good; right place, right time; you had us at “hello”. The Scorpio moon gifts you all weekend.

‫ﺖ‬

SAGITTARIUS

November 22–December 21

‫ﺊ‬

CAPRICORN

‫ﺋ‬

AQUARIUS

‫ﺌ‬

PISCES

December 21–January 20

Give a little, take a little; meet in the middle: cooperation does the trick, and it’s easy to enlist on Thursday/Friday. Stimulating conversation and same-page accord come readily too. A special event is well worth the price of admission. The weekend is great for romance, exploring, and conjuring. You’ll pick up added speed by mid–next week. January 20–February 18

Personally, socially, energyand ideawise, Venus and Mercury in Aquarius do you good justice as the workweek comes to an end and as the new week gets up and rolling. The weekend is also yours to own. The Scorpio moon helps you to make a good dent or an impact. May the force be with you! February 18–March 20

Earning it or spending it, Thursday/Friday are money days. They also light a ready social or romantic spark. A surprise visit, gift, or shower of attention brings delight. Saturday/Sunday are your best in the lust and luscious department. Back to work Monday through Wednesday requires you to stay on top of it. Even so, it’s all good. -

Thursday/Friday are great social or get-out-and-about days. Try a new restaurant, an opening, a date, or let spontaneity choose your Friday-night entertainment. The weekend is ideal for hiding out, for spiritual replenishment, and for getting your relaxation fi ll. Monday afternoon through Wednesday’s peak, the Sagittarius moon will Book a reading or sign up for Rose’s have you nicely refuelled and good free monthly newsletter at www.rose marcus.com/astrolink/. to go again.

> Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < I DRANK YOUR WINE

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 21, 2016 WHERE: Kits You: beautiful woman who brought the dreamy cake to our friends birthday potluck. Me: the handsome weirdo who mistakenly finished your wine. I’m sorry, but maybe you’d be up for a date one day if I get the wine? I donut promise to not be unweird, but I might possibly become your favourite!

EYES LOCK AT THE BISMARCK BAR

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 20, 2016 WHERE: Bismarck Bar Me - attractive Asian female with a couple of friends. You - dark haired handsome male with a group of friends/family. Normally I would never be so shameless. But I couldn’t help myself that night. I had a really strong attraction to you and couldn’t stop staring. Our eyes locked a few times and I’m quite certain you stared back as you were leaving. It’d be a pleasure to become acquainted.

UNICORN HORN

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 20, 2016 WHERE: Parkay Quartz @ Rickshaw I’d like ta get to know ya.

CHRIS AT THE MET

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 20, 2016 WHERE: The Met I came to the Met for some drinks with my brother and his gf and I was shooting you looks the whole night. Pretty sure you were shootin’ em right back at me. This is the second time. I don’t have the guts to ask for your number :( you’re adorable though. Dying here. SO hot.

EYE CONTACT ON THE CANADA LINE

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 20, 2016 WHERE: Canada Line I got on at Cambie station around 5:00 PM, you were around my height, had shoulder length blonde hair and red lipstick. I was the tall guy wearing a blue coat with a burgundy scarf, if I’m not mistaken, we made eye-contact for a split second before turning away from each other. We both got off at Granville station before going our separate ways. It’d be great if we got have a chat sometime.

FASHIONABLE BEAUTY IN THE CONDIMENT AISLE

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 20, 2016 WHERE: IGA, 14th and Main About an hour ago: You were so impossibly cute that I forgot my cider vinegar on the shelf. While passing you, I blurted out a dorky compliment about your outfit and you gushed a thank you. I was paying for my veggies unbeknownst to the fact you were in line behind me. When I whipped out my debit card and saw you smiling at me I almost had a panic attack. Okay, maybe not that bad but I definitely had some butterflies. I must have looked back at you five times in the fifteen steps between the register and the exit and you were still grinning. I don’t normally freeze up in such situations and, if you’re reading, I’d love a chance to redeem myself.

THE SOUND AND THE FURY

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 20, 2016 WHERE: 99 Bus Redhead in black jacket reading this classic on the 99 bus Sat Feb 20th. I’d love to learn more about Faulkner - coffee sometime?

STEALING GLANCES ON THE 99

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 18, 2016 WHERE: 99 B-Line CommercialBroadway We were riding the 99 B-Line headed east to Commercial Drive. I was sitting at the front of the bus and you were two seats away to my right sitting behind a couple. I think you were coming from UBC. I noticed lingering glances from you a couple of times before I got off at Heather Street. You’ve got mesmerizing eyes. You appear tall, have long hair and were wearing a dark jacket and dark jeans. I’m medium complexioned, have salt and pepper hair and wear glasses. Let’s continue glancing over coffee - at a stop along the B-Line of course.

SMOKING AND SWIMMING

ADORABLE BOY IN GYM CLOTHES

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 18, 2016 WHERE: Trapp & Hollbrook Building, New Westminster. On a Thursday afternoon after walking my tiny white and brown dog. You were smiling at me as I almost got off the wrong floor while you were getting in. You kept smiling and I was frozen. You are so young, my tongue was tied. You were absolutely adorable. I got off on the 19th floor and I noticed you live in a penthouse. Next time please say hello.

CROSSED PATHS A FEW TIMES AT THE INDIGO ON BROADWAY & GRANVILLE

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 18, 2016 WHERE: Indigo (Chapters) on Broadway & Granville I first saw you coming up the escalator. You are blonde, have very expressive eyes and you were wearing a pink jacket, if I correctly remember. We glanced at each other and then crossed paths a few more times. I was on the phone at the time, but wished I came and talked to you. I particularly remember the way you were wearing your boots - unzipped on both sides - was very cute. You seemed very laid back. If you see this message and know who I am, I’d love to get in touch with you.

YOU: PERSONAL TRAINER (FEMALE) ON #20 BUS

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 10, 2016 WHERE: Commercial Drive #20 Bus We were going south on Commercial Drive. You were standing, I was sitting. We started to chat, and were especially surprised about our mothers’ names. (You know what I mean.) I was very taken by your smile and your intelligence and your attitude to life. I would really like to get to know you! And... who knows? You are a real gem. Coffee? Dinner? Etcetera?

SKYTRAIN - SCOTT RD COLUMBIA

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 18, 2016 WHERE: Aquatic Center

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 17, 2016 WHERE: SkyTrain Scott Rd & Columbia

Tina, Lisa?... Tuna that’s it. You came out of the dark and made my morning. Nice brain in a beautiful wrapping, your insights and complements had me dazing. Wish to take you out for breakfast. Smarter I would be. Had I asked thee then, or your number when, you said good bye but I had no pen. Left me alone in the shallow end. Wanna do it again... I Do.

You walked onto the SkyTrain at Scott Rd wearing a brown leather jacket, jeans and brown boots. I think you were wearing Mavi jeans as they looked Mavilous on you! Your unique hair had more curls than a weekend Bonspiel. Train was packed but when I caught a glimpse of your face I said to myself... this girl knows how to put it all together. Well done!

WAIKIKI BOUTIQUE HOSTEL HONOLULU

SUPER CUTE WINDOW WASHING GIRL KERRISDALE

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL ON THE BUS

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 17, 2016 WHERE: Honolulu Int’l Airport

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 11, 2016 WHERE: Kerrisdale

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 13, 2016 WHERE: Commercial Drive

I bumped into you at our hostel in Waikiki a few times. Then I bumped into at Air Canada Rouge (HNL to YVR) check-in last night. You were sitting beside my friend in seat 28H. You’re blonde & Dutch. I think you’re cute. Care to swap Hawaii stories sometime?

You were washing windows at my job site and I was the painter guy who opened the door for you when you were leaving. I wish we had a chance to talk. Your beautiful smile made my day. Maybe we can have dinner sometime.

I sat next to you on the #20 bus Saturday night and asked you if anyone had told you that you looked like Maggie Gyllenhaal. You said that you’d heard it before and would take it as a compliment. Then it was my stop.

YOU WERE SO STUNNING

A 10 AT EIGHT AND A HALF

5TH AVE CINEMA - TUES FEB 9TH (VANCOUVER)

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 9, 2016 WHERE: Vancouver, BC This is totally random and perhaps similar to finding a needle in a haystack! “ANYWHO” here it goes... We exchanged several glances and smiles, and I could most definitely feel the electricity. In fact it may have shocked my central nervous system as all I could say on two occasions was a mere “hi”. Well your beauty and energy caught me off guard to say the least... You were sitting across from a blonde woman in the bar area, and shortly afterwards were joined by other friends and / or work colleagues. I am tall, dark, handsome and of course extremely humble ;-) You are also tall, dark and very gorgeous (with stunning eyes). Perhaps we can reconnect and see what fate has in store for us? PS) If you can name the movie we both watched this may be the best Lunar eclipse ever PSS) We also exchanged a glance in the movie which was the early show

SOUTH RICHMOND CONNECTION

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 14, 2016 WHERE: Ironwood Save-On-Foods Valentine's Day at the Ironwood SaveOn-Foods in the afternoon. I was exiting an aisle and there you were, a stunning brunette, 5’7” ish, glasses, wearing a hoodie and jeans. Our eyes locked for a bit and you gave me a little smirk. I was thinking about you all day. I should’ve said something, but it happened all too fast. We should link up sometime.

WE WERE DRESSED THE SAME!

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 15, 2016 WHERE: JJ Bean - Woodwards Building I commented in line that we were dressed the same and my friend working said we looked like we were related. I guess if I find you attractive and we look alike, then I think I’m attractive. That’s cool. I wanted to let you know that was funny and it definitely made my day. I look forward to the family reunion as well.

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 15, 2016 WHERE: JJ Bean You asked if you could sit at the table with me at JJ Bean while I was working on my laptop. I noticed we were having the same coffee! I was too shy to talk to you and tell you how gorgeous you are.

EXTRA MISO-LUCKY-TO-SEEYOU

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 14, 2016 WHERE: The Naam I called in an order and you met me at the register. The first words you said were ‘are you here to pick up?’ - I must have blushed saying ‘yes’, as I was enchanted with how gorgeous you looked. Did we share a moment? I hesitated on asking you out, instantly regretting my choice of attire; jogging pants and hoodie, and worried that a man of your caliber must never be single long. Is there a chance that fate/ luck/timing would all work out for you to be single/interested/and reading this? I’ve never posted in "I Saw You" before, but I would love to see you again...

CUTE AND COMPASSIONATE NURSE

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 11, 2016 WHERE: Production Way SkyTrain Station I saw you at Production station: long brown hair with bangs, dark pink scrubs, a teal stethoscope in a pocket. You took a few steps off the train then sprinted to the end of the platform where a man was lying flat on his face. You crouched down and began talking to him. Curious, I came over and heard you speaking to him so kindly. The man was very drunk and asking you for smokes but you continued to make sure he was OK and speak to him with respect which is so rare. He made a joke and you smiled a beautiful smile, suggested he sit up on a bench, then left to find a SkyTrain worker. Let me buy you a coffee sometime?

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 12, 2016 WHERE: Eight and a Half You were sitting at the end of the bar with a guy who seemed like just a friend (at least I’m hoping he was just a friend). You drank red wine and had the most beautiful infectious laugh. You repeatedly caught my attention with your dark hair, dark dress (might I mention - wow) and high heels. Would love to see you again.

POMPOM JEWELLERY AND ITALIAN RESTAURANTS?

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 12, 2016 WHERE: VCC Downtown You and your classmates were selling jewellery for Valentine’s Day and I dropped by to pick something up for my mom’s birthday. It was the second time I’d seen you there and I really wanted to buy the jewellery you had made - and talk to you a little more - but unfortunately your pompom style just wouldn’t work for my mom. I mentioned an Italian restaurant that I was going to take her to that night and you said you had never been there. I was about to ask if you wanted to go with me sometime, but chickened out with all of the people around. Kicking myself for it now, but if you see this, I’d love to get to know you better.

FLYING FROM PHOENIX TO VANCOUVER

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 11, 2016 WHERE: Phoenix to Vancouver I was boarding my flight home to Vancouver. An older lady was in front of me and I helped her put her bag in the over head. As I made my way to my seat you thanked me for the help and we started chatting while everyone else got seated. Our conversation ended abruptly as you needed to attend to your duties. I was hoping to chat with you again to ask you out before we landed but the opportunity never presented itself; although I did hear you say “bless you” when I started sneezing at the end of the flight. If you see this how about meeting over a drink?

Did you see someone? Go to straight.com to post your FREE I Saw You _ FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 47

48 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 3 / 2016