FREE | MARCH 5 - 12 / 2020
Volume 54 | Number 2719
EDUCATION OPTIONS Road maps to success
KEN LOACH
Sorry for the gig economy
FESTIVAL DU BOIS Yves Lambert living large
Inspiring Women Director Doreen Manuel’s Unceded Chiefs recalls a huge struggle between Indigenous leaders and Pierre Trudeau; plus, Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender ushers in empathy
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GROWING ROOM Literary & Arts Festival // March 11 - 15 // Vancouver
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As Seen on Twitter: Pop Culture as Archive March 14, 10am-12pm @ Emily Carr University
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Steam Whistle Mallory Tater
The Heart of It: A Reading About Family March 14, 1pm-3pm @ Emily Carr University
Helen Knott
Kai Cheng Thom
Indigenous Brilliance March 15, 1pm-9:30pm @ Beaumont Studios (three events)
Keynote by Kai Cheng Thom March 15, 10am-12pm @ Emily Carr University
Events are pay-what-you-can unless otherwise specified. To see the full line-up and schedule, and to register for events, visit festival.roommagazine.com. Walk-ups are welcome. Registration guarantees you a seat but is not necessary to attend events, except workshops.
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11
COVER
Doreen Manuel’s Unceded Chiefs will be screened at the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival.
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Chelsea D.E. Johnson
CONTENTS
By Charlie Smith Cover photo by Taehoon Kim Capilano University
6
FEATURE
Kasari Govender wants to promote a human-rights culture in B.C. of empathy and compassion. By Carlito Pablo
12 EDUCATION
We examine six ways people can further their schooling, and look at a labour dispute about contracted faculty. By Charlie Smith
15 ARTS
Ken Lum was back in town to unveil a new public artwork that questions our notion of progress. By Janet Smith
22 MOVIES
Brit director Ken Loach resumes his career-long attack on capitalism with the great Sorry We Missed You. By Adrian Mack
e Start Here 21 ARTS HOT TICKET 15 ARTS TIP SHEET 6 BOOKS 20 DANCE 21 FOOD 10 HOROSCOPES 21 I SAW YOU 23 MOVIE REVIEWS 24 MUSIC 27 SAVAGE LOVE 19 THEATRE
e Online TOP 5
Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.
1 2 3 4 5
e Listings 21 ARTS 25 MUSIC
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UBC student discovers new planet that might hold liquid water. Chelsea Handler in Whistler to celebrate with drink and a joint. COVID-19 spurs Canada to deter nonessential travel to Italy. Indigenous woman harassed by landlord over smudging. Cute canines: playful beagle puppy available for adoption.
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3 reasons to attend Friday Night Kick Off— the HSBC Canada Sevens Official Pre Party (This story is sponsored by Sport Hosting Vancouver.)
T
he most wonderful time of the year is back for diehard rugby fans and those who simply enjoy day drinking while wearing wild costumes: the HSBC Canada Sevens. On March 7 and 8, B.C. Place Stadium will feature the dynamic rugby tournament that has become a mustattend event for tourists and residents of Vancouver. The HSBC Canada Sevens provides hours of endless entertainment for fans and non-fans alike. To start the fun-filled HSBC Canada Sevens weekend, check out the first ever Friday Night Kick Off party on March 6, from 5 to 10 p.m. This free, family-friendly event will take place at šxwƛ n q Xwtl’e7énk Square, formerly Vancouver Art Gal-¯ lery North Plaza. Parents, this is a superb way to sneakily merge your love for contact sports with family time. Partygoers can expect live music, cold beverages, special guests, giveaways, and delicious food—not a lick of rugby knowledge is required. The venue will be tented to ensure that This year’s HSBC Canada Sevens provides plenty of people-watching, sporting thrills, and, you guessed it, food and drinks. even the rainiest conditions will not Canadian standup comedian THE FOOD AND DRINKS stop attendees from having a memPark Brewing, Mike’s Hard LemFor those who need a rest from onade, BABE Wine, and Red Bull. orable time. Patrick Mahila will emcee the event In case you need a few more reasons and will be giving away tickets to the dancing, the venue will be filled with Parents, this means you can have to attend the HSBC Canada Sevens Of- tournament throughout the evening. picnic tables where party people can a cold beverage while still hanging ficial Pre Party, we will give you three. Party people can take a break from kick back and listen to the music. out with the kids. Guests can refuel with dinner from dancing and schmoozing to watch THE ENTERTAINMENT (or participate in) the #SoFancy7s one of the many food vendors parked THE PEOPLE-WATCHING No party is complete without Costume Catwalk—complete with inside the venue. Take your pick from Isn’t this the reason why people live music, which is why SideOne a photographer and prizes. This can local food trucks including Mini attend events? will be playing all of the classic and provide some costume inspo for those Donuts, G’s Donair, B&B Burger, and Friday Night Kick Off will be filled current hits. Along with the live who plan on attending the rest of the Mr. Tubesteak—but quite honestly, with folks wearing their HSBC Canband, a DJ from Vancouver-based tournament at B.C. Place Stadium. ada Sevens costumes. This means you had us at “mini donuts”. company, Man About Town, will The venue is fully licensed, so that everyone has an extra day to Guests can also get airbrush tatkeep the crowd’s energy up by spin- toos from Tattoos for Now to show guests over the age of 19 can enjoy show off the looks they have creativening the hottest tracks. their support for the Canadian team. a selection of drinks from Stanley ly put together.
21
Not a lick of rugby knowledge is required to have the time of your life.
Those who are having trouble finding the perfect HSBC Canada Sevens outfit can swing by the onsite costume store, More Madness, for some guidance. When it comes to rugby costumes, any–thing goes—from an all-denim Canadian tuxedo to tacky tourist attire and animal onesies. The costume team can help you find a get-up that you’ll feel proud to wear. The on-site vendor will be carrying accessories like hats and feather boas, along with colourful onesies and more. The Friday Night Kick Off is a fantastic place to meet other people with similar interests like drinking beer and performing the wave at sporting events. If you’re a parent, attending the party with your children is also a wonderful way to get them on the rugby bandwagon early. g For more information about Friday Night Kick Off, visit the Facebook event. To grab your tickets to the HSBC Canada Sevens rugby tournament, visit www. canadasevens.com/. Follow HSBC Canada Sevens on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates.
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MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 5
FEATURE
Govender envisions culture of empathy
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by Carlito Pablo
ith its sun-kissed beaches and mix of cultures, Durban in South Africa is a popular destination among travellers. Durban also holds a special place in the chronicles of human-rights advocates around the world. In 2001, the delegates to the third World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance converged on this city by the Indian Ocean. The conference produced the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, a comprehensive document committing nations to the fight against intolerance. “We declare that all human beings are born free, equal in dignity and rights and have the potential to contribute constructively to the development and well-being of their societies,” the Durban Declaration asserted. According to the declaration, any doctrine of racial superiority is “scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and must be rejected along with theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races”. Durban is also special for lawyer Kasari Govender, who assumed office as human rights commissioner of B.C. on September 3, 2019. Her father grew up in Durban, and as someone whose ethnic roots go back to India, he experienced the effects of South Africa’s apartheid system. Like other “coloured” people, Indians were classified as “lesser than white people”, Govender said. Govender recalled that her father’s family were forcibly removed from their home when
Vancouver-born lawyer Kasari Govender is British Columbia’s human-rights commissioner.
the government imposed the Group Areas Act, segregating towns along racial lines. “Growing up with a father who experienced that kind of racism and grew up in such a highly polarized, deeply entrenched, systemically racist country influenced me in a variety of ways,” Govender told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. The passion for human rights also runs deep in her mother, a white woman who was born and raised in Vancouver. Govender related that in 1965, her mother was dragged away by police from a peaceful Toronto sit-in in solidarity with protesters in Selma, Alabama, who were calling for voting rights for black Americans.
A photographer captured the moment for a newspaper’s front page, and Govender’s mother has the picture framed and displayed on her wall. “It’s part of the backdrop of my childhood: the power of peaceful protest and the value in making change in these ways,” Govender said. Her father and mother met in the U.K., where they lived for a number of years. They eventually settled in her mother’s hometown of Vancouver, where the future B.C. human rights commissioner was born and raised. Until her appointment in 2019, Govender was the executive director of West Coast LEAF, an organization dedicated to the cause of women’s equality. LEAF stands for Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund. “I grew up in a feminist environment, inspired by feminists, and have always defined myself that way,” Govender said. Govender’s mother worked as a policy analyst with the B.C. provincial government, with a focus on violence against women and children. “She was instrumental in the development of the VAWIR policy, which is the Violence Against Women in Relationships policy,” Govender said. After retirement from government, her mother worked as a researcher specializing in women’s issues. “It was obviously an inspiration to me in choosing gender as the early focus of my career,” Govender said. As an articling law student, Govender apprenticed at a Toronto firm that included two lawyers who were among the founding mothers of LEAF: Mary Eberts and Beth Symes. “I went out there to article with them, having no idea, of course, what my future involvement
in that organization would be,” she recalled. “It was a source of inspiration for me as I started my career.” When she took her oath of office as B.C. human rights commissioner, Govender told media that she wants to create a “new culture of human rights” in the province. In her Straight interview, Govender explained that although part of the broad area of human-rights work is changing laws and policies in and outside government, her mandate goes beyond that. “It is to change hearts and minds,” Govender said. According to her, education is key in creating systemwide change. “Some of the key goals in this area are knowing our rights and responsibilities and trying to really get that information out there,” Govender said. It also involves “building a culture of data”. “In this day and age, it is quite easy to distrust data,” Govender said. “There’s a lot of leading figures in the world who are talking about undermining science and data and knowledge. And I think, in fact, many of those things can lead to bias, discrimination, inequality, and injustice.” Another piece is “building a culture of empathy and compassion”. In line with this, Govender said, her office is working on storytelling projects about champions for change and the experiences of human-rights advocates in “trying to build our human understanding of each other”. “Hate and white supremacy can arise from a place of ignorance and fear,” Govender said. Govender’s term as B.C. human rights commissioner runs five years. g
Thom lauds love at Growing Room fest
A
by Janet Smith
s author Kai Cheng Thom sat down to write a book of essays in 2019, she saw a world in crisis. Donald Trump was president; right-wing governments were sweeping into power worldwide; climate change and mass extinction loomed. And even in her own community, as a trans woman of colour involved in radical social-justice movements for the marginalized, she was seeing call-out culture, interpersonal violence, and mental illness. Amid it all, the antidote she started to focus on was love. “My emotional and psychological state was pretty high-stress and everyone around me was highstressed as well,” Thom tells the Straight from Toronto, before heading here to be the keynote speaker at Vancouver’s Growing Room feminist literary and arts festival. “The end of the world is happening around us, and in these moments Author Kai Cheng Thom says storytellers give people our vision of the world. of extreme crisis we find out who we are. The darkest extremes of huAs she writes in the resulting book, another in the name of anger and man nature come out. You can see I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s revenge, and it never seems to help it now, with coronavirus: the anti- Notes From the End of the World, “I’ve anyone in the end. So in the midst of see page 8 Asian sentiment comes out.” seen people do awful things to one
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Get the most out of ski and snowboard season with Y2Play (This story is sponsored by Grouse Mountain.)
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hether you’re a shredder, ski bum, or prefer to participate solely in après-ski, you’re probably spending more time on Grouse Mountain than anywhere else. For those who can relate, purchasing a Y2Play Pass will help you maximize your trips to the mountain during the remainder of this ski and snowboard season, and all of next. Located in North Vancouver, Grouse Mountain encompasses 33 ski and snowboard runs, 15 night runs, four chairlifts, six terrain parks, and nine kilometres of snowshoe trails. The bottom of the mountain is easily accessible by public transit and there is free parking available for Evo, Lyft, and personal vehicles. Once at the base, visitors will need to take a short but exhilarating tram ride up to the peak. Pass holders are granted unlimited access to skiing, snowboarding, and other events on the mountain for the rest of the 2020 season and all of next at a discounted rate. This means that you can fully immerse yourself in all that the snowy mountain has to offer without feeling like you’re breaking the bank. Students, parents, and families are eligible for further savings. The team at Grouse Mountain also understands the allure of an out-of-town ski trip, which is why it has partnered with Revelstoke Mountain Resort. This gives Y2Play Pass holders 40 percent off standard rates at The Sutton Place Hotel at Revelstoke Mountain Resort and at Sandman Revelstoke. Additionally, pass holders will receive three free lift tickets to the
Grouse Mountain Y2Play Pass holders enjoy 33 spectacular ski and snowboard runs.
picturesque B.C. ski destination. They will also be given a discount of 50 percent off extra days spent enjoying the snow at Revelstoke Mountain Resort. These deals can save pass holders more than $700. Now, you’ll have to follow through with the weekend getaway that you promised your kids or significant other. To make the Y2Play Pass sound even sweeter, pass holders will also receive: • one free machine ski or snowboardwax plus 20 percent off other tuning services at Grouse Mountain Resort (not available from December 19, 2020 to January 3, 2021); • 50 percent off a Gold or Silver Annual Pass when purchased with a Y2Play Pass; • credit for a complimentary, transferable lift ticket (Credit can be redeemed for a lift ticket of the same age category as the Y2Play Pass, valid on day of redemption. Credit valid until April 30, 2021.); • one complimentary summer Mountain Admission ticket; • one complimentary ticket for access to Mountain Ropes Adventure™ or Kids Tree Canopy Adventure™; • 10 percent off food and beverage purchases at Lupins, Grouse
from page 6
despair, I have come to believe that love…is the only good option in this time of the apocalypse.” Thom has made her name as the author of books like Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (a fantastical comingof-age story of a trans girl), but she also has master’s degrees in both social work and individual and family therapy. Working in community health has given her a unique empathy, as well as a ground-level view of trauma, suicide, and the way people act out. “I will say traditional mental health has historically really fallen down when it comes to addressing issues of collective trauma or interpersonal violence,” she allows. “It has focused on the individual as the site of mental wellness: ‘We’ll fix this person and they’ll feel better.’ But what about poverty or genocide, for example Indigenous survivors of genocide?” Thom is advocating a more community-based response to problems—
8 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
My emotional and psychological state was pretty high-stress. – Kai Cheng Thom
and social justice that is not so focused on vengeance and anger. And here she turns to call-out and cancel culture, or social-media shaming, especially when members of her community use it against each other. “When we call out Louis C.K. or Harvey Weinstein, these are people with power, who have security guards,” she says. “When it’s turned against a trans woman of colour who’s a sex worker, if she relies on her social network to access healthcare or depends on community support, that’s real endangerment to that person’s life. I’ve seen people
Grind Coffee Bar, Altitudes, and The Observatory; • 20 percent off Starbucks purchases at the Grouse Mountain location; • one free snowshoe rental, skate rental, and sled rental, plus 20 per cent off subsequent snowshoe, skate, and sled rentals (complimentary rental black-out period is from December 19, 2020 to January 3, 2021); • 20 percent off private ski or snow board lessons; • 20 percent off regular-priced retail purchases; • save on lift tickets at partner resorts like Big White, Manning Park, Red Mountain Resort, and Sun Peaks Resort, as part of the Mountain Interchange Program; • access to events including the Peak of Christmas and Slush Cup. With the Y2Play Pass, you can take full advantage of all the enlivening adventure and entertainment that North Vancouver’s premier attraction, Grouse Mountain, has to offer. To purchase your Y2Play Snow Pass, visit grousemountain.com/y2play. Follow Grouse Mountain on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for updates. g take their own lives in response to being ostracized and denounced, or triggered into psychosis.” The literary world will have a big role to play in the shift toward a more loving social justice, as Thom will explain in her keynote address. “Storytellers give people our vision of the world,” she says. “I’m really influenced by [dub poet and activist] d’bi.young’s line of thinking: that storytellers must have integrity. A storyteller has to do serious thinking about where the stories they’re telling come from, and the impact they have on the world. So it’s about how we as storytellers can find our integrity and honour, and the urgency of that around a political crisis. We’re going to need to watch our own worst tendencies.” g Kai Cheng Thom gives the Growing Room festival’s keynote speech next Sunday (March 15) at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Laser therapy helps treat fertility, pain and accelerates healing Acubalance Wellness Centre in Vancouver has the expertise and training to use Low Level Laser Therapy to treat everything from infertility to headaches (This story is sponsored by Acubalance Wellness Centre.)
L
aser therapy might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s a clinically proven treatment that can help boost fertility, reduce inflammation, accelerate healing, relieve pain, and much more. Acubalance Wellness Centre is a leader in Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT), also known as photobiomodulation, for fertility. Founded by Lorne Brown—doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, certified laser technician, and clinical hypnotherapist—the centre has the expertise and experience to effectively treat a range of conditions with laser therapy, all within its holistic approach to health and well-being. “What’s really exciting is Acubalance has been pioneering the use of laser for fertility in Vancouver and North America,� says Brown, noting that Acubalance is the first natural fertility clinic in BC to offer the service, which uses LLLT to stimulate blood flow to reproductive organs, regulate inflammation, and boost cellular energy production. It’s especially promising for couples coping with aging-related reproductive problems or who have been through repeated unsuccessful invitro fertilization (IVF) cycles. But the health and healing potential of LLLT reaches much further than fertility. “We also use laser therapy for pain and injuries: neck pain, herniated disc, knee and low back pain, and for headaches,� Brown says. “We’ve used it along with acupuncture for frozen shoulder, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and shingles. We know how important the microbiome is for gut health; research has shown benefits of
Acubalance Wellness Centre founder Lorne Brown has expertise in Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT), which can help women struggling to conceive and people living with chronic pain.
laser therapy for the microbiome, too. “We see enormous potential for women who are struggling to conceive and for people dealing with chronic pain.,� he adds. “You can read patient success stories on our website.� All of our cells are powered by little structures called mitochondria, Brown explains. Eggs have about 200 times more mitochondria than any other cell. When follicles are maturing, they use a tremendous amount of energy. And early embryo division and implantation require lots of energy. After 35 years, the mitochondria wear down. At age 40, nine out of 10 eggs can be abnormal. Studies show that the mitochondria of older eggs are capable of producing significantly less adenosine triphos-
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phate (ATP), which is the source of cellular energy. This has a significant impact on fertility, as the rate of division and successful implantation of embryos has more to do with the amount of energy (ATP) than with maternal age per se, Brown says. Consequently, the capacity of cold laser to improve ATP production of eggs may have an effect on their viability. Increasing energy level (ATP) in the cells, improved blood circulation, softening of scar tissue and a reduction in inflammation: these factors are all beneficial to female reproduction in general and to the receptivity of uterine lining. Brown came across studies out of Japan by a doctor named Toshio Oshiro at Sanno Hospital. Oshiro
had been treating a 55-year-old woman in menopause for back pain. Part of his protocol was to stimulate blood flow from head to toe with LLLT. Her pain resolved—and her period returned. Another patient, also in menopause, visited him for back pain. After being successfully treated with laser therapy, she resumed menstruation as well. Oshiro went on to lead an extended trial of LLLT in 701 infertile patients. Of those, 22 percent became pregnant, and the treatment resulted in a successful live birth rate in 50 percent of pregnancies. LLLT studies have also pointed to the efficacy of laser treatment in raising the quality of the male partner’s semen, in particular motility.
It’s a growing body of investigation that Acubalance is building on. Acubalance’s on-site laser acupuncture treatment protocol for frozen embryo transfer (FET) day for comprehensive chromosome screened (CCS) embryos has had a higher pregnancy rate and lower miscarriage rate in women compared to some who did not receive the treatment at a local fertility clinic. Acubalance is about to embark on a study with that clinic to see if they can repeat these results in a more controlled setting. Brown cautions that not all lasers are alike. The type and quality of equipment matter. Weak-powered lasers are not going to have desired health effects. The lasers in use at Acubalance are sophisticated and effective. Dosage is critical as well. If you’re not in the care of trained, qualified experts, it is possible to underdose or even to have too much of a good thing. In addition to LLLT, Acubalance uses naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, nutrition, Chinese medicine, mind-body medicine, nutritional IV therapy, and Maya massage to maximize egg and sperm quality, uterine receptivity, and overall health. “Laser therapy leads to the regeneration and repair of abnormal cells,� Brown says. “The process results in the elimination of symptoms, including pain, and enhances the body’s immune system response for natural healing.� g Acubalance is hosting a free online webinar called Acubalance Pioneering Laser Acupuncture for Ferility in Vancouver on April 1 from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. To sign up, and to learn more about laser (LLLT) for pain or fertility and other treatments at Acubalance Wellness Centre, visit acubalance.ca/webinar.
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This online webinar will RĆŞHU LQVLJKW RQ D QDWXUDO and safe approach for LQIHUWLOLW\ ,9) VXSSRUW HQGRPHWULRVLV RYXODWRU\ disorders and PCOS
Space is limited. Go to acubalance.ca/webinar and save your virtual seat today. MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 9
HOROSCOPES
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MARCH 5 TO 11, 2020
by Rose Marcus
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ARIES
March 20–April 20
Was something recently interrupted? Mercury on a fresh backtrack of Aquarius can revitalize it. In the dark or uncertain? Sunday/Monday, that which was previously hidden comes into fuller view. The super full moon in Virgo holds surprise. To the plus, what is learned or exposed could prove to be a saving grace or an advantage.
TAURUS
April 20–May 21
Do you feel yourself to be on the verge of a breakthrough? Mercury’s backtrack to Aquarius and Venus, freshly into Taurus and working toward a meet-up with Uranus on Sunday, set you up to do exactly that. Including a very potent super full moon in Virgo, know that the coming week holds exceptional opportunity.
Stephen Morris, FRI, RI(BC), Associate Broker
Please recycle this newspaper.
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LEO
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VIRGO
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LIBRA
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SCORPIO
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SAGITTARIUS
July 22–August 23
Mercury’s backtrack to Aquarius can restimulate your social life or client base. A fresh perspective sets you onto a better track too. Sunday/Monday could expose something in need of an upgrade, fix, or healing. When in need, ask for help or see a specialist. Watch for an opportunity to scoop a bargain or turn a minus into a plus. August 23–September 23
Have you recently lost your way or lost ground? You’ll hit an upswing soon enough! Sunday/Monday could see you on a breakthrough regarding health, work, or working it out. The unexpected could prove to be an opportunity in disguise. You’ll feel the super moon the strongest if your birthday is on or near September 12. September 23–October 23
With just a few more days to go before the cycle finishes out, you’ll now find yourself on the gain via Mercury retrograde. To reconnect or resume offers better prospects via Mercury in Aquarius (through midmonth). Building with Uranus to Sunday, Venus, freshly into Taurus, could kick-start something lucrative or pleasurable. The super full moon delivers more than you may feel prepared for. October 23–November 22
Ready to get back to it? Mercury on a fresh backtrack of Aquarius is well timed for resuming it or firing up something fresh. Venus on an energy surge with Uranus through Sunday keeps the conversation, think tank, uncertainty, and/or excitement going strong. Emotions can be on edge, too. Sunday/Monday, the exposing super full moon reveals its secret, reward, and potential. November 22–December 21
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June 21–July 22
Can’t go back; can’t seem to move forward; can’t stay put. You have been standing at a difficult crossroad for quite some time. Sooner or later, something has got to give. Venus/ Uranus and the super full moon could provide the necessary opportunity. Sunday/Monday, watch for something
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unexpected. It could be a saving grace or a healing, an inevitable result or consequence.
Watch for fresh ideas, conversations, downloads, and perspectives to grow on you while Mercury revisits Aquarius. Through Sunday, Venus/ Uranus helps you to feel your way along to a new and improved version or a better solution. Monday’s super GEMINI full moon in Virgo can point out the May 21–June 21 flaw, the weak link, or what’s in need of Mercury in Aquarius should healing, repair, or better control. help you to breathe easier. Still, there CAPRICORN are several planetary influences that December 21–January 20 can keep life edgy and uncertain. As The next few days can get best you can, keep your Sunday free. Venus/Uranus can spark the un- you thinking along new lines and/or expected and/or put synchronicity see you come up with a better plan or into play in some major way. Mon- solution. Worried about something? day’s super full moon could lead to See a specialist. The super full moon a better solution or a cheaper price or in Virgo could bring important news or advice. Too, it could pinpoint what’s help you find what’s been lost. missing, undervalued, or in need of a CANCER repair, upgrade, or nixing.
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ercury continues in retrograde to the super full moon on Monday. The cycle started in Pisces, but Mercury has now backtracked into Aquarius. It will finish out the retrograde and extend its tour of this sign through midmonth. Look to Mercury in Aquarius to reinvigorate or reawaken. Venus has just begun a four-week stint in Taurus. In general, this transit can benefit finances and relationships. Better self-esteem and self-love are also on the checklist. Through Sunday, Venus builds momentum with Uranus in Taurus. Initially, it keeps the stress, excitability, inconsistency, and uncertainty going, but know the transit works toward a breakthrough. Also at peak on Sunday, sun/Neptune infuses maximum creative potential into the moment. Sun/ Neptune can prompt a saving grace, hidden advantage, or a rescue mission. Venus/Uranus can trigger a sudden discovery, great synchronicity, or fresh opportunity. Monday delivers a super full moon in Virgo in opposition to Neptune. Virgo is the healing crisis archetype. Neptune correlates to the immune system, to the masses, and global experience. Sunday/Monday will expose, enlighten, and create in some major way. Ending retrograde on the full moon, Mercury in Aquarius could spark news or an announcement from politics, science, or a key someone. The rest of the week holds good promise. Stay hopeful!
604.787.6963
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AQUARIUS
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PISCES
January 20–February 18
Mercury will finish retrograde in Aquarius on super full moon Monday. Extending its tour of your sign to mid-March, Mercury will keep you/ it fired up. Building to Sunday, Venus/ Uranus gives you a new reason to spruce it up and/or better your best. Take advantage of it Monday. Scoop a bargain; get it repaired, improved, or healed. February 18–March 20
Neptune is a major contributor to the super full moon. Sunday/ Monday, keep your time open; you may need to jump into something unexpected. You can get lost in it. Someone could cancel out on you, deliver less than you expect, or need a rescue. You can be especially sensitive, emotional, imaginative, creative, empathic, open, romantic, or persuasive. Stay healthy! g Book a reading or sign up for Rose’s free monthly newsletter at rosemarcus.com.
10 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
education
Unceded Chiefs tells tale of resistance
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by Charlie Smith
person’s life can sometimes be a confounding set of paradoxes. Sitting in her corner office as the director of Capilano University’s Bosa Centre for Film and Animation, Doreen Manuel is at the peak of her career as a filmmaker and educator. Her astonishing new documentary, Unceded Chiefs—telling the story of a united Indigenous resistance to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s infamous 1969 white paper— is about to be screened at the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival. The film lays out how this document proposed to eliminate Indigenous people’s ability to make any claims for rights or lands in relation to Aboriginal title and how chiefs from across the province, led by Manuel’s father, George, successfully fought back. In her office, the director described Trudeau as “incredibly racist” yet “incredibly intelligent”. “He just lived by willful blindness because he had an agenda,” Manuel told the Georgia Straight. “So when I saw my dad take people on like that, today I have no problem taking anybody on—and keeping myself informed so that I can have those conversations. Because it’s only through educating people that we are going to make the changes, which is why I work at a university.” As these historic events were unfolding, Manuel was nine years old, being tortured, in her words, in a Port Alberni residential school. She had been placed there because her mom was ill and her father, a legendary First Nations leader, was too busy crisscrossing the province, sometimes stopping in three towns in a day, to rally Indigenous communities to thwart Trudeau’s goal. It was a titanic political fight because treaties in B.C. only existed in the northeastern part of the province and on Vancouver Island, meaning most of the mainland was unceded. “We didn’t have any rights at all back then,” Manuel, who is of Secwepemc and Ktunaxa heritage, said. “Then look at the progression of what’s happened in my lifetime.” Her film shows how her dad’s efforts led to the birth of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, which is today leading the fight against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Unceded Chiefs also features neverbefore-broadcast clips of Harold Cardinal, then the president of the Indian Association of Alberta, who drafted the “Red Paper” to counter Trudeau’s
Capilano University instructor Doreen Manuel’s (photo by Taehoon Kim/Capilano U) new documentary, Unceded Chiefs, reveals how her dad, Chief George Manuel (upper right), challenged the Doctrine of Discovery, which inspired Grand Chief Stewart Phillip.
efforts to assimilate Indigenous people into the mainstream. Manuel joined the wave of 1970s actions by young Indigenous people, including her late brothers, Arthur and Robert, to assert Indigenous rights. There were massive rallies in Vancouver, roadblocks, and takeovers of Department of Indian Affairs offices. She also protested the extradition of Native American leader Leonard Peltier to the United States on murder charges following a 1975 shootout involving FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. “Arthur had actually started before me, and I saw him as a great teacher,” Manuel said. “Dad didn’t really want me to go down that road. He wanted me to become a lawyer.” Her mother, Marceline, was working at the Department of Indian Affairs during one of those office takeovers. She joined the rebels. There’s a scene in Unceded Chiefs in which Marceline blows the whistle at a public gathering of Indigenous leaders. She reveals how a lot of the staff there were making the thenprincely sum of $1,000 a month, smoking and drinking coffee in the office and gossiping about their dogs. A few years later, when her brother Robert was chief of the Neskonlith band, he contacted their father to ask for advice on how to deal with the Department of Indian Affairs underfunding their community. According to Manuel, her brother said he was watching people go hungry. Manuel herself witnessed the devastating poverty and experienced some of it herself.
Colonization has three major elements: dispossession, dependency, and oppression. – Arthur Manuel
“Dad said, ‘Send their money back. Reject their funding. The hell with them.’ Dad came up with what might sound like crazy concepts,” Manuel recalled. “And Bob said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ So he did that.” Manuel said that for several months, the Neskonlith people didn’t accept any money from Ottawa, choosing self-sufficiency by going on hunting parties, planting seeds in every garden, and paying everyone’s B.C. Hydro bills by selling hay. “We survived like that for months and we were so happy,” she recalled. “There was no alcohol on our reserve. We cleaned right up and we became incredible warriors.” Several family members, including Doreen, are champions of Indigenous sovereignty. By the late 1970s, after beating back the white paper, George Manuel was organizing Indigenous peoples on four
continents, describing them as the “Fourth World”. In 1977, he proposed an international declaration to uphold and protect their rights, which later evolved into the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In the early 1980s, he led the Constitution Express, which was a national movement chartering two trains from Vancouver to take about 1,000 people to Ottawa to protest the failure of Trudeau and the premiers to include Aboriginal rights in the Canadian Constitution. Manuel remembers seeing a TV clip of an Indigenous woman saying she had used up all of her old-agepension money to join the Constitution Express, telling a broadcast crew: “I cashed it. That’s what I got with me, and a bag of dry meat and bannock, and I’m using all my money up because George Manuel said if I don’t, there won’t be any rights for our children and grandchildren. I’m doing this for them.” Eventually, the first ministers buckled under the pressure, ensuring that the Constitution Act of 1982 recognized and affirmed existing Aboriginal and treaty rights. It was a landmark event in the advancement of First Nations rights. These rights were defined in subsequent Supreme Court of Canada decisions, including the 1997 Delgamuukw case, which confirmed that Aboriginal title was not extinguished when B.C. joined Confederation in 1871. According to Manuel, some Canadians are not only poorly informed about history, they’re not even willing
to see things from Indigenous people’s perspective. She’s especially troubled that there’s still so little awareness of the Doctrine of Discovery, which has been used to legitimize the colonization of Indigenous peoples and the theft of their lands. “They have no clue of what the Doctrine of Discovery is and how all other laws are stacked on top of it—and how unfair the foundational laws in Canada are,” Manuel said. In the 15th century, even before the genocidal Christopher Columbus arrived in the “New World”, papal bulls called for the vanquishing, subjugation, and enslavement of non-Christian peoples. For centuries, settlers operated on the premise that nobody owned the land before they arrived to claim it. Her film counters this notion, revealing the spirited fight and sacrifices made by many visionary chiefs in the late 1960s to protect the rights of future generations of Indigenous children. There’s a telling clip in the film from her cerebral brother, Arthur, explaining the systemic impoverishment of Indigenous people. “Colonization has three major elements: dispossession, dependency, and oppression,” he says. “The non-Native people in this country enjoy 99.8 percent of our land—and I tell Indigenous people, that’s why you’re poor. “You’re poor simply because you get generally 0.2 percent of a loonie and the province and federal government basically share 99.8 percent,” he continues. “And that’s wrong.” Arthur Manuel, a leading First Nations intellectual, didn’t live long enough to see the recent wave of solidarity actions on behalf of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. But his sister, Doreen, told the Straight that she’s feeling a great sense of pride seeing so many young people get involved. “They’re no different than when I was a youth in the ’70s,” she said. “I saw how unfair things were. It compelled me to be there… I’m blown away at how it’s risen all the way across Canada.” She added that these efforts are also being noticed by Indigenous peoples throughout the world. “They can see and are experiencing the same effects of colonization—and dealing with the same effects of doctrines of discovery.” g Unceded Chiefs will be shown on Saturday (March 7) at the Vancity Theatre as part of the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival.
VCC
Continuing Studies Spring 2020
Learn something new. VCC offers an extensive range of diplomas, certificates, and courses. Register now and start in April.
vcc.ca/cs MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 11
EDUCATION
Open minds can lead to better careers
I
by Charlie Smith
n this week’s education issue, we look at six options for students and one growing dispute between a union representing contract faculty and the institutions that employ many of them. VCC OFFERS SPEEDY EDUCATION TO MEDICAL DEVICE REPROCESSING TECHNICIANS d When Vancouver Coastal Health employee Samantha Shone graduated from high school, she was planning on becoming a nurse. But an uncle wasn’t sure that she was ready to spend the next four years in university, so he suggested that she try a much shorter health-care offering—medical device reprocessing technician training—at Vancouver Community College. It transformed her life. The 16-week certificate program enables graduates who pass the certified medical device reprocessing technician exam to immediately land a decent-paying job. About 14 years ago, Shone started at around $21 per hour, a good income at the time. for disinfecting surgical equipment. Because she was working at St. Paul’s Hospital, she had a chance to observe other health-care professions, including nursing, and consider whether she should change her occupation in the future. “But I ended up staying with medical device reprocessing because I got a full-time job and all these opportunities came up,” Shone said. “I’ve made a career out of it.” She’s the B.C. provincial adviser to the Canadian Association of Medical Device Reprocessing, as well as the site lead at UBC Hospital. In this role, she supervises 30 full-time employees
Medical device reprocessing technicians ensure that items used in surgery are sterilized to prevent transmission of disease.
to ensure that all the equipment will be ready and sterilized for 30 to 40 surgical cases per day in the hospital’s eight operating rooms. “This is the most unknown department, but every hospital has one,” Shone said with a laugh. It’s not a simple job. Many items must be sterilized with steam, but there’s also low-temperature sterilization for certain devices. “Our inventory is huge,” Shone said. “So keeping track of everything and making sure we are turning things around at the right time is a big job.” Instruments range from a pair of scissors to a complex camera that might cost $20,000 or $30,000—and staff need to be aware of how these items are used. An endoscope, for instance, requires high-level disinfection because if it’s not properly
cleaned, it has the potential to pass a disease to another patient. “I can see the impact that my job and my department has on patient care,” Shone said. She also said that medical device reprocessing technicians have to do a fair amount of heavy lifting, as well as troubleshooting and problem-solving. So far, the highlight of her career has been coauthoring a study in the American Journal of Infection Control. It resulted from research conducted when she and other medical professionals travelled to Uganda. “We held educational workshops to train the medical staff at Mulago Hospital in Kampala,” Shone said. “I went with a group of surgeons, nurses, and physiotherapists, and I represented medical device reprocessing.”
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITIES FAIR OFFERS PLETHORA OF OPTIONS d The fifth annual Vancouver International Universities Fair is going to be larger than ever. Presented by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, it’s expected to draw more than 200 universities, according to one of the cochairs, Kel McDowell. “We have a number of different countries that have expressed interest this year,” McDowell, associate director of university counselling at West Point Grey Academy, told the Straight by phone. “Australia, for example, is sending four universities. We’ve got three from Switzerland, two from Italy, and we even got one from Poland.” That’s in addition to Canadian
universities and academic institutions in the U.K. and United States. This year’s Vancouver International Universities Fair takes place from 1 to 4 p.m. on April 19 at the Vancouver Convention Centre East. It will offer graduate-school opportunities for anyone who’s interested in pursuing a master’s or PhD in another country. Last year, between 4,500 and 5,000 people attended the Vancouver event, which is intended to present postsecondary options to prospective students. There are more than 90 cities around the world that hold these events, but Vancouver is the only Canadian city. McDowell pointed out that, traditionally, the spring fair has been geared toward secondary students, mostly from grades 9 to 11. That’s because by that time, most students in Grade 12 know where they’ll be attending college or university. “What we’ve noticed is Grade 9s are sort of exploring,” he said. “They walk around and are kind of in awe of how many universities there are.” By the time they reach Grade 10, they often start “window-shopping”, considering possibilities. And by Grade 11, students are very engaged, sometimes showing up with a list of specific questions and schools to check out. “We encourage the parents to go with the students,” McDowell said. Although the students will often want to decide if they prefer to study abroad, he noted that parents will also want to have “realistic conversations” at the dinner table. That can include discussing what the family can afford and what it will be like for the student in another country. see next page
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Same work. Same pay. #makeitfair
CUPE1004
12 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
One of the most popular fields of study abroad is law, according to McDowell. That’s because in some countries, such as Australia, it’s possible to go directly into law school rather than first obtain an undergraduate degree. Then these students can return to Canada and take the bar exam. He also said that some foreign health-related programs—such as dentistry, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and veterinary medicine—attract a fair number of Canadian students. It’s tougher for those studying abroad to be physicians if they want to work in Canada because it’s sometimes difficult to obtain residency in this country. McDowell emphasized that there’s likely a university for everybody. “You’ve just got to pick and choose the right one for you,” he said. CAPILANO UNIVERSITY FUTURE-PROOFS STUDENTS IN DIGITAL VISUAL EFFECTS d The coordinator of Capilano University’s digital visual effects program says he wants to prepare people for career possibilities that don’t yet exist. “We do like the idea of futureproofing our students,” Adam Sale told the Straight by phone. To cite one example, he said the program has 10 all-in-one Oculus Quest virtual-reality headsets. Students can sign them out for a week, take them home, and develop ideas about immersive production. It’s not part of the curriculum, but it enhances their comfort level with this technology in advance of it possibly becoming a standard industry tool in the future. There are also 28 high-end motioncapture cameras in a studio Sale calls the Holodeck, named after a fictional device from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation. “We’re actually one of the only dedicated student spaces in postsecondary that offers almost 24-hour access to explore performance-capture and virtualreality opportunities,” he noted. “We have face-capture technology as well as wireless virtual reality built into it.”
Capilano University lets its VFX students use its facilities virtually around the clock.
These are just a couple of the perks for those who enroll in the two-year digital visual effects diploma program at the North Vancouver teaching university. Students are able to hone their skills by collaborating with others enrolled in the film, documentary, animation, costuming, and cinematography programs. Sale said there’s a strong focus on helping students become job-ready, so compositing, including for live action, is a big part of the curriculum. That involves integrating computer graphics into filmed sequences. Through the process of “look development”—the art of adding emotion to a model with textures, shades, and lighting—students can put a professional polish on their work. Sale said that first-year students are trained in programs like Autodesk Maya to simulate crowds, fluid dynamics, smoke, fires, and destruction. In the second year, they learn how to work with a visual-effects program called Houdini that is really in demand in animation studios. “We’ve started to get quite a good reputation for our students being hired out on the effects front,” Sale said. He’s proud of the way his program makes use of highly skilled visualeffects artists as lab supervisors for second-year students. He acknowledged that many of them may be too exhausted after a 12-hour day to teach a full course, but they’re happy mentoring students in one-on-one situations in their areas of expertise.
“We just picked up a fellow named Gil Choi, who was the senior visual effects [specialist] on Aquaman,” Sale said. “He specializes in Houdini and water simulation.” A fairly recent grad of Capilano University animation, Pearl Low, was a story artist on this year’s Oscar-winning animated short film, “Hair Love”. But she’s far from the only success story. “In Vancouver, we have 70-plus visual-effects studios and animation studios,” Sale said. “Our grads are at every studio in the Lower Mainland. We’ve got some working back east in Montreal at a lot of the major studios there, whether it’s a visual-effects house or animation house. A lot of them move from visual effects into games because there’s quite a lot of convergence in the technologies nowadays.” EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK ELUDES MOST CONTRACTED FACULTY MEMBERS d The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of B.C. wants to level the playing field for contracted faculty members at many B.C. colleges, teaching universities, and institutes. According to FPSE president Terri Van Steinburg, these profs on contract can earn up to 80 percent less than the wages paid to salaried faculty members. Van Steinburg told the Straight by phone that about 30 percent of the teaching done by her members
in postsecondary institutions is on contract. “Women, Indigenous, and racialized faculty are overrepresented in that 30 percent,” she said. “And we don’t think it’s right that their work be valued any less than that of their colleagues.” She said that the shortfall for contracted faculty is having a “pretty major impact” on their lives. Whereas a professor on staff might earn $70,000 or $80,000 per year, Van Steinburg said that contracted faculty members may only earn $25 or $30 per hour. Yet they must still spend many hours outside of the classroom meeting students, preparing lessons, and marking papers. Van Steinburg is on leave as a professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where she teaches career development for women. “As a woman, I wouldn’t want my work devalued against, say, a male counterpart,” she declared. “I feel my work should be valued exactly the same and I should be paid the same for the same work.” Van Steinburg pointed out that some of the contracted faculty work at several institutions to cobble together a living wage, even though they’re highly educated and qualified professionals who are hired through the same processes as everyone else. The FPSE represents approximately 10,000 faculty and staff at 18 public postsecondary institutions and several private-sector schools. Contracts at public-sector colleges, teaching universities, and institutes expired on March 31, 2019. “Pretty much all of our locals have the issue of contract faculty being paid less for the same work, with the exception of Vancouver Community College and Langara College,” Van Steinburg said. “At both of those, the contract faculty are paid on what we call the provincial salary scale.” She questioned why other public postsecondary institutions haven’t made this a priority in the same way that VCC and Langara have. “We’re still talking,” she said. “That’s about all I can say at this
point in terms of our bargaining and what we’re talking about at the table.” Van Steinburg insisted that the time to fix this inequity is now, whether at the bargaining table or through provincial policy. The minister of advanced education, Melanie Mark, is an Indigenous woman. The labour minister, Harry Bains, is a person of colour. And the finance minister, Carole James, is a Métis woman. “I think the government has a role,” Van Steinburg said. “We believe it’s good public policy for them to invest in people. And we know that…equitable pay for everybody is an important issue.” CAPILANO U HELPS CULTURE LOVERS BECOME ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT MANAGERS d Capilano University arts and entertainment management instructor Christy Goerzen will never forget when one particular cultural event changed her life. She was 14 years old, standing in front of the stage at the Mission Folk Festival, when she experienced a transcendent musical experience. It came courtesy of the klezmer-infused sounds of a Jewish group called Tzimmes. “That was really an ultimate moment for me of just being transported to this other place when I was just a kid from Maple Ridge,” Goerzen told the Georgia Straight by phone from her office. “I just knew that I wanted to live a life in the arts. I just knew.” It wasn’t until she was completing a bachelor’s degree in English literature that she figured out how to do this. She came across an ad in the Straight for the advanced certificate program in arts and entertainment management at what is now Capilano University. “So I enrolled in the program right after I finished my bachelor’s degree,” she said, “and I have worked in arts and entertainment administration—and now teaching—for almost 20 years.” The one-year advanced certificate program helps students gain an see next page
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Choose the right program. Be in demand. Occupational/physical therapy assistant Thursday, March 5, 9 a.m. – room 4205, building B
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Broadway
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Broadway
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Downtown
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Sign up now to see our classrooms, meet our instructors, and get your questions answered. Visit vcc.ca/info Downtown campus 200-block Dunsmuir at Hamilton two blocks west of Stadium SkyTrain station. Broadway campus 1155 East Broadway across from VCC/Clark SkyTrain station.
MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 13
from previous page
overview of all aspects of arts and entertainment management, as well as practicum experience. Applicants must have two years of postsecondary experience; the next intake of students is in early May, with an application deadline of April 7. In the first term, students take advanced 300-level courses in media relations, marketing, and promotions; organizational structures; financial management; resource development; fundamentals of artist development; and production and tour management. Goerzen said that, generally, students come from three broad areas. There are those who are passionate about the arts and want to learn how to support this area administratively. That sometimes includes people who have been in acting or directing programs or who have attended the Vancouver Film School, which offers a pathway into the program. Then there are artists who would like to learn how to manage their own careers, including understanding how to apply for grants. And then there are those with an entrepreneurial spirit. “We get a lot of musicians who are looking to perhaps build their singer-songwriter career and learn how to manage themselves,” Goerzen revealed. Practicums are tailored to suit the student’s passion. People have been placed at large agencies, record labels, major festivals, theatre companies, and classical-music organizations. “We’re always developing new practicum placements and bringing on new organizations,” Goerzen said. “It’s ever-growing.” The chair of the arts and management program is Jennifer Nesselroad, who’s also chair of Capilano University’s school of performing arts. There’s also a two-year arts and entertainment management diploma program, which will accept its next group of students in September. According to Goerzen, it’s more aimed at people who are coming out of high school or who don’t have the
Recording engineer Olivia Quan launched her career after attending Nimbus.
type of experience that would qualify them for the one-year advanced certificate program. The diploma students do front-ofhouse work at the Blueshore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts at Capilano University’s main campus. “The course work starts more entry-level and gets more advanced in the second year,” Goerzen said. “The students also do their two practicum placements, just like they do in the certificate program, but these don’t come until the second year.” CAREERS ARE LAUNCHED BY NIMBUS SCHOOL OF RECORDING & MEDIA d Less than five years ago, Olivia Quan didn’t even know how to wrap a cable. Now, she’s the head recording engineer at Monarch Studios in Vancouver. And she credits this astonishing rise to her education at Nimbus School of Recording & Media, which offers 12-month diploma programs to students interested in learning about audio engineering, electronic music production, live sound mixing and recording, post and game audio production, and advanced studio production. “A lot of people I went to school with ended up in the postproduction world, so I have quite a few friends who work in film and quite a few friends who work in game audio,”
14 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
Quan told the Straight by phone. “Podcasts are huge right now, so there is also lots of work for sound designers in that field.” Nimbus also offers 16-month diplomas in advanced audio engineering and studio production and advanced studio and electronic music production, along with a 12-month intro to the music industry diploma, an eightmonth advanced music industry diploma, and a four-month certificate in artist development. Quan, also a teaching assistant at Nimbus, stated that she feels she’s an example for anyone who might doubt their ability due to a lack of knowledge. When she was enrolled, there were a maximum of eight people in each class. Tuesdays through Thursdays were instructional days, with Monday and Friday set aside for practical work. Initially, she planned to take the business program and become a tour manager. But the admissions adviser told her that she would be a really good fit for the audio program. Within six months, she was interning at a studio. “I ended up switching out of the business program to take advanced production and decided that I needed to make records for the rest of my life,” Quan said. Nimbus is an elite music and media technical school with courses taught by industry professionals as well as award nominees and award
winners in the music industry. It was cofounded by GGGarth Richardson in honour of his father, legendary producer Jack Richardson, who produced more than 240 albums, 27 Billboard-charted singles, and more than 20 Billboard-charted albums that received 38 gold and platinum awards. GGGarth Richardson has worked with some of the biggest names in the music business, including Rage Against the Machine, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Taylor Swift. In addition, he worked on K’Naan’s “Wavin’ Flag”, which won the 2011 Juno for single of the year. Another Nimbus cofounder, Bob Ezrin, has worked for some of the same artists as well as Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, U2, Green Day, and Rod Stewart, among others. Ezrin also produced Fade to Black, which starred Jay-Z and Beyoncé. VCC RESPONDS TO INCREASING DEMAND FOR MICROCREDENTIALS d Anyone who searches for a job on Indeed has come across postings that list Microsoft Office skills as a prerequisite for applicants. But how can a person know if they’re really comfortable using all of the applications, including PowerPoint, Access, and Excel? And how can an employer determine if a job seeker is truly proficient? There is a new way to answer these questions, according to Sid Khullar, coordinator of the technology and trades program in continuing studies at Vancouver Community College. That’s because his postsecondary institution has become a Certiport-authorized testing centre, which means it will begin offering a Microsoft Office Specialist exam option at the downtown campus. The first test date is May 23. “There is an increasing focus on microcredentials,” Khullar told the Straight by phone. “Once a person gets certified, they can proudly broadcast their accomplishment with digital badges on their website,
on social media, and on professional platforms like LinkedIn. Certiport offers those professional badges.” Anyone who takes the test can validate their skills in any of the Microsoft Office 2016 applications, including Word. Khullar said certification of skills is becoming increasingly relevant in the digital economy. He also stated that he came across one statistic indicating that 91 percent of hiring managers consider certification a valuable tool to screen applicants. For those who feel they need to brush up on their skills, VCC offers general courses in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. “These courses are not designed to prepare them for certification,” he said, “but they will certainly help people learn about the topics and help them prepare.” Khullar suggested that the Microsoft Office Specialist exam could be suitable for a wide range of people, including students, administrators, and those between jobs. Not only can certification increase a person’s earning potential, it can validate one’s skills and increase self-confidence as well. Khullar said it can also boost employers’ confidence that the worker can complete certain tasks efficiently and accurately. That, in turn, boosts productivity and employees’ motivation. Certiport’s Canadian partner is CCI Learning, which is providing VCC with vouchers to offer the test to students. For a limited time, Khullar said, the cost of the voucher and proctoring fee are included in the tuition fee of $89 (which is subject to change). That’s not the only area of certification that VCC is exploring. Microsoft Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services that securely enables organizations to meet their business challenges. “We are going to be offering a course in cloud computing that will help prepare students to write the Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ900) exam,” Khullar said. He expects that this will also be available in May. g
arts
Horses meet history in Lum’s new public art by Janet Smith
A
curious sight awaits you as you stand at the lights to cross Edmonds and Kingsway’s busy intersection: a large bronze workhorse sits upright on its haunches, a yoke around its neck. Behind it, by a garden, sits a bronze log, the chains that once attached it to the workhorse now broken. Against the glass façade of the new Kings Crossing development, the animal stares out like a holdover from the site’s industrial past. It is a paradox that becomes clearer when you realize who created it. The Retired Draught Horse and the Last Pulled Log is the new public artwork from Ken Lum, the talent behind iconic local installations like Monument to East Vancouver and from shangri-la to shangri-la, and the recently announced winner of a 2020 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. And like other public commissions he’s installed in cities from Rotterdam to St. Louis, it plays with ideas of memory, history, and the social identity of its locale—in this case a Burnaby neighbourhood in the midst of a development boom that’s pushed eastward from Vancouver. “I started looking at Percheron horses because that was the main horse that took down trees in this area and also plowed the fields,” he tells the Straight, interviewed at the site on a sunny February day. “I came across an old picture of this horse that was sitting down and it looked really odd. And I thought, ‘Wow, I didn’t know horses sat’—and apparently they don’t. The camera only captures an instant—horses apparently sit just for a moment between lying down or standing up. I thought, ‘What if the horse was permanently sitting?’ which would make it kind of unusual, and I started thinking of kind of this guard dog sitting in this awkward position, performing the role of a kind of sentinel that is regarding the unfolding of the day.” ON A LITERAL level, the sculpture recognizes that Kingsway, a century and a half before it became a transit hub with megamalls, neon-lit sushi joints, and pho restaurants, was a
Arts
TIP SHEET
Artist Ken Lum at the Burnaby site of his new The Retired Draught Horse and the Last Pulled Log, by Edmonds and Kingsway.
thoroughfare where horses hauled logs from the Fraser River to the harbour at English Bay. Lum has come to town from his post in Philadelphia, where he is the chair of fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design. He’s launching the sculpture and also his new book of essays, Everything Is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life 1991-2018. And in keeping with the title of that book, he reveals the multiple levels of meaning in this new commission at the Cressey Development Group site. “One of the key tropes of monumental architecture is a horse, and often the horse is prancing,” he remarks. “It’s kind of a registration of power, of the people of the ruling class, and because it’s in bronze and a familiar trope, it reads as officially sanctioned.” While in that traditional bronze, Lum’s new piece honours the working class that pioneered the building of the city. “That’s a very slumped back, so it’s a real horse of labour, a beast of burden, an old horse, still with the yoke around its neck,” he points out. Like so much of Lum’s work, The Retired Draught Horse and the Last Pulled Log also draws from his own working-class past. Lum’s grandparents were part of the Lower Mainland’s
agrarian history in a different way— working the fields in Cloverdale. His mother spent long hours at the Keefer Laundry, and his father was a cook at long-shuttered Vancouver institution The Only Sea Foods. LUM’S ROOTS GO deep in East Vancouver. He was born at Mount St. Joseph, went to Admiral Seymour Secondary School, and remembers coming to the end of Burnaby to bowl at the late, great Middlegate Lanes. Today, the old low-rise buildings across from Kings Crossing’s shiny new residential towers include a Brazilianmartial-arts studio, Asian restaurants, and an East African grocer. That mix reminds Lum a bit of the neighbourhood he grew up in. He’s an international artist these days, travelling extensively to work on projects around the world, teaching in Paris, and now calling the U.S. home. This commission feels like the closing of a circle, he says. “Burnaby is interesting to me; I grew up in East Vancouver and this is more East Vancouver than East Vancouver now,” he says, and then adds: “I’m not against development, but I do think the power of the developer has always been too powerful here.”
He’s been enjoying Philly, a bluecollar, Democratic stronghold with historic universities. “And it’s a city full of tradition, like, ‘This is the way we do things,’ ” he says. “I lived in Paris and it was also like that.” It’s a trait Vancouver could use more of, he argues, suggesting we’re too eager to tear our history down to make way for something new. Those feelings add to the slightly disruptive air of The Retired Draught Horse and the Last Pulled Log, which has been a cross-border project for Lum. He crafted small clay models of it in Philadelphia, had them digitized and scaled up at Yale University, and then had them fabricated and bronzed in Toronto. Its form might be a bit surprising for Vancouverites familiar with Lum’s more conceptual local works—such as the glowing defiance of the East Van Cross symbol, or Four Boats Stranded: Red and Yellow, Black and White, with its painted vessels (representations of the Komagata Maru, a Chinese cargo ship, an Indigenous canoe, and Capt. Vancouver’s boat) teetering on the Vancouver Art Gallery roof. But he’s created more representational bronze public artworks elsewhere, in Toronto, St. Louis, and New Orleans. “There’s a kind of view, particularly
c BEETHOVEN’S BIRTHDAY (March 5 and 6 at West Point Grey United Church and March 8 at Pyatt Hall) Vetta Chamber Music throws a party, mixing Ludwig van Beethoven’s moodshifting “Kreutzer” sonata with Erich Korngold’s astonishing Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano Left Hand (with pianist Jane Coop, shown here). c WOMEN OF THE ITALIAN BAROQUE (March 7 at Pacific Spirit United Church) Elektra Women’s Choir time-travels back to the 17th century to find the female composers of Northern Italy. g
among contemporary artists, that depictive or representational art using traditional materials was part of the crisis of representation that needed to be torn down,” Lum says. “But I think everything about representation can be torn down, whether it’s abstract or modern or whatever.” As ever, with The Retired Draught Horse and the Last Pulled Log, Lum is playing with the notion of the monument—who we memorialize, and which narratives we remember. “This area is in the throes of development and that can be quite disorienting,” he says. “So the question was how to make a work that recognizes that, but also destabilizes it to a degree.” And so his draft horse will never lie to rest, or stand to work again, but instead sit in perpetual limbo to watch Burnaby change around it. g
Ashoona’s monsters and magic mesmerize VISUAL ARTS
SHUVINAI ASHOONA: MAPPING WORLDS
At the Vancouver Art Gallery until May 24
d SHUVINAI ASHOONA is that most magical of artists, one whose distinctive and often fantastical vision of the world—monstrous creatures with bulging eyes and curling tentacles, a human ear transforming into a swan, giant eggs from which alien forms emerge, green and blue planets spinning across the tundra—reaches out to an audience far beyond her northern community. Beyond the usual curators and collectors of Inuit art, too. Born and based in Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset) on the southern tip of Baffin Island, Shuvinai is a graphic artist focused primarily on drawing, her usual media being coloured pencils, ink, and graphite. She is being celebrated in Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds, a major touring exhibition surveying the last two decades of her creative practice. Organized by Toronto’s Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery and curated by Nancy Campbell, the show has now landed at the Vancouver Art Gallery. In many ways, that repositioning is already occurring. Shuvinai is the subject of multiple articles, reviews, and catalogue essays, as well as a monograph by Campbell (available online and in print from the Canadian Art Library). Still, despite the exposure and
Shuvinai Ashoona’s art seems to arise directly from her unconscious mind. Collection of Marnie Schreiber
acclaim, despite all that has been spoken and written about her, much of Shuvinai’s imagery remains mysterious. It is intriguing and engaging, sometimes astounding and occasionally frightening, yes, but in many senses unknowable. What to make, for instance, of Earth Transformations, a drawing that features a creature with a large blue-and-green globe for a head, arms and hands composed of strings of similar but smaller planets, a torso draped in octopuslike tentacles, and human legs with blue toenails? And how to read this creature’s companion, a parka-clad Inuit man holding up a picture of a scene in which a hunter with a rifle sits behind a blind that is also an artist’s canvas? (The titles are not really clues, as they’re assigned by others.) Shuvinai doesn’t
like to talk about what her works might “mean”. She produces them without plan or precept, seeming to draw her images directly from her unconscious mind. Whatever her propensity for the surreal and the phantasmagorical, Shuvinai’s drawings also reveal a keen understanding of everyday life in the North, from the snowy roads and prefab houses of Kinngait to hunting and camping scenes on the tundra. At the same time, her drawings are informed by Inuit tales of human-animal transformation, Christian stories and beliefs, and American popular culture as encountered on TV and DVDs. Shuvinai is a big fan of nature programs and horror movies—and also, as witnessed by her dramatic drawing Sinking Titanic, James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic.
One of the most extraordinary works on view is Untitled (Birthing Scene), in which a blue-haired woman, whose hands and feet are changing into fins, feathers, and claws, gives birth to not only a wee baby but also a cluster of tiny blue planets. Lying on the ground beside her is another baby, this one with an older boy’s head, who is also giving birth. The midwife seated behind the woman is a large yellow seabird with a polarbear foot, and hovering in the lower right corner of the picture frame are three more little planets, superimposed on each other. In many ways, this is a work of extraordinary realism—the rocky stretch of tundra in which the scene is set, the sheet of plywood on which Inuit women typically give birth— but it is also a scene of otherworldly transformation. There are a number of drawings, such as Composition (Creature Invasion), of hideous monsters attacking hapless humans. Equally, there are images, such as Untitled (People, Animals, and the World Holding Hands), that suggest living in harmony with each other and with the creatures and entities of the natural and supernatural realms in which we dwell. In a videotaped talk, Campbell stressed Shuvinai’s essentially positive outlook and the many works she has created that speak of tolerance and understanding. Of all the mysterious images and symbols Shuvinai enfolds in her work, this is the meaning, the message, that we should take home with us. by Robin Laurence
MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 15
“But so successful was the evening that the critic can only throw up his hands, wish you had been there, and quote Ira Gershwin's endearing tombstone inscription: 'Words Fail Me.'”
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16 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
ARTS
Singin’ in the Rain fetes George Crumb and more
T
by Alexander Varty
he assassination of a president, death by drowning, and a variety of introspective examinations of love, loss, and longing: it’s clear from this list that the Migratory V concert series’s Singin’ in the Rain event is not, as some might expect, a sunny tribute to ’50s Hollywood and Gene Kelly’s infectious grin. Far from it. But the show—which will star soprano Sharon Harms, pianist Joan Forsyth, and guitarist William Anderson—will encompass a variety of serious pleasures, including a chance to fete a pioneering American modernist, George Crumb, whose song cycle Apparition: Elegiac Songs and Vocalises for Soprano and Amplified Piano is the centrepiece of its adventurous program. “This is his 90th-birthday-celebration year, and I had the pleasure of doing a big birthday celebration for him in New York, back in the fall,” explains Harms, reached while enjoying the view of English Bay from a Kits Beach café. “Apparition was one of the pieces we didn’t do, but it’s a piece that I keep going back to over and over again. That text is centred around ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’, Walt Whitman’s beautiful, long, elegiac poem about the passing of President Lincoln and how he dealt with that. So the text is very much this kind of cyclical look at death, and coming to terms with death; seeing death as a natural part of cycles. So in my mind that’s kind of where we started, and from there Joan gave me the option of picking one or two other American composers that I might want to do that might not be familiar to Vancouver audiences.” One of those is Harms’s friend Jesse Jones, whose Los Niños, a setting for voice and guitar of five texts from the
Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, plumbs similarly weighty topics. “They’re not poems that necessarily all live together in Lorca’s world, but they all share Lorca’s overriding obsession with death,” Harms says, noting that the mood of the piece also draws on Jones’s memories of his brother, who drowned when they were children. “So there’s this whole idea of death—maybe not so literal as the death of children, but the death of innocence and the death of being naive, as well as fearing it and seeing the beauty of love that comes about when someone dies, or when an idea dies. “Every movement is quite different,” she continues. “Some are very sad and painful, while other pieces are very folklike and a little more uptempo. And then at other times, in a dramatic flurry, he’ll suddenly invoke this very flamenco-ish kind of style. They’re hard to describe, because they’re very complete in their thoughts and their ideas, but they all live in the same harmonic world. They’re tuneful, and the guitar has an insanely beautiful amount of work and language.” Rounding out the program are works from B.C. composers Frank Brickle, Stephen Chatman, Rodney Sharman, and Jocelyn Morlock, whose themes are less morbid, but similarly reflective. Their shared question, Harms suggests, is “What does it all mean?” And in that sense, she continues, Singin’ in the Rain’s program goes beyond sorrow to include an appropriately vernal theme of resurrection. “Rather than ‘This is all about tragedy,’ you could say ‘This is about renewal,’ ” she says. And we all know that spring’s rebirth is impossible without rain, and song. g
Ridge THU MAR 26 2020 / 7:30PM TELUS STUDIO THEATRE
Brendan McLeod takes us back to the historic WWI Battle of Vimy Ridge with a visceral combination of stories and live music, examining our nation’s collective connection to the past.
chancentre.com
Migratory V presents Singin’ in the Rain at Pyatt Hall on Sunday (March 8).
Violin star gets a workout at VSO’s BeethovenFest
O
by Alexander Varty
ne of music’s joys is the way that it can spark mental images that have little to do with what you’re actually hearing. Last weekend, for instance, I was listening to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1, which the Russian-born virtuoso Alina Ibragimova will soon perform with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. It’s a stormy and emotional work, yet I was suddenly struck by a sports analogy: playing the work’s diabolically difficult scherzo must be a lot like negotiating a taxing slalom course on skis. Both combine the exhilaration of nailing difficult twists and turns with the constant fear of breaking a leg. The notion hadn’t occurred to Ibragimova before, but she doesn’t disagree. “It’s a workout, for sure!” the 34-year-old musician says, reached at home in London, England. “Yes, it’s fun and it’s furious. You have to be quick; you have to react quickly, as does everybody else in the orchestra—and the conductor, of course— because there is a lot happening. There’s something very feisty to it.” Shostakovich’s concerto—paired, during the VSO’s BeethovenFest, with the birthday boy’s Symphony No. 5, from which it quotes—is a far cry from Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, which Ibragimova will also perform during her Vancouver visit. One, as noted, is a fraught message from a composer fighting Soviet censorship; the other a long and lyrical song of praise for spring. “It’s very different emotions that you have to find in yourself,” the violinist says. “I think the whole approach to playing—the whole expression—is
very different. I’ve lived with both for a long time now, and they’re very different worlds, but they are both very full. You know, they have really everything in them. You have the Beethoven that’s sunny and light, like in this ‘Spring’ sonata, and you have the Beethoven of his late quartets, but that’s still such a different world from Shostakovich and his expression.” As for what the Violin Concerto No. 1 requires, beyond remarkable technique and nerves of steel, Ibragimova says that she has new insights to bring to her upcoming Vancouver performance—some gleaned from recently recording both the first and second Shostakovich violin concertos with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia. “They have an amazing history of recording Shostakovich’s music, and a very different set of sounds,” she says, noting that their joint efforts should see CD release in the spring. “That is really inspiring, and made me see things in a different light.…So with all that history in Moscow and with that orchestra I really felt… closer. I felt closer to the work.” And it’s not like she and Shostakovich didn’t already have a bond. “When you live with a piece for many years, you have your own interpretation of it, and that changes with everything that you live through yourself,” she explains. “So works like this are, in a way, our best friends.” g Alina Ibragimova joins the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at the Orpheum on Saturday (March 7), and a chamber ensemble of VSO musicians at Christ Church Cathedral on Monday (March 9), both as part of BeethovenFest.
MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 17
VETTA CHAMBER MUSIC
Joan Blackman
Artistic Director
2019-2020 34TH SEASON
BEETHOVEN’S BIRTHDAY Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata Korngold Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano, Left Hand Jane Coop piano Joan Blackman violin Jason Ho violin Rebecca Wenham cello
THU MAR 5TH 2PM
WEST POINT GREY UNITED CHURCH TH
FRI MAR 6
7:30PM
ARTS
Coleman captures chaos in Dollhouse
I
by Janet Smith
n Dollhouse, veteran Toronto dance artist Bill Coleman staggers through a cluttered world of mousetraps, ladders, and plastic cups. He knocks things down, causing all manner of crashing and snapping sounds and leaving a trail of destruction. But this is not about a man’s klutziness—not at all. Like the work of one of his inspirations, Buster Keaton, this is carefully choreographed chaos—one that requires finesse, even though it may set off noises and calamities beyond Coleman’s control. “When you’re in a kind of opened, heightened state, you’re sort of porous in a way,” he explains over the phone from Toronto, before bringing the show to the Scotiabank Dance Centre. “There are a lot of things going on because I’m trying to let my body do things of its own accord, and I’m also in an environment that’s quite treacherous—not dangerous, but treacherous,” he emphasizes. “So you have to be in control and be aware of what your body’s doing to maintain balance.” Coleman has had decades of dancing for a diverse array of companies
Veteran Toronto dance artist Bill Coleman thrives in a “treacherous” environment.
to hone his reflexes and methodology. Born in Nova Scotia and raised in Scotland, he trained in tap as a teen, then went on to study at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York City, before working with the likes of Toronto Dance Theatre and the Martha Graham Dance Company. But he’s an innovator who also has created a wide body of community- and site-specific pieces around the world, and working with Second World War veterans and Indigenous peoples. Copresented by Vancouver New Music, Dollhouse marks a collaboration of a different kind, with Canadian composer and sound-art pioneer Gor-
don Monahan as a vaguely sinister onstage “Svengali” or “weird assistant” (Coleman’s words) who adds to the piece’s vibe. “This piece is full of his sort-ofmusical inventions—they’re all acoustic and there’s no recorded sound,” Coleman explains. “And he’s got this crazy stage presence. He wears leisure suits. He’s not a neutral presence.… He’s not touchy-feely at all.” With that dynamic, the sound, and a space that’s basically booby-trapped with objects and instruments, Coleman has plenty to navigate in Dollhouse. “A lot of the objects have their own volition, like the mousetraps,” he relates. “They work within a certain framework but don’t do the same thing every time, and they can really fuck up. Sometimes I’m caught on a ladder that’s pulling a wire down. It’s a little bit like working with animals— there’s always the potential that things could go really wrong.” g The Dance Centre and Vancouver New Music present Bill Coleman’s Dollhouse at the Scotiabank Dance Centre from next Thursday to Saturday (March 12 to 14).
WEST POINT GREY UNITED CHURCH TH
SUN MAR 8
2PM
PYATT HALL - Vetta Downtown Series
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Thu $20 | Fri or Sun $25 | Students $10
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2020VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL DANCEFESTIVAL
M A RCH 6 –28
Featuring: Shay Kuebler / Radical System Art · Kokoro Dance · inDANCE Ichigo-Ichieh New Theatre · Farouche · Olivia Shaffer · Ferenc Fehér FakeKnot · Modus Operandi · Boogaloo Academy & Now or Never Crew
A month of World-Class Dance Performances, Free Events, Classes & Workshops, and More
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Venues include the Roundhouse, Vancouver Playhouse, KW Production Studio and Woodward’s Atrium
Shay Kuebler / Radical System Art photo by David Cooper
18 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
ARTS
Show gives warm lesson on defusing hate THEATRE BEST OF ENEMIES
By Mark St. Germain. Based on the book by Osha Gray Davidson. Directed by Ian Farthing. A Pacific Theatre production. At Pacific Theatre on Saturday, February 29. Continues until March 21
d RICK COLHOUN’S MUSIC sets the scene even before the audience is in place and the lights go down. Initially limited to a dark and droning slide guitar, with echoes of Ry Cooder’s film soundtrack for Paris, Texas—which itself drew from the starkly beautiful sound of the guitar evangelist Blind Willie Johnson—it places us immediately in a moody zone that is neither black nor white, neither old nor new, but that’s clearly a place of memory and reflection. It’s a good choice, even though there’s little that’s mythic or otherworldly in Mark St. Germain’s treatment of interracial combat and rapprochement in Durham, North Carolina, during the early 1970s. Based on Osha Gray Davidson’s nonfiction book The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South—which has also recently been turned into a feature film by director and writer Robin Bissell—it’s a vignette from the civil-rights movement that centres on the personal animosity between Ann Atwater, an AfricanAmerican advocate for school integration, and C.P. Ellis, a white segregationist and high-ranking member of the local Ku Klux Klan. To him, she’s less than human. To her, he’s the devil incarnate. And they could happily have killed each other until a charismatic black activist,
Bill Riddick, somehow convinces them to cochair a charrette that’s intended to address the inadequacies, including racial tension, in the Durham school system. Such things could apparently be done in 1971. Now? Maybe not so much, which is undoubtedly part of the reason why St. Germain wrote this play, and why Pacific Theatre is producing it here, at a time of heightened tension between white resource-industry workers and Indigenous land defenders. And it is, I think, a valuable contribution, as it stresses the importance of making a personal connection with the “other” as a way of defusing hate. Telegraphed into a two-act play, Best of Enemies involves Atwater and Ellis discovering who they really are: humans trying to do the best for their children. This involves the white mechanic and the black former domestic servant recognizing that they have a common enemy in the class system, and beginning to understand their individual traumas. Ellis gets the bulk of the catharsis, however: his multiple sorrows include a developmentally delayed child and a wife who is bravely and quietly succumbing to cancer, and he gets to be spiritually reborn after a suicide attempt following her death. Atwater’s woes, in turn, follow a familiar blues archetype: she had a man, but he done her wrong. This is borderline generic, and the play would be stronger if Atwater’s character were more fully realized, if we heard more about the roots of her loss and caustic anger. Perhaps St. Germain, who’s white, felt that her story was not his to tell. Celia Aloma, as Atwater, and Robert Salvador, as Ellis, are believable
Celia Aloma plays Ann Atwater in Best of Enemies. Photo by Diamonds Edge
in director Ian Farthing’s straightforward treatment of St. Germain’s script. Salvador, having more to work with, is especially effective in first conveying the depth of Ellis’s racism, then showing his awakening. Anthony Santiago, playing Riddick, captures the organizer’s wily humour, while Rebecca DeBoer, as Mary Ellis, embodies an unusual degree of quiet dignity. Best of Enemies is neither groundbreaking nor revelatory, but it’s warm, well-made, and a useful reminder that even the ugliest of hearts can change.
by Alexander Varty
THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER
Adapted by Betty Knapp, with revisions by Kim Selody. A Carousel Theatre for Young People production, in association with Presentation House Theatre. At the Waterfront Theatre on February 29. Continues until March 29
d AS THE WORLD CONTINUES to rapidly change, one thing that remains timeless is the loving bond between Christopher Robin and
his bear, Winnie-the-Pooh. Their friendship is universally loved because it celebrates the curious, inquisitive nature of childhood and the unrestrained imagination that accompanies it. Carousel Theatre for Young People’s production of The House at Pooh Corner is a tender tribute to the beloved Winnie-thePooh stories, and provides young audience members with the unique opportunity to experience these stories firsthand from the perspective of Christopher Robin. Shizuka Kai’s set takes us into Christopher Robin’s bedroom, where giant rugs cover and even drape over the edge of the stage. Stuffed animals placed around the room soon come to life as Pooh and his gang of friends, including Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit, and Roo. Three actor-puppeteers—Tom Pickett, Victor Mariano, and Advah Soudack—move the animals around the stage and portray the characters with charming personality. The show is set on the day before Christopher Robin has to begin school—the final day he can enjoy complete childhood innocence and freedom. There’s just one problem: Christopher Robin is nowhere to be found. The characters urgently call out into the audience for Christopher Robin—and they find him in the form of an audience member who is invited to come on-stage and step into the role. But for other kids who would also like to play Christopher Robin, there’s no need to worry—throughout the show, the cast will frequently invite kids to come up and take a turn. Pickett portrays A.A. Milne, the author of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, and he also plays puppetmaster
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to Pooh. Pickett carries himself with a wise presence appropriate to the character of Milne, as well as to Pooh, who always has a thoughtful explanation for his actions. Mariano and Soudack operate a number of Pooh’s friends, and Mariano really shines as Tigger, capturing the tiger’s rambunctiousness with his abundant energy. Soudack is especially enjoyable in her portrayal of Eeyore, bringing the down-on-his-luck donkey to life with her entertainingly expressive vocals. Director Kim Selody has cleverly found ways to make the show a highly interactive experience. In addition to coming on-stage to play Christopher Robin, children in the audience get to help out with a scene change. And at one point during the production, they get to assist Tigger and Rabbit make their way out of the woods, as the stuffed animals are passed through the audience. But for audience members who prefer to quietly enjoy the show on their own, the cast makes a point of letting us know that there’s no pressure to join in. Fun and games aside, the production is a vivid celebration of childhood wonder and delivers some very positive messages. Through stories that involve such challenges as helping Eeyore find his house after it gets blown away and helping Tigger and Roo get down from a tree, The House at Pooh Corner illustrates the importance of teamwork, problemsolving, patience, kindness, and friendship—a message that thankfully remains timeless, like Milne’s story of a boy and his bear.
by Vince Kanasoot
myVSO.ca
604.876.3434
BEETHOVENFEST
Presented by VOLVO CAR CANADA
BEETHOVEN THE MODERNIST
THIS SATURDAY MAR 7, 8PM | ORPHEUM
Volvo Car Canada BEETHOVENFEST & Assante Masterworks Diamond Alina Ibragimova plays Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Plus, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and Rodney Sharman’s Archaic Smile with Maestro Tausk and the VSO.
CHAMBER CONCERT: BEETHOVEN & BRAHMS
“Benjamin Grosvenor may well be the most remarkable young pianist of our time.” – Gramophone
TICKETS FROM
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BENJAMIN GROSVENOR piano
SUN MAR 15 at 3pm I VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE This talented young British pianist is celebrated for his electrifying performances and has been a darling of the critics ever since he burst on to the music scene in 2004 at the age of 11. Come and hear what the fuss is about when he returns to Vancouver to perform a program of
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A MOST REMARKABLE NIGHT PART 1
MAR 13, 8PM | ORPHEUM
MAR 9, 7:30PM | CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL
Volvo Car Canada HANSELBEETHOVENFEST & GRETEL & Assante Masterworks Diamond Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and his Symphony No. 6, Pastorale. Enjoy part of the concert where four of Beethoven’s most famous works premièred at the same event.
IN THE HEART OF THE SYMPHONY
MAR 14, 8PM | ORPHEUM
Volvo Car Canada BEETHOVENFEST BeethovenFest guest artists Alina Ibragimova and Saleem Ashkar lead a delightful program of Beethoven’s chamber works in the intimate and beautiful acoustic setting of Christ-Church Cathedral.
MAR 11, 7:30PM | COMMODORE BALLROOM
Volvo Car Canada BEETHOVENFEST Maestro Tausk and the VSO invite you to experience the music from inside the orchestra at a different venue.
NINE SYMPHONIES SOLD OUT! THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
MAR 12, 7:30PM | VANCITY THEATRE
Volvo Car Canada BEETHOVENFEST Film Documentary: In the summer of 2011, Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performed all nine Beethoven symphonies in China and South Korea for the first time. The BBC joined the tour. BEETHOVENFEST PRESENTED BY
MAR 7/13 MASTERWORKS DIAMOND SERIES SPONSOR
MAR 7 BEETHOVENFEST CONCERT SPONSOR
A MOST REMARKABLE NIGHT PART 2
Volvo Car Canada BEETHOVENFEST Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, the Choral Fantasy and Six Variations in D Major. The other half of that “mostremarkable” night of Beethoven’s career.
A MOST REMARKABLE NIGHT PART 1: PASTORALE REDUX
MAR 15, 8PM | ORPHEUM
Volvo Car Canada BEETHOVENFEST & RGF Integrated Wealth Management Symphony Sundays Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and his Symphony No. 6, Pastorale. Enjoy part of the concert where four of Beethoven’s most famous works premièred at the same event. MAR 14 BEETHOVENFEST CONCERT SPONSOR
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MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 19
ARTS
Brazilians bring a blast of refined energy by Janet Smith
DANCE GRUPO CORPO
A DanceHouse production. At the Vancouver Playhouse on Friday, February 28. No remaining performances
d FROM ITS WHIRLING frenzies to its quietly aching pas de deux, Grupo Corpo’s third visit to Vancouver may have been the most dazzling yet. Honed by the same family of artists over more than four decades in Belo Horizonte, the troupe seems only to get better, faster, and more fluid with its hybrid of cutting-edge contemporary ballet and Brazilian culture. The program opened with Dança
Sinfônica, created by choreographer and cofounder Rodrigo Pederneiras in 2015 to celebrate Grupo Corpo’s 40th anniversary. Set to the diverse symphonic score by Marco Antônio Guimarães, the lyrical work is a study in partnering at its most sophisticated and innovative. The men wear black, with the women in a scarlet that matches the side curtains—a minimalist setting, but filled to the flies with energy and hyperdetailed movement. The mood is joyous and lifeaffirming, with the exception of a sole woman in a nude-coloured leotard (the spectacularly lithe Ágatha Faro). Curling herself fetally into her partner’s arms, or arching as he hoists her skyward, she offsets the driving, flickering
movement of the others with throbbing emotion, despair that needs to be lifted. Across the stage, women and men pair in increasingly unexpected ways, sometimes folding like multilegged insects moving across the floor. At moments the women stand stiff and are raised into the air like beacons, or are swung, by two men, like human trapezes. That vibe contrasts with the dizzying Gira, named for the spinning of the rituals that inspired it. The production design, with its row of candlelike lights in the darkness, makes us feel like we are being let in on a secret ceremony. In a genius touch, the dancers appear and disappear from under bodycovering black veils on chairs around the perimeter of the stage, so that it looks like they are emerging from and
being swallowed by the shadows as they come and go. Though it draws from Umbanda, the Afro-Brazilian religion that finds mediums channelling spirits through their bodies, the piece is far from a literal reenactment—though Brazilians sitting with me noticed some of the telltale movement, from the arms pushing back on the hips like wings to the heads thrusting back and forth. Sometimes the men bend all the way backward while stepping fiercely forward—as if they might fall over at any moment. Its predominant sensation is of endlessly swivelling bodies, emphasized by the dancers’ bare chests and loose white skirts, as well as the intricate footwork that the choreographer
seems to accelerate to hyperspeed as the piece goes on. By the breathless crescendo, as São Paulo band Méta Méta’s jazz sax and drum experiments give way to a punk energy, the strong male dancers reach beyond physical limits into a realm that feels trancelike and superhuman. The audience went wild for it, jumping to its feet. One of the great joys of watching Grupo Corpo is seeing its array of bodies and skin tones as diverse as the rich feijoada that makes up Brazil’s heritage, with each dancer bringing his or her own spice to the vocabulary. The technical polish and physical strength are there, but so is a driving energy that feels like pride mixed with a blast of Brazilian sun. g
STUDIO 58’S PROFESSIONAL THEATRE TR AINING PROGR A M. The application deadline is April 14. Learn more about the audition process at one of our information sessions. March 5 (at Langara) & March 17 (online). Register for an information session. studio58.ca
PHOTO CREDIT: THE C A ST OF SHAKESPEARE’S ANTONY AND CLEOPATR A (2019); PHOTO BY DAVID COOPER
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20 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
You’ll taste the love at Nine Dumplings
I
HITS
by Gail Johnson
f you love dumplings, you gotta head to (the highly uninspiring, three-quarters empty) Robson Public Market and up the stairs at the back to the second level. That’s where you’ll find the giant rainbowhued sign for Nine Dumplings, sometimes known as Nine Dishes, run by Yue Shen and his wife and 20-something daughter. Folded by hand, each with a different filling, the dumplings have all-natural skins in various gorgeous colours. The green ones are made of spinach; black of squid ink; red of beet root; yellow of yellow ginger; purple of purple cabbage. Then there’s the blue dumpling, its dough infused with butterfly pea flower. (When boiled like tea, the f lowers emit the brilliant edible dye that changes colour depending on what you mix it with.) Fillings consist of pork with cabbage, chives, cilantro, kimchi, or green pepper. There are four other varieties: squid, pork, and chives; lamb and zucchini; scallop and fish; and vegetarian, with carrots, cabbage, cilantro, sesame, and vermicelli noodles. You get to pick your cooking style: boiled or steamed in a bamboo basket (Xiaolong), either option with or without a spicy Szechuan sauce with Chinese pepper, red chili, cinnamon, and star anise. Or get them in a soup (Shanghai-style) with cilantro, seaweed, and green onions. The pork-based dumplings go for $4.99 for six pieces; the others cost $5.99 for six. Order the sampler platter ($9.99) to get all nine. One snap of those beauties on your iPhone and you’re officially eating for the Insta. Every order of dumplings comes with what Shen calls a gift of a spicy clear-noodle appetizer and a redbean dessert.
(second entrée of equal or lesser value) up to $15. (se Val Valid until Mar. 31, 2020. Not valid with other cou coupons or other in-house offers or event nights. Gra Gratuities based on TOTAL bill before discount.
Free Street Parking!
BREAKFAST, LUNCH & DINNER
#thetipperrestaurant #lovestories #dineindiner #thetipperr
2066 KINGSWAY (at Victoria) Victor | 604.873.1010 | www.thebottletipper.com
The offerings at Nine Dumplings come in an array of colours. Photo by Gail Johnson
I wanted to…reach more of Vancouver’s multicultural population. – Yue “If” Shen
“You can taste the love,” says Shen, who prefers to go simply by the name If. Born in Beijing and in Vancouver since 1999, he says it comes from a Confucian saying that translates roughly as: “I am different. Everything is necessary.” To If, a former electronics engineer who taught himself how to cook, the expression essentially means “It is what it is.” “There is no ‘no’; there is no ‘yes’,” he says. Nine Dumplings itself isn’t new.
FRIDAY, MARCH 6
SHUVINAI ASHOONA: MAPPING WORLDS A selection of drawings created by the acclaimed Inuk artist over the past two decades. To May 24, Vancouver Art Gallery. PLAYING WITH FIRE: CERAMICS OF THE EXTRAORDINARY Exhibition of ceramic works by celebrated B.C.–based artists. To Mar 29, Museum of Anthropology at UBC. From $16. ACTS OF RESISTANCE Artwork of seven Indigenous artist-activists from the Pacific Northwest. To Jul 1, 10 am–5 pm, Museum of Vancouver. THEATRESPORTS Two teams of players are pitted against each other in competitive improv matches. Mar 4-26, The Improv. From $10.75. CIPHER World premiere of a play about a forensic toxicologist trying to solve a Vancouver Island cold-case murder. To Mar 7, Granville Island Stage. From $29. TALKING SEX ON SUNDAY New musical comedy by Sara-Jeanne Hosie and Nico Rhodes. To Mar 8, Firehall Arts Centre. From $25. STEEL MAGNOLIAS Boone Dog Productions presents the comedy-drama about six southern women and their steadfast friendships. To Mar 8, 8 pm, the Nest. THE WEDDING PARTY Comedy about a wedding where the two families are at each other’s throats. To Mar 22, Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre. From $29. BEST OF ENEMIES Civil-rights drama about the battle between an activist and a KKK leader. To Mar 21, Pacific Theatre. $20-36.50. THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER Stage adaptation of A.A. Milne’s children’s book blends puppetry and music. To Mar 29, Waterfront Theatre. $18/29/35.
FRISKY FRIDAY Improvised late-night comedy. Mar 6, 11:15 pm, Improv Centre. From $10.
DISCOVER DANCE! IMMIGRANT LESSONS Young dance collective uses a mashup of styles to tell stories of new immigrants facing questions of identity and belonging. Mar 5, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $15-22. ACTS OF RESISTANCE: ARTIST TALK Join Coast Salish artists Ronnie Dean Harris, Marissa Nahanee, Ocean Hyland, and Brandon Gabriel for a discussion of their art practices. Mar 5, 7 pm, Museum of Vancouver. $15 -17. PAUL ANTHONY’S TALENT TIME: TRUTH CONVENTION Comedy/variety talk show with cohost Ryan Beil from the Sunday Service. Mar 5, 8-10:15 pm, Rio Theatre. $12/14. ANNA BELLA EEMA Sol Theatre Collective presents Lisa D’Amour’s play, directed by Charles Siegel. Mar 5-15, 8 pm, Vancity Culture Lab. $30. OK TINDER: SWIPE RIGHT COMEDY Noholds-barred comedy inspired by Vancouver’s dating scene. Mar 5-26, 9:15 pm, Improv Centre. From $10.75.
In fact, the eatery has had three other locations to date: one in Richmond, one in Burnaby, and one on Kingsway near Fraser. If explains that each time, the building his business occupied was torn down to make way for a high-rise. Upon being forced to move on this most recent occasion, he sought out the Robson Street location to reach a broader clientele. “Before, most customers were Chinese,” If says. “I wanted to be able to reach more of Vancouver’s multicultural population.” Other items on the Nine Dumplings menu are lamb skewers, spicy boiled or stir-fried pork kidney, Xian lamb pilaf, Beijing-style green-onion pancake, Beijing-style sweet-sesame pancake, and more. Nine Dumplings is open seven days a week from 12 p.m. It doesn’t have a website but has an Instagram account: @ninedishes. Best to make the trek to Robson Public Market and hope it’s not coming down for another high-rise anytime soon. g
ARTS LISTINGS
ONGOING
THURSDAY, MARCH 5
(with the purchase of beverages)
FOR 1 2THTHE GREATEST
ONE PER DINING EXPERIENCE
FOOD
SCREWBALL COMEDY Western Canadian premiere of playwright Norm Foster’s affectionate spoof. Mar 6-7, Anvil Centre. $25.99-29.99.
Arts
HOT TICKET
SATURDAY, MARCH 7 TEATRO INTIMO DEL FLAMENCO Karen Flamenco presents live flamenco music and dance. Mar 7, 3-4 pm, 5-6 pm, Improv Centre. $12.
SUNDAY, MARCH 8 7TH ANNUAL CHOCOLATE AND BEER TASTING This annual fundraiser for Parkinson’s Society British Columbia will pair local handcrafted @takeafancychocolate bean-to-bar chocolate confections with Moody Ales and The Bakery Brewing local craft beer to create new pops of flavour and combinations that will change the way you think about beer and chocolate for years to come. Mar 8, 1-3 pm, Moody Ales. $50 advance/$60 at door. FIESTA! Mozaico Flamenco presents live flamenco music and dance. Mar 8, 3 pm, Presentation House Theatre. $16-20.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 BROKEN TAILBONE Enjoy the daring, sexy and dance-filled Broken Tailbone by celebrated writer and performer Carmen Aguirre. Everyone’s invited to get into the rhythm as Aguirre leads an extended salsa dance lesson interwoven with her remarkable stories of intimacy, politics, culture, and the forgotten origins of the salsa. *Matinee March 14 at 2 pm. Mar 1114, 8 pm, Performance Works. $20-25.
THURSDAY, MARCH 12 BARE NAKED COMEDY A comedy-variety show that celebrates all bodies with all manner of entertainment, including standup, storytelling, musical acts, and more! Mar 12, 8-9:30 pm, Historic Theatre. $15 advance/$18 at the door.
SATURDAY, MARCH 14 ‘WHAT’S OPERA, DOC?’ Vivaldi Chamber Choir presents ‘What’s Opera, Doc?’, Featuring great opera arias and choruses, with guest soloists Elaina Moreau (soprano), Tabitha Brass (mezzo soprano), Mark Pepe (tenor), and William Liu (baritone). Mar 14, 7:30 pm, St. Helen’s Anglican Church (4405 W. 8th); and Mar 15, 3 pm, West Vancouver United Church (2062 Esquimalt Ave.). $25/22.
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL (March 6 to
28 at various venues) As Kokoro Dance’s annual celebration shifts into gear this week, make sure to check out Hungarian choreographer Ferenc Fehér’s The Station, a vision of restless urban zombies moving to a rich and haunting soundscape (shown here; March 11 to 14 at the KW Production Studio); watch inDANCE’s Śiva Kissed Visnu “queer up” classical Indian bharata natyam (March 18 to 21 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre); or see local artist Ralph Escamillan employ costume, street dance, and tech with FakeKnot’s HINKYPUNK (March 25 to 28 at the KW Production Studio). g
SUNDAY, MARCH 15 FAMILY DAY FESTIVAL: ST PATRICK’S WEEK FESTIVAL Bring the whole family out for this one! Party from 11 am to 3 pm with Irish brunch, Guinness, and $5 Irish caesars! Entertainment by Neezar the Stilts Walker, face painting, hula-hoop fun, and a piper! No cover charge + drink & food specials 11 am to 3 pm, Mark your calendars, friends! Reservations can be made at blarneystone.ca. Mar 15, 11 am– 3 pm, the Blarney Stone. Free. ARTS LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge. Submit events online using the event-submission form at straight. com/AddEvent. Events that don’t make it into the paper will appear on the website.
> Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < I SAW YOU, SPACE MOUSE!
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MARCH 1, 2020 WHERE: Bakery, South Granville
I Saw You buying a croissant for a friend, dressed all in Lycra (I think you had just gone for a run). You were reading some Lainey Gossip on your phone and you were unbelievably nice and polite to everyone. You mentioned something about beaver spotting and I’m wondering if there’s any chance that may have been a euphemism..? ;) I’d love to check out the Stanley Park beavers with you some time...
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 26, 2020 WHERE: Kitsilano I’ve seen you around the building a few times lately, and think you’re super cute. Last week you saw me helping some people carry the furniture they bought from me down the stairs, and then struck up a conversation in our hallway about my impending move. I was sweaty and in packing mode and you completely caught me off guard, hence my single sentence answers and awkward smile as I quickly ducked back into my apartment (where I proceeded to curse myself out for missing an opportunity to chat you up). Maybe you were literally just being neighborly, but if you had other intentions I’d love to hear what those were...
PAWN SHOP YVR
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 29, 2020 WHERE: Pawn Shop Absolutely gorgeous blonde with your friend, probably the sexiest feet I’ve ever seen. No I don’t have a foot fetish, yet. Eyes connected a couple times. Wish I had taken a chance. What I would do for a chance to share some tacos and tequila.
SAME GYM, SAME CAFE
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 29, 2020 WHERE: Commercial Drive Prado Cafe You go to Spartacus gym and found out today you're a barista at the Prado Cafe close to Spartacus. You're beautiful, get back to me!
SECOND LOOKS AND FLASHING SMILES...
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 28, 2020 WHERE: Powell and Victoria We met eyes when I was leaving the Husky on Powell and Victoria. You were walking up the street... I was in my goofy uniform... You caught me looking twice, and flashed me a cutie smile. Thanks for making my day ;)
CUTIE ASKS FOR A LIGHT
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 26, 2020 WHERE: Near Main Station Total dime. Brittney made my day in front of bud shop on Main 'n Terminal. Let’s do dinner.
GASTOWN CONTRACTOR
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 28, 2020 WHERE: Water & Abbott I looked up from my phone at you as we passed each other, we made eye contact and then we looked back at each other... twice. You were wearing a black hat, have a silver fox thing going on and had your hands full. Wish one of us had stopped.
MEET IN GASTOWN
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 25, 2020 WHERE: MEET in Gastown Lunchtime at MeeT. We only exchanged a few glances but it felt like more than a glance. I was with work colleagues seated at table along the wall. You looked like you were also with work colleagues seated at a table in the middle. Obviously it wasn’t the best time for small talk. Wanna meet up sometime?
AFTER THE RONNIE CHIANG COMEDY SHOW
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 22, 2020 WHERE: The Vogue Theatre You were exiting the theater. You appeared to be by yourself, well-dressed and put together. I was with a guy friend, and after I went on to Granville Street was trying to look for you. I eventually saw you picking up a snack in an eatery a few doors from The Vogue. We should of went in for a coffee, and a chance to talk with you. If you do see this, try to connect with me.
FORGET ME NOT
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 26, 2020 WHERE: Cultch on Main We were sitting next to each other at the puppet show. You said you would love a cup of tea.
HEARTS AND COLOURS
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 26, 2020 WHERE: Shoppers at Commercial SkyTrain We made eye contact inside the store and smiled at each other while standing by the drinks! We had a chance to talk at the cash register and you told me you liked my brightly coloured jacket and I loved the shaved hearts in your hair that you got done for a party! I thought they looked super cool and I would love to chat more! Coffee sometime?
PROPAGANDA CAFFEINE FIX
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 26, 2020 WHERE: Propaganda I was working away in the corner of Propaganda in Chinatown (headphones, MacBook, a wheelies sweatshirt), and you came in around 1:15 for an espresso on the bench. There’s something about you, I wanted to say hi but thickened out and as soon as you walked out those doors hard core regretted it. And here I am. I hope you come back round sometime, or maybe see this and send along a note.
Visit straight.com to post your FREE I Saw You _ MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 21
MOVIES
No apologies from director Ken Loach by Adrian Mack
VIFF‘19
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Ricky (Kris Hitchen) rests with daughter Liza Jane (Katie Proctor) in Loach’s takedown of the gig economy, Sorry We Missed You.
n 2013 Ken Loach made The Spirit of ’45, a rousing documentary about the welfare state built by Britain’s postwar Labour government. Inevitably, asked when conditions for the working class were at their most promising, the 83-year-old filmmaker points back to that time. “Obviously, there were elements that weren’t good—there was still rationing—but the sense of collective endeavour and support for each other and optimism was very strong,” he says, reached by the Georgia Straight in London. “I was a child, but people were building for the future. The market economy gradually pulled it apart. And then, by the end of the ’70s, Thatcher came in and took a hammer to the whole edifice, and it’s gone from bad to worse ever since.” That optimism was already visibly failing by the time Loach made pioneering works of compassionate social realism like 1967’s Poor Cow. More than half a century of class war later, Sorry We Missed You, opening Friday (March 6), takes the fight to the so-called gig economy, observing the fallout when hard-working family man Ricky (Kris Hitchen) takes a job as an “associate” at an Amazon-like delivery service. Being a Ken Loach movie, Sorry… raises as many laughs as it does hackles, but the steady accretion of indignities, always with the hard ring of truth, finally devastates. The film should be required viewing for any city that, say, recently opened its streets to Uber. “You have a sense that it’s a way of increasing the exploitation of workers,
22 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
Movies
TIP SHEET
THE VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL WOMEN IN FILM FESTIVAL continues
at the Vancity Theatre until Sunday (March 8). See our interview with filmmakeractivist-educator Doreen Manuel (Unceded Chiefs) on page 11, and check out some of this year’s other titles below. c BLACK CONFLUX Set in the late ’80s, Nicole Dorsey’s debut feature was included in TIFF’s top 10 Canadian films of 2019. Screens Thursday (March 5). c LOST REACTOR Alexandra Westmeier’s doc visits with the residents of a never-used nuclear reactor in Crimea. Screens Friday (March 6). c SEEING This tale of parental grief from India’s Sumitra Bhave has won multiple internationalfestival prizes. See it here on Saturday (March 7). g
but the actual details of it are even more shocking than you imagine,” says Loach, who worked once again from a deeply researched script by Paul Laverty. Job security and any form of labour protection are not only lost but reversed; drivers are crushed by debt, insurance, equipment costs, fines levelled by the company, and all the other brutal vagaries of life under late-stage capitalism. “All these rights that people struggled for, for generations, are just
being washed away under the guise of—well, it’s propaganda,” Loach states. “The idea that you’re not a driver, you’re an entrepreneur, and therefore you’re not an employee. The employer has no obligation to you and you have to work 12 hours to make a decent living.” It’s an uncomfortable irony that such a difficult time—we’re definitely a long way from the spirit of ’45—would prove so fecund for an artist like Loach, a prominent supporter of Jeremy Corbyn during last year’s U.K. election. Labour’s crushing defeat has left the filmmaker with a clear bead on the predicament shared by all of us. “The destruction of that leadership was total,” he says, directing blame at broadcast, print, and online media (“We don’t have a left-wing press at all”), abetted by the party’s own entrenched New Labour establishment. “When the BBC wanted someone to attack him, which they did all the time, they didn’t go to the Tories, they went to the right wing of the Labour Party.” The political class, he adds, mobilized after Corbyn’s dramatic gains in 2017. “They took fright,” he says, “and so he would be called a terrorist sympathizer, he would be called an anti-Semitic sympathizer, every day, year after year, and he didn’t fight back hard enough, and he was destroyed. And that whole opportunity, I fear, could well be lost now. And I think they’re doing the same thing to Bernie Sanders. I’ve even heard there are ‘Democrats Against Anti-Semitism’. And he’s Jewish! It’s crazy.” g
MOVIES
A big bite out of the billionaire class
SORRY WE MISSED YOU
Starring Kris Hitchen. Rated 14A
d THE STRUGGLE continues. In fact, now that the workers own the means of productionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a.k.a. the gig economyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the struggle is a damn sight worse. For Ken Loach, now 82 but still tirelessly documenting the underclass, indentured servitude is a subject that never gets old, since it constantly assumes new forms. In Sorry We Missed You, named for the Amazonian wasteland of a fictional packagedelivery service, Loach and frequent writing partner Paul Laverty look at the intertwined effects of income inequality and family dysfunction. When we meet Ricky Turner (Kris Hitchen), heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Newcastle jack-ofall-trades who signs on to be a â&#x20AC;&#x153;master of your own destinyâ&#x20AC;?, according to a baldheaded brute of a boss who later declares himself â&#x20AC;&#x153;the patron
FRI. MAR. 6 MAR. 5 SATURDAY MAR. 7 SUN. MAR. 8 9 MAR. 10
by Ken Eisner
S -OU IC M O C P! I STR
11
d THE BLINDING whiteness of latestage capitalism and Steve Cooganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s teeth vie for dominance in this hitand-miss satire of society eating itself out of planetary house and home. Virtually everything the star does as Richard â&#x20AC;&#x153;Greedyâ&#x20AC;? McReadie, Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worst fictional billionaire, hits well enough here. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a testimony to Cooganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comic talents and our unhealthy fascination with unbridled wealth that we somehow keep rooting for the guy, even as every layer of the monetary onion is pulled back by writer-director Michael Winterbottom, revealing ever bigger stinks underneath. The on-screen peeling is done by a seemingly feckless journalist, Nick, played by David Mitchell, a Mike Myersâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;ish figure familiar to U.K. TV watchers but relatively unknown over here. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been hired to write an â&#x20AC;&#x153;approvedâ&#x20AC;? biography of Sir Richard, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re given some youthful background as to how McCreadie got so greedy. As with The Sopranos and Sigmund Freud, most troubles start with Motherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;although one could argue that the bigger problem here came with casting Shirley Henderson as Cooganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mum, since theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re exactly the same age. This is justified, presumably, by the flashbacks with her enabling the lad in his selfish ways. Pointedly resembling a certain thin-skinned blowhard currently bedevilling U.S. politics, but with a much sharper tongue, the adult McReadie is only in it for the winning. The sole part of any deal he enjoys is driving the other party down. From a tough parliamentary inquiry and Nickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interviews with financial experts, we learn that Sir Dick has never followed through on any aspect of the High Street fashion business except for the makingmoney part. (The character is loosely based on Sir Philip Green, disgraced founder of the Topshop chain.) The journalistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s travels eventually take him to Sri Lanka, and the textile sweatshops that give the film some heart, and provide background to one of the rich manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s many assistants (cast standout Dinita Gohill). Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s helping him plan a 60th- birthday party on the Greek isle of Mykonos, where the family dramedy (with Isla Fisher as indulgent ex and Asa Butterworth as angry scion) gets downright Oedipal at times. Winterbottom has often worked with Coogan, as in 24 Hour Party People and The Trip to Spain, and if the new film resembles Veep and In the Loop at times, that might be because the director is here collaborating with Armando Ianucciâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s frequent writingand-producing partner Sean Gray. Their intentions, amid the intermittent laughs, are surprisingly serious.
12
Starring Steve Coogan. Rated 14A
13
GREED
abandoned cabin. The dog eats a rabbit while the donkey stares out a window at an overcast sky. Sorry, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no punch line to this story. And the same can be said of this vexingly cerebral exercise from Germany. The title nods to YasujirĹ? Ozuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s silent masterpiece I Was Born, Butâ&#x20AC;Ś, and this music-free movie also pays homage to other auteurs who remain more influential among filmmakers than with the general public. by Janet Smith But writer-director Angela Schanelec shows little wit in her tributes, and I WAS AT HOME, BUTâ&#x20AC;Ś displays only the chilliest regard for Starring Maren Eggert. In German, her on-screen creations. with English subtitles. Rating What plot there is revolves around Steve Coogan is filthy rich in Greed, his latest with director Michael Winterbottom. unavailable middle-aged art teacher Astrid (Marin saint of nasty bastardsâ&#x20AC;?. accusingly, at us. Conversations are Eggert), raising two young children see next page Rickyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife, Abbie (Debbie expository monologues, with the d A DONKEY and a dog walk into an Honeywood, impressive in her first line between dream and reality hard role), is a home-care nurseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;sorry, to divine. And the only other charâ&#x20AC;&#x153;independent contractorâ&#x20AC;?â&#x20AC;&#x201D;who views acter of note is a palsied preacher, and cleans up the effluvia of a crush- played by Ventura, who was in the ing system on a daily basis. She has directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last couple of movies. to sell her car and take the bus to A rock guitarist turned filmmaker, far-flung â&#x20AC;&#x153;clientsâ&#x20AC;? so Ricky can make Costa clearly has affection for his disthe down payment on a transit van traught, impoverished subjects, but instead of renting from the company. thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a tinge of â&#x20AC;&#x153;otheringâ&#x20AC;? here, with PAUL ANTHONYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TALENT TIME: Truth Convention 8:00 pm The governTheir daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a sweet kid, but the these stark tableaux vaguely invoking ment is lying to you about everything, but Talent Time has uncovered the truth - and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re ready older sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a brooding tag artist cur- â&#x20AC;&#x153;voodooâ&#x20AC;? movies of the postwar perto share it with you! Learn whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really behind about crop circles, bagel holes, global warming, dial tones, and iKandeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mysterious disappearance. Featuring the Flat Earth Band and real comedirently skipping school and stumbling iod. More immediately troublesome is ans, conspiracies, scientists, the house band, and even co-host Ryan Beil! Minors OK! towards an increasingly bleak future. the creeping awareness that everyone The Geekenders present A MARVEL-OUS COMIC STRIP 8:00 pm NERDS, Seeing his once-proud father owe his is hitting their marks just so, in order ASSEMBLE! Vancouverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favourite nerdlesque troupe present their newest nerdy production, a bursoul to the company store doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t to create the perfect doorway silhoulesque show that celebrates the Marvel characters you know and love (and secretly Google sexy fan art of in your spare time) with energetic dancing, comedy, and cheeky satire - created by artists help. Indeed, Ricky finds it a bewilder- ette and suchâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the kind of thing that as nerdy as you are! Costumes welcome and encouraged! Tickets going fast! ing task to â&#x20AC;&#x153;hit the numbersâ&#x20AC;? required has vast power in a still photograph HARDWARE 11:30 pm Director Richard Stanley (Color Out Of Space) made a name for in a system that turns people into but somehow loses its magic when you himself in 1990 with this cyberpunk thriller, that has since evolved into something a cult-classic in Perfect for Friday Late Night Movie viewing! Minors OK! machines. Parking tickets, broken see exactly what went into it. by Ken Eisner lifts, violent thieves, the odd guard dog, and serious sleep deprivation are among the true costs of the gig. LIE EXPOSED Meanwhile, Abbie has to rub camphor Starring Leslie Hope. Rated 14A under her nose before visiting some of her smellier old-timers, although she d TO GET STRAIGHT to the point: does enjoy their memories of better vaginas. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re revealed and talked about in myriad ways in Lie Exposed. days and â&#x20AC;&#x153;loveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s young dreamâ&#x20AC;?. RIDE YOUR WAVE 1:00 pm â&#x20AC;&#x153;â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Ride Your Wave DPOmSNT Masaaki Yuasaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s place among These workers, young or retired, Melanie (Leslie Hope) is a recovering the most interesting directors working in animation today.â&#x20AC;? (Los Angeles Times) Minors OK! donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t so much want to lose their alcoholic whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dying of an illness and Japanese with English subs. LES MISĂ&#x2030;RABLES 3:45 pm â&#x20AC;&#x153;Transcends its unwieldy story with compelling ideas and chains as they are hoping to regain is uninspired by her relationship with BO JOGFDUJPVT FOFSHZ UIBU CPJMT PWFS EVSJOH B UISJMMJOH mOBM BDU w (Rotten Tomatoes) Tense and the ties that used to bind. The film her husband (Bruce Greenwood), a darkly comic Oscar-nominee (Best International Film), inspired by the 2005 Paris riots. Minors ends, just a bit heavy-handedly, with man who should get the award for OK! English subs. Final screening! Ricky driving the long road to no- the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most understanding, paTHE LODGE 8:45 pm i3JMFZ ,FPVHI T XPSL JT TP TUSPOH TP FGGFDUJWF UIBU CZ UIF UJNF XF learn the ultimate fate of Grace, we would have bought into any of the possible optionsâ&#x20AC;? (Chicago where. Loach only hints at the dep- tient partner. Acting out, she takes Sun-Times) The latest white-knuckle thriller from the team behind arthouse horror hit Goodnight redations coming their way when off to Los Angeles, hooks up with a Mommy. Minors OK! Also March 8 7:00 pm Brexit really kicks in. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be his tintype photographer (Jeff Kober, GHOST IN THE SHELL 11:15 pm Anime looks better on the big screen! Mamoru Oshiiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1995 landmark. Minors OK! Japanese with English subs. who also screenwrites), and lets him next, one expects. by Ken Eisner shoot arty pics of her privates. (They canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be dirty because theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re blackVITALINA VARELA and-white.) Starring Vitalina Varela. In When she returns to Toronto to Portuguese, with English subtitles. be with her husband, they stage an Rating unavailable art-gallery show of the shots. And it sends all their friends out into the d THERE ARE IMAGES in this night reassessing their own sex lives, HARRIET 1:30 pm Kasi Lemmonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; thrilling and inspirational biopic of iconic American strange new movie that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll probably the definition of pornography, and GSFFEPN mHIUFS Harriet Tubman, whose escape from slavery led to freedom for hundreds of slaves, thereby changing the course of history. With Cynthia Erivo, Janelle Monae. Minors OK! never forget. In the long run, how- the meaning of life. ever, they may be more memorable Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not much you can fault JOJO RABBIT 4:15 pm â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Waititiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to balance unassailably goofy moments with an acknowledgment of real-life horrors that makes the movie exceptional.â&#x20AC;? (Time Magazine) for questions they raise than any an- about the acting in this ensemble Oscar-winner Taika Waititi wrote, directed, and stars in this satirical coming of age tale about a swers found within them. pieceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hopeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s freedomyoung German boy whose imaginary spirit guide through the devastating turmoil of WW2 happens to be... Adolf Hitler. Minors OK! Also March 9 6:30 pm, March 14 4:00 pm. Vitalina Varela is named after its seeking older woman or Kristin LehRABID 9:30 pm Vancouverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own Twisted Twins BLB MPDBM mMNNBLFST Jen & Sylvia main actor, playing a version of her- manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sexually assertive party girl. Soska--will be joining us for a screening of their new body-horror hit, a remake of Canadian icon self: a woman of 54 who was born in And director Jerry Ciccoritti has a David Cronenbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rabid. Post-screening Q&A to follow. Minors OK! the Portuguese island colony of Cape polished way of piecing together the THE PHOTOGRAPH 9:15 pm i-BLFJUI 4UBOmFME BOE *TTB 3BF EP XPOEFSGVM XPSL BT Verde and has ended up, like so many storyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nonchronological fragments. people with an instant connection.â&#x20AC;? (Chicago Sun-Times) Minors OK! African expats, in one of the sadder, But as Melanie pontificates in a voiceFANTASTIC FUNGI 6:30 pm â&#x20AC;&#x153;Visually stunning and groundbreakingâ&#x20AC;? (SF WEEKLY) more worn-out corners of Europe. over about Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s will and pubic hair, %JSFDUFE CZ BXBSE XJOOJOH mMNNBLFS BOE QJPOFFS PG UJNF MBQTF QIPUPHSBQIZ Louie Schwartzberg and narrated by Oscar-winner Brie Larson, this profound documentary is an She shares screenwriting credit with you start to wonder, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do people really immersive journey into the magical earth beneath our feet: An underground network with the director Pedro Costa, although story talk like this? Or dress like thisâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in potential to heal and save our planet. Minors OK! Also March 13 4:20 pm. and dialogue are secondary to light, heels and sequins and feathers? Or go TRUE FICTION 8:45 pm â&#x20AC;&#x153;A refreshingly complex and ambitious, sometimes genuinely unnerving power game.â&#x20AC;? (Rue Morgue) Terror strikes when a world-famous horror writer mood, and mystery. to art-gallery openings like this?â&#x20AC;? conducts a psychological experiment on his new assistant at a remote cabin. With Director Q&A! Our movie Vitalina arrives on the Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to care about the clichĂŠd AMANDA SHIRES 8:00 pm Tickets going fast! outskirts of Lisbon just a few days â&#x20AC;&#x153;problemsâ&#x20AC;? of all the upscale people too late to attend the funeral of her involved, with their challenges husband, whom she hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seen in sketched lightly in screenwriter Kodecades, or so weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re led to believe. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s berâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vignettes. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the pair whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve hard to know whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s true in a tale that stopped having sex, or the guy who finds our hard-bitten heroine getting decides heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to try to get back off the plane soaking wet and met by together with his wife that night. five cleaning ladies who stand rigidly All this because of a bunch of with their mops on the tarmac, like pictures of someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hoohaw. A The Vancouver Burlesque Co. STUDENT SHOWCASE 9:00 pm Get ready angels in a medieval painting. crucible that shocks everyone into to usher in spring with a sparkly Student Showcase! Come see all the hard work and dedication The night-gallery effects carry change? Hard to believe in a world put into the last few months of the VBC. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time for well stage debuts from fresh-faces, a shining starburst of group numbers, plus appearances from some of your favourite instructors, as well as through a rather taxing two hours, where we can all get a glimpse of one BO BQQFBSBODF GSPN *OEJHP B USVF RVFFO PG CVSMFTRVF BOE MFBEFS JO IFS mFME most of it shot in the dark, with char- by a simple Google search, or hear FRIDAY THE 13th PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD 11:00 pm 5IF 3JP T Friday acters only illuminated by hard side- talk about vaginas everywhere from Late Night Movie series continues on Friday, March 13 withâ&#x20AC;Ś FRIDAY THE 13th! (So meta.) lighting. The slow-motion events take daytime TV to entire theatre monoThis time, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re screening 1988â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entry, THE NEW BLOOD (aka Part VII). Minors OK! place in a jerrybuilt slum, with cor- logues to South Park. PRINCESS MONONOKE 1:00 pm Family-friendly screening of Hayao Miyazakiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rugated metals, whitewashed stone, And am I the only one who finds 1997 fantasy-fable. Minors OK! English Dub. Kid pricing in effect! and brightly coloured doors jutting the tired idea of the grizzled male BROTHERHOOD 6:30 pm i" QPXFSGVM mHIU GPS TVSWJWBM TUPSZ GSPN $BOBEJBO EJSFDUPS Richard BellySFBMJTUJD BOE TQFDJmDy5IF mMN JT BXBTI JO QFSJPE EFUBJM 5IJT NPEFSO UBMLJF UFMMT against each other at odd angles, with photographer coaxing women to a powerful story.â&#x20AC;? (The National Post) Set in the 1920s, Brotherhood recounts the true story of a the effect of Basquiat settings getting doff their clothes a bit creepyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;made HSPVQ PG ZPVUI BU B TVNNFS DBNQ XIP IBE UP mHIU GPS TVSWJWBM XIFO BO VOGPSFTFFO UIVOEFSTUPSN Rembrandt chiaroscuro. more so here by Koberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s near silence? overwhelmed their canoe trip. Filmmakers in attendance for Q&A! Minors OK! People rarely connect, but rather Lie Exposed feels behind on 21st-cenlook into the distance or, somewhat tury art theory, on ideas about the male gaze, and who holds the power. (â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was able to let him be in control,â&#x20AC;? Melanie recalls wistfully; cue softporny shots where she tentatively opens her burnout-silk robe in his windowed loft-studio.) Lie Exposed is ambitious, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s never quite as shocking, raw, or lifechanging as it wants to be. The overall impression, to steal from Lana Del Rey, is beautiful people with beautiful problems.
MAR. 14
REVIEWS
MARCH 5 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 12 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 23
from previous page
after the recent death of her husband. The older boy apparently disappeared for a week, causing consternation at school. Astrid spends time lecturing his teachers about authenticity, or something, while they remain as still as subjects in the paintings she views without comment at a Berlin museum. This is all cryptic as hell. Whether our grim protagonist is discussing filmmaking with a foreign director or buying a used bike from a stranger, the few tangibles that do emerge are surprisingly banal. For example, Astrid is increasingly cold to her kids and distracts herself by sleeping with—wait for it—their tennis instructor! Schanelec’s group of Berlin film-
makers includes Christian Petzold, who shares some of her formalist aesthetics but marries them to narratives that move steadily forward while maintaining mystery along the edges. Franz Rogowski, the German Joaquin Phoenix type who recently starred in Petzold’s sublime Transit, plays a teacher here, in a subplot that likewise goes nowhere. The director’s mulish approach to doggedly elliptical storytelling is not without visual rewards. But too much of this stilted installation piece is like a Jeff Wall photograph come to life, delivering details that mostly prove to be less interesting than what your imagination would have supplied.
MUSIC
The Lone Bellow lights up the darkness
S
by Mike Usinger
ometimes you’ve got to break with the tried and tested to reinvent things, that being the battle plan for the Lone Bellow when it came time to work on Half Moon Light. Quite rightly, the trio’s fourth full-length has been recognized as a departure, with band members Zach Williams, Kanene Donehey Pipkin, by Ken Eisner and Brian Elmquist dialling back the widescreen-country vocals and double-honeyed harmonies that have been their trademark. What we get instead are songs that fall somewhere between cabin-ready Americana and Sunday-morning gospel, with producer Aaron Dessner of the National helping put a premium on the power of mood and texture. Reached at a New Braunfels, Texas, tour stop, Pipkin says the direction of Half Moon Light was set by a stripped-down tour swing for 2017’s Walk Into a Storm. Playing shows across North America, the band’s members realized that sometimes less can be more. “I think we were really patient with this record—we wanted to plumb the depths of what we were all going through individually, and as friends,” the singer and multi-instrumentalist says. “Sonically, we wanted to take our time and be really intentional about the sound. We really challenged the way that we sang—a lot of that came from doing this long trio tour after New Digital and 35mm Restorations! we finished the cycle for Walk Into a “A deeply satisfying cornucopia of films— forgotten Storm. That tour was just Zach, Brian, gems and rarely revived classics that never fail to and me around one microphone, and we did it for almost two years.” astonish in their diversity and dazzle in their newly The minimalism of those dates restored glory.” Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times showed the three that they don’t always have to be swinging for the stars. Film still: Laurel and Hardy in Brats, 1930 “Having to play full sets with very 1131 Howe Street, Vancouver minimal accompaniment means you thecinematheque.ca have to find all these different dynamics,” Pipkin notes. “That can mean in the way that you’re singing, and also in the song choices. Because you have to always keep it interesting, it brought out all kinds of textures and colours and intonations in our voices we hadn’t had the chance to really explore when playing with a full band. So we went from that intimate setting and nuanced singing and really brought that into the record, making it the foundation.” The idea of finding something positive in trauma colours Half Moon Light. You don’t have to be addicted to
The Cinematheque UCLA Festival of Preservation March 5–26
Touring in a stripped-down way changed the way the Lone Bellow approached everything from singing to song choice when it came time to make a new album.
the nightly news to feel like America is a shitshow these days, with things like civil discourse a fading dream. The Lone Bellow gets political on “Illegal Immigrant”, a song inspired by President Donald Trump’s crackdown on people entering America at the Mexican border without the proper paperwork. With kids being separated from their parents and held in detention centres across the States, the Lone Bellow could be forgiven for coming across angrier than ’80s hardcore. Instead, “Illegal Immigrant” is beautifully restrained when Pipkin sings lines like “My baby awake in the night/ Desert moonlight blankets the floor/ Waiting with no end in sight/ keeping her eyes fixed on the door.” “You know that phrase ‘You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?’ ” she asks. “I think we’re at a point where people enjoy being angry—maybe a little too much. Everyone is easily offended and easily outraged. Even within your own family, a lot of time you can’t bring up certain subjects without everyone devolving into subhuman forms of life. With ‘Illegal Immigrant’, Brian heard an interview on the radio with a woman who had been separated from her child. When they were reunited, she went up to a microphone, grabbed it, and said in Spanish, ‘I promised I’d find you/Wherever you are/Here I am.’ “Brian really wanted that to be the chorus,” Pipkin continues. “The challenge for me was that I didn’t want to sing it really showy. And I didn’t want it to be too preachy. When I was tracking the song, I hadn’t seen my
son in a while because we were working on the record. He was a year and a half at the time, and I imagined being separated from him against my will, and how maybe I could sing it as a lullaby to him.” Both Williams and Elmquist lost grandparents leading up to the writing of Half Moon Light, something that’s addressed on the record in different ways. All swaying horns and smoky spaghetti-western guitars, “I Can Feel You Dancing” serves as a tribute to the departed with lines like “Street light shining on your shadow/ Glory hanging from the heavens”. The beginning, mid-album, and closing piano tracks—titled “Intro”, “Interlude”, and “Finale”—are more old-timey jazz than shimmering Americana, and come from the funeral service for Williams’s grandfather. Even though Williams’s grandmother was so frail she was having trouble walking, that didn’t stop her from being carried to the keys at the service and then promptly going to town. The members of the Lone Bellow also pay tribute to the bonds they share with each other on soft-focus odes like “Dust Settles”, which addresses the challenges of balancing business with friendship when you’re making music for a living. “That song is all about being in the moment, so I love when I look out into an audience and see everyone singing it together,” Pipkin says. “It can be hard to stick things out with friends, but I’m really glad that we have.” g The Lone Bellow plays the Imperial on Monday (March 9).
Yves Lambert promises a fun time
I
by Alexander Varty
24 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MARCH 5 – 12 / 2020
f you’re worried that you won’t have a good time at Festival du Bois, the Lower Mainland’s spring celebration of francophone culture, spending time with headliner Yves Lambert will set your mind at ease— and set it spinning, too. A conversation with the bearish and animated founder of pioneering Quebec roots band La Bottine Souriante leaps wildly between fractured English, hyperspeed French, and la belle province’s incomprehensible-to-Anglos slang, joual. It’s punctuated by profanity, snatches of song, and laughter. Lots of laughter. At 63, the acclaimed accordion player and singer is having the time of his life. “My challenge in all of my career is to explain my vision—not only my sensorial vision, but also my sensibility vision,” he says in a telephone interview from his Montreal home. “And now, after 42 years of the fucking work, the project is clear for me. I have experience now, and my relationship with my body, it’s incredible now. “Now,” he adds, “it’s only fun time.” Lambert is still giddy from spending a couple of weeks in Louisiana, touring arts centres and music festivals with Cajun star Steve Riley’s International Accordion Kings. He’s hatching plans for an album with Texas-based bajo sexto virtuoso Max Baca, best-known for his work with conjunto innovator Flaco Jiménez, and contemplating starting a new band with electric guitar, electric bass, and lots of percussion. “More bass drum!” he shouts, before springing ahead to hint at an upcoming theatrical production based loosely on the theme of “sacrifice or desire”, as initially explored on his remarkable 2018 album, Tentation. If Lambert’s early work was about saving Quebec’s musical heritage from a media landslide of deracinated pop, his current approach has to do with opening himself, and his culture, to all kinds of possibilities. “To just preserve the tradition? For me, that’s okay now, because a lot of ethnologists, a lot of folklorists, like Alan
Left to right: Tommy Gauthier, Yves Lambert, and Olivier Rondeau headline the Festival du Bois. Photo by Vassili Bourassa
Lomax in the United States, have done that for 40 years,” he says. “For me, I don’t have the feeling now. For me, the first thing in the morning is to communicate with the people— with my culture, and with my spirit. That’s more important. Music is a tool, and culture is a tool, but the most important thing is to communicate the spirit of the life. You know what I mean? It’s important to understand that. And I know the spirit of the jazz, I know the spirit of the klezmer. I know the spirits of many, many kinds of music; I’m a no-formation musician, and I feel open, you know.” That’s evident in his current trio; although fiddler Tommy Gauthier and guitarist Olivier Rondeau are half Lambert’s age, they share his exploratory spirit and ability to create a vivid sense of joie de vivre. “Oh, yeah,” their leader says. “That’s my first challenge, on-stage—to make sure the people are happy.” g The Yves Lambert Trio plays Festival du Bois at Coquitlam’s Mackin Park on Saturday and Sunday (March 7 and 8).
MUSIC LISTINGS CONCERTS JUST ANNOUNCED
SATURDAY, MARCH 7
THE MILK CARTON KIDS AND HALEY HEYNDERICKX Indie-folk duo from California performs on a double bill with singer-songwriter from Oregon. May 14, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Mar 6, 10 am, $32.50. JASON BONHAM’S LED ZEPPELIN EVENING Tribute to the music of Led Zeppelin featuring the son of drummer John Bonham. May 17, 8 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tix on sale Mar 6, 10 am, $85.50/59.50/30.50. MAX Pop singer-songwriter and actor from New York. May 27, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Mar 6, 10 am, $27.50. JHENÉ AIKO American R&B/neo-soul singersongwriter, with guests Queen Naija and Ann Marie. Jun 5, 7 pm, Malkin Bowl. Tix on sale Mar 6, 10 am, $40. KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD Blues-rock guitar hero from the States, with guest Jesse Roper. Jun 7, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Mar 6, 10 am, $52.50. THE WEEKND R&B/hip-hop superstar from Toronto, with guests Sabrina Claudio and Don Toliver. Jun 11-12, 7 pm, Rogers Arena. Tix for Jun 12 on sale Mar 6, 10 am, from $29.75. THE LEMON TWIGS Rock band from New York. Jun 12, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix on sale Mar 6, 10 am, $20. CAR SEAT HEADREST Indie-rock band from Virginia. Jul 9, 8:30 pm; Jul 10, 7:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $30. OTR Electronic-pop artist from Ohio. Aug 1, 8 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix on sale Mar 6, 10 am, $15. MAREN MORRIS American country-pop singer-songwriter, with guests James Arthur and Caitlyn Smith. Sep 10, Abbotsford Centre. Tix on sale March 6, 10 am. KIM GORDON Sonic Youth cofounder performs tunes from debut solo album No Home Record. Sep 11, Commodore Ballroom. MARSHMELLO American DJ and electronicmusic producer. Sep 25, 8 pm, Pacific Coliseum. Tix on sale Mar 6, 10 am, from $65.50.
THE REAL MCKENZIES Local Celtic punks, with guests Real Sickies, ATD, and the Shit Talkers. Mar 7, 8 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $17.50. CURL UP AND DIE Reunited metalcore band from Las Vegas. Mar 7, 9 pm, WISE Hall.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4
SUNDAY, MARCH 8 COCO MONTOYA American blues guitarist and vocalist, formerly of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Mar 8, 7 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $35. DIANNE REEVES: BELEZA BRAZIL Jazz vocalist performs music from Brazil. Mar 8, 7 pm, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. TANGO 3 TRIO CONCERT AND MILONGA An intimate concert with originally arranged music for tango by Amaijai Shalev on bandoneon, Itamar Erez on guitar, and Geordie Hart on contrabass, with guest singer Geraldine Goyer. Concert at 7:30 pm/milonga 8:30-11:30 pm. Duelling DJs Jorge and Marina. Mar 8, 7-11:30 pm, WISE Hall. $45. ALAN DOYLE Former member of Great Big Sea performs tunes from latest solo album. Mar 8, 8 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
MONDAY, MARCH 9 THE LONE BELLOW Alt-country trio from Brooklyn, with guest Early James. Mar 9, 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. $32.25.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 AMANDA SHIRES Americana/alt-country singer-songwriter and fiddle player from Texas. Mar 11, 8 pm, Rio Theatre. $27.50.
THURSDAY, MARCH 12 GRACE POTTER Rock singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Vermont. Mar 12, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $34.50. MUSIC LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge. Submit events online using the event-submission form at straight. com/AddEvent. Events that don’t make it into the paper will appear on the website.
CELTICFEST 2020 Festival showcases Celtic music, dance, and spoken word. To Mar 28, various Vancouver venues.
THURSDAY, MARCH 5 THE STROKES New York City guitar-rock band, with guests Alvvays. Mar 5, 7:30 pm, Rogers Arena. $125/99.50/75/49.50.
KARAOKE
FRIDAY, MARCH 6 FESTIVAL DU BOIS Francophone music festival featuring the Yves Lambert Trio, Tipsy 2, Flo Franco, Beauséjour, Cristian de la Luna, Blackthorn, Roger Dallaire, and Daniel Gervais. Mar 6-8, Mackin Park. Free to $22. CALUM GRAHAM Acoustic fingerstyleguitar virtuoso. Mar 6, 7 pm, Horizon School of Music. $30. RENEE ROSNES Juno-winning jazz pianist and composer performs with the CapU jazz ensembles. Mar 6, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. $38/35.
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HAVE YOU BEEN TO...
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SAVAGE LOVE
Rough BJs won’t worsen sleep apnea by Dan Savage
- Really Excited To Choke Harmlessly
of people with sleep apnea have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which is what I assume this individual has,” said Dr. Anna Grosz, a board-certified otolaryngologist in practice in Portland, Oregon. “It results from muscle relaxation and collapse in the airway (throat), which narrows the passage for air to flow and then makes it harder to breathe and get oxygen.” (Otolaryngologists specialize in diseases and disorders of the ear, nose, and throat.) So when you fall asleep, RETCH, the muscles in your throat relax and collapse, restricting your ability to breathe. Your brain—which doesn’t want to die—responds to this oxygen deprivation by waking you up, which tenses your muscles back up, uncollapsing them, and allowing you to breathe again. “Someone with OSA gags or chokes in response to the apnea, not as a cause,” Grosz clarified. “And while the contraction of the “The vast majority
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muscles opens the airway, it leads to poor sleep because the person is constantly being woken up.” Now for the good news: Grosz doesn’t think choking on dick is going to make your OSA any worse, RETCH, and it might even make it better. “Theoretically,” said Grosz, “increased tone of the muscles of the airway might be a good thing in terms of strengthening those muscles.” Now, there’s no evidence that having your throat used like a Fleshlight will strengthen your ol’ throat muscles, but there’s no evidence that getting face-fucked will weaken them, either. (Needless to say, there aren’t a lot of studies on OSA and rough oral sex—and seeing as our public-health officials are busy trying to protect us from a worldwide pandemic and our imbecilic president, there probably won’t be any studies anytime soon.) “Ultimately, I don’t think your reader is at risk of making his sleep apnea worse by continuing his oral sex practices,” said Grosz. “And to improve his sleep apnea, he could make sure he maintains a healthy weight, doesn’t smoke, and avoids excess alcohol or sedatives.” b I’M STRUGGLING AND could use some advice. I have a cast fetish— think orthopedic casts—and my wife isn’t interested at all. To be clear, I don’t want her to be injured in any way and I certainly don’t want to injure her. I just like the idea of her wearing a cast on her leg. It’s not even entirely sexual. If she would just wear a cast for a couple of hours while we hang out and watch a movie, I’d be happy. When we met eight years ago, I was in denial about the importance of my fetish, both to myself and to her. I’ve since realized that it’s a
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deal breaker for me, and it’s clear we wouldn’t be together today if I had been aware of the extent of my fetish when we first met and been able to be honest about it. Over the years, we’ve briefly spoken about incorporating it, and we had a single failed attempt a few years ago. I’ve finally come to the realization that this isn’t going to happen without it being forced or coerced. She’s recently offered to participate, but only because she thinks she needs to in order to “save our marriage”. How do I cope with this? Obviously, a need of mine will be perpetually unmet. How do I keep myself from resenting her for not being more open-minded? Is our marriage doomed? We have a nine-month-old child. - Churlish About Sudden Turn You just had a child—because of course you just had a child—which means now is not the time to do anything stupid. Or rash. And ending your marriage because your wife failed to understand how important your fetish was to you before you understood how important your fetish was to you would be both stupid and rash. So take a deep breath, help care for your baby, and have a conversation with your wife the next time she isn’t completely exhausted, CAST, which could mean waiting three to six months. If it’s clear when you talk that she hates the thought of pulling on a fake cast and watching a movie with you—what you say you need to be happy—that will come out in the conversation. But if she’s come to understand how important this cast business is to you and how little it actually requires of her, please do yourself, your wife, and your baby a favour and take the yes
you’ve always wanted for a motherfucking answer. And finally, CAST, I don’t know what your dick is telling you right now, but just in case it’s telling you there are hordes of women out there with cast fetishes who are also into recently single new fathers with child-support payments to make, your dick is lying to you. A new girlfriend, if you can find one, might wear a cast for you, but she’ll be doing it for the same reason your wife is willing to: in order to make your kinky ass happy. b I’M A STRAIGHT man who enjoys the erotic “mummification” experience. My wife fi nds the process of wrapping me in cling fi lm and duct tape extremely tedious, as it takes more than an hour and she doesn’t derive pleasure from it. So we decided to invest in a sleep sack, which will shorten the process considerably. I found a leather artisan on Etsy who makes them to order. During a video chat about sizing, the artisan made a reference to the “lucky man” who would be putting me in my sleep sack. I informed him I am straight. He apologized, saying that in his experience, it is mostly gay men who invest in this type of gear. I was nevertheless offended by his assumption. Your thoughts? - Got Extremely Affronted Recently
gay men collapsed into puddles every time someone assumed we were straight, GEAR, we’d have to be reclassified as a liquid. Second thought: as a gay man, I’m sometimes annoyed when people assume I’m straight. But it’s not an unreasonable assumption, since most people are straight. It’s also rarely a malicious assumption. Similarly, GEAR, since all of the
First thought: if
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b I’M A MIDDLE-AGED gay man and I was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea. This is a disorder caused by the soft tissue in the throat collapsing during sleep. On top of making me feel tired and awful all the time, sleep apnea is associated with a long list of health complications. I’m writing you because I’m into very rough oral. I like it when a guy treats my throat like a Fleshlight. Gagging and retching turn me on. Since I don’t want to risk making my condition worse, I stopped giving blowjobs after my diagnosis. But will giving blowjobs the way I like to give them actually make things worse? The Internet was not helpful, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking the sleep specialist.
men who’ve commissioned this Etsy artisan to make them sleep sacks in the past have been gay, the assumption he made about you wasn’t unreasonable. And it’s hard to see malice in it. The offence you’ve taken, on the other hand, strikes me as both unreasonable and malicious; it’s unreasonable in that you would come crying to a queer person about something like this, and it’s malicious in that your reaction is so obviously rooted in homophobia (so what if some dude thought you might be gay?) and yet you came crying to a gay man about it. Final thought. Whereas a straight person who’s assumed to be gay can correct the record without fear, a gay person who’s assumed to be straight has to do a risk assessment first: is this person going to freak out or get violent? Having to do those sorts of risk assessments all your life—starting in childhood with your own family—can take an emotional toll. So instead of being angry or offended by this experience, GEAR, you should be grateful that you can say, “Actually, I’m straight,” without having to worry about being punched in your stupid face or kicked out of your parents’ house. g On the Lovecast, get serious with comedian Cameron Esposito: savagelovecast.com. Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage.
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