ARTS

APR

1/3

Mischa Maisky

7 Fri, 8pm | Sun, 2pm | Orpheum THIS WEEKEND!

The great cellist Rostropovich on Maisky: “…one of the most outstanding talents. His playing combines poetry and exquisite delicacy with great temperament and brilliant technique.” Need we say more?

Mischa Maisky

Hear it. Feel it.

APR

8/9

Jane Coop Plays Mozart

Fri & Sat, 8pm | Orpheum

Jane Coop plays Mozart’s earthshattering C minor concerto, alongside Schumann and a new work from Métis composer Ian Cusson with mezzo Krisztina Szabó.

Jane Coop

APR

10

The Path Forward

Sun, 4pm | Orpheum

An artistic collaboration between the VSO and the VSO’s Indigenous Council. A celebration of Indigenous stories, music, art, and fashion for all to enjoy.

APR/MAY

29-1

Ode to Joy: Beethoven’s 9

Fri, Sat, 8pm | Orpheum Sun, 2pm | Orpheum

Beethoven’s magnum opus meets a gorgeous new vision from Canadian composer Samy Moussa.

Teiya Kasahara

Concert programs are subject to change at any time. VancouverSymphony.ca 604.876.3434

APR 3 SYMPHONY SUNDAYS SERIES SPONSOR APR 8, 9 MASTERWORKS GOLD SERIES SPONSOR FEB 25, 26 MASTERWORKS DIAMOND SERIES SPONSOR BROADCAST MEDIA PARTNERS MEDIA SPONSOR

ARTS LP360 series uses VR and all-seeing camera to dazzle

by Martin Dunphy

The famous “Copa” scene in the movie Goodfellas became legendary in lm circles because it was a single continuous take that lasted almost three minutes. e multidisciplinary Vancouver company Boca del Lupo will beat that milestone by almost 13 minutes when it presents its latest LivePerformance360 event. e Goodfellas sequence served its auteur’s artistic vision, but that journey through the bowels of a famed nightclub also celebrated the technical innovations brought by the introduction of the Steadicam to the movie industry in 1975.

Similarly, the two immersive virtual-reality experiences being o ered by LivePerformance360 (LP360) in the latest of its spring series are also a result of a relatively recent tech wrinkle: the 360-degree digital camera.

Because the camera can lm in all directions simultaneously, some usage will require it to be stationary. at was the case with Boca del Lupo’s LP360 production of “Pochsy at the Airport Hotel”, which utilizes the ultimate wide-angle lens to record a short (16 minute) VR experience that will alternate showings with “ e Magic Hour 360”, an Electric Club and e Only Animal remounting of a 2021 production.

“ e Magic Hour” was originally presented as a 40-minute, pandemic-friendly walk-through theatrical experience conceived by director Kim Collier. It is now a more constrained and immersive VR adventure that it describes as a “multi-layer mixed-media feast for the senses”.

Its LP360 companion, “Pochsy at the Airport Hotel”, sprang from the brain of Calgary-based writer, actor, and director Karen Hines.

Hines runs Keep Frozen: Pochsy Productions, which produces and manages the plays and lms that come from her proli c imagination, including a trilogy of plays starring her character Pochsy (pronounced “POX-see”) that have been published in paperback as e Pochsy Plays (2004).

“It was quite a production,” Hines told the Straight by phone from Calgary about “Pochsy at the Airport Hotel”. “We shot it in a hotel room because at the time there were no rehearsal spaces available.

“My director was actually in the bathroom of the room I was in. We were in an actual hotel room.”

Hines said the production, presented in VR at Granville Island’s appropriately named Fishbowl from March 30 to April 3, isn’t actually “live”, as the series title suggests.

“They’re being a bit provocative there,” Hines said with a laugh. “They’re calling it a ‘live’ performance, and we performed it without a cut…but it’s not live; I’m not there.”

As for that single take?

“You rarely see a 16-minute shot on lm or TV….It’s surreal,” she said before trying to explain what “Pochsy” viewers’ experiences will be like. ( ose unfamiliar with Hines’s Pochsy character can reference the Amazon blurb for e Pochsy Plays: “Beckett meets Betty Boop in this trilogy of monologues by Canadian cult heroine Pochsy, a really vapid, utterly charming vixen.”)

Hines says her audiences—who will be allowed in six at a time, with VR headsets— won’t really be watching a movie or a play. “It’s like a cross between a one-act play and a short lm…It’s a very powerful medium.

“It’s like you’re in the room,” she explains. “It feels more like a [live] performance in that there is no escape from this room.”

She watched it, she says, and “it was like I was sitting in a room with myself”.

Hines says she had a couple of friends watch in her presence and one was so clearly discom ted that he “was just crawling around on his chair while watching it”.

Hines won’t reveal much of what to expect from Pochsy in this latest incarnation other than to say that the trademark-monologue material will be “50-50, old and new”.

“I decided to use some material that was tried-and-true…. ere is also some stu in there that was written speci cally for that location, the hotel.”

Boca del Lupo commissioned the piece in 2021, Hines said: “It came out of that early wave of digital programming that swept the country [early in the pandemic]. “Boca has used this time to investigate what theatre really is,” Hines added. g

Karen Hines as an earlier incarnation of her Pochsy character, from Pochsy’s Lips.

ARTS Taran Kootenhayoo’s words will be heard at Firehall

by Charlie Smith

There’s a sadness that still lingers over Vancouver’s arts and Indigenous communities dating back to the start of 2021. That year opened with news of a terrible loss. Taran Kootenhayoo, a brilliant 27-year-old playwright and actor, had died on New Year’s Eve.

Kootenhayoo, a member of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation from Cold Lake, Alberta, was mourned as a “generous spirit”, a “beacon”, a “beloved friend”, and “such a bright, wise soul”. But because his death occurred in the midst of the pandemic, it was hard for those who loved him in Vancouver to gather in large numbers to pay their respects.

So from April 16 to May 1, the Firehall Arts Centre and Savage Society will honour Kootenhayoo’s memory by presenting his play, White Noise, which was shown as a workshop production at the Talking Stick Festival in 2019.

“It’s heartbreaking, but this is probably the best way we can celebrate his life that I can think of,” Savage Society artistic director Kevin Loring tells the Straight by phone. “Many of us are still sort of reeling from that tragedy, but this work will live on.”

The Savage Society works with many young Indigenous artists. Loring, also director of Indigenous theatre at the National Arts Centre, remembers the day when Kootenhayoo told him that he would like to write a play.

“I said okay,” Loring says. “We supported him in writing the grants and getting ready to do a workshop of a first draft. We walked him through the process of what he needed to do.”

Loring, who’s of Nlaka’pamux heritage and from the Lytton First Nation, initially didn’t know what to expect. But right out of the gate, in the first reading, the feedback was entirely positive. Loring recalls hearing peers say, “We’ve got a writer on our hands; he’s really clever and has a lot to say.”

“We just went from there, and [the play] just kept building its own momentum,” Loring says.

White Noise is a biting comedy about two families—Indigenous and white— who have dinner together during Truth and Reconciliation Week. It’s directed by Renae Morriseau, a veteran Cree and Saulteaux actor, writer, director, and producer originally from the Treaty 1 Territory of Manitoba.

For Morriseau, this project is very personal. When she played the character of Ellen Kenidi on the CBC show North of 60 in the 1990s, Kootenhayoo’s mother was on the production team and brought her kids onto the set. Kootenhayoo’s sister Cheyanna, a.k.a. DJ Kookum, is the associate director and sound designer on White Noise.

Morriseau describes the loss of Kootenhayoo as devastating for the community, describing him as a “very endearing young man”.

“White Noise is Taran’s first kick at the can in terms of theatre,” she tells the Straight by phone.

Morriseau is reluctant to share too many details about the plot. That prompts the Straight to ask if the white family is ignorant about the true history of Canada.

“I’m not going to tell you,” she replies with a laugh. “Keep guessing.”

She’s more forthcoming in discussing the dynamics of the production, which features performances by Sam Bob, Columpa Bobb, Braiden Houle, Mike Wasko, Anita Wittenberg, and Anais West.

Experienced Indigenous actors Bob and Bobb (the daughter of author and poet Lee Maracle) play the parents to Houle’s character. Wasko and Wittenberg play the white parents of West’s character. Bob, Houle, and Wittenberg performed in the 2019 workshopped production.

Morriseau appreciates how Kootenhayoo’s play offers an opportunity for the cast to unpack undercurrents of racism and racial stereotypes.

“In what way do we speak about the history of Canada and its impact on Indigenous communities and their health and their education?” Morriseau asks. “I think for the First Nations actors that are all on [stage] here, they’re talking about their experiences. And the Canadian actors are having to look at their own place in society and what that represents for them in the conversations that are happening on the page.”

According to Morriseau, this is done in the context of Kootenhayoo’s “cringey, curious comedy about the grey area” where humour intersects with culture.

“One of the greatest things is to laugh about ourselves and our human condition,” she says.

As the director, Morriseau infused Indigenous perspectives into the play. One example is in the set, which features

Braiden Houle and Sam Bob will reprise their roles as the Indigenous father and son in White Noise after playing the parts in a workshopped version at the 2019 Talking Stick Festival. words on geometric shapes in the Stoney language of Kootenhayoo’s Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation.

“Much of the cast and pretty much all of the crew are Indigenous, so it’s pretty emotional in that way,” she says.

Morriseau has a great deal of experience working in Indigenous communities, most recently in Northern Manitoba. There, she was running workshops stimulating observations of reality in what’s known as “theatre of the oppressed”, which was developed by Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal. Morriseau was helping women who had suffered as a result of their experience with addiction and prostitution gain an understanding of legislative changes to the sex industry in Canada.

Morriseau concedes that this work is emotionally gruelling and can lead to nightmares. So returning to Vancouver to direct a comedy offers welcome relief.

“I’m just so honoured that I can bring Taran Kootenhayoo’s work to the Firehall theatre,” she says. g

The Firehall Arts Centre and Savage Society will present the world premiere of White Noise at the Firehall Arts Centre on April 20. Previews begin on April 16 and the show will continue until May 1.