The Georgia Straight - Boiling Planet - April 12, 2018

49th Parallel Coffee

Highly praised by the coffee scene, 49th Parallel is famous for their premium quality, locally roasted beans as well as their commitment to working directly with their farmers.

$9.99 ea 340 to 454 g, Assorted Varieties, Regular price $14.49 to $17.99 each

Photos are for illustrative purposes only. Pricing in effect Friday Apr. 13 to Thursday Apr. 19, 2018. Overwaitea Food Group LP, a Jim Pattison business. Proudly BC Owned and Operated.

2 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

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APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 3

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Georgia and Granville streets. Edna Winti photo.

11

COVER

B.C. authors have been at the forefront in offering new insights and novel solutions to the climate crisis—and Am Johal, Matt Hern, Peter Carter, and Elizabeth Woodworth are continuing that tradition. > BY CHARLIE SMITH

17

ARTS

Tap master Michelle Dorrance is hoofing her way here, mixing hip-hop, bold conceptual ideas, and classic style into a single program. > BY JANE T SMITH

27

START HERE 9 29 15 26 32 35 14 23 24

Cannabis Confessions Food I Saw You Local Discs Savage Love Straight Stars Theatre Visual Arts

MOVIES

McEnroe vs Borg stays well inside the line; John Hamm dodges the bullets in Beirut; Indian Horse is confined to one dimension; horror with heart arrives at A Quiet Place

31

MUSIC

Aussie indie-electronic stars Cut/Copy reveal why adding live instrumentation to their dance records sets them apart.

TIME OUT 25 Arts 33 Music

SERVICES 33 Careers

1

8 19

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dreamdesigns.ca

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GeorgiaStraight

33

COVER ILLUSTRATION

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MASTER OF COUNSELLING INFORMATION SESSION:

Apr 19 & May 24 at 5:00pm CityU Canada in Vancouver 789 W. Pender Street, Suite 310, Vancouver

you’re welcome

to learn more. At CityU Canada you’ll be a part of a small student cohort taught by local professionals who work in your field. We think of our students are as colleagues and our goal is to change lives.

Our doors are open. Our mission is make education available to everyone with a desire to learn — and in a way that works for you.

Open to your possibilities at CityU.

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

Canadian Publications Mail Agreement #40009178, return undeliverable Canadian addresses to The Georgia Straight, 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9

APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 5

OBITUARY ARE YOU 18 YEARS OR OLDER AND LOOKING FOR A MEANINGFUL VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY? • Our Peer Support Services is accepting applications for our Senior Friendly Visiting Program/ Community Support Visitor Training.

• Gain skills to interact with seniors in our community, employment opportunities and personal growth.

• Training will consist of fi ve weekly consecutive sessions, evenings.

• 4pm-7pm for a total of 15 hours.

• Training is being offered at No Cost.

• We have a demand for volunteers from all diverse backgrounds who speak Cantonese, Mandarin as well as English.

• Upon completion of the training you will receive a certificate and be matched with a senior community to visit weekly.

• The sessions are starting on: Early May 2018 from 4pm-7pm.

For more information please call GRACE HANN or CHARLES LEIBOVITCH at 604-267-1555 or email grace@jsalliance.org or charles@jsalliance.org

CALL ME FOR EXPERT ADVICE W W W.TOFFOLI.CA | PAUL@TOFFOLI.CA MASTER M E DA L L I O N MEMBER

604.787.6963

Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vancouver City Councillors are pleased to invite you to a special City Council Meeting to issue

AN OFFICIAL APOLOGY TO THE CHINESE COMMUNITY Recognizing Historical Discrimination Against Chinese People in Vancouver Sunday, April 22, 2018 Arrive by 1:45 pm Council Meeting from 2 – 3:30 pm Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver 50 East Pender Street David Lam Hall Vancouver, British Columbia Seating is first come, first serve.

CHINATOWN CULTURAL DAY Sunday, April 22, 2018, 1 – 4 pm Come and enjoy, learn and experience Chinese culture through a variety of activities including food tasting, games, crafts, dancing, music, tours, ceremonies and much more!

Activities are taking place at different locations throughout Vancouver’s Chinatown.

Straight circulation wiz dies > B Y M A R TIN D U NP HY

N

ick Collier, the former longtime circulation manager of the Georgia Straight, has died at the age of 68 after a two-year illness.

Collier passed away peacefully in the company of family and friends on March 21, about a week after entering a Vancouver hospice. He had previously undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatments for esophageal cancer.

He was born Nicholas John Collier on April 30, 1949, in Beckenham, Kent, England, the youngest of four.

According to family members, his lifelong love for animals, especially dogs, started when he was very young and became inseparable pals with his boxer, Bob. At that time, he also loved to dress up as his favourite heroes, including Wild West cowboys.

Collier emigrated to Canada with his mother, Marjorie (Pat) Collier, at age 14, in 1963. (His three sisters had previously moved to B.C.) They lived in Vancouver, where he attended Kitsilano high school. He moved in with older sister Jill Sydneysmith in West Vancouver when he was about 19 while his mother struggled to find work, graduating high school a year or two later.

Collier started work at the Georgia Straight as an in-house bookstore employee, then music writer and reviewer, around late 1974. The Straight— then a controversial alternative weekly owned by Dan McLeod, who had founded the paper in May 1967—attracted left-leaning academics, druglaw reformers, and social progressives of all types, and it was at that time that Collier also met up with a young and then unknown Irishman named Bob Geldof, pre–Boomtown Rats.

Geldof became the Straight’s music editor for about a year (a position Collier took over after Geldof departed for Ireland and future fame later in 1975), and Collier, McLeod, and Geldof became fast friends. Collier would later visit Geldof whenever he vacationed in England.

Later in the 1970s, Collier briefly filled in as Straight editor, freelanced music articles for local papers and magazines, did some travel writing, and indulged his love of gourmet foods by writing restaurant reviews for an early version of Vancouver Magazine. (“He loved Japanese food,” McLeod

and commanded a small fleet of extremely loyal drivers. She says he also presided over a large increase in the Straight’s circulation.

Although Collier liked to hide out in his ground-level office, his sonorous but cheerful voice could often be heard when he visited the editorial and production areas.

Long-time driver and Collier assistant Kelvin Lum says, “He pretty much taught me everything about distribution.” And Lum says Collier made sure his drivers were treated well: “He always fought for us in every way.”

In retirement, Collier loved his frequent trips to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, where he would stay for a month or more.

In a letter to Collier received just days before his death, Geldof said: “I hope there’s no ‘I wish I’d done this and that’ sort of shite going on with you? You are a bon vivant. You love women, wine, travel, sun, hanging out, talking shit, and you managed to do all of that. Not bad man, not bad. That identity—Nick Collier got around and did what he liked doing.

Not many can say that.”

Collier was predeceased by his mother and his sister Carol. He is survived by sister Jill Sydneysmith and her children, Robin, Kelly, and Andrew; sister Penelope “Penni” Ball and her child, Matthew; Carol’s children, Craig, Blake, Adam, Jason, and Samantha; and ex-wife Juliane Van Nostrand and her son, Michael McCuaig (Vancouver).

A celebration of life for Nick Collier will be held (at a venue to be determined) on June 23. As per his wishes, his ashes will be scattered on his beloved Jericho Beach, where he spent uncounted hours with his dogs. -

1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 www.straight.com Phone: 604-730-7000 / Fax: 604-730-7010 / e-mail: gs.info@straight.com Display Advertising: 604-730-7020 / Fax: 604-730-7012 / e-mail: sales@straight.com Classifieds: 604-730-7060 / e-mail: classads@straight.com Subscriptions: 604-730-7000 Distribution: 604-730-7087 EDITOR + PUBLISHER Dan McLeod ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Yolanda Stepien GENERAL MANAGER Matt McLeod EDITOR Charlie Smith SECTION EDITORS

Janet Smith (Arts/Fashion) Mike Usinger (Music) Steve Newton (Time Out) Adrian Mack (Movies) Brian Lynch (Books) Amanda Siebert (Cannabis) EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Doug Sarti ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Gail Johnson, John Lucas, Alexander Varty STAFF WRITERS

SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy PROOFREADER Pat Ryffranck CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

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

6 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

says. “And he’d love to go to a good French restaurant.”)

In 1977 he became a partner in the ill-fated Vancouver weekly Metro, which folded after a year. Collier drove cab for a while (once giving a ride to legendary jazz pianist Count Basie), then met and married American Juliane Van Nostrand in 1981.

Collier and Van Nostrand moved to Los Angeles a few years later, where Collier probably surprised a few people by becoming a stockbroker. Friend Chris Stepien says Collier’s brokerage work “kind of fell into his lap” through family contacts, “but he got fed up with it and wanted to come back to Canada”.

One story of those L.A. days concerns Collier being invited to a party at the home of Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame) but being kicked out by his superstar host after getting in an argument about then-president Ronald Reagan. “He enjoyed playing the contrarian sometimes,” McLeod says of Collier.

In 1989, the couple returned to Vancouver, where Collier worked stocks until 1991, when he quit.

He and Juliane divorced soon after, although they remained friends, and he came back to the Straight in March 1992 as circulation manager, a position he would hold until his retirement in May 2009. McLeod says he was “quite surprised” that Collier wanted the position, given how different it was from anything he had done previously.

It was in this job that Collier excelled, according to Yolanda Stepien, who managed the paper’s distribution walkers. She says he introduced the iconic black paper boxes, brought driver distribution back to the Straight premises from the printer,

The Georgia Straight | Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly | Volume 52 Number 2622

Piper Courtenay, Tammy Kwan, Lucy Lau, Travis Lupick, Carlito Pablo, Craig Takeuchi, Kate Wilson

Stay Connected @GeorgiaStraight

Circulation manager Nick Collier takes a break between paper deliveries in the crowded office from which he dispatched Georgia Straight drivers for 17 years.

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

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

Chet Woodside LEAD WEB DEVELOPER Jeffrey Li WEB DEVELOPER Tina Luu (On Leave) JUNIOR WEB DEVELOPER Riva Ridley WEB ADMINISTRATOR Miles Keir

ART DEPARTMENT MANAGER

Janet McDonald

SENIOR DESIGNER David Ko PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR Mike Correia PRODUCTION

K.T. Dean, Sandra Oswald

AD SERVICES ASSOCIATE

Jon Cranny

DIRECTOR OF ARTS AND SPONSORSHIP

Laura Moore SALES DIRECTOR

Tara Lalanne

ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES

Glenn Cohen, Robyn Marsh, Manon Paradis, David Pearlman, Catherine Tickle

CONTENT AND MARKETING SPECIALIST

Tori Macnab ADVERTISING + PROMOTION ASSISTANTS

Maya Keeven (On Leave), Ahlia Moussa

ADVERTISING ASSISTANT

Johnnie Smart CIRCULATION MANAGER

Dexter Vosper

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR

Dennis Jangula

CREDIT MANAGER Shannon Li ACCOUNTING SUPERVISOR

Tamara Robinson

ACCOUNTING CLERK Dillan Winn

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THANK YOU! From all of us at the Georgia Straight and the Grassroots organizing team, thank you to the panelists, exhibitors, and attendees for supporting the Georgia Straight’s inaugural Grassroots Expo for the Cannabis Curious.

A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS. Your generous support brought this event to life!

In association with

Wellness Room Sponsor

Lounge Sponsor

Speaker Series Sponsor

Green Room Sponsor

Lifestyle Room Sponsor

Gold Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

cannalife e botanicals Chill Zone Sponsor

SwagBag Sponsor

Bronze Sponsor

Information Station Sponsor

Sign up for our newsletter and stay connected to see what’s next with Grassroots!

WWW.CRAFTCANNABISWEEKEND.CA 8 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

CANNABIS

From left to right, panellists Siobhan McCarthy, Teniel Messado, Salimeh Tabrizi, and Danielle “Miz D” Jackson waxed poetic about the role cannabis can play in female empowerment and overall wellness during a discussion called “Women and weed: Understanding health and self-care”, moderated by Straight writer Piper Courtenay. Below, the audience looks on. Melanie Friesen photos.

Grassroots Expo a success Event geared to the cannabis curious captures an audience eager to learn > B Y A M A ND A S IE B E R T

T

Above, guests try CBD water; below, “Marijuana and matters of mental health” featured Dr. Zach Walsh, Clint Younge, Salimeh Tabrizi, and Piper Courtenay.

he Georgia Straight staff behind this past weekend’s inaugural cannabis event couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.

Our consumer-focused conference, Grassroots: An Expo for the Cannabis Curious, brought more than 1,000 attendees through the doors of UBC Robson Square on April 7 and 8 for a weekend full of informative and interactive panel discussions, presentations, and sponsor and exhibitor displays.

Highlighting local cannabis experts, advocates, and academics alongside patients with real stor-

ies made for heartfelt, honest, and balanced conversations on healthrelated topics like cancer, pediatric epilepsy, mental health, and addiction, while B.C.–based growers, lawyers, consultants, and advisers had much to lend to discussions focused on craft growers, changes to the law, and the history of cannabis in Vancouver.

Among about 50 speakers were B.C.–based cannabis greats such as the legendary barrister John Conroy, B.C. Compassion Club founder Hilary Black, baker extraordinaire Mary Jean “Watermelon” Dunsdon, longtime medical-cannabis supporter Dr. Arnold Shoichet, organic grower Travis Lane, and lawyer Kirk Tousaw.

Exhibitors provided conference guests—many of whom were new to cannabis—with information on how to use and access locally made products and services, while experts like veterinarian Katherine Kramer and cannabis lab technician and researcher Jaclyn Thomson shared their expertise with guests in infopacked breakout sessions.

With such a successful first event under our belts, we are excited to announce that we’ll be taking Grassroots on the road. Stay tuned for details. To see more photos from Grassroots, visit the Georgia Straight on Facebook.

APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 9

with Anvil Press, Greystone Books, Orca Book Publishers, Royal BC Museum, TouchWood Editions, Tradewind Books, and UBC Press

Put a spring in your step with BC books!

These and other BC-published books are available at your local bookstore.

Discover more at READLOCALBC.CA

10 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

SPRING BOOKS

Authors rethink responses to climate crisis > BY C HA RL IE SM I TH

B

ritish Columbia is famous around the world for many things, including its spectacular beaches, high housing prices, Stanley Park, thriving cannabis industry, Swedish hockey players, and giving birth to The X-Files.

But few Vancouver residents realize that authors in this province have also distinguished themselves by producing more thoughtful and original books on climate change than anywhere else in North America.

They’re not just being written by David Suzuki. Many others have helped B.C. become a veritable hothouse of unique perspectives on the most pressing challenge facing humanity. They include David Boyd (The Optimistic Environmentalist), Jon O’Riordan (The Hard Work of Hope and The Climate Nexus), Joel Solomon (The Clean Money Revolution), Geoff Dembicki (Are We Screwed?), Naomi Klein (No Is Not Enough), Mark Jaccard (Hot Air), Alejandro Frid (A World for My Daughter), James Hoggan (Climate Cover-Up), Peter Ladner (The Urban Food Revolution), Chris Wood (Dry Spring), Andrew Weaver (Keeping Our Cool), Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon (The 100-Mile Diet), and William Rees (Our Ecological Footprint).

This spring, two more pioneering climate-change titles by B.C. authors have been released: Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale and Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival.

The first book is an unusual hybrid of travelogue and philosophical dissertation by Vancouver intellectuals Matt Hern and Am Johal. Included in Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life are illustrations and a lengthy cartoon, “Bitumen or Bust”, by celebrated Portland artist Joe Sacco, who accompanied Hern and Johal on a journey to Fort McMurray.

“For us, doing it as a road-trip book was a literary device so we could speak about these things in a much more accessible way,” Johal told the Georgia Straight by phone from New Orleans.

Hern, a university lecturer and cofounder of Car Free Day Vancouver, and Johal, whose PhD thesis revolved around climate change, are well aware of the existential crisis presented by rising greenhouse-gas emissions. But they also evince far more empathy for residents of the capital of Canada’s bitumen industry, Fort Mac, than you might expect from vocal opponents of the

Am Johal, Joe Sacco, and Matt Hern travelled to Fort McMurray while researching Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life.

Kinder Morgan pipeline project.

“All too often liberal and leftist types find their way up to the tar sands in search of enviro-porn, looking for photo-ops of ugly messes and background shots of their video-moralizing,” Hern and Johal write. “If you’re interested in an ecoapocalypse tour, Fort Mac is high on your bucket list and in the rush to document the tar sands, analytical nuance is not often part of the story.

“Especially galling is that all too often the people working the tar sands are condescended to, patronized, and/ or straight up vilified as dimwitted monster-truck-driving mouth-breathers who are wantonly destroying the planet so they can afford one more lapdance in Vegas,” they declare.

In fact, they discovered that Fort McMurray is a thriving multicultural melting pot with a vibrant community spirit.

Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life draws on a wide range of thinkers—including leftist French philosopher Alain Badiou and Indigenous scholars Glen Coulthard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. In synthesizing their ideas, Hern and Johal make a compelling case that “individualizing responsibility for eco-collapses is one of contemporary capitalism’s prime defensive strategies.” According to the authors, this is accomplished by reducing “ecological imperatives to one more consumer decision, one more atomized set of purchasing choices, thereby isolating governments and capital from culpability”.

“Blaming the choices individual people make in the context of highly limited options and

d Tanglewoo

BOOK S

grinding employment pressures is a fool’s errand,” they assert.

Johal grew up in the forest-dependent community of Williams Lake, where his father was a lumber grader.

In his interview, he recalled how difficult it was to see people arriving “from the south” and criticizing what was taking place in his hometown.

And he noted that the empathetic approach in the book hasn’t gone unnoticed in the oilpatch.

“We’re actually getting emails from people in Alberta who are really strongly supportive of the arguments in the book,” Johal said.

“That’s something we weren’t necessarily expecting.”

In Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life, rampant exploitation of the Earth’s resources is presented as one of several forms of domination taking place in the world. In the authors’ view, merely addressing one aspect of this problem—rising greenhouse-gas emissions—masks the importance of grappling with the root cause of the crisis.

Hern and Johal put human beings’ relationship with the land at the centre of any solution to climate change, paying particular attention to Indigenous traditions. They also raise serious questions about the growing use of the term Anthropocene as a means of diffusing blame. The Anthropocene has become a shorthand way of describing a new geological epoch in which the human species is irrevocably scorching the planet, leading to widespread extinctions of flora and fauna.

Hern and Johal suggest a more accurate term might be Corporatocene.

To support this, they cite research by geographer Richard Heede showing that between 1854 and 2010, only 90 entities “are responsible for 63 percent of all climate-changing emissions”.

SECOND NEW book, Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival, turns its attention to governments, corporations, religious bodies, and the media’s failure to respond to a climate emergency that is claiming millions of lives around the world.

It’s cowritten by former B.C. government medical librarian Elizabeth Woodworth and Peter Carter, director of the Pender Island–based Climate Emergency Institute, and includes a foreword by world-renowned climate scientist James Hansen.

“Peter Carter and Elizabeth Woodworth make an overwhelming case that the public, especially young people, are victims of ‘Unprecedented Crime’,” Hansen writes. “And the fossil fuel industry, they explain, are not the only perpetrators. There has been extensive collusion and denial.”

The book opens by highlighting last year’s unprecedented extreme weather events, including horrific hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean, and massive wildfires in the western United States, British Columbia, Portugal, and Chile. The book also documents record high temperatures in countries ranging from Australia to China to the United Kingdom to Russia, which the authors link to rising greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

“Scientists were amazed that even in Greenland a large wild grass-fire

THE

burned for two weeks in late July only 40 miles from the ice sheet,” Woodworth and Carter write.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been warning about the implications of global warming since 1990. At the time, it predicted that business-as-usual emissions would result in a global mean temperature about 4 ° C above pre-industrial times by the end of the 21st century.

Weekly carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reached 410.8 parts per million in May 2017 at an observation station in Hawaii.

Woodworth and Carter report that this trend “is on course with the worst case IPCC 2014 scenario”, which is a 4.3 ° C rise above pre-industrial times by the end of the century.

What’s especially scary is that large feedback loops will most certainly kick in at a 3 ° C rise—including the release of massive amounts of carbon stored in the oceans. According to the authors, this risks pushing the temperature 7.8 ° C above preindustrial times by 2100.

“These are not tolerable degrees of climate change for our species, nor most others,” they write.

Unprecedented Crime documents how large greenhouse-gas emitters have known about the relationship between their products and global warming for nearly 40 years. And for two decades, oil companies pumped tens of millions into think tanks and other organizations to sow doubt with the general public, abetted by a mainstream media and governments that willingly conceal the danger.

“We have established that the decades-long blocking and lying about scientific evidence on the dangers of human-caused global warming has been deliberate,” Woodworth and Carter state. “So the question arises, how many people have been, or will be, hurt or killed by climate change?”

In answering this, they cite a DARA International study, which was commissioned in 2012 by 20 countries. It linked 400,000 deaths per year to climate change. It also forecast that this number would rise to 600,000 deaths per year by 2030 as a result of more intense heat waves, less food security, and poorer water quality, which facilitates the spread of malaria and dengue fever.

“When disinformation known to be false is systemically used to deny dangerous realities that harm public health and kill millions of people, the deception clearly crosses the line to become a crime against humanity,” Woodworth and Carter write. see next page

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Maureen Medved’s satirical novel Black Star joins a long tradition of stories that depict the scholarly life as chaotic and fuelled by obsessions. Anne Grant photo.

Season’s new fiction tours the dark side > B Y B RIAN LYN CH

T

he subject matter in this sample of new, top-shelf local fiction may seem bleak for a season of returning light. We’ve got obsession, corruption, deep shadow, even a touch of the bubonic. But there’s always been hope implicit in troubling stories, hasn’t there? By showing us fearsome things, they help us imagine ways out.

BLACK STAR (By Maureen Medved.

bag in front of a high-end shop.

SODOM ROAD EXIT (By Amber

Dawn. Arsenal Pulp Press) Never mind old asylums and overgrown hilltop houses, there’s no better setting for the paranormal than a small town with a dead amusement park on its edge. This is where Vancouver’s Amber Dawn takes us in her muchanticipated second novel, laying out a landscape that both haunts and seduces her disillusioned young protagonist during the recession-plagued summer of 1990 (the era of George H. W. Bush—plenty creepy in its own right!). It’s hardly Amber Dawn’s first venture into the uncanny. Nine years ago—even before her award-winning debut novel, Sub Rosa, which itself had a streak of the fantastical—she edited and contributed to Fist of the Spider Woman, a story collection described as “subversive, witty, sexy, and scary� that asked two things: “What do queer women fear the most?� and “What do queer women desire the most?� The figure at the heart of this new work is pursued by a strange force that wants answers to both questions at once.

Anvil Press) The scholarly life has lent itself to fiction and satire for decades now (centuries, if you want to go back to Chaucer). Campuses are full of thwarted ego, garbled theorizing, clanking bureaucracy—in short, regular life, only here mutating in a sealed petri dish, perfect for a novelist’s uses.

Delorosa Hanks, the chaotic narrator of Black Star, is the latest heir in this line. By the second sentence of the scalding new novel by Vancouver author Maureen Medved, Hanks is referring to her academic rival as “a lesion of carcinogenic proportions capable of rotting and destroying departments�.

It just gets darker, funnier, and more CUT YOU DOWN (By Sam Wiebe.

Random House Canada) There’s acidic from there. clearly something in Pacific Ocean THE PLAGUE (By Kevin Chong. Ar- air that brings out the worst in people. senal Pulp Press) God is still dead in Look at the moral swamps mapped by this bold update of Albert Camus’s the likes of Dashiell Hammett, Rayfamous 1947 novel of the same name. mond Chandler, and James M. Cain, And the doctor trying to face down a as if the western edge of the continbubonic outbreak is still named Ber- ent also happened to be the limit of nard Rieux. But local author Kevin human nature—the Garden of Eden Chong has moved the setting from in a constant state of falling. Cut You Algeria to circa-present-day Vancou- Down is the second novel featuring PI ver, and expanded the source book’s Dave Wakeland by rising crime-fiction existential cosmos so that it contains star Sam Wiebe, and it has much that more than just white dudes. This would excite those early hard-boiled allows him to dwell on some of Ca- writers: a troubled shamus tailing mus’s enduring questions about life gangsters and crooked cops, a student and death while drawing out themes gone missing with a stack of cash, and that Vancouverites will recognize as a fast-changing city—in this case, our part of the background hum of this own—that breeds violence and deceit. town. Among these, as Chong has Like his ancestors, Wiebe sharpens his pointed out in an interview, is “how prose to a point and uses his twisting, suffering coexists with prosperity�— high-paced plot to take on big themes something as familiar to us as the about money and the warping pressure sight of a homeless person’s sleeping it exerts on everyone it touches. -

Authors rethink

from previous page

It’s serious stuff. The book also delves into what constitutes legal liability and intergenerational justice in the face of the reckless and ongoing release of planet-warming gases.

Of course, Woodworth and Carter are not the only ones raising the alarm. This month, the Australiabased Reneweconomy.com website published an article noting that global warming of 1.5 ° C above pre-industrial times is likely within a decade. “The voluntary national emission reduction commitments since Paris now put the world on a path of 3.4 ° C of warming by 2100, and more than 5 ° C if high-end risks including carbon-cycle feedbacks are taken into account,� wrote David Spratt, who cited five relatively recent scientific studies.

Having the average global temperature rise no more than 1.5 ° C above 12 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

pre-industrial times is the ultimate objective of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which was signed by 195 countries. Spratt’s article has cast serious doubts on that being achievable.

It’s clear from those who are paying attention—including Hern, Johal, Woodworth, and Carter—that much more public education needs to take place. And in the case of Unprecedented Crime, there’s also a detailed and realistically achievable road map for solving the problem. As Woodworth and Carter point out, the time has come for a Second World War–style mobilization to prevent the decimation of our species. “In summary, if we are to keep the Earth’s climate within the range humans are able to tolerate, we must leave the remaining fossil fuels in the ground,� they write. “If we do not act now we will push the climate beyond tipping points, where the situation spirals out of our control.� -

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APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 13

SPRING BOOKS

Resistance speaks in Verses > BY A LEX A NDER VA R TY

R

onnie Dean Harris spent Saturday (April 7) on Burnaby Mountain, half expecting to spend the night in jail. He was there, along with First Nations Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and many others, to block Kinder Morgan’s access to its pipeline terminal; in the weeks previous, hundreds of protesters had been forcibly removed from the site by police. But on Saturday the Texas energy giant declined to enforce its antiprotest injunction, and Harris slept in his own bed.

On Sunday, just before Kinder Morgan announced that it was suspending all “non-essential activities and related spending� on the Trans Mountain pipeline, he was still wondering why.

It could be “a chess move�, he tells the Straight on the phone from his Langley home. Or could a loose confederation of First Nations and environmentalists have won this battle?

Artists, the Salish poet, rapper, media artist, and fisheries activist continues, have a responsibility to examine and demystify injustices both social and economic. “That’s my job,� he says. “I look at this bundle of, like, crossed wires, and I try to make braids of them to make sense of it all.�

Not all artists subscribe to this agenda, but it’s fairly safe to say that the majority of those booked for the upcoming Verses Festival of Words do.

And this year the event will be graced by an especially strong contingent of Indigenous creators, ranging from folk legend and electronic-music pioneer Buffy Sainte-Marie to emerging artists like Tahltan-Tlingit electronic musician Edzi’u and the fiery spoken-word performer Mitcholos Touchie. “I see the surgence—I’m not going to call it a resurgence, but a surgence— of writing by Indigenous writers kind of working in parallel with the need for more activism these days—and the

Salish poet Ronnie Dean Harris says artists must demystify injustices.

activism I see happening particularly on the West Coast, has to do with protecting the environment,� says festival artist Janet Rogers, in a separate telephone interview. “So I kind of see those two things rising at the same time, and I’m not that surprised. Indigenous writing, in all the genres, in all the canons, has that political voice embedded into it—a resistance voice, a truth-telling voice, a voice that can only come from us.�

The Vancouver-born writer sees herself as part of a lineage of First Nations oratory that encompasses oral history, prayer, and diplomacy—and, as such, one of her messages to settler culture is that “reconciliation� is only a starting place. “It’s fine to acknowledge territory,� she explains. “That’s a courteous practice, and it’s certainly not going to cost you anything to make those statements about land, territory acknowledgment, and things like that.

But let’s get to, yeah, returning that land. As a Mohawk person, that’s not even considered radical.�

In the spirit of nation-to-nation reciprocity, this year Verses will partner with the Talking Stick Festival to

present its closing gala at the Native Education College. “Oftentimes, when Indigenous people are invited into a festival we go into their house,� Rogers says. “And this is an opportunity where we get to invite people into our house— and it’ll be a different vibe, for sure.�

Meanwhile, Harris is working on his own kind of cultural exchange: integrating round-dance rhythms and cosmic guitar rock with a new approach to storytelling that grows out of his work, as Ostwelve, in the world of rap. “Spiralling Together�, which he plans to premiere when he opens for Sainte-Marie, tells of two estranged worlds that eventually realize they are one.

The metaphorical implications are obvious, although Harris suggests that we shouldn’t read too much into the plot. “You know, when I write stories now, I really want there to be a lot of different ways into them,â€? he cautions. “So, yeah, here there are two entities who don’t really know each other. It could be two friends; it could be two lovers. For me, it’s these two galaxies that are fond of each other at one point in time, and then they have to part. They feel lonely way out on the outskirts of the vastness of space— but then they realize that they can transform their loneliness and their fear into a light that’s shaped, like, forever.‌And then they just dance, because they realize that their ancestors are around them, their family and their ancestors and their friends. So it’s like this galactic round dance that begins happening: they get to the centre and they spin happily ever after.â€?

That might be a lot to hope for, but it’s not too much to ask. The Verses Festival of Words takes place at various Vancouver venues from next Thursday (April 19) to April 29. For a full schedule, visit versesfestival.ca/.

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straight stars > B Y R O SE MARCUS

April 12 to 18, 2018

M

ercury retrograde ends on Sunday, but the fast one will continue in Aries through the middle of May. The battle continues, only now with better odds for the (soon to be) winning side. Infused with fresh incentive, Sunday’s new moon in Aries gains extra turbo from powerhouse planets Pluto and Uranus. Monday/Tuesday, Venus on the gain increases the capacity, worthiness, desire, scope, and potential reward.

Chiron, the healing crisis archetype, advances into Aries just after midnight on Tuesday. It’s been 50 years since our last exposure to this transit’s influence. Those born in 1968 to 1977 or 1918 to 1927 have Chiron in Aries as a birth-chart signature (an example: Pierre and Justin Trudeau). If your birthday doesn’t fall within one of the above listed years or the start of Aries Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn, Chiron may impact your life indirectly or as an undercurrent.

When Chiron transits Aries, we break momentous new breeding ground. What gains traction typically falls under the category of “no pain, no gain�. What happens in a flash holds lasting impact. It is not so much about the battle we face or the cords we cut but about the new awareness, resources, and growth that are triggered, and the new foundations that are laid.

On the same day that Chiron enters Aries, Saturn in Capricorn gives way by turning retrograde. This yield to the faster driver combination sets Chiron free of previous obstructions and roadblocks. Along with sun/ Uranus also on a strike-flint trajectory, watch Tuesday/Wednesday for major headlines regarding NAFTA talks, the looming global trade war, and other important matters.

ARIES

TAURUS

March 20–April 19

The end of the week is mostly a smooth sail; still, there’s a battle to face. You are a force to reckon with. Passion wins the day.

Mercury retrograde ends on Sunday but the quick-witted one will keep you going strong through the middle of May. Sunday through Wednesday, destiny hits speed-dial, exceptionally so if it is also your birthday.

April 20–May 20

It’s easy to get lost in the moment or to be swept up in the emotion or the potential. Stay hopeful but don’t bank on a promise.

Enjoy your recreational activities but keep tabs on your drinking or drug use. Now through next week, stay open to anything goes. You can hit a creative, romantic, or opportunity wellspring, especially Monday to Wednesday.

GEMINI

May 21–June 21

Easygoing suits you well through the weekend. Even so, something unexpected could rev it up for you. Keep your time and your mind open; play it moment to moment.

Mercury retrograde ends on a firedup new moon on Sunday. Expect to hit a significant switch track or fast track through Wednesday. Watch for something lucrative, opportune, or unexpected to overtake you.

CANCER

June 21–July 22

LEO

July 22–August 22

Romance, creativity, and passion are a winning combination through the weekend. A background edginess keeps it interesting. Sunday through Wednesday sparks fresh incentive and the unexpected. Loss and gain are in the mix as Saturn stations retrograde and Chiron hits Aries on Tuesday. Action, excitement, opportunity, and volatility are heightened through Wednesday.

VIRGO

LIBRA

SCORPIO

SAGITTARIUS

CAPRICORN

AQUARIUS

PISCES

August 22–September 22

Although the workweek finishes on a fluid track, you are likely to feel the undercurrents of Sunday’s wired-up new moon. It’s time to get over Mercury retrograde. Don’t waste a moment; get on it pronto-quick.

Stay focused on what you need to do for yourself and the results you want to see. Sunday through Wednesday, here and now is your best bet.

September 22–October 23

Feeling charged up? It’s easy to get swept up in it, especially through Sunday. When faced with it, go with a fresh or spontaneous choice. Mercury retrograde ends on Sunday’s hot-wired new moon in Aries. Expect the week to keep the action going strong. Opportunity is up for grabs. Tuesday/Wednesday, the moment is your best bet.

October 23–November 21

The stars are running on two tracks through Sunday: smooth and sharp. Thursday/Friday a creative solution, sudden inspiration, air-clearing, or great find can make your day.

Saturn retrograde can remove a block or change a mindset, trend, plan, or opinion. Renegotiate terms or get out of the contract. Tuesday/Wednesday can spark a fresh cut to the chase.

November 21–December 21

Go ahead, take your world by storm. Mercury is still retrograde until Sunday, but there’s little to stand in your way. Aries stars keep your special brand of genius going strong through mid–next week. Whether on the warpath or a fresh passion play, Sunday’s new moon in Aries, Chiron in Aries, starting Tuesday, and Wednesday’s sun/Uranus conjunction make you an unstoppable dynamo.

December 21–January 19

Saturn turns retrograde on Tuesday, but you can rely on Mars in Capricorn to help you keep it under control. Even so, don’t expect to go slow or maintain the same. The stars are on a fresh cut to the chase through mid–next week. Coping skills can be tested. Watch for your next-best options to become clear-cut.

January 20–February 18

Now through mid–next week, it’s action time! You are about to cross important or critical new ground. A block is surpassed; a fresh perspective, conversation, or relationship begins. Expect to make much faster progress and inroads. Tuesday/ Wednesday, someone or something fires it up, perhaps unexpectedly.

Don’t hesitate; take your best shot. It’s springboard time.

February 18- March 20

You don’t have to wait for the end of Mercury retrograde. As of Thursday, you’re on a roll. Sunday through Wednesday plugs you into something more, something fresh.

Saturn retrograde could let you off the hook or shift your mind, goal, or plan. Tuesday/Wednesday, things can change in a flash. Chiron and sun/Uranus strike it hot. Act fast. -

So much can change in a f lash. Through mid–next week, the stars pull out all the stops. The end of Mercury retrograde on Sunday coincides with a strike-it-hot or hot-poker new moon. Monday/ Tuesday, Venus builds good momentum. Fate trumps all as Chiron and sun/Uranus cut to the chase. B o o k a re a d i n g o r s i g n u p f o r Risk is in the mix; opportunity is Rose’s free monthly newsletter at rosemarcus.com/. too. Reinvent now.

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Mimo Bucko relies on assistant chef Jamal Tlemsani to bring the Moroccan touch to Moltaqa, Gail Johnson photo.

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Tagines arrive in Vancouver, prepared by chefs from Casablanca and Fez

B

efore you even step into the loaves light and f luffy. (He also trout, “ruby” trout, or sea bream world that is Moltaqa on makes a delicate orange cheesecake.) for a coastal tagine. Then there is West Hastings Street, you Served with that traditional bread the lamb shoulder, which comes smell it: ginger, cumin, pap- and Algerian pitted dates on the side, with ras el hanout. The name of this rika, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, a hearty vegan soup called loubia— prized mixture of ground spices anise… Walk in and you’re in Mar- with stewed white beans, ripe toma- and dried roots and leaves—which rakesh: mosaic tilework, decorative toes, and cilantro—could be a light changes from person to person and archways, red-and-gold textiles, and lunch in itself. Fresh arugula and place to place—means “head of the lanterns that cast intricate patterns of finely chopped green apple tossed shop” in Arabic, referring to the light on the white walls and ceiling. with a pomegranate dressing make best spices of the shop. Moltaqa’s On the counters are crystal glasses, for a bright starter, while preserved version consists of 32 spices, includsilver teapots, and—in shades of green, lemon, cumin, and olive oil dress ing turmeric, coriander, cumin, blue, orange, and a blend of zuc- and ginger. (“You have to be an exred—what form chini and parsley. pert to mix 32 spices together and the centrepiece of Other appetizers not have one overpowering the the menu: tagines, include locally other,” Bucko says.)

Gail Johnson cooking pots with made lamb merTo drink: traditional Moroccan conical lids that typically contain a guez sausages and zaalouk, a sooth- tea, mint or hibiscus; a citrusy Rainblend of spicy and sweet flavours. ingly toothsome roasted-eggplant coast kombucha on tap made with This new Moroccan restaurant dip with preserved lemons, red pep- turmeric and mint; beer on tap and comes to Vancouver from Mimo per, and tomatoes. by the bottle (including local and Bucko. The Slovakian native, whose Available at lunch or dinner, ta- gluten-free selections); and wines father is a restaurateur, has lived and gine menu items are as delectable as from B.C., Italy, France, and Spain worked around the world, includ- the dishes are visually striking, with (including some vegan and organic ing cities in Europe and the United servers removing the lids at the table pours, such as Summerhill Merlot States. Dubai is where he met his as wafts of steam rise up and fragrant and Pinot Gris). Moroccan-inspired Marrakesh-born girlfriend. Upon aromas spill forth. cocktails are deliciously inventive: visiting her homeland, he found himTraditionally, the pots were made Karkade Hibiscus Passion mixes self mesmerized by its culture, pre- of earthenware and placed over a vodka with hibiscus tea and grenadominantly Arab-Berber with strong charcoal fire to cook. Now most chefs dine; the Preserved Lemondrop French and Spanish influences. and home cooks use dishes made of Martini blends Ketel One Citroen “Morocco is the gateway to Africa, metal or glazed ceramics (and place with triple sec, preserved lemon, and and culture, music, food, and spices them in the oven or on stovetops). The made-in-Squamish maple syrup. all go hand in hand,” Bucko says in cone-shaped lid allows steam to cirFood prices range from $6.25 to an interview at Moltaqa, whose name culate during cooking, creating con- $25. If there’s a Marrakesh Express, means “meeting place” in Arabic. densation that helps keep food moist. all aboard this train. “When you walk down the streets in At Moltaqa, preserved lemons add Marrakesh, there are places with tall a layer of depth to chicken, served MOLTAQA 51 West Hastings Street; walls where you can’t tell from the with piquant green olives, fork-ten- 604-696-4055. Open for lunch from outside but inside are these peaceful, der eggplant, carrots, and potatoes. 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through mesmerizing, beautiful spaces; it’s Chermoula sauce—a traditional Sunday. Open for dinner from 5 p.m. like a fairy tale to me. I want people to condiment made here with lemon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, to 9 come in here and think, ‘Wow, I’m in juice, ginger, coriander, allspice, and p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, a different world, a different culture. I olive oil—accompanies steelhead and Sunday. Closed Monday. had paradise for an hour.’

“The theme of my design is reflection of light: you can be the light or you can be the shadow. Life is about RESTAURANT SINCE 1974 reflection; everything you put out comes back.”

The experience at Moltaqa runs AWARD WINNING the gamut from lunch and weekend AFGHAN brunch to dinner, complete with CUISINE belly dancing on Friday and SaturSINCE 2008 day nights. Bucko has put together a team of Moroccan-born chefs and culinary consultants, including chef Marouane Anharro, who is from NOW SERVING Fez; two others are from Casablanca.

Having lived in Vancouver for the past several years, the 36-yearold Bucko has adopted its healthfor a conscious lifestyle, so the menu Reservation today highlights dishes that are whole604.873.5923 call some and light on oil. Moltaqa only serves halal and hormonefree meats, while produce, which is organic as often as possible, comes from Chinatown, Granville Island, 1833 Anderson St. (2nd Floor) Vancouver BEFORE THE ENTRANCE TO GRANVILLE ISLAND, RIGHT BEHIND THE STARBUCKS and farms in the Fraser Valley.

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ARTS

Pushing herself and

BY JANET SM IT H

her dancers to do what has never been done in tap before is an impulse that has often characterized Michelle Dorrance’s career. But in the new creation she’s bringing to the DanceHouse stage here, she synthesizes all that energy, and the different ways she’s propelled the form, into a single piece.

Myelination, the title of the work, refers to the brain process in which fatty myelin builds around nerve fibres as you practise new skills, allowing you to excel faster. It’s a process Dorrance is actually activating in the work itself, which finds her and her honed team of hoofers engaging with live music.

“We were pushing ourselves to do what we could not yet do,” Dorrance, one of the foremost practitioners of her art form, explains to the Straight after a rehearsal in New York City. “This is choreography that we had to push ourselves to attain. There’s this athletic feeling of pushing ourselves to our limit. And you get into this zone where you’re literally building myelin.”

The result is a piece that pushes the form not just physically, but creatively and conceptually. While Myelination draws on elements of hip-hop, playing two break-dancers off the nine others’ rapid-fire footwork, it also stresses tap as a percussive form, with live music by Donovan Dorrance, Gregory Richardson, and vocalist Aaron Marcellus. Most interestingly, perhaps, it also shows how the dance form can take on larger themes—inevitably, the America Dorrance finds herself living in today.

“We’re trying to have the most integrity and be the best that we can be as technicians and as artists.…But there are also elements of destructive behavioural practices that build the same myelin,” the affable, articulate artist says of Myelination, which, in one sequence, features one of her dancers crashing repeatedly onto the floor. “Culturally and politically in our country, there’s a

Turning tap on its head

Byron Tittle pushes both tap dancing and his own physical limits in Myelination (Kevin Parry photo); below left, Michelle Dorrance (Matthew Murphy photo).

“I have this interesting relationship to running out of time to try what I Dorrance Dance never tires of discovering new directions want to try,” she adds. “My mom was a ballet danfor its art form—physically, artistically, and conceptually cer, my dad was a soccer kind of dark awakening happening, under a dark player and then a coach, so maybe that’s why I’m administration. It calls to mind misogyn- always wanting to develop and hone my technical istic behaviour, psychopathic behaviour. craft and edge while I’m capable of it.”

So you can see a duality or struggle in the As much as Dorrance has been taking tap into work. But ideally we’re in a better place by the future—the New Yorker has called her “one of the end.” the most imaginative tap choreographers workIt’s this open, ambitious vision that has ing today”—she’s always honoured its past. On made the New York City–based Dorrance, the triple bill here, she’ll also present Jungle Blues, who’s now 38, such a force in tap. It’s won a more old-school celebration of tap set to jazzy her the 2012 Princess Grace Award for New Orleans blues. artistic excellence, it’s won her gigs from “It’s very important to introduce the audience to Japan to Brazil, and it’s won her company the tradition and then show them our most cona rare-for-tap place on contemporary- temporary piece,” she says. “History: we don’t exist dance stages, including the acclaimed without it. We have such a strong relationship to it, Jacob’s Pillow fest in Massachusetts, and, because there’s been so much misinformation about of course, the DanceHouse roster here. tap. Some of it has been institutionalized racism and Dorrance finds no limit to what she’s just larger cultural ignorance. able to explore in a style some still asso“This was a dance born in plantations after drums ciate with lighthearted song-and-dance were taken away from the slaves because they were musicals. worried about uprisings,” she stresses. “I just think “It always really blows my mind to those origins are very powerful.…Tap is at the very continue to discover,” she enthuses. root of what we call American art forms—not first “There’s a very narrow perspective of peoples, but reflecting the immigrant experience what’s possible in our art form. I’m just lucky and the possibilities of oppressed peoples.” and grateful to have the particular artists I get to The third piece on the program, Three to One, explore with. set to music by Aphex Twin and Thom Yorke,

THINGS TO DO

finds Dorrance, in white tap shoes, rhythmically propelling and playing off of two barefoot hip-hop dancers. She says she feels a bond with B-boys and -girls because tap and breaking are American vernacular traditions that have a lot in common.

“I want to illustrate that we are speaking a very similar musical language,” she says of Three to One. “We are speaking it with sound, so there’s interplay between my very aural world and their rhythmic movement. And it’s a great counterpoint.”

In all, the DanceHouse evening should serve as an inspiring one-stop shop for all that is happening in the burgeoning world of tap. Just don’t ask Dorrance if she thinks there’s a tap “renaissance” going on right now, as so much of the media is ballyhooing. Th is leader in the art form heard similar buzz in the 1980s and ’90s, when Gregory Hines hit Hollywood and new tap musicals were booming on Broadway.

“Th is legacy existed before what we’re doing and there have been other renaissances in my lifetime,” she says, “but we never stopped, only because of the incredibly strong, close-knit tap community.…What we can only hope is that we sustain enough momentum to not feel another wall, to not ever have to feel that it’s another renaissance. And this reminds me of why we’re pushing so hard.” DanceHouse presents Dorrance Dance at the Vancouver Playhouse on Friday and Saturday (April 13 and 14).

ARTS High five

Editor’s choice STRING STAR Cello lovers’ alert: the Vancouver Recital Society boasts the Canadian debut of a buzzed-about Parisian string artist who’ll perform lush, burnished sonatas by Francis Poulenc, César Franck, and Sergei Prokofiev. Le Figaro has called Edgar Moreau “the rising star of French cello”, and, at 24, the former child prodigy comes here trailing top prizes from Europe. Among his performances, he played Johann Sebastian Bach’s Second Suite “Sarabande” at Les Invalides as part of a memorial for the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks. He’s been praised for everything from his muscular style to his original programming to his charisma and virtuosity.

He’s well worth catching, with pianist Jessica Xylina Osborne. The Vancouver Recital Society presents Edgar Moreau at the Vancouver Playhouse on Sunday (April 15).

Five events you just can’t miss this week

1

WORLD WITHOUT US (April 17 to 29 at the Cultch) If you saw Ontroerend Goed’s genre-punching Fight Night, you’ll want to see this take on eco-disaster.

2

JON DORE (April 13 and 14 at the Comedy MIX) One of the most gut-busting standups working today.

3

CREPUSCULAR LUMINOUS (April 14 at the Orpheum Annex) Creepy-cool piano and erhu under VSO assistant conductor William Rowson.

4

MISERY (To May 5 at the Arts Club Granville Island Stage) Stephen King’s thriller gets a chilling stage treatment.

5

MURDER ON THE IMPROV EXPRESS (April 12 to May 26 at the Improv Centre) Like a stylish trip on Agatha Christie’s Orient Express, only funnier.

In the news TOP FLIGHT Vancouver choreographer Crystal Pite has won her second Laurence Olivier Award— Britain’s answer to the Tony Awards. Her Flight Pattern, a work created for the Royal Ballet and inspired by the refugee crisis, was named best new dance production. Set to Henryk Gorecki’s sorrowful Third Symphony, it portrays a struggling mass of greycoated figures. When it debuted a year ago, the Telegraph called it “a heartrending but extraordinarily beautiful emotional odyssey”. The production was the first work created by a female choreographer for the Royal Ballet in 18 years. The award ceremony took place April 8 at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall. Pite’s other Olivier came last year, shared with cocreator Jonathon Young, for Betroffenheit, which recently returned to Vancouver. APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 17

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In Nine Dragons, John Ng (with Toby Hughes and Duval Lang) plays a Chinese detective fed up with racism in colonial 1920s Hong Kong. Tim Nguyen photo.

Nine Dragons brings new depth to detective story > B Y JAN ET SMITH

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looking almost Noel Coward–esque, and that photo just stayed etched in my brain,” says Sy, adding the picture had come from old Hong Kong. “So I had an idea for the archrival, the prime suspect in the murders, to be a Chinese man who tried to erase all traces of his identity and just submerge it in British culture.”

After further research, Sy decided the rich, cartel-tied Victor should live on the Peak—a hillside community in Hong Kong where the British once excluded Chinese residents. “There was a historical precedent for exceptions,” Sy explains.

“There was an extremely wealthy family so powerful that they were allowed on the Peak. And my character Victor is loosely based on that.”

The result is a battle of wits between the two male protagonists, each with his own way of surviving in colonial Hong Kong—allowing Sy to explore deeper racial themes.

“When I was growing up in Canada, it was an Anglo society and you got ahead by learning clear, unaccented English; you got ahead by assimilating,” explains Sy, who was born in Manila and raised in Toronto. “So these are things I’m pondering. Just because it’s the way to succeed, does that make it right? At what point are you giving up your own identity? That has no easy answers, even today.”

The play ends up reflecting those concerns, as well as Sy’s enduring love for the books and films he grew up with—the detective novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and British movies and shows like Brideshead Revisited.

But it also allows him to indulge his long-standing fascination with Hong Kong—especially the old opium-den underworld of colourful Kowloon.

“I’ve been fortunate to work in Hong Kong frequently,” he says.

“Since 2006, I’ve been going over there as a guest artist. So I’m Chinese from the Philippines, but I kind of consider Hong Kong my second home.” -

ith the hard-boiled Chinese detective in his new murder mystery, Nine Dragons, you could say Jovanni Sy has created the anti–Charlie Chan.

His film-noir-inspired play, set in atmospheric 1920s Hong Kong, stars John Ng (of TV’s Kim’s Convenience) in the role of a not-so-traditional jaded detective named Tommy Lam. “The classic Chinese detective is, of course, Charlie Chan,” Sy says over the phone, on the road to rehearsal at Richmond’s Gateway Theatre, where he is also artistic director. Referring to Chan, the popular Chinese-American novel, comic-book, and movie character of the 1920s to ’40s, he adds: “He hits all the stereotypes: inscrutability, passivity, and someone who doesn’t make waves because of his unreadable nature. I wanted someone who was a hothead and wrote his feelings on his sleeve—someone who had a sort of toxic masculinity. I wanted to challenge that Charlie Chan stereotype.”

Tommy, who’s sick of kowtowing to the British superiors who always overlook him, ends up embodying all the racial tension that seethes in Hong Kong under colonial rule. “There’s a murder mystery, but at its heart it’s the mystery of Tommy’s identity,” explains Sy, whose play is being directed

by Craig Hall in a coproduction with Calgary’s Vertigo Theatre and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. “It’s about ‘What does it mean to be a Chinese man in a British colony?’ ” Tommy even narrates some of the story in Cantonese, with subtitles flowing across on-stage screens that are also used to evoke Hong Kong settings. Using Tommy’s mother tongue, Sy says, allows the writer to emphasize this is a character “living his life in translation”.

In contrast to the angry Lam, villain Victor Fung—the prime suspect in the murder of a wealthy white woman—is a slick assimilationist.

“I remember way back seeing a photograph of a Chinese man in a Nine Dragons is at the Gateway Thebeautiful double-breasted tuxedo atre from Friday (April 13) to April 21.

18 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

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TURKISH HYBRID The harp, lute and many wind instruments have been the dominant instruments over the centuries and still are in Turkish (folk) music. Arpanatolia brings together singers and musicians who delve into that tradition to create a new, contemporary synthesis of Turkish folk music. The modern harp stands side by side with traditional instruments like the lute-like cura and flutes such as the kaval, ney and sipsi.In addition to original melodies imbued with ancient resonances, Arpanatolia delivers new interpretations; hybridization at its best. $2 will be donated to Children Hospital Foundation from each sold tickets On the Occasion of NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY and CHILDREN'S DAY in Turkey

APRIL 13 & 14, 8PM VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE

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APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 19

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Lizée unpacks her Prairies past > B Y A LE X A ND ER VA R TY

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h, Saskatchewan. Land of green spring and tawny fall wheatfields and endlessly billowing clouds. Land of snowy winter plains and summer clouds of mosquitoes. And, perhaps counterintuitively, land of generous landfills. Let’s not forget the human impact on the Prairie province’s natural environment, for without it Music on Main’s composer in residence, Nicole Lizée, would not be the artist that she is today.

One thing is perfectly clear: the 45-year-old musician’s hectic sonic structures and penchant for polyphonic collage did not spring out of some unconscious need to fill her home terrain’s empty landscape.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been asked about that,” Lizée tells the Straight, on the line from her Montreal studio. “People will immediately think of, yes, that vastness, that open space in Saskatchewan—but I don’t think of it that way. I remember being really young and going inside machinery, farm machinery, and things like that. I spent a lot of time in my dad’s [electronic repair] store, which meant being inside with the innards of TV sets.…I’d be looking at the schematics and seeing the link to music. So for me, Saskatchewan was complex. The vast space that should have been there was actually filled by things.

“I saw a lot of landfills,” she adds, laughing. “My dad would go to landfills and look for, you know, wiring.

That was his life: he was fixing things, and so he would have to go and find the parts that were not immediately available. This included machinery from the ’60s, so I would go with him and look at all this stuff that was now landfill, and he would go through it and know what was actually kind of precious, kind of in demand. So it was there, the vast countryside and

The past is always present in the work of Music on Main’s composer in residence, Nicole Lizée, whose band SaskPWR makes its debut here. Steve Raegele photo.

the wheatfields, but when I think of growing up, I always see pylons and farm machinery and electronics.”

Lizée has shot to international fame for multimedia works such as Hitchcock Études and La Callas Fantasie, which combine archival film footage, often artfully or unintentionally degraded, with sampled soundtracks, cheap electronic noisemakers, and her sophisticated, enigmatic writing for acoustic instruments. The past is almost always present in her work, which exemplifies a recently developed musical genre that some dub “hauntology”. But nowhere is her Saskatchewan youth more fully explored than in her band SaskPWR, which makes its local debut next week as part of One Night Stand: Nicole Lizée.

A collaboration with her partner, guitarist Steve Raegele, and percussionist Ben Reimer, SaskPWR is a conceptualist’s idea of a psychedelic rock band, right down to the fact that it began as little more than a graphic stolen from a utility company and some joke merch.

“We had logos and we had lollipops, but we didn’t actually exist,” Lizée recalls. She did, however, have an idea for music that would somehow convey a

sense of danger in the everyday, based in part on the public face of what was once the Saskatchewan Power Corporation. “They were very in-your-face,” she recalls. “Looking back on those old signs and warnings about electrocution, I suppose, just stirred these emotions in me, these eerie feelings, and I wanted to build on that.”

Bolstered by local string virtuosos Rebecca Whitling, Tawnya Popoff, and Rebecca Wenham, SaskPWR’s Music on Main show will consist of two longform compositions, Suite From Sasktronica and The Criterion Collection, plus Reimer’s solo feature Katana of Choice. Some idea of the content can be gleaned from the names of individual movements: “Lovesick”, “Cubist Television”, “Make-Out Music”, and “Scherzo Suicidio” all hint at teen angst remembered wryly. But until SaskPWR actually takes the stage, it’s hard to say just how they’ll sound.

“We don’t really have records, or anything like that,” Lizée says. “We don’t have a website. But we have T-shirts!” Music on Main presents One Night Stand: Nicole Lizée at the Fox Cabaret on Tuesday (April 17).

LIGHT TRANSFORMING Choral Explorations II with Michael Zaugg

8pm FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2018 Dunbar Ryerson United Church (2205 W 45th Ave at Yew St)

Vancouver Chamber Choir Michael Zaugg, conductor Michael Zaugg is the guest conductor for this last concert of the 2017-2018 subscription season.

Originally from Switzerland, he is now the conductor and music director of Alberta’s Pro Coro Canada.

Michael is a long-time friend and collaborator with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, whom he has hosted many times in Edmonton, Ottawa and Montreal. His programme will have many new and intriguing choral works by Rautavaara, Rheinberger, Whitacre, Archer, Saint-Saëns, Elgar, Knudson and Joby Talbot.

1.855.985.ARTS (2787) vancouverchamberchoir.com

20 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

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SAT APR 28 2018 / 8PM

Circa: Opus “This Shostakovich-meets-the-circus show is sexy, fierce and astonishing” - The Telegraph

Argentina’s Che Malambo draws its whirling boleadoras and high-octane traditions from the cowboys who used to roam the grasslands of South America.

Che Malambo reignites the fire of the gauchos > B Y TONY M ONTAG U E

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their legs with seemingly impossible flexibility at lightning speed.

Che Malambo incorporates and refines these complex moves, but the most spectacular effect in its highoctane show comes from the use of percussive boleadoras. “Boleadoras were a weapon used for hunting, but also for battle by Indigenous people,” says Brinas. “Three leather thongs about two metres long, joined at one end and with pouches attached to the free ends, each enclosing a stone the size of a fist. When cast at the legs of an animal or an enemy it wrapped tightly around them. They’re really heavy to lift and whirl above your head, and you’ve got to be very careful—especially when you begin practising.” The 14 dancers of Che Malambo pound the stage with the boleadoras they wield, sounding like a bombardment in perfect time by giant hailstones.

Che Malambo’s footwork is basically traditional, adapted by Brinas for contemporary performance. “I’ve developed the rhythm and the virtuosity of the technique, and now in Buenos Aires lots of people dance like us. Some purists don’t approve, but the young people love it.

The first part of our show presents the more traditional aspects of the dance, in form and spirit, while in the second part, which we call the Fiesta, we bring a smile to it. Che Malambo isn’t a fixed ballet, it’s a living ballet, an organism, a beating heart—because the malambo rhythm is above all a heartbeat, and I think that’s why we’re so well-received, because we go straight to the heart of things—and not via the head. It’s pure dance, and that’s what’s always interested me.” -

auchos were the cowboys of the Pampas—the grasslands of South America that stretch from Patagonia to the Andes Mountains, and as far north as Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

Argentine company Che Malambo celebrates the culture of the gauchos in a dance-and-music spectacle of raw power and imaginative brio.

According to the show’s creator and choreographer, Gilles Brinas, the original gauchos were even rougher and tougher than their counterparts in North America’s Wild West.

“The gaucho was a free man—and a loner,” he says, reached on tour with Che Malambo in New York City, and speaking in French. “He was nomadic and went wherever he wanted, working when it suited him. When he got hungry he just killed a cow. He liked to keep things simple, and wore two ponchos, one over his upper body, and one over his lower body. He lived, worked, and even slept in the saddle. When a gaucho needed money he sold some hides at one of the small bars at the crossroads in the Pampas. It’s then that the gaucho danced—after drinking, of course.”

There were dance duels between gauchos. The two men would face off, one performing a sequence of movements and steps as a challenge, which the other replied to immediately, copying or changing or extending it.

Such “conversations” between artists are often seen in the stage shows of contemporary rock or jazz acts, but with the gauchos the exchanges were more intense and personal in character. The rhythm they danced to was the malambo, with roots in African and Indigenous cultures, striking the C h e M a l a m b o p e r f o r m s a t t h e floor with their boots like flamenco Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Wednesdancers, and twisting and turning day (April 11).

CHAN CENTRE AT UBC

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May 17, 2018

7pm, The Roof at Hotel Vancouver

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APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 21

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Straight love defies Explanation

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> B Y JA NE T S M ITH

n James Fagan Tait’s new chamber play The Explanation, the lights come up on a man who’s wearing a miniskirt and a wig.

He looks at the audience for a long time and then says: “I’m a man. I’m straight. I just like to dress this way.”

He’s one of two males in the play who are constantly insisting they’re straight, always offering up disclaimers for their budding relationship.

But they also seem to be forming a warmer and warmer bond, meeting at the downtown library one day, later going for coffee, and eventually heading out to a club on Davie Street.

Tait, a long-time Vancouver actor, playwright, and director, admits he had trepidation about presenting the script to the frank theatre company’s former artistic producer, Chris Gatchalian. (The troupe is devoted to queer and sex-positive performance.)

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it might be internally homophobic,’ ” he relates over the phone on a break from rehearsal. “The men in it keep reiterating they’re straight. Or maybe the play is going to press those buttons for people. I thought, ‘I hope there’s not an issue here.’ But then Chris read it and said, ‘This is fantastic. It might push buttons, but the company is dedicated to challenging the community.’ And that’s all I needed to know.”

Tait’s take on gender and sexuality likely emerged from his own background, he admits candidly.

Like many others in his generation, he didn’t come out to his parents till later in life. They were staunch Roman Catholics, and, on the advice of a psychiatrist, he only broke the news to them at 39 (as it happens, around the age of both characters in his play). He had feared coming out for most of his life, but he adds it was a surprisingly positive experience.

In The Explanation (with Kevin MacDonald and Evan Frayne), two men who keep insisting they’re straight start to feel an unexpected attraction. Tim Matheson photo.

Still, he says, “I always feel like I’m not a good homosexual. I never thought of myself as such a part of the gay community. I never participated in Pride because I was moving around so much with theatre. When people would talk about gay politics, I always thought, ‘Oh, I should be more of a part of that.’ ” When Gatchalian invited Tait, who is better-known for adapting literature to the stage, to write a play, these ideas came to the surface. So did his dislike of the pigeonholing of LGBTQ people, and his belief in the fluidity of sexuality as well as the fact that sometimes all it takes is an impulsive decision for people to get together.

“It doesn’t necessarily involve a whole lifetime of feeling or thought,” he suggests. “There are relationships out there that aren’t even sexual that are beautiful. At the age I’m at now, I realize that it’s important that you have good friends and relationships, and be glad that you have them and don’t ask them to be

anyone else than who they are.”

Evan Frayne and Kevin MacDonald are taking on the roles of the two men, one who cross-dresses and one who doesn’t.

“My insistence is this play should be performed by two straight men,” Tait reveals, adding the casting choice creates a unique tension. “And the characters themselves claim in a cavalier way that they could be at the middle of the spectrum and could go either way.…Also, it invites two straight men into the room to discuss homosexuality. I feel it’s a cultural exchange and a dialogue.”

Despite his initial fears, mounting The Explanation has been nothing but a positive experience so far.

“It’s been so fun and so satisfying,” Tait says. “The laughter in the room and the feeling in the room are so exquisite,” he says. The Explanation is at the Vancity Culture Lab from Tuesday (April 17) to April 29.

ARRIVAL FROM SWEDEN:

THE MUSIC OF A BBA WITH THE VSO

A stylish murder mystery set in 1920s Kowloon, Hong Kong

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2 8PM, ORPHEUM William Rowson conductor

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Simpson’s episodes fuel apocalypse tale TH E AT RE MR. BURNS, A POSTELECTRIC PLAY Book and lyrics by Anne Washburn.

Score and musical direction by Katerina Gimon. Directed and choreographed by Madelyn Osborne.

At Studio 1398 on Wednesday, April 4.

Continues until April 21

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In Mr. Burns, survival depends on Simpsons stagings. Duy Nguyen photo.

avarice, and love. To its detriment, it takes Washburn three acts and twoand-a-half hours to say it, and the final act—set 82 years after the catastrophe and consisting of a fully staged, popoperatic version of the “Cape Feare�– inspired production—is more baffling than enlightening. By that time the particulars of the source material have become almost unrecognizably garbled. This is sort of the point, but that doesn’t make it any less confusing.

The cast tackles it all gamely, though. Douglas Ennenberg is a standout as Gibson, a well-travelled survivor with a surprisingly handy Gilbert-andSullivan obsession. Stephanie Izsak is solid as Act 2’s Quincy, but her over-the-top campiness as the third act’s gender-blended Monty Burns is, as the character might say, excellent.

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Ben Elliott & Adrian Glynn | David Cooper Photography

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> JOHN LUCAS

THE SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN

A R T S

C E N T R E

P R O D U C T I O N

for the funniest moment in Little Mountain Lionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production of Mr. Burns. That comes in the second act, when a ragtag theatre group made up of apocalypse survivors rehearses the â&#x20AC;&#x153;chart hitsâ&#x20AC;? section of their show. In composer and musical director Katerina Gimonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands, this becomes a hilarious medley of half-remembered pop songs, from â&#x20AC;&#x153;Toxicâ&#x20AC;? to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lose Yourselfâ&#x20AC;? to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Single Ladiesâ&#x20AC;?.

Part of the humour stems from the juxtaposition of how silly the whole exercise isâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the â&#x20AC;&#x153;pop starâ&#x20AC;? costumes look more like a colourblind personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s idea of aerobics wear, and the ensembleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dance moves are perfectly out of syncâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and how deadly seriously everyone involved is taking it. (Director Madelyn Osborne also did the choreography and she and production designer Johnny Hamilton designed the costumes.)

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because in Anne Washburnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dark comedy, set in an America left literally powerless after an unspecified disaster, this troupeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very survival depends on the success of their staging of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cape Feareâ&#x20AC;? and other episodes of The Simpsons reconstructed from notalways-reliable memories.

If you can buy the premise of a postapocalyptic economy dominated by cutthroat-competitive theatre companies, Mr. Burns actually has quite a lot to say about art, commerce,

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85HGSÄ&#x203A;KUCÄ&#x161; APRIL 12 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 23

ARTS NEW WORKS presents DANCE ALLSORTS

04.20.18

RAVEN SPIRIT DANCE

Performance 7:00pm Workshop 8:15pm Evergreen Cultural Centre Coquitlam

04.21.18

Performance 8:00pm Artist Talk 7:00pm Presentation House Theatre North Vancouver

04.22.18

Performance 2:00pm Workshop 3:15pm The Roundhouse Vancouver

Featuring Choreography by Starr Muranko & Michelle Olson

$15 adults $5 children

Suggested Donation Pay What You Can at the Door Guaranteed Seating & Workshop Registration Online Artist: Michelle Olson Photographer: Chris Randall

newworks.ca

Joi T. Arcand’s Fresh Bread—Saskatoon, Saskatchewan plays with the language and nostalgia of Prairie streetscapes.

Time travels at The Blue Hour V IS U AL AR T S THE BLUE HOUR At the Contemporary Art Gallery until June 24

The Blue Hour is the evocative

2 title of a theory-driven show at

the Contemporary Art Gallery. While launching the Capture Photography Festival, the exhibition challenges our understanding of that medium’s relationship to time. The “blue hour” is the name given to the 20 minutes of twilight, at dawn and at dusk, when the sun is a certain number of degrees below the horizon and the blue colour spectrum predominates. It’s a period, curator Kimberly Phillips says during the show’s media preview, when time seems to be suspended. The Canadian and international artists in the show, Joi T. Arcand, Kapwani Kiwanga, Colin Miner, Grace Ndiritu, and Kara Uzelman, employ a wide range of ostensible subjects in their creative practices, from Prairie streetscapes to tectonic plates to a perpetual-motion machine. They all, however, mess with the past-present-future tense of photographic time, often using collage and assemblage to pose images, objects, and ideas against each other.

Phillips’s curatorial premise riffs on a declaration made by critic Elizabeth Eastlake in 1857, that the photographic image “approaches us from the future and arrives in the present”. This assertion directly contradicts the established belief that the moment caught in the photograph is already past and is, therefore, irrevocable. The future Eastlake was referring to was probably related to the experiments and

Final weekend Closes April 15

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MUSQUEAM

24 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

advances in photographic technologies of her contemporaries. Phillips, however, uses her words in a metaphysical sense, proposing that the photograph can be about “futurity” and therefore has “speculative potential”.

From a distance, Arcand’s streetfront photographs of Saskatchewan towns are reminiscent of Danny Singer’s acclaimed photos of similar subjects; they are suggestive of a nostalgic notion of Prairie settler culture that seems to be lodged in the mid-20th century. Up close, however, nostalgia is powerfully repudiated. In Arcand’s images of small-town businesses, including a hotel, a general store, and a pawn shop, all the English signage has been digitally replaced with Cree syllabics. The effect is wonderfully disorienting: Arcand’s art inverts Canada’s colonial history, which has been one of erasing Indigenous culture, here signified by language. The artist uses different Cree dialects to assert a pre-contact and enduring Aboriginal presence—to bring the past forward to the present and then to project it into the future.

Uzelman bases her photographic and mixed-media assemblage on objects found on what had been her grandfather’s farm, one he lost, we’re told, because he became obsessed with the idea of inventing a perpetual-motion machine. It’s quite a story, and Uzelman approaches it—her grandfather’s squandering of his past and present on an unrealizable idea of the future—by reproducing his drawings and notes alongside her shots of everyday objects unearthed at the farm, fragments of actual artifacts, splatters of paint, and ruined photos of unreadable subjects.

In her folded and overlaid photographs of rock samples from the European and North African sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, Kiwanga conflates a colonial past, a postcolonial present, and a vastly distant future—200 million years hence—when, it is hypothesized, all the Earth’s continents will re-merge into one megacontinent and, notably for her message here, Europe will be overridden by Africa.

Time is suspended in Miner’s diverse congregation of images and objects, ranging from a much-enlarged shot of silver emulsion on a photographic plate to polymerized gypsum casts of dust covers for old photographic equipment, and from wallmounted neon sculptures to a tiny video, playing on an iPad mini, of a barely moving Peruvian snail.

A Quest for Meaning, Ndiritu’s ongoing photographic archive and installation, is cosmologically ambitious—a kind of creation story. As Phillips writes in her curatorial essay, Ndiritu asserts that “each photograph that comes into existence…is a microcosmic instance of the macrocosm of the universe.” A small selection of the archive she has been assembling since 2010 is on view in the CAG’s Alvin Balkind Gallery (along with the CAG’s Nelson Street windows). Some of these photos are old and appropriated and others are new and original, and none is identified; their origins as well as their relationships to each other—and to the beginning and end of time—are somewhat mysterious.

Still, the overall effect of Ndiritu’s work is engaging and engrossing. We stand before it, suspended in time. > ROBIN LAURENCE

ar ts/ timeout

THEATRE DANCE MUSIC COMEDY GALLERIES MUSEUMS

of Melody Anderson’s comedy about sibling rivalry. Apr 12–May 6, Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre (162 W. 1st). Tix from $29, info www.artsclub.com/ shows/2017-2018/me-and-you/.

NINE DRAGONS Gateway Theatre presents the world premiere of artistic director Jovanni Sy’s crime drama set in 1924 Kowloon. Apr 12-21, 8 pm, Gateway Theatre (6500 Gilbert Rd., Richmond). Info www.gatewaytheatre.com/.

THEATRE 2OPENINGS ME AND YOU The Arts Club Theatre Company presents the world premiere

WORLD WITHOUT US Ontroerend Goed brings us a new piece about the end of humanity and what comes

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straight choices GOING GREEN What a career Tom Green has had. His antics on his cable-TV show in Ottawa, pissing on the establishment with crazy youth-fuelled stunts, didn’t get him run out of show business; he was rewarded with even greater success, first nationally here, then in the U.S. And no matter how much his oeuvre (hello, Freddie Got Fingered !) was panned by critics, his fans’ numbers grew. For the past near-decade, Green has been working his standup chops around the globe almost every week. There’s no quit in the guy, not even after Donald Trump booted his ass out of the boardroom on Celebrity Apprentice. He’ll talk about that, and more, at Yuk Yuk’s this Friday and Saturday (April 13 and 14). after. Apr 17-29, 8 pm, The Cultch (1895 Venables). Tix from $22, info thecultch. com/events/world-without-us/.

2ONGOING CHELSEA HOTEL: THE SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN Creator-director

Tracey Power’s homage to the legendary Canadian poet and singer-songwriter, in which six performers play new arrangements of his songs on 17 different instruments. To Apr 21, Firehall Arts Centre (280 E. Cordova). Tix from $25, info www. firehallartscentre.ca/.

THE HUMANS The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Stephen Karam’s portrait of an ordinary family at odds with itself and the uncertainties of life in a changing America. To Apr 22, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage (2750 Granville). Tix from $29, info artsclub.com/ shows/2017-2018/the-humans/.

BAR MITZVAH BOY A comedy by playwright Mark Leiren-Young about friendship, ritual, and growing up (at any age). To Apr 14, 8 pm, Pacific Theatre (1440 W. 12th). Tix $36.50/20, info pacifictheatre. org/season/2017-2018-season/mainstage/ bar-mitzvah-boy/.

MISERY The Arts Club Theatre Company presents William Goldman’s thriller, based on the novel by Stephen King. To May 5, Granville Island Stage (1585 Johnston, Granville Island). Tix

see page 28

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BOTH THE BRUTALITY AND THE BEAUTY – SHINES THROUGH ,

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BEST

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: APRIL 7, 2018 WHERE: Super Valu - 1st and Commercial We were in line at Super Valu, chatted about rec sports, I almost accidentally bought your butter. Most obvious opener ever - “You’re tall”. I can definitely do better; how about over beer?

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ON

Not sure if you're ever going to see this, but who knows. I saw you at Planet Fitness at 1 am in the morning. You were doing some cable ab crunches. We eyed back and forth a few times.

Not sure if you thought I was cute or if you thought I was funny looking lol. You were with some Asian guy, not sure if you guys were friends or together.

Anyway you're really cute and my type of girl. I'm Asian and heavily tattooed. You have black hair and beautiful eyes.

In front of SaveOn Foods in Terra Nova. I was unlocking my bicycle. You admired my yellow helmet. I asked if you rode. You said you did, but I didn’t ask you to ride with me. Will you ride with me?

SPELLBINDING”

PRODUCER

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BY

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We decided not to exchange personal details - so you are, to this date, the only person I have kissed whose name I don’t know. I have begun to think I’ll never see you again, at the same time it seems impossible that I never will. You did, after all, tell your best friend all about me.

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AND

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: APRIL 3, 2018 WHERE: Planet Fitness Surrey

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: APRIL 8, 2018 WHERE: Save On Foods Terra Nova

“HONEST, UNFLINCHING

BASED

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 15, 2018 WHERE: 84 Bus to VCC Clark

YOU LIKED MY YELLOW HELMET

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EXECUTIVE

BEAUTIFUL MAN ON THE 84 BUS

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“THE ESSENCE AND IMPORTANCE OF WAGAMESE’S BOOK –

FROM

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

I came in on Friday March 30th around 2 pm. It was super busy that day and you were my server. You were astonishing.

The perfect height with eyes that sparkled radiance. I had ordered the pulled pork pancakes. When you asked me how my food was I could hardly respond I was so nervous. I sadly do not remember your name but I do recall it ended with "Y" sound. I will be back to admire your beauty.

LOCKING UP YOUR BIKE OUTSIDE BEFRESH W BROADWAY

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: APRIL 8, 2018 WHERE: BeFresh West Broadway

s

I saw you lock up your Raleigh city bike outside as I was working on my laptop inside. We exchanged a few smiles.

Interested in meeting for coffee? bike ride?

MORNING RIDES ON THE #17 - WHERE HAVE YOU GONE?

r

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: FEBRUARY 26, 2018 WHERE: Our Commute We used to ride the #17 most mornings, boarding and disembarking together at the same stops. We didn’t really interact much, except for exchanging smiles or a word here or there.

You were always polite, welldressed, and seemed like someone I might get along with. I didn’t notice right away, but I think I stopped seeing you on my commute sometime after Christmas. About 6 weeks ago, I saw you talking on your phone outside Harbour Centre and you flashed me an incredible smile. I wanted to introduce myself but I was in a rush and I haven’t seen you since. So... are we still neighbours, or did you move? Do you have a different schedule? I would love to get to know you.

CUTE GIRL EVERY MORNING ON THE #3 BUS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: APRIL 7, 2018 WHERE: Main Street

s

We ride the bus along Main St. almost every morning. You get on at Broadway and go to King Ed. I think you’re beautiful but too shy to say 'hey'.

Coffee sometime?!

BOOT SQUARE FRIENDLY PATH CROSS

s

r

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: APRIL 3, 2018 WHERE: Moberly Street Area Off Bike Path I was locking up my bike with a friend, you walked by: maybe 6’, reddish unruly longish hair, beard, glasses, warm smile. I said something to you which I can’t fully recall. As I was heading to the small cafe I saw you again in the massage clinic in the square. We had a kind look at one another. I would love to meet you if you are free to do so.

MAIN STREET HUSTLER...

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: APRIL 2, 2018 WHERE: Main Street

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You were moving fast with both passion & purpose down Main street. So much so your hair was on fire, or that’s just your shade & style! Beautiful for all to see though you were also hiding under a soft felt hat but your shoes with graffiti showed a curious & selfas sured indep endence.

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OPEN WINE, KINGSGATE MALL

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: APRIL 7, 2018 WHERE: Kingsgate Mall Liquor Store You were behind me in the line. I believe we couldn’t take our eyes off each other.

Circumstances were a bit awkward for me to say anything.

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FREE Vancouver Screenings Include: VIFF presents DOUBLE HAPPINESS (6:30 PM) Skype with director Mina Shum VIFF Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour St.

VIFF presents THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD (8:30 PM) Skype Q&A with star Colm Feore VIFF Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour St.

The Cinematheque presents LOYALTIES (6:30 PM) Live Q&A with director Anne Wheeler Cinematheque Vancouver, 1131 Howe St.

The Cinematheque presents WEREWOLF (8:45 PM) Skype Q&A with director Ashley McKenzie Cinematheque Vancouver, 1131 Howe St.

&Žƌ ŵŽƌĞ ŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ Žƌ ƚŽ ĮŶĚ ĂŶŽƚŚĞƌ ƐĐƌĞĞŶŝŶŐ ŶĞĂƌ LJŽƵ͕ ƐĞĞ ŽƵƌ ĐŽŵƉůĞƚĞ ůŝƐƚ ŽĨ ĞǀĞŶƚƐ ŽŶůŝŶĞ Ăƚ ĐĂŶĂĚŝĂŶĮůŵĚĂLJ͘ĐĂͬďĐ 26 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

MOVIES REVIEWS BORG VS M C ENROE Starring Shia LaBeouf. In English and Swedish, with English subtitles. Rated 14A

The repeated premise of Borg vs McEnroe is

2 that the still-clanging Battle of the Tennis Titans was between two foes who couldn’t have been more different from each other in temperament, style, or following. But the subtext is really how much they were alike.

Shia LaBeouf is the bigger name here, riffing on his own bad-boy rep as John McEnroe, even more famous in the very early ’80s for his fullcourt tantrums than for his rocketing left-handed serves. But this Scandinavian effort really belongs to Sverrir Gudnason, a powerfully controlled presence who also happens to have an astounding resemblance to Björn Borg.

The generously subtitled movie is weighted strongly to Borg’s side of the net. It spends considerable time with his Romanian fiancée, Mariana (Tuva Novotny), and even more with

LaBeouf and the Ice-Borg

You cannot be serious! Sweden’s Sverrir Gudnason (right) is a dead ringer for tennis god Bjorn Borg in director Janus Metz’s lopsided effort Borg vs McEnroe.

Executive-produced by Clint Eastwood and directed

by Stephen Campanelli (who has operated cameras for many of Clint’s movies), Playing John McEnroe, a star gets to riff on his own bad-boy the movie was adapted by Vancouver playwright Denrep in a look back at the mythic Battle of the Tennis Titans nis Foon from an awardhis tough-love coach, Lennart Bergelin, giving winning, semiautobiographical novel by the late Mamma Mia!’s Stellan Skarsgård a rare chance Richard Wagamese. Its story centres on Saul Into work in his native language. Through f lash- dian Horse, separated from his parents in 1959 backs, we see how the roughly raised preteen and taken to a residential school, to “have the Borg was saddled with class prejudice and with Indian drummed out of him”, as someone gleea volatile on-court attitude remarkably similar fully puts it.

Saul is played by three actors, all good. Sladen to McEnroe’s.

We see that impetuousness and resent- Peltier is the six-year-old version, shocked to see his ment drummed out of the boy, to be replaced relatives denigrated and his language taken away. by ritual and superstition. If the young Björn Sanctioned by the Canadian government, these solooks even more like the adult version than called schools were slave-labour camps, a churchdoes Gudnason, that’s because he’s played by run form of slow ethnic cleansing. The Dr. Mengele Leo Borg, 13-year-old son of our Scandinav- we meet is Father Quinney (veteran Michael Murian superman and already a top-seeded player phy), assisted by the mulish Sister Sara (Jill Frappier), in real life. His scenes stand out powerfully, who compound their sins by pretending that they while Marcus Mossberg isn’t a particularly are saving souls while destroying spirit and flesh.

Saul has savvy survival skills, however, and good match as the adolescent Borg. The fretful, slightly younger McEnroe is given much his eagerness to please is noted by a youngish reless background, and fewer relationships, apart former called Father Gaston (Michiel Huisman, of from his doting father (Ian Blackman). Mainly, Treme and Game of Thrones). When the priest sees we see him clubbing and picking fights with ri- his interest in hockey, Gaston makes it possible for Saul to play “the white man’s game”. By the time vals like Peter Fleming and Jimmy Connors.

Little attention is paid to the commercial as- Saul hits his teens (and is played by Forrest Goodpects of Reagan-era sports. There is one good luck), it’s clear that the kid has real talent.

Eventually, our postadolescent protagonbit with ad men pitching a brand campaign at the profanity-prone Yank with the slogan “Mc- ist (Ajuawak Kapashesit) is able to leave and, Enroe Swears By It!” A few more moments like through the sponsorship of a semi-empathetic that would have punctured the film’s overly coach (Weeds’ Martin Donovan), gets a shot at pro mournful tone, and thus taken it in the more sports. Thanks to the flashback-laden structure of playful direction of I, Tonya or Battle of the the movie—burdened by repetition and thudding Sexes. That said, the final Wimbledon show- sound effects—we know right away that things down, in which resistance proves not quite fu- won’t really work out for Saul. The filmmakers tile, leads to a surprisingly satisfying endgame. stay architecturally true to the book, while mis> KEN EISNER sing its subtler colours. This means keeping a lastact revelation that, aside from being pretty obINDIAN HORSE vious stuff, comes across as overly manipulative, requiring the narrator to hold back a trauma he Starring Forrest Goodluck. In English and Ojibwa, has already lived with for much of his life. with English subtitles. Rated 14A Told entirely in the first person, the book conIndian Horse is a heartfelt, well-acted, and veys a much fuller character than the alcohol-sodsomewhat one-dimensional effort con- den man we meet near the start of the movie. The taining a story that needs to be told right now.

Saul on paper eventually becomes fascinated by

2

WEEK IN WIDESCREEN

THE ROAD FORWARD Prior to National Canadian Film

Day, the Cinematheque presents The Road Forward by Vancouverborn Métis-Dene filmmaker Marie Clements. The innovative docudrama-musical relates the historical role played by B.C. Indigenous newspaper the Native Voice in First Nations activism. It’s paired with Jordanian-Palestinian UBC grad Yassmina Karajah’s short film “Rupture”, screening Monday (April 16). -

All free Canadian Film Day events on April 18

1

THE CINEMATHEQUE A spotlight on

2

NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA At SFU Woodward’s, the NFB

3

> KEN EISNER

A QUIET PLACE Starring Emily Blunt. Rated 14A

In A Quiet Place, Lee Abbott—played by dir-

2 ector, cowriter, and executive producer John

Krasinski—has it rough. He lives in a postapocalyptic world teeming with fierce alien monsters that hunt humans through sound. The slightest noise will have them racing toward you out of nowhere, and then it’s game over, man. Game over!

To make staying alive even more challenging, Abbott has three young children, and you know how noisy kids can be. Then, to top it off, his wife Evelyn (Krasinski’s real-life spouse, Emily Blunt) is pregnant and about to give birth. Now, I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as silent labour. Both times I was in the delivery room all the shushing in the world couldn’t get my wife to keep it down. And have you ever tried shushing a newborn?

So the Abbott clan certainly has its work cut out for it as far as surviving goes, but they make the best of their muted existence. Everyone is adept at sign language and everyone goes barefoot, walking on tippy-toes when needed. A hugely refreshing change from the barrage of horror movies that use shrieking sound effects as their stock-in-trade, A Quiet Place thrives within its unique concept, the forced silence and constant fear of being heard and instantly slaughtered building palpable tension and dread.

Strong performances by Blunt and the particularly impressive Millicent Simmonds as daughter Regan help you get over the film’s implausible moments. Krasinski’s deft direction keeps you involved with the Abbotts’ precarious situation, though, and ultimately A Quiet Place emerges as an effective nightmare-maker for parents that is one of those rarest and most welcome commodities for fright-flick fans: horror with heart. > STEVE NEWTON see next page

MOVIES

The projector

Look back to move on

books and music, obsessively playing Bill Evans and Coltrane cassettes while crisscrossing Canada by car, in search of work and his true identity.

We don’t quite meet that fellow, but at least the movie reaches an ending more redemptive than what the author himself experienced.

Cine Mexicano

women in film features B.C. filmmaker Anne Wheeler’s Loyalties, and Ashley McKenzie’s Werewolf. Wheeler will attend, McKenzie will participate in a Skype Q & A.

offers virtual-reality experiences, including “Tidal Traces” and “Minotaur”, plus a collection of B.C. shorts and more.

VANCITY THEATRE Vancouver film-

maker Mina Shum’s Double Happiness is billed with Thirty Two Films About Glenn Gould, followed by a Skype Q & A with actor Colm Feore, who portrays Gould.

THE MÓRBIDO CRYPT’S GUIDE TO MEXICAN FANTASY AND HORROR CINEMA Mórbido Fest head

programmer Abraham Castillo Flores will hold a master class on the rise of Mexican fantasy and horror, in relation to national developments. Issa López’s Tigers Are Not Afraid follows, about a gang of five children orphaned by the drug war, all of it happening at 6:30 p.m. next Thursday (April 19) at the Vancity Theatre. APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 27

Movie reviews

from previous page

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE Starring Joaquin Phoenix. Rated 18A

Can a movie be exhilarating agonizingly depressing at the same time? So it is with You Were Never Really Here, not only one of the most excitingly crafted films to come out in years, but also one of the most intensely unsettling. Like a contemporary Taxi Driver without all the talking, the movie marks one of Joaquin Phoenixâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most fearless performances.

Which is, of course, saying something.

When we first meet Phoenixâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Joe, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cleaning up a crime scene, meticulously wiping off a hammer and stashing personal belongings in a trash bag.

He appears to be a serial killer, but we soon learn thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not exactly the case.

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;private securityâ&#x20AC;?, a hired hand whose weapon of choice is a ball-peen hammerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a device that adequately captures the way the poetically brutal

2 and

You Were Never Really Here hits you.

Joe is one of those sinister, shadowy hooded figures you see lurking in alleyways, sporting a scruffy grey beard, scars across his back, and bruteforce bulk. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s by turns savage and self-destructive. His preferred pastime is suffocating himself to near-unconsciousness in whatever plastic bag is handy, and in Scottish direcor Lynne Ramsayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mesmerizing elliptical style, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re served brief flashes of the traumas he survived in childhood and war service that still torment him. Gradually, we see Joeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vulnerable, empathetic side too, whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s helping his aging mother polish her silver, or singing Charleneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relentlessly cheery â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve Never Been to Meâ&#x20AC;? with a dying victim.

Phoenixâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nuanced yet epic performanceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the guyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perfected pushing the brink of losing controlâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;melds well with Ramsayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impressionistic style.

Her broodily terrifying world supercedes the implausibilities of the main storyline. New York becomes a grim nightmare of convenience stores and cheap hotels, the throbbing electronic

score by Radioheadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jonny Greenwood only adding to the sense of doom.

Joe gets caught up in a ghastly, highreaching conspiracy there. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not really what hammers you. Instead, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the way Ramsay builds visceral dread without exploiting violence; one vicious attack is filtered through the blinking screen of a security camera. As she did in Morvern Callar, the director creates a delirious realm that sometimes slips out of realityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;because the main character is losing his grip.

You Were Never Really Here pries inside the characterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s monumentally fucked-up head, and it pries inside your head, too. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s never easy to watch, but, like we said, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhilarating. > JANET SMITH

BEIRUT Starring Jon Hamm. In English and Arabic, with English subtitles. Rated 14A

Jon Hamm is the animating force of this somewhat stiff but still engaging spy thriller, which attempts to Ameri-simplify the impossibly

2

convoluted battles that have plagued Arts time out Lebanon for more than 50 years. from page 25 Our favourite ex-Mad Man plays from $29, info artsclub.com/shows/2017Mason Skiles, a dedicated diplomatâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; ensconced in 1972 Beirut, when it was 2018/misery/. still called â&#x20AC;&#x153;the Paris of the Orientâ&#x20AC;?. He INCIDENT AT VICHY Theatre in the Raw has a beautiful Lebanese wife (LeĂŻla presents Arthur Millerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drama about perBekhti), a hilltop villa, a circle of sharp secution and racism in France during the early days of the Second World War. Apr international friends, and the couple 11-22, 8-3:30 pm, Studio 16 (1555 W. 7th). Tix is just about to adopt a Palestinian or- $25/22, info www.theatreintheraw.ca/ 4-upcoming-productions/upcomingphan when all hell breaks loose.

Ten years later, Masonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a broken- productions.html/. down drunk with no family or fixed address and his once-famous ne- DANCE gotiating skills are devoted to solv2THIS WEEK ing petty labour disputes. At least the only one getting bombed is him. RIVERDANCE Dance show directed by John Then, in classic just-one-more-job McColgan blends Irish dance, music, and fashion, he gets sucked back into Le- song and features new costumes, lighting, and projections. Apr 13-15, Queen Elizabeth vantine trouble. A catastrophic civil Theatre (650 Hamilton). Tix from $30.50, info war left the capital in ruins, and now www.broadwayacrosscanada.ca/. the CIA point man (Mark Pellegrino) has been kidnapped by one of the many factions in the uneasy standoff between Christian, pan-Arab, and PLO militias that roam the rubble.

TALK SHOW The friendship Rosamund Pike plays the minder

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FRI MAY 4 | 8:30 PM | VANCIT Y SUN MAY 13 | 4:15 PM | SFU

Australia/US

THU MAY 10 | 6:15 PM | VANCIT Y SUN MAY 13 | 7:15 PM | VANCIT Y

Archival footage of coordinated roller dance routines at Venice Beach tell the story of a utopian scene created by African Americans in the late 1970s.

APRIL 16

APRIL 15

The story of forgotten Ethiopian musicians who became a source of inspiration for contemporary free jazz and pop music.

Roller Dreams APRIL 14

Ethiopiques: Revolt of the Soul

between theatre artists Niall McNeil and Marcus Youssef has yielded some wild, wonderful stage works, from Peter Panties to King Arthurâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Night. But for Boca del Lupoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest Micro-Performance Series offering, the two are just going to do one of their favourite things: shoot the shit.

To be more specific, the showâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s called Niall and Marcus Talk About Sh!t Niall Likes, with special guests and live music by Veda Hille. Hang out with them from Wednesday to Saturday (April 11 to 14) at the Fishbowl.

2THIS WEEK

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KITS CLASSICS + WORLDS BEYOND Chamber music by Mozart and Prokofiev performed by Microcosmos (violinists Marc DestrubĂŠ and Andrea Siradze, violist Tawnya Popoff, cellist Becky Wenham, and clarinetist Johanna Hauser.) Apr 15, 4-5:30 pm, St. James Hall (3214 W. 10th). Info sjcommunitysquare.org/events/.

COMEDY 2ONGOING THE COMEDY MIX 1015 Burrard, 604684-5050, www.thecomedymix.com/.

Comedy club with pro-am night Tue at 8:30 pm, showcase Wed at 8:30 pm, and featured headliners Thu at 8:30 pm and Fri-Sat at 8 and 10:30 pm. 2PATRICK MALIHA Apr 12 2JON DORE Apr 13-14 YUK YUKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMEDY CLUB 2837 Cambie, www.yukyuks.com/vancouver/.

Comedy club with Top Talent Tue at 8 pm, amateur night Wed at 8 pm, and professional headliners Thu-Fri at 8 pm and Sat at 7 and 9:30 pm. 2TOM GREEN Apr 12-14

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2THIS WEEK MURDER ON THE IMPROV EXPRESS Vancouver TheatreSports League presents a killer-comedy whodunnit set in the 1930s. Apr 12, The Improv Centre (1502 Duranleau, Granville Island). Tix from $10.75, info www.vtsl.com/show/murderon-the-improv-express/.

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GALLERIES

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VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 750 Hornby, 604-662-4719, www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/.

2TAKASHI MURAKAMI: THE OCTOPUS EATS ITS OWN LEG (the first-ever retrospective of Murakamiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work in Canada) to May 6 2BOMBHEAD (thematic exhibition explores the emergence and impact of the nuclear age) to Jun 17

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Of Fathers and Sons

Our New President

SUN MAY 6 | 5:30 PM | VANCIT Y FRI MAY 11 | 4:45 PM | VANCIT Y

SAT MAY 5 | 6:45 PM | CINEMATHEQUE WED MAY 9 | 8:30 PM | SFU

MUSEUMS

After spending more than two years filming the lives of one radical Islamist family in the north of Syria, acclaimed filmmaker Talal Derki reveals the human face of war.

Mixing dark comedy with astute media critique, Our New President offers a revealing look at the potent combination of propaganda and technology in Putinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Russia.

MUSEUM OF VANCOUVER 1100 Chestnut Street, 604-736-4431, www.museumofvan couver.ca/. 2HAIDA NOW: A VISUAL FEAST OF INNOVATION AND TRADITION (more than 450 works by carvers, weavers, photographers and print makers, collected as early as the 1890s) to Jun 15

US/Russia

APRIL

Cielo

Mr. Gay Syria

SUN MAY 6 | 6 PM | SFU MON MAY 7 | 8:30 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

MON MAY 7 | 8:15 PM | SFU THU MAY 10 | 12 PM | VANCIT Y

Set against the expansive Atacama Desert in Chile, filmmaker Alison McAlpine immerses herself amongst people who watch the sky, resulting in a visual masterpiece.

Ayse Toprakâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s film tells the story of a community of gay Syrian refugees in Istanbul and takes a close look at the refugee crisis through an LGBTQ+ lens.

France/Germany/Turkey

APRIL APR A RIL I 20

Canada/Chile

APRIL 19

APRIL 18

Germany/Syria/Lebanon

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28 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 19 / 2018

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THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT UBC 6393 NW Marine Drive, 604-8225087, www.moa.ubc.ca/. 2THE FABRIC OF OUR LAND: SALISH WEAVING (exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the past 200 years of Salish wool weaving) to Apr 15 2CULTURE AT THE CENTRE (collaboration between six First Nations communities offers insight into the work Indigenous-run cultural centres and museums in B.C. are doing to support their language, culture, and history) to Oct 8

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

Submit listings online using the event-submission form at straight.com/AddEvent. Events that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make it into the paper due to space constraints will appear on the website.

MOVIES

The quiet rage of the Horse > B Y A DRIA N M A C K

F

or all of the trauma and turbulence that describe his character’s inner life, the most striking thing about Ajuawak Kapashesit’s performance in Indian Horse is his stillness.

Taking his first-ever lead in the much-anticipated feature, based on the near-iconic Richard Wagamese novel and opening Friday (April 13), the 27-year-old actor dominates a lot of his scenes by doing virtually nothing, all while telegraphing the bitterness, pain, and anger that will eventually devour Saul Indian Horse and reduce him from super-talented NHL hopeful to hungry ghost haunting the streets of Canada in a stupor of addiction.

“When I was first doing my research for this character, I was thinking about the communities I had seen and grown up in, and I was wondering what or who this character was,” explains Kapashesit, calling the Straight from his home turf of Minneapolis–Saint Paul. “Had I met this character? Had I interacted with this character? And for me the truth was, yeah, there’s this group of Native people, it’s a subset in every community—they’re the quiet ones.”

As Kapeshesit notes, the quiet one in this case “had to repress” and otherwise internalize the brutal psychic wounds of residential school and the violent or even more insidious racism of the outside world.

There’s a small irony to all this.

Prior to his relatively late arrival as a near-silent actor, life experiences

Beirut

Making his feature debut, Ajuawak Kapashesit impresses with his subtle take on Saul in the film adaptation of novelist Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse.

divided between the Cree side of his family in northern Ontario and the Ojibwa side located in Minnesota fostered a passion that eventually led to Kapashesit’s work in the field of language endangerment and revitalization. The acting bug came after he saw a big screen filled with Aboriginal faces in 2015’s The Revenant.

“I realized: that’s a job!” Kapeshesit quips. “That’s a cool job idea!”

Wasting no time, he sent his first audition tape to the Indian Horse production team in January 2016. By August he was officially the youngadult version of Saul—a role he shares with (then) nine-year-old Sladen Pelletier and Revenant veteran Forrest Goodluck, who embodies Saul in his teenage years. (The consistency and seamlessness of these three performances is perhaps the film’s greatest virtue.) “You’re not going to be the same person at 90 years old as you from previous page

who fills Skiles in. This may be a case of “dangling a skirt in front of a disoriented 40-year-old widower”, in the words of another Agency type (Dean Norris) who’s really calling the shots. Directed by Brad Anderson and written by political thrill-rider Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), the movie doesn’t see her that way, but it doesn’t know quite what to do with a female costar, either—especially if she isn’t Jessica Chastain. And what do you want to bet that the little Palestinian boy is still around? Everyone is itching to put his own spin on the situation, even if they all have less presence than does Hamm, who manages to give the tale a lived-in immediacy the rest of it lacks. We know things went south again after 1982, and north, with Syria garnering even more horrible headlines. Beirut doesn’t explain what happened, really, but at least knows it did. > KEN EISNER

ITZHAK Featuring Itzhak Perlman. In English and Hebrew, with English subtitles

A first-class human being gets quietly lauded in Itzhak.

2 The PBS-styled doc doesn’t exactly explore Itzhak Perlman’s hidden depths, but heck, that’s what the music is for.

are

are at 25,” says Kapeshesit, adding that while he swapped a few notes with Goodluck, the congruency of the three Sauls nonetheless seemed to happen naturally.

More to the point, this post–Truth and Reconciliation film arrives inside a climate of rising consciousness and growing Aboriginal nationalism, suggesting—along with all the movieworld buzz it’s attracting—that the time of Indian Horse is very much now.

“I’m not entitled to the part any more than anyone else,” says Kapeshesit. “I was just happy the movie was going to be made, no matter who got cast. Because it’s an important story and for a lot of people it’s a very true story. A concept like this needs to be made, for a lot of people. Not just Indigenous people, but for nonIndigenous to know the story. The fact that it’s out there is really the most important thing.” -

The world’s top violinist was born just over 70 years ago, in Israel, to Polish-born parents who narrowly escaped the Holocaust. An early bout with polio left him permanently in need of braces, and now a wheelchair—a childhood he talks about here with long-time pal Alan Alda, whose much better treatment allowed him to be a crutchless Hawkeye. Perlman admits it still rankles him that Juilliard and other music academies initially refused him entry, thinking he couldn’t keep up, after his nonmusical family recognized his immense gift and moved to the U.S. to nurture it.

His wife of 50 years, Toby, recalls seeing her future husband on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958, when he was 13. We don’t get to see his return visit in 1964, when he shared the bill with the Rolling Stones. But there are brief archival bits with artists as varied as Frank Sinatra and Yo-Yo Ma, and more recent collaborations with Billy Joel and the New York Mets.

At a breezy 80 minutes, the movie could have delivered a little more biographical information. And we see him sharing Chinese takeout with cellist Mischa Maisky and pianist Evgeny Kissin, when it would have been nice to see a few minutes of them rehearsing the Beethoven trio they were about to record. While we always enjoy discovering how much our creative heroes are just like us, it’s also valuable to experience the ways they are different. > KEN EISNER

NATIONAL CANADIAN FILM DAY Wednesday, April 18

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why everyone’s asking me why I’m going back to school at 32 when I don’t know what I want to be in school for. Little do they know that if I finish anything it doesn’t matter what, it’ll be the only thing I ever accomplished in my life. In a way, it is my only way out of my mind of hell. if I do one thing right...

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LOYALTIES

WEREWOLF

“It was and still is a groundbreaking film.”

- Peggy Thompson

“An intoxicating first feature from a rising filmmaker.” - The Playlist

WED, APR 18 - 6:30PM

WED, APR 18 - 8:45PM

Extra Tame Vanilla I have this fantasy where you’re reading a book in bed and I slip you a bookmark.

End of a friendship.

I didn’t want to be friends with someone who is cheating on their husband.

Jay-Z and Beyonce FILM CLUB

YOUNG FRENCH CINEMA

FROM UP ON POPPY HILL

BEFORE SUMMER ENDS DIAMOND ISLAND SPEAK UP “As beautiful a hand-drawn KISS ME! animated feature as you are likely to see.” - Los Angeles Times HEAVEN WILL WAIT

SUN, APR 15 - 11:00AM

APR 13-15

BC FILM HISTORY

THE ROAD FORWARD + RUPTURE Marie Clements’s soulful musical documentary, preceded by Yassmina Karajah's award-winning short.

MON, APR 16 - 7PM

I really can’t stand either of them. I give them credit for being great at what they do, but I don’t care about their marital problems or the album and tour that is going to exploit that

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to post a Confession APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 29

30 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 19 / 2018

MUSIC When dance music hit the North American mainstream in 2010, a new public archetype was created: the superstar DJ. Commanding millions to stand on-stage with a laptop, the performer was paid only—as EDM darling Deadmau5 famously pointed out—to hit Play on a premixed set. While earlier DJs wowed the crowd with their talent on the turntables, the need breed relied on elaborate LED light shows to keep spectators entertained.

But for Dan Whitford, who fronts the longrunning Aussie dance band Cut/Copy, there’s only so many times an audience can get excited about confetti cannons and lasers.

Known for its four-piece live show as much as for its Grammy-nominated and ARIA–winning records, Cut/Copy has built a fan base on highoctane performances. Touring internationally for the past 13 years, the group still dazzles with its on-stage chemistry, re-creating its indie-electronic sound on guitar, bass, drums, vocals, and synths. Recognizing that the band’s traditional lineup lets it stand apart in the current dancemusic climate, Whitford wanted to capitalize on its concert vibe by building its latest album— Haiku From Zero—from live studio takes.

2

Cut/Copy loves the live vibe

After making five albums “in weird ways”, Cut/Copy decided to record in a more traditional studio setting, with Grammy winner Ben H. Allen producing.

a few curve balls is quite refreshing. I have a tendency when I’m writing songs to sketch ideas on top of each other. I end up with this pretty crazy, layered result, which is interThe Australian electronic act makes dance music the esting in its own way, but can sometimes confuse old-fashioned way: as a band playing instruments the track.

“There’s always been this excitement and inspir“Ben has an amazing expertise with capturing ation from using live instrumentation,” Whitford bands, particularly live bands,” he continues. tells the Straight, on the line from a San Francisco “I think it’s the best, most confident-sounding tour stop. “So many artists now make music just on version of Cut/Copy that we’ve ever managed to a computer, or with much less of a shared aspect to record. That was a big win for us.” > KATE WILSON their performance. The idea of the band has become really exciting again. In many ways, it seemed like working as a group was a fresh approach, because Cut/Copy plays the Biltmore Cabaret on Monday the tide has moved away from making electronic (April 16). music in a live way like that.”

Despite boasting five successful albums, Cut/Copy had never recorded an LP from start to finish in a studio, opting instead for a DIY approach—bringing its own equipment to unusual spaces. The fourNothing builds character like a little adverpiece’s choice to take the conventional path for this sity, which explains why Lo Moon’s Matt record led, Whitford says, to a richer sound. Beginning the album by file-sharing and emailing ideas, Lowell learned far more about life while strugthe group gathered in Atlanta to lay down the tracks. gling in Los Angeles than he did studying at Bos“We’d always tried to do things in weird ways ton’s famed Berklee College of Music. before, and often that was what set us apart,” he “When I first moved to L.A., I really felt that recalls. “We were intrigued to see what it was like things were going to take off,” the singer-guitarist to work in a more traditional sort of way, and use says from a tour van headed to Minneapolis. “Then a studio like it’s supposed to be used. At the time a record deal fell apart and I spent a year in the sort when you’re writing that way, it can be like pull- of opposite headspace, going back to basics and ing teeth—laying down 20 vocal takes to try and writing more songs. That was really daunting, to go get something absolutely perfect, for example. But from ‘This is going to happen’ to having it not hapat the end of it, we look back on what we’ve made pen, and having to spend a year figuring things out. and we can say that it was worth the effort.”

But that was the best year ever—more informative Much of that success was due to the band’s choice than my years at Berklee, and definitely more beneto bring in Ben H. Allen, the Grammy-winning ficial. After that year, ‘Loveless’ was completed and producer behind artists like CeeLo Green, Walk the everything suddenly started to make more sense.”

Moon, and Kaiser Chiefs. Encouraging the group First put up on streaming services, where it to distill its demos and take out all the nonessen- promptly exploded, “Loveless” is where things finaltial parts, he pushed Whitford and his bandmates ly jelled for Lowell, who had played in bands since to build each song from a strong core. Establishing his teens on the East Coast. Having finally gotten tight drum and vocal lines before adding further noticed after years of trying to build a career, the instrumentation, Allen steered the songs to a solid singer was careful not to rush into things. Instead foundation before letting the band loose with tex- of quickly shooting a video and then heading back tured, tribal percussion and vintage synth lines. into the studio for a follow-up single, he main“Ben really responded to the demos we had, tained a low profile, honing Lo Moon’s lush and and he had some really interesting ideas,” Whit- romantic, synth-heavy sound with his bandmates, ford says. “When you’ve been together for so long, Crisanta Baker and Sam Stewart. That made the having someone come in from outside and throw trio something of a novelty in these instant-online-

Lo Moon’s Lowell channelled love’s dark side into the band’s music

2

CHECK THIS OUT

BUSH LEAGUE A Bush show in Atlantic City spiralled into a drunken mess with security tackling people on a stage that was full of fans, one of whom grabbed the mike and started singing as Gavin Rossdale tried to make sense of it all. That was nowhere near as shocking as the fact someone was at a Bush show.

MOONCHILD Guess what, everyone—jazz is cool again. Once deemed a dying art, the style has infused modern genres, including late neo-soul and future bass. Jazz licks are the basis of local boy Pomo’s hits, while any hip-hop worth its salt is reintroducing an old-school feel. That fact isn’t wasted on L.A. three-piece Moonchild.

Playing soulful jazz before soulful jazz was back on the radio, the trio put out their first record, Be Free, in 2012. The trio honed their breathy and ethereal style in the intervening years, and 2017’s Voyager emerged as one of the most underrated records of the year, earning them plaudits from the likes of Robert Glasper, Jazzy Jeff, and 9th Wonder. The band’s live show—which you can catch at the Biltmore on Sunday (April 15)—packs a stronger punch, featuring horns and tight drumming without compromising its soothing groove. Expect to dance, cry, and dance again. -

> MIKE USINGER

Lo Moon plays the Cobalt on Sunday (April 15).

MUSIC Let’s talk about

You gotta see

gratification times: a band with a sense of mystery.

“Multiple times with ‘Loveless’, I found myself thinking, ‘Maybe we really are onto something and people are really into this,’ ” Lowell says.

“But even when the song was finally mixed and mastered, I didn’t know that it would be special to other people, even though I knew it was special to me and the band.”

After hitting the road as an opener for the likes of the Temper Trap, Lo Moon eventually decamped to Seattle, where, working with former Death Cab for Cutie guitarist turned producer Chris Walla, the trio recorded its eponymous full-length.

The album’s 10 grandly ambitious and beautifully textured tracks are marked by epic, reverb-bathed drum fills, drifting synths, and Lowell’s soul-injected vocals. Lo Moon clearly had a vision for the album, and Walla helped it to arrive at a sound that nods to the neon-saturated ’80s without ever sounding derivatively retro. Yes, it’s possible to love Phil Collins, Talk Talk, and blue-eyed soul and still create something original.

“We tried doing the songs so many different ways, and eventually you come across something that you kind of trust,” Lowell says. “It was all about trying out different drum grooves, different guitar parts and synth sounds. It was a matter of us getting used to playing with each other as a band, everyone finding their own role. It was also really important to have the record sound like it was based on human emotions—to go with our first impulses.”

That wasn’t the only lesson Lowell learned during his year of reflection in Los Angeles. Pay attention to the lyrics on Lo Moon and you’ll notice that love is a theme that surfaces repeatedly in the songs, sometimes in a positive way, and sometimes in a way that suggests getting out of bed is hard even when the sun is shining. That’s not an accident. What they probably don’t teach at Berklee is that sometimes you have to work through the darkness to get to a better place.

“I’d gone through a pretty shitty relationship in New York right before I moved to L.A.,” Lowell says. “My world-view shifted and I ended up writing about the past relationship that I’d had.

That view changed again as I moved through the record, which ended up being written over six years. Everything, including falling in and out of love, is all in there.”

GO YOUR OWN WAY Lindsey Buckingham has been sacked

by Fleetwood Mac, which has fed on drama ever since releasing Rumours in 1977. When the inevitable reunion comes, fans can rejoice that the band will have something to write about again.

POWER TO THE... Janelle Monáe has described her new single “Pynk” as a “celebration of creation, self love, sexuality, and pussy power”. Thanks in part to lyrics like “Pink where it’s deepest inside, crazy/Pink beyond forest and thighs,” Donald Trump grabbed it the second it came out.

HE’LL GO FAR This week, BMG announced that Ringo Starr has signed an exclusive worldwide publishing deal with the company, which seems to be under the impression that Starr actually wrote “Yellow Submarine” and “With a Little Help From My Friends”.

Fresh and local LIEF HALL ROSES FOR RUINS

Roses for Ruins would make a good companion album for Kellarissa’s Ocean Electro (reviewed in these pages a few weeks ago). Both albums showcase electronic soundscapes with a woman’s voice at the centre, and while Kellarissa’s leans more toward up-tempo synth pop, both feature lyrics that touch on matters personal and environmental. In Hall’s case, the latter topic is explored most explicitly in “Paper Ash”, which indicts humanity for its shortsighted greed. As the nearly seven-minute track progresses, its humming synths and minimalist beat are slowly buried beneath dissonant tones (including harps and other strings), which neatly underscores the song’s message. It’s not all droning doom… Well, actually, it is all droning doom, pretty much. But sometimes that’s exactly what you need. APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 31

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The Dragonfly and the Spider (Independent)

Lyrics are, for many musicians,

2 the toughest part of songwrit-

ing. Often penned as an afterthought, the perfect phrase can be a lower priority than nailing a thumping breakdown. For Marty Zylstra, heard here on his first solo EP since he stepped down from local pop-punk outfit Sweetheart, that’s clearly not the case.

The artist’s storytelling shines on his latest release, The Dragonfly and the Spider. Written after the tragic loss of both his mother and sister to cancer within the space of two years, Zylstra’s lyrics might not address his emotions explicitly, but the inferences illuminate his imagery. At once a love song and a tribute to his family, opener “Moon”, for instance, qualifies the chorus “I will love you to the moon/ and back to the sun” with the line “Heaven is on my mind.”

Despite its heavy context and raw emotion, though, the record is soaked with major chords and buoyant harmonies. While the first four tracks sit somewhere between Eliott Smith and Radiohead, the following two have a distinctly upbeat feel: the anthemic “(Dance) to the Beat” layers cheering crowds over the opening chords, while “Wild Ones” rests on a jaunty sing-along chorus.

Over many years of hard graft in the industry, Zylstra has mastered the art of offering a versatile collection. His album may be built on grief, but it’s a PEGGY LEE feeling of hopefulness that prevails. > KATE WILSON

PAT CHESSELL I Confess (Independent)

2

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> MIKE USINGER

Echo Painting (Songlines)

It’s always a treat to hear local cel-

2 list Peggy Lee play music for dan-

cers—but her latest CD, Echo Painting, The title track of Pat Chessell’s suggests that she’s an accomplished I Confess has him making the choreographer in her own right.

FKB w. The Written Years & TROPE LUKI FERO W. QUANTUM COUNCIL, STRATHCONA & CHILL PILGRIM Blues brunch w. rob montgomery 4:30pm-8:30pm

saturday sessions the original jam session Live Acts presents

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SUN APR 15 JENNY BANAI w. BAD STRANGERS, HARLEQUIN GOLD + MORE Apr 16 The Stew Local Jam Night w. GUEST DJs Apr 19 Live Acts & Live Agency pres. IF NOT, WINTER Apr 20 Live Acts presents SLEVYN W. SLY DETRICK

32 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT APRIL 12 – 19 / 2018

revelation “I’ve never been a drinking man,” the sacrilegious thing being the song bridges bourbon-scented country and Guinness-strength Celtic folk. Seriously, man, how the hell are we supposed to buy you as the real deal if you won’t go at least a couple of rounds with Hank Williams III and Shane MacGowan?

It’s hard, however, to hold that personality flaw against Chessell given the strength of this seven-song EP, professionally recorded with an ace supporting cast that includes roots heavyweight Steve Dawson and members of Spirit of the West and the Irish Rovers.

“Paddle Your Own Canoe” reels like Dublin’s Temple Bar district on a Saturday night, and you can practically smell the south Atlantic air on the sea chantey “Santy Ano”.

Chessell fares just as well with his originals. Those who’ve made it through a West Coast winter will have no problem relating to the acousticguitar-powered “Rainy Tuesday Morning”, where he sings “Heard the weather on my windowpane/That’s Vancouver I guess.”

After settling in by the fire and taking things down to a Texas-troubadour crawl for “My Old Town”, Chessell goes full Irish hoedown for the allhands-on-deck stomper “Will You Dance With Me?”. Backed by sawing fiddle and a classic-country backbeat, he sings, “Pull up a chair and let me buy you a drink, and we’ll try this out once more.” Sounds good, but only if the bartender’s pouring doubles while I Confess plays on the jukebox.

It’s not that the new disc is dance music. The only hint of a metronomic pulse here comes on the supple, snaky “Out on a Limb”, and that seems to have more to do with newmusic minimalism than EDM floorfilling. But Echo Painting is all about balance, about finding the right blend between tight ensemble work and expansive soloing, between unpitched textural improvisation and powerful melodies. Between freedom and structure, in short, and in that regard Lee’s latest is an unqualified success.

The composer’s attention to detail extends to the makeup of her 10-piece band, which plays born melodists (Brad Turner on trumpet and flügelhorn, and Jon Bentley on soprano and tenor sax chief among them) off against edgy, even abrasive abstract work, mostly from guitarist Cole Schmidt, saxophonist John Paton, and Lee herself. Pieces like the album opener, “Incantation”, and the slowburning “Painting Echoes” can be read as dreamy soundscapes, but they’re not without undercurrents of tension; “Weather Building”, on the other hand, is based on ominous ascending chords, but Bentley’s saxophone introduction is as sweet and fluid as spring birdsong. And Lee makes good use of her secret weapon: Bradshaw Pack’s pedal-steel guitar, which adds mysterious orchestral depth to her eloquent horn arrangements.

Echo Painting isn’t without precedent, as Lee—who hosts a CDrelease party for Echo Painting at the WISE Hall next Friday (April 20)—has cited her admiration for Carla Bley’s compositional voice, and she also seems to draw from the late Kenny Wheeler’s approach to the larger band. All three share an ability to make music that is simultaneously adventurous and warm—something that’s both delightful and rare. > ALEXANDER VARTY

music/ timeout CONCERTS

whose music incorporates Americana, soul, world, and reggae. Apr 13, 8 pm, St. James Hall (3214 W. 10th). Tix $22, info www.roguefolk.bc.ca/concerts/ ev18021420/.

JOHN FOGERTY American rock legend and former leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Jul 15, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Abbotsford Centre (33800 King Rd., Abbotsford). Tix on sale Apr 12, 10 am, $99.95/79.95/54.50/29.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

DELHI 2 DUBLIN Canadian world-fusion group tours in support of latest release We’re All Desi. Apr 14, doors 8 pm, show 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix $25 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

SUPERORGANISM Eight-member indiepop band performs tunes from new selftitled debut album. Aug 30, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, The Imperial (319 Main). Tix on sale Apr 13, 10 am, $17.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketweb.ca/.

don’t miss out!

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

www.straight.com

2THIS WEEK

2JUST ANNOUNCED JON BRYANT Folk-rock singer-songwriter from Halifax. May 15, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Biltmore Cabaret (2755 Prince Edward).

Tix on sale Apr 13, 10 am, $15 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

SHE STOLE MY BEER Local rockers play their first gig since 2015, featuring new songs and fan favourites. Jun 9, 8:30 pm, The Imperial (319 Main). $20, info www.shestolemybeer.com/.

GLOBAL CITIZEN LIVE VANCOUVER Free-ticketed advocacy event to celebrate action on gender equality and climate change features performances by the Sam Roberts Band, with guests the Elwins, Crown Lands, and Horsepowar. Apr 12, doors 7 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Music fans and activists are invited to sign up at globalcitizen.org and take action to earn free tickets to the event.

Info www.globalcitizen.org/en/ca/.

BUCKMAN COE The Rogue Folk Club presents Vancouver singer-songwriter,

LO MOON Electronic pop band from California performs tunes from new, selftitled debut album. Apr 15, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Cobalt (917 Main). Tix $13 (plus service charge) at Zulu, Red Cat Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/.

NICOLE LIZÉE Music on Main presents composer-in-residence and her psychedelic-surrealist band SaskPWR. Apr 17, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret (2321 Main). $29/$10 single tickets (regular/student). Available as part of a Pick-3 Ticket Pack, a Pick-6 Ticket Pack, or A Month of Tuesdays Pass.,

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TIME OUT MUSIC LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge, based on available space and editorial discretion. We can’t guarantee inclusion, and we give priority to events taking place within one week of publication.

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savage love I’m a 36-year-old straight woman.

I was sexually and physically abused as a kid and raped in my early 20s. I have been seeing a great therapist for the last five years, and I am processing things and feeling better than I ever have. I was in a long-term relationship that ended about two years ago. I started dating this past year, but I’m not really clicking with anyone. I’ve had a lot of first dates, but nothing beyond that.

My problem is that I’d really love to get laid. The idea of casual sex and one-night stands sounds great—but in reality, moving that quickly with someone I don’t know or trust freaks me out, causes me to shut down, and prevents me from enjoying anything.

Even thinking about going home with someone causes me to panic. When I was in a relationship, the sex was great.

But now that I’m single, it seems like this big, scary thing. Is it possible to get laid without feeling freaked out? > SEXUAL COMFORT AND REASSURANCE ELUDES DAME

It is possible for you to get laid without feeling freaked out.

The answer—how you go home with someone without panicking— is so obvious, SCARED, that I’m guessing your therapist has already suggested it: have sex with someone you know and trust. You didn’t have any issues having sex with your ex because you knew and trusted him.

For your own emotional safety, and to avoid recovery setbacks, you’re going to have to find someone willing to get to know you—someone willing to make an emotional investment in you—before you can have sex again.

You’ve probably thought to yourself, “But everyone else is just jumping into bed with strangers and having amazing sexual experiences!” And while it is true that many people are capable of doing just that, at least as many or more are incapable of having impulsive onenight stands because they too have a history of trauma or because they have other psychological, physical, or logistical issues that make one-night stands impossible. (Some folks, of course, have no interest in one-night stands.)

Your trauma left you with this added burden, SCARED, and I don’t want to minimize your legitimate frustration or your anger. It sucks, and I fucking hate the people who victimized you.

But it may help you feel a little better about having to make an investment in someone before becoming intimate— which really isn’t the worst thing in the world—if you can remind yourself that you aren’t alone. Demisexuals, other victims of trauma, people with bodyimage issues, people whose sexual interests are so stigmatized they don’t feel comfortable disclosing them to people they’ve just met: lots of people face the same challenge you do.

Something else to bear in mind: it’s not unheard-of for someone reentering the dating scene to have some difficulty making new connections at first. The trick is to keep going on dates until you finally click with someone. In other words, SCARED, give yourself a break and take your time. Also, don’t hesitate to tell the men you date that you need to get to know a person before jumping into bed with him. That will scare some guys off, but only those guys who

> BY DAN SAVAGE weren’t willing to get to know you— and those aren’t guys you would have felt safe fucking anyway, right? So be open and honest, keep going on those first dates, and eventually you’ll find yourself on a fift h date with a guy you can think about taking home without feeling panicked. Good luck.

This is about a girl, of course. Pros:

she cannot hide her true feelings. Cons: criminal, irascible, grandiose sense of self, racist, abstemious, self-centred, anxious, moralist, monogamous, biased, denial as a defence mechanism, manipulative, liar, envious, and ungrateful. She is also anthropologically and historically allocated in another temporal space continuum. And last but not least: she runs less quickly than me despite eight years’ age difference and her having the lungs of a 26-year-old nonsmoker. Thoughts? > DESPERATE EROTIC SITUATION

breaking up devastates me. We also live together. I deeply regret it and am full of shame, but I impulsively went through his texts for the first time. I found out that for the past few months he has been sexting and almost definitely hooking up with someone who I said I was not comfortable with. After our initial conversation about her (during which I expressed my discomfort), he never brought her up again. Had I known that he needed her in his life this badly, I would have taken some time to sit with my feelings and figure out where my discomfort with her was coming from and tried to move through it.

We are in an open relationship, but his relationship with her crosses what we determined as our “cheating” boundary: hiding a relationship. How do I confess to what I did and confront him about what I found without it blowing up into a major mess? > UPSET GIRL HOPES RELATIONSHIP SURVIVES

If someone is criminal, racist, and dishonest—to say nothing of being allocated in another temporal space continuum (whatever the fuck that means)—I don’t see how “cannot hide her true feelings” lands on the “pro” side of the pro/con ledger. You shouldn’t want to be with a dishonest, moralizing bigot, DES, so the fact that this particular dishonest, moralizing bigot is incapable of hiding her truly repulsive feelings isn’t a reason to consider seeing her. Not being able to mask hateful feelings isn’t a redeeming quality—it’s the opposite.

Snooping is always wrong, of course, except when the snooper discovers something they had a right to know.

While there are defi nitely less ambiguous examples (cases where the snoopee was engaged in activities that put the snooper at risk), your boyfriend violating the boundaries of your open relationship rises to the level of “right to know”. Th is is a major mess, UGHRS, and there’s no way to confront your boyfriend without risking a blowup. So tell him what you know and how you My boyfriend and I love each found out. You’ll be in a better posother deeply, and the thought of ition to assess whether you want

this relationship to survive after you confess and confront.

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teur filmmakers, porn-star wannabes, kinksters, regular folks, and other creative types are hereby invited to make and submit short porn films— five minutes max—to the 14th Annual HUMP! Film Festival. The 13th Annual HUMP! Film Festival is currently touring the country—go to humpfilmfest.com to find out when HUMP! is coming to your town—and the next HUMP! kicks off in November. HUMP! films can be hardcore, soft-core, live-action, animated, kinky, vanilla, straight, gay, lez, bi, trans, genderqueer—anything goes at HUMP! (Well, almost anything: no poop, no animals, no minors.) HUMP! is screened only in theatres; nothing is released online; and the filmmakers retain all rights. At HUMP! you can be a porn star for a weekend in a theatre without having to be a porn star for eternity on the Internet! There’s no charge to enter HUMP!; there’s $20,000 in cash prizes awarded to the filmmakers by audience ballot (including the $10,000 best-in-show award!); and each filmmaker gets a percentage of every ticket sold on the HUMP! tour. For more information about making and submitting a film to the best porn festival in the country, go to humpfilmfest.com/submit. On the Lovecast , Mistress Matisse ex p l a i n s t h e h o r r i f y i n g S E S TA FOSTA bill: savagelovecast.com. Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage. ITMFA.org.

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