MAY 12 – 19 / 2022 | FREE
Volume 56 | Number 2830
HOUSING SLOWDOWN
Median prices dip in East Van
ROY WOOD JR. Finds laughs in serious topics
DANCE:CRAFT In Joe Ink’s exploration of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages, dancers Heather Dotto and Joey Matt interact with objects made of ceramic, glass, metal, wood, and fibre KIDS IN THE HALL • B.C. ECONOMY • PASSAGES OF RHYTHMS • DOXA REVIEWS
FINANCE
The B.C. economy and the Broadway Plan: an explainer
CONTENTS
May 12-19 / 2022
9
COVER
In Joe Ink’s Dance:Craft, Heather Dotto and Joey Matt interact with objects made of ceramic, glass, metal, wood, and fibre.
by Charlie Smith
By Charlie Smith Cover photo by Michael Slobodian
6
REAL ESTATE
Rising interest rates have coincided with a short-term decline in housing prices and the number of sales in East Vancouver. By Carlito Pablo
12
COMEDY
Roy Wood Jr. used to be known for his crazy prank calls, but in recent years, he’s been using comedy to shed light on serious social issues. By Steve Newton
Finance Minister Selina Robinson faces a monumental challenge in the wake of the pandemic: large annual deficits could create a fiscal mess if interest rates drive up debt-servicing costs.
T
he B.C. government is in a financial pinch and things may not get better for a while. This fiscal year, Finance Minister Selina Robinson has forecast a $5.5-billion deficit. That will be followed by a $4.2-billion shortfall in the following year and a $3.2-billion deficit in 2024-25. It adds up to B.C. being nearly $13 billion in the red over three years. That is, if everything goes according to plan. Over that period, the taxpayer-supported debt is anticipated to climb from $61.7 billion in 2021-22 to $90.9 billion by 2024-25. That, too, is based on everything going according to plan. “The Province’s debt-servicing costs remain at a historically low level due to prevailing low interest rates,” the 2022-23 budget document notes. In fact, rising interest rates have led the Finance Ministry to forecast unit home sales to fall by 22.2 percent this year, 7.1 percent next year, and then stay flat from 2024 to 2026. There are many reasons why the B.C. government is eager to have more homes built. Canada has a relatively low number of homes per capita in comparison with other OECD countries. There will be greater labour shortages as the population ages, which will need to be addressed through immigration. Most immigrants move to urban and suburban areas. Moreover, a growing supply of homes has the potential to temper the rising cost of ownership, which has become a political powder keg for the B.C. government. More rental stock is also necessary. If the province is going to be sinking billions of dollars into rapid-transit projects, it makes sense, environmentally, to have more people living near those stations. Creating compact communities results in a lower ecological footprint. But there’s another reason for the B.C. government to push for greater density, 2
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
which is rarely discussed. To put it simply, the province needs the money. Badly. Once upon a time, people said that for every dollar generated in B.C., 50 cents came from forestry. That’s far from the case today. B.C. government forests revenues clocked in at $1.85 billion in 2021-22, due to a short-term spike in the price of lumber. That is expected to fall to $1.12 billion in this fiscal year before plunging to $887 million in 2023-24. It’s a similar story with natural-gas revenues. They’re forecast at $911 million this year, falling to $691 million the next fiscal year, then dropping to $580 million by 2024-25. Fuel-, carbon-, and tobacco-tax revenues will remain flat. Medical-services premiums are now dependent on the health of the economy, because employers are paying the tab. And property-transfer-tax revenues are also not going to come close to the $3.25 billion generated in 2021-22. The best they’ll do over the following three years is $2.5 billion, according to the Finance Ministry. A massive home-building initiative offers a way out of the fiscal mess. First of all, most of this would be financed by the private sector. That ensures the B.C. government won’t have to add more to the ballooning taxpayer-supported debt. Secondly, when those homes are sold, it will fatten the provincial treasury through property-transfer taxes. One of the bright spots in the B.C. economy in recent years has been agriculture. But the breakdown of the hydrologic cycle—caused by a rising global temperature that creates more atmospheric rivers—is delivering a body blow to farmers. Heavier rainfalls are reaching deeper into B.C.’s mainland. The infrastructure there wasn’t built to withstand that. And we probably haven’t seen the worst of the runoffs from the mountains, which have potential to cause rivers, including the mighty
MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
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Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 56 | Number 2830 #300 - 1375 West 6th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6H 0B1 T: 604.730.7000 E: gs.info@straight.com straight.com DISPLAY ADVERTISING: T: 604.730.7020 E: sales@straight.com
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EDITOR Charlie Smith GENERAL MANAGER Sandra Oswald SECTION EDITORS Mike Usinger (ESports/Liquor/Music) Steve Newton SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy STAFF WRITERS Carlito Pablo (Real Estate) SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT Jeff Li ART DEPARTMENT MANAGER Janet McDonald
Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.
1 2 3 4 5
50 things to do in Vancouver this week, May 9 to 13. Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, and Mélanie Joly travel to Ukraine. Canada’s four biggest housing markets show early signs of softening demand. Second-degree-murder charge laid in connection with CRAB Park homicide. Rolling Stones will release Live at the El Mocambo on Friday (May 13). @GeorgiaStraight
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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
3
from page 2
Fraser, to overflow their banks. As oldgrowth continues to be logged, there’s less capacity for forests to hold back the water. Meanwhile, longer dry seasons and hotter temperatures, in some cases driven by changes to the jet streams, will likely lead to more brutal forest fires, also undermining the B.C. economy. The fishing industry is also vulnerable because rising water temperatures make it more difficult for salmon to reach the spawning grounds. It’s true that technology has been a bright light. And a great deal of technological wizardry is reflected in Vancouver’s world-class visual-effects and animation sectors. Let’s hope that they remain resilient in the face of declining box-office revenues in the movie industry as a result of COVID-19. Then there’s COVID-19’s impact on tourism, another economic mainstay. It’s hard to conceive of it ever returning to its glory days before the pandemic. With each new variant, there is the potential for future lockdowns.
That’s to say nothing of the pernicious impact of long COVID on the labour force and its impact on health-care costs. The B.C. NDP is probably already thinking about how it’s going to get reelected in 2024 in the face of these headwinds. The party’s brain trust realizes that putting more shovels in the ground for housing projects can keep the economy humming. Of course, that requires having enough construction workers at the ready—which is far from a sure bet, as the Straight reported last month. The lack of skilled tradespeople is already causing building costs to shoot through the roof. Supplychain issues are also dogging this sector. It’s not a pretty picture. Plus, there’s opposition to densification in various communities. On May 7, hundreds gathered outside Vancouver City Hall to protest the Broadway Plan. It proposes a dramatic increase in density over a 500-block area of the city. It covers a stretch of land from Vine Street
to Clark Drive in the general vicinity of Vancouver’s newest SkyTrain extension. Tenants are feeling vulnerable. This is notwithstanding Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s pledge that no tenant along Broadway today will see their rents rise in the event of redevelopment. He says the Broadway Plan will offer paid relocation to a temporary rental, with a top-up keeping interim rents the same. Stewart is assuring these tenants that they will be given a right of first refusal to return to the new project with rent at 20 percent below the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s citywide average rents. “For those already paying high rents along Broadway, this means you could see your rents fall, once you move back to your new building,” Stewart declared in a news release. “But for those paying low rents today, I want to go even further and make sure you won’t have to fear paying more as we renew and expand housing along Broadway.” It’s a delicate balancing act. Tenants have long formed an important NDP voting bloc.
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Yet the B.C. government essentially feels that it needs to kick a fair number of them out of their homes for several years as new towers go through the approval process and are built. This is part of its grand plan to densify a significant chunk of Vancouver to help pay the bills and avoid being slaughtered in the 2024 election. The higher property-tax revenue will also fatten the treasury at city hall. Why is this necessary? To put it bluntly, the B.C. NDP must avoid allowing the taxpayer-supported debt to rise above $100 billion by the time the next election rolls around. Otherwise, Premier John Horgan risks becoming mincemeat for the B.C. Liberals under new leader Kevin Falcon. The answer—for Robinson and Horgan—is to build as many homes as possible. Attorney General David Eby is the chief salesman for this project as the minister responsible for housing. And Mayor Stewart is a willing accomplice. g
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FINANCE
FIRE movement fans won’t panic over plunging market by Charlie Smith
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The broadly based S&P 500 index has gone into a tailspin in 2022, falling nearly 17 percent by May 10, but it’s still far higher than it stood in the spring of 2020, after the pandemic was declared.
O
ne of Vancouver’s more popular financial bloggers, Chrissy Kay, isn’t freaking out over the recent downturn in the markets. Even though the S & P 500 index is down nearly 17 percent this year, the creator of the Eat Sleep Breathe FI website has some calming words of advice. “If you zoom out to the maximum time frame [on Google Finance], you’ll see that the dip in the market is nothing,” Kay tells the Straight by phone. “It’s not even close to where we dipped to in 2020. We’re still way above that point.” The “FI” in her blog stands for “financial independence”—something she and her husband achieved by retiring last year at the ages of 43 and 46, respectively. Kay only refers to her husband as “M” on her blog because he values his privacy. He was an art director at a video-game company. She is a former graphic designer and the mother of two teenagers. Kay did not come from a wealthy family—her parents immigrated from Hong Kong without a lot of money—and she wrote her first post in May of 2017. A year later, she bought the domain because she felt that there was a “severe lack of knowledge and information about financial independence for Canadians”. “Right from the start, I wanted my blog to be helpful and not just an online diary,” Kay says. “I do mix my own story in there when it’s helpful to give examples and to make it relatable to people.” Because she includes the voices of many others, she has a good sense of what people in the so-called FIRE movement are feeling right now. FIRE is an acronym for “financial independence, retire early”. They tend to live more frugally than others, setting aside money to invest. But Kay says it’s a “huge
myth” that they all live deprived lives. “We are simply more thoughtful with our spending,” she declares. “We spend in areas that we value.” She says that when people try to save money, they “end up inadvertently saving the planet” because they tend to consume less. According to Kay, most people in the FIRE movement invest in index funds, which generate returns based on a particular stock-market index. “It’s tried and true,” Kay says. “It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s simple.” However, she adds, there are some in the FIRE movement who dabble in individual stocks or more speculative investments such as cryptocurrencies. So how are they reacting to the recent market downturn, along with the return of inflation and rising interest rates? “There are many people in the community who use a technique called the ‘Smith Manoeuvre’, so they’ve leveraged their homes to invest more in the markets,” Kay reveals. “So there’s a little bit more chatter about those kinds of topics.” According to the Investopedia website, the Smith Manoeuvre “involves converting the interest a homeowner pays on their mortgage into tax-deductible investment loan interest”. It was pioneered by a Vancouver Island financial planner named Fraser Smith. While it can help investors make more money and pay less tax when the equity markets are rising, people can go into debt if they borrow to buy stocks that are sinking. She says that in light of the uncertainty, some in the FIRE movement are trying to feel out what others are doing. “We were long overdue for a market correction, so we were all expecting this,” Kay concludes. “It doesn’t come as a surprise.” g
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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
5
REAL ESTATE
Median prices drop in East Van as home sales fall
M
by Carlito Pablo
edian prices of residential properties in East Vancouver dropped month-overmonth in April. This came as sales contracted compared to March 2022. Median price is regarded as a good indicator of property prices. Unlike average price, the median price, which the middle point in a list of prices, is not affected by extreme high or low values. Figures released by the regional realestate board indicate that the median price of a detached home in East Vancouver declined to $2,065,000 in April 2022, compared to $2,095,000 in March. Sales of these homes totalled 110 in April, with 174 sold in March. That means a 36.8 percent decline. Meanwhile, the median price for townhouses and similar attached properties fell from $1,404,000 in March to $1,350,000 in April. In terms of sales, 65 attached properties were sold in April, compared to 84 in March. That’s a 22.6 percent contraction. As for East Vancouver apartments or condos, 178 were sold in April, which was a drop from the March 2022 sales of 239. That constituted a 22.5 percent drop. There was no month-over-month change
A sign of the times? This home at 4315 St. Catherines Street in East Vancouver has a 2022 assessment of $1,762,600. On May 3, it was sold for slighly less than that, $1,732,000.
in median price for condos on this side of the city, at $680,000. Compared to the West Side of Vancouver, the East Side is a much more affordable area. To illustrate, the median price of a West Side detached home in April 2022 was $3,768,000. A recent report by RBC Economics noted a “softening” in sales in Vancouver and three other major urban centres in the country: Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto. This development followed two rounds of key rate increases made by the Bank of Canada in March and April this year.
“All evidence points to the Bank of Canada’s rate tightening cycle starting to have an impact, as recent data released from Canada’s four largest housing markets show early signs of softening demand,” bank economist Carrie Freestone wrote in a May 5 report. Freestone also noted that “price growth has started to cool”. Vancouver is one of the markets covered by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. In April 2022, sales in areas under the jurisdiction of the REBGV fell to 3,232 homes compared to 4,344 in
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March, for a 25.6 percent decrease. In addition to Vancouver, the REBGV covers Burnaby, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, South Delta, Squamish, Sunshine Coast, West Vancouver, and Whistler. In April this year, the Vancouver-based Dexter Realty stated in a report that the “super cycle” of the Metro Vancouver real estate market is coming to an end. The realty company made the statement as it noted year-over-year declines in March 2022 sales. Sales in April 2022 are no different. The 3,232 homes that changed hands last April in REBGV markets mark a 34.1 percent decline from the 4,908 sales recorded in April 2021. In a recent report on May 4, Dexter Realty stated in a report by partner and managing broker Kevin Skipworth that the April numbers confirmed that the “residential super cycle is over in Metro Vancouver”. “As befitting a housing market that has defied all traditions since March 2020, the current calming is happening in midst of what, conventionally, is the most active selling season of the year,” Skipworth wrote. g
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HOUSING
Tribunal orders strata to allow owner’s three cats by Carlito Pablo
the matter. And she did so in favour of the woman keeping her three cats. The spouses provided a May 20, 2021, letter from a B.C. family physician identified only in the reasons for decision as Dr. McKeough. The physician wrote that Schlosser has a “diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder”. McKeough agreed with previous health care recommendations regarding her treatment. “It is clear that her 3 cats are beneficial for her mental health, and that having to remove an animal would be significantly detrimental to her diagnosed medical condition,” the doctor wrote. The spouses also provided a May 25,
2021, letter from a Saskatchewan family doctor identified only as Dr. Adetola. The physician “diagnosed Ms. Schlosser with moderately severe anxiety disorder in summer 2020, and that Ms. Schlosser had obviously had the condition for much longer”. Campbell accepted Adetola’s position that Schlosser had “found therapy” with her three cats, which she had used for a “long time since she was a teenager”. “I find that the uncontradicted evidence of Dr. McKeough and Dr. Adetola establishes that Ms. Schlosser has a disability, for the purposes of section 8 of the Code,” Campbell stated. g
Townhome owner Jennifer Schlosser convinced the Civil Resolution Tribunal that her strata council is required to accommodate her need for three cats. Photo by Svetlanna Sultanaeva/Getty Images.
J
ennifer Schlosser needed three cats since she was a teen. She has an anxiety disorder, and the animals calm her. The pets provide her emotional support. In 2020, her husband, Zackary Lenius, bought a home at a townhouse complex in the B.C. resort town of Sicamous. Not long after the spouses moved in, the strata notified Lenius of a complaint regarding the cats. The strata corporation’s bylaws allow only one pet per lot. Lenius responded by saying that he and
his spouse have a right to keep the cats under provincial human rights legislation. That’s the Human Rights Code, wherein Section 8 states that no person should be denied service, accommodation, or facility on the basis of disability. The dispute eventually reached the online Civil Resolution Tribunal. In her reasons for decision, Kate Campbell, vice chair of the tribunal, noted that the CRT may or may not choose to resolve a row that involves the human rights code. Campbell exercised the discretion to decide
P enthouse PRICE CHOPPED d A LUXURY PENTHOUSE in Vancouver’s Olympic Village has finally landed a buyer. The property in the Canada House on the Water development sold for $8,350,000, which was well below its asking price last year. The three-bedroom-plus-den condo listed on September 13, 2021, for $12,800,000. This means that the sale price of 701–151 Athletes Way was $4,450,000 under its original price tag. After failing to sell at the September 2021 listing, the luxury property returned to the market twice for a lower price, $9,988,000, in December 2021 and February 2022. The eventual selling price of
$8,350,000 was also below the property’s 2022 assessment. That current valuation of the property—which the listing agent RE/MAX Crest Realty says boasts of “breath-taking” water, city and mountain views—is $9,256,000. Sotheby’s International Realty Canada specializes in luxury properties. In an April 13, 2022, report about the market for expensive homes in this country, the company noted that sales of luxury Vancouver real estate fell year-over-year in the first quarter of 2022. In the first three months of the year, sales dropped 14 percent, to 99 properties priced over $4 million. Also, only three properties sold over $10 million during the same period compared to six properties sold in that ultraluxury price range in the first quarter of 2021. Canada House on the Water was built on the south shore of False Creek in 2010. It formed part of the Olympic Village that housed athletes during the Olympic Winter Games hosted by Vancouver. Canada House is composed of two buildings with addresses at 151 and 181 Athletes Way. The April 22, 2022, sale was reported on May 5.
by Carlito Pablo MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
7
BEER
Brews to make a Leafs’ loss sweeter this spring
F
by Mike Usinger
strawberry and backyard rhubarb (for those keeping score, no Maritimer will judge you for adding rhubarb to your bumbleberry pie). Deliciously thick and creamy, Superflux & Bellwoods Friendshake has a secret weapon—Tahitian vanilla—that becomes more and more pronounced as the IPA warms in the glass, but not at the expense of the bumbleberry tartness. Enjoy with a slice of rhubarb pie and Game 4 of the Leafs-Lightning series. And speaking of hockey, all together now: Go Tampa Bay!!
or reasons that have nothing to do with blooming flowers, sun, and baby birds being born in backyards, it’s the greatest time of year. Why? That’s easy: playoff hockey. And you know what goes great with playoff hockey? That would be beer. Mix things up with the following more-than-worthy offerings. And please, God, make this the Washington Capitals’ year. Thanks in advance.
SUPERFLUX & BELLWOODS FRIENDSHAKE
There’s an unwritten rule on the West Coast that, with the possibility of the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Blue Jays, it’s okay to dislike almost everything about Toronto. Which explains why there’s nothing that makes folks in these parts happier than seeing the Maple Leafs get bounced out of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Again. Go Lightning! Vancouver’s ever-inventive Superflux Beer Company gets no small amount of credit then for attempting to do some national bridge-building with Friendshake, a collabo with Toronto’s Bellwoods Brewery. Giving credit where it’s due, Superflux explains the tag-team beer with “Bellwoods
PHILLIPS DINOSOUR STONE FRUIT SOUR
Stanley Park’s Trail Hopper IPA burts with pineapple and passion fruit for a delightfully tart bite.
have a long history of brewing excellent beers of all styles. Since we are big fans of their fruited IPAs we decided to take some tips from them to brew one together.” As savvy Canadian Living subscribers know, there’s actually no such thing as a bumbleberry; instead it’s a Maritimes term for the crumble-friendly mixed berries one “bumbles” upon in summer. For the most
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part that includes blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries (three of which—sorry Vancouver-laneway blackberries!—were part of the brewing process for Friendshake. An IPA that will appeal to those who are convinced they don’t like IPAs, Friendshake pours a pleasant pale pink that suggests a perfect union between organic
MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
Here’s something that’s insanely delicious: Sour Patch Kids peach-flavoured candy. Or at least they are until, after eating three bags in one sitting, your tongue starts to feel like you’ve eaten eight family-size bags of Lay’s salt & vinegar potato chips. Phillips bills its Dinosour Stone Fruit Sour as having a “delightfully tart bite”, and there’s definitely truth in advertising there. While sour might be the selling point— think nectarines when they’re at their puckering best—there’s also a heady undertow of peach-perfect sweetness here. Think a good Bellini, only in beer form, and spiked with fragrant apricot. The best thing might be that, even after three cans, your tongue isn’t going to feel like someone painted it with three coats of citric acid and then made you eat a dozen Warheads.
Check out the Georgia Straight’s upcoming issue on MAY 26, 2022 and discover our readers favourite places to eat, drink and hang out. Thank you to all our participating sponsors this year: Terra Breads, Rocky Mountain Flatbread, La Belle Patate Vancouver, Water St. Cafe, West Coast Poké, España, Pacific Poke, Cartems Donuts, Pallet Coffee Roasters, Marquis Wines, Bella Gelateria, Memphis Blues BBQ House, Bonta Italian Restaurante, Havana, Baan Lao Fine Thai Cuisine.
The beauty of the West Coast is the way the seasons are a tad more defined than in places like the North Pole, Sahara Desert, or Andagoya, Colombia (famous for having one of the most monotonous climates in the world). Now that the winter monsoons have finally passed, it’s time to get outdoors again on the trails of the North Shore, Squamish, Fraser Valley, and (if you’re feeling lazy) Stanley Park. For no other reason than it’s name, Stanley Park Brewing’s Trail Hopper India Pale Ale is worth popping in the oldback along with the Clif Bars, Gatorade, and half-dozen Laffy Taffys. Punching in at a semi-potent 6.8 percent ABV, Trail Hopper bursts with ripe passionfruit and pineapple on the front end, with pine and grapefruit peel joining the party on the back stretch. While it’s hoppy enough to earn its place on the great Pacific Northwest IPA mantle, you won’t be reaching for a Miller High Life after four sips to take the edge off. Now get out there and hit the trails. And don’t forget your raincoat, because while the seasons may change in these parts, there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to be as much as a given as the Toronto Maple Leafs flaming out in round one. Thank you, God. g
ARTS
Dance and crafts intermingle in new Joe Ink show What began as a research-based project has blossomed into a trip through the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages
F
by Charlie Smith
or dance company Joe Ink’s latest production, Dance:Craft, Vancouver choreographer Joe Laughlin did something highly unusual beforehand. He and dancer Heather Dotto visited several artists’ studios in a range of disciplines. It was part of a research-based project, launched in 2017, investigating the relationship of dancers to art objects. In a phone interview with the Straight, Laughlin recalls receiving a lesson from ceramic artist Debra Sloan on how to pour slip moulds. Laughlin and Dotto created little “minibabies”, which they turned into sculptures. “It was really very childlike what we experienced in doing that,” Laughlin says. At Hope Forstenzer’s glass-blowing studio, they made a paperweight. That’s something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. “You have to go into the crucible of 2,000 ° C,” Laughlin says. “Your mother always told you not to play with fire, but she’s telling us to go into the crucible and draw the glass out. What? What? Oh, my god, it’s so hot.” Laughlin and Dotto were able to pull out the melted glass with a long pole. “We were so viscerally excited,” he says, “and when we came out of that experience, we were just kind of vibrating.” Deborah Dumka educated them about making felt for rugs. According to Laughlin, she said that this was a process of “pressure, water, agitation, and repetition”. “I thought about that for a moment,” Laughlin says. “I said to her, ‘That’s how we make a dancer.’ Totally—pressure, water, sweat, agitation—you know, that happens to your body. And certainly repetition.” Wood designer Patrick Christie and metal artist and blacksmith Stefanie Dueck also collaborated with the dance company on the project. Joe Ink’s board chair is Raine McKay, executive director of the Craft Council of B.C., who had been providing Laughlin with insights into this area for several years. Laughlin then decided to invite the craft artists into his studio to discuss making objects that could be informed by dance and his company’s practice. In the fall of 2019, Laughlin recruited Calgary dancer Joey Matt to come aboard, with the goal of creating a project with the artists that included a community-dance element. “I probably made 45 minutes of dances—I called them ‘studies’,” he says. One set of movements was in response to a metal object, another to ceramics, et cetera. “The plan was to move into a warehouse kind of space and build this art installation,”
Heather Dotto and Joey Matt won’t only perform together in Dance:Craft; they’ll also be interacting with quite a few objects created by local artists. Photo by Michael Slobodian.
And I was thinking this yesterday: Heather and Joey are just beautiful. They’re going to blow people away. They have an incredible synchronicity and chemistry together. – Joe Ink choreographer Joe Laughlin
Laughlin reveals. “That way, the audience could have a hands-on experience.” There were going to be craft artists in the performance, as well as a kind of Greek chorus. He called it a “moving art installation”. But just as things were getting underway, the pandemic hit. And Laughlin realized that this dream would have to be put on hold for a while. Laughlin will turn 61 at the end of May, and he was in no mood to catch COVID-19. He remained in isolation, learning how to make videos as an outlet for his creative urges. He’s already won his share of awards, including the Canada Council Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, the Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award, and B.C.’s Isadora Award for choreography. So it made sense for SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs to partner with his company when it came time to resume live performances.
In the fall, he started planning a show and the craft artists resumed making objects. At the beginning of March, the two
dancers started working on movements in association with the crafts, including the ceramic masks. Once they could rehearse at SFU Woodward’s, they could also work with larger wood blocks and a metal sculpture. To Laughlin, this isn’t just a show about objects. It’s also a reflection on the brain’s limbic system, molecular memories, and the continued erosion of the body. “I’m very cognizant of the decline of my body,” he says. “And I was just thinking this yesterday: Heather and Joey are just beautiful. They’re going to blow people away. They have an incredible synchronicity and chemistry together.” His newfound passion for video is also incorporated in the production. Dumka’s daughter, Claire Sanford, created virtualreality productions of the artists in their studios, which will be available to the audience when they show up at the reconfigured Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre. Laughlin describes Dance:Craft as an “evolutionary time line”. “It’s kind of a trip to the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age,” he says. According to many scholars, the Iron Age ended around 550 BC. Political philosopher and writer Hannah Arendt, on the other hand, has suggested that it continues into present times through modern motorization, in which “human bodies gradually begin to be covered by shells of steel”. Laughlin also believes that the Iron Age is still with us. “Now, I feel like we have to move out of the Iron Age in order for us to survive as a species,” he says. g In partnership with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs, Joe Ink will present the world premiere of Dance:Craft at the Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre in the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts at 7 p.m. from May 20 to 22.
WEST of MAIN
BACK FOR 2022!
Preview w EExhibition xhh i b i tiio & Sale May 18-19 at Yaletown Roundhouse
Art Walk Open Studio Tour & Sale May 28-29 Event details at www.artistsinourmidst.com MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
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ARTS
Long wait is finally over for Kids in the Hall fans
T
by Martin Dunphy
here are probably a lot of impatient people waiting for the launch of the new TV series from Canadian comedy legends The Kids in the Hall. They’re impatient because it has been 27 years since the influential troupe that formed in Toronto in 1984 last wrote and performed in its weekly sketch-comedy show of the same name. And their two-year wait after the longhoped-for 2020 announcement that the Kids would be returning for a sixth season—an eight-episode reboot of the original, on Amazon Prime (launching on Friday [May 13] )—wouldn’t have calmed their nerves any.
Some fans might also be anxious that the show’s original five cast members/writers— Dave Foley, Mark McKinney, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, and Scott Thompson—might have lost some of the dark sparkle and edgy writing that made them the most original and prominent Canadian comedy ensemble and TV series since SCTV. Back in the day, the young improv whizzes who sprang sketches on both delighted and outraged viewers about a cabbageheaded horndog, worm eaters, and a chicken lady with a hair-trigger libido cemented their rep with the Boomers and young Gen-Xers who had made them their own. But if you’re 40 years old today, you were only about two when the four members
Co.Erasga Presents ts
Passages of Rhythms May Mayy 119-20, 9--20, 2022 8pm
Scan for tic Scan tickets! kets! Eventbrite.ca .ca
Venue
PAL Studio S di Theatre Th (300-501 Cardero St, Vanc Vancouver) Box Office Info
$30 Adults / $20 Students and Seniors Choreography and Performance
Alvin Erasga Tolentino Kasandra "La China" / Sujit Vaidya / Gabrie Gabriel Dharmoo Live Percussion Music: Jonathan Bernard / Ronald Ron Stelting Lighting: Jonathan Kim Costume: Meagan Woods
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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
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Decades after their original TV series ended, Kids in the Hall troupe members (from left) Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson have awoken.
(Thompson joined in early ’85) started playing Toronto’s Queen Street clubs and other venues, and you were only 13 when the Kids’ fifth and final TV season ended, in 1995. So, barring VHS, DVD, or Internet research on their part, there are lots of potential viewers who could be considered merely curious. For those anxious, impatient, and curious souls, the Straight has previewed the first five episodes of the new season. We also spoke briefly to McKinney about the new series. First off, some reassurance for diehards hoping that the only changes to the show will be fresh material. The half-hour episodes feature virtually the same format as the original, right down to the credits, theme music, video montages (with many visuals updated but virtually identical), and original executive producer (Lorne Michaels). Even more heartening, some of the Kids’ most memorable recurring characters— including the gruff A T & Love Boss, office temps Kathy and Cathy, Mr. Tyzik (the Headcrusher), Francesca Fiore and Bruno Puntz Jones, and gay raconteur and bon vivant Buddy Cole—make appearances in those five installments (along with a special celebrity guest in each episode). In a phone interview, McKinney said the writing process for the new material differed from the old series in two respects. One was that the five of them had already banked some sketches, having gotten together for various projects after the first series ended. “After the 2008 and 2015 tours, we started writing more new material,” he said. “We thought it might appear in a special or something.” The other was the pandemic. “We couldn’t get together to write, physically, so it was all kind of Zoom and by phone.” The five familiar faces are plumper, certainly, as are the waistlines (a few of which
can be checked out in more detail during a bravely gratuitous scene of full-frontal nudity). But wigs can cover the grey and bald spots, even if Running Faggot might have lost a step or two. And though some of the younger crossdressing roles and teen parts the Kids are known for might be denied them now, McCulloch dons the short pants again for a hilariously self-referential appearance as the prepubescent Gavin. Overall, the troupe’s archetypal, oddball essence survives, perhaps especially so in a Foley, Thompson, and McDonald bit about a doctor who “only” drops 30 percent of the babies he delivers. Those looking for some of the Kids’ more disquieting material will enjoy a McKinney and Foley two-hander about Shakespeare that is reminiscent of Monty Python’s “Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Salad Days’ ” sketch. ”We used 100 gallons of fake blood in that,” McKinney revealed by phone. “I’ve been telling people that I was in a weird mood after shooting that one, and I went home and watched Suspiria.” McKinney was evasive about which of his characters not appearing in the first five episodes might put in an appearance during the final three. “I don’t know that I should be saying that. The way we approved the characters was ‘as needed’,” he said by way of explanation. But he held out hope for any disappointed fans: “If we’re invited back for a few more episodes…” In a fitting finale, a mention of a new Kids sketch about a corporate Zoom meeting that deteriorates into a mass-masturbation session prompts McKinney to quip, “Yeah, I’m glad we’re not on Zoom right now, looking at each other with some grainy pictures…” g
This May & June at the Orpheum Singin’ in the Rain MAY
13/14
Mahler’s 5th
— Film with Orchestra
MAY
THIS WEEKEND!
composer Anna Clyne sets the stage for Mahler’s magnificent 5th. From the first trumpet call, to delicate Adagietto, to massive horn anthem, each moment is filled with emotion.
Fri & Sat, 8pm | Orpheum Topping the American Film Institute’s list of 25 Greatest Movie Musicals of all time, this film masterpiece comes to life with live orchestral accompaniment and award-winning on-screen performances by Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds.
Gene Kelly stars in Singin’ in the Rain
Otto Tausk
JUNE
2
ABBA The Concert MAY
12
Fri & Sat, 8pm | Orpheum
27/28 A gorgeous meditation from English
James Ehnes Plays Beethoven Thurs, 7:30pm | Orpheum The VSO’s dear friend James Ehnes joins to celebrate the close of an extraordinary season, playing Beethoven’s majestic Violin Concerto. Plus, the VSO plays Mozart’s beloved Symphony No. 40, the Great G minor Symphony. One night only and not to be missed!
TONIGHT!
Thurs, 7:30pm | Orpheum Many critics agree, ABBA The Concert is the most amazing and authentic ABBA tribute show in the world. Come dance, come sing, having the time of your life at THE ULTIMATE TRIBUTE CELEBRATION! James Ehnes
Bohemian Rhapsody
David Lakirovich MAY
Fri, 7pm | Orpheum
20/22 Sun, 2pm | Orpheum Folk tunes and rhythm infuse this program of two great Bohemians, Czech composers Dvořák and Smetana.
PLUS
22/23 Season
Let’s Play
SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGES ON SALE NOW
VancouverSymphony.ca 604.876.3434 MAY 13, 14 VSO POPS SERIES SPONSOR
MAY 13, 14 SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN – FILM WITH ORCHESTRA PART OF
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MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
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Concert programs are subject to change at any time.
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
11
ARTS
Ex-prankster Wood gets serious about comedy
T
by Steve Newton
o the best of his recollection, the first time Roy Wood Jr. laughed out loud at anything, he was three or four years old. He was watching the disaster-movie parody Airplane! on TV, and he got a kick out of Otto the autopilot, the inflatable dummy called on to fly the plane to safety when the flight crew becomes incapacitated. There’s one scene when Otto becomes deflated and a harried flight attendant played by Julie Hagerty is asked by the control tower to blow it back up via the inflation nozzle located near Otto’s crotch. Leslie Nielsen’s goofy doctor enters the cockpit while she’s trying to revive the plastic pilot and immediately assumes that... Well,
you’ve probably seen the movie anyway. “It took me years to get that joke,” Wood recalls on the phone from his New York City home, “but that would probably be the first time I started really laughing [at comedy]. And then Comedy Central came on as a teenager, so I started watching a lot of stuff on the network, and that’s kinda where I started getting a regular diet of standup.” Wood’s early predilection for funny stuff on the tube got him on the path to becoming a successful standup comic, one who is also known for his work as a correspondent on The Daily Show for the past seven years. He was one of the first Daily Show correspondents brought onto the show after Trevor Noah took over hosting from Jon Stewart
JOE INK
in partnership with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs proudly presents the world premiere of
DANCE:CRAFT Performances + Exhibition 7pm
2022
MAY 20 TO 22
SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre 149 West Hastings Tickets: eventbrite.ca | Info: joeink.ca $30 Adults | $25 Students & Seniors + s/c Performers: Heather Dotto & Joey Matt. Ceramic heads: Debra E Sloan. Photo: Michael Slobodian.
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Roy Wood Jr. used to spend a lot of his time making prank calls to get lowbrow laughs, but since becoming a correspondent on The Daily Show, he has used comedy to explore heavy subjects.
in 2015, and the job has allowed him to shed light on such issues as gun violence, police reform, LGBTQ+ discrimination, and PTSD in the Black community. “You have to remember that what we’re talkin’ about is serious stuff,” Wood explains, “but we have freedom and levity to talk about it in a lighter way. So there’s still a responsibility, because at the end of all of these stories, there’s still people; there’s still tragedy, in some cases, surrounding some of these issues. So we try to be as funny as we can, but if we aren’t talking about the serious stuff, what are we doin’ here? That’s an important part of the legacy of The Daily Show.” As far as the current host of the program goes, inquiring minds want to know what Trevor Noah is really like. Is he as funny in real life as he is on TV? “Aw, yeah,” replies Wood, “Trevor’s just as funny in real life. But I would argue that he’s just a million times more interesting than we have time for on the show, ya know?” Wood confirms that he and Noah are pretty good buds outside the show and that they hang out from time to time. “I might swing by his house and play a video game or two,” he says, “watch a little Premier League soccer. But, you know, he’s touring right now doing standup, and I’m still in town. I have some projects that I’m working on myself, so it’s touch and go.” One of the things Wood has been keeping busy with of late is his hour-long Comedy Central special, Imperfect Messenger—now streaming on Paramount+—which he says covers “the usual fun stuff—racism and police reform.” His previous Comedy Central specials were 2017’s Father Figure and 2019’s No One Loves You, but long before that he was best known for his prank calls, many of which have been archived on YouTube. “I’ve done over 500 that I have on the record,” he says. “There’s another 300 that were lost to a bad hard drive. I’d say one that probably got me on the map early on
was ‘The Car Title’, where I called an old man about his car title and he just went off on the car title. Those were fun at the time, but, you know, I haven’t done a prank call in almost 12 years. That’s such a bygone era for me, creatively.” Wood’s main focus at the moment is standup comedy. He counts Wanda Sykes, Bill Burr, and Deon Cole among his current faves in that field, and he just went and saw Yvonne Orji—star of HBO’s Insecure— perform her standup show at Manhattan’s Carolines on Broadway. “I still enjoy watching live standup comedy,” he says. “It’s something that I love to do, but it’s also something I still love to see.” Speaking of getting out and about, Wood also attended the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., which host Noah described as “the nation’s most distinguished superspreader event”. “It was funny and wild,” Wood notes, “and uncomfortable, like I think the Correspondents’ Dinner always is.” When he isn’t out laughing his ass off at other people’s comedy or performing his own, Wood tries to make a difference by helping the underprivileged in various ways. “I try to support people that are on the ground doing good things,” he says. “We just went to a high school recently and gave away some VR headsets for student enrichment. You know, I support a couple of different charities that do different things. I believe you can fight crime with literacy, and there’s a company, I See Me, Inc., who I’ve worked with. I try to support people that are doing the work and just give them a platform and give them a voice and point a camera in their direction. “I stop short of calling myself an activist,” he adds, “but I do know that I’m for sure an amplifier.” g Roy Wood Jr. performs at the Vogue Theatre on May 27 as part of Just For Laughs Vancouver.
ARTS
Tolentino’s Rhythms improves with more passage of time by Carlito Pablo
ARTS UMBRELLA DANCE COMPANY PRESENTS
SEASON FINALE: MOVE
Dancer-choreographer Alvin Tolentino (left) and voice artist Gabriel Dharmoo plan to celebrate Asian Heritage Month with a remount of Passages of Rhythms. Photo by Yasuhiro Okada.
A
lvin Tolentino believes that good things take time. Dance is an example. The Vancouver dancer and choreographer holds that a work needs to mature with its performer. “I really believe that it takes time for the dance to really live in the performing body,” Tolentino told the Straight in a phone interview. This is one of the reasons why the artistic director of the Co.ERASGA dance company likes to bring back previous productions, like Passages of Rhythms. The work is a trio of duets showing at the PAL Studio Theatre (Performing Arts Lodge, 300-581 Cardero Street) on May 19 and May 20. The return of Passages of Rhythms reunites Tolentino with Kasandra “La China”, a Chinese-Canadian flamenco dancer; Sujit Vaidya, a professional performer of classical Indian dance called bharatanatyam; and Gabriel Dharmoo, a voice artist. “Remounts give us the opportunity as artists to go back and see, how did I make this?” Tolentino said. He explained that it is often challenging to have this chance. “In the performing arts, you’re given a certain amount of funds and resources so that you can produce it in a short time, and you perform it two or three nights and then it’s finished,” Tolentino said. It usually never reaches “maturity over time”, he said, which is achieved when
It was like I knew everything. I could play with the material. – Co.ERASGA founder Alvin Tolentino
dancers get more chances to perform and go on tour. “That’s really when the work matures in the body of the artist and all of the artists working together.” Tolentino had this in mind when he initially planned to restage Passages of Rhythms, which premiered in 2019. Tolentino and his collaborators were supposed to return the following spring and go on tour. Of course, that didn’t happen, as the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020. “I have always been a creator of choreography who really loves to invest in the research and the creation and to perform it many times and to tour it,” Tolentino said. This time around, Passages of Rhythms will go on the road. After its Vancouver run, the work shows on Salt Spring Island at Mahon Hall on May 27 and 28. Then it goes to Powell River, appearing at the Evergreen Theatre on
Featuring works by: Crystal Pite Medhi Walerski Marco Goecke
May 19-21 Vancouver Playhouse For tickets, visit artsumbrella.com/seasonfinale
Fernando Hernando Magadan Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Credit: Michael Slobodian
see next page MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
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ARTS
Xicanx artists play key role in push for civil rights
S
by Charlie Smith
ometimes, there are many ideas packed into in a name. An example of this is the Museum of Anthropology at UBC’s newest show, Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers / Soñadores + creadores del cambio. For the uninitiated, Xicanx is a genderneutral, intersectional, and anticolonial term for people of Latin American ancestry in the United States. It emerged in the 2010s as a more inclusive descriptor than Chicano or Chicana, which refer to men and women of Mexican ancestry in the United States who proudly embrace their heritage. The cocurator of the exhibition, Greta de León, tells the Straight over Zoom from Lisbon, Portugal, that the Chicano movement was deeply involved in the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s and 1970s. It rejected cultural assimilation into the dominant white culture, often relying on art to promote ideas to the community. “When you think about the civil-rights movement in United States history, you think about the African Americans and the Black movement, which I think is incredibly relevant and important,” de Léon says. “But there have been other movements as well that have created this democracy—tapestry— of a country. So I think it’s important to recognize those stories.” Exhibition cocurator Jill Baird is the MOA’s curator of education. The show includes works of 33 Xicanx artists offering a range of perspectives from the traditional to the revolutionary. When the Straight asks de Léon if there’s a Xicanx version of painter Frida Kahlo, she pauses for a moment before replying, “Judy Baca”. A Los Angeles–based muralist, painter, monument builder, and scholar, Baca has centred her practice around giving a voice to the marginalized. One of her works in the exhibition, Tres Marias, shows her dressed up as a pachuca or chola (a young woman belonging to MexicanAmerican urban subculture), puffing on a Marlboro. “It’s part of a series of photographs
Alfred J. Quiroz’s Muneefist Destiny reveals America’s 19th-century expansionist mindset that led to the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican-American War, and efforts to annex what later became B.C.
of her kind of embodying this character— this very, very strong woman,” de Léon says. “That’s a really nice piece.” Another artist featured in the exhibition is Alfred J. Quiroz, whose Muneefist Destiny depicts American expansionism through the eyes of the colonizers. It shows a map of the United States festooned with messages and images reflecting the widely held 19thcentury belief in America that the country would encompass much of the continent. It began with the Louisiana Purchase, doubling U.S. territory in 1803. Next, Spanish Florida came under U.S. control in 1819. Texas was annexed in 1845, and three years later, all or parts of California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming joined the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. That followed a war with Mexico. But the art in this exhibition does not only focus on the past. It also features Roberto Jose Gonzalez’s No Hate No Fear, which depicts a series of skeletons. “He did this after the huge [2019] massacre
from previous page
May 30. The Filipino-born Canadian artist founded Co.ERASGA in 2000 and has created a body of work that has placed a great deal of focus on cross-cultural explorations. He has collaborated with a group of diverse artists in Offering, a collection of solos that premiered in 2020 and returned in 2021. This remount affirmed Tolentino’s belief in how time makes things better. “It’s not learning it over again but really understanding what we know already that’s in place,” he said. Artists also become technically more proficient. “When there’s time for the mastery, the performance gets a higher of degree of calibre, and that’s an important space that must be recognized and we have to enter into as performers,” Tolentino said. And with mastery comes the pure joy of performing. 14
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
in the Walmart in El Paso,” de Léon states. “And the killer just basically said, ‘I’m interested in killing all these Mexicans.’ ” According to de Léon, the community embraced many artforms in the 1960s and 1970s. These included printmaking using woodblocks or linoleum in a “very Mexican style”. Revolutionary posada paintings were also popular, she adds, because they could be distributed as flyers. Then there was the street art, including large murals, as well as music and theatre, which were all deployed to highlight inequality and promote change. “Visual art and music was really the key to spread the word,” de Léon says. She points out that at that time, some Xicanx only spoke Spanish, whereas others spoke English. Art crossed language barriers, mobilizing the community, whether it was for farmworkers’ rights or for voter registration. “I think art has been very, very underestimated in politics in general in the States,” de Léon says. De Léon notes that John F. Kennedy
“There’s absolute freedom, an absolute kind of ecstasy,” Tolentino said. It’s the feeling he remembers from having performed his 2008 work PARADIS/Paradise 50 times. “I didn’t have to think of the dancing, that it was just in my body. It was like I knew everything. I could play with the material. There was a sense of play with the work. I was just playing with me. I was playing with music. I was playing with the audience and the timing. I knew it in and out.” He said he’s able to lose himself in the work that toured North America, Europe, and Asia. “I could dance it with my eyes closed,” Tolentino said. With the return of Passages of Rhythms, the Vancouver artist said that those who have seen it in 2019 should expect some changes. “We are remastering it in a way that is different from
was the fi rst U.S. presidential candidate to conduct serious outreach, with his team campaigning in the community in Spanish. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy, took it to a new level when he was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. His campaign relied on art as part of its goal of winning over Mexican Americans. RFK ultimately won the California Democratic Party primary before being gunned down later that night. The other part of the MOA’s title, “Dreamers + Changemakers”, pays homage to artists’ role in advancing the community’s interests. The Dreamers are those who arrived in the United States as children and who received deferrals from deportation from former U.S. president Barack Obama under the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. In 2014, Obama expanded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to cover undocumented immigrants in 2014. However, his successor, Donald Trump, rescinded that. That meant hundreds of thousands of young adults would become eligible for deportation. Many of them campaigned for the Democratic Party in the 2020 elections, again using art as part of their outreach. More recently, President Joe Biden has directed federal agencies to “preserve and fortify” DACA. De Léon is also executive director of the Americas Research Network, an alliance of universities and museums founded by the Smithsonian Institution to promote more collaboration in the humanities. Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers / Soñadores + creadores del cambio was developed in that spirit. “The whole idea is to create projects and initiatives to distribute knowledge and get to know each other,” de Léon says. g The Museum of Anthropology presents the world premiere of Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers / Soñadores + creadores del cambio from May 12 to January 1, 2023.
the first run, so I think we have a much more grounded approach,” Tolentino said. He explained that the title of the work speaks to the encounter of different genres that create new passages of contemporary artistic expression. Tolentino and his fellow performers will hold their dress rehearsal as a free show for seniors residing at the PAL social-housing facility on May 18. As part of the celebration of Asian Heritage Month in May 2022, they will also dedicate a show at a fundraising event by the Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society. That performance takes place at the PAL Studio Theatre on May 21. g Co.ERASGA presents Passages of Rhythms at PAL Studio Theatre (300-501 Cardero Street) next Thursday and Friday (May 19 and 20) as part of Asian Heritage Month.
DOXA
Reconciliation in action amid operatic backdrop by Charlie Smith
DOXA REVIEW THE LAKE / N’-HA-A-ITK
A Telus Original featuring Delphine Derickson, Heather Pawsey, and Jordan Coble. Directed by John Bolton.
d FOR SOME, reconciliation with First Nations revolves around learning. If you just get the history right—and wrap your mind around how land was stolen and why Indigenous children were kidnapped and taken to church-run schools—you’re starting along a path to a more just future. For others, reconciliation goes much deeper. It’s a matter of the heart. This road entails forging relationships and understanding and appreciating another nation’s history, language, traditions. This can only be done through curiosity, compassion, empathy, and humility. It means leaving the cocoon of your own culture and venturing into others’ world, knowing that there may be mistakes along the way that can lead to uncomfortable conversations. This latter route is the foundation of director John Bolton’s remarkable film, The Lake / n’-ha-a-itk. Ostensibly, it’s a film about how Barbara Pentland and Dorothy Livesay’s 1952 opera, The Lake, was staged for the first time—incorporating syilx perspectives—at the Quails’ Gate Winery in 2014. This 2014 version included input from syilx traditional-knowledge keeper Delphine Derickson and heritage researcher Jordan
In The Lake / n’-ha-a-itk soprano Heather Pawsey and syilx knowledge keeper Delphine Derickson demonstrate how B.C. residents can learn from their difficult and often distorted history.
Coble in telling the story of two of the earliest 19th-century European settlers to the region, Susan and John Allison. Susan Allison’s role is performed by soprano Heather Pawsey. She points out early in the fi lm how open-minded her character was in real life. Allison grew up in Sri Lanka, then known as the British colony of Ceylon, and she had a keen interest in different types of spirituality. Her optimistic husband, John, performed by opera singer Angus Bell, has a more traditional outlook and can’t understand why his wife is so interested in Indigenous traditions. The two other characters in the opera are a Métis man named Johnny MacDougall and
a syilx woman named Marie, who each assist the new settlers to the Okanagan. They are performed by opera singers Kwangmin Brian Lee and Barbara Towell, respectively. MacDougall’s exchanges with Allison help her appreciate the existence of a serpentine creature in nearby Okanagan Lake, known as Ogopogo to settlers and tourists over the following decades. But on a much deeper level, The Lake / n’-ha-a-itk is a fi lm that explores cultural appropriation and how, even with the best of intentions, we can make mistakes in pursuing reconciliation. For instance, in the traditions of the syilx people, the lake actually houses a
sacred spirit, not a monster, according to Coble. “It’s more than a creature,” he explains in the fi lm. “It’s in us.” But this belief was sideswiped in history by the Métis man who cozied up to the settlers in the 19th century. At one point, Pawsey offers a frank assessment over whether she would even do the opera again in the same way, given that two Indigenous characters were performed by non-Indigenous opera singers. Composer Leslie Uyeda created an instrumental piece in which Derickson’s daughter Corinne performs a dance to the spirit of the lake. This beautiful moment takes place as her mother and Pawsey’s character look on. Derickson also performs her traditional music with Pawsey, melding the Indigenous with the operatic in front of the gorgeous lake. Derickson’s wisdom and willingness to engage, along with Pawsey’s open-minded curiosity and compassion, lead them to forge a deep bond. And this is what really makes The Lake / n’-ha-a-itk such a heartfelt and memorable fi lm. It’s truly what reconciliation should look like—for opera lovers, particularly, but also for anyone else with an interest in digging deeper into Indigenous traditions. g The DOXA Documentary Film Festival will screen The Lake / n’-ha-a-itk at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday (May 12) at the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts at SFU Woodward’s The film can also be screened on the website until May 15.
Marginalized show ingenuity in Time of Fentanyl by Charlie Smith
DOXA REVIEW
LOVE IN THE TIME OF FENTANYL
Featuring Sarah Blyth, Ronnie Grigg, Trey Helten, Norma Vaillancourt, and Dana McInnis. Directed by Colin Askey.
d FOR MANY middle-class and upper-middle-class non–drug users living in swanky neighbourhoods, the overdose crisis can be mind-numbing. That’s because it involves other people—often, though not always, the down-and-out, whom they don’t know. It’s why documentaries like Love in the Time of Fentanyl are so very important. They put a human face on this horrific community tragedy while showcasing the resilience and sheer ingenuity of the marginalized who are saving lives on a daily basis. Colin Askey’s intimate film, which premiered at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival, takes viewers inside Vancouver’s Overdose Prevention Society at 58 East Hast-
OPS supervisor Norma Vaillancourt saves lives even after losing many friends to overdoses.
ings Street. Its plucky staff and volunteers make the most of an exceedingly grim situation yet still carve out a little time for fun. There’s OPS founder Sarah Blyth, who finds it incomprehensible that six years after she and Ann Livingston opened a popup supervised injection site that drug users
still don’t have access to a clean supply. Then there’s Norma Vaillancourt, the Indigenous OPS supervisor. In the fi lm, she talks about how many friends she’s lost. The current OPS manager, Trey Helten, shares stories about a colourful memorial mural in the neighbourhood. This is cinéma vérité—capturing the essence of some very loving people, hence the title of the fi lm. Their voices are supplemented with compelling imagery of the gritty Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, including an opening sequence in which one drug-using resident is revived from the dead with naloxone and oxygen. “So often, drug users are outcast and not given credit for being able to, like, use their mind—to have solutions to major problems,” Ronnie Grigg, then the OPS general manager, says in the fi lm. In fact, the society’s staff and volunteers are exceedingly well-trained in keeping their neighbours and friends alive amid the constant roar of sirens.
But it also takes a toll, in some cases leading to burnout. Askey and cinematographer Eric D. Sanderson capture this most effectively through their haunting segments with Grigg, who discloses that he knew 130 people who died from poisoned drugs during the previous four years. It’s remarkable how comfortable everyone is in front of the cameras. One charming volunteer, Dana McInnis, offers up some awe-inspiring whistling just before injecting. In another scene, Helten discloses family traumas as he is filmed delivering a friend’s wheelchair, via a city bus, to a local hospital. These are real people coping with monumental challenges. They deserve to be heard and not judged. Love in the Time of Fentanyl gives them that. Now, if only policymakers would act on their recommendations. Only then will we be able to put an end to this madness. g The DOXA Documentary Film Festival is streaming Love in the Time of Fentanyl until May 15.
MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
15
MUSIC
Joan Jett salvo leaves Ted Nugent totally butthurt
E
by Mike Usinger
ver open your mouth and then instantly wish you hadn’t? Flapping one’s gums being doubly traumatizing when something said months ago comes back to kick you square in the nuts. If so—and massive apologies and sincere condolences here— you know exactly what it’s like to be Ted Nugent today. The favourite rock star of red-hatted Republicans and Kid Rock was trending on Twitter last week for reasons that suggested, somewhere deep, deep down, he might actually have something resembling normal feelings. It’s one thing to be endlessly attacked by every American who believes in gun control, same-sex marriage, Black Lives Matter, and the rights of black bears, random antelopes, and Fernando the Lion to not be killed by Ted Nugent. It’s another to be attacked by riot grrrl pioneer, rock ’n’ roll warrior, and allround iconic fucking badass Joan Jett. You know—the woman who Nirvana tapped to fill the shoes of Kurt Cobain when they performed “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Define vicious you say? How about this: in a new interview with NME where Jett reflects on her storied career, the former Joan Marie Larkin has a few words for Nugent. They include the following: • “He’s not a tough guy. He plays tough guy, but this is the guy who shit his pants–literally–so he didn’t have to go in the Army.” • “This is the tough guy who’s running around America, stirring things up against each other.” And, most excellently damning of all... • “Ted Nugent has to live with being Ted Nugent. He has to be in that body, so that’s punishment enough.” At the risk of stating the obvious, that, fellow popcorn eaters and fans of Sean Connery in The Untouchables, is how you bring a .30 Army smokeless cartridge Gatling fucking gun to a knife fight. The sad thing is that the Nuge probably thought the comment that started last week’s war was long forgotten. As was the list that got him thinking “Hey, I’ll bet what the world needs right now is more musings from crazy uncle Ted.” The easy one-stop summation of the beef starts with a 2010 Rolling Stone list of 100 Greatest Guitarists compiled by gold-star music journalist David Fricke. Jett came in at number 89, with Fricke sagely writing: “Lead guitarists gave rock its icons; rhythm players gave it soul. The line runs from Eddie Cochran to Pete Townshend to Johnny Ramone, a lineage in which Joan Jett should not be taken lightly. In the early Runaways and the later
16
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
Joan Jett is known as, in no particular order, a rock ’n’ roll warrior, riot-grrrl pioneer, iconic badass, and the woman Nirvana tapped to sing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for a very special night.
Ted Nugent has to live with being Ted Nugent. He has to be in that body. so that’s punishment enough. – Joan Jett
Blackhearts, she played it straight ahead: No frills, all heart, no fucking around.” If you guessed where Nugent placed on the Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Guitarists list, take a bow. And if you didn’t, here’s a hint: nowhere. This led Nugent last Christmas season to post a “NUGEFIREROCK” Zoom video. (Need further proof that Nugent might be one step away from a troglodyte? Imagine him grunting that out loud, inserting pauses between “Nuge...Fire...Rock”, preferably unbathed while roasting a piece of meat on a stick). In the video, his stream-of-consciousness musings include: “You have to have shit for brains and you have to be a soulless, soulless prick to put Joan Jett—love Joan! Some of my greatest memories include lesbians, but ... Joan Jett is on the list, but not Mark Farner? If Grand Master Flash is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Joan Jett is on the list of Top 100 guitar players,
MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
then I’m Caitlyn Jenner’s boy toy.” As John Oliver might say, there’s a lot to unpack there, including that some people have a God-given ability to come across as sexist, racist, transphobic, and generally clueless without even really trying. Evidently unaware there’s a time to ramble, and a time to mea culpa with “Sorry, but I’ve got my head up my 73-yearold ass”, Nugent later doubled down in an interview with The Real Music Observer. Comments there included: “I started off by praising Joan Jett’s genuine shitkicker, down-to-earth, all-American rock and roll credentials. I started off by praising her. I even saluted the lesbian thing. Here’s the question: how on God’s good green earth could someone listen to what I say and then claim it’s about hate and about knocking and belittling?” The most important thing to ask is this: what kind of fuckwit would come away from “Cherry Bomb”, “I Love Play-
in’ With Fire”, “I Hate Myself For Loving You”, or the totally fucking devastating “Victim of Circumstance” thinking anything other than Jett should have been moved up Fricke’s list a couple-dozen spots? The answer is, possibly, a man who once told High Times that, to get out of the draft for the Vietnam war, he took some radical measures after getting his recruitment notice. Nugent’s recollection (which he later recanted) contained such puke-worthy passages as: “Then two weeks before, I stopped eating any food with nutritional value. I just had chips, Pepsi, beer—stuff I never touched—buttered poop, little jars of Polish sausages, and I’d drink the syrup, I was this side of death. Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. poop, piss the whole shot. My pants got crusted up.” As Jett might say, “He plays tough guy, but this is the guy who shit his pants–literally–so he didn’t have to go in the Army.” But enough about ancient history. After drawing the ire of Jett in NME, Nugent started scrambling, again, to defend himself as misunderstood. Which was flamingly idiotic for no other reason that, in one corner, we have the woman who is loved, adored, and idolized by everyone from Miley Cyrus to Rico Nasty to Nirvana. And in the other, a man whose primary fan base consists of MAGA-hat morons, Sammy Hagar, and that uncle who spends every Thanksgiving dinner railing on about lazy immigrants, samesex marriages, and how “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” is obviously about Robert Smith from the Cure. Check out Nugent’s NUGEFREEDOMFIRE post from May 5, and ask yourself who would say, while the camera’s rolling: “I love Joan Jett and mentioned how I love her. I love her music....Joan, I love you. It’s real rock and roll, it’s awesome, plus I love lesbians. I think it’s cool. So I praised her and saluted her. I just said that Mark Farner should be on the list before Joan Jett because she’s not a real fiery guitar player.” And then ask yourself who in the actual fuck would proudly announce to the world in the same clip, “She just attacked me. But then again Rolling Stone magazine said that ‘Snakeskin Cowboys’ was the worst homophobic song ever. And everybody knows that ‘Snakeskin Cowboys’ has nothing to do with queers.” And, worst of all, “I’m getting ready to go watch Tucker Carlson.” The answer to the above question being, Joan Jett might offer, “someone who shit his pants–literally–so he didn’t have to go in the Army.” g
MUSIC / SAVAGE LOVE
Loved ones looking for Ziggy Sigmund’s missing gear
T
by Mike Usinger
hose who were close to late Vancouver musician Ziggy Sigmund are asking for help locating guitars, amps, and other gear missing since his passing. An integral member of iconic Vancouver acts like Slow, the Scramblers, and Econoline Crush, Sigmund’s death was reported by friends and family on Facebook on March 8. No cause of death was given, but the guitarist had been suffering health problems related to a prior car crash in Los Angeles. Now his loved ones are trying to piece together what happened to some of the Vancouver punk legend’s most prized personal belongings. In a Facebook post yesterday, Sigmund’s former wife Jenn Muncaster said it’s believed that his gear might have been stolen sometime between February 12 and the end of that month. Sigmund, who had been living part-time in Creston, was in Vancouver, with his gear believed to have been in an RV that was later found broken into and trashed. “We believe his gear was stolen from his RV after he passed away,” Muncaster tells the Straight. “He wasn’t planning on staying long in Van and had no need of selling his gear— and we know he wouldn’t part with themw.” While she states that some of the gear might have been given to friends of Sigmund, the list of missing equipment includes the following: Fender Telecaster Thinline (red, and quite worn looking, lots of scuffs) Serial #557620; Gibson Les
When punk legend Ziggy Sigmund of Slow fame passed away earlier this year, the gear he had amassed during his life went missing. Family and friends are asking for help getting it back.
Paul Jr. custom (Natural) #397586 (1959); Gibson SG #93068375; Yamaha CPX-10 #81001905; Acoustic Gibson limited edition J200 (natural) that Zigmund bought in early 2020 (no serial number); Schecter Elite 4 bass guitar #0714426; Amps: Wizard Modern Classic, serial # wm526; Fender Concert Vintage, serial # 02772; Trem-
olo with a large, black power supply, space echo, wah pedal, and various other pedals. In her Facebook post, Muncaster states: “If you have seen any of his gear in the last two months or have heard anything about their whereabouts or have any information regarding any of the above that may help, please contact me through messenger. The
VPD have not been helpful in searching so we are hoping that the community may be able to help us locate or bring a few of these items home.” Muncaster, who remained close to Sigmund after their five-year 2012 marriage, tells the Straight that the primary reason for wanting to find the gear is that they were so important to the Vancouver legend. “He was one with his guitars and his music,” she reflects. “To have watched him play was something hypnotic and magical whether he was on the stage, sitting at home, or with friends. It’s frustrating and devastating to imagine someone walking away with something so precious to someone, under those conditions. We have no answers to why or how no one saw or reported anything. When his RV was found it was trashed and nothing of value was left inside. “It’s not about the material items,” Muncaster continues. “It’s about the memories. The smile on his face and the visible energy that you could see run through him when he played. Ziggy always had one of his guitars close at hand—it was a large part of how he communicated and connected to the world and he held on to some of those guitars for most of his life. You can look at photos of him right back to the ‘80s and see one of those guitars in hand. If we can’t recover them then we can’t, but we wanted to try.” Anyone with information is encouraged to reach out to Muncaster on her Facebook page. g
Dating apps don’t have to be risky for curious couple by Dan Savage
Looking for the thrill of having your wife sleep with other men but need to make sure you don’t broadcast your kinks on dating apps? Start by not posting face pics. Photo by Anpet/Getty.
b I’M A STRAIGHT guy, married to a straight woman for 15 years. Several years back, I opened up to my wife about my fantasies of her sleeping with other men. I was nervous about bringing it up. Her views on sex had always been traditional, and she had always expressed a very strict idea of monogamy and commitment. So I was extremely relieved when her reaction was intrigue rather than disgust. She was curious about it and wondered if I really wanted it to happen or if it was just something I wanted to keep in our rotation of dirty talk. Fast-forward to this week and my wife tells me she is interested in exploring this. (Note to other guys who want this from their wives: be respectful, don’t pressure, and give her time to think about it. Your patience might be rewarded!) Here is the problem: we both have careers that could be complicated or damaged by the stigma around “cheating”. I know about all the apps out there, but we live in a large city, and there is a non-zero chance that we
might run into someone on the apps we are connected to professionally or socially. Are any of the apps out there geared toward folks who want to go about this carefully? Is it possible to minimize the risk of professional or social embarrassment here, or is this just something we must accept to pursue this lifestyle? - Hooking Up, Seeking Help
There are lots of dating apps for people and/or couples looking for casual sex and/ or kinky sex (Feeld, 3Somer, #Open, et al.), and lots of people—single and partnered—looking for casual and/or kinky sex on regular dating apps (Tinder, OKCupid, Christian Mingle, et al.). But hookup/ threesome/swinger apps, while perceived as sleazier, are a safer bet for a couple like you and your wife. While there’s no way to eliminate your risk of being recognized on an app, HUSH, anyone who spots you on Feeld looking for
MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
see next page
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
17
extracurricular dick was on Feeld looking for and/or offering up a little extracurricular dick of their own. The threat of mutually assured destruction—if they gossip about you, you’ll gossip about them—is usually enough to restrain bad actors, as is the threat of the obvious follow-up question. (“Wait, why are you on Feeld?”) And most people on hookup apps aren’t bad actors, HUSH, but fundamentally decent people like you and your wife, i.e., singles and couples looking for a little fun, not for an opportunity to hurt anyone. A friend or a relative or a coworker who spots your wife in a bar with a strange man—or in the lobby of a hotel or on her way into your apartment—is likelier to cause you headaches than one of your fellow perverts online.
To minimize your risk of being spotted and outed on the apps, HUSH, don’t post face pics and only share them after you’ve established—to the best of your ability—the person you’re talking to isn’t a bot, a pic collector, or an extortionist. Again, there’s no way to fully eliminate the risk, but at a certain point you have to trust your gut and take a risk. You also have the option of creating a profile in a city you visit regularly but don’t live in, HUSH. After you’ve found and vetted a few good candidates, get yourself some airline tickets and a hotel room and have those drinks in a bar that a colleague, a fan, or your father-in-law is unlikely to walk into. b THERE’S A STORY making the rounds on Reddit about people getting those metallic “bejewelled butt plugs” all the way into their
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asses and needing pretty intense intervention to get them out, ranging from partners pulling them out with their fingers (the unfun kind of double penetration) to actual surgery in a hospital. The blame, apparently, lies in the fact that the base of these toys is rarely wider than the widest part of the head, which is pretty damning, and that lubed metal is slipperier then lubed silicone. So here are the operative questions: are metallic bejewelled butt plugs safe or not so much? Are silicone bejewelled butt plugs any safer? Are there any safe bejewelled buttplug options out there? - Insertion Toy Extraction Messy Situation
“gems” mounted at the end of an alarmingly narrow base—but I’ve never actually seen one in person. Or in a person, at least not in person. But knowing what I do about butts (and how they relax after some play), and knowing what I do about plugs (a f lared base is your first line of defense against a trip to the ER), I would’ve worried too much about losing one to use one. As for safe bejewelled butt-plug options, ITEMS, you’re going to want a flared base and a jewel that’s at least the size of Cullinan Diamond, the fist-sized rock on the Queen of England’s royal sceptre, which, come to think of it…g
jewelled butt plugs in shops and in photos online—they’re usually made from stainless steel and have glass
Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage. Email: questions@savagelove.net. Listen to Dan on the Savage Lovecast. Columns and more at savage.love.
I’ve seen those
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THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 19 3 MAYJUNE 12 – 25 19 –/ JULY 20222 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
INTERNATIONA A L GROW OWER E S • SUPPLIER ERS S • EX EXTRAC ACTO T RS • MAN A UF UFACTURE RERS RS • D IS I TRIBUTORS • SI SIN N C E 20 NCE NC 2017 17
PREMIER GROWER’S CONFERENCE & EXPO
FEATURING GROW UP’S PSYCHEDELIC SUMMIT AND EXTRACTION ZONE
GR WUP C O N F E R E N C E
JUNE 20-22, 2022
JIM BELUSHI
JUNE 20TH, 4PM• FIRESIDE CHAT
&
PRESENTED BY
E X P O
VICTORIA, B C
3 DAYS • 3,000 ATTENDEES • 140+ SPEAKERS • 90+ EXHIBITORS • 70+ SESSIONS/PANELS VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR SPEAKERS AND SCHEDULE UPDATES
GROW-AT-HOME WORKSHOP WEDNESDAY JUNE 22
Learn from the best in the business. This one-day workshop will help you grow like a pro. Join cannabis growing experts like Ed Rosenthal, the Guru of Ganja as we discuss lighting, soil, pest control, drying, storing & much more. Limited spots. $49 Earlybird. Price increases to $99 May 15th. PRESENTING SPONSORS
W PRIME TRADAESVAHILO ABLE BOOTHowSupScoTInfeLLrence.com/victoria visit gr
GOLD SPONSORS
tion
for more informa
MEDIA PARTNERS
SILVER SPONSORS
BUY YOUR TICKETS BEFORE MAY 15TH AND SAVE.
VIP INDUSTRY CONFERENCE: $349 • INDUSTRY PLUS PASS: $199 • PSYCHEDELIC SUMMIT: $149 • GROW-AT-HOME WORKSHOP: $49 TICKETS ON SALE NOW. CURRENT EARLYBIRD PRICING LISTED ABOVE. VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR A LISTING OF ALL EVENTS
VICTORIA, BC – JUNE 20-22, 2022 • NIAGARA FALLS, ON – SEPT. 12-14, 2022 growupconference
growupcanada
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growupconference.com
MUST BE 19 YEARS OLD OR OVER. NO CANNABIS WILL BE AVAILABLE IN ANY FORM AT THE SHOW
20
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
MAY 12 – 19 / 2022
