The Georgia Straight - Trailblazers - May 23, 2019

Trailblazers Innovators and pioneers, including Sanctuary AI founder and robot enthusiast Suzanne Gildert, are transforming Vancouver in a multitude of ways

Volume 53 | Number 2679

FREE | MAY 23 - 30 / 2019

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2 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MAY 23 – 30 / 2019

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CONTENTS

dst n e 1s e l e SaJun

May 23 – 30 / 2019

13 COVER

This week, we highlight local trailblazers in a variety of fields.

By Kate Wilson, Charlie Smith, Tammy Kwan, Craig Takeuchi, Piper Courtenay, Janet Smith, and Carlito Pablo Cover photo by Daniel Marquardt

8

25 Anniversary Sale th

25% 25% 25%

BOOKS

Marine biologist Daniel Pauly’s new book, Vanishing Fish, explains an ecological crisis in the oceans.

By Charlie Smith

21 FOOD

It’s that time again: local spot prawns are showing up on restaurant menus. Here’s where to find them.

By Gail Johnson

25 ARTS

Indigenous tin soldiers come to life in an ambitious new commission at the Vancouver International Children’s Festival.

By Janet Smith

33 MUSIC

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Haisla rap duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids channel anger constructively in their third album, Trapline.

By Mike Usinger

e Start Here 22 THE BOTTLE 36 CONFESSIONS 20 HOROSCOPES 21 I SAW YOU 23 MOVIE REVIEWS 10 REAL ESTATE 39 SAVAGE LOVE 29 THEATRE 28 VISUAL ARTS

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Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 53 | Number 2679 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 T: 604.730.7000 F: 604.730.7010 E: gs.info@straight.com straight.com DISPLAY ADVERTISING: T: 604.730.7020 F: 604.730.7012 E: sales@straight.com

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Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.

1 2 3 4 5

The hunt is on for a $100,000 treasure chest in Vancouver.

Predicting what will happen with Canucks’ restricted free agents.

Gradual demolition of Empire Landmark captured on video.

Vancouver’s Seth Rogen appears on the cover of GQ magazine.

Protesters respond to Vancouver Aquarium lawsuit.

GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight

The Georgia Straight is published every Thursday by the Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp. Copies are distributed free every week throughout Vancouver, Burnaby, North and West Vancouver, New Westminster, and Richmond. International Standard Serial Number ISSN 0709-8995. Subscription rates in Canada $182.00/52 issues (includes GST), $92.00/26 issues (includes GST); United States $379.00/52 issues, $205.00/26 issues; foreign $715.00/52 issues, $365.00/26 issues. Contact 604-730-7087 if you wish to distribute free copies of the Georgia Straight at your place of business. Entire contents copyright © 2019 Vancouver Free Press, Best Of Vancouver, Bov And Golden Plates Are Trade-Marks Of Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp. SUBMISSIONS The Straight accepts no responsibility for, and will not necessarily respond to, any submitted materials. All submissions should be addressed to contact@straight.com.

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Hunger Banquet comes to Vancouver (This story is sponsored by Oxfam Canada.)

W

here do you sit in the fight against global inequality, poverty, and hunger? According to a UN report released in September 2018, the number of chronically hungry people in the world has been on the rise for the past three years. Global hunger reached a staggering 821 million in 2017—that’s the equivalent of one person in every nine.

In a world abundant with food, the level of malnutrition is unacceptably high. A third of reproductiveage women are anemic and each year, around 20 million babies are born underweight. Although significant steps have been taken, urgent action is required to end malnutrition.

Oxfam Hunger Banquets give individuals the opportunity to make a difference, both locally and globally.

The interactive events bring to life the inequalities in our world and help increase Oxfam’s ability to respond to global crises, highlight issues of injustice, and challenge policies and social practices that keep people trapped in poverty.

And now, for the first time ever, Oxfam’s Hunger Banquet event is coming to Vancouver. Taking place on Tuesday, June 4 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Terminal City Club (837 West Hastings Street), guests are invited to Oxfam Canada’s biggest event of the year.

“It’s such a unique concept and I think that’s what draws people to it,” says Attiya Hirji, Hunger Banquet Champion at Oxfam Canada. “It’s an interactive, experiential event, which encourages individuals to step into the shoes of somebody who faces hunger and poverty.”

When guests arrive they draw tickets at random that assign them to a high-, middle-, or low-income

Hunger Banquet Champion Attiya Hirji says that everyone can help end global hunger. Photo by Adiba Shehraj/Oxfam Canada

group based on world statistics on poverty. The luck of the draw determines each person’s experience during the evening, beginning with where the person will sit and what meal they’re served.

“It puts a face and a story to the issue, by giving character cards to all the attendees that includes their name, their background story, and their home country,” explains Hirji.

“It will give Canadians in attendance the ability to really connect with an individual living half way across the

world, and see poverty and privilege in a whole new light.”

A very small percentage of people will be seated in the high-income group, but those who do will be served a delicious catered meal with wine.

The majority, however, will sit on the floor to eat a bowl of rice with a glass of water. And through eye-opening narration, the evening will be an immersive and life-changing experience.

Over the past four decades, more than 900,000 people have attended Oxfam Hunger Banquets across

North America, many of which have been organized at local levels by volunteers. Tickets for the Vancouver event are $55 and can be purchased via the website at www.oxfam.ca/ hungerbanquet/. Although you will experience what it’s like to be hungry, don’t worry if you have a big appetite. Oxfam and the Terminal City Club will not let you actually leave hungry. Proceeds from every ticket sale go toward Oxfam’s work fighting hunger and poverty around the world.

“We feel that there’s definitely an interest among Canadians to have an impact overseas and they are seeking out a tangible way to get involved and make a difference,” Hirji says.

“This event offers exactly that.”

Although few participants will complete the Hunger Banquet with full stomachs, all will leave filled with a greater understanding of the problems of global hunger and poverty—and with the motivation to do something about it.

“It’s about being able to come together and inspire and encourage Canadians to be a part of life-saving work,” Hirji says. “The Hunger Banquet gives people the opportunity to have a big impact even from right at home in Canada.”

In addition to raising awareness and funds, these events bring together people from diverse backgrounds to engage in important dialogue about very human issues.

Oxfam encourages attendees to host their own Hunger Banquets.

After all, as global citizens we have a shared responsibility to take care of one another. And events like the Hunger Banquet give people from all walks of life the chance to join a powerful movement, and even create a movement themselves.

“Past participants talk about feeling moved and connected to a cause bigger than themselves after leaving a Hunger Banquet,” Hirji says. “Being confronted with the reality and the severity of the issue really puts things into perspective, but also persuades Canadians to join us in tackling poverty and injustice.” g Oxfam Canada’s Hunger Banquet takes place on Tuesday (June 4) from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Terminal City Club (837 West Hastings Street). For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the website at www.oxfam.ca/hungerbanquet/.

MAY 23 – 30 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 7

BOOKS

Pauly diagnoses decline in world’s fish

U

by Charlie Smith

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BC marine biologist Daniel Pauly was the lead author on a scientific paper in 2016 that caught scientists’ attention around the world. Published in the journal Nature Communications, he and coauthor Dirk Zeller prepared a shocking “atlas” of global fisheries. It demonstrated how countries’ annual catch vastly exceeded the amounts they were reporting to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

The FAO numbers suggested that the global catch reached 96 million tonnes in 1996. Pauly and Zeller, through a process called “catch reconstruction”, concluded that “the catch actually peaked at 130 million tonnes, and has been declining much more strongly since.”

In a recent phone interview with the Straight, Pauly explained that nontargeted fish that are caught and then discarded back into the sea as bycatch are not counted in official statistics. Nor are the sport fishery, subsistence fishery, and fish captured within six kilometres of the U.S. coast, because that’s usually under state jurisdiction.

“There are millions of tonnes that are already eliminated [from official statistics] there,” Pauly said.

Then there’s poaching, which he said is impossible to estimate accurately. But that’s not all that’s missed.

Fish brought into places where there are no enumerators counting them are also missing from official statistics.

“What does the government do when it doesn’t know something?” he asked. “It reports that it is not there.

Or it reports ‘n/a’, not available. In the database, what does n/a translate into? Zero.”

Pauly points out in his new book, Vanishing Fish: Shifting Baselines

Marine biologist Daniel Pauly’s new book delves into fisheries fiascos. Photo by UBC

and the Future of Global Fisheries, that this has led to an ecological crisis of monumental proportions.

Canada is not immune. In fact, he said that fisheries scientists played a significant role in the disappearance of northern cod off Newfoundland and Labrador in the early 1990s.

“The fishing by foreign fleets was reported,” Pauly noted, “but it was not reported in Canada.”

Fishing boats from Spain, Poland, Germany, and other countries were catching large numbers of cod, but these fish were not being linked to Canada in the statistics.

Another problem, according to Pauly, was the development of trawlers that could catch fish at much deeper levels. For five centuries, North Atlantic cod were being taken at levels no lower than 100 metres below the surface. But these fish lived at depths of up to 500 metres.

“So the fish that were caught were the ones that committed suicide by going to shallow water,” Pauly quipped.

But as modern boats could capture fish more than a kilometre under the surface, the “bank of fish” was rapidly depleted. And government scientists underestimated

the scale of the problem.

“It was like a rush,” Pauly said.

“And this happened with Canada having no control over the fishery.”

Vanishing Fish is made up of a series of essays telling Pauly’s colourful life story as a student and scientist in Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, Peru, and Canada. In one part of the book, he describes a trip that he and his wife took to the Broughton Archipelago near the northern tip of Vancouver Island to visit fishfarm critic and fisheries researcher Alexandra Morton.

Morton took Pauly on her small boat to collect samples of smolts in the vicinity of local aquaculture operations.

“We got about 100 little fish—salmon, herring, and so on,” Pauly recalled. “They were all fingerlong, all of them, and all of them had lice.”

He added that if these fish were the same size as him, the lice would be the size of a dinner plate on his chest.

Later, Pauly was shocked to hear the head of research with the federal fisheries department claim that Morton was “spiking the salmon” with lice.

“It was totally denied,” Pauly said with a tone of incredulity. g

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MAY 23 – 30 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 9

HOUSING

Two-bedroom rents approach $3,000 d THE AVERAGE rent for a vacant one-bedroom apartment in Toronto is $2,242 this month, compared to $1,828 in Vancouver, according to numbers for May 2019 collected by Rentals.ca.

For two-bedroom apartments, though, Vancouver is still the most expensive market in Canada.

The average rent for a vacant twobedroom apartment in Vancouver is $2,915 a month, compared to $2,731 in Toronto.

Rentals.ca’s numbers are based on listings for vacant or soon-to-bevacant rental properties posted on its website. They therefore exclude rents paid by current tenants.

PadMapper is another rentallistings website that tabulates rental data by looking at asking prices for vacant units. For May 2019, it also has Toronto outpricing Vancouver for one-bedroom apartments.

According to PadMapper, a onebedroom in Toronto is going for $2,250 this month, compared to $2,130 in Vancouver.

But, again, for two-bedroom units Vancouver tops the list of most expensive rental markets in Canada.

The average asking price for a two-

bedroom in Vancouver stands at $3,090, compared to $2,850 in Toronto, according to PadMapper.

In recent months, purchase prices for houses and condos in Vancouver have finally begun to fall after years of only moving up. However, as the Straight reported earlier this year, for many residents the declines have yet to equate to affordability.

by Travis Lupick

d A VANCOUVER hospice has expressed grave concerns about a proposed Shaughnessy townhouse development. The nonprofit operator is warning that the residential project next door imperils the survival of its hospice.

In a letter to city council, the Vancouver Hospice Society (VHS) warned that the “adverse effects” of the development may lead to the closure of the end-of-life-care facility.

“This rezoning application seriously threatens the continuing operation of our highly respected and essential healthcare facility in Vancouver,” VHS board chair Stephen Roberts wrote.

The application seeks to rezone

a single-family-dwelling property at 4575 Granville Street to allow the development of two 3.5-storey townhouse buildings with 21 units.

A city staff report to council stated that the project’s design responds to “privacy and overlook issues” raised by the hospice. However, VHS chair Roberts told council that the project’s “direct proximity to the hospice” could be fatal to the institution.

“The potential closure of the hospice will have a devastating effect on this essential community health service where 150 Vancouver residents from all socioeconomic backgrounds live and die each year,” Roberts wrote. “This loss will also affect hundreds of families who receive bereavement support through our organization.”

The rezoning application was referred on May 14, 2019, by council to a future public hearing, as recommended by city staff. In his letter, Roberts asked council to withdraw the item from its agenda on that day.

Councillors Rebecca Bligh and Sarah Kirby-Yung voted against the referral.

by Carlito Pablo

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feature

Local trailblazers transform society

P

ioneers. Innovators. Trailblazers. These are the people who drive change and shake up our city. And there’s no shortage of them in Vancouver. This week, we decided to highlight 19 of them. These aren’t the most famous people in the city, but their original perspectives, combined with a great deal of determination, are helping to shape our society in a multitude of ways.

university”, she is keenly interested in research that makes a difference to society. And she’s proud of SFU having the fastest-growing research income of any university in Canada.

“I think we really are coming into our own, not just as a top comprehensive university but as a top research university in this country,” Johnson said.

LGBT

UBC department of history

by Charlie Smith

HENRY YU

MORGANE OGER Trans activist

d TALK ABOUT trial by fire. When Morgane Oger came out as trans in 2013, a website published private information about her online. It was a transformative experience.

“I got to go through all of my shame all at once,” Oger explains, saying that as she “ran out of…vulnerability”, she grew stronger. And how. Oger, who was born in Rennes, France, has become one of B.C.’s most accomplished trans activists.

Oger is a mother, a tech consultant, a founding member of the Law Union of B.C., and the vice-president of the B.C. NDP, has run for public office twice, and recently won a major victory at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. Among her accolades: she was chosen to be a Vancouver Pride parade grand marshal in 2016; she won the 2016 Vancouver Pride Legacy Awards trans-activist prize; and she received Canada’s Meritorious Service Medal in 2018. Furthermore, she launched the volunteer-driven Morgane Oger Foundation in February 2019 to tackle prejudice-based inequities.

Never one to rest, Oger chatted with the Georgia Straight on her way to Ottawa to testify for a federal study about online hatred. The nature of hatred is something Oger has become well acquainted with. Early on, she didn’t believe it was simple to create “an angry mob”, but she has since discovered how people use “misinformation and disinformation to cause hatred” and “to demonize and pathologize” people and incite fear simply “by twisting the truth just a little bit”.

But she has also learned effective ways to counter that.

“It’s easiest to hate someone if there’s danger, and so what works is outreach and conversation,” she said.

She emphasizes the importance of getting into communities and having “honest, vulnerable conversations”.

Although she recognizes everyone has a right to their own feelings, she differentiates that from how a person chooses to behave.

“There’s a vast difference between a right to feel and a right to be and a right to act,” she explained. “My work has been centred on the fact that everybody has a right as long as they do no harm to others.”

While Oger credited her strong support system with helping her persevere, she said what is also effective is being able to see the bigger picture.

“I moved around a lot and I’ve seen a lot of the world, and that helps me because I can put things in perspective.”

by Craig Takeuchi

JODY JOLLIMORE

Community-Based Research Centre executive director

d AFTER HE LEFT rural Nova Scotia, it was Montreal’s gay village that Jody Jollimore credits with raising him with survival skills that are the reason he’s alive today. And because of that, he always wants to give back.

Jollimore, who has lived in Vancouver for more than a decade,

Clockwise from left: Activist Morgane Oger battles discrimination targeting the trans community (photo by Belle Ancell); Joy Johnson ramps up research on SFU campuses; UBC professor Henry Yu educates students about racism in B.C. history.

has worked for Vancouver Coastal Health and the local Health Initiative for Men, and—due to a lifelong interest in politics—on public policies from sex-worker rights and student loans to same-sex marriage.

Now the executive director of the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC), a Vancouver organization that expanded nationally in 2018, he’s helping, along with his colleagues, to champion advancements in Canadian queer male health.

He explained by phone that CBRC focuses on four pillars. First, there’s research, particularly with their signature Sex Now Survey, the country’s largest study of men who have sex with men (MSM). There’s also knowledge exchange, namely the annual Gay Men’s Health Summit, which will celebrate its 15th anniversary. The organization’s other two main facets are intervention development—with programs like Totally Outright for youth (which Jollimore implemented and led), Investigaytors for emerging researchers, and Pivot for adult health advocacy training—and building health networks. Jollimore added that CBRC is also working with the parliamentary health committee on Canada’s first LGBT2Q health study, and they’re developing a queer health list for federal political parties.

Yet despite LGBT progress in Canada, Jollimore still believes that “stigma is killing us.” He said that people think that because of “immense advances in political and human rights”, LGBT people are “fine”.

But he pointed out that they haven’t seen equivalent results in health outcomes. Although he’s aware that it may take time for LGBT health to catch up, he and CBRC aren’t resting on their laurels waiting for that to happen.

“It’s becoming clearer and clearer that that’s the new human-rights work we need to do,” he said.

by Craig Takeuchi

AMIN GHAZIANI

UBC professor and author

d WHILE LIVING in Chicago’s LGBT district, Boystown, Amin Ghaziani was holding hands with another man when he noticed a straight couple uncomfortably staring at them. It happened amid increasing numbers of straight people moving into the neighbourhood, leaving him feeling “a little distressed by the changing cultural tone of its streets”, he said by phone.

To understand what was happening, Ghaziani (who was born in Karachi,

There’s a vast difference between a right to feel and a right to be and a right to act.

– Morgane Oger

Pakistan, but moved with his family to Chicago) focused his postdoctoral research at Princeton University on queer urban spaces, which, he said, “offered a potential for some catharsis and personal therapy in light of the deep emotional reaction and response that I was having in those years”.

His subject matter resonated internationally. His resultant 2014 book, There Goes the Gayborhood?, garnered widespread media coverage. In fact, he said, conducting more than 100 media interviews in seven countries became a “part-time job” for him, and he continues to give interviews on the subject. Although he was “not expecting it to be picked up that widely”, he had intentionally written the book with language accessible for nonacademic audiences—something particularly important to him.

However, he is aware that it “sometimes sits uncomfortably with straight people”, and he has faced pushback in response to what his book points out.

“Liberal-minded straight people who will tell you that they support gay rights in theory and believe in the common humanity of gay people will nonetheless interact with them in ways that perpetuate discrimination,” he explained.

He pointed out that the discomfort of acknowledging such behaviour is a sign of “growing pains” that can lead to positive changes.

His work, he emphasized, is to raise awareness of the value of gaybourhoods amid desegregation so that people “can proceed from a position that is better informed”.

Now a UBC associate professor of sociology, Ghaziani has contributed to urban-planning discussions about the Davie Village’s Jim Deva Plaza and is working on a forthcoming article on queer pop-up events in

Vancouver. Undoubtedly, his work will continue to enlighten and help inform academic and nonacademic audiences, as he is clearly passionate about educating everyone.

“Elevating consciousness and advancing knowledge is my religion,” he said.

by Craig Takeuchi

EDUCATION JOY JOHNSON

SFU vice president, research and international

d ONCE UPON a time in Canada, almost all medical research did not consider differences in sex and gender.

“I think people were sex- and gender-blind,” Joy Johnson, SFU’s vice president, research and international, told the Straight by phone.

“We had people studying cardiovascular disease and assuming it was a men’s disease—and not thinking about women’s particular issues.”

She pointed out that the first crash-test dummies did not consider the different body sizes of women.

That left a gap in the understanding of injuries that women, including those who were pregnant, might sustain in motor-vehicle crashes.

The gender blindness also applied to pharmaceutical research. Drugs were tested on male animal models.

According to Johnson, this elevated the risk that researchers wouldn’t be aware of how women might respond to medications.

“We’ve seen a number of drugs pulled because adverse side effects weren’t found in the initial work,” she said.

That gender-blind approach largely came to an end during Johnson’s term as scientific director for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Gender and Health from 2008 to 2014. She and her colleagues persuaded CIHR to ensure that anyone applying for federal health-research funding would have to indicate if they were considering sex and gender.

“That was a big game changer,” Johnson said. “Once you have those kinds of requirements, it makes people think differently about their work and it really raises people’s consciousness.”

SFU recently reappointed Johnson for another five-year term. Her job entails leading universitywide research initiatives and supporting researchers in eight faculties.

She emphasized that as part of SFU’s mandate to be an “engaged

d HENRY YU doesn’t like to toot his own horn, but he’s done a lot for Chinese Canadians and other minority communities in Metro Vancouver and beyond during the past 15 years.

The associate professor of history at UBC, principal of St. John’s College, and director of the Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies, among many other titles, has been a champion of educating the public on the history and issues related to Asian migration and discrimination in Canada.

Yu has served on many committees that have been historically groundbreaking and transformative.

He contributed to the draft text in the final report outlining the historical context for B.C.’s official apology for the province’s long history of anti-Chinese legislation, and he helped 76 Japanese-Canadian UBC students who were removed from the West Coast in 1942 receive honorary degrees from the university. His research and expertise on ChineseCanadian history have also led him to become a consultant to help build a Chinese-Canadian museum, with hubs in different Chinatowns around the province.

“It feels like sometimes I don’t have enough hours in the day, but the rewarding part is that you’re part of a lot of different things that people care about,” Yu told the Straight in a phone interview.

Although he held a comfortable position teaching Asian-American history at UCLA for 12 years, Yu felt compelled to return to his alma mater in 2003 to build an institutional structure for students to discover and engage in complex stories about their own heritage. He’s known to offer history courses that are unconventional: no textbooks are required and there are no written exams. Instead, students work on multimedia projects inside and outside of classrooms, which emphasizes Yu’s commitment to innovative teaching methods.

He’s made it his mission to spotlight issues of race, immigration, and discrimination for the past 15 or so years because it hits close to home for him.

“Now I have four young kids.

I think it’s even more motivating in that sense of working on them growing up in a society that is inclusive and just,” Yu said.

by Tammy Kwan

ANNE YU

Founder, Pythagoras Academy

d WHEN ANNE Yu immigrated to Canada from Shanghai as a 17-yearold, she spoke very little English.

In an interview with the Straight at the Pythagoras Academy—an independent school she founded in Richmond—she revealed that her first job was as a cashier at a gas bar on Marine Drive, followed by another cashiering position at Church’s Chicken.

“My language was bad and I didn’t know the culture,” Yu recalled. “I tried very hard and struggled to fit in.”

She said that she didn’t enjoy see next page

MAY 23 – 30 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 13

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attending school in China, where there’s a strong emphasis on rote learning. It was only when she studied interior design at Kwantlen University College (now Kwantlen Polytechnic University) that she discovered how much she enjoyed school. That was because she could pursue her artistic passions there.

Almost two decades later, after she had twins, Yu and her husband, Winfred Liu, decided that they wanted to create a nonreligious school that would ignite a lifelong passion for education in their children. The Pythagoras Academy began as a juniorkindergarten program in January 2013 before growing to include grades 1, 2, and 3 the following September.

Since then, it’s expanded to more than 220 students up to Grade 7. Liu, a retired engineer, is overseeing plans for a new 220,000-square-foot school in 2022 that will accommodate students up to Grade 12.

“I told my husband when we first

Within 10 years we’ll be starting to build AI systems that exhibit humanlike effects.

– Suzanne Gildert

Anne Yu has created a school to advance cross-curricular learning; Corey Payette puts Indigenous theatre in the spotlight.

began that even if we fail, it’s going to be a good lesson for our children,” she said. “Because they will see if you have a dream, you’ve got to pursue it.”

Yu has been inspired by how learning occurred in the Renaissance, which gave birth to modern western civilization. In that era, math, sciences, and art were integrated rather

than being broken up into different silos—and arts were at the forefront.

“I wanted to bring that into our school,” she said.

Yu, principal Michael Bouchard, and the teaching staff have embraced the concept of cross-curricular learning, which means several subjects are integrated in a single class. To illustrate

her point, Yu held up a napkin, noting that it can be the basis for a lesson that incorporates literacy, math, science, history, and the arts.

“By doing cross-cultural learning, that definitely helps develop curiosity,” Yu said.

by Charlie Smith

HEALTH BYRON CRUZ

Founder, Sanctuary Health

d BYRON CRUZ often receives the sort of phone call that requires a steady hand.

“My number works as a 911 number for undocumented people,” he told the Straight in 2015. “We never announced our services, but my number has been given to people as the number they can call. That is very scary. 911 is for emergencies.”

As the founder of Sanctuary Health, Cruz helps undocumented immigrants living in Metro Vancouver connect with health-care services that they can access without fear of deportation.

Established as a grassroots group of community activists in 2011, the work has left Cruz with no shortage of harrowing stories.

One of the most common questions he receives is where pregnant women should go to deliver their babies. Agricultural workers are another group who often call for help. Once Cruz referred an injured construction worker to a veterinarian who was willing to provide the man with stitches.

In 2016, undocumented immigrants’ access to health care improved considerably across Metro Vancouver, thanks in large part to Cruz and Sanctuary Health.

Using freedom-of-information legislation, the organization obtained statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) that detailed the scale of this problem. They learned that during about the preceding two years, the Fraser Health Authority’s 12 hospitals throughout the Lower Mainland had referred approximately 500 patients to CBSA, resulting in an unknown number of deportations.

Cruz took that information to Fraser Health and other health authorities that operate in B.C. and requested they implement “access without fear” policies that would prohibit staff from referring undocumented patients to immigration authorities. To his surprise, they agreed. In May 2019, the Straight reported that updated CBSA statistics show the referrals have indeed ceased.

Interviewed recently, Cruz said his old mobile number still receives a lot of calls from undocumented families who don’t know where to turn for health care. But these days he seldom has to send anyone to a veterinarian.

This summer enjoy the Skyride Surf Adventure®, Mountain Ropes Adventure™, Grizzly bears, Birds in Motion Demonstrations, lumberjacks and more!

The best of BC awaits at Grouse Mountain.

grousemountain.com 14 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MAY 23 – 30 / 2019

by Travis Lupick

DR. CHRISTY SUTHERLAND

Staff physician, PHS Community Services Society

d THE WINTER of 2016 was a scary time in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Overdoses were occurring at a frightening pace. Dr. Christy Sutherland’s patients were especially at risk. As a staff physician for the nonprofit Portland Hotel Society (PHS), she provides care for an especially vulnerable group. Many struggle with both mental-health and addiction issues. And with the dangerous synthetic opioid fentanyl replacing heroin, using street drugs was more

dangerous than ever before.

If her patients were going to use drugs no matter what—if many were simply not ready to try for abstinence—how, Sutherland asked herself, could she minimize their risks?

Down the street from Sutherland’s office on East Hastings Street, a clinic called Crosstown had recently concluded an experiment determining that a prescription painkiller called hydromorphone could be used to treat a severe addiction to heroin. One of the researchers suggested to Sutherland that she could offer the treatment to her patients, outside the confines of Crosstown’s academic trial.

In September 2016, that’s what Sutherland did. It began with just one patient, but before long the benefits were evident. Twice a day, Sutherland or one of her nurses supplied their patient with injection hydromorphone.

And within a couple of months, the patient stopped using street drugs, reconnected with family, then secured a part-time job. “We’ve got to expand this,” Sutherland told her team.

As of April 2019, there were 115 patients in the Downtown Eastside enrolled in PHS’s injection-hydromorphone opioid-substitution program. Another 54 receive an oral form of the drug. Sutherland’s staff have not lost one patient to an overdose. In fact, they’ve never once even had to respond to an overdose.

“No overdoses,” Sutherland affirmed. “You can see the burden lift off them.”

by Travis Lupick

TECHNOLOGY SUZANNE GILDERT CEO, Sanctuary AI

d SCIENTIST SUZANNE Gildert’s dream is to create robots that are indistinguishable from humans. She’s already taken the first steps towards achieving it.

After completing her PhD in quantum physics, Gildert took a job at Burnaby’s D-Wave Systems, one of the world’s premier quantum-computing companies. Much of her work was in machine learning and AI—a field that spurred her long-standing fascination with untangling the mysteries of the human mind.

Four years later, Gildert—who had spent much of her free time building her own robots—decided to try something previously relegated to the pages of science fiction. The result was Kindred.

“I founded the company with the idea that we were going to explore humanlike intelligence in a machine,” Gildert told the Straight, on the line from her Vancouver lab.

“We wanted to put intelligence into robots in the same way that we think about humans having intelligence— so being able to make smart decisions, and learn from experience.”

The venture was a huge success.

Gildert hand-built over 30 robots to demonstrate how it was possible for humans to first control the machines remotely and then watch as they learned to do tasks themselves, including complex assignments like choosing and sorting items in a warehouse. The company grew to over 50 employees and had offices in Vancouver, Toronto, and San Mateo, and boasted $50 million in venture funding. But for Gildert, it wasn’t enough.

Realizing that the robots she had built deviated from her vision of see next page

creating true human intelligence, she started her second company, Sanctuary, in January 2018 to build machines that are akin to people in every way—a goal she believes will become achievable over coming decades.

“This time it’s not just figuring out how we can put humanlike intelligence in robots, but actually building the robots to look like humans, too,” she said. “We decided that if we’re going to try and build a robot and it looks nothing like a human, it’s always going to end up doing a specific task that isn’t a human-intelligence-level task. So we have to do this properly.

“I’m of the opinion that within 10 years we’ll be starting to build AI systems that begin to exhibit these humanlike effects,” she continued. “I don’t think they’ll be these full Westworld-like robots, but we’ll start to see little sparks fly. They’ll begin to do things that we didn’t program in, and just decide to do them on their own.”

by Kate Wilson

CHRIS JENSEN

CEO, Left.io and COO, RightMesh

d MORE THAN TWO-and-a-half billion people in the world today don’t have access to the Internet on a reliable basis, according to the International Telecommunications Union. That’s a big problem. As information is increasingly published online, certain populations are excluded from learning about health care, jobs, and breaking news, deepening the digital divide.

A number of companies are racing to connect the next billion people. Google, Virgin, Space X, and Facebook are all attempting to solve the issue by launching huge satellites into the sky, with the goal of building a new consumer base that will boost their businesses.

Local tech trailblazer Chris Jensen and his team at Left.io, however, have come up with a better solution.

Instead of requiring everybody to connect to the Internet via satellite, phone tower, or WiFi router, the company’s RightMesh technology allows individuals to get onto the Internet by linking to each other’s cellphones. Each phone forms a connection point in a giant mesh, allowing information—and Internet access— to be passed between people, as long as someone in the mesh is online.

“Instead of everyone being connected to the Internet, it’s just that everyone is connected, and you can use the Internet when you need to,” Jensen, who cofounded Left.io and serves as its CEO, told the Straight.

The U.K.–born entrepreneur suggested that RightMesh isn’t focused on earning huge profits. Founder of several previous startups, Jensen ensured that Left.io is a certified B Corp—a business that must fulfill strict social and environmental requirements—and described his goal as creating something of lasting value that makes a mark on the world. Already transforming the way people communicate in Rigolet, a remote coastal community in Labrador, RightMesh’s technology lets local people build the apps and share

the information that they choose, making sure that societies are using the service in the best way for them.

“We get almost all of our information in the West from touching things on the Internet,” Jensen said.

“If you’re in a rural village in sub-Saharan Africa, you can’t do that. There was a PWC survey that said that if you can connect the next billion people, you’ll give them the tools to raise 100 million people out of poverty. That’s what we’re aiming for.”

T H I S M O N T H AT

by Kate Wilson

INDIGENOUS COREY PAYETTE

Indigenous theatre artist

d WHEN COREY PAYETTE set out in 2010 to write an ambitious musical called Children of God, he was driven by the fact that nothing like it had existed before.

Residential schools were rarely talked about in the classroom, in the community, or even in his own mixed Oji-Cree and French-Canadian family, let alone on stages. So when his song-filled story of one family’s experience debuted at the Cultch in 2017, it broke new ground.

Why use the musical form for such a dark subject? “How I understand musicals to work best is they

There is more Indigenous work… more voices, more perspectives coming out.

3 RD FLOOR

THURSDAY 8:00PM – 12:00AM FRIDAY & SATURDAY 9:00PM – 1:00AM

DUELING PIANOS MAY 25, 30, 31

– Corey Payette

express emotions that are beyond words, so when characters can no longer speak, they sing,” he said when the work premiered.

Children of God has gone on to tour the country, as the writer, director, composer, and lyricist has watched the awakening of a country to reconciliation.

In the ensuing time, he’s also cowritten a critically acclaimed followup, Les Filles du Roi, with Julie McIsaac, about the relationship between French settlers and Mohawks. And in December at Caravan Farm Theatre, he debuted Sedna, created with Reneltta Arluk and Marshall McMahen, about a pipeline on Indigenous Arctic land.

Meanwhile, Payette is steering his Vancouver company, Urban Ink Productions, and helped found Raven Theatre—both focused on boosting Indigenous theatre.

“There is more Indigenous work happening, more voices, more perspectives coming out,” he told the Straight earlier this year during the

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39 SMITHE STREET VANCOUVER, BC V6B 0R3

TEL 604.683.7277 PARQVANCOUVER.COM

see next page

MAY 23 – 30 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 15

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Talking Stick Festival. “The biggest thing that inspires me about the cast for Children of God is these are our next leaders. I know in 10 or 15 years they will take up roles in artistic leadership and they’ll be the game changers.”

This fall, Payette takes on another trailblazing project: kicking off the Cultch’s 2019-20 season by curating a new multidisciplinary festival with executive director Heather Redfern.

The Raven Transforming Cabaret Festival happens from October 2 to 12 and will span dance, music, comedy, burlesque, and theatre, with Indigenous, local, and international work.

by Janet Smith

PATRICK STEWART Architect

d ARCHITECTURE ISN’T JUST about building design for Patrick Stewart. It’s also a form of resistance for the Nisga’a man and B.C.’s first licensed Indigenous architect.

“Our culture was violently taken away. I like to put those back on the street,” Stewart told the Straight by phone.

Stewart does projects not only with an eye to reclaiming what was lost during the colonization of First Nations in Canada. He also does them with an in-your-face flourish to show that Indigenous culture has survived.

“On the West Coast, villages were burned. Totem poles were sawed down and floated away,” Stewart said.

His works include the Dave Pranteau Aboriginal Children’s Village at Nanaimo Street and South Grandview Highway in Vancouver. With its four totem poles, timber posts, stone sidings, and red and yellow paint, the foster home’s three-storey building is a striking reflection of the culture of kids and families.

Born in Vancouver, Stewart was raised by different foster families across the province.

By his count, there are only 16 Indigenous architects in the country, which he considers a legacy of colonialism. Up until 1961, Indigenous people had to give up their identity under the Indian Act if they wanted to enter university and the professions.

He related that an uncle told him that when Aboriginal communities began sending their youths to schools for the professions, they wanted to have lawyers first because “we’re fighting the government on the land question.” Indigenous teachers came next. Social workers followed. Then health professionals were sought.

“He said, ‘Don’t worry, architecture will come, but it’s just going to come in its own time,’ ” Stewart said.

Stewart is a former president of the Architectural Institute of

Patrick Stewart is B.C.’s first Indigenous architect; Dori Dempster advocates tirelessly for medicinal cannabis patients (photo by Piper Courtenay); Entrepreneurs Tamu and Zia Stolbie lift up women in the cannabis sector. Photo by Rox C. Rolla

B.C., the first Indigenous person to become the head of a Canadian architectural association.

by Carlito Pablo

CANNABIS DORI DEMPSTER

Medicinal-cannabis proponent

d DORI DEMPSTER heads one of the last bastions of fair access to cannabis in Vancouver.

As the executive director of the Medical Cannabis Dispensary, she is responsible for managing two of the city’s longest-standing and leading pot shops.

In 2008, after several years as both a medical consumer and mail-order clerk at Dana Larsen’s Vancouver Seed Bank, she was asked by the activist to join his new dispensary.

“When Dana asked, it was a big ‘Yes,’ because as a patient I knew there were needs not being met by the existing clubs and I wanted to help fill some of those gaps and pull back the curtains to normalize this plant,” she told the Straight. She has since spent the past 11 years providing frontline access to the city’s community of medical- and recreational-cannabis consumers.

Currently, only three shops are licensed by the municipality to provide cannabis in Vancouver, where once a web of more than 100 dispensaries operated with a patchwork of licences.

Due to new promotional restrictions, these few legal stores are limited in the products they can provide and cannot issue any information on the plant’s effects or dosing. A few unlicensed stores, including Dempster’s, have stayed open to meet the needs of consumers and patients looking for information, education, and support.

“It just seems unreal to me that they’re shutting down medicinalcannabis dispensaries simply because they’ve put in a bad set of bylaws that they now feel they need to adhere to. And people are being harmed,” she said.

They’re using drugs because they’re just trying to get through another night.

– Neil Magnuson

If the City of Vancouver had its way, her shop would be boarded up too. While talking to a Straight reporter last year, Dempster dropped a binder brimming with citations onto her desk with a heavy thunk. It contained notices of tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of fines, as well as a recent order from a B.C. Supreme Court judge mandating that all illicit stores close—including those providing medical services.

Dempster said her stores now see in excess of 400 customers a day each, where they once serviced an average of 100. Despite the risk, she intends to stay open.

“What keeps me going is the fear of going backwards and the fear of people hurting and dying,” she said with determination. “I am more afraid of closing my doors, and people dying as a result, than I am of facing a judge or the consequences for doing the right thing.”

by Piper Courtenay

NEIL MAGNUSON

Cannabis substitution advocate

d LONG LINES FORM down the block outside of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) premises on East Hastings Street.

Many wait patiently for the organization to open its doors and start doling out free cannabis edibles, topicals, and joints. Neil Magnuson says his

harm-reduction program, located in the heart of the Downtown Eastside, sees between 160 and 180 of the city’s dejected at each event—all desperate for relief from various medical conditions and drug addiction.

As Vancouver continues to grapple with an overdose crisis, antiprohibitionists like Magnuson aren’t waiting for the City of Vancouver to take action. He’s taking matters into his own hands.

“Most people aren’t trying to harm themselves with drugs; they don’t want to be living behind a Dumpster, putting a needle in their arm. They have a lot of pain in their life, a lot of disassociation and disconnection from community,” he told the Straight. “They’re using drugs because they’re just trying to get through another night. And prohibitive drug laws are keeping them there.”

A carpenter by trade, Magnuson spent years repairing stairs, doors, and structural damage in homes for insurance companies, which brought him to doing work for the Herb School in 2004. While helping build the grassroots collective—a since-closed activist-run hub for cannabis education—he began perusing some of its educational material. He says it was the combined knowledge gleaned from reading Jack Herer’s The Emperor Wears No Clothes and conversations with fellow cannabis activist David Malmo-Levine that led him to start championing the global legalization movement.

Hoping to spread knowledge of drug-war harms, he launched the Freedom Tour in 2006. For three years, Magnuson traversed some 5,000 kilometres across Canada on in-line skates, armed with a 12-page document outlining the inherent flaws of cannabis prohibition. Along the way, he visited as many communities as possible, liaising with locals, police officers, mayors, and city councillors to dispel myths and disseminate information calling for fair medical access to cannabis—once

even placing his material directly in the hands of then prime minister Stephen Harper.

When he saw the overdose epidemic rear its head in his back yard, however, he realized information alone was not enough.

“Because of my experience with the Herb School, I knew cannabis edibles help people get off of hard drugs. When this crisis hit, and I was getting no response to my calls for action from city hall, I came here [VANDU],” he said.

“I started finding any way to get these people edibles and give them as much as they needed to get them clean.”

He now runs a weekly cannabis substitution program, heading a team of volunteers in handing out donation-based care packages to Vancouver’s homeless and drugaddicted population.

by Piper Courtenay

TAMU AND ZIA STOLBIE Cannabis entrepreneurs

d THE STOLBIE SISTERS are a force to be reckoned with. The cannabis-industry entrepreneurs began working together at a very early age, doing odd jobs around their parents’ Calgary hair salon, and just never stopped. Since then, the powerhouse duo has launched a clothing line, an event-production company, and a creative agency—all centred on a newly legalized plant.

“For years, we had all of these different pieces in place, with various jobs and industries, but they all started to fold into one when the missing link came in,” Tamu told the Straight.

“And it was cannabis,” Zia added.

Both sisters toyed around with endeavours in film, tech, and event production: acting, organizing Vancouver’s Me to We events, and doing hair and makeup for the stars.

But when they realized the lack of diversity across various professional landscapes, the two were inspired to change the trajectory for Canada’s budding legal cannabis industry.

Their venture into the weeds started three years ago when they founded the Coven Club, a nonprofit organization and podcast, with their long-time friend Sarah Leamon, a criminal-defence lawyer specializing in cannabis.

“Our organization focuses on lifting up women in heavily male-dominated industries,” Tamu said. “We realized early on that cannabis was going to be such an important area for women in business and there was an opportunity to avoid the mistakes we saw in the film and tech industries around a lack of diversity.”

Each of the Stolbies’ ventures maintains sustainability, busting archaic stigmas, with gender

see page 18

D s r a y o i n Se , MAY 30 T HU•R1:S00D-AY 3:00pm •

Tell us about the hidden gems of Chinatown We need your help to identify the unique places, experiences and values that make Chinatown special, even the hidden gems that are not visible or well known. Join the Chinatown Transformation Team at our launch event or drop by to talk to us during our community office hours.

Your input will help contribute towards the longterm plan for Chinatown. You can also join the community working groups that will be formed, and help us build up these valuable hidden gems.

LAUNCH EVENT: Saturday, June 1, 2019, 2 – 5 pm Chinese Cultural Centre Courtyard, 50 East Pender Street

• Entertainment • Tea, Coffee & Cookies

•

BINGO!

co-sponsored with Cavell Gardens

COMMUNITY OFFICE HOURS: Monday, June 3 to Friday, June 7 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: 11 am – 4 pm Tuesday: 2 – 7 pm Chinatown House 188 East Pender Street

Corner of

For more information visit: vancouver.ca/chinatown 16 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MAY 23 – 30 / 2019

East Broadway & Kingsway

W W W. K I N G S G AT E M A L L .C O M

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MAY 23 – 30 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 17

situation, nor do they appreciate the power of youth. That was on display again on May 21 when she and others held a protest at the Canada Gas & LNG Exhibition and Conference at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

The next big student climate strike in Vancouver is scheduled for September 27.

from page 16

equality at the crux.

For example, a tree is planted for every purchase made of Stolbie Brand attire, their ecofriendly, ethically and locally sourced line of pot-leaf-emblazoned kimonos and underwear.

Their High End Dinner Series—infused culinary experiences catered by Red Seal chef Adam Barski—provides educational and safe dining events for new and canna-curious consumers.

The two are now working on a new digital series called The Trailblazing Stolbie Sisters—a vlog showcasing their day-to-day lives to help reshape the public image of a cannabis entrepreneur.

For other women looking to create space inside traditionally patriarchal industries, Tamu advised that they arm themselves with persistence and patience.

“Don’t be afraid to take the risk,” Zia added. “Don’t second-guess yourself, take the chance, and surround yourself with good people.”

by Charlie Smith

KAREN TAM WU

B.C. managing director, Pembina Institute

Linh Truong calls zero waste “a journey” (photo by Angela Fama); Tobi Reyes is developing a wood-concrete tower downtown.

effort to help consumers reduce waste and live a more ecofriendly and sustainable lifestyle, and that sentiment has been echoed with the opening of similar shops around the city.

“Hopefully, it’s [zero waste] on its way to becoming just a normal thing.

by Piper Courtenay It should be the default of how we shop and live,” Truong said. “It’s becoming popularized, so it can become normalized. It shouldn’t be treated as something special that people do. It should LINH TRUONG almost be you’re on autopilot, just like The Soap Dispensary & Kitchen how people are with recycling.”

Vancouver is…a major leader and has created a hub of passive-house activity.

URBAN LIVING Staples

– Karen Tam Wu

by Tammy Kwan

d THE PRESUMPTION THAT zero-waste living is difficult and expensive still resonates with many people, but Linh Truong has been a leader in counterarguing that belief.

She is the co-owner of the Soap Dispensary & Kitchen Staples on Main Street, which is the first refill shop in the city that specializes in soaps, household cleaners, personal-care products, and cooking ingredients.

Established in 2011, the local and independent business now carries more than 800 bulk products for customers to refill—all they need to do is bring in their reusable containers or purchase one in-store. Truong makes it a point to carry biodegradable products at her shop in an effort to create as little impact as possible on human and environmental health.

She understands that adopting a zero-waste lifestyle and getting into the habit of refilling household items may be foreign for many city dwellers, but it’s important to her that she helps spread awareness of this matter.

“Zero waste is a journey. At the time, I wasn’t really even conscious of the word zero waste,” Truong told the Straight in a phone interview.

“But I did know that refilling made the most sense, and reusing my containers made the most sense. So, I was doing it out of a practicality, not under the banner of a movement.”

Her business is one of the first in Vancouver to make a conscious

TOBI REYES

CEO, PortLiving

d THERE ARE plenty of condo builders of Chinese, European, and Indian heritage in Metro Vancouver.

But there’s only one from the Philippines who’s heading a large Vancouver-based development company: Manila-born Macario (Tobi) Reyes.

He moved to Canada with his family at the age of four, growing up downtown. He studied history and psychology at Queen’s University in Ontario and ended up in the real-estate business when he and some friends bought a warehouse in the Mount Pleasant industrial area close to what later became the Olympic Village.

Reyes is a trailblazer not only because he’s a Filipino Canadian in the highly competitive downtown condo market: a company that Reyes founded, PortLiving, is developing the tallest hybrid wood-and-concrete building in North America.

Terrace House was designed by celebrated Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. The 19-storey project is under construction beside the Arthur Erickson–designed Evergreen Building in the 1200 block of West Pender Street.

“I was a big fan of Shigeru Ban,” Reyes told the Straight by phone. “In 2014, I just randomly sent him an email when we got the property under contract. And, luckily, he accepted the email and accepted the project.

He’s the one who introduced the idea of mass timber [buildings] back when no one was really doing it.”

Terrace House was going to be the world’s tallest timber building at 71 metres until it was eclipsed by an 85.4-metre wood tower in Norway.

Reyes acknowledged that it was a big risk proceeding with a 19-storey wood hybrid building in the downtown core, and he’s pleased that his company has already sold threequarters of the units. His long-term goal is to include a Vancouver community centre for Filipino Canadians in one of his buildings—something he has discussed with Mayor Kennedy Stewart and the city’s general manager of urban design, Gil Kelley.

“Initially, I was hoping for Mount Pleasant because there’s the historical connection to old Filipino communities there,” Reyes said.

by Charlie Smith

ENVIRONMENT REBECCA HAMILTON Climate strike organizer

d THIS MONTH, the carbon-dioxideequivalent concentration in the atmosphere exceeded 415 parts per million, according to measurements

taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. That exceeded anything during the past 800,000 years, setting the stage for more catastrophic hurricanes, wildfires, and floods in the years to come.

This alarms many Vancouver secondary students, who have already held four climate strikes from classes this school year to demand a stronger response from older generations. One of their leaders is Lord Byng Grade 11 student Rebecca Hamilton, who organized the first climate strike in Vancouver in December and is part of a group called Sustainabiliteens.

At a May 3 school walkout, she told the Straight that she was inspired by Swedish teenager and climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has launched the “Fridays for the future” campaign to mobilize students to hold peaceful strikes.

“Her actions really resonated with me because she was taking action with the scale and urgency required,” Hamilton said. “She was saying, ‘I’m stepping out of my daily life; we need to prioritize climate action.’ ” According to Hamilton, her parents support her enthusiasm for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, though they wish she placed a greater priority on her schoolwork. However, she told the Straight that nothing else matters if the planet is “destroyed”.

“This needs to be our number one priority,” Hamilton said.

After she graduates from high school, she hopes to focus on interdisciplinary environmental studies in university. Hamilton would also like to live on a permaculture farm as she continues to try to address the climate crisis.

She revealed that she hasn’t encountered serious opposition to her activism on behalf of the planet but that sometimes people tell her that she should wait until she’s older to do this work. Hamilton believes that anyone who makes these comments doesn’t understand the urgency of the

d FINDING VIABLE solutions to specific problems is a hallmark of Karen Tam Wu’s life’s work as an environmentalist.

From the Great Bear Rainforest to the built setting of Vancouver, Tam Wu has always sought a balance between risks and opportunities. Such a thoughtful approach to sustainability is grounded in part in her UBC training in forestry, in which social, environmental, and economic benefits are measures of sound ecological stewardship.

“My focus since forestry was on conservation, and it absolutely goes hand in hand in terms of ‘How do we manage the resource to ensure that we are having minimal impact on our environment but still have pragmatic economic opportunities?’ ” Tam Wu told the Straight in a phone interview.

Tam Wu is the B.C. managing director of the Pembina Institute. The think tank has been working closely with the City of Vancouver in advancing policies around green and low-carbon buildings. According to her, buildings do not receive as much attention as transportation, although the former generate more than half the carbon emissions in the city.

One initiative that has generated a lot of international attention for Vancouver is its promotion of the passive-house standard, which focuses on insulation and airtight design to achieve energy efficiency.

“Vancouver is definitely a major leader and has created a hub of passive-house activity, certainly in North America,” Tam Wu said.

The Pembina Institute is also collaborating with the city on a project regarding energy retrofits for social housing.

“Our existing buildings are going to be standing for decades more, and we really need to come up with more innovative solutions on how do we reduce our carbon footprint,” she said.

Tam Wu used to be with ForestEthics, a grassroots environmental organization now known as Stand. earth. As a forestry adviser with the group, Tam Wu worked with First Nations in the Great Bear Rainforest in exploring conservation-based economic opportunities.

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Legends were once trailblazers

T

by Charlie Smith

his week, the Straight is featuring miniprofiles of trailblazers, but there is also no shortage of legends in Vancouver. Here’s a list of 13 of them.

MICHAEL AUDAIN (philanthropy) The major shareholder of Polygon Homes made his fortune in real estate but his greatest legacy may be as a tireless advocate and funder of visual arts—most notably with an art museum he built in Whistler. legend Rick Hansen (second from left) joined Jim Pattison (centre) TUNG CHAN (community service) Vancouver when he was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame. Photo by Tammy Kwan The former CEO of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. and ex–city councillor has been creat- were infringing on Aboriginal rights herself as a music educator. ing a more level playing field for new- and affirmed the Musqueam’s ancesJIM PATTISON (business) This comers—and boosting the careers of tral right to fish. entrepreneur’s legendary business countless minorties—for decades.

RICK HANSEN (disability advocacy) acumen has resulted in countless loSHUSHMA DATT (broadcasting) The What can you say about a guy who cal residents receiving regular payfounder of Spice Radio pioneered eth- pushed his wheelchair around the cheques. That’s because he’s a force in nic programming in the Lower Main- world to raise awareness about the everything from groceries to motor land in the 1970s and remains a potent challenges of those with disabilities? vehicles to fisheries to entertainment. voice against racism in Vancouver.

It might be the greatest feat of human He’s also the most generous donor to endurance by anyone from Vancou- health charities in B.C. history.

LIBBY DAVIES (politics) The former ver (keeping in mind that Terry Fox MARTHA PIPER (academia) As NDP MP and long-time community was from Port Coquitlam). president of UBC from 1997 to 2006, advocate went from the Downtown Eastside to Parliament Hill but never JOY KOGAWA (writer) Best known she was able to attract huge amounts for her fictional account of the of government and private-sector forgot her roots.

Japanese internment in her award- funding. This, in turn, helped UBC CHRISTOPHER GAZE (arts) This winning novel Obasan, she’s also an become a globally recognized uniyear, the artistic director of Bard admired poet and humanitarian. versity, enabling it to recruit leading on the Beach and legendary public researchers from around the world. speaker is marking the 30th anni- BOB LENARDUZZI (sports) Mr. Soc- She helped put UBC on par with versary of the Shakespearean festival cer in British Columbia, the president some of the largest public universithat he founded. That’s no easy feat. of the Vancouver Whitecaps has re- ties in the United States. mained a popular figure since joinWENDY GRANT-JOHN (Indigen- ing the old Whitecaps of the North DAVID SUZUKI (environment) The ous affairs) She was chief of the American Soccer League in 1974. In founder of the David Suzuki FounMusqueam First Nation when it won 1988 and 1989, he coached the White- dation is Vancouver’s version of the the first major Indigenous victory caps to a 46-game unbeaten streak.

Energizer bunny, still going strong at before the Supreme Court of Canada the age of 83 and still doing his best following repatriation of Canada’s SARAH MCLACHLAN (music) Her to stave off an environmental catasconstitution. The Sparrow ruling set album sales have exceeded 40 mil- trophe caused by rising emissions of criteria for whether governments lion and she has also distinguished greenhouse gases. g

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ars hits a trigger point with Chiron in Aries on Thursday/Friday. In general, this transit is best used to shake off the workweek and let off steam this weekend. If it hits home deeper for you, know you can’t conquer the moment unless you face it. In this regard, the transit can serve as a positive catalyst or stimulant. Aim to get to it before it overtakes you. When Chiron is in the mix, there’s always an element of no pain, no gain. Take care of what you can as you can, and while you are at it, make sure to put yourself at the top of the TLC/good-mothering list.

Mars has recently entered Cancer and will remain in this sign through July 1. This transit spotlights home, real estate, and family; how we nurture, nourish, and digest. At the soul level, it directs fresh attention toward comfort zones, security, and selfpreservation needs. Most importantly, Mars in Cancer brings the past forward in some significant and karmic way. It can be a matter of consequences on the catch-up, of breaking free from the repeating loop, or of using the past as a foundation from which to launch the next chapter.

One way or another, the action planet targets necessary evolution.

Overall, the stars keep it rolling well through Monday (Memorial Day weekend). Tuesday through Thursday, the Aries moon revs it up.

Stimulating the talk, trading, trends, and creative opportunity, Mercury in Gemini is on the go with Neptune on Tuesday (square) and Jupiter on Wednesday (opposition). There’s something to uncover, more to learn/know, or an element of shooting in the dark before netting gain.

A

ARIES

March 20–April 20

Mars in Cancer can keep sensitive emotions (yours or theirs) on a ready trigger through the end of the workweek. Don’t stuff it; deal with it head-on. The faster you address it, the faster you can move past it. Saturday through Monday, time evaporates. There is no place better than right where you are. Tuesday to next Thursday revs it/you up, perhaps unexpectedly.

B

TAURUS

April 20–May 21

Thursday/Friday could expose something that has been on brew for a while. Intuition reads more into something said, not said, or inferred. Wrestling with yourself or your conscience? See it as a call to action. Despite tension from the stars prior to and after, the weekend should prove a smooth sail. Tuesday to Thursday, it comes out of nowhere. Stay alert; grab opportunity.

C

GEMINI

May 21–June 21

The end of the workweek keeps you going full swing. Friday night is your best for a social night or evening out. Whether or not you have something special planned, it’s a good weekend for soaking up a peaceful, easy feeling. Sunday through next Thursday, go by feel but don’t take it at face value. There is more than meets the eye.

D

CANCER

June 21–July 22

Step out of your comfort zone Thursday/Friday. Face a challenge; challenge the rules or be the one to get it off the ground. To the plus, Mars/Chiron can help you tear down a wall and push past an important roadblock (inner/outer). Saturday to Monday, relax and ease up. Tuesday to Thursday, there’s a new reality to take on. You’ll learn and gain as you go.

E

LEO

July 22–August 23

Friday is a busy one. The weekend runs along a mostly

INSULIN IS NOT A CURE

smooth and fluid track. Sunday/ Monday, you could lose track of time or spending. Whether subtle or strong, something distracting can pull on you before and after the weekend. Watch for the confirmation, answer, or solution to take on a life of its own. Tuesday to Thursday, the stars set you onto full swing.

F

VIRGO

G

LIBRA

H

SCORPIO

I

SAGITTARIUS

J

CAPRICORN

K

AQUARIUS

L

PISCES

August 23–September 23

Not yet ready or clear?

Have you been toying with it or wrestling with yourself of late? As of Friday, Mars hits a breakthrough point with Chiron. Take the weekend for yourself and aim to dive into it fresh on Tuesday. Uncertainty remains, but by the end of the week you should feel you have something more tangible to go on.

September 23–October 23

Something spontaneous and/ or social hits the spot for your Fridayevening entertainment. Find some quiet time this weekend to decompress, replenish, and catch up with yourself. As of Tuesday, it’s time to hit the ground running again.

Wednesday/Thursday, it can be difficult to know exactly where it’s heading, but by Friday you should feel you have reached someplace worthwhile.

October 23–November 22

You can’t play it safe and take a risk at the same time. Mars on Thursday/Friday can prod or force you to step outside of your comfort zone. Go by feel; let intuition or circumstance guide you. Ease your way into it this weekend. Go with the flow. Tuesday through Thursday, there’s a fresh battle to face.

November 22–December 21

It is easy to get caught up in the emotion of it or the needs of others, especially Thursday/Friday. Extra breathing space does you good as the workweek finishes out.

The weekend keeps you soft around the edges and soaking it all in. Tuesday, hit it fresh. Past Wednesday you’ll gain a better sense of where to go or how it’s shaping up.

December 21–January 20

Pushing past it can be something of a battle on Thursday/ Friday, but Mars/Chiron is determined to get you moved along.

Overall, the weekend is good for easing up and making it up as you go. As of Tuesday, it’s time to hit the ground running. By Thursday/Friday you’ll have a clearer sense and/ or a better grip.

January 20–February 18

The Aquarius moon keeps you on the go Thursday/Friday. Chill out or hide out this weekend. Monday starts the new week with plenty to keep you occupied, but you’ll feel better wired up and faster on the uptake as of Tuesday. Wednesday/ Thursday, don’t guess or assume.

Watch for the moment to reveal it and/or to inform you.

February 18–March 20

Thursday/Friday can keep emotions on ready or short trigger. For the weekend, the Pisces moon sets up a mostly smooth sail.

Tuesday to Thursday, you can feel vulnerable, uncertain, confused, or overwhelmed. Go easy on yourself and/or on it. Don’t drink and drive. Watch for Mercury/Neptune to expose more or to clear up something. Friday, results are good. g

Book a reading or sign up for Rose’s free monthly newsletter at rosemarcus.com/.

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FOOD

Spot prawns available all over town

S

by Gail Johnson

AT WHOLE FOODS CAMBIE IN LINE

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WEEKEND BRUNCH WITH YOUR SON

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 20, 2019 WHERE: Whole foods cambie I saw you and we chatted after you knocked over the shelf as we were in line. Then we chatted very briefly at your car outside.

THE BEAMING BRAZILIAN

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 13, 2019 WHERE: Oakridge Station

Edgar Kano, executive chef at YEW Seafood + Bar in the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver, is hosting a finger-feast spot-prawn boil. Photo by Gail Johnson

cascabel-chili-glazed spot prawns grilled over charcoal and served on a bed of Zaklan Heritage Farm baby Gem lettuce.

The feature dish at Globe@YVR Restaurant and the Jetside Bar at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport has spot prawns with ginger risotto, charred-scallion purée, cauliflower, and garlic chips.

Dynasty Seafood Restaurant serves

spot prawns sautéed with soy sauce, garlic, and onion, while at Maenam, spot-prawn ceviche consists of crispy head and raw body with Thai herbs and tangy nam jim dressing.

Blue Water Cafe executive chef Frank Pabst has a few spins on spot prawns: as nigiri and sashimi, and in a dish with white asparagus, puffed garnet beet tapioca, and strawberry vinaigrette. g

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weet, succulent, and sustainable: B.C. spot prawns are a prized local delicacy.

With a season that typically lasts just six or eight weeks, they’re also a get-’em-while-you-can precious commodity.

Every year, the Chefs’ Table Society of British Columbia celebrates the start of the season with the Spot Prawn Festival, which took place at the False Creek Fishermen’s Wharf on May 19.

Beyond the one-day fete, local chefs worth their salt will be featuring spot prawns on their menus for as long as they can. Here are a few options.

Put on that blue cotton bib that’s on top of your linen napkin: at YEW Seafood + Bar at the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver, executive chef Edgar Kano hosts a spot-prawn boil on May 26. The crustaceans, with the heads still on, along with Chilliwack corn and heirloom potatoes, all get put right on your table atop butcher paper for you to pick up with your fingers and peel. (There are tongs, if you must.) To accompany them are buttered grilled asparagus, candied sweet potatoes, roasted zucchini with Parmesan crust, charred-jalapeño cornbread, pineapple-chili jam, lemon Old Bay aioli, roasted-shallot-and-garlic butter, and a glass of B.C. wine. The family-style meal also includes a salad of grilled-onion and baby Gem lettuce with pickled pomegranate and, to finish, a pineapple upside-down torte with B.C. maple, almond crumble, and crème fraîche sorbet.

At the Fairmont Pacific Rim’s Lobby Lounge and RawBar, sushi chef Takayuki (Taka) Omi creates a spot-prawn extravaganza served atop banana leaves on a driftwood longboard made by Raven Timberworks.

Available weekends to groups of two or more, the experience includes spotprawn miso soup, West Coast oysters, and the star ingredient served in multiple ways: poached and in aburi rolls, ceviche, nigiri, poké, and oshizushi (pressed sushi in perfect rectangles).

The meal also includes sablefish motoyaki roll (the fish baked and topped with mayonnaise), kampachi tataki (the fish lightly seared), and more.

Joe Fortes Seafood & Chop House is serving a pound of whole spot prawns.

“I love spot prawns for a few reasons: they are delicious and the meat is sweet and soft in texture,” executive chef Wayne Sych tells the Georgia Straight. “I believe simple preparation is best, as the flavour of spot prawns really speaks for itself. I personally don’t like to overcomplicate them by adding too many elements. Simply poached for 60 to 90 seconds with butter, lemon, and herbs such as dill or chives makes for an easily prepared but highly flavourful dish. The season is short, so take advantage of it.”

Vij’s chef and co-owner Meeru Dhalwala is making marinated spot prawns with roasted and mashed eggplant on grilled bell pepper.

“It’s a recipe from our last cookbook, and it is probably the most popular and original spot-prawn dish we’ve ever done,” Dhalwala tells the Straight.

“It’s perfect because right now I’ve got B.C. eggplants and bell peppers galore coming in from Vancouver Farmers Market Direct. I keep the spices at a minimum but make sure they are still dancing around the dish. I roast and mash the eggplant and add finely chopped green onions, tomatoes, and cumin. The prawns are marinated in cumin, turmeric, and a bit of cayenne.

The bell pepper is grilled at service when the dish is ordered.”

Cacao will be serving spot prawns with chimichurri sauce for its Latin American–style barbecue every Saturday. The set menu includes various meats, such as blood sausage and chicken, cooked on an open grill, or parrilla, that will be set up on the Kitsilano restaurant’s sidewalk patio.

El Santo, a contemporary Mexican restaurant in New Westminster, will change its features throughout the season, beginning with angelica- and-

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YOU, TALL, DARK HAIR, HANDSOME

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 19, 2019 WHERE: Via Terre Pizzeria You were waiting outside with two other gentlemen to be seated inside Via Terre. I was waiting outside for my pizza to go. You wore dark jeans and a blue plaid shirt. I have blonde hair and wore a patterned dress with a denim jacket. I definitely noticed you but was too shy to say anything. I think you noticed me too.

GREEN JACKET GIRL AFTER KEVIN MORBY

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 15, 2019 WHERE: Main and East Hastings

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 18, 2019 WHERE: Micky’s Pub - Coquitlam

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AN INVITING SMILE WHILE READING IN THE SUN

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 19, 2019 WHERE: Cornwall & Yew

WE MET AT THE WALDORF,I BROUGHT MY FRIEND OVER TO TALK TO YOU.

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 18, 2019 WHERE: Waldorf /Lost All day You were sitting with your friend up on the stage, I brought him over but he was a tad shy. I said I’d bring him back but unfortunately we had a show to go to. Was thinking we get together for drinks, a proper do over?

SFU NICOLES TRAIL

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After seeing Kevin Morby at The Imperial, I was walking past the bus stop on Main Street and East Hastings. I locked eyes with a gorgeous girl in a green jacket waiting for a bus heading up Main Street. I walked by you twice and we met eyes. Me: beard and medium-long hair with a black hoodie. You’re a babe... maybe you felt the same?

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 18, 2019 WHERE: SFU

You drive the 33 eastbound between 5 and 6pm. You’re not the best bus driver - running over curbs and slamming on brakes - and your glasses are silly. But I can look past all of that because you’re ridiculously good looking. I can’t help but stare at you in the rear view mirror, bobbing your head to whatever you may or may not be listening to. I want to say hi, but I’d prefer you keep your eyes on the road....

SO MUCH FOR THAT.

You were sitting at the table one over from me, soaking in the sun, and jotting down thoughts as you read. I was writing myself. Each time I took a peek your way, I was struck by the ease of your smile. Alas, I missed the opportunity to exchange a warm hello...

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 14, 2019 WHERE: Eastbound 33 bus

I saw you having breakfast with your son when I walked in with my daughter. I gave you a little smile, then had to stare at the back of your head. Should have had the courage to say hi or give you my number.

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DRIVER OF EASTBOUND 33 - 5-6PM

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 12, 2019 WHERE: Colonial on water Street.

We were both patiently waiting outside the same building. We had some small talk and realized we were both into the same stuff. I gave you my number. You texted me an hour later. And we spent a few hours walking and talking together before going separate ways, with a promise I would meet you. But after a long night of partying,I ended up sleeping the day away. Can I cash in my raincheck?

CHAU VEGGIE EXPRESS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 11, 2019 WHERE: Granville Island You were in line at Chau Veggie in Granville Island with your mom who I think was named Sally. You were wearing white pants and a dark blue shirt.

CUTE DOG

You and your friends were kind enough to step off the trail and let me by. Took just a moment to be captivated.

Lucky to be a good mountain biker or I would have crashed.

You were wearing a red top, black leggings and a grey hoodie wrapped around your waist. Coffee and chat?

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You- hockey mullet, tattoos for days, killer smile, and adorable dog with a treat in her mouth.

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DRINK

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by Kurtis Kolt

A

s a guy who writes, consults, and produces events focusing on wine, I often get asked what’s in my cellar.

My initial reaction is to smirk and maybe even get a little flushed in the cheeks as I begin to stammer on the reality of my wine-collecting habits.

First off, my 500-square-foot apartment doesn’t lend itself to containing anything resembling an actual cellar, but if for some reason you’ve pictured a couple of weathered cardboard boxes in the bottom of a bedroom closet… Well, then you are indeed picturing my “cellar”.

I’ve previously mentioned in these pages that most of the bottles I hold on to are Rieslings. Part of this is because I love the variety and it ages well, but a bigger part is that many Rieslings that set me back 25 or 30 bucks can actually go the distance, easily five or 10 years.

Yeah, it’d be nice to put away some nice Bordeaux or Burgundy, but that’s simply not realistic for this Gen-Xer tackling a monthly Vancouver mortgage. I do love the odd opportunity I get to taste a well-aged quality red that’s gone the distance, but those opportunities for me are few and far between, never mind that they’re usually experienced at events where I’m spittin’ ’em out within a few seconds.

A few weeks back, I had the opportunity to try new wines recently released in our market that are, well, actually old(ish). You can pretty much consider picking them up at local B.C. Liquor Stores as a bit of a wine hack, because they’ve already been cellared and aged for you.

The wines in question come from Bodega y Cavas de Weinert in Argentina.

It was in 1975 that German-born

Bernardo Weinert followed a business-logistics career in Brazil by buying a winery building in the Luján de Cuyo region in Mendoza.

After heavy investment in vineyard management and refurbishing the winery, it was legendary winemaker Raul de la Mota at the helm of the place through 1997, when current winemaker Hubert Weber took the reins, on which he still has a firm grasp to this day.

Born in Switzerland, Weber attained much of his winemaking chops in Bordeaux. It was in the 1990s that Weber initially tasted a Malbec from Bodega y Cavas de Weinert and was so impressed that when the opportunity came about to do an internship abroad, he set his sights on Argentina, soon ending up in his current position.

It is the Weinert winemaking style that makes the place unique. Harvested grapes are fermented in concrete, then aged in large French and Slovenian oak barrels for anywhere from 36 to 60 months. No typo, that’s oak ageing of up to five years. Then, once they’re bottled, Weber holds on to the wines until he feels they are starting to hit their stride. Only then are they released.

Although many are used to wines from Argentina being fruit-forward, ultrajuicy, and maybe a little tannic, these are not only expressions of regional style but also hallmarks of young wines. The current releases from Weinert—and these wines are indeed current releases—are practically of another dimension, one usually afforded only to those maintaining decent cellars.

Bodega y Cavas de Weinert Cab-

ernet Sauvignon 2008 (Mendoza, Argentina; $32.99—or $30.99 through June 1—B.C. Liquor Stores) has aromas of stewed currants and dates, with distinct elements of pencil shavings and crunchy, autumnal forest floor.

On the palate, it’s reminiscent of well-aged left-bank Bordeaux: flecks of anise hit roasted coffee beans, with brandy-macerated cherries, graphite, and a little mocha carrying the mediumlength finish.

Bodega y Cavas de Weinert Malbec 2006 (Mendoza, Argentina; $32.99—or $30.99 through June 1—B.C. Liquor Stores) is an absolute revelation for me. I can’t recall having an Argentine Malbec with this amount of age on it, and I’m outright amazed by where this portal takes us.

Balsamic, violets, and freshcarved roast beef waft out of the glass, then lead to Italian plums, sundried tomatoes, a drop or two of hoisin, and an undercurrent of cardamom all the way through. The tannins are well-integrated, and pitch-perfect acidity keeps everything buoyant.

Further sips see more of those meaty elements coming to the surface, along with a tiny bit of fresh-plucked thyme.

People pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time waiting to be able to enjoy wines that show like this.

This is a great opportunity to see where Argentine wines can go.

One note: once these wines are opened, they evolve a little quicker than younger, fresher wines of the same ilk.

Ideal expression will be enjoyed the day you pull the cork. After the first couple of swirls and sips, it should be no problem polishing them off. g

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Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk and Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida—and their marriage—are at the centre of Annie Bradley and Jim Morrison’s moody and unusual documentary I’m Going to Break Your Heart.

REVIEWS

I’M GOING TO BREAK YOUR HEART

A documentary by Annie Bradley and Jim Morrison. In English and French, with English subtitles.

Rated PG

d AFTER A BRIEF montage showing the courtship, marriage, and family growth of singers Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk over the past two decades, this unusual documentary plunks us right in the middle of a therapy session that doesn’t look too promising.

With a song-nodding title even more determinedly bleak than Wilco’s I Am Trying to Break Your Heart doc, the film likewise centres on musicians who know better how to get into trouble than to get out of it.

Here, the camera follows the Order of Canada–awarded pianist and guitarist Maida (who also fronts Our Lady Peace) to St-Pierre-Miquelon, a tiny, French-owned archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland, ostensibly to work on an album of new songs.

This Heart is fashioned to create a sense of immediacy, but an air of artificiality hangs over the proceedings, which find the songwriters sniping at each other over slights real and imagined, as well as where that chorus should go. That they composed their own doomy keyboard music to go with the finished film adds to a sense of posturing for ef-

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teen sons.) But you can’t help wishing they would learn to arpeggiate each other just a little bit more.

The film centres on musicians who know better how to get in trouble than to get out of it.

– Ken Eisner

fect, although the Leonard Cohen– tinged songs they craft on-screen carry more emotional weight than their arguments do. (She needles; he’s dismissive.)

Couples in the crowd can surely relate to their issues, which linger like the shadows of partially removed tattoos.

Sometimes, the concerns are more immediate, as when Maida tacks out across a frozen pond. “I’ve had enough tragedy in my life,” she complains. “I don’t need you walking out on the ice.”

Still, it’s hard to avoid the sense that these married musos are hoping to create a spontaneous-seeming musical drama in the mould of Once.

In fact, it’s closer to The Swell Season, a sad doc that followed Oncers Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová through their romantic death spiral.

This one’s a tad more hopeful than that. (Hell, they have three almost-

by Ken Eisner

BLACK MOTHER

A documentary by Khalik Allah.

Rating unavailable

d CROCODILES, WATERFALLS, sex workers, Sunday-school girls, toothless old men, and Rastafarians—all of these and more mash into one delirious dream in filmmaker and photographer Khalik Allah’s ode to Jamaica.

Allah’s highly experimental style is impressionistic and elliptical; voices never synchronize with the heady images he edits together— many of them shot on contrasting formats, from saturated Super 8 to grainy 16mm. But together they make a viscerally poetic portrait of a country that’s full of contradictions.

In rich, occasionally indecipherable patois, Jamaicans tell stories here—in interviews, conversations, and songs.

Men negotiate for sex; other people touch on the history of slavery, the hold of Christianity, the rise of Rastafarianism, and the connection to the land.

We hear about hardship but we also see almost ecstatic happiness.

The through line is women, young and strutting the streets, old and weathered, naked and staring down the camera lens. One pregnant woman reappears throughout her trimesters. (Jamaica also happens to

VIFF‘18

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be the home country of the American director’s own mother.)

This is no travelogue, and it’s resolutely not the Jamaica you’ll see from your all-inclusive resort. Allah finds the country’s grittiest corners—girls hawking rotis on roadsides, shacks with beat-up mattresses sitting on cement piles, and beggars scarred and disfigured after years on the streets. Ever the portrait photographer, he lingers on faces.

The effect is disorienting, but never less than dazzling. Allah has crafted something completely his own, allowing us to see Jamaica through his eyes, in all its raw beauty and suffering.

We hear about hardship but we also see almost ecstatic happiness.

– Janet Smith

by Janet Smith

Director Khalik Allah’s Black Mother is a dazzling and at times disturbing film showing the many different sides of Jamaica in a highly experimental style.

WALKING ON WATER

jects: the massive Running Fence through Northern California scrubland, in 1976, or the white-shrouded Berlin Reichstag, in 1995. But how much do you know about Christo d MOST PEOPLE know something the man? Walking on Water says a about Christo’s vast wrapping pro- lot about the Bulgarian-born artist,

turning 84 this summer, and caught here during the making of one of his most ambitious projects to date.

The Floating Piers, which ended up with 70,000 square metres of bright-yellow fabric stretched across plastic pontoons, allowed visitors to

A documentary by Andrey Paounov.

In English, French, and Italian, with English subtitles. Rated PG

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stroll from the shore of Lake Iseo, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, to an isolated island normally accessible only by boat. (The island belongs to the Beretta family, of dubious handgun fame.)

The project is one that Christo had been attempting for decades, in various locations, alongside his French-

Moroccan wife and artistic partner, Jeanne-Claude, who belatedly started sharing credit for the work before dying 10 years ago. One assumes she was the people person of the duo, because the Bulgarian—who looks like Christopher Lloyd playing an irascible Albert Einstein—has zero patience for the foibles and hesitations of others.

Christo lived with Jeanne-Claude in the U.S. starting in 1958, but never really picked up English or French, let alone Italian, and therefore barks rudimentary commands for others (chiefly his long-suffering nephew Vladimir) to deliver more diplomatically to workers, bureaucrats, police, press, et cetera, while manifesting an event as large as this, in 2016, which ended up drawing about five times the 40,000 souls they expected to make like Jesus on that sylvan lake.

Christo can turn on the charm when needed, as seen in this fascinating study, directed by fellow Bulgarian Andrey Paounov, who uses spare,

see page 26

arts

Iron Peggy does battle at Children’s Fest

W

by Janet Smith

orld War I Indigenous soldiers and contemporary schoolyard bullying: multimedia magic weaves these two unlikely themes together in a major new commission premiering at the Vancouver International Children’s Festival this year.

The Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program awarded the fest $125,000 to create and stage Iron Peggy, and they turned to B.C. Métis playwright Marie Clements to tackle the project.

In the story, a 10-year-old British– South Asian girl named Peg is struggling against three bullies at her boarding school. But when she opens a surprise gift of three cast-iron toy soldiers, they come to life as a trio of decorated, real World War I Indigenous snipers who help her stand strong.

For Clements, who’s known for hard-hitting adult plays like The Unnatural and Accidental Women and Burning Vision but has never written for kids before, the eras and ideas flowed naturally together.

“I felt we’re at a time when there are a lot of similarities to the years after World War I,” she tells the Straight over the phone from her home on Galiano Island.

“It’s a time when forces are separating us through our race and culture. And part of the question was, ‘What can we do to push forward in a good way?’ For some reason it feels like we’re in a bit of a war right now, and when you look at global politics there’s a lot of bullying going on.”

The theme of World War I came up in early discussions with the kids’ fest, as last year marked its 100th anniversary. As she delved deeper into her research, Clements was fascinated by the unsung Indigenous heroes of the war. They include her character inspired by Francis “Peggy” Pegahmagabow, Canada’s most decorated First Nations soldier, an Anishinaabe member who went on to become chief and Aboriginalrights advocate.

“It often makes you sad, when you read about their careers—and not just what they sacrificed, but when they got back and what their realities were,” she says of her research into the Indigenous soldiers.

Adele Noronha (centre) stars with Deneh’Cho Thompson, Raes Calbert, and Taran Kootenhayoo in Iron Peggy. Photo by Farah Nosh

Kids’ Fest TIP SHEET The Vancouver International Children’s Festival fills Granville Island with activity from Monday (May 27) to June 2.

Here are some must-sees amid the topnotch performances that artistic and executive director Katharine Carol and her team have curated from here and around the world.

d SOMEBODY LOVES YOU MR. HATCH (Performance Works and Waterfront Theatre) Axis Theatre’s moving, imaginative puppet play took home two Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards in 2017 for outstanding design and artistic creation. If you and your kids missed it then, here’s your chance to see loneliness and isolation explored in a funny story about the need to connect.

performer has brought down the house by turning ladders, forks, and even crumpled paper into magic. This time he’s toting tubas and Ping-Pong balls.

Needless to say, we’re in.

d IS THIS A DAGGER? THE

STORY OF MACBETH

(Studio 1398) Slightly older kids (seven and up) will delight in Scotsman Andy Cannon’s inventive props (kitchen bucket, duster, rubber gloves, and a torch) and beyond-artful storytelling—so much that they might not even realize they’re learning loads about Shakespeare.

When you look at global politics, there’s a lot of bullying going on.

– Marie Clements

fact that they were always, of course, depicted as white. “We didn’t have these Indigenous soldiers cast in d THE POLAR BEARS GO UP iron,” says Clements, whose Red (Performance Works) More Diva Projects is helping produce the mad genius from Scotland: the play with the fest and Boca del Lupo. country sends these cheeky furry Clements is famous for her unusual emissaries, bent on reaching a stagings, shifting time juxtapositions, lost balloon. Think visual wonder and new-media elements, and Iron and wildly physical and wordless d JAMIE ADKINS: A FOOL’S Peggy is no exception. She explains humour. Don’t be surprised if ERRAND (Granville Island she wanted to show the world from your adult self is as charmed as Stage) In past fest appearances, a child’s point of view, including the your kid is. g this Chaplin-esque solo circus towering, sinister shadows of the three bullies. Elsewhere, animation “Many had to continue to fight for more inspiration in the intricate and video help the production flip their rights after the war.” old cast-iron toy soldiers kids used easily between the histories of the Amid those realizations, she found to play with in the war era, and the soldiers and the present. Half-Cree

cellist Cris Derksen brings it all to life with a haunting orchestral score.

“When you’re a child, how does it manifest? Things are bigger than you and you tend to look at the world with sort of dire consequences,” Clements explains. “We always feel, when we’re young, that everything is very heightened. And ‘Am I going to get through this or not?’ ” “It’s like the world has two halves in this play,” explains Sherri J. Yoon, the Boca del Lupo artistic director who was brought on early in the process to direct the play, speaking in a separate phone call from a rehearsal break in Vancouver. “There’s Peg’s existence in the boarding school and then the shift really happens when these real historical figures come to life. The high tech and video add to the feeling of isolation in both. And then, what does bullying look like to a 10-year-old? The images are larger than life.

“What’s fun is a lot of the design will overlap each other: the projection informs the lighting, the lighting informs the projection, and so on,” she adds.

What Yoon enjoys is not just working the multimedia visuals to bring Clements’s imagistic storytelling to life, but also the fact that Clements and so many of the artists involved in the project are fairly new to “TYA” (Theatre for Young People)—an area Boca del Lupo has ventured innovatively into before.

“It’s work that doesn’t speak down to kids,” Yoon says. “It’s a continuation of everybody’s artistry.”

“I think children are super smart and are dealing with huge issues, and just because they’re young doesn’t mean they’re not profound,” says Clements, who adds she’s approached Iron Peggy in much the same way she has her other work (“minus a few swear words”, she clarifies with a laugh). “I’m looking to, hopefully, give them something to hang on to when bullying happens. How can you fight against it? And what is your strategy?”

In other words, she’s providing ammunition for those times when three war heroes might not magically appear to offer support. g The Vancouver International Children’s Festival presents Iron Peggy at the Waterfront Theatre from May 28 to 31.

Cantata choir sings Songs of the North

I

by Alexander Varty

mages of fir, pine, and birch are conjured up in Riina Tamm’s poems “Metsä” and “Vuodenajat”, which translate as “Woods” and “Seasons”, respectively. Chanterelles sprout from the earth, blossoms hang from boughs, and “leaves sparkle/in the water’s mirror”. Quietly ecstatic, the two brief meditations almost ask to be sung—and that, no doubt, made Vancouver composer Alan Matheson’s task a pleasant one.

Matheson is setting Tamm’s words for the Vancouver Cantata Singers to sing at their Scandinavian Treasures: Songs of the North concert this weekend. And in doing so, he’ll get to draw on his own intimacy with the poet and her subject matter: Tamm is his wife, and the two spend part of each summer in the Baltic countries, visiting Tamm’s Estonian relatives and enjoying the tranquillity of the Finnish forest while Matheson teaches at an annual music camp.

The beauty of Tamm’s poetry and Matheson’s familiarity with the Baltic landscapes it describes aren’t the only factors that have eased the composer’s path. “In both Finnish and Estonian, the accent is almost invariably on the first syllable of each word,” he points out, adding that Tamm wrote her poems in Estonian and then translated them into that tongue’s close cousin. “Both are very syllabic

the birch trees,” he says. “Birch trees and pine really predominate in Finland, as opposed to the enveloping cedars that we get here—and the artistic images that we see from people like Emily Carr, which can be dense and dark but very compelling. I was trying to get more of the light and shade that you get there, especially in the summer.”

A pianist and trumpet player as well as a composer, Matheson is probably best known for his work with jazz ensembles. While choral work is still a relatively small part of his output, making the switch from writing for small groups and big bands to unaccompanied choir hasn’t fazed him; he’s always aimed for a vocal sound, even when writing for saxophones and brass.

“The teachers that I had, if they taught arranging—like trombonist Dave Robbins and my teacher down in the States, Don Owens, The Cantata Singers travel to Baltic landscapes as they bring to life Vancouver composer Alan who taught at Northwestern—they were really Matheson’s musical interpretations of his wife Riina Tamm’s poems. Photo by Emmett Sarah Race big on ‘Make it as vocal as possible,’ ” he says. languages—which I have to say, as a nonspeaker of looking at the words and internalizing them “Make it singable, you know.…I guess I kept either of those languages, makes them some- and saying ‘Well, what sounds go with these?’” that in mind. From writing for jazz ensembles what easy to set.” he explains. “You’re kind of serving the words to writing for choir, the precepts, to me, are kind of the same.” g Beginning by having Tamm dictate “Metsä” as best you can.” and “Vuodenajat” into his iPhone, Matheson One thing that the texts depict, he adds, is drew his rhythms from the cadence of her a feeling of light and space that’s very different The Vancouver Cantata Singers present Scandinavian words, then used a kind of impressionistic pro- from that associated with our own West Coast Treasures: Songs of the North at the Scandinavian cess to generate melody and harmony. “It’s like woods. “There’s a sense of shimmer, because of Cultural Centre on Saturday (May 25).

MAY 23 – 30 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 25

ARTS

Cleese explains why there’s no hope

“N

by Guy MacPherson

ecessity is the mother of invention,” the saying goes. A corollary for iconic sketch performers might be “Divorce settlement is the mother of standup.”

So it is with comedy legend John Cleese, who brings his Why There Is No Hope tour to the Queen E. Theatre on Saturday (May 25).

“I became a sort of standup comic when my wife was awarded $20 million in the divorce, because it was the safest and most reliable way of earning money,” he says over the phone from Toronto, referring to his very public breakup from third spouse Alyce Cleese in 2008. (He’s now married to English jewellery designer and former model Jennifer Wade.) “I got to like it because there’s something very real about being out there onstage, standing in front of lots and lots of people and making them laugh. If I can go out and make people fall about with laughter, I go back to have a glass of wine in a very happy mood.”

Cleese has 164 acting credits on his IMDb page, spanning a 56-year career, but you probably only remember Monty Python’s Flying Circus (and its movie offshoots), Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda. That doesn’t displease the Brit; those are the projects he’s most proud of. If he tires of endless fanboy gushing, he doesn’t let on.

“If they just want to tell you how much they like you, then that’s very nice because it is genuinely a very good emotional feeling that you’ve

John Cleese says there’s been no decent comedy on the BBC since about 1990.

made people laugh,” he says. “But what’s even better is when they ask specific questions, like ‘Why did you choose to do that in that sketch?’ or ‘Why did that sketch end that way?’

Specific questions lead to conversations, but otherwise, if people are just telling me how wonderful I am, I don’t know how to react.”

It helps if you’re of a certain vintage, but all three of those credits stand the test of time. Cleese claims Python has been forgotten by the younger generation in his home country and he’s got a pretty good conspiracy theory as to why that is. “The BBC haven’t put it out for 18 years and I’m very suspicious. I think it makes the current stuff not look very good,” he says. “I mean, the comedy in England was extraordinary and most of it was on the BBC from 1950 to maybe 1990.

And then I don’t think we’ve had a lot of very funny stuff. We’ve had clever and interesting stuff, but people aren’t as funny as they used to be.”

His current Why There Is No Hope tour brings the funny to 13 Canadian

26 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MAY 23 – 30 / 2019

cities (and Buffalo). Despite its rather fatalistic title, it sounds like it will serve up some comforting and optimistic life lessons. The subject is one he’d been working on for a long time when he realized he needed to try it out on audiences.

“It just hit a nerve,” he says. “The response was as good as I’ve had to anything. I think it’s perhaps because of the stage of the world, or at least North America, at the moment that people find it very reassuring to know that it’s always been like this. The world will never be well-organized and kind, because there’s so many assholes.”

He buttresses his presentation with facts, such as the one that the death rate actually went down during a doctors’ strike in New York 40 years ago.

“That strikes me as terribly funny,” he says with a laugh. “There’s a lot of that kind of stuff in it. What it actually says in the end is the world is never going to be a very nice or well-organized or kind place, but it doesn’t stop us from having rather enjoyable, and in fact joyous, lives.”

His 2013 tour to Vancouver was called Last Time to See Me Before I Die. So that was a lie, apparently.

When we bring that up to him, though, the 79-year-old entertainer says, “Yes, well, we don’t know yet, do we? Give me another three weeks.

I try to keep promises.” g John Cleese’s Why There Is No Hope tour plays the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Saturday (May 25).

Tillotama Shome (centre) plays a savvy, if lightly educated, village girl working for a wealthy Mumbai bachelor in filmmaker Rohena Gera’s Sir.

from page 24

gamelan-inflected music to build tension for a D-Day we know will arrive even as we wonder how he’ll pull it off.

Christo gets no government grants or private sponsors; he makes it happen by selling all the preparatory drawings and paintings to high-toned collectors. And by being Christo.

by Ken Eisner

SIR

Starring Tillotama Shome. In English, Hindi, and Marathi, with English subtitles. Rated PG

d WHAT IS IT that advocates of arranged marriage always say?

Oh, that couples usually learn to care about each other.

Well, that happens in Sir because of a domestic arrangement that comes to resemble marriage, against steep odds but in the best ways possible.

Ratna (Tillotama Shome) is a savvy, if lightly educated, village girl whose prospects were further dimmed when her newlywed husband died when she was just 19.

In Mumbai, she was hired as house servant to a wealthy couple in a supermodern apartment near the sea. Things change, right at the start of this big-hearted Franco-Indian coproduction, when Ashwin (Court’s Vivek Gomber), the handsome gentleman of the house, returns from his abruptly cancelled wedding. (The former fiancée is never seen.)

The situation is rife with potential impropriety, but further action is held in check by Ashwin’s brooding depression and the customary distance between master and servant.

How this gradually breaks down is the smartly handled subject of Paris-based writer-director Rohena Gera, whose previous feature was a documentary about arranged marriage and other romantic modes in modern India. That was called What’s Love Got to Do With It?, but this one’s more about basic human understanding. The multiple languages spoken here initially act as further barriers, and later as bridges.

This deeply memorable effort was shot with beautiful simplicity, sometimes with dazzling colours and intoxicating music, but largely in closed spaces that reveal much about their inhabitants—from the books that line every wall for Ashwin, who made stabs at being a writer in New York City, to Ratna’s cramped servant quarters, full of sewing gear connected with her dreams of designing and making clothes.

She’s dutiful to a fault, but has the natural bearing of an aristocrat, while the putative master is hobbled by the desire to escape his father’s architecture business.

The leads are so naturalistic, it’s surprising to see that they also have extensive Bollywood credentials.

(Shome has a sharp-eyed stillness that recalls Noomi Rapace.)

A more ordinary film would concentrate on its twosome’s attempts to break out of their closed systems, with predictably melodramatic results. But the bluntly titled Sir isn’t interested in that. The director, who displays real affection for all her people and places, is ever mindful of the power imbalances at play. And she makes certain that the players recognize them too.

This deeply memorable effort was shot with beautiful simplicity.

– Ken Eisner

Her very last scene, in fact, is the first in which people speak as equals.

by Ken Eisner

ALL IS TRUE

Starring Kenneth Branagh.

Rated PG

d ALL IS TRUE begins at the end. The end, that is, of William Shakespeare’s writing career, after his Globe Theatre burned down, thanks to an errant cannonball that ignited the roof during a performance of his Henry VIII— thus informing everyone just how expensive special effects could be.

The little-remembered play’s alternate title was All Is True, giving director Kenneth Branagh and screenwriter Ben Elton (who also acted in Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing) sardonic cover for a conjectural stab at the Bard of Avon’s last few years, before his 1616 death days before his 52nd birthday. The director, in putty nose and bald-pated wig, plays Willie with the shakes, angling for hospitality from his wife, Anne Hathaway. She’s not played by her namesake but by Judi Dench, 26 years Branagh’s senior, rather than the eight Anne actually had on Will.

That’s just one indication that everything doesn’t smell fresh in the state of Denmark. Another is the subject’s obsession with the death of his son, Hamnet (yep), here appearing as Hamnet’s Ghost, the better to give the tale a feminist twist, with the late lad’s twin sister, Judith (Kathryn Wilder), vying for Daddy’s respect. Another daughter (Lydia Wilson) is married to a dreary Puritan who doesn’t believe in such frivolities as plays and poems.

Mostly located in the lush Stratford area, the film is so beautifully shot, with Vermeer window light, meticulous detail, and gorgeous greenery, it would be enough just to see how people lived and died (from the plague, mostly) in Shakespeare’s neck of the river. So it’s a shame that the tale is larded up with so many dubious plot layers. There are also some dialogue clunkers, the worst of which has Will worrying that his eldest daughter “just doesn’t get me!”

Still, it’s worth seeing for the setting and for one incandescent scene with Ian McKellen, who shows up as Shakespeare’s erstwhile patron (and possible paramour). That one long scene, with dedicated veterans trading the bonnest of mots, makes you remember how the finest actors really can make “sullen earth” sing “hymns at heaven’s gate”.

by Ken Eisner

ARTS

Alberta’s Monk makes her mark in B.C.

A

by Janet Smith

mong the many themes emerging from Calgarybased Davida Monk’s wideranging show here, a big one is the strong relationship between the Alberta and Vancouver dance scenes.

Look no further than the special remount of her Ashes for Beauty with seven local dancers: four of them—Hilary Maxwell, Naomi Brand, Kirsten Wiren, and Erin Lequereux—hail from Alberta, with connections that go back to the University of Calgary, where Monk was an associate professor.

You could also say that Vancouver’s Dance Centre, the presenter of this wide-lens celebration of Monk’s rich repertoire as a choreographer and dancer, is the glue that holds the two provinces’ communities together.

“The Dance Centre is interested in showing they can provide resources for people not only here in B.C.,” she tells the Straight over the phone from her hotel in Vancouver. “It really is a national and international dance centre. And Alberta is pretty thin as far as dance goes; this is where it’s really happening.”

That’s high praise from someone who’s been a force on the national scene for three decades. And over all that time, she’s maintained bonds and influence on the West Coast, teaching, creating work, and dancing.

Those connections carry through on the upcoming program with For Antigone, a piece she’s dancing in and has been working on for almost five years with choreographer Paras Terezakis, the Greek-born artistic director of Vancouver’s Kinesis Dance. Exploring a mutual interest—mythology—the work is resolutely not about retelling the classical Greek tragedy.

“It’s more of a homage to the defiant and feminist character,” says Monk

MAY 24 ∞ 25 ∞ 26 Calgary dance artist Davida Monk restages her Ashes for Beauty here with a new, local cast, while also performing in the work of others. Photo by Tim Nguyen

of her duet with local dancer Arash Khakpour (who is also in Ashes for Beauty). “Antigone fought for dignity and respect.”

Again as a performer, Monk will also give us an evocative look into the work of another Calgary voice in dance, Helen Husak. The Return is a solo that explores grief and loss on a stage scattered with antlers.

“This, for us on the Prairies, has a kind of poignance,” Monk explains.

“It’s a great experience to walk the Prairies and find an antler that has been shed. But also there’s a sense of loss; it’s very bonelike and organic, so that works into the themes Helen is working with, as well. The dancer goes through a process of searching, resisting the effect the elements have on her, listening to them, and giving in to them and finding resolution.”

As for staging her own work, it says something about Monk that she’s chosen Ashes for Beauty because its radically shifting, yet flowing, movement

is so difficult. “It’s about metamorphosis, and metamorphosis is deep and current and ancient,” she begins. “Because of the breadth of the subject, it’s probably my most challenging work— not necessarily for the audience, but for me. I really have to reach to express what needs to be expressed. The conundrum is movement is change and metamorphosis is change, and how do I make the subject change if movement is always changing?”

While taking all this on, Monk is also finding time to give feedback and critiques to the young artists at Vancouver’s Modus Operandi contemporary-dance-training program (run by Out Innerspace Dance Theatre). “When I found out I was coming, I made sure I was reaching out to the community,” she says. And so the coastal connections deepen. g

COLLECTOR SOIRÉE FRIDAY 7-10pm $ 50 COLLECTOR’S PASS $ 20 Online $25 at door OPEN STUDIOS 1-5pm SAT & SUN FREE ADMISSION GUIDED TOURS 2pm and 4pm TICKETS ONLINE + DOOR

www.ParkerArtSalon.com 1000 PARKER STREET | Free Parking

Davida Monk: Ashes for Beauty is at the Scotiabank Dance Centre from Thursday to Saturday (May 23 to 25).

Canada’s Theatre.

Elevated.

June 1-9, 2019

Shows, Open Studios, and Conversations for Artists and Audiences.

Passes and tickets at

MAY 23 – 30 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 27

ARTS Intricate puppets tell world’s stories

by Robin Laurence

Wayan golek (rod puppets) from Indonesia show the fine craftmanship on display at the MOA. Photo by Alina Ilyasova

VISUAL ARTS SHADOWS, STRINGS AND OTHER THINGS: THE ENCHANTING THEATRE OF PUPPETS

At the Museum of Anthropology at UBC until October 14

YONGEY MINGYUR RINPOCHE Author of IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying Book Talk Friday, June 21 A conversation about his wandering retreat and near-death experience

Dying Every Day: Meditation, Transformation, and the Bardos

d FULL DISCLOSURE: I’ve never been a fan of puppets or puppetry. It was a surprise, then, that Shadows, Strings and Other Things, the Museum of Anthropology’s exhibition of puppets from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, won me over.

Marionetas from Portugal, rukada from Sri Lanka, wayang kulit from Indonesia, budaixi from Taiwan, piyingxi from China, yoke thé from Myanmar, Punch and Judy from England, mamulengo from Brazil, d ug_we’ from this province’s Kingcome Inlet—all these diverse puppetry forms and traditions are fascinating. The sheer craftsmanship of the 250-plus handmade puppets on display, whether executed in wood, textile, silicone, papier-mâché, or animal hide, is equally compelling. And the cultural and historical significance

of puppets as a traditional and sometimes centuries-old means of storytelling is compelling too. Because, really, as the show’s curator, Nicola Levell, asserted during the media preview, that’s what puppetry is about: storytelling.

The narratives represented here range from the Indian Ramayana and the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms to the Italian Orlando Furioso and the Portuguese Lusiads. A number of the puppetry traditions on view at MOA, Levell said, are recognized by UNESCO as parts of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

I understood this to mean that the stories told, whether secular or religious, are intangible. The puppets themselves, the vehicles of such narratives, assert a strong material presence.

The show is seductively designed and installed with five beautifully made and adorned stages, each showcasing a different puppet type: shadow, string (marionette), rod, hand (glove), and stop-motion. The puppet theatres are complemented by “backstage” displays, demonstrating workshop and storage settings and again featuring an extraordinary

array of puppets. There are numerous vitrines, too, along with video images of puppet shows, sound and light effects, and reams of wall text.

With all this visual and verbal material to encounter and process, the exhibition demands a second visit.

Maybe even a third.

Particularly arresting are intricately cut and translucently thin shadow puppets from China’s Hebei province; extravagantly rendered and adorned string puppets

by Jorge Cerqueira of Sintra, Portugal; rod puppets with fabulously carved and painted wooden heads and beaded costumes, from Java, Indonesia; and the haunting stopmotion animation and accompanying silicone puppets of Indigenous filmmaker Amanda Strong.

Equally compelling is a warlike Winalagalis puppet, made by the late Kwakwaka’wakw artist, activist, and storyteller Beau Dick.

With its skeletal frame, dangling balls, and erectable penis, this being is a hilarious and frightening fusion of the deadly and the priapic. And, like so many of the puppets on display here, it tells a story of the human condition in terms both real and fantastical. g

HAVE YOU BEEN TO...

Saturday, June 22 A workshop on how understanding death makes us fully alive Frederic Wood Theatre UBC, Vancouver

Mott32 mott32.com

Vanity Lab thevanitylab.com

Vetta

Chamber Music tergarca.org/events | vancouver@tergar.org 28 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MAY 23 – 30 / 2019

vettamusic.com

ARTS

The Cake cooks up mixed messages about intolerance

by Andrea Warner

THEATRE THE CAKE

By Bekah Brunstetter. Directed

by Angela Konrad. Produced by Pacific Theatre. At Pacific Theatre on Saturday, May 18. Continues until June 8

d HOMOPHOBIA ISN’T funny, racist stereotypes aren’t funny, and neither is The Cake.

At the centre of playwright Bekah Brunstetter’s ill-conceived “comedy” is Della (Erla Faye Forsyth), a petite—her size is important because fat-shaming is also a through line in this mess— white bakery owner and cake designer in a small North Carolina town who’s just weeks away from competing on a major American baking show on TV. Della is an older woman who speaks with a southern accent and equates moral fortitude with adhering to recipes and not skimping on real butter.

When Della’s unofficial goddaughter, Jen (Stephanie Elgersma), shows up and announces her engagement, Della is thrilled to make her a wedding cake—until she’s introduced to Jen’s fiancée, Macy (Cecilly Day), an AfricanAmerican lesbian from Brooklyn, and suddenly Della’s too busy to oblige.

I don’t want to validate that premise in any way. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is wrong. But The Cake’s most significant misstep is how it uses Macy, particularly in contrast to Della. Before Jen has even appeared on-stage, Macy and Della meet. It’s not clear why Macy, a stranger, would go into a woman’s bakery and start talking about how sugar is “as addictive as cocaine”, and how she doesn’t let herself eat cake. (She doesn’t eat gluten, therefore the implication is she’s a rigid, joyless hipster compared to Della.) After Della rescinds her offer to make Jen a wedding cake, Macy writes an article about their experience of discrimination at an unnamed bakery, and Jen blows up at her. Apparently because the real problem is Macy calling out homophobia and not Della’s actual homophobia? The article results in Della being disqualified from the baking competition and it seems as though the play wants us to feel bad for Della, but no, thanks.

Day brings heart to her role as Macy, and a lot of resistance to the way in which Brunstetter writes her.

Angry, militant, “scary”, and feminist, Macy is less a character than a

collection of stereotypes about black, queer women. She yells at her fiancée for failing to introduce her. She yells at Della. Yelling is almost her only speed.

She’s allowed few moments of nuance, and her hostility is framed against Della’s supposed sweetness. Della has all the institutional power and structural privilege in this situation. Her character is not the one who is experiencing racism and discrimination. Macy is the one who deserves empathy, but The Cake offers her almost none. Brunstetter also injects false equivalencies regarding intolerance. The play seems to ask, “Isn’t Macy’s liberal elitism just as bad as the religious right’s discrimination?” The answer is no, but you wouldn’t know that from The Cake.

Brunstetter also uses Macy and Jen’s queer, interracial relationship to centre white, Christian heterosexuality. Della’s actual reckoning is less a crisis of faith about how her intolerance is genuinely causing damage and hurt to Jen, a person she claims to love, and more about unpacking the ways patriarchal misogyny has limited her life and her own marriage for 30 years.

Della doing this kind of work is genuinely compelling—and this is the moment in which Forsyth truly shines— but instead we get a play that ends up validating hate, because Della never has a real, meaningful change of heart that justifies in some small way all of the unchallenged bigotry in The Cake.

Yes, she interrogates her homophobia a bit, and ultimately makes the cake, but Della can’t bring herself to attend Macy and Jen’s wedding, and her final scene with Macy is jaw-droppingly awful. Macy brings Della a piece of the cake and apologizes to Della for the article getting her dropped from the baking competition, even though it was Della’s homophobia that actually got her axed. Della then gets to talk about how it all worked out for the best because her business is better than ever thanks to the people who rallied around her and supported her. According to Della, hatred supported her.

People who believe it’s perfectly noble to discriminate based on sexuality are now the folks propping up her business. Della then gets to quote Scripture to Macy, who finally eats a bite of cake and rapturously declares, “Oh my god!”, to which Della smugly reminds Macy that yes, He is in the cake.

This play is billed as a comedy. It’s not. It’s deeply harmful to marginalized communities. It also made me hate cake. g

GLOBAL DANCE CONNECTIONS SERIES

DAVIDA MONK Photo: Tim Nguyen, Citrus Photograpy

ASHES FOR BEAUTY Works by Davida Monk | Helen Husak | Paras Terezakis

May 23-25, 2019 | 8pm

MaY 27 – JuNe 2, 2019 oN GrAnViLlE IsLaNd

Paper Playground (BC) Dance | Theatre A joyous and stimulating experience for the youngest of audiences, Paper Playground is a rare opportunity for the very young to experience live theatre created with and just for them. Ages 0–3.

One of a Kind (BC) Theatre Unique! Exceptional!

One-of-a-Kind! There really is no one quite like you! One of a Kind is a series of stories performed by a talented group of extraordinary, emerging storytellers. Ages 5 and up.

Is this a Dagger? The Story of Macbeth

Fred Penner (MB) Music Sing along with one of Canada’s best-loved children’s singers and Canadian music icon Fred Penner at this year’s Festival! Ages 1–7 (Babes in arms welcome).

(Scotland) Storytelling | Theatre Andy Cannon, one of Scotland’s finest storytellers, takes audiences on a thousand-year journey from fact to fiction in his retelling of Shakespeare’s classic tale. The perfect introduction to Shakespeare and a wickedly funny ride you won’t forget! Ages 7 and up.

ready to fall in love with these two adorable polar bears!

They’ve lost their prized balloon and they need to get it back. One thing is for sure, the only way is up! Ages 2–6, Relaxed Performance All ages.

Will’s Jams (BC) Music Get ready to boogie with Will’s Jams, award-winning children’s musician and CBC Kids TV star Will Stroet. Jam along with Will as he performs his high-energy, sing-a-long tunes with fun actions that kids love! Ages 2–8 (Babes in arms welcome).

Parents are a Drag (BC) Theatre | Music Join local drag queens Peach Cobblah & Isolde N. Barron for a drag dress-up spectacular! Add some rainbow to your day at this fun and inclusive event which reminds everyone that it’s never too early (or too late!) to get silly and dress-up! Ages 3 and up

pong balls and underpants?! This show has it all! Cirque du Soleil veteran Adkins delights with his unique blend of circus arts, acrobatic skills and physical comedy. All ages.

Élage Diouf Melokáane (Sénégal / Québec) Music Élage Diouf is

Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch (BC) Theatre | The Polar Bears Go Up! (Scotland) Theatre Get

Jamie Adkins’ Circus – A Fool’s Errand (Québec) Circus Tubas, ping

sure to capture your heart and move your soul with his irresistible joyous energy. His uplifting blend of pop, world, blues, folk and asiko will have kids singing and dancing in their seats. All ages.

Puppetry Mr. Hatch cannot smile, he leads a colourless life, until one Valentine's Day, he receives the note "somebody loves you." Mr. Hatch’s world (and his frown) is turned upside down and then he does something he has never done before…he laughs! Ages 3–8.

Iron Peggy (BC) Theatre Peg is struggling for survival at her boarding school. She wants to disappear, but then a gift arrives.

She finds hope when the gift, three Indigenous Canadian WWI toy soldiers, magically comes to life and wages an epic battle to defend her. Ages 10 and up.

Jacky’s Village (Le village de Jacky) (Cameroon/BC) Music | Dance | Storytelling There’s going to be a dance party and you’re invited!

Feel the rhythm as you take a trip to Jacky’s Village, featuring music, dance and storytelling from the African countries of Cameroon, Guinea, and Zimbabwe. All ages.

Site Activities

Immigrant Lessons 101 (BC) Dance Ka-Boom!

Hold on to your seat and get ready for an explosion as Immigrant Lessons hits the stage!

They’ll blow you away with their fabulous high-energy moves and dizzyingly fast footwork. This dance troupe is on fire! All ages.

Make a day of it! Your day at the Festival includes your show and access to our Activity Village with over 19 hands-on creative art stations. Spend the day being creatively playful in our Activity Village.

BuY YoUr TiCkEtS SoOn

Shows are filling up quickly - Visit childrensfestival.ca for more information and to purchase tickets. Tickets start at only $5.

Scotiabank Dance Centre

Tickets 604.684.2787 | ticketstonight.ca

Info 604.606.6400 | thedancecentre.ca

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Premier Sponsor

MAY 23 – 30 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 29

ARTS LISTINGS ONGOING

AMBLESIDE PARK

FRIDAY, MAY 31 4–9:30 P.M. SATURDAY, JUNE 1 11 A.M.–9:30 P.M. bridgefestival.ca

BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER THROUGH FOOD, MUSIC AND CULTURE.

cultural pavilions • live music • beach parade • international lounge • kids culture club

SINGERS WANTED AT SONGRISE! Join an uplifting singing experience inspired

by Bobby McFerrin’s Circle Songs. Sing vocal grooves, heavenly harmonies, and body-shakin’ rhythms, all composed in the moment! For anyone who can sing in tune and has a basic sense of rhythm.

11 am most Sundays until June 16. Info and preregistration: www.songrise. ca. To Jun 16, 11 am–12:45 pm, Kitsilano Neighbourhood House. $15.

THRONE AND GAMES—THE LAST LAUGH Improvised Game of Thrones parody. To Jun 15, The Improv Centre. From $10.75.

COMMUNICATING DOORS A dominatrix from the future is summoned to witness a man’s confession to murder. To May 25, 8 pm, Metro Theatre. $25/22.

DISNEY’S PETER PAN JR. Family-friendly musical. To May 26, Genesis Theatre. $20 adults, $12 students.

FROZEN MOMENT Artwork by members of the Art Studios. To May 26, Silk Purse Arts Centre.

SHOSHIN: BEGINNER’S MIND ART EXHIBITION OPENING To May 31, 6-9 pm, Capulet Art Gallery. Free.

EVAN LEE: FUGAZI Exhibition of photographic scans of cubic zirconia. To Apr 26, Teck Gallery. Free.

ILLUMINATION Lil Chrzan & Dennis Greer landscape paintings. To Jun 2, Kay Meek Arts Centre.

CHARITY ART AUCTION Silent Auction: Bid on fine art and gifts. To Jun 13, 6 pm, Pacific Arts Market. Free.

MATILDA THE MUSICAL The Arts Club Theatre Company presents an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s novel. To Jul 14, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage. Tickets start at $39.

EXPRESSIONS THEATRE FESTIVAL 2019 Arts Umbrella presents a selection of theatre and musical-theatre classics. To May 25, Waterfront Theatre. $12.

RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN’S G2K CINDERELLA To May 25, Granville Island Stage. $18/28/38/48.

DALINIAN DANCER DALI SCULPTURE UNVEILING Official public unveiling of Dali’s sculpture . To Oct 1, 12-1 pm, 745 Thurlow Street. Free.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM William Shakespeare’s romantic romp. To May 25, 7:30-10 pm, Matsqui Centennial Auditorium. $12-25.

RICHARD LETT’S ONE NUT ONLY Comedian’s story of surviving testicular cancer. May 22-25, 8-9:30 pm, Havana Theatre. $20.

TEA AND TALKS Discussions of maritime history and other seaworthy topics. May 23; Jun 6, 20; Jul 4, 2:30-3:30 pm, Maritime Museum of B.C.. Free.

THE LAUGH GALLERY WITH GRAHAM CLARK Graham Clark and friends present a comedy show with trivia and prizes. May 27, 8 pm, Havana Theatre. $5.

EAST VANCOUVER IMPROV LEAGUE Instant Theatre presents monthly competitive improv-comedy. Jun 2, 8-9 pm; Jul 7, 8 pm; Aug 4, 8 pm, Havana Theatre. $12.

VANCOUVER ART GALLERY aDISPLACEMENT to Jun 9 aMOWRY BADEN to Jun 9 aMOVING STILL: PERFORMATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY IN INDIA to Sep 2 aVIEWS OF THE COLLECTION: THE STREET to Nov 17 THE POLYGON aTHE LIND PRIZE 2019 to Jun 9 CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY aDEANNA BOWEN | A HARLEM NOCTURNE to Jun 16 MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT UBC aIN A DIFFERENT LIGHT: REFLECTING ON NORTHWEST COAST ART to summer 2020 aSHAKEUP: PRESERVING WHAT WE VALUE to Sep 1 aSHADOWS, STRINGS AND OTHER THINGS: THE ENCHANTING THEATRE OF PUPPETS to Oct 14 MUSEUM OF VANCOUVER aWILD THINGS: THE POWER OF NATURE IN OUR LIVES to Sep 30 aHAIDA NOW: A VISUAL FEAST OF INNOVATION AND TRADITION to Dec 1 aTHERE IS TRUTH HERE to Dec 31 BEATY BIODIVERSITY MUSEUM aCLOSER to Nov 10

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22 REVOLVER FESTIVAL 2019 Upintheair Theatre’s festival of independent theatre and performing arts. May 22–Jun 2, The Cultch.

Various ticket prices.

OTHER INLAND EMPIRES Surfing, dentistry, and an untold family story. May 22, 7 pm; May 23, 9:30 pm; May 25, 7:15 pm; May 26, 5:30 pm, The Cultch. $15/20.

OUTSIDE IN BOOK LAUNCH The launch of Outside In by Libby Davies. May 22, 7 pm, Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema. Free.

JULIA NYGRA Artist talk for exhibition Tender Formations. May 22, 7-8:30 pm, Port Moody Arts Centre. Free.

WORDS IN THE BURBS A reading series for writers/readers in the suburbs. May 22, 7-9 pm, Western Sky Books. Free.

BOOK LAUNCH: LIFT The launch of poet Emily Davidson’s debut book. May 22, 7:30 pm, The Beaumont. Free.

TEMPLETOONS An evening of short animated films. May 22, 7:30-9 pm, Templeton Secondary School. $5 students/$10 adults.

HAKO OURO Collective and Tangible create a multidisciplinary dance experience. May 2225, 8 pm, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. $15-36.

UBC BACCALAUREATE CONCERT Performers from UBC Music’s graduating

30 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MAY 23 – 30 / 2019

Arts HOT TICKET

WOMEN ROCK (May 24

PARKER ART SALON (May

24 to 26 at 1000 Parker Street) Marney-Rose Edge, Nur Shojai, Niina Chebry, Claire Sower, and Karen Lorena Parker are just some of the more than 50 artists getting ready for this massive event in the labyrinthine studios of 1000 Parker. The old-style art salon will feature everything from sculpture to photography, as well as live music, a curated exhibit, and more.

On the first night, from 7 to 10 p.m., check out the Collectors’ Soirée, or hit the event during the next two days, from 1 to 5 p.m.; book studio tours at 2 and 4 p.m. via Eventbrite.

class. May 22, 8-9:30 pm, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Free.

THURSDAY, MAY 23 BE MOVED Arts Umbrella Dance Company’s season finale features works by international and Canadian choreographers. May 23-25, Vancouver Playhouse. $35.

SURREY INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL Theatre, music, and magic for young audiences. May 23-25, Surrey Arts Centre & Bear Creek Park. $7-12.

ART FOR LIFE Charity auction in support of the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation and Friends for Life Society. May 23, 6 pm, The Permanent. $150.

A STEADY RAIN Award-winning play by Keith Huff. May 23-31, 7 pm, Tyrant Studios. $29.

ZIYA TONG IN CONVERSATION WITH GREEN PARTY LEADER ELIZABETH MAY May 23, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. $12/10.

DAVIDA MONK Contemporary dance celebrating the work of Calgary-based Davida Monk. May 23-25, 8 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $33/25.

THE DIXIE SWIM CLUB Comedy about five southern women who set aside a long weekend every August to recharge their relationships. May 23–Jun 8, 8-10:30 pm, The Theatre at Hendry Hall. $20/18.

MY DEAR LEWIS Solo puppet show originally developed with support from the Jim Henson Foundation. May 23, 8:30-9:30 pm; May 25, 7-8 pm; May 28, 8:15-9:15 pm; Jun 1, 7-8 pm; Jun 2, 5:30-6:30 pm, The Cultch. $22/15.

JOKES PLEASE! Standup comedy show hosted by Ross Dauk. May 23, 9-10:45 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $10.

FRIDAY, MAY 24 SHANE KOYCZAN MRG Concerts presents B.C. spoken-word poet and author. May 24, Vogue Theatre. $29.50.

I WALKED THE LINE A play about unions, treachery, solidarity, porta potties, and baked goods. May 24-27, Anvil Centre. $15/20.

and 25 at the Orpheum) The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra shows it can rock out, paying tribute to the music of pioneers from Tina Turner to Joan Jett and Janis Joplin. Jeff Tyzik takes the podium, while Cassidy Catanzaro, Katrina Dideriksen, and Shayna Steele channel some of pop music’s most powerful female voices.

THE RETURN OF SOUL GOSPEL (May 25 at Christ Church Cathedral) Powerhouse singers Dawn Pemberton (shown here) and Warren Dean Flandez bring an extra soulful charge to the Good Noise Vancouver Gospel Choir as it wraps up its 15th season with a bang.

VISION The mystical history of the Temple of Light. May 25, 3 pm, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. $15/10.

THE LONG DISTANCE BETWEEN Staged reading as part of the rEvolver Festival.

May 25, 3 pm, The Cultch. By donation.

ST. JAMES MILONGA Argentine tango dance. May 25, 7-11 pm, St. James Hall. $10/5.

SCANDINAVIAN TREASURES: SONGS OF THE NORTH The Vancouver Cantata Singers’ last program of the season explores choral music from Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. May 25, 7:30 pm, Scandinavian Cultural Centre. Tix $10-35.

JOHN CLEESE Legendary British comedian.

May 25, 7:30 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

WEIRD AL KARAOKE Comedians perform original parody songs they’ve written in the style of Weird Al Yankovic. May 25, 8 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $10.

COMEDY AT CRAVING: ROUND 5 Professional standup comedy. May 25, 8-9:30 pm, Cravings Restaurant and Lounge. $15-20.

THE COMIC STRIP Standup comedy by Ryan Williams, Andrea Jin, and headliner Steev Letts. May 25, 9 pm, Tyrant Studios. $18.

BRENT CONSTANTINE PRESENTS: THE WORKS OF BRENT CONSTANTINE Table read of a terrible script. May 25, 10 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $8.

SUNDAY, MAY 26 TAPPED IN West Coast Tap presents a show honouring tap dancer Joey Hollingsworth.

May 26, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $20/25.

CAG SUNDAY AFTERNOON TOURS May 26, 3 pm, Contemporary Art Gallery. Free.

LIFE IS FUNNY VI Clean comedy night . May 26, 7:30-9:30 pm, Schara Tzedeck Wosk Auditorium . $26.

JOKES N TOKES COMEDY Comedian Andrew Packer hosts a night of weed-oriented standup. May 26, 8 pm, Cannabis Culture Headquarters. $10.

THE ACTOR’S NIGHTMARE On-script actors paired up with improvisers. May 26; Jun 23; Jul 28; Aug 25, 8 pm, Havana Theatre. $12.

MONDAY, MAY 27

NOT SO SPECIAL: HASTILY WRITTEN STAND UP SPECIALS Comedians Abdul Aziz and Aaron Charles Read write 30 minutes of new material in a week. May 24, 6:30-8:30 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $8/10.

FESTIVAL OF WINDS Performances by the Richmond Delta Youth Orchestra senior and junior winds ensembles and the Delta Secondary School senior and junior bands. May 27, 7 pm, Genesis Theatre . By donation.

3RD ANNUAL RE-MIND: AN EVENING OF ART, MUSIC, AND READINGS All-ages show featuring artists, musicians, and authors living with schizophrenia. May 24, 7-11 pm, Beaumont Studios. Free.

TUESDAY, MAY 28

5TH ANNUAL PARKER ART SALON May 24-26, 7 pm, Parker Art Studios. Tickets from $10-50.

GRAHAM CLARK’S QUIZ SHOW Game show-themed comedy show featuring local acts. May 24, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. $10/12.

FROM THE OLD WORLD TO THE NEW Organ music from two continents and many eras. May 24, 8-9:30 pm, Holy Rosary Cathedral. $20/15.

CHICKEN GIRL The titular character embarks on a surreal adventure to uncover the mystery surrounding the disappearance of her Uncle Chan. May 24–Jun 7, 8-9 pm, The Annex. $20-30.

COMICS ON COMICS Comic book-based comedy show. May 24, 9 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $8.

SATURDAY, MAY 25 RICHMOND CARVERS WOODCARVING SHOW Artistry in woodcarving with over 300 exhibits. May 25-26, 12-5 pm, Hugh McRoberts Secondary School, $2.

MIKE McCARDELL Vancouver TV personality and author known for his lighthearted human-interest stories. May 25, 1-3 pm, Indigo Langley. Free.

CREATING LUMINOUS SPACE: INNOVATIVE ARCHITECTURE MEETS SPIRITUAL

CECILY NICHOLSON AND MICHAEL NARDONE Join poets Nicholson and Nardone for a special double reading. May 28, 7 pm, Massy Books. Free.

TOP TALENT SHOWCASE—THE MONTHLY Comedy revue featuring female and nonbinary performers. May 28, 8 pm, Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club. $10.

FULL PINT COMEDY Catch standup comedy in Kitsilano every Tuesday! May 28, 9 pm, Castaway Bar & Kitchen. $5.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29 BARE Eternal Theatre Collective presents a contemporary pop opera about coming out and growing up. May 29–Jun 8, Unitarian Church of Vancouver. $17-25.

GLOBAL SOUNDSCAPES FESTIVAL InterCultural Orchestra’s Global Soundscapes Festival. May 29–Jun 13, Waterfront Theatre. $20-35/fest flex pass.

SH:LAM (THE DOCTOR) Launch of a new collection of poems by Joseph A Dandurand.

May 29, 7 pm, Massy Books. Free.

GET & KEEP THE RELATIONSHIP YOU WANT Practical tools from couples therapists. May 29, 7:30-9:30 pm, The Art of Loving. $25.

THURSDAY, MAY 30 MEDICINE FOR A NIGHTMARE Nep Sidhu’s visual arts. May 30–Aug 3, Audain Gallery.

Free.

see next page

CHEDDAH BOYS IMPROV COMEDY A night of lewd, crude, and absurd improv comedy.

May 30, 10 pm, Havana Theatre. $10.

FRIDAY, MAY 31 BRIDGE FESTIVAL WEST VANCOUVER New festival features interactive cultural pavilions, performances, a beach parade, and food. May 31–Jun 1, Ambleside Park. Free.

GLOBAL SOUNDSCAPES FESTIVAL A celebration of Japanese and Canadian music.

May 31–Jun 13, Waterfront Theatre. $20-35.

12 MINUTES MAX Six eclectic dance works May 31, 7 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $28/22.

WALT WHITMAN ANIMATED Hand-printed animations honouring the poet. May 31, 7-9 pm, Burnaby Art Gallery. Free.

SAM WALKER Canadian comedian performs two nights of standup. May 31; Jun 1, 8 pm, Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club. $20.

CAP SINGERS FAREWELL CONCERT A cappella and organ-accompanied music. May 31, 8 pm, Pacific Spirit United Church (formerly Ryerson). $10.

ALBERTA VS BC ROAST BATTLE Brett Forte leads Team Alberta against Kody Audette’s Team B.C. May 31, 10:30 pm, Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club. $20.

FRIDAY, JUNE 7 LIL COMEDY SHOW Standup showcase featuring local comics. Jun 7, 14, 21, 28; May 31, 9 pm, Instant Theatre. $10.

SATURDAY, JUNE 1

zzeria. ADULTS ARE SO LAST YEAR Artists and

musicians created works for kids. Jun 1, 12-5

pm, Western Front. Free.

BROCK HOUSE/KERRISDALE CHOIR Choral concert titled Journey Home. Jun 1, 3 pm, Knox United Church. $10, children under 12 free.

SONGS OF CELEBRATION 35 Vancouver Children’s Choir’s 35th-anniversary performance. Jun 1, 3 pm, Christ Church Cathedral. $20/15.

VSO in the Summer

CELEBRATE! The Richmond Delta Youth Orchestra presents an end-of-season awards concert. Jun 1, 3 pm, Bethany Baptist Church. $10/13.

STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM VARIETY SHOW Variety show features a multitude of Vancouver talent, including burlesque, singing, pole, circus, hip-hop/breakdance, comedy, and live music. Along with various acts we will be fundraising for Project Limelight. Great prizes to be won, including Vancouver Canucks tickets!

Come support these beloved performers and charity! Jun 1, 8-11 pm, Rio Theatre. $40.

MAGIC & REMEMBERING Program of dance works featuring artists with and without disabilities. Jun 1-3, 8 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $10-25.

SUNDAY, JUNE 2 WHY TIBET MATTERS Environment, climate change, and geopolitical context in Tibet. Jun 2, 6-9 pm, Bombay Kitchen and Bar. $35/40 (vegetarian/non-veg).

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

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New British blues LP available at Vinyl Records (321 West Hastings) . . . . .

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32 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MAY 23 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 30 / 2019

music

Rez Kids continue a healing journey

A

by Mike Usinger

s history’s most revered revolutionaries have proven, there’s no point in being pissed off at the world if you’re not willing to work to change things. That idea is not lost on Snotty Nose Rez Kids.

An undercurrent of entirely understandable anger runs through the Vancouver-based duo’s third and latest album, Trapline, but it’s used in a way that’s admirably clever, often funny, and always constructive. MCs Darren “Young D” Metz and Quinton “Yung Trybez” Nyce work a groove that suggests an everlasting affection for Atlanta-brand trap and socially conscious classic hip-hop, as well as a deep love for the lyrical genius of modern-day giants like Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West. Issuewise, they cover a lot of ground.

The two Haisla rappers, who grew up in small Kitamaat Village in northern British Columbia, preach—in the unpreachiest of ways—the idea of respect: for the land (“Wa’wais”, “Hunger Games”), for women (“Son of a Matriarch”, “Granny Kay”), and for the history and strength of Indigenous people in Canada and around the world (“I Can’t Remember My Name”).

What stands out is the pride Metz and Nyce have in where they come from. And also their humour: consider “They say go back to where you came, hey-yea/I tell ’em you should do the same, hey-yea” in “Creator Made an Animal”, or “Halloween is the only time you wanna be me” in “Lost Tribe”.

Trapline’s unmistakable positivity is entirely by design, according to Metz and Nyce. The two are in Rotterdam in the Netherlands as part of a European tour when the Straight tracks them down. As anyone who loves travelling knows, there’s nothing better for expanding one’s world-view, and Snotty Nose Rez Kids have been doing a lot of it since surfacing with an eponymous debut in 2017. That’s fuelled the duo’s “Savage Mob” off Trapline, the song written after a trip to Australia that had Metz and Nyce hanging out and swapping stories with Oz Indigenous rappers Birdz and Nooky.

Reached at their hotel after the gig, the two suggest that being able to make music and see the world isn’t the only reason they’re in a fortunate place. Sometimes success is more intangible than things like the Polaris Prize and Juno nominations they

For Snotty Nose Rez Kids, hip-hop has become a means of self-expression and a tool for affirming Indigenous culture.

Music TIP SHEET c GOGOL BORDELLO (May 24 at the Commodore) Uncertain as the future of the world seems today, there are some things you can always count on at a Gogol Bordello show, including sweat stains from your time in the mosh pit and a screaming hangover.

c REAL ESTATE (May 25 at the Imperial) Remember when Brooklyn was the hottest indierock spot in North America?

Even if you don’t, Real Estate does, bonus being that the group is now 100 percent Matt Mondanile–free.

records by accident, the 36-year-old Underwood producing platinum-selling country albums the way Kanye West and Kim Kardashian pump out babies. That includes last year’s critically lauded Cry Pretty—which is exactly what Psalm West is being told to do as you read this.

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(May 25 at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre) One of Vancouver’s most daring and enduring jazz units teams up with Canadian-born New Yorkers Darcy James Argue and Harry Stafylakis for an evening that promises to redefine the term heavy.

received for their 2017 sophomore album, The Average Savage.

Snotty Nose Rez Kids are grateful to have become an inspiration to those struggling to make sense of the world. So while they might be musicians first, the two are now also mentors, an honour they don’t take lightly.

“As an Indigenous youth, when I was younger, I didn’t have people in hip-hop culture or mainstream music—or really outside of my com-

munity—that I could really look up to,” Nyce says, speaking on a conference call with Metz. “Since social media— Facebook, Instagram, and all that kind of stuff—changed the world, we’re able to have this platform for our youth. For me, Native music outside of our own traditional music was nonexistent, or so I thought. But that wasn’t the case— it just wasn’t in our town, or in our cities, because we were just small-town kids from a res in northern B.C.

“Because of that,” he continues, “we understand the importance of using our voices especially to uplift our youth. We’re doing something that they can relate to. You should see our Instagram inbox—it’s insane. We get messages from kids who tell us really inspiring stuff—how our music has helped them get out of really dark places. That’s pretty cool for us.”

Metz and Nyce sometimes see their younger selves in those messages. In a tradition that dates back to the early, seminal releases by N.W.A and Public Enemy and the way they reshaped black culture, the thought on Trapline is that it’s okay to be young, pissed off, and Indigenous, but that there’s also a better way forward. Consider the album’s triumphant final track, “Yuck-Sue-Yaach”, which ends with the promise “If you proud about your village/We about to kill it.” That the track was the first written for Trapline speaks volumes.

“I still get emotional today, but back in the past there was, for me, more a sense of not knowing yourself,” Metz says. “Growing up, there was self-hate and not loving yourself.

Over time—especially once we started doing this music and getting connected—we were able to talk about things like generational traumas that have been passed down in the family.

This music became our tool for helping ourselves really find our identity.”

He continues: “That led to selfhealing and self-love, learning about the culture more and changing our values to be not so focused on materialistic things. We’re showing our appreciation for the land, the water, and the culture. It’s been quite the journey—I’m not going to lie.”

Trapline wasn’t supposed to be the follow-up to The Average Savage.

Initially, Snotty Nose Rez Kids were working on a record called Rez Bangers and Koolapops, designed to connect with the group’s growing fan base on a decidedly more superficial level. Instead, Metz and Nyce tapped into the same vibe that inspired last year’s “The Warriors”, which was spurred by resistance of Indigenous communities to the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

“It [Rez Bangers and Koolapops] was something we created to hit up festival circuits in the summer to really get big audiences involved in our sets at festivals,” Nyce says. “It was to try and move us up in the performance world.”

In the middle of that, Snotty Nose Rez Kids hooked up with the Toronto-based Indigenous label RPM Records and then decided to refocus—a decision that was also influenced by the Polaris Prize nomination for The Average Savage.

“Rez Bangers and Koolapops was supposed to be something fun—we kind of removed the politics and talk about things like identity,” Nyce suggests. “We realized we can’t make that kind of music at this point in history. We wanted to do something special with this project, make the songs sound perfect, and make the messages sound perfect. The goal was to not settle for anything less.”

And in shooting for something more, Snotty Nose Rez Kids have joined a long list of legends—from Martin Luther King and Elijah Harper to Chuck D. and Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha—who understand that anger is a great tool, but only if channelled into something positive.

“There was a point when I was young where I was angry and pissed off at the world,” Metz says. “But once I started to learn about the strength and the power that the Indigenous people have, our energy changed. That became contagious to other people.

Now we uplift one another.” g Snotty Nose Rez Kids play Fortune Sound Club next Thursday (May 30).

Higher Brothers prove rap is global

by Mike Usinger

POP EYE

d THE NAME is subversive enough to make one wonder who exactly is asleep at the switch in the People’s Republic of China. How in the hell can a country that famously has a less-than-zero tolerance on the issue of drugs continue to turn an oblivious eye to a rap unit that dubs itself the Higher Brothers?

That’s right, the Higher Brothers, a name presumably more in keeping with being high as a fucking kite than having a higher IQ than the next university applicant.

You can call yourself the Higher Brothers when you’re from Compton, Atlanta, or Vansterdam—places where it’s open season at the buffet on any drug you can name, including bath salts, N-bombs, and grey death.

You don’t call yourself the Higher Brothers when you’re from a country

where drug dealers are not only routinely sentenced to death, but also paraded out for extra humiliation at public sentencing rallies, where the audiences often include busloads of schoolchildren.

For that reason, and that reason alone, the four MCs—Masiwei, KnowKnow, Psy.P, and Melo— who’ve chosen the most cleverly subversive name in modern Chinese music deserve your respect. Added points to the Higher Brothers for being amazing despite coming from a country where everything is hyperregulated up the ying-yang, including pop music.

How regulated? Let’s start with the foreigners. Katy Perry has been blacklisted ever since waving a Taiwanese flag on-stage in Taipei back in 2015, joining a truly headscratching, try-and-connect-the-dots list that includes Björk, Oasis, Bob Dylan, and Maroon 5.

The Higher Brothers are on the rise not just in China, but also in North America.

Sometimes music fans get an explanation from Chinese officials like this one for Miley Cyrus, who in 2009 stupidly thought it was a good idea to post a photo of herself pulling her eyes back into a slant: “Miss Cyrus has made it clear she is no friend of China or anyone of East Asian descent. We have no interest in further

polluting our children’s minds with her American ignorance.”

Jay-Z, meanwhile, had the welcome mat pulled away for having too many “profane” lyrics, the government deciding to “protect the city’s hip-hop fans from nasty lyrics about pimps, guns and drugs”.

Which brings us back to the Higher Brothers and their rise not just in China, but also in North America.

Their success at home is easily understood. For those who’ve never been there, Asia’s most populated country is a fascinating mishmash of old and new. A shiny high-tech subway system runs underneath hutongs that date back centuries to the Yuan dynasty. Dusty street vendors sell deep-fried duck heads out front of gleaming Louis Vuitton outlets.

Everyone between the ages of seven and 97 has a cellphone, but—with the exception of the truly VPN–savvy— is unable to access the things we take

for granted in the West: YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify.

What stands out, though, is that someone has created a pipeline for getting hip-hop to the under-30 masses. You don’t hit a shoe store, T-shirt shop, or durian cheesecake stall (yes, it’s a truly delicious thing) without hearing Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator, or Childish Gambino.

Hip-hop has truly gone global, and Higher Brothers are proof. More importantly, instead of delivering a watered-down knockoff of the real thing, the group has taken a decidedly North American genre and warped it into something fiercely original—in a place where being an original outside the mainstream isn’t always rewarded.

Early Higher Brothers tracks like “Black Cab” eventually made their way to YouTube, where they led to comments like: “Ay props for reppin

see page 35

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Big John Bates delivers Germanic-tinged album

Big John Bates and his Noirchestra have recorded a somewhat creepy version of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Moon of Alabama” on their new disc, Skinners Cage.

LOCAL DISCS BIG JOHN BATES: NOIRCHESTRA Skinners Cage

d IT’S FITTING THAT Big John Bates and his Noirchestra will be spending a lot of time in Germany this year. The band’s cheekily named Summer Tour 2019—all but one of the shows are actually in the spring— will include roughly a month playing gigs from Hamburg to Berlin and all points between, including some side trips to Austria and Switzerland.

That makes sense, because with Skinners Cage, Bates and company have taken their sound from southern-gothic Americana to something approaching a mutant hybrid of postpunk and Weimar Republic cabaret.

The addition of violinist RequiEmily to the usual lineup of Bates (guitar, mandolin, banjo, vocals),

from page 33

your style but if you want to grow your base to the US & Euro market gotta learn that ENGLISH”; “that moment when the cab driver starts rapping”; “I see them on campus and think they are nerds”; and “wtf is this shit.”

The answer to that last question is something that we haven’t heard before on these shores, which gives us one thing in common with hiphop fans in China. In a Billboard interview earlier this year, Masiwei recalled getting shit on at home, noting the main criticism was that the group didn’t sound Chinese.

Perhaps because of that, the Higher Brothers’ rule-breaking Asian spin on trap made instant fans out of western rap heavy hitters like ScHoolboy Q, Ski Mask the Slump God, Denzel Curry, and Guapdad4000—all of whom appear on the group’s swaggering new album, Five Stars. That title is partially a nod to China’s national f lag—which speaks volumes about

the affection the members of the group have for their homeland.

Mostly, the record acts—in the tradition of all hip-hop classics—as a window into a culture we normally don’t get the opportunity to see.

Tellingly, though, one of the tracks on that album is “Open It Up”, where over a classic West Coast bass groove the Higher Brothers roll out lines that translate to “Come home with me, or the hotel, or in the car/Don’t blame me for thinking too dirty/Fucked up the plan, don’t worry I got plan B.” It’s the kind of song that smells like Snoop Dogg–approved stickyicky-icky, complete with no seeds and no stems. It’s a good thing for the Higher Brothers nobody in China, apart from the kids in the clubs, shoe stores, T-shirt stores, and durian cheesecake stands, is paying attention. g Higher Brothers play a sold-out Commodore on Saturday (May 25) and an all-ages show at Venue on Sunday (May 26).

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Brandy Bones (bass, cello, vocals), and Ty-Ty the Saviour (percussion) certainly helps in that regard—her approach is more European chamber-punk than Kentucky bluegrass.

But if that doesn’t convince you, consider that the Noirchestra recorded Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Moon of Alabama” for this LP—a midnight-exorcism version that will make you want to throw your copy of The Doors onto a Samhain bonfire.

So, yes, this music will make perfect sense in Köln and Dresden, and it might make sense to you too, if you’ve ever wished Jeffrey Lee Pierce had lived long enough to make the cabaret-noir record you always knew he had in him.

by John Lucas

LIL CLITTY

Sweet Release

d AT FIRST GLANCE Lil Clitty seems as if she might be gunning see next page

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THE BOTTOM SHELF BOURBON TRIO Originals and traditionals that draw from the roots of country blues, bluegrass, and country. May 30, 8 pm, The Heatley. $10 recommended donation.

SEARSON Fiddling, singing, and step dancing from Ottawa. May 31, 8 pm, St. James Hall. $20/16.

BLUES & ROOTS BBQ BASH Featuring the Steve Kozak Band with guests Paul Pigat (guitar) and Jerry Cook (sax), and the Modelos.

Jun 1, 6:30 pm, Shannon Hall. $25.

ALAN MATHESON QUINTET Swing dance to live jazz music. Jun 1, 8-11:55 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. $15.

WEST COAST CHICAGO Tribute to legendary rock band Chicago. Jun 2, 4:30-7:30 pm, Fairview Pub. $10.

DREAMS Tribute to Fleetwood Mac. Jun 7, 8 pm, Centennial Theatre. $35.

SOUND ECLECTIC PRESENTS... RHAPSODY A night of vocal harmony in various genres, from jazz to pop and classical to rock.

Jun 9, 7:30 pm, Orpheum Annex. $30.

JACKSON HOLLOW Four-piece bluegrass band. Jun 10, 7:30 pm, ANZA Club. $25/20.

GANG SIGNS Indie pop band. Jun 15, Biltmore Cabaret.

THE HIP SHOW AND FO FIGHTERS Foo Fighters and Tragically Hip tribute bands. Jun 15-16, 7:30 pm–12:30 am, Shannon Hall on the Cloverdale Fairgrounds. $20.

NEW ORLEANS ALE STARS Dance to live jazz music. Jun 15, 8-11:55 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. $15.

RAMPANT LION Heavy rock band. Jun 15, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10.

FATHER’S DAY CONCERT Performances by New Westminster & District concert bands.

Jun 16, 2 pm, Queen’s Park Bandshell. Free.

TYLER HILTON American singer-songwriter and actor. Jun 19, Biltmore Cabaret.

WOODSHED SUPPLY CO. Rock n’ roll/altcountry band. Jun 21-22, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10.

BRIGA & THE ABSINTHE ENSEMBLE Blend of Eastern European roots, Balkan-inspired sounds, and traditional chamber music. Jun 22, 1 pm, Civic Plaza. Free.

SUMMER HIT PARADE: TRIBUTE TO THE LEGENDS OF THE 50S & 60S Tributes to Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, and Patsy Cline.

Jun 22, 6-9 pm, Legion 240. $20.

COUSIN HARLEY Local rockabilly band featuring guitarist Paul Pigat performs roots, vintage country, and western swing. Jun 23, 1 pm, Lynn Valley Village. Free.

MAJOR FANTASY Southern-blues rock. Jun 23, 7:30-11:30 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10.

from previous page

to become Vancouver’s answer to CupcakKe. Track titles like “The D”, “My Ass”, and “Cum” seem like they came straight out of the filth-filled catalogue of the woman who gave us the deathless “Duck Duck Goose” and “Spider-Man Dick”.

Depending on how seriously you think hip-hop artists ought to take their on-stage personas, you may or may not be disappointed to learn that Lil Clitty is basically a character.

As played by local actor Ese Atawo (who has racked up small roles in just about every TV series lensed locally, from Continuum and iZombie to Supergirl and The Flash), the rapper known euphemistically as Lil C is as dirty-minded and potty-mouthed as the aforementioned titles suggest.

She’s also given to non sequiturs like “I get so horny when you garden and you read to at-risk youth” (from “Average Joe”).

If that sounds vaguely surreal, check out “Hate Track”, on which Lil C airs a petty grievance she’s been carrying with her since high school. Someone named “Ronnie” then takes over for the second half of the track, and he spends his allotted verses dissing Garfield. As in the comic-strip cat. (Is this a bad time to mention that CupcakKe’s last album included a song called “Garfield”?)

So, yes, this is some funny shit, but there’s some bite behind the laughs. “Rappin Ain’t Hard” proves, through counterexample, that rapping well actually is hard. “The D” is about, well, dicks (and possibly vitamin D), but it’s also about using sex as a substitute for therapy—sort of like “Fuck the Pain Away” if Peaches possessed a sense of humour.

Like most comedy-rap records (with the possible exception of the Lonely Island’s Incredibad), Sweet Release doesn’t really hold up after the first listen. But that’s okay, because how many times do you want to hear the same joke?

by John Lucas

36 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT MAY 23 – 30 / 2019

HI-RANGER Psych-pop group. Jun 26, 7:3011:30 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10.

BLUES HOODOO Instrumental jazz-funk fusion. Jun 27, 7:30-11:30 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10.

TERMINAL STATION Local blues-rockers featuring guitarist Scott Smith. Jun 29, 1 pm, Civic Plaza. Free.

WISE YOUNGBLOOD High-octane rock group. Jun 29-30, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10.

GARY COMEAU AND THE VOODOO ALLSTARS New Orleans-style roots and blues.

Jun 30, 3 pm, Anavets Club 45. $10.

THE SCANDINAVIAN STRING ALLIANCE Scandinavian folk supergroup. Jul 15, 8 pm, St. James Hall. $30/26.

COMMON Rapper, actor, and philanthropist from Chicago. Jul 16, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale May 24, 10 am, $65.

ROCKET TO RUSSIA FEST Punk-rock music festival. Jul 18-21, 7-11:30 pm, WISE Hall. $15-70.

TRIBUTE TO CHRIS CORNELL Honouring the life and music of the late Chris Cornell. Jul 20, 7:30 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $20.

MIYAVI Japanese guitarist and singer-songwriter. Jul 25, Vogue Theatre.

GRIZFOLK Alternative rock band. Jul 26, Biltmore Cabaret.

ZAKK SABBATH Black Sabbath cover band featuring guitarist-vocalist Zakk Wylde. Aug 5, Imperial Vancouver.

JOHN PRINE American country-folk singersongwriter. Aug 6, 7 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. $92.

RHYE R&B project of Canadian singer Mike Milosh. Sep 23, Vogue Theatre. $34.50.

OF MONSTERS AND MEN Icelandic pop band on their Fever Dream Tour. Sep 28, 7 pm, Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. $39.75.

LEO KOTTKE Fingerpicking acoustic guitarist.

Sep 29, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. $48/45.

LOGIC American rapper on his Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Tour. With guest J.I.D. Oct 5, 6:30 pm, Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. $50.

THE WATERBOYS British northern-soul group tour with their album Where the Action Is. Oct 6, 7 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $50.

TRASHCAN SINATRAS Scottish pop band.

Oct 10, Biltmore Cabaret.

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER American folk band from North Carolina. Oct 12, 8 pm, Imperial Vancouver. $26.

SHINEDOWN American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. With guests Papa Roach.

Oct 16, 5:30 pm, Abbotsford Centre. $39.50.

CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT Grammy-winning jazz vocalist. Oct 16, 17, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. $48/45.

TYLER CHILDERS Country and bluegrass

Music

HOT TICKET

GOGOL BORDELLO (May 24 at the Commodore) There was a time, in the mid to late 2000s, when Gogol Bordello was one of the hottest bands on the planet—which is a hell of an accomplishment when you consider that its mix of Gypsy music, dub, and punk has never been (and probably never will be) particularly trendy. But there Gogol Bordello was: appearing in movies like Everything Is Illuminated, hanging out with Madonna, and writing songs for Coke commercials.

The New York–based group with the ever-rotating lineup may not have quite as much cultural cachet as it once did, but we swear on the unironic mustache of frontman Eugene Hütz that Gogol Bordello is still a riotously entertaining spectacle whenever it hits the stage. g

singer-songwriter on his Country Squire Tour.

Oct 22, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $36.

KERO KERO BONITO British indie pop band.

Oct 25, Rickshaw Theatre.

HILLTOP HOODS Australian hip-hop group on The Great Expanse Tour with guest Adrian Eagle.

Nov 29, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $32.50.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22 JORJA SMITH & KALI UCHIS American pop/R&B artists perform on a coheadlining tour. May 22, 7 pm, PNE Forum. $49.50.

JOHNNY ORLANDO Sixteen-year-old pop singer from Ontario. May 22, 7 pm, Rio Theatre. $25.

DEATH Detroit punk legends, with local guests War Baby. May 22, 7:30 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $26.50.

THE SPECIALS Ska-punk band performs on its 40th anniversary tour. May 22, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $46.50.

see next page

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

Scan to confess Solve the homeless problem I read an interesting article about how Utah solved their homeless problem. They simply just put them into housing and it actually worked. It’s kept so many people off the streets. Now if only Vancouver and the rest of the lower mainland would do the same thing.

Nothing to see here I keep going on my iPhone, thinking I’m going to discover something interesting online. I go to multiple news sites and website and find it’s just the same. The only remotely interesting thing lately are people posting their creative work.

Who would ever guess that the abundance of internet content out there would be so low and so boring?

No Good Time I found out I can’t have children six months ago. I still haven’t told my husband. It would really upset him because he wants to be a dad. Every time I am going to tell him it’s just never the right time. I am scared he’s going to leave me if I tell him.

Moving to America It is actually nothing like what I thought it’d be. Everyone is friendly... unlike Vancouver and Toronto. People smile, flirt, and are talkative. What’s going on with Canada?

Days Off The more time I get off work, the less time I want to spend there.

Visit

to post a Confession

THE NELL & JIM BAND Bluegrass band. May 23, 8-10 pm, St. James Hall. $20.

MIKE EDEL Album release, with guests Glass Forest and Wild Romantics. May 23, 8-11:30 pm, WISE Hall. $12.

PORTEAU Indie-folk band. May 23, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10.

FRIDAY, MAY 24 JESSE ROPER Canadian blues musician.

May 24, Biltmore Cabaret.

BLUES ON BROADWAY Local blues group the Steve Kozak Band. May 24, 7-9 pm, Fairview Pub. $5.

NO QUARTER Local quartet performs British blues-rock with a special dedication to Led Zeppelin. May 24, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10.

ROLLAWAY—MODERN EPIC EP RELEASE PARTY Local roots band Modern Epic EP release. May 24, 8-11 pm, ANZA Club. $15.

TEXAS CONNECTION: THE DAVIS-DANDERFER QUINTET Drummer Quincy Davis performs two nights with Vancouver’s James Danderfer on clarinet/saxophone. May 24-25, 8 pm, Frankie’s Jazz Club. $20.

THE TWILIGHT SAD Indie-rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. May 24, 9 pm, WISE Hall. $22.50.

GOGOL BORDELLO Gypsy-punk band from Manhattan. May 24, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $49.50.

Employment EMPLOYMENT Careers

KC3 Holdings Inc. o/a Arbutus Furniture & Closets

Is hiring Office Administrative Assistant.

Permanent, full time (35 h/week) Wage - $22.00/hour. Previous clerical experience 1-2 years, good English. Education: High school Main duties: Conduct telephone conversations and email correspondences; Assist with generating/reviewing reports, invoices etc.; Maintain electronic and hard copy filing system, co-ordinate the flow of information; Take responsibility for sorting, filing and storing data; Provide administrative and clerical support; Improve and establish office’s day to day procedures; Order office supplies and maintain inventory.Company’s business address and job location: 195 W 7th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Y 1L8 Please apply by e-mail: hr.arbutus.furniture@gmail.com

Mind EMPLOYMENT Body & Soul Certified Massage

SPRING SPECIAL Bodyscrub $79/70min. Waxing 20% off. Massage $28/half hour 8 - 4287 Kingsway 604-438-8714 Support Groups AL-ANON FAMILY GROUPS Does someone else's drinking bother you?

Al-Anon can help.

We are a support group for those who have been affected by another's drinking problem.

For more information please call: 604-688-1716 Anorexics & Bulimics Anonymous 12 Step based peer support program which addresses the mental, emotional, & spiritual aspects of disordered eating Tuesdays @ 7 pm @ Avalon Women's Centre 5957 West Blvd - 604-263-7177 Battered Women's Support Services provides free daytime & evening support groups (Drop-ins & 10 week groups) for women abused by their intimate partner. Groups provide emotional support, legal information & advocacy, safety planning, and referrals.

For more information please call: 604-687-1867 BC Balance & Dizziness provides information & support for persons with balance, dizziness & vestibular disorders.

Bi Monthly info meetings @ St. Paul's Hospital.

Call for info. 604-878-8383 www.BalanceAndDizziness.org Distress Line & Suicide Prevention Services NEED SOME ONE TO TALK TO? Call us for immediate, free, confidential and non-judgemental support, 24 hours a day, everyday.

The Crisis Centre in Vancouver can help you cope more effectively with stressful situations.

604-872-3311 Drug & Alcohol Problems?

Free advanced information and help on how quit drinking & using drugs. For more information call Barry Bjornson @ 604-836-7568 or email me @livinghumility@live.com Support, Education & Action Group for Women that have experienced male violence.

Call Vancouver Rape Relief 604-872-8212

PILL SQUAD, SILENT MARTIN, ORANGE WHIP Garage rock and psycho surf. May 24, 9 pm, The Princeton Pub. Free.

BILL COON Canadian jazz-guitar great. May 25, 7-9 pm, Deer Lake Gallery. By donation.

WILLOW, ELLE WOLF, AND EVA VALENTIN Monthly musical showcase May 25, 7-11 pm, Park Sound Studio. $10.

DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’ The Maple Leaf Singers present music from the 1940s through to the 2000s. May 25-26, 7:30 pm, Massey Theatre. $25/15.

HIGHER BROTHERS Chinese rap group. May 25, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $44.25.

HARD RUBBER ORCHESTRA WITH NEW YORK HEAVIES New works by Canadian composers Darcy James Argue and Harry Stafylakis. May 25, 8-10:30 pm, Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre. $25/15.

FRIDAY JAZZ Local jazz group the Alexander Marr Quartet performs a mix of original compositions and standards. May 24, 9 pm, Tyrant Studios. $10.

SATURDAY, MAY 25 ALLAN RAYMAN Alternative R&B singersongwriter from Toronto. May 25, Vogue Theatre. $32.50.

REAL ESTATE Indie-rock band from New Jersey. May 25, Imperial Vancouver.

THE SQUARES PRESENT: HARMONIZING IN THE KEY OF ‘EH?’ Traditional Canadian folk songs in the barbershop style. May 25, 1:30-4 pm, WISE Hall. $10-20.

SUNDAY, MAY 26 SUNDAYS FOR SINNERS MUSIC SALOON & SOCIAL Live roots music featuring blues chanteuse and accordionist Ana Bon-Bon. May 26, 4:30-7:30 pm, The Princeton Pub NAV Canadian rapper, with guest Killy. May 26, 8 pm, PNE Forum.

SWINGIN’ UTTERS Punk band from San Francisco, with guests Gallows Bound. May 26, 8 pm, WISE Hall. $18.

JONY J Hip-hop artist from China. May 26, 9 pm, Fortune Sound Club. $100.

LEA SALONGA Filipina pop singer and actor.

May 25, 5 pm, River Rock Show Theatre. $79.50.

PIANORAMA Local group featuring keyboardist Doc Fingers and vocalist Diane Lines.

May 25, 7 pm, Blue Frog Studios. $47.

GEORGE NOZUKA Canadian-American R&B singer (“Talk to Me”). May 25, 7 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. $55-100.

THE SENTICSPHERE Ten-year reunion show, with guests Two Car Train, Friction Project, and Robots & Gods. May 25, 7 pm, Bourbon. $10/13.

ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION Looking to start a parent support group in Kitsilano.

Please call Barbara 604 737 8337 Heart of Richmond - AIDS Society operates a confidential support group for persons with HIV/AIDS, or persons affected (family, friends or care givers) by the disease.

For info - 604-277-5137 www.heartofrichmond.com IBD Support Group Suffer from Crohn's and ulcerative colitis?

Living with IBD can often be overwhelming, but you're not alone! 3rd Wed of each month the GI Society holds a free IBD support group meeting for patients & their families to come together in an open, friendly environment. 7:00pm at #231 - 3665 Kingsway. For more information call 604-873-4876

EMPLOYMENT Music Repairs Basone Guitars – Vancouver's BEST Guitar Shop!

GREAT DEALS on Guitars, Amps, Pedals, Ukuleles, Plus professional REPAIR SERVICES and Custom Electrics. Stop by today! 1 blk East of Main St. 318 E 5th Ave 604-677-0311 basoneguitars.com

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

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CJ RAMONE Former member of the Ramones, with guests Mean Jeans and Phono Pony. Jun 1, 8 pm, WISE Hall. $18.

OCEAN ALLEY Rock band from Sydney, Australia. May 30, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom.

Note: moved from original venue of Imperial Vancouver. $20.

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SEBADOH American indie-rock band. Jun 1, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. $25.

T. NILE B.C. singer-songwriter performs a CD-release concert. May 30, 8 pm, St. James Hall. $20/16.

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TIM BAKER Hey Rosetta! frontman performs tunes from debut solo album, with guest Charlotte Cornfield. Jun 1, 8 pm, Imperial Vancouver. $28.50.

MELODY OF CHINA Sound of Dragon and Melody of China joint concert. May 30, 7 pm, Western Front. $20/15.

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BILLIE EILISH Seventeen-year-old pop singer-songwiter from L.A., with guest Finneas. Jun 1, 7 pm, PNE Amphitheatre. $67.05.

CHER American singer-actress, with guests Nile Rodgers and Chic. May 30, Rogers Arena.

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RIVERSIDE Prog-rock band from Poland. Jun 1, Rickshaw Theatre. $29.50.

THURSDAY, MAY 30

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DEATH FROM ABOVE Toronto rock duo composed of bassist Jesse F. Keeler and drummer-vocalist Sebastien Grainger. May 29, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $49.50.

FRIDAY, MAY 31

DEEP RELAXATION Tues, Wed & Thurs

ELISA THORN’S HUE ALBUM RELEASE Rock, pop, and indie record release. May 31, 9 pm, China Cloud. $10/15.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT BLUES & BREWS Local blues group the Steve Kozak Band, with guest keyboardist Mike Kalanj. May 29, 7-11 pm, Pat’s Pub & Brewhouse. Free.

THE PLANET SMASHERS Ska revivalists from Montreal, with guests Kman and the 45s.

May 31, Imperial Vancouver.

MARIA Downtown. 7 days, 10am-Mid. No text. 236-788-8994

STEVEN PAGE Former frontman of the Barenaked Ladies, with guests Port Cities. May 31, 8:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $32.50.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29

PETUNIA AND THE VIPERS Petunia and the Vipers Monday Night Residency May 27, 8-11 pm, WISE Hall. $10.

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SPECTATOR 6 Bringing back the sounds of 80s new wave. May 28, 8-11 pm, WISE Hall. $10.

TUESDAY, MAY 27

CARRIE UNDERWOOD American countrypop singer-songwriter. May 25, 7 pm, Rogers Arena.

THE SKINTS Reggae-fusion band from London, England, with guest Jesse Royal. May 31, Biltmore Cabaret. $24.99.

TUESDAY, MAY 28

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antiwoman, antisex bills have been rammed through Republican-controlled state legislatures in Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Utah, Mississippi, and Alabama. “The new wave of antiabortion laws suggests that a post-Roe America won’t look like the country did before 1973, when the court case was decided,” Michelle Goldberg wrote in the New York Times. “It will probably be worse.” If these bills are declared constitutional—a real possibility now—doctors will be jailed, women who have miscarriages will be prosecuted, and many forms of birth control will be banned. If you’re as pissed off as I am—and anyone who isn’t can piss right off— please make sure you and all your friends are registered to vote so you can vote out antichoice state legislators and governors in 2020. To be clear: right now, abortion remains legal in all 50 states. So you don’t have to wait until next November to send a “fuck you” to red-state Republicans pushing these laws.

Make a donation to an organization that helps women obtain abortions in red states—like the Yellowhammer Fund in Alabama (yellowhammerfund.org), Gateway Women’s Access Fund in Missouri (gwaf.org), and Women Have Options in Ohio (womenhaveoptions.org). g On the Lovecast, Dan chats with actor Maddie Corman: savagelovecast.com.

Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage.

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SAVAGE LOVE

Detachment addresses psychodramas

by Dan Savage

b I KEEP RUNNING into the same issue with my best friend of five years. (She’s also my maid of honour at my upcoming wedding.) We’re both empaths— most of my friends are—and we’re both in therapy working on how to cope with that. I have severe anxiety that impacts my physical health, so one of the empath-related issues I’m working on is not following through with plans when I need to take time alone.

My friend claims she understands this but my actions severely impact her mood. Example: we’ll make tentative plans to get together, I’ll feel too sick to follow through, and then she’s in a negative emotional spiral for days. The final straw came when she called me late this past Friday night—just once, with no subsequent voice mail, text message, or follow-up call. On Monday morning, I sent her a text message asking how her weekend was and got an icy reply. Evidently, something happened to her on Friday, she called me for support, and my failure to return her call left her feeling very upset.

I apologized for the accidental trigger and tried to lay down some protocols for reaching out in an emergency situation (leave me a voice mail and send a follow-up text) so I know it’s urgent.

She hasn’t replied. I’m really frustrated.

She has a lot of baggage around being shamed for being emotional, so I try to be careful not to invalidate her feelings, but I don’t know if that’s even making a difference. We’ve had several conflicts

over the last year, always triggered by something I did or said, almost always accidentally, that caused her to “take a step back.” She insists she understands I’m doing my best to be a good friend while also working through my own emotional shit. But that’s not the sense I’m getting. I’m feeling increasingly like it’s impossible to be a human being and her friend. Until recently, I had zero emotional boundaries and made myself available to her at a moment’s notice to help shoulder her emotional burden. But now that I’m trying to be more conservative with my abundance and take better care of myself, it seems like all I do is hurt her. What the fuck do I do? I’ve tried to be open-minded and patient with her dramatic mood swings, but she seems unable to give me the benefit of the doubt, which I always try to give her. This rocky ground between us is adding more stress to the whole wedding situation. (You’re supposed to be able to rely on your maid of honour, right?) This thing we have is not sustainable as it is, although I love her deeply. Help me figure this out?

- Emotions Making Personal Affection Too Hard Being so attuned to other people’s emotional states that you feel their pain—being an empath—sounds exhausting. But Lori Gottlieb, a psychotherapist in private practice, isn’t convinced your empath superpowers are the problem here.

“EMPATH’s moods seem overly

dependent on what the other person does,” Gottlieb said. “That’s not being ‘an empath’. Most people are empathetic, which isn’t the same as what these two are doing. They’re drowning in each other’s feelings.

This is what pop culture might call codependency, and what in therapy we’d call an attachment issue.”

From your letter, EMPATH, it sounds like you might be ready to detach from your friend—you mentioned a final straw and described the relationship as not sustainable—and detaching would resolve this attachment issue.

“This feels less like a friendship and more like a psychodrama where they’re each playing out their respective issues,” said Gottlieb. “A friendship isn’t about solving another person’s emotional issues or being the container for them. It isn’t about being devastated by another person’s feelings or boundaries. It should be a mutually fulfilling relationship, not being cotherapists to each other. In a strong friendship, each person can handle her own emotions rather than relying on the friend to regulate them for her.”

Gottlieb started writing an advice column because, unlike psychotherapists, advice columnists are supposed to tell people what to do. I’m guessing your therapist mostly asks questions and gently nudges, EMPATH, but since Gottlieb has her advice-columnist hat on today and

not her psychotherapist hat, I asked her to tell you what to do.

“She should act more like a friend than a therapist/caretaker,” Gottlieb said. “She shouldn’t treat her friend or herself as if they’re too fragile to handle basic communication or boundaries.

And they should both be working out their issues with their respective therapists, not with each other.”

And if you decide to keep this woman in your life (and your wedding party), EMPATH, you’ll both have to work on—sigh—your communication skills.

“Right now, they don’t seem to know how to communicate directly with each other,” said Gottlieb. “It’s either an icy text or complaining to outside parties about each other. But when it comes to how they interact with each other, they’re so careful, as if one or both might break if they simply said, ‘Hey, I really care about you and I know sometimes you want to talk about stuff, but sometimes it feels like too much and maybe something you can talk to your therapist about.’ ” Lori Gottlieb’s new book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, is a New York Times bestseller. Follow her on Twitter @LoriGottlieb1.

I want to boycott Handmaid states during my trip. Even then, I feel I have to check the news every day to see what state is next. Do you have any practical advice for me? Or should I just stay home until your democratic systems and your courts are fi xed and your Electoral College is abolished?

- Canadian Avoids Nearing Terrible Georgia, Ohio…

Why head south, CANTGO? Even if you’ve lived in Canada all your life, you couldn’t possibly have explored every corner of your beautiful country. But if you absolutely, positively must board the Titanic—excuse me, if you must visit the United States— take a hard right after you cross the border and head west instead. Enjoy Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; check out some of those lakes they’re always talking about in Minnesota; speed through the Dakotas, Montana, and the skinniest part of Idaho; and pretty soon you’ll be in Washington state, where a woman’s right to choose is enshrined in the state constitution.

The summers are lovely; we’ve got hiking trails that will take you to mountain lakes; and Democrats control both houses of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, b I WILL BE driving to New Orleans so you won’t have to check the news from Toronto. It’s almost impossible every day when you’re in Seattle. to drive from Ontario to Louisiana without stopping for fuel/food/hotel Confidential to everyone: Antichoice, see previous page in Ohio, Georgia, or Alabama. But

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