The Georgia Straight - Italian Day - June 6, 2019

JUNE 6 - 13 / 2019 | FREE Volume 53 | Number 2681

PLANE EMISSIONS

Aviation industry’s dirty secret

BARD TURNS 30 A new Shrew and more

AMANDA PALMER

Gets personal with No Intermission

Italian Day On June 9, Vancouverites will savour la dolce vita on the Drive with fine food, wine, music, fashion, and Italian Canadians’ deep love for the community

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JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 3

HAVE YOU BEEN TO...

CONTENTS 11

AspenClean

By Gail Johnson, Tammy Kwan, Carlito Pablo, Doug Sarti, Charlie Smith, and Janet Smith Cover photo by Barcelona Media Design

Cafe Medina Vancouver Theatre Sports vtsl.com

COVER

This year’s Italian Day celebration is shining a spotlight on community.

aspenclean.com

medinacafe.com

June 6 – 13 / 2019

8

NEWS

The aviation industry’s carbon emissions have come under scrutiny at an academic conference at UBC.

By Travis Lupick

25 ARTS

At Bard on the Beach, director Lois Anderson brings a feminist voice to Shakespeare’s controversial The Taming of the Shrew.

By Janet Smith

31 MUSIC

On There Will Be No Intermission, Amanda Palmer displays no shortage of lyrical ambition.

By Mike Usinger

33 MOVIES

Three films about famous people—Elton John, Luciano Pavarotti, and Emily Dickinson—are in local cinemas.

By Ken Eisner

188 N. Renfrew St, Vancouver | Enter through PNE Gate 6 or 9

——JUNE/JULY EVENTS M AY R A C RACING I N G & E& VE N T S 2 02019 1 9 —— F R E E A D M I S S I O N | R AC E T I M E S 1 : 5 0 P M

08 BELMONT STAKES

09 LIVE RACING

e Start Here 24 THE BOTTLE 20 FOOD 9 HOROSCOPES 8 I SAW YOU 39 SAVAGE LOVE 34 SUMMER MOVIES 6 TECHNOLOGY 28 THEATRE 29 VISUAL ARTS

e Online TOP 5

e Listings 30 ARTS 33 MUSIC 15 COUNTRY DAY

e Services 37 CLASSIFIEDS

16 FATHER’S DAY

Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 53 | Number 2681

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

1 2 3 4 5

Cannabis community remembers activist Tracy Curley.

Metro Vancouver Muslims celebrate Eid after end of Ramadan.

Canucks hot take of the week: Leafs changing colours?

Firefighters battle blaze in West End apartment building.

More than 140 whales have died off North America’s West Coast.

GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight

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JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 5

HIGH TECH Youths revive Indigenous languages

A

by Kate Wilson

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lthough the use of Indigenous languages has sharply declined during the past century, UBC PhD candidate Amber Shilling doesn’t like to say that they’re dying. Instead, she suggests, they’re sleeping.

Growing up in Calgary, Alberta, Shilling was dislocated from her Anishinaabe heritage. Although she lived more than 2,500 kilometres from its biggest concentration of speakers, she was keen to connect with her culture and learn her ancestral tongue of Anishinaabemowin.

Finding someone to practise with was difficult, however, so Shilling turned to the Internet. There, she found a host of language-learning apps and websites that she failed to find particularly engaging. “My background is in education, so while I acknowledge that I might be a little more critical than the average person, I found it lacking,â€? she tells the Georgia Straight by phone. “I think that’s where I really started thinking about seeing how work that I could do might help influence policy, design, and implementation that really create more impact. It’s important that it’s accessible to the people who are seeking it out.‌As I was looking at these types of things, I thought: ‘Well, if I pursue a doctorate, I might be able to get a seat at the table where these types of policy and design conversations are happening.’ â€?

Shilling’s research, which is being presented at the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences at UBC, focuses on the ways that urban Indigenous youths are using technology to connect to their languages, cultures, and identities. Her technique is one that is often overlooked by policymakers: listening to young

PhD candidate Amber Shilling studies how social media can help learning.

people talk about their experiences.

Using traditional Aboriginal practices like sharing circles to help facilitate dialogue, the academic dug into which resources were helpful for language-learning and how people aged 18 to 35 were using them. Unsurprisingly, given how long academic work can take to be published, the existing understanding of Indigenous language-learning tools was significantly out-of-date. “Some of the literature is still talking about which CD-ROM or recordings or websites are most valuable,� she says. “My computer doesn’t even take CDs or DVDs anymore.�

Instead, Shilling reveals, the most valuable resource for young people learning Indigenous languages was social media. “There was a great deal of context for them in videos that they struggled [with getting] from an app,� she says. “When they could watch videos through social media, they could access it at the time they wanted to; they could pause and rewind; and they really liked the ability to take

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their time with the learning. They particularly liked that they could hear the pronunciation and that they were able to feel connected. I think that’s one of the things that the literature on second-language learning and language revitalization hasn’t acknowledged yet: that even if a video is recorded by someone sitting at a kitchen table, when the youths were watching that video, they said it felt like they were also sitting at that table.�

Shilling’s research comes at an important time. The most recent census, published in 2016, revealed that the proportion of Aboriginallanguage speakers who acquired the tongue as a second language increased from 18 percent to 26 percent during 10 years. Similarly, the number of people who could speak an Aboriginal language well enough to conduct a conversation rose by eight percent.

In Shilling’s view, it’s vital that the government and policymakers consider how to work with young people to provide the best resources for language-learning. “I would say that one of the most important things we could do‌is to think about how we can meaningfully engage youth,â€? she says. “When they become part of the process [of designing language-learning platforms], they become part of the community, and we are better able to acknowledge their agency. I do think it would also help with a financial outcome as well. If we are better placing our funds for revitalization of language and supporting cultural events that people want to use and go to, then we have higher rates of success, higher rates of engagement, and better outcomes for all involved.

I think that’s a wonderful goal.� g

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FOLLOW US ON > Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < WALKING YOUR DOG

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 2, 2019 WHERE: York Avenue by Balsam, Kits

JUNE SALE

Just a wonderful Sunday evening and you made it more beautiful with your gorgeous greeting of a simple hello and heart melting smile. You looked so nice in your bright wardrobe with such inviting eyes. I should have stopped to talk. Hope you read this so I can see your beauty again.

STADIUM

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 2, 2019 WHERE: SkyTrain, at Stadium We made eyes as you exited the SkyTrain at Stadium Sunday night. You were wearing a greyish shirt/dress, had dark eyebrows and features, but dyed hair. I had the shaved head. Let's meet.

TEQUILA AT NUMBERS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 1, 2019 WHERE: Numbers Caberet

ALL L AMPS AM IN STORE

We were in line and I turned around and saw you. HOT HOT HOT! So I had to buy you a shot and a drink. You’re ruggedly handsome, curly hair and glasses. Let’s get more tequila again!

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 16, 2019 WHERE: Union St (Adanac Bike Route)

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I quite often think of you and what you said. It brings a smile to my face.

YOU WERE ENJOYING THE VIEW

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 29, 2019 WHERE: Commercial SkyTrain You were standing too close to the rail when I interrupted you.

You said that you were just enjoying the view. Watch a sunset with me sometime?

TALKED TO YOU ON 26TH MAY AT SHANNON FALLS, SQUAMISH

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 26, 2019 WHERE: Shannon Falls, Squamish

Hi, I was asking you to take a pic of me at Shannon Falls in Squamish with my smartphone and the first question you had was "where do you a come from?” because of my dialect :-) I am from Austria, and was there for business, but had my weekend off. You were in a group of 4 (2 other girls and one guy) and you come from Vancouver. You were also saying that you have been in Austria (Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg) already. Actually, you have visited much more in Europe and you have made a 3 weeks trip there. You have asked me what plans I have tonight on that Sunday, and I told you that I will get some dinner in Squamish (because of a recommendation of my colleagues) and then go to “High View Lookout” at Cypress Road. You stated that on this viewpoint, I will also have the chance to see Vancouver Island. Unfortunately, I wasn’t asking you for your number or if you would have liked to come with me to dinner. You are so friendly and you were smiling a lot, and I really liked that! Your character is really nice, I hope you can get in touch with me. I will be in Vancouver again in future :-)

GIRL GANG SKATEBOARDING ON UNION

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 27, 2019 WHERE: Union Bikeway

Can't remember the exact date, couple or so days ago. I was riding my bike east, and y’all were skating west. I was scorned by the skate community some moons ago (crappy ex cheated on me with the only lady crew I knew) and have been discouraged ever since. You all seemed super cool and I would love a chance to skate with you in a chill and fun environment!! Can I be a part of your girl gang?

THE BEAUTIFUL ANGEL ON THE #20 BUS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 31, 2019 WHERE: #20 Bus

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I got on the front of the bus and it was packed. I saw you standing by the doors and lost my breath. You were wearing a white dress, and had beautiful red hair. I had tattoos from neck to hand. We made eye contact the you got off at Commercial and Venables, I think. I really hope I get the chance to meet you in this lifetime.

DOUBLE TAKE ON HORNBY

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 30, 2019 WHERE: Hornby at Davie You walked past me on Hornby on your way to Brekka and I did a very obvious double take. Then you did a nice double take of your own! I was starting a conference call while sitting in the sun so was not able to follow up the double takes with an actual conversation. I would love to fix that and see you again!

TAKE OUT CHECK OUT IN KITS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 30, 2019 WHERE: 4th and Collingwood You were picking up a takeout order from Double D’s on 4th in Kits. You have long black hair and a sparkle in your eyes. You also have a sweet smile that I was happy to see as you walked out and turned to see me smiling at you. I would have stopped you for a chat but I had to pay for my pies! Would love to dine in with you next time if you see this.

SKYTRAIN (EVERGREENS LINE)

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 27, 2019 WHERE: SkyTrain (Tri-Cities) We both rushed to make the train. I was admiring your bike set up. We discussed where you got the strap from. You were very friendly and informative.

Would love to connect again!

Visit straight.com to post your FREE I Saw You _ 8 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019

Aircraft emissions are a problem. Photo

by Bogdan Khmelnytskyi/Getty Images

B

efore Ryan Katz-Rosene boarded an airplane for the 2019 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at UBC’s Vancouver campus, he declared that it was going to be the last time he flies for the foreseeable future.

“I’m done with it,” the University of Ottawa assistant professor and president of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada told the Straight by phone. “I can’t say forever. But I am definitely going to take a break. I hope this is my last flight for at least a few years.”

The aviation industry is perhaps the trickiest piece of the climatechange puzzle, Katz-Rosene said on the phone from Ottawa. As someone who studies this problem, he no longer wants to contribute to it.

“It’s like going out and chain-sawing down an acre of mature forest,” Katz-Rosene added. “That’s the carbon equivalency of my return flight from Ottawa to Vancouver. That would strike people as completely insane.

Like, ‘Why would you do that?’ And yet we seem to justify having that same impact on the climate when we fly.”

Katz-Rosene delivered a presentation on the aviation industry’s dirty secrets on June 4, explaining the scale of the problem and assessing stakeholders’ existing options, which are limited.

For virtually every sector, climate change poses a significant challenge, Katz-Rosene said. But most industries have ideas for how they can reduce emissions, even if only very expensive ones. The commercial airline sector is different, he continued.

Here, humans are really stumped.

Cars are going electric and cities can run on energy drawn from solar, wind, and hydropower facilities. But you can’t fly a Boeing 747 at 900 kilometres per hour on biofuels or a Tesla battery. With today’s technology, only the combustion of fossil fuels can move so much weight so fast.

And so the industry (via the International Civil Aviation Organization) has come up with something called the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).

The problem? “Offsets are absolutely awful,” Katz-Rosene said. “The most renowned climate scientist who has criticized offsets is Kevin Anderson, and here’s what he said: ‘Offsetting is worse than doing nothing. It is without scientific legitimacy, is dangerously misleading, and almost certainly contributes to a net increase in the absolute rate of global emissions growth.’ ” An “offset” is something that reduces or compensates for greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

Book a flight online, for example, and check a box that increases the price by $10 in exchange for the airline planting a tree for you in Malawi.

It’s a simple idea, but there are shortcomings, Katz-Rosene said. The first: “Nobody knows if they actually work.”

The second issue, he continued, is that when offsets do work, we need to use them to reduce existing emissions, not to justify the discharge of additional pollution.

“People are saying they are no longer going to take a plane anymore for short-haul trips where there is an alternative like the train,” he said. “It’s a growing movement in academia, too.

People are swearing off of it.” g

HOROSCOPE e are at the start of what is likely to be an emotionally charged two-month run of stars. We are on the way to not only the peak of the season but also the astrological summit of the year.

Mercury, ruler of Gemini, has recently begun a three-week stint in Cancer. Home, real estate, family, nourishment, nurturing, safety, and security are the features of a planetary transit through Cancer. At it for the past several weeks, Mars in Cancer has already been attacking the vulnerable spots and issues.

The Mercury transit now puts even more attention on a needy one or a young one. Expect to be consumed with this key person or important matter through mid-August, when Mercury will finally complete its tour of Cancer. The extended transit is due to the upcoming Mercury retrograde cycle, which happens from July 7 to 31 across the signs of Leo and Cancer.

Gemini is a mobilizing, trendsetting, and newsmaking archetype.

All matters related to communications, information and education, networking, paperwork, transport, trade, and commerce fall under this sign’s banner. Providing added stimulus and/or a fresh-air feel, Venus in Gemini, starting Saturday evening, enhances social connectivity and same-page accord.

On Sunday, the Gemini sun squares Neptune. It could be a losetrack-of-it type of day. There’s a propensity to scatter, diffuse, dissipate, or water it down. On another note, sun/Neptune imagination enjoys a good run. Monday, the sun’s opposition to Jupiter can produce the opposite: instead of losing steam, it’s gaining traction. Sun/ Jupiter is a double-up-on-it transit.

It fast-tracks a next phase or step.

Tuesday through Thursday, Mars in Cancer is on a creative refuel and karmic-staging track.

A

ARIES

March 20–April 20

Over the next week, you’ll hit an upswing with good ideas and folks to share them with. You should see more progress with home- and family-related matters, too. Venus in Gemini, starting Saturday, enhances communications, creative-writing skill, and your social life. Plans and projects take on a life of their own. Sunday/Monday, there’s further to go and more to be gained.

B

TAURUS

April 20–May 21

This next week sets you onto a major next step or phase. By all means, aim high and stay hopeful, but also keep it real and try to pace yourself. The now sets up the next. It’s a big learning curve. Sunday, you’ll uncover, discover, or open up more. Monday could start the week with a departure, a change of course, or another go-round.

C

GEMINI

May 21–June 21

Thursday can trigger it/ you in some fresh-spark way.

Venus in Gemini, starting Saturday, infuses you with more get-upand-go. Sunday, the sun puts you in the know and/or clears up an uncertainty. Monday, everything is on the increase. Intuition serves you well. Don’t hesitate to jump in with both feet. A quick action or response puts you on the plus side.

D

CANCER

June 21–July 22

Friday can see you surpass a difficulty or challenge, perhaps to do with health, work, or working it out with someone. Venus in Gemini, starting late Saturday, helps you to loosen up or let go a little better. Sunday, you’ll turn another corner. Monday sets you/it into full swing. Tuesday to Thursday, Mars in Cancer sets a fruitful backdrop for action-taking.

E

WHISTLER PRESENTS

JUNE 6 TO 12, 2019

LEO

July 22–August 23

End of the week, let yourself (or another) off the hook and enjoy a fresh diversion. Venus in Gemini, starting Saturday night, revitalizes the conversation or the interest. Sunday/Monday, the sun is on a creative streak and operating at high volume with Neptune and Jupiter. Watch for a revelation, news, a potential, a trend, or for someone to set something major into play.

F

VIRGO

G

LIBRA

Endless Entertainment

FEATURE EVENT

August 23–September 23

Perhaps you have been working your way toward it, or perhaps it is something that is just popping up for you. Either way, you are about to hit a big switch-track thanks to the sun on a bring-it-to-life trigger through Monday. Saturday to Monday, the Virgo moon and Venus freshly into Gemini have you reconfigured and good to go. Seize opportunity.

September 23–October 23

It might be the end of the workweek, but the stars are on a windit-up. Thursday to Saturday is well put to use for clearing it up and for catching up with folks or yourself. Monday, sun/Jupiter make for all-systems-go, likely in some high-volume, fasttrack, and full-swing way. Opportunity is at peak through Thursday.

H

October 23–November 22

WHISTLER CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL

SAGITTARIUS

Festivals in Whistler come in all ages. Bring your kids to a weekend wonderland filled with outdoor art workshops, crafts, theatre, dance, live music and magical performances during the Whistler Children’s Festival. Dozens of hands-on workshops at the Whistler Olympic Plaza are sure to inspire creativity and spark imagination for everyone in the family. Experience an eclectic mix of songs from the Roaming Diva and join the Ta-Daa Lady for engaging stories and a costume parade.

Wander the festival and enjoy face painting, balloon art, activity booths and art stations for a weekend of family fun.

SCORPIO

Thursday/Friday keeps the action going strong. Don’t hesitate to switch it up as the moment dictates.

You are likely to pack in plenty this weekend, even more than you plan.

Build flexibility into your time, budget, and intention. It is easy to get lost in it, especially Sunday. Monday begins on a full-throttle note. The week ahead holds good promise. Stay creative!

I

November 22–December 21

Ditch the work or pressure; get it off your chest; take a break.

Quality alone time or downtime can do the trick this weekend. You need time to replenish and regroup.

Expect to hit the ground running on Monday. Sun/Jupiter is likely to hot-wire the start of the day/the week. An instinct or great idea can springboard or fast-track you to someplace good.

J

CAPRICORN

December 21–January 20

Mercury has just entered Cancer and Mars is already tenanting this sign. Both are on a gear-up for the next two weeks. Thursday through Tuesday, the stars are setting wheels in motion. Use the week ahead to get yourself sorted out and better positioned. Go by feel; aim high; court opportunity. Put courage into play.

K

AQUARIUS

January 20–February 18

Now through next Thursday, you could find something, learn something new, recoup, or make a creative breakthrough. One way or another, Monday thrusts you into it full-swing. It could be a total turnaround. The week ahead holds plenty of opportunity for the courageous of heart. Don’t skirt around it: take a full dive; commit your all.

L

P: Mike P: ik ke k e Cran Crane

W

by Rose Marcus

PISCES

February 18–March 20

Potentials are ripe for the taking, especially next Monday through Thursday. The sun in action on Sunday/Monday primes you to take a major step forward and/or to make a big change. A new address, lifestyle/home life, or professional or relationship track can bring a déjà vu or destiny feel. Sign the papers; take the test. Have faith.

Don’t look back. g

July 5 – 7

HIGHLIGHTS Friday July 5

Sunday July 7

SUNDAY FUNDAY FEATURING BOBS AND LOLO

KICK-OFF PYJAMA PARTY 4 – 7pm | Whistler Olympic Plaza Jump into party mode! Dance the night away with fan-favourite performer Ira Pettle, ventriloquist Kellie Haines and sing along with Smilin’ Rylan in this free all-ages dance pyjama party.

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July 6 & 7

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JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 9

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10 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 6 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 13 / 2019

Italian Day

Heroes take centre stage on the Drive

W

by Charlie Smith

hen the Straight recently visited a boys’-club meeting in a Templeton secondary school shop class, something unusual happened.

About 40 youths in the room, ranging from Grade 8 to Grade 12, each walked up to the front of the room to introduce themselves. These East Side kids looked the reporter in the eye, offered a friendly greeting and a handshake, and announced their name. This went on for a few minutes as various adults, including mentors, milled about the room. It seemed entirely unrehearsed.

The club has a motto: what’s said in the room stays in the room. So the Straight can’t reveal too many specifics about what transpired, except to say that a former drug addict, who had been clean for 17 years, shared his experiences with these adolescents. At times, the guest speaker’s story was harrowing. But it ended on a positive note when he recommended a book focusing on the importance of gratitude.

To Jim Crescenzo, the founder of the boys’ club and a recently retired acting and theatre teacher at Templeton, it was another day at the office. If any of these kids wanted to buy the book, Crescenzo volunteered that the boys’ club would pay for it.

In 2017, Crescenzo won a Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence, one of only 10 given out each year, for transforming students’ lives through mentorship, engagement, and education.

“I started in ’81 with theatre,” Crescenzo told the Straight during an interview in an empty Templeton classroom. “The idea was to engage at-risk kids and kids who were not at-risk, to build and develop their confidence and their self-esteem.

Then they could take that skill set and apply it to whatever they choose to do with their life.”

In 1995, Tanya Zambrano was hired as a young teacher at Templeton and took over the drama program the following year when Crescenzo became ill. Both of them grew up in East Vancouver as the children of Italian immigrants: Crescenzo’s parents were from the southern city of Naples; Zambrano’s were from Veneto in the north. They understood what it was like to be without many of the privileges available to West Side kids from wealthy families.

“We had been trying to get Tanya into the theatre program because of her background and the fact that she really relates with the kids on a personal level,” Crescenzo said. “And the boys are not only afraid of her, but they respect her.”

At that point, Zambrano jumped into the conversation to declare that the boys are certainly not afraid of her.

“Well, some are,” Crescenzo replied with a laugh.

Their good-natured camaraderie reflects a deep friendship that has lasted 24 years, not to mention the monumental amount of time they’ve spent volunteering to help East Side youths succeed. They launched a much admired film and television program in the late 1990s with the help of their fundraisers, Jim Prier and Shelley Mason. They all felt that this would not only allow students to develop their skills but help them process their own feelings and, in some cases, change their behaviour.

Zambrano explained that the goal was to ensure that East Side kids received priority over everyone else, so that’s why they didn’t create a satellite school or a separate fine-arts school. “We never wanted it to be where kids had to audition,” she said.

The program attracted many extroverted students, according to Crescenzo. But he also expressed

remember that young people will make mistakes. The only difference from when she was young is that nowadays these errors are often documented on social media.

“We will never give up on them,” she pledged.

Templeton secondary school teacher Tanya Zambrano and retired colleague Jim Crescenzo will be honoured on Italian Day in Vancouver for spending decades helping at-risk youths find their place in the world. Photo by Clarence Chan

a concern that some boys were not signing up for fine arts, sports, clubs, or any other extracurricular activities. They were falling through the cracks, so he and other school staff proactively tried to identify who they were. Then the staff encouraged them to attend after-school meetings.

“So we started a boys’-club program and this was for some at-risk young men,” he said.

To ensure students felt a sense of connection 12 months a year, Crescenzo and Zambrano launched free summer camps at Templeton. These were funded by business leaders, including Frank Giustra, Tim Young, and three Bosa brothers—Jim, Jason, and Ryan.

The more than 200 students who attend each year receive free breakfast and lunch.

Seven years ago, Zambrano launched a girls’ club—so it’s now called the East End Boys and Girls Club—and this will be the first year that girls will attend the summer camps.

“So not only are there acting camps being offered, there are dance camps and there’s a health and fitness camp,” she said.

When asked what the club funds beyond the summer camps, Zambrano mentioned purchasing clothing for graduation ceremonies, as well as Compass cards and sometimes even food and rent.

“We will drive and buy kids soccer boots,” she said. “We will drive and buy kids suits. Jim has been doing that for grad. The girls prefer shopping with me.”

They’ve also helped students obtain bursaries for postsecondary education.

And some of the funds are used to hire top directors for the students’ productions, including Happy Thoughts, a 75-minute stage production written and performed by youths and which had a three-week run.

That’s not all. Crescenzo and Zambrano have inspired other educators to launch similar programs at John Oliver, Sir Charles Tupper, and King George secondary schools in Vancouver and Seaquam secondary in Delta. Crescenzo dreams of a day when these clubs will be in elementary schools across the region.

For their efforts, Crescenzo and Zambrano will be honoured on Sunday (June 9) at Italian Day on the Drive. This year’s theme is the power of communità (community) and giving back. In recognition of Crescenzo and Zambrano’s community-building, the Italian Day Festival Society will present the East End Boys and Girls Club with a $10,000 cheque. The money was raised through contributions from

A turning point for Nguyen came the society’s community partners and businesses in Little Italy along when a high-profile businessman and philanthropist, Frank Giustra, visCommercial Drive. ited the boys’ club as a guest speaker.

DZINH NGUYEN is one of many According to Nguyen, Giustra told youths who have benefited from the him it’s better to bring your battles club. Now 26 years old, he’s one of to the boardroom rather than fightseveral former members who mentor ing them out in the street. That left young people not only at Templeton, a lasting impression on the young but also at other schools with boys’ man, who’s planning to launch a reclubs. In a phone interview with the tail-oriented social enterprise.

Straight, Nguyen described himself as “He’s a big reason why I’m able to a “knucklehead and a troubled child” do the things I’m able to do today,” when he arrived at Templeton more Nguyen said. than a decade go. At the age of 11, he Giustra was born in Sudbury and had lost his primary male role model, grew up in humble circumstances an uncle, who was murdered in an before striking it rich as a miningarmed robbery. By the time he was 15, industry financier and film-studio he was running with a rough crowd. founder. In a phone interview with the One day at the start of Grade 10, he Straight, Giustra said that Nguyen was was called to the office after getting a “really tough kid” who tried to give into a fight with another teenager. him a hard time at a boys’ club meet“I was given the ultimatum to ing where Giustra was a guest speaker. come to the boys’ club or potentially “I must of said something that face suspension or being expelled,” stuck with him,” the businessman Nguyen recalled. noted. “I’ve been mentoring him for That didn’t faze him in the slightest. many years.”

He also said that it’s extremely rare to “I was a very cheeky young man,” Nguyen continued. “I remember writ- meet someone as selfless as Crescenzo.

“If anybody deserves to be canoning on a piece of paper something along the lines of, ‘I don’t know why ized, it’s him,” Giustra said. “Seriously, you guys are doing this and I don’t in my mind he’s a saint. He’s given it know why you think this will work. all for these kids: after-school time, his But I know all you guys just want to weekends, his summers. And he just get to know us to manipulate us—to does it out of love to help these kids. find out what we do outside the school. He’s an amazing human being.”

Crescenzo explained that he and But I’m bored so I’m going to bite. So I Zambrano try to focus as much attenhope this blows up in your face.’ ” However, once he began attending tion as they can on changing the inthe boys’ club, he became confused. ner dialogue for every young person That’s because Crescenzo and others who enters the boys’ and girls’ clubs.

“The language is, ‘Yes, I can. were constantly talking about “unconditional love”. Nguyen said he Yes, I will. I’m worth it. I’m worthy. was used to living in a world of ex- People love me,’ ” Crescenzo said.

Zambrano said it’s important to changes: “You do something for us and we’ll do something for you.”

But gradually, Crescenzo got through to him and opened his eyes to new possibilities.

“Jim was like a godsend, even to this day,” Nguyen said. “To many of the young boys there, Jim is that parental figure that they never really had. So I say it quite often: to me, Jim is like my dad. Truly, he is.”

That was demonstrated when Nguyen or others in the boys’ club were caught misbehaving.

“A lot of them only have single moms that are working day and night,” Nguyen said. “So a lot of MORE THAN 300,000 people times, whenever we got into trouble are expected to visit Commercial Drive between noon and 8 p.m. and we went down to the office, Jim on Sunday (June 9) for Italian would come down and he would adDay. Here are five things to keep vocate for us. He would act like our in mind: parents. That would go a long way.”

Asked where he would be today had it not been for Crescenzo’s presc NO VEHICLES Commercial Drive will be off-limits to all ence in his life, Nguyen bluntly remotorized transport along plied: “Dead before 21. Yes, I could put money on that.”

SO WHERE DID Crescenzo develop such empathy for at-risk kids? He said it came directly from his childhood. He was only eight years old when his dad died, leaving his immigrant mother responsible for him, an 11-year-old brother, and a 13-yearold sister. He added that his mother kept him “on the straight and narrow”, despite the family’s poverty.

“But I did have this big void in my heart,” Crescenzo revealed. “And so I said that ‘Someday I want to be a male role model and I want to be there if a kid doesn’t have a mom or dad there’—because the gender doesn’t matter.”

He knew what it was like not being able to afford soccer boots or a soccer uniform. He also regrets not being able to look in the soccer stands to see a father cheering him on.

What turned Crescenzo’s life around was a coach who invited him onto a team that played at Clinton Park when he had just been cut after another team’s tryouts.

His team lost to the other squad in the seventh division but then went on to win during the next six years.

“We went to the provincial finals three times,” Crescenzo said. “We won twice. Then everyone wanted to be on our team.”

The lesson for him—and what he passes along to the youths in the boys’ club—is the importance of finding one’s passion. It’s a view strongly shared by Zambrano.

“The passion drives you, right?” she said. “And it allows you to get past all the other stuff that you may disagree with along the road.”

Then Zambrano volunteered that this year she actually made a student audition for a role because she felt that this might ignite his passion for acting.

“His dad came up to both of us and was so grateful,” she recalled.

“He said, ‘We’re so grateful. Now he found his passion. He knows what he wants to do.’ ” Crescenzo added that sometimes they encourage students by asking if they’ll trust them.

“And they go, ‘Yeah. Why?’ We say, ‘Well, we think you would be amazing on-stage in this role. Would you give it a shot?’ And that’s when they say, ‘Well, I kind of wanted to but I always did feel a little hesitant,’ ” Crescenzo said. “We say, ‘Trust us on the journey.

It’s going to happen.’ ” g

Italian Day TIP SHEET 14 blocks between Venables Street and the Grandview Cut.

c DON’T BRING DOGS The huge crowds and warm weather are not ideal for canines, so attendees are advised to leave pets at home. c BIKE PARKING Cyclists can make use of an on-site bicycle valet service. c TAKE TRANSIT Anyone coming via SkyTrain should disembark at Commercial–Broadway Station.

Check translink.ca/ for changes to bus service. c SUPPORT YOUTHS Italian Day organizers are collecting donations for the East End Boys and Girls Club. Give generously. g

JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 11

THE DRIVE – HOME TO VANCOUVER’S LITTLE ITALY

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Have a pint, do some patio-gazing, get a great dinner – or make it dinner and dancing – and then sit back and enjoy live music at one of our many large or small venues.

The Drive is the cultural heart of the East Van and the home of Little Italy. You’ll find 22 amazing blocks to explore with over 300 shops, restaurants and bars. We like to do things differently here and stay fiercely independent. So we invite you to be part of our diversity and creativity because simply put, the more the merrier. Welcome to The Drive.

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ITALIAN DAY

Crosswalks pay homage to pioneers

T

by Charlie Smith

he 10th edition of Italian Day—since its revival in 2010—will feature something very noticeable and very new.

This Sunday (June 9), when hundreds of thousands of Vancouverites converge on Commercial Drive for the daylong celebration, they’ll be able to observe the Italian-style green, white, and red crosswalks at the intersections of Charles Street, East 1st Avenue, and East 4th Avenue. The northern (Charles) and southern crosswalks are eight blocks apart and mark the city’s official boundary for Little Italy, reinforcing the historical connections between this part of Vancouver and its thriving Italian community.

“I’m just very happy and proud of everyone that came together to make this happen,” Federico Fuoco, owner of Federico’s Supper Club, told the Georgia Straight by phone. “It’s long overdue, just to pay homage to those that came, the immigrants, who started businesses with nothing. Through sheer hard work and determination, they provided a service and a sense of community to the Italians that lived in the area back in the day.”

Fuoco, a director of the Commercial Drive Business Society (CDBS), credited designer Dragan Nikodijevic for playing an “instrumental” role in the avant-garde look of the crosswalks. They reflect the colours of the Italian flag but are not an exact replica.

Some people have asked Fuoco why la tre bandiere a colori—the threecolour flag—wasn’t painted across the Drive at the three intersections.

“Apparently, the laws of the nation are that you can’t walk or drive over a flag,” he explained. “It’s kind of disrespectful, but a lot of people don’t realize that. That’s why we came up with the design that we did.”

Crosswalks at three Commercial Drive intersections have been painted with the colours of Italy’s flag. Photo by Alfonso Arnold

Fuoco, who grew up at East 2nd and Commercial Drive, said that there are “some 30- to 40-odd businesses owned by Italians or the next generation” in Vancouver’s Little Italy. This designation resulted from a motion in 2016 by NPA councillor Melissa De Genova, with the backing of the CDBS and Il Centro, a.k.a. the Italian Cultural Centre of Vancouver.

CDBS president Carmen D’Onofrio Jr. told the Straight by phone that the crosswalks are permanent and will maintain the identity of the area.

“The City of Vancouver recognized these eight blocks of Commercial Drive as Vancouver’s historic Little Italy, so we wanted to give some definition to the area and promote and expand upon that,” D’Onofrio said, “and it’s been really well received both by residents, Vancouverites, [and]

tourists that are visiting the city.”

Commercial Drive has long been seen as the centre of Italian culture in Vancouver, but that wasn’t always the case. According to an article by historian John Atkin on the City of Vancouver website, Strathcona was Vancouver’s first “Little Italy” in the early 1900s. He noted that after the Second World War, the community dispersed and new Italian business districts developed on East Hastings Street between Lakewood and Renfrew streets and along Commercial Drive.

The Drive has also been the site for community celebrations, most notably during Italy’s World Cup soccer runs. Italian Day was one of the neighbourhood’s hallmarks from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.

“It got too big too fast, and it couldn’t be supported,” D’Onofrio

said. “However, we were instrumental in bringing it back in 2010. And every year, it’s gotten bigger and better—and more organized and higher-profile. It’s now the largest cultural street festival in Vancouver.”

IL CENTRO vice president Randy Rinaldo said in a recent interview with the Straight that when he was growing up, it bothered him that other cities had a Little Italy while Vancouver didn’t.

So he sought the blessing of community leaders—including D’Onofrio, former Il Centro president Luca Citton, former Il Centro executive director Mauro Vescera, and current Il Centro president Michael Cuccione—to create a Facebook page in 2016 to try to make this happen. It immediately generated a bunch of likes, which led to a meeting between Rinaldo and De Genova.

Rinaldo recalled that within two or three weeks, De Genova had prepared a motion. But the Vision Vancouver majority shuffled the idea off for discussion in the GrandviewWoodland planning process.

“Then Melissa did a second push right before Italian Day,” Rinaldo said. “At that point, I guess the rest of council realized the support that this had and we were able to extract it from the Grandview-Woodland community plan and get it through.”

On the day that Little Italy was proclaimed, Rinaldo’s wife went into labour. He still managed to be part of the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Commercial Drive in 2016 before rushing to the hospital in time for the birth of his second son.

“My wife knew how important it was for me to be there for this moment I’ve waited for since I was a child,” Rinaldo said with a laugh.

“I got to the hospital with 28 minutes to spare. So I cut the umbilical cord and the ribbon.”

His dream is to see Little Italy become like an Italian Disneyland with green, white, and red all over the place, including on fire hydrants and street signs. He, like Fuoco, also pines for Italian arches.

“I want it to be a real tourist attraction—a place not just for Italians but for all cultures to come and enjoy and have that Italian experience.”

When asked how people should feel when they visit Little Italy, Rinaldo responded “warm and fuzzy”.

“Italians are lovers, not fighters,” he quipped. “We want Commercial Drive to be a destination to bring your family or perhaps your significant other.” g With files from Carlito Pablo.

JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 15

ITALIAN DAY

Cultural centre aims to promote the heritage and values of Italy

J

by Carlito Pablo

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16 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019

oan D’Angola Kluge has every reason to celebrate everything Italian.

“I’m Italian as far back as we can trace,” Kluge told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “Both of my parents were Italian immigrants to Canada. My background and heritage is Italian, but I’m also a very proud Canadian.”

This year’s June observance of Italian Heritage Month is extra special for her. It will be the first time that she will mark the occasion in her capacity as executive director of Vancouver’s Italian Cultural Centre.

Last year, she and her husband and their kids attended events as members of the public. She started in her job in July 2018.

“The mission of the Italian Cultural Centre is to promote Italian culture, heritage, and values and share these with other communities,” Kluge said. “So we actually work throughout the year to connect Italian culture to other communities.”

The centre, located at 3075 Slocan Street, is hosting several events.

One not to be missed, according to Kluge, is Festa della Repubblica, the celebration of Italian National Day, on June 6.

The event includes a free concert by Orchestra Casadei, a band famous in (and visiting from) Italy. There is also free food, courtesy of the centre, the Italian Consulate General in Vancouver, and local Italian nonprofits. The popular event is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Kluge also said that the centre is focused on creating an Italian experience with its mercato, or Italian market. The free event will be held on June 14 from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m.

According to Kluge, the centre wants to replicate the experience of walking in a quaint Italian town, shopping and eating with friends and family. Complete with live music, the market will be on outdoor walkways and in various rooms.

Another highlight is the Serata della Gratitudine banquet to recognize centre volunteers.

Joan D’Angola Kluge is the executive director of Vancouver’s Italian Cultural Centre.

The June 21 evening event will also feature the presentation of the immigrant-of-the-year award. (Tickets are $50.)

Kluge said that one aspect of Italian culture the centre also wants to promote is art. This June, the centre’s museum is presenting various exhibits. One is Ancient Women in Textile: The Jacquard Weaving of Ruth Scheuing, which runs to June 15. A Renfrew-Collingwood immigrant community art exhibit called In My Own Voice runs from June 18 to June 22, and an art exhibit titled Brides: Portrait of a Marriage opens on June 27.

Kluge also said that the centre is working with the Italian Contemporary Film Festival to present Italian-language films with subtitles during Italian Heritage Month at the Vancity and Rio theatres.

For details about events, go to www.italian culturalcentre.ca/. g

JUNE 6 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 17

ITALIAN DAY

Live music keeps the party going at festival’s three stages

by Janet Smith

Danilo Ciaccia (left) is best-known for his hit “Signori (forever)”, its video bringing Vancouver and Italy together; at right, 15-year-old wunderkind Marco Boni made a splash at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.

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he sounds of Italy will echo through the streets at Italian Day on the Drive this Sunday (June 9), with several big acts visiting from the Bel Paese.

The music happens at the stages at East 2nd Avenue, Grandview Park, and East 3rd Avenue’s Piazza Moda throughout the day, with DJs stationed at the north and south ends of Commercial Drive to keep the party moving.

Here are just a few of the performers you can search out that day.

NOTTE ITALIANA Straight from Italy, the trio of lead singer David Pacini, guitarist Francesco Milani, and bassist Simone Beato brings to life the great Italian classics on all three stages.

MARCO BONI This 15-year-old Italian singer has been wowing crowds since taking part in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2018. Expect him to perform a mix of Italian and English songs as he takes all three stages at the fest.

DANILO CIACCIA Originally from Abruzzo, this songwriter, musician, and singer is a familiar face on Italian television. He’s probably best known for “Signori (forever)”, a rapmeets-world-music serenade with a music video shot in both Vancouver and Italy, a hymn

to love and brotherhood that pays tribute to the world’s Italian diaspora.

Visitors can also find local Italian-Canadian musical performances on the 2nd Avenue and Grandview Park stages, with appearances by restaurateur and showman Federico Fuoco, along with international performing artist Carmelina Cupo, who gives her own fun twist on Italian favourites and Italian-American classics.

Want to get in the mood in the run-up to Italian Day? June is Italian Heritage Month, and that means an array of other concerts happening at the hub of Il Centro Italian Cultural Centre. As part of the celebrations, on Thursday (June 6) one of Italy’s most famous ballroom dance bands, Orchestra Casadei, arrives straight from Emilia-Romagna. The evening before, Opera Night: A Three Tenor Tribute to Pavarotti celebrates one of the art form’s biggest stars, featuring knockout vocalists Scott Rumble, Sunny Shams, and Turgut Akmete, accompanied by pianist Roger Parton. And later in the month, on June 16, don’t miss Maurizio Guarini, of the famed prog-rock band Goblin, playing the live score to the 1911 Italian silent film L’Inferno at the Rio Theatre. The flick has been restored by Cineteca di Bologna, and it’s loosely adapted from “Inferno”, the first canticle of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. g

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ITALIAN DAY

Postwar Italian immigrants forged strong community links

by Doug Sarti

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A large number of Italian immigrants came to Vancouver after the Second World War; this nonna plays with her grandchildren at Campbell Avenue and Union Street in 1962. Photo courtesy of Vancouver Archives

T

he theme of comunità—or “community”—anchoring Sunday’s Italian Day on Commercial Drive is a fitting nod to the special bond that ties the area’s sons and daughters of Italy together.

“Family isn’t just blood relatives,” says local author Mario Miceli, who is working on a new oral-history book about Italian immigration to Vancouver. “We all grew up in each other’s homes, with our cousins, with our parents’ friends who were Italian.”

With plans to publish the as-yet-unnamed book by the end of the year, Miceli has already conducted more than 85 hours of interviews, with the aim of including about 40 different families.

“It’s amazing how they were able to adapt and overcome any problem which hit them,” he says. “These people just refused to give in; there are great nuggets in every single interview I’ve done.”

Inspired (and mentored) by area historian Ray Culos—who wrote Vancouver’s Society of Italians, which covers the early years of immigration to Vancouver—Miceli’s work will cover the period following the Second World War. The book will be more storytelling than straight history, however, with Miceli focusing on personal accounts and providing a more intimate look at the aspirations and struggles found in the immigrant experience.

“I was trying to understand what prompted people to move here,” he explains. “I’ve been sitting with people in their living rooms and kitchen tables, sitting with family members and their children, and in some cases their grandchildren, and listening to their stories. I even interviewed my aunt, and I was amazed at what she went through to get here. And when I said, ‘How come you never told us this?’ she just looked at me in a traditional kind of Italian way and said, ‘You never asked.’ So now I’m asking!”

Everyone’s story, of course, is personal and particular, but there are definitely some common narratives. There’s the desire to make a better life for their children, an openness to often backbreaking manual labour, and an overwhelming necessity to succeed in their new Canadian lives.

“The reason they came becomes obvious pretty quickly,” Miceli notes. “A lot of them were economic refugees. Post–World War II Italy was a devastated country; there wasn’t much opportunity there.

“It’s been interesting speaking with some of the older generation,” he continues, “and more than once I’ve heard people say, ‘When we had nothing, we had everything.’ They arrived with just a trunk and a cardboard suitcase and now it’s funny how the affluence that came with working so hard has really changed things. A lot of families have moved away from the core community, and people don’t get together to the same extent anymore. There are many who pine for those simpler times.”

Miceli is also quick to add that there’s a deep love for their adopted country among the immigrants he’s spoken to.

“They’re very Italian, but they’re also fiercely Canadian,” he says. “They defend being Canadian just as much as anyone who was born here. Like my dad: he was still going to make his homemade wine and all that stuff that was important to him as an Italian, but he was also all about being Canadian. He believed that everything he had was because of Canada, and he was incredibly patriotic about it.”

As Miceli was to discover during the course of his interviews, it turned out to be a recurring theme.

“Of all the people I’ve interviewed, there wasn’t one person—not one—who has any regrets about making the decision to come here.” g

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GRANDI FASHION SHOW As one of the

hottest new lines to come out of Vancouver, Grandi will hit the catwalk at this weekend’s Italian Day festival. The demicouture label, the brainchild of Grandy Chu, last made a splash at Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo, where it debuted a spring 2019 collection called Prismania that boasted a big, bold tropical-leaf print; the designer said the pattern was a mashup of pop art and

chinoiserie. The pieces mix collared and strapless shirts, crisscross-backed dresses, pleated and slim skirts, and other pieces in bright blasts of yellow and royal blue with the green-and-pink pattern. Chu first got notice for her handcrafted creations at the 2014 Vancouver Fashion Week. Before that, she said goodbye to a job in the financial sector to pursue fine dressmaking and tailoring, eventually launching a blog called ADressAWeek.com in 2013, in which she documented her goal of creating one dress every seven days. Her looks have now been featured in international glossies including Vogue U.K., and actor and producer Andrea Wilde just sported Grandi’s showstopping scarlet gown with black lamb-leather trim on the carpet at Cannes. See what all the fuss is about at the festival Sunday (June 9), where Grandi’s fashion show will feature Prismania pieces, plus haute couture and 2019 fall-winter evening wear, with an opening collection inspired by a rainbow of crayon colours—all at the Piazza Moda stage on East 3rd Avenue by Commercial Drive, at 2:45, 5:25, and 6:40 p.m. Long-time Drive fashionista destination Kalena’s Shoes & Accessories is providing the made-in-Italy footwear. g

JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 19

ITALIAN DAY

Eight authentic sweet treats to savour in Vancouver’s Little Italy

W

by Tammy Kwan

ith June come summer and prime-time weather, which kicks off outdoor festivals around the city. One of those highly anticipated events is the 10th annual Italian Day on the Drive that takes place on Sunday (June 9) from noon to 8 p.m. The 14-block cultural celebration will feature attractions like Italian musical performances, family-friendly activities, and countless gourmet Italian bites. Besides savoury foods like pizza and meatballs, a big part of this year’s outdoor fete is Italian desserts. Indulge your sweet tooth with these delicious treats, which can be found at various locations around the festival.

GRANATINA One of the new items that you’ll

find at this year’s Italian Day is granatina, a pastry with hazelnut-cream filling that’s dusted with healthy amounts of powdered sugar.

Those who love sweets won’t want to share this dessert with anyone.

BOMBOLINI Another new dessert to check out

are the bombolini, also known as Italian-style deep-fried doughnuts. These small, sugar-dusted balls of dough are traditionally stuffed with pastry cream, and we hear that it’s impossible to only eat one.

MILANO’S BISCUITS Look out for the Milano

Sicilian cannoli is made with ricotta filling and chocolate chips. Photo by Barcelona Media Design

filling are famous Italian treats. The traditional Sicilian-style cannoli is made with a sweet ricotta filling, chocolate chips, and almonds. Go try one if you haven’t already.

GRANITA AL CAFFÈ Quench your summertime thirst with one of these iced-espresso slushie refreshers. These semifrozen Italian treats are made with sugar, water, and syrups, which come in flavours such as almond and lemon.

cookie street team, which will be roaming the streets on Sunday. They will be giving out samples of the traditional S biscuits, which are S-shaped cookies with a crisp and dense texture. These sweet treats are Italian household staples, similar to the chocolate-chip cookies TIRAMISU Does this classic Italian dessert need an explanation? Made with coffee, masknown to many North American families. carpone, and ladyfingers, this treat tastes best CHIACCHIERE These authentic and regional when it’s made with a simple and traditional Italian deep-fried pastries are made of thin recipe, and that’s what you’ll find at Italian Day. strips of fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar. Depending on where you get your hands GELATO No dessert list would be complete on them in Italy, they may have a different name. without this renowned Italian-style frozen treat. Besides vanilla and stracciatella, many CANNOLI These tube-shaped shells made with gelato flavours that aren’t normally found in fried pastry dough and stuffed with a creamy the city will be served at the festival. g

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Among those maintaining Commercial Drive’s status as a destination for Vancouver’s pizza lovers are Giulia Lombardo (left) of Lombardo’s Pizzeria and Ristorante and Enrico Fratoni, the Turin-born executive chef at Sopra Sotto.

T

he history of great Italian dining in Vancouver goes back decades, with today’s options being deliciously diverse. Craving fire-roasted veal chop?

Fraserhood’s Savio Volpe is your spot.

Seeking a side of song and dance with your fettucine? Federico’s Supper Club is for you. And on Italian Day on Sunday (June 9), owner Federico Fuoco will create an outdoor Italianstyle terrazza, as well as a Federico’s to Go station for passersby looking for everything from pasta to meatballs to cannoli. Want Roman-style pizza?

Consider Gusto in Olympic Village.

If Italian food is one of the most popular cuisines in the world, pizza is among the nation’s most ubiquitous. Locally, nowhere is the prevalence of pie more pronounced than in Little Italy.

La Pache is a Neapolitan newcomer to Commercial Drive; Fire has vegan options like stir-fry veggie alongside meaty pies like honey-garlic pork and crab-bacon alfredo. Here’s a closer look at a few other pizzerias, longstanding restaurants that help make the Drive such a flavourful draw.

LOMBARDO’S PIZZERIA AND RISTORANTE

(1641 Commercial Drive) Headed by a powerhouse mother-andthree-daughters team, Lombardo’s lays claim to being the first pizzeria in Vancouver with a wood-burning oven. The menu features everything from oven-roasted chicken to stuffed, baked whole-wheat pastas; on the hand-tossed pizza front, it stays true to its thin-crust, classic roots.

“Our pizza is very traditional,” says executive chef Giulia Lombardo, whose mom, Patti, and sisters Elizabeth and Sonia all have different roles at the restaurant inside Il Mercato mall. “Thirty-two years later, we still make the dough every morning and buy our produce from across the street. Like most Italian recipes, the essence [of a terrific pizza] is simplicity and good-quality ingredients.”

Lombardo, who, along with her sisters, has called the Drive home her whole life, is especially fond of the Margherita pizza, a balance of sweet and delicate tomato sauce, creamy and slightly salty mozzarella, and fresh, bright basil.

“A classic is a classic no matter how many times you eat it or make it,” she says. “There is no better combination at the end of a long day than a slice of Margherita pizza and a glass of red wine: instant mood booster.”

Giulia describes pizza as a crowd pleaser, and she finds it rewarding to be a part of people’s dining experiences in an area as well known and distinct as the Drive.

“We recently catered a wedding,” she shares. “The bride had been eating at Lombardo’s with her family since she was a child and she wanted

“Another difference is that the Neapolitan pizza is baked on average in about 90 seconds, whereas the Roman pizza is baked in an average of three minutes,” he adds. “They both have different bites: Roman-style has a firm, crisp bite and Neapolitan pizza has a soft bite. Depending on your taste, you can choose the one you want. I like that my pizzas are baked to a nice firm and crisp finish and VIA TEVERE PIZZERIA that the toppings do not slide off.”

(1190 Victoria Drive) To celebrate Italian Day, MarDom Morra, co-owner of Via cello’s is putting meatballs on the Tevere with his brother, Frank, menu for that day only in response to says making pizza in an authentic popular demand. wood-fire oven brings out more SOPRA SOTTO than deep f lavours.

“A wood-fire oven allows you to (1510 Commercial Drive; 4022 East connect with pizza’s history, the Hastings Street) tradition involved, and the power of Among the pizza selections on Sopra the fire,” Morra says. “When you’re Sotto’s Slow Food–focused familycooking with fire, even a few seconds style menu are Porchetta e Friaricould mean an overcooked pizza. It elli, with house-made boneless pork truly is an art form that takes years roast, Italian broccoli rabe, and to perfect. A fornaio [pizza baker] mozzarella; and Amalfi, which has needs to be able to read the oven and anchovy fillets, garlic, olives, leeks, capers, parsley, San Marzano tomaadjust accordingly.”

Morro’s personal favourite is the toes, and Sicilian oregano.

Turin-born executive chef Enclassic Margherita. “It’s one of the originals, with simple ingredients rico Fratoni says the Tirolese is one that shine,” he says. “With Neapol- of his favourites, with radicchio, itan pizza, you don’t need a lot of top- fontina cheese, mushrooms, and speck. “I love the contrasting f lapings—just good-quality ones.”

Via Tevere’s food truck, which vours of the smoky speck and tart is normally downtown, will be on- radicchio,” Fratoni says.

“Pizza-making is truly an art— site for Italian Day (at Commercial Drive and Graveley Street), serving arte bianca in Italian,” he says. “It reits Neapolitan saltimbocca, a.k.a. quires much passion and patience to get the dough just right. Plus, workthe “pizzeria sandwich”.

“The bread is baked in the 900-de- ing with fire is magical and very rare gree wood-fire oven, where it takes in the kitchen these days.” on the characteristics of pizza Napoletana—soft yet charred, with FAMOSO NEAPOLITAN PIZZERIA the classic fire-roasted spotting,” (1380 Commercial Drive) Morra says. “The bread is then loaded Travis de Groot, director of Famoso with meats and cheeses, roasted over operations at Chiro Foods, a restauthe fire, and finished with fresh to- rant-management company based in mato, crisp arugula, and basil mayo.” Edmonton, says the chain recently launched a broad menu, with dishes MARCELLO RISTORANTE AND like tapas, charcuterie, Italian sandPIZZERIA wiches, and pasta, while it’s also (1404 Commercial Drive) developing a thick-crust New York– Marcello Lombardo grew up eating style Sicilian pizza, which is anticipizza in his native Italy. pated to roll out in July.

Famoso’s Neapolitan styles range “I started cooking when I was eight years old, and I find deep con- from classics like 4-Meat Siciliana to tentment in it,” Lombardo says. “I Spicy Thai with roasted chicken to the enjoy cooking and sharing. It makes Bianca Cavoletti, with oven-roasted me happy to see people enjoy food.” Brussels sprouts, prosciutto crisps, If there’s one thing Lombardo Gorgonzola, dates, walnuts, and honey.

“What I love about pizza is how would like people to know about pizza, it’s the distinction between diverse it is,” de Groot says. “I like it Neapolitan and Roman styles, with for a snack, lunch, dinner, breakfast, the main difference being the dough. and leftovers.

“I also love that the dough is a Although he says both types are delicious, his love is for the Roman style. living ingredient that needs serious “This is always a hot topic,” Lom- attention,” he says. “When you make bardo says. “The Neapolitan pizza the dough, it activates the yeast. Over dough has a thin crust at the base, the next 24 to 48 hours, you need to but it’s baked soft, whereas the keep an eye on it so you’re serving Roman-style pizza dough is thin and up the best possible product at the is baked to a crisp. The Roman-style perfect time. For this reason, we are pizza’s crisp crust allows for the piz- constantly staging our dough. Maza to hold the toppings without col- nipulating the speed, it proofs so you lapsing, unlike the Neapolitan pizza. get the best product.” g to celebrate her special day with Lombardo’s pizza. It was so sweet.

“I think I can speak for all of the Lombardo girls when I say that we feel very honoured to be part of the tight-knit community of Commercial Drive,” she adds. “We have seen the Drive evolve and grow over the years. I’m excited to see what the future holds for this community.”

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JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 23

ITALIAN DAY

Piazza will serve up the best of Italy The Italian Chamber of Commerce–West plans to ensure that wine lovers feel right at home

A

by Kurtis Kolt

sure sign that we’re bounding into summer is the return of Italian Day on Commercial Drive, happening this coming Sunday (June 9). The annual cultural celebration features all sorts of revelry and hoopla, and what would a big ol’ Italian jamboree be without a steady flow of wine?

The Italian Chamber of Commerce in Canada–West is producing an event dubbed the Authentic Italian Table Piazza at the Grant Street intersection, where there’ll be more than 20 stations serving Italian fare like paninis, prosciutto, and artisan cheeses, along with vendors popping corks and twisting caps from wines hailing from all over the country.

By spending a mere $20 for a tick- For $20, visitors to Italian Day can drop by more than 20 stations with tasty treats et purchased via the ItalianDay.ca and wines from the Bel Paise. Photo by Italian Chamber of Commerce–West website, attendees will have the opportunity to imbibe a wide array of found in northern Italy has become what matters. The hue of the wine is a fast fave, especially during sum- electric cherry red, which is echoed on wines, including: mer. This take on the grape is quite the palate that also features rhubarb, MASI MODELLO PROSECCO BRUT pristine: fermentation in concrete raspberry, and brandy-macerated Ital(Veneto) and aging in stainless steel allows the ian plums. Juicy as all get-out. EveryMade from the Glera grape variety, grape to be awfully showy with its thing from stinky cheeses to grilled this amiable fizz features a cavalcade exuberant notes of jasmine, peaches, meats to tomato-driven pizzas and of citrus flavours: lemon, lime, man- guava, litchi, and slight hint of roast- pastas will be welcome. darin orange, yellow grapefruit, and ed hazelnut. The acidity is bright and pomelo are all in there, sailing across juicy, and the finish is dry. Great for SAVIAN VINI ORGANIC CABERNET the palate with ease and finishing lapping up salty meats and cheeses. FRANC quite dry with a pinch of fresh tarra- With its freshness and lively acidity, (Veneto) gon. Keep this one in mind all sum- I’m officially putting it out there that A sturdy version of the renowned mer when the sun is shining. Grab a someone in the Okanagan should be French variety. Roasted red bell pepper, mulberries, and sun-dried tomaglass, a Solo cup, or any vessel at close putting it in the ground. toes are all rather generous, as are the reach, pour a solid glug, and giddyup!

JASCI & MARCHESANI ORGANIC hearty doses of fresh oregano and sage.

ALDO MARENCO SOLE LUNA FAVORITA

(Langhe) I’ve only been acquainted with the Favorita grape variety during the past few years, and this Vermentino clone

CERASUOLO D’ABRUZZO

(Abruzzo) A hell of a charmer and so damn fresh, is this Montepulciano d’Abruzzo a dark rosé or is it a light red? Who cares! It’s freaking delicious, and that’s

There are plenty of other tastings happening around town. Keeping an eye on the events section of BCLiquorStores.com is always a good idea; coming up this month are complimentary

tastings of Cono Sur wines from Chile and a good mix of Australian-wine tastings at various locations.

Getting back to our Italian theme, over at Davie Street’s Marquis Wine Cellars, Raffaele Augelli of Puglia’s Rivera winery will be pouring his wines from the heel of Italy on Tuesday (June 11) from 5:30 to 7 p.m. It’ll be a fun tasting of the region’s white and red indigenous grape varieties and a great chance to discover what makes the appellation unique.

A little later in the week, next Friday (June 14), British Columbian winemaker Graham Pierce of the Okanagan Valley’s Time winery will be pouring the latest wines to come out of its new downtown Penticton digs.

The winery, opened by B.C. wine pioneer Harry McWatters during his 50th vintage last year, has a great restaurant and setting, where local city folk don’t even have to hop in the car to see wine producers hard at work in the cellar.

Although he doesn’t exactly have 50 vintages under his belt, Pierce is certainly no slouch. After time spent in the kitchen at Summerhill Pyramid Winery, he took the winemaking helm at Mt. Boucherie Estate Winery in West Kelowna, eventually settling into a lengthy tenure at Black Hills Estate Winery in the South Okanagan, crafting many a vintage of their widely lauded Bordeaux-inspired red blend, Nota Bene. He’s an affable guy with a broad knowledge of the ins and outs of the British Columbian wine industry, and his new rosé is one of my favourites of the season.

Both of these tastings are free: just head to Marquis-Wines.com to get yourself on the list! g

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STARTING IN 1912, it took seven years of experimentation for Padua, Italy–based brothers Luigi and Silvio Barbieri to create Aperol, a bittersweet, bright-orange apéritif. A century later, the liqueur stars in one of the world’s most popular cocktails: the Aperol Spritz.

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APEROL SPRITZ

3 oz Prosecco 2 oz Aperol 1 oz soda water Fill a wineglass with ice. Add ingredients, stir, and garnish with an orange peel or twist.

by Gail Johnson

arts Bard sets Kate free in the Wild West

Lois Anderson and Jennifer Lines talk about adapting The Taming of the Shrew for this century

I

by Janet Smith

t’s one of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays, a story of a man who needs to “tame” his wife, eventually dragging her through the mud to his country house, where he withholds food and sleep until she learns to be submissive.

For obvious reasons, the comedy The Taming of the Shrew can pose huge challenges to a director in 2019.

But when that director has seen the titular character from the inside, as Lois Anderson has, it becomes easier to understand what needs to change.

“We’re just not doing that story,” the artist says resolutely, sitting with the woman who now plays Kate, Jennifer Lines, on makeshift patio chairs outside the Bard on the Beach festival tents in Vanier Park.

Anderson is well-known for her feminist take on the ancient Greek play Lysistrata at last year’s fest—a boisterous, contemporary spin on women rebelling. So artistic director Christopher Gaze made a pointed and provocative choice when he asked her to helm this summer’s season-opening, Wild West–set The Taming of the Shrew. Plus, having played Kate in director Meg Roe’s 2012 version of the same play, Anderson was well-positioned to rethink the role and the production.

There were, after all, certain things Anderson noticed about Kate that she might not have if she hadn’t walked in her shoes on-stage. “She doesn’t have any monologues and everything acts upon her,” Anderson observes.

“That was one of the starting points: to create a piece that was about Kate, about her evolution and about her as the hero of the piece.”

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about Anderson’s new adaptation is that she has not had to write any new lines. She’s instead cut segments of the play, but more importantly—especially in the much-debated “taming” scene—she’s reassigned a bunch of the male protagonist Petruchio’s lines to Kate. And the power shift has been immediate.

“Then Petruchio is not leading or teaching or training her,” Anderson explains. “And without that, you’ve got two intellectual individuals. Now

in the original, where characters congratulate Petruchio for getting the upper hand on his wife. “That’s very significant that a woman has the last word in Shakespeare,” says Anderson. “That’s rare for Shakespeare.”

That was one of the starting points: to create a piece that was about Kate...as the hero of the piece.

– director Lois Anderson

Jennifer Lines and Andrew McNee rethink the leads in a spaghetti-western-style The Taming of the Shrew. Photo by Emily Cooper

it feels like a complex relationship we would find today. If Kate takes a passage from Petruchio, then Kate is having the self-discovery, not him. She is now teaching him. And that’s where the power is: in who speaks the line.”

At first, Lines admits she had a few second thoughts when Gaze and Anderson approached her about the role.

“I said yes right away, and then I was really feeling uncomfortable,” says Lines, who had taken part in Lysistrata. “I feel responsible to the women coming up in society. So I had some sleepless nights. But we’ve worked together before—I definitely know you’re a feminist and clearly believe in equality,” she says, turning to Anderson, “and after we had a chance to talk about it, I was excited to set Kate free.”

Both artists agree that the Wild West setting, inspired by director Miles Potter’s popular 2007 version,

is ideal. Along with its Victorian expectations of women, it also offers the open range and cowboy culture that allow Kate to be the “wildcat” the character Gremio describes her as. In this production, Lines says, “the town is the Petruchio”—the force trying to cage Kate in.

“She doesn’t understand the frivolity of the town. She is more at home with the cowboys on the green range, and it’s about how she finds her freedom there,” explains Lines, who is drawing from her own experience of growing up on a ranch in the West Kootenays.

“No one judges her there. So they’re equals. And she finds out who she is in nature.”

Lines says that at the beginning of the play, she tries to tap the feeling of Kate being locked in society’s cage, and all the grief and anger that

would entail. “I want to scream at the top of my lungs,” she says of her Kate.

“I come from a small town of 500 people. I grew up with a family of three brothers, so I have a lot of connections to this. It was sometimes hard to be myself.”

Playing opposite Andrew McNee as the gunslinger Petruchio has also put his character and Kate’s relationship in a new light, she adds. “Andrew brings light and playfulness to the piece, rather than being controlling,” Lines explains. Think frolicking instead of fighting.

By the end, the journey takes Kate back to her home and her family, where she can name herself, change the label of “shrew” put on her, and stand proud with the person she loves, Anderson explains.

Kate owns the final lines in the play—not something that happens

The other change that Anderson has added to the play is moments when Kate can be quiet and alone with her thoughts and the audience, often while music by Marc Desormeaux (the late sound composer for Potter’s 2007 spaghetti western) plays.

“In the original play she’s never alone and never has a private moment,” Anderson says, relating another problem she discovered when she took on the role of Kate. “Think about it: Hamlet has so many private moments with the audience. You get to reveal your inner self.”

Lines, a Shakespeare veteran, says that it’s deeply moving to take the spotlight in that kind of way.

“To find your space on the stage: as a leading lady that’s a new place to be—to take the story is a journey for me,” she says with emotion. “I’m not used to being carefully looked at. That’s Hamlet’s journey. That’s King Lear’s journey.” And now, finally, it’s Kate’s journey too. g Bard on the Beach presents The Taming of the Shrew at the BMO Mainstage until September 21.

Bard on the Beach marks new milestones The Shakespeare fest is celebrating not just 30 years at Vanier Park but big strides in diversity

Y

by Janet Smith

ou might not expect a company specializing in 400-year-old works to be on the leading edge of diversity hiring and women’s equality.

William Shakespeare, after all, wrote all his roles for men—including his female ones.

But as it prepares to celebrate its 30th anniversary this summer, Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival finds itself sitting proudly at the forefront of change. Not only is the organization run by a woman, executive director Claire Sakaki, but she reports that around 75 percent of its year-round staff are women, with a number closer to 50 percent when you count its summer production teams.

The coming anniversary season plays out that theme robustly on-stage: all four works are told through a female protagonist, including Shakespeare’s Coriolanus—whose title role, a male Roman leader, is played by a woman (Moya O’Connell). In addition, the fest is staging an India-set All’s Well That Ends Well whose creative team is more than half South Asian (including Diwali in B.C.’s Rohit Chokhani, who codirects with Johnna Wright).

“Twenty-five or 30 years ago, Bard on the Beach did very traditional stagings of things— you very rarely saw anything outside of traditional Elizabethan setting,” Sakaki tells the Straight over the phone from the Professional

Bard on the Beach executive director Claire Sakaki is proud of this season’s all-female protagonists.

Association of Canadian Theatres conference in Saskatoon. “I feel like Bard has really grown up with the community, in a way. It was a small organization with [artistic director and founder] Christopher Gaze selling candy in the concession all those years ago. And so many of those artists that were integral to the company

in those days are still with us, but there are more women and more diverse actors.”

Sakaki stresses there’s always more that can be improved. But so far, that diversity and a push for contemporary interpretations have helped the fest build bigger audiences than ever before. Last year, Bard celebrated a record season, with 93 percent full houses and an extended run of its Beatles-infused As You Like It—a musical rendition so successful that it will soon be produced in Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Chicago.

For the summer 2019 season, along with All’s Well, Bard will produce a spaghetti-westernstyle The Taming of the Shrew (see story above).

It’s also moved beyond just creating works by the Bard of Avon; this year it’s adapting the hit film Shakespeare in Love to the stage.

“It’s our job to take 400-year-old stories and make them relevant,” Sakaki says. “Audiences want to see these beautiful classic stories told in a new way.”

When Sakaki came to the company fiveand-a-half years ago, she had been raised on the classics, but was excited to bring them into today. Coming from Toronto’s acclaimed Soulpepper Theatre Company, she was curious to work with a park-set festival that’s unique in this country. Not only does Bard earn an unheard-of 70 percent of its overall revenue from

ticket sales (many nonprofit theatre groups sit in the mid-20s, with some aggressive companies hitting the 60s), it also carries its own structural demands.

“It’s a really interesting business model, creating a mini village every summer in the park and then tearing it down again at the end,” Sakaki says, then adds with a laugh: “I initially thought, ‘Oh! Tents! Tents are easy!’ But tents are very hard!”

From there, Sakaki has not only helped push for more contemporary retellings of Shakespeare’s work, but also driven the expansion of education programs in schools and community centres, and pushed to establish the Bard Lab in 2015-16, where new scripts can be developed. The first show from that experiment was commissioned for last year’s season—Lois Anderson’s all-female adaptation of Lysistrata, Bard on the Beach’s first stab at Greek theatre and a resounding success that packed houses.

As the success continues and Bard enters its fourth decade, Sakaki thinks she’s figured out some of the keys to success at the Shakespeare festival.

“It’s a community that’s been so suppor tive of what we’ve done,” she says. “Our artistic team has really taken all that I said about who our audience is and paid great attention to both pleasing and challenging our audience.” g JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 25

ARTS

Global Soundscapes concerto reflects on 1919 Indian massacre

YONGEY MINGYUR RINPOCHE

by Alexander Varty

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

Composer Neelamjit Dhillon’s Through the Gagged Silence debuts at the fest.

Dying Every Day: Meditation, Transformation, and the Bardos

A

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

“Into The Other Land” Art Show tergarca.org/events | vancouver@tergar.org

A selection of fine paintings by Marion Webber #4 - 1494 Old Bridge St. Granville Island, Vancouver June 11 – 23, 2019 10am – 6pm daily June 24th, 2019 10am – 1pm

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“Making The Ordinary Extraordinary”

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26 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019

lthough Through the Gagged Silence, composer and multiinstrumentalist Neelamjit Dhillon’s new concerto for bansuri and strings, is rooted in suffering, it’s not all about pain. The work, a musical meditation on 1919’s Jallianwala Bagh massacre of hundreds of Indian civilians by British troops, also considers how that horrific event ignited the push for Indian independence—and how, in the broader picture, its Canadian-born composer owes his very existence to the events set in motion in Amritsar on that terrible day.

In a considerably happier vein, it also marks Dhillon’s return to the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra, which is presenting Through the Gagged Silence’s world premiere as part of its annual Global Soundscapes Festival.

In a telephone interview from his parents’ Coquitlam home, Dhillon explains how his teenage introduction to VICO shaped his sonic world-view and prepared him for his adult life in Los Angeles, where he works as a session musician and composer for television.

“I’ve been associated with VICO going back 20 years at this point. It was amazing to grow up in this environment, Vancouver being such a multicultural place, and making music that also reflects the place,” he says, fondly recalling early collaborations with erhu virtuoso Lan Tung and sitarist Jamie Hamilton. “And then we were all playing in the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra. This was never something that I thought was extraordinary while I was in it—but when I started to travel and went away to Los Angeles to go to grad school, I carried this intercultural ethos with me, and it was surprising to see how it affected other people in a new and exciting way.”

Vancouver is unique, he adds, in how easily musicians from various global cultures can meet and interact—a case in point being how he took up the bansuri, the Indian flute that’s the focal point of his new piece.

Trained in the North Indian tradition as a tabla player and in jazz as a saxophonist, Dhillon only got serious about his third instrument when VICO founder Moshe Denburg gave him a matched pair as encouragement.

The bansuri’s vocal qualities and deep roots in South Asian folk tradition will be highlighted in Through the Gagged Silence, which takes its name from a letter that the great poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote following the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, renouncing the British knighthood he’d been granted in 1915. The work balances mourning and transformation—and, like Dhillon’s acclaimed 2014 release Komagata Maru, uses historical events as a lens through which to examine more recent historical struggles such as the Tiananmen Square and Standing Rock protests of 1989 and 2016, respectively.

Music, Dhillon says, “can be a way that people can have empathy for one another and reflect on these different events that have happened, and help inform the way that we interact to shape our present and our future.”

That might as well be VICO’s mandate, too, and in these unsettled times it’s a good one to adopt. g The Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra presents Raga-tala-Malika! A Garland of Ragas and Talas at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre next Thursday (June 13).

ARTS

Forsythe gives Ballet BC new energy before big tour

by Janet Smith

I

William Forsythe is an icon in contemporary ballet. Photo by Dominik Menzos

n a sunlit rehearsal hall at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, you can feel that unique mix of electricity and hushed awe that happens when a legend is in the room.

William Forsythe, one of the world’s most influential figures in dance, has made a special visit here. He’s in town to work with Ballet BC on Enemy in the Figure, which the troupe performed at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre last fall and will take to the acclaimed Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) next Thursday to Saturday (June 13 to 15).

A slim, focused, and upbeat presence, he’s standing close to dancers Scott Fowler and Zenon Zubyk, smiling as they pull off the pummelling intricacies of his choreography—a dizzying sequence of graceful glissés and pas de chats punctuated with wild twists and jumps. It’s ballet utterly and mesmerizingly upended and pulled apart—as revolutionary today as Enemy in the Figure was when he created it in 1989.

“It’s happenin’!” the American artist enthuses when they stop for air. “That’s when those neurons fire.”

Fowler and Zubyk can take that as high praise.

“I actually heard the dancers say today, ‘This is like a dream come true,’ ” Ballet BC artistic director Emily Molnar tells the Straight later.

“It’s this incredible opportunity as a dancer. You have to be very, very versatile in your musicality and phrasing, and it requires an enormous amount of detail and commitment.”

Molnar knows firsthand what she’s talking about. As a young dancer at the National Ballet of Canada, she was handpicked by Forsythe to dance for his seminal Ballett Frankfurt, where she became a soloist.

Along with high-profile Frankfurt alumna Crystal Pite, she’s now part of a local legacy whose choreography is influenced by the Forsythe approach.

“This has been a beautiful fullcircling for me to see someone who came into my life at 16 now come here to work with the company,” says Molnar, who’s taken Ballet BC into bold contemporary territory since stepping in to helm the troupe in 2009. “I can say without a doubt I would not be the person I am today if Bill had not come into my life.

“To see him get excited and enjoy himself affirmed to me what I’ve been doing,” she says with emotion.

“It was an affirmation and a motivation to see we’re at a point where we can have a conversation with him.”

Encouraged by BAM, the Ballet BC program there is meant to celebrate Forsythe and his Vancouver lineage. His Enemy in the Figure joins Molnar’s Jimi Hendrix–set To This Day and Pite’s Solo Echo.

“Emotive, expansive, and supremely theatrical, these three daring works embody the innovative spirit and tenacious artistry for which Ballet British Columbia has become known,” the influential academy’s marketing bumf raves.

Born in 1949 in the Big Apple, Forsythe danced with the Joffrey

Ballet and was heavily influenced by New York City Ballet legend George Balanchine. He moved to Germany to join Stuttgart Ballet in 1973, but really attracted attention in the 1980s, when he took over Ballett Frankfurt and started deconstructing the classical form, often integrating multimedia, techno music, and spoken word. He is known for creating striking theatrical worlds, as he does with Enemy in the Figure’s thick rippling rope, rolling floodlight, and wavy central wall. One critic infamously called him “the antichrist of ballet”, but as anyone who’s seen Ballet BC perform his work knows, he celebrates its virtuosity and technique even as he subverts it.

Still, by 2002, the local government was pushing for a more conservative, classical style and had

To see him get excited and enjoy himself affirmed to me what I’ve been doing.

– artistic director Emily Molnar

started to withdraw funding from Ballett Frankfurt; amid much outrage, the company gave its last performance in 2004. From there, the artist set up his smaller Forsythe Company in 2005, with bases in Frankfurt and Dresden, touring the arts capitals of Europe and running it for a decade before leaving to join the faculty at the University of Southern California.

“He creates these universes, these worlds on-stage. And there’s always stuff to learn—you feel like you grow every minute that you enter his worlds,” explains Molnar, who says Forsythe has been reworking Enemy in the Figure here, even adding new elements. “Then just look at what he has done with counterpoint use and space use and time, and the way he engages everything from lighting to set design. He’s still ahead of his time.”

Forsythe’s visit will energize the troupe, not just through its gig at BAM, but in its big splash from June 19 to 23 at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (with a program featuring Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s Bedroom Folk, Molnar’s To This Day, and Medhi Walerski’s Petite Cérémonie), and then its trip across the Atlantic for shows at the GREC Festival de Barcelona and Stuttgart’s COLOURS International Dance Festival in early July (with an all-female-choreographer program of Bedroom Folk, To This Day, and Solo Echo at both).

Ballet BC is going places this summer, but its artistic director always feels the importance of paying tribute to where it came from. g

BILINGUAL WORLD PREMIERE:

Straight Jacket Winter

by Esther Duquette and Gilles Poulin-Denis.

Presented by 2PAR4, Théâtre français du Centre national des arts, and Théâtre la Seizième at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival.

8pm

June 6, 7, 8 The Cultch’s Historic Theatre

Tickets at

JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 27

ARTS

Bold theatre fare thrives at festivals THEATRE

BODY SO FLUORESCENT

Created by David di Giovanni and Amanda Cordner. Directed by David di Giovanni. An Upintheair Theatre presentation, as part of the rEvolver Festival. At the Vancity Culture Lab on Friday, May 31. No remaining performances

d “WE’RE DONE.” When best friends get to their breaking point, being on either side of that final text message is its own hell. Body So Fluorescent, a magnificent 60-minute show created by Amanda Cordner and David di Giovanni, is full of compassion for its BFFs. Gary and Desiree (both played with exquisite heart and beautiful physicality by Cordner) are trying, separately, to piece together what exactly happened on the dance floor at the club the night before. How exactly did they get here, on the other side of a “We’re done” text when it was supposed to just be another night out?

Body So Fluorescent isn’t just about two friends falling out. This is a multilayered piece that deals with race and racism, stereotyping, queerness, identity, white privilege, cultural appropriation, homophobia, gender policing, and otherness within a friendship. Explicitly spelling out the fundamental differences between Gary and Desiree would spoil the major twist of Body So Fluorescent, so I’ll be cagey and say that Gary and Desiree are characters who move through the world experiencing different kinds of marginalization and oppression, and that also carries into the dynamics of their relationship.

Body So Fluorescent is poetic, heartbreaking, and insightful. It’s crafted with the same precision and care that Cordner brings to her

characters on-stage, and that di Giovanni, as director, makes part of the play’s framework. It’s also one of the most exquisitely written plays I’ve seen in a long time. There’s nothing more satisfying than when the words seem to genuinely flow from the characters themselves, as when Desiree recalls meeting Gary for the first time, saying how “he lit up like a glow stick that had been cracked in half.” Or when she describes the nightmare that is the largely white dance floor as a homogenous sea of patrons “screaming the songs with their teeth, biting the music”.

As Desiree and Gary confront who they are in relation to one another, and in relation to their place in the world with regard to their identities, Cordner gives the performance of a lifetime. She embodies the characters with nuance and vulnerability. Each moves in a certain way (the choreography is excellent), takes up space differently (depending on the gender presentation of the character), and speaks with his or her own cadence, and Cordner nails these subtle distinctions. As Desiree works through her complicated feelings toward Gary, she’s also grappling with the relentless violence of white supremacy and racism, having her blackness appropriated and commodified, and her own experiences of being a black woman in a white world, and in proximity to Gary, Cordner deftly pivots to draw out every laugh without erasing the seriousness of Desiree’s and Gary’s journeys.

What Cordner and di Giovanni have created with Body So Fluorescent is a play that is contemporary and necessary, challenging and provocative, and thrillingly innovative as a solo piece.

Amanda Cordner in Body So Fluorescent. Photo by Grant Landry

CHICKEN GIRL

Written and directed by Derek Chan. A rice & beans theatre production. A Magnetic North Festival presentation. At the Orpheum Annex on Wednesday, May 29. Continues until June 7

d WITH A GRANDIOSE flick of his forearm, hunkered high above a three-piece set, actor B.C. Lee rains a flurry of food flyers from the theatre mezzanine, asking with the timbre of a good showman, “Are you ready to be lost and never, ever found?”

From the whimsical opening, it’s clear that Derek Chan’s Chicken Girl wants to eschew prosaic premises, wishing instead to probe the ontological dilemma of existence. A potpourri of oddball characters and occult connections, the play is a sportive meditation on essential human questions, striated by a unique blend of wordplay, humour, and the recondite.

Chicken Girl (Amanda Sum), an insouciant worker at a fried-chicken shack, has a typical relationship with

by Andrea Warner her employer, Uncle Chan (Lee): she’s

as disgruntled as her full-feathered costume is old, it being a “well-seasoned” hand-me-down from her boss.

Uncle Chan, of course, thinks she takes too many breaks and oversleeps.

Likewise, his opinion of their weekly delivery driver, Cat (Maki Yi), is not much better—she’s literally a cat, always late, and a reckless jaywalker.

Elsewhere, an intergalactic performer on tour, Supersuperstar (Marguerite Hanna), has traversed astronomical distances in perpetual homesickness, while an enigmatic Submariner (Pedro Chamale) is racked with pain deep undersea. Together, the lives of these disparate figures slowly compact in unexpected, metaphysical ways when the Submariner reveals plans for Uncle Chan.

Chan’s script, in spite of its unfamiliar settings and eccentric scenarios, is steeped in human concern. Observations on love, longing, and longevity anchor the more outlandish elements of the play and keep it relatable. For instance, Supersuperstar’s witnessing of a supernova reinforces the omnipresence of death, against Cat and the Submariner’s insufferable eternity. Cat and Chicken Girl’s longing to escape the status quo mirrors the malaise faced by many in their lives, while their latter decisions are buoyed by selfless love. Amid these serious reflections, Chan also peppers the work with alliterative songs, puns, visual gags, and a smattering of Cantonese, French, and Korean in speech and supertitles.

Sum is electric as the title character, her role requiring her to convulse in staccato bursts of energy, choking on sputtered words. Lee is natural and believable as Uncle Chan. Yi plays a haughty Cat that personifies the species in the popular imagination, while Chamale’s Submariner is imposing in stature and demeanour.

Hanna elevates the musicality of the production with excellent vocals.

Set designer Shizuka Kai conjures up an Asian shop aesthetic with redtiled roofs and wire overhang, while lighting designer Sophie Tang and projection designer Parjad Sharifi transform the same into the cosmos with projected stars and suffused shades of colour.

Although rich in the layers of experience that feed the multilingual aspect of this production, Chicken Girl does pose a challenge to those who like to understand all exchanges—an impossibility here without a working knowledge of at least three languages. Naturally, to quote Uncle Chan’s counsel to the Submariner, “Everyone’s time is different.”

by Danny Mak

OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING!

Directed by Alex Lazaridis Ferguson. A Fight With a Stick production, presented as part of the Magnetic North Festival. At the Russian Hall on Saturday, June 1.

Continues until June 9

d OH WHAT a Beautiful Morning! is more live art and video installation than traditional theatre experience. This is a smart approach when engaging with something as tried and true and old-fashioned as the iconic musical Oklahoma!. It’s also in keeping with producer Fight With a Stick’s reputation for creating work that’s exploratory and avant-garde.

The 90-minute performance begins with the five actors—Hayley Gawthrop, Logan Rhys Hallwas, Hin Hilary Leung, Sean Marshall Jr., and Makailla Palliyaguru—crowded around a TV, watching a very long trailer for the

see page 30

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28 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019

ARTS Artists push ceramics into new realm

by Robin Laurence

VISUAL ARTS

BRENDAN LEE SATISH TANG: MEMORIES & FETISHES At Gallery Jones until June 8

GAILAN NGAN: MOONLET/ MOONLIT

At Monte Clark Gallery until June 23

d TWO OF OUR most gifted ceramic sculptors are exhibiting new work concurrently, Gailan Ngan at Monte Clark Gallery and Brendan Lee Satish Tang at Gallery Jones. Both artists bring a wealth of ideas, insights, and technical knowledge to their practices, and although their art differs widely, both create work with a strong visual and intellectual pull. As well, both Tang and Ngan have recently experimented with new materials, so that it is more apt to describe them as multidisciplinary artists than as ceramists.

Tang’s show includes seven mixedmedia sculptures from his extraordinary, ongoing “Manga Ormolu” series, which combines formal and cultural references to Ming-dynasty porcelain vessels, 18th-century French embellishments of Chinese ceramics, and 21st-century robotics as seen in pop culture, especially Japanese manga and anime. Essentially, he melds what look like historic blue-on-white porcelain vases, decorated with floral, landscape, and dragon motifs, with shiny geometric and mechanistic components, glazed in red, green, or yellow and augmented with plastic cables and metallic bolts.

I’ve written before about how this mashup alludes to the impact of globalization on cultural identity, and on our perceptions of “self” and “other”. Tang’s work also speaks to the ways in which technology is

A piece from Brendan Lee Satish Tang’s “Manga Ormolu”, on view at Gallery Jones.

increasingly wedded to the human body—and vice versa. This is evident in the way he treats the surfaces of the vessels as if they were skin, folded and wrinkled around protruding or extruding robotic components. In Manga Ormolu Version 5.0v, for instance, the Ming-ish vessel seems to be giving birth, through a number of “vaginal” openings, to shiny blue and distinctly mechanistic pods and tubes. It’s a sci-fi nightmare—and one of the most compelling works in the show.

Also on view here is Tang’s “Joss Paper” series, small paper constructions, each worked in watercolour, mounted alongside a single ceramic “match”, and mounted in a wood-and-

The Taming of the Shrew Andrew McNee & Jennifer Lines Photo: Emily Cooper

acrylic box. These little sculptures riff on the Chinese Buddhist practice of burning paper objects that resemble desirable items—from money to cigarettes to appliances—as offerings to the dead. Tang’s potential offerings depict things he loved as a child and range from a Michael Jackson LP to a Nintendo Game Boy to a VHS tape.

Here, we are asked to contemplate relinquishing not only obsolete entertainment technologies but also the objects to which we have attached fond memories—and perhaps a degree of fetishism. Not incidentally, Tang is a very deft watercolourist.

Many of Ngan’s new ceramic sculptures are inspired by cosmic bodies and physical phenomena, particularly asymmetrical or misshapen moons and the play of light through Earth’s atmosphere. The evocations are lovely, although the artist’s deep material and technical knowledge seems directed at challenging conventional ideas of beauty and craft.

The clay bodies are roughly textured and the glazes are unexpected in their colours and application. A few pieces, such as Violet Femmes 1 and 2, are mounted on the walls; with their inverted U-shapes and multicoloured glazes, they resemble droopy rainbows. The freestanding sculptures are exhibited without ceremony, the smaller, vessel-shaped ones, such as Mineral, sitting on a rough wooden bench and the larger “moonlet” ones, such as Black Side/Silver Side, on the gallery’s bare concrete floor.

Many of these works are draped with glazed ceramic coils, referencing their handmade, coil construction while suggesting snakes or viscera.

Others are bedecked with blobs of dark clay that resemble organic matter—rotten fruit, perhaps, or melted chocolate. g

June 17-28

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MUSIQUE - FRANCOPHONE - MUSIC

from page 28

1955 film version of Oklahoma!. The audience watches it with the actors, and then the couch and the TV are repositioned and the audience watches the actors watching the trailer and engaging with it. The repositioning and the watching then rewatching happens at least five times. They go from humming along to tapping their feet to acting out dance moves and reciting the film characters’ lines in unison.

From there, the actors disappear and a giant screen becomes the central focus, onto which a short video loop is projected. The supposedly idyllic scene of stalks of corn blowing in the breeze under a bright blue sky takes on a more menacing quality as the score intensifies and the screen moves closer and closer, as do two large wooden walls, until the audience is essentially “trapped”.

Provocative, creative, and immersive moments like this are when Oh What a Beautiful Morning! is at its best. But there are moments when the show is a real struggle. One is a scene

in which the actors stand in front of small screens that go up to their waists.

The actors’ own arms and hands then match up or double up with other hands and arms projected onto the screens. It’s a neat visual trick at first, but it goes on for far too long, and this is the production’s biggest problem: it’s a bit boring. There are times when Oh What a Beautiful Morning!’s repetition feels less artistic than agonizing, and its pacing goes beyond methodical and deliberate to verge on dull.

The lyric sheets that were on our chairs at the start of the show signalled a musical component, and when Oh What a Beautiful Morning! fully evolves into a concert for its final 15 minutes, it’s a welcome jolt of energy. The best number is a rousing cover of “Sam Hall (Damn Your Eyes)” and though it’s a good ramp-up to the sing-along finale, doing karaoke en masse to “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ ” feels a bit like the show itself: it’s a lot and yet not enough.

by Andrea Warner

ARTS LISTINGS ONGOING GLOBAL SOUNDSCAPES FESTIVAL Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra’s Global Soundscapes Festival celebrates the vibrant intersection of Canadian cultures with the instruments and traditions of Japan and other world music. Ten Vancouver concerts feature international artists, premieres, intercultural works, “Debris”—a new mini-opera—and more at various venues. To Jun 13, Waterfront Theatre. $20–35/fest flex pass.

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. From $39.

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

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

MICHEL TREMBLAY’S HOSANNA Classic play presented by the UBC Department of Theatre and Film to celebrate its 60th anniversary.

To Jun 7, 8 pm, Dorothy Somerset Studios.

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

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

JUNE 13 - 23 JUIN GRÉGORY CHARLES MARC HERVIEUX DIANE TELL

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW The 2007 spaghetti-western version of Shakespeare’s work is the inspiration for this Wild West love story. Jun 5–Sep 21, Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. From $26.

ALPHA YAYA DIALLO CASSANDRA DUBUC - AGATHE RIOPEL GABRIEL DUBREUIL & EARLY SPIRIT JUSTIN LACROIX - ARNAUD GRANOUX CHILDREN’S FEST - ATCHOUM EADSÉ - BRIGA - ENSEMBLE ABSINTHE UNIS TV OUTDOOR STAGE TICKETS | LECENTRECULTUREL.COM | 604 736-9806 30ième Festival d’été francophone de Vancouver 30th annual Festival d’été francophone de Vancouver

Vancouver

THURSDAY, JUNE 6 MOM’S THE WORD: NEST 1/2 EMPTY The Arts Club Theatre Company presents a new generation of laughs from the creative team behind the Mom’s the Word series. Jun 6–Jul 20, Granville Island Stage. Tix from $29.

BLAST TO THE PAST A choral journey through popular music featuring the Joyful Rebellion Choir. Jun 6, 7:30 pm, St James Community Hall. By donation.

UNDIVIDED COLOURS Four Asian-Canadian artists unite dance heritages. Jun 6-7, 8 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $30/20.

JOKES PLEASE! Standup-comedy show hosted by Ross Dauk. Jun 6, 9-10:45 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $10.

FRIDAY, JUNE 7 AN INDEFINITE SENTENCE A talk with author-activist Siddarth Dube. Jun 7, 5-7 pm, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. Free.

THE ‘70S SHOW The Vancouver Men’s Chorus performs songs from the ‘70s. Jun 7-9 & 12-15, 8 pm, Performance Works. $45-50.

WAIT UNTIL DARK A thriller by Frederick Knott. Jun 7-22, 8-10:30 pm, Deep Cove Shaw Theatre. $20/18.

JERUSALEM Come meet Johnny “Rooster” Byron—a gypsy squatter, a wanted man, a folk hero to some and a villain to others. The authorities want to evict him. His son wants his dad to take him to the fair. A motley crew of mates wants his ample supply of drugs. Johnny is a giant from a bygone age, a Green Man from England’s past. Jun 7-30, 8 pm, Jericho Arts Centre. $22-28.

SATURDAY, JUNE 8

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30 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019

Fairmont Pacific Rim

Simply Computing

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DANIEL KALLA Vancouver author signs copies of his latest thriller We All Fall Down. Jun 8, 1 pm, Indigo Langley. Free.

HIVE 2019 AT THE MAGNETIC NORTH THEATRE FESTIVAL A mad-dash theatre event of micro-performances. Jun 8, 1:30-5 pm, Presentation House Theatre. $20.

UNSCRIPTED: KUROKO A party exploring Tetsuro Shigematsu’s new play. Jun 8, 8 pm, Progress Lab 1422. $15-20.

THE COMIC STRIP Standup comedy by Simon King, Colin Sharp, and headliner Yumi Nagashima. Jun 8, 9 pm, Tyrant Studios. $18.

Arts

HOT TICKET

WE ARE BY WHICH WE ARE MOVED IN RETURN (June 11 to 15 at Studio D in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts at SFU Woodward’s) MACHiNENOiSY’s Delia Brett and Daelik created their collaborative partnership way back in 2006, but, fascinatingly, these innovators have never created a duet for themselves. Until now, that is.

This new work looks at science, feminism, and cultural theory in the age of the anthropocene— and you can expect this dynamic duo’s signature surprises, not least from the “creative environment” being devised by set designer Paula Viitanen.

SHIFT FESTIVAL 12 (June 11

to 13 at the Orpheum Annex) Dedicated to diverse and underrepresented voices, the annual theatre event features three short, sharp works this year. Tai Amy Grauman’s Marie’s Letters looks at five generations of Métis women addressing their unborn daughters; Kelsey Kanatan Wavey’s iskonikowisiw mixes projection, movement, and spoken word to tell the story of the last woman on Earth and the last drop of water; and Claire Love Wilson and Sara Vickruck’s Sound Off explores live and looped sound. g

SUNDAY, JUNE 9 MID MAIN ART FAIR Ninth annual sale of original works by local artists. Jun 9, 11 am, Heritage Hall .

THE MUSIC OF LIFE The High Spirits Choir performs under director Ieva Wool. Jun 9, 3:30 pm, Unity of Vancouver. $25/20/15.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WINDOW Dramatic contemporary dance with original music.

Jun 9, 7 pm, Kay Meek Arts Centre. $25.

JNT COMEDY SHOW Andrew Packer hosts a cannabis-based comedy show. Jun 9, 8 pm, Cannabis Culture Headquarters. $10.

TUESDAY, JUNE 11 YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING Joan Didion’s one-woman show about surviving, starring Cory Philley. Jun 11-16, Roedde House Museum. $25.

THE KYBALION Philip Deslippe speaks about one of the most influential books of arcane philosophy of the 20th century. Jun 11, 6:30-8 pm, Banyen Books and Sound. Free.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12 SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE Young Will Shakespeare has writer’s block. Jun 12–Sep 18, Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. From $26.

THURSDAY, JUNE 13 DANNY LYON Talk and book signing by American photojournalist, writer, and filmmaker.

Jun 13, 7 pm, The Polygon Gallery. By donation.

ZASTROZZI: THE MASTER OF DISCIPLINE George F. Walker’s tale of crime, passion, sword fighting, and revenge. Jun 13-21, 8 pm, The Cultch. $30.

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

music

Palmer gets personal and political

F

by Mike Usinger

ittingly, considering her just-released third studio album is titled There Will Be No Intermission, Amanda Palmer is busy working her ass off these days, with the singer as excited about what she’s doing on-stage as she is about battling for a better world off it.

Reached in Kansas City in the middle of a 20-date North American tour, the famously outspoken singer is more than happy to elaborate on her schedule. First up, she’s doing something about the fact that years and years of U.S. political, economic, and social advances are being rolled back by what she rightfully describes as old, rich, conservative white men who are desperate to hold on to power they’ve had for far too long. Emboldened by Republican president Donald Trump, lawmakers and lobbyists have been busy trying to turn back the clock to an uglier time, which is part of the reason Palmer is often booked between shows.

“I don’t know if you’ve been following the abortion politics in the States, but they are pretty rowdy, especially in Missouri and other states that I just happen to be touring in right now, ” the singer says, sounding surprisingly relaxed. “So I’ve been really busy—I spoke at a rally in St. Louis yesterday and have been putting together all sorts of other political actions because it’s crazy what’s going on down here.

It’s nice to not only be in a position of power, but also touring at this time.”

Having a devoted following dating back to her early days with alternative-cabaret oddballs the Dresden Dolls and continuing through to her critically lauded solo career has indeed given Palmer a valuable public platform. And it’s one she puts to excellent use on There Will Be No Intermission.

As stripped back as the record is musically (songs are mostly built around warm piano and bright-eyed ukulele), Palmer displays no shortage of lyrical ambition. Her last solo full-length, Theatre Is Evil, came seven years ago, which might as well have been 700 years in this ADHD era.

A lot has happened since then—the death of her closest friend from cancer, the birth of her first child, losing another through a miscarriage, and the rise of Trump’s right-wing America. Palmer’s way of dealing with all of that was to write her most personal songs to date.

The singer sets the scene for There Will Be No Intermission with “The Ride”, in which—over

A lot has happened since the last time Amanda Palmer put out an LP, both in her own life and in the world.

dark cabaret piano—she lets her fans know that she’s on their side with “I want you to think of me sitting and singing beside you/I wish we could meet all the people behind us in line/The climb to the crest is less frightening with someone to clutch you/But isn’t it nice when we’re all afraid at the same time?”

In the hour that follows, Palmer pulls back the curtain on her sometimes messy life, turning the spotlight on everything from her once-fractured relationships to the insanity that comes with parenthood. A lot of the subject material is heavy, with “Voicemail for Jill” dealing with a friend’s right to choose, “Machete” exploring the way we’re able to love those who don’t always share our politics, and “You’d Think I Shot Their Children” ref lecting on how social media

can turn the most trivial issue into an ugly online lynching party.

What ultimately shines through is not only humour, but also a sense of deep empathy, with Palmer trying to find the best not just in friends and family, but also in herself.

“Ultimately, you have to start with yourself,” she acknowledges. “I believe in radical compassion, and sometimes the most difficult person to have compassion for is oneself. But, pretty much like that cliché about love, if you can’t start at the beginning you don’t get very far.”

Her empathy extends to the world around her, Palmer says, right down to the show she’s currently touring. In many ways, she sees herself as almost morally obligated to keep fighting on the street.

“As an artist, these are really interesting times to live in,” she opines. “My own personal

journey, through my life and my artistic career, is always going to intersect with the field of politics. And it’s so fascinating to me that the moment I was really finally ready to write and share, vulnerably and sincerely, about reproductive issues, writing about abortion, writing about miscarriage, writing about death and loss, that it all landed smack-dab in the middle of the year that America went into crisis about these very topics. That’s not lost on me.”

Also not lost on her is that she pays the bills as an entertainer. And that explains why she’s so excited about her current tour.

That There Will Be No Intermission is so personal has taken her shows to an entirely new level of intimacy.

“I tell a lot of really difficult, personal stories on the stage,” Palmer says. “I describe having multiple abortions, I talk about miscarriage. But I deliver it all with a lot of humour, because there’s no other way to dish it out to make it palatable. Ultimately, though, it’s a show about empathy. It was a galvanizing fire that I’ve walked through the past eight years—losing my best friend, losing a pregnancy, having multiple abortions, losing an ex to suicide—it was just one thing after another. But at the same time, I’ve never found a stronger sense of self, and that comes across so loudly, both on the record and the stage show.”

Just as things are stripped down to basics on There Will Be No Intermission, shows feature Palmer mostly at a piano. Armed, she says, with stories designed to move people in the most hopeful of ways.

“I worked very hard on this show,” Palmer notes. “I could have just gotten up and played the record and then a few of my old favourites, but instead I really set myself up with a task, especially having seen Hannah Gadsby and Bruce Springsteen do incredibly powerful, scripted shows where they not only delivered their musical material, but also gave audiences a story that really forced them to try harder. So I’m more proud of this stage show than anything I’ve ever created. It feels like my final exam, not only in musicianship, but also in truth-telling.” g Amanda Palmer plays the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on Thursday (June 6).

Mattiel bridges the past and the future

by Mike Usinger

d BEFORE FINDING her footing with the project known as Mattiel, Atlanta’s Mattiel Brown took some time figuring out what to do with her life. Eventually, she concluded that, while playing it safe would pay the bills, there was no reason she couldn’t roll the dice on music.

“I was in school studying visual communications, creative writing, poetry analysis, and things like that at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta,” Brown says, on her cell from a New Orleans tour stop. “Then I did a study abroad in Brussels for six months, where I lived in Brussels by myself at a young age. That was a pretty formative time for me. I think when I was abroad, and could be in a city for myself and fend for myself, that I had a moment of realization: that I shouldn’t try and pursue anything other than art in some form.

Before that, I was always considering journalism or something like that— all the things your parents want you to do because art is too risky.”

Determined to do something creative, Brown dropped out of school after returning to Atlanta and landed a job as a designer and illustrator with email-marketing giant Mailchimp.

Satisfying as that job was, she spent her spare time working towards Mattiel, which released a critically lauded, eponymous debut in 2017 and promptly made some high-profile fans.

Most notable among them was Jack White, who evidently fell hard

Mattiel Brown’s music has earned her some high-profile fans, like Jack White.

for Brown’s blend of bourbon-hazed country, film-noir blues, and hazy psychedelia. Mattiel was invited to play White’s Third Man Records complex in Nashville, and the former White Stripe and sometime Raconteur then enlisted her as a support act for dates on his 2018 Boarding House Reach Tour.

Both Mattiel and the upcoming Satis Factory (due out later this month) have cast Brown as someone who has mastered the art of bridging the retro-cool past with the forwardthinking future. To play spot-theinfluences, real or imagined, is to cite the likes of Wanda Jackson, the Velvet

Underground, Jane Birkin, and the White Stripes. Or, if one prefers, every soundtrack ever lovingly put together

by Quentin Tarantino.

Brown seems every bit as comfortable sitting at the lonely, neon-lit end of a roadhouse bar (“Blisters”) as she does stomping through Motown Detroit (“Berlin Weekend”) or ’60s-pop Paris (“Keep the Change”).

The singer’s initial goal was to make sure she didn’t become just another rock act from Atlanta. She notes that the city’s guitar-band scene, in the past, often seemed dominated by those with little interest in standing out.

“I was never really blown away by the bands in Atlanta when I started out thinking about doing music,” Brown says. “I was looking for an outlet to experiment, and it was hard to find because most people in the city were more following trends. I’m talking the people that I would run into—I can’t really make a blanket statement. They weren’t necessarily interested in coming up with something original, but more pandering to whatever was trendy and cool.”

Instead, she positioned herself as one of the coolest artists waiting to break out of the American underground. On that front, Brown is acutely aware that the pop-music landscape has shifted dramatically to rap and hip-hop in recent years, making what she does very much niche-oriented. Still, she has no regrets about taking a while to get to where she is today.

“I’ve just tried to be confident how great it would have been if this in my own talents and abilities,” had come out in 2005.” she offers. “If people catch on, then fine. If they don’t, I’m not going to Mattiel plays the WISE Hall on Sunday spend all my time being bitter about (June 9).

A lbum OF THE WEEK HI-RANGER TIRE TOWN

How resolutely old-school is HiRanger? Well, the band mailed us its four-song Tire Town EP on CD. For those born after the turn of the millennium, that stands for “compact disc”, and it’s a physical medium for music distribution that not even major labels send us anymore. (As for what it means to mail something to someone… ask your parents.) The trio of Christopher Bon (bass), Jeff Bustard (drums), and Jesse Cullen (vocals, guitar) describes its output as “Psych-pop songs of self-conscious absurdity, sciencefiction arrogance, crushing futility, and melodies remembered from dreams the night before.”

Here’s guessing that those are the

sort of dreams you have after you fall asleep with a Teenage Fanclub LP on the turntable. Which is to say that Hi-Ranger’s vision of psychedelia is heavily filtered through the lens of transatlantic ’90s alt-rock and dream pop.

And that is pretty fan-fuckingtastic for those of us who think Vancouver doesn’t have enough bands that would sound good on a mix tape with Chapterhouse, the Telescopes, and Ride. This EP’s closing cut, “Out of Dreams”, is a perfect encapsulation of HiRanger’s style—it begins with a simple guitar jangle and builds into a colossal wave of noise and melody so fully enveloping that you might just be convinced it’s the best shoegaze track this city has ever produced.

by John Lucas

JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 31

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MOVIES

See Emily play in cheeky Wild Nights REVIEWS

WILD NIGHTS WITH EMILY

Starring Molly Shannon. Rating unavailable

d SOME ARTISTS get to shape their own destinies. Others have it shaped for them by their brother’s opportunistic mistresses who’ve never even met them!

That’s the cheeky yet fact-based premise of Wild Nights With Emily, which succeeds in upending the conventional image of poet Emily Dickinson—now deemed as influential as Walt Whitman was in his time—as a dour spinster who got no pleasure out of life.

There’s plenty of fun to be had with SNL veteran Molly Shannon as the least comic element of a boldly revisionist take that somehow hews closer to Drunk History than to Masterpiece Theatre, while still ringing true. Writer-director Madeleine Olnek cares a great deal about the Bard of Amherst’s words—reproduced on-screen in a delightful variety of settings—but pretty much everything else is up for grabs.

There’s a low-budget attempt to dress the New England homes and people in antebellum styles, but even these are exaggerated to underline an environment that stifled a woman’s work, not to mention her sexuality.

The main revelation here is Emily’s lifelong friendship, and more, with neighbour and eventual sisterin-law Susan Gilbert, played mostly

by Susan Ziegler, also in Olnek’s previous films. They are also glimpsed as adolescent lovers, in the form of actors who look nothing like them and are 30 years younger (not the two-decade jump the movie titles mention). But this disjuncture does little to dispel the brisk movie’s essentially playful mood.

Emily Dickinson (Molly Shannon) rethinks a thing or two in WIld Nights With Emily.

Quietly stealing the show, fittingly enough, is The Girlfriend Experience’s Amy Seimetz, as Mabel Todd, who gradually hooks up with Emily’s brother Austin (a very funny Kevin Seal) after he accepts that wife Susan brooks marital sex only for procreation. After the poet’s death, at age 55, it is Mabel who will tour book clubs and ladies’ luncheons to extol the old-maid-with-secrets version of Dickinson’s life, while the movie posits that she and Austin agreed to erase Susan’s name from the passionate letters Emily wrote. “Sweet of twigs and twine”, Sue Gilbert was her “perennial nest”. Hope was not the only thing with feathers.

by Ken Eisner

ROCKETMAN

Starring Taron Egerton. Rated PG

d IS THE RESEMBLANCE between this Elton John biopic and a certainly Mercurial effort from last year strictly coincidental?

Directed by Dexter Fletcher, who took on Bohemian Rhapsody when Bryan Singer was fired, Rocketman is another dive into the shallow end of classic Brit rock. Both movies look at singers who struggled with their sexuality and their pop sensibilities in a milieu that prized authenticity.

Both feature big production numbers, dubious chronology, old-school montages depicting the glitzy rise to worldwide fame, and second-half dreariness in the long slide towards drugs and anonymous sex.

If John’s principal tormentor, manager John Reid (The Bodyguard’s David Madden), seems familiar, he’s actually the same guy who preyed on Freddie in the other flick.

And the movies share a moralistically bifurcated ’tude towards gayness itself, distinguishing between the wholesome kind with a solid partner and all that other, more questionable stuff.

What the new one has is deluxe choreography and the freedom that

comes from jumbling songs into multiple time frames, plus an energetic performance from Taron Egerton. He’s round-faced and balding as Elton, with no Mr. Potato Head nose, and does a good job singing arrangements that diverge radically from the overexposed originals.

The early stuff is emphasized, mixing piano genius Reginald Dwight’s stunted suburban childhood with his arrival as a nimble songwriter, upon meeting lyricist Bernie Taupin, played

by Billy Elliot’s Jamie Bell. That film’s screenwriter, Lee Hall, here gets to revisit a remote, homophobic father (Stephen Mackintosh), now complemented by a ditsy, self-absorbed mother (Bryce Dallas Howard) and a protective granny (Gemma Jones). These figures haunt the singer—never seen interacting with another musician or a clothing stylist—in the too-literal rehab sessions that provide back story.

The humble-bragging subject helped produce this lavish musical memoir.

So why does it fudge basic things like the origins of his stage name? Real Reg played countless gigs with the band Bluesology, and was smitten by both saxophonist Elton Dean and leader Long John Baldry, one of the few openly gay performers of that era.

The movie keeps Dean but imagines a snap decision on the John, based on one glance at a Beatles photo.

Here he is, all these years later, still trying to play with the big boys.

by Ken Eisner

THE SOUVENIR

Starring Honor Swinton Byrne.

Rated 14A

d MINING ONE’S PAST to cast a sharper eye on the present is what most artists do. But standing too close to the subject can obscure your

general message while conveying a taste for self-indulgence. Too far away and the emotional value of lived experience is lost.

Writer-director Joanna Hogg gets caught between stools in The Souvenir, a coming-of-age drama that refuses to find its core raison d’être even as it demands increasing patience over a bleakly studied two hours. It’s not as if she hasn’t done her homework; indeed, homework appears to be all she’s done. In capturing her early apprenticeship as a photographer and budding filmmaker in the early 1980s, Hogg went so far as to literally re-create, in an isolated soundstage, the apartment she kept in London’s ritzy Knightsbridge area, and briefly shared with a man who was obviously bad for her.

Here called Julie, Hogg’s alter ego is newcomer Honor Swinton Byrne.

And the man in question, called Anthony, is played by Tom Burke, seen as a war-wounded detective in the J.K. Rowling–derived TV series C.B. Strike.

Here, he brings sensitivity and physical gravity to an elegant ne’er-do-well who will upend Julie’s life. Burke overpowers Byrne, whose character never defends herself. The same is true when Julie’s aristocratic mother enters the picture, and this affectless first-timer acts opposite her real-life parent Tilda Swinton, who holds the screen in ways her daughter can’t. (Some supporting players are even more amateurish.)

Anthony initially appears ready to bankroll Julie’s first project, but gradually begins draining her account, as well as her already tentative will. And let’s just say that the tracks she sees are not from his tears. He’s casually cruel throughout, even if his ruthless criticism carries some truths. “You sound like somebody backed you into a see next page

MUSIC LISTINGS CONCERTS JUST ANNOUNCED THE GATHERING FESTIVAL Free concert featuring performances by Odds, the Big Easy Funk Ensemble, Gary Comeau & the Voodoo Allstars, Carnegie Jazz Band, Love Medicine, and Katari Taiko. Jun 15, 10 am–8 pm, Emery Barnes Park. Free.

WILLIE WATSON American bluesgrass-folk singer-songwriter and founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show. Jul 23, 9 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $20.

ORVILLE PECK Canadian psychedelicoutlaw cowboy-crooner plays tunes from debut album Pony. Aug 27, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $20.

BON IVER American indie-folk band featuring singer-songwriter Justin Vernon, with guest Sharon Van Etten. Sep 7, 7:30 pm, Pacific Coliseum. Tix on sale June 7, 10 am, $150/99.50/79.50/65/49.50/39.50/27.50.

SCARLXRD Rap-metal artist from Staffordshire, England. Sep 7, 8 pm, Venue. $17.50.

THE DISTILLERS American punk band featuring frontwoman Brody Dalle. Sep 11, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $47.25.

BANKS Alternative R&B singer-songwriter from California, with guest Kevin Garrett. Sep 24, 9 pm, Orpheum Theatre. Tix on sale Jun 14, 10 am, $59.50/49.50/34.50.

BENJAMIN FRANCIS LEFTWICH Indie-folk singer-songwriter from York, England. Sep 28, 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. $22.50.

RISING APPALACHIA New Orleans worldfolk band led by multi-instrumentalist sisters Leah and Chloe Smith. Oct 2, 8 pm, Hollywood Theatre. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $25.

NF Rapper from Michigan. Oct 3, 8 pm, PNE Forum. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $39.50.

ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES Alabama– based rock ‘n’ soul band. Oct 9, 8:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $39.50.

WHITE REAPER Garage-punk band from Louisville, Kentucky, with guests the Dirty Nil and Criminal Hygiene. Oct 11, 7:30 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. $15.

MIKE DOUGHTY Former member of Soul Coughing performs the band’s debut album, Ruby Vroom, in its entirety, with guests the Ghost of Mr. Oberon. Oct 11, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret.

Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $25.

THE DEAD SOUTH Folk-bluegrass group from Regina. Oct 19-20, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Oct 19 SOLD OUT, tix for Oct 20 on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $30.

DINOSAUR JR. American alt-rock band, featuring guitarist-vocalist J. Mascis. Oct 24, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $35.

JASON MRAZ American soul-pop

singer-songwriter. Nov 8, 7:30 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $99.50/75.50/55.50/45.50.

CITY AND COLOUR Canadian singer-songwriter Dallas Green, with guests Jacob Banks and Ben Rogers Nov 9, Pacific Coliseum. Tix on sale Jun 7, 10 am, $45.50-85.50.

SLEATER-KINNEY Punk-rock trio from Olympia, Washington. Nov 21, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale June 14, 10 am, $47.50.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5 LONG BEACH DUB ALLSTARS Dub-ska-rock band from California. Jun 5, 7 pm, Imperial Vancouver. $30.

THURSDAY, JUNE 6 PILE Indie-rock band from Boston. Jun 6, Fox Cabaret.

CHROMATICS Electronic music band from Portland. Jun 6, Vogue Theatre. $29.50.

AMANDA PALMER Alt-rock/dark-cabaret singer-songwriter from the States. Jun 6, 7:30 pm, Chan Centre. $49.50/40.

FRIDAY, JUNE 7 LITTLE PEOPLE Downtempo electronica artist, with guests Arms and Sleepers. Jun 7, Biltmore Cabaret. $15.

CHROMEO Electro-funk duo from Montreal.

Jun 7, 7 pm, Malkin Bowl. $42.50.

GREAT GOOD FINE OK Pop duo from Brooklyn. Jun 7, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. $20.

ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER Indie-rock band from Australia. Jun 7, 9 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $17.50.

SATURDAY, JUNE 8 NICK MURPHY Singer, producer, and multiinstrumentalist, formerly known as Chet Faker. Jun 8-9, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom.

June 9 SOLD OUT, June 8 $43.50.

SUNDAY, JUNE 9 MATTIEL Alt-pop singer-songwriter from Atlanta. Jun 9, 8 pm, WISE Hall. $15.

Music

HOT TICKET

CONNAN MOCKASIN

(June 12 at the Rickshaw) Clearly not a man of the opinion that one needs to put down roots, New Zealand– born Connan Mockasin has called London, Manchester, Los Angeles, and Tokyo home during his time on this astral plane. The enigmatic psych-pop hero’s latest, Jassbusters, once again suggests that, just as he refuses to stay in one physical place, Mockasin’s all about moving around artistically, the record conceived as a “five-part melodrama” nodding everywhere from the Bee Gees to your last acid freakout.

Sometimes, weird is good—or, at the least, a welcome break from grinding normalcy.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12 TTNG Rock band from Oxford, England, with guests the Kraken Quartet. Jun 12, Biltmore Cabaret.

BOBBY BAZINI French-Canadian folk-soul singer-songwriter from Quebec. Jun 12, 8 pm, Imperial Vancouver. $22.50.

L7 Punk rockers from L.A. play tunes from new album Scatter the Rats. Jun 12, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $39.50.

THE CULT British hard-rock band from the ‘80s, featuring vocalist Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy. Jun 9, 8 pm, Vogue Theatre. $49.50-127.50.

THURSDAY, JUNE 13

MONDAY, JUNE 10

ANDREA BOCELLI Legendary operatic pop singer. Jun 13, 8 pm, Rogers Arena.

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

TUESDAY, JUNE 11 THE PARTY TIMERS AND JACK GARTON Night paying homage to Wanda Jackson and Elvis Presley. Jun 11, 8 pm, WISE Hall. $10.

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.

JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 33

MOVIES

Once upon a summer at the movies

S

by Adrian Mack

ummer at the movies requires some nimble footwork. Despite destroying itself twice already, the Marvel universe will continue to drop turds great and small—like dog poop on a hot sidewalk—amid a schedule otherwise littered with blue-skinned genies, upgraded Simbas, and Toy Stories numbering beyond infinity. Fortunately, the Mouse House doesn’t have a complete lock on the picture show. Here are a few upcoming titles and other screen events that will surely keep the grownups coming back to the old movie palace. Dates are subject to change.

Jarmusch actually delivers the icon-studded (Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, RZA, Tom Waits) zom-com that, two months ago, everyone thought was an April Fool’s joke. (June 14)

Awkwafina stars in one of the coming season’s umissable flicks, The Farewell.

YESTERDAY A violent, unexplained event scrubs the Beatles from world history, leaving Himesh Patel to restore everyone’s memory—and steal all the credit.

Danny Boyle directs from a Richard Curtis script. And yes, we’re also wondering how they got the rights to the catalogue. (June 28)

Vancity Theatre with a killer lineup and a preview of Jim Jarmusch’s The RUPTURE 2019 For cultheads and featuring Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, Dead Don’t Die. See Straight.com for MIDSOMMAR Following his exgorehounds, Rupture returns to the Guto Parente’s The Cannibal Club, reviews. (June 6 to 9) ploration into Goetic ritual in Hereditary, writer-director Ari Aster CLAIRE DENIS: TROUBLE EVERY sends unhappy couple Florence DAY For its screenings through June, Pugh and Jack Reynor to Sweden the Cinematheque has scored 35mm for a full-on descent into pastoral, prints for five of the eight titles in this, pagan folk horror. Wicker Man its most extensive retrospective yet fans, a libation! (July 3) of the French filmmaker’s frequently polarizing works. Go to Straight.com THE FAREWELL A Mandarinfor Michael Scoular’s essay about the speaking Awkwafina travels to China to visit her dying grandprogram. (June 6 to 25) mother in this festival rave. MeditaPETERLOO Mike Leigh’s furious tion Park’s Tzi Ma costars in writerperiod epic about the Peterloo Mas- director Lulu Wang’s talked-up sacre of 1819 might be the Brit film- second feature. (July 19) maker’s masterpiece. Rory Kinnear VITA & VIRGINIA The future arand Maxine Peake star. (tba) rives ahead of schedule when VirROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A ginia Woolf hooks up with socialite BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN Vita Sackville-West. Elizabeth DebSCORSESE The Mighty Zim slaps icki and Gemma Arterton scandalon the face paint, hires Mick Ronson, ize the Bloomsbury set in Chanya and rocks the fuck out in this Netflix Button’s film. (July 19) doc about Dylan’s woolly mid-’70s tour. Almost certainly better than ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD Quentin Tarantino’s latest Renaldo and Clara. (June 12) experiment in testing your moral ITALIAN CONTEMPORARY FILM fortitude has already earned the opFESTIVAL Among the highlights: probrium of Roman Polanski’s wife, Goblin’s Maurizio Guarini performs Emmanuelle Seigner. As Sharon a live soundtrack to L’Inferno, at the Tate, meanwhile, Margot Robbie Rio Theatre on June 16. (June 7 to 23) mingles with Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, various Mansonites, and TV THE DEAD DON’T DIE …and actors played by Brad Pitt and Leoneither does the art house. Jim nardo DiCaprio in a love letter to ’60s from previous page

corner,” he says early on, “and forced you to become a filmmaker.” She has no comeback for this, and that sense of unresolved befuddlement marks this Souvenir as a victim of its own nostalgic obsessions. The movie stares hard into the past, finds it beautifully sad, but still doesn’t know what else to think of the whole damn thing.

by Ken Eisner

PAVAROTTI

A documentary by Ron Howard. In English and Italian, with English subtitles. Rated PG

d LUCIANO PAVAROTTI’S reputation is still recovering from a somewhat sad final stage, in which diminished powers met a cartoonishly exaggerated figure who tried to do too much in too many (literal) arenas. This exhilarating two-hour portrait does him a genuine service by putting that brief period, which ended with his 2007 death, back in the context of a creative life lived long and well.

Brought to you by director Ron Howard and the same team that made The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, the new doc covers a subject who toured for almost five decades, as opposed to the Beatles’ five years on the road. Howard spends a small chunk of time on the singer’s wartime childhood in Modena, Italy, in which his baker father, an amateur tenor, inspired him. It skips his desire to be a pro footballer and his admiration of Mario Lanza pictures—something that resurfaced in Yes, Giorgio, his disastrous single stab at movie stardom, also unmentioned here.

Pavarotti does describe the long climb onto the world stage and some of the technical work that went into making him a formidable tenor. The cheesy sobriquet King of the High Cs 34 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019

is explained by contemporaries like Plácido Domingo and José Carreras— who would eventually join him in the globe-beating Three Tenors—as derived from his rare mastery of a vibrational trill that conveys transcendence of earthly restraints.

There’s also the personal stuff, including his departure from a long-suffering wife and three adoring daughters (all interviewed) after affairs with much younger female assistants. Several veterans mention that “Luciano hated to be alone,” and the ceaseless travelling doubtless reinforced some of the childlike needs that were part of his hugeteddy-bear personality.

If he eventually traded the world of Italian opera (a virtual redundancy, in this context) for more slapdash entertainments with Elton John, U2, and Céline Dion, the film makes the case that these latter-day mega-events allowed Pavarotti to raise millions of dollars for worthy causes and provided places to let his charisma shine at an age when opera fans would mostly see a tired old man struggling through yet another rendition of “Nessun Dorma”.

by Ken Eisner

THE TOMORROW MAN

Starring John Lithgow. Rated PG

d A FEEL-GOOD MOVIE for the End Times, The Tomorrow Man starts with an intriguing premise and a can’t-miss cast, but never quite decides what it wants to say.

John Lithgow is Ed Hemsler, a lonely retiree who spends his free time on conspiratorial message boards, listening to talk radio, and shopping for the apocalypse. Instead of hitting CostCo like a normal survivalist, he buys small batches of nonperishables at a rural supermarket. (The setting appears to be

Tinseltown that, at the very least, had Cannes convinced. (July 26) DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME Easy! It comes before…

“Stills, Nash & Young”! To his credit, the most routinely annoying member of the Byrds (among other bands) admits to a “big ego, no brains” in the trailer for this sure-to-be-lively confessional. (August 2) THE NIGHTINGALE An Irish convict hunts down her family’s killer in Jennifer Kent’s period gothic, said to be a suitably disturbing follow-up to her debut, The Babadook. (August 2) MIKE WALLACE IS HERE It remains to be seen where Avi Belkin’s doc falls on its view of the legendary broadcaster whose aggressive reputation obscured a deeper loyalty to his establishment masters.

(August 9) COLD CASE HAMMARSKJÖLD The 1961 death of UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld in a suspicious plane crash has long been a strange attractor for assassination researchers. If anyone could take on the endlessly provocative story, which includes the weaponization of AIDS, it’s fearless Danish documentary bad boy Mads Brügger. (August 16) GOOD BOYS From the Seth Rogen– Evan Goldberg hit factory, here’s a filthy-minded middle-school Superbad. Young Jacob Tremblay escapes the Room to complete the Vancouver connection. (August 16) WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE Maria Semple’s postmodern bestseller becomes a feature film courtesy of the one guy who might actually pull it off: Richard Linklater. Cate Blanchett stars alongside Billy Crudup and Kristen Wiig.

(August 16) g

the Midwest but it’s actually upstate New York.) One day, he notices an attractive older woman (Blythe Danner) with similar purchase patterns and starts stalking her in adorable ways. Turns out that Danner’s widowed Ronnie Meisner has some dysfunctions that are fairly complementary to Ed’s. He’s a neat freak with a secret bunker, built to withstand the coming collapse of civilization; she’s a garden-variety hoarder with social anxieties. Awwww.

Transitioning to features after directing music videos for Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, and others, firsttime writer-director Noble Lincoln Jones has a craftsman’s eye for details that give texture to little lives.

But he’s pretty fuzzy on their substance. The seasoned leads ham it up while hammering home Grand Themes. At one point, stoical Ed even refers to “the world, the flesh, and the devil”, alluding to both the Bible and a 1959 movie with Harry Belafonte and Inger Stevens as the only survivors of a nuclear war. But the dialogue mostly feels maddeningly unspecific. Ed’s rants, some aimed at his long-suffering adult son (Derek Cecil), are just random sputters about what will happen when the SHTF—the shit hits the fan.

Of course, the S has already hit the F, environmentally speaking, but Ed doesn’t care about that, judging from the thousands of tiny plastic bottles in his bunker. For her part, Ronnie is saddled with shorthand foibles, like a long-dead daughter and a quirky interest in Second World War documentaries. The cutesy twosome also share an almost pathological love for the ’70s tune “Muskrat Love”. Early on, Ed declares them on the “wrong side of 60”. But it feels more like they completely missed the ’60s.

by Ken Eisner

A

F I L M

R O N

B Y

H O W A R D

PAVAROTTI

“Ron Howard hits it

out of the park with this penetrating and EMOTIONALLY POWERFUL portrait of the Italian tenor who became an INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR. This is a NO-HOLDS BARRED portrait of the artist and the man... encompassing every aspect of a COMPLEX and CELEBRATED LIFE. – DEADLINE / Pete Hammond

”

Music From The Motion Picture: Pavarotti – Available Now COARSE LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE NUDITY

EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT

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FIFTH AVENUE 2110 Burrard St. • 604-734-7469

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EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT

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FIFTH AVENUE 2110 Burrard St. • 604-734-7469

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“A TENDER, INTELLIGENT IMAGINING OF THE PLAYWRIGHT – BRANAGH PROVIDES A RICHLY COLOURED FOCUS. DENCH AND McKELLEN ARE SUPERB.” - Jonathan Romney, SCREEN DAILY

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ACADEMY AWARD® WINNER

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DIRECTED BY KENNETH BRANAGH WRITTEN BY BEN ELTON IN 1613 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE RETIRED. HE STILL HAD ONE LAST STORY TO TELL — HIS OWN. COARSE & SEXUAL LANGUAGE

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JUNE 6 – 13 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 35

36 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 6 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 13 / 2019

MOVIES From Bugsy Malone to the Rocketman

35 rhums Chocolat I Can’t Sleep Bastards L’intrus White Material Let The Sunshine In Trouble Every Day

I

by Doug Sarti

n retrospect, it seems like nothing less than kismet that Dexter Fletcher, the director of Rocketman (now playing), would be drawn to musicals “The first film I went to see in the cinema with my family was That’s Entertainment!, which was a mix of great old numbers from MGM musicals,” he says amiably by phone from Los Angeles. “They’re the first films I really remember enjoying. My dad was a huge film buff, and we loved watching Singin’ in the Rain together. There’s a lot of fun and joy in there.”

Later, as a child actor, Fletcher landed a key part in Alan Parker’s 1976 musical Bugsy Malone.

“Oh, I just loved it; it never gets old. The songs are brilliant, the structure is perfect, and I do suppose there’s some of it running through the DNA of Rocketman.”

Indeed, with Taron Egerton as singer-songwriter Elton John, Rocketman—like Bugsy Malone—is a sprawling and immensely enjoyable kaleidoscope of a film. It has extravagant musical fantasy numbers, a good helping of fun, and considerable supporting talent: Richard Madden as Elton’s manager and early love interest, John Reid; Bryce Dallas Howard as his distant mother; and Jamie Bell as songwriting partner Bernie Taupin.

“I, of course, took the ball and ran with it,” the London-born Fletcher says, chuckling. “The musical gives us something that opera does, in a way: it allows the characters to open their hearts and sing with no artifice or mask, and you get pure, raw emotion. It’s an incredible gift for storytelling.”

In addition to being raised on the genre, Fletcher has also helmed two

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Jun 6-25

Dexter Fletcher directs Taron Egerton’s grand slam performance in Rocketman.

previous musicals, 2013’s Sunshine on Leith and last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody, for which he was tapped to replace director Bryan Singer after two-thirds of the film had already been shot.

Although there was some early pressure to sanitize Elton’s enthusiastic embrace of the Me Generation’s trifecta of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, Fletcher says that, as a director, he had free rein by the time filming began.

“I always made it clear that it was going to be an R-rated musical, and I never shied away from anything in Lee Hall’s script; it would have fundamentally affected what the film is,” he says, noting that the studio enthusiastically backed him up. “They were very generous

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and supportive; it was a big risk and a big leap for them to take.”

And while Fletcher portrays Elton warts and all, it’s clear that he has a great deal of affection for his subject, even as the singer plows through a mountain of cocaine and partakes of almost every temptation.

“I think we all understand the day-to-day rigours of feeling one thing but putting a mask on for the world,” Fletcher says, thoughtfully.

“Elton was like an out-of-control child sometimes, but if you lift the lid on all that for the audience, his behaviour can be understandable.

He wasn’t a nasty person, he was just a lonely kid who wanted love and was acting out. We all have the capability of doing that.” g

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Join Our Support, Education & Action Group

July 11th 6:30–8:30pm (8 weeks) Women who experienced any form of male violence CALL Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter 604-872-8212

LifeRing - Sobriety your Way

Sound Different? Men & Women supporting each other in a friendly, non-judgemental environment based on abstinence, secularity & self-help Van: @ Vancouver Daytox 377 E. 2nd Sat @ 4pm Maple Ridge: @ The CEED Centre 11739 - 223 St Sundays 1:30pm www.liferingcanada.org or www.lifering.org LIVING THROUGH LOSS COUNSELLING facilitated support group for people who are grieving the death of a significant person.

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Some groups may offer exercise support.

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Please recycle this newspaper.

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Kinksters need not be #foreveralone

by Dan Savage

b I’M A 27-YEAR-OLD, male, adult baby/ diaper lover (AB/DL). I’ve been in the closet about my fetish basically since puberty. As a consequence, I never dated or became romantically involved. I thought if I buried my kink with enough shame, it would go away and I would somehow turn normal. It obviously didn’t work, and for the past year, I’ve been trying to find healthy ways to integrate this into my life.

I play around with the kink in the privacy of my home and otherwise lead a normal life. My depression issues have let up, I’m more confident day-to-day, and even work has begun to improve.

I want to start dating. I went on a normal date, and I felt very inauthentic trying to be engaged when my kink wasn’t present or at least out in the open. I just wasn’t excited by the idea of a vanilla relationship. I would like to date women, but there’s such an imbalance between men and women with this particular kink that I don’t feel like I’ll ever meet someone who is compatible. I feel like I’m doomed to be lonely forever with my kink or sexually unfulfilled and terrified of being found out.

- Boy Alone Basically Eternally

“It’s okay to not reveal every aspect of your sex life on a first date,” said Lo, a kink-positive podcaster and AB/DL whose show explores all aspects of your shared kink. “Besides, saying ‘I like to wear diapers’ on the fi rst date is a sure-fi re way to scare someone off. A better strategy is to establish a connection with a person, determine whether or not they’re trustworthy, and then open up about AB/DL. That takes time.”

Lo also doesn’t think you should write off vanilla people as potential partners.

“BABE should know that it’s possible to convert someone to the AB/DL side,” said Lo. “I see it happen all the time. That’s the focus of Dream a Little, my AB/DL podcast. Most of the people I feature are men who have turned their female partners on to AB/DL, so the odds are in your favour.” Lo herself is happily partnered with a vanilla guy who embraced her kink.

That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed success the fi rst time you disclose your kink to a partner, BABE. But you’ll never find someone with whom you’re compatible—or with whom you can achieve compatibility—unless you’re willing to risk opening up to someone.

“BABE is more likely to be doomed to the #foreveralone club if he gives up entirely out of fear,” said Lo. “Being an AB/DL poses some unique challenges in the dating world, but thousands of other AB/DLs have found a way to make it work, and he can too.”

Now, before people start freaking out (and it may be too late), it’s not just AB/DLs who “convert” or “turn” vanilla partners to their kinks. There are two kinds of people at any big kink event (BDSM party, furry convention, piss splashdown): the people who were always kinky—i.e., people who’ve been aware of their kinks since puberty (and masturbating about them since puberty)—and the people who fell in love with those people. So Lo isn’t telling BABE to do anything that people with other kinks aren’t advised to do all the

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“BABE has come a long way, and it’s great that he’s building confidence. But he still views his kink as an impossible obstacle, and it doesn’t need to be that way,” said Lo. “It’s so important that you learn how to accept your kink, because then you will know you’re capable of and deserving of love.”

And finally, BABE, if and when you do meet a woman who is willing to indulge you—or maybe even embrace AB/DL play—don’t neglect her sexual needs. I answered a letter years ago from a frustrated woman who was preparing to leave her AB/ DL husband because he never wanted to have vanilla sex and, as much as she’d come to enjoy AB/DL occasionally, she no longer felt like her needs mattered to her husband. Don’t make the same mistake that guy did—or you could, after a long search for a compatible partner, find yourself miserable and alone again.

You can follow Lo on Twitter and Instagram @daddyiwant this. Her podcast and AB/DL selfacceptance programs can be found at thelittlelounge.com. b I NEED HELP deciding whether to listen to my mother on the matter of what’s best for me romantically or ask her to keep her opinions about my boyfriend to herself. My mom and I have always been close. She is a single parent and I am an only child. I’ve always told her everything, and as I have gotten older that has started to become a problem. I’ve been in a long-distance Daddy Dom/little girl relationship

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Your entire relationship with your boyfriend—from the sound of things—has taken place online. Which is fine— people can forge strong connections online. But until you meet this man in person (assuming you haven’t already), DDLG, and unless you’re working toward moving to where he lives, this relationship probably won’t last forever—which is also fine. A relationship doesn’t have to last forever to have been a success. This guy played an important

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with a middle-aged man with spina bifida for three years. We met on FetLife right before I turned 19. The entire time, my mom has made fun of his disability while occasionally putting her pettiness aside and acknowledging that he’s good to me. I made the mistake of telling her about the BDSM element, and she is extremely uncomfortable with it, though she denies that it is why she disapproves. My Daddy comes from a middle-class family and has been known to say insensitive shit on occasion about working-class people like my mom and me. I checked my Daddy on his privilege, and he doesn’t say stupid shit about the jobs we work anymore. I love my Daddy and can’t stand the idea of leaving him, but at times I wonder if my mom is right that me loving him isn’t enough.

He makes me feel loved and taken care of in a way no one else has before, but I worry about whether I can have a future with someone who doesn’t work, who my mom hates, and who might be a little bit of an asshole? (Do a couple instances of rudeness make a man an asshole?) Help. I’m lost.

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(and still ongoing) role in your sexual development and brought you a lot of joy…and you can acknowledge those things while simultaneously acknowledging the reality of the situation: the man you were with when you were 18 is probably not the man you’ll be with when you’re 28. That’s true for most people, DDLG, regardless of their kinks, distance from their lovers, relationships with their mothers, et cetera.

As for whether your boyfriend is an asshole…well, he certainly said some insensitive/assholey/classist things, DDLG; you let him know that wasn’t okay and he knocked it off. It’s not proof he doesn’t still think those things, but it is evidence he cares enough about you (or fears losing you enough) to stop saying those things. So even if he is an asshole, he is capable of moderating his assholery, which is something not all assholes can do.

As for your mom… Just because you shared everything with her when you were a child doesn’t mean you have to or should as an adult. There are things a mother has a right not to know, as my mother used to say, and her child’s kinks fall under the “right not to know” header. When it comes to your romantic and sexual interests, DDLG, share the rough outlines with your mom (“I’m seeing this guy; it’s long-distance; he’s nice”) but spare her the intimate details (BDSM, DD/LG, whatever else). g On the Lovecast, what do we do now that Tumblr is dead?: savagelovecast.com.

Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage. ITMFA.org.

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