The Georgia Straight - Summer Issue - June 13, 2019

JUNE 13 - 20 / 2019 | FREE Volume 53 | Number 2682

VICIOUS CYCLES MC Motorcycho ramps up the fun

QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL Opera gets upended

CURATED CONDOS

French design hits Oakridge

Summer Issue The

Creative Vancouver residents discuss their ideal day; plus, arts festivals, food events, and the hottest concerts of the season

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JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 3

CONTENTS

June 13 – 20 / 2019

13 COVER

Creative Vancouverites discuss their ideal day and what they still haven’t done in the summer.

By Gail Johnson

T H I S M O N T H AT 8

NEWS

The SKOOKUM Music Festival is one step closer to making a comeback in 2020, thanks to a park board vote.

By Charlie Smith

23 ARTS

At the Queer Arts Festival, opera sees radical change; plus, your survival guide to other summer events.

By Janet Smith

33 FOOD

3 RD FLOOR

No travel plans this summer? These local food fests will make you feel like you’ve trekked around the world.

FRIDAY & SATURDAY 9:00PM – 1:00AM

By Tammy Kwan

37 MUSIC

From the Truck Stop Concert Series to Festival d’été francophone de Vancouver to the Vancouver folk and jazz fests, there’s lots of concert choices this summer.

By Mike Usinger

DUELING PIANOS JUNE 14, 15, 22, 28, 29

JOHNNY BOOTLEG

e Start Here 17 BOOKS 35 THE BOTTLE 40 CONFESSIONS 21 HOROSCOPES 35 I SAW YOU 44 MOVIE REVIEWS 10 REAL ESTATE 47 SAVAGE LOVE 11 TECHNOLOGY 30 THEATRE 12 URBAN LIVING

e Online TOP 5

e Listings 32 ARTS 43 MUSIC

JUNE 21 Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 53 | Number 2682 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 T: 604.730.7000 F: 604.730.7010 E: gs.info@straight.com straight.com

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1 2 3 4 5

Cineplex diversifies from movie theatres to fastfood menu screens.

Kiefer Sutherland tells Doug Ford to stop invoking his granddad.

Three male suspects sought after male teen assaulted in Surrey.

Trinity Western University cancels antiSOGI speaker’s talk.

Raptors blow chance of NBA championship in Game 5 at home.

GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight

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

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

4 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

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

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(This story is sponsored by SKINLIFE.)

rom a young age, Dr. Moon Choi realized that he had an inquisitive mind and a keen interest in understanding how things work—something he would later utilize in his career. The trained naturopathic physician has now been providing cosmetic services for 11 years and operates his own clinic, SKINLIFE, in North Vancouver.

“Ever since I was a child I’ve liked prying things open and seeing if I can make them better—from small electronics to cars,” Choi says. “That’s carried over to the technological part of the techniques I employ in aesthetic services. I’m not just using the device in the way it was given, I’m always trying to understand the principles behind it and see if I can come up with an improvement.”

Choi often provides clinical consultancy to several cosmetic medical-device manufacturers.

He also spends a lot of time working with the Society of Plastic Surgeons and Dermatologists in South Korea, which he describes as a “cosmetic mecca”.

“Korean is my mother tongue so I can converse very easily with the doctors there and that gives me a good advantage in terms of picking up their new thought processes, techniques, and devices, which I can then I adopt here,” Choi says. “That really helps me bring new, more advanced ideas and treatments to Canada.”

For more than a decade, Choi has wholeheartedly dedicated his life to his career. But that doesn’t come without sacrifice.

“It’s pretty difficult to find the right balance,” he says. “My wife is very understanding and supportive of what I do, so I’ve been able to thoroughly invest and devote all my effort and energy into travelling and

At SKINLIFE in North Vancouver, this patient enjoyed dramatic natural improvement through facial contouring and feature enhancement via injectable fillers and neuromodulators, in addition to skin-rejuvenation treatments.

seeing patients. It’s more of an unbalanced approach, but that’s how I’ve been able to afford the time.”

After all, Choi is not willing to settle for anything other than the best.

“Aesthetic medicine is a continually evolving field and you need to put in time and passion to make it better and stay up-to-date,” Choi explains.

“If you’re a passive follower, then you’ll never make it to the top. SKINLIFE focuses on the delivery of the treatment to be the best in the industry.”

When he can, Choi shares his knowledge and expertise with others.

He has presented his techniques at conferences all over the world and he

has authored dozens of clinical studies and lecture articles in cosmetic medical publications. He also provides training to medical specialists, family physicians, and aesthetic doctors.

“I really enjoy my work,” he says.

“If somebody gave me a time machine to go back, I would definitely choose this again.”

For Choi, the best part of his job is being able to see the fruits of his labour.

“One of the reasons I selected this field is that you don’t have to rely on blood work or a sophisticated imaging machine to find out the results,” he says. “It’s instantaneous gratification for me and the patient. It’s so rewarding

to see the smile, the restoration, and the satisfaction of the patient.”

SKINLIFE offers a variety of nonsurgical and surgical services to a broad range of patients. But some of the most popular treatments are injectable fillers, including Restylane®, Dysport®, and Sculptra®.

Recently, SKINLIFE became Canada’s first clinic to win Galderma’s national presidential championship as top injector for three consecutive years. The prestigious prize is an honour awarded to the Canadian clinic that has provided the highest volume of aesthetic injectables—a huge accolade when you consider

that Choi is the sole practitioner.

“Although the award is based strictly on the volume, it does reflect the actual results as well—especially when the recipient is continually achieving that status for a number of years,” he explains.

Many patients are fearful of ending up with the more extreme results that they’ve seen on celebrities, but Choi’s goal is always to achieve the most natural look possible, which can often be done through noninvasive treatments. He does not subscribe to a one-size-fits-all approach to his work.

“We have to remember that aesthetic medicine is heavily medical in nature, but the outcome is very artistic,” he says. “You have to work with a physician who is an artist. Patients should find someone that they feel comfortable with in terms of the results that they are producing.”

At SKINLIFE, unlike many other clinics in Vancouver, Choi does not rely on technicians and nurses to carry out his job. All the clinical work, from consultation, to treatment, and aftercare, is done by Choi himself, which is a model he plans to retain.

“I don’t think that Leonardo da Vinci would hire multiple pupils and say, ‘You can draw the Mona Lisa, I’m just going to take a vacation,’ ” Choi says. “That’s because painting was his passion. And aesthetic medicine is mine. I don’t want other people doing substandard work. Maybe it makes sense, from a financial perspective, to hire somebody to be my helper but because I care about the outcome more than anything else, this is the setting I’m comfortable with.” g SKINLIFE is located at 215–138 13th Street East in the heart of North Vancouver. For more information or to book a consultation, visit the website at skinlife.ca/ or contact the clinic at 604-990-6655.

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JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 7

NEWS

Park board votes to add SKOOKUM to its calendar

T

by Charlie Smith

he SKOOKUM Music Festival is one step closer to making a comeback in 2020.

On June 10, the Vancouver park board voted to add it to the annual calendar of major special events.

When it was held for the first time, in September 2018 at Brockton Fields in Stanley Park, it attracted more than 50,000 attendees over three days. The headliners were Florence + the Machine and the Killers.

However, the park board won’t allow the concert promoter, BRANDLIVE, to put on the event without the approval of the Squamish Nation, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, and Musqueam Indian Band. (The Musqueam have chosen not to call themselves a “nation� until they’re freed from the shackles of the Indian Act.) The Squamish Nation government has already signalled its support for the revival of the SKOOKUM Music Festival in a letter to the board.

Many Vancouver residents don’t realize that some Indigenous people had homes at Brockton Point in Stanley Park well into the 20th century until they were torched by nonIndigenous authorities. “Those living on the south side of Brockton Point, whose houses were considered to spoil the view of the park from downtown Vancouver and vice versa, were forced out in 1931,� wrote UBC historian Jean Barman in a 2017 B.C. Studies paper called “Erasing Indigenous Indigeneity in Vancouver�. “Their homes were then burned to erase any indication of their longtime presence on the peninsula,�

Barman noted.

These actions came as a result of a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in legal action launched by the City of

Vancouver and the federal government. “In part because the homes of the extended family living on the north side of Brockton Point were less visible to Vancouver residents, they were permitted to remain,� Barman wrote. “The last family member died in 1958, whereupon all evidence of their longtime presence was similarly obliterated.�

Not long after Confederation, in 1876, the federal government introduced the Indian Act. It required First Nations to seek approval from the local Indian Agent to engage in a wide range of activities. In addition, about 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their homes and sent to church-run residential schools, where they were often sexually and physically abused and ordered not to speak their languages.

The federal government also created Indian reserves where Indigenous people were ordered to live. The effect of this policy was to drive a wedge between local First Nations in Metro Vancouver. “We were on our different reserves and separated from each other and were fighting each other,�

Musqueam councillor Wendy GrantJohn told the Straight last month.

In recent years, the three host First Nations have forged much stronger bonds, reviving their historical connections. They’ve formed a jointly owned real-estate company, served as host First Nations for the 2010 Olympics, and collaborated with the City of Vancouver on the Vancouver 150+ celebrations in 2017.

The 2018 SKOOKUM fest incorporated aspects of the nine-day Drum Is Calling Festival, which was part of Vancouver 150+. As a result, the event advanced reconciliation and educated concertgoers about the history of First Nations in Stanley Park. g

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HOUSING

Tenants facing eviction to receive more money

T

by Carlito Pablo

he cost of evicting tenants from market rentals in Vancouver is going up.

On June 11, Vancouver city council approved recommendations in a staff report for a range of higher compensation amounts to be paid to tenants by developers clearing them out for new projects.

Under the new scale, some longterm tenants may get the equivalent of up to two years’ rent.

But developers are not complaining, according to the report.

“During consultation with the development industry, these additional costs were not flagged as a significant issue as in some cases applicants are already providing higher compensation to tenants than what is currently required,” wrote Dan Garrison, assistant director of housing policy.

The size of payments depends on the length of tenancy at purposebuilt market rental buildings and dwellings with six or more units.

For renters of one to five years, the old compensation has been two months’ rent. Under the new scale, this doubles to four months’ rent.

Tenants of five to 10 years have been getting three months’ rent.

The new policy provides them with five months’ rent.

Renters who’ve occupied their suites for 10 to 20 years were entitled to four months’ rent. That has increased to six months’ rent.

Those who’ve lived in the same apartment for 20 years used to receive six months’ rent upon eviction. The new scale provides 12 months’ rent for 20 to 30 years of tenancy. Renters of 30 to 40 years will get 18 months’ rent. Finally, those who have been renting for more than 40 years will get 24 months’ rent.

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According to Garrison’s report, the new amounts were based on advice from relocation specialists.

“Longer term tenants are generally more affected by displacement due to having lower rents compared to current market,” Garrison wrote. “Additional months’ rent for longer-term tenants are required to ensure adequate compensation to reflect current market conditions.”

Although this means extra money out of the pockets of developers, the additional costs are not considered significant.

“For market developments, these costs are typically not material to the overall redevelopment costs, and can be reasonably estimated by the applicant prior to application,” Garrison noted.

VANCOUVER RENTERS could have an easier time finding information and support.

All roads will likely lead downtown to 900 Howe Street, the proposed location of a future renter centre. In a report to the June 11 council meeting, staff stated that a community-based facility would serve as a single location for provincial, city, and nonprofit services. These include the provincial Residential Tenancy Branch, which resolves disputes between tenants and landlords.

The vision for a renter centre was laid out in a report to council by senior planner Allison Dunnet.

“While the existing landscape of multiple service providers in multiple locations has created a diverse, community-embedded set of services and supports, the sector lacks a strong centre to bring presence and visibility and profile to the needs of renters,” Dunnet wrote. g

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Health powered by happiness

Integrative Family Medicine at its Best

Thrive Health’s surveys and software offer a holistic view of well-being

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by Kate Wilson

he best way to build a business is to surround yourself with talented individuals.

That task becomes significantly easier when those people are your immediate family.

In late 2006, entrepreneur David Helliwell created his first company: Pulse Energy. Built with the mission of reducing the impact of climate change, the business used big data to analyze energy consumption and demand. After selling the organization in 2014, he took a sabbatical before returning to Vancouver to cofound his second venture.

The work of his newest company, Thrive Health (previously New Hippo Health), seems like a logical path forward for the businessman. Helliwell’s father, John Helliwell, is the coeditor of the annual World Happiness Report, a UN–sanctioned document that surveys the well-being of 156 countries and ranks them accordingly. His brother, James Helliwell, is a cardiac anesthesiologist and former president of the B.C. Anesthesiologists’ Society. Thrive Health draws a little bit from each of them.

“We really wanted to do something that was personally important to us in terms of making the Canadian health care system work better,” he tells the Georgia Straight by phone. “And to come at it from a patient perspective, where we had experiences where things had been pretty hit-and-miss for getting specialist care.”

Thrive Health aims to democratize health care using algorithms. The company has created customizable questionnaires that patients fill out to identify their health and risk factors, and can determine which people are in greatest need of treatment. As well

Thrive Health’s David Helliwell says mood affects health. Photo by Michael Phang

as levelling the playing field for hospital admissions, information from the surveys can also be utilized for follow-ups after appointments or surgeries, and offer each patient a care plan that’s tailored to them.

Where Thrive Health differs most from other questionnaire-based services, however, is its emphasis on quantifying and improving patient happiness in order to boost health outcomes.

“We’re really focused on how we can help patients go through a health care journey and thrive,” David Helliwell says. “That means understanding their happiness and well-being, and giving them extra tools to help with that. The problem with physical and mental health is that our entire system is built around fixing things once they’re broken, rather than around making things work well. We all feel happy or not for some reason, and understanding what those

happiness levels are is a really important indicator for how resilient people are going to be. It’s fascinating, because the early data suggests that your level of happiness is more important to your health care outcome than whether you smoke or not.”

On June 11, Thrive Health launched a care plan called Enhance, which was developed by two leading positive psychologists in the U.S. The steps it lays out have been shown to increase productivity, happiness, and sleep—and, Helliwell suggests, better health outcomes.

“Happiness seems like something that can’t be quantified,” he says. “But the great thing is, you just ask people.

There’s been decades of research from millions of people around the world, and that’s the foundation of the world happiness measurement, or, as it’s also called, subjective wellbeing. That number is well validated objectively—we know that as happiness levels go down, suicide levels go up.…It’s a lot simpler [to measure] than people think.”

So far, the company has clocked more than 7,000 patients using its questionnaires to prepare for surgery in St. Paul’s Hospital. Implementing the surveys has sped up the referral of individuals to the followup and recovery stages. “[Reducing the workload of doctors] is obviously a perfect thing for software to be able to solve by pulling together bits and pieces of data,” David Helliwell says. “We’re different because we rely on a lot of patiententered information, when typically there are not a lot of avenues for patients to have their say. Each person is empowered to play a bigger role in their own health care.” g

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URBAN LIVING

Tunes on the Terrace

French design maven curates Oakridge condos

by Janet Smith

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Clémande Burgevin Blachman brings hits of brass, deep blues, and even toothbrushes and kitchen implements to suites in Westbank’s new Oakridge redevelopment.

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12 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

esigner and home curator Clémande Burgevin Blachman literally grew up in one of Paris’s famous flea markets. Her parents had a stall selling antiques, and their nearby home was always filled with whatever objets and furnishings they couldn’t fit in the store.

“I was the only child and I had to play with the objects around me,” she tells the Straight on a recent visit to Vancouver. “They would give me pocket money and I would walk around.

You had to be careful and not break anything. I remember all of that.”

It was early, immersive training for a career that would take her first to creating a handbag collection and opening a design gallery, then to consulting for brands like Chanel and Berluti, and then to working as vice president of design for Calvin Klein Home. That same honed eye, love of historical pieces, and aptitude for curation have brought her to one of Vancouver’s most ambitious new developments.

Oakridge x Clémande finds the French designer curating completely furnished suites in Westbank’s new 17-storey tower in the mixed-use redevelopment at Cambie and 41st Avenue—right down to the books on the library shelves, the toothbrushes in the bathroom, and the implements in the kitchen.

The French style maven has brought her chic, eclectic, yet minimalistic sense of home to each of the condos.

As a mood board attests in the grand lobby entrance to the artfully conceived showroom, she’s focused on mixing hits of brass with cobalt ceramics, travertine, and wood in her designs. The collage includes Venetian brass door handles, French chocolates in regal blue and gold wrappers, and an azure Mediterranean swimming pool.

As with so many of Blachman’s touches, the accents are pulled from her own personal memories—and the sizable library of design books she keeps in her adopted home, New York City.

“Everything is coming from books—I know exactly the books I am going to use,” says Blachman, who pursued a PhD in literature and admits her road to décor is an unusual one.

“I don’t draw or paint; the vision and ideas are already written in my head.

For me the project is like a dissertation, I’m absolutely approaching it that way.”

Blachman adds that for the Oakridge project—the first of its kind

she’s ever tackled—she drew a lot of inspiration from the West Coast setting as well. “My first encounter with Vancouver was looking out of the window at the sea, and the view, the gold light, the blue, and the green,” she says.

All of these images and ideas play out in a series of small curtained rooms—“vignettes”, as she calls them—that contrast standard showroom model suites and give visitors a more impressionistic feel for condos that are a noticeable departure from the anonymous-white, cookie-cutter approach of so many prebuys here.

(They’re installed at Westbank’s Unwritten exhibit at Oakridge Centre.)

Open the curtains to one room, et voilà, you’ll see a glossy brass-panelled white soaker tub set against a deepcobalt-blue tile wall. It feels contemporary, but with a hint of Ibiza glamour—and it also happens to refer to one of Blachman’s memories as well.

“I think cobalt-blue tile is beautiful with brass, but it’s true: as a kid my bathroom was cobalt blue,” she says.

Another area features a stunning white-marble-topped kitchen island with sleek brass doors on one side and open brass shelves facing out. “I wanted people to be able to display objects like a gallery,” she says.

Elsewhere, a carefully selected library comes with each suite, full of the kind of glossy, hardcover Taschen books Blachman coveted growing up. As a teenager obsessed with art and design, she’d head to a Parisian bookstore to collect volumes from the publisher’s series. “There was no Instagram or Google then,” says the lifelong book lover, who maintains a discreet presence on social media.

Blachman has thought out every detail of the suite, including a set of robes—one in unexpected lavender and one in brown—with matching f lip-f lops, playing out a story in her own mind of a couple’s first night in their suite.

“I thought, ‘They might want to enjoy the pool the first night, and how would they do that?’ ” she says.

“I picture that they have all the [unpacked] boxes around them, and they are saying ‘Where is my swimsuit?’ ” The idea, she says, is almost more like a residential hotel, where everything would be ready for the person moving in. “When I come to a project, if I’ve never done something like that before, it’s a challenge—and that’s when I can get really creative,” she says. “But I just started by saying, ‘How can I make it home?’ ” g

summer issue

Notables share ideal Vancouver days

by Gail Johnson

I

Musician Dan Mangan (left) would love to spend a whole day walking the seawall; chef Alex Chen (centre) enjoys family hikes; dancer Ziyian Kwan’s ideal day would wrap up with cat play. Photo by David Cooper

f you could plot out your dream Vancouver summer’s day, what would it look like? Would you do yoga on your standup paddleboard, stroll around Granville Island, then go for preconcert drinks at a craft brewery? Or would you bike the Stanley Park seawall, have a picnic at Third Beach, see the grizzlies at Grouse Mountain, and host a backyard barbecue?

However you define ideal, when it comes to a full day come summertime on our urban coast, it’s hard to go wrong with so much natural splendour and so many cool things to do.

We asked a few notable locals (plus one artist we’ll call an honorary Vancouverite) to tell us how their perfect Vancouver summer day would unfold. Here, in their own words, they share their take—plus the best summery thing they’ve never done in the city they adore.

DAN MANGAN

Juno Award–winning musician Dream Vancouver summer day: Go get waffles with the kids as soon as Scandilicious opens up at 7 a.m. Go for a walk on Commercial Drive and let the kids run around at Grandview Park. Go home and nap while the kids magically entertain themselves. Go for lunch at the Fish Counter, then let the kids run around in the waterpark at David Livingstone Park. Go home and nap while the kids magically entertain themselves. Pack a picnic and set up shop at English Bay. Be periodically visited by most treasured friends and family. Grandparents take my kids home while my wife and I go for dinner at La Quercia. Go see Radiohead play at the Vogue. Have a nightcap at the Billy Bishop Legion. Sleep for 10 straight hours with no interruptions.

Best summery Vancouver thing I’ve never done: I think it would be great to do an entire day of walking along the seawall. Start at Spanish Banks, work your way to Science World, back around Stanley Park and all the way east toward New Brighton Pool.

Google Maps says it’s about six-anda-half hours on foot, so build in time to stop for meals and coffees. Sounds like a pretty amazing day.

ALEX CHEN

Executive chef, signature restaurants, Boulevard Kitchen & Oyster Bar (Sutton Place Hotel) Dream Vancouver summer day: I’m a big believer in family. Whatever I do, I always want to make sure it in-

volves my wife Liz, daughter Izzy (10), and son Ethan (7). Keeping with that thought, my ideal summer day in the city would probably start in our kitchen at home in Richmond with all four of us making pancakes together. If we wanted to get an early start on the day, however, we’d more than likely head out for dim sum at Fisherman’s Terrace or make our way into the city and grab some coffee and those famous Liège waffles at Café Medina.

We love to get outdoors as much as possible, so for our next stop we’d probably put on our hiking shoes, head over to the North Shore, and go exploring around the salmon hatchery in Capilano River Regional Park.

It’s great to get out, connect with nature, and enjoy the fresh air. And the North Shore has some really unbelievable views of rivers, mountains, and oceans—it’s one of the highlights of living in a city like Vancouver.

In the afternoon, we would no doubt end up at one of our favourite haunts—Granville Island. The kids love grabbing an ice cream and strolling the boardwalk (while keeping a close eye on the seagulls) and I can get a chance to make some dinner plans on the fly. I’ll usually grab some things at Oyama Sausage Co., pick up some fresh fish at Seafood City or meat at either Armando’s or Tenderland. Before dinner, we’d take the kids out for a bike ride to Terra Nova Adventure Park, which isn’t far from our home and is one of the kids’ favourite places to visit. Dinner plans?

That would be us firing up my Big Green Egg in the backyard or heading over to my neighbour Kevin’s place to hang out with friends and put his massive barbecue to good use.

Best summery Vancouver thing I’ve never done: Two things immediately come to mind. I know it’s outside of Vancouver itself, but I’ve never climbed the Stawamus Chief up in Squamish. I’ve always wanted to, and I’d love to take the kids, but I need to see if I can handle it first. Secondly, I have yet to go foraging for mushrooms in B.C., which is hard to believe.

I’m going to fix that this year, however.

La Quercia chef-owner Adam Pegg has promised to take us foraging sometime in the summer. I can’t tell you where, though. As Adam says, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

buttery croissant in town, then stroll to Dude Chilling Park for the farmers market, where Salt and Harrow are my favourite farmers. Home for a snack before cycling west of Locarno Beach, where a trail to Pacific Spirit Park begins. Some forest bathing before cycling home to play with cats.

Best summery Vancouver thing I’ve never done: At night, the sunken garden at Queen Elizabeth Park is magical. Would love to have a night picnic by the waterfall, then lie in the grass and look at the stars. But I think the grassy area is cordoned off from the public. Alas.

The summertime is for connecting with the city and its people on foot.

– Ford Pier

ROSEMARY ROWE

Writer, playwright, performer, and founder of the Creampuff Revolution Dream Vancouver summer day: My perfect Vancouver summer day would start with taking my feisty shar-pei, Effie Trinket, for our usual 5K frolic round the off-leash trails at Everett Crowley Park. In the summer, some hero brings jugs of water to the park, and there are water bowls for the puppers all through the trails, so Effie can cool off after harassing her nemesis, Arthur the Bitchy Doodle.

Après park, I’d take my wife, Kate, out for a brunch date at the Union on Prior Street. I’m still working my way through the Bao Bun Bennie menu (plus the curry-spiced hash browns are godlike), but the Crispy Fried Chicken French Toast is also… Well, let’s just say I’ll be in my bunk. Beveragewise, my go-to is the cucumber-y lapu lapu if I don’t feel like getting day-drunk… Ha ha, just kidding. I’ll have the Banga #3 (bourbon, fresh mint, kalamansi, mirin, orange peel, and ginger beer HELLO).

ZIYIAN KWAN I am always accidentally killing Dancer, choreographer, and artistic basil, so after brunch, we’d meander director of Dumb Instrument Dance over to Figaro’s Garden to browse Dream Vancouver summer day: I’ll through its fresh herbs or whatever go to L’Atelier Patisserie for the most other greenery Kate wants to plant

in our boulevard garden. And since we’re already so close, we’d probably hit up Half Baked Cookie Company on Nanaimo to get a couple of pieces of their legendary Island Time pie, plus some cheddar rosemary scones “for tomorrow”, which we will probably “eat in the car”.

After a morning of good eats and an afternoon of intense gardening (a.k.a. sipping pink wine on our patio), it’s time for some lighter dinner fare, so we’d order poke bowls from Ogenki Sushi. (Don’t forget the mango and crispy fried onions.)

Like any good lesbian in her 40s, I adore the folk music, so my perfect summer night would conclude by seeing a fantastic Canadian band like Madison Violet or Le Vent du Nord at the Rogue Folk Club in Kits.

It’s always such a fun atmosphere and I’m always super sure I’m going to win the door prize. I never do, but hope springs eternal.

Best summery Vancouver thing I’ve never done: It’s a little embarrassing to admit this as a playwright and theatre nerd, but in the 12 years I’ve lived here, I have never been to Bard on the Beach. But this year I know a couple of the folks in the cast and I am going to make it happen.

PATRICK MALIHA

Standup comedian and impressionist Dream Vancouver summer day: My dream Vancouver summer day is easily the one that I’ve lived more than a few times already: walk down to Jericho Beach before noon with my two children, Hutton (11) and Sadie (9). Find the perfect spot on the beach, right in front of one of the giant logs down by the ocean, spread out the blanket, lie in the sun, and watch the kids swim—well, watch my son swim out to the dock and jump off of it about a billion times and get dragged into the water by my daughter, making sure not to swear like a sailor about a thousand times due to the water being freezing. Then, to relax, hot dogs, veggie burgers, and fries from the concession stand, for lunch and dinner. Best. Day. Ever.

Best summery Vancouver thing I’ve never done: I would love to do the Grouse Grind. I’ve only done it once and that was about 20 years ago during the fall. I hated it. Apparently, you’re supposed to go during the summer and then relax at the top after the hike with friends and a delicious time at the resto up there.

Yah, none of that happened last time.

Just a hike, complaining, and a lot of

“Why is this fun?” #IFeelIveGrown A s A Pe r s o n A n d Wo u l d B e Mu c h BetterThisTimeAround FORD PIER

Solo musician, founder of the rock band the Vengeance Trio, and founder of the string quartet Strength of Materials Dream Vancouver summer day: Rain. So I can watch a baseball game or read a book on the couch with my hilarious and lovely wife without feeling guilty about not being out climbing a mountain or basking like a walrus in one of the gravel quarries we use for beaches or frolicking in the frigid oily brack that washes up against them or otherwise engaging in any of the emblematically “Vancouver” activities our town is most bruited for. As such pastimes go, my speed is more savouring the shriek of idling Maseratis, not making eye contact with mendicants, and indulging in the character-building exercise of not making vomit noises whenever somebody uses the word “location”.

But if that were all there was to it, I would have left long ago. No, for me it’s all about the people who live here that I’m lucky to work and play with. They are by far and away Vancouver’s most valuable resource and most attractive feature. My frequent interface with them is important to me, and is the disport most likely to interrupt my estivation.

So, I would be pleased if, at some point in the late afternoon on this ideal summer’s day, the rains would cease, permitting a walk through one of the city’s remaining unspoiled residential neighbourhoods (Mount Pleasant, Trout Lake, Strathcona, Hastings-Commercial) to meet with some of them for dinner (La Quercia, Peaceful, Grub), drinks (the Narrow, the Bottleneck, the Sylvia), and dancing (the Rickshaw, Vancouver Playhouse, China Cloud), or some combination thereof (the Lido, WISE Hall, LanaLou’s). This ideal day in Vancouver finishes off as it doesn’t often enough IRL with ice cream from Rain or Shine, Earnest, La Casa Gelato (a truly magical place), or any spot that carries my favourite, Salt Lick.

Should any of these conditions be prevented from being met, acceptable alternatives include VanDusen Botanical Garden, the Maritime Museum, the H.R. McMillan Space Centre, the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, or Nat Bailey Stadium, especially if there’s time to see next page

JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 13

awake and have any energy after all of that, just maybe go see some late-night sounds at China Cloud.

Best summery thing I’ve never done: I’ve always wanted to do the inner harbour by kayak. I’ve been kayaking in other places, like Hornby Island, but I’ve never done it close to home, in and around Vancouver.

from previous page

walk at least part of the way there.

The summertime is for connecting with the city and its people on foot.

Best summery Vancouver thing I’ve never done: Hand on heart, as a motorist, I have never executed a left-hand turn after a light has turned red, but it looks like such fun that I’m dying to try!

RAINBOW ROBERT

AMBER BRUCE

Bar manager and partner at the Keefer Bar and vice president of the Canadian Professional Bartenders Association Dream Vancouver summer day: A crisp morning bike ride or walk along the south shore of the seawall to grab a coffee and maybe pick up some fresh groceries at Granville Island. Get home and whip up some fresh salsa, catch up on some reading, and enjoy a couple of sour beers from Twin Sails Brewing in the yard. Then a nap; all of my favourite days involve an afternoon snooze. Then I’ll batch some margaritas or siesta cocktails,

Amber Bruce (left) relishes time outdoors; Rainbow Robert wants to see the city by Aquabus. Photo by Massimiliano Iacchini

I love, love, love, love going out in a and finish off the afternoon with some croquet and a barbecue with boat to go crab fishing. Drop the trap friends—basically, spend as much in the morning, lunch in the harbour and maybe a little swim, and pull up time as possible outside! your crab booty in the afternoon!

There’s something so exciting about waiting to see what you’ve wrangled from the deep. Then, hopefully, a EXTENDED! fresh crab boil for dinner. It’s the best.

Ends June 30th Best summery Vancouver thing I’ve never done: Hike the Lions.

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Indigenous scholar and City of Vancouver cultural planner for music Dream Vancouver summer day: I just moved back to the city after living in Toronto for four-and-a-half years, so I’m rediscovering getting to be a tourist in the city, which is great.

I live in an apartment in Mount Pleasant, which is awesome.

Sleep in. Then a morning walk from my place to pick up a couple of the best croissants in the city from L’Atelier Patisserie, then a walk up to Matchstick Coffee on Fraser for a delicious Americano.

Zip over to Trout Lake for a wander through the farmers market for some picnic supplies. Head down to Commercial Drive and pop in

to Pulp Fiction Books to browse the latest. Quick coffee pit stop at Revolver. Then off to Granville Island to pick up proper picnic supplies: fresh bread, cheese, veggies, fruit, and some wild seafood, which will probably include a bite of candied salmon.

Head up to Lynn Canyon for a hike in the woods—and a bit of forest bathing—or out to Pacific Spirit Regional Park or Lighthouse Park for a walk through the forest and then down to the beach. Head back to Spanish Banks, as far west as you can get, and jump in the ocean. Postswim, an afternoon picnic with my honey on the beach, then just have some time to kick back, soak in the sun, and smell that salt sea air…

Meet up with friends to catch an early-evening, free outdoor concert at the jazz fest or folk fest.

Grab the crew and roll out to a late film, maybe something international at the Cinematheque. But more than likely it’s going to be a big 3-D summer blockbuster on the biggest screen we can find.

Postmovie eats with friends at the always amazing Dosa Factory—you gotta try that Gobi 65. And if we’re still

Managing director, artistic programming, of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival Dream Vancouver summer day: One of the things I’m looking forward to doing is seeing Vancouver from a different perspective, and one of the ways I do that is by taking Aquabuses to get from venue to venue during the festival. I’m very interested in architecture, and once you hit the water, you see the city from a different vantage point. You see patterns in the city and designs in the sky.

June 23 looks like the ideal day for this kind of adventure. I’d start out at my office near Broadway and Cambie, and grab a coffee at Milano Roasters—it’s my favourite coffee, and they have a beautiful public garden. Then I’d take the Aquabus to Granville Island for the festival’s first free performance by the Paul Plimley Trio—astounding local creative piano players.

Then I’d sit out by False Creek outside of Performance Works and think about the day that lies ahead before hopping back on the False Creek Aquabus to head downtown for jazz outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. I’d take a walk back down to the water, to open and refresh the mind in between so many musical experiences. In the evening, jazz at China Cloud.

Along the way, I’d stop for a peachand-rosemary tart at Terra Breads or pub-style sushi at Guu Garden Best summery thing I’ve never done: I did go to UBC, and my name is Rainbow. I’m bucking tradition: I’ve never been to Wreck Beach in the summer. g

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SUMMER ISSUE Beach Soccer Blast heats up the sand

T

by Gail Johnson

here are a few reasons why soccer has long been considered the world’s hottest sport. Besides being accessible and affordable to play, it entails extraordinary speed and endurance and offers up some of the fanciest footwork outside of a dance studio.

Now imagine the super-swift game being played barefoot on sand in the sun amid stunning natural surroundings right here in Vancouver.

Taking place at Spanish Banks every summer, Beach Soccer Blast is the only competition of its kind in B.C. Having started in 1996, the event gets bigger every year, with approximately 800 to 1,000 players expected at this summer’s showdown in August.

Soccer on sand is said to be even more exciting than regular play, the soft surface making it more likely that players will be in the air and try tricks like bicycle kicks. Plus, technical skills like juggling are especially important for players to manoeuvre on the ever-changing, unpredictable ground beneath their feet.

“We find that beach soccer is so popular because it’s such a great way to spend a sunny summer weekend, particularly in Vancouver, where we not only have gorgeous weather but the views of the North Shore mountains and downtown Vancouver as our backdrop,” tournament director Dean Tsatouhas tells the Georgia Straight. “Plus, the weekendlong tournament is the perfect excuse to hit the beach with a group of friends, soak up the sun, and get active.

“Beach soccer is such a fun twist on the sport,” he says. “The added challenge of how the ball reacts to sand rather than grass or gravel keeps players on their toes and keeps the pace of play quick and exciting.

Playing in a beach setting also means

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Competing in soccer on sand forces players to manoeuvre on unpredictable footing.

downtime between games is more fun, with teams setting up on the beach for the day with barbecues, music, and the option to go for a cool-down dip in the ocean.”

The Beach Soccer Blast tournament is officially sanctioned by B.C. Soccer, the province’s governing body.

The five-on-five games consist of 14-minute halves on a 30-by-50-yard field, using a regulation soccer ball (but nets that are smaller than regulation-size). Players don’t wear shoes, cleats, or shin pads, though some don socks if the sand is hot or tape their ankles or toes as protective measures.

The tournament is open to players of all ages and all skill levels. The

youth division is open to under-10 and under-16 boys’ and girls’ teams, while the senior division is for players aged 16 to 18 or 18-plus, with options for men’s, women’s, and coed competitive and recreational play.

Teams can register up to 10 people, and coed teams are required to have at least two female players on the field at all times.

The Whitecaps Football Club’s ’Caps Cruiser will be on-site at this summer’s tournament, along with music and prizes. g

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SUMMER ISSUE

Two hikes to help you forget about city crowds

Tantalus View Lookout and Teapot Hill aren’t far away

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by Stephen Hui

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In the District of Squamish, the Tantalus View Lookout in the Brohm Lake Interpretive Forest offers a spectacular view for hikers on a summer day. Photo by Stephen Hui

H

iking season is heating up.

If a 10-hour trek in the mountains isn’t your idea of summer fun, plenty of quick and easy trails are available.

Here are two hill walks to get you out of the concrete jungle—for a few hours, at least. Remember to carry safety supplies (the “10 essentials”), inform someone of your plans, keep dogs leashed, and leave no trace.

TANTALUS VIEW LOOKOUT

Distance: 10.5 kilometres. Elevation gain: 155 metres. Access: On Highway 99 in Squamish, 5 km north of the Alice Lake Provincial Park entrance, turn east into the Brohm Lake parking lot.

Even if you make frequent trips to Whistler, there’s a good chance you’ve driven by Brohm Lake Interpretive Forest numerous times without giving it a second thought. However, Brohm Lake, which lies in the District of Squamish and the territory of the Squamish Nation, is definitely worth a stop, especially if you’re looking for a refreshing dip on a hot day.

Administered by the B.C. government, the interpretive forest contains 10 kilometres of trails. A walk in these very pleasant woods can earn you fine views of the imposing peaks and glaciers of the Tantalus Range.

Begin a clockwise circuit by heading south on the Brohm Lake Trail and crossing a bridge over a wetland. Keep left to follow the Bridge Trail into the forest, stay right at the Alder Trail junction, and turn left when you hit the High Trail. Find the Cheakamus Loop Trail on the other side of a horse road. Two delightful viewpoints on this two-kilometre trail reward your mild efforts. Alpha Mountain, Mount Dione, and Mount Tantalus dominate the scenery.

Go left on the High Trail and left again on the short and steep Tantalus View Trail to reach popular Tantalus View Lookout, the day’s high point. After visiting the historic fire lookout and savouring the views, it’s back down to the High Trail, where you go left (north).

Two more lefts, on the Connector Trail and Brohm Lake Trail, lead you to the north end of the lake.

Stay right at a junction with the Thompson Trail. Then go left on the Brohm Creek Trail, right on the Powerline Trail, and left on the Brohm Lake Trail to return to the parking lot.

TEAPOT HILL

16 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

Distance: 13 kilometres. Elevation gain: 255 metres. Access: On TransCanada Highway 1 in Abbotsford,

take Exit 104. Head east on No. 3 Road. Turn right on Tolmie Road and left back on No. 3 Road. Go left on Yarrow Central Road, which becomes Vedder Mountain Road. Turn right on Cultus Lake Road, which continues south as Columbia Valley Highway. Enter Cultus Lake Provincial Park and turn right into the Jade Bay boat launch parking lot.

With its ceramic scenery, Teapot Hill sure lives up to its name. Apparently, a logger found a teapot on the slope in the 1940s, and in more recent years someone began leaving teapots for people to find.

Spotting the porcelain hidden in nooks and crannies along the trail is cupfuls of fun for kids and adults alike. Add in a spoonful of the oldgrowth Seven Sisters, and you’ve got an outing that’s sweet enough for the whole family. Both points of interest are found in Cultus Lake Provincial Park, which lies outside Chilliwack in the territory of the Soowahlie First Nation.

From the Jade Bay boat launch, cross the Columbia Valley Highway and enter the Entrance Bay campground. Keep right to find the start of the Seven Sisters Trail between campsites 7 and 9, and dive into the mossy forest. Reach the Seven Sisters in 1.7 kilometres. Do the short and steep loop trail to find out how few of the old-growth Douglas fir giants are still standing.

Continue south on the Seven Sisters Trail. As you near the Clear Creek campground, turn left on a brief connector path. Go right on the Cultus Lake Horse Trail, then right again at the next fork (signed for Teapot Hill). Hang a left on Road 918 to get on the Teapot Hill Trail, which soon leaves right.

Heading uphill in the trees, keep your eyes peeled for the colourful teapots, some intact and others broken. A viewpoint overlooks Cultus Lake. The Teapot Hill Trail ends at a fenced lookout near the summit, with vistas of the Columbia Valley and Vedder Mountain.

Descend the way you came to the intersection at the bottom of the hill, where you turn right to continue southwest on Road 918 and enjoy a bit more of the woods.

Turn around at the Road 918–Watt Creek intersection. On the way back to the trailhead, keep right at two junctions to stay on the Horse Trail. Now on familiar ground, retrace your steps to Jade Bay. g Stephen Hui is the author of 105 Hikes In and Around Southwestern British Columbia (Greystone Books). Visit 105hikes.com.

SUMMER ISSUE

Lazier days call for a dose of reality Nonfiction titles fill holiday time with new takes on everything from Sasquatch to starfish

S

by Brian Lynch

o you’ve got your summer list of fiction all set up: this year, you’re definitely reading nothing but medical thrillers from the ’70s. Just for the hell of it. But what about the nonfiction side of the menu? Below are a few new titles that might work well with long afternoons away from the office.

IN THE VALLEYS OF THE NOBLE BEYOND: IN SEARCH OF THE SASQUATCH (By John Zada. Greystone) Running along the B.C. coast from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaska Panhandle, the Great Bear Rainforest is a region the size of Ireland. And like Ireland (as well as countless other places on the map), it’s long been said to host otherworldly beings—not pixie-ish spirits in this case, but giant half-humans, moving through the towering oldgrowth stands with terrifying ease.

Toronto-based writer and photographer John Zada follows his childhood obsession with Bigfoot into this landscape, where his skepticism runs up against old Indigenous warnings of a tall, hairy creature whose gaze alone can cause madness or death. Locals tell of gargantuan shapes caught for an instant in headlight beams, strange shrieks in the distance, and houses shaken in the night by—what? Due out in August.

THE GHOST GARDEN: INSIDE THE LIVES OF SCHIZOPHRENIA’S FEARED AND FORGOTTEN (By Susan Doherty. Random House Canada) Taboos around mental illnesses like anxiety and depression have faded drastically in recent years. The

you need to reconnect with the fact that thought still counts as a force for opposition and basic sanity—resolute, humane, outrage-sharpened thought of the kind laid out in the essays and speeches of Arundhati Roy. This thick hardcover collection of nonfiction by the renowned Delhi-based author— most famous for her Booker-winning 1997 novel The God of Small Things— takes on elites of all stripes. Roy’s political writing has inspired Cornel West to call her “one of the few great revolutionary intellects in our time”, and John Berger to observe that she “makes sense of what we have to do”. My Seditious Heart will show you how this praise was earned.

fact that corporations—risk-averse and image-conscious to their core— now proudly sponsor campaigns promoting mental-health awareness is evidence of a widespread desire to dissolve shame and fear with compassion and insight. But are compassion and insight any closer to reaching people with severe illnesses like schizophrenia, living in intense isolation and silence on the farthest edges of society? Susan Doherty, a veteran Montreal writer and former Maclean’s staffer, saw for herself in 2009, when she began volunteering to spend time with

the residents of a locked ward for “the extremely mentally ill” in that city’s famous Douglas Institute. She had no plans to write a book about these experiences, as she points out in her introduction to The Ghost Garden. But her rich relationships with the tormented and in many cases friendless individuals profiled here focused her on the task of tearing down “some of the fences that prevent us from seeing those with schizophrenia as intelligent, productive, engaged, hilarious, beautiful, poetic, insightful, maternal, responsible human beings—and,

above all, worthy of love”.

MY SEDITIOUS HEART (By Arundhati Roy. Hamish Hamilton) Look at the big-boy president in his moist tuxedo, on his way to a tremendous dinner with the Queen. Look at all the other pampered hacks and vicious mediocrities crowding onto the global stage right now with campaigns to bring back good old days when rulers were rulers, no matter how dumb or cruel. Feel like you’re about to lose your mind? Like the assholes are winning decisively and worldwide and forever? That’s understandable, but

THE NEW BEACHCOMBER’S GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST (By J. Duane Sept. Harbour) Remember the stab of social embarrassment you felt when you mistook a Dire Whelk for an Emarginate Dogwinkle? Or when you couldn’t tell a Checkered Hairysnail from an Angular Unicorn? Never again. This hugely revised and expanded work by Sunshine Coast biologist J. Duane Sept easily distinguishes more than 500 species of fish, jelly, anemone, clam, sea star, snail, seaweed, and sponge that our tides reveal every day. Even the rank amateur will find the book clear and easy to use during seaside walks, as its hundreds of colour images transform the teeming life there from a bunch of colourful, cool-looking stuff into a miraculously complex ecosystem working in rhythm with the moon. Plus, where else are you going to run across names like Tinted Wentletrap? It’s good just to say “Tinted Wentletrap”. g

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Late artist Beau Dick’s Eclipse Mask from Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism and hand-engraved cuffs by Heiltsuk talent Dean Hunt from Understanding Northwest Coast Indigenous Jewelry (photo by Lattimer Gallery).

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ighteen years ago, when LaTiesha Fazakas first met the Kwakwaka’wakw artist Beau Dick, she thought, “Does nobody realize that this guy is van Gogh, this guy is Duchamp, this guy is groundbreaking?” Talking to the Straight in her East Hastings gallery, she adds, “Looking at art history and looking at all those super artists that everybody knows and thinking, ‘Why isn’t Beau Dick’s name on everybody’s lips? He is here in Canada and he is so amazing!’ ” As a gallerist, curator, and documentary filmmaker, Fazakas has been instrumental in making his name known. Dick, who died unexpectedly in 2017 at the age of 61, is internationally recognized for the power and expressiveness of his carved and painted masks.

Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism, the book Fazakas edited in conjunction with an exhibition that debuted at the White Columns gallery in New York City, is one of three outstanding publications about Northwest Coast Indigenous art and artists out this season.

People Among the People: The Public Art of Susan Point, written by historian Robert D. Watt and recently launched at the UBC Museum of Anthropology, is a big, beautiful, and comprehensive survey of, yes, public works by that outstanding Musqueam artist. And Understanding Northwest Coast Indigenous Jewelry, Alexander Dawkins’s guide to the specialized art form’s history, iconography, and leading creators, launches at 5 p.m. this Friday (June 14) at the Bill Reid Gallery.

Beau Dick is admired not only as an artist but also as a storyteller, ceremonialist, teacher, and political activist, and all these aspects of his character are evident in Devoured.

Through images of his masks, along with essays by writer and curator Candice Hopkins and artist and writer John Cussans, the book conveys Dick’s condemnation of the capitalist system of overconsumption that is destroying our planet. It poses Kwakwaka’wakw potlatches and winter ceremonials as an alternative way of addressing and overcoming consumerism. For some time before his death, Dick had been discussing these ideas with Fazakas, who has seen them through to tangible form.

“Beau looked at not just the environmental and economic circumstances of capitalism, but also the spiritual circumstances,” she says, “We are in a time of deprivation of the spirit.”

With its detailed photographs and deeply researched examination of 85 public art works created by Susan Point since 1981, People Among the People celebrates the person Watt describes as “one of the finest artists that has appeared in our generation”.

Speaking with the Straight by phone from his Vancouver home, the former archivist, curator, and museum director says, “She has almost singlehandedly…rescued traditional Salish art and its aesthetic from oblivion.

What she learned from studying many hundreds of objects in museums in British Columbia and elsewhere, she’s embedded in her work—but her work is still very much her own.”

Not only has Point been prolific in realizing public-art commissions from Vancouver to Zurich, but she has also been highly innovative in her materials. “She was the first Indigenous artist to work with glass in various forms,” Watt says. He also cites her use of laser-cut aluminum, cast concrete, and Forton, a kind of polymer. “Susan’s art is a contemporary evocation of Salish-ness in a marvellous way.”

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Dawkins, an art historian and co-owner of the Lattimer Gallery, says that he and his business partner Peter Lattimer had been talking for many years about the need for an accessible guide to the handengraved Indigenous jewellery that is unique to this place. Speaking to the Straight by phone, Dawkins recounts how Understanding Northwest Coast Indigenous Jewelry came about in response to questions their customers frequently posed. Richly illustrated, some of it with work commissioned for the book, and with a foreword by Kwakwaka’wakw jeweller Corrine Hunt, it is the first comprehensive guide to what Dawkins describes as “carved, wearable pieces of art”.

In addition to explaining styles, techniques, and symbols used by contemporary Indigenous jewellers, the book tells the jewellery’s history as a means of conveying lineage and social standing. Particularly interesting is the way coastal peoples used jewellery in the past as a way of thwarting colonial proscriptions against larger and more obvious cultural declarations. Jewellery was and remains a way of asserting the enduring presence of the First Peoples of the Northwest Coast.

Watt reiterates that theme, citing the three monumental portals Point created for Brockton Point in Stanley Park. Titled People Amongst the People, these works proclaim the presence of the Coast Salish in the area for thousands of years prior to European contact. “That’s partly why I feel so fortunate to have been able to work with Susan, because I think it’s a really important story to tell,” Watt says. “It’s her story, obviously, and her artistic achievement, but it is rooted in that very ancient story, which is right here. It’s right here.” g

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HOROSCOPE

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LEO

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VIRGO

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LIBRA

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SCORPIO

March 20–April 20

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SAGITTARIUS

TAURUS

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CAPRICORN

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by Rose Marcus

f you find yourself triggered beyond what would be a normal response level, it is your clue that you are working your way through a major karmic replay.

Mars transits the emotional sign of Cancer to July 1. This transit reactivates subconscious memories and unresolved feelings from this life and from past lives, too. Teaming up on the Mars initiative, Mercury is also travelling through Cancer (to June 26). Agent Mercury puts the spotlight on a specific person or circumstance.

What is so notable about this Mars/Mercury action is that the duo will form critical alignments with Neptune, Saturn, and Pluto between Thursday and next Wednesday. Neptune is the planet of potential and hidden wealth; it’s also the collective tuning fork.

Saturn is the architect of reality (i.e. that which dictates, limits, or builds), and the karmic timekeeper (generator of consequences or reward). Saturn brings the past to its harvest or end. Pluto, the planet of the soul, correlates to the unstoppable force of evolution—to the process of core, fundamental, and lasting change.

This week’s transits mark a critical reset point for our personal lives and the social, economic, and political reality of the day. They’re also a forerunner for the momentous Capricorn alignment in 2020.

Father’s Day marks the second of three pivotal Jupiter/Neptune alignments spanning January through September. A turn-the-corner transit, it’s when potentials are greatly heightened. Monday delivers a full moon in Sagittarius, Jupiter’s sign.

Uranus adds more life and synchronicity to that which is already on brew. Prior to the full moon, the stars are on a building and finishing-off trajectory. Tuesday/Wednesday, they are at work on the newly developing or revised format.

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ARIES

Nothing is small or insignificant in terms of the change that is underway, or the result or achievement that it will produce. While there is still more work to do, challenges to face, and time to put in, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, and Pluto position you at the threshold of a non-negotiable, “no turning back” moment. Friday through next Wednesday seals the deal, making it official.

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April 20–May 21

Over this next week, someone or something can have a powerful influence, perhaps even a profound effect on you. The transits will support you or force you to get serious about your next steps. There is no choice but to sign up for it in some concrete, accountable, and committed way. Father’s Day can put the unfinished or unreconciled into play in some significant way.

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GEMINI

May 21–June 21

Father’s Day weekend can be a big deal. Beyond the emotions it stirs up, the transits underscore how important time is, how little of it is left, or how much more there is to work with or get through. Encompassing Monday’s full moon, next week moves you through the paces of a critical or difficult process or circumstance and prompts a shift in perspective.

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CANCER

June 21–July 22

The past may be catching up with you or it may be your springboard. Likely, it is a mix of both.

Mercury and Mars in Cancer dial up the issues, emotions, and challenges. Until Father’s Day, you’ll face significant resistance, a formidable block, a cement wall or end of the road. Monday onward can fast-track a completely altered reality.

JUNE 13 TO 19, 2019 July 22–August 23

Where there is a will (or a willing heart), there is a way. Keep at it, stick it out, and you’ll create a substantial impact or result. The next few days also provide an opportunity to convey the message, see with new eyes, turn it around, and/or move it to higher ground. Monday/Tuesday brings it to a head. Wednesday/ Thursday resurrects or revamps it.

August 23–September 23

Is the struggle worth it?

This next week jettisons you past a significant roadblock and sets you up for a major breakthrough. The stars dictate a major shift of priorities. Mercury and Mars in Cancer put you in touch with what or who is most important, and what will make the strongest impact. You will find the help and support you need.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

September 23–October 23

Encompassing Father’s Day and a full moon, next week takes you through an important revisit. Are you getting your needs met out of your career, your status quo, or the time you spend? Mars and Mercury prioritize an official wrap-up, end of term, or contract renewal. Wednesday begins a next phase or a major turnaround.

October 23–November 22

There is no way around the pressure or the work, but keep focused on the goal or the results you want to achieve. Beyond a weekend to pay your respects to Dad or a father figure, Mars and Mercury bring you to an important conclusion, completion, or deadline. Immediate and long-term priorities are intertwined.

With a full moon Monday through Wednesday, the big push is on.

November 22–December 21

Keeping hands-on is required through the weekend. Extra nurturing, support, or safeguards are wise. A gentle yet firm approach is the right way to play it. Monday, the full moon in Sagittarius frees you up or puts a lot more into play.

Tuesday/Wednesday calls for a cut to the chase, a severing of ties, a major regroup, or a complete overhaul.

December 21–January 20

Emotions and/or added pressure is building through the weekend. Father’s Day can bring a release or reprieve. If you hit stop, it’s not for long. Hitting the ground running, full-moon Monday puts opportunity on go, perhaps unexpectedly. Tuesday, you’ll wrestle with it or them. Wednesday/Thursday, there’s a new battle or next phase to contend with.

January 20–February 18

Where The World Comes To Play ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

If and when you run up ••••••• against it, see it as opportunity in disguise. Off and on through mid next week, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, and Pluto are adversaries. There’s hard work and pressure to contend with, but it’ll pave the way to significant gain and improvement. What a difference a day—or a singular moment—can make.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

February 18–March 20

Encompassing Father’s Day and a lot more, now through next week can be an emotional roller coaster. Whether long in the works or abrupt, there’s no time to spare between the past and the next, between an ending or completion and the change this brings. Monday through Thursday, you’ll need to push harder or fight your way through it. g

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

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•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 21

JUNE 16 TO SEPTEMBER 29, 2019

Alberto Giacometti: A Line Through Time is organized by the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia in collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery

Visionary Partners for Historical Exhibitions:

Supporting Sponsor:

Huaijun Chen and Family Generously supported by:

Supported by the Government of Canada / Avec l’appui du gouvernement du Canada:

Alberto Giacometti, Man Walking (Version I), 1960, bronze, edition 3/6, Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1961 © Estate of Alberto Giacometti/SOCAN (2019)

22 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

arts

Opera gets inclusive at Queer Arts Fest

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by Janet Smith

oprano Teiya Kasahara has always had a passion for performing opera, but the singer was feeling more and more conflicted about the two-dimensional, gendered female roles offered on-stage.

“I’m racialized, queer, tattooed, I have a shaved head, and I have to cover these things to be accepted,” the LGBT artist tells the Straight over the phone from home in Toronto.

It was during her eighth time playing the Queen of the Night, in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute, that Kasahara had finally had enough. The soprano was done with roles that portray women as either evil and strong or good, pure, and fragile.

The conservative art form was feeling less and less inclusive.

“I wanted to critique that with an opera,” Kasahara explains. “And it was really important to me to comment on opera as a machine. I wanted to talk about this being beautiful work and amazing music. I love to sing and that’s the way I feel most free and most full.

But the art form, in how it’s developed, also denies so much of who I am.”

The result is The Queen in Me, one of two shows at this year’s Queer Arts Festival that upend traditional opera in radical new ways.

Kasahara traces the frustration back about six years, to when the singer was again tackling the coloratura soprano part of the terrifying Queen of the Night. The character is introduced as a desperate mother whose beloved daughter Pamina has been kidnapped, but she becomes the villain of the story, demanding Pamina commit a murder to ensure her power. “It was just being plopped in at the last moment, where the whole team was overlooking the complexity of this character,” Kasahara recalls, pointing out that the Queen is on-stage for about 12 minutes total and sings what is probably the opera’s most famous aria, “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen” (“The vengeance of hell boils in my heart”). But Kasahara struggled to find in-depth research or back story on the Queen. “She’s portrayed as evil and ambitious and willing to throw her daughter under the bus to get what she wants,” Kasahara says. “It’s very sexist and misogynist. So I thought

Teiya Kasahara (Photo by Janet Kimber) and Landon Krentz present revolutionary takes on opera as part of the Queer Arts Festival.

I wanted to stop the opera so she could finally say who she was.”

That’s exactly what Kasahara does with the theatre-opera meld The Queen in Me, with the curtain rising in midperformance of The Magic Flute, as the Queen begins her wellknown aria. Then the character rebels and refuses to finish the opera. Using a mix of spoken word, Mozart’s score, and other famous soprano music, the Queen reveals her own story.

“She starts advocating for all the sopranos that have played her over the last 200-something years and all the characters who have had to become mad or fallen,” says Kasahara. In opera, the artist points out, sopranos often either have to kill themselves out of madness (hello, Madama Butterfly) or have to die from illness (Mimi in La Bohème).

And then the character fades away, and Kasahara unpacks personal experiences of gender and racial bias in the world of opera. “My inspiration was having to discover my gender queerness over the last eight or nine years,” Kasahara explains.

Kasahara developed the work outside of the traditional opera industry, starting with an internship with Theatre Gargantua in Toronto, then in the emerging-artists unit at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

These days, the singer is devoted to projects like Amplified Opera. “Our mission is creating a space for equity,” Kasahara explains of the collaboration with director Aria Umezawa. “On an indie level my colleagues and I are having these conversations, and we’re trying to find opportunities to create conversations at the mainstream level.”

Response to The Queen in Me has given Kasahara extra motivation. “Colleagues were coming up to me—ones who aren’t even sopranos, who have complex identities too—and they were not feeling seen and not feeling that they could voice who they really are,” Kasahara says. “They were saying, ‘Thank you, someone is finally saying this.’ A lot of us are feeling these things and had not had the courage to stand up and say it.”

VANCOUVER’S LANDON Krentz seeks to reimagine opera in an even more revolutionary way at the Queer Arts Festival.

There, he and a creative team of hearing and nonhearing artists will let audiences in on an early reading of Jesse— An ASL Opera. Its libretto is inspired by Krentz’s own experience of growing up deaf: the constant visits to what he calls the “black box of the audiologists’ department”, and his liberation through deaf culture and language.

While it may be hard for hearing

people to imagine an opera expressed not just through music but through sign language, the fit felt natural to this LGBT artist.

“Opera is rich in culture and history that I believe is parallel with deaf culture and history,” he explains,

communicating with the Straight through email. “Our language, ASL [American Sign Language], is very much like music. It has a series of movements and rhythm that have a wide musical range. The ability to express music with ASL will be seen in the opera through the way I use signs, movements, and math. It is the perfect language to portray different emotional messages that are heard with the eyes.”

With the support of local company re:Naissance Opera, he’s experimented with a group of artists who have experience with deaf culture.

They include Regina composer Paula Weber (the child of a deaf adult), opera singer Heather Molloy (who has a deaf niece), re:Naissance producer Debi Wong (who has taken ASL classes), and deaf elder John Warren.

Because this is such new ground, Krentz has had to invent a way of writing a bilingual libretto, using ASL gloss (the written form of the sign language, with notations to describe facial expressions and gestures) and English. Weber has been observing see page 26

Queer Arts TIP SHEET WITH THE theme rEvolution, the Queer Arts Festival celebrates forms from music to media art and everything in between, from Monday (June 17) to June 28.

Here are just a few of the highlights. c QUEER SONGBOOK ORCHESTRA (June 28 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre) Narrators tell personal stories alongside arrangements by some of Canada’s top composers, as the ensemble makes a much anticipated return to the fest. Afterward, make sure to hit Stonewall 50: Glitter Is Forever, a fete for the 50th anniversary

of the Stonewall riots that launched modernday Pride, hosted by the Vancouver Pride Society, Zee Zee Theatre, and the Frank Theatre Company. c TECHNICAL KNOCKOUTS (June 23 at the Roundhouse) Mentored by beat masters Kinnie Starr, DJ O Show, and Tiffany Moses, the young artists from QAF’s multidisciplinary music lab rock the house.

c DIASPORA (June 25 at the Roundhouse) Discover how language, culture, and migration can affect queerness, as Frank Theatre presents an interdisciplinary evening of work by queer refugees and immigrants. g

Summer arts fests sizzle all season long

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by Janet Smith

ith Western Canada’s largest Shakespeare festival already under way, to be closely followed by the Indian Summer, Dancing on the Edge, and Theatre Under the Stars celebrations, the warm-weather arts season is fully launched. With enough sunblock, caffeine, and strategic scheduling, you could spend the entire summer catching stage shows, checking out art markets, and listening to outdoor and indoor concerts, before finishing up with the bang of the Vancouver Fringe Festival. Here’s a guide to some of the events worth catching.

BARD ON THE BEACH (To September 21 at Vanier Park) The city’s waterside Shakespeare fest celebrates 30 years with four plays featuring female protagonists. In the main-stage tent, Lois Anderson’s spaghetti-western-themed The Taming of the Shrew alternates with Lee Hall’s adaptation of the hit film Shakespeare in Love.

At the Howard Family Stage, for the first time, the plays will run consecutively instead of taking turns: Rohit Chokahani and Johnna Wright helm a colourful, India-set All’s Well That Ends Well, while director Dean Paul Gibson upends Shakespeare’s rarely performed Coriolanus by casting a woman—Moya O’Connell, last year’s Lady Macbeth—in the role of the ruthless Roman leader. The Draw: It’s too hard to pick a show from the compelling mix this year, but we’re excited to see what All’s Well does with the cross-cultural tensions of an Indian Helena and a British-officer Bertram, falling in love

longest-running contemporary-dance fest (31 years and counting). Watch local streets and parks for site-specific outdoor works, and shows by the likes of Brazil’s De Danca-Cearas, Montreal’s Danse Carpe Diem, and such local bright lights as Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Ziyian Kwan, and Rachel Meyer. The Draw: As always, the Edge’s cleverly curated mixed programs work like a tapas menu of short, tasty dance. Survival Kit: A Google calendar to plan your attack and a few bucks for a bite in nearby Strathcona or Gastown between shows.

Amjad Ali Khan & Sons (left) play Indian Summer; Katrina Wolfe performs at the Powell Street Festival.

on the eve of Indian independence. Shrew has a creative dream team, with Lois Anderson (of last year’s raucous Lysistrata) at the helm. And Coriolanus will be a midsummer occasion when it opens in August; this is the first time in its three-decade history that the fest has tackled the work. Survival Kit: A sweater for cool West Coast evenings and a preshow picnic.

Great Derangement”. Look also for comedian Hari Kondabolu and a fashion show inspired by the works of visual-art star Beau Dick. The Draw: On July 12 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, reigning sarod masters Amjad Ali Khan & Sons and three-time Grammy winner Sharon Isbin, one of the planet’s greatest classical guitarists, meld their musical worlds for a show called Strings for Peace. Survival Kit: INDIAN SUMMER FESTIVAL (July 4 to 14 at Your best South Asian silks for some of the fest’s various venues) The musical and culinary meet more glam happenings, including the opening the literary, fashion, and comedy worlds in the party hosted by chef Vikram Vij and friends. ninth edition of eclectic, diversity-rich programming. Big-name authors appearing this DANCING ON THE EDGE (July 4 to 13 at the year include travel writer Pico Iyer and novelist Firehall Arts Centre and other venues) Artists and nonfiction author Amitav Ghosh, the latter from here, across the country, and spots as far speaking on climate change in a talk called “The away as Brazil and Korea converge at Canada’s

THEATRE UNDER THE STARS (July 5 to August 17 at Malkin Bowl) Disney’s Broadway sensation Newsies, the story of a New York City newspaper strike at the turn of the last century, and Mamma Mia!, the hit musical based on the songs of platinum-haired Swedish superstars ABBA, will alternate. The Draw: Mamma Mia! will have everyone dancing in the aisles, but we’re excited for choreographer-director Julie Tomaino’s high-kicking footwork in Newsies.

Survival Kit: A blanket and bug spray.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON SALSA (July 7 to August 25 at Robson Square) Follow the rhythms to the dance floor under the street in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, where the free annual tradition starts with half-hour lessons at 3 p.m. and features experts in performances at 5 p.m. The Draw: The eye candy of hundreds of amateur dancers showing their stuff, turning

see page 26

JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 23

from page 23

downtown Vancouver into a mini-Havana each early summer Sunday evening. Survival Kit: Your dancing shoes, and bottled water for when you’re feeling hot, hot, hot.

ENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY (July 12 to August 16 at the Jericho Arts Centre) The seventh annual repertorytheatre series alternates three diverse plays by the beach.

Michael Healey’s The Drawer Boy opens the fest, followed

by Garson Kanin’s classic Born Yesterday—a Washingtonset political satire that’s painfully relevant to the Trump era. TUTS stages the musical Newsies. Photo by Lindsay Elliott The Draw: We’re eager to see Superior Donuts by August: Osage County playwright Tracy Letts, directed by Keltie VANCOUVER OUTSIDER ARTS FESTIVAL (August 9 to Forsyth. Survival Kit: Wheels or a Compass pass to get 11 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre) The Community Arts Council of Vancouver throws the home from Jericho Beach after the show. And your brain. spotlight on visual artists and performers who don’t usually HARRISON FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS (July 12 to 21 in get it. Whether they’re simply self-taught or working well Harrison Hot Springs) World music—we’re talking every- outside art-world trends, these are folks who face barriers to thing from Cajun to zydeco—meets a sprawling outdoor having their work seen. The Draw: Hundreds of artworks artisan market on one of the most dramatic pieces of water- form a massive exhibit and sale that is the hub of the event. front in the province. The Draw: The band lineup is always Survival Kit: Bring a few bills to play art collector, and leave strong here, with a roster this year that includes Veda Hille, pretensions and preconceptions at the door.

Gord Grdina’s Haram, and Quinta Kalavera, to name just a few. Survival Kit: Your widest-brimmed hat, sunnies, and VANCOUVER FRINGE FESTIVAL (September 5 to 15 around Granville Island and elsewhere) Wrap up summer a bathing suit and towel to cool off between sets. with hundreds of theatre performances by artists from VANCOUVER BACH FESTIVAL (July 30 to August 9 here and around the world. Make sure to find out word at Christ Church Cathedral and the Chan Centre for the of mouth at the Fringe Hub (Studio 1398) and search out Performing Arts) The 15-concert celebration is making a cool site-specific happenings in all the nooks and crannies name for itself as one of the largest of its kind on the con- of Granville Island. The Draw: Some highlights this year tinent. This summer, it spans the Vancouver Bach Choir’s are already creating buzz at fringe fests on the other side of performance of Gabriel Fauré’s glistening Requiem, Byron the continent, namely Tim Motley’s Crazy for Dick Tricks: A Schenkman’s rendition of Frédéric Chopin preludes on a Dirk Darrow Investigation, Rodney DeCroo’s Didn’t Hurt, 19th-century fortepiano, and a grand fest-closing concert and Martin Dockery’s You Belong Here. Survival Kit: Your of Henry Purcell’s Hail! Bright Cecilia, with the Pacific Bar- dog-eared Fringe program and some coffee for fuel. g oque Orchestra. The Draw: Montreal’s early-music group Les Boréades should bring down the house with its twonight performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete Brandenburg Concertos. Survival Kit: If you’re under 35, bring your driver’s licence to get tickets for half off. d VSO AT SUNSET BEACH (July 7) VANCOUVER MURAL FESTIVAL (August 1 to 10 in Maestro Otto Tausk Mount Pleasant and at various venues) The fourth annual conducts this fest drew more than 120,000 people to Mount Pleasant for wildly popular free its wall-size art and music bonanza last year. Now, on top concert on the banks of English Bay at of the more than 25 murals it will add to its collection of sunset. Songs span 120, it’s expanding its programming so that there’s a special a mix of Maurice event every day of the festival, with a gallery show, flash tatHERE ARE some Ravel’s Boléro and too event, mural tours, public talks, and much more. The more arts events to John Williams’s Draw: At the blowout Mount Pleasant Street Party on Aukeep you busy between “Adventures on gust 10 from noon to 7 p.m., the event turns 14 city blocks barbecues and beachEarth” from E.T. into a living art space, complete with four beer gardens, two going this summer. live music stages, two markets, food trucks, DJs and dance d ALBERTO battles, and a new Family Zone. Survival Kit: Walking GIACOMETTI: A shoes and a bookmark for vanmuralfest.ca’s digital map.

LINE THROUGH d THE CLOCK (July 5 to September 15 at TIME (June 16 to September 29 at the Polygon Gallery) POWELL STREET FESTIVAL (August 3 and 4 at Opthe Vancouver In a momentous penheimer Park and area) Alongside favourites at this Art Gallery) The summer show, the Japanese cultural fest, like martial arts, tanko bushi, VAG explores the North Van landmark taiko, sumo, and, of course, food, singer-pianist Yuni famed Swiss artist’s shows Christian Mori visits from Yamanashi, Japan, and Montreal sculpture, drawings, Marclay’s buzzedseven-piece Teke::Teke performs its Takeshi Terauchi– and paintings about cinematic inspired blend of shoegaze, postrock, and noise. The alongside works by montage that’s been Draw: Seattle’s Katrina Wolfe will create a sculptural, contemporaries like screened around the shape-shifting butoh show that should bring an avantLynn Chadwick and world. Synchronized garde edge to the fun in the sun. Survival Kit: An empMan Ray. to a 24-hour clock, ty stomach, UV protection, and curiosity. it cuts together d STRATHCONA time-related movie fragments from the STREET PARTY VINES ART FESTIVAL (August 7 to 18 at Trout Lake (June 22 around last 70 years, and Park and other open-air venues) Arts and activism East Cordova and won the Gold Lion meet in grassroots works that celebrate the land and exCampbell streets) Award at the 2011 plore environmental issues. The Draw: The lineup has Live painting stations Venice Biennale. yet to be announced, but look for some of your most and a mural battle (Orson Welles’s The memorable experiences amid the greenery in the final, mash with music, Stranger, shown free outdoor showcase by Trout Lake—sometimes in food trucks, DJs, and here, features at the trees, by the water, or across the lawns. Survival craft beer. g midnight.)

Kit: Drinks and snacks in reusable containers.

Arts TIP SHEET

from page 23

the movements of the ASL libretto as it is performed and then composing the music based on that. The goal is an opera that both hearing and nonhearing audiences can enjoy.

“Historically, deaf artists have had to adapt to music and English theatre in ways that diminish the quality of our language,” explains Krentz, who sought sign-language theatrical training in Scandinavia before bringing the approach back here. “The goal is to implement intersectional practices where deaf

artists like myself are leading the artistic process in order to achieve better results. To do this kind of work, it takes an incredibly skilled deaf artist who understands the demands of deaf theatre, English and ASL, and the theatrical contexts.

There are not many of us in Canada.”

The goal is to debut the full opera by 2021. In the meantime, Krentz hopes the peek at this hugely ambitious project will open arts fans’ and artists’ minds to the possibilities of opera and theatre.

“We hope that the audience will

SHINOBI SCHOOL

OF COMPUTER GRAPHICS

walk away with a new understanding of what is possible in deaf theatre and to inspire them to consider working with deaf talents,” he says.

“Deaf theatre for the deaf is vital and necessary to improve the lives and safety of the deaf community, as is the willingness and commitment from hearing artists to learn to adapt to their practice and become allies.” g The Queer Arts Festival presents The Queen in Me on June 21 and 22, and a workshop reading of Jesse—An ASL Opera on June 24.

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Scholarships still available for September - ssocg.com/register Registration for two-week summer courses is open now! #350-4400 Hazelbridge Way, Richmond 604.207.0286 • ssocg.com 26 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

ARTS

Art questions the future at queer fest

A

Media Sponsor

by Alexander Varty

lthough the Relational rEvolutions visual-arts exhibition sounds like it might offer controversy and confrontation, that’s definitely not the point. Instead, says curator Elwood Jimmy, the Queer Arts Festival show is the very opposite of a Twitter flamefest.

“We’ve lost the ability to disagree with each other without relationships falling apart,” he notes in a telephone interview from UBC, where he’s presenting at the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. “It just feels like we’ve ended up in this very peculiar space.”

In this pressurized time, he goes on to explain, racism, nationalism, and especially environmental collapse are dividing families, communities, and countries. Discourse is growing ugly; witness Alberta’s recent demonization of environmental activists and, by extension, free speech.

So when he was given the opportunity to curate Relational rEvolutions, Jimmy began by wondering how he might facilitate asking questions about our future—but “in a gentle way”.

“There are really many of us thinking about our environmental future: what does that look like, and what does that feel like, and what does that sound like?” he says. “And the question I ask myself, as an individual, is ‘What is my personal responsibility in this?’

I’ve been working in the arts for 20 years, and I just started thinking ‘Well, if this is the skill set I’ve cultivated within myself, how do I use the arts to further deepen my engagement with environmental issues and climate change? What does that look like on a human

Relational rEvolutions shows at the Roundhouse for the Queer Arts Festival.

level? And how do we work together to do this, even in times of extreme polarization?’ ” As its title suggests, then, Relational rEvolutions stresses the relational and the evolutionary over the revolutionary; address how we treat and mistreat each other, and change will come. And Jimmy’s “we” is inclusive. Not only does it include queer and straight, Indigenous and settler, it incorporates the nonhuman as well.

“There are a lot of works that are done in collaboration, and sometimes collaboration may not be so obvious,” he says of the upcoming show. “I’m thinking of some of the work that’s really in collaboration with the land. There’s an emerging artist from Toronto, Jessica Karuhanga, who does these lovely video works. She calls them collaborations, and I would call them collaborations as well—collaborations with the land. They’re performances and dance pieces

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

within water and within reeds and these kinds of things. And I guess, for me, those works show how our bodies actually move through and navigate the Earth. You know, how are we interacting with the Earth and the nonhuman with our own bodies?”

Jimmy, a member of the Thunderchild First Nation of northern Saskatchewan, also cites two-spirited Ojibwa artist Raven Davis’s work It’s Not Your Fault, a video response to the vicious white supremacism that’s found a home online.

“It’s just a very simple video of somebody in ceremony, and they have an audio track of them singing over it,” he explains. “But it’s quite jarring, because they take some of the comments that they’ve read online and contrast the gentleness and the tenderness that they’re trying to cultivate within themself and within their community with this avalanche of absolute hatred coming from regular Canadians.

The contrast is quite jarring, and….

You’re left wondering ‘How can we ever bridge this chasm, this emotional chasm?’ How do you make people have compassion? How do we even begin to bring people’s humanity back, and how do we get people to see other people as humans again?”

For now, Jimmy adds, neither he nor Relational rEvolutions can offer any conclusive answers to these hard questions—but by asking them he hopes that we can at least begin to value the land, the “other”, and ourselves. g The Queer Arts Festival presents Relational rEvolutions at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre from Monday (June 17) to June 26.

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ARTS

Matriarchs Uprising brings Indigenous dancers together

T

by Janet Smith

Sat and Sun 11:30 AM to 7PM Paueru Gai / Powell Street neighbourhood

“… maybe the greatest film you’ve ever seen …”

Zadie Smith

THE CLOCK

BY CHRISTIAN MARCLAY

JULY 5 TO SEPTEMBER 15 Friday night 24-hour screenings: July 5, July 26, August 16, September 6, September 13

The Polygon Gallery 101 Carrie Cates Court North Vancouver, BC thepolygon.ca #TheClock #ThePolygon 28 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

Organised by the National Gallery of Canada.

Purchased in 2011 with the generous support of Jay Smith and Laura Rapp, and Carol and Morton Rapp, Toronto. Jointly owned by the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Christian Marclay, The Clock, 2010, single-channel video installation, duration: 24 hours © the artist. Photo © White Cube (Ben Westoby)

hree days of celebrating Indigenous women in dance: it was an event Olivia C. Davies dreamed of staging during her residency at the Dance Centre—and she’s pulled it off.

With visitors from as far away as Australia, Matriarchs Uprising will combine performances, events, and circle discussions, all while marking National Indigenous Peoples Day. “Indigenous women in dance will have space to share their performance works and then have conversations, but they’re open for the wider community,” the Vancouver choreographer says over the phone. “What I was really interested in was saying, ‘Okay, I have women in my life who are so phenomenal in their own ways and we’ve also developed a kinship over a few years of doing this work independently.’ And when do we have a chance to come together and witness each other’s works?”

Davies has brought together local, national, and international artists, all of them working in the contemporary-dance realm while pushing their cultural forms.

The solo performances include a nature-centred double bill that features Michelle Olson (of local Raven Spirit Dance) in the trapline-inspired Frost Exploding Trees Moon and Ontario standout Santee Smith (of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre) in the multimedia Blood, Water, Earth. Elsewhere, Davies has also mixed local artist Cheyenne Rain LeGrande and Australia’s Mariaa Randall.

For Randall, who speaks to the Straight from her remote corner of central Victoria, Australia, that means working with paint on skin and mapping the countryside where she lives. In the piece called Painting the Dance, the paint leaves an imprint

on her body at the same time as it leaves an imprint on the wall.

“It’s me and I’m painting my country,” says Randall, who explains her elders would “paint up” before dancing. “There is meaning to every single stroke that’s put on the body.”

Explaining her philosophy, she adds: “I perform in a contemporarydance context, but every time I step on the stage, I say, ‘This dance is a thousand years old.’ There’s a language in my body, a passing down of those techniques. And because I’ve got a contemporary-dance practice, this is the first work where I’ve actually danced topless, so that’s kind of new for me,” she says, pointing out it’s how her ancestors would have danced. “For me, it’s not just taking off my top and saying, ‘Look at my boobs.’ ” Like the Indigenous women coming to Matriarchs Uprising from Canada and the U.S., she’s finding a new language, one that she says is built from the land she comes from. “Regardless of where I go, I’m always carrying the country with me,” says Randall.

She’s grateful for a new event like Matriarchs Uprising, where she can share her ideas with other Indigenous women. “I’m kind of blown away by being part of it. There’s nothing like it here, either,” she stresses. “For me, even just the title is so empowering, and with what’s happening in the U.S. and Canada with First Nations, or here, where there are a lot of suicides of young women, it’s important just being present among those strong Indigenous women.” g Matriarchs Uprising takes place at the Scotiabank Dance Centre and 8EAST (8 East Pender Street) next Thursday to Saturday (June 20 to 22).

ARTS

Beauty and the Beast will fete 10 years of flamenco

A

by Janet Smith

n ambitious new production of Beauty and the Beast, a thriving children’s program, an expanded studio, and a new weekly venue to showcase flashing ruffles and clacking castanets: Karen Flamenco has a lot to celebrate on its 10th anniversary.

Reflecting, artistic director Karen Pitkethly says watching her young students develop in the past decade stands out. “To me, that’s the most rewarding thing,” she tells the Straight over the phone. “I have girls who have studied with me and now I trust them to teach and perform, and I bring in a choreographer once or twice a year to set a piece on them.

They’re young and vibrant and they have really intense choreographies, and the girls can pick it up.”

She’s been able to develop the Karen Flamenco Dance Company out of those young talents. Its members are seen regularly at the company’s recently launched Teatro Intimo del Flamenco shows on Saturday afternoons at Granville Island’s Improv Centre. A mix of theatre-style seating and bistro tables gives it the feel of a traditional Spanish tablao setting for live flamenco dancing and music.

“It’s what we were missing,” Pitkethly explains of the shows hosted by local actor Gerardo Avila. “It gives us a venue to present the company in a way I’ve always wanted to: as a whole company, but in an intimate venue.”

It’s another big step for a company that started on a small scale with its Mount Pleasant studio 10 years ago.

Demand for the kids’ classes at the facility has grown so much that this year marks the first time Karen Flamenco’s child students (about 90 of them, some as young as three) outnumber the adults training there.

Pitkethly thinks word of mouth has been a big part of it. “Definitely, flamenco is way more popular in Vancouver; any festival or outdoor event has it,” she adds. “Overall, I feel flamenco is getting younger, too. Just the agility and the way it’s been transforming, there’s a lot more athleticism involved. The last time I went to Spain, the studios are young—there’s a surge of youth happening in Spain as well.

And of course, you can see them on YouTube, and it’s catching on.”

Over the years, Pitkethly, who once taught ballet, has also attracted young fans of the form with interpretations of popular shows

WOMXN AND WATERWAYS

Aysha Majeed stars as Belle in Karen Flamenco’s show. Photo by David Cooper

such as Grease, West Side Story, and Pinocchio. In each case, Pitkethly gives the stories a f lamenco twist, with live music, demystifying the historic Spanish-born art form for local families.

The upcoming production of Beauty and the Beast will continue the tradition—though it’s brought more than the usual challenges, Pitkethly admits. Belle, played by Aysha Majeed, can easily have extra ruffles on her iconic blue dress and white apron, but what about the hit cartoon and Broadway musical’s anthropomorphized teapots and candlesticks?

“I had it on the back burner because I wasn’t sure how we were going to portray these household items,” she says with a laugh. The solution was traditional flamenco costuming with accessories like a candlestick fascinator.

Interspersed are such surprises as a tap-dancing Beast, narration and magic acts by Avila, and Disney hits like “Be Our Guest” with a flamenco flair.

It’s all done on an unprecedented scale—all thanks to the expansion of the company and school, not to mention flamenco itself, over the past decade. “Each year, because the school is growing, the show tends to grow,” Pitkethly says. And so, it follows, will the sounds of pummelling feet here on the West Coast. g

Photo credit: Kali Spitzer Portrait of Musqueam Water Keeper Audrey Siegl, 2019 Proudly Supported by

Exhibition Partners

On view to Oct. 2, 2019 639 Hornby Street | 604.682.3455 billreidgallery.ca

VSO in the Summer

Karen Flamenco presents Beauty and the Beast on Saturday and Sunday (June 15 and 16) at the Vancouver Playhouse.

JUN 23 @ ORPHEUM THEATRE

THE VSO AT DEER LAKE

JUN 24 @ BARD ON THE BEACH STAGE

JUL 3 @ CHAN CENTRE, UBC

FROM VENICE TO VIENNA

CHAN CENTRE

JUN 25 @ ORPHEUM THEATRE

THORGY THOR and the

JUL 4,5,6 @ ORPHEUM THEATRE VSO Digital Concert Hall presented by TELUS

JUN 27 @ ORPHEUM THEATRE BMO presents

JUL 7 @ SUNSET BEACH | FREE

THE VSO AT BARD:

“Into The Other Land” Art Show 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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JUN 30 @ DEER LAKE | FREE

SHOWCASE

VSO SCHOOL OF MUSIC

THORCHESTRA

BERNADETTE PETERS

VSO INSTITUTE at the STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

with the VSO

VSO AT SUNSET BEACH

JUN 29 @ DEER LAKE Brian Jessel BMW presents

JUL 12, 13 @ ORPHEUM THEATRE VSO Digital Concert Hall presented by TELUS

QUEEN LATIFAH

with the VSO

“Making The Ordinary Extraordinary” Brian Jessel

BUGS BUNNY AT THE SYMPHONY II

.ca/summer JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 29

ARTS

WHISTLER PRESENTS

Matilda has the makings of summer’s hit musical

Subversive fun, cartoon antics, and surreal touches

by Janet Smith

Endless Entertainment

THEATRE

MATILDA: THE MUSICAL

FEATURE EVENT

P: Mike P: ik ke k e Cran Crane

By Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin, from the novel by Roald Dahl.

Directed by Daryl Cloran. An Arts Club Theatre Company, Citadel Theatre, and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre production. At the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage on Wednesday, May 22. Continues until July 14

WHISTLER CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL July 5 – 7

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.

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.

10am – 4pm | Whistler Olympic Plaza

Saturday July 6

July 6 & 7

THE SATURDAY CIRCUS

MAKE-IT TENT

10am – 4pm | Whistler Olympic Plaza

10am – 4pm | Whistler Olympic Plaza

Explore the imaginative playground of music, crafts and circus fun. Experience the Circus West show, Fireflight: A Supernatural Circus.

Explore this fun, creative space for kids and families and let their imaginations run wild with inspiring arts and crafts activities.

Start the day off with DJ Ira with a danceoff party, and experience five-time JUNOnominated kids performers Bobs and Lolo performing their popular music and hijinks fun for the festival finale.

Visit whistler.com/childrensfestival for full event information.

d A BUNCH of “revolting children” turn rebelling into an art form in Matilda: The Musical, which looks to be a shoo-in as Vancouver’s first big summer hit. And, not surprisingly, the hugely enjoyable show comes from the director of the last summer blockbuster here.

Daryl Cloran, who brought you the inspired, bellbottoms-and-Beatles-song-filled As You Like It at Bard on the Beach in 2018, now brings the same warped physical humour and hyperenergized pacing to Matilda: The Musical.

Based on Roald Dahl’s unsentimental story of a brilliant bookworm bullied relentlessly by her parents and her school’s sadistic headmistress, it boasts truly twisted villains, delightfully unaffected child performances, and a cavalcade of showstopping song-anddance numbers.

Best of all, it retains Dahl’s dark humour throughout. One tune features Matilda’s father singing the praises of TV over books (“The bigger the TV the smarter the man!”); in another over-the-top choreographed number, the headmistress force-feeds a boy chocolate after a massive belch reveals he stole some cake. Don’t get your knickers in a knot, though: the black bits are balanced by goodhearted messages about inclusion and standing up for yourself. It’s just that, as Matilda sings in her fetching solo, “Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty.”

Arts Club artistic director Ashlie Corcoran revealed during the opening-night introduction that she’s dreamed of programming the Tony- and Olivier-toting musical ever since her job interview here two years ago. And it’s easy to see why. A copro with Edmonton’s

Citadel Theatre and Winnipeg’s Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Matilda pulls things off at the scale the production demands.

One of this musical’s huge strengths is its adult cast, well-honed from travelling with the show in Western Canada.

As he should, John Ullyatt steals the show as the amply bosomed headmistress, Miss Trunchbull. He looks like a more intimidating Frau Blücher, if she’d been England’s 1969 hammer-throwing champ and had a thing for drill-sergeant uniforms. Ullyatt’s Trunchbull is a villain for the ages, as adept at swinging little girls by their pigtails as she is at cartwheeling across the stage. Her school motto: “Children are maggots.”

A close second is Ben Elliott’s Mr. Wormwood, with a face as cartoonishly rubbery as his legs; just watch him try to remove a fedora that’s been Krazy Glued to his head.

With her bad bleach job and sequined everything, Lauren Bowler slays as Matilda’s ballroom-danceaddicted mother, and Corben Kushneryk, as her mouth-breathing couch-potato brother, doesn’t have to say a word, or even move, to be funny.

The cast of local child stars does a fine job of manoeuvring composer Tim Minchin’s tongue-twisting lyrics. (“You produce, Bruce, fantastically enthusiastic gastric juice.”)

As the title character, Georgia Acken (who alternates with Thailey Roberge) plays it low-key and stern; this is not a showy role like Annie, after all. She has a sweet voice, which plays nicely off Alison MacDonald’s in the moving second-act duet between the girl and the kind teacher who takes her under her wing.

Kimberley Rampersad’s choreography brings extra kick to the show, playing elaborately with the alphabet in “School Song” and even bringing some B-boy skills to the kids’ final uprising. And designer Cory Sincennes’s set of wonkily towering, Seuss-like bookshelves gives the production the surreal edge it needs.

In all, it’s the antithesis of dumbed-down kid stuff, making Matilda: The Musical subversive enough for adults to enjoy as much as any maggot out there. g

ARTS AR A RTS RT R TS T S World W or rl ld l d music mu m us u sic and and art: ar a rt r t:: t

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* Visit whistler.com/childrensfestival for details

1.800.944.7853 WHISTLER.COM 30 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

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JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 31

Amjad Ali Khan, Sharon Isbin, Amaan Ali Bangash & Ayaan Ali Bangash

ARTS LISTINGS ONGOING THE TAMING OF THE SHREW The 2007 spaghetti-western version of Shakespeare’s work is the inspiration behind this Wild West love story. To Sep 21, Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. From $26.

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 undisputed living master of the sarod, and one of India’s most celebrated classical musicians, Amjad Ali Khan takes the Chan Centre stage alongside his sons, with three-time Grammy Award-winning classical guitarist Sharon Isbin. Together, they make an eloquent and impassioned call for harmony – in music, in religion, in cultures, and in the world.

GLOBAL SOUNDSCAPES FESTIVAL InterCultural Orchestra’s Global Soundscapes Festival is a celebration of Japanese and Canadian music. To Jun 13, Waterfront Theatre. $20-35.

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

PRESENTED BY

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

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT INDIANSUMMERFEST.CA MAJOR PARTNERS

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VANCOUVER ART GALLERY aMOVING STILL: PERFORMATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY IN INDIA to Sep 2 aVIEWS OF THE COLLECTION: THE STREET to Nov 17 MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT UBC aIN A DIFFERENT LIGHT: REFLECTING ON NORTHWEST COAST ART to summer 2020 aSHAKEUP: PRESERVING WHAT WE VALUE to Sep 1 aSHADOWS, STRINGS AND OTHER THINGS: THE ENCHANTING THEATRE OF PUPPETS to Oct 14 MUSEUM OF VANCOUVER aWILD THINGS: THE POWER OF NATURE IN OUR LIVES to Sep 30 aHAIDA NOW: A VISUAL FEAST OF INNOVATION AND TRADITION to Dec 1 aTHERE IS TRUTH HERE to Dec 31

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. To Jun 30, 8 pm, Jericho Arts Centre. $22-28.

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.

THE LADIES FOURSOME Women discuss love, sex, and children over a round of golf.

Jun 12-16 & 19-22, The Tsawwassen Arts Centre. $18/5.

TINY LITTLE FEETS: THE RICHARD PRYOR STORY Kahlil Ashanti plays a multitude of

32 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

HOT TICKET

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. To Jul 20, Granville Island Stage. From $29.

FRIDAY JULY 12 8:00PM CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS TICKETS $42 — $95

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THE GATHERING FESTIVAL (June 15 in Emery Barnes Park) Odds, Gary Comeau & the Voodoo Allstars (shown here), the Big Easy Funk Ensemble, and more musical acts bring Downtown South park alive all day. Look also for the Art Alley, food, crafts, and kids’ activities.

THE SUPERDAD SHOW

(June 16 at the Improv Centre) Vancouver TheatreSports gives Dad the gift of laughs in this special 2 p.m. matinee, with an audience-suggestion-driven improv show that may help you work out such pressing issues as his obsession with the barbecue and his reluctance to lend you his car. g characters in a workshop performance that looks at the childhood, loves, addictions, violence, and standup of comedy legend Richard Pryor. Jun 12, 8 pm, Havana Theatre. Free.

THE BANDMAID’S TALE A new dystopian musical comedy. Jun 12-15, 8-10:30 pm, Waterfront Theatre. $25.

THURSDAY, JUNE 13 CHARITY ART AUCTION Auction of works by more than 50 local artists, with proceeds to the Kids Up Front Foundation. Jun 13, 6-9 pm, Pacific Arts Market. Free.

DANNY LYON Talk and book signing by photojournalist, writer, and filmmaker. Jun 13, 7 pm, The Polygon Gallery. By donation.

see page 38

FOOD

Five festivals to sink your teeth into Key Party’s Jell-O shots taste like summertime

by Tammy Kwan

S

by Gail Johnson

et foot into the speakeasy- items like party mix and celery sticks style Key Party lounge on with dill Cheez Whiz. “I like hilariMain Street and you’ll know ous foods,” says Zottenberg, a former owners Rachel Zottenberg member of the Judith Marcuse Dance and David Duprey don’t take them- Company and Arts Umbrella hip-hop selves too seriously. and jazz instructor.

As far as summertime entertainFirst, you walk through the “accountant’s office” foyer, with Rolodex, ing goes, it doesn’t get much more rotary phone, and poster of a kitten silly—or easy—than the Key Party’s dangling from a rope by a single paw Jell-O shots.

How did these jiggly, alcoholthat reads “Hang in there”. Then it’s into the dimly lit bar (sister space to loaded gems end up on the menu? the adjacent Rumpus Room restau- “There’s some weird shit that I just rant), where the ’70s adult-house- always have on the back of my brain party theme emerges with sultry red that I’m dying to do,” Zottenberg velvet drapes, black-leather booths, says, noting that the pair recently invested in an ice-shaving machine and yes, a bowl of keys.

“David and I both like restaurants for use in yet another of their outthat are more thematically about hang- lets, the Narrow Lounge. “The Jelling out and being comfortable and O shots are not hard to do; it’s more enjoying time in a space and not feeling about time and patience. but once you rushed,” says Zottenberg, whose other figure out the recipe, it’s pretty fun. ventures with Duprey include the Em- I love showing people it’s easy to do.”

Souvlaki is a culinary staple of Greek Day, which takes over West Broadway between MacDonald and Blenheim on June 23. erald and Uncle Abe’s. “We want to get Here, Zottenberg does just that, people hangin’ out more. It’s the oppos- with her personal recipe. It uses an ust because you aren’t jetting blend together music, dance, vis- Night Market is arguably North ite of Vancouver’s sterile restaurants.” entire bottle of sparkling wine to yield Drinks run the gamut from grass- about 50 servings. off to a beautiful Greek is- ual arts, sports, and, perhaps most America’s go-to destination for Asian see page 35 land or backpacking through important, culinary offerings. In street food (read last year’s New York hoppers to paralyzers, while to eat are Southeast Asia this summer, the adults-only Driftwood Beer Times article for concrete evidence), that doesn’t mean you can’t experi- Plaza that has a capacity of 1,000, at- and includes 120 food vendors servSECOND SHOW ADDED! ence authentic food and drink from tendees will find tasty grub and live ing up more than 600 mouth-waterthose places right here in Vancouver. music. The Food Plaza will feature ing items. If you don’t mind rubbing TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Several summertime food fetes will B.C.’s best Latin American restau- shoulders the entire evening with be taking place around town, with rants and food trucks, highlight- crowds of hungry guests, your belly weekend markets and one-day out- ing flavours from Mexico, Peru, can be filled with everything from door festivals serving up everything Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Spain, takoyaki to Taiwanese fried chicken, from gourmet Hong Kong–style Argentina, El Salvador, and Cuba. from bubble waffles to Xinjiang-style street food to authentic Latin Amer- We’re sure there will be enough spiced lamb skewers. New and ican bites—no passport needed. Here tacos, Venezuelan hot dogs, fried creative dishes available this year are five foodcentric events to explore plantains, and paella to fill up a good include cheese-and-mayo torched around Metro Vancouver during the percentage of our city’s population. lobsters, rainbow grilled cheese sandwiches, and White Rabbit hotter months.

COLUMBIA StrEAT FOOD TRUCK Candy liquid-nitrogen ice cream.

GREEK DAY ON BROADWAY FEST Pro tip: bring plenty of cash.

J

(Between MacDonald and Blenheim)

June 2019 has been named Greek Heritage Month, which makes it all the more fitting for Greek Day on Broadway to take place on June 23 (11 a.m. to 9 p.m.) across a fiveblock stretch. Presented by the Hellenic Canadian Congress of B.C., the daylong festival will feature various market vendors, entertainment, live music, and a kids’ zone. But the star of the show is the authentic Greek fare, including calamari, souvlaki, and loukoumades (Greek honey doughnuts). The 3 Greek Sisters, cookbook authors, will also be onstage doing cooking demos for the hungry masses.

(Columbia Street, downtown New Westminster)

There are food-truck festivals, and then there is the food-truck festival. New Westminster’s Columbia StrEAT Food Truck Fest returns on July 27 (4 to 10 p.m.), with a whopping total of 97 eateries on wheels. This year’s participants include Aloha Poke, Dim Sum Express, Dolce Amore Gelato, Japadog, Meat and Bread, the Praguery, REEL Mac and Cheese, Rocky Point Ice Cream, Tacofino, Snow Cloud Shavery, and Whistler Wood-Fired Pizza Company. And while you enjoy your Baja fish taco, crispy pork-belly sandwich, or lemon-yogurt-cookie ice-cream cone, musicians will be on-site to serCARNAVAL DEL SOL enade you. Other event highlights (88 Pacific Boulevard) include artisan markets and several The Pacific Northwest’s largest beer gardens—all the more reason Latin festival, according to Latin- for you to block off the calendar on couver, the 11th annual Carnaval the last Saturday of July. del Sol returns to Concord Pacific Place on July 6 and 7 (11 a.m. to 10 RICHMOND NIGHT MARKET p.m.). The massive cultural cele- (8351 River Road, Richmond) bration will showcase more than This seasonal foodie attraction needs 450 artists in eight plazas that no introduction. The Richmond

SHIPYARDS NIGHT MARKET (15 Wallace Mews, North Vancouver)

Although it has beautiful hikes and picture-perfect scenery during the day, the North Shore tends to have a “no fun” reputation after dark. But that changes in the summer with the Shipyards Night Market that runs every Friday (5 to 10 p.m.), composed of artisan businesses, live music, a beer garden, and good food. In its “hot food alley”, visitors will find more than 30 local food trucks and vendors creating some tasty bites. Newcomers to this year’s event include the vegan double-decker Buddha Bus from Buddha-Full, as well as the Chowdery and Truckin BBQ. Folks who visit after work will be able to satisfy their appetites with tacos, frozen treats, fish and chips, gelato, and much more. The best way to get to this outdoor attraction is by taking public transit—from downtown, we like to hop on the SeaBus, which gives great views of both shores. g

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DRINK

Tasting notes from the heel of Italy

T

by Kurtis Kolt

his week’s column is being filed from the town of Bari in Puglia, a port city at the top of the heel of Italy.

I’ve been brought here as an international judge for an annual wine competition called Radici del Sud, which was created 14 years ago to determine the best varietal wines from Italy’s southern regions of Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Sicily, and here in Puglia. More on the results of the competition to come next week.

While I’ve had the opportunity to tour around a couple of these regions, it’s my first time right here in Puglia that’s currently tugging at my heart.

Squint, and Bari could be a myriad of European cities: a twisty maze of alleys and corridors in the old part of town, full of bustling cafés, people strolling, and nonnas hanging laundry to dry from second-floor windows.

With considerable heat during the summer in local vineyards, the wines tend to be ripe, round, and juicy, made mostly from any of dozens of indigenous grapes, although it’s not

ridiculously uncommon to see international varieties like Chardonnay, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

My appetite has been voracious, and there’s been nary a disappointment over my seven days here.

One of my favourite local foods is a bite-size, rather simple cross between, oh, let’s say a cracker, bread stick, pretzel, and bagel called taralli.

In their most basic form, they’re made from wheat flour, yeast, and olive oil, but riffs on them are known to include fennel seeds, chilis, or pepper. Locally, they can be found at Bosa Foods.

Starting an evening (or late afternoon) out with a handful of ’em, along with a regional white or pink wine, is probably the easiest way to enjoy an authentic Puglian experience, although there’s plenty of other fodder.

Minestrone soup is common here, as is beef or pork ragout; and starting out a meal with a plate of things like prosciutto, ricotta, and buffalo mozzarella is a habit I’ve easily taken to. Bari being on the water, local fish and octopus are in abundance.

RIVERA BOMBINO BIANCO 2018

($18.99, Marquis Wine Cellars) The late-ripening Bombino Bianco variety can be pretty simple or neutral, but sometimes that’s we want when the sun is blazing. Expect citrus like lime and yellow grapefruit, with Granny Smith apple notes and a subtle dose of salinity. If your next meal is from the sea, this one will probably do just fine.

MASSERIA LI VELI FIANO 2017

($27.74, Marquis Wine Cellars) Fiano easily builds rich, age-worthy When in Puglia, pair orecchiete con le wines with apple, pear, and ginger cime di rapa with a good Negroamaro. notes that can often carry hazelnut components. When there’s a cheeseMy top dish of the trip, though, is and-charcuterie plate on the table, orecchiette con le cime di rapa. Dead- wines like this are a no-brainer. simple to make: the ear-shaped pasta is tossed with turnip greens, olive oil, CRUDO ORGANIC NEGROAMARO anchovies, and fried bread crumbs, ROSATO 2017 and can easily be tucked into along- ($15.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) Pink wines are common throughside local whites, pinks, and reds.

Speaking of which, let’s look at out Puglia, and these are quite the a few locally available examples of departure from the recent trend of Puglian varieties that’ll round out Provence-inspired rosés that hardly carry any colour at all. This take on the any similar fare.

Negroamaro grape is a juicy and opulent offering of red berry fruit, juniper berry, and some light herbal notes. I can’t often say this about a wine, but if you’re a fan of a Negroni, the celebrated cocktail composed of gin, Campari, and red vermouth, you’ll probably adore Negroamaro rosatos.

TORRE VENTO TORRE DEL FALCO NERO DI TROIA 2015

($18.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) Plenty of violets on the nose, with black and purple berry fruit, along with notes of pepper and dried herbs, make this rich, red variety an exotic take on Syrah, in my opinion. And as a guy who absolutely loves Syrah, I mean that as a high compliment.

TENUTA VIGLIONE PRIMITIVO 2017

($19.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) Pretty much the Old World version of Californian Zinfandel. When it comes to Primitivo, think bold and rich, dried dark-berry fruit, dates, cloves, cardamom, stained teeth, and hearty meats on the barbecue. g

from page 33 A COMPLETE OUTFIT

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 8, 2019 WHERE: #19 Bus and Denman Street You: slender in a dapper "event" outfit and a dazzling opening smile for the bus driver. Me: in a silk scarf and a dashing cap, masquerading as a tourist. We walked and chatted on Denman after we got off the bus. You live in the West End and I am near palm trees on the sunny south slope to the Fraser River. Want to come with me to my favourite hat shop in Gastown to top off your outfit?

MAIN STREET BREWERY TUES PINT

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 4, 2019 WHERE: Main Street Brewery You came in late wearing a maroon T-shirt. You sat with your group of friends at the same table. Our eyes locked through the window as you were getting ready to leave on your bike. My girlfriends all turned around to look at you, only to find that you were staring back. I was so mortified and embarrassed that I turned my head away with a beet red face. When I mustered up the courage to look up again, I saw you riding away down the street with your friends. Do you remember me? Just wanted to say I thought you were cute and that I regret not having attempted to make conversation.

NURSE SAW PARAMEDIC

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 2, 2019 WHERE: Royal Columbian Hospital It was shift change and you were transferring a patient to my unit, unfortunatley I was leaving so I wasn’t able to linger and start too much of a conversation, although we did exchange ‘hello’s’ and a ‘how are you doing’.

You are tall, dark and handsome and have gorgeous dark eyes. I know this is a long shot but you never know, perhaps you also read the "I Saw You’s" in the Straight! Would love to have the chance to chat more :-)

TALL DOG WALKER

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: MAY 22, 2019 WHERE: Downtown

r

I was slinking out of my car real awkwardly to avoid traffic on Homer Street. When I looked up, you were looking at me and gave me a nod. You were tall and walking a dog. Want to walk our dogs together sometime?

RED HAIR BEAUTIFUL SMILE

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 4, 2019 WHERE: Canada Line

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CANADA Line to downtown.

You, playfully chatting with your friend but smiling from time to time. I am older than you but happy to take you out for a nice dinner. You blue tights and white runners.

What I was wearing?

MIA @ THE VMTCAS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 9, 2019 WHERE: VMTCAS

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SPARKS AT REIKI

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 4, 2019 WHERE: Gordon Neighbourhood House We first made eye contact as I made my way up to Gordon Neighbourhood House. You said hello and I instantly became shy, distracted by your eyes and tattoos. We then happened to meet again in the 5:00 reiki class, where you sat directly across from me. Then we left and descended down the stairs at the same time. I waited for you outside, hoping to catch you alone. You came out with your friends and I chickened out. You told me to have a good night as you went on your way. If you don't see this, hopefully I see you next week. Maybe we can talk about our mutual interest of psychology over coffee or tea?

DRIVER OFF AT GRANVILLE DEPOT

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 4, 2019 WHERE: Getting Off #10 at Bus Depot

We both went to the march alone and walked together for a bit. We lost each other in the crowd and I didn't see you again. You seem like a cool person and it would be great to debrief about the march and stay in touch.

To the beautiful driver that this morning gave me a slightly mischievous smile. Thanks. Made my day! Where was I seated?

Coffee/Wine perhaps?

GINGERS DELIVER

I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 4, 2019 WHERE: Havana’s Commercial Drive

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 5, 2019 WHERE: Jack Poole Plaza, Food Trucks We chatted briefly about dismantling the patriarchy. Lmk if you want to continue the conversation.

IRANIAN GIRL ON TRAIN

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 2, 2019 WHERE: SkyTrain

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We talked about your dog Rocky. Patterson came quicker than expected, I should’ve asked for your number... If by chance you see this - meet at dog park someday?

FET’S PATIO FACING HAVANA’S PATIO

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s

You were a beautiful woman in black and sunglasses, I was with my blonde friend, facing you on opposite patios. We traded several glances, but we both just chose the wrong restaurant. Wanna fix that?

GARBAGE MAN IN STRATHCONA

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JUNE 3, 2019 WHERE: Strathcona

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You were getting into your garbage/recycling truck and looked down at me in my grey sedan.

Blonde with bright red dress.

What a handsome face. Tea?

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JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 35

MARQUEE SERIES AT THE QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE

WU-TANG CLAN

COMMODORE BALLROOM

Sunday, June 23 | 8pm

June 28 | 8pm

THE ROOTS

HERBIE HANCOCK

Hip hop legends

Return of Tonight Show house band!

Legendary pianist/composer

FIVE ALARM FUNK & TOO MANY ZOOZ

June 29 | 8pm

June 21 | 9pm

Get funked up on opening night!

THE IMPERIAL SERIES

THE COMET IS COMING PLUS MATS GUSTAFSSON June 21 | 9pm

Electro-Afro-future-sax from London, UK

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June 22 | 9pm

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June 24 | 9pm

PLUS ELI DAVIDOVICI’S SHAPES

Psychedelic rock two-for-one show!

Deeply funky soul grooves

The future of percussion

June 26 | 9pm

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music

Fests ensure summer is no bummer

A

by Mike Usinger

SUMMERSET MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL Given the setting—the pioneer-times landmark known as Fort Langley—it somehow makes sense that the musical component of Summerset includes the country gold of Paul Brandt and the HiWatt roots rock of Rival Sons. Cancon staples Kim Mitchell and April Wine will also be on hand, along with the Trews, the Matinee, and JP Maurice, as well as food trucks, and craft beer, cider, and wine vendors.

Important details: August 30 to September 1 at Fort Langley; go to tourism-langley.ca/ for full details. Fan profile: British Columbia history buffs who have always, quite rightly, thought Fort Langley would be a pretty great place for a music festival.

ccording to the Weather Network, the next few months will be hot ones, with above-average temperatures and extended stretches of decidedly dry conditions. That’s your cue to slather on the sunscreen as you head to the outdoor festivals, and drink plenty of water while getting hot and sweaty at the indoor ones. Some of the extravaganzas listed below are close enough to hit by bus or Main Street–style fixie.

For others, you’ll have to jump on the SkyTrain or load up the car. Whatever shows you choose, they’re guaranteed to drive home what you probably already know: for reasons that have as much to do with the weather as they do sheer selection, there’s no greater time to be a music fan than summer.

FESTIVAL D’ÉTÉ FRANCOPHONE DE VANCOUVER Founded in 1990, Vancouver’s celebration of everything French and francophone-related has proven to be one of the city’s enduring multicultural events, hosting over the years everyone from country renegades Fringants Cowboys to alternative chanteuse Coeur de Pirate.

This year’s edition spotlights headliner Alpha Yaya Diallo, with a genrespanning support cast that starts with Cassandra Dubuc, Agathe Riopel, and Gabriel Dubreuil & Early Spirit. Important details: June 13 to 23 at various locations; see lecentreculturel.com/ for full details. Fan profile: Frenchculture enthusiasts who’d be just as happy hanging out in a Montreal café with Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin as with Teenagers and Voivod.

RED TRUCK BEER’S TRUCK STOP CONCERT SERIES Truth be told, we don’t really need an excuse to hang out at the Red Truck Brewery—if you’ve tried its world-beating Mexican Lager, you know why. That makes the brewery’s Truck Stop Concert Series a nobrainer destination, the headliners for 2019’s announced weekend shows consisting of Current Swell (June 15) and Devin Dawson (July 20), with an announcement coming soon for August. Important details: June 15, July 20, and August 11 at Red Truck Brewery; visit www.truckstopconcertseries. com/ for the full schedule and ticket info. Fan profile: Craft-beer-nation members whose good taste in suds is matched by their good taste in music.

And if the Mexican Lager isn’t enough of a magnet, the Truck Stop Concert Series will also feature stalwarts like the Matinee, Dirty Radio, the Abrams, Old Soul Rebel, and JoJo Mason.

TD VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL If you’ve seen the excellent and essential PBS miniseries Jazz by documentary ace Ken Burns, then you’re probably able to connect the dots between the past and the present. As much as the genre is associated with giants like Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis, it’s also deeply woven into the careers of hiphop renegades like the Roots and the mighty Wu-Tang Clan. That’s another way of saying that jazz is pretty much whatever the forward-thinking artist of your choice chooses to make of it.

As always, one of the city’s most iconic cultural events doesn’t lack for choice, spotlighting acts that swing from King Ayisoba and Mats Gustafsson to our city’s own Snotty Nose Rez Kids and Ben Rogers. Add appearances by living legend Herbie Hancock, as well as the Roots and Wu-Tang Clan, and you’ve got every reason to feel sorry for those who say they don’t understand jazz. Important details: June 22 to July 1 at various locations; visit www.coastaljazz.ca/ for the full schedule and ticket info. Fan profile: Openminded adventurers who are as at home at Frankie’s Jazz Club as they are

Legendary hip-hop crew the Wu-Tang Clan is one of the big draws at this year’s TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

at Fortune Sound Club. And, thanks to the more than 150 free shows that will be offered around the city, a small army of new jazz converts.

FVDED IN THE PARK Somewhere along the way, some bright visionary realized that it makes more sense to bring a major multiday music festival to the people than to expect people to road-trip to far-flung locales like Pemberton or the Gorge. Now one of the province’s premier festivals, FVDED in the Park straddles EDM and hip-hop with a lineup that includes R&B revisionist Khalid, house giant Zedd, Great White North upstart Tory Lanez, and hip-hop traditionalist French Montana. Important details: July 5 and 6 at Holland Park in Surrey; visit fvdedinthepark.com/ for ticket prices and full lineup. Fan profile: Urban music is now king in pop culture, with EDM riding shotgun. That’s another way of saying that FVDED in the Park’s target audience understands that two turntables and a microphone, not to mention an Apple laptop, trump a guitar every time.

WEST 4TH AVENUE KHATSAHLANO STREET PARTY Once upon a time, Vancouver’s independent music scene was something that incubated in all-ages halls and onthe-fringe clubs like the Hungry Eye and the Smilin’ Buddha. Today, local music is one of the main draws of the wildly successful West 4th Avenue Khatsahlano Street Party, where seemingly half of Vancouver shows up not only for performances on multiple stages, but also for art installations, beer gardens, kids’ areas, yoga classes, and cooking demonstrations. Nearly 40 acts play this year’s edition, with headlining duties held down by indierock progressives Hey Ocean!, worldmusic masters the Boom Booms, and dream-pop upstarts Harlequin Gold.

Important details: July 6 on West 4th Avenue; go to khatsahlano.com/ for the full schedule. Fan profile: A marquee summer event that has featured everyone from the Evaporators and Pointed Sticks to the Poppy Family and Slow, Khatsahlano draws more than 160,000 folks to West 4th Avenue for its blocks-spanning free party. That means pretty much everyone not only is invited, but shows up.

VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL One of the most fascinating things about pop music is that it’s constantly in a state of reinvention.

Folk music isn’t immune, thanks to such renegades and visionaries as Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, and Fleet Foxes.

In recent years, one of the biggest strengths of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival has been the way it’s been open

KALEIDOSCOPE ARTS FESTIVAL Billing itself as an urban street festival—and located steps away from beautiful Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam—Kaleidoscope will include headliners indie-pop vets Current Swell, Winnipeg’s genre-jumping Royal Canoe and Hamilton’s rootsrevisionist Terra Lightfoot. Throw in visual artists Richard Tetrault and Sandeep Johal, an artisan market, craft beer and spirits, and food trucks galore, and you’ve got something that proves you don’t have to live in Yaletown or off Main to consider yourself urban. Important details: August 10 at Town Centre Park in Coquitlam; go to coquit lam.ca/ for full details. Fan profile: Given the musical territory covered by the headliners, those whose iPod playlists swing from Prince to Neil Young to Leadbelly.

WESTWARD MUSIC FESTIVAL Thanks to the Westward Music Festival, gone are the days when Vancouver music fans had to look longingly at out-of-town extravaganzas like Toronto’s Canadian Music Week and Austin’s South by Southwest. Now in its third year, Westward will have some of the city’s most beloved venues (the Vogue, Fortune Sound Club, the Fox Cabaret, and the Biltmore) hosting a killer lineup that starts with multiplethreat Japanese rapper Joji, Aussie new folkies the Paper Kites, Brooklyn’s MC Leikeli47, and locally spawned titans Black Mountain. Important details: September 12 to 15 at various venues; go to westwardfest.com/ for the full schedule and ticket info. Fan profile: RICHMOND WORLD FESTIVAL Proud West Coasters who’ve realized SEA TO SKY GONDOLA FRIDAY The Richmond World Festival has that sometimes you don’t have to leave SUNSET MUSIC SERIES You know what sounds better than the never lacked a cool factor, with past home for a multiday blowout. way that 98 percent of us spend adventurous headliners including altpop mixologist Lights, Asian rap revo- SQUAMISH WIND FESTIVAL If our Friday nights in the city? That lutionary Verbal Jint, and Brooklyn there’s an upside to an entire genera- would be hanging out at the Sea DIY sensations Matt and Kim. Add tion being frozen out of the Vancouver to Sky Gondola’s majestic Summit alumni like Dear Rouge and Walk Off real-estate market, it’s that satellite Lodge as the sun sets on one of the the Earth, as well as a global-village communities have not only been re- most beautiful spots in the world. area, artisan marketplace, food trucks, vitalized, but in some cases taken off Because music makes everything and a cavalcade of local talent. Watch from an arts and culture perspective. better, the Sunset Music Series marfor an official announcement of this The Squamish Wind Festival includes ries an already idyllic setting with year’s headliners later this June. Im- art installations and cinematic special acts ranging from the gorgeous inportant details: Labour Day weekend events, but the big draw is a musical die folk of the Ruff led Feathers to at Minoru Park in Richmond; watch lineup that includes Victoria’s deserv- fiddle ace Jocelyn Pettit. Importrichmondworldfestival.com/ for the edly revered Jon and Roy, with the ant details: Friday nights from dates and full lineup. Fan profile: Bar- undercard including Old Soul Rebel, June 24 to September 16 at the Sea gain hunters with an appetite for the Norman Foote, and John Welsh & Los to Sky Gondola’s Summit Lodge; kind of artists you normally have to Valientes. Important details: July 18 go to seatoskygondola.com/ for the shell out a day’s barista wages to catch. to 20 at Junction Park in Squamish; full lineup and ticket info. Fan Yes, the Richmond World Festival is go to squamishwindfestival.com/ for profile: Anyone looking for one free, which—assuming you don’t live the full schedule and ticket info. Fan more reason to be profoundly glad in the city—makes the trip across the profile: Anyone—which is to say all to live here. bridge for this year’s program of over of us—currently on the hunt for a 150 scheduled acts doubly worthwhile. place to live that matches the beauty MISSION FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL of Vancouver, but with a considerably Now in its impressive 32nd year, SQUAMISH CONSTELLATION FES- reduced price tag. the Mission Folk Music Festival TIVAL The Constellation Festival offers continues to appeal to traditionalone of the most spectacular settings of VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL ists while expanding the horizons the summer season, with the event tak- GUITAR FESTIVAL Who among of the open-minded. Those who ing place at Squamish’s Hendrickson us hasn’t dreamed of spending remember when Greenwich VilField in the shadow of the mighty Sta- an afternoon hanging with Jack lage was folk’s ground zero won’t wamus Chief. Dreamed up by a group White, Jimmy Page, the Edge, and want to miss the Yukon’s Diyet that includes long-time Vancouver in- Keith Richards? To get an invite and the Love Soldiers, while world die-music champion Tamara Stanners, to that kind of party, you’ll have travellers will get a chance to lose the inaugural edition sees Bahamas, to master the guitar first, and the themselves in the sounds of CuSerena Ryder, Wintersleep, Jesse Reyez, Vancouver International Guitar ban export Wil Campa y Su Orand A Tribe Called Red joined by A-list Festival is a great one-stop step- questra. Headliner Geoff Berner locals like Peach Pit, Dear Rouge, Art ping stone to six-string immortal- promises plenty of righteous inD’Ecco, and the Boom Booms. And ity. In addition to artists including dignation tempered with biting then there’s that setting, which would Don Ross, Paul Pigat, and Jamie humour, while Saskatchewan’s be reason enough to show up even if Stillway, there are luthier work- Zachary Lucky makes a perfect you’d never heard of gold-standard shops, a guitar exhibition, and soundtrack for escaping the sumundercard acts like Half Moon Run, instrument demos. Important de- mer heat under a towering cedar Foxwarren, Fast Romantic, and Cosmo tails: June 29 and 30 at the Creek- tree. Important details: July 26 Sheldrake. Important details: July 26 to side Community Centre; go to van to 28 at Fraser River Heritage 28 at Hendrickson Field in Squamish; couverguitarfestival.com/ for the Park in Mission; go to missionvisit constellationfest.ca/ for the full full schedule and ticket info. Fan folkmusicfestival.ca/ for the full schedule and ticket info. Fan profile: profile: Professional pickers who lineup and ticket info. Fan proRoadtrippers who couldn’t be more can play Van Halen’s “Eruption” file: Folk fans looking to trade thrilled about getting in on the ground blindfolded, amateurs determined the roar and congestion of the city floor of a festival with big plans not only to progress beyond “Louie Louie”, for something a little more, well, and everyone in between. for this year, but also for the future. folksy. g

to artists that don’t necessarily sound like the coffeehouses of Greenwich Village circa 1962. To that end, while P.E.I.’s Irish Mythen and Vancouver’s mighty John Reischman and the Jaybirds might fall under the umbrella of traditionalists, this year’s headliners also include Canuck alt-pop hitmakers the Sam Roberts Band, alt-country outlaw Corb Lund, and chamber-pop chanteuse Basia Bulat. Important details: July 19 to 21 at Jericho Beach Park; visit thefestival.bc.ca/ for the full schedule and ticket info. Fan profile: Folks of the opinion that few things in this world will ever match the game-changing brilliance of Bob Dylan’s Newport Folk Festival appearance in 1965.

JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 37

from page 32

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.

JOKES PLEASE! Standup comedy show hosted by Ross Dauk. Jun 13, 9-10:40 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $10.

FRIDAY, JUNE 14 UNDERSTANDING NORTHWEST COAST INDIGENOUS JEWELRY Launch of Alex Dawkins’s debut book. Jun 14, 5-7 pm, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art. TREVOR NOAH The Daily Show host and standup comedian. Jun 14, 7 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

FALSE CREEKS AND GEEKS GSI’s highschool TV improv show. Jun 14, 8 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $8/10.

STRAY As part of the Pi Provocateur Series, Theatre Conspiracy presents Tanya Marquardt’s true story of a girl who runs away and finds herself. Jun 14-15, 8 pm, Progress Lab 1422. $22.

SATURDAY, JUNE 15 LANGARA COMMUNITY DAY Celebrate Langara College’s 49th anniversary Jun 15, 11 am–5 pm, Langara College. Free.

BURNABY CHALK ART EXPERIENCE Local and international street painters. Jun 15, 11 am–5 pm, Bonsor Recreation Complex.

Free.

BIG BEACH’N ART SHOW Visual artist Mo Sherwood’s latest surf-art collection will be on display at Barney’s on Granville for the next few months and this is the kickoff party! Canvas beach-hut paintings, sexy wood art and digital prints will be on sale. DJ-CJ will be spinning some surf/ rock ‘n’ roll records, so come have a drink and check out some Mo Art!! Jun 15, 6 pm, Caffe Barney. Free.

SPOKEN INK Seven writers share their poetry and prose inspired by the works of Kathleen McGiveron and Fiona Tang. Jun 15, 7-9 pm, Burnaby Arts Council Deer Lake Gallery. Free.

BLOODFEUD Standup comedy versus improv. Jun 15, 7:30-10 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $10/12.

PERGOLESI STABAT MATER The West End Chamber Choir celebrates its 10th anniversary with music from the 18th to the 21st century. Jun 15, 8 pm, Coal Harbour Community Centre. $20.

FUTURE The Erato Ensemble performs works

by Luciano Berio and Harry Somers. Jun 15, 8 pm, Orpheum Annex. $30/19.99.

THE COMIC STRIP Standup comedy by Jacob Samuel, Gina Harms, and headliner Jane Stanton. Jun 15, 9 pm, Tyrant Studios. $18.

SUNDAY, JUNE 16 MERAVIGLIA D’AMORE: THE WONDER OF LOVE An afternoon of 17th-century Italian love songs and music. Jun 16, 2 pm, Hycroft. $25/10.

BURNABY LYRIC OPERA Program includes highlights from Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier. Jun 16, 3 pm, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. $15.

JNT COMEDY SHOW Andrew Packer hosts a cannabis-based comedy show. Jun 16, 8 pm, Cannabis Culture Headquarters. $10.

THE SCRAWNY SHOW Standup comedy show featuring headliner Jane Stanton. Jun 16, 8 pm, ANZA Club. $10.

MONDAY, JUNE 17 QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL Nearly 100 artists gather to dissemble, push, and transgress. Jun 17-28, Roundhouse Community Arts Centre.

HOPE MATTERS Launch of a collaborative poetry collection by writer Lee Maracle and her daughters Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter. Jun 17, 7 pm, Massy Books. Free.

THE LAUGH GALLERY Graham Clark hosts a weekly comedy show with trivia and prizes.

Jun 17, 9 pm, Havana Theatre. $5.

CURRENT SWELL

TUESDAY, JUNE 18 ART PARTY! The Queer Arts Festival’s opening party. Jun 18, 7 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19 CURITUS: THE EXHIBIT Gallery fundraiser features canvas prints from around the world and live music from the Maria Ho jazz quartet.

Jun 19, 5-10 pm, VSO School of Music. $22.

LUDOVICO EINAUDI Italian pianist and composer. Jun 19, 7:30 pm, Orpheum Theatre. $39/49/69/99/125/135/149/159.

IMPROV AGAINST HUMANITY: MAPLE MAGIC The Fictionals celebrate everything hilarious and horrible about the Great White North. Jun 19, 8-9:30 pm, Rio Theatre. $12.

THURSDAY, JUNE 20 MATRIARCHS UPRISING Celebration of contemporary dance by female Indigenous artists.

Jun 20-22, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $30/22.

DON GIOVANNI UBC Opera Ensemble presents Mozart’s iconic dark comedy. Jun 20-23, UBC Old Auditorium. $15-45.

TANIS HELLIWELL Author speaks about her book High Beings of Hawaii. Jun 20, 6:30-8 pm, Banyen Books and Sound. Free.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21 CONCORD PACIFIC DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL North America’s flagship dragon boat festival. Jun 21-23, Concord Pacific Place, Creekside Park, and the waters of False Creek. Free.

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

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T he

S ’ R E T T A M AD H Friday, June 28

Tea Party

The Metro Hall, 759 Carnarvon Str. New Westminster

Join Sketch Williams and friends on a theatrical journey celebrating the release of his 10th album “The Mad Hatter” An evening 0f 1920’s speakeasy entertainment.

www.spectrumevents.ca

MUSIC

The Vicious Cycles MC gets revved up d THE VICIOUS CYCLES MC’s new album, Motorcycho, has more nuns than you would expect.

The video for the lead single, “Hot Dogs in the City”, sees the band leaping on its motorcycles to feast at What’s Up? Hot Dog!. Also dining there are four nuns, who find themselves the object of Nardwuar’s enthusiasms. (He thrusts a Subhumans record at them, and a copy of the Singing Nun LP.) And if four nuns aren’t enough, there is also a song on the album called “Truck Stop Nun”.

So what’s with all the nuns?

Reached at home late on a Monday night, bassist Rob Wright—no, not Nomeansno’s Rob Wright—chuckles at the question. “I think we were just trying to think of a fun creative concept for ‘Hot Dogs’. And credit to Billy [Vicious Cycles’ frontman Billy Bones]—he really kind of directed that video. And then ‘Truck Stop Nun’ is actually a cover of a legendary, fucked-up punk band from Newfoundland, called Da Slyme. Their version was sort of reimagined by the Von Zippers—who I think are sorta defunct or on hiatus now, but they’re a long-running garage-punk band from Calgary.” (Their drummer, James Hayden, would go on to produce the Vicious Cycles’ first demo and occasionally fill in on drums.)

“They did a cover of ‘Truck Stop Nun’. This is basically our cover of their cover. We love the Von Zippers.

They’re one of our favourite bands.”

If nuns aren’t your cup of tea, there’s also “If It Looks Like a Cop”.

It’s an indisputably anticop song, but you’d figure that maybe their shared use of motorcycles would allow for some bonding between the Vicious Cycles and the police force, no?

“I haven’t had that personal experience,” Wright answers, “but I’m one of the guys in the band who doesn’t own a motorcycle. I just own a minibike! So, I mean, if a cop pulled up next to me on my minibike, maybe we could have a bonding experience if he was on a minibike as well.”

That brings us to the album title’s inspiration, Norman “Motorcycho” Anderson, whom Wright describes as the “spiritual leader” of the band.

“He’s so entrenched in motorcycle culture and community, in Vancouver and, I think, kind of around the world, through his fanzine and just with all of his friends everywhere. He really keeps us connected in that world. He’s been riding motorcycles and doing motorcycle clubs since the late 1970s.”

Anderson has evolved from playing “just theremin and tambourine, and, like, screaming into the mike a lot” to being the band’s keyboardist.

But what does he actually listen to, anyhow? “Norman loves punk rock,” Wright says. “He grew up, I think, like, on ’70s biker rock and hard rock, but he loves Davie Allan and the Arrows and ’60s garage stuff and surf music. He’s a rocker at heart!”

There’s a lot more to be said about Motorcycho—it’s the band’s debut on street-punk label Pirates Press Re- It has been noted that the Vicious Cycles cords, for example, making the Vi- MC seems to have a thing for nuns. cious Cycles labelmates of bands like Cock Sparrer, CJ Ramone, and Ran- pigeonholed our whole career as cid. It was produced by Jesse Gander, being a side project, but in no way, and features saxophone contributions shape, or form has it ever been that from Melissa Lee of the Beladeans.

But the more important detail is that it’s really a fun listen. Which is exactly what the band intends.

“We’re not the deepest band, necessarily,” Wright says. “As a general rule, we started our band as a vehicle for fun. We want people to have a good time, and our shows to be a joyous occasion. Everyone does enough thinking in the rest of their lives that this is an opportunity to kind of let loose. And we try to bring people along—we like to have that connection with our audience where they feel like they’re part of the band and we’re all in it together, you know?”

Will the band have motorcycles (or minibikes) at the WISE Hall for its record release?

“You will have to show up and find out,” Wright says mischievously.

“There’s only one way to know!”

way for us. It just happens to be that we’re in other bands as well.”

That those bands have decidedly higher profiles than Mini Mansions might be part of the problem. Shuman’s other job is playing bass with multiplatinum arena rockers Queens of the Stone Age. Mini Mansions keyboardist-singer Tyler Parkford sometimes tours as a hired gun with the Arctic Monkeys, and bassist-guitarist-drummer Zach Dawes has collaborated with everyone from the Last Shadow Puppets to Brian Wilson and Lisa Marie Presley.

Mini Mansions sounds nothing like any of those acts, the group instead mixing hyperdriven guitars

with neon-injected new-wave synths and death-disco drums.

Entirely by design, Guy Walks Into a Bar… sounds more rampedup than the band’s previous two fulllengths, Mini Mansions (2010) and The Great Pretender (2015).

“Our first two records were warmer and roomier, with lots of sonic space,” Shuman says. “We wanted this one to have harder edges. Because the lyrical content was so direct, focused, and vulnerable, we wanted everything right in front of your face. The lyrics kind of hit you right in the forehead, so the music had to as well.”

Those lyrics tell the story of a relationship Shuman was in while writing see next page

by Allan MacInnis

The Vicious Cycles MC plays the WISE Hall on Saturday (June 15).

MINI MANSIONS IS MUCH MORE THAN A SIDE PROJECT d WHAT MAKES Michael Shuman proudest about Mini Mansions’ new Guy Walks Into a Bar… is that the album may finally torpedo the notion that the group he’s played in for a decade is something he only does in his downtime.

“We’ve been a band for 10 years, and we’re still kind of creeping along to gain a fan base,” the singer and multi-instrumentalist says, reached on his cell in a tour van headed to Detroit. “We haven’t really garnered a lot of success for much of that time, so it’s been like, ‘Well, are we doing something wrong?’ We’ve also been

Centennial Theatre Presents

Shari Ulrich

Celebrating the release of her new album

Back To Shore

Tuesday June 18th | 7:30 pm

Photo by pinkmonkeyphoto.com

Artwork by David Graff – Guilt Studio

Tickets $35/$30 tickets.centennialtheatre.com 604.984.4484

2300 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver

JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 39

from previous page

Guy Walks Into a Bar…, operating as an accurate account of what went right at the beginning, and wrong at the end. The front half of the album does a brilliant job of capturing the delirious emotions that a new relationship brings.

The blast of sonic adrenaline that is “I’m in Love” helps set things up with “I get a feeling like I’m fucked in the head.” But lust and love eventually give way to a different reality, and “Hey Lover” ends with “Just keep walking, I can take the pain.”

“It was a difficult time, but half of it was amazing,” Shuman says. “That’s kind of how the record plays out—the beginning was fun and loving and romantic, and then things happened and went down a path that you don’t see it going down, as is the case with life. There’s always ups and downs, as there are in making records. The good thing was that we actually had meaning behind these songs. There was real substance to base the lyrics off of rather than us just making up things out

of thin air. Instead of creating stories, we had a real story. In some ways this was the easiest record we ever made, because the lyrics came naturally.”

by Mike Usinger

Mini Mansions plays the Biltmore Cabaret on June 21.

ULRICH FINDS ACCEPTANCE AND SELF-FORGIVENESS d ITS TOPICS run from the joy that California-born Shari Ulrich still finds in her adopted country (“Canada”) to the sorrows that accompany losing a loved one to dementia (“The Sweater”), but mostly the Bowen Island–based songwriter’s new record, Back to Shore, is about acceptance. Acceptance of the past, mostly, as can be heard in “A Bit of Forgiveness”, which owns up to old mistakes while offering a sense of time as a healer.

That’s an interpretation that the 67-year-old Ulrich readily agrees with.

“Well, I definitely am somebody who

is plagued by regret—regret of hurting others, or of being careless or thoughtless,” she says in a telephone conversation from Eugene, Oregon, where she’s visiting family. “And I’m realizing that that theme not only keeps popping up in songs as a subject, but also as a phrase here or there, as it runs through my life. I do think that forgiveness and self-forgiveness are really important elements in perhaps not writing about those things anymore.”

She laughs, sounding happy and relaxed—an assessment, she adds, that would be entirely correct.

“I do find that this is my favourite time of life,” she points out. “And in some ways it’s a return to my youth, to my 18-year-old self, who was completely free to explore and hop on my bike and ride from point A to point B, having no idea what point B was. There’s just this sense of liberation, having reached this age. After having had to look after creatures and humans for a long time, I don’t have to worry about anyone. Of course, I always worry about other

people’s welfare, but you know what I mean: I’m not looking after them.

I’m not feeding and watering them, whether they’re a dog or a human.

So it’s a very liberating time.”

Family connections remain strong for Ulrich: her multi-instrumentalist daughter, Julia Graff, plays in her band and coproduced Back to Shore. “I have my own years and years of experience that I bring to it, and they have a much more current approach, and more technical knowledge,” Ulrich says of Graff and her partner, audio engineer James Perrella. “They’re also both incredibly fast, which works well with my temperament, ’cause I’m not a particularly patient person. So recording is much more efficient than it used to be, especially with them.”

Multigenerational collaboration on-stage as well as in the studio is also an important discovery for the experienced Ulrich, whose credits include work with Pied Pumkin, the Hometown Band, UHF, and the High Bar Gang. She’s particularly happy to have multi-instrumentalist Scott Smith playing electric guitar, pedal steel, and Dobro in her band.

“What he contributes is so special,” she says. “It becomes a very integral part of the tune, just his very tasty little intros and themes that he ends up creating just spontaneously. And his Dobro-playing is the thing that I find heartbreakingly beautiful.”

The result, Ulrich adds, is that she’s delighted to be back in the studio, and now on the road. “I’ve never loved it more,” she says.

“You’d think I’d get tired of music, but it’s just the opposite. I’m so excited about what it does for people, and how much fun it is to make, and how much I love the people I play with and work with. It’s all very positive—and it’s good to have some positive in this wacky world.”

GRAFTICIAN HAS LITTLE TIME FOR HEARTS AND FLOWERS

d THE LAST TIME we spoke to the multitalented Roxanne Nesbitt, she was wearing a potter’s smock and inventor’s goggles, having recently devised and fired an array of ceramic “symbiotic instruments”. Meant to alter the sound of extant musical implements, they’re placed on top of a piano’s strings or a drum skin to extract strange, grainy oscillating noises, and they made their debut at the Western Front last year.

Today, though, the Prairie-born, Vancouver-based performer has donned—metaphorically, at least—a pop musician’s bright garb, and her musical focus has changed substantially. This weekend, Nesbitt’s electropop project Graftician will release Mandarins, its first vinyl offering after two online-only LPs, and her sound sculptures are absent from the mix.

“I guess that’s kind of a matter of timing,” she tells the Straight, on the line from her Grandview-Woodlands home. “I hadn’t really started working on my ceramic instruments when I was recording this collection of songs, so they’re not present yet. So there’s just a drum that I stretched strings over in one of the songs.”

Instead, what we get is a moody but beautiful collage of ambient beats, breathy vocals, and words that dwell on that eternal pop topic, love. Or, rather, the improbability and ephemerality of love. Mandarins is largely addressed to an absent or faithless lover, and Nesbitt confirms that she’s not interested in taking a hearts-and-flowers approach to the deepest of human emotions “I guess the idea is that things don’t last,” she explains. “Like, nothing lasts, and how I feel now doesn’t last, and where I am now with other people is also something that is fleeting and fluid.”

She doesn’t sound sad saying this.

by Alexander Varty If anything, the realization has convinced her that music and art are as Shari Ulrich plays the Centennial Theatre on close as any of us come to eternity, see page 42

Tuesday (June 18).

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

Scan to confess I confess I love being single And it amazes me how many people out there, both male and female jump in and out of relationships, never taking even a few months of “me” time and enjoying their own space/freedom. A lot of sad, insecure people out there.

IPAs Why would anyone drink a bitter IPA? Beer is already bitter!

I would rather have a lager or a sweet beer. Like Hoegarrden or Kronenberg 1664 or Fruli. Actually anything from Belgium would be amazing. Such great tasting beer! Those Belgium’s know how to brew!

Advice I have been reading confession after confession from women about not being able to meet men and I am going to offer my advice. I think because of the online dating world people now have so many more options. In my day... (con’t @straight.com)

Surprise surprise Sorry to disappoint you, but yes, in your very long absence I grew a backbone. I’m not your beck-and-call girl. If you want to see me, you need to treat me with the respect I deserve, and not expect that I’m just sitting around waiting for your call.

It is time I did mushrooms a few times in high school. Then I didn’t touch them for about 15 years. I have tried them again a few times over the past year or so and... (con’t @straight.com)

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North Vancouver Physiotherapy northvancouverphysio.ca

an idea wittily encapsulated in her use of samples recycled from another aspect of her multifaceted persona: classical composer.

“Three of the songs have samples from a quartet that I wrote, like, 10 years ago,” she says of her source material, scored for cello, bass, harp, and trumpet and intended to accompany dancers. “It was my first project out of music school where I was composing—and it was kind of like a huge nightmare! I didn’t have any funding, but I just had this idea in my mind that I needed to make this project no matter what.

And then it kind of just got forgotten, and I moved away and went to architecture school.

“I kind of rediscovered it last year at a residency at the Banff Centre, so I started sampling it in these songs,” she adds. “It’s a bit of a strange sound palette, but the harp and the trumpet come through pretty clearly—and you can also hear the movement of dancers in

some of the samples, very, very subtly.”

While Nesbitt’s music is indeed subtle, some of her lyrics are decidedly pointed. On “The Bitterness”, for instance, she tells an ex “May the bitterness/make your story rich/May you taste coffee and chocolate/when you’re talking shit.”

Sugar and sweet oranges also factor into her verbal imagery; if her sounds are abstract, her poetry is juicily physical.

“Yeah, there is a lot of food in this album!” she says, laughing. “I guess it’s just about finding something familiar that, hopefully, can connect to everyone. We all know that coffee and chocolate are bitter, but we also know that they’re amazing and powerful. So I’m just trying to say ‘Hey, let your negativity be amazing and powerful, and I hope that that helps you out.’ ”

MUSIC

Judas Priest frontman confronts concert cretins

R

by Mike Usinger

obert John Arthur Halford deserves no shortage of accolades for the many laudable things he’s done during his 67 years on planet Earth.

Start with the fact that, before signing on as the frontman of Judas Priest, he earned a paycheque as the manager of a porn cinema, his main achievement being showing up for work. During a Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction session with Loudwire in 2014, he described the theatre in question as having three chairs occupied by guys who’d sit there shakby Alexander Varty ing hands with the milkman before baby-battering a shag-carpeted floor Graftician plays the Cultch on Friday (June 14). that crunched when walked upon.

And you thought everything released by Metallica after…And Justice for All was horrific.

As the frontman for Judas Priest, Halford managed to make metal sound legitimately menacing, to the point where the band ended up in court in 1990, accused of planting subliminal messages in songs that led two Nevada kids to kill themselves by shotgun.

And after spending years hiding his sexuality, the singer came out as a gay man in a world where the majority of his fans were specimens straight out of the ode-to-skidculture documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Doubly admirable is that Halford navigated the ’80s without ever pulling on pink spandex tights and a black fishnet tank top, something that, incredibly, was considered socially acceptable thanks to the unrepentant hair farmers of Mötley Crüe, Cinderella, Warrant, and Winger.

Today, Halford proudly describes himself as “the stately homo of heavy metal”. And while that title may fit, a just as noble one would be the Patron Saint of Everyone Who’s Ever Stood Near a Concert Cretin.

Said cretins come in many forms, from those who show up at Cat Power to yap away like Chatty Cathy after six cups of Kicking Mule espresso to those who decide that nothing spices up a Sarah McLachlan set like a little spirited slam dancing.

The worst are the amateur David Finchers—fuckwits who’ll spend an entire evening watching a concert through their phone screens.

It’s a strange phenomenon that speaks to a 21st-century obsession with documenting everything in life as it happens through a smartphone.

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Presumably because that will allow said videographers to relive the magic they totally missed out on the first time around in the privacy of their own homes.

In a valiant effort to get their fans to live in the moment, artists such as Tool and Jack White have taken the step of banning cellphones from their shows. (Upon arrival at the venue, potential concert cretins are required to place their iPhones, Galaxies, and HTC ThunderBolts in a hermetically sealed bag, which is then unlocked by attendants after the show.)

A couple of weeks ago, Halford took more drastic and—let’s admit it—satisfying action to make it known no one should be watching a live spectacle through anything other than the eyeballs generously provided to them by God. You might have seen the singer take matters into his own hands when a concert cretin in the front row celebrated his StubHub purchase by firing up the phone and then turning on the video light for a bit of extra illumination.

Rather than issue a polite request that the offender enjoy Judas Priest the old-school way—with a feathered roach clip, unwashed jean jacket, and warm mickey of lemon gin—Halford instead chose the nuclear option, karate-kicking the device out of the amateur videographer’s hands into Row 10.

We’re talking a fucking toe punt that would have impressed Lui Passaglia, Jan Stenerud, and Crispin Glover as seen on Late Night With David Letterman.

In doing so, Halford sent concertgoers everywhere an important and timely message, namely that there’s no point standing there fuming while being annoyed by some inconsiderate asswipe when you’re out at a live show. Instead, the way to solve the problem of Chatty Charlies, iPhone filmmakers, space invaders, and idiots wearing fully stuffed backpacks is to give them a good fucking swift kick. As Nike might say, Just Do It. If the singer of Judas Priest gets applauded for it, so will you.

Thank you, Rob Halford. Of all the accolades you’ve received, this one might be the one that’s most deserved. g Judas Priest plays the Abbotsford Centre on Monday (June 17).

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MUSIC LISTINGS

CONCERTS JUST ANNOUNCED NORTH SHORE JAZZ From June 21-July 1, The BlueShore at CapU will present North Shore Jazz in partnership with the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, including Antonio Sánchez & Migration (June 26), Greg Brown (June 27) and Gary Comeau and the Voodoo Allstars (June 30), as well as hosting free weekend concerts across the North Shore. Jun 21–Jul 1, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts.

Ticket price varies by show.

LA FÊTE DE LA MUSIQUE Join the Fête de la Musique 2019: a unique outdoor live music show on June 21st! Free entrance.

Three bands coming from Quebec and local artists will perform on stage for this exceptional evening. French food and drinks will be sold on site. A family-friendly event not to be missed! Jun 21, 5-9:30 pm, Alliance Française. Free.

KHATSAHLANO STREET PARTY More than 50 local bands and artists perform on multiple outdoor stages. Jul 6, 11 am–9 pm, West 4th Avenue. Free.

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.

CRUMB Brooklyn-based psych-rock/jazz band, with guests Divino Niño. Sep 28, 9 pm, Hollywood Theatre. Tix on sale Jun 14, 10 am, $21.

YOKE LORE American indie-pop singersongwriter, aka Yellerkin and Walk the Moon.

Oct 10, 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix on sale Jun 14, 10 am, $39.50.

THE LEGENDARY DOWNCHILD BLUES BAND Canadian blues veterans, with local guest Jim Byrnes. Oct 17, 8 pm, River Rock Show Theatre.

Tix on sale Jun 14, 10 am, $59.50/49.50.

BIG SUGAR Canadian blues-rockers, featuring singer-guitarist Gordie Johnston. Nov 9, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Jun 14, 10 am, $39.50.

RAT BOY Indie-rock/hip-hop artist from England. Nov 16, 7:30 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix on sale Jun 14, $15.

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

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.

CONNAN MOCKASIN Singer-songwriter from New Zealand. Jun 12, 9 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $20.

14 1

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

THE HEAVY Indie-rock quartet from England.

Jun 13, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $30.

FRIDAY, JUNE 14 BAILEN Melodic pop band featuring siblings Daniel, David, and Julia Bailen. Jun 14, 8 pm, WISE Hall. $12.

JUSTIN LACROIX & ARNAUD GRANOUX Performances as part of Festival d’été francophone. Jun 14, 8-10 pm, Studio 16. $10-20.

THE GATHERING Vancouver synth-pop postpunk band. Jun 14, 8:30 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $10.

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

TRUCK STOP CONCERT SERIES Red Truck Beer presents performances by Current Swell, Freak Motif, Dirty Radio, Dino DiNicolo, Wooden Horsemen, and Soul Rebel. Jun 15, Truck Stop (Red Truck Brewery).

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

LANGARA COLLEGE COMMUNITY DAY Free community festival features a performance by local guitar-rock greats 54-40. Jun 15, 11 am–5 pm, Langara College. Free.

BREAKOUT FESTIVAL Hip-hop festival features performanes by A$AP Rocky, Rae Sremmurd, Lil Baby, gunna, Rich the Kid, and Saweetie. Jun 15-16, 3-10 pm, PNE Amphitheatre. Single-day tix $99-149.

THE VICIOUS CYCLES Punk-rockers play an album release party, with guests the Mandates, Sandstorm, and Dead Cells. Jun 15, 8-11:55 pm, WISE Hall. $12.

SUNDAY, JUNE 16 DUMB Vancouver’s favourite postpunk nerds have a new LP. Jun 16, 8 pm, Red Gate. $10.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12

U JUNE JJU

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

MONDAY, JUNE 17 JUDAS PRIEST Heavy-metal legends from Britain, with guests Uriah Heep. Jun 17, 7:30 pm, Abbotsford Centre. $109.50/89.50/59.50.

LANY Indie-pop band from L.A. plays tunes from latest album Malibu Nights. Jun 17, 7:30 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tix $49.50/39.50/29.50.

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Music

HOT TICKET

BREAKOUT FESTIVAL (June

15-16 at the PNE Amphitheatre) If you’ve been saving that deadmau5, Marshmello, or Galantis T-shirt for a special outing, this is not the occasion to roll it out. Breakout Festival proudly bills itself as “Canada’s only BI-ANNUAL all Hip-Hop music festival (no EDM)”. That means modern-day giant A$AP Rocky and Tupelo duo Rae Sremmurd anchoring a two-day blowout that also includes Lil Baby, Gunna, Rich the Kid, and Saweetie. Sorry, no Chemical Brothers, so don’t bother washing your Dig Your Own Hole hoodie.

TUESDAY, JUNE 18 ALY & AJ American pop-rock duo composed of sisters Alyson and Amanda Michalka. Jun 18, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $24.50.

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

ANDERSON .PAAK & THE FREE NATIONALS American hip-hop artist, with guests Earl Sweatshirt and Thundercats. Jun 19, 8 pm, PNE Amphitheatre. $59.50.

THURSDAY, JUNE 20 HAR MAR SUPERSTAR American soul/pop artist. Jun 20, 8 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $15.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21 TD VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL Headliners include the Wu Tang Clan, Roots, and Herbie Hancock.. Jun 21–Jul 1, various Vancouver venues.

MUSIC LISTINGSare 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.

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MOVIES

Barenaked lady not for the feint of art REVIEWS

THERE ARE NO FAKES

A documentary by Jamie Kastner.

Rated 14A

d WHAT BEGINS AS a fairly straightforward, if unusually tawdry, tale of art-world forgery eventually morphs into a disturbing encapsulation of persistent colonial exploitation.

The new doc begins with the purchase by Barenaked Ladies’ Kevin Hearn—for much less than a million dollars—of a painting presumably by Ontario-born artist Norval Morrisseau. The latter brought a colour-rich Indigenous sensibility to canvas in the 1960s, when representa-

tion in popular culture, let alone the art world, was almost nonexistent.

An Anishinaabe residential-school survivor, Morrisseau never quite shook his Catholic upbringing, and his bisexuality perhaps added to his insider-outsider status in Canada’s creative firmament. In 1978, he was made a member of the Order of Canada, but establishment success didn’t slow his steady decline, which included alcoholism, incarceration, Parkinson’s disease, and a near-fatal house fire.

The artist himself, who died in 2007, does not come into focus in a saga that’s mostly about what happened to his art. Namely, the market became flooded by paintings that certainly resembled his flat-graphic mix of Indigenous animism and

Christian iconography. But the copies used colour and line differently, according to numerous contemporaries and art dealers on camera here.

Hearn was forced to question the provenance of his own piece when curators took down his painting after he loaned it to the Art Gallery of Ontario for a retrospective.

Also interviewed are a number of “auctioneers” who managed to dig up roughly 10 times the output Morrisseau probably created. Learning of a possible counterfeit ring, Hearn tried to get his 20 grand back, and ended up suing the dealer, who pulled a Trump, per the title, insisting that the only thing fake was the news. Indeed, his legal pursuit helped unveil a rogues’ gallery of roguish gallerists, as well as drug dealers, abused children, and sweatshop-condition imposters, all converging in the Thunder Bay area.

The last part of this nearly two-hour effort gets a bit shapeless and repetitive—odd, since whenever writer-director Jamie Kastner shows up off-camera, he’s heard asking sharply defined questions of his subjects.

The same inconsistencies, including a proclivity for true-crime reenactments, plagued the filmmaker’s earlier works, like The Skyjacker’s Tale and The Secret Disco Revolution. And yet there’s no denying that Kastner has a nose for things that helped define who we were and, sadly, are.

by Ken Eisner

ECHO IN THE CANYON

A documentary by Andrew Slater.

Rated PG

d IT’S CLEAR FROM the start that Echo in the Canyon is a labour of love for Jakob Dylan, who pursued his obsession with SoCal folk-rock with the help of first-time director Andrew Slater, former head of Capitol Records

44 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019

Barenaked Ladies keyboardist Kevin Hearn exposes a forgery in There Are No Fakes.

and also the younger Dylan’s manager.

The doc is organized around a 2015 concert that featured guests like Beck, Cat Power, Regina Spektor, and Fiona Apple joining Jakob on iconic tunes originally done by the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Beach Boys—none of them B-listers in any sense but alphabetical.

Snippets of these classics, plus rehearsals, are intercut with great archival clips and extended visits with founding Byrds Roger McGuinn and David Crosby, frequent visitors Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton, exHollie Graham Nash, and Michelle Phillips, of the Mamas and the Papas, all dreamily recalling heady days and nights in Laurel Canyon. There are also pithy observations from relative youngsters Jackson Browne and (the late) Tom Petty, who muses on the enduring influence of McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker.

Crosby would eventually take flight, alongside the rambling Nash and roaming Buffalos Stephen Stills

and Neil Young (seen wailing in the end-credit sequence), to create supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young—inexplicably not mentioned here. There’s a lot more missing. At 82 minutes, it would be hard to cover that much territory, and there’s an attempt to restrict things to the key 1965–67 era, but that makes the monochromatic exclusion of Laurel Canyon racially integrated scene leaders Love and their close followers the Doors even stranger.

Most egregious of all is the absence of Joni Mitchell, whose breakthrough album was titled, ahem, Ladies of the Canyon. Okay, maybe she represents a ’70s turn towards singer-songwriter introspection, later shared by neighbours Carole King and James Taylor.

It was Crosby who brought the Canadian there in ’67, whereupon she became close to social queen bee Mama Cass and subsequently moved with then newcomer Nash into their very, very, very fine house.

Instead, we get a lot of nice but familiar info on the mutual influences of the Beach Boys and Beatles— neither of which were Canyon dwellers. Despite his authorial interest, Dylan also makes a rather passive tour guide, and does little to establish a physical sense of the place and time. Still, it’s fascinating to even scratch the surface of a musical world this deep.

by Ken Eisner

HALSTON

A documentary by Frédéric Tcheng.

Rated PG

d THE DESIGNER known as Halston put a modern, American spin on the fashion world of the early 1970s, then still dominated by European couture. His easy-flowing fabrics, disarming in their simplicity, were a reaction to the “engineered clothes” of the period, according to the numerous colleagues interviewed here.

It’s surprising, then, that this largely fascinating documentary is marred by some fussy details of the sort he would have disdained.

Like composer Cole Porter, Roy Halston Frowick was a transplanted gay Midwesterner who came to represent the ultimate in urban refinement upon arrival in New York City (after a long stint in Chicago). Unlike tiny Porter, the tall, handsome man with one name went to the top as a milliner at Bergdorf Goodman, placing that famous pillbox hat on Jackie Kennedy’s head. When hats flew out of fashion, he launched his own line.

From there his outsized fame, and consequent business problems, began.

French writer-director Frédéric Tcheng draws on a trove of archival material, as well as a present-day coterie of Halston’s models, assistants, and celebrity pals, including Pat Cleveland, Marisa Berenson, and Liza Minnelli. They make the case that he had a keen instinct for liberating women’s fashions, and for using innovative materials, with Ultrasuede a particular marker for the pre-Reagan era. He could also be an insufferable control freak who bullied his minions into acting out his grand scenarios. “Everything had to be staged perfectly,” one cohort recalls, “including his social life.”

A PR master to rival his art-world counterpart Andy Warhol, Halston was more careless with money, trusting the corporations that bought his brand to support his lavish lifestyle and creative freedom indefinitely.

They didn’t, and the nights at Studio 54 took another kind of toll. For all the digging, Tcheng doesn’t get all that close to Halston, who died in 1990. For some reason, the filmmaker, who did fine docs on Dior and Diana Vreeland, gums up the works with a haphazard through line that finds a fictional “detective” rooting through his archives looking for clues—most of which are already out in the open.

by Ken Eisner

Savage Love

MOVIES Dylan covers Byrds in candid Canyon

R

by Adrian Mack

oger McGuinn’s importance to popular music is inestimable. And if he’s not prepared to say it, then Andrew Slater’s Echo in the Canyon will.

“At the beginning of the film,” relates the filmmaker, speaking to the Georgia Straight from San Francisco, “I state what Warren Zevon said to me, which was that if McGuinn had just played the opening notes of the Byrds’ debut album and then dropped dead, he still would have exercised the most pronounced influence over rock music.”

No argument here, even if McGuinn himself—seen frequently in the film—is too constitutionally humble to crow about it. The Byrds founder joins an impressive cast of participants to tell the story of that short but astonishingly fertile period from 1965 to ’67, when a feedback loop of creative inspiration, stretching between the U.K. and Los Angeles, produced what Slater calls “the foundation for everything that comes after”.

Among those joining McGuinn are Stephen Stills, Brian Wilson, Ringo

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Starr, and Michelle Phillips, along with auspicious fans, including Tom Petty.

It’s a story that’s been told before, but Echo in the Canyon, opening Sunday (June 16) at the Rio Theatre, still manages to mine some of the deeper history of its subject. A buff like Slater—whose career from music industry honcho to filmmaker parallels that of Mamas and Papas producer Lou Adler, also interviewed—wasn’t likely to settle for less.

Slater is hugely abetted in the project by Jakob Dylan, a magnetic presence whose easy approach prompts often very candid interviews from all concerned, no better exemplified than by David Crosby’s assertion that “all bands work their way down till it’s ‘Turn on the smoke machine and play your hits.’ ” “What he’s really saying is that bands don’t know when to stop doing it for a buck,” explains Dylan.

“But he can say that as cold as he wants to because those guys won’t play with him anymore.”

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comment on McGuinn: “Perhaps if Roger was a bigger loudmouth and bragged all the time like most do, people would have figured out his role more easily.”) Slater actually structures the film around songs chosen for their portentousness, “tent poles for the story,” and performed by Dylan with guests including Fiona Apple, Classified Header Cat Power, and Beck.

We hear the painful back story to the Mamas and Papas “Go Where You Wanna Go”, and, from a lively Stills, the fate of Buffalo Springfield predicted in Neil Young’s “Expecting to Fly”. We naturally wonder, given his skill at shaking loose these sometimes thorny tales, if Dylan’s been yakking with these folk for years.

“Most all these people I’ve known as an adult really through being an artist and meeting them across the way,” he answers. “The only one I knew when I was younger maybe was Tom Petty, but otherwise, not really.” Chuckling, he adds: “There’s a misunderstanding that I grew up with these people, like I lived in the Monkees’ house. It’s not how it was.” g

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And heaping insult on injury, RQS, Donald Fucking Trump “celebrated” Pride Month with a tweet—and you’re not only worried about a straight couple buying a little gear in a gay leather/fetish/bondage shop but you’re coming to me with this shit expecting praise? If a couple of straight people wandering into a gayowned business that’s legally obligated not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation—a law that protects queer people, too—is what you’re wasting your time on right now, RQS, with everything that’s going on, you’re a shit ally and a worse human being.

Just to make sure it was okay with Mr. S, I shared your letter with general manager Jonathan Schroder, who said: “We are owned by gay men and very explicitly market to gay men.

But everyone is welcome here.

We’re happy there are straight people who feel comfortable shopping here.” g On the Lovecast, Mistress Matisse commands you to listen to the S&M show: savagelovecast.com. Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage. ITMFA.org.

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SAVAGE LOVE

Women can help mom find male escort

by Dan Savage

b I’M A STRAIGHT cis woman in my early 40s and a single mother. I have not dated or hooked up with anyone in years. While I miss dating, the biggest issue right now is that my sex drive is off the charts. While watching porn and masturbating once my child goes to sleep helps, I really want to get well and truly fucked by a guy who knows what he’s doing. I could likely go to a bar or on Tinder and find a man for a one-night stand, but I’m hesitant to do that. To add to my complicated backstory, I have a history of childhood sexual abuse and have had only two partners in my whole life, one of whom was abusive. My past sexual forays have not been particularly satisfying, in part due to my lack of experience and comfort indicating what I do/do not like, as well as some dissociation during the actual act. I keep thinking it would be easier to find a sex worker to “scratch the itch,” as presumably a male sex worker would be more open, sex-positive, and skilled. But I have no idea how I might go about it or what the procedure or etiquette is. And I am fearful that I could get arrested given the illegality of soliciting in my conservative southern state. Getting in trouble could have devastating effects on my life, and I would definitely lose my job. I am trying to weigh the pros and cons, but I feel out of my depth.

Any advice for a gal who wants to get fucked but is not sure how to make that happen in a safe-ish space?

past, the answer would have been ‘Google’,” said John Oh, a Sydney-based male sex worker for women. “But in a post-SESTA/FOSTA world, that route is now unreliable—especially in the United States, where advertising on the web is far more difficult.”

SESTA/FOSTA—the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act/Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act”—is a 2018 law that was crafted, backers said (backers lied), to fight sex trafficking.

It made it a crime for web platforms to knowingly or unknowingly allow someone to post a sex ad. The law is so vague that platforms like Craigslist, Tumblr, and Facebook purged sexually explicit content in an effort to prevent sex workers from basically being online at all. SESTA/FOSTA’s backers claim they want to protect women—and only women—but in reality, pushing sex workers out of online spaces (where they could more effectively screen clients, share safety tips with each other, and organize politically) made sex work more dangerous, not less, and has led to more sex trafficking, not less.

But one platform—one much pilloried but still popular platform—is bucking the anti-sex-worker/antisexually-explicit-content trend.

“Twitter is still a (mostly) safe place for sex workers, and I have not heard of law enforcement using it to entrap potential clients,” John said. “So I be- Single Mom Absolutely Stupid Horny lieve that it is a reasonably safe place “In the recent

to anonymously research male sex workers. Many of us advertise there.”

Since no one knows how long Twitter will allow sex workers to use its platform, you might want to get started on that search now, SMASH. And while sex work is work, and it’s work many people freely choose to do, not everyone is good at their job.

Since your experiences with unpaid sex weren’t that great, I asked John for some tips on increasing your odds of finding a skilled male sex worker.

“Sadly, in places where sex work is criminalized, it’s harder to fi nd a suitable male sex worker,” John said, “especially for someone who needs extra special care due to trauma. I expect that for SMASH, travelling to a place where sex work is not criminalized would not be practical, but that might be an option for others.”

If travelling to Australia, where John lives and where he’s been doing sex work for nine years (legally, as sex work is decriminalized in his state of New South Wales, and legalized in much of the rest of Australia), is unrealistic, John suggests chatting with sex workers in your area—but not, at least at first, the male ones.

“Her best option may be to talk to female sex workers on Twitter and ask them for a recommendation,” John said. “This has two benefits—the first is that female workers in her general area will have local knowledge. The second is that female workers are generally very careful about endorsing

male workers. So if a few female workers suggest a male sex worker, there is a high likelihood that he will be safe, capable, and professional. But if SMASH goes this route, tipping the female workers who help her out would be polite—otherwise this would amount to asking for unpaid labour.”

You can find John Oh on Twitter @JohnOhOfSydney.

It’s not the full cost of replacing the shoes—he’s a shoe perv, not a fin sub—but it’s enough to be worth your while and it reflects the value of your old shoes. Not on the open market, but to him. b A STRAIGHT COUPLE I know that “dabbles” in kink recently visited a famous leather/fetish/bondage store with deep ties to San Francisco’s gay community (Mr. S Leather, not that it’s important). They purchased some simple bondage implements that they could just have easily ordered online from any number of stores that aren’t institutions in the gay BDSM subculture. I don’t think straight people should be barging into spaces that aren’t theirs to purchase items that were not created for them. I am not gay myself, but I try to be a good ally, and part of being a good ally is holding other straight people accountable.

b AN OLDER GUY at my gym tentatively inquired if he could ask me an “inappropriate question”. I told him he could. I’m straight, he’s pretty obviously gay, and I figured he was going to hit on me. Then he said the question was “sexual in nature” and was I sure it was okay? I said yes. He asked if he could buy the shoes I wear to the gym once they’re worn out. I know why someone would want my old shoes—he’s obviously masturbating with them— and that’s fi ne, everyone’s got their weird thing (myself included). Two - Respect Queer Space quick questions: Isn’t what he did risky? (I could easily see some other guy reacting badly.) And how much You’ve got to be kidding me with this shit, RQS. Donald Trump banned should I charge?

- Smelling Nikes Entertains A Kinky Senior trans people from the military, the Trump administration has made it It was definitely a risky ask, SNEAKS, legal for doctors and EMTs to refuse but you’re probably not the first guy to treat queer people, they’re allowing he’s approached. I imagine he has a federally funded adoption agencies hard-earned feel for who’s likely to to discriminate against same-sex react positively and who’s not (and couples, and they just shut down a few cancelled gym memberships promising research into a cure for along the way to show for it). And I’d HIV (much to the delight of religious see previous page say $20 would be fair.

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48 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 13 – 20 / 2019