The Georgia Straight - Fall Feast - Oct 5, 2017

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6 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

CONTENTS

Tsawwassen Ferry Causeway. Gord Iversen photo.

11

NEWS

In an upcoming by-election for a council seat vacated by Geoff Meggs, three candidates’ platforms point to the market as being the source of, rather than the solution to, Vancouver’s housing crisis. > BY CHARLIE SMITH

13

NEWS

The Drive, a web series chronicling life on Commercial Drive, takes a serious approach to documenting the East Van ’hood. > BY JANE T SMITH

17

CANNABIS

Flower & Freedom founder Bethany Rae brings a night of herb-centred education to Vancouver with the Elevate Experience. > BY AMANDA SIEBERT

20

START HERE 22 42 21 40 15 47 19 9 34 35

The Bottle Confessions I Saw You Movie Reviews Real Estate Savage Love Straight Stars Straight Talk Theatre Visual Arts

COVER

Local chefs share Thanksgiving tips to help make the holiday stress-free for those preparing a feast for family and friends. > BY GAIL JOHNSON

27

36 Arts 45 Music

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ARTS

Murderous Turandot is one of opera’s most difficult roles to sing. But, as we find out from a star soprano, she is also a challenge to act. > BY JANE T SMITH

37

TIME OUT

SERVICES 45 Careers 15 Real Estate GeorgiaStraight

MOVIES

Guy Maddin reinvents Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo as a dizzying romp through a century’s worth of Bay Area film clips.

@GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight

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straight talk

SAVOUR AT THE MARKET

INDIE SCHOOL CANDIDATE IS ALSO THE YOUNGEST

Adi Pick is the youngest candidate for the Vancouver school board, and she believes her age is going to be her major asset if she’s elected as education trustee.

“I’m 20 years old. I’m very active on social media. So I think if I were to get elected, then I think students will be very comfortable in, you know, tweeting me, messaging me, asking me to come to student-council meetings, because I’m somebody who’s roughly their age,” Pick told the Straight in a phone interview.

“I graduated from high school fairly recently; I understand some of their struggles,” Pick, now a UBC student of international relations, continued. “I think they just want to know that their ideas can be heard. So if we have a board [member], you know, who shows up to schools, talks to students, messages them, stuff like that, saying…‘What can we do to help? How would you like this implemented?’…then I think that would also be beneficial.”

Pick, who graduated from Magee secondary in 2014, is one of 19 candidates vying for the nine seats in contention in the October 14 school board by-election.

The independent candidate related that she was motivated to enter the race because she’s convinced that a youthful trustee will be able to engage students, especially those who are in need.

“We need to be asking our more vulnerable students, our less motivated students, our students at risk…

‘How can we boost your education?

What do you need?’ ” Pick said.

Pick earned the endorsement of another candidate, Fraser Ballantyne, when the former trustee was reached for his comment on the young woman’s bid for school board.

According to Ballantyne, who is part of the five-person slate of the Non-Partisan Association, Pick would bring a “breath of fresh air” to a new board.

The former Vancouver schoolteacher and administrator also said that Pick is a “success story about how good our system really is”.

“She’s, you know, at a young age jumping into the fray and is aware of the issues,” Ballantyne told the Straight by phone, “and I think that speaks volumes about how well the

OCTOBER 20-22

UBC international-relations student Adi Pick, 20, says she is running for school board because she thinks a young trustee willl be able to engage with students. teachers are preparing our kids for the real world.” > CARLITO PABLO

PARK BOARD STILL TRYING TO GET CONTRACTS SIGNED

A majority of community-centre associations did not comply with the September 30, 2017, deadline to sign a new deal with the Vancouver park board.

Only six of the 19 associations that were offered an updated joint operating agreement for the management of recreation centres across the city have accepted the contract.

These are the neighbourhood groups based in Marpole, Douglas Park, Strathcona, Thunderbird, Roundhouse, and Dunbar.

Ainslie Kwan is a former president of the Killarney Community Centre Society, one of the groups that did not sign the agreement over concerns it gives too much power to the park board.

“Some of the language is quite strong and does impede on our independence,” Kwan told the Straight in a phone interview.

Kwan cited as examples provisions that allow the park board to arbitrarily terminate the agreement and evict community-centre associations.

“It’s about, you know, acknowledging the 60- to 70-year relationship that we had with the park board and how do we continue to move that forward in a respectful way,” Kwan said.

The City of Vancouver has been trying since the 1990s to update its relationship with community-centre associations that deliver programs in recreation centres owned by the

municipality. Most of the agreements date back to 1979.

In 2013, the park board tried to kick out six “rebel” community associations—Killarney, Hastings, Kensington, Kerrisdale, Riley Park Hillcrest, and Sunset—but was stopped by a court injunction.

According to Kwan, communitycentre associations have received changes in the agreement that were recently proposed by park-board staff in response to concerns about the deal. The groups have sought legal advice on these amendments.

“We’re now waiting to hear back [from lawyers]…if that language is sufficient enough to satisfy the concerns that we have,” Kwan said.

At its meeting Monday (October 2), the park board received a quick update from staff about the status of the new joint operating agreements.

In an interview the day after the meeting, park commissioner Sarah Kirby-Yung said that staff are working with the communitycentre associations that have not approved the contract.

The new agreement is supposed to take effect on January 1, 2018, and community-centre associations without an agreement will likely face expulsion.

Asked what is going to happen to associations that will not enter into a deal with the park board, Kirby-Yung told the Straight by phone: “I think we’re going to end up with the majority of centres signed on to the joint operating agreement, because we’ve had some really positive response.” > CARLITO PABLO

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The Georgia Straight | Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly | Volume 51 Number 2596 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 www.straight.com Phone: 604-730-7000 / Fax: 604-730-7010 / e-mail: gs.info@straight.com Display Advertising: 604-730-7020 / Fax: 604-730-7012 / e-mail: sales@straight.com Classifieds: 604-730-7060 / e-mail: classads@straight.com Subscriptions: 604-730-7000 Distribution: 604-730-7087 EDITOR + PUBLISHER Dan McLeod ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Yolanda Stepien GENERAL MANAGER Matt McLeod EDITOR Charlie Smith SECTION EDITORS

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NEWS

Three vie for left-wing vote > BY C HA RL IE SM I TH

F

or years, Constance Barnes was a loyal member of Vision Vancouver. She was twice elected to the Vancouver park board on the party’s slate, earning more votes than any other commissioner in 2008 and 2011.

But this election, the daughter of Emery Barnes, former NDP speaker of the legislature, is not endorsing Vision Vancouver’s candidate, 21-year-old political neophyte Diego Cardona, in the October 14 citycouncil by-election. Instead, Barnes has thrown her wholehearted support behind Judy Graves, the city’s former tenant-assistance coordinator, who is making her first run for council with OneCity Vancouver.

“The thing about Judy is she’s nobullshit,” Barnes told the Georgia Straight by phone. “She doesn’t have to pound her fists on the desk. She doesn’t have to yell and scream. She doesn’t have to rant and rave. She has this ability to bring people together with this calm, collected voice of reason.”

This relaxed demeanour served Graves well as she went out in the middle of the night as a long-time city employee looking for homeless people and then helping them find shelter. Graves spearheaded the city’s first homeless count and was optimistic that Mayor Gregor Robertson would seriously address this problem when he became mayor in 2008.

But nearly 10 years later, homelessness has continued increasing as Robertson’s Vision Vancouver has largely pursued market-based solutions to sky-high housing prices and a serious shortage of rental accommodation. OneCity points out the city’s zoning bylaws outlaw building new purpose-built rental housing in about 80 percent of the city.

Barnes acknowledged that her support for Graves might “piss off” some in Vision Vancouver. “Judy has incredible respect across all political lines,” she said. “And I think she could play a very, very powerful role in the city.”

Graves has also been endorsed by the Vancouver and District Labour Council. It’s the first time since Vision Vancouver got elected that its council candidate has not received its blessing. OneCity’s left-wing credentials are burnished by its call for a luxuryproperty surtax, from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent on the wealthiest five percent of residential-property owners, as well as its proposed flipping levy— ranging from 35 percent to 50 percent of the profits—on all homes sold within three years of purchase.

“OneCity believes those who have

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OneCity council by-election candidate Judy Graves (left) has the full support of Constance Barnes, a former Vision Vancouver chair of the park board.

passively made enormous wealth off of the housing bubble should pay their fair share to help fix it,” the party declares on its website. “We’ll require real estate speculators and the wealthiest landowners to start giving back through fair surtaxes and other revenue-generating policies.”

But OneCity’s Graves isn’t the only candidate in the race who is making the case that the market is the cause of—and not the solution to—Vancouver’s housing crisis. And a crowded field of credible left-wing candidates could enable Cardona, the NPA’s Hector Bremner, or even Sensible Vancouver’s marijuana-dispensaryadvocating Mary Jean Dunsdon to win the by-election in a tight race.

Green council candidate Pete Fry has a long history as a Vancouver antigentrification neighbourhood activist and he was deeply involved in the campaign to block a controversial high-rise at 105 Keefer Street in Chinatown. In a recent video on his Facebook page, Fry points out that market rents for one-bedroom apartments exceed $2,000 per month in Vancouver, with record-low vacancy rates. One of his biggest concerns is that affordable housing stock is being replaced by unaffordable units.

“Consider this: almost 30 percent of our privately owned rental stock are in condominiums, so that’s an incredibly fragile source of housing stock,” Fry said. “We can’t just build our way out of this crisis and we can’t just expect the market to build the kind of housing we need.”

He’s calling for a renter’s office at City Hall. Fry also wants the city to define affordability in terms of average incomes in the city and not by

market-rental rates. He’s proposing a one-year moratorium on the demolition of purpose-built rental housing, as well as providing incentives to encourage more secondary suites in order to preserve character homes.

“We need to protect our existing affordable housing and we need to make sure that we’re including affordable housing in all new construction,” Fry emphasized. “We need to encourage the kind of density that builds community, not destroys neighbourhoods.”

Then there’s independent candidate Jean Swanson, a well-regarded antipoverty activist whose two main planks are a rent freeze and a mansion tax. Both would require changes to provincial legislation. According to her calculations, the city could collect $174 million per year by slapping surtaxes on homes valued at more than $5 million. That would pay for modular homes for every homeless person in the city.

“Let’s tax the rich to house the rest of us,” Swanson said in a fiery speech last month outside the $75-million mansion owned by Point Grey billionaire Chip Wilson Swanson has the backing of some influential figures on the left, including former Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies, East Van author and social activist Matt Hern, and addiction expert and author Dr. Gabor Maté. It has given her grassroots campaign significant momentum.

“For decades Jean Swanson has been an admirable, tireless advocate and organizer for a fair and just society,” Maté said in a statement. “I am glad she is running for office; her candidacy has my enthusiastic support.” -

in the 2017 Vancouver by-election for 1 Councillor and 9 School Board Trustees

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OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 11

12 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

NEWS

The Drive shows off ‘hood to atmospheric effect > BY JA NET SM IT H

F

rom locations like the Libra Room and Renzo’s Cafe to a soundtrack filled with East Van musicians like Dan Mangan, Peregrine Falls, and Veda Hille, web TV series The Drive has always taken the neighbourhood it documents seriously.

The second season of the show, which garnered multiple Leo and web award nods last year, debuts with a public opening party at the Rio next Sunday (October 15). Following the lives and loves of six 20- and 30-something roommates who share an old East Van house, The Drive once again makes use of neighbourhood landmarks like Grandview Lanes, Britannia Community Centre, and 1000 Parker Studios, as well as the streetscape’s colourful assortment of grocers, cafés, and boutiques. Adding to the rich look, feel, and mood is the soundtrack, which is curated by critically lauded singer-songwriter Mangan.

“Everything had to be grounded in the community and the place,” stresses Nick Hunnings, the show’s co–executive producer, who also plays Leo, a bartender who sometimes questions whether he should settle down.

He’s sitting in a Drive coffee shop with fellow SFU grad Kirsten Slenning, who in addition to working as executive producer on the project also appears as Emily, an actor who dreams of making it big in L.A. “Shooting in this place and Dan opening the door to these amazing

The cast of The Drive: Season 2 hangs out at one of their locations: Renzo’s Cafe.

local musicians—it grounded us with all these elements that are all true to the place and really created a structure for our tone and atmosphere,” Hunnings explains. “That really gave it an authenticity, too. I felt all these subtle elements give it a really strong sense of place.”

Slenning and Hunnings say they’ve tried to up the local touchstones in their second season, building on the success of the first. Look for lamp-and-light installations by Leah Weinstein and jewellery by Mindan’s Designs alongside appearances and music by the likes of prOphecy sun.

By making the show ever more local the producers have found they’ve made it speak universally, too—not only has it won awards at web festivals around the world, but its first season was picked up

by Canal+ for video-on-demand distribution on its mobile platform

in Europe and Latin America.

“That’s the paradox: if you’re really true to the details and really specific to any scenario, it’s inevitably a human experience,” Hunnings says.

“We hoped that it would resonate.”

Slenning adds: “We made it about a specific place but we wanted it to also be for people who had never heard of Commercial Drive.”

When Hunnings first cooked up the idea to launch the series with actor Graem Beddoes, the neighbourhood was familiar—he’s now lived there for about a decade—but the format was new territory. The acting friends knew the Drive offered rich potential storywise, visualwise, and artistwise. Slenning had cofounded the local indietheatre company TigerMilk Collective with Hunnings’s wife, Lindsay Drummond, another of the show’s exec producers, who plays the installation artist

Aubrey. (As do most involved in the show, Slenning—who is married to Mangan—lives just off the Drive. Hey, it’s a cozy community.) Together the friends set up an Indiegogo campaign to try to get the project off the ground.

“The response was so immediate—it totally exceeded our expectations,” Slenning relates.

After that, the team received Telus Storyhive funding, with the show offered free on Telus Optik TV On Demand. Slenning, Hunnings, and their colleagues were now in unexplored territory: the new terrain of a web series required them to build the stories of six characters within 11-minute episodes. Inspired by the success of Netflix TV episodes that pack in complex plots, they set about drawing viewers into the lives of their characters and structuring mini cliffhangers.

“We’re telling a dramatic story in 11 minutes with a six-person cast, so we’re trying this unconventional structure,” Hunnings explains.

“When we first started looking, the web was probably most saturated with comedy and sci-fi.”

While shooting is done on a shoestring budget, the series’ warm visual style and pro acting have made The Drive appear anything but low-rent.

The main house, where the six roommates struggle with relationship and career goals, came courtesy of Mangan’s sister—an integral piece because renting a home for filming is so prohibitive on a small budget, Slenning says. From there, the team has relied completely on the generosity of

the community, including shops and cafés that let them film for free.

Shooting the second season in June was especially challenging: Slenning had just had a baby, and Drummond and Hunnings had a one-and-a-half-year-old. Filming on a notoriously busy and unpredictable street also poses the odd issue.

“There were challenges, but gifts too,” Hunnings says. “We couldn’t cordon off an entire street with our budget. So, there’s technical people tearing their hair out. They’ll be like, ‘Someone’s singing in the park!’ But that’s also the show.”

Despite those struggles, for the second season, the team is feeling more assured about its trajectory. And with the buzz they’ve built, there are dreams on the horizon. Slenning admits it would be cool to see the show expanded into a longer, 22-minute TVseries format, while Hunnings says the trend toward mobile TV-viewing could take them to an even smaller platform.

Whatever form the series takes, as Slenning, Hunnings, and friends let the world know about the Drive and its artists, they’re also indebted to the ’hood that spawned their project.

“That’s been the other big thing: the generosity of the community,” Hunnings says. “The community has really supported us. We couldn’t have done it without that.” East Van Entertainment presents The Drive: Season 2 at the Rio Theatre next Sunday (October 15) at 7 p.m.

Doors open at 6.

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Weaver zeroes in on investment loophole

O

n October 3 in the B.C. legislature, B.C. Green Leader Andrew Weaver took aim at “bare trusts”.

Lawyers set up these investment vehicles to help their clients avoid paying the property-purchase tax.

During question period, Weaver wanted to know why the NDP hadn’t closed this “loophole”, which, he alleged, was “so big you could drive a bus through it”.

“Please let me remind you that when the attorney general [David Eby] was in opposition, he was a very fierce critic of the B.C. Liberal housing policy or lack of a policy on affordability,” Weaver said, according to Hansard. “Indeed, a year ago he told Reddit, the readers of Reddit: ‘We need to eliminate what’s called the bare trust loophole in the property transfer tax where these properties can transfer without property transfer tax paid. It’s costing us literally B.C. Green boss Andrew Weaver says hundreds of millions of dollars, hunbare trusts give B.C. a bum deal. dreds of millions that could be used for affordable housing initiatives.’ ” Agency. That frees purchasers from The B.C. Green leader emphasized having to hold back 25 to 33 percent that it’s “straightforward” to ad- of the purchase price until such a dress the issue, noting that Ontario certificate is granted. changed its rules several years ago.

Four years ago, Weaver explained And Weaver wantthe negative imed to know why pact that these Municipal Affairs investment veand Housing Minhicles have on Charlie Smith ister Selina Robinthe public treasury. son hadn’t followed through on this “Suppose you own a $10,000,000 since the government was sworn in home or apartment building that this summer. you want to dispose of,” the B.C. Robinson replied that in just 10 Green leader wrote on his website. weeks in office, her government has “If you simply transferred title, like increased funding to the Residential most of us do when we sell a home, Tenancy Branch, which wasn’t the the purchaser would have to pay subject of Weaver’s question. $198,000 in property transfer tax.

“We are preparing to close unfair “But if instead the property is in loopholes that allow landlords to by- a bare trust where the trustee is a pass rent control, something that the company, then you will pay no tax,” previous minister said was rather Weaver emphasized. “All you have to complicated, which we learned was do is sell your shares in the company actually not that complicated,” she for 1$ (the company has no assets stated, again sidestepping the issue of anyway), and sell the ‘beneficial bare trusts. “We’ve announced the cre- ownership’ rights of the property to ation of 2,000 units of modular hous- a third party via a ‘bare trust agreeing with wraparound services. We also ment’ which is not registered at the announced 1,700 units of affordable Land Title Office. Since no change in housing throughout the province. title occurs, no tax is paid.”

“That’s in 10 weeks,” Robinson In a news release issued after stated. “Just think about what we the legislative debate, Weaver deare going to get done in four-and- clared that the purpose of housing a-half years.” “should be to provide homes for That left Weaver’s question on British Columbians” and it should bare trusts unanswered. not be “a commodity that is wide According to a 2013 article by open to international speculation”.

Lawson Lundell lawyer Edward Wil“The B.C. Greens are commitson, a “bare-trust agreement is not ted to proposing bold solutions to registered in the Land Title Office”. the affordable housing crisis that “The beneficial owner typically is facing so many communities,” owns all of the shares in the bare he stated. “I have previously called trustee company,” Wilson wrote. for the nonresident foreign buyer’s This enables new investors in tax to be extended to the entire the trust to avoid paying property province, as communities from transfer taxes.

Victoria to Nelson face a housing And because a bare trust is a crunch. I have also called for a ban Canadian corporation, Wilson on foreign ownership of ALR land noted that there’s no requirement to over five acres, in order to stem obtain a clearance certificate from speculation and protect British the Canada Customs and Revenue Columbia’s food security.” -

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CANNABIS

Commited to keeping our customer’s healthy and informed

THANK

Bethany Rae brings B.C.-based experts and entrepreneurs to her evening of cannabis education next Thursday (October 12). MaryBeth Lafferty photo.

Speed-dating approach applied to cannabis > BY A M A NDA SIEBE R T

T

hese days, Flower & Freedom founder Bethany Rae champions cannabis education and uses the herb as a way to enhance her healthy lifestyle—but her view of the plant wasn’t always so positive.

Though the entrepreneur and lifestyle brand owner says she spent most of her 20s feeling “a bit guilty” for consuming cannabis in her youth, she’s chosen to fully embrace its medicinal and therapeutic characteristics, opting to use it in place of over-the-counter painkillers and other treatments for pain, muscle recovery, and more.

“I personally became really passionate about seeing consumer education in our society when I rediscovered cannabis as an adult,” the self-taught specialist told the Straight by phone earlier this week. (Rae’s writing is occasionally featured online in the Straight’s cannabis section.)

Her latest undertaking, the Elevate Experience, is an interactive event that will bring experts and entrepreneurs to Vancouver for an evening of herb-centred enlightenment.

Rae says it’s perfectly suited for individuals who might still have reservations about the plant and its therapeutic applications. Industry members and those who might be a little higher on the learning curve are certainly welcome to attend but are encouraged to bring a friend with less experience.

“The event is open to everyone,” she said. “It’s designed to be a friendly, safe environment for you to invite your coworker, your mother, your sister, or someone who wouldn’t see themselves going to a cannabis event or a dispensary.”

Rae will host while drawing on the knowledge of 10 locally based cannabis companies to discuss topics like microdosing, strain selection, vaporizing, skin care, edibles, and more.

“We’ve broken the evening up into 10 different topics, so throughout the evening, guests can move between

each space. It will be a bit like speed dating, but for cannabis,” she said.

With the exception of topical treatments, which are not thought to cause euphoria, the Elevate Experience will be a consumptionfree event. Guests will, however, get to see, smell, and feel most of the other products on hand—and even try special noninfused samples by Gracenotes, an edibles manufacturer specializing in cannabis-infused gourmet chocolates.

Highlighting some of the sessions planned for the evening, Rae said a representative from Nanaimo-based licensed medical cannabis producer Tilray will discuss the latest in cannabis research and explain what happens when the compounds in cannabis interact with cells in the human body.

A representative from Aurora Cannabis, another licensed producer that happens to be headquartered in Vancouver, will host an interactive session on strains and terpenes, the chemical compounds in cannabis responsible for its unique aroma.

Vancouver shops including Aura Health Studio and Dispensary and the Village Dispensary will be represented as well, in modules about cannabis and fitness and cannabis for seniors and the aging population.

Rae said she’s looking forward to hosting her first educational evening for canna-curious Vancouverites, but more than anything, she’s excited for guests to discover the potential benefits of “intention-based” cannabis consumption for themselves.

“It helps me optimize my health through the way that I live, and it helps me be a better, more connected person in my relationships,” she said.

“Only when I understood all of these things instead of just consuming it willy-nilly did I realize how it could be part of my healthy lifestyle.” The Elevate Experience takes place n ex t T h u rs d a y ( O c t o b e r 1 2 ) a t Soundhouse Studios (33 West 8th Avenue). Find tickets at www.flower andfreedom.com/.

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whistlerblackcomb.com/turkey 18 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

straight stars

T

October 5 to 11, 2017

hursday/Friday, the full moon in Aries keeps the intensity dial turned right up. Aries is an instigating, assertive, and action-driven archetype. Known as the harvest moon, it is a time to reap from what has been earned or learned.

The full moon is spurred to action

by Pluto in Capricornâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s directive to get it under better control. Take the initiative and create the change you want to see. Substantial gain and reward are the carrot.

A full moon can be a polarizing influence, but Mars, ruler of the full moon in Aries, and Venus, ruler of the sun in Libra, are at work on samepage accord. Teamed up in Virgo, they have just completed a two-year uncover-it cycle and now launch the next two-year improvement, heal-it, and upgrade project.

Friday can start under better control than it finishes. Expect to deal with more than youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d prefer. The long weekend is ideal for taking a break, but the stars call for some extra push, pull, or staying on top of it on Sunday and Thanksgiving Monday.

Tuesdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stars pile it up on us too.

The going should get smoother as the day advances.

The big news is Jupiterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exit out of Libra and into Scorpio on Tuesday morning. Once every 12 years, Jupiter, the abundance planet, revisits a sign.

Although no two passes are the same, think back to 2005-2006 and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll get a sense of Jupiterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s potential impact for this next year. The transit is an excellent one for all power-play initiatives, for doing whatever it takes to make the turnaround you desire and deserve.

Happy Thanksgiving!

ARIES

March 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;April 20

Thursdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s full moon puts added firepower behind all fresh fix-it, heal-it, improve-it initiatives. A new job or training program, helper, agent, or specialist gets a thumbâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s up. A new pet sparks a sense of â&#x20AC;&#x153;destined to beâ&#x20AC;?.

Sunday to Wednesday, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stuff to get through. Seek money, empowerment, emotional union, sexual union, or spiritual fulfillment; Jupiter into Scorpio is a wealth-generating transit.

TAURUS

April 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;May 21

You are about to pierce through a sound barrierâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;perhaps theirs but more likely (and more importantly) your own. A fresh take on life, work, and love is in a budding stage. See those new wants, yearnings, and desires for the positive catalyst they are. Coinciding with Thursdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s full moon, Venus and Mars begin a new two-year â&#x20AC;&#x153;do it yourselfâ&#x20AC;? project.

GEMINI

May 21â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 21

Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chosen or thrust upon you, whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s firing up now hits a more rapid Go. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a big adjustment, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no reason to hold yourself up. Thursdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s full moon marks the start of a new two-year build-itbetter cycle. Sunday/Monday calls for you to tough it out. Jupiter into Scorpio loans you added resourcefulness and helps you to figure it out better.

CANCER

June 21â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 22

Thursday/Friday, life hits go in some dynamic or hot-stuff way.

No matter how the full moon in Aries unfolds for you, you are wise to temper your emotions and to take it one step at a time. Venus and Mars are in excellent shape for talking it out and working through it. Jupiter in Scorpio, starting Tuesday, greatly enhances prospects and opportunity.

LEO

July 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;August 23

someone new. The long weekend is ideally timed, but still, you may have to force yourself through it. Venus/Mars begin a new two-year better-your-best cycle. Jupiter into Scorpio, starting Tuesday, is ideal for a home-base renovation project, starting with you.

VIRGO

August 23â&#x20AC;&#x201C;September 23

Looking for a fresh start?

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s yours! Thursday/Friday, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll hit Go in some dynamic way. Venus/ Mars in Virgo now launch your next two-year self-improvement initiative. They put head and heart on the same page. Relationships hit the same wavelength too. Sunday to Wednesday calls for added effort or working it out. Jupiter into Scorpio enhances intuitive smarts and keeps you resourceful.

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LIBRA

September 23â&#x20AC;&#x201C;October 23

Out of sight or behind the scenes, you are a busy one. Take time out to replenish if and when you can on Thursday/Friday. A quiet place to work, think, or heal is ideal. Watch for a fresh spark to light. Heed warning signals; tend to necessary repairs.

Sunday through Wednesday can add pressure. Jupiter in Scorpio loans you added strength, sway, and resolve.

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SCORPIO

October 23â&#x20AC;&#x201C;November 22

Something new or added could prove to be a great fit or fix Thursday/Friday. A new job, project, or piece of information fills the gap quite nicely. Even so, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s working-out to do over this coming week. Venus/Mars are set to take you to task regarding social involvement, self-improvement, or your health. Jupiter in Scorpio, starting Tuesday, amplifies drive, motivation, cause, and opportunity.

SAGITTARIUS

November 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;December 21

December 21â&#x20AC;&#x201C;January 20

Thursday/Friday, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hot stuff; you are too. Sparking something fresh and new, the full moon can be a moneymaker or it can light up a social or romantic opportunity. Starting a new two-year cycle, Venus/Mars stage a time-is-ripe moment to face whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s necessary and to do what must be done. Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sacrifice is tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gain. Jupiter in Scorpio strengthens inner resolve.

CAPRICORN

Begin the search or sign the contract now. Dive in; go for it.

Thursday/Friday pushes the refresh button in some timely, nonnegotiable way. It could be a new home or family circumstance, an education or marketing track, or a new plan for your financial future. Jupiter increases your influence, sway, and profits (emotional and material).

AQUARIUS

Feedback or news lights a fresh spark Thursday/Friday. Impulse, instinct, and spontaneity do too. As best you can, keep yourself a step ahead; allot extra time; keep extra provisions on hand. The full moon fast-tracks or short-lists you.

Venus/Mars hit cut-to-the-chase regarding necessary corrections and upgrades. Jupiter brings benefit to career and financial undertakings.

PISCES

February 18â&#x20AC;&#x201C;March 20

Thursday is better than Friday for working it out with someone or something, but either is good for taking it on. Aim for quality over quantity this long weekend. Sunday through Wednesday calls for extra effort or preserving. Regarding matters of heart or wallet, as of Tuesday, Jupiter begins a one-year stack-it-inyour-favour cycle. -

A can-do attitude looks great on you. Thursday/Friday, get Book a reading or sign up for Roseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s there first: jump into it; go for it. free monthly newsletter at www.rose Be spontaneous; try something or marcus.com/.

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FOOD

Chefs offer tips to make Thanksgiving easy > BY GA IL JOHNSON

C

hristina Culver, the secondeldest of six kids, grew up on the North Shore in a family of avid skiers. In high school, she took it upon herself to make dinner once a week to help out her mom, who regularly baked bread from scratch and made a point of feeding her family wholesome, nutritious meals. By the time she had moved out, Culver had built up her own repertoire of healthy and flavourful foods. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was living in the West End in a building where I had friends on every floor, and I was always known as the salad queen,â&#x20AC;? Culver says in a phone call with the Georgia Straight. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some of my friends said, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;We love your food; what if we paid you to make our lunches?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Things snowballed from there.â&#x20AC;?

Culver is referring to the 2012 launch of Culver City Salads, the green solar-powered food truck (affectionately named Granny Smith) that she runs with her sister Sarah. All of the food is plant-based and glutenfree. The company also does catering, and despite the business keeping the women busy, Culver still loves cooking forâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and withâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;her family.

Making Thanksgiving dinner is no straightforward task for the party of eight. Culver is vegan, but there are also meat eaters and vegetarians in the group, as well as people who are gluten-free and those with other food sensitivities and preferences. To satisfy so many dietary needs without spending the entire day in the kitchen, she has come up with a few time-saving tips. One of them is not to make multiple versions of dishes to try to appease everyone. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sometimes weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done a glutenfree stuffing, a regular stuffing, and a vegan stuffing,â&#x20AC;? Culver says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re releasing the whole need to have a vegan and a nonvegan version; just have it more plant-based. Screw having two mashed potatoes, one regular and one dairy-free. What I find the easiest thing to do is make everything gluten-free and vegan,â&#x20AC;? she says, with the turkey and gravy being the obvious exceptions. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to get a bunch of amazing sides with beautiful flavours in every single dish instead of just mashing some potatoes.â&#x20AC;?

Sourcing her produce at places like Inner City Farms (pictured on the cover), Culver says some of her favourite sides are roasted sweet potatoes topped with vegan marshmallows; kabocha squash stuffed with vegan dressing (which is as Instagrammable as it is tasty); Brussels sprouts pan-seared

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To make cooking that big feast go smoothly, Caitlin Mark (left) of H2 Rotisserie and Bar recommends keeping your kitchen free of â&#x20AC;&#x153;visual noiseâ&#x20AC;?; Tabatha Stahl of Railtown Cafe suggests making some dishes ahead of time (Jelger + Tanja photo).

with truffle oil and rosemary; potatoes and steamed carrots mashed together with roasted garlic and coconut milk; and a vegan cashew â&#x20AC;&#x153;cheeseâ&#x20AC;? sauce.

There are few ways to cut down on the time involved in preparing and cooking the bird itself, but Culver says that taking the easy route for other parts of the dinner helps make up for that. Chances are you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need as many sides as you might think, and thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no rule book saying you have to have a pumpkin pie to finish things off. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do you really need that extra dish? Oftentimes you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t,â&#x20AC;? Culver says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You always end up eating way too much food. Also, for dessert, get some fresh fruit and serve it with coconut ice cream. A lot of people get really hell-bent on having these traditions. But the world is changing; the way we eat is changing. So switch up traditions a little bit so you feel good at the end of your meal.â&#x20AC;?

To keep the meal prep moving along, Culvert practises a tactic employed by her mom, who used to go skiing with the whole family every year on Christmas Day and still get a turkey dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. She takes an inventory of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being served, how long each dish takes, how many burners she can use at once, and how many items can fit in the oven simultaneously, all to come up with a grand plan.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a strategic approach that restaurant chefs use all the time, whether theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re at work or at home.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Writing out a menu is not reserved only for professional chefs; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a necessary tool to begin planning for any meal, big or small,â&#x20AC;? says Caitlin Mark, chef at H2 Rotisserie and Bar at the Westin Bayshore. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What we end up with is a shopping list and a prep list, and by knowing the cook times, we know when and in what order to start cooking each dish to allow the dinner to stay on track and on time.â&#x20AC;?

Mark has other pro tips to help save time in the kitchen on Thanksgiving and other holidays. One of them is to reduce â&#x20AC;&#x153;visual noiseâ&#x20AC;?. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There are several reasons chefs keep their cooking stations clean at all times,â&#x20AC;? Mark says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It ensures there is no cross-contamination, which prevents food-borne illness. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a sign of true professionalism in a kitchen. Not having to look around for what we need reduces the time each task takes, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easier to think while working.

Visual noise created by dishware, leftover ingredients that arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t being used, food scraps, half-prepped items leads to a noisy brain. When we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think clearly, the stress ball starts rolling downhill. The less stressed we are, the more productive we are in a kitchen.â&#x20AC;?

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another common kitchen slogan that Mark says helps make big meals come together: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Teamwork makes the dream work.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our job in a professional kitchen

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kitchen time on the holiday itself is to make what you can ahead of time.

Railtown Cafe chef Tabatha Stahl credits her sister for teaching her long ago to make mashed potatoes (with a cream-and-butter mixture seasoned with garlic, pepper, thyme, rosemary, and sea salt) in advance and keep them warm in a Crock-Pot. Cranberry sauce (which Stahl likes to liven up with orange zest, vanilla, and a pinch of salt) is another dish to whip up beforehand. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I always recommend making your own cranberry sauce rather than buying the store-bought stuff,â&#x20AC;? Stahl says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to prep ahead of time, which frees up stove space, and your guests will love it.â&#x20AC;?

Cascade Room chef Tim Evans suggests doubling the recipe for cranberry sauce and jarring it so you have some ready for next year or even this coming Christmas.

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is to work together as a team to succeed in a common goal: fabulous food made well and on time,â&#x20AC;? she says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The same can be used for a family dinner. Delegate out tasks: is there an aunt, uncle, or cousin who claims to make the best pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce? Let them!

Ultimately, when it comes to family dinners, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all in it together. We want every member to enjoy it. The more we share the dream of the perfectly executed Thanksgiving dinner, the closer weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll all get to it.â&#x20AC;?

Avoid stuffing your turkey, too. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s safer and quicker to serve an unstuffed turkey,â&#x20AC;? Evans says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Make stuffing in a loaf pan and bake in the oven or roll into appropriate-sized balls and bake on a tray.â&#x20AC;?

Cibo Trattoria chef Josh Gonneau has a little time-saving trick when it comes to removing fat from your homemade stock. â&#x20AC;&#x153;While the stock is still warm, place ice cubes in it and the fat will stick directly to the ice,â&#x20AC;?

Gonneau says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Use a fine strainer to pull out the ice and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll remove the fat with it. A little tomato paste will help you create a dark turkey jus.â&#x20AC;?

Wayne Sych, Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House executive chef, suggests making gravy ahead of time, even freezing it and thawing a couple days before the big day. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Buy some bones from your butcher and brown them in the oven with celery, carrots, and onions,â&#x20AC;? Sych says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Simmer them down and then thicken with a roux made with butter and flour.

When you roast your turkey, you can add the drippings to the gravy. Lots of people make gravy after the turkey is roasted, but this can make things hectic, and gravy needs more time than that allows.â&#x20AC;?

Another way people can save time is to visit their local butcher and ask for their turkey to be deboned, rolled, and tied. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This simply means that the butcher will remove the bones for you, place the dark meat inside the white meat, and tie it into a roll,â&#x20AC;? Evans says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You get to keep the bones to make gravy and you cut the cooking time by more than half.â&#x20AC;?

Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deboned or not, Evans still urges people to brine the turkey, since the salted water with aromatics will season the meat all the way through and keep it juicy while cooking. It only takes 10 minutes to make a brining solution, with the results worth every second.

Sych recommends selecting your serving dishes in advance and labelling them with Post-It Notes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That way, when you are putting everything out and some guests are assisting in the kitchen, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll know what you have organized for what dish to be served on.â&#x20AC;?

And no matter how tempting it may seem, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t try out a new recipe on holiday Monday. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Test it out a few weeks in advance,â&#x20AC;? Sych says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t turn out or be what you thought it would be, you can make adjustments. Just because a recipe looks good doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean it will turn out. Many recipes online are not tested. Trying it out ahead of time will alleviate potential surprises.â&#x20AC;? -

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hile many families are getting ready this week for a turkey feast to celebrate Thanksgiving, members of Vancouver’s Chinese community will be marking the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The second-grandest festival in China after Chinese New Year, it takes place on the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar, during a full moon. This year, the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Wednesday (October 4).

“This is a time for families to hold reunions,” Annie Lee, spokesperson for Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant (4989 Victoria Drive), tells the Straight in a downtown coffee shop.

“The moon is the fullest and brightest on this day, and the round shape of the moon signifies reunion in Chinese culture. Mid-Autumn Festival is considered a harvest festival, and some people even compare it to Thanksgiving in North American culture.”

A lavish meal is a major part of the celebrations. Western Lake chefs Tony Mah and John Deng, both natives of Taishan who specialize in fusion of northern and southern Chinese cuisine, will be preparing a 12-course feast.

The extravagant menu includes crispy Peking duck skin with crepes, duck lettuce wraps, king-crab legs steamed with garlic, shreddedduck-meat soup with dried scallops,

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Duck is popular during the Mid-Autumn Festival because it is traditionally believed to balance yin and yang in the body. Lisovskaya/iStock photo.

diced beef tenderloin with deepfried milk puffs, tossed noodle with crab sauce, sautéed and deep-fried sole fillet, baked tapioca pudding with taro, and, of course, mooncake, among other dishes.

Mooncakes, the most iconic food associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival, are round cakes that symbolize family reunions and best wishes, Lee says. They’re often decorated with Chinese characters representing longevity and may be filled with red-bean paste, egg yolk, nuts, fruit, or lotus-seed paste.

“Duck is the second-most-common food after mooncakes in the MidAutumn Festival,” Lee says. “Duck is a popular tradition because the taste of

the duck is very rich during this season. Chinese people believe that eating duck in autumn can expel pathogenic heat from their body to keep the balance between yin and yang.”

The tradition of having taro during the festival started during the Qing Dynasty. “Eating taro is believed to bring you good luck and fortune during the year,” Lee says. Meanwhile, every part of the crab is used in the feast, the meat being prized for its sweetness and succulence.

Western Lake’s Mid-Autumn Festival feast for 10 people is on special until Sunday (October 8) for $668 plus tax. A smaller king-crab menu for six people is $398 plus tax. -

Mooncakes boast flavours > B Y TA MM Y KWAN

D

uring the Mid-Autumn Festival season (see article above), it is traditional to indulge in mooncakes—specialty Chinese pastries usually made of lotus-seed paste and egg yolk— under the full moon.

The method of making this type of sweet pastry has evolved over time. Even though lotus-seed-paste mooncakes are still very much in demand, contemporary styles such as snow-skin (made with glutinous-rice crusts that have to be frozen) and chocolate mooncakes have also become available.

One of the first places those who regularly celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival visit to purchase mooncakes is a local Chinese supermarket. T&T Supermarket’s in-house bakery creates plenty of these traditional delicacies each year, with flavours like white lotus seed with three yolks, low sugar, and mixed nuts, among others.

If you don’t think you can finish the regular-sized mooncakes, which are usually the size of a hockey puck, you can opt for mini ones. T&T also imports many mooncakes from renowned companies in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. You’ll be able to find mooncakes from Hong Kong Maxims Bakery, Hong Kong Wing Wah Cake Shop, Hang Heung, Lian Xiang Lou, Kee Wah, and more. If these babies aren’t sold-out by the time the festival is over, you may be able to snag them at a discounted price.

Saint Germain Bakery (various locations) also makes Chinese-style cakes and bread, and it also has a number of mooncake offerings in-store and online. Traditional sweet mooncakes like single-yolk lotus-seed paste as well as walnut-and-date paste are available, as are

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: SEPTEMBER 28, 2017 WHERE: Ceramic Gallery on Granville Island

I was just off work, I was still in my scrubs and you were wearing a black toque with a pompom on top. You had amazing eyeliner. I could swear you were looking at me and if that's true, feel free to say hi.

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Pair your mooncake with a cup of Chinese tea and you’re set for a great night of moon-gazing. -

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A traditional Chinese mooncake like this one is made of lotus-seed paste and egg yolk. Anita Kwan photo.

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Add pink and orange hues to Thanksgiving

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ll cards on the table: I’d love for those reading this to break out of their comfort zone when it comes to wine with Thanksgiving dinner.

Yeah, that Pinot Noir will likely work well, or a favourite Chardonnay will be nice and comfy, but why not start a fresh tradition and branch out to something new? This week, I’m offering four lively recommendations to accompany your turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and fixings. Whether it’s something in the “natural wine” category, a little rosé (which is great any time of year), or your first venture into the fledgling orange-wine category, everything here should suit your table well.

is a levity here of lemon peel, orange blossom, and full-bloomed jasmine.

A salinity, like that of oyster shell or river rock, is also consistent with each sip, and a good wash of lemonade carries everything well. On the palate, that skin contact gives it just a touch of grip, perfect for latching on to bigger flavours that your Thanksgiving dishes may harbour.

I absolutely adore this wine and have most recently found it at Kitsilano Wine Cellar.

LORGERIL L’ORANGERAIE 2016

(Pays d’Oc, France; $12 to $16, private liquor stores) This is the pink wine for a crowded table, full of revelry and cheer. A crowd-pleasing pour of mandarin oranges, Meyer ANGIOLINO MAULE MASIERI lemons, and Key limes, the blend 2016 (Veneto, Italy; 1.5 litres, $43 of Cinsault, Grenache, Syrah, and to $54, private liquor stores) When Merlot is crisp and lively, with an you’re tracking this wine down at abundance of mouthwatering acidplaces like Liberty ity and a pleasant Wine Merchants dry finish. It can on Commercial be served in glass Drive or Kitsilano tumblers or cofKurtis Kolt Wine Cellar, your fee mugs and be eyes aren’t deceiving you. This deli- just as enjoyable. You’ll want to keep cious, delicious bottle is only avail- an extra bottle or two chilling in the able in a 1.5-litre, or magnum, for- fridge, and at its easy-on-the-budget mat. I’m not complaining, as it has price, that won’t stretch you too far. the potential to be my next house Most recently spotted at Everything pour. This northern Italian white Wine’s North Vancouver location, is made from the area’s indigenous Crosstown Liquor Store, and Marquis Garganega variety, which may be Wine Cellars on Davie Street. more familiar to some as the main grape to be made into Soave wines. CHÂTEAU BROWN ROSÉ 2016 Here, the grape is handled sim- (Bordeaux, France; $39.99, B.C. ply, as declared on the back label: Liquor Stores) From the Pessac“Spontaneously fermented grapes, Léognan appellation of Bordeaux from vines grown in volcanic soils comes this well-composed pink using natural methods. Unfiltered wine, deserving of both your attenwine, without added sulfites.” tion and admiration. Before we What’s not declared on the back even get into the bottle’s contents, label? This wine is freakin’ delight- let’s take a moment to bask in the ful! Think apple cider with added exclusivity of it. Barbara Philip, components of Chardonnay, peach master of wine and Europeanskin, and lemon balm. Ridicu- wine buyer for B.C. Liquor Stores, lously juicy and gluggable. You secured a global retail exclusive and your guests will be thankful it on this dazzling wine; out of the only clocks in at 12 percent alcohol, 183-odd cases that were produced, so it can be enjoyed throughout about half have come to us here in B.C., while most of the other the evening. half is staying put at the château.

FORADORI FONTANASANTA From 20-year-old vines grown in NOSIOLA 2015 (Trentino–Alto gravel soils comes this blend of Adige, Italy; $72 to $77, private li- 60 percent Cabernet Sauvignon quor stores) Elisabetta Foradori and 40 percent Merlot, macerated has continued her family’s legacy on the skins for four hours, then of quality wine and dedication to aged in French oak barrels for heritage grape varieties by express- four months, with the lees stirred ing them as authentically as possible twice a month to add greater richvia organic and biodynamic farm- ness and complexity. This wine ing and minimal intervention in the has all the poise and intricacy of a winery. Case in point, we have here fine red, yet it is lifted and bright the area’s indigenous white Nosiola enough to tackle your holiday feast variety, grown in a tiny two-hectare with ease. Red berry fruit and fresh vineyard on calcareous clay soil in thyme are held together with fanthe foothills of the Dolomite moun- tastic concentration and acidity, tain range. Macerated with the grape with just a hint of nutmeg and a skins (that’s the “orange” part) in speck of clove on the finish. Don’t clay amphorae for eight months, the serve this one too cold; allowing it wine is then aged in acacia-and-oak 10 or 15 minutes out of the fridge casks—not to impart flavour, but just before pouring will unleash even to ensure it’s framed perfectly. There more character. -

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PLAYS RAVEL WITH THE VSO FRIDAY & SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20 & 21 8PM , CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, UBC MONDAY, OCTOBER 23 8PM, CENTENNIAL THEATRE, NORTH VANCOUVER

SPEAKING OF DANCE CONVERSATIONS Cultural Policies in a Global World: A Comparison Moderated by Janet Smith, Arts Editor, The Georgia Straight

Tuesday, October 24, 2017 • 7pm • FREE Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, SFU Woodward’s 26 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

CRISTIAN MĂCELARU

ANGELA CHENG

Cristian Măcelaru conductor Angela Cheng piano* ENESCU Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major RAVEL Piano Concerto in G Major* DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 5 in F Major Celebrated Canadian pianist Angela Cheng makes her welcome return to the VSO, performing Ravel’s jazzy, thrilling G Major Piano Concerto. Dvořák’s great Symphony No. 5 was his first real symphonic masterpiece, Classical in form, and infused with the music and melodies of OCTOBER 20 & 21 his homeland.

CHAN SERIES

@VSOrchestra

TICKETS: vancouversymphony.ca

ASSISTANCE

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ARTS

The common perception of Turandot’s

BY JANET SM IT H

title princess is that she’s a fearsome, all-powerful ice queen with a penchant for chopping her suitors’ heads off. But in Vancouver Opera’s new production of Giacomo Puccini’s outsized fi nal work, American soprano Amber Wagner is tasked with bringing much more to the role.

Acclaimed Quebec director Renaud Doucet is focused on finding Turandot’s humanity. “He’s more interested in making it a story that’s believable,” says Wagner, who’s taking on the monumental role for the first time, after years of specializing in Richard Wagner. “Rather than saying ‘Here’s this frozen ice princess,’ how can we make it human so the audience believes it?

“This is what opera is really about now,” she adds, on a break before rehearsal, sitting at the O’Brian Centre for Vancouver Opera, sipping on tea to preserve a voice the New York Times has called “powerful, gleaming and richly expressive”. “Renaud’s done quite a good job building a layered and multifaceted back story for her.”

In the opera, set in ancient Beijing, the steely princess subjects all her suitors to three seemingly impossible riddles. The price of a wrong answer? Death, of course. But when Calaf (played here by Argentine tenor Marcelo Puente) falls in love with her, he gets all the questions right. Turandot still refuses to marry him, and that’s when he turns the tables, posing a puzzle of his own to the princess.

A story about riddles, set amid spectacular red-and-gold scenery and gigantic choruses: does anyone hope to find a real woman in the middle of all that, and still make the murderous man-hater seem like she deserves a happy ending?

Yes—in fact, Wagner says she’s found empathy for the character. “She is fighting expectations in

In search of the real Turandot Fast-rising soprano Amber Wagner finds the humanity in Puccini’s notorious ice queen at Vancouver Opera her culture,” Wagner explains. “In that culture, women were more property than anything. The [riddle] oath has locked her into this unique, weird experience.

“While I can’t relate to the culture she’s growing up in, I understand that she resents those expectations and she’s scared of those expectations, so she puts on a façade,” Wagner adds. “Renaud talked about that: she puts on the exterior of being icy and cold because it’s better that the public hate her—instead of killing her to take the throne.”

When she graduated from the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2010, Wagner still thought her art form was “all about the singing”, she admits. The music is still paramount, but thanks to some influential directors, she’s changed her view.

“I don’t think the audience wants park and bark,” she says, though she adds: “I would say they don’t want you rolling around on the floor while you’re singing an iconic aria, either.”

In this Turandot, she’s been engaged in an especially intensive rehearsal process, with Doucet holding many read-throughs before blocking begins. “Our industry doesn’t do a lot

THINGS TO DO

Amber Wagner (below left) tries to get inside the head of Turandot, a character shown above amid the epic sets that will be seen here (Atlanta Opera photo).

of table reads,” Wagner says with a smile. “In my experience, you come in to rehearsal and you talk while you’re on your feet and staging.”

Singing the role of Turandot is notoriously tough, even without trying to dig into her motivations. The title character has to rise above the huge chorus, pace herself well beyond her showstopping opening aria, and reach some powerful high notes.

Wagner considers it Puccini’s greatest work— above Madame Butterfly and even La Bohème.

“Tar and feather me for saying this, but I’ve never found Puccini riveting,” she admits. “I’ll take five hours of Wagner over his music! I have a very heavy German diet. But this one I love, I think because of the expression he wrote into the music. It’s incredible how he used the chorus in this opera. There’s some beautiful music.”

In the end, Wagner’s biggest challenge may be wiping the audience’s preconceptions about the iconic role from the map. “Everybody already has an idea of who their favourite was and what it should sound like,” she says. “The current battle for us is that we bring our own thing to it.” -

2

Five quick facts about Turandot

1. Luciano Pavarotti’s recording of Calaf’s famous “Nessun dorma” became the theme song of the 1990 World Cup. 2. Puccini died in 1924, before completing Turandot, so Franco Alfano finished it.

3. Puccini worked real Chinese melodies into the score, drawn from a music box given to him as a gift by an Italian diplomat.

4. No one can agree on the pronunciation of the titular princess’s name: several iconic divas have insisted the “t” at the end is silent, but Puccini’s own granddaughter insisted it be pronounced.

5. Though Turandot was unofficially banned in China till the mid-1990s, celebrated filmmaker Zhang Yimou staged an epic version of it on the Forbidden City site in 1998.

Vancouver Opera presents Turandot at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on October 13, 15, 19, and 21.

> JANET SMITH

ARTS High five

Editor’s choice STARSTRUCK We’re not going to make any jokes about the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s next concert being “out of this world” or “stellar” or a “cosmic experience”. But Col. Chris Hadfield’s Terra and Beyond show with the esteemed orchestra, enhanced by projected images from the International Space Station, should be an unforgettable night. Bonus: singer-songwriter Danny Michel, whom Hadfield met on a Russian icebreaker travelling through the High Arctic, joins the program with a few of his beautifully crafted tunes from Khlebnikov, an album inspired by the journey. Boosting the liftoff (sorry), the orchestra, under William Rowson’s baton, rockets through excerpts from Gustav Holst’s epic The Planets, as well. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra presents Terra and Beyond on Friday and Saturday (October 6 and 7) at the Orpheum.

Five events you just can’t miss this week

1

THANKS FOR GIVING (October 11 to November 4 at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage) Give thanks for this clever new play by Kevin Loring.

2

HYPERLINK (To October 14 at the Firehall Arts Centre) Local solo faves TJ Dawe and Itai Erdal take on the Wild West of the web.

3

THE GOBLIN MARKET (To October 14 at the York Theatre) Don’t miss New Zealand’s mindblowing adult circus.

4

EXPERIMENTAL INK (October 6 at the Museum of Anthropology) Dance and multimedia artists animate the art of calligraphy.

5

ENTANGLED (To January 1, 2018, at the Vancouver Art Gallery) Take in the best of new painting happening in this country.

In the news ARTS ACCOLADES Giorgio Magnanensi, composer, conductor, teacher, and artistic director of the Vancouver New Music Society, is one of the justannounced recipients of this year’s Mayor’s Arts Awards. As part of the prize, winners in a plethora of creative fields name an emerging artist to share the honours.

Magnanensi (shown here; Chris Randle photo), who took the award for music, has named composer Stefan Maier. Winner Artemis Gordon, of Arts Umbrella, chose Ballet BC’s Livona Ellis for dance; Neworld Theatre’s Marcus Youssef named Conor Wylie for theatre; Brendan Lee Satish Tang selected Shaun Peter Mallonga for craft and design; Judy Radul chose Julian Hou in visual arts; Peg Campbell nominated Anaïsa Visser for film and new media; Bryan Newson named the creative duo of Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling for public art; Joanne Arnott gave the nod to Wil George for literary arts; and Mary Mackay selected Leah Patitucci for culinary arts. Choo Chiat Goh of the Goh Ballet Academy has won the lifetime achievement award.

For the full list, see vancouver.ca/artsawards/. Prizes will be handed out on Wednesday (October 11) at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre. OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 27

ARTS

Songs trace journey to freedom > B Y A LE X A ND ER VA R TY

S

tories of the Underground Railroad have always been part of Khari Wendell McClelland’s family lore. With relatives on both sides of the Detroit River—the 44-kilometre channel that separates Detroit, Michigan, from Windsor, Ontario—he’s always been acutely conscious of his roots in the region, and of an older and less comfortable connection to the American South.

“I can’t actually remember the first time I ever heard those stories, because they’ve just always been a part of how our family has understood ourselves,” the singer says, checking in with the Georgia Straight from a tour stop in Gananoque, Ontario.

“As I have matured and grown and found some interest in connecting with concepts of identity through looking at family, I’ve chosen to ask some more detailed questions…in an effort, really, to understand who I am, and what it is I’m meant to be doing in this time on this planet.”

Those questions, and some of the answers McClelland received, are at the heart of Freedom Singer, a new documentary-theatre project that traces his great-great-great-grandmother Kizzy’s perilous journey from slavery to liberation. And though the stories and the songs it features might be a century and a half old, they contain discoveries that will be new to many viewers—and some that were new to McClelland himself.

“It’s incredible to take the time to speak with your great-aunt—and to speak with your own mother, even— about events that you might have not thought to ask about,” he says, noting that the biggest revelation was that he has Indigenous blood. “It’s been amazing to learn so much about my family history, and there’s a richness to what it feels like to connect in that way.”

Freedom Singer, a documentary-theatre project based on a true voyage on the Underground Railroad, finds new meaning in old songs. Dahlia Katz photo.

It’s not surprising that many of those connections come through music. As the youngest member of Vancouver’s leading African-American gospel group, the Sojourners, McClelland has been tutored in the sounds of the civil-rights struggle by a pair of relatively recent arrivals from the United States, Marcus Mosely and Will Saunders. Now he’s taking those lessons back to their source, exploring the songs his family members might have sung as they found their way north from the plantations of the Confederacy.

There have been surprises here, too.

“A lot of what I found was really dark. It’s not super happy stuff,” he says. “There’s a lot of stuff around death, and a lot of stuff around mothers and ancestors and even child theft—you know, mothers’ separation from their children. That’s one of the most core relationships in a child’s development, so the removal of a child from a mother is a really harsh thing to do.”

And while historic documents suggest singing doleful lyrics like

“Never the Child Be Sold” to sunny, familiar tunes like “Oh My Darling, Clementine”, McClelland has made it part of his project to craft new and more appropriate settings for these heartbreaking texts.

“I’ve actually taken the liberty to take those lyrics and come up with melodies and chord progressions that feel emotionally congruent,” says McClelland, who’ll perform Freedom Singer with vocalist Tanika Charles and guitarist Noah Walker.

“So that’s an interesting thing: how do we maintain integrity and authenticity with our own voices as we meet those old, old voices? It’s not that I want to try to exactly duplicate how somebody would have sung in the 1850s; it’s more that I’m trying to take those nuggets of truth and resonance and filter them through my own musical and cultural and social experience of life.” Freedom Singer runs on the Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre from Saturday (October 7) to October 18.

TERRA AND BEYOND, WITH

CHRIS HADFIELD AND DANNY MICHEL

THE MASTERS Great Choral Music

Kathleen Allan

Jon Washburn

8pm FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017 Dunbar Ryerson United Church CHRIS HADFIELD

DANNY MICHEL

FRIDAY & SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6 & 7 8PM, ORPHEUM William Rowson conductor

Chris Hadfield vocals/guitar

Danny Michel vocals/guitar

Share Canadian icon Colonel Chris Hadfield’s viewpoint “Beyond the Terra,” with music and inspiring images from the International Space Station, performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. As a special guest, Chris welcomes acclaimed singer/songwriter Danny Michel, his Juno®-nominated collaborator on the Kapitan Khlebnikov project, in this unique and exciting Pops concert. @VSOrchestra

VSO POPS SERIES SPONSOR

TICKETS: vancouversymphony.ca 28 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

VSO POPS RADIO SPONSOR

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Vancouver Chamber Choir FOCUS! Choir of College/University Singers Kathleen Allan, Jon Washburn, conductors Vancouver Chamber Choir alumna Kathleen Allan leads a programme of music from some of the greatest choral masters - Palestrina, Gabrieli, Bach, Brahms, Britten and Poulenc. Also, Jon Washburn combines the Choir’s professional singers with advanced choral students from six Metro Vancouver university music departments in the annual FOCUS! event – guaranteed choral excitement!

1.855.985.ARTS (2787) vancouverchamberchoir.com

ARTS

City on Edge captures a century of protest > BY JA NET SM IT H

W

alking into the main gallery of the Museum of Vancouver’s City on Edge: A Century of Vancouver Activism exhibit, the first thing that hits you is the noise: voices chanting “Power!”, cowbells, and cheers. Joining the rowdily immersive soundscape are photo and video images of protests and riots of the past 100 years, all flashing across 10 big projection screens—a raucous collage of social unrest and activism.

Shots of police marching Macjacket–clad Clark Park gang members out of a 1972 Rolling Stones concert sit alongside 1922 UBC student rallies against overcrowding, 1980s peace marches, 1993’s Clayoquot protests, and early-2000s anti-Olympics events. A 1907 photo of antiAsian demonstrations juxtaposes with 1971’s Gastown Riot and 1994’s infamous Stanley Cup rampage.

There are 650 images in all, mostly gleaned from old Vancouver Sun and Province archives (many never published), and the message is as loud and clear as the slogan on a political placard: in this city, people take it to the streets.

Why is it that Vancouverites have such a passion for public protest?

Cocurator Viviane Gosselin has had many hours to contemplate that, while sifting through hundreds of images with retired Pacific Newspaper Group librarian Kate Bird.

First off, the plethora of public protests is a sign of the freedom and social democracy people feel here, Gosselin says. “Our ability to take it to the street is not given to every country of the world,” she observes.

“And then there’s the labour history,” she adds, gesturing to photographs that date back to Vancouver’s early years, including a blown-up, blurry 1907 shot of women marching

At the Museum of Vancouver (clockwise from left), relief workers occupy the post office in 1938 (the Province); activists surround the Kinder Morgan terminal in 2016 (Arlen Redekop, PNG); and Occupy Vancouver rallies in 2011 (Jason Payne, PNG).

in solidarity with men over brutal work-camp conditions. “A lot of people hit the street over living conditions and living wage. It was a way of being in people’s faces, and a lot have taken that as inspiration here.

We also have all of the concerns for the environment here and Greenpeace started here, so that has been a big part of it [the tradition], too.”

What may be most striking about the exhibit is the way the protest issues of today have recurred throughout Vancouver’s history. Gosselin points out the housing crisis actually dates back to the earliest photographs in the exhibit and crops up again and again

during the century. In one stark image from the 1930s, a homeless man sleeps under a ripped wool blanket on a downtown sidewalk, his fedora placed neatly above his makeshift pillow. Other images show a massive 1935 protest when relief-camp workers, forced to live and labour in poor conditions, held a sit-in at the Hudson’s Bay Company store. And light boxes depict the 1938 Post Office Eviction, when hundreds of jobless men occupied the building now known as the Sinclair Centre. It was just before “Bloody Sunday”, when police stormed the building, beating the men with batons, setting off

holding signs saying “Support Native peoples’ struggles in defence of their hereditary rights.”

“You think of Indigenous activism happening now,” Gosselin says, “but pictures show those acts of defiance were there early on.”

The show reveals that Vancouver also has a predilection for street rioting—most notably the burning cars and looting during hockey playoffs in 2011. But hockey incidents in the past few decades were by no means the first examples of sports hooliganism in the city, Gosselin says: the pair also found images of Grey Cup riots in the 1950s.

The Gastown Riot of 1971 plays a central role in the show. One blownup image depicts the Battle of Maple Tree Square, with police on horseback trampling young protesters. Thanks to the crackdown, a peaceful pot smokein turned into full-blown chaos.

City on Edge works hard to animate all the archival shots, projecting them to capture the scale, and adding recordings of protest noise.

“We have a soundscape because you can’t talk about protest without hearing the sound—it’s raw emotion,” Gosselin says, raising her voice above the amplified fray.

Complementing the light boxes, projections, and other installations are archival objects—from a simple, black spray-painted peace sign from the 1970s to a Poverty Olympics placard, and from a hand-knitted Pussyhat to a Vote for Women’s Freedom blotter from 1917.

Together, the objects and images remind all of us how hard people here have fought for freedoms—like a woman’s right to vote—that we might now take for granted. “You have to have people invest their time and energy,” Gosselin says—and their passion, rage, and loudest voices, too. -

tear gas, and sending 45 to hospital.

“The ’30s had big protests and a big May Day,” Bird adds. “That was really a tough period here.”

Indigenous protest is also a recurring theme. One light box shows the 1907 Gathering of the Salish Chiefs—18 Indigenous leaders in their regalia, Chief Joe Capilano at the centre, a ceremonial blanket over his arm. The chiefs had just returned from taking their concerns about rights and land to Ottawa and England, where they had met with the King. Fastforward to 1974, and you see people hitting the City on Edge is at the Museum of then Vancouver courthouse plaza Vancouver to February 18, 2018.

NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE ORCHESTRA

PRESENTS:

LIFE REFLECTED

ts Ticke at t star

“Zhang Zuo is the one of the most outstanding and passionate pianistic talents I have come across.”

— Maestro Paavo Järvi

$25

ZHANG ZUO piano

SUN OCT 15 at 3pm I VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE BEETHOVEN | SCHUBERT | GRANADOS | LISZT Don’t miss the Canadian debut of this imaginative and electrifying young pianist.

TICKETS: 604 602 0363 I VANRECITAL.COM SEASON SPONSOR:

SERIES SPONSOR:

CONCERT SPONSOR:

The Late Edwina & Paul Heller

Joyce and Tony

SUPPORTED BY:

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 7:30PM , THE CENTRE, 777 HOMER STREET, VANCOUVER Alexander Shelley conductor Erin Wall soprano Monique Mojica actor Donna Feore creative producer and director ZOSHA DI CASTRI Dear Life* JOCELYN MORLOCK My Name is Amanda Todd NICOLE LIZÉE Bondarsphere JOHN ESTACIO I Lost My Talk** *Words and lyrics adapted from the story by Alice Munro.

Adaptation by Merilyn Simonds

Four Canadian composers have created compelling musical portraits of four exceptional Canadian women.

Roberta Bondar, Rita Joe, Alice Munro, and Amanda Todd are the inspiration behind Life Reflected, a unique symphonic and multi-media celebration of youth, promise, and courage. The National Arts Centre Orchestra commissioned four works by Zosha Di Castri, Jocelyn Morlock, Nicole Lizée, and John Estacio to create its largest production ever. The staging includes stunning projections, which immerse the audience in sound, motion picture, photography, and graphic design.

Opening Concert of ISCM World New Music Days 2017.

**Commissioned for the NationaL Arts Centre Orchestra to commemorate the 75th birthday of the Right Honourable Joe Clark, P.C., C.C., A.O.E by his family

The National Arts Centre Orchestra Canada 150 Tour is made possible with leadership support from Tour Patrons Gail and David O’Brien, Presenting Supporters Alice and Grant Burton, Supporting Partners Peng Lin and Yu Gu, Education Partner Dasha Shenkman, OBE, Hon RCM and Digital Partner Facebook MEDIA SPONSOR

@VSOrchestra

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OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 29

Closing October 9

moa.ubc.ca

TRACES OF WORDS Art and Calligraphy from Asia Closing Performances Thursday, October 5: Night Shift: Body Language Friday, October 6: Experimental Ink

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE HONOUREES AND EMERGING ARTISTS! The City of Vancouver celebrates our creative community through the Mayor’s Arts Awards, which recognize established and emerging artists and individuals or organizations who have made significant contributions to arts and culture in our city.

SPECIAL HONOURS

HONOUREES + EMERGING ARTISTS

Lifetime Achievement Choo Chiat Goh

Theatre Marcus Youssef + Conor Wylie

Poet Laureate (2014 – 2017) Rachel Rose SUPPORT FOR THE ARTS Philanthropy Donald Shumka Business Support London Drugs Volunteerism and Arts Board Member of the Year Henry Lau

Music Giorgio Magnanensi + Stefan Maier Dance Artemis Gordon + Livona Ellis Craft and Design Brendan Lee Satish Tang + Shaun Peter Mallonga

ARTIST LIVE-WORK STUDIO AWARD RECIPIENTS: 2015 – 2018 Visual Artist Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo Visual Artist Colleen Heslin

Culinary Arts Mary Mackay + Leah Patitucci

Dance Artist Daelik Hackenbrook

Film and New Media Peg Campbell + Anaïsa Visser

Visual Artist Carol A. Young

Literary Arts Joanne Arnott + Wil To Write (Wil George)

Film Artist Soran Mardookhi

Visual Arts Judy Radul + Julian Hou

Visual Artist Matthew Brown

Public Art Bryan Newson + Helen Reed & Hannah Jickling Community Engaged Art Earle Peach + Ariel Martz-Oberlander vancouver.ca/artsawards Phone: 3-1-1 TTY: 7-1-1 30 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

“He is a powerhouse” — The New York Times

GEORGE LI piano

Tickets start at

$25

SUNDAY OCTOBER 22 at 3pm CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Brilliant virtuosity and effortless grace far beyond his years. Don’t miss the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition’s silver medalist when he makes his eagerly anticipated return to Vancouver to perform a program of

HAYDN | CHOPIN | RACHMANINOV | LISZT TICKETS: 604 602 0363 I VANRECITAL.COM SEASON SPONSOR:

CONCERT SPONSOR:

The John C. Kerr Family Foundation

IN ASSOCIATION WITH:

ARTS

Teen play looks at life’s real Monsters > B Y HOL LY M C KEN Z I E SUTTER

B

Ideas of transformation and what makes a monster are at the heart of the play. An “international conference of monsters” meets and decides to retell the story of Frankenstein for the audience, with history’s mythical creatures playing the parts. The featured beasts were chosen from the cast members’ cultural backgrounds.

Audiences will meet a Filipino fallen angel called an Engkantada, a Russian trickster spirit called a Domovoi, and a Taiwanese mountain demon called a Moxina, just to name a few.

Figures from history, like the notorious Robespierre and the dictator Pol Pot, also take on prominent roles.

Carol notes that the origin stories often tell of creatures that were once good but were transformed as a result of abuse or neglect—a theme she finds relevant to youth audiences.

“If you look at the monsters and mythical creatures, many of them start as gods and goddesses. They were colonized in different ways,” Carol says. “This is what I learned in particular from the Filipino kids.

In many cases it was Christianity or some kind of organized religion that made these angels into devils.”

Carol doesn’t try to sugarcoat the fact that the play is dark. But audiences can expect entertaining moments and original songs, including a hip-hop dance number, as well as compositions by Cris Derksen.

And while she’s as scared as any director would be leading up to a premiere, Carol is confident that her scrappy young cast are more than ready to bring Monsters to life. -

eing a teenager is terrifying.

It was true in 1818, when 20-year-old Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, one of the world’s most famous monster stories, and it’s still true 200 years later, as the young cast of Monsters prepares to perform the original theatrical piece—a play that incorporates drama, dance, music, acrobatics, and a cast of the world’s mythical monsters.

Elaine Carol of Miscellaneous Productions has been developing the play for almost four years. But the veteran playwright and director tells the Straight over the phone that she’s “suitably scared” as opening night looms.

“It’s at that awkward-teenager stage. We’re kind of getting ready for the prom and it hasn’t fully sunk in,” she says. “For our young casts, once we start moving into the theatre and the dressing room, that’s when it starts to sink in that this is something different, something special, something polished, and has more depth than a high-school musical.”

Monsters started the same way many Miscellaneous Productions pieces do: with a deep dive into a pressing issue in Vancouver’s schools.

Carol decided on bullying, and after running youth workshops in Vancouver, Toronto, France, and Belgium, she became fixated on the idea of monsters and how they are created.

Carol says she realized that the one monster recognized around the world was Frankenstein’s. Upon rereading, she was struck by a line from the novel’s infamous creature: Monsters plays the Scotiabank Dance “I was benevolent and good; misery Centre on Friday and Saturday (October 6 and 7). made me a fiend.”

Metzger dishes on dream jobs, trolls, and Trump > B Y GUY M A C PHER SO N

C

VSO@ISCM THE VANCOUVER SYMPHONY PERFORMS AT ISCM WORLD NEW MUSIC DAYS 2017

OTTO TAUSK

MOHAMED ASSANI

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 7:30PM, ORPHEUM Bramwell Tovey conductor Mohamed Assani sitar* JOCELYN MORLOCK That Tingling Sensation CHARLOTTE BRAY At The Speed of Stillness FRIEDRICH HEINRICH KERN Indigo MOHAMED ASSANI & JOHN OLIVER Pressed for Time (World Première)*

@VSOrchestra

From November 2–8, 2017, Canada welcomes the world as Vancouver hosts the ISCM World New Music Days 2017.

Since its founding in 1922, the International Society for Contemporary Music has been the world’s premier network for new music. In 2017, the Canadian League of Composers and Music on Main welcome nearly 50 countries for a festival of new music and a celebration of new ideas, new collaborations, and new fusions.

This concert epitomizes this celebration, with extraordinary new music from Canada and around the globe.

Presented with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, Creative BC and the Province of British Columbia, the City of Vancouver, the Deux Mille Foundation, the Hamber Foundation, the SOCAN Foundation.

TICKETS: vancouversymphony.ca

MEDIA SPONSOR

604.876.3434

(October 6). He’s a guy who has weathered his share of off-stage shitstorms, but has never had any problems with his live act. He flirts with crossing the line, like talking about Jeffrey Dahmer or gay marriage, but always manages to stay on this side of it. But only if you listen carefully.

“I’ve been controversial because of my own personal opinions or whatever I said on Facebook that annoyed some person, but nobody’s ever been offended by my standup,” he says, referring to online dustups with the American improv company UCB Theatre and feminists. “I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. I thought it was interesting to show my process on my Facebook. I was a fool to do that.”

But sometimes he just can’t help himself. “I’ve got a real problem with groupthink and I go out of my way to bash it wherever I see it,” he says. “I got a real bug up my ass for that. So that could be why I’ve drawn a lot of my problems. But I don’t regret it.”

Especially in this political climate, he finds it refreshing to play north of the border. “Even having a bad audience in Canada is not anything,” he says. “I always love it there because I think the people’s attention spans are better and I think the people are less focused on buzzwords. Because that’s what I encounter in America, this halfwit attention span where you were just half listening and drunk and go, ‘What did he say?’ If you’re not paying attention to what I’m saying and you only listen to part of it, then it’s going to sound real offensive.”

Through comedy, he sees why Donald J. Trump is in charge. “I hope people understand that Trump is the perfect president for this country. The half-informed, cocksure, thin-skinned fucking imbecile—that’s America.

He’s the avatar of America.” -

omedian Kurt Metzger provides a good lesson to journalists who use Wikipedia for research. Don’t.

My spidey senses were tingling after the second sentence of his entry, which credits him with appearing on Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed. Metzger was a regular on Louis C.K.’s Peabody-winning Horace and Pete and has written for the likes of Amy Schumer, Dave Attell, and Dave Chappelle.

But the less well-known comic Byron Allen gets top billing?

“I have no idea what my Wikipedia says now,” Metzger says on the line from West Hollywood. “It’s all made-up stuff. That’s all troll stuff.”

For the record, he’s never been on Comics Unleashed.

He’s also written for various awards shows and a Comedy Central roast. As far as day jobs go, they’re pretty sweet.

But they’re still just day jobs.

“I would rather just be doing standup and writing for me, if I could just wave a wand and whatever,” he says. “It’s just I need the money and there’s writing jobs for me because I’m a good writer, so I always have to take them. But no, I don’t want to be a writer. It’s just a thing I do to make money, you know?”

He laughs at both the absurdity of dissing what would be a dream job for most people and his outrageous good fortune.

“It’s weird when I think about it,” he says. “I’ve written for almost every great comic that’s alive right now.

There’s very few I haven’t worked for.

It wasn’t my dream to write for somebody else, but I’ve got some decent things under my belt. So I like that, but if I could, I’d just be doing standup nonstop. I don’t like going to an office.

I don’t like having hours that I gotta keep. I don’t like any of that stuff.”

Metzger’s standup will be on full Kurt Metzger plays the Fox Cabaret display at the Fox Cabaret this Friday on Friday (October 6).

OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 31

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ARTS

Composer and piano star Ludovico Einaudi regularly fills the world’s gilded cultural palaces with his warm, entrancing music. Beniamino Barrese photo.

Pianist Einaudi draws from diverse inspiration > BY A LEX A NDER VA R TY

I

and virtuosic scores might seem the polar opposite of his own.

Still, Einaudi credits his former teacher’s adventurous Coro—an early experiment in fusing global styles with European art music—with helping shape his similarly inclusive approach, and says that Berio’s extramusical lessons were perhaps even more formative.

“Berio was always talking about music without talking about music,” he explains. “He was talking about music when he was observing the flight of a group of birds in the sky, or when he was talking about philosophy, or about Greek mythology. And this is something that I always do with my musical thinking, with my musical projects. I tend to work first on an idea that is not purely musical, and then I sort of transcribe this idea into music.”

Which explains, in part, how Einaudi found himself adrift among ice floes last summer, at the keys of an elegant Steinway grand set on a small white raft. The video shoot for his composition Elegy for the Arctic was part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of the threatened polar environment—and a good example of how even the most contemplative art can be inspired by the wider world.

“I was trying to have in mind the glacier as my audience, like a group of listeners there,” the pianist says of his venture to northernmost Norway. “And I was helping the people and also some governments to focus on the idea—together, of course, with Greenpeace—of protecting an area that is not protected. And I think even that when you are not relating to a specific idea, music has a vision.…I try to have this romantic idea that I can contribute, with what I do, to a better place.” -

t’s easy to hear why, with minimal fanfare, Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi is playing cultural palaces like our own gilded Orpheum: his instrumental compositions bring together several distinct strands of contemporary music— from the “holy minimalism” of Arvo Pärt to the ambient sounds of Brian Eno to song forms that wouldn’t sound out of place behind Sarah McLachlan—in a warm, accessible, and tuneful way.

And in the light of recent horrific events, they also provide the nervous crowd with a safe space where nothing bloody or chaotic dare intrude.

But that’s not why Einaudi makes such relentlessly consonant music, which often manages to be both melancholic and uplifting. He is, by his own admission, trying to please himself first.

“I know that there are some people that listen to my music when they are writing, when they are studying.…

It helps them, I don’t know why, to develop a sense of concentration,” the 61-year-old musician explains, speaking in fluent but accented English from his home city, Milan. “But the idea of making music, for me, is that I felt I wanted to do something that was not for me there already at the moment.…There was a necessity to create something that didn’t feel like it already was composed by other people.”

This doesn’t mean Einaudi is without influences; he readily admits to admiring minimalist maven Philip Glass, feels an affinity with the folkmusic-inspired compositions of 19thcentury pianist-composers Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann, and notes that a trip to Mali widened his rhythmic horizons considerably.

More surprising, perhaps, is his reverence for composer and electronic Ludovico Einaudi plays the Orpheum pioneer Luciano Berio, whose dense on Tuesday (October 10).

Unité Modèle OCT. 17-28, 2017

STUDIO 16 | 8 PM

WITH THE SUPPORT OF

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OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 33

ARTS

Much to like in As You Like It T HEAT RE AS YOU LIKE IT

By William Shakespeare. Directed by Michael Scholar Jr. At Studio 58 on Saturday, September 30. Continues until October 15

“Classy and Entertaining” – Vancouver Sun

Fall—the season of dying—is

2 officially upon us. If you need

an antidote, this production is positively bursting with life.

As You Like It sees Duke Senior exiled to the Forest of Arden, where he lives with a group of followers.

His daughter, Rosalind, has stayed behind as a companion to her cousin, Celia, daughter of the usurping Duke Frederick. But Frederick soon banishes Rosalind—right after a wrestling match in which the victor, a young nobleman named Orlando, has caught the eye of both young women. Rosalind disguises herself as a boy, Ganymede, and, along with Celia and their fool, Touchstone, flees to Arden—where Orlando eventually turns up as well. There, they meet the melancholy fool Jaques, and Rosalind-as-Ganymede offers to let Orlando practise his wooing ways on him (her).

Contemporary notions of exile infuse the style of director Michael Scholar Jr.’s production, as is evident the moment you walk into the theatre, whose entire space has been transformed into a refugee camp.

Lauchlin Johnston’s set uses sheets, tarps, pallets, tents, clotheslines, and a patchwork of threadbare rugs— even the theatre’s seats are draped in oilcloth. Characters carry suitcases, milk cartons, and backpacks, and wear costumes (by Mara Gottler) that appear to have come from a donation bin.

Scholar also sprinkles tokens of fascism into the world of Duke Frederick’s court, with its militaristic rituals and ubiquitous insignia. But the play is a romantic comedy, after all, so these choices are mostly surface trappings. Indeed, the atmosphere is one not of privation, but celebration: court minstrel Amiens (David Johnston, in moderately successful drag) opens the proceedings with a song, and there are a lot—a lot—of songs throughout the evening. While these serve to showcase a very musically talented crop of students, they sometimes delay the multiple plot lines.

You can’t fault the cast for commitment, though: there is so much energy in this show, from the delightfully silly staging of a group of sheep piling on top of a pair of lovers to the inventive physicality of a wrestling match in which the combatants fight

Warren Kimmel & Katey Wright Photo: David Cooper

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“Is it real love or Facebook love?”

Marguerite Hanna in an energized As You Like It. David Cooper photo.

without touching each other.

And there are some outstanding performances, notably William Edward’s Orlando, who makes a virtue of simply being present, and Michelle Morris’s, whose Celia is so responsive that she communicates volumes even when she doesn’t have a line.

Aidan Drummond is also excellent as the shepherd, Silvius; he commits to the character’s foolishness without making him a caricature. As Rosalind, Marguerite Hanna locates the boyish enthusiasm in her disguise as Ganymede, but her character comes across as less nuanced and less natural than her companions.

Though the play drags at times, the excitement of its best moments makes this Forest of Arden worth a visit.

> KATHLEEN OLIVER

13: THE MUSICAL Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. Book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn. Directed by Chris Adams. A presentation of Bring on Tomorrow Co., in association with Moving Mirrors Productions and Creber Music Corp. At the Waterfront Theatre on Sunday, October 1. Continues until October 8

Mean girls, jocks, freaks, and struggles of adolescence always seem to come with these familiar characters. Bring on Tomorrow Co.’s production of 13: The Musical introduces us to a new generation of these archetypes in a story about the teenage fight for social acceptance and the true meaning of friendship. It’s also the perfect vehicle to showcase an impressive array of local teenage talents who

2 geeks—the

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604.689.0926 OCT 4-14 Tue 7pm Wed-Fri 8pm Sat 3pm & 8pm Sun 3pm Wed 1pm (PWYC Oct 4 & 11)

34 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

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DANCER BRANDON ALLEY. PHOTO MICHAEL SLOBODIAN.

individually and collectively deliver outstanding performances.

The cast features 19 kids, many of whom have appeared in Arts Club Theatre productions as well as in film and TV shows. Leading the pack is Graham Verchere as 12-year-old New Yorker Evan Goldman, on the verge of turning 13 and having his bar mitzvah. Evan’s life is turned upside down when his parents’ divorce moves him to Appleton, Indiana. Evan becomes fixated on one goal: to get in with the popular kids and have them come to his all-important event.

Verchere has a down-to-earth, likable quality in his portrayal of Evan, making it easy for us to root for his character as he forges through the battleground known as junior high. Julia MacLean is phenomenal as social outcast Patrice, equipped with a uniquely glorious voice. Whether she’s stricken with excitement when meeting Evan in “The Lamest Place in the World”, or experiencing heartbreak in “What It Means to Be a Friend”, MacLean’s voice expresses every ounce of emotion her character feels with an insightful maturity that goes well beyond her 15 years.

Julian Lokash is a delight to watch as the disabled Archie, who uses his handicap to guilt Evan into setting him up on a date with the popular Kendra. Lokash’s powerful voice, comedic timing, and larger-thanlife personality are highlighted by the showstopping “Get Me What I Need”. As the backstabbing mean girl Lucy, Michelle Creber is magnificently evil. Playing a cheerleader with claws underneath her pompoms, Creber unleashes her sensational voice in songs such as “It Can’t Be True”, where she attempts to destroy Kendra’s social standing in a matter of minutes.

Nicol Spinola’s creative choreography takes us into the world and heads of the teens, bringing to life the cheerleading field in “Opportunity”, going inside the hormonal teenage mind in the boy-band-inspired “Hey Kendra”, and featuring boys popping out of lockers for the imaginative “Bad Bad News”.

Bring on Tomorrow’s 13: The Musical is a thrilling opportunity to watch a cast of stellar young triplethreat performers shine in full force.

While there’s nothing really innovative about the story, it’s exciting to watch fresh interpretations of ageold teenage archetypes, and to see these rising stars in action before they take off. > VINCE KANASOOT

ARTS

Painting proves it’s alive and well at Entangled The Vancouver Art Gallery’s big, energetic exhibit surveys Canada’s contemporary brushwork, from monochromes to conceptual creations VISUAL AR TS ENTANGLED: TWO VIEWS ON CONTEMPORARY CANADIAN PAINTING At the Vancouver Art Gallery until January 1, 2018

Entangled is a big, energetand engaging exhibition.

It trots us past an abundance of contemporary works, from John Heward’s hanging pieces of paintstained fabric to Jessica Groome’s tabletop paper “flags”, and from Neil Campbell’s eye-popping black-onwhite mural to Jeanie Riddle’s installation of neatly folded canvases set against a brilliant yellow ground.

Composed of some 70 works by 31 artists, Entangled examines (mostly) abstract painting created in Canada since the 1970s, a time when the medium was declared dead, defunct, or worse, irrelevant. Some painters, however, were not entirely convinced of its demise. Human beings, after all, had been applying pigment to receptive surfaces for tens of thousands of years. Painting was too old to die.

Still, the conceptualism of the 1960s and ’70s had a significant impact on all visual-art practices. Conceptualists believed that with high modernism, painting had pretty much, well, painted itself into a corner. They also condemned the commercialization and fetishization of the art of the time, instead choosing to value the idea over the object.

The evidence in this Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition, however, is that painters have found ingenious and sometimes revisionist ways of revitalizing the object and justifying their medium. Often, this has involved adopting conceptualism’s own

2 ic,

Stephanie Aitken’s small but violent paintings (Calypso is shown here) feature organic forms executed in a kind of muddied cubist palette.

strategies. Entanglement, indeed.

The VAG’s Bruce Grenville and guest curator David MacWilliam propose that “two distinctly different modes” of painting have developed in Canada in response to the debate

over its relevance. One mode, seen in the half of the show curated by MacWilliam, is predicated on ideas and concepts. Examples include Gerald Ferguson’s large spray paintings on unprimed canvas, their vertical lines

of thin black dots determined by using plasterers’ corner beading as a stencil.

Ferguson’s works of the late 1960s, along with red-oxide monochromes produced by Garry Neill Kennedy in the 1970s, invoke the leading role that the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design played in promulgating conceptualism in the cultural backwater that was Canada at the time.

Monochromes abound here, persisting through decades and generations, from Guido Molinari’s straightforward Untitled No. 8, created in 1979, to Jeffrey Spalding’s systematically layered black-and-bluish paintings, also from the 1970s, to Arabella Campbell’s all-white Wall paintings, made in 2007 and cued to the colour of the walls in three local art galleries. “Art as idea as painting” also includes Jeremy Hof’s extraordinary and highly sculptural works created out of hundreds and hundreds of layers of acrylic paint built up over a number of years, their centres then carved out and varnished to reveal deep circles and ovals of glowing colour. Julie Trudel’s black, white, and grey paintings are also dazzling, their optically complex constellations of dots and dashes created by carefully rolling and bending their thin Plexiglas grounds while the paint is wet.

The other “mode” of contemporary abstraction, revealed in the half of the show curated by Grenville, is “performative”, its outcomes determined by a combination of “materials and actions”. In this section, we find Marvin Luvualu Antonio’s big, gestural canvases, referencing, Grenville writes in his curatorial essay, displacement and dispossession. Also on view here are Stephanie Aitken’s small but strangely violent paintings, their

organic forms executed in a kind of muddied cubist palette, their canvas surfaces layered and torn, with occasional dangling pieces of fabric that suggest f layed skin.

On the whole, and not surprisingly, the conceptual paintings are pristine in their execution. The performative pieces are more obviously physical, relating to the body rather than the mind, with rips, smudges, muddy marks, cruddy textures, and unexpected colour combinations.

Abstract expressionism, especially action painting, is an obvious predecessor in this section—although theoretically cleansed of its machismo sins.

The best work in the show is hardly in the show at all. It is The Kiss, a small 1960 oil by Joyce Wieland, hung out of general view in a closetsized corner gallery and opposite the entrance to a women’s washroom.

Seemingly intended as a historical footnote to Entangled, Wieland’s abstraction consists of a mossy green ground, with a small smudge of lipstick-red paint on its right margin and a gob of streaky blue-white paint at its centre. A lightly sketched yellow arrow below the gob wordlessly points to it in a succinct reference to the male-dominated realm of abstract expressionism.

Despite its location, The Kiss is eloquently described in Grenville’s curatorial essay and in the exhibition label: “It is an exceptional painting for its simplicity and humour, its subversive disruption of the patriarchal discourse around the painterly gesture, its making and its meaning, and its profound statement on love.”

Wow—long before conceptualism transformed our understanding of painting, Joyce Weiland nailed it. > ROBIN LAURENCE

201 7/201 8

CLASSICAL TRADITIONS

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MUSIC 2THIS WEEK TERRA AND BEYOND, WITH CHRIS HADFIELD AND DANNY MICHEL Conductor William Rowson leads the VSO and vocalist-guitarists Chris Hadfield and Danny Michel in a concert that combines music with images from the International Space Station. Oct 6-7, 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe). Info www.vancouversymphony.ca/.

ar ts/ timeout THEATRE DANCE MUSIC COMEDY LITERARY EVENTS ET CETERA GALLERIES MUSEUMS

COMPAÑÍA SHARON FRIDMAN

HASTA DÓNDE…? + ALL WAYS

< < < < < < < <

THEATRE 2OPENINGS HYPERLINK Elbow Theatre presents the world premiere of the show that delves into life online and the limits of digital empathy. Oct 4-14, Firehall Arts Centre (280 E. Cordova). Tix from $25, info www. firehallartscentre.ca/onstage/hyperlink/.

October 12-14, 2017 | 8pm Photo: Ignacio Urrutia

don’t miss out!

Scotiabank Dance Centre

Tickets ticketstonight.ca Info thedancecentre.ca

OTHER INLAND EMPIRES: JULIE HAMMOND'S MFA GRADUATING PROJECT Writer-director Julie Hammond's work traces the Jewish roots of surf culture from Europe to California and back again.

Oct 5-7, 8 pm, Studio T (SFU Woodward's, 149 West Hastings ). Tix $15/10/7, info www. sfu.ca/sca/events/category/sca-event.

MOM'S THE WORD 3: NEST 1/2 EMPTY Arts Club on Tour presents the story of women whose kids are grown, whose marriages have evolved, and whose bodies have backfired. Oct 6-7, Kay Meek Centre (1700 Mathers Ave., West Van). Tix $29-50, info www.kaymeek.com/.

HOMEWARD BOUND Western Gold Theatre presents director William B. Davis's version of Elliott Hayes's play about one family's Sunday dinner. Oct 6-29, PAL Theatre (8th floor, 581 Cardero).

Tic $32/27, info homeward.bpt.me.

MONSTERS Miscellaneous Productions presents an antibullying, antiviolence, and antiracism play loosely based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Oct 6-7, 8 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre (677 Davie).

Info www.miscellaneousproductions.ca/.

FREEDOM SINGER Urban Ink presents a new documentary theatre piece that was inspired by the journey of singersongwriter Khari Wendell McClelland in retracing his great-grandmother’s steps to escaping slavery in the U.S. Oct 7-18, Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre (162 W. 1st). Info www.urbanink.ca/.

2ONGOING ANGELS IN AMERICA, PART TWO: PERESTROIKA Director Kim Collier's version of playwright Tony Kushner's work that sees characters wrestle with their ideologies as the AIDS epidemic rages in 1980s America. To Oct 8, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage (2750 Granville).

Info www.artsclub.com/.

THE PILLOWMAN Martin McDonagh's play tells the story of a writer who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a series of child murders. To Oct 6, Orpheum Annex (823 Seymour). Tix $5-35, info www.thepillowman.ca/.

plastic orchid factory (Vancouver) & MAYDAY / Mélanie Demers (Montréal) present

13: THE MUSICAL Bring On Tomorrow Co. presents a coming-of-age comedy about a young boy who tries to fit in at a new school, plan his bar mitzvah, and fix his family. To Oct 8, Waterfront Theatre (1412 Cartwright St., Granville Island). Tix from $13, info www.bringontomorrowco.com/.

Animal tri e

AS YOU LIKE IT Studio 58 presents Michael Scholar Jr.'s version of William Shakespeare's comedy that flips the traditional rules of romance. To Oct 15, 8 pm, Studio 58 (Langara College, 100 W. 49th).

Tix from $12.50, info www.studio58.ca/.

October 19, 20 & 21 8pm — Scotiabank Dance Centre $18-$28 - TICKETSTONIGHT.CA / INFO: PLASTICORCHIDFACTORY.COM

36 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

© Mathieu Doyon (Brianna Lombardo and Riley Sims)

THE GOBLIN MARKET The Dust Palace presents a production inspired by Christina Rossetti’s poem of dangerous and delicious temptation. To Oct 14, 8 pm, York Theatre (639 Commercial). Info www.thecultch.com/events/goblin-market/.

1 HOUR PHOTO The Cultch and VACT present the world premiere of Tetsuro Shigematsu’s story of a man whose life was swept up by the major currents of the 20th century. To Oct 15, 8 pm, The Cultch (1895 Venables). Tix $22-49, info www.thecultch.com/events/1-hour-photo/.

DANCE 2JUST ANNOUNCED TERO SAARINEN COMPANY DanceHouse presents the Finnish dance ensemble in Morphed, an exploration of masculinity undaunted by the extremes of sensitivity and heroism, and all that lies between. Oct 27-28, 8 pm, Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton).

Info www.dancehouse.ca/.

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

www.straight.com

GRILL/JECK/LEMIEUX Vancouver New Music presents an audio-visual improvisation by Austrian video artist Michaela Grill, Canadian filmmaker Karl Lemieux, and British turntablist Philip Jeck. Oct 7, 8 pm, Orpheum Annex (823 Seymour).

Tix $35/25/15, info www.newmusic.org/.

THE GREEN FOG The Kronos Quartet performs Jacob Garchik's original score to Guy Maddin and Evan and Galen Johnson's inventive reimagining of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Oct 10, 8-9:05 pm, The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts (777 Homer). Info www.viff.org/.

COMEDY 2ONGOING THE COMEDY MIX 1015 Burrard, Century Plaza Hotel & Spa, 604-684-5050, www.thecomedymix.com/. Comedy club with pro-am night Tue at 8:30 pm, showcase Wed at 8:30 pm, and featured headliners Thu at 8:30 pm and Fri-Sat at 8 and 10:30 pm. 2PETE ZEDLACHER Oct 5-7 2DEANNE SMITH Oct 12-14 2LACHLAN PATTERSON Oct 19-21 2IAN BAGG Nov 2-4

straight choices

GO LIVE While we can try to describe the sorts of things that might unfold at the LIVE Biennale of performance art this week, the true joy of the festival is the element of surprise. And, to be honest, a lot of what you’ll see happening on-stage simply defies description. Occurring at the Western Front, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Unit/Pitt Projects, and Pat’s Pub until Sunday (October 8), the event will feature some of the most exciting, provocative, and eye-popping performance art happening here and around the world. On Thursday night (October 5) at VIVO, check out Theo Pelmus and Kristin Snowbird’s live sculpture, Still Life: Memento Mori, a commentary on Michelangelo’s Pietà that draws on costumes and objects from their respective Romanian and Ojibwa heritages. Elsewhere at VIVO, Berlin’s Jörn J. Burmester uses colourful paint and canvas in a durational performance all weekend; Colombian-born Winnipeg artist Praba Pilar debuts her NO!!!BOT, a glitched-out exoskeleton unlike anything you’ve ever seen; and Palestinian artist Raeda Saadeh uses physical burdens, fences, and other symbols to embody the idea of a woman under occupying forces.

There is much more; plan your viewing at livebiennale.ca/2017.

YUK YUK'S COMEDY CLUB 2837 Cambie, 604-696-9857, www.yukyuks. com/vancouver/. Comedy club with Top Talent Tue at 8 pm, amateur night Wed at 8 pm, and professional headliners Thu-Fri at 8 pm and Sat at 7 and 9:30 pm. 2EDDIE DELLA SIEPE Oct 5-7 2PATRICK COPPOLINO Oct 12-14 2THE BRETT MARTIN SHOW Oct 13 2ERIK GRIFFIN Oct 19-21 2DAMONDE TSCHRITTER Oct 26-28 2WINNIPEG COMEDY FESTIVAL SHOWCASE Oct 27 VANCOUVER THEATRESPORTS LEAGUE Some of the world's most daring and innovative improv. IMPROV WARS: THE LAUGH JEDI (Thu, Fri, and Sat, 7:30 pm); #NoFilter (Thu, 9:15 pm); Ok Tinder (Fri and Sat, 11:15 pm); Rookie Night (Sun, 7:30 pm); TheatreSports (Wed, 7:30 pm; Wed, 9:15 pm; Fri and Sat, 9:30 pm). Oct 4-11, The Improv Centre (1502 Duranleau, Granville Island). Info www.vtsl.com/.

2THIS WEEK EDDIE DELLA SIEPE Canadian comedian performs a solo standup show.

Oct 5-7, Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club (2837 Cambie). Tix $10-20, info www.yukyuks. com/vancouver/.

PETE ZEDLACHER Standup comedian performs a solo show. Oct 5-7, The Comedy MIX (1015 Burrard). Tix $20/18/15, info www.thecomedymix.com/.

IMPROV WARS: THE LAUGH JEDI The Vancouver TheatreSports League presents an improvised parody that draws on the rich characters, locations, and themes of the Star Wars films. Oct 5–Nov 18, The Improv Centre (1502 Duranleau, Granville Island). Info www.vtsl.com/.

NICK OFFERMAN American actor, voice actor, producer, writer, comedian, and carpenter performs on his Full Bush Tour. Oct 5, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe). Tix $59.50/49.50/39.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

KURT METZGER American writer and standup comedian, with support by Ivan Decker and Sophie Buddle. Oct 6, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret (2321 Main). Tix $30/25, info www.facebook.com/ events/1631329130272797/.

VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL IMPROV FESTIVAL The 19th annual celebration of improv comedy features over 40 performances, workshops, and an opening-night gala. Oct 11-14, 7:30 pm, The Red Gate Revue Stage (1601 Johnston Street, Granville Island ). Tix $1525, info www.vancouverimprovfest.com/.

LITERARY EVENTS 2THIS WEEK VANCOUVER: CITY ON EDGE Explore the changing city with authors Kate Bird, Wayde Compton, Aaron Chapman, and Charles Demers. Oct 5, 7-8:30 pm, Alice MacKay Room (Vancouver Public Library, 350 W. Georgia). Free, info www.vpl.ca/.

VANCOUVER RARE BOOK, PHOTOGRAPH, AND PAPER SHOW Curated event features 23 exhibitors with specialized collections of books, fine maps, photographs, and interesting paper items. Oct 7-8, 9 am–5 pm, Heritage Hall. Tix $10, info www.vrbppshow.ca/.

ET CETERA 2THIS WEEK NIGHT SHIFT: BODY LANGUAGE This installment of MOA’s monthly cabaret party features Japanese master calligrapher Kimura Tsubasa performing her large-scale brush calligraphy, set to the improvised music of cellist Marina Hasselberg. Oct 5, The Museum of Anthropology at UBC (6393 NW Marine Drive). Info www.moa.ubc.ca/nightshift.

EXPERIMENTAL INK Evening of live performance, music, and calligraphy by Assembly Dance Theatre from Taiwan, interdisciplinary artist Sammy Chien, and master calligrapher Kimura Tsubasa. Oct 6, doors and bar 7:30 pm, show 8:30-10 pm, The Museum of Anthropology at UBC. Tix $25, info tickets.ubc.ca/.

THE LIVING SURFACES #2: RHYTHMIC WANDERS: CELO VIEIRA'S MFA GRADUATING PROJECT For Living Surfaces, Vieira uses projection mapping to project a series of video works over handmade sculptures. In Rhythmic Wanders, Vieira creates a puzzle-like collection of beats, melodies, and sonic environments. Oct 11-16, Level B (SFU at Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings). Free admission, info www.sfu. ca/sca/events/category/sca-event.

WALID RAAD ARTIST TALK Walid Raad discusses his work, which queries the instability of documents, the role of memory and narrative in conflict discourses, and the construction of histories in the face of ongoing catastrophe. Oct 11, 7 pm, Audain Gallery (149 W. Hastings, SFU Woodward's in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts). Info www.sfu.ca/galleries/ audain-gallery/Walid-Raad.html.

GALLERIES BILL REID GALLERY 639 Hornby, www.billreidgallery.ca/. 2INTANGIBLE: MEMORY AND INNOVATION IN COAST SALISH ART (exhibition spotlights six trailblazing Coast Salish artists influenced by tradition as well as contemporary inspiration) to Dec 10 FAIRMONT PACIFIC RIM 1038 Canada Place, 604-695-5300, www.fairmont.com/ pacificrim. 2FIGHT FOR BEAUTY (a candid perspective of the past, present, and future of Westbank and the fights that build cities and culture) Oct 14-21 VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 750 Hornby, 604-662-4719, www.vanartgallery. bc.ca/. 2ENTANGLED: TWO VIEWS ON CONTEMPORARY CANADIAN PAINTING (exhibition offers insight into two distinctly different modes of painting that have come to dominate contemporary painting in Canada) to Jan 1

MUSEUMS THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT UBC 6393 NW Marine Drive, 604-8225087, www.moa.ubc.ca/. 2TRACES OF WORDS: ART AND CALLIGRAPHY FROM ASIA (multimedia exhibition examines the physical traces of words, both spoken and recorded, that are unique to humans) to Oct 9

TIME OUT ARTS LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge, based on available space and editorial discretion. Submit listings 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.

VIFF ’17

“The Ten Commandments. Herbie

BY ALEX ANDER VAR T Y

Rides Again. Portrait in Black. Arthur Hailey’s Hotel. The Lineup. The Lady From Shanghai. Sans Soleil. Innerspace. The House on Telegraph Hill.

Mrs. Doubtfire. Pacific Heights. Patti Hearst. The Dead Pool. The Presidio. The Woman in Red. Pal Joey. The Organization. Killer Elite. Sister Act. Fearless. Mr. Ricco. Sudden Fear. Mission: Impossible episodes. Jagged Edge. The Zodiac Killer. The Laughing Policeman. Petulia. Julie. Experiment in Terror. Woman on the Run. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Birds. A Bucket of Blood. The Terminator. Godzilla. Take Me Away. Murder, She Wrote episodes. Dogfight. San Andreas.”

On the line from his Harvard office, Guy Maddin takes a deep breath and laughs. “You get the idea,” he says, before briefly resuming his litany.

“Greed. The Rock. Anyway, lots of movies.”

This isn’t the syllabus for the filmmaking course Maddin has been teaching in Massachusetts, and perhaps that’s a good thing; as the Winnipeg-born auteur readily admits, there’s an ample vein of dross running through the Oscar gold listed here. What links these sundry films and TV dramas, though, is that they were all shot in or around the Bay Area— and that they’ve all contributed scenes to Maddin’s new collage-style tribute to San Francisco, The Green Fog, which makes its Canadian debut at the Vancouver International Film Festival this week.

A patchwork Vertigo

Kronos Quartet will be here to perform Jacob Garchik’s score for The Green Fog during a special presentation at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

“Of course, it’s all hubris,” a separate telephone interview from his Brooklyn Maddin says, laughing again. home. “It lets the film do that, and the music sort “But we’re preposterous people of goes against that. The idea is that it creates an and we know how ridiculous illusion of all these different cuts becoming one we are, so we know when we’ve set ourselves a pre- thing. So that was my job: to sort of patch the posterous task.…You know you’re bound to fail, gaps, if that makes any sense.” but in the failure is where it gets interesting. Where The music, Garchik adds, is intended to accomsomething is remarkably unimpressive, where pany the viewer’s internal narrative, rather than things just fall miraculously way short of what to enforce one of its own. Anyone cine-savvy we’re attempting to emulate, is where it gets enough to be a film-festival regular will great. And then you put this spectacular already have an idea of what Vertigo is pratfall to music by Kronos Quartet, about, he suggests, noting that he reCheck out… which is really gorgeous, it really makes STRAIGHT.COM cently took in a screening of Hitchfor an interesting tension.” cock’s masterpiece in New York City’s Visit our website for the latest Kronos, by the way, will perform biggest theatre—after he’d started reviews and local Jacob Garchik’s score live at The work on The Green Fog’s score, but bemovie news Green Fog’s VIFF screening, adding fore Maddin and company had decided another level of complexity to what, deon their final plan. spite Maddin’s self-mockery, is a tour de “That was serendipitous,” he says. “And it force of rapid-fire editing. The filmmaker com- could be fun, for some people, to watch Vertigo just pares the process of re-creating Vertigo from before seeing the film. Or not: you can just experisnippets of plundered footage to the creation of ence it on your own. But it is kind of fun to have sample-based music—with the caveat that he and Vertigo refreshed in your mind, so that when you the Johnsons respect copyright. watch The Green Fog you can catch all the refer“Our chief collaborator there was a fair-use ences going back and forth.” lawyer that the San Francisco film festival hired,” Maddin wouldn’t disagree, calling The Green Maddin notes. “I know that with most sampling Fog “a movie about Vertigo as if it has existed as in music they don’t bother with lawyers, but we long as San Francisco”. Slightly less durable is just wanted them [the SFIFF] to feel comfortable his position as guest lecturer at Harvard, which with what we’re doing. But, yeah, we’re sampling. comes to a close at the end of this semester.

We’re putting in something with a ’50s Techni“I like teaching a lot, but it does cut into my color palette at just the right moment, and then momentum as a filmmaker,” he says. “Still, it’s some sort of television-videotape ’80s palette. It been a hilarious experience. I’ll probably come up was just a matter of matching and layering things with a movie or a TV-series pitch out of it, someso that there’s kind of a symphony of sampled thing like The Stupidest Man at Harvard. That’s a emulsions and pixels and video noise.” big project—and you heard it here first!” For the score, however, Garchik is playing it Guy Maddin’s The Green Fog screens at the straight.

“I love sampling culture and love sampling, but Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts on the music really doesn’t do that,” the San Fran- Tuesday (October 10), as part of the Vancouver cisco–born composer and trombonist explains, in International Film Festival.

Assembled by Guy Maddin, with Evan and Galen Johnson, The Green Fog rebuilds Bay Area Hitchcock from spare parts The Green Fog is no mere montage, however.

It’s also an absurd and exciting homage to what many consider “the greatest movie ever made”, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 noir classic Vertigo. Here, though, every scene has been replaced by excerpts from the productions listed above, with literally dozens of actors standing in for Hitchcock’s iconic stars James Stewart and Kim Novak. And yet it’s obviously a Maddin production: dizzying, surreal, and often swathed in uncanny light.

Initially, the project was simpler, beginning when San Francisco Film Society executive director Noah Cowan approached Maddin and his production team to make a “city symphony” about the organization’s home and its cinematic past. “You know, a lot of movies and television shows have been shot in San Francisco, and even before cinema was invented, Eadweard Muybridge lived in the Bay Area and was doing filmlike things with his famous nude models posing against gridworks, pouring buckets of water with their genitals dangling, or climbing stairs or running or whatever,” Maddin explains. “And the Bay Area’s not just had its soul sucked out of it by cameras over every decade of film history, but it’s also been the cradle of so many different things: experimental film; a lot of activism; the Black Panthers were founded in the Bay Area; in the Summer of Love it was the epicentre of hippies; earthquakes.…All this stuff appears and reappears.”

Maddin and his sibling codirectors, Evan and Galen Johnson, knew they wanted to work with found footage, but thought they’d follow symphonic form, crafting their film as a sequence of movements focusing on fires, earthquakes, the AIDS epidemic, and so on. Then the idea of a Vertigo remake struck.

WEEK IN VIFFSCREEN

MOVIES

The projector

Golden horses THE GREAT BUDDHA+ Well played, VIFF. When this black

comedy from Taiwan was booked into the festival, it’s unlikely anyone expected The Great Buddha+ to score a whopping 10 Golden Horse nominations, including best film and best new director, and a nod for its luminous black-and-white cinematography. Catch it at International Village on Thursday (October 5). -

What to see and where to see it

1

HIDDEN SWORD Star Zhang Aoyue attends two screenings of this grand swordsman epic, at the Playhouse on Wednesday (October 4) and the Centre on Saturday (October 7).

2

TOM OF FINLAND Pekka Strang

3

AZAR This “understated domes-

Hive mind

stars in this biopic about the man who turned leather-bound biker boys into high art, at International Village on Saturday (October 7).

tic drama” from Iran, praised by the Straight’s Janet Smith, gets its world premiere at the Vancity Theatre on Sunday (October 8).

TOTALLY INDIE DAY Among the highlights of the daylong STORYHIVE-sponsored meeting of content providers and industry pros, In the Writers’ Room brings together Sheri Elwood (Lucifer), Michael Grassi (Riverdale), Simon Barry (Ghost Wars), and Thomas Schnauz (Better Call Saul) to discuss what it’s like in the creative belly of the beast. At the Vancity Theatre on Saturday (October 7). OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 37

VIFF ’17

I

Fest gives filmgoers reasons to be cheerful

n this week’s roundup of features at the Vancouver International Film Festival, we find one elemental Canadian dancer, one overcaffeinated “starchitect”, one Beastie Boy, two reincarnated kids, and a certain Charles Chaplin hanging loose in the South Seas. And that ain’t the half of it! Once you’ve hoovered up every last word on this page, check back next week and at Straight.com for even more.

2 COOL 2 BE 4GOTTEN (Philip-

pines) Life at a sleepy high school in Pampanga, rife with unethical and oppressive instructors, changes with the arrival of interracial pretty boy Magnus Snyder. This is particularly true for top scholar Felix. When he’s enlisted to help the new student with his schoolwork, the quiet Felix is drawn out of his loner shell and into the wild ways of Magnus and his devilish younger brother Maxim. As Felix’s closeted attraction to Magnus grows, he becomes increasingly enmeshed in the Snyder family’s dark tensions, which involve their hard-partying mother. Despite uneven acting, a tendency toward heavy-handedness, and unnecessary performance-art interludes, the film demonstrates admirable attunement to the introverted Felix as he hurtles down a coming-of-age trajectory with seemingly no way out other than disaster. International Village, October 9 (4:15 p.m.) > CRAIG TAKEUCHI

7 MINUTES (Italy/France/Switzerland) The title refers to the seemingly minuscule concession in allowable break time when a French clothing behemoth took over an Italian textile company in 2012. Here, one of the smarmy owners is played by writer-director Michele Placido, and his daughter Violante is one of the allfemale workers who must vote yea or nay on the new terms. The film never quite escapes its origins as a stage play, with each of the committee members given button-pushing soliloquies—you could call it 12 Angry Women—and the whole thing is underscored by smarmy piano music, telling you how to feel throughout. Worst of all, the end-titles tell you about the real-life impasse that inspired it, but not how the damn thing turned out!

International Village, October 4 (1:30 p.m.) and 6 (9:45 p.m.) > KEN EISNER ARMED WITH FAITH (USA) Some

of the most neglected soldiers on the frontline of the so-called War on Terror are found in one of its epicentres: Pakistan. This short, well-assembled doc focuses on a bomb-disposal squad—one that’s constantly at work in its own backyard. The film is jittery but not hard to watch, since it focuses less on explosions (although they do happen) than on the members of the squad, nonideological fellows with few resources but much devotion to public safety. Their leader, a career army officer with a perpetually worried family, is fully aware that the uneducated and usually quite young rubes who get suckered into suicide bombings can’t get at actual enemies and so take it out on their neighbours. His responses, and those of the lower-ranking men, are ingenious and sympathetic. But what can they really accomplish in a world determined to blow itself up? SFU, October 5 (9 p.m.) and 7 (11 a.m.) > KE

BECOMING WHO I WAS (South

Korea) Whether or not you believe in metempsychosis, this tender, picturesque documentary about a boy convinced he is a rinpoche, an honorific Tibetan term for a reincarnated monk, has multifaceted appeal. In the northern Indian region of Ladakh, Padma Angdu is convinced he was a lama in a former life in Kham, Tibet. He sees his former monastery in dreams, re-creating it in drawings and models, and is taken under the wing of an elderly lama and traditional doctor. What becomes most apparent is the difficulties that Angdu faces: ostracization, difficulties in adapting to monastic life,

draws on home movies, drawings, archival footage, and Weiss’s own incisively carved words to convey the essence of his unusually dramatic childhood. Initially drawn to the atavistic lure of Nazism in his youth, he had to be reminded by his closest friend that having a Jewish father meant he couldn’t fully enjoy what he later recognized as “the insane notion of a collective destiny”.

They had the means to escape, and he took art, music, and life lessons in London, Prague, and Stockholm, although his family’s security was already smashed by the accidental death of his beloved sister before the war. It’s quite sombre, and some viewers may struggle with the decision to have a young, and very good, actor reading Weiss’s lines in modThe reclamation of Indigenous coastal Alaskan languages gets the celebration it deserves in director Karen Lynn Weinberg’s rousing documentary, Keep Talking. ern settings. (There’s even a Clash tune at one point!) But I found it separation from his family, painful re- man in the world, and the pressures deeply moving throughout. Interjections, and the challenge of reaching of wearing that mantle prompted national Village, October 8 (1 p.m.) far-off Tibet, which the pair set off for him to make an extended South and 9 (8:30 p.m.) > KE on foot, despite warnings of a crack- Seas getaway in 1932, just after the down by Chinese forces. Despite being advent of sound threatened to make A FISH OUT OF WATER (Taiwan) an old soul, Angdu still has plenty of his acute storytelling modes seem When a small boy’s past-life memtantrums, tears, and giggles. Pan- old-fashioned. There’s a surprising ories get too powerful to ignore, his oramic cinematography of mountain- amount of great footage follow- parents must help him search for the ous vistas and snowscapes and a senti- ing his ocean voyage with brother seaside family he insists he was born mental soundtrack infuse Angdu’s Sydney, through Suez, to Ceylon into. They are Taipei personalities, too story with an epic quality. Even if you and Singapore, and then Bali itself, busy for everything, but the boy’s fixaremain skeptical about reincarnation, where German polymath Walter tions upend the family, which is also Becoming is intriguing and moving. Spies became their guide to a new looking after the dad’s ailing father.

Vancity, October 8 (8:15 p.m.) and 11 way of seeing things. Although the Director Lai Kuo-An is reaching for doc’s somewhat academic narration something transcendent the movie (6:15 p.m.) > CT doesn’t quite make the case that the never quite reaches, and it’s too gentle BIG TIME (Denmark) Fans of archi- Little Tramp was philosophically to deliver much emotional wallop. tecture will want to flock to this aptly altered by his sojourn—as well as Water images and sounds support the artful look at Bjarke Ingels, the young completely dropping Spies’s part primordial sensibility of this TaiwanDanish starchitect with the audacity of the story—the expert choice of ese tale, which has some of the mythic to design Vancouver House—a shim- relevant clips from Chaplin’s long feel of Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda. mering, twisting tower built to look career helps make this a must-see And this Fish is a pleasure to watch for like a curtain opening on a zigzagging for fans, and for the merely curi- geometric, wide-screen compositions mass of low-rise, grass-roofed resi- ous. Vancity, October 7 (9:30 p.m.); that favour blue, green, and coral pink. dences. But director Kaspar Astrup SFU, October 9 (4:30 p.m.); Cinema- International Village, October 7 (3:15 Schröder so celebrates Ingels’s super- theque, October 11 (7 p.m.) > KE p.m.) > KE caffeinated creativity and form-exploding aesthetic that this doc is going CRISIS MANAGEMENT (Inter- GOLDEN EXITS (USA) Surely we’ll to entertain just about anybody. As national) For some reason, almost never run out of indie flicks about one developer asks him at one point, all the humans depicted in this nebbishy bookworm types who “How do you sleep?” You can almost shorts collection are deeply unpleas- manage to attract the kind of smart, see the activity and ideas bouncing ant. That might be survivable, but hot gals who, in real life, might drop around Ingels’s brain—and that brain the depicters aren’t very impressive everything for Javier Bardem but are will bring him some great difficulty at either. Some efforts, like “Hunger”, a here thrilled at the chance to hang the film’s climax, on his 40th birthday. longish Mexican effort about wasted out with Beastie Boy Adam HoroBut where Big Time really excels is in life, are so colourfully mounted, you vitz. The gravel-voiced little guy, its years-long, intimate portrait, vis- can easily enjoy the misanthropy. who’s been okay in support roles, is iting Ingels’s idyllic yet humble roots But the dependence here on human out of his acting depth as a misanin Denmark, where he grew up by a nature’s worst impulses—bullying, thropic archivist already beleaguered lake, playing outdoors, and working deceit, institutional and individual by wife Chloë Sevigny and sister-inodd jobs. Some of the best scenes fea- cruelty, plus the reliably taboo in- law Mary-Louise Parker when sexy ture the architect, who once wanted to cest—makes this a tough sit, aesthet- Australian Emily Browning signs be a cartoonist, illustrating his ideas ically and morally. I couldn’t make on to his latest project. The gals jam with a fat Magic Marker on a scroll of much sense of Britain’s “There Was lots of wisecracks into this latest, paper. With swooping pans, Schrö- a Man, a Girl, and a Rocket”, a satir- slightly more opulent effort from der also captures the magic of Ingels’s ical number about a kid missing her Alex Ross Perry, who made sketchy impossible structures—most nota- astronaut dad, but the title sure is no-budgeters like The Color Wheel bly, the eco-friendly power plant that nice. International Village, October 5 and Listen Up Philip, but it’s still all about the guys. The latter film’s Jason launched his career. That’s the one (6 p.m.) and 8 (4 p.m.) > KE Schwartzman shows up here, too. with a ski slope on the roof and smoke rings blowing out from its chimney. THE ENDLESS (USA) All sorts of And, of course, in next-gen Woody SFU on October 8 (6:15 p.m.); Inter- subterranean modern American Allen Land, he’s catnip for the ladies! national Village, October 10 (4 p.m.) anxieties get filtered through this International Village, October 7 (9:30 > JANET SMITH agreeably pulpy exercise. (The only p.m.) and 9 (2:15 p.m.) > KE thing worse than being in a suicide CASTING (Germany) This perfectly cult is not being in a suicide cult?) IN TIME TO COME (Singapore) sharp-edged gem is about people try- Brothers Aaron and Justin return to Framed by the unearthing of a time ing to make a German-TV version the desert-based UFO-contact com- capsule from 1990 (phone books of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, munity they escaped as young adults, and VHS cassettes, anyone?) and a Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s lesbian drawn by varying degrees to the new “time cube” being loaded up in melodrama here retooled in hetero group security it offers, mandatory Singapore, filmmaker Tan Pin Pin’s fashion. With less than a week to go castration aside. Directors Aaron documentary draws just enough before shooting should begin on an Moorhead and Justin Benson star, from its banal scenes of daily life unfinished soundstage, a novice dir- also very agreeably, in a movie that in the city-state to sustain interest. ector still hasn’t found her female lead. doesn’t go where you expect, but There’s a serenity to this photoAnd an aging playboy actor (terrific rather in the direction of Phil Dick graphic, non-narrative, non-narratAndreas Lust) who’s been hired mere- doing Lovecraft. (Lovedick? Dick- ed work that captures the tidiness ly to read lines with the older women craft?) Like their cult hit Spring, this and orderliness of this Southeast auditioning for the prestigious part new flick is a little too fussy about Asian cosmopolis. Vacant roadways, finds himself one of the few constants explaining itself, but it’s also tons of well-behaved rows of students quietin a flailing enterprise. He proceeds to fun, effectively designed, and oddly ly reading, malls devoid of human both use and blow his advantages as breezy for a film containing such a presence, tree stumps being ripped they arise. Network, career, and sexual seriously heavy nucleus of unthink- out of construction sites—all are up politics share equal billing in a devil- able dread. Rio, October 6 (11 p.m.) for observation without any overt ishly fun entertainment about what it and 9 (9 p.m.) > ADRIAN MACK commentary. But it’s perhaps one of takes to keep us amused. SFU, October the film’s initially enigmatic shots— FAREWELL (Austria) Best known an underwater view of a polar bear 4 (9 p.m.) and 6 (4 p.m.) > KE for his Marat/Sade play, Peter Weiss running in circles through water— CHAPLIN IN BALI: JOURNEY TO was also an incisive poet, painter, that is the most unexpectedly revealTHE EAST (France) “Humour is and novelist, although his works ing of what the film is indicating, not found in the small discrepancies have rarely been published in Eng- just by what is depicted but also by of reality” is just one observation lish. Based on an autobiographical what is felt. Cinematheque, October made here by one Charlie Chaplin. novel that is usually translated as 5 (9 p.m.); International Village, OcAt the time, he was the most famous Leavetaking, this 80-minute essay tober 6 (3:30 p.m.) > CT

38 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

I’VE GOT THE BLUES (Hong Kong)

A crankily original artist meets his match in a volatile filmmaker as Hong Kong veteran Angie Chen attempts to profile Yank Wong, a painter, designer, and rootsy musician (his guitar-plucking explains the title) who refuses to let anyone else tell his story.

That requires Chen, a UCLA grad originally from Shanghai, to follow the guy on his H.K. haunts, and to Macau and Paris—where he left two daughters with different mothers—while attempting to smoke and drink him under the table. It takes some time to get used to their bantering style, but the film reveals mounting pleasures as we get to see more of Wong’s work, both in the studio and on the walls of some bohemian salons. His certitude that he always knows best—something he uses to belittle others while smiling—is irritating, however, and Chen knows and shows it. International Village, October 4 (6:30 p.m.) and 5 (12:45 p.m.) > KE

KEEP TALKING (USA) An excellent addition for those who enjoy the positivity of Alanis Obomsawin’s Our People Will Be Healed, this nuts-and-bolts doc looks at the reclamation of Indigenous languages in coastal Alaska. Director Karen Lynn Weinberg talks to scholars, students, artists, and elders in still-active fishing communities about their oncefading cultures, and learns some surprising things. These include the positive influence, dating back to the 19th century, of Russian Orthodoxy, whose priests learned Aleut instead of forcing the locals to speak their language. Memorably, one old-timer recalls, “Church is where we thought about fishing, and the boat is where we thought about God.” International Village, October 5 (10:45 a.m.) > KE LOUISE LECAVALIER IN MOTION

(Canada) Raymond St-Jean’s documentary opens with familiar scenes of the platinum-haired Montreal dance powerhouse: dreadlocks swinging, Louise Lecavalier barrel-rolls and hurls herself into David Bowie’s arms at the height of her La La La Human Steps fame. The film also talks to the now cropped-haired, 58-year-old force of nature about her childhood, when she never considered dance an option due to her muscular frame. But mostly, it’s a portrait of Lecavalier now, the way she creates in the studio, how she dances, and where she performs around the world. For fans who’ve seen her here in recent years, it’s dance heaven. What comes across most—in person and in extended dance sequences—is her boundless, unstoppable energy, a vivaciousness and endless curiosity that propel her ever forward and defy all concepts of age. If only we could bottle that… SFU, October 9 (6:30 p.m.); Vancity, October 11 (11 a.m.) > JS MEDITATION PARK (Canada) Mina Shum’s deeply felt comedy-drama brought the house down at a buoyant and sold-out gala screening on VIFF’s opening night (September 28). Some flaws aside, it’ll be a crowdpleaser wherever it travels, this tale of a diffident Chinese wife and mother— played with timorous, almost childlike charm by septuagenarian wuxia legend Cheng Pei Pei—who discovers that just-turned-65 hubby (she calls him “old man”) is having an affair.

He’s by turns rascally, vulnerable, and brutally patriarchal, which gives Arrival’s Tzi Ma a lot to sink his teeth into, and he pulls it off with a real brio that isn’t always supported by the script.

But this is Cheng’s film, and it’s her journey from house mouse to emancipated older lady that got the VIFF audience on its feet. Certainly no less rousing: this love letter to HastingsSunrise, the best old neighbourhood in the city, complete with backyard-parking grannies (“po-pos”) and family block parties in crane-festooned New Brighton Park, goes straight to what Vancouver should be fighting to protect. Rio, October 11 (6:15 p.m.) > AM see next page

NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL

(Canada) It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at U.K. vet Shirley Henderson’s unsparing depiction of a middle-aged Canadian coping with Parkinson’s disease. Her gruff older husband (Nick Campbell) and ne’erdo-well son (Quebecer Théodore Pellerin, excellent here even if he looks nothing at all like his “parents”) have their own problems in the wintry oil country of northern B.C. (The Fort St. John and Fort St. James locations are often riveting.) While the boy is questioning his own sexuality and general place in the world, his loving mum finds her own world rapidly diminishing. Writer-director Kathleen Hepburn spun this off from a short film, and could have taken the time to go a little further into what these folks would be without their problems. But she’s a serious talent to watch. International Village, October 7 (12:15 p.m.) and 10 (6:45 p.m.) > KE TEEN YEARS: HEAVEN AND HELL (International) The kids are

not all right in this collection. There are violent intrusions on innocence, especially in the creepy goth tale “Don’t Be Afraid of the Light” and the punkistic “Nobody Likes You”. The fear of vicious impulses torments an otherwise normal teen in the searing Danish drama “Overlove”, while abrupt changes in culture intrude on a quiet life in “TV in the Fish Tail”, set in a remote Himalayan village. Elsewhere, high-school basketball dominates two very different stories, to ultimately positive effect. And in the gentle-toned “The Fashion Show”, an English girl dresses her pet lamb for a county fair and dreams of faraway futures. Good show! International Village, October 4 (11:15 p.m.); Vancity, October 7 (6:45 p.m.) > KE

two damaged Italian families who share a courtyard in the centre of old Naples. Things start with a sad-eyed translator (terrific Giovanna Mezzogiorno) visiting her aged dad in the hospital. We think he’s in a coma, and that we’ll follow her home. But the old guy (renowned theatre director Renato Carpentieri) was just playing possum, and the movie really centres on him. A cranky retired lawyer who has shut out the world, he gets quietly entranced by the lively young family that moves in across from his kitchen in the big, noble building his family used to own. With novelistic detail, the tale is so carefully mounted and beautifully photographed, you can forgive it for going slightly off the rails after some bad things happen. Look for one incendiary scene with ’80s star Greta Scacchi (The Coca-Cola Kid), an Australian-Brit who, it turns out, was born in Milan. Playhouse, October 5 (6:30 p.m.); International Village, October 11 (1:30 p.m.) > KE THAT TRIP WE TOOK WITH DAD

(R om a n i a /G e r m a ny/ Hu n g a r y) Here’s a fascinating, slightly overextended trip back to the bad old days of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania, when the defection of one person could, and did, bring dire consequences to a whole family. In this case, set in the political storms of 1968, two smart-ass siblings are already picked on for their ethnic German heritage, although this helps a little when they drive through East Germany to get to a strangely disappointing West, in order to help their sick father. That might sound grim, but the film is handled with the humour that distance can bring, even if talented young filmmaker Anca Miruna Lazarescu is quite close to the subject: in real life, her father was one of the two constantly LA TENEREZZA (Italy) When you’re squabbling brothers. International done with the agitated indie flicks Village October 8 (9:30 p.m.) and 11 and hinterland documentaries, and (12:15 p.m.) > KE ready for a high level of grown-up moviemaking, Tenderness is a title TOUCHING THE POETIC (Interfor you. The latest effort from Stolen national) If you’re ready for a masChildren’s Gianni Amelio looks at ter class in how to curate a program

of interlocking shorts, check out this engrossing journey into the weird, wild, and definitely wonderful. Cars, stars, and bars are some of the thematic elements connecting attempts—some pretty damned abstract—by humans to reach for something ineffably deep in the universe. In some cases, the search is literal, as in “Chasing Stars”, which heads to a Swiss observatory and uses time-lapse images (and classical music) to dazzling effect. “The Kodachrome Elegies” combines home movies and archival stills to capture the colour of fading memories, and technology. The human body is refracted through f leeting patterns of light and sound in “Rhythm of Being”.

Most uplifting, in “The Language of Ball”, a newly arrived Arab lad who speaks no English finds a first friend on the multi-culti basketball courts of New York. International Village, October 6 (8:45 p.m.); Vancity, October 10 (12:45 p.m.) > KE

Top Critics Are Raving VICTORIA & ABDUL is a Must-See

“TERRIFICALLY ENTERTAINING.” SHAWN EDWARDS, FOX-TV

“JUDI DENCH IS INCREDIBLE.”

“

++++ ” EMPIRE

KEELY FLAHERTY, BUZZFEED

WORST CASE, WE GET MARRIED

(Canada/Switzerland) The essentially horrifying tale of a damaged teenybopper is given an airy, counterintuitive touch that doesn’t quite jell by veteran filmmaker Léa Pool. Holding everything together is a fantastic Sophie Nélisse, dressed like Jodie Foster in 1975 and f louncing through the film with the right degree of hormonal volatility while she inf licts herself on a too-kind 29-year-old chef played by the likable Jean-Simon Leduc. A sugary, gum-snapping vibe is your cue that Nélisse’s Aicha is the unreliable narrator here, which helps to square the baff lingly unwise behaviour of the adults in her life—and the way a key trauma is presented—but which also muddles the inevitably tragic ending.

It’s still worth your time, especially with its central performance, but in wanting to incite the viewer, Worst Case doesn’t quite build its best case. International Village, October 7 (7 p.m.) and 8 (1:15 p.m.) > AM

Kronos Quartet Performs Live At VIFF!

The Green Fog A San Francisco Fantasia

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This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the world-renowned Kronos Quartet perform a live score to a dreamlike new version of the “greatest film of all time.”

Tickets $35-$55

Originally commissioned by San Francisco Film Society, this inventive reimagining of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo comes courtesy of mad genius Guy Maddin and co-directors Evan and Galen Johnson. With the Kronos Quartet performing an original score by composer Jacob Garchik, The Green Fog conjures a parallel universe version of Hitchcock’s 1958 classic through a kaleidoscopic assemblage of Bay Area-based found footage drawn from studio classics, noir gems, documentaries, experimental curios and ‘70s primetime television.

Available at: goviff.org/thegreenfog

Additional Guests in Attendance: Co-directors Evan Johnson & Galen Johnson.

VIFF Passes, Ticket Packs and Exchange Vouchers are not valid for this special event.

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OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 39

VIFF ’17

Altered States gets unreal From J.D. Salinger to

a Harlequin romance

> B Y A DRIA N M A C K

I

t feels like the lowest form of button-pushing when a Hollywood movie puts a child in peril.

Contrast this with the treatment Seth A. Smith brings to his superindie effort The Crescent, screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival on Friday and Sunday (October 6 and 8), which leaves a twoyear-old to fend for himself inside a huge and forbidding beachfront property after his widowed mom up and vanishes. If you’re a parent—not the vengeance-driven former specialops kind of parent grossly overrepresented in Liam Neeson’s filmography, but the regular kind, like the rest of us—Smith’s movie is an authentically uncomfortable experience.

“I feel like this film’s got a specific demographic,” says the filmmaker, reached by the Straight in Halifax not long after The Crescent knocked them out at the Toronto International Film Festival. “Our Midnight Madness crowd was all 20-year-old men, and they get it on a different level, but I think parents truly will be creeped out in a different way.”

No shit: besides the clear and obvious physical dangers, a harrowing supernatural presence increases the menace for poor little Lowen (wonderfully played by the director’s own son, Woodrow Graves), whose very soul appears to be the prize in a tale inspired, Smith reveals, by Maritime ghost stories and the evidently haunted beaches in the vicinity of his own home.

We know something’s amiss when Lowen’s mom, Beth (Danika Vandersteen), flatly states that she “feels nothing” at her husband’s funeral, just prior to relocating to the ominous modernist structure at the heart of the film.

Scaling his story up into the metaphysical allows the filmmaker to exercise his extravagant visual inclinations.

REV IEWS REBEL IN THE RYE Starring Nicholas Hoult. Rated PG

The enigma of J.D. Salinger gets

2 another tweak in the awkward-

Seth A. Smith’s art-horror flick The Crescent is among the mindbenders in this year’s program of midnight movies at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Beth is an artist whose psychedelic marble paintings gradually come to represent a sort of membrane between the worlds of the living and the dead.

In one of the film’s trippiest moments, those ravishing oily fractals conform into the shape of something that looks like a three-dimensional incubus.

Smith snickers: “Kinda selfishly, I just wanted to marble someone. A person.

I’d never seen it done before.” (Neither have we!)

You could say that The Crescent belongs to an exceedingly small but generally awesome subgenre of quasi– avant-garde beachside horror flicks that includes 1961’s Night Tide, 1962’s Carnival of Souls, and the marvellously weird 1973 zombie flick Messiah of Evil. Which makes it grist for the mill inside VIFF’s annual midnight feature program, Altered States. Like a couple

of other films in this year’s series—the Lynchian body-swapping tale Animals (October 9 and 11); the time-andspace-dysfunction nightmare of The Endless (October 6 and 9)—The Crescent takes a fashionably gnostic view of reality, wrapping up ultimately with a mindfuck that catapults the viewer into a kind of polarity-switching infinity loop we don’t see coming.

“It’s a time when people are questioning things,” Smith offers. “Just the fact that Donald Trump is in the White House makes you feel like you’re living in a nightmare or a simulation. It just doesn’t make sense at all. A lot of things don’t make sense. People are kinda pushing new concepts and ways of looking at things, and I enjoy those stories because sometimes you just wanna escape this world, right? It’s a pretty dark place.” -

A Firestorm of fake news > BY A DR I AN MACK

W

e exist inside an empire of falsehood, to borrow a phrase conjured by sci-fi visionary Philip K. Dick, some 40 years before the deranged paranoid fabulist Steve Bannon would find himself with a desk at the White House.

Settling on the truth of any big event in an overmediated, postreal environment like ours feels impossible, until a documentary like ACORN and the Firestorm comes along to set the record straight for a brief moment, in this case examining the takedown of America’s most prominent economic-justice organization by the allconsuming right-wing noise machine.

Pointedly, Sam Pollard and Reuben Atlas’s film begins with the story of Travis, a Confederate-flag-flying, Reagan-voting Floridian who credits ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) with saving his home during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, a service it granted to another 60,000 lowincome Americans at the time.

“The thing I loved about Travis is that he looks like this very stereotypical guy—and he isn’t. He represents the complexity of the moment we’re in right now,” says Atlas, calling the Straight from Montclair, New Jersey.

“The great fault of conservative ideology is embedded in Travis’s story. He’s the victim of their politics, and of course they wouldn’t help him, and there was no organization out there except for ACORN.” It was, of course, conservatives and probably a lot of Travis’s neighbours who started cheering when John McCain attacked ACORN during the 2008 presidential election. The org had spearheaded a voter-registration drive that clearly favoured Barack Obama. McCain characterized it as a dire threat to democracy.

“I think McCain used it as a pure political tactic, I think he knew exactly what he was doing,” says Atlas, who offers a slightly more mitigating assessment of Iowa congressman Steve King, a bigoted buffoon whose actions helped to get ACORN defunded a year later. “My best sense of him is that he was unwilling to look into anything except what he wanted to see,” he states.

The real nub of the story came when proto–alt-right prank artist James O’Keefe teamed with 20-year-old student Hannah Giles to embarrass ACORN, producing videos that appeared to show the duo, dressed as a pimp and a sex worker, colluding with the organization to help finance a brothel and import underage Mexican girls for sex work. Everybody abandoned ACORN at that point. “Obama threw us under the bus,” states former CEO Bertha Lewis in the film.

40 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

The right-wing takedown of a prominent economic justice organization is explained in ACORN and the Firestorm.

ly named Rebel in the Rye, an uneven biopic that will at least make you want to dig out your yellowed copy of Franny and Zooey.

How Salinger came to write Catcher in the Rye, which has been alienating adolescents since 1951, is not actually as familiar as his subsequent radio silence; after 1965, he never published another word. His early years are analogous to those of chronological cohorts like Norman Mailer—that is, first-generation Jewish-immigrant sons with artistic ambitions forged in the fires of World War II. Nicholas Hoult—once the sweet star of About a Boy and more recently the wraithlike Nux of Mad Max: Fury Road—here plays Jerome David Salinger, called Jerry by friends. The Manhattan-born lad was expected to be a good earner like his father, Sol (Canada’s Victor Garber), a cheese wholesaler from Lithuania. Jerry’s WASP-y mother (Hope Davis, in a dark wig) supported his creative talents, and allowed him to attend a writing program at Columbia University under the direction of well-connected editor Whit Burnett—thereby allowing the movie to display its best asset: Kevin Spacey, changing it up as a rumpled, sharp-tongued, but ultimately self-effacing intellectual.

When Spacey is around, the screen crackles, even when the homilies about “not letting your voice overwhelm the story” are too on-the-nose. Hoult’s New Yawk accent is variable, and he works hard to hold attention, generally succeeding, even if no one else generates much excitement in a tale that packs in a lot of historical incident on a limited budget.

Before the war, Salinger had a tormented affair with Oona O’Neill (Zoey Deutch), who ultimately left him for Charlie Chaplin—which is a pretty interesting way to get dumped. As a soldier, he participated in D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the liberation of Dachau—all contributing to his PTSD, before they had a name for it, to the urgency of his writing, and to his ultimate seclusion in rural New Hampshire. These events are represented, briefly, and well-shot (if mostly in close-up). Other limitations may explain the absence of Jerry’s work trip to Vienna, just before the Nazis took over, and his friendship with Ernest Hemingway, in Paris, while the war was still on.

(Jerry’s later discovery of an Indian religious guide is made unintentionally humorous by the casting of Bernard White, who plays a phony guru on Silicon Valley.)

Even if the somewhat stiff movie doesn’t quite fulfill its promises, it’s an impressive undertaking for writer-director Danny Strong. As a memorably diminutive actor, he’s better known as Doyle on Gilmore Girls and Jonathan on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But he’s also the series creator of Empire, and wrote scripts for things as different as Lee Daniels’ The Butler, two Hunger Games movies, and Game Change, the HBO movie about Sarah Palin.

Dude’s definitely got game.

Atlas adds that D.C. progressives stood down because “they didn’t want to get caught in the crosshairs.”

The clips were eventually shown to be fraudulent, but it was already too late, and it did nothing to stop O’Keefe, who opportunistically disrupted Firestorm’s premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, calling foul on the film despite ignoring Atlas and Pollard’s request for an interview. “He’s embraced it, he’s become it, he’s been applauded for it, and he has more money to do it now,” says the filmmaker. “He’s emboldened, I would say. I mean, Trump gave him money. I think he has [Robert] Mercer money.”

Giles remains the film’s most interesting and sympathetic figure, more of a crazy mixed-up kid than a wind-up ideologue, whose basic animal distrust of her government isn’t exactly hard to understand. She visibly changes as Firestorm unfolds, and Atlas, though circumspect, allows that she’s down to support the film when it’s released. He describes her story as “poignant”.

Like Travis, she certainly symbolizes the deep confusion of this moment in time, with American power so mutant and remote that it actually enacts legislation triggered by the fantasies of a media owned by billionaires. As Karl Rove once said, “We create reality now.” ACORN and the > KEN EISNER Firestorm provides a welcome blast of demystification.

“One of the things we wanted to do with the movie is for the people who were consuming that information to get a chance to make up their own mind about a more THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US full picture of the story, without using some of the tactics Starring Kate Winslet. Rated PG that are used on FOX or right-wing radio,” says Atlas.

At least one giant obstacle “You think you know ACORN? Spend 80 minutes with must be crossed in this fitfully this movie and then make up your mind.” engaging tale of two crash survivACORN and the Firestorm screens at the Rio Theatre on ors who must descend from a snowSunday (October 8) and International Village on Wednes- covered peak to stay alive. That is day (October 11). the truly daunting task at hand, and

2

The movie adaptation of The Mountain Between Us stars Kate Winslet.

whatever’s between them is strictly of the molehill variety.

Manly man Idris Elba plays Dr. Ben Bass, an English neurosurgeon on his way to a delicate operation in Denver when his flight is abruptly cancelled. And Kate Winslet is Alex Martin, a conflict-zone photographer headed to her wedding in the same city. There are several upgrades made by screenwriters Chris Weitz and J. Mills Goodloe to Charles Martin’s novel, The Mountain Between Us. In the original, Ben’s surname was Payne, and here he’s bumped up from orthopedics, while his counterpart was called Ashley and wrote articles for women’s magazines.

The author describes her, helpfully, as a cross between Winona Ryder and Julia Ormond. They weren’t available, apparently, and neither were Margot Robbie and Rosamund Pike, who both dropped out before Winslet climbed aboard. Several other directors were previously attached, and this remains an odd fit with Israeli-Palestinian Hany AbuAssad, best known for the smallscale political thrillers Omar and Paradise Now, which both garnered Oscar nominations.

On-screen, British Columbia plays the Rockies, and does a fine job, too, thanks to appropriately wide-screen cinematography by Australia’s Mandy Walker, who also shot the similarly expansive Tracks and more human-scale Hidden Figures. The chief pleasure of wilderness-survival stories normally comes from MacGyver-like tricks and crazy accidents that make us contemplate our own untested ingenuity. Here, most of the accidents are unfortunate, as when the pilot of the private plane hired in the first sequence croaks in the second, leaving Ben slightly injured and Alex with a deep leg gash, which the good doctor tends well. (Spoiler alert: the pilot’s dog lives!)

In the book, her limb was completely broken, making the hero hoist her for the whole trek. Fortunately, Winslet carries her own filmic weight, even with a somewhat iffy American accent, while Elba has the calming presence required for an inherently gruelling adventure. If their Mountain had been made in Hollywood’s Golden Era, the leads would be sniping at each other like Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Here, they get along a lot better than that.

Consequently, the script works absurdly hard to keep them apart, heading toward an ending that’s just as corny as any Harlequin romance. Wonder if they’ll be showing this on airplanes. > KEN EISNER

Expand the frame.

Buffer Festival - Oct. 9

Virtual Reality Day - Oct. 6

Totally Indie Day - Oct. 7 A dynamic day designed for independent content creators to gain insights from industry pros and rising new talent. Presented by STORYHIVE. Sessions include: In the Writers’ Room; Digital Storytelling Platforms; Innovations in Storytelling and Trending Now.

September 28 to October 13 Discover viff.org

More at: goviff.org/totallyindieday

Creator Day, 10:00am – 3:00pm, Vancity Theatre

10:00am – 5:15pm, Vancity Theatre

Want to learn more about becoming a YouTube Creator or elevate your content to the next level?

This full-day FREE event includes workshops and keynotes from some of this year’s Buffer featured Creators.

The Expanding Frontiers in Storytelling series will transport attendees into the new mediums of VR and AR, with key insights from some of the most respected futurists in the world as well as conversations and demos from leading VR creators.

This event is free, please register at: goviff.org/buffer

Buffer Gala Awards Screening + Red Carpet Event, 5pm Vancouver fans come see exclusive YouTube premieres from acclaimed digital creators on the big screen. Plus, meet some of your favourite YouTube creators on the red carpet.

Sessions include: The Rise of Cinematic VR; Fireside Chat with creators of Bear71 VR (NFB); How and Where: VR Financing and Distribution; Case Study: Great Performers: L.A. Noir (New York Times Magazine); VR News and Documentary Best Practices and Brands Jump In: 360 Advertising and Branded Content.

More at: goviff.org/virtualreality Presented by:

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Creator Talk Simon Barry Creator, Ghost Wars Oct 10, 8:30 pm, Vancity Theatre VIFF is thrilled to have the Canadian Premiere of the SYFY/Netflix series Ghost Wars created

by Simon Barry and produced by Nomadic Pictures. Set in a remote Alaskan town overrun by paranormal forces, the series focuses on local outcast Roman Mercer who must overcome the town’s prejudices and his own personal demons if he’s to harness his repressed psychic powers and stave off the mass haunting that’s threatening to destroy them all. Simon Barry will be in attendance for a post-screening Creator Talk.

Supported by the Province of British Columbia

Special Presentation

The Hidden Sword

Lady Bird

Xu Haofeng, China, 136 min.

Greta Gerwig, USA, 94 min.

MON. OCT 9

4:00 PM

CENTRE FOR ARTS

Greta Gerwig proves herself a bold new cinematic voice with her directorial debut, finding both the humor and pathos in the turbulent bond between a mother and her teenage daughter. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) fights against her wildly loving, strong-willed mom (Laurie Metcalf) who she’s exactly alike. This is an affecting look at the relationships that shape us, the beliefs that define us, and the unmatched beauty of a place called home.

“Flat-out wonderful…” —New York Times

Borg vs. McEnroe

Janus Metz Sweden/Denmark/Finland, 100 min.

SAT. OCT 7 WED. OCT 11 FRI. OCT 13

8:45 PM 6:30 PM 3:30 PM

CENTRE FOR ARTS CENTRE FOR ARTS PLAYHOUSE

One of the greatest tennis matches of all time— the 1980 Wimbledon Men’s Final between Björn Borg and John McEnroe—provides the baseline drama for this riveting sports movie. Director Janus Metz shoots the game in ways we have never seen before and elicits superb performances from Shia LaBeouf as McEnroe and Sverrir Gudnason (an uncanny lookalike) as Borg. Like all the best tennis games, the Final proves a nail-biting psychological thriller. This is the first tennis movie to truly ace it.

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SAT. OCT 7 WED. OCT 11

2:30 PM 9:00 PM

CENTRE FOR ARTS RIO

In 1933, Chinese soldiers led by Shen Feixue defeat a Japanese attack on the Great Wall using only swords. But Shen disappears, and an imposter takes his place. Allied with the glamorous and lethal beauty Zhihui, they try to steal Master Kong’s ultimate sword techniques. But heroic young Kong Dingyi stands in their way. China’s new master of elegant chivalric swordplay, Xu Haofeng, spices brilliantly choreographed action with sparkling eroticism in this dazzling, star-studded, comic-action masterpiece.

Happy End

Michael Haneke, France/Austria/Germany, 107 min.

THU. OCT 5 SUN. OCT 8

3:30 PM 6:15 PM

CENTRE FOR ARTS CENTRE FOR ARTS

With Michael Haneke directing, you know the title of his latest work is nothing if not deeply ironic. As the Calais refugee crisis unfolds, the rich, disaffected Laurent family—including paterfamilias Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and aunt Anne (Isabelle Huppert)—is sundered by the arrival of Anne’s 13-year-old niece (Fantine Harduin, superb)... “Distinguishes itself from much of [Haneke’s filmography] in the deployment of unexpectedly approachable dark wit and thriller-ish sensibility.”—Sight & Sound

Premier Supporters

A Fantastic Woman Sebastián Lelio, Chile/Germany/USA/Spain, 104 min.

THU. OCT 5 WED. OCT 11

6:15 PM 9:00 PM

CENTRE FOR ARTS CENTRE FOR ARTS

When her older lover Orlando (Francisco Reyes) dies suddenly, transgendered Marina (a stunning Daniela Vega) faces horrible prejudice from officials investigating his death—and worse from the man’s family. Director Sebastián Lelio (VIFF 13 standout Gloria) has fashioned a radiant tribute to one woman’s strength. “Five Stars!

[This] trans tale stands alongside Almodóvar… It may be a timely film, but it is its timelessness, as well as its depths of compassion, that qualify it as a great one.”—Guardian

Mountain

4:00 PM 6:30 PM

Luca Guadagnino, USA/Italy/France, 131 min.

THU. OCT 5 SUN. OCT 8 THU. OCT 12

9:00 PM 9:00 PM 3:15 PM

CENTRE FOR ARTS CENTRE FOR ARTS CENTRE FOR ARTS

Set in the sun-drenched countryside of Italy’s Lombardy region, Luca Guadagnino’s visually ravishing tale of first love is a flawlessly acted wonder. Ensconced in his family’s villa for the summer, 17-year-old Elio (Homeland’s Timothée Chalamet, superb) finds himself drawn to his professor-father’s (Michael Stuhlbarg) research assistant, Oliver (Armie Hammer). What follows is guaranteed to stir your soul. “Masterful… reminiscent of the best of Eric Rohmer, Bernardo Bertolucci and André Téchiné.”—Guardian

The Other Side of Hope Aki Kaurismäki, Finland, 98 min.

Jennifer Peedom, Australia, 74 min.

SUN. OCT 8 THU. OCT 12

Call Me by Your Name

CENTRE FOR ARTS CENTRE FOR ARTS

Scale the heights with this breathtaking, immersive documentary, as director Jennifer Peedom takes us up the peaks in her exploration of mountain climbing. Along for the thrill ride are Richard Tognetti and his Australian Chamber Orchestra, who give us a succession of rousing pieces to carry us through the journey. Narrated

by Willem Dafoe and graced with some moments of quieter beauty to go with the thrills, this is doc filmmaking at its most powerful and a big-screen experience if ever there was one.

MON. OCT 9 FRI. OCT 13

6:30 PM 6:30 PM

CENTRE FOR ARTS SFU-GCA

The Finnish master of the droll and the deadpan, Aki Kaurismäki, returns with a second feature (after Le Havre) concerning the European refugee crisis, this one about a Syrian (Sherwan Haji) who washes up on Finland’s glum shores and becomes an unlikely friend to a middle-aged Finnish shirt salesman (Sakari Kuosmanen) in the midst of re-making his life. Compassionate and wryly funny by turns, this is Kaurismäki firing on all cylinders. “A deeply humane film, as well as a quietly hilarious one.”—Time Out

Schedule subject to change.

Visit viff.org for updates and full lineup of 300+ films and events.

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Regular: Adult $15 Student/Senior $13 Weekday Matinee: $13 Youth under 18: $10 Only available at films classified for youth.

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OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 41

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“Magic… free, unforced and deeply moving in every sense” - Irish Times

C H A N C E N T R E AT U B C Tickets and info at chancentre.com

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.

THU OCT 5 FRI OCT 6

Scan to confess

Boogie Nights presents

ELECTRIC MONKS I survived

The Railway Stage presents

orange kyte w. THE godspot

SAT OCT 7

Yesterday I forgot my phone at home. I didn’t die.

1pm-4pm

Drifted Away

4:30pm-8:30pm

Sometimes I feel guilty about being a “bad friend” for not keeping in touch, but then I realize that no-one else on the other side made an effort to follow up with me, either. I guess we’re all just busy and there’s not really any blame to be assigned.

Blues brunch w. rob montgomery saturday sessions the original jam session Lust For Life presents

THE ROYAL FOUNDRY w. WINDMILLS SUN OCT 8 Oct Oct Oct Oct

Vancouver’s discontent Everyone here is complaining about housing, the dating scene, and how lame and narcissistic everyone is. Why do we even live here?

The Railway Stage presents

OZZTOBER ROCK BAND KARAOKE 10 12 13 14

Drag Club: ZOO w. RICH ELLE & MILA DRAMATIC Boogie Nights w. ZEN JUNKIE Railway Stage w. THE HEELS & AJAYE JARDINE Lust For Life w. RON ARTIS II

Starting to feel like a conspiracy...

For months, every guy I’ve made plans to meet up with for coffee or a drink has either cancelled or ghosted, and this has been going on for ages. Some have asked me to meet, and I’ve asked some to meet, bur not one single meeting has actually happened. It really is starting to feel like a conspiracy! If you don’t want to meet up, don’t ask, and don’t waste my time!

Steel wool.

Now that heavy eyebrows are back, does pubic hair make a comeback?

Guilty Pleasures I know I’m not supposed to but I like Tom Cruise movies. @RailwaySBC

42 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017

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MUSIC The digital era changed everything about music—both how it’s consumed and how it’s released. But while a number of artists simply switched from putting out albums on vinyl and CDs to streaming on Spotify and iTunes, producers like Gorgon City went one step further. Reimaging the scope of the conventional album format, the British duo is revising what it means to put out music as a collection with its Kingdom project.

“Sometimes when you’re writing an album it can get frustrating when you’ve worked on a track, finished it, and then have to wait for the label to figure out what to do with it,” Kye Gibbon, half of Gorgon City, tells the Straight on the line from London, England. “Because we’re touring so much, when we have a song done, we want to get it out there. We figured out that it would work to our advantage to release each of them one at a time.

“There are a number of positives,” he continues.

“Putting out each track separately gives them their own space as well as their own attention. It lets us write music that takes in a lot of different styles.

There’s songs like ‘Blue Parrot’, which is a straightup dark, techy club track, and there are things that

2

Rethinking the album

The music Matt Robson-Scott and Kye Gibbon make as Gorgon City touches on everything from grim to house, but it is all marked by heavy bass.

stuff, so he’s triggering the kick drum, which is the same sound that we use in the production. There are Gorgon City released Kingdom’s tracks separately, other acoustic drums he can layer over the top. Me but together the songs form a complete project and Matt have a couple of are much more house. They’re all linked together synthesizers each, a MIDI keyboard for playing by their heavy bottom end, and a focus on the bass. bass lines on, and loads of different sequencers.

Together, they form a full album.”

“When we do those shows, it adds a different Innovation has been a vital part of the duo’s ca- feel to the tracks,” he continues. “Everything reer since they first hit the Top 10 in their home is a bit looser. There are certain parts where country with club banger “Ready for Your Love”. we’ve deliberately not got a plan. A couple of Taking U.K. rave music—jungle, drum ’n’ bass, tracks are literal jams, and we can do whatever garage, and grime—as reference points, Gibbon we want. Whenever we’re playing our singles and fellow DJ and producer Matt Robson-Scott or the tracks that everyone knows, sometimes traded in their solo careers to pursue Gorgon City we might do it a little bit differently. If a cerfull-time. It’s proven to be a good decision. Scor- tain chorus is going down well, we might play ing a residency at Ibiza’s premier Amnesia club, that bit for longer, or add in extra fills. It’s very touring in over 30 countries, and collaborating spontaneous, and it keeps everyone on their with everyone from Jennifer Hudson to Duke Du- toes. We’re taking the Kingdom party around mont, the pair is filling bigger and bigger dance the world.” > KATE WILSON floors around the world.

Gibbon puts the final number of releases for Kingdom at 16, and hints that a bundle of tracks Gorgon City plays at Celebrities on Friday will be released together early next year. That’s not (October 6). where the concept ends, though.

“Kingdom has become more than an album— it’s a bit of a brand now,” Gibbon says. “We have parties that are called Kingdom. We’ve done them at festivals around the U.K. like South It might seem unlikely that an event as West Four and Creamfields, in Mexico at BPM, narrowly focused as Next Music From and Florida’s Holy Ship! as well. We also started Kingdom Radio recently. It was an opportunity Tokyo will include something for almost everyto create a mix that goes out to a lot of different one, but consider the facts. The five acts that are countries around the world. It was a bit daunting part of this travelling minifestival, which surto do a radio show every week, but it means we veys Japan’s burgeoning but little-known musical have to dig more than if we were just doing club underground, encompass everything from the sets. It’s a great way to showcase artists’ music squeaky-clean pop princesses of Koutei Camera Girl Drei to the chaotic no-wave experimentalists that we’re into.”

The Kingdom brand also incorporates the pair’s of o’summer vacation to the unfathomably brillive performances. Setting themselves apart from liant math-rock virtuosos of Nuito and Jyocho. other electronic-music duos, Gibbon and Robson- So whether you show up to help inaugurate the Scott have built a show that allows them to separ- new KW Studios art space in the basement of ate their DJ sets from concerts in nonclub venues. the Woodward’s building in a brand-new Lucy “We love DJing, and I think we’ll always want Heartfilia sundress, a studded leather jacket, or a to be DJing,” Gibbon says. “But when it comes to sun-faded Yes T-shirt, chances are that you’re godoing a live set, we want to play music like a band. ing to get your money’s worth.

Actually, at the rock-bottom price of $14 for We have a live drummer and two singers. The drummer plays electronic kits as well as acoustic advance tickets or $20 at the door, that’s a given.

Next Music From Tokyo showcases a wide spectrum of Japanese sounds

2

CHECK THIS OUT

STOP SHOUTING After cancelling four South American gigs, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler posted on the band’s website: “I HAD TO HAVE A PROCEDURE THAT ONLY MY DOC IN THE STATES COULD PERFORM.” Get well, soon, Steven, and STOP WRITING IN ALL CAPS.

THE WEEKND A certain person at the Georgia Straight (who will

remain nameless to protect them from embarrassment) was once adamantly opposed to mentioning the then-underground Weeknd on our cover because they argued readers would assume the spelling of the Toronto singer’s moniker was a typo. Eleven Top 40 singles later—to say nothing of two Grammys, eight Billboard Music Awards, nine Junos, and an Oscar nomination—we’re reasonably certain that no one will read Abel Tesfaye’s stage name and think we fucked up. And anyone who does think that probably has no interest in the fact that the Weeknd is playing Rogers Arena on Thursday (October 5). There is actually a musical act called “the Weekend”, incidentally. They are not playing Rogers Arena, but if you live in Kent, Surrey, or East Sussex and you need someone to play “Mustang Sally” and “Brown Eyed Girl” at your wedding reception, you might want to look them up. -

see next page

MUSIC Let’s talk about

You gotta see

But what links these bands? According to tour promoter Steven Tanaka, it’s just that he enjoys them all.

“In terms of bringing any acts to Canada through this tour, I have to really like the music,” he explains, checking in from his Toronto home.

“And one other thing is that I tend to pick bands that make music I can emotionally connect with, that really has some sort of impact.

“Well, emotional is maybe not the correct term,” he adds, “but it has to get me sort of worked up or energized.”

Another factor in Tanaka’s programming is that he tries to book bands that only truly obsessive Japanese-music fans will have heard of.

“For the most part, I try to avoid mainstream acts,” he explains. “They’re usually good musicians, and they can write good music, although it often tends to be kind of cookie-cutter, following certain patterns that are meant to appeal to the biggest demographic possible. I tend to focus more on the indie-underground acts who are willing to take chances, to experiment, and to make music from the heart.”

Koutei Camera Girl Drei is one notable exception. An example of what Tanaka calls “idol pop”, a subgenre inspired by singing-competition TV shows, the quartet is as slick and plastic as a chain restaurant—perhaps because it’s a franchise, too.

“There’s Koutei Camera Girl Drei, but there’s also Koutei Camera Girl Zwei, Koutei Camera Actress… There are at least four different acts using the name,” Tanaka explains. “From the lyrical standpoint, the girls don’t really have any input.

Also, in terms of producing the music itself, they have a team of about six or seven track-makers or beatsmiths that are tasked with coming up with instrumentation for the songs. They’re sort of mysterious, because only a couple of them have divulged their real names or identities, but they’re a diverse mix of DJs and instrumentalists.”

The other acts on the bill are more conventionally “indie”, but their music is often far more daring than what most North American alt-rock acts are willing to provide. Lovers of progressive music will especially want to check out Jyocho: fronted by the extraordinary guitarist Daijiro Nakagawa, the band inhabits musical terrain somewhere between late-phase

ANTICHRIST ACCIDENT Marilyn Manson cut a New York show short last Saturday after a stage monument consisting of two giant handguns fell on him during “Sweet Dreams”. While Spinal Tap might disagree, there are upsides to performing in front of props that are in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.

ON THE RIGHT SIDE After Sunday night’s mass shooting in Las Vegas, Moby, Ariana Grande, and Lady Gaga all issued new pleas for gun control. Proving there might actually be a human being somewhere deep inside, Ted Nugent kept his mouth shut.

LOUD SILENCE Meanwhile, Jason Aldean—who was onstage when the carnage began—released a statement that said plenty about stopping “hate”, but fuck-all about guns. Learn from country legend Roseanne Cash and take an actual stand, bro.

Fresh and local TRAILERHAWK Half Up Front For those who love Kentucky bourbon, Texas barbecue, and every act that’s ever recorded for Bloodshot Records, things don’t get much better than Half Up Front’s “Church of Jim Beam”. Over thumping rock-steady drums and desert-burn guitars, smokyvoiced belter Carmen Bruno drawls “Found faith in a bottle/ Had troubles to drown.” As sweet and breezy as the band plays things on the EP’s final track, “Thing About You”, TrailerHawk (made up of various members of Sons of Freedom, Grapes of Wrath, and Sunday Morning) mostly fuses classic ’80s cowpunk with polished Americana on this winning five-song debut. The crash-and-bang kickoff, “Car”, is the Knitters doing shots in a trailer park with Shania Twain, while the desert-noir “Don’t You” will make you want to crawl behind the wheel of a ’69 Rambler and drive through the Nevada desert at midnight. It’s good to have a reason to pull on the Tony Lamas again. OCTOBER 5 – 12 / 2017 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 43

by violins, viola, and cello, I felt it was going to be the best collaboration of my life. And it is.”

Next Music From Tokyo

from previous page

Sonic Youth and peak-period King Crimson, but with an odd sweetness all its own.

Just as remarkable as Jyocho’s music, however, is that the Vancouver-born Tanaka has been funding Next Music From Tokyo, now in its 11th iteration, out of his own pocket ever since its inception in 2010.

“I’m probably being taken advantage of, to some degree,” he says, affably enough. “But most of the musicians have part-time jobs, or they’re going to school, or they’re really just kind of scraping by, so it’s just like, ‘Oh, whatever; I’ll pay for it all.’ But I’m an anesthesiologist. I make a very comfortable living, so I can use some of that money to pay for this ridiculous hobby.”

His loss is our gain.

> TONY MONTAGUE

Trio Da Kali plays St. James Hall on Friday (October 6).

L.A. Witch aimed at vintage warmth on its debut album

> ALEXANDER VARTY

Next Music From Tokyo Vol. 11 takes place at KW Studios on Wednesday (October 11).

SHAHdjs marks 10 years of creating positive vibes Countless education programs

2 offer courses in how to get into music production, event management, and promotion. For SHAHdjs founder Willis Lombard, who performs as Willisist, it was more important to follow his intuition.

Establishing a seven-person drum ’n’ bass crew that has been instrumental in revitalizing the Vancouver bass music scene, the artist stumbled upon a successful model by chance.

L.A. Witch used PJ Harvey, the Gun Club, and Sonic Youth as touchstones when recording its new eponymous LP.

“Ten years ago, the ANZA Club was doing an open-decks session every Saturday night,” Lombard tells the Straight, on the line from his home in the city. “A few of us knew each other, and we all just started going there every week. It was predominantly a tech-house night, and still is, but we would all show up and play drum ’n’ bass. It didn’t take long for us to realize that we all had similar tastes.

“There’s a natural ebb and flow in Vancouver’s electronic-music scene,” he continues. “Drum ’n’ bass had a high point a few years

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If the members of L.A. Witch vaguely obsessed with the past on their long-time-coming debut, that makes sense when you consider many of their favourite reference points.

In a conference call from their hometown of Los Angeles, singerguitarist Sade Sanchez, bassist Irita Pai, and drummer Ellie English rattle off a decidedly retro list of artists who’ve inspired them. Those in the golden circle include PJ Harvey, the Gun Club, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, and the Cramps.

Considering that shortlist, it’s perhaps no surprise that L.A. Witch’s eponymous debut is definitely on the dark side, the songs marked by goth-surf guitars, doom-generation vocals, and gloomy postpunk bass lines.

What binds the band’s biggest influencers together is that they came from an artistically pure time when no one making underground music expected to have their songs placed in Apple commercials or networkTV dramas. And the attraction doesn’t stop there.

“The way that the music was recorded was really different and really hard to replicate,” Sanchez says. “There’s something that’s just really special about old music, even stuff from the ’90s era. Even the ’90s grunge and alternative-rock period had a huge impact on us. There was, I dunno, just more warmth to it.”

Understandably, then, getting the right sonic tone was important to L.A. Witch when, after a series of EPs, they began focusing on recording their debut album. One of the first things they discovered was that re-creating a vintage vibe is harder than it might seem.

“We tried to record the album a few times and it never really came out sounding right—it was like it didn’t represent us as a band,” Pai says. “I think what happened is that we were touring so much that every time we’d come back and revisit the recordings our sound had evolved.”

On L.A. Witch, that sound swings from the midnight-in-the-swamp garage of “Kill My Baby Tonight” to the gunpowder-black country punk of “Untitled” to the spawn-of-L7 grunge-pop of “Drive Your Car”.

A major part of the record’s appeal is that L.A. Witch doesn’t sound of its time, despite all three members of the band being in their 20s. Their obsession with the past doesn’t stop with music; one of the group’s other passions is analogue photography, out of a strong preference for the imperfections of film. Digital technology has made everything easier today. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that things are better.

“We wanted to record the album onto tape, but we never got the chance to do that,” Sanchez says. “Older records have a certain warmth to them— it’s the same as how there’s something more sensual about capturing a shot on film. The appeal is that you don’t really know what you’re going to get.”

But the members of L.A. Witch have a pretty clear idea of where they want to go next. Having taken a good half-dozen years to finally record a full-length album, the trio are eager to get back into the studio. When they do, expect them to take a page from the playbooks of those they admire.

“Look at Nick Cave and all the different places that he’s gone as an artist,” Sanchez says. “He’s one of those people who has really evolved from punk rock to where he is today. Sometimes artists grow older and you can’t relate to what they’re doing anymore. He’s stayed relevant by being true to himself. That’s something to strive for.”

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before we got together, but it got a bit stale, people got older, and some major players left town. The one night that was still happening was pretty aggressive and grimy. It was doing fine for what it was, and the people who loved it really enjoyed it. But we were much more into the liquid side of things—the melodic stuff—and creating a more positive, happy vibe. No one else was promoting that at the time.”

In a few areas, the collective got lucky. Photographer Vasho joined the crew around the time that Facebook was becoming standard, and, as Lombard puts it, “Having quality media at every show was priceless.” Fellow SHAHdj Kir Mokum, too, had serious visual-art chops, and started putting together the group’s f lyers. It wasn’t a deliberate strategy, Lombard suggests, but it was invaluable for propelling the collective’s popularity.

On the promotion side, though, it was the founder’s gut instincts that elevated the crew’s profile.

“I decided a long time ago not to lock into a venue or have a fixed residency,” he says. “Venues constantly come and go. When one closes, another one will pop up for six months.

I’ve always been a free agent, and when we want to put on a big show we put a call out and hopefully there’s a venue we can work with. It means that nothing gets repetitive and stale, and every performance feels a little different. The location makes a big difference to the vibe. If you’re decorating the same spot every week, it gets stale. When you show up for a one-off, it’s going to be unique.”

Over the course of its 10-year history, the crew has put on more than a few memorable events. Lombard recalls throwing a “False-o-Ween” party at the venue that once housed huge tourist attraction Storyeum, setting up a giant party for more than a thousand people. Involved with Bass Coast Festival since its own inception 10 years ago, the DJ remembers rocking the main stage after British underground star dBridge, standing on top of a giant pirate ship that “looked like it had crashed into the stage”. A decade after its creation, SHAHdjs continues to sell out highprofile shows.

“The electronic-music scene here is thriving,” Lombard says. “You need to constantly evolve.” > KATE WILSON

SHAHdjs plays the Commodore Ballroom on Sunday (October 8) as part of Bass Coast’s 10th-anniversary celebrations.

Trio Da Kali draws on rich traditions of the griots Trio Da Kali takes the music of

2 Mali back to its ancient roots,

at the same time exploring new sonic spaces for a contemporary flavour.

The group’s debut album, Ladilikan, released last month, is a collaboration

with San Francisco’s famed Kronos Quartet that effortlessly spans the ground between the western classical tradition and the rich heritage of the griots.

Storytellers and praise-singers, the griots and their culture are found throughout the territories once part of the medieval Mali Empire that nurtured their art. “All three of us are griots,” says Lassana Diabaté, musical director of Trio Da Kali, reached on tour in Nelsonville, Ohio. “I play the balafon [a marimba with gourd resonators], which is the very first instrument of the Manding. It wasn’t necessarily only to get people dancing, or used for celebration—it could also be classical. I’ve worked to make music on the balafon that’s for listening.”

Trio Da Kali’s other members are bass ngoni (banjo-lute) player Mamadou Kouyaté and vocalist Hawa Diabaté, daughter of one of Mali’s greatest singers. The Diabatés are among the leading griot families, and for a long time Lassana was a member of kora master Toumani Diabaté’s Symmetric Orchestra, which performed at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival some years ago. More recently Kouyaté played here with his father Bassekou’s band Ngoni Ba. Soon after forming, Trio Da Kali came to the attention of David Harrington, founder and musical director of Kronos Quartet. “The idea at first was not for us to make an album, just to do a few concerts together,” says Lassana. “So they wanted us to record some music and send it for them to work on.

Dr. Lucy Duran in England, someone I’ve worked with a lot and who knew Kronos Quartet, helped me select songs with them in mind.”

The two groups first met in San Francisco on the occasion of Kronos Quartet’s 40th-anniversary bash in 2014. “We only played a couple of things but the next day the press were all over us, and someone immediately booked us.

People were thrilled by what we did together—and all of us were thrilled too. David Harrington said that we had to take such a collaboration further—or someone else would do. We only rehearsed a few days before recording together, then f lew off to play the Montreux [Jazz] Festival. After that the trio went on to play at the BBC Proms, and tour the U.K.. The response was amazing.”

For the music on Ladilikan Trio Da Kali drew inspiration both from their griot predecessors and a fresh influence—U.S. gospel legend Mahalia Jackson. “The first time we met Kronos Quartet, immediately after Hawa had sung, David went to get an album he had of Mahalia Jackson, and said to Hawa ‘She’s so much like you—the power, range, and the > MIKE USINGER phrasing in her voice.’ So he gave us that album, and Lucy translated the words. We worked with that. When L.A. Witch plays the Fox Cabaret on we first heard our griot music played Saturday (October 7).

show 8 pm, The Imperial (319 Main). Tix on sale Oct 6, 12 pm, $25 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

JACOB SARTORIUS American pop singersongwriter performs on his Left Me Hangin' Tour. Feb 17, doors 4:30 pm, show 5:30 pm, Vogue Theatre (918 Granville). Tix on sale Oct 6, 10 am, $29.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

music/ timeout CONCERTS CLUBS & VENUES EVENTS OUT OF TOWN

JAKE SHIMABUKURO American ukulele virtuoso and composer combines elements of jazz, blues, funk, rock, bluegrass, classical, folk, and flamenco in his music.

Feb 20, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Vogue Theatre (918 Granville). Tix on sale Oct 6, 10 am, $39.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

< 2THIS WEEK < VIFF LIVE: SOUND AND VISION The < Vancouver International Film Festival music by Gratification, HUMANS, < presents Edo Van Breeman, and I M U R. Oct 4, doors 7 pm, Fortune Sound Club (147 E. Pender). Tix $15, info www.goviff.org/live.

CONCERTS 2JUST ANNOUNCED LOUISE BURNS Vancouver indie-rock singer-songwriter tours in support of latest release Young Mopes, with guests Mise en Scene. Oct 19, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Fox Cabaret (2321 Main). Tix $15 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat, Zulu Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/.

THE BOOM BOOMS Vancouver alt-soul band performs in support of new album A Million Miles. Oct 20, 8 pm, Vogue Theatre (918 Granville). Tix from $19.99 (plus service charges and fees) at www. ticketfly.com/, info www.voguetheatre. com/events/the-boom-booms/.

XAVIER OMAR American R&B singer tours in support of latest EP The Everlasting Wave. Dec 21, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Fox Cabaret (2321 Main). Tix on sale Oct 6, 9 am, $15 (plus service charges and fees) at Red Cat, Zulu Records, and www.ticketweb.ca/.

BRUCE COCKBURN Canadian folkrock singer-songwriter and guitarist performs on his Bone on Bone Tour.

Jan 27, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts (777 Homer). Tix on sale Oct 6, 10 am, $65.50/49.50/39.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

WALK THE MOON American indie-rock band tours in support of new album What If Nothing. Feb 15, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Vogue Theatre (918 Granville). Tix on sale Oct 6, 10 am, $39.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

ENTER SHIKARI British alt-rock band tours in support of latest album The Spark, with guests Milk Teeth. Feb 16, doors 7 pm,

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THE WEEKND Toronto-based R&B singersongwriter performs on the second leg of his Starboy: Legend of the Fall 2017 World Tour. Oct 5, 7:30 pm, Rogers Arena (800 Griffiths Way). Tix at www.livenation.com/.

GENE BERTONCINI American jazz guitarist. Oct 6, 7 pm, Alliance Française (6161 Cambie). Tix $20, info www.alliance francaise.sslsvc.com/products/afv-jazzguitar-recital-gene-bertoncini/.

CAM California-born country singer-songwriter performs on her Best Coast Tour, with guest Logan Mize. Dec 14, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom (868 Granville). Tix on sale Oct 5, 10 am, $29.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

MIND BODY SOUL

PAUL PIGAT'S GUITAR CABARET Songwriter and guitarist Paul Pigat hosts a series-launch concert with guest guitarist Shaun Verrault. Oct 5, 7 pm, ANZA Club (3 W. 8th Ave). Tix $15, info www.anzaclub.org/.

ONECITY VANCOUVER PRESENTS: A TOAST TO CHANGE Evening of music, story, and community features performances by Tonye Aganaba, the Danay Sinclair Trio, and Marin Patenaude.

Oct 6, 7:30-11 pm, WISE Hall (1882 Adanac). Info www.facebook.com/ events/275586492928896/.

TRIO DA KALI: MASTERS OF MALI Caravan World Rhythms and the Rogue Folk Club present a group of musicians from the Mande culture of southern Mali. Oct 6, 8 pm, St. James Hall (3214 W. 10th). Tix $30/25, info www.caravanbc. com/2017/08/trio-da-kali/.

SARAH SLEAN Fresh off the release of her album Metaphysics, this show marks a return to the stage by the singer-songwriter known for evocative lyricism—and daring live performances—after a six-year musical hiatus that fueled the profound observations in her latest work. Oct 6, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts (2055 Purcell Way). Tix from $32, info www.capilanou.ca/centre/.

BLUEPRINT 20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY MAIN EVENT Celebrate Blueprint Events’ 20th anniversary with music by American DJ Diplo and Canadian electronica duo Zeds Dead. Oct 7, 7 pm, Pacific Coliseum (Hastings Park, 100 N. Renfrew). Info www. thisisblueprint.com/bp20yr.

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SEQUENTIAL CIRCUS 21 Music by Bastet, database, Hitori Tori, Mick Wildleder, Thegn, and Andrew Van Hassel.

Oct 7, 10 pm, Open Studios (200-252 E. 1st). Tix $20, info www.facebook.com/ events/1694168297556840/.

IMAGINE DRAGONS American alt-rock band performs in support of latest album Evolve, with guests Grouplove and K.Flay. Oct 8, doors 6:30 pm, show 7:30 pm, Rogers Arena (800 Griffiths Way). Tix $99.50/89.50/69.50/45/29.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

MONK’S MUSIC: THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION FEATURING CAT TOREN Brooklyn-based pianist Cat Toren collaborates with local drummer Dan Gaucher and a stellar sextet to celebrate Thelonious Sphere Monk's 100th birthday. Presented by Coastal Jazz. Oct 10, 8 pm, Frankie’s Jazz Club (765 Beatty). Tix $15, info www.coastaljazz.ca/.

LUDOVICO EINAUDI—ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS An evening of music by Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi. Oct 10, 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe). Tix $116.25/93.25/64.44, info www.ludovicoeinaudi.com/.

don’t miss out!

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

www.straight.com

MS. LAURYN HILL AND NAS The R&B powerhouse and the rap superstar will coheadline, with guests Chronixx. Oct 11, doors 5:30 pm, show 6:30 pm, Pacific Coliseum (Hastings Park, 100 N. Renfrew).

Tix $177/127/101.50/77/37 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

NEXT MUSIC FROM TOKYO VOL. 11 Music by Japanese bands Jyocho, Nuito, Gozen Sanji to Taikutsu, o'summer vacation, Koutei Camera Girl Drei, and Ame to Kanmuri. Oct 11, 7-11:55 pm, KW Studios. Tix $20/14, info www.nextmusicfromtokyo.com/.

KINGS OF LEON American rock band performs on its Walls Tour, with guests Dawes. Oct 11, doors 6:30 pm, show 7:30 pm, Rogers Arena (800 Griffiths Way). Tix $85/65/45/35 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

2UPCOMING HIGHLIGHTS WICKED GRIN: TOM WAITS REVISITED A two-night ode to the icon Tom Waits, with luminaries including blues guitarist & singer John Hammond, songstress Jill Barber, bluesman Jim Byrnes, guitarist Steve Dawson & Los Lobos frontman David Hidalgo. Oct 13-14, Kay Meek Centre (1700 Mathers Ave., West Van). Tix from $55, info www.capilanou.ca/centre/.

ROGER WATERS Prog-rock legend and former Pink Floyd member performs on his Us + Them Tour. Oct 28-29, 8 pm, Rogers Arena (800 Griffiths Way). Tix from $52 to $247 (plus service charge and fees) at www.ticketmaster.ca/.

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savage love I’m a 22-year-old straight male dating a 23-year-old woman. This is by far the most sexual relationship I’ve been in, which is great, except one part is freaking me out: I recently “caught” my girlfriend masturbating with her roommate’s panties. (She knew I was coming over and wanted me to catch her.) It turns out she has a habit of sneaking her roommate’s worn underwear, masturbating while smelling them (or putting them in her mouth), and then sneaking them back into her roommate’s laundry basket. She has also used her roommate’s vibrator and dry-humped her pillow to orgasm. I got turned on hearing about all this, and she jerked me off with her roommate’s panties. My girlfriend says she gets turned on being “naughty” and most of her fantasies involve being her roommate’s sex slave, me fucking the roommate while my GF is tied up, et cetera.

Our sex life now revolves around the roommate—my GF has stolen a few more pairs of panties and even worn them while I fucked her, and her dirty talk is now almost entirely about her roommate. This turns me on, so I don’t really want it to stop, but my questions are: 1) is this bad? 2) is this normal?

We’re conditioned to believe women are less kinky and less sexual than men, and I don’t want to buy into that. My girlfriend says she isn’t “that weird”.

I don’t know what to think. > THERE’S NO ACRONYM FOR THIS

1. It’s bad.

2. When it comes to human sexuality, TNAFT, variance is the norm.

Which means freakiness/naughtiness/ kinkiness is normal—science backs me up on this—and, yes, lots of women

> BY DAN SAVAGE two are and would jump at the chance been together for four years? I’m not to have a sex slave and full use of her sure how I should act around Steve. roommate/sex slave’s boyfriend in He hangs out with us a lot. Help! > SEEKING TO EVALUATE VERY exchange for a few dirty panties. Or EXPLOSIVE DISCLOSURE maybe she’d like to move.

have high libidos and lots are kinky.

Your email came sandwiched between a question from a woman who needs sex daily (and foolishly married a man with a very low libido*) and a question from a woman who is into BDSM (and wisely held out for a GGG guy who’s getting better at bondage but can’t bring himself to inflict the erotic/consensual pain she craves**).

But “variance is the norm” doesn’t get your girlfriend off the hook—or you, TNAFT. You and your girlfriend are both violating this poor woman’s privacy, potentially her health (unless your girlfriend is sterilizing her roommate’s vibrator after using it), and—perhaps most importantly—her trust. Honouring each other’s privacy and showing mutual respect for each other’s belongings are the social norms that make it possible for unrelated/ unfucking adults to share a living space. We trust our roommates not to steal money out of our purses, eat our peanut butter, use our toothbrushes, et cetera. And even if your roommate never catches you, it’s still not okay to use their fucking toothbrush. It should go without saying that we trust our roommates not to shove our dirty panties into their mouths, use our sex toys, hump our pillows, et cetera. We can’t control who fantasizes about us— people can fantasize about whomever they care to—but we have an absolute right to control who handles our dirty underpants. (My God, think of all the times you’ve run out of clean underwear and fished a dirty pair out of the laundry and worn them a second time!)

Your girlfriend should make an honest, respectful, naughty pass at her roommate. And who knows? Maybe her roommate is just as pervy as you

I’m a six-months-pregnant

woman in a wonderful relationship.

My sex drive has skyrocketed, and I get uncomfortably horny at random times. I work at a preschool and have gone into the one-person locked bathroom during my break for a quick rubout. Is this wrong? It takes me one minute to come and I’m totally silent. But I’m at a preschool and there are little kids on the other side of that door. Thoughts? > KNOCKED UP AND HORNY

You’re doing nothing wrong—and pretty soon you’ll be having sex in your home while your kid sleeps or plays on the other side of your bedroom door, KUAH, so you might as well get some practice in. And if you don’t want a kid walking in on you at home, either (and you definitely don’t), put a lock on your bedroom door.

I am a 29-year-old woman and getting married to my boyfriend of four years, “Adam”, in a few months.

Relationship is great, sex is fantastic, no complaints. So why am I writing?

Adam’s best friend, “Steve”, was his roommate in college, and Adam recently revealed that he and Steve used to masturbate together. I have no idea what to make of this. I don’t think Adam is gay and I don’t think Steve is either. Maybe they’re heteroflexible?

But is it common for straight guys to masturbate together? Also, why is he just telling me this now, after we’ve

“Buddy-bating among straight guys is more common than people may think,” said Trey Lyon of Fuck Yeah!

Friendly Fire, the “definitive source for straightish porn”. Lyon’s website—FYFriendlyFire.com—features porn of the “heteroflexible/almost bi” variety, i.e., two guys who aren’t afraid they’ll melt if their dicks touch while they’re having sex with the same woman. Lyon’s website has more than 200,000 followers and he’s heard from lots of straight/ straightish guys who masturbate with— read: beside—their straight/straightish male buddies. Lyon doesn’t have hard data for you, STEVED, only anecdote, but it’s safe to say your fiancé isn’t the only straight/straightish guy out there who’s done a little “buddy-bating”.

So why do straight/straightish guys do this?

“In her controversial 2015 book Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men, author Jane Ward asserts that sexual interaction between straight white men allows them to leverage whiteness and masculinity to authenticate their heterosexuality in the context of sex with men,” said Lyon. “That by understanding their same-sex sexual interaction as meaningless, accidental, or even necessary, straight white men can homosexually engage in heterosexual ways. As a nonwhite guy myself, it is my hallucination that the same might be the case across racial lines as well—at least when it comes to dudes jerking off together.”

I’m going to break in here for a

moment: I think Ward’s book is bullshit—at least when she’s talking about men who have anal/oral sex with other men on the regular and without a female chaperone. While I believe a guy can have a same-sex experience without having to identify as gay or bi— straight men should have the same latitude on this score that straight women enjoy—straightness is so valued (and apparently so vulnerable) that some people can look at guys who put dicks in their mouths at regular intervals and construct book-length rationalizations that allow these guys to avoid identifying or being labelled as bi, gay, or queer. (And if sucking dick allows straight men to “authenticate their heterosexuality”, wouldn’t there be gay men out there eating pussy to “authenticate” their homosexuality?)

Back to Lyon…

“A lot of the straight guys who reach out to me mention that they enjoy bonding in a masculine, albeit sexual, way with another guy, while also still only being responsible for getting themselves off,” said Lyon. “And sharing a moment of vulnerability in this way with another guy strengthens their friendship.

STEVED’s boyfriend may be mentioning this now because it’s not something he feels he should be ashamed of, it’s something well-integrated into his sexuality and orientation, and he feels it is important to be open with his fiancée.

Wait, what’s the problem again?” * Divorce and start over. ** Keep talking, baby steps. But if he can’t, he can’t. Tops get to have limits, too. Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage.

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