The Georgia Straight - Cannabis Amnesty - Nov 1, 2018

FREE | NOVEMBER 1 - 8 / 2018

Volume 52 | Number 2651

EMOTIVE ROBOTS

Rosalind Picard’s big idea

BALLET GETS THE BLUES

Jimi Hendrix fuels dance

ALICIA HANSEN Reborn with Before You

Cannabis Amnesty

Lawyer Annamaria Enenajor heads a national campaign to expunge the criminal records of Canadians convicted of possessing up to 30 grams of weed

JANE GOODALL || MODULUS FESTIVAL || CORNUCOPIA || DAVID WONG

2 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 3

CONTENTS

November 1 – 8 / 2018

13 COVER

Lawyer Annamaria Enenajor wants the feds to expunge convictions for nonviolent cannabis possession.

By Travis Lupick

B.C. Early Childhood Education

Assistant & Basic Certificates

6 NEWS

David H.T. Wong, the only Green candidate who wasn’t elected October 20, likes proportional representation.

By Charlie Smith

18 FOOD

Whistler’s annual Cornucopia festival is as much a celebration of food as it is a showcase of fine wines.

Apply now to start this online program in January!

By Tammy Kwan

27 ARTS

As she prepares to launch her 10th season at the helm of Ballet BC, Emily Molnar looks back as well as boldly ahead.

By Janet Smith

37 MUSIC

A group of Vancouver scene vets got their priorities straight when channelling the ’80s as Autogramm.

By Mike Usinger

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40 CLASSIFIEDS

Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 52 | Number 2631 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 T: 604.730.7000 F: 604.730.7010 E: gs.info@straight.com straight.com

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

1 2 3 4 5

Why Justin Trudeau can’t be complacent about next election.

Reporter quits after being told to focus less attention on race.

Heavy rains cause localized flooding in parts of Vancouver.

Will former Canucks GM Mike Gillis head Seattle’s NHL frachise?

Burnaby mayor-elect Mike Hurley talks tough on Trans Mountain.

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NEWS

Wong reflects on discouraging loss

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For Wong, it was tough watching he only Vancouver Green Greens celebrate victories on eleccandidate to lose in the Octotion night as he lost. “I felt kind of ber 20 election says he doesn’t down,� he admitted. want to look like a “whiner�.

The Straight first covered Wong Architect and author David H. T. back in 1995 when he was part of Wong told the Georgia Straight by a successful battle to stop the park phone that he wonders if he might board from cutting down hundreds have been elected to city council— of trees at the Fraserview Golf rather than coming 12th in the race Course. He also appeared in this for the top 10 spots—had he spent a little more time campaigning. newspaper after he wrote a book, Escape to Gold Mountain: A Graph“I had to take a week off to do my book tour in Kelowna, then my son ic History of the Chinese in North got married,� he said.

America, in 2012.

Wong also revealed that people In addition, the Straight has covwarned him there would be a ered his efforts to advance reconbacklash against candidates with ciliation with Indigenous peoples, Chinese names because of media David H.T. Wong was the only Green candidate awareness of Asian-Canadian litcoverage of money-laundering in who was defeated in the Vancouver election. erature, understanding about the Chinese head tax, and preservacasinos and Chinese investments in the real-estate market.

Michael Wiebe, was elected with tion of heritage buildings. Wong said that he’s been accepted as an “This was told to me before I 45,593 votes. even ran for office,� he said. “They said, ‘There’s going to be some sort of reaction.’ �

Wong added that when media stories of vote-buying emerged during the campaign, he recognized ARE YOU curious to learn more to treaties to child welfare to about B.C.’s Indigenous peoples the traditional acceptance of that this could hurt his campaign.

But he insisted that he didn’t want but don’t know where to begin? two-spirit (LGBT) Indigenous Then take the time to vispeople—all of which was to cite his racial background as an “excuse� for his defeat. it the Vancouver Pubcovered in her 2011 lic Library’s Firehall book, First Nations “I really don’t want to come across as a sore loser,� Wong emphasized. branch (1455 West 101: Tons of Stuff 10th Avenue) beYou Need to Know He received 40,887 votes. That was 2,694 votes behind the 10thtween 2 p.m. and About First Nations 3:30 p.m. on SaturPeople. Shortly afplace finisher, the NPA’s Sarah Kirby-Yung. Wong’s vote total was the day (November 3) ter it was released, to hear a presentashe told the Georhighest among Vancouver council tion by long-time Vangia Straight that twocandidates with Chinese surnames. couver resident and Tsimspirit people were thought Seven Greens with non-Chinese shian Nation member Lynda to be more spiritually attuned. surnames in the election attracted Gray. The former executive dir- “It wasn’t based on sexualmore than 58,000 votes. The only ector of the Urban Native Youth ity,� Gray said at the time. “It other Green with a Chinese surAssociation will discuss every- was based on the person and name, school-board candidate thing from the medicine wheel their being.�

Lois Chan-Pedley, received 48,409 votes. A Green council candidate,

THE

T alk OF THE WEEK

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honorary member of more than a dozen First Nations after building more than 150 residences in Indigenous communities. “I’ve trained young people to build their own homes,� Wong added. “That, to me, is much more meaningful than all the accolades.�

Vancouver elects city councillors on an at-large basis, which means candidates must campaign across the entire city rather than in smaller electoral districts.

Wong, a former Green candidate in the provincial constituency of Vancouver Hastings, said that he’s a strong advocate of proportional representation.

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an at-large system in Georgia was unconstitutional because it discriminated against African Americans, a geographically concentrated racial minority. “At-large voting schemes and multimember districts tend to minimize the voting strength of minority groups by permitting the political majority to elect all representatives of the district,� Justice Byron White wrote in his 1982 ruling. “A distinct minority, whether it be a racial, ethnic, economic, or political group, may be unable to elect any representatives in an atlarge election, yet may be able to elect several representatives if the political unit is divided into singlemember districts.�

Wong pointed out that if proportional representation had been in place in the last provincial election, he might have become an MLA for Vancouver. He based this comment on his vote count and percentage of the popular vote in comparison to other B.C. Green candidates.

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NEWS

Say goodbye to Rogen’s voice on SkyTrain rides

by Charlie Smith

Vancouver-raised actor, writer, and director Seth Rogen was tapped to record SkyTrain announcements after Morgan Freeman got embroiled in controversy. Photo by Gage Skidmore

M

etro Vancouver transit users will no longer hear Seth Rogen’s voice on SkyTrain after Halloween night.

But for fans of the comic actor, writer, and director, there is some good news. In November, TransLink plans to release online outtakes of sessions with the Vancouver-raised star.

Rogen has been offering friendly etiquette tips to passengers since being hired to do this in the summer.

In one of the messages, he tells riders that their sneakers are great—but the bottoms of the shoes? Not so much.

“So keep your feet off the seats,” Rogen declares.

In another tip, he compares the 99-B bus to a student’s apartment, except there are “a few more roommates, and you have to clean up after yourselves”.

“Oh, and you can’t throw a party

in here,” he adds. “But if somehow you do, please invite.”

The gig came after the actor initially contracted to do this, Morgan Freeman, found himself in the midst of a Me Too controversy.

“Any opportunity to enrich the lives of the Canadian people is an opportunity I will take,” Rogen says in a TransLink video before breaking into laughter.

In the same video, he recalls growing up in Vancouver and taking public transit his whole life.

“I do take the Canada Line all the time,” Rogen reveals. “I go to the Richmond Night Market a lot.

And parking there is incredibly difficult—and I live downtown. There are a lot of stops nearby.”

He also states that his decision to voice the SkyTrain message ref lects his long-standing desire “to participate in Canadian culture and to put the spotlight on Canada”.

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Online communication can reveal psychopathy

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sychology researchers have known for years that people who register high on tests of psychopathy use language differently and demonstrate greater degrees of narcissistic and callous behaviour than nonpsychopaths.

Now attributes of psychopathy are correlated with online communications, according to a paper written

by Stanford University and UBC researchers in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal Media and Communication.

“Consistent with previous studies and the emotional and interpersonal deficits central to psychopathy, participants higher in psychopathy showed more evidence of psychological distancing, wrote less comprehensible discourse, and produced more interpersonally hostile language,” the researchers concluded.

“The results reveal that linguistic traces of psychopathy can be detected in online communication, and that those with higher traits of psychopathy fail to modify their language use across media types.”

One of the researchers, Michael Woodworth, is in the department of psychology at UBC’s Okanagan campus. The other two, Jeff Hancock and Rachel Boochever, are in the department of communication and the law school, respectively, at Stanford.

They relied on a sample of 110 undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 24 at a large U.S. research university. The subjects were measured for psychopathic tendencies using the SRP-III tool, which consists of 64 questions. These correlate with the four facets of psychopathy: callous affect, erratic lifestyles, interpersonal manipulation, and criminal tendencies.

“We expected that participants higher in psychopathy would exhibit narcissistic tendencies in the pattern of their pronoun use, with increased focus on self and decreased focus on others,” the researchers noted. “This hypothesis was partially supported.”

Those scoring high for psychopathy did indeed refer to others less frequently in online conversations, but they did not focus more attention on themselves. High psychopathy scores were also associated with more frequent use of swear words and interpersonal manipulation in emails and SMS messages and on Facebook.

“Language collected from archived emails, SMS text messages, and Facebook messages revealed that language produced in online communication was significantly different than language elicited for the purpose of a study in terms of pronoun use, verb tense, and emotion terms,” Hancock, Woodworth, and Boochever wrote.

“In addition, more correlations between various components of psychopathy were found with language produced naturally in online communication than in the elicited narratives, suggesting online discourse is a rich source of communication that can reveal key aspects of the self.”

In 2012, Woodworth and Hancock were coauthors of a paper titled “The Language of Psychopaths”, which was published in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Drawing upon an interview with serial killer Robert Pickton, they noted that psychopathic murderers can appear empathetic and remorseful even though they’re largely devoid of emotion. They added that computerized languageanalysis tools can pull away the mask.

“Psychopaths’ language is less emotionally intense,” the FBI paper stated. “They use more past-tense verbs in their narrative, suggesting a greater psychological and emotional detachment from the incident.”

It emphasized that law-enforcement agencies need to be aware of the “deceptive communication styles” of psychopaths.

“Considering some of the unique aspects of psychopathic language, it might be possible to detect the psychopath in online environments where information is exclusively text based.”

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NEW LISTING

Poor will have separate lobby in another tower

by Carlito Pablo

eparate entrances for condo and social-housing residents in the same development are not uncommon in Vancouver. In July, city council approved another rezoning for a development that has this segregated arrangement.

It’s a 30-storey high-rise in the West End. Condo residents have their lobby on Burnaby Street, but people in social housing have to access their homes from Thurlow Street.

Another similar development is coming up, this time on the northeast corner of Robson and Cardero streets.

It’s a 28-storey tower that will have 153 condos and 24 social-housing units.

The project at 1555 Robson Street—by VKJ (Cardero) Investment LP—will replace a two-storey commercial building.

The new development will include ground-floor commercial and office tenants whose entrances will be on Robson Street.

According to the design rationale submitted by the project’s consultant, IBI Group, as part of the development application, the “residential lobbies” will be located on Cardero Street.

Moreover, “entrances for each component of this development will be designed to be unique and easy to identify.”

The proposed Robson development was included in the agenda for the Wednesday (October 31) meeting of the City of Vancouver’s urban-design panel.

Separate entrances for social housing are often referred to as “poor doors”. Although they have become relatively common, the practice of having split entrances has been criticized.

Karen Hoese—the acting assistant director for downtown with

There will be commercial uses on the ground floor of the project in this IBI Group rendering.

the city’s planning, urban design, and sustainability department—acknowledged this issue in a report about the 30-storey West End tower (1068–1080 Burnaby Street and 1318 Thurlow Street) that was approved by city council last July.

She noted that the separate entrances for market and social-housing units caused uneasiness among some members of the public.

“There was concern that this would result in social isolation and stigmatization of the residents in the social housing units,” Hoese noted.

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BOOKS

Tipple toasts legendary women with a twist

by Lucy Lau

Jennifer Croll has devised a full menu of high-octane drinks to honour such trailblazing figures as Frida Kahlo, Margaret Atwood, Missy Elliott, and Yayoi Kusama. Photo by Rebecca Blissett

P

icture winding down after a long day with a Beyoncé in hand. No, not the actual multiplatinum-selling, Grammy Award–winning, and talented-to-the-point-of-unfair pop-culture icon who possesses the unparalleled ability to elevate a Coachella set into a life-affirming religious experience, but a shot of fiery bourbon topped generously with—what else?—lemonade. Or perhaps you’ve had the kind of day that only a bottle of your local liquor store’s most potent tequila can remedy. In that case, a Frida Kahlo—a hibiscusflavoured margarita that references the prolific artist’s fondness for florals— may be more up your alley.

It’s all within the realm of possibility, thanks to Free the Tipple, a recently launched and beautifully illustrated hardcover by local writer Jennifer Croll and New York City–based artist Kelly Shami that offers a whopping

60 cocktail recipes, each one inspired by an influential, trailblazing woman from past or present. As a book, the concept is kind of genius. I mean, who wouldn’t want to raise a ruby-red glass of rum, maraschino liqueur, and pomegranate juice to novelist and dystopian-fiction dame Margaret Atwood?

Or toast to Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott with a twist on the Salty Dog that incorporates cayenne—a spice that’s, well, as spicy as the pioneering rap star—into the salted rim? Or knock back a few sprinkle-coated Champagne jelly shooters as a proclamation of love for Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist who’s responsible for the infinity rooms you’ve doubtless double-tapped on Instagram in recent years?

A handful of the recipes in Free the Tipple are classic potions, but the majority of them were developed by Croll in her Mount Pleasant apartment. It

B ook OF THE WEEK A NEW

book by a former politician suggests that the first B.C. NDP government might have tried a legal heroin-maintenance program in the 1970s if then premier Dave Barrett had won a second term.

In Take the Torch: A Political Memoir, Ian Waddell recalls being appointed to the provincial drug and alcohol commission while Barrett was premier.

Waddell, who went on to become an NDP MP and a B.C. NDP cabinet minister, reveals in the book that a fellow commissioner, Ted Milligan, “prepared a confidential report on legalized heroin” at the request of the then minister of social services, Norman Levi.

see next page

“Originally from England, as a social worker Norm Levi got a number of prisoners in the BC Pen transferred to England for heroin maintenance,” Waddell writes. “He was a gutsy guy. Had the Barrett government been re-elected, I believe it would have tried a legal heroin maintenance [program].

“Instead, even today we leave addicts—sick people—to break into people’s homes and cars to deal with their addictions,” Waddell continues. “Surely a missed opportunity!”

Take the Torch also reveals Waddell’s role in writing Section 35 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which recognizes and affirms existing Aboriginal and treaty rights.

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According to Arc’teryx, every single person (!) at the company’s North Vancouver HQ owns an Atom LT hoodie ($300).

Given the fact that the outdoor-gear giant manufactures no fewer than 75 technical-jacket designs, that’s gotta count for something, right? Available for both men and women—the latter version has a slightly slimmer cut—the insulated, super-lightweight piece is water-resistant and easily compressible, and helps regulate body temperature thanks to its breathable, quick-dry insulation. Plus, it promises to offer all the snug comfort of a sleeping bag, which is extra appreciated during a time of year when all we want to do is stay in bed. Find it at Arc’teryx (various locations).

SWEET SWEDE Better known as the creator of those colourful square backpacks you’ve seen on everyone from your fair-weather-cyclist neighbour

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Steam Whistle steamwhistle.ca 12 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

to your kid nephew, Swedish outdoorequipment label Fjällräven is committed to sustainability—and it shows in its outerwear. Take the men’s Yupik parka ($569.99), for instance, which is crafted using a synthetic lining, boasts artificial-fur trim along the hood, and is filled with the brand’s proprietary warmth-trapping Supreme Microloft.

A look that screams urban cool more than hard-core Arctic expedition, plus plenty of conveniently placed pockets—seriously, we’re counting no fewer than 10—help seal the deal. Find it at Fjällräven (147 West Broadway and 1976 West 4th Avenue).

HAVE A BALL The North Face may

be best recognized for its boxy, oversized-baffle down coats—you know, the ones that were the outerwear option of choice for approximately 30 percent of your high school’s student body. But the Cali-based outdoor-goods behemoth offers a range of animal-byproduct-free garments, too. We love the Thermoball men’s and women’s hoodie ($269.99), which features a compact design and an innovative warming solution developed in partnership with the makers of PrimaLoft , the world’s fi rst biodegradable synthetic insulation. Pick from a range HIP HYGGE As any Danish citizen will of patterns and hues like navy, red, tell you, hygge isn’t just a word—it’s kelly green, and camo. Find it at the a cozy, pleasing, all-is-right-in-the- North Face (various locations). world, sipping-cocoa-by-candlelightas-a-blizzard-rages-on-outside feeling. LOW-KEY HEAT Not into the puff And while, clearly, it’s a concept that’s and excess bulk that typically domhard to nail down, Montreal-based inate retail racks around this time label Frank & Oak has done a decent of year, but still want to survive job of interpreting the sentiment as a that four-hour snowshoe trek that piece of functional outerwear with the you will inevitably be dragged on recently released women’s Hygge Co- in the name of exploring the outcoon coat ($349). Like Frank & Oak’s doors, spending quality time with entire winter-wear line, the oversized your friends, or some other inane garment is crafted from mostly re- nonsense? Then the Fairing jacket cycled polyester and is filled with 3M ($195)—a new release from the Thinsulate, a synthetic insulation Vancouver-based RYU’s women’s that’s light but still manages to keep range—may be your best bet. With your body toasty in subzero temps. (It its sleek motorcycle-jacket-inspired was designed in Montreal, after all.) design and smooth matte finish, the Deep, cleverly concealed pockets—two piece is about as inconspicuous as for your hands, one for your phone— outerwear gets. Layer it underneath a complete the comfy look. Find it at more heavy-duty shell for maximum Frank & Oak (316 West Cordova Street protection against the elements. Find and 4700 Kingsway, Burnaby). it at RYU (various locations).

was a task that proved both fun and stressful for the cocktail fanatic, who, for the record, has no formal mixology training. However, this doesn’t make her libations any less tasty.

“These are not necessarily bartenders’ drinks,” Croll tells the Straight by phone. “They’re home takes on cocktails.”

This humble approach to cocktail-making means many of Free the Tipple’s concoctions are beginner-friendly—not to mention a joy to mix, shake, and sip. Croll did her homework before creating each recipe, delving into her subjects’ work, backgrounds, and personalities to ensure that the beverages reflected them in some way. The Serena Williams is an updated Pimm’s Cup—the official drink of Wimbledon—made from strawberries, mint, and ginger beer, for instance, while the Naomi Klein uses a kombucha base and small-batch ingredients to honour the activist’s anticapitalist views. “That’s a good one if you just want something to sip on,” Croll says of the Naomi.

Those with experience around a cocktail shaker can look to the Zaha Hadid, an interpretation of the Ramos Gin Fizz that requires at least 60 seconds of vigorous upper-body movement because, in Croll’s words, “a woman whose buildings were impossible to build deserves a cocktail that is challenging to make.” And then there’s the Flo-Jo, a layered libation that’s served red, blue, and white— colours that Florence Delorez Griffith-Joyner, the decorated American athlete and fastest woman of all time, had painted on her fingernails when she sprinted her way to three

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gold medals at the 1988 Summer Olympics. “The Flo-Jo was crazy,” notes Croll. “That one was actually really difficult [to make] because it’s a lot about presentation.”

The list of women featured in Free the Tipple is as broad and diverse as the drinks themselves. In fact, tantalizing recipes aside, the book offers a compact, digestible way to acquaint (or reacquaint) oneself with some relatively lesser-known badass women from around the globe. Among these names are French writer Anaïs Nin; Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova; and Tanya Tagaq, the Inuk throat singer and Order of Canada recipient who won the Polaris Music Prize in 2014. All 60 women in the tome are people that Croll respects and admires greatly. “I was looking at this as very much like when someone asks you what your dream dinner party is and who you would invite to that,” she explains. “It wasn’t about, like, ‘Oh, I have to include all the most famous pop stars.’ So there are some people—many people—who are left out, as you’ll see. But it was more about striking that balance.”

As for what kind of cocktail would embody Croll? “A spicy chocolate mezcal margarita,” the author shares after some deep introspection. “I’d infuse the mezcal with chili and replace the triple sec with crème de cacao. The smoky, earthy flavour of the mezcal ties into the musty smell of books.…The chocolate notes hint that I am a known chocolate fiend, and the spice is there because I have an attitude.” We’ll drink to that.

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cannabis

Advocates aim to leave records behind

W

by Travis Lupick

ith cannabis legalized, Canada’s conversation on drug-policy reform has turned to pardons.

“That’s something that we’ll be looking into as we move forward,” Justin Trudeau told the Georgia Straight in August 2015, when he was still a candidate for prime minister.

“There has been many situations over history when laws come in that overturn previous convictions and there will be a process for that that we will set up in a responsible way.”

Three years later, the Liberals have fulfilled their promise to end prohibition of the plant. On legalization day, October 17, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced that attention would now shift to helping people burdened by past crimes of cannabis possession to shed those criminal records.

Samantha McAleese remembers the last time that pardons were in the news. She was employed as a social worker, helping people coming out of prison to get back on their feet.

It was 2012, and Stephen Harper’s Conservative government had just increased fees and wait times for those applying for pardons.

In addition, McAleese—who is now at Carleton University working on a PhD that focuses on pardons and criminal-justice reform—told the Straight, there was a third change, one that sounded innocuous but had a significant effect: what was previously called a “pardon” in Canada was renamed a “records suspension”.

“People would tell me, ‘The judge didn’t give me a life sentence but I feel like I have one now,’ ” McAleese recounted in a telephone interview.

“It took the hope out of people’s lives.

“The language change alone was enough to deflate people,” she explained. “The idea of once being able to apply for a pardon left people optimistic and gave people a greater sense of hope that once their sentence was complete, they could move on with their lives.”

Goodale’s October 17 announcement emphasized that there is still much to work out through the legislative process. But right off the bat, he said that Canadians seeking pardons for the possession of cannabis for personal use would no longer have to pay an application fee of $631 and would not have to wait the previously required five years after a completed sentence before they could apply for a pardon. The news was immediately met with simultaneous cheers and heavy criticism.

McAleese said she’s in a holding pattern. “I’m still waiting to see what they are going to come up with, but

Samantha McAleese recalls the policies of the Harper era (photo by Philippe Dorman); Kirk Tousaw says clearing convictions requires political effort.

in this case I’m not sure that allowing people to apply for pardons is good enough,” she added. “Considering that the records that they are looking to pardon are no longer crimes anymore, I think that expungements are more appropriate.”

Every advocate for cannabis reform the Straight has spoken with since legalization has similarly said they favour records expungements over suspensions (which are still commonly referred to as pardons).

Sarah Leamon, a Vancouver-based criminal defence lawyer, recently explained the difference concisely in a column for the Straight: “A pardon does little more than set aside a criminal conviction. In this way, it signals to authorities that the person—although once convicted of a criminal offence—deserves another chance,” Leamon wrote. “An expungement, on the other hand, effectively erases a past criminal conviction. It makes it as though the criminal act had never taken place in the first place.”

Leamon continued: “Unlike an expungement, a pardon does not fully remove a past conviction or make it disappear. It does not signal that the person ought not to have been convicted of the offence in the first place or that they were morally inculpable.”

Although it all sounds bureaucratic and perhaps even inconsequential, cannabis advocates— who have definitely not retired from activism despite the drug becoming legal—describe this battle for reform of the country’s pardons system as the new and now most pressing front in their ongoing struggle for a drugpolicy regime that is just.

During the past five years alone,

more than 103,000 people were charged with marijuana possession, according to Statistics Canada. The Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty estimates that more than half a million Canadians are burdened by criminal records that—with the enactment of the Cannabis Act on October 17— are no longer crimes. The route that Canada decides to go with reform of its systems for criminal pardons is going to affect a lot of citizens.

Annamaria Enenajor is director of the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty and a defence lawyer based in Toronto. She told the Straight that if the Liberal government sticks with its decision to go with pardons over records expungements, Canadians who have received a pardon are going to have to listen to U.S. border officers’ questions very carefully.

“Sometimes the question is simply: ‘Have you ever been convicted of an offence?’ And if you have a pardon, then you have to say, ‘Yes, but I’ve been pardoned,’ ” Enenajor said. “But if it’s a records expungement, then another aspect of this is the ‘deeming provision’.…What a deeming provision does, which is a term of law, is that it deems the conviction never to have happened. That gives the person the right to truthfully answer that question ‘No, I have never been convicted.’ ” Then why has the Liberal government selected pardons for past cannabis offences instead of records expungements?

Although advocates for reform might hope the government is looking at pardons as a matter of correcting injustice, Enenajor suggested that the Liberals are likely making decisions based on bureaucratic considerations.

“The record-keeping process

around Canada is a complete mess,” she began. “There are records that are kept in courts, in police departments, in government office buildings, on computers, on papers, in boxes, and in filing cabinets. If you say ‘I want all of my records with respect to this particular offence deleted,’ that is going to be much more difficult for the government because they simply cannot find all of those records.”

Enenajor argued that the Canadian government should still take this on, regardless of the greater resources that expungements for cannabis convictions would require.

“As a show of good faith to the people who had to suffer through this for decades,” she said.

Enenajor and the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty are calling for Ottawa to adopt an alternative plan.

On October 4, Murray Rankin, NDP MP for Victoria and the party’s justice critic, tabled Bill C-415, the Expungement of Certain Cannabisrelated Convictions Act. In a telephone interview, Rankin maintained that expungements are required to correct past injustices of racial discrimination and to undo the consequences of unequal police enforcement that has unfairly targeted people of lower incomes.

“The government acknowledges that the impact of this [prohibition] was disproportionate on black and Indigenous people and young people,” he told the Straight. (Investigative reports

by Vice and other outlets support Rankin’s assertions, showing that Indigenous people and people of colour were significantly more likely than white people to be charged with a cannabispossession offence in most cities across Canada.) “We’re not talking just about

the American border. We’re talking about the kid who can’t get an apartment or a job,” Rankin said.

The Ministry of Public Safety maintains that pardons will prove superior to expungements.

“A pardon is a faster process than expungement,” Scott Bardsley, a spokesperson for Goodale’s office, told the Straight by phone. “There is no question that certain communities have been disproportionately affected by the way cannabis laws have been applied, and we are addressing that by providing free, immediate access to pardons.”

Bardsley warned that expungements might have unintended negative consequences.

“Since pardons set aside records rather than destroying them, individuals who receive a pardon may be able to produce documentation in cases where they need to prove that they have obtained a pardon,” he explained. “That is especially important for travel. If the United States has a record of your expunged conviction and denies you entry, there will be no records to retrieve while seeking a waiver to enter the U.S.” Rankin acknowledged that expungements could still be a problem at international borders, but he argued that expungements would still go much further than pardons toward correcting past wrongs.

“Tell me why you still shouldn’t do the right thing for those people [of colour] who I’ve mentioned domestically?” he asked. “I’m not going to not do the right thing for inner-city black people and Indigenous people because it might not do the trick with respect to the United States.”

Rankin and those interviewed for this article cautioned that the United States and other jurisdictions that have access to data about Canadians—Britain, New Zealand, and Australia, for example—are unlikely to recognize pardons or expungements that the Canadian government issues for crimes that remain illegal in their respective jurisdictions.

Kirk Tousaw, a B.C. lawyer and expert on cannabis law, suggested that correcting this problem for Canadians convicted of cannabis possession will require a political effort and will be a complicated exercise in international relations.

“Then the ultimate solution is for marijuana to become legalized across the world,” he said. “Then this finally becomes a nonissue.” Tousaw suggested it is the global fight for drugpolicy reform that Canada’s cannabis activists will turn to next.

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HIGH TECH

Bringing emotional intelligence into AI

Creating sensitive and astute machines comes with a plethora of ethical considerations

by Kate Wilson

B

uilding robots to understand human emotions is a polarizing topic. With individuals heralding the technology both as a dystopian nightmare that will render people obsolete and as vital for improving human experience, few can agree on what the future of expressive robots will look like.

Rosalind Picard, however, knows more than most. Currently a professor of media arts and sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as a cofounder of two tech startups, Picard wrote the book on creating robots with emotional intelligence. Credited with coming up in 1997 with the concept of affective computing— a branch of computer science, she defines to the Georgia Straight, that explores how machines can be programmed to deliberately influence human emotions—she was inspired to pursue the subject after exploring the structures of the brain.

“The limbic system is a term that’s not commonly used these days,” she tells the Straight during a call from Boston. “It’s an old term that refers to some parts of the brain that are considered old also— those that are involved in memory, emotion, and attention. But it was reading about regions in those structures—today more commonly called the temporal lobe—that got me interested in emotion in the first place. The brain is magnificent. When you think about how much engineers do to build

Rosalind Picard, a professor of media arts and sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been credited with coming up with the concept of affective computing.

something, and how much more space and energy it takes up, it’s amazing that it’s still nowhere near as smart as the brain.”

Building on that research, she hypothesized how robots can be designed in a way that might not mimic a human brain but, rather, affect how people’s brains respond to them. Interacting with electronics, Picard says, can often lead to

frustration. By adding cameras to robots in order to identify movements or facial expressions, and by permitting audio recording to pick out a tone of voice, machines can be taught to respond to individuals’ reactions in an empathetic way.

“Let’s say that a computer is dealing with you when your f light was just screwed up,” she says.

“You’re annoyed and you’re angry.

The computers of today would just simply try to fix things and let you know your f light options. That’s helpful, and we don’t want them not to do that, but they might help you even more if they said, ‘Wow, that’s really awful to have that happen to your f light. That must be really frustrating.’ As soon as a computer or a person acknowledges your feelings, you tend to be able to get past them a little bit faster.

That’s the sign of emotional intelligence. It enables you to not just get the problem solved but enables you to feel better, just like if you were dealing with a person.”

Those who take a negative view of machine learning and AI argue that computers will learn to manipulate humans with their intelligence. Films like blockbusters Ex Machina, Transcendence, and I, Robot each imagine a world where computers are more emotionally perceptive than people, while personalities like the late Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have publicly voiced the risks of making machines smarter. For Picard, that possibility is a long way off.

“Understanding emotion is so hard that people don’t really understand it yet,” she says. “We’re giving computers better ability to guess what they’re seeing, but it still doesn’t mean that they understand any of it. When they’re more accurate at processing their inputs, we’re giving them better instructions about what to do with it, which means that sometimes they do the right thing. It looks like it gets

you, and that it empathized. But it doesn’t really understand us—it just simply learned that when it sees you looking sad, it would be inappropriate to look happy. It’s just learned to act in an appropriate way.”

As with any technology designed to interact with people, creating emotionally astute machines comes with a host of ethical considerations.

The robots’ audio and video recordings of the people around them, for instance, could be sold for market research. Companies who create and sell empathetic robots, too, could partner with businesses to subtly advertise through the computer’s words and actions. In Picard’s view, it’s important that organizations make a deliberate choice to develop technology with the sole benefit of helping individuals.

“I think it’s time for people to think about the framing of technology,” she continues. “Do we just want to build technology that doesn’t really care about people, that just makes money for powerful people who own it? Or do we want to make technology for people that truly makes their lives better?

I think we need to get a lot more discriminating about what we say is cool. We need to stop saying that something is cool if it’s really not making life better.”

Rosalind Picard will give a free talk titled “Emotional Intelligence in a Brave New Robotic World” as part of the Wall Exchange lecture series at the Vogue Theatre on Monday (November 5).

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HIGH TECH

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by Kate Wilson

inge-watching YouTube might be considered a waste of time by some, but for CEO Matthew Anderson it provided the inspiration for a thriving Vancouver company.

“I worked in finance for basically 10 years of my life, but it was always a hunger of mine to get into entrepreneurship,” the UBC grad tells the Georgia Straight on the line from the company’s office at SFU Venture Labs.

“I had a bajillion different ideas in my mind—everything from coffee shops to clothing lines to logistics—and I was enthusiastic about all of them. But I had this thing where whenever I couldn’t sleep, I would stay up and watch YouTube videos, and I almost always watched things on robots. I loved them. So one night I was watching these videos and I had a moment when I realized that it was where my passion is.”

After heading back to school at UBC and taking as many online courses as he could, the ex-accountant began studying up on the technical side of his newfound idea. A self-described “wannabe engineer”, Anderson teamed up with experts to bring his vision to life. Mirroring the developments of giants like Waymo and Uber, he and his employees started to make their own autonomous vehicles, but geared them toward indoor environments rather than outdoor roads. They named the company A & K Robotics.

“We started as a computer-vision technology,” says Anderson, discussing the ways that machines can be trained to see and understand images. “Four years ago, we got a Logitech webcam from Craigslist and stuck it onto this platform with wheels that we built. It looked up at the ceiling to identify features

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;MXL 7GSXX &YPPSGO SJ GSZIVWWIPP GSQ Tips on how to make your TYFPMGEXMSR stand out For more information, please visit magsbc.com/professional-development A&K Robotics’ technology turns anything with wheels into a self-driving indoor machine, and currently focuses on autonomous janitorial equipment and ferrying people to airport gates.

visually. It had very high accuracy in the indoor environment.

“We took that and said, ‘How do we make this work in the real world?’

We had to add in a bunch of other types of sensors and make it much more robust and reliable. Now the product is a brain that we can put onto anything with wheels and turn that thing into a self-driving vehicle.”

The first area the A & K Robotics team targeted was janitorial machinery. Transforming industrial cleaning equipment into what is, in essence, a giant, self-navigating Roomba, the company found success serving environments like shopping malls and schools. Able to safely steer around any obstacle, the augmented machines use artificial intelligence to avoid collisions.

“The very first time, a person will teach the robot where to go,” Anderson says. “As a person is pushing it or driving it, it’s learning the path, and then it’s able to redo that path on its own in the future.”

Finally out of stealth mode after four years of development, A & K Robotics is looking toward tackling a second market. Able to transform

any moving machine into an indoor self-driving vehicle, the company is aiming for its next creation to offer freedom and independence to people who face mobility challenges.

“There are so many uses,” Anderson says. “It’s senior care homes, it’s hospitals, it’s transportation networks.

There are museums and art galleries.

There are a lot of applications, and we have plans for all of those.”

First up on the company’s radar is making it easier for people to get between gates at airports.

“Say you’ve broken your leg or find it hard to get around,” Anderson imagines. “You land after a flight, get off your plane, and hobble off. You can walk up to one of these self-driving chairs and sit down. You scan your boarding pass, and it will automatically take you from the gate you’re at to the gate that you’re going to. It adds value right away to people.”

Now ready to place A & K Robotics in the public eye, Anderson is proud to advertise that his company’s innovative product is made in Canada.

“It’s about time people realize that this kind of stuff is coming out of Vancouver,” he says.

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HOROSCOPE

by Rose Marcus

T

hree things are happening at the same time: the past, the future, and the now. Venus on a backtrack of Libra and Uranus rekindling Aries insist we revisit and reassess before we sign off and move on. Although both are on a replay, both also prompt a new takeaway. Don’t view the past as a block or a deterrent; let it be your springboard instead.

Sometimes things have to swing to an extreme so that we can get a better visual on it. Venus retrograde shows us what isn’t in harmony, what isn’t in balance, and what is competing rather than complementing the win/win.

Venus retrograde is a look-andlisten-better transit. When things get askew, it is often because of projected expectations, of overriding the information (what we see, what we hear, what we feel) because we are overly attached to the projection rather than the reality, to some ultimate goal or objective.

Venus retrograde holds a more obvious quality regarding fate at the crossroads. Uranus retrograde is on the same activation track, but its intended target is chiefly directed to the social and political spheres.

Tuesday is a big day for U.S. voters, and it is also a big transition day in the stars. Uranus retrograde backs into Aries and the karmic axis (north and south nodes of the moon) begins its next 18-month transit through Cancer/Capricorn.

This sign axis features everything to do with home, family, security, consequences of the past, authority’s rule, and getting it under better control. Monday’s sun/Neptune trine and Wednesday’s new moon in Scorpio infuse the now with significant creative potential.

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LIBRA

September 22–October 23

You will feel the fullest impact of Venus retrograde in Libra if you are born October 18 to 23, but, of course, we are all feeling it. While each day is informing, Venus gives you extra time to sort yourself out, to observe and to feel your way along.

Uranus on a revisit of Aries triggers something more, something fresh, something fated.

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SCORPIO

October 23–November 21

Venus has just left Scorpio for Libra, but she’ll be back in December. In the meantime, the transit is good for taking time out to heal/replenish heart, body, and soul. Eat healthy; do right by yourself this weekend. Through Monday, give your undivided attention to studies, a creative project, or a romantic interlude. Gift yourself, too. Tuesday/Wednesday, expect to hit the ground running.

C

K

D

L

April 20–May 20

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 24, 2018 • 12 NOON - 7 PM

The Virgo moon keeps you going strong through Saturday.

Venus on a backtrack of Libra powers up your inner voice. You’ll now gain better feel for what or who is worth taking on. Don’t override your heart or your mind; listen up instead. Starting Tuesday, Uranus in Aries can fire you up and/or provide more incentive. Tough love is where it is at.

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TAURUS

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August 22–September 22

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Venus in Libra puts more spin on your social life and on relationship matters. A next phase or stage is in the works regarding a key relationship (perhaps several). A partnership or contract holds good prospects. Starting Tuesday, Uranus on a backtrack of Aries can thrust you into it fast. It’s fate on a flint strike, especially so if you are born April 18/19.

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VIRGO

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March 20–April 19

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or look-see can be too. If it did the trick previously, it can again. Venus retrograde in Libra can boost your social activity, rekindle the heart, revive a plan or a good idea, or put you back in the game in some other way. Tuesday, emotions are on a quick trigger.

A

ARIES

FEATURING A “SLEIGH-FULL” OF ENTERTAINMENT:

NOVEMBER 1 TO 7, 2018

Uranus backs out of Taurus on Tuesday, but it isn’t disappearing.

Along with Venus on a revisit to Libra, these transits aim to help you cut to the chase regarding upgrades and improvements. Venus can help you to find a better job or enlist more cooperation, better advice, or more help. It can also stir up dependency issues.

It is time to address the imbalances.

GEMINI

May 21–June 21

Comparatively speaking, Venus retrograde in Libra can be easier or smoother going than Venus in Scorpio. Someone or something can reclaim your heart or take you on another go-around. What’s good is good; what isn’t calls for you to reexamine and to adjust your expectations. It’s an appropriate transit for renegotiating a contract, actual or karmic. Tuesday/Wednesday are good for a power play.

CANCER

June 21–July 22

Venus retrograde in Libra spotlights family, home, and reconciling with the past. You may feel that no matter how much you do, you give, or you pay that it never seems to be enough. Do your best; cherish what you have; don’t buy into resentment or regret. Starting Tuesday, Uranus into Aries puts a new spin on it. You are poised for a breakthrough.

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LEO

July 22–August 22

A rethink is in order. A call back, another conversation, meet-up,

SAGITTARIUS

November 21–December 21

Mercury, freshly into Sagittarius, gives you/it wings. Venus on a revisit of Libra and Uranus on a revisit of Aries (as of next Tuesday) are also revitalizing. While the aim is to get plugged back in and/or to get it off the ground again, it is not about the same old but about taking it in a whole new direction. Tuesday/Wednesday sets the stage/tone.

CAPRICORN

December 21–January 19

Contracts, actual and karmic, are up for review. Professionally and personally, Venus retrograde takes you through an important reevaluation and/or rebuild-it process. Uranus on a backtrack of Aries adds something new or extra to the mix. A key someone plays a feature role in both hindsight ref lection and how it shapes up next.

AQUARIUS

January 20–February 18

Mars in Aquarius keeps you going strong through the middle of the month. Despite Venus and Uranus taking you on a backtrack, Mars keeps you breaking new ground.

Through Monday, the going is good.

Use the next couple of weeks to get yourself ahead before Mercury turns retrograde. Tuesday/Wednesday begins a next phase. Watch for sudden clarity or news.

PISCES

February 18–March 20

Spending more, earning more: Venus on a backtrack of Libra keeps money on your mind. Sex and relationship matters are top attention getters too. With Mercury in Sagittarius on the move, you should see gains where it adds up the most. Now through the middle of next week, potentials are on the rise. Tuesday/Wednesday keeps you/it going strong.

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

Autumn calendar filled with fun

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HITS

by Kurtis Kolt

f it’s just after Halloween, that means it’s almost time to head up the mountain to Cornucopia, Whistler’s celebration of food and drink running from November 8 to 18.

Veterans of the spirited festival know that if there’s one event there that is a can’t-miss affair, it’s the annual Crush Grand Tasting at the Whistler Conference Centre (on Saturday, November 10, at 8:30 p.m.).

Tickets, starting at $91, get you into a room full of revelry, with more than 70 tables pouring the good stuff. (For Cornucopia food events, see page 18.)

From British Columbia, there are splashes to be enjoyed from producers like Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars, JoieFarm Winery, Orofino Vineyards, and Play Estate Winery. On the international front, do make a beeline to New Zealand’s Craggy Range, Chianti Classico’s Rocca delle Macie, and Domaine du Pegau from the storied French wine region of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

During the days of Cornucopia, there are many opportunities to slide into seminars for in-depth discussions and tastings on various topics.

Come see yours truly, along with my colleagues Rachelle Goudreau and Tyler Dawson, as we present a Top Value Wines seminar on November 11 at noon ($43). We’ll be speaking to everything from zippy Australian Rieslings to rugged Chilean reds, providing a dynamic wine-shopping list to get you through the winter without breaking the bank.

Later in the week, the team at Bearfoot Bistro are hosting a wine dinner with Douglas Elliott from South Africa’s Anthonij Rupert Wines ($195).

It’ll all go down in the restaurant’s wine cellar and has the makings of a cozy gathering, with the winery’s pristine whites and sturdy reds paired with chef Melissa Craig’s awardwinning cuisine. Their 2015 Cape of Good Hope Sémillon ($30.58 at Vancouver’s Legacy Liquor Store) is one of my favourite wines they make, loaded with apricots, peaches, and lemons, with gentle oak well-woven through.

A charming take on an unsung grape.

For more information on these events, and the myriad of others on offer, hit up whistlercornucopia.com/.

For those not able to hop on the Sea-to-Sky Highway for Cornucopia, there’s plenty of action right here in Vancouver, too.

Barbara Philip is Canada’s first female Master of Wine and the European-portfolio manager for B.C. Liquor Stores. She’s also spent much of her career as an educator, teaching for the International Sommelier Guild and the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. Her enthusiasm for all thing vinous is contagious, and there’s no better opportunity to get a front-row seat than her exclusive Burgundy tastings at the B.C. Liquor Stores at Park Royal and 39th Avenue and Cambie

Haywire Secrest Mountain Chardonnay tastes like the Okanagan Valley in a glass.

Street on Wednesday and Thursday (November 7 and 8).

For $35 per person, she’ll offer casual guidance through the region, highlighting the stunning Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs of some of the smaller domaines and family producers available in our market, pouring them alongside charcuterie and cheeses to illustrate pairing potential.

Attendees will also have the chance to purchase the wines at a discounted price. Visit bcliquorstores.com/ for more information.

Over in the West End, Mike West from Okanagan Crush Pad will be on hand at the Marquis Wine Cellars at 1034 Davie Street on Friday (November 9) from 5 to 7 p.m., pouring wines from their Haywire label. It won’t set you back a dime: the tasting is free

and you can drop in anytime. The wines from Haywire are authentic expressions of Okanagan Valley terroir, made by winemaker Matt Dumayne in a minimal-intervention style: they are wild-fermented from organically grown grapes and aged in concrete without any use of oak, offering lively and fresh purity of fruit.

Their Haywire Secrest Mountain Chardonnay ($27.74 at Marquis) epitomizes this perfectly. The highish-altitude vineyard’s soils are alluvial with gravel and limestone components, giving the wine a perfectly crisp backbone.

The surrounding wild sagebrush and ponderosa pine trees find their way into the nuances of the aromatics, while the palate basks in ripe apples, pears, and peaches. It may be clichéd to say “It’s like the Okanagan in a glass,” but here we are. Details on the tasting are at marquis-wines.com/.

Finally, while you’re in the store, treat yourself to an adorable 375-millilitre bottle of Époque 2015 Collection Terroir (Monbazillac, France; $21.65), a late-harvest blend of Sémillon and Muscadelle from this sweet-wine appellation near Bergerac in southwest France. Perfect for hearty cheese boards that suit this season—intoxicating aromas carry honey, marmalade, and jasmine to lovely heights, while grilled pink grapefruit, roasted peaches, and butterscotch notes fill the palate. The acid is on point too—ensuring the wine isn’t too heavy or cloying.

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FOOD

Epicurean eats at Cornucopia

by Tammy Kwan

WINTER FARMERS MARKETS WINTER SEASON BEGINS

NOVEMBER 3

WEEKLY MARKETS AT

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There will be more than 100 food and drink events taking place at the 22nd annual Cornucopia festival in Whistler. Photo by Darby Magill

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ne misconception about the world-renowned holiday destination that we call Whistler is the notion that it has a lull period, which is identified as the handful of weeks that sit between the end of September and the beginning of December. The fall season at the little resort town in the southern Pacific Ranges often plays a minor role compared to its summer and winter counterparts, when locals and international tourists flock to the village for world-class mountain biking, skiing, and snowboarding.

But those popular activities shouldn’t cast a shadow over what Whistler has to offer during the autumn: auburn leaves covering the sidewalks, crisp fall mornings, and arguably the region’s most popular culinary event of the year: Cornucopia, an annual celebration of food and drink.

Now in its 22nd year, the festival (November 8 to 18) will include dozens of gourmet events. The gastronomic fete attracts guests from near and far with its lineup of offerings, which range from largescale winetastings to chef ’s luncheons, and from drink seminars to winemaker’s dinners.

There are more than 100 happenings taking place throughout the 11-day extravaganza. If you’re a first-timer, check out the Crush Grand Tasting—it’s considered the festival’s f lagship event, where dozens of wineries and Whistler restaurants will be offering wine samples and small bites.

But wines are not the only focus at Cornucopia, because the culinary creations are just as much in the spotlight. Some of Whistler’s best restaurants will be hosting special winemaker’s dinners, and a number of notable names from Vancouver and other B.C. regions will be at the

helm of the chef’s-table luncheons.

Some may say that Fairmont Chateau Whistler’s executive chef, Isabel Chung, is at the forefront of epicurean feasts during the annual foodand-drink celebration. This year, the hotel has 10 dinners scheduled for Cornucopia, and Chung played a large role in connecting with the wineries that she will be working with.

There is one particular event that the seasoned chef is most excited about: the sold-out Bella Wines collaboration dinner on November 17. She’ll be joining forces with Eva Chin from Vancouver’s Royal Dinette, creating a multicourse meal that will marry their unique cooking techniques and styles with the best B.C. ingredients.

Asked if she thinks it’s the food or the wine that is more important at these types of culinary events, Chung picked the former without hesitation. “For me, it’s always going to be the food. I can’t help it,” she said. “But if they are in great pairing and if they play off each other, I think that actually improves the

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food. Conversely, winemakers will say that if the food complements the wine, the wine will taste better.”

Executive chef James Olberg at Nita Lake Lodge’s Aura Restaurant also believes that food is the star of the show in a winemaker’s dinner. “The only reason why I say the food [is] because it is the unknown,” Olberg told the Straight by phone. “I think the food is the most important because maybe it’s the most vulnerable in any function.

It has to be pretty well thought out and executed properly.”

Aura Restaurant will be hosting the Sip & Savour Winemaker Dinner on November 10, serving up a six-course meal paired with wines from 50th Parallel Estate Winery. The menu will feature dishes like braised short ribs, pan-seared sea scallops, and a crowd-pleasing dark-chocolate dome.

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Cornucopia, presented by BlueShore Financial, runs November 8 to 18. For a full schedule of events and to purchase tickets, visit www.whistlercornucopia.com/.

Food TIP SHEET BUBBLES AND BRUNCH Indulge in carved meats, fresh seafood, Belgian waffles, and desserts with a glass of bubbles at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler (November 11).

CHEF TABLE LUNCHEON: EDIBLE CANADA One of the chefs from a popular Vancouver dining establishment will be creating delicious Canadian plates at a private Whistler home (November 11).

ROOFTOP RENDEZVOUS AT PANGEA Enjoy some cocktails and small bites on the rooftop at

Whistler’s newest boutique pod hotel (November 15).

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NIGHT MARKET: TASTE OF THE WORLD Sip and savour various wines, beers, and liquors paired with street-food eats at the Whistler Conference Centre Sea to Sky Ballroom (November 16).

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ABSTRACT: FUTURE—FROM NOW TO ETERNITY An inaugural Cornucopia signature party event that features art, entertainment, food, and drink at the Audain Art Museum (November 17).

Goodwill Lager helps families

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by Charlie Smith

Authentic Greek Food

Extensive Wine & Bar List 1830 Fir St. Vancouver | 604.736.9559

www.apolloniagreekrestaurant.com C L O S E D M O N D AY S L U N C H • W E D N E S D AY to F R I D AY 11:30A M ͳ 2:30 P M D I N N E R • T U E S D AY to S U N D AY 4:30 ͳ 9:30 P M 18 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

very year, the Donnelly Group oversees one of B.C.’s largest privately run toy drives.

During the past 18 years, the Vancouver-based hospitality company has ensured that almost $1 million worth of playthings reached local families.

This year, the Donnelly Group has added some fizz to the festive season by teaming up with the Truck Stop Diner at Red Truck Beer on a new brew, the Goodwill Lager. Each sale of one of these cans will generate even more funds for this worthy charitable endeavour.

“We love the holiday season, but the reality is that every year there are kids who might not get toys under their tree,” Donnelly Group’s Damon Holowchak said in a news release.

This variation on a Vienna-lager style beer will be available starting Thursday (November 1) at all Donnelly Group locations, as well as at the Truck Stop Diner. It’s 5.1 percent alcohol by volume and it clocks in at 20 IBU (International Bitterness Units), which is relatively low on the scale. There’s a mix of grains—30 percent Vienna, 30 percent Dark Munich, 30 percent Superior Pilsen, and 10 percent Caramunich.

The can is adorned with a message never before seen on a beer: “Some kids don’t get gifts over the holidays.

Drink this beer to change that.”

This variation on a Vienna-lager style beer carries an enticing message.

This less than subtle branding will enable beer drinkers across Metro Vancouver to make a public statement of their goodhearted intentions every time they go out for a cool one with their friends or their work colleagues.

“Matching our love of local craft beer with our toy drive seemed like the most natural way to raise more money for toys and brighten up the holidays for a bunch of local families,” Holowchak said.

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movies

REVIEWS

The monastery and the Mountain Life THIS MOUNTAIN LIFE

A documentary by Grant Baldwin.

Rated PG

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A NUN IN full regalia vigorously skis across Hoth-like tundra midway through this splendid documentary.

It’s an inherently funny image, whether or not filmmaker Grant Baldwin chooses to acknowledge it that way. It also succinctly captures what all the mountain lifers we meet over a snowpacked 80 minutes are striving to express. As one reverent climber puts it: “A lot of people refer to their mountaineering as going to church.�

Produced by the Knowledge Network, Baldwin’s film begins with the reminder that 75 percent of British Columbia is composed of mountain terrain that almost nobody will ever see. Mother and daughter team Tania and Martina Halik are determined to change that ratio by just a little, and their 2,300-kilometre trek along the Coast mountain range, from Squamish to Alaska, forms the backbone of the film.

It would take a much longer movie to really convey the scope of their achievement, but Baldwin teases out a neat subtext concerning 60-yearold Tania. Challenging death for six months in the subzero B.C. wilderness mirrors her rugged escape from Communist Czechoslovakia as a pregnant youth (an event so traumatizing that it compels her, for reasons best explained by the movie, to strip down to her underwear when crossing some freezing rapids).

Elsewhere, we hear the truly terrifying account of photographer-pilot Todd Weselake’s rendezvous with an avalanche, which left him cryogenically suspended between life and death for 20 minutes under four metres of snow. The aforementioned Sister Claire lives, Black Narcissus–style, in a silent monastery perched high above Squamish. Snowshoe artist Simon Beck opens the movie with one of its most arresting shots—which is saying something. It ends with artist Bernhard Thor and his wife, Mary, living off the grid for 50 years and counting in a marvellous fairy-tale house just beyond Anderson Lake.

They’re just a little further along than the others in their yearning for a return to the garden, an impulse that

Martina and Tania Halik are two of the subjects pondering the deeper questions in Grant Baldwin’s British Columbia–set This Mountain Life.

you could even trace back to Baldwin’s last film, 2014’s Just Eat It, with its implicit aversion to the complex and doomed systems of urbanization. Of course, the talented cinematographer uses GoPros, drones, and the almighty microchip to deliver this astounding hymn to the natural world, but as Tania Halik would tell you, sometimes the only way around something is through it.

by Adrian Mack

CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

Starring Melissa McCarthy. Rated PG

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MELISSA McCARTHY plays it straight and gets the role of her life in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, named after the memoir of her real-life character: a caustic New York writer called Lee Israel, who finally found success by pretending to be famous people.

Movies have always had a difficult time portraying the lives of writers.

I mean, all that typing and shit? In this case, the typing—kind of—is the point, as Israel, who garnered attention as a show-business biographer in the 1980s, sees her prospects dry up at the start of the next decade. As her snarky literary agent (SNL great Jane Curtin) is forced to explain, Lee’s abrasive personality and refusal to play the bookpromo game are much more serious problems than lack of talent or ideas.

The irony is that Israel has chosen a purely commercial niche but wants to

be treated like an artiste. This theme is subtly teased out by director Marielle Heller, who made the terrific Diary of a Teenage Girl. (She’s also helming the still-untitled movie with Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers.) The witty script is from Nicole Holofcener (whose film The Land of Steady Habits is now on Netflix) and Broadway-musical veteran Jeff Whitty. And they find the right balance of dark comedy and underlying sympathy for a character who exhibits little of the slapstick confidence McCarthy is known for.

Israel, who lives in a fly-specked Manhattan hovel with her sick cat, softens slightly when she starts hanging out with emblematically named Jack Hock, a genial hustler who gets by on the charm she clearly lacks. (This gives U.K. great Richard E. Grant one of his best parts since Withnail and I.) They’re both hard-drinking and gay—he actively so, while human contact is something she avoids, even after attracting the attention of a shy bookseller, played by Doll & Em’s endearing Dolly Wells. When she brings the seller some legit letters signed by Funny Girl Fanny Brice, Lee realizes there’s gold in them there oldies.

That’s where the (antique) typewriters come in. If you’re going to forge correspondence from Dorothy Parker, NoÍl Coward, and the like, you don’t do it on an IBM Selectric.

To describe more is to give away the downbeat fun. But it’s rare to see

a mainstream effort let its scenes play out so organically, goosed along only by superb acting and a sharp jazz score that—like the movie itself—always manages to avoid the obvious notes.

by Ken Eisner

MARIA BY CALLAS

A documentary by Tom Volf. In English, French, and Italian, with English subtitles. Rated G

d IF YOU EVER wondered where

the term diva comes from—aside from the original Sanskrit—look no further. Whether you’re an opera neophyte or a well-Callased veteran, this profile of the original stage goddess is a mega travel trunk of riches.

In a companion to his spectacularly expensive coffee-table book, neophyte filmmaker Tom Volf weaves together swaths of the irreplaceable singer’s life and art through footage and stills from myriad sources, all shined to a lustrous digital sheen, with a palette emphasizing salmon, mustard, and jade.

There’s no looking back here; all narration is taken from the subject’s own letters and journals, mostly read

by Joyce DiDonato, herself a top-drawer American mezzo-soprano. (There’s also a French version featuring Fanny Ardant.) Maria’s own dulcet tones are heard in numerous interviews and in riotous press conferences that rival those of the Beatles or JFK—and more about Jackie Kennedy later on,

as Callas settles into a volatile duet on the world stage with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Longer interviews with David Frost and others provide a ruminative through line.

This largely diaristic approach pits her serene self-image, complete with shape-shifting accents—a cool New Yorker on American TV, a French or Italian aristocrat or earthy Greek peasant when talking to European press—against the reality of the woman as a mercurial handful.

Most crucially, there are complete performances of her key arias, sung in “the only language I really know: music�, with a special emphasis on famous highlights from Norma and Tosca. Her authenticity there shines through every heart-wrenching note.

Intriguingly, almost all the performances are drawn from wellrecorded concert recitals. Most of the full-costume operas glimpsed here are taken from amateur 8mm movies, with no sync sound. Volf yokes these to rough audio records of the same (or similar) performances, and it’s mind-boggling to consider the effort that went into piecing all these elements together.

Some of the framing, especially of smaller, more degraded images, may seem gimmicky or extreme. But hey, what’s more artificial than opera?

by Ken Eisner

BEL CANTO

Starring Julianne Moore. In English and Spanish, with English subtitles.

Rated 14A

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THE SAME WEEK that brings us Maria by Callas also offers up another heroic soprano, although here, RenÊe Fleming’s voice is heard emerging from the rubied lips of Julianne Moore.

The transference happens because La Moore, excellent as usual, plays Roxane Coss, an opera star who’s been invited to perform—for an extravagant fee—for the ruling class of an unspecified Latin American country, where insurgents are locked in a longrunning battle with the local oligarchy.

It’s actually Peru, with the events in Bel Canto, as in the Ann Patchett book it’s based on, loosely related to something that happened in late 1996, when Túpac Amaru rebels stormed the Japanese ambassador’s residence see next page

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WHISTLER PRESENTS Endless Entertainment

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WHISTLER FILM FESTIVAL

in Lima. The Japanese connection to Peru is an odd one, because Peru’s best-known president, Alberto Fujimori, fled to his parents’ homeland in 2000, when facing charges for massive corruption and human-rights abuses.

(He finally ended up in prison and has created a small dynasty in the impoverished nation.)

Here, the fictional president is supposed to attend a big dinner party at the palatial home of his vice president (J. Eddie Martinez). The latter’s not the only one disappointed when the boss fails to show up. Also in attendance will be Japanese industrialist Katsumi Hosokawa (The Last Samurai’s Ken Watanabe), who might build a factory there, but is really just flying in to enjoy a private concert by his idol, the aforementioned diva.

Having brought his translator (Mozart in the Jungle’s Ryo Kase) allows all the participants to speak their own languages, as well as ours.

This is quite a change of pace for director Paul Weitz, who helped make Mozart and was previously best known for the already contrasting one-two punch of American Pie and About a Boy. Weitz and screenwriter Anthony Weintraub do a number of difficult things well, especially when it comes to sympathetically individuating the revolutionaries, led by bearded Comandante Benjamin (Tenoch Huerta, likewise of Mozart), who show up uninvited. They start with some fireworks, but also become opera buffs, of a sort.

The film is more slapdash with

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> Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < A FRIENDLY AND BEAUTIFUL SMILE AT STARBUCKS

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December 2 ROMA

November 28 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS OPENING NIGHT FILM

The Canadian Premiere of a historical drama that Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth I vs. Saoirse Ronan as the titular Mary Queen of Scots who battle for the highest seat in the land.

Western Canadian Premiere Academy Award winning writer-director Alfonso Cuarón delivers an artful love letter to the women who raised him amidst the political turmoil of Mexico City in the early 1970s.

November 29 & 30 / December 1 SIGNATURE SERIES

November 30 / December 1 MUSIC SHOWCASE

The Signature Series recognizes distinguished artists of our time and honours them with an award and an intimate on-stage interview and feature presentation of their most recent film.

Up to ten BC artists will perform a 30-minute set for key international music executives, filmmakers and film fans!

Visit whistler.com/filmfestival for full event information.

2-NIGHTS FROM

$

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BIKE SHORTS There’s no helmet required for this evening of international films about cycling, which also offers the satisfaction of supporting HUB Cycling and the Better Biking Fund. Wheel to the Rio Theatre on Tuesday (November 6).

RENDER Jerk in the Can and Jo Passed are two of the local acts who turned out work wild enough

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 29, 2018 WHERE: Starbucks Downtown

HIGHLIGHTS

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*

MAD HATTER AT DARK 80S

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 29, 2018 WHERE: Warehouse at Eastside Studios It was loud in front of the speakers but when you leaned forward and spoke into my ear I’m pretty sure you said your name was Michelle. Unfortunately I didn’t realize you were saying goodbye. Your unflagging energy and inventive, fun movements were impressive - especially considering you probably had on 90 pounds of costume and then, suddenly, your absence was notable. It made me a sad rabbit. Well, not really - I mean I was still having fun.

But it was funner with you around. I think we should see if we could be friends...

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* Visit whistler.com/filmfestival for details.

Visit whistler.com for a year-round calendar of festivals, concerts and entertainment.

WHISTLER.COM | 1.800.944.7853 20 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

The first time I came to the Starbucks you work at was about 1 month ago. I tried to make small talks while you were taking my order. I learned that you’re from the UK because of your accent and also your name from your name tag. There are a million Starbucks in the city but I keep coming back to your's because I want to see your smile every morning. Your name is a 3 letter word and it starts with the letter ‘R’. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?

FUTURE MEMBER OF THE CAG

PER NIGHT

by Ken Eisner

to make the fifth annual Vancouver International Music Video Festival, coming to the Vancity Theatre on Friday (November 2).

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Visit Whistler in early December for the 18th edition of Canada’s ‘coolest’ film festival. The Whistler Film Festival features five action-packed days of fresh films, epic events, industry connections plus time to enjoy the delights of the worldclass resort from skiing to après, fine dining and more.

the resulting hostages and their sometimes preposterous relationships over the vaguely defined passage of time.

(The real event lasted four months.)

We only really get to know the French ambassador (Christopher Lambert) and a few others, plus the Swiss gobetween (Sebastian Koch, from The Lives of Others) who helps negotiate terms in the ensuing standoff.

The pace is a bit sluggish, and the fact that Moore clearly isn’t really singing throws a moist towelette on the message: that direct expressions of humanity can indeed soothe the savage breast. Still, Bel Canto builds to an emotional finish that, if not quite La Traviata, certainly connects with the bizarre soap opera that politics have become in this century.

Movies TIP SHEET

ANDREI RUBLEV First seen at Cannes in the 1960s and newly restored, Andrei Tarkovsky’s second and arguably greatest film receives two final screenings at the Cinematheque on Thursday and Friday (November 1 and 2).

November 28 – December 2

Julianne Moore is a diva caught inside a volatile South American political situation in Bel Canto.

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 28, 2018 WHERE: Contemporary Art Gallery You wandered into the bookstore at the Contemporary Art Gallery, while waiting to sign up for a membership with the gallery. I remarked that the books looked prettier than the art exhibit. Me: purple jacket and purple backpack. Let’s wander in museums?

GLASSES ON THE 180

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 28, 2018 WHERE: 180 Bus from Burquitlam Station Dark long brown haired woman who took the 180 from Burquitlam Station on Sunday October 28th around 14:00.

You were wearing thickframed glasses, long black coat, and brown-red leather gloves, and had a laptop bag.

You were an elegant lady. I was wearing a purple jacket and a purple backpack. I was scrambling to come up with a pretext to talk to you because you looked like the type who likes to read books as well.

MISSED CONNECTION ON THE BUS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 28, 2018 WHERE: BC Bus 14 to Richmond We almost sat next to each other on the 14 to Richmond today, you remarked on the Spanish girls that were on the wrong bus. Coffee?

HEY, BUNNY FROM ROOSTERS CABARET, IT'S MUMMY GIRL!

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 27, 2018 WHERE: Roosters Country Cabaret You immediately complimented my mummy costume and how much work I put into it, I quite enjoyed your full bunny suit equipped with a cute bunny nose! We danced to cruise by Florida Georgia Lines, you spun me around and waltzed me! We were talking to each-other and by the end of the night. I said you were gorgeous, you returned to compliment, you told me you were staying in the hotel across the street. My phone was dead so I never asked for you number, and I'm kicking myself for it now. Even if we don't end of connecting, I wanted to tell you: You look a lot like David Walton, and I'm loving it.

SPIDER MAN DROP

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 27, 2018 WHERE: New Westminster I dressed up as Spiderman dropped down off the roof of a bar and at the end of the night you approached me saying you missed it and asked me to do an encore. I’m sorry, I was so tired that I didn’t. Anyway I should’ve got your number. I know this is a long shot and I hope you see this post and contact me. I would love to get to know you.

JOHNNY IN THE SKELETON COSTUME WITH HICCUPS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 27, 2018 WHERE: The Junction You: Johnny in the skeleton costume with hiccups. Me: Tim dressed as Ash Ketchum from Pokemon. You were sitting in the booth with hiccups, and I gave you a drink and tired to scare your hiccups away. You didn't like your costume because of the skull mask. We danced and you left, but I never got your number. Would be great to meet up for drinks and get to know you better.

ELECTION DAY

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 20, 2018 WHERE: Finch’s Strathcona Saw you on the Saturday of the election at Finch’s having a coffee. You had a skirt and leggings on, five foot 8 brunette with long natural hair and you were chatting with a dark handsome man about politics and writing. I found it difficult to tear my eyes away from your long legs.

CUTE BOY WALKING ON SOUTH BURRARD

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 19, 2018 WHERE: Near Burrard Bridge and 5th Street We walked past one another and smiled. I had a long black and silver skirt on, we then both rubber-necked and looked back at each-other. I should have said Hi!

Visit straight.com to post your FREE I Saw You _

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MOVIES

presents

Jane Goodall praises doc during recent VIFF visit

by Piper Courtney

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NOV 8 – 10

2018

n 1957, when field research relied heavily upon statistical analysis, a 23-year-old London woman, notably shy a degree, traipsed into an African rainforest armed only with binoculars, a notebook, and a pair of Converses.

Jane Goodall’s subsequent observations of chimpanzees in Tanzania would not only shape scientific discourse but create space for compassion in the study of global biodiversity.

“Those were the best days of my life,” Goodall says, talking to the Georgia Straight in early October while visiting Vancouver for a special VIFF screening of Jane, the Emmy Award–winning documentary highlighting her work in the Gombe Stream National Park.

“It was just me, out there, being with the chimps, learning new things. They were like part of my family.”

Upon publication of her research, the academic community scoffed at the unbridled approach to data collection, but it was her unbound mind and open heart that would lead to some of the most profound discoveries in primatology of the modern era.

Goodall’s work has since been canonized in books, essays, articles, and documentaries the world over, but she says none of these has been as authentic or nostalgic as Brett Morgen’s 2017 documentary, Jane.

“What’s different about this film is it is my voice giving life to what I felt at the time,” she says, noting Morgen’s choice to use only Goodall’s audiobooks and interviews to narrate the film. “It wasn’t some commentator who knew nothing about me or the chimps, just talking away. It was me. I think that was one of the things that made it seem so real.”

The film chronicles Goodall’s patient efforts to connect with the chimpanzees and is composed almost entirely of archival 16mm film shot by renowned wildlife photographer Hugo van Lawick, Goodall’s first husband. In the early 1960s, National Geographic sent the photojournalist to Africa after the western world began to catch wind of the young trailblazer’s work.

The footage van Lawick gathered while living in Tanzania, and during the couple’s 10 years of marriage, shows his natural aptitude for filmmaking, and also conveys a warmth anyone would find in digging out that dusty box marked “home videos”. Instead of children ripping into presents under a Christmas tree, however, it’s clips of chimps curiously observing Goodall as she draws, or van Lawick playfully mimicking primate grooming rituals, or the couple’s cherub-cheeked son, lovingly nicknamed Grub, imitating wild animal calls. The film is, in its essence, just a window onto the life of a growing family—Goodall, her mother, her chimps, her lover, and her child.

The 84-year-old anthropologistprimatologist says her life now is very different from that shown in the revitalized clips. These days, she spends her time hopping between the Jane Goodall Institute locations around the world, and empowering youths through the Roots & Shoots program.

“Looking back over my life, it’s almost as though I was put here for a purpose,” she says, reflecting on the film. “There were points along the journey where all I had to do was to make the right decision, and I think looking back on each of these points, I did make the right decisions.”

Goodall says every so often, however, she’ll find herself back in Tanzania. When she does, she sets aside one day to wander alone into the forest to revisit the place where she began her journey.

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26 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 8 / 2018

arts At left, Ballet BC artistic director Emily Molnar works on the new piece for her 10th-season opener; right, dancers Zenon Zubyk and Racheal Prince prepare works before the busiest touring season yet. Photos by Michael Slobodian.

Molnar helps Ballet BC find its groove

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by Janet Smith

creaming electric guitar and ballet aren’t necessarily things you would associate with each other. But, sure enough, Jimi Hendrix’s Blues album is blasting from the Ballet BC rehearsal-studio stereo as dancers race and slide across the floor. The troupe members, who have made an international name for their fearlessness, are tapping a new kind of energy.

They’ve found their groove—an apt metaphor to mark artistic director Emily Molnar’s 10th season helming the company.

“I’ve always wanted to do something with blues or jazz music,” says Molnar, who choreographed the new untitled work for the season opener, relaxing afterward in a nearby empty studio. “What I’m attracted to in blues is that such sorrow is sung through joy. It’s the opposition of the very dark with the uplifting.

There’s a wildness and chaos.…It’s about living and being human.”

The confidence, the freedom, and the voice the company is expressing are an apt celebration of what Ballet BC has accomplished in just under a decade. When Molnar took the reins, Ballet BC’s future was uncertain, its finances grim enough for it to file for

bankruptcy protection, and it hadn’t toured in years. Slowly, methodically, she’s rebuilt its reputation—locally, nationally, and internationally.

The company enters the 2018-19 season financially stable, with a plan to tour for 12 weeks—the maximum it can handle, and a dream Molnar has brought to fruition. Amid its planned stops: Luxembourg and Darmstadt, Germany, in December, Tel Aviv and Alberta in January, and additional visits across Canada, the U.S., and Europe in the spring. The troupe is riding the buzz it received on a jaunt earlier this year to the U.K., when it sold out London dance mecca Sadler’s Wells and the Independent praised its “gorgeous energy”.

Touring, Molnar says, has helped the company grow. “It develops a larger conversation with multiple communities,” she explains. “The commonality between the audiences has been that they say, ‘We see so many companies where one or two [dancers] stand out, but with this one all of them stand out with the same intention.’”

In addition, the artistic director has brought on two new emerging artists (formerly called apprentices), making five now in total, meaning there are a lot of fresh faces in the

Blues piece. “We’re developing ideally toward a junior company, a Ballet BC 2,” she reveals.

It’s all on her mind as Ballet BC launches a strategic plan this season, setting out its goals for the next three years and beyond.

“The first 10 years are always hard, but maybe more obvious about what needs to be done,” Molnar explains, adding that when she began, the main objective was simply to mount a show.

“Now it’s a more interesting conversation. The growth for us is continuing to ask questions, to hold true to our pioneering spirit of 10 years ago, to challenge the way we’re doing things.…

What does it mean to be a dance artist in this country right now?”

With all these ideas swirling through her mind, Molnar has crafted a season that pointedly pays tribute to what the company has achieved, while pushing it forward into new terrain. In Program One, she brings back an audience favourite, Petite Cérémonie, Paris Opera Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater alumnus Medhi Walerski’s whimsical mix of white boxes and dancers in formal black tuxedos and dresses.

“It was our first conversation with Medhi, and he was an emerging

choreographer at the time, so it has nostalgia for us,” says Molnar. “When you see the piece today it is still incredibly fresh and alive. And also, we’re still very much that company.”

Sharing the program is William Forsythe’s 1989 work Enemy in the Figure, with its extreme, speed-ofsound balletic movement and its beyond-virtuosic technique, all set to Thom Willems’s driving electro score, and with a central rope prop.

“A reason for bringing it is because of what it does for the dancers,” enthuses Molnar, who has been hoping to mount the piece, by her former mentor at Frankfurt Ballet, here for years. “The dancers are responsible for moving a lot of the set pieces and the lights and the rope.

And the audiences are gifted with seeing something built in 1989 and still relevant. It’s such a fully realized piece of theatre—a gorgeous piece of architecture.”

Contrasting both those works on the program is her own Bluesbased creation—a work she’s using to showcase the dancers, who built it using their own solo riffs on Hendrix’s indelible music.

“Blues was a development of music for a community of people that were

labouring,” Molnar elaborates. “That made me think, ‘What is voice, collective voice, individual voice?’ ” She also took a lot of inspiration from the era when Hendrix made the music, between 1966 and 1970, though the album was released posthumously.

It was a time of revolution and freedom, of everything from Woodstock to Martin Luther King and civil rights.

“That’s the energy: ‘Today is all we have,’” Molnar says.

As it turns out, the challenge hasn’t been so much getting a group of highly honed ballet dancers to tap their raw individuality; it’s been preserving that spontaneous energy for when it finally hits the stage.

“Yes, the research pulls people to places they weren’t aware they were capable of,” Molnar says. “But I created a place with them where they’re connecting with sensation, so they built a very personal connection.

And the challenge has been ‘How do we keep that essence?’ ” It’s a question, it seems, that she’ll be applying to the whole season, and the next decade to come.

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Ballet BC presents Program One at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from Thursday to Saturday (November 1 to 3).

Modulus Festival travels new realms

M

by Alexander Varty

and surreal exorcism rituals of medie- large it is,” he says. “So in the music, val Croatia, and then into the sunlit I think the way I translated this is… beauty of the American Southwest.

I did it in two ways: in this sort of feelFor Pécou, writing Changing Woman ing of space that I tried to put into was an instinctual response to his own the music, and the way I responded first encounter with that landscape. “I to the Navajo territory, which is sort was very impressed by the specificity of a square territory, with four sacred and the power of Navajo culture, and mountains in the four corners of the the way they place what we can call space. So in the piece, the concert space is divided into four places, beauty, health, and harmony inside of their philosophy of and the musicians are going from one place to life,” he explains in carethe other all the time, ful but accented Engdescribing a kind of lish from a Detroit, circle—which also, Michigan, tour stop. of course, refers to “So I started searchthe role of the circle ing for more about in native culture.” them, and eventuKokla Kokabula is ally I went to Arizona very different in both and New Mexico, and po e structure and intent, I met Laura Tohe in perse bl m rT se h ie but Livljanić’s setting of son, even before reading r r y P é c o u ’s E n ancient texts that combine much of her poetry. She gave me some books and we had a very open aspects of both Catholic and pagan exchange, and then we decided that we ritual also touches on the importance would work together.” of the natural world in various belief Transiting from the green, mani- systems. And this recognition of nacured landscape of central France to ture, Pécou says, is something he’d like the vast deserts and dramatic moun- to see more of in contemporary music. tains of Arizona and New Mexico had “There’s also another aspect a profound impact on the 53-year-old which is pushing in another direccomposer. “It was so powerful to see tion,” he allows, alluding to artifithe beauty of the landscape—how cial intelligence and notions of the co

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usic on Main’s artistic director, David Pay, is known for his gracious concert introductions; he has a way of making listeners feel at ease and at home, even if what they’re about to hear is adventurous or even difficult. But what Pay has on tap for the first night of MoM’s annual Modulus Festival goes above and beyond a warm welcome. Walking in Beauty: a concert-ritual is many things, but at heart it’s an induction into a magical combination of text and sound, where living forms of spirituality meet ancient rites, where the Old World and the New commingle, and where cultures cross but never clash.

The brainchild of pianist and composer Thierry Pécou, whose Ensemble Variances will perform, Walking in Beauty is a kind of three-part suite.

Opening with Pécou and Guillermo Diego’s relatively compact and allinstrumental Paseo de la Reforma, the program will then move into vocalist Katarina Livljanić’s incantatory Kokla Kokabula before culminating in Pécou’s own Changing Woman, Cantata of the Four Mountains, which incorporates texts by the Navajo poet Laura Tohe. Over the course of the night, the music will take us through the dark

transhuman. “But as a composer, as an artist, I feel a need in my own work to work with these things.”

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Music on Main presents Walking in Beauty:

a concert-ritual at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre on Friday (November 2). The Modulus Festival continues at various Vancouver locations until Tuesday (November 6).

Modulus Fest TIP SHEET

c ONCE WALKING IN BEAUTY: A

concert-ritual sets us up to be open and receptive (see story on this page), what other must-sees does the Modulus Festival hold? Here are three options for the curious mind to consider, some complementary and others offering contrast.

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MALFFFUNCTION Don’t expect much of the natural world here— unless, for you, the natural world is a scary place. Vocalist Laura Bowler’s FFF explores the fight-orflight mechanism in terms of online activism versus online escapism, while Music on Main composer in residence Nicole Lizée presents Malfunctionlieder, another brilliant exploration of cheap electronics and glitch soundscapes. Also on the bill: a new documentary about Lizée, and an improvised collaboration between the two headliners. At the Roundhouse

Community Arts and Recreation Centre on Saturday (November 3).

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EVE EGOYAN’S SOLO FOR DUET The virtuosic pianist deploys her impressive hands and her analytical mind on works by Nicole Lizée, John Oswald, David Rokeby, Michael Snow, and Linda Catlin Smith—a who’s who of Canadian innovators and provocateurs. At the Roundhouse on Sunday (November 4).

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MYTHOS Including some of the finest musicians in this city, the Standing Wave sextet is known for presenting visceral performances of challenging scores. Among the three world premieres will be one from Vancouver Symphony Orchestra composer in residence Jocelyn Morlock, Stone’s Throw.

At the Roundhouse on Tuesday (November 6).

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NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 27

ARTS

CHOR LEONI MEN’S CHOIR

At VRS, piano star Igor Levit plies human connection

ERICK LICHTE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

by Alexander Varty

I

AN ARMISTICE ORATORIO

BY ZACHARY WADSWORTH

BOREALIS STRING QUARTET | LAWRENCE WILIFORD, tenor | ARWEN MYERS, soprano

27TH ANNUAL REMEMBRANCE DAY CONCERTS

November 10 | 3pm & 8pm ST. ANDREW’S-WESLEY UNITED CHURCH, VANCOUVER

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Media Sponsor

gor Levit’s wonderful new recording, Life, is dedicated to the memory of his close friend Hannes Malte Mahler, who died in a bicycle accident not long before work on the album started.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that playing music is, for the Russian-born pianist, a way of processing his grief.

“You know, I can express my grief, but by expressing it I don’t lose my grief,” Levit says carefully, in a telephone conversation from Munich.

“Grief doesn’t get better just because I’m expressing it. But what really helped was the acknowledgment of the fact that I’m not alone.

So people help, friends help—and music, in a way, helps me simply to express myself, for myself and for others.

“My grief about this loss, and my anxiety about many other things… These become more bearable by knowing that I’m not alone with them,” he adds.

A similar seriousness of intent lies behind the program that Levit will present when he returns to the Vancouver Recital Society this weekend. Ranging from its slyly understated opener—Johannes Brahms’s arrangement for piano left hand of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor—to its fully virtuosic closer, Ferruccio Busoni’s take on Franz Liszt’s Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale “Ad nos ad salutarem undam”, it will plumb depths both sacred and profane. One likely highlight will be Robert Schumann’s rarely performed Ghost Variations, a deceptively simple meditation that dissolves in a fearful shivering, perhaps a premonition of the composer’s madness and subsequent death.

But for all this solemnity, the works Levit has chosen also speak to the simple human connections that kept him going in those dark days after his friend’s death. All but the Schumann are pieces in which a composer ruminates on another composer; also on the bill are Busoni’s Fantasia After J. S. Bach and Liszt’s piano transcription of Richard Wagner’s “Solemn March to the Holy Grail”, from Parsifal. And in ruminating on them himself, Levit says he’s not seeking access to something eternal, but a sense of human continuity.

“There is the idea of you, here, looking back and creating something new—that is, let’s say, for someone like Busoni—and me, in the 21st century, looking back to Busoni and creating my own sense of it,” he explains. “This is kind of the chain of procedure here.”

And, really, he couldn’t possibly do anything else. “I am a human being of my time; I am a pianist of my time. And my time is 2018,” the 31-year-old musician says. “I am not a pianist of 1965, and whoever was a pianist in 1965, just by nature, did something different than I do. I’m surrounded by different sounds; I’m surrounded by different cars, as Miles Davis put it once. I’m surrounded by different housing, different voices, and this goes on into who I am. It goes automatically into how I make music.…By nature, you can’t do anything against that, to be influenced by… Well, by what time you live in.”

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Igor Levit plays the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at 3 p.m. on Sunday (November 4).

The Black Piece dances in the dark—quite literally

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by Janet Smith

or years, maverick DutchFlemish dance artist Ann Van den Broek had been drawn to the colour black.

She’s been fascinated with both the negativity and positivity associated with it through history—from the Black Plague through to its status as a good omen in ancient Egypt, and from the danger of film noir to the seductive power of the little black cocktail dress in modern times. As she started to create her hit dance work The Black Piece, she also felt inextricably drawn to the dark.

“In the dark you can feel fear, because there are people and things around you that you cannot see,” she tells the Straight from Gaspé, Quebec, where her Rotterdam-andAntwerp–based company WArd/ waRD is on a tour stop. “But also you can do things that nobody can see, and there’s almost comfort in that.”

And so, inevitably, she hit the light switch in her dance studio and started to work with her performers in the pitch black to see what would happen.

“They were trying to improvise and feeling each other or feeling the wall, and immediately it felt like magic,” she relates. “All your senses have to be so enlarged—you’re really working with touch and your ears because you cannot see.”

But what most shaped The Black Piece was adding roving light back into the work. In the production, Van den Broek herself stalks the stage with a flashlight, illuminating her moving dancers throughout the night, while cameraman Thorsten Alofs also turns his lens on the action, projecting it live on a screen.

28 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

“When you suddenly feel the light or the camera on you, it enlarges everything,” the artist says. “It’s like, you perform for yourself in the dark and then the light catches you.

“For me as a choreographer, an important thing happened: that moment when the lights go out was really when there was safety and less stress in a way.…I was also creating in the dark without light. I had to keep asking, ‘Where are you now?’ ” Turning out the lights had a strange, startling new effect on both the performance and the emotions it spurred.

“It’s very intimate and very vulnerable,” Van den Broek observes. “Everybody has to work together to listen and to reach each other. The big challenge was to get so used to it that they could say, ‘Oh, I hear a breath in the dark and that person must be two metres away from me.’ They had to find security in the dark. Everything now is very fixed, the whole puzzle of the camera and the light and live sounds.”

Those sounds she refers to come from contact mikes, which create a score of breath and movement. Those and the live lighting and video are as important to Van den Broek as venturing into the dark.

“As a choreographer—I cannot say I am that anymore!” she muses.

“I started to hate the light and sound always being done by technicians.

I wanted to see more and more that the people on-stage are responsible for creating what you see.”

And of course, in the case of The Black Piece, for what you don’t see.

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The Black Piece is at the Scotiabank Dance Centre from Tuesday to Thursday (November 6 to 8).

OCTOBER 27, 2018 TO FEBRUARY 3, 2019

Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art Visionary Partners for Photography Exhibitions:

Miles, Maureen and Larry Lunn

Major support generously provided by:

Cathy Zuo

Supporting Sponsor:

Dana Claxton, Headdress, 2015, LED Firebox with transmounted chromogenic transparency, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Purchased with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Grants program and the Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund

Program 1 Nov 1 2 3 Choreography Medhi Walerski Petite Cérémonie Including music from Antonio Vivaldi

Emily Molnar To this day

PLATINUM SEASON SPONSOR

PERFORMANCE SPONSOR

COMMUNITY BALCONY SPONSOR

HOTEL SPONSOR

Featuring the music of Jimi Hendrix

William Forsythe Enemy in the Figure Featuring the score by Thom Willems

SUPPORT FOR BALLET BC HAS BEEN GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY

MEDIA SPONSORS DANCER EMILY CHESSA. PHOTO MICHAEL SLOBODIAN.

Queen Elizabeth Theatre balletbc.com

Prices Start at $35 NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 29

“PICTURE PERFECT” —THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT

Nutcracker presents Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet

Choreography Galina Yordanova & Nina Menon Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

One of Canada’s most popular holiday productions!

“With a refined touch and a beguiling sense of Schubertian style, the Italian pianist Andrea Lucchesini conveys to captivating effect the sublime invention and intimacy of the impromptus.”

Tickets start at

$25

— The Telegraph

ANDREA LUCCHESINI PIANO SUN NOV 18 at 3pm

CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Remarkable artist. Fascinating repertoire. A rare Vancouver performance from one of Italy’s finest pianists.

December 7 | 7:30pm December 8 9 | 1:00pm & 6:30pm Queen Elizabeth Theatre | balletbc.com SUPPORT FOR BALLET BC HAS BEEN GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY

Tickets from $25 Family Packs Available

SCARLATTI | BERIO | SCHUBERT TICKETS: 604 602 0363 I VANRECITAL.COM

MEDIA SPONSORS

SEASON SPONSOR:

IN ASSOCIATION WITH:

TOP LEFT/RIGHT PHOTOS: RWB COMPANY DANCERS. BOTTOM LEFT PHOTO: LIANG XING AND YAYOI BAN. BOTTOM RIGHT PHOTO: RWB SCHOOL STUDENTS AND YAYOI BAN. PHOTOS BY DAVID COOPER.

Vancouver Premiere of Monsters – film Preceded by the World Premiere of

Ghosts of Productions Past Thursday, November 8, 2018 THE ANNEX 823 Seymour Street, Vancouver Doors 6 PM, Screenings 7 PM

misery made me…

FREE

Monsters, loosely based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is a hip hop anti-bullying, anti-racism film of the community-engaged play for young audiences performed by an inclusive cast of youth.

Ghosts of Productions Past is an original short film satirizing the Canadian theatre scene.

Facilitated discussions will follow the screenings.

WARNING: Scenes of violence. Not recommended for children 12 and younger.

Info: megan@miscellaneousproductions.ca www.miscellaneousproductions.ca Miscellaneous Productions

Photo: Amanda Skuse

@misccommunity

30 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

@misccommunity

ARTS

Concert fetes Brazilian sounds

A

by Tony Montague

quarela do Brasil draws inspiration from the richness and range of the arts in Latin Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest country, to mark the 60th anniversary of the release of JoĂŁo Gilbertoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bossa nova classic â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chega de Saudadeâ&#x20AC;?. As the showâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s director, Sal Ferreras, points out, the song became a massive international hit, one of a series of major Brazilian cultural achievements in the late â&#x20AC;&#x2122;50s. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was talking backstage at a gig with [saxophonist] Tom Keenlyside about the anniversary, and the release a year later of the movie Black Orpheus with a soundtrack of samba and bossa nova, which took one of the top prizes at Cannes,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The two events had such a profound influence on world music for the rest of time, and I said Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to do a show to celebrate the variety of Brazilian music. So I talked to [guitarist and multi-instrumentalist] Celso Machado, to [bassist] Jodi Proznick, [pianist] Miles Black, and AchĂŠ Brasil, as well as other collaborators that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d played with, and proposed to the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre that we do something special for the occasion.â&#x20AC;?

Sequences from Black Orpheus will be projected onto a screen at the back of the stage to enhance the presentation of Aquarela do Brasil, which covers a range of musical genresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;not

Percussion master Sal Ferreras aims to go far beyond bossa nova In Aquarela do Brasil.

just bossa nova. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I want to show a certain style of samba, new compositions by Celso, and also feature [dance and martial-arts company] AchĂŠ Brasil, who are mainly known for capoeira and big-style samba, doing two other things. One is a regional dance from Recife where the Carnaval rhythm is frevo, which is very athletic, and done with little umbrellas. I also asked them to play and dance an Afro-Brazilian style called maracatu which is very popular in many regions. The other pieces are a combination of really lyrical elements of earlier sambas and choros.â&#x20AC;?

Audiences can also expect some jaw-dropping percussion-playing

from the ensemble, which includes Afro-Cuban conga player Israel â&#x20AC;&#x153;Totoâ&#x20AC;? Berriel, tambourine ace Liam MacDonald, Machado, and Ferreras himself. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be a nine-piece in all, plus AchĂŠ Brasil, working either as full ensemble or as subsets, depending on the styles,â&#x20AC;? says Ferreras. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some are more intimate, like bossa nova, a very smooth combination of samba, choro, and jazz. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;40s and â&#x20AC;&#x2122;50s there was a fair bit of travel with American and European jazz artists going down to Rio, and that club scene began to percolate a style infusing the more traditional Brazilian styles with jazz harmony. In the other direction, jazz was infused with the rhythmic complexity and nuance of bossa nova, which was the new cool. At the time, Brazil was becoming a world power, and the centre for fantastic architecture with the building of BrasĂ­lia [the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital].

Bossa nova took the great exuberance of Carnaval music from Rio and reduced it to very small, intimate elements for a hip, sophisticated crowd that was a new middle-class.

So it has dimensions that are not only musical, but social as well.â&#x20AC;?

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MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

byy William Shakespeare p Directed by Lois Anderson

November 8â&#x20AC;&#x201D;24, 2018, 7:30pm Frederic Wood Theatre Tickets: theatrefilm.ubc.ca

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Aquarela do Brasil is at the Vancouver Playhouse next Thursday and Friday (November 8 and 9).

Accordions take the spotlight

I

by Alexander Varty

f you love the accordion, cancel your plans and book a ferry.

Next week, from November 10 to 16, Victoria will host the 68th annual TrophĂŠe Mondial de lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;AccordĂŠon, the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest accordion competition, which will see hundreds of squeezebox virtuosos from more than 40 countries jousting for prizes of up to $10,000. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the first time the event has been held in Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and it coincides with the World Accordion and Tango Festival, so thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be some sensuous dance moves on offer, too.

But if you only like the accordion, take heart: three former TrophĂŠe Mondial grand-prize winners are coming to you. When they share a Vancouver stage this Friday, Victoria resident Jelena Milojevic, Beijingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jianan Tian, and New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Grayson Masefield should offer an ideal sampling of current directions in accordion artistry. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d say that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all very different,â&#x20AC;? Masefield explains, in a telephone interview from a Seattle tour stop. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all from different continents. Different styles of training, different repertoireâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;everything! You have Jelena, from the eastern European style, versus someone from China, from the Beijing conservatory, while Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m from New Zealand and have studied in France. So I think thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very interesting, because it showcases the diversity of what the accordion can really do.â&#x20AC;?

Masefieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own set might prove surprisingly diverse in itself. While heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s considered one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top classical accordionists, he likes to mix things up in concert. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll start with a baroque or classical transcription, move on to contemporary classical accordion works, and then play more of the lighter stuff,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I try to really expose the audience to what the instrument can do, because most people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know the instrument that

well. Obviously, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heard as something for polkas or Irish musicâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;more traditional stuffâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but it is really capable of quite a bit more.â&#x20AC;?

Masefield readily admits that he initially took the instrument for granted, despiteâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or perhaps because ofâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;being a third-generation member of a family of accordion players, teachers, and retailers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quite interesting,â&#x20AC;? he says, laughing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My grandfather imported accordions into New Zealand, and because of that his three childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;my mother and her two older brothersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; all play. My father met my mother through the accordion, and my sister plays as well. So Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been quite lucky that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always had music around me my whole life.â&#x20AC;?

And yet, he continues, it took a rude shock before he began to take his heritage seriously. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I never really practised until I was 18,â&#x20AC;? he says, and that was only after a miserable showing at New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual accordion competition. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I came second-to-last, and I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really like that!â&#x20AC;? Through the competition, however, he met the musician who would become his mentor, French accordionist FrĂŠdĂŠric Deschampsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that, he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;kind of opened the doorâ&#x20AC;?. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And, of course, my family all being accordionists,â&#x20AC;? he adds, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had their full support and backing.â&#x20AC;?

But was Masefield ever tempted to rebel and take up, say, the mandolin? â&#x20AC;&#x153;My mom had a thing: she said, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;You can choose any instrument you want to play, as long as you play the accordion as well,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So I could have, if Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d really wanted to, but accordion was enough.â&#x20AC;?

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NOVEMBER 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 31

SEPARATED BY A GENERATION, CONNECTED BY BLOOD Morna Edmundson, Artistic Director Stephen Smith, Piano

ACCLAIMED DRAMA Guest artists, tenor Ben Ben Heppner Heppne p er and the VYC Kids, Director ctor or Ca C Cassie ass ssiie LLuftspring uftspring

EMPIRE OF THE SON Nov. 8 – 17, 2018 ੏ Studio B

By Tetsuro Shigematsu Directed by Richard Wolfe Produced by Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre

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Tetsuro Shigematsu. Photo: Raymond Shum.

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© Photo : Thierry du Bois - Cosmos Image | Tous les artistes/All Artists 32 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

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2 8 0 E C o r d o v a S t re e t

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firehallartscentre.ca Paul Herbert and Jenn Griffin

Photograph: Pedro Meza

ARTS

Sweat’s working-class story as relevant as ever

Ten years later, things in America have only gotten worse

THEATRE SWEAT

By Lynn Nottage. Directed by Valerie Planche. An Arts Club Theatre production, in partnership with Citadel Theatre. At the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage on Wednesday, October 24. Continues until November 18

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SWEAT, WHICH WON the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for drama, gets top marks for relevance. But Lynn Nottage’s examination of working-class disenfranchisement in Middle America is only intermittently dramatic.

The play is set in Reading, Pennsylvania, one of the poorest cities in the U.S. The action begins in 2008, as a parole officer conducts backto-back interviews with two men who’ve recently been released from prison: Jason, a white guy with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and Chris, a black man who has found religion while incarcerated. We don’t know the nature of their crime, only that they were in it together.

The play then flashes back to early 2000 and a pub frequented by workers from the local factory.

Tracey and Cynthia have worked on the floor for decades, along with their friend Jessie and, more recently, their sons—that’s right, Jason and Chris. But in the early years of NAFTA and George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, the climate for labour is changing: the unionized workers at another company have been locked out for nearly two years. In a series of scenes set just a few weeks apart, we see the friends experience dramatic changes in their circumstances and their loyalties.

Sweat is not a work of verbatim theatre, but it seems to spring from some of the same impulses. Nottage interviewed Reading residents as she developed the script, which ticks a lot of boxes: prejudice, scapegoating, drug and alcohol addiction, religion, white supremacy. Every character is defined by the factory: they speak of their pride in having a union card, and more than one says proudly, “I’m a worker.” Even Stan, the bartender, found his new role after an accident at the plant: “Getting injured was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says. But the dialogue tends to make political points rather than explore relationships, which—even between parents and their kids— exist almost exclusively in relation to the workplace.

And the slow ratcheting up of tension in the first act means there’s not a lot in the way of real action. The plot’s steady containment boosts the impact of Act 2’s inevitable explosion of violence, but it also means much of the early going is a sustained lull.

The cast does strong work under Valerie Planche’s direction. Cynthia is the most fully developed character, and Marci T. House embraces all her contradictions. Anthony Santiago plays her ex, Brucie, with hangdog resignation. Nicole St. Martin’s Tracey is gritty and defiant, while Andrew Creightney brings a gentle hopefulness to Chris. Ashley Wright’s Stan, always calm and generous, is a solid anchor.

Shizuka Kai’s set fills the wide Stanley stage with a very authentic pub backdrop, down to the green walls, wood trim, and abundance of Budweiser logos, behind which looms the shadow of the factory, expressively lit by Daniela Masellis. Fight director Jonathan Hawley Purvis also deserves mention: the violence late in the play is sickeningly real.

So is the decline in the fortunes of working-class Americans. This play ends in 2008, but 10 years later, things have only gotten worse.

by Kathleen Oliver

Marci T. House and Ashley Wright star in Sweat at the Stanley. Photo by David Cooper.

THE ONES WE LEAVE BEHIND

By Loretto Seto. Directed by John Cooper. Produced by Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre. At the Cultch on Thursday, October 25.

Continues until November 3

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er Jim Robson always used to say “a special hello” to the “shut-ins, those of you who can’t make it out to the game”. It’s these latter people that The Ones We Leave Behind is concerned with—the old, the infirm, and the forgotten.

Abby (Agnes Tong) and Greg (Jimmy Yi) work for the Public Guardian and Trustee, the provincial agency that handles the estates of those who die without family or friends. Abby becomes a little obsessed with her first case in the field, a woman who was discovered dead in her Vancouver apartment after five months.

Abby is bullheaded as she spars with Greg over his 36 years of onthe-job wisdom. Yet she’s no match for her mother (Alannah Ong), who lives in stubborn isolation and rejects all the help that Abby offers.

Abby’s own carapace isn’t helping her relationship with her boyfriend, Kyle (Brahm Taylor), either. He’s trying to help her unravel the story of her absent father, who left her and her mom when she was a child.

The elder performers stand out in this production. Ong has a deadpan wit as she def lects Abby’s appeals, never falling into an easy stereotype. I really admired Yi’s performance in Pacific Theatre’s recent Kim’s Convenience, so it was dismaying to see him a little underused here. He’s a bit of an attendant lord in The Ones We Leave Behind, not much more than a foil for Abby’s enthusiasm.

There is a tidiness to the production, which is a credit to director John Cooper and set designer Pam Johnson. They stage the show in front of a series of layered apartment walls—the places in which we live and die. As the show progresses, these feel more and more like marble tombstones in a busy cemetery.

However, Loretta Seto’s script disappoints. It’s a clever idea, uncovering the story of a dead recluse. That seed suggests all kinds of exciting theatrical possibilities: f lashbacks, voices from the past, overlapping timelines. Instead, the play’s structure is very pedestrian.

Likewise, the play’s characters seem to give voice to their every feeling and thought. This lack of subtext makes for a wordy show and, particularly in the first act, slows the action down. Seto can trust more to skilled performers, who will find so much to express between the lines.

Do these shortcomings thwart the production? Not quite. You may need some patience with the play’s early scenes. But the action and energy pick up in the second half and explore some unfamiliar territory.

by Darren Barefoot

HAVE YOU Marcello’s BEEN TO... marcellopizzeria.com

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NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 33

ARTS

Borderline’s hip-hop hybrid soars DANCE BORDERLINE

A Wang Ramirez production, presented by DanceHouse. At the Vancouver Playhouse on Friday, October 26. No remaining performances

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8pm Friday, November 9, 2018 Pacific Spirit United Church

(formerly Ryerson United Church) 2205 West 45th Avenue at Yew Street

Vancouver Chamber Choir Kathleen Allan, conductor Our audiences are fully aware of Kathleen Allan’s multiple talents as conductor-singer-composer and her long association with the Vancouver Chamber Choir. This concert — her official audition — will feature a performance of the famous Mass for Double Choir by Frank Martin, the most renowned Swiss composer of the 20th century.

Between those Mass movements, though, Ms. Allan will introduce a great variety of music — both secular and sacred — by Arcadelt, Lassus, O’Regan, Lang, Sharman, Shaw, Braden, Hawley, and... Allan.

1.855.985.ARTS (2787) vancouverchamberchoir.com

Vancouver Moving Theatre with the Carnegie Community Centre and the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians with a host of community partners presents

15 th Annual Downtown Eastside

HEARTOFTHE CITY OCT 24 TO NOV 4 FESTIVAL Over 100 events at over 40 locations featuring among others: CARNEGIE JAZZ BAND: A TRIBUTE TO AL NEIL

Late Vancouver jazz man & DTES/Strathcona resident and Mayor’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.

Friday November 2, 7pm Carnegie Theatre 401 Main Street | Free

CALL MR. ROBESON A LIFE, WITH SONGS

A musical biography of the remarkable and eventful life of famous actor, singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson.

Written and performed by Tayo Aluko w/ Elaine Joe, piano St. James’ Anglican Church • November 3, 8pm Tickets: call-mr-robeson.eventbrite.ca

East End Blues & All That Jazz A soul-stirring evening of gospel and blues, jazz and memories in tribute to Vancouver’s historic East End Black residential community.

Firehall Arts Centre, 280 East Cordova October 31 – November 3, 8pm | Nov 3, 2pm Tickets: firehallartscentre.com / 604.689.0926

CIRCUS TRICKS WERE not on the menu when French troupe Wang Ramirez brought its fresh mix of contemporary dance and aerial wires to Vancouver. As a wowed crowd at the DanceHouse season opener witnessed, the company draws beautiful, metaphorical imagery using rigging.

The overall effect is dreamlike and poetic—not the kind of show you might expect from a crew so deeply grounded in hip-hop.

In one duet, company cofounder Honji Wang slipped repeatedly out of partner Sébastien Ramirez’s grasp, floating ghostlike, just out of reach; later, she walked surreally up the side of his bare torso. A couple’s inability to connect became delirious art.

In another duet, two women on bungees ran and hurled themselves repeatedly toward a steel structure, only to be yanked back, pulled up into the air, just as they closed in. You couldn’t help but conjure refugees and border fences from their Sisyphean struggle.

Part of Borderline’s appeal is its sheer simplicity. The dancers share the stage with two symbolic, cagelike metal cubes that move around and get hoisted on wires. In a stunning solo, Ramirez, wearing a harness, break-danced with one rolling form, tumbling in and out of its bars like he was in an antigravity chamber.

Cleverly, master rigger Alister Mazzotti, all in black, was almost always visible, an ever-present force controlling the performers’ fate.

Influenced by Wang’s background in ballet and martial arts, the movement seamlessly fused hip-hop into a new hybrid. But the entire five-member crew’s mad breaking skills were obvious; they executed dizzying windmills wearing flowing, white-satin skirts that closed in over their feet. In one of the show’s brief hits of comedy, Wang and the striking, shaved-headed Johanna Faye managed to break-dance wearing ridiculous sky-high heels.

While the vignettes flowed in and out of one another seamlessly, deeper metaphors about democracy and diaspora weren’t always sustained.

But the movement was such a cool new fusion, and the imagery—backed by lacrymoboy’s moody score—built

At the DanceHouse season opener, French company Wang Ramirez wowed crowds with its poetic mashup of hip-hop, contemporary dance, and gravity-defying rigging. Photo by Frank Szafinski.

enough of a mesmerizing hold that The shapes were honed into ergonomic when the encore’s B-boy battle came, forms, giving the feel of Apple by way of David Cronenberg. it was a pure, cathartic thrill.

But what Chapple—who has

by Janet Smith launched the city’s newest dance company, Future Leisure—excels at SUFFIX is creating surreal imagery. We’ve A Future Leisure production. At seen it before in her shorter works on the Scotiabank Dance Centre on Saturday, October 27. No remaining mixed bills like Small Stage, but with Suffix, she created a strange mood in performances a more immersive way. She turned the BEFORE AUDIENCES entered the Faris into some kind of giant, haunttheatre for Julianne Chapple’s eerie ing laboratory-gallery, with its hard new work about humans and tech- light and the eerie electro drone of the nology, an instructional video might score by the Wolves & the Blood.

There, struggling human forms have made them feel like they were about to go into the isolated research found their physicality with big metal implements. Some of the geometric estate in Ex Machina.

A digitally generated woman’s voice props offered more successful movegave directions about where to sit or ment exploration than others; Maxine stand, with 3-D animated graphics of Chadburn had a flowing duet with the the theatre space interspliced omin- ball where it became a living partner as she slid around it as it rolled. ously with X-ray imagery.

Viewers then flowed into the Faris Throughout, Chapple paced the Family Studio theatre, which had perimeter, flicking lights on and off, been stripped of its seats, settling sometimes stepping in to move Spenaround a clinical-white central square ce’s beautiful but sinister sculptures. lit on each corner by a cold, towering It all culminated in a spooky rod of LED light. At the far end, on bathing ritual that gave way to an five plinths, glowed transparent facial unexpectedly moving sequence. The moulds, DNA samples, and dental dancers washed and donned transimpressions of each performer. parent masks, like they were ready to In the centre of the space, dancers enter some transhuman state. Then were already moving or sprawled on Chadburn climbed into a coffinthe floor. One was rolling around sized box at the back of the “stage”. It with a big metal ball that had been was lit and opened toward the audipolished to the clean sheen of a stain- ence, and her image was repeated to infinity by some brilliant trick of less-steel surgical tray.

Artist-collaborator Ed Spence had the mirrors inside it. Chadburn had created several such metal structures a last human breakdown, all her for the dancers to interact with. They real emotions bubbling to the surmade for some unique kinetic ex- face before she handed herself over ploration—one was a rounded cage to… What? Cryogenic freezing? The that a performer could enter and roll downloading of her brain? around in, another a long rod a danWith Suffix, Chapple has asserted cer could turn about her shoulders herself as a unique voice on the and neck. Together, they symbolized, dance scene—and someone unafraid in a beautifully abstract way, our ever- to go to dark places. growing attachment to technology.

by Janet Smith

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EASTSIDE CULTURE

CRAWL a visual arts, design n & crafts festival

UKRAINIAN HALL COMMUNITY CONCERT & SUPPER

Lively music, invigorating dance, colourful costumes and a delicious Ukrainian supper.

With special guests Canadian gospel trio The Sojourners.

Sunday November 4, concert 3pm, supper follows Ukrainian Hall | 805 E. Pender | $25 Advance tickets: 604.254.3436

heartofthecityfestival.com

34 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

thurs & fri 5–10pm sat & sun 11am–6pm culturecrawl.ca a

november 15–18 2018

ARTS LISTINGS CURIOUS IMAGININGS Vancouver Biennale 2018-2020 is excited to present the groundbreaking immersive sculpture exhibition Curious Imaginings. For the first time ever, renowned Australian artist Patricia Piccinini is taking her hyperrealist, fantastical creatures outside the museum. The intimate setting of a wing of 18 rooms in Strathconaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic Patricia Hotel will be transformed for the Curious Imaginings exhibition. To Dec 15, Patricia Hotel. Tix $16-40.

THE COMEDY MIX 1015 Burrard, Century Plaza Hotel & Spa, 604-684-5050, www. thecomedymix.com/. Comedy club with proam 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. Cover $8 Tue, $10 Wed, $15 Thu, $18 Fri, $20 Sat. PAUL MYREHAUG Nov 1-3 PHIL HANLEY Nov 8-10.

THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT UBC IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT: REFLECTING ON NORTHWEST COAST ART to spring 2019 DOUGLAS COUPLANDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S VORTEX Douglas Couplandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new radical art installation takes an imaginative journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, immersing viewers in the ocean-plastic pollution crisis. To April 30, 2019, Vancouver Aquarium. $22/39.

BILL REID GALLERY OF NORTHWEST COAST ART BODY LANGUAGE: REAWAKENING CULTURAL TATTOOING OF THE NORTHWEST to Jan 13 INTERFACE: THE WOVEN ARTWORK OF JAAD KUUJUS to Jan 9 TITANIC: THE ARTIFACT EXHIBITION Exhibition focuses on the legendary RMS Titanicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s compelling human stories through more than 120 authentic artifacts and extensive room re-creations. To Jan 11, 2019, Lipont Place.

MUSEUM OF VANCOUVER WILD THINGS: THE POWER OF NATURE IN OUR LIVES to Sep 30 HAIDA NOW: A VISUAL FEAST OF INNOVATION AND TRADITION to Dec 1, 2019 VANCOUVER ART GALLERY A CURATORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S VIEW: IAN THOM SELECTS to Mar 17 GUO PEI: COUTURE BEYOND to Jan 20, 2019, 10 amâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;5 pm DANA CLAXTON: FRINGING THE CUBE to Feb 3 SWEAT The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Lynn Nottageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s examination of a community that is formed and dissolved amid the changing landscape of America. To Nov 18, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage. Tix from $29.

AND EVERMORE SHALL BE SO Play explores the events surrounding a murder that took place four years previously. To Nov 3, 8 pm, The Theatre at Hendry Hall. $20/$18 (seniors and students).

THE WOLVES With a Spoon and Rumble Theatre present a play about a teenage girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; soccer team whose members grapple with everything from pop culture to politics, discovering their identities as individuals and a team. To Nov 10, Pacific Theatre. Tix $20-36.50.

DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE HEART OF THE CITY FESTIVAL Twelve days of music, stories, songs, poetry, cultural celebrations, films, theatre, dance, spoken word, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibitions, mixed media, art talks, history talks. and history walks. To Nov 4, Firehall Arts Centre.

Free to $25.

THE ONES WE LEAVE BEHIND Play explores themes of isolation and abandonment and poses the question: are the greatest walls the ones we build within ourselves? To Nov 3, 8 am, The Cultch. Tix $24-$51.

THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW Richard Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brienâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kitschy musical-theatre rock â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; roll gothic thriller. To Nov 10, Waterfront Theatre.

Tix from $39.

SEX WITH STRANGERS Drama about love, lust and the nature of identity. To Nov 10, Studio 16.

BUSYBODY Crime comedy in which a cleaning lady finds the dead body of her

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employer. To Nov 17, 8 pm, Metro Theatre. Tix $25/22.

TRADING PLACES: UN Ă&#x2030;CHANGE The Coastal Jazz and Blues Society, Music on Main, the NOW Society, Suoni Per Il Popolo, and the Western Front curate a program of concerts. To Nov 5, various Vancouver venues.

THEY DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T PAY? WE WONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T PAY! Political farce about consumer backlash against high prices. To Nov 3, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. Tix $7/10/15.

MONSTERKILL 5: REMONSTERKILLED (OR, WE WERE THE EMPTY SET) The Cascadian Institute of Cultural Design presents the world premiere of a play about life and deathâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and life and death in a whack-â&#x20AC;&#x2122;em-up videogame.

To Nov 3, 8-9:15 pm, Havana Theatre. $14.

THE BELIEVERS ARE BUT BROTHERS Oneman show explores the smoke-and-mirrors world of online extremism, anonymity, and hate speech. To Nov 10, 8 pm, Vancity Culture Lab. Tix $35.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31 EAST END BLUES & ALL THAT JAZZ Vancouver Moving Theatreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s evening of gospel, blues, and jazz that celebrates the contributions of Vancouverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s East End black residential community and the legendary Gibson family. Oct 31â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 3, Firehall Arts Centre. Tix $30/25.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1 THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT UBC MARKING THE INFINITE: CONTEMPORARY WOMEN ARTISTS FROM ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA Nov 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Mar 31, 2019 MARKING THE INFINITE Nov 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Mar 31, 2019 CAG THURSDAY LUNCH TIME TOURS Join CAG assistant curator Julia Lamare for a lunch-time tour of the current exhibitions.

Nov 1, 12:30-1 pm, Contemporary Art Gallery.

Free.

AN INTRODUCTION TO SCHUBERTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WINTERREISE Philippe Sly (baritone) and Michael McMahon (fortepiano) present an introduction to Franz Schubertâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1827 song cycle â&#x20AC;&#x153;Die Winterreiseâ&#x20AC;?. Nov 1, 5 pm, Coach House, Green College. Free.

JULIA HENSHAW: A CANADIAN WRITER ON THE WESTERN FRONT Commemorate the World War I centenary by exploring the Croix de Guerre-winning novelist, journalist, botanist, explorer, and WWI ambulance driver.

Nov 1, 7-8:30 pm, Alice MacKay Room. Free.

DTES SPACES & PLACES Panel moderated

by Heart of the City Festival artistic producer Terry Hunter explores the often glamorized history of artmaking in Vancouverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Downtown Eastside from 1960 to 1990. Nov 1, 7-8:30 pm, Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre. Free.

ARTIST SALON Presentations by textile artists Deirdre Pinnock and Nadine Flagel.

Nov 1, 7-9 pm, Richmond Art Gallery. Free.

PAUL ANTHONYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TALENT TIME Local variety show launches for an 11th season.

Nov 1, 8 pm, Rio Theatre. Tix $12/$14.

EDDIE DELLA SIEPE Canadian comedian performs three nights of standup. Nov 1-3,, Yuk Yukâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comedy Club. Tix $20.

RUSSELL PETERS Canadian comedy superstar performs on his Deported World Tour. Nov 1, 8 pm, Rogers Arena. Tix from $71.25 to $125.80.

THE WRITERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S STUDIO READING SERIES A night of readings headlined by novelist, shortstory writer, poet, and publisher Michael Mirolla. Nov 1, 8-9:30 pm, Hood 29. Free.

JOKES PLEASE! Standup comedy show hosted by Ross Dauk. Nov 1, 9-10:45 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. Tix $7.

a

a

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2 VIMY Playwright Vern Thiessenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drama about a group of Canadian soldiers and the sacrifices made at Vimy Ridge. Nov 2-3, Kay

Meek Arts Centre . Tix From $29.

TED HUGHESâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TALES FROM OVID Adaptation of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Metamorphosesâ&#x20AC;? shows what happens when the mythic plane is exposed to human chaos. Nov 2-9, Douglas College Studio Theatre. Tix $10-20.

RED BIRDS Aaron Bushkowskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bittersweet comedy about three generations of dirt-poor women whose lives are thrown into chaos when a birth mother is revealed. Nov 2-18, PAL Studio Theatre. Tix $27/32.

POLYGON GALLERY The Polygon Gallery (101 Carrie Cates Ct.), North Vancouver, presents three new exhibitions: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Looking at Persepolis: The Camera in Iran 1850-1930â&#x20AC;?, and contemporary video and photographic works by award-winning artists Hannah Rickards and Batia Suter. Together these shows reflect on photographs as documents that convey information through visuality. Nov 2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Jan 13, 2019, The Polygon Gallery. Info www.thepolygon.ca/.

LEST WE FORGET Musica intima performs songs of war and remembrance. Nov 2, 7:30 pm, St. Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Anglican Church. Tix $15/25/30.

SRO STARS, A PLAY Documentary theatre from the mental health worldview of five writers. Nov 2, 7:30 pm, InterUrban Gallery.

Free.

WALKING IN BEAUTY: A CONCERT-RITUAL Music by Thierry PĂŠcou (France), Katarina LivljaniÄ&#x2021; (Croatia), and poetry by Laura Tohe (Navajo). Nov 2, 8 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. Tix $15-$29.

THE DIRTY BETTY SHOW Performances by standup comedians, drag queens, and improvisers. Nov 2, 8-10:30 pm, Cafe Deux Soleils. Tix $10.

BLIND TIGER HOUSE TEAMS: THE BEATLES IS A PUN Long-form improv by three comedy teams. Nov 2, 8:30-11:30 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. Tix $8.

WINNIPEG COMEDY FESTIVAL SHOWCASE Twelve local comics show their stuff. Nov 2, 10:30 pm, Yuk Yukâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comedy Club.

Tix $15.

GLOBAL DANCE CONNECTIONS SERIES

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3 BLOOM DAYâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;A YOUTH DANCE COMMUNITY Dance event includes speaker series, community-building activities, technology stations, and handson workshops. Nov 3, 11:30 amâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;5:30 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $125-150.

PINOCCHIO EXCERPTS Karen Flamenco Dance Company dancers perform excerpts from their latest production. Nov 3-24, 5-6 pm, The Improv Centre. Tix $10/$15.

MALFFFUNCTION Laura Bowler performs her fight or flight piece â&#x20AC;&#x153;FFFâ&#x20AC;? alongside Nicole LizĂŠeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s glitch-inspired â&#x20AC;&#x153;Malfunctionliederâ&#x20AC;?.

Nov 3, 3, 8 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. Tix $15-$29.

see next page

WARD/WARD ANN VAN DEN BROEK

THE BLACK PIECE

A sensory adventure through darkness, evoking the magic of film noir

Photo: Maarten Vanden Abeele

ONGOING

November 6-8, 2018 | 8pm

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REQUIEM AND REMEMBRANCE

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 10, 2018 7:30PM Christ Church Cathedral 690 Burrard St. Vancouver, BC

Tickets: vancouvercantatasingers.com or 604-730-8856 10 Gates Dancing photo by Rod MacIvor NOVEMBER 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 35

ARTS LISTINGS

Arts HOT TICKET

from previous page

N OV E M B E R 2 018 UBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Fri Nov 2, 7:30pm

Presented by the UBC School of Music Guest conductor Manfredo Schmiedt leads the UBC Symphony Orchestra in a program that includes Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 2 and RimskyKorsakov’s Scheherazade, Op. 35.

IGOR LEVIT, PIANO Sun Nov 4, 3pm

Presented by the Vancouver Recital Society Riveting pianist Igor Levit returns to Vancouver with a self-curated program that explores the relationship between composer and arranger.

GAD ELMALEH: THE DREAM TOUR Thu Nov 8, 8pm

Presented by Just For Laughs France’s Gad Elmaleh, one of the world’s most talented and recognizable comedic stars, brings his latest project ‘The Dream Tour’ to the Chan Centre.

JOSHUA REDMAN: STILL DREAMING Tue Nov 13, 8pm

Presented by the Chan Centre Saxophonist Joshua Redman is joined by jazz greats Ron Miles, Scott Colley, and Brian Blade, for a musical conversation inspired by legendary jazz ensemble Old and New Dreams.

ANDREA LUCCHESINI, PIANO Sun Nov 18, 3pm

Presented by the Vancouver Recital Society Andrea Lucchesini, brilliant pianist and Artistic Director at the Schuola di Musica di Fiesole near Florence, performs a program of Scarlatti, Berio, and Schubert.

SWEET SOUL BURLESQUE: 15 YEARS OF FEROCITY Crystal Precious hosts burlesque performances by April O’Peel, Ariel Helvetica, Cherry Ontop, Melody M Mangler, Lola Danielle Frost, and Cara Milk. Nov 3, 8 pm, Rio Theatre. Tix $25/20.

ALICIA TOBIN’S COME DRAW WITH ME Alicia Tobin hosts an event that’s part comedy show and part art class. No talent required Nov 3; Dec 1, 8 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. Tix $10/$12.

CALL MR. ROBESON—A LIFE, WITH SONGS Tayo Aluko’s one-man play explores the life of the legendary African-American actor and singer. Nov 3, 8 pm, St. James’ Anglican Church. Tix $20/15.

GRAHAM CLARK PRESENTS Local comedian hosts a night of chuckles, if not laughs. Nov 3, 10 pm, Little Mountain Gallery.

Tix $10/$12.

the hot topic Mitch and Murray Productions takes on with this new script by House of Cards writer Laura Eason. In the intimate twohander, a young sex blogger tracks down an older novelist at a remote writers’ retreat, and sparks fly.

But can you ever really know who you’re sleeping with in this era of Internet identity?

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4

A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE MUSICAL (November 2 to 17 at the Michael J. Fox Theatre) Align Entertainment has made its name with musicals from The Addams Family to Shrek The Musical, making it the perfect company to take on a classic: the beloved 1940s-set story of nine-year-old Ralphie yearning for Santa to bring him a Red Ryder Carbine Action BB gun. (“You’ll shoot your eye out!”)

Bob Clark’s 1983 film is a holiday cult favourite; the musical rendition scored three Tony nominations when it debuted on Broadway in 2012.

BLING! WEARABLE GLASS ART SHOW Local glass artists show and sell their handmade glass beads and jewellery. Nov 4, 11 am, Heritage Hall. Free.

CANZINE VANCOUVER Panels, workshops, programming for kids and teens, and over 100 zine and comic vendors. Nov 4, 1-7 pm, Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre. Free.

ECHO REPLAY Pianist Richard Uttley performs the music of Eric Wubbels, Michael Cutting, Naomi Pinnock, and Georg Friedrich Haas. Nov 4, 2 pm, CBC Studio 700. Tix $10-$20.

BLAZED MORE BRIGHTLY Concert features the work of impressionist master Claude Debussy and legendary composer Steve Reich. Nov 4, 5 pm, CBC Studio 700. Tix $10-$20.

EAST VANCOUVER IMPROV LEAGUE: HIGH OCTANE IMPROV COMEDY Instant Theatre presents a battle between two groups of improvisers. Nov 4, 7:30-8:30 pm, Havana Theatre. Tix $12.

EVE EGOYAN’S SOLO FOR DUET Pianist Eve Egoyan performs original works and music

by Nicole Lizée, John Oswald, David Rokeby, Michael Snow, and Linda Catlin Smith. Nov 4, 8 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. Tix $15-$29.

WATER (November 2 to 24 at the Kimoto Gallery) Vancouver painter David Wilson specializes in evocative images of this city’s rain-soaked streets, whether it’s at nighttime, with streetlights bouncing off Gastown’s cobblestones, or in the steely grey daytime, when trolley buses splash through puddles. You’ll recognize a lot of those views, and the feelings they evoke, in this show of new works—canvases custom-made for the Wet Coast.

WINTERREISE (November 2 at Christ Church Cathedral) To get you into the mood for the colder weather approaching, Early Music Vancouver brings you Franz Schubert’s intensely moving 1827 song cycle Die Winterreise (“Winter’s Journey”). The draw here is fast-rising Canadian bassbaritone Philippe Sly, accompanied by keyboard star Michael McMahon on a 19th-century fortepiano. Expect it to be as transcendent as the first snowfall.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5 CANTEEN CONCERT U.K. pianist Richard Uttley plays pieces that have influenced his musical trajectory. Nov 5, 5 pm, The Post at 750. Free. RSVP required.

GRAPHIC NOVELS, ART AND IDENTITY: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE Anna Hafisch, Olivier Schrauwen, and Marian Churchland discuss how their work reflects themselves and the world they live in. Nov 5, 7-8:30 pm, Vancouver Public Library Central Branch. Free.

MONSTERS (November 8 at the Orpheum Annex) Miscellaneous Productions’ 2017 stage show Monsters now has a film version.

If you missed the original, check out this local premiere: it’s all about the scary beasts that thrive in our society—like racism and bullying— in a fusion of hip-hop, theatre, and world music. Beforehand, catch Ghost of Productions Past—a feminist satire that brazenly takes on the lack of diversity on the Canadian theatre scene.

SEX WITH STRANGERS (To November 10 at Studio 16) Lust and love in the digital age: that’s

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CALMUS ENSEMBLE Music in the Morning presents vocal group from Germany. Nov 7, 8, 10:30-11:30 am, Vancouver Academy of Music.

Tix $38/$42.

THREE WINTERS A troupe of seven millennial actresses play WWII soldiers captured in the Stalag Luft III POW camp. Nov 7-17, 8 pm, Historic Theatre. Tix $24-$51.

Shigematsu’s autobiographical one-man show, directed by Richard Wolfe. Nov 8-17, Gateway Theatre. Tix $29.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Fresh take on Shakespeare’s comedy, directed by BFA acting and MFA directing alumna Lois Anderson. Nov 8-24, 7:30 pm, Frederic Wood Theatre. Tix $24.50/16.50/11.50.

GAD ELMALEH French comedy star performs an evening of standup. Nov 8, 8 pm, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Tix $60.80-71.90.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15

VANCOUVER PODCAST FESTIVAL Live shows by podcasters, panels, and a podfair.

Nov 8, 9, 10, Vancouver Public Library, Central Library.

JAKE’S GIFT Writer-performer Julia Mackey’s play explores the legacy of remembrance and personalizes the story behind one soldier’s grave. Nov 8-11, Presentation House Theatre. Tix $15-28.

EMPIRE OF THE SON Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre presents Tetsuro

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY Renowned both as a classic novel and a celebrated film, playwright Michelle Deines brings Jane Austen’s story of two sisters in challenging circumstances to fresh life on stage.

Presented by The BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. November, 15-24, 2018. BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts (2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver). $22/$15/$10 www. capilanou.ca/centre

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6 MYTHOS Vancouver chamber ensemble Mythos performs world premieres of works by Anna Höstman, Keith Hamel, and Jocelyn Morlock. Nov 6, 8 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. Tix $15-$29.

WARD/WARD—ANN VAN DEN BROEK The many qualities of the colour black are examined in Dutch-Flemish choreographer Ann Van den Broek’s dance work The Black Piece. Nov 6-8, 8 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre. $33/$25 students, seniors.

BEST OF MEN A swift, humorous, decidedly unromantic one-act, written and directed by Christiaan Westerveld. Nov 6-10, 8-9:15 pm, Havana Theatre. Tix $15.

SMALLWAR A companion piece to the 2016 smash-hit BigMoutH that looks at the manon-the-ground and the consequences of what our leaders tell us. Nov 6-11, 8 pm, York Theatre. Tix $10-$51.

UBC CONCERT WINDS Wed Nov 21, 7:30pm

Presented by the UBC School of Music UBC Concert Winds is joined by conductor Christin Reardon MacLellan and guest ensemble Heritage Woods Secondary Senior Concert Band for a varied program.

NOV

2 AT PAT’S PUB: RAYGUN COWBOYS

NOV

3 AT LANALOU’S: SUN K

NOV

4 AT PAT’S PUB: TEN FOOT POLE

Fri Nov 23, 7:30pm Presented by the 45th Avenue Jazz Band The 45th Avenue Jazz Band partners with vocalist Maya Rae for ‘The Nameless’, a suite of five movements based on poetry by unknown authors.

Telus Studio Theatre

5 ICEAGE & BLACK LIPS

NOV

6 LUCKY CHOPS

NOV

7 THE SELECTER:

9 MATTHEW DEAR (LIVE)

10 THE CONTORTIONIST

CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS 6265 Crescent Road, Vancouver (UBC)

Tickets and info at chancentre.com SERIES SPONSOR:

NOV

11 FU MANCHU

ALBUM RELEASE PARTY

NOV

17 ALL THEM WITCHES

18 DEAP VALLY

19 WEDNESDAY 13

W/ CLARICE JENSEN

W/ ROADRASH & 2 SHADOWS

UNDER BAD INFLUENCE

W/ UBIQUITOUS, JOEY COOL, THE PALMER SQUARES & MORE

TOUR

NOV

21 HAKEN & LEPROUS

W/ BENT KNEE

22 AT SBC: GUTTER DEMONS

NOV

24 DESERT DWELLERS

W/ INTERVALS

NOV

26 PALAYE ROYALE

W/ MOS GENERATOR

29

20

W/ HANDSOME JACK

NOV

W/ GUESTS

DEC

NOV

NOV N

THE

BLOWOUT

W/ IN THE WHALE & THE SHIT TALKERS

W/ KAMINANDA

W/ BONES & DEAD POSEY

229 STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

DUDES S NPYREE-

W/ BORED DÉCOR

W/ DOPEY’S ROBE

NOV

TICKETS INFORMATION: RICKSHAWTHEATRE.COM

36 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018

W/ ARKONA

AT THE BILTMORE: ART D’ECCO

NOV

WITH SPECIAL GUEST DJ RHODA DAKAR

NOV NOV

W/ OFF BY AN INCH, RUSSIAN TIM & THE PAVEL BURES

W/ GUESTS

8 THIS WILL DESTROY YOU

12 KORPIKLAANI

16

W/ SURFBORT

NOV

NOV NOV

W/ YEP

NOV

THE NAMELESS

W/ GRRL & CAMPFIRE SHITKICKERS

W/ THE MAHONES

music Music-scene veterans Jiffy Marx, C.C. Voltage, and the Silo of Vancouver power-pop band Autogramm have a taste for vintage 1980s new wave tunes that goes far beyond the instantly recognizable hits. Photo by Ryan Walter Wagner

Autogramm has a notable pedigree

T

by Mike Usinger

o appreciate where Autogramm is coming from on its ’80s-flavoured debut, What R U Waiting 4?, one has to—quite appropriately—flash back to the past.

That’s something that Vancouver scene veterans Jiffy Marx, C.C. Voltage, and the Silo are happy to do when they convene with the Georgia Straight at Strathcona’s Luppolo Brewing Company on a rainy fall afternoon.

The musical roots of the three-piece run deep, both in Vancouver and beyond. Singer-guitarist Marx most recently fronted the thrashy Jiffy Marker and the sprawling country unit Hard Drugs, the latter of which coalesced while he was living in Brooklyn. Bassist Voltage has killed downtime by living in Berlin with skate-rock agitators Dysnea Boys, preceded by a stint in London, England, where he played with pub-rawkers the Loyalties. Drummer the Silo spent a good chunk of his adult life behind the kit with the mighty Black Mountain (now based in Los Angeles), his alternate projects including Vancouver’s ever-enchanting Lightning Dust.

The laundry list of local bands that the members of Autogramm have been involved in ranges from the fabled (the Spitfires, Jerk With a Bomb, Black Rice, Black Halos, Blood Meridian, Radio Berlin) to the obscure (mid-’90s hardcore footnotes Pebble and Thumbscrew).

“You need a family tree to keep track of it all, and I actually have one,” Marx says with a laugh.

The Silo adds: “It gets pretty out of hand once you hit your 40s.”

Autogramm came together with certain goals, the biggest one perhaps being having

fun; no one is expecting What R U Waiting 4? to lead to a down payment on a house on the West Side.

“The official m.o. of the band was to not be a full-time touring band,” Marx says. “It was more about going on holidays, and playing shows while we were there.”

Laughing, Voltage continues: “Preferably in sunny, warm places.”

The seeds for the project were planted in Berlin, where Marx visited Voltage and talked about forming a band. The Silo was convinced to join poolside in Mexico. When Autogramm began rehearsing, it was casual at first.

Still, there were old habits to be broken, and new tricks to be learned.

“Part of the challenge for this band for me was that I don’t really play fast,” the Silo says. “I had to work hard to do that. I was used to playing slow all the time, and that was a really organic thing for me. To get a nervous-energy sound for Autogramm, I had to rethink things.”

Voltage adds: “And I had to really consciously think about bass lines. Most of what I’ve done in the past has been pretty straightforward. Now I really have to lock in with Josh [the Silo], and think more about ‘What would a band from the ’80s do with the bass?’ ” Songs left over from previous bands were brought in and then retooled for Autogramm.

Binding the three musicians together was a sincere interest in paying tribute to a fabled late’70s/early-’80s period in music that they love.

The era-specific spectres of lipstick-smeared new wave, grey-hued postpunk, and freak-flag synthpop hang joyfully over What R U Waiting 4?.

Sometimes the band’s affection for the giants of the time seems obvious; consider the CandyO–flavoured synth bonbons in “Sea of Regret” or the post–Joy Division percussion in “Bummer Party”. There are references aimed at dedicated trainspotters—if you like the creep-tastic soundtrack work of John Carpenter, you’re going to thrill to “Wandering Eyes”. And there’s strong evidence that the vinyl collections of Autogramm include everything from authentic Berlin krautrock (“The Modern World”) to Akron-brand new wave (“I Wanna Be Whipped”) to British power pop (“Peter Pan”).

The members of Autogramm never abandoned the acts they loved as kids, even during their punk-rock years, when a lot of everything that’s not fast, loud, and snotty was thrown overboard.

“I always had that stuff on the back burner,” Voltage says. “I was into Men at Work and all sorts of random music like that. I never gave up on the stuff that I really liked, a lot of it being from the early ’80s.”

Marx jumps in: “No hardcore band was ever going to make me forget the Cure. Ever.”

Along with the group that keeps Robert Smith in lipstick, Tubeway Army, the Go-Go’s, the Nerves, and the Vapors are among the many acts cited by Autogramm as inspirations. But what’s telling is how the admiration for said acts doesn’t stop at the instantly recognizable hits. Consider the Vapors, a group that 99.9 percent of people on Earth know as a one-hit wonder, with the 1980 single “Turning Japanese”. “ ‘Turning Japanese’, which has been covered by at least three really good bands that I can

think of, is sort of a terrible song when compared to all the other songs on that first album by the Vapors,” Marx argues. “That’s their most famous song by far, and the only reason that anyone knows who they are. But that album is an amazing power-pop new-wave album that nobody really knows about. I mean, no one except for lots of people like us. To me, that’s more what forming Autogramm was about: let’s not do the cartoony, ‘Turning Japanese’ side of new wave, but instead let’s pay tribute to the rest of that album.”

“It’s important for it not to be super retro,” the Silo elaborates. “You can’t really force that angle. It was more like, ‘We’re into this stuff, but we’re just going to roll with how everything comes together in the jam space.’ It was all very natural, and I think that’s why it doesn’t come across as a tribute act.”

So while the men of Autogramm are deeply enamoured with a bygone era, they’re equally in love with being in a band with friends.

They’ve also been at it long enough to know that the music business is hell when approached as a career.

“To me, this is like a punk-rock band, where we’re not out to be rich and famous,” Marx says.

“There was never any intention that it would be more than a weekend-warrior kind of thing.”

Voltage concurs: “When we started, we were like, ‘What are our goals?’ The answer was simple. California. And then Spain. And we’ve already done one of them.”

g

Autogramm plays Fortune Sound Club next Thursday (November 8).

Hansen made Before You for herself d

DURING THE process of making her new record, Before You, Alicia Hansen was wrestling with some big questions, not the least of them being “What genre is it?” and “Who is it for?”

Now that the album is out, with a release party scheduled for this weekend, those are still fair things to ask, because Before You defies easy categorization. A conservatory-trained pianist with an interest in free improvisation, Hansen has unusually strong keyboard skills—but she uses them to explore, not to zero in on one particular sound. Listening to the new disc, it’s possible to detect the influence of early-modernist classical music, as filtered through a 21st-century jazz sensibility, in her playing, but her knotty keyboard ruminations are set on top of a powerful rhythmic pulse that owes an audible debt to progressive rock. And when Hansen opens her mouth to sing, perceptions shift again: her phrasing is careful and considered, but also deeply felt. Easy comparisons can be made to some of the great female singer-songwriters of the past 40 years—Kate Bush,

Tori Amos, Veda Hille, Björk—but that’s primarily because, like them, Hansen is sui generis.

The question of who Before You is for, however, is more readily settled.

It’s for her.

“If you want the back story, I had my son in 2014, and then after I had him I think I didn’t touch the piano for almost two years,” Hansen explains, checking in with the Straight from her Bowen Island home.

“Maybe a little bit here and there, but essentially nothing happened for the first two years of his life. I just couldn’t get to the piano at all, and I had gone back to work full-time after my mat leave—and between commuting to the city and having an infant, there was just absolutely no room left over.

“At some point I realized that I was really suffering because of that, and that there was some crucial part of me that was wearing away from that lack of music and having an outlet,” she continues. “I felt ‘This has to change,’ so I moved my piano into a little shed on the property, fixed it up as a studio, reduced my work hours,

You’ll hear everything from 21st-century jazz to prog rock in the music of Alicia Hansen.

and just carved out a little time, every day, to get out to my piano. It was just a huge relief—and all of these songs just were ready to come out.”

Given the circumstances, it’s not surprising that many of those songs detail Hansen’s struggle against the voices, both external and internal, that were raised in opposition to her creative rebirth.

“Yeah, owning my identity as a musician has been really hard for me,” she allows. “There’s always been

the imposter syndrome, and also along with that a sense of ‘How do I fit in this culture of the music biz?’

I don’t do anything the way you’re supposed to do it, and whenever I’ve tried it’s just felt so wrong. So I’ve just sort of refused to do it that way.”

Fortunately, Hansen has found support and companionship in Vancouver’s burgeoning improv scene.

Violinist and studio ace Jesse Zubot produced Before You, and he’ll be present when Hansen brings it to the stage, along with his equally gifted brother Joshua, cellist Marina Hasselberg, singer Hilary Ison, bassist James Meger, drummer Ben Brown, and Lee Hutzulak on a number of electronic devices.

It’s a dream band, and knowing that she has this kind of support is no doubt a factor in Hansen’s present happiness.

“It’s going to feel really good,” she says of her upcoming show. “That’s my idea of bliss, for sure.”

by Alexander Varty

Alicia Hansen hosts a CD-release party for Before You at Pyatt Hall on Thursday (November 1).

McDANIEL MEDITATES ON WILDNESS AND NATURE

d AT A TIME WHEN musicians are

rewarded for releasing music as swiftly as possible, albums have increasingly become haphazard collections of an artist’s latest work. It’s rare to find an album that’s concerned with how its tracks can combine to build a greater whole—which is one of the reasons that local songwriter Bre McDaniel’s debut offering stands apart.

Building on her initial EP, Light Pollution, which explores the dual themes of light and value, her first full-length, Howl, follows a similar framework.

Choosing the characteristically British Columbian subjects of wildness and nature as her inspiration, McDaniel offers a diverse set of meditations on what the two concepts mean to her.

“Having a theme helps me to write, and to have art direction both visually and productionwise,” she says, reached by the Georgia Straight during a walk through Central Park in Burnaby. “It probably has something to do with see page 39

NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 37

ALICIA

HANSEN before you

CD RELEASE

KARAOKE 7 DAYS A WEEK

FAT TUESDAYS! $9.95 PASTAS

9:30PM-CLOSE

Thursday November 1 Pyatt Hall

EVIL BASTARD KARAOKE EXPERIENCE

HOSTED BY:

with special guest

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C O N C E R T Emma Citrine FEATURING

OPEN UNTIL 3AM FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

Jesse Zubot & Joshua Zubot violin Marina Hasselberg cello | Hilary Ison voice James Meger bass | Ben Brown drums Lee Hutzulak electronics

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from page 37

my background in visual arts, and that I’m trained to think of art as a body of work, and that you have to frame your work somehow. Even with the idea of paintings in a room, the way you arrange them lets them have a sort of conversation. I want my songs to interact the same way.”

There are plenty of intellectual Easter eggs in Howl for dedicated listeners. Much of the album features field recordings from B.C., including birds and the sounds of the wind and sea—a choice that McDaniel says allowed her to explore her relationship to the land. Peppered with interludes and different production strategies— some songs are recorded outside, while others are slickly put together in the studio—the album masterfully repeats ideas across its tracks.

“The track ‘Ava’,” she says as an example, “is a recording of my sister’s youngest daughter. I wondered what a child’s response would be to thinking about these themes. Kids often have such interesting things to say because they don’t try too hard. I asked my sister to try and get their take, and one of the questions she asked was ‘What animal would you want to be?’ and Ava says that she wants to be a wolf. It was funny, because Ava actually means ‘bird’ [from the Latin avis]. There are a lot of field recordings and a lot about birds in the lyrics, while the wolf came together with the name of the album.”

Musically, the album is as deep as its thematic connections. McDaniel’s ethereal voice drifts along with accompaniment from acoustic and electric guitars, and occasionally violin, bass, and organ. Folky ditties contrast with full-bodied songs like “Pipeline”, a track that channels Arcade Fire at its most powerful. Some of the record’s uniqueness, McDaniel says, comes from her decision to use only female collaborators.

“I thought about going in that direction two years ago or more now,” she says. “I’m just becoming more aware about gaps in the music industry, and wondered, ‘What’s my way of exploring and participating in the conversation?’ I thought it could be an artistic constraint.

I know a lot of guys who play electric guitar, and I could ask them, but I’ve never really tried to find the great session musicians who happen to be women. It made me come across talented people that I’d never met, like producers and mastering engineers.

And then there’s some loose connection there to reconnecting to nature and the feminine voice. In mythology, the land is always female. It brings life and ferociousness, and rest and peace.”

by Kate Wilson

Bre McDaniel plays the Railway Stage & Beer Café on Wednesday (November 7).

THE DIRTY NIL IS COMMITTED TO GOING OVER THE TOP

dAS A DEDICATED

student of rock ’n’ roll, Dirty Nil frontman Luke Bentham knows there are two basic kinds of performer—the ones in danger of taking root on-stage, and the ones that show up ready to sweat. It’s not by accident that he and his bandmates—bassist Ross Miller and drummer Kyle Fisher—have planted their flag in the latter camp.

“One of the first people who I really saw take things to an amazing level in terms of connecting with an audience was Jon Spencer from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion,” Bentham says, on the line from a tour van headed to Detroit. “When I saw them it was just this sort of Steve Albini–fuelled Elvis-like character who absolutely captivated the crowd. It was like, ‘Holy shit!’ Part of our stage presence is a bit of a reaction to certain musical scenes that we grew up in, filled with people staring at their shoes and focusing on their instruments—trying to look cool, I guess.

“As part of the first YouTube generation, part of our absorption of rock ’n’ roll was discovering it through YouTube form,” he continues. “That explains my love of bands like the Who and the MC5. I remember watching the Who at the Rock and Roll Circus, them a little bit drunk on brandy, just fucking destroying the place. Tight as hell, but a little bit loose at the same time, knocking over microphones and stuff. That was something that I personally aspired to.”

That commitment to going over the top is more than evident on Master Volume, the second fulllength from the Dundas, Ontario, trio. There’s no shortage of things to love on the record, from Bentham’s wide-eyed rawk-warrior vocals to the brute-force bottom-end bombast of Miller and Fisher.

“That’s What Heaven Feels Like” is the sound of hopeless adrenaline junkies mainlining Thin Lizzy, “Please

DINNER & TINGS Charity event features reggae by Kassa Jones and rap by Arami the Corrector. Nov 11, 6-11 pm, The Reef Caribbean Restaurant. Tix $25.

SONGBIRD NORTH: WHERE WRITERS SING & TELL Shari Ulrich hosts performances by Melanie Dekker, Madeleine Roger, and Gordie Tentrees. Nov 13, 7:3010 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. Tix $18.

STEVE KOZAK BAND Local blues-rockers perform with pianist Michael Kalanj. Nov 14, 7:30 pm, Pat’s Pub & Brewhouse. No cover.

MARJ Vancouver singer-songwriter, with guests Michael Gresham, Atlas Thrust, and Chill Pilgrim. Nov 15, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10.

FRIDAY JAZZ Vocal jazz and Broadway classics by Steffanie Davis. Nov 16, 8 pm, Tyrant Studios. Tix $10.

VINTAGE SWING Social swing-dancing to Company B Jazz Band. Nov 17, 8 pm, Anvil Centre. Tix $25/$15.

HOT CLUB SWING Trumpeter Trevor Whitridge leads his swinging quintet. Nov 17, 8-11:55 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. $15.

THE WHITE ALBUM REVISITED Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ White Album at a gala benefit concert for PAL Vancouver. Nov 22, 7:30 pm, St. James Hall.

Tix $45.

INDIE NIGHT AT THE ANZA Featuring local bands Dark Dials, Rat Silo, and Gun Control.

Nov 29-30, 7 pm–2 am, ANZA Club. Tix $15.

ECHO NEBRASKA Vancouver folk-rock band, with guests Marsalis and Kellen Saip Music. Nov 30, 9 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $8.

by Mike Usinger

The Dirty Nil plays the Biltmore Cabaret on Saturday (November 3).

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

Scan to confess Shows I enjoy watching I confess I enjoy watching movies/tv shows set in the 50’s and 60’s. The setting reminds me how humanity once was and how much I do miss seeing any shred of it remaining in today’s society. I can’t believe Apu is being written off from the Simpsons. Really? Almost 30 years on the show. One asshole finds him racist. Beloved character gone. Fuck you.

Sorry, I’m still kinda fired up about that one. Not sorry. I think there’s too many sensitive people on this planet right now.

How did that happen? Who is controlling our emotions. The media? Maybe. I digress. Leo does a good job in those movies. Mad Men was awesome too.

Food Delivery Addiction Deleted all the food apps off my phone today. I hit up one of their food delivery services HARD all summer and holy shit, did I ever become a porkball. In October,... (con’t @straight.com)

Oh Right This is the week of jackasses with firecrackers.

I’m autistic..

And not “out” at work. I’ve learned to mask well enough that people just think I’m “quirky”. I want to tell people, I feel like it would make my life and theirs so much easier once everyone had context. But I heard my boss’s boss talk about how awesome it is that the company has found a place for “the autistics” in a special program that uses them for only certain kinds of work, and I’m afraid that if I let on, I’ll stop getting interesting projects because of preconceived notions of what “the autistics” can do.

Visit

to post a Confession

Music HOT TICKET c

c

c

Commodore) If Snoop Dogg and Lauryn Hill settled down in New Orleans’s Tremé district, the result would be this.

DRAKE (November 3 and 4 at Rogers Arena) Drake is arguably the biggest pop star Canada has ever produced, but we remember when he was Wheelchair Jimmy.

c ICEAGE & BLACK LIPS

SCARLXRD (November 2 at Fortune Sound Club) Think rap-metal as abrasive, confrontational, and all-round badass as Rico Nasty, only male and direct from England.

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TANK AND THE BANGAS (November 5 at the

MUSIC LISTINGS CONCERTS JUST ANNOUNCED

Please Me” is raging punk at its most swinging, and “Bathed in Light” serves as a reminder why the early ’90s were a golden time for pure power pop.

A couple of things stand out to make Master Volume one of the great records of the year. One of them is Bentham’s heavy-as-fuck guitar sound, which, in the hyperdistorted tradition of Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould and Black Flag’s Greg Ginn, suggests that someone spent a lot of time coming up with something truly inventive. The other is that Dirty Nil has never sounded more stadiumready, trading the lo-fi aesthetic of past outings like Higher Power for something impossibly bold and shiny.

“From the second we began developing the material that would become Master Volume, we were very focused on creating a record that would sonically compete with things that we looked up to,” Bentham says.

“We weren’t satisfied with the murky production that we’d rested our hats on previously. We pushed ourselves harder in the year leading up to Master Volume than we ever did in the 11 years we’ve been a band, practising every single day.”

The ultimate goal was to make a record that any student of rock ’n’ roll would love. Mission accomplished, with the Dirty Nil sounding more than ready for its close-up.

“The band changed a lot since we recorded Higher Power in the fall of 2014 and early 2015,” Bentham says.

“We played a gazillion shows and we played on some really big stages.

And we learned some subconscious lessons about what works and what is true power. Playing with the kinds of bands that we did on that touring cycle—Billy Talent, the Who, Against Me!, and many more— taught us some lessons while we watched from the side of the stage.

They weren’t really spoken things, but they ended up being firmly written into our brains.”

DIERKS BENTLEY American country star, with guests Jon Pardi, Tenille Townes, and Hot Country Knights. Jan 29, 7 pm, Rogers Arena. Tix on sale Nov 2, 10 am, $63-292.

KISS Glam-rockers from the ‘70s perform on their final farewell tour. Jan 31, 7:30 pm, Rogers Arena. Tix on sale Nov 2, 10 am.

GNASH Hip-hop artist Garrett Charles Nash, with guests Mallrat and Guardin. Feb 3, 7:30 pm, Venue. Tix on sale Nov 1, 10 am, $20.

THE ACES All-female indie-pop quartet from Utah. Feb 9, 8 pm, Fortune Sound Club. Tix on sale Nov 2, 10 am, $16.

GUSTER Alt-rock band from Boston, with guest Henry Jamison. Feb 15, 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix on sale Nov 2, 10 am, $25.

NONAME Rapper from Chicago. Mar 12, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Nov 2, 10 am, $32.50.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD Southern rockers perform on their farewell tour, with guest Randy Bachman. Mar 15, 7:30 pm, Abbotsford Centre. Tix on sale Nov 2, 10 am.

BOB MOULD BAND American rocker leads his band in tunes from new album Sunshine Rock. Apr 7, 7:30 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. Tix $29.50.

MAGGIE ROGERS Indie-pop singersongwriter from the States, with guest Melanie Faye. Apr 17, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Nov 2, 10 am, $30.

ARIANA GRANDE American pop superstar.

Apr 27, Rogers Arena. Tix on sale Nov 5, 10 am,.

MARK KNOPFLER British guitar legend, formerly of Dire Straits, performs tunes from latest album Down the Road Wherever. Sep 16, 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre. Tix on sale Nov 2, 10 am, $189/179/136/126/106/66.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31 WEDNESDAY NOON HOURS The Saxophilia

(November 5 at the Rickshaw Theatre) This is one for people who like abrasive noise and brooding twang in equal measure.

BROCKHAMPTON (November 5 at the PNE Forum) Alleged “boy band” Brockhampton has more members than Wu-Tang Clan, which hardly seems possible.

Saxophone Quartet performs Fred Stride’s Tango del Currie. Oct 31, 12 pm, Roy Barnett Recital Hall. Tix $5 at the door (cash only).

ROCKABILLY HALLOWEEN Vancouver rockabilly trio the Wheelgrinders plays a Halloween costume party. Oct 31, 7 pm, The Yale Saloon.

HALLOWEEN HOWL Local blues-rockers the Steve Kozak Band performs with guest pianist Murray Porter. Oct 31, 7:30 pm, Pat’s Pub & Brewhouse. No cover.

WED. NIGHT BLUES & BREWS Local bluesrockers perform with guest Dave Paterson.

Oct 31, 7:30 pm, Pat’s Pub & Brewhouse. No cover.

BRIAN O’BRIEN Folk singer-songwriter from Limerick City, Ireland. Oct 31, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $15.

WILD NOTHING American pop musician performs tunes from new album Indigo. Oct 31, 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix $25.

THE BACARDI BOOHAHA Halloween party featuring DJ Zak Santiago. Oct 31, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $29.45/19.45/9.45.

DONT BE AFRAID OF THE DARK HALLOWEEN PARTY Live music by the Sheets, plus DJ Zeus. Oct 31, 9 pm, The Blarney Stone.

THE JEN HODGE ALLSTARS Vancouverbased upright bassist leads a night of traditional jazz. Oct 31, 9:30 pm, Guilt & Company. Pay-What-You-Can.

PERFORMING “IN THE FLAT FIELD” IN ITS ENTIRETY PLUS EXTENDED ENCORE OF BAUHAUS CL ASSICS

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1 ALICIA HANSEN Singer-pianist celebrates the release of her new album Before You. Nov 1, 8 pm, Pyatt Hall. $20 plus service charges.

TASH SULTANA Australian psych-rock singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, with guests Ocean Alley. Nov 1, 8 pm, Doug

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see next page NOVEMBER 1 – 8 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 39

MUSIC

from previous page

Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. Tix $59.50/45/35.

SOJA Grammy-nominated reggae band from Arlington, Virginia. Nov 1, 8 pm, Venue. Tix $29.50.

DAY OF THE DEAD EL JIMADOR PARTY Live music by the Sheets, plus DJ Zeus. Nov 1, 8 pm, The Blarney Stone.

DOC MACLEAN AND ALBERT FROST Electric-acoustic blues duo mixes contemporary and traditional Delta and West African roots. Nov 1, 8-10 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $20-25.

INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE Vancouver prog-funk ensemble Daniel James’ Brass Camel performs ‘70s prog-rock classics. Nov 1-2, 8:15-10:30 pm, H.R. MacMillan Space Centre. Tix $30.

TYLER CHILDERS Country singer-songwriter from Kentucky. Nov 1, 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix $20.

THE SADIES Rock ‘n’ roll/country-andwestern band from Toronto. Nov 1, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $25 (plus service charges and fees) at www.ticketweb.ca/.

CLASSIFIED Rapper from Nova Scotia. Nov 1, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $35.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2 JIM BYRNES BAND AND SUE FOLEY BAND Double bill of veteran Canadian blues acts.

Nov 2, 7:30 pm, Rio Theatre.

MAWOWE’EN MAWO presents a night of poetry, visuals, live music, beats, and treats.

Nov 2, 7:30 pm, Old Crow Coffee Co..

BEST IN VANCOUVER—NIGHT SEVEN Performances by the Carbons, Marine Drive, Grit an’ Ivory, Elliott Slinn, and Rune. Nov 2, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10.

SCARLXRD Rap-metal artist from England.

Nov 2, 8 pm, Fortune Sound Club. Tix $15.

BIRDTALKER Indie-folk band from Nashville performs tunes from debut album One. Nov 2, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $13.

THE GLORIOUS SONS Rock band from Kingston, Ontario, with guests the Beaches Nov 2, 3, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $33.50.

RAYGUN COWBOYS Psychobilly band from Edmonton. Nov 2, 8 pm, Pat’s Pub & Brewhouse. Tix $13.

THE ONCE Newfoundland folk trio performs tunes from new album Time Enough. Nov 2,

CASSANDRA MAZE Live looping Asymmetry release party. Nov 3, 8 pm, Blue Light Studios. Tix $15.

KLÔ PELGAG + VAERO Performances as part of the 24th edition of the Coup de coeur francophone de Vancouver. Nov 3, 8-10 pm, Norman Rothstein Theatre. Tix starting at $20.

WOODEN HORSEMEN ALBUM RELEASE PARTY Marin Patenaude and Jody Peck perform alt-country tunes from new album Past Lives. Nov 3, 8-11:30 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $10/$15.

CHINA SYNDROME Vancouver rockers play an album-release party, with guests the Top Boost and the Tower of Dudes. Nov 3, 9 pm, Pat’s Pub & Brewhouse. Tix $12.

8-10 pm, St. James Hall.

INDIAN STANDARD TIME Collective of musicians from Canada, India, Malaysia, and the U.K. creates an alt/jam/prog/funk/ reggae/Indian fusion. Nov 2, 8-10:30 pm, Surrey Arts Centre. Tix $19-29.

OLD TIME SQUARE DANCE PARTY The Tappalachian String Band provides the tunes and Paul Silveria calls. Nov 2, 8-11:30 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $15/20.

FRIDAY JAZZ Classic, funk, and Latin jazz

by Tim Sars’ Tiny Islands. Nov 2, 9 pm, Tyrant Studios. Tix $10.

CITR POP ALLIANCE APPRECIATION PARTY Featuring performances by Swim Team, shitlord fuckerman, Kellarissa, and Aaron Read. Nov 2, 9 pm, Red Gate Arts Society. Tix $5-$10.

JUST DANCE; GROOVE RISING Saxophonist Pierre Tremblay joins DJ Handford in a night of global-fusion beats. Nov 2, 9-11:59 pm, Just Dance. Tix $15.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3 PERCUSSION MUSIC IS REVOLUTION Vancouver percussionists coax new sound out of unlikely places and push the limits of contemporary performance. Nov 3, 2 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. Free.

JUST OFF THE GRID Release party for debut album Dirty Litty Ditties. Nov 3, 7 pm, Venue.

Tix $10/$14.

THE DIRTY NIL Alt-rock band from Hamilton, Ontario. Nov 3, 7 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix $15.

VOODOO BOOGALOO Trip-hop duo from Texas, with guests the Pool Sharks. Nov 3, 7-10 pm, The Roxy Cabaret. Tix $10.

DRAKE Canadian rap superstar performs on his Aubrey and the Three Migos Tour, featuring guests Migos. Nov 3-4, 7 pm, Rogers Arena. Tix from $59.50 to $199.50.

BEST IN VANCOUVER—NIGHT EIGHT Performances by She Hangs Brightly, the Quixotic Neurotics, the Hunter and the Potter, and Hazel Blackburn. Nov 3, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10.

CITY OF THE SUN Instrumental post-rock trio from New York City, with guests Leon of Athens. Nov 3, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $15.

SUN K Toronto indie-rockers play tunes from new album Bleeding Hearts, with local guests YEP. Nov 3, 8 pm, LanaLou’s Restaurant. Tix $10.

LLOYD ARNTZEN & FAMILY Family band featuring clarinetist Lloyd Arntzen and vocalist Holly Arntzen. Nov 4, 4-5 pm, Northwood United Church. Admission by donation.

BLACK GARDENIA Vintage-jazz band performs material from new album Lucky Star. Nov 4, 7-10 pm, ANZA Club. Tix $15/20.

SIX 2 SIX New cover band performs rock, soul, blues, and pop. Nov 4, 7-11:30 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $12.

BC WORLD MUSIC COLLECTIVE Collective comprised of Adonis Puentes, Celso Machado, Tonye Aganaba, Kurai Blessing, JP Carter, Locarno, and Ostwelve. Nov 4, 7:30 pm, The ACT Arts Centre. Tix $32/27/22.

LISA ONO Bossa nova artist and jazz icon from Japan. Nov 4, 7:30 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tix from $58.

KITTY & THE ROOSTER Local rock ‘n’ roll duo composed of Jodie Ponto and Noah Walker, with guests Soda Pony and Paris Pick. Nov 4, 8-11 pm, WISE Hall. Suggested donation $10.

VOODOO BOOGALOO Trip-hop duo from Texas, with guests the Deadset and Kyla Coopman. Nov 4, 8:30 pm, LanaLou’s Restaurant. Tix $10.

DESCEMER BUENO Grammy-winning pop vocalist from Cuba. Nov 4, 8:30 pm, Red Room Ultrabar. Tix $42.50.

BELLE MINERS Australian band performs tunes from debut album Powerful Owl. Nov 4, 9 pm, Guilt & Company. Pay-What-You-Can (suggested $10).

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5 TANK AND THE BANGAS & BIG FREEDIA Coheadlining show featuring funk-soul and hip-hop acts from New Orleans, with guest Naughty Professor. Nov 5, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $26.50.

ICEAGE AND BLACK LIPS Indie-punk bands play a coheadlining show, with guests Surfbort. Nov 5, 8 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. Tix $30.

BROCKHAMPTON American hip-hop collective performs on its I’ll Be There Tour.

Nov 5, 9 pm, PNE Forum. Tix $49.50.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6 LUCKY CHOPS Brass trio from New York City. Nov 6, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. Tix $18 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

CLOUD NOTHINGS American indie-rock band plays tunes from latest album Last Building Burning. Nov 6, 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix $20.

REIGNWOLF Indie blues-rock trio from Saskatoon, featuring singer-guitarist Jordan Cook. Nov 6, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom.

Tix $25.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7

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BRE MCDANIEL Local folk singer-songwriter, with guests Kuri and Kimmortal Nov 7, 7:30 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT BLUES & BREWS The Steve Kozak Band performs with pianist Dave Webb. Nov 7, 7:30 pm, Pat’s Pub & Brewhouse.

No cover.

BIRDS OF CHICAGO Americana/folk band led by husband-and-wife duo of JT Nero and Allison Russell. Nov 7, 8 pm, Rio Theatre. Tix $20.

EASY MAC Calgary rapper, with guests Golden BSP and Karma Knows. Nov 7, 8 pm, Venue. Tix $20.

THE DEVIL MAKES THREE Americana band from Santa Cruz, California, blends bluegrass,

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1 – 18 –/ 8 2018 40 THE THE GEORGIA GEORGIASTRAIGHT STR AIGHTNOVEMBER NOVEMBER / 2018

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Employment EMPLOYMENT Vancouver Building Envelope Solutions LTD is hiring Carpenters. Greater Vancouver area, BC. Wage - $ 27.50 per/hour. Permanent, Full time job Education: High school Skills requirements: Good English, Experience 3-4 years. Main duties: Construct and repair structural woodwork, ceilings, walls, sub floors etc.;Read and interpret blueprints; Prepare layouts using measuring tools; Assemble and fasten wooden materials to make framework or props; Fit, repair and install trim items as required such as doors, windows, stairs, shelves etc.; Operate hand and power carpentry tools in a safe and efficient manner; Supervise helpers and apprentices.

Company’s business address: 1407–1 Renaissance Sq, New Westminster BC, V3M 0B6 Please apply by e-mail: vancouverbuildingenvelope@gmail.com

A lbum OF THE WEEK FURNACE MAINTENANCE CRUCIAL AS USUAL

There’s something to be said for not giving a fuck. Furnace Maintenance clearly has no particular careerist ambitions when it comes to music.

The band has been around in some form or another since forming in Calgary in 1989, and the current lineup allegedly includes zero original members, if the Furnace Maintenance bio on Facebook is to believed.

It does include singer-guitarist Chris Burnette, who also happens to be in the Burnettes. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, no matter. Furnace Maintenance’s primary objective seems to be to have fun while cranking out punkish rock that fits loosely into the vein of the Nils and Young Fresh Fellows and maybe the Replacements. (It’s a safe bet that all of the above have places of honour in the record collections old-time, country, folk, blues, jazz, and ragtime. Nov 7, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom.

Tix $35.25.

MAC AYRES R&B singer, multiinstrumentalist, and producer, with guest Jack Dine. Nov 7, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $15 (plus service charge) at www. ticketweb.ca/.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8 JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE American pop–R&B singer-songwriter and former NSYNC member performs on his Man of the Woods Tour. Nov 8-9, Rogers Arena. Tix for Nov 8 show SOLD OUT, tix for Nov 9 at www. livenation.com/.

ROEDDE HOUSE JAZZ SERIES Blues, jazz, and originals by Bill Coon (guitar) and Paul Rushka (bass). Nov 8, 7-9 pm, Roedde House Museum. Tix $15/12.

TROYE SIVAN Australian dream-pop singer, songwriter, actor, and YouTuber, with guests Kim Petras and Carlie Hanson. Nov 8, 7:30 pm, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tix $59.50/49.50/39.50.

AQUARELA DO BRASIL Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre presents a celebration of Brazilian music and dance. Nov 8-9, 8 pm, Vancouver Playhouse. Tix from $35/20.

THIS WILL DESTROY YOU America experimental-rock band performs tunes from new album. Nov 8, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. Tix $18 (plus service charge) at www.ticketweb.ca/.

REUBEN AND THE DARK Indie-folk band from Calgary. Nov 8, doors 8 pm, show 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix $15 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9 MATTHEW DEAR Electronic avant-pop artist from the States, with local guests Iain Howie, tokiomi, and Nathan Hall. Nov 9, Rickshaw Theatre. Tix $25-35.

ANGELO FERRERI Italian house-music DJ performs a three-hour set, with guest Jesse Hills. Nov 9, MagnetiQ Club Lounge. Tix $20-$35.

INCOGNITO Local blues veterans, with guest Dameian Walsh. Nov 9, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10.

EARLY SPIRIT The Rogue Folk Club presents an evening of folk, rock, Celtic, Cajun, and jazz music. Nov 9, 8 pm, St. James Hall. $12-24.

VINCENT RANDAZZO Locals Sam Balson

Support Groups AL-ANON FAMILY GROUPS Does someone else's drinking bother you?

Al-Anon can help.

We are a support group for those who have been affected by another's drinking problem.

For more information please call: 604-688-1716 Anorexics & Bulimics Anonymous 12 Step based peer support program which addresses the mental, emotional, & spiritual aspects of disordered eating Tuesdays @ 7 pm @ Avalon Women's Centre 5957 West Blvd - 604-263-7177 BC Balance & Dizziness provides information & support for persons with balance, dizziness & vestibular disorders.

Bi Monthly info meetings @ St. Paul's Hospital.

Call for info. 604-878-8383 www.BalanceAndDizziness.org Distress Line & Suicide Prevention Services NEED SOME ONE TO TALK TO? Call us for immediate, free, confidential and non-judgemental support, 24 hours a day, everyday.

The Crisis Centre in Vancouver can help you cope more effectively with stressful situations.

604-872-3311

of Burnette and company.)

Not taking things too seriously doesn’t mean making lacklustre music, mind you. It just means that the songs on Crucial as Usual sound like they were banged out in a room where all the musicians were actually playing together at the same time. This is rawk music without the rough edges sanded down.

This makes for some pretty cool moments, like the way the guitars of Burnette—credited here as “Cheecho”—and Jason Keller weave together and harmonize on “Hot Apple Stars”.

Furnace Maintenance isn’t out to revolutionize rock ’n’ roll, and that’s okay. “The Craniac” and “Muffler” would sound great sandwiched between vintage tunes by the Doughboys and Hüsker Dü on a Calgary-to-Edmonton driving playlist. And sometimes that’s exactly what you’re looking for.

by John Lucas

and Matt Harvey support touring songwriter Randazzo. Nov 9, 8-11 pm, Park Sound Studio.

Tix $8-$15.

FRIDAY JAZZ Cabaret jazz-funk by Top Hat Goblins. Nov 9, 9 pm, Tyrant Studios. Tix $10.

CROOKED COLOURS Electronic-music trio from Australia performs tunes from debut album Vera. Nov 9, 9 pm, Fortune Sound Club.

Tix $17.50.

DEAR ROUGE Vancouver-based electronicrock band composed of Drew and Danielle McTaggart, with guests Modern Space and Blonde Diamond. Nov 9, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $21.50.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10 CHELSEA AMBER Canadian singersongwriter performs in support of Compassion Canada. Nov 10, 7-9:30 pm, Bez Arts Hub. Tix $20.

SHAWN HOOK Canadian pop-rock singersongwriter. Nov 10, 7:30 pm, Bell Performing Arts Centre. Tix from $29.50 (plus service charges and fees) at www.livenation.com/.

GROOVE NIGHT Featuring performances by local acts Mostly Marley, Tiara, and Ember to None. Nov 10, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10.

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS & THE NORTHERN PIKES Canadian guitar-rock bands from the ‘90s play a coheadlining bill.

Nov 10, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $35.

POLAND’S INDEPENDENCE PARTY Dance party featuring Spanish and Latin music by Tapaito. Nov 10, 8 pm, Polish Community Centre. Tix $10.

MARTIN KERR The Rogue Folk Club presents singer-songwriter from England.

Nov 10, 8 pm, St. James Hall. Tix $12-24.

MUSIC LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge, based on available space and editorial discretion. We can’t guarantee inclusion, and we give priority to events taking place within one week of publication. 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.

Battered Women's Support Services provides free daytime & evening support groups (Drop-ins & 10 week groups) for women abused by their intimate partner. Groups provide emotional support, legal information & advocacy, safety planning, and referrals.

For more information please call: 604-687-1867

on the web!

For up-to-the-minute searchable Music Listings on your phone, visit

straight.com

Anxiety? Depression?

Free Mental Wellness Support Group held on Saturdays (10:30 am – 12:30) Promotes a holistic approach to healing (body, mind & spirit). Networking and interactive learning experience in a safe, non-judgmental environment.

For more information call 604-630-6865 or visit www.mentalwellnessbc.ca

Equal Parenting Group - North Vancouver Support group for fathers going through the divorce process needing help. Call 604-692-5613 Email:nspg@mybox.com ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION Looking to start a parent support group in Kitsilano.

Please call Barbara 604 737 8337

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

Monthly drop-in- last Wed of every month YLTLC #201 – 1847 W. Broadway Van. 604-873-5013 www.ltlc.bc.ca

MOOD DISORDERS SUPPORT GROUPS We have peer-led support groups all over the Lower Mainland for people with depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety led by well-trained facilitators.

Group sessions during days, evenings, or Saturdays.

For location and times of groups:

www.mdabc.net 604-873-0103 Nar-Anon North Van 12-step program for families and friends of addicts, meets Tuesdays from 7:30 to 9 pm 176 2nd Street East in North Van.

Info: nar-anonbcregion.org Parkinson Society BC offers over 50 volunteer-led support groups throughout BC. These provide people with Parkinson's, their carepartners & families an opportunity to meet in a friendly, supportive setting with others who are experiencing similar difficulties.

Some groups may offer exercise support.

For information on locating a support group near you, please contact PSBC at 604 662 3240 or toll free 1 800 668 3330.

RECOVERY International FEAR? DEPRESSION? PANIC ATTACKS? Feelings that keep you from really living your life?

A way out is where we come in.

Weekly meetings. Call for info: 9am - 5pm Kathy 778-554-1026 www.recoverycanada.org

Sex Addicts Anonymous 12-step fellowship of men & women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other, that they may solve their common problem and help others recover from their sexual addiction.

Membership is open to all who desire to stop addictive sexual behaviour. For a meeting list as well as email & phone contacts go to our website at

Avant Garde Service Solutions Inc. o/a Tricom BuildingMaintenance, is looking for Cleaning supervisor. Greater Vancouver, BC. (3 positions available). Permanent, full-time job Wage - $ 23.60 per/h. When needed, commuting to job locations is paid for by employer.

Skills requirements: good English, customer service oriented. Previous experience as a cleaner or similar position is required. Previous experience as a cleaning supervisor is an asset. Education: Secondary school. Main duties: Supervise and co-ordinate the activities of cleaners; Hire and train new cleaning staff; Resolve work-related problems and customer complaints; Periodically inspect job locations before and after the cleaning; Prepare work schedules and co-ordinate activities with other cleaning teams.

Company’s business address: #1115-207 West Hasting St, Vancouver, BC, V6B 2N4 Our website: http://tricomcanada.ca/ Please apply by e-mail: hrtricomcanada@gmail.com

o/a Tricom Building Maintenance, is looking for an Office Administrative Assistant. Permanent, full-time job. Wage - $ 23.00 per/h. Requirements: Good English, previous clerical experience, 1-2 years.

Education: Secondary school.

Main duties: Provide general administrative and clerical support; Create, save and modify various documents; Open, sort and distribute incoming correspondence, co-ordinate the flow of information; Answer telephone and electronic enquiries; Schedule and coordinate meetings, appointments and travel arrangements; Improve and establish office’s day to day procedures;Order office supplies and maintain inventory.

Job location and company’s business address: 307 – 1477 West Pender St. Vancouver, BC V6G 2S3 Please apply by e-mail: hrtricomcanada@gmail.com

Reception/Admin/Clerical

Hiring One full-time Cook $16-18/hr (based on exp.) & tips High school, Speak Basic English, 2 yrs.-commercial cooking exp. Puebla cooking-asset Duties: Prepare & cook complete meals or individual Mexican (Puebla) dishes & foods, Schedule/supervise kitchen helpers, Oversee kitchen operations, Maintain inventory & records of food, supplies & equipment, Plan menus/determine size of food portions, estimate food requirements & costs, monitor/order supplies, Clean kitchen & work area Cinco De Mayo Mexican Grill 102 - 200 W Esplanade, North Vancouver BC V7M 1A4 Email: cincodemayocanada@hotmail.com

Support, Education & Action Group for Women that have experienced male violence.

Call Vancouver Rape Relief 604-872-8212 Support, Education & Action Group for Women that have experienced male violence.

Call Vancouver Rape Relief 604-872-8212 The Compassionate Friends (TCF) Burnaby TCF is a grief support group for parents who have experienced the loss of a child, at any age.

Meet the last Wednesday of the month at 7:00 p.m.

For location call Grace: 778-222-0446 "We Need Not Walk Alone" compassionatecircle@hotmail.com Burnaby@TCFCanada.net www.tcfcanada.net Vancouver Society for Sexuality, Gender & Culture Educational group with monthly meetings are planned for: 1st Tuesday of each month, 6:30 PM 8:30 PM Vancouver Public Library - Firehall Branch 1455 W 10th Ave (by Granville St next to the Firehall) All are welcome, and we are looking for Board Members from the Health, Counseling, Education, and Business Professions Info: Michael or Darren: VSSGC@yahoogroups.ca Women Survivors of Incest Anonymous A 12 Step based peer support program.

Wed @ 7pm @ Avalon Women's Centre 5957 West Blvd 604-263-7177 also www.siawso.org WAVAW - Rape Crisis Centre has a 24-hour crisis line, counselling, public education, & volunteer opportunities for women.

All services are free & confidential.

Please call for info: Business Line: 604-255-6228 24-Hour Crisis Line: 604-255-6344 GAM-ANON FAMILY GROUPS Is someone else's gambling affecting your life?

Gam-Anon can help. We offer hope and helpwhen a loved one has a gambling problem.

Family and friends are welcomed whether or not the gambler seeks help or even recognizes the existence of a gambling problem.

Email: vancouvergamanon@shaw.ca Website: www.gamanon.org Healing Our Spirit B.C. First Nations AIDS Society has volunteer opportunities for hospital visitation, information booths, office assistance & preparation of pamphlets & condoms for distribution. We offer volunteer orientation, training & recognition & bus tickets.

If interested, please call 983-8774 Ext. 13.

We are dedicated to preventing and reducing the spread of HIV in the aboriginal communities of B.C. Healthy & loving relationships alluding you?

CODA: Co-dependency Anonymous 12 step Recovery: 604- 515-5585 Infertility Awareness Assoc. of Canada (IAAC) provides educational material & support to individuals or couples experiencing infertility.

Meetings: 7 pm the 2nd Wed of the month.

Richmond Library & Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate. Info 523-0074 or www.iaac.ca

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from page 43

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by Dan Savage

b I’M A 40-YEAR-OLD married straight woman. I gave birth to our first kid in 2015 and our second earlier this year.

My perineum tore and was stitched both times. I have not been able to have sex with penetration since having our second child. My ob-gyn said I’m “a little tighter now” due to the way the stitching was performed. My husband is very well endowed and I can’t imagine how on earth I’m ever going to get that thing back in me, let alone enjoy it. We have a history of pretty hot sex and I really miss it. I’ve been searching online for some sex toys to help me. I’ve never used sex toys before.

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- Thanks In Advance

situation is very common—but luckily there are options to help her get her groove back,” said Rachel Gelman, a pelvicfloor physical therapist at the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center (pelvicpainrehab.com).

Also sadly common: ob-gyns shrugging off concerns like yours, TIA. “I see that all the time,” said Gelman. “Part of the problem is that the pelvic floor/muscles aren’t on most

“Unfortunately, this

doctors’ radar. That’s due to many factors—cough, cough, insurance companies, cough, our dysfunctional health-care system, cough—but to water it down, it’s the ob-gyn’s job to get someone through pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby. And when that’s accomplished, the feeling is their job is done.”

But so long as you’re not able to have and enjoy PIV sex with your hung husband, TIA, there’s still work to do.

“TIA needs to see a pelvic-floor physical therapist,” said Gelman. “A good PT would be able to assess and treat any pelvic-floor dysfunction, which is often the primary cause or a contributing factor for anyone experiencing pain with sex, especially after childbirth.”

At this point Gelman began to explain that pushing a living, breathing, screaming human being out of your body is an intense experience, and I explained to Gelman that I’ve had to push a few living, breathing, screaming human beings out of my body, thank you very much. Gelman clarified that she was talking about “the trauma of labor and delivery”, something with which I have no experience.

“Labour and delivery can have a significant impact on the pelvic-floor muscles, which can cause a myriad of symptoms,” said Gelman. Pain during PIV sex sits high on the list of those symptoms.

“The fact that TIA had tearing with the deliveries means she most likely has scar tissue, and a PT would again be able to treat the scar to help decrease any hypomobility and hypersensitivity,” said Gelman. “A pelvicfloor specialist can also instruct her in a home program which may include stretches, relaxation techniques, and dilators—dilators are graduated cylinders that are inserted vaginally to help stretch the vaginal opening and promote relaxation of the pelvic floor.”

A set of “graduated cylinders” is essentially “a bouquet of dildos”, TIA. You start with the smallest dilator/dildo, inserting it every day until you can insert it without any pain or discomfort, and then you “graduate” (nudge, nudge) to the next “cylinder” (wink, wink). You can order a set of dilators online, TIA, but Gelman wants you to find a doc that specializes in sexual medicine first.

“There are some good medical associations that she can check out for resources and to help locate a provider in her area,” said Gelman.

“The websites of the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health (ISSWSH), the International Society for Sexual Medicine (ISSM), and the International Pelvic Pain Society (IPPS) are where she should start.”

Follow Gelman on Instagram, @pelvichealthsf.

b I’M A 30-YEAR-OLD woman, and about a year ago I started taking improv classes to help combat my social anxiety. I met a lot of awesome people in my class, but I took a particular shine to this one guy. He was a gentle soul, very sweet, and really funny. We quickly became friends. Eventually I developed feelings for him and asked him out. He appreciated the offer but told me that he was gay. I was shocked and disappointed, but I wanted to keep our friendship so I tried to get over my feelings. But not only haven’t these feelings gone away, I’m actually falling in love with him. He recently confessed to me that he’s still semicloseted and dealing with a bad breakup, so I really don’t want to add to his problems. This is such a mess. I found this wonderful guy who I care about and yet nothing will ever happen because I was born the wrong gender. What can I do?!?

- Introvert Makes Pass, Regrets Overture Very Seriously

Nothing.

You can’t make that gay guy fall in love with you, IMPROVS, any more than I could make Hasan Minhaj fall in love with me. Getting over him is your only option, and that’s gonna take some time and most likely some space, too. (I’d recommend seeing less of your crush after this class ends.)

But give yourself some credit for doing something proactive about your

social anxiety, for taking a risk, and for asking your classmate out. You didn’t take that improv class to find love, right? You took it to combat your social anxiety—and it sounds like you won a few battles, IMPROVS, if not the war. The takeaway here isn’t, “It didn’t work with him so why should I bother ever trying again with someone else?” but “I did it—I made a connection; I asked someone out—and I’m going to do it again and hopefully it’ll work out next time.”

b I’M AN EARLY-30s hetero-flexible man in an open marriage with a bi woman, though both of us have been too chicken to actually go through on acting on the “open” part. Neither of us are hung up on jealousy, so that’s not a factor here. I recently confessed to my wife that I have had a long-standing desire to sleep with a trans woman. Yes, I know that it’s immature to not have disclosed all my kink cards prior to marriage, but I have my reasons, and thankfully, my wonderful wife let me off the hook and was very supportive. I expressed to her that I have considered seeing a professional trans escort rather than trying for a “hookup” situation. Her reaction was highly negative, as she has the impression that anyone in the sex-trade industry is—by definition— a victim. Where do I go from here? see previous page

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