Teetering Too Close to Cliffs
Hullabaloo Day 2, All Star Slams at The Rio Theatre
Hullabaloo’s second day got going with two All Star Slams at The Rio Theatre, which brought champion spoken word artists Rabbit Richards, Dana ID Matthews, and Charlie Petch together from across the country to compete for a discerning audience of students and teachers. Next, the festival served a heaping helping of BC’s finest youth poetry […]
The Alchemy of Feeling Into Words
Day 1 of Hullabaloo at Verses Festival of Words, 2017
What do the phases “Breakdown Babes,” “Mad But Rad,” “Gibberish and the Hootenannies,” “Mediocre at Best,” “What Would Bert and Ernie’s Legs Look Like?,” and “The 2013 Bocce Championship Runners Up” have in common? If your answer is that they’re what six of the sixteen teams in Hullabaloo, BC’s youth poetry festival, have christened themselves, […]
Best Vancouver Albums of the Year
2016 was an incredible year for music in Vancouver. Here are the 10 albums that had us particularly stoked for what’s happening locally. Hopefully you know all of these. If you don’t, give the full lengths a listen, buy the ones you love, and definitely go see these artists at their next live shows. Maarten […]
Woman to Woman, Sister to Sister
A review of Marrow at the Vancouver Fringe Festival
The Havana Theatre has changed since I was last here. I’ve seen a few performances at this venue before; I remembered entering through the restaurant into a dark, spacious room where chairs were set out for audience members. Now, we are guided through a separate entrance; and once inside, I’m impressed to see long rows […]
This Isn’t Fan Fiction
The Girl Who Was Raised By Wolverine, reviewed
Upon entering the Waterfront Theatre, I’m greeted by a shorthaired woman with a pretty, welcoming smile, and a man who sits cross-legged and barefoot behind her, in a somewhat meditative posture, next to a large white bucket. Both people are dressed normally, except for what appears to be an item of shaggy grey fur on […]
Hearing Body, Sensing Sound
Wave Equation at Western Front
I arrive at the Western Front flushed, heart thumping. Half from exertion, having accelerated to a jog in an effort not to miss the performance’s billed 8 o’clock start time — and half from excitement: it would have been tragic to miss a moment. I needn’t have worried. Climbing the steps to the second floor, […]
When Things Go Sideways
Apocalypse Parade, Possible Worlds and the Value of Life
Written by Justin Ramsey Re:generation is a special series of articles responding to Generation Hot at the 2016 Vancouver Fringe Festival. This is part 5 of 5. And if they were to take a principled stance, what would the future look like? This is a question that artist collective Popcorn Galaxy explores in Apocalypse Parade. […]
Razing Our Children
Saving Mother’s Call to Action
Written by Justin Ramsey Re:generation is a special series of articles responding to Generation Hot at the 2016 Vancouver Fringe Festival. This is part 4 of 5. Before Saving Mother begins, Coast Salish-Nez Perce community activist and writer Kat Norris takes the stage and, drum in hand, asks us to rise to our feet and […]
A Case for Hugging Trees
Empathy in Living On The Grid
Written by Justin Ramsey Re:generation is a special series of articles responding to Generation Hot at the 2016 Vancouver Fringe Festival. This is part 3 of 5. I remember when the UN Climate Change Conference happened in Paris. The cause was so simple, so dire, that swift and immediate action should have been taken. No […]
Fleeing From Our Problems
Cosmic Justice On Accountability
Written by Justin Ramsey Re:generation is a special series of articles responding to Generation Hot at the 2016 Vancouver Fringe Festival. This is part 2 of 5. I am waiting outside a curtain of tarps, which block off a section of the Anderson Street paid parking lot at Granville Island. The lot resembles a dilapidated […]