Stars and Sadism
Vancouver New Music and the Canadian Opera
Written by John Paton Attending an evening of opera excerpts is fraught with peril. As a listener, you are forced to jump and skip through what is by nature an extended dramatic form. Nonetheless, I found a great deal of interest in this retrospective of Canadian opera. The evening began with a brief introduction by […]
Diffractions of the Local: New work by Seven Vancouver-based, Latin American Artists
Disparate geographies and contemporary art in Vancouver at Back Gallery Project
Written by Mark Jacobs Photos courtesy Roman, Gabriela Aceves, and Back Gallery Project Diffractions of the Local is a new series of exhibitions at The Back Gallery Project, aiming to celebrate the diverse nonlocal origins of Vancouver’s contemporary art scene. Here’s what The Back Gallery Project has to say about the series: Diffractions of the […]
Edward Burtynsky: Water – Artist Talk and Book Signing @ Langara College
Renowned Canadian Photographer underpins Capture Photo Festival’s successful inaugural year and offers an insight into his expansive new work, Water
Written by Adam Stenhouse Photos by Jon Vincent Edward Burtynsky. Even if you don’t know his name, you most likely know his photographs. In the last decade he has become a household name and a go-to for the coffee table book collection. As part of Capture Photo Festival’s inaugural, and deceptively heavyweight line-up, Burtynsky spoke […]
Absurdist Play Cuckolded: Ubu Cocu @ SFU School for the Contemporary Arts
Director Nicole DesLauriers makes Alfred Jarry's Ubu Cocu her own.
Words by Mark Jacobs Photo by Jonathan Kim Undertaking a production of Ubu Cocu (“Ubu Cuckolded”) is no mean feat; nor is it a conventional choice, even by the standards of deliberate transgression. The play is as incomprehensible as it is obscure. But director Nicole DesLauriers was more than game, inventing technical challenges for herself […]
Performing Process
Project CPR 4.0 explores practice in choreography
Words by Alicia McLean Photos and video by Ash Tanasiychuk “A process is a process is a process, it falls into itself,” explains Claire French, the organizer of Project CPR (Choreographic Practice and Research), which is a choreographic lab for movement research that is now in its fourth year. As French explains, choreographers need to […]
Interdisciplinary Imaginarium
Fringe Festival encounters Brief Encounters
Words by Alicia McLean Photos courtesy Kyla Bailey “When Two Worlds Collide, Anything Can Happen…” – Doctor Who, Series 3 On Friday night I hid from the falling sky at Granville Island‘s Performance Works and witnessed the 20th incarnation of Brief Encounters. This brilliant endeavour regularly brings together artists of diverse contrastive backgrounds, throws them […]
Shout Back Festival 2013
Words by Adrienne LaBelle Photos by Hayley Gauvin and Ash Tanasiychuk Vancouver is a city in need of a lot of things, but affordable and accessible space seems to be one of the hardest to come by. To take on the task of arranging a 4-day festival that is completely all-ages and physically accessible, is […]
The Lesson – Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools
Exhibition at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery continuing a process of healing and education through art
Words by Shalon W-H Images provided by Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery A witness is defined as one who sees or experiences an event or occurrence take place; one who makes testimony, who testifies, who attests the truth of. To be a witness is to state one’s belief in; give evidence, give proof. I […]
24-Hr Drawing Party @ Project Space
A personal reflection by organizer and participant Margarete Hernandez
Words by Margarete Hernandez Photos by Sheng Ho and Margarete Hernandez Remember when we were children, and pencils and crayons were our basic tools for expression, and how easy it was to talk and play with other children while finger-painting on a crafts table or making castles in a sandbox? I had a lot of […]
Don’t Stop Playing: Preview of a Brief Encounters Pairing
The first ever collaboration between Karen Jamieson, contemporary dancer, and Nathaniel Justiniano, bouffon
Photos and words by Ash Tanasiychuk What’s the expression? “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing” (thanks George Bernard Shaw, that’s a good one). Sunshine and laughter. Claps of hands and stomps of feet. Smiles of play and bulges of… ogre lumps?! The Dance Centre, Davie St, […]