One morning, a young geneticist awakes with a box on his head. The box is simple, unadorned cube and a familar, comfortable shade of brown. At first he thinks it's a dream, or a morning like when you're a sick child and your eyelids stick together, but he soon learns that the box is permanent. His questions begin to loop: am I alone, or is there someone else out there?

Boxhead, it's lonely in the city

It’s hard to say anything bad about Andy Jones. He’s just such an affable guy. The kind of guy you just want to sit around drinking and laughing with and listen to him talk.

Living it up with Uncle Val

Early on Wednesday, a Facebook friend sent me a video of neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor giving a talk at conference this past March (it’s worth a look). In it Dr. Taylor describes the morning she awoke with a blood clot in her brain causing a massive stroke. Being a brain researcher, she saw the stroke as a great gift for her, and her insights into the event are her gift to us.

Boxhead, vancouver's a hard place to get to know people

_We are deeply disgusted with the contemporary theatre (verse, prose and musical) because it vacillates between historical reconstruction (pastiche or plagiarism) and photographic reproduction of our daily life; a finking, slow, analytic, and diluted theatre worthy, all in all, of the age of the oil lamp._

Return of Futuristi! Susan Bertoia and a vacuum; photo: Ali Sohrabzadeh

As soon as the lights dim, the red stage curtain performs a striptease, rising and falling flirtatiously. After this warm flush, a beautiful Italian woman invites us to use fax machines and cell phones during the show.

The Return of the Futuristi, Kris Tung, Joe Procyk, Stefano Giulianetti, Louis Chirillo, Astrid Varnes; photo: Ali Sohrabzadeh

By a large paper tree, a woman in a paper dress sings about the butterflies fluttering all around her, among the peach flowers and the willow trees.

The Life of Paper, Lenard Stanga and He Ling. Photo: Michael Ford

The array of choreographers included in the latest EDAM presentation The Body Eclectic was intriguing enough to draw me from my abode: Jai Govinda, Artistic Director of Mandala Arts and Culture; Emily Molnar, former Frankfurt Ballet superstar; and Peter Bingham, contact dance guru.

Body Eclectic

Meg Walker and Anna Russell attended sound-garden-scape: Gastown by Eric Powell, May 16, co-presented by VIVO Media Arts Centre. Meg Walker attended Surf and Turf Soundwalk, May 18, curated by Jean Routhier.

necessary equipment for the sound walk

Of course eating people is wrong. But sometimes it’s necessary.

Our social and evolutionary conditioning is so deep that when imagining possible cannibal scenarios for ourselves – a plane crash in the Andes, say – we like to believe we’d starve before eating a fellow passenger. Yet, looked at rationally, if we were starving and meat, whatever its source, was just lying there, why shouldn’t we eat it? Why can’t we see that left leg as just a piece of meat rather than a piece of Kevin?

Bone in her Teeth, Peter Anderson and Tanya Podlozniuk; photo: Tim Matheson

MARYSE:
I had seen the images for months. Svelte dancers bound and supported by prostheses and canes. They had created quite a stir in the national dance community. It wasn’t just the imagery. I had heard about Marie Chouinard’s new piece bODY rEMIX through various channels, it is a piece that has gathered critical acclaim across Canada.

Body Remix: David Rancourt and Lucie Mongrain Photo: Marie Chouinard

The Electric Company and The Virtual Stage have based their co-production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play No Exit on an alluring idea. The stage set for the play is normally a hotel room, where three dammed characters are locked in the hell of each other’s company for all eternity.

Jonathon Young (the Valet, foreground), with Andy Thompson (Cradeau), Lucia Frangione (Estelle) and Laara Sadiq (Inez). photo: Tim Matheson.

If you’re new to the contemporary dance scene in Vancouver, you may not realize that the Experimental Dance and Music (EDAM) studio on the main floor of the Western Front is the centre of the city’s choreographic universe. Many of Vancouver’s top choreographers and dancers have trained or performed with the EDAM company at some point in their careers.

Body Eclectic

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