The Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret is a collection of thirty or more multidisciplinary performance artists. They have recently been given a commission from the Pivot Legal society to investigate the meaning of the word “justice”. The concept they arrived at through a process of collaboration with each other, and with their community, is that the core essence of justice is an action. The act of listening.
Listening to the Jar is Meris Goodman as the Seeker, with Crystal Draper, Candice Curlypaws and Alex Danard; photo by Christache Ross
So I’m nine years old being dragged to synagogue every Saturday morning so that my older brother can prepare for his Bar Mitzvah and I’m wishing, no I’m actually praying to God to intervene with something just a little bit jazzier; you know a little bit of _doo-wop_, a little bit of _ooh wah baby_. But no such luck. There was nothing hip going down in my synagogue days.
"ProArteDanza":http://www.proartedanza.com/ is a Toronto company that aims to fuse the best of modern with the best of ballet. It has attracted such luminaries as James Kudelka, Rex Harrington and Evelyn Hart to its fold and has earned its place on the Canadian stage with clean, technically excellent work.
I had the great pleasure of seeing the first preview, or – as Director Jack Paterson called it – “the tech/dress” of William Shakespeare’s *Coriolanus*, which is currently on at the Jericho Arts Centre. *Coriolanus* is the story of a returning war hero who becomes ruthlessly disenfranchised by the politics of peacetime.
What do you do with a guy like Coriolanus? A bloody Ian Butcher, photo: Quinn Harris
This show is a mesmerizing gem of storytelling. *The Devil and Billy Markham* is an hour-long tall tale about a gambling, rock ‘n roller’s dealings with the devil. During his travels, he loses a crooked game of the dice to the Devil and finds himself roasting in hell. However, Billy Markham isn’t one to stop playing just because he’s low.
The Devil and Billy Markham: language that is visually evocative
Although the Vancouver run of this "Tarragon Theatre":http://www.tarragontheatre.com/ production has finished, if you’re planning on seeing *East of Berlin* in Edmonton, you might want to skip this review as it gives away key plot points.
Daddy was a Nazi, East of Berlin, Diana Donnelly and Brendan Gall
This "Tarragon Theatre":http://www.tarragontheatre.com/ production of *East of Berlin* by Hannah Moscovitch is a Jewish revenge fantasy. That’s a provocative statement, so let me make my case. Rudi (Brendan Gall) is the son of an SS ‘surgeon’ who escaped Germany after the Second World War with the help of ‘Project Reinhardt’, a fund originating from Nazi German bank accounts that drew wealth from valuables stolen from concentration camp victims.
Rudi in happier times, East of Berlin with Brendan Gall and Diana Donnelly
Although it was not presented as such, *The Invisible Life of Joseph Finch* is a holocaust story. On one level, it was an understandable decision to not define the work in this manner. Saying something is “about” the holocaust can’t help but set up a series of expectations in the minds of an audience.
Created, produced and performed by Mutable Subject, The Contingency Plan and The Story of Force and Motion, *Here To Go: join the movement* has moments of choreographic and performative enthusiasm that reinforce these companies’ energetic names. The product of a group of Vancouver’s emerging dance artists and Simon Fraser University dance programme grads, this piece can absorb the audience with its driving and opposing movements and sequencing.
Here To Go: peppered with the eye-catching, photo by Kassandra Prus
I should have known I was going to a political event. I didn’t see it coming until the very day that I was scheduled to see *Deca Dance*, choreographed by Israeli artist Ohad Naharin, and performed by the "Batsheva Dance Company":http://www.batsheva.co.il/ of Tel Aviv. I suppose I’m glad that I read Jessica Werb’s "short piece":http://straight.com/article-202620/batsheva-could-face-picketers-tonight in the Georgia Straight; knowing in advance that there would be protests outside of the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre, I had time to collect my thoughts before I approached the venue and heard the bellowing of a voice through a megaphone crying out “Dead...
Transcending conflict, Deca Dance by Batsheva Dance Company
