"Dances for a Small Stage 23" was much more of a cohesive performance than I was expecting. The MC's did an admirable job of weaving a story around each vignette. I liked the frame story, there was a good through line, it provided a reasonable explanation for the vignettes and the bookends mirrored each other nicely.
City of Dreams (part of this year's PuSh Festival) provided an entertaining hour watching six performers use found or inexpensive objects with a recorded audio “soundscape” to create a map of Vancouver and depict its history. It is fitting that this work is presented at the Roundhouse Community Centre as it extends the Labyrinth and Rangoli activities of the Winter Solstice celebration held in the same venue into a complete piece of performance art.
The Terminal City Soundscape was presented at the Heritage Hall as a collaboration between the PuSh festival, Music on Main and CABINET Interdisciplinary Collaborations. It is a diverse program of new music, improv and experiments with recorded sounds from Vancouver dating back to 1973. Works were performed not only on the stage but at the back of the hall and in the audience area as well. Before the show and during the two intermissions, recorded sounds from various Vancouver sites and events were replayed. For example, fireworks sounds from last summer in English Bay preceded the opening...
Floating at the Arts Club Revue Stage tells the tale of how the island of Anglesey detached itself from Wales and went gallivanting around the globe. Self-effacing, innocent and thoroughly charming, it is a performance not to be missed.
Maryse Zeidler: I think it would be safe to start by saying wow. I mean, really, wow.
I may be one of the few people who often finds circus acts kind of boring - sitting through one circus act after another just isn't enough to keep me going - but Circa is such an interesting blend of circus with a hint of dance that I was pretty much enthralled throughout. As I sat through the first ten minutes of the show watching the performers slam themselves repeatedly onto the stage...
Collecting 100 people to appear on stage for three shows and a preview over three days - as Theatre Replacement did with 100% Vancouver in co-opeartion with SFU Woodward's - seems a staggering task. That the cast more or less represented the demographics of the City of Vancouver today through word of mouth combined with a deliberate screening process is quite remarkable. To see the vision executed over the course of just 70 minutes in the new Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at the SFU Woodward's building was quite exhilirating. Music provided throughout the show by...
The highly provocative poster for Circa, with its sequined red stiletto, is an accurate promise of a show which is sexy, edgy, risky and… fun. “Circa's self-titled creation is movement at its most adventurous and dangerous. Seven performers move from highly connected acrobatic and tumbling sequences to fast-paced moments of great intricacy where precision and timing are everything.
Iqaluit (currently on as part of the ongoing PuSh Festival) combines film, technology and sculpture to create an environment that allows the audience to walk into a part of Canada most know little of or will ever be able to visit for themselves.
Created and performed by Waawaate Fobister, Agokwe tells the story of two young Anishnaabe men whose first love is painfully distorted by their community's small-mindedness and homophobia. The story focuses on the early unrequited the attraction between Jake -- who is sensitive and self-aware, if not entirely at ease with his sexuality -- and Mike -- a hockey star from the neighbouring community who is struggles to hide his orientation.
--- warning spoilers ahead ----
Fobister performs all of the characters in Agokwe, principle and supporting. These include Mike's mother –- a tough but kindhearted recovering alcoholic -- Goose,...
