They’re going to revoke my membership of the Cynics Society of Canada for the following statement but what the hell: I loved The Lion King. There, I said it, it’s out there. Let the chair of the membership committee come after me. Let other CSC members cross the street when they see me coming.
Remember your mother telling you to finish your dinner because children were starving in Africa? As its central motif, ‘Nigeria’ contrasts the spiritual wealth of Africa with the obsession with monetary wealth, spiritual bankruptcy and ennui of life in West Vancouver. In spite of its dazzling verbal gymnastics, the play often feels clichéd. And then, in a refreshing u-turn, the playwright questions the authenticity of his own premise.
Quell (part of this year's Dancing on the Edge Festival) is an interesting, if half baked, piece of modern dance that starts strong and ends poorly. Two dancers, Lin Snelling and Peter Bingham, share the stage to varying degrees of success. They're accompanied by Peggy Lee on cello playing the kind of music that could only be defined as experimental or avant-garde. Lee's cello alternates between beautiful and grating but she is always technically masterful. You've really got to know your instrument to fuck with it the way Lee does and as a result she's the first highlight of...
From the side-by-side civility of Caesura, through the manic attacks of Blood, to the final card game in “A pocket full of questions,” Edge One, a well-danced program of lively contemporary movement, explores various danceable modes of human interaction with energy, clarity, and grace.
Standing at the seaside in CRAB/Portside Park, looking across Burrard inlet toward the north shore mountains, who doesn’t want to bow and undulate in harmony? Mal de Mer, by Anatomica/ Proximity Arts, begins with the exquisitely satisfying tableau of two women (Susan Elliott and Tanya Marquart) swathed in sails, swaying in the thigh-high waves. What a pleasure to spend an hour in this gorgeous outdoors, as it is animated and given further shape by the engaging narratives (our sea-monkey origins? swimming with whales? drowning?), sound design (Emma Hendrix), sets (Jesse Garlick and Barnaby Killam) and movement structures of Mal de...
Ihtsi-pai-tapi-yopa—Essence of Life— by Coyote Arts Percussive Performance Association (CAPPA), brings story and movement from the Blackfoot-Blood-Kanai culture to the contemporary dance stage. Using lights and background video (Craig Alfredson), a soundscape ranging from bear growls to night-club beats (Sandy Scofield), and the strong, often animal-inspired movements of the three male dancers, the piece tells of bird men who become lost and full of conflict in an urban landscape, but are guided to a renewed sense of balance by a bear spirit. The story they tell of urban stress and the presence of an intervening, powerful, ultimately benevolent nature spirit—of...
What if the stodgy prime minister’s strategists built a whole campaign on their most random PR stunts? The idea doesn’t seem that far-fetched, since Harper started hobnobbing with Bryan Adams and Taylor Swift. It all started about nine months ago, when Harper played “A Little Help From My Friends” at the National Arts Centre. People loved it, and it seems his publicists caught on. So did the Shehori brothers.
Part of the 22nd annual Dancing on the Edge Festival, Status Quo is a dynamic and visceral hour-long journey through two solo pieces and one quartet. Choreographed and performed (in part) by Shay Kuebler and Amber Funk Barton, the mandate of Status Quo is to “create movement that is dynamically bold and emotionally captivating due to its velocity, speed, musicality and articulation.” Drawing from a variety of dance techniques (to this untrained eye, there were glimpses of pop and lock, breakdancing, modern, and even ballet), the pieces seemed to physically articulate the relationships and fragmentation of our own society.
Fairy Tale Ending Although this show from Role Your Own Theatre is part of the Fringe Kids programming, they have obviously not sacrificed quality or attention to detail just because their youthful target audience are perhaps not as discriminating as more experienced theatre-goers. In fact there is a real maturity to this piece about Jill, a girl whose favourite fairy tales’ endings have suddenly been turned on their heads; unlike many kids shows which end neatly and toothlessly or with a simplistic moral statement, Fairy Tale Ending rests on a far more complex and profound note than...
Jack Frost folk are left to right: Aaron Knight (Diktak Montag), Jackie Pijper (Trudy Montag), Michael Balazo (Jack Frost), Kathleen Phillips (Mayor)
Powerpoint-utilizing autobiographical storyteller extraordinaire Barry Smith is back with a show that is billed as being about his habit of keeping every record, photo, and scrap of personal information that passes through his life, but is more accurately about his colourful youth spent growing up in backwater Mississippi and southern California.
