Is it trite to say that "Hubbard Street Dance Chicago":http://hubbardstreetdance.com/home.asp was a joy to watch? Even if it is, I’ll risk the cliché by saying that the four choreographies presented by "Dance House":http://www.dancehouse.ca/ at the Vancouver Playhouse on April 24 and 25 were spectacularly energetic, beautifully graceful and cleverly choreographed. While I can’t say that the program was edgy or challenging in its theme or aesthetics, it was, quite simply, excellent dance. Each of the four pieces was quite different from the other, making for an enjoyably varied program that breathed fresh air into the Vancouver scene....

In the 1997 film "Sick":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=1713997, performance artist Bob Flanagan nailed his penis to a board, cracked jokes and urinated on the lens of the camera that was filming him. I saw this excerpt of the film and it made me cringe. But here’s the thing, Bob Flanagan was a sado-masochist who had cystic fibrosis and spent much of his life making art about how he used pain to live with the pain of his disease. Does this make for good art? I’m still not entirely sure, but at least it was purposeful....

This "Ruby Slippers":http://www.rubyslippers.ca/ production of Serge Boucher’s *Life Savers* (translated by Shelley Tepperman) is like a puzzle where the pieces don’t quite fit together. Although the production is super slick, the script itself has the rare distinction of hitting not one but two of my pet peeves. First peeve: shows that purport to be exposés of suburban life that are really just extended, mean-spirited sneers.