Entering the world of "Louise Bédard":http://www.lbdanse.org/ is a lot like wandering into a funhouse of the surreal. There is the sound of clocks ticking out of sync, dancers twitch and writhe as though overtaken by hallucinogenic drugs while being choreographed by a bossy robot.

I wish I could tell everyone to run out and see *Pichet Klunchun and myself*, part of this year’s "Vancouver International Dance Festivalh":http://www.vidf.ca/, but it ended last Saturday and that’s a damn shame. Anyone interested in contemporary performance, and why it’s worth doing and seeing, would have found illumination and inspiration from this piece.

There it is again. Vancouver. Spread across a huge screen that is the backdrop for *Two Night Stand*: an interdisciplinary performance, part of the current "Vancouver International Dance Festival":http://www.vidf.ca/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1, it features four musicians, one singer, two butoh dancers, and a beautiful time-lapse film by Clancy Dennehy.

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.