Things near + far premiered last night at the Firehall Arts Centre. Created by a trio of mid-career dance artists (Anne Cooper, Ziyian Kwan and Ron Stewart), the show features two pieces. Each is called Dwelling and both are approximately 30 minutes in length. The first comes from a young choreographer (Josh Martin of 605 Collective) and the second from senior choreographer (Tedd Robinson of 10 Gates Dancing). It means we experience an evening of dance that crosses generations and geography.
The first piece of the evening is from Josh Martin. It's on an open stage with a bright whitedance floor. The stage...
Ziyian Kwan, Anne Cooper & Ron Stewart (photo by Chris Randle)
Ballet BC’s performances are always a pleasure, but No. 29 playing Nov 6-8 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre literally left me speechless. Each of the three pieces within the production was completely different, but there was a theme, a through-line of tension that built throughout the evening and culminated in resounding applause.
1. Slack jawed in wonder
The opening piece, A.U.R.A (Anarchist Unit Related to Art), created Jacopo Godani, was first performed by Ballet BC in 2012. Clad in cleverly designed body suits that (from where I was sitting) convincingly disguised their gender, the dancers writhed and mutated on stage with a...
A.U.R.A., Choreography: Jacopo Godani, Dancers: Darren Devaney & Andrew Bartee, Photo credit: Michael Slobodian
The Four Horsemen Project is a “multi-disciplinary extravaganza” based on the work of four experimental poets from Toronto in the 80s who called themselves the Four Horsemen. The production is certainly psychedelic. And dated. Experimental poetry is fun, but it is no longer new enough to warrant a 90 minute production without something else to hold our interest. The Four Horsemen Project is essentially a staged concept exercise. It’s slick and clever, but it left me craving a deeper meaning.
Almost an interactive documentary on the Four Horsemen themselves, almost a story about the relationships of the characters of the...
Don’t miss Stickboy, a contemporary opera written by Neil Weisensel and Shane Koyczan playing at the Vancouver Playhouse Oct 23 – Nov 7.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the posters around town with phrases like “Nobody likes you.” scribbled in white on a vast black background. It's an evocative campaign. This opera got under my skin. As it was supposed to. I hope it gets under yours. My response was anything but objective:
As the lights dimmed my inner defiant child hunkered low...
You don’t have to be a fan of the Evil Dead films to enjoy this musical spoof playing at the Norman Rothstein Theatre, but you are going to feel a little left out if you’re not. The best thing about the evening was being surrounded by enthusiasts, on stage and off, everyone there was committed to having a silly, gory, geeky, good time. The atmosphere extended all the way out of the splash zone and spilled into the lobby.
This is not high brow humour, but it is well-executed. The set was more high-tech than I had been expecting,...
4000 Miles by Amy Herzog, directed by Roy Surette, is a play about distance. But perhaps not, perhaps it's about journey. Or perhaps it's about how we're all closer than we thought.
It was weird seeing such an intricate box set after coming straight off the Vancouver Fringe, but I appreciated all the subtle lighting effects and the atmosphere it created. As a personal preference I don't really like naturalistic sets, but I can see the appeal and if anyone is going to do it, the Arts Club is the right place for that sort of thing. It makes theatre feel a lot...
Nicola Cavendish and Nathan Barrett, photo by David Cooper
The promo says it’s a sci-fi version of the fairytale Puss ‘n’ Boots. In both stories, a son inherits a cat from his father. Disappointed at first, it turns out, in both cases to be a smart cat and a good deal after all. As a love story, Puss: Reboot is summarized as: Boy meets cyborg. Boy loses memory. Cyborg wakes up and leaves.
Father, patriarch of cyborg manufacturing company, has disappeared after struggle with Puss, one of the original cyborg prototypes. Jed, the evil brother, wants to keep all cyborgs including Puss as, well, cyborgs – tools to be used...
23 people from interdisciplinary arts studies have collaborated to create this interesting site-specific performance. Capilano University, Douglas College, St Claire (Ont) and Studio 58 (including alumni from California) infiltrate the Backstage Lounge at the Arts Club and give us an opportunity to think about interpersonal connections made, lost and too often intermediated by technology and others.
Our MC Rachel has all the moxy and sassiness required to yank in the audience, some of whom had no idea they would become ‘the audience’. We move through some amazing tricks of time travel (signified by Big Ben bells and slow...
Devon Moore is a talented actor/singer/songwriter who had returned to Canada after years of traveling the world as an Ex-Pat. She returned home to settle down and get on with her life. She enrolled in college and hated it in every way. She then obtained a job using the only skill that she has, bartending. Moore points out that a bartender is just a high functioning alcoholic and apparently she was good at it. She struggles to find a direction in her life but instead finds a gorgeous young man to hang out with, even though he was...
Mindy Dillard is a very talented singer with a Broadway-calibre voice. She is also an eating disorder survivor. This is the story of her eating disorder and how it impacted her and those around her.
Mindy starts the show by picking up the book “You are a beautiful Princess – Instruction #1 Making yourself Perfect”. This is the start of the instructions on the how’s and why’s of having an eating disorder in order to satisfy the world and the voices in her head. This is a very personal story that Dillard said that she had to share with...
