Things to Do in Vancouver This Weekend: March 15, 2018

It’s a rainbow of Canadian cultures this weekend! St. Patrick’s Day brings celtic punk and shamrock-themed festivites, while Inuit vocalist Tanya Tagaq and Greenlandic mask dancer Laakkuluk Williamson perform as a duo not to be missed. There’s a Haida art display, Texan soul music, a choral drag show, and a burlesque show that celebrates the Vancouver music scene.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

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Friday March 16

Tanya Tagaq and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (show 1 of 2)
Where: Chan Centre at UBC
What: Groundbreaking Inuit vocalist Tanya Tagaq joins forces with innovative Greenlandic mask dancer Laakkuluk Williamson in a contemporary and otherworldly performance exploring their traditional roots. Combining powerful throat singing with boldly expressive kinetic movement, they tackle themes of retribution and reconciliation. Don’t miss these larger-than-life Canadian performers in their provocative duet.

Haida Now
Where: Museum of Vancouver
What: This exhibition features an unparalleled collection of Haida art boasting more than 450 works created as early as 1890. Local Haida artists will share their insights and knowledge about the art pieces, providing visitors with the opportunity to experience a powerful way to engage with the worldview and sensibility of the Haida people while gaining greater appreciation for the role museums can play in the reconciliation movement.
Runs until: Saturday June 16, 2018

FUSE
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: In dialogue with the Vancouver Art Gallery’s spring exhibition, the evening will traverse the heights and depths of human experience through absurd, mundane and political gestures. Featuring all shades of performance—from prop comedy to experimental theatre to music and animation, and even an artist bar—the evening’s happenings will distort and synthesize the boundary between tradition and the future.

Two Films and a Talk with Trinh T. Minh-ha
Where: The Cinematheque
What: Renowned Vietnamese-born artist, writer, and scholar Trinh T. Minh-ha is welcomed for a program of her acclaimed film work. Subjective, self-reflexive, and intellectual, infused with feminism and anti-colonialism, and offering a dizzying array of sights and sounds, the award-winning “anti-anthropological” films of Trinh represent a startling reinvention of the documentary form.

Sequence
Where: Presentation House Theatre
What: Is our luck programmed in our genes? Is there an innate correctness to biological outcomes that’s rooted in our fundamental DNA? This is a fast-paced, science thriller that explores the intersection of math, nature, and spirituality.
Runs until: Saturday March 24, 2018

The Lost Girls Burlesque
Where: The Fox Cabaret
What: A monthly burlesque night with Veronica Vex, Calamity Kate, Bunny, Justine Sane, Rose Butch, and Donna Boss Rogers.

The Dreadnoughts 11 Year Punkstravaganza (show 1 of 2)
Where: The Rickshaw
What: Celtic punk rockers headline in two nights of local punk, folk, ska and metal.

Steel Panther (show 2 of 3)
Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: A larger-than-life 80s party rock hair-metal parody that is so perfectly executed you might think they’re almost serious. But wait, are they?

Paw Patrol Live – Race to the Rescue
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: A live version of the children’s show, Paw Patrol.
Runs until: Sunday March 18, 2018

Little Miss Glitz
Where: Performanceworks
What: Little Miss Glitz sets the questionable beauty standards and parenting practices of reality TV’s Toddlers and Tiaras to music in a high-energy musical with a twist: there is no scripted winner. Each night, a panel of judges from the audience will determine who wins, leaving the cast to improvise the end of the show. Comedy flows freely as adults play the reluctant, bratty, and spoiled child contestants forced into competition by their overbearing and viciously over-competitive mothers.
Runs until: Saturday March 31, 2018

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Saturday March 17

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Chelsea Hotel
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: Leonard Cohen’s powerful and inspirational music is the heartbeat for Chelsea Hotel. Through Cohen’s transcendent songs and the honesty of his lyrics, witness an eclectic cabaret of loves won and lost.
Runs until: Saturday April 21, 2018

Shamrocks & Shenanigans
Where: Vancouver Improv Centre
What: Patrons  have the choice of three Irish-themed improv shows. The air will be thick with Irish accents with roving Lucky Charm Leprechauns bringing pots of golden hilarity to all they encounter.

Newschoolers Tell A Friend Tour
Where: Grouse Mountain
What: Andy Perry, accompanied by a plethora of guest pros, will be visiting Grouse Mountain and other resorts all across North America inviting kids to to come out and ski with them. There will be pizza and prizes.

Vancouver Men’s Chorus: Singing Can Be a Drag
Where: Red Gate
What: An evening of live-singing, female-impersonating & musical entertainment performed by the VMC’s own inner-diva starlets, featuring covers of your favourite recognizable (some unrecognizable) divas. This musical treat promises you more evening-length glamour, more vocal-feats, higher kicks and more synthetic hair than seen at your cousin’s wedding.

Tanya Tagaq and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (show 2 of 2)
Where: Chan Centre at UBC
What: Groundbreaking Inuit vocalist Tanya Tagaq joins forces with innovative Greenlandic mask dancer Laakkuluk Williamson in a contemporary and otherworldly performance exploring their traditional roots. Combining powerful throat singing with boldly expressive kinetic movement, they tackle themes of retribution and reconciliation. Don’t miss these larger-than-life Canadian performers in their provocative duet.

Carmina Burana
Where: The Orpheum
What: Let’s get dramatic. Drinking, gambling, gluttony, lust, the fleeting nature of fortune and wealth, the joy of Springtime, love; Carmina Burana has it all. Carl Orff set to music twenty-four texts from the medieval manuscript of courtly poetry and dramatic writings collectively known as Carmina Burana. Juxtaposed against the liturgical beauty of biblical psalms in their original Hebrew set to music by Leonard Bernstein, this extraordinary concert explores the sacred and the profane.

Vancouver Canucks vs. San Jose Sharks
Where: Rogers Arena
What: It’s a hockey game.

Good Riddance
Where: Venue
What: California punk.

Phillip Phillips
Where: The Vogue
What: He won the 11th season of American Idol in 2012 and his song, Home, became the all time best selling song from the show.

VanMusic Burlesque
Where: The Rio Theatre
What: Ten top teasers tribute ten of Vancouver’s great musical talents. Each performer has chosen a song by a local musical act for their inspiration.

The Dreadnoughts 11 Year Punkstravaganza (show 2 of 2)
Where: The Rickshaw
What: Celtic punk rockers headline in two nights of local punk, folk, ska and metal.

Steel Panther (show 3 of 3)
Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: A larger-than-life 80s party rock hair-metal parody that is so perfectly executed you might think they’re almost serious. But wait, are they?

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Sunday March 18

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Culture at the Centre
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: Five Indigenous-run cultural centres in BC will be showcased representing six communities: Musqueam Cultural Education and Resource Centre (Musqueam), Squamish-Lil’wat Cultural Centre (Squamish, Lil’wat), Heiltsuk Cultural Education Centre (Heiltsuk), Nisga’a Museum (Nisga’a), and Haida Gwaii Museum (Haida). Covering a wide geographic expanse from Vancouver to the Nass River Valley, this marks the first time the participating communities will come together to share their diverse cultures in one space.
Runs until: Monday October 8, 2018

Hollywood Haute Couture 2: Filmdom’s Phantom Threads
Where: VanCity Theatre
What: Film scholar and classic movie host Michael van den Bos follows up his sold-out 2017 Vancity Theatre program, Hollywood Haute Couture, with this all-new look back at silver screen sartorial splendors. Michael will introduce très chic couture clips featuring the allure of cosmopolitan cover girls and a vanity fair of vintage fashion shows as seen in classic movies.

World Poetry Day Dances
Where: Vancouver Public Library, Central Branch
What: Poets and dancers come together to create intriguing dances that will pop up in unusual spaces throughout the library.

The Suffers
Where: The Imperial
What: A soul and R&B group from Houston, Texas.

Vhine und Szong
Where: The Cultch
What: Attention lounge lizards­­­—come satisfy your craving for tunes from the sensational Veda Hille, with special guest cellist Peggy Lee, while savouring your favourite glass of wine or beer.

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Ongoing

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The After-After Party
Where: The Cultch
What: May 18th, 2006. Jules and Fiona, best friends and teenage dirtbags, come to their senses in a park after a night for the ages. With little to no memory of how they got there, they discover the antidote to their fireball-induced amnesia: Ritalin. As they piece together the night in order to find out where the After After Party is, they come to terms with the deeds they have done.
Runs until: Saturday March 17, 2018

CelticFest Vancouver
Where: Various locations
What: Vancouver streets, concert halls, and pubs will resound with the sights, sounds, and vibrant spirit of Celtic culture at western Canada’s largest Celtic celebration. Expect the best of traditional and contemporary Celtic culture in all its diversity and vitality –everyone is invited to come along.
Runs until: Saturday March 17, 2018

Paw Patrol Live – Race to the Rescue
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: A live version of the children’s show, Paw Patrol.
Runs until: Sunday March 18, 2018

Vancouver International Dance Festival
Where: Various locations
What: Four Canadian premieres from New York’s acclaimed contemporary companies Shen Wei Dance Arts and White Wave Dance, Mexico’s Compañía de Danza Experimental de Lola Lince, and Hungary’s Ferenc Fehér; a West Coast premiere from Montreal’s Lucie Grégoire Danse; and a world premiere from Vancouver’s own Amber Funk Barton, among many others.
Runs until: Saturday March 24, 2018

Revisioned
Where: Kimoto Gallery
What: Inspired by his West Coast upbringing and love of the ocean, Vancouver artist, Yorke Graham creates art that is a reflection of his passion for nature and his lively, fun-loving imagination. Yorke enjoys the challenge of working with both cherished mementos and objects often forgotten or destined to be destroyed.
Runs until: Saturday March 24, 2018

Sequence
Where: Presentation House Theatre
What: Is our luck programmed in our genes? Is there an innate correctness to biological outcomes that’s rooted in our fundamental DNA? This is a fast-paced, science thriller that explores the intersection of math, nature, and spirituality.
Runs until: Saturday March 24, 2018

The Velveteen Rabbit
Where: The Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island
What: The enchanting story that made generations of children cry into their storybooks. Don’t worry, it ends up a happy ending (except personally, it might have made me a stuffed animal hoarder for a short time). Get ready for a rocking horse, a cavalcade of mechanical toys, a kind-hearted fairy and a toy rabbit who is transformed by one little boy’s love.
Runs until: Sunday March 25, 2018

The Lost Fleet Exhibit
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: On December 7, 1941 the world was shocked when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, launching the United States into the war. This action also resulted in the confiscation of nearly 1,200 Japanese-Canadian owned fishing boats by Canadian officials on the British Columbia coast, which were eventually sold off to canneries and other non-Japanese fishermen. The Lost Fleet looks at the world of the Japanese-Canadian fishermen in BC and how deep-seated racism played a major role in the seizure, and sale, of Japanese-Canadian property and the internment of an entire people.
Runs until: March 25, 2018

Into the Arctic
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: This exhibit encompasses over 50 Arctic oil paintings and 3 films from Trepanier’s 4 Arctic expeditions to the furthest reaches of the Canadian North. Its wilderness is so remote and untouched that many of its landscapes have never been documented before.
Runs until: Sunday March 25, 2018

Two Scores
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: A solo exhibition of ambitious new work by Vancouver-based artist Brent Wadden, his first in a public institution. Dominated by singular woven statements upon the floor and walls, in their dramatic scale and graphic simplicity, they mark a point of departure for the artist, but might also be said to reveal both an unseen structure and a complex set of tensions that quietly anchor Wadden’s ongoing practice as a whole.
Runs until: Sunday March 25, 2018

Fin and Feathers
Where: VanDusen Gardens
What: Paintings by Jo Scott-B. Jo’s book: Carved in Oak – Medieval Pew Carvings in English Churches began her study of medieval designs in UK and Europe, continued in this body of work.  Jo’s children played on the old Shaughnessy Golf Course before it became VanDusen Botanical Garden. For her, it is a perfect venue for her humorous images of fish and birds, set in foliage taken from her sketchbooks.
Runs until: Sunday March 25, 2018

Forget About Tomorrow
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: When Jane’s husband Tom is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, they face a difficult journey ahead. Will love and humour be enough to brace their family for the future? Can Jane reconcile her dreams with today’s reality? Or will she grow to doubt her loyalty to the man who will ultimately forget her name?
Runs until: Sunday March 25, 2018

Celebrating VanDusen Gardens New Bird Garden
Where: VanDusen Gardens
What: There’s a new destination for birds and birders in Vancouver and it’s a special habitat for resident and migratory birds. To celebrate the garden, up to two children get in free with each paid adult, senior or youth.
Runs until: Thursday March 29, 2018

Little Miss Glitz
Where: Performanceworks
What: Little Miss Glitz sets the questionable beauty standards and parenting practices of reality TV’s Toddlers and Tiaras to music in a high-energy musical with a twist: there is no scripted winner. Each night, a panel of judges from the audience will determine who wins, leaving the cast to improvise the end of the show. Comedy flows freely as adults play the reluctant, bratty, and spoiled child contestants forced into competition by their overbearing and viciously over-competitive mothers.
Runs until: Saturday March 31, 2018

Chief Dan George: Actor and Activist
Where: North Vancouver Museum
What: An exhibition exploring the life and legacy of Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George (1899- 1981) and his influence as an Indigenous rights advocate and his career as an actor. The exhibition was developed in close collaboration with the George family.
Runs until: April 2018

FlyOver America
Where: FlyOver Canada
What: Glide, dive, swoop and soar over some of America’s must-see destinations. This exhilarating 10-minute flight ride showcases 25 incredible locations in a way you’ve never seen them before.
Runs until: Monday April 2, 2018

空 / Emptiness: Emily Carr and Lui Shou Kwan
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The exhibition pairs Canadian modernist Emily Carr with the founder of the New Ink Movement in Hong Kong Lui Shou Kwan. Looking across culture, geography and time to explore expressions of the sublime in landscape painting, the exhibition draws connections by exploring how each artist experimented with abstraction and spirituality in their respective depictions of nature.
Runs until: Sunday April 8, 2018

The Fabric of Our Land: Salish Weaving
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: For generations Salish peoples have been harvesting the resources of their territories, transforming them into robes of rare beauty and power. Symbols of identity, they acted as legal documents and were visible signifiers of the presence of knowledge holders and respected people. Now mostly stored away in museums these masterworks are rarely seen. They have much knowledge to share and many stories to tell. Musqueam asked the Museum to bring these weavings to inspire weavers and share part of this rich legacy with all of us.
Runs until: Sunday April 15, 2018

Public Artwork by New Delhi-Based Artist Asim Waqif
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Inspired by environmental concerns and the pace of human consumption, Waqif will construct an immersive architectural experience from materials collected at re-purpose stores, transfer stations and landfills in the metro Vancouver area. Waqif’s architectural structure will also incorporate an interactive acoustic system using microphones, effects pedals and speakers. Visitors are encouraged to move through the installation maze allowing them to actively experience the architecture instead of passively observing it.
Runs until: Sunday April 15, 2017

Chelsea Hotel
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: Leonard Cohen’s powerful and inspirational music is the heartbeat for Chelsea Hotel. Through Cohen’s transcendent songs and the honesty of his lyrics, witness an eclectic cabaret of loves won and lost.
Runs until: Saturday April 21, 2018

Winter Farmers Market
Where: Nat Bailey Stadium
What: Each week you can look forward to finding locally grown vegetables and fruit, meat and seafood from local ranchers and fishermen, artisan cheese and bread, herbs and seasonal nursery items, baked goods, prepared foods and artisanal craft.
Runs until: April 21, 2018 (Saturdays)

N. Vancouver
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: The show in the newly-opened gallery will pay tribute to the evolution of North Vancouver and will feature commissioned works by more than 10 artists, including Andrew Dadson, Gabrielle Hill, Althea Thauberger, Stephen Waddell and Tracy Williams, paired with existing work by Stan Douglas, Greg Girard, Fred Herzog, Curt Lang, and Jeff Wall, among others.
Runs until: Sunday April 29, 2018

In a Different Light
Where: Museum of Anthropology
What: More than 110 historical Indigenous artworks and marks the return of many important works to British Columbia. These objects are amazing artistic achievements. Yet they also transcend the idea of ‘art’ or ‘artifact’. Through the voices of contemporary First Nations artists and community members, this exhibition reflects on the roles historical artworks have today. Featuring immersive storytelling and innovative design, it explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to Indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands.
Runs until: Spring 2019

Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Featuring fifty-five remarkable works, some newly created for the presentation in Vancouver, this retrospective offers a critical and serious meditation on the current state of Japanese society in the midst of a complex, global world, while highlighting Murakami’s important role as a committed and often conflicted commentator on cultural production.
Runs until: Sunday May 6, 2018

Living, Building, Thinking: Art and Expressionism
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The term Expressionism is invariably associated with the period of art and social activism in Germany between 1905 and 1937, encompassing visual art, literature, philosophy, theatre, film, photography and architecture. Explore the development of Expressionism in art from the early 19th century to the present day through the German Expressionist collection from the McMaster Museum of Art.
Runs until: Monday May 21, 2018

Haida Now
Where: Museum of Vancouver
What: This exhibition features an unparalleled collection of Haida art boasting more than 450 works created as early as 1890. Local Haida artists will share their insights and knowledge about the art pieces, providing visitors with the opportunity to experience a powerful way to engage with the worldview and sensibility of the Haida people while gaining greater appreciation for the role museums can play in the reconciliation movement.
Runs until: Saturday June 16, 2018

Bombhead
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What:  A thematic art exhibition organized by guest curator John O’Brian that explores the emergence and impact of the nuclear age as represented by artists and their art. Encompassing the pre- and postwar period from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011, BOMBHEAD brings together paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, photographs, film and video that deal with this often dark subject matter.
Runs until: Sunday June 17, 2018

Culture at the Centre
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: Five Indigenous-run cultural centres in BC will be showcased representing six communities: Musqueam Cultural Education and Resource Centre (Musqueam), Squamish-Lil’wat Cultural Centre (Squamish, Lil’wat), Heiltsuk Cultural Education Centre (Heiltsuk), Nisga’a Museum (Nisga’a), and Haida Gwaii Museum (Haida). Covering a wide geographic expanse from Vancouver to the Nass River Valley, this marks the first time the participating communities will come together to share their diverse cultures in one space.
Runs until: Monday October 8, 2018

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments below.

 

 

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