It’s Mother’s Day weekend, and there’s a lot to do with your favourite mom! Ballet, a Whitecaps game, ABBA songs, comedy, circus, burlesque, art, documentaries – take your pick.
Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing
Friday May 11
Ballet BC: Program 3 | Image by Chris Randle
Ballet BC: Program 3
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: A triple bill of cutting edge and inspired choreography. Ballet BC is a creation-based company of 20 talented dancers from Canada and around the world that is committed to exploration and collaboration in contemporary dance.
Runs until: Saturday May 12, 2018
Mamma Mia!
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: Based on the Songs of ABBA, an island paradise in Greece sets the stage for the ultimate feel-good show. A daughter’s quest to find her biological father before her wedding brings together three men from her mother’s past. Who will walk her down the aisle?
Runs until: Sunday July 22, 2018
Hollywood Babble-On with Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman
Hollywood Babble-On with Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman
Where: The Commodore
What: Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman take a twisted look at showbiz news and bite the Hollywood hand that feeds them.
Vancouver Design Week
Vancouver Design Week
Where: Various locations
What: This week-long event includes design studio tours, design tastings, talks, workshops and landmark tours.
Runs until: Sunday May 13, 2018
Illusive – A Circus of Possibilities
Where: Garden Auditorium at the PNE
What: Trailblazing youth circus performers will bring optical illusions to life with amazing acts of acrobatics, aerials and circus virtuosity.
Runs until: Sunday May 13, 2018
Eagles
Where: Rogers Arena
What: Get ready to have Hotel California stuck in your head again for weeks, these most classic of the 70s easy-rockers are in town.
Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Houston Dynamo
Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Houston Dynamo
Where: BC Place Stadium
What: Get ready to wave your scarves and cheer – it’s a soccer game.
Beethoven and Bruckner (show 1 of 2)
Where: The Chan Centre
What: Maestro Bramwell Tovey conducts the VSO debut of Bruckner’s final symphonic epic, left unfinished at the time of his death. Winner of the Queen Elizabeth and Yehudi Menuhin competitions, Ray Chen performs Beethoven’s soaring, beautiful Violin Concerto.
Saturday May 12
P!nk
Where: Rogers Arena
What: Outspoken and known for her powerful live shows, P!nk is on tour in support of her seventh studio album, Beautiful Trauma.
Science Odyssey: The Baffling Case of Beaver Lake
Science Odyssey: The Baffling Case of Beaver Lake
Where: Stanley Park
What: Curious investigators must learn about the swimming invertebrates of our freshwater habitats to crack the case. Only you can unwrangle the puzzle at the Stanley Park Nature House laboratory, where we examine the evidence with magnifiers and microscopes.
Runs until: Sunday May 13, 2018
Bears
Bears
Where: The Cultch
What: The prime suspect in a workplace accident, Floyd has to get out of town fast. Pursued by the RCMP, he heads through the Rockies for Burnaby, B.C, along the route of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline. By the time he reaches the Pacific, Floyd has experienced changes – his gait widening, his muscles bulging, his sense of smell heightening…
Beethoven and Bruckner (show 2 of 2)
Where: The Chan Centre
What: Maestro Bramwell Tovey conducts the VSO debut of Bruckner’s final symphonic epic, left unfinished at the time of his death. Winner of the Queen Elizabeth and Yehudi Menuhin competitions, Ray Chen performs Beethoven’s soaring, beautiful Violin Concerto.
Prof
Prof
Where: The Biltmore
What: A rapper, singer, and songwriter from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Burlesque Long Form
Where: The Rio
What: In an artistic challenge set by producer and noted performer April O’Peel, local luminaries will have one chance to perform a full ten minute act.
Sunday May 13
Mom = Wow
Mom = Wow
Where: The Improv Centre
What: This comedy improv show explores the many facets of motherhood through different short scenes. Mom will laugh with an endless possibility of vignettes that could come up.
Mother’s Day Brunch at Grouse Mountain
Where: The Observatory
What: The brunch menu has been hand-crafted by our team of chefs and includes kid-friendly buffet items.
An Evening with David Sedaris
An Evening with David Sedaris
Where: The Vogue
What: Tweaking the familiar until it warps, David Sedaris mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France. Including his recent releases, the New York Times’ bestselling books When You Are Engulfed in Flames and Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, Sedaris’ wickedly witty observations of the ordinary-bizarre are always sure to deliver insights and laughs.
Ongoing
Ballet BC: Program 3
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: A triple bill of cutting edge and inspired choreography. Ballet BC is a creation-based company of 20 talented dancers from Canada and around the world that is committed to exploration and collaboration in contemporary dance.
Runs until: Saturday May 12, 2018
Art Smash
Where: Granville Island
What: 10 artists create new murals that will transform our newest public space, the Chain and Forge, into a vibrant outdoor art gallery. Located in the center of Granville Island, these large-scale art works will be free and accessible for everyone to view and enjoy. At the heart of the installation, painted on the pillars of the Granville Street Bridge, will be a monumental work of art designed by Musqueam artist Debra Sparrow.
Runs until: Saturday May 12, 2018
DOXA Documentary Film Festival
Where: Various locations
What: Eleven days of international documentaries give you the opportunity to see through someone else’s eyes, into other worlds, and you might even learn something along the way. Genres such as activism, sexuality, race, sports, war, science, art, docudrama and animation weave through shows you may not get to see on the big screen anywhere else.
Runs until: Sunday May 13, 2018
Vancouver Design Week
Vancouver Design Week
Where: Various locations
What: This week-long event includes design studio tours, design tastings, talks, workshops and landmark tours.
Runs until: Sunday May 13, 2018
Illusive – A Circus of Possibilities
Where: Garden Auditorium at the PNE
What: Trailblazing youth circus performers will bring optical illusions to life with amazing acts of acrobatics, aerials and circus virtuosity.
Runs until: Sunday May 13, 2018
Science Odyssey: The Baffling Case of Beaver Lake
Science Odyssey: The Baffling Case of Beaver Lake
Where: Stanley Park
What: Curious investigators must learn about the swimming invertebrates of our freshwater habitats to crack the case. Only you can unwrangle the puzzle at the Stanley Park Nature House laboratory, where we examine the evidence with magnifiers and microscopes.
Runs until: Sunday May 13, 2018
Living Building Thinking: Art and Expressionism | Portrait of Anna Grünebaum by Otto Dix (image cropped)
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
Murder on the Improv Express
Murder on the Improv Express
Where: The Improv Centre
What:The comedic whodunnit is set in the 1930s and involves many of the set characters and scenarios you’d expect to find. However, what isn’t known is who is the victim, who is the killer and how the dastardly deed was done. These are just some of the things that will be established by audience suggestions during the course of the show. What is known is that audience members will die laughing at all the improbable plot twists and turns.
Runs until: Saturday May 26, 2018
Haida Now
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 | Untitled by Carel Moiseiwitsch (image rotated for the screen)
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
The Blue Hour
The Blue Hour
Where: Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery
What:Making reference to the brief period of twilight at dawn and dusk when temporal linearity appears to momentarily hover in a state of suspension, this photography exhibition presents works by five Canadian and international artists – Joi T. Arcand, Kapwani Kiwanga, Colin Miner, Grace Ndiritu, and Kara Uzelman – that collectively act as a proposition to consider the futurity of the photographic image.
Runs until: Sunday June 24, 2018
Mamma Mia!
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: Based on the Songs of ABBA, an island paradise in Greece sets the stage for the ultimate feel-good show. A daughter’s quest to find her biological father before her wedding brings together three men from her mother’s past. Who will walk her down the aisle?
Runs until: Sunday July 22, 2018
Emily Carr in Dialogue with Mattie Gunterman
Emily Carr in Dialogue with Mattie Gunterman
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The work of two women artists practicing in British Columbia in the early twentieth century. This exhibition draws on the Vancouver Art Gallery’s deep holdings of Carr’s work to reflect her direct engagement with and great affection for British Columbia’s landscape. Like Carr, much of Gunterman’s oeuvre reflected her engagement with the wilderness around her which she documented with images of friends, campsites, trappers, prospectors, miners and the day to day of pioneer life.
Runs until: Monday September 3, 2018
Culture at the Centre
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
Trout Lake Farmers Market
Where: Trout Lake
What: This is where you’ll find the vendors who have been doing it since the beginning; what started as 14 farmers ‘squatting’ at the Croatian Cultural Centre back in 1995 has grown into Vancouver’s most well-known and beloved market. Visitors come from near and far to sample artisan breads & preserves, stock up on free-range and organic eggs & meats, get the freshest, hard-to-find heirloom vegetables and taste the first Okanagan cherries and peaches of the season.
Runs until: Saturday October 20, 2018 (Saturdays)
Kitsilano Farmers Market
Where: Kitsilano Community Centre
What: At Kitsilano Farmers Market, shoppers will find a great selection of just-picked, seasonal fruits & vegetables, ethically raised and grass fed meat, eggs, & dairy, sustainable seafood, fresh baked bread & artisanal food, local beer, wine, & spirits, and handmade craft.
Runs until: Sunday October 21, 2018 (Sundays)
Riley Park Farmers’ Market
Where: Riley Park
What: 30+ vendors each week – a fresh selection of just-picked seasonal fruits & veggies, ethically-raised meats & sustainable seafood, artisanal bread & prepared foods, craft beer, wine, & spirits, handmade craft, and coffee & food trucks.
Runs until: Saturday October 27, 2018 (Saturdays)
In a Different Light
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
What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments below.
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