Things to Do This Weekend in Vancouver

This is a good weekend to take the family out; the Children’s Festival is going strong on Granville Island, and even Fred Penner is joining in! There’s also a fake ghost tour, a theatre festival and lots of music and dance to fill your time in between walks, bike rides and picnics in the lovely spring weather.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

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Friday May 31

Vancouver International Children’s Festival
Where: Granville Island
What: When the Vancouver International Children’s Festival arrives, Granville Island comes to life! With six fantastic indoor theatre venues and a bustling arts activity village, our Festival site becomes your family’s playground! From toddlers to tweens, we have shows and activities for everyone.
Runs until: Sunday June 2, 2019

Vancouver TheatreSports presents Colin Mochrie
Where: The Improv Centre
What: Colin Mochrie, Vancouver TheatreSports (VTS) alumnus and star of Whose Line Is It Anyway, returns to Vancouver TheatreSports for three benefit performances that will fill your laugh tank.
Runs Until: Saturday June 1, 2019

4inXchange
Where: Vancity Culture Lab
What: An interactive, site-specific game with four players and $1,000 cash—4inXchange is a pop art business meeting that guides you through a series of dialogues, chances, competitions, and meditations. Use the cash on the table to get to know your fellow participants, while xLq asks provocative questions about value, intimacy, love, and truth. Returns and exchanges guaranteed.
Runs until: Sunday June 2, 2019

Fake Ghost tours
Where: The Cultch
What: Amateur ghost hunters Abdul Aziz and Shawn O’Hara take you on a 100% accurate and legitimate walking tour of Vancouver’s most definitely haunted locations. Their knowledge will thrill you! Their stories will chill you! Their credentials will confuse you! From the site of the Jon Bon Jovi Massacre to Vancouver’s first ghost-operated business, no stone will be left un-toured.
Runs Until: Sunday June 2, 2019

VSO: Kerson Leong
Where: Orpheum Theatre
What: Winner of Junior First Prize at the prestigious 2010 Menuhin Competition, rising star Canadian violinist Kerson Leong makes his VSO debut.

Bridge Festival
Where: Ambleside Park
What: Community Day is transforming into Bridge Festival, a two-day multicultural event taking place on May 31 and June 1. We are inviting everyone to discover and share the tastes, sights and sounds of West Vancouver’s diverse culture. This new festival will include interactive cultural pavilions, performances, a parade, great food and much more!
Runs Until: Saturday June 1, 2019

Bob Saget
Where: River Rock Casino
What: Yes, Bob Saget has starred in many successful television shows, including two of the most family-friendly shows network TV has ever produced (Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos) but he’s also an out of his mind, Grammy-nominated standup comedian for over thirty years. From his HBO special That Ain’t Right to his scene-stealing cameos in Entourage, and The Aristocrats, it’s always effective as Saget embraces his dark side.

Larry
Where: The Greenhouse Studios
What: Meet Larry, from Moose Creek, BC. He’s “no idiom”, and he’ll be the first to tell you that he’s handier than a pocket on the back of a shirt! He wants to prove to you that he’s worthy of a good woman, that he can quit cussin’ and even take up meditation. Bold, daring and uproariously funny, Larry’s internal turmoil turns out to be more terrifying than he ever thought possible.
Runs Until: Sunday June 1, 2019

Louis-José Houde
Where: The York Theatre
What: With Préfère novembre Louis-José is taking a decisive stance: yes, he admits it, he describes himself as “slow”, out of sync with the times in which immediate gratification is what everybody wants. If this show sings the praises of all things slow, it also brings us a more engaged comedian who nevertheless delivers the same fascinating energy and vivacious intelligence

The Dance Centre presents 12 Minutes Max
Where: Scotiabank Dance Centre
What: 12 Minutes Max showcases six eclectic contemporary dance works by some of Vancouver’s most exciting and innovative up-and-coming choreographers: Alexa Mardon, Avery Smith, Eowynn Enquist & Isak Enquist, Sapiens Sapiens , Ted Littlemore, and Zahra Shahab.

Hillsong United
Where: Pacific Coliseum
What: Formed in 1998, Hillsong United is led by Brian and Bobbie’s son, Joel Houston. Hillsong United has created 17 albums. Their song Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) from their album Zion reached platinum status in the U.S. The group has toured for many years, packing out large venues like the Staples Centre in Los Angeles. In 2016, Hillsong United was named Top Christian Artist at the Billboard Music Awards.

Steven Page
Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: Hot on the heels of his induction in to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame alongside his ex-bandmates in Barenaked Ladies, singer-songwriter Steven Page has announced the forthcoming release of the most forceful musical statement of his solo music career: Discipline: Heal Thyself, Pt. II. Musically, the album tips its hat to many of Page’s influences including the aforementioned punk rock movement and David Byrne as well as a nod to the Bee Gees and the Zombies.

Vancouver Whitecaps FC vs. Toronto FC
Where: BC Place Stadium
What: Take part in the roaring atmosphere at this Major League Soccer game.

House of Vans Pop-Up
Where: Harbour Convention Centre
What: It’s a place where imagination lets loose over concrete bowls, art installations, workshops and concert stages, inspiring every person who runs, rolls, or stomps through its door.
Runs Until: Sunday June 2, 2019

Mr. Truth
Where: Vancity Culture Lab
What: In this series of tragicomic nightmare vignettes, a masked demon-like entity follows people who repress their “erotic truths” and forces them to confront their desires in spectacularly painful ways. Like watching a parody that blooms into a revolting orgasmic hallucination, it’s off the beaten sketch comedy path, with a satisfying dose of the primal, the lurid, and the bizarre.
Runs Until: June 1, 2019

 

 

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Saturday June 1

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Magnetic North Theatre Festival
Where: The Cultch
What: Canada’s Magnetic North Theatre Festival is Canada’s only national theatre festival. We showcase the very best of contemporary Canadian theatre – theatre that moves us, shares our stories, and explores how we see the world as Canadians today.
Runs until: Sunday June 9, 2019

Vancouver International Children’s Festival: Variety Show with Fred Penner
Where: Granville Island
What: Watch Festival performers cut loose at our annual Variety Show! This year’s tour de force, hosted by none other than Fred Penner, features the zany circus antics of Jamie Adkins, the uplifting songs and joyous energy of Élage Diouf, a high energy dance extravaganza from Immigrant Lessons, and the captivating storytelling from one of Scotland’s finest storytellers, Andy Cannon. For a special treat you’ll also have the opportunity to sing along with one of Canada’s best-loved children’s singers, as host Fred Penner will be performing! This fun-filled evening is always a highlight for kids and adults alike.

Bike to Shop Days
Where: Metro Vancouver
What: Bike to Shop is a free, public event that encourages people to support local businesses by bike. It’s so much more fun, affordable and faster by bike. Ride on June 1st and 2nd you’ll get free snacks, bike tune-ups and prizes if you stop by our celebration stations! Throughout the weekend, you can also join guided rides across Metro Van that will show you the best routes and provide tips on going by bike.
Runs until: Sunday June 2, 2019

In Plain Sight
Where: Historic Theatre
What: Let’s unravel old stories, unwind old preconceptions, and uncover the possibility lying in wait. In Plain Sight was created over the last eleven weeks by a group of everyday people, 9-5ers, students, friends, strangers, movers and shakers.  People from all walks of life with one common desire, to see what happens when you peel back a layer of yourself and dive into the world of creativity, AcroYoga and performance.  Like a glimpse of a vision, In Plain Sight will be performed twice on June 1st and then it will dissolve back into the hidden world just below the surface, never to exist again.

Tim Baker
Where: The Imperial
What: At the end of 2017, twelve years after their inception, the multi-award-winning band, Hey Rosetta! went on hiatus, after selling 10,000 tickets to five farewell shows. For the band’s principal songwriter and lead vocalist Tim Baker, this was the start of a new chapter.

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Sunday June 2

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RBC Race for the Kids
Where: Queen Elizabeth Park
What: Runners and walkers of all ages and abilities will participate in a scenic 5K route or a 2K fun run, followed by a carnival celebration with healthy snacks and activities for the whole family. Everyone can join the fun – whether on your own or on a team with your family, colleagues or classmates.

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Ongoing

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Burqa Boutique (part of the Killjoy Series)
Where: The Greenhouse Studios
What: This ensemble drama follows five multigenerational women who seek refuge in a burqa boutique when caught in the middle of a battle between the Brother’s Republic Party and the Sons of Jihad. Throughout the night, their conflicting perspectives on faith, politics and a woman’s role in society come to a head.
Runs until:Saturday June 1, 2019

Bridge Festival
Where: Ambleside Park
What: Community Day is transforming into Bridge Festival, a two-day multicultural event taking place on May 31 and June 1. We are inviting everyone to discover and share the tastes, sights and sounds of West Vancouver’s diverse culture. This new festival will include interactive cultural pavilions, performances, a parade, great food and much more!
Runs Until: Saturday June 1, 2019

Hello
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: In the 1960s, celebrated American playwright Arthur Miller had a son, Daniel, who was diagnosed with Down syndrome. But you won’t find any mention of Daniel in Miller’s memoir, speeches or even in the obituary of his mother, famous photojournalist, Inge Morath (Mutti). The family never publicly acknowledged Daniel’s existence. this play follows the story of Daniel, who grew up in an isolated institution, never attended his sister’s birthday parties, never learned to read and was never a part of his birth families international portrait.
Runs until: Saturday June 1, 2019

Fireflies (Part of the Killjoy Series)
Where: The Greenhouse Studios
What: A multimedia exploration of body autonomy and non-binary identity in a dystopian Japan. Amika, a mixed-race non binary youth, escapes a government run fertility centre to avoid execution for being “mixed-blood”, then must save their imprisoned mother while hiding from the government. When non-conformity is fatal, how do you nurture what makes you different?
Runs until:Saturday June 1, 2019

Larry
Where: The Greenhouse Studios
What: Meet Larry, from Moose Creek, BC. He’s “no idiom”, and he’ll be the first to tell you that he’s handier than a pocket on the back of a shirt! He wants to prove to you that he’s worthy of a good woman, that he can quit cussin’ and even take up meditation. Bold, daring and uproariously funny, Larry’s internal turmoil turns out to be more terrifying than he ever thought possible.
Runs Until: Sunday June 1, 2019

404
Where: Havana Theatre
What: What would you go to war for? On the outskirts of Damascus, three men drive a tank into battle against the regime. They’ve just met each other, and they’re here for contradictory reasons. Dakham is an Islamist. Maharajah is a leftist. And Abu-Moddar is the son of an army officer. As their surroundings become increasingly deadly, the trio must resolve their differences if they hope to prevail—or simply survive—in the oncoming battle.
Runs until:Saturday June 1, 2019

Mr. Truth
Where: Vancity Culture Lab
What: In this series of tragicomic nightmare vignettes, a masked demon-like entity follows people who repress their “erotic truths” and forces them to confront their desires in spectacularly painful ways. Like watching a parody that blooms into a revolting orgasmic hallucination, it’s off the beaten sketch comedy path, with a satisfying dose of the primal, the lurid, and the bizarre.
Runs Until: June 1, 2019

Vancouver TheatreSports presents Colin Mochrie
Where: The Improv Centre
What: Colin Mochrie, Vancouver TheatreSports (VTS) alumnus and star of Whose Line Is It Anyway, returns to Vancouver TheatreSports for three benefit performances that will fill your laugh tank.
Runs Until: Saturday June 1, 2019

Bike to Shop Days
Where: Metro Vancouver
What: Bike to Shop is a free, public event that encourages people to support local businesses by bike. It’s so much more fun, affordable and faster by bike. Ride on June 1st and 2nd you’ll get free snacks, bike tune-ups and prizes if you stop by our celebration stations! Throughout the weekend, you can also join guided rides across Metro Van that will show you the best routes and provide tips on going by bike.
Runs until: Sunday June 2, 2019

Counternarratives: Paintings by Archibald Fairbairn Where: Bill Reid Gallery What: The watercolour paintings of Archibald Fairbairn (1888 – 1979) document the beauty of totem poles and communities during the early 20th century. This exhibition juxtaposes an idealistic painter’s postcolonial gaze with critical discourse from contemporary Indigenous voices.
Runs until: Sunday June 2, 2019

Fake Ghost tours
Where: The Cultch
What: Amateur ghost hunters Abdul Aziz and Shawn O’Hara take you on a 100% accurate and legitimate walking tour of Vancouver’s most definitely haunted locations. Their knowledge will thrill you! Their stories will chill you! Their credentials will confuse you! From the site of the Jon Bon Jovi Massacre to Vancouver’s first ghost-operated business, no stone will be left un-toured.
Runs Until: Sunday June 2, 2019

rEvolver Festival
Where: Various Locations
What: A full range of contemporary theatrical practice, from script-based theatre to devised and site-specific works, staged readings of work-in-progress, and in-depth discussions with artists.
Runs until:Sunday June 2, 2019

Contemporary Dance Solo
Where: Culture Lab
What: Azevedo replicates dance solos by tween and teen dancers drawn from YouTube dance competitions, while the audience watches the original videos projected alongside his dancing body. The catch? These dances were created as short powerhouse showcases for young flexible girls. And Azevedo is performing 18 of them in a row. In performing these solos in succession, Azevedo pays homage to the skill and ability of these young dancers, while reframing their dances to satisfy his own parameters of contemporary dance.
Runs until:Sunday June 2, 2019

My Dear Lewis
Where: Culture Lab
What: Lewis is at the end of his journey, met with the task of looking back over a life lived. What unfolds is a pilgrimage made by his mind and body into the dark and dusty corners of memory. Puppetry, objects, video, and music unexpectedly combine in this one-man show.
Runs until:Sunday June 2, 2019

Vancouver International Children’s Festival
Where: Granville Island
What: When the Vancouver International Children’s Festival arrives, Granville Island comes to life! With six fantastic indoor theatre venues and a bustling arts activity village, our Festival site becomes your family’s playground! From toddlers to tweens, we have shows and activities for everyone.
Runs until: Sunday June 2, 2019

4inXchange
Where: Vancity Culture Lab
What: An interactive, site-specific game with four players and $1,000 cash—4inXchange is a pop art business meeting that guides you through a series of dialogues, chances, competitions, and meditations. Use the cash on the table to get to know your fellow participants, while xLq asks provocative questions about value, intimacy, love, and truth. Returns and exchanges guaranteed.
Runs until: Sunday June 2, 2019

Magnetic North Theatre Festival
Where: The Cultch
What: Canada’s Magnetic North Theatre Festival is Canada’s only national theatre festival. We showcase the very best of contemporary Canadian theatre – theatre that moves us, shares our stories, and explores how we see the world as Canadians today.
Runs until: Sunday June 9, 2019

Displacement
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This exhibition comprises internationally acclaimed Victoria-based artist Mowry Baden’s work from the late 1960s to the present. Baden is known for producing intricate, sometimes humorous sculptural works and installations that borrow from the fields of perceptual psychology, science and architecture, and often solicit the audience’s participation. Runs until: Sunday June 9, 2019

Throne and Games – The Last Laugh Where: The Improv Centre What: Loosely based on HBO’s popular TV series, this improv laugh-letting features myriad unexpected plot twists – all suggested by the audience. No two performances can ever be the same because of this key element. Like its TV inspiration, the audience has no idea what to expect next, and, neither do the cast. VTS improvisers are master actors – creating the plot line, developing characters and dialogue all on the spot based on audience involvement and suggestions. Warning–there may be spoilers!
Runs until: Saturday June 15, 2019

Deanna Bowen: A Harlem Nocturne
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Deanna Bowen’s artistic practice concerns itself with overlooked histories of Black experience, often connected to her own family in Canada and the US. Mining archives and forgotten documents, she makes use of a repertoire of artistic gestures to bring traces of a complex, deeply personal and often violent past into public visibility. Bowen’s solo exhibition A Harlem Nocturne comprises two separate trajectories of new research that follow the artist’s maternal lineage in Canada.
Runs until: Sunday June 16, 2019

The Late Show – Adult Only Improv Comedy Where: The Improv Centre What: Are you a grown-up? If you are, join us! This show takes the furry hand-cuffs off our improvisers to present edgy, uncensored improv comedy. With the aid of audience suggestions, our quick-witted improvisers create scenarios that explore mature themes, content and language. You never know how far this show will go and the audience are willing accomplices. Runs until: June 29, 2019 (Saturdays)

Wild Things: The Power of Nature in Our Lives Where: Museum of Vancouver What: This exhibition delves into the life stories of local animals and plants—how they relate to each other and how they connect people to nature in the city. Scenic design, videos, taxidermy, crowd-sourcing technologies, and the display of natural specimens breathe life into these tales of co-habitation. The immersive nature of the exhibition, including hands-on activities, encourages visitors to examine their relationship with nature, think about momentarily disconnecting from their devices, and find equilibrium with the natural world around them.
Runs until: July 2019

Matilda The Musical
Where: Stanley Alliance Industrial Stage
What: Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty to find your happy ending! Armed with an outsize wit and a vivid imagination, precocious Matilda takes a stand to change her destiny. Even cruel parents and a hardened headmistress can’t get in her way. From the wonderfully subversive imagination of Roald Dahl, this fun family musical will bring out the child in everyone.
Runs until: Sunday July 14, 2019

Butterflies at the Vancouver Aquarium
Where: The Vancouver Aquarium
What: Step out of British Columbia’s temperate rainforest and into the Amazon’s tropical rainforest when you enter the Graham Amazon Gallery. Discover a wide variety of butterflies, including blue morphos, giant owls and heliconians, as you stroll along the boardwalk. Keen eyes will spy them feeding on nectar, fruit and flowers, camouflaging on tree trunks, courting a mate and hitchhiking on lucky visitors.
Runs until: September 2019

Moving Still: Performative Photography from India
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery & Annex Theatre
What: A major exhibition of works by thirteen artists based in India whose photographic practices focus on constructing and reconstructing realities. The exhibition and will showcase more than one hundred works, dating from the 1800s to the present, and examines themes of gender, religion and sexual identity using photography, an important medium in India since the mid-nineteenth century.
Runs until: Sunday September 2, 2019

Making Waves: The Story and Legacy of Greenpeace Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum What: With humble beginnings in Vancouver, Greenpeace has grown into a large organization with offices in 40 countries. The NGO has protested numerous causes: whaling, deforestation, mining, genetic testing, and nuclear testing. Explore this exhibit that goes from their first voyage from Vancouver to Amchitka to protest Nuclear testing on an old fishing vessel to how cities, government, and industry today are developing new policies, technologies, and sustainable practices to ensure the preservation of our environment.
Runs until: Monday September 9, 2019

Rolande Souliere: Frequent Stopping IV and V
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: The multi-media practice of Australia-based Anishinaabe artist Rolande Souliere entangles the visual language of hard-edged geometric abstraction with that of contemporary traffic signage to consider how colonial infrastructures mark both spaces and the people inhabiting them. Her solo exhibition Frequent Stopping IV and V presents new large-scale, site-specific work at the Contemporary Art Gallery’s two public sites: its street level façade and the nearby Yaletown-Roundhouse Station. This exhibition draws from Souliere’s ongoing body of work that creates interventions using caution tape and street barrier patterns in immersive, muscular installations.
Runs until: Friday September 20, 2019

Shipyards Night Market
Where: The Shipyards, North Vancouver
What: Fresh food, locally made products, musicians, art and entertainment. The festivities in the Square kick off at 5pm on Friday nights where you will find 100+ vendors selling fresh food and locally made products. The Friday Night Market also includes a beer garden serving local craft beer and cider as well as Betty’s Vodka Iced Tea. You must me 19+ to enter the beer garden. On the Shipbuilders’ Stage there is live music until 10pm, showcasing talent from all over BC. Runs until: Friday September 27, 2019

Womxn and Waterways Where: Bill Reid Gallery What: Explore the unique connection between womxn and water in the matriarchal societies of the Northwest Coast, with special attention to the roles of child-bearers, healers, and doulas. Artists Richelle Bear Hat (Blackfoot/Cree), Krystle Coughlin (Selkirk), Lindsay Katsitsakataste Delaronde (Mohawk), Alison Marks (Tlingit), Dionne Paul (Nuxalk/Sechelt), Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena), Marika Echachis Swan (Nuu-chah-nulth), Carrielynn Victor (Sto:lo), Veronica Rose Waechter (Gitxsan) and Water Keeper, Audrey Siegl (Musqueam) will explore water as a crucial element of creation, its historical uses for survival, and contemporary over-consumption as a threat to sensitive coastal ecosystems.
Runs until: Wednesday October 2, 2019

Shake Up: Preserving What We Value
Where: Museum of Anthropology
What: The exhibition will bring to light the convergence of earthquake science and technology with the rich Indigenous knowledge and oral history of the living cultures represented in MOA’s Northwest Coast collection. Beyond scientific discoveries, knowledge of earthquakes and natural disasters has been passed down through generations throughout many cultures, including those of the Northwest Coast First Nations. Also as part of the exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to see the majestic poles of the Great Hall undergo conservation, many for the first time in 40 years.
Runs until: Fall 2019

Richmond Night Market
Where: Richmond, BC
What: Stop by for authentically Asian snacks, street food and retailers selling unique accessories and knick-knacks at street-side prices. Some merchants are willing to bargain, so channel your inner negotiator and you’ll leave with a haul. There’s a diverse array of nightly live entertainment ranging from music and dance performances to carnival games and rides.
Runs until: Friday October 4, 2019

Shadows, Strings and Other Things: The Enchanting Theatre of Puppets
Where: Museum of Anthropology
What: This enchanting exhibition illustrates the role puppets have played around the world in the transmission of cultural knowledge, stories, and values from generation to generation. Shadows, Strings and Other Things features a broad array of puppets, old and new, from 15 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Visitors will have the opportunity to view more than 250 handcrafted puppets from MOA’s collection — the largest in Western Canada — plus, new acquisitions from China, Brazil, Italy, Java, the UK, and France revealed to the public for the first time. Enter into an immersive and theatrical world for visitors of all ages.
Runs until: Monday October 14, 2019

How Far Do You Travel
Where: Select B-Line TransLink busses
What: Five Canadian artists — Diyan Achjadi, Patrick Cruz, Rolande Souliere, Erdem Tasdelen and Anna Torma — are being commissioned to graphically wrap the exterior of a series of articulated buses traveling on major routes in Metro Vancouver.
Runs until: Tuesday December 31, 2019

Teatro Intimo Del Flamenco
Where: The Improv Centre, Granville Island
What: Karen Flamenco brings the glamour and extravagance of a large flamenco dance production onto a small theatrical stage. The one-hour production welcomes audiences of all ages with live traditional flamenco music, dance, storylines, puppetry and magic. With theatre style seating and bistro-style table seats, every audience member will get a close-up and personal experience that is very typical of a traditional Spanish Tablao.
Runs until: Saturday May 1, 2020

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