There’s just a week and a half left to get into all the Halloween happenings this month! New to the haunts this week: VanDusen’s Glow in the Garden, Halloween at the Aquarium, Grave Tales at Fort Langley, Britannia Mine’s Spoo-ook-tacular and a haunted live adventure game with bows and arrows. Of the non-haunts, there’s also opera, harvest festivals and photography exhibitions.
Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing
Friday October 18
Where: VanDusen Botanical Garden
What: Embrace the Halloween spirit at VanDusen Glow in the Garden, an enchanted stroll through the lit-up display gardens. Glow in the Garden takes place every evening from Oct. 17 to 27 with three one-hour time slots (5pm, 6:30pm and 8pm). This year, a new light show with a wildlife and nature theme has been added to the unique displays and magical moments suitable for visitors of all ages
Runs Until: Sunday October 27
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: Canadian conductor Yves Abel, whose international career spans more than twenty years—including appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House and the Vienna State Opera—makes his Vancouver Opera debut. Last performed eight years ago at Vancouver Opera, La Traviata makes its glorious return.
Runs Until: Sunday October 27, 2019
Halloween at the Vancouver Aquarium
Where: Vancouver Aquarium
What: Feeling brave? Come face-to-face with all of the Spooktacular creatures here at the Vancouver Aquarium, including spiders, snakes and bats. Check out special Halloween programs and learn all about the world’s creepiest creatures.
Runs Until: Thursday October 31, 2019
Firehall Arts Centre presents: Spooky Action
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: An interdisciplinary dance project inspired by particle entanglement. Spooky Action is inspired by Einstein’s famous phrase referring to particles that are so closely linked, they share the same existence. A collaboration with poet/performer Barbara Adler, this interdisciplinary work weaves together visual art, contemporary dance, poetic storytelling and original composition to extend the theory to human connections.
Runs Until: Saturday October 19, 2019
Where: Fort Langley National Historic Site of Canada
What: Fort Langley’s talented storytellers spin tales of love, mysterious burials, and hair-raising amputations during Fort Langley National Historic Site’s annual Grave Tales Historic Walking Tours. Grave Tales is a historic walking tour through the village of Fort Langley, ending inside the historic Big House in the national historic site. Heritage interpreters tell tales of misfortune in Fort Langley’s cemeteries, streets, and inside the Hudson’s Bay Company fort.
Runs Until: Sunday November 3, 2019
Where: Maple Ridge
What: Celebrating the Harvest Season is a world-wide, ancient tradition that generally falls near the Sunday of the Harvest Moon (generally late September or early October). Here in Maple Ridge, it is a popular time for festivities and food celebrations that highlight our appreciation for our beautiful country-side, bountiful crops, community and family connections. Don’t miss the many Harvest Season Celebrations taking place in early Fall.
Runs Until: Monday October 28, 2019
Metro Theatre presents A Comedy of Tenors
Where: Metro Theatre
What: A Comedy of Tenors is about love in many forms, and how you can fight with someone and still care for them despite their best efforts to drive you crazy. Tickets for evening and matinee performances are available.
Runs Until: Saturday October 19, 2019
Pacific Theatre presents Frankenstein: Lost In Darkness
Where: Pacific Theatre
What: Captain Robert Walton has a nightmarish tale to tell – the story of young Victor Frankenstein and his quest to create life. Mary Shelly’s haunting fable of hubris and loss is re-interpreted as an immersive audio drama for the Pacific theatre stage.
Runs Until: Saturday November 2, 2019
Where: Presentation House Theatre
What: Award-winning playwright Linda A. Carson takes on the pervasive and growing trend of body dissatisfaction in her world premiere of So, How Should I Be? In this follow up to up her powerful play, Dying to be Thin, Carson examines how negative thoughts can get stuck in one’s head and lead to an Eating Disorder.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019
Where: Sunshine Coast, BC
What: A scenic coastal tour from Gambier Island and Langdale to Earls Cove of 185 artist studios, galleries and more, opening their doors to the public. Enjoy events, demos and a chance to meet the artists.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
The Empty Chest Haunted Adventure
Where: 31515 Harris Rd. (Abbotsford, BC)
What: Leave the humble city of Vancouver and adventure into the depths of your nightmares. It begins like any other journey, in a tavern with Fuggles and Warlock beer. But it quickly dissolves into a fight for your life. You will receive your life force and you must protect it at all cost. You’ll be traversing the evil woods with nothing but a bow and arrow to defend yourselves. Evil lurks around every tree in this haunted experience. Do you have what it takes to make it to the final chapter
Runs Until: Thursday October 31, 2019
Where: Culture Lab
What: Jiv is “Canadian.” And “Indian.” And “Hindu.” And “West Indian.” “Trinidadian” too. Or maybe he’s just colonized. In Take d Milk, Nah?, Parasram blends personal storytelling and ritual to walk an audience through the Hin-do’s and Hin-don’ts at the intersections of these cultures. The show is a refreshingly candid and delightfully funny look at race, religion, and nationalism(s): what divides us—and what we’re willing to accept in the desire to belong. Oh, and there’s a cow.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019
The Gateway Theatre presents China Doll
Where: Gateway Theatre
What: Bound by tradition, Su-Ling’s world is closing in around her. Her grandmother is determined that she will marry well and bring prosperity to them both. But when she learns to read, Su-Ling’s mind is opened to new possibilities, setting her on a dangerous path to independence.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019
Vancouver TheatreSports presents 2019 International Theatresports Institute Conference and Festival
Where: Various Venues
What: This Fall, the improv comedy world is bringing the laughs to Vancouver from October 14 to 20 as Vancouver TheatreSports™ (VTS) hosts the 2019 International Theatresports Institute Conference and Festival. The International Theatresports Institute (ITI) is the largest improv network in the world, representing 90 improv companies, schools and universities from 22 countries on six continents. Every two years, ITI convenes a conference and festival that brings together improvisers from around the globe.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Where: Yuk Yuks
What: Jon Dore is a talented Canadian writer and actor that has infused his comedic abilities into numerous hit television shows and films. In addition to his new one-hour stand-up special BIG QUESTIONS, HUGE ANSWERS WITH JON DORE premiering on Comedy Central on December 3, 2018, he has made several memorable appearances in various television series including How I Met Your Mother, and a lead role on ABC’s How to Live with Your Parents.
Runs Until: Saturday October 19, 2019
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: without a word presents a selection of portrait photographs from the private collection of Bill Wu, the first display of this remarkable, yet unknown, Vancouver collection of photography. Representing an international cross-section of acclaimed twentieth-century artists including Berenice Abbott, Robert Doisneau, Walker Evans, Graciela Iturbide, and Mary Ellen Mark, the exhibition includes some of modern photography’s most iconic and memorable portraits, with a specific focus on people caught in unguarded moments of contemplation and preoccupation.
Runs Until: Sunday November 3, 2019
BC Lions vs Saskatchewan Roughriders
Where: BC Place
What: Join the roaring crowd at BC Place as the BC Lions take on the Saskatchewan Roughriders at this Canadian Football game.
GRiZ – Ride Waves Tour Season Two
Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: After the wildly successful run of shows on the Ride Waves: Season One tour, American DJ and electronic producer GRiZ has announced another round of dates for Season Two that will take him all over North America. Once he returns from select dates this summer in Europe, he’ll return for festival gigs at Osheaga and Shambhala before taking the stage at Red Rocks and kicking off the tour in style.
Where: Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre – UBC
What: Multi-Platinum singer/songwriter Hozier released his sophomore album Wasteland, Baby!, which debuted at No. 1 on the album-chart and No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart. Catch him in Vancouver on the second stop in the headline tour with the same title.
Where: The NEST (UBC)
What: Converting an idea into the reality is never an easy task. In fact, it is extremely difficult. Whether you are an entrepreneur or corporate executive, “giving ideas life” is much like giving birth to a child. You must own the responsibility regardless of the circumstances. The Smart Power Talks Series promises to tell the world about the Great Innovative ideas and Execution of ideas successfully by the prominent entrepreneurs, global leaders, innovators, and academicians and highlight the inspiring struggle-to-championship road traversed by them.
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra: Otto Tausk
Tausk Conducts Dvořák’s New World Symphony
Where: Orpheum Theatre
What: Gorgeous folk songs and music from the New World combine in this cornucopia of well-known melodies. Plus Barber’s Adagio for Strings, a work rendered famous by none other than the VSO in the soundtrack to Oliver Stone’s film Platoon.
Where: Central Library
What: pîkiskwe-speak is both an art and film installation, and an invitation to have conversations about reconciliation. Features the works of Beth MacKenzie and Lana Whiskeyjack. The exhibition runs during Library hours in the Samuel and Frances Belzberg Family Exhibition Space on Level 9.
Runs Until: Sunday December 15, 2019
Wael Shawky: Al Araba Al Madfuna
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: This exhibition brings the extraordinary and timely art of Wael Shawky to the west coast for the first time. Shawky’s ambitious, multilayered film productions look at the ways in which history and mythologies are recorded, highlighting the fallibility of cultural memory, while offering critical perspectives on our current narratives of uncertainty and change.
Runs Until: Sunday January 12, 2020
Where: 290 W 3rd Ave, Mount Pleasant
What: We’re working hard to get our new location up and running. In the meantime, join us for a tasty 6-course farm-to-table dinner in Mount Pleasant. Chefs Ernesto Gomez and Martin Vargas be preparing your favourite Mexican dishes sharing-style, so bring some friends or come alone and make some new ones. We’ll have a special music guest and keep the bar open after dinner so you can hang out and have fun with us until late.
Mollie Burke: Unfolded
Opening Reception for New Exhibitions from Kate Metten, Ryan Quast and Mollie Burke
Where: Burrard Arts Foundation Gallery
What: On Friday, October 18, three new art exhibitions will open at Burrard Arts Foundation (BAF), a local visual arts nonprofit and gallery. Two of the shows were produced by the latest participants in BAF’s Residency Program, Kate Metten and Ryan Quast. During the program, the two artists worked side-by-side in the two studios at BAF’s purpose-designed facility in the False Creek Flats. Also opening is new work from Mollie Burke in BAF’s Garage; this street facing exhibition window displays art to the public 24 hours a day and showcases early-career artists.
Saturday October 19
Where: UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
What: A family event for all ages, the UBC Apple Festival celebrates one of BC’s favourite fruits. From learning about the diversity of apples to tasting rare and unusual varieties, the Apple Festival is a great opportunity to discover more about this delicious fruit.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Spook-Tacular Halloween Weekend
Where: Britannia Mine Museum
What: It’s the witching hour at Britannia Mine Museum this Halloween with two weekends full of fun, family-friendly activities for all ages. All Halloween weekend, the Museum will feature: a spooky train & tour, strange science show, cabinet of curiosities, mill thrills, costume photo booth and more!
Runs Until: Sunday October 27, 2019
International Indian Cultural Festival
Where: The Nest (UBC)
What: After a successful run across five cities and over twelve performances, the much-awaited Indian Cultural Festival has arrived Vancouver for one day only! The festival presents a platform for talented dancers, musicians, and singers interested to exhibit their performance. Get ready to see an extravaganza of Hindi music, dance, and operatic celebrations at the biggest Bollywood event of the year. This event promises to bring to the fore an evening of intense spectacle and a glorious fare for the admirers of everything Bollywood.
Where: Kitsilano Neighbourhood House
What: The Kits House Autumn Fair is back again for its ninth year! For one day only, on Saturday October 19th from 11am to 4pm, Kits House is going to transform into a busy marketplace with a ton of family-friendly activities including: a child-friendly Haunted House, Pumpkin Patch, Carnival Games, Bouncy Castle, Costume Contest, Face Painting, Photobooth, 30+ Local Vendors, Food Trucks, Live Music and more!
Where: Rogers Arena
What: Combs made history as the first artist to simultaneously top all five Billboard country charts for multiple weeks: Top Country Albums, Hot Country Songs, Country Airplay, Country Streaming Songs and Country Digital Song Sales.
Where: Abbotsford Centre
What: The PBR Canada Monster Energy tour showcases Canada’s top cowboys competing alongside some of the world’s best bull riders as they battle the rankest bucking bulls on the planet. It’s man VS. beast wrapped in the glitz and glamour that only the PBR can provide.
Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: The Dead South, a gold rush vibing four-piece acoustic bluegrass set from Saskatchewan, infuse the genre’s traditional trappings with an air of frontier recklessness, whiskey breakfasts and grizzled tin-pan showmanship. The sound, build on a taut configuration of cello, mandolin, banjo and guitar, speeds like a train past polite definitions of bluegrass into the grittier, rowdier spaces of the traditional world.
Firehall Arts Centre presents: Spooky Action
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: An interdisciplinary dance project inspired by particle entanglement. Spooky Action is inspired by Einstein’s famous phrase referring to particles that are so closely linked, they share the same existence. A collaboration with poet/performer Barbara Adler, this interdisciplinary work weaves together visual art, contemporary dance, poetic storytelling and original composition to extend the theory to human connections.
Runs Until: Saturday October 19, 2019
Metro Theatre presents A Comedy of Tenors
Where: Metro Theatre
What: A Comedy of Tenors is about love in many forms, and how you can fight with someone and still care for them despite their best efforts to drive you crazy. Tickets for evening and matinee performances are available.
Runs Until: Saturday October 19, 2019
Where: Hastings Park
What: Willkommen Vancouver! Get ready for this Oktober as Harvest Haus returns to celebrate its fifth year of bavarian-style merrymaking – bigger than ever before. Be sure to check out our 7 unique sittings – each has a different and distinct theme and so whether you are returning for another year or about to embark on your maiden harvest adventure there is plenty to capture your imagination!
Runs Until: Saturday October 19, 2019
Sunday October 20
40th Annual Fall Mushroom Show
Where: VanDusen Botanical Garden
What: Fungal Fun! The show provides displays of identified mushrooms and other fungi, with their edible, poisonous or dubious status. We have speakers, slide shows, books and roving experts on cultivation, preservation, gourmet cooking, medicinal use, hunting, ecology, and cultural use. Bring your own specimens for identification!
Schitt’s Creek: Up Close & Personal
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: “Schitt’s Creek,” the critically acclaimed single-cam comedy co-created by Daniel Levy and Eugene Levy, follows a wealthy family who suddenly find themselves broke and forced to live in Schitt’s Creek, a small town they once bought as a joke. The series features comedy legends and Emmy® Award-winning actors Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, and Chris Elliott, alongside breakout stars Daniel Levy, Annie Murphy, and Emily Hampshire.
Ingrid Koenig: Navigating the Uncertainty Principle
CAG Exhibition Tour in Spanish
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Join Valentina Acevedo Montilla for a tour of the current exhibitions in Spanish: Ingrid Koenig’s Navigating the Uncertainty Principle, Sreshta Rit Premnath’s Those Who Wait, and Olivia Whetung’s Sugarbush Shrapnel. No reservation required, simply just turn up!
Where: Sunshine Coast, BC
What: A scenic coastal tour from Gambier Island and Langdale to Earls Cove of 185 artist studios, galleries and more, opening their doors to the public. Enjoy events, demos and a chance to meet the artists.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Vancouver TheatreSports presents 2019 International Theatresports Institute Conference and Festival
Where: Various Venues
What: This Fall, the improv comedy world is bringing the laughs to Vancouver from October 14 to 20 as Vancouver TheatreSports™ (VTS) hosts the 2019 International Theatresports Institute Conference and Festival. The International Theatresports Institute (ITI) is the largest improv network in the world, representing 90 improv companies, schools and universities from 22 countries on six continents. Every two years, ITI convenes a conference and festival that brings together improvisers from around the globe.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Where: UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
What: A family event for all ages, the UBC Apple Festival celebrates one of BC’s favourite fruits. From learning about the diversity of apples to tasting rare and unusual varieties, the Apple Festival is a great opportunity to discover more about this delicious fruit.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Where: Pacific National Exhibition
What: The largest harvest celebration ever conceived in Canada is sowing the seeds for your arrival. Bringing to life a vision for an enchanting and playful all-ages autumn adventure, Harvestland, is coming to the PNE from Oktober 10-20, 2019. This remarkable harvest festival brings together a diverse assemblage of rides, attractions, food, and entertainers for a celebration of community, nature, exploration and the imagination.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Where: Studio 16
What: With director Aaron Craven at the helm, Mitch and Murray Productions returns with another dynamite play, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Annie Baker’s Body Awareness. “Body Awareness is a smart, modest work about ordinary, flawed people, grasping for connection, but none of it feels small, thanks to Baker’s sharp ear for the deeply painful – and funny – longings squirming under her characters’ dialogue” – Time Out New York.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Vikky Alexander: Extreme Beauty
Vikky Alexander: Extreme Beauty
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The Vancouver Art Gallery presents Vikky Alexander: Extreme Beauty, the first retrospective of the renowned Canadian artist. Alexander became known for her investigations of the appropriated image, the artificiality of nature and the seduction of space in the 1980s. Extreme Beauty showcases more than eighty works from this artist’s career whose practice includes photography, sculpture, collage and installation.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Ongoing
Where: Presentation House Theatre
What: Award-winning playwright Linda A. Carson takes on the pervasive and growing trend of body dissatisfaction in her world premiere of So, How Should I Be? In this follow up to up her powerful play, Dying to be Thin, Carson examines how negative thoughts can get stuck in one’s head and lead to an Eating Disorder.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019
Where: Culture Lab
What: Jiv is “Canadian.” And “Indian.” And “Hindu.” And “West Indian.” “Trinidadian” too. Or maybe he’s just colonized. In Take d Milk, Nah?, Parasram blends personal storytelling and ritual to walk an audience through the Hin-do’s and Hin-don’ts at the intersections of these cultures. The show is a refreshingly candid and delightfully funny look at race, religion, and nationalism(s): what divides us—and what we’re willing to accept in the desire to belong. Oh, and there’s a cow.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019
The Gateway Theatre presents China Doll
Where: Gateway Theatre
What: Bound by tradition, Su-Ling’s world is closing in around her. Her grandmother is determined that she will marry well and bring prosperity to them both. But when she learns to read, Su-Ling’s mind is opened to new possibilities, setting her on a dangerous path to independence.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019
Where: Chinatown
What: A speakeasy-style performance venue hidden behind a fake business facade in Chinatown; part of a new trend in magic entertainment that focuses less on grand-scale illusions and more on intimate experiences that leave the audience awestruck and moved. Confirmed guest will only be given the address for the venue once their tickets have been purchased.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019
Where: Lonsdale Quay
What: Stroll the boardwalk and take in ocean and city skyline views from North Vancouver’s Lonsdale Quay while you check out fresh, locally grown produce, delicious baked goods and nifty crafts created by local growers, bakers, and crafters.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019 (Saturdays)
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: Canadian conductor Yves Abel, whose international career spans more than twenty years—including appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House and the Vienna State Opera—makes his Vancouver Opera debut. Last performed eight years ago at Vancouver Opera, La Traviata makes its glorious return.
Runs Until: Sunday October 27, 2019
Spook-Tacular Halloween Weekend
Where: Britannia Mine Museum
What: It’s the witching hour at Britannia Mine Museum this Halloween with two weekends full of fun, family-friendly activities for all ages. All Halloween weekend, the Museum will feature: a spooky train & tour, strange science show, cabinet of curiosities, mill thrills, costume photo booth and more!
Runs Until: Sunday October 27, 2019
Where: Maple Ridge
What: Celebrating the Harvest Season is a world-wide, ancient tradition that generally falls near the Sunday of the Harvest Moon (generally late September or early October). Here in Maple Ridge, it is a popular time for festivities and food celebrations that highlight our appreciation for our beautiful country-side, bountiful crops, community and family connections. Don’t miss the many Harvest Season Celebrations taking place in early Fall.
Runs Until: Monday October 28, 2019
Halloween at the Vancouver Aquarium
Where: Vancouver Aquarium
What: Feeling brave? Come face-to-face with all of the Spooktacular creatures here at the Vancouver Aquarium, including spiders, snakes and bats. Check out our special Halloween programs and learn all about the world’s creepiest creatures.
Runs Until: Thursday October 31, 2019
Where: Stanley Park Miniature Train
What: Each year the Stanley Park Ghost Train takes our riders on a journey through a mystical and magical world, inspired by Hallowe’en and other spooky tales.
Runs Until: Thursday October 31, 2019
Haunted Halloween Trolley Tour
Haunted Vancouver Trolley Tour
Where: Canada Place
What: As the night falls and shadows begin to appear, you will be whisked away by San Francisco-style Trolley where you will see streets and homes, which seem normal, but if you look and listen close enough you will hear echoes of murders and other devastating events. Your host will tell the historic crime tales that took place in familiar neighbourhoods of Stanley Park, Gastown, Shaughnessy and more.
Runs Until: Thursday October 31, 2019
Where: Pacific National Exhibition
What: Fright Nights at the PNE is Western Canada’s Scariest Haunt; having multiple Haunted Houses and other attractions on-site in Playland.
Runs Until: Thursday October 31, 2019
Where: Gastown
What: Thirteen years ago Jimmy Capello was found dead in his downtown Vancouver apartment — strangled, poisoned, and stabbed. Now the Police Department has re-opened the cold case and it’s up to you to solve it. Was the killer casino boss Greg Flament? World famous psychiatrist Susan Slater? Or party girl heiress Janet Evans? Armed with your detective kit, a map and a team of your closest friends, you’ll try to prove you have what it takes to work homicide in the big city.
Runs until:Thursday October 31, 2019
The Empty Chest Haunted Adventure
Where: 31515 Harris Rd. (Abbotsford, BC)
What: Leave the humble city of Vancouver and adventure into the depths of your nightmares. It begins like any other journey, in a tavern with Fuggles and Warlock beer. But it quickly dissolves into a fight for your life. You will receive your life force and you must protect it at all cost. You’ll be traversing the evil woods with nothing but a bow and arrow to defend yourselves. Evil lurks around every tree in this haunted experience. Do you have what it takes to make it to the final chapter
Runs Until: Thursday October 31, 2019
Pacific Theatre presents Frankenstein: Lost In Darkness
Where: Pacific Theatre
What: Captain Robert Walton has a nightmarish tale to tell – the story of young Victor Frankenstein and his quest to create life. Mary Shelly’s haunting fable of hubris and loss is re-interpreted as an immersive audio drama for the Pacific theatre stage.
Runs Until: Saturday November 2, 2019
Arts Club Theatre Company presents Bed & Breakfast
Where: Granville Island Stage
What: When Brett inherits a family estate, he and his partner, Drew, move to a quiet little tourist town to set up a B&B. But will these big city boys face friction in their new community? With dozens of hilarious characters all portrayed by two actors, it’s a heartfelt comedy about “being out,” skeletons in the closet, and finding a place to call home
Runs Until: Sunday November 2, 2019
Where: Potter’s Farm & Nursery
What: Every fall, Potter’s Farm & Nursery staff converts the grounds from an enjoyable, plant-filled garden centre into a maze of terror, with all the latest animatronics, digital sounds, high-tech scares and trained actors to put on a fun and scary event that sends chills down the spine of all those who enter
Runs Until: Saturday November 2, 2019
Maan Farms Haunted Corn Maze and Pitch Black
Where: Maan Farms, Abbotsford
What: Maan Farms Haunted Corn Maze, features nightmarish installations, shocking and gory scenes as well as intimate scares. Creating a surreal world in which guests may find themselves unsure of where reality ends and the show begins. Pitch Black is an interactive multi-sensory separate ticketed attraction where the actors can touch you! Touching is NOT full contact, but you may be grabbed, held back, sent into hidden passageways, and even temporarily removed from your group.
Runs until: Saturday November 2, 2019
Where: Fort Langley National Historic Site of Canada
What: Fort Langley’s talented storytellers spin tales of love, mysterious burials, and hair-raising amputations during Fort Langley National Historic Site’s annual Grave Tales Historic Walking Tours. Grave Tales is a historic walking tour through the village of Fort Langley, ending inside the historic Big House in the national historic site. Heritage interpreters tell tales of misfortune in Fort Langley’s cemeteries, streets, and inside the Hudson’s Bay Company fort.
Runs Until: Sunday November 3, 2019
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: without a word presents a selection of portrait photographs from the private collection of Bill Wu, the first display of this remarkable, yet unknown, Vancouver collection of photography. Representing an international cross-section of acclaimed twentieth-century artists including Berenice Abbott, Robert Doisneau, Walker Evans, Graciela Iturbide, and Mary Ellen Mark, the exhibition includes some of modern photography’s most iconic and memorable portraits, with a specific focus on people caught in unguarded moments of contemplation and preoccupation.
Runs Until: Sunday November 3, 2019
Arts Club Theatre Company presents Cost Of Living
Where: Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre
What: What does it mean to give care? A shave, a helping hand, and forgiveness in the face of faults. This 2018 Pulitzer Prize–winning play about relationships and living with physical disabilities is tucked with surprise humour. A wealthy student is cared for by a young woman down on her luck, and a man rebuilds an old bond by providing aid to his ex-wife. These achingly human stories delve into the social divides between people, even as they strive to help.
Runs Until: Sunday November 3, 2019
Where: Various locations in Vancouver and Surrey
What: At the core of Diwali Fest’s mandate is the objective of breaking cultural barriers and encouraging participation from all communities. The celebration and spirit of Diwali is truly universal. The message it engenders of promoting inclusiveness motivates us to bring the festival to the Lower Mainland, as well as bringing the Lower Mainland to our festival. This can be demonstrated through the number of fusion acts, as well as artists we highlight through our programming.
Runs Until: Sunday November 3, 2019
Forbidden Vancouver presents Lost Souls of Gastown
Where: Cathedral Square
What: Step inside a world of murder, revenge, and true grit in a dramatic history of Victorian Gastown. Stories of deadly fire and smallpox emerge from the shadows as you venture through cobblestone streets to the shocking finale in this unique performance-theatre experience.
Runs Until: Saturday November 30, 2019
The Dark Secrets of Stanley Park
Where: Stanley Park
What: There’s more to Stanley Park than incredible scenery. It’s also recently been home to crime, riots, persecution, political intrigue, class warfare, logging, hunting, disease, military installations, remarkable public art, ecological catastrophes, secret construction mega-projects, poetry, scandal, and murder.
Runs until: Saturday November 30, 2019 (Saturdays)
Mollie Burke: Unfolded
Opening Reception for New Exhibitions from Kate Metten, Ryan Quast and Mollie Burke
Where: Burrard Arts Foundation Gallery
What: On Friday, October 18, three new art exhibitions will open at Burrard Arts Foundation (BAF), a local visual arts nonprofit and gallery. Two of the shows were produced by the latest participants in BAF’s Residency Program, Kate Metten and Ryan Quast. During the program, the two artists worked side-by-side in the two studios at BAF’s purpose-designed facility in the False Creek Flats. Also opening is new work from Mollie Burke in BAF’s Garage; this street facing exhibition window displays art to the public 24 hours a day and showcases early-career artists.
Runs Until: Saturday December 14, 2019
Where: Central Library
What: pîkiskwe-speak is both an art and film installation, and an invitation to have conversations about reconciliation. Features the works of Beth MacKenzie and Lana Whiskeyjack. The exhibition runs during Library hours in the Samuel and Frances Belzberg Family Exhibition Space on Level 9.
Runs Until: Sunday December 15, 2019
Where: Concord Pacific Place
What: Cirque du Soleil’s delightfully-imaginative and visually-stunning production Luzia is coming to Vancouver. Audiences are invited to a redesigned white-and-gold Big Top at Concord Pacific Place to escape to an imaginary Mexico – a sumptuous world suspended somewhere between dreams and reality.
Runs Until: Sunday December 29, 2019
Image sourced from Jazz Vespers | Facebook.com
Where: First Baptist Church
What: St. Andrew’s Wesley’s Jazz Vespers, is celebrating its 26th Anniversary. Every Sunday from 4-5 PM, you’ll be tapping your toes and clapping your hands to the amazing sounds of local and international jazz giants. It’s an hour of jazz interspersed with reflections on love, faith and hope given by Rev. Dan Chambers or Very Rev. Dr. Gary Paterson.
Runs Until: Sunday December 29, 2019
Samuel Roy-Bois
Samuel Roy-Bois: Reward Friends, Punish Enemies
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: Reward Friends, Punish Enemies is a site-responsive installation – imagined as an intervention into the architectural space of The Polygon—that invokes histories of resource extraction and the forest industry on the North Shore. Roy-Bois’ rustic, handcrafted aesthetic rubs against the steel-and-glass design of the gallery and the surrounding waterfront developments, upending distinctions between interior and exterior, private and public.
Runs Until: December 30, 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
Emily Carr | Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The Vancouver Art Gallery is home to the finest collection of art by Emily Carr (1871–1945) in the world. Our collection is particularly rich in her forest paintings from the 1930s. This installation in the Gallery’s rotunda reflects Carr’s direct engagement with and great affection for British Columbia’s landscape—for her, a site of artistic and spiritual inquiry. This installation brings together four of Carr’s iconic paintings: Big Raven (1931); Red Cedar (1931); Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky (1935); and Above the Gravel Pit (1937).
Runs Until: Tuesday December 31, 2019
Where: Vancouver International Film Centre
What: Year-round VIFF presents some of the world’s best cinema fused with related talks and events in a unique Films+ model.
Runs Until: Tuesday December 31, 2019
Olivia Whetung – Sugarbush Shrapnel
CAG Presents Olivia Whetung | Sugarbush Shrapnel
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: The Contemporary Art Gallery will present the first solo exhibition in a major public institution of Chemong Lake based Anishinaabe artist Olivia Whetung. Whetung’s artistic practice examines, in her words, “acts of/active native presence.” A significant strand of recent research has manifested in beadwork, and explores Whetung’s deep concerns for knowledge as held and carried by land, bodies of water and language.
Runs Until: Sunday January 5, 2020
Sreshta Rit Premnath – Those Who Wait
CAG Presents Sreshta Rit Premnath | Those Who Wait
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: For his first solo exhibition in Canada, Sreshta Rit Premnath will develop new work in an ongoing series of material and conceptual investigations on the “knot” between ownership and occupation of space, and the conditions of invisibility and misrecognition that define migrant subjectivity. Premnath works across multiple media including sculpture, video, photography and drawing.
Runs Until: Sunday January 5, 2020
Wael Shawky: Al Araba Al Madfuna
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: This exhibition brings the extraordinary and timely art of Wael Shawky to the west coast for the first time. Shawky’s ambitious, multilayered film productions look at the ways in which history and mythologies are recorded, highlighting the fallibility of cultural memory, while offering critical perspectives on our current narratives of uncertainty and change.
Runs Until: Sunday January 12, 2020
Where: Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coastal Art
What: A solo exhibition of carvings, jewelry, and portraits by contemporary Ts’msyen artist Morgan Asoyuf. Asoyuf challenges the classical definition of the “royal portrait” with new photographs of activists wearing crowns, frontlets and headdresses.
Runs Until: January 19, 2020
Vancouver Art gallery presents Transit and Returns
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Transits and Returns presents the work of 21 Indigenous artists whose practices are both rooted in the specificities of their cultures and routed via their travels. These forces of situatedness and mobility work in synergy and in tension with one another, shaping the multiple ways of understanding and being Indigenous today. Within the exhibition, these dual realities are explored through themes of movement, territory, kinship and representation, with many artworks inhabiting multiple categories.
Runs Until: Sunday February 23, 2020
Where: 1100 West Georgia Street
What: Vienna-based artist Erwin Wurm alters and re-envisions recognizable forms in order to challenge our psychological perceptions of what is well known, including our bodies and familiar architectural forms. This 19th installation in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Offsite series will incorporate three sculptural works from Wurm’s oeuvre that highlight his wry sense of humour and his ongoing interest in the body. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, local artist Mike Bourscheid will develop a series of performative interventions.
Runs Until: Sunday February 23, 2020
Being Punjabi: Unfolding the Surrey Story
Where: Museum of Surrey
What: The first major exhibition in Canada to shine a spotlight on Surrey’s Punjabis, showcasing their stories of struggle and success. The exhibition is intended to be a catalyst for discussion and sharing, while also documenting histories of this diverse community.
Runs until: February 23, 2020
Where: Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre
What: Ambassadors, the first exhibition of its kind at the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, celebrates the staff family and faces of the Cultural Centre while highlighting their strong sense of connection to their land, their cultures, and each other. Visitors to the exhibit will learn about our Ambassadors’ deeply-rooted connections to our immersive Cultural Centre, and the passion they share in belonging to Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Lil’wat7ul.
Runs Until: Sunday March 1, 2019
Ingrid Koenig – Navigating the Uncertainty Principle
CAG Presents Ingrid Koenig | Navigating the Uncertainty Principle
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Navigating the Uncertainty Principle is a major solo exhibition by Vancouver-based artist and educator Ingrid Koenig, presenting large scale drawings across the gallery façade and off-site at Yaletown-Roundhouse station.
Runs Until: Sunday April 5, 2020
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.
