Things to Do This Weekend in Vancouver

Remember to wear your poppy this weekend as you go see a Raffi performance, the Asian Film Festival, as you browse Christmas markets, or watch the Moscow Ballet’s Nutcracker. There are also Remembrance Day performances of Timothy Findley’s The Wars and song by Choir Leoni and the Vancouver Welsh Men’s Choir.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing


Friday November 8

Arts Club presents The Sound Of Music

Where: Stanley Alliance Industrial Stage
What: The hills are alive! One of the most powerful and romantic musicals of all time, The Sound of Music brims with beloved tunes such as “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” and “Edelweiss.” Journey along with the spirited Maria, who takes a governess position with the von Trapp family, falling first for the children and then the widower Captain von Trapp himself, all against the stirring backdrop of pre-WWII Austria.
Runs Until: Sunday January 5, 2020

Circle Craft Christmas Market | Facebook.com

Circle Craft Christmas Market

Where: Vancouver Convention Centre West
What: Generations of locals and visitors have attended and enjoyed a Market where they come face to face with fine BC and Canadian artisans and their work: wood-turners, glassblowers, sculptors and potters, clothing and jewelry designers, toy-makers, and many more.
Runs Until: Monday November 11, 2019

Co.ERASGA presents Passages of Rhythms

Where: The Nest
What: In this much anticipated world premiere, acclaimed dancer and choreographer Alvin Erasga Tolentino takes centre stage; presenting an evening of three dynamic duets, featuring three diverse artists, showcasing three different genres – Flamenco, Bharatanatyam, and voices for the body – Passages of Rhythms is a hybrid full-length evening of cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration.
Runs Until: Saturday November 9, 2019

Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems

Where: VIVO Media Arts Centre
What: Picture this – a world where AI invades human creativity, bacteria invade our brains, and invisible technological signals penetrate all natural environments. Can we recognize and better understand how these invasive systems transform or become part of our world? Through visual art, multimedia installations, and interactive experiences, join artists and scientists at “Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems” to explore the delicate and complicated nature of how both living and inanimate things redefine our lives and environments.
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Vancouver Podcast Festival

Where: Various Venues
What: Four-day festival includes acclaimed storytellers including Martin Austwick (The Allusionist), Mike Browne (Dark Poutine), Christopher Goddard (Dirty John), Falen Johnson (Secret Life of Canada), Chris Kelly (CBC’s This Is That), Ryan McMahon (Red Man Laughing, Thunderbay), Garth Mullins (Crackdown), Leah Simone-Bowen (Secret Life of Canada), Geoff Turner (On Drugs) and Helen Zaltzman (The Allusionist).
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Vancouver Podcast Festival: The Allusionist

Where: Rio Theatre
What: Hosted by Helen Zaltzman, with live music by Martin Austwick, The Allusionist is an award-winning podcast about language and how and why we humans use it the way we do. It’s fun. It’s informative. It’s … funformative? Steady on there with the portmanteaus, please.

Vancouver TheatreSports presents Frisky Friday

Where: The Improv Centre
What: Bring the sizzle to your Friday night as improvisers explore the funny side of naughty. From fetishes to threesomes, no subject will be deemed too scandalous to spoof. Based on audience suggestions this is not a show for the faint of heart, those with delicate sensibilities or anyone under the age of 19. It is for mature adults who want to get their laugh off.
Runs Until: Friday December 20, 2019

Current Swell

Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: Current Swell are done with talking. The band have been talking for almost a decade, now, and — make no mistake — talking well at that. And people have been listening intently for just as long. After winning the (102.7 FM) Peak Performance Project in 2011, fans all across the world took notice of the Vancouver Island-based band and their West Coast rock sound. But now, Current Swell say, the band is finished with talking. Why talk, anyway, when you can shout, stomp, and sway?

Kuroko

Where: Historic Theatre
What: Maya is hikikomori—an extreme recluse—who has spent the last six years in her bedroom exploring Virtual Reality. Until one day, she meets a mysterious player online who challenges her to the ultimate quest: saving her own father’s life. How? By visiting the scariest place IRL, Suicide Forest. A world premiere from Tetsuro Shigematsu, the acclaimed creator behind Empire of the Son and 1 Hour Photo, and directed by Amiel Gladstone, director and co-creator of the smash hit musical, Onegin.
Runs Until: Sunday November 17, 2019

Ladies and Gentleman, An Evening with Jason Mraz and Raining Jane

Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: Last year, as Jason Mraz celebrated the 15th anniversary of his Platinum-certified debut album Waiting For My Rocket To Come, he began to ponder the meaning of his time in the spotlight since getting his start in coffeehouses in San Diego. While amassing a global fan base for his positive message and soulful, folk-pop sound, Mraz has earned numerous diamond and platinum certifications for his various releases.

Douglas Coupland’s Vortex at the Vancouver Aquarium

Where: Vancouver Aquarium
What: Vortex takes you on an imaginative journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and immerses you in the ocean plastic pollution crisis. This exhibit, by world-renowned artist Douglas Coupland, will make you think about plastic in a relevant, contemplative, and transformative way. The focal point of Vortex is a 50,000 litre water installation. A battered day-fishing boat from Japan, lost during the tsunami in 2011 and found on the shores of Haida Gwaii in 2017, sits at the centre of the ocean.
Runs Until: Monday November 11, 2019

John Denver’s Estate Presents: The Official John Denver Celebration Concert

Where: Vogue Theatre
What: Hear John Denver’s voice and watch him perform on video screens backed by live performance from former members of his band and accompanying string section. Audiences will get a-close-as-they-can-get experience of seeing Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and Poet Laureate of Colorado John Denver in a concert setting. Featuring archival video footage of Denver performing classic songs backed by live performances from former members of his band with an accompanying string section, the John Denver Celebration Concert tour is an innovative musical treat and unforgettable tribute. Concerts will include hit songs spanning his career and honor Denver’s memory and music.

Turn of the Screw | Photo Credit: Javier R Sortes

The Turn of the Screw

Where: Aenigma Theatre
What: Based on the provocative tale of suspense, horror and repressed sexuality, this adaptation gives the famous story yet another turn of its own. A young governess journeys to a lonely English manor house to care for two recently orphaned children. But she is not their first governess. Her predecessor, Miss Jessel, drowned herself when she became pregnant by the sadistic valet, Peter Quint, who was himself found dead soon after under mysterious circumstances. Now the new governess has begun to see the specters of Quint and Jessel haunting the children, and she must find a way to stop the fiends before it is too late. But one frightening question tortures the would-be heroine: Are the ghosts real, or are they the product of her own fevered imagination?
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Upintheair Theatre presents: The Array

Where: Greenhouse Studio (1885 Venables Street)
What: A pilot project, The Array is devised by Upintheair Theatre’s Daniel Martin and Dave Mott, co-artistic producers and associate producer Pippa Mackie. In astrophysics, an array is a group of satellites and telescopes that can be trained on a single phenomena to provide a more detailed, nuanced, and multi-dimensional understanding of the subject than could be gained by a single instrument. The Array proposes artists as telescopes. Each evening all four performances (15-20 minutes each) will be presented with music by DJ Flyte and signature cocktails by Brandywine Bartending.
Runs Until: Saturday November 9, 2019

Maureen Gruben’s Moving with joy across the ice while my face turns brown from the sun

Where: Tanúyap Project Space, lower level of Fazakas Gallery
What: Maureen Gruben is an artist based in Victoria, BC and Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. Through disassembling and re-forming polar bear fur, moose hides, seal skins, and gathered kelp, she forges a link between threatened arctic lands and communities, as well as international environmental and human conditions. In several works, she addresses the historical persistence of specific forms, as ancestral tools re-emerge in new mediums such as concrete or fiberglass, and at altered scales. For Moving with joy across the ice while my face turns brown from the sun, Maureen borrowed fourteen of these hand-built sleds and brought them together into a short-duration land art installation that has been photographically documented
Runs Until: Sunday December 15, 2019

Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Adapted by Dennis Garnhum

Where: Frederic Wood Theatre
What: Adapted for the stage in 2007 by Dennis Garnhum (MFA Directing, 1993), Timothy Findley’s The Wars, his 1977 novel that won the Governor General’s Award for English Language Fiction, retains its poignantly poetic storytelling. When Robert Ross, a tender-hearted idealist who shares a strong bond with his wheelchair-bound sister, trades his comfortable Canadian life for the harsh world of trench warfare in World War I, we watch his slow unraveling. This story takes us deep inside the mind of a soldier and catapults us into the mud, smoke, and chlorine gas of the front line in France during World War I.
Runs Until: Saturday November 23, 2019

Vancouver Asian Film Festival

Where: Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas
What: The VAFF 2019 lineup presents 13 film programs plus 3 industry panels, 3 special presentations and 38 feature-length and short films of all genres, with English language and/or English subtitles, from the local and international Asian diaspora. We are proud to bring Vancouver audiences 12 Canadian premieres; 2 World premieres, and an additional 5 films that are Vancouver premieres. All of our Spotlight Features are made by female Directors.  Over thirty filmmakers and panelists, from Canada and internationally, are expected to attend.
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten (aka 10)

Ten (aka 10)

Where: The Cinematheque
What: Simple methods make for remarkably complex and radical cinema in Kiarostami’s stripped-down tour de force, one of the works that announced his renunciation of cumbersome 35mm filmmaking. Digitally shot from a small dashboard camera aimed at the interior of a car, and presented in ten numbered sequences, Ten has a fashionable Tehran woman (Mania Akbari), at the steering wheel, in conversation with a series of passengers.

Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy (Copie conforme)

Certified Copy (Copie conforme)

Where: The Cinematheque
What: Kiarostami entered the new decade in peak form, staging a Rubik’s Cube romance in the Italian countryside that interrogates — in its subject, theme, and form — the very nature of authenticity itself. Juliette Binoche, luminous as ever, was crowned Best Actress at Cannes for her role as an unnamed French antique dealer living in Tuscany with her young son. Opera singer William Shimell is a British author on book tour, whom Binoche’s character meets and proceeds to explore the region with.


Saturday November 9

Raffi

Where: Port Theatre
What: Raffi is a singer, songwriter, producer, author, lecturer, and tireless advocate for children.  He is best known for his work as a children’s entertainer and advocate whose string of gold and platinum-selling recordings includes his iconic song, “Baby Beluga”.  Once called “the most popular children’s singer in the English-speaking world” (Washington Post) and “Canada’s all-time children’s champion” (Toronto Star), Raffi is also a recipient of the Order of Canada and the United Nations’ Earth Achievement Award.

Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre

Spo7ez Table

Where: Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre
What: Dine in one of Whistler’s most spectacular venues, the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, located in Whistler’s Upper Village. Canapes and bubbles greet guests upon arrival prior to being seated for a four-course lunch in one of the SLCC’s stunning spaces. Squamish Nation and Lil’wat Nation Ambassadors will share a welcome song and blessing, while Executive Chef D’Arcy Demoe will speak to the cultural influences behind the menu, from traditional ingredients and harvesting to preparation and presentation.

Tan Dun – Crouching Tiger & Beyond

Where: Orpheum Theatre
What: World-renowned composer/conductor Tan Dun has had the honour of composing the music for three martial arts films by world critically acclaimed directors: Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Zhang Yimou (Hero), and Feng Xiaogang (The Banquet). Combining the ancient tradition of Chinese martial arts philosophy and visual arts, the films were all received with high praise worldwide.

Chor Leoni presents Protect Us From War

Where: West Vancouver United Church
What: For 28 years, Chor Leoni’s Remembrance Day concerts have gathered the Vancouver community together to honour those who have served our country and to cry out for peace. For the first time, the choir’s trademark Remembrance Day program comes to the Orpheum stage with a plea to protect all people from war. Works by Canadian composers Zachary Wadsworth, Don MacDonald and Nicholas Ryan Kelly will be featured alongside landmark works by Samuel Barber, Veljo Tormis, Kurt Weill and Bob Chilcott.
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Photo Credit: Daniel W Young

Big Sugar

Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: The ionic Big Sugar boldly goes forth with their brand new album “Eternity Now”. Johnson, at the controls of his Texas studio “The Sound Shack”, applies his signature 1970s thump and otherworldly psycho-acoustic dub effects that have made him a much sought out remixer/producer. For the first time, there are no co-writers outside the band and new song lyrics ring out tried and true

Friede auf Erden: Peace and Remembrance

Where: Christ Church Cathedral
What: Friede auf Erden: Peace and Remembrance presents a program of choral works exploring humanity’s quest for peace—within our world, our lives, and beyond. Arnold Schoenberg’s monumental Friede auf Erden (Peace on Earth) takes lush chromatic harmony to its limits while expressing a powerful message relevant to our time.

Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker

Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: Celebrate this Christmas with the one and only Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker! Featuring brand new over-the-top production and world class Russian artists. Larger than life Puppets, Nesting Dolls and gloriously hand-crafted costumes bring the Christmas spirit to life. Gather the family and see why the press is raving.

Teatro Intimo Del Flamenco

Where: Improv Centre
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. The Karen Flamenco Dance Company will perform traditional flamenco group dances, accompanied by live flamenco guitar and singer. The group will also dance classical and modern pieces along with compositions from Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, as well as contemporary music.
Runs Until: Saturday December 7, 2019

Vancouver Podcast Festival: Red Man Laughing

Where: Rio Theatre
What: A live comedy variety show featuring conversations, explorations & investigations into the collision between Indian Country & the mainstream. A throwback to the classic variety show format, host Ryan McMahon is joined by progressive ass-kickers from around Turtle Island to talk, sing, yell and laugh about the issues of the day.

Vancouver Podcast Festival: Dark Poutine

Where: Rio Theatre
What: Dark Poutine – True Crime and Dark History is a weekly podcast covering mostly Canadian true crimes, dark history and other creepy topics. Creator and host Mike Browne and co-host Scott Hemenway bring levity and empathy to this live-taping of a celebrated local podcast favourite.

Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó

Sátántangó, 1994

Where: The Cinematheque
What: One of the cinema’s singular achievements has been given a stunning new restoration on the occasion of its 25 anniversary! Hungarian master Béla Tarr’s mammoth, mesmerizing magnum opus, based on a novel by László Krasznahorkai (the director’s regular screenwriting partner), is set on a desolate agricultural collective in the apocalyptic aftermath of the fall of Communism. Unfurling in 12 chapters, and clocking in at just over seven hours, Tarr’s bleakly beautiful, bleakly funny masterpiece is sumptuously shot by cinematographer Gábor Medvigy in immaculate black-and-white images and lyrical long-take sequences. Sátántangó is an entirely transfixing and immersive experience.
Runs Until: Monday November 11, 2019

Co.ERASGA presents Passages of Rhythms

Where: The Nest
What: In this much anticipated world premiere, acclaimed dancer and choreographer Alvin Erasga Tolentino takes centre stage; presenting an evening of three dynamic duets, featuring three diverse artists, showcasing three different genres – Flamenco, Bharatanatyam, and voices for the body – Passages of Rhythms is a hybrid full-length evening of cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration.
Runs Until: Saturday November 9, 2019

Upintheair Theatre presents: The Array

Where: Greenhouse Studio (1885 Venables Street)
What: A pilot project, The Array is devised by Upintheair Theatre’s Daniel Martin and Dave Mott, co-artistic producers and associate producer Pippa Mackie. In astrophysics, an array is a group of satellites and telescopes that can be trained on a single phenomena to provide a more detailed, nuanced, and multi-dimensional understanding of the subject than could be gained by a single instrument. The Array proposes artists as telescopes. Each evening all four performances (15-20 minutes each) will be presented with music by DJ Flyte and signature cocktails by Brandywine Bartending.
Runs Until: Saturday November 9, 2019

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Sunday November 10

Japan Market – Christmas Fair

Where: UBC Robson Square
What: Our market is growing bigger and bigger every year. There will be more new vendors offering unique arts and crafts, perfect for Christmas gifts. Please note our Christmas fair will be indoor inside UBC campus at Robson Square and there will be no hot food served due to UBC’s restrictions. However, we will have most of our food vendors returning with their yummy food! You will find pastries, cookies, puddings, onigiri rice balls, chocolate, muffins, packaged green tea leaves and matcha, koji marinade, and cold chicken karaage.

Raffi

Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: Raffi is a singer, songwriter, producer, author, lecturer, and tireless advocate for children.  He is best known for his work as a children’s entertainer and advocate whose string of gold and platinum-selling recordings includes his iconic song, “Baby Beluga”.  Once called “the most popular children’s singer in the English-speaking world” (Washington Post) and “Canada’s all-time children’s champion” (Toronto Star), Raffi is also a recipient of the Order of Canada and the United Nations’ Earth Achievement Award.

Canucks Pre Game Show

Vancouver Canucks v New Jersey Devils

Where: Rogers Arena
What: The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League.

Vancouver Welsh Men’s Choir and the Band of the 15th Field Artillery Regiment present: With Glowing Hearts

Where: Massey Theatre
What: The Vancouver Welsh Men’s Choir and the Band of the 15th Field Artillery Regiment RCA will once again present their wonderful Remembrance weekend concerts. Both groups will present a selection of themed songs and music individually and will also present a combined selection with band and choir.

Vancouver Women’s Expo

Where: Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown
What: Gather your girlfriends and discover the best in shopping, fashion, entertainment, lifestyle, business, cosmetics and travel. All under one roof!

Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems

Where: VIVO Media Arts Centre
What: Picture this – a world where AI invades human creativity, bacteria invade our brains, and invisible technological signals penetrate all natural environments. Can we recognize and better understand how these invasive systems transform or become part of our world? Through visual art, multimedia installations, and interactive experiences, join artists and scientists at “Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems” to explore the delicate and complicated nature of how both living and inanimate things redefine our lives and environments.
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Vancouver Podcast Festival

Where: Various Venues
What: Four-day festival includes acclaimed storytellers including Martin Austwick (The Allusionist), Mike Browne (Dark Poutine), Christopher Goddard (Dirty John), Falen Johnson (Secret Life of Canada), Chris Kelly (CBC’s This Is That), Ryan McMahon (Red Man Laughing, Thunderbay), Garth Mullins (Crackdown), Leah Simone-Bowen (Secret Life of Canada), Geoff Turner (On Drugs) and Helen Zaltzman (The Allusionist).
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Turn of the Screw | Photo Credit: Javier R Sortes

The Turn of the Screw

Where: Aenigma Theatre
What: Based on the provocative tale of suspense, horror and repressed sexuality, this adaptation gives the famous story yet another turn of its own. A young governess journeys to a lonely English manor house to care for two recently orphaned children. But she is not their first governess. Her predecessor, Miss Jessel, drowned herself when she became pregnant by the sadistic valet, Peter Quint, who was himself found dead soon after under mysterious circumstances. Now the new governess has begun to see the specters of Quint and Jessel haunting the children, and she must find a way to stop the fiends before it is too late. But one frightening question tortures the would-be heroine: Are the ghosts real, or are they the product of her own fevered imagination?
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Vancouver Asian Film Festival

Where: Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas
What: The VAFF 2019 lineup presents 13 film programs plus 3 industry panels, 3 special presentations and 38 feature-length and short films of all genres, with English language and/or English subtitles, from the local and international Asian diaspora. We are proud to bring Vancouver audiences 12 Canadian premieres; 2 World premieres, and an additional 5 films that are Vancouver premieres. All of our Spotlight Features are made by female Directors.  Over thirty filmmakers and panelists, from Canada and internationally, are expected to attend.
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Chor Leoni presents Protect Us From War

Where: West Vancouver United Church
What: For 28 years, Chor Leoni’s Remembrance Day concerts have gathered the Vancouver community together to honour those who have served our country and to cry out for peace. For the first time, the choir’s trademark Remembrance Day program comes to the Orpheum stage with a plea to protect all people from war. Works by Canadian composers Zachary Wadsworth, Don MacDonald and Nicholas Ryan Kelly will be featured alongside landmark works by Samuel Barber, Veljo Tormis, Kurt Weill and Bob Chilcott.
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Heart of the City Festival 2019

Where: Various Venues on the Downtown Eastside
What: Announcing the 16th annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival and twelve days of music, stories, theatre, poetry, cultural celebrations, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, mixed media, art talks, history talks and history walks. This year’s theme Holding the Light has emerged from the compelling need of DTES-involved artists and residents to illuminate the vitality and relevance of the Downtown Eastside community and its diverse and rich traditions, knowledge systems, ancestral languages, cultural roots and stories.
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

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Monday November 11

Jake’s Gift

Where: Presentation House Theatre
What: Jake’s Gift is a surprisingly funny, multi-award-winning drama, about a Canadian WW2 veteran’s reluctant return to Normandy, France, for the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. While roaming the shores of Juno Beach, Jake encounters Isabelle, a precocious ten-year-old from the local village whose inquisitive nature and charm challenge the old soldier to confront some long-ignored ghosts. At its heart, Jake’s Gift is about the legacy of remembrance and personalizes the story behind one soldier’s grave.
Runs Until: Sunday November 17, 2019

Vancouver TheatreSports presents Improv Mondays w/ Michelle

Where: The Improv Centre
What: What: You’ve fallen in love with her on YouTube and now the indomitable Michelle Gidard (played by VTS ensemble member Angela Galanopoulos) is coming to the live stage at The Improv Centre. Starting in May, join us on Mondays for Improv Mondays with Michelle – Fake Stories, Real Improvisers hosted by the character Michelle from the popular web comedic soap opera Michelle’s.

Circle Craft Christmas Market | Facebook.com

Circle Craft Christmas Market

Where: Vancouver Convention Centre West
What: Generations of locals and visitors have attended and enjoyed a Market where they come face to face with fine BC and Canadian artisans and their work: wood-turners, glassblowers, sculptors and potters, clothing and jewelry designers, toy-makers, and many more.
Runs Until: Monday November 11, 2019

Douglas Coupland’s Vortex at the Vancouver Aquarium

Where: Vancouver Aquarium
What: Vortex takes you on an imaginative journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and immerses you in the ocean plastic pollution crisis. This exhibit, by world-renowned artist Douglas Coupland, will make you think about plastic in a relevant, contemplative, and transformative way. The focal point of Vortex is a 50,000 litre water installation. A battered day-fishing boat from Japan, lost during the tsunami in 2011 and found on the shores of Haida Gwaii in 2017, sits at the centre of the ocean.
Runs Until: Monday November 11, 2019

Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó

Screening of Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó, 1994

Where: The Cinematheque
What: One of the cinema’s singular achievements has been given a stunning new restoration on the occasion of its 25 anniversary! Hungarian master Béla Tarr’s mammoth, mesmerizing magnum opus, based on a novel by László Krasznahorkai (the director’s regular screenwriting partner), is set on a desolate agricultural collective in the apocalyptic aftermath of the fall of Communism. Unfurling in 12 chapters, and clocking in at just over seven hours, Tarr’s bleakly beautiful, bleakly funny masterpiece is sumptuously shot by cinematographer Gábor Medvigy in immaculate black-and-white images and lyrical long-take sequences. Sátántangó is an entirely transfixing and immersive experience.
Runs Until: Monday November 11, 2019

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Ongoing

Heart of the City Festival 2019

Where: Various Venues on the Downtown Eastside
What: Announcing the 16th annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival and twelve days of music, stories, theatre, poetry, cultural celebrations, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, mixed media, art talks, history talks and history walks. This year’s theme Holding the Light has emerged from the compelling need of DTES-involved artists and residents to illuminate the vitality and relevance of the Downtown Eastside community and its diverse and rich traditions, knowledge systems, ancestral languages, cultural roots and stories.
Runs Until: Sunday November 10, 2019

Kuroko

Where: Historic Theatre
What: Maya is hikikomori—an extreme recluse—who has spent the last six years in her bedroom exploring Virtual Reality. Until one day, she meets a mysterious player online who challenges her to the ultimate quest: saving her own father’s life. How? By visiting the scariest place IRL, Suicide Forest. A world premiere from Tetsuro Shigematsu, the acclaimed creator behind Empire of the Son and 1 Hour Photo, and directed by Amiel Gladstone, director and co-creator of the smash hit musical, Onegin.
Runs Until: Sunday November 17, 2019

Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Adapted by Dennis Garnhum

Where: Frederic Wood Theatre
What: Adapted for the stage in 2007 by Dennis Garnhum (MFA Directing, 1993), Timothy Findley’s The Wars, his 1977 novel that won the Governor General’s Award for English Language Fiction, retains its poignantly poetic storytelling. When Robert Ross, a tender-hearted idealist who shares a strong bond with his wheelchair-bound sister, trades his comfortable Canadian life for the harsh world of trench warfare in World War I, we watch his slow unravelling. This story takes us deep inside the mind of a soldier and catapults us into the mud, smoke, and chlorine gas of the front line in France during World War I.
Runs Until: Saturday November 23, 2019

The 9th Dancers: Kelly Shaw, Ryan Lee, Connor Mitton | Photo Credit: Aleksandar Antonijevic

Chutzpah! Festival

Where: Various Venues
What: Now in its 19th year of celebrating culturally rich works in comedy, music, theatre and dance, the Chutzpah! Festival has established a reputation for presenting Vancouver audiences with new and exciting, critically acclaimed artists from all over the world. This year’s festival will also showcase live music with film, and shines a light on artists from the U.K., Israel, Italy, U.S.A., and Canada.
Runs Until: Sunday November 24, 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)

Teatro Intimo Del Flamenco

Where: Improv Centre
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. The Karen Flamenco Dance Company will perform traditional flamenco group dances, accompanied by live flamenco guitar and singer. The group will also dance classical and modern pieces along with compositions from Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, as well as contemporary music.
Runs Until: Saturday December 7, 2019

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

pîkiskwe-speak: Art Exhibit

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

Vancouver TheatreSports presents Frisky Friday

Where: The Improv Centre
What: Bring the sizzle to your Friday night as improvisers explore the funny side of naughty. From fetishes to threesomes, no subject will be deemed too scandalous to spoof. Based on audience suggestions this is not a show for the faint of heart, those with delicate sensibilities or anyone under the age of 19. It is for mature adults who want to get their laugh off.
Runs Until: Friday December 20, 2019

Cirque Du Soleil: Luzia

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

Jazz Vespers

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

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

Emily Carr in the Rotunda

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

VIFF Screenings

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

Arts Club presents The Sound Of Music

Where: Stanley Alliance Industrial Stage
What: The hills are alive! One of the most powerful and romantic musicals of all time, The Sound of Music brims with beloved tunes such as “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” and “Edelweiss.” Journey along with the spirited Maria, who takes a governess position with the von Trapp family, falling first for the children and then the widower Captain von Trapp himself, all against the stirring backdrop of pre-WWII Austria.
Runs Until: Sunday January 5, 2020

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

Lessons from the Arctic: How Roald Amundsen won the race to the South Pole

Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: Lessons from the Arctic celebrates Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, the first person in history to both traverse the Northwest Passage (1903-06) and reach the South Pole (1910-12), paying special attention to the three years that he spent living with the Inuit.
Runs Until: Sunday January 19, 2019

Royal Portrait

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

Offsite: Erwin Wurm

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

Ambassadors

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

Vancouver Art gallery presents Cindy Sherman

Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This major exhibition explores the development of Cindy Sherman’s work from the beginning of her career in the mid-1970s to the present day. Widely regarded as one of the world’s leading contemporary artists, Sherman (b. 1954) manipulates her own appearance by deploying material inspired by a range of cultural sources, including film, advertising, and fashion.
Runs Until: Sunday March 8, 2020

Xuuya Gaada White Raven by Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson

Bill Reid Gallery: Out of Concealment

Where: Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art
What: Out of Concealment is a solo exhibition featuring the work of Haida artist, performer, activist, and lawyer Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson. Female Supernatural Beings of Haida Gwaii are re-imagined through photomontages, film, and sound to convey origin stories and oral traditions from the Haida Nation. Passed on from generation to generation, these are important narratives that illustrate the Haida laws, values, customs, rituals and relationships with earthly and metaphysical realms.
Runs Until: Sunday April 5, 2020

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

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

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