Foodies rejoice! Dine Out Vancouver Festival is back and in full-swing with some delightfully mouthwatering events. Or, better yet, make it dinner and a show. You also won’t want to miss out on any of the performances at the theatres around the city this weekend.
Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing
Friday January 17
Where: Various locations
What: Dine Out Vancouver Festival has grown from humble beginnings into Canada’s largest food and drink festival. Today, the festival brings together hundreds of chefs, more than 200 restaurants, wineries, craft breweries, suppliers and more for 17 days of dining, food-forward events and experiences designed to give local and visiting culinary enthusiasts the opportunity to taste the best flavours of the city.
Runs Until: Sunday February 2, 2020
Pacific Theatre presents: Gramma
Where: Pacific Theatre
What: Korean-born Maki is excited to begin her new life in a Regina basement suite, but her elderly landlady seems determined to treat her as nothing more than a servant. Playwright and actor of Suitcase Stories Maki Yi returns to Pacific Theatre with a poetic new tale of human connection in the loneliest of circumstances. What does it mean to connect?
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
Where: York Theatre
What: This all-female circus party will uncork your expectations like a bottle of cheap champagne. Dripping with autonomy, The WonderWombs is reinventing circus and winking at your surprise. Eating binaries for breakfast and unfastening the buckles at gender’s waistline, these performers don’t need to hit the glass ceiling; they can lift it!
Runs Until: Sunday January 19, 2020
“From Billie To Bob” With Bria Skonberg
Where: Orpheum Theatre
What: Juno-winning Chilliwack native Bria Skonberg is the real deal. From Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan, this rising star multi-award-winning vocalist and trumpeter puts her spin on classic American music earning her accolades far and wide. With a voice compared to Anita O’Day and trumpet chops reminiscent of Louis Armstrong, New York-based Skonberg brings her energy and fantastic music to the VSO for two nights only.
Runs Until: Saturday January 18, 2020
BBQ, Fried Chicken & Brewery Tour
Where: Meet Inside Waterfront Station
What: Now in our 7th year with Dine Out Vancouver Festival, we’ve handpicked three of our favourite businesses in Vancouver for this satisfying tour. What’s included? Lots of meat! Each tour includes a meal and beer at Juke Fried Chicken, meal at Memphis Blues, along with a flight of beer at Container Brewing. Optional drinks can be purchased at each restaurant. Full transportation is also included with the Vancouver Brewery Tours bus including pick up and drop off, and our knowledgeable and fun beer guides will lead the brewery tour at Container Brewing.
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
Hawksworth Long Table Dinner Series
Where: Hawksworth Restaurant
What: Hawksworth Restaurant is pleased to present Hawksworth Long Table Dinner Series in our private dining space, The York Room. Offering a 5 course BC tasting menu paired with local wines, guests will be able to enjoy this experience guided by Chef Antonio Sotomayor and Wine Director Bryant Mao. Fresh and vibrant carefully sourced organic and oceanwise ingredients are conjured into enticing and wholesome dishes by our talented and highly skilled culinary team.
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
Yuk Yuks presents Lori Ferguson-Ford
Where: Yuk Yuks
What: Lori has been a professional stand-up comic for over 20 years. She began her love for comedy in 1988. A bit of a fairytale beginning…while working as a waitress, one of her regulars offered to sponsor her dream of stand- up comedy as a career. Soon after, Lori was voted B.C.’s Funniest New Comic and four years later B.C.’s Funniest Woman.
Runs Until: Saturday January 18, 2020
UBC Theatre presents: The Changeling
Where: Telus Studio Theatre, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
What: A tale of hidden sexual desires, bloody deeds, and characters who realize their intentions are less than pure, Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling is one of the darkest and most sensual of the 17th century English tragedies. The beautiful Beatrice falls hard for Alsemero, who shares her feelings, but Beatrice’s marriage to Alonzo de Piracquo, approved by her father Vermandero, is planned. Being a Jacobean tragedy, the solution turns to murder.
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
Saturday January 18
Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival
Where: Various Locations
What: When it launched in 2011, The Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival was the first city-wide festival of its kind in the world. This January it returns for its 10th year, bigger and better than ever, with Vancouver’s best chocolatiers, pastry shops, bakeries, cafes, gelato and ice cream makers coming together to make the humble hot chocolate hotter than it has ever been before. In the damp and gloomy days of our Westcoast winter, you’ll find our motto to be true: “Hot Chocolate Makes You Happy!”
Runs Until: Saturday February 29, 2020
Vancouver Canucks v San Jose Sharks
Where: Rogers Arena
What: Rogers Arena is one of North America’s most active venues, and throughout the year, it hosts some of the world’s top entertainers. But nothing gets this state-of-the-art building more electrified than when the Vancouver Canucks take to the ice during hockey season. So whether you’re a diehard hockey fan wanting to witness professional hockey at its highest level or you’re just looking for Vancouver’s biggest party this winter season, head to Rogers Arena and you’ll quickly discover why, as they say in Vancouver, “We Are All Canucks.”
Where: 901 West Cordova Street
What: Beer and good food go hand and hand. Join the team at Canadian Craft Tours as we venture to three of our favorite Vancouver Breweries and pair beers with a few hidden gem snacks along the way. Cheese goes well with Wine, but have you tried award-winning cheese with the right beers? There are a few special treats along this tour as well as a tasty dessert. Tour includes 3 flights of beer (3 Flights of 4x4oz) and snacks at each venue. Yes, there is an option to purchase a little more food along the way for those who want a full tummy-filling meal.
Runs Until: Sunday February 2, 2020
Coffee Roast & Delightful Bites Tour
Where: 901 West Cordova Street
What: Join Canadian Craft Tours to explore why Vancouver’s Coffee Scene is seen as top tier on the world stage. Throughout the minibus tour, we learn about the Roasting process, how different drinks are made as well as try a few of our favorite drinks with paired snacks.
Runs Until: Sunday February 2, 2020
“From Billie To Bob” With Bria Skonberg
Where: Orpheum Theatre
What: Juno-winning Chilliwack native Bria Skonberg is the real deal. From Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan, this rising star multi-award-winning vocalist and trumpeter puts her spin on classic American music earning her accolades far and wide. With a voice compared to Anita O’Day and trumpet chops reminiscent of Louis Armstrong, New York-based Skonberg brings her energy and fantastic music to the VSO for two nights only.
Runs Until: Saturday January 18, 2020
Yuk Yuks presents Lori Ferguson-Ford
Where: Yuk Yuks
What: Lori has been a professional stand-up comic for over 20 years. She began her love for comedy in 1988. A bit of a fairytale beginning…while working as a waitress, one of her regulars offered to sponsor her dream of stand- up comedy as a career. Soon after, Lori was voted B.C.’s Funniest New Comic and four years later B.C.’s Funniest Woman.
Runs Until: Saturday January 18, 2020
Sunday January 19
Jim Green Film Series: The Marriage of Figaro
Where: SFU Goldcorp Theatre
What: Join us for a free screening of the 2008 Royal Opera House production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Vancouver Opera presents Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre beginning Thursday, February 13th. In the opera, Figaro, Rosina, and Count Almaviva meet for the first time in a story that is regarded as one of opera’s best comedies.
Where: Jade Dynasty Restaurant
What: Whether this is your first time of you have been enjoying Dim Sum for years, this entertaining activity will answer questions and take your enjoyment of Dim Sum to a deeper level. Your host, Thomas Robson, is a longtime resident of Vancouver’s historic Chinatown. Thomas is a retired chef and author. He was host of the Emmy-nominated cooking series, “Entree To Asia” so guests will enjoy an exclusive introduction to Dim Sum through his expertise
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
Chinatown Dumpling Masterclass
Where: Say Hey Cafe
What: Everyone loves dumplings! We will learn how to make authentic Chinese dumplings with creative ingredients. This dumpling-making class will include a 1-hr sneak-peak of Chinatown, followed by 2 hours of prep, learning how to make dumplings, then eating them. You will learn secrets to making perfect dumplings and you’ll get a recipe to take home with you.
Runs Until: Thursday January 30, 2020
Where: York Theatre
What: This all-female circus party will uncork your expectations like a bottle of cheap champagne. Dripping with autonomy, The WonderWombs is reinventing circus and winking at your surprise. Eating binaries for breakfast and unfastening the buckles at gender’s waistline, these performers don’t need to hit the glass ceiling; they can lift it!
Runs Until: Sunday January 19, 2020
Where: Historic Theatre
What: A surprising, funny, and revelatory new play about love, sex, and math. The cynical, skeptical daughter of a theoretical physicist and a composer, Sarah Jean’s clinical approach to love meets with little success. In this absorbing drama infused with science and classical music, three exceptional minds collide like charged particles in an accelerator. Sarah Jean’s hugely talented, yet severely dysfunctional, family will learn that love and time itself are connected in unimaginable ways.
Runs Until: Sunday January 19, 2020
Where: Emily Carr Institute
What: Emily Carr University and The Obakki Foundation present A Handful of Stories; an exhibition and series of public events that explores new ways for design to address and disrupt the single story of the global refugee crisis.
Runs Until: Sunday January 19, 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
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
Ongoing
Firehall Arts Centre presents: House and Home
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: Jennifer Griffin’s biting, comic take on Vancouver’s current real estate crisis. Hilary, a waitress/poet turned social worker, and Henry, a Butoh dancer turned lawyer, didn’t know how lucky they were when they managed to escape bad roommates and buy a house before the real estate market skyrocketed. Finding themselves house rich and cash poor they abandon their values and plunge into the world of short-term rentals. How far can they go to keep their house?
Runs Until: Saturday January 25, 2020
Where: 43 W Hastings
What: Voted the Number 1 drag show, Absolut’ly Dragulous is a drag show mix of classic glamour to punk rock to legendary ballads. Hosted by Vancouver’s own legendary Queen of the West End Carlotta Gurl.
Runs Until: Saturday January 25, 2019
Burnaby Art Gallery presents ‘Echoes’
Where: Burnaby Art Gallery
What: As an echo reflects and repeats between entities, this exhibition considers communication between bodies which may be thought to be eclipsed. Here, the bodies of water and the physical remnants of stone, plastic, and land become the houses for the historical traces of change and continuity. Selected artworks contemplate the physical and embodied ways in which memory reappears and continues to resonate within the individual and across generations.
Runs Until: Sunday January 26, 2020
Canyon Lights at Capilano Suspension Bridge 2019
Where: Capilano Suspension Bridge Park
What: Re-capture the feeling of wonder and excitement of the holiday season and be amazed by the hundreds of thousands of lights throughout the park. The suspension bridge, Treetops Adventure, Cliffwalk, the rainforest and canyon are transformed into a world of festive lights and visual enchantment. Once again the 30-ton Douglas firs of Treetops Adventure will receive star treatment. Treetops Adventure is a series of seven suspension bridges attached to eight 250 years old Douglas-firs with viewing platforms, reaching up to 110 feet above the forest floor. These magnificent Douglas firs will be lit above and below the collars, making these trees the eight tallest Christmas trees in the world!
Runs Until: Sunday January 26, 2020
Chinatown Dumpling Masterclass
Where: Say Hey Cafe
What: Everyone loves dumplings! We will learn how to make authentic Chinese dumplings with creative ingredients. This dumpling-making class will include a 1-hr sneak-peak of Chinatown, followed by 2 hours of prep, learning how to make dumplings, then eating them. You will learn secrets to making perfect dumplings and you’ll get a recipe to take home with you.
Runs Until: Thursday January 30, 2020
Pacific Theatre presents: Gramma
Where: Pacific Theatre
What: Korean-born Maki is excited to begin her new life in a Regina basement suite, but her elderly landlady seems determined to treat her as nothing more than a servant. Playwright and actor of Suitcase Stories Maki Yi returns to Pacific Theatre with a poetic new tale of human connection in the loneliest of circumstances. What does it mean to connect?
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
BBQ, Fried Chicken & Brewery Tour
Where: Meet Inside Waterfront Station
What: Now in our 7th year with Dine Out Vancouver Festival, we’ve handpicked three of our favourite businesses in Vancouver for this satisfying tour. What’s included? Lots of meat! Each tour includes a meal and beer at Juke Fried Chicken, meal at Memphis Blues, along with a flight of beer at Container Brewing. Optional drinks can be purchased at each restaurant. Full transportation is also included with the Vancouver Brewery Tours bus including pick up and drop off, and our knowledgeable and fun beer guides will lead the brewery tour at Container Brewing.
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
Hawksworth Long Table Dinner Series
Where: Hawksworth Restaurant
What: Hawksworth Restaurant is pleased to present Hawksworth Long Table Dinner Series in our private dining space, The York Room. Offering a 5 course BC tasting menu paired with local wines, guests will be able to enjoy this experience guided by Chef Antonio Sotomayor and Wine Director Bryant Mao. Fresh and vibrant carefully sourced organic and oceanwise ingredients are conjured into enticing and wholesome dishes by our talented and highly skilled culinary team.
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
UBC Theatre presents: The Changeling
Where: Telus Studio Theatre, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
What: A tale of hidden sexual desires, bloody deeds, and characters who realize their intentions are less than pure, Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling is one of the darkest and most sensual of the 17th century English tragedies. The beautiful Beatrice falls hard for Alsemero, who shares her feelings, but Beatrice’s marriage to Alonzo de Piracquo, approved by her father Vermandero, is planned. Being a Jacobean tragedy, the solution turns to murder.
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
Where: Jade Dynasty Restaurant
What: Whether this is your first time of you have been enjoying Dim Sum for years, this entertaining activity will answer questions and take your enjoyment of Dim Sum to a deeper level. Your host, Thomas Robson, is a longtime resident of Vancouver’s historic Chinatown. Thomas is a retired chef and author. He was host of the Emmy-nominated cooking series, “Entree To Asia” so guests will enjoy an exclusive introduction to Dim Sum through his expertise
Runs Until: Saturday February 1, 2020
Where: Various locations
What: Dine Out Vancouver Festival has grown from humble beginnings into Canada’s largest food and drink festival. Today, the festival brings together hundreds of chefs, more than 200 restaurants, wineries, craft breweries, suppliers and more for 17 days of dining, food-forward events and experiences designed to give local and visiting culinary enthusiasts the opportunity to taste the best flavours of the city.
Runs Until: Sunday February 2, 2020
Where: 901 West Cordova Street
What: Beer and good food go hand and hand. Join the team at Canadian Craft Tours as we venture to three of our favorite Vancouver Breweries and pair beers with a few hidden gem snacks along the way. Cheese goes well with Wine, but have you tried award-winning cheese with the right beers? There are a few special treats along this tour as well as a tasty dessert. Tour includes 3 flights of beer (3 Flights of 4x4oz) and snacks at each venue. Yes, there is an option to purchase a little more food along the way for those who want a full tummy-filling meal.
Runs Until: Sunday February 2, 2020
Coffee Roast & Delightful Bites Tour
Where: 901 West Cordova Street
What: Join Canadian Craft Tours to explore why Vancouver’s Coffee Scene is seen as top tier on the world stage. Throughout the minibus tour, we learn about the Roasting process, how different drinks are made as well as try a few of our favorite drinks with paired snacks.
Runs Until: Sunday February 2, 2020
Arts Club Theatre Company presents: The Shoplifters
Where: Granville Island Stage
What: Meet Alma, a career shoplifter who prefers the “five-finger discount” over any senior citizen’s deal. When a grocery store theft goes awry, her elaborate life of petty crime is halted by an overzealous security guard and his affable mentor. With sharp-witted comic observations, Morris Panych has expertly drawn a cast of misfit characters that will leave you rooting for all sides to come out on top.
Runs Until: Sunday February 9, 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
Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival
Where: Various Locations
What: When it launched in 2011, The Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival was the first city-wide festival of its kind in the world. This January it returns for its 10th year, bigger and better than ever, with Vancouver’s best chocolatiers, pastry shops, bakeries, cafes, gelato and ice cream makers coming together to make the humble hot chocolate hotter than it has ever been before. In the damp and gloomy days of our Westcoast winter, you’ll find our motto to be true: “Hot Chocolate Makes You Happy!”
Runs Until: Saturday February 29, 2020
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: Elizabeth Zvonar is a Vancouver artist who works extensively with collage techniques and sculpture. Zvonar draws material from a broad spectrum of sources to produce savvy, sardonic, and often comical juxtapositions that critique socio-cultural norms. Her works—vivid, colourful, and alluring—are examinations of subliminal power dynamics and ideologies in visual culture. Her exhibition, I Spy, features two new large-scale murals and recent photographic collages that allude to how we look at and make sense of photographs.
Runs Until: Sunday March 1, 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
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
Where: Cypress Mountain
What: Pizza, S’mores, Fire Pits, Music and more! Bring the whole family up and hang out, every Friday night.
Runs Until: Friday March 27, 2020
MOA Presents Playing with Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary
Where: Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at UBC
What: Showcasing a group of 11 highly celebrated BC-based artists, this premiere exhibition of ceramic works, expresses strong opinions on urgent social issues and offers subtle perspectives on the state of our contemporary world. In Playing with Fire, the artists defiantly challenge the notion that all things made of clay are required to be functional; in their works, clay is released from this constraint and elevated into extraordinary works of art. Visitors are invited to explore the many layers of understanding each of these provocative works embody, boldly demonstrating clay’s myriad discursive possibilities.
Runs Until: Sunday March 29, 2020
Where: Cypress Mountain
What: Grab your skis and snowboards and get ready for some extra runs! Hours of operation have been extended until 10pm.
Runs Until: Tuesday March 31, 2020
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
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
Where: The Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art, Rapture, Rhythm and the Tree of Life – Emily Carr and Her Female Contemporaries is on view from December 7, 2019 to June 28, 2020. Drawn primarily from the Gallery’s permanent collection, this exhibition presents an expanded view of the diverse creative practices of women in this region during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Presented in conjunction with Carr’s paintings of forest interiors are works by Indigenous creators such as Amy Cooper (Th’ewá:li), Mary Little (Nuu-chah-nulth), and Placida Wallace (Líl̓wat Nation).
Runs Until: Sunday June 28, 2020
What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments.