If you've ever been to Vancouver's iconic Elbow Room Café, you're already familiar with Dave Deveau and Anton Lipovetsky's Elbow Room Café: The Musical. Vivacious and engaging in its presence on stage, Elbow Room tells the story of one of this city's most recognizable fixtures, and speaks to the contemporary issues surrounding it with a clear voice.
Read MoreWriter Paloma Pacheco speaks with the inimitable Barbara Chirinos, programmer of the Black History Month film series at Vancity Theatre, and touches on the vitality of film as story-telling medium and the importance of diverse experience in art. “What I try to do with all Black History events is to promote them in the broader community. It is very important for the black community to show up because we need to be reminded of what we’ve accomplished, to recognize all of the people that have made contributions, to see people who look like us and to be reminded: We are worthy, we are fantastic, and we contribute to society.”
Read MoreThe final demonstration was a gleeful and downright genius romp through flour. Clad in black, several of the female contortionists danced and leapt through clouds of flour: every child’s dream. Cuisine & Confessions was an exquisite performance that called the audience to listen to their stomachs and in turn, connect with themselves and the people around them.
Read MoreI was not prepared for the intuitive, almost instinctual wash of familiarity as I watched Mouthpiece. Admittedly, I'm sometimes intimidated by contemporary theatre because I'm afraid I won't “get it”, but this show was so profoundly relatable because of it's unique use of sound, physicality, and artful allusions to overwhelmingly intricate themes. Never before have I wanted to stand up from my seat and yell, “Yes! That's exactly it! The feeling of being hot and itchy and hate-filled because you feel wrong in everything you're wearing - that's what it looks like!”
Read MoreThe poem beginning “the hardest part is knowing,” reveals the shame of all educated feminists who remain victims of themselves: that struggle between the intellect knowing better and the body self-destructing at the hands of learned behaviors. She writes “at the end of the day / ––theory fails / to account for disjunction / between bodily urges and / rational thought.”
Read More“I learned that I have no control over what other people think.” Patrick shares of his takeaway. “What am I afraid of? What people will say about me or not like me, but is that any of my business?”
Patrick asks me if I’ve ever watched a variety show where contestants are put in booths full of bills of money flying around. I have.
“That’s what my life feels like right now. I love jumping out of bed in the morning because I’m excited to work on so many things. My career is not work—it’s my art, and that’s one and the same.”
Read MoreFor our first theatre review after a nice, long break during the holidays, writer Charmaine Li considers Jennifer Haley's The Nether in terms of its minimalist approach to exploring the sinister trajectory of online existence. “A dark and at times disturbing piece, The Nether wonders when our darkest thoughts stop being thoughts and become sin.”
Read More"We also see a distorted concept of loyalty in intimate groups, in families, cliques and communities. For example, one person might break up with their girlfriend, and expect their friends to be mean to their girlfriend. But in fact that’s the opposite of loyalty—real friendship and real loyalty and love means helping people negotiate and helping people be self-critical. The problem now is that we have a very high bar that must be reached to be eligible for compassion."
Read More
