Staying indoors doesn’t have to be synonymous with sitting on the couch.
Especially when there’s so much going on to occupy your time on any given evening in Vancouver.
So we’ve rounded up a list of upcoming performances you should get out and see this season. It’s time to add a little culture to the mix beyond whatever magazine happens to be sitting on your coffee table…
Theatre
Next month, catch a performance of The Marvelous Wonderettes at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. Roger Bean’s off-Broadway smash hit – directed locally by Wayne Nolan with musical direction by Kate MacColl – follows four friends through the trials and smiles of high school in 1958 and then again at their 10-year reunion in 1968. It’s a tribute to the girl-group sounds of the ‘50s and ‘60s, featuring iconic songs from two of the greatest decades in American pop music.
Starting later this month, head to the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage to see George Bernard Shaw’s classic play Saint Joan brought to life. The work explores the legend of Joan of Arc and her remarkable rise and fall. Learn how an illiterate teenage girl inspired an army of men to rid France of its English occupiers and place a dauphin on the throne. More than 500 years after her controversial death, the heroine’s passion and conviction continue to capture the imagination.
From November 4th to 9th, UBC’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA) is set to present a special series of events and performances as part of its Taiwanese Puppetry Festival. Spotlight Taiwan is a new initiative focusing on Taiwan’s sophisticated multicultural identity and highlighting the performing arts as a key component of the country’s rich history. Direct from Taiwan, the Taiyuan Puppet Theatre and the Chin Fei Feng Marionette Theatre Troupe will offer puppetry workshops, school shows, and public performances at MOA.
Art
The Vancouver Opera, in collaboration with marketing communications agency DDB Canada Vancouver, has commissioned local Vancouver artists, Nick Gregson, Carson Ting, Ben Tour, and Ola Volo to create the murals on construction hoardings throughout the Downtown Eastside, the Cambie corridor, and on the exterior walls of two eastside buildings. The four artists were invited to respond to the story of the forthcoming performance: Stickboy (opening October 23rd) at the VO, and were asked to interpret the “monster” that lives inside the opera’s central character, a young and sensitive boy who reacts violently to repeated acts of bullying over a prolonged period of time.
Music
The Chan Centre presents the contemporary Irish super group, The Gloaming, and its alluring deep roots stemming from the Emerald Isle, at the Chan Shun Concert Hall on November 15th at 8pm. The Gloaming features Irish singer Iarla Ó Lionaird, fiddle master Martin Hayes, guitarist Dennis Cahill, pianist Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman), and Hardanger fiddle innovator, Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh.
Dig into the classics, and by that we mean classical music, early next month. Indulge in three masterpieces penned by chamber music titans Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms as the Koerner Quartet presents, Nothing But The Classics. Koerner Quartet serves as ensemble-in-residence at the Vancouver Academy of Music (VAM) where they fulfill a mandate to cultivate an appreciation of chamber music amongst Vancouver audiences.
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Cover photo from: istockphoto.com/ VikZa
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