Mount Thor, 2008, by Cory Trépanier – on display at the Vancouver Maritime Museum.| Photo courtesy of Cory Trépanier.
I trust everyone’s 2018 is coming along nicely and hope many of you are keeping your new year’s resolutions? If one of your resolutions is to get more cultured, why not check out some of the cultural events and activities happening in the next couple of weeks.
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My French Film Festival
Jan. 19–Feb. 19
Online, Worldwide
The best of new-generation French cinema will be available online once again during the My French Film Festival. This festival is the first entirely online Francophone film festival and offers a selection of 10 short films and 10 feature films in competition, completed this year by four features and three shorts presented out-of-competition. All of the films are subtitled in 10 languages. The short films can be viewed free of charge worldwide, while the feature films have a viewing fee. Several screenings will be organised around the world. Information about the locations and times can be found on the festival website.
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SHOWCASE: Slide Show and Print Exhibition
Jan. 21–27
Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Burnaby
burnabyphotographicsociety.com
Since 1997, the Burnaby Photographic Society has offered SHOWCASE – an evening of images set to music and designed to entertain friends, family and fellow photography enthusiasts while demonstrating the talents and skills of our members. This event caps off a week-long exhibition of prints in the foyer of Burnaby’s Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. The print exhibition is open to the public, free of charge daily, until 10:00 p.m. from Sunday afternoon, Jan. 21 through Saturday, Jan. 27. For photographer and exhibition info, check out their website.
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Francis Fukuyama: The Unravelling of the Liberal Order
Jan. 25, 6–7:30 p.m.
Old Auditorium, University of British Columbia
Come down to the University of British Columbia to sit in on a lecture by one of the world’s foremost political theorists, Francis Fukuyama. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, was a Hegelian-inspired political treatise arguing that liberal democracy is the final form of government for all nations, resulting in the end of history, the end-point of humanity’s sociocultural evolution. Given all that has happened in recent events to the liberal order, Fukuyama will provide his analysis of the potential decline of liberalism and the future of democracy.
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Wayne Wapeemukwa’s Luk’Luk’I
Jan. 25, 7:30 p.m.
Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, Vancouver
SFU Woodwards will be showing an encore screening of the VIFF and TIFF festival favourite Luk’Luk’I, directed by filmmaker Wayne Wapeemukwa. The film follows the lives of five Vancouverites living on society’s fringes during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Many of the actors play characters based on their own experiences: a mother and part-time sex worker; a father juggling parenting and his landscaping job with a heroin addiction; a larger-than-life street celebrity who roller-skates around town; an addict who, consistently failed by the system, has recurring visions of being taken away to another world; a man with a physical impairment who is just trying to make it on his own and get to the hockey finals. These vulnerable five form a community that stands in stark contrast to the glittering backdrop of the Olympics.
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Lynn Nottage’s Ruined
Jan. 26–Feb. 17
Pacific Theatre, Vancouver
The long-running performing-arts venue Pacific Theatre will be running a theatrical adaptation of Ruined, a play by American playwright Lynn Nottage, until Feb. 17. The two-time Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner dramatizes the lives of Congolese women surviving civil war in this play. Mama Nadi’s bar both protects and profits off the bodies of the women who have become casualties of a long and brutal civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She ensures survival by catering to both sides of the conflict, but how long can she keep the war outside her walls? What is justified when survival is on the line? For tickets and showtimes, check out the theatre website.
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Cory Trépanier’s Into the Arctic
Jan. 26–March 25
Vancouver Maritime Museum & Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver
The Vancouver Maritime Museum will be hosting the Canadian premiere of Into the Arctic until March 25. This exhibit encompasses over 50 Arctic oil paintings and three films from one of Canada’s Top 100 Living Explorers, which examines Cory Trépanier’s four Arctic expeditions to the furthest reaches of the Canadian North. Its wilderness is so remote and untouched that many of its landscapes have never been documented before. Due to its extensive scope, there will be an additional exhibit location at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. For more information, please visit the website.
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Patricia Cornelius’ SHIT
Jan. 27–Feb. 10
Firehall Arts Centre, Vancouver
The Firehall Arts Centre will produce and present the Canadian premiere of Australian playwright Patricia Cornelius’ provocative play SHIT until
Feb. 10. Named Australia’s most unapologetic playwright, Cornelius’ play examines the lives of three incarcerated underclass women in a manner unseen on most theatre stages. The play asks us to consider women with foul mouths and weathered faces, women who spit, fight, swear, hurt and steal; Billy, Bobby and Sam – angry, unrelenting, terrifying, damaged women – answer. They discuss fist fights, foster care, babies, their mothers, crying and what it’s like to believe in absolutely nothing. Check out the Firehall website for tickets and showtimes.
Unusual discussions.| Photo courtesy of Firehall Arts Centre
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Fascinatin’ Fusion
Jan. 28, 3 p.m.
Dunbar Ryerson United Church, Vancouver
Traditional Irish rhythms collide with African counter-rhythms. The Beatles morph into Renaissance courtier. A 20th century composer tackles Shakespeare. And the Wizard of Oz goes to Motown! Join High Spirits at the Dunbar Ryerson United Church in Vancouver’s West Side for these enchanting encounters as well as gems of world music, jazz by Cole Porter and Duke Ellington and much more. Check out their website for more details.
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Jasmine Wallace’s Urban Narratives
Feb. 1–March 10
Z Gallery Arts, Vancouver
The city inspires the omnipresent grey in Canadian artist Jasmine Wallace’s paintings on display at the Z Gallery Arts, Feb. 1–March 10. Wallace finds her inspiration in the city, in its colours and its lines. The underground spaces dug by the people to shelter from the cold (metro, underground galleries) and the way they have been adapting their infrastructure fascinates her. This impulse of life we get from concrete, and the constructions and deconstructions appearing and disappearing inspire the motivations of the artist. There will be an artist reception on Feb. 1, 6–8 p.m.
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Janusz Olejniczak Plays Chopin
Feb. 2–3, 7:30 p.m. (Pre-concert talk 6:45 p.m.)
Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver
The keyboard music of the early Romantics such as Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann – and even of still later composers – was written for pianos substantially different from the ubiquitous modern Steinway. This two-concert collaboration is an exploration of how the use of period instruments can have a dramatic effect on an artist’s interpretive choices. Award-winning Polish pianist, Janusz Olejniczak, will play two recitals with different programmes. In each concert, he will play the first half on a 19th-century fortepiano and the second half on a modern Steinway. For the programme and tickets, check out Early Music B.C.’s website.
