Spring is almost here and the omicron wave is receding – hopeful signs as we head into March! The cherry blossoms will be in bloom soon and the longer and hopefully warmer days will encourage more activities outside the home. There are a lot of music, dance and film festivals happening, why not check some of the below out in the next few weeks?
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Vancouver International Dance Festival
Jan. 21–March 26
The Vancouver International Dance Festival (VIDF) celebrates its 22nd season with 35 live-streamed and in-person contemporary dance performances happening now until March 26. VIDF will offer unique cinematic experiences with free/by donation live-streamed performances from KW Production Studio. The 2022 VIDF Livestream Series features Marion Landers, Dance//Novella, and Company 605. Registration is required to watch. Check out the festival’s website for more information.
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The Living Room
Feb. 4–May 2022
The Centre A’s first experiential project The Living Room will transform their gallery into a furnished living room space. Visitors will have the opportunity to sit down in their makeshift living room to watch a series of curated films and videos. By converting the gallery rooms into a (semi-)domestic space, they hope to demystify and challenge the oftentimes inaccessible, highly curatorial nature of a contemporary art gallery. Through this project, they hope to host a space in which visitors can reconnect with each other after almost two years of isolation. There will be two series of films programmed. The first one, addressing reconnection, lineage and exile, will take place now until March, and the second series will run from April to May 2022. The second series is built upon an examination of Canada’s role in the multicultural discourses in terms of inequality, intermediacy and extraction. Bringing together an array of approaches, through documentary or futuristic lens, this program points to the making of a nationhood and its discontents from a sociopolitical perspective.
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28th Rendez-Vous French Film Festival
Feb. 18–March 31
The annual Vancouver-based Rendez-Vous French Film Festival is happening now until March 31 and provides an opportunity for the British Columbia community to enjoy a rare slice of the award winning global Francophone film industry. All films are presented in their original languages with English subtitles unless otherwise indicated. Online films are geo-limited to viewers in B.C., Alberta and Yukon, with some limited access from elsewhere in Canada. For a complete list of films, check out the festival’s website.
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25th Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
Feb. 25–March 27
The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival will celebrate their 25th anniversary with a specially curated program that features both in-person and online options. They’ve lined up accomplished guest speakers, engaging workshops and panel discussions and over 50 films about climbing, snowsports, adventure, mountain culture, the environment and more! There will be numerous World, North American and Canadian Premieres, showcasing powerful stories that will inspire your next adventure. For a complete list of films, check out the festival’s website.
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COM·PLIC·IT
March 1–13
The Jericho Arts Centre will be presenting a Youtheatre Movement production, COM·PLIC·IT by Indigenous playwright Lee Jay Bamberry, from March 1 to 13. A compelling story of how a young Indigenous girl befriends an unsuspecting teenage Prairie boy, and together they explore how and why their paths are crossing even if it’s only for 48 hours. This untold tale of identity and hope only skims the surface surrounding the hidden and Complicit Residential School era, circa 1960. For tickets and more information, check out the Jericho Arts Centre website.
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Ballet B.C.: Reveal + Tell
March 3–5, 8 p.m.
Ballet B.C. continues their season with an evening featuring three internationally renowned dancemakers. The program begins with the Canadian premiere of virtuosic creator Marco Goecke’s intense exploration of love, Woke Up Blind. Next, experience The Statement, a striking and theatrical masterpiece from Crystal Pite – arguably the most sought-after choreographer in the world. The evening will conclude with an anticipated new creation from Ballet B.C. Artistic Director Medhi Walerski, just BEFORE right AFTER. Check out their website for tickets and more information.
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Vancouver Jewish Film Festival
March 3–13
The Vancouver Jewish Film Centre (VJFC) will be hosting the longest-running Jewish Film Festival in Canada, showcasing the diversity of Jewish culture, heritage and identity through film. Since 1988, with the help of our generous community sponsors, the Centre has presented high quality comedies, dramas, thrillers, hot and timely documentaries and whimsical shorts. The festival is a community-building initiative intended to connect audiences through film and storytelling. As in 2021, the 2022 festival will be hosted online. Please visit their website for a complete list of showings.
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Women of Note
March 4, 7:30 p.m.
This concert by Early Music Vancouver showcases the music of 18th-century female composers who, though forgotten or ignored by history, in their day shared the stage with and enjoyed the respect and friendship of composers we now regard as musical giants, including Haydn and Mozart. Like their male colleagues, these women were highly acclaimed both as composers and as performing musicians. They include the noted pianist and sought-after teacher Maria Hester Park; the star singer and playwright Amélie-Julie Candeille; the stateswoman, keyboard player, and opera composer Maria Antonia, Electress of Saxony; the master violinist Maddalena Laura Sirmen, who was trained at one of Venice’s famous musical orphanages; and the virtuoso singer and pianist Marianne Anna Katharina von Martinez, a frequent duet partner of Mozart’s, an influence on his compositional style, and a member of the prestigious Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna. Their music is brimming with the elegance and eloquence of the Classical era.
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The Imitation Game: Visual Culture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
March 5–Oct. 23
The Imitation Game surveys the extraordinary uses (and abuses) of artificial intelligence (AI) in the production of modern and contemporary visual culture around the world. The exhibition follows a chronological narrative that first examines the development of artificial intelligence, from the 1950s to the present, through a precise historical lens. Building on this foundation, it emphasizes the explosive growth of AI across disciplines, including animation, architecture, art, fashion, graphic design, urban design and video games, over the past decade. Revolving around the important roles of machine learning and computer vision in AI research and experimentation, The Imitation Game reveals the complex nature of this new tool and demonstrates its importance for cultural production.
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Ominous Sounds at the River Crossing
March 6–13
The Touchstone Theatre will be presenting an adaptation of Canadian playwright’s Jason Sherman’s Ominous Sounds at the River Crossing. Six actors stand in the hot glow of the stage lights. Restless, bewildered, on edge. Another dinner party story is about to begin but something’s different – the cultural tectonics are shifting, a new world is emerging, and the stage as usual is under siege. As new stories break ground, old tropes tumble down into the chasm. The real question is: when this surge of change abates, what – and who – will rise from the rubble? Pirandello meets Brecht meets the Twilight Zone. Ethics and art collide in this timely, darkly funny and existential play.
