Category: Arts & Culture

Hundreds unite to stitch Torah

Sisters Brenda Silver, Susan Rubin and Mimi Wolch are among the hundreds who will contribute to the Torah Stitch by Stitch project. (photo by Phillip Silver)

A new Torah scroll is in the making. The brainchild of Temma Gentles, Holy Blossom Temple’s artist-in-residence in Toronto, the project originated from a chance encounter Gentles had with Marilynne Cass a year ago.

Gentles, an award-winning Judaic textile artist, is the artistic director of Torah Stitch by Stitch (TSBS), while Cass is the project’s executive coordinator.

“I fell in love with the concept and have thoroughly enjoyed seeing this dream turn into a reality,” said Cass about accepting Gentles’ invitation to join the team when the project was just beginning.

Gentles came up with the idea while on sabbatical in Israel several years ago, when seeking a way to help people engage in the words of Torah. As a textile artist, she envisioned creating a cross-stitched Torah.

“Temma chose cross-stitch because it’s a universally known craft that has been traditionally taught to young girls around the world for adorning clothing and household items,” said Cass. “It was also often the way in which girls learned their letters and numbers. While it’s a simple skill to master, it can still produce amazingly beautiful pieces of work. Using cross-stitch for TSBS has been an inspired choice, as it has allowed people from around the world to work together on a single project.”

Gentles designed a new font for Hebrew letters and divided the entire Torah into 1,463 four-verse segments for people to work on. TSBS participants range from men and women in their teens to those well into their 90s, from skilled stitchers to novices.

“There is no skill test to pass,” said Cass. “The only requirement is that each person commits to following the stitching graph correctly, complete their canvas in a timely manner and treat the work with respect.”

TSBS stitchers come from many different religions – from Judaism to Christianity, Buddhism to Islam. “Even though we’re doing the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), this isn’t an exclusively Jewish project,” said Cass.

“The Torah is the basis of three of the world’s major religions and TSBS has universal appeal,” she added, noting the project includes avowed atheists and the mother superior of a convent. “Everyone is welcome,” said Cass. “In fact, we’re actively looking for more Muslim stitchers.”

While many TSBS stitchers are from the Toronto area, the project has spread throughout Canada.

“I found out about this project from my sister, Brenda Silver, who met the artist through her synagogue in Toronto,” said Susan Rubin, chief financial officer of a downtown Vancouver junior mining company, who resides on the North Shore. “Both of my sisters volunteered to do panels, so I decided to sign up for a panel, too.”

Rubin paid $18 to cover the kit cost and received the template for the verses, the fabric and the embroidery threads in the mail. “At first, it was difficult to figure out how to start, but soon I got the hang of it,” she said. “I hadn’t done any cross-stitching for about 40 years, but it’s not that difficult. I worked on the cross-stitching at night, doing an hour here and an hour there. After about six months, it was done. It was very satisfying work and fun to do.”

Gentles asked Rubin to be more involved in the project and asked whether she would like to be a coach. “I was pleased to take a position,” said Rubin. “I’m one of many volunteers assisting Temma. Some volunteers are helping people with the stitching, while others are helping to compile the finished panels.”

image - The display for the Torah scroll has been designed by Phillip Silver
The display for the Torah scroll has been designed by Phillip Silver. (illustration by Phillip Silver)

Rubin is helping keep track of the 700 stitchers. “I assign each stitcher a coach, so they have someone to contact if they run into trouble,” she said. “I also follow up with the stitchers who’ve had their panel for over six months and haven’t yet completed it. If someone cannot complete their panel, we try and find out why and offer help or, if need be, find a volunteer to adopt the panel. It’s important that all panels are complete, so the finished project is the entire Torah.

“It’s been interesting to hear feedback and personal stories from the volunteers. Even though this is a folk art project, there is a spiritual overtone and the stitchers receive great satisfaction in working with the words of the Torah.”

TSBS now has nearly 900 participants in 13 countries, with more applications coming in each week.

“Our ultimate goal is to have all 1,463 panels completed,” said Cass. “We’re more than halfway there.” The books of Genesis and Exodus have been finished, and stitchers are now working on Leviticus.

“We expect it to take another year before all the remaining canvases have been assigned,” she added. “Meanwhile, we’re working on the final details for the display format.”

The display has been designed by Phillip Silver, one of Canada’s foremost stage designers. It will be about 2.5 metres high and nearly 100 metres long. “The finished work will be museum quality and we hope it will be exhibited in several museums,” said Cass. “The goal is to allow people to feel as if they’re wrapped in the Torah.”

The project’s registration form, more information and helpful tips are available at torahstitchbystitch.temmagentles.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Abargil makes Brave Miss World worth seeing

Cecilia Peck, left, and Linor Abargil in Princeton, N.J. (photo by Motty Reif)

Former Israeli beauty queen and international cover girl Linor Abargil is a sharply intelligent woman with a cause: survivors of rape. Empathetic yet unsentimental, highly visible but also private, Abargil is a uniquely complicated individual.

Those who have been directly or indirectly affected by rape will have a visceral, positive reaction to Abargil’s story, as depicted in the feature-length documentary Brave Miss World, which is now streaming on Netflix. While Cecilia Peck’s film suffers from a meandering structure, Abargil’s toughness and tenacity provide a steady source of inspiration.

Shortly after she was anointed Miss Israel in 1998, the 18-year-old Abargil went to Milan for some modeling jobs. Preparing to leave Italy and return home a few months later, she was raped by an Israeli travel agent who’d been recommended by her modeling agency.

Abargil escaped with her life by promising the assailant that she would never tell anyone, but quickly reported the crime to Italian and Israeli authorities. When he returned to Israel, he was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced. (The film marshals allegations that the perpetrator – an Egyptian Christian married to an Israeli woman – was a serial rapist and an ongoing danger to society.)

The film picks up Abargil’s saga many years later, after she’s begun a website (now based at bravemissworld.com/speak-out/share-your-story) for rape survivors to confide their experiences, as well as the ongoing effects of their trauma.

Brave Miss World follows the peripatetic Netanya native from Tel Aviv to Cleveland, Johannesburg, New York, Princeton, UC Santa Barbara and Beverly Hills, where she meets with rape survivors and speaks at charity luncheons. Supplying solace and strength as needed, Abargil offers in-person proof that it’s possible to heal from a sexual attack and lead a satisfying life of unapologetic self-expression.

It’s not always a smooth ride, of course, particularly when Abargil’s rapist is up for parole and she has to confront past events and ongoing fears. Her determination, along with her belief that the failure to prosecute more rapists is an injustice that contributes to the ongoing suffering of survivors, is truly inspiring.

Abargil is a strong-willed, self-confident woman, and it’s always interesting watching her interact with strangers. But the documentary lacks her courage, tiptoeing around anything that might make her less sympathetic and saddling her with dull voice-over narration devoid of the bite of her personality. The omission of any discussion of how young women are objectified in advertising and fashion photography is an especially curious oversight given both Abargil’s extensive career as a model and her outspoken nature.

Brave Miss World was shot over a period of time that encompasses Abargil’s enrolment in law school as well as her abrupt transition from secular to religious Jew, which flummoxes her ever-loyal parents and may unsettle some viewers.

Ultimately, Brave Miss World does a clumsy job of blending a character study with a social-issue documentary. It’s soft-centred, unlike its subject, and largely content to proffer good intentions and a parade of hugs instead of exploring the tangle of issues surrounding rape.

Abargil, however, is a pretty remarkable person who never stops pushing herself beyond the familiar and comfortable. She’s well worth getting to know.

Michael Fox is a San Francisco film critic and journalist.

Mordechai Edel exhibits tapestries of light on canvas

Mordechai Edel at work in the studio. (photo from the artist)

Mordechai Edel is not a stranger to grief and pain. His parents escaped Austria in 1939. His uncle spent years in the Nazi concentration camps. His father died when he was 16 years old. Edel has been aware of the darkness in the world since he was a child, but he has never succumbed to it. The art he creates is light fantastic, bursting with colors, suffused with gladness. “Bringing joy to the world,” is his artistic motto.

Edel’s solo art show at the Unitarian Church on West 49th Avenue opened on Aug. 1. The artist talked to the Independent about his life and his paintings. His involvement with the arts started in his early childhood.

“My mom baked cakes for a coffee shop in Birmingham. It was also a gallery, and the owner,

Andre Drucker, was my first art teacher. When I was about 8, I won a BBC art competition with my self-portrait. It must’ve been my bright red hair,” he joked.

Even more than painting, he said, he wanted to sing, but for a child of a working immigrant family in post-war Birmingham, it wasn’t an easy or even a realistic dream, especially after his father fell sick and young Edel had to leave school at 14 to help his mother.

“I listened to the radio when they played classical music and opera,” he said. “We also had a very good cantor in our synagogue, and I wanted to sound like him. I sang in the choir.”

He frequently bought classical opera records at the local flea market but couldn’t listen to them at home – the family didn’t own a record player. When someone at the flea market suggested playing them on his player, the music was a revelation to the boy. “I wanted to sing like Caruso,” he remembered. “I wanted to study classical music and opera.”

Instead, he followed a much more practical route and apprenticed to a hairdresser. “My uncle was an opera singer before the war. It saved his life in the Nazi camp – he sang there. After the war, he immigrated to Canada and became a hairdresser. Nobody needed an opera singer.”

Edel followed in his uncle’s footsteps. He moved to Canada in 1969, when he was 20, and worked as a hairdresser, while spending all his money on music and singing lessons. He sang in concerts. At some points in his life, he was a cantor in Victoria and a soloist for the Tel Aviv opera.

But visual art was always an intrinsic part of his life, always casting light onto the shadows. When he opened his own hairdressing salon, he played classical music there and decorated the room with his paintings. His patrons loved the ambience, and the word of mouth spread about the hairdresser artist and his paintings.

It is no wonder that one of the recurring themes in Edel’s paintings is music. The picture “Spinner of Light” looks like a tapestry of colors and notes, where fantastic creatures sway to the unearthly melodies in an imaginary landscape. Flowers dance in several of his paintings, and Chassidic bands indulge in merry klezmer tunes. “O Sole Leone” is more grounded but just as whimsical, a song of Vancouver at night, while “Transparent Emet” reminds the viewer of the spiritual theatre of life. The musicians play in the pit, but the conductor exalts above, a part of a mystical pomegranate.

Symbolism plays a huge part in Edel’s artistic vision. Combined with his colorful esthetics, it leads him the way of impressionists, where emotions get embedded in pictures, entangled with floral and abstract motifs.

“I listen to classical records when I paint. Sometimes I listen to my wife Annie playing her violin. She is my muse. She inspires me.” Married for four decades, he is as much in love with his wife now as ever, he said, and their mutual devotion helped them five years ago, when darkness struck the family.

Someone they had trusted conned them out of their life savings. After working hard for more than 40 years, the family lost everything, about half a million dollars.

“People don’t like to hear others crying,” Edel said, “but frankly, it’s played havoc with our lives. We had intended to make aliyah to Israel for the ‘last and best’ retirement years – even though artists never retire – but we had to recoil into a one-bedroom rented apartment these past few years. And yet, in order to combat our tragedy and adversity, I came up with my ‘artidote.’… So many people need to be uplifted with light and laughter.”

“I don’t dwell on darkness. I try to stay positive, although it’s a challenge to be happy in the face of darkness,” 

Currently, the couple lives on a small government pension, and he paints in the living room – his studio. Like in all other areas of their life, however, his wife is his source of happiness and stability. “My wife says we go forward. And we do. I don’t dwell on darkness. I try to stay positive, although it’s a challenge to be happy in the face of darkness,” he admitted.

The current show emphasizes Edel’s drive towards the light. His paintings vibrate with joyful energy. “I wanted to reach out with my art, to show my paintings to Jews and non-Jews alike,” he said, explaining the placing of his deeply Jewish art in a Christian church.

The show runs until Aug. 31 and viewing is by appointment. On Aug. 27, at 7 p.m., there will be a guided tour by the artist and a complimentary concert. To register, call the Unitarian Church, 604-261-7204, or contact the artist, 604-875-9949.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Monsters at the Zack

Claudia Segovia’s creations are colorful, whimsical monsters. (photo from Claudia Segovia)

It took Claudia Segovia a long time to find her niche. “I always liked art,” she said in an interview with the Jewish Independent, “but I’ve been primarily a dancer, drawing on the sideline. When I got pregnant 17 years ago, I couldn’t dance, so I started drawing much more. I also always liked sewing, so I experimented with textile art, tried different techniques: finger puppets, smaller pictures, drawings, collages, sewn little monsters. Nothing seemed to fit, until I began painting. I have only been painting for a few years but I know that’s my direction, that’s what I want to do.”

Segovia’s solo show, Intuitive Mythology, opened at the Zack Gallery on Aug. 17. It is awash with colorful, whimsical monsters. Painted as large pictures or crafted as fabric dolls, the artist’s monsters are full of contradictions. They are childish and philosophical, ugly and charming, spout big ideas or cavort like spoiled brats.

photo - Claudia Segovia
Claudia Segovia (photo from the artist)

“I don’t decide what I paint,” Segovia said. “First, I let my intuition flow and play with colors and figures on canvas for the background. Then, when it’s done, I try to see what shapes are there, what creature emerges from within. Once the creature is realized, I work to fulfil its life. Only then, I try to understand its meaning. For me, it is the most important part. Sometimes I see my siblings there, sometimes a timepiece, sometimes a totem pole. It is as amazing to me as it is to the viewers. Each piece is a surprise. What does this creature mean? What words come up? What questions does it answer?”

For this show, Segovia doubled each of her painted monsters as a hand-made fabric doll. “After I finished the painting, I worked on a 3D textile sculpture. I try to match the fabrics to the texture and colors of the painting. I display my sewn creatures in front of the paintings, as if they are coming out of the canvases, into life.”

Each of her monsters has a story to tell, if only the viewers would listen. All of them are unique, sweet and tart fruits of Segovia’s imagination.

“I have a passion for little monsters, the ones that are funny and different. I don’t like realistic art,” she admitted. “Sometimes, I write words on my monsters. My intuition guides me.… I’m inspired by the Mexican folk art, especially Alebrije – painted wooden sculpture from Oaxaca. I visited the town once, when I was younger, and talked to the artists. I do similar things with my monsters. It’s not on purpose, it just happened.”

Segovia started selling her little sewn beasties long before she started painting them. “My son was about five,” she recalled. “I wasn’t painting yet but I was making the fabric creatures. I emailed all my friends and they emailed their friends and, eventually, a couple of gift shops expressed interest. Now, three stores in B.C. carry my monsters and my smaller pictures and collages. One is on Granville Island, one on Main and one in Victoria.”

She feels excited when someone buys her art – and it’s not about the money. “People buy it because they love my piece so much they want to take it home,” she explained. “It feels wonderful.”

Unfortunately, like many artists, Segovia can’t make a living with her art. “It helps,” she said, laughing, “but to pay the bills, I teach. I teach art and I teach dancing. I love teaching.”

“I don’t teach computers anymore. Now, I only teach what I love: dancing and art. And I concentrate on my painting.”

Before she immigrated to Canada from Mexico, Segovia taught computers. Her educational background includes training in computers, as well as in art and dancing. “I did it in Canada, too, for a few years,” she noted, “before the high-tech crash in 2001. Then, when no job in the computer industry was available, I started teaching dance and art, choreographed a few pieces. I don’t teach computers anymore. Now, I only teach what I love: dancing and art. And I concentrate on my painting.”

As with her own work, in her art lessons, Segovia lets intuition take the reins. “I’m interested in the creative process, not the technique,” she said. “When I come to a school to teach, my lessons depend on the supplies. Scraps of fabrics? We’ll make aprons. Snippets of paper and old magazines? We’ll make collages. I look at what they have and think, What can we make of it?… My favorite art student’s age is from 6 to 9. Such kids engage easily. I think that must be my real age inside, too, about 8 years old.”

Segovia is a respected teacher in Vancouver, teaching art and dancing at Arts Umbrella, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. For more information about her, visit claudiasegoviaart.blogspot.com. Intuitive Mythology runs until Aug 31.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Dorrance headlines Vancouver tap festival

Dorrance Dance will perform at the Rothstein Theatre on Aug. 30. (photo from Vancouver International Tap Festival)

“It would be like a jazz festival presenting Oscar Peterson,” said Sas Selfjord, executive director of the Vancouver International Tap Festival. She is so proud that tap dancer Michelle Dorrance is headlining her festival that she compared Dorrance to the great Canadian jazz musician. “Michelle Dorrance is the ‘it’ girl,” she said of the artist who takes the stage Saturday, Aug. 30, at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre.

The dance festival is now in its 15th season and it’s time to celebrate. A weekend of professional performance and a fundraising gala are on the schedule that runs Aug. 28 to 31.

With this, the festival’s 15th edition, Selfjord said, the Vancouver International Tap Festival “is one of the top two or three in the world. With that reputation,” she said, “we can attract any artist we want. That’s a very egocentric statement, but it’s true. People want to be part of the Vancouver festival, so that is the legacy.”

Selfjord said anyone who has ever enjoyed tap, even in old movies, will appreciate the festival’s artists. “Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelley, the Nicholas Brothers, these are people we revere in the highest regard,” she said. “Their work is a subset and that work is always carried through in everything that a tap dance artist does, except we give our own relevance to it … there could be a little bit more hip hop, there could be some breakdancing, there could be, you know, innovative combinations that no one has ever heard.”

In addition to Dorrance Dance on Aug. 30, the festival features two other professional performances, on Aug. 29, also at the Rothstein. First is LOVE.Be.Best.Free, choreographed by Danny Nielsen with an all-male cast. Selfjord remembers encountering Nielsen years ago. “I remember he was at our very first festival and what was he, 14? He’s now an internationally revered artist.”

photo - Travis Knight
Travis Knight (photo from Vancouver International Tap Festival)

Second on the Aug. 29 ticket is Lisa La Touche’s Hold On, the debut of a work commissioned specifically for this festival. “Lisa was here from the get-go,” said Selfjord. “Now she’s in New York and she’s revered.” Hold On has an all-Canadian cast of dancers.

Selfjord is also proud of Travis Knight, one of the performers in Hold On. Knight has been a tap consultant with Cirque du Soleil and performed at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics. He has toured with the Australian show Tap Dogs. Knight “is one of Canada’s top artists,” said Selfjord, “and I remember he came to our first festival. He took a Greyhound bus and came out on a scholarship from Montreal. He is one of Canada’s amazing, talented, generous artists.”

The gala fundraising and awards event, which takes place Aug. 28 at the Holiday Inn Downtown Vancouver, benefits from the sculpting talent of local ceramics artist Suzy Birstein. The local artist – who once chose dancing class over Hebrew school – was commissioned to design the awards to be presented. Birstein, who dances with the society during the year, was given the task of coming up with fancy ceramic shoes to honor some of those who have made the society great. “They pretty much gave me carte blanche as to what I wanted to do,” said Birstein. “So, I’m making shoes, like miniature shoes, not just like tap shoes. They’re just kind of in my style,” she said, referring to her own internationally known approach to sculpture.

photo - Three of the 15 individually crafted awards – created by Suzy Birstein – that will be given out at the Aug. 28 gala event
Three of the 15 individually crafted awards – created by Suzy Birstein – that will be given out at the Aug. 28 gala event. (photo from Suzy Birstein)

Each of the clay shoes will bear a special feature. “They’ll all have something that looks like a tap on the bottom of them,” she said.

Rounding out the weekend is Tap It Out on Aug. 31, where, according to the schedule, “everyone in Vancouver is invited to experience the tap phenomena themselves … when more than 100 dancers take to Granville Street,” and a performance by four youth ensembles that night at the Rothstein Theatre.

The festival idea began in the late 1990s when Selfjord took a trip to Minneapolis on behalf of others in the Vancouver tap world “to see what we could do to help build community and engage the community at large, and we thought a festival” might be the idea.

In Minneapolis, she encountered “two of tap’s greatest legends,” the Nicholas Brothers. To some, they are the greatest tap dancers who ever lived. Born in 1914 and 1921, the two became famous as children and opened at the Cotton Club in 1932. They made films throughout the 1930s and ’40s that showed off the prowess of the dancing team, which combined tap with ballet and acrobatics.

Meeting the brothers, said Selfjord, “turned me right on my head. I thought, how am I sitting having a brandy with the Nicholas Brothers and talking to them and engaging them? I was just so motivated by having access to artists of that calibre, that just set the stage to come home and to do the festival, so we did.”

For tickets and more information, visit vantapdance.com.

Michael Groberman is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Elan Mastai taps family history for F Word

Zoe Kazan and Daniel Radcliffe on the red carpet in New York City. (photo from facebook.com/thewhatifmovie/photos_stream)

When Elan Mastai’s father said hello to a pretty stranger in a Jerusalem café some four decades ago, it was the only English word he knew.

She was born in Chicago and grew up in Vancouver, and had lived in London the previous few years before trekking to Israel to explore her Jewish heritage and teach English, of all things.

It worked out pretty well for both of them. They relocated to Vancouver, got married and started a family. Now, their 39-year-old son has channeled their youthful bravado into his screenplay for What If, a warm and refreshingly grounded romantic comedy that opens in as-of-yet-unspecifed Canadian cities Aug. 22 with its original title, The F Word (F as in friend).

“The idea of moving to a country where I didn’t speak the language, different legal system, different everything, and having to start my life from scratch, it’s almost impossible for me to imagine doing that,” Mastai said in an interview. “But that’s what my father did. And he did it for love. That is a big part of the kind of things I like to write. I think in my DNA are the things that people do for love. And that’s all over this movie.”

The film imagines just-dumped Daniel Radcliffe meeting Zoe Kazan at a party, only to learn that she’s in a serious, long-term relationship. Say, there’s no reason they can’t be friends, right? It just requires a little honesty on his part and a lot of clarity on her part.

If only things were that simple, well, there’d be no movie. The film has great fun poking and prodding the central characters until one of them takes a leap of faith – and a transatlantic flight – that results in nothing I can reveal here.

photo - Screenwriter Elan Mastai
Screenwriter Elan Mastai (photo from thefinaltake.com)

“I love the romantic comedy, but it can sometimes be a bit of a debased genre because it’s a very phony genre at times,” Mastai said on the phone from Toronto, where he lives with his wife and children. “The ones I love – and they’re the ones that most people love – have something real and relatable to say about human interaction.”

Mastai’s childhood was happily marked by a Shabbat dinner every Friday night, where his large family would convene and debate the issues of the day. Everyone had strong ideas of right and wrong, but there was plenty of grey to debate, as well.

“In my personal heritage, I had all the different versions of the Jewish experience in the 20th and 21st century,” Mastai explained. “Whether it’s American Jews, European Jewry, Sephardic, the beginning of Israel, it was all literally sitting around my dinner table when I was growing up.”

Notably, the travails his grandparents had survived did not mitigate their sense of humor. “To me, the sensibility at the core of the film is very Jewish in terms of that legacy of Jewish humor, whether it’s Billy Wilder or Woody Allen or Nora Ephron or Charlie Kaufman or William Goldman,” Mastai said. “Wit and humor as a tool to defuse awkwardness and tension, and that prizing of intelligence, and the prizing of ethical behavior – these are things that were part of my Jewish upbringing, and I tried to bring those to the characters.”

We may think that a successful screenwriter, more than anything, must have a fabulous imagination. Mastai’s triumphantly demonstrates in What If/The F Word that heart and intelligence are sufficient to engage an audience in the romantic travails of a couple of ordinary people.

“All the way through it, I wanted to write what I thought of as an ethical romantic comedy,”

Mastai confided. “A comedy where people aren’t making these crazy, cockamamie schemes or twisting the truth or hiding things from each other. Everybody’s trying to do the right thing. That feels very Jewish to me because of how I was raised, that you can try to do the right thing, try to make ethical decisions, and still make a total mess of your life. Because that’s the way life is.”

Michael Fox is a San Francisco film critic and journalist.

Bard celebrates 25th

Bard on the Beach’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one cheeky dream. (photo by David Blue)

Summer in Vancouver brings the sun and, with it, things like beach time and bike rides, barbecues and picnics. It also brings the magic of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan world under the red-and-white tents of Bard on the Beach at Vanier Park.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Bard. And, true to form, it serves up an interesting mix: re-mountings of two previous hits, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest, under the big tent, with the lesser-known Cymbeline and the non-Shakespearean Equivocation on the newly minted Howard Family Stage at the Douglas Campbell Studio Theatre. This week, the JI reviews Dream and Cymbeline.

You can never really go wrong with presenting one of the Bard’s most beloved comedies and this year’s production of Dream is no exception, as director Dean Paul Gibson ramps up the frenzy to produce what can only be described as a very raunchy, in-your-face romp. This is one cheeky dream.

There are four story lines to follow: the wedding preparations of the duke of Athens to Hippolyta; the “looking for love” riotous journey through the fairy-studded woods of the four young star-crossed lovers; the feud of the fairy royals, Oberon and Tatiana; and, finally, the play within a play (Pyramus and Thisbe) presented by the local tradesmen in honor of the duke’s wedding and acted out under its own little red-and-white tent.

Kyle Rideout as Puck, the mischievous servant of Oberon, and Scott Bellis, as Bottom, the bucktoothed, red-nosed, nerdy know-it-all of the working class, stand out in the reprisal of their 2006 roles in this large ensemble cast. Naomi Wright breathes new life into the role of Tatiana while Ian Butcher is a very sexy Oberon. Chirag Naik, Daniel Doheny, Claire Hesselgrave and Sereana Malani beautifully play the young lovers Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena. It is refreshing to see these up-and-coming thespians make their mark on the Vancouver stage (watch them in the future!), but it is veterans Bernard Cuffling, Allan Morgan, Andrew McNee, Allan Zinyk, Haig Sutherland and Bellis (who does double duty as a lovesick ass – the animal, not the human kind) who are the hits of the show with their take on Pyramus and Thisbe. The prolonged death scene played by Sutherland and Bellis will have you in stitches, although there is a raised eyebrow moment thrown in for good measure – keep your eyes peeled.

The visuals make this production pop, from the set to the props to the costumes. Set designer Kevin McAllister has created his own dream with a large seashell-like shape framing the ocean and mountain vista that is Bard’s trademark. Umbrellas play a pivotal role in the opening scene with Tatiana’s oversized umbrella bed providing the focal point. Mara Gottler’s costumes are sartorial delights to behold, punk meets Goth meets Victorian era meets contemporary with a plethora of tutus, corsets, bustles, sheer skirts and some very interesting footwear. Then, there is the music by husband-wife sound design team Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe, which hits the spot with the likes of “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” “At Last My Love Has Come Along” and “I Put a Spell on You,” tunes synchronized perfectly with the action. Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg brings it all together with bespoke choreography for the doo-wapping fairy chorus.

photo - From left to right, Shawn Macdonald, Anton Lipovetsky and Benjamin Elliott in Cymbeline
From left to right, Shawn Macdonald, Anton Lipovetsky and Benjamin Elliott in Cymbeline. (photo by David Blue)

Shakespeare wrote Cymbeline in his twilight years. It is an eclectic retrospective of his repertoire, including the allegedly unfaithful wife and villain in Othello, the sleeping potion from Romeo and Juliet, the murder plots from Hamlet and Macbeth, the heroine disguised as a boy of As You Like It, the bloody beheading in Titus Andronicus, the missing brothers of A Comedy of Errors, the list goes on. Perhaps Will thought putting these all together would be fun, but his creation is a jumbled goulash with a dizzying array of plotlines that have more twists and turns than any rollercoaster ride. This may well be why the play is so rarely produced. That being said, director Anita Rochon’s production – which she characterizes as a “tragedy gone right” – is very entertaining and hits the right balance between gravitas and farce.

Seven actors play 18 roles with all the costume changes taking place in view of the audience. Clad in beige fencing outfits, the actors signal character changes by the addition of colorful pieces to their neutral palettes – a red sash here, a green doublet or muffler there.

The story starts with the girl-meets-boy scenario. That is, royal girl (Imogen, played beautifully by the only female member of the cast, Rachel Cairns) meets plebian boy (Posthumous, played by Anton Lipovetsky) and secretly marries him. Father (King Cymbeline, played by Gerry Mackay) frowns on the relationship and banishes the boy. Meanwhile, his second wife, the wicked Queen (Shawn Macdonald) plots to have her son, the scheming Cloten (also played by Lipovetsky), marry Imogen and then poison both the girl and her father so that Cloten can become king. The speed picks up with the runaway bridegroom, a wager to test the fidelity of the chaste Imogen, disguises, a sleeping beauty, a battle, a beheading, mistaken identities and long-lost brothers. Without giving away the ending, the good news is that, measure for measure, in this production, despite much ado, all’s well that ends well.

Lipovetsky is definitely the stand out in this show as he juggles his three roles – the third being Arviragus, one of the brothers – seamlessly morphing from one character to the next. He even manages to have two of his characters on stage at the same time. Bob Frazer plays the snakelike seducer, Iachimo, who literally slithers out of a chest of drawers to do his dastardly deed. Anousha Alamian has a small but dialogue-heavy role as the long-suffering servant of Posthumous, and Benjamin Elliott also plays various smaller parts, including one of the brothers and he gets the juicy beheading bit, but his main role is as sound designer and composer of the original music played by various cast members on banjo, accordion, mandolin and drum.

Pam Johnson’s set is stark and sleek, with many pieces doing double and triple duty – a chest becomes a table, a bed, a desk. Locations are identified by flag standards, blue for England and red for Italy. Gottler’s austere costumes, in contrast to her fanciful creations in Dream, complement the simple setting, and Cheyenne Friedenberg and fight director Nicholas Harrison conspire to present some very fancy footwork.

The bottom line is that you can’t go wrong with any of Bard’s offerings for its silver anniversary year. See one or two or all, but see at least one. The festival runs to Sept. 20. For more information and tickets, visit bardonthebeach.org or call the box office at 604-739-0559.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Gotta celebrate Gotta Sing!

The PNE is hosting a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! and, on Aug. 24, 4:30 p.m., there will be a show featuring 2014 participants in the program, Perry Ehrlich’s ShowStoppers and Sound Sensation troupes, as well as some past participants in these programs. (photo from Perry Ehrlich)

There are several anniversaries in Vancouver’s arts scene this year. It’s the 50th for the Arts Club and the 25th for Bard on the Beach, for example, but the one that hits closest to home is the 20th for the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s resident summer musical theatre program, Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! (GSGD).

The brainchild of local lawyer Perry Ehrlich, this program grew from a relatively inauspicious start to become one of the premier children’s musical programs in the Lower Mainland. In an interview with the Independent, Ehrlich noted that it all started when he tried to enrol his daughter, Lisa, in musical theatre classes.

“I realized that when I was looking around at the various offerings that I could do a better job and, if I participated with Lisa, it would be an outlet for my creativity and a playground for my daughter and myself. I thought when my kids were finished, that would be the end of it. I never thought it would last for more than five or six years – but I fell in love with the kids and the process and here we are 20 years later!”

photo - Perry Ehrlich
Perry Ehrlich (photo from Perry Ehrlich)

Ehrlich, a pianist, has a strong musical background. While at law school at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, he played for dinner theatre at a downtown hotel and was the musical director of the faculty’s annual Legal Follies. He also was co-director of Sound Sensation, which rehearsed in Richmond. GSGD owes its name to that group: when Ehrlich was looking for new members for the group, he put an ad in the Vancouver Sun setting out the required qualifications, “Gotta sing, gotta dance.” When searching for a name for his “baby,” he was reminded of that ad and the rest is history.

Over the years, hundreds of youngsters from 9-19 have come to the JCCGV every summer from all over British Columbia, the United States, Europe and Israel to participate in one of the two three-week sessions. Each session culminates in a public performance at the Rothstein Theatre with a bespoke Broadway-like production penned by Ehrlich.

“By writing my own show, we get to do not 10 but 30 songs, all choreographed, so everyone of the kids gets to do something. My philosophy is to teach the kids to get along with each other and to work as a team to develop both personally and artistically – the younger ones work with the older ones and we are like a family.”

Ehrlich treats participants like adults and the program is set up like a school, six hours a day, and the kids are expected to behave responsibly and with respect towards their fellow students and the teachers. Ehrlich has high expectations for his charges and pushes the kids to their limits.

“I don’t want them to be second rate,” he said. “Mediocrity is not an option. With only 13 days from start to end of rehearsal and then three days of performance, this is a pretty intense experience.”

The teachers are a world-class staff with the likes of choreographer Lisa Stevens, actor Josh Epstein and musician Wendy Bross-Stuart. Noting that one of the dance teachers choreographed the Olympic opening ceremonies, Ehrlich said, “The kids are exposed to that message of excellence.”

His three keys to success? “To stand up, speak up and know when to shut up.”

In addition to the base program, Ehrlich runs a finishing school for two hours after each day of GSGD for serious students who get instruction in auditioning techniques from local professionals.

Ehrlich takes the crème de la crème from his annual programs and invites them to participate in a year-round group appropriately named – from what this writer observed while sitting in a rehearsal – ShowStoppers. This mix of energetic, talented young teens performs together up to 20 times a year at such events as the BMO Vancouver Marathon, the Santa Claus and Canada Day parades and the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics. On Aug. 24, 4:30 p.m., there will be a 20th-anniversary performance at the PNE.

Andrew Cohen, who recently emceed Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation’s Eight Over Eighty event, is an alumnus, one of the founding members of ShowStoppers and now a faculty member of the program. “I remember looking forward to summer vacation every year knowing that I would be going to GSGD,” he told the JI. “It grounded me and taught me respect and the work ethic you need to succeed in the industry. It gave me an edge over other kids when it came time to audition for parts. Theatre is an incredible outlet for growing kids. It teaches them the necessary social skills, to have confidence and speak out and up for themselves.” As to the success of the program, Cohen said, “I would say that GSGD is synonymous with children’s talent in Vancouver.”

Parent Mark Rozenberg was effusive in his praise of GSGD, in which two of his children participated. “It allows kids with a passion for singing, acting and dancing to learn and to practise their passion. It is the most amazing program with some of the best instructors. When I sent my children off to the JCC every day in the summer, I knew they were in good hands.”

Nathan Sartore, a current ShowStoppers participant, could not contain his enthusiasm for the program. “It is such an important part of my life and means everything to me,” he said. “I can’t imagine my life without it.”

“I watch these kids coming in as shy, quiet youngsters and see them leave as confident performers…. I teach and expect the kids to make a full-out commitment but also to have fun and laugh.”

Ehrlich said that he was bullied as a child and feels that many young people involved in musical theatre have faced some sort of bullying for their artistic passions. “I see my job as providing a safe, happy, nurturing, learning space where all the kids can develop confidence and self-esteem,” he explained. “I watch these kids coming in as shy, quiet youngsters and see them leave as confident performers. They get the opportunity to work as a team and make lifelong friends in an environment where people are loving and caring. I teach and expect the kids to make a full-out commitment but also to have fun and laugh.”

Ehrlich is grateful to the community for its financial support of GSGD through scholarship funds like the Babe Oreck Memorial Fund and the Phyllis and Irving Snider Foundation, so that no child is turned away from the program for financial reasons.

“I am no different than any father who coaches basketball or baseball,” said Ehrlich. “I am doing exactly what they are doing, creating teams, teaching excellence, building confidence and skills. All of us, in our own way, are giving these kids something productive to do, not just hanging around the local 7-Eleven.”

Productivity aside, walk by the Rothstein Theatre on any given summer weekday and you will hear the sounds of joy coming through the doors. You gotta love it.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Peretz Centre opens gallery

Left to right: Simon Bonettemaker, Hinda Avery, Claire Cohen and Colin Nicol-Smith. (photo by Olga Livshin)

“We decided we’ll be the Peretz Painters,” said Colin Nicol-Smith, one of the collaborators of the inaugural art show that opened on July 16 at the new art gallery in the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture. The other “Peretz Painters” include Claire Cohen, Hinda Avery and Simon Bonettemaker.

Nicol-Smith knows both Avery and Cohen through the Peretz Centre, and Bonettemaker was his long-term business partner in their engineering consulting firm. In an interview with the Independent, Nicol-Smith said that the idea for the show and the gallery first came up after a conversation with Avery.

“She said that the lounge would be an ideal place for an art gallery. I agreed and put it in front of the board – I’m a member. The board agreed, too. So, I contacted the others, and we decided we would be the first to exhibit here.” The plan is for an annual summer show at the gallery. “All other months of the year the lounge is too busy,” Nicol-Smith explained.

The stories of the four Peretz Painters are as different as their art.

Cohen is a professional artist. She has a bachelor’s degree in fine art and a master’s in art therapy. Her paintings feature the theme of music. The instruments in the paintings blend and dance with other forms, producing multiple and complex associations. Architecture and flowers, people and history mesh with musical nuances – a string, an elegant cello neck, a snippet of notes – as lines and shapes flow into each other. The paintings vibrate with color. They are festive, celebrating the artist’s love of classical music. “Classical music is part of my life. I always listen to it when I paint,” said Cohen.

Art makes her whole and happy, and that’s why she went into art therapy. “I wanted to give more meaning to my art, help others with it,” explained Cohen, who has worked with private clients and addicted teenagers. “I tried to help them focus on expressing themselves through art. Addiction stopped them from feeling, but art is a tricky way to help one to open up. Talking about themselves is hard for them. But, through art, they can.”

According to Cohen, art helps all of us deal with problems, with voids in our lives, and Avery can testify to the therapeutic effect of art in her own life. A former academic who taught at the University of British Columbia, she has been painting full time since she retired. Her artistic journey started after a trip to Europe in search of her family roots.

“Many women in my family, the Rosen family, were murdered by the Nazis because they were Jews. No records exist, but I needed to know them, so I started painting them.” At first, she used old family albums and war photographs to produce her paintings. Her compositions resembled real life and were imbued with sadness, reflecting the Holocaust.

“I depicted the murdered women as grim resistance fighters, but it felt constrained. I wanted to distance myself from the sombre historical reality, wanted the women to win. My latest paintings are like giant graphic novels. The women transitioned into gun-slinging folks. They mock the Nazis. They are not victims anymore, not intimidated. I wanted to confront atrocities with my absurd revenge fantasy.”

The show has two Avery paintings on display. One is a giant panel of “Rosen Women,” dressed in bright yoga tank tops and fitted cropped pants in neon colors, laughing and brandishing their weapons at Hitler. The second is a small, black and white caricature of Hitler. The pathetic little man depicted doesn’t stand a chance against the droll defiance of the Rosen heroines. The artist’s humor keeps her family alive long after they perished in the Holocaust.

Nicol-Smith is another retiree who found an artistic second wind. “I always drew,” he said. “But, as a consulting engineer, my drawings were technical. After I retired 16 years ago, I wanted to paint. I studied painting for two years at Langara.”

He paints from photographs, his own or those taken by others. One of his best paintings, of a Vancouver beach, is based on a photo taken by his grandfather in the 1900s. Unfortunately, it is not in the exhibit. “My wife likes it so much she refused to allow me to sell it,” he said. “My series of paintings on display at the show, ‘Four Significant Figures,’ is comprised of four male images. I’m interested in the topic of a male body.”

Unlike Nicol-Smith, who retired to paint, his former partner, Bonettemaker, hasn’t retired yet. “I’m an architectural technologist, semi-retired,” he said. “I have been painting watercolors for years. As an artist, I’m self-taught, but my paintings are close to architectural designs, very realistic, with distinctive details: landscapes, seascapes, still life.”

Sharp lines and quiet, subdued colors characterize his artwork. His Vancouver streets and shores, totem poles and sailing boats blend reality with fantasy. “I combine photos and imagination in my paintings, sometimes use elements from several different sources in one picture.” All of his paintings are from the 1990s. He hasn’t painted in awhile. “I’m thinking about retiring,” he said. “Then I’ll have more time to paint.”

The Peretz Painters exhibit runs until Aug 13.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Both TUTS shows worth seeing, why not see both?

When Fiona (Lindsay Warnock) asks her savior to take off his helmet so that she can meet her prince, Shrek (Matt Palmer) is reluctant. (photo by Milan Radovanovic)

An ugly ogre and a beautiful blonde. You wouldn’t think they’d have much in common, but the similarities stand out when you see Shrek: The Musical and Legally Blonde: The Musical back to back, as the Jewish Independent did this month at Theatre Under the Stars.

In Shrek, the title character was sent out into the world by his parents at age 7. A brave, kind, generous soul, he is feared and harassed (think pitchforks and torches) for his gruesome exterior. He chooses to live in an isolated swamp, alone. But, when Lord Farquaad exiles all the fairy-tale creatures from Duloc – because they are different/special/freaks – they end up in Shrek’s backyard. In need of a hero, they ask for Shrek’s help, which he provides, despite his complaining, because that’s just who he is. Unwillingly accompanied by his soon-to-be best buddy and faithful sidekick Donkey, who is also fleeing Farquaad’s soldiers (because he can talk – and talk he does), Shrek travels to Duloc. There, he makes a deal with Farquaad, who is also in need of a hero – to retrieve Princess Fiona, who has been locked in a dragon-guarded tower by her parents, who assure her that, one day, her prince will come. Farquaad’s intentions are anything but noble, however, and Shrek must ultimately save Fiona from her prince.

photo - Scott Walters as Emmett and Jocelyn Gauthier as Elle Woods work very well together on stage
Scott Walters as Emmett and Jocelyn Gauthier as Elle Woods work very well together on stage. (photo by Milan Radovanovic)

In Legally Blonde, we have Elle. When the musical begins, Elle has her prince and they are set to live happily ever after; that is, until her prince, Warner, dumps her to go to Harvard Law School, where he hopes to find a more serious and appropriate wife for someone of his station. A smart, caring and optimistic soul, she is ridiculed and discounted for her attractive exterior. Instead of running away, as did Shrek initially, Elle fights back, putting her nose to the books and getting into Harvard so that she can show Warner just how serious she is. While she doesn’t have to fend off dragons and soldiers, she must defend herself against unwanted advances and prove herself worthy, not only to her fellow lawyers but to herself. She, like Shrek, doesn’t have to fight alone, but is supported by a trio of besties from back home (who most often appear as a figment of her imagination, as her own Greek chorus, supplemented by other Delta Nu sorority sisters) and a new friend, Paulette. As must the fairy-tale creatures, Paulette also must find her voice, the confidence to stand up for herself and her rights.

Both age-old stories of finding the courage to be oneself, and proudly so, are creatively and humorously told. Though Shrek drags a bit in parts and Legally Blonde doesn’t quite measure up to last year’s production, both are a lot of fun and the talent of the TUTS actors and crews is clear.

Matt Palmer as Shrek, Lindsay Warnock as Princess Fiona and especially Victor Hunter as Lord Farquaad stand out in Shrek, along with great performances from Ken Overby as Donkey, Sharon Crandall as Dragon and John Payne as Narrator – and, truth be told, the entire cast of fairy-tale misfits. Shrek is a top-notch ensemble work in every sense, with the sets (Brian Ball), costumes (Chris Sinosich) and choreography (Julie Tomaino) almost characters themselves. Sarah Rodgers’ direction keeps things moving when they threaten to lull, and the actors’ comedic timing is brilliant, as are their facial expressions and body language.

Legally Blonde didn’t run as smoothly on opening night and, while Valerie Easton’s choreography is once again energizing – it was hard not to dance all the way back to the car after the show – there were a few scenes that seemed rushed, or ill-timed. Jocelyn Gauthier does a solid job as Elle, and she really is the star of the production, although she too is supported by a fabulous cast, notably the actors reprising their lead roles from last year: Cathy Wilmot as Paulette, Peter Cumins as Warner, Jewish community member Warren Kimmel as Callaghan (who seemed even better this year than last) and Scott Walters as Emmett, though Walters once again overplays the part – no one is that cheery … well, except for Elle, but it works for her, not so much for him. Then there’s Jacob Woike as the walking-porn UPS guy, Kyle – so funny.

There is really no reason not to go to TUTS this year. Two high-quality musicals with grade-A performers in an idyllic setting. Quadruple snaps!

Visit tuts.ca for information on showtimes and tickets.