Category Arts & Culture

Chance to create

photo - Esther Rausenberg, artistic and executive director of the Eastside Arts Society

Esther Rausenberg, artistic and executive director of the Eastside Arts Society. (photo by Wendy D) Eastside Arts Society (EAS) presents the return of its two-day summer art-making event, CREATE! Arts Festival, taking place at Strathcona Park on July 22 and…

Improv conference held here

photo - Viola Spolin is widely thought to be the mother of modern improvisation

Viola Spolin is widely thought to be the mother of modern improvisation. (photo from amazon.ca) If you thought that improv was only for entertainment, think again. This summer’s applied improvisation conference at Granville Island will showcase some of the world’s…

Bard masters comedy, tragedy

photo - Oscar Derkx (Orlando) and Chelsea Rose (Rosalind) in As You Like It

Oscar Derkx (Orlando) and Chelsea Rose (Rosalind) in As You Like It. (photo by Tim Matheson) What do you get if you mix a Shakespearean comedy with 23 Beatles hits from the 1960s and set the whole thing in Vancouver…

Theatre that educates

photo - Wendy Kout’s play Survivors is based on 10 real-life stories of young people’s Holocaust experiences

Wendy Kout’s play Survivors is based on 10 real-life stories of young people’s Holocaust experiences. (photo by Peter Nadler) Last year, Victoria-based Bema Productions and the Victoria Shoah Project collaborated on a pilot project: a nine-performance tour to middle and…

A musical Canada Day

photo - Perry Ehrlich’s ShowStoppers at Jack Poole Plaza

Perry Ehrlich’s ShowStoppers at Jack Poole Plaza (photos by David P. Feng) Perry Ehrlich’s ShowStoppers performed at Jack Poole Plaza on Canada Day – it was Ehrlich’s 29th year celebrating Canada Day at Canada Place. ShowStoppers is a glee troupe…

For new generation

image - Mendel Rosenbusch book cover

The marvelous children’s stories in Ilse Weber’s Mendel Rosenbusch: Tales for Jewish Children (illustrated by P. John Burden) are fascinating in their own right, as is translator Hans Fisher’s discovery of this book. He and his wife, Ruth, have brought…

Honouring ancestors’ stories

video still - Juan Villegas rehearsing Edictum, choreographed by Vanessa Goodman, which is about Villegas’s Sephardi ancestry. The work is part of Dancing on the Edge’s EDGE One July 6 and 8 at the Firehall Arts Centre

Juan Villegas rehearsing Edictum, choreographed by Vanessa Goodman, which is about Villegas’s Sephardi ancestry. The work is part of Dancing on the Edge’s EDGE One July 6 and 8 at the Firehall Arts Centre. (video still from Vanessa Goodman) “I…

Immerse yourself in music

Screenshot - from the video for the song “Medicine,” made by Gigi Ben Artzi, featuring Yonatan Gat and the Eastern Medicine Singers. “Medicine” comes off Gat’s album Universalists

Screenshot from the video for the song “Medicine,” made by Gigi Ben Artzi, featuring Yonatan Gat and the Eastern Medicine Singers. “Medicine” comes off Gat’s album Universalists. You never know when a life-changing moment will happen. For musician Yonatan Gat…

Art Downtown at Lot 19

photo - Art Downtown festival runs to Sept. 15 in Lot 19 downtown

Art Downtown festival runs to Sept. 15 in Lot 19 downtown. (photo from Vancouver Visual Art Foundation) On June 21, Vancouver Visual Art Foundation and Downtown Van (formally, Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association) launched the fourth edition of the outdoor…

Preserving links to past

screenshot - inside of Edenbridge synagogue

Screenshot from Jordan Amit’s video on the former Jewish settlement of Edenbridge, Sask. The synagogue and the Jewish cemetery are cared for by the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation. Almost 120 years ago, 56 Jews fled Lithuania and ended up in a…