Seven Things to Do in Metro Vancouver Feb. 21-Feb. 27: Coastal Dance Festival, Roy Forbes and more
Credit to Author: Shawn Conner| Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 19:00:55 +0000
Whether you’re looking for date ideas, free things to do or just something fun to do in downtown Vancouver, you can’t go wrong with our list of events happening around Metro Vancouver between Feb. 21-Feb. 28.
Headlining this week’s picks is the 13th Annual Coastal Dance Festival.
For more ideas, click HERE for our coverage of Vancouver’s arts scene, or HERE to search our entertainment listings database.
Here are seven things to do in Metro Vancouver this week:
When: Feb. 25-March 1
Where: Anvil Centre, New Westminster; and Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver (school performances)
Tickets: from $25, at damelahamid.ca
Dancers of Damelahamid present their 13th annual celebration of Canadian and global Indigenous stories, song, and dance. This year’s festival welcomes 14 Indigenous performance groups from throughout British Columbia, Alaska, Yukon, and Nunavut as well as guests from New Zealand. Program highlights include the festival debut of Tooma Laisa and Leanna Wilson, drum dancers and throat singers of traditional Inuit songs, and the return of several festival favourites: the Chinook Song Catchers, the Squamish-based company Spakwus Slolem, the groups Git Hayetsk and Git Hoan, and more. This year’s festival also marks the Vancouver debut of New Zealand’s Tuakana and Teina Leadership Academy Group (TNT), a company of artists aged 5 to 18 who will participate in workshops alongside Ewk Hyaha Hozdii and Yisya’winuxw from Alert Bay.
When: Feb. 21 & 22
Where: Scotiabank Dance Centre
Tickets: From $25, at eventbrite.ca
In this piece based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, mime/movement/dance artist Yayoi Hirano performs with cellist Marina Hasselberg. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Hirano’s Yayoi Theatre Movement Society, and though it’s the last show from the company, she will continue to perform solo. Hirano’s previous works include a 2017 piece with pianist Sara Davis Buechner in New York. “Ms. Hirano accompanied Ms. Buechner with gracefully stylized pantomimes,” wrote reviewer Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in The New York Times. “While her fluid gestures brought to life the tableaus evoked by (French composer Jacques) Ibert, she also seemed to trap them in a point midway between playful revelation and cool enigma, seeming even to comment on the limits of music’s representational powers.”
When: Feb. 21 at 8 p.m.
Where: Rickshaw Theatre
Tickets: $30 at ticketweb.ca and Red Cat Main St, Red Cat Hastings St, Zulu and Highlife
Afrobeat meets martial arts on Fu Chronicles, the seventh album from Brooklyn band Antibalas. The album looks back at when singer/percussionist Duke Amayo was running a kung fu dojo in pre-gentrified Williamsburg. Fu Chronicles also marks the 20th anniversary of the band, which is famous for the party vibe of its live shows. “Antibalas attracts its audience with quality Afrobeat music, but listening without seeing the band live robs you from a complete musical experience,” reads a kexp.org review of a 2019 Seattle show. “They filled the Nectar lounge with unbridled energy and talent.”
When: Feb. 27
Where: Western Front
Tickets: From $10 at western-front.myshopify.com
Local artists show off works-in-progress in this special presentation from Sawdust Collector and Western Front New Works. Vocalists Marin Patenaude, Molly MacKinnon, and Tegan Wahlgren are joined by Veda Hille on piano to play selections from a new musical by Hille and Amiel Gladstone. Dancer Ziyian Kwan and bassist James Meger present a new hybrid piece about grandmothers. Lucien Durey (with Amanda Sum & Chance Lovett) perform “embodied call-and-response,” where sound travels between live singers and staged video performances. Corbin Murdoch (pictured) and friends premiere new songs dealing explicitly (“VERY explicitly,” we’re informed) with whiteness and white supremacy.
When: Feb. 21-29
Where: PAL Studio Theatre
Tickets: $35, at brownpapertickets.com
Vagrant Players Theatre Society presents the world premiere of Pot Kettle Black. Described as “a darkly comic tale” and “a brave and experimental examination of love, longing, and liquor,” the play focuses on a dinner party gone wrong. Writer Bill Marchant, former head of Vancouver Film School’s acting program, has been honing the script for a decade. It features six characters/actors and Marchant’s husband Matt Fentiman directs.
Picture: Riley Forbes.
When: Feb. 21
Where: St. James Hall
Tickets: $32 at roguefolk.bc.ca, Highlife Records and Tapestry Music
Singer/songwriter Roy Forbes has been performing, writing and recording for almost 50 years now, having traversed the North American folk festival circuit several times as a solo performer and with his band UHF (with Shari Ulrich and Bill Henderson). Among his accomplishments is a cover by American folksinger Shawn Colvin of his song Talk Around the Town. Five years ago Forbes was blinded in an accident but he hasn’t let this misfortune stop him from making a new album. He celebrates the release of that record, Edge of Blue, in this show.
When: Until March 1
Where: Surrey Arts Centre
Tickets: From $29 at artsclub.com
The Arts Club’s production of Ins Choi’s Kim’s Convenience play is touring throughout the Lower Mainland and B.C. until March 28. Set in a family-run corner store, the show began as part of the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival before going on to a successful run in 2012 at Soulpepper, where it received the Toronto Theatre Critics’ Award for Best New Canadian Play. It has also provided the inspiration for the CBC TV series, currently streaming on Netflix. Following its SAC run, Kim’s Convenience moves on to Coquitlam (March 3-8, Evergreen Cultural Centre), Chilliwack (March 11, Chilliwack Cultural Centre), Maple Ridge (March 12 & 13, ACT Arts Centre), Burnaby (March 14 & 14, Shadbolt Centre), and then Kelowna, Cranbrook, Revelstoke, Nanaimo, and Duncan.
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