Theatre's Been Great This Week!

To add to the ATSA Art Attack Kill Your SUV post and photos, I must say that I was really blown away by yesterday's matinee performance of Skydive! An amazing performance with two men suspended by a pole/harness combination that kept them in the air for the duration of the performance. Amazing to discover that one of the actors is wheel-chair bound as well. His apparatus took a bit more research, but this performance, along with a brilliant storyline, is quite worth heading out to Yaletown's Roundhouse Community Centre for! Also wonderful was the Famous Puppet Death Scenes at VECC. Well done, Old Trout Puppet Workshop!

Next up, volunteering this coming Tuesday for the Canuck Children's Hospice (that will include watching the Canucks battle it out against the Columbus Blue Jackets), and Thursday working at Video In for the PuSh Festival's performance of Bio Boxes. Friday night taking in a show of the Belgian theatre group Victoria performing Aalst. And then on Sunday, Ad and I will take to the slopes of Cypress again for cross country skiing, part two.

Signing off,
Ariane C

ps - that new shop Sand, at Cornwall and Yew is a well-thought out shop, but bring a heavily-loaded wallet with (they sell Gsus clothes too)!

Kill Your SUV

or better yet…burn it!

This past Friday, I volunteered at PuSH Festival for ATSA, a Montreal-based environmental group who'd exploded an SUV about five years ago in order to make the environmental statement du jour: SUV's guzzle too much gas, ruin the environment, are unsafe to drive, and the war in Iraq helps keep the oil machine well-tuned.

I had the chance to meet the husband and wife team of artists, Pierre Allard and Annie Roy, while they were busy installing the Vancouver Art Gallery piece in time for the evening's Fuse festivities.

1/5 Pavement, 1/3 Sleater-Kinney

What a wonderful performance by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks last night at Richards on Richards. In tow was the phenomenal ex-drummer of Sleater-Kinney, Janet Weiss. Looking pretty much the same since we saw Sleater-Kinney last at Amsterdam's Paradiso (the smaller and more intimate of the two halls, Kleine Zaal). The band performed a handful of new tunes, as they're busy in the studio cooking something up that should be released soon, according to the woman at the counter selling their four CD's.

Can't wait to see the upcoming Sebadoh performance there on March 3rd, featuring the original Barlow-Loewenstein-Gaffney lineup. I'm imagining it will be even more packed in Richards than last night's show. Many faithful fans up front just soaking it in!

On another note, I'll be attending a rather interesting piece of theatre next Saturday night, called Famous Puppet Death Scenes, at the Van East Cultch Centre. Am also partaking as a volunteer in Attack #15, which will feature a blown-up sports utility vehicle. The Montreal-based L'Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable's way of heightening public awareness of these gas-guzzling, power-hungry vehicles, in their words. Check out Push Festival for all theatre performances. I'm equally looking forward to the Belgian produced "Aalst" and the Vancouver premiere of "Skydive", coming up later in the month…

The slush fest is thankfully over, as Vancouver is back to 'just our normal rainy weather'. Yesterday while walking on West 4th close to the Naam I literally saw the following: a man wearing a short sleeve t-shirt, shorts, light vest and leather sandals with NO socks. This in snow/sleet freezing cold weather! Polar bear dressed as a human perhaps? What gives??! I'm in a winter coat with hat and gloves here, while this man can tolerate 0 C damp snow!