Tag: vancouver

Vancouver Halloween lead-up

I’m driving down with Matthew and Sarah tonight to Seattle and plan to sew raw red sequins onto my white hallowe’en bustier all the way. We’re going to The Chapel tonight, a church converted into a night club, to dance under fire-spinners. Good times.

For those sticking around in Vancouver, there’s also fun things to do:

  • The Leaky Heaven Circus presents HOWL: A Haunted Hall.
    Friday, October 23rd: 7 – 10pm
    Saturday, October 24th: 7 – 10pm
    Sunday, October 25th: 2 – 5 pm

    At the Russian Hall (600 Campbell Avenue), sliding scale. Cash only at the door please. The Haunted Hall can be entered at any time during the above slots. During a tour of the Haunted Russian Hall, subjects will be subjected to a variety of frightening ordeals to awaken their deepest phobias. Studies will be conducted and trepidations will be calculated on a demographic map of the city. A panel of Child Psychologists (aged 8 through 14) will counsel you through a debriefing session at the end of your journey through fear. All ages welcome. Costumes are a plus.

  • Harm’s Road + Creaking Planks at the Rickshaw.
    Friday, October 23rd:

    Harm’s Road and The Creaking Planks compete for the title of Most Delightfully Ridiculous! Don’t relax your standards of ridiculousness for a moment! DEMAND that they deliver, and they SHALL!! Bonus points for COSTUMES! Come early for the Costume Contest! There will be kooky prizes and adoration for the winners!
    Tickets $10 at the door at The Rickshaw Theatre: 254 E Hastings at Main.

  • Midnight Movies at the Rio: Hedwig & the Angry Inch and Velvet Goldmine.
    Friday, October 23rd: midnight!

    The Rio Theatre (1660 East Broadway at Commercial Drive Broadway Skytrain) & Black Dog Video present a Friday Midnight Musical Double Bill of HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH and VELVET GOLDMINE. Dress in costume and win fabulous prizes! Hosted by Burgundy Brixx! Admission is $10 ($8 in costume).

  • Ed Wood’s Orgy of the Dead – LIVE! Ghouls, Girls, and Gore! by the Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society.
    Friday, October 23rd & Saturday, October 24th: Doors 8pm – Show 9pm.

    If you’re a fan of Burlesque, horror, sexploitation, b-movies or just plain fun you’ll love this feature production from Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society. The eighteen member, all star cast will make you squirm in your seats. At the WISE Hall – 1882 Adanac St. – just off Commercial Drive. Tix $25, on-line, from select retailers and at the door.

  • Sex & Death: A Festival of Short Plays by Don Nigro.
    Friday, October 23rd: Doors at 7:30, show at 8pm.
    Saturday, October 24th: Doors at 2:30 pm and Show at 3:00 pm. Doors at 7:30, show at 8pm. (Saturday’s showings will present all six plays in the festival. All other showings will present four.)

    Spectral Theatre Society and the UBC Players are excited to announce their co-production of “Sex and Death: Six Short Plays by Don Nigro”. Creepy, thrilling and sexy shorts by one of America’s premier playwrights, co-presented by Vancouver’s premier creepy, thrilling and sexy theatre society! Subject matter may not be suitable for all ages. Seating is limited so be sure to purchase your tickets ahead of time.

  • EVIL DEAD: The Musical at the Vogue.
    Friday, October 23rd – November 14th: 8 pm

    Blood, guts, gore, and laughter! Evil Dead: The Musical, the smash hit show from Toronto, New York and Calgary has all the makings to be this decade’s Rocky Horror Show. Based on the wildly popular cult movie series (Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, Army of Darkness) five vacationing college students looking for fun break into a secluded cabin in the woods. There they discover instead The Necronomicon, an ancient flesh-bound book containing blood-inked spells with the power to summon the demons of Candar. It’s up to Ash, the meek S-mart Housewares employee, to fight off the demons any way he can. Or…he’ll be dead by dawn. (All to song and dance!) But dear audiences, BEWARE! If you sit too close to the stage, in the area we like to call: “The SPLATTER ZONE,” you are bound to leave the theatre covered in blood. Ask for the Splatter Zone by name when you book your tickets!

    Tickets, (including Splatter Zone Tickets), start at $25, available at all Ticketmaster outlets, online at www.ticketmaster.ca or call 604.280.4444.

  • BLOODSHOTS Canada 2009 48-Hour Horror Filmmaking Challenge
    SHOOTING: Friday October 23 – 7:00pm – Sunday October 25 – 7:00pm
    SCREENING: Wednesday October 28 – 8:00pm at the Anza Club (3 W. 8th, Vancouver)

    The people who brought you Vancouver’s CINEMUERTE FILM FESTIVAL (1999-2005) are getting set to bring you the 6th annual BloodShots 48-Hour Horror Filmmaking Contest – 25 Teams of filmmakers all fighting against the clock to make the best horror film they possibly can. There will be celebrity judges, fabulous prizes and several tons of fake blood! At 7:00pm on Friday October 23, registered participants are given envelopes containing a horror subgenre (in past years this has included haunted house, giallo, backwoods horror, necrophilia film and more!), a weapon, a prop and a line of dialogue. They then have 48 hours to return their finished 2-7 minute film on DVD! Prize for Best Hallowe’en Costume at Screening.

  • Sin City Halloween Warm-Up Fetish Party at Club 23 West.
    Saturday, October 24th: 9 pm

    Due to overwhelming demand, Sin City presents the kinkiest PRE-HALLOWEEN party in the city, warming up for the main event : SIN CITY FETISH HALLOWEEN on Nov 1 at Celebrities! We’ll be presenting a special Halloween-themed photo booth at this party, so make sure and get some saucy photos to mark the occasion! Absolutely no streetwear or regular daywear! As always, we’re always on the lookout for people to showcase their awesome outfits and ideas, and any fetish outfit as per the dress code outlined in the main group listing will do – and will be absolutely appreciated! Special pass for 3 off cover. Otherwise, it’s $12.

  • Renegade Parade of Lost Souls a community action.
    Saturday, October 24th: 7:00 – 10:30 pm

    The Public Dreams Society, that has historically put on The Parade of Lost Souls annually, on the Saturday prior to Halloween, is not hosting it this year. instead, it’s up the community as a group of free citizens to make it happen! Dress in costume! Make music! There will be fire performances at the tennis court. Grandview Park, Commercial Drive.

    • an animated description of (mr) maps

    Trimpin : What an odd, lovely minded, delightful man. What odd, lovely minded, delightful art! I spoke with him after the film, and I’m going to see what I can do about making him an on-line calendar, so people will know where and when to find his installations and shows.

    –::–

    People tend to synchronize blinking when watching film, at moments calculated to give the least information loss.

    –::–


    We wandered in and out of our weekend, sidling up to previously made plans and usually walking away again, tied only to our smiles, our warm hands bound together better than our hours. Saturday was a day of birthdays, getting up slowly, swimming from bed as if from water, heavy limbed and discarding the charted day we’d made, instead filling it with a late breakfast at Havana’s and a wander down the Drive, searching out the perfect present for my found brother Michael. Indonesia, Bali, black wood and red glass, three hollow faces in a candle-light row, placid, eyes sweetly closed, a puddle of calm light for a time lately troubled. Downtown, then, our treasure tucked in a bag, downtown to Davie and Denman, the purpose seawall and ice-cream, something like a date, something like something we should have done years ago, arm in arm, sharing sugar on a park bench as the sun set into the ocean, orange and sparkle and gold.

    Chasing the day with dinner, the present fit as right as expected, a train pour of alcohol down the table, familiar faces, names, periphery friends, lost family, personal history, remembering suddenly I had met Sara on the dance-floor we counted out New Year’s Eve together the same night I saved a life, the first good holiday midnight I’d ever had, as if the memories were only visible under blacklight or her pretty eyes. When the crowd split off for sushi, we dawdled behind over dessert, then walked out on our own, peeling away the city into paths, transit, and routes.

    Frank‘s place was crowded, the floor a plane of pillows, inflated mattresses and grinning people lit by the flourish and improbable end of Buckaroo Bonzai. (A great attack of hello from Sam, a surprised, pleased greeting from Daniel.) Shedding our clothes in the storage closet felt like shedding skin, as we borrowed pyjamas to snuggle the night, clothing I haven’t worn since I was a child, and my body, strangely, just as small inside the loaned plaid flannel as it was wearing adult clothing then. Tony preferred the Strawberry Shortcake pants, he was welcome to them. In the velvety dim light of the party, he could have been handsome in almost anything. Finding a vacant beanbag, we settled in for Hooped, then Zombie Strippers, a movie that maybe should never have been made, except that parts of it were so much fun. After that we shifted to a mattress with Claire for Amazon Women On The Moon, then tried to sleep through most of Hell Comes To Frogtown, instead waking horribly to all the shooting and shouty bitz, which involved such complex philosophy as “why does that mutated(?) frog king have three snake penises, anyway?”

    Shakes The Clown was next, which I wish I’d seen more of, then apparently Night Of The Creeps, which I completely missed, followed by Airplane!, which was kind enough to wake me for the lovely opening red zone white zone argument, but not keep me that way. Dawn arrived like a ghost, sliding between the cracks of the party, prying the new day out of the cracks of our long, cheerful night. I don’t know when people left, but there were only a few of us by the time morning and breakfast arrived, a small heaven of perfect waffles, strawberries with maple syrup, and bacon.

    That day, once we walked home, with matching clouds of impossible hair, we stayed in all day, in bed, until it was Monday.

    choooocooolaaaaate

    Just got this in an e-mail:

    In case you haven’t heard, the West Coast Chocolate Festival is back with a list of exciting events that will run from Oct 15-Nov 10. Some of the more popular events to be featured are the Chocolate High Tea; Wines, Liqueurs and Chocolate; Single Malt Scotch and Chocolate; the Cooking with Chocolate seminar at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts and the Chocolat ce Soir at Horizons Restaurant with Chef Garrett and Maître Chocolatier Wim Tas of ChocolaTas. Perfect for chocoholics or just a nice night out on the town. More info can be found on the festival website at www.chocolatefestival.ca.

    thank you, Colin, for living the dream

    via moosl:

    Upcoming World Record Attempt at Self-Immolation

    VANCOUVER — Some of us dream about scoring the Game 7 overtime goal of the Stanley Cup final. Some of us fantasize about winning the Canadian Idol finale. Some of us dream of capturing a Nobel Prize.

    Colin Decker’s ambition is to set himself on fire and burn for two minutes and 39 seconds. On Sunday, he’ll have a chance to live the dream.

    Cut by HALF?!? “Massive province-wide gaming grant cuts leave arts community reeling”

    “It appears that arts groups waiting for their frozen gaming grant money to flow are out of luck. Numerous arts groups across the province have received letters via email from the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch informing them that their Direct Access grants have been denied, including organizations who had multi-year funding commitments.”

    From the Vancouver Arts Alliance:

    Alliance for Arts and Culture – ARTS COMMUNITY MEETING
    Wednesday, September 2, 2009 – 1 pm to 3 pm
    Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestunut Street

    The Alliance for Arts and Culture will convene a community meeting on Wednesday, September 2 at the Museum of Vancouver to discuss our options in response to this week’s announcements regarding BC Gaming Commission Direct Access Grants. The meeting will run from 1 pm to 3 pm.

    We will attempt to quantify the damage, bring one-another up-to-date on protest initiatives currently being taken by individual artists, organizations and discipline sectors, and discuss the pros and cons of several possible courses of action for the future.

    This meeting will NOT be open to the media, elected officials or cultural sector bureaucrats. While we appreciate the support we are receiving from many in each of these sectors, the arts community needs this opportunity to “talk among ourselves”.

    This is NOT a “rally” so we are only looking for one or two persons from each arts organizations to attend. A full-scale arts community rally in the near future will be one of the options discussed. So please don’t send your entire staff and/or membership!

    Arts organizations that are not members of the Alliance are welcome to send representatives to this gathering.

    Please RSVP to kdm@allianceforarts.com indicating how many representatives from your organization will be attending. Seating is limited, so we need to count noses. We will begin at precisely 1 pm, so plan to arrive early.

    QUANTIFYING THE DAMAGE
    We have had numerous emails over the past few days from Alliance members and non-members informing us of declined Direct Access grants.

    To help us quantify the damage to our community in advance of Wednesday’s community meeting, could you take a moment to email us the following details, in the order noted:

    – Name of your organization.
    – Amount of declined grant request.
    – Whether this was a one-year or multi-year grant.
    – If multi-year, which year was declined.
    – How many years your organization has been receiving Direct Access funding.
    – Whether your organization has a BC Arts Council grant pending.

    The government now seems to be mixing apples with oranges in order to make it as difficult as possible to understand our exact standing with various sources of funding. At least one arts organization has received confirmation of a BCAC grant which cites the Gaming Grants Program as the source of the funds, and states that the money will be deposited to the recipient’s Gaming account.

    If you receive a similar BCAC grant confirmation, please let us know whether that grant is for the full amount of your original BCAC funding request.

    We would also like to hear from any organization which received a Direct Access Grant or grant confirmation in the past week, or does so in the coming days. So far, the only approved grants seem to be those confirmed prior to the freeze — most of them in May.

    Please keep your responses to the above questions brief and factual. I will have to compile the answers in a spreadsheet, and lengthy and anecdotal replies will slow down the process.

    Send your responses, along with your RSVP for Wednesday’s meeting, to kdm@allianceforarts.com

    Thank you for your collaboration.

    MEDIA CONFERENCE

    The Alliance for Arts and Culture will hold a media conference to announce the outcomes of Wednesday’s community meeting on Thursday, September 3, at a time and place to be determined.

    Y’rs,
    KDM

    Kevin Dale McKeown
    Director of Communications
    Alliance for Arts & Culture

    o: 604.681.3535 (215)
    c: 778.228.2548
    kdm@allianceforarts.com

    today’s headline has me in tears

    For those of you who are still unaware, the three children that died in the cabin fire at Shuswap Lake belong to Kim and Johnathon, the co-founders of Vancouver’s Electric Company Theater.

    I am shocked and so, so sorry. They have all the love in my heart.

    I can’t stop crying. I might have to go home.

    I”m still proud of this picture

    China's finale
    China’s finale, 2007

    It’s that time of year again! Come on down for The Celebration Of Light, Vancouver’s annual pyro-festival.
    Tonight’s competitor is Canada, with the theme of the Wizard of Oz.

    I’m going to go down right after work to lay out the big purple blanket for everyone at the usual spot here, right by the water at first beach, just off east of the water slide.

    Show at 10, camping starting at 6. I’m bringing cherries, feel free to bring whatever or whomever you like.

    tossing it out to the animators

    via Sean:

    Illustration by Roy Husada

    Vancouver Opera announces OPERABOT, an animation contest for our Golden Anniversary Season. Animators are challenged to create animated shorts of one of the four productions of the Golden Anniversary Season.

    The contest is found here: http://www.youtube.com/group/vancouveropera

    Anyone 18+ can enter and submit a 4 min or less short that tells the story of one of the four operas of the Golden Anniversary Season. Upload them to our YouTube contest group. Everyone is encouraged to vote for their favorites!

    “With the long-running success of our manga series by Roy Husada, we thought this was the logical next step,” said General Director Jim Wright. “We can’t wait to see what people come up with!”

    Four winners — chosen by the public and a panel of judges from Vancouver-area animation studios Pixar, EA, Rainmaker, Bardel, and Rival Schools – will win a host of prizes including animation hardware, gaming packages, and digital cameras.

    The contest runs June 1, 2009 to Nov 1, 2009 and is open to all residents of the US and Canada. Official rules can be found at www.vancouveropera.ca Everyone who enters will receive tickets to the opera so everyone is a winner!

    The contest was inspired by the active animation industry in Vancouver and a similar contest run by Chicago Opera Theater in 2008.

    Vancouver Opera is a leader in social media initiative, including the Operalive.ca multimedia site, “Blogger Night At the Opera”, “Operaninja” a live backstage Twitterer, and “Operagator” an opera news aggregator. A leader in Web 2.0 initiatives including an active blog, facebook, flickr, Twitter and YouTube channel, Vancouver Opera is committed to reaching the next generation of opera lovers using the media of the times. Vancouver Opera is also a leader in using pop visual arts as a medium for opera, including a long running Opera Manga series by Roy Husada and Fiona Meng, and commissioning of award-winning visual artists like Edel Rodriguez and Michael Abraham to create original artwork for VO season productions.

    Vancouver Opera’s extensive network of Web 2.0 and social media sites as well as official contest rules can be found on our homepage at http://www.vancouveropera.ca.

    dressing red as candy blood

    Tonight at the Anza Club! Springtime Lullabye!
    Jess Hill’s costume party music video debut!

    “It’s true! As of yet there has been but a whisper in the wind of the coming of wonderful things. The magic people are busying themselves excitedly with the creation of an evening of dream and inspiration, song, poetry, burlesque, and decor. Minds, bodies, and spirits will then make a dream come true as we raise funds for the production of Jess Hill’s upcoming album: Orchard.”

    doors at 8, show at 9. tickets $10 at the door.
    Lullabye’s start at 9pm sharp. So don’t be late.

    The night will feature la musique of Jess Hill, Tarran the Tailor, Maria in the Shower, CJ Leon, Chelsea Johnson, and Sneetch, burlesque performances by the fine feathered ladies in Booty Burlesque and the one and only Rad Juli, and mad poetics by The Svelte Ms. Spelte and RC Weslowski.

    The theme is dreamland so do please let your imagination dress you. After all anything goes, it’s your dream.

    PERFORMERS:

    Jess Hill: Hauntingly beautiful, the shadow singing with her crows, the blond-haired, blue-eyed, guitar-riffing sweetheart of East Van, Jess Hill will be playing with her band The Dreams of All and Sundry featuring arrangements for strings by Aaron Joyce and electro-acoustic foley artist Lee Hutzulak.

    Tarran the Tailor: An enchanter of hearts, eyes, hips, and toes Tarran combines boombox and banjo to cast Cajun-style charms on his enraptured audiences. His organic beats seem a perfect fusion of musical technologies from the past, the future, and the land of East Van.

    Maria in the Shower: A fascinating troupe of soul-singing mimes! Their engaging performances mix theatre and cabaret, horn and voice, musicianship and character into an unforgettably ecstatic happening.

    CJ Leon: Clever as a crow with cadaver in his throat, CJ is bleaker and funnier than Hell with classical guitar accompaniment.

    Chelsea Johnson: Soulful and true, when she rocks the mic, the world rocks too.

    There will also be performances by the folk = fun act Sneetch, the hot and fiery Booty Burlesque, the naturally Rad Juli, the scarecrow prophet of East Van The Svelte Ms. Spelte, and surrealist poet and the current Vancouver Poetry Slam Champion RC Weslowski.