Vancouver Civic Theatres presents National Geographic Live: Untangling the Mind at the Vancouver Playhouse on April 21 at 7:30 pm

REMEMBER THE MOVIE Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? In Michel Gondry’s Oscar-winning feature, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet play a pair of ex-lovers who have paid a scientific firm to have their memories of each other wiped from their brains.

That premise might sound farfetched to most people, but not to Steve Ramirez. In fact, the U.S.–based neuroscientist says he’s already created and deleted memories in the brains of his subjects. His subjects have all been mice, so far, mind you, but can humans be far behind?

As part of the 2025-26 National Geographic Live Speaker Series, Vancouver Civic Theatres presents an in-person appearance by Ramirez, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Boston University and a former Junior Fellow at Harvard University. The illustrated lecture will walk audiences through his research.

Ramirez’s stated goal is to use the results of his research to wipe out negative memories and enhance positive ones in humans in order to alleviate symptoms associated with PTSD and depression.

In a 2025 interview about his book How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past, Ramirez told Undark magazine: “The thing that positive memory can do to our biology is pretty remarkable—all the way from resetting our stress levels, to getting our heart rate to go back to a healthy baseline faster, to motivating us and improving cognitive flexibility, the whole nine yards.”  

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A story as ancient as time takes the stage in Mother/Land, a powerful world premiere from the Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs. Arriving at the Vancouver Playhouse on May 16, this new opera-oratorio by composer Jeffrey Ryan and librettist Michael Lewis MacLennan reimagines the biblical journey of Naomi and Ruth through a contemporary lens of displacement, resilience, and belonging.

Fleeing war and famine, the two women forge an unbreakable bond as they navigate exile and prejudice in search of a new home—a narrative that still resonates deeply today. Under the direction of conductor Leslie Dala, and featuring a stellar lineup of soloists alongside an orchestra made up of Vancouver's finest musicians, Mother/Land blends lush choral textures with intimate storytelling, illuminating the enduring strength of love, community, and chosen family.

Soloists at the concert include soprano Heidi Duncan, mezzo-sopranos Krisztina Szabó and Simran Claire, and baritone Luka Kawabata.

Tickets are available through the Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs.

Post sponsored by Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs.

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The Firehall Arts Centre presents The Undeniable Accusations of Red Cadmium Light from April 18 to May 3

WHAT IS RED Cadmium Light, the paint colour alluded to in the title of a new play by celebrated playwright, TV host, and author Drew Hayden Taylor? Invented in 1982, it’s an intense, opaque orange-red paint known for its superior brilliance and lightfastness.

It’s also a good indicator of a forgery if it appears in any painting purportedly made before 1982.

Opening this weekend at the Firehall Arts Centre, The Undeniable Accusations of Red Cadmium Light burns with the same intensity as the pigment, mixing comedy, detective story, and social commentary, as Taylor unpacks the "Pretendian" phenomenon—and specifically, the very real fraudulent use of late Anishinaabe painter Norval Morrisseau’s style.

Morrisseau, of course, was a leading figure of the Woodlands art movement, and since his death in 2007 after a prolonged battle with Parkinson’s disease, experts have tracked thousands of forgeries of his work.

Columpa Bobb helms this production of The Undeniable Accusations of Red Cadmium Light, fresh off its debut at Prairie Theatre Exchange.

In it, the character Nazhi Nigig runs an art gallery on the Otter Lake First Nation. She’s an expert in identifying counterfeits of the work of Morrisseau and other Indigenous artist through special techniques—including the analysis of Red Cadmium Light. Her daughter Beverly, meanwhile, is a successful Indigenous educator who’s up for a big promotion. But when a reporter starts investigating the world of counterfeit Indigenous art, a discovery is made that could undermine both women’s careers—not to mention their relationship.

The world of counterfeit Indigenous art is loaded territory, and when it’s in the hands of Taylor, expect sly social satire and provocative critique, as well as a few twists and turns. The Firehall has a long relationship with the prolific playwright, staging past works like Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth and AlterNatives.

And for a closer look at the origins of The Undeniable Accusations of Red Cadmium Light and its urgent questions about authenticity and identity, hit the conversation with Taylor that happens at 1:30 pm on April 19, just before the matinee; you can reserve a spot here. 

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The Vancouver Cantata Singers present Ein Deutsches Requiem at Pacific Spirit United Church on April 25 at 7:30 pm

IT’S EASY TO dismiss the creative endeavours of one’s own youth. As anyone who has ever stumbled upon an especially earnest bit of prose scrawled in a Grade 9 notebook or a VHS recording of a rushed and clumsy piano recital can tell you, it can be somewhat mortifying to be reminded of those awkward learning stages.

The great Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov, for example, didn’t take much pride in his early work. “The kind of poem I produced in those days was hardly anything more than a sign I made of being alive, of passing or having passed, or hoping to pass, through certain intense human emotions,” he wrote.

Tyler Duncan is kinder to his younger self than many of us. “Sometimes I hear old recordings of myself and I think, ‘Oh, if only I knew the things that I know now,’” the baritone tells Stir in a telephone interview. “But also, I’m sometimes pleasantly surprised at what the finished product was at that point in my development. Hearing the youthfulness and naïveté of a young baritone who’s just learning about what he’s doing, but also finding some deep artistic connection to what I was doing.

“I did recently hear a couple of recordings of me from a very long time ago,” reveals Duncan in a call from Vancouver Island, where he’s about to go into a rehearsal with the Victoria Symphony and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. “They just kind of popped up on my phone because I was looking for something else. And it was not a cringeworthy experience, although I do have those every once in a while. I was thankful to be reminded that I’ve grown so much, but that the same things that are important to me now were important to me then. I just didn’t know enough to be able to use them to my full potential.”

It’s fair to say that Duncan has developed as a performer since those fledgling days, and classical-music critics have certainly taken notice, with the Globe and Mail, for one, hailing his voice as “honey-coloured and warm, yet robust and commanding”. The website Classical Explorer went so far as to declare “Tyler Duncan is the perfect singer.”

It’s only natural that Duncan is in a reflective, even nostalgic, mood of late. It’s not just that the B.C.-born and -raised baritone is on familiar ground. In fact, he gets back to the West Coast often enough that it’s easy to forget that he hasn’t lived here in more than 25 years. Currently, Duncan gives voice lessons at Bard College Conservatory of Music in New York state, where his wife, pianist Erika Switzer, is also on faculty. But he’ll be back in Vancouver in July and August for Early Music Vancouver’s Summer Festival, singing the role of Plutone in Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and performing Franz Schubert’s song cycle Die schöne Müllerin as a duo with Switzer.

Before that, though, Duncan will be in town to perform Johannes Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) with the Vancouver Cantata Singers. His association with that long-running choir date back to even before he became a member of it.

“When I was at UBC as a student doing my bachelor’s degree, my voice teacher was James Fankhauser, who was the director of the Vancouver Cantata Singers at the time,” Duncan says. “An interesting thing is that the year that I joined the Vancouver Cantata Singers was the second year that Paula Kremer, who is now the conductor, was a member of the choir as well.”

Fankhauser was the Vancouver Cantata Singer’s longest-serving artistic director, a post he held from 1973 to 2000. He passed away last year, but his influence still looms large on the local choral scene.

“Fankhauser—Fank, as we called him—left a giant musical legacy in Vancouver and in the people that sang under him,” Duncan says. “Even to this day, I’m inspired by the musical phrasing that he had in his body as a conductor. He was just the most beautiful musician, and his legacy lives on in Paula, and so many of the people that studied under him. And me, in the way I still approach so much of the phrasing that I do, and so much of my musicality; he is a big foundation of that.”

As for A German Requiem, Duncan also has a long-standing relationship with the seven-movement work, which Brahms composed between 1865 and 1868.

“I’ve lived with this piece for just about as long as I’ve been a singer,” he says. “I performed it as a young chorister in the ensemble, hearing these amazing people soloing out front and thinking I would love to do that someday. And then, as a young singer living in Germany, I was hired to do it quite a few times, and I ended up coming over to Canada and singing it a few times.”

Unlike many requiems, which utilize four soloists, this one includes multiple solos for only two voices: soprano and baritone. A German Requiem is a lot of work for a baritone (not to mention the soprano, who in this case is Mireille Asselin), and Duncan admits that his younger self was intimidated by the vocal range it requires.

“Starting out, I was afraid of some of the high notes and I just got by doing it and was quite nervous onstage but made it through,” he recalls. “It was nerve-racking, and now that I am a more seasoned professional and have really come into my own vocally and as an artist, I’m able to dive more into the text.

“The cool thing is that now I can find inspiration from the text,” Duncan says. “I can find inspiration from my colleagues on the stage; I can listen better, I can make music with them so that what the audience gets to experience comes from the heart. It’s not about the singing, it’s about the text and the message. It’s about communication.”

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DOXA Documentary Film Festival recently announced the lineup for its 25th edition, launching with an Opening Gala featuring the B.C. premiere of Bella Sutra. Directed by OK Pedersen, the cine-concert performance will take place on April 30 at 7 pm, in the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.

A multidisciplinary experience that pairs screen and performance art, Bella Sutra explores the complex relationships between humans and the non-human world. Shot on hand-processed 16mm film in Bella Coola, the work combines humour, live narration, and a musical ensemble to reflect on life in a remote mountain village.

This screening features a live score, immersing audiences in the rhythms of the cinematic world. Pedersen will narrate as violinist Eden Glasman and pianist Jakub Tokarczyk play onstage. Across 43 minutes, the director’s essayistic approach to Bella Sutra meditates on community and the tension between rural and urban perspectives, offering a deeply personal yet resonant portrait of human connection.

Pedersen is a Chicago-born photographer and filmmaker of Middle Eastern descent, now living in Montreal. She holds a master of fine arts degree in photography from Concordia University. As an image-maker, her work addresses the truth of the moment, the architecture of memory, and people’s relationships to the unseen. She was the 2022–23 recipient of Montreal-based exhibition centre Dazibao’s Jeune tête d’affiche prize with her inkjet-print series Paper Monuments, which consists of seven inkjet prints on kozo, a type of Japanese paper made from mulberry tree bark. Her recent films include Orchard Station Road, “La salle d’attente”, and Cloud Gate 2.

A 30-minute Q&A with the artists will take place directly following the screening of Bella Sutra. VIP ticketholders are also invited to a special reception afterwards to celebrate the launch of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival, which takes place from April 30 to May 10.

Tickets to the Opening Gala are available here. Learn more about the rest of this year’s films, browse a calendar of screenings, and explore the different ticket packs and passes that are now on sale by visiting the festival website.

Post sponsored by DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

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Carousel Theatre for Young People presents The Paper Bag Princess from April 22 to May 10 at the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island. 

IN ROBERT MUNSCH’S classic kids’ story The Paper Bag Princess, a dragon storms a kingdom and burns up everything in sight, leaving the titular heroine, Elizabeth, with only a paper bag to wear and a prince to rescue. 

Now Carousel Theatre for Young People is reimagining that upended fairy tale for the stage. Merewyn Comeau, who stars as Elizabeth, says the works of Robert Munsch were treasured bedtime stories for her growing up. Her favourites included Thomas’ Snowsuit, I Love You Forever, and, of course, The Paper Bag Princess. 

“I think Robert Munsch’s books were different for me as a young reader than others, because we could play as we read,” Comeau shares in an interview with Stir. “He is an expert at weaving absurdity and silliness into complex and poignant stories that are joyful and engaging. Some of the alliteration and the literary tools that he uses like ‘blam blam blam’ and ‘gluck’ are absurd and exciting. I think, paired with the illustrations, there is just so much story in between the lines and so much room to play, engage, and dream.”

In this theatrical adaptation directed by Kathleen Duborg, playwright Alissa Watson builds upon Munsch’s world in a true spirit of that kind of play.

“We’re diving in deeper,” Comeau says. “We’re learning that she [Elizabeth] cares about the environment, that she wants to be a prime minister someday. These are things that are of course not in the book, but I think are a beautiful blend of new ideas that honour the original story.”

This is not Comeau’s first production with Carousel Theatre. In 2019, she performed in Elephant & Piggie’s “We Are in a Play!” Recently, she’s been an assistant educator for the company’s summer drama camps, where she works with children aged six to 10 to develop and perform original plays. 

“I think for me, theatre for young audiences is the most rewarding work that I do,” Comeau says. “I believe that children are our future, and helping them dream and play and explore is very important to me. I think live theatre is just a beautiful vessel to do that.” 

Creating theatre for young people requires a delicate dance between excitement and sensory overload. Currently, Carousel Theatre uses a rating system to help parents and guardians decide if the show is right for their child. This production lists a: 2/5 for language, 2/5 for violence and scariness, 3/5 for sensory advisories, and 2/5 for potentially anxious moments.

However, Comeau notes that, while this rating system is a helpful tool, every child  processes theatre differently. As well, Comeau believes we shouldn’t underestimate the resilience of children. 

“We don’t give kids enough credit,” Comeau says. “Kids are smart. Kids are passionate. Kids are aware. And, you know, it’s okay to be a little scared sometimes. For some of our audience members, it’s their first time ever experiencing live theatre. Finding that happy balance where we can push ourselves in a safe way to explore uncharted territories … I think that’s something that Elizabeth does in this show, as well.”

Ultimately, Comeau explains that while there’s a lot of engaging and fun elements of the show, its true value lies in how it breaks down real-world issues for a young audience. 

“The themes are really of expectations: the pressures we feel trying to navigate the expectations of our parents, our family members, our friends, and society, and the cause and effect of our actions,” Comeau says. “The Paper Bag Princess explores those challenges. It challenges societal norms, gender norms, expectations of how one should look, how one should dress and what they should do. I think that speaks to all children—all people in general. I think it’s a wonderful reminder that being yourself and taking your power is beautiful and that everybody deserves the opportunity to do that.” 

“I am excited for audiences to feel empowered by this story. I am excited to see the shift in the audience from when they've arrived and when they leave, to see where they go with the power that they have within them,” Comeau says. “My hope is that I, myself, and the team can help inspire all audiences that see the show to dare to dream. And I'm excited and I'm hopeful that this offering will bolster people to take their power and to decide who they are and what they want to achieve.”

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Vancouver Opera presents La Bohème at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on April 25, 26, and 30, and May 2 and 3; Jonelle Sills performs on April 25 and 30, and May 2

SOPRANO JONELLE SILLS is having a full-circle moment as she prepares to play the starring role of Mimi in Vancouver Opera’s upcoming production of Giacomo Puccini’s beloved La Bohème, alternating in the demanding part with Lucia Cesaroni. 

This moment goes beyond returning to the company where the fast-rising Toronto talent once trained in the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program—this is, after all, the place she calls her “soulmate city”.

It’s also full-circle because she’s taking centre stage in an epic work that ignited her passion for opera as a teen—long before she could have imagined a successful career in the art form. She still remembers a specific scene from her high school trip to see La Bohème.

“In Act 2, Rodolfo tells his friends and Mimi, when they're meeting her for the first time, that he is a poet and she is his poetry,” the effervescent artist reminisces. “And I remember being so enthralled by that line. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that's so beautiful!’ I even wrote it on my binder. So that was definitely the first opera that I remember. I remember that phrase—I thought that was just so romantic. I thought, ‘Whoa, this is so amazing.’”

That lit some kind of spark in Sills, whose powerhouse soprano, used so often in church choir in her youth, eventually took her to York University to study voice, and far beyond. Since then, she’s had a few experiences playing Mimi, the gentle, doomed protagonist of La Bohème. First, there was Against the Grain Theatre’s funky, intimate, unconventional English translation, set in a dive bar. Then she worked as an understudy for a rendition at the Canadian Opera Company. But this will be her first time in a full, Italian production of La Bohème—a lushly set period piece at Vancouver Opera, under the direction of Brenna Corner and with the return of celebrated conductor emeritus Jonathan Darlington.

The opera has become a favourite of the star’s, who has been seen here in shows such as VO’s Carmen and Midsummer Night’s Dream. Like that sequence she still remembers from high school, La Bohème still speaks to her in a way that feels authentic and timeless.

“The many stories that happen in it are just so honest and truthful,” she says of Puccini’s masterpiece. “And I find myself in every character. There’s the beauty of the love between Rodolfo and Mimi, and even Marcello and Musetta,” she adds of the work’s more tempestuous couple. “I find that it just is so honest. And then, at the end, I feel it’s such a moment to learn to really love the people who are in your life, and to take care of them while you have them. There are so many other layers in the opera that I find are so relevant to today: how we date the first time we meet someone, how we decide to stay with people, even though it may not be for the best.”

Take that as a hint that this rendition of the production, with traditional sets provided by the New Orleans Opera Association (designed by Steven C. Kemp), will dig into those emotions. Director Corner, Sills reports, has jokingly reminded her cast that this production “looks like Bohème, smells like Bohème, tastes like Bohème”. 

“Everything you think of what a Bohème is, it will be,” Sills promises. “But we’ve been able to find all these beautiful moments that have allowed it to continue to be fresh. So even though we’re keeping it traditional, I feel like she’s allowing me to be me. Personalities are shining through, but we’re also staying true to the story and the character.”

If this makes it all sound easy, rest assured Mimi is one of opera’s most challenging roles—one that many sopranos spend years and years working up to. Not only is it a monumental test of endurance, but it requires a balance of vulnerability and strength—requiring a voice that projects over Puccini’s dazzlingly rich orchestrations—as Mimi declines physically and emotionally throughout the opera, and is eventually confined by consumption to her drafty Parisian attic. Add to that the acting demands of a nuanced transformation from innocent romantic to a person facing her mortality. 

“Even though Mimi is physically dying more, the drama increases,” Sills explains. “Working with Brenna on that has been super amazing. It’s good to have those outward eyes to be like, ‘Remember, you’re dying. You’re not that strong.’ I’m just continuing to remember that she’s depleting, and finding ways to show that in the colour of my voice and my personality. 

“And Puccini is the master of detail—he gives you so many supports,” she adds. “Puccini gives this space to pace yourself.”

The role will be a milestone achievement for Sills, and yet this down-to-earth diva insists she’s only beginning to build her path through Puccini and Italian opera—a path she could never have predicted all those years ago, as a high-school student blown away on a field trip.

“I kind of stumbled into this, and I just kind of kept on stumbling forward and listened to people who I trusted, and it’s kind of just led me to this,” she modestly insists. “And I definitely feel that the Italian thing is something that I’m going to grow to love more, and that I want to continue to sing more beautiful, Italianate singing.

“I’ve always tried to focus on myself in my own trajectory,” she adds. “So I’m excited by kind of the long game of it. Because Puccini has so many amazing heroines, and it would be cool to think of doing all of them in my lifetime.”  

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The Vancouver Chamber Choir concludes its 2025–26 season with the return of the celebrated event A Choral Feast at Christ Church Cathedral on May 14 at 7:30 pm.

This fourth-annual edition of the concert is very special, as the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Kari Turunen are joining forces with another professional chamber choir from across the Rockies: Calgary’s Luminous Voices, conducted by founding artistic director Timothy Shantz. The Albertan ensemble is performing here as part of a short B.C. tour that also features stops in Aldergrove and Victoria.

A Choral Feast also features Edmonton’s Chronos Vocal Ensemble, which is helmed by founding artistic director Jordan Van Biert. During the concert, each of the choirs will perform a solo set before combining for a larger-than-life finale.

Keep an eye out for the Vancouver Chamber Choir’s 2026–27 season announcement over the next few months.

Tickets to A Choral Feast are available here.

Post sponsored by Vancouver Chamber Choir.

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Early Music Vancouver presents Summer Festival 2026: The Power of Music at various venues from July 31 to August 7

EARLY MUSIC VANCOUVER HAS announced the full lineup for the 2026 edition of its annual Summer Festival, bookended by two beloved landmark works. The fest kicks off on July 31 with a fully staged version of Monteverdi’s tragic opera L’Orfeo. The production will feature a cast of 12 singers, with Marc Mauillon and Bahareh Poureslami in the lead roles of Orfeo and Euridice. 

The festival concludes on August 7 with violinist Rachel Podger leading the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

In between, the Summer Festival’s curators—EMV artistic and executive director Suzie LeBlanc and Pacific Baroque Orchestra artistic director Alexander Weimann—promise that audiences will come to fully appreciate why this year’s theme is “The Power of Music”.

“Together,” said LeBlanc in yesterday’s announcement, “we are thrilled to create a festival that celebrates music’s ability to move, transform, and connect us.”

Among the festival’s other highlights:

• Bach Dances, August 1 at The Dance Centre: Dancers Will Jessup, Alexis Fletcher, Emma Galvin, and Lazaro Silva are featured in this collaboration between Israeli choreographer Idan Cohen and Canadian cellist Elinor Frey.

• The Compass Rose, August 1 at West Vancouver United Church: Weimann plays J.S. Bach’s solo organ works, including his Toccata and Fugue, Concerto,s and Trio Sonata No. 5.

• Songline: Musical Hike, August 6 at Malcolm Knapp Research Forest: EMV 2026 artist-in-residence Mauillon leads the audience on a 90-minute nature walk while he sings selections from Songline, his album for solo voice.

• Florilegium, August 5 at Christ Church Cathedral: Ensemble COMTESSA offers a poetic meditation on the life cycle of flowers through a selection of English medieval songs.

Find the full Summer Festival lineup, and information on purchasing tickets, at the Early Music Vancouver website.

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FIVE B.C. VISUAL ARTISTS, all well-known names in the Vancouver gallery scene, have made it to the long list for the 2026 Sobey Art Award.

The National Gallery of Canada and the Sobey Art Foundation have just revealed the 30 Canadian contemporary visual artists long-listed for Canada’s most established contemporary visual-arts prize—one that awards a total of $465,000 to talents at “a critical juncture in their careers”.

The jury chooses five artists in each of six regions in Canada; you can find the full list of 30 long-listed talents here.

Among the Pacific region nominees is Charles Campbell, a Jamaican-born multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator who’s based in Victoria and has had his work exhibited in the Lower Mainland at venues including the Vancouver Art Gallery and Surrey Art Gallery. He works in sculpture, sound, installation, and performance, drawing fluidly on the communal and spiritual as he explores what it means to live in the wake of slavery and colonization.

Campbell’s work has been exhibited widely in the Caribbean, Canada, and internationally. He is the recipient of numerous awards, and holds an MFA from Goldsmiths College in London, and a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal. He’s joined by Emily Hermant, an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the materiality of communication. With an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hermant has participated in more than 50 exhibitions, including 20 solo exhibitions. The Emily Carr University of Art + Design associate professor has had residencies at venues including BoxoPROJECTS in California and Vancouver’s Burrard Arts Foundation.

Kelly Lycan also made the list. The Vancouver photo-based installation artist explores ideas of perception, value, and reproduction, examining how objects and images are displayed. With an MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, she has had her work exhibited across Canada, the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East; recent shows have included the site-specific The Fireplace, exploring the Edwardian rooms at the Burnaby Art Gallery.

Elsewhere, Samuel Roy-Bois, known for built environments, installations, sculpture, and photographs, is being recognized. His work sits in the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, and he’s shown everywhere from the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal to Whistler’s Audain Art Museum. He’s an associate professor in sculpture at UBC Okanagan.

And xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Simpcw, and Syilx artist Manual Axel Strain joins the list for their work in installations, photographic art, and other disciplines. The artist, whose pieces have been shown at venues such as the Vancouver Art Gallery, The Polygon Gallery, and Surrey Art Gallery, attended Emily Carr University of Art + Design and prioritizes Indigenous epistemologies. They were long-listed for the 2022 Sobey Award and were a recipient of the 2022 Portfolio Prize. They work as co-artistic director at the Vines Art Society.

A short list of six artists will be announced on May 26, and their work will be featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada starting in September. The overall winner will be announced on November 14, during an evening celebration at the gallery. That artist will receive $100,000; each of the short-listed artists will receive $25,000; and the remaining long-listed artists will each receive $10,000—all funded by the Sobey Art Foundation. 

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West African singer and kora virtuoso Ablaye Cissoko and French multi-instrumentalist Cyrille Brotto meld the rich tapestries of their musical cultures at BlueShore at CapU, May 14.

When Cissoko’s delicate voice and kora combine with the vibrant sound of Brotto’s main instrument, the accordion, the result is music that feels remarkably warm and graceful. Together, the artists fuse West African and French folk traditions with jazz and classical influences.

One of the world’s finest performers of the kora—a 21-stringed African harp-lute—Cissoko is known for his melodic style, intimate vocals, and storytelling. As a griot, he is part of a tradition of oral historians, sharing knowledge and connecting generations through music. Brotto, meanwhile, is a master of the diatonic accordion whose work spans traditional music, contemporary collaborations, and hip-hop influences.

Cissoko and Brotto followed up their remarkable 2022 debut Instant with last year’s masterful Djiyo.

Tickets to see the duo in concert are available through BlueShore at CapU.

Post sponsored by BlueShore at CapU.

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Surrey Art Gallery presents In the Shadow of the Pavilions: Expo 86 and Contemporary Art from April 18 to June 7

IN A COUPLE OF months, soccer—sorry, football—fans from around the globe will converge on Vancouver as our city plays host to several matches in this year’s World Cup. This isn’t the first time we’ve provided the stage for a major international event, of course, as anyone who still has a plush Quatchi or official light-blue 2010 Winter Olympics volunteer jacket in the back of their closet could tell you.

Before that, Vancouver had first dabbled in large-scale global meet-ups with the 1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication. Don’t worry if that doesn’t sound familiar. Everyone back then just called it Expo 86, and that’s how it’s remembered today.

Running between May 2 and October 13, 1986, Expo drew 22 million visitors and changed the face of the city in ways that are still visible. It brought us the SkyTrain and BC Place, for example, as well as Canada Place and Science World. 

The world’s fair boosted the region’s profile in an unprecedented way, sparking a tourism boom that has never really slowed down, economic downturns and global pandemics notwithstanding. It also put an international spotlight on some important British Columbia artists.

As with all such things, however, there were only so many golden tickets, and Expo could not possibly make space for every local artist’s work.

“There was a lot of hope initially from many in the art community in the early ’80s that there was a chance to get involved and get their work shown in the official Expo program, and many people were disappointed to not be able to get their work in,” says Jordan Strom, curator of exhibitions and collections at Surrey Art Gallery. “If you read the newspapers from that time there was quite a bit of opinion about exclusion of local artists. But these big events also have finite budgets and finite space. There were plans to have bigger exhibitions and do more spaces for local art, and some of those didn't work out for a wide variety of reasons.”

A new Surrey Art Gallery exhibition, In The Shadow of the Pavilions, features original works and archival materials from a number of artists who were included in Expo’s arts programming—and some who were left out.

“The exhibition is structured around both official works and then works that were mounted and presented around the region during ’86 but also in the lead-up and during the immediate aftermath—the works that are kind of in conversation with the world’s fair,” Strom tells Stir.

The show includes art works and documentation by more than 50 artists, and while space doesn’t allow us to list them all, a few of the key names are Richard Tetrault, Debra Sparrow, Stan Douglas, Ruth Beer, Marcus Bowcott, Hank Bull, Lorraine Gilbert, Rodney Graham, Kate Craig, Robert Davidson, Beau Dick, Christos Dikeakos, Xwalacktun, Michael de Courcy, Colin Low, Oraf, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Paul Wong.

Strom sounds particularly thrilled to call attention to the holographic works of Michael Snow, which the curator vividly remembers viewing in awe at the Roundhouse as a 14-year-old Expo 86 attendee. “It was probably the largest show of a single artist at Expo,” Strom says. “It was called The Spectral Image. It was over 40 works of holography. And Michael Snow was one of the most critically acclaimed artists of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s and beyond, so it was a major show. We have some archival work related to that.”

Another highlight of Expo, Strom says, was Loo Taas, a red cedar ocean-going canoe designed by Haida artist Bill Reid and built in Skidegate by a team of carvers. The Surrey Art Gallery doesn’t have the actual canoe on display (it’s over 15 metres long, after all), but it does have Reid’s original maquette.

Strom says the exhibition he has curated doesn’t turn a blind eye to the numerous controversies surrounding the 1986 world’s fair. The show even includes a copy of Expo Hurts Everyone, a four-track EP by various local bands headlined by D.O.A., whose biting “Billy and the Socreds” takes a swipe at then-premier Bill Bennett and his Social Credit party to the tune of CCR’s “Willy and the Poor Boys”.

“There were some artists and other residents who were a bit frustrated with some of the impacts and effects of Expo, like on housing,” Strom says. “There was the eviction crisis on the East Side, and people getting pushed out of some of the single resident occupancy hotels, for example, so artists made work about that. There was also some frustration with bringing in non-union workers to build Expo, and so people made work about labour rights. Artists respond to a changing environment, and certainly Expo created a huge impact on many different areas of social life and economic life in the Lower Mainland and in the province.”

Ironically, one unintended consequence of Expo 86’s exclusion of some local artists was that it spurred them on to find new and innovative ways to get their work seen.

“Artists organized other projects around the Lower Mainland, just through elbow grease, doing their own things in storefronts and artist-run centres and places like the Surrey Art Gallery,” Strom says. “We had a show that related in certain ways to the Expo moment, thinking about the idea of landscape and nature and spectacle. It was called Six Projects for Surrey. So we’re showing some of that work here.”

With the 40th anniversary of Expo 86 fast approaching, expect to see and hear plenty of discourse over the next few months—and for years to come—about the fair’s legacy and what it all means. Strom for one welcomes the conversation.

“Expo 67 has shelves’ worth of books trying to identify the significance of it,” he says. “Expo 86 has very little in terms of books or films or other things, so I think maybe this is one small glimpse into that, and hopefully there will be others as we move towards the 50th in the coming years.”

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COASTAL JAZZ HAS just announced additional programming for this year’s Vancouver International Jazz Festival, releasing the lineup for the Jazz Series at Ocean Artworks and the Revue Stage, both on Granville Island. 

The Ocean Artworks Jazz Series returns for seven nights between June 26 and July 5, featuring a mix of established Vancouver performers and emerging artists from across Canada. Performers will include Honeybear, the Band (June 26), SHEBAD (June 27), Wallgrin + Devours (June 28), Rich Hope (July 2), Chopping Spree! (July 3), Persian Party (July 4), and Midnight Boogaloo (July 5). All Ocean Artworks concerts start at 8:30 pm, with $15 tickets available at the door only.

“We view Ocean Artworks as sort of a 'hub’ for the Granville Island program—where people can enjoy live music and still be in the fresh air,” said Jeremy Page, co–artistic director of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, in the announcement. “It’s conveniently situated between Performance Works and the Revue Stage (plus an additional venue we’ll be announcing soon!), so we encourage audiences to bounce around between venues to truly experience the depth of programming #vanjazzfest is known for.”

Over at the Revue Stage, five nights of performances reflect the festival’s range, spanning avant-garde jazz and contemporary improvisation, showcasing artists from across North America and Europe. These include Talking Pictures with Fredrik Ljungkvist (July 1), Patrick Shiroishi and Nick Yacyshyn with Lee Hutzulak (July 2), Wendy Eisenberg (July 3), Amina Claudine Myers (July 4), and Qalandar with guest Neelamjit Dhillon (July 5). All Revue Stage shows are at 9 pm, with $30 advance tickets available through the Coastal Jazz website.

In addition to the Ocean Artworks and Revue Stage concerts, Coastal Jazz announced three Artists in Residence: multi-instrumentalist Patrick Shiroishi, guitarist and composer Wendy Eisenberg, and singer-songwriter Caley Watts.

Also part of this year’s fest is the return of the New Improvisers Studio, a free five-day intensive for young musicians ages 17 to 24, led by Shiroishi.

The 41st Vancouver International Jazz Festival runs from June 19 to July 5 at venues across Vancouver and the North Shore.

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The world premiere of hyaline, a collaboration between music producer–interdisciplinary artist x/o and visual artist gooie, is taking place at VIVO Media Arts Centre on April 30 at 7:30 pm.

x/o works at the intersection of live performance and electronic music, while gooie’s practice spans costume and sculpture design. Together, the artists present hyaline, which combines biomimetic choreography, improvised movement, cinematic compositions, biosonification, and wearable sculptures.

Unfolding in an environment that evokes the natural world, the interdisciplinary piece explores how meaning can emerge through similarities between humans and non-humans. gooie’s translucent wearable sculptures transform bodies into fungal, isopod, and slug-like entities that evolve, adapt, and moult. x/o’s original soundtrack carries the piece along, with moments of raw emotion that give way to thundering catharsis.

hyaline is co-presented by Notebook Platform and Chapel Sound Art Foundation, in partnership with VIVO Media Arts Centre, with support by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Tickets are available here.

Post sponsored by Chapel Sound Art Foundation.

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The Sundar Prize Film Festival runs from April 23 to 26 at venues in Surrey and North Delta. A Cree Approach screens as part of the program Who Are We Under Pressure? on April 24 at the North Delta Centre for the Arts

VANCOUVER-BASED FILMMAKER Tristin Greyeyes knew that the grandmother she grew up with was a remarkable woman. The late Freda Ahenakew was a single mother of 12 children when she pursued a master’s degree and led the revitalization of nêhiyawêwin (the Cree language) through texts like Cree Language Structures—a “Bible” for instructors today. But Ahenakew had suffered several strokes by the time Greyeyes was old enough to get to know her; by then, her English had mostly dissipated and all she remembered was her first language, nêhiyawêwin, and so they couldn’t communicate well with each other. To her regret today, Greyeyes had not grown up around the language.

“Our relationship was very quiet and loving,” Greyeyes tells Stir in a phone interview, ahead of a screening of her documentary about her kôhkom (grandmother) called A Cree Approach at the Sundar Prize Film Festival. “Before she died, I took care of her. That’s the relationship that I had with her, just physically taking care of her, just sitting with her, having tea, coffee, or whatever. And just being in the room with her, silent, and that was our relationship.”

But then, during research for her film, the Saskatchewan-raised director and graduate of Capilano University’s Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking and motion-picture arts program came upon an old documentary interview with her grandmother, where the vivacious teacher spoke about encouraging a new generation of language warriors.

“She’s speaking English, and I can understand her, and I wanted to cry, because I’d never seen her talk like that, because I had only ever seen her as an old lady who could barely speak English, and if she did, it was very little,” Greyeyes says. “So seeing these interviews, where my mom’s a little girl, and she’s just talking about how important it is for language revitalization, was really overwhelming. I remember being in tears. It was beautiful. Like, I felt so lucky.”

Viewers of the documentary at Sundar can see that footage among other interviews and archival materials that show the key role Ahenakew had in saving nêhiyawêwin from extinction. Greyeyes’ grandmother had been fortunate to grow up with fluent speakers, despite the repressive Canadian laws and residential schools that tried to force her generation to speak English. In fact, Ahenakew was inspired to formalize what she knew about her language into written structures after noticing that her own children were struggling to understand Cree.

A Cree Approach doesn’t just document Ahenakew’s life and achievements, but follows Greyeyes’ own quest to understand why she wasn’t raised to speak nêhiyawêwin. The film becomes a personal journey as she interviews her aunties and uncles, as well as her own mother. Some of the conversations touch on intergenerational trauma, and the incidence of domestic abuse. The film makes it clear Ahenakew’s road to becoming a respected teacher and member of the Order of Canada wasn’t easy.

“I felt very uncomfortable asking about it,” Greyeyes begins. “But I knew I had to ask them—and when I grew up, they never talked about that stuff. You don’t talk about the past, you don’t talk about the negative stuff. They tend to brush things under the rug.

“I grew up with them avoiding those types of conversations, so I was a little nervous, and in my interviews, I could tell that they were really uncomfortable,” she continues. “But I’m glad they talked about it. I think it’s because I’m their niece. They felt okay to talk about those things. I don’t think they would have if it had been anybody else, or a non-Indigenous person, you know? It’s important that I come from the same community, that I’m telling their stories, or that I’m recording their stories and sharing their stories. I could speak their language, and they could tell me things in detail. I think that telling the story as a family member was so important, that I had access to this emotional side of them that maybe they wouldn’t have shown if it was anybody else.”

There are other sides to A Cree Approach, especially as Greyeyes expresses hope for her own children and the next generation—caught on film at powwows, gathering for cookouts in the woods, and enjoying other traditions the Indian Act once worked to suppress. 

The film got a warm response at the recent GEMFest, where it won the award for best feature. Greyeyes’ relatives will be showing up in force for the screening at the North Delta Centre for the Arts, as part of the Sundar Prize Film Festival; it’s up for the best feature award at the event, which is devoted to films that explore social causes and change. The director herself has to head to the Zeitgeist Minnesota Film Festival for a screening on the same night, her doc’s international debut.

Greyeyes hopes audiences will see the work that has gone into preserving the Cree language, and that much more needs to be done to keep it from vanishing. The director made sure to sprinkle A Cree Approach with vivid intertitles with nêhiyawêwin words, in its own script and then spelled out in anglicized form, with definitions throughout. In honour of her grandmother, she’s passing on these little lessons on nêhiyawêwin to others—including nôhkom, the word for “my grandmother”, a term she is proud to use for Freda.

In many ways, in fact, Greyeyes is carrying on the work of the woman she calls nôhkom, just through a different mode of communication. Says the documentarist: “I didn’t even realize it until after I was making the film: I was like, damn, we have a lot of similarities in terms of storytelling and sharing stories and keeping Indigenous storytelling alive.”  

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Vancouver New Music is hosting the immersive, collaborative audiovisual performance A Voynich Manifesto at the Annex on May 9 at 8 pm.

A Voynich Manifesto takes inspiration from a mysterious medieval manuscript written in an unknown language that describes and visualizes plants and star charts unknown to us on Earth. Exploring themes of indecipherability and hidden meanings in sound, shadow-theatre duo Mind of a Snail (Chloé Ziner and Jessica Gabriel) create an enchanted world alongside vocalists SJ Kirsch and Viviane Houle.

This event is the final instalment of On Curation, a two-year mentorship project led by Vancouver New Music that supports experimental approaches to sound-based work. Mentors and curators explore new models of curation together to generate accessible, socially engaged programming.

A Voynich Manifesto was curated by Montreal’s Terri Hron, who was mentored by Salt Spring Island’s Peter Hatch. Hron is moderating an artist chat after the performance.

Tickets are available through Vancouver New Music.

Post sponsored by Vancouver New Music.

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RICHMOND’S GATEWAY THEATRE has just unveiled its 2026–2027 season, with a roster that encompasses a classic song-and-dance musical, an intergenerational Chinese-Canadian story, and a playful piece with cake-decorating as a central metaphor.

Kicking things off is Secret Ingredients, a “theatrical cake tasting” in Studio B, October 14 to 17. Richmond-based artist Keely Rois O’Brien’s experimental theatre performance uses cake-decorating to explore the ups and downs of human relationships.

It’s followed, on November 13 to 14 at Minoru Chapel, by the song cycle Songs for a New World , the first musical by Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown, directed by Gateway executive artistic director Barbara Tomasic.

Gateway’s big holiday show will be the tap-dancing classic 42nd Street, hitting its MainStage December 10 to January 2, 2027; it’s a celebration of old-time Broadway, Times Square, and showbiz.

The new year will see Green Thumb Theatre’s family-friendly She Shoots, She Scores!, Michele Riml’s story of a young girl pursuing her love of hockey; Anita Rochon directs the production, based on a book by hockey legend Cammi Granato, at Studio B.

Closing the MainStage season in March 2027, Silk Bath Collective performs Woking Phoenix, an intergenerational Chinese-Canadian story.

The season also includes the return of community events such as True Voices: Pride Storytelling & Tea, Mid-Autumn Festival and Lunar New Year celebrations.

It’s all presented under the season theme “Us. Here. Now.”, celebrating stories that unfold in the moment and live on in memory long after the curtain falls.

Subscription packages are on sale starting May 1, 2026 with single tickets available on June 1, 2026. Visit Gateway's website here for full information on the upcoming season.  

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The Improv Centre presents Exploration Blank to June 27

GET READY TO embark on a space expedition fuelled by cosmic-level laughs. The Improv Centre’s latest adventure, Exploration Blank, launches audiences aboard a spaceship bound for alien encounters, strange new worlds, and the kind of playful chaos that you can always count on these improv-comedy pros to deliver.

Created by artistic director Alan Pavlakovic, Exploration Blank is a lively exercise in controlled mayhem. While the production follows a structure, riffing on Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and other sci-fi shows, the specifics are shaped by audience suggestions—prompted, naturally, by the cast. Improv games and rotating performers ensure no two performances are alike, reinforcing improv’s core appeal: unpredictability.

One element that will likely remain consistent from performance to performance is the introduction of the characters. After all, when boarding a space vessel, it only makes sense to meet your crew. Before the journey begins, the audience also gets to assign each character a quirky trait or defining detail. At the performance Stir attended, Jalen Saip—our Captain Jalen—led the mission, with one notable gap in her life: she had never been on a first date.

Next came Assistant Captain Beverly (Meaghan Hommy), eager to take command but continually held back in her career due to the rollerblading habit she developed in pilot school. The crew’s mental health is in the hands of Counsellor Lloyd (Cameron Grant), who is part human, part squirrel. Security Officer Kip (Will Vaughan) isn’t scared of anything on Earth; however, in space, he’s scared of his own thoughts. And Pilot Ford F-150 (Emily Schoen) is in love with Captain Jalen.

With introductions complete, the adventure began. On their first mission—prompted by an audience suggestion—Ford F-150 and Kip were tasked with retrieving cheese from a mysterious planet. The pair immediately met an alien, embodied by Grant and Hommy. Harkening back to an old Theatresports game, Grant and Hommy had the challenge of speaking in unison. This resulted in the alien informing Ford F-150 and Kip that they had landed on planet Mighty Cheese, and that before they could take any cheese, they would have to perform a dance.

Ready on cue, tech crew Brendan Kelly and Neil Battle played George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”, and Ford F-150 and Kip dutifully started grooving, with Kip leaning into seductive dance moves.

At the next stop, Ford F-150 and Kip had to assist the planet’s inhabitants with a crisis—which again, thanks to an audience suggestion—was to help eat spaghetti. However, due to the planet’s extreme gravity, they needed the help of a “robot”, i.e. an audience member. The brave volunteer, dubbed Laura 2000, aptly took on the task of positioning Ford F-150 and Kip’s limbs to allow them to help eat the planet’s overabundance of pasta, ultimately delighting Grant and Hommy’s Italian-inspired aliens. 

At another moment, the cast cleverly weaved in a game of What Am I Doing? as part of a mission to pacify a hostile alien intruder. Captain Jalen was tasked with appeasing the alien by successfully honouring the intruder’s ceremonial traditions. To do this, Captain Jalen had to guess three hobbies (which had been determined by audience suggestions when she wasn’t in the room) through charades performed by the other actors. This sparked a hugely interactive moment, as audience members voiced their encouragement or winced whenever Captain Jalen missed the mark. At this performance, “horse feeding” proved to be overly tricky to guess, but the alien intruder was kind enough to deem Captain Jalen’s efforts close enough.

The most riotous moment was what’s known as a Rashomon-style improv game, where the same incident is enacted according to a different character’s recollection, with each telling escalating in absurdity. The incident here was Captain Jalen’s recollection of microwaving fish, causing an unpleasant smell aboard the ship. However, this wasn’t quite how the others remembered the incident, as shown in the reenactments. By the time the incident played out a third time, it had spiralled into a wild scene involving Captain Jalen forcefully shoving her crewmates aside to cram a live sturgeon into the microwave. 

Amid all this comedic chaos, the cast also managed to build character arcs and include tender moments. For example, Captain Jalen finally got her first date. And Counsellor Lloyd reunited with his squirrel family in Stanley Park. This blend of charming comedy, audience engagement, and humanistic storytelling is what makes the Improv Centre truly special. 

Evident in Exploration Blank is its sense of ease. Despite the constant influx of audience input, the structure feels sturdy enough to give performers room to breathe. Scenes unfold at a relaxed pace, allowing the cast to fully explore each comedic premise rather than rushing to the next beat. For the audience, this also creates a sense of comfort—an assurance that the show is in capable hands, no matter how unpredictable it becomes. If Exploration Blank’s prime directive is to create an evening of terrific comedy and entertainment, mission accomplished!

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A DISCO- AND Motown-driven comedy about nuns and a Disney fairy tale will alternate this summer at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park.

The company has announced its 2026 season roster, with Sister Act and Disney’s The Little Mermaid rotating from July 3 to August 22.

TUTS’s two-show subscription packs are on sale now at tuts.ca, and will be followed by early-bird single tickets on May 19.

Based on the 1992 hit movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, Sister Act is about disco diva Deloris Van Cartier, who goes into witness protection at a convent. Disguising herself as Sister Mary Clarence, Deloris takes over the flailing convent choir. Veteran musicals director Peter Jorgensen helms and choreographs the production, returning after steering TUTS’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2025. Sean Bayntun returns for the fourth year as music director.

A classic animated film comes to the stage in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, featuring the young Ariel, who saves the life of a prince and strikes a dangerous bargain with the sea witch Ursula to become human. It will be directed and choreographed by Nicol Spinola, who choreographed the summer 2022 production of Something Rotten!. Brent Hughes is music director on the show.

This year, TUTS will be celebrating its 86th year of staging musicals under the Douglas firs in Stanley Park.  

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Glitch Theatre, in partnership with the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, is presenting Arc One on May 23 at 7:30 pm.

A roadkill road trip, the medical office of Anton Chekhov, an impossible waterfall, and the back seat of a speeding car—these are just a handful of the places Arc One will take audiences in an evening of live original performances by D/disability-identified artists.

This is the first community-engaged project by Glitch Theatre, formerly known as Realwheels Theatre, since its rebrand last year. Arc One engages 10 new and emerging artists for an evening of short original performances ranging from prose and poetry to stories and essays. Live-mixed sound and music will accompany the offerings, which vary in length from five to seven minutes each. The event will be recorded live for release as a podcast series later this year.

Arc One features the work and performances of Sunny Daydream Chen, Elijah Curror, Kyla Dowling, Jessica Hood, Isabel Miller Iparraguirre, Helen Jiang, Desirée Leal, Carmen Josephine Lee, Cass McKenzie, and Gary Tam. The evening is facilitated by Glitch’s co-artistic director, Adam Grant Warren, with production management by company producer Jordyn Wood.

“In ‘emerging artist programming’, and particularly in the programming of emerging artists who identify with D/disability, there’s still a tendency to applaud presence for presence’s sake,” shares Warren in a release. “We’re often celebrated not because our work is strong and resonant, but because we’re on the stage at all. Arc One pushes against that. It’s an investment in skill, process, story, and community connection.”

Arc One features sound design by Malcolm Dow and original compositions by Mishelle Cuttler. Nico Dicecco is behind the show’s lighting design and technical direction, while Stephen Field Elgar has put together the set design. The crew is rounded out by project assistant Damion LeClair and access coordinator V/Veronique West.

The content of the performance is blind and low vision–friendly. Closed captioning will be projected above the stage area.

Tickets for Arc One range in price and are available online through Glitch Theatre.

Post sponsored by Glitch Theatre.

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