WITH THE HELP of MP Jenny Kwan, The Cultch is seeking answers around a visa delay that threatens to cancel an Amsterdam-based Palestinian artist’s theatre work for a second time.

Alaa Mohammed Said Shehada’s The Horse of Jenin, copresented with Rumble Theatre, was originally scheduled for March 2026, but had to be postponed when the artist’s temporary visa was not processed in time. Now, with the show rescheduled for October 8 at The Cultch’s York Theatre, it looks like the application’s security verification—which the groups say they have been waiting for since September 2025—still hasn’t materialized.

Today The Cultch said it and Kwan had made numerous requests to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Canada’s security partners for information around the Temporary Resident Visa application.

The Cultch said Shehada submitted his visa application on August 17, 2025, completing biometrics in The Hague on September 5, 2025, and has successfully passed criminality and eligibility assessments.

“Our request is straightforward,” said Kwan in today’s statement. “Mr. Shehada and The Cultch cannot keep rescheduling this performance indefinitely. I must note that my office has assisted in flagging the urgency of many TRV applications for performing artists and in most cases, especially when biometrics were complete, the applications were successfully processed in time to make the scheduled performances. They need answers as to the timeline of his application so that they may plan accordingly.”

The Horse of Jenin uses storytelling, mask, and standup comedy to explore the life of a boy growing up in the city of Jenin, in the West Bank. It takes its name from a public sculpture created with scrap metal from vehicles destroyed in 2002’s Second Intifada. The one-man show has been performed at spots like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where The Guardian’s five-star review called it “bouncy, droll and warm. Underneath it buzzes with suppressed suffering and fear, but also resilience” and the New York Times called it “poignant”. The show here would have marked its Canadian premiere.

“This prolonged delay is having significant consequences not only for the artist but also for our audiences and our organization,” The Cultch executive director Heather Redfern said in the release today. “We have already been forced to postpone this internationally acclaimed production once. Continuing uncertainty makes it impossible to plan our season responsibly and places a financial and administrative burden on our theatre.”  

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Vines Art Society presents the closing event of the Vines Art Festival at John Hendry (Trout Lake) Park on August 15 from 1 pm to 6:30 pm

THE IDEA THAT everything has a spirit is a theory at the core of a number of belief systems, including Japan’s animistic Shinto religion, Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, and Indigenous and shamanic views of the world.

It’s also the concept at the heart of Be(ing) Moss, a work that the duo of Soya and Chantal will be presenting at Trout Lake as part of the final day of the Vines Art Festival. The interactive performance draws on contact-improvisation dance and earth-based art.

When Stir speaks to the cocreators a couple of weeks before the Vines finale, Soya and Chantal are still working on the piece’s details—but they are very much in agreement when it comes to the underlying themes. Be(ing) Moss is about, well, being moss.

Noting that the work is “a kind of ancestral experience ritual”, Soya acknowledges that, from an audience perspective, it won’t look like much, at first.

“We will start with the grounding small dance, which is that we will be standing, and on the outside, it’s seemingly a very still practice,” she says. “But we’re noticing how our bones, our neural system, and the earth are interacting in the resonance. And then it will slowly come into different phases of how the moss are interacting with the outside part of the other natural beings—how, when the water comes, it will fully open up, and when the sun comes and it dries up, it will curl itself.

“So we’re going to move in these ways too, when thinking about moss, of how they move,” Soya continues. “And then, while thinking about bringing the spirits of moss in our body, we’ll be doing more contact-improv dance.”

In creating this piece, Soya and Chantal have drawn inspiration from the work of Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, the former director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Kimmerer is widely known as the author of the 2013 bestseller Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

In her earlier book Gathering Moss, Kimmerer explored the lore of mosses, not just in scientific terms, but also within the framework of Indigenous ways of knowing. 

“In Indigenous ways of knowing, it is understood that each living being has a particular role to play,” Kimmerer wrote. “Every being is endowed with certain gifts, its own intelligence, its own spirit, its own story. Our stories tell us that the Creator gave these to us, as original instructions. The foundation of education is to discover that gift within us and learn to use it well.” 

Soya says the concepts of eco-queerness and eco-sensuality are central to her perception of her relationship to the natural world. “I think ultimately what it is, is to be able to see that we as humans are part of nature,” she says, “and seeing we and other species, other beings, are interacting with nature and that it is not something we’re saving—getting out of this very human-centric, very ‘saviour complex’ way of seeing nature, but being with other beings as equal parts. Seeing the trees and moss and kelps as partners in our movements, in our very everyday, very bodily practices.

“Like, for example, I would say the more simple way to say it is that when I’m touching a rock, it’s no different than touching the body of a human,” she offers. “When I am touching the moss, it feels no different from hugging a friend.”

Be(ing) Moss is also influenced by herbalism and Traditional Chinese Medicine (Soya is of Cantonese descent), but prospective participants won’t need a theoretical grounding in any of these areas, just an open mind.

“It’s like a meditation dance, with an invitation to the audience to join,” Chantal says. “We’ll be leading the score, and inviting people to practice in the stillness that Soya was mentioning and also in finding movement in subtle ways, perhaps.”

Be(ing) Moss is but one component of an entire afternoon’s worth of programming at the park, which kicks off at 1:15 pm with opening remarks by Robbie George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, after which Sam Chimes builds a soundscape out of voice, keys, and percussion, layering Afrocentric rhythms and improvisation while inviting audience participation.

Later on, Barbara Wilson blends contemporary dance with Chilean street circus styles; Nana and the Asafo Brigade (NATAB) plays a set of soulful African folk music; Sudhesna Mohapatra performs Indian classical dance to the songs of Rabindranath Tagore, with vocal interpretation by Aneri Nanavaty; and a set by 20love—the singer/songwriter folk duo of Tiannin Chan and Michael Arkinstall—closes the 2026 edition of the Vines Art Festival.

It’s a wide-ranging showcase of local talent, and Be(ing) Moss might just be the quietest, stillest part of it, but Soya says it will offer rich rewards for those who come to it with two key traits.

“I think intention and attention are very important; coming into the practice with the intention, and then bringing attention to other beings, and ourselves as one of the beings, too,” she says. “I think these two really ask people to slow down more, to find the subtlety of movement and subtlety of sensation and ultimately to be able to sense in stillness, and finding the resonance in that stillness. To me, it’s the way to listen to nature.”

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VIFF Live presents Laura Crema and a screening of Jazz on a Summer’s Day at the VIFF Centre on August 9 at 2 pm

IN 1958, ANITA O’DAY performed an iconic concert at the Newport Jazz Festival, decked out in a wide-brimmed hat and white gloves and putting her innovative rhythmic phrasing to classics like “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Tea for Two”.

It was all famously captured in Bert Stern’s 1959 documentary Jazz on a Summer’s Day—a classic that’s screening this Sunday as part of VIFF Live, with local jazz star Laura Crema on hand to pay tribute to O’Day beforehand.

O’Day, after all, changed what it means to be a female jazz singer: nicknamed the Jezebel of Jazz, she made her voice equal to the male instrumentalists, keeping up with the fastest tempos and refusing to play a demure role.

Crema, joined by Sharon Minemoto on keyboard, Jon Bentley on sax, Wynston Minkler on bass, and Nino DiPasquale on drums, takes inspiration from the ’50s legend, putting her own improvisational spice on classic songs.

As for the artfully shot film itself, it’s one of the greatest jazz documentaries ever made, and offers a chance to revel in the talent of other legends too, including Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Chuck Berry, and Dinah Washington. The famous finale is the Lord’s Prayer by Mahalia Jackson at midnight, ushering in Sunday morning. And did we mention the clothes? From beat-era fedoras to Ray-Ban sunglasses and thin silk ties, there’s style to burn here, daddio.

Jazz on a Summer’s Day has been beautifully restored in 4K—and, 70 years later, it remains a pretty much perfect way to spend, well, a summer’s day. Infidels Jazz copresents.  

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The Cinematheque presents The Maiku Hama Trilogy from August 6 to September 2

FANS OF ASIAN cinema struck gold when The Most Terrible Time in My Life came to VIFF in 1993. Hayashi Kaizo’s film is a dazzling postmodern homage to American pulp and Japanese B movies, shot in glorious black-and-white and buzzing with energy, wit, and the star power of Nagase Masatoshi, fresh off his scene-stealing introduction to Western audiences in Mystery Train.  

If it was the right movie at the right time, the first entry in the Maiku Hama trilogy still feels as fresh and surprising as ever. Can we say that about the glut of forgettable hard-boiled Tarantino rip-offs that crowded theatres in the early ’90s? (Answer: no.) Now remastered, The Most Terrible Time in My Life comes to the Cinematheque with its two sequels, starting August 6. 

Of the three, it’s the easiest to love. Masatoshi was required to hit a single note in Mystery Train, where his imperturbable alien cool was the joke, but here he gets to spoof his own image as a clumsy and trouble-prone private investigator who loses a finger to a vicious yakuza in the first five minutes of the film. Even his vintage Nash Rambler sputters to a halt after a euphoric opening sequence. Maiku will be variously beaten, stabbed, and shot as he’s embroiled in a turf war between Taiwanese and Hong Kong gangsters, but the comedic zip never flags. 

Otherwise, the film is drunk on its love of cinema and down-market entertainment. Maiku occupies an office above a movie theatre with a marquee that comments on the action (clients are required to a buy a ticket) and Kaizo furnishes his cast with veterans including Joe Shishido, star of Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill, here playing an old mentor to a private dick whose name is a cheerful garbling of “Mike Hammer”. The violence is shocking and cartoonish but the film delights in breaking its own reality, eventually putting Maiku himself on that big marquee. 

The Stairway to the Distant Past followed in 1995, this time drenched in widescreen colour and with an attendant deepening of emotional detail. Masatoshi still gets to clown around, but the return of Maiku’s estranged mother to Yokohama’s red-light district—she’s a famed stripper known as “Dynamite Sexy Lily”—takes the film into the character’s troubled past and other lingering questions about his family origins. 

It all starts whimsically enough with the search for a missing dog and the impounding of Maiku’s beloved Rambler. Before long, he’s dragged into another underworld conflict, this time involving bent politicians, errant yakuza, and an ominous kingpin whose merciless 50-year control of the waterfront has never been contested. Naturally, in the midst of his Oedipal torments, Maiku finds himself in a direct showdown with this larger-than-life figure (played by Eiji Okada, star of Hiroshima mon amour). 

If the film generously services its themes of guilt, regret, and moral courage, it also gestures lightly in a parapolitical direction. Yokohama was a key port for trafficking under postwar US occupation, and the film’s near-mythical crime boss is suggestively named “The White Man.” If Kaizo doesn’t quite follow through on that beat, it fits with the previous film’s mixture of Chinese and Taiwanese gangsters invading Yokohama as the self-styled “New Japs”—one of whom, Kanno, is now, pointedly, running for city council. 

Whatever the meaning of all that, the trilogy’s final entry, The Trap (1996), dispenses with any historical inquiry into Japanese heritage and culture or its postwar immigrant mix. It’s by far the darkest and most sober of the three films, even as it takes an unexpected left turn into perverse ’70s euro-schlock and hokey Hitchcockian psychology, complete with a gloved and masked killer, and a weird sexual buzz focused on a brain-damaged youth treated in one scene as a sex toy.

If it needs saying, The Trap is where Kaizo’s trilogy tips into bad taste, meaning it’ll thrill some viewers and seriously challenge the rest. It’s also an admirably risky enterprise for the filmmaker. Over the course three films, we’ve watched Maiku Hama evolve from a slicked-back pop culture burlesque into a grown-up, three-dimensional man whose mission is to evade arrest—the corrupt cop Nakayama returns to menace our hero yet again—while saving his deaf-mute girlfriend from a serial killer wielding a syringe filled with poison. He’s aided by friends and supposed enemies, along with grateful locals who, by now, love Maiku Hama as much as we do. Time in his company is well worth the price of admission.  

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The Vancouver Classic Guitar Society presents the Vancouver Classical Guitar Festival at CapU Centre for Performing Arts from August 13 to 16

AT THE IMPRESSIONABLE age of eight, Máximo Diego Pujol made a fateful discovery: he found his father’s old guitar collecting dust in the back of a closet. To say he took to it quickly would be an understatement. By the time he was nine, the Buenos Aires–born musician was playing his first concert and debuting his own compositions.

Pujol hasn’t really slowed down ever since, winning acclaim for both his masterful instrumental skills and his compositions, which draw inspiration from traditional tango maestros like Juan Carlos Cobián as well as the nuevo tango of Astor Piazzolla.

The Argentine musician is the featured artist at this year’s Vancouver Classical Guitar Festival, and he will be performing a full solo concert at Capilano University’s Centre for Performing Arts. The fest, which is in its seventh year, will also feature performances by a number of other top-notch masters of the nylon strings, including a full slate of B.C.–based musicians.

These include the festival’s founder, CapU instructor Luis Angel Medina; pianist and educator Lucida Zhao; recording artist and Vancouver Community College guitar instructor Michael Kolk; flamenco-inspired Victoria guitarist Iminah Kani; Brazilian music specialist Vinny Linhares; and Natasha Pashchenko, who leads this year’s festival orchestra.

The Vancouver Classical Guitar Festival also includes workshops, lectures, and master classes for guitarists of all experience levels. Find the full schedule on Medina's website.

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Flamenco Rosario presents the 36th edition of the Vancouver Flamenco Festival from September 19 to 27. This year’s festival features a vibrant lineup of local, national, and international artists through live performances, workshops, masterclasses, and community events.

Over the decades, dancers, musicians, teachers, and audiences have helped build a strong and vibrant flamenco community in Vancouver and across British Columbia. This festival is an opportunity to recognize and honour those who have dedicated themselves to keeping this artform alive and thriving.

The 2026 festival kicks off September 19 and 20 with free outdoor events at The Fringe Patio on Granville Island (Ocean Artworks Pavilion). Local, provincial, and national flamenco dancers and musicians will showcase their talent all afternoon on both days. Free introductory-level classes will also take place prior to the performances.

Among the festival highlights are five ticketed shows at Performance Works. Guest artist Víctor Fernández—an award-winning choreographer, dancer, and educator from Granada, Spain—and renowned cantaora Mercedes Cortés are joining Flamenco Rosario for the premiere of Nuevo IV- Lo nuevo y lo añejo on September 26, featuring an opening performance by Semilla Flamenco from Seattle. Jafelin Helten’s Raíz Viva brings powerful cante jondo vocal tradition to the stage on September 23; Kasandra Flamenco’s United Elements explores the union of inner and outer worlds on September 24; and Karen Flamenco’s Jewels reimagines George Balanchine’s titular ballet masterpiece through the visceral lens of flamenco on September 25.

The festival will also present two evenings of flamenco music. At Alliance Française Vancouver on September 22, guitarists Philippe Jean and Iminah Kani will share the stage for a special show, during which the Victor Kolstee Award for aspiring flamenco guitarists will be presented. Then at Performance Works on September 27, the annual La Música del Flamenco event will feature music by Spanish cante singer Cortés and Victoria-based guitarist Gareth Owen, followed by a flamenco juerga, or celebratory gathering. The evening will close with a fiesta marking the end of this year’s festival.

There are plenty more offerings in store, including workshops at The Dance Centre with Cortés, Owen, Fernández, and Flamenco Rosario founder Rosario Ancer.

To learn more about the lineup and purchase tickets, head to the Vancouver Flamenco Festival website.

Post sponsored by Vancouver Flamenco Festival.

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Music on Main presents Summer Pop-Up Concerts at Mount Pleasant Park August 11 to 13 at 6:30 pm

YOUNG PEOPLE WANT to have their voices heard. That’s true in a general sense, but also specifically in a musical one, which goes a long way toward explaining the phenomenal growth of the Vancouver Youth Choir. In fact, the ensemble, which artistic director Carrie Tennant founded in 2013, has had to cap its membership at 730 singers across 16 ensembles at eight  levels.

In a telephone interview, Tennant tells Stir that the high level of demand for spots in the choir doesn’t surprise her.

“It’s really hard for young people to find authentic places of connection in their lives right now, that are human to human, and not either through a screen or removed in some way,” she says. “And so, there’s a real hunger for group singing, especially at the level of artistry and heart that these kids have. They’re so passionate about it. It’s not just an after-school activity for them. It’s an art form, and they take the community and inclusivity just as seriously as they take the Monteverdi or the Decemberists.”

The past few seasons have seen the Vancouver Youth Choir excel at an artistic level. In May of 2025, for example, the group won Chorus America’s prestigious Margaret Hillis Award for Artistic and Organizational Achievement. A year later, the VYC brought home the Fleischmann International Trophy from the Cork International Choral Festival in Ireland. Later that same month, the choir closed its season with the biggest concert of its career at the Orpheum.

And there are exciting times ahead, too. In December, the Vancouver Youth Choir will join Early Music Vancouver at its annual Christmas concert at the Chan Centre to perform Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria. Next spring, the group will jet off to the European Youth Choir Festival in Basel, Switzerland. 

In comparison to those adventures, singing a cappella in a Vancouver park sounds like a relatively low-key engagement, but Tennant is looking forward to doing exactly that when the Vancouver Youth Choir performs at Mount Pleasant Park on August 11 as part of Music on Main’s Summer Pop-Up Concerts series. She sees it as an opportunity to demonstrate just how wide-ranging and globally informed the young singers’ repertoire is.

“We’re known for very eclectic mixes of music, so we’ll do some indie pop, some Renaissance music, some music from cultures from all over the world: Philippines, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Estonia, Slovenia, and China,” she says. “Vancouver is a very diverse city and our choir is super diverse, too. So I program music often based on the cultures of the singers in my ensemble, and then we are really lucky to have their assistance with the cultural context and the language and all of that.”

Music on Main launched its Summer Pop-Up Concerts in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with provincial health orders severely restricting seating capacity for indoor performances. The series proved so popular that Music on Main has kept it going every summer since then.

In addition to the Vancouver Youth Choir, this year’s performers include the Marko-Paolo Pocket Orchestra (August 12) and the Summer String Quartet (August 13). Food trucks will be on hand for the benefit of hungry music-lovers—although, of course, there’s nothing stopping attendees from packing along munchies from home.

The Vancouver Youth Choir has performed as part of the series before, and Tennant confirms that a good time is had by all.

“It's super fun,” she says. “It's kind of this cross-section of Vancouver, from all walks of life. People bring picnics, and they're sitting on blankets and chairs, and it just feels like Vancouver summer—a really connected, community vibe.”

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Bard on the Beach presents Bard After Dark on the Douglas Campbell Theatre stage every Friday night in August at 10 pm

MAYBE YOU WANT to keep the laughter going after The Merry Wives of Windsor or Goblin:Oedipus—or perhaps you find yourself in need of some levity after the Greek tragedy of Antigone or the existential horror of Macbeth.

Whatever the case, Bard on the Beach has got it sorted. Each Friday night in August (that’s August 7, 14, 21, and 28, to be precise), Bard After Dark offers a cabaret-style experience with drinks, music, and improv comedy from a rotating cast of Tightrope Theatre’s finest.

On any given Friday, the performers bringing the yuks will include some combination of the following: Rebecca Northan, Ali Froggatt, Bruce Horak, Peter Oldring, Jen Tong, Camille Legg, Jeff Gladstone, Lili Beaudoin, Ellis Lalonde, Sarah Ferguson, Tess Degenstein, Roman Danylo, Veena Sood, and Raf Rogers. 

You can add Bard After Dark onto your same-day evening play ticket for $20, or buy a separate ticket and come just for the 10 pm show.

Bard After Dark performances take place in the Douglas Campbell Theatre, seating is general admission, and the shenanigans are recommended for audience members aged 16 and up.

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THE DANCE CENTRE is marking 40 years, and 25 years in its landmark building, with a 2026-27 season that spans a dynamic take on Youtube from Europe, a final work by a local icon, and a troupe of hip-hop innovators.

The Global Dance Connections series opens with Cedar Woman by Tasha Faye Evans October 1 to 3, bringing to life a Coast Salish story through song, dance, and ceremony.

It’s followed October 23 to 24 with what Vancouver dance veteran Wen Wei Wang says is his last solo. The piece reflects on memory, mortality, and the connection between body, mind, and the universe, drawing on the Wen Wei Dance artistic director’s journey from dance in China to the stage here.

Paris-based Barbara Matijevic and Giuseppe Chico’s Forecasting makes its North American premiere on November 13 and 14. The work looks at the vast, intimate, and often absurd universe of amateur YouTube videos, with a performer and a laptop entering a portal into thousands of ordinary lives.

December 4 and 5, a double bill features Raven Spirit Dance’s Spine of the Mother, a work that explores the body as landscape and the North-South conneciton of the Andean mountain range, with Vanguardia Dance Projects and Aanmitaagzi’s Conversations: Hidden Stories, which integrates soil, fabric, land, and water in an exploration of sovereignty and connection.

The new year marks the return to Vancouver of Montreal’s Ebnflōh Dance Company’s Mōnad (January 30 to 31); presented with PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, the work pushes the troupe’s groundbreaking work with hip-hop in a piece where Alexandra “Spicey” Landé and Jai Nitai Lotus explore the idea of the body encompassing multiple universes.

May 7 and 8, Toronto-based Moonhorse Dance Theatre brings the Vancouver edition of their acclaimed series Older & Reckless to town, with three new short works curated by Justine A. Chambers and Allison Cummings. In collaborative Toronto-West Coast exchanges by Jennifer Dahl and Andrea Nann, Johanna Householder and Margaret Dragu, and Chambers and Cummings themselves, the artists redefine destructive assumptions about age and dance ability, celebrating artists over 45 who continuously take risks.

And Odd Meridian Arts wraps up Global Dance Connections with a world premiere on May 28 and 29. The new creation by Ziyian Kwan features Juolin Lee, Kaya Tsurumi, Lyzah (Alyssa Favero), and Romi Kim (SKIM) plays with ideas of a kinetic garden, a slow-time dwelling, and a “living space furnished with ordinary awe”.

Series subscriptions and single tickets are available at thedancecentre.ca, with single tickets for Ebnflōh Dance Company available in the fall at pushfestival.ca.)

The Dance Centre also unveiled its noonhour Discover Dance series for next year, including tiger princess dance projects at noon on October 29 and a look behind the scenes of Winterbourne, part of Ballet Vancouver’s inaugural program, with duet excerpts and insights from choreographer Joshua Beamish and visual design by Gitxsan fashion designer Yolonda Skelton, on November 19.

And the dance hub’s artists in residence this year are Odd Meridian Arts; Rising Together Arts Futures’ Kaili Che 謝祖弘, Ysadora Dias, Jullianna Oke, and Krystal Tsai; Sarah U 余衍晴; Tara Cheyenne Performance; and Wen Wei Dance.

In other news, the centre will host its annual Open House September 12, with extra 40th anniversary flair.

Throughout its 40th season, The Dance Centre will feature exhibitions, installations, special edition collections, and activations—including a collaborative event illuminating The Dance Centre, neighbourhood, and downtown core. More details will be announced this fall.  

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VANCOUVER’S BELLE SPIRALE Dance Projects has just unveiled a 2026–27 season that opens with two world premieres in Helsinki and includes a major new work with a live performance by the Vancouver Chamber Choir.

From September 11 to 19, Belle Spirale hits the Censored Opera Festival in Finland’s capital, where the troupe will make its European debut. The two works are created with re:Naissance Opera, Fractal Arts Collective, and new coproducers Ensemble Nylandia. Choreographed by Alexis Fletcher in collaboration with Belle Spirale artists Brenna Metzmeier and Nathan Coburn, both pieces blend Baroque opera, contemporary dance, and technology to explore identity, solidarity, and self-expression beyond binaries.

Next up is the season’s signature production, The Little Match Girl, coproduced and performed with the Vancouver Chamber Choir and premiering November 13 and 14 at the Vancouver Playhouse. The full-evening reimagining of David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize–winning choral composition The Little Match Girl Passion features 16 singers performing onstage, alongside all 10 Belle Spirale’s core group of dancers (Ariana Barr, Nathan Coburn, Juan Duarte, Emma Galvin, Marisa Gold, Will Jessup, Sophia Makarenko, Brenna Metzmeier, Justin Rapaport, and Lazaro Silva). Kevin O’Day choreographs, while Kari Turunen conducts. The production supports Covenant House Vancouver.

In March, the company tours its commission Tuning, created and directed by Action at a Distance’s Vanessa Goodman, to Salt Spring Island, Montreal, and Quebec City. The piece features dancers Alexis Fletcher and Ryan Jackson.

The season closes withtwo new works at Calgary’s DJD Dance Centre, June 4 to 7, deepening Belle Spirale’s artistic partnership with Calgary’s Ballet Bodies YYC. One piece is a world premiere—a 25-minute duet created for Calgary-based artists Serenella Sol and Beth Durnie. The second is a new commission that bringstogether professional dancers from Vancouver and Calgary, created by Alexis Fletcher and Sylvain Senez in collaboration with the artists.

And summer will bring the return of the company’s casual Dance Deck in Senez and Fletcher’s backyard—a mixed program of performances of the kind that just ended this year’s edition on the East Side.

Find more information and links to tickets for some of the shows here.  

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VETTA CHAMBER MUSIC’s 2026–27 season, its 41st, honours the ensemble’s past while looking toward the future.

In the season opener (September 25 to 28), Vetta’s incoming artistic director, violist Hung-Wei Huang, welcomes some familiar faces to the stage. In the concert, aptly titled Legacy, pianist Jane Coop and violinist Joan Blackman—Vetta’s artistic director for 19 years—join Huang to perform two of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s duos for violin and viola, plus sonatas by Leoš Janáček and Paul Hindemith.

Vetta closes the year with another appropriately titled concert, Lineage (November 13 to 16), headed up by violist Jacob van der Sloot. This one’s a family affair, with Jacob joined by his siblings Grace, Sophie, and Paul van der Sloot (on viola and cellos respectively) along with his cousin, Maria van der Sloot, and his sister-in-law, Sarah Douglass (Paul’s wife), both on violin. Together, the fam plays string sextets by Antonin Dvořák and Johannes Brahms.

Huang kicks off 2027 with his first recital as Vetta’s artistic director. Accompanied by pianist Bogdan Dulu, the violist plays pieces by Robert C. Rival, Rebecca Clark, and Brahms in a program titled Responsibility, which takes place January 22 to 25.

Privilege (March 5 to 8) showcases the expressive range of the oboe, with VSO principal oboist Joo Bin Yi joining Huang and violinist Rebecca Ruthven and cellist Cristian Márkos, to perform works by Georg Druschetzky, Astor Piazzolla, Malcolm Arnold, Benjamin Britten, and Mozart.

Season finale Value (April 30 to May 3) explores the relationship between music and visual art, pairing works inspired by celebrated paintings with artwork created by local students in response to music. The student paintings will be displayed during the performances, which feature violinists Blackman and Jenny Lim, violists Huang and Peter Ing, cellists Joseph Elworthy and Zoltan Rozsnyai, and pianist Raphael Cheng.

All concerts take place at West Point Grey United Church, West Vancouver United Church, Pyatt Hall, and ArtSpring (on Salt Spring Island). For tickets and info, visit the Vetta Chamber Music website.

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VINES ART FESTIVAL IS about a lot of things. It’s about getting up from whatever screen you’re currently a slave to and touching grass—or sand, or a tree, or a stone—at one of Vancouver’s many beautiful parks and beaches.

It’s about considering what we can give back, and how we can honour the forests and waterways we so often take for granted, and also the Indigenous peoples who were their stewards for so long before everyone else settled on these shores.

And the Vines Art Festival is also about celebrating local creative people of many backgrounds and disciplines, who will be showcasing their talents at a number of events in Vancouver parks from August 5 to 15.

Here’s where and when some of the can’t-miss performances will be taking place. See the Vines Art Society website for the full schedule.

Go Freely

August 6 at 6 pm in Pandora Park

Vines is billing this one as “a gathering that embraces the uncertainty of becoming”. We’re not entirely sure we know what that means, but we can tell you that Go Freely puts the spotlight on a diverse range of artists, including Nigerian-Canadian storyteller Kimberly Ihekwoaba, interdisciplinary circus artist and performer Kasha Konaka, 18-year-old singer-songwriter Rowan Cyr, alternative/electronic pop artist Sunny Daydream Chen, and Ukrainian-born DJ Rita Spirit.

Golden Rhythms

August 7 at 6 pm in Dude Chilling (Guelph) Park

Now, here’s a description we understand fully: “an evening of soulful melodies and joyful expression.” Those very welcome things come courtesy of spoken word artist and comedian D Fretter, Jamaican-born reggae artist Gold Mynd, hip-hop artist Adam Darko, soul and gospel vocalist Morning Star Trickey, singer-guitarist Leo D. E. Johnson, and Mozambique-born artist and composer Ricardo.

Pure Hearted Junction

August 12 at 6 pm in q̓əmq̓émələɬp | Ḵ’emḵ’emel̓áy̓ | Oppenheimer Park

At Oppenheimer Park in the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, this celebration of community and resilience includes Chinese–French Canadian multidisciplinary artist Chloé Chua, Secwépemc 2-Spirit artist and musician TJ Felix, and punk rock band the Heterosexuals.

We—Are—Everything

August 13 at 6 pm at Sunset Beach

A celebration of drag culture and nonbinary performers, including hyperpop artist Rooms; choreographer-dancer Nathan Coburn; drag artists Bongganisa, Maiden China, and Kingchella; genre-bending musical explorer Kimmortal; and DJ-producer AKAsublime.

Closing Ceremony

August 15 at 1 pm in Trout Lake (John Hendry) Park

The 2026 edition of Vines comes to a close with an interactive live looping performance by Sam Chimes, Indian classical dance by Sudhesna Mohapatra, experimental R&B from Alexia Acuña, contemporary dance by Barbara Wilson, and folk songs by the singer-songwriter duo 20love.  

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Astro Arts Festival takes place at the Astro Club Artist Facility from August 7 to 9

THE VANCOUVER MURAL FESTIVAL officially ended in 2024 after nine years, but it certainly left its mark on the city, both literally and figuratively.

As Stir reported, the fest’s organizers said in a statement released at the time: “While VMF may be coming to an end, the impact of its murals, festivals, and programs will continue to inspire Vancouver’s cultural landscape for years to come. These works of art stand as a testament to what is possible when creativity, collaboration, and community come together.”

It’s in that same spirit that Astro Arts Festival was founded last year, and the event’s second iteration takes place this August at its home base, the Astro Club Artist Facility (165 West 4th Avenue). Here’s a quick overview of what’s happening each day of the festival.

Friday, August 7

Everything kicks off with the opening of a gallery exhibition called 100 Amigos. Curated by Pablo Zamudio, Drew Young, Douglas Coupland, and Graeme Berglund, the show opens to VIP ticketholders and early buyers at 6 pm, with the public exhibition running from 8 pm to 1 am. VIP tickets are available through the Astro Arts website.

Saturday, August 8

At a free block party taking place from noon to 8 pm, the festival will unveil six new large-scale murals and will host Astro Alley—a live mural, street art, and graffiti jam featuring more than 30 artists.

The outdoor event also includes an artisan market curated by Make Good Party, the Astro Vintage Market hosted by Cabreezy Curates, and a block-wide beer garden, with music by Ricecake.

Sunday, August 9

The block party continues from noon to 7 pm, and offers the opportunity to see the block-wide mural wrap, featuring artwork by Anaïs Lera, Brother Jopa, Col Urrutia, Drew Young, Lisa Taniguchi, MAZIE, Seeroro, Sener, TheCoalCinder, Tierney Milne, Timothy Fernandes, and Zens. Music curated by B-Dilla.

With the exception of the 100 Amigos VIP viewing, all events are free to attend. See the Astro Arts website for the full schedule.

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The Cinematheque presents Film Noir 2026 from July 30 to August 27. Niagara and The Killers open the festival on July 30, with a noir-themed Courtyard Shindig starting at 6 pm before the screenings. Niagara screens again on August 3 and 23

THE CINEMATHEQUE IS launching its summer-time film noir festival… In vivid Technicolor?

It may seem surprising that a series devoted to an art form so associated with black-and-white film would kick off with Niagara—the vibrantly hued 1953 crime thriller set on the edge of Horseshoe Falls. But consider the elements and it soon becomes obvious why this well-crafted film noir more than deserves another look on the big screen. A luminous Marilyn Monroe plays its “tantalizing temptress”, as the era’s ads promised. So she’s the femme fatale; The Third Man’s Joseph Cotten plays opposite her as a jaded, damaged husband; and director Henry Hathaway shoots it all with ample, geometric shadows and staircases. Yes, the visually stunning classic definitely qualifies as film noir—or “Technicolor noir” or “daylight noir” as cinephiles might call it.

In the story, Monroe’s too-hot-to-handle Rose Loomis, unhappily married to older, troubled Korean War vet George (Cotten), plots his murder by the Falls—their messy drama spilling over into the vacation of wholesome honeymooners Polly and Ray (Jean Peters and Max Showalter), who are staying in a cabin next door.   

The metaphors loom large in the majestic imagery, the thundering waterfalls echoing the psychological turmoil of the characters. Style hounds will love the retro setting, with the film making the most of the honeymoon-postcard era of Niagara Falls: the cozy Rainbow Motel and Cabins that sit facing the American Falls never existed—they were built for the film, then demolished. You will, however, see the Rainbow Carillon Bell Tower, the heritage bus station, and still-charming attractions like the Maid of the Mist and the tunnel under the falls (the one where, in the 1950s, at least, the men don black raincoats and the women wear the yellow ones). A lot of old-time Niagara Falls has since been obliterated, of course, by mega-hotels, waterparks, towers with revolving restaurants, gaudy minigolf parks, and Ripley’s Believe It or Not museums. 

The setting is woven throughout the plot, right from the opening moments, as Cotten’s George Loomis lurks around the slippery, and utterly guard-rail-free, rocks at the bottom of the falls. There’s even a breathless boat-chase scene on the river rapids above—a sequence whose editing and action shots still hold up shockingly well.

But distracting from all the majestic scenery is one person: Monroe, radiating sexuality, at peak fetishization. When we first meet her, she lies naked under a sheet in bed, apparently just waking up in glistening red lipstick and perfectly styled finger curls. Even as she runs to “the market” to get groceries, she wears high heels and a second-skin pastel-blue suit. But George, suffering “battle fatigue” after the war, has grown tired of her charms and prefers to build model cars.

This was the film that catapulted the doomed star into the Hollywood stratosphere—and it’s easy to see why. Monroe’s Rose owns her sexuality, but also loses herself in it in a way that feels almost vulnerable. Watch her sing along to her favourite song, “Kiss”, and you can practically feel the heat radiating off the screen. (“Get out the firehose!” Ray marvels to his wife when he sees Rose in her clingy pink dress.) And this is what makes Monroe’s conniving Rose so dangerous. She’s disrupting the moral order. Her sexuality is a threat here—the opposite of Howard Hawks’s musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, filmed soon after, where her allure is used to empower, gain agency, and, arguably, to subvert. In Niagara, she has to be destroyed to restore propriety. But something else is happening here, too: the women—Monroe and her brunette counterpart, the sharp, principled Polly, who’s one step ahead of the detectives on the case—always seem to know more about what’s going on than the male characters. 

It’s fun, beautifully shot, and unabashedly tawdry stuff—the apt launch for a series that, this time around, emphasizes film noir crime thrillers. And this year just happens to mark what would have been Monroe’s 100th year.

Equally recommended at Film Noir 2026: 1946’s unmissable The Killers, with Ava Gardner conjuring another iconic femme fatale opposite Burt Lancaster; and Nicholas Ray’s couple-on-the-run prototype They Live By Night; made in 1948, his astonishing debut feature predated legendary films like In a Lonely Place and, of course, Rebel Without a Cause.

There is much more—the rest of it all in luminous black and white.   

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The Powell Street Festival runs August 1 and 2 at Oppenheimer Park and Paueru Gai

THE POWELL STREET FESTIVAL that happens this weekend around Paueru Gai is full of celebration—a chance to enjoy sumo and karate demonstrations, try your hand at origami, and scarf down korokke and teriyaki burgers at the event’s famous food stalls.

But there’s also an array of performances, art installations, and literary events that dig into the deeper, more difficult history of both the surrounding neighbourhood and the wider Japanese Canadian population. These are subjects that are receiving much more light, with ongoing development of a Hastings Park Interpretive Centre, at the stables where people were once cruelly interned (visit the Vancouver Japanese Language School all day August 1 to take a closer look at the project so far), and restoration of a triplex that housed Japanese Canadians returning after the Internment, at the North Pacific Cannery National Historic Site. (A talk on the latter project is slated for August 2 at 3 pm at the VJLS Japanese Hall.)

Here are a just a few picks from the rich assortment of happenings at the Firehall Arts Centre and VJLS:

The Sharon Minemoto Quartet performs the titular jazz pianist’s music from the Cellar Music album Goodbye Strawberry Hill, telling her own family’s story dating back to 1942, when her mother’s family’s 10-acre strawberry farm in Strawberry Hill (in Surrey-Delta) was confiscated by the government, and the family was then interned in Slocan. Postwar, her maternal grandparents made the difficult choice to take four of their six Canadian-born children by boat to Japan, where they faced years of hardship before returning to Canada. The songs range from resilient to poignant, sometimes integrating Japanese instruments. The solemn "Meditation”, for instance, explores the image of Minemoto’s grandfather and others using prayer beads during their internment, and features the haunting Japanese hotchiku.

Also at the Firehall Arts Centre, the documentary 1910: The Uncovering explores the tragic avalanche at Rogers Pass, when 58 railway workers—most of them Japanese—died while attempting to clear a snow slide from the tracks and another, larger avalanche struck. Chad Townsend’s documentary follows two friends, a Downtown Vancouver businessman and a Japanese-born ski guide, as they try to uncover the the mysteries and injustices around the disaster. It screens August 2 from at 6 p.m.  

And over at the VJLS at 2 pm on August 2, make sure to hit the talk and reading by Masako Fukawa, author of the engrossing, deeply researched new book Stories of Nikkei Canadians: Resilience in Struggle. In it, the sansei educator and historian rewinds to the story of her paternal grandfather, who arrived in Canada in 1893, and follows both her own family and community members through five generations. She touches on the vibrant early Japanese Canadian communities in B.C.—particularly around the thriving wharves and canneries of Steveston—and their destruction and gradual re-establishment after the Internment era. (She'll be speaking on the third floor of the Japanese Hall.) 

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Early Music Vancouver’s Summer Festival presents Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares at Christ Church Cathedral on August 4

ALTHOUGH THE TITLE SUBJECT of Guy Maddin’s 2003 film The Saddest Music in the World is never clearly identified, the plot hinges on an interesting supposition: that Winnipeg, Manitoba, was the saddest city in the world during the Great Depression. Anyone who has ever shivered at the corner of Portage and Main in February could well argue that nothing much has changed. 

A few hundred years earlier, however, London, England, could have made a good claim to the title—despite also being a hotbed of the literary, dramatic, and musical arts. 

“We tend to think of melancholy as the number one emotion of Renaissance music, especially in England,” muses lute virtuoso Lucas Harris, reached at home in Toronto. “We have this idea that Elizabethans just loved their melancholy. Just think of all the Shakespearean tragedies!” 

In the Elizabethan era, however, London’s undisputed king of despair was not the Bard, but composer and lutenist John Dowland, whose Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares Harris will present—in an updated and expanded fashion—during Early Music Vancouver’s annual summer festival. In fact, Dowland had made quite an industry out of sorrow. Lachrimae, which we’ll experience as a linked suite of seven pavans, began as a lute solo, won fame across all of Europe, reappeared as a song (“Flow, my tears”), and was eventually repurposed for lute and viol consort in 1604. The composer even began to sign his correspondence with the Latin moniker “Johannes Dowlandus de Lachrimae”, or “the guy that wrote Lachrimae”. 

That’s both true and a bit of a stretch: as Harris points out, Dowland wrote reams of happy and even joyful music during his lifetime. But at a time when the “four humours” were said to control both mind and body, with “black bile” being responsible for both melancholy and artistic genius, Dowland was understandably eager to downplay his lighter side. 

He was also a composer of undeniable brilliance, but even so, Harris’s interpretation of Lachrimae, at Christ Church Cathedral on August 4, will not be limited to Dowland’s works alone, or even to Dowland’s era. Backed by a truly remarkable cast of instrumentalists and the stellar singers Myriam Leblanc, Len Torrie, and Haitham Haidar, he’ll intersperse the seven Lachrimae pavans with works from Dowland’s contemporaries, Barbara Strozzi’s brief Baroque comic oratorio L’Astratto, and—in a considerable conceptual leap—songs from living composers Joni Mitchell and Charles Fox. 

“If you do the seven pavans all together in a single sequence, you basically get about 35 minutes of slow, melancholy, depressed music in the key of A minor,” the affable lutenist explains. “I did perform them that way once, at the Smithsonian, and I was really nervous about it. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, the audience is going to be suicidal by the intermission.’ And, funnily enough, they weren’t. I talked to a couple of people during the break and they said, ‘Actually, it was weirdly uplifting to listen to all that sad music in a row. There’s something kind of meditative about it.’  

“So that’s one thing I was thinking about with this program: this kind of paradox about why listening to sad music doesn’t just make us sadder. It has the opposite effect; it seems to lift us up somehow. But I also didn’t want to program the seven pavans all in a row, so I came up with this idea of interspersing songs in between them. The seven songs that I picked are very diverse, in many ways, but what unites them is that they’re all asking questions about the nature of music.” 

Franz Schubert’s “An die Musik”, for instance, celebrates music’s ability to transport the famously troubled composer to “a better world”, while William Croft’s “A Hymn on Divine Musick” contemplates this most mysterious of the arts, whether it be love or friendship or an earthly manifestation of heaven. And in the larger sense, Harris’s programming dovetails beautifully with the EMV festival as a whole. Curators Suzie LeBlanc and Alexander Weimann have built the 10-concert event around the theme of “The Power of Music”. Music, Weimann asserts in the festival’s promotional video, “attracts our attention, awakens our curiosity, and has all those powerful impacts on people,” to which LeBlanc responds: “It really has the power to translate things that words can’t say.” 

Music even has the power to bring the dead to life, or so Claudio Monteverdi claims in his opera Orfeo. Based on the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus, it finds the titular hero, bereaved after tragedy strikes his nuptials, going boldly into the ultimate darkness to revive his beloved—with only sweet music to keep him safe. 

For Harris, performing in the production at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on July 31 and August 2—Orfeo is more than immortal music and an equally immortal legend: it’s also a very timely metaphor for our current age of anxiety and despair. 

“People are yearning for something universal,” he says. “Our society is feeling more and more polarized and disjointed, and this theme of ‘the power of music’ is something that many people can get on board with. Everybody likes a different kind of music, but everybody likes music—or most people like music, anyway, and can get on board with the idea that music is incredibly powerful. And the story of Orpheus is just such a great story because it’s about very basic ideas: this young couple is madly in love and celebrating their wedding. and then this snake comes in the middle of it and bites the bride and she’s carried off into the underworld. And Orpheus is like, ‘No, I’m not accepting this. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get her back, even if I have to cross the River Styx and go into the underworld and drag her back with me.’ There’s something ancient and universal and wonderful about that, and maybe we’re in the mood to hear stories like that than stories of conflict and confusion.” 

Even sad music can stoke courage, Harris adds, reaching deep into popular culture for an example of music’s therapeutic value. 

“There’s this TV show called Shrinking,” he says. “It’s a sitcom about three psychologists who all work in the same building, and the one played by Harrison Ford has this technique where he says, ‘You can grieve really hard for 15 minutes a day.’ Basically, you put on headphones and listen to some unbelievably sad music and just cry your eyes out. And then after that you can continue on with your day.  

“So I can see references to this idea all over the place—in old songs, in new songs, and in popular culture. But I really don’t know what the answer is. I just want to present how some different composers from different times have framed the question.”

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VANCOUVER LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL will open its program of 70 films from 24 countries with the Canadian premiere of Argentinian-Uruguayan A Loose End on September 10.

The Spanish-language cop-on-the-run comedy combines Western, thriller, and rom-com elements—and marks the latest by Uruguayan actor and director Daniel Hendler.

VLAFF, one of the largest and longest-running Latin American film festivals in North America, will continue to September 20 at venues around town, including SFU Woodward’s, The Cinematheque, Cineworks (in the same building as The Cinematheque), as well as copresentation screenings with the Vancouver Queer Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas. 

Other highlights include a special guest appearance by renowned Colombian director, screenwriter, and producer Oscar Ruiz Navia. The fest will screen 2019’s Fait Vivir and 2025’s Tigers Can Be Seen in the Rain—both made since the filmmaker has relocated to Montreal.

Elsewhere, Mexican actress, director, and screenwriter Mayra Hermosillo is coming to the festival to present the Canadian premiere of her directorial feature debut, Vainilla. The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 2025 Morelia Film Festival, is set in the home of a multigenerational family of women. It’s currently nominated for Best Picture at the Mexican Academy of Film Awards. Hermosillo will also present Newborn, the 2024 feature in which she stars as the mother of an intersex baby and all the ethical questions she faces around gender assignment.

Meanwhile, six standout features will compete in VLAFF’s New Directors Competition. The titles include Mexico’s The Reserve, directed by Pablo Pérez Lombardini; Argentina’s Elder Son, directed by Cecilia Kang; U.S.-Guatemala coproduction Comparsa, directed by Vickie Curtis and Doug Anderson; Mexico’s The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box), directed by Ernesto Martínez Bucio Castellanos; Ecuador’s Light Memories, directed by Misha Vallejo Prut; and Argentina’s Lovers in the Sky, directed by Fermín de la Serna. 

The 2026 VLAFF Youth Jury, made up of 18 young filmmakers, students, and artistic creators based in B.C., will engage in online dialogues with all of the New Directors and choose the winner of the Youth Choice Award for Best New Director. 

Meanwhile, 15 shorts, chosen from over 350 submissions from across Latin America, will compete for the fest’s top short-film prize, representing six countries and four languages—Spanish, Portuguese, Guaraní, and Nahuatl. The selected works include films by Indigenous, women, queer, and trans/nonbinary filmmakers. Several directors will attend in person.

And as ever, VLAFF will showcase Latin-Canadian cinema, including the Vancouver premiere of Copper, the 11th feature by the enfant terrible of Latin-Canadian cinema, Nicolás Pereda. Likewise, local filmmaker and artist semillitxs hernández velasco, codirector with his sister Tania Hernández Velasco, will present the Canadian premiere of their innovative, intimate feature film Our Body Is an Expanding Star. VLAFF is also preparing to show its largest-ever selection of Latin-Canadian short films.

Curated by Akira Iahtail and Masa’n Galindo, the program Following the Voices of Our Ancestors to the Future shines a spotlight on Indigenous futurism, and includes the cinematic essay “Sukkaillutit Uqaruk - Say It Slowly” by Inuk filmmaker Ashley Qilavaq-Savard. All screenings in this section are free. The Panamanian-Emberá coming-of-age feature The Dance of the Kokorrdit by Guido Bilbao and Elio Cunampio will screen under the heading of Films from Turtle Island and Beyond.

For the third year in a row, VLAFF and Vancouver Queer Film Festival will copresent Queer Pix, short films by 2SLGBTQ+ Latin filmmakers, followed by the Fuego/Fogo live performance and Latine DJ dance party at The Birdhouse on September 19. 

Local artists will play live music at the fest’s free ¡ASÍ SUENA! Music Nights in the Cinematheque courtyard from Friday to Sunday evenings at 7:45pm.

At VLAFF.org, Earlybird Festival Passes are now on sale, with all other passes and tickets on sale August 4.  

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THE VANCOUVER CULTURAL PRECINCT has unveiled an expanded vision for four new performing-arts venues in the city’s downtown. 

In an announcement today at VIFF Centre, the hub would include a 400-seat hall for recitals, chamber music, and other events; an 850-seat medium hall for dance, choral concerts, and more; a 1,750-seat concert hall to accommodate large-scale orchestral and choral performances; and a 2,000-seat large-proscenium venue for opera, ballet, and other large-scale productions.

Among the proposal’s most ambitious architectural renderings are a scalloped-glass-walled waterfront landmark on Northeast False Creek; a grand, undulating glass shared foyer at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre site; and a medium-sized venue that would seamlessly convert from an acoustically optimized music hall to a multipurpose dance and opera space through a rigging system and moveable panels.

At a press conference today, the alliance of 32 arts groups said the quartet of theatres would together form a vibrant new cultural hub downtown. All three levels of government were on hand to support the concept plan today, including Deputy Mayor Sarah Kirby-Yung, MLA Terry Yung, and Vancouver Centre MP Hedy Fry.

However, the location for the venues has not been nailed down. 

As part of a two-year feasibility study, early-concept drawings by Canada’s Diamond Schmitt Architects—a firm that has an extensive portfolio of arts and culture facilities across Canada and the United States, including the National Arts Centre—were released today. They include different combinations of renovating the Queen Elizabeth site, adding to the proposed new Vancouver Art Gallery development at Larwill Park; building at Robson Square on the old Vancouver Art Gallery site (including renovating what the VCP is calling the Rattenbury Building, after its original, early-20th-century architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury); or erecting the major new theatre at Northeast False Creek, near where the Georgia Viaduct now sits. There are at least two site possibilities for each of the four venues.

Organizers are calling it the most significant cultural investment in the city’s history—a project finally gaining momentum after several attempts over three decades. 

For Suzanne Anton, former B.C. attorney general, vice-chair of the Vancouver Symphony Society, and chair of the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society that’s leading the VCP initiative, it’s time for a city celebrated for its arts to get the world-class stages it deserves.

 “I’m not sure how well the culture side of our world has advocated for itself over the years,” she told Stir in a separate interview. That, despite wide acclaim abroad—as when the VSO earned an orchestra-in-residence spot at the prestigious Salzburg Easter Festival this year, dance talent like Ballet BC and Crystal Pite’s Kidd Pivot saw sold-out houses around Europe and the U.S., or the Vancouver Youth Choir won top prize at the Cork International Choral Festival in May.

Anton stressed that two factors take precedence across all four proposed venues: acoustic excellence and multifunctional attributes for flexibility of use. 

AT LEAST PART OF THE RATIONALE for new venues is that Vancouver holds the lowest per-capita music hall capacity of any major Canadian or comparable international city—0.52 seats per 1,000 residents, compared with Toronto’s 1.03 or Melbourne’s 1.44. No new major performance venues have been built here since 1997 (the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts out at UBC), and estimates are that the population will grow by 67 percent between 2001 and 2030.

In a presentation today, architect Donald Shmitt also pointed out the economic impacts of cultural precincts, including the fact that Melbourne Arts Precinct brought in $16 of economic impact for every dollar spent on its facilities.

The gap in adequate spaces has pushed some touring productions to bypass this city for Calgary and Seattle, while local groups have difficulty finding available space to program their performances at civic theatres. The 2,762-seat Orpheum alone is booked 311 days of the year. 

In addition, there are currently no civic theatres in the in-demand 800-to-1,200-seat range that was identified as ideal by about one-third of the arts groups as part of the feasibility study. The Queen Elizabeth Theatre has 2,765 seats and the Playhouse 668—though the latter lacks the wing space, upstage areas, and robust fly tower required by many dance and theatre productions.

“A medium-sized hall will be very welcome to opera and dance, because at the opera, it is hard for them to put on some of these very interesting new works in a large venue,” Anton told Stir of the proposed multifunctional, 850-seat “medium” theatre that could fill this gap. “It seems to be our number one building in terms of interest to our organizations.”

The 850-seat venue would also house the most multifunctional of spaces, shape-shifting from a concert hall to a wider dance space, thanks to moveable acoustic partitions that make way for a fly tower and wings. The VCP and architects have been inspired in part by the Alice Tully Hall at New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, an acoustically superior space that converts from chamber music and recital to film and multimedia configurations. Increasingly, European cities, too, are prioritizing smaller, flexible, multidisciplinary spaces that allow different seating and stage configurations, rather than traditional larger, single-use auditoriums.

“Both of those communities [dance and music] were really anxious that they would be compromised if they were in a space that wasn’t specifically designed for them,” Diamond Schmitt architect Matthew Lella told Stir in an interview at the press conference. “So we took that question extremely seriously. This can’t be top tier for one and second tier for the other. So we looked quite carefully at quite a lot of precedent. It also can’t be expensive to flip.” He says the architects are now confident that they can build a medium-sized theatre “with an orchestra pit that would also be perfect for dance”.

OVER THE PAST TWO years, the precinct alliance has looked at many site options and several configurations of theatres. But with the help of Diamond Schmitt Architects and what Anton describes as surveys and decision-making through intensive workshops, here are the options the group has now narrowed down:

• Putting the small theatre and either the 850-seat medium venue or the 1,750-seat concert hall in a renovated Rattenbury Building that will eventually be abandoned for the Vancouver Art Gallery’s planned new facility in Larwill Park. “I’ll put my own personal opinion in here: I think Robson Square is underachieving,” Anton asserted. “It’s broken up. People love to walk through Robson Street. They love to congregate around the art gallery. But that south side between Robson Street and the courthouse is pretty much inactive. And we think we could transform Robson Square.” The logistics are challenging, as it would require getting the Province, the Arthur Erickson Foundation, UBC, and heritage advocates on board.

• Adding the small venue, the medium venue, and the concert hall to the current Queen Elizabeth Theatre site and adjacent Larwill Park, where the new art gallery will be. The 850-seat “medium” theatre could run along Hamilton Street, placing all four theatres on the current Queen E. and Playhouse site, sharing a massive, undulating glass lobby in architectural renderings. The medium venue could also move over to sit with the new art gallery at Larwill Park. Architects suggest lowering the grade at Cambie Street to allow for easy pedestrian access and gathering space across from the new gallery.

• Creating the biggest 2,000-seat “large proscenium auditorium” for opera and ballet with either significant renovations and upgrades to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, and possibly sizing down the current home to Ballet BC and Vancouver Opera from its current 2,700 seats; or creating a brand-new, purpose-built 2,000-seater on the waterfront at Northeast False Creek, on the former Expo Lands. As for the latter idea, Anton admits to major challenges. “We think it could be Vancouver's Sydney Opera House,” she told Stir. “But it’s also quite long-term. You probably know that the viaducts are proposed to come down at some point. And there’s two major landowners down there, Northchild Group and Concord Pacific. They are talking about rezoning, but they haven’t brought anything in for rezoning yet.” Architect Shmitt showed drawings that would create a whole new neighbourhood on the water’s edge, adjoining greenspace and pathways that would lead over to Science World.

These proposals have grown out of a long history of effort to bring a new theatre complex to Vancouver. Rewind to 1993, and the City secured a site in Coal Harbour for an arts complex, along with $7.5 million from developer Marathon Realty in community amenity contributions. The Civic Arts Complex, featuring a 1,500-seat concert hall at Burrard Landing, was intended to complement the City’s existing civic theatres and was to be developed and operated by the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society non-profit. Ten years later, that plan was eclipsed by the Province’s Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project, and Vancouver city council agreed to release the City’s interest in the site to the Province, in exchange for a cash contribution of $10.6 million. Then a VCHTS plan in 2011 proposed repurposing the current Vancouver Art Gallery site as a 1,950-seat underground concert hall and 450-seat multipurpose theatre designed by famed architect Bing Thom. 

For various, complex reasons, those earlier plans never got enough traction, but the fund earmarked for a new arts complex or concert hall, meanwhile, has grown to well over $30 million in these decades.

IN THE ENSUING YEARS, Vancouver arts groups have seen increasing pressure on their ability to find available, adequate venues. But many of the original advocates from earlier attempts—groups like the VSO, the Vancouver Recital Society, DanceHouse, Vancouver Opera, and Ballet BC—are helping to steer the new project, drawing in an unprecedented number of other organizations, from the city’s strong contingent of choirs to Indigenous dance troupes and new-music groups, to add strength in numbers.

Arts groups from so many different areas have never rallied for a cause like this before. And yet, there are art forms that are absent from the 32-member working group, most noticeably larger film and theatre groups. Architects have said they are focusing all four venues on “art forms that use music in an acoustic way”. But are the spaces going to be as flexible as they could be long into the future?

“I think I’ve been approached by theatre a few times,” Anton explained to Stir. “But it just seemed to be biting off more than we could chew. We are obviously extremely supportive of all the performing arts in Vancouver, including theatre. And one of the things that this does, by the way, is it frees up the Playhouse, which was built as a theatre. So if we have a lot of organizations wanting a music hall going to either the 400- or the 900-seat venue, there’s a lot more room in the Playhouse. And could we get a theatre company back there again? I don’t know.”

What is clear is that there is much more work to do before locations are firmed up. With a civic election happening this fall, the Vancouver Cultural Precinct volunteers are eager to solidify support as more in-depth site analysis and budgeting takes place.

Anton hopes to have announcements for site selection within a year, with project investment estimates and economic impact analysis following that. The hope is that the cultural precinct will enter a construction phase between 2029 to 2034, with staggered openings for each of the four venues—though it’s hard to say now just which facility might come to fruition first.

“We’ll start where the going is good,” Anton said. “Where we land the building and where we have support to build it—that is the one we’ll go with first.” As VSO president and CEO Angela Elster added today: "It's not if the Vancouver Cultural Precinct will happen, it's about how fast it can happen."  

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The Powell Street Festival runs August 1 and 2 from 11 am to 7 pm at Oppenheimer Park and in the Paueru Gai area (around Powell Street)

IN THE SUMMER of 1977, what was meant to be a one-time commemoration of the Japanese Canadian Centennial took place in Vancouver’s historic Japanese neighbourhood known as Paueru Gai (Powell Street area). Amidst a period of cultural renewal and the growing redress movement for the atrocities committed against Japanese Canadians during World War II, the first rendition of the Powell Street Festival created space for people to reflect, reclaim, and honour the community and its heritage. 

Growing up in Vancouver, fifth-generation Japanese Canadian Sophie Yamauchi Latimer fondly remembers attending the beloved event with her family. Now, as executive director of the Powell Street Festival Society (PSFS)—a role she stepped into just ahead of the festival’s 49th year—she’s stewarding its 50th anniversary.

“Powell Street is the place that I always found community and where my family went to experience our foods and see our friends and family,” she tells Stir over Zoom. “This has always been a place that I could return to every year and really get to be Japanese Canadian, whatever that means to me.”

Running August 1 and 2 at Oppenheimer Park and the surrounding Powell Street area, this year’s festivity brings more than 80 free programs spanning from film screenings and traditional dance to art installations, martial arts demonstrations, literary events, and more. Visitors can expect the streets to be filled with the resounding rhythm of taiko drumming and the smoky scent of salmon barbecue mingling with sweet and savoury delicacies from local vendors. 

Performance highlights include taiko ensemble Katari Taiko; karatekas from Sato-ha Karate Do Canada; the Vancouver Sakura Singers; and the new Paueru Gai Ondo, a community-based song and dance created to honour the history of the Powell Street neighbourhood. The marketplace features artists, makers, and small businesses offering everything from comics and paintings to handcrafted jewellery and pottery. Not to mention the ever-popular sumo wrestling competition, which has been renamed the Shig Hirai Sumo Tournament as a tribute to the late co-founder of Fujiya Japanese Foods, a longtime festival supporter and avid sumo enthusiast. 

Earlier this year, the Hirai family gifted $250,000 to the Powell Street Festival Society’s Our Next 50 Years campaign. The landmark donation, Yamauchi Latimer explains, allowed for the creation of an inaugural endowment fund with the Vancouver Foundation, planting the seed of the festival’s sustainability. 

“I would love to know that my future grandkids can sit with me at the information booth when I’m a senior, and they can do all the heavy lifting for me,” she says with a laugh. “I firmly believe that this festival, which has been held together by community, will continue to be held together by community.”

And community is most definitely at the centre of the festival’s 50th celebration. In addition to new merchandise and a stamp hunt leading visitors around grounds, the expanded programming funded by the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society (JCLS) highlights the projects of individual community members: think family cookbooks, art installations, oral histories, cultural workshops, and more. 

Many of the projects wrapped up just within the last few months and will be shared for the first time at the festival—perfect timing, according to Yamauchi Latimer. “I think it’s those one-on-one conversations that will inspire somebody else to go do research on their family tree, and then hopefully we’ll have even more stories to show in the upcoming years.”

As the festival continues to shift and grow, Yamauchi Latimer is careful to hold onto what hasn’t changed since its inception. Grounded in a history of forced removal and the reclamation of Japanese Canadian identity and culture, PSFS is conscious that Paueru Gai is now home to another vulnerable population at risk of their own displacement in today’s Downtown Eastside. 

“Powell Street has used our story of community and activism, and the fight and advocacy for human rights as our core,” she stresses. “As politics change around us, we shift to stay relevant. But really, it’s always about helping our neighbours, being able to celebrate who we are, and having the freedom to create and be a little weird.”

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The VIFF Live program takes place at various venues during the Vancouver International Film Festival, running from October 1 to 11

THE THEME OF the 2026 VIFF Live program, announced by the Vancouver International Film Festival this week, is “reworlding”. And if you’re wondering exactly what that means, the official announcement describes it as “inviting audiences into imaginative new ways of experiencing image and sound through artists who challenge conventions and push creative boundaries”.

According to curator Jarrett Martineau, “VIFF Live is stretching the boundaries of time, space, form, and genre to make room for daring, unconventional, and singular creative voices who boldly challenge formal limits and histories. From avant electronica and Indigenous psychedelia to next-generation digital tastemakers and lavish orchestral film scores, this year's program offers a wide-ranging series of unique events and experiences, including several notable Canadian and North American premieres.”

If you still don’t understand what “reworlding” is, even after that, maybe the concept will become clearer when you attend one or more (or, heck, even all) of the events. Here’s what’s on tap:

The Last Angel of History

VIFF Centre, October 2 at 5 pm

A 30th-anniversary screening of the Black Audio Collective’s The Last Angel of History, which explores the evolution of Afrofuturism through music, from the transatlantic slave trade to techno and jungle. The screening is preceded by a live performance from Speaker Music and followed by a conversation with DeForrest Brown Jr. and Otolith Group founders Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar.

MUTEK x VIFF Live

SFU Fei & Milton Wong Theatre, October 2 at 9:30 pm

MUTEK and VIFF present an evening of live audiovisual performance and electronic music featuring Detroit electro duo Dopplereffekt, Montreal DJ and producer Honeydrip, and Vancouver artist MIIIA with visual artist MELT.

The KLF: 23 Seconds to Eternity

VIFF Centre, October 3 at 5 pm

A North American premiere showcasing 23 Seconds to Eternity, the first compilation of The KLF’s films and music videos. The screening is preceded by a live audiovisual performance by Vancouver electronic duo CHXMERAS.

TAKKUUK

SFU Fei & Milton Wong Theatre, October 3 at 8:30 pm

Cocreated with Indigenous collaborators from Greenland and Sápmi, TAKKUUK uses infrared cinematography and a score by BICEP to examine culture, colonialism, and environmental change in the Arctic. The screening is preceded by performances from Inuit throat-singing duo Silla and Greenlandic rapper Tarrak.

Kelly Moran

SFU Fei & Milton Wong Theatre, October 4 at 8 pm

Pianist, producer, and composer Kelly Moran performs music from her 2025 album Don’t Trust Mirrors in a live audiovisual concert. Vancouver electronic musician Bahar Khazei opens the evening with visuals by XEL.

An Evening with Cristóbal Tapia de Veer

VIFF Centre, October 5 at 5:30 pm

Composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer discusses his creative process and the scores behind projects including Black Mirror, The White Lotus, and Smile in a masterclass and Q&A.

Los Thuthanaka

The Pearl, October 5 at 8:30 pm

American-Bolivian experimental duo Los Thuthanaka make their Canadian debut with a live audiovisual performance drawing on Aymara and Pakajaqi musical traditions alongside electronic and psychedelic influences.

ERASERHEAD XIU XIU

The Rio, October 6 at 8:30 pm

The Canadian premiere of Xiu Xiu’s live audiovisual interpretation of David Lynch’s Eraserhead, combining field recordings, homemade instruments, modular synths, vocals, and musique concrète.

Derrick Gee’s Radio Hour

Granville Island Stage, October 7 at 8 pm

Making its North American debut, Derrick Gee’s Radio Hour combines live music, guest appearances, audience participation, and conversation in a show inspired by classic radio broadcasts.

Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Cinematic Suites: The Denis Villeneuve Scores

Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, October 9 at 7:30 pm

The North American premiere of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Cinematic Suites features orchestral performances of music from Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, Sicario, and Arrival, along with selections from James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything and The Mercy.

Tickets for VIFF Live events are on sale now, with early-bird pricing available for select events through August 26 on the VIFF website.

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