The Vancouver Folk Music Festival continues at Jericho Beach Park to July 19

THE WEATHER WAS looking iffy earlier on Friday, but the outdoor-concert gods decided to smile upon the first day of the 2026 Vancouver Folk Music Festival. It was a damn-near perfect evening, the azure sky dotted with white clouds that turned cotton-candy pink as the sun slowly set on Jericho Beach.

We watched all the action on the Main Stage, which included three full sets and two shorter in-betweeners. Here are the highlights, along with info on when to catch the performers during the remaining two days of the fest.

First up, at 6 pm, was Aysanabee. For a folk fest, this was a pretty rock ’n’ roll way to get the Main Stage started. Yes, the Oji-Cree singer-songwriter from Ontario did perform a semi-unplugged version of his breakthrough hit, “Nomads”—similar to the version heard on Timelines, his acoustic EP from earlier this year—and he displayed a prodigious two-handed tapping approach to the acoustic guitar when he played solo.

When joined by his full band—backing vocalist Kyla Charter, keyboardist-singer Konstantine Aivaliotis, guitarist Adam Hanney, and drummer Miles Gibbons—Aysanabee made it clear why he is most often slotted into the “alternative rock” genre. With Gibbons bringing the rolling thunder, and Hanney dialling the overdrive up to 11, “Somebody Else” ignited with a primal energy a band like Kings of Leon would trade their crowns to recapture. (By the time you read this, Aysanabee will also have performed on the South Stage on Saturday as part of Eastern Sunrise.)

Tina Dico and Helgi Jónsson are sort of like the Nordic Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, in that they are both highly accomplished solo artists in their own right but have such a musically symbiotic relationship that each often plays in the other’s band in addition to their work as a duo. (Unlike Welch and Rawlings, who are strictly musical partners, Denmark’s Dico and Iceland’s Jónsson are also a married couple.) Dico, who has a beautifully fluid guitar style and a sure hand with a melody, got top billing here, but Jónsson almost stole the show when he pulled out his trombone. No, that was not a euphemism. (Tina Dico will participate in Stories From Across the Pond on the South Stage at 4 pm on Saturday.)

Your correspondent (that’s me) has seen Hazlett once before, performing an absolutely mesmerizing solo acoustic set last year at Seattle venue Neumo’s (which might have actually been packed beyond capacity, but you didn’t read that here). For his Folk Fest appearance, the Australian-born singer-songwriter (who is now based in Sweden) brought along a three-piece backing band, which brought new depth and atmosphere, to say nothing of a not-unwelcome country-rock feel, to signature tunes like “Blame the Moon” and “Missionary Feelings”.

Hazlett (a.k.a. Mitchell Lewis) jokingly apologized several times for killing the festival vibes with his sad songs, but no one seemed to mind. The crowd certainly appreciated the nod to Canadiana when he performed The Band’s “The Weight”—even if he did forget the words in the second verse and skipped the remaining three verses entirely. (Hazlett has no remaining Vancouver Folk Music Festival appearances.)

His almost comically common name and guy-at-the-pub-with-a-guitar look were quickly forgotten as soon as in-betweener John Smith stepped to the microphone. Good lord, does this guy have a voice; confident, a little gritty around the edges, but mostly just plain huge. Combine that with his stellar acoustic-guitar work, which finds a happy zone between percussive rhythm and ringing melodies, and it’s little wonder that Smith is already a firmly established star on the U.K. folk scene. The Englishman noted that his only previous attempt to play Vancouver, in 2022, went awry when a positive COVID-19 test forced him into quarantine at the Holiday Inn downtown. Here’s hoping he’ll be back. (On Saturday at 4 pm, John Smith hosts Stories From Across the Pond on the South Stage, and performs a full set there on Sunday at 12:10 pm.)

Her uniquely keening vocals were at the centre of her headlining set, but Sahra Halgan’s backing band—comprising French musicians Aymerci Krol (drums and percussion), Maël Salètes (electric guitar), and Régis Monte (keyboard)—were a perfect match for her outsized talents. As Halgan carried the flag of Somaliland, the self-declared and only partially recognized republic in the Horn of Africa from which she originated, Krol and Monte brought forth surprisingly muscular Afrobeat rhythms. Salètes was the real revelation, though, his playing evoking not only North African music, but also raw funk and wiry indie rock. (Sahra Halgan has no remaining Vancouver Folk Music Festival appearances.)  

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Rumble Theatre presents Ionesco’s Cabaret, produced by Theatre Conspiracy in association with Pi Theatre, at Progress Lab 1422 from July 23 to 25 at 7:30 pm

WHEN EUGÈNE IONESCO wrote the plays that would become foundational texts of 20th-century absurdism—The Bald Soprano, The Rhinoceros—the world was recovering from the horrors of the Second World War, grappling with the rise of authoritarian leaders, and looking back on a century-defining pandemic that killed millions. Richard Wolfe, who’s directing a production of Ionesco’s “Frenzy for Two” as part of Rumble Theatre’s upcoming Ionesco’s Cabaret, sees parallels in the modern age.

“We’re actually, in some ways, reliving a lot of existential dread, a lot of anxiety,” Wolfe tells Stir in an interview conducted via Zoom. “Ionesco himself was filled with it.”

In Ionesco’s day, that absurdist anxiety—which manifested first in Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus—often played out in the smoky halls of cabarets, where poets, artists, and disaffected youths could catch dinner and a show under the impending threats of nuclear war and authoritarianism. Though the cabaret form still thrives in queer spaces, it’s fallen from prominence as a venue for dramas. With Ionesco’s Cabaret, playing at Progress Lab 1422 from July 23 to 25, Wolfe and coproducer David Mesiha are bringing it back.

“The night is curated and designed to feel like a happening, like an event for the whole night, as opposed to just showing up, watching a play, and going home,” says Mesiha, the co–artistic director of Theatre Conspiracy, in a Zoom interview. “It is looser in that we are encouraging audiences to feel free to move, especially in between the acts.”

Alongside Wolfe’s “Frenzy for Two”, Mesiha is directing a production of “The Leader”, another of Ionesco’s shorter works. It satirizes the absurdity of fascistic cults of personality, the imagined authority of despots, and the way all of that takes root.

“We spend the whole time talking about the leader and describing what the leader is and isn’t doing, and we only actually see the leader briefly in the very, very last section of the play,” says Mesiha. “That really felt extremely contemporary in terms of our relationship to leadership, but also our relationship to media.”

“Frenzy for Two”, which Wolfe chose to adapt partly because of resonances he felt between the play and the ongoing violence in Ukraine and Gaza, follows an absurd argument between a married couple over whether a turtle and a snail are really the same animal. Meanwhile, a war is raging outside the window and the couple’s home is gradually reduced to ruins.

Wolfe and his team didn’t have the budget or the materials to create a fully destructible set—they had to get creative. “It’s fully produced with lights, original sounds, compositions, videography, costumes,” he says. “Our job is to create this environment without building a physical, realistic building.”

Forgoing a traditional set might have come out of funding constraints, but it’s appropriately experimental. When producing the work of Ionesco and his contemporaries who worked in what came to be dubbed the Theatre of the Absurd, directors frequently opt for stark, minimalistic sets to express postmodern ideas of fragmentation and confusion. Tim Carlson’s audiovisual installation Lost Hands, which will be displayed at Progress Lab 1422 simultaneously with Wolfe and Mesiha’s plays, takes that juxtaposition further.

Carlson, who works under the name feral.i.d, tells Stir via Zoom that Lost Hands started as a back-burner project when he moved to Vancouver in the ’90s. He would walk the West End at night, and for whatever reason, he kept seeing gloves abandoned on the ground. He started documenting them with a 30mm camera, and when Wolfe and Mesiha asked him to contribute an audiovisual installation for the cabaret, he decided those photos would be a good place to start.

For the audio component of Lost Hands, Carlson wrote and narrated a series of short stories that resonate with the themes of “The Leader” and “Frenzy for Two”.

But blasting spoken word from PA speakers while a play is being performed sounds like a recipe for chaos that, while suitably postmodern, might not make for the most comfortable theatre experience. To get around this, Carlson is using a set of hyperdirectional speakers borrowed from Mesiha and Theatre Conspiracy.

“You can think of them almost as a super narrow spotlight or a laser pointer,” says Mesiha. “They’re almost like that for sound. So you can hear them clearly only when you’re standing right in front of them or in a specific place in the room.”

With Lost Hands, “The Leader”, and “Frenzy for Two”, Carlson, Mesiha, and Wolfe want to juxtapose art in the same way Ionesco clashes tragedy with comedy, and create a space that’s porous and open for people to move through. Wolfe hopes that the plays can hold a mirror up to people’s perceptions of the world and expose some of the absurdity all around us.

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Bard on the Beach presents Spontaneous Theatre’s Goblin:Oedipus at the Douglas Campbell Theatre to September 19

The Goblins are back. But you probably already knew that if you've paid even minimal attention to what’s going on at Bard on the Beach this year. They're hard to miss. 

There’s something almost automatic about our response to these characters. The fleshy realism of their masks is just unsettling enough to make anyone pause (they’re undeniably creepy), but something about the permanent little smirk carved into their faces makes it really hard to not want to approach or at least keep looking.  

They want to keep searching for us, too. That's why they’re back, broadly speaking. If the Goblins have established any lore by now—and this is only their second summer at Bard—it’s that they're chaotic, quite chaotic, sure, but they're also insatiably curious; about theatre, about humanity, about Dionysus-style debauchery. They’re as interested in us humans as we are in them. 

It's a fun, reciprocal dynamic. The audience loosens right up. Before long, following the Goblins on a naughty descent into madness starts to feel like the only sensible thing to do. 

Returning after Goblin:Macbeth, the trio of Wug, Kragva, and Moog (whose actors wish to remain anonymous) have traded Shakespeare for Sophocles. I suspect even people who didn’t warm to their first outing will have more fun with this one. Whether that’s because the Goblins have settled into their own mythology or because Sophocles turns out to be a more willing accomplice than Shakespeare, I’m not exactly sure.

Before they even get to Oedipus, the Goblins pause for a brief history lesson on Greek theatre. It quickly devolves into lamenting that the Dionysian festivals used to involve public orgies, a tradition abandoned, they regret to inform us, for insurance reasons. This is the kind of thing the Goblins are great at: theatre history and crude silliness. 

Some other heavy hitters of the night include the repeated use of the expletive motherfucker. A cheap laugh, some might argue. But when Wug, playing the newly truth-stricken Oedipus, asks, “What insults will you hurl at me?” and a member of the chorus—made up of brave audience volunteers who punctuate the story with hilariously synchronized reactions—fires back with a perfectly timed, improvised “Motherfucker!”, it's hard not to admire the Goblins’ ability to keep finding new, or at least increasingly sillier, ways to make the same crude language funny. 

Much of the comedy also comes from the Goblins criticizing each other’s creative choices. By now they’ve settled into distinct personalities; Wug is the troupe’s resident stickler, forever trying to keep the others on the straight and narrow, which makes him the perfect Oedipus. Annoyed by Kragva’s decision to stage violence with pool noodles, he reminds her they’re doing “Greek theatre, not this pornographic Roman bullshit.” Kragva, meanwhile, is the group's gleeful saboteur, which makes it especially fun to see what she will do with each of the multiple roles she steps into throughout the night. 

Moog occupies an entirely different frequency. Responsible for the evening’s live musical accompaniment, he seems to play whatever melody first pops into his head. Somewhere around the point when suspicion surrounding the killer of Laius, Jocasta's first husband, begins to build, Moog decides the evening has become a film noir. Out comes the jazz. “It seemed like you were launching into a murder mystery,” he says with a shrug. 

For all their delight in taking Greek tragedy apart, the Goblins know exactly how to put it back together again. There's a chilling sequence, accompanied by Moog’s virtuosic layering of instruments and something close to throat singing, where Kragva recounts the fate of Jocasta and Oedipus as the chorus react in eerily perfect unison. It builds toward a terrifying image of Wug’s Oedipus that will be hard to get out of your head.  

This is only the Goblins' second time around putting on their theatrical hijinks at Bard on the Beach, but the trio already feel like mainstays. They've refined their particular brand of lowbrow comedy into something I suspect only erudites—or at least die-hard theatre-makers—could pull off. Here's hoping they decide us humans are still worth studying. 

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Greg Girard: Photographs 1972-2026 is at The Polygon Gallery to October 25

IT’S 1975 AT GRANVILLE and Broadway, and the late, great Aristocratic Restaurant stands as a beacon in the night. Rising Vancouver photographer Greg Girard has set up his tripod on the sidewalk and captures a blurred figure entering the glass door to the diner, where a waitress busies herself behind an illuminated cigarette machine. Around its corner a pink-neon “DINING ROOM” sign beckons over a window that reveals lone customers eating under bright fluorescent lights.

Thirty years later, across the world, Girard would use a tripod and long exposure to capture another building in the night. In House on Yuyuan Street, a condemned, decaying colonial manse, soon to fall to Shanghai’s push to modernize, sits amid a vast foreground of rubble in the darkness, gleaming towers of the future in the distance. But lights illuminate its decorative multipaned windows. Against all expectation, to its last moments before the wrecking ball, it’s inhabited.

In the vast and remarkable 50-year survey Greg Girard: Photographs 1972–2026, just opened at The Polygon Gallery, nighttime scenes and their hidden worlds become a recurring theme—both here and across the Pacific. In the landmark show curated by Reid Shier and Elliott Ramsey, we also meet the people who inhabit those worlds, the bartenders and barflies, shopkeepers and migrant workers, military wives and Greyhound passengers. They’re just some of the ones he has encountered in these corners of some of the world’s largest metropolises.

Incredibly, it’s the first time Girard’s work has been shown at this scale in such a comprehensive retrospective. In the past, art books and smaller exhibitions at venues like Monte Clark Gallery have grouped Girard’s images by eras and geographic zones; the widely celebrated books include Phantom Shanghai and HK:PM: Hong Kong Night Life 1974–1989. For his many fans, the Polygon show offers a new chance to connect images from across the decades, both from here and from his restless, recurring journeys to Asia, where he lived for long stretches. Downtown Eastside diners and Burrard Inlet grain elevators share space with the ragtag mega apartments of Kowloon Walled City and the tiny, late-night snack sakuras of Japan.

The more than 160 shots, many of them seen on a large scale for the first time, capture the grind and the resilience of urban life. What is it about cities that first drew Girard and has continued to fascinate him?

“I think growing up away from it,” he says simply, speaking to Stir in a phone interview after the exhibition’s packed opening. “I grew up in Burnaby—basically, the suburbs—and discovering downtown Vancouver was another world. It was interesting, alluring, adult, and it had a certain mystery, and a certain kind of time travel, as well. 

“You know, in those days, if you had a barbershop or a pool hall downtown, you didn’t have to worry about rent increases, the way you do now,” he continues. “It was just an ordinary, slightly down-heeled place, and in the ’70s there were a lot of these pockets where things looked like the ’50s or the ’40s—the way people dressed, their clothes, their haircuts, the interiors, at a time when everything around us was either newish or freshly stale. And it was fascinating, really, to just find this other world that was a bit locked in an early year period.”

That locked-in, hidden side of 1970s Vancouver—much of it long gone, having made way for shiny glass condos—is on rich display in the Polygon show. A shot of a man in a cap headed into the late Lucky Time Café, with its brick mural promising steaks and neon sign promising “quick lunches”, could be straight out of the 1940s, but was in fact shot in 1975. Parked Cars on the Waterfront, from 1982, recalls a pre-Expo Vancouver where you could drive right up to the shoreline to see container ships close-up.

But Girard says he wasn’t aware at the time that he was documenting places as they were disappearing—more that he was discovering these hideaways and frozen time capsules of Vancouver.

“I’ve said it before, but I’ve always made photographs of now, for now. I don’t think that ‘Oh, okay, this will be interesting in 20 years’ or something. And especially as a young person, I just didn’t think like that. Eventually, you start to notice that this stuff that you’ve been doing ends up being a record. It was never intended to be that, but it ends up being that. And maybe there’s a sense of ‘This place has maybe seen better days,’ and there’s a certain sense of fading going on.” 

And yet, again and again, Girard has been drawn to cities that are in a state of extreme transition. At just 18, he hopped a freighter from San Francisco to Hong Kong, at first seduced by its vivid neon streets, then by its interior life. He ended up living there for more than a decade, in the then British colony’s golden age, before its handover to China. Among the Polygon show’s highlights is 1985’s retro, almost Lynch-ian Bar Interior, Tsimshatsui, Hong Kong, with its pink-and-red walls and glowing jukebox. His Kowloon Walled City, Children on the Rooftop, from 1989, shows children playing amid a tangle of antennae, with a view to rows of luxury high-rises on the distant mountains. The latter site—which photo artist Roy Arden so aptly calls a “monstrous architectural wonder” in the show’s essential publication—was photographed before the scattershot complex that housed 33,000 residents was demolished in the mid-1990s.

In 1998, the artist moved to Shanghai as it was undergoing massive transformation into a global megacity. As urban renewal projects replaced centuries-old neighbourhoods with high-end residential and entertainment hubs, Girard meticulously produced a book, the critically acclaimed Phantom Shanghai. It would end up serving as a last record of the old districts and manses that, as Girard notes, most cities would have turned into UNESCO World Heritage sites. At The Polygon, the images of these decaying monuments to the past have a scale that allows visitors to spend time considering the detail—the broken eaves, the curling roof tiles, the skeletal trees—while imagining the stories that not only lurk behind the illuminated windows, but have also been embedded, through centuries, in the walls.  

“I wanted to photograph Shanghai for myself, rather than to illustrate, let’s say, the rise of China for magazines—to do something more personal, about what it feels like to be there—and a lot of it had to do with this China moment that was happening,” he begins. “So I started noticing the whole city was turning into a massive construction site—these old neighbourhoods that had been artificially preserved for decades. China was still on its knees after the Cultural Revolution, and just kind of waking back up to being in the world and reconnecting to the capitalistic grid, so to speak. And I started noticing these houses that often remain when a block is being demolished.”

You can feel the care that went into capturing these shots, as well as all the other night imagery, with moody green skies and hits of glowing pink and green. And it makes Girard reflect on what it means to take a photo today.

“Everyone’s photographing with a phone with a camera, and everyone’s photographing everything, so there’s a sense of everything being kind of photographable,” he says, “and there’s all this kind of democracy of picture making, but it hasn’t necessarily improved photography with the capital P. It’s just that now we all do it—and in the same way we all kind of read and write, but we're not all writers, but we all can write. Back then, you needed a bit more of an investment in terms of time and expertise and a lot of trial and error. That was certainly true with night photography, with the very big trial and error component to it, and just learning the craft.”

Again and again, Girard has returned to Asia, forming deep connections with Hong Kong’s M+ museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District. 

Looking at these decades of work, organized near-chronologically and geographically at The Polygon, Girard says he’s most struck by the large selection of shots of people that Shier and Ramsey chose from the thousands of images for the exhibition. 

“As a young guy, wandering around downtown Vancouver, then travelling in Asia and Southeast Asia, living in Japan, I photographed people a lot then, but they weren’t part of what got known about what I do,” Girard explains. “And so that was something that Reid and Elliott noticed, as I was sending them vast amounts of pictures from over the decades.”

Sometimes Girard’s lens finds couples sharing a poignant, quiet moment, two souls connecting amid the megacities that surround them, whether stealing time together by the misty, romantic West Lake that sits in the centre of noisy Hanoi, or locking eyes while swimming in one of Beijing’s bucolic parks. In many more works, Girard captures people almost existentially alone. The affable photographer seems to have mastered the art of making himself invisible, but he clearly connects with people too—with a sense of empathy and humanity underlying all the images.

The artist, as ever, downplays his approach. “It really comes from the most basic thing: really wanting to make a picture of strangers,” he says, and then adds with a laugh: “Like, I can’t take pictures of people I know. Anybody who knows me and my family—they’ve given up on me. I can’t take a decent picture of them—and not for lack of time!

“I don’t really like the look of a picture that’s made with a long lens,” he adds. “It really has a stolen quality to it, you know? So I like it to look like you’re standing right next to them.”

For Girard, from neon-lit nighttime hideaways to intimate portraits, there’s always been one basic guiding force—a force that ties together these far-flung images from across the globe and across the decades. Beyond the sheer artistry of these beautifully composed works, there’s a deeper sense of connection to a place and its people that Girard is aiming for.

“I feel like I can show things that are hopefully going to be interesting to the people who know that place and live it day to day—as well as, of course, to anybody who doesn’t know it,” the artist explains. “And I think that’s always been intuiting that, as someone like me who knows nothing about this new place I’m arriving in and yet I find it interesting—fascinating even—that I can make a picture that can kind of connect people who know this place and live it and know it much better than I do.”  

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Vancouver Opera and the City of Burnaby present Opera in the Park at 7:30 pm at Deer Lake Park, preceded by Voices Rising: Pre-Concert Celebration at 5:15 pm

VANCOUVER OPERA IS about to pull out big-time Italian arias and overtures for this year’s free concert at the Festival Lawn in Deer Lake Park.

The summer tradition, under the baton of music director Jacques Lacombe, will feature highlights from the company’s upcoming 2026–27 season of Italian warhorses—and that means lush, impassioned highlights from Puccini’s Tosca, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, and Verdi’s La Traviata.

Big music requires powerful voices, and the singers here include standout Canadian baritone and VO favourite Gregory Dahl, who’s made a splash on the Queen E. stage in such memorable productions as The Flying Dutchman and La Bohème. Joining him are fast-rising Canadian-American tenor Isaiah Bell (who’s also a writer and composer); Ottawa-born mezzo Rachael McAuley, who has appeared on stages with companies like Edmonton Opera, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and the Vancouver Chamber Choir; and soprano Mikayla Sager, a specialist in Italian repertoire who has taken the stage with San Francisco Opera. Backing them up is the acclaimed Vancouver Opera Orchestra.

The main action starts at 7:30 pm, but earlier, at 5:15 pm, concertgoers can take in the Voices Rising preconcert, an eclectic mix of music by Tzo’kam, the family-based Stl’atl’imx group led by Russell Wallace, and Sarabande, the chamber choir that’s part of the Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs, directed by rising conductor Shane Raman. There will also be a speech on the power of the arts by Sam Armas Gough, a Guatemalan-born, Vancouver-based arts leader of Guatemalan Indigenous and Canadian heritage.

What to bring? A blanket or chair to settle in for the evening out on the grass. And we suggest a picnic of antipasto e salumi, and maybe some formaggio e olive, to set the mood.  

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As part of a free afternoon of music presented by the Eastside Arts Society and the Rickshaw Theatre, Buddie performs at MacLean Park on July 25 at 7:20 pm

THERE’S A CERTAIN alchemy that happens when like-minded musicians get together in a garage, basement, or rented rehearsal studio and create something as a collective. It’s a kind of magic that the members of the Vancouver indie-rock band Buddie have only recently begun to tap into.

Singer-guitarist Dan Forrest began Buddie as a vehicle for his own songwriting several years back when he was still living in Philadelphia. He moved to the West Coast of Canada in August of 2021, bringing the Buddie name with him and recruiting a crew of local musicians to play with him.

The current version of the band includes guitarist Patrick Farrugia, bassist Lindsay Partin, and drummer Natalie Glubb, all of whom have begun to make their creative voices heard.

“One of the most exciting things that’s been happening maybe the last six months or a year has been figuring out how to write more as a unit,” Forrest tells Stir in a Zoom call along with his bandmates. 

“Before, with the previous stuff, it’s been Dan bringing an idea, and then kind of adding things to it,” notes Farrugia, “but I feel like now, there is a lot more collectively—like, from the ground up—making the song. I’ll bring some ideas in, and try to kind of evolve the previous sound, rather than do more of the same.”

A musical project needs to evolve its sound, of course, lest it find itself in a stagnant rut. Based on the evidence found on last November’s Glass album, mind you, Buddie already has a pretty fantastic foundation upon which to build whatever’s coming next. The record kicks off with “In the Glass Shell”, which borrows the loud-quiet-loud template of the Pixies and boasts a chorus that welds the fuzz-strafed guitars of classic grunge with an undeniable pop melody. Later on, “No Fun” invites the listener into a heat-hazed shoegaze dream.  

So what is this new sound that Buddie is forging together? Forrest indicates that it’s too early to say exactly, but expect even more six-string action.

“From the start, pop sensibilities have been pretty to the fore in this project, and then everything else kind of supports that,” the frontman says. “Somewhere along the way I let some of the fun guitar stuff that brought me into being in a rock band in the first place go to sit in the back of the arrangements a little bit more. So now it’s kind of coming up to the fore. There’s some interesting riffs that are sometimes the start of the songs, especially when Pat brings something in.”

“I’d say, too,” bassist Partin adds, “the songwriting is a little bit more complex with this new batch of songs. They’re not as straightforward with the pop thing, but still keeping that pop vein underlying it.”

There are a couple of local gigs on Buddie’s calendar this summer—including the Eastside Arts Festival’s free afternoon of music at Strathcona’s MacLean Park on July 25, which will also feature sets by Wack, Big Rig, Stephen Hamm: Theremin Man, and Jody Glenham. After that, though, it’s back to the rehearsal space to hash out material for a forthcoming album. Whatever emerges from the quartet’s writing process might not fit squarely into the category of “grunge pop”, which is the way Buddie describes itself on Instagram and elsewhere.

“I think it’s pretty apt,” Glubb argues. “I mean, we’re all very influenced by grunge.” If there’s a downside to using “grunge pop” as shorthand for what Buddie does, the drummer says, it’s that it has “a bit of a retro connotation”. 

“I think that’s maybe a direction we’re heading in with the new stuff as well,” she says. “It sounds a bit more like music that’s happening at the moment, rather than a bit of a throwback pastiche.”

No young band wants to be pegged as being strictly ’90s revivalists—a phenomenon that might be called “the curse of Yuck”—although Forrest confesses to being briefly “obsessed” with Third Eye Blind’s eponymous 1997 debut LP, in particular the song “Losing a Whole Year”, which he cops to listening to “probably, like, a hundred times in a couple months’ span”.

One thing that seems unlikely to change, though, is the incisive, socially conscious quality of Forrest’s lyrics. On Buddie’s 2023 album Agitator (actually recorded in 2021, when Forrest was still in Philadelphia), songs like “Class Warfare” and “Game of Global Consequence” tackle topics of wealth inequity and social struggle. Glass tracks like “Stressed in Paradise” and “In the Glass Shell” find Forrester taking an unflinching look at the discomfiting realities of modern city living. In the latter, he lays bare the emptiness of an existence in which Amazon and Doordash are the only lifelines to the outside world: “I sent for a book/And a meal/I can’t touch/But I still feel.”

Forrest says that, while he is quite deliberate about addressing topics of social justice and urban isolation in his songs, he stops short of trying to tell people what to think. “I’m just trying to share my experience and observations in a way that maybe resonates with people in a different light than they’ve experienced before, and say it in a way that resonates with people’s emotions, so that it actually hits home.

“Obviously, that’s supported by the music, and the fact that it’s catchy, and all the contributions that all of us are making to the sound. I think music is really special, in that you can say something that might connect with people on a deeper level because of the personal observational poetry combined with the emotive power of the music.”

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New Works presents All Over the Map at various venues on July 24 and 26 and August 14 and 16

THIS SUMMER, A WALK through Granville Island or a visit to the library might reveal a masked figure wrapped in rope, a Bharatanatyam dancer, or a contemporary juggler. New Works’ event All Over the Map returns with free outdoor performances that turn everyday public spaces into unexpected stages. 

Running on select dates in July and August, the annual series transforms the Picnic Pavilion on Granville Island and, for the first time, the rooftop garden of the Vancouver Public Library’s Central Library into open-air stages. The same four artists perform at both locations in July, and a different lineup returns in August.

“This year we’re really excited to be growing the series with a new partnership with Vancouver Public Library Central Library,” says Charlotte Newman, general manager of New Works. “It’s really exciting to bring this kind of work to another community.”

The performances are accessible by design. Rather than asking audiences to buy tickets and commit to a full evening in a theatre, All Over the Map invites people to stop for a few minutes or stay for an entire hour.

“One of the exciting things about presenting these shows in public places is that we get to reach audiences who weren’t planning to be there but got excited and sucked in,” Newman says. “That really feels like a powerful part of this work.”

This year, New Works received 67 applications for eight presentation spots, a response Newman says reflects both the strength of the local dance community and the need for more opportunities to present work. The selected pieces are designed for non-traditional spaces, where lighting, projections, costume changes, and other theatrical elements are stripped away, leaving only the performers and the choreography. 

Among the July performances are Joanne Park’s street-dance-inspired choreography and Indian classical dance by Arno Kamolika and Akshaya Surve. In August, audiences can experience Jayden Gigliotti’s contemporary juggling solo and Mario Matias’s exploration of Filipino diaspora.

One of the artists chosen for this year’s July program is Vancouver-based interdisciplinary artist Jes Hanzelkova. Her performance Latent Shores draws on the flowing water sleeves used in traditional Cantonese opera, combining them with rope, movement, and sculptural masks to explore memory, belonging, and cultural inheritance.

An architect by day, Hanzelkova began creating masks to explore her relationship to space and movement.

“I started to design essentially buildings for my head, or spaces for myself, trying to understand my own position in the world and how to feel the world in a different way and take up space as a woman in the world,” she says.

Latent Shores began with a camping trip on Salt Spring Island, where the rhythm of the waves brought back memories of watching a Cantonese opera performer using flowing water sleeves. Inspired by her Cantonese heritage, Hanzelkova found herself thinking about the ways cultural histories continue to shape the body.

“I’ve always been trying to find ways to connect but also heal and find connection to the Cantonese side,” she says.

Unlike dance performances that strive to make movement appear effortless, Latent Shores embraces physical struggle. Wearing a heavy rope mask and contemporary water sleeves inspired by traditional Cantonese opera, Hanzelkova constantly responds to the costume as she performs. The mask shifts her balance, limits her vision, and forces her to adapt in the moment, while her increasingly heavy breathing becomes part of the rhythm of the piece. Rather than following a rigid choreography, the performance leaves room for improvisation, allowing each presentation to respond to the space, the audience, and the physical demands of the costume itself.

For Hanzelkova, presenting the work outdoors feels like a natural fit. Since she began making masks, she has often presented them in public, festival-style settings rather than galleries.

“I’ve always been looking for opportunities to share art where it’s not in a gallery,” she says. “People could interact with the work casually, and it doesn’t feel pretentious in some of the ways that art performances can be.”

That sense of discovery is exactly what New Works hopes audiences will experience throughout All Over the Map. Whether someone comes specifically to support an artist or simply stumbles across a performance while passing through the city, the series invites people to encounter dance in uncommon places and perhaps discover a new artistic voice along the way. 

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Update: As of July 16 the lockout has been lifted at Centre A and the rally has been cancelled for July 18.

STAFF MEMBERS OF Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, and their supporters, picketed outside the nonprofit’s workplace after bargaining negotiations reached an impasse between Centre A’s leadership and its staff’s union, IATSE B-778, Arts and Cultural Workers Union (ACWU). Another rally is already planned for July 18 as labour tensions continue at the Keefer Street facility—the only public gallery in Canada dedicated to contemporary Asian and Asian diasporic visual art practices.

Update as of July 16: Stir received word late July 15 after publishing that Centre A’s board has now terminated its executive director without cause.

Centre A was founded in 1999, with executive director Jenie Gao overseeing the organization until late yesterday, with daily operations supported by its two union employees: artistic director Diane Hau Yu Wong and programming coordinator Maliv Khondaker. (Gao has been the executive director for one year, and is the fifth executive director in six years following a two-year gap in leadership.) The workplace became unionized in 2023. This year, formal bargaining meetings began in May to codify a new collective agreement, which included Gao, union representative Conor Moore, and Khondaker. However, negotiations reached an impasse in recent weeks and illustrate some of the challenges facing small artistic nonprofit workplaces today.

According to a statement published on July 13 on the ACWU Instagram page, Wong and Khondaker were notified of the lockout on July 3, giving them 72 hours before it went into effect. They say that their access to work-related materials was immediately revoked.

Centre A released a public statement shortly after ACWU, outlining that previous wage proposals from the union included codifying up to a 20-percent annual raise. ACWU’s statement rejects this claim, saying the union instead asked for an annual wage increase of three percent, up to a maximum of 8 percent. The union also states that during the last bargaining meeting before the current collective agreement expired, Centre A proposed a wage decrease as its final offer.

Both statements confirm that on July 6, Centre A proposed another offer to the union, which would have union employees maintain their current wages, followed by a two-percent annual wage increase. On its part, the union’s rejection is due to Centre A’s “last offer” stance in its proposals, citing in its statement that union members “would not accept their proposal point-blank, but would be happy to discuss the proposals in a bargaining session”.

While Centre A states the lockout is approved by the Labour Relations Board, Gao affirms the decision was not made lightly, with work stoppages more disruptive to smaller organizations compared to large institutions.

“We only have two union employees,” Gao tells Stir. “Once we got past the expiration date of our collective agreement, either Centre A can do lockout, or the union employees can go on strike.”

They explain that ultimately, the decision of lockout was made to avoid the possibility of employees quitting during a strike, which would leave Centre A with a bargaining unit of zero, and therefore no one to end the strike, an action that would kill the nonprofit. In either scenario, significant disruptions impacting Centre A’s programming and collaborative artists is all but inevitable.

Centre A has a budget of $450,000 budget and a $98,000 deficit. Gao says if Centre A does not address its deficit immediately, it will “enter a terminal state”.

This year, Centre A named writer, editor, and critic Dr. Yani Kong to lead and mentor its third biennial Art Writing Mentorship program. After learning about the potential disruptions that included an employee lockout, Kong and a colleague decided to postpone a scheduled July 4 public talk at Centre A to, in Kong’s words, “give space for resolution”. According to the ACWU statement, her contract for the 18-week program was subsequently terminated on July 8. Since the release of Centre A and ACWU’s respective public statements, former and current collaborative artists of Centre A have voiced their support for the union employees and for Kong on social media platforms.

“I understand my mentees were intended to learn with a replacement mentor who then pulled out,” says Kong in a statement to Stir. “I have heard from other writers who have been asked to replace me. They have declined.”

According to Gao, a request for mediation was rejected multiple times by the union, despite bargaining meetings reaching an impasse. “I come from a background in labour organizing and I’ve been advocating for artists for decades,” says Gao. “Why would I jeopardize that?”

The ACWU was created in 2020 by the founding members of the Vancouver Artists Labour Union Cooperative to address issues such as income precarity, exploitation, and job insecurity in the arts and cultural sector. Since then, they have expanded to represent a diverse mixture of freelance artists and creative workers across B.C. and Canada. For workers like Khondaker, actions like the lockout erodes trust within a team that is already overburdened and under-resourced.

“The dramatic lockout of workers at Centre A is catching the attention of people across the sector, because this issue is larger than just our workplace,” says Khondaker in a written statement to Stir. “The state of labour relations in the arts is distressing. Workers at institutions like Centre A are who make these places meaningful. We build relationships, we create programs, we put up and take down the art and keep it safe, and we are always trying to find new ways that the organization can better serve the community. And yet, we are asked to absorb costs again and again. We are treated as disposable when management seeks to push institutions past what workers can sustain.”

Despite current circumstances, Gao and Khondaker echo the same sentiment: What has transpired at Centre A is not unique to this small arts organization. 

Still, the desire to return to bargaining is clear on all sides, with the unionized employees asking for an immediate end to the lockout, and Centre A requesting third-party mediation to support bargaining meetings.

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Valerie June performs on the main stage of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival at Jericho Beach Park on July 19

WHEN STIR CONNECTS with Valerie June for an interview, she’s in a most unusual place: at her home in Memphis, Tennessee. The celebrated singer-songwriter hasn’t been there much in recent weeks because she’s been on the road, where she’ll continue to be until the end of summer, alternating between sets at soft-seaters and on outdoor festival stages.

“It’s been a mix, because I’ve had some festivals in Scandinavia and then venue performances as well, and venue performances in the U.K.,” says June. “And then with Ani DiFranco, I have been opening for her. She’s so amazing. And that was all in venues, so it’s kind of a mixture. But in Canada, I’m gonna do Ottawa Blues, Vancouver Folk, and Calgary Folk, so I have three festivals and two theatres.”

June is known for the wide-ranging nature of her work, whether that’s the psychedelic soul of the title track from her 2013 LP Pushin’ Against a Stone or the ebullient electric gospel of “Joy, Joy!” from last year’s Owls, Omens, and Oracles. A masterful tunesmith in her own right—or, at the very least, an effective conduit (more on that later)—the singer and multi-instrumentalist has also been hailed for her sublime versions of songs by an eclectic array of artists, from Nick Drake (“Pink Moon”) and Gillian Welch (“Look at Miss Ohio”) to Duran Duran (“Ordinary World”) and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (“Into My Arms”).

While she doesn’t reveal exactly what will be on the setlist when she takes to the stage at Jericho Beach for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival with her ace rhythm section (bassist Matt Marinelli and drummer Caito Sanchez), June promises that it will be a bit of everything.

“We perform songs from pretty much all the records, and we do a few covers as well,” she says. “It’s all across the spectrum of what I do, as far as some rock ’n’ roll songs, some blues, some folk, some country. It’s everything. Because I have so many records that I’ve done, I just like to mix up songs from each record, because different people come to my music at different times, and I just think sometimes it’s nice if something’s familiar to ’em. But it’s also cool to go back and bring something that’s older and use that too.”

June is an engaging interviewee, with a warm, easy laugh and a Tennessee accent that imparts an aura of down-home wisdom to whatever she says. Moreover, the conversation takes an especially interesting turn when it comes to her creative process. June doesn’t take all of the credit for writing her music; as she experiences things, she “receives” the songs from somewhere outside herself.

“To me, when I’m working in that space, co-creating with something that’s invisible—that’s another realm or another world—that’s so magical to me,” she says. “And that’s where I like to be more than anything, more than even performing or touring. I like to be communicating with whatever realm that is that gives us songs and music.”

The songs June receives are not always fully formed—sometimes she’ll get a single line of lyrics or the beginnings of a melody—nor are they all necessarily suitable for mass consumption.

“I have songs that are for me and me only,” she reveals. “Like, I have the eating song, I have the cooking song, I have a watering-the-plants song. I have so many songs, but nobody wants to hear those. I just sing them while I’m doing things, and they’re my songs. Songs about my life, or things that I’m doing in the day. I’ve been like that ever since I was little. I’ve just had different voices that I sing along with that come to me in my head. They’re very entertaining, but as the person who’s receiving them, I have to choose. Like, ‘Is this for the world, or is this just for me?’”

One that was most certainly meant for the world is “Endless Tree”, the third track on Owls, Omens, and Oracles. Over a swelling, near-symphonic soundscape, June explores the timely theme of keeping hope alive in an era of desolation, using the natural world as an analogue for the human condition: “Are you ready to see/A world where we could all be free?/As branches of an endless tree.”

“It’s something that we have to ask every day, and hopefully we can get closer to figuring out the answer,” June says of the song’s central question. “But we don’t have to have all the answers, either, because the world’s problems are a lot for an individual to take on. But I think we do have to take them on—one little leaf at a time, one little flower petal at a time. And so we all have our part to play in nature, in making this planet a beautiful garden, but we can feel overwhelmed. But I think it’s really cool to have songs that bring us back to how simple it can be. It doesn’t have to be huge. It can be how you are relating to people who disagree with you, how you are acting at the post office or the grocery store or in traffic, you know? And so that song always reminds me of that.

“It’s definitely one of those things that’s more a question mark than a period,” she notes. “It’s more like, ‘What is possible?’ And I think when we go into things with this wonder, and not knowing for sure but having hope, then we start to get a lot of gorgeous surprises, and even miracles. It’s possible. But it isn’t possible if we can’t even ask the question, ‘Hey, how gorgeous can this world be?’ It’s a scary question to ask in times like these.”  

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Ensemble Theatre Company presents A Streetcar Named Desire at the Jericho Arts Centre to July 18, as part of Ensemble Theatre Festival: Bloodlines

“A WOMAN’S CHARM is fifty percent illusion.” 

Fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois has a knack for saying the quiet part out loud. Having lost Belle Reve, her family’s once-grand Mississippi estate, she arrives at the cramped New Orleans apartment shared by her loving younger sister Stella and Stella’s hostile husband, Stanley Kowalski, carrying enough lace, costume jewellery, and Southern gentility to assemble multiple versions of herself. The apartment she’s walked into, however, has very few hiding places for her illusion to live in.  

Chris Lam’s staging of A Streetcar Named Desire finds something both alluring and stifling in that porosity.  

Emily Dotson’s open-plan set strips the Kowalski residence back almost to its frame, its missing walls leaving the audience with very little distance from the action. A comically narrow red curtain is the apartment’s only attempt at privacy, and a flimsy one at that. The effect for everyone involved, I overheard an audience member say, is as immersive as it is invasive.  

Blanche spends almost as much time behind that curtain as she does in the rest of the apartment. She emerges each time, rearranged with another dress. Fresh from the bath, she pins a delicate fascinator onto her stringy, wet hair, in an absurd and deeply moving image.  

Cat Smith understands that Blanche’s performance of herself is never static. She slips between charm, flirtation, and shrill melodrama, sometimes within the span of a few lines. Playwright Tennessee Williams gives Blanche some delightfully acerbic dialogue, and Smith lands it with great comic timing, earning some of the evening’s biggest laughs just before pulling the rug out from under us.  

It’s an almost impossible role. Blanche has to remain charming long after she’s stopped being trustworthy, something that doesn’t take very long at all. The way she survives the rapidly deteriorating situation she finds herself in is with one more fib, one more joke, one more drink, one more carefully curated outfit. Smith makes you understand why, for so many years, her strategy worked. 

Stanley, on the other hand, has no patience for any of it. Her foil in many ways, he seems all brute fact to her elaborate fiction. It’s true, he doesn’t have as many costumes: a bowling shirt, a black T-shirt, and more often than not, no shirt at all. But his masculinity is no less performed than Blanche’s own femininity of lace, perfume, and carefully softened light. 

Terrell Clarricoates certainly has Stanley’s physical confidence. He prowls the apartment, leaning into the mix of animal magnetism and cunning astuteness audiences have come to relish in the role. That part works, but I found myself wanting more variation in his performance.  

Stanley’s violent outbursts are where Clarricoates is most convincing. Chairs hurl, plates smash, arguments erupt. Seated only a few feet away, you can feel the audience collectively tense up.  

In the atmosphere the production team creates, the apartment also never quite separates itself from the neighbourhood around it. With little more than the suggestion of a front door, the sounds of jazz and train whistles spill in, hot, humid haze breaks up the almost noir-like lighting inside, and neighbours drift through the edges of scenes as arguments spill in from upstairs. Caught cheating, a neighbour tells his wife, “I only do that with the other girls because I love you.” It gets a laugh, because it sounds so at home in this world where love and self-deception live together. 

Brynna Drummond’s Stella knows her husband’s volatility as well as the fragility beneath her sister’s charm better than anyone. She laughs easily and loves openly. It’d be easy to play her as hopelessly naive, but Drummond’s empathetic performance doesn’t ask us to believe that Stella doesn’t see what’s in front of her, but instead to consider what she’s willing to live beside. 

Mitch, Stanley’s soft-spoken poker friend, also arrives with some gentleness. In this staging, Connor Riopel plays the character with an old-fashioned sincerity and an almost naive infatuation with Blanche. But their courtship has an awkward sweetness to it, and Riopel wisely resists playing Mitch as either a fool or a saviour. For a little while, he’s completely uninterested in separating Blanche from the stories she tells about herself, and moments of sincerity within that are some of the night’s most affecting. In Chris Lam’s hands, A Streetcar Named Desire becomes a tragedy that’s less about illusion than about the cost of refusing it. 

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Nastasia Y performs as part of the Mission Folk Music Festival, which takes place at Fraser River Heritage Park from July 24 to 26

NASTASIA YEROFEYEVA comes by her love of music honestly. The Toronto-based singer, songwriter, and keyboardist, who records and performs under the name Nastasia Y, has lived in Canada since the age of 11, but she was born in Kyiv, Ukraine.

“Growing up, music was a really, really big part of life,” Yerofeyeva says. “Music, in particular folk music, is really different in the way it’s experienced there. It’s a more communal style of living, in a way. For example, any birthday, any celebration, any get-together, there would always be music and singing. It would almost be weird to not sing, to maybe listen to recorded music and not sing. Or at least in my family, the way I grew up, because my dad was a singer, and he was in a band.”

Kost’ Yerofeyev was indeed in a musical group, called Ruthenia, and his activities suggest that he didn’t just pass down an appreciation for Ukrainian folks songs to his daughter, but a bit of rebel spirit as well. Bear in mind that, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine was under Soviet control, which meant that traditional folk music, while still permitted, was heavily censored. Musicians who performed songs that carried even the merest whiff of Ukrainian nationalism were arrested and could even face execution.

“They were part of a freedom movement, I would say, in the ’80s, early ’90s, right during the fall of the USSR,” Yerofeyeva says of her father and his Ruthenia bandmates. “Just the fact that they were singing all their songs, and writing all of their songs, in Ukrainian—that alone was kind of an act of resistance. It definitely had a huge impact on me, growing up.”

Nor was Kost’ the only rebel in the family. Yerofeyeva tells Stir that her mother attended the first edition of the music festival Chervona Ruta, held in Chernivtsi in 1989. “The rule was no Ukrainian flags,” she says. Many young women tried to skirt the rules—literally—by dressing in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, wearing yellow tops and blue skirts. Such brazen scofflaws were detained by the local police, but Yerofeyeva’s mother was a little more covert. 

“My mom was going to the festival, and she had a flag under her belly—she was pregnant with me—and the police were like, ‘We think you have something there.’ And she said, ‘What are you talking about? I’m pregnant! Don’t touch a pregnant lady!’ She got let through, and so did a bunch of other people. Eventually, when the concert was happening, they all pulled out their flags.”

Fast-forward to 2022. Having earned a bachelor’s degree in contemporary jazz piano at Humber College and an ARCT designation in classical piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Yerofeyeva was by then firmly established in a career as a professional musician, both as a founder of the popular wedding/dance band StereoFlavour and as an explorer of everything from jazzy chamber-pop to edge-of-night trip-hop with DoVira.

Yerofeyeva was working on what would become the first Nastasia Y album when, in February of that year, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “When that happened, I would say it was absolutely life-changing,” she recalls. “I was already halfway, maybe, through the album, but I couldn’t not make it, really, about what’s going on. I became more vocal about Ukraine and what’s happening and trying to untangle that, perhaps, for other people.”

Finishing the album, however, would have to wait.

“At first I actually couldn’t make music at all, which is something that would make me the happiest, usually,” Yerofeyeva says. “I would say for about a year I couldn’t really do what I used to do in the same way. First, I went to volunteer in Poland, and then I did go to Ukraine as well, because my grandpa is quite old, and he is basically the last one left on my dad’s side. So I went to connect with him and spend time with him.”

Her grandfather’s house had taken damage from Russian tanks. Despite the devastation, however, Yerofeyeva found herself reassured by the sheer resilience of the Ukrainian people in the face of Putin’s aggression.

“It was when I was finally there, when I looked around and I felt this sense of ease that, even with everything that’s happening, they can’t take my home away from me no matter what happens,” she said, noting that this relit her fire, creatively speaking. “I got this feeling: ‘Okay, what am I doing? Because my talent is music. I need to go back home, finish this album, and make a small difference—whatever difference I can make—but with music, with what I can actually do.’ So that’s when I went back and finished it.”

The resulting album, 2024’s Kyiv Soul, distills a broad swath of influences, from Slavic folk to jazz and R&B, into an ever-shifting sonic stew that draws on the talents of many in the Toronto scene. Contributors include Grammy-winning producer Justin Gray, drummer Marito Marques, flutist Anh Phung, and guitarist KC Roberts.

Nastasia Y’s current live configuration, however, strips away a lot of those layers.

“It has really scaled down,” Yerofeyeva reveals. “I don’t know if simplified is the word, but it’s now a trio. So it’s myself on keyboards and vocals, and then Andrew [McAnsh], my partner; he’s not just one of Canada’s best trumpet players, he is also a drummer. Funny enough, he’s doing both, sometimes at the same time. And then there’s a bass player—a newcomer from Ukraine, actually—called Igor Biliaiev. 

“It is a trio for touring, and we have been working really hard, actually, for the past couple of months, to take all this music, which was originally written for a five- or six-piece band, and to keep the energy in a trio,” Yerofeyeva continues. “And I think it’s working quite well. It does give more space for emotion as well, so I’m excited to tour with this group.”

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VisualSpace Gallery presents Dona Nabata: The Picnic from July 18 to 25

THE INTERNMENT OF more than 22,000 Japanese Canadians in British Columbia during the Second World War is one of the most shameful chapters of local history. Dona Nabata’s family was directly impacted by the internment, a fact that has informed much of the Vancouver-based artist’s work.

The pieces that make up The Picnic, Nabata’s new exhibition at VisualSpace Gallery, are based on historical pre-war photographs of Japanese Canadians, which the Emily Carr grad has printed on canvas, painted, and altered.

The photos are drawn from the personal collection of a Japanese Canadian woman, and they escaped confiscation or burning only because she was out of the country during the war.

In an artist statement, Nabata explains why she chose the specific photos that formed the basis of her transformative pieces:

“They showed Japanese Canadians at leisure, being unselfconscious and not being ethnicized, exoticized or othered. This racialized leisure creates new possibilities for Japanese Canadians to see themselves in art. While the photos have a joyous quality—a community taking pictures of itself, for itself—they also have a foreboding quality, lying in wait for circumstances that will break their peaceful existence.”

In these paintings, Nabata, who began her artistic practice working primarily in clay, references the Japanese pottery tradition of kintsugi (repairing broken pottery using lacquer dusted with powdered gold).

“By piecing them together again, something more beautiful is created,” she writes. “These paintings enable Japanese Canadians to heal, culturally and emotionally. It is important for me to show Japanese Canadians at leisure in the distant past and bring them into contemporary life. It raises questions of who is entitled to leisure? What if we had been able to psychologically continue from this place in history, until now?”  

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The Dance Deck takes place July 18, 19, 25, and 26 as part of the Eastside Arts Festival

GRASSROOTS ARTS EVENTS DON’T get much more East Side than The Dance Deck, which is celebrating its 11th anniversary of staging high-calibre performances in a heritage house’s cozy backyard off Commercial Drive.

Fittingly copresented with the Eastside Arts Festival, Belle Spirale Dance Projects’ program this year features everything from work by a magnetic performer from Ballet BC (where artistic directors Alexis Fletcher and Sylvain Senez have both performed and served as rehearsal director) to first-time creations by emerging artists. It all takes place in an intimate outdoor setting at the duo’s “Casa Om”.

Ballet BC dancer Jacalyn Tatro presents a new work, as do former Ballet Edmonton dancers and Arts Umbrella grads Connor McLeary and Devon McLean, in a duet created by McLeary.

Meanwhile, Belle Spirale company artist Will Jessup, known for his appearances with Ne.Sans Opera and Dance, Voirelia, Dance//Novella, and other troupes, presents a new solo for fellow Belle Spirale artist Sophia Makarenko (an Arts Umbrella alumna who participated in Ballet BC Annex).  

And rounding out the program is another premiere by local, Goa-raised Bharatanatyam artist Vidya Kotamraju, founder of House of Indian Dance. Kotamraju, who trained with Jai Govinda, has performed around the world, as well as at local fests like the Vancouver International Dance Festival and New Works’ All Over the Map.

Adding to this summer’s mix are four singers from the Vancouver Chamber Choir—soprano Emily M Cheung, alto Dinah Ayre, tenor Eric Biskupski, and baritone Steven Bélanger.

Book sliding-scale tickets ahead of time here, as the backyard tent has limited capacity—and the shows often sell out.  

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Theatre Under the Stars presents Disney’s The Little Mermaid at Malkin Bowl to August 22

THERE’S MAGIC IN the air at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park, thanks to Theatre Under the Stars’ The Little Mermaid. Directed and choreographed by Nicol Spinola and starring a captivating Madison Simms as Ariel, this vibrant production dazzles with imagination and meticulous attention to detail. From stunning visuals and splashy musical numbers to heartfelt moments, The Little Mermaid is a charming, thoroughly engaging experience that audiences of all ages will adore.

Based on the Broadway musical adapted from Disney’s beloved animated film, the show retains Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s iconic songs, including “Part of Your World” and “Under the Sea”, while incorporating additional music by Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater.

The story follows young mermaid Ariel, who falls in love with Prince Eric (a sincere and charming Pier Francesco Marchi) against the wishes of her father, King Triton (a formidable yet compassionate Tanner Zerr). Determined to join the human world, Ariel accepts a dangerous bargain from her sinister aunt, the sea witch Ursula (a deliciously wicked Cecilly Day).

Simms beautifully captures Ariel’s youthful curiosity, impulsiveness, and vulnerability, pairing a graceful stage presence with a lovely soprano voice. Her rendition of “Part of Your World” is heartfelt and poignant. Marchi brings warmth, sensitivity, and strong musicality to Prince Eric, particularly in “Her Voice”. Together, the pair share a chemistry that makes their romance easy to believe.

As Ursula, Day delivers a commanding performance. Dressed in Donnie Tejani’s spectacular, octopus-inspired costume, complete with glittering tentacles and seaweed-draped accents, she cuts an imposing figure while relishing every villainous moment. Her powerhouse vocals and charisma make “Poor Unfortunate Souls” a showstopper.

A standout surprise is Sophie McKenzie as Scuttle, the enthusiastic but dim-witted seagull who usually doesn’t evoke much fanfare. Sporting a costume overflowing with white feathers, she delights with her hilarious physical comedy and spirited performance of the rousing song-and-tap-dance number “Positoovity”, leading the talented ensemble with infectious energy and impressive dance skills.

Another unexpected highlight is Dalton Nelson and Twyla Raffé-Devine as Ursula’s eel accomplices, Flotsam and Jetsam—again, roles that usually don’t draw much attention. Through fluid, serpentine movement and striking dance lines, they perfectly complement Day’s menace while bringing an eerie elegance to the roles.

Acclaimed for her choreography at TUTS, Spinola makes an impressive directorial TUTS debut. Her vision transforms the stage into a storybook world brought vividly to life. Ryan Cormack’s scenic design—featuring draped curtains, colourful backdrops, and mobile sea-rock structures—works seamlessly with Jonathan Kim’s atmospheric lighting, including effects that mimic sunlight filtered through ocean depths, to give this production an almost operatic sense of theatricality. 

One of the production’s greatest strengths is Tejani’s inventive costuming. Rather than relying on cumbersome tails, the merfolk are outfitted in long dresses featuring tail-inspired patterns, creating the illusion of underwater creatures while allowing freedom of movement. During the exuberant “Under the Sea”, Sebastian the crab (a lovable Janelle Reid) leads a colourful parade of aquatic life, including mermaids, jellyfish, sturgeons, and glowfish. Particularly memorable are the jellyfish costumes, whose flowing, tentacle-like streamers cascade from headpieces.

The costumes also allow standout dancers such as Camille Griffiths, Chiara Go, Fumi Okochi, and Elijah Sam to show impressive leg extensions, leaps, and turns. Another crowd-pleaser is the doo-wop-inspired “She’s in Love”, featuring Flounder (an endearing Angus Silva) and Ariel’s six sisters, led by the sassy Madison Raybould.

Spinola’s dual role as director and choreographer results in a remarkably cohesive production. Movement is woven organically throughout the storytelling, whether in the fluid elegance of the merfolk, the regality of Prince Eric’s court, or Ursula’s theatrical villainy. Transitions between scenes and songs flow seamlessly, creating a mesmerizing theatrical experience. Under Brent Hughes’s musical direction, the polished orchestra enhances the enchantment from the exciting opening overture onward.

As a local, non-profit theatre company, TUTS obviously doesn’t have a multimillion-dollar Disney budget, a fact that could make an ambitious show such as The Little Mermaid challenging to stage. While there are some flashy special effects in the show, Spinola and her team have also found creative staging for the story’s other big moments in ways that are effective and polished, ultimately faithfully serving the story. 

From its beloved songs and fantastic performances to its grand theatricality, TUTS’s The Little Mermaid is a magical celebration of love, self-discovery, and the courage to follow one’s heart—whether under the sea or on land.

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Bard on the Beach presents Antigone at the Douglas Campbell Theatre to September 18

AT ONE POINT in Kate Besworth’s adaptation of Antigone, Ismene, desperately trying to understand her sister’s determined fatal course, finally relents. “I’m doing the thing,” she says. “I’m entering the tragedy of our family.” Variations on this strange self-awareness repeat throughout the play, almost always around Antigone. 

If grief comes in waves, tragedy hits like a cascade. Few figures in literature are as closely acquainted with that rhythm as Antigone. By the time Sophocles’s play begins, she has already inherited the aftermath of her mother’s death, her father’s exile, and the civil war that leaves both her brothers dead. When her uncle Creon unjustly forbids her brother Polynices’s burial and Antigone in turn refuses to allow her brother to be dishonoured and forsaken, catastrophe follows catastrophe with terrible momentum. 

The momentum of Sophocles’s tragedy remains, but Besworth and director Ming Hudson find room to linger where the original rarely does. In 95 minutes, this adaptation gives us time to feel the aftermath before the next catastrophe arrives. For example, there’s Jocasta, Antigone and Ismene’s mother. In Sophocles’s original, she has long since taken her own life; here, she remains and, as portrayed by Jennifer Lines, spends much of the play consumed by grief, barely able to acknowledge the daughters who have survived her sons. That emotional distance makes her eventual visit to her imprisoned daughter—an encounter entirely invented for this adaptation—one of the night’s most memorable moments. Reaching toward her daughter, Jocasta offers an embrace that Antigone refuses.  

Yoshie Bancroft never softens Antigone’s conviction. Her resolve remains absolute, but here, it’s also shadowed by an emotional vulnerability that progressively finds some foreground. The prison scene with Jocasta is especially revealing. When her mother finally reaches toward her with open arms, Antigone can only repeat, “I can’t.” In Bancroft’s performance, refusal is no longer just heroic and becomes the only way she knows how to exist.  

Around Bancroft’s immovable Antigone, everyone else changes. Cameron Grant’s Haimon begins with a glowing warmth that makes his confrontation with Creon all the more devastating, his heartbreak equally about the loss of Antigone and of the father he thought he knew. Ismene (played by Kate Besworth) undergoes a similar transformation, her playful affection giving way to a grief she once insisted she’d live to refuse. 

Most surprising is Paul Moniz de Sá’s Creon. Rather than a simple tyrant, he carries himself with a world-weary certainty, repeatedly insisting, “I am strong. I am powerful,” the line shading from rueful self-awareness to desperate delusion. If Antigone cannot imagine a life outside tragedy, Creon seems equally imprisoned by the narrative of authority he has written for himself. In a moment of recognition he tells her, “Die if you want to,” exasperated. “I’ll release you to your narrative.” 

That same economy of expression shapes the production’s visual language. Jessica Oostergo’s set strips Antigone down to its elements, much as Besworth strips it down to its relationships. The production’s most effective piece of design is a single length of cloth that keeps coming back in new forms. It conceals history, buries the dead, becomes a gesture of care, an instrument of death, and, finally, the symbol for the production’s potent last transformation. John Webber’s warm, amber light creates clean and striking tableaux on a stage that seems suspended on a landscape of memory and myth, or a world that never quite settles into a time or place. 

Not every part of the adaptation lands with the same confident simplicity. Besworth’s contemporary dialogue can be revelatory when it exposes the emotional lives of these characters, but some moments of broader humour and conspicuously modern speech interrupt the emotional gravity the production spends so much time cultivating. In the refreshing ingenuity of bringing these mythic figures closer to us, it occasionally makes them feel smaller. 

Besworth’s ending returns to and builds expansiveness, though. For more than two thousand years, Antigone has asked audiences to wrestle with the meaning of one young woman’s sacrifice. But Antigone has always known why to die. Here, the final image belongs not to the martyr, but to those left to decide how to continue living in her wake. The harder question belongs to whatever and whoever tragedy leaves behind.

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Aysanabee performs on the Main Stage of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival at Jericho Beach Park on July 17, and on the fest’s South Stage on July 18

YOU CAN TAKE the boy out of journalism, but you can’t take the journalism out of the boy.

When Stir connects with Toronto-based singer-songwriter Aysanabee, he happens to be on vacation in Oakland, California. Back when he was still known as Evan Pang, the musician worked as a video and digital content creator and editor at Huffington Post Canada and CTV. He still has a reporter’s instincts, as evidenced by the fact that he starts his Stir interview with an impromptu review of the Rosalía concert at the Oakland Arena the night before.

“It was just absolutely mind-blowing. Such a wild production and performer,” he says of the show put on by the genre-bending Spanish singer whose music often blurs the boundaries between art-pop, classical, and Latin music. Highlights included a surprise guest appearance by Chappell Roan and the accompaniment of a full orchestra.

“I’m pretty sure she brings the same conductor, but I think a lot of the players will be local to the philharmonics of the city,” Aysanabee says. “It’s a big production, and it’s always kind of cool to see what’s possible when you have money.”

He says this last part with a hearty laugh. Aysanabee might not have Rosalía’s deep pockets, but in Canadian indie terms, he’s not doing badly at all. A member of the Oji-Cree Sandy Lake First Nation who grew up in Northwestern Ontario, Aysanabee released his first album, Watin, to widespread acclaim in 2022. Featuring songs inspired by the artist’s grandfather and his memories of working traplines and being sent to a residential school, Watin was hailed for its incisive lyrics and widescreen rock sound. 

The record earned Aysanabee his first Juno Award nomination and made the shortlist for the 2023 Polaris Prize. An EP, Here and Now, followed in 2024, for which Aysanabee picked up Junos for alternative album of the year and songwriter of the year. Aysanabee’s most recent full-length, Edge of the Earth, netted still more Junos (for alternative album again, and also contemporary Indigenous artist of the year) and the Canadian Folk Music Award for Indigenous songwriter of the year.

While none of that has yet translated into the kind of touring budget that Rosalía has, it does allow Aysanabee to work with a pretty kick-ass band. He’ll be bringing that ensemble with him when he performs at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, and local fans should consider themselves lucky for that.

“This is the only full-band show that I’m bringing this year,” Aysanabee says. “And I’m super excited, because the players I play with are friends of mine, but they’re all really, really talented. They’re all school-of-music alumni, which is always so fun for me. I’m self-taught, so I’m a bit of a caveman sometimes, I feel like, when I’m trying to explain parts of the songs. I don’t know the lingo.”

In addition to Aysanabee himself on lead vocals and guitar, the band features backing vocalist Kyla Charter, keyboardist-singer Konstantine Aivaliotis, guitarist Adam Hanney, and drummer Miles Gibbons.

“They’re just incredible session musicians,” Aysanabee says. “They play with a lot of people. They’ve all done arena tours and are world-class musicians, so I’m really excited to play with them, and we’ve kind of rebuilt different parts of the songs too, just to kind of showcase their skill level. I love watching musicians get to do what they do, you know?”

For his remaining festival dates this summer, Aysanabee will be flying solo. Don’t expect to see him onstage much after that; he’s got an album to write and record, and he has no intention of rushing the process.

“In 2023, when I won those first two Junos, there was this immense pressure I put on myself to put something out immediately and kind of keep the momentum going,” he admits. “But this year it’s like, I’m no longer ‘emerging’ anymore. I feel like I’m a medium-level emerged artist. I just really want to take my time and put the work into a record I’m super proud of.”

One might argue that he ought to feel that way about everything he’s released to date, including this year’s Timelines, an EP featuring acoustic versions of some of his best-known songs, including the hit single “Nomads”. He’s certainly making a deep impression on listeners; Aysanabee recalls one young fan who waited in line to meet him after a show in St. Catharines, Ontario.

“He was a little timid, a little shy,” the singer says. “He eventually came up and it took him a few seconds; he was trying to word himself the way he wanted to. He’s like, ‘I bought this new record of yours and I’m excited to listen to the vinyl version of it. I just wanted to say thank you for what you do, and seeing what you do has made me comfortable in my own skin.’ It was this young Indigenous man. And I was just like, ‘Wow.’ It’s a special kind of perspective you get, for sure. The song that I wrote in my tiny Toronto apartment with no idea how it might enter the world and impact a person—whether it’s being someone’s soundtrack while they’re going for a walk or driving, to this young gentleman who has found comfort in his own skin. It’s a beautiful and privileged thing that I got to hear.”

As a highly visible First Nations artist who has made major inroads into the mainstream music industry, Aysanabee acknowledges that he is a role model for Indigenous youth. It’s not a responsibility he takes lightly.

“I definitely think about that in the work that I do—you know, the way I present myself in different spaces. That definitely floats to the top of mind. I kind of carry that pretty high in my thoughts, of maybe inspiring people to take up music or to see what’s possible; to see themselves in these spaces. It’s wild, because growing up, I never would have thought that I would be considered a role model, so it’s really something I cherish and appreciate.”

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Surrey Art Gallery and Indian Summer Festival present If Gardens Could Dream to August 30; Keerat Kaur joins ISF’s Tiffin Talk series on July 12 at noon; and Keerat Kaur: Symbol Harvesting is on view at UrbanScreen until September 28

MULTIDISCIPLINARY CANADIAN artist Keerat Kaur is creating a season of gathering with her latest exhibition, If Gardens Could Dream, opening as part of Surrey Art Gallery’s summer programming,

Kaur’s latest offering is a testament to her expansive practice, showcasing painting, sculpture, digital media, embroidery, poetry, and architectural forms to examine generational ties within the South Asian diaspora. Her visual language is keenly felt in paintings such as Cor Granati, which highlights the recurring visual symbols embedded in her work: the pomegranate and the anatomical heart. Much like the transformed gallery space, the human and natural world become synonymous in Kaur's body of work in ways that are both culturally specific and universal in theme. Co-creating within the gallery space has presented unique opportunities to engage with Surrey’s diverse community.  

“One thing the gallery does very well is activating exhibitions in different ways, using artist talks, language tours, vocal performances, and workshops,” says Kaur in conversation with Stir. “We’ve been constantly thinking about community, about ways to make exhibitions non-static and in movement.”

Mounted in collaboration with associate curator Suvi Bains, If Gardens Could Dream reimagines the gallery space, as Bains writes, as “a living archive of memory, language, and belonging”. Their first formal collaboration came when Bains curated Kaur’s 2023 exhibition Panjabi Garden, which was inspired by the artist’s language-learning book of the same name. Bains recalls the artist talk overflowing with visitors, some of whom travelled from as far away as Seattle to see Kaur’s performance. Since then, parts of the exhibition have joined Surrey Art Gallery’s permanent collection. Expanding and following up on Panjabi Garden with If Gardens Could Dream has been a natural reflection of the gallery’s mission to honour its own multicultural community. 

“Part of my practice is translation work, and that’s a huge part of our accessibility practice here, is privileging other languages,” Bains explains. “Keerat has such a gorgeous practice around sign-setting, so working with an artist that also can translate their own works is pretty extraordinary.”

Surrey hosts one of the largest and most vibrant Punjabi-speaking communities in the diaspora, and the city’s South Asian population continues to grow every year. For Bains, facilitating a space that can hold the diverse experiences of the diaspora, across multiple languages, offers an alternative to the current climate of division.

“If Gardens Could Dream is talking about how these languages continue to be spoken at home,” says Bains. “I care deeply about my community, and I’m also attached to this feeling of bringing people in. If there’s a space where people feel at home and can see their communities being represented, I think it’s such a huge responsibility to institutions.”

Growing up in London, Ontario, Kaur was introduced to different cultures alongside her Punjabi Sikh identity, and these formative experiences have influenced her approach to artmaking. She holds a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Toronto and is trained in Indian classical vocal traditions, as well as in traditional Pahari painting. She speaks Panjabi, French, and Hindi, and is currently studying the Shahmukhi script and the Braj language. Her writing and her artistic vision for language engagement have been a constant in her work. This has translated into two self-published illustrated storybooks for all ages, Panjabi Garden and The Horse Who Fell From the Sky, with the latter set to be creatively featured in the upcoming exhibition. There is little friction between honouring her background alongside the Punjabi community in Surrey and universal themes that resonate with a diverse audience. This is perhaps best exemplified through the banyan tree installation debuting in If Gardens Could Dream, which will include beaded works by participants in a beading workshop Kaur facilitated as part of the exhibition. 

“The very foundation of that, conceptually, is a gathering space of all different kinds of people,” Kaur explains. “It’s a large-scale work and it’s also collaborative. They contributed to creating the tree trunk structure, which is so poignant, because it’s the structural element of the tree. There’s a lot of nice poetic links back to community.”

While If Gardens Could Dream will be on view until August 30, visitors should take note of the exhibition’s additional programming planned throughout July to find more unique offerings. On July 11, Kaur and Bains will lead an evening of music, poetry, and art, and announce the winners of the annual local artist exhibition ARTS 2026. On July 18, visitors can attend the Family Art Party and enjoy an interactive story time and reading by Kaur. Finally, Kaur will lead a tour of the exhibition in Punjabi on July 30 and speak on her relationship to the Punjabi language and Gurmukhi script embedded in her work.

In honour of community, Surrey Art Gallery is collaborating with Indian Summer Festival, where If Gardens Could Dream is highlighted as one of its artistic offerings. Kaur will also join the festival’s popular Tiffin Talk series on July 12, alongside artist Manjot Kaur, for a conversation on their relationships with the natural world.

Kaur’s collaboration with Surrey Art Gallery will continue July 26 with Keerat Kaur: Symbol Harvesting, a stop-motion animation feature on view until September 28 at UrbanScreen, Surrey Art Gallery’s award-winning outdoor art venue. This work references Kaur’s painting Symbol Harvester, which depicts a blue-hued figure surrounded by vegetation and vines growing out of the character’s hands. In another display of her multidisciplinary practice, the three-foot-wide acrylic painting is transformed with hand embroidery and beading to explore farming and harvesting as practices of care and gathering.

Despite a jam-packed summer ahead of them, Kaur and Bains hope to find moments to enjoy the fruits of their labour alongside their community.

“I love sitting in this kind of offering of collaboration, [where] there’s meals shared, songs being sung, that there’s prayers out to the world and a way to uplift our voices in ways that have been marginalized,” says Bains. “That’s the kind of summer I’m wanting.”

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Theatre Under the Stars presents Sister Act at Malkin Bowl until August 21

IF YOU HEAR something divine coming from Stanley Park this summer, it’s likely Theatre Under the Stars’s Sister Act.

Inspired by the beloved film, TUTS’s production of the Broadway musical, directed by Peter Jorgensen, is led by the phenomenal Kat Reynolds and a fierce company that commits wholeheartedly to every note, dance step, and comedic beat. Yet beneath the show's sparkle lies a beautiful message about friendship, belonging, and the transformative power of community, making Sister Act truly moving.

Featuring music by Disney legend Alan Menken (whose The Little Mermaid is TUTS’s other offering this season), lyrics by Glenn Slater, and a book by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner, the stage adaptation is a loose retelling of the film. While the movie unfolds in Reno and San Francisco in the early 1990s, the musical relocates the action to Philadelphia in 1978, and set designer Ryan Cormack’s vivid cityscape backdrop firmly establishes this. Here, we see aspiring singer Deloris Van Cartier (Reynolds) witness a murder committed by her sleazy boyfriend, Curtis Jackson (an appropriately narcissistic David Johnston).

Police officer Eddie Souther (a likeable Andrew J. Hampton) determines that the safest place to hide Deloris until she can testify is the Queen of Angels convent. There, the stern Mother Superior (an emotionally nuanced Angela Donahue) insists that Deloris pass herself off as a nun, under the name of Sister Mary Clarence. Unsurprisingly, Deloris struggles to adapt to convent life, but she soon discovers a shared passion with the sisters: music. When she joins the convent’s painfully off-key choir, an opportunity emerges for both Deloris and the nuns to transform one another’s lives.

Overall, Sister Act is a joyful and entertaining production driven by the bond between Deloris and the sisters, and their fabulous choir numbers. Still, the musical takes some time to find its footing, with the rhythm lagging a bit in the first few scenes. The opening scene lacks clarity; it’s difficult to determine whether Deloris and her backup singers are performing for nightclub patrons or auditioning privately for Curtis. Jorgensen’s decision to conceal Curtis behind a stack of Christmas gifts for a dramatic reveal also feels unnecessary. 

Similarly, while the film makes Deloris’s career frustrations clear early on by showing a disengaged lounge audience, Curtis’s crew of thugs here actually appear entertained, even dancing along. As a result, Deloris’s frustrations feel less defined.

Everything kicks into gear when we meet the sisters of the Queen of Angels convent. With the introduction of Amanda Lourenço’s cheeky and exuberant Sister Mary Patrick, the production bursts into life. Alongside Lourenço, we also meet the shy, young postulant Sister Mary Robert (Alyson Vance, delivering a star turn), the delightfully sardonic Sister Mary Lazarus (a hilarious Suzanne Jabour), and an ensemble of endearing sisters. When Deloris joins the choir, the musical takes flight with the exhilarating “Raise Your Voice”.

From that point on, Sister Act becomes an irresistible showcase of sensational vocals, energetic choreography, glittery costumes, and heartfelt storytelling. Menken’s score fuses disco, Motown-inspired soul, and gospel into a buoyant musical landscape that entertains while propelling the characters’ emotional journeys.

Reynolds anchors the production with a commanding performance. Blessed with tremendous vocal power and remarkable musicality, she invests every line with purpose and emotional specificity. Even while performing for a large crowd, Reynolds possesses the ability to make some moments feel intimate. The title number is particularly affecting, revealing a significant character turn. Most importantly, her Deloris feels authentically human, with flaws. We don’t simply watch her transformation—we experience it alongside her.

An exciting show highlight is Vance’s sensational triple-threat performance. Through skilled acting, singing, and dance, Vance captivates as the quiet Sister Mary Robert, whose trepid exterior hides complex emotions, finally revealed in “The Life I Never Led”. Arguably, Vance portrays the largest character transformation, and much of this is supported by her powerhouse vocals. 

Jorgensen’s staging makes inventive use of Cormack’s movable church pillars, which continuously reconfigure to take us to different locations and facilitate chase sequences. Costume designer Christine Reimer supplies a parade of eye-catching looks, from Deloris’s orange sequined dress at the beginning of the show to more sequined costumes that add extra glitz to the production numbers.

Appropriately, music lies at the heart of the show. Under the masterful direction of Sean Bayntun, whose orchestra is cheekily billed as “Sean Bayntun and the Bad Habits”, the musicians and cast infuse every number with joy and heart. Sister Act is a feel-good musical that fits terrifically as an outdoor summer show. Like Deloris’s choir, once the show finds its rhythm, it soars high. 

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The Eastside Arts Festival runs July 17 to 26 at various locations

FORGET STANDING QUIETLY in a gallery. Instead, the Eastside Arts Festival invites visitors into the places where the neighbourhood’s creative community comes together.

Returning for its sixth year from July 17 to 26, the festival expands across the Eastside Arts District with artist-led workshops, neighbourhood walks, performances, and public events that offer a chance to experience how art is made, not just how it looks. 

“The festival was really introduced because there’s a strong appetite in the community to meet the artists, see the art at the [Eastside Culture] Crawl, to learn how it’s all made and be a part of it,” says Sierra MacTavish, programs and development manager at the Eastside Arts Society.

That chance to peek behind the curtain has shaped the festival’s continued growth. The expanded walking tours give artists the chance to show visitors their East Vancouver. Artist-led explorations range from street photography and public art to Soundwalk, an active listening experience that encourages participants to experience familiar streets through sound rather than sight. Instead of pointing out landmarks, the festival allows artists to guide everyone through their own creative playground, sharing the places that inspire, challenge, and shape their work.

Watching artists at work is one thing; the festival’s workshops invite people to pull up a chair beside them. Visitors can try everything from glass fusing and indigo dyeing to plein air drawing, learning directly from the artists who practise those techniques every day. The workshops are selected through an open call, with organizers looking for experiences participants may not otherwise encounter. After all, it’s not every day a handful of coloured glass becomes a beautiful art piece to take home.

“People are always, especially now, looking for new ways to work with their hands, get out of the house, meet new people, be creative,” MacTavish says. “I think this is a good opportunity to do so in a really welcoming and accessible environment.”

Part of the immersive experience is that it all unfolds inside breweries, artist studios, and community spaces that already form the neighbourhood’s creative ecosystem. From Terminal City Glass Co-op to Parker Street Studios, the venues themselves become part of the experience, while interactive events such as The Whitty Wily Poetry Connection invite audiences to collaborate with artist Claire Davis in creating spontaneous poems on a typewriter.

If the workshops and walking tours offer a glimpse into the creative process, the festival’s free gathering at MacLean Park on July 25 becomes a celebration of the community around it. Live music, public art, and an open-air art market bring the neighbourhood together, while partnerships with local organizations and venues help keep the festival rooted in the East Vancouver community. Looking back on last year’s event, MacTavish remembers it was the moments between performances that stayed with her.

“I saw high fives and hugs between people that were attending and the musicians,” she says. “It was just a moment where I really saw a community coming together and supporting one another.”

For MacTavish, opening studio doors also means thinking about whether those studios will still exist in years to come. Beyond producing festivals, the Eastside Arts Society works to protect, preserve, and expand East Vancouver’s arts and cultural spaces so artists can continue creating and working in the community. 

“We’ve had a lot of loss of space in this part of the city, so I would love to see, instead of a loss, the growth of all the different work being done in the space,” she says.

Protecting those creative spaces isn’t only about preserving buildings. It’s about making sure people continue to discover them. You might leave the Eastside Arts Festival with a hand-printed tote bag or a new appreciation for a neighbourhood you thought you already knew, but the festival’s greatest gift may be a glimpse of where East Vancouver’s creative life begins.  

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Indian Summer Festival and Boca del Lupo present Why We Work Out at the Fishbowl from July 15 to 18

ANITA MAJUMDAR’S IDENTITY as a South Asian Canadian has always been tied up in the way she moves. Like many Bengali people, she and her family are devotees of Kali, the Hindu goddess of time, destruction, and death. Though often taking a violent role, Kali is also a maternal figure—one whose power comes directly from her body.

“Her place is about strength,” Majumdar tells Stir in a Zoom interview, “both internal strength, spiritual strength, but also physical strength."

Growing up as one of only a few Bengali people in the then small town of Port Moody, Majumdar took comfort in Kali’s strength and tried to bring it out in herself. Now she works as a playwright, actor, and dancer trained in the Indian classical tradition. Her latest show, Why We Work Out—set to open at the Fishbowl on Granville Island as part of Indian Summer Festival 2026—is an autobiographical narrative that explores Majumdar’s relationship with exercise and her body in parallel to the events that made her who she is.

“I really want to explore how it [exercise] changes as the body changes, as a woman’s body goes through various stages of life, through my own specific lens of being someone who is in her body because of her work.”

It’s that work—dancing, acting, performing onstage—that makes the physicality of Majumdar’s body such a strong current in her life. It’s possible to chart Majumdar’s life by the ebbs and flows of her training regimens, by the distinct aesthetics of the exercise videos she works out with. 

In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, that was the genesis of Why We Work Out—an autobiographical one-woman show that wove narrative into the contours of a workout. The pandemic put that on hold.

“COVID was such a blip in my overall story as a person who works out,” says Majumdar. She contracted the virus relatively early on, and it shook up her relationship with exercise. Majumdar still struggles with the lingering impacts of long COVID, and she’s had to adjust her training—along with the production schedule for Why We Work Out—accordingly.

“On top of not being able to meet in person and continue developing the show, my health also had a massive impact on how quickly we were able to figure out what the show was,” Majumdar says. About 80 per cent of Why We Work Out, as Majumdar originally envisioned it, saw her actively moving, and the constraints that COVID put on her lungs made that nearly impossible.

“Luckily, that has sort of evened out. I’ve been able to find a balance,” says Majumdar. “But it was really, really challenging, and to the betterment of the show, quite honestly.”

All the extra time COVID forced on the production of Why We Work Out gave Majumdar some breathing room to get used to the idea of playing herself. Majumdar was used to playing fictional characters, used to keeping a comfortable distance between herself and the performance. With autobiography, most of that distance is gone.

“It’s always easiest to just be able to say, ‘That’s not me. I’m playing a character,’” Majumdar says. “And here—yes, I’m playing a performed version of myself, but it’s still my name… In this position, I’m both judging myself on behalf of myself and also on behalf of the audience.”

That self-judgment isn’t new for Majumdar. It’s a feeling that anyone who exercises—from park walkers to ultramarathoners—is likely to recognize. It can be difficult, Majumdar says, to divorce the personal feeling of working out from normative judgments about what exercise should look like. With Why We Work Out, she hopes to deconstruct those tacit images and show that health doesn’t have a single look.

“A jumping jack looks different on each of us” she says, “because of our experience, because of our limitations, the obstacles we find to doing that movement. If there’s any place where I hope there’s a reckoning around judgment and working out, I hope it’s there.”

Considering the vulnerability that autobiography requires, Majumdar is glad to be working with long-time friend and collaborator Brian Quirt, the director of Why We Work Out. Majumdar and Quirt first collaborated on the premiere of Anosh Irani’s Bombay Black in 2006. 

“We really recognized that we spoke a similar artistic language,” Majumdar says. “It felt important to have someone where there was a base understanding of safety. I’m not quite sure how I could develop the show with anyone else, because of how challenging it has been.”

Majumdar hopes Why We Work Out resonates, but she’s hesitant to ascribe too much meaning to it. The show presents audiences with one version of what it means to work out—her version. Majumdar doesn’t want to be prescriptive, and she’s excited to hear how her experiences with exercise compare with those of her audience.

“For me, whatever you walk away with is the right thing. In this age of right answers and right bodies, [I want] to leave space for what you actually think without anyone else’s impression, without anyone else’s authority.”

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