The Rio Theatre and the National Film Board of Canada present the Canada Day Animation Jamboree on July 1 at 3:30 pm

TOGETHER WITH ALISON SNOWDEN, Vancouver’s David Fine has brought to life such weird and wonderful National Film Board animated classics as Animal Behaviour and Bob’s Birthday—the latter taking home an Oscar for its hilariously cringe-inducing story of a midlife crisis that hits during a surprise 40th celebration.

Now, for Canada Day, Fine has curated a bunch of his favourite NFB animated short films, many of them also Academy Award winners or nominees, and will introduce them at a special matinee screening at the Rio Theatre.

It’s a chance to see some of not just the country’s, but the world’s best animation on a big screen—and pay tribute to one of Canada’s most famous exports.

Prepare for a lot of laughs, including 2018’s group therapy sessions in “Animal Behaviour”, where a canine psychotherapist counsels such lost souls as a leech who suffers from separation anxiety and a bird with guilt issues.

Fine’s all-time favourite “The Big Snit” is also on the roster; Richard Condie’s darkly funny, 1985 mirroring of a married couple playing a increasingly heated game of Scrabble with the macrocosm of a sudden global nuclear war.

On the more poignant side of the program, Caroline Leaf’s 1976 watercolour-and-ink “The Street”, based on a story by Mordecai Richler, looks at how a Jewish family in Montreal grapples with the decline and impending death of their elderly grandmother.

There are many other shorts deserving of national pride on the program, offering an apt Canada Day celebration for movie fans—not to mention those looking to come in from the possible rain predicted for July 1. 

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Surrey Art Gallery presents If Gardens Could Dream, a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Keerat Kaur, from July 4 to August 30. A launch party takes place on July 11 from 6 pm to 9 pm as part of the Gallery’s summer exhibition opening.

If Gardens Could Dream considers how movement shapes cultural life. For Kaur, migration extends beyond the crossing of borders; it encompasses the circulation of stories, agricultural practices, South Asian traditions, and ways of understanding the world. Her work traces how these forms of knowledge travel across geographies, adapt to new conditions, and remain connected to ancestral lineages.

Working across painting, sculpture, digital media, embroidery, poetry, and architectural forms, Kaur examines how cultural knowledge is carried, transformed, and sustained across generations within the South Asian diaspora. Drawing from Sikh philosophies, Panjabi language traditions, and broader South Asian literary and visual histories, her work explores the connections between land, migration, language, and identity.

At the Seeds of Imagination Art Party on July 11, visitors can enjoy an enchanting evening of music, poetry, and art. Kaur joins associate curator Suvi Bains for a discussion and a live reading of her poetry. Attendees can make their own artworks inspired by Kaur’s love of the Gurmukhi language, view the juried ARTS 2026 exhibition, and listen for the announcement of the People’s Choice award. RSVP here to guarantee a seat at this free event.

There are more opportunities to interact with Kaur over the course of the exhibition. On July 18, families can drop into the gallery to make art inspired by If Gardens Could Dream, and Kaur will host an interactive story time and poetry reading in the studio theatre. At a Family Art Jam on August 8, artist-educators will lead children and their families through an intimate guided tour of Kaur’s exhibition followed by an artmaking activity (to register, call 604-501-5566, dial 0, or email gallerytours@surrey.ca). And on July 30, Kaur will lead an exhibition tour in Panjabi. Admission to all events is free.

Community partners for If Gardens Could Dream are DIVERSEcity Community Resources and Indian Summer Festival. Visit Surrey Art Gallery to learn more.

Post sponsored by Surrey Art Gallery.

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The Arts Club Theatre Company presents The Play That Goes Wrong at the Lindsay Family Stage at Granville Island to August 16

WHETHER IT’S A dropped line or a missing prop, when something goes wrong on stage, an actor must find a way to adapt and move on without letting the audience notice the mistake. If the actor does this well, no one is the wiser. After all, most of the time the audience isn’t going to know the script! How are they going to know something has gone wrong?

The show, as they say, must go on. And no one knows that better than the Cornley Drama Society in their attempts at staging—well, anything.

The Play That Goes Wrong follows this disaster-prone theatre troupe on opening night of their production of The Murder at Haversham Manor. Despite their absolute best efforts, the show runs into issue after issue after major issue. The set isn’t finished, actors fumble lines and butcher pronunciations, and literal fires break out.

It’s a chaotic mess—but for the Arts Club, crafting that perfect mess took an incredible amount of strategy. As director Josh Epstein told Stir recently, it takes precision to make mishaps look accidental, and it’s clear that the entire cast and creative team took this challenge seriously.

The production is hilarious, and while a lot of that can be chalked up to the original book by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields, credit must also be shared with Epstein and his team for their incredible attention to detail and commitment to the bit(s).

The ensemble cast features Praneet Akilla, Pedro M. Almeida-Siqueria, Scott Bellis, Zander Eke, Ben Elliott, Genevieve Fleming, Alexandra Lainfiesta, Andrew McNee, Argel Monte de Ramos, Kelli Ogmundson, and Marco Walker-Ng. All throw themselves into the chaos with over-the-top accents and eccentric characterizations.

Some of the “actors” in the Cornley Drama Society shamelessly cheese it up for the spotlight and applause—like Eke’s delightfully campy Max and Fleming’s spotlight-hogging Sandra—while others demand to be treated as serious, highbrow thespians, like Akilla’s high-strung Chris.

Together, they bring a genuine and desperate “show must go on” quality to the stage in a way that any fan of the Muppets could truly appreciate. They push through agonizingly delayed lighting and sound cues, stuck in frozen, dramatic tableaux while waiting for the tech booth to catch up. They confidently butcher the English language—proudly pronouncing debut, façade, and perpetrator as “day-boo”, “fack-ade”, and “purple-traitor”. And, as set pieces drop like flies around them, they plow ahead with their original stage directions as if nothing is amiss.

For all these stunts and gags to go perfectly wrong (read: right) every night, major kudos must go to the entire creative team. The execution requires what I can only imagine is a 1,000+ numbered cue track for the stage managers. Mike Kovac’s meticulous fight direction must be commended for its variety (for a show that’s 80% visual gags, this is impressive) and absurdity.

Ultimately, however, the real star of the show is Ryan Cormack’s stunning, crumbling set. Adorned with all the traditional trappings of a 1920s whodunnit—complete with old books, paintings, a chaise longue, and a set of swords ideal for an accusatory duel, should it come up—the set also features a tech booth perched upper stage right, peering over the chaos and ready to shout a line whenever an actor loses their place.

The most shocking visual gags of the production come from Cormack’s insane, deteriorating design. With a second act even more jam-packed with falls and malfunctions than the first, the production spirals into a brand of buffoonery that calls back to the classic stunt comedy of Monty Python and Leslie Nielsen—all wrapped in the cozy charm of a dusty old English murder mystery.

In a summer where Vancouver seems completely soccer-obsessed, it’s refreshing to know there’s a ragtag drama troupe rallying together to bring folks a truly great piece of theatre. Even if everything does end up going spectacularly wrong.

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AMONG GOVERNOR GENERAL Louise Arbour’s announcement today of 61 new appointments to the Order of Canada is Bard on the Beach founding artistic director Christopher Gaze.

The official appointment describes him as “a visionary arts leader whose career spans five decades of performance, education and advocacy. As founding artistic director of Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival, he built it into a major cultural force, championed youth outreach, and strengthened British Columbia’s arts community through mentorship, public engagement and dedication.”

Gaze received the Order of B.C. in 2012 and earlier this month was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire in His Majesty The King’s Birthday Honours List for services to British arts and culture in Canada.

Gaze has just released a new biography tracing his creation of the festival called The Road to Bard: A Legacy of Shakespeare on Canada’s West Coast. Bard on the Beach has grown since 1990 to have a budget of $10 million and welcome more than 100,000 visitors annually. It just opened its 2026 main-stage shows, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Macbeth.

Elsewhere in appointments from Canada’s arts, culture, and entertainment is Burnaby movie star and Parkinson’s advocate Michael J. Fox, who was promoted to a companion of the Order of Canada.

“Through his foundation, he drives transformative research and hope. He has inspired millions worldwide by channelling his voice into writing, public speaking, and the acclaimed 2023 documentary Still,” the appointment reads.

Other names include Stratford-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Loreena McKennitt and B.C. elder, matriarch and language educator Verna Williams, who has helped revitalize the Nisga’a language and traditional knowledge

The full list is here.

This year's Order of Canada nominees span scientists, social-justice advocates, entrepreneurs, and others. The appointments were made by Arbour's predecessor, Mary Simon, on the recommendation of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada. 

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Bard on the Beach presents Antigone at the Douglas Campbell Theatre in Vanier Park from June 30 to September 18

BARD ON THE BEACH is known for the works of William Shakespeare, and this year’s iteration features versions of his Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor on the main stage. On the smaller Douglas Campbell Theatre stage, meanwhile, two very different productions each tackle one of Sophocles’ Theban plays.

While the Goblins—Wug, Kragva, and Moog—apply their raucously comic touch to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, as adapted by John Murrell in Goblin:Oedipus, playwright Kate Besworth and director Ming Hudson take a more traditionally dramatic approach to the 5th century Greek tragedian’s Antigone.

In the play, Antigone—daughter of exiled Theban king Oedipus and his wife/mother Jocasta—finds herself at odds with her uncle Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, over the legacies of her brothers Eteocles and Polynices, who have died while fighting each other for the throne.

Besworth and Hudson’s adaptation uses modern prose to highlight the timeless themes of grief and moral courage for a contemporary audience.

“The story of Antigone is ancient, and this production explores the tension between fate and personal agency, asking what individuals owe to family, conscience, and community in moments of crisis,” says director Hudson. “This is a family linked together by an inescapable history and an unavoidable future. This story has survived millennia and spread across continents. And after thousands of years and thousands of kilometres, it continues to be relevant and resonant because although so much has changed, so much has remained the same.”

Yoshie Bancroft stars as Antigone, with Besworth taking on the role of her sister, Ismene. Cameron Grant has dual roles as Haimon and Polynices, with Jennifer Lines as Jocasta and Paul Moniz de Sá as Creon.

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Uncle Strut performs at the Khatsahlano Street Party’s Burrard Stage on July 11 at 8 pm

THERE’S SOMETHING TO be said about a band with a distinctive image. Think of the Beatles in their marching-band uniforms circa Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or the guys in Devo with their matching jumpsuits and red “energy dome” hats.

Uncle Strut hasn’t gone to quite those lengths, but as Jasper Matthias learned, there are certain elements that go into the band’s look. Matthias—also known as “Raspy Shreds”—now plays lead guitar in Uncle Strut, but he started out as a fan.

“Before I joined the band, I saw these guys play at the Hollywood Theatre,” he tells Stir during a slightly chaotic five-way Zoom call alongside his bandmates. “I was in line to get in, and the security guard comes out with a bunch of fake moustaches. And I was like, ‘Uh, what the hell is this? What are you giving me a fake moustache for?’ And I didn’t put it on at first, but as soon as I walked in, I just looked up, and there were, like, 150 people all wearing these fake moustaches. And it was all for the Uncle Strut Show, so then I was like, ‘Okay, this is a thing.’”

The lip warmers on the stage, mind you, were all genuine, as were the flowing locks of hair, which meant that when Matthias got tapped to join the group—he replaced original guitarist Will Horning—he was compelled to make some alterations to his personal style.

“When he joined the band, he sort of had short hair and no facial hair,” drummer Quincy Flowers recalls. “We sort of jokingly said, ‘Uh, you know, if you're gonna be in this band, you gotta at least try to grow a moustache.’ And Raspy, you were pretty sure you couldn't grow one, right?”

“I have never grown a moustache in my life until I joined Uncle Strut, and then I got the power,” Matthias says. “And the music came to me and it flowed through my hair follicles and it said, ‘You will now grow a moustache.’ And my girlfriend was a little bit questioning it for a couple weeks, but she said, ‘I'll give you two weeks and we’ll see what happens.’ And here I am. So…”

Soup strainer solidly in place, Matthias took his place in the Uncle Strut lineup alongside Flowers, bassist Simon Tejani (who also happens to be Flowers’s brother), and singer-guitarist Tyson McNamara.

The four-piece has built a reputation as an act to watch thanks in large part to its high-energy live sets, and solidified that stature with the release last spring of its debut album, Home At Last. The core of the Uncle Strut sound is indie rock infused with back-to-the-beach elements. This is perhaps best exemplified by “Love”, which rolls along on a bass-driven surf groove before hitting a rip-curl chorus with thundering drums. 

Elsewhere, though, other elements drop into the mix. “Exit Sign” injects a bit of country twang into the proceedings, for example, while “Scarlett” takes a hard left turn towards California funk. The band’s brand-new single, “Bitter Ends”, released on June 23, is a sun-splashed rocker with a Latin accent thanks to its reggaeton-esque rhythm—and the trumpet doesn’t hurt, either.

Tejani says that the key to spicing the group’s signature sound up with disparate elements is that nothing should ever feel forced. “It almost always comes naturally,” he says. “One thing that I think is really special about our project is that there’s really no ego when it comes to bringing a song in. Once you bring it into the band, it kind of just becomes what it is. And if you hold onto it too tight, it often loses the thing that makes it cool in the first place. And so with something like ‘Scarlett’ or the song that we just released, which is ‘Bitter Ends’, both of those started very far away from where they ended up. If you’re open to the collaborative process and you can just let something kind of become what it should be, you can often get this vastly different song from what you originally wrote it as. That’s the coolest thing about working in a band. We all have different tastes, and it only serves the music more when you’re open to just letting everyone use their influences to bring a song to life.”

Adds McNamara, “I think it’s interesting because we have four different songwriters, so everyone kind of writes a little bit differently, and then once it’s presented to the band, everyone kind of gets to sprinkle their magic dust on it, and that’s how it becomes an Uncle Strut song.”

Matthias’s particular brand of magic dust is his facility with guitar solos. He may not be a highly technical shredder in the heavy-metal sense, but his fluid and melodic leads always serve the song tastefully. There was a time, of course, when guitar solos were decidedly unfashionable, but a certain other local band renowned for its six-string pyrotechnics helped move the needle just a touch.

“Yeah, I guess Peach Pit made it okay to do lots of guitar solos in indie-rock music,” Matthias says. “I’ve always just been a huge classic rock fan, obviously, a big fan of the greats, and I just love a good guitar solo. So, when I joined the band, these guys were into it, and with the style of music we're making, it was just fun to do so.”

“Also,” Flowers admits, “none of us are very good at writing bridges, so guitar solos fit in nicely.”

“We want to make them cool again,” says Matthias. Stranger things have happened, and Uncle Strut is already well on its way to rehabilitating moustaches and long hair in the indie scene, so why not?  

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West Vancouver Art Museum presents West Coast Modern Week from July 7 to 12 at various locations

WEST COAST MODERN WEEK is back to celebrate the prized local architectural style that has gone increasingly global—a design born out of our breathtaking coastal setting in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s that prioritizes indoor-outdoor living and organic materials like cedar and glass.

Over seven days, design fans can indulge in talks, tours, parties, and the hugely popular Home Tour—a journey through local, architecturally significant houses. 

Below, just five ways to learn more about the iconic midcentury movement, from a trip through some of West Van’s remarkable modernist civic structures to a film about an often overlooked icon of modern design.

Municipal Modern walking tours

July 7, 9, and 12

Gain a new appreciation for the modernist civic architecture of Ambleside in this walking tour that illuminates the way West Vancouver embraced expressive concrete and clean lines.  

Led by guides from North Shore Heritage and the West Vancouver Art Museum, the tour includes interior access to iconic municipal buildings. The West Vancouver Municipal Hall was built in 1964, designed by Toby, Russell & Buckwell with broad overhangs, sheltered walkways, and pavilion‑like massing. Firehall No. 1, next door at Fulton Avenue and 16th Street, was designed by the same firm in 1967, incorporating similar styles and materials, complete with engine bays in a separate canopied roof, and a rectangular block that houses other functions.

The tour also includes a look at surrounding apartment blocks, all of it displaying how architects adapted international modernist ideas to a West Coast setting and envisioned a bold new form of densified, urban living for upper Ambleside.

Screening of E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea

July 9, 7 pm, at Kay Meek Arts Centre

Early 20th-century Irish interior designer and architect Eileen Gray long struggled for recognition in a male-dominated field. She, and the modernist 1929 villa she built on the Côte d’Azur, E.1027, finally get their due in this unique docu-fictional film. The movie tracks the designing and building of the retreat with lover and Romanian architectural journalist Jean Badovici, and the way it fell into the hands of legendary French architect Le Corbusier, who altered the structure to his own tastes—most insultingly, he even painted frescoes over her clean white walls. Directors Beatrice Minger and Christoph Schaub employ a unique mix of archival footage and fictionalized re-enactments. The film artfully details the brilliant creative power of one woman, and a man’s desire to control her creations and overshadow her legacy.

Wanda Dalla Costa: A Living Repository: Architecture, Culture, and the Expansion of Modernism 

July 10, 7 pm to 9 pm, at The Polygon Gallery

In this talk that draws on Wanda Dalla Costa’s Indigenous Placekeeping Framework, the architect and member of Saddle Lake Cree Nation explores how design can carry living knowledge systems and cultural practice within the built environment. Dalla Costa, who leads Indigenous design and research at TAWAW’s offices in Phoenix and Calgary and who positions her work at the intersection of contemporary design, Indigenous knowledge, and emerging technologies, will apply her new lens to modernism in the talk.

20th Annual West Coast Modern Home Tour 

July 11, 12 pm to 4 pm, starting from West Vancouver Municipal Hall

This tour always sells out—and may have sold out by the time you read this—but even by its own standards, this is a trip into West Coast Modern heaven. The big draw is a look inside B.C. Binning House, designed by B.C. Binning with consulting architects C.E. Ned Pratt and R.A.D. Berwick in 1941. Considered western Canada’s first truly modern residence, it makes the most of a modest, 1,600-square-foot structure where glass doors flow out the high-ceilinged living room to the sunlit patio outside. Inside, semi-transparent glass windows allow for openness, privacy, and abundant light within the home, allowing for natural light to permeate the home but without encroaching on the space within. The garden greenscape, designed by Vancouver landscaper Cornelia Oberlander, boasts a view of Point Grey. And inside, you’ll see Binning’s own artistic touches throughout.

Elsewhere on the tour are midcentury marvels like Fells House, designed by the legendary Ron Thom, of Thompson, Berwick & Pratt, in 1959; Rockview House, designed by ABC Architecture Building Culture in 2024; Fuldauer House, designed by Erickson-Massey Architects in 1966; and Stephanie Edwards Residence, designed by Bob Lewis in 1967.

West Coast Modern Week Concert: Josh Roberts

July 12, 2 pm, at West Vancouver Memorial Library

For the week’s intimate Sunday afternoon concert, Vancouver-based jazz guitarist Josh Roberts, who specializes in styles from the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, drawing inspiration from early electric jazz guitarists like Charlie Christian and George Barnes. He’s performed at festivals across North America and Europe. In this show, he and his ensemble interpret an array of swing and jazz music.  

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Vancouver Visual Art Foundation, in partnership with Downtown Van and Opus Art Supplies, presents Art Downtown at Lot 19 (855 West Hastings Street) on July 2, 9, 16, and 23 from 11 am to 5 pm

ART, MUSIC, AND the occasional paint splatter. For five Thursdays this summer, a quiet corner of downtown Vancouver will be filled with artists, musicians, and curious art lovers. Art Downtown returns with live painting, workshops, and plenty of opportunities to see creativity in action.

Now in its seventh year, the free event transforms Lot 19 on Hastings Street into an open-air gallery where visitors can wander between booths, watch pieces take shape in real time, and talk with the people behind them. Presented by the Vancouver Visual Art Foundation in partnership with Downtown Van and Opus Art Supplies, the series runs from 11 am to 5 pm on June 18, July 2, 9, 16, and 23.

Part of the fun is the variety. One booth might feature the bright, cartoon-inspired illustrations of Dali Halabi, another showcases the landscapes of Peggie Collins or the mixed-media work of Sascha Westendorp. Visitors can also discover the colourful creations of Tessa Haywood alongside pieces by Lynn Li, Sky Lilah, Catherine Sutherland, and Dehai Wang. The result is less a traditional gallery experience and more a snapshot of the many different creative practices thriving across the city.

Beyond browsing finished pieces, visitors can watch artists at work throughout the day, offering a behind-the-scenes look at how ideas move from sketchbook to canvas. Live music and art demonstrations add to the atmosphere, while workshops invite everyone to get their hands dirty. Or at least smudged with paint.

Those stopping by on July 23 can catch Art Masters, a live art competition that is equal parts creative showcase and high-pressure reality show. Artists are given a surprise theme and materials just one minute before the competition begins, then have to create an original work on the spot while audiences watch and vote for their favourites.

Part exhibition, part working studio, and part summer hangout, Art Downtown creates space for artists and audiences to connect beyond the usual gallery setting.  

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Belle Spirale Dance Projects is hosting the 11th edition of The Dance Deck, its outdoor summer series, on July 18, 19, 25, and 26. In this Eastside Arts Festival co-presentation, acclaimed artists share high-calibre works at a grassroots level.

Program highlights include a rare chance to see virtuosic Ballet BC dancer Jacalyn Tatro perform a new piece in an intimate setting. Next is a creation by Belle Spirale artist Will Jessup, presented as a solo for fellow company artist Sophia Makarenko.

Connor McLeary and Devon McLean are dancing a duet created by McLeary. Vidya Kotamraju is presenting a Bharatanatyam work. Finally, Kari Turunen is conducting four singers from the Vancouver Chamber Choir.

Belle Spirale directors Alexis Fletcher and Sylvain Senez host The Dance Deck in the backyard of their Vancouver home. Performances are from 4 pm to 6 pm, with a by-donation bar and post-show dinner.

Tickets are available by donation. Learn more here.

Post sponsored by Belle Spirale Dance Projects.

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CANADA IS ABOUT to celebrate its 159th birthday, and Metro Vancouver has no shortage of ways to join in. From waterfront concerts and Indigenous performances to multicultural dance and community festivals, July 1 offers plenty of opportunities to get out and celebrate.

Canada Together

At Canada Place from 11 am to 6 pm

Live music, Indigenous storytelling, local artisans, and a little Expo 86 nostalgia come together at Canada Place’s annual celebration, now in its 40th year.

Under the theme “Weaving together the fabric of a nation”, the event highlights the many cultures and communities that shape Canada today. Live music takes over the main stage throughout the day, with local artists including Rebecca Sichon, Serengeti, and the Matinee performing before indie-folk favourites The Strumbellas close out the evening.

The Indigenous Marketplace features artists and artisans from the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, while storytelling sessions and family programming run throughout the day. An Expo 86 exhibit celebrating Canada Place’s 40th birthday adds a nostalgic touch to the festivities.

Surrey Canada Day

At Bill Reid Millennium Amphitheatre from 10 am to 10:30 pm

One of the region’s largest celebrations, Surrey Canada Day returns to Bill Reid Millennium Amphitheatre with a day-long program that spans multiple stages and genres.

Country star Josh Ross headlines the evening concert, joined by Canadian rock icon Lee Aaron and pop artist Tyler Shaw. The main stage also features performances by Dhol Nation Drummers, Empanadas Ilegales, Antonio Larosa, Berk Jodoin, and Brass Camel, along with cultural presentations from the Semiahmoo First Nation and Kwantlen First Nation.

Beyond the headline acts, much of the day’s programming highlights community performance traditions. The Siam Stage opens with an Indigenous welcome from the Semiahmoo First Nation and Kwel Eng Sen Dancers and the KPU Community Stage shows everything from Métis jigging and Polynesian dance to capoeira, Scottish music, line dancing, and dance battles. The entire day wraps up with a fireworks finale at 10:15 pm.

Canada Day Drumming

At Lansdowne Centre at 10:30 am

Ten years ago, Canada Day Drumming started as a small local event. This year, more than 40 communities across the country are taking part in the celebration, creating a nationwide moment of simultaneous drumming.

The Richmond flagship event begins with an Indigenous welcome and drumming ceremony before moving into a program of multicultural performances, dragon and lion dances, martial arts demonstrations, and cultural presentations. More than 2,000 commemorative rattle drums will be handed out, encouraging people to join in rather than watch from the sidelines.

At 11:30 am, drummers across six Canadian time zones will join together for six minutes, creating a shared celebration that stretches from coast to coast.

Canada Day on Granville Island

Various times and locations across Granville Island

Colours, boats, water. Granville Island starts Canada Day early with one of Vancouver’s most unusual traditions: the annual False Creek Ferries water ballet. The vibrant fleet takes to the water in synchronized formations before the rest of the day's festivities get underway.

At noon, visitors can gather for the official Canada Day ceremony hosted by Khelsilem Tl’aḵwasiḵ̓an Sxwchálten and Zara Durrani before exploring programming spread across the island. 

Throughout the day, visitors can catch free Vancouver International Jazz Festival performances, browse live artisan demonstrations, and explore programming spread throughout the island. With its mix of music, public art, and waterfront life, Granville Island offers one of the city's most distinctly Vancouver Canada Day experiences.

Canada Day in Burnaby

Various times and locations across Burnaby 

Burnaby offers three different locations to choose from or make a whole schedule to hit all three. It all begins with daytime celebrations at Edmonds Plaza and Burnaby Village Museum before culminating in an evening festival at Central Park.

Later in the day, Burnaby Village Museum offers a multicultural entertainment program, which includes family performances, demonstrations, and opportunities to learn about the city’s diverse communities. Edmonds Plaza also hosts live entertainment and community activities designed to bring residents together throughout the afternoon.

The evening StreetFest on Central features a concert lineup that includes Jordel, Logan Staats, Alicia Creti, and Canadian electro-pop group Dragonette. Live music runs throughout the evening before a fireworks finale lights up Central Park at 10:15 pm.

Steveston Salmon Festival

Various times throughout Steveston Village 

A parade, multiple stages, roaming performers, and nearly eight decades of history: the Steveston Salmon Festival remains one of the Lower Mainland's most beloved Canada Day traditions.

The festivities begin with the always-popular parade at 10 am, featuring floats, community groups, and classic vehicles travelling from Garry Point Park through Steveston Village before ending at Railway Avenue. Kids even get the chance to cycle through the parade route and show off their decorated bikes to the crowds.

From then on the festival fills with music and performers. The lineup includes Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts, Vancouver Okinawa Taiko, Brazilian percussion group Bloco Energia, and roaming performers throughout the festival grounds. Tribute acts celebrating the Tragically Hip, the Beatles, and Tina Turner are also part of the event.

Canada Day in Port Coquitlam

At Castle Park from 1 pm to dusk; additional morning activities at various locations

Port Coquitlam’s Canada Day festivities begin early with a pancake breakfast hosted by the Lions Club and a fishing derby at Lions Park before the main celebration gets underway at Castle Park.

The afternoon and evening program features live music, market vendors, and a beverage garden. Performers include Daniel Wesley, Whiskey Blind, classic-rock veterans April Wine, and rising country artist Owen Riegling, who closes out the concert lineup before the fireworks finale at 10:15 pm.

Canada Day at the Shipyards

At the Shipyards from 11 am to 5 pm

The Rotary Club of Lions Gate’s Canada Day celebration returns to The Shipyards in North Vancouver with a full day of free music, art, and family-friendly activities.

The event features performances across two stages, including the JP Fell Pipe Band, folk group Tiller’s Folly, Melanie Dekker, T’Sha & Soundwave, Hayley Wallis, Molly & Taylor, and the youth musical theatre troupe ShowStoppers Vancouver. The lineup also includes performances by the Children of Takaya, while local artists, artisans, and community organizations will be on-site throughout the day.

Canada Day in West Vancouver

At John Lawson Park from 4 pm to 9 pm

West Vancouver’s Canada Day celebration takes place at John Lawson Park, combining live music with the waterfront views.

The afternoon begins with children’s activities and official remarks before a performance by the West Vancouver Youth Band. The evening concludes with a headlining set from Dr. Strangelove, while sweet treats and friendly games run throughout the event. 

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Bard on the Beach presents Macbeth on the BMO Mainstage to September 18

SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY recast as genre horror? It’s not such a stretch with Macbeth, full as it is with blood, murder, ghosts, and witches. And a bold new adaptation of “the Scottish Play” at Bard on the Beach pushes into that genre with the gusto of Sam Raimi shooting the dancing Deadite scene.

Set strikingly in a dystopian future, the play kicks off with a battle sequence right out of The Walking Dead, where Earth’s survivors use battered buzz saws, makeshift knives, axes, and anything else they can scavenge to defeat the Thane of Cawdor’s gang. Throughout the production, three hooded figures—not traditional witches but more like goblins straight out of a Clive Barker nightmare —skulk around, portending doom in mechanically altered baritones that boom out to the tent rafters. Elsewhere, Banquo’s skull-split ghost is zombie movie–ready, and blood spatters white clothing, drips down walls, and, in one scene, pours ominously out of a faucet. (Stanley Kubrick would approve.) 

Director Stephen Drover and his production design team have tried to make Macbeth as frightening as it might have been to Jacobean audiences—only using modern devices to create a visceral eeriness. Mary Jane Coomber’s bone-rumbling score and soundscape add considerably to the atmosphere, as does the metal music that accompanies the finale’s vicious fight scene. You have to marvel at the commitment across the board here.

In set designer Amir Ofek’s intense vision, an institutional-green-tiled, sterile underground compound serves as the Macbeths’ home on the lower half of the stage, while an upper walkway flanked by sparse grass suggests a burned planet. A screen even gives an eerie, apocalyptic-orangey glow to the open-back stage’s famous mountain skyline. In one of the most inspired touches, an intercom lets attendants and messengers reach their rulers.

Still, the larger question: does this dystopian setting of the well-known play actually fit with the world Shakespeare wrote about? Far from gimmicky, this deeply thought-out interpretation makes themes of power-mad tyrants, eco-doom, and larger existential fears really resonate in a world grappling with corrupt dictators, out-of-control wars, and diminishing resources.

In traditional interpretations, Macbeth can often be presented as weak, manipulated by Lady Macbeth. But here we can clearly see Munish Sharma’s protagonist growing more reckless and determined, ultimately pushing her concerns aside when he moves to kill Macduff’s wife and children, emboldened by rage and the blind momentum of fate.

Tess Degenstein’s Lady Macbeth starts out more skittish and anxious than the usual ruthless conniver. When we first meet her, reading her husband’s letter detailing the supernatural prophecies predicting his ascension to the throne, she repeatedly laughs—maniacally? Or nervously?—to herself. Throughout, she flinches and frets at every fumble and faux pas by Macbeth. In most interpretations, Lady Macbeth’s madness sets in strongly after intermission, but this take suggests an earlier onset of mental breakdown; the early speech where she alludes to the trauma of losing a baby takes on added significance.

One of the show’s highlights is a wordless scene, where the spotlit couple briefly connects, murders accomplished, placing spiky white crowns on their heads, and circling, looking at one another, on the stage’s central turntable. It is a moment of solidified power before everything falls apart. 

In the second act, both the leads really hit their stride. Macbeth confronts as much as recoils from the grinning zombie-Banquo at the banquet table and believably loses all sense of fear in his final confrontation with Macduff. Lady Macbeth, in an inspired staging of the “out damned spot” scene, taps a kind of existential horror in her visions of—in this case actual—blood, and the shaking realization that “what is done cannot be undone”. Emphasizing their equal roles in the evil acts, Drover even finds a way for them to jointly deliver the “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” speech—that ode to the futility of it all (instead of Macbeth in traditional soliloquy).

Other characterizations are also strong. Sebastian Kroon’s Banquo is movingly empathetic, and Jacob Leonard makes unexpected, impactful choices in the way he portrays Macduff’s grief. In an effective touch, Steffanie Davis’s doomed Lady Macduff treks through the postapocalypic world carrying her newborn in a makeshift baby sling over costume designer Alaia Hamer’s Last of Us–style salvaged camo and cargo pants. And wait till you see Davis’s (and Drover’s) fresh spin on a particularly drunken Porter scene, wielding a toilet brush no less.

Are there quibbles? A few, which isn’t surprising given the commendable risks this adaption takes. Some of Macbeth’s early speeches could use more roiling inner turmoil, and the words sometimes had to compete with the droning soundscape on opening night. Related, some of the storytelling is foggy up to and around the crucial offstage death of King Duncan. And—call me lowbrow—the choice to stage the demise of Lady Macbeth offstage, while traditional, feels somehow a bit anticlimactic amid this unflinching bloodbath.

But these are small issues. Drover has succeeded in staging a deeply unsettling take on Macbeth—not an easy achievement at a beachfront festival. What’s eerie is just how much the entire play resonates in these troubled times. You can’t help but think of ICE, border walls, and mass migration during Sara Vickruck’s striking final speech by Malcolm, as he pledges peace, and “calling home our exiled friends abroad/That fled the snares of watchful tyranny”. 

Horror movies have a heyday in times of intense societal fear—why else do you think Obsession and Backrooms are pulling in the biggest box office this summer? This Macbeth reminds you that it reflected the same kind of scares and provided the same kind of release for its audiences back in the day. What is so cool about this production is the way it manages to draw a throughline from one era to another, and from one genre to another, without ever stepping literally into overt politics. And without, it must be said, shying away from a little blood here and there.  

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Theatre Under the Stars presents Sister Act from July 7 to August 21 at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park

DISCO. GANGSTERS. NUNS. 

The ’90s smash-hits Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, starring Whoopi Goldberg, had a little bit of everything and a whole lot of heart. It’s no wonder they became enduring classics of the family comedy genre. 

For Kat Reynolds, these movies were staples in her childhood home. This summer, she comes full circle, making her Theatre Under the Stars debut in the leading role of Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act at the Malkin Bowl. 

The musical, based on the original movie, follows Deloris—an aspiring disco diva who is forced to go into hiding at a convent after witnessing her gangster boyfriend commit a crime. Disguised as her new persona, Sister Mary Clarence, Deloris is tasked with taking over the convent’s choir, eventually developing a deep bond with her fellow sisters as they work together to find their inner voices and strength. 

This isn’t the first time Bahamas-born, Vancouver-based Reynolds has taken on the wannabe disco diva. She first stepped into Deloris’s platform shoes during an Edmonton dinner-theatre production in 2019. 

Since the pandemic, however, Reynolds had shifted her focus from theatre to film writing and directing. Her recent work includes 2024’s “A Day In The (After)Life of Diane Staples”, which picked up the Canadian Comedy Film Igniter Award at the Canadian Film Fest; this year’s “So Happy For You”, which was awarded Best LGBT Short at Toronto Short Film Festival; and “Gone Viral”, which she cowrote and directed at the 2026 Crazy 8s short filmmaking challenge. 

But when director-choreographer Peter Jorgensen—whom Reynolds had previously worked on the Arts Club Theatre Company productions Rock of Ages and Avenue Q—approached her about playing Deloris once more, Reynolds knew she couldn’t refuse. 

For her, the opportunity to once again work on her favourite show was too good to pass up. 

“It’s the music, it’s the themes, and it’s this character’s emotional journey that is extremely fulfilling,” she tells Stir. “It has so much heart while delivering an insane amount of comedy. It’s just really well written and has the potential to move an audience to tears and make them burst out in laughter in seconds. It’s wild.” 

But returning to musical theatre after a five-year hiatus has required a lot of preparation. Reynolds immediately reached out to her New York–based vocal coach Kaitlyn Davis to see if her voice was up to the challenge. 

“She has really helped me find my voice again and find what my voice is now, all these years later, because it has changed and shifted,” Reynolds says. “These songs are not easy and she gave me the space to explore.” 

Preparing for a summer of outdoor performances at the Malkin Bowl means vocal hygiene is top of mind for Reynolds. The performer’s routine involves a vocal mist and strict warm-ups and cool downs. She’s also added daily cardio to train her breath control and vocal stamina for the show’s powerhouse mix of not just disco but Motown, soul, R&B, and gospel. 

“It’s all about taking care of the instrument and the technicalities outside of rehearsal, so that the work can just live within the process,” she says.

To tap into Deloris’s mindset, Reynolds has created a character collage—a tradition she does for every piece she works on—filled with disco imagery, sparkles, and positive feminine energy. She’s also created a personalized playlist, all Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, and Candi Staton. “It’s all I’ve been listening to,” she laughs. 

Playing opposite Reynolds as the formidable Mother Superior is Angela Donahue, whom Reynolds describes as “amazing, kind and so talented”. 

In the musical, there is a bit of a love story between Deloris and Eddie, the hardworking police officer assigned to protect her, but Reynolds says, “I really do think that the pinnacle—the main love story—is between Mother Superior and Deloris. We’ve got great chemistry. She’s just a very strong actor and a great person, and I love working with her.”

Though the entire cast is new to Reynolds, she says she feels completely supported and blown away by the talent surrounding her. 

“The chemistry in the room is really, really solid, which is so important with a show about sisterhood,” she explains. “With Deloris’s journey, she starts off thinking that music is the thing that will set her apart to make her stand out as an individual, and she just wants to be a star. She slowly realizes that through music, it’s really about community and this sisterhood and friendship that she didn't think was possible for her. I feel very lucky that I so enjoy these sisters that I’m sharing this story and these emotional journeys with.” 

Ultimately, Reynolds hopes that emotional journey translates to the audience under the stars this summer.

“I hope that they can sit and watch and kind of turn their brain off,” Reynolds says. “I would love for it to be a welcome distraction from anything in the outside world that doesn’t feel so great right now—because there’s a lot going on—and I feel like this musical has the ability to really lift people up and really move people.” 

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As the grand finale of its 2026 Summer Festival, Early Music Vancouver presents Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons on August 7 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

Vivaldi’s best-known concertos for violin and string orchestra revolutionized ideas about what orchestral music could achieve. In these compositions, music represents an extraordinary variety of concepts, including flowing creeks, singing birds of different species, a shepherd and his barking dog, buzzing flies, turbulent storms, drunken dancers, the warmth of winter fires, and the stillness of frozen landscapes.

This EMV program features star violinist and guest director Rachel Podger in collaboration with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra. Alongside Vivaldi’s masterpiece will be other compositions selected by Podger, performed by soprano Myriam Leblanc and baritone-tenor Marc Mauillon. Christina Hutton will host a pre-concert lecture at 7 pm.

Purchase tickets to The Four Seasons and learn more about the Summer Festival through Early Music Vancouver.

Post sponsored by Early Music Vancouver.

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FACING RISING COSTS, shrinking cultural spaces, and uncertainty about future funding, arts organizations across British Columbia are increasingly finding common ground on what needs to be done next.

One place where collaboration has become visible is the province’s 2027 budget consultation process, which recently invited organizations to submit recommendations to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. The committee will review those recommendations ahead of the budget's expected release in February. Through the BC Coalition of Arts, Culture and Heritage, organizations from across the province came together around a shared set of priorities.

“We were trying to underscore the need to consider longterm strategies to build stability in the sector,” says Rainbow Robert, executive director of the BC Alliance for Arts + Culture and a member of the coalition's steering committee.

Some organizations are struggling to maintain events, performances, exhibitions, and other public programming, while others are facing questions about long-term sustainability. Across B.C., festivals, venues, and cultural spaces are feeling the strain of rising operating costs and increasing property values.

“We are seeing some really concerning cancellations of important events in rural, remote, and urban communities,” Robert says.

Among the examples she points to is the Kaslo Jazz Etc Summer Music Festival, which paused operations this year after more than a decade of growth in the Kootenays. Victoria’s Rifflandia Festival also cancelled its 2026 edition.

For Robert, challenges like these have highlighted the importance of a coordinated response across the sector.

“A larger number of organizations within the arts, culture, and heritage ecology have worked together to get this message out this year than ever before,” Robert says.

Those shared concerns have ultimately led the coalition to focus on three priorities for the sector.

The first is the creation of a provincial arts and culture action plan, with British Columbia currently the only province in Canada without one. According to Robert, a longterm framework could help guide future investment while creating greater coordination between government and the arts sector. An action plan would help ensure arts funding is used more effectively across the sector.

Funding is another key priority. The coalition continues to advocate for increasing the annual operating budget of the BC Arts Council from approximately $39.2 million to $58 million, while opposing planned reductions to arts and culture spending outlined in the province's fiscal plan.

The goal, Robert says, is to maintain momentum at a time when many organizations are already facing financial pressures.

The third priority focuses on cultural infrastructure and space retention. Over the past decade, British Columbia has lost arts and cultural spaces to redevelopment pressures, rising costs, and aging facilities. The coalition is encouraging the province to explore tools such as cultural land trusts while supporting the longterm affordability and accessibility of cultural spaces. Robert says the conversation also includes artist housing, arguing that communities need places not only to present artistic work, but to support the artists who create it.

At their core, the recommendations are aimed at helping artists and organizations continue creating and presenting work in communities across the province. Funding, planning, infrastructure, and affordability all influence whether artists can continue to create.

“We’re trying to nurture collaboration between people and to give people the tools and the information on how to participate in this type of consultation,” Robert says.

Robert—who will step down from the Alliance to head up Salt Spring Island’s ArtSpring on July 27, replaced by interim executive director Kayleigh Harrison—hopes the process leaves behind something more lasting than a set of budget recommendations.

Throughout the consultation process, organizations with different mandates, disciplines, and community needs have found common ground around a shared vision for the future. For Robert, that growing willingness to work together may prove just as important as any individual recommendation.

“Arts, culture and heritage are part of the beauty that surrounds us and part of what makes B.C. remarkable,” she says. 

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Come one, come all to Ionesco’s Cabaret, a new event that’s part theatrical double bill, part art party. Presented by Rumble Theatre and produced by Theatre Conspiracy in association with Pi Theatre, this spectacle transforms Progress Lab 1422 into an absurdist cabaret from July 23 to 25.

Ionesco’s Cabaret sets two performance pieces written by the late avant-garde master Eugène Ionesco—The Leader directed by David Mesiha, and Frenzy for Two directed by Richard Wolfe—alongside Tim Carlson/feral.i.d’s debut photo-audio installation Lost Hands, which features worrisome narratives on multi-channel speakers and a slideshow of equally worrisome found objects. And don’t worry, there will be a bar open all evening.

This event is a playful encounter between friends and foes, entangling audience members in love collisions, mass persuasion, and social unravelling. Doors open at 7 pm each night, and the show starts at 7:30 pm.

More details and tickets to Ionesco’s Cabaret are available here.

Post sponsored by Pi Theatre.

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Bard on the Beach presents The Merry Wives of Windsor at the BMO Mainstage at Sen̓áḵw–Vanier Park to September 19

A WAVE OF RAISED arms ripples across the crowd, pulling spectators into its momentum as it moves from one side of the stands to the other. It's not happening at BC Place, or outside the flag-draped bars on Granville Street, or in front of the packed outdoor screens at the PNE’s FIFA Fan Festival. It’s happening under the tents at Sen̓áḵw–Vanier Park.

What do the world’s most famous playwright and the world’s most spectated sport have to do with each other? Bard on the Beach’s new adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor seems to be placing its bets on the ability of both soccer and Shakespearean comedy to make a crowd feel good together. After all, who can resist the call of a stadium wave, or a dirty joke that's survived more than four centuries? 

Those unconvinced may remain so, and fair enough. But writer Bruce Horak and cowriter and director Rebecca Northan make a persuasive case in this adaptation, if only because they signal from the opening whistle that their primary goal is laughter. Thankfully, the laughs arrive pretty much nonstop. 

Enter a fictional Vancouver suburb named Windsor. Athleisure replaces Elizabethan frocks, and a community centre becomes the hub where the play’s bawdy cast of schemers, lovers, and busybodies gathers. Enter, too, a city currently swept up in World Cup fever, and what you get is this spirited, contemporary take on one of the lesser-known Bard comedies. The soccer element is, admittedly, a bit of a gimmick, but it is a shrewd one.  

It helps that Merry Wives accommodates experimentation so well. With its prose-heavy dialogue and focus on ordinary people rather than kings, nobles, or star-crossed lovers, it’s widely considered one of Shakespeare’s more accessible and adaptable comedies. This is the fourth time Bard on the Beach has staged the play—the last production relocated the action to Windsor, Ontario, in the 1960s—and it’s easy to see why directors keep returning to its script, which invites contemporary references, broad comic invention, and more than a little mischief. 

The plot, as delightfully flimsy as it is, follows the broke Falstaff (Ashley Wright as Shakespeare’s beloved comic character), here reimagined as a retired soccer star. In this rendition, he returns to his hometown and sets out to seduce two married women for their money. His targets are the titular wives of Windsor, Mrs. Page (Jennifer Lines) and Mrs. Ford (Melissa Oei). What Falstaff doesn’t realize is that the women quickly see through his scheme and join forces to devise one of their own. 

In the subplot, Anne Page, captain of the women’s soccer team (Rachel Angco gives her a welcome steadiness), falls in love with Fenton, captain of the men's team (played with effortless likability by Cameron Grant), while her parents try to set her up with suitors who are each less appealing than the last.  

Reprising the role of Falstaff, Wright knows exactly how much room the character occupies and wears his slick vanity like a well-worn tracksuit. His performance keeps the shameless conman buoyant even as the indignities begin to pile up.

There’s a lot of joy to be found in the camaraderie between Lines and Oei as Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford. Their shared fun at Falstaff's expense spills into two locker-room dance numbers, where Lisa Goebel's choreography leans gleefully into the women’s shenanigans. 

If the wives spend the evening delighting in the chaos, Mr. Ford spends it suffering through it, and Craig Erickson finds considerable comic mileage in the character’s spiralling paranoia. Ford’s jealousy belongs in a Shakespearean tragedy, and in Merry Wives it repeatedly curdles into something almost tragic before being swept right back into absurdity.  

The rest of the ensemble proves just as game at navigating the production's heightened comic register. Steffanie Davis’s Ms. Quickly delivers common sense and the sass to go along with it, as well as some of the evening’s most memorable musical moments alongside Jacob Leonard's unexpectedly lovestruck Pistol. Raf Rogers’s Dr. Caius draws big laughs as a petulant chiropractor whose Frenchness is impossibly over-the-top, in keeping with Shakespeare's original text. Sara Vickruck’s Slender is reimagined as a hapless aspiring influencer, brazenly peppering the dialogue with Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang.  

It’s all very silly and bizarre, but amid the farce, the production occasionally gives moments of surprising familiarity. One of my favourite recurring gags sees Sebastian Kroon’s Bardolph cycle through a slew of jobs at the community centre, including leading a yoga class that predictably goes tits up, though in a way that will still feel relatable to anyone who has found themselves in a similar situation. 

 Whether it’s background characters exercising or wandering through the space, there’s an observant, no-frills sense of place to contrast the ridiculousness. And at times, the view beyond the tent of cyclists, joggers, and passerbys wandering through Vanier Parks rhymes with the one onstage. Amir Ofek’s set design effectively builds on that simple, lived-in feeling. The green-tiled Windsor Community and Athletic Centre transforms with impressive ease into locker rooms, watering holes, and reception areas, all while keeping a sense of a single bustling public space. (Maybe the only gripe is that one wishes our own community centres had the budget to offer saunas, soccer fields, fencing, and life-drawing classes all under one roof.)

Barbara Clayden’s costume design takes a similar approach, with down-to-earth costuming that makes the characters feel like people you could easily encounter walking down the street.  

Beyond some jerseys, a mascot, and a few well-placed jokes, cynics and skeptics may be redeemed to know that soccer remains mostly a matter of atmosphere. The real attraction is the comedy itself: broad in its humour but firmly rooted in its Vancouver setting. Like a stadium wave, The Merry Wives of Windsor asks very little of the audience beyond a willingness to join in the fun. And judging by the response under the tents, that seems a wager worth making. 

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Kitsilano is about to transform into a fantastical dreamscape. On July 11, the West 4th Avenue BIA invites folks to fall down the rabbit hole for the return of the Khatsahlano Street Party. Under this year’s enchanting theme, Khatsahlano Wonderland, Vancouver’s biggest free music and arts festival will take over 10 vibrant blocks from Burrard Street to Macdonald Street.

Curated by local independent music staple Zulu Records, the festival is a massive celebration of regional talent. A highlight is the powerhouse lineup on the Burrard Stage, presented by TD and Stir. Get ready to spin straight into wonderland with headlining band Uncle Strut, known for its high-energy, soul-infused rock grooves. Sharing the Burrard Stage is an incredible array of B.C. talent, including the genre-bending rock of Felisha and the Jazz Rejects, the raw post-punk of Concrete Vehicles, and the dirty soul of Leo D.E Johnson. Audiences will also catch Chopping Spree!, Big Rig, Emmett Jerome, and the dreamy indie sounds of Jian & Kitten Co., making the Burrard Stage an absolute must-visit.

Beyond the music, this 10-block party is packed with whimsical surprises. Unwind in style at the Italian Chamber of Commerce Lambrusco Wine Garden, or explore tons of refreshing beer and beverage gardens stretching down West 4th. Featured stops include the Tacofino Garden, serving up tacos and margaritas in the sun all day long, and the Chapman’s Ice Cream Chill Zone, offering a reprieve from the heat with frozen treats.

Between snacking from more than 50 food trucks and shopping at over 300 local vendors, festival-goers can immerse themselves in unique interactive activations. Flex strategy skills at various chess-set activations by watching masters play or learning the rules of the game. Capture the magic of the day at selfie stations and discover whimsical, picture-perfect photo moments scattered throughout the wonderland.

From hunting for a new favorite B.C. band, to dancing on the street, to exploring the Khats Kids Zone, there is magic around every corner. This ultimate community celebration—which draws more than 150,000 visitors annually—is not to be missed.

For full stage schedules and lineup details, visit khatsahlano.ca.

Post sponsored by Khatsahlano Street Party.

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As part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Coastal Jazz presents Wendy Eisenberg Viewfinder at the Revue Stage on July 3 at 9 pm. Eisenberg will also perform a solo set and as part of a duo with Lisa Cay Miller at Zameen Art House on July 2 at 2:30 pm

MANY MUSICIANS AND BANDS make their recorded debuts with a self-titled release. It’s a logical choice, since a first album is like an introduction—and it’s an easy solution to the conundrum of thinking up a title.

But when someone with a discography that’s several albums deep releases a self-titled LP, it seems to signal something more profound—such as a reinvention or a renewed sense of purpose. 

When singer and guitarist Wendy Eisenberg calls Stir from the home in Brooklyn she shares with her partner and frequent musical collaborator Mari Rubio, she offers an explanation for giving her eighth solo album, released earlier this year, the title Wendy Eisenberg.

“I think in part it was genuinely a statement of intent and resolution, but also the writing of this one was simultaneous with a personal, private process of understanding who I was when I was really little, and the kind of songs that I wanted to write when I was a younger person,” she says. “Making it self-titled was a multifaceted and kind of intense decision that I didn’t take very lightly. I wanted to honour the writer that I wanted to be when I was really getting into music for the first time, and it’s kind of dedicated to her.”

The album finds Eisenberg in full singer-songwriter mode, her gently unfolding vocal melodies and intricate, virtuosic guitar accompaniment backed by arrangements that lean alternately toward folk and Baroque pop. In many ways, Wendy Eisenberg is worlds away from the artist’s 2024 record, Viewfinder, a more formally experimental song cycle that drew on Eisenberg’s disparate influences—from jazz to Americana—and infused them with fearlessly free improvisation and dissonance.

Wendy Eisenberg is both more sonically restrained and more emotionally affecting, as Eisenberg reflects on a period of her life that saw her reconciling her past conception of herself with a newfound embracing of her queerness. (A note on pronouns: Per a 2023 tweet, Eisenberg, who identifies as nonbinary, is comfortable with any and all, including they/them and he/him; for the purposes of this article, we’re using she/her.)

“It’s not as though the records that I made before this were the records of a student, even though I always will be,” she says. “It’s more that this record feels like I’ve kind of landed on a mode of expression, at least in the arena of solo songwriting, that is closer to what I’d wanted in the beginning, which is using more conventional materials, like harmony and acoustic guitar—the things that you really start off loving, at least in my suburban scene growing up—and thinking, ‘How do I make them accessible both to the inner reaches of my heart, and something that a 13-year-old might like?’”

In other words, this is an album that attempts to finally fulfill the musical ambitions of a 13-year-old under the influence of Gram Parsons, Joni Mitchell, and the Beach Boys.

“It just feels like it’s answering her question, rather than the question of a 20-something searching and driving around on tour, which is like a lot of the records from that period, or a free-jazz experimentalist, which is like Viewfinder and a lot of other records,” Eisenberg says. “This is more like, ‘Hey, everything I learned was in order to try to make your vision possible, and this record’s like the first step into that.’”

It’s not as if Eisenberg is leaving the bold adventurism of Viewfinder behind, mind you. In fact, that record is the focus of a concert she’ll play at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, backed by an all-star band handpicked by the fest’s co–artistic director, Cole Schmidt. 

Eisenberg recorded Viewfinder at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 with a lineup that included fellow New Yorkers Tyrone Allen II, Zekereyya el-Magharbel, Andrew Links, Carmen Q. Rothwell, Booker Stardrum, and Chris Williams. In Vancouver, she’ll be joined by locals Dan Gaucher (drums and electronics), JP Carter (trumpet and electronics), and Nebyu Yohannes (trombone), along with former Vancouverites Sean Cronin (bass) and Cat Toren (piano).

“I haven’t played that music in a while because it was written for those specific musicians,” Eisenberg says. “So when Cole asked me about playing and being in residence at the festival, he mentioned having some local players step in, and I was just so excited to play that music again. We’re going to play most of the stuff from it, but obviously that’s a double LP, and we don’t really have that time; we’re not going to play for 80 minutes.”

When she speaks to Stir, Eisenberg has yet to rehearse with this new crew, but listening to their recorded works has her keenly looking forward to sharing the stage with a band possessed of peerless improvisational chops.

“I’m a pretty loose scorer, and also one of the secrets of that record—and also just my solo practice in general—is that I usually try and hold down the guitar part as this complicated thing that I’m dealing with, and everybody is usually just free to do whatever they’re hearing over it,” she reveals. “That’s the compositional thing that I like as a songwriter—and as a jazz composer, whatever that means in my case.”

The Vancouver audience won’t necessarily see her blazing through off-the-cuff guitar solos; Eisenberg says her playing is deeply improvisational at a structural level. She describes the parts she writes as “melty”, noting that the material takes its own shape as it’s being performed.

“There’s so much freedom in the compositional, knotty guitar-playing that I’m writing,” Eisenberg says. “I know these songs pretty well at this point. They’re quite old, to me, which is weird because they’re only a couple years old in terms of being out as a release, but I’ve been playing this music since 2022—or ’21, really.

“The more you know a song, the more it doesn’t feel like you’re improvising it, or that you even composed it,” the guitarist continues. “It just feels like it’s occurring to you, because it’s kind of in your biology. And that’s a different experience for me than for the rest of the ensemble that's going to be at the festival with me, so it’s really going to be cool to see how we negotiate this mutual facility, you know what I mean?”  

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As part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Coastal Jazz presents The Offering of Curtis Andrews at Performance Works on July 4 at 1:30 pm

CURTIS ANDREWS moved from one side of Canada to the other. In his travels both physical and musical, the drummer and percussionist—who was born in Newfoundland but now calls Vancouver home—has wandered a lot farther afield.

Andrews has spent time in Ghana, India, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, picking up influences—and instruments—along the way.

A peek at Andrews’s musical C.V. reveals that he “plays mbira, drums and marimba with Zimbabwean groups Zhambai Trio and Zimbamoto, explores South Indian classical Carnatic music with vocalist Vidyasagar Vankayala, regularly collaborates with local Bharatanatyam performers, and is a regular collaborator with various world music and jazz musicians in and around Vancouver”.

It also tells us that Andrews earned a PhD in ethnomusicology and is an adjunct professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Memorial University of Newfoundland, all of which is to say that his creative wanderings have a strong academic grounding.

He also infuses jazz into his world-music explorations in an ensemble that takes its name from his 2009 album The Offering of Curtis Andrews.

It’s this band—which also includes jazz vocalist Shruti Ramani, percussionist Paul Bray, guitarist Jared Burrows, vibraphonist Robin Layne, bassist David Soutar-Spidel, and trumpet player Kristian Naso—that Andrews will lead in a pay-what-you-can concert at Performance Works on July 4 as part of Granville Island Jazz at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.  

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Burnaby Art Gallery presents Myfanwy MacLeod: Trophies to August 30

LOOKING LIKE THE discarded, semi-destroyed remnant of a bizarre ritual or an Animal House frat party, a giant foam-resin donkey head—vandalized with messy red lipstick and blue eyeshadow—lies abandoned on a central yellow-floral carpet at Burnaby Art Gallery. The installation’s title, Pleasure Island, instantly brings to mind the bad-boy paradise in Pinocchio.

In the new exhibition Trophies, it shares space with artworks that draw on grease-stained pizza boxes, ceramic vases in the shape of feet, and a vintage knuckle-buster gear shift. Elsewhere, collages include imagery of Donald Trump, beer kegs, and various mythological characters.

Leave it to Vancouver artist Myfanwy MacLeod to combine these far-flung touchstones—and many more—into a cohesive, site-specific exploration of masculine rites. With humour undercut by darker tensions, she traces those rites from modern frat culture and the reign of a certain orange-hued U.S. president right back through art history to the Plato Academy and Ancient Greece.

As the show’s curator, Jennifer Cane, puts it: “Myfanwy hits hard with this body of work. I think it’s difficult for artists to speak to our present moment because there is so much shock and awe, as well as fear. You can feel that in what people produce—safer things, hyper-conceptual things. I think the strength of this work is that it’s quite literal, it’s funny and it takes a position.”

The inspiration for Trophies starts with the history of the gallery site itself. A charmingly restored 1911 Arts and Crafts home on the north shore of Deer Lake, Ceperley Mansion is best known as the original, sprawling estate of Grace and Henry Ceperley. But it had a colourful history after the Ceperleys’ departure, including a stint through the 1940s as an Benedictine monastery and in the late 1950s as the home of a controversial cult called the Temple of the More Abundant Life.

But MacLeod became most fascinated by its last tenants: the Delta Upsilon fraternity, which, from 1965 to 1966, inhabited a warren of makeshift bedrooms in the attic and covered the walls and doors with cryptic op-art graffiti and slogans. SFU banned frats and sororities in 1966, and Delta Epsilon infamously resisted eviction with a protest party that included an indoor bonfire. After they finally got the heave-ho, the mansion was renovated into Burnaby Art Gallery as part of a Centennial project in 1967. 

“There was this weird trajectory from a family home to a monastery to a cult headquarters and then a frat house,” MacLeod says in a phone interview. “And there was something about that arc that seemed very typical in a funny way as well. You know, it went from something quite domestic to something slightly sordid in a funny way.”

WHAT ORIGINALLY CAUGHT MacLeod’s attention was a photo of one of the murals left behind by the frat boys. In 2014, BAG director-curator Cane had the attic graffiti documented by a professional photographer before the walls were torn out for a renovation. The labyrinthian graphic immediately reminded MacLeod of a Frank Stella geometric print. (The photo is now emblazoned on a poster for the Trophies exhibition.) But there were even more interesting remnants that awaited MacLeod in the BAG attic: two green fraternity doors bearing mysterious messages, one announcing “THE WIZARD OF AUNGE”, the other directing visitors to “1. Stop 2. Listen 3. Knock 4. Pause 5. Enter”. They’ve now become central pieces in the exhibit.

The mansion’s ghosts of frats past provided fertile creative territory for MacLeod, an artist well known for irreverent looks at social power and for blurring boundaries between fine art and pop culture. She has long explored masculinity through a female lens, subverting gendered assumptions around mastery and privilege. A 2014 solo show at the Vancouver Art Gallery found her satirizing macho culture with Stack, 18 framed black paintings with Marshall logos collected to look like a wall of amps. In the same exhibition’s Ramble On, the shell of a 1977 Chevy Camaro was displayed deliciously on a rotisserie stand. Perhaps her most prominent piece is the public artwork The Birds, where two cute yet threatening, 18-foot-tall house sparrows, installed in Olympic Village, make for a sly nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller—and also highlight themes of invasive species and eco demise. 

MacLeod thinks her interest in fraternity culture might stem in part from growing up in London, Ontario, near the University of Western Ontario, where “Greek life” is still alive and well.

“My sister even worked cooking for frat houses when she was in her 20s, making meals for these guys,” she adds, “so I have a kind of direct experience of them in a funny, sort of oblique way. 

“I also grew up when Animal House came out in the ’70s,” she adds, referring to the John Landis classic. “And then, more recently, there was Old School, the movie with Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, and I always thought that maybe it was hilarious, but there was also something about that sort of boy attitude that has not changed since Animal House, or since the ’70s.”

Working on Trophies over 2024 and 2025, in part during a residence at La Napoule Art Foundation’s Château de La Napoule in the south of France, MacLeod was able to meet two former American frat boys and talk to them about their experiences. She also worked in ceramics, a form integral to the Greeks, fashioning many of the vases in the shape of men’s feet to recall ancient sculptures. (They also seem to nod to the ghostly presence of the 20-plus men who once bunked in the Ceperley attic.)

Her ceramics classes led to the pizza boxes—and a central motif of grease (and other) stains that emerged in her Trophies work. To MacLeod, the stains were like a tainted past you couldn’t quite bleach out of the Ceperley Mansion story.

“I saw this kid’s artwork where they had made a pizza and I’m like, ‘This is like the best piece of work I’ve ever seen in my whole life,’” MacLeod recounts. “And then I started collecting pizza boxes because I was really interested in the stain patterns that the grease left on on the liners of the pizza boxes. I think it was this idea of what the stain means metaphorically, in terms of where we are politically as well. So I was working on staining and working with the shape of the pizza stains, trying to make ceramics out of the shape of the pizza stains.”

In the exhibit, armrest covers on a mint-green sofa that sits in front of the grand Ceperley fireplace have been stained in different hues. Three colourfully stained fabrics hang about the donkey head in Pleasure Island. And, as MacLeod alludes, a grouping of ceramics includes pieces that mimic the shape of stains in 3-D.

As Kathleen Ritter puts it in her essay “The Stain: An Incomplete Genealogy” in the exhibition’s engaging publication, “the stain becomes a way of thinking about excess and leakage, and about what seeps out despite repeated attempts to contain it. Stains appear when something breaches a surface; they render visible what has been disavowed or repressed….”

In the publication, Ritter points out MacLeod’s references to Helen Frankenthaler, a 1950s artist who transformed then male-dominated abstract expressionism by soak-staining unprimed canvases with thinned paint. (MacLeod’s three works that sit over the donkey’s head are named Helen, also a reference to Helen of Troy.)

Amid the collages, look for male bodies, topped with heads that look borrowed from Ancient Greek sculpture or theatre masks, hoisting beer kegs; hooded figures being led in a secret hazing ritual; and a ripped newspaper photo of a portrait of a certain U.S. president and his convicted-pedophile buddy.

Some of the exhibit’s most fascinating components are its installation works. Upstairs, in Saint Frances (Patron Saint of Car Drivers), a Camaro’s knuckle-buster gear shift sits in a custom orange case, all atop a stack of Budweiser beer. There are more muscle-car allusions in the cryptic Saint Munditia (Patron Saint of Spinsters). On a tripod, a long blonde-and-pink wig dangles alluringly over a rough vintage leather car sun visor emblazoned with auto stickers. It’s a haunting mix of the feminine and the macho, all positioned atop a spider-web rug that suggests broken windshield glass.

Throughout, MacLeod uses humour and absurdity to tackle difficult subjects, and to open the minds of her viewers to see the world, and its keg parties, hazing traditions, and muscle cars, with a more critical eye. On one level, frat life is funny; think guys painting wizard signs on their attic doors and the “Thank you sir, may I have another” scene in Animal House. But on another, it’s not. In its far-flung reference points, Trophies manages to connect dots across millennia, from Greek myths to the horror show of “Epstein Island”. MacLeod simply points to the French adage “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”—”The more things change, the more they stay the same.” 

“Myfanwy is known for using forms of humour, absurdity, and contradiction to convey ideas; she also dives into the parable and cautionary tale with her work,” Cane points out. “The meanings we place on various animals comes through in Trophies—revealing tension between what is considered sacred and profane, clean and dirty, revered and reviled.” 

“The world is so depressing right now,” MacLeod says. “It can drag you down because of the stuff that’s happening. You do need some kind of escape from that—but at the same time you need to address it. And I think this is the only way I know how to do it.”  

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