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Dystopian Coriolanus looks stunning, fails to connect emotionally

Coriolanus | Bard on the Beach | Howard Family Stage in the Douglas Campbell Tent, Vanier Park | August 21 – September 21, 2019

Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known and seldom-performed plays, so it’s no surprise that the first-ever production of this work at Bard on the Beach, directed by Bard regular Dean Paul Gibson, was highly-anticipated. Moya O’Connell stars as the ruthless fighter who is betrayed and exiled. Her confident, aggressive performance is the highlight, while the futuristic set and costumes make the production look stunning.

Coming to terms with the past and moving forward in Ensemble Theatre Company’s Summer Repertory Festival

Ensemble Theatre Company Summer Repertory Festival: The Drawer Boy, Born Yesterday, Superior Donuts | Jericho Arts Centre | July 12 – August 16, 2019

Superior Donuts

Of the three shows in this year’s festival, Superior Donuts stands out for both its sharp social commentary and strong performances. Tracy Letts’ 2008 play, which was adapted as a TV sitcom in 2017, includes plenty of laugh-out-loud moments along with many sobering, thought-provoking ones.

Arthur Przybyszewski (David Nykl) and Franco Wicks (Chris Francisque) are an odd couple working at Arthur’s family donut shop in Chicago. Arthur has been plodding along in the same rut for years until one day when Franco comes knocking looking for a job.

The power of the press meets high kicks in Newsies at TUTS

Newsies | Theatre Under the Stars | Malkin Bowl, Stanley Park | July 6 – August 17, 2019

A classic underdog story about the power of the press, this musical is full of rousing songs, unlikely triumphs, and a love story. Julie Tomaino’s choreography brings it all together in a high-energy frenzy of high kicks and higher jumps. The newsies take New York City by storm and stand up against the most powerful man in town, publisher Joseph Pulitzer.

Sophie Buddle headlines Yuk Yuk's

Sophie Buddle with Harris Anderson, Sam Tonning, and Ari Matti | Yuk Yuk’s Vancouver | June 28, 2019

With her recently-released comedy album, Lil Bit of Buddle, weekly Obsessed podcast, and stand-up gigs across the country, Sophie Buddle has been busy. Headlining Yuk Yuk’s Vancouver for the first time this June, the local comedian who has written for This Hour Has 22 Minutes had the room laughing about sexual fantasies, rape-front jobs, mermaids, and Christian horse camp. Her material is diverse, her delivery is confident, and her punchlines are unexpected and well-timed.

Ce qu’on attend de moi dares us to imagine alternate lives

Ce qu’on attend de moi | 2par4 and L'Homme Allumette | Théâtre la Seizième | Performance Works | May 21 – 25, 2019

A play with no actors and no script that has the audience watching from outside the walls of the theatre — it doesn’t get much more innovative than that. In Ce qu’on attend de moi, an audience member becomes the protagonist of an improvised journey to explore an alternate life they could have lead.

Digitally updated @giselle includes impressive technology and technique, lacks emotional connection

@giselle | Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY | Vancouver Playhouse | September 5 – 7, 2019

Social media and other digital communication technologies are supposed to make it easier and more efficient for us to connect with each other — but often those technologies become barriers to real, meaningful human interaction. That was the main theme of Joshua Beamish’s reimagined Giselle that has been updated for our digital age. The point was made too strongly, however, to the extent that the technology being represented became a barrier to emotional connection between the dancers and the audience.

Joshua Beamish updates Giselle for the digital age

@giselle | Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY | Vancouver Playhouse | September 5 – 7, 2019

Giselle, a classical ballet first performed in 1841, has remained a staple of the canon. It is in the repertoire of countless ballet companies and is still performed all over the world. Giselle is a peasant girl who dies of a broken heart, and is later summoned by the Wilis, a group of supernatural women who all died of a broken heart and hate men so much that they dance them to death. The ballet has received criticism for its portrayal of women as dependent on a man’s love, but Joshua Beamish’s updated version promises to address this while setting it firmly in our time with motion-captured digital projections and characters interacting through social media.

In review: Dancing on the Edge 2019

Dancing on the Edge 2019 | Edge One, John, Edge Five | Firehall Arts Centre and Goldcorp Centre for the Arts | July 5 and 11, 2019

Edge One: Dab Dance Project, Meredith Kalaman, Linnea Swan

South Korea’s Dab Dance Project returned to the Edge after last year’s trio, BOMBERMAN. This year’s First Abundance Society was an inventive piece with plenty of humour. Hoyeon Kim and Jungha Lim’s robotic interlocking movements were intricate and precise. Upstage was a potted fruit tree, and every so often they would pick a piece of fruit and shove it in their mouths in a show of gluttony.

Contemporary dance for all at Dancing on the Edge

Dancing on the Edge Festival | Firehall Arts Centre, SFU Woodward's Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, and site specific locations | July 4 – 13, 2019

Over 10 days, the Dancing on the Edge Festival (DOTE) presents an eclectic mix of local, national, and international choreographers along with many free and site-specific works. Dance fans on a budget can take in free shows in the Firehall Arts Centre courtyard, including Danse Carpe Diem from Montreal. Another opportunity to see them for free is at the Granville Island public market courtyard where they will present Ecoute pour voir, which is composed of simultaneous solos throughout the space. The dancers and spectators both wear headphones to hear specific music associated with one solo and they share in the experience of a piece of choreography.

At a warehouse on Georgia Street, former Ballet BC dancer Rachel Meyer presents Transverse Orientation, a piece described as being in between two allegories taken from the moth: metamorphosis and a mysterious source of distant guidance (light source that guides them).

Jolene Bailie/Gearshifting Performance Works from Winnipeg also presents a full-length work, Schemas, 1-5, and local artist Helen Walkley presents her full-length memoir, John danced by Josh Martin and Billy Marchenski.

Dab Dance Project of South Korea returns to the festival, this time with First Abundance Society focusing “on the fact that preparing for the future doesn’t guarantee a better quality of life.” As the program notes say, “as the boundaries between true and imagined paradise begin to blur, the realities of life and the accompanying work, fears and hopes begin to muddle utopia.”

In Edge Three, Brazil’s Experimentus Dance Company presents Dispositivo Móvel “about the disconnect between imposing government standards and reality in Brazilian cities, referring to the power relationships put forward by Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben.”

And there are many Canadian artists from at home and across the country presenting their original works, including Calgary’s Linnea Swan who brings a tounge-in-cheek response to Yvonne Rainer’s No Manifesto in Edge One; and Ballet BC dancer Kirsten Wicklund explores her choreographic voice in Afloat amidst the steam of my combustion in Edge Six.

With over 30 performances and over 20 choreographers, there are too many anticipated works to name them all but dance fans will surely find something to suit them with such a variety contemporary dance from experimental and works-in-progress to polished and virtuosic. That’s the beauty of the Edge.

Full performance schedule.

Revisor explores the relationship between movement and meaning

There are many standout lines in Revisor, Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young’s innovative dance-theatre hybrid, but the one that has stuck with me is also an apt summation of its theme: “I’m here to move a comma.”

In this tale of mistaken identity, corruption, and abuse of power based on Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector General (Revizor in the original Russian), a commoner is mistaken as the “Revisor” (Tiffany Tregarthen) who has been sent “from head office” to investigate a political leader.