PlayDome at BC Place Spring Break 2014

Comments 186 by Rebecca Bollwitt

BC Place will become PlayDome this Spring Break and with over 45 rides and attractions it’s Canada’s largest indoor carnival.

PlayDome @ BC Place
Photo credit: John Biehler on Flickr

“Feel like you’re floating in air with the Zero Gravity ride, be spun around on the new open air cars of the Ring of Fire and be flung into oblivion on the Super Shot. Popular favorites such as 1001 nights, The Ferris Wheel and the Zipper are all back to be enjoyed.”

PlayDome @ BC Place PlayDome @ BC Place

PlayDome @ BC Place PlayDome @ BC Place PlayDome @ BC Place
Photo credit: John Biehler on Flickr

BCAA PlayDome presented by Global BC will run from March 15th to March 26. Tickets are available at the door and each person must purchase one of the following passes to enter. The Dome Pass (day pass valid for all rides) is $29; Guest Passes (required to enter as a spectator) are $6; and the Ultimate Pass (unlimited multi-day Dome Pass) is $49. Group rates are also available by calling (604) 252-3663 or emailing groupsales [at] pne.ca. Children under 2 years old are admitted for free but for safety reasons they are not permitted to ride).

With BCAA as the new title sponsor of PlayDome, BCAA cardholders get a $10 discount on each Domeor Ultimate Pass purchased in their transaction. The discount can be claimed by showing your card upon purchase at the BC Place box office during PlayDome. Please note tickets are not available in advance and this discount may not be combined with any other offer.

PlayDome at BC Place Dates and Hours

Saturday, March 15, 2014 from 10:30am to 9:00pm
Sunday, March 16, 2014 from 10:30am to 9:00pm
Monday, March 17, 2014 10:30am to 9:00pm
Tuesday, March 18, 2014 from 10:30am to 9:00pm
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 from 10:30am to 9:00pm
Thursday, March 20, 2014 from 10:30am to 9:00pm
Friday, March 21, 2014 from 10:30am to 9:00pm
Saturday, March 22, 2014 from 10:30am to 9:00pm
Sunday, March 23, 2014 from 10.30am to 6:00pm

Win Passes to PlayDome at BC

If you would like to win tickets to BCAA PlayDome at BC Place, I have a 4-pack of tickets to give away. Here’s how you can enter to win:

  • Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
  • Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win passes for @BCAA #PlayDome at @BCPlace from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/umaKJ

I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Thursday, March 13, 2014. The winner will receive four Dome Passes for PlayDome this month.

Update The winner is @RobinLynnG on Twitter!

Heritage Houses “The Dorothies” Get a New Home Base

Comments 4 by Rebecca Bollwitt

The Vancouver Heritage Foundation has posted on their Facebook page that The Dorothies are getting ready to be moved to a new location. “Ever seen two mirror image heritage homes on stilts? The move is scheduled for March 10th 17th, where the homes will be relocated to a larger lot, restored and become central to a new infill project.”

thedorothies
The Dorothies. Photo via The Vancouver Heritage Foundation on Facebook.

The homes, which currently sit at 2827 and 2837 West 43rd Avenue, were built in 1931 and they earned their unusual names because the original owners both had wives named Dorothy.

Back in 2013 the Huffington Post BC reported (via The Globe and Mail): “Their Tudor-style design is nearly identical, with French pane windows, pitched roofs and a driveway separating them that leads to matching garages out back. The homes were last sold for just over $2 million each, and the owner, Trasolini Chetner Corporation, has applied for a permit to knock them down and rebuild. The house at 2827 is currently awaiting approval, while a notice has gone around to neighbours about the redevelopment of 2837.

An effort was made to pick the houses up off their foundation and move them to Vancouver Island with the owner’s support, but the logistics proved too complicated and the $220,000 cost too expensive.”

In December it was announced that The Dorothies would be saved, thanks to residential developer Rob Chetner with the help of architect Timothy Ankenman. The Globe and Mail said: “[Chetnet] and Mr. Ankenman went searching for a nearby Kerrisdale property to relocate the houses to, and found it a couple of blocks away, on W. 41st Avenue.”

The plan needed to pass public consultation, which it eventually did. The idea is to preserve the houses and restore them inside and out, with their basements converted into garden suites and four coach houses built to the rear of the new location, totalling eight suites.

Vancouver Art Gallery Family Fuse Weekend

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt

There is plenty to do around town this weekend but one event in particular is free for kids*, indoors (away from the rain), has music, art, and hands-on activities. The Vancouver Art Gallery is hosting another Family FUSE Weekend on Saturday, March 8th and Sunday, March 9th with this month’s theme: “The Landscape of the Imagination” and it’s bound to be a whole lot of fun for the family.

FamilyFuseWeekend-March2014The Landscape of the Imagination takes its inspiration from the Gallery’s new exhibitions Lawren Harris: Canadian Visionary and A Terrible Beauty: Edward Burtynsky, exploring our intimate relationship with the natural and manufactured landscape around us.

In addition, Kid Zeppelin, a talented children’s rock band will cover Led Zeppelin songs to reflect the popular culture reference in the exhibition Myfanwy MacLeod, or There and Back Again. Join artists, musicians, performers and educators to discover how small actions can have big impacts through a range of performances, hands-on activities and workshops.

Family Fuse Weekend Events

Activities include the following on both Saturday and Sunday:
Landscape Button
10:00am to 4:00pm
Create a button that features a picture or words about your favourite kind of landscape.

Art Agents
10:00am to 4:00pm
Join the Art Agents as they explore the work of Lawren Harris: Canadian Visionary. Learn more about the trips he took and the landscapes he loved to paint through a range of hands-on resources.

Kid Zeppelin
Saturday 11:30am, 12:30pm, 1:30pm; Sunday 11:30am, 12:30pm
Four Vancouverites aged 11 to 15 plus the music of one of rock’s greatest bands equals Kid Zeppelin. These talented youths have been having a great time preparing a short set of Led Zeppelin songs to accompany Myfanwy MacLeod, or There and Back Again.

Veda Hille and Her Swell Band
1:00pm, 2:00pm and 3:00pm
Join Veda Hille and Her Swell Band as they alternate between two special sets of music put together for the Family FUSE Weekend: songs about Emily Carr and songs about pets. Expect some storytelling, some singing and quite a bit of rocking.

Sketch Station
10:30am to 4:30pm
Join educator Kate Dawson to consider the photographs in the exhibition A Terrible Beauty: Edward Burtynsky. Sketch directly in front of the works and consider our impact on the natural environment.

Built to Scale
12:00pm, 2:30pm and 3:30pm
Inspired by Edward Burtynsky’s amazing photographs of natural and manufactured landscapes, Vancouver dance collective The Contingency Plan responds to these beautiful images through contemporary dance. They will explore through movement, ideas of construction, deconstruction, scale and perspective.

Safety First
11:00am to 4:00pm
Come navigate the colourful, interactive light and sound installation from IE Creative artworks. Dress up in your brightest safety gear and proceed slowly and carefully through the Gallery. It’s also an opportunity to create your own safety signs for the dangers that may lurk in your personal world.

The Making Place
10:30am to 4:00pm
Inspired by the work in the exhibitions Lawren Harris: Canadian Visionary and A Terrible Beauty: Edward Burtynsky, try a range of explorative, hands-on activities and create art to take home with you.

Vancouver Aquarium AquaVan
Presented by BC Hydro and BG Group
11:00am to 4:00pm
AquaVan Educators facilitate learning through hands-on exploration of aquatic life from around the world. This is a unique opportunity for all ages to explore the richness of life below the surface! Glimpse at life within a 200L mobile aquarium and discover the connections between aquatic life, the environment and ourselves.

Family Film Lounge
Programmed by Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth
10:00am to 4:30pm
Take a break and relax in our film lounge. Enjoy your lunch or a snack while watching a selection of great animated and live action films.

Family FUSE Weekend is *free for children age 12-and-under when accompanied by an adult and for Gallery Members. Regular adult admission rates apply. Hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm each day this weekend.

Third Vancouver Biennale of Public Art

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt

The third Vancouver Biennale of Public Art will launch this spring with the theme Open Borders/Crossroads Vancouver. 20 prominent pieces, from artists all over the world, will be installed in parks and open spaces around Metro Vancouver including 10 in New Westminster, North Vancouver, and Squamish.

Jaume Plensa "We": Vancouver Biennale Sculpture
Past Vancouver Biennale piece. Photo credit: popejon2 on Flickr

A sculptural work by China’s Ai Weiwei, one of the most famous artists in the world, will be among numerous other public art works by a roster of major international artists being featured in the third Vancouver Biennale.

The biennale will feature works by other big name artists that include Vic Muniz from Brazil, Jonathan Borofsky from the U.S., and Andy Goldsworthy from the United Kingdom. Later this summer, Os Gemeos, the name twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo from Brazil are known by, will create a 360-degree, 23-metre tall mural around a building on Granville Island. Once it’s finished, the mural will feature animation later in the year by Graphics e-Motion, a Montreal-based company. [Source: Vancouver Sun]

Some of the art from previous Vancouver Biennale iterations is still around today as legacy pieces were purchased and donated to the city — like Lululemon founder Chip Wilson did (via Wilson5 Foundation) with Yue Minjun’s A-Maze-Ing Laughter at English Bay. These photogenic sculptures were part of the 2009/2011 Vancouver Biennale.

I Wish...
Photo credit: Rishad Daroo & midnightglory on Flickr

Arc 217.5 X 13, Bernar Venet, Sunset Beach GEF_9453
Photo credit: colink. & Gail at Large + Image Legacy on Flickr

Engagement Rings by Dennis Oppenheim
Photo credit: colink. on Flickr

Open Spaces 2005/2007 was the inaugural Biennale for International Sculpture in Vancouver. For a period of 18 months, the communities of Vancouver and its visitors were invited to participate and interact in a community wide program of special events generated through the strategic placement of 22 major International public art pieces along the walkways, waterfront parks, pathways and major public spaces of Vancouver.

The first public event for the 2014/2016 Vancouver Biennale will take place Wednesday, March 12, 2014 at Emily Carr University from 5:00pm to 7:00pm. Follow Vancouver Biennale on Facebook and Twitter, and check out the interactive map of current public art around Vancouver for updates.

Win Tickets to Tori Amos in Vancouver

Comments 51 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Tori Amos returns to Vancouver to play an all-ages show at the Orpheum on Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Amos’ brand new pop/rock album, Unrepentant Geraldines will drop on May 13th in North America. This will be a change in pace from her most recent releases, being another evolutionary step as an artist. Amos is one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and will return to the inspiring and personal music that she is known for all around the world.

Unrepentant Geraldines is Amos’ 14th studio recording, and a return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs, following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. These have included the seasonal collection Midwinter Graces, the classically influenced Night of Hunters, and Gold Dust, a collection of orchestral re-workings of songs from across her career. Released in October 2012 Gold Dust included “Flavor,” which was remixed by the late DJ Peter Rauhofer and peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Club Dance Chart in February 2013.

Amos recently also launched her most ambitious project to date as a composer, along with book writer Samuel Adamson, with the musical The Light Princes, which premiered at London’s National Theatre in fall of 2013.

Tori Amos has sold over 12 million albums, has played over a thousand shows and has won numerous awards. Since the release of her debut album Little Earthquakes 21 years ago in 1992 where she pushed boundaries with her confessional style of songwriting, Amos continues to be adored, picking up new fans along the way, romanced by her messages of empowerment, tenderness, acerbic assertiveness, and of course her utterly peerless sound.

A pioneer across multiple platforms, Tori Amos was the first major label artist to offer a single for download. She has had her songs turned into graphic novels and has produced groundbreaking videos throughout her career. Ms. Amos is also a noted humanitarian and co-founder of RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network), which is the United States’ largest anti-sexual assault organization.

Tickets (including GST) are $49.50, $69.50, $89.50 (plus FMF & service charges) and they go on sale this Friday, March 7th at 10:00am and are available through Live Nation online, by phone at 1-855-985-5000, or at available Ticketmaster outlets.

Win Tickets to Tori Amos in Vancouver

If you would like to see Tori Amos live in concert, I have a pair of tickets for the show to give away thanks to Live Nation. Here’s how you can enter to win:

  • Leave a comment naming your favourite Tori Amos song (1 entry)
  • Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win tickets to see @therealtoriamos in concert from @LiveNationWest + @Miss604 http://ow.ly/uj340

I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Wednesday, March 12, 2014. Follow Live Nation on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest Vancouver concert event information.

Update The winner is Lisa Gedak!