The holiday season is here and it is in full swing! There are lights, shows, attractions, and so much more making Metro Vancouver so festive right now. Miss604 is proud to sponsor the freeHeritage Christmas at Burnaby Village Museum all season long, and you can find more things to do in Vancouver this weekend listed below:
Organizers of Squamish Constellation Festival (July 22-24, 2022) have announced multi-Grammy and Juno Award-winner Sarah McLachlan will be headlining the event’s return after the festival had to take a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.
Constellation Festival 2022 with Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan photo credit Kharen Hill
“The live music industry has suffered greatly over the past two years, and for a festival still in its infancy like Squamish Constellation Fest, the impact has been profound,” said Sarah McLachlan, who will be performing in the last slot of the weekend on Sunday, July 24. “We all need opportunities to gather and celebrate and this festival embodies what we’ve been missing: community, love, and togetherness – I am so excited to be a part of it.”
Festival organizers are equally pleased with the pairing and are taking this opportunity to launch its first Kickstarter campaign (live as of Thursday, December 16th at 12:00pm) with rewards that include a select number of cocktail hour meet and greets with McLachlan, autographed memorabilia, weekend passes and more.
“We really could not be more ecstatic,” said Tamara Stanners, partner and co-founder of the festival. “We already have so much love for Sarah that when she agreed we were over the moon. It’s made rebounding from a couple of really tough years so much easier.”
The three-day music and art festival in the heart of the Sea to Sky Corridor had an incredibly successful launch in 2019, with artists including Bahamas, Jessie Reyez, Serena Ryder, Halfmoon Run, and A Tribe Called Red. Plans to announce a full line-up in March of 2020 were stymied when COVID-19 quickly brought the live music scene to a grinding halt. “That definitely hurt us,” added Stanners. “When you are getting a new festival off the ground you expect a few years of uphill efforts before you can stand on firm ground financially. We had a lot of incredible momentum and positivity after our inaugural festival that we hoped to build on despite the immense challenges the pandemic presented.”
The full artist lineup is expected to be released in March, 2022. Organizers assure that if you had a ticket for the 2020 festival which was cancelled, your ticket will be honoured in 2022.
In the meantime, they are hosting smaller, intimate shows through the Little Dipper Concert Series. The next one of those is January 22, 2022 with Said the Whale at the Brackendale Art Gallery. Follow the festival on Instagram and Facebook for all the latest news and updates.
In the spirit of Dude Chilling Park, a sign declaring Barge Chilling Beach has emerged on the shores of Sunset Beach in Downtown Vancouver’s West End.
Barge Chilling Beach is Real
On November 15th, this unmoored barge wandered aimlessly through the stormy waters of English Bay. There were many fears with this runaway vessel, including how it might veer into the Burrard Bridge and cause damage, what its contents were, etc. Fortunately right before entering the False Creek channel, it became lodged on the rocks at Sunset Beach.
“The Coast Guard told CTV News the barge owner, who has not been publicly identified, is responsible for securing it and towing it away. Crews made several attempts to pull the barge off the rocks Tuesday afternoon, but it wouldn’t budge. As of Tuesday evening, the barge remained on the rocks.” – CTV News
With its contents later determined not to be harmful and a steady anchor on shore, this behemoth became somewhat of a local attraction with many calling it “Barge on the Beach”, a play on Vancouver’s annual summer Shakespeare festival, Bard on the Beach, which takes place across the water at Vanier Park.
It has since become a meme – some joking it’s the latest Vancouver Biennale art piece, others creating humorous reviews of the “installation” on sites like TripAdvisor. Someone even made a memorial when the appearance of a crane made it seem the barge was going to depart.
This morning the Vancouver Park Board posted a photo on social media unveiling the official sign for “Barge Chilling Park. Many thought it was a joke or super early April Fool’s prank, so I had to go see for myself:
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (“VSO”) opens the new year with an exciting series of concerts featuring the best of Canadian talent. Performances start on New Year’s Day, January 1st, with the return of the Salute to Vienna New Year’s Concert in partnership with Attila Glatz Concert Productions.
VSO Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Facebook Photo
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra January 2022 Programming
GRAMMY and JUNO-award nominated Jens Lindemann joins the VSO in concerts featuring classical-era masters Haydn and Mozart at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC and the Bell Performing Arts Centre in Surrey on January 8 and 9.
Christopher Gaze returns January 13 for an afternoon performance featuring masterworks Appalachian Spring and Rodéo by celebrated American composer, Aaron Copland. Canadian singer-songwriter Steven Page headlines a sensational evening of his iconic music on January 14 and 15.
From January 21 to 23, the VSO brings together masterworks by Berlioz and Sri-Lankan-born Canadian Dinuk Wijeratne with Frank Martin’s Ballade featuring VSO principal flute Christie Reside. Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin comes to Vancouver for a ravishing performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1, January 28 and 29.
Led by Music Director Otto Tausk since 2018, the VSO performs more than 150 concerts each year, throughout Vancouver and the province of British Columbia, reaching over 270,000 people annually. On tour, the VSO has performed in the United States, China, Korea and across Canada.
Follow Miss604Holidays this season for the latest arts and culture activities, attraction and event news »
The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (“PuSh”) presents its 18th annual edition from January 20 to February 6, 2022 at various venues across the Lower Mainland and select programming online.
Crossing the boundaries of age, gender, and ethnicity in its collective authorship, AALAAPI | ᐋᓛᐱ enriches our lives with a nuanced understanding of contemporary Inuit experience. Combining the aesthetics of theatre and radio, the project takes us to the North. The focus is on two women living in Nunavik; over a long arc, we watch their lives play out. A radio is the centrepiece in their domestic setting, and through it come the sounds of an audio documentary. We listen along with the women, and eventually the broadcast comes under scrutiny in a process informed by ethical and political concerns.
Drawing on radio’s large role in the lives of Northern societies, this work makes brilliant use of the medium’s ambient quality—but never at the expense of engagement with the material itself. Collectif Aalaapi provokes us to critique the radio documentary and the ideology it engenders; the members have joined together to illuminate the politics of language and culture, and their invitation to the audience is to enlarge this union. Aalaapi has surtitles in English and French.
Gabrielle Martin, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival director of programming told the Vancouver Sun:
“It takes its title from an Inuktitut word for it to be silent to hear something beautiful. It began as a radio documentary project by eight Inuit women which developed into a work for theatre presented in Inuktitut, French and English. I think it really amplifies the diversity of contemporary Inuit experience and reminds us that active listening can be a radical act. It engages the audience in a way that really is unique to Northern communities. I was under its spell the entire time, and I think it brings voices to PuSh that maybe haven’t been heard before.”
Win Tickets to Aalaapi
Aalaapi | ᐋᓛ is on stage at the Waterfront Theatre January 29-30, and February 1-2, 2022. You can enter to win tickets to opening night on January 29th at 7:30pm, here’s how:
PuSh is Vancouver’s signature, mid-winter cultural event, taking place each January in theatres and venues across the city. PuSh delivers groundbreaking, contemporary works of theatre, dance, music, and multimedia by acclaimed local, national, and international artists.
Featuring 14 works from three countries including three world premieres and two Canadian premieres — the festival line-up is dedicated to creative risk-taking and dynamic interdisciplinary collaboration. With an emphasis on artists from across Canada this year, PuSh will also present works from the United States and the United Kingdom.
International companies/artists being presented for PuSh 2022 and Club PuSh include: Steve Lambert (USA); Joseph Toonga of Just Us Dance Theatre (UK). Canadian companies/artists include: Crow’s Theatre/Cliff Cardinal; Tarragon Theatre and Black Theatre Workshop; Theatre Replacement; Joe Jack & John; LION LION; Collectif Aalaapi|La Messe Basse; Vivek Shraya and Canadian Stage; Leah Abramson; Aphotic Theatre, ITSAZOO Productions; The Talking Stick Festival; the frank theatre company; Immigrant Lessons; Music Picnic/Njo Kong Kie 楊光奇; MAYDAY; Ruby Singh, and more.
Check out the comprehensive 2022 program guide that is available online. Single tickets start at $20. Buy online or call the PuSh Festival Audience Services info line at (604) 449-6000. PuSh Passes are the best way to experience the PuSh Festival. Pass holders save 20% on single tickets and they are flexible so Passholders can book tickets online at any time.
