The Richmond Night Market is open for the season, featuring an international food fair with over a hundred vendors with over five hundred food items from all over the world.
Fridays and Saturdays 7:00pm to 12:00am; Sundays & Holidays 7:00pm to 11:00pm
Admission & Details: $4.75, free for children 10 and under, free for seniors 60+.
Skip the long lines with an Express Pass. Fast, easy and transferrable, for just $28 you get 6 visits, front of the line access, and you can share it with friends or family.
The night market is the best place to find unique culinary creations, from steaming liquid nitrogen ice cream cups topped with churros to potato tornadoes, bubble waffles, grilled octopus, ramen spam burgers, takoyaki, and so much more.
New This Year
A Summer Chill Party theme
Slushies in the Angle Duck Cafe
Non-alcoholic Champagne and Ginger Beer – served in Party LED Cups
Hershey’s Cookies n Creme and Hi-Rev Mocha – served in signature Ducky Cups
Follow the Richmond Night Market on Facebook for the latest updates.
The BC Highland Games answer the questions: Who is the strongest? Who can flip a huge log (caber) to land perfectly at the 12 o’clock position? Who is the best piper or drummer, dancer or pipe band? Taking place in BC for more than 100 years, and in Scotland for centuries, these games complete with a full festival with delicious food, concerts, and fun for the whole family.
BC Highland Games and Scottish Festival
Where: NEW location! Lafarge Lake Park (1209 Pinetree Way, Coquitlam)
When: Friday evening, June 14 (FREE) and all day Saturday, June 15, 2019 (ticketed)
Look for stock dog demonstrations, performances from pipe bands, live music, vendors, cultural talks, haggis-hunting, beer garden and whisky school, all taking place at one time, on one day in one place: Lafarge Lake Park
Enjoy Scottish delicacies, like haggis and Irn Bru while the kids get their faces painted. Pop into the beer garden, and enjoy live Celtic music from The Paperboys and other bands on Lew Ross Field North. In the northwest section of the park, some of the world’s best highland dancers will be competing.
Competitions
As the name suggest, the BC Highland Games are all about the competitions. From pipes, drums, bands and dancing, to stone putt, hammer toss, caber toss and more.
Tartan Run
The inaugural Tartan Run will take place on Friday, June 14th. It’s the first ever BC Highland Games 5 & 10k Tartan Run (and walk) at 6:30pm. The run finishes at the new Games site for a free concert-in-the-park with a beer garden, vendors, bagpipers, whisky school and The Paperboys on the Ceilidh Stage (bring lawn chairs).
Follow the BC Highland Games on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more information about this festival and its amazing tradition.
Miss604 is proud to be the Social Media Sponsor of the 2019 BC Highland Games.
Cherry blossom petals pirouetted in the entranceway of Arts Umbrella’s East 7th location when I rang the bell to meet up with Artemis Gordon, Artistic Director of the Arts Umbrella Dance Company (“AUDC”). Inside, graduate students were rehearsing for the season finale show, BE MOVED.
There are two studios at this location, with three more on Granville Island. The new permanent Arts Umbrella space will be the refurbished Emily Carr University building on Granville Island once renovations are complete. “I would say that I foresaw this growth my first day,” Gordon told me as rehearsals continued. “I came here from Toronto and it was with a bit of a mission to develop and understand and research and create a community for contemporary dance.”
Season Finale is Just the Beginning
“This was always a goal, to have more studios, to be able to offer more programming, and to have the flexibility to be able to do multiple things that further the art form, and further the education in the program.”
Arts Umbrella’s growth is attributed to its world-class programming, and the reputation of its staff, choreographers, and dancers. In fact, more than half of Ballet BC dancers are Arts Umbrella graduates and many grads are dancing all over the world. “There’s a real ripple of what’s happening in the dance world right now because of what we’ve been doing at Arts Umbrella.”
For BE MOVED, the production will include pieces by Crystal Pite, Emily Molnar, Johan Inger, Lesley Telford, James Kudelka, Mats Ek, and Amos Ben-Tal.
“If you are a human being that has listened to music and walked, you know dance. Whether or not you are able to do what they do on stage, that’s another thing, but you know it. We all know what dance is.” – Artemis Gordon
Gordon tells the dancers: “The reason we have these amazing choreographers is on the reputation of what people have already done. It’s your responsibility to do the work, then I get these choreographers for the future. It’s uncanny to have the roster that we have, of professional choreographers and dance artists.”
From the ground up, Gordon says it’s the Arts Umbrella work ethic that also makes a difference.
“We do a lot of new creations which means there’s an entire skillset that is identified, and worked on, and articulated, and developed. We have a great work ethic and respect for the work in the studio and that we have these amazing choreographers really makes my job easy. I think it’s really a testament to the work that’s being done in the program.”
Arts Umbrella’s Season Finale BE MOVED
Where: Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton, Vancouver) When: May 23-25, 2019 Tickets: Available online now
Arts Umbrella Dance Company’s Season Finale: BE MOVED will be the culmination of months of exploration and rehearsal of bold and innovative works created for AUDC dancers by leading International and Canadian choreographers.
As someone whose only on-stage dance experience has been watching The Nutcracker at Christmas, I asked Gordon what someone like me could expect from BE MOVED.
“A divergence, a great diversity of music, a diversity of ideas, you’ll see everyone’s vision of what they think dance is. You’re going to see some extraordinary commitment of young people on stage, a real virtuosity of the ability to create new movement – not movement that is programmed or has been done before – but a new way of approaching movement vocabulary. You’ll see what is the human potential.”
We popped in on the class one more time as she whispered and pointed at all of the international students who sought out Arts Umbrella. “I just wish that it didn’t have an elitist connotation,” Gordon added as we walked back into the hallway. “Doing it is elite, it’s hard! It is a 12 year rigorous study to be able to do what these kids do and then you can only do it until your body says no more, but watching it is a lifelong thing.”
“I hear other people say I don’t get it. But why would you expect to get it? Nobody asks you to explain music, and somehow we feel it’s ok to just feel music. But why is it with dance, we feel we need to know it or get it?” That’s what Gordon really wants to break down. “We’re all the same. Everyone feels that urge to express themselves physically, through what we wear, how we do our hair, the choices of what we say or where we go. It’s all the dance of our lives.”
Win Tickets
I have a pair of tickets to give away to the opening night performance on May 23rd, thanks to Arts Umbrella. Here’s how you can enter to win:
Here’s how you can enter to win:
Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
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Follow Arts Umbrella on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more information about the Dance Company, and their programs. I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Friday, May 17, 2019.
Jim Deva Plaza, in the heart of Davie Village, will be home to the West End Summer Art Market this summer, hosted by a group of West End artists, artisans and neighbours working towards a more vibrant community.
West End Summer Art Market
Where:Jim Deva Plaza (1200 Bute Street, Vancouver) When: Every Saturday, June 1 to September 28, 2019 (except August 2nd)
The West End Arts Collective (“WE Arts”) hopes that this will be more than just a market, they want it to be a gathering space for West Enders to support local artists, enjoy local music, participate in community art projects and workshops and meet neighbours.
There will be one workshop per month during the market, and residents can sign up to be a host here. You can also volunteer to move in tents and tables, or apply to be a vendor.
WE Arts was born in looking forward at the role of the arts in the West End. They partnered with the City of Vancouver in creating the West End Art Plan. Through several public consultations they learned what arts and culture priorities our neighbours have, and they adopted them as goals for WE Arts. So far they have been able to deliver on a weekly art market and West End music and arts festival. Every year they seek to move closer to reaching their goal of seeing all these ideals become reality.
Follow WE Arts on Facebook and Twitter for more information.
This month’s guest post is contributed by Dannie Piezas, Environmental Educator with the Stanley Park Ecology Society (“SPES”)
Vancouver Bird Week 2019
There are few creatures in nature that are quite as
inspiring as birds.
They are, first of all, quite easily noticed with their striking
plumage, flying ability, musical language, and their widespread presence across
the landscape. These qualities, and their sometimes peculiar antics, lend
themselves to some level of admiration—whether to bird nerds or the
bird-curious. Less often, they might be the cause of aversion or even fear,
especially around the nesting season when crows might bring to mind an infamous
(and over-the-top) scene from Hitchcock’s The
Birds.
However, there is so much more to birds than their pretty colours and occasional dive-bombing. From May 11-17, Vancouver takes a closer look at the birds in our neighbourhood during the 2019 Vancouver Bird Week, a week-long series of events celebrating our 250+ species of birds. Bird Week offers something for everyone, from experienced bird experts to fledgling beginners. Events include bird “language” training, a hawk and owl show, a bird photography workshop, a wing taxidermy workshop, a bird walk for hipsters, and many more. Most events are free.
Stanley Park Ecology Society (SPES) coordinates Bird Week this year and offers its own set of bird-themed programs around Stanley Park, including the opening “Take-off” event on Saturday, May 11th at Lost Lagoon from noon to 4:00pm. Don’t miss the parade of costumed “birds” along the Lagoon at 3:00pm.
History of Bird Week
Bird Week started as just one day first celebrated in Vancouver on World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD), May 11, 2011. WMBD is a United Nations-sponsored initiative that recognizes the importance of birds as key indicators of our environment’s health (like the canary in the coal mine). Vancouver and its week-long bird festival are ideally situated to showcase birds and raise our awareness about them: the region lies on the Pacific Flyway, a major north-south route for migratory birds in the Americas, from Alaska and our northernmost territories, down to Patagonia. The Arctic Tern is one of our seasonal visitors that migrates from the Arctic to Antarctic each year; imagine their need for good rest stops along the way! Because such birds touch down in so many places, their impact is felt across various parts of the world, and it’s vital to conserve their habitat all along their migration routes.
Benefits of Birds
Birds affect ecosystems and provide multiple benefits to
humans, in the way they spread seeds, pollinate flowers, and feed on pests like
insects and rodents. They also provide habitat for other animals; woodpeckers,
for example, create cavities that can then be used by owls, wood ducks, and
squirrels.
Photo: Denali National Park and Preserve
Birds are incredibly diverse, not just in appearance but in
their feeding and habitat preferences. We find them in trees and bushes, on
water, on grassy lawns, and even in the most urban environments. They provide
something like a treasure hunt opportunity that is not unlike the recent
phenomenon of Pokémon Go, which is
pretty much birdwatching but on a tiny screen.
Besides all that has been said, birds have always been of
great spiritual and poetic significance to humankind—a gateway to the
transcendent. With their grace for flight, they are like mediums: connecting
heaven to earth, country to country, habitat to habitat, and urban to wild. Watching
them closely stirs a myriad of questions about things outside of ourselves,
especially the natural world and its wellbeing. Let Hollywood slasher film
director Wes Craven sum it up like so:
Like the canary in the mine, [birds] hold the planet up to us like a mirror and ask: “Can you not see that if we pass away, soon you will as well?” That’s a good question, and since birds pose it, they matter a lot.
As a member of the Stanley Park Ecology Society, I wanted to offer the organization an opportunity to share their news, events, and work so I created the “SPES Series” years ago. This is where SPES can contribute and share stories with my audience once a month. Follow SPES on Facebook for more information.
