Things to Do in Vancouver This Weekend

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments.

 

This weekend take your pick of documentary films, the Aquarium for adults (with cocktails), the BMO Marathon, a ventriloquist, a LEGO exhibition and the final days of the Opera Festival.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

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Friday May 3

DOXA Documentary Film Festival
Where: Various locations
What: International documentaries give you the opportunity to see through someone else’s eyes, into other worlds, and you might even learn something along the way. Genres such as activism, sexuality, race, sports, war, science, art, docudrama and animation weave through shows you may not get to see on the big screen anywhere else.
Runs until: Sunday May 12, 2019

Shipyards Night Market
Where: The Shipyards, North Vancouver
What: Fresh food, locally made products, musicians, art and entertainment. The festivities in the Square kick off at 5pm on Friday nights where you will find 100+ vendors selling fresh food and locally made products. The Friday Night Market also includes a beer garden serving local craft beer and cider as well as Betty’s Vodka Iced Tea. You must me 19+ to enter the beer garden. On the Shipbuilders’ Stage there is live music until 10pm, showcasing talent from all over BC.
Runs until: Friday September 27, 2019

VAMP: A Supernatural Musical Burlesque
Where: Performance Works
What: The world you once knew is about to be stripped away as creatures of the night come alive in a new, body-positive and hilarious burlesque musical inspired by classic horror movies and everything that goes hump in the night. 
Runs until: Saturday May 18, 2019

River of Light
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: A multi movement work based on transcendence as described by writers from various traditions (Hindu, Christian, Hebrew, Indigenous Canadian, Islamic, secular and Chinese philosophy). The work is inspired by Dante’s vision in the Paradiso where he enters the glowing core of heaven and declares: “And I saw a light in the form of a river, radiant as gold”. The musical language is rich and varied and features extended techniques in both the vocal and instrumental writing.

Communicating Doors
Where: Metro Theatre
What: In this thrilling time-travel comedy, three women attempt to save themselves and each other at the hands of the same man but in three different time periods. In the present is a dominatrix who has been hired to witness a murder confession. Twenty years earlier, the second wife of the tycoon is about to be murdered and twenty years before that the first wife is also about to be murdered. All that can prevent these events and re-shape the lives of these three women is their own ingenuity and a good bit of luck.
Runs until: Saturday May 25, 2019

VSO: Louis Lortie
Where: Orpheum Theatre
What: Maestro Bramwell Tovey conducts the World Première of his own Concerto for Orchestra, a work commissioned by the VSO to commemorate his appointment as Music Director Emeritus. Tovey teams up with Canadian legend Louis Lortie to perform the Second Piano Concerto of Romantic French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.
Runs until: Sunday May 5, 2019

West Coast Symphony Orchestra (performance 1 of 2)
Where: Christ Church Cathedral
What: Enjoy this month’s installment of the West Coast Symphony Orchestra’s season concert series: Elgar, Holst & Nancy DiNovo plays Walton.

The Boom Booms
Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: A celebrated Canadian band from Vancouver, BC who blends storytelling and dance music with draws on funk, soul and Latin styles. 

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Saturday May 4

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Pints, Pinnipeds and Rescue Stories – A Special Edition After Hours For Adults
Where: Vancouver Aquarium
What:Raise a glass of suds in celebration of charismatic harbour seals, sea lions and fur seals – collectively known as pinnipeds. Learn about these fascinating animals and their incredible rescue and rehabilitation stories through never-seen-before programs, all with a drink in hand.

LEGO Exhibition
Where: River Rock Casino
What: BrickCan is the largest public exhibition of LEGO® creations ever held in British Columbia.We invite guests of all ages to check out hundreds of models built by LEGO fans from all over the world, shop with dozens of unique LEGO vendors, and let your imagination run wild in the BrickCan Creation Station. 
Runs until:Sunday May 5, 2019

Elektra Women’s Choir presents I am in Need of Music
Where: Shaughnessy Heights United Church
What: Two forces of Canadian classical music come together for a very special concert in Vancouver. Soprano Suzie LeBlanc is a creative and curious musician, delving into a rich diversity of styles, cultures, and words. Expect the unexpected as Elektra and LeBlanc share the stage in this intimate and compelling program.

Terry Factor
Where: Hard Rock Casino Vancouver
What: Terry Fator is a singer, comedian, ventriloquist and celebrity impressionist who burst onto the national scene after winning “America’s Got Talent” in 2007 (despite the fact Winston said he won it for Terry). A native of Texas, Terry spent over 20 years on the road performing at everything from schools to county fairs before becoming a Vegas headliner.

Henry Jamison
Where: The Fox Cabaret
What: A songwriter from Vermont.

Opera Speaks with Rebecca Hass
Where: Orpheum Annex
What: A panel discussion featuring Rebecca Haas and others about the space between Indigenous and Western Art music and the potential within.

West Coast Symphony Orchestra (performance 2 of 2)
Where: Christ Church Cathedral
What: Enjoy this month’s installment of the West Coast Symphony Orchestra’s season concert series: Elgar, Holst & Nancy DiNovo plays Walton.

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Sunday May 5

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BMO Vancouver Marathon
Where: Vancouver
What: Beautiful running routes with scenic point-to-point courses that span parks and beaches, including the picturesque Seawall – the world’s longest uninterrupted waterfront path. The event features races for everyone, including the award-winning marathon, a fast half marathon, 8KM, relay, and kids run. Ranked one of the World’s Top Destination Marathons by the likes of Forbes, CNN, and USA Today, the BMO Vancouver Marathon annually welcomes runners from 65+ countries.

La Cenerentola
Where: Vancouver Playhouse
What: In Rossini’s masterpiece, La Cenerentola (Cinderella), the evil stepmother trades places with a malevolent stepfather, the fairy godmother is a philosopher, and the legendary glass slipper is replaced with a bracelet. Nonetheless, the essence of the fairy-tale remains: a magical journey from rags to riches. 

Faust
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: Gounod’s Faust is the pinnacle of 19th century French opera, it’s full of rich characterization, it’s dramatically exciting, and it’s exuberantly evocative. Faust, an aged and bitter man, sells his soul to Méphistophélès in return for youth and the love of Marguerite, an innocent young woman. By trying to have it all, he loses everything. Gounod’s sensuous and sublimely melodic masterpiece will be presented in a production not seen before in Vancouver.

Jon Bryant
Where: The Biltmore Cabaret
What: Halifax-born and Vancouver-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jon Bryant explores the conundrum of connection on his full-length debut for Nettwerk, Cult Classic. 

BC Cider Festival
Where: The Pipe Shop, North Vancouver
What: This tasting event will feature 30+ cideries from BC, the Pacific Northwest, and abroad. 

Community Paddling Day
Where: Creekside Community Centre
What: Learn to dragon boat for free. 45 minute dragon boat sessions begin at 12:00, 1:00 and 2:00.

Walk for Alzheimer’s
Where: Creekside Community Recreation Centre
What: B.C.’s flagship fundraiser and is a way British Columbians can celebrate and remember people in their lives who have been affected by dementia, while they raise valuable funds and awareness to create change.

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Ongoing

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Arts Club Theatre Company presents Bed & Breakfast
Where: Granville Island Stage
What: When Brett inherits a family estate, he and his partner, Drew, move to a quiet little tourist town to set up a B&B. But will these big city boys face friction in their new community? With dozens of hilarious characters all portrayed by two actors, this theatrical production is a heartfelt comedy about “being out,” skeletons in the closet, and finding a place to call home.
Runs until: Saturday May 4, 2019

Verses Festival of Words
Where: Various locations around Commercial Drive
What: The mission of the Verses Festival of Words is to celebrate the transformative power of words – written, spoken or sung; to engage diverse groups in cutting-edge, live performances as both audience and participants; to present influential artists from both the oral and literary traditions, and to encourage the next generation of performers and writers. 
Runs until: Saturday May 4, 2019

Chilliwack Tulip Festival
Where: 41310 Yale Rd, Chilliwack
What: Now in its 13th year, the Festival is poised to be the biggest and best yet. The first two weeks of the festival will feature 10 varieties of hyacinths and 17 varieties of daffodils, and include one-of-a-kind, handmade floral mosaics. From the second weekend forward, an awe-inspiring 30 varieties of tulips will be in bloom, totaling more than 6.5 million bulbs in all the colours of the rainbow, planted in extra wide rows for easy viewing and convenient photo opportunities. Overall, there are 20 acres of spring beauty to behold.
Runs until: Sunday May 5, 2019

VSO: Louis Lortie
Where: Orpheum Theatre
What: Maestro Bramwell Tovey conducts the World Première of his own Concerto for Orchestra, a work commissioned by the VSO to commemorate his appointment as Music Director Emeritus. Tovey teams up with Canadian legend Louis Lortie to perform the Second Piano Concerto of Romantic French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.
Runs until: Sunday May 5, 2019

Dead Peoples Things
Where: Studio 16
What: Poignant and darkly comedic, the play follows Phyllis, a Millennial, who inherits a house and all of its contents after her estranged hoarder aunt commits suicide. She then must work with neighbour Beatrice, a Baby Boomer who has been named executrix, to try and make some sense of the life and death of a woman she barely knew, through the things she left behind. Based on true events, Dead People’s Things is a heartrending haunting that examines loneliness and the strange contradiction between belongings and belonging.
Runs until: Sunday May 5, 2019

CBC Chamber Music Series
Where: CBC Studio 700
What: Five short performances of chamber music inspired by fairy tales and fables. Featuring musicians from the Vancouver Opera Orchestra and invited guests.
Runs until:  Sunday May 5, 2019

LEGO Exhibition
Where: River Rock Casino
What: BrickCan is the largest public exhibition of LEGO® creations ever held in British Columbia.We invite guests of all ages to check out hundreds of models built by LEGO fans from all over the world, shop with dozens of unique LEGO vendors, and let your imagination run wild in the BrickCan Creation Station. 
Runs until:Sunday May 5, 2019

DOXA Documentary Film Festival
Where: Various locations
What: International documentaries give you the opportunity to see through someone else’s eyes, into other worlds, and you might even learn something along the way. Genres such as activism, sexuality, race, sports, war, science, art, docudrama and animation weave through shows you may not get to see on the big screen anywhere else.
Runs until: Sunday May 12, 2019

Alana Paterson
Where: Polygon Gallery
What: Direct, authoritative and empowering, images of a Squamish Nation youth basketball team by photojournalist Alana Paterson give voice to an emerging generation of Indigenous women and reveals the sense of strength, perseverance, and passion. This exhibition is produced in collaboration with the Capture Photography Festival.
Runs until: Sunday May 12, 2019

VAMP: A Supernatural Musical Burlesque
Where: Performance Works
What: The world you once knew is about to be stripped away as creatures of the night come alive in a new, body-positive and hilarious burlesque musical inspired by classic horror movies and everything that goes hump in the night. 
Runs until: Saturday May 18, 2019

The Great Leap
Where: Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre
What: It’s 1989, and for a man with a past and one teen with a future, an exhibition basketball game in Beijing is a chance at something greater. Chinese coach Wen Chang is a quiet Party supporter and Manford is a kid with hustle from San Francisco’s Chinatown who makes up for his short stature with tenacious baller skill. As the story jumps back and forth in time, tensions rise right up to the final buzzer and history collides at the leap for a 3-point shot.
Runs until:Sunday May 19, 2019

French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1850-1950
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Sixty paintings and sculptures from the Brooklyn Museum’s renowned European permanent and long-term loan collections. Identifying France as the artistic centre of international modernism from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, these works—which are diverse in subject matter, style and scale—were created by leading artists of the period, intended both for private collections and public display.
Runs until: Monday May 20, 2019

Affinities: Canadian Artists and France
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Looking at the significance that French art and culture has held for Canadian artists over the past 120 years, this exhibition of works from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Collection focuses on influences of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Surrealism on Canadian artists during the first half of the twentieth century.
Runs until: Monday May 20, 2019

Communicating Doors
Where: Metro Theatre
What: In this thrilling time-travel comedy, three women attempt to save themselves and each other at the hands of the same man but in three different time periods. In the present is a dominatrix who has been hired to witness a murder confession. Twenty years earlier, the second wife of the tycoon is about to be murdered and twenty years before that the first wife is also about to be murdered. All that can prevent these events and re-shape the lives of these three women is their own ingenuity and a good bit of luck.
Runs until: Saturday May 25, 2019

Counternarratives: Paintings by Archibald Fairbairn
Where: Bill Reid Gallery
What: The watercolour paintings of Archibald Fairbairn (1888 – 1979) document the beauty of totem poles and communities during the early 20th century. This exhibition juxtaposes an idealistic painter’s postcolonial gaze with critical discourse from contemporary Indigenous voices.
Runs until: Sunday June 2, 2019

Displacement
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This exhibition comprises internationally acclaimed Victoria-based artist Mowry Baden’s work from the late 1960s to the present. Baden is known for producing intricate, sometimes humorous sculptural works and installations that borrow from the fields of perceptual psychology, science and architecture, and often solicit the audience’s participation.
Runs until: Sunday June 9, 2019

Throne and Games – The Last Laugh
Where: The Improv Centre
What: Loosely based on HBO’s popular TV series, this improv laugh-letting features myriad unexpected plot twists – all suggested by the audience. No two performances can ever be the same because of this key element. Like its TV inspiration, the audience has no idea what to expect next, and, neither do the cast. VTS improvisers are master actors – creating the plot line, developing characters and dialogue all on the spot based on audience involvement and suggestions. Warning–there may be spoilers!
Runs until: Saturday June 15, 2019

Deanna Bowen: A Harlem Nocturne
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Deanna Bowen’s artistic practice concerns itself with overlooked histories of Black experience, often connected to her own family in Canada and the US. Mining archives and forgotten documents, she makes use of a repertoire of artistic gestures to bring traces of a complex, deeply personal and often violent past into public visibility. Bowen’s solo exhibition A Harlem Nocturne comprises two separate trajectories of new research that follow the artist’s maternal lineage in Canada.
Runs until: Sunday June 16, 2019

The Late Show – Adult Only Improv Comedy
Where: The Improv Centre
What: Are you a grown-up? If you are, join us! This show takes the furry hand-cuffs off our improvisers to present edgy, uncensored improv comedy. With the aid of audience suggestions, our quick-witted improvisers create scenarios that explore mature themes, content and language. You never know how far this show will go and the audience are willing accomplices.
Runs until: June 29, 2019 (Saturdays)

Wild Things: The Power of Nature in Our Lives
Where: Museum of Vancouver
What: This exhibition delves into the life stories of local animals and plants—how they relate to each other and how they connect people to nature in the city. Scenic design, videos, taxidermy, crowd-sourcing technologies, and the display of natural specimens breathe life into these tales of co-habitation. The immersive nature of the exhibition, including hands-on activities, encourages visitors to examine their relationship with nature, think about momentarily disconnecting from their devices, and find equilibrium with the natural world around them.
Runs until: July 2019

Moving Still: Performative Photography from India
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery & Annex Theatre
What: A major exhibition of works by thirteen artists based in India whose photographic practices focus on constructing and reconstructing realities. The exhibition and will showcase more than one hundred works, dating from the 1800s to the present, and examines themes of gender, religion and sexual identity using photography, an important medium in India since the mid-nineteenth century.
Runs until: Sunday September 2, 2019

Making Waves: The Story and Legacy of Greenpeace
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: With humble beginnings in Vancouver, Greenpeace has grown into a large organization with offices in 40 countries. The NGO has protested numerous causes: whaling, deforestation, mining, genetic testing, and nuclear testing. Explore this exhibit that goes from their first voyage from Vancouver to Amchitka to protest Nuclear testing on an old fishing vessel to how cities, government, and industry today are developing new policies, technologies, and sustainable practices to ensure the preservation of our environment.
Runs until: Monday September 9, 2019

Rolande Souliere: Frequent Stopping IV and V
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: The multi-media practice of Australia-based Anishinaabe artist Rolande Souliere entangles the visual language of hard-edged geometric abstraction with that of contemporary traffic signage to consider how colonial infrastructures mark both spaces and the people inhabiting them. Her solo exhibition Frequent Stopping IV and V presents new large-scale, site-specific work at the Contemporary Art Gallery’s two public sites: its street level façade and the nearby Yaletown-Roundhouse Station. This exhibition draws from Souliere’s ongoing body of work that creates interventions using caution tape and street barrier patterns in immersive, muscular installations.
Runs until: Friday September 20, 2019

Shipyards Night Market
Where: The Shipyards, North Vancouver
What: Fresh food, locally made products, musicians, art and entertainment. The festivities in the Square kick off at 5pm on Friday nights where you will find 100+ vendors selling fresh food and locally made products. The Friday Night Market also includes a beer garden serving local craft beer and cider as well as Betty’s Vodka Iced Tea. You must me 19+ to enter the beer garden. On the Shipbuilders’ Stage there is live music until 10pm, showcasing talent from all over BC.
Runs until: Friday September 27, 2019

Womxn and Waterways
Where: Bill Reid Gallery
What: Explore the unique connection between womxn and water in the matriarchal societies of the Northwest Coast, with special attention to the roles of child-bearers, healers, and doulas. Artists Richelle Bear Hat (Blackfoot/Cree), Krystle Coughlin (Selkirk), Lindsay Katsitsakataste Delaronde (Mohawk), Alison Marks (Tlingit), Dionne Paul (Nuxalk/Sechelt), Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena), Marika Echachis Swan (Nuu-chah-nulth), Carrielynn Victor (Sto:lo), Veronica Rose Waechter (Gitxsan) and Water Keeper, Audrey Siegl (Musqueam) will explore water as a crucial element of creation, its historical uses for survival, and contemporary over-consumption as a threat to sensitive coastal ecosystems.
Runs until: Wednesday October 2, 2019

Shake Up: Preserving What We Value
Where: Museum of Anthropology
What: The exhibition will bring to light the convergence of earthquake science and technology with the rich Indigenous knowledge and oral history of the living cultures represented in MOA’s Northwest Coast collection. Beyond scientific discoveries, knowledge of earthquakes and natural disasters has been passed down through generations throughout many cultures, including those of the Northwest Coast First Nations. Also as part of the exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to see the majestic poles of the Great Hall undergo conservation, many for the first time in 40 years.
Runs until: Fall 2019

Vancouver TheatreSports presents: The Late Show
Where: The Improv Centre
What: Are you a grown-up? If you are, join late Saturday nights for The Late Show – Adult Only Improv Comedy. This show takes the furry hand-cuffs off our improvisers to present edgy, uncensored improv comedy. With the aid of audience suggestions, our quick-witted improvisers create scenarios that explore mature themes, content and language. You never know how far this show will go and the audience are willing accomplices.
Runs until:  Fall 2019

How Far Do You Travel
Where: Select B-Line TransLink busses
What: Five Canadian artists — Diyan Achjadi, Patrick Cruz, Rolande Souliere, Erdem Tasdelen and Anna Torma — are being commissioned to graphically wrap the exterior of a series of articulated buses traveling on major routes in Metro Vancouver.
Runs until: Tuesday December 31, 2019

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments.