WHILE the seasonal sparkle of the holiday season is over for another year, have no fear as the red carpets are being unfurled for a glitzy and glamorous 2013 award season.
The 70th Golden Globe Awards, hosted by funny gals Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, is set to air Jan. 13, broadcast from the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Hot on its heels is the 85th Academy Awards, being held Feb. 24 and hosted by Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane. The cinematic stars in the running for the film industry's top honour will be announced Jan. 10.
The top recording artists will have their opportunity to shine at the 55th Grammys Feb. 10, and North Shore residents are invited to get in on the action thanks to Capilano University (capilanou.ca/nscucentre), which is proud to welcome four artists who've received nods this year as part of its 2012-2013 season. Vocal jazz artist Kurt Elling, blues singer Ruthie Foster and Brazilian vocalist Luciana Souza, all in the running for an award, performed locally in 2012. Fellow nominee Brad Mehldau, a jazz pianist, will take the stage at West Vancouver's Kay Meek Centre April 29, and A Tribute to Clare Fischer, a Grammy-winning American composer who passed away a year ago at age 83, is being presented Jan. 25 at the North Shore Credit Union Centre for the Performing Arts. Fischer's album ¡Ritmo!, by the The Clare Fischer Latin Jazz Big Band, received a nomination in the Grammy category: Best Latin Jazz Album. The tribute show will feature "A" Band, NiteCap and faculty guests, and is part of the Cap Jazz Series.
For those looking to take in a little live entertainment, the many performance spaces, theatres and galleries on the North Shore have lined up an impressive array of arts programming over the next six months, a surefire and stimulating means of helping local residents beat the winter blues and welcome spring with open arms.
Live music options include New Orleans' own Hot 8 Brass Band, which is considered to have epitomized New Orleans street music and is a fixture in the traditional Second Line parades. The ensemble will heat up Kay Meek Centre (kaymeekcentre.com) with a special performance on Valentine's Day. Canadian jazz icon Holly Cole will grace the same stage May 31, at a gala fundraising evening for the West Vancouver arts centre.
Fellow Canadian artist Mark Berube will take North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre stage Feb. 1 (centennialtheatre. com), and Jim Byrnes and Babe Gurr will join forces Jan. 25-26 for two fundraising performances in support of First Impressions Theatre at the Deep Cove Shaw Theatre (firstimpressionstheatre.com).
Professional chamber choir Laudate Singers is presenting two concerts this spring, Mass Enlightenment March 2 at North Vancouver's St. Andrew's United Church and March 8 at Vancouver's Holy Rosary Cathedral, and Voice of the Tango May 11 at St. Andrews United Church (laudatesingers. com). "We first gave a concert under this title in 2009 and it was sensational and unique," says Lars Kaario, artistic director of Laudate Singers. "Since then, tango has become even more popular in Vancouver. Our instrumentalists, particularly Linda Lee Thomas, are all tango experts - dare I say, fanatics? We will perform some popular tango works together, as well as both a cappella choral pieces and instrumental pieces. It is passionate and a lot of fun too."
West Vancouver Community Arts Council's annual Jazz Waves series kicks off June 22 and has become a summertime staple for many since its inception 13 years ago.
"Although I very much look forward to every event or program our organization presents, the one I most look forward to - the one that to me really says 'my community' and 'arts' - is our annual Jazz Waves series," says Sara Baker, executive director of the West Vancouver Community Arts Council. "To be able to share a summer's evening with friends and neighbours down at the seaside at sunset, get up close and personal with world class musicians in an intimate waterfront heritage cottage setting, has got to be one of the great joys and blessings of being a member of the WVCAC, and living here on the beautiful North Shore."
The series offers top rate jazz, blues and gospel performances and runs from June through August at the Silk Purse Arts Centre (silkpurse.ca).
On the first Thursday of every month, staff at the Silk Purse present Music For Art, a concert by Lions Gate Sinfonia inspired by the gallery's current show. The March 7 performance will focus on the artwork of painter/printmaker Greg Allen and his exhibit Looking from the Outside.
Nearby Ferry Building Gallery is presenting Hungry Ghosts: Living in the Age of Consumerism, starting Jan.
8, a mixed media group exhibition examining material consumption. On Feb. 19, the space will play host to An Evening with Bobbie Burgers, seeing the artist discuss her time living and painting en plein air in France. Burgers will sign copies of her new book Arriving at a Landscape.
The event Ruth Payne, visual arts co-orindinator for the Ferry Building Gallery, is most excited about in the coming months is the opening of SNAM: Strong Spirit, April 30 (ferrybuildinggallery.com).
"We plan on having traditional welcoming prayers, drumming and dance, followed by a large drumming circle on the west lawn," she says. "The drumming circle is open for all members of the community to join in. Bring your own drum and join First Nations artists and storytellers in celebrating the spirit of art on the North Shore, and in welcoming our indigenous artists."
On Jan. 19, Presentation House Gallery is launching a group of exhibitions endeavouring to showcase experimental approaches to photography and the archive (presentationhousegallery.org). Two artists from Germany, Anna Oppermann and Marianne Wex, 75, will make their Canadian debut when Wex introduces her project, Let's Take Back Our Space, a quasi-sociological study of human gesture produced in the 1970s. This event also marks the launch of a Presentation House Gallery publication by Vancouver-based artist Andrea Pinheiro, entitled, Bomb Book, a hand-made, 12-
volume set documenting every nuclear bomb detonation since 1945, one on each of the 2,400 pages.
This month, the gallery will also launch the third edition of the Chester Fields online youth education program, engaging hundreds of North Shore high school students, followed by the resulting exhibition and presentation of prizes in early June.
In addition, Presentation House Gallery is premiering a special multi-faceted exhibition, Slavs and Tatars: Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi'ite Showbiz, that brings a renowned artistic team to Canada and North Vancouver for the first time, says Helga Pakasaar, curator, Presentation House Gallery.
"Led by Babak Golkar, an internationally renowned North Vancouver artist who is the curator of the project, the visiting artists will collaborate with the North Vancouver community to create unique artworks for our locale and specifically for the local Persian community," she says. "North Vancouver residents should take advantage of meeting these engaging artists in person at the April 12 opening celebration of this special project and participate in the free public events during the two-month period of the exhibition."
Discovery, the Seymour Art Gallery's annual juried exhibition for new and emerging artists, opens Jan. 8 at the Deep Cove space. Jurors - artist Michael Abraham, Seymour Art Gallery's curator Sarah Cavanaugh, and artist Liane McLaren Varnam - have selected 26 artworks, encompassing an array of media, each reflecting the theme: earth.
"It can be hard for artists to get their work into galleries and this is a great opportunity for artists to do just that," says Cavanaugh.
Les Manning: Common/ Opposites will open at the gallery March 5, featuring recent ceramic sculptures by the celebrated ceramicist who was awarded the Order of Canada last year, and Start With Art, April 9, an annual exhibition that aims to educate children and cultivate the love of art (seymourartgallery.com).
"This fun night is a favourite among staff and community members," says Cavanaugh.
Representatives of the Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation for Young Artists and Artists for Kids are gearing up for The Maple Leaf Project seeing 12 CEOs, six Artist for Kids artists and six youth paint a maple leaf on a 16x6 canvas. The works, which will remain anonymous, will be auctioned April 3 for a minimum $2,000 each in support of AFK and Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art program operations (gordonsmithgallery. ca).
Staff of the Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art will also present Collection, Connection and the Making of Meaning, May 14-Sept. 14. The exhibition will formally introduce the community to the extensive teaching collection of Canadian art and through exhibiting some four dozen treasures from the extensive AFK collection, "we intend to explore the ways in which the impulses that power so much creative expression - the individual artist's desire to make sense out of chaotic experience, to create meaning, and to communicate with others - intersects with the reasons why individuals, institutions, and communities collect and display art and artefacts," says Gail Johnson, director of development, Smith Foundation.
For lovers of dance, Centenntial Theatre will play host to The Studio by Bouge de la March 3 and Swan Lake by Ballet Jörgen Canada, Feb. 19.
North Shore theatre offerings are in abundance this year and include Presentation House Theatre's production of Canadian work The Secret Mask, by Rick Chafe, featuring acclaimed actor Jay Brazeau, Jan. 30-Feb. 10.
"The play takes place on the North Shore and deals with a father recovering from a stroke," says Kim Selody, artistic director of Presentation House Theatre. "It is a kind of mystery, as Jay's character has lost his language and needs to communicate with his estranged son. It is also very funny. Jay is one of Canada's finest actors and this is a perfect part for him."
Presentation House (phtheatre.org) is also presenting a production of musical Jaques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris in partnership with Point B Theatre, Feb. 20-March 2 and Stationary: A Recession Era Musical, April 4-14, which Selody says is a "brilliant" new creation by a group of talented theatre professionals that was the hit of this summer's Neanderthal Arts Festival in Vancouver.
"With a good portion of the cast coming from the North Shore, this piece is a sheer delight," he says. "It is a fine piece of singing and writing, very well put together and will be going places. See it here first before it heads across the country."
The world premiere of Girl in a Green Velvet Dress, an original theatre piece by acclaimed playwright and actor Don Mowatt is being presented by the West Vancouver Community Arts Council at the Silk Purse Arts Centre Jan.
24. The work is set to star Mowatt, along with actress Carolyn Finlay and features music composed and performed by Michael Conway Baker. Girl in a Green Velvet Dress focuses on a long-suffering secretary and is full of humour, pathos, surprises and reflection and will be recorded for CBC Radio.
First Impressions Theatre is presenting the Canadian premiere of Holmes and Watson Save the Empire! A Musical Mystery, at the Deep Cove Shaw Theatre, Feb. 27-March 16. Oregon playwrights Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner will live in Deep Cove for a month to direct and
choreograph the hilarious, family-friendly show starring veteran actors Damon Calderwood and Gordon Roberts.
The company is also set to present Norm Foster's Here on the Flight Path, May 9-25.
The Arts Club Theatre Company is touring two productions to the North Shore this year including Henry and Alice: Into the Wild, at the North Shore Credit Union Centre for the Performing Arts Jan. 9 and Kay Meek Centre Jan 10-12 (artsclub.com). The work was written by North Vancouver playwright Michele Riml.
"Henry and Alice premiered last season at our Granville Island Stage as a product of our Silver Commissions Project, founded in 2006. B.C. audiences were the first to meet these great characters when we premiered Sexy Laundry in 2004, and the Arts Club is very proud to have had a hand in helping to develop and nurture a theatre success story," says Arts Club's artistic managing director Bill Millerd. "In Into the Wild, Michele plays with our nostalgia for our childhood family vacations, including making s'mores, singing campfire songs, and telling ghost stories, while unpacking a very adult story about remaking your future at 55."
The Arts Club's production of The 39 Steps will be at the North Shore Credit Union Centre for the Performing Arts Feb. 23, following a hugely successful run at the Stanley Theatre in 2010.
And, while many will be interested in taking in the Golden Globe and Oscar-winning films soon to be announced, they're also encouraged to check out the 16th annual Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (vimff.org), set for Feb. 8-17 at Centennial and Rio Theatres as well as Pacific Cinematheque. Films are currently in the review and selection process and the complete program will be announced Jan. 10.
