Things To Do In Vancouver This Weekend

After a long haul through the first week of the year (yes, that really was just one week), who’s ready for the weekend? A weekend with the Vancouver Symphony playing TV theme songs, an on-stage version of a particular favorite 90s croquet & murder movie, a surrealistic photography set celebrating Vancouver neighbourhoods, and some creepy disembodied heads with cameras. But that’s not all – you can even cap off the weekend by riding the Skytrain pantsless with a crowd of other goosbumped-legged new friends.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

Friday January 8

Remote Viewing by Noxious Sector Arts Collective
Where: Grunt Gallery (350 East 2nd) opening reception at 7:00pm
What: A performance and responsive installation presenting human and camera interactions as a site for contemplation.
Runs until: Saturday February 14, 2016

Improv After Dark
Where: 1502 Duranleau Street (Granville Island), 11:15pm
What: This edgy show is 60 minutes of non-stop, fast-paced no-holds-barred comedy for grown-ups. Featuring a roster of all your favourite improvisers, and a fully-stocked bar.
Runs until: Friday January 29, 2016

As Heard on TV
Where: The Orpheum, 8:00pm
What: Stroll down memory lane with conductor Steven Reineke, and actress, singer and impressionist Christina Bianco from Broadway’s Tony and Tina’s Wedding and London’s West End production ofForbidden Broadway. The VSO takes you on a laugh-filled and nostalgic tour of some of the most iconic of all TV themes, including shows like Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, Masterpiece Theatre, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Golden Girls, the Judy Garland Show, and more.
Runs until: Saturday January 9, 2016

Heathers: The Musical
Where: The York Theatre
What: If you were a 90s child, of course you know the film. The darkly delicious story of Veronica Sawyer, a brainy, teenage misfit who never dreamed of getting in the most popular and cruel clique at high school. But she did. She never dreamed of dating the dark and mystery new kid at her school. But she did. And she certainly never dream of killing anyone. But she kind of did.
Runs until: Sunday January 17, 2016

The Special
Where: Hot Art Wet City (2206 Main) opening reception at 7:00pm
What: The Special is not at all about the strict documentation of the city, but rather presents a crafted idea of it as it exists in our thoughts and memories. By artist Kevin Lanthier, the assembly of the pieces is done with the intention of creating a series of hyperreal, yet nostalgic little worlds, each of them distinctly and recognizably Vancouver.
Runs until: Saturday January 30, 2016

Jam Over the City
Where: Grouse Mountain
What: Ready your board or skiis and your buddies and head up the hill to the terrain park! An MC will be presiding over with prize giveaways, and video footage will be compiled weekly for the Grouse Mountain blog.

Italian Film Festival
Where: Various locations
What: Many contemporary films from the past two to three years are merged with Italy’s rich patrimony of classic avant-garde, and neo realism cinema.
Runs until: Thursday January 14, 2016

Creative Mornings: A Talk with Sam Bradd
Where: SFU Woodward’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 8:30am
What: Sam Bradd is a graphic facilitator: he uses visuals to help groups connect, learn, and lead. Together, it’s Drawing Change. Sam’s worked with Google, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the World Health Organization. He co-founded the Graphic History Collective because how we tell stories can change the world.

Square Dance at the Wise Hall
Where: 1882 Adanac, 8:00pm
What: Beginner friendly square dance with caller Paul Silveria and live music by Shout!WhiteDragon / the Honky Tonk Dilettantes! Special guest Anne Luise Genest opens with a short set of music, and calls dances too!

Voices of the Corridors: Repression of the Self, Repression of a Movement, Oppression of a People
Where: Gallery Gachet, opening reception at 6:00pm
What: A curated art exhibition in which collective members engage themes regarding contemporary disability and mental health activism by way of their diverse and politicized community– based art practices.
Runs until: Sunday February 21, 2016

Devotchka
Where: The Biltmore, 7:00pm
What: Originally a backing band for burlesque shows, in their early years Devotchka also toured with burlesque performer and model Dita Von Teese. A theremin is involved, so probably check it out.

Not Your Scene and Art Signified 3 Year Anniversary Show
Where: The Rickshaw
What: Mutiple bands showcasing art and photography prints throughout the venue.
Runs until: Saturday January 9, 2016

Quiet City
Where: Selector’s Records (8 East Pender)
What: A series of deep-listening concerts in Vancouver, focused on live performances of experimental, electronic and improvised music in a comfortable and intimate setting.

The Lady Show
Where: Little Mountain Gallery (195 East 26th)
What: This month’s comedy show is featuring Diana Bang, Erica Sigurdson (via video), Fatima Dhowre, Katie-Ellen Humphries, Morgan Brayton, Robyn Daye Edwards, and our very special guest this month, Alicia Tobin.

Saturday January 9

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Artist Talk: Robert Davidson
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery, 3:00pm
What: Acclaimed Haida artist Robert Davidson talks about his artistic practice that draws on traditional and contemporary Haida forms and iconography in this illustrated lecture.

Gallery Tour in French
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: A French-language guided tour of the art currently on display at the gallery.

Stanley Park Eco-Steward Volunteer Event
Where: Stanley Park
What: Natural habitats in Stanley Park are being overtaken by invasive species! Come learn about the ecology of the park while working with other volunteers to help conserve its biodiversity.

East Van 90s Party
Where: The Astoria
What: Aqua, Ace of Base, Blur, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Backstreet Boys, Britney, Busta Rhymes, Beck, Babes in Toyland, Bikini Kill, Coolio, and much more for the a 90s dance party, East Van style.

Sunday January 10

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No Pants Skytrain Ride
Where: On the Skytrain – meet at various stations, 2:30pm
What: Pants-off! Bare those legs and ride the train with a straight face and breezy thighs.

Gershwin’s Magic Key
Where: The Orpheum, 2:00pm
What: A kid’s show tells the story tells of a chance meeting on the streets of New York City between a poor newspaper boy and the great American composer, George Gershwin. The orchestra magically weaves Gershwin’s greatest hits into the drama, as they explore the vast melting pot of American music and discover the key to unlocking the boy’s own musical potential.

Rookie Night
Where: 1502 Duranleau Street (Granville Island), 7:30pm
What: These 90 minutes of improv will showcase the talent of these new players and prepare them for the bright lights of main stage.
Runs until: Sunday January 31, 2016

Warm Up Winter
Where: The Cobalt, 9:00pm
What: Come shake off the winter blues with three live local acts: a dark,moody bilingual electro-pop, Spectregates; a New Zealand indie/alternative duo, The Response; and a DJ set by Infinite.

Second Sunday Concert Series: Sea and Sky
Where: Rhoedde House Museum, 3:00pm
What: This Sunday features François Houle on clarient and Jane Hayes on piano in the beautiful and historic Rhoedde House.

Golden Globes Party
Where: The Rio, 5:00pm
What: A free livebroadcast of the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards hosted by Ricky Gervais, with trivia, costume contests and entertainment during commercial breaks.

Ongoing

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Chelsea Hotel: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (ends this weekend)
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: The powerful and inspirational music of multiple award-winning Leonard Cohen is the heartbeat of Chelsea Hotel as six performers play seventeen different instruments in a rollicking tribute to the cultural icon. Through Cohen’s transcendent songs and honesty of his lyrics, the audience is sure to be transfixed by this eclectic cabaret of loves won and lost.
Runs until: Saturday January 9, 2016

As Heard on TV (this weekend only)
Where: The Orpheum, 8:00pm
What: Stroll down memory lane with conductor Steven Reineke, and actress, singer and impressionist Christina Bianco from Broadway’s Tony and Tina’s Wedding and London’s West End production ofForbidden Broadway. The VSO takes you on a laugh-filled and nostalgic tour of some of the most iconic of all TV themes, including shows like Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, Masterpiece Theatre, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Golden Girls, the Judy Garland Show, and more.
Runs until: Saturday January 9, 2016

Not Your Scene and Art Signified 3 Year Anniversary Show (this weekend only)
Where: The Rickshaw
What: Mutiple bands showcasing art and photography prints throughout the venue.
Runs until: Saturday January 9, 2016

Lee Bul (ends this weekend)
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The Vancouver Art Gallery presents a survey exhibition of recent works by Korean artist Lee Bul, one of the most important artists of her generation. Early drawings and models are paired with ambitious sculptures revealing Bul’s visually and conceptually compelling practice.
Runs until: Sunday January 10, 2015

Italian Film Festival
Where: Various locations
What: Many contemporary films from the past two to three years are merged with Italy’s rich patrimony of classic avant-garde, and neo realism cinema.
Runs until: Thursday January 14, 2016

Olaka Iku Da Nala; It’s a Good Day
Where: Coastal Peoples Fine Arts Gallery (312 Water)
What: Coastal Peoples Gallery is proud to present renowned Kwakwaka’wakw/Tlingit artist Corrine Hunt who will showcase a selection of innovative and progressive new works from her latest jewelry and mixed-media collection. Corrine Hunt is recognized as the co-creator of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic medals.
Runs until: Saturday January 16, 2016

Heathers: The Musical
Where: The York Theatre
What: If you were a 90s child, of course you know the film. The darkly delicious story of Veronica Sawyer, a brainy, teenage misfit who never dreamed of getting in the most popular and cruel clique at high school. But she did. She never dreamed of dating the dark and mystery new kid at her school. But she did. And she certainly never dream of killing anyone. But she kind of did.
Runs until: Sunday January 17, 2016

Kim Boem
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: The Contemporary Art Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Canada of work by Korean artist Kim Beom. Comprising a survey spanning over twenty years and made across a range of material and form, the exhibition presents characteristically humorous and inquisitive takes on the way we come to see and know things.
Runs until: Sunday January 17, 2016

The Rivals
Where: The Cultch Historic Theatre
What: The whirlwind Edwardian plot revolves around the bookishly romantic Lydia Languish, who adores her lover when she thinks he’s a poor ensign, but is appalled when he turns out to be a well-connected Captain. Adding to complications, Lydia finds herself beset on all sides by a retinue of eccentric, bumbling suitors and stymied at every turn by her over-bearing, formidable, and linguistically-challenged aunt, Mrs. Malaprop.
Runs until: Saturday January 23, 2016

Improv After Dark
Where: 1502 Duranleau Street (Granville Island)
What: This edgy show is 60 minutes of non-stop, fast-paced no-holds-barred comedy for grown-ups. Featuring a roster of all your favourite improvisers, and a fully-stocked bar.
Runs until: Friday January 29, 2016

Embracing Canada
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: For over a century the natural world and our relationship to it was a major subject for Canadian artists. Through paintings in the 1800s by Cornelius Krieghoff, Zacharie Vincent and others, Embracing Canada begins with early depictions of Indigenous peoples. European settlers in the Canadian landscape are also depicted by the artists such as Charlotte Schreiber and Homer Watson, who are associated with the founding of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1880, as well as the artists associated with the expanding Canadian Pacific Railway including Frederick M. Bell-Smith. As the exhibition progresses, artists’ paintings of Canada shift toward the landscape itself rather than human activity within it, as demonstrated by extraordinary works by Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. They and other figures such as Emily Carr, David Milne and Jock Macdonald, who begin to define a unique modern Canadian style.
Runs until: Tuesday January 24, 2016

Traces That Resemble Us
Where: The Monte Clark Gallery and The Cinematheque
What: Motivated by Jeff Wall’s history as a former film programmer at The Cinematheque, Traces That Resemble Us invites twelve prominent Vancouver-based artists to each program a film that has been influential to his or her practice, and to exhibit artwork for a corresponding group exhibition at Monte Clark Gallery.
Runs until: Saturday January 30, 2016

The Special
Where: Hot Art Wet City (2206 Main)
What: The Special is not at all about the strict documentation of the city, but rather presents a crafted idea of it as it exists in our thoughts and memories. By artist Kevin Lanthier, the assembly of the pieces is done with the intention of creating a series of hyperreal, yet nostalgic little worlds, each of them distinctly and recognizably Vancouver.
Runs until: Saturday January 30, 2016

The Gund Collection: Contemporary and Historical Art from the Northwest Coast
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The Gund collection includes magnificent nineteenth-century masks, feast bowls, argillite carvings and other objects from across the region, including from the Haida, Nuu-chahnulth, Kwawaka’wakw, Tlingit, Heiltsuk and Nuxalk First Nations.
Runs until: January 31, 2016

Rookie Night
Where: 1502 Duranleau Street (Granville Island), 7:30pm
What: These 90 minutes of improv will showcase the talent of these new players and prepare them for the bright lights of main stage.
Runs until: Sunday January 31, 2016

Regular Expressions
Where: 221A (221 E Georgia) opening reception at 7:00pm
What: Not readymades, but ready-to-be-mades. These objects and images that have been called, for the moment, “art” seem too strange and slick to have simply been picked from the mundane cache of the “real world;” they smack of a virtual well of potential forms that is somehow both more generic and at the same time more customized.
Runs until: Saturday February 6, 2016

Remote Viewing by Noxious Sector Arts Collective
Where: Grunt Gallery (350 East 2nd)
What: A performance and responsive installation presenting human and camera interactions as a site for contemplation.
Runs until: Saturday February 14, 2016

Walking on the Line
Where: Centre A
What: Through large-scale re-assemblages of his ongoing photographic documentation of urban environments and architectural structures, Seung Woo Back investigates the precarious nature of the medium of photography, while offering an opportunity to gain a fresh perspective regarding our relationship to our built environment.
Runs until: February 20, 2016

Voices of the Corridors: Repression of the Self, Repression of a Movement, Oppression of a People
Where: Gallery Gachet
What: A curated art exhibition in which collective members engage themes regarding contemporary disability and mental health activism by way of their diverse and politicized community– based art practices.
Runs until: Sunday February 21, 2016

Gwaii Haanas: Land Sea People
Where: Bill Reid Gallery
What: Stories of the only place in Canada protected from mountaintop to seafloor. Thirty years after the Haida took a stand at Lyell Island, this unique place exists as an unprecedented example of cooperative management, between the Haida Nation and the Government of Canada.
Runs until: March 27, 2016

Body Worlds: Animals Inside Out
Where: Science World
What: Body Worlds creator and anatomist, Dr Gunther von Hagens takes you on an anatomical safari. As you explore this captivating exhibition, you will experience the intricate biology, zoology and physiology of a variety of the world’s most spectacular creatures.
Runs until: Sunday March 28, 2016

(In)Visable: The Spiritual World of Taiwan Through Contemporary Art
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: Against a backdrop of skyscrapers and mountains, ghosts and spirits haunt the island of Taiwan. Taiwan’s urban and rural life cycles are filled with rituals and ceremonies of various faiths ranging from Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism to Christianity, Chinese folk religions and animistic beliefs of Taiwan’s Aboriginal peoples. While religion affects, challenges and intermingles with the secular world, myths, legends and fairytales add other layers to the spiritual world of Taiwan.
Runs until: April 3, 2016

Winter Farmers Market
Where: Nat Bailey Stadium
What: Each week you can look forward to finding locally grown vegetables and fruit, meat and seafood from local ranchers and fishermen, artisan cheese and bread, herbs and seasonal nursery items, baked goods, prepared foods and artisanal craft.
Runs until: Saturday April 23, 2016 (Saturdays)

Across The Top: The Quest for the Northwest Passage
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: This exhibit will transport you to the Arctic where you will learn about its environment and people; the many voyages of discovery; the search for John Franklin’s lost expedition (both historical and modern), and the ultimate discovery of HMS Erebus by Parks Canada.
Runs until: May 2016

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments below or tweet me directly at @lextacular