Things To Do In Vancouver This Weekend

The craft markets have started, the East Side Culture Crawl is on, and music is filling venues across the city. The sun sets at about 4:25pm this weekend, and the nights continue to get longer until mid-December, which means there’s lots of time right now for enjoying bright city lights or evening stargazing.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

Friday November 18

East Side Culture Crawl
Where: Various locations
What: A four-day visual arts, design and crafts festival receiving more than 25,000 visitors to 475+ artists in their studios across 78 buildings in the area bounded by Columbia Street, 1st Avenue, Victoria Drive and the waterfront.
Runs until: Sunday November 20, 2016

Layers of Influence
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: This stunning exhibition will explore clothing’s inherent evidence of human ingenuity, creativity and skill, drawing from MOA’s textile collection — the largest collection in Western Canada — to display a global range of materials, production techniques and adornments across different cultures and time frames.
Runs until: April 9, 2017

A Tribe Called Red
Where: The Commodore
What: A Canadian electronic music group, who blend instrumental hip hop, reggae, and dubstep with elements of First Nations music, particularly vocal chanting and drumming.

European Union Film Festival
Where: The Cinematheque
What: The Cinematheque’s annual celebration of new cinema from the European Union is proudly presented with the Vancouver consulates and the Ottawa embassies of the member states of the European Union and the Delegation of the European Union to Canada. This year’s festival showcases entries from 23 EU members.
Runs until: Wednesday November 30, 2016

VSO: Best of Broadway
Where: The Orpheum
What: Acclaimed Pops conductor Stuart Chafetz presents a stroll down the Great White Way, in a tribute to the Best of Broadway. You’ll hear music from South Pacific, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, My Fair Lady, and many more all-time Broadway favourites.
Runs until: Saturday November 19, 2016

As Heavy as a Feather
Where: Centre A
What: Indigenous Taiwanese artist Chang En Man is having her first exhibition in North America. Chang’s practice is characterized by a dynamic interplay between story, tradition, and the struggles of indigenous peoples in the face of ongoing experiences of colonization.
Runs until: February 11, 2016

Just for Laughs Canadian Comedy Tour: Dane Cook
Where: The Vogue
What: With guests Vinny Fasline and John Campanelli.
Runs until: Saturday November 19, 2016

Brothel #9
Where: The Cultch Culture Lab
What: Rekha arrives in Calcutta thinking she has come to work in a light-bulb factory. In actuality she has been sold to a pimp by her own brother-in-law. In this impossible situation Rekha manages to shape her own destiny and find inner liberty.
Runs until: Sunday November 27, 2016

East Side Flea
Where: The Ellis Building
What: Holiday season is almost here, you can do your shopping early and beat the crowds! Join over 50 local vendors, 3 local food trucks, live DJ, seasonal drink specials, pinball, pool & more.
Runs until: Sunday November 20, 2016

Canadian Mezzo Soprano Wallis Giunta
Where: Vancouver Academy of Music
What: A young mezzo who has recently burst onto the international stage. Having studied in Canada at The Glenn Gould School, she went on to great success in New York, where she graduated from both both the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and The Juilliard School’s Artist Diploma Program.

Avenue Q
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: The musical story of Princeton, a bright-eyed college graduate who arrives in New York City looking for love, a job, and his purpose in life. The only neighbourhood he can afford is the multicultural Avenue Q, where Sesame Street-esque puppets rub shoulders with humans. Part felt, part flesh, Avenue Q contains full puppet nudity and other vulgarities that will induce laughter.
Runs until: Saturday December 31, 2016

Alexine McLeod
Where: Monte Clark Gallery
What: The artist presents wall-mounted abstract compositions that combine everyday materials including plastic, fabric, found objects, and light.
Runs until: January 30, 2016

Britannia Christmas Craft Fair
Where: Britannia Community Centre
What: Christmas crafts for sale.
Runs until: Saturday November 18, 2016

By William Shakespeare
Where: Studio 58
What: Shakespeare’s most experimental drama receives a modern spin in Kevin Bennett’s interpretation of this part love story, part war drama where passion and violence are inextricably linked. With the Trojan War raging, Shakespeare shows us a world in which lovers yearn to be true and warriors strive to be brave, but both inevitably fail, betrayed by human nature and time. Tickets available at Tickets Tonight.
Runs until: Sunday December 4, 2016

Waterstrider
Where: The Biltmore
What: Bay Area musician Nate Salman.

Hannah Epperson
Where: The Fox Cabaret
What: A solo performer armed with her violin, loop pedal and voice.

Long Division
Where: Gateway Theatre (Richmond, BC)
What: A multimedia experience about the mathematics of human connection. Seven characters struggle to explain their tragic entanglement using the language of geometry and logic, but find that one emotional variable consistently remains unsolved.
Runs until: Saturday November 26, 2016

Light Up the Village
Where: Park Royal Mall (North Shore)
What: You and your family can enjoy hot chocolate, balloons, Lindt truffles, cookie decorating and face painting. All proceeds will go directly to Lions Gate Hospital Foundation.

West Coast Christmas Show & Marketplace
Where: Tradex (Abbotsford, BC)
What: Over two hundred vendors, including over 140 selected artisans.
Runs until: Sunday November 20, 2016

Saturday November 19

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Annual West Coast Guitar Night
Where: The Cultch Historic Theatre
What: Acoustic Jazz, Classical, Folk, Brazilian, Flamenco, and more with: Kent Hillman, Hanh Nguyen, Les Finnigan, Edgar Avelino, Alexander Flock, and John Gilliat with Rossi Tzonkov. The West Coast Guitar Night features an impressive array of finger-style acoustic guitarists that all play completely different yet complementary styles of music.

Anaheim Beach Day
Where: 6Pack Indoor Beach
What: Escape the November chill for a free, family-friendly Southern-California-inspired day in the sand, hosted by Visit Anaheim.

Ghost Ship Octavius
Where: Venue
What: Progressive power metal presented by Scrape Records.

Wintersleep
Where: The Commodore
What: Canadian indie from Nova Scotia.

Fair Trade Christmas Market
Where: St. Andrew’s United Church
What: Ten Thousand Villages, the oldest and largest Fair Trade non-profit organization in North America, partners with thousands of talented artisans around the world in healthy business relationships.

Video Program: The Unreliable Narrator
Where: Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema
What: A screening of six single-channel moving image works.

The ABC Double Ds of Burlesque
Where: The Rio
What: The world premiere of the new successfully funded Kickstarter coffee table book and full length theatrical feature. The ABC Double D’s of Burlesque, the illustrated A-Z encyclopedia all about burlesque, is now a show.

Vancouver Canucks vs. Chicago Blackhawks
Where: Rogers Arena, 7:00pm
What: It’s time for some hockey.

Sunday November 20

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Blim Market
Where: Heritage Hall on Main Street
What: Admission by donation with independent local jewelry designers, vintage apparel, makers, crafters, and a Santa Garfield holiday photo booth.

Wall to Wall Percussion for Kids
Where: The Orpheum, 2:00pm
What: VSO Principal Percussion Vern Griffiths reprises one of the best-loved kids concerts the VSO has ever presented. Vern plays everything including the kitchen sink, and shows how everyday items can actually be cool musical instruments.

Seu Jorge presents A Life Aquatic – A Tribute to David Bowie
Where: The Vogue
What: Brazilian singer-songwriter/actor Seu Jorge tributes David Bowie.

Umbrella Defense Class
Where: Academie Duello
What: Umbrella self-defense is based on stick fighting, a cornerstone of the Victorian martial art of Batitsu, one of the unique martial arts taught at Academie Duello Centre for Swordplay. Students will learn from Bartitsu master David McCormack the key moves from blocks and strikes, to hooking and Bayonet-style sword technique all with Vancouver’s must unassuming accouterments.

Mount Pleasant Missing Middle Tour
Where: Starts at The Mighty Oak
What: The chosen route will exhibit many “missing middle” housing types which are illegal to build in most of Vancouver today. Prior to the introduction of Vancouver’s zoning bylaw, this neighbourhood flourished as it developed with a mix of small apartment buildings, townhouses, and grand houses divided into a large number of apartments.

Taizé Contemplative Service
Where: St. Andrew’s United Church
What: A contemplative service with beautiful music, Taizé songs, silences and prayer.

Ongoing

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The Art of Magic (ends this weekend)
Where: 1212 Commercial Drive
What: A magic show that blends different forms of art and magic for a unique experience. Join Camilo at Havana Theatre for a night where you and Camilo will create a masterpiece together.
Runs until: Saturday November 19, 2016

Trump Card Winner Takes All (ends this weekend)
Where: The Improv Centre
What: From now through November, everyone’s attention will be glued to a high-stakes game that will affect the world for generations to come – the US election. Vancouver TheatreSports League ups the ante with its own improvised election interpretation.
Runs until: Saturday November 19, 2016

VSO: Best of Broadway (this weekend only)
Where: The Orpheum
What: Acclaimed Pops conductor Stuart Chafetz presents a stroll down the Great White Way, in a tribute to the Best of Broadway. You’ll hear music from South Pacific, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, My Fair Lady, and many more all-time Broadway favourites.
Runs until: Saturday November 19, 2016

Just for Laughs Canadian Comedy Tour: Dane Cook (this weekend only)
Where: The Vogue
What: With guests Vinny Fasline and John Campanelli.
Runs until: Saturday November 19, 2016

Bakersfield Mist (ends this weekend)
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: Maude is on the wrong side of fifty, totally broke, and living in a trailer park in Bakersfield, California. Just when things look their worst, she stumbles across a long-lost painting by the renowned Jackson Pollock—or is it? To prove she’s got a masterpiece on her hands, Maude invites a world-class art expert to authenticate it. Cultures collide as these polar opposites evaluate the colour of each other’s character and explore their perspectives on what is real, in life and in art.
Runs until: Sunday November 20, 2016

East Side Culture Crawl (ends this weekend)
Where: Various locations
What: A four-day visual arts, design and crafts festival receiving more than 25,000 visitors to 475+ artists in their studios across 78 buildings in the area bounded by Columbia Street, 1st Avenue, Victoria Drive and the waterfront.
Runs until: Sunday November 20, 2016

East Side Flea (ends this weekend)
Where: The Ellis Building
What: Holiday season is almost here, you can do your shopping early and beat the crowds! Join over 50 local vendors, 3 local food trucks, live DJ, seasonal drink specials, pinball, pool & more.
Runs until: Sunday November 20, 2016

West Coast Christmas Show & Marketplace (ends this weekend)
Where: Tradex (Abbotsford, BC)
What: Over two hundred vendors, including over 140 selected artisans.
Runs until: Sunday November 20, 2016

Soar Over America (ends this week)
Where: FlyOver Canada
What: Soar over 10,000 miles across some of the United States’ most beautiful landscapes including Hawaii, Alaska, New York and more. Like FlyOver Canada’s ride film, FlyOver America was shot over all four seasons from coast to coast – just a little further south.
Runs until: Wednesday November 23, 2016

Shed Yr Skin
Where: Hot Art Wet City
What: In Nomi Chi’s first solo exhibition, Shed yr skin features a new collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures primarily depicting chimeric, sometimes monsterous figures struggling with themselves or otherwise interacting with each other as well as other creatures inhabiting fictitious landscapes.
Runs until: Saturday November 26, 2016

Miss. Shakespeare
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: Book and lyrics written by Tracey Power and music co-written by Steve Charles, Miss Shakespeare is a story inspired by the Bard’s daughter, whose own creative aspirations come alive as she leads a group of women in something secret, subversive, and illegal: the staging of a play.
Runs until: Saturday November 26, 2016

Long Division
Where: Gateway Theatre (Richmond, BC)
What: A multimedia experience about the mathematics of human connection. Seven characters struggle to explain their tragic entanglement using the language of geometry and logic, but find that one emotional variable consistently remains unsolved.
Runs until: Saturday November 26, 2016

Brothel #9
Where: The Cultch Culture Lab
What: Rekha arrives in Calcutta thinking she has come to work in a light-bulb factory. In actuality she has been sold to a pimp by her own brother-in-law. In this impossible situation Rekha manages to shape her own destiny and find inner liberty.
Runs until: Sunday November 27, 2016

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: November 2016

Diwali Fest
Where: Various Locations
What: Diwali is known as the festival of lights, a spiritual festival celebrated every autumn. Its spiritual significance is that of light over darkness, good over evil, and hope over despair. The festival is committed to incorporating the inclusion of all cultures and communities with its theme of unity in diversity, uniting people from different cultures through celebratory events and allow South Asian art forms to evolve through other cultural influences, while at the same time influencing others.
Runs until: Wednesday November 30, 2016

European Union Film Festival
Where: The Cinematheque
What: The Cinematheque’s annual celebration of new cinema from the European Union is proudly presented with the Vancouver consulates and the Ottawa embassies of the member states of the European Union and the Delegation of the European Union to Canada. This year’s festival showcases entries from 23 EU members.
Runs until: Wednesday November 30, 2016

Fall for Arts
Where: Whistler, BC
What: Festivals, art shows, markets, movie nights, and arts events all over the city.
Runs until: December 2016

By William Shakespeare
Where: Studio 58
What: Shakespeare’s most experimental drama receives a modern spin in Kevin Bennett’s interpretation of this part love story, part war drama where passion and violence are inextricably linked. With the Trojan War raging, Shakespeare shows us a world in which lovers yearn to be true and warriors strive to be brave, but both inevitably fail, betrayed by human nature and time. Tickets available at Tickets Tonight.
Runs until: Sunday December 4, 2016

Avenue Q
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: The musical story of Princeton, a bright-eyed college graduate who arrives in New York City looking for love, a job, and his purpose in life. The only neighbourhood he can afford is the multicultural Avenue Q, where Sesame Street-esque puppets rub shoulders with humans. Part felt, part flesh, Avenue Q contains full puppet nudity and other vulgarities that will induce laughter.
Runs until: Saturday December 31, 2016

Untangled Figures by Guillaume Leblon
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Creating fictional landscapes or altering an existing space has long been Leblon’s favoured technique for fuelling uncertainty and doubt in order to undermine the stark purity and perfect finish of the museum.
Runs until: Sunday January 1, 2016

All Together Now: Vancouver Collectors and Their Worlds
Where: The Museum of Vancouver
What: 20 beautiful, rare, and unconventional collections, with something for everyone including corsets, prosthetics, pinball machines, taxidermy, toys, and much more. In this exhibition both collector and collected are objects of study, interaction, and delight.
Runs until: Sunday January 8, 2016

White, Steel, Slice, Mask
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Working together for over a decade, the duo’s interdisciplinary practice typically instigates community-based models of participation in order to re-imagine a material record of the present. They investigate tactics of cultural representation while utilizing the methods of anthropology to examine various forms of collecting, interpretation and display.
Runs until: Sunday January 8, 2016

Walker Evans: Depth of Field
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The American photographer Walker Evans (1903–1975) is among the most influential artists of the 20th century. Covering the full arc of his career, Walker Evans: Depth of Field presents the most comprehensive look at Evans’ work ever mounted in Canada.
Runs until: January 22, 2017

Alexine McLeod
Where: Monte Clark Gallery
What: The artist presents wall-mounted abstract compositions that combine everyday materials including plastic, fabric, found objects, and light.
Runs until: January 30, 2016

In the Footprint of the Crocodile Man
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: The Sepik River of Papua New Guinea is one of the largest river systems in the world, extraordinarily beautiful, but seldom visited. It is here that the Iatmul people, who live along its banks, have created internationally renowned works of art primarily inspired by stories of the majestic crocodile as the primordial creator. This unique exhibition will showcase the most comprehensive collection of contemporary Sepik art in North America for the first time. In addition to highlighting the exquisite carvings of Papua New Guinea’s latmul people, the exhibition will delve into their economic, cultural, and spiritual connections to the river system, drawing urgent attention to the logging and mining operations that pose environmental threats to the region.
Runs until: January 31, 2017

Juxtapoz x Superflat
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: A manifesto for new creative practices that can no longer be adequately described by the traditional categories of art and production. Presenting the work of more than 30 artists from Japan, China, Korea, Europe and the United States this remarkable exhibition offers a unique insight into contemporary art and its place in cultural life.
Runs until: February 5, 2016

As Heavy as a Feather
Where: Centre A
What: Indigenous Taiwanese artist Chang En Man is having her first exhibition in North America. Chang’s practice is characterized by a dynamic interplay between story, tradition, and the struggles of indigenous peoples in the face of ongoing experiences of colonization.
Runs until: February 11, 2016

Judy Chartrand, What a Wonderful World
Where: The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art
What: Her beautiful and provocative work presents her own personal history and insights into life in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, and commentary on racism and post–colonial relations between Indigenous and non–Indigenous cultures.
Runs until: February 19, 2016

Layers of Influence
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: This stunning exhibition will explore clothing’s inherent evidence of human ingenuity, creativity and skill, drawing from MOA’s textile collection — the largest collection in Western Canada — to display a global range of materials, production techniques and adornments across different cultures and time frames.
Runs until: April 9, 2017

Nat Bailey Stadium Winter Farmers Market
Where: Nat Bailey Stadium
What: Don’t fret the summers Farmers markets packing up – winter is here, and you can still shop local for fresh produce, preserves, baked goods, and crafts.
Runs until: April 22, 2017

Hastings Park Farmers Market
Where: Hastings Park (near the PNE)
What: The Hastings Park Farmers Market features a great selection of local produce; nursery items, fish, meat & dairy; artisan prepared foods, baking and treats; local crafts, and of course, food trucks.
Runs until: April 30, 2017

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