Ben Brown: Improvising His Way to Clarity

Photo by Harley Spade

Ben Brown is a Vancouver treasure.  He is the brilliant drummer of JUNO award winning Pugs and Crows.  He is an in-demand session player who has played with fabulous emerging artists as well as illustrious established musicians.  He is Composer-in-Residence at the Western Front.  He is the mastermind and instigator of Music and Movement Mondays, a boundary-crossing improvisational exploration of music and dance.  He’s also a lovely guy.

And one more thing: he’s the subject of my recent interview on VANDOCUMENT. Check it out.

Spatial Poetics XIII: WeMix

photo by Noriko Nasu-Tidball

The thirteenth annual edition of Spatial Poetics, a series of curated performances pairing artists from different disciplines in collaboration, was just presented at The Western Front. My review is up on VANDOCUMENT. Check it out.

Hot Choir in the City

 

My review of a recent, largely inaudible concert by Jenny Ritter’s two great rock & roll choral ensembles, Mount Pleasant Regional Institute of Sound (MPRIS) and The Kingsgate Chorus is up on VANDOCUMENT.  Check it out.

Exuberant Hues: Ben Skinner Colours Back Gallery Project

I have a new review up on VANDOCUMENT, covering a a show by Vancouver artist Ben Skinner at the Back Gallery Project on East Hastings in Strathcona.

Check it out.

The Challenges and Opportunities of Improvisational Dance

I have a new review up on VANDOCUMENT.  This one covers a program of largely improvisational dance performances, “inside the lines | the lines inside”, that was on offer at the Edam Dance Theatre in October.

Check it out.

An Autobiography Carved from Biography

Trailer for Moyra Davey’s film, Les Goddesses.

My latest review for VANDOCUMENT is online. This one takes-on Moyra Davey’s challenging 2011 film, Les Goddesses, in which she tells the story of a sad, distant time in her past via the biographies of other women: the 18th Century proto-feminist philosopher and literary figure Mary Wollstonecraft, Ms. Wollstonecraft’s daughters (including the writer Mary Shelley), and Ms. Davey’s own three sisters.

Check it out.

One thing about the review bears mentioning. I attempt to take Ms. Davey’s project seriously and therefore offer my best effort to dissect whatever-the-hell might be going-on in the film. Without in any way abandoning criticality, I am loathe to write derogatorily about any of the work I cover for VANDOCUMENT. My objective there (unlike the sometimes-harsh things I write on memestream) is to present a fair sense of a project or event contributing to the current local art scene while being supportive of the artists and institutions who are putting themselves on-the-line and bringing value to the community. So, if I have committed to a degree of non-negativity and intellectual engagement with Ms. Davey’s work in my review, please do not be misled into thinking that the film is any good. It is not.

Whoa Nelly!

The preternaturally brilliant Nelly César performs “Fossil” in “Diffractions of the Local” at Vancouver’s Back Gallery Project.  Photo by Roman and courtesy of VANDOCUMENT.

My latest VANDOCUMENT review is online.  I had the privilege of covering a wonderful show at the Back Gallery Project called “Diffractions of the Local”, celebrating the work of seven Latin American artists who live and work in Vancouver: Gabriela Aceves-Sepulveda (Mexico), Nelly César (Mexico), Carlos Colín (Mexico), Guadalupe Martínez (Argentina), Manuel Piña (Cuba), Emilio Rojas (Mexico), and Josema Zamorano (Mexico).

Check it out!

VANDOCUMENT: Creating a Vivid Record of the Thrilling Artistic Present

I’m always a sucker for a well-conceived project, started by passionate, talented people, which has the aim of building community and supporting the creative work of others.  That’s why I am now contributing to VANDOCUMENT, the six-month-old brain-child of local arts photographer Ash Tanasiychuk.

VANDOCUMENT is a collective of photographers, videographers, and writers who are endeavouring to capture the exciting vibe of Vancouver’s arts scene in images and words.  The aim is both to generate interest, awareness, and support for the art-makers in our midst, and to create a vibrant archive that tells the story, if only anecdotally, of the creative surge Vancouver is now experiencing.

My first contribution to the VANDOCUMENT collection – a review of Nicole DesLauriers’s smart, ambitious take on the fin de sicle absurdist play Ubu Cocu, by Alfred Jarry – is now up on the VANDOCUMENT site, for your reading pleasure.