Month: May 2011

My Hot Night with Maria in the Shower at the Waldorf Hotel

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

Friday night. Pre-Rapture. The dance floor in the boiling hot belly of the Waldorf on East Hastings. I was there. That’s right: Friday, May 20, 2011, I absolved my sweaty sins with Maria in the Shower, celebrating the release of their latest CD, “The Hidden Sayings of Maria in the Shower” with the kick-ass, virgin-tempting show they called PANSTEREORAMA.

My first brush with the glory that is Maria in the Shower was in 2008, when I went to the Ukrainian Hall to see the Dusty Flower Pot Cabaret‘s magical production, “Valley of Ashes”.  I recall marveling at the spectacle, the rusty sorcery, and the puppets. I also remember thinking to myself, “Hot diggity, this music is great.” I then became interested in something else, I dunno, university or whatever, and forgot to ask myself where some of that music came from.

As it turns out, some of that music came from Maria in the Shower, so when I saw them for the first time doing a set of their own at this April’s ArtsWells Fundraiser at the Rickshaw Theatre, and then again last Friday at the Waldorf, I wasn’t seeing a new band so much as bringing into focus musicians I had already experienced through attending Dusty Flowerpot productions. And holy petunia, it was worth it. Wonderful as they are as a component of a larger theatrical production, on their own these musical men are overflowing with showmanship, theatricality, and a pure and unadulterated love for what they’re doing.

Photo credit: Brayden McCluskey

Before Maria in the Shower, I had never seen someone play an accordion and a trumpet at the same time. I had never seen anyone play a stand up bass while standing on their stand up bass. For that matter, I had never seen anyone playing a trumpet while standing on a stand up bass that someone else was playing. Trifling logistical details perhaps, but the kind of details that make me shout, “Holy F—” and scream a LOT.

All of this would have been cheap razzle dazzle had Maria in the Shower not had the musical chops to back it up. And they do. I got swing, I got jazz, I got a bit of Klezmer, I got trumpet and accordion (which are two of my favourite instruments after cellos), I got songs of burning hot passion and just plain fun. Poetry, love, death, religion, sex: I got it all with music I could dance to, sing to, feel through, that was at once totally irreverent and totally sacred.

At one point, I remember seeing the band onstage, with all their fey and sweaty fans dancing below, listening to a song about love that sounded like a cry from the most wounded man in the world, and thinking that THIS is exactly where I should be. This is exactly the kind of place and show I should be at when I am 25. I am idealistic, I am full of romance, I am nostalgic for a history I never had, I have energy and sensuality and a thirst for a performance that’s so damn good it makes me grit my teeth.

Maria in the Shower is so damn good they make me grit my teeth and fantasize about running away to join a gypsy caravan. I’m pretty sure I left the Waldorf pregnant through immaculate musical conception (totally appropriate pre-supposed-Rapture) and through the raw sex appeal being created all over that stage by musicians who are very good at what they do (and is anything more magnetic than that? No.).

I just hope the baby plays the trumpet. Fingers crossed.

My “Five for Five” Project: Happy Birthday to Me

/ Lauren / 11 Comments

I recently celebrated my 25th birthday. It’s a milestone for me in many ways. If you had told me on my 24th birthday how much my life would change before my 25th, I either would not have believed you, or I would have broken down in tears, terrified and confused by the foreignness of the description. People that were once a large part of my life are now gone, some irreversibly. New and wonderful people have entered it. Ideas, environments, and goals have changed.

Though my loved ones have always made my birthday a special day for me, in my teens I started disliking the event. Many a teenage journal contains the phrase “I’m another year older and it still doesn’t make any difference.” At the time, I meant that I was another year older and I still had no boyfriend. Poor me.

This year, that phrase meant something different. Somewhere along my journey towards this milestone I was instilled with the idea that my life should affect, in a positive way, other lives. Though I do try to be generous, environmentally conscious, and kind, I know so many amazing “Save the world” over-achievers in Vancouver that I feel selfish and lazy by comparison, and my little kindnesses (even my large ones), look like child’s play. Before I turned 25, I wanted to do Something Nice.

I had many grand ideas about amazing and awesome ways to celebrate my birthday by being a Top Notch Philanthropist. But I’m not a gala planner. I haven’t thrown a birthday party for twelve years (we had pizza and an ice cream cake back in ’99). My grand ideas became smaller and more simple, eventually shrinking to one doable plan.

I became inspired by a video on YouTube called Adeu, Barcelona!. Though I had no plans as ambitious as the artist’s in this video, I liked the idea of giving small gifts to strangers.

I wondered to myself, if I was a stranger going about their day, what would I like to find, no matter who I was? And I decided on money. I love to find money. It makes me feel lucky and I wanted to spread that luck around. Since I was going to be turning 25, I decided to donate $25 to this cause. The Five for Five project was born. The idea was that five people would find $5. Sweet and simple. They would also find a bottle of “Miracle Bubbles” (I needed something heavier to attach the money to). I also think that blowing bubbles is one of the great and simple pleasures of life.

On Mother’s Day, I attached five $5 bills to five bottles of Miracle Bubbles with the following note:

For you:

My 25th birthday is coming up. I would like to share the good luck I have experienced in my life.

Finding money always brightens my day. I hope it brightens yours. Treat yourself or give it away to someone who could use a treat.

Why the bubbles? If finding $5 doesn’t make you happy, blowing bubbles will. Thanks for being part of the city I love.

Lauren

Newspaper stand, Granville and Georgia

The weather wasn’t as great as I would have liked as I headed downtown, bubbles and bills hidden away in my bag, but it was a worthwhile experience all the same. I felt like a secret super hero.  You know how wonderfully sneaky you feel when you see a person and you know you’re going to give them a good surprise? That’s how I felt about everyone I saw. Any one of these people could potentially find one of my little presents.

On the corner of Granville and Georgia I saw an old man sitting on the sidewalk. He had a bushy white beard (like Santa) and a cardboard sign that said “Broke and Hungry”. I set one of the Bubbles with the $5 attached in his hat. I walked farther down the street and watched from afar as he took a pair of reading glasses from his pocket, waved to me, and began to read his note.

In the Fine Arts Section, VPL

No one likes to be watched when they read, and I was feeling too shy to talk to the man, so I continued down the street to set out the rest of my little presents.

For the most part I tried depositing them in places out of the rain. This is why one of them was placed in a newspaper stand and one in the Vancouver Public Library, in the Fine Arts section (also rewarding literacy, hurrah!).

After I left my last present in a flower bed, I walked back to Granville and Georgia, with the intent of introducing myself to the man with the snowy beard. I thought that maybe it had been rude of me to impose this project on a person (instead of letting them find it) and walk away. Unfortunately, he was gone, but I hope that $5 was helpful and that if he doesn’t like bubbles he was able to give them to someone who does.

Flower bed outside 900 Howe St.

I headed home that Sunday feeling happy and a bit foolish. I know my little Five for Five project is just a tiny drop in the ocean of kindness and sacrifice that is required to save this crazy world. Maybe leaving five $5 bills lying around in downtown Vancouver will prove to be the stupidest and most useless thing I’ve ever done. But somehow I feel good about it. With no intended audience, anyone who found my little gift will be someone who found $5. And the huge debt I owe to the universe for the amazing good fortune I’ve always experienced might be just the teensiest bit repaid.

At any rate, it was for my birthday, and if I want to literally leave money lying around, no one is allowed to mind. So there.

Election 2011: A small high five and a lot of nausea

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

On May 2, 2011, Canada voted. I was nervous, I was hopeful, I was trying to be optimistic about the outcome, and I was not prepared for the results.

As the kids say, “I’m so so stoked right now” that the NDP is the official Opposition. Canada has never seen what the NDP can do when given both the power and responsibility to be the main (not fringe) voice of dissent and contrary opinion in Parliament. A party that has often largely been ignored in the past has been granted an opportunity to define itself.

I am stoked for Elizabeth May and the Green Party too. History will be made when Parliament resumes and the Green Party has a representative in the House of Commons for the first time. May will have her work on Parliament Hill cut out for her. It’s work she’s been chasing for years and I say good for her for finally getting a crack at it.

In a weird way, I am a little bit stoked that the Liberals took such a drubbing. As a person, Michael Ignatieff is intelligent and educated and I believe he truly does care for Canada. I didn’t mind the Liberals the last time they governed either (though I was a teenager then so I’m not sure that says much). But after three years of reading my Maclean’s cover to cover and following Canadian politics online, I still had no idea what the Liberal Party, under Iggy, really stood for. Unless Maclean’s simply sucks at their Canadian politics coverage (which I will never believe), it seems to me that the Liberal party did not have a cohesive and consistent message that was memorable or vital to Canadians. A few good ideas? Yes. But a few good ideas do not a political platform make. You can blame many things for the situation the Liberals now find themselves in–the Conservative’s ceaseless character assassination of Ignatieff, a split leftist vote between the NDP and Liberal candidates that paved the way for a Conservative win, voter apathy–but at the end of the day the party just seemed lost to me. Not at all the “natural governing party” the Liberals claimed to be. Obviously they need a few years to get their poop in a pile and now they’ve got it.

I am also giving myself a little high five because the candidate I voted for won and will be representing me and my riding in Ottawa. Congratulations to me.

Now for the nausea.

For the next four and a half years, Canada will be governed by a Conservative majority. Since I align my personal beliefs more towards the political left, the policies of this government will no doubt grate against my socialist sensibilities. Even with an NDP Opposition, a majority gives the Conservatives carte blanche to pass pretty much any bill they like and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

But that’s democracy. Canada voted (well, 60% of us) and apparently the will of Canadians is a Conservative majority. Democracy means you don’t always get your way. Of course, democracy is more fun for me when I get my way, and people I disagree with don’t get theirs, but that’s not how it worked out this time. If I wanted my own way all the time I would need to become Queen of my own tiny isle, and I’m not prepared to do that right now. What really sticks in my craw about this election outcome is that the first government ever to be found in contempt of Parliament is rewarded with a majority. Clearly Canadians are not paying attention. Policy schmolicy. No matter where your beliefs fall on the political spectrum, you deserve a government that will not lie to Canada’s elected representatives.

Unless, of course, you vote for a party knowing full well they were found to be in contempt of Parliament and you just don’t care. Or, if you don’t vote at all. Then, I guess, you get the government you deserve.

I’m disappointed. Being an artist and a woman and a young single person (no middle class family benefits for me right now) who cares about social justice, I don’t think there’s anything in that blue bag for me. I love Canada and I love what it has traditionally stood for. I don’t want these things to disappear.

I am trying to be optimistic. Perhaps Harper’s Conservatives have merely been suffering from an inferiority complex and now that they have the majority they claimed they needed to govern effectively they will, in fact, govern effectively. I can only hope that now that the threat of a snap election is no longer looming they will consider the needs of all Canadians, even artsy fartsy bleeding hearts like me, and not just their traditional demographic.

Or perhaps things will get so incredibly terrible that by 2015 the 40% of eligible Canadian voters who didn’t vote this year will be prompted to finally get off their asses and participate in their country’s democracy. Or maybe I’ll move to my own tiny isle.

At any rate, Layton’s looking spunky these days, I’m sure Harper isn’t actually an evil robot, and hope springs eternal. We might be okay after all. We’ll see.

June 2011: East Van Culture In the House

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

Music. Dance. Circus sorcery. Puppets. Beautiful East Van homes in the Commercial Drive area opening their doors to the public. Is this some eccentric real estate fantasy? No, it’s the return of the In the House Festival invading living rooms with its unique brand of community and magic in East Vancouver.

I have spent so much time lamenting over the hard knock life of those working in the arts that when Mads, an intern from the festival, asked me on Twitter if I would be interested in writing a piece about this year’s In the House Festival, I jumped at the chance to help promote a festival I have enjoyed in the past. I asked Mads if I might be able to ask a festival representative some questions for the post and was immediately put in touch with Myriam Steinberg, the Artistic Director of the In the House Festival, who has been involved with the festival since its inception in 2003. Myriam was so obliging and her answers so detailed I’ve included them here. [My questions are in bold, Myriam’s answers in italics]

The idea of an entire festival dedicated to bringing performers and audience into people’s homes is quite unique. What particular Vancouver cultural needs do you feel the In the House Festival addresses? There are a couple. Vancouver has a dearth of venues that are either financially accessible, or that are open to a variety of disciplines. It’s also difficult to find a venue where people will have focused attention on the performer. At In the House, we provide the space where the audience is 100% paying attention to the artists, the artists can do their thing, explore their genre, test out new material, interact directly with the audience and get paid more than the average “pass the hat” situation that they encounter in lots of bars and coffee shops. On a community level, In the House brings people together in intimate settings which create a trust and hopefully builds friendships and dispels stereotypes about neighbourhoods.

Photo credit: Diane Smithers

Are acts chosen for the festival based on the East Van homes available to the festival, or does the festival recruit homes based on the artist line-up already determined? We recruit homes based on the artist line-up primarily. Of course because some houses are smaller than others, we have to make sure that we don’t put the circus acts in a narrow living room, but instead put something like spoken word or other one person acts [in that space].


How does this year’s festival differ from years past? What are you particularly excited about this year? What have you learned from past years? This is the 2nd year where we’ve added a 3rd night to the festival. We’ve [therefore] been able to add four more shows to the line-up. This year, we are featuring a bunch of upcoming youth in amongst the seasoned performers. Travis Lim does a killer Michael Jackson. I’m really excited to see him perform. At age 9 he’s already won 13 medals for dance! The Whitridge Brothers (11 and 15 years old) are jazz musicians who are included in the already stellar line-up. I think it’s important to give a voice to kids who have amazing talent. Age is no marker for talent.

I’m excited to watch the Cabaret so Mignon (magic, bellydance, music, clowning), to learn how to swing dance in Swingin’ Times, and of course I’m always looking forward to the finale. This year it’s a Blues Circus.

I guess the most valuable lesson I have learned from organizing the festival is to plan and organize well ahead of time and to keep expanding the network that surrounds the scene. It is thrilling to see so much great talent out there, but also to see how many people are willing to help volunteer during these festive days.


Tell me about the performance spaces (the homes). Are audience members permitted to use the washrooms? Are many of the homes wheelchair accessible/can arrangements be made to accommodate an audience member with disabilities? Any other amenities offered by the spaces (food available to buy, etc.)? One of the most important parts about the shows is the fact that they are taking place inside people’s living rooms. It gives the shows an intimate and much more engaging atmosphere you would not find in a lot of other places. We do have port-a-potties available by Festival Central [Napier and Victoria] which we encourage festival goers to use, instead of the house washrooms, but of course people are generally allowed to use the washrooms of the houses during a show. However, they are not allowed to go explore the rest of the house outside the performance space and the bathroom. It’s really important to respect the privacy and safety of the homeowners who are so generously donating their space to a show. The backyards are generally wheelchair accessible, and about half the shows are in a backyard. Some of the houses are as well, but less so. We do have a ton of volunteers though who are available to help [or] we can also install a ramp if we have enough notice of someone in a wheelchair coming to a show. We certainly don’t want to exclude anyone from the In the House experience. In terms of food, there will be snacks and non-alcoholic drinks to buy, although we encourage people to use the “dinner hours” to explore the nice restaurants around Commercial Drive.  

If I were a Commercial-drive area home owner interested in opening my home to the festival, where could I go/who could I contact for more information? You can contact me, Myriam, at info@inthehousefestival.com or 604-874-9325. The website also has information about the shows we put on and what it means to open your home to a show.

How can artists apply for/submit their work for consideration for inclusion in In the House? They can email or mail me a demo of what they do. I prefer to hire performers from the Lower Mainland.

And finally: Do you have any important information/tips for audience members to make their In the House experience go as smoothly as possible? If you want a guaranteed seat, buy your tickets in advance. Shows tend to sell out. Also, if you’re buying your tickets on site or have a pass, get your tickets from the box office [Napier and Victoria] as early as possible. Seating is first come first served so if you want a good not squishy seat, get your place in line early.

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I am a big fan of the idea of meta-theatre, and the idea that the experience of a performance is not confined only to what is happening on the stage space. The concept of this festival suggests an openness of spirit on the part of performers and audience and a huge amount of trust on the part of those who have turned their homes into a venue for performance. Is this the kind of experience you wish to participate in/support? Check out the festival.

The 2011 In the House Festival runs June 3-5 in the Commercial Drive area.

To purchase tickets through PayPal, click here.

For schedule information and to learn more about the Festival’s performers, click here.

Thanks Mads and Myriam for giving me the opportunity to learn about and promote this special kind of East Vancouver culture. It sure beats the hell out of whining over the sorry state of the arts. 🙂