Hard to believe we are wrapping up January already, but starting off February with plenty of great activities in this week’s picks
Performing: PuSh Performing Arts Festival continues until Febuary 4th with cutting edge performing arts from around the world to stages and venues around Vancouver. Features this week include; Returns at Scotiabank Dance Centre, The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes at York Theatre, PLI at Vancouver Playhouse and DARKMATTER online
Dine: Continuing until Febuary 4th, Dine Out Festival Vancouver is back with more than 300 fixed-price menus, and special events
Chocolate: Sipping until February 14th, the 14th Annual Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival continues with over 100 locations offering 160 flavours spanning 10+ neighbourhoods across Greater Vancouver.
Well: February 3 & 4, The 31st Annual Wellness Show is a weekend filled with health and wellness exhibitors and speakers, to Vancouver Convention Centre
Comedy: Metro Theatre transports you to 1960s as it welcomes Send Me No Flowers to the stage February 2nd to 24th. Best known for its classic 1964 rom-com adaptation starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day.
Dates: Whether it’s a first date, your anniversary, or a night out with your loved one, let The Improv Centre turn your Wednesdays into Date Night with the performers celebrating dating, relationships, and everything between in a night full of laughs about love!
Singles: Friday and Saturday nights throughout February, Single, Not Single, finds The Improv Centre performers exploring the ups and downs of relationships and the lack thereof.
History: Wrapping up its road tour, The Arts Club: Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story, brings a slice of Canadian history to life on-stage, at The ACT Arts Centre in Maple Ridge
Choir: Until February 25, at the The Arts Club Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, Choir Boy brings together a coming of age story with gospel hymns.
Hold On: Until February 2, Theatre Replacement and Company 605 co-present the newly renamed Hold On Let Go Festival their annual, independent festival showcasing contemporary works by Vancouver and Canadian artists at The Russian Hall .
Band: Colin James and the Little Big Band celebrate their 30th Anniversary with a pair of performances at The Commodore Ballroom, February 2 and 3
Cohen: The audience favourite, Chelsea Hotel: The Songs of Leonard Cohen returns to Firehall Arts Centre from Saturday, February 3 to Sunday, March 3, 2024.
Roma: Saturday February 3rd, the Studio Theatre at The Shadbolt Centre welcomes an evening of sharing music and stories, featuring Lache Cercel and Roma Jazz. The Burnaby-based classically trained violinist and one of Romania’s most recognized prodigy and virtuosos, created the new musical genre; Roma Jazz, by merging Eastern influences with western musicology
Cabaret: More music comes to the Studio Theatre on Sunday February 4th, with Paul Pigat & The Smoking Jackets (Jesse Cahill, Derry Byrne, Cory Weeds, Jerry Cook) performing in a cabaret-style evening of music.
World: Chutzpah Festival and Caravan World Rhythms co-present Tamar Ilana & Ventanas interweaving flamenco, Sephardic and Balkan music and dance, and their own original compositions on February 3, at Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre
Fringe: Celebrating its 40th season in 2024 this Friday, February 2, Vancouver Fringe Theatre Society presents the 10th anniversary of ‘Caws & Effect: A Fringe Fundraiser’ at Waterfront Theatre. The show comes from Vancouver-based Mind Of A Snail Productions, who we are so thrilled to be working with for this fundraising event
Advance: The Advance Theatre Festival returns to Burnaby’s Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. This February 5-9, Ruby Slippers Theatre, the Shadbolt and Playwrights Guild of Canada join forces to co-present five new staged readings written and directed by female identifying and gender non-conforming artists who also identify as IBPOC.
Wild: The wild rumpus returns to Presentation House Theatre encouraging the littlest theatregoers and their favourite grown-ups to let their wild side out with Where The Wild Things Are onstage February 2-11
Boat: The Vancouver International Boat Show continues until February 4 indoors at BC Place Stadium and on the water at Granville Island
Gallery: Until May 12th, the Vancouver Art Gallery features the exhibition, Rooted Here: Woven from the Land, a celebration of the profound work of four local Salish weavers. As well, Denyse Thomasos: just beyond, a career retrospective honouring the late Trinidadian-Canadian artist, Denyse Thomasos in on display until March 24th.
Opera: February 1-4 at the Chan Centre for Performing Arts, UBC Opera presents Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon, based on Charles Perrault’s 1698 version of the classic Cinderella fairy tale – performed in French with English surtitles
Exhibition: Until March 31, Richmond Art Gallery (RAG) presents acclaimed Chinese artist Shen Xin’s first show in Canada: but this is the language we met in…, and a group exhibition Let the real world in, featuring works from an international line up of artists; Kirsten Leenaars, Yaimel López, Zaldívar, Yoshua Okón, and Wapikoni Mobile.
Clutesi: Until January 2025, the Bill Reid Gallery for Northwest Coast Arts celebrates Tseshaht artist George Clutesi’s body of work in a year-long retrospective exhibition