Janet Smith
Style and arts editor Janet Smith is a Carleton University arts-journalism grad who sits on the Vancouver Film Critics Circle. Over two decades covering Vancouver's cultural scene, she's witnessed opera performed in giant bird cages and bathrooms, ballerinas banging their heads to heavy metal, giant animatronic dinosaurs scaring the bejesus out of small children, dancers writhing in sticky mud and cardboard boxes, artists smashing the hell out of computers with baseball bats, and more nudity than at Hugh Hefner's last birthday party.
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Cherice Barton and Donald Sales’s wickedly creative ode to the spaghetti western is full to its corral fences with playful sequences.
The National Ballet of Cuba’s Vancouver debut sparked something rarely, if ever, seen in this town during a dance performance.
It’s a match made, if not in heaven, then in some warped, cinematic version of paradise.
Dancer Billy Marchenski is letting time weigh on his shoulders—and then it slips down and hangs languorously, head first, between his legs.
While Entity is a thrilling contemporary-dance experience, it’s also wonderfully, mind-bendingly strange and clinical.
The aftermath of the production looked a bit like a couple of moulting grizzlies had just finished a food fight.
For Canadians, it may come as a surprise that one of the Netherlands’ top dance companies hails from not Amsterdam, but a town in the north called Groningen.
At 41, Wayne McGregor is the hottest dance artist in Europe—if not on the planet—but he is so much more than that, too.
Who are the bravest two dancers in the city right now?
taking on pink-ribbon campaigns—a project some might liken to ripping into Amnesty International or Mother Teresa—was not a project that director Léa Pool took lightly.
Choreographer Dana Gingras plays on our animal instincts in this edgy new work by local dance troupe, the 605 Collective.
It names names, takes on massive corporations, and rips into one of the charity world’s most revered symbols of hope.
PuSh International Performing Arts Festival executive director Norman Armour suffered a medical emergency.
In an ode to office alienation, the cubicle crowd talks in circles and performs wonky dances.
To understand how popular Dances for a Small Stage has become over 10 years, you need only look outside its doors a few hours before showtime.
In case we haven’t offered enough impetus to head out to local performance halls this winter, here are five more shows that are worth leaving hibernation for.
The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, LunarFest, and Vancouver International Dance Festival are just three ways to chill out and indulge in the arts this season.
In Edouard Lock’s
New Work, the female dancers are almost always on their tippy-toes, but the way he uses pointe, they never look like frail music-box ballerinas.
Edouard Lock deconstructs two operas and puts them en pointe to create a dizzying blur of movement in La La La Human Steps’
New Work.
It swings dramatically between scenes that feel sappily contrived and moments that are deeply, authentically moving.
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi is a long way from Tehran today.
The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival kicked off last night in risky, multimedia style.
Who says January is a slow time for theatre?
Here's betting that Becks has the power to singlehandedly bring back tighty whities.
The Contingency Plan proved this week that it isn’t just versatile; it’s verging on a split personality.
Out Innerspace’s warped new hot pot of Japanese pop culture and contemporary dance is as much fun as a Saturday-morning
anime marathon.
These days, it takes a lot to surprise an audience.
There may not be any other production at this year’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival as set on pushing the audience as its opening show.
"You look at groups that lost 100 percent of their grants from gaming, and that was their most significant source of funding, and it was devastating. To know they can apply again is just a huge relief."
In 2009, Liberals had cancelled gaming funding to most cultural organizations that targeted adults with their programming.
The government has missed its own 60-day deadline in releasing Skip Triplett's report.
California's Classic Hardware has collaborated with some of the city's hippest female artists.
The TCP Show at the Firehall Arts Centre features
Adhere by Vanessa Goodman and Jane Osborne and
Las Tres Marías by Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg.
From retro cufflinks to bespoke perfume, we've got fun, fashionable finds for every bride and groom.
When you look back on 2011’s arts events, it’s not the overall shows you remember but the small, unforgettable moments.
You'd think, given the implosion of the global economy, that films would have played it safe in 2011.
If locally born dancer Tara Williamson is enjoying anything at Alberta Ballet, it’s variety.
Choreographed by the Birmingham’s artistic director, David Bintley, to mark the company’s 20th anniversary, this story ballet will please all ages.
Choreographer Anna-Marie Holmes' version of the beloved Christmas ballet may be one of the most child-friendly versions out there.
Portraits and Scenes of Female Creatures starts out promisingly, conjuring an oceanscape so real that you can almost smell the salty sea air.
Our sneak peek at the One of a Kind Show and Sale today unearthed a cool array of arty gifts.
New Year’s Eve is the perfect movie for the season of too much gingerbread, eggnog, tinsel, and champagne.
When you’re ballet stars like Michele Wiles and Cory Stearns, dancing the Nutcracker is as familiar a Christmas tradition as homemade gingerbread and tree decorating.
When it comes to liquor licensing in these parts, there seems to be a complete lack of understanding of the term irony
With deep-fried pickles and vegan ratatouille on the menu, this Main Street hangout may serve the "healthiest" comfort food you've ever had.
Karl Markovics handles these scenes with the dead with a brutal but respectful honesty.
The clock is ticking, the mall is increasingly resembling a scene from
Dawn of the Dead, and you don’t know what present to buy the style hound/fashion victim on your Christmas list.
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