The totally subjective, somewhat random top five performing arts moments of 2010

From Cultural Olympiads to cultural-grant cutbacks, 2010 was a wild ride. Here are five shows that stuck in my mind amid the huge number of offerings this year.

The list is completely random and subjective; with 600 shows during the six weeks around the Games alone, no one could hope to see everything. Feel free to add to it.

Glengarry Glen Ross at the Arts Club’s Stanley Industrial Alliance Theatre
Seeing Will & Grace star Eric McCormack’s oily salesman Ricky Roma seduce the putz Lingk was a thrill. That the local cast, including Gerard Plunkett’s Loman-esque Levine, matched his skill made it even more satisfying.

Kidd Pivot’s Dark Matters at the Vancouver Playhouse
Vancouver dance artist Crystal Pite worked unforgettable, creepy magic with menacing puppets and hooded shadow-figures. When the walls literally came crashing down near the end of the first act, the audience was reduced to gasps.

Vancouver Opera’s Nixon in China at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre
In one of the strongest years in memory at our local aria purveyors—a year that saw a mind-blowing Butterfly, a luminous Lucia, and an insanely ambitious new Canadian opera—this was the show that stood out. The abstract, ever-shifting tableaux of towering podiums and propaganda posters gave it the look of an opium dream, and John Adams’s ever-driving music felt epically cinematic. Striking, challenging, and unforgettable.

Ballet B.C.’s Songs of a Wayfarer and Other Works at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre
There’s nothing quite as exciting as watching a company make a grand comeback, and that was exactly why this sizzling, sophisticated show was so electric. It reached its pinnacle with the world premiere of Jose Navas’s The bliss that from their limbs all movement takes—a whirling, ever-shifting sea of pirouettes that was uplifting and gorgeous.

Jerome Bel’s The Show Must Go On at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
I had more fun at Jérí´me Bel’s exuberant, ultracool ode to the soundtrack of our lives than any other production this year. When the pro and nonpro dancers onstage weren’t living it up to some of the best and worst of pop music (Nick Cave on the same bill as Celine Dion?), they had the audience itself singing along and eventually busting moves in the aisle. If you missed this party, you have my sincere condolences.