60 things to do in Metro Vancouver on Friday, August 11

Looking for something to do on Friday? The Straight’s got you covered. Here are 60 events happening in or around Vancouver on Friday, August 10.

 

CONCERTS

American folk-pop singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy plays the Biltmore, with guest Liza Anne.

Local singer-songwriter David Newberry coheadlines the WISE Hall with Vancouver alternative ensemble Weathering Heights.

Local bluegrass band Still Spirits plays Pub 340, with guests Crowd the Joanna, the Staggers and Jaggs, and Devil in the Wood Shack.

 

BENEFITS

Help raise money for the South Granville Seniors Centre with a book sale and a barbecue lunch that includes lemonade, chips, and a hotdog for $5 (vegetarian options available).

 

ETCETERA

The three-day Abbotsford International Air Show features a full aerial festival, a kids' zone, static displays, food vendors, and a fireworks celebration at Abbotsford Airport.

The three-day Eastside Flea Summer Market at the Ellis Building features over 50 local vendors, five artisan showrooms, food trucks, an outdoor courtyard, music, and pinball.

 

FOOD & DRINK

UBC Executive Chef David Speight and the team at Scholar’s Catering present a five-course, family-style Long Table Dinner at UBC Farm that celebrates the organic produce grown there.

 

KIDS' STUFF

Highlights of Playland include midway games, fair food, an arcade, a shooting gallery, a climbing wall, a haunted mansion, family rides like Teacups and Merry-Go-Round, and extreme rides like Corkscrew, the Beast, Hell's Gate, Revelation, and Wooden Roller Coaster.

Family Night at Grandview Park includes crafts, photography, spoken word, poetry, and live music by Rio Samaya.

 

SPORTS

The Vancouver Canadians take on the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes in Minor League Baseball action at Nat Bailey Stadium.

 

COMEDY

Comedian Lori Ferguson-Ford performs the first of two nights of standup at Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club.

Comedian DJ Demers performs the second of three nights of standup at the Comedy Mix.

Improv Voltron at New Westminster's Heritage Grill features the Radical, Improv Voltron, Union Jacked, Carmelahhh Comedy, and Daniel Chai.

Vancouver performers share intimate and embarrassing stories that seem too tall to be true at the Fox Cabaret's Story Story Lie.

 

ARTS ETCETERA

The Monsoon Festival of the Performing Arts, which features a spotlight on South Asian theatre, including presentations, workshops, and productions of Burq Off! and Malavika, continues to August 13 at venues in Vancouver and Surrey. 

The Harmony Arts Festival--an all-ages celebration of art that includes visual-art exhibits, an art market, outdoor concerts on two stages, food vendors, and drop-in activities for kids and adults--continues to August 13 on the West Vancouver waterfront.

The Vancouver Mural Festival--an urban-art celebration featuring 60 new murals in Mount Pleasant and Strathcona--continues until August 12.

The West Coast Tagore Festival at Richmond's Gateway Theatre is a multicultural celebration featuring poets and performing artists from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

The two-day Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre features more than 100 visual and performing artists, exhibitions, sales, performances, and workshops.

 

LITERARY

Story Circle for Adults at the Vancouver Public Library's Oakridge branch is a monthly drop-in for adults with developmental disabilities and their families, friends, and caregivers.

 

MUSIC

As part of the Vancouver Bach Festival, Early Music Vancouver presents the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, the Vancouver Cantata Singers, and Gli Angeli Genève in a performance of Bach's masterpiece St. John Passion at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

Soprano Dorothea Hayley, flutist Paolo Bortolussi, clarinetist Jeanette Jonquil, cellist Cristian Márkos, and pianists Jeremy Chaulk and Alejandro Ochoa perform works by Czerny, Meyerbeer, Schubert, Spaeth, and Zemlinsky at St. Mark's Anglican Church as part of the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival.

 

THEATRE

Theatre Under the Stars presents The Drowsy Chaperone, director Gillian Barber's musical that sees characters spring to life in a Jazz Age journey of love, laughter, and libation.

Performance at Jericho Arts Centre of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) as part of the Ensemble Theatre Company Summer Festival.

Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival presents a version of William Shakespeare's drama The Merchant of Venice set in modern-day Venice.

Performance at Performance Works Outdoor Stage of Carousel Theatre for Young People’s version of Romeo and Juliet.

SUP: A Series of Sassy Un-produced Projects features new scripts, casts, and stories at Havana Theatre.

Peninsula Productions presents Sea of Stories, a musical about life in small-town Canada, at White Rock's Coast Capital Playhouse.

Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival presents William Shakespeare's drama The Winter's Tale in which the love of two young people becomes the catalyst for a family's healing.

Family-friendly 13 The Musical at Red Gate Revue Stage features an all-teenaged cast and band in a story about a boy who's desperate to fit in.

Alchemy Theatre and Vagabond Players present a performance of William Shakespeare's comedy Love's Labour's Lost at New Westminster's Bernie Legge Theatre.

 

GALLERIES

Claude Monet's Secret Garden at the Vancouver Art Gallery showcases 38 paintings that span the career of the French artist who is regarded as a master of the Impressionist movement.

Pictures From Here at the Vancouver Art Gallery features photographs and video works by Vancouver-based artists Roy Arden, Karin Bubaš, Christos Dikeakos, Stan Douglas, Greg Girard, Rodney Graham, Mike Grill, Arni Haraldsson, Fred Herzog, Barrie Jones, Evan Lee, N.E. Thing Co., Marian Penner Bancroft, Henri Robideau, Sandra Semchuk and James Nicholas, Althea Thauberger, Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace, Paul Wong, Cornelia Wyngaarden, and Andrea Fatona.

Bill Reid Creative Journeys at Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art celebrates the three phases of the artist's creative journey, Pre-Haida (1948-1951), Haida (1951-1968) and Beyond Haida (1968-1998).

Xi xanya dzam at Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art features traditional masks, carvings, baskets and moosehide, contemporary prints, sculptures and jewellery by Primrose Adams, Dempsey Bob, Rena Point Bolton, Mandy Brown, Joe David, Robert Davidson, Alvin Mack, Mary Michell, Earl Muldon, Susan Point, and Norman Tait.

The first major Canadian exhibition of photographs, collages, drawings, sculptures, and films by Tel Aviv-born, Los Angeles-based artist Elad Lassry is at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Twenty-five works by contemporary American photographer Stephen Shore complement the exhibition Claude Monet’s Secret Garden at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Persistence at the Vancouver Art Gallery draws together three recent contemporary installations by Canadian artists Julia Feyrer, Tamara Henderson, Shelagh Keeley, and Germaine Koh.

 

MUSEUMS

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature at at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features Amazonian basketry, textiles, carvings, feather works, and ceramics both of everyday and of ceremonial use, representing indigenous, Maroon, and white settler communities.

Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC examines the physical traces of words, both spoken and recorded, that are unique to humans. 

In a Different Light: Reflecting on Northwest Coast Art at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features more than 110 historical indigenous artworks and explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands

The Lost Fleet at the Vancouver Maritime Museum investigates the unjust 1941 seizure of 1,200 Japanese-Canadian fishing vessels following the bombing of Pearl Harbour through a collection of historic photographs, models of Japanese-Canadian-built fishing boats, fishermen’s tools, and replica documents.

 

ATTRACTIONS

Big Splash Waterpark in Tsawwassen, formerly Splashdown, features newly renovated pools and hot tubs, new slides such as Kamikaze and Solar Splash, a sports bar and grill, and complimentary shuttle service to and from downtown Vancouver.

At the Bloedel Conservatory you can take in more than 200 free-flying exotic birds and 500 exotic plants and flowers.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge features seven suspended footbridges offering views 110 feet above the forest floor.

Edgewater Casino offers 24-hour gaming, over 60 table games, a poker room, a high-limit section, 500 slot machines, restaurants and lounges, and live entertainment, including concerts and televised UFC events.

Take a ride in an exterior glass elevator and get a 360° view of Metro Vancouver and the North Shore mountains at Vancouver Lookout.

Kitsilano Pool, Vancouver's only saltwater swimming pool, is 137 metres long and features a heated outdoor pool, a saltwater pool, a water park, two slides, cafes, and lockers.

The 22-hectare VanDusen Botanical Garden features over 255,000 plants from around the world, a restaurant, a garden shop, and a horticulture library.

Soar from coast-to-coast across the Canadian landscape with a 25-minute ride featuring effects such as wind and scents at FlyOver Canada.

Lighthouse Park features 10 kilometres of hiking trails, picnic areas, guided walks provided by the Lighthouse Park Preservation Society, and the historical 1912 Point Atkinson Lighthouse.

Science World features hundreds of interactive exhibits in five permanent galleries, live science demonstrations and workshops, and giant movies in the Omnimax Theatre.

 

MOVIES

Late-night screening at the Rio Theatre of Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s psychedelic 1977 ghost movie House.

Screening at Vancity Theatre of In Transit, Albert Maysles and Lynn True's film in which passengers on the Empire Builder--a three-day route between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest--share their stories, hopes, and dreams. 

Screening at Vancity Theatre of Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, a documentary by Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana that explores the influence of Native American music and musicians on rock and pop.

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival--which celebrates the best in independent queer cinema and facilitates a unique community space through a variety of performances, panels, and workshops--continues at various Vancouver venues.

Screenings at the Cinematheque of Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai and Vincent Sherman's Affair in Trinidad as part of the annual Film Noir series.

Screening at the Canadian Centre for Peace of the documentary All the Rage: Saved by Sarno, featuring John Sarno and other experts who are pioneering mind-body approaches to treating chronic illness.

Point Grey Cinema and Fresh Air Cinemas present an outdoor screening at Trimble Park of the animated kids' flick Sing!.

Afternoon at the Movies features a screening at Vancouver Public Library's Renfrew branch of the family-friendly flick The Secret Life of Pets.

 

For all the latest Metro Vancouver event announcements and updates follow @VanHappenings.