Stir Cheat Sheet: 6 highlights of the Vancouver International Children’s Festival 2023

From Australian acrobatics to Madagascar mime to Métis storytelling, the fest is a world of inspiration

By gail johnson

A Simple Space.

Vancouver International Children’s Festival runs from May 30 to June 4 at various venues and online

VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL is back for 2023 with everything from circus-style human towers to Indigenous stories rooted in spirituality. Then there’s Vancouver-based Neworld Theatre’s puppet show based on real kids’ responses to the pandemic in Division Infinity Saves the World!

Here’s a look at a few other hot tickets.

#1

A Simple Space

May 30, 31, June 2, 3, and 4 at the Granville Island Stage

Australia’s international award-winning Gravity & Other Myths brings a high-flying troupe of seven acrobats to the local stage, A Simple Space is the company’s signature work, which has been performed more than 1,000 times across 34 countries.

The finely tuned show is geared to audiences aged seven and up, but the artists offer the kind of stunts and tricks that make people of all ages gasp and gawk. The productin’s bare, stripped-down setting allows all eyeballs to focus squarely on the physicality, artistry, and virtuosity of the performers, and as each tries to outdo the other, their moves get increasingly daring. Full of bursting-at-the-seams energy, this is one show where the old line “do not try this at home” applies.

#2

Sakasaka

June 1 to 4 at various times At Performance Works on Granville Island

Madagascar’s Compagnie Zolobe! features actors who are also musicians, dancers, clowns, and puppeteers who share their traditional culture through stories, songs, movement, live music, and mime. In Sakasaka, three clowns try to drink a cup of water using only a mop, a bench, and buckets throughout a wordless laugh-out-loud sequence of events where nothing goes right.  The enact everything from a  dance homage Thriller to a trip on the Titanic to open-heart surgery. 

Sakasaka takes its name from the Malagasy word for thirsty, and while the show is full of clowning around, it also highlights the pressing global issue of water scarcity and the importance of protecting this precious resource.

#3

David Bouchard: Métis — Stories, Flutes and more… David Bouchard

May 31 to June 2 at Waterfront Theatre

Saskatchewan-born, Victoria-based Métis storyteller and flute player David Bouchard is a member of the Order of Canada who speaks to audiences around the world in English and French and who has written more than 50 books, including I Am Raven, Long Powwow Nights, and Nokum Is My Teacher. He punctuates his vivid, warmly narrated tales with joyous flute playing, helping kids understand Indigenous beliefs, culture, history, and spirituality.

#4 + #5

Tree

May 30 to June 4 at Carousel Theatre

Tree, A World In Itself

June 2 to 4 at Carousel Theatre

There’s truly something for everyone at the Vancouver International Children’s Festival. Tree, by Quebec’s Motus, is an intimate show set to gentle, rhythmic music for the tiniest of audiences (those aged up to two years old). Wee ones will be in awe as plants, insects, and animals visit a mama bird in her cozy nest and as a rising moon gives way to glittering night sky.

Tree, a world in itself, is a multi-sensory, interactive offering of soft light, music, and silence created for autistic children and further adapted to accommodate neurodiverse kids, including those with intellectual disabilities and/or reduced mobility. The show has a ratio of one performing artist per child to allow for personalized interactions with audience members. 

The Wild Mocassin Dancers.

#6

Variety Show

June 3 from 6:30 to  8 pm at the Granville Island Stage

It’s the best of all worlds: the fest’s annual Variety Show features a sampling of some of its hottest offerings. This year’s event features snippets snipes from the aforementioned acrobatic A Simple Space and a performance by The Wild Moccasin Dancers, who fuse powwow drumming, dancing and hip hop (and whose standalone performance is sold out). Then there are the rhythmic rhymes and sonic ecosystems of Ruby Singh’s RupLoops who uses sound samples of B.C. endangered animals and whose Magnetic North is also sold out). Aché Brasil shares capoeira, an energetic combination of martial arts, dance, music, and acrobatics born in Brazil and derived from traditions brought by enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean. Dressed in elaborate costumes, the performers plays drums and  ancient stringed berimbau. Local drag queen Peach Cobblah is the show’s host with the most who can also be seen by those who got tickets early enough for the sold-out Glamily: A Family Dress-Up Show, presented by Tara Cheyenne Performance in association with Zee Zee Theatre and Carousel Theatre for Young People.

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