Vancouver's best arts streaming of 2020, a year of navigating a new virtual world
Arts figures join Stir in looking back at how cameras brought musicians, dancers, and actors into our living rooms
Clockwise from left: Do you want what I have got? A craigslist cantata (photo by Emily Cooper); James Ehnes playing with the VSO; Andrew McNee starring in the Arts Club Theatre’s Buffoon.
MOST ARTS FANS, not to mention arts companies, have approached the new realm of digital streaming with a little suspicion. How can something designed to be experienced live possibly translate to digital streaming?
Well, 2020’s extended pandemic has given us a lot of time to try to answer that question. Not that it’s been easy: streaming takes an entirely different technical skill set, not to mention financial investments and access to camera-friendly spaces—factors that have made it virtually impossible for some companies to take it on. Add onerous shooting protocols, the challenges of different streaming platforms, and audiences used to the high production value of film and TV, and you have obstacles so daunting it’s a wonder companies didn’t choose hibernation over innovation.
But many artists and arts groups have taken the leap this year, experimenting and changing their approach to suit the online format. The results have been mixed, but exciting nonetheless. Other upsides? You don’t have to pay for downtown parking; you don’t have to take off your Adventure Time jammies and Robot Chicken slippers; and no one’s going to judge you for adding to your enjoyment of a performance with a third Manhattan.
The offerings have been so broad and varied that Stir decided to not only list off some of its favourite streamed shows, but asked a cross-section of local arts personalities about the productions they thought did digital best.
And as lockdown continues into 2021, there seem to be a few lessons here, among them: intimacy and interaction sometimes trump high production value; atmospheric or architectural settings can make a huge difference; and works created expressly for the streaming format offer an exciting new world of possibility.
Brendan McLeod in Ridge.
HERE AT STIR, we’ve been moved by productions both big and small.
On the former end, we’ve been blown away by some of the musical offerings in the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts’ Dot Com Series, especially the haunting, looping vocals of throat-singing-electro artists Piqsiq and the riveting mix of multimedia visuals, history, and music in Ridge—Brendan McLeod’s unforgettable and refreshingly nontraditional take on Remembrance Day ceremonies. (You can still watch them with a subscription here.)
Vancouver Opera has put the Chan’s stage and camera crew to effective use this season, finding the right mix of intimate closeups and vintage-cool sets for Mireille Lebel’s stunning emotional roller-coaster ride in Les Voix Humaines.
And the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra has pulled out all the stops for its TheConcertHall.ca programming, offering multicamera shots and a new way of enjoying classical music. Sitting in the Orpheum has its own sense of grandeur, but being able to watch a masked James Ehnes’s bow work close up in the fall season opener’s uplifting performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Violin Concerto in A Major was thrilling. The setting in Christ Church Cathedral didn’t hurt either. Other touches, like Measha Brueggergosman hosting a program of George Walker and Jessie Montgomery from the front door of her Nova Scotia home, riffing on the Black composers and wearing sparkly earrings with a plaid hunting jacket, have given these grander shows a personal touch. The sound? Impeccable.
Elsewhere in music, Veda Hille’s Little Volcano translated perfectly to the online format, arguably finding even more candid and lovably goofy intimacy than the mix of songs and storytelling did live. And we’ve found short solo series like Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra’s Global Soundscapes online festival and the Canadian Music Centre BC’s Unaccompanied to hold their own kind of magic—with the bonus of spotlighting new Canadian music. Elsewhere, experiments like the Elektra Women’s Choir’s recent The Light of Hope Returning showed the digital potential for cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary collaboration. The international project featured the hand-drawn animation of Syrian-born New York-based visual artist Kevork Mourad alongside a chorus of women’s voices and instrumentalists from the San Francisco Opera Orchestra.
Also crossing time and space, DanceHouse brought inspiring world-class work to our TV sets, with a trip to the Hague for a look at Nederlands Dans Theater’s cutting-edge Dare to Say programming. Offerings at Dancing on the Edge (Vanessa Goodman’s Solvent, Company 605’s Brimming, and Radical System Art’s MOI) and Chutzpah Festival (Idan Cohen/Ne. Sans Opera’s theatrical Hourglass and Ella Rothschild’s strange and mesmerizing Pigulim) also showed the power of dance on film.
Local theatre, meanwhile, made a compelling argument for digital streaming: the Cultch’s lineup has been topnotch (see shoutouts below). And both Rumble Theatre (with Tremors 2020 and Pathetic Fallacy) and Upintheair Theatre (with the e-Volver fest and The Array shorts) have explored the most daring and unexpected ways to use the new platform. (This hasn’t necessarily meant tapping the latest in high-tech gear. Look no further than at e-Volver, and Mind of a Snail’s A Light Touch, with its “psychedelic spa clown healing”; it found low-tech hilarity with a bed sheet hung in a living room, shadow puppets, and an old-school overhead projector.)
Human Shadow Etched in Stone, shot at the Polygon Gallery (left), Jill Barber above.
BUT THOSE ARE just some of the highlights that stood out for Stir. Here are some local arts-scene members who weighed in with their own favourite shows from the streaming menu in 2020—their own and others’:
Emma Lancaster, Coastal Jazz & Blues Society//TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival:
Jill Barber Live From Frankie's: “She decided she did not want to be on the stage, so she did the whole thing at the end of the bar with a guitar and a drink on the bar, and it was like getting a private concert from your super-cool friend.”
Up in the Air Theatre's e-Volver festival: “They managed to put together a program of works that were designed for the form—for streaming, Zoom, et cetera—rather than plays that were filmed and streamed. It really showcased the possibilities of all-digital performance.”
Mark Haney, standup bass player and Little Chamber Music artistic director
Do you want what I have got? a craigslist cantata (the Cultch): “Incredibly effective as a digital show, with the perfect fusion of classic stagecraft and simple video presentation. Something about it reminded me of live TV broadcasts from the ’40s and ’50s, which really worked for me. Great performances, and imaginative direction by Ami Gladstone moved the show online seamlessly.”
Jeffrey Ryan's “Everything Already Lost” world premiere (Music on Main): “Bringing this performance out of the concert hall and into the beautiful lobby of the Chan Centre, with its glass wall and forest setting, really elevates it above a lot of online music events. Stunning performances by Tyler Duncan and Erika Switzer, a great new piece by Jeff Ryan, and kudos to Dave Pay and Music on Main for putting it online for free.”
Human Shadow Etched in Stone (The Polygon Gallery and Little Chamber Music): “While it's a little tacky to pick one of my own events, I think John Bolton and the crew from Opus 59 Films created something truly special from a beautiful and moving performance. Cinematic, striking and perfectly marking the performance as pandemic times in Vancouver, while also creating a moving tribute to the Hiroshima atrocity.”
Francesca Piscopo, artistic associate and community-engagement coordinator at DanceHouse
NDT2’s Dare to Say, Four Relations, by Alexander Ekman (DanceHouse): “The livestreaming of this piece was structured in a way that both the choreographer and the camera operators were able to tell a story through dance: the cinematographic treatment of the piece and the manipulation of the scenographic elements (for example the bed) offset that missing shared experience in the theatre that I crave so much. During the whole streaming I was following the dancers though the camera movements, discovering different angles and details.
“The stage was transformed in a series of multiple cinematographic worlds and through the cameras and the lights I felt almost like I was there. This experience gave me probably access to a hidden part of the choreography that otherwise I wouldn’t have accessed.
“Don’t ask me why, but the fun fact is that Ekman’s piece reminded me one of Bob Fosse’s dancing parts (The Aloof) of The Rich Man’s Frug—from the Broadway musical Sweet Charity.”
HINKYPUNK
FakeKnot’s HINKYPUNK (at VIDF): “During the livestreaming they used Zoom in a way that you could switch between multiple viewing angles.
“It was interesting to see how through the correct use of this digital interaction the audience could manipulate and enjoy their own experiences.
“If I think more about it, this is what happens when, at the theatre, you decide to focus just on a dancer or on a detail, no matter what is happening on-stage. That’s so different from being forced to look at just one camera angle all the time.”
Joelysa Pankanea, composer, musical director, and sound designer
Buffoon (Arts Club Theatre Company): “I loved it. It was amazing and the streamed version was so beautifully recorded. I love Anosh Irani’s writing and I felt proud that the Arts Club took that on. You got to see two different actors and that was an incredible show to be a part of.”
Panto Come Home! (The Cultch): “On a completely different end, that was really, really fun. It was nice to be at home and have a laugh and see the beautiful faces of the actors I know so well.”
Sherry J Yoon, artistic director, Boca del Lupo theatre
Grand Acts of Theatre (National Arts Centre, which Yoon co-curated): “Something Bubbled, Something Blue, which has taken off I’m sure beyond what the artists or the NAC had thought would happen. A few works to look out for: Continuance by Santee Kaha:wi Dance, a moving idea about what tech/installation can do in changing perception to land and to history. There’s also Black Theatre Workshop [Black and Blue Matters, Track 1], about the current context of BLM moment as represented in Canada/Montreal, and Entre Temps.”
Dave Deveau, associate artistic director, writer, and performer, Zee Zee Theatre
Quarantine at the Elbow Room Cafe (Zee Zee Theatre): “We were so thrilled to present Quarantine at the Elbow Room Cafe, written specifically for Zoom as a means to keep the Elbow Room and owners Bryan Searle and Patrice Savoie’s stories alive.
e-Volver Festival: “We have to give huge credit to our friends at Upintheair Theatre and their e-Volver Festival, which really set the tone for how digital work could be explored.
Do you want what I have got? A craigslist cantata: “And then endless standing ovations for The Cultch and their digital reimagining of craigslist cantata—a truly remarkable and deeply powerful achievement. Not to give anything away before their February remount, but the ending was exactly what we needed to feel through the darkness of this season."
Related Articles
