The Cultch's 2024-25 season to span an East Van Panto Robin Hood, Ronnie Burkett, and Cliff Cardinal’s As You Like It, or the Land Acknowledgement
Company’s just-launched lineup will feature everything from fast-fashion-inspired acrobatics to conceptual hip-hop, across four venues
East Van Panto: Robin Hood. Photo by Emily Cooper
Ronnie Burkett’s Wonderful Joe.
A HILARIOUS NEW PANTOMIME, a sexy fast-fashion circus show, and a multimedia Indigenous dance tribute are among the innovative offerings that will be presented as part of The Cultch’s just-announced 51st season, which spans September 2024 to June 2025.
Audiences will see works created by Canadian companies based in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City, plus international artists making the trek from Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand. The Cultch has assembled a total of 15 shows to be presented across its three stages—the Historic Theatre, York Theatre, and Vancity Culture Lab—and the Vancouver Playhouse.
As You Like It, or the Land Acknowledgement. Photo by Dahlia Katz
Opening the season from September 25 to 29 in a copresentation with Crow’s Theatre is Cliff Cardinal’s As You Like It, or the Land Acknowledgement, a simultaneously devastating and comedic insight into land acknowledgements told by way of a Shakespeare classic. The production earned cultural provocateur Cardinal the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama in 2023. Another Governor General’s Award winner, legendary Toronto-based puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, is bringing his heartwarming story of a man and his dog called Wonderful Joe to town from February 4 to 23, complete with handcrafted marionettes.
Audiences will be eager to learn that The Cultch’s annual pantomime presentation produced by Theatre Replacement at the York Theatre is returning for a 12th year, and this time around, it’s a political twist on age-old folklore with East Van Panto: Robin Hood. The production by panto-writing duo Jivesh Parasram and Christine Quintana, the minds behind last year’s Beauty and the Beast, will be shown over the holidays from November 20 to January 5.
Dimanche. Photo by Mihaela Bodlovic
In the anticipated acrobatics genre, four gravity-defying works will be presented. Australia-based company Circa will bring its irreverent Swan Lake revamp Duck Pond to town, presented in partnership with DanceHouse, from January 22 to 25; and shortly after, climate-chaos story Dimanche, from Belgium’s Chaliwaté and Focus Company, will be presented from February 6 to 8 as part of the annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Audiences can also look forward to genre-bending Quebecois duo Agathe & Adrien’s N.Ormes from April 24 to 27, and Aotearoa (New Zealand) company The Dust Palace’s sexy, hilarious fast-fashion circus show Haus of YOLO will wrap up the season from June 5 to 15.
Dance holds valuable space in this season’s programming, too: local Indigenous company Dancers of Damelahamid, led by award-winning Gitxsan-Cree artistic director Margaret Grenier, will premiere its new work Raven Mother from October 9 to 12. The multimedia piece celebrates the legacy of late Elder Margaret Harris, who was of Cree heritage from Northern Manitoba and an immensely respected figure in the arts scene. From October 23 to 27, Montreal’s Tentacle Tribe will stage Prism, a kaleidoscopic tumbling of limbs, reality, and illusion that crosses genres—think conceptual hip-hop with a tinge of contemporary.
Prism. Photo by Elias Djemil-Matassov
All told, there’s a plethora of performing-arts enjoyment in store starting in September. Still more works to look forward to on the lineup are by Urban Ink (with the return of Children of God), Savage Society (remounting Little Red Warrior and His Lawyer), Zee Zee Theatre (Every Day She Rose), The Search Party (Dance Nation), Bad Muse Collective with Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (Love You Wrong Time), and Niall McNeil, who identifies as an artist with Down Syndrome, with Beauty and the Beast: My Life.
Ticket packages for the season are on sale now, and include a free voucher to bring a friend if you purchase before June 1—don’t miss out. 
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