This message has been brought to you by East Vancouver...

A Greekified Rome

A few semesters back I made a short stop-motion film, A Greekified Rome, based primarily on Michel de Certeau's "Walking in the City, and Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle. The film depicts a Vancouver dérive, a consideration of the political construction of space through passive movement, or drift. Here is a brief theoretical introduction followed by the film.

non possum ferre, Quirtes, Graecam Vrbem
(my fellow citizens, I cannot stand a Greekified Rome)

Juvenal, Satire III

Michel de Certeau, in “Walking in the City” writes of New York: “Unlike Rome, New York has never learned the art of growing old by playing on all its pasts. Its present invents itself, from hour to hour, in the act of throwing away its previous accomplishments and challenging the future. A city composed of paroxysmal places in monumental reliefs. The spectator can read in it a universe that is constantly exploding (91).” Certeau’s New York, unhinged from its history and renewed in its cyclical immediacy, is by Debordian measure a “state [that] can no longer be led strategically” (20). New York, “the city,” is decaying. The city proper is manifest in both the “urbanistic system” – the totalising discourse that seeks to produce a rational space resistant to threatening “physical, mental, and political pollutions,” to substitute “a synchronic system” for regressive mores and traditions, and to create itself as “a universal and anonymous subject” – and “urban life” – the “swarming activity” of everyday practises (Certeau 94-95). However, the city in decay is manifest exclusively in the urbanistic system, more accurately, in the paradoxical failure of the urbanistic system, which “repeatedly produces effects contrary to those at which it aims” (95). For Certeau’s New York, such failure has “transformed [the city] into a texturology in which extremes coincide – extremes of ambition and degradation” (91). The city in decay – “simultaneously the machinery and the hero of modernity” – like the Debordian spectacle – “both the result and the project of the existing mode of production” – is an unreal reality (95/Debord Fragment 6). The short stop-motion film, A Greekified Rome (2008), formally and thematically enacts the city in decay as spectacular unreal reality, transposing Certeau’s New York on pre-Olympic Vancouver.


Note: The text featured in the film is from the poem "Vision Quest 2020," by Sachiko Murakami (from her collection The Invisibility Exhibit).

Colin James at the Orpheum...

As I said in class, the only time I really visit Vancouver (living in Maple Ridge) is for the music scene, whether its an arena show at GM Place, a drunk-fest at the Commodore, or a metal show at the Croatian Cultural Center, I've seen a wide range of bands and audiences and this scene is what keeps me connected to the city. If you've heard of Colin James, it's probably "Just Came Back to Say Goodbye" or "Freedom", and though he's not a huge name in rock and roll, his career has lasted over 20 years and his sounds range from old-time blues to mainstream pop to rock ballads. I'd seen him twice before this show, once at the Burnaby Blues Festival at Deer Lake Park and the other at the Red Robinson Show Theatre for New Year's 2009, two very different venues and atmospheres that allowed me to seen the range of his work as well as the crowds that he attracts.

I hadn't been to Granville street since last October for VIFF, and I probably don't have to tell most of you that the change between now and then was noticeable and impressive. There was definitely what you would call 'Olympic buzz' and I was interested in how much the general vibe in the city had heightened since my last visit, from all the advertisements and decorations to the fact that Granville st. had been finished and was once again populated without the confinements of construction. Although I usually feel like somewhat of a tourist when I'm in Vancouver for a show, last night I approached the city in the mindset of someone who was visiting for the Olympics and completely new to the atmosphere and sights, paying close attention to the aspects of the city that were created for the image that the city wants to project for all the newcomers. Those traditions I have picked up on in Vancouver in the past were still all there: the beggar on Granville who asks specifically for 35 cents, the 'hipsters' in the coffee shops and Cafe Crepe, the varied ethnicities sharing the sidewalk, the general laid back attitude. But on top of all that was this 'Big City' image and hype for the Olympics that in a way destroys the humble image I had of Vancouver from past visits (maybe 'humble' isn't the right word but I'd never seen the city boast about itself the way it does now, feel free to disagree :) ).

As for the show itself, I won't turn this into a concert review but I will tell you that Colin James is a fantastic musician that alw ays impresses, no matter what type of crowd he's playing for. Last night's audience was probably one of the tamest I have ever experienced, made up of mostly 40-50 year olds but with a few younger people like myself to round it out. Maybe it's because James' music is so 'feel-good', or maybe it's because most of the people attending the show come from a more considerate day and age, but I have to mention that the bathroom line was the most polite I had ever been in, a major contrast from the metal show bathrooms I have endured in the past. What intrigues me the most about live shows is that I get to have a special experience with people that, in most cases, I'd never know in my day to day life and it is this aspect of the concert scene that makes me believe that live music is Vancouver's true public space, bringing people together from different age groups and cities and allowing strangers to share and connect over one common interest: the band on stage.

The Vancouver Burlesque Community

Vancouver has a semi-underground performance community within the burlesque community. Since 2004 this Vancouver community has been thriving, and now hosts many burlesque, and boylesque, troups as well as courses, festivals and fashion!

May of 2010 will again host the Vancouver International Burlesque festival. This festival is organized by local burlesque performers and volunteers to help platform Vancouver's (and North America's) underground Burlesque world. It hosts performances, classes and workshops all allowing people to interact with, experience and explore this unique performance art.Information can be found at: http://www.vanburlesquefest.com/

Local troupes such as sweet soul burlesque have studios and various themed shows around the city. (http://www.sweetsoulburlesque.ca) The intention of creating these performances are to "Sweet Soul strives to break the mold by creating fun, ground-breaking burlesque events that are of high production value and unequaled sassiness. The troupe works together to inspire each other and other women / lovers of women to enjoy themselves and their sexuality and to rekindle their sense of playfulness and confidence." (as taken by the website)

Sweet Soul Burlesque isn't the only performing troupe in Vancouver either, its simply one of many. Some Vancouver troupes are less vintage-style burlesque and more about challenging modern sexual identities, for other troupes a revival of cabaret performance style.

A Vancouver production company -Screaming Chicken- holds various classes for Burlesque exposure such as pastie making classes, burlesque aerobics and a training course for " becoming burlesque. Info can be found at http://screamingchicken.net/productions_classes.htm

Burlesque Yoga classes are available in Vancouver and Burlesque fashion has increased in popularity particularly among designers around Main street in East vancouver with its focus on vintage fashion styles.

It is a growing performance community in Vancouver, all and all its jolly good fun!
-m

Wild Things - SFU Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue Fall 09

Last semester, I participated in the Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue program at SFU. The program adopts a different theme every semester and last FALL 09 semester was entitled, Art in Community: Creating Cultures of Ingenuity and Innovation. Fancy, yes? And pretty amazing.

"A group of sixteen Simon Fraser University students were given less than 48 hours to come up with an idea for and choreograph a public performance using choral or spoken word. This flash mob style piece was performed on the Seabus from North Vancouver around noon on Friday, October 23 2009 to a surprised ferry of passengers."

Enjoy the performance! Our singing is a little off key, but I think we make it up with enthusiasm.

"Where's the Square?" design idea competition

If you did not already get the idea, I am an advocate for Vancouver's own public space/square/etc. Public squares are not only places for debate, or social change; they are also places where citizens socialize to foster a sense of community, to come together with or without purpose.

In 2008 (and lasting until September 2009), the Vancouver Public Space Network held "Where's the Square?", a design idea competition for Vancouver's own public square. Over 100 design teams signed up and a total of 54 entries were submitted, with the possibility of winning two awards: Jury's Selection and People's Choice.

Vancouverites were encouraged to submit their vote via online or at the various public events held during the competition.

The jury consisted of six members, including Lance Berelowitz, author of Dream City and Yosef Wosk, professor and director of the Interdisciplinary Programs in Continuing Studies at SFU.

The design that won the Jury Selection award was called "The Band." Submitted by Mark Ashby Architecture & Greenskins Lab, the concept was relatively simple: "To create a square specific to Vancouver, the traditional square is "unbundled" and reassembled in a linear space edged with public institutions. The combined public square is programmed sequentially by each institution in turn."

In other words, the public square would be a boardwalk-esque structure, connecting what the design team deemed to be some of Vancouver's essential institutions. The band would start at the intersection of Robson and Homer, then linking the VPL, the CBC, BC Place Stadium, the proposed new location for the VAG and finally to the False Creek seawall.

If you want to learn more about the competition, including information on the other winning designs, visit the Where's the Square? website.

Image from The Tyee

"reclaiming a landmark"

The new Woodwards "W" was unveiled yesterday, capping the ambitious reclamation of an important vancouver historical landmark. In terms of performance, the new "W" is another prominent symbol of eco-efficiency; lit with LED lights, it consumes 95% less energy than its predecessor.



this photo, courtesy of @Atomos via Vancouver is Awesome