In a career first, acclaimed Montreal painter Etienne Zack will debut his first large-scale, three-dimensional sculpture during the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

The sculpture, Untitled Circuit (Name,Medium,Size,Year), is modelled after Zack’s 2008 painting by the same name. While the sculpture is a “purified” version of the original piece, he says the central idea is still very present.

“The [painting’s] perspective is distorted, there’s all kinds of colours and things that disrupt the space,” says Zack. “There are many different time periods within the same painting.”

Accordingly, the sculpture uses colourful items, ranging from pieces of furniture to typewriters, to text and imagery from art magazines, to convey its message. Zack says Untitled Circuit (Name,Medium,Size,Year) represents the ways that cultural systems, like the art industry or the sporting industry, are produced and given meaning in society.

“The sculpture is based on the production of anything. In this case it is art-making and art distribution and art promotion,” he says. “I’m talking about making a work, and then writing about it and the whole industry of curating and talking about the work and pushing the work.”

Before beginning a painting, Zack usually makes small sculptures in his studio that would act as inspiration for his paintings. He often uses found objects and his own artists’ tools to build the models. “So basically what I’m doing now is inverting them.”

Although this is the first major sculpture Zack has produced, he says many of his paintings could be made into sculptures or installations.

“A lot of the paintings I’ve done are done, kind of, as sketches for sculptures. They’re very sculptural,” he says. “A lot of people say they’re quite surreal, but actually, they all could be sculptures.”

“Untitled Circuit (Name,Medium,Size,Year)” will be showcased at Five-Sixty, 560 Seymour Street, Vancouver from January 28 to February 28, from 11 am to 6 pm; free.

More information on Etienne Zack: Name, Medium, Size, Year

As a shy kid growing up in Quebec, François Massicotte says that while he was very passionate about comedy, he just wasn’t very funny.

“I had a lot of admiration for people who could make people laugh; I wanted to be like them,” says Massicotte from his home in Montreal.

Twenty years later, Massicotte is a household name in Quebec, known for his smart stand-up routine as well as his role (as lead actor and writer) on 450, Chemin du Golf, a sitcom about suburban life on the outskirts of Montreal.

“I like to make fun of stuff that everybody can relate to. Everyone can relate to the family with the driveway and neighbours who know what you don’t want them to know.”

With his emphasis on observational humour over slapstick comedy, Massicotte’s type of wit hasn’t always been the norm for French comedy.

“French comedy is really different from the English side, where stand-up has been there for many years. On the French side, it’s pretty new, maybe 10-to-15 years old.”

“I’m more of a comedian than a clown,” he says, adding that Quebec comedy has historically concentrated on slapstick humour with “dumb characters” and funny costumes.

Before attending l'École Nationale de l'humour in its opening year two decades ago, Massicotte looked to funny men like Yvon Deschamps, a French-Canadian actor and author known for his hilarious social commentary monologues, and American comedy heavyweight Johnny Carson.

“I loved The Tonight Show because he made jokes about different stuff and didn’t dress up and put on a wig — he just stood there and made smart remarks,” says Massicotte, who joins six other Juste pour rire comics for shows in Vancouver on February 19 and 20.

Massicotte will perform his fifth one-man show during the Cultural Olympiad and plans on adding some special Olympic material.

“It’s about my childhood education, infidelity, laws in Quebec and my girlfriend’s love for animals. And I’ll be checking all week for new hockey and sports material,” he says, before interrupting himself with “Sorry, one second… I think we just won silver!”

“Juste pour rire 2010” perform on February 19 at 8:00 pm at Stanley Theatre, 2750 Granville Street, Vancouver; (604) 736 9806; Tickets are $25 to $30, and on February 20 at 7:30 pm at Place de la Francophonie 2010, Granville Island, Vancouver. Admission is free.

Tickets and more information about Juste pour rire

In an audio installation inspired by the sounds of an ancient Chinese instrument, Seattle-based artist Trimpin is combining visual and acoustic art for his contribution to the Cultural Olympiad.

“It deals with space, spatial movements and sound movements,” says Trimpin, describing his latest exhibit, Sheng High. “You basically walk through the instrument. That’s always been a part of my work. The viewer is always right inside where the sound comes from. It surrounds them.”

Trimpin, who has already won several awards including a MacArthur Foundation “genius award” and a Guggenheim Fellowship for his innovations in contemporary art, is a widely acclaimed and reputably eccentric sculptor, composer, engineer and inventor. This, his most recent audio installation, replicates the sound of the sheng, a reed instrument made of vertical bamboo pipes.

“Sheng High is based on the Chinese instrument, but has nothing to do visually with the sheng,” says Trimpin. “It only has the same sound function.” 

Trimpin’s new contraptions capture this sheng sound using varying water levels and corresponding air pressure that builds up in their bamboo tubes. The force of the water pushes the air through the reed, which mimics the sound of a sheng.

Seeing and hearing are equally balanced, and important, in his pieces, according to Trimpin, as these two senses provide the viewer with a full understanding of the work. With this in mind, Trimpin says he hopes his audience will be able to individually interpret his creation.

 “The viewer both sees and hears,” he says. “There’s a kinetic movement going on with the bamboo pipes which will activate the sound. First the eye recognizes the movements and then you hear the aural part. So the visual and the aural are completely synchronized.”

Trimpin has been interested in the interactions between visual and acoustic space since he was a young child. Most of his art integrates music and sculpture in creative ways, and in some pieces, he has interfaced computers with traditional instruments.

“I wasn’t just interested in practicing or studying music,” he says. “But also in the building of contraptions. They always had something to do with sound.”

“Trimpin: Sheng High” will be at BOB’s Gallery, 163 East Pender Street, from now to Feb 28, 11 am to 6 pm. Admission is free.

More information on “Trimpin: Sheng High”

After launching their third album, distinctive jazz quintet Drumheller is about to kick off its tour of western Canada, and they’re be making a special stop in Vancouver for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

Since releasing a self-titled debut album in 2004, which drummer Nick Fraser says is essentially a recording of their first gig, their sound has evolved compositionally from “sprawling” to “concise and unified.”

“We’ve just been playing for that much longer, which doesn’t mean we’re not experimenting, but we know what works for us specifically,” he says from Toronto, where the band is currently based.

With Fraser on drums and Rob Clutton on bass holding down the beat, alto saxophonist Brodie West, trombonist Dough Tielli and guitarist Eric Chenaux dive in to create the band’s exhilarating, swinging, boundary-pushing sound.

Although they’ve been described as both experimental and traditional, Fraser says he would put the group into both camps.

“Our music draws on the whole history of jazz from traditional to avant-guard and we all have different relationships with jazz—we’re not all capital j, jazz musicians,” he says. “It is about our relationship with jazz, but more so it’s about our relationship with each other and our compositions.”

He says Drumheller’s style is informal, although still well-rehearsed, and contains guitar riffs that may not usually be heard on a jazz stage.

The band hits the Performance Works stage as part of the Winterruption festival, a unique music and art winter festival dominated by Canadian talent with international acts peppered throughout. Festival highlights include three-time National Jazz Award winner Jodi Proznik and Vancouver-based Gordon Grdina trio. 

“A jazz musician has come to mean a certain thing. It’s come to mean a shared language defined by knowing certain jazz standards,” says Fraser. “But some of us just come from another place. We love those songs, but take a sideways look at them.”

“Drumheller” plays February 20, 2:30 pm at Performance Works, 1218 Cartwright Street, Vancouver; (604) 872-5200. Admission is free.

More information on “Drumheller”

Electro-funk duo Chromeo heading to Vancouver to share their mash up of 70s disco and 80s electro sounds with the Cultural Olympiad’s digital edition (CODE) on February 20. While preparing to play a DJ set at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, P-Thugg aka Patrick Gemayel took some time to talk about the band’s recent work.       

You’re now working on your third album. How will it differ from She’s in Control (2004) and Fancy Footwork (2007)?

This one’s more developed. There are way more vocal harmonies, more arrangements, more piano and we’re going to have string arrangements on it. Basically, the second album was done by coming up with grooves and building around it. But this album was 90 per cent voice and piano. It was just me and Dave sitting down, with him singing and me on the piano and playing chords. Once the song sounds good with just a voice and a piano, we keep going with the idea and finish the song. Overall, a bit more musical, a bit more 70s influenced, but overall, it’s still like Chromeo, and you can hear that right away.

Do you have a musical background?

Actually, my family’s not musical. Dave was playing guitar a bit earlier than me, he started at nine years old. My father’s not really, into music. He’s a typical Middle Eastern man, he thinks music is not for lawyers and accountants and doctors. “You have to be a doctor” – that’s more my father. I was always asking for [musical instruments] as presents, but he wasn’t really into the idea, so I bought my first keyboard myself and started playing guitar when I was 13.

How does he feel now?

Now, I think he likes it. It’s a long story, but I think he’s proud.

When you first started making music, people thought your shtick was ironic. Since then you’ve been constantly defending your sincerity. Have you gotten to the point where people have stopped asking you those questions and accepted that your music is for real?

We started the band in a period where everybody was making fun of the 80s, rediscovering the mullet and making fun of the 80s, but we’ve loved this since we were in high school. We took advantage of this little sarcastic revival, because you make of it what you can.

But there’s only so far you can take a joke, like maybe one album. But we are serious; we really love to do this.

What is it about this 70s and 80s sound that you’re so attracted to?

It’s a bit of nostalgia, but I didn’t grow up listening to this music. I came to Canada when I was eight years old, from Lebanon, so I kind of missed Thriller and the bigger stuff in the 80s. I came to Canada in 1985 and I didn’t really get into music. I was a bit too young to really understand what I liked and my parents didn’t really raise me to listen to American music. I discovered my first “American” music that I bought for myself, Bad by Michael Jackson and LL Cool J’s Bigger and Deffer. To me, it’s just an objective thought, this music is good, these guys can play their instruments. It was a good time for song writing.

You frequently describe yourself as “the only successful Arab/Jew partnership since the dawn of human culture.” Are you trying to make a political point?

It was a joke to begin with, and then people started asking about it. We’re not trying to be a political band at all; we’re not trying to prove any points. We’ll never be political, unless we can help a couple of meatheads get around the idea that we don’t have to hate each other, but we’re not trying to save the world. I mean we are, but in other ways.

How?

By funkatizing the whole planet. Giving the funk to everybody. We’re getting there. Ear by ear; person by person.

Why did you decide to make your single Night by Night available for free downloading?

People are going to download it anyway, might as well make it official. And because we’re nice.

“Chromeo” plays February 20 at 10:00 pm at CODE Live 1 at Great Northern Way Campus, 577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver. SOLD OUT

After drinking a synthetic version of enzymes from giant Japanese hornets, Japanese marathon runner Naoko Takahashi set a world record at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Summer Games. Her record stands to this day, as does many people’s belief in her performance-enhancing potion.

Fascinated by the idea of hornets’ influence on the human body and mind, Micheal O’Neill creates a unique, multicultural music performance. The show mimics a marathon runner’s journey, with the help of animated visual cues projected on a screen behind on-stage musicians. With a show run time roughly the same as a fast marathon, Marathonologue attempts to take audiences into this mindset for roughly two hours.

“When you’re doing a marathon and you’re outside and moving through the landscape, you’re not communicating with anyone else and your mind is free to roam,” says O’Neill, the show’s artistic director, who also plays bagpipes in the show.

While musicians play various instruments — including ones most people have never heard of — Kenneth Newby and Aleksandra Dulic will use animation and shadow play to tell the narrative of the marathoner’s journey.

“Visually, it will be prepared, but also improvised. They call themselves VJs,” says O’Neill.

Projections include images of the runner in the foreground, pounding the pavement at a constant rate, while a swarm of hornets buzz around and honeycomb shapes twist and turn in the background.

“The show starts with a runner drinking the extract of this giant killer hornet and having a special relationship with that hornet as the marathon proceeds. We’re keeping the interdependence between animal and humans,” says O’Neill, who has been composing music and playing the bagpipes for roughly 20 years.

Throughout the show, the runner travels the globe as the music reveals the athlete’s location. When the athlete is in India, the audience will hear Indian music. O’Neill is joining six other musicians in what he calls “a tri-cultural ensemble,” because they use taiko, Japanese drums; gamelan, traditional Indonesian percussion instruments and bagpipes from Scotland.

“The rasp of the double reeds of the bagpipes really goes with the buzzing of hornets; taiko works really well because it’s so powerfully rhythmic, it’s like the pounding of feet on the ground; and the gamelan works because it’s a processional instrument always played outside.”

Billed as a music and video show, O’Neill says the connection between the VJs and musicians flows freely.

“They’ll be reacting to the music and the musicians will be reacting to them.”

“Marathonlogue” runs February 18 to 20 at 8:00 pm at the Norman Rothstein Theatre, 950 West 21^st Avenue (at Oak Street), Vancouver; (604) 684-2787. Tickets are $15 to $20.

Tickets and more information on “Marathonlogue”

In the art world, where a diamond and platinum-encrusted skull can sell for millions of dollars, it can be easy to lose perspective. So how does Winnipeg curator Milena Placentile reconcile her critical view of consumption with the big money that sometimes drives her industry?

She says it’s all about choices.

“My practice, very specifically, is oriented around non-commercial endeavours and ephemeral practices, like performance. Everything I do as a curator is about social and political engagement and bringing audiences and artists together,” she says.

“While there are curators who are definitely interested in large-scale biennales and the way the art market shapes people’s careers and vice versa, that’s something I’ve regularly struggled in opposition to.”

This vision shines through in Placentile’s curated work Consumerism – I shop therefore I am? which is now online at the Cultural Olympiad’s digital edition (CODE) online gallery Screen 2010.

From a recreated Rembrandt self-portrait with the words LUXURY ITEM in block letters at the bottom to a hanging collection of identical stuffed pop stars in blue dresses and black fishnets, the collection takes a hard look at what we buy, how we give objects value, and why we’re so compelled to accumulate more stuff.

In Mall, by Toronto-born artist Bernie Miller, a sad 1960s-style mall sits alone in the middle of the photo, abandoned by shoppers who have moved to trendier locations. Placentile says much of her own adolescence was spent in a mall.

“The idea that you have money, and can make a decision to buy something really makes you feel like a grownup,” she says. “I think teenagers really want to be a part of that and demonstrate some kind of agency, simply by being in a place where adult transactions happen.”

Environmental impacts of consumption also play an important role in the collection. There’s one photo by Shelley Miller of her giant marble pop-bottle, stranded like a Roman ruin on an Indian hillside, and another by Badana B. Zack and Ian Lazarus of 40 multicoloured wrecked automobiles ensconced like geological strata in a grassy hillside.

“Natural resources, once they’ve been extracted from the earth and manipulated through manufacturing processes, they’re never the same,” says Placentile. “They’re something that will forever be part of the history of the planet.”

As she sees it, this cycle of production and consumption doesn’t necessarily need to continue.

“To some people, existing political and economic structures are simply a given,” says Placentile. “Every system we have was invented by human beings, and one beats out the other, not necessarily because it’s the best way to go, but because there are enough people propping it up.”

“Well, that’s my opinion, anyways,” she adds with a laugh.

More Screen 2010 exhibits

While thousands of athletes descend on Vancouver in search of gold, the less athletically inclined will also have a chance to mingle with the precious metal.

Playful, thoughtful and mildly mischievous “Miss Guides” Natalie Doonan, Katherine Somody and Sean George will lead participants through the city’s streets, alleys and bars as they explore downtown Vancouver with their latest walk GOLD RUSH! Art, Bars & Speculation.

“Vancouver had a logging mill, then a saloon, then a jail, then a school,” says Somody, referencing the prominent role that watering holes had in weaving the city’s cultural fabric. The trio agrees that bars are rife with stories that are often not included in official histories.

“We all know the histories that are recorded are from very specific perspectives and when you hear them repeatedly, they sound like a reality or fact, to the exclusion of all those other layers,” says Doonan, who co-founded the project with Somody and George a year and a half ago. “We don’t leave out those monumental stories, but we try to layer them in.”

While participants take the hour-long downtown walk, they’re given headphones playing sound bites from popular late-night TV shows, news programs and a voice with a typical “tour guide” cadence.

Although the project sounds like a tour, the guides are quick to point out that this is neither a tour— nor a pub crawl.

“A tour generally implies passivity; people generally are receiving top-down knowledge, facts and truths about a place, whereas a walk implies an active body. These are active participants,” says Somody.

While Doonan, who met the other Miss Guides when all three worked as guides at the Vancouver Art Gallery, reveals that the tour begins at the Gassy Jack statue in Gastown and takes participants into at least one bar, she is hesitant to reveal much more. 

“The element of surprise is very important,” she says. “When you don’t know where you are or going next, you take more in.”

“The Miss Guides: GOLD RUSH! Art, Bars & Speculation” runs February 12 to 28, Thursdays through Sundays at 6 pm and 9 pm and March 12 to 21, Thursday through Sundays at 7 pm and 9 pm. Tickets are $40 and include a drink; must be 19 and over.

Tickets and more information on The Miss Guides: GOLD RUSH! Art, Bars & Speculation

With a puff of air, a woman blows into a spherical blue sensor in the palm of her hand, which lights up the iridescent “lungs” of her flowing white dress. According to curator Valerie Lamontagne, this “electric skin” is just one of the fashions of the future.

It’s also just one of a stunning and imaginative collection of wearable electronic garments currently on display as part of Electromode, an exhibition showcasing work by Canadian designers that seamlessly combines fashion, art and technological innovation. It is running until February 21 at Emily Carr University on Vancouver’s Granville Island.

“Wearables is an area of research that combines fashion, or clothing, or accessories, things that we can put on our bodies, that uses computation, electronics,” says Lamontagne, whose work is also featured in the exhibition.

While the garments draw on a whole array of technological innovations, they particularly put Bluetooth technology, LED lights, sensors and other kinetic technologies to good use. Many are interactive and open to public touch and play, which includes artist Suzi Webster’s breath-sensor dress.

The creators featured in this exhibition are all world-renowned, says Lamontagne, but have never shown their work as a group. She says the Olympic Games have provided a valuable opportunity for Canadian wearables artists to show their work together in their home country.

“They remain quite unknown in Canada,” she says. “I think that if we represent Canada abroad on a consistent basis, we should also make ourselves visible on a national level.”

Although the garments are beautiful and fascinating in equal part, they are not available for purchase.

“These works take thousands of hours to produce,” says Lamontagne. “It’s so cost-prohibitive because of the work involved in just producing one.”

Research in wearables is currently happening at universities and technical colleges across the country, she says. To be a wearables artist or researcher, one must be fascinated by clothing and technology and how they can be combined to suit human needs.

“How do you create circuits and networks? How do you fit that on the body? How do you make those networks wearable so that they function via battery, via wireless communication?” says Lamontagne. “This is one [technological] area that will grow.”

“Electromode” runs from February 4 to 21, 10 am to 8 pm at Emily Carr University, 1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver; admission is free.

More information on “Electromode” (CODE Live 2)

For Rene Barsalo at the Society of Arts and Technology (SAT) in Montreal, Breaking the Ice is about blurring boundaries between new technology and performance arts.

“We feel that culture is really a group experience,” says Barsalo, director of research and strategy at the society. “We need to have ways to make sure that within the digital culture, there are also spaces for people to be together physically.”

Breaking the Ice, a SAT-developed digital art piece, plays with distance by connecting people in Vancouver to those in Montreal through a high-speed fiber optic connection. While interacting with the installation’s digital screens, people in Vancouver and Montreal can communicate, talk and even “touch” each other through the installation’s screens.

The exhibit, says Barsalo, is attempting to surmount the geographical barriers that frequently define and challenge what it means to be Canadian.

“Most of the problems in Canada are geographic,” he says. “We wanted to demonstrate that today there are ways that we can be together. If we decide to work together, there’s nothing that can stop us.”

Facing a four-foot-tall digital screen in either Montreal or Vancouver, users are encouraged to interact with a user on the other end. Initially covered in a digital frost, the screen and its falling two-dimensional snowflakes encourages the pair to literally break the ice between them. As the two participants increasingly interact, the ice shatters, creating a puzzle they can solve together.

“We’re basically reducing the almost 5,000 kilometre distance between Montreal and Vancouver to less than 100 milliseconds,” says Barsalo.

Founded by tech-savvy artists in 1996, the SAT is particularly interested in creating a place where the public and artists can co-exist. Barsalo says that they want to maintain and transform the social culture of performance art in a digital world.

According to him,Breaking the Ice has opened the door for similar creations in fields such as the gaming industry and distance education courses. These possibilities emerge through increasing the space between the two screens. The focus is to use technology to collaborate with, rather than separate, individuals.

“We feel that the future is not leaving reality to go into virtual reality,” says Barsalo. “We would rather have virtual reality coming into reality.”

“Breaking the Ice” runs until February 21 from10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Great Northern Way Campus, 577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver. All CODE Live exhibits are free.

More information on “Breaking the Ice” (CODE Live 1)

“SWAN (long pause) CLEANERS (longer pause) OHIO,” says Ken Rinaldo, imitating himself talking with the loud, slow and careful annunciation he uses only when talking to a machine with voice recognition.

“I like looking at how machines influence us,” says the artist and university professor, who is currently in Berlin setting up another exhibit featuring his Paparazzi Bots. “It’s a co-evolution issue. Because of what machines can do, we now have to adapt to what they’re asking us to do.”

Rinaldo’s Bots are human-sized machines on wheels that trail people (but only those with specific traits) while taking their photo over and over. This makes them feel like a celebrity on the red carpet.

“We could be crying on the inside and the most miserable, depressed human beings, but we always smile for the camera because it’s recording a moment and we want to present ourselves in a certain way,” he adds.

Rinaldo was inspired to design the photo-happy robots when he found a camera that was designed to recognize faces and realized it would only take snaps of certain people.

“The camera will shoot my wife’s smile, but doesn’t like my crooked smile.”

The Bots had their premiere last year in Portugal at INSIDE [arte e ciência]. Since then, Rinaldo has made two different groups of robots; while one set heads to Germany, the other will find a temporary home in Canada for the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

From February 4 to 21, these robo-photographers will interact with exhibit goers at the Great Northern Way Campus, near the Olympic Village Vancouver. The show is part of CODE Live, an 18-day event featuring avant-garde music and art.

While previous versions of Paparazzi Bots haven’t shared the robots shots, the Vancouver iteration of the project will project the images on a giant screen in the exhibition space.

“Hopefully, they will catch people in their most glorious moments,” he says.

As part of his weekly routine, after he picks up his clothes from Swan Cleaners, Rinaldo typically heads home to check his Facebook account. Usually, his computer suggests he befriend an acquaintance he hardly knows, which he says this is a perfect example of how technology is changing our personal lives.

“The machine tries to figure out who you want to be friends with, but it feels hollow and artificial because the machine is part of the mediation,” he says. “Machines are causing us to change our behaviour subtly, which means we really have to figure out our own social relationships.”

“Paparazzi Bots” runs from February 4 to 21, Sunday through Wednesday from 10 am to 8 pm, Thursday to Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm at 577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver Admission is free.

More information about this and other CODE Live shows

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Quantum Bhangra, a fusion-style music and dance festival that will descend on downtown Vancouver February 27 as part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad, is set to energize a new audience with its blend of classical and contemporary bhangra sounds.

Businessman Mo Dhaliwal founded the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration in 2004. He says the coming-together of cultures offstage that will happen during the Olympic Winter Games will be just as important as the musical fusion happening onstage.

“The Olympics are about a coming together of many nations,” he said. “One of our goals is to build community and shatter barriers between different cultures. We think we can do that, especially with this show.”

The event, which is being held at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, will host three of the most sought-after international bhangra acts from around the world. “Quantum Bhangra is really a gathering of traditions and styles and influences from a variety of places around the world,” says Dhaliwal.

Harbhajan Mann, a Bollywood superstar and bhangra musician will headline the show with his trademark blend of classic Punjabi ballads with contemporary rhythms. Black Mahal, a group from San Francisco, blends bhangra with soul, funk and hip-hop, while homegrown Vancouver talent En Karma will showcase its own mélange of bhangra and rock music.

Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration’s annual festival usually takes place in February or March, but Dhaliwal says their presentation of Quantum Bhangra has pushed this year’s festival to May.

“We typically have a very massive outpouring, and it takes place at the Vancouver Art Gallery grounds,” he said. “It takes place over two nights, and in past years we’ve seen thousands of people flow through those grounds.”

“There’s an energy, there’s a certain sort of electricity that exists in the air at these events,” says Dhaliwal. “Once you’ve seen it, you’ll definitely be there over and over again.”

“Quantum Bhangra” is February 27 at 7:00 p.m. at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Hamilton St. at W Georgia St., Vancouver. Tickets from $38 to $90.

Tickets and more information on “Quantum Bhangra”

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When Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG) sent out electronic invitations to an upcoming group show, contributing artist Jonathan Middleton made a few small changes to his invite before passing it along.

“I systematically replaced the curator’s title with my own and made it look like I was just forwarding it along from the gallery,” says Middleton, who changed the original title, An Invitation to An Infiltration to Strange. The first time I've known of a piano with four legs… (Hey! I keep falling down!). The infiltrated title is a line from a 1950s British radio comedy called The Goon Show. It refers to a scene where the main characters are duped into stealing a piano from the Louvre Museum in Paris.

“I thought it was an interesting analogy to working in a group situation with one goal of subversion,” says Middleton. “We might end up subverting ourselves instead of the institutions.”

An Invitation to An Infiltration, organized by guest curator Eric Fredericksen, examines the competitive aspect of group art shows. Rather than critiquing the natural competition that arises when work by different artists are viewed together, Fredericksen is embracing this competitive spirit — even if it leads to infiltrations of his own work.

“Since the Olympic Games are all about competition, we thought this would be an interesting way to build the relationship between art and athletics,” says CAG curator Jenifer Papararo.

When competition heats up, some people will try to cut corners. In an homage to this, the award-winning duo Hadley + Maxwell have erected a marble pedestal representing statues of Zeus, which were erected in ancient Greece when athletes were caught cheating.

Most pieces in the show have either visual or intellectual references to the Olympic Winter Games, from wallpaper made of linked rings made by New York-based two-man team Dexter Sinister to a public conversation between a game theory expert and a hockey coach after the men’s semi-final hockey game.

Middleton says he thinks he’s succeeded in changing the working title of the show to his own Goon-inspired version. To get there, Middleton had to use several subversive tactics, including making his own signs for the gallery.

“[Frederickson] wasn’t going to facilitate my title. I had to be subtle so I could quietly erase his title.”

“An Invitation to An Infiltration” runs January 22 to February 28 from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Contemporary Art Gallery, 555 Nelson Street, Vancouver. Admission is free.

More information on An Invitation to An Infiltration

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For a band that spent an entire month rehearsing and composing in a glass-lined room surrounded by pristine wilderness and wildlife, and whose music is described as “elemental,” nature’s influence has never been far away.

But come February 18, when Bell Orchestre takes the stage as part of the Cultural Olympiad’s digital edition (CODE) Live Night Life with Brasstronaut and Certain Breeds, that comparison won’t be just a metaphor. Because this time, the band will be playing a newly composed score to antique nature films by French director Jean Painlevé. Made primarily between 1930 and 1960, the films show strange and wonderful creatures, from the seahorse to the tree octopus, in perfectly focused, gem-like close-ups. Filmed in historical black and white, the series has been called nature cinema at its best.

“I think we’ve opted to run the films without narration, and even without subtitles, so the viewer is just going to get the full visual experience,” says Mike Feuerstack, who plays lap steel guitar in the indie supergroup, which sports members from Arcade Fire, The Luyas and The Sway Machinery.

The band, whose 2006 album Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light was nominated for a Juno in the best instrumental album category, writes most of its music in improvised music sessions. Its process for scoring Painlevé’s films has been nearly the same.

“We improvise a lot, then we record it, then we go through that and see what we like and make songs out of it. We’ve done the same kind of thing here,” says Feuerstack. “We watch the film, then we improvise, then we watch a bit more and improvise a bit more. Eventually we’re going to fit it all together.”

Based around their elaborate orchestral compositions and driven by pounding percussion, sweeping violin passages and French horn trills, Bell Orchestre offers classical music for an electronic age. While their composition will be based on their own instruments, he says he wouldn’t be surprised if a few surprise elements, including electronic gadgets and modified instruments the band is known for, are added to the mix at the last minute.

Feuerstack says it’s hard for him to articulate the effect they’re hoping to have on their CODE Live Night Life audience. “What can people expect?” he shouts towards the band, gathered in their Montreal rehearsal space for an early Thursday afternoon practice session.

“Definitely not a typical concert or typical movie experience,” shouts percussionist Stefan Schneider from the background. “People might start to feel like they’re high without actually being high,” chimes in another.

“You’ll probably feel like you are in a warm bath, or you’re exactly where you were meant to be your whole life,” finishes Feuerstack. “You’ll probably feel kind of high, and you won’t have to feel guilty about it. Not in a bad trip way, in a good trip way.”

“Bell Orchestre Presents:Sound and Screen” is February 18 at 10:00 pm, Great Northern Way Campus, 577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver. Tickets are $18.

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Rahim AlHaj is re-imagining Iraq for the Western imagination.

The renowned oud player, composer, two-time Grammy nominee and 2009 United States Artists fellow says he is using his music to bring Iraqi culture to Western audiences.

Images in the mainstream media depict Iraq as place of destruction and war and suffering, he says. “Iraq is always present in our heads and our eyes. When we see it on television, it’s all about war and destruction and terrorists.”

On the contrary, he thinks that the deep roots of Iraqi culture and music can bring great beauty into the world. His instrument, the oud, is a pear-shaped, short-necked string instrument that has been played for thousands of years.

“There are misconceptions about Middle Eastern culture, specifically our [Iraqi] culture. So I find it so important to stay here to educate people about this kind of music that’s rooted very deep, in thousands of years of history.”

AlHaj will be performing with Iranian tar player Amir Koushkani on February 19 as part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad. He says their audience should expect a thoughtful and challenging performance.

“When they come to the concert I need their soul, their eyes, their heart, their ears,” says AlHaj. “When they come they will hear stories that they didn’t hear before, they will hear music that is unfamiliar to them. I will communicate with them not on an entertainment level, but a very intellectual level.”

AlHaj is also looking for two of his childhood friends who are both musicians in Vancouver. He lost contact with them many years ago and hopes they will attend his performance.

“I’m dying, dying to see them,” he says. “Hopefully they will see an advertisement or article in Vancouver. Maybe they will see it and we’ll connect again. I dream about that; I’m just dying to see them again.”

Rahim AlHaj and Amir Koushkani plays February 19 at the Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver, at 8:00 p.m. Tickets $15.

Tickets and more information on Rahim AlHaj and Amir Koushkani

Art and science are converging at the Vancouver Art Gallery as multimedia work from 20 contemporary international artists explores images of the human body.

Presented in conjunction with Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man, a collection of his 16th century drawings of the body, Visceral Bodies explores representations of the body over the past two decades.

Using photography, sculpture, painting, video and a variety of other media, the exhibition features interpretations of the human body and includes work by both national and international artists.

“The exhibition is an opportunity to reflect as a counterpoint what Leonardo was all about,” says curator Daina Augaitis.

“The 16th century was really the first moment they were studying the body and contributing to art and science and a lot of our current beliefs stem from that basis. I think artists today, and for many decades, have been interested in reassessing those beliefs.”

The exhibit, which is roughly grouped intro three sections, includes work from artists including Mona Hatoum, Kiki Smith, Shelagh Keeley, Marc Quinn and Wim Delvoye. 

“The first section tries to establish what the visceral is, and how artists, especially in the 1980s and 90s who were influenced by feminism in particular, looked at the social and cultural conditions of how we look at the body,” says Augaitis, referencing work from Kiki Smith as an example.

Smith’s Untitled, 1991 is a life-size paper sculpture of a headless human body covered in red ink. Two arms hang on the gallery wall next to the suspended body, while a head lies on the ground at the feet of the sculpture.

The second group of work in the exhibit looks at technology’s influence on the body and changing notions of beauty. “It really looks at how life can now be designed and created in the laboratory. There are so many devices that alter our bodies, different and new technologies that allow us to visualize it in different ways.”

Mexico’s Gabriel de la Mora uses medical imaging technology to represent his family using only their skulls. De la Mora took MRIs of the skulls of his living family members and used the images to recreate their skulls, which he then sculpted. For family members no longer alive, he had the bodies exhumed, X-rayed and reburied.

“There’s the cultural conditioning we have to skulls, which is very different than other cultures,” says Augaitis. “I think a work like that opens a lot of questions on how we represent the body and how technologies are useful.”

The final group of images represent the future of the human body and contain images often void of any physical form at all.

“It represents people’s fears of what tomorrow’s mutations might look like… and in many cases it’s almost grotesque.”

 “Visceral Bodies” runs from February 6 to May 16 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street, Vancouver. Open daily from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm and Tuesdays to 9:00 pm. Free from February 12 to 28.

More information about Visceral Bodies

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In 1962, South African musician and composer Solomon Linda died penniless. He was so poor that he didn’t get a gravestone until nearly 20 years later.

Despite writing one of the most recorded melodies in the history of contemporary music, which has been performed by musicians ranging from folk musician Pete Seeger to prog-rockers Phish to defunct boy band N’Sync, Linda never saw a penny of royalties from the estimated $15 million generated by his 1939 song Mbube.

The name of that song may not be familiar to Western audiences, but its distinctive falsetto warble certainly is. The song was recorded in 1951 by Seeger as Wimbowe, then rewritten by George Weiss and recorded a decade later by The Tokens as the ubiquitous The Lion Sleeps Tonight. The latter was copyrighted as an original, which is, according to artists Ralph Borland and Julian Jonker, where the decades-long injustice to Linda began.

In Song of Solomon, an audio installation that is having its Canadian debut in Vancouver as part of the Cultural Olympiad, the two South African artists have created a haunting memorial to the musician that’s also a piercing, subtle commentary on the world’s current intellectual property regime.

“This is one of the most well-known songs anywhere in the world, and it’s certainly one of the most covered,” says Jonker, who is currently in New Orleans. “We want to memorialize Solomon Linda, hold him up as a great author, a great composer. A lot of the reason why we can do that is, in fact, because his work was exploited in this way.”

The audio installation, which will be housed at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design running February 4 to 21, is comprised of eight individual speakers mounted at eyebrow level in a semicircle. Using specially designed software called Morpheus, more than 70 recordings of the melody randomly slip seamlessly into one another, creating a collage of the song’s original version.

“One can know, intellectually, that there are hundreds of different versions of this song out there that are all recorded in different languages, but to actually hear it is quite something,” says Jonker.

The installation’s effect on listeners is generally powerful, but also quite eerie, according to Borland, who says the installation feels a bit like a séance. “One of the most gratifying things about the piece is the audience reaction. They are moved. It’s a very familiar song that has cheesy connotations. When you hear the original Solomon Linda track, which most people probably haven’t, it’s very deep and haunting, and not cheesy at all.”

Despite the installation’s content and its message, both artists deny that they are activists.

“I think it means that we have to engage with intellectual property in a much more nuanced way,” says Borland. “We need to have more dialogue about these issues, and our project is meant to initiate more discussion. It isn’t an answer, but a provocation.”

“Song of Solomon” runs from February 4 to 21, 10 am to 8 pm at Emily Carr University, 1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver; admission is free.

More information on “Song of Solomon” (CODE Live 2)

Eight of Canada’s best and brightest up-and-coming musicians are set to take the stage in two nights teeming with talent.

This cornucopia of emerging ability will be on display at New Songs, New Voices, which runs February 16 and 17 in Vancouver’s historic Roundhouse Community Centre as part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

Christina Martin, a singer/songwriter from Nova Scotia who won the 2009 East Coast Music award for best pop recording, says the back-to-back concerts will provide a great showcase for some of the best new music and artists the country has to offer. She says the event will provide a venue for Canada’s burgeoning young musicians to showcase their work while exposing audiences to some new music.

Raised in a music-loving family in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Martin was heavily influenced by old-time rock and roll. After moving to Austin, Texas nine years ago, she discovered a love for making music.

“I was surrounded by music there. And then I just started doing it, I started writing a lot and doing open mics. It found me. Then being around all the musicians, I just figured I’d give it a shot,” she says.

“I love what I do, it scares me sometimes, but it’s good to share what you create with others.”

Martin says her upcoming set will be pretty mellow. She’s set to play with Dale Murray from Ontario folk band Cuff the Duke, and will share the stage with fellow New Songs, New Voices performer Jimmy Rankin for one song.

“I met Jimmy Rankin when touring and travelling,” she says. “He’ll probably sing a song with us and I’ll sing one with him during his performance.”

Meaghan Blanchard, an emerging 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Prince Edward Island is also set to take the stage at New Songs, New Voices. “I’ve done a couple of shows with her,” says Martin. “She’s phenomenal, and a really sweet girl. She’s really talented.”

Other “new voices” of the two nights will include Saskatchewan’s Jason Plumb, Manitoba’s Romi Mayes, Dan Mangan from British Columbia, Gordie Tentrees from the Yukon and Alberta’s John Wort Hannam.

“New Songs, New Voices” is February 16 (SOLD OUT) and 17 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $12.

Tickets and more information on “New Songs, New Voices”

Two of Russia’s most beloved performers are about to give the world a big taste of what the next Olympic Winter Games, to be held in Sochi in 2014, will have on the menu.

In a night that fuses high art with legendary music, virtuoso violist Yuri Bashmet and his Grammy-award winning Moscow Soloists will take the stage with prima ballerina Uliana Lopatkina and performers from the Mariinsky and Bolshoi Ballet companies in a gala performance of Tchaikovsky, Paganini and Stravinsky.

The combination promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime show for Canadian audiences, according to Bashmet, who was recently appointed as an official ambassador for the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

“My orchestra and I often perform around the world. When I am on tour, there is certainly always sense of being an ambassador of Russian culture,” he says.

During his February 10 concert, which is being presented as part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad, Bashmet will play his Testore viola, which was made in 1758 and is almost identical to the viola played by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Despite an early love for guitar music and The Beatles, Bashmet, who has been called one of the today’s greatest living musicians, went on to become a sought-after viola soloist of international acclaim.

“The sound of the viola has a human voice, a voice that is able to express the innermost thoughts and emotions,” he says of his love affair with the oft-mocked string instrument. “The viola is definitely man’s instrument. It has character. Viola, in the Italian language, is the root of string instruments, such as the violin (a small viola), violoncello (a large viola).”

The fact that classical music is starting to attract a younger demographic of fans is a very hopeful sign of the music’s longevity and appeal, according to Bashmet. 

“Of course, the audience and public of classical music concerts is changing,” he says. “There are many new, young listeners and this is especially pleasing, considering that many works of classical music have been around for 200 or even 300 years.”

No matter how old a piece of music may be, Bashmet says that the joy of rehearsing, playing and performing is one that can always be fresh and timeless.

“In music, the way in which a theme is developed is essentially more important and interesting than the climax itself,” he says. “When you achieve the result you’ve rehearsed for hours for, it is the best feeling I’ve ever felt. It is like being in love.”

“The Passion of Russia: Uliana Lopatkina & Yuri Bashmet”is February 10 at The Orpheum, Smithe Street at Seymour Street; tickets are $29 to $69.

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Although a one-night show doesn’t usually earn the term “festival,” Hard Rubber’s Drum and Light Festival undoubtedly deserves the moniker.

For its upcoming February 11 show as part of CODE Live Night Life, the 14-piece funk-jazz-new music orchestra will invite electronic DJs, contemporary dancers, frenetic drummers and colourful visual artists onstage for this one-night-only super performance.

“It’s just kind of a crazy atmosphere,” says Hard Rubber Orchestra’s founding artistic director John Korsrud.

“It’s an all-star ensemble of the best funk and groove musicians in one room. Then compile that with great visual artists, projection artists and great dancers and it makes a really unique event.”

While Hard Rubber’s musicians create eclectic, high-energy music, artists will project visuals on a screen behind the orchestra and Vancouver-based modern dance crew the Tomorrow Collective will show off their contemporary choreography.

“I have a hard time thinking small, so I get a little carried away. I’m not very good at understatement,” says Korsrud.

In addition to his work on the Drum and Light project, Korsrud is also preparing a skating-themed variety show on ice (featuring champion figure skater Emanuel Sandhu) for the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad and a commissioned orchestra piece for Carnegie Hall, which he says is the “biggest feather in the career cap.”

The inspiration to mix orchestral music with electronic sounds came to him after attending several large-scale dance events that featured DJs and visual art.

“I’ve always been interested in DJs and electronic music and thought, ‘Why not get a huge band of all-star musicians and see if we can get a high-energy two-hour dance set?’” he says from Vancouver, where most of the performers are currently based.

Although it would be fun to take his Hard Rubber “festival” on the road, Korsud says that, logistically, it would be too hard to tour with such a big group. But despite the obvious challenges that arise when coordinating such a massive event, he says the performers make his job pretty easy.

“When you just get a bunch of talented people all in one room together, it just takes care of itself. I try to create the atmosphere where people have a lot of freedom and can do whatever they want to do. I just try to make sure all the elephants are running in the same direction.”

“Hard Rubber: Drum and Light Festival” is February 11 at 10:00pm at CODE Live 1; Great Northern Way Campus, 577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver. Tickets $20.

More information on Hard Rubber: Drum and Light Festival - CODE Live Night Life