Wednesday 14 September 2011

Arts and culture in Vancouver

Theatre and Film


Prominent theatre companies in Vancouver include the Arts Club Theatre Company and Vancouver TheatreSports League on Granville Island, the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company, and Bard on the Beach. Smaller companies include Touchstone Theatre, Studio 58, Pacific Theatre, the Firehall Arts Centre, Carousel Theatre, and the United Players of Vancouver. Theatre Under the Stars produces shows in the summer at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park. Annual festivals that are held in Vancouver include the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in January and the Vancouver Fringe Festival in September.
The Vancouver International Film Festival, which runs for two weeks each September, shows over 350 films and is one of the larger film festivals in North America. The Vancouver International Film Centre venue, the Vancity Theatre, runs independent non-commercial films throughout the rest of the year, as do the Pacific Cinémathèque, the Festival Cinemas theatres, and the Hollywood and Rio theatres.




Libraries and Museums


Libraries in Vancouver include the Vancouver Public Library with its main branch at Library Square, designed by Moshe Safdie. The central branch contains 1.5 million volumes. Altogether there are twenty-two branches containing 2.25 million volumes.


The Vancouver Art Gallery has a permanent collection of nearly 10,000 items and is the home of a significant number of works by Emily Carr. However, little or none of the permanent collection is ever on view.
In the Kitsilano district are the Vancouver Maritime Museum, the H. R. MacMillan Space Centre, and the Vancouver Museum, the largest civic museum in Canada. The Museum of Anthropology at UBC is a leading museum of Pacific Northwest Coast First Nations culture. A more interactive museum is Science World at the head of False Creek. The city also features a diverse collection of Public Art.




Visual art


The Vancouver School of conceptual photography (often referred to as photoconceptualism) is a term applied to a grouping of artists from Vancouver who achieved international recognition starting in the 1980s. No formal "school" exists and the grouping remains both informal and often controversial even among the artists themselves, who often resist the term. Artists associated with the term include Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace, Ken Lum, Roy Arden, Stan Douglas and Rodney Graham.




Music and nightlife


Musical contributions from Vancouver include performers of classical, folk and popular music. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is the professional orchestra based in the city. The Vancouver Opera is a major opera company in the city. The city is home to a number of Canadian composers including Rodney Sharman, Jeffrey Ryan, and Alexina Louie.
The city produced a number of notable punk rock bands, including the pioneering hardcore band D.O.A.. Other early Vancouver punk bands included the Subhumans, the Young Canadians, the Pointed Sticks, and UJ3RK5. When alternative rock became popular in the 1990s, several Vancouver groups rose to prominence, including 54-40, Odds, Moist, the Matthew Good Band and Econoline Crush. Recent successful Vancouver bands include Gob and Stabilo. Today, Vancouver is home to a number of popular independent bands such as The New Pornographers, Destroyer, Tegan and Sara, and independent labels including Nettwerk and Mint. Vancouver also produced influential metal band Strapping Young Lad and pioneering electro-industrial bands Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly; the latter's Bill Leeb is better known for founding ambient pop super-group Delerium. Other popular musical artists who made their mark from Vancouver include Bryan Adams, Sarah McLachlan, Heart, Prism, Trooper, Chilliwack, Payolas, Images in Vogue, Michael Bublé, Marianas Trench and Spirit of the West.
Larger musical performances are usually held at venues such as Rogers Arena, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, BC Place Stadium or the Pacific Coliseum, while smaller acts are held at places such as the Commodore Ballroom, the Orpheum Theatre and the Vogue Theatre. The Vancouver Folk Music Festival and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival showcase music in their respective genres from around the world. Vancouver's Chinese population has produced several Cantopop stars. Similarly, various Indo-Canadian artists and actors have a profile in Bollywood or other aspects of India's entertainment industry.
Vancouver has a vibrant nightlife scene, whether it be food and dining, or bars and nightclubs. The Granville Entertainment District has the city's highest concentration of bars and nightclubs with closing times of 3am, in addition to various after-hours clubs open til late morning on weekends. The street can attract large crowds on weekends and is closed to traffic on such nights. Gastown is also a popular area for nightlife with many upscale restaurants and nightclubs, as well as the Davie Village which is centre to the city's gay and lesbian LGBT community.



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