Friday, June 27, 2014

Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender




“Wolpe is one of the great stage actors of our generation, who breathes life into Shakespeare’s words as though they were dredged from her own soul.”    
SHAKESPEARE IN LA

“Wolpe confirms that she is simply one of the best interpreters of the Bard out there! “   Talking Broadway

Railtown Cultural Eclective brings visionary theatre artist Lisa Wolpe’s new solo show Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender to their Trier Series, July 16 at the Orpheum Annex,offering a unique celebration of the enchanting power of cross-gender Shakespeare.


Wolpe is an actress, director, teacher, producer and artistic director and founder of the Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company (LAWSC), an award-winning all-female, multi-cultural theater company.

In
Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender, she both performs and contextualizes her experience of interpreting some of the many Shakespearian roles she has played – including Hamlet, Iago, Richard 111 and many others, while exploring her own life story from childhood to maturity. Her work speaks towards liberation from the “gender box” of expectations, and offers a unique and powerful perspective of courage, resilience and hope against her family’s troubled background of war, sickness, suicide and despair.

Wolpe has played more of the Bard’s male roles than any woman in history, always to superlative reviews. She recently received the Lee Melville Award for Outstanding Contribution to the LA Theater Community and was awarded the Key to Harlem and a Congressional Certificate of Merit for her work with the Harlem Shakespeare Festival in 2013.

She has taught and directed Shakespeare, all levels of acting, as well as directing courses for many theater companies and universities, including the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, USC, Cal Poly Pomona, Emerson College, Wellesley College, Boston University and MIT, and has lectured widely on cross-gender Shakespeare. She will be offering a cross-gender acting workshop on July 12 at the Terry Fox Theatre in Port Coquitlam. Click here for full details. 

Shakespeare & the Alchemy of Gender
July 16 Orpheum Annex, 823 Seymour Street 
8pm Doors 7pm Tickets $20/$15 Students, Seniors & Arts Workers Tickets are available at www.northerntickets.com.  For more information email info@railtonce.ca or call 604-836-9943





Friday, May 23, 2014

JEFF YOUNGER'S DEVIL LOOPS - Wednesday, June 18, Orpheum Annex



Jeff Younger is a 6-string master who has learned the most extreme techniques of the guitar and developed some of his own.     

The Halifax Jazz Festival

photo credit Wendy D

We are so excited to bring innovative guitarist/composer Jeff Younger to our Trier Performance Series, Orpheum Annex, Wednesday, June 18 at 8pm. The concert celebrates the release of Devil Loops volume 2, some of his most intense and riveting explorations in improvised music.

Jeff is just wrapping up a month long European tour that included Amsterdam, Berlin and Mannheim, and performances with some of Europe's finest improvisers, including Michael Moore, Ab Baars, Ig Henneman, Achim Kaufmann and Raoul Van der Weide. Joining him at the Orpheum Annex are some of Vancouver's best, including JP Carter and Dylan Van Der Schyff. We'll be posting more information soon about dancers and videographers that will also be part of this multimedia collaboration.

Directly after the Devil Loops release concert, Jeff will be featured in The Vancouver International Jazz Festival’s opening weekend Tonal Interactive Media Experiment, and wrap things up as the only non-international clinician during the festival’s closing weekend.

Devil Loops are completely improvised pieces for solo electric guitar, utilizing electronics and a wide array of extended techniques. Jeff brings a composer's mind and an improviser's fingers to the process, not thinking about the piece until he sits down to play the first note. The result is unplanned and untethered sonic expressions of beauty, darkness, fire and humour. Teeming with musical language and rhythmic complexity one minute or fuelled by primal and abstract expressionism the next, the audience is both witness and participant in the unpredictable unfolding of the moment.

Railtown Cultural Eclective’s Trier Series provides a showcase for the myriad talents of Vancouver emerging and established artists. The support of City of Vancouver Theatre Rental Grant Program makes it possible to present the series at Vancouver’s new performance venue the Orpheum Annex.

The concert, June 18, starts at 8pm at the Orpheum Annex, 823 Seymour Street. Doors open at 7pm. Tickets are $20 which includes CD/ $15 general admission and available at www.northerntickets.com soon. For more information email info@railtownce.ca or call 604-836-9943.

more information on Jeff Younger can be found at jeffyounger.net

https://www.facebook.com/jeff.younger.125

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Making a Circus Of The Seven Deadly Sins


Leah James makes a circus of greed and envy in The Seven Deadly Sins

Thursday, November 14, 2013
Orpheum Annex, 823 Seymour Street
Show 8pm Doors 7pm
Tickets $20/$15 Students, Seniors & Arts Workers

Tickets available at northerntickets.com

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

The Seven Deadly Sins Simply Heaven



The Seven Deadly Sins 
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Orpheum Annex, 823 Seymour Street
Show 8pm Doors 7pm
Tickets $20/$15 Students, Seniors & Arts Workers
Tickets available at northerntickets.com 

Railtown Cultural Eclective, brings The Seven Deadly Sins to their Trier Performance Series at the Orpheum Annex, Thursday, November 14 at 8pm.


The Seven Deadly Sins, is a musical  journey to hell and back, in dance, clown, and circus, depicting the cardinal sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.

The music of Tim Sars is rooted in Vancouver counter cultures, which in nature draw on musical genres from around the world, such as Balkan brass, Calypso and New Orleans Jazz. His sound provides the perfect backdrop to Vancouver’s vibrant performance art community and is the inspiration for this production.

Anna Mayfire’s animated dance depicts anger turning to lust, while sloth and gluttony are presented in the dark humor of Gerardo Avila’s expressive clowning. Lexi von Wonderful and Golden Brian display pride in burlesque. With her suspended silks Leah James makes a circus of greed and envy.

Sars, on reeds and vocals, is joined by Roisin Adams on piano, trumpet and vocals; Jocelyn Waugh on trumpet;  Ross Barrett on tenor sax, Pim van Geffen on trombone, Russell Scholberg on bass, and Jamie Carter on drums.  The interplay between sight and sound makes The Seven Deadly Sins simply heaven.

With the Trier Performance Series, Railtown Cultural Eclective provides a showcase for the talents of Vancouver emerging and established artists. The support of City of Vancouver Theatre Rental Grant Program has made it possible to present the series at Vancouver’s new performance venue, the Orpheum Annex. 
For more information email info@railtownce.ca or call 604-836-9943.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Orchestra Familia October 9th at the Orpheum Annex



Railtown Cultural Eclective
Trier Series Presents

Orchestra Familia 
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Orpheum Annex, 823 Seymour Street
Show 8pm
Doors 7pm
Tickets $20/$15 Students, Seniors & Arts Workers


Vancouver, BC….Railtown Cultural Eclective, brings Orchestra Familia to their Trier Performance Series at the Orpheum Annex, Wednesday, October 9 at 8pm.

The well loved Rio Samaya Band with leaders Fransisco Pace (vocals, guitar, charango, ukeleles, quena and flutes) and Sal Pace (vocals, accordion and percussion) have merged with sought after Bocephus King (vocals, lead guitar percussion), Wynston Minckler (bass), Charlie Hase (pedal steel, dobro), Paul Townsend (drums, vocals), Persian wizard Ali Razmi (tar, setar, saz),  Colin "Tutuks" Maskell (baritone, soprano and tenor sax, flute and vocals) and Ja Pace (dancer, percussion, saw) to create Orchestra Familia. 

Together, they have developed a unique voice of a multi-cultural community.  Their spirited rhythms, gypsy grooves and dynamic tunes will take you on a journey across the globe, through its deserts, forests, and busy streets.  Their original, classical and new music has a refreshing personality and celebrates the world coming together.

The members of Orchestra Familia come from all corners of the earth but fate has gathered them together in Vancouver, British Columbia.  They have all played in various configurations, in myriad venues, in a town known for its multicultural diversity.  But something happens with this particular unit that defies description.  They can take you to that "OTHER PLACE" so quickly, so consistently and so joyously…..you'll be transformed!


Orchestra Familia performs Wednesday, October 9 at 8pm at the Orpheum Annex, 823 Seymour Street.  Doors open at 7pm. Tickets are $20 Adults/ $15 students, seniors and arts workers and available at www.northerntickets.com . For more information email info@railtownce.ca or call 604-836-9943.
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