Storytelling – but
with dancers!
Presented by BC choreographer Sarah Chase, On the Ice of Labrador features seven unique dance narratives presented by seven members of Montreal Danse.
Aviators, trombone players, mortality on railroad tracks, bodies washed in Hotel Dieu, blood sugar cycles of a young diabetic, a woman from England standing in a hut in BC’s Interior, and the journey of Alzheimer’s will all be interpretatively danced to perfection.
“Identity and memory are built up, only to collapse into something more essential, something unnameable that spins at the centre of each of our souls,” says an attempted description.
Saturday, February 28 at 8 p.m.
SPORTS
Choose your own adventure
“Big airs” are promised for the Mount Sima Slope Style competition, an event that pits snowboarders against a labyrinth of jumps and rails, forcing competitors to choose which combination will give them their most fluid run.
The styles begin at 12 p.m. on Saturday.
MUSIC
With a little help from his friends
When Haines Junction discovered St. Elias vice-principal and Alsek Music Festival president Richard Godson needed to travel south for cancer treatment, community support for the popular educator flooded in.
On Saturday at the Westmark Hotel, starting at 7 p.m., a mass of musical talent from throughout the Yukon will gather for a musical benefit and silent auction to help Godson cover the expenses associated with his radiation and chemotherapy treatment in Vancouver.
Amid the music of Boyd Campbell, BJ Maclean, Annie Avery and Barbara Chamberlain, the benefit will also feature a massive silent auction filled entirely by donations from Yukon individuals and businesses.
Saturday at the Westmark Hotel. 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. For more information contact Shari Worsfold at 633-2123.
Brandi Disterheft Quintet
The “hottest bassist in Canadian jazz,” Brandi Disterheft is taking her quintet to Whitehorse before touring her Juno-winning skills throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Since she was 19, Disterheft has led groups to festivals and venues across the continent. Whitehorse will see Disterheft fresh from a stint spent in New York City developing new repertoire.
Jazz used to be a lively party genre, but somewhere along the way it became introspective background music, says Disterheft.
Her surging confident style tries to bring back jazz’s forgotten “rent party” era.
The quintet features Sly Juhas on drums, Terra Hazelton on vocals, Stacie McGregor on Fender Rhodes and Chris Gale on tenor saxophone.
Sunday, March 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Yukon Arts Centre.
TELEVISION
You had me at “naked”
Take an attractive mid-20s Newfoundlander, fly her out to exotic places to swim naked, and you have just struck televisual gold.
The Skinny Dip, produced for the travel + escape channel, features 25-year-old Eve Kelley traveling to Costa Rica, New Zealand, Australia and the Bahamas, ever searching for the perfect place to throw off her clothes, and plunge her nubile body into pristine waters. Of course, Eve is not alone in her “exciting but challenging” adventures, the show also features her gathering up groups of local adults to also strip naked and go swimming.
Although the show hijacks the plot of countless gay pornos, it is indeed a legitimate show, and it will soon be in the Yukon. Shrinkage and rock-hard nipples be damned, from March 2 to 9, Kelley will travel throughout the territory, recruiting locals and plunging into icy waters wherever they may be found.
“I’m very excited about meeting some new skinny-dipping friends,” assures Kelley.
If you’re into being naked around a lot of other naked people in frigid climes, contact Kelley at skinnydipyukon@bestboy.ca.
Let’s just say the applicant pool is broad
Canada’s Worst Driver, Discovery Channel’s “record breaking” show that takes teams of poor drivers, jams them through humiliating tests of driving incompetence, and then crowns the most inept, will soon grace Whitehorse with its noble presence.
Viewers of the show might wonder why crappy drivers would be so apt to bring their automotive deficiencies to a national audience.
Producers see the show in an altruistic light. Far from humiliating showcases of inability, this is “driver training.”
“Help make Whitehorse roads safer!” reads an official release.
If you put the lives of strangers at risk on a daily basis because of your inability to control thousands of kilograms of speeding metal, it might be time for you to get your time in the spotlight by contacting Canada’s Worst driver at driver@propertelevision.com.
Filming begins in early April.
CELEBRATE!
Bankrupt rock in the middle of nowhere has awesome holiday
Most holidays eventually become an excuse to drink: St. Patrick’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Ash WednesdayÉ In no-nonsense Iceland, they’ve cut right through the treacle, and given alcohol its very own holiday. While much of the world was at work abolishing communism, Iceland lifted its 75-year-old prohibition on beer on March 1, 1989, forever solidifying the first day of March as a national day of brew imbibery.
Be more Lei Feng-y
For every fun holiday celebrated by the Western world, Communist China can usually counter with a sucky holiday. Four days after Beer Day, prepare to buckle down and celebrate Learn from Lei Feng Day on March 5. A soldier who died at only 21 years old, Feng’s diary was later taken up by communist officials as a shining example of selflessness, morality and altruism.
As Chairman Mao’s idiotic, brutal Great Leap Forward starved millions of his own citizens, the government soon became very interested in imbuing their citizens with the concept of sacrifice, and they quickly transformed Feng into a cult figure.
China’s most well-known soldier, ironically, did not die at the hands of an invading enemy, or even in anything close to combat. In 1962, the selfless and modest Lei Feng was killed when he accidentally directed an army truck into a telephone pole, and was subsequently crushed by the pole.
How not to be crushed by a telephone pole may very well be one of the greatest things to “learn from Lei Feng.”
CINEMA
Underdog film about an underdog
Slumdog Millionaire may not feature a gun on its lobby card, but Wood Street Cinema has decided to show it nonetheless. A good choice considering that the film recently shined at the Academy Awards, winning best director, best picture and six other oscars.
Filmed on location in India, Slumdog Millionaire is the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who wins the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? arousing the suspicions of authorities as to how a poor “slumdog” could have possibly known the answers to all the game’s questions.
Contact Tristin Hopper at
tristinh@yukon-news.com.
