Welcome in the energy
School teachers by day, flamboyant, made-up francophone rockers by night. On Friday and Saturday night, the walls of the Gold Rush will shudder with the lively strains of Whitehorse’s most feral musical ensemble.
High energy bass, guitar and accordion surges forth—kept in check by the sage drumming of percussionists Marc Paradis and Cory Chouinard.
Prepare to dance “ecstatically,” promise band members.
At the Gold Rush Inn on Friday and Saturday, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Out of the way, Boris Karloff
Casting away the cliched horror movie sensibilities of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, Edmonton-based Catalyst Theatre has arrived in Whitehorse with a completely re-imagined Frankenstein that seeks to delve deeper into the “human qualities” of the classic tale.
Fear is explored, but not the scream-worthy fear of an on-the-loose scientific creation, more the primal fear of being ostracized.
The set and costumes are almost entirely made of paper, given the whole production a dreamlike storybook quality.
“Un-bloody-forgettable” proclaimed the Vancouver Courier.
January 15-17, at 8 p.m. at the Yukon Arts Centre. Tickets are for adults, for children and seniors.
Il y a autant de portes
So Many Doors, by Whitehorse’s Sour Brides theatre company, is embarking on a two-week, seven-city tour of Ontario and New Brunswick. The tour marks one of the few times a Yukon-written and Yukon-produced play has ever breached the borders of our fair territory.
Before they journey to southern climes, the Brides will be presenting So Many Doors at the Yukon Arts Centre on January 20th, and at Dawson City’s Oddfellows Hall on Friday, January 23rd.
Starring the Sour Bride’s own Moira Sauer and Celia McBride, the play has recruited Montreal actor Brett Watson and Toronto actor Jesse Todd. The play follows two Yukon couples who have lost their infant children in a tragic accident.
Tickets are , and are available at Arts Underground and the Yukon Arts Centre box office.
Pretending to murder is fun
If winks could kill, Sarah Palin would be sharing a cell with Charles Manson. For those who always fantasized about murdering others with minor facial expressions, check out the Guild Hall Society’s Wink Murder fundraiser on Saturday at the Guild Hall.
For about an hour, attendees will play the classic parlour game Wink Murder, wherein a chosen “murderer”“kills” others by “winking” at them, and it’s the job of the “detective” to figure out who. What fun!
Ultimately, the evening will most likely descend into lascivious drinking and dancing, with the help of DJ Daniel Ashley.
Just for the event, the Guild has trucked in some bottles of Taboo absinthe, fresh from the backwoods of central British Columbia, and revellers are invited to “dress debaucherously.”
Saturday night at 9:30 at the Guild Hall. Tickets are at the door.
Green soup is people!
In our world of processed food, the line between colour and flavour is often blurred. A red popsicle is no longer cherry flavoured—it is red flavoured. Rather than shy away from this dystopian method of sustenance-distinction, German food manufacturer Knorr has instead decided to embrace it with Colourful Soups, a new ingredient-ambiguous line of health-conscious high viscosity liquids.
According to Knorr’s website, their chefs have laboured long and hard to “skillfully combine vegetables and fruits of the same colour.” The result: a sacred quartet of yellow, red, orange and green soups, a simple colour-coded key to complete diet homogeneity.
If you’re like me, and patterns frustrate you, Colour Soups just might be the best thing ever. Tip: mix red soup with green soup and you get reddy-greeny soup.
Just don’t call it
Ping-Pong
Whenever an American table tennis team visits, there’s always the risk that Richard Nixon won’t be far behind. Don’t let that stop you from checking out this weekend’s Alaska-Yukon challenge, a coming together of teams from across the Yukon and the 49th state. A complex system of handicaps makes the event “more competitive.”
“The weaker players have a chance to beat the better players,” said organizer Dave Stockdale.
Saturday and Sunday at the Whitehorse Elementary School Gym, events start at 10 a.m.
Refrain from wearing white—it camouflages the ball.
Go fast or go home
Dubbed “the last great road race,” Saturday’s Alcan 200 will see 30 to 40 snowmobile riders from across the Yukon and Alaska battle cold, winds and nagging sanity to be the ultimate champions of “the greatest snowmobile race.”
At 10 a.m. Alaska time, racers will set off from the Canada-US border Northwest of Haines, Alaska. From there, they will zoom north at speeds of 193 kilometres (120 mph) an hour until the turnaround point at Dezadeash Lodge.
In 2007, 38 participants started out, but only 25 made it back.
If you’re going to be a top snowmobile contender, it’s important that you be willing to “go 130 plus miles an hour in marginal visibility,” said rider Colby Hill to snoriderswest.com.
“It’s not all about going fast in a straight line, you have to go 120 through the corners too,” added Hill.
Slower and more poop
If 20th century technology isn’t your cup of tea, there’s more than one way to propel violently through the snow. Despite possible showers the Yukon Brewing Copper Haul Twister League dog sled races will start with a 10 a.m. mushers meeting at Icy Waters on Fish Lake Road on Sunday.
It’s “contemporary” and from Montreal, so it’s probably cool
Goodbye landscape art and hello “exemplary works in which a significant portion of the content can be decoded through a literal or literary application of that which is written.”
If De l’ecriture’s (With writing) wordy self-description scares you away, you should think twice about scoping out the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery, since its newest exhibition is all about words.
Showcasing works taken from the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibition explores the connection between art and the written word.
Pieces examine the special status of the book as an “undeniable symbol,” the prevalence of newspapers and direct allusions to literary works.
Hurry because the exhibition will only be up for the next three months.
Inauguration sensation
Whatever you do over the next few days, rest assured that it will be violently boring in comparison to the historic presidential inauguration taking place next week in Washington, DC. As Barack H. Obama II and Joseph R. Biden Jr. ascend to the highest offices of the free world, 4 million people will descend on the United States capital city to wish them well, and party hard. Bars will be open until 4 a.m. all over the city, and public performances are expected from Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Alisha Keys, Sting and Elvis Costello.
It takes 33,000 US troops to guard 33,000,000 people in Afghanistan. Washington’s inauguration revellers will require 14,300 soldiers and police.
Do you have a listing for Get Out? E-mail tristinh@yukon-news.com.
