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Yukon Arts Centre announces busy, eclectic season

Music. Theatre. Dance. Opera. Film. Art. The Yukon Arts Centre announced its 2013-2014 season this week...
ARTSyacseason1

Music. Theatre. Dance. Opera. Film. Art.

The Yukon Arts Centre announced its 2013-2014 season this week to a crowd of about 50 enthusiasts, eager to hear which artistic presentations will keep them inspired through the long winter months.

The arts centre is hoping to build on the great success of the past season, said artistic director Eric Epstein.

“We had 39,000 pairs of feet - I can’t say ‘people’ because some of them came like 10 times - but 39,000 pairs of feet attended over 59 Yukon Arts Centre presentations. That’s pretty remarkable in a community of 26,000 people.”

For the upcoming year, there is so much planned that it took almost an hour to announce the full lineup.

The first concert of the season, featuring Alberta country stars Ian Tyson and Corb Lund, has already sold out. But there’s still time to get in on the rest of the offerings.

Other major concerts include Canadian folk royal Martha Wainwright and rising star David Myles.

Three local musicians will celebrate CD releases this fall. Dave Haddock performs Sept. 18 and Old Cabin comes to the arts centre Oct. 4.

Sarah MacDougall will bring her new songs to the Old Fire Hall Nov. 24. She will perform with Vancouver beat-box poet and troubadour C.R. Avery. That is sure to be a popular show and, with limited seating at the Old Fire Hall, is likely to sell out.

In addition, Kim Barlow is leaving the territory and moving back to Nova Scotia this fall. Her send-off show will be Sept. 29 at the arts centre.

“It’s a retrospective of her work over the last 20 years, with many of the great performers she has worked with,” said Epstein. “There’s talk of a Glacial Erratics reunion. We’re very excited and of course very sad to see Kim go.”

On the theatre scene, the Yukon Arts Centre has teamed up with both Nakai Theatre and Gwaandak Theatre to present a series of innovative theatrical works from across the country.

January’s Pivot Theatre Festival will feature three pieces from Outside.

Epstein described Huff as “one of the most devastating and at the same time compelling shows that you will ever see.”

Playwright Cliff Cardinal is “a major new force in Canadian playwriting,” said Epstein.

It’s a story about Resolute Bay, Nunavut, and the challenges that youth face there, but it is also a “very beautiful story of family,” he said.

How to Disappear Completely, is by Itai Erdal, “an Israeli Canadian who tells the story of his mother dying of cancer, him visiting her and filming her in Israel.”

Carmen Aguirre’s Blue Box is “her story of being a teenage revolutionary in Chile and leading a double life,” said Epstein. “There is salsa dancing.”

For fans of shows that blend genres, there are plenty of other offerings.

Hawksley Workman brings his one-man rock cabaret The God That Comes to the arts centre in November. It’s about Bacchus, the Greco-Roman god of wine.

And Evalyn Parry brings Spin, a theatrical musical adventure inspired in part by the story of Annie Londonderry, who became the first woman to ride around the world on a bicycle in 1894. The show celebrates the bicycle as “muse, musical instrument and agent of social change.”

Danse Lhasa Danse comes to the arts centre Jan. 20. It is an homage to the life of singer Lhasa de Sela, who died from cancer on New Year’s Day, 2010. The show uses four singers, five musicians and eight dancers to pay tribute to Lhasa’s impressive life and work.

Opera fans will be pleased to hear that they can access a taste of the Met without having to fly across the continent. Five operas will be broadcast at the Yukon Arts Centre, including Puccini’s La Boheme, as part of the Live in HD series.

And Available Light Cinema will continue to bring the best in film to the Yukon with its regular screenings.

On Sept. 27 the Yukon Film Society will do, for the first time, a free screening at Shipyards Park in the picnic gazebo. Bruce McDonald’s Highway 61 will show at 9 p.m.

In the Yukon Arts Centre gallery space, a variety of visual artists will present their work.

This year, the focus is on solo shows because they offer the opportunity for the artist to really delve into a body of work, said Mary Bradshaw, the gallery’s director.

This fall, the gallery will feature the work of Ken Anderson, Yam Lau and James Nizam.

For the full lineup of programming to come, visit www.yukonartscentre.com or pick up a free Arts North of Ordinary pamphlet.

Contact Jacqueline Ronson at

jronson@yukon-news.com