Janet Smith

4 days ago | createastir.ca | Janet Smith

PACIFIC THEATRE IS SET to leave its long-time home in the former Chalmers Presbyterian Church basement this December, after three decades of staging intimate productions there. In an announcement today, the organization cited the declining state of the Vancouver heritage building now owned and operated by the Holy Trinity Anglican Church—which needs more than $500,000 worth of major structural upgrades—as the reason for its upcoming departure.

4 days ago | createastir.ca | Janet Smith

A LOCAL ARTIST and curator who centres art as an act of Indigenous resurgence has made it to the shortlist for the Sobey Art Award—not only the largest prize for contemporary artists in Canada, but one of the biggest funded prizes of its kind in the world. Tania Willard, a mixed Secwépemc and settler artist, draws on connections to land, culture, language revitalization, and family, working though collaborative projects such as BUSH Gallery.

4 days ago | createastir.ca | Janet Smith

RM: I remember Tushrik and I having conversations about religion, spirituality, and rituals. We would ask each other what were the things we loved about our respective religious practices and, inversely, the things about them that made us feel trapped.

5 days ago | createastir.ca | Janet Smith

SCULPTURAL SOUND INSTALLATIONS and song-infused shadow theatre are just a couple of the genre-melding performance styles Vancouver New Music is offering up next season. The organization’s just-announced 2025-26 lineup launches at VIVO Media Arts Centre from September 13 to 28 with Vancouver-based soundscape artist Yota Kobayashi’s Shiki & Kū, an immersive audiovisual installation that weaves spatial sound with cultural symbolism.

5 days ago | createastir.ca | Janet Smith

OUR FAIR CITY already has Bard on the Beach, and now, thanks to the Vancouver Chamber Choir, it’s getting Sonnets by the Sea. Not that VCC is trying to compete with Bard—a local institution since 1990 and one of Vancouver’s most popular annual cultural events. Bard on the Beach founder Christopher Gaze is fully on-board with Sonnets by the Sea. In fact, Gaze will be treading the boards as the concert’s master of ceremonies.