Arts Beat

If you’re looking for an unusual evening of live entertainment, look no further than Stages of Sin.

 Staged for one night only, on Saturday, Dec. 3, at the Sin Bin, it is produced by VexEmbers. This classic crime drama fuses with burlesque performance as a throwback to the classic style of film-noir.

Co-producer/writer/director/actor/burlesque artist Sarah Goodwill -- aka Dahlia Embers -- says the style still has an aesthetic appeal in 2011.

 “I’ve always been interested in vintage things," says Goodwill. “With technology the way it is today, everything is so fast paced that it’s hard to be present. Burlesque fits into the film noir era, my grandmother's era, nicely, and has that classic feel."

To Goodwill, burlesque feels like an extension of her work as an actor.

“(A burlesque act) tells a story in three or four minutes, using the music, the movement and the costume to create a small theatrical experience," she says. "It’s an exciting expression without words.”

Martha Carter's latest piece Twisted:Solo is a visual, visceral, medical memoir.

The multi-media work is based on the journey the artistic director of Marta Marta House of Pride (MMHoP) has gone through as a dancer with scoliosis. She attributes the connection people feel when seeing the work to this: “Everybody has a body, everyone has a spine therefore this story relates to everybody."

Starting ballet training at nine, she was diagnosed with scoliosis, a side to side curving of the spine, at the age of 14.

“It stopped me in my tracks," said Carter, who is now close to 50, shared of her realization that she might never dance again. “ It was pretty brutal.”

In the same way the camera loves movie stars, the stage loves contemporary dance icon Louise Lecavalier. Just try to take your eyes off her. Brought to us by DanceHouse, the first piece of the evening is Children, a Nigel Charnock commission danced by Lecavalier and Patrick Lamothe. Alone at first under effective strobe lighting, Lecavalier wears a simple black tank and slacks and launches herself across the stage like four-legged animal. Her hunger for movement is palpable, as is her devotion to each danced moment. Not only is her powerful physicality beautiful, so is she—sharp bone structure, a long mess of blond hair, and soft eyes. She is riveting.

Children is classic Charnock: epic, episodic, extremely physical, and scored with songs that vary from Leonard Cohen to Billie Holiday to Puccini. Charnock delves into his theme that we are all children from every angle, especially when Lamothe appears. The duets are playful or competitive with pillow fights, water bottle wars, flashlight solos, and emotional moments of affection. It never gets too literal; the vocabulary is grounded in Charnock’s robust contemporary movement.

"The Drive" is another name for Commercial Drive, a popular street in Vancouver in the middle, sort of, of Vancouver's Italian, Portuguese and Brazilian communities.

The street has  charm and flavour, with lots of funky shops, small markets and coffee spots. It's  more Latin in its character than anglo-saxon, so to speak.

The street has heritage houses along it and local authorities decided not only to renovate them but also to put some nice artsy decorations in the form of murals on some of their walls. A lazy stroll along The Drive can reveal some nice surprises for all colour sensitive folks.