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Chutzpah! 2018 highlights awe-inspiring dance, extraordinary theatre, hilarious comedy and globally-celebrated music

World-class performances and workshops by international, Canadian and local artists from February 15 to March 15, 2018.

MM Contemporary Dance. Photo courtesy Luca Vantusso
Chutzpah! The Lisa Nemetz International Jewish Performing Arts Festival is the Lower Mainland’s winter music, dance, comedy and theatre festival presenting international, national and local artists.
 
The Chutzpah! Festival delivers audiences work that is forward-looking, multi-layered, and entertaining. The upcoming 2018 Festival will run from February 15 to March 15 at the Norman Rothstein Theatre and other venues in and around Vancouver. Over four weeks, we will welcome performers from cultural hubs such as Canada, Bulgaria, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, the USA and Mexico.
 
An eagerly anticipated and annual highlight of Greater Vancouver’s dance season is the Chutzpah! Festival’s Dance Series. The 2018 Festival presents some of the most sought-after contemporary choreographers in the world.
 
This year’s performances again offer high calibre, challenging and gorgeous dance delivering innovative and spell-binding work. Highlights include Israeli company Roy Assaf Dance in its Chutzpah! debut with a program of intricate and nuanced works, Six Years Later and The Hill. Assaf is praised as one of the most sought-after choreographic voices today (Israel).
 
Canadian premiere of Open by Ezralow Dance, a creative home for internationally renowned Daniel Ezralow’s expansive and eclectic body of work known for its explosive physicality, originality and humour (USA).
 
A Chutzpah! first and North American Premiere of choreographer Michele Merola’s MM Contemporary Dance performing inventive and provocative choreographies of two twentieth century universally-known musical scores Maurice Ravel’s Bolero and Igor Stravinski’s The Rite of Spring (Italy) – presented with the Italian Cultural Centre.
 
In an exciting Dance Double-Bill, Chutzpah! International Cultural Exchange featuring critically-acclaimed companies Machol Shalem Dance House from Israel in Black Label, a journey told through the eyes of Ethiopian-Israeli Iskias, an outstanding dancer, formerly with Batsheva and Bulgaria’s Derida Company in F 63.9, a duet exploring when love is not an infatuation, but a problem that requires a solution, choreographed by award-winning Jivko Jeliazkov.
 
Chutzpah! is excited to present the World Premiere of Salomé: Woman of Valor, a multi-disciplinary show created by Frank London, esteemed composer and bandleader of Grammy-winning superstars The Klezmatics and Adeena Karasick, Canadian poet and performance artist. Their new work seamlessly blends live music, text, video and dance.
 
Chutzpah! Is also known for presenting outstanding internationally-celebrated music, including leading world music pioneers.The rich global landscape of music presented this year showcases some of the world’s most exciting musical performers.
 
Highlights include; the return of Festival favourite, singer/songwriter and musician Idan Raichel performing his celebrated Piano-Songs, a rare chance to see this Israeli global music icon in such an intimate setting at the Norman Rothstein Theatre.
 
Blurring jazz, rock, mariachi, metal, funk and hip hop, Trokeris an expression of the Mexican music scene, with a sound that travels between the sublime and dangerous– presented with Cap Jazz Series.
 
World-class vocalist Perla Batalla, a long-time singer and touring band member with the legendary Leonard Cohen, brings her special concert In The House of Cohen to Chutzpah! this year.

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