BC Business
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Timothy Taylor’s Blue Light Project, another shade of David Gray, and One Yellow Rabbit’s Denise Clarke’s dance and monologue production in Victoria. Music // David Gray
Certain artists seem of a particular time and place, and David Gray definitely fits the bill – the very embodiment of the late-’90s introspective singer-songwriter. Although Gray had achieved middling success in his native U.K. by the time White Ladder was released in 1999, that album – with its massive hits “This Year’s Love” (on heavy rotation on the also-of-that-era TV show, Dawson’s Creek), “Babylon” and “Sail Away” – made him a global superstar. Gray has continued to do well in England with subsequent releases, although on this side of the pond he’s stuck in a bit of a time warp. Fans buying tickets to this Vancouver show likely don’t care. The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, March 4, ticketmaster.com
BCBusiness contributor and Giller Prize-nominated author Timothy Taylor is out with his third novel this month, the long-awaited follow-up to 2006’s Story House and 2001’s Stanley Park. In The Blue Light Project, Taylor recounts three days in the life of a hostage taking. As the hostage drama unfolds inside a local television studio, two unlikely characters watching the drama from the outside – Eve, a former Olympic athlete, and Rabbit, a secretive street artist at work on a series of massive rooftop installations – make a connection. Worlds ultimately collide and a fearful city rediscovers hope, seeing the power of beauty through Rabbit’s art. Knopf Canada, March 2011, randomhouse.ca
Victoria’s popular theatre festival returns to the Belfry for two jam-packed weeks of free mini plays, play readings, professional development workshops and new play stagings. Highlights include Sign Language, a “physical conversation” mixing dance and monologue by One Yellow Rabbit’s Denise Clarke; The Middle Place, Andrew Kushnir’s provocative play constructed from verbatim interviews with youth at a Toronto shelter; and Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata, a hilarious musical number by Veda Hille and Bill Richardson set to a selection of online ads full of longing, desire and “backhoes that need minor fixing.” Belfry Theatre, March 7 to 20, belfry.bc.ca