74 things to do in Metro Vancouver on Thursday, December 14

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      Looking for something to do on Thursday? The Straight’s got you covered. Here are 74 events happening in or around Vancouver on Thursday, December 14.

       

      CONCERTS

      California-born country singer-songwriter Cam plays the Commodore, with guest Logan Mize.

      Canadian jazz vocalists Jennifer Scott, Karin Plato, and Kate Hammett-Vaughan (We Three Queens) perform the first of two nights at West Van's Kay Meek Centre.

      Musica intima presents a holiday concert of jazz- and blues-inspired music at the ANZA Club.

      The East Van Choir Collective presents a fundraiser featuring the Kingsgate Chorus, Mount Pleasant Regional Institute of Sound, and Eschoir, with proceeds to the WISH Drop-In Centre Society, a resource for women in the DTES.

      Vancouver Gypsy-jazz band Van Django performs a mix of nostalgic favourites, jazz standards, sing-alongs, and pop tunes at Presentation House Theatre.

      C.R. Avery hosts a tribute to the late Canadian rocker and Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie at the Rio Theatre.

       

      BENEFITS

      See more than 30 gingerbread creations designed by students, professionals, and amateur culinary artists at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver, with proceeds to Make-A-Wish B.C. and Yukon.

       

      FORUMS

      Explore the anatomy and physiology of female sexual pleasure at a squirting workshop at the Art of Loving that includes a live demonstration.

       

      CHRISTMAS

      The Vancouver Christmas Market at Jack Poole Plaza features more than 75 vendor huts, authentic German food and drink, a carousel, a 30-foot-tall walk-in Christmas tree, live entertainment, and family-friendly activities.

      Annual Lights of Hope display at St. Paul's Hospital features over 100,000 sparkling lights and raises funds for the St. Paul's Foundation.

      See thousands of lights adorning the Capilano Suspension Bridge, canyon, Treetops Adventure, and Cliffwalk at Canyon Lights.

      Van Dusen Botanical Garden's Festival of Lights features outdoor light displays, dancing light shows, stories with Santa, live entertainment, a fireside lounge, the Make-A-Wish candle grotto, and sing-alongs.

      The Peak of Christmas at Grouse Mountain features holiday light installations around Blue Grouse Lake, Christmas movies, crafts, sleigh rides, skating, a gingerbread village, reindeer, storytime, and breakfast with Santa.

      Lights at Lafarge features outdoor light displays, live entertainment, roving performers, hot chocolate and cookies, photos with Santa, family-friendly crafts, a holiday market, and choirs at Coquitlam's Town Centre Park.

      Join Santa on a flight across Canada and on to the North Pole as he searches for his missing elves at Christmas at Flyover Canada.

      Holiday Heights at Bloedel Conservatory features seasonal lights, music, and a holiday scavenger hunt.

       

      KIDS' STUFF

      Communal listening event at Lord Strathcona Elementary School inspired by the early days of radio broadcasting.

       

      COMEDY

      Jamaican-born, Montreal-bred comedian Cedric Newman performs the first of three nights at Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club.

      Canadian comedian Chris Locke performs the first of three nights of standup at the Comedy Mix.

      The Vancouver TheatreSports League presents Christmas Queen 4: Secret Santa, a holiday-themed comedy show that sees the Queen and Santa exchange bodies in a Freaky Friday-style magical sleight-of-hand.

       

      ARTS ETCETERA

      Join Contemporary Art Gallery assistant curator Jas Lally for a free behind-the-scenes tour of the current exhibitions.

      Cirque du Soleil presents Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities, a new production that takes you into the curio cabinet of an ambitious inventor who defies the laws of time, space, and dimension, at Concord Pacific Place.

      Fight for Beauty at Fairmont Pacific Rim features public art projects undertaken with world-class creatives, architecture from architects who are artists in their own right, and fashion by some of the greatest designers in recent history.

       

      DANCE

      Goh Ballet presents the classic holiday ballet The Nutcracker--featuring principal dancers from the Pacific Northwest Ballet, artists from the National Ballet of Canada, and music by the Vancouver Opera Orchestra--at the Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts.

       

      LITERARY

      Author Omar El Akkad reads from his book American War, which imagines a second American Civil War triggered by an environmental catastrophe, at Vancouver Public Library's Kitsilano branch.

      Sean Wiebe and Celeste Snowber read from their latest collection of poetry Blue Waiting: A Collection of two poets from East to West Coast at Vancouver Maritime Museum.

      Author Patrick Hunt discusses his new book Hannibal, a biography of the ancient Carthaginian general, at Coquitlam Public Library's City Centre branch.

       

      MUSIC

      Music in the Morning presents Canadian chamber-music quartet Ensemble Made in Canada at Dunbar Ryerson United Church.

      Music on Main presents a performance at Heritage Hall by composer-in-residence Nicole Lizée, pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, violinist and vocalist Wallgrin, and vocalist Carman J. Price.

       

      THEATRE

      Theatre Replacement's East Van Panto: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is a kid-friendly production at the York Theatre that sees the title character flee the wicked Queen of North Vancouver across the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, landing at the PNE.

      Performance at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts of Bah Humbug!, in which Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol comes to life in modern-day East Vancouver.

      The Daisy Theatre presents Little Dickens, Ronnie Burkett's take on Charles Dickens's holiday classic A Christmas Carol, at the Cultch.

      The Arts Club Theatre Company presents a performance at Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre of The Day Before Christmas, Stacey Kaser and Alison Kelly's play about a perfectionist who's desperately holding fast to her Christmas traditions.

      The Vagabond Players present a traditional holiday pantomime based on the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty at New Westminster's Bernie Legge Theatre.

      The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Onegin--Amiel Gladstone and Veda Hille's musical about a dissipated rogue whose romantic charms stir the passions of the residents of a country estate--at Granville Island Stage.

      Pacific Theatre presents Almost, Maine, director Kaitlin Williams's play about the joys and perils of romance, set in a small town in Maine.

      The White Rock Players Club presents a performance of director Alex Lowe's kid-friendly pantomime The Hunchback of Notre PANTO at Coast Capital Playhouse.

      The North Vancouver Community Players present director Miles Lavkulich's version of Linda Sharp's play The Doctor of Oz: A Self-Help Panto, about a girl who travels to a magical land of self-help, at the Theatre at Hendry Hall.

      Gateway Theatre presents a stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens's classic tale of a miser who changes his ways after he is visited by ghosts.

      Performance at the Cultch's Vancity Culture Lab of The Realistic Joneses, Will Eno's play in which a man and a woman and their neighbours face life-altering problems.

      The Arts Club Theatre Company presents a performance at Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, a stage adaptation of the Academy Award-winning animated film.

      Performance at Coquitlam's Evergreen Cultural Centre of writer-director Maureen Rooney's one-act musical Memories of a Christmas Ornament.

      Red Giant Theatre Society presents a performance at GO Studios of Anthony Neilson's holiday play The Night Before Christmas, about an elf who lands in a warehouse of cheap and stolen toys.

      Instant Theatre Company presents a performance at Havana Theatre of Mad Max: Yellow Brick Road, which combines Mad Max: Fury Road and The Wizard of Oz.

      The Broadway Chorus presents a performance at Performance Works of Climb Every Breanstalk: A Christmas Panto, which features popular pantomime traditions, such as fairy-tale plot lines, gender swapping, and familiar tunes taken out of context.

       

      GALLERIES

      Entangled: Two Views on Contemporary Canadian Painting at the Vancouver Art Gallery offers insight into two distinctly different modes of painting that have come to dominate contemporary painting in Canada.

      Portrait of the Artist: An Exhibition from the Royal Collection at the Vancouver Art Gallery features more than 90 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculpture highlighting both the richness of the Royal Collection and the complex relationship that the British monarchy has had with artists for the last three and half centuries.

      Polygon Gallery's inaugural exhibition, N. Vancouver, explores how a specific locale can be reflected through existing and newly commissioned artworks by artists from Vancouver and beyond.

      True Nordic: How Scandinavia Influenced Design in Canada at the Vancouver Art Gallery highlights the enduring legacy of Scandinavian design principles in Canada through works by Niels Bendtsen, Bocci, Karen Bulow, Kjeld and Erica Deichmann, Thor Hansen, Andrew Jones, Janis Kravis, molo, Carl Poul Petersen, Rudolph Renzius, and Marion Smith.

      Carol Sawyer: The Natalie Brettschneider Archive at the Vancouver Art Gallery presents the latest findings of Vancouver-based artist Sawyer's ongoing research project that deftly reconstructs the life and work of the genre-defying, fictional artist Brettschneider.

      Emily Carr: Into the Forest at the Vancouver Art Gallery is a collection of Emily Carr's forest paintings that highlight her continued exploration of the natural environment.

       

      MUSEUMS

      The Fabric of Our Land: Salish Weaving at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC takes visitors on a journey through the past 200 years of Salish wool weaving.

      Amazonia: The Rights of Nature at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features Amazonian basketry, textiles, carvings, feather works, and ceramics both of everyday and of ceremonial use, representing indigenous, Maroon, and white settler communities.

      City on Edge: A Century of Vancouver Activism at the Museum of Vancouver explores the history of Vancouver's street protests through over 650 images of street demonstrations, protests, and riots from the early 1900s to present day.

      In a Different Light: Reflecting on Northwest Coast Art at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features more than 110 historical indigenous artworks and explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands.

      The Lost Fleet at the Vancouver Maritime Museum investigates the unjust 1941 seizure of 1,200 Japanese-Canadian fishing vessels following the bombing of Pearl Harbour through a collection of historic photographs, models of Japanese-Canadian-built fishing boats, fishermen’s tools, and replica documents.

       

      ATTRACTIONS

      Celebrate winter with free skating in the heart of downtown Vancouver at Robson Square Ice Rink.

      Mount Seymour features skiing and snowboarding, lessons, chairlifts, terrain parks, tubing and tobogganing, and snowshoe trails.

      North Vancouver's Grouse Mountain features a Skyride to the peak with views of the city and the Pacific Ocean, as well as ziplines, a wildlife refuge, helicopter tours, paragliding, dining, and the Grouse Grind.

      At the Bloedel Conservatory you can take in more than 200 free-flying exotic birds and 500 exotic plants and flowers.

      West Vancouver's Cypress Mountain features skiing and snowboarding lessons, snowtubing park, cross-country ski trails, downhill skiing and snowboarding trails, and snowshoeing tours.

      The new Parq Vancouver features two luxury hotels, a 24-hour casino with 600 slot machines and 75 table games, eight restaurants and lounges, and the sixth-floor outdoor Parq.

      Take a ride in an exterior glass elevator and get a 360° view of Metro Vancouver and the North Shore mountains at Vancouver Lookout.

      Stanley Park features 400 hectares of trails, gardens, beaches, and West Coast rain forest, with scenic walking and biking along the 8.8 kilometre seawall.

      The Vancouver Aquarium features almost 800 animal species in galleries ranging from Canada's Arctic to the Amazon rainforest.

      Lighthouse Park features 10 kilometres of hiking trails, picnic areas, guided walks provided by the Lighthouse Park Preservation Society, and the historical 1912 Point Atkinson Lighthouse.

      Science World features hundreds of interactive exhibits in five permanent galleries, live science demonstrations and workshops, and giant movies in the Omnimax Theatre.

       

      MOVIES

      Screening at Vancity Theatre of Frederick Wiseman's documentary Ex Libris: The New York Public Library,  which explores the modern library as a hot spot for community access to the digital world, a platform for writer talks, poetry readings, recitals, an exhibition space, a learning centre for all ages, an archive and research facility, a forum for civic discourse, and an engine for empowerment.

      Screening at Richmond Public Library of the documentary 1300 Lives Lost by Taiping (Peace) Gate as part of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre.

      Screening at Vancity Theatre of God's Own Country, Francis Lee's film about a man who slowly opens up to the possibility of happiness with the help of a ruggedly handsome Romanian farmhand.

      Screening at the Cinematheque of Nahid, writer-director Ida Panahandeh's drama which explores Iran's unusual concept of temporary marriages.

      Screening at Vancity Theatre of Tom of Finland, director Dome Karukoski’s biopic which traces LGBTQ icon Tom of Finland's obsessions back to World War II, when the young artist-to-be served in the military.

       

      For all the latest Metro Vancouver event announcements and updates follow @VanHappenings.

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