Sex in Vancouver: Doin' it Again,  More please….

Waterfront Theatre
Granville Island, Vancouver BC
Feb 24th to March 5th
For tickets go to
www.vact.ca

“Fun,” is the first word that comes to mind when thinking of the latest
incarnation of Vancouver Canadian Theatre’s running theatrical soap
opera, Sex in Vancouver.  Based on “Sex in Seattle” created by
Kathy Hsieh and Serin Ngai, VACT president Joyce Lam wanted to create
opportunities for Asian Canadian actors beyond small walk on parts in
stereotyped characters.  

After seeing the first 2 productions, I have to say that “Doin’It
Again” is the best edition yet.  VACT has now moved from The
Roundhouse into Waterfront Theatre, Mainstream media is finally taking
notice by running a preview.  There is a new level of maturity
both in the production and the acting.

Shari, Jenna, Tess and Elizabeth, are the four female characters around
which all the action revolves.  Elizabth is the old flame and
ex-fiance of Kenneth, who is now married to Shari, but they are now
going through a separation.  Jenna is Kenneth’s younger sister who
once had a crush on Tess, who is Elizabeth’s best friend.  George
is Kenneth’s college buddy who has a crush on Elizabeth, and Adam is
dating both Jenna and Tess, until he found out Tess is married to Zane
who is gay.

This all makes for lively action on stage and lots of theatrical sight
and verbal laughs.  Enhancing the production are video flashbacks
that share past history and help bring the audience up to date. The
action is fast paced, with many inventive scene changes as furniture is
seamlessly moved on and off stage.  The lines are well delivered
and there are no lag times… which are deadly in a comedy.

It was great to see Grace Kim back in the role of Elizabeth.  She
is a great girl-next-door innocent foil to the conniving self-serving
bitchy Shari Song Sheng, played viviviously by Janet Ip, who has been
in all five Sex in Vancouver productions.  These are the central
two roles playing tug of war with their love interest Kenneth Sheng
played for the first time by Jonathan Lee, who had previously played
the role of Colin.  Both Kim and Ip show maturity in their roles
and clearly love them and the production.

Candice Macalino does a great job as Jenna Sheng, love-puzzled but with
the most  relationship action happening, having dated her
brother’s childhood friend Nathan, lived with Colin, and now dating
Adam.  Jenna is like the impressionable sex kitten to the fiery
dragon lady of Andrea Yu’s Tess Matsudaira, if they are to be linked to
archetypal figures.  But what makes Andrea’s performance riveting
is that Tess plays against all the stereotypes of Asian women. 
She is tough talking, assertive and marries the gay guy.

There is much much more to the latest incarnation of “Sex in Vancouver”
than meets the eye.  Despite all the relationship soap opera
shenanigans and missteps, the characters find the reflective time to
comment on what it means to be Asian Canadian.  This is done
subtlety as the characters find themselves in situations dating white
males, or dealing with family expectations.

Much credit goes to director Peter Leung who has adapted this
production from the original Sex in Seattle scripts, with additional
video and dancing creations.  I talked with Leung after last
Friday’s opening night, and he was very pleased with “Doin’ it Again.”
 

This is to be VACT’s final performance of the Sex in Vancouver series,
even though Sex in Seattle has gone on for a total of 13
episodes.  VACT wants to concentrate on more original work. 
VACT has done wonderful work in creating a community that really
supports their work.  The 20 to 40 something demographic is unique
and hard to find in the live theatre audience.   Wonderful
kudos to president Joyce Lam, director Peter Leung and producer Betty
So, for making the Sex in Vancouver series happen.  Go see this
production, tell your friends, and ask VACT to keep on doin’ it again!

Canada's 16 year old skating darling Mira Leung
is on the front cover of the Vancouver Sun's Torino 2006 supplement
today. Leung placed silver at last months Canadian Championships in
Ottawa to send her to the Torino 2006 Olympics.  Leung is born and
raised in Vancouver, and hopes to be able to compete in her hometown of
Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics.

Jeff Paterson writes in today's Georgia Straight:

Maybe the best story among the British Columbians heading for Italy
is Burnaby figure skater Mira Leung. Just 16 years old, Leung really
can’t be considered a medal contender in her first Olympic experience.
But after a second-place finish at the nationals last month in Ottawa,
she served notice to the skating world that she’ll be a force here at
home four years from now.

“The average 16-year-old might be
overwhelmed by something like this, but not Mira. I just got an e-mail
from her the other day about how excited she is at this opportunity,”
Pattenden said. “And she really needs this experience for 2010. She’s
going there [Turin] to perform and she’s hoping for a top-16 finish.”

Emmanuel Sandhu
is an outside medal chance, but he has been refining his mental
training skills over the years.  Sandhu was a potential medal
winner for the Men's Figure Skating at the Salt Lake City Olympics in
2002, but had to pull out due to an aggravated injury.  Last week,
I talked with sports psychologist David Cox, whom I studied with at
Simon Fraser University.  David is going to Turino with Sandhu,
who has been known to be inconsistent despite being Canadian Champion
in 2001, 2003, and 2004, and in 2003 he want the World's Grand Prix
Gold medal.  Sandhu has been living in Vancouver's Yaletown and
training in Burnaby, since moving from Ontario.  His ethnic
parentage is Italian and South Asian, but he says he best describes
himself as Canadian.

Megan Wing and Aaron Lowe
have been perennial also-rans on the Canadian Ice Dance team, but they
are now going to the Olympics for their very first time.  The
Vancouver skaters who train in Detroit have waited a long time to get
their Olympic shot.  I met them in 2001 during the World
Championships when Sale and Pelletier won Gold in Vancouver.  They
are a very nice couple and wonderful with the audience.  When the
planned meet and greet for Sale and Pelletier turned into a Q&A
session because of the large crowds, Wing and Lowe acted as MC's for
the evening.  I was able to ask a question about the importance of
mental training for their routine, as the TV cameras had focused on
Sale and Pelletier practicing Tai Chi movements, before their
competition.  “Good question,” said Lowe to me as he repeated the
question for the audience. “They showed that?” exclaimed Jaime Sale,
who exlained that they had been learning Tai Chi from a wonderful
master to help them focus their energies, and of couse mental training
was a very very important part of their training.

Here are some related articles

CTV
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060205/figure_skating_
060205/20060207?s_name=torino2006&no_ads=

Vancouver Sun
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=0458a077-9c84-
4710-9f97-98ee630d7cb0&k=95438

Montreal Gazette
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/sports/story.html?id=
43a9e1cb-8efb-41e6-8d06-2367c58d2931&rfp=dta

New Tang Dynasty TV's Chinese New Year Global Gala: bringing a multicultural vision together through a Chinese lens for overseas Chinese

The lights dimmed and the music rose, dancers come onto the
stage.  I am amazed to see how many of the dancers in Chinese costumes have caucasian
faces…  New Tang Dynasty TV Gala
came to Vancouver to entertain in celebration of Chinese New
Year.  Much of the show featured an emphasis on multiculturalism
and a compassionate spirituality, as well as both traditional Chinese
culture.  There were traditional dances and songs, and artistic
dance recreations of famous Chinese stories such as heroine Mu-lan,
Quan Yin, and dragons.  There was flamenco dancing, Romanian folk
melodies, and Korean triple drum dance.  My thoughts were that we
truly have reached a multicultural apex, when we have people of
different ethnic backgrounds performing in all aspects of a major
ethnic festival celebration.

Each audience member was handed a glossy 32 page program which listed
the different performances, artist bios as well as ad and greetings
from sponsors.  This was important because the introduction tells
about New Tang Dynasty TV's mission that includes:

And so the show is both a showcase of a Chinese interpretation of
multiculturalism and also a message of compassion and spirituality,
underlined by Buddhist and Confucian sensibilities.  This would
not be unlike any Western society celebration of Christmas with
Christian storytelling about the birth of Jesus, or how it is important
to give gifts and celebrate peace at Christmastime.  Chinese New
Year is the largest holiday celebration of the year – in fact it is the
“Christmas” of the Asian world.

The MC's featured a handsome caucasian male dressed in a tuxedo, named
Jared, and a pretty Chinese female dressed in a cheong-sam (long
dress), named Simone.  He spoke English and she spoke Mandarin Chinese. 
The back and forth dialogue was lively and informative, if a little
forced and clearly scripted.  He admitted he didn't know much
Chinese language, and the funniest moment of the show, was when he
tried to sing a “Chinese Opera” song in English to her…. painfully
bad funny.

Their inbetween set banter kept things light, and the opening set
featured the Ying Tang Lion and Dragon Troupe & Dance Troupe. 
It was a story set in China's mythical past displaying the occasion of
the lantern festival when the King of the Heavens emerge from the
lanterns to reveal to the audience the secrets of retuning to one's
true self.  Some of the onlookers are permitted to enter the
lantern and make the ascension to the heavens.  Sometimes I forget
how much Chinese mythology is about spiritually ascended beings who became gods
through personal enlightenment.  I remember taking a university
class on mythology, where we discovered that while most cultures have
gods that created humans, Chinese culture is so ancient, that it is the
humans who ascend and become the gods.

And so the evening passed as musical segments such as Lache Cercel and
the Cercel Ensemble performed the Romanian Rhapsody on violin, double
bass, and two guitars – alternated with a traditional “Fairies' Flutes”
Chinese dance.  An Erhu (2 string chinese violin) performance by
Xiaochun Qi, alternates with the “Nine Swords” dance by the New Tang
Dyanasty Performing Arts Center, where good dancers fight the evil
dancers, in a representation of “followers of truth” defeat the “dragon
of menace” to restore harmony in the world.

If this sounds like new age story-telling, it probably is.  But
the stories are universal and the translation from the Chinese is
literal.  What made this production interesting was the use of
technology.  The large projection screen was used instead of
painted backdrops.  It made for very effective scene changes, as
forests, mountains, villages, all popped up.  Even a dragon flew
across the stage at one point. 

Over
the past two years I have been attending more Chinese event
shows such as Terracotta Warriors, Senses and Chung Yi: The Legend of Kung Fu. 
In each case, my lack of Chinese language and cultural history
prevented me from knowing the fuller context and deeper meanings of the
stories and performances.  While the dancing and martial arts of the New Tang Dynasty gala is
not as dramatic as the previous mentioned productions, it is still well
done and relevant for its purpose, which is to paint a celebration of
Chinese culture.  Western audiences will learn more about Chinese
culture and history and Chinese language audiences will learn more
about Western cultural traditions. 

But the “multicultural” segments seem to me to be no more than exotic
appeal.  Taken out of context and plunked into the middle of a
production full of Chinese myth and legend, does not help me understand
Romanian music, Korean dancing or Spanish flamenco music performed by
Karen Pitkethly (which I loved!) – other than it is pretty and it
sounds nice.  But this is a beginning step for many Overseas
Chinese who have now moved to North America and are not readily exposed
to the roots of Western cultural traditions.  This is the audience
of New Tang Dynasty TV, and it is important to recognize that they are
trying to do something that hasn't been done on this large a scale
before.  They are trying to promote Chinese cultural values of
compassion and goodness within the context of a Western environment.

My own experience is that of a 5th generational Canadian of Chinese
descent who has experienced the rise of a Canadian made Chinese
identity, born from our experiences of overcoming years of legislated racism in “Gum San” –
the gold mountain of North America.  I created Gung Haggis Fat Choy
dinner events to reflect and promote home grown Asian-Canadian culture
within the context of cross-cultural intersections between
Scottish-Canadians and Chinese-Canadians.  Both have their place,
and I am thankful for such productions as New Tang Dynasty's Chinese
Global New Year, for helping me to experience more of the traditional
Chinese culture and performances that were familiar to my ancestors who
came to Canada when China was still the imperial Ching Dynasty of the
late 1800's.

The New Tang Dynasty TV Chinese New Year Global Gala
is a good event for families to see the diversity of Chinese cultural
traditions and stories plus some additional multicultural performances
too, but at 3 hours with an intermission, you could hear some of the
kids getting restless, even though the dragon was scary too!  At the end of the evening, I was
interviewed by a reporter from Epoch Times, who asked me if I thought
there were enough opportunities to see Chinese culture in Vancouver, a
dynamic multicultural centre?  I replied that there are many ways
to see Chinese cultural performances in Vancouver, such as Lily King's
annual spring celebration or at many of the cultural festivals such as
Asian Heritage Month or the Dragon Boat festivals.  More Chinese
event producers are putting on shows for the ever growing Chinese
language population of Vancouver.  But while we can see many local
productions or amateur school productions, we are now getting to see
larger high quality productions such as Dennis Law's shows at the
Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, and many touring productions
too.  This is the leading edge of Chinese cultural shows, and I
expect to see more in the future.

Below are links and information to :

For
more info on the global gala. NTDTV's 2006 Chinese New Gala :
http://gala.ntdtv.com/2006/en/

See highlights from the show:
http://gala.ntdtv.com/2006/en/hi/

Review of the Boston show by OperaOnLine
 http://www.operaonline.us/mythslegends_001.htm.