Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
couver International Dance Festival in spring and the 10-day Dancing on the Edge
event in July.
Despite losing its long-established Playhouse Theatre Company to a funding crisis in
2012, Vancouver is also home to a vibrant theater scene. But rather than one or two ma-
jor theaters, you'll find dozens of smaller stages dotted around the city. The Arts Club
Theatre Company (
www.artsclub.com
) is the city's largest theatrical troupe, and the
host of fringe-like smaller venues and companies, include the Cultch (
Click here
)
and
the Firehall Arts Centre (
Click here
)
. Events-wise, plan your visit for the Bard on the
Beach (
Click here
)
Shakespeare festival, the Vancouver International Fringe Festival
(
Click here
)
or the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (
Click here
)
. And if
you're a fan of alfresco shows, the outdoor Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park is home to the
summer season Theatre Under the Stars (
Click here
)
troupe.
Pauline Johnson (1861-1913) is Vancouver's most famous poet. The daughter of a
Mohawk chief and a middle-class Englishwoman, she recited her works dressed in tra-
ditional First Nations buckskin. Hugely popular, her funeral was the largest ever held in
Vancouver at the time of her death, and there is a memorial to her in Stanley Park.
Literature
Vancouver is a highly bookish city, home to a healthy round of bookstores and a large
volume of literary events to keep local and visiting bookworms fully enthralled. Among
the city's favorite bookshop hangouts are Macleod's Books (
Click here
)
and Pulpfiction
(
Click here
)
, where stacks of used tomes invite cozy browsing on rainy days. If you
really want to see how serious the city is about books, visit the landmark Vancouver
Public Library, shaped like the Colosseum. There are plenty of ways to rub bookish
shoulders with the locals at events that include poetry slams, the Word on the Street
book and magazine festival and the Vancouver International Writers Festival (
Click
Local authors past and present who have garnered international reputations include
Douglas Coupland, William Gibson and Malcolm Lowry. Coupland is the city's most
famous living author, with celebrated works including
Generation X, J-Pod
and his
latest title:
Worst. Person . Ever.
A strong nonfiction bent also exists within the local literary scene. Two local authors
have produced back-to-back wins in Canada's prestigious Charles Taylor Prize for Lit-
erary Nonfiction in recent years. Charles Montgomery's
The Last Heathen: Encounters
