hope for disaster."

Mainstream arts Like music and theatre
have dozens of nonprofit societies representing their needs in this city, but
now performance art, one of the most
underground forms, is getting its own
new society* The move promises to
ensure it a regular roster of biennial
festivals and a long-term future in this
city. "Performance art goes on in the
city all the time, but very rarely
aboveground," explained the grunt
gallery's Glen Alteen. It all started
with Live at the End of the Century,
an event organized by the grunt two
years ago to mark 20 years of performance art in Vancouver. Alteen said it
was never intended as anything but a
one-off festival, but the galleries and
artists involved pushed for the event
to be held every two years. The result,

October 13 to November 30, will be
the first LIVE biennial of performance
art. "When you've got 15 galleries willing to work on anything together, it's
worth pursuing," Alteen quipped. "We
program performance art regularly [at

ARTS

by the time the festival ends, and that
group will lead it into regular biennial
events, he said. LIVE kicks off October
13 with a performance at the Vancouver
Art Gallery; see its lineup detailed in
the Visual Arts Season Preview in this
issue. More schedule information will
soon be at www.tivevancouver.bcxa/,
and brochures are to appear .at galleries
at the end of this month.

POETRY NAT IN MOTION
the grunt], but it was the excitement
from these groups who don't do it regularly that made it happen," That, and
a $20,000 boost from the Vancouver
Foundation, support that allowed the
grunt to fulfill its hopes of a six-week
schedule with more than 30 events.
LIVE will have its own society set up

Stimulation-starved commuters will
have to wait for the latest batch of
Poetry i n Transit writings to appear on
Greater Vancouver buses. "Because of
the transit strike, there was a delay,"
Margaret Reynolds, executive director
of the Association of Book Publishers of
B.C., told the Straight Reynolds, whose

script by Morris Panych, who is one
of Vancouver's—and Canada's—
most original and prolific play-

al's Award-winning Elizabeth Rex
(October 3 to 28), which will star

association organizes the literary project with TransLink, said all the pieces
that will appear in the usual bus-ad format are ready to roll, but the transit
authority has been unable to organize
its end due to backlogs caused by the
spring-and-summer strike. 1 have a letter saying ifs going to happen this
year/' Reynolds said. "Normally we
would launch in September, We're hoping it will be up in October/' For more
than five years, Poetry in Transit has
featured poems by writers from across
the province.

On the House project are holding a
fundraiser at the North Vancouver playhouse for their productions this
Saturday night (September 8), Starting
last season, Presentation House offered
up its space to three small, venuestarved companies, and this year features Stepping Stones' Faces of Love,
the Out to Lunch Players' Much Ado
About Nothing, and Rock-PaperScissors' Design for Uving. Those three
troupes will provide improv, music, and
short plays at the Make Me a Star
fundraiser; In an added twist they'll
hold a contest, in which the winning
character actor will get a walk-on part
in RPS's April debut of Design for Uving.
Phone 604-990-3474 for tickets.

ON THE MOUSE The venue may come
free, but they still have to raise money
for the show to go on. The three companies chosen to take'partin
Presentation House's second annual

sW'NEXf'PAGE

• JANET SMITH

THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT • SEPTEMBER 6 - 1 3 , 2001 • 1 7