Chutzpah! Festival features performers from around the world


Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company

VANCOUVER — The city’s Chutzpah! Festival, which includes music, theatre and dance and features artists from around the world, opens today and runs through March 1.

This year’s lineup includes Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company; Grammy Award-winners The Klezmatics, who are teaming up with African-American gospel singer Joshua Nelson; and a jazz-blues comedy cabaret by Rain Pryor, daughter of the late comedian Richard Pryor.

The opening night gala features comedians Ross Bennett, Brad Zimmerman, Tom Cotter and Cory Kahaney in Pastrami on Rye…With Mayo, while other highlights include a performance by the Andy Statman Trio, whose CD, East Flatbush Blues, was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award.

Excitement for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games is mounting, and this year’s Chutzpah! Festival coincides with performances that form part of the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad 2009, a few weeks of artistic celebration in the city.

The Olympiad has given financial and marketing support to Chutzpah! since 2008 and will continue to do so until 2010. “It’s been a great partnership, and it’s too bad it has to end next year,” says Mary Louise Albert, the festival’s managing director and the artistic managing director of the Norman Rothstein Theatre in Vancouver.

While most of the Chutzpah! performances will take place at the Norman Rothstein Theatre and the Wosk Cabaret at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, this year a few other venues have been added for Chutzpah! productions. Audiences will also be applauding in the auditoriums of the Chan Centre for Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia, the Vancouver Playhouse and the Firehall Arts Centre.

That means an even wider exposure to the greater community than usual, says Albert, who expects a festival turnout of approximately 8,000. “We always get a larger audience than just the Jewish community, but this year’s festival will increase opportunities for the general and Jewish community to see professional art that has a link with a broad range of what it is to be Jewish.”

The Chutzpah! Festival: The Lisa Nemetz International Showcase of Jewish Performing Arts was named for  Lisa Nemetz, a dancer, lawyer and arts advocate. A Vancouverite, Nemetz died of breast cancer in 1997, while in her early 30s. Her husband, David Levi, is an ongoing supporter of the festival in honour of her memory.

The website address of the Chutzpah! Festival is www.chutzpahfestival.com.