The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 40

1 1 illlNlUJLill 1 C4 The Weekend Sun Saturday, February 8, 1 997 Arts Entertainment Editor Bart Jackson 732-21 20 FAX 732-2521 WEEKEND FOCUS Off to the cultural crusades wm "Miunp mww-' Vs" i -s- GLENN BAGLOVancouver Sun of two Western representatives at Sheila Copps' summit on culture GETTING A LEG UP: Ellie 0' Day gathers material in preparation for her trip to Ottawa as one CATHERINE MONK THE SCENE KERRY GOLD A YOUNG ACTOR HAS GONE from lessons at Queen Elizabeth elementary to lessons at the school of Jim Carrey. Vancouver actor Blair Slater, 12, is taking a break from filming the next Carrey vehicle, The TruemanShow, with legendary Australian director Peter Weir Year of Living Dangerously, Dead Poets Society). Lessons with Carrey have so far included the invaluable "worm face" and "devil face." Carrey has made millions off his facial gyrations, so Slater is paying close attention to the inside techniques of a master: "The worm face is hands up on the face, sticking tongue out through the hands and wiggling fingers all around," he explains. "The devil is mainly tongue out, eyes cross, fingers on the head." Slater is one of three young actors who portray Carrey throughout his strangely confined life on a sound-stage, where he is constantly observed by a camera and unable to go outside. He got the part for his uncanny resemblance to the high-priced comedian, hence the need to mimic the ever-contorting face (if that's humanly possible) It's Slater's first big break into feature films, but he's no stranger to the industry.

He is currently co-starring in The Adventures of Shirley Holmes on YTV, starting Feb. 24, and he's previously appeared in Bye Bye Birdie with Jason Alexander. "In this business you need work to get work," he says like a pro. "Hopefully this will bring in the other roles." As for the demands of celebrity, the kids at QE generally don't care about Slater's sideline. "Those are the ones I like the best.

They don't pester me." The release date for The Trueman Show is Aug. 8. IF SINGING KARAOKE with Barry Manilow or John Denver hits leaves you cold, try singing to '80s hits at the first New Wave-aoke night. It's the brain child of Lisa Bowmar, a fixture on the Vancouver punk scene, who started operating punk-aoke nights a year ago, and is pre-miering New Wave-aoke tonight at the Railway Club. Instead of a karaoke machine and saccharin visuals, however, Bowmar offers a live backup band (featuring Dave Ginn from the Matthew Good Band) and lyric sheets.

"We're trying to get out our new wave outfits," says Bowmar. "I hit Value Village and got the guys some skinny ties." Bowmar got the idea when visiting friends in San Francisco. She visited a gay bar, and her friends got up on stage and started belting out a grunge version of a Madonna number, and it dawned on her that alternative karaoke might be a surefire hit. She started holding punk-aoke nights at the Waldorf I lotel on Hastings Street, and suddenly she couldn't keep Joey Ramone impersonators off the stage. I ler next plan is to hold glam-aoke nights, featuring the music of David Bowie, Gary Glitter, T.Rex.

The New Wave-aoke show starts at 10 p.m. TORRIE GROENING, OWNER of Prior Editions print studio, has puljed together a collection of works by 13 B.C. artists in a show called Heartfelt, unveiled Thursday night. In time for Valentine's Day, the theme is love, and the only requirement is that nd' body gets too cynical in their treat- mcnt of the topic, says Groening. The result is an edition of 55 hand-pulled prints created at the studio and fea4 turing the works of artists Vikky Alexander, Joe Average, Jack Shadbolt, Ross Pcnhall, Carel Moi-seiwitsch, Brian Musson, Eric Metcalfe, Deborah Koenker, Angela Grossmann, David Ostrem, Ed Pien, Doug Biden and Groening herself.

It's the first time this group has worked together with a common theme, says Groening. The entire signed set of 13 prints sells for individually each print is $300, except for the Shad-bolts, which sell for $400. Groening established Prior Editions six years ago to create original prints for guest artists in her east side stud io. She recently held a show of Joe Average hand-pulled prints. Heartfelt runs Feb.

6-21, at the Vancouver Art Gallery Rental Sales Gallery at 750 Hornby from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday," and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. Call 662-4716 for information. Music industry lobbyist Ellie O'Day warns we're burying our heads in the sand as the threat of U.S.

colonialism looms larger. ture: a gathering of more than 30 federal ministers, arts advocates and entertainment legal specialists. The meeting has no set agenda other than talking about problems such as copyright protections and split-run magazines. "It's just a brainstorming session," says O'Day, who undoubtedly knows the Canadian arts scene inside and out. Ironically, she says it's her American roots that give her the most insight.

As an expatriate who headed north from Pittsburgh in 1971, O'Day has watched Canadians escape the big, Yankee cannon of culture by burying their heads in the sand. And while she has no lofty expectations of fixing 130 years of history at the Copps summit this weekend, O'Day says she is hoping to raise awareness of the dangers of American colonialism. "I grew up in the States and there's a huge difference between Texas and Florida, and this whole idea of a homogenous culture outside of blue jeans is completely bogus. "The U.S. government has tried to brainwash, er, impose this homogenous image on the people and it's a complete fiction," says the one-time cultural anthropology graduate student who landed her first job as a teaching assistant at the University of Alberta.

Please see O'Day, CU Sun Pop Musk Critic Ellie O'Day says forget about the World Trade Organization, forget about new technologies the biggest threat to Canadian culture is public opinion. O'Day, a music industry lobbyist and former broadcaster.is one of two westerners heading to Ottawa this weekend to take part in Sheila Copps' summit on cultural policy. She says the only lasting solution to Canada's cultural woes will come from a complete re-thinking of how we perceive the arts. "I think there's a lot of focus on this recent World Trade Organization decision to allow split-run magazines one for domestic U.S. consumption with American ads, another, virtually similar, edition for Canada with Canadian ads," O'Day says.

"Then International Trade Minister Art Eggleton rang the alarm bell, saying that perhaps all the existing rules were out the window in the face of new technologies, and the media jumped all over it," says O'Day, referring to Eggleton's Jan. 27 speech at York University. "Sure, it's time to come up with a new paradigm, new rules for a changing society. But it goes deeper than that," says O'Day. In the face of 25-per-cent cuts to B.C.

arts funding, the recent reduction of staff and services at the CBC and the general shift toward a "no frills" economy, O'Day says we're heading for disaster. "People don't really understand what's really at stake here. They see arts funding as an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer when really it's about maintaining a healthy society," she says from her Vancouver office of the Pacific Music Industry Association (a non-profit, provincial support and lobby group for music professionals). O'Day has held down the fort at the PMIA as executive director for the last 6 years. She sits on the boards of BC Film and the Vancouver Cultural Alliance.

She's also a 17-year veteran of broadcasting with such stations as CFOX and CBC. Her reputation as a passionate advocate of the arts won her an invitation to Copps' Round Table on Cul TV mogul Fecan tries to listen to all of Vancouver at once tered across Ontario, and Alberta. For now, tr priority is getting CIV ground and on the air in bor Day. The day-to-day running tion will be left to somebc most likely somebody fro Canada but the proces ing who that person wi who will be responsible fo the station in time for i start-up date, could take from six to eight weeks. In the meantime, Fecan couver, as he puts it, to lis sound out the local mood "Putting a station on th ALEX STRACHAN Sun uic Ivan Fccan is squirreled away in a downtown Vancouver hotel room with Baton Broadcasting vice-president Bruce Cowie, juggling a constant stream of phone calls, a fax machine that won't stop spitting out paper and a table of laptop computers that demand immediate attention.

Fccan self-admitted television addict, former creative vice-president at NBC (no, he didn't coin the expression "Must See TV" but he did give Jamie Tarses, ABC's newly installed program chief, her first job in die business) and former program head at CBC-TV is suffering through the birth pangs of CIVT-TV, Vancouver's first new conventional over-the-air television station in 20 years. "We're really here to listen for the next thrce or four days," Fecan says quietly, as a phone rings in the background. "We're developing things in our mind, throwing things back and forth, seeing what comes out." Toronto-based Baton, a major player in the CTV television network, rode a commitment to com munity-based news and a promised injection of capital into B.C's indigenous production community to win the bid to become Vancouver's first new TV station since CKVU's transmitter went on the air in 1977. The Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission licensing decision came just one week ago, and the phones haven't stopped ringing since. Cowie, already on one phone, reaches across the room for another.

Fecan throws up his hands in playful exasperation. Rumors are rife that every TV reporter in the city with an axe to grind and a highlight tape to show is looking to jump ship to the new station. CIVT doesn't even have a general manager yet, let alone a news director, but that isn't stopping the phones from ringing. (Former BCTV news chief Cameron Bell, an advisor to Baton during the application proceedings, hasn't yet decided if he is interested.) As Baton's president and chief executive officer, Fecan (pronounced fet-SAN) is primarily responsible for the station group's 24 stations scat a bit of a specialty, so the thing we want to make su that we get to air when say we will." Please set Fecan, C6 KIM STALIKNECHTSun HANDS-ON iMd APPROACH: Ivan Fecan Is determined to get his new TV station CIVT on the air by Sept. 1.

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