You can check out some young talent from Burnaby at this year's IGNITE! Youth Festival in Vancouver.
The multi-disciplinary arts festival, which is on at the Cultch from May 14 to 19, features drama, music, dance, film, visual arts, variety shows and more.
The festival is entirely youth-driven, being put together by a youth panel and featuring all youth performers.
Burnaby's Joshua Fernandez and Christine Konrad will be featured at the festival on May 16 in a special dance showcase, Night Sky Dreaming.
Hannah Hall will be performing on May 15 as part of Word, a literary arts showcase.
Tickets for shows are $10 regular, $6 for students and seniors or $2 for youth aged 12 to 19.
You can buy online at tickets.thecultch.com or call the box office at 604-251-1363.
For a full schedule of events, check out www. igniteyouthfest.ca.
SUMMER READING
Wondering what to read this summer?
Burnaby librarians are offering up some ideas.
The Burnaby Public Library's McGill branch is hosting Librarians' Choice: Summer is Coming on Thursday, May 17.
Librarians will offer up some fast-paced reviews of fiction and non-fiction books for summer reading.
Everyone is invited, and refreshments will be served.
The session runs from 7 to 8: 30 p.m.
Admission is free, but space is limited. Sign up online at www.bpl.bc.ca (look under Events and Programs), pop in to the library at 4595 Albert St. or call 604-299-8955.
ART IN LIBRARIES
Art lovers, you have another few days to catch the Burnaby Art Gallery's two ongoing community exhibitions at Burnaby public libraries.
At the Bob Prittie (Metrotown) library branch, you can see Pen Pals: Luke Ramsey and Islands Fold.
Ramsey is one of the founding members of Islands Fold, an artist residency on Pender Island.
He has collaborated with more than 100 different artists to date and exhibits his work internationally.
The Bob Prittie library is at 6100 Willingdon Ave.
Over at the McGill library branch in North Burnaby, you can check out Harold Klunder: Works from the Furlan Collection of Contemporary Canadian Prints.
The exhibition includes a number of stone lithographs completed by Klunder at Toronto's Open Studio. They're part of the City of Burnaby's permanent art collections.
The McGill branch is at 4595 Albert St.
Both exhibitions are continuing until May 13. Check out www.burnaby artgallery.ca for more details.
ARTIST CALL
Calling all artists. The Burnaby Arts Council is accepting submissions for 2013 exhibitions at Deer Lake Gallery.
Selected artists will be chosen for three-week exhibitions next year.
Exhibitions can be either group or solo, depending on the decision of the jury.
Artists must not have exhibited at the gallery within the past year, and art works being submitted must have been created in the past two years.
Artists must provide three to five digital images or a 15-minute video of their artwork, along with a brief biography and artist statement, an exhibition proposal and a jury fee.
For complete details, check out www.burnabyartscouncil.org and look for the Call to Artists link under Deer Lake Gallery.
The deadline for submissions is Friday, June 15.
Call 604-298-7322 or email info@burnabyarts council.org for more details about how to apply.
HISTORY REVEALED
A chapter of Japanese Canadian history is being brought into the spotlight at an upcoming book launch at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre.
The centre is hosting a launch event on Saturday, May 19 for Uprooted Again: Japanese Canadians Move to Japan After World War II.
Author Tatsuo Kage will be on hand for the launch event, which runs from 3 to 5 p.m.
Also present will be John Price, a University of Victoria professor; Roy Miki, a retired SFU professor, Grace Eiko Thomson, former president of the National Association of Japanese Canadians; and Thekla Lit, president of B.C. ALPHA (the Association for Learning and Preserving the History of World War II in Asia).
The book looks at the stories of those Japanese Canadians who, at the end of the Second World War, moved back to Japan.
In 1945, before the end of the war, the Canadian government offered to "repatriate" ethnic Japanese to Japan after the war ended - even Canadian-born British subjects.
A press release notes that, although signing up for the move was voluntary, many felt pressured to agree. In 1946, some 4,000 Japanese Canadians travelled by ship back to Japan.
Kage's work is based on interviews with 25 men and women who were among them, and the book chronicles their struggles to adapt and survive in post-war Japan.
Intrigued? For details about the event, call 604777-7000 or check out www.nikkeiplace.org.
Do you have an item for Lively City? Send arts and entertainment ideas to Julie, jmaclellan@burnabynow. com. You can follow her on Twitter, @juliemaclellan, or check out her blog at www. burnabynow.com.
