The season will open with the powerful tragedy OTHELLO enjoying its first staging at the Festival during its two-decade history. In the 520-seat Mainstage tent, Dean Paul Gibson returns after a year’s hiatus (Romeo and Juliet 2007) to stage this great tale of jealousy and deception. The production will be reflected through the silhouette of the Italian Renaissance. Playing in repertory with Othello in the big tent is the deliciously farcical THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. David Mackay, who conceived last season’s hugely popular 1920’s version of Twelfth Night, will direct. This hilarious comedy will be set in the Elizabethan period with a tongue-in-cheek approach to all things Shakespearean. In the intimate 240-seat Douglas Campbell Studio Stage tent, Rachel Ditor makes her Bard directorial debut to stage the romantic drama ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Ms Ditor will give the play a fresh take by placing it in a Victorian setting where sensuous passions hide behind a façade of moral propriety. Rounding out the Studio Stage program is the great history play RICHARD II directed by Bard Artistic Associate Christopher Weddell. The first play in Bard’s 3-year THE KINGS History Cycle, Richard II will be rooted in the medieval period but stylized with modern overtones.

Shakespeare’s stories and themes still resonate across the centuries. In Othello, innocent love falls victim to jealousy, prejudice, deceit and betrayal. When two sets of twins cause villagers to see double in The Comedy of Errors, mistaken identities and merry misunderstandings result in hilarious chaos. In All’s Well That Ends Well a rejected bride uses determination and ingenuity to pursue her husband’s love. Richard II reveals how a king’s foolish decisions cause once loyal counsellors to turn against him.

Run dates and Special Events are as follows:

Othello – May 28 to September 25 (Mainstage tent)

The Comedy of Errors – June 10 to September 26 (Mainstage tent)

All’s Well That Ends Well – June 25 to September 19 (Studio Stage tent)

Richard II – July 8 to September 18 (Studio Stage tent)

Bard Expanded: Lecture Series – SFU’s Dr. Paul Budra gives insight into this year’s plays. June 14, July 5, 19, 26

Celebrating Red & White – Play plus Wine Tasting either before or after the show: August 15

Opera & Arias: Così fan tutté – Members of Vancouver Opera Orchestra & UBC Opera Ensemble: Aug. 31, Sept. 7 & 8

Western Canada’s largest professional Shakespeare company, Bard on the Beach presents its festival in Kitsilano’s Vanier Park adjacent to Vancouver’s downtown core. The productions are staged in open-ended tents on the waterfront against a spectacular backdrop of mountains, sea and sky. Performances run Tuesdays through Sundays. Evening curtain is at 8:00 pm, except Sunday evenings and in September when it is 7:00 pm. Matinees are scheduled on selected weekends and weekdays. Play ticket prices are $34.00 (evenings) and $18.00 to $28.50 (previews & matinees) including taxes. Tickets go on sale March 16. Advance booking is recommended as many performances sell out in advance.

The performance schedule and information can be found on the Bard website at www.bardonthebeach.org. For more information and tickets, call 604-739-0559 or toll free at 1-877-739-0559, or order on-line through the website.

Bard on the Beach gratefully acknowledges Season Sponsor: Starbucks and Production Sponsors: Vancity, RE/MAX and Jaguar/Land Rover Canada. Media sponsors are The Vancouver Sun and Global Television. Calona Vineyards Artist Series is Official Winery, Rogers Chocolates is Official Ice Cream, and Emelle’s Catering is Official Caterer. Bard also thanks the City of Vancouver Cultural Services Department, the Province of British Columbia, and the BC Arts Council for their support.

Fitness Town, now with 8 retail locations to serve you, specializes in supplying the home and commercial markets with mid to high end fitness equipment and accessories. Our chain has grown from a single location in Burnaby to include South Vancouver, Kitsilano, Langley, Port Coquitlam, Surrey, North Vancouver and Edmonton, Alberta.

Fitness Town is also very proud to include an extremely successful commercial division that services the British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, Saskatchewan and North West Territory markets.

Setting us apart from other specialty fitness equipment retailers is Fitness Town’s large showrooms allowing for an unparalleled selection of brand name equipment, accessories, supplements and educational materials on display at all times.

And rounding out the Fitness Town shopping experience is our unyielding customer service focus – a byproduct of our friendly, experienced and professional staff! We at Fitness Town appreciate the opportunity of assisting you with your health and fitness needs!

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Proper Training Technique by Shawn Vint

In fitness, few things can limit progress like a training injury. An injury will usually necessitate a significant training layoff, and can serve to dampen the motivation needed to continue functioning well in the other pillars of a wellness lifestyle.

There are a number of things that one can do to reduce the likelihood of incurring a training injury…choosing an appropriate level of resistance or weight for your fitness level, ensuring that you are giving your muscles enough rest time between sessions, and by the avoidance of performing the exact same exercise movements every training session, which can lead to repetition injuries. The most common cause of injury, however, is improper training technique.

Any individual new to resistance training (weight training) should take the time to learn proper training technique, and nothing accelerates the learning curve like commissioning the services of an experienced and qualified Personal Trainer for a few sessions. They will teach you how to perform proper exercise technique by explaining the reasons why an exercise is chosen, as well as demonstrating and working with you until you are able to perform the movements within your specific program in a manner that’s as safe as it will be effective.

There are a number of training technique consistencies that will be common to all resistance training movements, and these will be the focus of this article. These common techniques don’t specifically address the correct sphere and range of motion of the individual exercises you will be performing. Those issues are best left to a trainer ‘on the scene’ so to speak, who can advise and correct deficiencies in those areas. The common items we will discuss are proper exercise posture, exercise speed, and a few tips that may help you reach your fitness goals faster, while reducing the injuries that slow down progress.

Most of us try to maintain proper posture throughout each day…at least we should. There is a healthy and an unhealthy way to present oneself to the world. I recall in grade school how in ‘health class’ our teacher would exhort us to ‘keep stomach in and shoulders back’. The effect on a bunch of grade-schoolers was rather comical, to say the least, and in hindsight not the best way to teach proper posture. Proper posture is really quite simple, and not as difficult to learn as one might expect. Best of all, the same posture that helps to present ourselves to the world in the best light and healthiest manner is also the best way to perform almost every resistance training movement.

The sternum is commonly referred to as the ‘breast-bone’. Running vertically from the base of the front of the neck to just above our stomach, the sternum attaches to our ribs via cartilage, protecting many vital organs from all but the worst physical trauma. On the first training day I have with every client, I begin with instruction on proper posture and start the lesson with a focus on the sternum. The lesson is as simple as this: ‘Sternum to the sky’…while standing up straight, concentrate on ‘tilting’ the sternum so that the flat front portion of the bone is elevated at an angle that points toward the sky, and most other elements of posture will almost always naturally fall into place. This motion will automatically place the shoulders into proper position and align the spine properly. This is the simplest and most easily understood method that I have found for teaching correct posture positioning, and it translates well onto the gym floor.

Trying to teach 4 or 5 separate elements involving shoulder placement, back curvature and chest position while learning a new movement is just too difficult, even for those with a good grasp of body positioning. Conversely, maintaining awareness of ‘sternum to the sky’ while performing any exercise is a very easy task. During different exercises we find ourselves lying down, bending or squatting, and sometimes I change the terminology to ‘sternum to the chin’, ensuring that regardless of body positioning, proper posture is maintained.

Maintaining correct training posture is crucial for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it will ensure that the muscles you are trying to target are the muscles that in practice are being worked. A common example of the importance of proper training posture is easily recognizable in the chin-up. Watch as someone at the club is performing a set of chin-ups. As they begin, they may have the correct ‘sternum to the sky’ posture, ensuring that the muscles of the back are being worked. As they quickly begin to tire, however, witness how they begin to drop the sternum, rounding the back and pulling their legs up towards the belly as they continue.

As soon as this happens, they have unknowingly transferred most of the workload from the back muscles to the biceps muscles of the arms. It’s a common occurrence, and the reason why it is a good idea to support the feet while performing chin-ups so that you can ‘self-spot’ yourself, maintaining proper training posture and working the back muscles that you intended. That’s just one example, and for every exercise that you perform, maintain the ‘sternum to the chin’ position and you will reap better results with fewer injuries.

In our Exercise Movement Series, I continually advise viewers to ‘go slow through the transition’ in video after video. The transition is best defined as the point in any exercise movement between the negative, or stretch portion of an exercise, and the contraction portion of the movement. For example, as you perform a standard barbell curl, the transition occurs as you reach the bottom of the movement and begin to curl the bar back up to the top, contraction position. That transition moment is the most vulnerable point of the movement, and the point where an injury will most likely occur.

At the point of transition, a large part of the load or resistance is momentarily shifted to the soft tissue of the tendons, and only after the first 2 or 3 inches of motion in the contraction portion of the movement is the load entirely shifted back to the muscle. By ‘bouncing’ the weight at the transition point the tendons, which are by nature very inelastic, are very susceptible to injury.

Instead of bouncing the weight, slow the movement significantly for the last few inches of the negative movement and the first few inches of the contraction portion of the movement. Once you are through this transition stage, accelerate as much as you can, creating force. Force is defined as moving a weight through a given distance in a given time…if the weight and distance remain the same but the time is shortened, more force is generated. This is the subject for another article, but is worth mentioning here as many novice trainers are under the misimpression that one should maintain a constant slow speed throughout an entire exercise movement.

By keeping both correct posture and transition speed in mind while you train, you will enjoy many more years of injury free training, reaping the rewards of that effort.

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The annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival is one of Vancouver’s signature events. Produced over 20 days each January, the PuSh Festival presents groundbreaking work in the live performing arts: theatre, dance, music and various hybrid forms of performance. It attracts acclaimed local, national and international artists and their work.

PuSh expands the horizons of Vancouver artists and audiences with work that is visionary, genre-bending, multi-disciplined, startling and original. Over 23,000 people attended the 2008 festival. Visiting presenters from across Canada and around the world were in attendance for the Assembly networking event to view performances, dialogue and do business.

PuSh is much more than an annual cultural feast for Vancouver: it is a broker of international partnerships, a meeting place for creative minds, a showcase of Canada’s best and an incubator of brilliant new work.

PuSh puts Vancouver on the world stage and brings the world to Vancouver.

Bring your family to Santa’s Workshop and meet reindeer, or take a sleigh ride* through our mystical alpine forest. You can also experience the tranquil beauty of skating on our 8,000 square foot mountaintop Ice Skating Pond, surrounded by snow-topped trees.

Learn more about Santa’s reindeer at our daily ranger interpretive talks or have a digital photo taken with Santa to keep a memento of your Peak of Christmas visit!

The cost of the lift project alone is $52 million Canadian. Construction began in spring of 2007, and it will be the world’s longest unsupported span for a lift of this kind.

The total free span between the towers (two on each peak) is 1.88 miles. The lift covers 2.73 miles between Whistler and Blackcomb peaks.

One advantage for skiers and snowboarders is they’ll now be able to take advantage of cruising both mountains in one day.

“We found that about 12 percent of our visitors would utilize the two mountains on the same day,” said the resort’s communication specialist, Michelle Leroux.

If you were a really fast skier and didn’t encounter a lot of lift lines, it would take about 40 minutes to get between both mountains. But if you went at a normal pace and had to stand in lines, it could take about an hour or longer.

“The gondola creates a whole new experience, and a person could cherry-pick the spots they want to go all in one day,” Leroux said. “In terms of using it as a transportation tool is quite incredible, and it will definitely cut your time to get from one place to the other.”

Each gondola cabin can hold 28 people (22 sitting and six standing) and can transport 2,050 people per hour each way. It takes each gondola about 11 minutes to cross each peak, and one cabin departs every 49 seconds.

The system will have 28 cabins, including two silver-colored gondolas that will feature real glass floors for a bird’s-eye view of Fitzsimmons Valley 1,427 feet below.

The lift is also greener. Since there is no elevation gain, energy consumption is much less than a traditional lift, and it uses less energy than the Emerald Express high-speed quad on Blackcomb.

The resort also utilizes hydro power, which is considered a renewable resource, to power its operations. More than 90 percent of British Columbia’s energy comes from hydro projects rather than electricity derived from burning fossil fuels.

“When you look at the amount of terrain we had to alter it wasn’t much,” Leroux said. “The area where the towers were installed was already cleared, and there was no impact on trees and virgin land.”

Peak 2 Peak site

Enter now for your chance to win a 4-day ski vacation for 2 at the BC resort of your choice and we’ll send you FREE travel information to help you plan your next British Columbia getaway. Full contest details >>

They’ll send you a Free 2009 BC Ski Guide as well (Online or by mail)

The West Coast Christmas Show debuting this November 28-30 at the Tradex Exhibition Centre, is Western Canada’s first Holiday Season Show that brings together under one roof Holiday décor, gifts, food, personal services, festive seminars and celebrity stage presentations.

Visitors to the West Coast Christmas Show will discover amongst the multitude of exhibits new ideas and products for holiday gift shopping, entertaining and home decorating. Amongst the many exhibits visitors will find a wide range of holiday decor items, holiday spirits & wine, specialty foods, beverages, condiments, seasonings, cheeses and chocolates along with unique and hard to find gift items both from artisans as well as unique manufacturers.

New holiday decorating ideas will abound throughout the show amongst the unique seasonal décor exhibits as well as on the HGTV Festive Decor Stage where HG Television celebrities will teach and entertain with the latest in design and décor ideas for the home.

Also featured will be wineries and  spirits vendors sampling their products in the adults only Holiday Spirits Tasting Pavilion. In the adjacent Grapes & Hops Presentation Stage area continuous seminars will be conducted on mixology and wine and liquor tasting and appreciation.

With 27 days remaining before Christmas, the West Coast Christmas Show’s timing is perfect for visitors to stock up on holiday entertaining needs and discover new ideas on home decorating and entertaining for a fun-filled Holiday Season.

Christmas at Canada Place – Dec 4th to 31st (Light shows from 6pm to 10pm nightly) – See Canada Place like never before as we unveil Christmas at Canada Place… On the Sails! This year’s event features high impact holiday light shows from December 4 to 31 on Canada Place’s iconic five sails. Viewable from Coal Harbour, Stanley Park, the North Shore, Gastown and Carol Ships on the water, watch as Canada Place’s sails transform into a dazzling display of light and colour.

It’s not about overhauling your life; it’s about one act from each individual amassing to a million. It can be as simple as switching to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, starting a recycling program, or walking to work. You can do one act – or you can do all one million! It’s up to you.

Young and old, parents and kids, small towns and big cities, we want to create an exciting grassroots initiative. All you have to do is go to this website and register one act – or more. Our green calculator, designed by GreenNexxus, will determine the impact of those acts on the environment.

We’re asking everyone to get involved: schools and universities, cities and communities, business, politicians, and even celebrities. George and The Hour are challenging other CBC programs to go green, including CBC News, Kids’ CBC, Steven & Chris, Living, and CBC Sports. But most of all, YOU.

Together we can make an impact. Together we can make our lives, our communities, and our environment greener.

One million acts of green, one act a time.

What is an Act of Green?

An Act of Green is an opportunity to help the environment. It’s you reducing your greenhouse gas emissions. It’s your contribution to fighting global warming. It may be something simple like changing your light bulbs – swapping out the old ones for the new twirly ones – or it could be something big like building a windmill to help power your home. Either way, it’s up to you. It’s about bringing people together to help the environment. It’s about reaching One Million Acts of Green, one act at time.