A friend of mine recently tweeted: “Does anyone else find weekends hard lately? How many walks to nowhere can you take?” Her replies were filled with commiserators, people who felt like the Sunday Scaries were taking over Friday night instead. Part of it was the grey slog that is February, sure—but part of it was the cumulative fatigue of a two-year-long global pandemic.
Eventually February ended and, on March 21, practically all of the restrictions Nova Scotia used to stall the spread of COVID-19 will end, too. But we don’t have to wait until then to have something to do. We are already in the penultimate phase of reopening from pandemic limitations, and alongside the first sightings of spring crocuses, there’s another harvest to tide us over: A crop of local, live, in-person arts and cultural events that’ll see your day planner filling up as if it was January 2020 (although you’ll still need to bring a mask and some sense of social distancing).
As I’ve said repeatedly over the pandemic, the world might’ve stopped in the face of COVID, but art never did. Once again, it’s an industry and community that’s ahead of the trend—this time, by giving us the offline experiences we’ve been craving weeks before the province’s formal reopening completes.
Here’s what’s happening:
This Saturday, Live Art Dance, the ambitious and exciting company that brings global dance companies to Halifax, has its first show since COVID began. See the Dora award-winning Red Sky Dance perform the multimedia show Trace at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium (6101 University Ave) March 12, 8pm. Tickets are $30-$40 at liveartdance.ca.
Neptune Theatre has ridden the waves of the pandemic with closures, reopenings, one-off events and an online streaming portal. Last week, though, it pressed play on a new live, in-person performance: The Nova Scotian-set story Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story. The one-person musical starring Jeremiah Sparks runs until March 20. Get tickets, showtimes and more on Neptune’s site.
Halifax Public Libraries restarts in-person programming as of next week (March 14). The community hubs kept the city humming through the pandi with take-home activities and socially distanced options, but now things like live music will be back. Stay tuned for an African Heritage Month showcase at Woodlawn Public Library at 9pm on March 17 featuring some of the hottest names in local R&B.
The Carleton (1685 Argyle Street) has a St. Patrick’s Day concert—its first since 2019—that’s worth wearing green for on March 17, with fiddler Shannon Quinn performing a free set from 1-4pm.
While Symphony Nova Scotia offered a slate of both online and COVID-complying shows throughout the pandemic, it returns to programming as usual on March 18 with a duo of shows by Halifax’s own bearded balladeer Ben Caplan. See the performance at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium (6101 University Ave) March 18-19 at 7:30pm. Tickets start at $19 and are available through the Symphony’s site.
Of course, as the city reopens, there’ll be no shortage of local culture to look forward to, from dance to comedy to theatre. After two years on the couch, I’m ready for all of it. If you are, too, keep an eye on The Coast’s entertainment listings for more!
This article appears in Mar 1-30, 2022.
