Sarah Ruhl is one of the best American playwrights working today, and Virginia Woolf is one of the best English writers of all time. Their forces combined make Orlando, a stage adaptation of Woolf’s fantastical 1928 novel, a masterful experiment. Director Matthew Thomas Walker, with the company of Dalhousie’s Fountain School of Performing Arts fourth […]
Michael Lake
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Review: Bone Cage
Catherine Banks’s Governor General’s award-winning play Bone Cage is brought back to the Halifax stage by the intrepid Matchstick Theatre, and on the play’s tenth anniversary, no less. The story has its characters in rural Nova Scotia, a down-and-out bunch of young men and women, whose work is clearcutting the forest and mourning its wounds. Jamie […]
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Review: Compañia Sharon Fridman
The two pieces presented by Spanish dance company, Compañia Sharon Fridman, are based in the technique of contact improvisation. The resulting movement is wonderfully fluid and allows pairs or groups of bodies to move and balance in ways that should be impossible. The dancers support one another and move as a single unit. A foot […]
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DaPoPo’s Live-In travels across artistic lines
DaPoPo Theatre’s Live-In To Oct 31 Full schedule at facebook.com/DaPoPoTheatre With its net cast wider than ever, DaPoPo Theatre’s Live-In Festival is nine years old and going strong. “In contrast to previous years, we have curated a little less but opened the doors wider,” says Garry Williams, DaPoPo’s artistic director. This year’s festival theme is […]
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Book review: Joey Comeau, Malagash
Sunday’s father is dying of cancer and he wants to go back to his hometown of Malagash to die. The kids, Sunday and her little brother Simon, are school-aged, and so the whole family packs up for the north shore of Nova Scotia. It’s like summer vacation with the wonder of bucolic nature, except it’s […]
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Review: Seeds
Seeds is a documentary play that explores the four-year legal battle between Monsanto and Percy Schmeiser, a Saskatchewan farmer who the corporation took to court after a crop from their patented seed was found on his land. The play questions notions of the rights of corporations to patent a living thing, and the public’s acceptance […]
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Dancing to the power of women at Prismatic
“R e-Quickening is the first moment a woman feels life in her womb,” says Santee Smith. “When a baby starts to move and you feel that life, that is a term called ‘re-quickening.’ In my Mohawk background we have a re-quickening address, which is about bringing people back to wholeness and wellness.” Smith is the […]
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Backbone slides into town
Backbone November 17, 8pm Spatz Theatre $30/$25/$20 Students Red Sky Performance is one of Canada’s leading companies creating contemporary Indigenous performance in Canada. Founded in 2000 by Sandra Laronde, originally from Teme-Augama-Anishinaabe (People of the Deep Water) in Temapgami, northern Ontario, Red Sky has since had hundreds of performances across Canada and around the world. […]
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Prismatic shines
Prismatic Arts Festival September 14-23 various locations prismaticfestival.com Prismatic Arts Festival is gearing up for an exciting line-up of events, performances and artist talks. Don’t miss tonight’s opening gala at the Halifax Central Library with Reeny Smith, Rebecca Thomas and Hubert Francis and a performance by the Wabanaki Confederacy Singers, are a Northern Powwow styled […]
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Iron born
Burnwater:Alchemy September 13-17, 7 pm Alderney Landing Theatre, 2 Ochterloney Street $20/$25 Nova Scotian blacksmith John Little is the inspiration for Burnwater: Alchemy, an immersive performance installation. “The piece is inspired by the experience of being on John Little’s land,” says co-director and performer Susanne Chui. Created in collaboration with Mocean Dance and Hear Here […]
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Stop Kiss‘ love and tragedy
Stop Kiss Sat Sep 9, 1pm & 7:10pm The Waiting Room, 6040 Almon Street $7/$10 Stop Kiss is Whale Song Theatre’s second show, after a successful sold-out run of Heathers: The Musical last February. “I brought the script to Laura [Thornton], the artistic producer of Whale Song Theatre,” says Emily Jewer, who plays Sara in […]
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Nicky’s Solo Improvised Musical is off the cuff
Nicky’s Solo Improvised Musical Thu Sep 7, 10:50pm; Fri Sep 8 7pm; Sat Sep 9 3:50pm; Sun Sep 10 1:20pm, 9:50pm Old Pool Hall Theatre, 6050-6070 Almon Street $12/$15 Toronto musician and comedian Nicky Nasrallah has set himself the task of creating a new improvised musical for each performance of his Fringe show. “Having studied […]
