Thursday, May 30, 2019
Concert Announcement Elizabeth Gilbert is coming to Halifax
The Big Magic author is the headliner of a personal development weekend in town this October.
Posted By Morgan Mullin on Thu, May 30, 2019 at 5:15 PM
A two-day event in October, Soul Tribe Live promises to be (according to its website) an "immersive program of workshops and seminars" that'll help you sort out your life and get closer to your dreams. Held at the Halifax Convention Centre Oct 11 and 12, the biggest draw is star speaker Elizabeth Gilbert, who'll be leading a Saturday workshop and giving a Friday evening keynote. Tickets are steep—starting at $65 and climbing to $490—but for the chance to see the Eat, Pray, Love author clear our skin, fix our credit and help us find our ultimate purpose we're considering breaking the ol' piggy bank. Get more details at soultribelive.ca.
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Nocturne wants your project pitches
Posted By Tara Thorne on Wed, May 29, 2019 at 2:13 PM
Nocturne, Halifax's annual nighttime art extravaganza, dropping a week earlier than usual this year on October 19, is looking for project pitches. The year's theme, as set by curator Tori Fleming, is SCAFFOLD, which aims to "explore how temporary structures can be used to make a larger commentary on the social, physical, and political structures that shape our lives. Who decides the purpose, form, and design of our physical spaces? Who dictates the rules of how we behave within those spaces?"
Artists and collectives with Beacon Project ideas have a June 9 deadline coming up fast. Community groups and galleries have until July 31. Apply via Nocturne's website.
(Disclosure: The Coast's events and promotions director, Lindsay Ann Cory, is Nocturne's executive director.)
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Concert Announcement David Sedaris is coming back to Halifax in August
The bestselling humourist is on tour with his latest book, Calypso.
Posted By Jennifer Cruickshank on Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 2:52 PM
On August 6, storyteller David Sedaris is returning to Halifax for a one-night reading event, "An Evening With David Sedaris."
With the release of his latest book Calypso—yet another Sedaris entry on the The New York Times Bestseller List—Sedaris is touring once again. Calypso is earning praise as Sedaris' most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book yet, following him as he talks about morality and middle age.
Sedaris was last in Halifax nearly a decade ago, doing a reading at the Darmouth Chapters in November, 2010. The crowd was so big, and so into Sedaris, that he signed books afterwards for five hours and 45 minutes.
This time around, the venue is the much larger Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, but it's still likely to sell out when tickets go on sale Friday, May 10, at noon. Prices range from $41.50 to $51.50, and will be available through the Cohn box office. For a taste of Calypso, here's an excerpt from the audiobook version:
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Nominations for the 2019 Merritt Awards for theatre are out now
Posted By Tara Thorne on Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 4:45 PM
Eastern Front Theatre (Kamp and Half-Cracked: The Legend of Sugar Mary), Neptune Theatre (Mamma Mia and Cinderella) and Two Planks and a Passion (Animal Farm) are among the double-digit nominees for this year's Robert Merritt Awards, which celebrate excellence in Nova Scotia theatre. Also among the nods are Workshirt Opera's Tom at the Farm and HomeFirst Theatre's Some Blow Flutes. End the suspense by clicking here.
The awards gala—its two hosts are being kept secret until the show—is happening Monday, March 25 at the McInnes Room on Dalhousie campus. Get your tix here.
Neptune Theatre launches 2019-20 season
Posted By Tara Thorne on Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 3:52 PM
Neptune Theatre announced its new season this afternoon, with artistic producer Jeremy Webb summing it up thusly: "This year we're celebrating more Atlantic Canadian works, talent and stories about female empowerment." Joining the previously announced Billy Eliot the Musical (April 14-June 7) as the season closer:
Argyle Street Kitchen Party (July 23-August 25): Last year's summertime singalong returns with new special guests.
The Last Wife (September 10-October 6): Kate Hennig's modern-day telling of the relationship between Catherine Parr and King Henry VIII is directed by Natasha MacLellan.
Pleasureville (October 1-20): The world premiere of Ellen Denny's play is billed as "half-sex toy gag, half-feminist debate."
Between Breaths (October 22-November 10): Based on the life of Newfoundland whale rescuer Jon Lien, this production features music composed by The Once.
Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (October 30-November 17): 2b theatre's multiple Merritt-winning Jewish musical comes in from two years on the road.
Dickens' A Christmas Carol (November 27-December 28): The annual tradition returns with Rhys Bevan-John once again in all the parts.
Peter Pan (November 26-January 5): This year's holiday entry is written and directed by Webb.
The Last Five Years (January 21-February 9): The beloved musical follows two New Yorkers who fall in and out of love.
Controlled Damage (February 4-23): The world premiere of Andrea Scott's dramatization of the life of Viola Desmond.
Calendar Girls (March 3-29): Based on the 2003 film starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters about a group of women posing for an "alternative" fundraising calendar.
Ghost Light (March 17-April 5): New Brunswick's Shawn Wright performs this autobiographical show about his relationship with his mother.
Monday, June 11, 2018
Friday, May 11, 2018
Your 2018 Atlantic Book Award winners
Posted By Tara Thorne on Fri, May 11, 2018 at 10:40 AM
Thirteen awards were handed out last night at Paul O'Regan Hall to the authors, illustrators and publishers representing the best of the past year in Atlantic Canadian literary offerings. The winners:
Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction
Barrelling Forward by Eva Crocker (House of Anansi Press)
Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
The Painting by Charis Cotter (Tundra Books)
Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association’s Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
Goose Lane Editions for Powered by Love: A Grandmothers’ Movement to End AIDS in Africa by Joanna Henry, Ilana Landberg-Lewis
Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing
The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest by Joan Baxter (Pottersfield Press)
The Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award
(Non-Fiction)
The Sea Was In Their Blood: The Disappearance of the Miss Ally’s Five-Man Crew by Quentin Casey (Nimbus Publishing)
Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
Nova Scotia at War, 1914-1919 by Brian Douglas Tennyson
(Nimbus Publishing)
Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
The Long Way Home: A Personal History of Nova Scotia by
John DeMont (McClelland & Stewart)
Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)
Peninsula Sinking by David Huebert (Biblioasis)
J.M. Abraham Poetry Award
All the Names Between by Julia McCarthy (Brick Books)
Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in Illustration
Sydney Smith for Town is by the Sea, written by Joanne Schwartz
(Groundwood Books)
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Fiction)
All is Beauty Now by Sarah Faber (McClelland & Stewart)
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Non-Fiction)
Just Jen: Thriving Through Multiple Sclerosis by Jen Powley (Roseway Publishing)
Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
Blood Fable by Oisin Curran (Book*hug)
Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction
Barrelling Forward by Eva Crocker (House of Anansi Press)
Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
The Painting by Charis Cotter (Tundra Books)
Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association’s Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
Goose Lane Editions for Powered by Love: A Grandmothers’ Movement to End AIDS in Africa by Joanna Henry, Ilana Landberg-Lewis
Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing
The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest by Joan Baxter (Pottersfield Press)
The Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award
(Non-Fiction)
The Sea Was In Their Blood: The Disappearance of the Miss Ally’s Five-Man Crew by Quentin Casey (Nimbus Publishing)
Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
Nova Scotia at War, 1914-1919 by Brian Douglas Tennyson
(Nimbus Publishing)
Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
The Long Way Home: A Personal History of Nova Scotia by
John DeMont (McClelland & Stewart)
Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)
Peninsula Sinking by David Huebert (Biblioasis)
J.M. Abraham Poetry Award
All the Names Between by Julia McCarthy (Brick Books)
Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in Illustration
Sydney Smith for Town is by the Sea, written by Joanne Schwartz
(Groundwood Books)
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Fiction)
All is Beauty Now by Sarah Faber (McClelland & Stewart)
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Non-Fiction)
Just Jen: Thriving Through Multiple Sclerosis by Jen Powley (Roseway Publishing)
Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
Blood Fable by Oisin Curran (Book*hug)
Monday, April 23, 2018
Afua Cooper is Halifax's new poet laureate
Posted By Jacob Boon on Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 6:55 PM
The municipality's next poet laureate has no shortage of work experience.
Afua Cooper, best-selling author and one of the country's most celebrated voices of Black Canadian history, is now Halifax's poet-in-residence.
“Poetry brings people together,” Cooper writes in a press release announcing the news. “It is my honour to serve as the municipality’s poetry ambassador.”
She comes highly recommended. Chair and founder of the Black Canadian Studies Association, and former James R. Johnston
Originally from Jamaica, Cooper moved to Toronto in the 1980s where she received her PhD in African-Canadian history. She's published five books of poetry, as well as other works of fiction, historical research and essays. She also co-created Black Halifax—a poetry and spoken word presentation chronicling the 300-year history of African Nova Scotians in this city.
Her book, The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Slavery in Canada and the Burning of Old Montreal, was a national bestseller, shortlisted for the Governor General Award and selected by CBC as one of the most important works published in Canada.
“We’re very pleased to appoint
Cooper becomes the seventh poet laureate for the Halifax Regional Municipality since the program's launch. She follows in the footsteps of Sue MacLeod, Lorri Neilson Glenn, Shauntay Grant, Tanya Davis, El Jones and most recently, Rebecca Thomas.
The municipality’s poet laureate serves as an ambassador for literacy and the arts, performing at civic events and composing original works of poetry for community causes.
Although ceremonial, the position has become a powerful voice of activism within HRM.
Jones used her time as poet laureate to routinely fight against racism and inequality across Halifax. Likewise, Thomas reignited a debate about Edward Cornwallis that culminated this past January with the city's problematic founder having his statue removed from the south end park that still bears his name.
For their efforts, poets receive a $4,000 honorarium from the city over the course of their two-year term.
Cooper's introduction to city council and first official performance will take place Tuesday morning during a meeting of HRM's Committee of the Whole.
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Great idea alert Sickboy seeks applicants for the Sickboy Wish Fund
Podcasters invite adults to make-a-wish.
Posted By Noah Widmeyer on Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 5:06 PM
“The whole idea came from a running joke on the podcast that I had wasted my Children’s Wish,” says Jeremie Saunders.
In 2002, when Saunders was given the opportunity to make one wish, he chose a shopping spree. Many teens would do the same. Now he deeply regrets the decision, and that remorse has motivated him to start the Sickboy Wish Fund.
Saunders has Cystic Fibrosis. His illness and the stigmas around living with an illness inspired him to start the popular Sickboy podcast along with his friends Taylor Macgillivary and Brian Stever. It features people with all different forms of illness, from mental toterminal , openly discussing life.
Sixteen years have passed since the loathsome Halifax Shopping Centre spree and for his 30th birthday, Saunders wants to help one lucky adult to make a wish of their own.
Since we all make bad decisions when we’re young, the winner will get to make one well-devised wish. “Carte blanche,” says Saunders, as long as you’re a “sicko”, have never had a Children’s Wish and are 19 years or older.
You can nominate yourself or someone else by filling out an application or making a video.
“To raise the funds for this wish we are throwing a huge fundraiser called SickWish Gala. The theme of this party is Bucket List,” says Saunders. With the help of VR, "people can fulfil bucket list goals, like a fly in space or swim to the bottom of the ocean."
The gala will be held at the Museum of Natural History on January 13, partnering with its new and timely Bodyworlds exhibit.
Applications will be closing in the early new year, you can find the form here.
Oh, and no shopping sprees allowed for wishes.
In 2002, when Saunders was given the opportunity to make one wish, he chose a shopping spree. Many teens would do the same. Now he deeply regrets the decision, and that remorse has motivated him to start the Sickboy Wish Fund.
Saunders has Cystic Fibrosis. His illness and the stigmas around living with an illness inspired him to start the popular Sickboy podcast along with his friends Taylor Macgillivary and Brian Stever. It features people with all different forms of illness, from mental to
Sixteen years have passed since the loathsome Halifax Shopping Centre spree and for his 30th birthday, Saunders wants to help one lucky adult to make a wish of their own.
Since we all make bad decisions when we’re young, the winner will get to make one well-devised wish. “Carte blanche,” says Saunders, as long as you’re a “sicko”, have never had a Children’s Wish and are 19 years or older.
You can nominate yourself or someone else by filling out an application or making a video.
“To raise the funds for this wish we are throwing a huge fundraiser called SickWish Gala. The theme of this party is Bucket List,” says Saunders. With the help of VR, "people can fulfil bucket list goals, like a fly in space or swim to the bottom of the ocean."
The gala will be held at the Museum of Natural History on January 13, partnering with its new and timely Bodyworlds exhibit.
Applications will be closing in the early new year, you can find the form here.
Oh, and no shopping sprees allowed for wishes.
💥🔥 BIG ANNOUNCEMENT 🔥💥 introducing the SickBoy Wish Fund. For details/to nominate or apply visit https://t.co/jHstcdxIar #makeasickwish pic.twitter.com/wbfI0CAg24
— Sickboy Podcast (@sickboypodcast) December 13, 2017
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
City nails new Halifax Explosion memorial
Video tour: No boring plaques among Needham park 100th anniversary additions.
Posted By Noah Widmeyer on Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 5:14 PM
When Haligonians gather December 6 at Fort Needham Memorial Park to remember the blast that devastated the city 100 years ago, they will find some informative architecture has been added to the grounds around the old bell tower monument. The new commemorative elements don’t take the form of strenuous plaques droning on about the Imo, the Mont Blanc and the snow storm that exacerbated the damage, but instead feature brief, thoughtful designs. This is memorial as graceful public art.
Among the recent HX 100 installations are a staircase that reads “Richmond’—the name of the community the explosion destroyed—when you’re facing up it from the bottom, and Vince Coleman’s last Morse code message cut into corten steel (reminiscent of a ship’s hull). Details are intricately placed throughout the park, a nice alternative to a tribute bench. Although there are some new benches, complete with hidden facts related to the explosion itself.
The HRM invested $2.7 million to revitalize the site, hiring Ekistics Planning & Design to develop the look. John deWolf, a designer and Halifax native who has worked on signage projects for Disney, Chicago Park District, Yale University and Parks Canada, was part of the creative team. In this video he gives a guided tour of some of Needham’s changes.
Among the recent HX 100 installations are a staircase that reads “Richmond’—the name of the community the explosion destroyed—when you’re facing up it from the bottom, and Vince Coleman’s last Morse code message cut into corten steel (reminiscent of a ship’s hull). Details are intricately placed throughout the park, a nice alternative to a tribute bench. Although there are some new benches, complete with hidden facts related to the explosion itself.
The HRM invested $2.7 million to revitalize the site, hiring Ekistics Planning & Design to develop the look. John deWolf, a designer and Halifax native who has worked on signage projects for Disney, Chicago Park District, Yale University and Parks Canada, was part of the creative team. In this video he gives a guided tour of some of Needham’s changes.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
In Memoriam: Dunsworth and Downie
Posted By Kyle Shaw on Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 12:19 PM
This has been a horrible week in Canadian culture. On Monday, local actor John Dunsworth passed away at 71, after a short and unexpected illness. Then 53-year-old Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip followed him, succumbing on Wednesday to a brain cancer that was widely discussed from the moment he announced its existence more than a year ago.
Dunsworth was an early believer in the idea of a Nova Scotia film industry, a passion that risked him earning the backhanded compliment of being “a man ahead of his time.” But through some combination of Dunsworth’s tenacity behind the scenes and the whims of cross-continental economics, he is better remembered as a founding father of the local film economy.
He was a large presence in front of the camera, too, both as an actor and, through his Filmworks Casting agency, as an advocate for actors. Of course he worked with Ellen Page and played Mr. Lahey on Trailer Park Boys, but he also committed to scores of smaller roles. Whether working of just being himself, he was a star, and he unselfishly shared that energy. At a Best of Halifax party, he sensed the room was a bit flat, so he did a headstand. Popped up right there on the floor of the AGNS, with no equipment or crowd-gathering preamble—although the crowd magically found him—and when he came down the party was better.
Like Dunsworth, Gord Downie had incredible charisma as a personality, while retaining humility as a person. The first time I met Downie, after he’d done a long day of interviews and rehearsals on the road before yet another giant Tragically Hip tour, we ended up hanging out in his hotel room, playing Scrabble. His opening play was the seven-letter “encages” for a Bingo, revealing the word nerd lurking beneath a rock-star exterior.
Dunsworth was apparently a voracious Scrabble player in him own right. So it’s comforting to imagine him and Downie meeting over a board somewhere in the great beyond, just a couple Canadian guys playing Scrabble, while the rest of us are trying to find the words.
Send me your Dunsworth and Downie memories at editor@thecoast.ca
Monday, October 16, 2017
Visual Arts A Nocturne 2017 round-up
Did you miss this year's event? Check out some of the highlights.
Posted By Team Coast on Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 10:52 AM
Keeping with this year's "vanish" theme, the art from Saturday night has left the city streets. Thankfully, we have Instagram to keep the memories alive. Check out highlights from Nocturne's 10th anniversary below.
Monday, September 18, 2017
Visual Arts Review: Bodies in Translation: Age and Creativity at the MSVU Art Gallery
Posted By Mollie Cronin on Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 2:47 PM
Bodies in Translation: Age and Creativity
Through November 12
Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, 166 Bedford Highway
One of two current shows at MSVU Art Gallery, Bodies in Translation: Age and Creativity features work by eight senior artists who explore aging through art.
Several of the artists address the physicality of aging, as in M.J. Sakura’s "Vintage Plumbing and Wiring," where the artist explores “vintage sexuality” in the form of an informational video. Michael Fernandes tackles the mental effects–beginning to forget–while George Steeves' portraits seek to remember, to commemorate aged and departed friends.
“Has one grown old without growing up?” asks Onni Nordman in his piece "Scarecrow Amongst the Chancellors", a Terry Gilliam-esque scarecrow made of burrs against a wall of neon portraits. The artists in Bodies in Translation approach the delicate issue of mortality with humour. "Day by day life finds me less critical, more playful,” writes Fernandes, accompanying his salty audio and installation piece "Michael, Michael, Michael," featuring glittered sneakers placed to be worn on the wrong feet.
Friday, September 15, 2017
Visual Arts Review: Zachari Logan's Topiary at Anna Leonowens Gallery
Posted By Mollie Cronin on Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 11:15 AM
Zachari Logan, Topiary
Anna Leonowens Gallery, Granville Square, 1891 Granville Street
To September 23
While the word “topiary” may conjure up images of shrubs in the shapes of elephants and swans, Zachari Logan’s latest exhibition by the same name delivers an entirely different articulation of this, but just as luxurious and with just the right amount of camp.
Topiary, now showing at the Anna Leonowens Gallery, is an exhibition of high-realism drawings ranging from large colour pastel botanicals on black paper, to life-size (if not larger) nude self-portraits, and miniature vanitas of human-plant hybrids done in architect’s soft blue pencil.
For Logan, “topiary” refers to “the human manipulation of plants into desired shapes for ornamentation;” an idea he explores in his intricately detailed drawings, with nods historical motifs and art forms, including paper cutting, wreaths, flower painting, wallpaper, and tapestries.
The human figures in these drawings interact with plant life in a way that blurs the line between the self and the landscape. In "Green Man" Logan composes a self-portrait out of plant matter, with green grass growing from his bowed back and halved cabbages forming buttocks, while in the "Eunuch Tapestries" series, male figures become tangled in, partially obscured by, and melt into walls of thick foliage. These plants, like the tall, phallic thistles caressing the naked legs and back of one of the figures, are plants commonly found in the ditches in Saskatchewan, some of the last untouched spaces in the cultivated farm-land of Logan’s home province. Logan identifies queer spaces as ditch-like: liminal and resilient, and through composition he positions the viewer alongside the figure in these ditches.
These Nocturnes (meaning night landscapes) are lit artificially from the bottom of the drawing, as though by car headlights or a flashlight. The result flattens the work, pulls all the detail close to the front, like a medieval tapestry or wallpaper. According to Logan curators and viewers often make a connection to gay cruising in these images–the sometimes semi-nude male figures seeming to hide in the bushes and illuminated by an unnatural light–but Logan says this connection was not intentional. He is, however, quite pleased that that unexpected element is found in these pieces–a queer history at work along with the histories of the decorative arts.
Logan’s use of history is far from stuffy, even though he heavily references some of the most traditional and historically gendered forms of visual and decorative art (both in the masculine and feminine sense): high realism, landscape, self-portraiture, textiles and flower painting. His drawings feel fresh; skillfully and meticulously rendered, rich and luxurious with detail and colour, with even the simple detail of black pastel on black paper creating luminosity.
Part of a generation of artists who value drawing as a medium unto itself (no longer simply a preliminary practice to later works), Logan’s drawings are wedded to their materials–the buttery pastels and tiny notches of graphite feel as tactile as the flowers and flesh that they render.
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Visual Arts Review: New works by Shane Keyu Song at Lost & Found
Posted By Mollie Cronin on Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 4:11 PM
New works by Shane Song
Through September 20
Lost & Found, 2383 Agricola Street
Fans of Century Egg will be familiar with the visual talents of the band’s frontwoman Shane Keyu Song, whose illustrations grace their album covers and merch, and will recognize her distinctive style in the latest show at Lost & Found.
For her first ever exhibition Song has created a series of paintings (and several drawings) exploring a recurring character: a girl with black hair and thick, round eyebrows who wears nothing but a T-shirt. Vulva to the wind and accompanied by a motley crew of cats, furniture and food, Song’s character interacts with domestic spaces and objects in a way that oscillates between consuming and being consumed: cuddled inside of a giant dumpling, growing bok choy for breasts and falling head first into a vat of red stew.
Song’s clever paintings can be both goofy and dark, and her video-game influenced style of illustration lends itself well to this new medium. The untitled exhibition runs for the rest of September.
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