Him? No! He can’t be a pedophile! He’s always been so kind! How many times have we heard some version of that statement? We are desperate to put sexual abusers squarely into one box or another. Good or bad. Abusive or nice. Pedophile or polite. It feels like some sort of self-preservation tactic; a way […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts + Music
Everything you need to know about Mayworks Festival’s 2024 lineup
Halifax’s longest-running workers’ movement festival is back for its 16th year. Starting Wednesday, May 1, the Mayworks Festival will bring visual artists, poets, emcees, actors, quilters and labour organizers together for a 12-day lineup of shows, workshops and exhibits that promises a little bit of everything—and a whole lot to reflect on. The annual festival […]
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Atlantic Canada’s largest queer arts festival returns to Halifax
These are busy days for Isaac Mulè. The Halifax-based artistic director and founder of OutFest—the largest queer arts festival east of Montreal—has been working for months, trading calls and emails with artists across Canada, booking concert venues and readying the stage for what will mark the festival’s third year in Halifax. And the stage is, […]
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Every big show coming to Halifax (and beyond) in 2024
Thanks to some medical issues that sidelined a big part of The Coast’s tiny staff for most of 2024, this year’s list of major shows—music, theatre, comedy and events—suffered. But we’re trying to wrap the year on a strong note, and have already started the 2025 edition, so we hope you’ll still let us know […]
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Halifax author Elliott Gish’s Grey Dog will play with your mind
Of all the attempts to summarize Halifax author Elliott Gish’s debut novel, Grey Dog, about schoolmarm Ada Byrd’s unravelling in quiet Lowry Bridge, Canadian novelist Suzette Mayr’s words stick most in the mind. In her review of Gish’s story—a psychological horror that reads as if the Brontë sisters took a page from Stephen King—the Giller […]
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Hailey Rose a made-in-Nova Scotia tale of family, inheritance and forgiveness
Sandi Somers knows how to bring a character to the screen. Consider the opening scene in her latest feature film, the family-centred dramedy Hailey Rose: “Some people come into your life as blessings; some come in as lessons,” the family’s tough-nut matriarch, Olga, deadpans to the camera. “Blessings are worth shit all when it comes […]
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Matchstick Theatre’s Leaving Home is a fresh spin on a Canadian classic
Jake Planinc has been dreaming of this moment for 10 years. Ever since the Matchstick Theatre artistic director picked up David French’s Leaving Home as an undergrad at Mount Allison University, he’s thought of ways to stage it. How the lighting would look; how the script—which follows the Mercer family on one fateful day in […]
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The Coast’s guide to all the JUNO Week events in Halifax
When Nelly Furtado steps onto the Scotiabank Centre stage to host the 2024 JUNO Awards this Sunday, Mar. 24, it will mark a big moment for Halifax: The first time since 2006 that Nova Scotia—or any part of the Maritimes, for that matter—has hosted the annual awards ceremony, and the first time since 2010 that […]
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EXCERPT: Martin Bauman’s Hell of a Ride wades into depression, family legacy and cycling across Canada
Writers and alt-weeklies, it goes without saying, have a bit of a co-dependency arrangement. One cannot exist without the other. (May it always be so.) And best believe that in 30 years of telling Halifax’s stories, The Coast has had its share of writers. That includes writers who have gone on to produce books, films, […]
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Halifax filmmaker shines spotlight on Indigenous women across Atlantic Canada
Growing up in Yarmouth, Stephanie Joline was always aware of her Indigenous ancestry. The daughter of an Inuk mother and Acadian father, she was raised to be “very proud” of the roots she came from. That came, in part, from her maternal grandmother, who helped raise her. “It was beading and drum circles since I […]
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Canada’s longest-running all-Black comedy tour visits Halifax—and it’s a must-see
Rodney Ramsey has been a stand-up comedian for more than 20 years. A co-creator of the Unknown Comedy Club, a first-of-its-kind virtual showcase for Canadian comics, he has appeared on Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud network, closed out a BBC World Service comedy special and starred in CBC’s Absofreakinglutely—a round-up of some of Montreal’s funniest […]
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Halifax artist Glen McMinn’s solo exhibition is a hockey-lover’s dream—and much more, too
Glen McMinn was 52 years old and feeling restless. Despite a thriving career as the founding partner and creative director of Halifax design firm Breakhouse, instead of enjoying his success, he found himself counting down the days, weeks and months until he would turn 64. The number chased him like a hangover in those years: […]
