Walking along a path at Point Pleasant Park after dark—with bundles of fairy lights dotting the way—the crowd for the opening night of Adventures was silent, a buzzing anticipation mixed with reverence. It was the feeling of slipping out of your cabin at sleep-away camp on an oppressively hot night, looking for some mischief. Related […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts + Music
Brandon Michael tells us a joke
Halifax up-and-coming laugh-getter Brandon Michael’s foray into comedy was inevitable, really. “My parents liked Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live. I’ve always just grown up with a family that’s really into comedy,” he says of a childhood where he mainlined Seinfeld and stand-up the way the rest of us binged cartoons. At 15, he took […]
Posted inArts + Music
Step into art star Ursula Johnson’s Livingroom
It’s perhaps too easy to start off by calling the multidisciplinary artist Ursula Johnson a star, but the term fits. Not only because she was the first-ever Atlantic Canadian artist to win the Sobey Award (the biggest national prize for visual arts) or the first to translate contemporary art discourse into Mi’kmaq, as she did […]
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Fashion show “This Is Us” serves the community *and* serves looks
Solitha Shortte probably didn’t intend to be a dose of pure oxygen to the city’s fashion industry when she arrived in Halifax a decade ago, a model inspired by Naomi Campbell. But that’s exactly what she’s done, founding Soli Productions, a fashion and talent incubator that serves the community (thanks to its radical inclusivity) *and* […]
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Halifax’s 2SLGBTQ+ community is calling new spots home
It’s been more than a year since Halifax’s last bar dedicated to the 2SLGBTQ+ community, Menz & Mollyz, announced its doors were closing for good. The north end gem took to its Facebook page last April to publicize its shuttering, and Halifax has been lacking in queer-centered spaces ever since. For 15 years, Menz & […]
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A poem that’s a place for you to rest after you watched shelter be taken away
The police have come to a boil and are burning us. Everything is a weapon because everything is a crime. Even the graceful design of the bicycle, held aloft and pushed, becomes a cop; This poem is defunding their violence and is instead turning to your care. It is a steady stream of cool water […]
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“Queer Gardens: pleasures in 4 bases” centres queer liberation at Pride.
Arjun Lal’s garden of earthly delights is the sort of place that’s haunted your best daydreams, lighting up your brain’s pleasure centre and leaving a trailing perfume of pomegranate in its wake. But this Friday, August 20, from 6-9pm you can stop dreaming: Lal is bringing this paradise to roaring life as an art show […]
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The week’s must-see art show: Secrets Are Reparations For Microaggressions
The Khyber’s latest window installation, titled Secrets Are Reparations For Microaggressions, is the sort of radical softness this world needs more of: Artists Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet and Sanaa Humayun created the exhibit’s central work—a multi-coloured, embroidered quilt made of raw whispers—as a place to develop the secret-sharing their friendship’s based on. (Swapping stories of past […]
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FIN Atlantic’s 2021 festival will be in-person and full of must-see movies
Last year, in the heart of the pandemic and just when we all felt exhausted with Netflix’s catalogue of content, FIN AIFF—the region’s biggest film festival—saved us from re-watching hell as it launched an online version of its storied event. Now, as hopeful eyes are cast towards a fully-vaxxed fall, the event has announced it’ll […]
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Queer connection triumphs in pandemic times
Being stuck in quarantine amidst a global pandemic forced a lot of people to grow introspective. Weeks of confinement meant, for many, contemplating their relationships with themselves and others was inevitable. Those thoughts (and private transformations) are what many people in the 2SLGBTQ+ community share in a new, must-see short documentary called Lovers. It’s an […]
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Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal returns Aug 16-21
Every August at the Valley’s edge, as the fertile region’s tree branches begin to feel the weight of fragrant fruit, another transformation happens: Annapolis Royal becomes overrun with rhythm. Dancers and performance artists—striking, sparkling talent from across the region and the country—descend on the idyllic town, ready to make moves. It’s the sort of embracing […]
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9 drag extravaganzas to fill your Pride celebrations
It’s that time of year again: Pride festivities are taking over the city. After several months of no live shows and pandemic restrictions, the 2021 Halifax Pride Festival is ready to bring back in-person celebrations for 10 days of festivities—and numerous performers are ready to get back on stage. “I think seeing people and having […]