Arts News
Posted inArts + Music
Hal-Con is ready for your inner nerd Halloween weekend
Holster your lightsabers, folks. Atlantic Canada’s largest sci-fi festival, Hal-Con, is back and bigger than ever this year. Costume contests, guest speakers and gaming seminars are just a few things to geek out about this weekend. Demand for tickets has been higher than any previous year, so it’s no surprise that organizers anticipate many more […]
Posted inArts + Music
Common Roots Urban Farm’s Harvest Hootenanny and Pumpkin Smash
After Halloween, when your pumpkins are no longer useful or festive, they typically have one of two fates: rotting away on your porch or getting chucked into the street by unruly teenagers. Why do they get to have all the fun? You can bring your reject pumpkins to Common Roots Urban Farm this Sunday and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Stephen Harper’s war against the arts
“Country roads take me home, to the place I belong, West Alberta, Mountain momma,” belts Stephen Harper, his Kermit The Frog-esque voice going flat when the notes escape him, stage lights dancing off his Lego-like coif, at last year’s Conservative Christmas party. Bopping his chin robotically, he also busts into a nasally rendition of Guns […]
Posted inArts + Music
Space bass
For the last three years, dancehall band Dub Kartel’s Kyle McCracken (AKA DJ KDZ) has been bringing good vibes to Halifax via Home Bass, a jam of dance music that showcases local talent every Thursday night (and some Fridays) at Reflections Cabaret. This weekend, Home Bass presents an entire festival of that good music all […]
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Queer Acts is acting up again
There’s been a big change at the Queer Acts Festival, but funnily enough, audiences aren’t going to notice it. “Queer Acts has become its own entity,” explains festival director Adam Reid. “In previous years, it’s been under the management of the Halifax Pride board. But with this change, we can be partners with Pride while […]
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The Halifax Summer Opera Festival is here and its queer
“Opera is, by its very nature, queer as hell,” says Nina Scott-Stoddart, the artistic director of the Halifax Summer Opera Festival. “For the company itself, we’re always rehearsing during Pride weekend and finally we got sick of trying to sneak off to the parade and other events, so this year we scheduled the whole festival […]
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(Re)Introducing The Mankos
The Mankos don’t fuck around. Well, not when it comes to their music. The four-piece slut-punk act has existed since 2012 in different iterations, swapping out drummers in what frontperson Sam Horak calls “onenight stands.” Horak believes the revolving door of drummers is good luck, though: “Look at The Germs,” she says. “The Ramones, Spinal […]
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Kevin Smith doesn’t need any quote unquote “talent”
[Image-1] Best known as the filmmaker behind movies like Mallrats and the Clerks series, Kevin Smith has reinvented himself in recent years as an ubiquitous podcaster. Smith returns to Halifax on March 22 for a Q&A with fans and screening of his latest film, Tusk. You wear a lot of hats: director, producer, screenwriter, actor […]
Posted inArts + Music
GotAVoice’s brave new waves
Kids from Halifax are coming out tonight to strut their stuff down a catwalk for the Got A Voice Internet Radio launch party. Local rapper RealEyez is very excited. “We’re mixing a talent show with a fashion show,” she says. She and her agent pal Kayla Borden have been hard at work preparing the show to […]
Posted inArts + Music
Long live CKDU!
CKDU-FM, Atlantic Canada’s most celebrated campus/community radio station, has just turned 30 years old. Opening up the birthday party to the public is a shindig on February 19 at Plan B on Gottingen Street and an exhibit, What’s Left on the Dial: A CKDU Retrospective, on March 2-8 at the Khyber. Last fall, CKDU hired […]