“I remember when I first started listening to electronic music in 1999-2000, my opinion was that it all sounded the same,” says HelmFest organizer Sidney Elwood, laughing. “That’s what I remember thinking. But of course there are subgenres, and from those genres there are sub-subgenres.” When planning the lineup, Elwood and his team tried to […]
Dance
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Into The Woods
Alexis Cormier is adorned with jewels, a tiny row of diamonds under her right eye. It’s pouring rain outside—by all accounts a lazy Sunday afternoon—but inside Halifax Dance, The Woods came to throw down. Speaking before the weekly rehearsal that eats up four hours every Sunday, Cormier is lively, eager to share her encyclopedic knowledge […]
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Seven things you should do this weekend
First you must apply your face. Lawton’s has those Maybelline Baby Lips balms for like $4. I only wish I were getting sponsored to say this, but let me tell you in the realest of talk: that little tube of Grape Vine is the only thing that’s saved me from being a cracked and flaky […]
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Burnwater’s creative forge
When asked how long they had been preparing for the show, Erin Donovan pipes up: “Our whole lives.” Everybody laughs. It’s not true, but it is. Burnwater is a multi-disciplinary performance taking place this weekend in East Dover on the land of local blacksmith and sculptor John Little. Little makes sound sculptures; elaborate forged compositions […]
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Circus family
Athletic and graceful, circus arts took off in Halifax with the opening of Atlantic Cirque. Kevin Hartford reports on the past 10 years. This year marks the first decade of Atlantic Cirque, a Dartmouth-based school that teaches the young and old alike to swing from a giant metal hoop, flip into the air from a […]
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Weighty Ghosts
When Atlantic Ballet’s artistic director and choreographer Igor Dobrovolskiy created a short dance performance on the subject of domestic abuse and homicide for 2007’s New Brunswick Silent Witness Project, he didn’t anticipate the response that eventually led him to choreograph a full-length piece, Ghosts of Violence. “It’s such a powerful message and the people that […]
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Six years of Pink Velvet
When the Halifax Burlesque Society disbanded, Cadence Macmichael feared it was the end of the line for the local burlesque scene. But she wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel—or the corset. Macmichael gathered a keen crew of performers (many former members of the HBS) who shared her fiery spirit and six years after […]
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JazzEast tips their hat to the ’20s.
JazzEast’s Out Like A Lion festival looked to the roaring ’20s when planning this event. They’re calling it Halifax’s greatest dance party—you’re probably thinking, “that’s a pretty bold statement,” and it is, but it might just be a warranted one. It starts like this: you put on your amazing flapper outfit, tuck a feather in […]
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Mocean Dance’s blank canvas
Just in time for Mocean Dance to enter their second decade of bringing innovative, contemporary dance to the stage comes Canvas 5 x 5, a world premiere presented by Live Art. The Tedd Robinson-choreographed piece features four Halifax-based dancers using not just the stage as their blank canvas, but an actual blank canvas as a […]
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Choc treatment
Live Art Dance brings Montreal dance company O Vertigo‘s Onde de choc (Shockwave)—directed by Ginette Laurin—to Halifax (December 1-3, Sir James Dunn Theatre, 6101 University. 8pm, $17/$20/$25) this week, and Halifax’s own Gillian Seaward-Boone will bring her first professional Halifax performance with it. “I was ecstatic when they told me we were touring to Halifax,” […]
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Evoke evolves
In her first year running the Maritime Dance Performance Group, Rhonda Baker’s main focus has been making sure the group’s 19 dancers worked as a unit. Surprisingly, with six new dancers and the first new director since 1999, teamwork and trust sort of fell into place naturally. “They’ve become a cohesive group and it really […]
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Dancers! You may be eligible for money!
Attention all dancers! The Nova Scotia Talent Trust wants to give you $1100 at the annual NSTT Special Awards ceremony in December. The Robert George Jackson Special Award was created to award dancers who show “exceptional commitment and potential in dance.” Jackson’s estate donated $25,000 to create the new award to support emerging artists and […]
