Anna Leonowens Gallery 1 window Few Mi’kmaq stories remain in their original form. “There are only two stories found in their original form, not compromised [through translation],” artist Alan Syliboy says. The story of “The Stone Canoe,” recently rediscovered after 150 years, is one of these, a story that’s taken on larger significance for Syliboy. […]
Nocturne
Posted inArts + Music
Breastival Vestibule
South Courtyard of Halifax Central Library and Khyber Centre For the Arts A festival within a festival, Breastival Vestibule is a temporary space that aims to break rules and help us reconsider how we use space. A soft, inflatable breast-like structure, it’s the creation of Baltimore-based artist Rachael Shannon, who began the project considering the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Nocturne for the kids
For full location details, see the Nocturne guide pull-out in this issue. Provided bedtime doesn’t get in the way, Nocturne is a perfect time to rally the fam and hit the town. There are plenty of people to watch, lots of exciting projects waiting around every corner and, of course, the frisson of excitement that […]
Posted inArts + Music
Dog Expo
Dog park beside Centennial Pool Inspired by bringing two new furry friends into his family, multidisciplinary artist Zachary Gough’s Dog Art Expo blends a signature style of site-specific, participatory projects with a love for the canine community. Before adopting his pets, Gough reached out to Jenn Corning, a trainer with dog care company Follow The […]
Posted inArts + Music
Artful artifice: The Maiden’s Tragedy
Alysse Bowd aims to shatter “the castle and the cloud” illusion associated with fairytale or heroine plot arcs at Nocturne this year. Through sculpture and motion, her piece The Maiden’s Tragedy suggests that this fantasy ideal isn’t linear—and it definitely isn’t realistic. “We are always in this constant cycle of wandering, catastrophe and seclusion,” she […]
Posted inArts + Music
Nocturne 2015: how to party arty
“We love for people to experience Nocturne and see what the artists in their community are actually doing,” says Nocturne coordinator Kim Farmer. “They’re creating projects specifically for the night, and most are creating them specifically for this year’s theme, Found and Lost and Found. It’s about our changing city, about the changes that happen […]
Posted inArts + Music
Safety Cages puts artists behind bars
In Ken Burke’s wearable art piece Safety Cages, four people wearing welded steel cages will make their ways through Nocturne crowds, responding to the movements of the crowd and each other. The cages take four different designs, each cumbersome in varying degrees. Burke calls a cage in a standard birdcage-type form “a little passive,” while […]
Posted inArts + Music
The greatest wheel on earth
After a conversation about Nocturne, spectacle and the role of art over dinner with friends, “the image of a ferris wheel stuck with me,” says NSCAD instructor Anna Sprague. “Perhaps it has something to do with my obsession with the carnivalesque.” For Nocturne, Sprague has commissioned a 68-foot ferris wheel to sit atop Citadel Hill. […]
Posted inArts + Music
Drum Voices is must-see, must-hear
“Drum Voices is a sound piece that transports the drum to a place before time,” says drummer Lindsay Dobbin (Gift From God). On the Dartmouth Common, Dobbin will present a surround-sound installation of a choir of drum parts, to create a full-body experience that is out of this world. Dobbin, who is trained in Shamanic […]
Posted inArts + Music
It’s a Halifax made of shoes
“This was inspired by the Nocturne theme this year, Found and Lost and Found, and the changing of social spaces,” says material-artist Kim Danio. “You know The Economy Shoe Shop? I thought, I just have to make a shoe out of the Shoe Shop, and it all went from there.” Using recycled and found materials, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Digital Shrine pays heartwarming homeage to the dead
Sharon Stevens’ Digital Shrine—an interactive installation you can experience at the gates of Camp Hill Cemetery—was sparked by her father’s death. When he died 20 years ago, the funeral and service “did not speak to me, did not ‘hold’ me in a way I could relate to,” recalls Stevens. Digital Shrine explores new and old […]
