What’s the term for a woman who is talented, cool and business smart? Oh right, bad bitch. Halifax is about to lose one its baddest. Local R&B/hip-hop artist Nicole Ariana (AKA Nicole Curry) is leaving the Halifax scene with a final show as part of the NSCC: Presents series. A graduate of the music business program herself, […]
The Bus Stop Theatre
Posted inArts + Music
Out there Outlier
Chris Sullivan and his colleagues took 15 years to finish his animated epic Consuming Spirits. Of the painstakingly deliberate process required to make it, he says, “It’s actually a little more pleasant than it looks, but not as pleasant as many things.” His ambivalent assessment applies to the film as well, a queasy and dense […]
Posted inArts + Music
Obscuro references
Taking form in the 17th century, the string quartet was a four-piece ensemble small enough to play in the drawing rooms and salons of the European aristocracy. Classical composers explored the tonal relationships between violins, violas and cellos, and the musical structure of the quartet became the essence of repertoire chamber music. That is until […]
Posted inArts + Music
Martial law
Since 2002, Martial Canterel (AKA Sean McBride) has been making splashes after diving head-first into new wave with NYC pals. “There was a real internalization of wave music as a kind of untapped periphery. For us, it narrated a history of ideas that remained interred, and because of that, there was something very private for […]
Posted inArts + Music
East coast Outbreak
Take a chance to experience some of the best emerging music on the east coast with Outbreak Halifax—a three-day music event where local bands take the stage at three different locales. Artists include The Belle Comedians, Acres and Acres and Dub Kartel, to name a few, and is organized by the 2013 music business students […]
Posted inArts + Music
Free ride
“The whole idea behind suddenlyLISTEN is to spread the word about improvisation and really teach people how to listen in a different way when they approach this art,” says Zokugaku free-jazz improv guitarist Geordie Haley. With Dalhousie music lecturer Tim Crofts and drummer Doug Cameron, Zokugaku is a special project for all three multi-genre professional […]
Posted inArts + Music
Be a Sissy
If you missed it last July at Halifax Pride’s Queer Acts Festival, Sissydude: a dandy rock musical—ode to Halifax’s north end, hoarding and dysfunction—is being remounted in all its camp glory February 14-17. Featuring lead actor and playwright Ian Mullan, Sissydude tells the story of Jamie, a character whom Mullan describes as “somewhere between drag […]
Posted inArts + Music
Strawberries in January
The beginning of January is often a theatre wasteland (who wants to be in rehearsal over the holidays?), but this year we’ve already had LunaSea’s stunning Estate, and now Lions Den’s charming and quirky Strawberries in January. The play can be described in simple terms as a romantic comedy with a happy ending, but it […]
Posted inArts + Music
Perchance to dream
The story behind The Bus Stop Theatre is that a bunch of people got together and made it happen,” says Clare Waqué, the primary operator of the rental venue on Gottingen Street. Since March 2010, the Bus Stop has hosted independent theatre, art exhibitions, music and literary events at affordable rates. The venue relies on […]
Posted inArts + Music
Season’s readings
For several years, every Christmas Eve my mom and I would try to read as much of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that we could out loud to each other before we inevitably got too tired and quit. There’s a special kind of holiday magic that brews in between the words of stories read aloud that […]
Posted inArts + Music
Eye of the beholder
There’s laying your soul bare on the stage, then there’s Elizabeth Anne McCarthy. With her one-woman play, Scopophilia: Into the Eye of the Sun, McCarthy draws inspiration from her day job as a life model at NSCAD, setting her tale of dual identities, voyeurism, feminism and violence in a life drawing class. McCarthy plays Marina, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Take the Shop Talk Guided Tour: The north end
The meat of the issue We love it when something old is unearthed for us to experience for the first time. One year ago, Frédéric Tandy opened Charcuterie Ratinaud (2082 Gottingen Street, 446-8222), bringing home the European practice of curing meats and making pâtés and sausages. “It’s something that people have been doing for hundreds […]