Manitoban Patrick Friesen returns home with new collection of poetry

Patrick Friesen’s new book of poetry, Sightings, feels like a return to familiar ground for Winnipeg readers who have followed his career from the beginning.

Though he has lived in Victoria, B.C., for many years, his creative roots run deep in Manitoba, where he first began shaping the voice that has carried him through 50 years of writing.

Our interview was conducted via email, but previous chats with the poet, at a time when The Shunning — the 1980 book that would become his breakthrough and would go on to become a play produced by Prairie Theatre Exchange and Manitoba Theatre Centre — was still a work in progress, took place in the third floor loft of his house just off River Avenue and Osborne Street.

The space was crowded with books, drafts and the quiet intensity of a writer at work. On the table beside him sat a half-filled bottle of whisky.

This year’s jazz festival trumpeted as worldly journey of discovery

Jazz Winnipeg knows how to cast (and bask in) the spotlight.

After teasing audiences with headliner announcements since late last year, Jazz Winnipeg announced the full lineup — including 50 artists from eight countries — for the 2026 TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival, which runs June 16-21, at a press conference on Wednesday.

“This year’s festival is all about discovery,” said Jazz Winnipeg’s artistic director Zachary Rushing. “It’s about bringing world-class artists to Winnipeg … and giving audiences something unforgettable.”

The festival’s marquee shows include, on the international side, members of the famous Australian funk-jazz band the Cat Empire (Thurs., June 18, at the West End Cultural Centre), as well as American jazz royalty Miles Electric Band (Sun., June 21, at The Burton Cummings Theatre) and Jason Marsalis Quartet (Fri., June 19, at Desautels Concert Hall).

Dachshund playgroup completes a social circle

It’s just before 7 p.m. on a sunny Tuesday evening in March, and dachshunds are descending upon Earl Grey Community Centre from every direction, straining at their leashes to get inside.

These pups know what’s up. It’s time for the wiener dog play group.

You can hear the excited barking before you step foot in the gym. About 20 dogs are here tonight. The majority are dachshunds in a variety of colours and sizes, but the group is not wiener-dog exclusive: a Pomeranian and a couple of Shih Tzus are playing, too.

One of the regular pups, Zeus, is celebrating a birthday tonight. It’s clear he’s ready to “pawty”; he has a Birthday Boy ribbon affixed to his harness.

What’s up: Grotoko, Philipp Schott, flower arranging, Dirty Dancing

GrotokoPark Alleys, 730 Osborne St.Saturday, 9:30 p.m.Tickets: $12One month after donning witch hats at Public Domain for their first gig as a full band, Grotoko — the former solo project of Winnipeg songwriter Blue McLeod — will keep on rolling at Park Alleys, a revitalized bowling alley that forms a veritable South Osborne venue trifecta along with the Park Theatre and Sidestage.

Known for its cynical, yet routinely optimistic lyrics — a necessary specialty for post-pandemic indie dirges — and McLeod’s clear-eyed, diaristic delivery, Grotoko is gearing up for its third album, a followup to 2022’s Periwinkle.

For those looking to get acquainted, Periwinkle sees McLeod’s lyrics floating atop jaunty baroque rock air, with the panflute and the glockenspiel joining as occasional passengers. Alongside Veronica Blackhawk’s project Tinge, Grotoko is one of the city’s top contemporary interpreters of the grunge era, with McLeod frequently decorating their tunes with Celtic mysticism. Grotoko is the main event on Saturday night, with midwest emo rockers On Purpose greeting audiences at 9:30 p.m. sharp.

— Ben Waldman

Winnipeg-born author Kate Bowler faces hard facts on search for meaning of happiness in 'Joyful, Anyway'

Kate Bowler wants you to know that joy is still made for you.

“Even now,” she says. “And even especially now.”

The Winnipeg-born, Durham, N.C.-based author, podcaster and Duke University professor of American religious history is back with Joyful, Anyway (Dial Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House), a new self-help-book-meets-memoir that continues Bowler’s ongoing mission: “Giving you permission to feel human.”

A decade ago, Bowler, now 45, was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer and was told, for years, it was incurable. The gruelling experience of treatment and recovery — she is in remission — changed her forever, and put our “good vibes only, everything happens for a reason” culture into stark relief. (Her 2018 New York Times bestseller is called Everything Happens For a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, and her podcast is called Everything Happens.)

Hip-hop duo spread the word about social justice, education at STEM outreach program

During one of Canada’s busiest music weekends, two celebrated musicians stopped in Winnipeg to entertain 100 or so middle and high school students inside RRC Polytech’s auditorium.

On Friday afternoon in the final hours before spring break, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, a hip-hop duo from Kitamaat Village, B.C., paced the makeshift stage, delivering hits such as Boujee Natives while students jumped and chanted.

Many teachers danced too, overlooking the band’s mild profanity and bird-flipping amid the uplifting message of empowerment and fun.

“We were tired, but now we’re rejuvenated,” said band member Darren (Young D) Metz after seeing so many young people get fired up at their performance.

Popularity of sweater with Manitoba roots goes galactic after visit to stars

It’s the ultimate interstellar fashion moment; a vintage-inspired Mary Maxim fox knit, worn by Ryan Gosling’s character in his latest blockbuster Project Hail Mary, has sent the crafting world spinning.

Joni Mitchell fêted by PM, fellow singer-songwriters at Juno awards

Joni Mitchell took the stage for her first performance since 2024 after accepting a lifetime achievement award from Prime Minister Mark Carney at Sunday’s Juno Awards.

WSO conductor shares stage with soloist son for Stewart Copeland piece

A tyrant stormed the Centennial Concert Hall as the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra presented rock royalty Stewart Copeland’s Tyrant’s Crush during its final Thursday Classics offering.

Choreographing conflict: Stage combat direction amps up royal rumblings in RMTC's The Last Wife

Last month at the Tom Hendry Warehouse, when the actors used paintbrushes and purses as ammunition in playwright Trish Cooper’s Holland, none of their movements were random. Every jab and swing was intricately plotted with the help of the production’s secret weapon.

Over the past decade, Jacquie Loewen has become Winnipeg’s go-to co-ordinator of onstage battles, hired to develop the physical language of conflict and character on stage with chessboard precision.

When theatre directors want to punch up their productions with carefully constructed realism or cartoonish slapstick, they often turn to Loewen to choreograph the good fight.

But fight direction isn’t only about the bumps and bruises, says Loewen, who worked with director Cherissa Richards to choreograph the royal rumbling in The Last Wife, the second-last production of Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s mainstage season. It’s about the slow accumulation of action that may or may not lead toward collision.

Singer-songwriter Del Barber trades life on the road to open small-town pizza parlour

Singer-songwriter Del Barber is working with a new creative medium: pizza.

The Juno-nominated artist has stepped away from his music career to open a wood-fired pizza shop in the little town of Inglis, where he and partner Haylan Jackson have been living for the past 12 years.

For Barber, who released his last album, Almanac, in 2023, the career change has been a long time coming. His connection with audiences felt like it was waning and the economics were becoming harder to justify.

“I was making less and less money every year as a touring musician,” Barber says over a video call while seated at the bar of The Shop, his new restaurant on the town’s main drag.

Manitoba Opera season features reimagined Scott Joplin work and Puccini classic

Manitoba Opera’s 54th season will feature a once-forgotten masterpiece and a returning classic.

The 2026-27 season opens with the local première of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha: A Musical Reimagining (Nov. 21, 25, 27) and closes with Madama Butterfly (April 17, 21, 23, 2027), both performed at the Centennial Concert Hall.

Treemonisha was published in 1911 by Scott Joplin, the celebrated African-American pianist and composer often referred to as the King of Ragtime. Set during the Reconstruction era in the United States, the three-act opera focuses on the story of its title character, a young freedwoman, and fuses Western classical music with blues, gospel and ragtime.

The work proved too groundbreaking for the Euro-centric opera establishment and was produced for the first time in 1970, more than 50 years after Joplin’s death. The composer was awarded a Pulitzer Prize posthumously for his contributions to American music.

Author Margaret Sweatman mines dreamworld before striking gold in ‘Night Birds’

Margaret Sweatman didn’t initially set out to write an eco-thriller about the perils of global capitalism. The Winnipeg novelist, lyricist and playwright started out writing Night Birds, her seventh novel, around the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and initially had other ideas.