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This article was published 18/02/2016 (3528 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Michael Kaeshammer

German-born, Canadian-bred pianist, vocalist and composer Michael Kaeshammer has been touted as one of the most talented musicians in the country.

The 39-year-old classically trained musician has more than 20 years of experience and nine albums under his belt, and has been praised for his fiery, high-energy performances packed to the brim with showmanship.

“For me, the performance is as much about the energy coming off the stage as the energy coming from the audience. It’s about being myself, writing from the heart and showing my love for life. That’s what I want to convey,” he says in a news release. “After the show, people ask me, ‘Do you really have that much fun?’ And I say ‘You don’t know the half of it. It’s even more exhilarating than it looks.’”

Kaeshammer is touring in support of his newest album, The Pianist. Despite being his ninth full-length recording, The Pianist is his first solo piano album to date. It explores his passion for the piano through both original compositions and more well-known jazz standards.

Kaeshammer will be tickling the ivories at the West End Cultural Centre Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased at the WECC or jazzwinnipeg.com.

 — Erin Lebar

Heartache Hotel

Among the things that likely won’t be said about the Gas Station Arts Centre’s upcoming Heartache Hotel show, “no reason to get bent out of shape” is probably near the top of the list.

That’s because this offbeat theatrical-circus production, which is on display Feb. 18 and 19 at 8 p.m. at the Gas Station, is the brainchild of Winnipeg-based contortionist Samantha Halas, who pretty much gets bent out of shape for a living. Her body-twisting talents are just one element of the show, which promises to take Winnipeggers on a theatrical journey unlike anything they’ve ever experienced.

Each room of this eerie old “hotel” is haunted by a different and uniquely artistic act; the playbill of peculiarities includes puppetry, pole art, contortion, hand balancing, juggling, unicycle tricks, live music, dance and more. In addition to Halas, who is producing the show under the banner of her new production company, Frostbite Circus, the Heartache Hotel roster also includes Andrea Del Campo, Joe Ackerman and Steven Halas.

Tickets for Heartache Hotel are $20, available at the Gas Station Arts Centre and Voguefit Canada.

— Brad Oswald

Johnny Reid

Entertainers and Las Vegas casinos have been a match made in bottom-line heaven for decades. Frank Sinatra and the Sands were a team back in the Rat Pack days; Siegfried & Roy and their tigers made their home at the Mirage and Shania Twain and Céline Dion have had longtime arrangements with Caesar’s Palace.

Bring people to the casino to see a show, and chances are, some of them will try their hand at the games of chance.

This week, the Club Regent Casino tests its luck at this time-honoured tactic. But there appears to be little risk taken when bookers decided to bring in one of Winnipeg’s favourites, singer Johnny Reid, for three nights to the 1,400-seat Club Regent Event Centre (Saturday, Feb. 20, Sunday, Feb. 21 and Monday, Feb. 22) as part of Reid’s What Love Is All About tour.

Reid is a big enough star that the Juno Awards selected him to be one of the hosts for their gala when Winnipeg hosted the event in 2013. Later that year, the Scottish-Canadian crooner sold out two Christmas shows in 2013 at the Centennial Concert Hall. 

This time around, Reid has added Cape Breton fiddler extraordinaire Natalie MacMaster to the bill, as well as Calgary roots-rocker JJ Shiplett and northern Alberta country artist Aaron Goodvin.

In gambling parlance, this is a sure thing. A check of Ticketmaster’s site shows all three shows are close to being sold out, with only a few dozen tickets remaining for the three shows. Those remaining seats range in price from $66.75 to $76.75, plus fees.

— Alan Small

 

Real to Reel Film Festival

The sixth edition of the Winnipeg Real to Reel Film Festival, ongoing at the North Kildonan Mennonite Brethren Church at 1315 Gateway Rd., features the usual component of faith-based films (The War Room, Do You Believe?) and family-friendly Disney fare (Inside Out, McFarland). But it also is featuring a couple of hard-hitting docs, including one, Human Harvest, examining the grisly practice of harvesting the organs of Falun Gong practitioners in China as documented by local human rights activist David Matas.

Matas will be present for the fest’s two screenings on Saturday, Feb. 20, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 21, at 5:30 p.m. according to fest co-ordinator Paul H. Boge.

Boge has a special interest in a second film that will be getting its Canadian premiere at the fest. Mully “is the true story of a six-year-old Kenyan boy who was abused and abandoned, and then later worked his way out of poverty to become a millionaire,” says Boge.  “He then sold everything he had to rescue street children.”

The doc is based on Boge’s own book, Father to the Fatherless: The Charles Mulli Story. The doc’s subject, Charles Mulli, will also be in attendance when the film screens Friday, Feb. 19, at 6:30 p.m., Saturday Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. and Sunday Feb. 21 at 3:30 p.m.

The complete festival program is online at www.winnipegFilmFestival.com.

— Randall King

Folk Lordz

The Winnipeg musical improv troupe Outside Joke thrives on mixing it up with a variety of guests in their ongoing fourth season. For their third show of the year, their guests are a fascinating mash-up unto themselves.

Edmonton’s Folk Lordz, a spinoff of Rapid Fire Theatre, consist of duo Todd Houseman and Ben Gorodetsky.

“Todd is a Plains Cree man of mixed blood and Ben Gorodetsky is the son of Jewish-Russian immigrants,” explains Outside Joke’s Andrea del Campo. “So they decided to combine their very different cultural backgrounds into an improv company.

“One of their mandates is to constantly seek ways to de-colonize their performance, which I think is really important in a performance art that is so heavily dominated by white men,” del Campo says. “So each improv show they do combines three different styles of storytelling.

“The first is they take a suggestion of a genre, such as Dr. Seuss, from the audience, and they’ll explore that. Then, from Ben’s background, they use Chekovian-style drama, except of course, it’s funny because it’s improv.

“And then the third style is indigenous origin story. That’s the one they’ve done the most research on, because it tends to be the least explored in mainstream western art,” she says. “They got a grant from the Edmonton Arts Council to go up to the Northwest Territories and study with Dene elders and learn storytelling techniques.

“So they’re constantly trying to find new ways of strengthening that element of their improv and their storytelling, without making fun of it, which can happen so easily when we’re doing improv,” del Campo says.

Folk Lordz will be the first half of the double bill also featuring Outside Joke’s typically amazing musical improv, on Saturday, Feb. 20, at 8 p.m. at the Gas Station Arts Centre, 445 River Ave. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by phone at 204-284-9477, online at www.gsac.ca, or at the door. 

— Randall King

If you only see one movie this week featuring Isabella Rossellini as the voice of a hamster named Buffy, make it Closet Monster. The fantastical Canadian drama stars Connor Jessup (ABC’s American Crime) as Oscar Gladly, a closeted teen and aspiring special-effects makeup artist desperate to escape his turbulent childhood memories and his stifling East Coast hometown.

Closet Monster, part of Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival, plays at Cinematheque, 100 Arthur St., Feb. 18-20 at 9 p.m. Tickets ($6-$9) can be purchased online at winnipegfilmgroup.com.