What’s up

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/04/2023 (1253 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Perpetrators play The Park

Thursday, April 6, 8 p.m.

The Park Theatre, 698 Osborne St.

Tickets are $20 plus fees at myparktheatre.com

What comes before Good Friday? Bad Thursday, of course.

Celebrate the start of the Easter long weekend with some string-laden blues and soul music courtesy of The Perpetrators and The Noble Thiefs.

Bad Thursday has become an annual event for The Perpetrators — made up of guitarist Jay Nowicki, bassist John Scoles and drummer Ken McMahon — with the Winnipeg blues-rock outfit inviting a rotating cast of local artists to join in a night of pre-holiday fun.

The Noble Thiefs are this year’s featured guest. The soul group includes vocalist Myron Dean, Riley Hastings on guitar, Johannes Lodewyks on bass and Sandy Fernandez on drums.

Doors to the all-ages show open at 7 p.m., the first act kicks off at 8 p.m.

— Eva Wasney

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band mixes Dylan covers with their country classics for Burt show

Burton Cummings Theatre, 364 Smith St.

Friday, April 7, 8 p.m.

Tickets are $53.50-$87.25 plus fees at ticketmaster.ca

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, a bluegrass group that began in southern California in 1966 but gained fame and country cred in 1972 when it released Will the Circle Be Unbroken with legends Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff and Maybelle Carter, plays the Burton Cummings Theatre Friday.

The band achieved its biggest commercial success in the 1980s with hits such as Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream), Modern Day Romance and Fishin’ in the Dark, and then won two Grammy Awards in 1989 for Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Vol. 2, a collaboration with Scruggs, Acuff, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris and the Carter Family.

Co-founder Jeff Hanna continues to lead the group 55 years later along with harmonica and jug player Jimmie Fadden and keyboardist Bob Carpenter, who has been with the band since 1979.

In 2022, the group released Dirt Does Dylan, an album of songs written by Bob Dylan, the artist that spurred Hanna to make his own music in the early-1960s. It includes some of Dylan’s more country tunes, such as Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You and Country Pie, but also the folk anthems I Shall Be Released and The Times They Are A-Changin’.

— Alan Small

Cellist Cris Derksen and violinist Aisslinn Nosky make their strings sing at Manitoba Chamber Orchestra concert

Wednesday, April 12, 1 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.

Crescent Fort Rouge United Church, 525 Wardlaw Ave.

Regular tickets are $36; $34 for seniors and $15 for under-30, at themco.ca

Cris Derksen’s music defies easy categorization. Then again, so does Cris Derksen.

The two-spirit Juno–nominated cellist and composer — who is from North Tallcree Reserve in Northern Alberta and is of Cree and Mennonite heritage — weaves the traditional with the modern, the classical with the electronic, to create genre-bending music that’s equally at home alongside chamber orchestras and multidisciplinary art festivals. (Choreographer Cameron Fraser-Monroe also used her music as the basis for STAVE, a new work created on Royal Winnipeg Ballet company dancers that premièred here a couple weeks ago.)

On Wednesday, Derksen will be in Winnipeg to perform with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and première a new concerto, Spiderbeing, which will be dramatized by a performance from hoop dancer Shanley Spence.

The concert will also feature works by three 18th-century composers — Telemann, Boccherini, and Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint Georges, also known as the Black Mozart — conducted by Aisslinn Nosky. But Nosky won’t just be handling the baton; she’ll also be delivering some blistering solos on her violin, meaning she’ll be balancing conducting and performing at the same time.

Tickets to both the matinée and evening performances are at themco.ca, as are tickets for the virtual concert, which will be available online on June 29.

— Jen Zoratti

Forks features fun fare paired with wine

The Common, The Forks Market

Thursday, April 13, 5 p.m.

Tickets are $35 plus fees at wfp.to/0TC

The Common will host their next food-and-wine pairing event on Thursday, April 13 as part of the Uncommon Pours series of tastings.

Dubbed Fun Fusion!, the event will feature a range of wines paired with dishes from Fusian Experience, a sushi-driven food kiosk in the Forks’ food hall.

Leading the tasting will be Rhys Pender, a Kelowna-based wine educator, winemaker (at Little Farm in B.C.’s Similkameen Valley) and one of only 10 Canadians to have earned a master of wine designation. Pender, who has selected the 20 wines available by the glass at The Common, will lead guests through the process of pairing wines with Fusian’s fare.

The Uncommon Pours events are typically quite popular, and the 7 p.m. seating has already sold out, but tickets are still available for the 5 p.m. seating.

— Ben Sigurdson

Dance the weekend away with Alex Elliott

Prairie Theatre Exchange, 393 Portage Ave.

April 5-8, 7:30 p.m., April 9, 2:30 p.m.

Pay what you can

Winnipeg dancer and choreographer Alex Elliott is presenting Phase 4.0, which includes a piece called Conduct and one called Ellipsis 2.0, first performed in 2018.

Far from a solo performance, the show at PTE’s Colin Jackson Studio Theatre features contributions from movement dramaturge Ali Robson, costume and set designer Brenda McLean, lighting designer Max Mummery, artistic adviser Jillian Groening, and dancers Neilla Hawley and Justine Erickson. Dasha Plett is the composer and sound designer.

In an interview with The Uniter’s Patrick Harney, Elliott says that while Conduct is a solo performance, Ellipsis 2.0 utilizes a principle called “intricate partnership.” Plett, who co-created Conduct, told The Uniter that her role as composer makes her “another dancer in the piece.”

Elliott’s dances have been produced in Winnipeg, New York, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax. She is currently the director of a local multidisciplinary performance series called Art Holm.

Each show features ASL interpretation, and the Sunday matinée on April 9 will include an artist talk after the show. All performances are pay what you can.

— Ben Waldman

If you value coverage of Manitoba’s arts scene, help us do more.
Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project.