What’s up: Serena Ryder, Show Pony, holiday market, Meng Su

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/12/2025 (288 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Serena Ryder

• Club Regent Event Centre, 1425 Regent Ave. W.
• Tonight, 7 p.m.
• Tickets: $46-$71 at Ticketmaster

Serena Ryder is bringing some seasonal sparkle to Winnipeg.

The Juno-winning Canadian singer-songwriter with the powerhouse voice is crossing the country with her Merry Myths Tour, a folklore-inspired show featuring a mix of holiday classics and originals — including her own holiday original.

In 2018, Ryder released a jazz-influenced holiday album, Christmas Kisses, produced by Bob Ezrin, best known for his work with Pink Floyd, Kiss and Alice Cooper, among others. She co-wrote the title track.

“Being able to sing and be together in community is a medicine that can lift our spirits and soothe our souls, especially during the holiday season, when times can feel the most tough for many,” Ryder said in a media release about the tour. “I can’t wait to join our voices and hearts to celebrate with one another.”

— Jen Zoratti

Show Pony

• Park Theatre, 698 Osborne St.
• Saturday, 9 p.m.
• Tickets $24 at myparktheatre.com

Originally a country-rock act, now a glam-rock mainstay, Show Pony has been galloping into Winnipeg venues in snakeskin boots and sequins for the past three years, electrifying crowds with concerts that feel cinematic in scope and range. But it’s taken a while for the trio – lead singer Mannon Smalley, guitarist Thomas Cram and drummer Nick Kula – to transfer that experience in recorded format. Good news: after ripping through its first western Canadian tour this fall, Show Pony’s got a new EP — Show Pony For the People — waiting in the stable and due for a spring release.

Led off by the resilient strike of lead single Lightning, the band continued the rollout this week with the grief-stricken highway track Makes No Difference, which puts Smalley (formerly of indie rock quartet Silence Kit) through her paces, gazing through smeared mascara and reckoning with memories in the rear-view mirror.

To celebrate the track’s release, Show Pony is going back-to-back this weekend. On Friday at Sidestage, the trio will get all dolled up to cover Australian punks Amyl and the Sniffers on a bill that includes Calgary’s Uncanny Valley as Siouxie and the Banshees and Winnipeg up-and-comers Solaire as Paramore ($18 at sidestagewpg.com). On Saturday, Show Pony and Uncanny Valley head next-door to the Park Theatre for another high-flying set, joined on the bill by local post-punkers Bland, which released the EP Consumables in September.

— Ben Waldman

Good Neighbour Holiday Market

• Good Neighbour Brewing Co., 110 Sherbrook St.
• Today through Sunday
• Free

Whether you’ve got seasonal shopping to do or are simply looking for a way to raise your holiday spirits, Good Neighbour Brewing Co. and adjacent eatery Next Door (116 Sherbrook St.) have four days of festive fun to suit your needs.

The Good Neighbour Holiday Market kicks off at 8 p.m. tonight at the brewery with Queer Mingle Jingle, featuring a festive drag show, small-batch pours of Good Neighbour’s holiday-themed Gaytorade brews and festival cocktails and mocktails.

On Friday there will be plenty of food and drink options (and festive tunes for dancing) in the brewery backyard starting at 5 p.m., while inside the brewery guests can belt out their festive faves starting at 9 p.m. at the Christmas Carol-oake.

Festivities kick off Saturday morning at Next Door, with a pay-what-you-can pancake breakfast with Santa starting at 9 a.m. Back at Good Neighbour, the party gets going at 2 p.m. in the backyard with food and drink stations as well as brûlée beers, where a red-hot poker dipped into your brew, causing caramelization and plenty of foam. Inside the brewery, the local makers market also starts at the same time; later that evening, things shift back to the backyard with DJ Santa and prizes for best costumes.

Sunday morning kicks off with a holiday brunch menu at Next Door running from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. And speaking of running, a Santa run, in conjunction with City Park Runners, kicks off at 9:30 a.m. from the brewery. At noon the makers market and backyard party get going again, the latter of which will feature the kid-favourite Wackydoodle Dance Party starting at 1 p.m.

Admission for all events is free, with food and drink available for purchase.

— Ben Sigurdson

The Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society presents Meng Su

• Grace Bible Church, 366 Oakwood Ave.
• 8 p.m., Saturday
• Tickets $30 at wfp.to/guitar

While rock music exploded the popularity of the guitar, it also limited some of its powers. We’ve seen it a thousand times: a rock guitarist wails out a solo before falling back to strumming behind the singer. So often, it’s either one melody or chords, with not much in between.

The classical guitar approaches things differently — more akin to a piano, plucking with fingers rather than a pick so they can play multiple melodies simultaneously.

Winnipeg has an interesting, if obscure tradition of classical guitar. There’s the late jazz musician Lenny Breau, for instance, who pioneered playing chords and melodies simultaneously on his seven-string classical — an underappreciated guitarist’s guitarist who many considered one of the world’s best.

These days, much of the city’s classical guitar culture revolves around the Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society, which for decades has imported some of the world’s top players of this instrument.

One of these guitarists is Meng Su, a fashionable virtuoso who teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and graces the world’s stages as a soloist and sometimes duo member.

The popular late-30s musician originally from Qingdao, China, earns prize and accolades from the right sources in the musical world, with the New York Concert Review praising her as “seemingly effortless and stunningly polished.” Her discography leans more toward baroque than other styles or eras, so perhaps that’s what we should expect from this show.

— Conrad Sweatman

African acrobatics and music

• Rachel Browne Theatre, 211 Bannatyne Ave.
• Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m.
• Tickets $12-$20 at Eventbrite

Winnipeg performance troupe Wontan’ka Productions blends African circus traditions with live musical accompaniment.

Take in high-energy dancing, high-flying aerials and the gentle strumming of the kora — a West African stringed instrument similar to the harp and the lute — during this weekend’s three-day residency at Rachel Browne Theatre.

The show is titled Sabar’y, which means “patience” in the Susu and Mandingo languages of western Africa, and embodies themes of growth endurance and time.

The multicultural group has performed at Folklorama, summer festivals and schools. Wontan’ka is led by founder Amara Condé, a Guinean-born musician, dancer and acrobat who has toured with Cavalia and Cirque du Soleil. Beyond sharing cross-cultural arts with audiences, Condé aims to empower Black, immigrant and francophone youth through community circus workshops.

— Eva Wasney

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.