What’s up

MB Food Truck Battles

• Assiniboia Downs, 3975 Portage Ave.
• Saturday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
• Tickets $7 at wfp.to/iaN

Three dozen of Winnipeg’s finest food trucks will converge on Assiniboia Downs this weekend as the MB Food Truck Battles returns for another event featuring the best street food the city has to offer.

The participating rolling restos cover a wide range of culinary street fare for all palates. Among those taking part in the food truck battle are Beavertails, Captain Calamari, La Taqueria, Miss Tiny’s Jamaican Food Truck, Poutines R Us, Tot Wheels and Wacky Waffles. (Stretchy pants are not mandatory, but highly recommended.)

Folks who scarf down some tasty treats can vote for their favourite food truck on Saturday and Sunday at the event; those who vote have a chance to win $300 in “food truck bucks.”

The event will also feature activities for kids (including face painting and bouncy castles), live bands (including Paige Drobot, the Prairie Joggers, Zach Riley and November Underground), a beer garden, wrestling and a tattoo pop-up with 20 tattoo artists.

MB Food Truck Battles runs from 11 a.m.-11 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m.-9 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $7 per person per day — kids five and under get in free.

— Ben Sigurdson

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It’s a Mess & Punk Care Commons

• Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibitions
• School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba, 180 Dafoe Rd
• Opening reception Friday, 5-8 p.m.
• Free

A dual exhibition featuring two exciting new voices in contemporary Canadian art opens this week at the School of Art Gallery at the University of Manitoba.

It’s A Mess features the work of Séamus Gallagher, a lens-based media artist who uses video game engines, 3D modelling software, drag and photography in their practice, while Punk Care Commons features the work of Christina Oyawale, a queer, disabled interdisciplinary image artist, curator and writer whose image-based installation looks at communal care practices through the lens of queer punk anti-esthetics.

Both artists are showing as part of the annual Master of Fine Art Thesis Exhibitions, the final presentation by graduating MFA students from the School of Art. Their thesis examinations are also held publicly during the exhibition period; those interested in hearing from the artists directly can see Gallagher at 9:30 a.m. and Oyawale at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 26, at the School of Art Gallery.

Both exhibitions will remain on view until June 19.

— Jen Zoratti

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Garden Party Mystery

• Dalnavert Museum and Visitors’ Centre, 61 Carlton St.
• Today, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
• Tickets start at $120 for a group of four from friendsofdalnavert.ca

Calling all amateur sleuths! Now’s the time to wield your keen skills of deduction as you work in team of four to solve this immersive, escape-room-style experience with a twist.

Make like Sherlock and keep your nose to the ground and your eyes peeled for clues and secrets as you work to solve this puzzling Victorian mystery.

The event is an interactive adventure for budding detectives, greenhorn investigators and history lovers seeking a night out with a difference.

Deerstalker caps welcome but not necessary. Groups are a minimum of four people and a maximum of six. Event is recommended for ages 16-plus.

The mystery takes place in the historic house and requires at least one attendee per team to be able use the stairs to access the upper floors. Guests with reduced mobility are able to participate in the Visitors’ Centre and first floor of the house.

— AV Kitching

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David Essig in Gimli

• Ship and Plough, 42 Centre St., Gimli
• Friday, 8 p.m.
• Tickets: $22.50 at shipandplough.ca

“Having now played at the Winnipeg Folk Festival 14 times, I have to say that heading back to the ‘Peg feels very much like going home again,” folk singer David Essig posted to his Facebook page on May 5.

Born in Frederick, Md., in 1945, Essig moved to Ontario in 1971, where he befriended a circle of artists including Willie P. Bennett, Jackie Washington and Stan Rogers.

“I felt there was a scene going on,” Essig told Kevin Nikkel in Founding Folks, an oral history of the Winnipeg Folk Festival published last year by University of Manitoba Press. “I really was a war protester. For me, Vietnam — Nixon bombed Cambodia, I said, “I’m out of here.”

Four years later, the blues guitarist was playing at Birds Hill, connecting on the bill with fellow American transplants such as Cathy Fink and Duck Donald, and with the Scottish-Canadian folksinger Margaret Christl. Each artist went on to release music through Essig’s Woodshed Records, an artist-owned and operated label that’s credited as the first in Canada to focus on folk music.

Last summer, both Essig and Fink were back in Manitoba performing at the 50th edition of the folk fest, an event the former hadn’t played since 1999.

“I have to say that my solo concert at this year’s 50th was truly a highlight of my performing life,” Essig wrote on his Substack blog. “A standing ovation and encore are not the norm for me at folk festivals, so I was simply overwhelmed by the loving support of my audience.”

Playing tonight in Portage la Prairie at the Basement Theatre, Essig takes the stage at Gimli’s favourite pub on Friday night. Saturday work better for you? Visit the S+P to catch Sandy Hook’s Deborah Romeyn — profiled in 2024 by the Free Press’s David Sanderson — playing a set with Dan Donahue, who we’ve heard has played a few folk fests himself.

— Ben Waldman

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Winnipeg Pro Wrestling presents

• WPW SUP, BUD?
• West End Cultural Centre, 586 Ellice Ave.
• Friday, 7 p.m.
• Tickets: wecc.ca

The re-indiefication of “professional wrestling” has been a brilliant thing to behold.

About 20 years ago, WWE presented Battle of the Billionaires, which pitted Donald Trump against WWE CEO Vince McMahon, whose real-life persona often seems as odious as the cartoon villain he plays on TV. That might seem to tell an outsider everything they need to know about the staged sport.

But wrestling has always been about underdogs as much as heels, and its circuits of passionate amateurs, travelling from community halls to local bars, were never quite swallowed up by corporate juggernauts like WWE.

In fact, many indie associations, such as Winnipeg Pro Wrestling, are flourishing today. A few months after presenting the massively popular Brawl at the Hall with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, WPF throws WPW SUP, BUD.

The “human wrecking ball” Brax — aptly named because of his smooth head as much as bulging muscles — squares off with “Sweet” Bobby Schink, who at six-foot-seven and 233 pounds sounds like the unmovable object to Brax’s unstoppable force.

Wild athletics and theatrics will ensue.

— Conrad Sweatman