What’s up: Rose Cousins, ag fair, Peacebreach, spring market, Architecture + Design Film Festival

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/04/2025 (189 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rose Cousins

• West End Cultural Centre
• Saturday, 8 p.m.
• Tickets: $42 and $48 at wecc.ca

It’s only fitting for an album about love that Rose Cousins would return to one of her firsts: the piano. A 1967 Baldwin grand, to be exact.

“Piano is where I feel the most connected emotionally,” the Juno-winning Nova Scotia-based folk artist says in her official artist bio. “It’s the best partner in expressing the emotion I’m trying to get at. Now that I finally have my own, I feel my relationship with it deepening. It made sense to make a whole record in this place.”

Released on March 14 via Nettwerk and co-produced with longtime bandmate Joshua Van Tassel, Conditions of Love — Vol 1 is a deep dive into the agony and ecstasy of that most universal feeling. You’ll have the chance to hear these heart-rending new songs at the WECC on Saturday night. Local indie-folk duo Slow Spirit will open the show.

— Jen Zoratti

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Brandon ag fair a royally good time

• Royal Manitoba Winter Fair
• Keystone Centre, 1175 18th St., Brandon
• Daily through to Saturday
• Tickets: $10-$24

Just when you think you’ve run out of spring break entertainment ideas, Brandon’s Royal Manitoba Winter Fair returns to the Keystone Centre with something for kids of all ages — even the grown-up kind.

Running through to Saturday night at locations throughout the Keystone Centre, the fair has been going strong for 115 years — 55 since receiving the “royal” designation — and is hosted by the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba.

Events take place throughout the Keystone Centre today, tomorrow and Saturday before the fair wraps. The Flynn Arena hosts the Royal Farm Yard, where guests can meet bunnies, goats, donkeys, cows and other livestock up close.

The Manitoba Hydro kid zone will play host to a range of children’s entertainers, including hoop dancer Dallas Arcand, magicians and Métis dancers; the fair also features dogs doing tricks, dance bands and face-painting stations.

The evening’s main programming gets going daily at 7 p.m. at the Westoba Place main arena, and over the course of the next few days will include barrel racing, stock dog demos, the single harness pony championship and more. Westoba Place will also host early-morning horse-jumping events as well as youth competitions in the afternoon.

Single-day tickets start at $10 for kids 6-12, with senior and youth tickets for $21 or adult general one-day admission for $24. Three-day pass packages are also available.

— Ben Sigurdson

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Peacebreach’s Cognitive Dissonance album launch

• With Sleeptalker and Guilty Sleep
• Public Domain
• Friday, 9:30 p.m.
• Tickets: $19 at reallovewpg.com

They say that style is a 20-year cycle.

That means millennial mainstays like “hey-ho” indie-rock and the skinny jeans you wore while stomping and clapping along are, for now, “cringe,” so 2012, liable to get you teased on TikTok.

Meanwhile, early-aughts inspired rock — like emo, hardcore and pop-punk — are on the up-and-up. Vintage, nostalgic, something mined by rockers and rappers alike, from Pup to Trippie Redd.

Three acts, among others, leading the local charge on this new old sound are Peachbreach, who play Public Domain on Friday, and Sleeptalker and Guilty Sleep, who open for them. (Say all three band names in a row for alliterative fun.)

Both Sleeptalker and Guilty Sleep channel early emo, with a healthy helping of shoegaze. Peacebreach runs in a heavier direction, a little reminiscent of Winnipeg’s Propagandhi and Comeback Kid, but very much its own thing. It launches its new Cognitive Dissonance album at this show.

Public Domain’s intimate, back-to-basics venue practically begs for mosh-friendly acts like these.

— Conrad Sweatman

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WPFRM Spring 2025 market

• Victoria Inn Hotel and Convention Centre, 1808 Wellington Ave.
• Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 a.m.- 6 p.m.
• Pay what you can

It’s market season and Winnipeg Punk Rock Flea Market (WPRFM) is kicking things off this weekend featuring more than 140 vendors offering everything from art, jewelry and candles to pet treats and sweaters, upcycled items and music.

Organizer Em Curry promises visitors a “different shopping experience” at the market, which launched in 2023.

“We are so proud to support our local indie businesses by providing an environment that is safe, welcoming and brings the best selection of curated unique finds. Many of our vendors can only be found at WPRFM and so many create one-of-a-kind pieces you won’t find at any other market,” they say.

Vendors will rotate across the days, although some will be setting up on both Saturday and Sunday. There will also be a kids art and magazine-making table, mending services by Reclaim Mending and a free clothing-swap table organized by Trans Health Klinic where visitors can bring up to five items of clothing to swap for something new to them.

Proceeds from the pay-what-you-can entry system go towards supporting Youville Community Health Resource Centre and non-profit youth service Huddle South Central.

— AV Kitching

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Architecture and design on film

• Various venues
• April 9-13
• Tickets $6.50-$10.50; passes $75 at adff.ca

Arthur Erickson is the star of this year’s Architecture + Design Film Festival.

The five-day festival, organized by the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, opens next week with two feature-length documentaries about the celebrated Canadian architect.

On Wednesday, the Millennium Library (251 Donald St.) hosts a free noontime screening of Arthur Erickson’s Dyde House, a popular returning doc that chronicles the rediscovery of Erickson’s first-ever masonry build in Alberta’s aspen parklands.

That evening, Arthur Erickson: Beauty Between the Lines — a film about the B.C.-born architect’s personal life and legacy as a modernist icon — shows at 7 p.m. at Dave Barber Cinematheque (100 Arthur St.).

The festival will also feature the North American premières of The Hall (Denmark), The Daughters of Old Shiraz (Iran), Maurice and I (New Zealand) and Anna Mariani: Photographic Notes (Brazil).

The annual ArchiShorts competition, which features two-minute flicks about places real and imagined, takes place April 12 at Cinematheque. Other screening venues include Dalnavert Museum at 61 Carlton St. and the offices of the Manitoba Association of Architects and the Architecture Foundation at 101-177 Lombard Ave.

Individual tickets range from $6.50 to $10.50, full festival passes available for $75.

— Eva Wasney