Indigenous theatre founder Nova Courchene gets nod for prestigious prize

Gillingham in lead with decided voters

A cloud of uncertainty is hanging over Winnipeg as October’s municipal election nears.

Three months after a poll showed more than 40 per cent of Winnipeggers wanted to see someone other than current mayor Scott Gillingham elected, a new Abacus Data poll indicates more than half of Winnipeg voters are undecided heading into next month’s civic election.

Of decided voters, 55 per cent favour Gillingham compared to 23 per cent for former councillor and provincial cabinet minister Kevin Klein and 11 per cent for funeral director Mike Vogiatzakis.

Of all respondents, just over 50 per cent said they were unsure while 13 per cent said they will not vote.

Cabernet Sauvignon star of wine festival

The Winnipeg Wine Festival will celebrate the king of red wine grapes next weekend — the theme of this year’s festival, which takes place Sept. 25 and 26 at the RBC Convention Centre, is Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cab Sauv, as it’s also known, is the world’s most widely planted wine grape of any colour, first coming to prominence in the 1800s in France’s Bordeaux region, where the grape is still popular. Rather than single-variety wines, Bordeaux reds tend to be blends, with those coming from the left bank of the Gironde estuary being Cabernet-dominant, while right-bank wines are Merlot-dominant, with Cabernet Sauvignon playing a supporting role. Cabernet and Merlot work well together and many other countries have followed suit in blending the two.

A team at University of California Davis put Cabernet Sauvignon through a DNA test in 1996 and discovered its parent grapes are Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc — it’s likely that at some point the two varieties, planted next to each other in some vineyard, crossed and mutated and became the grape we know today. (Someone growing grapes in the 19th century must have had an inkling of what was up, as the grape has been called Cabernet Sauvignon since long before the DNA test.)

Flavour-wise, most Cabernet Sauvignon wines are big and bold, with a core of deep dark berry flavours, some graphite and spice notes and relatively bright acidity. It’s a grape that is well-suited to barrel aging, with most examples seeing at least some time in wood.

Family account spiced with magic realism, geopolitical intrigue and a ghost story

Tom Lin’s second novel Babylon, South Dakota moves beyond a historical account of an immigrant family’s struggle, delightfully blending and bending genres.

Lin is a Chinese-born novelist whose family emigrated to the U.S. when he was four years old. His debut novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making him the youngest ever recipient of that award. He earned a PhD in English from the University of California Davis and is currently an assistant professor of English and creative writing at the University of Iowa.

Babylon, South Dakota takes place in an unspecified time period that can be understood to be during the Mao era — likely the 1950s or ’60s. A young Chinese couple, the Hsuis, immigrate to the rural community that gives the book its title. They take the names Saul and Mei and settle on a 160-acre homestead left to them by a distant relative.

Saul’s dream is to breed and sell chrysanthemums from seeds he brought from China, while Mei wants to raise livestock. They speak no English, know nothing of life in the United States, are unprepared for the harshness of winter and the isolation of the farm and bring nothing with them except some gold, which Mei hides around the house for emergencies. Their only link to the outside world is a discarded and marginally functioning TV set, which Saul rescues and rigs up.

American Hostage stars recall warmth of Winnipeggers during brutal winter

TORONTO — When you stream the eight-part series American Hostage, a sense of familiarity may strike.

That’s because the show was shot in Winnipeg — especially in the Exchange District — from November of last year to the beginning of February, with Winnipeg portraying Indianapolis circa 1977.

The whole world seemed to be watching that midwest American city that year as a hostage crisis unfolded involving one Tony Kiritsis, an angry man who goes ballistic when a mortgage brokerage was poised to foreclose on property he had dreamed of developing into a shopping centre.

Kiritsis kidnapped his mortgage broker, Richard Hall, wiring a shotgun to the back of his head, and demanded a public airing of his grievances, with the reluctant help of popular radio broadcaster Fred Heckman.

Klein has burned bridges with PM, Gillingham says

One mayoral candidate accused another of writing a column so critical it could compromise his ability to work with the federal government.

Indigenous theatre founder Nova Courchene gets nod for prestigious prize

For her work as the founding artistic director of Oshkagoojin Indigenous Theatre for Youth, Winnipeg’s Nova Courchene has been named the recipient of one of Manitoba theatre’s highest honours for emerging arts leaders.

Since 2023, the Cherry Karpyshin Arts Management Prize has been given out by Prairie Theatre Exchange to early-career or aspiring arts managers. Named for PTE’s longtime general manager, for whom the company’s mainstage is also named, the Cherry Prize is accompanied by professional supports and a $2,500 cash award.

Meaning “new moon” in Anishinaabemowin, Oshkagoojin runs a variety of initiatives in Winnipeg, including the teen-focused Rising Voices, the middle years Growing Voices, and the early years Young Voices programs. Through storytelling, movement, narrative games and guided play, the Young Voices program introduces Indigenous children aged five through nine to the fundamentals of collaborative and co-operative theatre with a curriculum devised through a cultural lens.

“As I continue to grow Oshkagoojin Indigenous Theatre for Youth, I look forward to strengthening the organization’s capacity, sustainability, and national reach so that more Indigenous young people can access theatre, cultural learning, and artistic leadership opportunities in their own communities,” says Courchene in a release. “I believe that when Indigenous youth are empowered to tell their stories, entire communities benefit, and I am excited to continue building these pathways for future generations.