The Arts

New musical gives voice to solitary struggles

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Yesterday at 1:30 PM CDT

When we first meet Brennan, his mental illnesses enshroud him like a weighted blanket.

He wants to get moving, but he can hardly stand up. He wants to play an original song at an upcoming open mic, but he can barely bring himself to pick up his acoustic guitar — the thing he loves more than any other object in his possession.

Brennan is played by Ian Ingram in the sharp new musical Breaking Up With Me, written by Connor and Cuinn Joseph. It’s the second production to launch at the Gargoyle Theatre, which is dedicated to premiering new works by local playwrights.

Brennan is so convinced he will fail that he neglects to even consider the possibility he might succeed if only he were to try.

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Family skewed

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Preview

Family skewed

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Saturday, May. 27, 2023

Inside every house, there is enough domestic drama to fill a three-act play. Most families keep their travails and traumas locked away, doing their best to silence their explosions, dab at the stains of turmoil, and pretend nothing happened in the first place.

Not the Kellers.

The central family of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons airs its dirtiest laundry in the backyard.

Set in the era immediately following the Second World War, All My Sons was for Miller a transformative exploration of a new brand of national post-traumatic denial. Upon its première in 1947, it marked the beginning of a confrontational era in American entertainment, defined by robust cynicism and simmering anger over what had been lost at home, even with the greatest battle supposedly won way over there.

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Saturday, May. 27, 2023

Connor McBride Photo

Kate Keller (Heather Roberts) and Chris Keller (Justin Fry)

Gargoyle Theatre refuses to let massive snowfall end recovery from pandemic

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Preview

Gargoyle Theatre refuses to let massive snowfall end recovery from pandemic

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

After starring in Sonja and Richard last February, Marina Stephenson-Kerr and Steven Ratzlaff earned the distinction of being the first actors to take the stage at the Gargoyle Theatre.

An unforgiving Winnipeg winter threatened to also make them the last.

Under the weight of the historic snowfall of 2022, the Ellice Avenue theatre’s roof was compromised, with water seeping into the newly refurbished, repainted and renovated interior.

“It pretty much immediately shut us down,” says Andrew Davidson, the local author who purchased the Mac building in 2019 and funded its rejuvenation.

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Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Connor Joseph (left) and brother Cuinn (second from right) co-wrote 'Breaking Up With Me', co-produced with Monique Gauthier and Jacob Herd.

SiR’s ‘Macbeth’ awarded best feature at Welsh film festival

Ben Waldman 2 minute read Preview

SiR’s ‘Macbeth’ awarded best feature at Welsh film festival

Ben Waldman 2 minute read Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

The whisperings from abroad are far from foul: Shakespeare in the Ruins’ film adaptation of Macbeth was named the best feature at the Carmarthen Bay Film Festival in Wales.

Filmed in the fall of 2020, with contributions from more than 30 local stage actors, Macbeth was the first feature-length production in the local outdoor theatre company’s history. Co-directors Sarah Constible and Michelle Boulet, along with producer Lisa Nelson-Fries, accepted the honour at the annual festival in Llanelli, Wales, over the weekend.

Shot in black and white, the film stars Ray Strachan, Julie Lumsden, Cherissa Richards, Arne MacPherson, Debbie Patterson, Gabe Daniels, Tobias Hughes, Olaoluwa Fayokun, Andrea del Campo, Hera Nalam and Melissa Langdon.

The news of the victory comes with Shakespeare in the Ruins’ 2023 season less than two weeks away: on June 1, the company’s adaptation of the Bard’s Twelfth Night kicks off at the Trappist Monastery Provincial Heritage Park.

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Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

Supplied

Toil and trouble: From left, Melissa Langdon, Andrea del Campo and Hera Nalam in Macbeth.

Miller’s masterpiece at 28th Minute

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Preview

Miller’s masterpiece at 28th Minute

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

Long before he became a professor, writer and director in Winnipeg, George Toles was a 16-year-old in Hamburg, N.Y., whose passion for the stage was ignited when he read a play that managed to devastate, excite and enrage him in equal measure: Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.

It was a work upon which the playwright staked his entire career: after the flop of his first show, 1944’s The Man Who Had All the Luck, the shrewd Miller vowed that should his followup suffer a similar fate, he’d find himself a new career.

“What I did was decide that I would write a play which would satisfy me in every conceivable way,” he told an interviewer in 1995.

It certainly had that effect on Toles, who vowed to mount a production before all was said and done.

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Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Actor Kevin Ramberran (left) and director George Toles were both gripped by the power of playwright Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.

In honour of fathers

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read Preview

In honour of fathers

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read Saturday, May. 20, 2023

The work of two late Manitoba visual artists, Robert Bruce (1911-1980) and Keith Wood (1944-2018), is being honoured in a duo exhibition currently on view at Soul Gallery, curated by gallery owner Julie Walsh.

Bruce and Wood were also fathers who are remembered by their daughters.

The work of Bruce featured in this exhibition includes monoprints, coloured inks and oil paintings from the 1950s to the 1970s. Scenes from the Canadian Shield figure prominently in this era.

“He just had a huge love for nature,” says his daughter, the visual artist Katharine Bruce, 75. “He was a canoeist, a skier, a hiker, and he was always out with a sketchbook in hand.”

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Saturday, May. 20, 2023

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Gallerist Julie Walsh with work from Keith Wood and Robert Bruce

United States returns ‘Earth Monster’ Olmec sculpture to Mexico

The Associated Press 1 minute read Preview

United States returns ‘Earth Monster’ Olmec sculpture to Mexico

The Associated Press 1 minute read Friday, May. 19, 2023

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico announced Friday that a huge 2,500-year-old Olmec stone sculpture has been returned from the United States.

The almost six-foot-tall (two-meter) “Monster of the Earth” sculpture appears to represent the gaping maw of a monster that is big enough to swallow people, and may represent a symbolic entrance to the underworld.

Experts say the sculpture is important because of the insights it provides on the cosmological vision of the Olmecs, considered a founding culture of Meso-America.

Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the sculpture was handed over at the Mexican consulate in Denver, Colorado, on Friday.

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Friday, May. 19, 2023

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico announced Friday that a huge 2,500-year-old Olmec stone sculpture has been returned from the United States.

The almost six-foot-tall (two-meter) “Monster of the Earth” sculpture appears to represent the gaping maw of a monster that is big enough to swallow people, and may represent a symbolic entrance to the underworld.

Experts say the sculpture is important because of the insights it provides on the cosmological vision of the Olmecs, considered a founding culture of Meso-America.

Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the sculpture was handed over at the Mexican consulate in Denver, Colorado, on Friday.

WAG-Qaumajuq puts spotlight on KAMA finalists

Jen Zoratti 3 minute read Preview

WAG-Qaumajuq puts spotlight on KAMA finalists

Jen Zoratti 3 minute read Friday, May. 19, 2023

Stories tell us who we are in the world, says Marie-Anne Redhead, assistant curator of Indigenous and contemporary art at WAG-Qaumajuq. They also tell us how to survive, she adds.

It’s in that spirit Redhead curated Anaanatta Unikkaangit (Our Mother’s Stories), a new group exhibition at the downtown hub featuring the five shortlist finalists for the Inuit Art Foundation’s 2023 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award.

The biennial prize is presented in partnership with Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq and RBC Emerging Artists, seeking to support the continued development and career growth of established mid-career contemporary Inuit artists.

This year’s shortlist, announced Friday, includes: Billy Gauthier, a Kablunangajuit sculptor based in North West River, Nfld.; Maureen Gruben, an Inuvialuk installation, textile, performance artist and sculptor from Tuktuuyaqtuuq, N.W.T.; Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona, a multidisciplinary artist and ceramicist from Ottawa; Kablusiak, a mononymous Inuvialuk artist and curator based in Calgary; and Ningiukulu Teevee, a graphic artist and author from Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut.

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Friday, May. 19, 2023

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Marie-Anne Redhead curated a new group exhibition at WAG-Qaumajuq featuring the five shortlist finalists for the Inuit Art Foundation’s 2023 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award.

Theatre Projects Manitoba season includes first collaboration with RMTC

Ben Waldman 4 minute read Preview

Theatre Projects Manitoba season includes first collaboration with RMTC

Ben Waldman 4 minute read Thursday, May. 18, 2023

Teamwork was the word of the evening as Theatre Projects Manitoba unveiled plans for its 2023-2024 season to a giddy crowd at the Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club Wednesday night.

In her first season in charge of programming, Theatre Projects Manitoba’s artistic director Suzie Martin has mustered up collaborations with one of the province’s oldest theatre companies as well as one of its newest.

“This season is all about relationships,” Martin said.

For the first time in the independent company’s 33 years, it is partnering with the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre on a co-production, bringing Governor General’s Award-winning playwright David Yee’s Among Men to the Tom Hendry Warehouse stage. It’s a major collaboration, called “a perfect marriage” by RMTC artistic director Kelly Thornton.

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Thursday, May. 18, 2023

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

End of the Line composer Duncan Cox performs a tune at the Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club on Wednesday.

Pierce Brosnan unveils deeply personal paintings in 1st solo art exhibit

Leslie Ambriz, The Associated Press 5 minute read Preview

Pierce Brosnan unveils deeply personal paintings in 1st solo art exhibit

Leslie Ambriz, The Associated Press 5 minute read Thursday, May. 18, 2023

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pierce Brosnan has attempted to write about himself many times, but it’s through painting that the artist truly feels he can fully express himself.

“(The artwork) is biographical. I’ve tried to write the memoirs, and it’s so boring. It’s just having to dig into the head and the heart and the memory of life. And so these paintings definitely have a history of who I was, where I was, when I was,” said the actor.

Brosnan is publicly unveiling his most vulnerable role yet, hosting his first solo art exhibition — which runs through May 21 in Los Angeles. Titled “So Many Dreams,” it’s a collection of paintings and drawings that the actor created between the 1980s and present day.

Painting isn’t a new pandemic hobby or venture that the actor is just now tackling head-on. Although best known for playing James Bond and starring in other classics, Brosnan began pursuing the visual arts as a young boy living in Ireland.

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Thursday, May. 18, 2023

FILE - Pierce Brosnan appears at the premiere of "Black Adam" in London on Oct. 18, 2022. Brosnan's first solo art exhibition, titled, "So Many Dreams," runs through May 21 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)

Supreme Court rules against Andy Warhol’s foundation in a case about a portrait he made of Prince

Jessica Gresko, The Associated Press 5 minute read Preview

Supreme Court rules against Andy Warhol’s foundation in a case about a portrait he made of Prince

Jessica Gresko, The Associated Press 5 minute read Thursday, May. 18, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the 2016 publication of an Andy Warhol image of the singer Prince violated a photographer's copyright, a decision a dissenting justice said would stifle the creation of art.

The high court ruled 7-2 for photographer Lynn Goldsmith. “Lynn Goldsmith’s original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the opinion for the court.

In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan warned that the decision would "stifle creativity of every sort" and suggested the majority needed to “go back to school” for an Art History 101 refresher course.

The case involved images Warhol created of Prince as part of a 1984 commission for Vanity Fair. Warhol used one of Goldsmith's photos as a starting point, a so-called artist reference, and Vanity Fair paid Goldsmith to license the photo. Warhol then created a series of images in his signature bright-colored and bold style.

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Thursday, May. 18, 2023

FILE - In this 1976 file photo, pop artist Andy Warhol smiles in New York. The Supreme Court on Thursday, May 18, 2023, sided with a photographer who claimed the late Andy Warhol had violated her copyright on a photograph of the singer Prince. The Supreme Court sided 7-2 with photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The case involved images Warhol created of Prince as part of a 1984 commission for Vanity Fair. Warhol used a Goldsmith photograph as his starting point. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Thunderous standing ovation, four curtain calls for James Ehnes at MCO concert

Holly Harris 4 minute read Preview

Thunderous standing ovation, four curtain calls for James Ehnes at MCO concert

Holly Harris 4 minute read Wednesday, May. 17, 2023

Canadian superstar violinist James Ehnes received a hero’s welcome Tuesday night, his sublime artistry as bright as stars in a Prairie sky, his tone as golden as the wheat fields surrounding his birthplace of Brandon.

The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra featured the world-renowned artist during the first of two identical concerts held at the Crescent Arts Centre, both evenings led by MCO music director Anne Manson.

No stranger to Winnipeg audiences — Ehnes performed in the city earlier this season; his last MCO appearance was in 2016 — the artist treated the capacity crowd of 650 to Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 2918, a.k.a. the “Turkish,” an audience-pleasing work he has performed before on this stage.

Following the orchestra’s crisp introduction during the opening Allegro aperto, Ehnes immediately got down to the matter at hand, holding listeners rapt with his virtuosic technique, flawless intonation and seamless bowing, as his gleaming 1715 “Marsick” Stradivarius scaled the heights and leaped across its full range.

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Wednesday, May. 17, 2023

Mark Rash

James Ehnes’s all-guns-blazing performance of the finale Allegro assai from J.S. Bach’s Violin Sonata in C major, BWV 1005 seemed to gather momentum by the measure, tossed off like child’s play and leading to another rousing ovation.

Sonja Frisell’s lavish staging of Verdi’s ‘Aida’ ends its 35-year-run at the Metropolitan Opera

Ronald Blum, The Associated Press 5 minute read Preview

Sonja Frisell’s lavish staging of Verdi’s ‘Aida’ ends its 35-year-run at the Metropolitan Opera

Ronald Blum, The Associated Press 5 minute read Tuesday, May. 16, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — Sonja Frisell was a 9-year-old growing up in England when she saw still photos of “Caesar and Cleopatra,” a 1945 movie starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains.

“My mother wouldn’t take me to it because she said it wasn’t a subject suitable for young people,” Frisell, now 85, said by phone from her home in Portugal.

So began the path to her lavish staging of Verdi’s “Aida,” the second-most performed production in the Metropolitan Opera’s 140-year history. Her version, featuring a Triumphal Scene with 272 people and four horses, will be seen for the 262nd and final time on Thursday night. A new version by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer is to open in 2024-25.

Frisell had been fascinated by the story of the Ethiopian princess and Egyptian military captain Radamès since childhood.

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Tuesday, May. 16, 2023

FILE - Luciano Pavarotti, left, as Radames, Olga Borodina, second left, as Princess Amneris, Hao Jiang Tian, third left, as the King, Deborah Voigt, second right, as Aida, and Mark Delavan, right, as Amonasro, perform during a dress rehearsal of Giuseppe Verdi's "Aida" Friday, Jan. 12, 2001, at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Sonja Frisell's staging of Verdi's `Aida' ends its 35-year-run at Metropolitan Opera on Thursday. A new version by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer is to open in 2024-25. (AP Photo/Robert Mecea, File)

SiR’s pandemic-inspired feature film Macbeth nominated for prestigious Welsh award

Ben Waldman 3 minute read Preview

SiR’s pandemic-inspired feature film Macbeth nominated for prestigious Welsh award

Ben Waldman 3 minute read Tuesday, May. 16, 2023

When the pandemic took live theatre away, Shakespeare in the Ruins took the Bard to the movie theatre instead.

In the fall of 2020, the innovative outdoor theatre company, which performs annually at the Trappist Monastery Park, was looking for a way to stay busy while audiences stayed home.

“We were in limbo,” artistic director Rodrigo Beilfuss recalls.

That’s when troupe members Sarah Constible and Michelle Boulet made a fateful pitch: to capture Macbeth as a feature film, shot in black and white. Constible and Boulet didn’t want to simply shoot a stage production; they wanted the company to use the film medium to its fullest capacity.

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Tuesday, May. 16, 2023

Blackfriar productions

Julie Lumsden plays Lady Macbeth in Shakepeare in the Ruins’ feature film version of the Bard’s tragedy.

Play explores fallout from graduate wanting same-sex date at celebration

Ben Waldman 4 minute read Preview

Play explores fallout from graduate wanting same-sex date at celebration

Ben Waldman 4 minute read Monday, May. 15, 2023

Megan Fry’s Grade 12 grad story is pretty standard: her cousin did her makeup, she did her own hair, and after slipping on a dress she found on sale for only $50, she met up to take pictures with a platonic friend she brought along as her date.

Ho-hum.

“I went to grad with a guy, and it was so easy because that’s what everyone expected to happen,” says Fry, 24, an alumna of Kelvin High School and a rising musical theatre professional in Winnipeg. Even though they weren’t romantically involved, nobody batted an eye when they posed arm-in-arm or exchanged corsages.

“There’s a lot of privilege in that,” adds Fry, who appeared in Winnipeg Studio Theatre’s recent production of Fame.

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Monday, May. 15, 2023

photos by Mike Sudoma / Winnipeg Free Press

Joseph Sevillo, who co-stars with Megan Fry, was the only openly gay student in his Grant Park class.

Métis Superstar Designs creates one-of-a-kind ribbon skirts to reflect Indigenous pride and resilience

David Sanderson 7 minute read Preview

Métis Superstar Designs creates one-of-a-kind ribbon skirts to reflect Indigenous pride and resilience

David Sanderson 7 minute read Friday, May. 12, 2023

SELKIRK — Marlena Muir knew it was customary for women to wear a ribbon skirt to sweat lodge ceremonies, when she attended her first sweat at age 18, but, lacking one of her own, she arrived sporting a grey tank top and black maxi-skirt, instead.

Ahead of entering the lodge, Muir was pulled aside by a friend who whispered, “here, put this on,” as she handed over a patterned garment adorned with strips of brightly coloured silk.

“Slipping into it, I felt so… included. I’d never worn a ribbon skirt before, and it made me feel like I was being seen as an Indigenous woman, in a way I’d never experienced before,” Muir says, noting she also received her spirit name, Osâwi-Pinêsiw Iskwew (Yellow Thunderbird Woman), that day.

Close to a decade later, Muir, 27, is the proud owner of Métis Superstar Designs, a home-based venture that turns out contemporary versions of ribbon skirts, an article of clothing oft-described as being a symbol of identity and survival for Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people. Online reviews for her handiwork are glowing; her funky, functional pieces have been called, “beautiful,” “gorgeous” and, in the case of one done with pumpkin-orange jacquard fabric, “dedli.” (We think they mean “deadly.”)

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Friday, May. 12, 2023

(Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press)

‘Succession’ star Jeremy Strong lands a role on Broadway in 2024 in ‘An Enemy of the People’

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press 2 minute read Preview

‘Succession’ star Jeremy Strong lands a role on Broadway in 2024 in ‘An Enemy of the People’

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press 2 minute read Friday, May. 12, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — Jeremy Strong is going from a corporate boardroom on TV to a whistleblower on Broadway.

The actor who plays Kendall Roy in the HBO television series “Succession” has signed on to play a man who tries to expose water contamination in a Norwegian spa town in Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play “An Enemy of the People.”

The play — with a rewrite from Amy Herzog, whose adaptation of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” just won a Tony nomination — will premiere on Broadway in early 2024 at a theater to be revealed later, producers said. The rest of the cast will be announced later. Sam Gold, who won a Tony directing “Fun Home,” will helm the revival.

It will be Strong's second time on Broadway. He was in “A Man for All Seasons” in 2008 with Frank Langella and Patrick Page. Since then, his work on “Succession” has earned him an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

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Friday, May. 12, 2023

FILE - Jeremy Strong arrives at the HBO and HBO Max Post Emmys Reception on Sept. 12, 2022, in West Hollywood, Calif. Strong, who plays Kendall Roy in the HBO television series “Succession,” has signed on to play a man who tries to expose water contamination in a Norwegian spa town in Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play “An Enemy of the People." (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

MCO welcomes Ehnes home

2 minute read Preview

MCO welcomes Ehnes home

2 minute read Friday, May. 12, 2023

Brandon native James Ehnes makes a return to his home province next week as part of Manitoba Chamber Orchestra’s spring programming. The two-time Grammy Award-winning violinist, who ranks among the top 10 living violinists in the world, will perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5.

Ehnes had begun violin lessons at four and became a protegé of Canadian violinist Frances Chaplain by nine. He was only a teenager when he started performing as a soloist with several major orchestras including the MCO. Ehnes, who now lives in Florida, has also won 11 Junos throughout his career.

The concerts, conducted by Anne Manson, also feature music by Shostakovich and a première of Larry Strachan’s “calypso infused” J’Ouvert Morning, which pays homage to his parents’ Carnival experience in Grenada.

The shows — both in person, not streamed — take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at the Crescent Arts Centre, 525 Wardlaw Ave. Tickets are $36 at themco.ca.

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Friday, May. 12, 2023

Benjamin Ealovega photo James Ehnes

Winnipeg Comedy Festival weekend lineup

2 minute read Preview

Winnipeg Comedy Festival weekend lineup

2 minute read Saturday, May. 6, 2023

TODAY’S LINEUP

Got Land?

First Nation, Inuit and Métis performers express solidarity via humour

Featuring: Host Janelle Niles with Gerry Barrett, Savannah Erasmus, Don Kelly, Nelson Mayer, Keith Nahanee and Clayton T. Stewart

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Saturday, May. 6, 2023

Cinematheque crowns King Hu as part of spotlight on Asian films

Ben Waldman 3 minute read Preview

Cinematheque crowns King Hu as part of spotlight on Asian films

Ben Waldman 3 minute read Saturday, May. 6, 2023

With the coronation of King Charles at the top of the news cycle, the Dave Barber Cinematheque will be celebrating a different royal figure this weekend as part of its Asian Heritage Month series: King Hu.

The film director is considered a master of the wuxia genre — a subgenre of Chinese cinema with a focus on balletic martial arts sequences — known for a series of epics released in the 1960s and 1970s, including 1967’s Dragon Inn. According to the movie’s Criterion Collection write-up, Dragon Inn was a blockbuster that “breathed new life into a classic formula and established Hu as one of Chinese cinema’s most audacious innovators.”

Five of Hu’s films, including a 4K restoration of Dragon Inn, are screening this month at the Cinematheque, says Winnipeg Film Group executive director Leslie Supnet, who sees Asian cinema as a vast universe that audiences should consider exploring for reasons both artistic and social.

“As a Filipino from the diaspora, Asian Heritage Month is an important time to recognize Asian contributions to culture and society as well as recognize the challenges we face such as the legacies of colonialism and racism,” says Supnet, writing by email from a film festival in Germany.

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Saturday, May. 6, 2023

Touch of Zen

Love of woodworking takes edge off exit from hockey career

David Sanderson 8 minute read Preview

Love of woodworking takes edge off exit from hockey career

David Sanderson 8 minute read Friday, May. 5, 2023

During his first shift of an American Hockey League game between the Iowa Wild and the Grand Rapids Griffins on March 11, 2020, Wild forward Mike Liambas was skating toward a Griffins player preparing to fire the puck into the Wild zone. Liambas thrust his stick out, in an attempt to block or deflect his opponent’s pass, at which point his world changed, in a heartbeat.

“I’m only telling you what I’ve been told, or what I know from watching the video, because not only don’t I remember getting hit, I don’t recall that day’s morning skate, putting on my equipment, taking warm-ups… zilch,” says Liambas, who, during his professional career, spent 10 seasons bouncing around the International, East Coast and American hockey leagues, in addition to having “a cup of coffee” in the NHL, where he dressed for one game with the Nashville Predators and seven with the Anaheim Ducks.

“When I reached out with my stick, I left my face exposed,” he continues, getting out of his chair, to demonstrate what he understands to have occurred. “He thought I was going to finish my check, which is fair, so he raised his arms, catching me square on the chin.”

Liambas rose to his feet following the collision, only to crumple back to the ice. That occurred again, before he was escorted to the bench, by two of his teammates.

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Friday, May. 5, 2023

Exhibition celebrates life stories of COVID’s earliest, most isolated victims

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Preview

Exhibition celebrates life stories of COVID’s earliest, most isolated victims

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Friday, May. 5, 2023

In the spring of 2020, Megan Davies was confronted by a terrifying number: 82 per cent of Canada’s first-wave COVID-19 deaths were residents of long-term care facilities.

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Friday, May. 5, 2023

(Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press)

Student art to fuel Drag the Red

Maggie Macintosh 4 minute read Preview

Student art to fuel Drag the Red

Maggie Macintosh 4 minute read Friday, May. 5, 2023

A two-spirit teenager’s school assignment has spiraled into an advocacy campaign to raise both awareness about MMIWG2S+ (a tragedy he is intimately familiar with) and dollars to support families searching for loved ones.

Last year, when tasked with a project that required Kai Keeper and his peers to explore, investigate and act on injustice, the then-Grade 9 student picked up a paintbrush and dipped it in red.

Kai drew an outline of an Indigenous ikwe, inspired by the women who raised him, obscuring the right side of her face by casting a black shadow over it.

The female portrait is purposefully blurred to symbolize the reality that many stories about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people are overlooked, the 15-year-old said as he gestured to a canvas covered in acrylic paint.

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Friday, May. 5, 2023

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Kai Keeper’s school assignment has spiraled into an advocacy campaign to raise both awareness about MMIWG2S+

Russia jails artists amid crackdown on dissent

Dasha Litvinova, The Associated Press 3 minute read Preview

Russia jails artists amid crackdown on dissent

Dasha Litvinova, The Associated Press 3 minute read Friday, May. 5, 2023

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Russian court on Friday ordered pretrial detention for a theater director and a playwright facing charges of justifying terrorism, the latest move in a relentless crackdown on dissent in Russia that spiked to unprecedented levels since the start of the war in Ukraine.

The Zamoskvoretsky District Court in Moscow jailed Zhenya Berkovich, a prominent independent theater director, and Svetlana Petriychuk, a playwright, for two months pending investigation and trial. The two were detained in the Russian capital on Thursday because of the play Petriychuk wrote and Berkovich staged, “Finist, the Brave Falcon.” Police also raided the apartments of Berkovich's parents and grandmother in St. Petersburg.

The play, named after a Russian fairy tale, depicts Russian women who faced prosecution after being lured into marriage and life in Syria by representatives of radical Islam.

The authorities have alleged that the play justifies terrorism, accusations that both Berkovich and Petriychuk have rejected, maintaining their innocence.

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Friday, May. 5, 2023

Playwright Svetlana Petriychuk sits in a cage in a courtroom prior to a hearing in a court in Moscow, Russia, Friday, May 5, 2023. Theater director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk were detained on Thursday on the charge of justifying terrorism because of their play "Finist, the Brave Falcon." The play is about women who were lured into marriage by representatives of radical Islam, went to live with them in Syria and faced prosecution upon returning to Russia. Berkovich and Petriychuk have maintained their innocence. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Winnipeg Comedy Festival lineup for Friday

2 minute read Preview

Winnipeg Comedy Festival lineup for Friday

2 minute read Friday, May. 5, 2023

More info and ticket links at winnipegcomedyfestival.com.

The Great Patio Showdown: A Comedy Game Show

Two teams of comedians compete in a series of games and trivia rounds.

Featuring: Host Erica Sigurdson with Mayce Galoni, Jackie Pirico, Aaron Pridham and Angie St. Mars

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Friday, May. 5, 2023

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