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This article was published 27/04/2017 (3320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Randy & Mr. Lahey

Just when you thought it was safe to return to the trailer park.

Mr. Lahey (John Dunsworth), the nefarious trailer park supervisor from the TV mockumentary series Trailer Park Boys, along with his shirtless sidekick and lover Randy (Patrick Roach), take the stage once again at the Burton Cummings Theatre Tuesday, May 2.

Tickets are available at Ticketmaster and range in price from $36.75 to $42 plus fees.

A press release says the Randy & Mr. Lahey show will be a “silly, sexist, drunken hour-and-a-half of songs and skits, audience participation, profanity, Shakespeare and general hilarity.”

Trailer Park Boys, which follows the drug and alcohol-fuelled schemes of Julian, Randy and Bubbles, has become a Canadian television phenomenon. It began as a series on Showcase in 2001 and turned into a cult hit in Canada and around the world. It has since transitioned into a movie series, including Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006), Countdown to Liquor Day (2009) and Don’t Legalize It (2014).

The TV series, which is set and shot in Nova Scotia, relaunched in 2014 on Netflix, and the latest season, its 11th, was released on March 31.

— Alan Small

 

 

Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers: Anything But Absolute Zero

Local audiences are in for a triple treat when Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers presents its final show of the season: Anything But Absolute Zero.

The production, co-presented with local dance artist Robyn Thomson Kacki, features two world premières by acclaimed Canadian choreographer Tedd Robinson and Montreal-based dance artist Janelle Hacault, as well as a remount of WCD artistic director Brent Lott’s Boxstruck. The mixed bill also includes Susie Burpee, a former Winnipegger and Dora Mavor Moore award-winning dance artist, who joins Thomson Kacki in Robinson’s cryptically monikered Cotton Handkerchiefs and Dog’s Tears.

“Both Susie and Tedd have been huge inspirations to me in my career, and this project is really a dream come true,” says Thomson Kacki, a longtime company member of Winnipeg’s NAfro Dance, of the creative process forged at Robinson’s Wakefield, Que., studio this past January. “Susie is a nationally renowned performer and choreographer, and I have always been drawn to her theatrical and masterful performances. And we have a blast together in rehearsals!”

Burpee, Hacault, Lott and Thomson Kacki — as well as all four WCD company members performing Lott’s piece — are graduates of the School of Contemporary Dancers Professional Program, while Robinson served as WCD artistic director between 1984 and 1990. The new work, guided by artistic advisor Stephanie Ballard, features an original score by Charles Quevillon, who has collaborated extensively with Robinson since 2010.

“I would describe it as a non-narrative work with a strong undertone of a presumed narrative,” says Robinson, who received the prestigious 2014 Walter Carsen Prize for his wildly theatrical choreography, seen here in prior WCD shows including Lepidoptera, He Called Me His Blind Angel and Camping Out; his duet Logarian Rhapsody was presented by the company last April. “As for the title, you will have to come and find out. There is nothing mysterious about it… it just makes sense when you experience the work,” he adds enticingly.

The mixed bill includes Hacault’s Falling, which she performs with Montreal’s Jason Martin. The Flin Flon-raised artist describes her passionate, narrative-based duet as “a beautifully tragic take on love and loss” set to Vivaldi’s iconic The Four Seasons.

“It’s really pushing our boundaries,” Hacault says of the roughly 30-minute work, which includes nudity. “Our piece explores a couple’s journey as they fall in and out of intimacy, and touches on all seasons of their relationship, as they encounter highs and lows of what that is.”

The eclectic program rounds out with Lott’s Boxstruck, distilled from his 2008 full-length production Struck. The newly revised, 18-minute quartet being performed by WCD’s Johanna Riley, Sam Penner, Brianna Ferguson and Brett Owen also features evocative music by Winnipeg composer Christine Fellows with diaphanous costumes by Norma Lachance.

The production opens Thursday, April 27, 8 p.m. and runs nightly until Saturday, April 29, at the Rachel Browne Theatre. For tickets ($25/$20/$15) or further information, go to www.winnipegscontemporarydancers.ca.

— Holly Harris

 

 

Winnipeg Wine Festival

With Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations taking many forms throughout the year and the country, it’s no surprise that wines made from grapes grown within our borders will be in the spotlight at the 16th annual Winnipeg Wine Festival.

Canadian wines will be front and centre at the festival’s public tastings, which take place May 5 from 7 to 10 p.m. and May 6 from 1 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 10 p.m. “It was difficult, with it being Canada 150 — every province is highlighting Canada, and this country only produces so much wine,” explains Peter Wilk, event co-ordinator for Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries and one of the key organizers of the festival. “We got a good response; interestingly, when Canada was the theme region last time we had two-thirds Ontario and one-third B.C. producers. This time it’s the other way around.”

As a place to buy Canadian wines, Manitoba has many advantages. “Because we’re central, we have a really good selection of wines from both eastern and western regions,” says Wilk. “If you go to B.C., you can find a fantastic selection of B.C. wines, but not much from Ontario. Same with the other way around.

“We’ve also had a really good relationship with both B.C. and Ontario wine organizations over the years; as a province, we were one of the first to hop on board and promote VQA.”

The festival’s WineDown ancillary events begin April 30 and run throughout the week leading up to the public tastings, offering curious imbibers the chance to taste plenty of reds, whites, bubblies and more from Canada — the fest’s 2017 theme region — and beyond.

Tickets to some of the week’s WineDown events are sold out, with the rest moving briskly as April 30 draws near. The tastings offer wine drinkers a chance to get up close and personal with producers and experts from a particular region or in a specific theme. There are still a handful of tickets, for example, to the California Cruisin’ event happening May 1 at the Delta Hotel, as well as to the Malbec and More with Wines of Argentina tasting taking place May 3 at the Fairmont.

Even more intimate are the wine dinners and wine-and-food events, which often feature winemakers on hand to lead the tasting of their product paired with custom menus created by some of the city’s top chefs. Resto Gare, for example, will host Oscar Quevedo Jr. from Portugal’s Quevedo winery in an extensive tasting and multi-course dinner on May 3. Similarly, on May 5 producers from Tantalus Vineyards and Culmina Family Estate Winery will be on hand at Capital Grill for a four-course tasting and lunch.

The public tasting tickets are selling briskly as well; the Saturday evening event is almost always a sellout, and Wilk noted sales are on pace for the 2017 fest, with Friday evening and Saturday afternoon tickets nearing record highs as well. It’s a chance for thousands of fans of the fermented grape juice to swirl, sniff and sip hundreds of wines from regions located across the globe.

The public tastings have been tweaked slightly this year, offering visitors a chance to escape the crowds and take a load off while sampling some exclusive wines. As in previous years, this year’s VIP option features 90-minutes of pre-fest access to the Wines of Canada theme region.

But there’s more. “This year there’s also a VIP lounge where there’ll be some wines specifically for that area, there’ll be food available, couches to relax on to get away from the madness and more,” explains Wilk. “There’s only room in there for 150 people, so space is limited.”

Other new features include a booth by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), a caricature artist to draw attendees, and a special appearance by Winnipeg Blue Bombers cornerback Mo Leggett.

As in previous years, proceeds from the Winnipeg Wine Festival benefit Special Olympics Manitoba; to date the festival has raised over $3 million for the charity, and is the second-largest Special Olympics fundraiser in Canada. Wilk expects the amount raised will be meet or exceed the amount raised last year, which was in excess of $400,000.

Tickets for the Winnipeg Wine Festival are available at Manitoba Liquor Marts or via the festival website at winnipegwinefestival.com, where an online or printable program is also available.

— Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson