Artists, performers open their doors, and their souls, for Culture Days

Culture Days, a national celebration of local arts and culture, kicks off today and runs through Oct. 12.

There are hundreds of free public events taking place across Manitoba over the next three weeks, including in Winnipeg, Morden, Gimli, Flin Flon and beyond. Nuit Blanche Winnipeg, the city’s annual late-night art party, also falls under the Culture Days umbrella and takes place Sept. 27.

Find a sample of the fun below and visit culturedays.ca for more information.

Central Park Moves: Weekend BeatsCentral Park, 367 Ellice Ave.

A Lebanese dancer defies extremist threats and social norms with his sold-out performances

BEIRUT (AP) — Alexandre Paulikevitch put on his white dress and wig and danced his way to center stage, knowing that the extremist groups who had threatened him before his controversial recital might be waiting for him outside the theater.

The Lebanese dancer’s sold-out performance to a cheering crowd at a popular Beirut venue had angered fundamentalist movements ranging from the right-wing Christian Soldiers of God to Sunni Islamists.

The fundamentalists say Paulikevitch is “promoting homosexuality" because he wears dresses and corsets and undulates to classical Arabic music in a way which society largely sees as exclusive to women.

Paulikevitch says he’s breaking social norms and reintroducing forms of dance that were commonplace for men as recently as the early 20th century.

Hotel-weary evacuees guests at powwow

SIOUX VALLEY DAKOTA NATION — Evacuees displaced from their communities in northern Manitoba were invited to Sioux Valley Dakota Nation on Friday for what the chief called a mental health day.

A hundred people were at the afternoon event when the Brandon Sun visited.

The event, which included live music, games and children’s entertainment, was a way to give a day of fresh air to evacuees, Chief Vince Tacan said.

“We thought we’d give our relatives from the north a mental health day, because staying in hotels gets hard after a while,” Tacan said.

Big Ocean breaks new ground as K-pop’s first deaf group

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Big Ocean, a three-member K-pop group composed entirely of artists with hearing disabilities, is redefining the limits of music and performance — one beat at a time.

When Big Ocean takes the stage, they seamlessly incorporate sign language into their performances. But their polished shows are built on extensive preparation using high-tech tools born from necessity — vibrating smartwatches that pulse with musical beats and LED visual metronomes that flash timing cues during practice sessions. This technological approach represents significant progress in South Korea’s entertainment industry, where career opportunities for people with disabilities have historically been limited.

The trio, PJ, Jiseok and Chanyeon, made their debut in April 2024 and recently wrapped a solo European tour marking their first anniversary. The band performed in four countries, including France and the U.K., while promoting their second mini-album, “Underwater,” which dropped on April 20.

PJ rose to prominence as a YouTuber who educated viewers about hearing disabilities. Chanyeon previously worked as an audiologist. Jiseok was a professional ski racer.

Miss Shakespeare turns gender bias on its ear

Winnipeg Studio Theatre kicked off its season with the guts and glory of female empowerment in its all-women-led local premiere of Miss Shakespeare.

The two-hour musical — directed by company artistic director Erin McGrath and presented by Rainbow Stage — runs through Oct. 5 at the University of Winnipeg’s Asper Centre for Theatre and Film. Saturday night’s crowd eagerly lapped up its feminist ethos.

Its quasi-historical protagonist, Judith Shakespeare (played by a spunky Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu), is the Bard’s real-life daughter “born with a poetic soul.” Judith lives in the shadows of her famous father during the repressive 1600s, when women were relegated to becoming wives and mothers, rather than pursuing their own passions.

Judith yearns for her own identity as a self-actualized creative powerhouse, and cobbles together the “Gossips,” a merry band of like-minded women who surreptitiously meet each week in the bowels of The Cage tavern to create a play. They spar, share stories, and dream, risking public humiliation if they’re discovered treading the boards like their male counterparts.

Satirical musical tackles health-care woes in bite-sized chunks

They say laughter is the best medicine. Throw a little song-and-dance into the mix and you get Larry Saves the Canadian Healthcare System — an 11-part web microseries that humorously addresses Canada’s ailing medical system through music and satire.

Sara Kreindler, a professor of community health sciences at the University of Manitoba, spearheads the show, drawing from her extensive research.

“It’s about starting a conversation,” says writer-composer Kreindler, who has a PhD in social psychology. “Whether you’re a health-care provider or just someone curious about the system, I want viewers to come away feeling empowered to hold our elected leaders accountable for addressing the underlying issues.”

Through the character of Larry, played by Winnipeg actor Toby Hughes, viewers embark on a journey navigating the complexities of health-care policy.

Belated Lunar New Year party a feast of Korean culture

For the last month, Andrea Kitano has been spending her weekends hosting hanbok fashion shows at shopping centres across Winnipeg.

‘Anti-social’ dancer fell in love with metal, ‘community’ at WECC

Dammecia Hall is an artist, and for her that means spending a lot of time by herself.

“I’m extremely anti-social,” says the dancer, choreographer and educator. “But as soon as you put me in a social environment, I come alive.”

One of the social environments Hall finds herself in these days is the West End Cultural Centre, the non-profit performance venue inside a former church at the corner of Ellice Avenue and Sherbrook Street.

While attending an event at the WECC, a friend of a friend encouraged Hall to volunteer at the venue. The 43-year-old Wolseley resident applied soon after, and has been volunteering at the WECC for more than a year.

Harlequin Costume seeks to sell building, ‘staggering’ collection; dancewear store to continue under same name

Looking to buy a building in downtown Winnipeg? Get in touch with the owners of Harlequin Costume.

If you’re interested in purchasing thousands upon thousands of costumes, you’ll want to talk to them, too.

Scott and Jan Malabar are selling their building at 375 Hargrave St., where the husband and wife have operated their costume, dance and formal wear business since the 1980s.

The asking price for the building, which sits a few blocks south of the Exchange District and a short walk from Central Park, is $995,000.

Thousands mark Truth and Reconcilation Day

As a sea of thousands clad in orange waited, Helen George braids her son’s long, straight hair.

They’re at the RBC Convention Centre, preparing for the grand entry ceremonies hosted by the Southern Chiefs’ Organization to mark the fifth annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Tuesday afternoon.

Originally from Ochapowace Cree Nation in Saskatchewan but living in Winnipeg, George is helping her son, Houston, get dressed for the upcoming powwow. For her, seeing so many families coming together to recognize the impact of the residential school system and celebrate Indigenous resilience is touching.

“It’s meaningful,” she said.

A show inside a cathedral featured raw chickens in diapers. The German president was in the audience

BERLIN (AP) — A performance inside a Catholic cathedral in Germany earlier this month that featured raw, plucked chickens wrapped in diapers onstage — and the country's president and the local archbishop in the audience — has prompted the church and municipal leaders to apologize that the show “hurt religious feelings."

The show, "Westphalia Side Story,” was part of a May 15 celebration to mark the 1,250th anniversary of Westphalia, a region in northwestern Germany.

Video footage shows one woman and two shirtless men singing “Fleisch ist Fleisch” (“Meat is meat”) — apparently spoofing Austrian band Opus' 1984 pop song “Live is Life” — with scythes and dancing with the dead chickens on a stage in front of Paderborn Cathedral's altar.

Performance company bodytalk said in a statement Friday that the show featured work-in-progress excerpts from “Westphalia Side Story" — which references the American musical "West Side Story."

Danser à 95 ans

L

E 9 avril dernier, la Franco-Manitobaine Hortense Sabourin a célébré ses 95 ans.

Un âge avancé qui ne l’empêche pas de poursuivre sa passion, la danse, malgré la perte de sa vue depuis plus de 15 ans.

“Quand, vers l’âge de 75-80 ans, mon médecin m’a dit que je devenais aveugle, c’était une triste nouvelle mais je n’ai jamais pensé abandonner la danse,” affirme Hortense Sabourin. “C’est un bon exercice et c’est bon pour le moral. On n’a pas besoin des yeux pour danser, mais des oreilles.”