• 'With this broom, I thee wed': offbeat family inspires play

  ‘I now pronounce you wife and wife.” Canadian singer-songwriter David Hein, 36, heard those words about 18 years ago when his divorced mom married her lesbian partner. At the time, same-sex marriage wasn't legal, but the pair have since made it official.

  View Full Column | 05/10/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Parting is sweet sorrow for ballerinas

  Two long-serving dancers are taking their final bows with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in the season-closing Pure Ballet performances Wednesday through Sunday. Here's a farewell look at Emily Grizzell and Carrie Broda: -- -- --

  View Full Column | 05/8/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Setting dance to Cohen like poetry in motion

  Last year, Winnipeg's Jorden Morris was asked to choreograph a pas de deux to Leonard Cohen's soulful Dance Me to the End of Love for the nationally televised Genie Awards. It was so well received that the Royal Winnipeg Ballet commissioned Morris to create a longer work to songs by the legendary Cohen.

  View Full Column | 05/5/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Artists give dignity to discarded items

  Almost everybody keeps a junk drawer or jar full of small, useless stuff -- single earrings, souvenir pins, buttons, old keys, broken watches. Then there's the paper we have trouble throwing away: ticket stubs from long-ago events, perhaps, or small cardboard boxes that once held gifts.

  View Full Column | 05/4/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Wind blows in eerie anticipation, mystery

  SIX years ago, artists Irene Bindi and Aston Coles migrated from Victoria to Winnipeg. "We didn't know anyone. We didn't have any job prospects," recalls Bindi, 34.

  View Full Column | 04/28/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Dinosaurs roar to life

  A herd of roaring, tail-lashing prehistoric reptiles will invade the Manitoba Museum this fall in the touring exhibition Dinosaurs Unearthed. The "experiential" show will feature 14 realistic animatronic dinosaurs, two full-size replica skeletons and 22 fossils.

  View Full Column | 04/26/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Aboriginal youths find common ground in theatre

  THEY live on opposite sides of the globe, but two groups of aboriginal youth are finding much in common during a 10-day cultural meet-up at Manitoba Theatre for Young People. The Marrugeku Theatre Company comes from Broome, a coastal town in remote northwestern Australia, on the traditional lands of the Yawuru people.

  View Full Column | 04/26/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Fiona Reid's Krackenthorp will surely crack them up

  Winnipeg opera fans were expecting to see comedian Mary Walsh play the overbearing Duchess of Krackenthorp in The Daughter of the Regiment as a relative of her brash This Hour Has 22 Minutes character Marg Delahunty. Instead, they'll see another Canadian star step into Marg's outrageous shoes in the non-singing cameo role. Toronto actress Fiona Reid, who has the same agent as Walsh, got a call last week asking if she could jump on a plane to replace the TV star, who is recovering from pneumonia.

  View Full Column | 04/20/2012 2:14 PM | 0

• Daddies' girl

  Pressure? What pressure? The headliners in Gaetano Donizetti's exuberant French comedy The Daughter of the Regiment, opening Saturday at Manitoba Opera, face inevitable comparison to other performers.

  View Full Column | 04/19/2012 3:17 AM | 0

• Legendary Dreamachine offers viewers 'trip' to '60s

  WOW, man. That's trippy. At the recent, happening-like opening of an art show at downtown's Plug In gallery, hundreds of people tried sitting on pillows on the floor and staring at a spinning cylinder. It's made of cut-out steel with a bulb inside it, mounted on a record-player turntable.

  View Full Column | 04/19/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Choreographer pumps new creation full of air

  TECHNOLOGY'S impact on human and animal life has long been a concern for Winnipeg choreographer Jolene Bailie. Three years ago, her solo Everything's Coming Up Roses looked at our enslavement to clocks and gadgets. In 2010, her piece Sensory Life, Infinite World imagined a utopian ecosystem -- a nature-inspired alternative.

  View Full Column | 04/18/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Well-performed puppet show moves at a tedious pace

  MANITOBA Theatre for Young People often demonstrates with its programming that a show can be very simple and gently paced, yet captivate both children and adults. The House at Pooh Corner was a beautiful example this season.

  View Full Column | 04/14/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Novel pokes fun at dating at both ends of life

  When Bob Jenkins was dating his future wife in early-1950s Winnipeg, the rules of courtship were reasonably clear. Nice girls saved themselves for marriage. Couples would engage in prolonged necking sessions in a seated position. Guys considered it a make-out milestone if they managed to slip a hand inside a girl's armour-like underwear.

  View Full Column | 04/12/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Manitoba artists' works on the big stage

  Nearly 50 Manitoba artists are getting a boost in prestige and profile today as their works are unveiled at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The annual Manitoba Society of Artists' open juried competition and exhibition is being held at the WAG to recognize the 110th anniversary of the organization and the 80th anniversary of its contest and show.

  View Full Column | 04/7/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Asking hard questions about doing hard time

  If you saw the recent play August: Osage County at the RMTC Warehouse, you'll know Steven Ratzlaff as the tall, lanky actor who played Sharon Bajer's professor husband. The grey-haired Winnipeg performer is typecast in "suit" roles, such as lawyers, in movies and television. On stage, he radiates intelligence.

  View Full Column | 03/29/2012 10:50 AM | 0

• Hop on The Number 14 for laugh-fuelled ride

  ANYONE who rides the bus regularly knows it can be a circus. Your personal space is invaded by loud, smelly, unpredictable strangers of all ages and backgrounds. You're part of a captive audience for wrenching pathos, bizarre comedy and simmering violence.

  View Full Column | 03/24/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• A new Dawn

  Classical music is often described as the domain of dead, white, male Europeans. World-renowned American soprano Dawn Upshaw started her career inside the boundaries of that traditional realm. For nearly 20 years, from 1984 to 2003, she sparkled on the stage of New York's Metropolitan Opera, graduating from light, bubbly soubrette roles to stardom, particularly in Mozart operas.

  View Full Column | 03/22/2012 9:30 AM | 0

• WSO reveals a new season full of star performers and music from the masters

  Steve Reich, a contemporary music giant who has been called America's greatest living composer, will headline the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival next winter. "He's bigger than life," WSO music director and maestro Alexander Mickelthwate says about the Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize-winning legend. "He and Philip Glass are the godfathers of minimalism."

  View Full Column | 03/17/2012 3:47 PM | 0

• Colourful conductor uses musical mad science

  A famous American conductor will lead part of an improvised Winnipeg concert on Sunday, but she won't even be in the country. Pauline Oliveros, a 79-year-old icon of electronic art music, will be in New York using an iPad touch screen to trigger visual cues in the form of coloured LED lights.

  View Full Column | 03/16/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Competition challenges architects to create dwellings for the Venice Biennale

  If you landed in a totally unfamiliar place as an immigrant or migrant, what sort of home would you design? Would it echo your culture of origin while adapting to a strange new landscape, climate and construction materials?

  View Full Column | 03/15/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• A triumphant comeback

  The title character in Giselle is a delicate peasant girl with a weak heart. She lives to dance, but she's not supposed to overdo it because the strain might do her in. At Wednesday's opening of the 19th-century chestnut by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, there was a poignant parallel in principal dancer Vanessa Lawson's situation.

  View Full Column | 03/9/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Dysfunctional family drama

  When Sharon Bajer found out she'd be acting opposite Canadian stage legend Martha Henry in August: Osage County, a hit play about a wildly dysfunctional family, she knew it would be memorable. "I was very, very, very excited," says the well-known Winnipeg performer. "It's just a privilege ... like working with a master."

  View Full Column | 03/8/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Rockwell retrospective celebrates painter who captured idyllic side of American life

  Was Norman Rockwell "the Dickens of the paintbrush" -- a brilliant visual storyteller who helped to shape 20th-century America with his optimistic vision of tolerance and decency? Or was he a too-commercial, too-literal purveyor of corny, sentimental kitsch?

  View Full Column | 03/1/2012 3:19 AM | 0

• Colourful works hide heart of darkness

  In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a creepy old witch who eats children. When she's not at home, her house walks around on chicken legs. Artist Chris Reid, born Christina Saruk into a family of Ukrainian heritage, heard tales of the sinister hag while growing up in the heavily Ukrainian town of Lamont, Alta., east of Edmonton.

  View Full Column | 02/18/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Racially charged play sure to score with teen audience

  Joey and Christine are 17-year-olds who have been dating for six months. He's white, and proud enough of his part-Irish heritage to cheer for the Boston Celtics and buy tickets to an Irish dance show.

  View Full Column | 02/17/2012 1:00 AM | 0

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