NS reviews

Reviews of theatre and art in Nova Scotia and beyond

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Mask-maker and Butoh dancer unite for Ladder 梯子, rooted in Japanese-Canadian history

The living and the dead come together in a mesmerizing Butoh dance exploring legacy, identity and Japanese Canadian history. Ladder 梯子 at the Bus Stop Theatre, Halifax, June 28, 7:30 p.m., and June 29, 2 and 7:30 p.m., is a collaboration between Halifax artist and mask maker Miya Turnbull and Butoh dancer and choreographer Emiko Agatsuma. (tickets at: https://bit.ly/laddertickets) The two first connected on Instagram during the pandemic and bring […]

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BODY and SOIL

Soil Body: Art Meets Science, co-curated by Doug Pope and Sue LeBlanc and a Robert Pope Foundation project, asks this question: “Is there a connection between human health and the environment?” The answer isn’t as simple as you might think in art by 11 Nova Scotian artists and one Japanese artist responding to this question in a wide range of expression, thought and media. Artists talk about the human body, […]

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Nipped in the Bud: a powerful journey from darkness to light by Gillian McCulloch

Nipped in the Bud is a beautiful, shattering, important and healing show about experiencing and surviving sexual assault. The exhibit, at the Chase Gallery, Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax, to June 28, should be widely seen and displayed for its message and artistry. Nova Scotia artist Gillian McCulloch brings her enormous skills at realism and multimedia techniques to over 42 works in a journey from darkness to light, from fear to […]

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The Amazing World of Alan Syliboy at Dalhousie Art Gallery to Aug. 11

Open the door to a wonderful world of hot colour, celebratory spirit and amazing imagery in Alan Syliboy: the Journey So Far at Dalhousie Art Gallery to August 11. The gallery’s retrospective for the revered, widely collected and much loved Mi’kmaw artist is Syliboy’s largest show to date and already drawing high numbers, as well as repeat visitors, says the show’s curator and gallery director Pamela Edmonds. It opens officially […]

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Corteo: A Fantastic Carnival to see this weekend

The Cirque du Soleil is in Halifax this weekend with Corteo, a show of breathtaking physicality and passionate beauty with intense theatricality in music and design. If you loved Baz Luhrmann’s movie Moulin Rouge you’ll love this show; the time period is the same – around 1900. The mood is an historic European one charged with emotion and familiar design elements – baroque, Art Nouveau, Victorian costume, a nod to […]

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Letitia Fraser spreads her wings

Letitia Fraser took a deep dive into abstraction without totally leaving realism for three large masterful paintings that speak about tradespeople but also have a lovely language of paint. The Sobey Art Award longlisted artist holds true to her great colour sense and her intent to make visible the invisible in her exhibit, High Visibility, at the Lunenburg School of the Arts, 6 Prince Street, just through June 6. The […]

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Contemporary Art Society’s 49th big on colour and light

The painting looks at you from across the room at the Chase Gallery. Elise Doane’s acrylic vision of a Halifax Harbour sunrise, inspired by a Sherman Hines photograph, is a magical, masterful painting full of dreamy, varied orange light contrasted with deep foreground blues and blacks. Doane’s painting won the Pauline Manning Award in the Contemporary Arts Society’s 49th exhibit on view through May 31 at the Nova Scotia Archives. […]

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Dance Nation is Wild!

Take a walk (or dance) on the wild side with Dance Nation, a fierce and funny, loud and large play about 13-year-old dancers fighting, laughing and crying on the road to a national dance competition Clare Barron’s Pulitzer-Prize nominated play, first produced in England in 2018 and inspired by the TV reality show Dance Moms, has a limited run through Sunday at Alderney Landing, Dartmouth, by Keep Good (Theatre) Company […]

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‘Accelerated Erosion:’ Clay about Clay (and the Environment)

Accelerated Erosion – exposing ancient clay is a beautiful, innovative exhibit about clay and erosion at the Craig Gallery, Alderney Landing, Dartmouth, to May 26. The medium is the message as Seaforth artists Iris Naessens-Patterson and Marlene York experiment with locally-found red clay for a variety of artworks from carved landscape plaques to York’s series of paintings using clay as paint. (Pottery enthusiasts take note; Naessens-Patterson’s functional dishes and vessels […]

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Leaving Home: a must-see, reboot of a Canadian classic with a crackerjack team

Rarely does a play come with a food allergy warning. But David French’s 1972 Canadian hit Leaving Home, in a must-see Halifax production of stunning acting and realism, requires the Mercer family to sit down for a tense dinner of seafood casserole and green beans. Director Jake Planinc dreamed of mounting the two-hour, semi-autobiographical story when his Mount Allison drama teacher recommended this fan of Chekhov and Ibsen read a […]

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