GALLERIES + MUSEUMS Winnipeg Art Gallery – What’s on at the WAG? Plenty! Highlights of current and upcoming exhibitions include INSURGENCE/ RESURGENCE, an exhibition that brings together 29 emerging-to-established Indigenous artists who are pushing boundaries with their work. Curated by Jaimie Isaac and Julie Nagam (until Apr 22). Pitaloosie Saila has contributed to the Cape Dorset print collections for over 60 years, creating a prolific body of work: roughly 1,450 drawings and over 165 prints. A Personal Journey features 32 prints that center around themes of women and family, shamans, birds, and life experiences (until May 13). The National Gallery of Canada brings the work of David Altmejd to Winnipeg. The Vessel (2011) is a large scaled plexiglass sculpture that represents movement, transformation and the act of creation. The work brings together various materials, including plaster casts of the artist’s hands, which serve as the heads of graceful swans in flight. Montreal born Altmejd represented Canada at the Venice Biennale of Visual Art in 2007 and was the winner of the Sobey Art Award in 2009 (Nov 25-Apr 29). The WAG invites you to spend the summer with the Impressionists and experience 100 works spanning 100 years. Showcasing some of the most beloved artists of all time: Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and many more! (June 16 – Sept 9). Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art – Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey is the solo exhibition of Skeena Reece, well known for her humorous and critically penetrating performances that manage to portray a range of personas with a direct and raw exchange with audiences. In this exhibition, she continues to build upon her cast of characters “ramping up the clichés and emboldening stereo-types while sincerely trying to unearth their origins and stonewall their continued perpetuation. From Stockholm Syndrome to Indian Princesses, Reece uses various subjects in building a new lens with which to examine her personal history within a rereading of the displacement and continued disregard of Indigenous people in North America” (until March 18). Soul Gallery Inc. at 163 Clare Ave. – Ready for a new Art Gallery experience? Visit “An Art Gallery in a Home” filled with contemporary Fine Art by 32 local, national and international artists. This one-of-a-kind gallery showcases a diverse and captivating collection of paintings, monoprints and sculptures beautifully presented in a home setting. Open Saturday noon–4pm or by appointment Monday to Friday. Call 204781-8259 or visit website: www.soulgallery.ca Urban Shaman – An Aboriginal artist-run centre dedicated to meeting the needs of contemporary artists by providing a vehicle for artistic expression in all disciplines and at all levels by taking a leadership role in the cultivation of Indigenous art. For more information on upcoming exhibitions visit www.urbanshaman.org
Cre8ery – If you’re seeking the pulse of Winnipeg’s gallery talent, you needn’t look further than the Cre8ry. Featuring a fresh rotation of excellent local and international artists in a number of mediums, there is just about always something to experience here. For more information on upcoming exhibitions visit cre8ery.com Manitoba Museum – The Manitoba Museum is home to over 2.6 million artifacts and specimens! There is plenty to discover at this cherished local, renowned for its combined human and natural heritage themes. It offers plenty of exhibitions, publications, and on-site and outreach programs. Check out www.manitobamuseum.ca for more details. Canadian Museum for Human Rights – The CMHR is the realization of a dream by the late philanthropist Israel Asper. Come and discover the many permanent and rotating exhibitions. For more information visit www.humanrights.ca
THEATRE Prairie Theatre Exchange – Local favourites Debbie Patterson, Ross McMillan and Daria Puttaert make up the cast of the world premiere of Joseph Aragon’s How the Heavens Go. This play searches for wonder where science and the soul collide (Mar 1-18). The season closes with the dark comedy Fly Me to the Moon by Marie Jones and directed by Sharon Bajer (Apr 5-22). Cercle Molière – In Les Allogènes, Canada 150 is reflected upon through testimonies, confessions and heartfelt memories of actual community members (told through a cast of seasoned and amateur actors), who reflect on how they came to be in Canada (Mar 1-17). The youth production Avant l’archipel presents two whimsical characters who explore what happens when encountering our first love, a recommendation for “hopeless romantics and silly-hearted dreamers” (Apr 14).
Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre: John Hirsch Mainstage – There is a lot of buzz surrounding the play The Humans by Stephen Karam. It is noted as a drama that profoundly “sketches the psychological and emotional contours of an average American family.” See it for yourself ... (Mar 22-Apr 14). The season comes to a close with Carey Crim’s Morning After Grace, a hilarious and heart-warming comedy that tackles love, loss, and coming to terms with growing old (Apr 26 – May 19). Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre: Tom Hendry Warehouse – Amelia Bullmore’s feel-good story Di and Viv and Rose explores the evolution of friendship through humour, wit and sentiment (until Mar 24). In the Tony awardwinning playwright Simon Stephen’s Heisenberg, an unlikely match between a 75-year-old British butcher and a 40-something American occurs. A chance encounter propels these two strangers on a fascinating and life-changing course (Apr 12-28). Winnipeg Jewish Theatre – We Keep Coming Back is a co-creation by Michael Rubenfeld and Sarah Garton Stanley. It tells a story about a mother and son, both descendants of Polish Holocaust survivors, who decide to return to Poland in hopes of finding their lost identity and reconnecting with each other. The quest, however, takes an unexpected turn (until Mar 17). The Tony award-winning musical Falsettos chronicles “two years in the life of Marvin, his ex-wife Trina, lover Whizzer, about-to-be-BarMitzvahed son Jason, their psychiatrist Mendel, and the lesbians next door.” Part neurotic urban comedy, this musical also observes the shifting definitions of a family (May 5-13). Theatre Projects Manitoba – A Short History of Crazy Bone is a new play by Canadian poet Patrick Friesen, featuring Tracey Nepinak as Crazy Bone and directed by Andraea Sartison. Inspired by Friesen’s great-grandmother, the play is driven by Crazy Bone who walks on the “outskirts of time, imagination and place – shunned for her individuality, sexuality, and for the nonconventional choices she has made.” This beautiful and difficult tale is not to be missed! (Mar 28-Apr 8). Performances take place at Théâtre Cercle Molière. Daniel Thau-Eleff / Moving Target Theatre – Inspired by actual events, Deserter explores moral behaviour in a complex world, “mixing human struggles with political events, and raises questions about the relationship between civilians and soldiers in countries with (supposedly) volunteer armies.” This production is part of the MayWorks Festival of Labour & the Arts (May 17-27). Performances take place at the Rachel Browne Theatre. Mia van Leeuwen – The co-artistic director of Winnipeg’s out of line theatre is premiering an independent production of a long-time work in progress - Destroy She Said. The performance is a theatre of images inspired by Caryl Churchill’s play The Skriker and features the talents of Natasha-Torres Garner, Ming Hon, Charlene Van Buekenhout, and Alex Elliot (June 14-16). SPRING 2018 | STYLE MANITOBA | 13