A Side of Dreams is a beautiful view into Metis cultural traditions of generational and ancestral healing. The evening begins with a wondrous and effective projection of a spider beginning to spin a web, through a suspended aerial hoop. The initial image and soundscape prepare the audience for the intimate and thoughtful performance to come. […]

  Kelly Bedard

Read Thea’s Reviews and Lorenzo’s Reviews of the NSTF. Graham Clark Reads the Phonebook I loved comedian Graham Clark’s solo show at last summer’s Fringe Festival. So did everyone else, including Fringe head honcho Lucy Eveleigh. So Lucy invited him back for the Next Stage Festival. This, in theory, makes sense (especially considering they have […]

  Kelly Bedard

Sextet (Tarragon) This new theatrical dramedy from Morris Panych is a six-person character piece that plays out almost in real time between three motel rooms occupied by a string sextet on tour during a snow storm. It’s emotionally complex but conceptually simple, a combination that pretty much always reaps great rewards, particularly with a cast […]

  Marty Chodorek

When All Is Said & Get Served (A) A highly contrasting pair of pieces choreographed by Winnipeg’s Alexandra Elliott, When All Is Said and Get Served share an hour on the stage of The Al Green Theatre and should complement the average Fringe-goer’s verbally abundant festival experience with some virtuosic physical performance. When All Is Said […]

  Thea Fitz-James

“What I love about dogs,” Denise Clarke mummers as she begins imitating a dog’s slow building tail-wag, “is that they can’t hide their emotions.” Despite the audience’s noticeable lack of tails, we all had trouble hiding our gleeful experience of wag, which opened this past Thursday as part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in […]

The 40th anniversary speeches have been given by Artistic Director Michael Trent and the Ontario Arts Council’s Dance Officer, Myles Warren.  The playing space is empty as we sit in the round, starring at each other.  It seems like the lights are never going to go out.  In fact, they never do.  A most appropriate […]

  Justis Danto-Clancy

You’ve got to check out The Radio Show. If you don’t have any idea what it’s about and walk into the theatre, you’d see the powerful unity of dance and some really tremendous artists moving their bodies in impressive, interesting and gorgeous ways. Or maybe you’d see the dance as a comparison between the frustration […]

  Lorenzo Pagnotta

I am constantly in awe of the physical and mental stamina required of dancers, and have always said that if I could go back in time I would make sure to pursue dance.  Well this show made me want to die immediately and be reborn a dancer.  Heartbeat of Home is a spectacle with all […]