Alright, here we go, I’m just going to come out and say it- I don’t like Dear Evan Hansen. I find Pasek & Paul’s music a little cheap in its emotional trickery and while that drum-kit-here/belt-note-there/get-your-heart-pumping “This Is Me” theatrics work brilliantly in something like The Greatest Showman where the spectacle is the substance, Dear […]
Ballet BC made a stop in Toronto on a packed tour, and showcased an evening of athleticism, nuance, and sensitivity. Performing at the St Lawrence Centre for only two nights, I was lucky to catch a glimpse. It was refreshing and exciting to see another nationally renowned ballet company perform, as I am so used […]
A warm and engaging revival of a classic musical, Trevor Nunn’s Fiddler on the Roof has heaps of heart as it tells this tale of family, community and solidarity. Set amongst a small Jewish settlement in Imperial Russia during the early 1900s, Fiddler on the Roof’s themes are surprisingly still relevant. The story carefully balances […]
Choreographer Crystal Pite’s work is always deeply thrilling—her ability to bring an audience into a transformed alternate reality is her trademark. In Revisor, her second collaboration with writer Jonathon Young, we are witness to a darkly surreal world that is presented to us both as farce and warning. Revisor is a militaristic period fantasy, heavy […]
Reboot culture as the go-to MO of our modern television landscape is, to say the very least, uninspiring. My head spins at the thought of the original ideas unexplored because some executive would rather reboot Dynasty than greenlight the next Dynasty. There must be hundreds of them, thousands probably, TV shows that never got made […]
“You only leave home if home is the mouth of a shark” This is one of the many hard truths about the refugee experience that No Woman’s Land asks its audience to grapple with. Through thoughtfully constructed and highly theatrical vignettes, Jaberi Dance Theatre challenges viewers to experience the plight of refugees on a deeply […]
Jack Woodville London has written an engaging book about family and how our personal and familial histories impact who we ultimately become. It is an interesting exploration of how secrets and different interpretations of events based on incomplete knowledge can influence lives, creating domino effects that can ripple through generations. The story centres on two […]
Crossing and blending the line between dance and circus, Sigma is an absolute joy of a show. Cerebral, enticing, entrancing… this show is everything. The result of an experimentation of working with jugglers and dancers of different backgrounds, Gandini Juggling has found a niche working with traditional Indian dancers of the Bharatanatyam style and contemporary […]