Category Archives: Clips

Monster Pro Wrestling Profile for Vue Weekly Last September

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This week, I’m fleshing out my clips directory with some older freelance work I completed in the last six months.

Here’s a profile of the Edmonton’s Monster Pro Wrestling that I wrote and shot for Vue Weekly in September.

Only a handful of active independent Canadian wrestling promotions can say they’ve been going strong for 14 years with no signs of slowing. Edmonton’s Monster Pro Wrestling, founded by Sean “Massive Damage” Dunster in 2002, just crested that milestone. Read more

Dunster and his team run a truly entertaining monthly docket of fights. You can find out more about all their upcoming events on the Monster Pro Wrestling Facebook page, Twitter, and website. The promotion has a big event coming up this Saturday at 7pm. Tickets are $20 in advance, and $25 at the door at The Ranch Roadhouse.

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BalletBoyz’s ‘Life’ Preview for Vue Weekly

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This week I previewed a contemplative ballet called Life from  London-based company BalletBoyz. The preview just went live this morning on Vue Weekly.

The 10-member, all-male BalletBoyz company comes to entertain this weekend with physical questions about what it means to be alive.

The company’s 80-minute performance, Life, is split into two halves, separately choreographed by Swedish artist Pontus Lidberg and Venezuelan Javier de Frutos. Edmonton marks the last stop on the North American leg of its current international tour. Read more

The company is putting on two performances on Friday and Saturday at the Northern Jubilee Auditorium, organized by Alberta Ballet. You can snag tickets on their site.

‘La Cenerentola’ Opera Review for Vue Weekly

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I reviewed Edmonton Opera’s production of La Cenerentola for Vue Weekly earlier this month. I’ve never heard so many laughs in an opera house.

Edmonton Opera’s rendition of Cinderella is a funny, modernized take on Gioachino Rossini’s 1817 masterpiece La Cenerentola that’s as much a display of great theatre as it is a demonstration of the beautiful limits of the human voice.

Every acting performance in Cinderella is superb. Don Magnifico (Peter McGillivray) is great as a bumbling idiot who respects food and wine more than he respects people, and Tisbe (Sylvia Szadovski) and Clorinda (Caitlyn Wood) play their obnoxious sister roles perfectly. But it’s Dandini (Michael Nyby) who really steals the show. Read more

The La Cenerentola production already finished it’s run, but Edmonton Opera already announced its 2017-2018 line up. You can check it out on their website, featuring Les Feluettes, HMS Pinafore, and Don Giovanni.

Wildfire Teen Improv Festival Preview for Vue Weekly

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I missed this preview going live on Vue Weekly earlier in the month, but the Wildfire Teen Improv is still ongoing. The junior high division finals of the competitive festival are on Saturday with additional performances tonight and tomorrow.

“Wildfire Teen Improv Festival is very strange,” says 17-year-old Darby Gynane.

She’s heading into her fourth run at the festival alongside her teammates from Louis St. Laurent. The improv competition, running from Feb. 7 to 25 at the Citadel’s Ziedler Hall, pits teams of junior and senior high students from across Edmonton and Alberta against each other to see who’s the most spontaneously entertaining.

“You see people who are creating art in front of your eyes that they’re never going to do again and you’re never going to see again,” Gynane says. “It’s very much an in the moment kind of thing.” Read more

Rapid Fire Theatre is an absolute force in Western Canada, and their festival that develops youth is no exception. You can get tickets for the last three shows of the festival through Eventbrite. Each performance starts at 7pm in the Citadel’s Ziedler Hall.

High Level Lit Salon Preview for Vue Weekly

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I previewed a salon series for a non-fiction anthology coming this October from Edmonton writers. I talked to Edmonton’s youth poet laureate Nasra Adem about the events. You can read the full preview over on Vue Weekly.

Edmonton literati plan to celebrate Canada’s sesquicentennial with the means they know best— the printed word.

A non-fiction anthology titled High Level Lit: Musings on YEG for Canada’s 150th birthday—featuring a dozen authors reflecting on Edmonton’s place within Canada’s history—will be published in Eighteen Bridges Magazine this October during the Edmonton International Literary Festival. Read more

The first Mar. 1 salon is fully booked right now, but there’s a waiting list service in place until Feb. 28, and the dates of other salons will be announced throughout the year.

‘International Print Exhibition: Canada and Japan’ Preview for Vue Weekly

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Here’s a preview I wrote about the “International Print Exhibition: Canada and Japan” at the University of Alberta Museums Galleries. It went live on Vue Weekly earlier today

In a bid to showcase Canada’s rich print culture, internationally decorated print artist Liz Ingram curated the “International Print Exhibition: Canada and Japan” with the help of April Dean, executive director of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists. Read more

SNAP Gallery‘s Director April Dean spoke to me about curating Canadian print art with Liz Ingram. Ingram was on the way to beating lung cancer when Akira Kurosaki offered her the job, so Dean came in to help.

The exhibit runs from Feb.16 until Mar. 25 at the University of Alberta Museums Galleries at Enterprise Square, 10230 Jasper Ave. You can get in with a donation and it’s open on Thursdays and Fridays from 12pm – 6pm, and on Saturdays from 12pm – 4pm.

Veteran Griffins Set Statistical Bar: Profile Feature for The Griff

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Here’s a feature I shot and wrote about two MacEwan University hockey players, Ryan Benn and Shawn Proulx. It went live this afternoon on The Griff.

A look around campus at the promo materials for the men’s hockey team reveals the athletic figures of two skate-clad forwards plastered on the walls. Ryan Benn torques his stick to shoot on goal and Shawn Proulx lugs the puck through the neutral zone after forcing a turnover. They’re the face of the MacEwan Griffins, and they’re breaking records to show it. Read more

The Griffins are in a playoff spot right now, but they play a crucial series against the SAIT Trojans this weekend, hunting for a first round playoff bye. They play at 7pm tonight in Calgary, and 6pm tomorrow at the Edmonton Downtown Community Arena.

Henry V: Vue Weekly Theatre Review

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Here’s part of my review for Grindstone Theatre and The Malachites Henry V which appeared on Vue Weekly yesterday.

‘All things are ready, if our minds be so,’ but fighting the nature of our own ears isn’t always an achievable task.

The elegance of the space inside Holy Trinity Anglican Church certainly lends itself to champion the spirit of Shakespeare in a modern time, but the effects of that grand mission statement are lost when I can’t hear what the players are saying. Read more

The joint production between Edmonton’s Grindstone Theatre and London, England’s The Malachites is directed by Benjamin Blyth. Brynn Linsey’s performance and King Henry V marks a Canadian first, and you can try to listen to her great performance at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church. The play runs tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm.

Peter Fechter: 59 Minutes: Vue Weekly Theatre Review

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Here’s a part of my review for Cardiac Theatre’s Peter Fechter: 59 Minutes which appeared on Vue Weekly yesterday:

No one knows what it’s like to die, at least no one alive to recount the experience. Still, the seconds, minutes, and hours before death can be observed and communicated with as much precision as a dying person’s five senses and remaining faculties will allow. Peter Fechter: 59 Minutes is an incredibly lucid journey that leads us through the mind of a boy who suffered one of the most politically public deaths of the 20th century. Read more

Cardiac Theatre’s production of Peter Fechter: 59 Minutes is directed Harley Morison and written by Jordan Tannahill. You can catch Bradley Doré in the lead role while the play runs at the PCL Studio Theatre of ATB Financial Arts Barns. It plays tonight at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm.