Ariella Pahlke’s Conviction has its World Premiere at Hot Docs on April 28, 2019.

Ariella Pahlke, together with co-writers and directors Nance Ackerman, Teresa Macinnes screen the world premier of their feature documentary Conviction at Hot Docs, the largest documentary festival in North America.

Photo from www.convictiondocumentary.com

April 28, 6:30pm

TIFF Lightbox
350 King Street

April 29, 1:15pm
Tiff Lightbox
350 King Street

May 2, 12:30pm
Hart House Threatre
7 Hart House Circle

According to the filmmakers, the film envisions alternatives to prison through the eyes of women behind bars and those fighting on the front lines of the decarceration movement.

The three filmmakers collaborated with incarcerated women to question the issues facing the rising rates of women’s incarceration. Together they envision a more ideal world, authoring their own narratives through art. They join advocates and politicians in a worldwide movement questioning the ideas of punishment and prison.

Ariella Pahlke is a documentary and video artist, curator, and educator. With a background in philosophy, Ariella has spent the past seventeen years creating documentaries and independent shorts, collaborating on multi-media performance pieces, curating, facilitating video projects with community groups, and teaching. Her film and video work has been shown on television, at festivals and in galleries throughout Canada and the U.S., and in Norway, India, and New Zealand.

Biographical info from www.burningrubber.ca

Announcing the First 75th Anniversary Pop Up Event April 27, 2019.

In celebration of International Dance Day, we are pleased to be a part of the KiDanCo & Nostos Collectives Dance presentation of Studio Sightings an open public rehearsal of Down the Line, featuring Rebecca Wolfe, Lydia Zimmer, and Georgia Skinner. 

Saturday, April 27, 2019

4:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Leica Hardy School of Dance Studios 

at the North Woodside Community Centre

230 Pleasant Street,

Dartmouth.

Throughout the 75th Anniversary year you will be treated to pop-ups of dance, theatre, and music events that celebrate the artistic contributions of our past recipients and the aspiration of our future work.

About the Featured Artists:

Lydia Zimmer has pursued professional training at the Boston Conservatory, Canada's National Ballet School and Springboard Danse Montreal to emerge as an original and daring dancer and choreographer.

Georgia Skinner trained at Coastal Dance, graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s and attended ImPulsTanz International Dance Festival 2015 in Vienna, Austria. She recently works with multiple dance companies in Nova Scotia.

Rebecca Wolfe studied theatre at George Brown College and Humber College and went on to perform both on stage and on screen with several Nova Scotian theatre companies, CBC and independent film.

Lucas Porter Plays Concerts in Halifax & Mahone Bay on April 24 and April 26, 2019.

“The young lion of the keyboard” Lucas Porter, graces two stages with what Natasha Gauthier of the Ottawa Citizen describes as “staggering virtuosity and some of the old-school pyrotechnics and unabashed romanticism of early 20th-century legends." 

Photo from Lucas Porter's WebsiteGerman Masterworks Recital:

German Masterworks:

April 24, 2019. 7 pm.
Music Room

6181 Lady Hammond Road, Halifax

&

Musique Royal presents: Paris in the 1930's 

April 26, 2019. 6 pm.
Cecilia's Retreat
1199 Oakland Rd. RR2, Mahone Bay

For over ten years, composer and pianist Lucas Porter has performed with vocalists, string ensembles and orchestras, including the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra, the Oakville Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia and the Bacau Orchestra in Italy.

Chosen to represent Canada at Expo 2005 in Nagoya, Japan, he took part in a series of concerts along with Canadian soprano, Measha Brueggergosman. At the invitation of the Honourable Peter McKay, he played for Condoleezza Rice at the Halifax 9/11 Ceremony in September of 2006. He won the 2008 Raymond Simpson Award and performed in the 2011 Canada Winter Games which were held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2013 he won the 2011 Canada Games Young Artist of Excellence Awards. 

A graduate of the Glenn Gould School’s Bachelors of Music Program, he is the youngest student to date to ever win the school’s Concerto Competition. Lucas was accepted into the International Mendelssohn Akademie that took place in in July of 2014, studying with world renowned pedagogues Jacques Rouvier and Arie Vardi. He received a Master of Music from the University of Montreal in May of 2015 under the tutelage of Prof. Durand before studying with Prof. Dang Thai Son, the gold medalist of the International Chopin Piano Competition in 1980.

Lucas began the Oberlin/Lake Como Fellow Program in September of 2017. He is currently in the studio of Prof. Stanislav Ioudenitch and will have masterclasses and lessons with many renowned pianists and pedagogues, including William Grant Naboré, Dang Thai Son, Martino Tirimo, Peter Frankl, and Paul Badura-Skoda. 

Biographical information was condensed from Lucas Porter's website. 

Suzie LeBlanc sings The Mystery of Carlo G in Wolfville on April 13, 2019.

photo from Suzie LeBlanc's website

Suzie LeBlanc joins Bruce Dickey & 

Catalina Vicens in the performance of a newly discovered, 17th century manuscript containing more than 80 works for voice, keyboard and theorbo, but identified only by a first name, an initial and a smudge. 

Saturday April 13, 7pm

Acadia University 

Manning Memorial Chapel 

45 Acadia Street, Wolfville

Recently appointed to the Order of Canada, renowned Acadian soprano Suzie LeBlanc was born in Edmunston, New-Brunswick. She sang in the choirs of her native Acadia and studied dance and harpsichord before studying singing in London, UK. From there, she began an international singing career specializing in early baroque repertoire; exploring and recording a substantial amount of previously unpublished material while resident in Europe. Her thirst and curiosity for new vistas then led her toward the repertoire of French mélodies, lieder, contemporary music, and Acadian folk music, as well as exploring the art of improvisation with the ensemble Mélosphere.

Suzie’s recordings have received international praise and several prestigious awards: a Grammy award for Lully’s Thésée; two Opus awards – best World Music recording for “Tempi con Variazioni”, and best contemporary music CD for her Messiaen cd; and a CINI award (Italy) for the opera “Orfeo” by Sartorio in which she sings the leading role. She has recorded for ATMA, Analekta, Harmonia Mundi, Hyperion, Chandos, Teldec, Das Alte Werk, among others.

She worked with The Consort of Musicke, Fretwork, Musica Antiqua Köln, Sequentia, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Tragicomedia, the Hilliard Ensemble, Concerto Palatino, Redbyrd and the Purcell Quartet as well as with several symphony orchestras in Canada and the US. Concerts have taken her to Festivals all over the world, as well as to the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Wigmore Hall (London) and the Konzerthaus in Vienna. On the opera stage, she has performed for De Nederlandse Opera, Festival de Beaune, Opéra de Montréal, the Boston Early Music Festival, Tanglewood, Festival Vancouver and Early Music Vancouver.

For her full & comprehensive biography please visit her website at www.suzieleblanc.com. 

Get a sense of the music: 

Hannah Mae Cruddas Dances in Coppélia with Ballet Jörgen & Symphony Nova Scotia April 12-14, 2019.

Hannah Mae Cruddas performs one of the world’s oldest and best-loved ballets live in Halifax with Symphony Nova Scotia and Canada’s Ballet Jörgen! Coppélia tells the funny, fantastical tale of an eccentric toymaker and his greatest creation – a beautiful dancing doll so lifelike that it causes an uproar in its small village. 

Friday, April 12, 2019, 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 13, 2019, 7:30 pm
Sunday, April 14, 2019, 2 pm

Rebecca Cohn Auditorium 

6101 University Avenue, Halifax

Hannah Mae began her dance training with the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts School of Dance and the Leica Hardy School of Dance. In 2009, she joined Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto. Hannah Mae was honoured to be the youngest recipient of the Society of Russian Ballet’s Nesta Toumine Memorial Award and at 14, was a semi-finalist in the Genée International Ballet Competition. She was also privileged to be the recipient of the Jan Wicha Memorial Cup and Nova Scotia Talent Trust’s Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.

At home, Hannah Mae danced the title role in Alice (Dearborn), the Ragdoll Queen in The Nutcracker (Hardy), and worked with Kennet Oberly and Otar Beridze. Her Toronto repertoire credits include Peggy Baker’s 5 Views of a Temple Garden, Petipa’s La Bayadere and Paquita, and Nacho Duato’s Jardi Tancat. Hannah Mae was recently awarded the Janice Merritt Flemming Award administrated by the Nova Scotia Talent Trust. Hannah Mae was a guest dancer for the Nova Scotia Symphony’s Nutcracker 2016.

Hannah Mae’s repertoire with Canada's Ballet Jörgen includes Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, Tall Stepsister and Lead Fairy in Cinderella, Lady Capulet in Romeo & Juliet, Spanish Dancer in Swan Lake, along with various roles in The Nutcracker: A Canadian Tradition, and will star in the upcoming Anne of Green Gables – The Ballet™.

Canada's Ballet Jörgen is one of Canada's top ballet companies and performs across the country for over 60,000 people each year. Watch their short Coppelia trailer:  

Post information edited from Canada's Ballet Jörgen. 

Emma Allain Shows New Work and Gets Shortlisted for the Starfish Student Award.

April is a promising time for Emma Allain, an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Halifax where she is pursuing an MFA at NSCAD University. The month opens with her MFA Thesis Exhibition:

"Not just the distance but what it contains," a work that explores themes of distance, alienation, translation, and interference. 

Opening:
April 8, 5:30 - 7pm

Exhibition:
April 9 – 13

Artist Talk:
April 11, 12pm

Anna Leonowens Gallery, 1891 Granville St. Halifax, NS

Emma's work continues to be celebrated throughout the month as 1 of 10 artists to have been shortlisted from among 96 applicants for NSCAD University’s 2019 Starfish Student Art Awards, celebrating artistic excellence. The Starfish jury will announce the grand prize winner at the Starfish Gala.

Wednesday, April 24, 7 to 9 p.m. at NSCAD’s Port Campus.

Emma was nominated for her Expanded Media: This will not be an unfamiliar landscape, 2018. Hand-bound artist’s book and silkscreen prints on rag.

Originally from the suburbs of Toronto, in 2012 Emma earned a BDes from the joint program in graphic design at York University and Sheridan College (YSDN). She has since worked as an industry designer and freelance book designer. Emma has a passion for the physical form of books and bookbinding and is interested in themes of distance, separation, and loss through printed matter, book works, installation, and sound.

Biographical information taken from Emma Allain's website.

Sylvia Hamilton Screens Portia White: Think On Me at the Government House on April 23, 2019.

75 years ago, in 1944, Portia White became the first Canadian to debut at New York’s famed Town Hall, and the first Black Canadian concert singer to win international acclaim, widely known as Canada’s Singing Sensation. 

To commemorate, the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Honourable Arthur J. LeBlanc, ONS, QC will be hosting a public screening of Sylvia D. Hamilton's documentary:

Portia White: Think On Me.

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019

7:00pm-8:30pm  

Government House, 

1451 Barrington Street, Halifax. 

Free & open to the public.

Call 902-424-7001 

Or register online

The film uncovers the unique life of Portia White who achieved unparalleled international success during the tumultuous 1940's. The documentary uses archival film and TV footage, excerpts from recordings, and interviews with family, pupils and her accompanists to portray a talented and dignified woman.

Born in Truro, Nova Scotia in 1911 and raised in Halifax, Portia White began her singing career at age six at the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church (now the New Horizons Baptist Church) where her father was minister. She attended Dalhousie University in 1929 and in the 1930s she taught in Africville and Lucasville while also taking voice lessons. It was apparent from an early age that she had extraordinary musical talent and in 1939 she won a scholarship to continue her training at the Halifax Conservatory of Music. Portia White made her singing debut at age 30 in Toronto.

The Portia White Trust, which became the Nova Scotia Talent Trust, was established to help foster her career; it was the first of its kind in Canada. A Canadian postage stamp was issued in her honour and she was named “a person of national historic interest” by the Government of Canada.

Sylvia D. Hamilton is a Nova Scotian filmmaker, writer and artist whose work explores the lives and experiences of people of African descent. Her special focus is on African Nova Scotians, and especially women. In particular, her work takes the form of documentary films, writing, public presentations, teaching, mentoring, extensive volunteer work and community involvement. She has uncovered stories of struggles and contributions of African Canadians and introduced them to mainstream audiences.

As seating is limited to 90, people wishing to attend must register by calling 902-424-7001 or by registering online.

Blog content summarized from the official events notice.