What’s up: Music, art and history

Seven years ago, the world lost the Purple One — the great Prince Rogers Nelson — to an accidental fentanyl overdose at Paisley Park, his Minnesota home. Today the impact of opioid use continues to ravage communities the world over, as it had prior to his death, including right here in Manitoba.

With that in mind, a group of local DJs and artists (including Mama Cutsworth, DJ Hunnicutt, Wandag and Hari Vijaijay) will come together on April 21 — the seventh anniversary of Prince’s death — for a night of Prince/Prince-adjacent tunes at The Tallest Poppy in support of Sunshine House and their mobile overdose prevention site. Slide into your best purple threads, don a raspberry beret and dance the night away to Prince’s best tracks in support of an organization working to prevent overdoses and fostering harm reduction in our community.

Tickets for the event, presented in conjunction with the Tallest Poppy, Synonym Art Consultation and Sunshine House, are $15 at the door.

— Ben Sigurdson

The Stampeders celebrate a sweet 50 years

Friday, April 21, 7:30 p.m.

Burton Cummings Theatre

Tickets: $84-$94 at ticketmaster.ca

It’s been five decades since a banjo riff turned the Stampeders into one of Canada’s greatest rock successes.

Rich Dodson’s banjo signals the beginning of Sweet City Woman, a rock song that’s as recognizable as any in the Canadian rock canon — it earned the band four Juno Awards in 1971 and millions of records sold in Canada and the United States — and one that will most likely be the climax of the Stampeders’ concert Friday night at the Burton Cummings Theatre.

The Calgary rock trio is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a cross-country tour – held two years later owing to the COVID-19 pandemic – and reunites lead guitarist and banjoist Dodson, drummer Kim Berly and Ronnie King on bass.

While Sweet City Woman opened the door for the Stampeders to enter the SOCAN Songwriters Hall of Fame, they proved to be more than a one-hit wonder. Two other Dodson-penned Stampeders’ hits, Monday Morning (1971) and Wild Eyes (1974), earned the band SOCAN Classics awards in 2015.

The Winnipeg concert is one of three Stampeders’ shows in Manitoba this week. They also play the William Glesby Centre in Portage la Prairie tonight (tickets available at prairiefusion.tickit.ca) and the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium in Brandon Saturday (wmca.ca for tickets).

— Alan Small

Oddities and Art Show

Saturday, April 22 and Sunday, April 23 , 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Ralph Brown Community Centre (520 Machray Ave.)

Details on their Facebook events page

A “first of its kind” event focusing on Indigenous made art and music from local creators makes its debut this weekend.

Oddities and Art Show is the brainchild of Tele Laferriere, a Métis artist behind Cyanide Oddities; Scintilla, owned and operated by Amanda Lee; and social enterprise Grey Jay Healing.

The event hopes to bring the Indigenous artist community together, celebrating and supporting Manitoba-based vendors, performer and speakers. The aim is to expand the market to hold events throughout the year.

Visitors will be able to view and purchase art by Eagle Woman Prints, meet yoga practitioner Om-digenous Yoga & Wellness by Dawn, and buy designs created by Metis beader Jessie Pruden of Bead n Butter.

“After speaking to our elders, we were encouraged to push forward with this as part of Grey Jay Healing’s initiatives to co-create spaces for Indigenous people to thrive,” says Rene Hince of Grey Jay Healing.

There will also be a children’s art corner, food vendors and draws across both days. Country blues and rock band Burnelvis will also be making an appearance.

— AV Kitching

Gathering historical threads

Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 4 p.m.

C2 Centre for Craft, 1-329 Cumberland Ave.

Visit c2centreforcraft.ca for more information

Nine days remain to catch Gathering: Indigenous Beadwork, Embroidery and Quillwork, an exhibit of historic and contemporary handcrafts at C2 Centre for Craft.

The outgoing show features work from as far back as the 1800s alongside satchels, mossbags, tea cozies, moccasins and gauntlets from five local Indigenous artists.

Gathering is the result of a year-long project between the Manitoba Crafts Museum and Library and Ross House Museum. Curators set out to find and study centuries-old Indigenous craftwork tucked away in the collections of 11 small museums from across the province. Researchers, artists and Elders were enlisted to help uncover the origin story of each piece since most items were catalogued by their collector, not their creator.

The exhibition aims to celebrate rarely displayed artwork with the hope of identifying long forgotten Indigenous artists.

Modern crafters Bronwyn Butterfield, Maeghen Fillion, David Heinrichs, Tashina Houle-Schlup and Shauna Ponask created original pieces for the show, which respond to their own familial histories and crafting traditions.

“Displaying these pieces alongside each other, we hope to honour those stories of love and care passed down through time,” reads Margaret Firlotte’s curatorial statement.

Gathering closes Saturday, April 29.

— Eva Wasney

Tomson Highway brings memoir to Free Press book club

Monday, April 24, 7 p.m.

Online

Admission is free

There’s still time to read Tomson Highway’s critically acclaimed 2021 memoir Permanent Astonishment in advance of his appearance at the next virtual Free Press book club meeting, which happens on the last Monday of the month.

The book, which won the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction in 2021, details Highway’s early years growing up as the second-youngest of 12 children near the Manitoba-Nunavut border, the death of five of his siblings, and his experiences at residential school, as well as the tragic 1990 AIDS-related death of his brother, Rene, an acclaimed dancer.

Highway is likely best known for his work as a playwright, having penned The Rez Sisters, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing and The (Post) Mistress. His impressive bibliography also includes works of fiction, essays and children’s books. His latest book, 2022’s Laughing With the Trickster: On Sex, Death and Accordions, was based on his Massey Lectures.

The author will be joined by Free Press literary editor Ben Sigurdson, McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Chris Hall and Free Press manager of audience engagement Erin Lebar for the virtual book club. He will read from Permanent Astonishment, discuss his life and writing and take questions from viewers and readers. Register here: www.winnipegfreepress.com/book-club

— Jen Zoratti

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