ARTS EAST

The dreary weather was no match for our spirits as we sprung awake, saturated with a good, hearty motel-night’s sleep, knowing full well that we did not quite have room in ourselves to file away all of the luminescence of the night before, but would have to simply bask in it. The first stop was George’s Fabulous Roadhouse for a good ol’-fashioned greasy breakfast. After filling our bellies, we raced over to the Sackville Legion where the Community Garden events had been moved because of the heavy rain. Inside, a faux garden had grown. The stage was draped with plants from Sackville’s shared, community garden (a new initiative where patrons can purchase plots, and visitors are encouraged to come view the vined oddities), setting the scene for two blooming literary artists, Lindsay Bird & Misha Bower. Bird, CBC radio journalist and former Mount Allison alumni, spouted five short, stark poems detailing the grim realities of the lives of herself and others in Fort MacMurray, as part of...

Getting on the road in the late afternoon to make the familiar trek from Halifax to my alma mater town of Sackville, New Brunswick was a veritable bevy of nostalgia –both for summer, and for a certain time in my life. Anyone who has ever called Sackville ‘home’ can relate to the feeling you get when you roll the window down to feel the tease of the marsh winds through your hair, catch the faint cries of the train, and finally let your feet settle in their old footprints. In this small town, there is an overwhelming and instant feeling of community and—for one weekend a year, it is home to a crowd of the most inspiring, creative folks you will ever see under one tent. A sea of beards, plaid, grins, and unkempt hair—Sappyfest is, even from an onlookers perspective, a music festival full of unrivaled aesthetic experiences, paired with a uniquely Maritime spirit. With a knack for creating a communal atmosphere, Like Sackville, Sappyfest is not so much a festival as it is a family. After ch...

In this Issue; -Buck 65 on the Art of Innovation! -Feature articles from all four Atlantic Provinces! -Interviews with Joel Plaskett , David Adams Richards and more! -Works by Randall Maggs, Mary Carr Chiasson, Sue Goyette and other regional artists! - Summer Festival Guide, c olumnists, monthly contest, Atlantic Fashion Week coverage, reviews, event listings and more! Available by request at artseastonline@gmail.com

After a series of disfiguring rearrangements and amputations, Seth Smith and Nancy Urich ripped out the heart of their Halifax-based quartet Dog Day and moved to the country. They hid away for the winter. Nancy figured out drums. They got chickens. And they wrote, recorded and released Deformer . Recently Urich spoke with AE about the new recording. AE: What was your musical direction with Deformer ? DD: We just wanted to make songs that were still Dog Day, with the nature and solitude of living in the woods mixed in. We made it a bit more stripped down, sort of like our first EP Thank You . AE: How has becoming a two-piece affected the music on this new album and what do you see as the musical direction of Dog Day? DD: The music has become a touch scrappier considering we are now just guitar and drums, we removed the smooth instruments, keys & bass, tho they do show up on the album here and there. The musical direction hasn't changed that much, we still want to make the sa...

Dog Day Deformer Fun Dog Records Talented husband and wife duo Seth Smith and Nancy Ulrich of Dog Day are set to re-arrange your world on August 2nd with the release of Deformer. The first record on their new, home-based record label, Fun Dog, Smith also produced and mixed the album and, along with partner Paul Hammond—the other half of screen-printing art team, Yo Rodeo (www.yorodeo.ca) also created the original album artwork. A true labour of love, the follow up to 2009’s indie success “Concentration” brings the band “back to basics”. Despite a Pigeon Row Records press release describing the band’s recent reformation from a foursome to a twosome as “a series of disfiguring rearrangements and amputations”, Dog Day fans will find the same catchy, fuzzy romance, haunting, garage-esque vocals, and youthful musical simplicity combined with a heartbreakingly adult lyrical perspective. Bookended by the sounds of a dog dreaming, Destroyer is a well-rounded album that provides the lullaby ton...

Naked Presented by Forerunner Playwright’s Theatre Bus Stop Theatre, July 18th-22nd Written by Lisa Rose Snow Directed by Richie Wilcox To become naked is an act of perpetual revealing. Beginning with the parting of a shower curtain (doubling as a projector), Lisa Rose Snow’s vibrant and intelligent re-working of the 2010 Fringe hit Naked—part of the Queer Acts Theatre Festival running from July 18th-22nd—plunges the audience into an intimate encounter between Vanessa (Lisa Rose Snow), curious agoraphobic tub-dweller and Mary (Stephanie MacDonald), embittered, feisty tub-scrubber as they shed layers of themselves on stage. Centering on the act of performance and the stripping off of those caustic socio-cultural masks and other tangible tokens of identity that we fashion ourselves with, this hour-long dialogue-driven romp is physically and emotionally cathartic. Fuchsia wigs, layers of crinoline, bland maid’s garb and repressed sexual and emotional urges are stripped bare, leaving the c...

By Michelle Brunet ♫ Shoobee doobee doo wah– Ski bop ba dah- twenty-five ♪ That’s right - the Halifax Jazz Fest is celebrating its silver anniversary and it’s the perfect balance of old and new. The festival has grown from its 1987 beginnings of 13 or so acts to this year’s 100 programs comprised of over 400 local musicians in addition to performers from all across North America. You can expect more headliners and more venues than ever before, including the waterfront helipad, Theodore Tugboat and the Tall Ship Silva. No longer on the corner of Queen and Spring Garden, the hub of the Jazz Fest will now be on the waterfront at the Salter Street Extension across from the Alexander Keith’s Brewery. “We did a little bit of shopping around sites and this is a really good new home for us,” says Jazz East’s Laura “Lulu” Healy. She expects tourists and locals alike to enjoy this new Festival Tent venue, where daytime concerts and programs are free. This is Lulu’s third festival as Creative Dir...