Keeping Kathak Current

Rina Singha claims she’ll take a step back and focus on herself after Kathak Mahotsav Canada this weekend (August 18 – 20), but I have my doubts. The 74-year-old founder of the Rina Singha Kathak Dance Organization is indefatigable, still teaching – albeit less than she once did — and still dancing, despite wearing braces on both of her knees. She takes blood pressure medication and has lost an inch in height these past few years due to osteoporosis but I found the 4′ 11″ dynamo in a St. Paul’s Trinity rehearsal studio Monday afternoon, sharpening her chops before this weekend’s performances.

“I have to be careful,” she tells me. “I can’t do pivots anymore so I have to adjust the movements to make sure my weight transfer is done carefully. After this show I’m going to take my doctor’s advice and have injections in my knees but I wanted to wait until after the performance because I don’t know how I’m going to react to the medicine.”

Singha abides by the “use it or lose it” philosophy of Toronto’s famous jock doc, Michael Clarfield, and so she keeps dancing, a form of self-expression with deep spiritual significance for her.

“In the early 1970s I collapsed with a herniated disc,” she remembers, “and they told me I might never walk again; I had a 50 per cent chance. I made a bargain prayer with God saying, ‘If you make me well, I’ll dance for you.’ ” READ MORE

No Stage? No Problem for Humber River Shakespeare Co.

What started four years ago as a bit of summer fun for Humber River Shakespeare Company founders Sara Moyle and Kevin Hammond, left, has turned into a “year-round beast.” Currently in the midst of its month-long regional tour with the Bard’s Comedy of Errors, the company has other commitments booked for August, September and October.

“We thought it would be something we could do in the summer and have some fun but almost from day one the support and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,” says Hammond. “People are constantly asking what are you doing next season? Are you doing something in the winter?”

Hammond is an old hand at the Shakespeare game. He was a kid when he attended the first CanStage Dream in High Park 29 years ago and he’s a former artistic director of Shakespeare in the Rough, which performed in Withrow Park for more than a decade until 2006. READ MORE

From Luminato to NXNE

Toronto’s Sultans of String — from left, Drew Birston, Chris McKhool, Kevin Laliberte and Eddie Paton (percussionist Chendy Leon, not show) — performed at David Pecaut Square last night as part of the festival’s daily free concert series. The talented instrumental crew jumps from one festival to another when it steps out at The 918 on Friday as part of NXNE. The 17th annual indie music fest is storming Toronto stages all week (through June 19) with an astonishing 650 bands; a 5-day wrist band is yours for $50.

MoMA Masterpieces Dazzle at AGO

MoMA Director Glenn Lowry is obviously biased but when he describes Abstract Expressionist New York as a “killer exhibition,” he’s not exaggerating. Lowry and MoMA curator Ann Temkin joined AGO CEO Matthew Teitelbaum this morning to kick off a media preview of the summer blockbuster which opens Saturday (May 28) and runs until September 4.

Drawn entirely from The Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, Abstract Expressionist New York features more than 100 major works from Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, among others. For anyone interested in contemporary art the show is a must; to see Pollock’s Number 1A, above, on a computer screen is one thing, but to stand in front of the nearly 9′ wide canvas is to be washed away by the intensity of the artist’s expression. What’s more, there are 13 Pollocks in the show, which lend real insight into how the artist’s style evolved from the 1930s through the 1950s.

The exhibition also features stunning, large-scale works by lesser known talents like Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, David Smith, Clyfford Still, and Canadian-born Philip Guston. Several other works by Guston accompany Patterson Ewen: Inspiration and Influences up on the Gallery’s fifth floor until June 19.

Wildlife Strikes Hard

Toronto rock outfit Wildlife pulls into Sneaky Dee’s Thursday (May 26) for one last local show before hitting the road for points south and west. The indie alt-rock quintet is touring behind Strike Hard, Young Diamond, a 12-track collection that’s being favourably compared to Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, among others.

In fact, the comparisons are so pervasive I couldn’t not bring them up when I sat down for coffee with frontman Dean Povinsky, above centre, yesterday. But the singer and songwriter took the grilling in stride: “Sonically I don’t think we sound like Arcade Fire,” he says, “but the emotional space a lot of our songs fill is similar to the space their music fills.”

“We’re just so close to our music that I don’t really hear the similarity. I love Arcade Fire, everybody loves that band, they’re incredible. They write wicked songs and they sound really BIG, which is something we aspire to. I don’t always see or hear it but I’ll take it as a compliment, we could do a lot worse.” READ MORE