Articles by Mariam

A Walk in the Park: SPAF 2025
- Festival
- Review
- Skeleton Park Arts Festival
The best part about summertime in Kingston is there’s always something to do, and the worst part is there’s never enough time to do it all. Whether you were busy with the Princess Street Promenade or simply seeking shelter from the heatwave, you might have missed this year’s Skeleton Park Arts Festival (SPAF). If you weren’t able to make it out to McBurney Park this past weekend, we don’t want […]

Reading Between the Rhymes: An Interview with Performance Poet jem rolls
- Artist
- Interview
- Kick & Push Festival
- TK Fringe
In the uniquely Canadian wagon train that is the Canadian Fringe Festival, jem rolls is kicking off his tour in what might just be his favourite city on Earth: sunny, green Montréal. This one-of-a-kind high-energy English performance poet’s career began at the age of 31, when he semi-accidentally stumbled on stage at a ‘terrible’ open mic in North London and never stopped. Feeling liberated by the possibilities of spoken word […]

Great Things Come in Threes: A Look at SPAF’s Artists
- Interview
- Skeleton Park Arts Festival
Much like many arts fests around the world, Kingston’s Skeleton Park Arts Festival (SPAF) is jam-packed with different events and activities. Of course, SPAF brings its own unique flair, and this year’s feature on the festival showcases how. Our summer theatre critics have collaborated to bring you three mini-features on an artist from each day of SPAF, highlighting some of the talented individuals who can be seen around Skeleton Park […]

2021 Is a Pixel Perfect Performance
- FOLDA
- Review
Imagine this: you walk into a room and see ten objects laid out in front of you. A wallet, a medallion box, two remote controls, a Father’s Day card, a photo book, a radio, a stack of papers, an empty milk jug, and a cell phone. Carefully and strategically placed by Scenic Designer Helen Yung, you know each of these items holds the memories of a person, but you don’t know who exactly. Soon, you will find that the owner of these belongings is Brian Lewis, an unhoused veteran who is the father of Cole Lewis, the co-creator and performer of 2021. Lewis, along with Co-creator and Performer Patrick Belnkarn will guide you through the video game version of the very real story that is the last two weeks of Brian Lewis’s life. Exploring themes of parenthood, the effects of war, ethics in artificial intelligence (AI), and terminal illness, 2021 is a show that can connect with people from all walks of life.

‘WindRush’ Is a Breath of Fresh Air
- FOLDA
- Review
How do Black Caribbean men say ‘I love you’? Or perhaps a better question is, how do they show it? This curiosity is what sparked Marcel Stewart’s inspiration for creating WindRush. Also playing the character Basil, Stewart pieces together a realistic and gripping story about a Jamaican man experiencing loss, grief, friendships, and siblinghood.