DAYTIME
Kent Monkman: Rise and Fall of Civilization
The Cree-Irish Canadian has come up with a confronting installation that references the near extinction of the American bison in the 1800s, when humans destroyed approximately 50 million of the shaggy beasts. The efficient killing method was the “buffalo jump,” involving herds run off cliffs, plunging to their demise, their broken bones used for china. Mr. Monkman has produced two bison standing beside a sculpture of Miss Chief, the artist’s alter ego. No bull.
Oct. 15 to Jan. 10, 2016. $9 to $15. Gardiner Museum, 111 Queen’s Park, 416-586-8080 or gardinermuseum.on.ca.
NIGHTTIME
Canadian Opera Company: La Traviata
Here comes one of opera’s greatest romances, here envisioned by Arin Arbus. The young New York theatre director sets Verdi’s story of passion and sacrifice in glittering 1850s Paris, a lush scene of playfulness and decadence. We hear that the costumes are lavish and the backdrop is uncluttered, and that upon its 2013 premiere in Chicago the production was “both hyper-traditional and, in moments, saucily modern,” according to one very impressed critic. Sounds dazzling.
To Nov. 6. $25 to $435. Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St. W., 416-363-8231 or coc.ca.
ONE NIGHT ONLY
Ben Grosvenor
This plucky fellow was a big hit at the Last Night of the Proms blowout at Royal Albert Hall a month ago. London’s excitable press described the young British pianist’s command of Shostakovich’s 2nd Piano Concerto as electrifying: “He summoned a beautifully meditative, pearly tone in the second movement, where just for a moment the balloons stopped fizzing, and you could hear a pin drop.” Pins drop, jaws drop – nothing new for the 23-year-old sensation, who on Tuesday throws his fingers at works by Liszt, Ravel, Mendelssohn and more.
Oct. 13, 8 p.m. $10 to $55. Jane Mallett Theatre 27 Front St. E., 416-366-7723 or stlc.com.
FESTIVAL
ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival
The 16th-annual event of film, art and video covers dynamic indigenous works from around the world, including Trudell, a documentary from 2005 about the activist-poet-musician John Trudell. A charismatic figure on the native-American protest scene in the 1960s and 70s, he was a highly vocal participant in the occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969, and, as such, the hounding FBI had a very fat file on him indeed. The screening (Oct. 15, 3 p.m., TIFF Bell Lightbox) is part of a retrospective on the actress-director Heather Rae.
Oct. 14 to 18. Various prices and venues. 416-585-2333 or imaginenative.org.
FOR THE KIDS
Hana’s Suitcase
One of most popular productions of the Young People’s Theatre, Emil Sher’s true story for children 10 and up involves a small suitcase that in 2000 arrived at the Tokyo Holocaust Education Centre with no contents but much baggage. It once belonged to Hana Brady, who, subsequent sleuthing revealed, died in the gas chambers at Auchwitz around her 11th birthday. Ultimately Hana’s Suitcase is as much or more a story of memorial as it is of Holocaust.
To Oct. 25. $10 to $34. Young People’s Theatre, 165 Front St. E., 416-862-2222 or youngpeoplestheatre.ca.