Climate change dystopia ballet

BYLINE: Bushra Azim Boblai, Arts & Culture Editor

The National Ballet of Canada’s (NBOC) last production of the 2025–2026 season, Wayne McGregor’s adaptation of MADDADDAM, opened on Saturday, June 13. The ballet, adapted from Margaret Atwood’s trilogy of the same name, is set in a dystopian future where a mad scientist working for an evil corporation wipes out most of the human population. Soon after, the world descends into a harrowing bioengineering spectacle. A real Donna Haraway situation.

Last season, the NBOC premiered Ethan Colangelo’s Reverence. Watching Hieronymous Bosch’s famous painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, come to life on stage changed me as a person. I didn’t even know that I could feel so passionately about dance until I saw the third panel of the triptych presented onstage.

I am excited to see how the ballet company depicts ecological destruction as a consequence of the human ego.

NXNE 2026 in the city!!!!!

BYLINE: Bushra Azim Boblai, Arts & Culture Editor

The North by Northeast (NXNE) music and arts festival returned last week, running from June 10–14. The festival is a music discovery event that books out local venues across Toronto — 31 this year — for up-and-coming artists to perform to entirely new audiences.

Famous acts like the Arkells, Bleachers, Father John Misty, Feist, Lizzo, and The Beaches all had breakout performances at city venues as part of the festival.

Some standout artists from this year include Alexandra Babiak, Decafwolf, Drunk Cat, NIA NADURATA, A Weekend at Ramona’s, activemirror, Grace Acladna, Cam Kahin, Covet, 646yf4t, Akeem Oh, enemies, lovers, Ali!, and Nemahsis.

Momo Boyd stuns in Toronto performance

BYLINE: Bushra Azim Boblai, Arts & Culture Editor

When Momo Boyd began her performance on the RBC Amphitheatre stage, the crowd was sparse. The singer-songwriter from Michigan opened for Bleachers at their Toronto show on June 9. Despite the still-assembling audience, Boyd sang like she was performing the show of a lifetime.

As she crooned the lyrics to her song “Cold Hands,” the stagelight haloed her beautiful face in a picture of perfect devastation. Watching her take a disinterested audience, make them dance, and leave them captivated by the end of her set, was truly impressive. Boyd is perfect for fans of Lana Del Rey and Fiona Apple.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

BYLINE: Juliet Pieters, Associate Arts & Culture Editor

Mexican Gothic follows the story of Noemí Taboada, a rich socialite in 1950s Mexico City, who hurries to the countryside after receiving a desperate letter from her newlywed cousin. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s prose sets an eerie premonition to the book, before anything truly haunting even occurs. Her ability to set a chilly atmosphere stuck out to me as a distinctly gothic quality.

The book is heavily influenced by foundational works of gothic literature — Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived In A Castle — but it is far from predictable. Instead, Moreno-Garcia expands the Gothic canon, bringing Mexican history to the novel’s forefront. Moreno-Garcia uses the genre’s conventions of fear and societal critique to explore the horrors of European colonization and the enduring racism of the 1950s. 

The Second Death of Locke by V. L. Bovalino

BYLINE: Juliet Pieters, Associate Arts & Culture Editor

V. L. Bovalino’s adult fantasy debut is a gritty tale of magic and war following knights Grey and Keir. Keir is a mage, which allows him to fight on the battlefield with magic. Grey is a well — a source of magic in the kingdom of Idistra — and from whom Keir draws magic.

While on a quest to rescue a child from an enemy kingdom, the pair are pulled into a race to survive a political conflict where magic might be dying. Most surprising, however, is that magic takes a backseat to the political world-building in this novel. The conflicts and battles between the territories of Idistra had me on the edge of my seat.

What stuck out to me was the relationships between the characters and how they are altered by times of war and peace. There is no shortage of yearning involved, and the characters all have such complex relationships. The two leads often find themselves at odds with each other, but still retain an unyielding loyalty to one another. 

I appreciate that Bovalino does not shy away from portraying the gore of battle and the horror present behind elaborate quest narratives. Bovalino’s characters contend with these horrors and their role in them as warriors. I found the character-driven narrative even more compelling than the gore of the novel’s battles.