Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 21, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba SAVE 10-20% FRIENDS & FAMILY SALES EVENT ON NOW SAVE UP TO 60% NEW LOCATION: 3-1400 Sargent Ave. Open 10 - 6 Tuesday to Saturday | (204) 943-5240 www. shophoopers.ca | Follow Us On ON CUSTOM ORDERS ACROSS MOST BRANDSON STOCK & FLOOR MODELS SALE ENDS DEC.2ND FRIDAY NOVEMBER 21, 2025 ● ARTS & LIFE EDITOR: JILL WILSON 204-697-7018 ● ARTS@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ARTS ● LIFE SECTION C CONNECT WITH THE BEST ARTS AND LIFE COVERAGE IN MANITOBA ▼ Law of gravity hits as sequel crash-lands THE kooky fraud played by Jeff Goldblum in Wicked: For Good has a ditty explaining how he maintains his wizardly dominance: once people believe in something, he shrugs, they’ll keep on believing no matter what. Given its already record-breaking box office, the same appears likely to hold true for the less marvellous second half of director Jon M. Chu’s behemoth adaptation of the Broadway musical. Even after a yearlong intermission, anyone whose jaw hung open during the final moments of Wicked: Part 1, as Cynthia Erivo obliterates Defying Gravity while tearing through the night sky, would have to be insane (or dead) not to return. Unfortunately, the laws of physics are back in effect, and the second film is a letdown. How could it not be? The kids are grown up and the fun and games are over. There are only a couple of bangers left in Stephen Schwartz’s original score by the musical’s second act, which races to connect the narrative dots to The Wizard of Oz. NAVEEN KUMAR MOVIE REVIEW WICKED: FOR GOOD Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum ● Polo Park, Grant Park, St. Vital, McGillivray, Kildonan Place ● 138 minutes, PG ★★½ out of five UNIVERSAL PICTURES Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible (left) menaces Ariana Grande as Glinda in Wicked: For Good. OTHER VOICES Like Fruit Loops that had been left sitting in a bowl of milk for too long — those bright solid colours bleeding out and leaving nothing but a soggy mess. — Radheyan Simonpillai, Globe and Mail What a performance from Erivo; it is genuinely moving when the Prince has to convince Elphaba what we, the audience, have always known: that she is beautiful. — Peter Bradshaw, Guardian As it turns out, Wicked is not too big to fail. In fact, it may be all the excess baggage that weighs down the second instalment, making it impossible for the sequel Wicked: For Good to defy gravity. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service ● CONTINUED ON C2 MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Dancers Carol-Ann Bohrn (left) and Ralph Escamillan perform an excerpt of Croquis, which explores memory, identity and impermanence through a paper set and garments. Choreographer’s sculptural paper costumes are handmade works of legacy and identity B EFORE every performance of Croquis, Vancouver choreog- rapher Ralph Escamillan spends hours making sculptural works of art out of plain packing paper. They could easily be displayed in a gallery, but these intricate creations aren’t static set pieces, they’re actual costumes, meant to be moved in. They get ripped, torn, trashed, destroyed and remade for every show — a rumination on the impermanence of live performance in which even the costumes are for one night only. Their construction involves no glu- ing, taping or stapling — just hours of meticulous folding. Take the costume for a recent performance in Revel- stoke, B.C.: a three-metre-tall paper dress that required him to be up on a ladder. That garment alone took eight hours of work. Croquis, which will be performed in Winnipeg this weekend as an expanded quartet developed in collaboration with Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, was originally conceived as a solo performance. It’s an extension of a previous work called Piña, in which Escamillan explores his experience as a first-gen- eration Canadian-born Filipino using the titular traditional Filipino fabric, which is made out of pineapple leaf fibres. As part of his research for that proj- ect, Escamillan, 32, worked with piña weavers from the Philippines to learn more about their technique. “It’s an unmechanized process because you have to extract the fibre by hand, it’s knotted by hand, it’s wo- ven by hand,” he says. Inspired, Escamillan started think- ing about how he could make his own textiles in a similarly unmediated way. “How can I transform this really humble roll of Staples paper and make something really beautiful out of it — but also then show the contrast of destroying that? And what does it mean for the garment to also be as ephemeral as the performance?” Croquis borrows its title from the French term for a rough draft or preliminary sketch, particularly in fashion design. Escamillan’s costumes embody the loose, kinetic quality of those sketches, except here, the danc- ers actually animate them. Costuming is a big part of his practice with FakeKnot, his Vancou- ver-based dance company, he says. “I align it with having to code-switch a lot as a queer person of colour,” he says, referring to the process of changing your speech, appearance or behaviour to better blend in with the people around you. “And coming from an immigrant mother, you know, there’s always this idea of having to dress up and look a certain way in order to assimilate.” Escamillan is also an active mem- ber of the ballroom scene, in which “what you wear is a big part of how you communicate. And I think in many cultures, the whole world does this. It’s not really just isolated to my experi- ence, but it’s definitely been a big part of how I move in the world.” No two performances of Croquis are ever the same, but in Winnipeg, there will be a few more dancers to outfit. Escamillan will be joined onstage by WCD dancers Carol-Ann Bohrn, Rey- mark Capacete and Julious Gambalan, and will be working with costume assistant Aldeneil Española Jr. to get them dressed. JEN ZORATTI DANCE PREVIEW CROQUIS By Ralph Escamillan Presented by Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers ● Rachel Browne Theatre, 211 Bannatyne Ave. ● Today and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 4 p.m. ● Tickets: $29-$38 at winnipegscontemporary- dancers.ca Wear-and-tear wonders ● CONTINUED ON C2 DAVID COOPER PHOTO Vancouver choreographer Ralph Escamillan ;