Month-long festival of performing arts kicks off in CalgaryThe High Performance Rodeo is a four week festival of music, theatre and dance. It is a place where emerging artists may showcase their work, and established shows find an eager audience. Here, you can see what good art is supposed to be - provocative, entertaining, and insightful - and, sometimes, art that is just the opposite.
The festival opened with a celebration of the highly unusual. Calgary’s Epcor Centre became the scene of a musical-circus-burlesque midway. Indie bands played while artists and art-lovers alike mingled. Cocktails were served in a velvet-draped lounge. While an “H1N1 Kissing Booth”, pornographic puppet show, and glass-walker kept the masses entertained on the midway, multiple shows were taking place around the city.
The most highly anticipated was Tubular Bells, a collaboration between Alberta Ballet, Honens Piano Competition, and the Bergmann Piano Duo. Choreographed by acclaimed local dancer Yukichi Hattori, the piece is set to an adaptation of a 1970’s rock-instrumental album. It was performed live by four internationally renowned pianists, on stage with the ballet company. It has been over a year since the show was performed here.
According to Michael Green, the festival’s curator, the mix of emerging and expected performances continues to grow the audience. “There is a demographic that will rush out and see anything that’s new,” he says, “And then there are those who look for something that’s established; that audience, in Calgary, is ripe, ready, and raring to go.”
“The High Performance Rodeo audience is the most sophisticated in Canada,” Green says, “There hasn’t been another festival - like this one, running for so long - anywhere else in the world. This audience is used to seeing very inter-disciplinary, challenging work. The kind of stuff you don’t see everyday is the mainstay of this festival.”
The hot tickets for next week include performances from Vancouver, Mongolia, and Calgary’s urban under-belly.
Electric Company Theatre from Vancouver is bringing Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit to stage beginning January 27. The show blends live theatre with live film, shot behind-the-scenes and shown on giant screens on-stage. An interactive tour of this mysterious set is included with a ticket.
Tono, a cross-cultural dance show which features live throat-singing, will start January 28. The show features performers from Canada, Mongolia and China. It will be a part of the Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver this winter.
Perhaps most important and unusual is This is My City, a sub-festival of performances based on a year-long project by the City of Calgary to engage homeless citizens in artistic expression. There are short plays based on the personal stories of homeless Calgarians; there is a concert by The Drop-In-Centre Singers and the Found Sound Orchestra; there is a unique exhibition of artwork by the homeless; there is a musical performance by the Land’s End Chamber Ensemble of Marcel Bergmann’s latest composition, written specifically for this event; and finally, there is an open, free symposium led by The Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, and her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, on the power of art to promote social justice. The ‘Art Matters’ and ‘This is My City’ Symposiums take place all day at the Glenbow Museum on January 24, 2010.
Published in National Post, January 16 2010
The festival opened with a celebration of the highly unusual. Calgary’s Epcor Centre became the scene of a musical-circus-burlesque midway. Indie bands played while artists and art-lovers alike mingled. Cocktails were served in a velvet-draped lounge. While an “H1N1 Kissing Booth”, pornographic puppet show, and glass-walker kept the masses entertained on the midway, multiple shows were taking place around the city.
The most highly anticipated was Tubular Bells, a collaboration between Alberta Ballet, Honens Piano Competition, and the Bergmann Piano Duo. Choreographed by acclaimed local dancer Yukichi Hattori, the piece is set to an adaptation of a 1970’s rock-instrumental album. It was performed live by four internationally renowned pianists, on stage with the ballet company. It has been over a year since the show was performed here.
According to Michael Green, the festival’s curator, the mix of emerging and expected performances continues to grow the audience. “There is a demographic that will rush out and see anything that’s new,” he says, “And then there are those who look for something that’s established; that audience, in Calgary, is ripe, ready, and raring to go.”
“The High Performance Rodeo audience is the most sophisticated in Canada,” Green says, “There hasn’t been another festival - like this one, running for so long - anywhere else in the world. This audience is used to seeing very inter-disciplinary, challenging work. The kind of stuff you don’t see everyday is the mainstay of this festival.”
The hot tickets for next week include performances from Vancouver, Mongolia, and Calgary’s urban under-belly.
Electric Company Theatre from Vancouver is bringing Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit to stage beginning January 27. The show blends live theatre with live film, shot behind-the-scenes and shown on giant screens on-stage. An interactive tour of this mysterious set is included with a ticket.
Tono, a cross-cultural dance show which features live throat-singing, will start January 28. The show features performers from Canada, Mongolia and China. It will be a part of the Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver this winter.
Perhaps most important and unusual is This is My City, a sub-festival of performances based on a year-long project by the City of Calgary to engage homeless citizens in artistic expression. There are short plays based on the personal stories of homeless Calgarians; there is a concert by The Drop-In-Centre Singers and the Found Sound Orchestra; there is a unique exhibition of artwork by the homeless; there is a musical performance by the Land’s End Chamber Ensemble of Marcel Bergmann’s latest composition, written specifically for this event; and finally, there is an open, free symposium led by The Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, and her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, on the power of art to promote social justice. The ‘Art Matters’ and ‘This is My City’ Symposiums take place all day at the Glenbow Museum on January 24, 2010.
Published in National Post, January 16 2010
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