28th annual High Performance Rodeo
Calgary’s International Festival of the Arts
Line Up of Music, Comedy, Dance and Theatre Announced
Calgary, AB – On Friday November 15th, Erin O’Connor, Executive Director of One Yellow Rabbit, alongside Festival Curator Michael Green and Festival Producer Ann Connors, announced the line-up for the 28th annual High Performance Rodeo, Calgary’s International Festival of the Arts. The popular festival runs January 9 to February 1, 2014 at sixteen venues throughout Calgary. It features an extraordinary collection of the boldest and brightest artists in the realms of theatre, dance, burlesque, comedy and multimedia. Tickets for the festival are on sale today online at www.hprodeo.ca, by calling 403-294-9494, or at the EPCOR Centre Box Office.
A perennial festival highlight, Calgary’s most daring theatre ensemble One Yellow Rabbit, premieres Munich Now. Performed in German with English subtitles, the show examines media absurdity. It is set in the television studio of a German talk show, a hard-hitting journalist knocks heads with a testy celebrity chef while interviewing their special guest – a lapsed popstar on a book tour. Written and directed by Blake Brooker, Munich Now stars Denise Clarke, Andy Curtis, Devon Dubnyk and Christopher Hunt.
Comedian, writer, director and legendary Kid in the Hall Bruce McCulloch returns to his favourite festival with a new solo show Young Drunk Punk. Combining stand-up, live music and assorted autobiographical insights, McCulloch chronicles his journey from wild early days as a ‘young punk’ in 80’s Alberta to becoming a ‘pajama-clad dad’ living in the Hollywood Hills.
Gob Squad, a UK and German artist collective, brings two distinct theatrical experiences to the festival. Super Night Shot is a theatre-film that begins when four performers/activists set off into the night letting their video cameras roll. Sixty minutes later they reunite to present their video creation to the waiting audience. Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good) takes one of Andy Warhol’s films, Kitchen, as the starting point for its quest for the original and the authentic. Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good) won the 2012 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.
The Rodeo partners up once again with Alberta Theatre Projects to co-present Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata. The performance explores contemporary humanity through the lens of the online classified site Craigslist. CBC’s Bill Richardson and award-winning singer/songwriter Veda Hille bring to life the stories behind the trash and treasures offered on Craigslist in this heartfelt and hilarious musical
Theatre Calgary and the High Performance Festival are proud to co-present the Kdoons and Wyrd Production BOOM. In a riveting one-man tour de force, creator and performer, Rick Miller, guides his audience through 25 years of turbulent history by deftly portraying the world’s most influential politicians, activists and musicians that defined the baby-boom generation.
The Walrus Talks Tomorrow features eight of the country’s leading thinkers as they tackle the issues of our times – and those of tomorrow. Each gets a blank slate of seven minutes to lay down their ideas on the theme. The line-up includes Giller Prize Award-winning author Joseph Boyden; best-selling author and journalist, Diane Francis; 2013 Governor General’s Literary Award finalist, author, Nina Munk; CBC Radio host and advertising guru, Terry O’Reilly; world-renowned mobile app developer, Michael Sikorsky; and Juno Award-winning musician Shad, among others to be announced!
Opening the Festival is Why Not Theatre’s A Brimful of Asha. Real-life mother and son, Asha and Ravi Jain (an award winning actor, director, producer and educator), share the stage to candidly tell this true – and very Canadian – story of intergenerational culture clash.
Agokwe explores unrequited love between teenaged boys from neighbouring reserves. Mike, a hockey player; and Jake, a dancer, notice each other at the Kenora Shoppers Mall. Ojibwa playwright/performer Waawaate Fobister delivers a multi-award-winning tour de force playing these and other characters through the iconic persona of Nanabush The Trickster.
Vertigo Theatre’s BD&P Mystery Theatre Series and High Performance Rodeo are thrilled to team up and present Antoine Feval. Barnaby Gibbs is an eternal optimist and Sherlock Holmes enthusiast He happens upon what he thinks is a burglar one hot August night, only to find out he is actually the famous detective Antoine Feval – and a crime-fighting duo is born. This hilarious mystery is created and performed by British-born comedian Chris Gibbs.
Lunchbox Theatre and the Rodeo welcome to the festival Edmonton’s Northern Light Theatre’s 6.0: How Heap and Pebble Took on the World and Won. It’s been five years since Slovakian world champions Heap Cruziack and Pebble Adverati competed in the highly charged world of professional ice-dancing. And now in a post-apocalyptic world without ice, they gamble everything in a graceful, physically astonishing demonstration of courage, optimism and comedy.
W&M Physical Theatre returns to the festival with Triangular Theories of Love. Melissa Monteros and Wojciech Mochniej collaborate with Calgary Poet Laureate Kris Demeanor to create a multi-dimensional world where four couples navigate their way through the strange trappings attached to finding and remaining in a long-term relationship.
During last week of the Festival the Big Secret Theatre will be transformed into Club Rodeo with three very distinct cabarets.
Kicking it off is the Garter Girls Cabaret Starring Peekaboo Pointe. Calgary’s answer to burlesque, The Garter Girls, are joined by New York performer Peekaboo Pointe, voted one of the Top 20 Burlesque Performers in the world.
Up next is Third Street Theatre & the Calgary Gay History Project’s Club Carousel: A Cabaret Celebration of Calgary’s Gay History. This tribute to Club Carousel features inspiring performances based on the origins of Calgary’s LGBTQ community.
Rounding out the week is OYR’s All the Way Cabaret. Join the incomparable Denise Clarke, the mysterious Blake Brooker, the always-on One Yellow Rabbit team and many fabulous local performers for two nights of dazzling and surprising performances.
Part theatre, part gallery piece, Verb Theatre’s Of Fighting Age is a performance mash up that takes over the Glenbow Museum with modern theatrics and vintage WWII technologies to explore how our grandparents’ war stories shaped the understanding of Canada’s pursuit of modern warfare. How iRan is an interactive, site-responsive, nonlinear installation-story using iPods, based on interviews with new Canadians and set in the Central Library, Calgary Public Library.
Back this year to fill the air with music during the Festival is the Calgary Tower’s carillon. Calgary Carillion Celebration: Tower – Trees is two haunting compositions, by Polaris Music Award nominee Tona Ohama, that become a soundscape for Calgary’s downtown. Tower, performed on the Calgary Tower’s carillon, blends into the ebb and flow of downtown traffic. Tower mixes with Trees, which will be playing randomly at the Trees Sculpture location outside of Bankers Hall.
The High Performance Rodeo’s festival favourites are back. Downstage returns with the wildly popular 10-Minute Play Festival. Eclectic performers will celebrate the Year of The Horse and transform Calgary’s above-ground walkways with +15 Year of the Horse Musical Ride. And at the elegant Cathedral Church of the Redeemer, ProArts again offers a varied selection of free noon-hour performances every Wednesday of the festival.
Wine Stage celebrates its 15th year as Calgary’s premier wine and food event with a dramatic twist. Gasoline Alley at Heritage Park is this year’s venue for this sophisticated and sexy fundraiser for One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre. Guests can savour the world’s finest wines from the city’s best wine merchants, expertly paired with the succulent culinary creations from an assortment of Calgary’s finest dining establishments.
Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online at www.hprodeo.ca, by calling 403-294-9494, or at the EPCOR Centre Box Office.
Now in its 28th year, the High Performance Rodeo is an annual festival featuring theatre, dance, comedy, music and multimedia presentations. Curated by Artistic Director Michael Green and produced by Ann Connors and the One Yellow Rabbit team, it is dedicated to entertaining as wide an audience as imaginable, while remaining fertile ground for the progressive and wild. The High Performance Rodeo is the largest festival of its kind in Western Canada.
www.hprodeo.ca
