Every September, the kids go back to school, while actors, writers, directors – and symphony orchestras – go back to rehearsal.
All by Stephen Hunt
Malpaso Dance Company Ignites the Stage
The performing arts mean different things to different cultures.
In Eastern Europe for decades, theatre was a medium that was feared by those in power, because of its ability to use metaphor to send a political message.
What's in a downtown?
Weeks before the pandemic shut down the planet, in January 2020, Alex Sarian moved from New York City to Calgary to take over as president and CEO of Arts Commons.
He didn’t know much about Calgary, but his idea of a cool neighbourhood was a lot like most people: one that was walkable, with restaurants, cafes, bars and other cultural attractions, access to nature, and daycare.
Strings for Peace: Maestro Amjad Ali Khan’s Seven Notes
Lately, the world seems to be coming apart at the seams, but for classical Indian sarod player Maestro Amjad Ali Khan, the distance between peoples can be measured in musical notes - and it’s more of a pond than a gulf.
Rodeo Song: One Yellow Rabbit Takes a New Approach to the Beloved Theatre Festival
Prior to every new work they created over the past four decades - and there have been a lot of them - the company members of One Yellow Rabbit asked a very existential question.
“Who are we now?” says Rabbit Blake Brooker. “It’s a question we always ask of ourselves. So, when we sit down as a group, we always ask who are we now?
“And then that [question] starts to bake and gently move into other questions: Who do you want to be? Who were you? Who are you this moment?”
They may have started asking those questions back in the mid-1980s when Reagan was president, a Mulroney was the prime minister, and phones hung on walls in kitchens - when they launched a performing arts festival called the High Performance Rodeo - but 35 years later, as 2020 turned into a year unlike any other for performing artists around the world, the question seemed more relevant and more poignant than ever.
Performing arts season minus the performing
The last Saturday at Arts Commons was a good one.
It was March 7 at 2 pm, I saw a matinee performance of Actually, presented by Alberta Theatre Projects, at the Martha Cohen Theatre. Matinees are always a little less boisterous than evening shows but Actually was different, for all the right reasons.