On the stage is a large red chair. It is big by any standards. It is meant to dwarf a relatively tall man in 6′ 1″ Richard Hanna to make him look 4′ 8″. As I said it is a very large chair. It also has the fringe benefit of giving him access to his harp.
Yanomi is dressed in an eye catching and bright outfit complete with red glasses, face paint and artificial flowers. She stands out even in a room filled with other eccentrically dressed Calgary Fringe Festival performers.
The Calgary Fringe Festival is mostly an indoor event with performances in local theatres, churches, art galleries and other spaces. This year that is not the case. In addition to the Fringe Festival is the Calgary International Street Theatre Festival taking place for the first time. Performances including knife throwing, juggling and acrobatics will be taking place throughout Inglewood (where the Fringe is held) and downtown Calgary over the course of the festival.
Calgary is an Anglophone city in an Anglophone province. It can be hard to find bits of French culture but there are pockets of French speakers in this city. There are those who moved here, those who did the French immersion program and others who are simply striving to learn another language. For the first-time the Calgary Fringe Festival will include a French play called La cavate bleue (the blue tie). The musical is about a young man who quits his office job to try to make it as a musician. It is a solo performance written and directed by Jean-François Plante-Tan.
