One Yellow Rabbit to Kick Off 39th Annual High Performance Rodeo Tonight

 Starting tonight, One Yellow Rabbit, led by Artistic Director Blake Brooker, will unleash 190+ artists onto Calgary stages for the 39th annual High Performance Rodeo (HPRodeo), Calgary’s International Festival of the Arts, January 14 to February 2, 2025.

This year’s festival will present artists from here at home and from around the world – as far as Ireland, New Orleans, and Toronto  – and includes many adored Rodeo favourites including newly minted Governor General Award-Winner Ronnie Burkett, national treasures Mump & Smoot, and Calgary’s most beloved superstar magician Carisa Hendrix’s magical dazzler ‘Lucy Darling’. From heartbreaking masterclasses in marionettes to outrageous apocalyptic clowning to not-your-mother’s book club meetings to the most theatrical municipal council meeting on record, this HPRodeo brings the shows you can’t see anywhere else – 28 productions and 10+ free events over three wild weeks.

It all kicks off this week, with 7 productions and 4 free events - all detailed here in the digital guide. For tickets & information, please visit oyr.org. Details on Week One’s shows are below. 

Ten Minute Play Festival (Presented by One Yellow Rabbit featuring Various Artists – Martha Cohen Theatre,  January 14) 

A perennial favourite sure to sell out as always. But then again, that’s what happens when Calgary’s rowdiest theatre artists create 10-minute plays in just 24 hours inspired by only a prop and a line of dialogue! Come join in this celebration of compact creation, and the opening of the HPRodeo with our biggest bang yet. Curated by Rodeo favourite, Jamie Dunsdon, and followed by a HPRodeo kick off party.  

I Don’t Even Miss You (Co-Presented with Verb Theatre, A Tiny Bear Jaws Production, Edmonton AB – Big Secret Theatre, January 15-18)

Non-binary computer programmer “Basil” (they/them) wakes to a new world and devastating loss. Using live music, dance, and video, I Don’t Even Miss You is a bold exploration of grief, love, artificial intelligence, and legacy that asks how gender, identity, and family can exist with no one to perceive them. Creator/Performer Elena Belyea is no stranger to Calgary audiences, and everytime they hit the stage they charm and inspire their audience. With original songs and touching personal storytelling, this new production includes intriguing design elements as well as pure and vital performance.

Rat Academy (In Collaboration with Contemporary Calgary,  Batrabbit Productions, Edmonton, AB – Contemporary Calgary, January 15-18, 2024)

Rat Academy is a physical comedy that follows Fingers, the last rat left in Alberta, immediately after discovering Shrimp, an escaped lab rat. In order to train Shrimp to survive in a world that hates him, Fingers creates the Rat Academy to train his new protegee along with the audience in the ways of the rat. Audiences at festivals across the country that have seen this laughed uproariously, and this debut work by new-to-the-scene artist-creators has become a true hit. A heart-warming buddy comedy about proper street rat survival, appropriate for ages 12+. 

Echoes of the Land (Co-Presented with Ghost River Theatre, Calgary, AB – West Village Theatre, January 17-25)

Echoes of the Land invites audiences to immerse themselves in a transcendent sound bath led by traditional drummers Cedric Lightning and Skip Wolf Leg, featuring an all-star ensemble of local musicians and spoken word artists like Kris Demeanor and Kenna Burima. Grab your yoga mat, lie back, bask in this powerful sonic odyssey that invites deep reflection on the land.

Hot Dyke Party (Co-Presented with Arts Commons and Downstage Theatre, 
Vancouver, BC – Engineered Air Theatre, January 16-18)

This is a theatre-rock-concert celebrating dykes, butches, femmes, and queers of all sorts. Over the course of an hour, the performers will play original queer-rock music. They might talk to you. They might talk at you. They will not ask you to come on stage. With original music by Arthi Chandra, Blue Chu, Cindy Kao, Hannah Meyers, Hayley Sullivan, and Thule van den, and with lights and visuals by Alexandra Caprara, this is a rock out tailor-made for a wild Rodeo-goers.

Call and Response (Co-Presented by Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, Calgary/New Orleans  – DJD Dance Theatre, January 16-18, 21-26)

A new show from Decidedly Jazz Danceworks featuring live music by the Falling Bullets Jazz Band from New Orleans, led by Marla Dixon. Featuring Traditional New Orleans Jazz (the birthplace of jazz!), watch as highly skilled dancers respond with all of their foot-stomping, finger-snapping, head-nodding, shoulder-shimmying, torso-wiggling, hip-shaking, groove-busting ways.

Taylor Mac Documentary Screening & Conversation (Co-Presented with Arts Commons, New York– Martha Cohen Theatre, January 18)

Taylor Mac’s work as an actor, playwright, performance artist, and director has been described as a ‘a fight against conformity and categorization’ and has earned him the MacArthur Genius Grant and a finalist spot for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Rich with stunning musical performances, the HBO documentary, Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music, captures Mac’s tour-de-force performance that was performed only once in Brooklyn, New York. See the film live in the Martha Cohen Theatre and enjoy a riveting and rare discussion with Taylor Mac and Denise Clarke on the groundbreaking concert event.

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