Calgary International Festival of the Arts to Launch 1/7

Today, Curator Michael Green announced the 2010 line up for the 24th annual High Performance Rodeo, Calgary's International Festival of the Arts. The popular festival runs January 7 to 31, 2010 at various venues throughout Calgary and will feature a collection of the boldest and the brightest artists from the realms of theatre, dance, comedy and music. Green was also pleased to announce the return of His Excellency Jean-Daniel Lafond as the Patron of the High Performance Rodeo.

One of the major highlights of the festival will be One Yellow Rabbit's flagship creation Kawasaki Exit. An unlikely trio threads through the misty outskirts of Tokyo, stocking up on vodka and briquettes for their final ride. Equal parts mystery and love story, Kawasaki Exit is inspired by the real-life dark side of Japanese social networking sites. This original new play is performed in English and Japanese by the award-winning One Yellow Rabbit Ensemble.

The Rodeo is pleased to announce the return of Tubular Bells, the hugely successful collaboration between the Alberta Ballet, Bergmann Piano Duo and Honens International Piano Competition. Marcel Bergmann's arrangement of Tubular Bells will sound out with Alberta Ballet's company dancers and four world-class pianists - the German/Canadian Bergmann Duo, the Netherlands' Jeroen van Veen and a laureate of the Honens 2009 International Piano Competition.

Other highlights include a collaboration with Theatre Calgary to present No Exit. The Electric Company's live-cinema adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's 1944 existentialist classic fuses film and theatre to explore the true nature of hell.Three strangers warily circle in a hotel room and as their dark secrets are exposed, three giant screens capture every voyeuristic detail of the trio's damnation.

Also not to be missed is Montréal's Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie's astonishing In Paradisum featuring three stunning dances choreographed by James Kudelka. This breathtaking trio of dances takes an exhilarating voyage from the heights of paradise to the depths of the heart.

This year's Rodeo moves out to Olympic Plaza to celebrate Calgary's Olympic Heritage with Snowblower. Fire and ice collide in this mind-expanding winter showcase. Featuring huge audio from an onslaught of international electronic musicians, including Beats Antique (San Francisco, CA), Pretty Lights (Denver, CO) and Calgary's own Bruno Changkye, alongside dazzling mystical light displays and interactive multimedia exhibits by local visual wizards Wrong Electron.

The High Performance Rodeo will welcome back the Pajama Men with their internationally acclaimed Last Stand to Reason. In this frenetic physical comedy, they board a luxury train hurtling toward disaster. Its host of unlikely passengers includes a pair of lecherous old men, the creepy ghost of a little girl, a schlocky card-shuffling magician, an indescribably cute "small thing" and the murderous psychopath who may destroy them all.

Performed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Red Sky Performance's Tono stops in Calgary en-route to Vancouver's 2010 Cultural Olympiad. Tono's six dancers embody the elegant majesty of a stampeding herd of horses, dancing through shamanistic cycles to the sounds of live throat-singing and the native instruments of Canadian, Mongolian and Chinese indigenous cultures.

It would not be the High Performance Rodeo without a few festival favourites, including the 10th anniversary of Ground Zero Theatre's always popular 10-Minute Play Festival. Grandstand pairs up Calgary's hottest musicians with visual artists to create a collage of sound and classic film clips. Midway returns to the Centre Court of the EPCOR CENTRE with its high flying carnival, warming up the crowd for the travelling "freak show". The always popular Bravo!FACT screening of short films - celebrating the contribution Bravo! TV has made to Canadian filmmaking returns to the Uptown Theatre.

Filling out the Rodeo's schedule is a mixture of great theatre performances. From Russia, AKHE Theatre's White Cabin will leave audiences' minds permanently etched with images of Russian icons, silent films and acrobatic chaos. Rebecca Northan's one-woman show Blind Date, tells the story of a Parisian clown, that has been stood up for a blind date, and without a moment's hesitation, glides into the audience and selects an unsuspecting man to be her date for an evening of improvisation and hilarity. Small Wooden Shoe has armed themselves with everything from tin-can telephones to a ukelele, and absolutely no background in science, to explore the seven scientific revolutions that altered the course of human history with their creation, Dedicated to the Revolutions. Edmonton's Cowgirl Opera will bring PIG: A Back Door Peep Show to the 2010 Rodeo. Performed with a live band, this raunchy, prairie gothic rock-opera will delight, horrify and send you screaming toward salvation with it's unique take on vaudeville.

Kris Demeanor and David Van Belle tell the forgotten tale of the day Cal Cavendish jumped into his plane and dropped 100 copies of his latest record and 100 pounds of horse manure onto 9th Avenue with a mix of new songs and Cavendish originals in Buzz Job: The True Story of Cal Cavendish. Soundasaurus roars to life with three days of an experimental cacophonic array of sound and video artists that range from live animation to psychoacoustic elevator music. The renowned electro-soul trio Smooth, from France, brings their unique brand of electric sensuality to Calgary for the international launch of their new album, The Parade, a distinctive blend of pop, soul, funk and hip-hop.

Sylvain Emard Danse's Wave showcases five exceptional female dancers who ride the bucking waves of an environment in upheaval with the exquisitely tuned music of their bodies. W&M Physical Theatre makes their Rodeo debut with Skins: Bodies for Sale. This gritty physical dance tears away the illusions of authenticity and offers an up-close, unfiltered vision of the skins we all wear.

Over the past year, songstress Onalea Gilbertson has gathered tales from the Calgary Drop-In Centre and teamed with composer Marcel Bergmann to create Two Bit Oper-EH?-Shun a sweeping composition that gives voIce To the streets of Calgary, featuring the Drop In Centre Singers, the Land's End Chamber Ensemble, members of Revv52 and more. Vancouver's Headlines Theatre Power Play: Homelessness is an interactive play, created and performed by people who have experienced homelessness in Calgary. This compelling work breaks down the building blocks of urban life and challenges us to find new solutions to a mounting crisis.

Tickets are on sale and can be purchased on line at www.hprodeo.ca, by calling 403-294-9494, or at the EPCOR Centre Box Office.

Now in its 24th 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 One Yellow Rabbit, 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.

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