Buffoonish slapstick. Elegant acrobatics. Infectious rhythms. Technical wizardry.
Year-after-year all these descriptions apply to describe the Northern Alberta International Children's Festival.
About 50,000 visitors attend annually. They park the real world outside the festival's perimeter along the Sturgeon River and step up to enjoy the child-like zaniness and tongue-in-cheek humour.
Festival organizers import a fine selection of main stage shows from across the world. And this year there are memorable shows from Australia, Vietnam, United States and Quebec.
Join in the fun and make this a memorable year.
Kaput
Tom Flanagan and Strut & Fret Production House
Save-on Foods (Arden Theatre)
Suggested age: 6 and over
Tom Flanagan never says a single word till the very end, but the children won't stop excitedly chattering and shouting throughout.
In Kaput, Flanagan plays the charming yet hysterically facetious Mr. Fixit; a young lovable klutz trying to fix a film projector who invokes the dynamic can-do and expressiveness of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean.
Kaput pays full tribute to the slapstick comedy of the silent film genre by modernizing it for the new generation.
Audience members both young and old will get a kick out of Flanagan's wide range of cartoon-like humour and pacing.
The audience is mostly a sea of lurching children who are laughing from their bellies. Even the adults join them at times, no longer able to contain their chuckling.
A lot of experience and practice is evident in the blending of stunts, gags, and mishaps both old and new. So much is done with so little.
Especially noteworthy are the risks. Some stunts look like they have plenty of opportunity to go awry, despite chaos being the theme of the show.
Without giving too much away, Flanagan jokingly flings food and water into the audience while directing volunteers by jerking his head and whistling.
Every show must be different while also a slight challenge in this respect. Flanagan silently smoothes out potential hiccups with improv before anyone notices.
– Russ Olson
Dan Zanes Song Gusto Hour
Standard General Tent
Suggested ages: 2 to 8 years
Rarely have I seen a musical performance that captures a young audience like Dan Zanes' Song Gusto Hour.
In the same proud tradition of Raffi and Fred Penner, Zanes is able to get the crowd to its feet, cajoling young audience members to sing, dance, clap their hands, stomp their feet, and even make the noises of the animals you might find in a zoo.
By the end of the first song the Brooklyn-based artist, who seems to channel folk legend Bob Dylan and adapt that style to a younger crowd, had his audience learning a few Spanish words and putting them to good use.
He kept up with that educational component throughout the show, and with each song he was able to teach the audience a little bit about American history, geography, musical instruments and musical history. More impressive, he did all this without once talking down to his young audience.
As competent on the banjo and mandolin as he is on the guitar, he also introduced the kids in the crowd to the harmonica and jaw harp – and even performed a couple of songs accompanied only by the chorus of young voices in front of him.
By the end of his too-short 45-minute set, the grassy area in front of the stage was filled with kids happily dancing, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who had to resist the urge to shout "Encore!"
My only regret is that my kids weren't there to see it.
– Doug Neuman
The Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre
CN Stage (St. Albert Curling Club)
Suggested ages: 3 and over
"How do they do that?" That question raced through my mind multiple times while watching the beautifully orchestrated Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre.
Direct from Ho Chi Minh City, this exotic extravaganza is a breathtaking 55-minute program that displays the mystery and mysticism of Vietnam.
The tradition of water puppets is nearly 1,000 years old. This modern version is performed in a portable pool of water four metres square. It is just short of one-metre deep and contains 30,200 litres of water.
Eight puppeteers stand behind a split-screen decorated to look like a pagoda. Invisible to the audience, they control the puppets using long bamboo rods.
A traditional Vietnamese orchestra of six musicians sits at both sides of the pagoda. They provide musical support in the form of vocals, drums, flutes, bells, cymbals and horns.
Puppets emerge from the water in a series of vignettes about Vietnamese rural life. One of the first snippets is a little boy riding an ox followed by a charming glimpse of a father tilling the fields for the rice-planting season.
From the first five minutes, we are drawn into a dream world of fairies, butterflies, birds, cats stealing fish and mythical creatures such as a fierce lion, golden turtle and a phoenix that gives birth.
But it is a fierce water-splashing dragon that completely mesmerizes with his fire-breathing powers and whipping tail.
For the puppeteers, the manipulations require a high level of mastery in delivering a smooth, cleverly paced show. For the audience, the show is simply magical.
But if you're sitting up front in the first two rows, beware of flying water.
– Anna Borowiecki
Swing
Standard General Tent
Suggested ages: 5 and over
SWING's completely French biography page claims they are famous across Canada for their "hustler's traditional music," invoking the lovable roguish settlers of the past with fiddle and shanty into the modern scene of Hip Hop and R&B.
The Franco-centric duo, Michel Bénac and Jean-Philippe Goulet are performing all week with DJ Mars in the Standard General Tent.
Many instruments are used onstage, including some plastic barrels and a turntable that looks like a car hood complete with headlights and an empty gas container.
It is a family friendly performance that constantly engages the youth in clapping and dance. Everyone will walk away feeling like a rock star.
Folktronica is their special brand of music, created by blending electric guitar with a fiddle and some electronic samples.
SWING has completely hitched their wagon to the French Canadian audience despite whatever percentage may be in attendance, but the children won't notice. The lyrics would have to be heard first before they could be discerned.
The duo is proud to display that its constant re-invention has landed one Juno nomination in 2009 and cleared more than 175,000 views on YouTube.
SWING has likely come here for St. Albert's French-immersion school population. The secular, Quebec-style, French Canadians across the nation determined will find no better alternative for a family-safe band that tries to appeal to youth with somewhat eclectic choices.
– Russ Olson
