Hopkins Happenings - November 2008

Hi everyone,

Time for the monthly update on my various and varied activities! November has already been pretty hectic (hence the delay in receiving this newsletter), and I've got a bunch of stuff coming down the pipeline, including:

• 2008 National SLAM & Canadian Festival of Spoken Word
• Salon de la conversation
• Doing Leonard Cohen
• Body Language
  
• Sylvia Plath Must Not Die - Unplugged
• Legion of Freaks
  

2008 National SLAM & Canadian Festival of Spoken Word

November 5-8
various locations

National Slam Finals: November 8, 8:00 pm
Central Library, 616 Macleod Trail SE
$10

So, um, this festival ends tonight. Sorry for the late notice!

The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word has been city-hopping for several years, and the 2008 edition landed in Calgary, bringing teams of slam poets from across the country to compete for the national crown.

I was lucky enough to MC two events in the festival - Opening Night on November 5 and Poetry Hotshots this afternoon at Cafe Beano. Both were fantastic events, and tonight four teams will go head-to-head for the grand prize, with special readings by D. Kimm, RC Weslowski and Regie Cabico. Should be a fun time!

Salon de la Conversation

Every Monday, around 8:00 pm
Kensington Pub
207 10A St NW

For a couple of years, a group of French-speakers have been meeting at the Kensington Pub every Monday night to... well, drink beer and speak French. It's a great, friendly environment to brush up on your language skills and meet some cool people. Si vous parlez français, j'espère de vous voir au Kensington Pub lundi soir!

Doing Leonard Cohen

November 25-29, 8:00 pm
Big Secret Theatre, EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts
$20-$31

My fabulous employer, One Yellow Rabbit, re-mounts one of its most popular performances. Doing Leonard Cohen is an homage to the amazing poetry and prose of Leonard Cohen, including excerpts from Death of a Lady's Man, The Spice Box of Earth and Beautiful Losers. It's performed by the One Yellow Rabbit Ensemble, and after glimpsing their rehearsals, I'm pretty psyched to see the show.

Body Language

November 27-December 6
Thursday-Saturday at 8:00 pm
Motel, EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts
$12

Body Language, part of Downstage's Motel Series, features two performances: Do Me, by Jennifer Roberts, and Pouring the Liquid Unseen, by Marie-Ève Bonneau.

Do Me explores the dance of romance, as men and women clash, crash and unite in a series of vignettes. Pouring the Liquid Unseen invites the audience to a private transformative experience, which combines movement, dance, visual art and music for an intimate exploration of healing, improvisation and the fluidity of the human experience.

Two original works by extremely talented local artists. Check it out!

Sylvia Plath Must Not Die - Unplugged

Saturday, November 29, 2:00 pm
Big Secret Theatre, EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts
$14 in advance, PWYC at the door

The Rabbits are heading off to Toronto to perform both Doing Leonard Cohen and Sylvia Plath Must Not Die, and this is Calgary's chance to see a bare-bones performance of the poetic performance that debuted at the 2008 High Performance Rodeo.

Ooh, let's use the description I wrote for last year's Rodeo Guide!

"Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, two of the 20th century's most prolific and complex literary figures, are inexorably linked, as much by their mutual zeal for life as by their infamous deaths. The award-winning One Yellow Rabbit Performing Ensemble invites audiences to revisit its voyeuristic journey to another era, where cocktails are swilled and conflicted souls are expressed in a cathartic torrent of ink and emotion. "

Legion of Freaks

Saturday, November 29, 8:00 pm
Royal Canadian Legion, Branch #1
116 7th Ave SE

Time for another Swallow-a-Bicycle party! Many of the details for this shindig still need to be pinned down, but for anyone who attended Lust After Sunset (or saw the pictures!), you know this party will be off the hook. We're going to have wandering freaks and weirdoes, live music and special performances. Watch for more details!

The event will be in support of our next production, Freak Show, taking place January 8-10 at the 2009 High Performance Rodeo.

For more details, call Charles Netto at 403.397.8559.

- - -

I think that's about it for November. There are a couple We Should Know Each Other parties on the horizon (#18 and #19, to be exact!), and if you'd like to attend, just drop me a line.

Oh, and - Hooray for Obama, boo on Harper!

Have a fantastic November, and I hope to see you around town!

Mark Hopkins