Festival of Animated Objects kicks off

Animated Objects are not always puppets. Sometimes, it’s a cabaret at Legion #1, performed as the audience enjoys a pint. Here are five things about the International Festival of Animated Objects, writes Stephen Hunt

1. Loads of Old Trouts. They’re doing two shows, Famous Puppet Death Scenes and Trunk Puppets — the first time an Old Trouts show has premièred at Animated Objects, says Xstine Cook. “Every year, we foster the première of a new show,” she says, “and this year, ironically, it’s the Trouts.”

2. Sagowsko, Sandra Lamouche. “She’s from Lethbridge,” says Cook. “If you’ve ever watched hoop dancing, they use the hoops to create different shapes to tell different parts of the story. It’s a very different way of approaching the concept of animated objects, but it is telling a story through an object.”

3. Human Automaton Theatre Arcade. “It’s kind of a whole trend going on in Europe and South America,” says Cook, “where you create this tiny little show in a suitcase and an audience member sits down in front of it, puts on a pair of headphones and peers into a little box and you perform the show for them.”

4. New venues (Theatre Junction Grand and Legion #1): “We’re just really excited to put work in the Grand,” says Cook. “Every time I walk in the doors of the Grand, you just feel that sense of history and oh my god, it’s just amazing to present that work in there.”

5. Miss Sugarcoat. A one person clown show from Calgary’s Alice Nelson. “It’s a comedy,” says Nelson, “about an elementary school teacher who’s trying to navigate her way with difficult administration, helicopter parents and high needs children.”