Tell me your secrets
Local artists bring true tales to life in the streets of Old Strathcona during Found Festival
Cities are made of skyscrapers and street corners, bubble tea shops and abandoned nightclubs. But Heather Cant knows all those spaces are not just landmarks, but memory holders for city dwellers.
Now, the B.C.-based theatre artist behind a production company called Phenomania has created a fascinating vehicle called Secret City for sharing those often-haunting memories. It’s a theatrical event, an audio adventure if you will, that pairs the memories of regular folk with the talents of local artists to create a mini-play inspired by long-ago events that can’t be forgotten.
Secret City, the Edmonton version, can be experienced as part of the eighth annual Found Festival, running Thursday to Sunday in Old Strathcona. Found Festival takes art out of galleries and theatres and into the streets where numerous performers provide free entertainment. And there’s a beer garden.
Cant came up with the idea for Secret City a few years back when she found herself in Kamloops, a city she had spent years in as a teenager. Walking the streets with her head on a swivel, she found herself remembering incidents buried deep in her past, experiences that she didn’t even know she still carried.
“When I first conceived of it, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if, when you went to a city, you could go to the art galleries and concerts, but you could also experience a secret city in every city — the stories of the people who lived there, told by the artists of that city?’” said Cant.
Cant turned that blue-sky moment into Secret City, which debuted in Kamloops in 2016, and saw its second iteration in Vancouver in 2018. Edmonton is the third time Cant has produced the event (commissioned by Edmonton’s own Blarney Productions and its artistic director Wayne Paquette).
After soliciting five true memories from actual Edmontonians that took place in Old Strathcona, Cant selected five local performers to translate them into theatre.
Two of the memory holders are also the artists telling the tale. Three other artists were paired with a memory submitted by a member of the public and asked to come up with their own dramatic interpretation.
All five stories (each about 10 minutes long) are available as a 90-minute audio walking tour that can be picked up at Secret City headquarters, which is a tent behind the Backstage Theatre at 10330 84 Ave. People can bring their own smartphones and headphones and be given a link to the stories. Also, a listening device can be loaned out for two hours.
Secret City supplies a map and relevant locations are marked. The audio tour is free or by donation. American Sign Language-interpreted video is also available.
One of the audio tales is by Edmonton’s new poet laureate Nisha Patel, who grew up in Old Strathcona. She submitted a memory about Dream Tea House on 104 Street and Cant invited her to turn that into a Secret City audio package.
“She has woven together a beautiful story about her personal relationship with Dream Tea House and her personal relationships
I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if, when you went to a city … you could also experience a secret city in every city.’
from when she was a teenager to adulthood,” said Cant. “I can’t imagine that anyone will be able to listen to her speak about it and not want to indulge in bubble tea.”
Another Edmontonian submitted a memory about being grief-stricken and collapsing under the weight of that on the east side of 107 Street, just south of 85 Avenue. Actor and writer Robert Bencz has captured the experience, which involved being rescued by kind strangers.
A third anonymous memory is set at a now-abandoned nightclub known as Rebar (and last known as The Forge), where Captain Tractor played in the 1990s. There, a woman found herself nearly cheating on her husband. Artist Mac Brock has created a compelling tale from that authentic account.
To hear such stories, visit the Secret City tent Thursday and Friday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.