Champniss bringing one-man show to Niagara-on-the-Lake
Former MuchMusic personality coming to Corks at end of the month
Former MuchMusic VJ Kim Clarke Champniss will bring his one-man show “Skinheads, Fur Traders and DJs” to Niagara-onthe-Lake for three performances June 29.
Based on the autobiographical book about his early years in northern Canada, Champniss will perform the 75-minute show at Corks Playhouse Theatre on Queen Street at 2 p.m., 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.
It’s a show he compares to another one-man show currently playing down the street.
“By coincidence, Stephen Fry’s ‘Mythos’ work at the Shaw Festival is also very much in the same storytelling vein.”
Using video, music and images, Champniss details his journey from England as a teenager to Eskimo Bay (now called Nunavut) in the Northwest Territories, where he worked as a fur trader and lived with the Inuit for a year. Sporting a David Bowie haircut at the time, he called it “the perfect transition from a young, precocious teenager into adulthood.”
Champniss eventually travelled across Canada, settling in Vancouver where he became a disco DJ. He would go on to become a prominent DJ at one of North America’s top new wave clubs, Vancouver’s Luv-A-Fair.
His love of music and Canadian culture would bring Champniss to MuchMusic in the mid ’80s — a period which forms a separate book.
He has been performing the show regularly in the area since moving to Niagara Falls last year, and says it is constantly evolving.
“Shows keep getting better … more theatrical, photos and music … very much Spalding Gray.”
Tickets are $20, available at the door.