REMEMBERING MICHAEL
Green’s vision lives on at Rodeo
In the dressing room of the Big Secret Theatre, Michael Green’s locker looks pretty much the same as it did three years ago.
While not a shrine exactly, it’s certainly a sign of respect and perhaps symbolic of how the spirit of the co-founder and former co-artistic director of One Yellow Rabbit fills the Big Secret as rehearsals soldier on for this year’s High Performance Rodeo. In fact, some of the contents of Green’s locker have proven to be quite useful as of late.
“It’s not locked up, it’s all of his gear,” says Blake Brooker, artistic director and co-founder of One Yellow Rabbit. “We used some of his clown whites for a photo shoot the other day and laughed about it. His presence is definitely felt.”
As is his absence. It has been nearly three years since Green died, leaving a significant void in the Calgary arts scene that is deeply felt during preparations for the festival he co-founded and curated.
The show has gone on, of course. Even in those grief-stricken days after Green and four others — including Blackfoot elder Narcisse Blood and Aboriginal artists Michele Sereda and Lacy Morin-Desjarlais — were killed in a three-vehicle crash on Highway 6 north of Regina in early February of 2015, there was never any thought of cancelling the 32-yearold celebration of local, national and international music, dance, theatre and other contemporary performance. But Green is never far from the minds of his friends and Rabbit cohorts.
“I sometimes feel like an arm is missing,” says Brooker. “Particularly when you come to moments of difficulty and you think ‘Hey, I wonder what Michael would have thought of this.’”
In 2016, Brooker wrote and directed Calgary I Love You, But You’re Killing Me for the High Performance Rodeo. Alongside longtime Rabbits Denise Clark and Andy Curtis, among others, Brooker paid direct tribute to both Green and Richard McDowell, the Rabbit’s former resident composer and sound designer who died in November 2014, with a song called Black Gives Back.
But in more general terms, the High Performance Rodeo continues to pay tribute to Green by staying true to the Rabbit’s original vision for the festival, which is to bring in boundary-challenging performances that would otherwise not be seen in Calgary.
In mid-December, Rodeo producer Kelly Reay unveiled the intriguing and uncompromising lineup for this year’s festival, which runs until Jan. 28 at various venues.
Brooker thinks Green would have been quite enthusiastic, for instance, about marquee act Hot Brown Honey, a wild six-woman show from Australia that mixes music, dance and circus performance.
He would have also given a thumbs-up to Onegin, a musical by Veda Hille and Rodeo veteran Amiel Gladstone.
Other acts this year have an even more direct connection to Green. Inner Elder is a one-woman show created by Calgary actress and activist Michelle Thrush. Thrush is also a cast member, board member and, along with Brooker, codirector of Making Treaty 7, which told Alberta’s origin story from an Indigenous point of view and was originally produced by Green as a 2012 Calgary legacy project.
Kids in the Hall and Loose Moose alumnus Bruce McCulloch will be among the special guests for One Yellow Rabbit’s musical cabaret Moon, Moon, No Moon for its Jan. 12 and 13 performances at the Big Secret Theatre. McCulloch, who befriended Green in the 1980s, will be performing sections of his new one-man show. McCulloch was a regular Rodeo performer and performed his acclaimed one-man show Young Drunk Punk in 2014. It was later turned into a Calgaryshot sitcom, in which McCulloch enlisted Green for a recurring role as his arrogant boss and nemesis, Mr. Gabaldi.
“He would have been a fan of all this stuff,” Brooker says. “He had wide tastes. He always used to think: ‘something wild for everyone.’ That doesn’t mean something wild. That means something wild from a far suburb or something wild for a downtown kid or something wild for a younger person.”
The High Performance Rodeo runs until Jan. 28 at various venues. Visit hprodeo.ca.