review
iPhoto caption: 'Dream Machine' photo by Blake Brooker.
REVIEWS: High Performance Rodeo 2026
For Calgary theatre-goers, January holds the antidote to frigid post-holiday slumps: One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo, the city's biggest performing arts festival. This year marks the 40th iteration of the interdisciplinary event and offers Calgarians a feast of over 30 shows across 12 venues from January 13 to 31.
iPhoto caption: Members of the 'Ophis' company. Photo courtesy of Transcen|Dance Project.
REVIEW: Ophis dunks viewers into a gothic experience of Medusa’s psychic landscape
Transcen|Dance Project’s Ophis is a woozy tragedy that courts both playfulness and eroticism, deliberately dissolving the boundaries of stage and audience with an immersive format that’s sometimes thrilling, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes — if you’re a people-pleaser like me — both simultaneously.
iPhoto caption: Connor Mitton and members of the company of 'Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular.' Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh.
REVIEW: Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular is a peppermint-coated acid trip
Rock Bottom Movement’s surrealist mandate is on full display in this 15-dancer fantasia, which begins with an invitation to let go: “The only thing you need to know is not to know anything at all,” pronounces the Mayor of Sex Dalmatian, the evening’s narrator and the mayor of the titular canine’s mind.
iPhoto caption: Vanessa Sears as Juliet, Julia McLellan as Anne, Matt Raffy as May, and Sarah Nairne as Angelique in '& Juliet.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Mirvish’s & Juliet sparkles on the surface despite narrative stumbles
The technical elements of & Juliet are rightfully excessive, fabulous, and gauche, solidifying the camp grounding upon which I came to appreciate the show as a whole.