Friday February 2, 2024
Time: 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Olympic Plaza
228 8 Ave SW, Calgary
Feel the heat as the Calgary Folk Music Festival’s Block Heater and One Yellow Rabbit, two pillar festival partners, set the heart of Calgary alight with a scorching collaboration at Olympic Plaza on opening night, Friday February 2 at Olympic Plaza from 6:00 – 10:00 pm. This experience that will leave you buzzing and ready to immerse yourself in the rest of Chinook Blast!
Calgary’s inaugural poet laureate and songwriter/spoken word/theatre artist Kris Demeanor writes and sings about the funny, dark, absurd, maddening and the joyful. For thirty years he has explored and exposed hidden corners of the western Canadian cultural landscape, adhering to Brecht’s credo: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” Kris has released nine records, toured Australia, Europe, and Canada and has co-created and performed several shows with One Yellow Rabbit and Ghost River Theatre, debuting his one man show Russell: Straight Up, at the 2020 High Performance Rodeo and has created and performed with other key Calgary theatre companies, including Making Treaty 7. His February 2 show with local musicians Ella Jean Haggis, Jamie Konchak and the Crack Band will span his career, plus include songs from his latest Songs for My Father to Fall Asleep to, a series of acoustic songs in tribute to Kris’s Dad Wilfried.
Ginger Beef is a husband-and-wife team – award-winning classical flutist Jiajia Li and veteran producer/multi-instrumentalist Warren Tse (AKA MSG). Li is been a frequent Calgary music scene collaborator, and you’ve likely heard MSG’s work – even if you don’t know it – as he happens to be the Calgary Flames organist. Ginger Beef creates instrumental pop by balances dazzling performances and catchy melodies with deep grooves, which MSG envisions as a ‘funky Van Halen,’ — noting that brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen were classically trained pianists. The music is “a little exotic, crunchy, and surprisingly satisfying,” like the food it shares a name with! Ginger Beef brings high-energy instrumental acrobatics to life with Li on a range of Chinese and western flutes and MSG on synth, keys and guitar. The duo is backed by top R&B, funk, gospel and jazz players.
Calgary’s inaugural poet laureate and songwriter/spoken word/theatre artist Kris Demeanor writes and sings about the funny, dark, absurd, maddening and the joyful. For thirty years he has explored and exposed hidden corners of the western Canadian cultural landscape, adhering to Brecht’s credo: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” Kris has released nine records, toured Australia, Europe, and Canada and has co-created and performed several shows with One Yellow Rabbit and Ghost River Theatre, debuting his one man show Russell: Straight Up, at the 2020 High Performance Rodeo and has created and performed with other key Calgary theatre companies, including Making Treaty 7. His February 2 show with local musicians Ella Jean Haggis, Jamie Konchak and the Crack Band will span his career, plus include songs from his latest Songs for My Father to Fall Asleep to, a series of acoustic songs in tribute to Kris’s Dad Wilfried.
Performer, composer and producer who resides on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh Nations (Vancouver BC) Ruby Singh’s crosses the boundaries of music, poetry, photography and film. The imaginative visual textures of his dynamic sound designs have found kinship in the theatre, film and dance worlds as he utilizes traditional and emergent sonic practices to create compositions that express the spectrum of the human experience, informed by organic sounds found all around us. It blends the technological world with art, social and environmental causes. Singh’s ambient audio-visual worlds span Sufi hip hop and poetry, diverse global a cappella, his RupLoops solo live interactive percussive looping project, The Future Ancestors blues and soul infused live hip hop and kraKIN creates music from flora, fauna, and fungi.
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