More Festival Fun!

Join us on the festival grounds before and after performances for a variety of fun and interactive activities. You can join in on the act with buskers, clowns, jugglers and much more! Roving entertainers, hands-on explorations and arts activities will let you unleash your creative side!

A Company of Fools
(Ottawa, ON)

A Company of Fools has been delighting audiences all across Canada since 1990. The Fools have built a reputation as a highly physical troupe doing interactive shows indoors and out. Basing their improvised performances on rogue Elizabethan entertainers who used to delight crowds outside of the Globe theatre in Shakespeare’s London, the Fools bring the Bard to fun, furious life!

Kromatik (Québec)

Watch yourself be transformed before your very eyes, and become a work of art for a day! Always a hit at the festival, these costumed face painters will amaze you with their fantastic make-up designs – created solely with organic face paint. (Please note that there is a charge of $5 on May 30th and 31st).

Imagination Station

Artist Missy Fraser, educators from the Portrait Gallery of Canada, and some of
Ottawa’s finest visual artists will be on hand to help you create your very own personalized work of art to take home as a souvenir of the Festival! We have everything you need - just bring your imagination!

Sand Northrup (One Woman Circus) and Mike Battie (Physical Comedian),

(Vancouver, BC)

These two internationally-renowned performers have many years of experience as circus artists extraordinaire! Sand is a perky one-woman circus who provides endless hours of entertainment with her clown character FILETTA FISH – juggling and unicycling circles around you and your whole family. Mike blends virtuoso juggling – choreographed to music – with light-hearted crowd participation to amaze and amuse. Both performers will be offering stilt-walking and juggling workshops throughout the Festival to thrill-seeking kids and young-at-heart adults! (Please note workshops will be on a first-come, first-served basis.)

Binari
Dulsori • Korea
Ages 5 and up • 60 minutes
Drumming / Music
Tent 1, LeBreton Flats Park

Curriculum Connections:

Featuring the talents of nine of the most dynamic performers in the Asia Pacific region, Korea’s Dulsori bring their highly energetic and gripping show to the Festival. For the first time ever, Ottawa audiences will get to witness their amazing, dramatic and high-level of artistic performance in an hour of drumming, song and call and response. Featuring 8-foot drums, exotic costumes and breathless energy, Binari thrills and delights while blending contemporary rhythms with the traditional style of ancient Korean percussion and song. Dulsori’s highly physical performance lets audiences experience the truly spectacular!

Thrice Upon A Time
DynamO Théâtre, Montreal, QC
Ages 6 to 11 • 55 minutes
In English and French
The Big Top, LeBreton Flats Park

Curriculum Connections:

Quebec’s award-winning DynamO Théâtre uses high energy acrobatics, live music and a richly detailed soundscape to delight audiences of all ages with this gripping show. A modern-day tale that draws on domestic and foreign legends, Thrice Upon A Time tells the story of a young boy stranded on a mysterious island. He and his friends Monkey and Lonely-Girl must overcome a variety of obstacles with courage, constancy and each other’s help. Through movement and imagery, this show bears witness to the courage that children need to have in a forbidding world.

Run Chicken Run
Gruppe 38 • Denmark
50 minutes • In English
Barney Danson Theatre, Canadian War Museum

Curriculum Connections:

Since 1972, Denmark’s Gruppe 38 has been creating and presenting innovative theatre to audiences all over the world. Run Chicken Run is a vibrant journey into Songs for the Small, a well-known songbook for children. Portraying a day in the life of a farmer, his animals – the cat, the cow and the chicken – tell us their stories. A wildly inventive set provides the backdrop for the show and the story invites audiences to use the power of imagination, allowing us to see things we can only hear. From a farmyard full of pigs, to a hot air balloon-ride high over lakes and forests, to a miniature disco packed with hundreds of party-going mice, strange and wonderful tales are vividly brought to life. Magical, entertaining and full of surprises, Run Chicken Run is children’s theatre at its best.

BOXY-GEORGE
Teater Refleksion • Denmark
Ages 5 to 10 • 45 minutes

Non-Verbal performance
Barney Danson Theatre, Canadian War Museum

Curriculum Connections:

George is alone. It’s nice to be alone. Everything is neat and tidy. Perfect. But one day a box shows up. And George isn’t alone anymore. Boxy George is a non-verbal puppetry performance about a man who knew his way around the world – until the day it took an unexpected turn. Teater Refleksion’s intimate and beautiful show invites audiences of all ages to appreciate the value of friendship and companionship.

Rocket and the Queen of Dreams
Roseneath Theatre - Toronto
Ages 5 to 8 • 60 minutes
In English
Auditorium, Library & Archives Canada

Curriculum Connections:

A unique and imaginative theatre experience for younger children, Rocket and the Queen of Dreams fuses shadow puppetry, traditional puppetry, live performance and original music for a journey into the dream world of a young boy and the darkness and light to be found there. Rocket’s father assures him that there are no monsters in his house, his closet or under his bed – but the monsters Rocket fears are in his dreams. Inspired by internationally acclaimed playwright David S. Craig’s discussions with elementary school children about their dreams, this show is a magnificent and ethereal experience that will enchant young audiences and resonate in the imaginations of adults.

Oz
Vox Théâtre • Ottawa, ON
Ages 5 and up • 55 minutes
In French and English
Room “A”, Library & Archives Canada

Curriculum Connections:

Adapted from L. Frank Baum’s beloved classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Vox Théâtre’s production is a magical, musical journey of self-discovery. A violent tornado whisks Dorothy and her dog Toto away to the Land of Oz. There she meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion, encouraging them to join her in her journey to the Emerald City, where she hopes to find a way to get back home to Kansas. Full of imagination and wonder, Oz illustrates how children can overcome obstacles with the help of friends.