Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

While hanging out in Edmonton at the Edmonton International Street Performer’s Festival I got to hang out with my friends ‘The Flaming Idiots.’ I originally met the boys at the 1989 Edmonton Streetfest and loved working with them for a number of years at the Edmonton Fringe Festival. Apart from their work at Street Festivals and Fringe Festivals, the Idiots spent a lot of time working the Renaissance Festival Circuit.

I’ve never actually worked at a Renaissance Festival myself but know lots of performers who have and have attended a couple, one in Minnesota near the Twin Cities when I was just a kid and lived in St. Paul, and another near Denver, Colorado when I was traveling across country in the mid-eighties.

The concept behind Renaissance Festivals is to recreate a medieval village complete with Lords, Ladies, Knights, Jousters, and activities including a pretty diverse collection of live performances – jugglers, sword swallowers, jesters, sword play shows, interactive plays, you name it. Obviously all of these shows needed to fit into the ‘Renaissance World’ created at these festivals, but most performers who I’ve talked to about this said that the modifications that they needed to do to their shows didn’t amount to a whole lot and that the environment was a pretty great one to perform in.

A quick Google Search turned up several that might be worth checking out –

• Colorado Renaissance Festival – http://www.coloradorenaissance.com
• Texas Renaissance Festival – http://www.texrenfest.com
• Minnesota Renaissance Festival – http://www.renaissancefest.com/MRF
• Michigan Renaissance Festival – http://www.michrenfest.com
• Kansas City Renaissance Festival – http://www.kcrenfest.com
• Bay Area Renaissance Festival – http://www.renaissancefest.com/bay-area.htm
• MaryLand Renaissance Festival – http://www.rennfest.com
• The Georgia Renaissance Festival – http://www.garenfest.com
• Carolina Renaissance Festival – http://www.royalfaires.com/carolina
• Sterling Renaissance Festival – http://www.sterlingfestival.com
• Tennessee Renaissance Festival – http://www.tnrenfest.com
• Florida Renaissance Festival – http://www.ren-fest.com
• The Arizona Renaissance Festival – http://royalfaires.com/arizona
• Scarborough Renaissance Festival – http://www.scarboroughrenfest.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Job Opportunities, Performance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.