Where in the world am I today?: Ottawa, ON, Canada

So… Ottawa… Canada Day… As it so happens this is my 25th year of performing in the Nation’s Capital on Canada Day. I’ve been performing for 28 years, but I missed three in there, so it’s a bit hard to actually call this a ‘Silver Anniversary’ but still 25 years does represent a milestone of sorts…

My first few years working on Canada Day I came out and did straight ahead street shows and passed the hat for tips… For what ever reason I gravitated to Major’s Hill Park as a place to do this and it wasn’t very long before the NCC decided to give me a contract to perform in this very same location. For what ever reason, I seem to have become a fixture that certain people search out as part of their Canada Day experience and the couple of times that I haven’t been performing the NCC has actually had people call in to ask why I wasn’t there – very flattering, but also somewhat bizarre.

I’m a firm believer that performers are taught how to perform by the first audiences that they have the privilege of performing in front of. I started in Ottawa, so for me returning to Ottawa to perform for this crowd is always a sort of home coming, and my show often works better here than in any other place on the planet. For so many reason’s it just feels effortless to do my show in Ottawa. Last year this video of one of my shows got posted to you tube –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmFycEowtSQ

All this to say that most countries have some sort of national holiday which is well worth investigating as an opportunity to work. Some examples that I’ve been introduced to are –

• Canada = Canada Day – July 1st.
• USA = 4th of July – July 4th
• Australia = Australia Day – January 26th

I’m sure that with a bit of poking around you’ll be able to find that most countries have some sort of day on which they celebrate being a nation and the parties are usually a blast and if you can’t get an official invitation (ie a contracted job) you can always crash the party (street perform) and will likely do exponentially better than were you to be performing on a non-holiday day.

If you find yourself performing in Canada today, be it in Ottawa or some other part of the country, I hope you have a great time helping celebrate Canada’s 142nd Birthday and bring lots of laughter to those who will be watching you work!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 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.