Ephemeral Public Art at the Kick & Push Festival
From singing goddesses to living sculptures, strange and striking works of art have been appearing downtown as the 2024 Kick & Push Festival rolls out its summer programming. Specializing in one-of-a-kind, immersive theatre experiences, the festival’s tenth season offers a range of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it performances from July 25 to August 18.
Corpus Dance Projects’ Divine Interventions made a brief appearance at the start of the festival, bringing celestial wonder to three ordinary days on Princess Street. Created by David Danzon, Anika Johnson, and Matthew O’Connor, Divine Interventions first premiered in Toronto in 2022 as an outdoor performance piece developed “as a playful response to the challenges of 2020 and beyond”. This summer, the ethereal performance was brought to Kingston, where it was presented by the Centre culturel Frontenac and the Kingston Theatre Alliance for the Kick & Push Festival.
Singing in beautifully woven harmony (music composed by Anika Johnson), the performers take a whimsical walk east from the Kingston Grand Theatre to City Hall, revelling in the acoustics of downtown Kingston’s best outdoor singing spots along the way. The procession is inflected with a deep sense of ritual, and there’s a feeling of awakening that follows in their steps as they greet the people and plants along their path. At the afternoon show I attended, passersby responded with a mix of awe, delight, and incredulity at the statuesque group of performers in matching green jumpsuits and halo-like crowns of flowers and wheat (costume design by Carlin Lindner).
From hunting down and crushing a piece of litter on the sidewalk to circling around a member of the audience, the performers bring unrelenting intensity to each action they take, moving in gorgeous coordination and landing in tableaux that evoke fine art (choreography by Bonnie Kim and Matthew O’Connor). At certain times, the goddesses come almost unsettlingly close, making eye contact so rapt that even an avowed non-believer might wonder if we are—even if only for a moment—in the presence of unearthly beings.
The festival’s second offering, Leisa Rich’s Other(worldly), had a similarly ephemeral presence the following week, appearing at downtown businesses, in the market square, and along the waterfront pathway for a blend of indoor and outdoor performances. While I didn’t manage to attend any of the weekday times (though I gazed in great FOMO at the colourful photos posted on the Kick & Push’s Instagram stories), I had a chance to witness one of Rich’s living sculptures at the Central Branch of the Kingston & Frontenac Public Library (KFPL) on the closing Saturday.
Other(worldly) features a series of thirteen wearable sculptures with evocative titles like “The Very Divine Mystery of Nature”, “Smack Dab in the Eye of a Golden Storm”, and—as KFPL patrons would soon discover—“Here, Kitty Kitty”. I arrived at the library early to do some writing, and right around 12:30, I heard a soft clattering by the door. A cat (Seymour Irons) was slinking along quietly between the bookcases, clad in a white and black cape-like costume made of rows and rows of empty plastic cat food containers.
After looking around, the cat approached a patron sitting at one of the desks and pointed at a small box. “Meow?”
The patron picked up the box and produced a deck of cards, offering the cat a tarot reading. A pleasant conversation, half English and half meow, ensued, as the patron unfolded the feline’s fate. Then, the cat moved on—and, as humans tend to do, I followed.
It’s a bit strange to show up on purpose to a show that’s designed to be happened upon, and I couldn’t help but feel that I lost some of the magic of Other(worldly) by seeking it out. With festival staff zipping about, picking up fitting books for the cat to look at (Three Little Kittens was a good one, and Plastic Soup, which received an animated reading in meow-ese, was likewise apropos), I felt more like I was attending a photoshoot than a performance. Then again, Rich’s designs are reminiscent of high-fashion runway looks—and what domestic cat doesn’t know the nuisance of being pursued for a picture by a group of mere mortals?
The Kick & Push Festival continues until August 18, 2024 at various locations in downtown Kingston. Learn more about the lineup here, and follow @thekickandpush on social media for the latest announcements and updates.
Find more information about ‘Divine Interventions’ here and ‘Other(worldly)’ here.
