Haircuts by Children

by Mammalian Diving Reflex
Part of the 30th annual High Performance Rodeo, Calgary’s International Festival of the Arts
Saturday, January 30, 2016 – 11:00 am-4:00 pm
Sunday, January 31, 2016 – 12:00-4:00 pm
Eau Claire Market
200 Barclay Parade SW (next to Sumo Lounge, across from Jugo Juice)
Book haircut appointment

Haircuts by Children is exactly what it sounds like.
Grade 5 students are trained by professionals to cut hair, then they offer free haircuts to the public at a salon in the city.
Haircuts is a performance about imaginative haircuts, power and trust; we challenge our audience to set their vanity aside, relinquish control, and trust that a 10-year-old has the creative ability, dexterity and responsibility to command a sharp pair of scissors. Ultimately it is also a performance about the intimate and rare moments shared between two very unlikely strangers – a child and an adult.
Mammalian Diving Reflex’s work occurs in public, collaborates with non-artists, and attempts to create unusual social contexts and situations that bring children and adults together as well as individuals from different socio-economic, geographic, cultural, and racial backgrounds who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity or reason to spend time together.
“It’s about trusting our future generation with not just the hairs on your head but about understanding young people are capable of much more than we give them credit for.”
– Chris Burns, Australian Education Minister

Conceived by
Darren O’Donnell

Directed by
Petrina Ng & Jenna Winter

Production and Local Coordination by
Eva Verity & Alicia Ward

Featuring the grade 5 students from the Calgary Board of Education’s Abbeydale School

Supported in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the government of Ontario.