FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Fools on parade
Mask masters lead winter-weary masses in April Fool's Day Parade
by Lori MontgomeryApril Fool's Day Parade
Led by The Green Fools
starting at City Hall
April 1, noonAfter months of unabated cold and snow, Calgarians are suffering from a major case of cabin fever. At least, that's the way the Green Fools look at it.
"Winter in Calgary is long and insurmountable," says Shannon Anderson.
"You spend all of these awful nights sitting in your apartment," Judd Palmer adds, "listening to the wind howling outside and the snow blowing and the hillbillies roaming and sharpening their teeth and shrieking war cries - I don't know about anybody else, but I tend to lose my mind over the winter."
Regardless of whether you do in fact hear shrieking outside your window during the night, you are likely just as happy as the Fools to see the frigid temperatures come to an end.
"Spring launches itself upon the world," Palmer says, "and so do we."
"The Ship and Anchor gets full at 2:30 in the afternoon, and the Green Fools gather their forces," Anderson adds.
The forces are gathering for the annual celebration of the mask and puppet theatre's official holiday - appropriately enough, April Fool's Day. At noon on April 1, the Green Fools will be the ringleaders of a horde of spring worshippers traipsing through the streets of downtown Calgary. Pied Piper-like, they hope that members of the arts community and general public will don masks, costumes, or outrageous hats and follow them.
"It's a big, strutting march with tubas and accordions and people on stilts and stuff like that," Palmer says.
The parade route will wend its chaotic way from City Hall to Eau Claire Market, where merchants will provide free food for anyone daring enough to take part in the spectacle.
Palmer describes the parade as a therapeutic event for stir-crazy Calgarians.
"I like to think of this parade as a kind of amassing of those who have developed facial tics over the winter," he says.
"Let's face it - this city is miserable for eight months of the year, so you need a release by the time spring happens," Anderson says. "This is one of those events that propels you out of your sleepy chambers into life."
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