Olympic Plaza hosts free musical spectacle ‘Squonk: Hand to Hand’

A travelling troupe of musical performers has been putting on quite the show for Calgarians.

Presented by Arts Commons, the Pittsburgh-based group Squonk has already hosted multiple shows at Olympic Plaza on Monday and Tuesday, and have their final set of performances on Wednesday at 12 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.  

The show, called Hand to Hand, features two gigantic air-filled hands that are remarkably life-like.

There is no spoken word, but the artistic hands are accompanied by music.

Squonk co-artistic director Jackie Dempsey, who also co-founded the group, says the show was developed about five years ago during a time of turmoil in the United States.

"The giant hands make you feel like you can really do something," she said. "It's fun to play with the scale of the giant hands and the small person, and so how do you make a difference in a world of so many people? I think you can. Each person can make a difference."

The group has been performing for 30 years all over North America, Europe and Asia. It started out as Squonk Opera because Dempsey says the members were looking for a fun word to go with opera. Now they're just Squonk.

"It's large scale, music, spectacle, all original," she said. "I tell people to always come with an open mind, don't worry about what it means, just come have your own interpretation and just be ready to have a good time."

Steve O'Hearn is the other co-artistic director and co-founder of Squonk. He says he enjoys performing in front of a crowd at an outdoor venue because he says you see all kinds of people, of all ages.

"We get older people, we get young families, we get kids, we get teens," said O'Hearn. "It's really mixed, and that's part of the joy of it – it doesn't fit in any kind of generational archetype of the arts, it's very open and we love that."

The group strives to have their performances offered for free everywhere they go, because O'Hearn says a wide variety of people are able to enjoy the show from all demographics.

"It's really important for people to come and see things together," he said. "That starts to break boundaries that eventually discourse and logical argument aren't breaking, so people recognize that we're all humans here."

Joshua Dalledonne is the associate director of social impact at Arts Commons and says Squonk was in Calgary 15 years ago as part of the Children's Festival. He says he is glad to have the performers back.

"Calgarians deserve world-class work and we're here to serve that," said Dalledonne. "The fact that it's free is meant to make sure that it's accessible to as many people as possible, this is undecorated so it's come as you are, there are three shows a day at 12, four and seven so we hope Calgarians will will come join us, it's a special thing."

Dempsey says there is an interactive component to the show where the audience gets to operate the giant hands and it always makes her smile to see the wonder in the eyes of the participants.

"People don't have to buy a ticket to come, they don't have to know who Squonk is, they don't have to know what we do, they just kind of see it from afar," she said. "Hopefully it draws them in just to have a good time and to have all the different generations together, no matter what your background is politics, religion, whatever."

Learn more about Squonk here: www.artscommons.ca/whats-on/squonk