This past weekend the kid and I decided to visit the lilac festival. In Calgary, on the first Sunday in June a street festival filled with entertainment, booths, food etc. pops up and everyone comes out to celebrate....lilacs? Either way, it's a fun way to spend the after noon, eat some cotton candy and take in the weird. The best bit for me are all of the street performers. Sure the kid mostly preferred the jugglers and more standard shows, but we stopped for over 1/2 hour to watch a woman put on a piece of performance art...that I still don't understand.
And that's totally ok. I don't need to understand, and it was a fun lesson to teach the kid. She kept asking questions, and the only answer I could give was to ask questions back.
"Why do you think she has plants in her mouth?"
"Why do you think she put $20 in a ball and floated it into the sky?"
"Why do you think she's not talking?" (probably because she has plants in her mouth!)
It was fun to to hear the kids answers...and I think she enjoyed just watching the weird.
Sometimes we don't need to understand, we can just enjoy something for what it is, or what we think it is. Personally I couldn't figure this part of the show out - my best guess was that it was a comment on being close to nature or a ode to the starving...
What do you think?
However, sometimes art is more universal. For example - who wouldn't be entertained by this gopher in a toque? You'd have to have no sense of humour what-so-ever to not be entertained by a gopher in a toque....fact!
For more info on the festival: http://www.lilacfestival.net/