Curtain Razors theatre company has a new series called The Moveable Feast. Today and Sunday at The Room (2115 Retallack St.) from 1-4 p.m., it’s hosting Haircuts by Children.
The brainchild of Darren O’Donnell, Artistic Director of Toronto performance company Mammalian Diving Reflex, Haircuts by Children involves just what the title suggests: book an appointment and for a measly $10 you can have your hair cut by a child.
What, you got a problem with that?
Yeah, hair is a pretty big marker of identity and attractiveness. For an adult to submit to having their hair, their crowning glory in poetic terms, hacked at by a kid, well, that would require a pretty big leap of faith.
Curtain Razors is a local company headed by artist and performer Michelle Sereda. According to advance publicity, Sereda has already managed to line-up several celebrity participants including Mayor Pat Fiacco, NDP MLA Warren McCall, Regina Folk Festival artistic director Sandra Butel and the MacKenzie Art Gallery’s executive director, Stuart Reid.
Through the project, O’Donnell neatly inverts the usual adult/child dynamic. Typically, kids are deemed less knowledgeable and competent than adults and therefore in need of constant care and correction. Here, though, adults must trust in the skill and judgement of kids. Absurd, right? Yet a month or so ago I read an article in the Globe & Mail about these extremely influential tween fashion bloggers who get flown all over the world to review new clothing lines and whose opinions impact significantly on what girls their age and older and even young women wear.
That strikes me as pretty absurd. But it is consistent with society’s obsession with youth culture. And who’s to say that the kids at the Room won’t have it goin’ on and end up giving you a really stylin’ haircut?
Then there’s the whole issue of child labour. Not many Reginans, I suspect, will be keen to let a child cut their hair. Pick some fresh fruit and vegetables for them in an impoverished Third World country, sure, or piece together a pair of cross-trainers in a sweat shop. But not cut their hair.
Of course, it was just a few months ago that the Saskatchewan government dropped the legal working age to 14. We let kids cook and serve us french-fries. Why not let them take a run at our hair?
Later tonight, if you feel like checking out some music, local hard rockers Orbital Express launch a CD at the Exchange with Kleins96, Third Alarm and These Estates also on the bill, and Intergalactic Virgin play a gig at the Fainting Goat. As well, there is a concert of experimental music by Kristi Allik called Machine Music that’s on at Neutral Ground.