When the average Calgarian thinks about Calgary city council meetings, theatre is probably not the first word that comes to mind.

Sure, spicy hot takes have the more politically-inclined crowd turning into the latest episode of Council Island instead of Love Island, but municipal engagement is not the first take for heady theatrical engagement.

Or is it?

Theatre artists and amateur urbanists Nathaniel Hanula-James and Wesley Reibeling have attempted to re-invent the municipal engagement, in a way that’s fun and entertaining in an entirely unironic manner.

Flux in the City, which is running as part of One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo, is a production speaks to audiences in a collaborative way to help them feel like they have the empowerment, and the tools, to design a better future.

“When we started this project, I had never in my life attended a municipal consultation. I don’t think I’d ever sent an email to my councillor. I don’t know if I knew who my councillor was, or anything like that. Then it was through doing this show that we really started to, or at least I started to learn about cities, learn about how they work, to learn about how I can have agency in my own city,” said Hanula-James.

“That’s been a really beautiful, a beautiful thing that’s come out of this.”

Audiences are asked to bring their thoughts, ideas, and maybe even a few complaints about Calgary to the show, which then plays out through some interaction of what Hanula-James and Reibeling think a fun municipal consultation would look like.

“It is much more fun, much more zany, theatrical, and it kind of starts to go off the rails a little bit in a wonderful way,” Hanula-James said.

The ambition of Flux in the City is really to make people leave feeling more connected to the city that they live in and hopefully grow in love for the place that they live, said Reibeling.

“The ethos of our show is really trying to drive those things home. I think what we found out through this and through life imitating art and art imitating life, the conversation around (Toronto’s) Hanlan’s. That all was happening while we were creating the show, and we were watching a consultation that was supposed to close in a certain amount of time,” he said.

“The (Hanlan’s) Master Plan was supposed to launch, and then the community advocated and said, ‘hey, we need deeper engagement.’ Really, our goal is to really make folks feel like they can find their way into the city in some way, shape or form.”

The marathon session is back, but more fun

As for the Calgarians who were engaged in the marathon sessions of Calgary’s own public engagement process of upzoning, Hanula-James said he hoped this play would re-energize them to once again get involved with city building.

“I hope it’s giving you a little bit of joy and giving you the energy to sort of dive back into the city and continue to do all the great work that you’re already doing to make Calgary better,” he said.

But before you think that might just apply to one side of the argument or the other, he quickly pointed out that one of his favourite parts of the show is when he and Reibeling—in character—disagree over issues like urban sprawl and densification.

“What I think we really hope to show is that even if sometimes collaboration isn’t just happy and calm all the way through. Sometimes it can get heated. Sometimes there can be really genuine disagreements and arguments. That doesn’t mean that the whole thing has to shatter,” Hanula-James said.

“You can still come together, even through all of that, to collaborate on making a better city.”

Sometimes that messiness can result in better outcomes, said Reibeling.

“We’re trying our best to make it fun and weird and bring up some ways to get involved. We even at the end of the show, hand out a little QR code and a little few ways to get involved in your city. Kind of a ‘zine to try to get folks to kind of go home and think, ‘OK, yeah, I could go to a leaf cleanup, or I could take part in this, or I could just explore a new neighbourhood that I haven’t before,'” he said.

The pair said that they have invited members of Calgary City Council to attend their performances, and as a surprise, they may or may not add trying to get in touch with a particular councillor as part of the show.

“We’d love for them to attend. We want city staff here, it would be incredible. I think we’re trying to demystify that power balance or power imbalance, and trying to say that we’re all here at the dinner table. Let’s just have a conversation,” said Reibeling.

Municipal engagement is a weird topic for Flux in the City, but also wonderful

The production has been in the works with the Major Matt Mason Collective over the past three years, and the opportunity to be part of the High Performance Rodeo is an opportunity to continue working on the show in a venue that is itself, a product of the municipal engagement process, said Reibeling.

That being Contemporary Calgary, which was formerly the Calgary Science Centre.

Oliver Armstrong, producer for the High Performance Rodeo, said that it was an easy choice to collaborate with Major Matt Mason Collective on the world premiere of the show.

“They’ve had a couple of hits at our festival in past years. When Geoffrey (Simon Brown) said, ‘I’ve met these two guys, Wes and Nathaniel, and they’ve got the show called Flux in the City,’ there was a lot of trust there right away,” Armstrong said.

“It was like, ‘OK, well, if you two are working with them and you are excited by this type of presentation and this storytelling that they’re doing then, then we want it. We want to bring it.'”

He said that the mix of handmade sets and props—and the use of an old-school, quite literally, projector—and audience interaction makes it hard to describe exactly what Flux in the City is, and yet something that is also exciting and should be experienced.

“This is boundary-pushing, for sure. It is a city consultation, but it is theatrical. They’re working really hard to bring their tools and resources as theatre creators, actors and performers to a topic that you might not expect to be that engaged with. That’s a prime driver of a lot of the reasons that we choose shows at the High Performance Rodeo,” Armstrong said.

“That sounds a little bit weird. That sounds a little bit experimental, but we trust these creators to make it engaging, make it fun and joyful, and that’s the name of the game at the Rodeo.”

Flux in the City runs from Jan. 22 to 25 at Contemporary Calgary. Tickets are on sale at www.oyr.org/productions/flux-in-the-city.