Tales from the Canadian Beaver

Tales from the Canadian Beaver

Oh Canada, Show Us Your Beaver is the first performance in the Tales from the Canadian Beaver series which features The Beaver explaining her recent brush with feminism and her newfound identity that is marked appropriately enough, with a “beaver piercing”, (a velvet, satin, fun-fur vagina sewn into the beaver costume). Thrilled by her newfound alternative lifestyle, she recites a poem dedicated to Canada while the national anthem blasts from her, ah, beaver.

In Beaver Fever, a karaoke video is projected on a screen to help The Beaver call upon the audience to sing along to a romantic classic and celebrate the love that dare not speak its name… the love of a big, fat, sexy beaver. (The karaoke video is a bastardized version of Peggy Lee’s Fever, where “fever” has been replaced with “beaver” within the lyrics and appear at the bottom of the screen for maximum audience participation.)

Santa Beaver is the last, hands-on incarnation of The Beaver. Audience members were invited to sit on The Beaver’s knee, tell her what they’d like for Christmas (or their birthday depending on the time of year), get on their knees, reach in, and pull out a gift from The Beaver’s, ah, Beaver.

These works were performed between 2001-2006 at:
Kiss My Cabaret, Montreal
Le Boudoir, Montreal
Durty Girls, Ottawa
“NETworkings: interpersonal dimensions in new media art” curated by Liz MacDougall, Halifax
Buddies in Bad Times, Toronto
and various other venues and festivals in Canada