ANTIGONISH: This year’s local arts benefit on February 11 is going to involve a lot more pile-drivers than usual.
Board members of the All-of-Us Society for Art Presentation (ASAP) Artist Run Centre are taking a different approach to their annual February fundraising event.
“The event is themed around wrestling and we are staging a theatrical production,” said ASAP board member Sarah O’Toole.
“These are not actual professional wrestlers or even amateur wrestlers. We’re just using the genre to depict and talk about the art world using those archetypes and using the wrestling match. It’s going to be pretty funny.”
Fellow board member Fenn Martin said organizers wanted to create an accessible format where attendees can create their own interpretation of the event.
When asked how close it will be to professional wrestling, Martin said “not even close” and related the event more to performance art than “real” wrestling. He said there will be some wrestling involved but it will more be about the spectacle, costumes, trash talk, and hype.
“We all grew up watching wrestling, we understand the format, we understand the format, we understand the spectacle,” he said.
“We wanted to use it as a jumping off point.”
O’Toole said the plan for now is to host five to six “matches” with the usual wrestling tropes of characters, commentators, referees, valets, and enthusiastic fans.
“Just like in professional wrestling, the fans are very much a part of the production,” O’Toole noted. “People will be able to make signs, meet the wrestlers, have their photos taken with them, choose sides.”
Tickets for the wrestling portion of the evening are $15 or $20 for a ringside seat. Doors open at 7 p.m. with the wrestling set to start between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. A dance will follow the wrestling portion of the evening. The fee for the dance is by donation and the entire event is licensed so only those 19 and over will be admitted.
O’Toole said organizers are hoping fans will make it out and enjoy the event in the spirit in which it is intended.
“It’s meant to be fun and lighthearted,” she said. “We hope people with come to this with an open mind.”