The Cristal Palace, a vintage Belgian spiegeltent at EXPO Centre for the summer. Photo by Liz.

Cristal Palace Spiegeltent. Photo by West Coast Spiegeltents.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

A beautiful 75-year-old “tent” has magically touched down in a parking lot at the Edmonton EXPO Centre.

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With the arrival of the vintage hand-crafted “Cristal Palace” spiegeltent and the entertainment it will house this summer starting Friday,  Edmonton’s audiences and artists have a new way to experience K-Days, a festival prime for the re-imagining. And after that, in August, as announced at Will’s birthday bash in April, the world’s most famous playwright will make his Edmonton spiegeltent debut at the Freewill Shakespeare Festival.

‘Tent’ is a glorious misnomer (as I first knew from seeing a couple of spiegeltent shows in New York). Spiegel is Flemish for mirrors and a spiegeltent, a “magic mirror tent,” is a travelling dance hall lined with mirrors, stained glass, and precious wood.

On a sunny morning this week, I went for a visit, to meet Explore Edmonton’s arts programming manager Fawnda Mithrush whose idea it was to rent a spiegeltent for summer, and tent master Peter Goossens. And there was a dreamy glow to the space; light filters through the stained glass, and glances off the bevelled edges of the traditionally crafted mirrors, and polished wooden floors made of Norwegian pine and French oak. There was a light breeze outside and, as Mithrush pointed out, looking up at the draped canvas ceiling, “the whole place seems to breathe a bit.”

Looking up at the big top at the Cristal Palace spiegeltent, at K-Days.

The Cristal Palace (as it was christened, as a nod to the famous London dance hall) is the 220-seat setting for a whole K-Days mini-festival of dance, improv, comedy, magic, aerial artistry, contortionist acts, drag artists, burlesque, music, even spoken word poetry — locally sourced, produced, performed, directed.

And it’s got history. Built in Belgium in 1947, it was the first spiegeltent, built when wood and glass became available again post-war. And it’s one of three authentic spiegeltents currently touring in North America (there are only 34 in the world), two owned by Goossen’s West Coast Spiegeltents. They’re hand-built by the Klessens, a four-generation family of Belgian spiegeltent builders who have an inventory of 17 tents and still build one a year. Most recently, they’re at work on a 30-metre two-storey spiegeltent with an audience capacity of 1,000 for an L.A. client who tours full musicals.

Inside the Cristal Palace. Photo by Liz

We’re in one of the 14 alcoves, each with a table for six, around the perimeter of the tent. And we’re looking out across the stage (built by the Freewill Shakespeare Festival) that thrusts into the circular, sprung dance floor. “You can see 80 per cent of who’s here,” grins Goossens, Belgian-born and L.A.-based. “You can check them out. And look in the mirrors: I call it Tinder before Tinder.”

He explains the historical pedigree. A spiegeltent comes trailing a venerable tradition dating back to the late 19th century, when these moveable dance halls “travelled from fair to fair, town to town in Belgium, and a little bit in Holland, Germany, and France…. People would come from neighbouring villages and towns,” and competition for band musicians was fierce.

For Goossens, who first fell in love with spiegeltents at a sand castle festival in Belgium (“I thought Wow, how nice they are; oh I really want one!”), there is something particularly satisfying that “the origins were at the fair, and now (at K-Days) it’s coming back to the fair again…. They are living creatures. And we feel we’re just temporary custodians.”

There was a big boost in spiegeltent popularity between World War I and II, then after the wartime devastation (one tent was buried to save it), a real flowering in the ‘50s and ‘60s. as Goossens explains. You’d pay a small entrance fee, and then a collector would come around and get your money  for every two songs you danced. By the 1980s, spiegeltents “almost got lost … just on the cusp where something is old and nobody wants it any more, and the moment it becomes vintage and special.”

The Cristal Palace is a work of art in itself. And “you’d have to be pretty cold-hearted not to be touched,” as Goossens says, when you walk in.

Inside the Cristal Palace. Photo by Liz

Everything about building is hand-worked; everything about moving and setting it up is labour-intensive. Amazingly, no power tools are involved. “We only need a 14-foot ladder, a hammer and a screwdriver.” Ah yes, plus a crew of six, and three to five days. There’s 6,000 pounds of steel in the tent, but “everything fits into each other, the old-fashioned way,” as Goossens puts it. “Even these booths are part of the structure; it’s stronger if you build in the round so we don’t need any staking.”

There are 2,200 un-numbered pieces in all. They defy probability and fit into one semi-, but must be loaded and taken off in precisely the same order, he says. “At every setup we have at least one member of the Klessens family or company to come and guide us.” The production manager at the Cristal Palace, who’s arrived from Las Vegas, is Matthew Morgan, a professional clown and one of the last Barnum and Bailey graduates. He’ll be sticking around after K-Days to do his own Shotspeare comedy under the Freewill banner.

History is in the DNA of the space: you can trace the pattern of popular dances of yore in the hardwood of the dance floor. There’s a sweet spot under the canvas big top, where natural amplification magically takes over (I tested this, and it’s startling). And they’re built to withstand the infamous North Sea storms in Belgium, so spiegeltents aren’t neurotic about weather (there’s heat and A/C). Even the upgrades for changing fire and safety protocols are custom-made in the traditional way

The thing is, you have to really want a spiegeltent. And Mithush really did. The idea of her arts programming job, as she says, was to re-imagine K-Days by attracting “the creativity and passion of local artists … to make artist feel welcome and invited.” And what better way than to offer them “a special place, a bucket list place,” for them to perform in? “It’s a special performance experience for both performers and audiences!” as she says.

The 200-artist lineup assembled by Mithrush, who has wide experience in every aspect of the Edmonton arts scene (including a stint as Freewill’s general manager), dips into the Edmonton talent pool from many angles. There are both free and ticketed shows. In the afternoons at K-Days, free entertainment is led by the Thousand Faces Festival, specialists in interactive international dance and storytelling, most days at 1 and 3. The “happy hour” lineup at 4:30  includes Dorjay’s gospel/pop-rock fam sing-along show July 28 to 30, and Lit Fest’s Memoir Hour: Midway Edition July 27.

At 6 p.m. daily, Grindstone Theatre brings their popular all-improvised musical The 11 O’Clock Number to the tent. And at 8 nightly is the Great Great Spiegel Spectacular, produced by Firefly Theatre and Circus and directed by Annie Dugan.

Emcee John Ullyatt (who’s been the emcee in a Citadel production of Cabaret in his time) and the house band Le Fuzz (Jason Kodie and cohorts) lead a lineup that includes magician Billy Kidd, circus artist The Great Balanzo, drag artists, burlesque performers from the House of Hush, aerialists and contortionists — and “aerial hoop contortionist” Eliza Lance — who will be close enough to look in the eye.

The idea, says Ullyatt, is “a cabinet of curiosities, people collected from everywhere to join the spiegeltent house troupe…. in return for never growing old. “I myself was at the Cristal Palace in 1948,” he says, “so I’m over a hundred years old…. Yup, it’s a zombie story in a way.” Belinda Cornish, of Teatro Live!, is the dramaturge.

“Al the introductions are made up, great fun,” he says. One act might have “descended from golden wings.” One is from another planet, Montreal. “It matches the weird magic of the tent!”

The late show, 11 p.m. at the spiegeltent, is burlesque courtesy of  House of Hush. And it’s nearly sold out already for the run. In fact, Mithrush advises, “buy spiegeltent tickets now; they’re selling fast. And if you purchase in advance, the ticket includes K-Day admission.”

Muralist AJA Louden at work on the EXPO Centre. Photo by Liz

There’s a world outside the Spiegeltent, too. When you emerge,  there’s a spiegeltent garden. You can appreciate Explore Edmonton’s mural project: star muralist AJA Louden is re-inventing the blank industrial walls of the EXPO Centre. There’s a music lineup at Klondike Park programmed by La Cité francophone, and music as well in the Golden Garter  (aka Ballroom 106), including such Edmonton luminaries as Andrea House and Maria Dunn. Or you can take a load off at one of the Pop-Upsicle benches scattered through the site (designed by OneTwoSix Design, winners of Explore Edmonton’s industrial design competition this past winter). Welcome to a new old world.

Tickets and full schedule: k-days.com.