Trampoline Hall: Fun and sparkly, but not earth-shattering

"Trampoline Hall":http://www.trampolinehall.net/ is a Toronto-based event consisting of lecturers presenting information about subjects that they are not experts in. This does not mean that the subjects are not well researched, however. The lecturers seem to have done varying degrees of preparation, ranging from a few pages of notes to an elaborate power point presentation. After the lectures, the audience had the chance for some Q&A, which could be delightful test of the presenter’s ingenuity.

What made Trampoline Hall, which was featured as part of this year’s "Club PuSh":http://pushfestival.ca/index.php?mpage=shows&spage=main&id=89#show series, so much fun (and it was fun) was that it was so unexpected. The titles of the lectures gave some indication of what you were in store for, but could scarcely convey the range of information that the lecturer might include. Our lectures were “Fraternal Polyandry in Tibet,” “Cooking from Memory,” and “There are Clues Everywhere!! Nancy Drew Knows It’s Hard To Live In a Terrorized World. She Wants To Help You And She Can.” The audience would frequently draw links between the lectures and ask crossover questions, such as, “Would Nancy Drew consider having a polyandrous relationship with her boyfriend Ned and his brother?” (The answer was no. Ned does not have a brother.)

Trampoline Hall was less of theatrical piece and more of a carnival cultural event. The host, Misha, our barker, facilitated the questions and posed some of his own follow-ups. An energetic and extremely quick-witted comedian, he shone in the follow-ups, but his machine-gun fire exposition could be a little jarring.

The feeling of the night is probably summed up by the “set”, which consisted of Mark Delong and Shayne Ehman airbrushing children’s sweatshirts with pictures inspired by the lectures. Between lectures, they would launch these sweatshirts from the stage into the audience with various contraptions - and with varying degrees of success. The sweatshirts were unique, clever, and amusing, but there would be no point to keeping one if you caught it. Like the sweatshirts, the lectures were fun for a quick hit of random with a dash of contemplation, but they weren’t something that you needed to take home.

_Trampoline Hall; Hosted by Misha Glouberman; Curated by Veda Hille; Set by Mark Delong and Shayne Ehman; Lecturers: Kevin Chong, Andrew Feldman, and Faith Moosang. It happened on February 1st, as part of Club PuSh, part of this year’s PuSh Festival:http://pushfestival.ca/index.php; both of which are still happening!_