Salutations! Here’s the official Winnipegasus RECAPITULATION! I think seven days is an apropriate enough time period for a sort of recapitulation of events which were so epic and hardcore. It takes a little bit of time for shite to sink in no?. Afterall, it was quite a night wasnt it?

So, to start things off, we at the Winnipegasus federation will have you know that we began organization for this event only about a month in advance. The idea for Winnipegasus had been floating around for awhile but mostly anticipating the Solstice 2012, being an auspicious day beyond auspisciousness relating to the mayan calendar and the i-ching and a million other paradigm shifting prophecies. It can’t be denied this apocalytpic vibration is coming and the idea is to harness the vibe like the golden boy surfing on a giant tidalwave of global and perhaps intergalacitic mojo. So the oportunity came out of nowhere that maybe we could have a Winnipegasus in 2011, sort of like a warm up for the real deal in 2012. Partly filling a gap left empty by the Element Circus. The kind folks at the Atomic Centre Milena and Chris and the brilliant sound technician Tim invited us to hold a circus ceremony in their special spot at 167 Logan. And thus it occured, willed by the gods and controlled by destiny;

The Pegasus is a mythological beast, a winged horse which slays demons and weilds power. So according to myth, the pegasus strikes its hooves on the ground and upsprings this special river called the hippocrene which is the river of inspiration. And, according to myth the 9 muses who represent the 9 forms of creativity drank from the hippocrene and are inspired. Hence the inspiration of the muses. So what a great metaphor for a Solstice festival which can bring together a miriad of performers and artists. Plus Winnipegasus is such a witty play on words its hilarious.

So it became apparent that for the purpose of this festival we should somehow manifest the Muses in real life by choosing nine actual Winnipeg Goddesses who could embody the nine muses. And sure enough at the Atomic Centre they emerged, led by Kristen the mastermuse, dancing in a circle and spreading inspiration just like the myth. They manifested themselves with beauty and power and even blessed some sacred water vessels in representation of the Hippocrene, spring of inspiration. Everyone must admit that the muses were kind of hot and sexy as well.

To begin the evening and to spiritualize the space we had the Hare Krishna singers of winnipeg spread their shiva and krishna vibrations. They offered sacred prashad or holy sweets for us to enjoy the whole night. You might know the hare krishnas from their work with John Lennon in the give peace a chance movement. Basically they are a bunch of holy peeps who pray by singing and worshipping the sacred deitites of hindu lore. Shweet,

Smoke filled the room as the Chin-wu lion dancers performed the sacred lion dance. It was truly a trippy thing where one minute you can see some crazy ninjas in a suit dancing around and then another minute you are witnesseing an extradimenional entity was present and danced with the crowd. These chin-wu cats are the real deal. Their splinter sensai Dave is a bonafide Shaolin master. To have them there doing the esoteric dance is a crazy blessing from heaven. Watch out; 2012 the year of the water dragon.

Next was Tamara leading the nia dance which brought everyone’s bodies to life and started the energy circulating around the room. Nia is like this little known dance-aerobic doctorine which basically is driven to invigorate the physical body through dance. Tamara on stage bestowing her beauty apon the room and spreading the vibe was pretty goshdarned nifty.

Then came Scott Leroux the organ virtuoso spilling phantom of the oprah vibes to the amazing Arialism of the stupendous hoop dancer. Scott is literally a savant the music just spills out of him like from saturn. Accompanied by the gynastic brilliance of the aerial hoop dancer droppedf jaws and arose kundalini.

Then the Bacca Minstrels, Winnipeg Syren gypsies addorned in white spreading the vibration of Dyonisus entered and slayed with debaucherous holiness.

Then the first bands started, Dave Dobbs’s Softcore, followed by Saunlust the pschedelic jamstyle leading into Jupiterstorm astounded and amazed, with reminisances of janis, led zepplin, and the sixties pagan revolution in general.

And this is when things started to get crazy, let me remind you that at the same time peeps were upstairs in the chill space watching trippy movies from Mike Marinuik and others. Basil the legendary immortal of Winnipeg and Folkfest was there rocking out. Also among the crowd was Terry the last hero of the occupy movement.

So anyways, next up was the Black Sabbath cover band which to my ears is indistinguishale from the actual blacksabath. They started playing to this crazy performance from Samfibian the contortionist which involved a sort of human sacrifice which goes in line with all proper pagan rituals right? Even Santa was starting to get tripped out a this point.

Anyways, the vibration in the room at that point was a bit shadowy, a perfect intro for the next act the mega band Dr.Ugs. The amazingly netorious underground performance Winnipeg Legends. This is when shite went crazy! The band was taking an awkwardly long time to set up. Then all of a sudden the lead singer smashed one of the sacred water vessels into a million glass pieces! They started to become rowdy! Its like a demon incarnated itself!

At this point let me digress to the legend of the pegasus. So the pegasus is famous because this heroe Bellerpheron slayed this monster called the Chimerae riding on the Winnipegaus. It would seem like The Chimerae made an appearance.The drummer was throwing the drums into the crowd and all heck was breaking loose! At this point the Marching Band the Flaming Trolleys miraculously appeared on scene it reminded me of the Saints go Marching In! A ChaOTIC battle insued between light and darkness.The evil doer grinches were forced from the stage with such positive vibrations. The battle versus good and evil, light and darkness happened amongst much chaos and the Positive reingned supreme.

Next the Rastamils played and Jah RastafaRi made sure to show all that the vibration of love and peace is the true conquoering lion of judah.

Theo and Allan then spun the night into infinite.

So there we are, here about to embark on the crazy mission of 2012. I hope all of you who experienced the Winnipegasus will join us in our preperation for the soltsices and equinoxes of 2012. I don’t think Im completely crazy to think this year will be the most intense of our lives. All I desire is than the citezens of Winnipeg, especially the artists and patrons of the muses will come together this year to create and manifest the most intense phenomenon of our lives, whether the world ends or whether the world begins. We at the Winnipegasus Association like to see this year in an ambigious sort of way. Whether its the end of the world, or the beginning of the world, might as well rock out together here in Winnipeg at the centre of the continant. (center of the world) Like Louis Riel said; My people will sleep and when they awaken it will be the artists who give us the spirit back.

— Andrew Courtnage