Hello!
My name is Megan Arnold and I’m an interdisciplinary artist. I moved to Guelph in September 2021 to do my Master’s at U of G, and I started Trial Runners in February 2024 with the support of Ed Video Media Arts Centre and an Activating Community Microgrant from the Guelph Arts Council.
The backstory: I learned about DIY in Deshkan Ziibi (aka London, ON) when I was welcomed into the local arts and music communities as a suburban high schooler. I learned about performance art during my undergrad and, crucially, I learned that performance art didn’t always have to be serious and abject (although it does those things well). Simultaneously, I learned that stand-up comedy didn’t always have to be misogynist and racist. Finally, I learned that Guelph is a really exciting place with a high concentration of wonderful freaks. Mix all of these revelations together and simmer for a few years…
Trial Runners is part of a lineage of live art and alternative comedy events, with inspiration coming from Doored in Toronto, Entertainment Club in Manchester, and PINCH Cabaret in Kitchener-Waterloo among many others. The acts at Trial Runners are not exclusively funny—they are at turns poignant, surprising, confusing, abrasive, entertaining, moving, playful, magical, and about a hundred other things. Trial Runners is an open mic that encourages experimentation, risk, and trying out new things whether they’re “finished” or “polished” or even “good”. Performance is a term that’s up for interpretation. Basically, if you’ve got something to share or try out in front of other people that wouldn’t fit well in a traditional open mic for music, spoken word, comedy, etc., Trial Runners is for you! And if you don’t want to be in the spotlight, all are welcome to share in the magic as audience members.
Trial Runners is just one of the events that happens regularly in Guelph that foster imagination, transgression, togetherness, and play. Shoutout to the many other folks in the community who are making spaces for these things in a time of rampant isolation, exhaustion, greed, and fear. The energy never dies!
I’d like to sign off by thanking Ed Video Media Arts Centre, Silence, and the Guelph Arts Council (all hosts of Trial Runners over the last 2 years) for supporting arts endeavours that are slippery, difficult to define, multidisciplinary, and low-budget.
DIY 4eva
Love, Megan
