Introduction

In Canada, as elsewhere, "the festivalization of culture" proceeds apace (Bennett et al).Even setting aside the ubiquitous music, film, and cultural festivals that have sprung up like mushrooms-not to mention mushroom festivals themselves (such as the "Fungus Among Us" Festival in Whistler, B.C.)-from the Sound Symposium in St. John's to the Victoria Fringe Festival, and from the Island Unplugged festival on Pelee Island (Canada's southernmost point) to the Alianait Arts Festival in Iqaluit, Nunavut, festivals dot the theatre and performance landscape in the land now called Canada.Across the country they turn small towns into tourist destinations and urban centres into "festival cities" (see Johannson, Thomasson).In editing the Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals I compiled a list of over forty international theatre, performance, and multi-arts festivals in Canada, a list that does not include music or sound, circus or visual arts festivals, nor does it include the various Shakespeare festivals (from the "Shakespeare by the Sea" festivals on the east coast to Bard on the Beach in BC), the big repertory seasons at Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake, or the many festivals such as the peripatetic Magnetic North that have no international component.In addition to all of these, there are twenty-one Canadian members of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (along with nine U.S.-based members), not including other "rogue" fringes. 1 Some of Canada's festivals, such as Toronto's Luminato and Montreal's Festival Trans-Amerique (FTA), are prominent within the world's "élite" international festival circuit, programming shows from all over the world and participating in the globalized festival marketplace.Others, such as Calgary's High-Performance Rodeo, Vancouver's PuSh, and Toronto's Progress, participate in a global circuit of artist-run festivals that are curated rather than programmed and driven by artistic rather than urban-planning priorities.Still others, such as Toronto's RUTAS, Kitchener's IMPACT, and Halifax's Prismatic festivals focus on hemispherically, globally, or nationally intercultural communities of difference, while some, such as the Festival du Monde Arabe de Montréal, focus on culturally specific communities.There are also festivals dedicated to specific demographics or communities of interest (such as the many children's or TYA festivals and Vancouver's Queer Arts Festival), language groups (Montreal's International Yiddish Theatre Festival), or specific performance genres (the Vancouver International Puppet Festival, the Winnipeg International Burlesque Festival, festival Montréal Complètement Cirque).And there are vibrant and productive Indigenous Festivals, including one-off International events such as Kaha:wi Dance Theatre's Living Ritual Festival in Toronto in 2017 or the Ka'tarohkwi Festival of Indigenous Arts in Kingston in 2019, long-standing play development festivals such as Native Earth Performing Arts's Weesageechak Begins to Dance (now in its 29th year), and the multi-arts Talking Stick Festival produced by Margo Kane's Full Circle: First Nations Performance in Vancouver.Although there has been a limited amount of scholarship on individual festivals and even less work on a more broadly-based Canadian "festivalscape," 2 this prominent field of

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