She's a girl out of the ordinary and she's coming to Whitehorse.

The Yukon Arts Centre has booked country singer Beverly Mahood to perform on Feb. 21, the centre's artistic director, Eric Epstein, said Wednesday in announcing the centre's 2004 winter lineup.

Mahood, who's biggest hit came in 1998 with Girl Out of the Ordinary, will help kick off the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous winter festival, Epstein said.

'She is a wonderful performer and I expect we'll have a whole sell-out,' Epstein said.

Tickets for the 8 p.m.-show range from $2 to $20. They are available at the arts centre box office or the Hougen Centre ticket office on Main Street.

This season's schedule offers more of a variety of performances than has been shown in the past.

In addition to Mahood's show, audiences will have the chance to take in cutting-edge theatre, dramatic theatre, puppetry, African music, dance, musical theatre and vaudeville throughout the winter season.

'I'm very excited about what we've got,' Epstein said.

Partly due to performers' availability, the arts centre mainly had musical showings prior to Christmas, he said.

'Now we're going into a much more varied program,' he commented, noting the centre largely depends on the Canada Arts Council.

It also receives assistance from Heritage Canada and the territorial government, along with corporate sponsors in the community.

The eight different areas of performance arts will begin on Jan. 22 with Memoire Vive from the Quebec company Les Deux Mondes.

'They present in the kind of theatre that comes out of Quebec that it's very technically oriented it uses a lot of the magic of the theatre,' Epstein said.

Memoire Vive, or Living Memory, is performed by one actress with nine technicians.

'It is a beautiful tale of memory,' Epstein said.

A 10-minute video featuring parts of the performance shows a woman remembering her life.

A French performance will open at 8 p.m. on Jan. 22. Tickets range from $2 to $18.

There'll also be a school performance at 1 p.m.

An English show will be performed the following evening at 8:00, with an English school performance as well.

From Jan. 29 to 31, puppets will be taking to the Yukon Arts Centre stage when the Sandglass Theatre company from Vermont comes to town.

It was a decade ago that Epstein first saw puppeteer Eric Bass perform Autumn Portraits. Epstein has been awaiting the chance to bring the puppeteer to Whitehorse.

'It's just unbelievable the way he makes his puppets live and portray,' Epstein said.

Autumn Portraits is a piece about the 'twilight years,' he said.

It will be presented on Jan. 29, 30 and 31 with 8 p.m.-showings. Tickets are $18.

Because of the puppets' size, the audience will sit on the stage to watch the show.

Meanwhile, school children will have a chance to take in Ines Zeller Bass' (Eric Bass' wife) Isador's Cheek during three school performances from Jan. 28 to 30.

In that show, the character Isador goes on a journey with the stage moving around Bass.

'As well, (Eric Bass) and his wife will be teaching workshops in the community,' Epstein said.

The next show at the arts centre will get underway at 8 p.m. on Feb. 6 with a modern dance performance by the Marie Chouinard company from Halifax.

There will be two dances with Etude #1 and Chorale, along with a post-show film and talk. Tickets range from $2 to $20.

The only other February show happening at the arts centre is Beverly Mahood's.

The first show in March will take place on March 5 with African music group H'sao taking to the stage at 8 p.m.

'It's a world beat concert right here in the arts centre,' Epstein said.

H'Sao is made up of members of two families originally from Chad, but the group is now based in Montreal.

Tickets for that show range from $2 to $15.

Theatre is presented throughout the rest of March with Perseverance Theatre of Juneau, Alaska, performing Up: The Man In The Flying Chair at 8:00 each night from March 11 to 13.

The show is a co-presentation with Nakai Theatre.

'This is a play about a story you may have read about in the News of the Weird or the Darwin Awards,' Epstein said. 'A fellow strapped a bunch of weather balloons to a lawn chair and flew up about, I believe, 19,000 feet over the Nevada desert.'

The play, about the man and his family, takes place 17 years after he went on his adventure, Epstein said.

In the show, there's a flashback to the flight and the audience gets to see the man flying.

The following week will see musical theatre performed by Western Canada Theatre with Larger Than Life in its world premiere production.

The musical was written by former Whitehorse playwright S.G. Lee.

'It's a very fun show,' Epstein said. 'It takes place at a garage sale; five women coming together to raise money and at the same time to raise issues about life and relationships and a lot of fun a lot of great fun songs.'

The winter performance schedule will conclude with a group of idiots taking to the stage at the arts centre The Flaming Idiots to be exact. The group is from Austin, Tex.

The arts centre had originally booked Circus Inferno, a performance of 'exploding' clowns, but as the show's popularity grew in Australia, the group is staying there for an additional three months.

In their place, the farewell tour of the Flaming Idiots will come to Whitehorse.

'They are a wonderful group of performers,' Epstein said before showing a video clip of the three men doing a repeating juggling fire routine, faster each time.

The Flaming Idiots will perform four shows from March 25 to 27 with 8:00-shows each evening as well as a 2 p.m. show on March 27.

Tickets range from $2 to $15.

In choosing the acts, Epstein said the arts centre is approached by some and he travels to festivals and performances over the year to find acts to bring into the Yukon.

The centre will also be making use of its new lighting equipment in the winter shows (see photo, p. 5).

The lighting enables the arts centre to program where the lighting is directed and how it is directed.

Half of the $200,000 used to buy the equipment along with other items came from Cultural Spaces Canada, a federal funding program to upgrade cultural facilities across the country.

The other half came from local funding sources like the territorial Community Development Fund and the centre's capital budget.