Michael Caplan began singing "sweet hurtin’ songs” — classic country, folk, blues, bluegrass and standards — in the late 1980s, after hearing a Dwight Yoakam record at a party. He’d grown up listening to Pete Seeger, the Weavers and Simon and Garfunkel, but country music grabbed him as if he’d been Appalachian in a past life. For a long time afterward he only sang with friends around the apartment, and once at a wedding, finally giving his first public performance in 1994 when choreographer/dancer Pam Johnson suggested they work on together on a solo for him featuring one song and a
short dance improv. (The two recently worked together again on Pam’s show, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?)
But Michael really rocked his first house in 2004: the bar of the Val Marie Hotel, Saskatchewan, just north of the Montana border, a room full of cowboy ranchers and modern dancers — the perfect audience for this "big break”, given his background in theatre and dance. It was the closing night of Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie’s community performance event, Grasslands: Where Heaven Meets Earth. Michael had worked on the project — which featured Canadian dance legends like Margie Gillis and David Earle — as assistant director, and the event’s sound artist, Gordon Monahan, pushed him on stage after hearing him do a couple of songs. The crowd wouldn't let him stop until long past last call!
After coming home to Toronto, Michael scored a solo gig based on an open mic night performance at the Grasshopper Bar, in his home neighbourhood of Cabbagetown. He ended up performing at the Grasshopper regularly for nearly two years. In 2006 he recorded a CD, Steelpan Country, a duet with one of the only musicians of Aboriginal descent to master the steeldrum. The two played together for the first time one night at the Grasshopper, surprising everyone with the unique sound. They continued for over a year, including an outdoor performance at Gordon Monahan’s Electric Eclectics, an annual festival of experimental music in Meaford, Ontario, which The Globe & Mail called "Woodstock for the modern music crowd”.
In the summer of 2008, Michael was a special guest performer for the New Dance Horizons Aria fundraiser in Regina, an outdoor fashion show and performance art event, and later that year he sang while Bill Coleman tap-danced for the Special Event Honoring James Hillman in Pittsburgh. For three nights in June 2009, Michael performed the old union song Which Side Are You On? in Pam Johnson’s evening of new choreography, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?, singing a cappella (no instruments) to accompany a dance, and drawing rave responses. On June 28, he was very proud and excited to perform as an official artist in Toronto’s LGBT Pride Day, along with Toronto guitarist extraordinaire, Wayne Cass.
In addition to singing, Michael directs innovative theatre through his company, House of Shake. With over 25 years of performing arts experience (B.F.A., Contemporary Dance, Concordia University), he has in the past staged productions in regular theatres as well as unconventional settings (including his own home), facilitated community arts collaborations and workshops for diverse groups of all ages, and planned special events for major corporations and non-profit organizations.
Michael is also a freelance publication editor and designer. In 2004, he created the layout for Michele Green's book, David Earle: A Choreographic Biography, described by Ballet-Dance Magazine as a "magnificent new volume” and by Dance International as "elegantly designed”. His current clients include Dance Collection Danse Press/Presses, Spring Journal Books (the publishing imprint of Spring Journal, the oldest Jungian journal in the world), Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie, Dancetheatre David Earle, the Toronto District School Board, CMAS, and Citizenship & Immigration Canada’s LINC program, among others. His most recent projects include editing, design and typesetting of the books Psyche & the City: A Soul's Guide to the Modern Metropolis, edited by Thomas Singer, C.G. Jung and the Sioux Traditions, by noted American Indian author Vine Deloria, Jr., and The Call to Create, by Linda Schierse Leonard (author of The Wounded Woman), all for Spring Journal Books.