Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Toronto, ON – In its first 10 years, Luminato Festival partnered with arts organizations, venues and cultural groups across the city in many different ways. This June, for the first time, Luminato manages and runs its own unique venue, affording the opportunity to invite friends, colleagues and arts partners to join in animating the vast, inspiring and atmospheric space that is the Hearn Generating Station.
Working with the architectural team at PARTISANS and theatre design and acoustics consultancy, Charcoalblue, to convert the Hearn (an iconic decommissioned power plant minutes from Toronto’s downtown core) into the world’s largest multi-arts centre, Luminato has committed significant focus and budget to ensure the space is an exhilarating, world-class venue. As part of this investment, the Festival is curating a series of performance events and artistic activations with arts partners from across the city, celebrating Luminato’s 10th anniversary and its long history of working with arts organizations and cultural partners in Toronto in a new way: by sharing, at the lowest possible cost, the infrastructure and space it is building.
“The Hearn is not only about Luminato. It is about Toronto’s cultural future. We have invited many local cultural institutions to showcase their work in the Hearn alongside the festival creating a space where cultural and community organizations from all disciplines, areas, high and low can come together and where diverse audiences can intersect, meet and discover. Our cultural institutions so often have been about separation thus isolating audiences and building silos into ever more specialized areas,” said Luminato Festival’s Artistic Director Jorn Weisbrodt.
“Here we do not separate and can show everything under one roof. Moving through this space together artist and audiences connect, converge and create new possibilities of community and culture. We believe that the Hearn Generating Station at Luminato in 2016 will reflect the diversity and openness that Canada and Toronto strive to be. This is what we need in the 21st century, not continuation of what has been but new beginnings as Canada is building a new multi-cultural society.”
From innovative theatre, contemporary dance and interactive art, to exhilarating dance parties and breathtaking musical performances, festival goers can enjoy 17-days of dynamic programming from Luminato’s core artistic team, long-time collaborators and new partners, in a space that truly belongs to Toronto.
“Our goal with our arts partner program is two-fold,” added CEO Anthony Sargent. “As a Festival, we’ve always focused on partnerships and collaboration, so for the first time having our own home we can invite partners to share our space without venue fees, and with box office and ticketing proceeds going back to each partner. We also want the Hearn to reflect the diversity and richness of the city, so our 10th birthday expands to become a celebration of the full cultural breadth of Toronto.”
Free and ticketed arts partner events will be offered in various spaces at the Hearn Generating Station as part of Luminato Festival from June 10 to 26. Tickets for arts partner events will be on sale May 2. See full event listings below.
Luminato Festival will #TurnOnTheHearn, Tuesday to Sunday (closed Mondays) from June 10 to 26. Public access to the building during opening hours is free with some exceptions to accommodate ticketed programming. Best efforts are being made to ensure that as much of the building as possible is accessible. Areas that are not accessible will be clearly identified. Watch Luminato’s website for exciting additions and updates to the line-up. For more information and tickets, visit www.luminatofestival.com.
Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival
Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) by Pierre Huyghe, June 10-26, just outside the Hearn, FREE
On view in Toronto for the first time since its acquisition by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) daringly extends artist Pierre Huyghe’s long-term interests. On site near the Hearn, within a ruined landscape of concrete rubble, weeds and gravel, the artist has placed a statue of a reclining woman, an unremarkable object but for the beehive that entirely obscures its head. Presented in partnership with the AGO and Luminato Festival.
The National Film Board of Canada and TIFF
Circa 1948, June 10–26, Turbine Hall, FREE
Enter the shadows of post-war Vancouver through this immersive, interactive, full-bodied experience co-created by internationally renowned artist Stan Douglas and the award-winning NFB Digital Studio. Discover two vibrant communities struggling through a time of unforgiving change. Though firmly rooted in the past, Circa 1948 ties economic recession to police corruption and the black-market economy, and looks at how the social dynamics of poverty and wealth influence urban planning – relevant considerations in any age.
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
Circa 1948 is an interactive projection-mapped installation that allows you to enter the shadowy world of post-war Vancouver. Your body becomes the interface that interacts with the world, which then responds to you in real-time. Encounter conversations with the ghosts of noir-ish Vancouver, a rain-soaked city caught between the ruins of an old order and the shape of things to come. History will not be silent.
The TSO Chamber Soloists
L’histoire du soldat, June 18, 7:00 PM, Side Room
Join us for an intimate performance of Stravinsky’s masterpiece L’histoire du soldat, featuring The TSO Chamber Soloists – comprising a septet of Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) musicians – and narrator Derek Boyes. You will love witnessing the members of the Orchestra lend their exquisite technique and raw passion to astonishingly beautiful chamber music. One show only, hosted by Concertmaster Jonathan Crow.
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Beethoven Symphony No. 5 & An American in Paris, June 21, 6:30 PM, Music Stage
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Experience the passionate intensity of your TSO – one of the world’s leading orchestras – in a kaleidoscopic program of symphonic favourites. Join us for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, a heartening, darkness-to-light orchestral journey, and Gershwin's An American in Paris, the rollicking, bluesy souvenir of the sights and sounds of the French capital. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to hear the Orchestra shine in epic masterworks at the Hearn, for one show only!
Design Exchange
Jordan Söderberg Mills, June 10–26, Turbine Hall, FREE
In a whimsical fusion of science and design, Design Exchange presents Jordan Söderberg Mills’ new series of anaglyphic mirrors that play with physics, perception and colour for a new DX Satellite experience. His works unweave ambient light into spectral colour, creating cascading, stereographic reflections to capture the Hearn for an otherworldly, awe-inspiring encounter. Jordan is a recent graduate of Central Saint Martins and has had his work presented at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London Design Festival, National Gallery of Chile and at Milan Design Week. He aspires to become a legitimate wizard one day!
The Dietrich Group
The Coating Project, June 10–26, FREE
Choreographer and visual artist DA Hoskins, Artistic Director of The Dietrich Group, brings his provocative sensibility to a new creation for Luminato’s 10th Anniversary. An accomplished photographer and video artist, Hoskins has created The Coating Project, a series of moving video portraits of some of Toronto’s most accomplished and vital dance artists. In advance of this year’s festival, he has collaborated with a team of photographers, video and dance artists, documenting the decommissioned industrial space of the Hearn with the vitality of naked bodies. At once a statement on sexuality and a celebration of Toronto’s industrial heritage, The Coating Project will be running throughout the 17-day festival of art and creativity.
The Monkey Vault Team
Based in Toronto, The Monkey Vault Team, led by Dan “Pkdanno” Iaboni, has been teaching and performing parkour around North America for over 10 years. Parkour is half sport, half artistic method of training the body to overcome physical obstacles. Born in the suburbs of Paris in the 1980s, it teaches the individual to adapt their movement to absolutely any environment and any situation. The practice raises one’s awareness of the inefficiency that accompanies much of our everyday movement. Parkour also elicits a sense of reclaiming public space in the city, freeing the citizen from the physical and psychological constraints prevalent in our society. Please see Luminato Festival website for details of public workshops. Monkey Vault will lead a number of Parkour workout sessions throughout the festival period at the Hearn Generating Station and will create a special performance for the Opening Party on June 9.
OCAD University
June 10–26, Turbine Hall, FREE
OCAD University powers up the Hearn with art and design by students, faculty and alumni! Expressing a diverse range of approaches, including Indigenous Visual Culture, the Digital Futures Initiative, Life Studies and varied experimental practices, this installation will generate audience participation in new sensory experiences. OCAD University is Canada’s “university of the imagination,” engaged in transformative education, scholarship, research and innovation. OCAD University makes vital contributions to the fields of art, design and media through local and global cultural initiatives, while providing knowledge and invention across a wide range of disciplines.
Younger Than Beyoncé (YTB) Gallery
Exhibition , June 10–26, Turbine Hall, FREE
YTB Gallery is Toronto’s newest artist-run centre. A nomadic gallery, they bring the freshest art exhibitions to the city, providing professional exhibition opportunities for Toronto artists under the age of 33. This summer, they are delving into Toronto’s underground art scene and moving into the Hearn with the finest, newest visual art in the city. YTB’s exhibition programming is about creating survival tactics in a dystopian world. They are prospecting a new environment as a possible settlement through a series of immersive installations. These artists will be sampling, observing, map-making, and creating new protective technologies for the Hearn.
YTB Dance Party, June 18, 9 PM till late, Side Room
YTB Gallery will also use the defunct power station as their hideaway for a massive post-apocalyptic, post-modern, immersive art dance party. Come dance till the world ends with up-and-coming Toronto DJs and art rebels.
Choir! Choir! Choir!
Epic! Night at the Hearn, featuring a performance of Hallelujah with a surprise guest.
June 11, 7:30 PM, Turbine Hall
Choir! Choir! Choir! is a Toronto singing group led by creative directors Nobu Adilman and Daveed Goldman. The group takes a nontraditional approach; there are no auditions, and they meet twice weekly to learn original choral arrangements of pop songs. Founded in 2011, Choir! Choir! Choir! has amassed a dedicated and passionate community of singers and a thriving international fan base on YouTube. The group has performed with Patti Smith, Tegan and Sara, and Damien Rice, and onstage at Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall. Choir! Choir! Choir! exists to celebrate music and push the boundaries between practice and performance, artist and audience, offering therapeutic benefits with the ultimate side effect: a powerful community.
DLT
OFF LIMITS ZONE, June 11–26 (not Mondays), Every 30 minutes, from 3 PM–8 PM
OFF LIMITS ZONE is a brand new iteration of the critically acclaimed walkabout performance The Stranger, by DLT, an award-winning theatre company led by artistic director Daniele Bartolini. Designed for one participant at a time, the experience allows audience members to choose between two independent journeys inspired by the movie Stalker by Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky. In this experience, the city becomes the stage and the audience becomes the protagonist. As the lone audience member, you will be thrust into a secret world. Your objective is to reach a mysterious “zone” where the laws of reality no longer apply. You will travel to undisclosed locations and encounter characters that will both help and confuse you during your search. Lost in an urban labyrinth, you will find yourself at the centre of a narrative that blurs the lines between reality and fiction. Ready to take a leap into the unknown? Advance booking is recommended. For full details and instructions, please visit luminatofestival.com.
Asad Mecci
Hypnohype, June 16, 8:30 PM, Side Room
Fast-paced and action-packed, Hypnohype is a high-energy, comedy hypnosis show. Master hypnotist Asad Mecci will hypnotize volunteers from the audience to the hypnotic rhythms of expert percussionist Davidson Elie. The 60 minutes of hilarity that ensues will leave the audience speechless. Asad will give suggestions to volunteers on stage that will lead to an experience they will never forget, while entertaining and thrilling the audience.
Sharing Spaces Productions
A Study on Effort, June 17, 6:30 PM & 9 PM, Side Room
Created and performed by Bobbi Jene Smith with live music by Keir GoGwilt
The effort of lifting... The effort of a pledge... The effort of not knowing… A Study on Effort is a collaboration between dancer Bobbi Jene Smith and violinist Keir GoGwilt, consisting of 10 tasks that question physical, emotional and metaphoric effort. Bobbi’s nine-year career at the prestigious Batsheva Dance Company (Tel Aviv) led her to consider one question in particular: how does one receive pleasure from effort? This dance work, created and performed by Bobbi, serves as a response to that very question. First presented at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, A Study on Effort parses the concept of effort, decoupling it from burden. Through movement and sound, Bobbi and Keir aim to uncover the pleasure of effort, its pervasiveness and explore the connection between effort and our basic desires.
Yes Yes Y’all
June 17, 11 PM till late, Music Stage
Bridging the queer and hip-hop communities in Toronto for the last seven years with much-talked-about dance parties, Yes Yes Y’all teams up with DudeBox to bring you a night of hip-hop, RnB, and dancehall. Known for hosting the city’s most inclusive parties, Yes Yes Y’all and DudeBox have become institutions in one of the most diverse cities in the world. With a strong community presence and mandate, both parties have donated thousands of dollars to local charities and non-profits in Toronto over the past few years. Get ready for what’s sure to be one of the sweatiest dance parties of the summer featuring DJs Skratch Bastid and Bambii alongside the Yes Yes Y'all crew.
Tafelmusik
June 19, 7:40 PM, Music Stage
Tafelmusik, Canada’s award-winning period instrument orchestra and the most active period orchestra in North America, is thrilled to perform music by Bach, Handel and Telemann at the Hearn. The generating station’s cavernous, cathedral-like setting will make for an exciting and thought-provoking contrast with the ensemble’s baroque repertoire in a concert led by the orchestra’s Chief Artistic Advisor, Jeanne Lamon. Tafelmusik is renowned for its vital, exhilarating and inclusive performance style. This is a unique opportunity to experience what Gramophone magazine names “one of the world’s top baroque orchestras.”
Music in the Barns
Song of Extinction, June 22, 6:30 PM, Music Stage
Song of Extinction is the world premiere of a fully immersive visual and sonic experience exploring the calamitous impact humans are inflicting on the planet and its creatures. Featuring stunning large-scale projections and a tightly enmeshed score for chamber orchestra, chamber choir, live electronics and youth chorus, Song of Extinction will interweave breathtaking moving images with live surround sound for a uniquely massive, multimedia event.
The 50-minute work is a collaboration between composer Rose Bolton and filmmaker Marc de Guerre, with an original libretto by Order of Canada-appointed poet Don McKay and a live concert experience performed by Music in the Barns, curated by founder and director Carol Gimbel (creator of 1000 Strings).
BATH SALTS & House of Filth
Doggie Show, June 24, 11 PM till late, Side Room
Doggie Show is a hilarious costume contest and energetic dance party hosted by Toronto’s filthiest drag queens. Breeders and their bitches will walk the runway under the scrutiny of our vicious judges and hilarious commentators. Which specimen will win the blue ribbon, and who will be sent to the kennel cage to dance for their lives? The performance will be followed by live electronic and eclectic sets from our resident DJs. We invite you to dive into the glamour and grime of doggie couture and find your inner beast on our sleazy dance floor. BATH SALTS is the party crime of alien pop star JAL, described as “Electric Circus on bad street drugs,” a perfect partner for the House of Filth entourage of drag at its most vulgar.
Battle of Santiago
Fábrica de Ritmo, June 25, 11 PM till late, Music Stage
Deconstructing and fabricating classic Latin rhythms from Cuba to Brazil, Fábrica de Ritmo is a multimedia and immersive experience that captures the beating soul of the Americas. Featuring a live electronic performance from the Battle of Santiago and special guest DJ Medicineman, it’s your last chance to dance at the Hearn (for this year at least…). FIESTA LOCA!
Kid Koala
66 wheels, June 25
The first event of its kind: with 26 bikes, 14 turntables, 12 songs and six snacks. Follow Kid Koala on a bicycle tour across the city, stopping at some of his favourite spots for intimate music and food. The tour ends at the Hearn where participants are invited to join Kid Koala’s Music To Draw To. For further details, departure time and instructions, please visit luminatofestival.com.
Music To Draw To, June 25, 4–8 PM, Side Room
Music To Draw To is a quiet-time, family-friendly event that Kid Koala started January 2009 in Montreal to chase away the Monday night winter blues. Kid Koala plays four hours of quiet-time work music. Bring your sketchbooks. Finish that screenplay. Code that video game. Finish knitting those socks. Just bring something quiet to do and get some work done! Snacks will be provided.
Regent Park School of Music
June 25, 6:30 PM, Music Stage, FREE
Join Regent Park School of Music for an exciting musical presentation at Luminato Festival. Featuring students from the Parkdale Nonsense Orchestra, the Regent Park Wind Ensemble and more, this performance celebrates the power of community music education. Regent Park School of Music is a nonprofit community music school whose goal is to help kids succeed through music.
LUMINATO SPECIAL EVENTS
Art, Culture, and Place-making in the City
June 26, 2:45 PM, Music Stage, FREE
A conversation with: Karen Brooks Hopkins (President Emerita, Brooklyn Academy of Music); Henry Kim (Founding Director, Aga Khan Museum); Karen Pitre (Special Advisor to the Premier on Community Hubs); Mary Rowe (Vice President & Managing Director of the Municipal Art Society of New York City); and Jorn Weisbrodt (Artistic Director, Luminato)
Cities around the world are looking for unique ways to capitalize on their existing assets – people, landscapes, neighbourhoods and buildings – that together make a unique place. How do cities make places that matter, that bring meaning and opportunities to visitors and locals alike? For millennia, cities have provided opportunities for creative expression, serendipity, leisure and experimentation – to pursue interests and ambitions that are better achieved together, rather than alone. But real estate development pressures favouring high-return projects can inhibit or force out creative, recreational uses that are dependent on intentional land use and zoning policy leadership to enable them. Cities therefore need to extract the maximum value from every civic asset available to them: vacant land, industrial spaces and existing facilities such as libraries, community health centres, settlement houses, legion halls, parks and abandoned generating stations like the Hearn!
With #TurnOnTheHearn, Luminato Festival has helped Torontonians reimagine the transformative potential art and artists can have on a place. As the world continues to urbanize at a breathtaking pace, cities need to develop ambitious strategies to create shared places for people to meet their collective needs and realize shared aspirations.
Luminato Festival’s Generating Conversations
Side Room (except as indicated), FREE
To complement and reflect upon the work at this year’s Luminato Festival, we present a series of talks featuring many of the artists involved, thereby reducing the distance between artists and audience and enrichening the experience for everyone. Participants will include: Stefan Kaegi, one-third of the Rimini Protokoll team, speaking about the company’s unique international repertoire and Situation Rooms in particular (presented by Luminato and the Goethe-Institut, as part of Culture Talks @ Goethe); members of the National Theatre of Scotland discussing The James Plays and the challenges of staging a trilogy of plays simultaneously (why isn’t one enough?); choreographers Dana Gingras and Noam Gagnon talking about monumental and the process of reviving The Holy Body Tattoo’s culminating work 10 years after the fact; and a tour of the Jackman Gallery exhibit Trove, led by owners of the works featured in the exhibition, that will reveal the true stories behind the collection. Watch luminatofestival.com for details on these talks and more.
Apocalypsis CD Listening Party
Luminato Festival in partnership with Analekta and CBC Music
June 16, 10:45 PM (after The James Plays), The Music Stage, FREE
Join us to relive 2015’s Apocalypsis, the epic musical voyage written by acclaimed Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. At the Music Stage, in the dark, the recording of 1,000 performers from across Ontario will re-create an empire of sound and movement around you.
Earlier this year, Luminato Festival made this rarely performed oratorio available to home listeners on CD and digital platforms, with the first full recording of Apocalypsis. The 2015 performance of this music-theatrical masterwork of unprecedented scale was one of the largest performance events Canada has ever seen.
A staggering organizational and artistic accomplishment, the production was the first time Apocalypsis (a 1976 CBC commission) had been performed since its 1980 premiere, and was one of the highest grossing shows in Luminato’s 10 year history, garnering critical acclaim with sold out performances.
B.A.S.E. Aerial Services, Team FX
Canadian BASE Jumpers
June 10–11, 8 PM, Hearn Smokestack (rain dates: June 17–18)
This is going to be huge. To celebrate Luminato’s 10th anniversary, BASE jumpers from Team FX will be performing 10 breathtaking freefalls from the Hearn’s 215 metre tall smokestack (700ft). These daring jumps will be conducted by a team from Ontario and Quebec, featuring Lonnie Bissonnette, Bertrand Cloutier, Anthony White, Scott Stevens and Evan Dickinson, who will be flying red and white parachutes for this historic event.
BASE is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antenna, span, and earth. It’s an unbelievable and rare spectacle to witness. Due to the lower altitude of the jumps, BASE jumping is considered more dangerous than skydiving. The Hearn’s smokestack will offer an upclose view of the jumpers’ freefalls, parachute openings and descents. Team FX has jumped and represented Canada all over the world and are ready to show Toronto this mind-blowing, adrenaline-pumping sport.
Tickets:
Tickets for Luminato programming are available 24/7at luminatofestival.com, or by calling the Luminato Festival Box Office at 416 368 4849 from 12 PM to 5 PM, Monday to Friday. Tickets will also be available at the festival box-office in the Hearn Generating Station (440 Unwin Avenue) from June 10 – 26 from 11:30 AM to close. Ticket savings are available for youth (18 and Under)/students, arts workers and groups (6+). For full ticketing details, dates, times and prices, please visit luminatofestival.com.
Full Luminato Festival programming details can be found at luminatofestival.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA
•Twitter: @Luminato; #Luminato10; #TurnOnTheHearn
•Facebook: Luminato Festival
•Instagram: @LuminatoFestival
2016-04-20
Toronto: Luminato Festival announces arts partners programming series