The Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) is proud to announce its lineup for the 2025 festival, running from June 4-7, 2025 in Kingston, ON. This year’s program amplifies diverse Canadian voices, showcasing performances that reflect the changing social and political landscape. FOLDA’s eighth edition continues its mission of uniting audiences through innovative, thought-provoking live performances that challenge conventions and spark conversation.

With five unique productions, this year’s festival explores migration, identity, inclusion, technology, and the bonds of kinship—offering a space for reflection in a time of global disruption

WindRush by Marcel Stewart reclaims family and history after generations of displacement through spoken word and projected visuals in an immersive concept album exploring Caribbean migration, identity, kinship, and home.

Reflections & Refractions by Kingston-based PeerLess Productions showcases the talents and identities of a group of creators and performers who have mixed abilities, in defiance of how they are more often seen and underestimated.

2021, by Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn and Sam Ferguson, is a live video game played by the audience to untangle one father and daughter’s journey through living—and dying—in our increasingly technological world. 2021 examines the place between memory and simulation.

The MaryRobin Show, created by Kingston’s Deaf Spirit Theatre, is entertaining showcase featuring comedy skits, dancing, visual vernacular, monologues, and ABC storytelling (a form of ASL performance art that consists of telling a story using the handshapes of the ASL fingerspelled alphabet in sequence).

Kinnomics, by UK artist Iman Datoo, a playful interactive art exhibit that shifts from matters of economics (management of the house, oikonomikos) to ways of finding kinship between one ecosystem and another. Presented in partnership with the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

FOLDA’s 2025 program features dynamic events that attract adventurous culture enthusiasts from Kingston and beyond. With a mission to lead a revolution in live performance, FOLDA’s programming unites, provokes, and inspires audiences. Performances occur in real-time, creating shared, memorable experiences; FOLDA delivers empowering moments that foster connection.

PROGRAMMING ACROSS KINGSTON… AND BEYOND!

FOLDA events activate venues across Kingston’s Inner Harbour: the Broom Factory, Theological Hall on Queen’s campus, the AGNES Garages Exhibition Space on Stuart St, and central hub at The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.

Audiences can also select FOLDA events via livestream. Details to be announced soon.

AUDIENCES PARTICIPATE IN THE ARTISTIC PROCESS

Audiences play a crucial role at FOLDA. The Festival is programmed with live performance works at different stages of development; we call them ALPHA, BETA, GO. This means that the audience plays an important role as artists use feedback to guide how they will refine the show.

Audience Participation in the Artistic Process

FOLDA is unique in its commitment to fostering audience engagement as a key element of the creative process. Each performance is classified into one of three stages: ALPHA, BETA, or GO, reflecting the stage of development and the role the audience plays in shaping the final performance.

ALPHA: Early-stage performances, ready for testing with live audiences.

BETA: Works nearing completion, where audience feedback helps fine-tune the experience.

GO: Fully developed performances where the audience’s input contributes to final refinements, much like a software “bug fix.”

SEEDS OF SOLIDARITY

“We are yearning for something more: connection, conversation, engagement, generosity, care,” write FOLDA co-curators Adrienne Wong, Marcel Stewart, and Michael Wheeler. “And we get the sense that you might be feeling the same way. When we gather in Kingston this June it will be the eighth edition of FOLDA. We want to make connections with you—our neighbours, fellow citizens, colleagues—as co-creators of the future. Within these circles of connection the seeds of resistance and solidarity are sown. We see artistic expression as central to a future that is inclusive, progressive, and pro-social — where offers are made without expecting anything in return.”

IN DETAIL: FOLDA’s 2025 Line-Up:

WINDRUSH

Created and performed by Marcel Stewart

Directed by Lisa Karen Cox

Projection Design by Samay Arcentales Cajas

Sound Design and Compositions by Miquelon Rodriguez

Wednesday June 4, 2025 at 8:00pm

Friday June 6, 2025 at 8:00pm

Venue: The Broom Factory, 305 Rideau Street, Kingston, ON

WindRush is a live concept album created by Marcel Stewart. It follows the journey of a Jamaican man across generations as he navigates migration, identity, and what it means to belong. Using immersive sound, storytelling, and visual design, WindRush brings to life Caribbean histories that are often overlooked or forgotten in Canada. The show invites audiences to reflect on family, resilience, and the idea of home—how we carry it, lose it, and remake it.

2021

Created by Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn and Sam Ferguson

Thursday June 5, 2025 at 8:00pm

Venue: Theological Hall, 85 Stuart Street, Kingston, ON

Under the glow of a flickering screen, a daughter weighs the worth of her father’s legacy. 2021 is a live performance where story, video games, and A.I. collide, blurring the boundaries between memory and simulation.

Reflections and Refractions

By PeerLess Productions

Directed by Kathryn MacKay

Thursday June 5, 2025 at 6:00pm

Saturday June 7, 2025 at 2:00pm

Venue: Power Corporation of Canada Studio Theatre, Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, 390 King Street West, Kingston, ON

Created and inspired by the PeerLess Productions core company of artists in response to the questions: What do you think is your greatest talent and What do others think is your greatest talent? Utilizing lights, soundscapes, dance, music and video, the performers explore how their creative work is often refracted and made to fit into ableist preconceptions rather than received as a unique offering.

PeerLess Productions is dedicated to excellence in the arts and to the inclusion of artists with disabilities and those facing barriers in the practice, study and enjoyment of the arts.

The MaryRobin Show

Deaf Spirit Theatre

Saturday June 7 at 4:00pm and 6:00pm

Venue: Film Production Studio, Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, 390 King Street West, Kingston, ON

An entertaining showcase featuring comedy skits, ABC storytelling, visual vernacular, monologues, and dancing.

Deaf Spirit Collective is a collective of three actors who are Deaf from Kingston who are dedicated to excellence in ASL storytelling.

Kinomics: Iman Datoo

Co-Presented by FOLDA and The Agnes Etherington Art Centre

June 6, 2025 5:00pm - 7:30pm

Venue: The AGNES Garages, 207 Stuart Street, Kingston, ON

How can artwork embedded in one ecosystem find kinship in a new ecosystem? In Iman Datoo’s solo exhibition combining digital claymation, sound installation and augmented reality, an intriguing narrative takes root between the potato and its local cousins.

Festival Details:

The Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) is produced by SpiderWebShow Performance.

FOLDA examines the challenges of making both art and technology accessible. We offer accessible programming and actively invite traditionally marginalized artists into the conversation.

Curatorial Team: Adrienne Wong, Marcel Stewart and Michael Wheeler

When: June 4, 2025 - June 7, 2025

Where: The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts (390 King St), The Broom Factory (305 Rideau St), Theological Hall

Approx. Runtime: varies depending on the performance

Price: Tickets range from FREE to $25, with discounts available for students and seniors

FOLDA - Festival of Live Digital Art

June 4 - 7, 2025

To purchase tickets: www.folda.ca