arts and culture : In The News

As part of the weekend's kick off to the Luminato Festival, the nine-day cultural festival celebrating creativity, New York performance artist Laurie Anderson looked into the crowd at David Pecaut Square and yelled "Let's hear it for the whistleblowers!"

 

It is this vivid imagery that launches an article that appeared in Salon, documenting the Toronto performance called Greetings From the Motherland and its enthusiastic crowd. Anderson's piece featured an experimental affair that put the current Edward Snowden whistleblowing case into a "dark, timely context" with an interview conversation with Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei projected via Skype across the square. 

 

Salon reporter Mike Doherty describes a "gleaming-eyed" and "exhausted" Anderson after her show as he chats with the artist about her admiration of the significant--though illegal--importance of opening up dialogue. But it is her reasons for choosing to exhibit her performance in Toronto that is especially unique. 

 

"Not that Anderson is trying to tell anyone what to think: she chose to present the work in Toronto, whose Luminato Festival commissioned it, in order to find a "neutral area" – easier said than done, given the long reach of the NSA," Doherty writes.  

 

The interactive exhibit simultaneously projected translations in Chinese and English, and featured software "that creates a new relationship between words and imagery," according to Luminato's website. It is one of many unique exhibits taking place across Toronto this week. 

 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: Salon

The latest tour guide to Toronto comes via a UK publication that seems to have gotten the inside scoop, highlighting Toronto's trendiest places to eat, stay and play. 

 

"Toronto is a city of distinct neighbourhoods, each with its own atmosphere and sense of community. I spend a leisurely afternoon wandering around the boutiques, cafes and galleries of West Queen West, where walls adorned with graffiti coexist happily with upscale clothes shops and boutique hotels," says an article that appeared in Dunstable Today.
 

From Dufflet Bakery to the St. Lawrence Market, the article paints a romantic picture of a city that comes alive in the summer. The best view is from the CN Tower's Edge Walk. "From my vantage point high above the city, I can see many of the city’s most famous sights. To the south, ferries chug gently across Lake Ontario to Centre Island, a haven of rural tranquillity just minutes away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Toronto."
 

"And while it’s easy to find all kinds of cuisine, as befits the world’s most ethnically diverse city, the food scene seems to come into its own when dealing with local Canadian produce. With a slight shift in recent years away from fine dining and towards informal, seasonal eating, the city is packed with top-notch restaurants where the food is the star."
 

Union on Ossington comes highly recommend. " Try the elk sliders, the sticky ribs or head over on a Sunday evening for the 40 Canadian dollars (£25) prix fixe menu." The Lavender Lemonade available at the Drake's Sky Yard, "the rooftop patio bar of Toronto’s hippest hotel." Cocktail Bar on Dundas West also gets a mention, as well as accolades to its sister bar Black Hoof.

 

"It turns out that Toronto doesn’t just provide a little something for culture-lovers, epicures and thrill-seekers; it has the power to turn any of us - even me - into all of them."

 

Read the full article here. 

Original Source: Dunstable Today

George Stroumboulopoulos's new weekly late night show Stroumboulopoulos debuted on CNN this past weekend. Filmed before a live show in Los Angeles, the show varies slightly from his current spot on CBC's the George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, shifting the focus instead to Hollywood stars and pop culture icons.  

 

CNN interviewed the Canadian broadcaster about his new show and how it differs from what he's done here in Canada, most notably in Toronto via his previous stints as a MuchMusic VJ and radio broadcaster. They also asked him about how he got to where he is today. 

 

Growing up in Toronto, Stroumboulopoulos's uncle often read newspapers with him and took him to see films. 

 

"My family was really into that so we just talked about what was going on in the world and somehow I ended up in this job," Stroumboulopoulos says of his roots in Toronto.

"It's a super immigrant family that I'm a part of, so there's a lot of differences of opinions and a lot of connection, assimilation, trying to hold onto your own culture, your own identity. All of those things were sort of happening in my family and in my neighborhood as I was growing up. It was a very ethnically diverse neighborhood and I think growing up in that environment helped me be a curious person. Helped me want to learn different cultures and different ways of looking at the world."

 

CNN asks a few stereotypical questions about Canada before launching into the more interesting question of Strombo's plans to include Canadian guests. 

"You can't do an interview show with celebrities or others without having a whole bunch of Canadiana because there's SO MANY OF US down here," he says. "There's so many of us! Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Ellen Page, Martin Short, Howie Mandel. You start going down that list - CNN's Ashleigh Banfield. Invariably you will come across them. So, yes, there will be some of that. The Canadiana just will come out in its own way - in its natural way."

His first show featured many of these Canadians including Martin Short and Keanu Reeves. 

 

Stroumboulopoulos airs on CNN Fridays at 11 p.m. EST. 

 

Read the full interview here. 

Original Source: CNN

Arts and culture festival Luminato kicks off in two weeks and with it comes the opportunity to participate in the world's first "human heat map logo," an augmented reality exhibition that will turn a virtual gallery into a heat map recreation of cosmetics company Lancôme's rose logo.

 

The virtual gallery is made visible through an app created by San Francisco company CrowdOptic. The app works when attendees point "their phones at different places around David Pecaut Square to see a 'virtual gallery' not visible to the human eye. Augmented reality works by displaying layers of computer-generated information on top of a view of the physical world," an article in Venture Beat reports. 

 

"As people explore the virtual art pieces, a heat-map will be created displaying where they are and what they are looking at it. When the event is over and people are done using the app, what they will leave behind is an entirely new type of digital art: a giant, crowdsourced version of the iconic Lancôme rose spanning the length of an entire city square. It will be an enormous, virtual mural of sorts that each person has individually contributed to, just by participating."

 

The apps unique analytics-based approach allows it to "track and object as it moves," which turns people into "personal jumbotrons," according to CrowdOptic's Jon Fisher.

 

The experiment is part of "20 Bloggers for a Rose: The Lancôme Virtual Gallery," an extension of the Lancôme-sponsored photography exhibit "Roses By." It will run from June 14-20 at David Pecaut Square located in front of Metro Hall. 

 

 

Read the full story here.

Original source: Venture Beat

World Literacy Canada has announced the winners of its Write for a Better World contest and two young Torontonians are among the recipients.

 

Lauren Beauparlant, 12, wrote about a dream she had in which she was enjoying a beautiful, diverse space only to wake up and realize there was trash everywhere, people were fighting and the animals were gone. She got a garbage bag and began cleaning up, encouraging other kids to join her.

 

"Maybe if we all do this, that beautiful place I saw can become a reality. We can have a beautiful, peaceful, and happy world," she writes. "It starts with each of us and doesn’t have to be a dream."

 

Abby Loewen, 13, writes about a trip to Peru. "As I look around I am consumed by anything and everything that surrounds me. Astonishing mountains with ancient Incan stairs are testing the limits of the horizon while the hot dry sun of Lima shines down on me. Everything about here seems impossible for Canada, but Peru seems to test the limits," she writes.   
 

?She talks about the people she meets. "They don’t get to choose their life, but they are not angered or even bitter to those with a better life, just simply smile to make them feel special." And of the impact they leave on her, " I wish to never forget these miraculous people, the way that they treat others or the way that they have a past that the world stops and is perplexed by. I wish that they could get their voice out, to be heard."
 

?The annual contest is a nation-wide bilingual writing contest open to students in grades 5-8. Its goal is to inspire Canadian youth to think about and become active global citizens. This year's them encourage youth to put themselves in someone else's shoes. More than 1,300 short stories were received.

 

Entries were reviewed and award-winning teenage-lit author Eric Walters, whose published works include The Taming, Hunter, and We All Fall Down, handpicked winners. 

 

Both Toronto authors are published alongside the remaining eight winners from across the country in a collectable World Literacy Canada magazine. 

 

Read their full stories here. 

Original source: World Literacy Canada

Michael Cook has been documenting Toronto's drain and sewage tunnels for almost a decade in an effort to raise "awareness about city sewage problems." His photography captures tunnels, rarely seen by the public eye, in a fascinating light, exposing their various constructions and materials. 

 

Though his work is beautiful from an art perspective, he tells the Atlantic Cities that the awareness facet is his biggest concern.

 

"In the city, people are very interested in getting involved in things like this," Cook told the publication. "But they need to be able to understand and see those systems to make substantive change on this issue. One of the reasons that it's been so difficult to get traction around the issues of water in the city is that the infrastructure is completely invisible."
 

In an extensive Q&A, 30-year-old Cook goes on to say, "My position on all that is to be able to have an honest and public conversation about all those issues, we really need to be able to see sewers and know them as real places. Residents need to be able to think of them as components in the places that they live. And for that they need to be able to know them visually and spatially. So putting these photographs out there has always been an important part of my practice."

 

His work will be featured as part of Toronto's annual Scotiabank CONTACT photography festival that runs May 1-31 at more than 175 venues throughout the GTA, including various subway stations. Cook's exhibit, Under this Ground, will feature 45 images viewable along St. Patrick Station's subway platform. 

 

Incidentally, Yonge Street's photography editor Tanja Tiziana will also be featuring her work as part of the CONTACT festival in the exhibit called Memory and Context, taking place at the MJG Gallery (555 Parliament St).

 

Read the full story here.

Original Source: The Atlantic Cities

Yonge Street's flag, as designed by television researcher Brendan Hennessy, features a golden Y "for the street's name and the colour of the subway line," the designer writes on his website. "Blue and white represent its role as Toronto's main street and represents its extension into the rest of Ontario."

 

Hennessy told Metro News he's been fascinated by flags since he was a child and began designing neighbourhood-centric flags after moving to Toronto from Ottawa four years ago. He realized each neighbourhood had its own charm and history.

 

"Toronto is pretty unique in terms of how diverse its neighbourhoods are," he told the paper. "There so are many of them, and they’re on a micro level. Like you walk a few blocks and you’re in an entirely different part of town."

 

The first of his 13 designs were revealed in Spacing magazine in December, but his collection has grown to 22 and counting. He's listened to feedback, including the flak he's gotten for unintentionally neglecting the East end, and is trying to make each of his flags better incorporate multicultural elements of the city's history. Many of his designs include aspects of nearby subway platforms, grid lines, traditional flags, as well as notable imagery such as the Davenport family's coat of arms. 

 

Among his collection, Hennessy has designed flags for Lake Shore Boulevard, "A stylized sailboat above three stripes representing the sky, the lake, and College Street, "A golden sun, taken from the street signs along College Street. The colours come from the Italian flag, with a yellow stripe added to represent a warm sunny day on a College St patio."

 

He told Metro he plans to finish the series eventually. 

 

All of Hennessy's flag designs can be found on his website. 

 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: Metro News

The National Ballet of Canada's performance of Romeo and Juliet debuted to a sold-out audience at Sadler's Wells Theatre and launched the company's first performance in London, England in 26 years.

 

Featuring principal dancer Guillaume Côté (read our interview him here) and his real life wife Heather Ogden, the Toronto-based production received praise from some of London's major publications.

 

The Guardian said, "[Choreographer Alexei] Ratmansky's version is rich in dramatic and choreographic insights... Juliet (a light, bright Heather Ogden) is all recklessly fast footwork and wheeling jumps. Romeo (faultlessly danced by Guillaume Côté) has a poet's sensibility that registers in the airy drift of his arms and upper body."
 

"The National Ballet of Canada move with bright footwork and easy upper bodies: this is a lively, confident company," wrote The Independent.

 

The Times continued, "Ratmansky’s Prokofiev staging, made in Toronto to mark the company’s 60th anniversary in 2011, is a fresh take… his imagination and invention cast Prokofiev's score in an entirely unexpected and welcome new light--a remarkable achievement."
 

Read more of the insights here. 

Original Source: The Guardian

 

Guy Fieri and his penchant for greasy food have been making the Toronto rounds on the past few episodes of his Food Network hit Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Toronto Life has been keeping tabs on his visits to eateries such as Caplansky's and Hey Meatball on College Street, The Ace in Roncesvalles, and the Lakeview on Dundas Street West. 

 

Here are some of the best quotes featured in the summaries:

 

"If you’re a fan of delis, and I’m talking old-school, Jewish-style deli's, and you’re cruising through Toronto, Canada, don't worry, they got a joint for ya. It’s right here, at Caplansky's," Fieri says about the deli that's been featured previously in the New York Times, Maxim, and various other publications. He wasn't as sold on the Canadian pallet of maple bacon though, saying it was not as he expected. 

 

Christmas came early though when he took a bike out of the Ace's Christmas burger, which consists of a turkey patty, stuffing, and cranberry compote. 

 

"If you took your whole Thanksgiving dinner, wadded it up into a ball, put a little crisp on the outside of it, that’s what this tastes like," he said. 

 

The festivities continued with the Lakeview's freedom cheese bread, "It’s always a party when you have Havarti!" Fieri said. 

 

Perhaps his greatest love though came in the form of a sandwich. "You’ll have to pry this out of my dead hands," he said of Hey Meatball.

 

Read the full summaries here. 

Original Source: Toronto Life

Toronto's World MasterCard Fashion Week may have just ended, but insiders' sights are already set on the upcoming Fashion Art Toronto(FAT), an alternative fashion and art week that runs from April 23-27.

 

It is there Ryerson fashion professor Henry Navarro will debut his "Grey Cincinnati" collection to challenge stereotypes against black fashion's role in high fashion. As reported in the National Post, much of black fashion was previously considered "urban wear," but African-American designers such as Eki Orleans, Ozwald Boateng and Vlisco have transcended stereotypes to becomes standouts on the runway. The models will wear grey "futuristic" garments to symbolize "how beautifully humanity can prosper when not partitioned by colour."

 

"Toronto is a very diverse city, and I am under the impression that people will think that they are not racist because of that," Navarro told the Post. “But I would like to challenge those notions and at the same time expose people to a different perspective or a different way of dealing with race."

 

The collection will move on to the inaugural Black Fashion Week taking place in Montreal from May 15-17. Adama Ndiaye, founder of Adama Paris Fashion Events and organizer of the Black Fashion Week in Paris, decided to "spread her vision of revealing 'the cultural richness of the black diaspora'" by bringing the festival to Montreal. 

 

It will feature creations by 15 prominent international African designers, including Canada's own Joseph Helmer. It is hoped that Black Fashion Week will provide exposure to an underrepresented and under supported segment of high fashion. 

 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: National Post

 

The New York Times has announced collaborations with two Toronto initiatives. 

 

Luminato and the New York Times have collaborated to bring the acclaimed TimesTalks series to Canada for the first time at this year's Luminato Festival. The series features live conversations between New York Times journalists and today's cutting-edge thinkers. Past conversations have included Stephen King, Yoko Ono, Denzel Washington, with interviews conducted by Thomas Friedman, David Carr and more. 

 

Taking place in June, the TimesTalks Luminato will feature the North American premiere of "experimental opera" The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. This Friday, the performance artist will be speaking at the sold-out TimesTalks at TheTimesCentre, which is being produced in collaboration with the Luminato festival. 
 

“This collaboration with The New York Times will allow us to tell the story of the artistic premieres and creations presented by Luminato to the most ardent arts consumers in the world -- the readers of The New York Times. It is a transformative opportunity for the Festival to share our program through The New York Times, to both arts lovers who will travel to Toronto to see the work and those who will enjoy it through the online streaming option," said Janice Price, CEO of Luminato, in a press release.  
 

Next, remember that HIGHRISE interactive documentary we featured in January? Produced in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada, the HIGHRISE project is an interactive series that explores high-rise living. 

 

The New York Times Opinions Pages announced the publication will collaborate with the NFB to create four short documentaries as part of the series to explore "the history and future of high-rise buildings in relationship to issues of equity, segregation and social responsibility in cities around the world."

 

Read the press releases here and here. 

Original Source: The New York Times

 

This weekend's opening of composer Tod Machover's crowd-sourced musical collective A Toronto Symphony: Concerto for Composer and City, which featured more than 10,000 contributions of sounds taken from Toronto's streets, was so successful it's getting the Edinburgh treatment.

 

STV Edinburgh reports, "Following the success of this event, Edinburgh will have its own piece of music reflecting the feeling of those who have visited the city."

 

Machover will also orchestrate the piece of music, entitled Festival City. 

 

"Festival City invites all who love Edinburgh to reflect with me on how the city sounds through the memory of past visits, the intensity of current participation, the stillness of the city 'out of season' and the multi-layered complexity of performances, people and places during festival time. The goal is to create together a musical work that reflects the magnetic, magical and mysterious qualities of Edinburgh and its Festival," Machover says in the article. 

 

In addition, the Toronto performance received international press. BBC called the Toronto edition a "social media symphony" and reported that "On Saturday 9 March, residents were treated to a ground-breaking concert that was the result of an almost year-long project."

 

Machover is an American-based composer whose innovations in "hyperinstruments" have coined him the grandfather of Guitar Hero. He has been working with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on commission. 

 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: STV Edinburgh

The CBC will air its biopic Jack about the late New Democratic leader Jack Layton this upcoming Sunday. The film documents the late politician's love with his wife and Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow, as well as his rise from Toronto's municipal politics to leader of the federal NDP party before passing away from cancer weeks after the 2011 campaign.

 

Chow told the Canadian Press she hops the biopic inspires viewers to "live in a hopeful and loving way."

 

A special screening was held here in Toronto this past Monday, and additional screenings will be held later this week in Ottawa and Winnipeg. In attendance were Layton's children and several cast members and party supporters. The article writes that Chow is often asked why she supported the creation of the biopic. 

 

"Life is actually quite short and temporary," she told attendees at the Toronto screening. "If we can seize the moment and do as much and live as full a life as we can and make a difference (that’s worth knowing). And we can make a difference … So if we could get people to get a sense that: Yes, they can make a difference, yes they can live in a hopeful and loving way and change the world or change the community, change the neighbourhood, a little bit at a time. And that’s worth the movie and all of us coming together.”
 

Rick Roberts stars as Layton and Sook-Yin Lee stars as Chow. 

 

Digital Journal called the film "an uncritical valentine to the late NDP leader" and gave it mixed reviews. "Part rom-com, part political biography and part hero-worship, Jack ends up being a lightweight homage to a man who made a big mark in Canadian politics." 

 

Jack airs Sunday March 10 at 8 p.m. EST.

Read the original story here. 

Original source: Edmonton Journal

This past weekend, 36 dachshund dog delegates took post at Harbourfront Centre in a replica United Nations assembly on Human Rights as part of Harbourfront's 2013 World Stage performances. The theatrical experiment was the work of Australian artist Bennett Miller's "Dachshund UN," a travelling show designed to encourage people to think beyond the spectacle of the Geneva convention and consider why its happening.
 

"The raison d’être is a serious proposal to the audience, it’s not just a gimmick  [...] it’s really an attempt to propose the idea of chaos and the utopian world, and also the idea of what active viewership means when there is no control over what is necessarily happening on stage [...] how does an audience fill in the blanks as it were," Salon quotes World Stage artistic director Tina Rasmussen from a video (below) featured on Harbourfront's website.
 

 

In an article about the event featured in Salon, it was reported that the dogs were kept on leashes with their owners hidden nearby to prevent anything "from getting too feral." 

 

The dogs represented 36 delegates and were chosen because they are a diverse breed, according to Rasmussen.  They sat leashed behind country signs from France to Argentina. In the video, Rasmussen says she wants people to ask, "Why and how does this affect me?"

 

The show will move on to Montreal next. Miller's previous animal installations have featured greyhounds and monkeys. Salon reports Miller fell in love with the city and was quite smitten by our raccoons. He is considering them as inspiration for his next subject. 

 

Read the original story here and additional information from Harbourfront here.

Original Source: Salon

 

The 2015 Pan and Parapan American Games will play a major role in propelling the Paralympic Movement, "not just here in the Americas, but the whole world," said the President of the Americas Paralympic Committee (APC) Octavio Londoño on a visit to Toronto. 

 

"As a country Canada has a major role to play hosting a number of major Parasport events starting with August's IPC Swimming World Championships in Montreal. As a city Toronto has the biggest role to play between now and Rio 2016," Londoño is quoted as saying in an article written by Emily Goddard reporting on his presentation in Toronto.

 

He continues, "If together we can deliver the biggest and best Parapan American Games in terms of sport, participation, accessibility, inclusion, crowds and media coverage, then we can head into Rio 2016 with significant momentum."

 

Goddard writes that Londoño expressed delight over Toronto's enthusiasm to "deliver the best Games ever," saying the city has a real opportunity to build on the success of London 2012 "when it welcomes some 1,500 athletes from 28 National Paralympic Committees to compete in the 15 sports of the Parapan Games." The games act as qualifiers for the Olympics in Rio in 2016, featuring South America's first Paralympic Games. Toronto will play a vital role in building momentum for Paralympic games in the years and months leading up to Rio. 

 

The 2015 games are set to get underway in Toronto on August 7, 2015.

 

Read the full report here. 

Original source: Inside the Games