Ralph Remington, the new Cultural Director of the San Francisco Arts Commission, has arrived just in time for a municipal renaissance in arts, culture, and public policy. In less than a year, SF has reallocated $200 million from law enforcement to reinvest in Black cultural communities with Remington about to co-chair a city-wide evaluation of San Francisco’s nearly 100 monuments and memorials… proving that it’s still the city of ‘a whole generation with a new explanation’.
Read MoreAmid power outages, fires, a heatwave, and with a cross-national Stop Asian Hate protest right outside the venue, the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit weathered its first weekend on the West Coast as well as any native San Franciscan. More than 120,000 tickets have already been purchased for the new ‘Fran Gogh’ experience—now extended into September. Since even the largest HD TVs tend to underwhelm after a year in lockdown, thousands of Bay Area art-lovers are clearly jonesing for a more impactful way to experience media.
Read MoreWith a packed calendar of digital events and exhibitions, the Museum of the African Diaspora provides a platform for everyone from incarcerated artists to San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ creatives to emerging talent, and runs one of the only Black bookstores in the city. The beauty of a non-collecting museum like MoAD is that you will find fresh art and culture to engage with each time you visit, either in person or online.
Read MoreAshley Wheater MBE may be the only member of the Order of the British Empire to also be named Chicagoan of the Year. Popularity like that stems from creating fully-funded access to dance education for children across the city through the historically diverse Joffrey Ballet—known for daring original works that resonate with contemporary audiences. Wheater sat down with me to discuss what gives Chicago an international reputation as a thriving arts eco-system and how it became even more important during the pandemic to keep this access alive. He also talks about how to create the pipelines that support an equitable, inclusive future for the art form.
Read MoreSteering one the world’s most renowned orchestras through 2020’s myriad of challenges takes an even hand, and President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Jeff Alexander isn’t known for flinching. He reflects on how 2020 clarified the mission of the CSO while highlighting how it can use its platform to model DEI values to other major arts institutions—in part by creating mentorship and training opportunities to young musicians of colour.
Read MoreAfter months as one of the only shows in town, Massimiliano Siccardi’s celebrated Immersive Van Gogh experience will soon be paired with Route 66, a new short film from the same creative trio. Though a stylistic departure from ‘our Vincent’ as they affectionately refer to the exhibit, art director Vittorio Guidotti and composer Luca Longobardi expand on how both pieces are conceptually shaped by how the global shutdown required artists to turn inwards and explore cities of the interior.
Read MoreOn June 1st, 23-year-old American ballet dancer, cellist, and classical choreographer Nicholas Rose filmed himself in front of the Walter Carsen Centre to declare, “I have a love for the National Ballet of Canada, but for me to maintain this love I have to let you know when you have failed us.” It started with a belief—deeply entrenched and rarely questioned in either country—that Canada would be an escape from the well-known racism of the United States.
Read More“Nothing like this has ever been attempted: a real hybrid between experiencing an exhibit and a magic show,” promises Jaime Allan, creator of the upcoming Illusionarium experience that will offer some much needed socially-distanced enchantment this winter. A meticulously designed layout, a committed team, and a massive space will allow patrons to both engage with the last 150 years of magic as a performing art while experiencing brand new innovations in holography and illusion technology.
Read More“Yes, these are really grim days. But when I come into the ROM I am both awed and heartened to realize that civilizations have survived a lot.” In the year of living covidly, the Royal Ontario Museum might be the only Toronto venue cavernous enough to make social distancing relatively simple. Judith John, Vice President of Marketing & Engagement for the ROM Governors, joined me to discuss the powerful role of museums in a year like 2020, how staying relevant is the duty of a museum, and the importance of contextualizing unsavoury parts of history. From meditations on colonialism to meditation classes in the Atrium, Judith shares the significant spectrum of resources that the ROM has to offer an ailing public.
Read MoreIn a year when many performing arts companies have struggled to bring fresh content to their audiences, Fall for Dance North distinguished itself with a remote festival that refused to sacrifice the ‘live’ element of dance. In 2020 Artistic Director Ilter Ibrahimof has pivoted the company’s usual programming to include the Signature Program, a remote festival for dance-lovers sheltering in place.
Read More“I do see more gratitude and excitement than I think I maybe would have seen if it wasn’t a pandemic,” remarks the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit’s barre class fitness instructor Amy Walsh, who offers her participants the unique experience of warming up to Van Gogh’s sunflowers and lying down for a core workout to his famed Starry Night painting. With many Torontonians looking for safe ways to be together and transcend the stagnation of quarantine, Amy has developed an up-to-code experience in partnership with Lighthouse Immersive that offers physical, emotional, and artistic invigoration while also allowing participants some much-needed human connection.
Read More“It was the last show I did before the world shut down,” says international opera sensation Ambur Braid of Oper Frankfurt’s production of Salome, playing the princess who wins the head of John the Baptist by performing the infamous Dance of the Seven Veils for King Herod. But the global shutdown has presented artists like herself and creative talents in the live concert industry with an opportunity to reimagine how opera is presented and delivered to audiences beyond the constraints of shuttered traditional venues. In partnership with musician/producer Dan Kurtz and visual designer Isaac Rayment, she will resurrect the Covid-cancelled character for an operatic experience staged at the same venue where Lighthouse Immersive’s Van Gogh projection installation is currently dazzling Torontonians.
Read MoreIn a season when performance venues are purchasing house plants to take the seats of their patrons, the impressive effort that Fall for Dance North put into digitally staging their 2020 Signature Program will be a welcome respite for dance lovers isolating at home. Their six world premieres—some broadcast live from the Fleck Dance Theatre and others prerecorded—are available on demand from now until the 18th, meaning you can stream and restream performances that would otherwise already be the stuff of memory. Embracing the ephemeral has always been a necessary element in dance appreciation, but audiences have a fresh opportunity to go back and experience these works throughout the festival. And the greatest benefit of their remote program? You can exclaim, gasp, sigh, and respond any way you like without disturbing other patrons in a darkened theatre.
Read MoreThe theatre’s energy changed as the orchestra went dark for the third and final part of the night’s mixed program, sizzling with an electricity that transcended your usual World Premiere static. Since her first piece for the National Ballet of Canada, Emergence, premiered in 2009, Crystal Pite has become globally renown and sought after.
Read MoreThough it would eventually be dignified by Giuseppe Verdi as ‘the most beautiful opera buffa in existence’, the very first 1816 performance of Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville was bumbled enough to rival its intentional comedic content.
Read More“Even the worm was given desire” declares Friedrich Schiller’s soaring poem written for Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the iconic climax of his 9th symphony and score of ProArteDanza’s The 9th!: a finely yet boldly crafted treatise on the defiant human spirit, by Roberto Campanella and Robert Glumbek.
Read MoreEach of the pieces presented in Program 2 of “Toronto’s premier international dance festival” featured live music, something I hope Fall For Dance North will continue to prioritize as they move forward from their 5th year hosting dance companies from across the globe.
Read MoreResonance uses the irresistible beat of live musicians to chart the stages of a popular revolution as it unfurls, infects, and blends each individual with the blurred flow of the masses.
Read MoreThe world needs more of what dance: made in canada / fait au canada festival’s closing performance offered simply by incubating a safe environment for male artists to share deeply and openly. Curated by the festival director herself, each work features all-male dancers exploring the roles men can engage, transgress, and transcend with each other.
Read MoreUnion, communion, and communication were frustrated and fulfilled by varying degrees in each of the pieces Lina Cruz chose for her series, with speech and the desire to speak lining much of the staged movement.
Read More
