Author: Fado Admin

Canada
https://www.lisakissdesign.com/

One of Toronto’s leading graphic designers, Lisa Kiss has worked in the cultural sector since the ‘90s. Educated at Queen’s University, Seneca College and the Ontario College of Art, she opened Lisa Kiss Design in 2000 to specialize in art books and identity work for artists, museums and galleries. She works extensively in dance, theatre, visual and performance art with many of Canada’s leading artists. Her own art practice involves creating sculptures from books. She loves crashing cymbals and marching bands.

Presented by Nuit Blanche with the support of FADO and many collaborators.

A marching band of marching bands, with players of all ages, including professional musicians and talented enthusiasts from across Toronto, will form for one night only to chime in the thirteen hours of Nuit Blanche. The 2026 Nuit creative campaign, designed especially for the 20th anniversary by Lisa Kiss, will come to life on the ramp at City Hall as bands appear every hour on the hour to ring in the time.

Led by Keith Cole, performance artist and drum major extraordinaire, and costumed by local fashion hero Susan Dicks, this super band – led by Nolan Murphy – will process across Nathan Philips Square in grand style. This will be a band band to remember!

Concept and Design: Lisa Kiss
Producers: Naomi Campbell, Caroline Hollway
Band Leader: Nolan Murphy/SHOUT!
Drum Major: Keith Cole
Costumes: Susan Dicks
Photography: Henry Chan
Video: Peppercorn Imagine Studio

This year’s theme – Tomorrow’s Memories – looks back to the artists, curators, communities and places that defined Nuit Blanche and hold its histories. But this is not just about the past, it’s a way to look at the present and a provocation for the future. Past Nuit Blanche artworks will be revisited, re-visioned and recontextualized while artists can also create new works that consider personal and collective memory and histories as a tool for storytelling, reflection and dreaming of possible futures. Projects may also explore ideas around memory itself, nostalgia and ephemerality.

This milestone edition offers both a reckoning and a reimagining, reflecting on not only where it has been, but on where it is now and where it might be going next.

Nuit Blanche 2026 PROGRAM

© 2026. Photo Brianna Blank.

Canada

Twysted Miyake-Mugler is a house founder, house father, teacher, activist, advocate and emissary of Canadian ballroom. Founder of the kiki house of Siriano, and Canadian/Midwest Father of the Iconic New York-based House of Miyake-Mugler, he’s competed, walked, hosted and taught across North America throughout his voguing career stretching over a decade. Twysted is also the founder of the Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance and a consultant for the MTL Kiki Ballroom Alliance & Capital City Kiki Ballroom Alliance (Ottawa), organizations that work towards introducing youth to ballroom culture in safe space, alcohol-free environments, including workshop nights at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Montréal’s Never Apart and the University of Ottawa. Other work includes his involvement with the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention, disseminating information and building networks amongst QPOC people. His presence in Toronto’s queer and Canadian ballroom scenes is foundational – the work of a true pioneer.

Canada

Tamar Carter-King is a mother, business owner, educator, and community organizer whose influence spans far beyond the Ballroom floor. A force in Canadian Ballroom for over 14 years, Tamar is one of only two recognized mainstream Legends in the country, internationally celebrated for her precision, presence, and enduring excellence in the Realness category.

As the Legendary Canadian Mother of the International Iconic House of Miyake-Mugler, Tamar has raised the standard of excellence within Canadian Ballroom, helping shape a new generation of top-tier talent. Her leadership is rooted in a sharp eye for detail, old-school Ballroom fundamentals, and a deep commitment to legacy. 

Tamar is the revered Matriarch of the Carter family, known for being a “stern set” who leads with integrity, accountability, and unwavering love. Her influence pushes her children to realize their full potential, not only in Ballroom, but in their everyday lives.

A curatorial project by Jess Dobkin
Presented by FADO Performance Art Centre

With collaboration and support from Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices, York University, and the Queer and Trans Research Lab, Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto and OCADU University.

ARTISTS
Germaine Liu (Toronto, CA)
Juma Pariri (Abya Yala/São Paulo, Brazil)
Juru (Fortaleza, Brazil)
Karen Finley (New York, USA)
Leslie Ting (Toronto, CA)
María de Lourdes Santana Arcos (Havana, Cuba)
n:u (melissandre varin) (Benin/Birmingham, UK)
Sara Baron-Goodman (Toronto, CA)
Tamar Carter-King (Toronto, CA)
Twysted Miyake-Mugler (Toronto, CA)

Curatorial Impulse

I’m thinking about our bodies: singular, plural, collective, communal, human, and other-worldly; with abandon and abandoned, in power and empowered, possessed and self-possessed, exalting and exalted. Political, primal, passionate. This program of artists reaches into and beyond conversations of trauma carried in the body to explore embodied scores that run parallel and perpendicular to wounding, and to perform the archives of our physical, personal, political, and transcendental bodies. Bodies on the line, bodies transgressing boundaries, bodies keeping scores.

It is also an opportunity for local and international artists to meet, to encounter each other’s work, and to meet Toronto audiences. You are warmly invited to join us in spaces of gathering, sharing, and experimentation with artists, curators, activists, musicians, dancers, scholars, students, and seekers. Together, in our vessels and vibrations, we take shape and shapes. 

I look forward to welcoming you.

Jess Dobkin

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PROGRAM

Thursday, November 5
Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, 106 Trinity Street (map)
FREE | Wheelchair accessible | ASL interpretation

Doors 6:30PM | Performances 7:00PM

Performances: Juma Pariri, n:u (melissandre varin)
Food Activation: Sara Baron-Goodman
Music-Composition: Germaine Liu

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Friday, November 6
OCADU University, Room 190, 100 McCaul Street (map)
FREE | Wheelchair accessible

Performance: 7:30PM
Followed by talkback with Karen Finley & Jess Dobkin

Performance: Believe by Karen Finley
Music-Composition: Leslie Ting
Food Activation: Sara Baron-Goodman

Finley’s creates a series of artworks illustrating mentors and artists who “believed” in Finley and gave support. These supportive individuals had encounters with Finley–professionally, as friends, as teachers, worked with, met, taught, or collaborated with Finley. There are over a hundred drawings illustrating her story that are projected onto a screen cinematically.  

On stage, Finley sits at a table handling the artwork she created that tells the narrative while a live camera with a bird’s eye view projects Finley’s hands and artwork onto the screen simultaneously in real time. While the images are projected, Finley tells the story of each “believe” encounter. The artworks act as a storyboard creating intimacy, the private made public of supportive relationships. The artwork is projected onto the screen. Some of the artists: Louise Bourgeois, Kathy Acker, Danitra Vance, bell hooks, Sinead O’Connor, Linda Montano, Joan Rivers, David Wojnarowicz, amongst others. 

Finley will end the performance with a dramatic reading. 

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Saturday, November 7
The Commons @ 401, 4th floor, 401 Richmond Street West (map)
FREE | Wheelchair accessible

12:30PM
Screening: This is Ballroom by Juru and Vitã
Followed by conversation with Juru, Twysted Miyake-Mugler, Mother Tamar Miyake-Mugler
Limited capacity | RSVP required

4:00PM
Creatives Anonymous with Karen Finley
Creatives Anonymous is a 13-step program that is part sardonic yet serious that is influenced by 12-step programs except that we are not approved or part of a traditional self help group. Join us and share your creative issues!

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Sunday, November 8
The Commons @ 401, 4th floor, 401 Richmond Street West
FREE | Wheelchair accessible

11:00AM–3:00PM
Screening: Guajira Synth (performance) by María de Lourdes Santana Arcos

11:00AM–12:30PM
Grief, Loss and Creative Transformation: Writing Workshop with Karen Finley
Limited capacity | RSVP required

1:00–3:00PM
Closing Reception
Food Activation: Sara Baron-Goodman

FREE | Wheelchair accessible
Limited capacity | RSVP required

This Is Ballroom (Salão De Baile)
Directed by Juru and Vitã
Brazil / 2024 / 92’ / Portuguese, English

Screening of This is Ballroom is followed by conversation with Juru, Twysted Miyake-Mugler and Mother Tamar Miyake-Mugler.

In Rio de Janeiro City and its outskirts, LGBTQ+ youth of colour recreate Ballroom culture on their own terms. A portrait of the dramas, the voguing performances, and the art of shade, 50 years after its inception in New York. Rio is burning!

ABOUT THE DIRECTORS

Vitã is a filmmaker and screenwriter. Director of the short film, The day I remembered the trip to Bicuda (2015) and producer of the feature documentary It’s Not the First Time We Fight For Our Love (2022). Curator of Brazilian Comedy FF and of showcases on Hong Sangsoo films in four cities in Brazil. Master’s degree in Audiovisual at UFF (Brazil). In the ballroom scene, they participate as an independent photographer and are a member of the Legendary House of Lauren Intl.

Juru is a researcher, dramaturgist and performing arts critic. Casting coach for the feature film Com O Terceiro Olho na Terra da Profanação, by Catu Rizo (2017) and the short film Sunset, by Bruno Roger  (2014). Dramaturgist in the performance Repertory n. 1, by Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira. Master in Contemporary Arts Studies at UFF and PhD student in Arts at UERJ.

DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT

This is Ballroom is an insider gaze at the universe of Ballroom culture in Rio de Janeiro and its outskirts. We portray our community as a place of gathering and celebration but also a space where conflicts can be dealt with.

We filmed a ball specially held for this project, then followed the daily lives of some houses that attended the event. Structured as a multiplot narrative, the film features exclusive performances in outdoor locations and strong testimonies. To tell stories from the past, we used archival images and reenactments of foundational events of ball culture in the USA, with our cast role-playing historical characters.

Among the conflicts emerged during the shootings, there are rivalries related to racial issues and gender categories. We also discuss the complexities of translating a US-American culture to Brazilian reality, and innovations created here, like the Batekoo dance – born within the favela’s funk balls.

This is Ballroom TRAILER

FREE | Wheelchair accessible | Limited capacity

Creatives Anonymous is a 13-step program that is part sardonic yet serious that is influenced by 12-step programs except that we are not approved or part of a traditional self help group. 

We invite other creatives of diverse practices, disciplines and cultural backgrounds and career stages to share their creative issues. We have a speaker, we talk in small groups and there are snacks and coffee. Join us.

Presented by FADO Performance Art Centre with collaboration and support from Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices, York University.

FREE | Wheelchair accessible
Limited capacity | RSVP is required

In this creative writing workshop, Karen Finley will create prompts to reflect and process loss, grief and remembrance. Remembering those we loved and lost, reflecting with humour and poetic grace. Sometimes there is a moment of connection, correction, or to be kept at a distance, ambiguity or goodbye to a forgotten self. Ancestors, occasions, and our body embraces emotions and scars of events as fossils.

Writing will be a safe space, a sacred bay to process, transform and reimagine possibility. There can be joy and hope in what we discover to cherish with insight, while awakening our creative practice. This is not a therapeutic model but rather a hallowed tradition, encircling the ancient ways of artists as magicians, consecrating living truths, mysteries, circumstance and celebration. Join our collective. Introverts are encouraged. Ambiguity is fine. New and returning creatives welcome.

Presented by FADO Performance Art Centre with collaboration and support from Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices, York University.

© Photo Anira Lauren.

Brazil

Juru is an artist-researcher and director working across performance, dance, film, and queer scene studies. They hold a PhD in Arts from UERJ, co-directed the award-winning 2024 ballroom documentary, This Is Ballroom, and wrote the dramaturgy for the performance Repertório N. 1, by Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira. 

© Photo Matt Rideout.

Canada

My name is Germaine Liu. I enjoy working and playing through various modalities. I compose, make improvise music, write/sing/play songs, play with percussion and found objects, make sound art and installations with my partner Mark Zurawinski, and other pals, and enjoy a kind of making that is connected to the five senses. My work indulges in the permeability between touch/movement/listening and their relationship to topography and circumstances. 

In my practice, I am dedicated to creating meaningful gatherings that investigate the dimensions of generosity, agency, intercorporeality, within the scope of inclusivity, exclusivity, belonging and unconditional love. I have desires and intentions to make and honour collaborative joyful spaces, friendships, and celebrate interdependent collectivism in my work. Some upcoming performances/projects include: Inflow Polyphony at Lumen Festival (co-collaboration with Meghan Cheng and Mark Zurawinski), and Imaginary Percussion Ensemble performance (with Joe Sorbara and Mark Zurawinski) at Power Ball/Power Plant Contemporary.

© Photo Olivia Nikkanen.

www.leslieting.com

Leslie Ting is an interdisciplinary artist working across concert music, theatre, new media and installation. Her work has been described as “iconoclastic” (Take Effect), “vibrant” (Bandcamp), and “refreshing” (Broadway World). She treats listening as interactive and experiments with her relationship with the violin to have a deeper relationship with the audience. Developing an artistic research practice from professional experience as a former practicing optometrist and personal experience with a mother who had vision loss, Leslie often explores the dynamics between listening and seeing. She is currently a 2026 Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Fellow, has received support from the National Creation Fund, and has shared her process with students and artists at York University, Dalhousie’s School for the Performing Arts, and WhyNot Theatre’s ThisGen Fellow.

© Photo Jeovana Santos Nascimento.

Canada

Sara Baron Goodman (she/her) is a lesbian writer, chef, and community organizer. She graduated with a Masters in Applied Gastronomy and Culinary Arts from the University of Gastronomic Sciences where she began her research on the subject of queer food as identity practice.

While living in Rome, she founded Eat Out Supperclub as an extension and embodiment of this research, hosting intimate, maximalist dinner parties and pop-ups that bring the wlw community together around a table. Eat Out events centre queer joy, the sensuality and pleasure of food and eating, and community gathering. Sara has hosted events throughout Italy, in London, Montreal, and now, Toronto, where she currently lives and works. She’s never happier than when she’s wrist deep in dough and has sauce dripping down her chin. 

© n:u, evil eyes. 2026. Photo Tasmin Drury.

Benin/Birmingham, UK
https://www.atmosphere-maker.org/about

n:u (melissandre varin) has been described as an atmosphere-maker, with a practice rooted in Congolese, Guadeloupean, and Beninese heritages. Building upon cross-border collaborations, they unearth ancestral ceremonies to invite shared moments of freedom. They make performance art works, installations, sculptures, and liberatory infrastructures. They play with unexpected pairings between materials, bodies, and concepts, disrupting colonial binaries and dominant narratives. n:u combines intuitive, embodied-knowledge with an approach grounded by Political Ecology from an MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development from University College of London (UCL).  

Recent presentations of their work include performances and exhibitions at Tate Britain (UK), Lọpọ Lọpọ (Benin), Ikon Gallery (UK), the OFF Dakar Biennale (Senegal), Glasgow Buzzcut (UK), Fierce Festival (UK), Kulturfabrik (Luxembourg), Mimosa House (UK), Kunstal Mechelen (Belgium), PAE Aktionslabor (Germany), Ceremony (UK), Contact Theatre (UK), Tangent Projects (Barcelona), and Eastside Projects (UK).

n:u has received awards from institutions including l’Ambassade de France x l’Institut français du Bénin (programme Inspiration Bénin, au coeur des mondes Africains), Franklin Furnace, and the Henry Moore Foundation. They have held fellowships with Axis, John Feeney Trust, and Hood Futures Studio and serve as a steering group member for CVAN WM in the UK, alongside their role as an invited founding member of Popo Culture in Grand Popo, Benin. They have designed atmospheres and infrastructured unusual ways of working, including with longer-term collaborators Eastside Projects, Ban Workshop, and Future Ritual. n:u’s reparative practice is nourished by friendships, conversations with materials, spirits and ancestors, and homes like Finding Etherea.

Cuba

María de Lourdes Santana Arcos is a Cuban visual artist, singer, and performer whose interdisciplinary practices encompasses performance, music, installation, and participatory formats. Her work delves into social experience, gender, public space, collective memory, and contemporary cultural narratives through critical and deeply performative experimentation.

With a solid background from the University of Arts (ISA) in Havana and the Benny Moré Academy of Visual Arts in Cienfuegos, María has forged a notable emerging artistic practice in Cuba. Her trajectory includes exhibitions, live performances, and collaboration in film, solidifying her presence in independent cultural initiatives. Since 2024, she actively contributes to artistic programming and cultural production as an Independent Visual Artist and Coordination Assistant at Unpack Havana.

© Photo Midge Wattles.

USA

Karen Finley is an artist, performer, and author. Born in Chicago she received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is an multidisciplinary artist and author. Finley is interested in freedom of expression concerns, visual culture, art education and lectures, and gives workshops widely. A recipient of many awards and grants, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, she is an arts professor in Art and Public Policy at New York University.

Finley has presented her work at the Barbican (London), Lincoln Center, The Museum of Modern Art (New York City), Bobino (Paris), American Repertory Theater (Cambridge, MA), The Guthrie (Minneapolis), The Steppenwolf (Chicago), Miami Art Basel, Documenta, The Broad (Los Angeles) and Turino (Italy); and in festivals, museums and art galleries worldwide.

Finley is the author of ten books, including her latest Covid Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco (City Lights, 2025), Je n’étais pas censée être talentueuse (Seuile, Paris, 2025), Grabbing Pussy (OR Books, 2018) and the 25th anniversary edition of Shock Treatment by City Lights. Her recent work includes: Grabbing Pussy/Parts Known, a work that considers the oppression of nostalgia revision politics and intertwines personal and social trauma; Mandala: Reimagined Columbus Circle, an interactive walk that examines the symbols and history of Columbus Circle; Creative Anonymous – a self-help, open meeting for those addicted to art – presented at Museum of Art and Design; Unicorn, Gratitude, Mystery, a recent performance that examines the pscho-sexual lust for power in US politics; Open Heart, a Holocaust memorial at Camp Gusen, Austria; and Sext ME if You Can, presented at the New Museum in New York, where she created commissioned portraits inspired by “sexts” received from the public. 

© 2024. Photo Henry Chan.

Abya Yala, Brazil
https://www.artseverywhere.ca/author/jumapariri

Juma Pariri (they/she) is a nomad artivist based in Abya Yala. “Inhuman,” they listen to forest secrets, and collectively conjure perform magical actions for liberation of land and beings. She also is part of the Organization of Kariri Indigenous People of Serra do Catolé (Ceará/BRAZIL), an associate researcher at the Hemispheric Encounters Network (YorkU/CANADA) and is developing the postdoctoral project Organicizing Technology: Reclaiming Indigenous Intelligences through Artistic Research, within the project Connected Minds: Neural and Machine Systems for a Healthy, Just Society (York University/CAN).

Walk-And-Talk: the podcast accompanies a performance series of the same name which took place from 2024–2025. The performance series asked invited artists to investigate two of the foundational gestures of the performance art vocabulary—walking, talking—through performances and discursive interventions that explore their intrinsic mutual imbrication.

In this accompanying podcast series, hosts by Francesco Gagliardi and Julian Higuerey Núñez, invite local artists, researchers, and other creative folk to go on a walk and talk about the ways that walking informs their practices.

Each episode is the length of a short walk, no edits, just walking and talking.

Organized and hosted by Francesco Gagliardi and Julian Higuerey Núñez
Produced by FADO Performance Art Radio
Music and sound by Peppercorn Imagine

EPISODE 1: Colin Cudmore walks and talks with Francesco Gagliardi LISTEN NOW!

EPISODE 2: Lisa Deanne Smith walks and talks with Julian Higuerey Núñez LISTEN NOW!

EPISODE 3: Marcin Kedzior walks and talks with Francesco Gagliardi LISTEN NOW!

EPISODE 4: Keith Cole walks and talks with Julian Higuerey Núñez LISTEN NOW!

EPISODE 5: Shawn Micallef walks and talks with Francesco Gagliardi LISTEN NOW!

EPISODE 6: Lisa Kiss walks and talks with Julian Higuerey Núñez LISTEN NOW!

Dominica/Canada

Aisha Sasha John is the only daughter and youngest child of the late Catherine Iris (John) Callender, the sixth of seven children born in La Plaine, Dominica to Ignatia John (Mama Babe) and Ludovic John (Papa Joe). Aisha is a dance artist and a poet. The Pool (Toronto Dance Theatre 2025) is her most recent choreographic work, and total (McClelland & Stewart 2025) is her most recent poetry collection.

I am a multi-disciplinary artist, living in Etobicoke for over 15 years. I facilitate art workshops that engage the whole community. My art is inspired by nature and the people around me. I am also a digital creator. I love going for walks and visiting landmarks in this neighbourhood. I plan to keep working here and contribute to developing a rich artistic community.

© Roxy Menzies, 2026. Photo Djenabeě.

Canada

Roxy is an artist with two decades of experience who seamlessly blends dance, writing, and healing arts in her multifaceted practice. With a deep curiosity about the human body, mind, and spirit, she advocates for optimal health and holistic well-being. She has taught online Chair Fitness for New York City employees, movement and dance through community arts for seniors, in the Canadian educational system, pre/post natal bodies and Cirque du Soleil artists.

Roxy has performed, guest-taught, or presented around the world, with her interests predominantly related to forms within the African diaspora. As a published author you can find her musings online, spot her on television dancing on furniture or in a stadium, reading poetry or just plain old creating.

India

Ranganathan Rajan (He/Him) is originally from India and is currently based in Tkaronto. He is an artist with performance art and contemporary dance, working with stress and strength in the body; Ranganathan is finding ways to work by creating a split in the images as they relate to him. Ranganathan graduated from the Professional Training Program at Dance Arts Institute Canada (2025) and has completed a Diploma in Movement Art and Mixed Media from Attakkalari Center of Movement Arts in Bangalore, India (2021). Ranganathan believes in socially engaged acts, focusing on participation and collaboration through his initiative Aspect_P.O.D.

Canada

Nyda Kwasowsky A multi-disciplinary artist/maker of mixed heritage situated in Tkaronto. She orients towards abolitionist approaches rooted in experimentation, improvisation and community. Her work centers around grief, hybridity and belonging in racialized diasporic experience. Studied in somatics and trauma informed practices, a practitioner in TCM cupping and Auricular Acupuncture and training in Harm Reduction, Restorative Justice, Polyvagal Certified, craftworks, Earthwork and studying as a Birth Doula. Her most recent explorations look at the intersections of cultural materiality and the moving dancing performing body.

Canada

H(annah) Kryworuchko (they/she/he) is an emerging textile artist/designer and facilitator completing their BDes at OCAD University in Material Art and Design. H’s practice is grounded in making with others, in their body, with land, and in water through quilting, weaving, printing, and dyeing. They develop relational and community-engaged work aligning with their values in abolition, solidarity, and care. H has over 15 years of experience in competitive artistic swimming and longer as a water lover.

Singapore/Canada

Aysia Tse (she/her) is a Singaporean-born visual artist, facilitator and arts worker based in Toronto. Her practice involves movement-based work, video, and multimedia installations that engage themes relating to madness, queerness, and her mixed diasporic identity. Her background as a professional coach and competitive artistic swimming athlete informs her interests in bodily inquiry and embodied performance.

© Hannah Palmer, Summer’s Over, 2026.

USA

Hannah S. Palmer is an American writer and artist from the Southside of Atlanta.

Through her essays, lectures, and collaborative projects, Palmer reconsiders urban rivers, neglected spaces, public swimming pools, environmental justice, and the forms of nature that persist within urban environments. Among these projects is Finding the Flint, an investigation into the headwaters of the river flowing underneath Atlanta’s mega-airport. In 2024, she published The Pool Is Closed: Segregation, Summertime, and the Search for a Place to Swim, which examines the social, racial, and political dimensions of access to water in the United States.

Her work is distinguished by its attention to the stories embedded within urban landscapes and by a nuanced reflection on the ways infrastructure, water, memory, and the living world shape our everyday experience of the city.

POOLBODY is a new multi-site performance series unfolding across Toronto from August 6–9.
Pools are complex spaces—sites of leisure and competition, public gathering and private escape, play and surveillance, intimacy, memory, access, exclusion, and joy.

POOLBODY brings together performances, conversations, workshops, and site-responsive projects that move through these tensions.
Featuring Aisha Sasha John, Aysia Tse & (H)annah Kryworuchko, Hannah Palmer, Mikiki, Nyda Kwasowsky, Ranganathan Rajan, and Tess Martens. PLUS, a Seniors Movement Workshop with Roxy Menzies, and a Kids Pool Art Exhibit & watercolour workshop with Richa Baghel.

This series is made possible with support from Toronto Arts Council | Toronto Arts Foundation – Arts in the Parks, FADO Performance Art Centre and Dancemakers Curators in Community Fund.

PROGRAM – all events are FREE and OPEN to all

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6
(1) FADO Performance Art Centre, The Commons, 401 Richmond St. W. (MAP)

6:00 PM: Performance Lecture & Opening Reception
Pool Maintenance by Hannah S. Palmer

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7
(2) Flagstaff Park, 42 Mercury Rd, Rexdale (ACCESS INFO & MAP)

12:30–1:30 PM: Kids’ Pool Art Exhibition & Kid’s Watercolour Workshop with Richa Baghel
1:00–2:00 PM: Seniors’ Movement Workshop led by Roxy Menzies

2:30–4:00 PM: Performances
Lifelines (a pilgrimage with, to and for the waters) by Nyda Kwasowsky
Phantasmagoria by Ranganathan Rajan
PAPER. BAG. SAG. DOLL… by Tess Martens

SATURDAY, AUGUST 8
(3) Hart House Pool, University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle (ACCESS INFO & MAP)

6:30–8:30 PM: Performances
pool notes and (mis)alignments by Aysia Tse & (H)annah Kryworuchko
SPLASH PAD by Mikiki

SUNDAY, AUGUST 9
(4) Private Pool (please contact shalonwh@gmail.com for more information)

6:00 PM: Performance
my astonishing wealth by Aisha Sasha John

ACCESS INFORMATION

(1) The Commons
@ 401 has a barrier-free entrance on the northeast side of the building, with an automatic door. The Commons is on the fourth floor and can be reached by elevator. Accessible washrooms are available on the first and fourth floors.

(2) Flagstaff Park and pool deck is wheelchair accessible. Some activities will take place on grass, which may be uneven or difficult to navigate with a mobility device. The pool washroom has one step at the entrance and is not fully wheelchair accessible. ASL interpretation will be available for the seniors’ movement workshop and the pool performances.

(3) Hart House Aquatic Centre
has barrier-free entrances and an elevator that serves all floors. The pool is on the lower level. A universal washroom is available on the basement level, near the Arbor Room. On weekends, visitors using the barrier-free entrance should enter from Tower Road. ASL interpretation will be available for the performance.

(4) Baby Point Road
location is a private home and backyard pool. Unfortunately, the venue is not wheelchair accessible.

For access questions or to request additional accommodations, please contact Shalon at shalonwh@gmail.com

© Poster image: Manny Trinh (@mannytrinh), Acrylic on paper, 2026.

Co-presented by Alleyway Gallery and FADO Performance Art Centre

Friday, May 22 | 6:30pm
Dermot Wilson
Fan Wu
Gwen MacGregor
Quan Steele
Marilyn Yogarajah

Saturday, May 23 | 3:00pm
Christopher Petersen
Isaak Fong
Johannes Zits
lo bil
lwrds duniam

Prism of Fire performance series, curated by Johannes Zits, features 10 artists offering distinct responses to this fractured landscape against the backdrop of the city.

Positioned in a downtown laneway, the billboard Through the Prism of a Fire pulls a distant, damaged landscape into sharp focus. This large-scale image of a wildfire’s aftermath, clear-cut terrain swept into devastation, becomes the anchor for a series of performances in the final stretch of the CONTACT Festival in May.

Through forms such as spoken word, sound, fleeting installations, and subtle gestures, the artists stage live conversations between the scorched forest and the urban space that holds it. Working with the laneway’s acoustics, interruptions, and constraints, each artist initiates their own brief bridge between altered forest and public life. Together, these actions reimagine the billboard as a site of exchange where memory, place, and embodied presence meet in the tense space between destruction and renewal.

© Johannes Zits, Through the Prism of a Fire, 2024. Billboard.

Through the Prism of a Fire reflects on the growing intensity of wildfires across Canada, capturing the aftermath of a 2024 blaze in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, on Lhtako Dene Nation territory. While fire is a natural part of the forest’s life cycle, increased and sustained human activity has disrupted this balance. Industrial logging, monocultures, and conventional forestry practices have stripped away the diversity and resilience that once allowed ecosystems to recover.

Alleyway Gallery
CONTACT Festival

Christopher Petersen is a dancer and performance artist. Their work focuses on the physical body in space and attempts to allow an audience to stare into bones and flesh, the exertion of bodies, and the bodies of stillness. Christopher is unsure of most things but cannot stop.

© Gwen MacGregor. Photo Johannes Zits.

Gwen MacGregor is a Tkaronto based artist, geographic scholar, teacher and community organizer who identifies as an “unsettler.” They work in installation, video, photography and drawing. MacGregor has received awards such as the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Artist of the Year and the Canada Council International Studio in New York. Her work is in a number of collections including the Nickle Galleries in Calgary, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Oakville Galleries, Artbank, and the Royal Bank Collection.  MacGregor has a PhD in Cultural Geography from The University of Toronto and an Honours BA in Art Hsitory from York University. 

© Fan Wu. Photo Hamish Ballantyne.

Fan Wu is a poet, performer, and pedagogue. His current research revolves around Daoist sound and spiritual practice and its concepts of subtlety and effortlessness. His performance work has been shown at Art Metropole, Buddies in Bad Times, the plumb, and SummerWorks. He collaborates with artists of many disciplines, including Thom Gill, Evan Webber, Phil Hamilton, and Kieran Adams.

© Quan Steele. Photo Bob Steele.

Quan Steele is a multidisciplinary Vietnamese artist based in Toronto whose practice spans painting, sculpture, performance, ephemeral land art, and site-specific installations. Over the past two decades, she has presented her work in solo, group, collective, and juried exhibitions across Canada and has participated in residencies in White Bear (Temagami, 2022 and 2024); Sooke, Vancouver Island (2024); and Mountain Island Arts in Wells, BC (2025). A member of the Ontario Society of Artists, Broken Forests Collective and Etobicoke Art Group, her work explores environmentalism, the human–nature relationship, and the passage of time, using art as a catalyst for curiosity, awareness, and meaningful change. is a Toronto based dancer and performance artist. Their work focuses on the physical body in space and attempts to allow an audience to stare into bones and flesh, the exertion of bodies, and the bodies of stillness.

© Dermot Wilson. Photo Lisa Murzin.

b. Dublin, Eire

Artist and curator Dermot Wilson lives in northern Ontario. He works in various media including video, audio, time-based installation, digital imaging and performance to create works that include meditations upon his relationships with the community and the environment. Dermot has performed in galleries, bars, artist-run centres and on various outdoor sites in many communities across Canada, South America, Asia, USA and Europe. His noise/spoken word performances challenge institutional conventions and promotes dialogues about ownership and environmental abuses.

Recent installations include: Escarpment Erasure Mega-horn (Escarpment Corridor Alliance); Iterations/Emanations (KINO Gallery and Wroclaw University Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland); and Random Acts of Joy (TOTE Gallery, Campinas, Brazil). Hyperboreal is his ambient sound/spoken word performance collective. He has performed spoken word rants in urban sites across Canada since 1996 and is currently performing site-specific sound art works in clearcut or endangered forest sites.

© Marilyn Yogarajah. Photo Alex Herrera.

Marilyn Yogarajah (they/any) is an artist whose practice centers on rhythm, specifically sound and poetry. They have a background in teaching music, and an education in sociology and gender studies. Marilyn plays in multiple bands across the city, including but not limited to not a band, martian crisis unit, output 1:1:1, and teething. They also founded spectrum soundbath in 2020 which is a collaborative community based sound meditation practice. They write poetry under the moniker queertamil and can be found on bandcamp under threesixmarilyn. Land back always and death to empire.