FADO E-BULLETIN
December 2023

1. FADO PRESENTS HOW TO SEARCH ON OUR WEBSITE
   DATE NOW
   LOCATION ONLINE
   SOURCE FADO

FADO’s website is a virtual treasure trove of performance video and photo documentation—an archive of performance art activity in Toronto spanning nearly 30 year of activity. Currently the website contains nearly 100 videos and thousands of photos. New works are being added every week, so be sure to check it out and then come back again soon.

We added some wayfinding to our search page—some suggestions, a few clues—to help you navigate the archive and navigate your way to the things you most want to see.

SEARCH HERE.

2. FADO EVENT ONE (SOMMES PERSONNES)
   DATE DECEMBER 12, 2023
   LOCATION ON-LINE
   SOURCE FADO & CHRISTOF MIGONE

One (Sommes Personnes)
December 12, 2023
12:00 noon–12pm midnight

One (Sommes Personnes) is presented in the context of Are (Sommes Sonnes)—the fourth iteration of a 12-year, 12-hour project by artist Christof Migone. Are (Sommes Sonnes) is presented by Avatar.

12 artists are invited to present a 12-minute audiovisual sort-of-self-portrait. These single-take recordings are stretched from 12 to 15 minutes (à la Warhol). The videos are be presented in the first, sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth and last hour of Are (Sommes Sonnes). Presented by FADO Performance Art Centre with artist selections by Christof Migone and Shannon Cochrane.

WATCH THE STREAM OF Are (Sommes Sonnes) HERE.

12:00pm EST
One Number One by Tanya Mars
One Number Two by Ronnie Clark
One Number Three by Olga Prokhorova
One Number Four by Liina Kuittinen

5:45pm EST
One Number Five by Nadège Grebmeier Forget

7:45pm EST
One Number Six by Adriana Disman

8:45pm EST
One Number Seven by Alice de Visscher & Evamaria Schaller

9:45pm EST
One Number Eight by Alice de Visscher & Evamaria Schaller

11:00pm EST
One Number Nine by Amélie Laurence Fortin
One Number Ten by Georges Azzaria
One Number Eleven by Jocelyn Robert
One Number Twelve by Caroline Gagné

A self that is one, just one, one amongst many. But that’s still you, still in a room different from anywhere else—the present of presence fully in a here and now deferred by pressing record. Portraiture that eschews the frontal in favour of the partial—the barely there, the fleeting, the merely-passing-by, the a-bit-askew. Staying still, but not stiff. Alive and well, simply at ease with the minutes passing, the unmomentous moment. The room we see might be the One’s home but does not need to be. The person you almost see is One that could be You but is not.

One (Sommes Personnes) is the fourth edition of Different From The One Place Time Mood Mindset You Are In Now, taking up a total of three hours out of the 12-hour event Are (Sommes Sonnes) happening for 12-hours on December 12, 2023. Are (Sommes Sonnes) is part of Christof Migone’s epic 12-year project entitled, You And I Are Water Earth Fire Air Of Life And Death.

3. FADO PRESENTS THE EPHEMERAL LIBRARY SOCIETY
   DATE JANUARY 10, 17, 24, 31 & FEBRUARY 7 & 14, 2024
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE FADO

Ephemera are things that are virtually useless in research most times. However, they may be useful in some pinches. They mostly occur in special library collections such as those found in archives… You should not go into a research resource looking for ephemera, but they can give context for your understanding [my emphasis].
Reed, H. & Horalek, D. “Reference Librarianship,” February 14, 2023.

FADO invites you to The Ephemeral Library Society
Series facilitated by Claudia Edwards

Wednesdays in January & February 2024
The Commons @ 401, fourth floor, 401 Richmond Street West

January 10, 17, 24 & February 7, 14
5:00pm–700pm (ish)

The Ephemeral Library Society is a weekly research social held in the Library & Research Centre at the Commons @ 401. Over six consecutive Wednesdays in mid-winter, you are invited to join FADO and Head Librarian Claudia Edwards for performance-art themed group activities and solo study time in a community setting. All are welcome—from the newly performance-curious to the mid-life know-it-alls to the elder-devotees.

Each session may or may not include:

• Opening group activity (creative exercise, performance game, screening, etc);
• 30-40 minute quiet study period (solo research, browse the archive’s books and useless ephemera, or any work you choose to bring with you);
• Closing group reflections and discussion;
• Hot fresh popcorn, tea, limited edition totebags, things to smell, staring out of windows.

Weekly activities will be iterative, taking shape based on the interests of participants. There is no need to prepare or attend every session: you may come and go, show up late, leave early, come for quiet time and skip games, whatever suits. There will be space for offerings and interventions from Society members, too (that’s you!).

Come with your burning questions and your soggy answers, leave with more questions than when you arrived, or join for the ride and tabula rasa that shit! This winter, FADO wants you to gather and dissolve with us each Wednesday at The Ephemeral Library Society. There might even be soup.

MORE INFORMATION (plus sign up for updates!)

4. FADO CALL FOR CURATORIAL PROPOSALS EMERGING ARTISTS SERIES
   DEADLINE DATE MARCH 1, 2024
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE FADO

For over 10 years, FADO’s Emerging Artists series was a highly anticipated and exciting staple of the performance art calendar. Initiated in 2003 by Canada’s own performance art matriarch Tanya Mars, FADO’s Emerging Artists series was created to provide a professional platform for emerging artists to develop and present a new performance, working within a specific curatorial framework. The intention of the series was to nurture new work and ideas, provide direction and mentorship to artists, and to showcase the work of the city’s newest perspectives in performance art.

As the series developed, it became clear that this was an opportunity to nurture not only emerging performance artists, but also emerging curators. In this way, FADO encouraged new curatorial voices in performance art, and in exchange were exposed to new communities of artists (new communities were exposed to FADO too). Soon after, the series started to include artists not just from Toronto, but regionally as well, giving local audiences a taste of the emerging performance scene across Canada.

Some of your favourite performance artists and curators cut their teeth making performances and developing curatorial projects in this context, and we want to do it all again!

FADO is once again seeking proposals for curatorial projects for the 2024 & 2025 Emerging Artists series from emerging artists and/or early career curators. Your project will present the work of emerging/early career performance artists. FADO recognizes that the definition of ‘emerging’ is fluid, flexible, and personal. (To note: the Toronto Arts Council’s definition of emerging is a useful reference.)

Projects will be chosen based on their inventiveness, experimentality, and for their attention to the practicalities of execution/feasibility within FADO’s presentation capacities and resources. Overall project budgets will be set by FADO, including artist fees and curator honorariums.

We are open to projects that are innovative in their use of technology; multi-disciplinary or performance-adjacent; presented in a gallery, in public space, site-specific; durational; a series within a series or one-off event; conceptual or thematic; and anything else you can think of.

This is a Canadian call for proposals. FADO is not able to support projects from international curators and/or artists, on-site research or residencies. Curators living outside Toronto will work remotely and final presentations will take place in Toronto. If you have any questions while preparing your submission, please contact us at info@performanceart.ca.

Your proposal includes:
Contact information
Curatorial statement / CV
Project description
Artist project descriptions (to the extent they are known) & accompanying artist CVs
Production needs & general project plan

Please submit your proposal using the Google Form LINKED HERE.

If you prefer to send your proposal directly, please email it to us at info@performanceart.ca

Deadline date: March 1, 2024

5. EVENT PROSEMINAR SERIES PRESENTS AISHA SASHA JOHN
   DATE DECEMBER 5, 2023
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE JEAN PAUL KELLY

2023–2024 MVS Proseminar series presents
Aisha Sasha John

December 5, 2023
6:30pm
Main Hall, Daniels Building, 1 Spadina Crescent
Free & open to the public

Presented by the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, the annual MVS Proseminar offers visual studies graduate students in curatorial studies and studio art the opportunity to connect and exchange with field-leading international and local artists, curators, writers, theorists, and other creative scholarly practitioners and researchers.

Aisha Sasha John is a poet, dancer, and choreographer. She is interested in choreographing performances that occasion real love. She’s passionate about the creative potential of surrender and through her work builds structures that allow for experiences of entrancement. The expressive possibilities exclusive to Black being-together is one of her ongoing research interests. A celebrated poet, Aisha is author of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize nominated collection I have to live.

The 2023–2024 MVS Proseminar series is organized by Zach Blas, assistant professor, and Jean-Paul Kelly, assistant professor and director of the visual studies program at the Daniels Faculty.

MORE INFORMATION

6. EVENT ARE (SOMMES SONNES) BY CHRISTOF MIGONE
   DATE DECEMBER 12, 2023
   LOCATION QUÉBEC CITY, CANADA & ONLINE
   SOURCE AVATAR

On the occasion of Christof Migone’s 12-year project You And I Are Water Earth Fire Air Of Life And Death, and to close festivities surrounding its 30th anniversary, Avatar presents: Are (Sommes Sonnes).

Are (Sommes Sonnes)
December 12, 2023
12:00 noon–12pm midnight

After learning about all the steps involved in making whisky during a three-month artist residency with Marla Hlady at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Scotland in the summer of 2019 it struck me how inadequate the word ‘whisky’ (root meaning: ‘alcohol—water of life’) is because it only captures a small part of the manufacturing process. The resulting expanded 12-word sentence, You And I Are Water Earth Fire Air Of Life And Death, has evolved into a 12 year- long project, each year focusses on one word of the sentence and manifests into a yearly 12-hour event on December 12 from noon to midnight.

So far, three events have taken place: You (2020), And (2021), I (2022). This year: Are (2023). The project has morphed from a modest 12-word text piece to a sprawling curatorial endeavour featuring 79 artists from 11 countries across 5 continents (including this year). Thus far, the event has happened primarily as an online stream (audio & video), last year the last 3 hours were also live in person at Arraymusic in Toronto. This year there will be 6 hours presented live. The event will be held in Québec City and Avatar will be the main host institution. This year the entire 12 hours will live streamed as per usual, but the whole event will be screened at the Cinéma Beaumont in Québec City’s Méduse complex for free.

In 2023, the word is ‘Are’ and consequently the focus will be on plurals: multiplicities leading to infinities, polymorphs and polyglots, surrounded sounds, layers upon layers, etceteras upon etceteras. New this year is the inclusion of a subtitle: (Sommes Sonnes)—this translates from the French simply to, ‘are sounds’. Overall, the curatorial premise is intentionally left open as to how the theme is interpreted. Heterogenous experimentation is encouraged. The process is a conversation.

Each year artists and institutional partners are invited to participate. Usually each partnership entails programming one of the twelve hours and providing artist fees, consulting on the curatorial aspect, and spreading the word once the event line-up is confirmed and the promotional material is available. The project’s structure intends to remain nimble and stay as decentralized as possible. What is ‘usual’ is adaptable. Each partnership is unique.

MORE INFORMATION & ON-LINE/IN-PERSON PROGRAMMING

7. EVENT VIII VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK 2023
   DATE DECEMBER 15–17, 2023
   LOCATION VENICE, ITALY
   SOURCE VESTANDPAGE

VIII VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK 2023
DigiLabAir | Emergencies of the Contemporary

December 15–17, 2023
European Cultural Center – Palazzo Mora
Strada Nova 3659, Venice, Italy

The VIII VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK 2023 presents DigiLabAir | Emergencies of the Contemporary, focusing on sustainable development as a fundamental principle of our societies.

The DIGILABAIR exhibition comprises 24 performance-based video works, 15 realised during digital art residencies hosted by the five project partners’ European non-profit cultural associations. The results are further disseminated on the PAV Performance Art Video online platform, launched on this occasion.

EMERGENCIES OF THE CONTEMPORARY features a live performance program with internationally recognised and emerging performance artists addressing pressing issues such as marginalisation, poverty, climate emergency, migration, accessibility, social and gender equality, justice and peace.

ARTISTS
DigiLabAir Video Exhibition
Francesca Fini, Nicola Fornoni, Franko B, Kirsten Heshusius, Vicky Maier & Steef Kersbergen, Sara Kostic, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Petra Kuppers, Virginia Mastrogiannaki, Kat Noli, Yannis Pappas, Kyrahm & Julius Kaiser/Julia Pietrangeli, Guillermo Gómez-Peña & La Pocha Nostra, Priiya Prethora, Pacha Queer, Kata Rankovic, Sabrina Bellenzier & Giorgi Rodionov, Matilde Sambo, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Chantal Spapens, Despina Zacharoupoulou, Aleks Zain.

Emergencies of the Contemporary Live Performance Program
Andrigo/Aliprandi (with Anna Maschietto, Ilaria Bagarolo, Maria Cargnelli, Michela Lorenzano, Valentina Milan, Maela Dal Mas), Franko B, Niya B, Nicola Fornoni, Dyana Gravina, Marta Jovanovic, Petra Kuppers, Steef Kersbergen & Vicky Maier, Yannis Pappas, Priiya Prethora, Gabriele Provenzano, Sabrina Bellenzier & Giorgi Rodionov.

MORE INFORMATION

8. EVENT LEGS TORONTO-II
   DATE DECEMBER 16, 2023
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE SIMLA CIVELEK / LO BIL

LEGS Toronto-II
An all-day performance art relay!

Saturday, December 16
1:00pm–8:00pm
OCADU, 100 McCaul Street, Great Hall/2nd Floor
Free / Audience can come and go all day

The live stream (ZOOM) will be posted HERE on the day of the event.

The form of the event is dictated by a chosen duration, which is then divided equally by the number of performance artists from the local community who were invited to participate. The order of the performances is arbitrary. In this second LEGS iteration in Toronto, the audience will witness a continuous performance work made up of seven-minute performances over the course of 7 hours.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS (in order, subject to change)
Pam Patterson, claude wittmann, Holly Timpener, Sadie Berlin, Leena Raudvee, Claudia Edwards, Amber Helene Müller St. Thomas, lwrds duniam, Clayton Lee, Paul Couillard, Brandy Leary, Jos Tremblay, Katie Kehoe, Lisa Smolkin, Johannes Zits, Shelby Wright, Fan Wu, Shawn Vieron, Benjamin de Boer, Rain Chan, Tina Fushell, Lizzsea Ship, Irene Loughlin, Evan Webber, Shannon Cochrane, Francesco Gagliardi, Tristan Castro, Aimee Dawn Robinson, Tess Martens, Ami Xherro, Nicholas Hauck, Andrea Spaziani, Tatiana Koroleva, Sara Seif, Hima Batavia, Raquel Mendes, Niloofar Sanandajizadeh, Grey Muldoon, Leila Clemente (Gajusingh), Ed Johnson, Sara Porter, Christopher Petersen, Isaak Fong, Emilia White, Esther Splett, Julie-Isabelle Laurin, Jake Santos, Camille Blair, Sari Cheah, Shima Raeesi, Khashayar Mohammadi, Justin Cabrillos, Caelum Ahearn, Drinkmilk (Gracie Elbel and Luc Cimino), Coman Poon, lo bil, Simla Civelek

The first iteration of LEGS was presented in Montréal on February 7, 2015 at Le Cercle Carré. The score and format of the event was initially imagined by an informal collective of artists (including Christian Bujold, Michelle Lacombe, Marie-Claude Gendron, Nadège Grebmeier Forget, Katherine-Josée Gervais and Jean-Philippe Luckurst-Cartier) and was created with the intention of activating and making-visible the often fragmented local performance art community.

The first Toronto iteration of LEGS was transmitted by FADO Performance Art Centre in 2015.

READ THE LEGS SCORE

If you wish to be an access volunteer that day, write to lobil@ocadu.ca. Minimal tasks involved, readiness to step up and help if someone needs help.

MORE INFORMATION

9. EVENT FEM_23 / ALIVE AND KICKING
   DATE DECEMBER 15–17, 2023
   LOCATION ONLINE & SPAIN
   SOURCE DENYS BLACKER

From the 15–17 December 2023, FEM_23 will host a residency for 18 artists over 2 days. Under the title of Alive and Kicking we will continue our group investigations into vincular communication, telepathy, precognition and other intra-communications. On the final evening there will be a public online screening of some of our research.

Telepathic Online Duets
December 17, 2023
7:00PM (CET) / 1:00PM (EST)

One group of artists will be present at the residency and will perform live while and those in different locations will be streamed live to the festival and projected onto a large screen. Simultaneously and in randomly selected pairs, they will perform. Neither will be able to see what the other is doing and the works are observed for synchronicities.

TO ATTEND ONLINE,  please reserve you place at info@gresolart.com

ARTISTS
Toni Crabb
Carron Little
Martine Viale
Melina Peña
Montse Seró
Mar Ximenis
Marina Batsy Janer
Denys Blacker
Heken Collard
Mireia Zantop
Anet van den Elzen
Yarnya Shumska
Siobhan Mullen
Christine Haase
Isabel León
Bernadette Hopkins
Pauline Cummings
Elvira Santamaria
Shannon Cochrane
Nieves Correa
Frances Mezzetti
Ester Xargay
Joana Sardà
Natàlia Espinet
Graciela Contreras
Juliette Murphy
Ada Vilaró
Analía Beltrán i Janés
Marta Vergonyós
Holly Slingsby
Paloma Ortis

FEM is a unique international performance art event dedicated to showcasing work by women performance artists. Since its beginnings, the festival has consistently offered women artists the opportunity to create and show new works of performance in a supportive environment and enabled them to share their practice with others in the workshops and theory programmes. FEM has been held annually since 2004 and has changed and adapted to the times. Currently it is run as an independent artists investigative residency in which artists are invited to live and work together for the duration of the meeting and to participate and contribute to a variety of research questions around the theme of interconnection and intercommunication.

MORE INFORMATION

10. EVENT WEATHERING BY FAYE DRISCOLL
    DATE JANUARY 18–21, 2024
    LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
    SOURCE BLACKWOOD GALLERY

Coming to Toronto this January! The Blackwood at the University of Toronto Mississauga in presenting the Canadian premiere of Faye Driscoll’s major new performance Weathering.

Weathering by Faye Driscoll
January 18–21, 2024

Weathering is a multi-sensory performance, conceived by Driscoll as a moving human sculpture made of bodies, sounds, scents, liquids, and objects. Ten performers perpetually enact a morphing “tableau vivant” on a mobile raft-like stage that surges and spins through crisis and alienation. Grappling with the Anthropocene—the geologic toll of environmental destruction resulting from human activity on the Earth—Weathering considers its effects on individual bodies and their interdependencies. It explores the unstable boundaries between grief, anger, emergency, and eroticism.

PERFORMANCES
January 18–20: 8:00pm
January 21: 5:00pm
Ada Slaight Hall, Artscape Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas St. East, Toronto

Conceived, choreographed and directed by Faye Driscoll
Performed by James Barrett, Kara Brody, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, Amy Gernux, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Jennifer Nugent, Cory Seals, Eliza Tappan, Carlo Antonio Villanueva, Jo Warren

Get your tickets HERE.

MORE INFORMATION