Tag: Emerging Artists

ARTISTS
Amy Hull
Claudia Edwards
Joyce LeeAnn
Sasha Singer-Wilson
Trish Lanns

Curated by Shalon Webber-Heffernan

not knowing is the most intimate explores themes of collective and personal grief, and the ways in which we might connect through shared vulnerability. Inspired by the Buddhist koan, “not knowing is the most intimate,” the project embraces the uncertainty of our contemporary emotional landscapes, inviting both artists and audiences to move into the discomfort of uncharted waters.

While reading Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s Hospicing Modernity, I was struck by the idea that domination often involves a deliberate denial of relationships and a suppression of the senses. Drawing on Dwayne Donald’s assertion that sensory atrophy is central to this process – disrupting traditional knowledge systems and relational connections—I began to consider how deeply this numbness has seeped into the fabric of modern life. What would it mean to counter this—to resist detachment—through intimacy and attunement? This question sits at the heart of this curatorial series, exploring how performance can reawaken connection through embodied presence and shared vulnerability in times of grief.

Bringing together artists whose work grapples with death, mourning, collective grief, climate anxiety, somatics, and rituals of healing, the series unfolds across live performances, an immersive book installation, a sound bath and guided meditation inspired by the tradition of living funerals. It is an experiment in shedding emotional armour – to feel, to connect, to soften. It is an invitation to let grief become a shared language that unites rather than isolates—guiding us beyond knowing and into the realm of embodied presence and relationship.

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All performances are FREE. Accessible building.

Saturday, May 10

6:30 PM, please arrive at 6:20 PM
What Will I Tell Her? by Sasha Singer-Wilson
A grief ritual and performance exploring uncertainty, care, and parenting in the polycrisis.

8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
Embracing the Waves of Grief: A Sound Healing Meditation with Trish Lanns
Please register for the event HERE.

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Saturday, May 10 | Thursday, May 15 | Friday, May 16 | Saturday, May 17

10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
take “somethymes grief goes for a walk,” for a walk, by Joyce LeeAnn
An archivist/artist book installation + immersive walking experience. Audience members are invited to check out the book from the FADO library for an intimate self-guided exploration involving bibliomancy, release, and remembrance rituals. Drop in anytime during open hours, or pre-book a walking session by emailing shalonwh@gmail.com.

About the book in the words of Joyce LeeAnn: “Adrian Scott McLaurin was my best friend and my lover. When he committed suicide in 2007, what remained was documentation of many of the moments we shared through videos, photos, handwritten notes, transcribed text messages, etcetera. Self-publishing somethymes grief goes for a walk was my way of revolting against fleeting memory and lingering grief. I transmuted my pain through writing, so that I could keep living. My grief desired its own preservation too; every time I return to this archival text, I realize my mourning became an organism that lives within those pages to comfort other grievers.”

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DROP-OFF DAY: Saturday May 10, from 12 PM – 4PM
REPAIR DAYS: May 15 – 17, from 10 AM – 5 PM

Everything I Can Fix Versus Everything I Can’t by Claudia Edwards

Hole in your favourite sweater? Bike tube needs a change? Lamp won’t turn on? Hair needs a trim? Can’t make your mind up? News got you down? Heart-broken?

In this three-day durational performance, you are invited to bring me your items and issues in need of a fix. For three consecutive days, from the working hours of 10 am to 5 pm, I will attempt to repair as many items as I can. The art gallery will become my workshop, equipped with basic tools and supplies for woodworking, sculpting, soldering, metalwork, jewellery, sewing, knitting repairs, haircuts & trimming, and more. The gallery space will be split into two halves: on one side, the things I can fix, and on the other, the things I cannot. During this repair marathon, I will attempt to move as many things as I can from one side to the other: equal parts experiment in racing the clock, while confronting all that can’t be fixed; courting failure; being with brokenness.

On Saturday May 10, you are invited to bring something you would like repaired, restored, renewed. On Thursday May 15 to Saturday May 17, I will do my very best to fix everything.

Drop Off Notes: Broken physical items can be dropped off Saturday May 10, 12PM – 4PM. Anyone interested in bringing physical items for repairs are encouraged to bring them in on the designated drop-off day, so there is sufficient time to triage and attempt to fix all items. For metaphysical repairs, matters of the heart, and other problems in need of solutions, feel free to drop by anytime during the three-day performance.

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Saturday, May 17

2:00 PM
Grieving Circle by Amy Hull
An invitation to collectively hold space for personal and communal grief in response to ongoing global traumas. This offering invites the audience to reflect on the fragility of comfort and safety. Through remembrance, we can begin to imagine and move toward another possible world.

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Sunday, May 18

3:30 PM, a virtual talk with Joyce LeeAnn
releasing control of how things become whole, again
Joyce LeeAnn will lead a sacred virtual gathering to transmute mourning into fuel for continued living, discussing her book somethymes grief goes for a walk, and her artistic and archival practice.

Register here for the ZOOM link.

After a 10-year hiatus, FADO’s emerging Artists Series is back in 2025!

A much-loved staple of FADO’s programming year from 2003 to 2014, FADO’s emerging Artists series was created to provide a platform for younger artists to develop and present a performance piece in a professional context, often for the first time. As the series developed, the opportunity it provided extended to nurturing new performance curators. Each new project in the series has interpreted in its own particular way the central term of its mandate reformulating who/what should be considered ‘emerging’ in the context of performance art practice as presented through the FADO frame.

For the 2025 Emerging Artist Series, ‘emerging’ is discarded as a label that reveals age, defines time spent or as a qualification of perceived depth of experience. Instead, from February through May two curators and three series researcher residents develop performance installations, performance events and research projects that bring the notion of ‘emerging’ into relationship with community and forms of practice.

2025: On View | curated by Jordan King
2025: not knowing is the most intimate | curated by Shalon T. Webber-Heffernan
2025: EAS LABists: Christina Anna Trutiak, James Knott, Vanessa Godden
2014: 11:45 P.M. | curated by Kate Barry
2013: .sight specific. | curated by Francisco-Fernando Granados
2011: Extra-Rational | curated by Gale Allen
2009: Misinformed Informants | curated by Lisa Visser
2008: Vivência Poética | curated by Erika DeFreitas
2007: Enter-gration | curated by Nahed Mansour
2005: Open Airway | curated by Elle McLaughlin
2005: Feats, might | curated by Alissa Firth-Eagland
2004: Home Repair by One Night Only
2004: Game City | curated by Craig Leonard
2003: Gestures | curated by Tanya Mars

FADO’s Emerging Artists series was initiated in 2003 by Canada’s own performance art matriarch and educator Tanya Mars, who recognized that the best way to encourage young artists was by offering them a professional presentation opportunity. Her vision was one of mentorship, targeting an interesting mix of new and emerging artists, many of them former students, whom she commissioned to develop new works responding to a thematic context. The first event, curated by Mars, included ambient, conceptual and cabaret-style performance art gestures. This event later developed into the Emerging Artists Series. FADO’s intention with this on-going series was to nurture new work and ideas, provide direction and mentorship, and 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, allowing FADO to encourage new curatorial voices in performance art, and introducing FADO to new communities of artists (and new artists to FADO). The series has continued to develop and change, later including the work of artists not just from Toronto, but regionally as well. This way, the series exposes local audiences to the range of performance work happening in the emerging performance scene across Canada.

ARTISTS
Anthea Fitz-James (Toronto)
Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle (Montréal)
Emma-Kate Guimond (Montréal)
Jessica Karuhanga (Toronto)
Rah Eleh (Ottawa)

FADO Performance Art Centre’s 2014 Emerging Artist series, co-presented with Xpace Cultural Centre.

Durational performance is a mode of live art where the artist works directly with the medium of time. Over the course of hours, days or longer the performer and the audience can experience a physical, mental, spiritual and/or emotional transformation. Durational performance functions to bring the performer and the audience into the moment; time is made palatable and visceral. Artists like Tehching Hsieh, Alastair MacLennan, and most famously, Marina Abramović, demonstrate how durational performance art can use mental and physical endurance to challenge the commoditization of art by offering an experience of art that is ephemeral by nature. 11:45 PM will present a collection of durational works, spread out over the course of March, throughout the gallery.

The 2014 Emerging Artists Series was curated by FADO board member Kate Barry, in consultation with Xpace and a committee of local artists (including Xpace Director Amber Landgraff, Videofag founder Jordan Tannahill, theatre artist Audrey Dewyer, and Xpace intern Humboldt Magnussen.

PROGRAM & EVENTS

Unraveling the Daughter’s Disease: Secrets, Knitting and the Body by Anthea Fitz-James
March 8 @ 12:00pm–6:00pm
March 9 @ 1:00pm–5:00pm

In Time with a Body: Duration as a Performance Practice
March 13 @ 7:00pm
Performance artist, curator and FADO co-founder Paul Couillard gives an informal lecture on duration as a performance practice. His talk will share insights from his creative work as well as performances by other artists, including a reflection on his 1999 curatorial project TIME TIME TIME, a year-long series of twelve works by various performance artists, each a minimum of twelve hours long. 

digestion/liquidation by Emma-Kate Guimond
March 16 @ 12:00pm–8:00pm

The trip, and the fall, and the lost heap of longing by Jessica Karuhanga
March 19–22 @ 1:00pm–5:00pm daily

6 hours 6 minutes 6 seconds by Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle
March 28 @ 6:00pm–12:06:06am
For this performance, the audience is encouraged to bring with them, or to drop off at the gallery anytime during gallery hours from March 8–28, items from their homes that represent evil to them. Can be any kind of object, from a banal household item to a talisman. Object must be wrapped, so the contents are not known. All objects will be used in the performance.

Ululation by Rah Eleh
March 29 @ 12:00pm–6:00pm

What Happens After Midnight: Artists Panel
Moderated by Tanya Mars, in conversation with the artists and curator Kate Barry
March 29 @ 6:30pm

ARTISTS
Basil AlZeri
Cressida Kocienski
Golboo Amani
Maryam Taghavi

.sight.specific. proposes performance art as the staging of sight as site: observation as contour, terrain, and architecture for modes of aesthetic embodiment. The project consists of four commissioned live works in search of situated perspectives on the possibilities of performance as a contextual spatial practice. The works situate artists and audiences by trading knowledge on the streets, tracing trans-planetary sight lines, creating home and hospitality in real time through cyberspace, and staging variations on absurdity. The shapes of these relationships brings into focus questions of knowledge and memory, contact and distance, longing and belonging.

.site.specific is co-presented with Xpace Cultural Centre

PROGRAM & EVENTS

Performance: The School of Bartered Knowledge by Golboo Amani
Fridays and Saturdays in March 2013 @ 2:00pm–6:00pm

Performance: Planetaria by Cressida Kocienski
March 8, 2013 @ 8:00pm

Performance: T.M.K.L Presents: beit Suad by Basil AlZeri
March 15, 2013 @ 8:00pm
Co-presented by FUSE Magazine and Israeli Apartheid Week Toronto

Workshop: T.M.K.L Presents: beit Suad by Basil AlZeri
March 16 & 17, 2013 @ 1:00pm

Performance: Variations on Absurdity by Maryam Taghavi
March 22, 2013 @ 8:00pm

Exhibition opening: .sight.specific. residue/ephemera
March 28, 2013 @ 7:00pm

Panel Discussion: Viewing .sight.specific.
With Basil AlZeri, Golboo Amani, Cressida Kocienski, Maryam Taghavi, and moderators Johanna Householder and Francisco-Fernando Granados
March 30, 2013 @ 2:00pm

Extra-Rational is a series of performances by emerging Canadian artists that embrace the aesthetics of popular culture and seek to recuperate/utilize these “low brow” processes of production and cognition. The artists in Extra-Rational intentionally make use of aesthetic choices and methods of production that directly challenge the rubric of high-brow vs low-brow culture. These artists use the position of the trivialized, the unmentionable, the frivolous, the carnal and the other as a means to challenge the rationalization of high culture. 

ARTISTS
Amy Jenine Ling Wong
Amy Lam
Johnny Forever
Iris Fraser-Gudrunas
Lisa Visser
Marisa Hoicka

Trust My Gut: A Drag Opera Surgery, performed by Mini Maul and Uncle Wink (two characters selected from the drag oeuvre of Johnny Forever and Marisa Hoicka) dramatizes the recent merging of home and stage on social networking sites such as YouTube, Vimeo and facebook. This eight-hour durational installation references Orlan’s televised performance art surgeries of the early ’90s. Framed by a crochet replica of a YouTube window, Mini Maul performs surgery on Uncle Wink with a pair of tailor’s scissors, crochet hooks and a sewing needle. While splayed open Uncle Wink remains gloriously conscious as Mini Maul crafts his innards, a mass of yarn and fabric, into outrageous sculptural forms that rise from his belly and spill onto the floor. From time to time patient and doctor break into lip-synced duets chosen by audience members from a nearby laptop.

Insight mixes with consumerism and pop culture to create intuitive knowledge in Iris Fraser-Gudrunas’ performance Pop Tarot. Fraser-Gudrunas divines the future and answers the viewers’ life questions using a collection of strange and unfamiliar pop bottles. Viewers are invited to blindly select 4 beverage bottles/cans from a large inventory, stored in a nondescript cardboard box. The bottles represent the past, present, future and soul of the participant. Carefully analyzing the qualities of the consumer packaging, the clarity of the labels, the visual nature of the liquid and the list of ingredients, Fraser-Gudrunas provides the viewers with insight and guidance. 

NANA by Amy Jenine Ling Wong is a four-hour durational performance that references narcissism in youth culture and questions the rise of the self-made Internet celebrity. Occupying the gallery’s street level window, Wong confronts viewers caught off guard with the image of her slowly licking a honey-encrusted monitor. Under the honey, the monitor flickers with a mirror image of herself performing various actions. NANA is an extension of Wong’s online Vimeo library, in which she plays a wide variety of characters including: a young girl offering advice on the application of Avatar make-up, a sullen woman smoking a cigarette while explaining her attempts to replicate the “real community” of the ‘60s on facebook and a teenager aimlessly video blogging about piercing her nose.

Droozle Help Me, a performance that references the comedy sketch genre, makes use of humour and high concept comedy. In this performative lecture Amy Lam plays a character named Droozle who is looking for a new roommate. She uses inappropriate props and costumes in her attempt to be persuasive. As the performance unfolds Lam creates deliberate incongruence between herself as performer, the goals of her character and the audience’s reactions. Lam’s work continues the dialogue started by female comics of the ’50s who used intelligence, wit and a fair amount of acting out to comment on contemporary culture.

We Don’t Love Each Other is a reflexive performance that investigates the female abject body. Composed of a series of simple actions and objects, Lisa Visser drinks a copious amount of hard alcohol while attaching her left arm to her right with the use of a sewing needle and thread. The performance combines contrasting images of harm and repair: what appears to be harmful (sewing) is conceptually approached as repair – or reclamation – of not just a body but everything that is given and compromised in a relationship. And the repair – drinking and drowning one’s feelings in alcohol – is actually harmful. The piece is implicitly humorous; the artist is drunk, awkward and bloody, while the audience is compelled to watch seriously and earnestly while the hour-long performance unfolds.

PROGRAM
March 8 @ 1:00pm–5:00pm
Trust My Gut: A Drag Opera Surgery by Johnny Forever & Marisa Hoicka

March 12 @ 1:00pm–5:00pm
Pop Tarot by Iris Fraser-Gudrunas

March 12 @ 7:00pm
Trust My Gut: A Drag Opera Surgery by Johnny Forever & Marisa Hoicka
NANA by Amy Jenine Ling Wong
Droozle Help Me by Amy Lam
Pop Tarot by Iris Fraser-Gudrunas
We Don’t Love Each Other by Lisa Visser

ARTISTS
Corina Kennedy
Guillaume Adjutor Provost
Henry Adam Svec
Joshua Schwebel (cancelled)
Julia Mensink
Michelle Lacombe
Sophie Castonguay
Stacey Ho

Misinformed Informants: Preface to the Performance
By Lisa Visser

Fragments, fleeting words, fights. You’re not listening to me. 

Misinformed Informants invites emerging artists to answer to the idea of miscommunication, misunderstanding, misplaced lines of agreement. Responses range from antiquated expressions of communication to suggestions, covert signals, mis-remembrance and the unapologetically false. Diverse interpretation converges into an overhead problem of mistrust. In trusting the informant (who may be misinformed) misinformation is communicated as true information. Truth and reality negate the very premise of this performance event. I begin to doubt the truth I communicated. And yet: I would never lie to you. But: this is about lies.

This curatorial premise acknowledges the complicated boundaries of curator-performer-audience relationships and pushes past them. These tensions are apparent in the work of Misinformed Informants, and can be as subtle as a gesture, as apparent as a role-reversal, or as confrontational as a slap in the face.    

Julia Mensink’s maybe it was nothing brings a tension to the audience/performer role by inviting her ex-boyfriend to be a participant. Both Julia and her ex tell a lecture-style story, based on their own experiences of the same event. Through the development of the story, what becomes clear is the absence of synchronicity in memories, the highlighting of the fuzzy parts and the uncomfortable inclusion of audience members into a breakup. The audience can choose between listening to Julia or her-ex’s side of the story: a literal choosing of sides. How terrible to be brought in to this. I would like us not to fight.

Joshua Schwebel’s piece deliberately misses the mark, or so it was meant to. Relying on the accuracy of Canada Post, Joshua mis-addressed his application to the call for submissions. However, a glitch delivered the package to the correct address in a sensible amount of time. In following Joshua’s instructions, I rejected the dossier. Joshua’s cheeky approach to the premise has yet to play itself out, but his deliberate determination to accepting and then rejecting causes me to question my role as curator. What have I done in creating these intentionally missed formations of informants?

In a similar farce, Henry Adam Svec plays with the role of the lecturer and delivers a performance rooted in fiction. Stompin’ Tom Connors never wrote The Lost Stompin’ Tom Song. Did he? Henry engages the audience in an experiment that questions and abuses the influence of authority and the audiences’ desire to be patient, active and honest listeners.

Sophie Castonguay toes the line between performer and director, creating a confusion that arises from the conditioned reverence of the audience for the performer and the space of performance art. You took the words right out of my mouth puts audience members under the direction of the performer. The audience wants to know what is happening. The performer is in control. Is this the performance? Sophie withholds the one thing the audience wants: clear communication about what will happen next. Going beyond the unexpected is also the under-expected, the under-performed and the under-communicated. 

Stacey Ho invites additional participants in her GROOP MEDITEHSHUNS, a three-part piece that draws attention to breathing, blinks and beats. Each performance will have the participants respond to one another’s bodies with a gesture, a sound, or a slap in the face. By drawing attention to the subtleties of the bodies’ motions, Stacey is over-communicating in a way that is delicate and absurd, respectful and brutal.  

The obsessive nature of this over-observant performance is present in Corina Kennedy’s cheer sir or madam, a durational performance in which letters are typed out on a typewriter, only to be immediately rendered unreadable. Letters of love, protest, and rejection are destroyed upon their completion. What remains are mounds of lonely letters of the alphabet, without a structure or form. Both antiquated forms of communication and obsession elevates these letters until they are objectified and displayed, nearly fetishized.  

Guillaume Adjutor Provost’s fetishization comes into play in a different form, a covert and suggestive gestural work. Guillaume claims a subjective reinterpretation of historical moments, changing meanings and communicating a new history. SLOW READERS, argument no.1 is based on a song meant to inspire spirituality. Through the performance, the song and it’s intent is broken down in subtle movements, hidden meanings and secrets only the performer knows. The secret is there. But we stopped understanding each other long before that. 

The performances in Misinformed Informants break down communication—reducing it to an elemental approach. What results is a step-by-step guide on how to mis-communicate and a deliberate delivery of misinformation. Each artist claims a unique response, playing with issues of trust, structure, defined roles, tensions and obsessions. These are common-place issues. Every moment we are faced with the authority of being an informant and of being the informed. Sweet lies for protection, small in nature, keep us from personal disaster. The authority of the speaker is consistently abused in a way that is difficult to place and even more difficult to accuse.

Your word against mine. But I know you’re lying. I would never lie to you.

Special thanks to Clive Robertson for the hook-ups, Johanna Householder for the coffee and advice, and Shannon Cochrane for a being a model of enthusiasm, dedicated support, and superior decision-making skills, to which I aspire. Also thanks to Sarah E.K. Smith for listening to all my lies. Big thanks to Matthew Williamson and all the staff at XPACE for their help and support.

Exhibition Hours
December 17–19: 12:00pm–8:00pm
Friday & Saturdays: 12:00pm–6:00pm

FADO Performance Art Centre’s 2008 Emerging Artists Series, Vivência Poética, pairs established artists with emerging artists in the creation of a collaborative performance work.

ARTISTS
Diane Borsato & Stacey Sproule
Keith Cole & Diana Lopez Soto
John Marriott & Suzanne Caines

The curatorial premise of this project required an emerging and an established performance artist to collaborate jointly, and in turn with participants within the space in which they work/present. I am interested in the relational aspects within the collaborative process between artists, and how it specifically pertains to questions of authorship, communication, tension, and pedagogy. I am certain that these collaborations will challenge the concept of relational aesthetics as it is outlined by Nicolas Bourriaud in his text Relational Aesthetics.

Erika DeFreitas, curator

FADO in cooperation with Toronto Free Gallery, is pleased to announce the latest instalment of its ongoing Emerging Artists series. In Enter-gration, curated by Nahed Mansour, a roster of local performance artists explore immigration issues.

ARTISTS
Bojana Videkanic
Idil Mussa
Jesus Mora
Karilynn Ming Ho
Rachel Gorman
Reena Katz
Rita Camacho Lomeli
Tejpal S. Ajji

North America is increasingly joining global debates on immigration as new racisms surface. Borders and boundaries are being redefined in the name of security, as movement is facilitated for some groups while others are excluded. The question is who benefits from this security regime? Who is left out? This event is a small step to building our collective awareness of the demands of movement, expectations of submission, and the struggle to fulfill challenges faced by millions with precarious status daily.

Curator Nahed Mansour writes:

Crossing the border into North American society is not a simple act for immigrants and refugees. [“It should be hard! We need safety! How else are we going to know who’s coming into our country?”] In curating Enter-gration, I’m trying to break down these well-worn myths. [“Why?”] I intend to explore ways in which integration through assimilation is a tactic aimed to make visible minorities invisible. [“But we have multiculturalism, don’t we?”].

PROGRAM

March 1, 7:00pm
Crossing Borders/Crossing Bodies by Bojana Videkanic
Illegal Migration by Jesus Mora

March 2, 7:00pm
Transit by Rachel Gorman
Suhbuhk [Lesson] by Tejpal S. Ajji

March 3, 4:00pm
Knot by Idil Mussa
Crossing Borders/Crossing Bodies by Bojana Videkanic
Order to Remedy by Reena Katz

March 4, 2:00pm
Urban Meditations by Rita Camacho Lomeli
Cowboy BeBop (Ode To My Daddy) by Karilynn Ming Ho
Illegal Migration by Jesus Mora

ARTISTS
Cameron McKittrick
Erin Flyn
Fedora Romita
Jocelyne Tremblay
Leslie Wyber
Lisa Young Kutsukake
Natalyn Tremblay
Richard Windeyer
Shanker Bhardwaj
Zeesy Powers

Curatorial Statement by Elle McLaughlin

Open Airway is an investigation of rhythmic and organized patterns that ensure the successful function of systems. The project brings together and negotiates five unrelated performance pieces, all dealing with different systems.

This concept reflects my interest in the hidden systems functioning throughout us. I am fascinated with the complex interplay between vital functions that keep us alive and the transmission of internal signals operating and maintaining our systems despite various inconsistencies and anomalies. My own anomalous anatomical structure is defined by a rare inverted positioning of all internal organs, known as situs inversus or mirror image anatomy. The uniformity of their inverted placement ensures that all systems operate in a relatively efficient manner. However, a significant percentage of people with situs inversus are also diagnosed with primary ciliary dyskinesia. For respiratory functions to operate successfully, cilia must move in a rhythmic pattern to what is called the ciliary beat. Ciliary disorganization, detected only under a microscope, is manifested by a lack of adherence to this rhythmic, swaying, sweeping motion. This inadequacy ultimately leads to the breakdown of systems that regulate our most vital function: breathing. Systems are maintained through constancy, and are dependant on a degree of uniformity. The rhythmic manipulation of seemingly unrelated elements culminates in a larger accomplished entity. When individual units fail, it creates disturbances throughout the system and leads to its eventual collapse.

Open Airway addresses the role of co-operation in fostering continuity. Interconnected elements have the ability to stifle or flourish. Our accepted naiveté of complex systems that operate around and through us, seemingly running on their own, independent of will or thought or purpose is examined and re-interpreted in this performative petri dish. This project also considers the collaborative nature of performance art. Artists working in this form often depend on the assistance of others. Choreography, technical support and documentation are all functions assumed externally to ensure the artist achieves a connection with his or her audience and that the work remains accessible even after the event has passed. The response from those witnessing a performance may shift and alter the direction of a piece, as well as shaping and informing the artist.

In Open Airway, the artists are aware and vulnerable to shifts in each piece. Many perform simultaneously, while attempting to maintain a sense of balance and respect for what each group has to offer. Most of the performances are collaborative works, testing trust and encouraging empathy between the artists. The exceptions are the first and last pieces, which feature solo performances representing autonomy within a larger system. The interconnectivity that exists between artists engaged in divergent trajectories often culminates in a similar destination. The systems explored are diverse. All the performance pieces were conceived independently of each other. Yet they complement each other with varying multi-sensory approaches and degrees of physicality. Some rely on video projection to convey inner processes; others, silence and restraint.

In Forced Function, Fedora Romita joins Jocelyne and Natalyn Tremblay, who have already established familiarity with each other’s movements. Fedora’s presence helps to disturb the rhythmic tensions already established by the two siblings, while methodically surveying and measuring the space they construct.

Erin Flynn’s Sanctuary 101 incorporates algorithmic patterns into a combined choreographed and improvised exploration of perception. Hinging on interaction and analysis, her approach requires the coordination and integration of diverse systems of subconscious motivation.

Lisa Young Kutsukake and Shanker Bhardwaj employ the interrupted flow of communication as a symbol of natural and imposed systems which govern our ability to relate to one another. Obstruction in the vocal apparatus, resulting from an inability to articulate our confinement within societal constraints, inhibits the flow of conversation. Hesitation becomes a mode of coping with uncertainty.

The development of empathy is intrinsically linked to the negotiation of personal identity as is evidenced in Slice, a performance by the sound trio Finger. Cameron McKittrick, Richard Windeyer and Leslie Wyber function through rhythmic attunement to one another’s needs and wishes, monitoring their interaction and responses via projections and audio cues.

Zeesy Powers’ approach in Open Airway is a representation of the internal, and its reaction to external and sometimes contradictory systems. Zeesy’s work incorporates an awareness of the struggle to reconcile the multiplicity of our existence while maintaining order and balance.

SPIN’s large open space and its delineation of columns provides a grid structure. Within this grid, the artists have been arranged in symmetrical, geometric configurations, corresponding to the principles of balance and harmony. Rhythm and organization, the conceptual impetus for the event Open Airway’s structure adheres to numeric and spatial manipulation. Three of the five groups of artists have chosen to work behind screens, veils and a cell constructed of paper. Although these artists have the opportunity to work in a large, open and egalitarian space, they are aware of the need for compartment-alization. While this has the potential to hinder growth it is a necessary measure to ensure individual goals are realized.

The performance space tests the function of systems through collaboration, rhythm and organization. Under the microscope of the audience’s focused eye, the artists learn to cope and avoid system overload through steady negotiation. Opening and maintaining airways allow ease of breath. A rhythmic action, breathing is our most constant reminder of the need for maintaining and monitoring systems. Obstruction of airways impedes the natural flow of tension and exchange.

So please, take a nice, deep, dizzy breath, and enjoy.

ARTISTS
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay
Brian Joseph Davis
Daniel Cockburn

For Feats, Might, curator Alissa Firth-Eagland asked artists known primarily for their video works to “unplug” their performative ideas, stepping out from behind the camera and onto the live stage.

Performance art vs. video? by Paul Couillard

Perhaps more than any other genres, performance art and video have set the stage for visual art developments in the 21st century. Fuelled by—and also fuelling—the conceptual and technical breakthroughs of art activity over the past several decades, these two time-based practices are at the forefront of changing ideas about what art can and should be. They are also forms in which Canadian artists have consistently excelled. While the formal communicative strategies of these two media are, on the surface, almost oppositional—the obsessive detail of the close-up vs. the immersive composition of bodies in a shared environment; the fragmentary distillation of editing vs. the immutable pace of real-time; the magical layering of audio and visual tracks vs. the immediacy of live presence—both are instrumental in an evolving debate about our visions of ourselves and the universe in which we live. Both serve as reflective facets for exploring our everyday behaviour and for influencing social dynamics. Both offer compelling possibilities for expression.

Curatorial Statement by Alissa Firth-Eagland

Daniel Cockburn’s videos are cleverly self-referential without being didactic. They are deliberately sleek and crafted, even produced, but it is Cockburn’s performances within these productions that intrigue me most; his personae are disconcerting in their honesty and familiarity. I find there are many blind spots for me in all his onscreen characterizations. A notable mutability of portrayer and portrayed is evident in particular in his work, The Impostor (hello goodbye): there’s a mysterious blurring of fact and fiction. I am always left wondering how much of his onscreen personalities are, in fact, him.

For his work We Are Made of Stars, Brian Joseph Davis interviewed people who believed they resemble celebrities. The work reveals complex character layers within each individual who applied. Some look nothing like their doppelgangers. Some brandish their celebrity look-alike’s gestures and mannerisms. While Brian is not physically present in his work, his performance is evident in his orchestration of the interview scenario. His concept management is that of a devil’s advocate—neither the interviewees nor the viewer are privy to all the details. And of course his editing is very personal—gently culling their tics, speech patterns, and their very human traits while also revealing their learned celebrity mannerisms.

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay’s work struck me a few years ago when I watched the two new titles he had created during a residency in Banff and after his first stay in Berlin. I was blown away by how much they both played off of, and expanded on, the previous title of his I had seen at New Toronto Works in 2002, Je Changerais D’Avis. Live to Tell felt newer than itself, slick and plastic, its aesthetic deliciously euro. But it also felt intensely sincere. It aroused questions for me about the possibility for artists to use references from popular culture without appropriating—forging something instead of just deconstructing. Nemerofsy Ramsay’s work doesn’t take from pop culture and mainstream media any more than it gives to them. These three artists’ work hinges on each of their own personal dwellings within the ephemeral medium of video, rendering it tangible through varied manifestations of presence and absence. Whether in their lack of physical appearance or their charismatic inhabitation, we witness their emotional restraints and emanations. We see poised spectres haunting the video signal and frame with impeccable timing. They’ve each inspired the question: “What kind of work would you make if you were to perform live?” These are their responses.

Co-presented by MOCCA. With thanks to V tape and The Great Hall.

Video screening @ 8:30pm
We Are Made of Stars, Brian Joseph Davis, 2004, 11:00
The Imposter (hello, goodbye), Daniel Cockburn, 2003, 8:48
Live to Tell, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, 2002, 6:00

Performances @ 9:00pm
Report on an Unidentified Art Event Audience by Brian Joseph Davis
Visible Vocals by Daniel Cockburn
Constellation by Nemirov and Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay

GAME CITY consists of a series of urban experiments across Yorkville, Kensington Market and Queen Street by Jessica Thompson, Paige Gratland, Charlene Lau, SR Palm, and the Grey Sweatsuit Revolution, culminating with performances by Charlie Black, 640 480 Video Collective, and the Pauls and the Band of Outsiders.

These artists disrupt conventions by disorienting visual, spatial and auditory perceptions. Expect a range of approaches, from the subtle (Thompson, Gratland, Grey Sweatsuit Revolution), to the theatrical (Lau, SR Palm Black, 640 480 and the Pauls). The audience is encouraged to be as nomadic as the projects themselves as they move through the city. Various times and locations are indicated on the schedule, allowing audience members to take in individual projects, or spend their whole day with the works as they link up with each other.

SCHEDULE

Jessica Thompson
11:00am | Village of Yorkville Park, Cumberland Street
1:00pm | outside Bedford Academy, 36 Prince Arthur Avenue
3:00pm | outside Kensington Tavern, 40 Kensington Avenue (Kensington Market)

Paige Gratland
en route

Charlene Lau
12:00pm | outside Bedford Academy, 36 Prince Arthur Avenue
3:00pm | outside Kensington Tavern, 40 Kensington Avenue (in Kensington Market)
5:00pm | outside Cameron House, 408 Queen Street West

SR Palm
2:00pm | corner of Augusta Avenue and Niagara Avenue (start of procession)
3:00pm | corner of Augusta Avenue and Baldwin Avenue

Charlie Black
7:00pm | CineCycle, 129 Spadina Avenue

The Grey Sweatsuit Revolution
daytime (general sightings)
8:00pm | CineCycle, 129 Spadina Avenue

Pauls and the Band of Outsiders & 640 480 (VSL projections)
9:00pm  | CineCycle, 129 Spadina Avenue

FADO is pleased to present Home Repair, featuring the Regina-based performance art collective One Night Only. Home Repair will feature six simultaneous performances in an empty apartment building, focusing on ideas of communication and relationships within domestic spaces. 

Working collectively, the six members of One Night Only create individual performances on a common theme that act and react in relation to each other. The collective begins each project by agreeing on a common set of parameters. How each member chooses to fulfill, interpret or subtly circumvent the established rules becomes the basis of their developing dialogue, resulting in a multilayered and multi-perspectived approach.

One Night Only:
Adam Budd
Felipe Diaz
Blair Fornwald
Tanis Keiner
Tammy McGrath
Anna Scott

ARTIST TALK: One Night Only + Life=Art=Life
February 22, 2004 @ 2:00pm
Karen Schreiber Gallery, 30-25 Morrow Street, Toronto

Artist talk featuring One Night Only members with some of the participants of Life=Art=Life, a weekend of performances and talks featuring Louise Liliefeldt, Richard Martel, Tehching Hsieh and Kristine Stiles. Life=Art=Life is a FADO & Blank Slate presentation, with support from the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art.