Diaspora Dialogues

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Nuit Blanche

Faces of Scarborough – DD at Nuit Blanche

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Join Diaspora Dialogues on September 29th, 2018, from sunset to sunrise for a Nuit Blanche experience that will bring the city of Scarborough to life!

Diaspora Dialogues is pleased to present “Faces of Scarborough,” an interdisciplinary project that will immerse Nuit Blanche audiences in the wonderful nuances of the city in which they live.

Combining the literary and the photographic arts, “Faces of Scarborough” is a two-pronged event aimed at reflecting the different ethnicities, languages and backgrounds that make Toronto – specifically Scarborough – the unique city that it is today.

First, audio recordings of multi-lingual readings by Scarborough-based poets will be played back through speakers around the room. Each speaker will transmit a different poem, a different language and therefore a different experience for festival-goers to connect to. Next, photographs of different people across Scarborough’s many neighbourhoods will be projected onto the walls in a curated montage.

“Faces of Scarborough” blends the audio and the visual to create a multifaceted installation. As a primarily literary organization with a mandate to bring artistic, cultural and geographic communities together, Diaspora Dialogues is excited to partner with Nuit Blanche for the eleventh year in a row, and to be a part of the first Scarborough portion of the festival.

Saturday, September 29th – Sunday, September 30th
Scarborough Civic Centre, Committee Room 2
Sunset to Sunrise

RSVP
Cost: Free

The Women on the Wall

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Diaspora Dialogues is excited to partner with Nuit Blanche again this year with the installation THE WOMEN ON THE WALL.

This interactive multimedia project invites participants to step into a conversation between members of the Aboriginal community on the issue of violence against Indigenous women and girls. Hear perspectives on the national epidemic of Murdered and Missing Indigenous women and girls in Canada from a range of Indigenous voices and make a personal commitment to ending violence.

Curated by Cherie Dimaline and Gwen Benaway

October 3–4, 2015
Metropolitan United Church
56 Queen Street East
7:00pm–7:00am

Building on the momentum of #aminext and grassroots organizations like Walking With Our Sisters, the multi-sensory The Women on The Wall puts visitors in the middle of a community conversation on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and offers an opportunity to effect change.

Video Messages from the Indigenous community for our missing and murdered women and girls, and for all Canadians, featuring:

  • DEBORAH RICHARDSON: Mother, advocate, Deputy Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ontario
  • SUSAN BLIGHT: Filmmaker, Jingle Dress dancer, language activist
  • STEPHANIE PANGOWISH: Singer, dancer, community worker
  • GILES BENAWAY: 2-Spirited, community worker, poet
  • LEE MARACLE: Elder, Teacher, Author
  • JESSE THISTLE: Graduate student, speaker, writer
  • WENZDAE BREWSTER: Youth, photographer, Jingle Dress* dancer

Music on video: Smoke Trail Singers, Music throughout exhibit: Stephanie Pangowish

*the Jingle Dress dance is a healing dance and is presented in this context, for the missing and murdered women and girls, whom we miss and honour

This is a projection of some of the names of the known missing and murdered Indigenous women collected through community sources. Sadly, this list is growing and evolving and therefore, should not be considered as a complete or comprehensive document. At last official count, the RCMP’s list totaled 1200 individuals.

A new name will be added to the list every 30 seconds from sundown to sun-up. By the end of the event, we will just be reaching the end of the known names.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Diaspora Dialogues Road Show
October-November, 2015
Various Locations

A series of cabaret-style events featuring an interdisciplinary mix of artists will tour the GTA, creating connections between artists and audiences from the 905, north Toronto, and downtown Toronto communities.

Venues and local partners: Markham (Varley Art Gallery & Markham Library), Mississauga (Mississauga Art Gallery), Brampton (Sheridan College), and Black Creek (Yorkgate Mall).

Stay up to date on dates and times by following us @ddialogues OR signing up for our newsletter!

Nuit Blanche 2014

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Scotiabank Nuit Blanche is happening next weekend: Saturday, October 4 from 7 pm to the early hours of Sunday, October 5. Once again, we are excited to be a part of this fun night of contemporary art exploration.

Please join us for our installation Goodnight Storytime where we invite audiences to relive their childhood bedtime story experiences—or create new ones in adulthood—by relaxing on floor mats in a soothing atmosphere while having stories read to them hourly by Toronto’s writers and performers.

Among the readers/performers are: Rebecca Applebaum and Ananad Rajaram, David Celia, Marjorie Chan, Karen Connelly, Cherie Dimaline, Marcia Johnson, Alvis Parsley, Deepa Shankaran, Andrea Thompson, and more!

When: October 4-5; 7 pm–7 am
Where: Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street @ Queen West

Lexicon Resurrected

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Earlier this fall, we participated in the highly successful Scotiabank Nuit Blanche premiering our installation Lexicon. Thousands of Torontonians dropped by and wrote poems based on a twenty-word lexicon taken from TOK: Writing the New Toronto. Audiences were engaged and had fun with our interactive installation, where people stepped into the spotlight and shared their personal works.

Building on this momentum, we will be bringing this project to a community near you!

Lexicon is a community cabaret, where we are inviting patrons to use the same twenty words that gave rise to the poems created at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche to co-produce—alongside spoken word artist Andrea Thompson, musician David Celia and actors Beryl Bain and Ash Knight—a one-of-a-kind multi-media presentation about how language informs our sense of community.

Hosted by Rhoma Spencer.

When: Wednesday, November 20; doors open at 6:15 pm
Where: Daniels Spectrum, Artscape Lounge, 585 Dundas St. E.
Cost: Free!

When: Thursday, November 28; doors open at 6:30 pm
Where: S. Walter Stewart Library, Auditorium, 170 Memorial Park Ave.
Cost: Free!

When: Thursday, December 5; doors open at 7 pm
Where: Assembly Hall, 1 Colonel Samuel Smith Park Dr.
Cost: Free!

Actors at the events appear with the permission of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association.

It’s a Wrap—Lexicon, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche

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On Saturday, October 5th from sunset to sunrise, we celebrated contemporary art at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. And, boy, was it an exhilarating night with thousands of Torontonians roaming the streets to revel in artistic expression.

We opened the doors at the majestic Metropolitan United Church located in the heart of Toronto by Queen St. E. and Church St. Our installation, Lexicon, invited audience members to share short poems about the city using words taken directly from our anthology series TOK: Writing the New Toronto. We saw over 15,000 people come through and share what they love, hate, feel about this diverse metropolis.

Throughout the night, participants were surprised by performances that include spoken word, theatre and music, where performers interacted with the audience who were invited to share the stage. We were delighted by the brave guests who stepped up to the open-mic and read their own poems or others’ poems whom they felt inspired by.

All in all, it was a fantastic and successful night where Torontonians let us into their creative side and opened up collectively speaking in one poetic voice reflecting the mosaic culture this great city has to offer.

Early morning when everyone has finally cleared out, and the church is once again peaceful.

Lexicon

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Are you ready for a full night of contemporary art from sunset to sunrise? DD’s pleased to announce that we will be participating in this year’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. Our installation Lexicon invites audiences to create a special vocabulary that evokes the city that we live in through poetry using a specially selected list of words taken from our anthology series TOK.

Participants will get a chance to contribute their work, read others’ works, as well as see it all come to life throughout the night as artists perform original pieces that include improv, spoken word and music.

When: October 5-6; 7 pm–7 am
Where: Metropolitan United Church, 56 Queen Street East
Cost: Free!

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