After a decade of bringing big-name global art, theatre and music stars such as Joni Mitchell and Robert Wilson to Toronto, Luminato is shifting its focus to local artists.
The multidisciplinary arts festival, which programs theatre, dance, music, cinema and visual arts, has unveiled this year’s lineup, the first to be curated by newly installed artistic director Josephine Ridge.
After taking over and centralizing events in decommissioned power plant the Hearn Generating Station for its 10th anniversary last year, Luminato is returning downtown with a central pavilion and free opening celebration in David Pecaut Square.
“Luminato is about a city and responds to the city. It’s not just situated here, but is really of the city,” says Ridge, an Australian arts veteran who replaced outgoing artistic director Jorn Weisbrodt in July. “The Toronto of today is not the same city as it was 10 years ago when Luminato was founded. It’s an ongoing story. The more time that I have here, and the more mature the festival becomes, the deeper and more interesting that story becomes.”
The festival, which runs June 14 to 25, is similar to international art events such as the Adelaide Festival and the Manchester International Festival, but in Toronto the concept has been hard to grasp. In the past, Luminato was about bringing the biggest and best across a variety of artistic disciplines to Toronto. The lineup reliably included big spectacles such as David Byrne’s Contemporary Color and prestige names like Matthew Barney, Terrence Koh, Marina Abramovic, Robert Lepage, k.d. lang, Ai Weiwei and Laurie Anderson.
Last year, when NOW asked Weisbrodt if the festival had an identity crisis, he responded that Luminato’s mission was to showcase “adventurous art and ideas in adventurous places.”
“When you do a piece at the Sony Centre or at Massey Hall, you can’t say that’s an adventurous place, because those are places where something happens all the time,” he told NOW last year.
That ethos appears short-lived, as Sony Centre is back in the mix this year, hosting hip-hop dance convention Breakin.
But is the biggest and best still Luminato’s thing?
“It’s not about scale,” responds Ridge. “I certainly think the international companies coming in 2017 are some of the most accomplished, influential and interesting. But it’s not always a game of scale, it’s more about quality, relevance and interest.”
Although Luminato’s organizers will work with international partners to co-commission and book international work, the festival will be more Canadian-centric going forward.
However, Weisbrodt relied on local arts organizations and promoters to activate the Hearn and Ridge will continue building local partnerships.
In 2017, the festival is teaming up with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Dancemakers, The Theatre Centre, the Drake Hotel, the National Arts Centre and National Arts Centre Orchestra, Neworld Theatre and Sony Centre, among others.
The lineup is heavy on theatre and dance performances and features a mix of Canadian and international work.
Luminato kicks off on June 14 with Tributaries, a large-scale contemporary Indigenous music and dance performance in David Pecaut Square that is being curated and produced by Denise Bolduc and Erika Iserhoff of Native Women in the Arts.
More details around the show will be announced, but the event will pay tribute to the “immeasurable power, passion, beauty, and resilience of Indigenous women, while honoring the importance of land and water,” according to the festival.
Luminato artistic director Josephine Ridge
The Belgian 1920s-era pavilion The Famous Spiegeltent will set-up in David Pecaut Square and host upwards of two-to-three performances a day throughout the festival.
The cabaret and music salon has traveled the world and is a fixture at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Its full lineup has yet to be announced, but so far the program includes Notes Of A Native Song, a James Baldwin-inspired rock n’ roll-meets-spoken word show Montreal pianist Jean-Michel Blais composer and tenor Jeremy Dutcher singer/songwriter Veda Hille Toronto electronic duo LAL African-born Irish hip-hop duo Rusangano Family and spoken word artist, musician and Theatre Centre resident Ian Kamau.
Other events include Luminato commission King Arthur’s Night, a musical theatre show featuring a cast of artists living with Down Syndrome, from Niall McNeil and New World Theatre the world premiere of Signal Theatre’s Bearing, a dance opera about Canada’s residential school system by choreographer Michael Greyeyes, playwright/director Yevette Nolan and librettist Spy Denomme-Welch and En Avant, Marche!, a show from Belgium choreographer Alain Platel of Les Ballets C de la B that combines theatre, dance and concert.
Notably absent is the popular electronic music festival Unsound, which took place in the Hearn during Luminato for the past two years. The festival is talks with the event’s Polish organizers and hopes to bring it back in the future in a new format. “It is a project we’re working to bring back to Toronto in a new way and we’ll share more details as soon as we’re able,” says Ridge.
The 27,000-square foot Hearn is also absent the list of venues, partly because the cost to stage events there is prohibitive and Luminato is operating with a smaller budget than last year’s $11 million. (The 2016 Hearn takeover cost $2.5 million.)
“To fully engage with the city, we need to be in the city and we need to have visibility,” says Ridge. “That requires us to be embedded in the venues in the city, both open spaces and indoor spaces.”
In 2016, free events at Hearn and Union Station attracted 48,519 people and there were 37, 234 ticket buyers. The year prior, 56,546 people took in free programming in venues across the city and ticket buyers hit 24,363.
Visual art is not well-represented in the lineup, which Ridge admits is due to the quick turnaround she had to put the program together after starting full-time in July. But she promises that will change in future years.
“There are certain areas that are not well-represented in this year’s program as I’d like them to be in the future,” she explains. “There are a number of interesting projects in discussion with potential partners around the city for 2018 and beyond.”
kevinr@nowtoronto.com | @kevinritchie
