Expanding the possibilities
of performance

2022 Festival

SummerWorksTO is on now! From Aug 4–14, explore theatre, dance, music, digital & interdisciplinary art in 13 Toronto neighbourhoods. Experience 30+ projects & events created by 150+ artists, both in-person and online.

View programming & reserve your tickets today.

Full List of 2022 Programming

What's New

Thu Aug 11, 2022

What’s On: Thursday, Aug 11

Today, we move over to the west end of T.O…. so Corktown, Regent Park, Sherbourne and Toronto Island, take note! …

Wed Aug 10, 2022

What’s On: Wednesday, Aug 10

It’s humpday and SummerWorks has an exciting variety of programming for you to experience. Several options are now available to …

Tue Aug 9, 2022

What’s On: Tuesday, Aug 9

Attention Kensington, Spadina, Fort York and Waterfront neighbours! SummerWorks has moved eastward. Be sure to check out summerworks.ca/programming and join …

About

Who We Are

SummerWorks is a leader, collaborator and community builder at the forefront of contemporary performance.

What We Do

Our year-round activities and summer Festival offer four distinct streams of programming: Presentations, Lab, Exchange, and Public Works.

Get Involved

A group of artists and volunteers looking up and waving at the camera

There are a number of ways to get more involved with SummerWorks.

Opportunities to work, create, and volunteer with our Festival and year-round programming.

Learn More

Donate

Help us continue to expand possibilities by supporting SummerWorks today!

Join us now in making impact for tomorrow.

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INSTAGRAM

You’re invited to help @mia.and.eric and @action

You’re invited to help @mia.and.eric and @actionherolive with re-constructing Toronto’s new Future Perfect by-laws! Visit futureperfectbylaws.com to submit your own new rule, using cut-up words from the original text. You can also visit @thebentway Studio (55 Fort York Blvd) to see the artists at work during their Office Hours — join in the rewriting process!

OFFICE HOURS:
August 11-13, 12pm-7pm
August 14, 12pm – 4pm

“Future Perfect: New By-laws for Civic Spaces” is a hopeful, positive act of re-configuration. By-laws that regulate behaviours in civic spaces – in this case, Toronto’s Parks by-laws – are cut up word-by-word and meticulously rearranged into a new set of rules for a transitioning world.

From this new poetic script, selected phrases are enlarged and re-inserted back into the architecture of the cityscape on billboards, acting as playful instructions, permissions or manifestos; a collection of imagined alternative behaviours unfolding throughout the city. As the signs appear across the city from the words of Toronto’s existing by-laws, an accidental poetry emerges that invites the reader to imagine new ways to move through civic space; re-constructing and re-engineering possible futures.

Co-presented with The Bentway, in association with The Theatre Centre, as part of #ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021-2022. @culture_to

Learn more and view the location map at: summerworks.ca or via the link in bio

Photos by @aswilliamson.

There’s just 4 more days to experience #SummerWo

There’s just 4 more days to experience #SummerWorksTO 2022!

Here’s a little taste of this year’s fest from Opening Night, courtesy of @aswilliamson.

There is still a wide variety of programming to experience, both in-person and online.

Visit summerworks.ca and join us this weekend.

Get out and experience #SummerWorksTO performances

Get out and experience #SummerWorksTO performances, gatherings, tours, installations, digital + hybrid forms of art, before it’s too late!

As we near the weekend, several new programs start up today, that can be experienced both in-person and online!

There are only four days of the Festival left, so visit summerworks.ca/programming and make your picks!

For a full list of all projects and events running today, visit: summerworks.ca/2022/08/11/

Photo credits:

#2
Transfers by Lucy Rose Cohen Sherbourne Bus

#3
New Societies by Re:Current Theatre Aida Slaight Hall

#4
PARTYPEOPLE by Jord & Liz Outdoors – Corktown

#5
half n half by Piece of Mine Aida Slaight Hall

This year, our Artists at Work initiative (curated

This year, our Artists at Work initiative (curated by @suedetat) offers a digital glimpse into the process and practice of artists working outside of the Canadian performance ecology. Experience global practices of creation, collaboration and new work development via SummerWorks’ digital channels.

Today we are featuring “Lahua: The Lola At Sea (The Grandmother at Sea) (2022),” a web application and Twitter bot by Angeline Meitzleron (USA) on the @summerworksTO twitter feed from 8am until midnight. Follow along via the #Lahua_TheLolaAtSea and #SWArtistsAtWork hashtags.

In pre-colonial Philippines, the crocodile was a symbol for benevolent and malevolent power. They were believed to be living ancestors, grandfather spirits venerated as community guardians and securers of good harvests. Alongside this role, it was believed that the crocodile had the power to bring death and destruction, the embodiment of a nature-god (diwata) capable of triggering natural forces and attacking individuals who committed social injustices.

This web application artwork invokes the Filipino nature-god Lahua, a large crocodile that could inhabit the earth and caused the frequent earthquakes that occurred in the Philippines during this period. Accordingly, earthquakes became mythologized as a revolutionary symbol, a sudden release of energy that could disrupt the tide, bringing an end to oppressions and an opportunity to mobilize.

Maintaining a live record of the exchange rate between the Filipino peso and the US dollar, which flickers above the water, Meitzler’s web program sees Lahua materialize at times when the rate is at its lowest. The spirit of the ancestor, the grandfather guardian summoning economic justice and challenging the intricacies of colonial depth that continue to impact the Philippines.

Acting as a Toronto community member on August 11th, Lahua will call attention to local Filipino businesses via a Twitter bot announcing prosperous omens and reporting exchange rates. Messages in Tagalog and English can be followed on twitter at @SummerWorksTO.

Curated and produced by Pita Arreola-Burns & Elliott Burns of Off Site Project

Learn more at: summerworks.ca

"Transfers" A love letter to Toronto experienced

"Transfers"

A love letter to Toronto experienced on the 75 Sherboune bus.

Transfers is a love-letter to Toronto, in the form of a curated audio experience of verbatim stories gathered from TTC operators across the city.

Hop on the 75 Sherbourne bus at Sherbourne and Bloor as part of the SummerWorks Lab to reflect on your sense of belonging to this city and its communities. This audio experience prompts a reflection on how easily we create ingroups and outgroups, and how flexible or rigid our parameters can be about who does and does not belong.

AUGUST 11, 4:00 PM

AUGUST 12, 7:30 PM

AUGUST 13, 12:00 PM

Book now at the link in bio!

#sherborne #ttc #yyz #SummerWorksTO

From August 11-13, experience “Ghosts Don’t Ne

From August 11-13, experience “Ghosts Don’t Need Passports” @danielsspectrum.

This @Teardrop.Collective #SummerWorksTO Lab immerses you in the world of a Sri Lankan Tamil family living in Scarborough in 2010.

Ghosts Don’t Need Passports is a video installation that is created for both hearing & Deaf audiences, taking a deep dive into visual storytelling through the world of a Sri Lankan Tamil family living in Scarborough in 2010.

This project may be experienced in multiple ways- through a ticketed performance as well as a FREE installation.

FREE INSTALLATION:
Aug 11: 4pm – 6pm
Aug 12: 4pm – 4:45pm
Aug 13: 12pm – 1:15pm & 2:30pm – 3:30pm

TICKETED PERFORMANCES:
Aug 12: 5pm
Aug 13: 1:30pm

Leopards & Peacocks is a comedic play that depicts the struggles and antics of a Sri Lankan Tamil family living in Scarborough 2010 as they recover from the 30 year uncivil war in Sri Lanka. The play is woven through with rich visual threads such as drawings from the Deaf teenager Lakshan, dreams and memories of young queer Sharika and her mother Meenakshi who works at Tim Hortons. This project makes tangible the visions of the supernatural Aunties Chorus who perform in verse, and the sharp critiques of the gender fluid narrator Diaspora.

ASL Interpretation is available for all dates, a designated area for quiet space.

Learn more and reserve tickets at: summerworks.ca or via the link in bio