You’re Invited: Toronto Events Aug.22-26; Road Closures + Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Oct.5, 2013

Here are some great events happening in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

  • Most events are FREE.

This video presents “Scotiabank BuskerFest 2013 – Moving to Yonge!”

  • “Here is some video captured at last year’s festival – just wait to see what we have in store for you this year! ON YONGE STREET!!!“

BuskerFest

Scotiabank BuskerFest Opening Ceremonies

Admission is by Voluntary Donation to Epilepsy Toronto

August 22, 2013: 12 noon to 1PM in Yonge-Dundas Square

Incredible Acrobats, Break Dancers, Escape Artists and Internationally Renowned Acts!

INCLUDING RECREATION OF HARRY HOUDINI ICONIC STUNT!

  • In celebration of the 14th annual Scotiabank BuskerFest.
  • Scotiabank BuskerFest is the largest and most vibrant street performer festival in North America, attracting local and international talent.
    • Toronto’s own Fire Guy will host the ceremony.
    • Daryl Yeo, President, Epilepsy Toronto Board of Directors.
    • John Doig, Scotiabank Senior Vice President, Toronto Region.
  • A recreation of an iconic Harry Houdini stunt by Guinness World Record holder and British escape artist Rob Roy Collins will cap the ceremonies!
    • Collins will attempt an upside down escape from a strait jacket while hanging from his ankles 100 feet in the air!
    • Tied up in a strait jacket, he will be hoisted up by his ankles on the North West corner of Yonge and Dundas St., where he will attempt to escape and be lowered to ground as quickly as possible to avoid too much blood flowing to his head and passing out.
  • A selection of MORE TOP BUSKERS at the festival performance as well including:

    • Quebec City’s Catwall Acrobats defy the laws of physics as they teeter on a teeterboard that propels them 9 metres in the air!
    • Sauruses, from Holland’s Close Act Theatre, are beautiful, larger-than-life dinosaurs, who are absolutely thrilling!
    • Charlie Caper, astonishing magician, won Sweden’s Got Talent as well as a silver medal at the 2009 World Championship of Magic.
    • Lisa Lottie, a world-class hoola hoopist from the Netherlands.
    • Silver Elvis, The Giant Seagulls, Krazy Kand other performers will be on hand.

14th Annual Scotiabank BuskerFest in Support of Epilepsy Toronto

Admission is by Voluntary Donation to Epilepsy Toronto

Thursday, August 22 – Sunday, August 25, 2013

Festival Preview with performances in Yonge-Dundas Square, Trinity Square Park and on Gould at Victoria St. on Aug 22, from Noon to 6pm.

Thursday, Aug 22: 6pm – 11pm,
Friday, Aug 23: Noon – 11pm,
Saturday, Aug 24: 11am – 11pm;
Sunday, Aug 25: 11am – 8pm

Throughout the Downtown Yonge Neighbourhood from Queen Street to College Street. (Full road closures in effect from Thursday at 6pm onwards.)

  • Scotiabank BuskerFest, in support of Epilepsy Toronto, runs August 22-25 at its new location this year throughout Toronto’s Downtown Yonge Neighbourhood and features over 100 international street performerssuch as acrobats, contortionists, musicians, magicians, fire jugglers, and aerialists!
  • BuskerFest raises much needed funds and awareness for Epilepsy Toronto through its pay-what-you-can admission.
    • An estimated 40,000 Torontonians living with epilepsy and their families benefit from the work of Epilepsy Toronto through services such as counseling, information and support.
  • Scotiabank BuskerFest is one of the premiere events of its kind world-wide and features the elite of street performers from around the globe.
    • It is also the largest epilepsy awareness-raising event in the world and this year’s festival is expected to surpass the estimated one million spectators it attracted last year.
  • For information, please visit: http://www.torontobuskerfest.com,
    • Twitter: buskerfestto hashtag: #SBBF

Celebration of Mural in Toronto’s Rainbow Tunnel

FREE

August 23

10 a.m. to 11 a.m. – remarks at 10 a.m.

Rainbow Tunnel, Moccasin Trail Park, 55 Greenbelt Dr.
(Directions: From Moccasin Trail Park, follow the trail at the south end of the parking lot. A sign designates the entrance for the East Don Trail, which leads to the rainbow tunnel.)

  • Toronto City Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34 Don Valley East) along with City staff, youth associated with Flemingdon Park Services, other community members and the organization Mural Routes will participate in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the rainbow tunnel mural.
    • The City of Toronto worked in partnership with Mural Routes to refurbish the painted rainbow, which has been visible for many years from the northbound side of the Don Valley Parkway, and to paint a mural inside the concrete tunnel.
  • The tunnel is part of the railway line on the east side of the Don Valley Parkway near Lawrence Avenue.

LEAF – Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests

Presents

Edible Tree Tour

$5.00 suggested donation

August 24, 2013

10:30a.m. – 12:00p.m.

Ben Nobleman Park
1075 Eglinton Ave West (Across from Eglinton West subway station)

Registration is Required

  • Tour Leaders are:
    • Amanda Gomm (LEAF),
    • Becky Thomas (Not Far From The Tree), and
    • Susan Poizner (Orchard People).
  • “Each year Toronto’s urban forest produces millions of pounds of healthy and delicious food.”
  • This tour includes the following highlights.
    • Learn about Not Far From The Tree’s fruit picking program.
    • Explore Canada’s first community orchard in the heart of the city.
    • Learn about Orchard People’s fruit tree workshops.
    • Uncover delicious treats hidden in plain view.
    • Find out what native and heritage species you can order through LEAF for your own backyard.
    • Discover the important role of our urban forest in keeping our city food secure!
  • Please click here for more info and registration.

13th Annual Toronto Chinatown Festival

FREE Admission

August 24 – August 25, 2013

Saturday: 12:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Sunday: 11:00 AM – 8:00 PM

Along Spadina Avenue and Huron St.

  • The boundaries of the Festival will extend from the east side of Spadina Ave (between College Street and Dundas Street West) and Huron Street (between D’Arcy Street and Dundas Street West).
  • Performances will be held on the Chevrolet Stage (Main Stage) on Spadina Avenue, north of Dundas Street West.
  • An OLG Slots Woodbine Entertainment Stage (Second Stage) will be on Huron Street, “providing double the entertainment and an opportunity to witness a truly wide range of musical talent.”
  • The streets of Spadina Avenue will be filled with international street foods.
    • There will be foods from the Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Greek, French, Caribbean, Malaysian cultures, and many more.
  • Also, there will be a dragon parading around the streets of Chinatown as well as lively lion dances during the Festival hours.
  • Please click here for more info.

Bio-K+ Bum Run Event

Sunday August 25, 2013 at 8AM

Starting at Queen’s Park Circle

  • Participants will launch the second annual Bio K+ Bum Run, a 5 Kilometre walk / run event to raise awareness of colorectal cancer.
  • It will be a highly visible event, starting at Queen’s Park Circle, and proceeding along  College Street, Spadina Avenue, Bloor Street and Bay Street.
  • This event is organized with the cooperation of the City of Toronto, local City Councillors, and the Sergeant of Arms of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
  • Please click here for more info.

Toronto Road Closures

BuskerFest – Thursday to Sunday closures: August 22 – 25

Chinatown Festival – Saturday and Sunday closures: August 24 -25

Bio-K+ Bum Run 5K Toronto – Sunday closures: August 25

  • A series of closures will be in effect in the area bounded by Bay Street in the east, College Street in the south, Spadina in the west and Bloor Street in the north on Sunday, August 25 from 7 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

A more complete list of events and road work is available at http://www.toronto.ca/torontostreets/.

City of Toronto Contact Info

Phone within Toronto city limits: 311.

Phone outside city limits: 416-392-CITY (2489)
(can be used within Toronto if you can’t reach 311).

TTY customers: 416-338-0TTY (0889)
Fax: 416-338-0685
E-mail: 311@toronto.ca

If your matter is urgent, please call them. They are open 24/7.

This video presents “Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2012 Highlight Reel.”

  • Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2012 took to the streets of Toronto from 7:03 pm to sunrise.
  • More than 500 artists transformed the city with 158 contemporary art installations in 2012.

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2013

FREE Admission

October 5 from 6:51 p.m. until sunrise.

Today, Toronto announces the full program of the eighth edition of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche in the News Release below.

  • This event will take place on Saturday, October 5 from 6:51 p.m. until sunrise.
  • This year’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche includes 112 art projects created by more than 500 local, national and international artists who will transform the streets of Toronto for a single night.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

NEWS RELEASE

August 21, 2013

City of Toronto announces full program for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2013

The City of Toronto today released the entire artistic program for the eighth edition of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, which will take place Saturday, October 5 from 6:51 p.m. until sunrise. This year’s lineup includes 112 art projects created by more than 500 local, national and international artists who will transform the streets of Toronto for a single night.

“With over a million people attending Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, and 20 per cent of them tourists, it’s a great event both culturally and economically for Toronto,” said Mayor Rob Ford. “An event of this scale puts Toronto on the map globally as a cultural tourism destination and strongly positions us as a creative hub internationally.”

“Scotiabank Nuit Blanche is a collaboration of the City of Toronto, the art communities, corporate sponsors and hundreds of volunteers who believe in the success of the event year after year,” said Councillor Gary Crawford (Ward 36 Scarborough Southwest). “By making contemporary art available to a mass audience, the city comes alive and we all benefit.”

“We believe embracing the arts pushes us to develop new perspectives and inspires us to pursue our passions. That’s why we’re proud that Scotiabank Nuit Blanche gives people the chance to discover art in their community,” said Jacqueline Ryan, Scotiabank’s Vice President of Sponsorship and Partnership Programs. “We’re also thrilled to present 1nspired Night, a new installation that allows the public to connect more deeply with Scotiabank Nuit Blanche this year.”

Again this year, the City is producing an exciting lineup of contemporary art projects.

City-produced exhibition projects
The City-produced component of the event will feature three curated exhibitions.

1. Off to a flying start
An exhibition curated by Ami Barak, an independent curator and lecturer at the Paris Sorbonne University, “Off to a flying start” celebrates the centenary of artist Marcel Duchamp’s first ready-made art installation. This exhibition at Toronto City Hall/Nathan Phillips Square brings the ready-made art found in galleries and museums back to the streets.

Highlights:
– Nathan Phillips Square will feature artist Ai Weiwei’s “Forever Bicycles” sculpture. This complex and abstract installation, consisting of 3,144 bicycles, is the largest edition of this work to date. This installation is the only version of the art work to be displayed in an open air, public space
– Melik Ohanian’s “El Agua de Niebla” installation increases the scale of the traditional hammock exponentially, creating a strange collective territory suspended above city streets
– Alain DeClercq’s “Crash Cars” performance piece takes two cars, representative of wealth and power, and sets them on a 12-hour trajectory without drivers.
– Faith LaRocque’s “Air of Paris” is a scent installation that invites visitors to take an olfactory journey to Paris in 1919.
– The basement of City Hall is home to a live freeform performance by shopping bags in the installation “Hysteria Coordinating” by Sherry Hay.
– “VSVSVS” will answer the audience’s question: Is this art? People will be invited to call “1-855-IS IT ART” for insights, answers and possibly more questions.

2. PARADE
Patrick Macaulay, head of Visual Arts at Harbourfront Centre, curates an exhibition called PARADE. The format is archetypal, the route is set, the floats are complete, but unlike a conventional parade, the audience becomes the procession. PARADE will be situated along University Avenue from Queen Street West extending north to Charles Street West.

Highlights:
– John Dickson’s kinetic sound sculpture “Music Box” is an absurd mechanical contraption that creates frenetic musical noise in joyful response to the carnival-like atmosphere of the event.
– Idea Tank Design Collective’s light installation “Parallax” uses light to articulate movement creating an optical illusion for the audience to experience.
– “Rumbling Drumlins” by AGATHOM Co. is an installation that poses questions about the haphazard nature of the built environment.
– “A Quack Cure” by Lisa Hirmer as DodoLab is a performance piece bringing to life a troupe of otherwise-extinct creatures for a night of revelry.
– In Margaux Williamson’s “How to See in the Dark,” experience why the darkness is so important and why it needs to be saved.

3. Romancing the Anthropocene
Curated by Ivan Jurakic, Director/Curator at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo, and Crystal Mowry, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, present Romancing the Anthropocene. This exhibition, on King Street from Yonge Street to John Street, acknowledges the triumph of science and human achievement but also suggests a cautionary message about the destruction of natural habitat.

Highlights
– “The Anthropocene” by Caledonia Dance Curry, also known as Swoon, is street art in the form of life-sized, cut-paper portraits inspired by both the physical space and the surrounding community.
– Charles Stankievech’s “The Soniferous Æther of the Land Beyond the Land Beyond” is a 35-mm film that was shot in the northernmost settlement on earth. It looks at remote outpost architecture, military infrastructure and the embedded landscape.
– Brendan Fernandes’ “Night Shift” is a durational performance inspired by Le Ballet de la Nuit, a 12-hour court ballet where Louis XIV performed the title role of the Sun King. The work has been re-contextualized into a contemporary dance performance.
– Kelly Richardson’s “Mariner 9” presents a life-size, panoramic view of a Martian landscape set hundreds of years in the future, littered with the rusting remains from various missions to the planet.
– “Tanks” by Cal Lane juxtaposes industrial materials with domestic elements in sculpture by combining opposing extremes of lace and steel recycled into heraldic emblems of a lost industrial age.

Extended projects in 2013
This year, a number of artist projects will be extended for one week. If you want to see some of this year’s projects in a different light, visit them until October 14. Artists whose work will be extended include Ai Weiwei, Boris Achour, Cal Lane, Janet Biggs, Pascale Marthine Tayou and Tadashi Kawamata. A complete list of times and locations is available on the website.

Nuit Talks
A series of free themed talks are scheduled to run October 3, 4 and 5. The talks allow for frank discussion, and a behind-the-scenes look at the artists and their work.
Nuit Talks themes include: a celebration of the ready-made, the use of science, technology, the role of history and past experience in contemporary art. The event curators will share the artistic narratives of their exhibitions and this year a special presentation will take place in partnership with the AGO’s First Thursdays. A full list of events, speakers, locations, ticket information and times will be available at www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/2013-event/nuit-talks.html.

1nspired Night: a new project activation by Scotiabank
1nspired Night is an art installation that captures the videos and photos of festival goers at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche and projects these images onto a 50 foot canopy of screens. It is an immersive, mesmerizing experience that allows the public to walk through a moment in time seeing images shared from installations and exhibits throughout the city.

Community-produced Independent Projects
The community-produced portion of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2013 will feature 67 projects created by cultural and educational institutions, neighbourhoods and individual artists. The projects expand the boundaries of the event and showcase the diversity of Toronto’s art community.

The BATA Shoe Museum, the Gardiner Museum and the AGO along with 401 Richmond , the Gladstone Hotel, TIFF Bell Lightbox, Artscape at Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park and Wychwood Barns and many more organizations are hosting important projects in their unique venues. Entire neighbourhoods including St Clair West, Queen West and the Distillery District will feature multiple installations by local artists.

Travel packages
Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2013 partners include the Fairmont Royal York, the official host hotel, and VIA Rail Canada, the official travel partner.

Book a two-night stay with any Scotiabank Nuit Blanche hotel partner and receive an exclusive invitation to be among the first to experience “Off to a flying start” at a special preview event called Behind the Nuit on Friday, October 4. This offer includes an opportunity to meet with the curators and preview Ai Weiwei’s “Forever Bicycles” before anyone else. Additionally, receive a special offer from the Art Gallery of Ontario for those attending Ai Weiwei: According to What? Exhibition details are available at http://www.ago.net/aiweiwei.

Whether the audience is planning a weekend getaway or looking for a spot to recharge after a long night, 15 hotel partners offer rates and packages for any budget.

Complete information on all travel packages can be found at http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/travel-packages.

About Scotiabank Nuit Blanche
Full details are now available at http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca. Look for updates on Facebook at facebook.com/sbnuitblancheTO, follow us on Twitter at @sbnuitblancheTO, #snbTO, search and share photos on Instagram #snbTO.

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche is Toronto’s annual all-night celebration of contemporary art, produced by the City of Toronto in collaboration with Toronto’s arts community. Since 2006, the event has featured more than 850 official art installations, created by nearly 3,500 artists and has generated more than $138 million in economic impact for Toronto.

About Scotiabank
Scotiabank is committed to supporting the communities in which we live and work, both in Canada and abroad, through our global philanthropic program, Scotiabank Bright Future. Recognized as a leader internationally and among Canadian corporations for our charitable donations and philanthropic activities, Scotiabank has provided on average approximately $47 million annually to community causes around the world over each of the last five years. Visit us at http://www.scotiabank.com.

Toronto is Canada’s largest city and sixth largest government, and home to a diverse population of about 2.8 million people. Toronto’s government is dedicated to delivering customer service excellence, creating a transparent and accountable government, reducing the size and cost of government and building a transportation city. For information on non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can dial 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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