A Survival Guide to the City is a neighbourhood intervention and integration project created in collaboration with youth from Sojourn House, home to young people who are seeking protection in Canada, many of whom have arrived alone without family or social supports. Over the course of six months, Sojourn’s youth, Mammalian, the Young Mammals and friends toured GTA neighbourhoods together to get to know the lay of the land, the inhabitants, cuisine, and cultural institutions, documenting our experiences along the way.
The project creatively concludes in an exhibition reception at YYZ Artist’s Outlet on July 26, 2018 from 6-8pm; on until July 29th.
Mammalian reached out to arts organizations across the GTA, asking them to offer an experience to welcome the Sojourn youth to Toronto. So many responded generously, and we would like to thank: Aga Khan Museum, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Art Gallery of Ontario, Cedar Ridge Creative Centre, Jumblies, Mabelle Arts, Making Room, North York Arts, SKETCH Working Arts, Theatre Centre and The Power Plant. We’d also like to thank the Young Mammals and friends of Mammalian who joined us on this adventure.
This project would not have been possible without the support of the dedicated staff of Sojourn House, Stephen Conroy and Jinow Dualeh; as well as York University intern Olga Kolotylo and Ryerson University intern Mohit Rai; and the rest of the Mammalian team: Tina Fance, Annalise Prodor, Tijana Spasic, Eva Verity and Wendell Williams.
A Survival Guide to the City is funded by the Toronto Arts Council, with support from the Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Assistance program.
In 1949, Canadian sociology student Erving Goffman lived on Unst, the Northern most Island in Shetland, for one year. He told everyone on Unst he was there to study the economy. He wasn’t. He was there to study everyone on Unst. He used this research to write one of the most important sociology books ever, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
Seventy years latter, a cast of teenagers from Shetland applied his insights to create The World is a Wedding, The Presentation of Unst in Everyday Life, an immersive show about connection, coming together, and how we live with one another.
Teentalitarianism is a social-specific performance that invites an adult audience to enter a very different world, a world where the tables are turned, and the teens are in charge. Mammalian Diving Reflex will work with a group of local teenagers to create a series of performances, events and interventions that will take over the Festival, creating a teen-infused environment where the youth rule the roost.
Happy Eatium: Delicious Food, Cheap Food, Healthy Food; We’re on a Mission To Find It. Over the next 5 months, teens in four different Toronto neighbourhoods will assess the food they’re most drawn to in their area, looking at how cheap, convenient, tasty and healthy it is. We’ll explore our own food habits, talk to a nutritionist & other experts, make zines filled with data and recipes: our own, our families, those stolen from restaurants we like best. Then we’ll wrap it all up into four delicious presentations & MEALS, one in each area, that school you on how easy or hard it is to eat well on a small budget-as we all seek that Happy Eatium between what we should do and what we want to do, without making ourselves sick. No two neighbourhoods will be alike, so come down to: Malvern, Jane & Finch, Lawrence Heights and Parkdale to see what’s happening.
We Have four Restaurants of our own creation for you to choose from:
Dare Night Dare Night is a two hour participatory, performance party game.Dare Night seeks to breach the unspoken laws of public etiquette by challenging individuals to commit the unthinkable. Audience members are put to the test by executing a series of hilarious, exhilarating and shocking dares. Participation is not mandatory, but is strongly encouraged. In the spirit of friendly competition, nominees for the most memorable dares are elected throughout the show; at the end of the night, you get to decide who is crowned Dare King and Queen.
Dare Night dares are conjured up by a wide ranging cast of youth who design, produce and host Dare Night. Our show invites the public to shatter the shields of social awkwardness. Strangers are challenged to a series of playful and unexpected situations with the hopes of bringing them closer together. Our curated space transforms the foreign to familiar by exploring the power of risk and trust. More importantly, it encourages all of us to open up to each other, even if it’s only for one night.
The Hemsbach Protocol is a project about social integration and love during times of crises, with a team of artists working in collaboration with the Town of Hemsbach to assist in the settling of refugees. We will try anything legal to help these newcomers begin a life. Results are forthcoming.
The Hemsbach Protocol is being developed as part of Matchbox, the itinerant art and culture project initiated by the Culture Office of the Metropolitan Region of Rhine Neckar, with moral support from the Mayor’s Office of Hemsbach and the Rhein-Neckar Kreis. Currently, the project is operating out of Darren’s apartment/the production office, and the Luisenhof and See Hotels, two refugee holding facilities in the town of Hemsbach. In July 2016, we will make our first public report of our findings to date. We are gearing up towards a presentation in October at the Theater im Pflazbau, the state theatre of Ludwigshafen, at their Open World festival.
Watch this page as the project continues to grow.
The Hemsbach Protocol so far:
Research Phase: August to October 2015
In August 2015, Darren and Tenzin Chozin (a Toronto Young Mammal) spent a month living in Luisenhof, as the research phase for The Hemsbach Protocol. Jana Eiting and Marina Stefan were also there, though they were denied the pleasure of living at Luisenfhof.
Homecooked Hemsbach [Hausgemachtes Hemsbach]
As the kick-off for The Hemsbach Protocol, we organized a cooking contest with teams comprised of refugees and local Germans, who had to deal with a confusing array of unidentified international ingredients. The project was conceived by Rene Korbel, impeccably produced by Jana Eiting, with Konstantin Bock joining us to make things look pretty and co-host the evening with Jana and Darren.
In Conversation with Doug Saunders at the Goethe Institute, Toronto
Darren and Chozin were in conversation with Globe and Mail international correspondent Doug Saunders about The Hemsbach Protocol at the Goethe Institute in October 2016. Watch the video. Thanks to Jutta Brendemuhl for making it happen.
Every Friday the Hemsbach Protocol crew does something different. Anything. We’ve drank beer, ate chicken, discussed dating, walked in the Oedenwald in the rain, played games, stuck the names of famous people on our heads, gone to Mannheim to hear a lecture on the history of reggae, and painted our faces. Who knows what we’ll be doing next Freitag! All are welcome: Herrenweg 2, Hemsbach, Germany.
There is a thriving trade in cars and consumer goods to Africa. We want to understand this trade and see if we can start to create a small industry for Ebrahim, one of the refugees we’re working with. He can’t work now, but when he is able to, we intend to take what we’ve learned by sending this car to Gambia. This is a pilot project, and all funds raised on the connected Kickstarter page will go back into the project, to help us figure out how to facilitate a good transition into Germany for as many people as possible.
Conferences and Performances:
Darren O’Donnell and the Hemsbach Protocol at Brüten, May 6
Hemsbach Protocol at Citizens Stage Conference at the State Theatre Karlsruhe: Baden Theatre (Karlsruhe), May 28
First Insight into the Project: Kulttour (Mannheim), July 23 and 24
Expanded Performance: zeitraumexit (Mannheim), July 29
On Sunday October 16, the results of the past year will be presented at the Theater im Pfalzbau in Ludwigshafen as part of the Open World showcase.
Team:
Conceived by: Darren O’Donnell
Produced by: Eva Verity and Jenna Winter
Local coordination: Darren O’Donnell, Jana Eiting, Marie-Luise Hohenadel
Dramaturg Project Matchbox: Lea Gerschwitz
Starring 20 refugees based in Hemsbach, Germany, who have arrived from Gambia, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Macedonia, and Montenegro, amongst others.
Special thanks to the Mayor of Hemsbach, Mr. Pohl, and the Hohenadel family.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
Wisdoms is a Mammalian Diving Reflex project, podcast produced by Brainchild Podcasts. It features Parkdale youth and seniors living in a long-term care facility in Toronto’s west end. Wisdoms brings teens and older adults together to shoot the shit about love, life and run-ins with the law.
Conceived, Directed & Produced by: Eva Verity
Featuring: Aleksander, Autumn, Lia, Michael, Nancy, Rachel, Sarah, Tad, Vince, and Wanda
Project Coordinator & Youth Liaison: Annie Wong
Senior Liaison: Grace Espinoza
Podcast Content Director & Editor: Ellie Gordon-Moershel
Wisdoms was supported in part by the Government of Ontario & RECODE at Ryerson University
photo: Andreas Neumann
As the kick-off for The Hemsbach Protocol, we organized a cooking contest with teams comprised of refugees and local Germans, who had to deal with a confusing array of unidentified international ingredients.
Dates: September 20-25, 2015
Conceived by: Rene Korbel
Produced by: Jana Eiting
Co-Hosted by: Jana Eiting, Darren O’Donnell, Konstantin Bock
Environment design: Konstantin Bock
The Hemsbach Protocol is a project about social integration and love during times of crises. It is being developed in collaboration with the Metropolregion Rhein-Neckar.
photo: Stephan Glagla
“Be embraced, you millions” is the complete line of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”. Millions of questions form the starting point for this creative collision between teens whose families all migrated to the Ruhr region at different times, and current teen asylum seekers all fleeing from the world’s tremendous chaos. Mammalian and the teens will meet and work together this summer in locations across the Ruhr to create Millionen! Millionen! Millionen!: one massive, open-ended blind date dedicated, at very least, to answering the question: who are Schiller’s “millions” and how can we ensure a loving embrace?
Grow-Op presents Mammalian Diving Reflex’s Textures of Toronto, a survey of the city that will investigate the various textures of nine Toronto neighbourhoods. With the guidance of local residents, we will collect samples of local ephemera, plant life, debris, cockroaches and other materials specific to the neighbourhood. The survey will cumulate into an installation of over 100 jars representing the different urban systems of the city as part of the Gladstone Hotel’s Grow OP Exhibition.
Conceived and created by Sanjay Ratnan
Coordinated by Alana Wortsman
The Program: Mammalian Diving Reflex and The Theatre Centre are pumped to present ‘Teens Talk Theatre’, an ongoing residency featuring a jury of 14 youth who assess the best, the worst, and most okayish shows presented at The Theatre Centre. After viewing more than 20 shows from February – July 2015, the jury will publicly convene to bring you a live award-talk-show where directors, actors, and playwrights will fight to the death for a hand-made vintage macaroni trophy and the ultimate “Favourite Teen Show” title.
The Intervention: Teens Talk Theatre is an intervention into the structure of The Theatre Centre and the neighbourhood’s local arts community at large. Carrying out the Mammalian mandate, our long-term goal is to bridge the gap between the GTA and downtown core, by creating opportunities for young people to participate as artists, producers and agents in Toronto’s vibrant cultural industry. The artist and companies here at the Theatre Centre are stoked to be a part of the intervention as co-conspirators and partners. Not only are we opening the doors of The Theatre Centre to young people, but also the lives and practice of everyone who comes through the building
Members of the Jury: Sanjay Ratnan, Virginia Antonipillai, Nerupa Somasale, Kiam Liam-Bellissimo, Akeeshan Jeeva, Claudia Howard, Shada Mahdi, Shirwa Ali, Fadumo Henke, Lasahsa Nesbeth, Ria Rashi, Kajian Pulenthirasingam, Nanthiya Nanthakumar, and Thipashani Balakrishnan.
Awards Ceremony: Tuesday, July 14th, 2015 @ 7pm
This project has been made possible in part by grants from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Metcalf Foundation and the Toronto Arts Council.
drawings: Eva Verity
We’re in residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario this winter, December – February 2015. For our residency we’re taking our new research wing, Methods for Mammals, out for a spin and running The AGO Youth Receptiveness Assessment Initiative, an assessment of the gallery’s potential permeability to young people according the the principles we’ve develop in our Mammalian Succession Model for Youth Engagement. We’re going to be meeting and interviewing 40 staff members, canvassing and surveying the surrounding neighborhood for nearby youth, testing out some art projects, holding a panel about program evaluation, a workshop to share the basics of Qualitative Comparative Analysis and producing a report summing up our findings and offering recommendations. We’ll soon have more details about the public component of the residency, so stay tuned.
We’ll have an active office at the AGO as of December, so drop by then, or if you want more information, get in touch with us at anytime: darren@mammalian.ca
Performance Date: July 18th 2014
For more information, click HERE
MDR Coordinators: Darren O’Donnell, Virginia Antonipillai & Sanjay Ratnan
Contact eva@mammalian.ca
A Drift features a team of Mammalians including two Torontonians who will spend a week walking around Gloucester with some local youth from morning until night, meeting people in town and attempting to enter their lives in meaningful ways. The team will get to know the locals, take some photos and shoot some video with the ultimate goal: to convince a stranger to let the team babysit their child.
photo: Michael Barker
The Theatre Centre presents Promises to a Divided City. Toronto has been repeatedly described as a divided city, with a debilitating crisis of perception: viewed from the suburbs, the cappuccino-sipping downtown elites want their glittering art galleries, bike lanes, and organic toilet paper; viewed from the centre, the suburbs want their Big Macs, cars and bulk toilet paper. But is that all that’s going on here? Just a little clash of cultures? We don’t think so.
Promises to A Divided City is a data-driven performance examining socioeconomic dynamics in the city and in the body, and inviting audiences to participate in addressing the divided Toronto. With a cast of over 30 performers from across the GTA, the show blasts the audience through economic and biological realities and lands them into a cozy vision of what this city has to offer.
Tired of wasting time talking about Rob Ford? Let’s hang out together and try to fix this place.
When: Friday, May 30 @ 7:00, 7:40, 8:20, 9:00, 9:40PM and Saturday, May 31 @ 4:00, 4:40, 5:20, 6:00, 6:40, 7:20PM
Where: The Theatre Centre’s New Live Arts Hub & Incubator, 1115 Queen St. West, Toronto
Special instructions: All patrons will be asked to fill out a survey – online or in person. For in-person live surveying, please arrive 20 minutes before your selected show time.
Promises to a Divided City has been supported by Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto.
photo: Nicole Bazuin
High School Health is a video investigation of the love lives of accomplished Canadians including: Wayson Choy, Atom Egoyan, Bette Logan and Dan Hill, driven by members of Mammalian’s youth collective: Virginia Antonipillai, Sanjay Ratnan, Daniel Lastres Rodrigues, Kathy Vuu, and Wendell Williams. High School Health facilitates the youths’ knowledge acquisition, allowing their interests and curiosities to lead the way. Want to find out about Atom’s first kiss? Look no further.
A project of the Luminato Festival’s Education and Outreach program, produced in collaboration with Mammalian Diving Reflex.
Toronto is undergoing a crisis of perception: viewed from the suburbs, the cappuccino-sipping downtown elites want their glittering art galleries, bike lanes, and organic toilet paper; viewed from the centre, the suburbs want their Big Macs, cars and bulk toilet paper. Let’s set the record straight: Mammalian Diving Reflex and The Theatre Centre have gathered together 35 experts from across the city to draft a comprehensive holistic vision for the future of the city. Given the task of envisioning 24 hours in a perfect city, these experts have studied every single hour of the day and produced Ameliorating the Amalgamated: An examination of every single hour of the day toward healing a divided city, a performance and installation of the future.
Special thanks to Gallery 44 and the Toronto Arts Council.
photo: the Torontonians
The Torontonians, Mammalian’s teen collective, have commandeered room 201 at the Gladstone Hotel’s annual alternative design event, Come Up to My Room. Applying a manic, hyper-teen aesthetic, the Torontonians ask for a little privacy in this very public moment while they hide in their blanket forts, looking at who-the-hell-knows-what on Reddit, whispering gossip about you and your ugly shoes, and praying they won’t be killed in the avalanche of their piled belongings: dirty socks, bongs, manga, teddy bears, homework and more homework. Eff-you, salad, get out of my room!
The Torontonians are the official Teenagers in Residence at the Gladstone hotel, often seen taking over Mammalian Diving Reflex’s office on the second floor. Together we create performances, give lectures, make videos, dance on the street, take photos, draw penises, check cell phones, play cellos, draw bunnies, take the ttc, ride bikes and rap out about Rob Ford.
Performance dates: Thursday, January 23rd from 4-8pm; Friday January 24th from 11am-8pm, Saturday, January 25 from 11am-10pm and Sunday, January 26th from 11am-5pm
Where: Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. West, Toronto, Room 201
Cost: $8 entrance fee
photo: Maurice Ju
This year, the members of the 2012 Ruhrtriennale‘s Children’s Choice Jury start off on an unusual adventure. With the title Small Talk in Daft Hell, rituals, rules, and roles will be up for examination. Who are you? Who are we? And how can we get rid of all our collected mistakes and lonely fears?
Test run: October 1st and 3rd at Pact Zollverein in Essen, Germany.
Core creative team: Jana Eiting, Judith Martin, Darren O’Donnell, Cathrin Rose,and Julia Wissert.
AWKS is an ALL AGES awkward party series wrapped hectically together by up-and-coming arty-scene teens, aka the Torontonians. It’s an opportunity to relive your glory middle school dance days and sneak a peek at talented youth all over the GTA… like ALL over. Let’s slap our paws together, break that weird force separating the boys and the girls, party like a mammal, but most importantly… let’s keep it AWKS.
AWKS #1, The Halloween edition: Saturday, October 26th 2013, 8pm-12am @ gallerywest (1172 Queen St. West)
AWKS #2, Getting Grizzly: Saturday, November 30th 2013, 8pm-12am, @ gallerywest (1172 Queen St. West)
AWKS #3, Awkward Pool Party: Saturday, Feb 1st 2014, doors @ 8pm gallerywest (1172 Queen St. West)
AKWS #4, Everybody’s Awkward Birthday Party: Saturday, March 1st 2014, doors @ 8pm, Ground Level Cafe, 1496 Queen St. West
AKWS #5, Farewell Winter Funeral: Saturday, March 29th 2014, doors @ 8pm, Ground Level Cafe, 1496 Queen St. West
AWKS #6, Spring Fling Picnic Party: Sunday, April 27th 2014, 2:00-6:00pm, The Great Hall, 1087 Queen St. West
AWKS #7, Awkward Glamour Party: Saturday, June 21st 2014, The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen St. West
AWKS #8, Camp Awks: Thursday June 3rd, 2014, Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. West
AWKS is a Young Mammals project, a division of Mammalian Diving Reflex dedicated to generating, facilitating, and fostering the creative capital of young people. AWKS is part of a year-long after-school arts production education program aimed where youth work with mentors to produce creative events for teens by teens in their neighbourhood.
The impetus of AWKS stems form our former year-long project, How to Hook Up, a series of short documentaries about youth artists and youth art organizations based in five Priority Neighbourhoods: Jane and Finch (Just BGraphic and Broadway from the Block), Lawrence Heights (Art Starts), Flemmingdon/O’Connor Park (Theatre for Peace), Malvern (AFCY), and Weston Mt Dennis (Urban Arts). Over the course of the project we made friends with many talented young dancers, singers, and rappers across the GTA and wanted to build on the connections in the future. AWKS was conceived of by Torontonians Chozin Tenzin and Ngawang Ludwig, both 17-years old, who came to us with the concept of a variety show/dance party as a way of building a youth audience and a citywide community of young artists.
AWKS has been made possible in part thanks to support from Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto; support provided by a grant from the Vital Toronto Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation; Hal Jackman Foundation; Trillium Foundation and Metcalf Foundation.
photo: Michael Barker
photo: Nick Kozak
Statistically speaking, Mammalian Diving Reflex informs and transforms the city into an infinitesimal data bank made up of people like you: a walking, breathing, beautiful hunk of a datum. We will count your family, we will count your money, we will count your fears, we will count your pets and the hairs on your knuckles even as they fly at our calculating faces. Information overload? When everything counts, everything must be counting. It’s Dada Data: counting to infinity.
FYI: A year in Toronto = 56 trips to the grocers, 25.2 hours in the shower, 36 hours of masturbation, 2920 hours of sleep.
TMI? No such thing.
Premiered by Mammalian Diving Reflex and the Theatre Centre for Toronto’s 2013 Nuit Blanche.
Throughout the Luminato Festival’s opening weekend, the city’s best chefs will be showcasing the diversity of Toronto through culinary and other collaborations with kids.
What’s happening to the city’s culinary talent? They’re turning the art of cooking on its generational head. For several weeks leading up to the Festival, over 20 local Toronto chefs will be working with six classes of grades 4-6 students, sharing details about their gastronomic adventures and the culinary delights they will be showcasing. But the chefs and their young apprentices will be sharing more than just great food. Central to the experience will be the Kids’ Table, a communal eating space where the kids will divulge their behind-the-scenes knowledge about the chefs and the food being presented. So come tickle your taste buds with the best T.O. has to offer and dine with our young experts for the inside scoop. Count on a cacophonous cornucopia of fun and flavours in which the entire family can indulge.
Under the creative direction of Mammalian Diving Reflex, in collaboration with Madeleine Collective and noted foodie Joshna Maharaj. A project of the Luminato Festival’s Education and Outreach program.
Performance dates: Saturday June 15 and Sunday June 16 from 12:00-7:00pm @ Distillery District
Free to attend. Every culinary delight, crafted to eat on the go, is priced at $5.
Participating Schools: Dovercourt Public School, Duke of Connaught Jr. and Sr. Public School, George Peck Public School, Lord Dufferin Jr. and Sr. Public School, Rose Avenue Junior Public School
The Toronto Strategy Meetings were weekly meetings that occurred Mondays at 9:00 am from September to December 2004, during Project Toronto, Toronto Free Gallery’s inaugural show, and they were open to anyone. The meetings consisted of report-backs to the group from each participant: a brief outline of the individual’s current projects, problems they were having, how they intended to solve them, and their plan for the week. They were specifically scheduled during the first hours of the workweek in order to attract people keen to get rolling and to motivate those whose tendency is to let things slide. Participation ranged from four to twelve people and included an environmental scientist, a painter, a sketch comedienne, an academic, a few visual and performance artists, a government bureaucrat, some musicians, a dancer, a few theatre artists and some activists.
Q&A was presented twice at Buddies in Bad Times in 2005 – as part of the Rhubarb! Festival in February and as a stand-alone event in June – and twice during Earth: an urban arts festival in Vancouver in June 2006.
A spin-off from The Talking Creature, Q&A begins as the audience enters the space and they write their names on pieces of paper that are dropped into a bucket. We draw the first name, bring the individual onstage and invite the rest of the audience to interview them. In Vancouver, each participant selected the subsequent participant by diligently and responsibly scanning the audience, and identifying who they considered to be the most interesting looking person. There are rules: the audience is allowed to ask any question they desire while the subject has no obligation to answer. The proceedings are aesthetically elevated by a live video feed that projects the subject’s image many times life size behind them, and in one instance the proceedings were accompanied by a DJ, improvising under the interviews.
Q&A proves that the banal minutiae of people’s lives can be as compelling as any carefully constructed performance. It is a theatre cliché that an animal onstage will always be more interesting than a human, no matter how brilliant the human’s performance. In the arena of artifice, the unrehearsed and accidental is often much more beautiful, astonishing and revealing. Getting someone onstage simply to be themselves has always been one of theatre’s most daunting aspirations; Q&A accomplishes this, as well as providing an opportunity for people to get to know each other.
The limits and challenges of open inquiry were tested at the Halloween Q&A, a collaboration with Upbag, a visual arts collective. As part of Hotel Canzine, we took over a room at the Gladstone Hotel and installed a miniature apocalyptic cityscape. We invited participants into the environment and a video projection situated the subject in the centre of the destruction. As always with Q&A, the same rules applied: anyone in the room could ask the subject anything they wanted, and all questions could be refused. Being Halloween, there was a desire to ask scary questions with full license granted to break every rule of propriety, with the expectation that evil, prying questions defying all social codes don’t actually hold much power, and any deep dark secret one might reveal while sitting amidst the devastated landscape would be denied the power to haunt you. Some people enjoyed it and some people were annoyed, but it generated intense discussion about the dual responsibilities of the artist when creating extreme performances, and the participants to take care of themselves.
With the support of the Arts in Education office of the Ontario Arts Council we took Q&A in the Classroom to Lakeshore Collegiate Institute and Malvern Collegiate Institute, two suburban high schools in the GTA. There, we wandered the halls and interviewed random students. With curiosity as our only motivation, the students had the opportunity to get to know each other outside of the rigid identity dynamics of high school life. Dances, sports, clubs and extracurricular activities offer the possibility of social interaction, but only as a contingent part of predetermined identities and social groups. Noncontextual socializing is rarely experienced, as the interaction of the multitude in the commons is no longer part of our collective experience. A girl who immigrated from India a few years ago brought this up, stating that she likes Canada, but misses neighborhood conviviality. She pointed out that in Canada, social engagement always occurs via consumer activities (movies, drinks, shopping) while in India, people tend to socialize by helping each other out. Even students who had been in the same school together for years reported learning new things about each other.
SmallTalks is a series of podcasts hosted by Darren O’Donnell, who, like a log drifting downstream, will snag people on the bank to slow his progress toward death, and chat with them about their aspirations. Created in response to a life with too much time spent on the road, Darren will be interviewing people around the world and describing the sensation of weak knees in the face of vast heights. All SmallTalks will be available here or you can follow Darren’s twitter feed for updates.
Performance dates: 2010 to 2011
Radio Rooster Says That’s Bad is a full-length solo performance by Darren O’Donnell that employs rhythm, rhyme, and repetition to explore millennial fever, paranoia, and psychosis.
Presented by: Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
Performance dates: January 1993 and November 1994
Who Shot Jacques Lacan? is a rhythmic, movement oriented investigation of the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
Written, directed and produced by Darren O’Donnell
Performed at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 1994
In honour of the hours spent reading under blankets with a flashlight in direct disobedience of our mothers, Accepting the Possibility That I May Ruin My Eyes: Reading in Darkness was a labyrinthine library in total darkness. The lone beam of a flashlight cutting through the haze was your only guide as you wound your way through the Maze of Knowledge. At the heart of the Maze: angels and rest.
Created by Librarians-in-residence Darren O’Donnell, Lillian Chan, Petrina Ng and Danielle Williams as part of The Toronto Free Library, curated by Maiko Tanaka and Sarah Todd at the The Toronto Free Gallery, 1277 Bloor West, Toronto.
The Talking Creature was Mammalian’s inaugural Social Acupuncture project, which took place five times in Summer 2003, in May 2004 at Latitude 53’s VisualEyez Performance Art Festival in Edmonton and in August 2004 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Talking Creature is an experiment in trying to isolate two core elements in the theatrical experience: talking and strangers.
It’s simple: a call for participants was made via email, in newsletters and, in the case of The Power Plant, an ad in Now Magazine. The text stated: “The Talking Creature is a participatory event examining the art of conversing with strangers in public. The Talking Creature examines this anxious dynamic in an ordered but random fashion, with the conviction that unfettered and fearless conversation between strangers is fundamental to freedom.” Once the participants gather at the predetermined time and place, everyone disperses and scours the surrounding neighborhood, approaching strangers and inviting them back to the meeting place for an unstructured, unagendaed conversation.
In the fall of 2004 we presented a variation on The Talking Creature to two classes at Parkdale Collegiate and the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Youth Council. In the high school setting we had to contextualize the event, and provide some pedagogy while balancing the desire to let the experience speak for itself. It was inappropriate to send the kids into the surrounding neighborhood and expect them to confront total strangers, so we adapted the project, utilizing a variation called The Walking Talking Creature where the students travel as a group, approach strangers and simply ask the stranger random questions about whatever the students are curious about. Parkdale, with its wide range of cultures, races and economic classes was a perfect area for the project. Instructor Marie Axler expressed surprise at how easy it was and how much people loved to be interviewed by a large group of teenagers. As well as having an impact on the consciousness of the students, the strangers approached seemed to view the event as interesting and some significant encounters occurred.
Beachballs41+all was a simple intervention that tried its best to pretend not to be an intervention. We procured a donation of 400 inflatable pool toys from Liz and Rennie’s No Frills for Alexandra Pool’s Wacky Fun Day. An email call was made to come to the pool early in the morning, to donate air and lungpower; about 20 people showed up, providing 400 toys for 100 kids.
The intention was to induce an encounter between two sets of people who normally have very little contact. The first group included artists, curators, editors, producers, programmers, funders, academics, and a United Church minister in training. The other group was the kids who frequent the pool: from the lower half of Wards 19 and 20 (Kensington Market, the Alexandra Park Housing Co-op and surrounding area), they comprise a variety of ethnicities with lower than average household incomes. Getting these groups together was motivated by a desire to create a brief alliance between the two populations; the intervention was not about reversing an existing power dynamic — though it did do that — but rather about introducing a new and different dynamic, if only for the duration of the day.
Another interest with Beachballs41+all was to introduce the sensation of abundance; thus the decision to offer the toys en masse to the kids, and not hand them out in an orderly fashion. With 400 toys available, everyone in attendance could take home as many as they wanted. For most of us, moments of abundant resources and time are rare; we are accustomed to “lack” as a coercive idea and an oppressive reality. In its excessiveness, the event bore the weight of metaphor, artistic intention and intervention – an intervention where the artist is barely noticed, and instead of being a creator is a conduit for already existing energies and resources. It doesn’t matter if the point is misunderstood by the participants, onlookers, or audience – the roles here being completely muddled – since the experience is being lived.
The Talking Creature invited audience/participants to gather at a predetermined spot, disperse, and approach strangers to invite them back for an unagendaed conversation about whatever. It was akin to a spontaneous cocktail party in the middle of a street, park or gallery, populated by people who don’t know each other. Home Tours extends this dynamic into the homes of strangers by inviting the “audience” to walk through a neighborhood, knock on doors and ask for a quick peek.
In August 2005, under the auspices of the SummerWorks Festival, 13 of us checked out the houses surrounding the Factory Theatre. We were welcomed into the homes of a young nightclub promoter who lives in a tiny two-bedroom house with his roommate; a marriage counselor working from home who didn’t want to disrupt his session, but whose wife agreeably hung out with us under a canopy of grape vines; a live/work architecture firm that was designing the new super jail for juveniles; and the live/work space of two graphic designers whose stunning home, complete with roof-top garden and a system to recycle rainwater, was recently featured in the Globe and Mail. In September 2005, 8 of us explored the Annex, finding reluctance and paranoia, but with persistence, we managed to tour through the digs of a couple of newlyweds, a grad student and a U of T English professor. We hung out in the professor’s back yard and spent some time getting to know each other – the group of participants as strange to each other as our various subjects. When we departed, he gave us full access to his herb garden, encouraging us to take home handfuls of pungent sage, oregano, rosemary and basil.
Home Tours once again demonstrates the generosity of the public sphere and creates compelling drama from seemingly banal encounters. It is simple but nerve-wracking work that demands spontaneity, humility and a comfort with discomfort. Failure – that is rejection – must be embraced, as it must be with all creative endeavors. Courting failure is a sign of a healthy process, and this theme is as important as that of social generosity and the viability of the banal as dramatic content.
Performance dates: August 2005
Free Skipping is an on-going event created in association with the Toronto School of Creativity and Inquiry for their Fall 2007 exhibition Potential Toronto at the The Toronto Free Gallery. Mammalian Diving Reflex is part of the Children’s Pod, a group of artists and activists who are interested in the place of children in the city. In a response to the lack of informal avenues to interact with children, the group is spending the summer exploring ways to achieve this outside of institutional forms. First up was Free Skipping, offered to children and adults alike in various locations around the city.
Explore the perils of success and the freedom of failure in Monster Makers, a charmingly inventive new participatory work for children and adults. The Sad Scientist just can’t get his monster to be monstrous. He needs help from the real experts: the kids.
Monster Makers was originally co-produced with Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, 2011, and developed in collaboration with Magnetic North Theatre Festival, 2010, with the help of Young People and the Arts Australia, 2010 and Young People’s Theatre, 2008. Made possible in part with funding from Harbourfront Centre’s Fresh Ground new works commissioning awards.
Haircuts by Children is a whimsical relational performance that playfully engages with the enfranchisement of children, with trust in the younger generation, and the thrills and chills of vanity. Haircuts By Children involves children between the ages of 8-12 are trained by professional hairstylists, and then paid to run a real hair salon, offering members of the public free haircuts. The project invites the consideration of young people as creative and competent individuals whose aesthetic choices can be trusted. While providing atypical entertainment for the public, Haircuts by Children also shifts the traditional power dynamic between children and adults, creating a safe social space where children and adults who live in the same community can meet and share a unique creative experience together. The idea that kids should be allowed to cut our hair evokes the same leap of faith, courage and understanding required to grant children deeper citizenship rights. For many it is actually less terrifying to contemplate allowing kids to vote.
While Haircuts by Children is a performance with kids, it’s actually for the benefit of who they will become; for the adults who have to deal with the consequences of eighteen years of political disenfranchisement. Haircuts by Children: a performance about the future.
“In the future, every child will be given a pair of scissors and invited to shape our destinies. In the future, every child will be granted full citizenship rights; encouraged to vote, run for office and drive streetcars. In the future, children will teach and adults will learn; a playground will be built on every battlefield; and candy will be free. In the future, children will be powerful creatures able to cross the street without looking both ways, and hold their breath underwater forever and ever and ever.”
Haircuts at the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT):
Haircuts at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival:
Haircuts at Performa:
Ballroom Dancing was an all-ages dance party held at Toronto’s 2006 Nuit Blanche, featuring students from Parkdale Public School and teacher Amanda Biber. The performance was deejayed by kids in a gymnasium filled with 2700+ rubber balls. Ballroom Dancing brought adults and children together to dance to tunes selected and controlled by the kids. A safe playtime was fostered in order to counter the prevailing view that the public sphere is a place of danger, atomization and awkwardness rather than safety, communication and stylin’ moves. Later in the evening, the safe playtime was usurped by the adults who insisted on a massive game of murderball where they managed to generate ten eye injuries, a number of broken glasses, a fat lip, a dislocated knee and a broken scaphoid – the most litigated bone in the body. The National Post called it “the unanimous favourite” of Nuit Blanche.
Kid deejays were trained by Rosina Kazi and Nicholas Murray. Lighting designed by Rebecca Picherack.
Performance date: 30 September 2006 (University Settlement House)
A later incarnation of Ballroom Dancing, Ballroonroom Dancing, took place at Harbourfront Centre for Canada Day 2007. It was dejayed by kids from Parkdale Public School in the Lakeside Terrace, which was filled with over 5000 balloons. Music was selected by kids from Parkdale Public School and deejay training was done by Rosina Kazi and Nicholas Murray.
Public Acts, Act 21, Childhood: The Floating Curator was a part of curator Christine Shaw’s Public Acts project, which saw Christine spending the summer traveling across the country and curating 29 artistic works. For the project, Darren O’Donnell designed a contract between himself, the artist, and Christine, the curator. To fulfill her end of the deal, Christine had to spend 1.5 hours per day for five days floating in the Alexandra Park outdoor pool in the shallow end, attempting to strike up friendships with the kids in the pool. In August 2006, you could find Christine (and often Darren) floating in the pool and chilling with the children. In this time of intense and understandable fear for the safety of children, The Floating Curator proves that it’s okay to talk to some strangers.
Slow Dance With Teacher was presented as part of curator Barbara Fischer’s Night School at Hart House, University of Toronto, and was sited by The Globe and Mail, View on Canadian Art, and The Varsity as some of the best of Toronto’s 2007 Nuit Blanche. 24 teachers from a variety of schools including the University of Toronto, Waterloo University, York University, Brock University, Ryerson University, University of Guelph and the Toronto District School Board, were available for a slow dance.
In the spectacularly lit Great Hall at Hart House, and teachers, warmed by a blazing fire and a few glasses of scotch, Slow Dance With Teacher let desiring viewers fulfill life-long fantasies. The students and teachers got intimate in the luminous atmosphere designed, by the brilliant Rebecca Picherack and Michelle Ramsay, swaying to the sound of slow tunes supplied by the glamorous DJ Murr.
Thanks to the teachers: Ms. Choi, Ms. Borsato, Dr. Alvarez, Dr. Houston, Mr. O’Fearth, Mr, Findlay, Mr, Ray, Mr. Andrews, Ms. Gallant, Ms. X, Ms. Brea-Collins, Mr. Regan, Ms. Saragosa, Ms. Wells, Ms. Vanstone, Ms. Payne, Ms. Cherian, Ms. Rose, Ms Smith, Ms. Kopyto, Dr. Morrell, Ms. Bride, Ms. Tang and Ms. Gajusingh.
Conceived and directed by: Darren O’Donnell
Produced by: Natalie De Vito
Performance date: 30 September 2010
Please Allow Us the Honour of Relaxing You occured during the Open Engagement conference, October 11-13, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. In collaboration with the First Nations University, Darren O’Donnell organized an opportunity for the participants of Open Engagement to massage the students and staff of the First Nations University. Please Allow Us the Honour of Relaxing You gently acknowledged that, in our society, stress and relaxation are unevenly distributed and attempted to redistribute some tranquility – if only momentarily.
Performance dates: 11 to 13 October 2007
A Suicide-Site Guide to the City is a strongly personal solo show which plays with autobiography to explore life as a performance – where despair, compassion, wit and sensuality are seen as reactions to evil, framed as abuses of the power imbalances inherent in differences in wealth, race, sex and age.
Written and performed by Darren O’Donnell
Produced by Naomi Campbell
Directed and dramaturged by Rebecca Picherack
Sound by Nick Murray
Lights by JP Robichaud
Set by Trevor Schwellnus
Performance dates: Originally co-produced by the PuSh International Performance Festival, presented at the Firehall Theatre in Vancouver, at The Belfrey by Victoria’s Intrepid Theatre, at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, Scotland and as part of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s mainstage season in March 2005. A Suicide-Site Guide to the City was published by Coach House Books in Darren O’Donnell’s Social Acupuncture in April 2006.
“Maybe it’s the whole reality show vibe or the fervour around documentaries, but I find it more fascinating to watch strangers talk about laundry soap than to see someone recite lines. It’s more compelling than going to a show where there’s a typical emotional arc.”
– NOW interview with Glen Sumi, pre-press for A Suicide-Site Guide to the City
“Darren is a strange fruit, his show is a (Molotov) cocktail – 1 part anarchy, 2 parts love, 1 part suicidal tendencies and a dash of talking street cars. It’s a beautiful performance both controversial and clever. Home video and soundscapes weave us into his kaleidoscopic world where he searches desperately for the link between himself today and his past self and for any beauty in an increasingly inhibited and suffocating world, ultimately looking for a reason to stay alive. He is searching for a heart of gold, I just hope he finds one to match his own.”
– Three Weeks in Edinburgh
pppeeeaaaccceee is a vast, imaginative, mesmerizing and hilarious glide through life after the revolution; a gently aggressive meditation which examines our being, asks us what we’re doing and reminds us that there are monsters in here.
Three souls, floating somewhere in the ether, talk quietly, and face the fact that the world is a place of overwhelming contradiction and terror. The ideas flow fluidly and we are lulled into a state of joyous confusion as we travel through the night, to the heart of our nightmares and out the other side to sunrise. Peace: say it slow, stretch it out, make it last forever.
peeeaaaccceee was written and directed by Darren O’Donnell, produced by Naomi Campbell, featuring Greg MacArthur, Ngozi Paul and Maiko Bae Yamamoto with sound by Nick Murray, light by Rebecca Picherack, choreography by Sarah Chase and set by Darren O’Donnell and Naomi Campbell. It was co-produced by the Six Stages Festival at Theatre Passe Muraille in February of 2003 and part of TPM’s 2004/05 mainstage season.
It was published in 2003 by Coach House Books. pppeeeaaaccceee was produced by St Catherines’ Dennis Morris High School in 2004 and by Downstage Theatre of Calgary, Alberta in May 2006.
“Challenging theatre that really sings…pppeeeaaacccee can induce a sharpening and tilting of perception comparable to a bona fide altered state.”
Gord McLaughlin, The National Post
“A skilful blend of philisophical thoughtfulness and theatricality – an elegiac mood rules here, tempered by irony and subtle humour.”
Jon Kaplan, NOW Magazine
“I thought pppeeeaaaccceee spoke more eloquently, humourously and poignantly about what it means to be alive today than anything I’ve seen in a long, long time. Irreverent and spiritual, ironic and mystical, this is theatre to release the oppressed mind.”
Jonathan Garfinkel, playwright
“Darren O’Donnell is one of the country’s most original artists — pointed, enraged, elegant, trippy and crafty. And so is his play.”
Michael Healey, playwright
“Saw the show last night. I think it is a marvelous piece of theatre. Very thoughtful and sad and beautiful. Wonderful writing, wonderful performing.”
Paula Danckert, Playwrights Workshop Montreal
“Darren O’Donnell is a Toronto playwright who is as thoughtful and provocative in conversation as the theatre he produces. Here, TheatreBooks gets some insight into one of his latest works, pppeeeaaaccceee, a spiritual and political rumination in O’Donnell’s signature style, as well as what he thinks about theatre, politics and life.”
– TheatreBooks Interview about pppeeeaaaccceee
“Intellectual and occasionally emotional, the production effectively incorporates ritualistic movement and verbal repetition. … In Picherack’s atmospheric lighting, the actors make up a committed, well-drilled unit who nonetheless relate to each other in a spontaneous, poignant fashion. Thoughtful and theatrical.”
– www.nowtoronto.com
Dr. Thoughtless Actions, a young geneticist, awakes one morning to find a cardboard box secured to his head. Unable to wrench it off, he attempts suicide, not only failing but also, unbeknownst to himself, cloning himself, creating Dr. Wishful Thinking. The two losers fall in love, fall in science, and fail to make a baby. Their conversation, an intricately woven semantic circus, traverses boxedness, love, and the more ridiculous areas of metaphysical speculation. Through a series of rapid exchanges, verbal games, and musical numbers, they discover that all their thoughts come from God, all their words come from the devil, and their desire for love is a habit acquired from the cinema. Sound familiar? Don’t be so hard on yourself. [boxhead]: a bedtime story for your brain.
Originally presented as a solo cabaret piece at Theatre Columbus’s Mayhem and the Naked Muse in 1999, [boxhead] was first produced by Go-Chicken-Go at Factory Theatre in 2000, remounted at Theatre Passe Muraille in 2002 and then coproduced by Crow’s Theatre and Mammalian Diving Reflex at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Vancouver and at Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto in 2008. It has always been directed by Chris Abraham.
The original cast featured Paul Fauteux as Dr. Thoughtless Actions and Darren O’Donnell as Dr. Wishful Thinking, with Jim Jones stepping in to play Dr. Wishful Thinking in 2002 and Andrew Shaver and Adam Lazarus (Wishful and Thoughtless respectively) taking over in 2008.
The music was composed by Romano Di Nillo; set designed by Naomi Campbell, Darren O’Donnell and Chris Abraham; lighting designed by Steve Lucas with Sandra Marcroft; sound effects by Henry Monteforte and Tyler Devine and costumes by Nina Okens; production management by Trevor Schwellnus and originally stage managed by the late, great Stephen Souter and subsequently by Beth Kates.
White Mice is a cartoon-like exposé of the virulent racism at the core of Canada. Robert and Douglas are two white-furred mice living in peacefully in downtown Toronto, until one day Robert begins coming home with more and more information concerning the state of racism in Canada. The two mice begin to question the function of racism, whiteness, and capitalism as they struggle to keep up with their rapidly expanding consciousness.
Written and directed by Darren O’Donnell, produced by Naomi Campbell, White Mice featured Bruce Hunter and Darren O’Donnell, with light designed by RS Armstrong, sound by Nick Murray (aka murr), costumes by SimJones Inc. and set by Darren O’Donnell and Naomi Campbell.
White Mice was first produced in 1998 and was nominated for six Dora Awards: outstanding play, production, direction, costumes, light, and received an award for set. It was presented in the 2000 du Maurier World Stage Festival, at Theatre Passe Muraille in the fall of 2000, in February of 2002 toured to One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo in Calgary, was co-presented in Vancouver by Rumble Productions and The Vancouver East Cultural Centre, and in Gatineau, Quebec by Canadian University Services Overseas (CUSO). It was adapted for CBC Radio and published by Coach House Books in the spring of 2000 in a collection entitled Inoculations along with Over, Who Shot Jacques Lacan? and Radio Rooster Says That’s Bad.
“Brilliant conception…a highly amusing show and a provocative piece of theatre that insists on disturbing its audiences complacency.”
– The Globe and Mail
“… a play that makes equal grabs for mind and heart; it provokes and entertains and does both with cheeky intelligence…. You may well argue with some of O’Donnell’s conclusions, but you’ll be hard pressed to find faults in this meticulously designed and directed remount…. at once sympathetic, disturbing, and supremely funny.”
– eye magazine
“A touch of the Three Stooges mixed with a pinch of Ren and Stimpy, just enough to bind the kind of bleak absurdist gruel that Beckett used in Endgame and Waiting for Godot.”
– The Toronto Sun
“It’s kind of an in-your-face look at yourself who we are; here’s the mirror,” he continues, adding that “I don’t think that only white people would like it and understand it I think that it has to be done. It certainly is a white perspective on it, but it’s more about the human condition, and it’s ugly and it’s factual and it works on a lot of different levels.”
– Wordmag.com, pre-press for White Mice
“I’m trying to illustrate the sort of confusion and effort that one needs to go through to come to an understanding of race that’s a little more sophisticated than one that we have right now,” he says. “It was pretty much Ku Klux Klan are bad, Canada is good. White Mice is a bit more subtle than that It’s trying to illustrate that coming to that realization is a difficult process.”
– U of Calgary Gauntlet, pre-press for White Mice
Over: a vaudevillian exploration of the possibilities of the paranormal as a legitimate agent in ordinary lives.
Written and produced by Darren O’Donnell
Directed by Darren O’Donnell, Daniel MacIvor and Karen Hines
Featuring: Darren O’Donnell and Veronica Hurnik.
Performed at Café Verité (1993), The Theatre Centre (1994), Buddies In Bad Times (1995)
Alana Wilcox’s Naptime featured Coach House Books Senior Editor Alana Wilcox reading naptime stories to a gathering of reclined adults at Trinity Bellwoods Park on August 6, 2006. It was summer time, but the compulsive desire to initiate projects, make stuff happen and bring people together persisted even through our need to lie down for a languid snooze. Alana Wilcox’s Naptime facilitated these deeply contradictory impulses. Juice boxes and arrowroot cookies were provided.
Naptime was presented in 2008 by Les Escales Improbables and occured on the Quays of the Old Port of Montreal. Naptime invited the viewer to lounge in a semi-conscious state and listen to sleepy children’s stories read bya bunch of people in a bunch of different languages: Haitian Creole, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Inuktitut and Hebrew. The music of each tongue lolled you into comfortable reveries as you drifted through the city’s linguistic landscape. Featuring: Laurentio Arnatsiaq speaking Inuktitut; Kamal Benkirane speaking Arabic; Kim Jiang speaking Mandarin; Claire-Anse Saint-Eloi speaking Haitian Creole; Danielle Sochaczevski speaking Hebrew; Sandra Tarsitano speaking Spanish. Produced by Natalie De Vito and production managed by Zoe Stonyk.
The Horizons Youth Ambassadors program at Upper Canada College (UCC) works with students from Toronto’s public school system, offering them mentoring opportunities. Mammalian has introduced innovation into the program by inviting the students to put forward a material aspect of Toronto they would like to change – they chose to green Dundas Square. In response, Mammalian and UCC is organizing a series of social opportunities for the students to meet and pick the brains of people they think can help realize the goal. It’s skills building, good times, network-building and city improvement all rolled into one.
Conceived by: Darren O’Donnell
MDR Coordinators: John Caffery & Darren O’Donnell
Program dates: September 2009 to May 2010
In the words of R.M. Vaughan, How to Be a Brown Teen is a “deliciously rude instructional video” created by The Torontonians. Sanjay Ratnan “tells his fellow classmates that anything less than perfect grades, perfect fiscal responsibility and absolute chastity will “equal beatings” from a “brown teen’s” parents. When one of the kids is asked what he has learned, he replies “it sucks to be a brown teen” ” (The Globe and Mail, 18 March 2011).
”It feels good to be part of MONITOR 7: New South Asian Short Film + Video; some brown adults can finally see the basic truth about how their kids see them. Brown kids have rights; we can be white if we want to.”
-Sanjay Ratnan and Ahash Jeevakanthan from The Torontonians about the world premiere of How to be a Brown Teen.
How To Be A Brown Teen is a deliciously rude instructional video made by a handful of schoolchildren, the leader of whom repeatedly tells his fellow classmates that anything less than perfect grades, perfect fiscal responsibility and absolute chastity will “equal beatings” from a “brown teen’s” parents. When one of the kids is asked what he has learned, he replies “it sucks to be a brown teen.” The stereotype of the overachieving South Asian immigrant kid is simultaneously engaged and dismissed in this video – if anything, the very making of this video would probably, according to the rules laid out by the kids, “equal beatings.” Russell Peters, meet your competition.
R.M. Vaughan, The Globe and Mail
HOW TO BE A BROWN TEEN by The Torontonians: The SAVAC program notes that this film “delves gleefully into the uncomfortable candidness of teen humor”. Yup, I was increasingly uncomfortable watching the young teen in the role of MasterJi teach lessons that start with “a roti a day keeps the doctor away”, but ultimately conclude that “being a brown person sucks”. These kids are talented, though. I wonder what their parents think?
Amanjeet K Chauhan, galleryakc
THIS IS WHAT WE DO: We wander the streets of Toronto, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Lahore, Calgary, Edinburgh, San Juan, Edmonton, Mumbai, Peterborough, Chicago, Kitchener-Waterloo and New York City. We stop stranger after stranger, ask them who they are, what they believe and what’s going to happen next.
THIS IS WHAT WE’VE NOTICED: There are huge differences between people. The huge differences cannot be attributed to differences in geography, culture, race, gender, politics, class or any other social category. There are also huge similarities between people. Some of these similarities include: generosity, friendliness, fear and an eagerness to talk about themselves and their beliefs.
THIS IS WHAT WE SUSPECT: Global communication networks are creating a shared way of being, one that is able to recognize and accept difference because it’s able to recognize and connect with similarities. It’s a sophisticated way of being that is as inevitalbe in the slums of Mumbai as it in in the suburbs of Calagary; that only wants a few simple things: peace, prosperity, health and equity.
THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW: Everything will end: you, me, us, them. It will all cease. What will follow? Who knows. Life is good, life is bad; but for good or for bad, it will be over: THE END. So why bother?
Diplomatic Immunities takes the body of the city, throws it on stage, cuts it open and holds the contents up to the light. Not theatre, not a talk show, not a film or a news report – but all of them at once. We scour the city for meaningful encounters, chat things up, knock on doors, check out the decor, eat some food, take some pictures and make new friends, then return to the theatre to debrief.
Performance dates: Diplomatic Immunities was developed with the support of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects and the Theatre Centre. It was presented at Buddies in Bad Times in October to June 2006 and February 2007; at Magnetic North Theatre Festival in June 2007; and at Alberta Theatre Projects in February 2006. Diplomatic Immunities appeared at the World Performing Arts Festival in Lahore, Pakistan in November 2007 (supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade). We worked with local research artists Zain Raza, Wajeehah Sabahat, Adeel Salman and Bushra Azeem and interviewed people on the streets, in thier homes and in the market. We interviewed children, adults, men and women. Our primary inquiry was about people’s scars, gently using these stories as a way to subtly reference the scar that is the partition between Pakistan and India.
Conceived and directed by Darren O’Donnell; produced by Naomi Campbell and Natalie De Vito; co-direction and lighting by Rebecca Picherack; Video Direction, Translation and Facilitation by Faisal Anwar; sound by Nick Murray; projections by Stephanie Comilang. Featuring Research Artists: Faisal Anwar, Naomi Campbell, Ulysses Castellanos, Misha Glouberman, Darren O’Donnell Rebecca Picherack, Tanya Pillay and Beatriz Pizano.
Diplomatic Immunities in Calgary: Diplomatic Immunities takes a needle to Calgary with painful and pleasurable results
by Jeff Kubick
Toronto-based Mammalian Diving Reflex has called its work “social acupuncture,” and the metaphor seems apt. The company’s latest project, Diplomatic Immunities, presented on the BD&P Stage 2 (a.k.a. the Engineered Air Theatre) of Alberta Theatre Projects’ playRites Festival, is a series of pinprick-quick portraits that, while briefly painful at points, produce an altogether welcome sensation.
Though I’m certain professional new media artists and theatrical professionals would balk at having their work compared to a talk show, I can think of no more appropriate summary for Diplomatic Immunities. Despite the consummate sheen of theatricality that binds its micro interviews together, it is the quintessential talk-show element of bite-sized human inquiry that provides the production’s momentum. Projected onto the Engineered Air’s back wall, brief interviews and images explore Calgary’s denizens, with the ensemble narrating, discussing and inviting audience feedback.
– ffwdweekly.com
Diplomatic Immunities at the World Performing Arts Festival (Lahore, 2007):
Presented by the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, as part of Nuit Blanche, at the University of Toronto’s Hart House quad. Farmer’s Market 2050 features the ideas of architect Kubo Dzamba and his concept of Third Millenniuim Farming, chef Nathan Isberg, agricultural engineer Hala Chaoui, artistic genius Dean Baldwin with scientific interpretation by the teens of Parkdale.
It is anticipated that in 2050 the world’s population will exceed 9 billion people. The expansion of the world’s foodprint that is expected to accompany this population increase may exceed the tolerances of our planet’s ecosystems, activating unknown environmental and economic tipping points, and result in extreme food shortages. HOW WILL WE FEED EVERYONE WHEN THE TIME COMES? By eating bugs, of course.
This project proposes Third Millennium Farming (3MF): harnessing the abilities of microorganisms (algae and phytoplankton) and micro-livestock (insects) to rapidly reproduce, for the purpose of food production. 3MF food production strategies have a significantly smaller foodprint than current crop farming and livestock rearing methods. Additionally, these new farming operations could be fed with certain types of city bio-wastes, creating a new and more sustainable type of food chain.
Jump in your time machine and visit Farmers Market 2050, take a look at the science and nibble on the food. Nathan will be making some tasty delectables with always tasty crickets, algae, and other components in our ecosystem.
Faith Exchange is an afternoon-long event bringing together a multitude of faith organizations from the Kitchener-Waterloo Region to do some serious proselytizing. In this post-secular era, we figured it was time to admit that art isn’t all that different from religion: we both have large, beautiful buildings in which you kin of have to be quiet and pay attention, we both offer transcendent meaning, we both have saints and martyrs (Muhammed, Christ, the Buddha, Duchamp, Debord, Khalo) and we both have holy cities: the Christian and Jew make their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the Muslim to Mecca and the Artist to Berlin. In addition, we’ve noticed that religious people tend to enjoy our events. Go figure. So we thought we’d make an event with them.
Featuring: The Christian Science Reading Room, The Church of Scientology, The Church of the Good Shepherd, Cold Mountain Internal Arts, Grand River Interfaith, Mammalian Diving Reflex, Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, The Kitchener-Waterloo United Mennonite Church, the Muslim Social Society, the Pyrus Coffee House, The Science of Spirituality, Unity Kitchener and the Yog Fellowhip Temple.
Faith Exchange was presented by CAFKA, as part of Survive.Resist., the Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area’s fall biennial program. Held at the Kitchener Market.
Nuit Market is a fully functioning night market supplying inexpensive consumer goods, the kind of goods that are sold the world-over in street markets, souqs and ad hoc temporary malls. Nestled tightly into an alleyway east of bustling Yonge Street, Nuit Market is a night shopper’s dream; you can stop-in to admire the bargain splendours, or refuel on cheap and tasty eats in a convivial pedestrian atmosphere. From sunset to sunrise, for one-night only.
Nuit Market was presented at Toronto’s 2010 Nuit Blanche, a collaboration between Mammalian Diving Reflex and the Toronto Weston Flea Market, on Victoria Street Lane, just east of Yonge Street, north of Dundas Square
All the Sex I’ve Ever Had offers the audience the experiences of a generation. Older adults courageously open up their personal lives and experiences to fellow participants and strangers, divulging stories of first crushes, turbulent affairs, unexpected pregnancies and deaths of loved ones. They chat with the audience, toast to important milestones and sometimes dance on-stage. All the Sex I’ve Ever Had offers an opportunity to acknowledge that our elders have a lot to teach us, a lot to share, and that aging can yield a way of being in the world that is open, generous and fearless. In our youth-obsessed culture, All the Sex I’ve Ever Had re-establishes the notion of a community of wise elders to whom we can turn for advice gleaned from their vast wealth of life expertise.
Nightwalks with Teenagers is a walking performance created in collaboration with two groups of young people (one local, one non-local), who plan, design and lead public walks through the city at night, sharing their favourite parts of the neighbourhood with members of the community. The project brings together teens and adults who might not otherwise meet, to have experiences related to a shared place and time; it offers an opportunity for adults to socialize with young people in a safe social space, where everyone can let loose, and silences offer moments for contemplation. Nightwalks with Teenagers is focused on the pro-social ameliorative power of walking together, and is inspired in part by the Situationist notion of the “derive,” as well as psychogeographic wanderings through the city.
Nightwalks with Teenagers, Taking On Stereotypes By Being Silly (Rife, Bristol, 2015)
Mammalian Diving Reflex Presents: How To Hook Up
Toronto is teeming with talented young people who can drop a beat or bust a move in deft and dope ways. How to Hook Up, hosted by us, the Torontonians, is a web-series showcasing Toronto’s talented youth – people from all over this town, equipped with mad skills and brains bursting with intelligence. We’re doing some film-production workshops with Toronto professionals (keep your eye on the 180 degree rule, yo), hosting, filming and editing the series. Each episode will showcase the city’s various culture vibes, from Jane and Finch to Scarborough Village, and the young people who make up the neighbourhood.
There will be a melangey potpourri momo congee stew of segments that see us make some friends, reach to new hoods, and talk really loud on the subway – all integral components of what we eruditely define as “Hooking it up”, Mammalian style. We are deeply deeply honoured to have planned hook-ups with a number of Toronto’s most innovative youth organizations: Just BGRAPHIC, Arts for Children and Youth, Art Starts, Urban Arts and more tba. We’ll keep you posted as it happens, especially for the big launch party scheduled for June. Maybe start shopping for some new gear; you’re gonna wanna look goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.
The Producers of Parkdale is a year-long mentorship residency at the Gladstone Hotel (2011 to 2012), where ten teens learn the ropes of event production: curating, budgeting, marketing, production management and hospitality. The mentorship is a three-pronged process with workshops, shadowing and office/event production. The 10 teenagers are mentored in arts management and production from top people in Toronto, including Naomi Campbell, Yan Wu, Chris Lorway, Carrie Sager, Howard Mah, Nathan Isberg, Sarah Robayo Sheridan, Julian Sleath, Mathew Kensett and Lisa Duke, as well as the amazing Gladstone staffers, led by Britt Welter-Nolan and Noa Bronstein. Together, the youth will curate and manage an all-night event, Dare Night: Lockdown, a public sleepover/event-filled Dare Night in the Gladstone Hotel’s ballroom. In anticipation of the event, they will run a full-time office at the Gladstone in July to prepare, spending their days publicizing, budgeting, and creating schedules.
Dare Night: Lockdown
The stakes are higher than ever. It’s Dare Night: Lockdown – and this time, we’re doing it all night long. Experience the most frightening event of your summer: endure Sleepover, The Astral Project, Blood Ball, Pus Pizza, Choke Threat, Poop Your Pants and Old Women Shooting Guns. Bring your sleeping gear and prepare yourself for the eeriest sleepover ever. When the horror is over, those who survive will go to Dufferin Grove Park for a cookout breakfast and a basketball challenge. Do you have the ‘gongdoh’ to make it through the night?
Highlights of the Night:
Pizza Dinner: Scary Pizza Dinner where the PIZZA EATS YOU!
Ghost Stories: Not your regular campfire ghost stories. Bleeding ones.
Double Dog Scary Dares: You know the drill. Pick a dare out of a bleeding hat and do it.. if you dare.
The Astral Project: A sleep-along-seminar that will teach you how to have an out-of-body experience. We will leave our bodies and if all goes well we’ll travel to North Korea, and if not, Rob Ford’s shower.
Mourning Weiner Feast: Just like it sounds.
Check the BLOG for more details and find us on Twitter: @thetorontonians.
The Producers of Parkdale and Dare Night: Lockdown were supported by the Cultural Strategic Investment Fund (Ontario Ministry of Culture and Tourism), the Hal Jackman Foundation and many generous donors: Danielle Allen, Nirmala Basnayake, Cecilia Berkovic, David Blatt, Naomi Campbell, Robyn Cauchy, Emelie Chhangur, Elaine Dunbar, David Fingrut, Sara Ford, Dennis Lefebvre, Eli Malinsky, Mary McDonald, Gord McLaughlin, Day Milman, Amish Morrell, Andrea Nann, Yvonne Ng, Jacqueline Paule, Concetta Principe, Elizabeth Renzetti, David Rotheberg, Rupal Shah, Cory Silverberg, Morgan Skowronski, Melissa Tsang, Hazel Venzon, Cindy Wan, Chris Williamson, Daniel Young and Christina Zeidler. Dare Night: Lockdown was part of SummerWorks Live Art Series, 2012 and owes special thanks to the Gladstone Hotel.
Performance date: August 10, 7:00pm to August 11, 12:00pm 2012 (17 HORRIFYING HOURS)
Location: the Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto
It’s the ultimate showdown: the dual in ‘dale. Parkdale Public School vs. Queen West.
In one corner: the Kids, 647 of them. A massively diverse crew obsessed with
Playstation, teddy bears, fairness, and running the world. In the other corner:
Artsters, predominantly white, mostly from other provinces and cities, well-educated
in cultural theory, ready and eager to get drunk at gallery openings and always on the
look-out for exciting but cheap ethnic dining experiences.
One of Toronto’s most diverse neighbourhoods, Parkdale has exploded with cultural
activity, seen the encroachment of gentrification, and is home to new Canadians
from almost fifty different countries. Mammalian Diving Reflex presents a Ten-
Round encounter between the Parkdale Public School students and artists
in the neighbourhood, resulting in performances, public talks, public walks,
dinner, dancing and a film-screening. It’s a vibrant pile of creativity, intelligence and
entertainment.
Who will be the winna in this ultimate battle?! The dual in the ‘dale. Place your bets.
Round 1 : The Children’s Choice Awards
The kids visit the 32 art installations that encompass Alley Jaunt 2007, an annual art
show that takes place in alley garages surrounding Trinity Bellwoods Park. The Jury
creates criteria for assessment, take detailed notes, and after a lengthy deliberation,
presents chocolate-covered trophies to the talented winners.
The Jury: Callum, Camille, Dalton, Hayley, Kahlil, Lara, Latha, Lauren, Sanath, Wendy
and Zoe.
When: August 11, 2007
Where: Trinity Bellwoods Alley Jaunt
Round 2 : The Children’s Choice Dinner
A special event in conjunction with The Children’s Choice Awards, jury members
choose their favourite artist from Alley Jaunt as their guest. Coca Tapas and Wine Bar’s
Chef Nathan Isberg – with the help of Krysta Oben – serves an exquisite meal to the
jury, for an exciting night of culinary thrills, with many tasting Bread and Tomato Salad
for the first time.
Featuring he lucky and well-nourished Alley Jaunt artists: Simla Civelek, Claire Despaire,
Kimberly England, Michelle Johnson, Nadia Jurd, Shari Kasman, Noah Kenneally,
Petrina Ng and Zanette Singh.
When: August 11, 2007
Where: Coca Tapas and Wine Bar, 783 Queen Street West
Round 3 : The Beautiful and Hungry City
A five-installment dinner and speaker series on the topic of civic beauty, occurring at
a variety of restaurants in Parkdale. Each dinner hosts 50 guests and features two
speakers whose vocation fortifies civil society but not one normally associated with
beauty. The kids bring their parents, little brothers and sisters, get bored, run around,
listen and learn, offer musical interludes and watch adult talent shows.
When: August 2007-February 2008
Where: Various family-owned restaurants in and around Parkdale
Round 4 : Parkdale Geography Classes vs. Jane’s Walk
Shortcuts and Hangouts
Urban geography from the perspective and authority of the kids who live there. Join the
grade 8 geography students for an animated tour of Parkdale. The students show you
the ropes, their secret hangouts and shortcuts, and share their thoughts on the best and
worst their neighbourhood has to offer, and what could make it better.. In association
with Jane’s Walk.
When: Saturday May 3, 2008, 10:30 am
Meeting Place: Parkdale Public School, 78 Seaforth Ave.
Tour guides: Parkdale Public School’s grade 8 students from Ms. DeAngelis-Mullin’s,
Ms. Huot’s, and Ms. Wallace’s geography classes.
Round 5: The Parkdale Primaries vs. The Artsters
Walk the Block
A series of encounters between the kids, an artist, and the neighbourhood. Seven of the
world’s most interesting artists take the kids out on a spin around the hood, and impose
their idiosyncratic worldview on the young impressionable psyches.
Worldview 1: Diane Borsato leads Ms. Wurtz’s grade 1s in anunlikely morning
of milkshakes and mushrooms, taking the students to a nearby Indian restaurant
for mango lassis, and back to Parkdale Public School to watch a short lecture on
fungus. Diane elaborates on the most colourful, repulsive smelling, oddly shaped and
surprisingly named mycological fruitings, and the students assign their own names to
the mushrooms and choreograph dances for the fungi.
Worldview 2: Ulysses Castellanos takes Ms. Morris’ grade 2sstudents to Dollarama,
they buy a pile of toys, take them back to the school and break them into a million
fragments. Then they try to make new toys.
Worldview 3: Zanette Singh takes Ms. Seto’s grade 1s students outside to collect a
bunch of garbage, which they use to fashion doll-creatures. Zanette then accompanies the class as they lead her through Parkdale, choosing special locations to install their
creations.
Worldview 4: Hannah Miami invites Ms. Adam’s grade 2s students to pick an entire
field of dandelions, then beautifully arrange them throughout the park, leaving an
organic sculpture for others to discover.
Worldview 5: Swintak introduces the idea of “urban quicksand” to Ms. Serpa’s grade 1s, who discuss their knowledge of quicksand and draft a top ten list of
places in Toronto that they would like to see quicksand pits. The kids assemble
their own miniature quicksand pit kits, take them outside and place them around
the neighbourhood.
Worldview 6: Mr. Montenaro, grade three?
Stephanie Comilang primarily creates projection performances. She has opened
for a variety of bands including Les Mouches, Xiu Xui and Arcade Fire, and creates,
performs and tours with the band Final Fantasy. She has created visual projections
for Mammalian’s Slow Dance With Teacher and Diplomatic Immunities: The Scars of
Pakistan, and is currently co-directing Show and Tell.
Worldview 7: Sandy Plotnikoff takes Ms. Wong’s grade 3s students thrift shopping at
local Parkdale stores. They then make quick, fun alterations to their purchases and re-
donate them to a new thrift store.
Round 6 : The Parkdale Baking Club vs. Chef Nathan Isberg and Coca Restaurant
The Kid’s Table
A prix-fixe menu, replete with accompanying beverages. Join the kids and Chef Nathan
Isberg of Czehoski Restaurant and Coca Tapas Wine Bar, for dinner, and enjoy your
meal with the up-and-coming chefs and sommeliers of Parkdale Public School.
When: Monday June 16, 5:30 pm till late
Location: Coca Tapas and Wine Bar, 783 Queen Street West
Price: $$ (call 416 703 0783 for reservations)
Round 7 : The Parkdale Strings vs. Blocks Recording Club
Collaborating with local hipster indie record label Blocks Recording Club and the bands
Kids on TV, The Phonemes and Bob Wiseman, the Senior Strings class, under the
direction of Mr. Curry, make it happen in the heart of the hipster central: the Gladstone
Hotel.
When: June 17, 2008, 7:00 pm
Where: The Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West
Cover: $PWYC (public school kids, free)
Round 8 : The A.D.D. DJs vs. LAL
Kids DJ, adults dance. Following rigorous training by master DJ Murr, producer of LAL,
the A.D.D. DJs, the crew who brought you the critically acclaimed inaugural 2006 Nuit
Blanche hit Ballroom Dancing, spin their stuff with the help of Ms. Wallace.
When: June 17, 7:00 pm
Where: The Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West
Cover: $PWYC (public school kids, free)
Round 9 : The Parkdale Art Club vs. Mercer Union
The Parkdale Art Club students offer their thoughts and perspectives on Anne
Fauteaux’s and Ana Teixeira’s exhibitions, lending their eyes, ears and insights to the
audience.
When: Saturday June 21, 2008, 1:30 pm, FREE
Where: Mercer Union Gallery, 37 Lisgar Street
Round 10 : Parkdale JK to 8 vs. Show Biz
Show and Tell
A feature-length video portrait of the home of the Parkdale Pumas. Written and
starring all 647 students of Parkdale Public School and featuring their favourite
things; Transformers, basketballs, Tweety Bird, and erasers.
Screening: Summer 2008 Release
Conceived by: Darren O’Donnell
Producer: Natalie De Vito
Parkdale PS Coordinator: Joe Leibovitch
Interns: Sarah Milanes, Eva Verity
Darren: “Imagine you’ve got a huge, sparkling new playground. What would you rather do: play on it? Or burn it to the ground?”
Westmount Park Students: “Burn it to the ground!”
Playgrounds on Fire is a large-scale ensemble presentation created collaboratively with a large group of children who are invited to frighten an audience of adults. Children are incessantly creative, constantly employing their imaginations to create play scenarios. Many of these games, scenarios, movements, gestures, dances, nonsense songs, etc. are great to watch, if not a little violent; ways of being that, it might be be argued, adults have lost to their detriment. Playgrounds on Fire features a room filled with an audience of milling adults to whom the show happens, as the children, ranging from 5-12 years old, interact with them in a variety of ways, all designed in collaboration with the children to showcase what they do best: freak adults out.
A group of ten-year-olds are going to school you about your ‘hood. They’ve done the research, analyzed the data and made the connections; join our kid experts for These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood, a public walk and tour of local businesses in your community. For the mere cost of your time and leg power, you’ll learn about the hottest new place to grab a coffee, where to buy the best veggies and, of course,whether the grocer prefers to wear stripes or solids.
These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood is a street-proofing and community fortification performance led by children and fuelled by curiosity about the world and enthusiasm to share it. It is a performance of a very possible world: a place where children walk down the street, tipping their hats to the people they pass and making it safe and familiar for everyone. If you harbour any nostalgia for those imaginary days when the word ‘community’ still had meaning, we invite you to come and experience a small slice of utopia.
Eat the Street: an intervention into the city, in which a group of 20 to 40 ten to twelve-year-olds will make stops at several of a city’s most notable eateries. They will be feted and fed, and charged with offering their brutally honest, uncensored opinions on the food, the service, the decor, the state of the washrooms and the charm of the waiters. For the mere cost of a meal, the public is invited to sit amongst the kids for a front-row view of the youthful connoisseurs in action. It will be the most fun you’ve had since you sat at the kids’ table. Dine with the kids and follow the shenanigans at eatdastreet.blogspot.ca. Then join the panel of pre-adolescent adjudicators for an uproarious awards ceremony where awards are bestowed for everything from “Most Delicious” and “Coolest Chef” to “Least Graffiti in the Washroom.”
The Children’s Choice Awards is an intervention into the structure and institution of an arts festival, where a group of between 20 to 80 ten-year-olds from local public schools are appointed the official festival Jury, are chauffeured to and from festival shows to see the art, take notes, and size it all up. The judges respond to criteria that they have created from their vast expertise, and collectively they determine up to 50 award categories and vote on the winners. The project culminates in an Awards Ceremony where the kids present hand-made trophies to the winners, all decided by them, and described in their own words. Check-out the action and the award winners on the project blog: http://childrenschoiceawards.blogspot.ca/
Co-Directed by: Sanjay Ratnan, Ngawang Luding, Chiara Prodi and Jack Tully
Produced by: Tina Fance and Ryan Lewis
Local Production/Coordination: Chiara Organtini, Lucia DiPietro and Chiara Scatteia
Participating Schools: ITT istituto Sangallo, Liceo Galielo Galilei and Scuole O. Nucola e Leonardo da Vinci
Performances: Cell Phone, Hell Phone! – March 30th, 2019, 6:30PM; Nightwalks with Teenagers – April 6th, 2019, 8:30PM; Ask for the Moons – April 7th, 2018, 8:30PM
This presentation of Teentalitarianism was made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
Technical Direction & Environment Design: James Mapes
Local Production & Recruitment: Karen O’Brien
Sound Designer/MC: Ria Matlib
Featuring: TO BE ANNOUNCED
Performances: April 12, 13 & 14 2019 | 7:30pm
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had was made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council touring programs.
Co-Directed by: Felicity Nicol, Sanjay Ratnan, Wendell Williams and Ryan Lewis
Produced by: Tina Fance and Ryan Lewis
Local Production/Coordination: Valentina Salis
Artistic and Production Support: Chiara Prodi
Participating School: Liceo Classico Statale Giovanni Siotto Pintor
Performances: Cell Phone, Hell Phone! – November 23rd, 2018, 6:30PM; Nightwalks with Teenagers – December 4th & 5th, 2018, 7:00PM;
Ask for the Moon – December 8th, 2018, 9:00PM
This presentation of Teentalitarianism was made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
Production: Kiera O’Brien, Moona Tikka, Annalise Prodor, Tina Fance
Technical Direction & Environment Design: Katelan Braymer
Local Production & Recruitment: Elina Kukkonen
Translation: Essi Brunberg, Laura Liimatainen
Sound Designer/MC: Kristian Ekholm
Intern: Victoria Godden
Featuring: Osmo, Eila, Silja, Ria, Jouko, Juha
Performances: November 15, 16, 17 2018
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had was made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council touring programs.
Production: Tina Fance, Alice Fleming, Felicity Nicol
Technical Direction & Environment Design: Alice Fleming, James Mapes
Local Production & Recruitment: Kate McDonald
Sound Designer/MC: Fletcher Babb
Featuring: TBA
Performances: October 3, 4, 5 2018
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had was made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council touring programs.
Directed by: Tina Fance, Ngawang Luding, Sanjay Ratnan
Produced by: Tina Fance, Ryan Lewis
Local Production: Susanne Clausen
Participating School: Maiden Erlegh School
Performances: October 5, 6, 2018
This presentation of Nightwalks with Teenagers was made possible in part thanks to a grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council touring programs.
Directed by: Melika Ramic
Produced by: Tina Fance, Melika Ramic
Local Production & Recruitment: Sarah Lewis
Created in collaboration with Maverick Hair and Art Space and Byron Coathup
Performances – September 29, 30, 2018
This presentation of Haircuts by Children was made possible in part thanks to a grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council touring programs.
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had was made possible thanks to touring grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Directed by: Tina Fance
Produced by: Tina Fance, Eva Verity
Local Coordinator: Ute Beier (Schloss- und Kulturbetrieb Residenzschloss Altenburg)
Participating school: Forderzentrum Erich-Kästner, Altenburg
Performances- May 26, 27 2018
For more information and to book an appointment: TBA
Co-Directed by: Jana Eiting, Feroz Syed, Kathy Vuu
Produced by: Tina Fance
Local Production: Anna Hogstrom
Performance Dates: June 8, 9 2018 – 8:30pm
This presentation of Nightwalks with Teenagers has been made possible in part thanks to a grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
This presentation of Nightwalks with Teenagers has been made possible in part thanks to a grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
This presentation of Teentalitarianism is a Week 53 commission for the Lowry. It is made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
Directed by: Eva Verity
Produced by: Eva Verity, Tina Fance
Local production: Maria Goiricelaya
Translation: Juana Lor
Participating school: San Adrian Bilboko Institutua
Performances- FREE! Saturday June 2 (4-8pm), Sunday June 3, (11am-3pm) 2018 at HAPTICA Salon in Old Town.
For more informationn click HERE
This presentation of Haircuts by Children has been made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council.
Co-Directed by: Tina Fance, Kiera O’Brien, Virginia Antonipillai, Sanjay Ratnan
Produced by: Tina Fance, Eva Verity
Local Production/Coordination: Valentina Kastlunger
Performances: May 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18, 19, 2018
This presentation of Teentalitarianism has been made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had has been made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
This presentation of the Kyoto Children’s Choice Awards has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring Program.
Mammalian also acknowledges the ongoing support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Artistic & Research Director, Darren O’Donnell, presents a workshop titled Survive Social Discomfort among Melbourne Festival’s Survival Skills for Desperate Times lecture series. The workshop will take place on Sunday, October 8, 2017.
Here’s a blurb on the lecture series:
With the end of the world just around the corner, there’s one unstated fact we all know: when the apocalypse comes we’ll be eating the artists first.
But what if the ultimate survivalists are our actors and painters and dancers? What if an existence scraped together from the leanest of resources has equipped them for anything life tries to throw their way?
For two days this Festival, Arts House will be re-purposed as an urban survival camp, with top members of Australia’s battle-hardened arts community passing on the secret skills that will make all the difference when disaster comes knocking.
A wry, witty series of performance lectures on everything from living off weeds to having a stake in your own death, how to out-smart everyone and live on the moon to just getting the hell out of here, this is the know-how that will see you through when it all comes tumbling down.
Check out more about the festival and lecture series HERE.
Director of Creative Production & Artistic Associate, Eva Verity, presents a workshop titled No Awkwardness, No Allies as a part of the SIGNAL conference The Art of Gathering in Brussels on Thursday September 28, 2017.
In this workshop, Eva Verity will share some of the company’s social practice work, and how the company utilizes awkwardness and temporary discomfort as a tool for generating connection and trust-building with collaborators who don’t know one-another. Attendees will participate in interactive exercises and games that put ‘social acupuncture’ into action, and demonstrate that a little awkwardness can go a long way toward stimulating intimacy and engagement.
Check out more about the conference, including the full schedule, HERE.
Technical Direction & Environment Design: Alice Fleming
Lighting Consultant: Paul Lim
Sound Designer/MC: Moses Carr
Local Coordination: Molly Morrison & Lill Desormeaux
Casting Consultant: Bec Reid
Performances: Oct 12, 13, 14, 15, 2017
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had has been made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
Director of Creative Production & Artistic Associate, Eva Verity, presents a Workshop titled Creative Tools for 21st Century Engagement at the Hart House on April 9th for Community Food Centres Canada’sFood Summit 2017.
Here’s a synopsis:
With civic engagement at an all time low, community activists are left searching for an antidote to the apparent apathy epidemic taking root in communities. But what if apathy is actually a misunderstanding and what’s really needed is a new approach for organizing and mobilizing? Roll up your sleeves and get ready for a session that will introduce you to a variety of forward-thinking approaches to engage communities and incite action.
The Workshop is from 11:15 am -12:30 pm on April 9th, 2017 at the Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle, in Toronto.
Check out the full schedule for CCFC’s 2017 Food Summit: HERE
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had has been made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
Conceived and Directed by: Darren O’Donnell
Co-assistant Directed by: Jana Eiting, Wendell Williams, Sanjay Ratnan, Kathy Vuu, and Thipeeshan Balakrishnan
Local Coordination & Production: Cathrin Rose & Caroline Wolter
This presentation of Nightwalks with Teenagers has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program.
This presentation of Nightwalks with Teenagers has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program.
Performance date: Sunday, February 26, 2017 from 12-4pm
For more information,or to book your appointment, email: info@art-society.com
This presentation of Haircuts by Children has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council National & International Touring program.
Conceived by: Nerupa Somasale in collaboration with the Torontonians and Mammalian
Produced by: Jenna Winter & Eva Verity
Co-Directed by: Jana Eiting, Darren O’Donnell, Jenna Winter and the Torontonians
Coordinated by: Cathrin Rose and Caroline Wolte
Environment and Lighting Design: Konstantin Bock
Created in collaboration with the Torontonians and Mit Ohne Alles
Performance date: August 14, 2016
This presentation of Dare Night was part of Teentalitarianism a social-specific multi-faceted performance, using Atelier Van Leishout’s massive installation The Good, Bad and the Ugly as location, where adult audiences were invited to enter a very different world: a world where the tables are turned and they were subject to the authority of young people. Created in collaboration with the Young Mammals (Toronto) and local German youth, Teentalitarianism explored the idea of a teentalitarian state, a time and a place where teenagers have absolute rule.
MammalianMedia is pleased to announce that the short film Sleeping with Family (2015) will be screened at the Hot Docs Film Festival
Founded in 1993, Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, offers an outstanding selection of over 200 films from Canada and around the world to Toronto audiences of more than 200,000.
Sleeping with Family is about sleeping arrangements in a low-income neighbourhood as described by 15 teenagers living in Parkdale, Toronto. Disguised to protect their identities, the young people in the film discuss their living conditions, particularly the absence of, and negotiations for privacy living in close quarters with multiple family members.
Directed by Nicole Bazuin, Darren O’Donnell
Produced by Kathleen Smith
Featuring members of the Torontonians
Dates: Friday, April 29, 2016 at 6:45pm, Saturday, April 30,2016 at 4:30pm and Friday, May 6th at 4:15pm
Location: Scotiabank Theatre 7 (Apr 29, May 6)& Innis Town Hall (Apr 30), Toronto.
Created By: Mammalian Diving Reflex, Darren O’Donnell
With: Dorothea, Edda, Erika, Helga, Peter und Uli
Director: Darren O’Donnell
Assistant Director & Environment Design: Alice Fleming
Producers: Jana Eiting, Eva Verity, Jenna Winter
Stage Design: Konstantin Bock & Marina Stefan
Lighting Design: Konstantin Bock
Sound Design: Isola Music (Martin & Smörre)
MC: Christian (Smörre) Ziegler
Local Producer: Beatrice Löffelholz
Text: Konstantin Bock, Jana Eiting, Darren O’Donnell, Eva Verity and Jenna Winter mit Dorothea, Edda, Erika, Helga, Peter und Uli
German Script Translation by: Irina Bondas, Jana Eiting, Anna Galt, Wolfgang Woeste
In Collaboration With: Pazz International Performing Arts Festival, Oldenburgisches Staatstheater
Performance Dates: December 8, 9, 10, 2016 at 20:00 and December 11, 2016 at 18:00
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had has been made possible in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program.
Before interning with Mammalian as a production assistant, Sijia had previous experience writing for various lifestyle and culture websites in Montreal. She maintains an interest in storytelling in the digital age. During Mammalian’s 2016 tour at the Edinburgh International Festival, Sijia handled social media and photography for the festival’s Official Youth Jury. She is majoring in English at McGill University, expected to graduate in 2017.
This presentation of Nightwalks has been made possible thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
This presentation of Nightwalks has been made possible thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International program, and the Ontario Arts Council National and International touring program.
Mammalian acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Written by: Darren O’Donnell, Konstantin Bock, Jana Eiting
Directed by: Konstantin Bock, Jana Eiting
Produced by: Eva Verity, Jenna Winter
Coordinated by: Elisa Tallinn and Cathrin Rose
Venue: Erich Kästner-Schule, Bochum, Germany
Environment design: Konstantin Bock
photo: Eva Verity
Eva and Kathy land at the Lunenberg Symposium on Mentorship in the Arts, happening May 27th-29th, to lead a participatory workshop, using the practical application of MDR’s SMYLE (Succession Model of Youth Labour Engagement).
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s our approach to mentorship and youth engagement (& succession) based on designed social circumstances operating as sites of research. The SMYLE is grounded in some simple, but paradigm-warping principles such as collegiality, social capital, friendship and performativity.
Darren’s talk Scaling Up, Out and Forever looked at what type of questions we ask when socially engaged practice is successful.
Darren talked at the Tate Modern as part of Theatre of Research’s Playing Up Symposium and project launch. The symposium closed a three day play-in at Turbine Hall. You can take a look here.
Created by Sybelle Peters, it’s a really fantastic Game/Art Book you can & should play with kids. You can preorder it here.
Haircuts By Children is in there and so is work by a whole host of other awesome artists.
Darren was a keynote speaker, panelist and Artist in Residence during the (APAM) Australian Performing Arts Market’s – Feb 2016 edition. It was a busy five days.
the Keynote focused on ideas around legacy, self-definition and civic significance, and asked the three speakers to address the ways they define themselves in relation to those questions.
Willoh S. Weiland (A.D of Melbourne based interdisciplinary organisation Aphids)
Nakkiah Lui (independent artist, writer, actor, activist, Gamillaroi/Torres Strait Islander woman) and
Kee Hong Low (Head of Artistic Development (Theatre) of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority)
Shared the keynote address with Darren. The event was hosted by Wesley Enoch, and featured the students of the Aboriginal Centre of Performing Arts.
The Talking Heads Panel Series: Utopia and the Institution: Socially Engaged Art Practices in the 21st Century featured:
Lenine Bourke (The Walking Neighbourhood, AUSTRALIA) as the moderator
Alex Winters (Open Engagement, Brisbane Powerhouse, AUSTRALIA)
Lenine Bourke (The Walking Neighbourhood – AUS)
Nathan Stoneham (The떡볶이Box- The Dokboki Box – AUS)
here is the link to the conference website for more info.
Darren was the keynote speaker at the Engage International Conference in Glasgow this November. The theme for the conference was; A Different Game: Young people working with art and artists.
In his talk Giving the Kids the Key to the Car-Darren spoke about age as a construct, the value of young people’s creative and cultural engagement and their direct contact and collaboration with core creatives. What can be learned from artists about thinking critically and responding creatively as they make their way into a society that is more and more unequal? And what can young people working together tell us about shaping a brave new world in their image?
Featuring: The Tottenham upLIFTers: students from The Vale and Northumberland Park Community Schools
If you want to support this edition of the Children’s Choice Awards and help make the festival the best of the best for a jury of 30 Tottenham 12 year olds, CLICK HERE to donate.
Performance dates: June 6-July 1, 2016
Awards Ceremony: FREE! Friday July 1st, 2016, 5pm. @ Unicorn Theatre, 147 Tooley Street,Southwark, London
This presentation of the London Children’s Choice Awards has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring Program.
Mammalian also acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Mammalian remercie le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
Conceived and Directed by: Darren O’Donnell
Co-Directed by: Jana Eiting and Jenna Winter
Produced by: Eva Verity and Jenna Winter
Coordinated by: Cathrin Rose and Caroline Wolte
Environment and Lighting Design: Konstantin Bock
Performance dates: Thursday, June 30th and Friday, July 1st, 2016
This presentation of These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood has been made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Programs and the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring Program.
Also thank you to the: the Arts Council of England and The Cultural Partnership and Reading Year of Culture 2016 for supporting us.
Coming back to Portland on February 10th, the company’s Artistic & Research Director, Darren O’Donnell, will present a lecture highlighting our current international projects in Australia, the UK, Germany, and Toronto. Darren will share theories and methods behind the work, focusing on our performance and film work with children, youth, and the elderly, including our current project with young refugees in Germany. He will also talk about how the Mammalian Succession Model for Youth Engagement is now being applied in the UK and Germany. He will look at current ethical and political concerns with this kind of work, seeking to answer the question just how much should we expect from the arts?
Darren will be in Portland throughout this year in a creative research capacity with PICA to advise on expanding youth access and engagement in contemporary art. This is one of several events with Darren that will be open to the public in 2016.
Update: PICA has generously posted a link to the full talk on their site, just scroll down.Here’s the link.
The Banff Centre hosted the Rocky Mountain Series of Theatre Alberta’s popular Workshop by Request. In the first master class of the series, Calgary’s Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre presented a workshop with Darren.
This master-class focused on Mammalian’s ‘social acupuncture’ method for creating innovative ways for artists to engage and interact with the public.
in collaboration with: Sydney Opera House
Co-Directors: Darren O’Donnell, Konstantin Bock
Producer: Eva Verity
Performers: Jennie, Judith, Liz, Paul, Peter, Ronaldo
Lighting Design: Konstantin Bock
Local Producer: Adam McGowan
Local Coordinator: Mark Mitchell
Venue Coordinator: Alice Fleming
Sound Designer & MC: Steve Toulmin
Stage Manager: Laura Graham
Sydney Festival Intern: Megan Exton
Mammalian intern: Christie Woodhouse
Venue: Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre
Performance dates: January 21, 22 & 24 (captioned performance) @ 7:30pm; January 22 @ 2:00pm; January 23 @ 2:00pm
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had has been made possible in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program and the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
COME DINE WITH THE JURY AND SEE THEM IN ACTION! FREE (just pay the cost of your meal).
Thursday, October 8: Antica Cagliari, Via Sardegna, 49, 09124 Cagliari, +39,070,734 0198
Friday, October 9: Sa Schironada , Via Baylle, 39, 09124 Cagliari, +39 070 680570
Saturday, October 10: Ampurias, Via Lodovico Baylle, 39, 09124 Cagliari, +39 070 680570
Sunday, October 11: Isushi, Via Garibaldi 1, Cagliari, +39 070 756 6666
Monday, October 12: Su Cumbidu, Via Napoli, 13, 09124 Cagliari, +39 070 670 712
Tuesday, October 13: Namasté, Via Barcellona 63, Cagliari, +39 333 101 8074
Wednesday, October 14: Ethnicà
Thursday, October 15: Cuba Vieja
Friday, October 16: Luigi Pomata, Viale Regina Margherita, 14, 09124 Cagliari, +39 070 672 058
Sunday, October 18: Awards Ceremony FREE! at the Teatro Civico di Castello, Via de Candia, 09124 Cagliari, +39,070,677 6400
This presentation of Eat the Street has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program.
This presentation of Haircuts by Children has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring Program.
We also acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
In response to the most ‘liked’ status update he’s ever written, Mammalian’s Artistic and Research Director, Darren O’Donnell moderates a relay discussion* over drinks about why the hell everybody wants to be an artist, why so many other jobs are more creative and meaningful and why art has jumped the shark. Whip off your beret, slide on your boxing gloves, slip in a mouth guard and get ready to rumble.
IT’S A SATURDAY NIGHT, SO THE DISCUSSION WILL BE A PARTY. DRINKING!
*a relay discussion features a talking ball which is passed from person to person to person with each person permitted to talk for a minute max before passing it on and waiting until the ball circles back. In the subsequent round, the time is shortened and, for each round after, continues to get shortened until people are only permitted a single word before passing on the talking ball. Taking a pass is welcome and speaking less than a minute is smiled upon. The moderator will establish the parameters of the discussion and blow a whistle and flash a yellow card if anyone strays off topic. Two yellow cards and you’re out. Any artists complaining about funding will immediately be shown a red card, given a plane ticket to a country with less arts funding and sent packing.
Mammalian Diving Reflex are Artists in Residence at the Art Square Gallery & Cafe, Dec 8 – Feb 8, directly across from the Art Gallery of Ontario, where they are also Artists In Residence, Dec 8 – Feb 8. If you would like us to be Artists In Residence in your life, too, give us a shout.
Local Coordination & Production: Moona Tikka & Julia Hovi
Youth Centre: Kallahti, located in Vuosaari, Helsinki
Performance dates: Saturday August 15, 2015, 11am and 3pm, with neighbourhood party from 11am-4:30pm
This presentation of These Are the People In Your Neighbourhood has been made possible in part by a grant from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
This presentation of Nightwalks with Teenagers has been made possible in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program and the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
Participating restaurants:
Irish Heather GastroPub – January 25, 6pm
Calabash Bistro – January 26, 6pm
Nuba @ The Waldorf – January 27, 6pm
Subeez – January 28, 6pm
La Casita – January 29, 6pm
Chambar – January 30, 6pm
Chill Winston – January 31, 6pm
Nicli Antica Pizzeria – February 1, 5pm
The Old Spaghetti Factory – February 2, 6pm
This presentation of Nightwalks with Teenagers has been made possible in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program and the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
Performance dates: Sunday, January 18, 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM
This presentation of Haircuts by Children has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring Program.
Local Coordinator and translator: Vilja Ruokolainen
School: Ala-Pyörö School, class 4C
Teachers: Anja Siltakoski
Salon: Style in Room
Performance Dates: Thursday September 25 2-5pm, Friday September 26 4-7pm, Saturday September 27 2-5pm
Photos by: Pekka Mäkinens, courtesy of ANTI Festival
This presentation of Haircuts by Children has been made possible in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program and the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
Wednesday 8 October, 6.30pm – 8.30pm The Karczma (Polish):
Awards Ceremony: FREE! Saturday, October 11, 2014 @ 5pm, at the Mockingbird Theatre in the Custard Factory.
This presentation of Eat the Street has been made possible in part by grants from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program and the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program.
Presented by: Asian Arts Theatre and Culture for Children, Asian Culture Complex Gwangju
MDR Coordinators: Alexandra Hong & Eva Verity
Local Producer: BJ Yoo
Local Coordinator: Yu Kyung Kim
Translator & Co-Facilitator: Charlye Lee
School: Dongsan Elementary School
Videographer: Sung Uk Lee
Photographer: Sehyun Lee
Booklet designer: Sulki & Min
Photos by: Konstantin Bock
Performance dates: Friday, October 24 and Saturday October 25, 2014.
This presentation of These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood has been made possible in part by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program.
From the teens who brought you Dare Night: Lock Down, The Torontonians present… Camp AWKS.
The two months you looked forward to as a child have been packed crisply into one AWKward night. We’ve kept the greatest parts of summer camp, threw in a little teen flavour and created AWKS: Summa Camp.
In the Gladstone Hotel’s savvy Ballroom awaits an urban adventure far from flag saluting and friendship bracelet braiding. Take a seat at the campfire and sing campfire songs, share ghost stories, and enjoy performances by young talent from across the GTA, and special guest Lido Pimienta.
Come have a s’more and celebrate the last AWKS of the series.
AWKS, the Young Mammals‘ latest project developed and produced by The Torontonians, is a party series wrapped hectically together by up-and-coming party scene teens. It’s an opportunity to relive your glory middle school dance days and sneak a peek at talented youth all over the GTA – like ALL. OVER. Let’s applaud, break that weird force that separates the boys and the girls, party like a mammal, but most importantly, let’s keep it AWKS. For more information, visit: http://www.partylikeamammal.com/
When: Thursday July 3rd 2014, 8pm-12am
Where: Gladstone Hotel,1214 Queen St West
AWKS has been made possible in part thanks to support from Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto; support provided by a grant from the Vital Toronto Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation; Hal Jackman Foundation; Ontario Trillium Foundation and Metcalf Foundation.
Ever have that utter feeling to feel super glamorous but have nowhere to show it off? No worries, this night we’ve got you covered. As part of Nuit Rose, come out to Awkward Glamour Party for a night of games, prizes, performances and of course, dancing. We’ll be having prizes for best dressed, best catwalk, best vogue and we can’t have a party without a twerking contest! Be prepared for a night of fun and show off at the Catwalk with your smooth moves and killer looks. Glamour is a queer’s best friend, so show it off and celebrate World Pride Week with us!
AWKS, the Young Mammals‘ latest project developed and produced by The Torontonians, is a party series wrapped hectically together by up-and-coming party scene teens. It’s an opportunity to relive your glory middle school dance days and sneak a peek at talented youth all over the GTA – like ALL. OVER. Let’s applaud, break that weird force that separates the boys and the girls, party like a mammal, but most importantly, let’s keep it AWKS. For more information, visit: http://www.partylikeamammal.com/
When: Saturday June 21st, 2014
Where: The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen Street West
AWKS has been made possible in part thanks to support from Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto; support provided by a grant from the Vital Toronto Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation; Hal Jackman Foundation; Ontario Trillium Foundation and Metcalf Foundation.
Presented by: Wunderbar
MDR Coordinators: Darren O’Donnell, Virginia Antonipillai & Sanjay Ratnan
Local Coordinators: Ilana Mitchell & Florrie Darling
Produced by: Eva Verity & Jenna Winter
Performance dates: Friday July 26 and Saturday July 27, 2014.
This presentation of Nightwalks with Teenagers has been made possible in part by a grant from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
Teenage Collaborators: Demian Behrens, Anika Faser, Eeske Hahn, Olivia Putek, Julia Rduch, Christopher Rocholl, Emma Rose, Lisa Schmidt, and Sonja Vallot
Performance dates: Thursday May 22, Friday May 23 and Saturday May 24. For more information, click HERE
Spring into the warm weather with AWKS: Spring Fling Picnic Party! We’ve all had enough of old man winter so this month we decided to host an indoor picnic to celebrate the end of the cold. The day will be packed with games, live music, finger foods and more. Everything you love about spring! There will be flowers, food, fun and frisbee so come on down and enjoy!
There will be scheduled performances throughout the day but we’re always happy to accommodate any talent that wants to perform! If you’ve got a song to sing or a talent to show us there will be the opportunity to perform in front of a warm crowd so feel free to show us what you’ve got!
This is a BYOB event. as in Bring Your Own BLANKET! Bring something soft to sit on while we eat, picnic style.
AWKS, the Young Mammals‘ latest project developed and produced by The Torontonians, is a party series wrapped hectically together by up-and-coming party scene teens. It’s an opportunity to relive your glory middle school dance days and sneak a peek at talented youth all over the GTA – like ALL. OVER. Let’s applaud, break that weird force that separates the boys and the girls, party like a mammal, but most importantly, let’s keep it AWKS. For more information, visit: http://www.partylikeamammal.com/
AWKS has been made possible in part thanks to support from Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto; support provided by a grant from the Vital Toronto Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation; Hal Jackman Foundation; Ontario Trillium Foundation and Metcalf Foundation.
Sound Designer & MC: David Chandler (DJ Brokenwindow)
Intern: Hannon Welch
Venue: PSU Shattuck Hall Annex
Performance dates: September 17-20, 2014 @ 7pm
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had has been made possible in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program and the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
Aren’t you tired of old man Winter breathing his cold, dry and depressing breath down your neck? Tired of hearing the term Polar Vortex? So are we! That’s why we’re hosting a funeral to say sayonara to Winter. Be a part of our procession and recite a eulogy to say goodbye to the cold! This ain’t your average funeral, music will be played, cake will be eaten, and talent will be showcased!
DRESS CODE IN EFFECT: MOURNING ATTIRE
Farewell Winter Talent Show Showcase your talented and creative way of saying goodbye to this long and dreary winter. A flashy $75 to first place, $50 for second, and $25 for third! Your performance must be a) a minimum of 1 minute long, b) a creative goodbye to winter (singing, dancing, spoken word, yo-yoing, ANYTHING!) Contact Ellen Tang or Virginia Antonipillai for further deets and talent sign-up! ymprograms@mammalian.ca
AWKS, the Young Mammals‘ latest project developed and produced by The Torontonians, is a party series wrapped hectically together by up-and-coming party scene teens. It’s an opportunity to relive your glory middle school dance days and sneak a peek at talented youth all over the GTA – like ALL. OVER. Let’s applaud, break that weird force that separates the boys and the girls, party like a mammal, but most importantly, let’s keep it AWKS.
AWKS has been made possible in part thanks to support from Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto; support provided by a grant from the Vital Toronto Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation; Hal Jackman Foundation; Ontario Trillium Foundation and Metcalf Foundation.
HEY YOU! Is it your birthday? GOOD! It ain’t ours either; but this month it’s EVERYONE’S birthday as we throw the party you always wished you had. Get ready for the childhood blast of your dreams. Cake will be eaten, pinatas will be popped, and donkeys will be pinned. Get up. Get hyped. And get ready to dance your ASS off. It’s about to get AWKS baby!
Prizes! Prizes! Prizes! We’ve got a flashy 75 dollar bill for first prize in our TALENT COMPETITION! Show us what you got: shake your buns, do the splits, sing your heart out – whatever your talent is – bring it on! To sign up for the talent show contact ymprograms@mammalian.ca
First Prize $75
Second Prize $50
Third Prize $25
AWKS, the Young Mammals‘ latest project developed and produced by The Torontonians, is a party series wrapped hectically together by up-and-coming party scene teens. It’s an opportunity to relive your glory middle school dance days and sneak a peek at talented youth all over the GTA – like ALL. OVER. Let’s applaud, break that weird force that separates the boys and the girls, party like a mammal, but most importantly, let’s keep it AWKS. For more information, click HERE
AWKS has been made possible in part thanks to support from Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto; support provided by a grant from the Vital Toronto Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation; Hal Jackman Foundation; Ontario Trillium Foundation and Metcalf Foundation.
Not in love with winter? Chill by the pool-side – of balloons! – at our Awkward Pool Party. Yup. We’re recreating the deep end with a hundred balloons, plus a ton of games, and a KARAOKE CONTEST? YUP. YUP. YUP.
A KARAOKE CONTEST!
Three rounds for a chance at first place: $100!!
Second place $50
Third place: $25.00
So bring your bathing suits and songs to gallerywest! Want to sign-up to the Karaoke Contest in advance? Send over your three song request to annie@mammalian.ca and we’ll hook you up. Join the FACEBOOK EVENT.
AWKS, the Young Mammals‘ latest project developed and produced by The Torontonians, is a party series wrapped hectically together by up-and-coming party scene teens. It’s an opportunity to relive your glory middle school dance days and sneak a peek at talented youth all over the GTA – like ALL. OVER. Let’s applaud, break that weird force that separates the boys and the girls, party like a mammal, but most importantly, let’s keep it AWKS. For more information, click HERE
AWKS has been made possible in part thanks to support from Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto; support provided by a grant from the Vital Toronto Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation; Hal Jackman Foundation; Ontario Trillium Foundation and Metcalf Foundation.
image: Michael Barker
Things are about to get hairy at this month’s grizzly-bearded AWKWARD dance party, where plaid shirts and mustaches go for good times. In support of Movember, AWKS will be giving out mustaches and dancing like a lumberjack! So get your plaid shirts and long johns on and head over to gallerywest! See you there awkward bears!
AWKS, the Young Mammals‘ latest project developed and produced by The Torontonians, is a dance party wrapped hectically together by up-and-coming party scene teens. It’s an opportunity to relive your glory middle school dance days and sneak a peek at talented youth all over the GTA – like ALL. OVER. Let’s applaud, break that weird force that separates the boys and the girls, party like a mammal, but most importantly, let’s keep it AWKS. For more information, click HERE
AWKS has been made possible in part thanks to support from Toronto Arts Council with funds provided by the City of Toronto; support provided by a grant from the Vital Toronto Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation; Hal Jackman Foundation; Ontario Trillium Foundation and Metcalf Foundation.
We will also be presenting Socialist* Games on Saturday, October 12th, 4pm @ the Vooruit Ticket office. Socialist* Games calls on strangers to play with strangers in wave after wave of summer-camp style activities – minus the summer camp, plus the awkwardness, and double the hotness. So give your laptop the finger and get playing. By the end of the night you will be much more sweaty, much less of a stranger, and a much more of a socialist*.
*Socialist, n. One inclined to seek out and enjoy the company of others.
This presentation of Haircuts by Children has been made possible in part thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring Program.
Photos by: Lucia EggenhofferVenue: Nova Scena Theatre
Performance dates: Wednesday, November 6 and Thursday, November 7, 2013
This presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had has been made possible in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program and the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
Performance dates: Friday Sept 13 and Saturday Sept 14, 2013
Ticket information hereThis presentation of All the Sex I’ve Ever Had has been made possible in part by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program and the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program.
This presentation of Eat the Street has been made possible in part by grants from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program and the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program.
This presentation of These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood has been made possible in part by grants from the Ontario Arts Council’s National and International Touring program and the Canada Council for the Arts Theatre International Program.
PAKISTAN: Diplomatic Immunities appeard at the World Performing Arts Festival in Lahore, Pakistan in November 2007. We worked with local research artists Zain Raza, Wajeehah Sabahat, Adeel Salman and Bushra Azeem and interviewed people on the streets, in thier homes and in the market. We interviewed children, adults, men and women. Our primary inquiry was about people’s scars, gently using these stories as a way to subtly reference the scar that is the partition between Pakistan and India.
Conception and social co-ordination by Darren O’Donnell
Visual co-ordination by Rebecca Picherack
Produced by Natalie De Vito
Video Direction, Translation and Facilitation by Faisal Anwar
Projections by Stephanie Comilang
Mammalian Diving Reflex in association with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre presents Diplomatic Immunities: THE END at Buddies in Bad Times, February 11 – February 25, 2007.
Diplomatic Immunities: THE END is the interaction between a company of research artists and the inhabitants of the city. Diplomatic Immunities takes the body of the city, throws it on stage, cuts it open and holds the contents up to the light. Not theatre, not a talk show, not a film or a news report – but all of them at once for the very last time. THE END.
Conceived and directed by Darren O’Donnell, produced by Naomi Campbell, co-direction and lighting by Rebecca Picherack, video compositing by Faisal Anwar, sound by Nick Murray and screens by Daniel Young. Research Artists: Faisal Anwar, Naomi Campbell, Ulysses Castellanos, Misha Glouberman, Darren O’Donnell Rebecca Picherack, Tanya Pillay and Beatriz Pizano.
press:
“Darren O’Donnell is artistic director of Toronto-based theater group Mammalian Diving Reflex, and author of multiple plays, including A Suicide-Site Guide to the City, pppeeeaaaccceee, and White Mice. New York Press spoke with him about his first novel, Your Secrets Sleep with Me (Coach House), which is reviewed in this issue.”
– Interview with Darren O’Donnell by Kate Crane for the New York Press
Performance: 7pm on Saturday 2 June 2012
Where: gallerywest, 1172 Queen Street West, Toronto
When: 7:30-10:30pm on Saturday, February 18th, 2012
Where: Drake Lab, 1140 Queen Street West, Toronto
When: 7:30-10:30pm on Saturday, January 28th, 2012
Where: Gallerywest, 1172 Queen Street West, Toronto
When: 7:30-10:30pm on Friday, November 18th, 2011
Where:Gallerywest, 1332 Queen Street West, Toronto
Presented and commissioned by: Abandon Normal Devices (AND Festival)
Local Coordinators: Neil Winterburn & Marisa Draper
Venue: First Street
Performance date: 1 September 2012
Free Advice From a Teenager occured during Coach House Book’s 2005 launch of the first of their uTOpia series: uTOpia: Towards a New Toronto, which included Darren O’Donnell’s essay Toronto the Teenager. Free Advice From a Teenager featured 14-year-old Kirsten Azan giving advice to any interested adults. She helped people with their love-lives, housing arrangments and career paths.
Free Advice From a Teenager was an unabashed rip-off of Ulysses Castellano’s Bureau of Personal Guidance, but without the shot of whiskey.
Presented by: The National Theatre School
Co-directors: Darren O’Donnell & Jill Connell
Assistant Director: Hugh Portman
Kids: Ms. Hope, Mr. Noah and Ms. Wilson’s 70 grade 5/6 students from Westmount Park School
Performance date: January 2010
Graffiti Workshop Leader: Tevin, Lars & Rachel Edge
Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, Ontario Trillium Foundation, The City of Hamilton, Hamilton Community Foundation and Incite Foundation for The Arts
Organized by Amish Morrell with the support of Inverness municipal councillor Jim Mustard as part of Diane Borsato and Stephanie Springgay’s SSHRC-funded study “The Institute of Walking: Research and Creation in Relational and Interventionist Art Practices.”
MDR Coordinators: Saniya Ansari, Saif Azmi, Darren O’Donnell, Stephanie Springgay, Jenna Winter
Local Coordinator: Amish Morrell
Facilitator: Councillor Jim Mustard
Teenage Collaborators: The Torontonians, J. Trent Campbell, Brayden LaRadical and the Invernessers
Workshop Leader: Diane Borsato
Supported by: The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Oldenburgisches Staatstheater
Presented by: Pazz International Performing Arts Festival
Director: Darren O’Donnell
Producer: Natalie De Vito
Local Coordinator: Konstantin Bock
Sound Designer: Nick Murray
Video Designer: Stephanie Comilang
Supported by: Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts
Performance dates: 26 & 30 April 2010
Presented by: Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto
Directed by: Darren O’Donnell
Curated by: Maiko Tanaka
MDR Coordinators: Amy Lam, Darren O’Donnell
Production Assistants: Konstantin Bock, Stephanie Comilang, Eva Verity & Jenna Winter
Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Toronto Community Foundation, Toronto Community Foundation’s Simon Family Fund, BMO Employee Charitable Foundation, The Drake Hotel, Gladstone Hotel
MDR Coordinators: Natalie De Vito, Eva Verity & Jenna Winter
Local Coordinator: Ashley Boaden
School: Roseworth Primary School
Teacher: Principal Metcalf
Supported by: Octagon Theatre, Perth Writers Festival, Michelle Scott, Western Australia’s Commissioner for Children and Young People; Ontario Arts Council
Kids: Students from Parkdale Public School: Sanath, Latha, Callum, Kahlil, Zoe, Lara, Dalton, Lauren, Camille, Wendy and Hayley
Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Toronto Community Foundation, Ontario Arts Foundation, TO Live With Culture, Parkdale Public School
MDR Coordinators: Natalie De Vito, Eva Verity & Jenna Winter
Local Coordinator: Ashley Boaden
School: Roseworth Primary School
Salon: Ebony & Ivory
Stylists: Ryan Ross Williams & Jasmine
Supported by: Octagon Theatre, Perth Writers Festival, Michelle Scott, Western Australia’s Commissioner for Children and Young People; Ontario Arts Council
Presented by: Fusebox Festival MDR Coordinators: Eva Verity & Jenna Winter School: Pecan Springs Elementary School Facilitator: Starla Simmons Salon: Peacock Salon Stylists: Brooke Ellington & Danny Smith Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts Performance dates: 12 & 13 November 2011
