In 2002, Expect Theatre brought us Romeo and Juliet Remixed, a red-hot reinterpretation of the tragic love story, which premiered at Toronto’s Fringe Festival. The show won five Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations and captured the prize for Outstanding Choreography in a Play or Musical.

This year, the artistic duo at the heart of Expect Theatre, Laura Mullin and Chris Tolley—in collaboration with Arts Etobicoke—set their sights on the underserved Rexdale community. The result was UrbanNOISE, a free, all-ages, urban anti-violence arts festival for inner-city youth held at Albion Centre on June 27 and 28, 2006. R&B diva Jully Black (Juno and MuchMusic Video Award nominee) hosted the two-day event, which coincided with the end of the public school year.

The festival was a culmination of 13 weeks of after-school workshops where at-risk youth from the Jamestown and surrounding Rexdale area, learned urban arts such as spoken word, emceein’, deejayin’ and beatboxin’ from such acclaimed artists as Dwayne Morgan, Motion, Jelleestone, DJ Fase and Jugular, who also appeared at the festival.

Look for it again in 2007 and 2008