Doors Open Toronto Preview: Evergreen Brick Works
The only trouble with being featured on the Doors Open Toronto itinerary is that you’re pretty much stuck at your own site for the weekend and can’t get out to tour the other awesome locations opening their doors to eager architecture fans.
With this in mind, Evergreen Brick Works kindly invited 2010 DOT participants to preview its sprawling construction site last Thursday. Although the Bayview behemoth won’t be officially open until September, the 40-acre site will be one of the draws on this year’s Doors Open Toronto program May 29 – 30.
Lead architect Joe Lobko (du Toit Allsopp Hillier), above, guided a large group over, under and through the labyrinth of what was once one of North America’s largest brick-making operations. Started in the 1880s, “the Don Valley Brick Works is the reason Toronto is a city built of brick, as opposed to wood like Vancouver, for instance,” noted Lobko.
Keeping Rock of Ages Rolling
When auditions were announced for Rock of Ages (opening tonight at the Royal Alexandra Theatre) actor/singer/dancer Valerie Stanois, above, was “dog-determined” to land a role in the show, which is equal parts send-up and celebration of 1980s arena rock.
“I grew up in Scarborough in the 80s,” says Stanois, “so all of these songs, I was singing.”
Stanois is a musical theatre veteran who paid her dues on the cruise ship circuit and later, in the Toronto production of We Will Rock You, first as an ensemble player and understudy, and then as Oz, one of the female leads.
“That show was the highlight of my career,” recalls Stanois. “Oz is my alter ego, I’m boisterous and loud because I’m Greek and the way I could channel that was through my character. I became a lot lower-key offstage during that show because I was saving that part of myself for the show.”
word! sound! powah! Completes Dub Trilogy
D’bi.young understands context. She knows that her urban primitive style is sometimes perceived as threatening; it’s one of the reasons she insisted on Q&A sessions with her audience after each performance of blood.claat earlier this spring at Great Canadian Theatre Company.
“The audiences were predominantly white, affluent, economically in a different class than myself,” notes young. “The talk-backs allowed me, as a human being, to connect with them beyond the entertainment value of the work and to contextualize what they were seeing.”
The production of blood.claat was a remount of the first work in a triology that will be completed on May 16 when young performs word! sound! powah! at the Berkeley Street Theatre. The free performance and pre-show panel discussion are part of the larger 2010 Festival of Ideas & Creation, a celebration of performing arts and behind-the-scenes look at live theatre.
ROM Artifacts Inspire Museum Dances
The CanAsian International Dance Festival moves into the Royal Ontario Museum this weekend and next transforming select galleries into glorious site-specific performance spaces. Curated by CanAsian’s Artistic Director Denise Jujiwara, each of the four commissioned companies was invited to choose a space or artifact as the inspiration for a new original dance work.
Vancouver’s Moving Dragon (dancer/choreographers Chengxin Wei and Jessica Jone, above) sought out Toronto-based composer Michael Vincent to score their 15-minute piece; written for percussion ensemble with taped choir, the music will be performed live by Toronto’s TorQ Percussion Quartet (tonight at 7 pm and Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm, free with admission to the ROM).
Doors Open Toronto Preview: City Hall Green Roof
After several years of theme-based programming, Doors Open Toronto goes back to its roots May 29 & 30 with a simple focus on exciting new and heritage architecture. Each Wednesday in May, livewithculture.ca will profile a prominent local architect and project being featured during the weekend-long celebration of Toronto’s built form.
Last week, I had the pleasure of touring City Hall’s soon-to-be-completed green roof, essentially a massive, public garden that literally breathes new life into a significant part of the square that’s been closed to the public for years.
Accessed from a long, curving ramp on the east side of Viljo Revell’s famous twin towers, the new green roof has transformed what was a desolate expanse of sun-baked concrete. Spreading out beneath the council chamber and wrapping around the iconic, modernist structure, the green roof is part of a much larger, $40-million revitalization of Nathan Phillips Square, scheduled to be completed in 2012.
