Contemporary performance and community building are at the heart of SummerWorks, offering more than 40 events and activities designed, created and curated by independent artists. The festival takes place from August 1 to 11, 2024.
The theme for this year’s festival is survival, and it’s a concept that is explored in many diverse ways and methods.
SummerWorks
SummerWorks presents new works in four distinct programming streams, working with both emerging and established artists and curators. The goal is to experiment, try new directions, and connect with audiences in innovative ways. For the artists, it’s a chance to develop professional capacities.
- SummerWorks Presentations: These are new and cutting edge works that are in a fully developed state, including touring productions.
- SummerWorks Lab: Performance works are shared at key stages of their development in a space that fosters experimentation, particularly of processes. Audiences can cannot with the work in its development stage.
- SummerWorks Public Works: This set of free performances and art installations invites audiences and artists to come together, and inhabit public spaces in new ways.
- SummerWorks Exchange: Works in this stream are in the early stages of creation, where conversations are crucial, and perspectives help shape the emerging work. Audiences will join the artists in considering creative proposals and artistic practices.
In addition, the SummerWorks at Union program launched June 26, and continues until August 21 with concerts at Union Station.
We spoke to Artistic Director Michael Caldwell about this year’s offerings.
Michael Caldwell, Artistic Director
Michael Caldwell comes to the position of Artistic Director with a background as a dancer, choreographer, producer and arts advocate. Michael earned a bachelor’s degree in film/art history from Syracuse University in New York, and trained as a dancer at Dance Arts Institute.
As a choreographer, his works have been presented across Canada in various contexts from large festivals and venues to community engagements. He’s worked with more than 55 Canadian companies and individual creators, and has worked internationally throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. He is a two-time Dora Mavor Moore Award winner for outstanding performance in dance.
His ‘Two x 30’, a large-scale performance/sound work, premiered in as part of ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art in 2021/22.
Along with his work as Artistic Director at SummerWorks, he is the Programming Advisor for Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal, in Nova Scotia. Previously, Michael served as Executive Producer of Fall for Dance North for eight years
Michael is President of the Board of Directors at The CanDance Network.
Michael Caldwell: The Interview
“I’m still newish to SummerWorks,” says Michael Caldwell. It will be his second year, but the first programming on his own. “Even in the short time, the one thing that I’ve learned is how nimble SummerWorks is.”
From last year’s call for submissions, he says they received 355 applications, about 120 more than ever before.
“One of the guesses, I really hope, is that people are really excited about SummerWorks,” he says, wondering why the surge in the fall of 2023. “I think it also speaks to a lot of pent up energy.”
Emerging from the pandemic, there were fewer and fewer opportunities to platform work, particularly new pieces. Many companies, while still operating, were clawing back their programming bit by bit in a struggle to stay afloat.
Of all the proposals, they shortlisted 80, and Michael spoke to all of them. In fact, SummerWorks has contacted more than 155 of the companies and individuals who submitted their ideas. Fostering community and connections goes beyond programming one festival. Some of the Exchange programming comes from those conversations. The Exchange projects enlarge and expand the conversation.
“That truly has been the best part of my job,” he says. “That’s why I do what I do. A lot of beautiful connections and conversations have come forward.”
The theme of survival came from the applications they received, rather than predesign. “That was an interesting thing for me, as a curator.” Naturally, he often comes into a programming environment with specific ideas he’d like to explore. This time was different. “But it was just so clear to me. The word ‘survival’ was written in so many applications. We’re kind of all trying to survive,” he says.
“In the microcosm of arts and culture in Toronto, things are tough,” he says, noting that difficult times extend to all levels of society. It was a theme he couldn’t ignore.
Survival is also a complex theme, ranging from the plight of people around the world who are literally simply trying to survive, to those who are struggling with issues of identity and heritage. It’s a complex issue, and it has a darker side, but the focus is on ways of moving forward.
“What is the role of any festival?” he asks. “To bring people together. To move towards joy. I think that’s really all we can do.”
SummerWorks: Focus on Dance
There are a number of dance works in the SummerWorks calendar. “I’m excited about them,” Michael says. “Sensorial and body practices are kind of my jam.”
The Movements (Alex McLean)
The Movements is described as “a high-octane theatre/dance spectacular” about… the economy?
“The Movements takes a lot of dry economic data and aims to make it visceral. I hope people come away from the show understanding why this stuff is worth thinking about, even though it’s massive and nuanced and hard to decipher from our individual vantage points. It is overwhelming at times, but—like the gruelling workout undertaken by the four performers — it’s also kind of exhilarating.” — Alex McLean, Director and lead writer of The Movements
Warm Up (Mykalle Bielenski)
A dance theatre piece about overconsumption that’s powered by a stationary bike.
“I would like the audience to leave with a better understanding and greater awareness of their consumption habits, their needs, and what could change. I want them to leave with a greater desire for simplicity and a stronger commitment to respecting nature. I hope they feel inspired to change their perspective and to question themselves for a better future.” — Mykalle Bielenski, Warm up
Microphone Controller (Lukas Malkowski)
Lukas Malkowski’s piece is presented in association with dance: made in/fait au canada Festival. It’s described as “a dance and sensory concert with songs, speeches, moans, thrashes, and American Sign Language”.
I hope audiences, Deaf and hearing, understand something.
None will understand everything.
CODAs will understand most.
Children of Deaf Adults.
Microphone Controller is the person I wish I could be.
He is my embodied fantasy of the perfect CODA pop star, understood and adored by all.
Like Freddie Mercury — if he was a CODA.
He performs Amazing sensory concerts that are intensely visual.
You can feel the vibration of every word, and see the meaning in his hands and face.
Each of you will understand something different.
I hope you are curious about what you don’t understand.
If you’re hearing, I hope you learn Sign.
Whoever you are, I hope this brings you joy.
I hope it connects with you.
That’s the point.
Isn’t it?
— Lukas Malkowski, Microphone Controller
Subject To / خضوع (Mehdi Dahkan)
This imaginative work is a solo performance that examines the nature of silence.
“The performance ‘Subject To / خضوع’ aims to propose silence as a stronger (& louder) form of protest and resistance. The performance is without music, without sound, without speech. But even in this silence, the intention of the performance is to share with the audience a very strong need for change, a very strong disruption, a very strong protest. I hope the audience will feel the performance’s message: even if nothing is said, that doesn’t mean everything’s fine. If there’s no noise, it doesn’t mean there’s no change.
“This applies to people as individuals or as groups, the Arab Spring movement didn’t happen by accident, it happened after years and years of silent resistance — until it exploded one day. The people who commit suicide are not necessarily the ones who talk about it the most beforehand; this changeover takes place in silence.
“I hope the audiences will be touched by the message this performance tries to communicate.” — Mehdi Dahkan, Subject To
“It’s just a stunning work,” Michael says, “really impactful in its simplicity.”
Subject To is paired with slip away by Indigenous performer Samantha Sutherland in what he calls a “beautiful double bill”. Sutherland’s piece is about learning to hang on to her maternal language
Ktunaxa. “How do we hang on to things that are disappearing?” Michael asks. “It’s just a beautiful work.”
slip away (Samantha Sutherland)
“I hope that my audience sees the beauty in Indigenous Languages, particularly in Ktunaxa. I created slip away to not only share what my experience has been in learning Ktunaxa, but also to share the language with those who have not heard it before. The language holds the knowledge of who we are as Ktunaxa people, and of the beautiful lands which we are from. — Samantha Sutherland, slip away
Surrendered Spirits (Irma Villafuerte)
“The possibility of healing through connection, togetherness, and love. In the most raw, and truest form, through the beauty and not so beautiful moments of emotional and ancestral ebbs and flows.” —Irma Villafuerte, Surrendered Spirits
Other dance piece include the hyper-physical solo performance Slug Meal by Camille Huang, and C3 (Camille Cubed) by Micaela Janse van Rensburg / Dance Arts Institute, a solo dance piece about negotiating through uncertain spaces.
Taiwanese works are featured this year, including the Canadian premiere of Girl’s Notes III, a solo performance that turns a spotlight on women who have been isolated since the pandemic, along with Meet the Bones, a movement meditation, and the world premier of Three Dots, a play set inside contemporary Taiwanese Indigenous family structures.
- Find out more about the complete schedule and performances [HERE].
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