TAC provided targeted funding to selected organizations that receive operating grants to support the continuation or expansion of their work with children, youth and/or culturally diverse communities in Toronto, specifically for activities taking place outside the downtown core. These grants are separate from their operating grants and are intended to support the costs of the intensive work involved in this kind of high-engagement work. In Year One, programming was delivered in 30 schools, and in 26 community centres and outdoor spaces, in partnerships that utilized existing resources while supporting community and local participation and expression. 70% of the activities took place in priority neighbourhoods, with programming spread across a total of 23 Wards and 12 out of Toronto’s 13 priority neighourhoods.
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Acting Up Stage Company will offer 'One Song Glory', a free musical theatre training program for youth. The workshops will take place in Willowdale and Don Valley West Wards and culminate in a performance at Toronto Centre for the Arts. Youth participants will work with professional musical theatre artists, honing their skills, learning about a musical theatre career, and forging relationships with their mentors and each other. The program has been running for nine years and a number of graduates have gone on to work professionally at Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival and regional theatres across Canada.
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Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre will continue to offer its SolarDance program in 2015-2016, including 80 free dance workshops and 10 open house demonstrations for 540 children and teachers from neighbourhood improvement areas. The project also provides pre-professional dance training scholarships to youth, subsidized busing, and free admission to company performances. The program designers are Artistic Director, Deborah Lundmark and TDSB’s Arts Coordinator, Christine Jackson.
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Diaspora Dialogues will complete a third, expanded year of the Emerging Playwright-in-Residence program in 2015/16, enabling young playwrights from diverse backgrounds to develop new Toronto-based plays in collaboration with selected theatre companies and their resident dramaturges. The program is run in partnership with Toronto theatre companies that have distinct mandates addressing a spectrum of diversity, including Obsidian Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times, and Cahoots Theatre, and will expand to include playwrights in Etobicoke and Scarborough.
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Dusk Dances will run Dusk Dances in the Schools in 2016, a program for which they will contract four professional dance teachers/choreographers to work in two public schools, including Harwood Public School. Working with the dance teachers, students will create two dance works based on their chosen themes and perform them at the end of the program as part of a Dusk Dances event at their school. This event will also include the presentation of two professional dance works that will be performed alongside the students’ works.
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Gallery 44 will expand its Outreach and Lab 44 programs to provide increased opportunities to youth and diverse communities in neighbourhoods outside the downtown core. These programs use photography as a medium of creative self-expression to break down barriers to the arts and encourages youth to develop their creative voice and understand the power of the photographic image. The workshops are designed to meet the specific needs of each youth group involved, and are taught by qualified photographers who have a personal relationship with each community organization.
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Hot Docs Documentary Festival provides opportunities for students in classrooms outside the downtown core to see documentary films through its Docs for Schools program. In addition to screening current documentaries in schools, Hot Docs – in consultation with professional educators – prepares detailed educational packages that include lesson plans and links to the Ontario curriculum.
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Inner City Angels will engage up to ten artists to conduct 8-day residencies with 10 TDSB and TCDSB inner suburb schools from September 2015 to July 2016, including schools in seven Neighbourhood Improvement Areas. Students from JK to grade 8, along with York University teacher candidates, will participate in projects using a range of artistic media, including visual art, sculpture and new media, and explore themes such as art and the built environment, social justice, conservationism and peace, and heroes and sheroes.
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Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film Festival will provide LGBTQ film programming, in partnership with Local Arts Service Organizations, to under-served neighbourhoods outside the downtown core, where there is often little to no LGBTQ programming. Inside Out’s Community Programming will provide films, discussion, resources and community connections to LGBTQ individuals in their own communities.
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Le Théâtre français de Toronto will run Les Zinspirés, a creative program for high school students. The initiative will help youth to express themselves through storytelling, provide them with feedback from professional artists and allow them to participate in public readings and a stage production. Works are created and performed in French. Students enrolled in French immersion schools, Franco-Ontarians, and newcomers from French-speaking nations who are enrolled in francophone schools in Toronto are eligible to participate. Program activities will occur in a variety of neighbourhoods including Willowdale and Don Valley West.
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MABELLEarts will conduct the “Front Porches and Back yards” project, a park transformation initiative taking place in a Toronto Community Housing complex in The West Mall and various Central Etobicoke locations from August 2015 to July 2016. The project’s first year will bring artists, architects, gardeners and builders together with community members of all ages and backgrounds to re-imagine, transform and animate neglected public spaces, and will involve a variety of art forms, including visual arts, graphic design, dance, culinary arts and music.
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Mammalian Diving Reflex will offer 'Teens Talk Theatre' as part of the Young Mammals programming in the 2015/16 season. The year-long intervention will see 20 youth serve as the Theatre Centre's official jury for all the productions that occur at the facility. After viewing 20 shows, the jury will publicly convene to present a live award variety show. Youth participants come from neighbourhoods across the city including Jane and Finch, Lawrence Heights, Parkdale, Dovercourt, Downsview-Roding-CFB, Etobicoke, and Malvern.
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Mariposa in the Schools will engage performing artists to conduct extended artist visits with 8 TDSB and TCDSB inner suburb schools from September 2015 to June 2016, including schools in Weston-Pellam Park, Blackcreek, Humbermede, Scarborough Village, and York University Heights. During the project, students from JK to grade 12 will participate in a range of activities led by the visiting artists, including storytelling, song writing, spoken word and poetry, movement and dance, drumming, and sound score composition.
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Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts will collaborate with the disability rights organization Artists Without Barriers to provide 8 creative sessions geared for 6 youth with a range of disabilities to produce new work for a visual arts exhibition that will premiere at the Arts Etobicoke Gallery Space during the 2016 Mayworks Festival. Each of the 6 participating young artists will be paired with an individual facilitator provided by Artists Without Barriers to aid them in the creation of their work.
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Nagata Shachu Japanese Taiko and Music Group will produce “Scarborough Youth Hear Taiko Concert Series”: Twelve 1-hour concerts that will include talk back sessions at various Scarborough public schools throughout the 2015/2016 academic year. The ensemble will also produce study guides to accompany the performances and aims to reach approximately 4,000-5,000 students.
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Planet in Focus produces The Eco Film Lab which brings filmmakers into elementary school classrooms outside the downtown core to train the next generation of environmental filmmakers. Students learn the basics of filmmaking and then conceptualize, shoot and edit their own short films. The project culminates with a screening at the AGO.
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Pleiades Theatre will run two outreach programs as part of their 15/16 season of activity. Speak the Speech! program is conducted in both English and French and is aimed at under-served youth to help them develop language skills in speaking and/or writing while contributing to their abilities to work creatively and collectively. Play Upon the Words is aimed at newcomer adults enrolled in ESL classes through the Toronto District School Board. The program uses theatre to help them gain confidence in their use of English, including the development of a sense of humour in their new language, and to help them feel more comfortable in work or social situations in which they are likely to find themselves. The project will take place in neighbourhoods in Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough.
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Roseneath Theatre will increase community engagement with their audiences outside of the downtown core through arts educator-lead pre and post-performance outreach workshops to coincide with thematic concepts addressed in each of their 2015/16 season productions. Topics will include: homophobia, cyber-bullying, mental health, financial literacy and learning disabilities. Workshops will be offered at schools throughout the city including 15 neighbourhoods in Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough regions.
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Soundstreams will expand its Salon 21 series to four neighbourhoods outside of the downtown core during its 2015/16 season. Salon 21 encourages the discovery and exploration of art and culture in a relaxed, welcoming atmosphere where audiences can engage with staff and artists, in order to understand music, its intersections with other art forms, and its relationship to cultural identity, in a free exchange of ideas.
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Hannaford Street Silver Band offers the Hannaford Youth Program, which provides youth between the ages of 10 and 24 the opportunity to perform in one of three ensembles – The Hannaford Junior Band, The Hannaford Community Band, and the Hannaford Youth Band. Under the direction of Anita McCalister, there are no barriers to accessing the program. Rank beginners are encouraged to learn new skills, instruments are provided at no cost, and yearly tuition amounts to less than $4.00 per hour over the course of the 10 months. In 2015/16, the ensembles will perform three concerts at Church of the Redeemer.
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The Power Plant works with the Saint Alban's Boys and Girl Club of Weston Mount Dennis and the Toronto Kiwanis Boys and Girls Club in Regent Park to offer their Power Youth program in these neighbourhoods. Two artists-in-residence work on-site to teach a free visual art studio workshop to youth ages 13+. Participants also visit The Power Plant for a guided tour with a gallery educator, create their own works of art inspired by their experiences, and invite their friends and family to an exhibition of their finished productions. This will be the third year for the program. New artists-in-residence are hired each year and the program serves approximately 70 youth annually.
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The Storytellers School of Toronto will expand its Village of Storytellers Project to include residents of all ages in 2015-2016. The program arranges eight community program/classroom placements for professional storytellers where they provide storytelling mentorships. Participants learn storytelling skills over five weekly visits by the storytellers and are invited to present their works at the Storytelling Festival.
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Theatre Columbus will run a variety of outreach programs during their 2015/16 season. The programs aim to increase accessibility to theatre experiences. Initiatives include: 1) Distributing free tickets to community groups for the company’s annual outdoor winter production at Evergreen Brickworks; 2) Transportation assistance for community group members; the theatrical experience starts on board the bus. 3) Tour of their winter production to community locations including Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Camp Oochigeas, Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre and Out of the Cold centres. 4) Weekly drama program in Flemingdon Park for children ages 8-12. At the completion of the workshop, the group will present a performance at the Aga Khan Centre.
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Theatre Direct will continue The Firefly Project, an initiative that puts artists/facilitators in residence in Early Childhood classrooms to collaborate with students and teachers. The project demonstrates the role of dramatic play and storytelling in early childhood and celebrates the imaginative capacity and unique voice of the child. Now in its third year, the work will take place at Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy in Thorncliffe Park in Don Valley East neighbourhood.
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Theatre Gargantua will offer the The RISK (Resources Innovation Skills and Knowledge) Program to high school students. Now in its fifth year, the outreach program is a blend of theatre and and technology. Youth work with professional artists and gain confidence in themselves, build trust and team work with their peers, and transform their everyday communication devices into tools for performance. The fourth month long program will be offered to schools in Downsview-Roding, CFB, Parkdale and Victoria Village neighbourhoods.
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Toronto Dance Theatre will expand its Studio Series program in 2015-2016 for students from several neighbourhoods outside the downtown core, which includes movement workshops for non-dancers, lectures, company demonstrations, and discussions with the Artistic Director. Organized in conjunction with the TDSB, the program aims to increase youth involvement in expression through movement in underserved suburban areas, and to increase the accessibility of contemporary dance practices.
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Young People's Theatre, in partnership with Birkdale Residence Shelter in Scarborough, will offer drama workshops for the shelter's resident young people and those students attending its affiliate school, Edgewood Public School. Now in its fifth year, the project will include three components: 1) Weekly drama-based programming for children (aged 6 to 11) and female adolescents (aged 12 to 16) living in the shelter. Facilitated play and drama activities will explore the themes of self-esteem, confidence building, and positive self-expression. 2) In-School programming in order for students to participate in in-class drama workshops, as well as subsidized tickets to attend YPT productions. Thus, each youth living at the shelter will participate in at least one workshop at school. 3) Connecting children and adolescents from the shelter to drama programs once they leave the shelter.