If you’ve always wanted to visit Toronto, but never really had a reason to go, now’s the time to head north by northeast, in more ways than one. The so-called little brother to SXSW, NXNE is a full week’s worth of nonstop live indie bands, film programs, and much less attitude than many other music-fueled juggernauts. Happening from June 11-17, NXNE also overlaps with LuminaTO, another Toronto-based arts festival that focuses on the latest creativity coming from the biggest city in Canada.

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Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller have brought their experimental art to the masses with an installation housed in a salvaged, thirty-foot Chinese junk ship in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park.

While the outside of the ship is a vision in itself, the cramped, dark cabin is where the artists’ chaotic vision is on display through moving parts and random sounds — among them, a stationary bottle spinning water, drumsticks hitting pots and pans, flashing bulbs, old radio snippets and a violin that plays itself. The installation, entitled Ship O’ Fools and part of the fourth annual Luminato arts festival, will reportedly hit Berlin later this year.

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I visited Toronto for the first time a couple of weekends back to check out the Luminato Festival and explore the city itself, which is being promoted as a more socially progressive and cultural alternative to other Canadian hotspots such as Montreal and Vancouver. And for good reason. Toronto is a fascinating place on many levels: from the architecture in the city center, which seamlessly combines the ornate majesty of pre-1940 buildings with the glistening facades of more contemporary designs; to the long, straight roads which defines movement though the city and contains an assortment of hidden gems; to the overall cleanliness of the streets and the overwhelming sense that a bustling creative community is doing all it can to foster the careers of others around them. It was an eye-opening experience. I left the city with a feeling that Toronto is very much on the rise, casting aside its wintry persona and thriving on the back of what is clearly a dynamic and exciting creative scene. Photos by Alison Zavos

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I’m heading up to Toronto on the weekend to take in the events around the annual Luminato festival, which is now in its third year as a ten-day celebration of the arts — filling Toronto’s stages, streets, and public spaces with theatre, dance, classical and contemporary music, film, literature, visual arts, and design. It’ll be an interesting few days, especially given that part of the experience of attending Luminato is to have ‘accidental encounters with art’. Hmmm, hmmm. The event is designed to showcase Toronto’s thriving downtown area which is driving the city’s ongoing cultural renaissance.

For anyone heading to Toronto for the Luminato festival, here’s a few events you can check out:

Redball Project Toronto
Having made headlines in cities from Barcelona to Chicago, something big red comes bouncing into Toronto on its global trek. Experience Toronto the imagination and vitality of RedBall. Easing into entranceways, basking beneath bridges or wedged into alleyways, RedBall searches for new opportunities as the city itself becomes a canvas of possibilities. Perschke’s project investigates Toronto’s specific urban landscape and history. With vision, curiosity and wit, RedBall reveals places we never noticed before and re-imagines familiar landmarks. RedBall represents an immediate creative impulse embedded in all of us – the simple act of seeing afresh. Seek it out as it touches down in a different Toronto location every day. “RedBall straddles the realms of formalist sculpture, street performance, ephemeral urban installation and hands-on art object… its presence in Barcelona was an unequivocal success.” – Jeffrey Swartz, Barcelona Curator

Communication/Environment
Linked to a theme of contemporary communications that runs through this year’s Festival, these eye-opening installations by internationally exhibited artists will transform your perceptions of Toronto’s downtown core. At the Allen Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place, is long wave, a new commission from Toronto’s David Rokeby. Extending north along Bay Street is Binary Waves, an interactive piece by Belgian group LAb[au] that responds to urban presence and the unseen electromagnetic communications signals all around us. At the Exchange Tower, you’ll discover Broken Arrow, an exciting new work by Canada’s Germaine Koh in collaboration with Ian Verchere. Also, visit Sam Pollock Square at Brookfield Place every day to check out The Luminato Box: a temporary experimental gallery where 10 artists each have a day to present their latest work.

The Great Canadian Tune
Bring your guitar and help get Toronto into the Guinness Book of World Records! Grab your guitar and come to Yonge-Dundas Square, where The Heartbroken will play all 10 top-ranked songs, ending with Helpless. Join the band in playing it as we try to break the world record for largest guitar ensemble. (The number to beat is 1,802: that’s how many gathered in 2007 in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany, to play Smoke on the Water.)

Carmen
There has never been a Carmen like this ground-breaking, genre-bending re-conceptualization by provocative Italian choreographer Davide Bombana. Carmen, choreography by Davide Bombana Skin Divers, choreography by Dominique Dumais Choreography, film and the spoken word combine in two innovative dance pieces produced by The National Ballet of Canada. In its Canadian debut, Italian choreographer Davide Bombana’s groundbreaking, genre-bending re-conceptualization of Bizet’s Carmen dispenses with the story’s inessentials and goes straight for the latent carnality and primal passions at its heart. The program’s other Canadian premiere is inspired by Ann Michaels’ poetry collection Skin Divers, where Dominique Dumais’ choreography, complemented by projected visuals, explores the idea of the human body as “a living archive of experience.” Plus, all Carmen ticket holders will enjoy a flamenco music performance by the Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company, 45 minutes before show time in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. Featuring guitarists and singers, patrons can enjoy this riveting performance from one of Canada’s most innovative companies.

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