Education Program

Innovative and highly acclaimed contemporary dance company Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie (CLC) has been working closely with the Regent Park community, engaging students, teachers, youth, and families through dance and creative movement workshops, studio drop-in sessions, open rehearsals and specialty classes to create a collaborative and site-specific performance piece.

Husband-and-wife choreographers Bill Coleman and Laurence Lemieux lead one of Canada’s most eclectic, daring, and technically sophisticated dance companies. Noted for its exceptional stage performances, and for its innovative “Off the Beaten Track” series, which transplants dance into urban or rural community landscapes, Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie (CLC) has performed across Canada and the U.S., and as far afield as Brazil, Russia, China, and Mongolia.

Based in Regent Park, CLC has been active in the community during its massive redevelopment, and in July 2009 staged a piece in one of the construction sites. Now, as part of a multi-year Luminato residency, Coleman and Lemieux have been commissioned by the Festival to create a new site-specific performance piece to commemorate Nelson Mandela Park PS before it temporarily closes, to be interwoven within the Regent Park Street Opening celebration.

Visiting spectators and residents of the community alike will share in a transformative encounter with the unexpected, inviting us to re-imagine what can be art in today’s world, in our own neighbourhoods.

Commissioned by Luminato.

Using the diverse narratives of Volcano Theatre’s The Africa Trilogy as a framework to explore Western perceptions of Africa, students and teachers will participate in art, music, and drama workshops.

Selected members of The Africa Trilogy’s creative team, as well as African musicians, will lead in-school performances, workshops, and discussions, sharing the particular style, creative process, and cultural significance of their work.

Through workshops led by local artist collectives, students will explore the concept of art and play using FriendsWithYou’s Wish Come True Festival public art installation as inspiration for creative discovery.

In partnership with Small Print

Building on the Festival’s programming theme of East/West perceptions, students in grades 4 and 5 will explore their neighbourhood through writing and photography workshops inspired by the new children’s book City Alphabet by Joanne Schwartz and Matt Beam.

The students’ images and written work will be published in a children’s book that will be distributed to selected schools across the city of Toronto.

During the Festival, authors from the Luminato Literary Program, including Roddy Doyle, founder of the youth writing centre Fighting Words Dublin, will visit these participating students for a creative exchange and discussion.

Produced in partnership with the Playwrights Guild of Canada and [murmur]

High school students from the Pathways to Education program in Regent Park will work with a professional playwright to write, recite, and record a play about their neighbourhood. The recording will be part of a site-specific sign installation in Regent Park where the public can call in and listen to the plays on their cell phones. The plays will also be posted online at luminato.com and uthinkers.ca, as well as published in an anthology. This exciting project bridges youth culture with new play development, empowering young people to have a direct artistic impact in their community.

In partnership with ArtHeart Community Art Centre, youth participants will create their own interpretations of FriendsWithYou-inspired objects, exploring the intersection of art and play. Adult participants will also have the opportunity to meet the FriendsWithYou visual arts collective and discuss their creative process as well as their joyful and experiential approach to art.

In partnership with Big Brothers & Big Sisters Toronto, Bloorview Kids Rehab and Learning Enrichment Foundation, Magicana will conduct a magic program for children ages eight to fourteen. For eight weeks, a professional magician will teach students the secrets of great magic and how to perform them. The program culminates with "A Big Show", a performance recital for students to showcase their magic for invited guests along side special guest and master magician, Bob Sheets.

High School students from Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre will program and produce a Youth Illumination program – a panel discussion with leading music writers/critics and musicians exploring the Pop Diva phenomenon.

Leading up to the Festival, these students will participate in specialty workshops focused on the art of music writing with professional music writers/critics. The students’ written work will then be showcased in a special Diva issue of Catch Da Flava magazine and on luminato.com.

Marketing and communications students from Seneca College pitched and produce promotional Luminato videos, with support and mentorship of the Luminato Marketing team and Endeavour Marketing. The videos were been posted on YouTube and launched as part of the Luminato 2010 online marketing campaign. The video with the most views as of noon on June 4th hasbeen recognized as the winning team for the Viral Video Collaboration project on the Luminato website.

To see the videos, click here.

Congratulations to the winning team of Rómulo Cardier, Andrew Mamangun, Vidya Shanmugam, and Namrata Chandel. You can view their video on Luminato TV.

Families can participate in hands-on workshops at library branches across the city, to create characters inspired by the Wish Come True Festival public art installations.

Parliament Branch

Tuesday, June 15 - 10:00 AM

Flemingdon Park Branch

Wednesday, June 16 – 2:00 PM

Bloor Gladstone Branch

Friday, June 18 – 2:00 PM

Morningside Branch

Saturday, June 19 – 10:00 AM

Registration is required. Recommended for children aged 3 and up, and their families.

Maximum number of participants: 25 children per branch. For more information, visit luminato.com/education.

In this interactive discussion and drama workshop for adults, members of The Africa Trilogy creative team invite you to learn about the development of this ground-breaking production, and to explore its themes through games and drama tactics.

Malvern Branch

Friday, June 18 – 12:00 PM

Youth from selected Toronto Public Library Youth Advisory Groups will participate in a writing workshop with selected authors from the East/West in Canadian Fiction literary program, to explore personal connections to their neighbourhoods through their unique voices and East/West perspectives. Written selections will be published on luminato.com.