7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art 2022

Taiwo Aiyedogbon, Fragile Space, Lagos Nigeria 2022. Photo: Father Fab.

**13th 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art**

September 6-10, 2022

ARTISTS
Jackson 2bears & Janet Rogers (Six Nations)
Taiwo Aiyedogbon (Nigeria)
Kiera Boult (Canada)
Rita Camacho Lomeli (Canada)
Jana Omar Elkhatib (Canada)
keyon gaskin
Geneviève et Matthieu (Canada)
Jusuf Hadžifejzović (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Michelle Lacombe (Canada)
Julie Lassonde (Canada)
Lucky Pierre (USA)
Archer Pechawis (Toronto / Mistawasis First Nation)
Jessica Thompson (Canada)

Éminence Grise: Alain Martin Richard (Canada)

VENUES
The Theatre Centre (1115 Queen Street West, Toronto)
Various outdoor locations

SCHEDULE
For a complete schedule of performances visit our website, Instagram, or Facebook

FESTIVAL ADMISSION
Admission for all events is FREE or PWYC. Tickets available at the Theatre Centre box office

Festival logo by Zab Hobart / Julie Lassonde, Pommes (Apples), La Pocatière, Québec 2015. Photo: Mariane Stratis.

Welcome to the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, active in Toronto since 1997.

Toronto Performance Art Collective (TPAC) is pleased to announce the 13th edition of our festival. This long-awaited event, originally scheduled for the fall of 2020, follows a long tradition of bringing together an eclectic mix of innovative live performance works featuring local, national, and international artists.

Performance art has always been a somewhat contingent practice, inhabiting a space somewhere in between the artist’s intentions and the accidents of circumstance. If theatre champions the techniques of the ‘as-if’ by rehearsing and simulating imagined worlds, then perhaps we could say that performance art operates more in the terrain of the ‘what-if,’ creating open-ended situations where audience witnesses/participants and artists embark on a shared journey of discovery to ferret out what can and will happen under particular circumstances. Our festival has never been a ‘themed’ event, but after two and half years of a pandemic that seems to have erased whatever certainty we might have had around what constitutes ‘normal’ life, this year’s performances seem particularly infused with—or at least informed by—concerns around contingency, precarity, and speculation. Expect works that prompt, in large and small ways, informed by personal and systemic histories, questions like: What is true? What is just? What is possible? What is impossible?

The collective would like to particularly thank our presenting artists for their patience and commitment to the festival through two years of delays and uncertainties, as well as our funders, who agreed to allow us to hold on to the funds we had been granted until it was possible to host an event that could be as live and in-person as possible.

COVID PROTOCOLS
The ways in which we feel it is ‘safe enough’ to gather have been in constant flux over these past two and half years. There’s still no one consensus on the best practices to balance our human need to come together and the very real risks of infection. For this festival, we are following the blanket rules currently in place at our venue, the Theatre Centre. These could and probably will change based on circumstances at the time of the festival. Currently, audience protocols include the following:

Anyone planning to attend an indoor event will be expected to show their vaccine passport and provide contact tracing information
All audience members will be required to wear masks unless they are in the café actively eating and/or drinking
Event attendance is currently capped at 50% capacity

Full details of the Theatre Centre’s policy can be found on their website here.

For outdoor events, audience members are encouraged to follow masking and social distance practices.

ACCESSIBILITY
The Theatre Centre is physically accessible to audiences and artists alike. Each level has a barrier-free washroom and there’s a lift available for public use.

7a*11d and its presenting partners gratefully acknowledge the support of: