STREET

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Summer 2022

This summer, The Bentway invites you to see the streets of Toronto anew. 

The street is not only a path from point A to point B, but a destination in its own right. From parades to protests, block parties to blockades, the street is a place to see and be seen, a place that connects us. When we think STREET, we think: runway, stage, gallery, canvas, sandbox, and so much more.

Through a series of free art installations, performances, workshops, public conversations, and community celebrations, we ask: How can we learn from, and take to, the street? What do we borrow from these spaces, and what do we offer back to them? How do we capture this collective moment to re-imagine our streets as public spaces for all? Click here to read more about STREET.

The pandemic prompted cities across the world to reconsider the role of their streets. These familiar routes, previously reserved for vehicles, first emptied but then quickly filled, becoming sites for improvisation and innovation. During difficult days when civic life was waning, our streets connected us. Together we questioned what these spaces could be and do, and, even, the complex histories their names hold. We were reminded once again why urbanist Jane Jacobs referred to them as the city’s “most vital organs.”

In this same spirit, STREET is The Bentway’s free summer season which brings together artists, community members, urban planners, educators, and changemakers who invite us to see the streets of Toronto anew.

How can we overcome the conventions of the street and imagine new civic uses for these arteries?

Join conversations with an expansive group of city-builders about the future of our streets; experience a soaring installation that playfully conveys their vitality; listen carefully to the concrete speak and to the stories it tells. Or, take a night walk through the streets from a teen-aged perspective; witness a call-and-response between two scaffolds; chase a group of dancers along sidewalks and alleyways as they reveal unseen architectures; play the street accompanied by a choir and band; rally to rewrite the very rules that govern our streets; see the sidewalk from a new vantage as you train in Carnival masquerade; and celebrate the dog days of summer with the return of our signature event, The Bentway Block Party.

come join us at street level

  • Moko Jumbie Parade
    Moko Jumbie Parade

    Join Michael Lee Poy, the Moko Jumbie Mas Camp artists, camp participants, and their families for a jubilant community Carnival parade centering balance, regalia, joy, and emancipation – traveling along the sidewalk around Canoe Landing Park.

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  • Nightwalks with Teenagers
    Nightwalks with Teenagers
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    Mammalian Diving Reflex, along with a group of local teens, invites you to ‘walk on the wild side’ after sundown, and to experience the streets, alleys, and secret urban spaces around The Bentway from their point of view.

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  • And With
    And With
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    And With (as dreamed up by Germaine Liu) is a sound walk that invites audiences and passersby to experience the sounds and textures of The Bentway, the streets nearby, and the rumbling urban artery above like never before.

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  • Moko Jumbie Mas Camp
    Moko Jumbie Mas Camp
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    Since its earliest known historical appearance in 1791 in St. Vincent, the masquerade (mas) character known as Moko Jumbie has enchanted and frightened people throughout the Caribbean and its diasporas. With a mesmerising spectacle of balance and regalia, the guardian spirit both protects and participates in the Carnival street festivities. As a protector, Moko Jumbie…

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  • Caribbean Sea
    Caribbean Sea
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    Robin Van Lear (Cleveland, Ohio) is a celebrated visual and performing artist and designer, and member of the Moko Jumbie Mas Camp team. Van Lear is known for creating spectacular public parades featuring costumed stilt-walkers, giant puppets, masquerade, and a fusion of international Carnival art practices.

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  • Moko Jumbie Shibori & Direct Dyeing Workshop
    Moko Jumbie Shibori & Direct Dyeing Workshop
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    Want to learn how to transform fabric with the art of Shibori dyeing or direct dyeing?

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  • Weeping Concrete
    Weeping Concrete
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    In a growing city such as Toronto, scaffolds are a ubiquitous feature of the urban environment. WEEPING CONCRETE is a site-specific project for a trio of performers across two towering scaffolds; asking us to reflect on the streets as we know them and imagine what they might be.

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  • The Street Summit
    The Street Summit
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    On May 27th & 28th, 2022, The Bentway’s season kicked-off with The Street Summit, a two-day event hosted at The Bentway’s Strachan Gate that challenged traditional understandings of city streets and asked how we can create a more inclusive, equitable, and joyful public realm.

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  • PARADE
    PARADE
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    Part of the delight of being on the street is not knowing what you’ll encounter next…

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  • Bodies in Urban Spaces
    Bodies in Urban Spaces
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    Arriving in Toronto for the first time after being performed in more than a hundred cities worldwide, Bodies in Urban Spaces is a moving trail choreographed for a group of local dancers.

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  • Weweni Bizindan (Listen Carefully)
    Weweni Bizindan (Listen Carefully)
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    There is a tendency for the noun-dominant English language to perpetuate a view of the street as static, cold, necessary. Most objects in the English-speaking world are effectively dead. Certainly, that can be said of a highway. And, yet, for Anishinaabemowin – a verb-based language that ascribes spirit to rocks and trees among many other…

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  • Future Perfect: New By-laws for Civic Spaces
    Future Perfect: New By-laws for Civic Spaces
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    Future Perfect: New Bylaws for Civic Spaces is a hopeful, positive act of re-configuration. By-laws that regulate behaviours in civic spaces – in this case, Toronto’s Streets and Sidewalks Municipal Code – are cut up word-by-word and meticulously rearranged into a new set of rules for a transitioning world.

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  • Moko Jumbie Street Furniture
    Moko Jumbie Street Furniture
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    The Moko Jumbie theatre and seating designs, designed for the Mas Camp, are inspired by the mathematical shape vesica piscis otherwise known as mandorla (pointed oval), which consists of two intersecting congruent circles.

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  • a wandering
    a wandering
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    A multi-sited audio-visual walking tour is now on exhibition under the Gardiner Expressway.

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  • Double Dribble
    Double Dribble
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    Through the illogical use of basketball motifs, Toronto artist Esmaa Mohamoud transforms The Bentway into a surreal basketball court. Double Dribble is comprised of basketball nets of varying diameters — from half the size, to 3X the size of a standard net — and court lines running dysfunctionally throughout The Bentway site. Nets are installed…

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  • Dream Street
    Dream Street
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    Welcome to Dream Street! Use the different backdrops to create and record your own stories using #playinginpublic. From the urban forest to the local store, there are many places to explore.

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  • Walk Walk Dance
    Walk Walk Dance
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    If COVID-19 has proven anything, it’s that cities need to adapt and change. This past year cities across the world have moved quickly to prototype new ways to experience and explore the city during a global health crisis. They’ve become more pedestrian and bike-friendly, embraced the use and creation of outdoor public spaces, and offered…

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  • Play Path
    Play Path
    Summer 2021

    You’re invited to play your city!

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  • Play Public
    Play Public
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    As insatiable and compulsive collectors of found photographs and keen observers of sociological patterns, both Dutch artist and designer Erik Kessels and French multimedia artist Thomas Mailaender take the absurd and ridiculous very seriously. Joining forces for this collaborative project, they draw from the photographic archives of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) to activate their…

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supporters

STREET is presented in partnership with the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, the Government of Canada, and the Hilary & Galen Weston Foundation.

The Bentway is supported by the City of Toronto, Toronto Arts Council, Maxine Granovsky Gluskin & Ira Gluskin, The Ivey Commissioning Fund, Frances & Tim Price, Barbara & Dougal Macdonald, Eleanor & Francis Shen, Canada Council for the Arts, Concord Place, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Ontario Arts Council, Beanfield Metroconnect, and a growing family of friends and supporters. 

Special thanks to Fort York National Historic Site, Puncture, Craft PR, the City of Toronto, and SJC.

Co-presenters & Other Partners include the Government of Ontario, Arts Council England, Sketch, Summer Works, Toronto Arts Council, ArtworxTO, the City of Vienna, the Federal Ministry Republic of Austria, British Council, and Farnham Maltings.