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News 2006

News 2006 - Winter and Spring

posted June 8, 2006

Dancing In The Park, Step One

Tuesdays and Wednesdays,4 to 6 p.m.

Many of the people who work at the park have other “hats” that they wear as well. Park staff Eroca Nicols, as lots of park friends know, is a dancer currently studying with Ballet Creole. When park staff Ted Carlisle, who is also a DJ, presented a DJ on Ice day at the end of February, lots of people danced (on the ice, with or without skates). That was so much fun that Eroca began to plan with Ted, for summer dancing in the park.

So this is the summer to try it. Eroca says there are so many wonderful group dances/ line dances/ square dances in all the cultures of the world, and she wants to introduce some of them in the park, with the help of park kids. So the park is offering free children’s dance classes every Tuesday and Wednesday all summer long at the park. Then on one Friday each month (July, August, September, maybe October if the weather is still good), Eroca and Ted and will host a D.J.’d dance on the rink pad, for everyone, after Friday Night Supper. The dance class kids will teach everyone (adults too) who want to learn the traditional group dance of that month and then Ted will spin all sorts of other music too.

The sessions are:

• Tuesdays:
  • Ages 5 and under, 4:00pm-4:30pm.
  • Ages 6-8, 4:45pm-5:30pm
• Wednesdays:
  • Ages 9-12, 4:00pm-4:45pm.
  • All Ages Dance/Instrument Jam 4:45pm-5:45pm

From Eroca:

All classes will be in front of the playground gazebo. Make sure to wear sunscreen and bring water to class. Thanks to all who came to the first week of classes, And for your patience with the age group/schedule experiment. If anyone has kid friendly instruments (maracas, tambourines, percussive noisemakers of any kind) and would like to donate them please contact Eroca or drop them by during the All Ages Jam on Wednesday between 4:45pm and 5:45pm.

To find out more or to sign up, call the park at 416 392-0913 and leave a message, or e-mail Eroca at staff@dufferinpark.ca.

posted June 14, 2006

Rummage Sale & Community Fair

posted June 8, 2006

The Third Annual Cooking Fire Theatre Festival

Wednesday, June 14th – Sunday, June 18th, 2006

From director Kate Cayley:

“We are pleased to announce the third annual Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, a weeklong performance extravaganza celebrating theatre, food and public space in Toronto's Dufferin Grove Park. Companies from Toronto, Victoria , Halifax and New York City will present original work that promises to delight, provoke, and inspire. Each evening, Toronto's Number Eleven Theatre will lead the audience from site to site throughout the park to see performances ranging from an ancient Japanese folktale to a modern cowboy musical, from grand spectacles to intimate puppet pieces.

Delicious organic meals will be served to the audience over cooking fires and from Dufferin Grove Park's two wood-fired outdoor community bake ovens. Dan DeMatteis, who cooked at the park in years past but now works for Jamie Kennedy, will be back just for that week to work with the park cooks. Building on the success of the last two years, this year's Cooking Fire Theatre Festival will offer the experience of enchanting and challenging theatre, wonderful food and the beginning of summer.”

The schedule:

Zuppa Circus Theatre (Halifax) Open Theatre Kitchen: all possible futures – 6:30 PM

In a kitchen in the desert, a couple desires a child so deeply that they imagine one into existence. Equal parts human, part onion, mischief and mythology, the child transforms and threatens the life they have made. Presented by celebrated Halifax company Zuppa Circus, this new piece is a generous, wild theatrical feast celebrating a relentless appetite for the world. www.zuppacircus.com

Drama of Works (New York City) On the Backs of Fishes – 8 PM nightly

Part two of their epic puppet drama Warrior, On the Backs of Fishes tells the story of Jingo, the warrior empress of Japan, and uses marionettes, rod puppets, overhead projections and storytelling. On the Backs of Fishes won an award for Original Adaptation at the World Festival of Puppet Art in Prague. Drama of Works is an experimental puppet company, and company-in-residence at New York City's HERE Arts Centre. www.dramaofworks.com

Theatre SKAM (Victoria) Billy Nothin' – 8:30 PM nightly

Trapped in a world of leather chaps and cowboy boots, five Wild West characters collide, encountering murder, metamorphosis, and mayhem alongside a meta-whore who may or may not have the answers to set them free. This cowboy musical, presented by the wildly popular BC company, is a quintessential Western with more twists than a lasso. www.skam.ca

Stranger Theatre (Toronto) Käthe Kollwitz – 9:45 PM nightly

A new piece using marionettes, shadow puppetry and toy theatre, based on the life and work of German printmaker and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz, her depiction of life in working class Berlin, and her struggles as a pacifist in Nazi Germany. www.strangertheatre.ca

Performances begin at 6:30 PM every night and dinner is served from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM. Admission is pay-what-you-can ($10 suggested contribution).

posted June 8, 2006

Dufferin Grove Park Summer Craft Fair

Sunday June 18, 11 – 4 p.m.

DUFFERIN GROVE PARK SUMMER CRAFT FAIR Sunday June 18, 11 – 4 p.m. organized by Gladstone Ave. resident Abbey Huggan. She writes:

“we’ll have a variety of crafts and art on offer at this event: all *hand-made* by the person who is selling them, and with a priority for people whose craft is not their profession (at least not yet).”

If you fit that description and you want to sell at the fair, you can contact Abbey by e-mailing her at abbeyhuggan@yahoo.ca.

posted July 10, 2006

Dusk Dances 2006 (seventh season)

Tues July 11 - Sun July 16

Community Dinner at 6:30, Band Starts at 7:00 Dance starts at 7:30

Dancer: Angela Del Sol
Designer: Nigel Skinner
Photographer: Gary Mulcahey

Dusk Dances 2006 - Toronto Season CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS Dufferin Grove Park: July 11 - 16 It takes a village to run Dusk Dances... We are looking for volunteers for the Dufferin Grove Park season of Dusk Dances. If you would like to help out for one night, from 5:30pm -9:30pm, please contact our Park Co-ordinator, Molly Johnson, at jollymohnson@hotmail.com or on 416 536 0042. Visit www.duskdances.ca

Dufferin Grove Park, July 11 - 16
On Dufferin, south of Bloor
Featuring opening band Grupo Capoeira Mâles; new dance commissions from Nova Bhattacharya/Louis Laberge-Côté, Little Pear Garden Collevtive and Lucy Rupert; plus works from Montreal's Roger Sinha and Solid State.

Hosted by Lisa Ann Ross Band starts at 7pm, Dance starts at 7:30pm

Pay-What-You-Can

Post-show artist talk-back: July 12

Info-line: 416 504 6429 ex 41

“Gather to the sound of live music at twilight and stroll between dances that dot the grounds like whimsical new forms of greenery.”

Toronto Life Dusk Dances is also touring to regional Ontario centres in 2006 - Kingston, Manitoulin Island, Chatham, Haliburton and Deep River. Fore more information, visit www.duskdances.ca.

Dusk Dances is generously funded by Ontario's Trillium Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council and Canadian Heritage.

See a Picture Gallery from the 2004 season.

posted April 1, 2006

Cooking Fire Theatre Festival announces its line-up for 2006. Read more >>.

posted March 18, 2006

Cooking Fire Theatre Festival Returns for 2006 (Third Season)

Wed June 14 - Sun June 18, 2006

The Cooking Fire Theatre Festival is returning for the third year, from June 14 - June 18, 2006 at Dufferin Grove Park. See material from last year: Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, 2005. And they now have their own web address: www.cookingfire.ca, which will soon be brimming with information about the event.

posted March 19, 2006

Day of Delight Returns for 2006 (Fourth Season)

Sunday June 18, 2006

David Anderson of Clay and Paper Theatre has confirmed that Day of Delight will return to the park this summer on Sunday, June 18, 2006. We'll post more information as we get it.

posted April 4, 2006

Friday April 7, 2006: Easter egg decorating at the rink house, 4.30 to 6 p.m.

Park friend Belinda Cole will be hosting this. Tables will be set up in the rink house, with a good supply of hard-boiled eggs, paints, Easter-egg dyes, drying racks, tongs, and magic markers. Park staff will help, by providing mini-pizzas, juice, and cookies to keep the egg-decoraters’ strength up. Donations are welcome to cover the cost of materials. This event is early this year, but the eggs will keep very well in the fridge until Easter Sunday. For more information call the park at 416 392-0913.

posted April 4, 2006

Sunday April 9, 2006: Eighth annual Matzo bake at the park outdoor bake oven, 2 – 5 p.m.

Park friends Emily Paradis, Sarah Fowlie and Zio Hersh will be hosting this. From Emily:

"Celebrate Freedom! Bake Matzo! Bring the whole family to a celebration of liberation!

We provide: koshered wood fire oven, kosher matzo flour all the way from Montreal, implements used only for Passover baking, and 18 minutes to make your matzo. You provide: elbow grease, joy. Pay What You Can – suggested donation $10 per family. Games! Crafts! Freedom Stories! Queer! Straight! Jewish! Jew-ish! For info call or email Sarah and Emily at 416-588-4025 or sfowlie@sympatico.ca.

Park staff will help at the ovens, keeping them very hot. A huge thanks also to Alan Carlisle for bringing the park its oven wood (unpainted, untreated skids) donated by Downtown Lumber on Ossington.

See the brochure.

posted February 13, 2006

Laura Berman Photographic Exibit: Seasons at Dufferin Grove

February 24 - March 11, 2006 in the Rinkhouse

Karl Bechmann will be playing jazz piano at the show opening - Friday Night Dinner in the rinkhouse on February 24.

See Laura's website at www.greenfusephotos.com

Digest of Events Planned Early

posted February 14, 2006

Dusk Dances Returns for 2006 (Seventh Season)

July 11-16, 2006

The ever popular and wonderful Dusk Dances is coming back to Dufferin Grove Park July 11-16, 2006. See a picture gallery from last year. Produced by Corpus.

posted March 19, 2006

Clay and Paper Theatre Returns for 2006 (Eleventh Season)

July 19 - August 20, 2006

Clay and Paper Theatre, with its amazing puppets, is presenting a new play this year (Luís de Camões in Dufferin Grove Park) from July 19 - August 20, 2006, Tuesdays to Sundays at 7:00pm, beginning Wednesday July 19.

From the Clay and Paper Theatre website:

Narrated by the one-eyed adventurer, soldier and poet himself, Luís de Camões in Dufferin Grove Park will sing the praises of the Portuguese who have come to our community. It will fill the park air with the songs of the Fado. Gigantones and Cabeçudos (giant puppets and big head puppets) will recall and connect the Portuguese parade tradition with ours, and the smell of the barbequed sardines will mingle with the smell of fresh corn bread baked in the Dufferin Grove Park bake oven, itself inspired by the village ovens in Portugal. Read more >>

posted March 22, 2006

ART CAMP IN DUFFERIN GROVE PARK (Second Season)

JULY 31 TO AUG 4, 2006

Back by popular demand, the art camp for kids interested in making papier mache sculptures and hanging out laughing! This year's theme is "Funny things are everywhere." Aspiring artists will build and paint their ideal pet using papier mache and mixed media. Course also includes drawing and painting in the park. The day includes an hour for lunch and a swim break. Campers can take advantage of the pizza oven on days it is open, otherwise bring a lunch. Last year the campers made large wearable monster puppets and paraded across the park on the last day (see photos). The teacher is Ottawa-based multi media artist Erin Robertson, sister of Dewson St. resident Kate Robertson, and aunt to Madeleine and Isabelle. Email Gabrielle at feligab@yahoo.ca or call 416-534-5317 if you have any questions and to register. If someone is interested but can't afford the cost please contact us.

JULY 31 TO AUG 4, 2006
AGES 9 to 12
COST: $130 for the week
DROP OFF: 9 a.m.
PICK UP: 5 p.m.

Gabrielle Langlois

Photos from 2005 Art Camp

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