Community Knowledge Centre - Toronto Community Foundation

About this organization

Mission

Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts & Creativity, is mandated to present annually an international multi-disciplinary arts Festival, which reflects the diverse character of the City of Toronto and aims to engage the entire community. Taking inspiration from the Festival’s three programming touchstones: collaboration, diversity, and accessibility, Luminato features highly acclaimed Canadian and world premieres, exciting new works and unexpected collaborations, large-scale free celebrations, and respected education and community outreach programs which together result in unforgettable creative experiences for residents and visitors alike. Luminato aims to become one of the world’s top arts festivals and in doing so support Canada’s cultural and tourism sectors by bringing the best from around the world to Toronto, and promoting the best of Canadian talent abroad.

History of Organization

Luminato was founded in a partnership between visionary city builders David Pecaut (Senior Partner, The Boston Consulting Group; Founder & Chair, Toronto City Summit Alliance), and Tony Gagliano (Executive Chairman and CEO, St. Joseph Communications). David and Tony each independently envisioned a large-scale annual arts festival in Toronto that would serve to help rebuild the city’s tourism following the SARS outbreak in 2003. Introduced over dinner several years ago, they quickly realized their shared vision and the potential of their combined leadership to realize the dream. Over the next few years, the Toronto City Summit Alliance and Tony and David conducted hundreds of consultations to solicit ideas and shape a vision that would truly reflect the talents and aspirations of the community. The Festival would reflect the authentic richness of the arts in Toronto, showcase the recent creative boom in arts infrastructure, would take its vitality from the diversity of the city’s cultural communities, and would touch everyone who lives in the city while also inspiring visitors from around the globe to come to Toronto to experience Luminato. By 2005, a critical mass of artists and arts executives, business and community leaders, and government officials had embraced the vision and added their ideas and commitment to the concept. On January 27, 2007 the Festival achieved registered charitable status from the Canada Revenue Agency, and in February 2007 L’Oréal made a multi-year commitment to come onboard as Luminato’s “Partner in Creativity”. Preparations for the inaugural Festival began in earnest. Since that time Luminato has grown into one of the city’s favourite summer Festival’s, anticipated by residents and visitors alike, and annually attracting over 1.5 million festival-goers. Luminato will be celebrating its 5th anniversary Festival in June 10-19th, 2011. We invite individuals and foundations at the Toronto Community Foundation to join Toronto’s leading city-builders as they lay the groundwork for what is quickly becoming one of the signature arts institutions of the country.

Accolades and Accomplishments

• Luminato has been named a Festival of Distinction (Top 20) by the Festivals & Events Ontario association, for 2007, 2008 & 2009. • Each year Luminato presents over 200 events in Theatre, Dance, Film, Classical & Contemporary Music, Food, Magic, Design, and the Visual Arts, including large scale installations, at over 30+ venues throughout downtown, including performance halls, parks, squares, and other public and non-traditional spaces. • 80% of all events are offered Free for participants, due to the generosity of individual donors, foundations, government supporters and corporate partners. • Each year over 10,000 children, youth and families participate in the Festival’s Education & Outreach programs and Family events. • Over 500 Volunteers annually give generously their time and energies into creating a welcoming Festival environment. Over the first 3 Festival years (2007-2009), Luminato has: • Entertained over 3.5 million Festival-goers • Featured over 4,500 Canadian artists from all provinces • Featured over 1,000 International artists from over 40 countries • Commissioned over 35 new major works of art from acclaimed Canadian and International talent, as well as emerging artists that will soon be taking the arts world by storm. • Attracted upwards of 500,000 visitors to Toronto from outside the GTA • Generated an economic impact of over $450 million in visitor expenditures for regional businesses

Programs

>Education & Outreach Program
>Commissioning New Work

Luminato embraces three key programming principles which have been the foundation of the Festival since its inception: collaboration, accessibility, and diversity. • Luminato embraces artistic collaboration in marvellously unique ways, crossing boundaries to create unforgettable moments. The Festival encourages local, Canadian, and international artists to work together in discovering unprecedented creative expressions. Luminato staff, led by CEO Janice Price, partners with the Festival Advisory Committee, made up of Toronto’s arts leaders, to shape the programming offered at the Festival. • Free, widely accessible celebration events and "accidental encounters with art" are hallmarks of Luminato. At every turn, Festival-goers are invited to participate, explore, and celebrate their own creative spirit while enjoying everything Luminato has to offer. 80% of Luminato’s Festival programming and 100% of Luminato's Education and Outreach programming is free for participants. • Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Luminato embraces and celebrates the cultural diversity of the city, and recognizes that creativity flourishes when cultures join together in a spirit of tolerance and respect. Past Festivals have featured programming “threads” celebrating South Asian, First Nations, Francophone, and Arabic traditions and cultures. Luminato reaches out to these communities through niche media, and aims to strengthen these connections year after year.

Education & Outreach Program

A primary focus of Luminato's activities is engaging audiences as to the vital role the arts can play within our communities. Luminato’s respected Education and Outreach program will again work with partner organizations within the Parkdale and Regent Park communities (two of the lowest-income neighbourhoods in Canada) to present a 360º approach to community engagement, with arts initiatives aimed at students, youth, teachers, families, new Canadians, and marginalized adults – all aimed at promoting the role arts and culture can play in celebrating diversity in our communities. One of the keystones of Luminato’s outreach program is the quality of an enhanced immersed arts Festival experience for a young person, rather than trying to generate large “impact numbers”. Subsidized tickets, special student matinees and talkbacks, in-class workshops, and tailored Festival immersion experiences are just some ways that Luminato is ensuring that young people from these communities are able to have a unique first-hand Festival experience.

Education and Outreach activities play an integral role in Luminato's important relationship with its community – involving residents from high-needs neighbourhoods directly with the broader Festival, and giving audiences an opportunity to re-experience communities they might not normally be exposed to. Luminato looks to be additive in the field of arts outreach and education by utilizing the strengths and expertise of a large international festival to reach out and engage a broad spectrum of the community:
• facilitating the involvement of acclaimed Festival artists such as David Rokeby, Dan Zanes, Neil Gaiman or the Mark Morris Dance Group;
• creating an engaging Festival environment where audiences participate in activities and explore one’s own creative expressions, improving confidence, collaboration and communication;
• working with community organization partners to offer programs which tie into the larger Festival themes or ideas; and
• leveraging partnerships with organizations such as the Toronto Public Library to bring programming into community venues.

Funding and Program Partners

The Ontario Trillium Foundation has generously supported both the launch of this program(2007) and an exciting multi-year artistic residency outreach program (2010-2012) through Luminato that will see the Festival become a year-round presence in the Regent Park community, as well as develop a relationship with the Parkdale neighbourhood and schools.

Program Impact

Organically linked with the curatorial vision for the Festival, Luminato partners with community organizations, such as Pathways to Education, Toronto Public Library, Focus Youth Media Arts Centre, Nelson Mandela Park Public School, Queen Victoria Public School, Duke of York Public School, Small Print Media, and ArtHeart Community Art Centre to explore ways of celebrating the creative diversity within these communities. This often includes participatory workshops in photography, music composition, journalism, playwriting, storytelling, puppetry, visual arts, dance, and writing – with local and international professional leaders in their field. The outcomes are often celebrated in a public forum in the months leading up to the June Festival and leave a lasting impression on the community. With continued support, Luminato is embarking on a 3 year shift to become a year-round presence in these two communities. A key part of this is a multi-year relationship with Outreach Artists-in-Residence, Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie, one of Canada’s most acclaimed contemporary dance companies. Offering year-round workshops, class visits and drop-in classes, Coleman Lemieux will work with residences of different ages and backgrounds, to create site-specific work in the international language of dance, which features residents and professionals, highlighting the unique character of their community. The final performance piece will be a featured part of the Luminato dance program, and invites Festival audiences to see these communities in a new light.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“After-school programs make a critical difference in safety and skill development: In the higher-risk hours between 3 and 6 PM, unsupervised children are more likely to engage in gang-related or delinquent behaviour, or become victims of crime.” “The 2008 Toronto District School Board Parent Census indicates that [while] 41% of children regularly participate in extra-curricular arts programs; more than one-third (36%) never have that opportunity.” (Toronto’s Vital Signs®, 2009) Luminato provides the opportunity for youth and residents in high-needs communities, to be exposed to artistic outlets and develop their creative responses. These activities support the in-classroom curriculum, as well as after-school and evening programs for youth and residents of all ages.

Participant Vignette

One story to emerge from Luminato’s outreach work is that of Adrita Sarwar, one of the teenage participants in the Festival’s Streetscapes program, who up until recently hid from teachers and friends the fact that Regent Park was her home. The program "gave me a confidence boost. I feel prouder to say that I'm from Regent Park. We want to tell people that students from here, we do have talent and we're not just wasted children," Sarwar told a group that had gathered to tour the Streetscape exhibits, led by program participants.

Commissioning New Work

In only a few years, Luminato has become one of the most active commissioning bodies in Canada. To date, Luminato has commissioned more than 35 new works from acclaimed Canadian and international artists, as well as emerging talent that will soon be taking the arts world by storm. These major new works are featured at Festivals and promote local artists on the international stage. Its important to start developing the work that will be the ‘hits’ of tomorrow, and inspire young people and engage new audiences. Commissioned works help draw new cultural tourists to the region, demonstrating Toronto to be a vibrant cultural centre.

Luminato often makes multi-year investments which support new work through the commissioning, development, rehearsal, production and dissemination phases, creating a collaborative relationships with artists and arts organizations. The Festival hosts international journalists and presenters to come to Toronto to see the work, which has furthered the artists’ reputation abroad, and often results in additional performances and touring options. Response from artists has been very supportive of Luminato’s commissioning role and its impact on the national arts landscape.

Funding and Program Partners

New commissions are supported on a project by project case, with multi-year support from the Government of Ontario, the Ontario Arts Council, and individual donors who give generously to support its development, including: Gretchen and Donald Ross, The Slaight Family, Sandra & Jim Pitblado, The Hal Jackman Foundation.

Program Impact

Luminato’s commissioning work is able to support Canadian artists and foster an environment of creation and innovation. Recognizing that contemporary art doesn’t exist in isolation, Luminato commissions and presents new work across theatre, dance, music, and visual arts – often encouraging artists to collaborate and blur traditional discipline boundaries. One of the Festival’s most important contributions, Luminato helps support the arts year-round with 61% of ticket buyers reporting that because of Luminato they are more interested in seeing other arts and cultural events in Toronto.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“Cities alive with culture attract creative people. And people in creative occupations stimulate the creative economy (one based not on the production of goods and services so much as on the creation and transfer of intellectual property)”. (Toronto’s Vital Signs®, 2009) The importance of nurturing the “creative class” to the prosperity of the city, has been strongly documented in recent years. Luminato’s commissioning role is aligned with the strategy to brand Toronto as a vibrant cultural centre to live, work and visit.

Participant Vignette

Erika Batdorf is one of those innovative artists who is perhaps better known abroad, than here at home. An innovative artist fusing movement, theatre, dance and poetry, Ms. Batdorf’s work combines disciplines to better explore important social issues. Luminato commissioned Ms. Batdorf to develop a new work that explores women’s rights in the context of West | East cultural differences. The partnership with Luminato provides vital development support, as well as the opportunity to present her latest work as part of a major international festival. As a featured Festival artist, Erika Batdorf will be able to make professional contacts with artists from across Canada and around the world, be exposed to a new local and international audience base, participate in talk backs and series to inspire emerging artists, and perhaps result in additional touring opportunities (within Canada and outside).