Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference
Moulding The Future:
Rethinking Strategies for the Arts Sector Now
May 10 – May 13, 2022
Via Zoom and Small World Music Centre (Toronto)
This year, Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Spring 2022 | Moulding The Future: Rethinking Strategies for the Arts Sector Now will address emergent ways of rethinking the sector as we emerge out of the pandemic, focusing on the responsibility of the sector to strategize, implement supportive systems that benefit IBPOC artists / organizations and the Arts Sector at large.
Keynote by Santee Smith
Thursday, May 12 at 12:30pm
Santee Smith – Concept/Artistic Director/Producer/Performer
Santee Smith, Tekaronhiáhkhwa/Picking Up The Sky, is a multidisciplinary artist from the Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan, Six Nations of the Grand River. Transformation, energetic exchange and creating mind-heart connections through performance is her lifelong work. Santee trained at Canada’s National Ballet School; holds Physical Education and Psychology degrees from McMaster University and a M.A. in Dance from York University. Premiering her first production Kaha:wi – a family creation story in 2004, one year later she founded Kaha:wi Dance Theatre which has grown into an internationally renowned company. Santee approaches her life and work in a sacred manner and the importance of sharing our gifts with others. Through her Onkwehonwe’neha creative process, Santee’s work speaks to identity and humanity, role and responsibility of artists in community. She is a sought-after teacher and speaker on the performing arts, Indigenous performance and culture. Smith is the 19th Chancellor of McMaster University.
Digital Design Thinking / Focus on Monetizing Creative Content Online
Thursday, May 12 at 2:30 PM
Panelists: Alleah Erica Clarke, Laurence Lemieux, Neena Jayarajan, and April Britski
Moderator: Kevin A. Ormsby
Traditional models of Theatre going and performance are being forced to evolve with the contemporary reality of digital technology which is now at the forefront of everything we do. How are the Arts responding and adjusting to this new reality? Part resources, part strategy, digital design thinking and integration into the performing arts is required. Highlighting once again the inequitable distribution of resources across the disciplines, practice and socio-cultural realities.
Bios:
Alleah Erica Clarke is a Business Strategist and Development Coach who founded AJ Cultured, a rapidly growing organisation that provides a wide range of services for small business owners. She is a business developer that holds a portfolio of companies including Culturnique, a full-service and digital design firm, and Alcreance, a bookkeeping and accounting firm. Having been a solopreneur herself, she understands the responsibilities and struggles of solopreneurs that strive to see their visions through. AJ Cultured and its sister companies allow Alleah Erica to guide solopreneurs to where they want to be, help propel their organisations to higher heights and newer sights, hold businesses accountable for their growth, and ultimately influence change. Alleah intends to create a powerhouse of small business development assets and organisations, becoming a facilitator and agent of change in business, culture, art, and community.
As artistic director of Citadel + Compagnie for nearly two decades, Laurence Lemieux has established herself as a leader within Toronto’s dance community. Her multi-faceted experience as a dancer, choreographer, teacher and presenter has guided the company’s mandate of community outreach and engagement and given rise to C+C’s distinctive artistic voice. (Photo by Aleksandar Antonijevic)
Neena Jayarajan is an independent dance theatre artist with extensive experience in Bharatanatyam and Odissi dance techniques. Her primary training was under the tutelage of Dr. Menaka Thakkar, and Sujatha Mohapatra. She served as the Assistant Artistic Director of Menaka Thakkar Dance Company for 7 years, as well as assistant teacher at nrtyakala for 20 years. She currently is an Associate Artist at Nova Dance involved in both creative and organizational roles. Neena completed her MA in Dance from York University and was a 2016 recipient of the Chalmers Arts Fellowship Grant. She made her theatrical debut in Theatre Smith’s Gilmour’s Metamorphosis. Neena currently sits on the board of CADA west and The Dance Current Magazine and is currently on her own choreographic journey of exploration using her classical roots to fuel a contemporary outlook.
April Britski is the Executive Director of CARFAC, Canada’s national association for visual artists. She has worked and volunteered as an arts administrator since 1998, and joined the staff of CARFAC National in 2005. She is a co-founder of Artists’ Legal Services Ottawa and the Visual Arts Alliance, and she has served on several boards of cultural policy and artist-run organizations. April’s primary responsibility at CARFAC is the development and implementation of organizational policies and strategies related to artists’ legal and economic rights. She is actively involved in all of CARFAC’s advocacy efforts, including CARFAC’s Artist’s Resale Right campaign, as well as building Imprimo, a new digital platform for visual artists. She assists with negotiating collective agreements for visual and media artists under the Status of the Artist Act, as well as other national voluntary agreements with presenters. Originally from Saskatchewan, April currently resides on the traditional unceded territories of the Coast Salish Nations including the Kwikwetlem, Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples.
Program Manager of Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO), Kevin is also the Artistic Director of KasheDance, movement coach and Arts Marketing Consultant. The Ontario Arts Council’s Chalmers Fellowship recipient (2017), KM Hunter Dance Award Nominee (2016), Toronto Arts Council’s Cultural Leaders Lab Fellow (2015) and The Canada Council for the Arts’ Victor Martyn Lynch – Staunton Award 2014 recipient for outstanding achievement by a mid career artist, he has many interests in the creative practice and administration in dance. He has honed his passion for dance, advocacy, writing and education while performing with various companies and projects in Canada, the Caribbean and the United States.
The full schedule is available here.
Registration: Tickets: $15 a day or PWYC
Day 1: Tuesday, May 10 via Zoom | 9:30 am – 2:00 pm
Day 2: Thursday, May 12 via Zoom | 12:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Day 3: Friday, May 13 in-person and live stream via Zoom | 11:00am-5:30 pm
Location: Small World Music Centre
Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw St, Toronto, ON M6J 2W5
Pleas note we have a limited number of Pay What You Can (PWYC) tickets to enable price accessibility for low income individuals to attend.
Covid protocols: People attending the event in Small World Music Centre need proof of vaccination or negative test within 24 hrs before the event. Masks are recommended in Artscape common areas. No food or drink in common areas and hallway.
Register online: https://the-gathering-divergence-spring-2022.eventbrite.ca
If you have any questions email: info@cpamo.org
As you know we have been fundraising for both — our last Gathering Divergence in December 2021 and for our upcoming Gathering Divergence in May 2022. Help us showcase more IBPOC artists and arts administrators by contributing today!
https://gofund.me/3f9402a9
Sehar Bhojani is an actor and producer based in Hamilton. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s acting program. As an actor, she has appeared in various commercials, television shows such as The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) and Coroner (CBC), and films Punchline (short) and feature film SLAXX.. As a producer, Sehar has worked with a number of Canadian Theatre companies and is currently Associate Artistic Director of Theatre Direct.
Christina Loewen (she/her), Executive Director, Association for Opera in Canada
Jennifer Brown, Chief Executive Officer
Jacoba Knaapen is the Executive Director at the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA), an arts service organization that represents 107 professional theatre, dance and opera companies in Toronto. As a champion for the performing arts, Jacoba has worked in Toronto’s cultural sector for over four decades. She is the founder of hipTIX and the citySPECIAL, two popular TAPA programs that help to reach youth, new Canadians and marginalized communities. At TAPA she is also the long-time Producer of the Dora Mavor Moore Awards, Canada’s largest and oldest theatre award show and recently led the DORAS to become the first professional theatre award show in Canada to present gender-neutral awards. 
Parul Pandya has been skillfully working in non-profit in various roles through the past decade, including as a community builder, consultant, programmer and producer. After managing in community granting for the largest government funder in Canada, she seamlessly transferred her knowledge, passion and skills to open her own consulting practice. Community Impact Non-Profit Consulting strategically enables community engagement and equitable innovation. She has had the honour to work with such clients as StreetART Toronto, North York Arts, WorkinCulture and many other local service organizations. Parul is a highly in- demand teacher and facilitator, delivering over 30 trainings around anti- oppression, equity and community-engaged arts education.
Julian Morello is an artist specializing in performance through spectatorship and happenings. He uses makeup and costuming to push the boundaries of each narrative performed. As a graduate from CMU College of Makeup Art & Design, Julian uses his skills not only to elevate himself but others who wish to use makeup as a medium for expression and art. Julian is concerned with intersectional narratives that overlap the experience of queer, HIV+, BIPOC; his work spans through the individual and collective narratives shared by these identities, to engage audiences into the livelihoods of these margins of society.
Sean Morello explores and conveys universal experiences, using allegories as a conceptual frame of work. Print media, installation, mixed media, animation, video, sound and assemblage become intersectional components, rather than individual and separate entities. His choice of media is diverse as the universal experiences he conveys, because the politics of identity which appear thematically in his work are also subjected to various intersections and multiple interpretations. The individual experiences are as important as the whole; the viewer’s unique lived experience often becomes intersected into Sean’s art, and tells an even more personal story to the viewer than the narrative told at face value.
Juan Saavedra is an interdisciplinary arts researcher operating between the domains of graphic and industrial design, and social policy. His interests included volunteerism, policy innovation, design-activism, and entrepreneurship. He is a recipient of the Mayor’s Community Safety Award (2017) from the City of Toronto for developing innovative arts-based programming. He has presented on topics such as: Co-Design, Death and Dying, World Sustainability, HIV Education, and Social Health. He holds a master’s degree in Design from Carleton University’s School of Industrial Design, specializing in health literacy, service navigation and education.
Born in Toronto, Robert Ball attended Claude Watson Arts Program and later studied part time at Humber College. Robert has traveled to and performed in over 60 countries as a featured vocalist and headliner with Royal Caribbean International. He has been a part of various musical theatre workshops and readings; vocal director “Funkentine Rapture” starring Tony Award Winner Lillias White, Principle/Ensemble – “Follow the Star”- starring Carol Woods (Grammy & Oscar Nominee), Ensemble – “We Ain’t Perfect” – Directed by Kenneth Roberson (Emmy Nominee), Principle – “Here’s What It Takes” written by Steven Page / Directed by Donna Feore, this is to name a few.
Anushree Harjul, Kitchener ON, born and raised in India, is a Classical Indian Dancer, professionally trained in Indian Classical Dance form Kathak. Anushree has completed her Diploma (Visharad) in Kathak from Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya Mandal under the guidance of her Guru Shri Harsha Thakkar and currently, she is taking advanced training in Kathak under the guidance of Kathak exponent Shri Sanjukta Sinha. Anushree is a newcomer artist in Canada and recently she has worked in a Dance film Production – ” Desdemona in the Snow” by ” Nautanki Creations” – to be released this Summer.
Anqi Li is an Ikenobo student and art writer interested in cross-cultural communication.
Randell Adjei is an entrepreneur, speaker and spoken word practitioner who uses his gifts to Empower the message of Alchemy. He was recently appointed Ontario’s first Poet Laureate.
Nickeshia Garrick is a settler on the stolen land of Tkaronto and has performed on this land for over 25 years. They are unapologetically a Black, Queer Artist, who believes in the healing power of breath through raw emotion and movement. She received her dance training at the NYIDE (New York Institution of Dance and Education), National Ballet School of Canada (Tkaronto), Toronto Dance Theatre (Tkaronto), and Simon Fraser University (Vancouver). Her classical vocal and theatre training was achieved at Eastwood Collegiate Institute (Kitchener). Nickeshia has had the honour of training with Sean McLeod (New York) to achieve her certification in Sean McLeod’s Reinforced Motor Function Technique®, RMF®. Her extensive dance training includes Bakari E. Lindsay, Arsenio Andrade, Rob Kitsos, Peter Bingham, and Christopher House. Nickeshia has received the privilege of performing in pieces by TDT, T.I.L.T Sound and Motion, Kaeja d’ Dance, Serge Bennathan, James Kudelka, Ballet Jorgen, and the Newton Moraes Dance Theatre, just to mention a few. Nickeshia has performed the Canadian National Anthem at the Rogers Centre, was a commissioned artist for the 2010 Winter Olympics (Vancouver) as part of the Push International Performing Arts Festival, has made appearances in various art installations and shows for Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche (Tkaronto) and Fringe Festival (Tkaronto), and was invited to perform at the Nafro Festival (Winnipeg) as a soloist and part of a trio.
Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) 
You must be logged in to post a comment.