Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Spring 2023
Register today!
May 16 & 18 online | May 19 in-person
Location: Winchester Street Theatre
80 Winchester St, Toronto, ON M4X 1B2
The Gathering Divergence Interdisciplinary Festival & Conference is a festival and conference with a specific focus on Indigenous, racialized, deaf, disabled and mad, women and other historically – marginalized arts communities. Held over 3 days, GDMAF/C features performances, literary readings, panels, workshops and creative investigations from diverse practices.
WORKSHOP I: Grant Writing with Jessica Singh
Date: May 18, 2023 at 1:00 pm via Zoom
In an ideal world, as artists and arts professionals the projects we conceptualize would paint the blue sky in all the hues possible. But in reality, it is limited by budgetary constraints and in many cases, we don’t even have the seed money to start building on our ideas. It takes months, often years to make these projects financially sustainable. The Canadian government supports the arts, artists, and arts-based organizations primarily through grants.
Using experience gained in grant writing specifically in the arts and culture sector. Jessica Singh will conduct a workshop on Grant Writing for Artists and Arts organizations and share her learning with attendees with specific focus to the needs of the IBPOC Artists / Arts Organizations
Bio:
Jessica Singh is social development professional with 15+ years of experience in arts and community engagement. She is an Oxford graduate with excellent evidence-based research and documentation skills. She has been writing grants for artists and arts and culture organizations and has raised $2 million+ single handedly through government grants at municipal, provincial, and federal level. She was recently on the grant review committee for Canada Council for the Arts. Jessica is the Founder and Director of Logic Lane Consulting Inc. She currently serves on the board of North York Arts and Council of Agencies Serving South Asians and has had the opportunity to work with organizations like the World Bank, Plan UK, Credit Suisse, GIZ, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, US Department of State, Centre for Social Innovation, TedX Toronto and Plan International Canada.
Register today!
General admission (per day): $15
Accessibility pricing (per day): $5
The full schedule is available here.
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.
Jody Chan is a writer, drummer, organizer, and therapist based in Toronto/Tkaronto. They are the author of haunt (Damaged Goods Press), all our futures (PANK), and sick, winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book Award and 2021 Trillium Award for Poetry. They are also a Performing Member of Raging Asian Womxn Taiko Drummers (RAW). They can be found online at 
Alia Ettienne is a Black, Afro Caribbean, multidisciplinary performer, writer and facilitator from Toronto, ON. After graduating from the Sheridan College Performance Program she has since gone on to study Creative Writing and Arts and Entertainment Marketing. As a member of both the Workman Arts and VIBE Arts artist roster, she recently completed the VIBE Arts: Desire Lines Residency. Her first solo piece, YellowZoned premiered in The 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival. Going on to remount as a part of Hamilton’s Mental Health Theater Festival MindPlay. Leading to her being featured in Hamilton’s Views Magazine on two separate occasions.
Based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), on the powerful, unceded and unsurrendered land of the Mi’kmaq people, Liliona is a dancer, choreographer, actor, singer, community organizer, and activist. Originally from Ghana and the Philippines, she has an eclectic background that has taken her through many performance styles on four different continents.Liliona performs across the country and internationally, creates original works as an independent artist, facilitates community programming, and is the Artistic Director of Kinetic. The scope of Liliona’s artistic work is broad, but is particularly focused on the relationship between art and social justice, on the body’s ability to carry ancestral memory, and on the role the performing arts can play in creating change. Liliona loves to work in collaboration and community, and is mom to two wonderful kids.
Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) 
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