ArtwordBlog

At the Diesel Playhouse, there’s a glitzy, sassy musical show from Montreal passing through Toronto on its way to Las Vegas. What makes this one different is that the stars are all puppets.

The puppetry is skillful indeed. The approach is based loosely on “bunraku”, whereby visible puppeteers (usually three) operate each puppet. In Japan, the conventions are very strict, but the western variety allows for many variations, and Cabaret U-Mano finds most of them. Puppets have human legs, arms, bodies. The dresses of the Dreamgirls puppets are giant columns of white circles that expand, contract, bend and slither. In one instance, a puppet head held in front of the operator’s face is passed from dancer to dancer. More »

Yesterday, I went to a press conference called by Active 18 concerning the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) decision about the future of the Queen West Triangle. This is an area of former industrial land lying between Queen Street between Dovercourt and Dufferin and the railroad tracks to the south-west.

I first heard of the decision from an email by Margie Zeidler, forwarded by the Wellington Place Community Association to its members. Here’s an excerpt: More »

We were invited to the Royal Alexandra theatre to the official launch of Dirty Dancing. Of course I went, in my role as chief grasshopper. I love these events, when the press is all snapping and videoing, dancers dancing, singers singing, and hopes and dreams running high.

Is there anyone who hasn’t seen the film of Dirty Dancing? Well, actually . . . yes. Me, for example. I can’t really say why not. I love dancing of all kinds, especially when its, well, dirty. I’m good with popular culture. But somehow, in twenty years, I haven’t seen the film. More »

For over thirteen years, Artword has been proudly not not-for-profit.
On January 11, we received our letters patent for a Federal not-for-profit corporation called “Artword Cultural Projects”.

All this took a little longer than expected. There were hiccups. One was that our request to use the name”Artword” was initially rejected, even though we have been operating as Artword Theatre for over thirteen years. There is a graphic design studio called “Artwords” that has been a neighbour for years, first on Wellington and now at 525 Adelaide Street West. The owner kindly wrote a letter on our behalf, saying that he did not object to our use of the name. More »