Jumblies Artistic Director, Ruth Howard, will be spending the coming week (Dec. 17 to 21) in North Bay and Nipissing First Nation, working with the Whitewater Gallery and Aanmitaagzi,  to conduct research and outreach for a residency that will have its final phase in September 2013. To read more about this project and the Whitewater Gallery, click here.

Jumblies’ 7th Toronto Artfare Essentials (formerly Arts For All Essentials), a 6-day workshop attended by 24 artists and arts workers from Toronto, Ontario (and one from New York)  just ended last Wednesday.

Many thanks to:
- Sketch for donating their wonderful space for four of our days
– Davenport Pert Neighbourhood Community Health Centre and Cedar Ridge Creative Centre for space on the other days,
– Marianne Alas, Sid Bobb, Michael Burtt, Penny Couchie, Sean Frey, Varrick Grimes, Leah Houston, Peter Jones, Loree Lawrence, Keith McNair, Sarah Miller, Cathy Nosaty, Sonja Rainey, Liz Rucker, Julie Salverson, Rosary Spence, Selam Teclu, Rachael Van Fossen, Martin van de Ven for making it all happen from facilitation to food (see Staff and Facilitators bios here),
– Katherine Fleitas and Adrienne Marcus Raja for documenting,
- all the brave and creative participants,
- our funders: the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils and the J.W. McConnell Foundation.

Here are a few comments from participants:
I can’t remember the last time I was in a workshop where I made such valuable connections and felt so valued!
I felt empowered to embrace community arts.
Some of the best discussions we had were around the table eating a meal together!
I learned to quiet my inner critic.
I loved all the guest artists.
I enjoyed it beyond anything I could imagine.

Link to names and bios of December 2012 Artfare Essentials Participants

Versions of this workshop will be held in 2013 in Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Sudbury and other Ontario locations. E-mail info@jumbliestheatre.org to be put on a mailing list for more info.

photo by Katherine Fleitas

Jumblies Theatre is pleased once again to take part in the Ontario Art Council’s Theatre Creators’ Reserve Program. We are inviting applications for community-engaged theatre creation projects and projects with substantial community-engagement components. Within this primary criteria, we accept applications from artists and artist collectives of all backgrounds and stages of their careers,  living in any area of Ontario, and working in any tradition and language.

Download the program guidelines and application form (in the format of your choice) here:
TCR guidelines 2012-13
TCR application 2012-13 fillable Word form
TCR Application 2012-13 printable pdf form

Download Jumblies Application Info. here: Creators’ReserveInfo_12,13

Our deadline for submissions is December 30, 2012. Contact info@jumbliestheatre.org with any further questions. If you are not sure whether your project meets the community-engagement criteria, please get in touch to clarify before applying.

For a glimpse of our October Regina Arts For All Essentials workshop, watch this short video on Youtube by Regina’s Don  List and Birdsong Productions, by clicking here .

Far and few are those who have met this man: only appearing in times of trouble. He’s a wizard when it comes to computers, and with the click of a switch enables the whole world to keep in contact with all of us at Jumblies. Without him, there would be much less  fun, and how would we ever communicate the weekly complexities of carpooling everyone to East Scarborough?

John Penner, The I-Doctor!

I would like to bring your attention to John Penner, the computer genius helping and advising us from the tiniest of problems all the way to system set-ups at Mabelle and Scarborough. John has been popping up for over 6 years now as the computer doctor and we haven’t yet found a problem that he can’t fix.

This is our man behind the machines at Jumblies, making our life easier as we become sucked into the computer age!

If your computer needs an expert doctor: you can reach John Penner and see if he’s available at: theidoctor@mac.com.

by Sasha Mattock

Who is that on the left?

This week at Arts4All we had a mixture of old faces, new faces and made faces (masks!). It was exciting to see our masks again after they had come back from their beautiful makeover with Sonja – some now modelling lovely curly hair and cloaks. And of course it was great to catch up with the Arts4All gang and the amazing artists Liz, Kit and Sarah – can you work out who is who? There seems to be another person in the picture.  It must be the newest employee of Jumblies …Andrea Thring! She definitely has the Jumblies spirit, getting right in on the action on her first day.

Andrea unmasked!

And what a great first day it was seeing the Arts4All players show off their hand crafted masks and getting used to how they feel to wear and work with as they get ready to shoot their video in High Park, which is going to be used in the upcoming production ‘I was a Brave Child’. This project seems to be right up Andrea’s street as she has previously worked with masks as well as clowning and theatre performance, including collective creations, topical work and her own original work. Andrea has a Masters in Drama therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies, an alternative psychology university. She has also worked on many different projects around the world including the Freedom Theatre in Palestine, the Cultural Odyssey’s Media Project – an HIV circle, working with women who have been incarcerated – and as an intern she assisted Armand Volkas, the creative and clinical director of Center for the Living Arts, on his program ‘Healing Wounds of History’. This project looked at cultural groups in conflict involving Palestinians, Israelis, Jews and Germans as well as a separate group working with people who are Tamil and Sinhalese. Andrea is looking forward to be able to set up a Drama therapy practice in Toronto that will run alongside her work for Jumblies. I can’t wait to work with her in the coming months!

By Sasha Mattock

Andrea is with Jumblies through March thanks to partial funding from Cultural Human Resources Council.

Our 6-day workshop on the principals and practices of community-engaged arts, Artfare Essentials, is approaching. It takes place from December 6-12 (excl. the 9th) in Toronto.

More information on the workshop is now available online. Click here and then navigate through the sections using the menu on the right sidebar.

If you have questions about Artfare Essentials, contact info@jumbliestheatre.org or 416-203-8428.

Photo: Katherine Fleitas

Is there a place of quiet at the centre of art-making? Why, as community-engaged artists is it sometimes so hard to find? If we were able to make contact with that place of wholeness and connection, while busy with everything we need to do, could it help us avoid burn out?

Over the past year, the Convergence research project has been investigating these questions. Convergence is a project of Making Room Community Arts.

Join us on Thursday, November 22, at Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre at 1499 Queen St. as we explore these questions. Arrival and refreshments at 6:30pm; presentation and discussion from 7-9pm. The cost is free but PWYC donations are appreciated.

The Convergence research team has included: Michael Burtt, Josh Barndt, Sonja Rainey, Rebecca Bruton, Ronit Jinich, Ian Devenney and Myia Divar.

About the speaker: Michael is the Artistic Director of Making Room Community Arts, in residence at the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre, in the West end of Toronto. Michael has developed a grounded arts practice rooted in the asking of Big Questions in a way that is radically inclusive. He brings to this practice twenty-five years of experience as a community-based organizer and cultural worker. He has recently graduated from the Master’s program at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, studying the connection between community arts and the sacred of everyday life. In addition to his role at Making Room, Michael often works with other Jumblies-related projects including the Jumblies Studio, Arts4All and MABELLEarts.

For more information, email info@jumbliestheatre.org

Jumblies Theatre is pleased once again to take part in the Ontario Art Council’s Theatre Creators’ Reserve Program. We are inviting applications for community-engaged theatre creation projects and projects with substantial community-engagement components. Within this primary criteria, we accept applications from artists and artist collectives of all backgrounds and stages of their careers,  living in any area of Ontario, and working in any tradition and language.

Download the program guidelines and application form (in the format of your choice) here:
TCR guidelines 2012-13
TCR application 2012-13 fillable Word form
TCR Application 2012-13 printable pdf form

Download Jumblies Application Info. here: Creators’ReserveInfo_12,13

Our deadline for submissions is December 30, 2012. Contact info@jumbliestheatre.org with any further questions. If you are not sure whether your project meets the community-engagement criteria, please get in touch to clarify before applying.

Hello from Vancouver! I’ve just finished working for several days with Vancouver Moving Theatre on Kayachtn, a cross-cultural art-making community lunch – a step in a larger collaborative project called “The Big House”. I had a wonderful design team, including not two Vancouver artists  - Bill Beauregarde and Carrie Campbell – and also two artists from Saskatchewan  - Tamara Unroe and Bronwyn Schuster – who had both taken part in our Regina Arts For All Essentials just a few weeks ago.   –  Ruth

Ruth and Savannah Walling, AD of Vancouver Moving Theatre at the Skwachays Healing Lodge, where the event took place