Program & Event Descriptions

artist feature | Our aim with this program is to support an artist over the course of several months in their chosen area of research. They will present a series of offerings to be shared with our community on a bi-weekly or weekly basis. This is a model of hosting artists that is unique to the Love-In. We are revolutionizing what it means to be contracted for work as a dance artist. Not only are we expanding the contract to include multiple opportunities of engagement within a year, we are also giving them a chance to influence how, what and when they share their work. This is a model where the artist comes before the agenda of the organization.

collective practice project | Collective Practice Project (CPP) invites artists with a dedicated and established practice to come together to share methods of working, creative processes, and to engage in group discussion without a defined end result. CPP originated with the idea of sharing individual practices in a collective while being supported by one facilitator. Our first CPP, occurred over a weekend in October 2018, was facilitated by Malik Sharpe and included 15 local artists. In 2019, we explored a non-facilitated process with 12 artists who worked out difficult questions of not knowing, practice sharing, and a converging of shared practices that unfolded over a week with evolving structures and leadership. Due to COVID-19, in 2020, facilitators Angela Schubot and Shelley Etkin redirected their planned CPP leadership into generously sharing live and recorded online meditations. In 2021, in partnership with Public Recordings the Love-In hosted What's Collective? with facilitation by Brendan Jensen, Germaine Liu, and Bee Pallomina, Christopher Willes and Evan Webber. Thirteen participants came together weekly over six online sessions to ask the question: how can we make performance better, together?

give back | As part of our Give Back program Love-In is committed to giving creative space to artists situated in the GTA. Gifting local artists with hours of studio space to develop their own personal practice, this program acknowledges the importance of studio time and its goal is to promote experimentation while lifting the financial barrier of a rental.

heartTOheart | heartTOheart’s are free informal gatherings for artists to discuss work and training, promote creative activities and build the collective capacity to advocate for Toronto's dance, performance and visual artists.

love sessions | Love Sessions are weekly engagements with local movement facilitators through a virtual and in person hybrid event. These guided sessions are being offered to help folks get back into their moving bodies, with ease and love. Let us gather without the pressure to feel ready. Let us hold each other in curiosity, uncertainty, and in the pleasure of togetherness.

open studio | A place to gather and attend to what is emergent, to be social without an agenda, and to be inspired by others around you! These sessions are being offered by the Love-In as a way to discover a practice of moving together after being apart for so long. Come to the studio with nothing but yourself, as you are! Share, be bold, nap, rest, wiggle and shake in the company of others.

practice lab | Practice Lab is open to all independent artists with a movement based practice, and is an opportunity to develop and share your wildest ideas with curiosity and care. Reintegrate into how to share space with others at a pace that suits how you are feeling in your artistic practice right now. Inquisitive minds are welcome to experiment without the pressure of having to produce something concrete. Practice Lab can be: a class, a workshop, a creative session, a meditation, a discussion… An offering that is movement based in concept but integrates other art forms in practice.

PS: we are all here | The Love-In’s annual event PS: we are all here is an evening performance series infusing Toronto’s dance landscape with vivid offerings by local and international artists! PS creates a space of questioning within a contemporary performance practice to demystify dance. In curating this lo-fi performance series, the “Lovers” assure that there will be chaos, mess, skill, immersion, reverence, parties and pleasure in an ultimate act of love that challenges the perceived barriers of dance performance.

residency | RESIDENCY is for dance artists who are based in the Greater Toronto Area looking to experiment and take artistic risks; the residency can manifest in many ways, whether you are just looking to try out a new idea or are in progress of a new work and need a supportive environment to flesh out the ideas further. Each fully funded residency comes with 30 hours of studio access with our partner organization TRAC (The Railpath Arts Centre) as well as a public sharing will that will take place in studio and through Zoom with Lovers present afterwards for a moderated Q&A with the artists.

summer love-In festival | The Love-In’s annual Summer Love-In (SLI) two week intensive was first held in June of 2011 and continues to welcome an international faculty and dance artists from across Canada. SLI is open to all bodies with a dedicated movement/artistic practice, to artists, and to newly graduated or current students. Summer Love-In workshops include physical training, somatic practice, and creative practice with local, national, and international artists.

workshops | The Toronto Dance Community Love-In has presented over 120 workshops and master classes with dedicated artists from across Canada and the world.