Together Apart is an in-person academic symposium meant to facilitate international knowledge exchange and encourage further research on DIY culture and cultural and creative “third places”. Conducting and promoting research on the pursuit of creative solutions and opportunities for social and cultural benefit holds valuable lessons, and applicability, for many other sectors. As such, this symposium seeks to explore the value and exceptionality of these spaces through a range of disciplinary lenses.

Presented by NIMEC, IAE Rouen, Toronto Arts Foundation, Université de Rouen

Lula Lounge is an accessible venue. If you have any questions about accessibility needs, please reach out to us at torontolongwinter@gmail.com.

Are you and your community dreaming of investing in a space and transforming it into a vibrant, independent arts, culture and community centre - but the real estate market, weight of official cultural institutions, and the complexity of the regulations seem like a dead end for your dream?

Don't stop dreaming. Trust yourself as true agents of change in your community and your city. Organize and build trust in your vision, connect with other initiatives internationally, fundraise, convince your elected officials, learn the urban planning and real estate finance lingua - summon the fire and prove yourself right. You can do it because others have been doing it for years, globally, and are still doing it.

Trans Europe Halles is a major European cultural network representing over 135 grassroots, independent arts, culture and community centres in over 35 countries. It started in 1983, as an informal gathering of 3 grassroots centres in Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands sharing the same values and the same issues. It has grown exponentially ever since and played a great role in shifting policies in the European culture sector in the past 40 years, and in building trust in DIY (or DIT-for Do It Together) initiatives as triggers of urban, economic, cultural and social transformation at a European level. This is the very pragmatic story of how to keep the dream alive.

This event will be broadcast virtually using our event platform and streamed live from Lula Lounge in Toronto.

Lula Lounge is an accessible venue. If you have any questions about accessibility needs, please reach out to us at torontolongwinter@gmail.com.

Aqua will create a circle for us to learn together. She decolonizes the process of sharing, teaching, and receiving, touching on the land she currently inhabits and how she honours the mother we all share through ancient teachings, practices, and her expression of art. This circle will enlighten those who haven’t walked in a traditional world and connect those who have. All Nations, all genders, and all walks of life welcome.

Aqua Nibii Waawaaskone is a free spirit, interdisciplinary artist, and activist. Though she is a proud Anishinaabe Kwe~original life giver of the land, she is also of mixed ancestry; Anishnaabe Métis with Irish/Scottish, and French heritage and identifies as a 2Spirit genderless being. Through this difficult time Aqua has continued to perform her original medicine music as a solo artist and as the creator and lead singer of her IndigiBlues band, Red Rhthym & Blues. She provides a safe space in her sacred circles and performances so the community can grow together, stronger, forever as a whole, as music truly is the universal language of love.

This is an introductory workshop for DJs and enthusiasts alike who have always wanted a crash course in Ableton but have found it largely confusing and inaccessible. We will build a drum rack from scratch and go through the basic elements of an electronic composition. Students will be given the opportunity to share their work after.

This workshop is open to all but is geared towards women, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA folks.

This community consultation and visioning process will engage local artists and cultural practitioners in a critical and forward-looking discussion about the state of creative spaces in Toronto, exploring existing barriers, gaps, and shortcomings as well as uncovering creative possibilities and potential pathways to new and more inclusive spaces.

Presented by: It's Ok*

This is a limited-capacity, invite-only session. If you fit the description of the communities we are targeting, and would like to attend, or to hear more about the space-in-development, please contact Said at said@itsokworld.com.

"This panel will explore pragmatic and creative strategies for repurposing private spaces as essential parts of the public realm, from formal P3s (Public-Private Partnerships) to anarchic “taking back space”. How can re-purposing private space become a central strategy for safeguarding creative and social activities within a city?"

MODERATOR
This panel will be moderated by Daniel Rotsztain, the 'Urban Geographer', an artist, writer, cartographer and landscape designer whose projects seek to understand and support the diverse settings of the city’s public life. The author of All the Libraries Toronto and A Colourful History Toronto, his work has been featured in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and Now Magazine and exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and as part of Nuit Blanche. Daniel is the co-lead of plazaPOPS, a community-lead approach to transforming strip mall parking lots into free and accessible community gathering places.

PANELISTS
Ariel Stagni
Ariel has merged professional experience as a touring skateboarder with a passion for city-building to become a seasoned contributor in the planning, design, construction, programming and management of skateparks across Ontario and abroad. He is a recognized driving force in the development of municipal skateparks, ever striving to deepen understanding between skateboarders, governments and the broader community, including serving as a founding and executive member of the Toronto Skateboarding Committee. Ariel continues to advocate for skateboarding as a powerful tool for youth engagement and community development, as well as play and creative expression, within skateparks and shared spaces.

Melissa Daly-Buajitti
Melissa Daly-Buajitti is a city-building enthusiast focused on creating new ways of approaching real estate strategy that prioritize culture, society, and community. She is sensitive to the ways in which systemic inequities manifest in a space-making context and is committed to tackling the barriers that prevent people from participating in conversations and accessing resources.

Melissa has seven years of commercial real estate experience across the fields of brokerage, architecture and construction. She is a dedicated volunteer with the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Toronto. She co-chairs the Steering Committee of the East Scarborough Storefront.

Layne Hinton
Layne is an artist, fabricator, producer, project manager, curator, cultural connector and mediator. She works to shape public space, explore and reveal elements of the city and use art as a tool to bring people together and inadvertently became a city builder and urban explorer in the process. Layne has been Co-Director and Co-Curator with Art Spin since 2010, an organization with a focus on presenting temporary public art in unique and overlooked spaces. In 2016 she co-directed the in/future festival, an 11-day multi-disciplinary exhibition that animated the West Island of Ontario Place, a theme park closed to the public while undergoing redevelopment. In 2019 Art Spin curated 9 commissioned projects produced by the City of Toronto for Nuit Blanche as part of a major exhibition titled Creation:Destruction. Having worked on the public art program for Waterfront Toronto, as advisor on the City of Toronto’s External Advisory Committee on the Public Art Strategy, and in programming and production for Nuit Blanche, Layne knows the impact that art can have on a city. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for InterAccess, and was recently granted the OCAD University Alumni Trailblazer Award. Last year she was selected to join the Leader’s Lab residency, a mentorship program through the Toronto Arts Council to take place at the Banff Centre in 2022.

This panel will be broadcast live through our event platform and available for live viewing at Lula Lounge in Toronto.

Lula Lounge is an accessible venue. If you have any questions about accessibility needs, please reach out to us at torontolongwinter@gmail.com.

This panel will be presented as part of Long Winter's November 26th show at St. Anne's Anglican Church (Dundas and Dufferin). It will also be streamed virtually!

"In the conclusion of his 2021 book On Property, Rinaldo Walcott quotes James Baldwin’s essential prioritization of people over the speculative potential of land, in order to argue for the necessity of abolishing the racist, sexist and classist inequity of capitalist property. Walcott points out that abolition is fundamentally a creative project, of developing caring relations to the world, and especially to land as the foundation of all forms of life.

Toronto needs to implement a gentrification tax, as one step toward building this world. This city is suffering a deep crisis of homelessness–from the erasure of tent encampments to overflowing shelters, to under-housing, precarious housing, and the psychic stress of paying too much rent, or living in mortgage debt. Real estate speculation is extractive. It takes value that is created collectively by a community, and privatizes it.

A gentrification tax would take a percentage of this profit and keep it in common, by directing it toward the production of locally managed deeply affordable housing, in the form of land trusts and housing cooperatives. If the tax declined sharply from the first year after purchase over a number of years, it would have a number of effects on the property market: funding non-commodifed housing, slowing speculation, and lowering rents, as owners rent in lieu of selling.

This roundtable brings together experts in the housing crisis, urban planning, land trusts and property to discuss a tax to fight gentrification in Toronto."

PANELISTS:
Rinaldo Walcott (Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto)
Rinaldo Walcott is Professor of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies in the Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto. He is the author of The Long emancipation: Moving Toward Black Freedom (Duke, 2021) and On Property (Biblioasis, 2021).

Martine August (School of Planning, University of Waterloo)
Martine August is an Assistant Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on the political economy of housing and the pursuit of urban social justice, exploring themes related to gentrification, displacement, community organizing, public housing redevelopment, and the politics of social mix. Her current research focuses on the financialization of real estate in Canada, including multi-family apartments, student housing, and seniors housing. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University, and worked as a housing policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, in the Housing Policy Branch and Homelessness Secretariat.

Joshua Barndt (Executive Director, Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust)
Joshua Barndt is a Community Land Trust specialist and has acted as the Executive Director of Parkdale’s Neighborhood Land Trust since 2015. Parkdale’s Neighborhood Land Trust is a community controlled organization that removes land from the speculative real estate market and stewards it in a community ownership model. The Land Trust currently stewards 3 properties with 51 units of affordable housing. In 2022 the Land Trust plans to bring an additional 82 homes and small buildings into community ownership through a planned transfer from Toronto Community Housing. Learn more at pnlt.ca

Cheryll Case (Principal Urban Planner, CP Planning)
Cheryll Case, founder, and principal urban planner of CP Planning nurtures relationships between the government, charity, private, and community sectors to develop programs that reflect housing as a human right. She was an advisor to Toronto's 2020-2030 Affordable Housing Action Plan, and is a co-chair of the knowledge mobilization committee of the UBC Balanced Supply of Housing program. In partnership with community, she implemented the Black Futures on Eglinton community research project that is now living through the Tenant Solidarity Program (TSP) where she and community organize for affordable housing in Little Jamaica, Toronto.

Gentrification Tax Action (GTA) is a collective of artists and designers formed to campaign for a Gentrification Tax. Current members of GTA: Jane Mah Hutton teaches landscape architecture at the University of Waterloo; Sameer Farooq is an artist and documentary filmmaker; Kika Thorne is an artist; Adrian Blackwell is an artist and urbanist, teaching at the University of Waterloo.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to share their message through the interconnected mediums of radio, live streaming and podcasting. Once you understand the software, gear, and soft skills involved with one medium, the others tend to feel like less of a mystery too. Roshanie will be sharing low cost and free tools that allow for DIY broadcasting, recording, and editing. Expect to learn some of her favourite audio editing functions in Audacity, workflow for talk-based content, and how to promote your project once you’ve brought it to life.

Download Audacity here.

Roshanie is a DJ, curator and radio host with a deep love for conversation, storytelling, and connecting dots. Her interest in radio began with internet radio station, ISO Radio, where she’s been a host of Solidarity in Sound since 2019. Until recently, she worked for community radio station CJRU 1280AM as a local journalist, reporting on public health, food justice, community organizing and much more. These days you can find her streaming music and chatting with viewers on Twitch every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

Long Night with Vish Khanna will be presented as part of Long Winter's November 26th show at St. Anne's Anglican Church (Dundas and Dufferin). It will also be streamed virtually!

We regret that St. Anne’s parish hall is not a barrier-free location, but attendees will have ongoing access to fully accessible bathrooms in the church. There are several steps from the street to the front door and interior steps leading to the Main Hall, upstairs, and downstairs. There is ample seating available, and washrooms between Skey Room and the Chapel (main floor) and outside Roseneath (upstairs) are gender neutral. St. Anne’s is a fragrance-free space (please don't wear perfumes or scented products). If you have any questions about accessibility needs, please reach out to us at torontolongwinter@gmail.com.

Panelists (Complete bios coming soon!)
Ruth Belay (Black Urbanism TO)
Anyika Mark (Black Urbanism TO)
Brian Borcherdt (Musician)
Dorothea Paas (Musician)
Ani Castillo (Artist)

Since 2019, nine Toronto-based DIY collectives have gathered monthly for Gendai MA MBA: Mastering the Art of Misguided Business Administration. We tackled different topics of organizational management to learn institutional methods of arts administration, but also worked to reimagine them through our values of collectivity and collaboration.

This inaugural cohort is piloting a new project called Guidance Council to share our misguided learnings with other BIPOC arts collectives. Guidance Council re-invents forms of corporate networking, workplace gossip, and leadership training to focus on developing friendship, investing in each other, and mapping collective knowledge. Guidance Council is a bi-monthly, casual drop-in for BIPOC collectives to solicit advice, gossip, and support from peers. Launching at Long Winter's Together Apart conference, drop in for FREE LUNCH (first come, first served) & FREE ADVICE.

Note: Registration will grant you access to drop in to Guidance Council any time between 12:00 and 3:00 p.m.

In attendance will be: Ali Areesh Somani (BAM Collective), Alex Hong (BUMP TV), Marina Fathalla (MICE Magazine, Whippersnapper Gallery), Marsya Maharani (Gendai, Younger Than Beyoncé), Petrina Ng (Durable Good, Gendai), Peter Rahul (BUMP TV), Arezu Salamzadeh (Rice Water Collective), and Florence Yee (Rice Water Collective).

This pilot launch of Guidance Council is produced jointly by Long Winter and Gendai. Gendai acknowledges support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.

Local musical life - and touring opportunities - outside the GTA.

Jen McKerral moderates dialogue between DIY leaders across Ontario -- forging independent music scenes, independently.

MODERATOR
Jen McKerral
Jen McKerral is one of the co-founders of Up Here, a public art and emerging music festival in Sudbury, ON, which, in 2019, led the creation of Canada's largest mural. Jen is also an artist manager, grant writer, community organizer, and federal arts funding lackey.

PANELISTS
Becky Katz
Becky Katz is a Hamilton-based artist, activist, musician, art educator, community arts practitioner, promoter, curator, and DIY Community Builder. Becky is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Strangewaves Music Festival, and has worked for Centre[3] for Artistic & Social Practice for the past 13 years--wearing many different hats, including the Director of Outreach. Becky is a post-medium artist whose practice cannot be pigeon-holed. In 2018, she took home the Hamilton Arts Award for Art Education and Community Art. In her "free" time, Becky involves herself in numerous creative community endeavors that have a particular focus on collaboration, and shine a spotlight on the peculiarities of human nature, including, but not limited to: CA$INO Artspace, Sourpussy, Square~Wear, Electric Eclectics, Fwee Twade, The Aluminum Quilting Society, Hamilton Encampment Support Network, and many more!

Harina Mokanan
Harina Mokanan is an Eritrean- Canadian entrepreneur, music selectress, cultural producer, and creative strategist. While working in the London, ON not-for-profit sector Harina began nurturing ideas about creative programming that in recent years have come to fruition. As founder of @empyreanproduct and co-creator of @rudegirlsldn and @plumpsessions, Harina has launched dance parties, discussion panels, intimate forums, and multi-arts events. As an entrepreneur and grassroots organizer, Harina’s practice is one of reimagining space — curating within different physical, virtual, natural, and poetical environments — to draw out settings where the magic of connection is sparked by the invitation to embrace your authenticity.

Rihkee Strapp
Rihkee Strapp entered the world from a sea of blood, fully grown wearing a gold set of armour. They are an Ayakwew Metis multi-disciplinary artist raised in Northern Ontario by nohkum’s dial-up internet and its dark vistas. Rihkee is an alumni of the Studio [Y] systems leadership fellowship at the MaRS Discovery District. Their highly collaborative work re-appropriates pop-culture, myth and nostalgia, playing with concepts of time and technology often using humour and character to animate their ideas.

Rachel Weldon
Rachel Weldon is a music programmer, event producer, and DJ. She is founder and producer for Debaser, an Ottawa-based DIY music presenter organization established in 2013, where she produces Pique, Debaser’s new quarterly series for forward-thinking music and art. Rachel also does programming and administration for SAW Centre, an artist-run centre that operates a venue, contemporary art gallery and artist studios, and consults with several artists and organizations on programming, production and project management. Prior to her current role, Rachel was at Kelp Music and MEGAPHONO festival, where she worked on day-to-day management for roster artists such as Lido Pimienta, Andy Shauf and U.S. Girls. At MEGAPHONO, she oversaw programming and general management for the annual festival and conference from 2016-2019. She is currently chair of the board of Halifax’s EverySeeker Festival (FKA Obey Convention).

Jimmy Wiggins
Jimmy Wiggins has been working in the Thunder Bay music scene since the early 2000s as a promoter for metal and punk bands. While initially working exclusively with local bands, he quickly began booking regional, national and international acts and expanding his focus to include all sub-genres of rock, pop, metal, punk and EDM. In 2004, along with a small crew of dedicated music lovers, he helped develop TBShows.com, a community website that heavily promotes live music and entertainment for Thunder Bay and the surrounding area. Jimmy has a background in both Business Marketing and Advertising which he has used to bring his company, Wiggins Productions to the forefront of the music scene in Thunder Bay. He is a monthly contributor in The Walleye, Thunder Bay's alternative arts & culture magazine. Jimmy is a member of the LGBTQ+ community and hosts the majority of the city's drag shows which showcase both local drag artists as well as international acts, including drag queens from the popular reality TV show, RuPaul's Drag Race. When he's not shamelessly promoting events, he likes to hang out with his dog, Fendi, binge crime docs and play drums.

Full panelist bios coming soon!

Moderated by Rachel Romu
Rachel Romu is an Accessibility Consultant with music festivals, educational institutions, corporations and fashion brands. Surviving a spinal tumor and receiving a diagnosis for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare genetic connective tissue disease, illuminated how inaccessible society is and called them to recognize the abled privilege they'd lived a significant portion of their life with.

Romu has since used their points of access in the entertainment industry to implement change, working to make experiences both more accessible for patrons, workers and performers.

PANELISTS:
Michelle Asgarali
Michelle Asgarali is a documentary Series Producer exploring disability representation in media. As a Disabled Filmmaker herself, Michelle wants to make an impact in creating entertaining content that is accessible for all.
Michelle was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a genetic disorder affecting her nervous system. She recognizes there are always highs and lows to the disability experience. Her first concert was seeing No Doubt at The Government. She was escorted in early from the lineup to park near the back-corner curtain, and avoid being crushed by a mosh-pit. A curtain her friend later pulled back to get high-fived by drummer Adrian Young as the band walked out after their encore.

Sean Lee
Sean Lee is an artist and curator exploring the assertion of disability art as the last avant-garde. His methodology explores crip curatorial practices as a means to resist traditional aesthetic idealities. Orienting towards a “crip horizon”, Sean’s practice explores the transformative possibilities of accessibility as an embodied politic and disability community building as a
way to desire the ways disability can disrupt. Sean holds a B.A. in Arts Management and Studio from the University of Toronto, Scarborough and is currently the Director of Programming at
Tangled Art + Disability. Previous to this role, he was Tangled’s inaugural Curator in Residence (2016) as well as Tangled’s Gallery Manager (2017). Sean has been integral to countless exhibitions and public engagements throughout his tenure at Tangled Art + Disability.
 
In addition to his position at Tangled Art + Disability, Sean is an independent lecturer, speaker, and writer adding his insights and perspectives to conversations surrounding Disability Arts across Canada, the United States and internationally. Sean currently sits on the board of
CARFAC Ontario, Creative Users Projects, and is a member of the Ontario Art Council’s Deaf and Disability Advisory Group and Toronto Art Council’s Visual Arts / Media Arts Committee.

Stefana Fratila

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Thomas Reid
Shortly after becoming blind in 2004, Thomas Reid decided to re-ignite a dormant interest in audio production. After years of combining his interest in audio with advocacy, in 2014 he was selected as a New Voice Scholar by the Association of Independence in Radio. During that same year he began his podcast Reid My Mind Radio. A podcast featuring compelling people impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability. Occasionally, he shares stories from his own experience as a man adjusting to becoming Blind as an adult.

Over the past seven years of producing the podcast, Thomas has developed a valued perspective on topics including adjustment, audio description, DEI (Diversity Equity & Inclusion) and media representation.

This workshop is intended for Ableton Live users who are also beginner-level TouchDesigner users, and wish to make real-time connections between sounds and visuals. We will explore various ways of sending data between Ableton Live and TouchDesigner using the tdAbleton component. The techniques learned can be used for live performance, music videos, and interactive a/v installations.

If you are new to TouchDesigner, it is recommended that you go through this introduction to familiarize yourself with the basics prior to the workshop: Introduction to TouchDesigner - Ben Voigt

Requirements:
-- Laptop with the minimum system requirements to run TouchDesigner
System Requirements - Derivative
-- Ableton Live 9.7.2 or higher
-- Max for Live 7.3.4 or higher
-- Latest non-commercial build of TouchDesigner installed and keyed
Download | Derivative
-- tdAbleton system installed and working - see ‘Getting Started’
TDAbleton - Derivative
-- 3-button mouse or 2-button mouse with scroll wheel
-- Headphones for your laptop

_

Karl Skene is a Toronto-based multimedia artist working primarily with generative video, lasers, and LEDs. His passion for electronic music led to an interest in VJing in 2014, and he continues to find creative ways to incorporate light into live music, dance, film, and interactive art installations. His work often combines simple patterns with chaotic elements, creating experiences that are both hypnotic and unpredictable.

Tune Up Toronto is presented by MusicToronto.

Toronto is overflowing with talented rappers, musicians, producers, beatmakers, and topliners who innovate in Hip Hop, Rap, R&B, and more – we’re on the map, and people around the world are looking to discover the next big artist out of the GTHA.

Yet there’s a disconnect in opportunities and venues for communities to grow their networks, collaborate, perform, and create. This panel explores how to continue to build DIY spaces and leverage word of mouth, digital platforms, and partnerships to elevate the next gen of TO artists, because you shouldn’t have to leave the city to succeed here.

MODERATOR
Josephine Cruz aka Jayemkayem is a multidisciplinary creative currently based in Toronto. Since relocating from Calgary in 2015 she has made a name for herself around the city for her skills as a DJ, event producer and curator, as well as for her natural aptitude for community leadership and organizing. Her professional resume includes work with HYPEBEAST, Complex, Red Bull, and more; and the list of brands she has provided music for as a DJ includes Nike, adidas, Puma, Sephora, Lululemon, Google, Spotify, Vice and others. She also has a passion for knowledge sharing, and has taught workshops and seminars in branding, marketing and music business with organizations including Intersessions and Remix Project. In addition to her personal creative and professional pursuits, Josephine runs an independent record label, Bare Selection, alongside her partner Freeza Chin, and is the co-founder and director of community radio station, ISO. ISO is home to 50+ recurring shows hosted by local DJs, producers, journalists and cultural provocateurs and exists to platform underground music and forward-thinking discussions that are underrepresented in the mainstream media sphere

PANELISTS:
Brenden Hewko
Brenden Hewko is the founder and director of SmashMouth Entertainment, a Canadian multifaceted entertainment company with divisions focused on live event production, promotions, artist bookings, artist management and artist development. Since it’s founding in March 2010, SmashMouth Ent. has been at the forefront of Canada’s live music scene, having worked with and developed over 60 international artists including hip-hop heavyweights Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, Post Malone, 6LACK, Joey BadA$$ and more. Through it’s decisive booking strategies and initiatives, SmashMouth Entertainment has aligned itself with the current and future generations of Hip-Hop stars and cemented itself as one of Canada’s most innovative entertainment companies. Brenden and the SmashMouth Ent. team have also served as the long time management for Toronto artists DillanPonders, JiMMY BRiCKZ and most recently lemin. amongst many other former clients.

Realije The Beatbox Emcee
Realije The Beatbox Emcee is a multi-disciplinary artist from Toronto of Caribbean and Eastern European heritage who utilizes and combines beatboxing with rhythmic poetry. His live performances often contain improvised loops and samples that he creates with his voice and an RC505 Loop Station. He freestyles and recites verses on beats that he creates on the spot!

He started rhythmically interpreting sounds in high school on his lunch breaks and after school programs. He has been a student of Hip Hop for over 13 years and is inspired by the Golden Era Beat Box greats such as Doug E Fresh, Buffy Love, Biz Markie, Rahzel and Scratch.

Rosie Monday – Artist
Rapper and community leader Rosemary Adjoa Marfo was born and raised in East Toronto. Her Ghanian parents gave her the name Adjoa (“Monday-born”): an apt moniker for Rosie, who embodies the bold, free-spirited energy these namesakes are said to inherit. As a first-generation Canadian, the intersections of her cultural identity are apparent in her musical range; she adeptly blends classic hip-hop, grime, and drill with rock, dancehall, and afro-beat.

Rosie has been composing, recording, and performing professionally since 2012, her crisp, thoughtful rhymes and infectious energy winning over audiences nationwide. She’s been hand-selected to participate in competitive, high-profile professional activities, notably the Launchpad x RBC Music Entrepreneurship program which provided her with six months of industry mentorship and experience. She’s an alumna of Dalton Higgins’ Music Biz Bootcamp and Women In Music’s song camp, and was an invited panelist at Ottawa JazzFest’s music summit. Her most recent live appearance was at beloved Toronto institution Honey Jam’s 25th anniversary show, broadcast from the El Mocambo to over 10k virtual attendees. Meanwhile, her tracks “F*** a Like” and “Party By Myself” have racked up more than 16k streams on Spotify alone, and have been featured on esteemed playlists like Northern Bars.

This introductory DJ workshop is aimed for folks with little to no experience in the craft of DJing, or music in general, but who wish to learn in a safe setting. Participants will be introduced to Rekordbox using a laptop controller, and will learn basic terms and techniques such as BPM, Key, beatmatching and EQing. During the last hour of the workshop participants will have an opportunity to practice!

Please note that no previous knowledge is required to join, and that we are prioritizing registration from folks that are susceptible to experiencing significant barriers when accessing the industry, including but not limited to: misogyny, racism, ableism, transphobia, queerphobia and financial barriers.

ANA LUISA grew up getting down in house parties, clubs and minitecas in Caracas, Venezuela, and started DJing two years ago in Tkaronto (Toronto), where she's now based. Her music selection is eclectic and genre-bending, and she is known for her energetic sets that blend latin genres and rhythms with electrifying underground remixes, percussive club masterpieces and bouncy edits of your favourite nostalgic tracks. She is the co-founder of Cuarenteca, a party series and education platform, as well as the host of Dimensión Ideal: a monthly show on ISO Radio exploring the intersection of latin & electronic music in the underground, and highlighting emerging DJs from Latin America, the diaspora, and Tkaronto.

This workshop will take a look at On Earth’s approach to budgeting and pricing DIY music events. This is a great starting point for new and veteran DIY facilitators to build skills around using Google Sheet templates to coordinate, track, and plan for their events while giving attention to their resources and mitigating financial risk.

Specifics include projecting profits for DIY bars, setting tiered ticket prices, determining the range of artist fees you can afford with the expenses you have, paying staff, buying bar stock, and additional fees and logistics to consider. As participants, you will be put into groups and given different starting scenarios.

You will be given templates and guiding principles and, with assistance, tasked with planning out a mock event and ultimately deciding whether or not it can be made financially viable. This workshop will be offered on a hybrid model - both in person and online.

On Earth is a three piece community collective bringing boundary pushing dance music to Toronto. We focus on underrepresented groups and accessible, friendly environments.

Learn how to quickly and easily build your own DJ edits and remixes using Serato Studio.

"Discussing everything required to bring a community or DIY project to life including social capital, financial capital, tangible materials and passion/creativity. We’ll talk about how to package all those together to create your “pitch,” and how to then position your unique offering to sponsors and other partners in order to bring your idea to life.

Note: This workshop will focus on private funding from brands and other sponsors versus public funding (grants etc.)"

ISO is a community-minded radio platform based in downtown Toronto. We were founded in 2019 to showcase the diverse talents and perspectives of the DJs, producers, and collectives who create and curate music in our city. We are currently based at stackt Market and have worked with Luminato, NXNE, Red Bull and others.

This workshop will function as a thought experiment, asking: if a platform to facilitate greater resource sharing in our scene were to exist then what would it look like, and how would it operate? Drawing on the experiences of attendees we will discuss barriers to event organization, strategies for resource-sharing, and governance structures with the aim of collectively drafting a blueprint for a digital resource-sharing platform.

This workshop is invite only and limited to active organizers in the DIY rave scene. If you fit this description and want to attend, email soak.to@gmail.com.

Emily Murphy is a theorist, event organizer, and DJ operating under the moniker Venus in Foil. She is currently a PhD candidate and sessional instructor at Brock University, where her work focuses on DIY cultures, creative forms of resistance and aesthetics modes of survival. Emily is a passionate player in Toronto’s underground rave scene, where she seeks to foster imaginative potentials and anti-capitalist forms of organizing. She is also the co-founder of SOAK, a collective and club aimed at supporting people of marginalized genders at the experimental edges of electronic music.

Lukas Switlicki is an electronic music artist and event organizer based in Toronto. Starting out with throwing DIY raves in the city’s west end, he became influenced by the city’s need for self-expression. Later kickstarting the Forth music collective and a record label for local artist to realize their ideas on an international stage. When he’s not dishing out raw off-the-cuff moments with his improved live techno, Lukas is actively sharing knowledge and providing resources that help get shows off the ground. His interests include building anti-capitalist networks around shared communal resource to give more people access to the city’s music scene and make it thrive.

This talk, hosted by True Connection FM’s core staff, will explore the mandate, procedures, aesthetics, operations and beginnings of the station in conjunction with the politics that guide our decisions and practices. This includes a discussion on motivations and methods for building autonomous online infrastructure that serves, enables, and uplifts local communities and underrepresented minorities, without the ongoing reliance of global technocapitalism and the permanence of urban city spaces. Space will be provided for the audience to participate in the discussion.

True Connection FM is a 24/7 operating web radio station that features curated mixes or playlists created by musicians, composers, DJs, music curators and music fans. We are a genre agnostic station that amplifies the sounds and music from various communities local to Toronto and beyond. True Connection was devised to maintain and build bridges in Toronto and surrounding cities through music and mentorship. We believe music, as performance or product, is a means of uniting people; something we all undoubtedly need at present. Through this music and togetherness our aim is to continue the work necessary to improve equity in the music space by providing an accessible and meaningful stage for the voices of our marginalized and diverse communities.