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DNAWORKS in Toronto


  • Fentster 402 College Street Toronto, ON, M5T 1S8 Canada (map)

Trailer for DNAWORKS in Toronto

Tuesday, May 23

Mapping Our Stories

A MULTI-MEDIA ART PARTY CELEBRATING STORIES & JOURNEYS

FENTSTER @ Makom, 402 College Street

Art on View:

  • Original exhibition, HAMAPAH created for FENTSTER by Adam W. McKinney and Daniel Banks

  • Outdoor installation of Naomi Daryn Boyd’s 18-meter long wool map, BLOOD, WATER & BATHURST STREET as well as their embroidered piece, Memory Map, w/ sounds (2021-2022)

  • Meichen Waxer’s Looking at Two Poems (2022) incorporates a found hand-drawn map that references the history of her family in the small Northern Ontario Jewish community of Kirkland Lake.

What to Expect:

  • 7 - 10 PM | View & interact with installations and pop-up projects on view for one night only! Get a drink, grab a snack, dance with us, meet the artists and fellow art lovers.

  • 7 - 7:30 PM | Movement workshop with DNAWORKS’ Adam W. McKinney & Daniel Banks

  • 8 PM | Artist Remarks

  • 8:30-9 PM | Dance workshop with dance Immersion’s Zahra Harriet Badua-Baffoe

Watch the trailer for HaMapah / The Map Dance-on-Film

WEDNEsday, May 24

HaMapah / The Map: Dance-on-Film Screening & Storycircle

Prosserman JCC, 4588 Bathurst Street

5:30 PM | Dinner & Dialogue gathering for Jews of Colour and their partners / families

Learn more / tickets: fentster.org/dinner-dialogue

7:30 PM | The Canadian theatrical premiere of HaMapah / The Map Dance-on-Film and DNAWORKS’ signature “storycircle” followed by an afterparty with snacks and live music from the Juno-nominated Jaffa Road, blending influences and inspirations from the worlds of Jewish music, classical Arabic and Indian music, modern jazz, blues, electronica, rock, pop, funk and dub.

EXHIBITION

HAMAPAH

On view into June | FENTSTER @ Makom, 402 College Street

Earth, artifacts, movement and memory come together to form this installation created for FENTSTER by Adam W. McKinney and Daniel Banks. The exhibition is an outgrowth of their dance film by the same name. Meet the artists at our art party on May 23, Mapping Our Stories.

RELATED EVENTS

BETWEEN ART & THE SELF: Black Artists on Experience & Process

Original Livestream: February, 21 in celebration of Black History Month. An evening of multi-disciplinary art and wide-ranging discussion with Anique Jordan, Adam W. McKinney, Kendell Pinkney, and Chanel M. Sutherland to mark the opening of HAMAPAH at FENTSTER.

Exploring our Genealogical Dance Journey

April 23 | 1 - 4 PM

Join Makom, Machane Lev, Maple BBYO, and the MNJCC as we come together to view and discuss the new FENTSTER Gallery installation, HaMapah. A program for Queer and/or Trans Jewish Youth (Grades 5 to 12)

Building Community through Movement and Story 

Wednesday May 24 | Miles Nadal JCC

An interactive workshop for the Downtown Jewish Community Council together with the Kultura Collective sharing the unique approaches that DNAWORKS usse for community building, empowerment and creativity. This workshop is for members of the above professional networks.

ABOUT DNAWORKS

Founded in 2006 by Daniel Banks and Adam W. McKinney, DNAWORKS centers Global Majority and LGBTQQ2SPIAA+ voices to create more complex representations of identity, culture, class, and heritage in dance, theatre, film, writing, and art installation. DNAWORKS has led its award-winning programming and performances, promoting dialogue-based social justice action and community building, with arts, educational, and community organizations in thirty-eight states and seventeen countries. DNAWORKS believes that art = ritual = healing = community and that this philosophy and practice lead to a more peaceful world. Learn more: dnaworks.org

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Adam W. McKinney is a dancer, choreographer, and activist. He is the new Artistic Director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. A former member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet Company, and other prestigious dance companies, he served as a U.S. Embassy Culture Connect Envoy to South Africa in 2006 through the U.S. State Department. Other recent awards of note include a Mid-America Arts Alliance Interchange grant forFort Worth Lynching Tour: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse; a 2020 commission for Shelter in Place at Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education; and Texas Christian University's 2019 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award. McKinney served as President for Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice, a Fort Worth-based social justice organization. He was an Associate Professor of Dance with tenure in the School for Classical & Contemporary Dance at Texas Christian University.

Daniel Banks is a director, deviser, dance dramaturg, and dialogue facilitator. He has directed at National Theatre of Uganda; BelarussianNational Drama Theatre; Market Theatre Lab, South Africa; Playhouse Square, Cleveland; HERE Arts Center, NY; Bay Area Playwrights Festival; NYC and DC Hip Hop Theatre Festivals; & Oval House, Teatro Technis, and with Kompany Malakhi, London. He worked as movement director/choreographer at Shakespeare in the Park, Theatre for a New Audience, Maurice Sendak’s The Night Kitchen, Singapore Rep, and La Monnaie.He is Associate Director of Theatre Without Borders, on the national cabinet of US Department of Artsand Culture, on The Drama League’s Directors Council, the 2020 recipient of TCG’s Alan Schneider Director Award, and a recent recipient of Harvardwood Heroes award for his work co-instigating the project to transform 1012 N. Main Street, Fort Worth’s former Ku Klux Klan Auditorium, into a center and museum for art and community healing.

Earlier Event: February 21
Between Art & The Self
Later Event: May 23
Mapping our Stories | Art Party