Luminato 2011

In its fifth year, Luminato is an arts festival that celebrates theatre, dance, music, visual arts, literature, fashion and more.   Scattered throughout the downtown core, many of the exhibits and events are free.

Named "Garden of Roses",  this gorgeous dress is  supposed to be inspired by the Alice in Wonderland stories.  This is not like any image of Alice that I've ever seen, not even the Tim Burton "sequel" that featured an older Alice.  Nevertheless this dress is stunning although quite see-through and even more revealing from the back.

At TIFF is an installation celebrating the work of Indian actor and film maker Raj Kapoor.  Known as the "Indian Charlie Chaplin", he was very popular in Southern Asia in the 40s and 50s.  The installation gives you a chance to act in a Raj Kapoor movie by taking a digital photo of photo of your face and superimposing it on top of Raj's, while the movie is playing.

Brookfield place always hosts a visual spectacle made so more special when displayed against the stunning ceiling of the Allen Lambert Galleria.  This year Sargasso is described as being "live architecture" that is supposed to respond and interact with its environment.   Perhaps it was not totally installed yet but while what I saw was definitely
beautiful, it did not move or react to my presence.  I'll go for another visit to see if more has been added since that first day.

The frilly patterns reminded me of a Christmas tree when I first saw it, with the coloured sensors acting as ornaments.  From the other direction, seeing what looked like white crystalline giant snowflakes flowing down from the ceiling turned the place into a winter wonderland. I almost expected Santa's sleigh to come down the rolling hills.

The most fascinating exhibit was the voyeuristic theatrical experiment called Habit, being performed at OCAD (Ontario College of Arts and Design).  A 90 minute play called "The Children of Kings" was written specifically for this show.  It is acted out in a continuous loop for 8 hours a day from 11am to 7pm.   The same dialogue is spoken through each iteration of the play, but the actors are free to improvise the staging of the scenes.  The play is about two brothers (Doug the brutish junkie drug dealer and Mitchell, a meek and depressed song writer) whose lives are impacted by the return of Viv, a childhood friend and romantic interest for both of them.

The "stage" is a fully functioning one storey house with working plumbing and kitchen.  The actors are free to eat, use the bathroom or rest if they can organically fit it into what is being said in the play.  At one point, I think I was watching from above while one of the actors was really peeing into the toilet, abet discretely with his back turned away from the windows.

The audience can watch the play from the ground level by peering through one of the multiple windows that expose each room, or by going up on the the higher floors and getting a birds eye view of the entire house from above.   Watching from above allows you to see the actors move from room to room but it's more difficult to hear them speak.  Watching from the ground is an entirely different experience, as you feel like a peeping tom as you eavesdrop on intensely private conversations through curtained windows and then chase the actors around the house as they freely move around through it.

It's difficult to tell which part of the play you've walked in on when you first approach the scene, and for the much of it, it seems like 3 young people just going about their daily lives.  However I stayed long enough to catch what seemed like the climatic ending where secrets are revealed and past traumas confronted.  By that point the drama is gripping and you don't realize that you are racing from window to window like a crazed stalker trying to hear the next lines in the story.