About Us

Toronto Queer West Arts and Culture Festival
celebrated 10 years in 2010!

Welcome

The annual Toronto Queer Arts and Culture Festival is a not-for-profit festival for everybody with a queer perspective - regardless of gender or sexuality.

Gay West Community Network Inc. Hereafter known as The Queer West Arts Centre. The Queer West Arts and Culture Festival and Film Festival was incorporated as a not for profit organization without shared capital, under the laws of Ontario to produce performing arts festivals and events for the purposes of educating and advancing the public’s understanding and appreciation of performing arts and to educate artists through participation in such festivals and related art workshops. The organization is exempt from income tax in Canada as a not-for-profit organization under Section 149 (1) (L) of the Income Tax Act (Canada)

Queer West's focus is on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans communities Queer West outreaches to the West Central Toronto neighbourhoods of The Brockton Triangle and Parkdale, Trinity Bellwoods and beyond; integrating all arts communities, genders and sexualities. We do this by hosting an annual Arts and Culture Festival and Film Festival once a year.

Queer West Art's and Culture Festival is Ontario's annual celebration of queer culture. The festival was founded in 2001 as a one day event (Pride Toronto West) by Michel F. Paré. Change its name in 2005 to Parkdale Pride Party (3 day event) and in 2006 (7 day event), and renamed Queer West Arts and Culture Festival, dropping all association with Pride.

The Queer West Arts Festival doesn't depend on funding from Toronto Arts Council or LGBT Community One (Rainbow Grants) or Ontario Trillium Foundation grants and or City Toronto Funding. The Ontario Government doesn't hand us annual cheque for $400,000 for tourism, as a matter of fact we get no support from the Ontario government. We do not have an annual operating budget of $2.7 million dollars, as does another gay Toronto festival. Which means our festival will remain small, for the foreseeable future. We still manage to produce a fun filled seven to ten day festival every year. Details for the 2011 festival

The festival is currently paid for by friends of the centre, in-house fundraising, gallery, venue, in-kind services and local business sponsorship and through small entrance fees (Usually PWYC or $5 but 98% of the events are free All performers are paid a reasonable amount to cover costs.

We can pat ourselves on the back about the GOOD THINGS and the small but meaningful accomplishments the festival DID enjoy over the past 11 years. . NO DEBT...NO HASSLES....NO HAND-WRINGING...just enjoyable stuff. LOTS TO BE THANKFUL FOR!!

Thank You

Queer West Arts Arts Centre Board of Directors would like to extend a heartfelt thank to the 2011 volunteers and supporters who contributed to the enormous success of our festival Week and the two LGBT Hungarian Roma Refugees Akos Major and Jozesf Kotai and Matthew Drobnich, Artistic Director . Queer West Arts Fest week is the result of volunteers who give their time and energy each year. Volunteers bring a wealth of experience, knowledge, as well as specialized skills to The Queer West Arts Festival. Dedication and commitment are the keys for a rewarding volunteer experience with our great community organization, Queer West Arts Centre.

Why a queer arts festival in Toronto when the city has Pride?

Our Philosophy

Dec 17, 2010. Why should there be only one ten day gay festival (Pride) in the City of Toronto? We believe there is room for us too. Queer West has been here ten years, quietly working away with little or no money and an organization unknown to many.

Our founding organization, Gay West Community Network starting holding its own Pride Toronto West Festival, as one day event from 2001 to 2004. We changed the name in 2005 to Parkdale Pride Party (it became 3 day event) and in 2006 rename Queer West Arts and Culture Festival as a seven to 10 day event

We believe we hosted the best alternative-queer ten day festival to Pride, the City of Toronto has seen in 2010. To us its not about being the largest or making the city economy grow. Its about you and making sure you enjoy our festival. If your not completely satisfied, we're not happy. We care about creating a quality festival. We won't settle for anything less than excellence.

We just happen to believe we are holding exceptional and fun queer art festivals, every year for the past ten years. We're constantly focusing on being innovative, we added a film festival in 2008 that is starting to grow, from a backyard to a 244 seat theatre in 3 years. . In 2011 we added the Smash Words Poetry Festival to our lineup.

Our arts festival use to precede Pride Week, in June. The Queer West Arts Centre thought Toronto's LGBTQ fabulousness shouldn't all be jam packed into that month. The annual festival has now moved to AUGUST and become A WHOLE DIFFERENT FESTIVAL, ON ITS OWN, to showcase queer culture in a better light. We believe there are tourists in the city all summer long, especially in August; they will be looking for something different than, PRIDE

We believe we are making a significant change, how people view gay and lesbian festivals.

The Battle for Queer Culture in Toronto

Written by Siobhan McGuirk (UK) Research and collaboration by Michael F. Paré (Toronto) Jan 5, 2011.

10 years was a landmark for the Toronto Queer West Arts Festival in August 2010. The first Pride event in Toronto took place 30 years ago. It shows how much the visibility and public acceptance of LGBTQ has grown, and how quickly, that Pride Toronto and to a lesser degree Queer West Arts Festival are each as popular as they are now.

Of course, there was always a gay scene in Toronto long before then, with bars and cafes situated between drag shows, fetish clubs, alternative nights and cabarets – the type of event now more likely termed queer than synonymous with ‘gay culture’. These still attract audiences year-round, but have shifted further out of the spotlight. They have become niche. The scene, it seems, has been sanitised.

It follows a common trend in which liberation rallies commemorating the Stonewall Riots have become Pride parades with organisers able to erect fences and charge entry fees. Pride movements have emerged to bite back, with radical politics and declarations of inclusivity.

For its part, Queer West Arts Festival proudly proclaims that only 50% of its audience is defined as lesbian or gay. It is a celebration of diversity.

Queer West Arts Festival celebrates and supports artists who create work on their own terms; in their own way… here they can make the work they’re burning to make. They can risk and they can play.

Queer movements in general have faced backlash: some see the term “Queer” as offensive rather than reclaimed. Others assert that their sexuality should not be presumed to dictate their politics.

Yet queer arts festivals such as Queer West Arts Festival, Edmonton's Exposure Arts Festival and Montreal's Divers/Cite among others, at the very least, make space for important questions to be raised. They also offer a platform to unpopular or extraordinary responses. They demonstrate that to be L,G,B, T and/or Q is still seen subversive, even if you don't want it to be. No matter how “pink” mainstream political parties have become, or acceptable gay marriage or civil partnerships are, society still insists on its norms.

The arts can explore the boundaries of equality debates and reveal the tension within them, highlighting the prejudices that persist, both on and off “the scene”: sexism, transphobia, body fascism, ageism, and racism only scratch the surface. When a polyamorous, asexual, mixed race, gender queer artist announces that they will vote Conservative because they, too, believe in “family values”, the audience laughs, recognising that the joke is on us

Many are self-defining queers who feel “the scene” does not cater to their needs or outlooks and see Queer West Arts Festival as an annual highlight. Paradoxically, another chunk of friends have no idea the festival even exists.

Pride Toronto, too, splits opinion. Overly commercial and frustratingly political for many, it is the high point of the year for some. There are overlaps between the two camps, of course, but there is still a discernable divide between the “Gay” and “Queer” festival scenes, and the gulf between them is widening.

It will be interesting to see the results, and by the close of these festival, how far the gay / queer divide has been addressed and whether new ideas will emerge over what it is to be L, G, B, T, I, Q in Toronto.

Siobhan McGuirk, is a Freelance Filmmaker / Journalist with lesbilicious.co.uk and Commissioning Editor, for Red Pepper Magazine. | siobhan@redpepper.org.uk Michael F. Paré is President of the Toronto Queer West Arts & Culture Centre.

The meaning of queer in our Festival Name

Queer is an umbrella terms designed to be inclusive of a broad range of self-identifications. Within the gay and lesbian community, there are those who identify as bisexual, transsexual or transgender as well as those who do not want a label at all. Rather than use the more cumbersome acronym LGBTTIQQ2SA' (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer/Questioning, 2 Spirited, Allies), we find the word 'Queer' to be a more inclusive term for sexual minorities and simpler. The term 'Queer' is also used by a number of organizations for this reason and is well-recognized."

Demographics of Queer West Arts Festival attendees

Monday August 15, 2011 -- Results of random sampling of 1000 attendees, between August 8 and August 14, 2011. Estimate attendence 15,200 ( lower this year, as no community fair or film festival) The general overall feeling of attendees; this was a good festival, well organized, quality events, near perfect weather, some looking made new friends and business connections. 80% of the attendees were between the ages 16 to 28 years of age, 15% early to mid 30's, 5 % over 50. The visitors 16-59 for the most part were in post graduate studies for MA and PhD degrees, or working as writers, artists, social workers educators, lawyers and/or business people. 44.3% earn between $39,000 and $79,000 a year and 9.5% earn above $85,000 annually .80% lived in Parkdale, Trinity Bellwoods or Brockton Village 10% live in other parts of the city. 10% were out of town visitors (China, Europe, India, Japan, Korea, UK and United States) 70% heard about the festival, through this web site. 20% learned about it through friends (Facebook, text messages and twitter). 10% print media, (local newspapers, flyers and posters). 58% eat or drank in local bars and restaurants before and after each event. 43% of non-locals who visited a shopping area during Queer West Fest Week. The Festival ended on Sunday August 14

New Facebook page for Arts Centre and Festival www.facebook.com/

What others are saying.

(Post Mo - Dawn of the New Gay June 2009, a a 20 somethings opinion before Grid newspaper story in 2011. "I think about Toronto's Queer West Arts Fest, a totally different image is there for me. It's the artists and political movers and shakers. The guys who sleep with other guys but don't have the polished image the east side (Church St.) wishes to maintain. It's the trans community who gets excluded, the Native community which is ignored from Pride. The women who sleep with women but don't have children, ride bikes or wear plaid. It's everyone who has ever been ignored, or put down, or felt they didn't even belong in a gay community of a large city (which is supposedly a community which embraces diversity? what). A community that embraces those which embrace each other, no matter who you are, or who you happen to go to bed with. Queer!" Nick (Trickey) Watson 25, Toronto Parkdale

"If Pride is to survive and mean something again, it has to get smaller. People talk as though a loss of funding would be the end of the world, and it might well be for the Pride bureaucracy, but it might also prompt some thinking about what Pride stands for, as opposed to what it can do, given enough money. Instead of the expansionist ambitions of the current administration, perhaps they’d try something a little more low key. Like the Island picnics that started the whole event back in the 1970s. Or events that target specific communities, like the Queer West Arts Festival now planned for August." Brent Ledger, Toronto Newspaper columnist.

Toronto's other gaybourhood shows its stripes with Queer West Fest. Weeks before event organizers block off Church Street for this year's Pride Festival, an esoteric celebration of queerness has already begun at the opposite end of Toronto's downtown. | Saira Peesker, cp24.com

The Revue Cinema is proud to host the 3rd annual Queer West Film Festival. This year’s theme of Queering Boundaries means going beyond a fixed identity and embracing fluidity. Though situated in the West of Toronto, The festival sees the literal city borders and boundaries as contested and in flux. Through the medium of film, the Queer West Film Festival is pushing for a more inclusive and complex queer identity; a queer identity that is necessarily shaped through interactions with place, space and community. By Revue Staff

National Post Editorial May 12, 2010: "Grassroots organizers wouldn't have to struggle against a single 800-pound gorilla event that dominates their community's annual agenda. Not all members of Toronto's gay community, for instance, like the huge Pride festival: Some organizers of the small Queer West Arts Festival blame the parade's success for sucking all the funding and attention away from their own, arguably more substantive, event."