Queer Arts Festival - Smash Words

Sunday August 14, 2011 Lula Music and Art Centre

Smash Words: An afternoon of Queer spoken word and a Chinese music concert

Sunday August 14th, 2011 -- Smash Words

Where: The Lula Lounge
Address: 1585 Dundas St. West (Street Map)
Doors: 3 PM
Start: 4 PM to 8 PM
Cover: PWYC Minimum $5 (with all proceeds going to performers) all ages
www.lula.ca

The Mission of Smash Words is build audience participation, stimulate creativity, awaken minds, foster education, inspire mentoring, encourage artistic statement and engage communities worldwide in the revelry of language.

At SMASH WORDS -You may hear; Rap, beat punk, hip hop, comedy, justice issues, erotica, shattered hearts, wild west, words from the soul whatever poets feel comfortable doing, that they think is a powerful message that should be heard. - Featuring some of Toronto's best known Spoken Word Artists: Phlip Arima (Poet & MC), Criztal-Jay, Duncan Armstrong, Melissa Benner, Philip Cairns, Imran Rehmani , Yehuda Fisher, and a Chinese Classical Guqin Music Concert with Juni L. Yeung.

ARTS FESTIVAL PHOTO ALBUM & YOUTUBE VIDEOS

We built a photo album of all events at this year's Queer West Arts Festival Aug 8-14, 2011-www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=175944945780086

Six videos on our new YOUTUBE home page from Smash Words event held on August 14:: .www.youtube.com/user/queerwest The Festival was in production, since April 17th, 2011.

SET TIMES:

First set: 8-10 minutes each, in following order from 4 PM: Philip Cairns, Criztal-Jay, Yehuda Fisher.
Second set: 8-10 minutes each, in following order: Duncan Armstrong, Imran Rehmani and Melissa Benner.
Third set: Juni L. Yeung. 30 Minutes at around 6:15/6:30 pm. This will give her a relaxed half hour of performance time and allow about an hour for people to drink, enjoy one another's company and talk with the performers after she finishes.
The MC Phlip Arima, will open both first and second sets with a single poem, and close the second set with a single poem.

Toronto Queer Arts Festival welcomes these Spoken Words Artists

Phlip Arima

Toronto Ontario, Spoken Word Artist

Phlip Arima our Master of Ceremonies for today's event. Phlip was born and raised in Toronto, and has worked in the arts for more than 25 years. He collaborated with visual artists, dancers and musicians, and, having performed more than 150 feature readings, am best known as a performance poet. In addition to being a former director of the Art Bar Poetry Series and co-organizer of The Basement reading series, Phlip was one of the rotating hosts for the highly successful Syntactic Sundays reading series.

His first book of poetry, Beneath the Beauty was reprinted within a year and a half of publication and his poetry videos have aired on both Bravo and Vision Television. He self-produced an audio CD, The Inside Edge and one day hopes to use it, as the soundtrack for a series of videos.

Phlip most recent book is Breathe Now. It's collection of 35 image-driven poems. Most of the poems are quite long and feature unique line-breaks that create ambiguities that allow multiple interpretations and levels of understanding. The shorter poems tend to be pithy and aphoristic. Phlip will also be performing this afternoon. Learn more about Phlip at: phliparima.com/poems

Duncan Armstrong

Toronto Ontario, Spoken Word Artist

Duncan Armstrong: From 1991 to 1999 Duncan was the force behind Bushwack Theatre. In 2002 he jumped back into the poetry/spoken scene - he’s had work published in CV2, Labor of Love, Jackknife Express, Renaissance Conspiracy anthologies; been featured on HOWL, as well as Cryptic Chatter, Hot-Sauced Words, Poetic Justice, George Harvey High School & Word Jam. He has performed at Word on the Street 2008 & 2009, Pride Toronto in 2005 & 2009. He has published several chap books including ‘Lament for Anna Nicole,’ ‘Shooting off Sparks’ and ‘Whiskey.’

He has been a guest poet with the Plasticine Poetry series. He was also a guest poet at Queer West's evening of Bent Expressions at The Press Club on Sunday January 24th, 2010 and appeared at Queer West Fest Sexy Words at Lula Lounge on Sunday August 8th 2010. He recently performed at The Beautiful & The Damned at Zelda's. A night of Poetry and Cabaret on June 9, 2011.

Duncan Armstrong performing at a Toronto Word Jam in 2008

Melissa Benner

Toronto Ontario, Spoken Word Artist

Melissa Benner is an educator and a writer with rhythm. Her articles have been published in Soiled and Seeded magazine, PinkPlay mags, Queeries, and Edible Toronto. She enjoys playing the field, exploring subjects like queer activism, erotica, food, and community action.

With roots in theatre, and a penchant for emceeing, Melissa has merged her passion for poetry and performance into spoken word form. She’s pleased that her first onstage foray will be at Toronto Queer Arts Festival's Smash Words.

Philip Cairns

Toronto Ontario, Spoken Word Artist

Philip Cairns is best know multi-talent performer as an actor/writer/visual artist. His work has been published in Excalibur Monthly, Xtra! & The Body Politic. Philip has performed at “Plasticine Poetry” at The Central, “Oral Stage” at Paddy’s Playhouse, A Space, the Gladstone Hotel & the Theatre Centre.

He was MC for “Sexy Words” at Lula Lounge & “Bent Expressions” at Press Club (both produced by Queer Arts West Festival). He recently won the Best Actor award at the London One Act Festival for “The Judy Monologues” (which toured Ontario). Films include “Fluff”, “Most Guys Today” and “Abortion is Fun” (which played at the Cannes Film Festival). He recently performed at The Beautiful & The Damned at Zelda's. A night of Poetry and Cabaret on June 9, 2011. Learn more about Philip at: www.philipcairns.com

Criztal-Jay

Toronto Ontario, Spoken Word Artist

Criztal-Jay is a young woman born and raised in Toronto. Known for her acting, singing, and Spoken Word. In 2010 she performed as the lead female role in the theatrical play called “The Golden Seed;” during RASTAFEST which is about the quest of Hope Banigan finding her cosmic ancestors. She also is one of the lead actresses of the play called “Tree Amigas.” “Tree Amigas,” is a play that talks to the youth about how to deal and cope with substance abuse; which will be taking back up within the next school year. Criztal-Jay currently a member (since the fall of 2010) of a Community Group called NoManzLand;an activist grassroots theatre group from Jane & Finch.

Currently, Criztal-Jay is working along side Imani Winters in a play called "Word Up;" that will be premiering at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People on June 5th, 2011. "Word Up," is where Spoken Word and Rap meets Theatre. Lastly, She was also published as a Circle of Poets winner in their 2005 edition book. Learn more about her at: discoverthegem.webs.com/bio.htm

Yehuda Fisher

Toronto Ontario, poet, actor and musician

Yehuda Fisher a.k.a. PAN, is a poet, actor and musician. He hosted/produced Art Attack for CHRY 105.5 FM and now hosts Word Jam at Free Times Café. He was Asst. Artistic Director for the 2009 Rustbelt Slam in Toronto and is the Slam-Master/Artistic Director of BAM! the Toronto Youth Slam. He coached the 2009 Toronto team at the Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam, the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and at the QEW Regional Slam. Yehuda/PAN is currently a member of the Slam Fam Poetry Collective and the Toronto Poetry Project and has one chapbook - Pen to Paper, and one Poetry CD - Mouth To Mic.

Yehuda was a guest poet at Queer West's evening of Bent Expressions at The Press Club on Sunday January 24th, 2010 and appeared at Queer West Fest's Sexy Words at Lula Lounge on Sunday August 8th 2010. Learn more about him at: www.yehudafisher.com

Yehuda Fisher performing at Toronto Poetry Slam in 2009

Imran Rehmani

Toronto Ontario, Spoken Word Artist

Imran Rehmani was raised in Mississauga. He graduated from the University of Toronto, St. George Campus, with a Bachelor of Arts Specialist in English Literature. He spent his best time there as a writer and editor for The University College Gargoyle Newspaper. Since then he spent a year in South Korea as an ESL teacher, where he also wrote for The Gwangju News. For four days in 2009 he visited a friend in Japan. Along with Tokyo and Kamakura, he spent a day and a night in Fukushima.

Then he backpacked through Indochina and Europe, and is now enrolled at Ryerson Polytechnic. He has performed as a part of Hart House Writuals, as well as at The Central. This was a long time ago. Now he works on his Journal, and cut/ups thereof in the tradition of Burroughs.

Imran's work are cut/ups of his journals in the style of William S. Burroughs' Cut/Up Trilogy, The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and Nova Express.

His prime interest is Yoga. To that end, he has developed a strong conviction that the world can be solved by samadhi. That is, Yoga, along with all authentic religions, teaches a thorough, systematic means to achieve enlightenment, Nirvana, Zen, love, or whatever the culture specific word. If everyone were aware of this solution, and actively progressed towards it, we might find the world problems that oppress us become suddenly irrelevant, if not illusory. Home Page: minraud.blogspot.com

Sample of Imran's work

MP3 - "Writual" from spoken word artist - Imran Rehmani - Writual.mp3 (4,314KB) (opens in separate window in Quick Time. Close to return here.)

Guqin Chinese Classical Music Concert

Set Times Juni L. Yeung. 30 Minutes AT around 6:15/6:30 pm. This will give her a relaxed half hour of performance time and allow about an hour for people to drink, enjoy one another's company and talk with the performers after she finishes.

Juni L. Yeung Toronto Chinese Culture Specialist, Guqin Music Instructor. Founder and President of the University of Toronto Guqin Association and Chinese Cultural Aesthetics Society. Chairman of the Xi Kang Qin Society.

The Toronto Guqin Society was founded in 2005 under the name University of Toronto Guqin Association (UTQA) to spread awareness of guqin music in surrounding communities, as well provide a gateway for communication between players and fans of the music. In autumn 2007, in response to the rise of the Hanfu movement in Toronto, the UTQA was restructured into UTCCAS to attune to the promotion of authentic Chinese culture, or the Han tradition. Today, the group has come out to the community under the name Toronto Guqin Association (TorGuqin), and retains its original mission since 2005 of connecting guqin lovers in Toronto and worldwide.

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of music traditions in China – classical and folk. Music from the “classical tradition” refers to art music or “sophisticated” music composed by scholars and literati in China’s historical past. Chinese classical music often has thematic, poetic or philosophical associations and is typically played solo, on instruments such as the qin (commonly known as guqin), 7-string zither with over 3000 years of well-documented history Learn more about Juni at: torguqin.wordpress.com/ Her Channel on Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/jts1702a

Juni Yeung plays - Drunken Madness written around 200 AD

Lula Dance Lounge - 1585 Dundas Street West, 2 blocks west of Dufferin (Southside, just past Sheridan.) . 416-588-0307. Doors: 3 PM Start: 4 PM to 8 PM Cover: PWYC Minimum $5 (with all proceeds going to performers) If you love live music, this is a great new place to see the raw musical talent of Toronto. Imported afro-cuban, sala, swing bands and spoken word nights. Little Portugal (Rua Acores) neighbourhood - Queer West Toronto, Ontario.

FESTIVAL Volunteer Appreciation - Several Hungarian Roma Refugees, including one living with Michel, our event manager are helping with traffic control and watching bicycles on Aug 10 gallery art tour. torontogaysingles.com may be sendings us volunteers. Couple of volunteers from South Asian Community are helping with this and that. Contact Us if you can help too?: QueerWestInfo@gmail.com 416-879-7954

OUR FESTIVAL doesn't receive Arts or foundations grants and or City Funding We have no grant writers, we have a callout, no one has offered to help us, as yet). 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. Paid for by private donations, fundraising, gallery, venues, in-kind services and local business sponsorship and through entrance fees (Usually PWYC or $5 about 2%. 98% of the events are free All performers are paid a reasonable amount to cover costs. We've never had a deficit in ten years.