Program
Welcome to Fempocalypse Neo-Stalgia!
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The Nightwood Innovators are pleased to celebrate International Women's day and International Transgender Day of Visibility with you.
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Below you will learn all about these amazing artists who are celebrating with us and together we are supporting Water First.
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The links to the Silent Auction, Cabaret, and Gallery are in your email from Eventbrite.
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Enjoy!
Questions? Email us nightwoodinovators@gmail.com
Have you donated yet?
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When you donate to Water First you will be entered into a draw for a digital ticket to TOKA presented by Theatre Passe Muraille. You don't want to miss out!
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Click the logo below to donate.
Haven't registered yet? ​
That's all right, Fempocalypse 2022: Neo-Stalgia is available 24/7 from March 31- April 8th.
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Click the button below to Register.
[Image Description: Colourful spacey background. Retro typeface "Fempocalypse 2022. Manifesto. For us, NeoStalgia means thinking about our connections to previous generations, and deciding how we want to continue on our own way and beyond. Aesthetically it's all about retro, futuristic, and retrofuturistic styles. Philosophically, it's about simultaneously looking to the past for inspiration, while also dreaming together to imagine totally new worlds for the future. Tonight, we invite you to dream with us about futures that never were, histories that exist only in our minds, and imaginary worlds which might yet come to be.]
Cabaret Artists
Cabaret (in order of appearance)
Simone Matheson
“After The Apocalypse” was greatly inspired by many personal epiphanies had during the pandemic; a journey filled with change, new perspective, growth, and rebirth mirrored through the reimagining of our Earth’s functioning, exemplifying a particularly newfangled Queer Futurism. Through transition of theme, transition of form, transition of personhood, and transition of perspective I hope to make space for new ideas, for Queer liberation, and encourage audiences to consider the multiplicity of a conundrum and the rabbit hole it will lead you down.
Bio: I'm Simone, a Queer multi-disciplinary artist, classically trained actor, and theatre creator. I am the co-Artistic Director of Arrowwood Theatre Co. and I hold a BFA in Acting from the University of Windsor. I have produced and created for the Toronto Fringe (ICARUS, 2019), Soulpepper’s, QUEERFUTURES2099 (Contactless, 2021), and more. I strive to reimagine our present notion of what the theatre is, what artistic experiences are, and what they can become.
Alisha Grech
MEAT is an extension of a larger project, created and written by Alisha Grech, with collaboration from Becca Willow Moss. Grounded in diary entries, MEAT takes its audience through the creator's (deteriorating) sense of self and blends together past discomforts with retro-futuristic aesthetics.
CONTENT WARNING: Fatphobia, image distortion, course language, eating disorder mention, bullying, verbal abuse, uncomfortable and loud sounds.
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​Bio: Alisha (Lish) Grech, is a settler-Canadian writer, educator and creative artist. For the past three years, she has conducted research at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. In addition to her academic practice, Alisha has worked as a community-based educator and writer around Tkaronto.
Rye
Throwback to the 90s or early 2000s obsession with high-school graduation. Using the single from the Lizzie McGuire movie, This is What Dreams are Made Of, this piece highlights the highs and lows of a time that feels too recent and maybe too negative to be nostalgic about.
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Bio: Rye is a cereal grass that is cultivated for use in baking, beer making, and other culinary activities. It is well-suited to establish roots in cosmopolitan environments and is a disease-resistant crop. When in human form, Rye is a chronically ill intersex genderqueer entertainer who uses acrobatic contemporary moves to tell sentimental stories. They are Toronto's best figure skating drag performer, and have performed on this city’s queerest stages, bartops and park benches.
Sage Lovell
I am presenting The Four Elements, a poem in ASL that I created a few years ago. While this is a classic, I know some people haven't had the chance to seen it yet so, I'm happy to share this piece of beauty which can be seen through the poetry, using my hands to create those images.
Bio: Sage Lovell is a Deaf queer nonbinary genderfluid femme artist who likes to work their magic, using different art mediums to shift perspectives and spaces.
Alyson Doyle
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A finger puppet burlesque, to my parody song "Put the Blame on Dames," written in homage to Rita Hayworth's Gilda who famously sang, "Put the Blame on Mame." Also in homage to Gilda Radner who famously sang everything else, and quite comically. An arousing social satire.
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Bio: Graduate of the University of Toronto, and current MA candidate in the University of Connecticut's renowned puppetry program. Writer, performer, maker of puppets and masks.
Peace Akintade
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"Abolition" is a multimedia film, using elements of poetry, lyrical dance, and painting. "Abolition" is a cry and a plea to remove ourselves from the bubble of safety. Our assumed peaceful is only a front to serve the Big Man, Mr. Businessman. How can we know our assets, and tongue have been cut off, if we only say silence to our worth? An important film about knowing our truths.
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Bio: Peace Akintade is an African-Canadian Interdisciplinary Poet from Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Her discipline includes poetry, lyrical dance, film directing, and exhibition curating, and Playwriting . She is currently an Anthropology student at the University of Saskatchewan, where she hopes to decolonize the profession, and look critically at the narratives of African culture. When she is not feverishly writing, she can be found in the banks of rivers counting the rocks, and measuring the clouds.
Moonbean- Valentina Morelli
The video is a live, in-studio performance of my recent single, Worlds Collide. The song is about two people that are on completely different planes yet still come together and have out-of-this-world chemistry. This piece reflects on Neo-stalgia as it looks upon a past experience within a new societal format.
The character MOONBEAN was born out of pandemic times as a way to explore writing with a different persona. MOONBEAN is an androgynous creature from the oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa who travelled to earth to spread sexy messages of empowerment and love. Worlds Collide was recently released into the wild and is available on all streaming platforms. MOONBEAN has a show coming up in Toronto at The Piston on Mar. 31st which will be featuring some amazing local talent!
Bio: MOONBEAN is a queer, Toronto-based artist. Performing as an electronic duo with live synth hardware and lush vocal melodies. Genre; synth-pop with flavours of psychedelia, acid-house, techno. MOONBEAN’s inspirations; Little Dragon, Peaches, Metric. Live, they sport cosmically confused attire while creating electronic sounds making space for everyone to get weird.
Saskia Muller
Gym changeroom anxieties? I raise you the pool changeroom. In MIDDLE SCHOOL. Thinking back, I am in awe at the performance of confidence at a time where the rug of bodily autonomy pulled out from under us. It felt fitting for neo-stalgia because I often think nostalgia implies “looking back fondly” but with this exploration, found it to be more complicated than that.
Bio: Saskia Muller is a Toronto based actor, creator and nostalgist. She loves working with others, pushing the boundaries of form, and making things that have the potential to change the heartbeat of the audience. Or just making people laugh. Or even smirk -- (She’ll take what she can get.) Thanks, Nightwood team!!!
Erin Ball & Jayeden Walker
A pirate and mermaid navigate the waters of their unlikely friendship in this Queer and Disability centered aerial act. A family friendly circus show demonstrating that what sets people apart can actually bring them closer together. The act will be presented with audio description and open captions, with transcripts available.
Bio: Erin Ball is a double below-knee amputee who identifies as Queer, Mad (from the Mad Pride movement), and Disabled. She is a white treaty inhabitant based in Katarokwi/Kingston.
Jayeden Walker is a Queer, neurodivergent circus artist. She lives, plays, and creates as a white treaty inhabitant in Toronto.
Coyote Ugly
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My piece is a lip sync of “Brutus” by Buttress. Through the piece I explore the rage and catharsis that comes with a shift in power, and to remind the audience how it is needed.
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Bio: Coyote ugly is a drag king and trash creature residing in TKaronto. He is thrilled to be hosting fempocalypse 2022!
Gallery Artists
Sodienye Waboso Amajor
Valerie Free
DM St. Bernard
Lindsay Anne Black
Graham Connell
Stephanie Fung
Rebecca Lacroix
Emily Schooley
Carla Stein
Riley Ough
Tania D'Amico
Kaeley Jade Wiebe
Columbia Roy
 Colored Space |  Columbia Roy[Image description: A white woman with long wavy blonde hair. She is wearing a green sweater. She has cracks projected along her face and chest..] |  Stephanie Fung[Image description: an Asian person with white hair and dark lipstick. They pout. They wear a light blue tank top and silver necklace. There is a projection of cracks on their face and chest.] |
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 Valerie Free[Image Description: A colour photo in natural light of a senior with short hair and blue eyes. She smiles. A bookshelf is partially seen in the background.] |  Riley Ough[Image Description: Photo of a white feminine person with brown, shoulder-length hair in front of a black backdrop. She wears a burgundy halter top and a gold necklace.] |  DM St Bernard[Image Description: Colour photo of a middle aged light-skinned Black woman in front of a red wall, her head covered by a red and gold scarf.] |
 ID: Black and white photo of a beaming middle aged white woman with long wavy hair sitting on an out[Image Description: Black and white photo of a beaming middle aged white woman with long wavy hair sitting on an outdoor deck.] |  Tania D'Amico[Image description: A coloured photo of a caucasian female with long brown hair, wearing black clothes. She smiles. She’s standing outside in a suburban neighbourhood street under a tree.] |  Trendy Neon Background |
 Sodienye Waboso Amajor[Image description: A black girl in a coloured dress kneels before a mirror with braids in her hair, and neon earrings and bright coloured lipstick on. ] |  Emily Schooley[Image Description: A light-skinned woman with red hair and green eyes stands out from a pink background. The woman is smiling. She wears a black tank top.] |  Carla Stein[Image Description: a black and white photo of a woman with long hair. Behind her is a wooden plank wall.] |
 Graham Connell[Image Description: A white man with short, dirty blonde hair. He smiles. He wears a white shirt with blue stripes in different thicknesses.] |  Kaeley Jade Wiebe[Image Description: A photo of a woman with long brown hair and blue eyes, smiling slightly. She wears a grey turtleneck that matches the backdrop.] |  Rebecca Lacroix[Image Description: Coloured photo of a white woman with glasses and shoulder length brown hair. She smiles. Looking off to the side. She wears a light purple dress and gold necklaces.] |
 Neon Stairs |
To learn more about these amazing artists click here.
[Image Description: Triangular grid of photographs of the artists with a pink outline.]
Production Credits
Maria Alejandra Cortes “Malé”
(she/her) - Production committee | Fundraising committee | Artist Liaison | Video editing and Art Direction
Malé is a multidisciplinary Artist, Theatre creator, Arts manager and entrepreneur. Malé co-founded a Colombian-based Theatre company named Parálisis Teatral, and a Marketing Boutique in Toronto, Kmunity Media. She is currently developing a new multidisciplinary work Mother's Trips, thanks to the OAC Recommenders Grant from Nightwood Theatre, Aluna Theatre and Pleiades Theatre.
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[Image Description: an olive-skinned Columbian woman with long loosely curled brown hair with highlights. She wears eyeshadow, mascara and pink lipstick. The background behind her is blurred.]
Rebecca Bauer
(she/her) - Administration | Artist Liaison
Rebecca is a performer and theatre creator, specializing in Viewpoints; singing; and health & safety in creative practice. Rebecca is inspired by intersectional feminist practices that disrupt hierarchy and prioritize psychological safety.
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[Image description: a white, cis woman in her early twenties. She has long shoulder-length brown wavy hair, pink lipstick, and green eyes. She wearing a pink tank top.]
Alex Cameron
(she/her) - Artist Liaison
Performer, creator, musician, dramaturge, dreamer, remixer, fashionista, biracial light-femme. Question, what do these things all have in common? Everybody knows I’m a mix-em-up monster! I’m happy to be part of Young Innovators and looking forward to meeting more people and sharing our souls!
Previous experiences include: Toronto Fringe, Blackwood Gallery, Tarragon YPU Actors’ Unit, Crane Creations Theatre Company, Theatre Gargantua: Emerging Artists’ Roundtable, Canadian Play Thing, ACTRA Diversity: A Different Lens, AMY Project: Trans Gemmes, Fringe TENT.
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[Image description: A mixed black woman, lit by sunlight, stands before a shroud of leafy greens. She is wearing glasses, an airy blue top, and has bouncy afro curls.]
Drea
(she/her) - Production committee | Fundraising committee | Charity Committee | Art Gallery Lead | Web design
Drea is a theatre creator, stage manager, actor, dramaturge, access consultant and disability scholar. Her masters focused on disability representation in mainstage theatre in Canada. Employing disability dramaturgy, she endeavours to adapt and shift current theatrical practices to ensure that disabled people are considered and/or included from the inception of the project through to the performance. Her work strives to shift the physical and attitudinal barriers that are present on- and off stage.
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[Image description: a black and white photo of a white woman smiling and looking at the camera. She has long curly relaxed hair, square glasses and a long-sleeve sweater. ]
Rahaf Fasheh
(she/her) - Production committee | Artist Liaison | Social Media
Rahaf is a Palestinian theatre artist based in Toronto. She is passionate about producing collaborative theatre to tell stories of marginalized communities. Rahaf began her career at Soulpepper’s City Youth Academy program, and has obtained a Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Toronto, specializing in Theatre. She’s been involved in various theatre conferences and workshops, whilst participating annually in Hart House Theatre’s Drama Festival. Rahaf was awarded the Pamela Terry Memorial Scholarship for demonstrating promise in the field of directing. She had her directorial debut at Theatre Passe Murraille with a two-week independent run of the play Tales of a City by the Sea. Rahaf then directed her first digital-theatre exploration during the lock-down with Paprika Festival’s Directors Lab program, where she discovered her passion for producing. She is looking forward to expanding her practice and artistry through Nightwood\s Innovators program.
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[Image Description: a Palestinian woman with long brown curly hair side swept. She looks over her shoulder smiling. She wears a white tank top with a blue and yellow patterned unbuttoned shirt over top. Behind her is a macrame curtain.]
Rosalind Goodwin
(fae/they/she) - Production committee | Artist Liaison | Design
Rose is a performer, producer, playwright, and artist. Since fae moved to Toronto she has also found a passion for making video games and illustrations. Faer work is heavily influenced by queerness and the complexities of being queer. Fae also works doing outreach at events promoting harm reduction and giving harm reduction supplies with Pieces to Pathway. As a performer, Rose was last seen in Gender Reveal Party (Summerworks Festival). Fae produced Rose’s Buds: A DIgital Trans Cabaret for the 2021 Paprika festival. Faer play Hermaphroditus was given a staged reading as part of the Tarragon Theatres 2021 Young Playwrights Unit.
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[Image Description: a person with long dark brown curly hair with dyed pink tips. Fae wears eyeliner and pink lipstick and a black top.]
Erin Jones
(She/Her/They) - Marketing | Social Media | Artist Liaison
Erin is a playwright, director, actor and producer. As founder of Wonder Jones Productions, she has written and produced Time Limits Dropped on Easter Sunday for the Toronto and Hamilton Fringe Festivals. She is currently developing scripts focused on Black Canadian history and extends her thanks to the OAC Recommenders Grant program b current Performing Arts, Cahoots Theatre, Why Not Theatre and the Jon Kaplan Fund.
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[Image description: a person with long black hair with soft curls. She wears eyeliner and mauve lipstick and a black shirt. They simle.]
Jahnelle Jones
(She/her)- Silent Auction Committee | Artist Liaison
Jahnelle is an actor, writer, director, and human based in Toronto. She is interested in creating work that brings marginalized people to the centre in their own stories and looking at how we can find slivers of hope in today's world.
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[Image description: a young Black woman with curly hair smiling at the camera, wearing a mint green turtleneck and in front of a beige background.]
Augusta “Gus” Monet
(They/He/She) - Host | Marketing Liaison
Gus Monet Is a playwright, performer, and drag king. Recently, they workshopped a reading of their play, Equinox, with Dandelion theatre. Previously they developed a script, Steam, as part of Tarragon’s Young Playwrights Unit, and performed in Art Babayant’s Les Gars (2020). Gus is thrilled to be a part of Fempocalypse 2022.
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[Image description: a white-presenting person with blonde hair that is chopped short framing their face and is long at the back passing their shoulders. He wears pink lipstick and a blue collared shirt with the top two buttons undone.]
Natércia Napoleão
(she/her) - Marketing Liaison
is a multifaceted Brazilian theatre artist, educator and community advocate. Over the past eighteen years, she has had a wide influence within the Albertan theatre community, with experience in site-specific theatre, dance theatre, multimedia performance, television, musicals, and a wide range of classical and contemporary theatre. Recent directing credits include Jameela McNeil’s Orange Skies (Tarragon Theatre’s Young Playwright’s Unit), and the multidisciplinary theatre piece, Threshold (The Lobbyists/2021 Chinook Series).As a producer with the manidoons collective, Natércia will be supporting the workshop and production of esteemed playwright Yolanda Bonnell’s newest play, White Girls in Moccasins, at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Natércia is ecstatic to be writing her first full-length play, Michener Park. Recent essays include, “Reimagining Community and the Workplace of Theatre” (Culture Days AB) and “2020: Year of the Iconoclast” (Theatre Alberta). Natércia is a graduate from the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting Program.
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[Image description: a Brazillian woman with tightly curled blond hair. She wears red lipstick, a white shirt with black and brown patterned stitching and cuffed blue jeans. She sits with one leg crossed in a theatre seat.]
Camille Rogers
(they/them)- Production | Social Media Design | Administration
Co-Artistic Director of queer opera collective OperaQ, Camille Rogers is pursuing a doctorate in music and sexual diversity studies at U of T. Camille is also active as a performer of opera and early music. Credits include Aeneas with OperaQ (Dido and Aeneas), Suli/Suzie in Buddies in Bad Times’s world premiere of Pomegranate, and the title role in L’Italiana in Algeri with MYOpera.
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[Image description: a white non-binary person with short, light brown hair, against a black background. They are wearing a black lace button-up shirt.
Jade Silman
(she/her)- Silent Auction | Fundraising Committee | Artist Liason
Jade is a Toronto based creator, director, dramaturg, and administrator who foregrounds collaboration, equity, and passion in all her work. Her upcoming projects include: Merrily We Roll Along (Shifting Ground Collective), the New Ideas Festival (Alumnae Theatre), and Flowers for Alex (Diamond Heart Productions), premiering at the Toronto Fringe Festival.
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[Image description: A woman of mixed white and East Asian descent outdoors in front of a green field with rocky pathways and trees in the distance. She is in a light blue top with and has long, wavy brown hair.]
Abigail Whitney
(she/her)- Charity Committee | Art Gallery Lead
Abigail is the Artistic Director Intern at Volcano Theatre. She is an award-winning stage director, actor, fashion model and artist educator and youth mentor. She has studied at U of T's Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies, and abroad in London, UK at Queen Mary University of London (performing at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival with UK's award-winning Queen Mary Theatre Company). Abigail was named a "one-of-a-kind model" and in 2020 was listed as “100 Black Artists to support this Juneteenth” by New York’s Gritty Vibes Magazine. In 2020, UofT’s The Varsity newspaper published a personal essay about her acclaimed university career and interviewed her on the front-page of their November 2018 paper. She was named a “quadruple threat” by UofT News “UofT students who crushed it.” She was featured on CBC’s q, ByBlacks, CBC’s OurToronto, Eboss Canada and Broadway World. Abigail is on the cover of Ark Magazine’s 002 “The Reset” Issue released in 2021, where she’s interviewed and featured as a ‘Game Changer’ an “innovative and fearless force, changing the arts as we know it.” In 2021, her debut short film Seule that she wrote, produced and directed premiered as part of the Paprika Festival and went on to win Best Amateur Film at the Short To The Point International Short Film Festival and is the official selection at the 2021 Austin Micro Film Festival.
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[Image description: A Black woman with long black straight hair that’s side-swept is standing in front of a solid white background. She’s in a black dress with pink flowers all over it. She’s wearing a gold choker necklace with a red lip on. There’s pink wash lighting over the entire image. The image is cropped to her shoulders.]
