Marlee Cargill

On a busy street corner on Queen Street West, a lady in red and her partner prepare to dazzle the crowd with a one-of-a-kind contemporary dance performance. The crowd is used to buskers, but this one stands out.

For most dancers, the performance starts when they hit the stage. But for Marlee Cargill, the stage opens when she begins her performance.

Then again, most dancers don’t have a file cabinet as a partner.

“This summer I just started to take my file cabinet on a dolly, come over here to Queen and Soho and dance,” she said. “The response blew me away. One guy was running by, saying ‘Oh my God, that’s the best piece of art I’ve seen all day – and I just went to the AGO!’”

For Cargill, the file cabinet is a metaphorical male: cold, linear, grounded. Her performance, entitled “Solo /w file cabinet,” depicts a dire, almost desperate woman pleading for her inanimate lover’s attention. To Cargill, the piece is about the social construction of women’s sexuality and how they are always pleading for men’s attention.

“It’s this idea of this secretary character being lonely, and she’s there after work talking to inanimate things,” she said. “She tries to elicit attention from the file cabinet, but it doesn’t respond, so she takes to it aggressively, trying to make it her lover.”

Born in Toronto on Nov. 6, 1966, Cargill has been dancing for 24 years and doing choreography for 14. Having first studied dance at York University, she left to explore graphic design. Eventually, she realized dance was her calling and returned to school at Concordia University to complete her BFA.

The dancer describes her performance as “modern ballroom dancing with jagged tango moves and odd, abstract movements.” For Cargill, the setting is a crucial part of her performance; she uses the city as a canvas for her art.

Having lived in cities most of her life, it’s no surprise she has integrated it into her work. After having studied, taught and performed dance in Montreal and Paris, she returned to Toronto critical of how we use public space.

“Growing up in the city, physical space and its surroundings have always affected me,” she said. “When I came back from Montreal, I was very interested in public space and what we do with it.”

She said she returned only to find disappointment. This inspired her to take her performance to the streets.

“Here we are in Canada with such a surplus of space, and in the downtown core it can still be very boring,” she said. “So I started working site-specifically.”

While Cargill has choreographed major stage productions for Bravo! television and danced in well-known venues such as the Drake Hotel in Toronto, Leif Harmsen, an artist and friend of Cargill’s, said she goes back to busking on the street not for the money, but for the love of it.

“She really enjoys getting off the stage and onto the streets,” Harmsen said. “She doesn’t busk because the stage would not have her – she busks because she likes to perform in that real space.”

Harmsen said Cargill uses street performance as a way to engage people that many choreographers  would neglect.

“With the street performance, she is reaching out to an audience that many choreographers and dancers would never even bother with,” he said. “They would expect the audience to come to them, but she’s going out to find her audience.”

But in addition to this, she also uses her performance as a tool for learning.

“She’s teaching people merely by performing on the street,” he said. “It isn’t a formalized lecture hall, but she’s forcing people to confront something… She’s demanding people’s attention, and doing interesting things with it.”

He said while many simply see her dance as entertainment, most of her work has a story behind it.

“Some people might start by saying, ‘Oh, there’s a sexy chick with a file cabinet,’ but then they have to confront the problems with that.”

Miklos Legrady can remember the first time he saw Cargill perform, when he was asked to shoot a video for her. He says that while the off-beat nature of her performance is what first jumped out at him, he soon realized there was a lot more to the dance than he thought.

“Most people would at first thing it’s something strange, but when they see the dance, because she’s a professionally trained dancer, all of a sudden you think ‘Wow, this woman really knows what she’s doing.’”

Legrady says that if he didn’t first encounter the performance on the street, it may not have had the same effect on him.

“Most dance happens inside of a theatre.,” he said. “But with Marlee a lot of it happens on location, and the themes relate directly to people’s lives, and show them in a different light.”

Cargill’s street performance elicits a range of responses.

Claudius Ramprashad, a Toronto resident of 6 years who recently witnessed one of Cargill’s spontaneous performances, was nothing less than impressed by the performance. He said he feels street performance is good for the city because it diversifies our range of experiences.

“She’s extremely bold, to be able to perform like this,” he said. “I think it has a good effect on the city, because it makes us more tolerant of everything.”

Some, like Lindsay Lambert, find the performance neither entertaining nor educating. In fact, she finds it downright scary.

“To be honest, it scares the shit out of me,” Lambert said. “I don’t know if she’s having a panic attack or what…It’s art, I guess, but I don’t understand it.”

Amy Harris, an urban geography professor at York University, says it’s not surprising that the performance gets mixed reviews.

“People have different cultural and moral standards and expectations for what is appropriate (in public space),” she said.

But to her, performances like Cargill’s are a positive thing because they open up an interactive discussion about how the city uses public space.

“A pro is that it can change people’s experience and perception of a public space,” Harris said. “A performance that challenges our views or even gets us to ask questions about public space is succeeding on some level.”

To Cargill, the questions that arise are a result, rather than the object of her performance. She said while she does feel there is a social obligation to have a message to her work, she doesn’t focus on that.

“I actually dance initially for pure entertainment, but what happens is that it becomes educational after I interact with people,” she said. “It becomes its own creation, something people never expected.”

She said first and foremost, she dances to communicate, not educate.

Cargill said that after her performance, people open up to her after only knowing her for five minutes.

“People tell me really intimate things, because I’ve shared something really intimate with them,” Cargill said. “All of a sudden the barriers are gone.”

“There’s this whole idea of the walls just dropping, and having very deep conversations with a perfect stranger. At that point, I’m like an ambassador for dance in Toronto.”

And while she still accepts donations after her performance, that’s the last thing on her mind as her dance unfolds.

“I’m still passing a hat around, but I don’t even think that matters,” Cargill said. “If anything it just gives people a way to understand me… It helps put my dance into a context they can understand.”

They are not about to tie the knot. Rather, this is the CD release party for We Are Here For You and a church is where they have chosen to show their work. This particular church, St. George the Martyr, located at 197 John St., is also known as the Music Gallery. It is one of several churches in Toronto that play host to musical acts before and after its daily sermons. McLeod and Villeneuve’s band, the I Love You Toos, is part of a growing number of musical acts from Toronto that use churches as venues. That’s really nothing new as in the past, churches have always had music in them. But now they host all sorts of sounds from indie rock to gospel choir.

“When you think of churches, you realize that they have actually a very long history of having music in them,” said Jason Aviss, the front house manager at the Music Gallery.”

“Something about having a concert set in a church really lends a focus to it.”

Going to see a live show at a church is different than going to a bar because in a church, he said people are there to just listen to the music.

Jackie Vantvoort is the building co-ordinator at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church, situated on Bloor Street West between Bathurst and Spadina. It is another venue that hosts various music acts.

“One of the things with playing in this church is that when people come to a concert they’re here to focus on the concert,” Vantvoort said. “(They’re) not paying attention to what the bartender is doing or when the waitress is coming. It’s a much simpler setting for viewing concerts.”

Musicians using the church venue for the first time may be a little apprehensive about playing those surroundings or performing a lyrically suspect song in the house of the Lord.

“It is interesting to see how certain people react to being in a church,” Aviss said. “Some people take it in stride and are even actually kind of caught by surprise when you mention to them that on Sundays there is a service here and there is a priest and this is a functioning church.

“Others just get really into the space itself and are able to disregard the fact that there is an altar and other religious icons all around.”

Finding the venue can be a bit difficult for musicians, as churches such as Trinity-St. Paul’s, the Music Gallery and the Berkeley Street Church rarely advertise their space.

Andrew Smith works at the Berkeley Street Church on Queen East and said that it is their intention to keep a low profile.

He said that roughly the last 200 events the Berkeley Church has hosted, only 11 of those were from people who had played there before.

“Some of the big things that happen here wouldn’t come if we were in the Yellow Pages,” he said. “Because we do stay under the radar on purpose, we’re able to deliver very high quality to the people who appreciate it because they’ve been here and they get it,” he said.

Back at the I Love You Toos’ launch party, the introductory music stops. McLeod and Villeneuve face each other in front of the audience and launch into their first song, a foot stomping folk ballad. The sound lifts off.

“The acoustics are amazing and I think that is the biggest thing. You can’t beat the sound of a church,” McLeod said. “A lot of times in a bar you can’t hear anything or you can only hear what is coming back at you from the monitors.”

She said when playing in a church, there is an intimate feeling that gives them the idea they are playing to their band mates in a living room instead of just playing to the audience.

Churches work best for artists and bands that use mainly softer instruments and omit heavy electric equipment in their performances.

“These buildings are hundreds of years old,” Aviss said. “The construction and the make of the buildings is so attuned to acoustics and to resonance.”

Phil Villeneuve and Stacey McLeod

McLeod said there is more room for performance creativity that might not be possible at a typical concert venue.

“I think there are things you can do in a church or in an alternative venue that you can’t really do in a bar,” she said. “It’s a little harder to go into a regular music venue or a bar and do something creative with a theme.”

Chris Evans is the guitar player for Toronto rock band Poisonous Glass. He said younger musicians are beginning to explore the creative opportunities offered by church venues.

“I think younger musicians are taking to more artistic endeavors,” Evans said. “Now you have these musicians who are adding totally different elements from all kinds of genres into their music and trying to make it more artistic and I think a church definitely is a good venue for that type of thing.”

Sometimes the building itself stirs artists’ creativity and can add a sense of spirituality.

“We have ambiance. We have a lot of attributes that people use,” Vantvoort said. “There’s an element of spirituality just based on the fact that it’s in the church.”

The magnificent building structure, the bouncing acoustics, the picturesque stained glass windows and the overall mood within make the church a memorable venue for music. And to play there, artists and bands need not dip their fingers in holy water, but the audience may still join in song.

“Some bands probably think about booking something in a church and they think there will be tons of rules and you have to be religious, but you don’t,” McLeod said. “I think any church that lets bands come and play is probably a pretty progressive church.”

Meanwhile, the I Love You Toos announce one more creative spin to top the evening off. With the crowd on the edge of their pews, a 30-member samba group bursts through the back doors of the church.

An almost chaotic atmosphere ensues, as the various percussion instruments bounce from one stained glass wall to the other. The audience rises and joins in on the parade clapping and cheering. On stage, the band and the samba group coalesce to create a bombastic sound that seems to be never ending, even after the churchgoers begin to file out. It’s the perfect way to make use of the building’s atmosphere, its sound and creativity.

After all, the working class district in Toronto’s Bloordale area is known more as a haven for drug dealers than art dealers. The most easily recognizable landmark is the gentlemen’s club House of Lancaster.

The intersection has served as an object of scorn for local aesthetes who, until recently, avoided the area at all costs. Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume once referred to Bloordale as a “distinctly unpleasant district that has nothing to recommend it.”

Yet, amidst the thrift stores and ethnic eateries that dot Bloor West like discoloured gumballs, art galleries like Funktion are starting to find room in the gaps.

In the last few years, a community of artists, activists and new business owners has emerged making the Bloor Lansdowne strip an increasingly popular destination for art lovers in search of an authentic urban cultural experience.

Former Queen Street mainstays like Mercer Union and the Toronto Free Gallery now make their homes in Bloordale.

“(Having art galleries) makes the scumminess of the area seem chic,” a local store manager admitted.

While the gritty diversity of the area serves as source of creative inspiration, there is a simpler reason why artists are migrating there in increasing numbers.

Affordable rent.

“The only reason we came here was because it’s cheap to live here,” Gabriel said. “We had no idea there were other artists in the area.”

Funktion gallery

A graffiti artist, Gabriel and his partners fully intended to set up shop in the Junction neighbourhood along Dundas St. West. He even planned to name his new gallery in honor of the area.

“We wanted to be known as the Junction Funktion,” he said.

But, when he realized he couldn’t afford the rent Gabriel, 23, looked north and found Bloordale. Funktion had its first event last December and hasn’t looked back since.

Since it’s opened, the gallery has hosted art shows, concerts, graffiti expos, photography exhibits and a wild party during the all night Nuit Blanche art festival. Gabriel and his partners even sell spray paint to pay Funktion’s bills.

“At our prices, it’s a lot better than buying from Canadian Tire,” he said gesturing to a few year’s worth of spray paint stacked on shelves behind him.

A couple of blocks east, the Mercer Union Centre for Contemporary Art is enjoying a rebirth, according to its director of public programs and development.

“This is the best physical site we’ve ever had,” Elaine Gaito said. “We like to say that we are in a golden age.”

Established in 1979, Mercer Union has become one of the most respected art galleries in the city, showcasing modern art from around the world. The gallery gained a measure of notoriety after Canadian artist Eli Langer’s paintings were showcased in 1993. Police had deemed Langer’s work child pornography. The gallery contested the charge and won a precedent-setting court victory.

But, that challenge paled in comparison to 2008 when the gallery faced a forced relocation from their Queen Street W neighbourhood. The gallery’s monthly rent had risen beyond what it could afford.

Faced with imminent relocation, the gallery desperately searched for a new, affordable space. They found a cavernous dollar store on 1286 Bloor St. West that had once been a neighbourhood movie theatre. Mercer Union had found its new home.

“We would have never been able to occupy such a large space on Queen,” Gaito said.

After an extensive renovation costing $250,000 paid through public grants and private donations, Mercer re-opened in 2008 with larger, more modern facility adorned with elegant high tin ceilings and enough room for multiple exhibitions.

Gaito blames a changing community for pushing Mercer Union out of Queen Street.

“For better or for worse, (Mercer Union) kick started the gentrification trend in Queen West,” she said. “But in the end, that same economic forces pushed us out.”

Gaito says she hopes that the presence of more cultural organizations in the area leads to a newfound prosperity for all. Bloor and Lansdowne’s most influential business owner also shares this sentiment.

“My goal is to make all the homes in the neighbourhood worth $100,000 more than they are now,” Spiros Koumoudourous said.

In addition to being president of the Bloordale Business Improvement Association, Koumoudourous owns the area’s biggest employer, the House of Lancaster.

While residents blame the adult establishment for contributing to the large amounts of drugs and prostitution in the neighbourhood, Koumoudourous vigourously denies the allegations.

“We’re in the entertainment business, not the sexy business,” he said during a telephone interview. “We work with the police and the community to make the streets safer.”

In partnership with artists, Koumoudourous has secured funding and support for local artist events. He’s even provided the House of Lancaster’s security staff free of charge during high profile events in the community such as the annual Big on Bloor street festival and Nuit Blanche.

Despite, the community building efforts, Gabriel thinks it’s hard to convince some people that things can change for the better when there’s a strip club in the area.

“That strip club is the neighbourhood,” he said. “You have to learn to accept that.”

Koumoudourous envisions a time when Bloordale makes its residents proud to live there.

“There are plenty of immigrants living here who deserve to be comfortable,” he said. “This (neighbourhood) can become a great area for nice businesses.”

Gabriel and Gaito refuse to speculate on their future of Bloor West. They’re happy for now to live in an emerging community that’s still affordable to live in.

“Maybe we can encourage people to invest in this neighbourhood because they see the investment we’ve made,” Gaito said.

What started as a lithography factory in 1899 has transformed into a vibrant, low-rent community where artists rent space for studios, galleries and offices. If the glowing “Open to the Public” sign doesn’t draw you in, then four stories of hidden art gems and an award-winning garden rooftop surely will.

The building began life in its current form when, after going through several owners, it was saved from the wrecking ball by the Zeidlers, a family that has played a vital role in shaping Toronto’s cultural and architectural landscape.

It was Eb Zeidler who designed the iconic Eaton Centre; his youngest daughter, Christina, transformed the Gladstone Hotel into the thriving art centre it is today; and it was her sister Margaret – known to most as Margie – who took charge of the 401 Richmond building in 1994 to create a vibrant artistic hub.

According to Murray Whyte, art critic for the Toronto Star, this is a classic example of giving an old building new life that benefits everyone. He calls it a “very Jane Jacobs way of thinking” – which makes sense, since the Zeidlers were close friends with the renowned urbanist.

“When the Zeidlers redeveloped that building, they could easily have knocked it down and built whatever the city planning commission would allow in terms of height,” Whyte said. “Instead, not only did they choose to rehabilitate it for new uses, but they set aside a fair amount of that space for cultural and not-for-profit organizations, and they really committed to that.”

Now, each of the four storeys is packed with galleries and retail space rented by visual artists, photographers and cultural organizations – not to mention that garden rooftop, where anyone in Toronto can take a paperbag lunch, share some breadcrumbs with the sparrows and escape the maddening concrete jungle.

One of the newest tenants to move in is Angela Noussis, winner of this year’s 401 Richmond Career Launcher Prize. Each year, the building’s owners award one outstanding arts student with their own studio space. Noussis, 38, was an A student studying graphic design at OCAD, where she designed a series of children’s books for her thesis project. She moved into studio 260 on July 1, and describes the building as an inspirational place where she’s surrounded by like-minded people.

“I’ve been coming here for years, just milling around, and I always envisioned being here. It was kind of a dream,” she said. “So the fact that I ended up getting this space was pretty overwhelming.”

And on the ground floor, studio 133 is filled with the recordings of Finnish musicians Uulu. The shop, Musideum (“Music + Museum + Deum”) is a unique, multicultural musical instrument store that sells everything from Mongolian horse head fiddles to African finger pianos and musical saws.

“I’ve learned a lot from being here,” said musician and shop employee Ivy Mairi, 21. “We have instruments from many different cultures, so we get master musicians coming in, and we also get people looking for rare cultural instruments they want to learn more about.”

Since the shop first opened in December 2007, Mairi has also been impressed by the wide range of people she has met.

“Because of the building, some people just wander in,” she said. “I’m so amazed by how many people know about this store.”

Erin MacKeen, 401 Richmond’s director of community development, has worked at the building for 10 years.

That sense of openness and community is maintained by Erin MacKeen, the building’s director of community development for the past 10 years. Through annual events like Open Doors Toronto, the 401 Art Redux and the Holiday Marketplace – plus a quarterly tenant newsletter – MacKeen takes care of the building’s artists and entrepreneurs.

“Here in this building, the focus is on creating an arts community; that was the intention from the very beginning,” she said. “The idea is that we’re mimicking all the things that make a really healthy and vibrant neighborhood, but it’s all in one building.”

According to MacKeen, the building provides affordable, mixed-use space that’s priced “well below the market” in a trendy neighbourhood.

“The financial aspect is hugely important and can’t be pushed to the side, because non-profit organizations and artist-run centres are working with very limited budgets,” she said. “What traditionally happens with things like gentrification is they get priced out of their neighbourhoods, and we are unwilling to let that happen.”

Demolition? Retail chains? Margaret Zeidler’s original vision has rendered these options unthinkable.

While they may not have the same street retail presence as Queen Street West – in fact, the sidewalk on Richmond Street actually ends where it meets the building’s front doors – 401 Richmond St. W. has become a sustainable cultural destination in its own right.

The Toronto Music Garden

Surrounded by condos on one side and boats on the other is a Toronto park that speaks music. It speaks of composer Johann Sebastian Bach, world renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma and landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy.

The Music Garden, which turned 10 this past year, is a place many Torontonians outside the classical music scene know little or nothing about or that it exists. It seems strange since it has been around for some time, but this is a reason that makes the garden so special. A visit to the site, located near the Harbourfront Centre on Queens Quay West between Spadina and Bathurst, for the first or fifth time always provides something new as art is constantly evolving.

Messervy was inspired to design the Music Garden by Bach’s “First Suite for the Unaccompanied Cello” and said that art is meant to be interpreted for other creations such as her interpretation of music to garden.

“What’s nice is that it’s going forward into the future, and we started with an old piece from the past,” she said.

For the third dance movement of the suite, called the Courante, Messervy said when she listened to the piece of music, she heard a swirling form to it and saw lots of colours like yellow and purple, which she incorporated into the perennials within the garden.

The garden was originally planed for Boston, but failed to garner enough support financially. According to Messervy, since Yo Yo Ma’s film Inspired by Bach was produced by Rhombus Media, a production company based in Toronto, the city was first to embrace the project after Boston.

Along with the City of Toronto, James Douglas Fleck was one of a number of people who helped privately fund the garden.

“The city said it was going to cost them a million dollars to put grass on what would essentially be a park,” Fleck said. “They would provide that money and the land.”

Fleck added that they had to raise a million and a half and found six couples that were each willing to give a hundred thousand for a section of the garden.

Messervy said once she heard Toronto was interested in the project, it only took a day to meet the right people and start the foundations of planning the garden.

Although the garden was designed for musicians to play there, the idea of classical music being performed outdoors is something that is uncommon, as it is usually performed indoors.

But with the Music Garden, all stereotypes about classical music, including where the musicians perform and who listens to it, have been removed.

Tamara Bernstein has written about classical music for the National Post and the Globe and Mail. She is currently the curator of the garden and produces the annual summer series.

“It is a chance for musicians to perform for a much wider demographic than they would in a typical concert setting,” she said. “The concerts are free. Everyone can come because they are outdoors and the usual strict conventions of classical concert behaviour do not apply.  So you get people from really ethnic groups, every economic class, every age…and performers love that.”

Bernstein said the Music Garden does not host any jazz or pop music as they are both well represented in the city, while classical music is not.

Performance spaces for musicians generally stay clear of areas that will cause problems because of too much noise. The Music Garden is set in the middle of a quiet waterfront community on purpose, and in a way adds to the surrounding area.

“It has such a beautiful feel to it, even though it’s quite an urban setting in many ways,” Bernstein said. “It has a beautiful space that kind of encloses the audience, and we provide a bit of amplification, but not on a level of pop music.”

The garden is taken care of year round by the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreational Department, and because of that, it’s worth seeing no matter what the season, Messervy said.

“It could be in the middle of winter with snow, and it’s still beautiful because the structure is beautiful and the grasses stay up until they get pummelled down,” she said. “It always looks good.”

Messervy said this project is special because of the involvement of Yo Yo Ma.

“Yo Yo has never done anything like this,” she said. “This is the only visible thing that you can walk through of Yo Yo’s that he had a big part in doing that is not something you hear on a CD. It’s a place that he has left behind that is a physical place to be in.”

What Ma and Messervy both intended for the garden was for it to inspire others. Since the garden has been welcoming visitors and hosting musical performances and dancing, it seems to be doing just that.

“One art, whatever art it is, can inspire another kind of art,” Messervy said. “People have written me who have been inspired by the garden and the music to then create stained glass windows based on the movements of the garden.”

Speaking of the garden directly, she said “it’s its own child who has walked out into the world and done great things way beyond its original creator.”

Every weekend, the number of clubbers near Peter and Richmond approaches 10,000.

The clock just struck 2 a.m. at the Rodbard household.

For 67-year-old Don Rodbard, it’s just past his bedtime. For the thousands of clubbers spilling onto nearby Peter and Richmond streets, it’s just past last call.

And while his night may be coming to a close, for many partiers it has just begun.

A 20-year resident of the area and vice-chair of the King-Spadina Residents Association, Rodbard resides in the heart of the entertainment district. He lives on Wilmer street with his wife, within 100 metres of 15 clubs. Every weekend, he watches patrons taking party from the clubs to the streets.

“Where I live, the licence capacity approaches 10,000 persons within a block radius of my front porch,” he said. “I can tell you most of those people had way too much to drink when they get out at two … You don’t want to be on the streets at that time of night.”

On an average weekend, Rodbard says excessive noise, fighting and open use of drugs and alcohol are common. He has had his car vandalized and his property defaced.

“The quality of life has changed,” Rodbard said. “It’s become a drinking zone for 20-somethings…it’s like homecoming weekend every weekend.”

But it wasn’t always like this. When he first moved into the area, Rodbard knew it was a rapidly developing entertainment district with restaurants, bars, and sports establishments.

In the mid 90s, the city passed a bylaw allowing many nightclubs to open in the dense area. He said from that point on, the weekends got crazy. Few know that as well as Detective Sergeant Mike Ervick, whose police unit is deployed in the club district every weekend.

“It’s always chaotic at 2:30 a.m,” he said. “It’s one of the only places in Canada that I can say there’s going to be a fight for sure.”

At the club district’s peak in the late 90s, Rodbard said there were 94 clubs with a total capacity approaching 70,000 on a weekly basis. Today, the number has decreased drastically to just under 40. Ervick feels the area has calmed down as a result.

“There’s still the old issues, but they’re becoming less frequent,” he said.

Barry McLeod, co-owner of Crocodile Rock on Adelaide Street, knows the challenges that arise in operating a sustainable nightclub.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” he said. “There are a lot of things that have to be done behind the scenes to make sure you have proper policies and procedures in place to ensure responsible and safe operation.”

McLeod said a crucial policy is to have experienced staff who are attentive to their patron’s state of intoxication.

Many clubs have been closed due to not paying attention to such details, as well as infractions such allowing minors or overcrowding clubs. Ervick feels it’s these clubs that are the root of the problem, because they only care about maximizing profits.

Adam Vaughan, councillor for Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina, categorizes many of these establishments as “Big box clubs”, huge clubs owned by large entertainment empires that are only about making money.

”These big box nightclubs don’t really care what kind of music they’re putting on, as long as they have a club full of kids buying lots of booze,” he said. “If it creates a war outside, that’s for the rest of the city to deal with.”

He says the issue is that the district has evolved from one offering unique culture and music to one that is strictly business oriented.

“The problem is that the art-form has been co-opted by corporate interests, and has been morphed from an underground movement into big box entertainment.”

Janice Solomon, executive director of the Entertainment District Business Improvement Area (BIA), has acknowledged the issues the area faces, but also highlighted the positive aspects.

She says the club district is important for the city’s vitality, as well as its global image.

“You want to make sure you have a very manageable, safe, and vibrant nightlife,” she said. “Cities that have turned into bedroom communities and have lost their nightlife will tell you that it creates a different image about what that city is.”

Solomon stressed that the neighbourhood is in a constant state of transition.

“What we don’t want to do is emerge from this transformation and find that we’ve lost that sense of vibrancy,” Solomon said.

The BIA is working on a rejuvenation of John Street, better lighting, and a widening of the streetscape for safer travel.

“We’re hoping we can actually build on it and make it better, safer, and more attractive for people to work and visit here.”

Sarah Lazarovic, owner of Montrose Portrait Gallery

Down a modest side street just south of Christie Pits Park, along a garage-lined alleyway, one door stands out among the rest.

The worn and cracking door has been covered with a coat of pale blue paint and finished with a gold floral pattern. Near the top, almost completely peeled off, the number 390 indicates the address of this Montrose Avenue garage.

Behind this door lies the Montrose Portrait Gallery, a makeshift gallery created by illustrator Sarah Lazarovic in 2007. Lazarovic, 30, wanted to bring attention to the issue of the National Portrait Gallery of Canada, the country’s massive collection of portraits which, as it stands, has no permanent home.

“If Canada can’t have a portrait gallery, at least I’ll have one in my unheated, crappy garage,” she said.

In 2001, former heritage minister Sheila Copps announced that Canada’s portrait collection would be housed in the former U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. But as renovations began, cost estimates rose into the multi-millions and the plan screeched to a halt.

Since then, there have been bids from other cities to host the gallery, and various travelling exhibitions, but the debate between the Conservative government and art advocates continues.

This September, a further blow was dealt to the artistic community when Lilly Koltun, long-time director of the National Portrait Gallery of Canada, was moved to a new position so the portrait collection could be folded into the programs branch of Library and Archives Canada (LAC). In an email to gallery employees on Sept. 9, Koltun expressed her hopes for the future.

“This is an important moment of transition for us all, which will call upon our skills and our commitment to ensure that the portrait collection of LAC remains actively accessible to all Canadians,” said Koltun in the email.

More recently, on Sept. 24, Conservative Heritage Minister James Moore appeared on CBC Radio’s cultural affairs show Q to discuss why none of the hosting bids made by Canadian cities were accepted.

“Some of them didn’t have the kind of infrastructure that was needed, or the kind of climate control and one of them refused to abide by the Official Languages Act, which is a bit of a no-no, obviously, for a federal institution,” said Moore on the show.

Moore said the government is in favour of providing a permanent home for the gallery, but gave no indication it would happen anytime soon.

Although the future remains uncertain, Lazarovic continues to hang Canadian portraits in her own gallery – some painted by her and others dropped off by local artists who support the cause. In the summer, she offers her guests lemonade and in the colder months, hot cocoa and cider. According to Lazarovic, it’s not just artists, but also her own neighbours who have introduced themselves through her gallery.

“Generally if you don’t have a dog or kids and you’re a busy young professional, when do you ever meet your neighbours?” Lazarovic said. “I’ve been living here for four or five years, and when I opened the gallery it’s like suddenly, I know everybody.”

Kevin Sylvester, artist and host of CBC Radio’s Sounds Like Canada, offered Lazarovic a watercolour caricature of Prime Minister Stephen Harper after interviewing her for his show in 2007. According to Sylvester, 42, he depicted Harper with his collar up over his mouth to represent the prime minister’s relationship with the media.

Sylvester is also an advocate of finding a permanent home for the National Portrait Gallery of Canada, which he believes should follow the example of the impressive National Portrait Gallery in London, England.

“Portraiture is one of the greatest traditions in the modern art movement, and we should be seeing more of these great paintings,” he said. “It brings historical figures alive in a way that other areas don’t.”

Rob Elliott, another Toronto artist, contributed to Lazarovic’s gallery with his painting of Vancouver-based billionaire and entrepreneur Jimmy Pattison, whom he described as “the Mr. Burns of B.C. – he’s even got the spots on his head.” Elliott, 43, believes the spirit of the Montrose Portrait Gallery is a positive way of addressing the national issue.

“Sometimes the best way to provoke commentary is not to walk around with a picket sign. The best way is to do something that’s clever and draws your attention – (Sarah’s gallery) drew my attention,” he said.

And it certainly has drawn Toronto’s attention, too. Since opening, Lazarovic’s gallery has received media coverage from CBC Radio, the Toronto Star, This Magazine and popular blogs such as BlogTO and Torontoist (which Lazarovic happens to have co-founded).

Unfortunately, she had no response to an open invitation to Bev Oda, Canada’s heritage minister in 2007, in the form of a cartoon strip drawn by Lazarovic that ran in the Ottawa Citizen and the Vancouver Sun.

Although Lazarovic is happy to keep the Montrose Portrait Gallery open by appointment for the winter months, she is hopeful that someone in Ottawa will take a stand soon and give the National Portrait Gallery of Canada the home it deserves.

“I don’t want to keep doing this as a stunt forever. It would be nice if we actually got a real portrait gallery someday,” she said.

The iconic Scarborough strip mall revisited.

At first glance, Wexford Heights seems like a typical strip mall.

The plaza’s dated exterior is completely at odds with the glass-covered malls of today. Among the tenants are a vacuum repair shop, a jeweler and a Muslim grocery store, not to mention more than a few empty lots. People walking along Lawrence Avenue scarcely give it a second glance.

But, when it comes to character, Wexford Heights, which first opened in 1954, can’t be beat.

Once a symbol of dreary suburbia, classic Scarborough strip malls like the Wexford have become a source of local pride. For many ‘Scarbarians’, they’re a historic reminder of a bygone era. Unlike big box malls – whose only unique characteristic is seemingly a parking lot vast enough to fit several football fields – the strip mall’s cozy charms encourage locals to interact with each for more than just reasons of commerce.

According to the founder of the Scarborough Archives, the strip malls of the 1950s and 60s have always been defined by their architectural diversity.

“There really wasn’t typical strip mall,” Rick Schofield of the Scarborough Historical Society said. “They ranged in size and shape.”

The first strip malls in the area, Schofield says, were first constructed around 1950 when new businesses were required to satisfy the needs of suburbanites.

“Everyone drove to the strip mall and did their shopping,” he said. “You’d get into your car and run inside without freezing to death going from store to store.”

The post-war transformation of Scarborough from agricultural to industrialized led to an influx of German, Italian and Greek immigrants. They and others opened small shops in strip malls and plazas to cater to the community as well as provide a spot to congregate.

The fact that strip malls still allow for social hubs in areas considered commercial is a quality that can’t be replaced, according to a local artist.

“There’s a closeness [found in strip malls], not just in terms of geography but community,“ Jeremy Hopkin said. “Their function is also an art form.”

“Architecturally and socially, there’s reasons to preserve them,” he said. “They show the essential character of the area.”

A graphic designer by trade, Hopkin, 32, co-founded 54east art gallery to showcase Scarborough talent. In keeping with its community roots, the gallery took its name from the 54 TTC bus route running east along Lawrence Avenue.

““We wanted to put the local flavour on display,” he said. “Contrary to what some think, Scarborough has a lot of history and culture.”

Hopkin and his partners even designed and sold t-shirts with essential Scarborough landmarks that became extremely popular with locals and visitors alike.

“It’s a guilty pleasure to see [reminders of] your neighbourhood on a shirt,” he said.

Although 54east closed for good last summer, the level of community support of local business owners like Tony Kiriakou – owner of Wexford Heights Plaza, who provided space right beside his 51-year-old eatery the Wexford Restaurant- nevertheless impressed Hopkin.

“They were happy that we were trying to improve the image of the area,” he recalled. “They helped us out by providing us ways of creating revenue and getting the word out.”

More community endeavours like 54east are required if Scarborough is to shed its reputation as a cultural wasteland, says a local arts programmer.

“It’s our responsibility, I suppose, to consoldiate what we have,” Benedict Lopes of the Scarbrough Arts Council said.

According to Lopes, one of the council’s objectives is to bring art to members of the community who properly represent the area.

“Scarborough remains one the most multicultural areas in a city famed for its diveristy and its art needs to reflect the demographics of the area,” Lopes said.

There’s a universe of difference compared to 30 years ago,” he said. “The needs and inspirations of artists in Scarborough have changed. “

For Hopkin, locales like strip malls act will always act as community hubs from which networks can flourish and creativity spark.

“Common meeting places like strip malls do tie people together,” he said. “I think that every area has its own unique culture and lingo.

Hopkin hopes that strip malls can survive a little while longer.

“Without them, the neighbourhood gets a little colder,” he said.

Dan Burke

I arrived early and waited for him at the bar. After 20 minutes and no sign of him, I ventured from the barstool and walked around the joint.

Finally, I asked the doorman if he had seen him and he pointed to a gentleman wearing a brown cap at the other side of the room scratching upcoming music acts on a chalkboard.

After a short introduction, he and I went out back so he could have a smoke before our formal interview started.

It was there, behind The Silver Dollar Room on Spadina Avenue, just north of College Street, where I first spoke with Dan Burke.

The evening’s event was called Honky Night in Canada and featured a band called Drunk Woman. Members perform classic country songs and even some full albums such as Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline.

We eventually sat down in the restaurant section of the bar. There were three of us: me, Burke and Chris Levoir, a musician from a band called The Middle Inside. Levoir is also one of Burke’s sound guys.

The band warming up in the next room immediately started banging on the drums as part of the sound check, and we had to move.

I was led through the kitchen and down a back set of stairs to the basement of the bar known as The Comfort Zone – an after-hours dance and rave club.

The lights were off, yet the room was illuminated by black light. The questions prepared for Burke in my notebook were unreadable, but the red light on my recorder reassured me as I began interviewing one of Toronto’s most renowned music bookers and promoters.

Being in this space brought back memories for Burke, who recollects a show by a band called The Zoobombs.

“It was the third show of a three-night stand,” he said. “The place was packed. I put a lot of money on it. I had to worry about the bandleader’s son. I was babysitting him. I had him in my arms when I introduced the band. It’s amazing the relationship I developed with this band from Japan.”

Burke has been meeting and bringing new music acts, such as the White Stripes and Sum 41, to Toronto for over a decade.

“Toronto has got the biggest indie rock scene in the world,” he said. “It’s amazing to be able to sustain and enrich Toronto’s connection with the world and its position as a crossroads or epicentre of indie rock.”

But in his early years growing up in Montreal, Burke was miles away from becoming a legend around Toronto for booking music, being involved with drugs and getting into fights in bars.

His dad was a sports columnist and Burke worked as a copy boy. He wrote about crime for a magazine and was scouted by CBC. At CBC, Burke worked for the investigative journalism program The Fifth Estate.

He declined a staff job at Maclean’s Magazine. Struggling with a drug addiction, he moved to Toronto and checked into a rehab clinic.

It was after Burke left the clinic that he put his name into the history books of Toronto music.

“I created a club in 1997 called The Shanghai,” he said. “(It had) two floors and just came out of nowhere. I didn’t know anybody. No bands, nobody in the music scene.”

Burke booked music acts for the Shanghai and various other venues he has worked, such as the El Mocambo. He currently works for The Silver Dollar Room and The Velvet Underground.

“I assemble equations or recipes of bands,” he said. “Try to get them to blend…you want the bands to be excited about playing with each other. My first responsibility as a booking agent, as a club booker/promoter, is I create my own shows and I risk money on my own shows.”

His taste in music and his ability to put memorable shows together became a calling card with Burke, in the eyes of musicians.

“Everyone has their own opinions, but I hold him in high regard,” Levoir said. “A notorious rock-and-roll beacon, a lightning rod for strange and glorious nights, shows and scenes. Someone I can hang my hat on and trust in to keep the purity of it all in check.”

Along with the entertainment provided from the stage, Levoir recalls Burke giving the audience a little extra by using his fists.

“Sitting at a bar stool with Geoff, from my band, after witnessing Dan beat the (expletive) out of a drunk preppy kid, the two of them rolling around on the floor throwing punches at our ankles,” he said.

“Dan sat down beside Geoff and I with blood streaming down half his face as if nothing had happened and started talking.”

Dave Johnny is the drummer for Toronto garage/punk band The Johnnys and he can attest to Burke being remembered by bands around Canada.

“I’ve met musicians from all across the country and if they have come to Toronto and had an experience with Dan, even if they’re a Vancouver band or an Edmonton band, nobody forgets that guy.”

Back in 2004, Burke ended up in a brawl with a two-piece band from San Francisco called The Hospitals at The Silver Dollar Room. A video of the event was taken and has since become popular on YouTube.

“I’m not happy with everything I’ve done in my life; really unhappy with some of it,” Burke said. “I’ve squandered a lot of money, I’ve lived really recklessly.”

Discussing his past is something Burke would rather stay away from.

“I’m not so much interested in publicity for myself,” he said. “There comes a point when you get tired of being a character. I’d rather just be a business person.

“I’m not a bad business man, I’m not horrible, but I’ve never been able to assemble/organize things managerially as well as I should have.”

Whether he wants to accept it or not, Burke’s role as an iconic music booker and prominent figure in the Toronto music scene still remains today.

“I think Dan more than anyone I can think of, has given Toronto world-wide street credentials in terms of rock shows, rock-and-roll remains pure in clubs,” Levoir said.

“He has put this city on the map as a city with an eye for talent,” he said. “He knows true, undiscovered rock-and-roll and has put his money where his mouth is time and time again to help international artists and young homegrown bands get their first tastes of international or big city appreciation.”

“I don’t think it would be right to call him anything but a Toronto music legend. He is this city’s Ambassador of rock-and-roll.”

Norman Yeung. Photo by Angie Kalhar.

As a teenager, Norman Yeung could be found in some of the seedier parts of Toronto, engaging in what the law defines as crime.

He worked in back alleys, under bridges, tunnels, wherever he could remain unseen and undisturbed.

Yeung, a graffiti artist known as Stage, was dedicated to his craft, despite its illegality. Part of the reason he did it was for the rush.

“When I was younger the thrill factor was always a motivating factor, and the respect you get from doing dangerous spots,” Yeung said. “I’ve slowed down a lot on the illegal stuff, but I do miss the rush.”

Today, Yeung works on legal, commissioned murals for a different reason – to show the public that graffiti is a legitimate art form.

“One of the benefits of working on a commissioned piece is the engagement between the graffiti writer and the public,” Yeung said. “The public is often unaware or ignorant about graffiti painting, so this gives us a chance to explain that we’re not vandals, we’re not gangsters, we’re artists who prefer using spray paint and public space.”

At 31, Yeung has been doing graffiti for 17 years. One of the most widespread commissioned projects he has worked on is the Bell Urban Art Project, also known as the Bellbox Project.

An example of one of the repainted Bellboxes.

Yeung painted one of the first Bellbox murals, near College and Markham streets, outside the downtown nightclub Andy Poolhall. The pilot project was launched by the city of Toronto, Bell Canada and urban art organization Style In Progress in 2005.

It was originally conceived as a way to deter tagging (a quick spray-painted signature) on Bell phone utility boxes, but it also gave graffiti artists a legal outlet for their work.

Councillor Joe Pantalone (Trinity-Spadina), Toronto’s deputy mayor, said the idea started when he got a call from a constituent complaining about obscene words written on a phone box near his home.

Pantalone knew that if he simply repainted it, the vandalism would continue. So he thought of a different approach. He joined with Style In Progress to get well-known graffiti artists to paint murals on the phone boxes to discourage tagging.

They contacted Bell Canada, who in addition to granting permission gave a $20,000 grant to help cover costs.

While the project started with a humble two phone boxes, it soon spread across the city. In March 2006, Bell agreed to paint 40 more boxes, in the Queen Street and Jane and Finch areas. According to Style In Progress, 53 boxes city-wide were painted in total.

Pantalone, the one who spearheaded the project, has deemed it a success.

“We achieved the goal of fixing the problem of inappropriate words and symbols in a public space,” he said. “At the same time, we’ve provided a space for artists to show off their art.”

He said he thinks that the city of Toronto doesn’t support enough of these initiatives.

“If the concept spreads and everybody who has a garage door or wall started utilizing the idea, we’d be so much better off,” Pantalone said. “It would beautify the city and give employment and practice to future artists.”

And while the project was granted a Clean and Beautiful City award by the City of Toronto in 2005, not all see it as a complete success.

Janna Van Hoof is co-founder and event co-ordinator for Style In Progress. She played a major role in organizing the project, and said she is disappointed that today many of the former murals have been painted brown.

“The long-term reaction from Bell wasn’t so great,” Van Hoof said. “I would have said it was more effective if Bell hadn’t painted three quarters of them back brown again.”

Van Hoof said she got calls from residents asking why the murals had been painted over.

“People wanted the project to take off more. They wanted Bell to put more money into it.”

And although only one fourth of the original murals are in good condition, artists like Yeung still feel the project was effective. He no longer does much illegal work, preferring to work on commissioned pieces that get the public engaged in urban art.

Today, Yeung’s picturesque mural of Little Italy at College and Markham is plastered in posters and barely visible. Despite this, he said the project was still important in spreading an important message.

“Just because an artist uses aerosol paint on a wall, doesn’t mean it’s graffiti,” He said. “(Spray paint) is sold in art stores. There are many companies who make spray paints specifically for murals or graffiti. It’s a legitimate medium, and I think just now people are starting to open their minds to it.”