Catch us live this summer!
Coming this summer (August 27th!) to your local park (Woodbine Park!) - Your Friendly Neighbourhood Follies - a free immersive dance show! Inspired by Old Hollywood musicals, French New Wave films, and street clowning, this 15-minute piece is about spreading the joy of dance around public spaces in Toronto. We hope it can encourage audiences to make their own opportunities, discover new ways to grow as people, and create things for their own enjoyment.
We want to make the arts more accessible – to view, to connect to, to engage with, and to participate in. By creating this work in local parks (such as Woodbine Park), we are attempting to engage with communities and activate the spaces - in a whimsical fashion. If you would like us to perform this work in your local park or front yard, please let us know.
This show is directed/choreographed/produced/performed by myself (Alie Rutty), and in collaboration with my fellow Toronto artist and friend, Ajeuro Abala, who is also a co-choreographer and performer. We have been playing with this idea since 2021, and perhaps one day it will become a film. For now, it’s exciting to share our choreography with a live audience. Our musicians are Tessa Rugsnak and Madison Zacharias - a few contemporary minstrels on guitar and melodica.
Please be advised, the piece does travel around the park. Feel free to bring your own chair and/or comfortable shoes. The show will be performed 3 times - once at 5pm, once at 6pm, and once at 7pm. Come when you like! Hope to see you there for a jazzy good time!
If you would like to help support the show, you can donate to our fundraiser here.
How to get there:
By TTC -
Option 1: Get off at Woodbine Station, take the 92 bus south to Woodbine Beach Loop, walk north along Northern Dancer Boulevard to Boardwalk Drive, turn left to meet at the park entrance.
Option 2: Get off at Coxwell Station, take the 22B bus south to Queen Street East, get off at Kingston Road, walk east along Queen Street East, turn right and walk south along Northern Dancer Boulevard to the park entrance at Boardwalk Drive.
Option 3: Get off at Dundas Station, take the 505 Dundas streetcar east towards Queen Street East and Kingston Road, get off at Kingston Road, walk east along Queen Street East, turn right and walk south along Northern Dancer Boulevard to the park entrance at Boardwalk Drive.
If you are driving, there is a Green P Parking Zone off of Eastern Avenue, near Measurement Park.
