Torontonians set out for the multilayered, mind-bending treasure hunt that is Nuit Blanche

By Pooja Rambaran

Toronto hosted the 14th annual edition of Nuit Blanche, an art exhibition that kept the city awake on the night of Oct. 5 and continued into the early hours of the following Sunday morning.

Over 300 artists with nearly 90 projects sought to interpret the theme Continuum: “the interconnected and often contradictory paradoxes of life in the changing city.”

Out of the hubbub of our regular daily lives and constant gravitation towards technology, Jennifer Deighton, a first time attendee, thinks Nuit Blanche is a good way for people to come out and appreciate art and artists.

“Perhaps, technology is taking over our lives in a big way so I think seeing artists incorporate technology into all that they do probably draws people to it,” Deighton said. “Art and technology are sort of intersecting.”

With just one night to see the art, deciding which of the projects to visit was a tough call, but below are a few from downtown Toronto that made an impact.

Kaleidoscope: A Social Media Trinity

If the long line-up at the Drake One Fifty was anything to go by, Alejandro Figueroa’s “Kaleidoscope: A Social Media Trinity,” was a clever combination of art and technology aiming to provide individuals with a social media intervention of sorts.

The human-size kaleidoscopic installation projected a live feed from the social media trinity — Instagram, Facebook and Twitter — allowing individuals to stand in the middle of the piece and contemplate their social media usage, while ironically being the perfect spot for an Instagram picture.

Peace to the Past, Reach for the Future

With energetic music reverberating throughout the air, the “Peace to the Past, Reach for the Future” sculpture stood tall against the backdrop of Old City Hall.

Constructed by Esmaa Mohamoud and Bryan Espiritu, the hand sculptures of a two and five stood in the midst of fog and blue and purple flashing lights in honour of the Toronto Raptors’ 25 years in existence and its recent NBA championship.

Inscribed onto the hands, Mohamoud and Espiritu mapped out the Raptors’ tumultuous 25-year journey and their vision for the team’s future.

“It looks super cool,” said Tina Suntres, third time attendee at Nuit Blanche. “It had music in and around the exhibit which I feel like kind of draws people into the art piece because sometimes you can hear the music before you can see the piece so I think that’s a cool incorporation of it.”

On Thin Ice

Standing an impressive 25 feet tall in the middle of Yonge and Dundas Square, the “On Thin Ice” exhibit, created by Ghost Atelier, was replicative of a cracked ice-shard, aiming to draw viewers' focus on the growing concern of climate change.

An eerie instrumental background and the occasional sound of ice cracking accompanied attendees as they walked between the crack.

First time attendee Sabrina Canerli found it to be an interesting concept.

“I’m happy Toronto is doing some good stuff for the climate action,” Canerli said.

However, attendee Swati Vivekananthan found "this white block" to be a little less interesting and a little more underwhelming.

“I thought it was going to be more engaging but it seems pretty dull and boring, to be honest,” Vivekananthan said.

Lunar Garden

The tranquil soundscape of Charlotte Day Wilson played invitingly to the huge crowd attempting to get a glimpse of the highly anticipated “Lunar Garden.”

Nathan Phillips Square was transformed into New York-based artist Daniel Arsham’s canvas with the focal point being the 30-foot light orb, representing the moon, as a tall weeping willow tree stood in front of it atop concentrically raked turquoise sand.

The installation spread throughout the square with enlarged white sculptures of everyday objects, including a camera and a clock, depicting future archaeological finds.

The Lunar Garden’s zen atmosphere was a perfect place to end off the night.

By: Chloe Cook

Ze Mair, co-creator and performer during rehearsal (Photo by: Zahra Salecki)

What do the words, ‘Wonderland’, ‘Swamp Fox’, and ‘Enduring Freedom’ have in common? Although they sound like nonsense, they were actually military operation code names. As well as the basis of a 12-hour continuous dance installation at Nuit Blanche this year.

It all started with a list of 3,600 military operations that was compiled by Canadian poet Moez Surani. Operations: 1946-2006 was performed by approximately 60 people as a five-hour spoken word piece on the night of Trump’s inauguration in 2017.

“With the general feeling of anxiety and despair that followed the last American election, we wanted to do something that could create some solidarity,” Surani said, as well as a “physical reminder that we are not all alone in this.”

The idea was to make military operations more than just a name and to shed light on the effects that these operations had on real communities around the globe.

“The language that often gets used is from the poetic imagination: dawn, sunrise, freedom, purity. These kinds of poetic-seeming words help to create support for state violence,” said Surani.

Dancers in their fifth hour of performing (Photo by: Chloe Cook)

One of the readers that performed was Michael Reinhart, a performance creator and theatre instructor at Randolph College and the University of Toronto. Although the reading had finished, Reinhart knew that the life of the poem was not over.

“I thought it was really kind of tragic that this naming was not done in public and that we as a community could not contend with the activities that we do as a community.” Reinhart said. “What I wanted to figure out is how to allow Operations to be social.”

Reinhart surely found a way to do just that on the night of Nuit Blanche. With the help of choreographers and co-directors, Magdalena Vasko and Ze Mair, and a handful of dancers, Reinhart turned Surani’s poem into a 12-hour ballet performance.

The dance piece is comprised of a sequence of movements that is repeated once for every military operation while the names are projected onto the wall. Which means that the sequence is repeated continually 3600 times, over a period of 12 hours throughout the night.

When it came to figuring out how to best represent the effects of war, it seemed that there was no better option than ballet to the creators.

“Ballet was an analogy for the military because it's skilled, rigorous, bodies that are able to do extraordinary acts that are deeply impossible yet it appears to have exceptional ease,” said Reinhart.

Michael Reinhart, co-creator of Operations going over the timing of the piece in rehearsal (Photo by: Magdalena Vasko) — Michael Reinhart, co-creator of *Operations* going over the timing of the piece in rehearsal (Photo by: Magdalena Vasko)

According to Vasko, one of the creators of the piece, translating the number 3600 into a series of physical movements was one of the top priorities when choreographing.

Vasko said that being able to represent a statistic in a way that resonated with the audience was also important. “It's interesting to put it into your body, the number that you've been talking about,” she said.

In the piece, there are approximately 25 dancers who perform the sequence of movements across a square patch of grass in the middle of an auditorium. Throughout the performance, the grass begins to fall apart, representing the effects that these operations have on the land, the communities, and the people.

According to Sara Hinding, a dancer in Operations, the duration of the piece also contributes to the message of the dance as the performers get more and more worn down over time.

“By the end of the night we're avoiding each other and we're getting frustrated and we're tired and we don't want to do things and there's dynamics and we're looking dead into the eyes of people in the audience,” she explained.

Volunteers clearing the sod off the floor after the performance (Photo by: Chloe Cook)

Carmen Leardi, who is also an Operations dancer gave an example of how the piece offers a “disturbing” contrast of the effects of the operations.

“(In) one year there were a lot of dancers coming in and the choreography was really quick. Then the next year everything tones down. There are a few dancers in the space and the choreography is stretched over a longer piece of time.”

Although most of the dancers had never danced for 12-hours straight, the tensions were anything but high. Everyone was exceptionally calm and focused.

Veronica Simpson, Operations dancer, said she kept herself busy through the night by experimenting with the choreography.

“I kept myself occupied by finding new places to make contact with the audience members and different ways to execute the choreography while maintaining the same overall form,” she explained.

Audience members were free to come and go as they pleased, allowing them to check the progress of the piece throughout the night.

According to Reinhard, there were around 1,400 people who came through the doors.

Mark Francis, an audience member called the piece mesmerizing and said that he could not stop staring at it due to the different moving parts and the relentlessness of the piece.

“I think the subject matter is obviously very dark and depressing but the form and the soundtrack and everything was super beautiful and I found it really meditative to look at,” Francis said.

Cassandra Alves, another member of the audience, noted the similarities between the military and ballet.

“It definitely parallels as if you're going through any kind of military operation which is kind of scary. The dancers literally go through it in a different form,” said Alves.

As for Vasko, who was also a performer in addition to being a creator, said finally performing the piece with all of the dancers was cathartic.

“To collectively be so devoted felt like we were on a battlefield fighting for the same cause,” Vasko said, “It was like a funeral, a remembrance, a memorial and a sacrifice all at the same time.”

Although no one is chomping at the bit to dive into another night long performance anytime soon, the experience is one that the audience, performers, and creators will never forget.
Hinding said after the performance that is was a test of her abilities, “In my opinion a piece like this is a true testament to the human spirit and what it is capable of.”

Dancers in motion during a rehearsal (Photo by: Magdalena Vasko)