ACTIVITY PROFILE
Red Pepper Spectacle Arts was co-founded in 2002, and led by co-founder and Artistic Director Gabriella Caruso. Based in a 1000 square foot, storefront studio in Kensington Market, Red Pepper provides an active community-arts facility with diverse production capabilities. We design and facilitate small and large scale engagements in a wide variety of media including drawing and painting, story creation, mask making, puppetry, mosaic, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, magazine creation and publishing, digital media design and technology, photography, recording and music creation, video creation and production, textiles, theatre design and community-wide multidisciplinary festivals.
With a team of artistic associates and social service partners, our activities feature technical and material resource sharing, arts programming, communal design practices, production management and realization of emergent artistic vision and expression. We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with vast numbers of participants, across the GTA and in Northern Ontario in our practice that seek individual expression, collaborative endeavours and community celebrations, and to have established a creative home for a growing number of emerging/ established artists and organizational partners.
Numerous individuals and organizations have developed techniques, methods and ideologies with the guidance and ongoing support of experienced Red Pepper practitioners. Our long-standing artistic relationship within Indigenous communities has supported community arts practices and employment opportunities in Toronto and Northern Ontario Reserves. Northern projects include short and long term residencies in theatre production design and community arts practices and facilitation with Debajehmujig Theatre Group, Wiikwemikoong; Nibinamik/”Under the Big Sky” school and community puppetry, shadow puppetry, mask and costume workshops and collaborative processional celebrations; Wasauksing and Shawanaga First Nations/”One Summer” giant puppetry workshops, storytelling and processional events; Peterborough/Ode’min Giizis Festival - giant puppetry, festival workshops and processions; Moose Cree First Nation/”Gathering of Our People” children and youth arts camp for lanterns, masks, giant puppets for procession and shadow puppet performances.
Red Pepper Spectacle Arts are the producers of the Annual Kensington Market Winter Solstice, now approaching it’s 36nd year. Prior to Red Pepper’s founding, the late and great Ida Carnevali, Artistic Director of Kensington Carnival and Producer of the Festival of Lights (original title) in Kensington Market, passed the torch to Gabriella Caruso after years of apprenticeship with her. Red Pepper’s inception in 2002, is attributed to the opportunity to provide leadership and growth for this popular, grass-roots celebration for the past 23 years. The event comprises an outdoor parade and processional performance, street and rooftop theatrical animations and fire finale stage to observe and celebrate the return to light on the longest night of the year.
Community workshops in lantern creation, masking and puppetry, street installations, processional imagery and fire arts hosted by Red Pepper and the Kensington Community months prior, have steadily built annual community participation and support from our partnering organizations, Kensington merchants and residents and the City of Toronto. Preparatory activities engage over 500 and draw up to 10,000 to the parade eve on December 21st. Red Pepper works with a community advisory committee composed of Kensington organizations and individuals to steer and secure a sustainable funding base and community stewardship for this festival that grows. Red Pepper continues to develop various funding streams and revenue generating activities.
Red Pepper has project based and/or ongoing programming relationships with the Native Men’s Residence and Sagatay, Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous Health/UofT, Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto, Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre, the Native Canadian Centre Toronto, Native Child And Family Services Toronto, Kapapamahchakwew - Wandering Spirit School/TDSB, the Aboriginal Learning Centre/TDSB & Indigenous Leadership Camp/TDSB, the District School Board of Niagara, the Native Women's Resource Centre/Sisters in Spirit Vigil for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Anishnawbe Health, Workman Arts /The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, UNIFOR - Private Sector Union/World Pride Toronto, Ontario Aboriginal HIV/ AIDS Strategy/Pride Toronto, The Works - Harm Reduction/City of Toronto Public Health, Public Service Alliance of Canada, Sisters of the Soil/University of Toronto, Alexandra Park Community Centre/TCHC, Moss Park/TCHC, the Women’s Residence/City of Toronto, Artbeat Program/ Unison Community Services, Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, the Woman’s Residence, St Stephen’s Community House, Scadding Court Community Centre, the Kensington BIA/Pedestrian Sundays, the Kensington Market Action Committee, Friends of Kensington Market, Kensington Resident Associations, The Kensington Market Lofts, the Kensington Community School, Ryerson Public School and with the community at large by facilitating arts programming within their agencies, at community events and cultural celebrations and at our studio.
We have partnered and continue to collaborate with local arts organizations including Centre For Indigenous Theatre, African Drums And Arts Crafts, Dia de los Muertos Collective, Hong Luck Kung Fu Association, Toronto Storytelling Festival, Nuit Rose/Toronto Pride, Gaa Dibatjimaat Ngashi, the Tecumseh Arts Collective, the Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts (ANDPVA), ArtStarts, Native Women in the Arts, Setsune Indigenous Fashion Incubator, Fort York/On Common Ground and Indigenous Arts Festivals, Maadaadizi/Summer Journeys/PanAmPath, ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival, Planet IndigenUS - Harbourfront Centre, Todmorden Mills Heritage Site, the Spadina Museum, The Bentway, Prologue to the Performing Arts/Dare to Create/Sheppard Public School/ TDSB, Kahawi Dance Theatre, New Model Circus Army, Tocani, The Aztec Dancers, Richard Underhill’s Kensington Horns, Samba Squad, Maracatu Mar Aberto, Shadowland Theatre, the Kapisanan Philippine Centre, Project Random, Regent Park Focus, Harbourfront Centre and Luminato/Tributaries Indigenous Opening.
Since its inception, Red Pepper has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to community- controlled culture and revitalization, that is maintained in an ethos of mutual respect, professional integrity and resilience. Red Pepper continues to advance the original mission and mandate because of our interactive continuity in relationship with allied organizations and individuals who share in our values of community health and restorative justice through the arts. Red Pepper’s arts-based facilitation is adept at offering diverse artistic ways that are socially and culturally responsive. Communitarian and oriented to social justice, collaborative methods are adaptive to participant needs demonstrating commitment to community. RP’s history is rooted in principles of respect and reciprocity evoking connections between authentic personal experience, political activism, professional ethics and cultural revitalization.
Red Pepper Spectacle Arts was co-founded in 2002, and led by co-founder and Artistic Director Gabriella Caruso. Based in a 1000 square foot, storefront studio in Kensington Market, Red Pepper provides an active community-arts facility with diverse production capabilities. We design and facilitate small and large scale engagements in a wide variety of media including drawing and painting, story creation, mask making, puppetry, mosaic, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, magazine creation and publishing, digital media design and technology, photography, recording and music creation, video creation and production, textiles, theatre design and community-wide multidisciplinary festivals.
With a team of artistic associates and social service partners, our activities feature technical and material resource sharing, arts programming, communal design practices, production management and realization of emergent artistic vision and expression. We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with vast numbers of participants, across the GTA and in Northern Ontario in our practice that seek individual expression, collaborative endeavours and community celebrations, and to have established a creative home for a growing number of emerging/ established artists and organizational partners.
Numerous individuals and organizations have developed techniques, methods and ideologies with the guidance and ongoing support of experienced Red Pepper practitioners. Our long-standing artistic relationship within Indigenous communities has supported community arts practices and employment opportunities in Toronto and Northern Ontario Reserves. Northern projects include short and long term residencies in theatre production design and community arts practices and facilitation with Debajehmujig Theatre Group, Wiikwemikoong; Nibinamik/”Under the Big Sky” school and community puppetry, shadow puppetry, mask and costume workshops and collaborative processional celebrations; Wasauksing and Shawanaga First Nations/”One Summer” giant puppetry workshops, storytelling and processional events; Peterborough/Ode’min Giizis Festival - giant puppetry, festival workshops and processions; Moose Cree First Nation/”Gathering of Our People” children and youth arts camp for lanterns, masks, giant puppets for procession and shadow puppet performances.
Red Pepper Spectacle Arts are the producers of the Annual Kensington Market Winter Solstice, now approaching it’s 36nd year. Prior to Red Pepper’s founding, the late and great Ida Carnevali, Artistic Director of Kensington Carnival and Producer of the Festival of Lights (original title) in Kensington Market, passed the torch to Gabriella Caruso after years of apprenticeship with her. Red Pepper’s inception in 2002, is attributed to the opportunity to provide leadership and growth for this popular, grass-roots celebration for the past 23 years. The event comprises an outdoor parade and processional performance, street and rooftop theatrical animations and fire finale stage to observe and celebrate the return to light on the longest night of the year.
Community workshops in lantern creation, masking and puppetry, street installations, processional imagery and fire arts hosted by Red Pepper and the Kensington Community months prior, have steadily built annual community participation and support from our partnering organizations, Kensington merchants and residents and the City of Toronto. Preparatory activities engage over 500 and draw up to 10,000 to the parade eve on December 21st. Red Pepper works with a community advisory committee composed of Kensington organizations and individuals to steer and secure a sustainable funding base and community stewardship for this festival that grows. Red Pepper continues to develop various funding streams and revenue generating activities.
Red Pepper has project based and/or ongoing programming relationships with the Native Men’s Residence and Sagatay, Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous Health/UofT, Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto, Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre, the Native Canadian Centre Toronto, Native Child And Family Services Toronto, Kapapamahchakwew - Wandering Spirit School/TDSB, the Aboriginal Learning Centre/TDSB & Indigenous Leadership Camp/TDSB, the District School Board of Niagara, the Native Women's Resource Centre/Sisters in Spirit Vigil for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Anishnawbe Health, Workman Arts /The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, UNIFOR - Private Sector Union/World Pride Toronto, Ontario Aboriginal HIV/ AIDS Strategy/Pride Toronto, The Works - Harm Reduction/City of Toronto Public Health, Public Service Alliance of Canada, Sisters of the Soil/University of Toronto, Alexandra Park Community Centre/TCHC, Moss Park/TCHC, the Women’s Residence/City of Toronto, Artbeat Program/ Unison Community Services, Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, the Woman’s Residence, St Stephen’s Community House, Scadding Court Community Centre, the Kensington BIA/Pedestrian Sundays, the Kensington Market Action Committee, Friends of Kensington Market, Kensington Resident Associations, The Kensington Market Lofts, the Kensington Community School, Ryerson Public School and with the community at large by facilitating arts programming within their agencies, at community events and cultural celebrations and at our studio.
We have partnered and continue to collaborate with local arts organizations including Centre For Indigenous Theatre, African Drums And Arts Crafts, Dia de los Muertos Collective, Hong Luck Kung Fu Association, Toronto Storytelling Festival, Nuit Rose/Toronto Pride, Gaa Dibatjimaat Ngashi, the Tecumseh Arts Collective, the Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts (ANDPVA), ArtStarts, Native Women in the Arts, Setsune Indigenous Fashion Incubator, Fort York/On Common Ground and Indigenous Arts Festivals, Maadaadizi/Summer Journeys/PanAmPath, ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival, Planet IndigenUS - Harbourfront Centre, Todmorden Mills Heritage Site, the Spadina Museum, The Bentway, Prologue to the Performing Arts/Dare to Create/Sheppard Public School/ TDSB, Kahawi Dance Theatre, New Model Circus Army, Tocani, The Aztec Dancers, Richard Underhill’s Kensington Horns, Samba Squad, Maracatu Mar Aberto, Shadowland Theatre, the Kapisanan Philippine Centre, Project Random, Regent Park Focus, Harbourfront Centre and Luminato/Tributaries Indigenous Opening.
Since its inception, Red Pepper has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to community- controlled culture and revitalization, that is maintained in an ethos of mutual respect, professional integrity and resilience. Red Pepper continues to advance the original mission and mandate because of our interactive continuity in relationship with allied organizations and individuals who share in our values of community health and restorative justice through the arts. Red Pepper’s arts-based facilitation is adept at offering diverse artistic ways that are socially and culturally responsive. Communitarian and oriented to social justice, collaborative methods are adaptive to participant needs demonstrating commitment to community. RP’s history is rooted in principles of respect and reciprocity evoking connections between authentic personal experience, political activism, professional ethics and cultural revitalization.
