ORIGINS
The Kensington Market Winter Solstice Festival started in 1988 and was originally named the Kensington Market Festival of Lights. The event was initiated by Ida Carnivali, artistic director of the Kensington Carnival Arts Society. Ida's artistic vision for the festival were influenced by the Commedia Dell Arte, clown, street performance, large scale community-based and professional theatrical productions in the neighbourhood and various other outdoor environments.
Ida produced and directed many plays, working with emerging and established artists engaged in practices rooted in communal storytelling and mythology, reflecting issues of cultural origin and refuge. She was part of the groundswell of agitation propaganda or "Agitprop" street performance rising from artistic, grassroots organizing agency of the time. She also engendered conventions of circus and clown, and the subversive power of masking performance.
When starting the Festival of Lights, she spoke of imagining the winter’s cold and darkness, and considered how her neighbours would observe the season. She was also intrigued by ancestral reckoning of the return to warmth and light. The winter solstice is an ancient cardinal point recognized and observed over time immemorial and is still deeply culturally significant to us currently and universally.
HISTORY
Founded in 2002, Red Pepper Spectacle Arts is a creative home for a growing community of emerging and established artists. We provide a forum for resource sharing and collaborative creation in diverse media.
We have facilitated small and large-scale engagements in a wide variety of media including drawing & painting, story creation, mask making, puppetry, mosaic, sculpture, ceramics, print making, magazine creation and publishing, digital media design and technology, photography, music creation & recording, video production, textile, theatre design, and community-wide multidisciplinary festivals.
Red Pepper has project-based and/or ongoing programming relationships with Na Me Res (Native Men's Residence), the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Gaa Dibaatjimat Ngashi, the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and with the community at large by facilitating arts activities at pow wows, schools and community centres.
We have partnered and collaborated several local arts organizations including Native Women in the Arts, ArtStarts, Jumblies Theatre, Shadowland Theatre, Theatre Direct, Project Random, Regent Park Focus, Harbourfront Centre, and Arts Etobicoke. Partner organizations included St. Stephen`s Community House, Toronto Community Housing, and Unison Community Services.
In 2012-13, Red Pepper's artistic leadership evolved from our founding co-directorship of Andy Moro and Gabriella Caruso to the sole artistic directorship of Gabriella Caruso. Red Pepper has maintained its original mission and mandate with a stronger focus in its community arts development and longstanding relationships.
The Kensington Market Winter Solstice Festival started in 1988 and was originally named the Kensington Market Festival of Lights. The event was initiated by Ida Carnivali, artistic director of the Kensington Carnival Arts Society. Ida's artistic vision for the festival were influenced by the Commedia Dell Arte, clown, street performance, large scale community-based and professional theatrical productions in the neighbourhood and various other outdoor environments.
Ida produced and directed many plays, working with emerging and established artists engaged in practices rooted in communal storytelling and mythology, reflecting issues of cultural origin and refuge. She was part of the groundswell of agitation propaganda or "Agitprop" street performance rising from artistic, grassroots organizing agency of the time. She also engendered conventions of circus and clown, and the subversive power of masking performance.
When starting the Festival of Lights, she spoke of imagining the winter’s cold and darkness, and considered how her neighbours would observe the season. She was also intrigued by ancestral reckoning of the return to warmth and light. The winter solstice is an ancient cardinal point recognized and observed over time immemorial and is still deeply culturally significant to us currently and universally.
HISTORY
Founded in 2002, Red Pepper Spectacle Arts is a creative home for a growing community of emerging and established artists. We provide a forum for resource sharing and collaborative creation in diverse media.
We have facilitated small and large-scale engagements in a wide variety of media including drawing & painting, story creation, mask making, puppetry, mosaic, sculpture, ceramics, print making, magazine creation and publishing, digital media design and technology, photography, music creation & recording, video production, textile, theatre design, and community-wide multidisciplinary festivals.
Red Pepper has project-based and/or ongoing programming relationships with Na Me Res (Native Men's Residence), the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Gaa Dibaatjimat Ngashi, the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and with the community at large by facilitating arts activities at pow wows, schools and community centres.
We have partnered and collaborated several local arts organizations including Native Women in the Arts, ArtStarts, Jumblies Theatre, Shadowland Theatre, Theatre Direct, Project Random, Regent Park Focus, Harbourfront Centre, and Arts Etobicoke. Partner organizations included St. Stephen`s Community House, Toronto Community Housing, and Unison Community Services.
In 2012-13, Red Pepper's artistic leadership evolved from our founding co-directorship of Andy Moro and Gabriella Caruso to the sole artistic directorship of Gabriella Caruso. Red Pepper has maintained its original mission and mandate with a stronger focus in its community arts development and longstanding relationships.