TORONTO’S NIGHT OF IDEAS: BEING ALIVE

On Saturday, January 25, from 7pm to 12am, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and Hart House, in partnership with the cultural service of the French Embassy in Canada,  will host an all-night marathon of debates and artistic performances. Toronto’s Night of Ideas “Being Alive” will bring together philosophers, writers, dancers, and activists from Canada, France and elsewhere, over the course of an entire night, to discuss and question the complex relation between the body and the norm.

Toronto’s Night of Ideas will coincide with the public opening of the Art Museum’s newest exhibition: « Lorenza Böttner: Requiem for the Norm », curated by Paul B. Preciado. Lorenza Böttner created over 200 individual works, painting with her feet and mouth and using dance, photography, street performance, drawing, and installation to celebrate the complexity of embodiment and gender expression.

Toronto’s Night of Ideas will engage directly in conversation with an interdisciplinary line-up of internationally acclaimed thinkers and artists as part an intensive series of performances (RARE Theatre performances on disability and sexuality, Au Nom de la Danse inclusive dance performance, Iteractive vogue dance exhibit and performance with Legendary House of Mother Snoopy of the Kiki House of Disney, Fay and Fluffy reading time), screenings (co-presented with Bodies in Translation) and conversations with – among others – world-renowned trans philosopher and Queer activist Paul B. Preciado’s keynote lecture, Parisian podcast producer Victoire Tuaillon‘s live podcast on masculinities co-presented with CIUT, a walk through Lorenza Böttner’s exhibition with anthropobiologist Judith Nicogossian, and a reflection on sex work and activism between French author Emma Becker and Canadian researcher Dr Loree Erickson. Night of Ideas derives its originality from its diversity of formats: interactive debates, dance and theatre and textile art performances – all free and accessible.

Night of Ideas will take place at Hart House, the event is co-presented by Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Hart House and the cultural service of the French Embassy in Canada, with the support of Institut Français, Goethe-Institut, The Walrus and NOW Magazine

Full program here