Fun for the Family

Open Streets TO, the recreational program that opens our streets to people, will take place Sunday, August 19, 10am-2pm along Bloor St. and Yonge St. Check out the arts and active-living events taking place in the Annex, and along the Bloor St. Culture Corridor – it’s a great chance to enjoy walking, cycling, rollerblading, and dancing in the streets of our city!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle has delighted generations of readers since 1969, selling more than 43 million copies worldwide. Now the timeless classic will be on stage at the Miles Nadal JCC Saturdays and Sundays throughout the summer, as Joseph Patrick Presents: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show.

The Bata Shoe Museum continues its Summer Family Fun programs where children ages 3-12 can complete a shoe-themed craft, play ISpy in the galleries, and try on some funky shoes.

New camp sessions start in August, too. 918 Bathurst hosts Theatre Direct camps at the end of July, and Alliance Francaise offers Music, Creative Arts, Photography, and Theatre Camp. Children can make music at the Royal Conservatory School at Instrumental Exploration Camps, Band Camps, and free Smart Start classes on Saturdays.

Stay Cool Indoors at Fascinating Films, Exhibitions and Performances

Dora award nominee Thom Allison directs Randolph Centre for the Arts' third-year students in Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece A Little Night Music, the Tony Award-winning musical inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night. Set in 1900s Sweden, A Little Night Music whisks audiences away to a weekend in the country where infinite possibilities of new romances and second chances bring endless surprises. A Little Night Music is on stage at the Randolph theatre August 2-4 and August 9-11.

Some of the most anticipated new documentaries of the summer will be on the big screen at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. Discover the star-studded secrets of Manhattan's most exclusive hotel with Always at The Carlyle. Go behind-the-scenes of the movie industry with Filmworker and Hitler's Hollywood, or glimpse the historic process behind the Oslo Accords in The Oslo Diaries. Take a musical road trip across Elvis Presley's America in Eugene Jarecki's The King, and embark on a globe-spanning journey inside the lives of the international wealthy elite with Lauren Greenfield's Generation Wealth. Revealing the man behind the SOS letter from China's notorious Masanjia labour camp, Letter from Masanjia returns, and for those of us who loved Mr. Rogers, there will be screenings starting August 10 of Won’t You Be My Neighbour?

Istituto Italiano di Cultura is hosting the photo exhibition Melodramatic Realism, with photos from the sets of three Luchino Visconti's masterpieces: Ossessione /Obsession, La Terra Trema/The Earth Trembles and Bellissima. The first steps of Visconti and of Neorealism are documented in this exhibition, with photos by Osvaldo Civirani and Paul Ronald. Also, on August 15, On Wednesday, August 15 the Istituto Italiano di Cultura will present Laura Campisi's Italian Jazz, featuring Michael Occhipinti and Roberto Occhipinti.

The Japan Foundation invites you into the universe of Noh Theatre through images of masks at the exhibition, Yokoyama Noh Theatre Photography. Designated as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2001, Noh Theatre has been an elaborate theatre form since the 14th century. The unique use of masks in Noh results not only in physical changes in the facial appearance of the actor, but also an actual change in the reality of the whole fiction, which can be much larger than life and profoundly spiritual. In this exhibition, the stage photo and the close-up of the mask are paired.

The travelling exhibition Manolo Blahnik: The Art of Shoes, a retrospective of one of the world's most iconic shoemakers with more than 200 shoes and 80 original sketches from Mr. Blahnik's personal archive, is a summer highlight at the Bata Shoe Museum.

The fashion theme continues at the ROM with Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion, where metal umbrella ribs, magnets, and 3-D printing are some of the astonishing materials the Dutch fashion designer uses, fusing style with technology to create striking haute couture. Philip Beesley: Transforming Space is an original installation from the Canadian artist and visionary architect. Spiders: Fear & Fascination is a chance to see and learn about some of the world’s most misunderstood creatures. Modernism on the Ganges: Raghubir Singh Photographs presents the visionary works of photographer Raghubir Singh, who pioneered the use of colour film to document the rapidly changing social, political, and cultural scenes of India.

At the Museum of Estonians Abroad/VEMU, the famous composer Arvo Pärt is the subject of two exhibitions: Tõnu Tormis' photo exhibitition On Pärt, and Arvo Pärt - Renowned and Unknown by the Estonian Theatre, Music Museum, and Arvo Pärt Centre.

The Gardiner Museum is continuing Community Arts Space free programs. Each project contributes to the central theme of Art is Change and considers how the city’s unique and varied local histories of art and social activism can be re-mapped for the future. Reclaiming Artifacts, co-presented with Art Starts August 2 – 16, invites visitors to explore the “discovery” of artifacts found during the construction of a condo in the year 2050. With support from Art Starts, design researchers Calla Lee and Prateeksha Singh collaborated with youth artists from Lawrence Heights to create fictional clay artifacts, resulting in a multimedia exhibition that meditates on the neighborhood’s ongoing revitalization. Then the Gardiner Museum hosts a public opening for Maldewin Weskijinu / Blood Soaked Soil, an exhibition by artist Louis Esmé, on August 24.

918 Bathurst hosts Ariel Gold’s release of her debut single Weather, with music, poetry, and visual art from Kwest, Jarus, Gaura Sange and Wolfgang Gray on Friday August 10. The next day, 918 Bathurst and Tradicious to bring Oana Lianu to the 918 stage for a jazzy café-concert by “The Romanian Skylark.”

Ashkenaz Festival opens on the Bloor St. Culture Corridor this year with a Yiddish Glory, a concert at Koerner Hall on Tuesday, August 28. Yiddish Glory features an all-star ensemble of virtuosi from the worlds of classical, jazz, and Roma and Jewish folk music, including jazz vocalist Sophie Milman, Gypsy trio Loyko, clarinetist Julian Milkis, trumpeter David Buchbinder, Roma accordion virtuoso Sergiu Popa, and more. The songs were written by Holocaust victims and survivors in the Soviet Union during World War II, collected by a team of Jewish Soviet ethnomusicologists during the war, confiscated, and restored by University of Toronto Professor Anna Shternshis, who with introduce the concert.

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