Luminato in the Community
Luminato believes that the festival should be celebrated by everyone in the GTA (and beyond). We strive to create inclusive experiences and break down barriers to access the arts. Our community work ensures that as many people as possible can experience Luminato either by attending shows and events or participating in workshops and conversations.
TDSB
Last year, Luminato confirmed an exciting partnership with the Toronto District School Board that extends into 2027. Under this agreement, Luminato brings artist-led activities into local high schools each year (such as chorale, dance, storytelling and photography workshops). Our goal with this multi-year partnership is to encourage youth — the next generation of arts enthusiasts — to explore their own creativity and to engage with the ideas and themes raised during the festival.
SUPPORTED BY
LUMINATO AT HARBOURFRONT
Workshops:
Saturday, June 13th, 11:30am to 3:30pm -
Build the City: Collaborative Cardboard Metropolis Workshop
Sunday, June 14th, 11am to 3pm -
Build the City: Collaborative Cardboard Metropolis Workshop
Sunday, June 14th, 1pm to 1:30pm -
Music Workshop by Beny Esguerra
Sunday, June 14th, 3:45pm to 4:15pm -
Salsa Class by Dreyser Garcia
Sunday, June 14th, 3pm to 5pm -
Power Kids: Connected Worlds
Organized and presented by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery
In Association with Luminato Festival
Families will explore You will find Lagos in Jand Living (Final Destination: the T-dot), 2023–26 by Temitayo Ogunbiyi, and discover how twining, plant-like shapes twist and turn like playful maps. Through conversation and close looking, participants will think about how places, memories, and experiences connect. Inspired by the artwork, families will use colourful paper to imagine and build their own three-dimensional maps linking their inner worlds with the places around them.
SUPPORTED BY
KATMA
Kuda (Official Katma After Party)
Saturday, June 20 (9 – 11:30)
Ada Slaight Hall, Daniels Spectrum
Please do not be alarmed, remain calm. Do not attempt to leave the dance-floor. House of Sole, Kwasi Obeng the company of Katma and guest performers, carry the pulse of the performance into the night, building a living club ritual shaped by house, hip-hop, funk, and Afro diasporic sounds culminating in a DJ set from Katma’s Chika. Shared Showcase Dancers: Azzam (Katma), N’finite Battle Pairs: Tyler Quy / Bacardi, Knives / Gemini, Kwasi Obeng / Prempz, Abel Hagos / Chadley Tan DJ: Iced Misto Musicians: Caleb Klager, Anh Phung
Regent Park Block Party
Sunday, June 21 (TBC)
Katma closes its Toronto run at the Regent Park Block Party, bringing its frenetic, communal energy beyond the theatre.
SUPPORTED BY
THE WEDGE LECTURE
Friday 19th June (2 hours)
Join curator Liz Ikiriko and visual artist/filmmaker Isabel Okoro as they discuss the relationship between curator and artist and the considerations of how to build exhibitions for different spaces. This conversation will also include a hands-on workshop, engaging participants in creating their own mini exhibitions.
SUPPORTED BY
NIMBA
Introduction to Acrobatic Movement
with Kira Arts
Thursday June 18, 7pm
Artists’ Play Dance and Circus Arts
This workshop offers an accessible and structured approach to acrobatic movement, with an emphasis on quality of movement, body awareness, and weight management.
Participants explore foundational principles drawn from circus arts, including points of support, weight transfers, body organization, and balance (handstands and partner-based balance), as well as simple dynamic sequences. Particular attention is given to the relationship with the floor—essential for safe practice—and to partner work, through contact, trust, and shared weight.
At the intersection of technique and exploration, the workshop invites participants to refine their physical awareness, develop solid movement foundations, and engage in a more nuanced relationship to movement and to others.
A basic level of physical fitness is recommended to ensure a safe practice.
Nimba
June 16
7-8:15pm.
Meridian Arts Centre Rehearsal Hall 5040 Yonge St. (Enter through Stage Door).
Led by Aly Keita, with the participation of Fodé Bamba Camara in dance, this workshop offers an exploration of Guinean dances accompanied by live percussion.
The approach developed in this workshop places particular emphasis on the foundations of movement: grounding, posture, breathing, coordination, and the relationship between body and rhythm. Through guided exercises and movement explorations, participants will be invited to develop a deeper awareness of movement, breath, and musicality while discovering the richness of the physical dynamics found in Guinean dances.
The workshop will also explore the connection between voice, rhythm, and gesture, as well as the body’s ability to articulate different energies and layers of movement simultaneously. This progressive approach will then lead into the exploration of characteristic movements connected to various traditional rhythms performed live by the percussionists.
Conceived as an accessible and dynamic learning space, the workshop emphasizes experience, presence, and connection within the group, allowing each participant to engage with movement in an organic and embodied way.
SUPPORTED BY
PLAY DEAD
Masterclass: Contact Improv and Partnerwork
Tuesday June 23, 11am-1pm
Meridian Arts Centre Rehearsal Hall, North York
This workshop’s goal is to create a conversation through a common physical language. Finding freedom, play and flow through partnerwork improvisation. The creative tools in this workshop will shine a light on People Watching’s choreographic process and exploration through partner work. Sharing how each partnership can create new pathways of their own.
We will share counterweight vocabulary, weight-transfer techniques to lift one another, and tools for exploring contact points with your partner.
Please note that this workshop requires proximity & close contact between bodies.
REQUIRED EXPERIENCE: Dance & acrobatic experience / formal training. Must be comfortable moving your body, rolling on the floor etc. We can adapt the level if you are a beginner in regards to weight bearing - partner movement, but must be physically in shape.
CO-PRESENTED WITH
PYRAMID FIELDS
Public Art Tour with Cyril Lancelin and Liz West
Date: Friday, June 5
Time: 11am - 12:30pm
Starting location: Brookfield Place
Description: Meet two artists behind Luminato’s largest Public Art program in recent memory. This is a rare, informal encounter with Cyril Lancelin and Liz West as they guide you through their large-scale public works and how each piece came into being.
Stand inside the unfolding geometry of Pyramid Fields with Cyril Lancelin, as structure, repetition, and play reveal themselves through his perspective. Then step into the shifting chromatic world of Anthems to Colour with Liz West, where light, reflection, and architecture begin to behave like collaborators rather than surfaces.
With the artists present, every stop feels immediate, unfiltered, and slightly unpredictable, like the city is responding in real time.
Public Art Tour with Luminato
Date: Wednesday, June 17
Time: 12pm - 12:45pm
Starting location: Linkway Gallery in TD Centre North Plaza. Click here to view the meeting point.
Meet us at the TD Centre Linkway, serving as a temporary gallery for 20 and Extraordinary: Moments in Photos, where a vivid cross-section of Luminato’s past sets the tone for what lies beyond the doors. Then step into the TD Centre North Courtyard with Luminato Programmer Adam Barrett as your guide to the surrounding area’s less obvious wonders.
You’ll weave between the soft, repeating forms of Pyramid Fields, watching sunlight slip into new roles along the way. Part tour, part urban adventure, this experience invites you to tune your eye to the city’s quieter frequencies and catch how art threads itself through the daily rush, reshaping the landscape one glance at a time.
Public Art Tour with Luminato
Date: Thursday, June 18
Time: 12pm -12:45pm
Location: Trinity Square Park at CF Toronto Eaton Centre
Learn about the artwork and the historic labyrinth beneath it as you move through the installation’s repeating forms, where shifting light and shade transform the experience of the space. Then join Luminato Programmer Adam Barrett for a closer look at this historic site’s hidden corners and the ways art, architecture, and public space come together within it.
Part tour, part urban adventure, this experience invites you to tune your eye to the city’s quieter frequencies and catch how art threads itself through the daily rush, reshaping the landscape one glance at a time.
Public Art Tour with Luminato
Location: TD Centre North Courtyard
Date: Thursday, June 25
Time: 12pm -1pm
Starting location: Linkway Gallery in TD Centre North Plaza. Click here to view the meeting point.
Begin at the TD Centre Linkway, serving as a temporary gallery for 20 and Extraordinary: Moments in Photos, where a vivid cross-section of Luminato’s past sets the tone for what lies beyond the doors. Then step into the streets with Adam Barrett—Luminato Programmer and longtime public art maker—as your guide to the financial district’s less obvious wonders.
You’ll weave between the soft, repeating forms of Pyramid Fields and the luminous colour-play of Liz West’s Anthems to Colour, watching glass, steel, and sunlight slip into new roles along the way. Beyond the headline works, the route dips into murals, tucked-away gestures, and the kind of details most people stride past without noticing.
Part tour, part urban adventure, this experience invites you to tune your eye to the city’s quieter frequencies and catch how art threads itself through the daily rush, reshaping the landscape one glance at a time.
Photography Workshop
Location and Date:
TD Centre North Courtyard, Wednesday, June 10 at 12 - 1pm
Trinity Square Park, CF Toronto Eaton Centre, Thursday, June 11 at 12 - 1pm
Step into the city with fresh eyes in this lively photography workshop led by Toronto-based photographer Curtiss Randolph. Set against the striking geometry of Pyramid Fields at Luminato, this guided experience invites participants to explore how public art transforms everyday space into something extraordinary. Curtiss will share tips on composition, light, and perspective, helping you capture the playful angles, shadows, and textures of Cyril Lancelin’s sculptural installation.
As you move through the work, you’ll discover how photography and public art naturally collaborate—each frame becoming a new interpretation of the same structure. Whether you’re shooting on a phone or a DSLR, this workshop is about experimentation, curiosity, and seeing differently.
Participants are encouraged to share their photos online—tag Luminato and use #Luminato2026 for a chance to have your images featured across festival platforms.
TSO Quartet
Location: TD Centre North Courtyard
Date: Tuesday, June 9 at 12-1pm
Cadillac Fairview, in partnership with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, invites you to an outdoor musical experience over your lunch hour. Join us at the TD Centre North Courtyard for a world-class quartet performance that brings the heart of the symphony to the heart of the city.
Join us for a taste of classical music in the open air before our live performance of Ode to Joy in Sankofa square on Friday, June 12!
Meditation with Jaybird
Location and Date:
TD Centre North Courtyard, Tuesday, June 16 and June 23
Trinity Square Park, CF Toronto Eaton Centre, Wednesday, June 17 and June 24
Time: 12-12:45 pm
In collaboration with Luminato Festival, Jaybird presents a guided sound bath led by Valentine Stephanie Giambattista. A Canadian-born facilitator of healing and wellness with over a decade of experience creating transformational experiences around the world. After eight years living and working in Edinburgh, London, and Zurich, she returned to Toronto to cultivate spaces for connection, restoration, and deep inner work.
Valentine is the founder of Yogi Moviestar and creator of Living Magic. Her practice weaves together slower yoga, Reiki energy healing, gong and sound healing, astrology, and EFT tapping. Rooted in intuition and presence, her work invites participants to soften, expand, and to remember the magic within themselves.
Come as you are, no dress code and no need to bring a mat!
About Jaybird: Jaybird is about experiencing the present moment. They are a contemporary movement studio that believes in shedding the layers that hold us back, forgetting outside perceptions, and letting go of expectations. A space to be unashamedly yourself, naked as a jaybird.
Dancing through the Labyrinth
Location: Trinity Square Park, CF Toronto Eaton Centre
Date: Thursday, June 25
Time: 4:30-6pm
In Trinity Square Park, beside Pyramid Fields, the late afternoon becomes a place where time loosens its edges. Toronto DJ Emissive sets the tone with a fluid, exploratory mix that moves between deep grooves, textured rhythms, and atmospheric shifts—less about building a peak than about letting the space breathe and expand in waves of sound.
The geometry of Pyramid Fields catches the changing light as the set unfolds its sculptural forms, becoming a kind of silent counterpoint to the music. People gather on the steps and open ground, drifting in and out of shade, letting the park shape the pace of the moment.
An ice cream truck arrives as part of the rhythm of the day, offering a simple counterpoint of cold sweetness against warm stone and sound. It’s an easy, open gathering—music, sculpture, and city life briefly syncing into something that feels both casual and quietly electric.
SUPPORTED BY
ANTHEMS TO COLOUR
Artist Talk with Liz West
Wednesday, June 3, 11-11:30am at Brookfield Place
Thursday, June 4, 4-4:30pm at Bay Adelaide Centre
Join acclaimed artist Liz West for a conversation exploring
Anthems to Colour, her immersive public installation that transforms light, reflection, and architecture into a constantly shifting experience of colour. Through her practice, West invites audiences to slow down, notice their surroundings differently, and experience public space as something fluid, sensory, and alive.
Public Art Tour with Cyril Lancelin and Liz West
Date: Friday, June 5
Time: 11am - 12:30pm
Starting location: Brookfield Place
Description: Meet two artists behind Luminato’s largest Public Art program in recent memory. This is a rare, informal encounter with Cyril Lancelin and Liz West as they guide you through their large-scale public works and how each piece came into being.
Stand inside the unfolding geometry of Pyramid Fields with Cyril Lancelin, as structure, repetition, and play reveal themselves through his perspective. Then step into the shifting chromatic world of Anthems to Colour with Liz West, where light, reflection, and architecture begin to behave like collaborators rather than surfaces.
With the artists present, every stop feels immediate, unfiltered, and slightly unpredictable, like the city is responding in real time.
Public Art Tour with Luminato
Tuesday, June 9, 1:30-2:30pm at Brookfield Place
Join us for a tour of Luminato Festival 2026 public art installations led by a Luminato Staff member as your guide to the financial district’s less obvious wonders.
Observe the luminous colour-play of Liz West’s Anthems to Colour, watching glass, steel, and sunlight slip into new roles. Then weave between the soft, repeating forms of Pyramid Fields by Cyril Lancelin. Beyond the headline works, the route dips into murals, tucked-away gestures, and the kind of details most people stride past without noticing.
Part tour, part urban adventure, this experience invites you to tune your eye to the city’s quieter frequencies and catch how art threads itself through the daily rush, reshaping the landscape one glance at a time.
Public Art Tour with Luminato
Thursday, June 18, 1:30-2:15pm at Bay Adelaide Centre
Join us for a tour of Liz West’s
Anthems to Colour,
a Luminato Festival 2026 public art installation. A Luminato Staff member will act as your guide to observe the luminous colour-play of Liz West’s
Anthems to Colour, watching glass, steel, and sunlight slip into new roles. Part tour, part urban adventure, this experience invites you to tune your eye to the city’s quieter frequencies and catch how art threads itself through the daily rush, reshaping the landscape one glance at a time.
Plaza Picnics
June 10th, 12:00 – 1:00 PM at Bay Adelaide Centre
June 17th, 12:00 – 1:00 PM at Bay Adelaide Centre
June 24th, 12:00 – 1:00 PM at Bay Adelaide Centre (live programming)
Bring your lunch and soak up the summer at the plaza at Bay Adelaide Centre. Surrounded by the vibrant colours of Liz West’s immersive art installation, take a break from your regular routine and enjoy an afternoon of art, sunshine, music, and lawn games in the heart of downtown Toronto.
SUPPORTED BY
