Welcome to Equity in Theatre

Presented by curator Katie Sly, COMMON DEVIANTS is an art/performance/thought series which explores intersectionality. 

By bringing together artists and thinkers who:
Hail from different communities
Work in similar mediums
Have a distinctness and clarity of voice
Create outside of the norm

Common Deviants offers a place to dig our toes into common ground and feel the ways we are similar in our differences. This first Common Deviants event features the live music of award-winning multidisciplinarians CLIFF CARDINAL and OLIVE-OR-OLIVER. 


Event Details:

See event page HERE

Bar 499 - 499 Church Street, Toronto
Thurs. Sept 15, 2016
Doors 7:30pm, performances at 8pm
Suggested donation at door $15 or pay-what-you-can

Bar 499 is an accessible venue however the washrooms are not currently accessible. 
The washrooms are gender-neutral.
ASL interpretation will not be available.

This event is being held on the traditional lands of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishnaabe and the Huron-Wyndat. We wish to acknowledge them as the past, present and future caretakers of this land. We do not support colonial forces that undermine, distort or erase the vital role of Indigenous people in our world. We would also like to pay our respects to the Elders, past and present, as well as the ancestors of all us who have gathered here.


- About the Artists - 

Award winning poet Cliff Cardinal from Toronto performed original, dark and catchy songs on the street outside liquor stores and transit stations. Hustling change to make rent, he learned to sing with immediacy and a hook. Accoustic driven folk and reggae songs vary in subject matter from love and co-dependence to being a part of the first nation’s art movement. Performing with an accoustic guitar or with his band, The Skylarks, Cardinal’s biting humour combined with sincere delivery make him a refreshingly unpredictable stage performance. His first album Cliff Cardinal and The Skylarks – This Is Not A Mistake... is available on iTunes. www.cliffcardinalandtheskylarks.com

Olive-or-Oliver is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist whose work includes music, theatre, performance art, and video. They use the singular gender pronoun “they”, instead of “he” or “she”, as a gender-neutral alternative. With both humour and candour, Olive’s work reflects themes of trauma and recovery, spiritual emergence, ancestral connection, emotion, and queer identities. Olive composes and performs original songs accompanied by keyboard, harmonica, percussion and loop pedal, ranging from a humorous, vaudevillian “musical theatre” style to more pensive folk and jazz influenced work.
www.oliveoroliver.com


- About the Curator - 

Katie Sly is a playwright, performer, visual artist, curator, producer, and community organizer. Their multidisciplinary work asks questions about gender, beauty, art, kink, memory, trauma, sex, human connection, fear, and love in a way that is essentially queer. They founded and run the community activation project Too Queer: A Bi Visibility Cabaret. Katie is the winner of the 2016 Wildfire National Playwriting Competition. They are also the winner of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2016 Queer Emerging Artist Award, which seeks to recognize and encourage the achievements of queer artists who are founding careers in the arts while engaging with the community.