Cabaret dance night

Join us for a night of pop-up dance performances at the RUTAS cabaret featuring Fly Lady Di, Jasmyn Fyffe and Machete, choreographed by Victoria Mata, and performed by Roshanak Jaberi, Irma Villafuerte, Falciony Patino, Ravyn Wngz.

Machete is an excerpt from the full length production, “cacao | a venezuelan lament” which will premiere in 2020.  The piece explores the harvest of cacao through a slowing down of time to investigate nostalgia, memory and colonial history as a settlement in the body.

The RUTAS cabaret is FREE and open to all.

October 6, 2018 at 9:30 PM

About the artist

Jasmyn Fyffe is described as “ a young artist whose body of work is developing in a style all her own.” (Sway magazine – Anya Wassenberg). Jasmyn has performed/choreographed in Toronto, Brooklyn NY, Montreal QC, North Bay ON and Sinop, Turkey, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Berlin and Birmingham UK. Her most recent solo work “what do you see?” presented by Summerworks Perfomance Festival got rave reviews and she received an honorable mention for the Jon Kaplan spotlight award.   Her most recent commissions include: Toronto Dance Theatre, the School of Toronto dance Theatre and Cahoot’s Theatre. In 2017 she was featured on CBC’s “HERstory in Black” honoring 150 Black Canadian women making a significant contribution in Canada. “Fyffe is an indisputably talented performer and dancemaker,” – Kathleen Smith, The Dance Current.

Roshanak Jaberi is an Iranian-Canadian performer, choreographer, producer and activist based in Toronto. She is also the artistic director of Jaberi Dance Theatre, a contemporary performing arts company that creates inter-disciplinary work with socio-political content. Her new work, No Woman’s Land, is based on real stories of women in refugee camps and will premiere in March 2019. Roshanak also serves on the Toronto Arts Council Dance Committee and on the Board of Directors of the Dance Umbrella of Ontario. jaberidt.com

A Venezuelan-Canadian choreographer-dancer with a background in urban planning, Victoria Mata’s sensibility to inclusion and passion for border stories is due to her eclectic upbringing on three continents. Mata’s career was first sculpted by pedagogic, self-directed training, which proceeded with local and internationally renowned choreographers leading her to showcase her repertoire throughout out the Americas. An active member of Toronto’s progressive arts community and the abolishment of violence against women, Mata’s aspiration is to continue being a catalyst for artistic curiosity. Her Masters in Contemporary Choreography propelled dialogue between performance and embodied cultural memory, and awarded her the recognition of 2016 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award finalist.

Falciony Patino was born in Funza, Colombia. He began his training in Colombian folk dance at the age of seven with the group Zaquesazipa, in Funza. After finishing high school, Patino got into the Superior Academy of Arts of Bogota (ASAB) to study contemporary dance. During his time at ASAB, he was part of the folk group Orkeseos. In 2009 he moved to Toronto, to join Ballet Creole, as a student and a company member. In 2015 Alejandro Ronceria invited him to be part of a show Amalgama in the Pan-American games, and in 2016 he danced for Kaha:Wi Dance Theatre as a part  of a the honouring, and from 2017 he has been doing Mistatim: an unforgettable story of reconciliation for children; the creation of Red Sky Performance. In the spring of 2012, Patino created Cabildo, a group that explores a contemporary approach to Colombian folk dance. Since he was very young he has been experimenting with different dance styles from folk dance, ballet and contemporary to afro, urban dance, capoeira and parkour. Dance is what drives Patino out of the ordinary.

Toronto born and raised, and of Filipino descent, Diana Reyes (FLY LADY DI) is a multidisciplinary artist who has been rocking stages for over a decade through Dance, DJing and Visual Art. Voted Outstanding Performance and Outstanding Design by NOW Magazine, her one-woman dance creation THIRD WORLD presented by SummerWorks Performance Festival sold out a 3-show run and received a 4N review by NOW and was created with funding from the Toronto Arts Council through the City of Toronto. In addition, Di choreographs for rapper HAN HAN who she recently performed with at Stern Grove Festival in San Francisco as well as Grand Performances in Los Angeles with members of HATAW – for their first official US mini-tour. As a DJ, she has played events for Twitter, Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, SOHO House, Art Gallery of Ontario, FUNKBOX NYC, Harbourfront Centre, Manifesto Festival to name a few. She is represented by the all-female boutique DJ agency LUXELIFE SOUND and has been fortunate to have been one of the original DJs on the roster since 2016.

Irma Villafuerte is a Salvadorian-Canadian dance artist, and graduate of the George Brown Dance Performance Studies program. She has participated and performed in DanceWeekend Ontario, Aluna Theatre’s  RUTAS Festival, Panamania 2015 at Nathan Phillips Square, La 12 Bienal de la Habana 2015 for (IN)DISCIPLINAS, Vanguardia Dance Projects Festival, Danza Corpus Annual Open Space Temporada in Matanzas, Cuba, International Dance Meeting by Danza Libre in Guantanamo, CounterPulse Performing Diaspora in San Francisco, Mayworks Festival for Working People, to name a few. She has been part of choreographic works by Santee Smith (Kahawi Dance Theatre), Alejandro Ronceria, Roshanak Jaberi (Jaberi Dance Theatre), Victoria Mata, Kaeja D’dance, Ryan Lee, Derek Sangster, Tina Fushell, Arsenio Andrade, Sharon B. Moore, Darryl Tracy, Malgorzata Nowacka (Chimera Dance Projects and Company B), Jose Angel Carret (Danza Corpus), Esteban Aguilar (Danza Fragmentada, Cuba). In 2017, she received a mentorship and dance residency for emerging choreographers with Dancemakers. She recently premiered a new work in progress Desconocida at Aluna Theatre’s CAMINOS Festival 2017. She currently is a new member of the board of Adelheid Dance Projects and is on the faculty of Casa Maiz’ Semillas Maiz for Latin American children as a dance instructor and choreographer.

Ravyn Wngz is an African, Bermudian, Mohawk, 2Spirit, queer and transcendent individual. Ravyn aims to challenge mainstream arts and dance spaces by Sharing her stories while continuing to create opportunities and platforms for marginalized LGBTTIQQ2S people with a focus on African/black communities. Ravyn is a co-founder of ILL NANA/DiverseCity Dance Company- a queer multiracial dance company that aims to change the landscape of dance and provide accessible affirming dance education to the LGBTTIQQ2S community. Ravyn is the artistic director of OVA- Outrageous Victorious Africans Collective a Dance/Theatre collective that share the contemporary voices of African/Black and Queer/Self Identified storytellers. Ravyn is part of Black Lives Matter Toronto Steering committee, a group who are committed to eradicating all forms of anti-Black racism, supporting Black healing and liberating Black communities.

Allyson R. Trunzer is a Toronto-based artist of Antiguan, Barbudan, and German decent. She is a graduate of Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts, Ballet Creole’s Professional Training Program, and has attended professional development programs in Canada and the U.S., generously funded by the Ontario Arts Council. Allyson has worked with an array of companies and independent choreographers including Victoria Mata Soledad, Esie Mensah, Kevin A. Ormsby, Lua Shayenne,  Debbie Wilson, Arsenio Andrade, Christopher Walker, Ronald Taylor and more. She continues to collaborate, perform, and instruct in Canada and the Caribbean, and aims to aid in the development and implementation of community arts and educational programs for youth.

Food and beverage at the RUTAS Cabaret provided by: