One of Canada’s most vital platforms for new performance and artistic development, SummerWorks proudly returns to its 11-day Festival format, reimagined to include an extensive line-up of contemporary performance and large-scale installation works, participatory experiences, and celebratory community gatherings. The SummerWorks Festival takes place August 4 – August 14, 2022, showcasing over 30 performance works and events, presented in 13 neighbourhoods across Toronto, as well as an extensive array of online and hybrid offerings.

In its 32nd year, and the final year for outgoing Artistic and Managing Director Laura Nanni, this year’s Festival will foster new connections and curiosity in a world that has long been disrupted, inviting audiences to reimagine and recalibrate their relationship with public space through art. A vast selection of performances and community meals will enable patrons to traverse Toronto with a fresh perspective, re-familiarize themselves with public space, and come together as a community. With concentrated pockets of programming spanning more locations than ever before.

SummerWorks Festival offers a wide range of works and experiences that carefully consider accessibility and different audience comfort levels. The majority of the programming this year is focused on exploration and activation in public space, and will take place outdoors, and allow for physical distancing. SummerWorks has always found value in digital works, it fosters creative risk and experimentation. The organization is dedicated to embracing a hybrid standard for future artistic endeavours.

Cultivating space for exploration and innovation through theatre, dance, music, live art, interdisciplinary and hybrid forms, SummerWorks Festival initiatives are split between four programming streams, offering audiences a dynamic choice in how they choose to engage with the work as a participant or spectator. Public Works are a offering of FREE performances and artworks that aim to bring artists and audiences together to experience public space in new ways. The Public Works stream was significantly expanded this year as part of ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2022–2023, and aspects of these projects are currently available for audiences to engage with. SummerWorks Presentations include fully-developed new works, offering a snapshot of the future of contemporary performance. The SummerWorks Lab is a place for exploration, experimentation, and process, allowing the Festival to support projects at crucial stages of development and forge connections between artists and audiences. In the Lab, the audience experiences art at a critical juncture, and plays an essential role in the development of new work. Finally, the SummerWorks Exchange, encapsulating the Festival’s professional development and industry activities, will offer three days of community training and networking opportunities for artists, audiences and industry professionals.