What Brings You In – Digital Program

With performances described as “breathtaking” (Onstage), and “eloquent” (Wholenote) artist and violinist Leslie Ting has been creating groundbreaking music-driven interdisciplinary performances since 2014. Garnering multiple award nominations, Leslie’s work combines her background as a classical musician with theatre, new media, and experience as a former practicing optometrist. 

She has been artist-in-residence most recently at Eastern Front Theatre (Dartmouth, NS), MITU580 (NYC), and the Durham Art Gallery (ON). Collaborations have included Diane Borsato at the National Arts Centre SPHERE Festival (Ottawa), experimental publication Caddisfly Project (NYC), and Race Cards (in Two Acts), a co-production by Prime Mover Theatre Company and Selina Thompson LTD (UK).  

Leslie currently leads an arts practice research project called Anchoring Accessibility and is a mentor for Why Not Theatre’s ThisGen Fellowship.

https://www.leslieting.com/

Picture by Olivia Nikkanen

I am Leslie Ting’s friend, Germaine Liu.

Pauline Oliveros wrote in ‘Your Voice’ (Sonic Meditations 1971): “What was the original sound of your voice before you learned to sound the way you sound now?” – my voice is a learning, unfolding, morphosis of voices from my teachers, colleagues, beings, histories, objects, architecture, living, dead, and other influences yet-to-be-conjured, interwoven together.

In kinship to Leslie’s commitments, I recall how Leslie taught me to walk, not from point A to B, but the very journey and physicality of walking, and the witnessing of unfolding through time/space/scape. In this walking, I am reminded that I exist in a physical body and that my body is in relationship with the intercorporealities of the world.

I am grateful to be Leslie’s friend, and fortunate to be here at this time, making, together with her.

Picture by Vanessa Tignanelli

Linda Catlin Smith is a composer of contemporary classical music. She has written works for orchestra, chamber ensembles and soloists, and has numerous recordings featuring her work, produced by “another timbre” among other labels. Her most recent performance was a new orchestra work for the Victoria Symphony. The music featured on What Brings You In is from a work in 15 movements called Dirt Road.

With two Canadian Screen Awards nominations for Best Original Music (Non-Fiction) in 2022, Rose Bolton is one of Canada’s most innovative, multi-faceted composers. Nominated for a Juno in 2020: Classical Composition of the Year, she has composed 13 full-length documentary film scores for CBC, TVO, and Logo TV (US) and festivals worldwide. She has long focused on creating electronic and instrumental music for innovative multimedia projects for festivals and events including Nuit Blanche and Toronto’s X Avant Festival. Her concert music has been featured by leading Canadian orchestras and ensembles such as Music in the Barns, Vancouver Symphony, Esprit Orchestra, Continuum and Kitchener Waterloo Symphony. June 2016 marked the premiere of The Song of Extinction, a feature length live concert with film by Marc de Guerre, Music in the Barns directed by Carol Gimbel, poetry by Don McKay, in association with Luminato.

Composer and interdisciplinary artist, Julia Mermelstein blends electronic soundscapes and choreography into performances that create a space for introspection and the surreal. Her music has been performed across Canada and in the USA by distinguished ensembles and musicians. Julia‘s music has also been featured at Impulse New Music Festival (LA), Vancouver New Music, NottNOISE New Music Festival (UK), Open Waters Experimental Music Festival (Halifax), CEMIcircles Intermedia Festival (Texas), and OUA Electronic Music Festival (Osaka, Japan). Originally from Halifax, Julia currently lives and works in Toronto as a freelance composer and designer at Human Collective and is currently Chair of the Association of Canadian Women Composers.

Matt Smith is Grammy nominated producer based in Toronto. He has made
several records under the project Prince Nifty and has helped produce records
with the likes of Jennifer Castle, Owen Pallett, Petra Glynt, Bernice, Isla Craig, Scott Hardware, Brodie West and Caribou, among others. He co-produced Lido Pimienta’s Miss Colombia, which was nominated for the Polaris Prize and both a Latin Grammy and a Grammy award.

Smith also builds immersive sound performances and custom ‘surround sound’ and immersive audio sound design for dance and theatre.

https://princenifty.com/

Theo Belc (they/them) is a Toronto-based lighting designer and creative problem solver working at the intersection of colour, space, and story. With a foundation in dance and theatre, they bring rhythm, curiosity, and care to each project. They graduated from the Performance Production Program at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), where they focused their studies in lighting design and scenic arts. Theo’s multidisciplinary practice is rooted in illuminating stories that reflect and resonate with the Toronto arts community with a focus on queer narratives.

Recent works include: Lighting design for DOUBLE (2025), Leon Arts; Lighting design for Breaking Boundaries in Ballet: Swan Lake (2025), Compagnie Kunal Ranchod; Associate Lighting Designer for A Christmas Carol (2024), The Shaw Festival.

Photo Credit: Sooji Kim

Dr. Jess Watkin is a Blind artist-scholar who finished their PhD at the University of Toronto‘s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies with research focusing on Disability Dramaturgy. She facilitates Leadership and DEI-specific groups, educates across Canada regarding accessibility and Disability practices, researches about meaningfully integrating accessibility into art practices, and has been published regarding these topics. She is a practising Disability dramaturg who is also a tactile artist and writer.

Picture by Kevin Bryan

A graduate of Concordia University‘s Interdisciplinary Studies program, Lisa Karen Cox relishes work that combines music, movement and heightened language. Often playing men and other mythical creatures, theatre credits include: Flo in Now You See Her (Quote/Unquote Collective/WhyNotTheatre/Nightwood); The Penelopiad (Royal Shakespeare Co/NAC); Brutus in Julius Caesar (Spur-of-the-Moment Shakespeare), and 2 seasons at the Stratford Festival of Canada.

Most recently, as a Director, Lisa has worked on Doubt and Intimate Apparel (Thousand Island Playhouse), 1851: Spirit and Voice (Soulpepper/Myseum); Windrush (FOLDA), Uncovering Roots (DéPOT), and The Swans (a queer adaptation of Swan Lake). Lisa also works as an Intimacy Director (A Strange Loop, Flex, Table for Two, Post Democracy) and Movement Director (Enormity, Hamet)

Lisa works extensively with emerging performers. She is currently reigniting her passion for cross disciplinary work, while celebrating queer existences and Black interiorities.

Picture by Dahlia Katz

Ramsey is an award-winning Lebanese artist, musician, and educator with over a decade and a half of experience building captivating experiences at the edge of what is technically possible. His work includes live coding audiovisual instruments, immersive museum installations, innovative programming languages, slapstick physical games, politically challenging web art, and groundbreaking research into the cultural baggage of computing itself. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the American University of Beirut and a Masters of Fine Arts from Parsons the New School for Design. He has had residencies with Eyebeam, Karaj Media Lab, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the NYU Game Innovation Lab.

He is committed to the realization of a better world beyond empire, capital, and the state. To that end he is a founding member of the democratically managed worker-owned software consultancy EMMA, and works to help others start cooperatives of their own.

Picture by Robert Paul https://gallery.rmpaul.com/

Laura Philipps is a Toronto-based Producer and Production Manager of theatre, dance, and multimedia performance works. Her practice centres around new work development, creative leadership, and process design. She is part of the leadership team of Blind-led collective Fire and Rescue Arts and produced Perceptual Archaeology or How To Travel Blind with Crow’s Theatre (Best New Play Dora Nominee, 2023). She works regularly with Lester Trips (Theatre) in theatre/series TV, including upcoming sci-fi body horror PUBLIC CONSUMPTION at Factory Theatre November 2025. As co-founder of Action Pants, she works on research with University of Calgary into new creation methods integrating human-computer interaction and live performance.

www.lauraphilipps.com

Picture by Drew Berry

Sara Constant is a musician and artist working in various forms of contemporary/experimental music and sound.

Trained as a flute player and active as a soloist, improviser, sound artist, and ensemble musician, Sara’s work involves interpretations of composed music, improvisations with instruments and electronics, and sound installation, to explore ideas around belonging, resonance, and place.

Sara has released music on People Places Records and Age of Leisure, has performed on releases from Centrediscs and Sawyer Editions, and has presented sound installations and solo projects across Canada, Europe, and the United States.

As an arts administrator and project manager, Sara has worked with the Toronto Creative Music Lab, Images Festival, Venus Fest, That Feeling, and the TRANZAC to support artists’ creative practices in sound and listening.

Sara is currently based in Tkarón:to/Toronto, working as a flutist, artist, writer (Musicworks), arts administrator (Venus Fest), and curator (Music Gallery).

www.saraconstant.ca

Picture by Yannick Anton

Matt Rideout is a musician, audio engineer, producer, and photographer with over a decade of experience using technology in creative ways to deliver on the artistic intent of his collaborators and clients.

Picture by Matt Rideout

Kari Pederson (she/they) is an award-winning performance creator, academic, and educator based in Tkaronto, Canada. She has over 20 years’ experience on stage working in devised theatre, and contemporary dance, and has recently begun working as a movement director for film. Kari’s current choreographic research, asking how we might understand togetherness and affectual ecologies through a logic of play, pleasure, and reciprocity, will be published in 2025 in About Performance, a peer-reviewed journal with University of Sydney, Australia. She holds an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from York University with a focus on affect, performance, and sound studies, and currently teaches performance at Brock University and Toronto Film School.

Kat Germain’s work centres Disability Justice, Equity, Anti-Racist, and Anti-Queerphobia, among other intersectional frameworks. Ethics and aesthetics both weigh heavily on her description philosophy.

Kat is leaning into coaching and directing creative teams to help them find authentic and intuitive ways to integrate access without, or with less of, a need for an outside describer.

Kat has described everything from Amputee Aerial Circus Arts, to “Crip” Conferences, to Deaf poetry, to wheelchair basketball. She is a certified teacher and works in intensive support classrooms with kids who are neurodivergent (like her). She is working towards a Certificate in DeafBlind & Intervenor studies and doing a part time Masters of Educational Psychology.

Kat is a member of: Audio Description Association (UK), Canadian Council of the Blind, Canadian Deafblind Association, International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People, ACTRA, and the Ontario College of Teachers.

Andy Slater is a Chicago-based media artist, writer, performer, and Disability advocate/loudmouth. Andy holds a Masters in Sound Arts and Industries from Northwestern University and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a 2022 United States Artists fellow, 2022-2023 Leonardo Crip Tech Incubator fellow and a 2018 3Arts/Bodies of Work fellow at the University of Illinois Chicago In 2020 Andy was acknowledged for his art by the New York Times in their article, “28 Ways To Learn About Disability Culture.”

Andy’s current work focuses on advocacy for accessible art and technology, Alt-Text for sound and image, the phonology of the blind body, spatial audio for extended reality, and sound design for film, dance, and video games.

Marie LeBlanc Flanagan is an artist working in the playful spaces between people, especially related to connection and community. Marie co-founded the Imaginary Residency, an artist-run online residency; Wyrd Arts Initiatives a nationwide nonprofit dedicated to encouraging, documenting, and connecting creative expression across Canada; and Drone Day, an international day for the celebration of experimental drone music and communities.

https://marieflanagan.com/

Aankshika is a multi-disciplinary designer and storyteller. As a freelance creative, they hold a Bachelors of Design in Fashion Communication, specializing in publication design and typography. Their practice centres community engagement and is rooted in visions of systems change through design, arts and culture. They are curious about sensory experiences in nature, community led art-making, and the possibilities these spaces hold for futures of collective care.

https://www.aankshikabheem.com/