Shadowland Theatre presenting Feathered Friends

Location: Alexmuir Park in Scarborough
About the Artist: Shadowland is a professional theatre company founded nearly 40 years ago. Based in downtown Toronto, they animate a multitude of spaces using puppetry, masks, stilt-walking, fire, live-music and other spectacles.
About the Park: Alexmuir Park is a medium sized tree-lined neighbourhood park with a large open area, playground and sports field. Located in a suburban residential area, it is surrounded by houses and is adjacent to a school. There are small clusters of trees throughout the park.

How the Park was animated: Shadowland animated Alexmuir Park with a week-long community-engaged theatre arts residency featuring daily workshops geared towards youth and culminating in a community parade. The project theme, Feathered Friends, was developed in collaboration with community members and celebrated the park's bird life and natural elements. Shadowland collaborated with Alan Colley (Toronto Aboriginal Eco Tours) to incorporate Indigenous nature teachings with outdoor theatre techniques (spectacle arts, puppetry, music and sculpture) to express the importance of birdlife in our world. Shadowland’s collaboration with Rosewood Community Association was central to this project.

Their week long residency included:

• Indigenous teachings and nature walks based on the Medicine Wheel, nature and local wildlife
• Exploring bird species and habitat in the park
• Creation of a bird-themed stilt and pageant costumes, puppets, masks, and sculptures
• Stilt-walking classes
• Music and choreography lessons
• Shadow puppetry and other forms of puppets
• Lessons on storytelling and story creation
• Campfiles and storytelling

All activities culminated in a community theatre pageant that toured around the park. It featured costumes and multiple staged vignettes that told a story created by the youth participants. The celebration also featured local traditional Chinese musicians and dance groups.

This project was funded by the City of Toronto through Toronto Arts Council’s Animating Toronto Parks grants program.

Impact: Since their first Arts in the Parks event in 2016, Shadowland has forged important relationships with the Alexmuir Park community and their presence is now something the neighbourhood looks forward to every year. The approach of returning to the same park year after year gives the impression that that Shadowland’s event belongs to the community, though Shadowland is not from this community. It also has encouraged residents to return every summer and each year attracts new attendees.

Community involvement and ownership is also reinforced through Shadowland’s practices of hiring local community members. These members act as ambassadors for the event – conducting active outreach in both English and Mandarin and working as workshop assistants – and as aides to the community organizer in sending out emails, distributing flyers, putting up posters, conducting door-to-door canvassing and attending special events. Shadowland’s approach is highly visual, making it more accessible by reducing any language barriers.

“It brought the neighbourhood together. Excellent event! We really enjoyed it; our son participated in the event throughout the week and loved it! Thank you!”