Bricks and Glitter is a community arts festival, celebrating Two-Spirit, trans and queer talent, ingenuity, caring, anger, and abundance. Centered around the Junction Triangle and Parkdale, sites of multiple queer, precarious, and creative histories, the festival runs from July 18th-29th, 2018.

The festival brings together multiple thriving collectives of young queer artists, musicians, culture producers, and performers. These include the ILL NANA/ DiverseCity Dance Company, Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance, Queers Crash the Beat, the RUDE Collective, Montreal-based queer femme collective Grind’Her and more. The range of events on offer include a Sick and Disabled Queer Youth zine fair, two interdisciplinary dance productions, queer slam poetry, art, and parties and social events with a dedicated safe space mandate. A full list of events is available on the event’s Facebook page and at bricks-glitter.com.

The festival closes with a large outdoor event featuring local talents such as Lacey Hill, Bruno Capinan, Maxhole and Eyeda Sophia, Burlesque Legend CoCo La Crème, DJ Jams D, RAW (Raging Aging Women), Victoria Mata, DJ Nik Red, DJ Valeroo and more- with a top secret surprise guest to be announced.

The organizers proclaim that, “Bricks and Glitter is a long time coming. Inspired by artists, activists and cultural workers that came before us and motivated by neoliberal austerity measures, fascistic fear mongering and so many boring, predictable parties, we have needed Bricks and Glitter for quite some time.”

They are beyond empty promises of inclusivity—standing-room-only on some broken-down bus. Communities from across the 2SLGBTQIA+ spectrum were consulted in developing the programming to dismantle any access barrier for patrons. All events will be pay-what-you-can or free, with volunteers and ASL interpreters available on-site at most major events.

Bricks and Glitter Mission Statement

For us, with us, nobody thrives unless we all thrive. We believe in tangible modes of sustaining queer art and creativity. We are not just a festival but a home for many itinerant communities who struggle to find safety in an increasingly hostile world. We want to liberate the knowledge that already exists within us to the ends of empowering our queer families. We want to learn from each other and hold each other up, allowing our unique voices to populate a sphere of discourse, play, exploration and possibility. We pose and we posture and we fake it til we make it because practice, practice, practice gets the goods. Let us try and see what the world could become.

Produced with the generous support of: Groundswell (Community Justice Trust fund), Toronto Arts Council, and Ontario Arts Council and Castlepoint Greybrook Sterling Inc.

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist with a focus on travel, lifestyle, entertainment and hospitality. He has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He enjoys discovering delicious eats, tasting spirited treats, and being mesmerized by musical beats.