About
welcome
Since 2012, the RUTAS International Festival of Performance has established itself as the only event of its kind in Canada. Through our mission of Connecting the Americas through the Arts, the festival brings to Toronto some of the most innovative artists representing the bountiful cultural diversity of our continent. With breathtaking presentations in theatre, dance, and performance, RUTAS creates a TransAmerican experience of impeccable quality and excellence for all. Downtown Toronto becomes the meeting place for audiences from across the GTA to be inspired, moved, and entertained by a gamut of rich artistic experiences.
RUTAS is more than a festival. It is a commitment to building thriving communities.
This biennial festival was founded by Aluna Theatre. This celebrated award-winning company has brought the Latinx and other racialized communities to the forefront, changing the landscape of Canadian theatre.
We are proud to also welcome and support newcomers to our artistic family. They are vital to the growth and sustainability of our communities. Making them feel at home is our greatest joy.
Our city, Tkaronto, has been a crossroads for millenia. We wish to express our gratitude for the stewardship of unnamed generations past in tending this place and passing it forward, as we too aspire to do. We recognize the Haudenoshaunee, the Wendat, the Anishnabee, and the Mississaugas of the Credit as traditional keepers of this land.
We also wish to thank our Partners in this Festival: venues Factory Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, York University, Hemispheric Encounters, and the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC).
Personal Cartographies: An Act of Resistance in Uncertain Times
Read the curatorial statement by Beatriz Pizano here: Bea’s Curatorial Statement RUTAS 2024
Supporters
Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Ontario Arts Council, the Government of Ontario, the Toronto Arts Council, York University, and Hemispheric Encounters; additional support from TD Bank – the Ready Commitment, and CALTAC (The Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition)
About Aluna Theatre
Aluna Theatre is an artistically-driven theatre company based in Toronto creating exciting new work that introduces audiences to diverse and rich performance practices from across the Americas. Aluna’s bold productions in English and Spanish are marked by a distinct theatrical language drawing from our heritages, cultures, and languages, including dance, physical theatre, and multimedia design. Over eighteen years of production, Aluna has received 26 Dora Awards’ nominations for acting, writing, directing, and design – and has won eleven awards. Artistic Director: Beatriz Pizano.
About Theatre Passe Muraille
Founded in 1968, TPM is Canada’s original alternative theatre company, currently developing and producing new Canadian plays. TPM is striving to articulate a distinctly Canadian voice that reflects the complexity of our intercultural society. TPM believes there should be a more diverse representation of artists, audience members, and stories in our theatre. TPM aspires to be a leader locally, nationally and internationally in establishing, promoting and embracing collaborative and inclusive theatre practices. We do this so that we can support and ignite the voices of unique artists, communities and audiences.
About Factory Theatre
Founded in 1970, Factory was the first theatre company in the nation to devote itself to producing 100% Canadian content. Over 50 years later, Factory continues to lead in the development and sharing of Canadian stories having produced more than 300 productions from a diverse source of Canadian playwrights and launching the careers of countless theatre professionals. Factory stands on the land under The Dish With One Spoon Wampum Covenant, a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that binds them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent people – Indigenous and settlers alike – have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect. Today, the meeting place of Toronto (Tkaronto) is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. Factory would like to acknowledge with gratitude all the storytellers, stewards, and caretakers – recorded and unrecorded – that continue to host Factory at this gathering place for over 30 years.
About CALTAC
The Canadian Latinx* Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC) is a Vancouver-based service organization dedicated to furthering the Canadian Latinx theatre movement and unifying Latinx identified theatre artists. They engage in advocacy, create networks, and celebrate our community.
About Hemispheric Encounters
Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices brings together scholars, artists, activists, and community organizations from across the Americas to explore hemispheric performance as a methodology, a pedagogical strategy, and tool for social change.
A project developed by the Canadian Consortium on Performance and Politics in the Americas, Hemispheric Encounters advances understandings of performance as a unique method for addressing humanitarian and ecological challenges shared by multiple communities in the western hemisphere. Among others, these include: the dramatic rise in nativism and anti-immigrant sentiment, the expulsion of refugee migrants from Central America, record-high rates of gender and sexual-based violence; and the doubling-down on economies of extractivism that hasten climate change, environmental degradation, and displacement of Indigenous persons from protected lands. These challenges have also given rise to mass actions across the Americas, from the marches of Idle No More, Black Lives Matter, and #metoo, to Indigenous pipeline protest encampments, to caravans of migrants moving north toward Mexico and the US. Read together, these stagings beg questions about who controls, and who sees oneself as implicated in, wider hemispheric happenings.
FESTIVAL TEAM
Artistic Director: Beatriz Pizano
Artistic Producer: Trevor Schwellnus
Associate Artistic Producer: Maria Escolán
Production Manager: Van Ward
Associate Artist / Metcalf Intern: Maria Paula Carreño-Martínez
Marketing Coordinator: Tushar Dalvi
Studio Coordinator: Flavia Martin
Production Assistant: Andrea Perez