Download 2013 Catalogue - Art Toronto

Thom Sokoloski started his training and performance in theatre and dance at Ellen Stewart`s LaMama ETC, NYC in the late
60’s. In Paris he continued at L’École Jacques Lecoq, LaMama de Paris and workshops with Grotowski’s Polish Laboratory
Theatre.
Returning to Toronto he became one of the original founders of The Theatre Centre, the Native Theatre School and Autumn
Leaf Performance. He directed the operas of R. Murray Schafer, including RA at the Ontario Science Centre and Holland
Festival and Hermes Trismegistos at the Liège and Ars Musica Festivals and inside Union Station for Toronto’s World Stage
Festival 92.
He has also produced Michael Nyman, John Oswald, Gavin Bryars, The Master Musicians of Jajouka, Stanislas Norday, Atom
Egoyan with Nexus, Peter Mettler with Evegreen Gamelan and an international tour of Claude Vivier’s opera Kopernikus
with the Banff Centre, Musica Festival in Strasbourg, Huddersfield Contemporary and Opéra de Montréal.
Thom’s works include Electric Flesh with composer Wende Bartley at the Opéra de Lyon, the libretto for Nosferatu for the
Canadian Opera Company, the performance installation Anxiety of Immortality at The Royal Ontario Museum and Kafka
in Love, a water-opera inside Hart House swimming pool with synchronized swimmers and a three channel video-sound
installation for World Stage Festival 03.
His commissions include The Balloons for the National Capital Commission in Ottawa, The Royal Flush for Fallsview Casino,
Confinement of the Intellect for Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche 06, later re-titled as The Encampment with versions presented
in New York City 07, Major’s Hill Park in Ottawa 08 and the Luminato Festival 2012, and Funhouse for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche
12 and Chevrolet.
He curated Interactive 05 with Clara Hargittay for the Art Toronto 05, focusing on interactive media art in public spaces,
Le Labo - Contact 2007, Zone A for Toronto’s Scotiabanks’s Nuit Blanche 2009, Futurism Today or NOT! and Dada Reboot!,
both independent projects for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 11/12, and Darkness at the Edge for the Propeller Centre of the Visual
Arts 2013.
He is working on Chorea Lasciva, a 16 channel video/sound installation, inspired by the photographic iconography from
the late 1800’s at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital and Asylum in Paris France.
With all performance and/or public participatory works, Thom works with dance artist Jenny-Anne McCowan (Thomas+Guinevere).
These include all versions of The Royal Flush, The Encampment, a development residency in Mapoon, Queensland of Ghost
Nets and a workshop presentation of The Scarecrows at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, NYC and Nuit North in Huntsville,
Ontario 2013.
As part of ALL THE ARTISTS ARE HERE, Jenny McCowan collaborated with Thom to design and lead an arts education program,
entitled HANDS ON WITH THE ARTISTS. It invited a collective of at-risk and art high school students to participate in realizing
a large-scale installation and experience Art Toronto first-hand. From workshops in conception and production of their
own initiatives to the install of ALL THE ARTISTS ARE HERE, all the students had the opportunity to learn, practice and
apply new skills in art making, explore the galleries and artistry at the fair and leave with a new awareness of the contemporary
art world.
FOR THE STUDIO
Sherrie Johnson Productions (Producer/Agent)
Jenny McCowan (Performance & Education Director)
Jeff Lei (Design Intern)
Vjosana Shkurti (Studio Project Intern)
www.thomsokoloski.com
2013 Special Projects
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