Moriyama's Continuum: Nuit Blanche Toronto 2019

Moriyama's Continuum is an Independent Project for Nuit Blanche 2019, presented by Lo Fi Dance Theory and Toronto Public Library. Artists Avery Plewes, Wynn Holmes and Marie-Hélène Delorme create an immersive sound, video and performance installation and invite you to become part of a collaborative creation in the soaring spaces of Toronto Reference Library.

About the Project

Visitors will enter the soaring Modernist atrium of the Toronto Reference Library to help create “Moriyama’s Continuum”. On the surrounding walls, video will show people performing repetitive movements. Using the footage and its soundscape as a guide, participants can grasp hanging fabric panels, either to manipulate or to put on as costumes, and respond to and reinterpret those movements. The video projections will become a shared code as these simple choreographed movements transmit from person to person. Together, these elements will create a composition that evolves all night.

Architect Raymond Moriyama conceived of this library as a gathering place for creativity. In the months leading up to Nuit Blanche, hundreds of people from across Toronto will work with the artists at other city libraries to craft components. On the night of Nuit Blanche, their piece will be completed—by participants celebrating Moriyama’s iconic social space and Toronto’s public sphere.

About the Artists

Wynn Holmes

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  Wynn Holmes is a choreographer born in Ottawa, Ontario. Her projects lay at the intersections of dance, contemporary art, and performance within which she explores the individual and collective power of bodies in motion.

  Holmes’ work has been exhibited and shown internationally at Fondation Ricard, Le Générateur, Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts, Place Des Arts, Phi Center, Societe des arts technologiques, Lincoln Center, Belgrade National Theatre, Montreal Jazz Festival, Cannes Film Festival, London International Documentary Film Festival, NEW INC. in collaboration with the New Museum, and Center for Performance Research. Publication features include: SHOWstudio, Vogue, V Magazine, i-D, W Magazine, DAZED, and NOWNESS.

  Holmes is the director of Lo Fi Dance Theory – a non profit organization that uses dance based practices to ignite connection, creativity, and community.

Marie Hélène Delorme

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  Marie-Hélène Delorme is a vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist who hails from Montreal. Since unveiling the FOXTROTT moniker to the world with the EP Shields (2012) and her Polaris Prize-nominated debut A Taller Us (2015), released on esteemed UK imprint One Little Indian, her beefy bass lines, captivating melodies and lyrical candour have taken her to New York, London, Berlin and beyond. She has received critical praise and industry plaudits from the likes of BBC (Annie Mac, Lauren Laverne, Jamz Supernova, + Huw Stephens), France Inter, the UK MVAs and Red Bull Music Academy, where she served as a Canadian studio mentor last fall.

Avery Plewes

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  Avery Plewes is a Toronto-born Costume Designer. Her work has been featured in and acclaimed by critics in publications such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Globe and Mail, and Teen Vogue.

  Avery has worked as Costume Designer on a number of feature films including, Jean of the Joneses by Stella Meghie in 2015, the JT Leroy Bio pic Jeremiah Terminator Leroy in 2018 (directed by Justin Kelly, starring Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Diane Kruger, Courtney Love, and Jim Sturgess, among others).

  In the fall of 2018 Avery completed the project Ready or Not with the collective Radio Silence and Fox Searchlight. In addition to her film and television work Avery has designed award winning music videos, internationally renowned short films, and several commercials for brands such as General Mills, Clorox, and Microsoft.

  Avery Plewes is represented by WPA in Los Angeles and Europe.

Toronto Reference Library: A Brief History

Read more about the history of architect Raymond Moriyama and the Toronto Reference Library.