Application Overview
Welcome to the open call for the Rhubarb Festival 2025 — the 46th edition of Canada’s longest-running festival of new and experimental performance works — which happens every February in Toronto, Canada.
We invite you to share your expression of interest in participating as an artist until August 23rd, 2024, 11:59 PM E.T.
The 2025 Festival is on the hunt for artists creating pieces that are clear on artistic intent but tricky to categorize and are itching to play with and to an audience.
For this expression of interest, we welcome ideas at any stage of their development. Selected proposals might be asked to submit a more detailed application or invited for an online conversation with the curator so we better understand the scope of your idea — in a case-by-case format.
The 46th Rhubarb Festival
Rhubarb 46 will be the first season for our incoming Festival Director, Ludmylla Reis, following 2024 programming from an inspiring artistic committee that kept our festival vibrating after we said “see you around” to Clayton Lee in 2023.
After 46 years, we continue to see Rhubarb as one of Toronto’s premiere venues for Live Art and Experimental Performance, where our most curious audiences indulge their appetite for the unknown, braving the frigid misery of February to reach the heat and wildness of Rhubarb.
Live Art is often collaborative, process-based, context-specific, and audience-engaged. It challenges who is making art, how they are making it, and who they are making it for.
And so, we see Rhubarb as a place to nurture experiments, foster unique collaborations, and generate new ways of encountering performance. We’re here to work with you to grow your impulses.
Expressions of Interest
We invite ideas from all time-based art that demand to exist in relation to an audience, including (non-exclusively!!) dance, theatre, performance art, experimental concerts, durational pieces, interactive pieces, burlesque, clown, interdisciplinary works, and so on.
In your expression of interest, we are curious about the specificity of your work:
- what curiosity ignited the work you want to share in the festival?
- who are you trying to reach/communicate with this work?
- how do you see the audiences engaging with it?
- what materials and resources do you need to make it come true?
In welcoming our new Festival Director, we are eager to welcome artists unfamiliar with Rhubarb, hoping to connect them with our incredible network and foster a deeper sense of community with thought-provoking Rhubarb artists of previous seasons.
At Rhubarb, we care deeply about an artist’s passion for their art. The work we present is a result of our care in artist relationships, as we believe that artists can create culturally shifting performance pieces when well nurtured.
HOW CURATION WILL WORK:
In recognition of the labour applications take while balancing all the information we need to truly support your work, we are doing our call out in three steps:
One: Fill out the application form above and tell us the basis of your idea, your work, and who you are.
Two: We will create a longlist of artists for the festival. Some long-listed artists may be invited to answer additional questions about the scope of work and other details, on a case-by-case basis.
Three: Selected artists will receive the official invitation.
This approach supports the curation of our programming in a sustainable, cohesive, and transparent way for both the artists and our team. The final programming for the 46th Rhubarb Festival will be composed of artists selected from this application process, plus additional invitees selected by the Festival Director.
Questions?
If you have any questions about the Festival, your application, access support, prefer other methods of submission (alternate languages, translation, recorded video/audio, etc.), or desire support to complete your application, please drop in to virtual office hours with Rhubarb Festival Director Ludmylla Reis:
August 2nd – 10 AM to 11 AM and 7 PM to 8 PM
August 16th – 10 AM to 11 AM and 7 PM to 8 PM
Fill out this form to receive the office hours Zoom link.
Do you not have a piece ready for Rhubarb 46 but want to introduce yourself as an artist? Say hello here.
ABOUT THE RHUBARB FESTIVAL
Established in 1979, the Rhubarb Festival is produced by Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and is Canada’s longest-running festival of new performance. For over three decades, Rhubarb has encouraged established artists to take new risks and emerging artists to explore the possibilities of performance in a supportive space. Over the course of its history, Rhubarb has had an immeasurable impact on the local and Canadian cultural landscape by acting as a seeding ground for new work. A great number of Rhubarb projects have gone on to be further developed and presented in Toronto, across Canada, and internationally.
ABOUT BUDDIES IN BAD TIMES THEATRE
Established in 1979, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is Toronto’s leading destination for artistically rigorous alternative theatre and a world leader in developing queer voices and stories for the stage. Buddies offers a year-round program that includes a full season of queer theatre, new works festivals, artist residencies, and intergenerational training and education initiatives. In its 45-year history Buddies has welcomed over one million people into its home in the heart of Toronto’s queer village and has premiered over 1000 new works for the stage, making it the largest and longest-running queer theatre company in the world.