About this Event
Show Details
To reserve a table please call Lula Lounge at 416-588-0307 or book online at www.lula.ca/reservations
Check out the Lula dinner menu: lula.ca/menu
6:00pm - Doors for dinner & drinks
7:00pm - Show
Another Story Bookshop and CBC Ideas Present
On Solidarity: An Evening of Art and Conversation
Featuring a conversation with Astra Taylor and Nahlah Ayed, followed by a panel discussion with Suvendrini Lena, Dania Majid, Thea Lim and Nahlah Ayed.
Featuring music by Roula Said, Juan Dino Toledo and Nano Valverde
Moderated by Nahlah Ayed
Hosted by Samira Mohyeddin
The evening's events will be recorded for broadcast on CBC Radio's program, IDEAS.
Doors open at 6pm for dinner reservations/ Event begins at 7:00pm
Tickets are general admission and do not guarantee seating.
For guaranteed seating reserve a table to enjoy Lula’s tropical fusion menu before the show: https://www.lula.ca/reservations or call 416-588-0307.
Seating for guests without a reservation is limited to availability.
On Solidarity: An Evening of Art and Conversation
Solidarity isn't merely the awareness of having shared interests or values with others. Solidarity signifies something much deeper and alludes to action, a collective response to social and political change. With ever-growing economic inequality and political polarization, there is a push for solidarity across groups to confront the resulting social upheaval. Debtors' collectives, protest marches, mutual aid, cooperative living -- these are all ways that people increasingly on the margins are creating alliances. Art is yet another. What can solidarity as a political force look like? Is it possible to create a shared vision of the future? And is there a way to draw that map together?
About the panelists
ASTRA TAYLOR is cofounder of the Debt Collective, a union of debtors. She is the director of numerous documentaries and the author of The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, and The People’s Platform (winner of an American Book Award), among other works. Her writing has appeared in periodicals including The New Yorker, The New York Times, n+1, and The Baffler. She is an advisor to Lux Magazine and is on the editorial board of Hammer & Hope. She was the 2023 CBC Massey Lecturer. Her new book (co-authored with Leah Hunt-Hendrix) is Solidarity: The Past, Present and Future of a World-Changing Idea.
Thea Lim is the author of An Ocean of Minutes, which was a finalist for multiple national and international prizes for fiction. Her short-form writing has been published in Granta, The Nation, The Paris Review, Best Canadian Stories, and others. She has served as creative writing faculty and mentor in many programs, including the University of Toronto, Sheridan College, the Writers' Trust of Canada, and the University of Guelph, and as a writer in residence at the Toronto Public Library and UTSC. She lives with her family in Tkaronto.
Suvendrini Lena is a playwright and neurologist. She works as the staff neurologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and at the Centre for Headache at Women’s College Hospital. She is a lecturer in psychiatry and neurology at the University of Toronto where she teaches medical students, residents, and fellows. She also teaches a course called Staging Medicine, a collaboration between the Theatre Centre and University of Toronto Postgraduate Medical Education.
Dania Majid is the co-founder and president of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association and is the lead author of ACLA’s 2022 report “Anti-Palestinian Racism: Naming, Framing and Manifestations.” Dania is also the co-founder and artistic director of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival; and she sits on the steering committee for the Hearing Palestine program at the University of Toronto. In addition to being a long-time advocate for the Palestinian and Arab community, Dania is also a human rights lawyer and housing advocate with a legal aid clinic in Ontario and sits on the steering committee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Ontario Chapter. Dania completed her Hon. B.Sc. at the University of Toronto before completing her MES/LLB at York University/Osgoode Hall.
Samira Mohyeddin is a journalist, a scholar of genocide, and the host and producer of the podcast Gay Girl Gone.
About the musicians
Roula Said is a singer, dancer, musician, actor and poet of Palestinian heritage based in Toronto, Canada. Roula has been studying, teaching and performing Arab music and dance for over 25 years. From within her tradition as practiced here in the west (where she has also explored many other styles of movement, music, voice and dance) Roula has created Seven Waves Movement and Embodied Voice, original and innovative methodologies rooted in the Arab Arts and open to the world.
Juan Dino Toledo is a flamenco/world/rock music guitarist, composer and live performer. He has toured and recorded with several bands and solo artists. He released his first acoustic world music solo album in 2021, titled “Samsara” and is the recipient of The Oneness Award given by “One World Music” a UK/European radio station, for the song “Share Love” off the album “Samsara”. The album was produced by D’Arcy McGuire and Juan Dino Toledo and it touches on different types of music from Middle Eastern inspired pieces to Brazilian samba, flamenco, Drum & Bass and more. At the present he collaborates and records with multi instrumentalist Nano Valverde, an experimental music project called The Nano Valverde & Juan Dino Toledo project. They have recorded two albums “Volume 1” & “Volume 2” availableonline. He is also finished recording his first instrumental solo electric guitar fusion album, fusing elements of electronic, experimental, punk and rock titled “Parallel Worlds” to be released soon.
Nano Valverde is a Chilean born musician/composer. He has been performing, and composing for a number of decades with various artists. Nano began his musical journey as a teenager performing in weekly solidarity events organized by Chilean exiles living in Toronto in the mid 1970s. Nano has composed music for various projects including The Jaguar Project, for dancer choreographer Alejandro Roncería, soundscape for the interdisciplinary arts installations Rivers of Blood Flows On, sound for the theatre piece Veins of Copper and the music for the documentary War is not a Game. Nano composed music for Deepti Gupta’s dance piece Quanta and performed in its premiere at The National Arts Gallery in Ottawa, then toured New York and Banff Centre for the Arts. He composed the score for the film Johnny Greyeyes which screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Tobacco Ties dance piece for World Indigenous Dance Festival. He composed and sound designed Refugee Hotel by Carmen Aguirre. He founded Ayekan Ensemble and composed multimedia performance Reading Galeano inspired by texts of Uruguayan writer-historian Eduardo Galeano and multimedia piece Agua/Water.
Nano is presently collaborating with various musicians, artists, and choreographers exploring sound textures using distinct timbres and rhythmic elements using both electronic and acoustic sound elements.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Canada
