How to chase 2.5 km of dominoes through downtown Toronto

This weekend, everyone in Toronto is invited to Dominoes — a public-art project that is definitely not the game your grandpa plays. If all goes to plan, roughly 8,000 super sized dominoes will go clattering through the streets on a 2.5 kilometre run, a spectacle that you can chase through the city like a family-friendly take of the Running of the Bulls. 

Of course, if you want to knock down some dominoes, you've got to set them up first. And hundreds of volunteers will do just that. Between 1 and 4 p.m. Sunday, a crew of locals will assemble a trail using light-weight concrete bricks. Beginning at the corner of Niagara and Wellington Sts., the path will zigzag south — travelling along streets, and in and out of buildings.

When every piece has been propped into place, the blocks will come tumbling down — falling like, well, dominoes, as a chain reaction continues past homes and businesses, clack-clack-clacking through more than a dozen points of interest. And the action is scheduled to begin Sunday at 4:30 p.m., when the first block is pushed.

From there, Dominoes will continue to fall outside the Old York Tavern, Stackt Market, Canoe Landing Park, Jumblies Theatre, and 11 more points of interest. (A full route map is available here.) And then finally — an estimated 30 minutes after the first block is knocked — the trail will reach its terminus at the shores of Lake Ontario near Ireland Park. 

Who came up with this idea?

The Bentway is presenting Dominoes, and Sunday's route will connect areas surrounding the organization's home beneath the Gardiner Expressway. The production itself, however, was created by Station House Opera, a British performance company that's brought Dominoes to more than 20 cities around the world since 2009. (It's a reassuring fact if you find yourself doubting the feasibility of a domino run set to traverse downtown Toronto.) 

Dominoes has previously appeared in London, Copenhagen, Melbourne — and, as of earlier this September, Poznań, Poland. Over the years, its had an uncanny ability to lure citizens out of their homes like a concrete Pied Piper. In videos of past productions, locals crowd the domino run, standing mere centimetres from the trail — or jogging alongside the action.

Simply put, it looks like fun. And as Station House Opera has discovered, fun can be a very effective tool if you want to bring strangers together. 

"[Dominoes] is always about connecting different parts of the city," says Julian Maynard Smith, artistic director and co-founder of Station House Opera. Cities are, by nature, a jumble of diverse people and spaces. And as the dominoes fall, they purposefully wind through the rich, poor and in-the-middle neighbourhoods of a city. They travel through public and private areas; towering buildings and patches of parkland. "The idea was that wherever you went, we would try and find those relationships … and make a line that connected all those different kinds of communities," he says. 

You can't play Dominoes without lots and lots of people

"We are closer than we think," says Ilana Altman, co-executive director of The Bentway.  According to her, that's the message of Dominoes — and it's a message Toronto needs to hear. 

"This season, The Bentway has been reflecting on a lot of reports that we've been hearing across our city … about a growing phenomenon of loneliness and a lack of social connection," says Altman, pointing to the Toronto Foundation's Vital Signs Report from 2023, a quality-of-life study that concluded Toronto is one of the loneliest places in Canada. Volunteerism and civic engagement are also on the decline, the report found. "So all of our programming has been geared towards helping to foster greater connectivity amongst neighbours," she says. 

"For us, [Dominoes] was a project that was about making physical connections across the city, but more importantly about connecting neighbours — reconnecting neighbours to each other," says Altman. That process begins on the ground with volunteers, the folks responsible for building the domino run. Without them, Dominoes simply wouldn't work, says Smith. "First of all, you couldn't do it without a lot of people," he says — but even on a conceptual level, Dominoes requires many hands to be effective. The project is as much about linking individuals and communities as it is about traversing the urban landscape.

According to Altman, Torontonians jumped at the chance to be a part of Dominoes. Within a day of announcing a call for volunteers, The Bentway received roughly 200 responses, she says — and more than 300 people are expected to pitch in on Sunday.

Each member of the volunteer crew will be responsible for 30-40 blocks along the route. The path itself was mapped by Station House Opera in collaboration with The Bentway, and during trips to Toronto in the fall of 2023 and spring of 2024, Smith explored the area surrounding The Bentway site, taking note of the landscape's many contrasts: how quickly a neighbourhood of single-family homes gives way to towering condos, for example. 

Where to watch Dominoes

To prevent the chain reaction from going off early, Station House Opera employs a few preventative strategies. The route is built in sections, Smith explains, and for every 10 or 15 blocks, the construction crew leaves a gap big enough to stop a potential disaster. "But it's very rare that you find someone who wants to destroy it," he says. "It's about having fun, and people get that, I think. So mostly people don't want to cause trouble." 

And for those keen on having fun, they'll want to know the best place to view the action. "There's no bad place to watch Dominoes," says Altman. Adds Smith: "You can run along or walk briskly with it — if the crowds let you." 

There are, however, five destinations highlighted on the map — locations where the audience may encounter elaborate structures or unexpected stunts. "Those are great spots to get yourself situated if you want to see some really special parts of the route," says Altman — who'll be at the start point to see the first "push." (For information on road closures and how best to explore the domino run, The Bentway has details available on its website.)

After everything has been knocked down, the dominoes will be swept away. The Bentway plans to find new homes for the blocks, Altman says, but if all goes to plan, Dominoes' effect will be felt for years to come.

"I think there are certain projects that happen in the city that get embedded in our collective memory," says Altman, and that's her vision for Dominoes. "Once you see these projects … they're so special that it changes the way that we think about ourselves as a community, as a city, and they become almost a legend."

Dominoes by Station House Opera will be presented in Toronto by The Bentway on Sunday, Sept. 22. For more information visit www.thebentway.ca.