Luminato announces garden parties, events for June festival

The organizers of the Luminato Festival are throwing 10 consecutive garden parties this summer to recognize the ninth annual celebration of art, music and stage across Toronto.

With a theme of urban garden, there will be a garden soiree every night of the festival beginning June 19.

"Our festival hub at David Pecaut Square will transformed into a garden. So it will be the biggest backyard of Toronto," said Jörn Weisbrodt, the artistic director for Luminato.

Besides the nightly garden parties, there will be what Luminato hopes are some big draws.

For the first time since shutting down, the Hearn Generating Station in the Port Lands will open to the public and will turn into a massive alternative and electronic music and laser show. It will be called the Unsound Toronto Festival.

Luminato will also host David Byrne's world premiere of Contemporary Color, which brings together pop stars with 10 high-school colour guard teams, performing acrobatic routines with props including flags, rifles and sabres. The arena-scale staging of sport, music and culture will include Kelis, Nelly Furtado, How To Dress Well, Devonte Hynes and more.

Then there's the 1,000-person performance, Apocolypsis. Written by Raymond Murray Schafer, it's said to be the largest production to ever take the stage in Toronto.

"This is not like you sit there and you watch. You are part of this event," said Caroline Hollway, producer at Luminato.

Also a part of the festivities are spoken-word performances like Who Killed Spalding Gray? as a part of Monologues 7 mini-festival, and discussions with artists and musicians, like St. Vincent.

More than 700,000 people turned out during the festival last year, at a cost of $11 million. And despite some turmoil about the festival's future, a guaranteed $2.5-million contribution from the province until 2017 appears to have secured the festival for the time being.

A full list of events can be read here.