First Saturdays: Through Their Eyes
See the past through their eyes.
Visit with Indigenous and other equity-deserving artist at the Village on the first Saturday of the month. Through their art, they ask us to consider history from their perspective.
Art connects us to other people. It opens our eyes to different ways of looking at the world around us and the history of the land we call home.
This Month: Queers in Your Ears storytelling collective shares family-friendly stories with a Queer POV, specially created for the First Saturdays series at The Village. Queers in Your Ears was founded in 1997 by Rico Rodriguez, Jean Bubba and Clare Nobbs and is Toronto’s only LGBTQS2+ storytelling collective. They’ve performed regularly at the Toronto International Storytelling Festival which they’ll be opening in June 2024. For The Village at Black Creek’s celebration of Pride and the LGBTQ2S+ community, Queers in Your Ears is using research conducted by students from University of Toronto about queer lives in the 19th century to imagine what the lives of LGBTQ2S+ might’ve been like at Black Creek!
When Toronto-based storytelling collective Queers in Your Ears (QIYE) was founded by Rico Rodriguez and Clare Nobbs in 1997, telling personal stories about the varied experiences of being LGBTQ2S+ wasn’t anywhere near as common as it is today. Jeffrey Canton joined QIYE in 1998 and these three core members have been creating a space for LGBTQ2S+ tellers as part of the Toronto Storytelling Festival, Nuit Blanche, Myseum Intersections and The ArQuives. In the 25+ years since this innovative group of storytellers first came together, there have been sweeping changes to the landscape of what it means to be queer but QIYE knows how important it is to preserve our experiences – good and bad – and to keep sharing these stories that include personal stories, folktales and stories about LGBTQ2S+ history alive!
TJ Banate aka The Noise Witch is an award-winning artist who explores the intersection of art, music, technology and magic. They weave sound and soul to engulf your ears and enchant your heartstrings. From drag performance to digitally enhanced artwork, they use a combination of mediums to evoke audiences’ curiosity, emotion, and playfulness. The Noise Witch was named a Buddies in Bad Times’ Queer Emerging artist of 2021 and has been performing with Queers in Your Ears since 2021.
As an award-winning performer, educator and writer, Jeffrey Canton’s love of stories has transfixed audiences, students, and readers for over three decades. He is particularly fascinated by transforming traditional stories and modes of telling into new forms driven by personal and collective histories, and popular culture. Toronto’s LGBTQ2S+ history and his own queer past can unfold with a little soft-shoe and a show tune or two. As an educator and long-time member of Toronto’s only LGBTQ2S+ storytelling collective, Queers in Your Ears, he has mentored many young people performers. He has created innovative workshops for Storytelling Toronto. His “Transformations” and “Keeping Our Stories Alive” were the first storytelling workshops focusing on LGBTQ2S+ in Canada. He is currently collaborating with Qu’ART Ottawa to create a workshop for LGBTQ2S+ tellers called “Stories for Healing”. In 2019 he was awarded the Alice Kane Award by Storytelling Toronto.
Rico Rodriguez is a storyteller, story writer, drag performer and a percussionist. He tells folktales, fairytales, fables and legends from the rich and diverse LatinX cultures and stories with LGBTQ2S+ content. He writes and tells stories in Spanish, English and Spanglish about his life and his family and writes and the LGBTQ2S+ community as well. He founded “Queers in Your Ears” with Jean Bubba and Clare Nobbs, Toronto’s only LGBTQ2S+ storytelling collective in 1997.