A Festival of New Work
Presented by Aluna Theatre in association with Factory Theatre
CAMINOS returns to Factory Theatre to create an intersection for outstanding ideas, and artists who take space and speak loudly. This festival of new work presents fresh bold proposals in theatre, dance, and interdisciplinary performance in Toronto.
We are thrilled to be presenting a diversity of works, from emerging and senior artists, each with distinctive styles and approaches to storytelling. With a commitment to exploration, these artists put forth ideas and proposals that invite us to ruminate about our histories and our in-betweenness.
– Beatriz Pizano
This year CAMINOS considers the magical space of the “in-between”. A space where contrast, fusion, confusion, intersectionality, stillness, action, past and present propel fresh movement toward a new path.
October 2
PORDUM
By Sofía Ontiveros
Factory Studio
Run Time: 35 minutes
PORDUM seeks movement beyond societal binaries through heels and contemporary dance fusion. This piece explores three different personas living within the artist’s body: MASCULINE, FEMININE, and PORDUM.
PORDUM is me. My spirit. Masculine, feminine, non-binary, queer. The sun. The moon. A butterfly. A constant death and rebirth. A co-existence of past, present, and future. Laughing while crying, crying while laughing. A space where memory, shame, power, joy, and grief collide. Unlabeled, uncontained, and unapologetically uncertain.
Embracing intersectionality through different lenses, PORDUM fuses contrasting dance styles, explores gender fluidity, and searches for a new path yet to be named.
TEAM
Choreographer & Dancer: Sofía Ontiveros
Costume Design: Arin Aronyk-Schell.
Mami
By isi bhakhomen
Factory Mainspace
Run Time: 60 minutes
Mami is a solo performance that challenges the conventions of what we assume about essential and migrant workers. It’s about the people who clean our bathrooms, who maintain public hygiene, whose acts of service give us the freedom to go about our lives, day in and day out.
Drawing inspiration from Victoria Santa Cruz’s spoken word poem, Me gritaron negra, this semi-autobiographical theatrical experience delves into the intergenerational curses between mothers and daughters. Performed primarily in English, this intimate piece explores lineage, healing, and the lived experience of a Black female identity.
TEAM
Playwright/Performer – isi bhakhomen
Director – desirée livingstone
Dramaturg – Kalale Dalton-Lutale
Assistant Producer – Wei Qing Tan
Sound Designer – Alejandra Nuñez
Choreographer – Jocelyn Bermudez
Lighting Designer – Darren Shaen
Opening night reception
We will have some finger food available downstairs and have the downstairs bar open, music playlist
October 3
Banished
By Erika Batdorf
Factory Studio
Runtime: 30 minutes
Banished is the first draft of a new interactive solo by acclaimed international performer Erika Batdorf that delves into the world of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Through live projection, miniature worlds, live art making, stories and music, Batdorf weaves a haunting narrative across three personas: an 11-year-old trapped in a table, a child named Little Tiny, and the terror of lost time stolen by a raging unretrievable part of her psyche. Banished confronts the unspeakable, challenging what we’re told not to say, the inner conflict around lost memories and how dissociation can teach you how to find safety in a leaf.
Age recommendation: 15+
Content warning: Sexual abuse, Mental Health, Suicide
TEAM:
Creator/Performer/Art Objects- E Batdorf
Dramaturg and Director- Karin Randoja
Scenographer/Projection Design/Dramaturg- Trevor Schwellnus
Choreographic Dramaturg- Kate Digby
Additional music soundscapes- Richard Feren
Advisor- Franco Boni
Artistic Consultant- Teresa Przybyski
Seven Sins
By Falciony Patino Cruz
Factory Mainspace
45 minutes
Seven Sins is a contemporary dance/theatre piece that delves into the seven deadly sins through grotesque, animalistic movement and evocative lighting. Inspired by Dante’s Inferno and Mictlan from Aztec mythology, the show blends ancient allegories with contemporary themes.
This immersive experience holds a mirror to the audience revealing the darkest, most intimate emotions and silent truths of contemporary society. Each sin is disguised within pressing societal issues, including marginalization and social judgment, particularly within a Canadian context.
Seven Sins challenges the audience to reflect on their role within these dynamics, uncovering the tensions and complexities that define our collective human experience.
Age recommendation 16+
Sensory warning: The show will have nudity, smells of essential oils and flashing lights
TEAM
A Subsuelo Collective Production
Director and Choreographer: Falciony Patino Cruz
Dancers and creators:
Alexander Herrera
Lucia Llano
Yui Ugai
Jianna Neufeld
Luis Fernández
Jessica Zepeda
Sound Designer: David Ariza
Producer: Lucia Llano
The Man on Horseback
By Guillaume Bernardi
Factory Studio
Run Time: 30 minutes
The Man on Horseback is a documentary theatre piece about the confrontation of a family story with a colonial history. This investigation starts with a few photographs and documents to uncover new narratives from documents deeply shaped by colonization.
Sparked from Guillaume Bernardi’s own father’s stories of a magical year he spent in Ethiopia when he was 8-years-old, a locked trunk of family photographs reveals that this was only possible through his grandfather’s involvement in the Italian army that occupied Ethiopia in 1936.
The Man on Horseback explores a colonial history and our inability to recognize these pasts within our own stories, a reality that may ring true to Toronto audiences.
TEAM
Devised and performed by: Guillaume Bernardi
Dramaturgy by: Italo Gallardo Betancourt
October 4
Tiger Lilies
By Iris Rhian, Directed by Zoe Marín
Factory Studio
Run Time: 30 minutes
Set inside the washroom of a public high school in North America, Tiger Lilies follows three queer grade-twelve-ers as they are thrust from adolescence into adulthood. As the teenagers struggle to find belonging in their world, in the liminal space before graduation, each cracks under pressures to conform. Tiger Lilies explores the precarious vulnerability of living visibly queer and reveals how the imprint of homophobia in our past lingers into our present. This play exposes how spaces meant to be safe (washrooms) can shape shift away from safety in our current politicization of the (gendered) multi-stall washroom.
Age recommendation: 16+
Content warnings include: mentions of homophobic bullying, sexual assault, and some swearing
TEAM:
Creative Team:
Playwright: Iris Rhian
Director: Zoe Marín
Stage Manager: Hayley Crowder
Sound Designer: Ashley Naomi Skye
Lighting Designer: Simran Kapoor
Intimacy Coordinator- Karley Jagusic
Cast:
Trinity Lloyd as ROWAN
Reena Goze as JESSE
Taylor Garwood as JOSIAH
Marketing Photo Credits:
Photos by Camille Intson
Dead Korean Girl Comedy Show // 처녀귀신 코미디 쇼
Venue: Factory Mainspace
Emily Jung & Jennifer Park / Seagull 1 Seagull 2 Collective
Factory Mainspace
Run Time: 60 minutes
This dark absurdist comedy follows two Korean-Canadian women who die after accidentally falling into a construction pit in Queen’s Park, Toronto. They now have their
ghost-selves to ponder the purgatory in bizarre spaces like Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill. Meanwhile, the fate of the two ghosts are being negotiated between The Canadian Bureau and the Korean Reaper.
This absurd, yet critical story jumps between comedy and drama, and is narrated by a mysterious “playwright” (inspired by traditional Korean storytellers, not the actual playwright), who intervenes, disrupts, and asks difficult questions.
Dead Korean Girl Comedy Show asks: How does “having an Asian woman’s body” put you at risk? Can we be liberated from violence when we no longer have bodies? Is there a comedy that exists within this liberation?
술에 취한 두 여성이 퀸스파크 건설현장에 실수로 빠져 죽는다. 처녀귀신들에게 토론토 대학퀸즈 파크나 오타와 국회의사당같은 것들은 어떤 의미가 있을까? 한국계 캐네디언 귀신들 앞에 황당한 사후 세계가 펼쳐지는 동안 캐나다의 사후공무원과 한국의 저승사자가 그들의 운명을 회의한다. 2027년 초연을 앞둔 “처녀귀신 코미디 쇼”가 Aluna Theatre의 CAMINOS 축제에서 창작과정을 관객들과 공유합니다.
Age recommendation: 16+
Content warnings: Themes of death, anti-Asian racism, ghosts.
Sensory: loud screaming
TEAM:
Performers:
April Park
Izzy Lee Bergman
Janice Jo Lee
Jay Kim
jonnie lombard
Michaela Jinyoung Jang
Monica Garrido Huerta
Paul Smith
Creative Team:
Emily Jung & Jennifer Park, Co-writers
Beatriz Pizano, Director
María Escolán, Associate Director
Trevor Schwellnus, Lighting Designer
Jacob Lin, Sound Designer
Julia Kim, Costume/Wardrobe Designer
Amanda Lin, Stage Manager
Maki Yi, Dramaturg
Producers, Josh Marchesini & Shanae Sodhi
Associate Producer, Gabby Noga
RICARDO
By Sofi Gudiño
Factory Studio
Run Time: 30 minutes
Part flamenco show, part drag king cabaret, this one-man play is a flamenco drag king extravaganza and a love letter to Latin masculinity. Inspired by flamboyant male birds of the tropics, Ricardo is a helpless flirt determined to show off his brightest feathers in the hopes of becoming your next crush.
RICARDO is infused with trans expansive joy, traditional flamenco rhythms, expensive costumes, Mexican bolero music, and the shameless human experience of a quest for love.
TEAM:
Choreography and Performance: Sofi Gudiño
Co-director: Ximena Huizi
Voice: Ana Lía
Guitar: Nicolás Hernández
Outside Eye: Heath V Salazar
Sound Design: Sofia Fly
Costume Design: Rita Benz
Costume/Styling/MUA: Joseph Quezal
Hair by: Sahar B. Agustin-Maleki
October 5
Propuestas
Factory Mainspace
PROPUESTAS – translated as “proposals” – are 10 to 15 minute time slots meant to be executed as fully staged pieces with minimal design elements. PROPUESTAS present ideas in the early stages of development and allow artists to craft short pieces as introductions to their larger works. PROPUESTAS will all be presented on the same stage with quick set changes in between.
After witnessing the PROPUESTA offerings on this Sunday afternoon, join us for our CAMINOS 2025 Closing Gathering with free tamales in the Factory Studio. Eat, chat, and maybe dance with other artists as we reflect on the bold new works we’ve witnessed. This is a great way to convivir – be together – get to know more artists, community members, and the extended Aluna familia.
Molcajete
By Luis Rojas
Molcajete is a multidisciplinary solo performance that blends movement, rhythm, and ritual. Named after the ancient volcanic mortar used in Mexican kitchens, Molcajete becomes a metaphor for ancestry, memory, and transformation. Drawing on elements of puppetry, lighting, music, and performance, the piece explores what happens when tradition, identity, and creativity collide in one vessel. With shifting forms and textures, this work-in-progress invites the audience into a sensory ritual of mixing and making – where the past is ground into the present, and something new begins to take shape.
TEAM
Alfredo Lira
Kristell Marthié
Nicolas Peon
Love and Arepas
By: Lina Maria Aristizabal
Love and Arepas is an exploration of memory, love, and the tension between control and surrender. These select scenes follow Claudia, a woman disconnected from her cultural and familial roots, whose perspective shifts after meeting Elisa, a bold, wise, and hilarious Colombian curandera who has just moved in next door. Through weekly arepa-making sessions, they form a bond, prompting Claudia to reconnect with her past and start to open her mind to different way of being and living, with a little help from Elisa’s medicines.The piece reflects the complexities of diaspora identity and is a celebration of memory, culture, and love.
Age recommendation: 12+
Content Warning: This play includes references to and depictions of plant medicine use
TEAM
Written and Directed by Lina Maria Aristizabal
Performed by Daniela Arango and Alexandra Barberena
Assistant Director: Carlos Cardona
Sound Design by Juan Villegas
Co-Producer Natalia Ruiz Cuartas
MicroVerse in Expansion
By Maria Alejandra Cortes
Journey into the fragmented yet interconnected world of MicroVerse in Expansion. An interactive thought provoking piece that unpacks the weight of human connection and disconnection. From the quiet explosive despair of an individual contemplating a broken heart, to a movement piece in which love is masking a power imbalance, Microverse in Expansion culminates in a stark revelation. As audiences shape the characters’ identities, this piece invites an introspection of the ever-expanding universe of our inner lives.
TEAM
Playwright and Director, Maria Alejandra Cortes
Choreographer and Performer, Maria Paula Carreño
Project Consultant, Carlos Rivera
Age recommendation: 16+
Sensory warning: loud balloon popping
Matria and Marta
By Lilibeth Rivas
Matria and Marta is an exploration of the physical theater and the sound space. How the woman’s body shapes after a forced rebirth and a bold journey to reunite with her lost love. The bridge to find her is built by her memory and dreams; there’s no other option.
Age recommendation: 13+
TEAM
Performer: Lilibeth Rivas
Sound ensemble: Leslie Ortiz
Photography: Josue Ortiz
Free Installation Oct 2-5
Maternar y otras
Alejandra Higuera
Open during box office hours Oct 2-5 in the Factory lobby
Oct 2-4, 7pm-10pm; Oct 5: 1:30pm-5pm
Maternar y otras (Mothering and others) is a multidisciplinary installation exploring the profound relationship between mother and child. Blending video, sound, animation, punch needle embroidery, and tufted rugs, it creates a richly textured sensory space that reflects the emotional and relational complexities of mothering.
The work expands traditional narratives to include self-mothering, step-parenting, chosen family, and shifting identities. It also honours the reciprocal nature of caregiving, centering play, imagination, and the deep wisdom children offer.
Maternar y otras is a space for reflection, tenderness, and connection—an invitation to consider mothering as an evolving, creative, and relational act of care, transformation, and becoming.
TEAM:
Video: Alejandra Higuera in collaboration with Magnolia Higuera, Gavrel Feldman.
Animation collaborator: Ana Higuera.
Composer: David Ariza
