Chronicle - Summer 2010

QUEBEC CITY

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MONTREAL

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TORONTO

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SUMMER 2010

THE ALLIED PROPERTIES REIT TENANT MAGAZINE

WINNIPEG

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KITCHENER

Montreal marketers at Sid Lee turn common space into public art place

12 BRIGHT IDEA Luminato CEO’s fest draws young new audience to city’s art institutions

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Kobo’s new eReader takes on the competition – but software is the real play

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BuskerFest: World’s largest gathering of street performers

PLUS yap Films’ Dive Detectives Calphalon Grilling Tips Totum’s Tabala Workout Quebec’s best toy store

Whether you’re working over an open flame or using a grill pan, Toronto Calphalon Culinary Center’s executive chef Susie Reading offers a few tips to help you hone this timeless summer ritual.

1. MOVE YOUR MEAT First, preheat the grill and wipe some oil on it. Then, take your meat and place it presentation side down on the grill, says Reading. This is when you will get the hottest heat and the best grill marks. Before you flip it, give it a quarter turn. (You’ll know it’s ready to turn if the meat ‘releases’ easily from the grill, says Reading.) It’ll add some nice X-shaped grill marks but more importantly, it’ll improve cooking, says Reading explaining that you always have to move the meat to another spot on the grill because the spot it has been grilling on has now been cooled by the moisture escaping the meat.

4. JUICIER CHICKEN Keep your chicken from drying out by keeping the fat on, suggests Reading. In other words, don’t go for boneless, skinless breasts. Instead, grill breasts with the skin on or try thighs. To check for doneness on chicken, set the skin side down and check the meat by pressing on it with tongs. The juices should run clear.

5. GIVE IT A REST Whatever the meat, make sure you give it time to settle before cutting it. Reading recommends fives minutes to allow the juices to redistribute themselves evenly throughout the meat (rather than have the juices run all over your cutting board).

2. BRING YOUR VEGGIES BACK TO THE SAUCE If you’ve been marinating vegetables, return them to the marinade when they are finished grilling (they’ll have grill marks if they’re ready). “The warm veggies will continue to absorb the marinade, but don’t do this with meat,” she adds.

6. GRILL YOUR FRUIT Reading says fruit is an often overlooked grilling item. “Anything with high sugar and not too much moisture, like mango, pineapple, peaches and plums will grill well. Look for something that has structure,” she suggests. Cut these into large pieces and make sure the grill is hot, “because when those sugars come out, they have to caramelize,” she explains, adding that if there are no grill marks, it’s too soon to remove it.

3. RESIST THE URGE TO POUR Don’t pour the extra marinade all over your grillables, says Reading. “You’ll go from a nice, dry heat to adding too much moisture and lowering the temperature,” she says, adding that you should shake off any excess liquid before adding meat or veggies to the grill.

To learn more about the Calphalon Culinary Center on King Street West’s summer class schedule, visit www.calphalon.com alliedpropertiesreit.com • 2

IN

TORONTO

Calphalon Culinary Center’s Summer Grilling Tips

DESIGN

Toronto designer’s start-up focused on modest budgets and most efficient use of space in historic buildings.

By Micayla Jacobs

ST. LAWRENCE MARKET AREA, TORONTO / – Stacey Cohen sees interior design as a process. While her fledgling firm, IBSC (Interiors by Stacey Cohen), has committed an almost equal portion of its existence to residential and commercial projects, it is the process of working through the development of commercial space that has Cohen hooked on the work.

When she was working with Cresford Developments designing a model suite for its project at 399 Adelaide West, and later sourcing finishes and working with purchasers at NXT on Windermere Drive, Cohen began to learn more about the construction side of the business, which led her to explore more commercial work.

“What I really liked was the design and space planning aspect, working with project managers and being part of a process where you can see a project develop,” she says from her modest space at 47 Colborne Street.

IMPACT OF A SMALL SPACE Walking into her small, captivating second floor office, it is obvious Cohen has a fresh perspective. A dramatic wallpaper backdrop of New York City coupled with an oversized chandelier and a reclaimed wood desk work to create a sense of liveliness.

Her keen eye and ambitious outlook have her working on projects as diverse as residential custom builds handling everything from furniture sourcing and placement to color schemes and space planning, to commercial projects where she works on space planning, project management, to bidding and tendering, and sourcing finishes.

Her space planning experience came into play this winter helping technology firm Kobo, which launched its e-reader this spring, sort out the organization of its new offices at 364 Richmond Street West for its fast-growing staff.

DESIGNING FOR BRICK AND BEAM Market researcher Phase 5 on Spadina Ave. worked with Cohen to sort out the unique demands it has on its brick and beam space.

“They run a lot of focus groups, so they wanted space for their employees to work without being disturbed by the flow of people moving in and out of the conference spaces,” says Cohen, a graduate of the International Academy of Design and Technology in Toronto.

Indeed, Cohen owes much of her early success to her enthusiasm. She is doing what she is passionate about and “getting to know all different kinds of people while expressing creativity.”

Cohen is focused on creating a special connection with the client. “It’s the personal and collaborative connection that I create with each client that makes it a unique experience,” she explains, adding that it is important for her to “try and reflect the client rather than myself.”

Interiorsbystaceycohen.com

3 • SUMMER 2010

MONTRÉAL

DÉPASSER LES LIMITES DE LA C RÉATIVITÉ Sid Lee s’empare d’un couloir à la Cité Multimédia pour créée une galerie d’art CITÉ MULTIMÉDIA, MONTRÉAL / – L’agence montréalaise Sid Lee, qui compte trois ateliers (Montréal, Amsterdam et Paris), s’emploie continuellement à dépasser les frontières.

C’est une philosophie d’ailleurs totalement ancrée dans son approche créative et qui s’inscrit au coeur de Sid Lee Collective, un incubateur d’art dont les projets visent à donner des ailes à l’inspiration et à faire passer du concept à la réalité des notions artistiques insolites, comme ces oreillers sur lesquels figurent de photos de personnes endormies, ou cette gamme d’articles de cuisine ornés de citations et d’illustrations culinaires.

Le dernier concept en date de l’équipe est d’avoir transformé un passage pour piétons en galerie d’art juste devant les bureaux de l’agence au 75 rue Queen.

En fait, suite à la récente création de maison de production Jimmy Lee et au lancement de Sid Lee Architecture, Sid Lee, nommée Agence de l’année par la revue Marketing Magazine en décembre dernier, occupe tout le premier étage de l’édifice et fait de ce long couloir l’attrait principal du lieu, devenu la vitrine de la créativité du groupe.

Sur deux murs peints et grâce à un système à rails, Sid Lee Collective propose ici une œuvre conceptuelle en exposant deux séries de créations – La collection de chaises SUCC (Slightly Uncomfortable Chair Collection) en photo sur ses murs blancs et Our Montreal, série de dix œuvres sur le visage bétonné de l’est du couloir.

Accidental Art Encounters CITE MULTIMEDIA, MONTREAL / – With two studios in Europe (one in Amsterdam and another in Paris), Montreal-based ad agency Sid Lee is very proactive when it comes to reaching beyond its borders.

It’s a philosophy firmly rooted in its approach to creativity and one that is at the heart of the Sid Lee Collective, an art incubator whose projects are meant to let loose the dogs of inspiration and move fanciful notions like pillows with pictures of people sleeping and a brand of kitchenware with illustrated quotes about food from concept to reality.

Its latest concept is public walkway turned art gallery in the corridor outside its 75 rue Queen offices. In fact, given the recent addition of production house Jimmy Lee and the launch of Sid Lee Architecture, the agency, named Marketing’s Agency of the Year in December, occupies all the first floor, making the long hallway centre ice in this, the shop’s creative arena.

CI-HAUT : La collection de chaises SUCC (Slightly Uncomfortable Chair Collection) a été créée pour répondre au problème des réunions sans fins qui sont devenues monnaie courante dans les entreprises. CI-HAUT, MILIEU : En 2008, les artisans du collectif Sid Lee ont partagé leur vision de Montréal avec les habitants de Mexico dans une exposition urbaine organisée par le Mouvement Art Public (MAP). Le thème de l’exposition, “Montréal en quelques secondes,” est representé en 10 affiches qui reflètent facètes de la métropole.

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Painting two walls and hanging tracks to fill the spaces with two series of works, the collective brings a concept piece – For shorter Meetings on its white walls and Our Montreal, a series of 10 pieces it will use to dot the concrete verticals of the east side.

5 • ÉTÉ 2010

TORONTO

The iTunes of eReading 4.72 inches

Kobo e-reader’s no frills functionality and competitive pricing is less about the gadget and more about its ability to power reading on any portable device, anywhere.

By Yvan Marston

RICHMOND STREET WEST, TORONTO / – It’s not very big and you can’t do much more than read with it, but that’s the point. As e-readers go, these qualities make the Kobo about as close to its ancestor – the book – as any of its competitors.

As this growing e-book retailer takes up in its new offices at 364 Richmond Street West, having outgrown the space it occupied with Indigo Books & Music, a 60% shareholder, Kobo (an anagram for ‘book’) may look like the newest gadget in the growing e-reading world, but it is first and foremost about the software.

Indeed, while the retail launch of the paperback-sized device in May was a significant milestone, so too was its position this April as one of the first eReading applications on Apple’s new iPad other than the iBooks app.

The Kobo eReader, which retails for $149, deliberately eschews the multi-functionality offered by other tablets and readers. It uses a directional pad and four side buttons for control, has a quilted back for handling comfort, holds 1 GB of books (which works out to roughly 1,000 titles) and has no 3G capabilities.

A FOCUS ON CONTENT In the content and delivery equation that often defines these types of innovations, Kobo lies somewhere left of delivery, with its no-frills device acknowledging that delivery mechanisms are incidental and that a user’s ability to manage content is what is important.

“How long do people keep their cell phones? Two, maybe three years?” asks Michael Serbinis, CEO of the seven-month old firm formerly known as Shortcovers. “But your library

Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis with Indigo’s Heather Reisman at the launch of the new eReader this spring.

of books, you’ll want to keep forever. The devices will come and go, but the content is what you want to hold onto.”

Amazon, for example, uses proprietary file formats limiting e-books bought on its web site to being read on its Kindle, but the epub open file format the Kobo employs is fast becoming the accepted standard, allowing readers to move their books from laptop to Blackberry to iPhone to e-reader.

“When you buy a book from Indigo and another from WalMart, you don’t have to keep them in separate rooms in your house – and that’s the idea, that you should be able to get Kobo books anywhere and read them anywhere,” says Serbinis, who began his career in Silicone Valley as an early search engine developer.

THE ITUNES OF EREADING Kobo is hoping to become to e-reading what iTunes is to music, and powering other e-retailers, device companies and mobile carriers is an essential part of the company’s growth strategy, he says. And since e-ink, the trademarked electronic screen that most closely resembles the printed page, remains the industry standard and the medium to which readers are most likely to migrate, a simple device is all that was needed. Enter the Kobo e-reader.

Besides Canadian distribution through Indigo, Kobo’s other investors will also serve to form an international network. Borders in the U.S. will begin distribution this summer as will Redgroup out of Australia and New Zealand.

“It’s interesting that books were among the last categories to go when it’s the easiest to digitize and distribute,” remarks Serbinis, adding that the technology to do this has been around for decades, but the content was lacking. “You couldn’t get the latest best seller,” he says.

The traditional profit model for book publishing is a complex system of royalties and returns. E-books further complicated matters by eliminating costs such as printing and shipping. Now that most publishers are on board and back catalogues, which is where most publishers derive the greatest profit, are being digitized, the move to electronic books is left to the adopters.

“And all content is going digital,” says Serbinis. “People just expect to get their content when they want it.”

7.25 inches

The Kobo eReader has a directional pad and four side buttons for control and holds 1 GB of books (roughly 1,000 titles).

It also uses a widely accepted file format, so readers can move their books from laptop to Blackberry to iPad to e-reader.

ACTUAL SIZE

Kobobooks.com

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7 • SUMMER 2010

THREAT ASSESSMENT

EXCHANGE DISTRICT, WINNIPEG / – Dave MacKay U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY RECOGNIZES DANGER The doesn’t work in law enforcement or the military, but he importance of agri-retailers in restricting access to dangerous knows a lot about the key ingredients needed to make a chemicals has been recognized by the U.S., which provides terrorist bomb or produce crystal meth. tax credits and grants to domestic retailers to beef up their security. But in Canada, retailers would be expected to pay For much of the last four years, he has been in discussions 100% of their site security costs. with Ottawa bureaucrats, MPs and senators over the need for security surrounding agricultural fertilizers and chemicals.

If this public policy stands, retailers say they will have to raise prices, a move that will effectively see Canadian Of chief concern is the protection of ammonia, a farmers picking up the tab for security upgrades, something commonly used source for adding nitrogen to soil that is that will ultimately affect not only domestic food production also employed in one form for the illicit production of and prices, but an ability to compete internationally in crystal meth, and in another as a feedstock to make world markets. ammonium nitrate, used in the fabrication of improvised explosives (in January, Afghanistan banned ammonium CAAR is advocating Ottawa level the economic playing nitrate to deprive militants of this resource). field by sharing the burden of security costs for agri-businesses.

Having already done so for Canadian port facilities demonIt is a highly explosive substance when mixed with strates that there is public precedent for supporting Canada’s diesel fuel, explains MacKay, adding that it was used in vital economic sectors. MacKay’s team the Oklahoma City bombing and is urging the Canadian government in the London bus explosions. to develop a crop input security tax “The back room chatter is “It is the weapon of choice for credit program to retain home-grown terrorism, hacks and criminals. It that this issue is not sexy business in Canada while serving the needs to be secured along with enough to be on [an MP’s] interests of public safety, a key mandate other explosive agri-chemicals. The of the federal government. radar screen… until risk associated with these products To date, despite hundreds of something blows up.” is why they are no longer used in meetings on Parliament Hill, dozens Western Canada, other than by – Dave MacKay of letters, the support of opposition farmers importing it through the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers parties and farm groups as well as Port of Churchill,” he says. multiple appearances in front of Parliamentary Committees, CAAR’s proposal is largely being THE $6 BILLION FERTILIZER TRADE As president of ignored by the minority Conservative government, says MacKay. the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers (CAAR), an organization that represents close to 1,000 agricultural “The back room chatter is that this issue is not sexy retailers who in turn supply Canada’s farmers, MacKay enough to be on their radar screen... until something finds himself on the front line of a fertilizer and chemical blows up,” he adds. trade worth over $6 billion dollars.

A HOST OF OTHER CHALLENGES Serving as the voice of the “There are other issues, but I’m not sure they are ready sector responsible for marketing nearly $10 billion in crop for MP consumption and our ‘ask’ on those is not as inputs, equipment and services to Canadian farmers, CAAR specific as it is here,” he says from the association’s offices has a lot of irons in the fire. at 70 Arthur Street in Winnipeg’s Exchange District.

Lobbying site security funding is among the hottest, but it And here, the ‘ask’ is funding for site security. is in the context of a host of other challenges including highly Agri-retailers handle, store and transport dangerous goods competitive markets (last year agricultural retailers were left like anhydrous ammonia and crop protection chemicals on a holding fertilizer inventory when farmers balked at sustaining daily basis, and at some point they expect to see regulations higher input costs), and an industry trend toward consolidation requiring them to secure these. (less members means less revenue for the association).

Adding perimeter fencing, security lighting and hardware, Formed in 1995 following the dissolution of the regional cameras, motion detection systems, alarm systems as well Western Fertilizer and Chemical Dealers Association, as training staff could cost up to $100,000 on a one- to CAAR derives its revenues from membership dues, its three-acre site, estimates MacKay, whose association is seeking annual convention, advertising sales in its magazine $50 million in the form of a tax credit or rebate program CAAR Communicator and by offering training (e.g. crop to help its members implement changes they expect will management as well as dangerous goods training). cost the industry an overall $100 million.

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Caar.org

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9 • SUMMER 2010

WINNIPEG

Protecting fertilizer and chemicals from terrorists and criminals just one of the major issues Winnipeg-based agri-retail association is tackling.

QUÉBEC

L’univers fabuleux de

BEST TOY STORE IN QUEBEC

BENJO

NOUVO ST-ROCH, QUÉBEC / - Pour Benjo, Noël est bien entendu un moment crucial, mais pour ce célèbre magasin de jouets de Québec, souvent comparé au fameux FAO Schwartz de New York, l’été a pris une réelle importance. « L’année de la célébration de notre 400e anniversaire a été formidable et nous nous sommes demandé comment nous pourrions encore mieux faire », explique Valérie Hamel, la directrice de Benjo.

En s’appuyant sur ses liens étroits avec certains acteurs clés du tourisme local, comme le Château Frontenac, et sur son « Benjo Bus », navette à heures régulières mise à la disposition des touristes au départ des campings et de certaines attractions touristiques de la ville, l’équipe de Benjo s’emploie à susciter l’intérêt pour son extraordinaire magasin de 25 000 pieds carrés et pour le tout naissant quartier Nouvo-Saint-Roch.

De loin considéré comme le meilleur magasin de jouets de la province, Benjo est situé au cœur de ce quartier en pleine expansion avec deux entrées, l’une rue St-Joseph et l’autre boulevard Charest Est. Il propose une quinzaine de départements répartis sur deux espaces : le magasin lui-même, un concept en forme d’étoile, sans allées mais avec une sorte de piste circulaire au centre qui permet de s’orienter et où couleurs, bannières, formes et sons se disputent l’attention du client; puis de l’autre côté, l’atelier resto-brico, où sont organisées des séances de bricolage, adjacent à une pièce souvent réservée pour des fêtes d’enfants.

Pendant la fin de semaine, la mascotte Benjo, grenouille verte de sept pieds arborant un large sourire et un banjo, sillonne le magasin à la rencontre des enfants alors qu’un robot grandeur nature déambule à l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur du magasin, s’adressant aux passants pour attirer le client dans ce fabuleux royaume du jouet. Enfin, un petit train, conducteur à bord, promène les enfants d’un bout à l’autre du magasin leur permettant de repérer rapidement les incroyables trésors qui les entourent.

With close ties to key tourism players like the Chateâu Frontenac, and a regularly scheduled Benjo bus picking up out-of-towners from local camping grounds and other tourist spots in the city, the team at Benjo has worked hard to draw interest to its whimsical 25,000-square-foot showroom and the burgeoning Nouvo St-Roch neighbourhood.

Inévitablement, les magasins de jouets tirent leur succès de l’ambiance qu’ils dégagent et de l’expérience qu’ils offrent aux petits. C’est pourquoi Valérie Hamel et son équipe organisent tout au long de l’année des événements divers et variés visant à stimuler l’imagination des enfants.

Bien entendu, les plus attendues sont les activités de Noël, notamment la nuit magique où, à la suite d’un concours, 30 enfants de sept à dix ans sont sélectionnés pour passer la nuit sur place.

La parade des jouets du mois de novembre est également très prisée : elle attire quelque 80 000 personnes et permet à Benjo d’accueillir 40 000 personnes la fin de semaine où elle a lieu.

Certes Benjo cherche à développer sa clientèle touristique, mais son principal objectif est d’attirer un nombre croissant de familles à St-Roch. « Nous sommes une sorte de moteur pour le quartier », déclare Valérie Hamel en expliquant que, pendant la semaine, les rues du quartier se remplissent de poussettes parce que les gens viennent au magasin de jouets puis restent pour se promener dans le quartier.

Le secteur du jouet est un secteur qui pèse lourd. Selon les estimations des professionnels, un enfant reçoit à sa naissance 17 cadeaux en moyenne. Chez Benjo, le mini baby-boom québécois de 2006, marqué par la plus grosse augmentation de naissances sur un an depuis près d’un siècle, n’est pas passé inaperçu – les cadeaux pour nouveaux-nés étant le département le plus important du magasin.

Autre département en croissance bien que moins essentiel : la boutique de vêtements haut de gamme pour enfants. Elle est le seul magasin de Québec proposant des articles de marque Burberry, Lacoste et Hugo Boss pour les enfants.

Malgré tout, ce sont les jouets qui font l’attraction du lieu et cet été, à Québec, ce sont à la fois les touristes, les enfants et les parents qui chercheront le « Benjo Bus » et sa promesse d’un petit tour au Nouvo St-Roch.

Easily recognized as the best toy store in the province, Benjo sits in the heart of the district with entrances on both Rue St-Joseph and Boulevard Charest Est and features some 15 departments spread over two sections: one the store itself, an aisle-less, star-shaped layout with a circular path in the centre as your only guide where colours, banners, shapes and sounds compete for your attention; and the other the café, where craft workshops are held adjacent to a frequently booked party room.

Mascot Benjo, a seven-foot-tall frog with a permanent grin and a banjo, can be found wandering the store on weekends as a full-sized robot buzzes about, sometimes even outside, interacting with passersby and drawing more people into this dedicated toy environment.

A ride-on train, complete with engineer, takes kids through the store and into a tunnel, giving them a quick reconnaissance of the treasures around them.

Benjo.ca

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11 • ÉTÉ 2010

Photo: Kar Wai Ng

Photo: Kevin Westenberg

BRIGHT

Photo: Pi Media

Photo: Luminato

IDEA

Rufus Wainwright's Prima Donna, 2010

Yonge Dundas Square, 2008

Toronto arts fest Luminato is influencing a young, multicultural audience to experience more of what the city’s institutions have to offer.

Luna, 2007

Photo: Luminato

By Yvan Marston

Light on your Feet, 2009

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DELIVERING ARTS CONTENT In the digital age, slowly growing an event to maturity is an almost forgotten paradigm. Despite its links to cultural organizations and its reliance on public funding and corporate sponsorship, Luminato came up like a dot com, fast and full of promise.

At its core, it’s an arts delivery mechanism designed to work the relationship between the arts consumer, the artists and the sponsors. And four years on, it is functioning well beyond expectations.

In the past three festivals, some 3.5 million people experienced Luminato events, which include music, visual arts, theatre, film, literature, design, food and fashion. Touring dance and theatre companies are now calling to participate in the event that has featured 22 world premieres, six North American premieres and 16 Canadian premieres and even began commissioning works after its second year.

But most importantly, its market research found that Luminato audiences were frequently 10 years younger than the average 55-year-old patron hosted by almost every other major arts organization. And at the festival’s free events, 81 percent of the audience was below the age of 35.

RedBall Project Toronto, 2009

Photo: Stephanie Berger

QUEEN STREET EAST, TORONTO / - In the second week of June in 2007, with the stress of locking in sponsors only days behind her and Toronto’s newest arts fest just hours old, Luminato’s CEO Janice Price arrived at her Queen’s Quay condo around midnight exhausted.

On the streets and paths below, however, throngs of participants were still milling about the water’s edge.

The inaugural festival’s light installation Pulse Front had just shut down its twenty computer-linked handlebars that transmitted the heart beats of participants to searchlights streaming above Harbourfront Centre.

“That’s when I knew we’d captured a public readiness for this kind of event,” recalls Price, the energetic CEO of the four-year-old arts festival whose offices have grown from a bit of spare space in the Queen Richmond Centre to 5,000 square feet in the airy former offices of Wish magazine.

TOUCH AND EXPERIENCE Indeed, audiences don’t just show up at Yonge and Dundas square to see a band, they get a dance lesson and become participants in an event.

And key sponsors like L’Oreal cottoned on to the ‘touch and experience’ component of the festival to offer experience enhancements, often in the form of makeover tents where participants can get free treatments.

“We’re careful to make sure there’s a fit between the event and the sponsor,” says Price, and that sponsors get a lot of feedback on audience impressions through Luminato’s marketing research.

Price talks about leveraging investments not only because of the festival’s corporate sponsors’ but because of the very meaningful public funding it receives. $193 million is what Luminato’s research estimates was the visitor expenditure generated as a result of its 2009 festival. In terms of attendance and number of artists, this is one of the world’s top arts festivals, but drawing from abroad remains a secondary goal.

“When we started, I said we need to build it so that Toronto falls in love with it first,” recalls Price.

Indeed, connecting new generations of arts patrons with the city’s cultural infrastructure is the ultimate act of sustainability, and one that will draw more artists and cultural tourists than any international marketing campaign ever could.

Luminato.com

Pulse Front, 2007

13 • SUMMER 2010

TORONTO

A BRIDGE TO NEW EXPERIENCES In the dotted cultural landscape of Toronto, a multi-arts fest could have been perceived as a threat by other brick and mortar institutions, but Luminato’s founders Tony Gagliano and the late David Pecaut brought other arts organizations to the table from the start. When most of these theatres ‘go dark’ for the summer season, Luminato was intended, among other things, as a last arts hurrah.

Rather than bookending the arts season, Luminato’s research found its events were acting as a bridge to other arts events. Over 70 percent of respondents in a post-event survey indicated that after having attended a Luminato event, they were more inclined to attend a performing arts event throughout the year. In other words, the next generation of arts consumer was connecting with Luminato.

“It removes a barrier that a young person or an immigrant might feel when walking towards a big theatre, opera house or concert hall in Toronto,” says Price, whose resume includes management stints at the Kimmel Centre in Philadelphia, the Lincoln Centre in New York as well as Roy Thomson Hall and the Stratford Festival.

“We’re kind of a safe portal for people to have a high quality fun arts experience,” she adds.

Toronto’s yap films uses on-going investigations into history and science to demolish popular beliefs and solve a few mysteries.

By Yvan Marston

Photos: yap films

and eventually earned his first Emmy in 1995 Outside his door, partitions divide the space that for The Plague Monkeys, a documentary he is active with fifteen production staff and spotted co-produced, wrote, and directed for the CBC about with padded cases readying high-definition cameras the emergence of the Ebola virus. for an upcoming shoot.

Halpern and Duffy have worked together under It’s the difference between recounting history and the “yap films” brand since 1997. In 2002, the discovering it, says Halpern on yap films’ approach, company was organized into Canadian and British citing the company’s battlefield archaeology series, Finding the Fallen, as an example. It’s all about corporate entities. The two work closely together, current investigations and doesn’t use any archival with Halpern running things in Canada and Duffy footage. operating yap films (UK) in Leeds, England.

Here, archaeologists excavate a First World War Feeding content hungry networks with quality battlefield in France or Belgium, find a watch or documentaries, yap films produces roughly 20 hours a mug, for example, and forensics experts and of television a year and serves the likes of the CBC, historians then trace it back to its owner and his History Television (Canada, U.S. and U.K.) HBO, ancestors.

National Geographic and Britain’s Channel 4.

“In each episode we literally didn’t know There were very few what the story would opportunities for independent “When we start the process be,” he says, explaining production houses when of making a film, we really that the excavation is Halpern began work in the don’t know what the end is.” late 1980s, and while the just the start of a mystery that takes multichannel universe has – Elliott Halpern, yap films months to unfold, provided more demand, it often with dramatic and has also quickened the pace. poignant results. ’CONTENT THE PLACE TO BE’ Beyond expanding its But science also gets yap films’ investigative documentary line up and looking for opportunities to treatment. explore fiction, yap films seems focused on steaming ahead. Halpern is curious but not worried about UNFOLDING SCIENCE In O’Shea’s Big Adventure a the changes television as a medium is undergoing herpetologist is sent in search of an elusive reptile or with the Internet pulling at the attention span of snake, but sometimes the team doesn’t find what it’s what was once a given audience. looking, and it doesn’t matter, says Halpern. “They find interesting things along the way, so you get “I have always felt that content is the place to that this is actually unfolding as you are watching,” be. Whatever the means of distribution, someone adding that not finding something also works to will always need content,” he says, adding that give the series credibility. documentaries are big projects that require adequate funding – and that’s where things will change for him.

One of its latest series, Storm Planets, uses high-definition computer animation to show what “Just as there will be multiple ways to reach one’s the wildest weather on other worlds might look like audience, I think there will be multiple ways of if it occurred here on earth. What would a Martian financing,” he says. dust storm do to a city? What would an alien wind “It’s a fantastic time to be in the business. No one do to the Golden Gate Bridge? can afford to continue to do things the way they have “The trouble with most astronomy shows is that been done,” says Halpern with a hint of excitement they don’t offer a sense of scale,” explains Halpern. as the unexpected looms.

Indeed, it’s an unwritten ending, an ongoing YAP SINCE 1997 Trained as a lawyer, he worked investigation, and for yap films, that’s business as a civil litigator for a Bay Street law firm when he as usual. began writing for film on weekends in the 1980s

“

KING WEST CENTRAL, TORONTO / – Much of how Elliott Halpern’s projects unfold tends to be unexpected. Producing investigative documentaries has a way of doing that. But perhaps one of the best-known surprises in his eight years as co-head of yap films has to be when a recent Dive Detectives episode prompted singer Gordon Lightfoot to change part of the lyrics in his hit 1976 song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Halpern, who operates yap films with his U.K.-based business partner Pauline Duffy, originally screened the documentary for Lightfoot just to get permission to use the song.

But the singer, who is close with the victims’ families, liked that the findings suggested a rogue wave, and not crew error, was responsible for the tragedy, and soon after announced he would change a verse to reflect this new information.

Typically, yap films’ projects aren’t designed to yield such direct results. Rather, shows like this new series Dive Detectives, on the History Television, as well as earlier ones, Finding the Fallen and O’Shea’s Big Adventure, simply look to apply modern investigative techniques to history and science to find something new.

DISCOVERING VS. RECOUNTING HISTORY “We follow these unfolding stories and when we start the process of making a film, we really don’t know what the end is,” says Halpern from his sunny office in the company’s second floor King and Spadina loft space.

alliedpropertiesreit.com • 14

MAIN IMAGE AND FIRST INSET: Dive Detectives Mike and Warren Fletcher solve underwater mysteries, from discovering the real fate of the Edmund Fitzgerald to finding lost atomic bombs in the South Pacific.

INSETS MIDDLE AND ABOVE: Storm Worlds uses Hi-Def computer graphics to imagine the effect of extreme alien weather on earth – like the impact of a solar storm (middle), or a Martian dust storm pummeling a major city (above).

yapfilms.com

15 • SUMMER 2010

TORONTO

DETECTIVE STORIES

STREET SHOW

TORONTO

TOTUM TIPS

FOUR-MINUTE FITNESS

Epilepsy Toronto’s BuskerFest plans the world’s largest gathering of street performers from its Queen Street East offices.

Photos: Toronto Buskerfest

Joseph Wilson Totum’s certified CrossFit Trainer

A fast and furious workout, CrossFit training challenges the notion of fat burning zones.

A TASTE OF TABATA

QUEEN STREET EAST, TORONTO / – Though Toronto’s BuskerFest will jam some one million visitors into a four-block stretch of the St. Lawrence market area late this August, there is a 4,000-square-foot office at 468 Queen Street East that is already vibrating with activity as the central HQ for the 11-year-old gathering of international street performers.

“It’s definitely our biggest fundraiser,” says Geoff Bobb, the director of Epilepsy Toronto, organizers of the Scotiabank BuskerFest, which has grown to become the largest such gathering in the world, in terms of number of performers and attendance figures.

Bobb and his team first conceived the idea of a festival-as-fundraiser in 1999 when much of Epilepsy Toronto’s funds came from black-tie dinner events.

BUILDING AWARENESS “We wanted to bring [epilepsy] out of the shadows. It’s not very well understood,” he says.

The organization, which runs important counseling, crisis intervention and employment consultation programs as well as social action and social awareness activities for the 40,000 people in Toronto affected by epilepsy, also saw mounting a festival as a way to engage a larger audience of donors.

Beyond its growing popularity in the city as a neighbourhood event on par with the Taste of the Danforth and the Beaches Jazz Festival, it has become

alliedpropertiesreit.com • 16

the largest epilepsy awareness event in the world and attracts a long list of international performers.

SOME ACTS “HARD TO DESCRIBE” Some of the more spectacular acts this year include a Quebec-based Russian bar trio, where a young woman performs a series of mid-air back flips off a four-inch-wide bar held by two men; a former gymnast who can squeeze herself into a 16-inch plastic box balanced on a seven-foot rig (pictured above right); a reggae-based dance/acrobatic troupe from L.A. featured on America’s Got Talent; stilt walkers in fantastical dinosaur costumes roaming the crowds; and spectacularly choreographed fire performances by an Australian/UK group setting the tone for the evening events that run until 11 p.m.

“There’s really something for everyone, and a few things that are kind of hard to describe.” says Bobb.

FOOD AND TWO GALA FIRE SHOWS Set in the heart of St. Lawrence Market Area, from Jarvis to Yonge, the festival also offers food kiosks and a host of artisans exhibiting their work.

There are also workshops, shows and activities for kids in the Scotiabank BuskerPlay area, and Friday and Sunday nights, look for the group gala shows featuring all the best fire performers.

Torontobuskerfest.com

Perform a quick You Tube search for ‘Tabata’ and you’ll find hundreds of videos featuring sweating and grunting devotees performing variations of this four-minute workout. It demands maximum effort doing exercises like squats and pull ups for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest. It’s a muscle-frightening four minutes designed to push you to the limit of your endurance and just one of the exercise protocols you’ll find in the much larger CrossFit movement, which has steadily gained attention both for its effectiveness and brevity.

TRY IT...

1. For twenty seconds do as many reps of unweighted squats (thighs parallel to ground) as you can, then rest 10 seconds.

2. Repeat this seven more times for a total of 8 intervals, or four minutes of exercise.

3. Your score is the lowest number of reps you managed for any of the eight intervals. (An elite score is 18 or above.)

Totum.ca

WHAT IS CROSSFIT? CrossFit combines fundamentals of Olympic weightlifting, calisthenics, gymnastics, rowing, running as well as drills from martial arts, parkour and kettlebell training, explains Joseph Wilson, a Totum Life Science massage therapist and trainer certified in Level 1 CrossFit. “It’s basically a constantly changing series of workouts that surprise your body. It’s all about the intensity,” he says.

HOW DO YOU DO IT? “CrossFit results are observable, measurable and repeatable,” says Wilson who also has CrossFit specialty certifications in Olympic lifting and nutrition.

“So you can take the weight you were lifting, the number of reps and the time you took to do it and get a ‘score’ for that workout. Then you try to beat that score the next time that same workout comes around.”

Daily workouts are posted on the CrossFit web sites and are named after elite women athletes or fallen soldiers (CrossFit was adapted into the Canadian Forces fitness standard in 2008, and is used by the U.S. armed forces and many police and firefighting departments).

Complete a workout named Helen, for example, then calculate your Helen score and try to beat it the next time Helen is the workout of the day. You can post your scores and see how you compare to others of similar age/weight/sex.

All the workouts can be adapted to any fitness level. So if you can’t press an Olympic bar overhead, use a broomstick, Wilson suggests. Or do jumping pull ups if you can’t do standard pull ups.

DOES WORKING THAT HARD IMPEDE FAT BURNING? No. There’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that intense workouts of short duration burn fat more efficiently than long aerobic sessions spent in the “fat-burning zone”.

“Intensity triggers muscle growth, and hormonal and neurological adaptation, which ultimately leads to fat loss,” explains Wilson. But if it sounds like body building, it isn’t.

CrossFit’s movements are completely functional (no bicep curls here) and are meant to stimulate entire chains of muscle groups for maximum results in a short time.

HOW DO I GET STARTED? Try it at Totum. The crossfit.com web site has videos that teach the basics of all the exercises. Beginners should look for explanations of the modified forms of some exercises. Read the workout of the day (WOD) and come try it at Totum on King Street.

Try a FREE 30-minute CrossFit session!

Until August 31st, 2010 Totum is offering a free half-hour session to try CrossFit training. Call the King Street location at (416) 979-2449 and ask for Joseph Wilson to arrange a session.

17 • SUMMER 2010

MONTRÉAL

HIDDEN DETAILS Montreal artist realigns old master works playing with context and perspective to create highly detailed, large-scale canvasses.

AVE DU PARC, MONTREAL / – Painter Mark Lang likes to play with context, narrative and banjos. The first two you can gather from his high realism, large-scale canvasses, often exploring figures in imaginary art galleries and museums where they are frozen in a moment against a background featuring the work of old masters. As for the banjo, well, that’s just a part of his sunlit studio at 6300 Ave du Parc.

The instrument sits idle much of the time, cradled in its holder alongside a cigar-box guitar and a vintage Rogers drum kit rescued from his parents’ Red Deer, Alberta, basement.

Indeed most of the space is taken up by the business of painting, work that sees Lang in his studio roughly six days a week.

For ten years now, he has been producing a growing portfolio of figurative oil paintings that are found in several distinctive and corporate art collections. He commits to canvas extraordinarily detailed scenes of ordinary human experiences that often play with context to offer an abundance of small narratives.

Timed Entry, for example, depicts the typical museum crowd scene that ensues when visitors line up to see a masterpiece at a timed entry exhibit. Search the anguished and stoic faces in the crowd and you’ll find traits of the characters from Caravaggio’s The flagellation of Christ depicted in the background, as well as a number of rueful art-historical references.

Realigning old master works to become a part of a new context and offer a new narrative is a frequent occurrence in Lang’s paintings. As is his use of faces he knows well; his own often appears as a janitor in a museum, as do images of his partner and two daughters (their son is not yet old enough to grant permission).

“Incorporating myself or my family gives me an added emotional link to the work” says Lang who has a Masters of Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in New York and is a three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, which funds traditional expression in painting, drawing, sculpture and the graphic arts.

In his studio, a pile of art reference books sits next to an unfinished six-by-five-foot canvas featuring Van Gogh painting his Room at Arles in his room at the asylum with the border of the canvas depicting the reality of Lang’s own studio and his lanky figure partially obscured by the work his fictitious self is painting.

While art history buffs will enjoy the challenge of inspecting the details of one of Lang’s works, most might simply like the combination of playfulness and technique exhibited by an artist in his prime.

His work can be found at the Galerie de Bellefeuille in Montreal and at Winsor Gallery in Vancouver.

Extrinsic / Intrinsic, where the gallery patron becomes a part of the spectacle.

Mark Lang, un artiste montréalais qui intègre le classique au moderne En dix ans, Mark Lang, dont le studio est au 6300 avenue du Parc, s’est créé un portefeuille toujours plus riche de peintures à l’huile figuratives dont certaines figurent dans des collections de prestige ou d’entreprises. C’est avec une précision extraordinaire qu’il met en scène sur ses toiles des tranches de vie ordinaires, jouant souvent sur le contexte pour conter une foule de petites histoires.

Timed Entry, par exemple, dépeint une scène de musée typique, où se forme une file de visiteurs qui attendent pour pouvoir admirer un chef d’œuvre à l’heure qui leur est réservée. En cherchant l’angoisse et le stoïcisme sur les visages, on aperçoit à l’arrière-plan les traits des personnages de la Flagellation du Christ du Caravage ainsi que de nombreuses figures des grands classiques de l’histoire de l’art.

Les peintures de Mark Lang puisent souvent dans les oeuvres anciennes en y empruntant des éléments pour les remettre dans un nouveau contexte et raconter une nouvelle histoire. Mark Lang utilise également les visages qu’il connaît bien; le sien, par exemple, qui apparaît souvent sous les traits d’un gardien de musée, ou celui de sa compagne et de leurs deux filles (leur fils n’ayant pas encore l’âge limite légal pour être représenté).

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Re-Enactment, which features actors who have played artists in films, posed after a composition by Frans Hals (which upon closer inspection turns out to be a film set); and Graces, where the girls’ pose is based on a sculpture of “the three graces” by Antonio Canova. “Traditionally the graces are the handmaidens of the goddess Venus,” explains Lang. “Here, I’ve depicted them in an exhibition space where a fictional video art piece is being projected, which consists of clips of old films featuring iconic actresses.” (Two of the models are Lang’s daughters.); and Lang in his Avenue du Parc Studio with a work in progress.

alliedpropertiesreit.com • 18

« Intégrer mon visage ou ma famille à mon œuvre me permet d’y créer un lien émotionnel supplémentaire », explique Mark Lang, diplômé de la School of Visual Arts de New York et trois fois récipiendaire de la Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, bourse qui finance l’expression traditionnelle dans la peinture, la sculpture et les arts graphiques.

19 • ÉTÉ 2010

WINNIPEG

Collaborative ENVIRONMENT Winnipeg’s Online Business Systems makes Best Workplaces in Canada list fourth year in a row

EXCHANGE DISTRICT, WINNIPEG / - In a wired world, a name like Online Business Systems might not necessarily stand out. But when you learn it’s been around for 24 years, you know founder Chuck Loewen was once toiling in a little known or understood economic segment when he named his firm. That was back in the eighties when business and technology seemed like two separate things.

Now, headquartered at 115 Bannatyne Ave. in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, Online Business Systems (Online) completed nearly $32 million in sales last year, has offices in seven cities across Canada and the U.S. and counts 250 employees (known internally as “Onliners”).

“We actually grew about 10 percent last year when IT consulting [in North America] was shrinking by six percent,” says Loewen.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT KEY Online’s ability to weather this last recession is due largely to its entrenched customer relationships, says Loewen, whose firm counts large corporations like TransCanada Gas Transmission NW, Canadian Wheat Board, MTS Allstream, and Alberta Health Services, as well as several municipal, provincial and state government agencies, among its customers.

“Over 80 percent of our revenue every year comes from our existing client base,” he says, explaining that fostering good client relations comes from a very active employee engagement philosophy.

“It’s the three-legged stool analogy,” he says, explaining that decisions are guided by doing what is best for all three legs of the stool, namely, Onliners, the client and the company.

Loewen started Online shortly after graduating from the University of Manitoba where he studied accounting and

computers and hoped one day to have a couple of people working for him who shared his enthusiasm for problem solving.

His collaborative approach, both with clients and colleagues, appears to have propelled the firm beyond its reputation as a business consultancy with technology expertise and into the realm of sought-after employer.

TOP WORKPLACE FOR WOMEN Recently named one of the “Best Workplaces in Canada” for the fourth year in a row, Online also earned special recognition as one of about ten companies nominated for the “Best Workplaces for Women” award.

Overall attrition is very low, and losing an Onliner to competitors like HP or IBM is almost unheard of, says Loewen. “Usually people leave because they want to move out of consulting. One guy left to sell airplane insurance, for example. But we seldom have people leaving to do the same job for someone else,” he says.

It may also have to do with the intensely collaborative nature of the work itself. Teams of anywhere from three to 60 people can spend months and years developing intricate technological solutions to optimize call centre operations for a car manufacturer or to streamline farmer procurement and payment services for the Canadian Wheat Board.

“We look for people who are excited about doing great work,” says Loewen. “It’s not really a good environment for egos.”

Obsglobal.com

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