It's been a busy and exciting year here in the land of Playdead. We've been up to all kinds of things! Read on about a few of the highlights of our year.
October 4 2008 - Play Day of the Dead - Nuit Blanche
We hosted an official Nuit Blanche event called Play Day of the Dead. Nuit Blanche is an annual city-wide all-night public art festival. Our contribution was a multimedia Dia De Los Muertos-inspired festival here at The Playdead Mansion. We opened up our space for guests to participate in hands-on activities such as skull painting and creating colorful paper cutouts called "papel picado" as well as enjoy performances by dancers and Playdead's own mascots, The Moops! The alley outside the Mansion was illuminated with thousands of christmas lights and would fill with smoke throughout the night to become the stage for a procession of Moops and costumed people playing various odd musical instruments. We had a blast putting on this event, and had thousands of people come through! We look forward to this year's edition which will feature even more surprises!
October 22, 2008 - L'Oreal Fashion Week Spring 2009 Collections - "Pretty Gritty"
We hit the runway again with our friends Damzels In This Dress and put on a high energy double bill show. Our half of the segment began with a short video we created of a day in the life of Playdead in which a team of Moops (our mascots) happily go about their daily tasks of sewing, screen printing, painting, tea time, and of course a music jam! When the film ended, the opening of the runway filled with smoke and four Moops entered the runway, ghetto blaster in hand, bopping to Michael Jackson's "Beat It". The first model entered the catwalk and began the fashion show part of our spectacle in which the models all interacted with one another whether it was a flirtatious tap on the bottom or a stare-down and purse snatch!. This collection included reworked vintage denim jackets, skinny jeans with zipper print running down the leg, and jersey dresses patterned with monsters and skulls. To quote ElleCanada.com we "put the 'show' back in fashion show with a double bill that was fun, youthful and full of energy."
October 28- November 1st 2008 - Second Annual "Nightmare on Queen Street"
Coming together with Darkside for the second edition of Nightmare on Queen Street, our haunted attraction, we transformed The Playdead Mansion into a 2-floor labyrinth of terror. The live-mixed soundtrack of church organ interspersed with disturbing children's fables and creepy voices was the perfect backdrop for the sickening scenes and twisted characters lurking throughout the mansion. Upstairs visitors found a pony-tailed little girl playing the piano in her toy room asking you if you'd like to play with her toys...or was it you that they wanted to play with? And down in the dark and smokey basement as you were running your hand along a wall feeling your way through the abyss you were sure to suddenly sense something alive and breathing in the shadows! Eeeeeeeek!!! I'm getting scared just writing about it! You'll have to come to "Nightmare on Queen Street III" to find out what will happen this year! Just don't come alone....
November 2008 - Iggy Pop @ The Playdead Mansion
We always have interesting characters coming through the Mansion on a daily basis, but it's not every day that we've got Iggy Pop at our place. The Playdead Mansion was chosen to be a film set for an upcoming vampire film starring thee Stooge himself! He looked quite at home as he leaned on our bar taking swigs from a bottle of beer while muttering his lines. He was very polite and always gave me a friendly nod or hello when passing by. I was also met with friendly smiles from actors Dave Foley and Jessica Pare who were also present at our location. We are looking forward to seeing the film which is scheduled to be released this Halloween.
March 6 & 7, 2009 - Fireside Culture Week - Dance with the Dead & Play with the Dead
The Parkdale BIA put together a neighborhood week-long festival that was meant to lure neighbors from their homes as well as people from other areas of the city to cross the bridge and spend time on the "wrong side of the tracks" as we lovingly refer to our part of town with a bad reputation. Many cafes, bars, galleries and stores along the West Queen West strip opened up their spaces each night of the week for guests to come and enjoy some form of entertainment. We chose to do two events at the Playdead Mansion; on the Friday we had a dance cabaret night featuring fire dancers Kitty Kerosene and Chilli Jezzabella for the outdoor part of the night, and inside we had bellydance soloists Emmanuelle La Gitanne, and Laura Hagglund and two dance troupes; Bean's own bellydance fusion troupe Serpentina North, and CanCan troupe The Saucy Tarts. It was a full yet cozy house with people lounging on couches, sipping wine and admiring the varied talents of these fine ladies. On the Saturday evening Stu's band A Primitive Evolution entertained a room full of people with their moody yet rocking set.
March 14, 2009 - Independence Day
We hosted a day long party to showcase some of Toronto's best independent bands.
All female four-piece Machetes kicked off the day with their sexy/glammy/grungey post-punk set, followed by Latefallen's heavy high-energy melodies which had the crowd that seemed too intimidated by the smokin' good looks of the Machetes dames actually move up close to the stage. Up next was A Primitive Evolution serving up a sexy and gritty set full of swelling and crashing tempos and the simultaneously beautiful and aggressive vocals of front man Brett. Electro-rock threesome Purrr followed and provided a perfect finale to the day with groovey, and dancey beats with an industrial edge. I couldn't take my eyes off of drummer Carly who is as stunningly gorgeous as she is skilled on the drums!
This daytime event went so well that we are planning another one for June with a fresh line up of talented Torontonians!
We are at all times scheming up ideas for events and collaborations, so do yourself a favor and join our email list to receive invitations to our parties!
Stay tuned......
Bean
Playdead Cult
