The Creators Unit is a chance for individual artists interested in collective creation and performance. This program is composed of poets, musicians, dancers, actors, performers, drag artists, clowns, designers, and anyone who is interested in being part of a tight-knit creative team. This year, we invited creators to collectively devise a piece on the theme of FAST FASHION. Two facilitators guided the group in the creation of the entire project, from first ideas to opening night. The ensemble was trained in quick changes, fashion & styling, drag, performance art, dance, physical theatre, and more. A workshop presentation of this collective creation is shared at the annual Paprika Festival.
This program is presented with support from Tarragon Theatre.
xLq
xLq is a queer performance duo comprised of Jordan Campbell (STARLIGHT) and Maddie Bautista. We are electro-punk popstars, we create interactive theatrical playgrounds, complicit audience experiences and radical performance rituals. xLq works in a queer pop aesthetic, using drag, fashion, music, theatre and dance.
Their original performance creation 4inXchange received Nightswimming’s 5×25 Commission and won the NOW Magazine Audience Choice Award at the 2018 SummerWorks Festival, then proceeded to tour to the rEvolver Festival 2019 (Vancouver, BC), FEM FEST 2019 (Winnipeg, MB), the Grand Theatre (Fergus, ON), Registry Theatre (Kitchener, ON), and Waterford Old Town Hall (Waterford, ON).
xLq is currently in residence with Nightswimming Theatre, where they are developing a new large-scale interactive performance called Are You The One?
Follow @xLqpopart on Instagram for all the latest parties and events.
It’s been a real blast working with this year’s Creator’s Unit – they are a bold, daring, hard working cohort of innovative creators. They really dove into this concept head first, and took on the challenge of making something with 100 looks in 15 minutes. The process has been compassionate, cohesive and really really fun. It’s been moving to share a love for fashion fast and slow, for clothing that holds memories and legacies, for style that changes who we are.
Thank you to brawk hessel, Pickles Lavey, Madi Shultz and the team at Fatcycled. Thank you to our wigs, for sticking with us since the beginning, and all the clothes we ever bought, thrifted, found, made and destroyed.
— xLq, Creators Unit Facilitators (2023/24)
