Process+Practice
DANCE Series
etobicoke, ontario
AUGUST 2026 - January 2027
Presented by City of Toronto in partnership with TOES FOR DANCE, with support from ĀNANDAṀ and Lakeshore Arts
Welcome to the Process+Practice Dance Series at Assembly Hall, offering exciting and thought-provoking dance experiences in the Lakeshore-Etobicoke area!
Featuring talented local dance artists and choreographers from across Toronto who are part of the Process+Practice Dance Residency, the Series includes Community Workshops for all levels of movement experience, Open Rehearsals showcasing works-in-process, insightful Artist Talks/Q&As, and awe-inspiring Double Bill Performances.
All events are free or pay-what-you-can with $0 ticket options.
OPEN CALL 2025: NOW CLOSED
TOES FOR DANCE and the City of Toronto release an Open Call seeking dance artists to participate in the Process+Practice Dance Residency every two years.
The 2025 call is now closed. The next call will likely take place in 2027. Stay tuned!
VENUE PARTNER
Process+Practice Dance Series events take place at Assembly Hall, located at 1 Colonel Samuel Smith Park Dr, Etobicoke, ON M8V 4B6. Click here for a Google Map.
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Assembly Hall has been an important part of the Etobicoke Lakeshore community for over a century. It was built in 1898 as part of the Mimico Lunatic Asylum, designed to serve as a place of recreation and worship for the patients and hospital staff. Patient labour was used to construct Assembly Hall and various other hospital buildings. The hospital’s first superintendent, Dr. Nelson Henry Beemer, was a strong believer in meaningful work as a form of rehabilitative therapy.
The original purpose for Assembly Hall was to meet the social and spiritual needs of the hospital. However, because there was no comparable facility in the area, Assembly Hall soon became the principal gathering place for a multitude of community events, dances and concerts. The Asylum changed names repeatedly over the years, becoming the Mimico Hospital for the Insane in 1911, the Ontario Hospital, New Toronto in 1919 and finally renamed as the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital, but Assembly Hall maintained its name and central role throughout the entire history of the hospital.
After the closure of the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital in 1979, Assembly Hall fell into disuse for two decades. The combined efforts of local activists and politicians helped to support the City of Toronto’s restoration of this facility, which reopened on in June 2001. The renovated Assembly Hall has been designed to meet a variety of cultural and community needs. The beautiful 250+ seat Performance Hall is a venue for music, theatre, dance, receptions and special events. The community rooms are used for art classes, meetings, workshops and rehearsals. Gallery spaces for visual arts are located throughout the building. Assembly Hall is a rental facility for both public and private use.
Assembly Hall is fully accessible. An elevator is onsite for access to the second floor Performance Hall, and accessible parking is available both at the front of Assembly Hall and in the Green P Parking lot (located on the south side of Assembly Hall). An accessible washroom is also available.
Learn more at: assemblyhall.ca
About the Artists AND Projects
Cohort 3 (2025-26)
KINAJ
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KINAJ is a cross-genre dance company founded in 2020 by Kin Nguien and AJ Velasco. Known for blending the raw energy of street styles like hip-hop, popping, and house with the elements of contemporary dance, KINAJ incorporates improvisation, freestyle, and partnering techniques to craft dynamic and innovative works. At its core, KINAJ thrives on collaboration, drawing inspiration from diverse art forms such as film, poetry, and visual arts. Their storytelling-based choreography explores pressing social issues, including mental health, inequality, and climate change, inspiring audiences to reflect and act. KINAJ’s work has been featured internationally, with highlights including their critically acclaimed ALIENS, commissioned by Toronto Dance Theatre, which captivated sold-out audiences with its sci-fi aesthetic and cross-genre brilliance. Currently, the company is preparing for the year full of productions and community engagement initiatives.
Photo by Curtis Alvaro.
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“Our project, GAZE, is an investigation into visibility, vulnerability, and power, specifically for immigrant and newcomer artists who navigate a complex relationship with belonging in Canada. The experience of being seen—both as a celebration of identity and as a site of potential scrutiny—resonates deeply within communities whose presence is often marked by both hypervisibility and erasure. This work interrogates the ways in which gaze operates as a force of power, control, and agency, particularly in relation to the settler gaze, the white gaze, and privileged gaze in performance and everyday life. Rooted in the intersection of street dance and contemporary movement, GAZE will be developed through the Process+Practice residency, culminating in public presentations that engage diverse audiences in critical discourse around representation, agency, and identity in performance.”
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Mid-career dance artist, educator and choreographer, Atri Nundy completed her arangetram (graduation) in 2005 after years of continuing her passion for dance molded through learning Bharatanatyam at Sampradaya Dance Academy under the tutelage of Lata Pada CM (Order of Canada). An advocate for sharing knowledge, Atri continues to work as a teacher at Sampradaya Dance Academy. She has toured extensively in India, Indonesia, UK and USA and has performed in various prestigious venues across Canada. She continues to hone her craft through professional development in various forms, workshops etc. with acclaimed artists Harikrishna Kalyanasundaram, Priyadarshini Govind, Leela Samson, Mavin Khoo among others. In November 2023, Atri took part in Seeta Patel’s rehearsal process of her work Rite of Spring in London, UK with the Seeta Patel Dance Company. Technically diverse in her training, Atri professional practice includes work in a variety of contemporary practices. She has performed with many companies in Toronto including KasheDance and Ronald Taylor Dance. Commissioned by Anandam, she created her first ensemble work, Mindful Chatter, for Contemporaneity 4.0. Her work helix was commissioned by Toronto Dance Theatre in 2023 for Convergent Divergency.
Photo by Michael Mortley.
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Unrequited, is inspired by The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The novel explores the forbidden love between Draupadi and Karna, characters from the Mahabharata who are often depicted as adversaries. Atri is crafting a piece that delves into Draupadi’s internal conflict between her love for Karna and her duties as a queen and wife to his rivals; excavating elements of a story that are often overlooked. Atri will develop this narrative through the full spectrum of Bharatanatyam, diving deeper into abhinaya (expressional technique) while also utilizing the form’s rich technical elements to bring the story to life in a nuanced and compelling way.
Atri Nundy
Our 25-26 Artists were selected through a competitive Open Call process.
Click here to learn about our 2025 Open Call for Process+Practice!
Community consultation
In 2024, we launched a community consultation program aimed at shaping the future of Dance at Assembly Hall. Our inaugural Community Consultation Cohort included twelve community members who have a connection to the Etobicoke Lakeshore area.
Led by Keira Marie Forde, TFD's Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator, the Community Consultation Cohort contributed to ongoing dialogue around topics such as barriers, types of programming, scheduling of programming, ways to align programming with community interests, ideas for resourcing the sustainability of the programming and more. Each member of the community cohort received an honorarium for their involvement.
This community consultation was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
