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

ĀNANDAṀ was founded in 2010 and is a not-for-profit charitable arts organization based in Toronto, Canada.

Since its inception in 2010, ĀNANDAṀ has cultivated and presented solo and ensemble choreographies, interdisciplinary collaborations, curated series and festivals. Our works have been experienced by hundreds of thousands of people locally, nationally and internationally. Major repertoire works include Ephemeral Artifacts, a durational piece adaptable for multiple dance artists in radically diverse forms; Cascade, cited by NOW Magazine as one of the top 5 dance shows of 2014; the trilogy of Seismology, Glaciology and Weather, the public space work of Divergent Dances and the gallery installation of Melting / Mourning. We maintain a robust international network of collaborations and touring with artists and organizations invested in fostering contemporary experimentation in dance and critical thinking in performance. The company has toured its repertoire to Europe, the Arctic, South Africa, India, Canada and USA.

ĀNANDAṀ's interest in alternative presentation contexts has led to cross-sectoral partnerships that are transformative for the company, our partners, and the potential of performance spaces. Major partners have included Bata Shoe Museum, while presenters include Nuit Blanche, performing in sites such as the AGO, Queen’s Quay West, Wilkinson Eyre pedestrian bridge (Eaton’s Centre) and Scarborough Town Centre. We produced the Contemporary Circus Arts Festival of Toronto 2013-2017 (CCAFT) with Girl in the Sky Productions and the Body Brake series with Theatre Passe Muraille 2014-19. In 2017/18, with the catalytic support of the TAC Open Door program, we launched Contemporaneity, a residency program/presenting series in partnership with legacy venues in Toronto.

Supported by the Metcalf Foundation’s Creative Strategies Incubator 2014-17 we explored public participation in performance and developed our ongoing innovative Audience-in-Residence (A-I-R) program. Our wide spectrum of projects contributes to a profound relationship with our audience and community, based on collaboration, conversation and curiosity.

Learn more at: www.anandam.ca

Collective Space is ĀNANDAṀ’s rehearsal and performance home in Toronto.

Collective Space prioritizes sustainability, shared resources and the necessity of affordable, multi-use, space for interdisciplinary artistic practices. Collaboratively developed by Co-Directors Lara Ebata, Natalie Fullerton and Brandy Leary in 2011, the space has become an important alternative rehearsal and performance venue for the Toronto arts ecology.

Learn more at: www.anandam.ca/collective-space